Neverwinter Nights Forum News

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(Originally posted by Veldrin)

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context.

David Gaider, Designer

Quote: 1) I know one could swap out an NPC's equipment after levelling up, but can this equipment upgrade be included in the command? For example, are there templates that can be used (specifying class, skills, feats & inventory) when levelling an NPC?

No, the equipment isn't included in the command. The way it works is this:

1) In the toolset when you create the creature, you can now specify the package being used for its initial class (a la the packages the PC can select).

2) In the LevelUpHenchman command, you can specify the class the henchman is to use to level up. If it is the initial class and a package is selected for it, it levels up according to the package selected. If it is a secondary class, it levels up according to the class's base package.

Now, I assume that custom package .2da's could be created, but that's in the realm of normal experimentation by the end user. It does, as well, just apply to the things that are normally leveled up on a character, and not the equipment... any equipment changes would have to be done via custom scripting.

Quote: 2) Can any NPC be levelled up this way, or only one currently in the PC's employ?

I don't know the answer to that. I would assume that any NPC can be leveled up, but I might be wrong.

Quote: 3) Do I need custom templates for each NPC I want to act as a henchman, or (using Deva Bryson Winblood's NPC Activities wrapper scripts) can I switch any NPC into a henchman and level them up appropriately? (I think it would be really cool if just about any NPC with whom a PC interacts could join the PC's party.)

So long as the NPC has the appropriate scripts used by henchman, they can act as a henchman does.

Oh... and I suppose I may as well just post the full layout for the command:

int LevelUpHenchman( object oCreature, int nClass = CLASS_TYPE_INVALID, int bReadyAllSpells = FALSE)

- Levels up a creature using default settings.
- If successfull it returns the level the creature now is, or 0 if it fails.
- If you want to give them a different level (ie: Give a Fighter a level of Wizard) you can specify that in the nClass.
- However, if you specify a class to which the creature no package specified, they will use the default package for that class for their levelup choices. (ie: no Barbarian Savage/Wizard Divination combinations)
- If you turn on bReadyAllSpells, all memorized spells will be ready to cast without resting.

Quote: Does the limit of 3 different classes still apply? It looks like you could call this function 5 times with a different class each time...

The limit of three classes still applies. If you tried a fourth, the command would simply return FALSE with a failed level-up.

Quote: Do NPC's gain experience, and if they do, do they level up automatically? Or should one simulate this through scripting, e.g. making an experience variable on the NPC and level him if the experience reaches the next level.

NPC's do not gain XP, and while you can assign XP to them through scripting they also would not level up unless specifically scripted to.

Incidentally, in case anyone was wondering, we actually do offer you some choice with regards to the way the henchmen level up in SoU. Basically they will have a "default" level-up scheme that they will use if you don't direct them otherwise. Through dialogue, however, you can direct them to apply themselves in one direction or the other. One of the henchmen, for instance, starts off as a rogue and will take some cleric levels as she levels up by default. You can speak to her, however, and tell her to continue from that point as either a rogue or as a cleric until you direct her to do otherwise.

Quote: Currently, it is not possible to delete waypoints. I wonder if we will also gain that ability with the new expansion pack?

Yes... as I understand it, waypoint objects will become both createable and deleteable.

Quote: While we are talking about creatable waypoints, do you know if the waypoints will only be able to be created at locations that are "in" rooms/corrdors, or will they be creatable at any location, including locations that are "in the walls"?

I've never tried it. I suspect that before any object is created it looks to see if the location is a valid one... it probably won't change that check solely for waypoints.

Quote: Also, I was wondering if there was a "David Gaider's list of all the stonkin' new scripting features in XP1" somewhere? Or is it a question of "scouring the boards for posts of new features as David Gaider finds them"?

No, there's no list of the scripting commands I've talked about. There are a few posts in the SoU section that talks about a few... the rest I'll probably leave as surprises.

Familiars: Here's the thing, though. Way back when we were implementing familiars in the first place, we had a decision to make. We didn't have many small creatures... as a matter of fact, at the time small creatures were considered to be impractical to create and use at all (this was before the chicken came along... or was it the egg?). Heck, we didn't even have a rat! So we had to use larger creatures. And while we could have implemented inherent bonuses and perhaps even the familiar-delivers-touch-attack ability (although that seems a little more problematic), it was decided that the inherent combat bonus that these larger familiars brought with them made that unnecessary, especially considering the needed balance that brought to the lone wizard/sorcerer in the single-player game (which isn't a consideration for the end-user, perhaps, but we had to consider it). At this point, we could definitely go and finish up the list of small familiars and implement them more as per the PHB. I wouldn't mind that, myself... make a feat called "Improved Familiars" to get the others, or something. BUT that still leaves two very big questions:

1) What do you do with all the wizards and sorcerers out there who already have their current familiar? Do you give them "Improved Familiars" for free? Do you force them to pick from the proper list suddenly?

2) The biggie (for us): how does this affect the single-player game? It's pretty obvious to anyone with a passing knowledge of the game that D&D isn't really balanced for a single class to play. It wouldn't be too hard to make a module geared for a specific single class... but all of them? What happens to the single-player wizard or sorcerer that suddenly starts the NWN OC now with only a toad in his pocket? Call the decision to make the single-player game a bad one or what-have-you, it's not something that can be revoked at this point and we have to keep it in mind.

Now we may eventually decide to sort this out and re-vamp the familiar system officially. But it's going to take some careful consideration and a fair amount of work... not something we want to take on lightly when, in all real consideration, the current system is not really broken. I hope that answers your question, at least with regards to our point of view on the topic.

As Syrsuro pointed out, I said that familiars were made as they were partly to even up wizards and sorcerers with the melee classes in the single-player game. That doesn't relate to the overall difficulty of the OC and is not in and of itself "idiot-proofing", as you put it. I was simply explaining some of the reasoning behind the decisions that were made regarding familiars and how they affect possible future approaches to changing that system.

Quote: David, any response to Carl's proposed solution regarding familiars?

Well, it's not really a solution since there isn't actually a problem... but overall it sounds like it's not a bad idea. I rather suspect that seperating familiars into ones that take up XP and ones that don't would not be a trivial issue... we could certainly have them exist as an inventory item that could occasionally be "brought out" like in BG2, but if they're out during combat I'm not sure that it would be easy to make it so that they didn't take up XP like normal.Plus we would still need the models for all these new familiars, first.

Quote: Are any changes being made to familiars/animal companions?

Other than the new ones, no, not for SoU. I haven't heard of any plans to change familiars for XP2, either, but if we thought the change was relevant enough we might consider it.

Quote: It might be too much work, but is there a possibility of having interactions with the familiar be persistent, like with the SoU henchmen?

To what end? It could be done... I'm just not sure of the pay-off for having one's familiar remember if his master beats him regularly or not, and the module-specific advice thing is not something I'm very keen on (in my PnP group, I think the wizard asked his familiar for advice a total of one time... and it was good for a laugh, but not much else). If someone could suggest some form of interaction with familiars/animal companions that would be more meaningful (and not require a monumental amount of work... and, yes, a different dialogue for each type of familiar or animal companion DOES fall under that category), I'm all ears. I'm just not sure what kind of interaction you're looking for. As for having them level up on their own... I'm not sure it would be necessary to do that, as familiars basically level up when their owners do anyway. You'd also have to consider what would happen when a familiar or animal companion dies. What then? They don't get a new one until next level up? While, sure, that removes them from the possibility of being cannon fodder, it probably also means they wouldn't be used period. That's not better.

Custom Content: I believe there are plans for the Live Team to look at getting some functionality for the toolset to handle custom content better... it's not something the expansions are going to deal with, though.

Quote: *bump* on this until we hear it gets resolved...(memory leak)

The post above mentions another post on the General Discussion forum where I talked about this. A fix for this has already gone into our system, according to my last discussion with Derek French, but there ended up being more involved than was originally thought. A fair number of major files had to be changed, so there's quite a bit of testing to be done. Should all go well, this should be included in 1.30.

Quote: I suppose that there is a ClearAllActiosn being called here but i have no idea where and i have no idea where i would ask teh wolf to contimue running that waypoint. Is the wolf being "disturbed" when they bump into teh PC?

Sounds like you're running into a similar problem that our scripters have generally faced when trying to direct creatures about. Basically this is part of the way the pathing works... the wolves have already calculated their pathing back when they started running. When they run into an unforeseen obstacle (the PC), they stop. Because they aren't calculating new pathing, they don't continue moving. The trick, which isn't always possible, is to have the wolves figure out when they haven't reached their destination and to then re-calculate their path. The force move commands simply tell the creature that if they haven't reached their destination point in x seconds to teleport their... this was put in to solve some of these sorts of problems. My advice would be to set some sort of half-way waypoint that's a bit off to the side (have the wolves circle around), lessening the chance of the PC's getting in their way, and then have the wolves move first there and then to their destination. Beyond that, the force move commands may be your best solution.

Class Packages: Some of the classes have more than 4 packages (the bard and rogue, for instance, have 5 while the Wizard has one for each school)... but I don't think any of them are new. The prestige classes, meanwhile, have a base package but that's it. Since they'll always be non-primary classes, the LevelUpHenchman command would only use a default package for them anyway.

Don Moar, Tools Programmer

2 NPC Conversations: Just to be clear, the actual conversation should look like this:

PC: Did you...
--NPC1: No,...
----PC: Are you...
------NPC1: I'm sure...
--------PC: [Continue]
----------NPC2: Nonsense!...

(Notice the PC's [Continue] node.)

Now:
1. The node where NPC2 speaks should have NPC2's script tag in the node's Speaker field.
2. The conversation has to be assigned (at least) to the instance of NPC1 that's in the area.
3. An instance of NPC2 has to be in the area and reasonably close to NPC1.

That should do it.

Darcy Pajak, Assistant Producer

SoU: To update on the ability to play SoU characters on non-Sou servers:

We have begun the testing of SoU and Non SoU resources working together in multiplayer, and so far things look good. That's all the detail I can say at the moment, but we do think that we are going in the right direction.

(P.S. The game will be released when it is ready.)