Traders + Reactive Temple Mods

No point in separating the two mods anymore, since their files are intertwined, so here's a new thread dedicated to my modding efforts.

This needs to be installed on top of Co8 5.0.6 (August 10th 2008 version) - which means it's currently incompatible with TFE-X, unless you know what you're doing.

See here for more.

Installation Instructions:

Currently, only the old 2008 version is available for download. Compatible with old Front End and Co8 5.0.6. See here.

extract to ToEE main folder

Download it here.

Optional portrait for a very specific script object - here. (this is not compatible with the portrait pack, so if you're using it, skip this)

Highly recommended - if you don't want to worry about compatibility issues and what not, you can create an entirely new duplicate of the ToEE folder with just Co8 5.0.6, and then install this mod separately there.

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For more info on the mods, see thread on Traders mod and Reactive Temple Mod.

Bug reports, feedback and suggestion for either mod should be posted in this thread.

Changes:

2009.09 (not yet uploaded)

• About 70% of the integration with Co8 5.6.1 completed.
• Extensive changes to scripting to use the Persistent Data Variables method and free up global variables.
• Moved Earth regroup location to the front of the Earth Altar Hall.
• For the Earth Temple regroup script, implemented 'reserve' system. (so that if you kill critters that are intended to be transferred to the Earth Altar Hall, others would take their place)
• Altered Earth KOS script so that if you kill Romag after they've regrouped, they'll ignore Earth robes and attack you despite it.
• Fire Temple now regroups as well.
• Fireball will fizzle in the Water Temple's Pool Chamber, as per the module. (other fire-based spells are to follow)

2008.08.10

• Revamped Belsornig and his Underpriests spellcasting selection and AI. Belsornig will now hit you with Unholy Blight, Dispel Magic and Sound Burst, and one of his underpriests will also hit you with Sound Burst on his first round. Belsornig will also prebuff with more spells now. Beware!

 

Sitra, I'm a little unclear what you mean by 5.0.6 10 August version. The changes on that you made were not added to the CMF, but were added to your mod, correct?

I have restarted with my LG group complete with face paladin, but they did not activate DH through Lila (do you need?). They did not talk to the Traders but got a confession from Jayfie. They talk to Burne and he gives them choices about waiting. Shouldn't they get proper rest while waiting for FIFTEEN days? It would be nice to heal ourselves before and after the meeting.

Also, who would want to wait for so long? Perhaps Burne could recommend more information gathering from neighbors and maybe warn the party against confronting the Traders themselves. Also, waiting (w/o Burne time warping) around still enables Burne to "look at the time" and invite the adventurers to the meeting. Could Ostler (in particular), et al., also invite them if the party is, for example, and interrupt resting at the Wench?

Edit2: The Trader's Revealed quest was mentioned when the party just stopped in to peruse their goods after getting reward from Burne. The party did not finger point at the Traders, and the Traders made like the party were normal customers (which I suppose is ok). The Traders' Courier quest mention status still mentions the Temple (just a reminder, Sitra), which is silly if the face man does not have the social skills to complete the quest.

Edit3: The Trader's Revealed quest does not get mentioned and the party cannot finger-point if Jay's Sheep quest has been completed. I did reload it, so it should have been my first encounter with them but my dialog choices include criticisms of their prices without even seeing their wares. (Spugnoir's raven snuck a peak?). I am under the impression that I am missing out on some dialog because I waited "so long" to initiate contact with them.

Edit4: Do you think it might be a good idea if the party can report Corl to Jaroo and Burne. The dialog with Corl in his house has the face man threaten Corl with reporting him. Burne cannot be updated either before or after Corl gets it.

Edit: I noticed some temporary dialog on Miller's servant, but nothing new on Erliter beggar. I was wondering if you had considered the contingency of homeless Erliter and dead Mytch. Hommlet would need a new miller!

Edit5 Although this has nothing to do with your changes, it is a bit related. My party subdued him, then reported him to Burne and completed the Agent Revealed Quest. However, he still hangs around pissed off (which is ok). The problem I noticed occurred when chasing R&G behind the Stonemason's house I ran into Jayfie who attacked us. This time we killed him, but one of the peasant labourer's dialog allowed us to ask about Jayfie. The response was that the foreman had him tarred & feathered and chased out of town.

Edit6: On my original playthrough, Burne revealed Nulb to the party after the party attacked the Traders in their shop and delayed pursuit. However, this time I can't figure out how to get him to mention it. Has something been changed, or is it because I delayed "First Contact" until Corl was assassinated? Personally, I like revealing Nulb to low-level characters. That place isn't so dangerous!

*I haven't checked this out, since my group is poor, but do any of the old ladies have rumours pertaining to the Traders?

 

I continued with my old game. Tower ambush good, but we charmed the doorman who fought valiantly at our side, and the enemy witch healed him!

Also, the Trader's revenge occurred inside the Nulb residence. I am wondering why there is no dialog for a heads up from Preston Wetz ("they were pokin' around yer house"). No way those thugs got in there stealthily. Also, a heads up would keep the party following up on asking for gossip from Wetz.

* Due to my NPC slot 0 issue, I do not know the normal time interval between Preston mentioning Traders asking around and the ambush. For me, it was a LONG time (level 3 to level 6).

 

Yes, my mods still haven't been incorporated into the CMF, because they aren't done yet.

DH has nothing to do with my mods.

There should be an option to tell Burne to 'time warp' after you exit the dialogue. Actually, looking at the dialogue, it seems I only added that to the post-moathouse branch of the dialogue. The reason being that the pre-moathouse branch doesn't have enough room to add the dialogue nodes. I have to say, I really HATE that. Especially the way voice files are attached to lines via their filenames. It's a pain in the ass to restructure dialogue this way. For now I'll only add the node for intelligent characters, and for the 'special' council only (especially since the 'mundane' council isn't scripted fully yet).

I don't know how if there's a command to make the party 'camp' and rest while passing time. I could probably script in a 'heal up' script, and possibly 'memorize spells' script too. Will have to look into it. (it probably won't handle diseases correctly, but oh well)

As for Ostler and others inviting the party, I think it would be awkward? Why would they care/stick their noses in?
Also, interrupting camping could be tricky (I can think of a way that might do it, but I don't think it'd be worth it).

I don't understand these two. Please explain again.

As for the prices, it's the way the dialogue is written in vanilla too. I could condition that dialogue node on having browsed their inventory once, but most people don't bother buying or selling anything from them until they sell one of Lareth's items. I think we can abstract out the party looking around and seeing what the prices are without explicitly doing it via dialogue.

Could be done. I think Gaear is messing with that though?

Right, haven't considered that.

How would the Townspeople react if Erliter took over the mill after having been kicked out from there? Does he have the 'right'?

Yes, Jayfie does require a rewrite. Again, I think Gaear is working on him too, so I'll let him finish what he's doing first.

Currently, there are three ways to learn of Nulb early through Burne:
1. Attack the Traders, killing a badger in the process, and take the banishment route.
2. Attack the Traders, without killing the badger, go to jail afterwards, and break out of prison (and again, take the banishment route)
3. Let the council convene, and don't attend it (you may advise Burne to post guards though). When Burne tells you about what happened, he'll say they ran off to Nulb and mark it on your map.

I suppose I should add the 'they ran off to Nulb, go fetch' node to other branches too, then.

Also, if you atttend the council itself and chase the traders, but fail to directly detect them, you get the chance to chase them to Nulb if you have the tracking feat. I guess I should add the option to do that if they run away invisible as well. This reminds me, do you think it makes sense that they'd get away in invisible mode in the first place? If you have the tracking feat, shouldn't it be impossible for them to really escape?

Nope, haven't touched rumours.


As for the Witch healing the charmed guard, I guess the way the AI tells friendly from hostile is through factions, which can't be changed in game as far as we know. Oh well.

As for Preston - doesn't he give you a heads up that someone has been looking for you? And I think the traders are sneaky enough to slip in unnoticed. That wasn't my work, BTW, it's all Livonya's.

Also, the Trader ambush only triggers if you're level 6 or higher. Probably because it's pretty damn hard to survive.

 

That is probably what I'll end up doing, but I just dislike breaking up the structure of the dialogue nodes (even though it's transparent to ingame dialogue).

 

...another aversion of mine :chainsaw:

How are the two related?

What I was talking about is to have a pseudo_camp() command that passes the time (using the fade() command), while also healing up the party (the exact amount of healed damage can be calculated, but I think we shouldn't be anal about it in this case and just restore full HP for living characters) and making the spells memorized (not sure it works, but perhaps by using the spells_pending_to_memorized() command? needs testing).

I think sleep_status_update does what you need (just check inside the can_sleep() function for the party's coordinates). However, a downside of having a 'safe zone' is that you party can also craft items when the tent is green, which is a bit much I think (unless the safe zone is particularly well isolated/protected).

 

Sitra, my Edit2 and Edit3 were focused on how and when the Traders Revealed Quest was triggered and not triggered. The price gouging was not an issue for me.

Perhaps the option not to attend the council meeting could include the choice to provide a written statement (and guard advice to the genius wizard).

Traders' Revenge: I had a party of 8 mostly 6th level characters and they kicked the crap out of my party (@ 40% strength) after immediately returning from the Ruined Tower. I believe the fight is won or lost depending on your cleric's initiative to cast Silence (i.e. Power Word: Reload). That Confusion spell seals the party's fate. My humble suggestion is to make the enchantress a sorceress with Silent Spell feat.

I mentioned the heads up from Preston because I wonder how those chain and plate mail dudes can enter so stealthily. Yes, he does give a warning that there were guys looking around Nulb for party, but when the party can enter Nulb at lower levels now, the Traders encounter takes a long time to get triggered. There is an existing dialog to keep asking Preston about rumors and happenings but no follow through. I simply thought it would be cool to reward the persistant player who keeps asking.

Gaear and Sitra: My assumptions are what they are. This is my first playthrough. I prefer to call these "assumptions" reactions. I hope you modders can receive them and consider how the mod incorporates into the whole (and how the whole fits the mod). I never intend to complain; I simply want to provide honest and direct feedback. You Modders choose what you can and want to use.

Now, I look forward to seeing how the Temple denizens will react to the coming incursion. Great work so far, Sitra!

 

How far back does the Trader's Revenge ambush go? Is it vanilla? I never triggered it in my pre-co8 days, because I never killed the traders.

I played it a few times. It seems to depend on who moves first in the fight, especially who gets spells off first. You have to be sure not to melee with 2 of your characters at a time in between the tables. Get someone into the enemy's rear areas fast or have a lot of extended range melee power. I count on having 1 or 2 confused party members. Others may have their own approaches to the problem.

The last thing I would ever say in ToEE was to make a fight easier. Otherwise, it would be boring.

 

@Ted: Ok, I can confirm that spells_pending_to_memorized() does indeed make wizards memorize their spells, but it doesn't work for sorcerers unfortunately. Better than nothing, I guess.

@Basil: You have a point about the Preston headsup, perhaps it should be delayed till at least level 5.

@Guardian: The revenge fight is new content (created by Livonya). The assassin is vanilla, though he received a boost by Co8 (Livonya again?). It's probably one of the best fights in the game, I'd say, up there with the Imeryds fights and the Tower Brigands ambush/fight. I hope the beefed up Water Temple and Earth Temple fights can live up to those standards. In my mind, interesting fights are those that either present something novel/unusual (e.g. frog grappling, rarely used spells/abilities) and are challenging enough so as to require adequate preparation (scribing scrolls, buying and using potions, countermeasures, etc.) and of course, tactics.

 

I certainly did enjoy the encounter as well. I wonder if it is possible to time it, or other critical ones, to occur when the party is weakened (as mine was), which the heads-up might compensate for. Also, I don't believe there is enough usage of metamagic feats. Those will certainly mess with any player.

On a related note, is silence messed up?
Upon the casting of this spell, complete silence prevails in the affected area. All sound is stopped: Conversation is impossible, spells with verbal components cannot be cast, and no noise whatsoever issues from, enters, or passes through the area. The spell can be cast on a point in space, but the effect is stationary unless cast on a mobile object. The spell can be centered on a creature, and the effect then radiates from the creature and moves as it moves. An unwilling creature can attempt a Will save to negate the spell and can use spell resistance, if any. Items in a creature’s possession or magic items that emit sound receive the benefits of saves and spell resistance, but unattended objects and points in space do not. This spell provides a defense against sonic or language-based attacks.

Save or not, NO verbal spellcasting can occur within the area. That is why I believe Silent Spell is extremely useful to beat Silenced areas that cannot be moved out of due to limited space.

Edit: Sitra, if Mytch dies the town needs flour; who else could run the mill besides Erliter?