Neverwinter Nights 2 Forum News (Jun. 06, 06)

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Here are today's Neverwinter Nights 2 forum highlights, collected by NWVault. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

J.E. Sawyer, NWN2 Lead Designer

familiar tyme
The oft-neglected familiar can be a fun pal in D&D. We (meaning Brock) have been working hard to make them be all that they can be. Our first pass at implementing familiars was received less than enthusiastically by QA. We went back to the drawing board, cut the familiars in half, stuffed their guts with ioun stones, and arrived at this implementation:

* Familiars are available to wizards and sorcerers at character creation. These are the available critters:

- Bat: Master gains +3 to Listen checks.
- Beetle: Master gains +1 hit point per level.
- Cat: Master gains +2 to Move Silently and Hide checks.
- Pig: Master gains +3 to Diplomacy checks.
- Rabbit: Master gains +1 bonus to all saves.
- Rat: Master gains +2 to Fortitude saves.
- Spider: Master gains +3 to Bluff checks.
- Weasel: Master gains +2 to Reflex saves.

* The bonus granted by the familiar is only active when the familiar has been summoned.
* Familiars can be summoned or unsummoned by the master at any time. If a familiar is unsummoned before dying, it can be summoned again without penalty.
* If a familiar is killed, the master immediately loses the bonus provided by the familiar, has -2 to Con for the next 8 hours, and cannot summon the familiar again until after resting.
* The player of the master can take direct control of the familiar. While under the master's control, the familiar has very limited capabilities. It cannot manipulate objects in any meaningful way and cannot speak to people (duh). It is capable of walking/running around, entering and exiting stealth mode, and being used as a conduit for the master's touch-based spells.
* If a familiar goes more than 25' from the master, an effect plays on it that indicates it is reaching the maximum extent of its master's control. If the familiar goes more than 30' from the master, the master's control is severed. Control is forced back into the master and the familiar runs back to the master immediately.

More: Familiars can't go in backpacks, but they can be summoned/unsummoned pretty easily. They can also be commanded like other party members with the broadcast commands, so you don't need to take direct control of it if you want it to stop or follow.

No, familiars cannot attack on their own. The only way they can initiate an attack is by being a conduit for a touch spell from the master.

More:

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Although you mind telling about the failed attempt ? Why werent the QA happy with the 1st familiar system?

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They didn't like not being able to control their familiars, especially since the familiars are so fragile. By allowing direct control and allowing touch spells to be cast through them, their viability and usefulness went way up.

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It's magic so it doesn't have to make sense, but I'm kinda confused by the bonuses from the pig and spider - why the social buffs from these animals?

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Because they're rad.

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Quote: Compared to the other animals, they also don't seem very useful to Sorcerers, who have a high CHA anyway.

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Sorcerers may have high Cha, but they might not have high Int scores. Alternately, they might not want to put points into those skills. Or they could be familiars for wizards. They're mostly there for people who like to have ROELEPLAEYINGE type characters.

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Nice...

But why no Owls, Ravens or Snakes?

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They were never made.

More: Pigs and spiders weren't created to be familiars. They became familiars because they were available.

EDIT: Yes, familiars can "chat", but they can't participate in proper dialogues.

EDIT 2: Oui, le chat "chats".

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If you choose the cat - wouldn't it be like a catch-22 just to have the hide/move silently bonus it provides, if it is still in plain sight and gets attacked?

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They can also go into stealth mode (and they are pretty good at it).

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A question I don't think anyone has asked - will familiars have HP that follows D&D rules (based on the master) and gain abilities such as evasion, share spells etc?

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They gain evasion and a few other abilities, but their hit points advance as the master does -- they don't have a portion of the master's hit points. Also, they do not share the benefits of spells.

More: They have very few hit points and are pretty easy to kill if an enemy decides to focus on it.

Anthony Davis, Programmer

familiar tyme
Dude, the pig is wiggle shizzle!

Nathaniel Chapman, NWN2 Q&A

Cutscenes for the budding cinematographer.

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Daronas, if you are responding in general, please ignore me as you will. Let me preface this with what I currently comprehend of what the Dev response in this regard is:

• Cutscene use is, in essence, a form of dialogue choice.
• A cutscene cannot be used if the area being used is not in the area where the character is "viewing" the cutscene.
• Cameras can be scripted to Pan, Zoom, Follow and Fade (including color.)

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First two points are correct. Dummy areas have been used in FPSes such as Unreal and Half-Life for years - pretty standard stuff, pretty powerful.

Cameras cannot, however, have scripted movement. That is what I was talking about.

You CAN have the camera follow a character who has scripted movement if the camera is in 'random' mode, but you won't have precise control over distance, position, or in all likelyhood angle. Also, you won't be able to have a moving camera look at any non-speaker; if you want to have the camera track something else with a character talking in the background, you're out of luck.

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Let me clarify on random angles...

They are not truly random, we have called them that internally because they are not static and because if you do not specify a shot type the engine will randomly pick one. A better term is a "dynamic shot", or something of the like. Essentially, you select "Close Up", "Long Shot", etc. and the game engine will attempt to frame the character as appropriate. This allows you to still have some control over a cutscene that could occur anywhere in an area (or even possibly in one of many areas).

You can also use this to have some control over the positioning of a moving camera shot.

Also: you do not HAVE to have all the shots of a cutscene occur in the same area... of course, you could have the final node of a cutscene initiate an area transition to the next area and have it start the next part of the cutscene there, but the player will see a load screen while it loads the next area, of course. If you're willing to deal with that, you can easily have a cutscene that transitions from an interior to an exterior and back.