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https://www.gog.com/game/neverwinter_nights_2_complete

NWN2 is also on sale. Mask of the Betrayer is probably one of the best SP RPG campaigns of the last 15-20 years. Was written by Chris Avellone, the guy that did Prey and Fallout New Vegas.

Oh no, I'm sure it was legit a DM was overseeing it, seemed like. It's just from the outsiders' view there was little narrative to any of it so it just feels overall like a story that went untold and now will never be, which is unfulfilling and a bummer. Conversely look at the event over the weekend, which had multiple PCs die but it was high drama, pushed plot, and was just interesting. Even if you weren't involved and only heard about it IG, there was high drama and you could tell a lot was happening with it. Seems like all around the ideal kinda way you want a bunch of PCs to end up killing each other.

Sure there are cloak and dagger killings where people just get mulched and thrown in a ditch with little fanfare for very, very heavy plot reasons, and outsiders will just think it's a senseless death. Those are also fair game. Maybe this was one of those, in which case I am happy to be wrong, but it seemed to not be since there was totally the public "taking credit" side of it but without any actual explanation. Just feels a bit ignominious for a PC that clearly put in a lot of work, made a lot of stuff happen, and was a "mover and shaker" by all rights.

Guys, bandits aren't going to give you an OOC heads up that they are going to attack you. I mean, maybe they will, off chance, but generally, throughout EFU, PVP is not something you necessarily expect.


I understand your point of view, when I first started playing in 2009ish, I too misconstrued that people were supposed to send you a tell and let you know you're being attacked or something. So when I got attacked in an alleyway randomly I was rather confused. Then the next time I was moments away from entering a quest area and my pc got hit with a sound burst, stunned and subdued I was upset.  I thought these sort of attacks were against the rules or tactless too.


But then I realised, that these sort of attacks left open fantastic roleplaying opportunities:  Kidnappings, assassinations, unknowable turf attacks and so forth.  They add a finite reality to an otherwise insane and absurd world. How many people just rush a bandit in the commons because he is named bandit and red? It's not crazy for someone to try and kill your PC considering Adventurers just slaughter hundreds of people will minimal concern.


Trust me, it takes a bit of getting used to, and I still don't care much to initiate because of similar OOC possible scenarios with people upset with each other. However, the random and dangerous world that EFU creates means that you will never feel safe with some Level 10 juggernaut of destruction, because three level 4 pcs with some tanglefoot bags, flash powder, and a well placed dispell can change up the whole dynamic  - there's always a challenge and it keeps things fresh, even if in the short term it may seem crappy.

I don't think anyone is denying that, it's more that people are talking about that same bandit running out of nowhere while you're walking in the Commons, attacking and subduing you, then FDing you, all with minimal RP. Maybe they say "Die!" or use the V menu laugh from their voiceset or some canned line before they do in your character.

There is no RP, there is no story. In the example above with the PC that was killed tonight, he was walking and got murdered, and for what? A handful of PCs splitting up his stuff in the Open Door later, and everyone just moving on, when the PC in question was a mover and shaker and specific to the current Torc was a central figure on the Ticker side who was building up a cool revenge plot and narrative specifically because of it... but all that is in the dumpster now, with minimal context or explanation, so for those on the outside of whatever conflict there was, it just seems like random violence with no meaning or particularly interesting narrative.


PWs are about collaborative storytelling, ultimately. That should be a thought process everyone considers... "will this make for a cool story?" is a far more important question to ask than, "is this fair" or "will my character get something out of this."

My only suggestion with regard to the topic is that EFUSL2 should use the same DM listing style and not show the actual names of the players online, just the total number.

I've seen with some reliability someone specifically login to try to initiate PvP with someone they saw online, and the main method of seeing the player list while offline is EFUSL2. Not much we can do about the ingame player list (and it's kind of a necessity), but if someone was interested in RPed PvP, they'd make contact OOCly and coordinate, not wait for the other PC to show up on the list and then hop on and beeline to the nearest chokepoint near where that PC spawns.

I'm in the same boat. Work schedule is back to normal since Monday and we're playing hardcore catch up for the next few weeks, but I should be able to hop on on weekends if anyone is looking for Minara.

the command works better in a thematic sense than just two retainers who trading shit bits and broken trophies. It can be used to represent an actual loss and gain of reputation in the ward by virtue of the duel.

This and prestigious items don't last very long in Retainer inventories, they get turned in for points and to reduce weight. I think it's a solid idea, but I'd take it one step further and say that instead of it being a /c command, why not make it a player tool option, that way it'd be easier to script in the sense that you could just use the player tool on someone, a dialogue would pop up saying "How much Prestige would you like to bet?" You say the number and press enter, it automatically sends the other person a confirmation like when you search inventory, and boom, it's all locked in. Unless you can make /c commands targetable, because otherwise it could be annoying to get it to trigger vs the other person?

There's a way to give monsters temporary HP well into the hundreds, which allows them to have big meaty health pools while not affecting their Con or Fort. I have no idea if the tool for this already available and just not being used, but it might be an easy solution to this problem and I think the DMs might actually prefer it since it could give a very granular control of the monster's HP?

The one issue with it is that temp HP sits on top of regular HP, as I recall, so until you smash away all that temp HP the monster will show as "Uninjured" until you start eating into its actual health pool. This may be totally fixed in later version of NWN, that was the behavior pre-SoU as I recall.

Since the GSF Transmutation bonus for Expeditious Retreat and Haste don't actually work because of the speed limit on PCs that aren't monks, I was thinking what if instead of making you go faster (which they don't) they instead would convert to this:

Expeditious Retreat:
SF Transmutation: Casting the spell on a friendly target nearby will also cast it on you.
GSF Transmutation: Casting the spell on yourself also gives the effect to all allies within a very small area around the caster.

So apparently in Thay they just rip your clothes apart to remove tattoos, which is really unfortunate since I was wearing a custom tailored and enchanted outfit at the time and now it's basically ruined.

Pics:

BEFORE



AFTER


Reequipping and whatnot doesn't fix it. If it's not fixable, could we at least get a warning dialogue (also how about the NPC tells us how much it will cost, to boot?) telling us to remove any armor that has a part on the affected area, because it could be permanently changed?

Thirding this. We have the functionality in the starting area, why not put it somewhere IG where you can have it done for money?

While I do love me some repeating techno, I feel like this would be more fitting (and hilarious)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3seHGNoh2jI

Bumping this as I don't want to make a new thread, but this familiar still loses Eagle Splendor. At levels 5, 6, and 7 it only has access to 2 casts of Color Spray.

Give the Master's Healing Kits an OnUse: Self Only power that will automatically load them up with all of the Herbal Medicines you have in inventory until they are either full or you run out of Medicines.

Really tedious to load them one by one.

Water Breathing

Druid, Ranger, Sorcerer, Wizard 3
Water Domain 3
School: Transmutation
Components: V, S, M (a short reed or piece of straw)
Range: Touch
Duration: 3 turns/level    Saving Throw: None
Target: Creature touched

The recipient of this spell can breathe underwater for the duration.

[Spell Modifications -]

Thought it warranted its own thread for a few suggestions. Firstly I'll just paste the entry so it's easier to refer to:



So I've been playing an Infuser for a bit and noticed it really flags behind many other Perks (particularly compared to Hydromancer, its counterpart "elementalist" perk). Part of this is limited spell selection, sure, though the addition of electric damage to Horzi's is great and honestly I think that's the least of the Perk's issues. Most of the tweaks I was thinking are more stylistic while also just improving overall utility. Starting from the top:

Spell Modifications -
These all rule and are fine so far, though I'd say Horzi's shoudl do 1d6 electric instead of 1d4, just to make it line up with how much charge it generates. The extra d2 of damage is pretty minimal but would help at low level, which is kinda the only point at which that spell is useful.

Flame Weapon -
With the new theme options on the server, this benefit is sorta minimal since they can do it anyway, but yeah, they shouldn't have a choice in making it another element, that's silly.

Infuser Orb -
This is a big one, and I don't know if it's possible or if it's hard coded based on NWN wonkiness with spell levels on items, but the caster level of the spells on your orb NEED to be matched to your actual level. The Orb has Gedlee's at level 3 (useless over level 4ish), while Lightning Bolt and Scintillating are both Level 5 (more useful, but still really, really underwhelming later on). Considering this thing is supposed to be the main class feature and essentially your primary mode of damage output with very, very limited ammo, that's REALLY underwhelming. If the caster levels can't be changed, then maybe the total number of charges or the number of charges restored via Horzi's could be increased? Also at level 9 they should get a cast of Lightning Ball from the orb for 10-12 charge or something like that, could also help.


Electrical Shield -
This is the interesting one and where I think it could be expanded a bit thematically and be the "major" change added. The Level 1 power level of it as is is perfect, the issue is you don't stay down there very long and once you get to level 5+ (which isn't overly challenging here) the feature is basically worthless since you don't want to be getting hit in the first place, and even if you do a 1d4 electric hit isn't gonna help much. I was thinking that maybe around level 6ish it could get an upgrade to turn it into a Capacitative type of shield... essentially, think of a Resist Elements but ONLY for electrical damage, and it's charged by ANY source of electricity, including, say electrical damage from weapons.

Conceptually it would be the opposite of how we think of Resist Elements, however, namely the thing can store 30 points of electrical damage before it overloads. In essence, it'd be a buffer for the excess electricity your electrical immunity (which you don't get until 8, sothat's 2 levels where you're REALLY exposed) can't stop, so when the "hp" on the buff hits zero, you would explode in a burst of electricity hurting everyone around you and taking flat magical damage (thus not affected by later immunity or electrical resistance) to yourself... you burn yourself out. Now you might say this sounds terrible, why the hell would you want a power so dangerous? Well, the benefit would be that once you have the shield it would work zap people attacking you to dissipate said shield... essentially heal it back up so it won't overload. This could scale up aggressively by level to 1d6 and then 1d8 electrical, maybe even higher to 1d10 once you're up near level 10. This is great if, say, someone with an electrical weapon is hitting you in the face. It is terrible if, say, you're fighting another mage who is shooting lightning at you, though.

Another thing you could do with the charge buildup would be to manually channel it through yourself, into the Orb. This would again cause direct damage to you, though in a MUCH smaller increment compared to the overload explosion, and it'd be an alternative, high risk way to recharge your orb. Probably something like 1d8 HP damage to recharge an equal amount of charge into your Orb. Another alternative could be that you don't recharge the orb with it, but while the shield is up it will supercharge your Orb powers and they get cast at 1 or 2 levels higher, damage and DC wise, or something like that. This is a touchy balance thing which would have to be explored.

The duration is another factor that could fluctuate... it's the kind of buff where sometimes you want it to last awhile, but often you probably wouldn't. 2 Turns as a flat duration before the extra charge "dissipates" would be fine, honestly, though that's a discussion topic on whether it should be longer/shorter. Any shorter and I think it'd be very hard to overload and die, which is not the goal, you want the whole setup to be dangerous and risky. Any longer and it becomes an albatross where you're stuck lugging around all this extra charge that could kill you at any moment, which is also not great.




The ultimate goal of the suggestion is to sort of make the Perk more focused in on a crazy electrical manipulator type of theme... you can redirect and channel lightning through your orb and around you, but it's freaking lightning - it's extremely volatile and can easily blow up in your face and hurt/kill you and everyone around you. This kinda helps to supplement the fact that unlike the other two "elementalist" Perks, there REALLY are not many lightning spells in the game (and all the good ones are at a level that's beyond the scope of this server... namely, Chain Lightning), nor would converting fire element spells to lightning make sense for them like hydromancer already does. So instead, where it lacks in variety, it makes up for it in funky mechanics. Ultimately, the shield mechanics and whatnot wouldn't necessarily come into play most of the time (unless some particularly crazy PC intentionally employs it, like intentionally standing close to scintillating spheres when they go off, but that's on them and also a totally valid high risk/reward way to play if they want), but it would make Infuser battles or an infuser battling anything with lightning supremely unpredictable but also very cool and strategic... a clever infuser could manipulate the electricity in such a way as to power flex and put on a fancy lightshow, while one with less skill might end up just blowing him/herself up, along with everyone around them. Either way, it's entertaining to watch and seems pretty fun.

And yes, I realize the shielding mechanics could be a bitch and a half/entirely impossible to actually code given the limitations of NWScript... but here's hoping.

Thoughts?


EDIT:
I fully acknowledge this is a total pain in the ass to code and is a bit much for a single power for a single Perk of a single class, but I'd say it could be reused for planar electrical enemies where overloading their electric DR so they explode could be a valid tactic (and safer for the meleers who would be taking electrical damage with each attack otherwise) or it could be used for puzzles/quests a la that planar defense Rift one where you charge tesla towers or some sort of Ring Device up with wants of jolt or something as part of the puzzle mechanic, and making it overload could be some sort of boss damage mechanic or I don't know what.

An alternative idea could be to make it a simple Electrical Shield ability they can use once/day or something like that, and it has a decent level of electrical damage it can absorb, but once it "breaks" it will explode on the caster and damage them. While it's up, it could give the electrical damage Death Shield (or Death Field, even) effect, or even at high level it could, not unlike the tesla coils in that quest, randomly discharge and chain to a couple targets nearby, friendly or otherwise, sort of like an area denial lightning power. That could be a neat compromise option too.
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