21 replies to this topic

[temnix]

A prestige class in the third edition of D&D, and maybe beyond, is a "superclass" one switches to at some point in one's career. For fighting types the requirement is an attack bonus at some level, I don't remember what it was for magic users. There have been all kinds of prestige classes invented, but usually they all provide some kind of definite benefits at the expense of a portion of the power of the original class. For prestiged wizards, for example, spellcasting only improves every other level in the cases I remember. So the "superclass" is more cool and specialized or thematic than straight-out more powerful. It's a variation.

 

Sound familiar? Yes, kits. Kits are also not more powerful than a straight class, not if they are well-designed. But the difference for the Infinity games is that prestige classes are by definition something to look forward to, they are a development, while kits must be taken at generation. If we can postpone the choice, then kits will be basically prestige classes to switch to.

 

And we can. From what kjeron has written on the Beamdog forum, there are a few ways of setting a kit during play. And I know that using opcode 72 on a character already with a kit to switch to a multiclass keeps the kit. For example, a priest of Talos switching to cleric/thief becomes a priest of Talos/thief. This may be useful for unusual multis at the start or for altering existing multis. How would that work? Imagine, somewhere in Baldur's Gate the party is approached by a servant of Talos who seeks to supplant the church of Umberlee in the city. He wants them to kill the high priestess and the acolytes. Once that's done, the cleric, in addition to the reward, offers the cleric PC (single class or multiclass, CLERIC_ALL minus the Talos kit) to convert to the worship of the Storm Lord. If the player agrees, he will switch from a basic cleric to the Talos kit with his powers - a conscious career change and a prestige class! Perhaps an alignment change, too.

 

Or a paladin. Happily walking the Sword Coast, being so Lawful and Good, he doesn't see fit to save the slaves in the Cloakwood mine from drowning. Oh well! When reproached, he can say that he simply couldn't manage it, in which case he becomes a Fallen Paladin and must atone (the subject for another quest and mod), or he can admit that he didn't care or even drowned them on purpose. And if he does this, guess to which paladin kit he switches then.

 

For wizards, the choice at some point may be made to specialize in a school of magic, or perhaps give up on this narrow research and embrace all of the schools as a mage. Thieves may get a chance to become bounty hunters or assassins, making some companions, like Montaron, more useful. Bards - to become blades or maybe jesters. Because these switches don't have to be limited to the main character either. We could just as well switch the kit stat of a companion. Aren't they entitled to life choices? Let Kagain be a wizard slayer or let Edwin take up a different field than conjuration. Naturally, there could be other kits reserved for use as a prestige class, kit ideas that now seem too powerful to start with and that modders have to whittle down for balance - which makes them less interesting. Anything with, for example, a dimension door or a knock in the abilities is probably too powerful for beginners, it would make obsolete the frantic running early characters rely on and their lock-picking skills. But later? At some advanced level? As an alternative to the stronger spells and weapon mastery in store for a straight class? Not too unbalanced then.

 

Hell, a player could even make this kind of choice anticipating challenges ahead. He might switch the main paladin character to cavalier if there are battles with BG2 dragons on the agenda, or a fighter could become an undead hunter at the Bodhi chapter, if only the game let him. Of course, this kind of change shouldn't be so simple as clicking a button to select a kit of preference, clearly not. But as options inside the gameplay it would make sense in-character and out-of-character. And chances to take on a kit are a whole new category of quest rewards.

Edited by temnix, 09 October 2017 - 11:43 AM.

[The Imp]

You aren't aware of the kit books mod that give the ability to get kits during the game play then. This is nothing new. There's a few side effects though you need to take into account ... such as the thief skills points, whether or not the clab skills get applied etc fun stuff you need to check and sort out.

Edited by The Imp, 09 October 2017 - 01:54 PM.

[temnix]

No, I didn't know about that. Now that I looked at it, I see that it's crude and wrongly implemented. Taking on a prestige class or kit shouldn't be a matter of clicking on some tome or button or other "convenience." It's not about more choices for shoppers. It should be about life choices, as in my examples. Then again, the third edition didn't insist on in-character reasons for switching to a prestige class, too. The mechanic that I thought was new was not, the thinking has never made it across.

[The Imp]

This is not to say that the idea is a terrible... it's just that, well, which ever edition of D&D except perhaps the last, has had terrible ideas, that don't fit the game well either. As the games have always been the kinds where the house rules are more important than the actual book rules.

[temnix]

House rules were important only until the Wizards of the Coast decided to relieve groups of the burden of choice with a million of supplements. And in truth, they really counted only in the first D&D, before an A. But what makes kits appropriate as prestige classes in this case, better than actual prestige classes, is that they use the same experience tables. That's important. A thief becoming a bounty hunter can continue playing from the same point of advancement, from a level 7 thief he goes to level 7 in the new kit/class, with the abilities incumbent on that. With actual prestige classes a character must start the career in the new class from the level 1 - a lot like dual-classing. That can make sense under some logics, but not for the computer versions. Here it's best a turning of all of one's abilities and experience in a new direction.

 

What I don't sympathize with in the Tomes mod, besides it being out of character, is that the author tried extra-hard to take away abilities from the old kit/class incompatible with the new. His goal, he says, was to make it seem as though the characters were always in that kit/class. I don't see the point of that. A change is a change. So they had more skill points in the old class, or a couple of spells, or something. Let them keep those. They won't get any more under the old arrangement, that line is closed. And they missed out on the use of early abilities in the new kit/class already. Let's say a paladin switches to a blackguard half-way through. I assume the engine won't grant him his early powers retroactively even now. Well, there is your balance right there.

Edited by temnix, 10 October 2017 - 03:50 PM.

[The Imp]

House rules were important only until the Wizards of the Coast decided to relieve groups of the burden of choice with a million of supplements.

Did it ? Do they all say to be the absolute truth and nothing but ... like some holy book which is a fabrication of facts presented previously with a well defined vision of a world, but in later perspecive, are totally out of date.

Well, I didn't say that the Tomes mod was perfect... and it sound to not be.
Truly, to me, the player should be able to dual and multi class&kit and spit all they want... the kits themselves should stay the same... as they should balance themselves ... aka they won't make the character invulnerable without killing them too.

What comes to kits retroactively granting powers, if done correctly, they will... as you can even make the prestige kit take effect at said level.

[temnix]

Will a kit change with ChangeStat grant powers retroactively?

[The Imp]

Erhm, I do the kit changes via invisible creatures casted by a spell, which is where all this has to lead... they run scripts like this, the second to last line does the kit change:

IF
	Class(PLAYER1,CLERIC_MAGE)
	Level(PLAYER1,3)
	Global("IJ#mage1c","GLOBAL",1)
THEN
	RESPONSE #100
		SetGlobal("IJ#mage1c","GLOBAL",2)
		ActionOverride(PLAYER1,AddSuperKit(ij#mage))
END

The ij#mage is my made kit in the mod. Yes, the prefixes are indeed the ideal solution for all this file sorting.

 

I was thinking more along the lines of giving a special kit instead of one like... Kensai, which by it's nature will then allow you to set the powers at the said level you want to give them at. Or you can even have multiple effects each give their own kit ...

The EE game should also retroactively grand all the powers in the clab file at least during level up, and some times during loading saves etc.

I don't know about the non-EE games .. one might need to check the behaviour ... it was a little janky, from what I remember.

[temnix]

Hmm, thanks for code. You want to test it in a EE game to see if you can convert a paladin into a blackguard and if he'll get all of the powers?

[The Imp]

I... nope.
But if you want to, you just need to actually give a little more detail... as a paladin doesn't just get converted to a Blackguard for no reason.

But he could for example, read a book and thus "fall", get the Alignment change and all that ... but for that you need to make the book item, or if you want to, I can make it... , have it conversable or just cast-able like a scroll, which will then summon the invisible creature that runs the script., and set the ij#black global to 1. The base of the script being:

IF
	Class(PLAYER1,PALADIN)
	Global("IJ#black","GLOBAL",1)
THEN
	RESPONSE #100
		SetGlobal("IJ#black","GLOBAL",2)
		ActionOverride(PLAYER1,ChangeAlignment(Myself),LAWFUL_EVIL))
		ActionOverride(PLAYER1,AddSuperKit(Blackguard))
END

IF
	SetGlobal("IJ#black","GLOBAL",2)
THEN
	RESPONSE #100
		KILL(Myself)
END

The KILL will remove the invisible creature from the game. And if you don't have one, I can attach one that several members of the community have used for a long time ...

Edited by The Imp, 17 October 2017 - 10:39 AM.

[temnix]

I gave an example of when a paladin must fall in BG, Cloakwood if he drowns the miners. Just one of many cases, really, but it's super-blatant. Reading a book wouldn't do it, not even if it's smut. Well, it was worth asking.

[The Imp]

Ahh, in the previous post... sorry, forgot that.

It can be done yes, but you need to tie in the EET's aspect of the Cloakwood mine story into it. And we preferably would like to have someone not player element to initiate the process aka cast the spell that summons the .cre after the quest is done for good or ill. I unfortunately don't have, nor is there a chance of me making, an EET install ...

[temnix]

I unfortunately don't have, nor is there a chance of me making, an EET install ...

 

What, do you have some special... disability? You can share it with us, whatever it is. I mean, Jake Gyllenhaal just lost his legs, but he's gone and got himself a star role in a new movie.

 

The conversion could be handled from the dialogue of the miner who approaches the party after the Cloakwood business is over one way or another.

[subtledoctor]

There is no problem doing kit changes mid-game. And there is no problem designing kits with mid-game adoption in mind. It's a perfectly fine idea, and it is perfectly feasible from a technical perspective. The kit change has to be done via script (AddKit or SuperAddKit), so it would need an invisible creature created by a spell or item, or it could be triggered by a dialogue or some oher script. My divine-class mod relies on this extensively to force uncommitted clerics to choose a deity (i.e. choose a kit). It's a fine idea, go ahead and make it.

[temnix]

"Uncommitted clerics"? What, you think they don't have a deity? Where do they get their powers from, then? It's just not specified for them, unlike the kits.

[subtledoctor]

The point of the mod is, if a cleric is not declared for a specific deity, they *don't* have any powers. So they have to commit to a deity. Doing this, in dialogue, attaches the appropriate kit to the character. (In some cases there are even more than one one option per deity, since various deities have different sects with different abilities.)

It's not exactly prestige classes, but from a technical standpoint it is very similar.

[The Imp]

...

See, but still if the god the cleric worships doesn't have a special name, you can't name it and so ... aka you are messing up the default setting.
Go ahead and ask what's the Cristian gods name is. And if you happen to come off from the encounter with your bruise, you can consider them to be a devoted to that god, and then tell us about it.

Edited by The Imp, 12 November 2017 - 09:28 AM.

[subtledoctor]

The Christian god's name is YHWH. No controversy there.

(It *was* EL, before YHWH coopted every single one of EL's followers, in what has to be greatest trick ever in the history of gods stealing other gods' worshippers...)

[temnix]

That's the Jewish god's name. And I hope you're only typing it, not saying it out loud, or someone will put a big rock over you.

[The Imp]

Yep, that's not the Cristian gods name.

By the by, that is usually just spelled Yahweh. See I have multiple relatives from different Cristian doctrines, and only few name it as that... what the others do, is the 'little more logical' "It's the only god, so it doesn't need a name, and never had one" as that would make it non monotheistic.

Edited by The Imp, 12 November 2017 - 01:29 PM.