26 replies to this topic

[Zycopath]

EDIT: Damn it, this was supposed to be in Mod Ideas. Sorry 'bout that. Any admins around can feel free to move it if they wish.

I got into modding very recently and decided to start working on sort of a quest mod to get familiar with the various fields of modding (NPCs, areas, scripting etc) but before I really get started I thought I'd run it by you first to see what you think of the idea and if anyone has done something similar.

The mod is going to be centered around a single (not-joinable) NPC. More precisely a tiefling "hired" by some demonic relative to aquire souls for him to be used in some evil plan. In return the tiefling have been granted a lot of powers that he uses to grant wishes in exchange for the souls he require. If the PC get some souls for him the tiefling offers spectacular rewards limited only by CHARNAME's (or really mine) imagination. Or at least, that how it seems at first. Sooner or later the soul-snatching PC should come to realize that what the tiefling really does is creating extremly powerful illusions (think Kalah but better) of various nature. Exactly what would happen once the PC realize this is so far undecided but I'm leaning against giving CHARNAME the choice of either somehow freeing the tiefling from his master (who has grown rather tired of) or simply attacking him.

Personality-wise I think of the tiefling as something similar to a long time drug addict. While he still enjoy the power/drug he has begun to understand the consequences, in his case being used by an evil being to doom numerous souls to eternal suffering. The side he will mostly show however is that of a cocky and sarcastic bastard drunk with power. The only thing hinting a more serious side is his rather philosophical thoughts of what reality really is due to the fact that he can change its apperance with a thought.

Wow, that got a little bit longer then I expected. Anyway, let me hear what you think whether good or bad (good is preferred though).

Edited by Zycopath, 27 February 2007 - 07:07 AM.

[Zycopath]

While he certainly would get more personality and backstory then most not-joinable NPCs I don't think he would be "the star of the show" more then say Bodhi or Aran Linvail when you work with either of them. Important, yes, but not as important as the PC or Irenicus. This is only my opinion however and if other people think he's stealing the PC's spotlight I'm sure he could be toned down somewhat.

You have a good point regarding PC's with morals, it's kind of boring when the only non-evil response to some encounters seem to be "Foul creature! I shall smite thee! Raaah!" or something similar. I'm not sure what such an option would be however. Freeing him (I really should give him a name...) from his demonic master seems like a good thing, if only to prevent him from buying more souls. I'm very open to other ideas however.

[Zyraen]

Sounds fun. Go for it

[Zycopath]

Sounds fun. Go for it

Thanks. I'm pretty enthusiastic about the project myself and hearing other people like it to makes me want to put it together even more. Hopefully my enthusiasm is enough to overcome my (at the time at least) somewhat lacking modding skills. B)

[Kellen]

It's very interesting. Unfortunately lacking in the good players department. Perhaps the Tiefling finds a way to convince the PC that the souls will be gaining eternal bliss and happiness, and the rewards are thank you's for the great works of goodness the pc does. (Okay CHARNAME would have to be kinda dull but there are some who are)

[Zycopath]

It's very interesting. Unfortunately lacking in the good players department. Perhaps the Tiefling finds a way to convince the PC that the souls will be gaining eternal bliss and happiness, and the rewards are thank you's for the great works of goodness the pc does. (Okay CHARNAME would have to be kinda dull but there are some who are)

Interesting... I hadn't even thought of something like that but it does make some sense as I see the tiefling as both charismatic (in that kinda creepy Grigori Rasputin sort of way) and very manipulative. I don't know exactly how to implement it into my plans but it's definatly worth considering.

[Zycopath]

I'm not really sure on exactly what you mean. Do mean that the tiefling (and/or his boss) would disguise the victims as something else?

Actually, whether that's what you meant or not I'll probably do something like that. I'll probably give it some twist to avoid making it to similar to a certain red dragon's trick with the paladins.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Ah, you got it! Darn, and I though that my idea would be so well in discuise that no one would get it./irony
By the way this might be hard to make if it would be done really well, and so on, like changing the map while using the glasses/helmet into a dreamworld ala Kalah and the circus tent.

[Zycopath]

Would it really be that hard? I think the easiest way to do it would be to skip the glasses-thing and just have him cast some spell on them and when it's done activate a script that make the desired changes, for example change the apperance of a good, innocent child to that of an evil bandit or something. Would that work? Like I said, my modding skills are minimal at the moment.

The tiefling is now temporarly named Caligos, name inspired by another master of deception, count Cagliostro.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Well, if you would go with my dreamworld etc, in for example in Trademeet, put Caligos into one of the tents, after with you could go with Caligos casting a spell on the char, so as char exits, he will enter the dreamworld map. Don't ask me how to do this, I don't know, and of course you'll need the map(Trademeet) changed a quite a bit, so there is no exits but to the tent the char came from and the nightmarish appearance. A specified request to Sol-El-Sa might help, but do this when you have figured everything else already. After with you can put the NPCs to look what ever you want, but remember you'll have to make the soul catching to be more than just killing the the poor innocent shadows or what ever. And you'll have to 'redo' the guards as well. And when you are done with that, you'll have to do the deaths in the original Trademeet, and so on.

"It was horrible, six demons came out of that tent and started to kill everyone on sight.
Ah, but how did you survived from in there?"

[Zycopath]

Something like that would be kinda cool but like you say it requires an awful lot of work. I´ll probably start with the evil route and his granting of wishes and when/if that's working I'll start on his way to fool good guys.

[Zycopath]

I'm in the middle of writing Caligos' dialogue and I could use some help. Since a lot of the dialogue is going to center around his request for souls and his granting of wishes I could use some suggestions regarding that. First of all what CHARNAME could wish for and how Caligos could grant it (remember that everything he does is illusions, although really powerful ones) and also what souls he would ask for in return. Some of the souls would probably be from existing NPCs and some from new ones, ideas are appreciated here as well.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Well, first you'll have to tell us, where you'll place this Caligon, so we'll know what char's are accessible...

What the rewords could be, a few illusion spells are obvious, a magic +5 or +6 sword that only does 1 damage(with/out the str bonuses), and that sort of things, items that are underpowered, like a 9th level spell called The Holy Monster For The Glory Of The Gods, it summons a goblin.

And by the way, don't forget the acorns in the first dungeon, as they contain the essence of the Dryads, or something like that.

[Kulyok]

Adjusting stats(+1), magic/fire/cold resistances(+5%), saving throws(+1), THAC0(+1), damage(+1) - all character characteristics, a-la The Machine of Lum the Mad. Since you're going to make them "fake", it is going to be difficult to implement without the player thinking it is a bug(Hey, my +1 STR is all gone!), however.

As for the equipment... If I see a game character offering me some +5 equipment in SoA, or lvl 9 spells, or something else overpowered, I'll probably decide it's just an another overpowered mod, so I'll uninstall it.

Also, it might be just me, but my playing style doesn't allow me to sacrifice joinable NPCs for any bonuses: it weakens my party too much. Garren's child, however, or a noble and wise woman Bylanna - that's another matter entirely. You might run into compatibility issues with some characters, however.

[Rabain]

You could implement a magical souljar mechanism. You code it so that the tiefling gives the player a souljar that will "capture" any quality souls he kills. Then you apply a global to the death of various game npc's. In dialogue with the tielfing if a certain global has been set you can choose a reply related to that soul..e.g you kill Garren's child and set global garrenkidsoul 1, then in dialogue if garrenkidsoul 1 the tiefling would say "Ah, the soul of an innocent child, how delicious!".

The only drawback here is you would have to trawl the game for acceptable npc's to jar and there is no way for the player to know if he is in an area containing a valid target for the jar except by going on a killing spree and seeing how many jars he can fill. Though I guess you could have the tiefling say something like "Do not bring me an common souls, the will not meet my requirements" basically meaning don't try killing every commoner in the world.

There is also the option to just Open the jar and free the soul. Perhaps a group of high level Paladins could even "suggest" this to <charname> after she has captured a few souls and her deeds have become known.

[Jarno Mikkola]

And to reduce the cheese factor most of the items should be cursed, cause it might be fun to try to kill a horde of zombies with a sword that does 1 damage cause you just killed their master, a Lich.

Adjusting stats(+1), magic/fire/cold resistances(+5%), saving throws(+1), THAC0(+1), damage(+1) - all character characteristics, a-la The Machine of Lum the Mad. Since you're going to make them "fake", it is going to be difficult to implement without the player thinking it is a bug(Hey, my +1 STR is all gone!), however.

Well, they can always be taken back, or be forced to return via BG1 poison cure guest, so the player will die if he won't do a certain things within a time line, after the given adjusting.

If I see a game character offering me some +5 equipment in SoA, or lvl 9 spells, or something else overpowered, I'll probably decide it's just an another overpowered mod, so I'll uninstall it.

Well that's your own headache, plus you won't have to use them.

[Zycopath]

You could implement a magical souljar mechanism.  You code it so that the tiefling gives the player a souljar that will "capture" any quality souls he kills.  Then you apply a global to the death of various game npc's.  In dialogue with the tielfing if a certain global has been set you can choose a reply related to that soul..e.g you kill Garren's child and set global garrenkidsoul 1, then in dialogue if garrenkidsoul 1 the tiefling would say "Ah, the soul of an innocent child, how delicious!".

Great minds certainly think alike. This is more or less exactly how I was planning on coding it. I could have sworn I wrote that somewhere...

As for where he'll be placed it's probably going to be somewhere in the city and perhaps somewhere in ToB at a later stage.
I have considered weapons with some sort of drawback as a reward but just giving it low damage seems a bit boring. More ideas regarding this would be nice.