30 réponses à ce sujet

[PJ156]

I like to build up npc concepts when I have time to think. This is one possible for the Night of One Hundred Moons.

I thought I could share her with you perhaps for comments on functionality. Others may wish to add their own npc concepts to build a pool of base ideas.

So with that in mind let me tell you about Alice.

Alice is 12 years old, Alice is a favoured soul and Alice is dead ….

Several years ago Alice lived at Dragon Scar near Lakeside with her mother, her two brothers and her, minor noble, father. They lived the life of the lucky few with access to money and she was happy.

That changed when her father went on a trip to Balders Gate to meet with some merchants. While there he caught a plague. A nasty and fatal disease with a long gestation period. He brought that home to Lakeside. When he started to show symptoms they tried to cure him but it was no use. When others in the town started to show symptoms along with the nobles family the towns folk panicked and took matters in their own hands.

A mob formed and marched on Dragon Scar, they murdered the nobleman with arrows in front of his house while his family watched and then nailed the doors and windows up and burned down dragon scar with Alice and her family inside. The family tried to get away from the flames by going into the cellars but the mob set smoke fires in a lower entrance and the family were overcome by flames and flumes. The last Alice saw of her mother was when she attempted to get back up into the burning mansion to find a way to get her children out.

The story of the family became a scar on the conscience of the town of lakeside. Another thing that is not talked about. Once the disease had run it's course the town tried to forget about Dragon Scar.

None of the family left Dragon Scar, the terror of the last moments on the prime material holding them there in undeath. The mothers and brother bitterness turned them into terrible abominations killing any who came close. Alices innocence and lack of understanding of her circumstances did something different. She still believes she is alive and waits in an eternal tableau of horror in the smoke and flames of the basement waiting to be rescued.
Alice may be rescued and may join the party.

And here starts the real tragedy …. In rescuing her you will finally consign her family to the gods and they will find peace. Alice had peace of sorts in that she thinks she is alive, when it is pointed out to her that this is not true she starts to break up a bit.

At the end of the day she is a 12 year old girl and while she tries to be mature she thinks and acts like a 12 year old. Having her around will be funny, infuriating peaceful and chaotic. She will give love in spades but will need special care if she is not to leave the party.

Functionally she will operate like a normal npc. Though she will have regeneration so keeping her down will be impossible.

She will start out LN but each time the player treats her badly she will shift towards Chaoes by 10 points, When she reaches CN she will leave the party and wander the forgotten realms for ever lost and lonely waiting for someone to finally put her to rest.

She will not level up through exp. If the PC is good to her she will level up in stages. So the PC's reward for treating her well and helping her to come to terms with her death and that of her family will be additional levels.

The downside to this is that, as she comes to understand her situation she will start to want to leave. As time goes by she will fade until toward the end of the mod she will have one final cut scene in which she will fade from the prime and join her parents. In the last instance the spirit of her father will come to meet her and gift the party with a saints blood pearl effectively replacing her in the party since she will be no great warrior only a healing.

Having Alice in the party will be bright and uplifting I want he player to be torn by the need to nurture her knowing that in doing so they are pushing her away. When she leaves I want snot and tears not from the avatar in games but from the player sitting at their PC.

Functionally Alice will be hard to write and balance. I am not sure I have the skill to write her dialogue but I am going to give it a go. I don't know if she will be used but I welcome your comments and your ideas for npc's

PJ

Modifié par PJ156, 09 mars 2011 - 07:33 .

[Arkalezth]

Sounds nice, both the story and the gameplay mechanics. It reminds me of another module (I won't say which one due to spoilers, PM me if you want to know) that had a similar character. In that module, depending on your dialogue choices, she could end seeing you as an adoptive father.

[MasterChanger]

This kind of characterization makes for truly memorable story-telling. Well-thought out.

[kamal_]

PJ156 wrote...
Alice is dead ….

Word of warning. Undead party members can not be healed normally, as you can not target them with the inflict wounds line since that's an offensive spell.

[Quixal]

That sounds like a fantastic character concept. I hope you can pull it off. I agree writing the dialogue will be tricky at best. I will put on my thinking cap and try to come up with some ideas that might help.

kamal_ wrote...
Word of warning. Undead party members can not be healed normally, as you can not target them with the inflict wounds line since that's an offensive spell.

The regeneration should solve this problem. That is what I used to solve the healing issues in your mod, though the mass inflict wound spells did work in a pinch (the issue is the inflict wounds spells not targeting allies but this gets around the problem).

[Arkalezth]

Last time I played, Kamal's undead could be healed by the AI (bug), at least with healing kits. I don't remember if spells worked, and didn't try potions.

[Quixal]

Potions don't work. healing kits do. Are you saying healing spells were working or the inflict various wounds spells were working?

[M. Rieder]

You could make some sort of item - undead ointment or something like that, and scatter it about, or make it craftable, maybe by alice. You could use the ointment to heal her.

Overall the idea sounds really interesting. As Alice begins to fade as she nears her transition to returns to her parents, you could add an ethereal-type visual effect to her and maybe even some concealment bonus in combat. That would be neat.

[kamal_]

You can't target a companion directly with an inflict wounds spell, but the area affect spells can affect them if they are in the AoE and the target is not them. Healing kits working appears to be a game bug, since they heal they should not work. Resting and regeneration affects will also heal them, though once again regeneration from items or spells probably shouldn't affect them as regen is essentially a positive energy healing effect like cure spells. If you gave them regeneration on the creature skin (ie not from item/spell) you could say the effect was due to them draining essence from the natural world or something and it would make logical sense.

The undead companion in PoE has some vampiric touch type abilities to provide combat healing, but something like that seems to not fit Alice since she doesn't really realize she's dead. Obsidian apparently never anticipated undead companions.

[Arkalezth]

Quixal wrote...

Potions don't work. healing kits do. Are you saying healing spells were working or the inflict various wounds spells were working?

I meant normal healing spells, but I didn't have him in my party for too long and don't remember the exact details. I remember him being healed by AI controlled companions, but not if always with kits or also spells.

M. Rieder wrote...

Overall the idea sounds really
interesting. As Alice begins to fade as she nears her transition to
returns to her parents, you could add an ethereal-type visual effect to
her and maybe even some concealment bonus in combat. That would be
neat.

Agreed, bonuses from story advancement are cool.

Another note on undead companions (in PoE at least): Kamal told me favored class was supposedly undead, but I made him a Fighter 1/Warlock X, with no XP penalty. So I guess it really was either any, or Fighter. It could be Warlock, but I don't think so, because it's not favored for any race. Any seems the more likely. Maybe this doesn't have any importance in Alice's case, but it's good to know.

[kamal_]

Yep. The advancement xp penalty thing. The favored class of the undead race is undead. So according to normal rules any multiclassing should give an xp penalty. But it simply didn't happen with my undead companion. Another reason to think undead companions were not anticipated. If Alice is allowed to multiclass, she will be able to do so without penalty.

Anyway, Alice sounds like a cool, memorable npc.

[Arkalezth]

In addition to my last paragraph: to test it, I first leveled him as a character with 3 base classes, 1/3/5 at 9, and he got a penalty (any race-class combination should). Then I reloaded and leveled him as I said before. So he can indeed incur into a penalty, but the favored class isn't undead (unless two favored classes are possible). Why, I can't tell.

Modifié par Arkalezth, 09 mars 2011 - 07:10 .

[The Fred]

Actually, according to the racial subtypes 2da, it seems the favoured class for undead is actually... wait for it... outsider. Go figure. I'm guessing that, somehow, the racialtypes.2da takes precedence over it, which would set it to undead. Either way, you could easily modify the file or even make a custom subrace.

[The Fred]

Incidentally, I watched a TV program recently about a house which was haunted by a girl called Alice. Funny, the name seems to be popular for things like that. ;-)
I never saw how it ended, though.

[Arkalezth]

The Fred wrote...

Actually, according to the racial subtypes 2da, it seems the favoured class for undead is actually... wait for it... outsider. Go figure.

Yes, Alice seems like a popular name in these cases. I don't remember the name of the ghost girl in the module I mentioned, but it could also be Alice or something similar.

[Omega27]

The Fred wrote...

Incidentally, I watched a TV program recently about a house which was haunted by a girl called Alice. Funny, the name seems to be popular for things like that. ;-)
I never saw how it ended, though.

The name Alice is so popular i had to create my own for my mod,

Also many points fot this character id love to see the story play out.

[PJ156]

Thanks for the ideas here guys.
Thanks for the heads up Kamal_ I will look at the undead class issue. I think perhaps I will either simply make her human (since that is what she believes her self to be and it is only belief that ties her to this plane) or I will do as MR suggests and provide an elixir. I think that she will have very few hp so will go down quickly in combat but fast regeneration will bring her back up again quickly. I think of her as having essence rather than hp.

She will be a power based class favoured soul is my favorite and I thin that sits well with her position betwen life and death.

I like the idea of using vfx to simulate her fading. I will investigate what is available.

Quixal, if you have any ideas for dialogue please PM me. I am starting to develop some thoughts which I need to get down on paper any help available would be appreciated.

Ark, I would be grateful for that mod link. If it is not too long I may play it. Bit short on time at the mo though

PJ

[PJ156]

Heh, lot's more posts while I was loading the dishwasher.

I don't know why Alice came to mind but you are right it is a name I associate with this kind of character. Names can change though.

PJ

[Dann-J]

She sounds a bit like Lucy from the Dark Waters trilogy - except that she was a summoned 'creature' rather than a companion. She had a special ability that proved quite useful if you ran out of air while underwater.

Modifié par DannJ, 09 mars 2011 - 09:46 .

[Quixal]

The name fits well. While there is nothing wrong with changing it, I wouldn't just because it is in common use. One can overthink such things.

[Shaughn78]

I really like this Alice character and think she will add a lot to a game. Be ready for writing a lot of dialog.

Undead companions........
Like kamal I have one too and they pose an interesting challange but they are a neat little change to standard game play.
For healing I had a lich so I allowed him to carry around his phylactery and use it 3 times a day to do the equivellent of cure serious wounds on himself only. As mentioned healing kits also work. Also with the regeneration and undead bonuses she should hold her own. Immunity to sneak attack, critical hits, poison and all that are huge. If you wanted to go really crazy you could make her incorporeal and she would have the bonus chance to be missed on hits.

Favored classes.
Undead do not have a favored class. They have a class identified in the 2da as favored, but so do humans, fighter. On the subrace 2da they have a false on the favored class, the offical playable subraces have enforced favord class (excluding humans & half-elves) as do a handful of creatures, but not undead. So she should act just like a human and not be elligable for a xp penalty until she picks up a 3rd base class.

Modifié par Shaughn78, 10 mars 2011 - 12:35 .

[Arkalezth]

Shaughn78 wrote...

So she should act just like a human and not be elligable for a xp penalty until she picks up a 3rd base class.

That's what I thought, thanks for the clarification.

Just for the record, the ghost girl I was talking about was called Phoebe, not Alice. Maybe I was thinking of Lucy from Dark Waters.

[kamal_]

Companions with stories to them are good!

[Ykhare]

Since she's incorporeal, I assume she'll be prevented from equiping traditional gear ?
That may help with your intent that she should be "a healer, not a mighty warrior", as well as maybe templating her for each of her intended power levels ?

Not sure about her class though. What power would she be a favored soul of ? The deities associated with healing usually take a dim view of undeath. Ilmater maybe, because of the suffering ? But I doubt Ilmater would favor someone whose personality is prone to childish swings and taking alignment plunges toward CN.

Maybe she could be a Spirit shaman ? Or just a spirit with commoner class and powers granted through items with uses/day.
Level 1 Alice's Spectral Stuffed Unicorn : Cure superficial wounds - Unlimited, Cure light wounds - 3/day
Level 2 Alice's Spectral Stuffed Unicorn : Cure superficial wounds - Unlimited, Cure light wounds - 3/day, Protection from evil - 3/day
Etc...

Maybe a spirit shaman PC may have some extra influence/leeway/perks/whatever, out of the interaction with her ? Or a Doomguide or other PC with a divine base or prestige class & Kelemvor as a deity (those latter may also be in for an extra penalty if she ends up roaming the Realms in unrest) ?

[Arkalezth]

If deity is a problem, maybe you could do a custom class, or drop the deity requirements of Favored Souls, or something.