Traders + Reactive Temple Mods

The witches in the Tower fight use Silence on me successfully. My mage/monk usually resists because of high wisdom. I find fireball + produce flame or arrows/bolts is kind of quietening, too. But it does tend to be hard to use in confined spaces. Low-level mages can learn Berne's fireball scroll, then write a couple to be used as needed.

The Tower, Traders' Ambush and DH fights are also interesting because of the bottleneck caused by the tables in the middle of the area. You almost have to rush someone into their rear before the bottleneck gets converted into a close/extended melee kill zone. But, if you do, you have to watch your spells into their rear areas, unless you sent a rogue.

The Imeridys Run fight is good because you're sandwiched between two heavies. I hope the Air Temple fight can do that, but while the area is heavily populated, there is a shortage of heavies. That's why I wanted a couple of assassins in there.

One of my "favorites" is the Traders' ambush before killing the assassin. The first time, the assassin announced his presence by killing my mage. It was definitely one of those "moments". By the way, sneaking in isn't necessary. Bribery (Nulb) is sufficient.

I also like the KotB random encounters more than the ToEE. Because they can get overwhelming, even at low party levels.

 

Burne had no reaction to the deaths of the Traders nor anything to say about Smigmal Redhand's letter on the assassin.

 

Can you detail the context?

 

Context? The assassin was with the Traders in the Nulb house. (Btw, what happens if the party doesn't buy the house?) The party went back to Hommlet to sell stuff and check out Burne's scroll selection and no special dialog. Only the Temple Tower had been entered before the Traders attacked.

 

You're right, currently the only way to tell Burne about the traders' death in Nulb is if you've investigated them for him previously (or if you've killed them before talking to Burne about the council). But seeing as how the assassin was in the encounter, you must have not done that.

Anyway, I just recently spaced out Burne's dialogue to accomodate all these various dialogue branches (the file was too crowded). All that's left is to actually write the dialogue...

 

Sitra, I am about to take on the Fire Temple. I have been thinking that I don't really know how to help you as a playtester with this part of the mod because I don't know exactly what has been changed. Is there anything in particular that you want me to observe? I know about improved AI for Belsornig. I do not really understand what kind of "reactive" conditions you established in your mod and how I can test them.

Edit: I understand the conditions more or less now. I think I am not able to test things out because of the Paladin leader condition seems to negate any chance of politicking with factions, dealing with Wat, etc..... I must say, however, that I think it is great that dungeon 2 has fewer encounters than dungeon 1. I hate crawling and killing room to room with no defender reaction. Dungeon 2 really gave me the feeling of "where the hell is everybody?"

 

I decided to take on the Air Temple first. I snuck Bertram and Serena in to assassinate the High Priest who both had a higher initiative order than Kelno. When Bertram, who was positioned next to both Belsornig and the column, tried to attack the Priest, the latter suddenly blinked 5 feet "south". This happened twice. On one time, Bertram lost his actions and could not even take a 5 foot step to follow him (but could go "north").

At the Earth Temple, there seems to be a lone bugbear to the left that gets left out of combat. Serena assassinated Romag. Glitterdusted and Greased those to his left. Perhaps the defenders could be spread out some more? How does one defile the Earth Temple? I'm supposing it is a quest option that my paladin prevents me from taking.

It also seems that my stealth approach (between +15 to +20 skill modifiers on 4 characters) seems to negate the spellcaster threat. Do the defenders have no hope to detect my party members sneaking past them?

 

Please note the above edits.

Were any changes made in the Fire Temple? While wearing robes my rogues strolled up to Basanio and assassinated him (it is an LG party, you know). The Salamanders came up but no big deal.

I noticed that my 9th level monk's fists were not treated as magic weapons by the Noble Salamander.

Is it logical that fire traps reset after getting tripped?

How does Dispel Fire work?? It isn't listed in the SRD and I didn't see any description when Ronald hit the Salamander Brother.

 

Hmm, I'll have a go at this. Evil and mighty Belsornig sounds like a lot of fun ^__^

PS Is anyone getting CTD at startup with this mod? I can't figure out how to start a game with it =//

 

Smooth sailing for me, but I applied it to the OLD 5.0.6. It isn't designed for the new one

 

Well, I did a clean install and the game seems to launch, haven't gotten to the new content yet though... What's the best way to check if the mod is working properly?

 

There's magical particle effects in places like the Welcome Wench and inside other buildings. Looks like a magic shower.

 

^ Like I'm supposed to believe that >__<

Any other ideas?


BTW is there any way to screw Burne and Rufus over the tower construction and sabotage the work? (I'm playing CE now, thought that helping them would be kind of weird).

 

Go to post #1 of this thread and click on the Trader's Mod link, look around post #25 or so. The particle effects were still functioning the last time I played this mod.

Start game, go to Welcome Wench, look in lower left corner of main room. See anything?

 

OK, maybe it was because I installed this on a de-activated game... Tried to re-install on the activated module, now if I load a game, I see the effects, however, when I try to change locations I get CTD. Starting a new game causes a CTD as well. Any ideas?

PS Tried this with CMF 5.0.4, the game crashes as soon as I reach the Hommlett map. :writersbl

BTW could smb post the old 5.0.6 so I could try that one?