154 replies to this topic

[aVENGER]

agris, on 04 February 2010 - 07:34 AM, said:

If I don't install SCSII's improved fiends, but did install its improved mage AI, is there a way for mages to summon your fiends?

I think SCSII spellcasters will summon aTweaks' Fiends in that particular case.

[Tonton Fred]

Do these components affect unique Fiends : Lesser Demon Lord (in the Underdark), Chromatic Demon, Demogorgon, Demon Knights, Aec'Letec & such ?

Cheers,
Fred

[Wisp]

The PnP Fiends component affects Aec'Letec and Kirinhale in BG1 but apparently none of the others you mentioned.
The Lesser Demon Lord and the Chromatic Demon probably have no PnP counterparts, but maybe there's something implementable for Demogorgon and Demon Knights.

[Miloch]

The "chromatic demon" is unique (and in fact gets a unique animation in Infinity Animations) but is probably like a powerful tanar'ri (balor or such, as per its original animation). The "lesser demon lord" also got the balor animation originally. But a balor is a "true" demon (or tanar'ri) which is a rank above "greater" demon (such as a nabassu) which is a rank above "lesser" demon lords such as cambions and bar-lgura. IA interprets it as a cambion, since there is no animation for such as bar-lgura (a giant ape-like demon, I suppose). "Demon knights" usually refer to death knights (a PnP undead/fiend-type creature). Demogorgon is a unique demon lord of course... not sure if aTweaks already deals with him.

[Tonton Fred]

Miloch, on 20 July 2010 - 02:09 AM, said:

The "lesser demon lord" also got the balor animation originally. But a balor is a "true" demon (or tanar'ri) which is a rank above "greater" demon (such as a nabassu) which is a rank above "lesser" demon lords such as cambions and bar-lgura.

Are you sure the LDL would be a lowly Cambion ? Its stats seem to be quite OP for just a lesser demon (requires +5 to hit, high MR even in vanilla or somesuch). I think the "lesser" applies to the "lord" part, not the demon ; as in : it's not ruling its own layer of the Abyss, but it's still a very, very powerful demon able to wipe the floor with the whole party.

As for Demon Knights, I was referring to the creatures improved by SCSII in the Improved Fiends components, not sure what is the correct term.

Edited by Tonton Fred, 20 July 2010 - 02:20 AM.

[Demivrgvs]

Tonton Fred, on 20 July 2010 - 02:17 AM, said:

Are you sure the LDL would be a lowly Cambion ? Its stats seem to be quite OP for just a lesser demon (requires +5 to hit, high MR even in vanilla or somesuch). I think the "lesser" applies to the "lord" part, not the demon ; as in : it's not ruling its own layer of the Abyss, but it's still a very, very powerful demon able to wipe the floor with the whole party.

That Lesser Demon Lord can be hit with +3 weapons, which leads me to believe the immunity to +4 ones is a bug.

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As for Demon Knights, I was referring to the creatures improved by SCSII in the Improved Fiends components, not sure what is the correct term.

Death Knight would be the correct PnP terms.

[Wisp]

I also thought of the Lesser Demon Lord as the "somewhat less powerful than e.g. Demogorgon" kind of demon. To go though all the trouble to summon a cambion-like creature seems silly.

[Miloch]

Cambions have their own lords (barons and marquises) which aren't exactly to be sniffed at, especially the spellcasting kind. But I dunno, I suppose it could be a balor lord or something. Someone should change its name then, because "Lesser Demon Lord" certainly isn't fitting.

[Tonton Fred]

Miloch, on 20 July 2010 - 02:02 PM, said:

Cambions have their own lords (barons and marquises) which aren't exactly to be sniffed at, especially the spellcasting kind. But I dunno, I suppose it could be a balor lord or something. Someone should change its name then, because "Lesser Demon Lord" certainly isn't fitting.

Again, I think the name should be read as Lesser Demon Lord, not as Lesser Demon Lord, but maybe that's just me. It would be consistent with the following fluff :

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demon lords are demons who have gained great power and established a position of preeminence among demonkind. Each demon lord has a unique appearance and set of abilities. Most control at least one layer of the Abyss.

Quote

a demon can only be called a prince if he or she rules an entire plane of the Abyss, thus Orcus implied by his title to rule a least one plane of existence, while lesser lords did not.

Thus, the balor animation he originally had would probably be appropriate for a demon of its standing, even if he is in fact unique.

Edited by Tonton Fred, 20 July 2010 - 05:20 PM.

[Miloch]

Tonton Fred, on 20 July 2010 - 05:19 PM, said:

Thus, the balor animation he originally had would probably be appropriate for a demon of its standing, even if he is in fact unique.

Possibly you are right - I changed it for the next IA anyway. Still, it says "Each demon lord has a unique appearance" and the standard balor is obviously not unique. Maybe we could recolour it like we did the chromatic demon, or aTweaks could (though the colour opcodes are suboptimal as aVENGER himself has observed). NWN has a whole bunch of different balors, though it would be more difficult to port those.

[Wisp]

Version 3.40 of aTweaks brings some notable changes to "PnP Fiends" and "Revised Fiend Summoning".

Firstly, "Revised Fiend Summoning" has been merged with "PnP Fiends". With the changes to "PnP Fiends" I didn't think there was much point in keeping them separate any longer and having them as separate components just made things more complicated.
Secondly, "PnP Fiends" now comes as three subcomponents. You get the same "Revised Fiend Summoning" regardless of which subcomponent you choose.

The first subcomponent is closest to the old "PnP Fiends"+"Revised Fiend Summoning". Fiends summoned by the player-accessible spells and fiends found as regular enemies in the game world are altered to receive new stats and scripts, but mod-added fiends are not.

The second subcomponent also affects specific mod-added fiends (as of now, the ones added by SCSII), and all fiends receive PnP stats and aTweaks scripts.

The third subcomponent separates the PnP stats from the aTweaks scripts, by allowing you to install the aTweaks scripts without (significantly) altering the stats of the fiends. Notably, this allows you to combine the beefier fiends of whatever fiend-beefing mod(s) you have installed with aVENGER's scripted goodies, if you are so inclined. One exception here is that this subcomponent also assigns the fiends new and/or different equipment, including weapons that, in some cases, may inflict less damage. If there's demand for it I can have this subcomponent alter the weapons to better approximate the fiend's old weapon, in terms of damage.

To maybe rekindle your enthusiasm I thought I'd post some action:

Party at Perth's house

[Dakk]

What is the rationale behind the new/different equipment? Better suited to animation, PnP, lore?

And no rekindling needed, interest never lost

[Wisp]

Dakk, on 17 January 2011 - 05:36 PM, said:

What is the rationale behind the new/different equipment? Better suited to animation, PnP, lore?

The equipment is part of aVENGER's PnP-ification. I chose to retain it for the third subcomponent because sometimes the weapons have interesting on-hit effects, sometimes it is necessary for the fiend to be able to cast its spells and because I wanted consistency (as opposed to manually deciding what stays and what goes).

(And in case it's not totally obvious, the screenshot is of three Baatezu summoned by Perth vs. three Tanar'ri [well, two: the third didn't make it through the gate in time for the photo op] summoned by Daria.)

[Wisp]

Loz, on 17 January 2011 - 10:27 PM, said:

Did you do something about casters who are neutral on law-chaos axis not being able to summon more than one fiend?

Please elaborate.

The only problem I can see is that they (players and unmodded mages) can summon both Tanar'ri and Baatezu, which results in a bit of an unproductive mess. If that is what you are referring to, then no, I haven't done anything about it. There may not be a good solution to it either.

[Miloch]

Wisp, on 18 January 2011 - 05:19 AM, said:

The only problem I can see is that they (players and unmodded mages) can summon both Tanar'ri and Baatezu, which results in a bit of an unproductive mess. If that is what you are referring to, then no, I haven't done anything about it. There may not be a good solution to it either.

Sure there is: have them gate in yugoloth instead... aVENGER was even open to that idea (see posts above about them possibly "making it into some future version").

[Wisp]

Miloch, on 18 January 2011 - 11:04 AM, said:

Sure there is: have them gate in yugoloth instead... aVENGER was even open to that idea (see posts above about them possibly "making it into some future version").

I don't see animations working for Yugoloths. The BG1 tanar'ri animation may work for Nycaloths, but the rest look nothing like what's available in any of the IE games.
For reference, we have:

• Arcanaloths, Greater - dog-headed humanoids
  
• Nycaloths, Greater - pit-fiend-like in appearance
  
• Ultroloths, Greater - faceless humanoids with large eyes
  
• Dergholoths, Lesser - round body, three leges, five arms, insectoid heads
  
• Hydroloths, Lesser - amphibians
  
• Mezzoloth, Lesser - large, insectoid humanoids
  
• Piscoloth, Lesser - lobsters with vulture legs and squid-face
  
• Yagnoloths, Lesser - lop-sided, large, humanoids with tails

There are some images here.

Edited by Wisp, 18 January 2011 - 01:01 PM.

[Miloch]

You might as well use a recoloured tanar'ri for nycaloths, the same way aVENGER did for nabassu and pit fiends. They're roughly equivalent to balors and pit fiends in terms of hit dice and XP values, so they should suffice. I suppose you could also use werewolves for arcanaloths and mind flayers for ultraloths, but neither one is a great substitute without editing the animations. Not sure if there's even anything fitting that could be ported from NWN, apart from what I mentioned above.

[DavidWallace]

Fond though I am of PnP yugoloths, I'm not sure that this major chunk of work is worthwhile just for the sake of sorting out neutral spellcasters. If the PC wants to summon both Baatezu and Tanar'ri, that's their funeral; the AI won't do it in SCS and I don't think it will cause serious problems to the vanilla AI either.

(That's not to say "don't write a Yugoloth component", it's to say "if you're going to, do it for its own sake, not just to solve this problem".)