79 replies to this topic

[Schatten]

Okay, okay. I understand now.

then i become fallen after 5 min of play. i just must kill anything. me wants goodies. me wants exp.

[Littiz]

How about having the PC fall if any party member commits more than a certain number of attacks (one or two or three perhaps) against a downed creature?

Ok, you've convinced me, this is fine.
I've implemented this trigger, but for the attacks against neutral creatures.
So now S.A. falls if he attacks a neutral creature, or if that happens three times with his party members.

About unconscious opponents though, still I lack the technical means to implement the trigger

@Schatten: then you'd deserve to fall!

[Caedwyr]

Attacking a neutral character preemptively seems a good enough reason to fall. I'd hold off implementing any sort of stop-gap solution for the downed enemies until some more elaborate scripting solution can be found as the discussion in this thread shows the pitfalls of most of the obvious approaches.

[Kish]

Attacking a neutral character preemptively seems a good enough reason to fall.

Even for attacking a slave trader, or the monsters disguised as peasants at the circus (who attack without ever going red-circled)?

[Jinnai]

Attacking a neutral character preemptively seems a good enough reason to fall.

Even for attacking a slave trader, or the monsters disguised as peasants at the circus (who attack without ever going red-circled)?

For the slave trader, yes....to just go up and start swinging because he's a slave trader, while good, is definatly a very chaotic apporach.

The monster disguised as a human...that's more difficult as it would depend upon you knowing that the person was a monster and not just some poor drunk SnB.

[Kish]

For the slave trader, yes....to just go up and start swinging because he's a slave trader, while good, is definatly a very chaotic apporach.

So anyone not Chaotic aligned would have to just watch him haul his slave away in chains as the slave begs for help? It seems that everyone I would define as "Good" at all, you would define as "Very Chaotic."

The monster disguised as a human...that's more difficult as it would depend upon you knowing that the person was a monster and not just some poor drunk SnB.

Which Aerie and Hannah both tell you, plus they hit pretty hard for Poor Drunk whateveranSnBis.

[Kish]

You may not be following terminology. "Neutral" as it's used for the Sword Angel Falling doesn't mean "Neutral alignment on character sheet." It means, "Blue-circled."

Edit: "You" here means just Domi.

Edited by Kish, 07 January 2004 - 01:43 PM.

[Caedwyr]

When I said neutral I was refering to the blue circled NPCs. From what I understand about the concept behind this Kit, it is the actions and not the intentions that this kit is concerned with. As such, preemptive killing actions are not permitted, and if possible the Sword Angel seeks to avoid taking a life even in combat (but as mentioned before, there are still implementation problems with this part).

This kit isn't a paladin, so I don't believe that attacking evil, non-hostile npcs is acceptable behaviour.

[Kish]

All right. Just wanted to confirm that you do, in fact, believe that the kit's code would be better served by watching a slave hauled away kicking and screaming than by raising a hand to the slave trader.

[T.G.Maestro]

What possible solutions would you offer then Kish? Your suggestions have merit, so I'd be most pleased to hear your ideas on solving this "problem" .

[Kish]

I'd make the Sword Angel unable to initiate combat based on alignment (with non-evils, perhaps), or just code special exceptions for the cases where someone is obviously assaulting someone else in front of you. (Having to spare Grae, the troll shaman in the Limited Wish quest, and being unable to attack the ogre mage in the same quest, makes sense.)

[Caedwyr]

Ok, I agree with this approach. Coded exceptions make sense since you can't generalize and be consistent with the intent of the kit in every single case.

[Littiz]

Any good character can attack a slaver, depending on circumstances.
But a S.A. won't attack until the lives of the slaves are in immediate peril, otherwise he will search for an alternative way to free them.

Now, I rembember slavers appear at the beginning, and they give no problems since they are red-circled. This is also a situation where S.A. might be tempted to fall in something like rage, since kids are also involved. I figure he wouldn't use Merciful Fighting against those slavers (and probably would be tormented by repent later )
(Oh, I say "he", but I actually think this kit is cool for a female PC...)

Then there are the Drow slavers. Here you have a clear chance to free the slaves, you can initiate dialogue yourself, and there's no immediate need to end a sentient and intelligent life to free them (S.A. is supposed to hate such an action on itself, no matter the aligmnent of the person). You have time to try something else, so if you arrive and attack the slaver (who is not hostile at the moment) you're not really acting like a S.A. imho (but I may miss some other game situation that involves slavers!).

For those situations were really even a S.A. can't do anything but attack, I'll try to fix them locally.
Hopefully Domi is right, and some cases will use EVILBUTBLUE flags...
Does anyone know the names of the CREs for the cases Kish talks about?

Anyway, I've scored another little technical success
(a simple and genial solution )
Now Merciful Fighting is activable and *deactivable* at will, instead of working as a timed effect B)

[Caedwyr]

In cases where the is an exception to the rule, and the Sword Angel must intervene to remain in character, a dialogue can always be added where the PC confronts the subject on the issue. That way, through dialogue choices the subject can become hostile and the issue of preemptive actions being justified can be avoided.

[Littiz]

The "false paesants" don't use the scripts usually assigned to blue circled creatures, so no problem.
Actually I'm starting to fear that I'm not patching enough files...
Will have to check deeper.

What about the Gong quest? I don't know that one very well.
We want an opposite fix, right? That is, let S.A. fall if he doesn't spare the Troll who asks for mercy.
By chance, isn't already the Virtue Mod doing something about this?
I mean, maybe it is not very noble for anyone killing someone who asks for mercy.

Since every Virtue drop (that happens with Virtue installed) causes S.A. to fall, if it's already done, I'll be content with that

[Kish]

(but I may miss some other game situation that involves slavers!).

When you're walking through the slums at night, you see a slaver dragging a slave in chains. The slave begs a guard for help; the slaver bribes the guard and the guard looks away. Minsc roars and charges, if you have him in the party.

[Littiz]

Found that file.
Actually it's another case where you can attack freely.
Really, I must take some action and check how many cases I'm missing, but so far it seems I'm line with Bioware's choices somehow

For example, Xzar is blue-circled, but you normally can attack him since it's not an "innocent". Yet as a "neutral" character he uses, among the rest, the script I patch, so a S.A. can't attack him (without falling, that is).
But it seems many of the blue-circled creatures are not really treated that way. Another case that I suspect is the Dragon in Watcher's Keep. Now, I wouldn't want it to be freely killable...

About that slaver: for now it's ok then, but the optimum would be an additional dialogue option for the player, and S.A. should use that, at that point.
But I'm leaving such kind of additions for future releases, since now lack of time is a major issue for me

[Littiz]

A little update.
Some things have been improved, recently:

• Added 2 new character-screen/portrait icons (love the little heart of Merciful Fighting )
  
• Refined visuals A LOT. Now the main "theme" of S.A.'s visuals is "gold". Kinda.
  
• When dualclassed to mage, Deathfield HLA won't be pickable.