177 réponses à ce sujet

[Lugaid of the Red Stripes]

I'm trying to make my work-in-progress a bit more rogue friendly, so I was going through and adding pickpocketable items to various NPC's.  Normally a failed pickpocket attempt results in the  NPC attacking the player, but this behavior can be easily changed by altering the NPC's on-disturbed event.
Since I don't want my players breaking the mod by fighting friendly factions, I was wondering what kind of simple penatly I could give the player for failing (a more elaborate system, of course, could use non-global factions, scripted guards, and a prison system, but I'll save that for another project).
I'm leaning towards an indigant remark from the NPC and maybe a little bit of damage to the offending PC, but I was wondering what else was possible.

[kevL]

price increase at the vendors?

lowering faction-standing with Defenders? might need safeguards, limits or periodic reset

.. both?

(trying to keep it simple here, in a more complicated system, I'd try to have a Good quest or hint system that became impossible to complete with too many detections)

(or, I'd create specialist NPC rogues that grew increasingly tuff and stealthy and send them after the PC, heheh)

[steelfire_dragon]

Having the guards show up and fine the pcs





having the guildsmaster send a man to fine you



up prices





have guards show up and arrest PC and fade to black



PC wakes up in a mine where pc must escape, and get pcs gear back along the way

[Ykhare]

Ok, so pickpocketing that necromancer maybe wasn't a very good idea...

Mummified hand
Stinks and twitches and scratches (when in inventory -2 to Charisma, +3 to intimidate, -3 to stealth/move silently/sleight of hand, maybe some kind of emote when those are attempted)
Cursed (can't be dropped, sold or traded ingroup, different ways of removal : little quest for the necro, temple of Lathander or other suitable do-gooders, priest of Mask associated with local thieves guild (for whom the hand has become something of a running joke ?), maybe plain old remove curse spell too if you want to keep it simple... at which time it hightails to dark corners and back to its owner.

Modifié par Ykhare, 09 janvier 2011 - 02:43 .

[Friar]

I've been thinking about this too.

The best idea I came up with is to have the guards chase down and kill the PC.

The PC must hide and while waiting it out in a "safehouse" a script would reset the faction standing to normal.

[nicethugbert]

Bear Trap = -dex.

[steelfire_dragon]

hunting down pcs and kill them is a bit overkill

[manageri]

I think you shouldn't use the standard sleight of hand AT ALL. EVER. There's two main ways you can implement it and both have issues:



- No penalty when caught. This lets you try it over and over and it's just a boring case of standing there hitting the button once a round till you make it.

- Some penalty. This means the player will just load the game when they fail which is even more boring.



So I think the best way is to have the skill check in a conversation tree, and if you fail you simply don't get anything but the NPC doesn't notice it either. Whether you succeed or not you don't get to try again on that NPC.

[PJ156]

I had planed but not implemented a town/global credit system.

Doing something positive in  town - helping etc raisees you town notoriety etc

Doing something bad lowers it - pickpocketing would fall in this one.

Effects I planned are:

Higher prices.
Increasingly snarky comments/greetings from npc's.
Better inn refusing to serve you followed by middle class in refusing to serve you.
Over time you lose access to a good quest but someone from the tenements approcahes you with a job.
Once your town credit was low enough people would react to you on thier on percieved script by passing a comment and walking away from you, returning to thier way point once they you have passed. 

I had others but these are module related. Certainly the priciple npc would comment on your behavior as he does in CC when you threaten to hit one of the townsfolk.

This goes beyond pickpocketing as it covers all actions while in town good and bad. Given the poor communication I infer in the game it need only apply to the town you are in or your rep could spread by word of mouth?

I intent to implement this for These Dark Days of Waiting where it will be an important part of how your character intereacts with the town at large.

I have pickpocktable items in The Last Days ot Raven, here as an interim I was going to have pop ups or potetially rely on the fact that pickpockets need the quicksave key 

PJ 

Manageri said

So I think the best way is to have the skill check in a conversation tree, and if you fail you simply don't get anything but the NPC doesn't notice it either. Whether you succeed or not you don't get to try again on that NPC.

I like that idea very much, it takes the fun out of creeping round the market trying to make and extra few pennies. Still it is a very good compromise as failure does not require an action from the NPC unless you want to script or write in the convo something specific but sucess or failure could still affect your overall rating in the town. You may also in this case have harder and softer targets and test to see if an attempt is even possible. I guess you could script that too but I dont know how to do that except in a covno

Modifié par PJ156, 09 janvier 2011 - 08:48 .

[kamalpoe]

For pickpocketing a non hostile npc:

Failed attempt "summons the guard". The guard doesn't have to actually be summoned, you fade to black for a few seconds, fade back in, advance the game clock a few hours or whatever, and take some gold from the pc (bribe/bail/fine whatever), and use a speakstring over the players head to indicate what happened. Obviously you only do this in places the guard could be summoned.

[dunniteowl]

I didn't read all this atm. *(I have a pounding head) Might I simply say:



PRR 3.0 by vendalus on the Vault. Most of what my eyes read and brain caught indicated that this might be something of value to you.



dno

[BartjeD]

The baldurs gate 2 approach of getting caught lowering party reputation seems pretty good to me. If it gets too low you will be arrested by the city guard.



Plus there was a chance of turning the person hostile. Not commoners though, they just ran away I think. Maybe they could call in a city guard?

[The Fred]

It might be simpler just to have the NPC start a conversation with the PC. Then you would have options to kill them, talk your way out of it, etc. This is probably also more realistic - if you imagine you just caught someone pickpocketing you, you'd probably confront them.

[Lugaid of the Red Stripes]

The political situation in the mod is precarious enough that local guards wouldn't be a useful solution, especially since the PC would be able to overpower them. I have a reputation system in place for merchants, but so far there is no real downside to offending regular commoners.

I want a simple penalty that adds a bit of risk to pickpocketing and discourages spamming like manageri was talking about. I could add a spot-skill bonus to the NPC on fail, and that would effectively preclude a second attempt. Maybe a hit to the PC's charisma, sleight of hand, and appraise skills would also work. Essentially the PC gets to run around trying to steal stuff until they get caught, at which point they have to stop and go do something else, like a hunter than makes too much noise and scares off the game.

My idea is that I can just replace the default script that's used by all NPC's, that way the player can try to pickpocket anybody, merchants, allies, peasants, even enemies, without having to write special conversations or script events that might confuse the flow of the larger plot.

Thanks for the input so far, what I really want to know is what makes pickpocketing fun and interesting, and how do I get a good balance with just a little bit of work.

[nicethugbert]

PCs could apologize and try to bluff it, or diplomacy or intimidate. If they fail or get caught pick pocketing again then the penalties can be increased.



I think increasing penalties is what makes the system more believable and workable.



The dialog skills could be factored into the system if you want to avoid writing the dialog. But, th player will need a break down of the roll and it's factors, or some other indicator, so he knows the effectiveness of his choices. Otherwise there is no game there.



There could also be atonement or reputation repair quests.



Maybe the merchants refuse to trade, or penalize trade, as long as the offending party member is within perception distance. If you are using SoZ convo, then that companion cannot lend his skills to the convo.

[Arkalezth]

I was going to suggest something like the guard patrols when smuggling in The Last of the Danaan, but you've already replied to that.

If guards are not a solution, what about this: if you fail once, a thief from a thieves guild comes and warns you that you can't pickpocket in their territory. If you fail several times, they can attack you. Maybe you could also do some quest for the guild, or pay a fee and have more freedom...I guess this can mean more work for you, but I'm short on ideas.

Whatever system you use in the end, I like this:

There could also be atonement or reputation repair quests.

[nicethugbert]

I like the thieves guild idea.

[Shaughn78]

I think starting a nwn1 convo on fail may be the easiest and most flexable thing.



Have a number of skill/feat checks to get away when caught. Hide in plain sight may be useful to just disapear if you're caught, same if you're carrying a invisibility potion. Have a few talking and bribe options, maybe even an over the top perform. If you get away have a minor to no penalties.



Penalties:

-alignment change

-I like the reputation shift with defenders, at some point move them to nuetral so they no longer help player. May or may not have much impact depending on how you set up your encounters.

-Temporary decreases. People are on the look for you, drop slieght of hand skill, drop charisma

-Lose of money. Especially if you fail to get away.



I would also suggest keeping a local int on the character to track the number of times they fail, maybe even area specific. So the more failures the greater the penalties. Use them as a multiplier for gold lost or to other penalties. At a certain # spawn in hostile guards, increasing in number with each future failure.



A local theives guild would be able to lower the int for a price so the penalties won't get too out of control should you really stink at pickpocketing.

[nicethugbert]

The rival rogues could attack when the player rests. 

Modifié par nicethugbert, 09 janvier 2011 - 11:58 .

[Eguintir Eligard]

As has been said here, I think the BG2 approach is best. There's almost nothing that game didn't do right I always fall back on it when I am in doubt. I don't even ask questions that are already covered there, or at least in another game successfully I just borrow and move on. Less time reinventing the wheel the better, it means more original development time.

[nicethugbert]

Rival rogues could attack at other times too, from a distance. Pepper the pick pocket with a few arrows then disappear. It could escalate if rival rogues are killed.  Traps to cover the get away route?

Not all of us have played BG or want to.

Modifié par nicethugbert, 10 janvier 2011 - 12:01 .

[kamalpoe]

A player could be "encouraged" to join the local thieves guild, like Yoshimo.



/ntb you should.

[kevL]

Lugaid, i think the most mentions go to Vendor-prices less favorable idea

along with that, a generic conversation with a number of optional mini-plot-paths : sneak away with HiPS, bluff / intimidate / diplomacy, Invis. spell or potion (etherealness etc), or an atoning payment based on level of NPC. maybe Defenders less friendly, as suggested, whether or not to the degree of Attack-on-Sight

personally i'd end up concocting an elaborate subplot with the local Thieves' Guild. lots of other good ideas, tho, including a message & code stating that the rogue can't try again on the same NPC for, say an hour

in any case, this :

th player will need a break down of the roll and it's factors, or some other indicator, so he knows the effectiveness of his choices. Otherwise there is no game there.

-Ntb

But if you're really looking for 'fun & interesting', i say it's pretty much the opposite of 'simple' so ..

[nicethugbert]

Had BGII. Bored me to tears.

[Eguintir Eligard]

thats relevant