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[Happycrow]

WORK IN PROGRESS!

 

This is off the top of my head and I will assuredly forget some things, but since I've noticed custom weapons/armor talk lately, I thought I'd show some details in case people would like to use this, and especially in case they like what they're seeing but have also done something custom which they might like to piggyback on with it (aka, advertising it now rather than just releasing it, so if you have custom whips or tomahawks or something, it can be included if desired).  

 

It's now in the "very close to done" stage, pending only blueprints and the attachment of a specific script to some weapons.

 

The purpose of the system is to add additional PC image choices, as well as to fix an ongoing factor in low-magic PWs and modules by using "blueprint magic" to buff warriors and the fighter class a bit.  Most PWs carrying the "low magic" aren't really low magic.  What they are, is low magic *items,* thus inadvertently empowering magic-wielding PCs (whose spell progressions are almost never nerfed), resulting in straight-up fighters being not only a rarity, but an outclassed rarity -- the fighters are actually the worst classes at fighting on said servers.

 

The graphics on this aren't fancy, and are meant to reuse as many existing textures as possible -- where custom textures were used, they were put onto models requiring the least possible texture use rather than necessarily the most "realistic" model. While I personally would love an actually-realistic system (I'm a RL specialist in medieval arms and armor - if you know more than me about this subject, there's a very good chance I either know your name or the institution in which you work), that's not always possible -- so if the kopis or falx doesn't quite look or behave like a kopis or falx, please, no nerd-raging.  

 

Certain armor and weapons are cadged from the Vault because reinventing the wheel was nonsensical. These are Tarim's katars and deer-horn knives, and tabards and armors/accessories from ACME Full Metal Packet.  The rest of the work is my own.

 

This system is (gradually, dev-time-allowing!) being implemented on the Tales of Moonsea PW, probably over the course of the next two to three months.  I'll have pics from the toolset for those interested soon.  All the 2da/TLK work and almost all the modelling/texturing work is finished, but I need to create all of the relevant blueprints and add scripts where appropriate/needed.

 

Requires custom:

1.  TLK

2. 2das:  Feat, Baseitem, Armorrulestats

 

The alterations made are significant enough that one should not assume compatibility with other custom weapon/armor/feat systems.

 

Armor System

 

A custom armorrulestats creating additional armor types and revamping the AC bonuses.

Also, "rigid" layer armors using the belt slot to be equipped over top of the base models are created.  They are somewhat bulkier than I would really prefer due to clipping issues, but allow PCs a truly significant ability to customize their looks.  

 

Equipped in Armor slot: clothing, cloth, padded, leathers, ring mails, chain mails, lightweight scale mail.

Eqipped in Belt slot: scale armor, cuir boilli, hide, and metal breastplates, leather and metal lamellars, coats of plate and banded armor.

 

Cloth01 is now a "nude" (underwear) texture build on the leather02 body.  I have refined the model a little bit, but it is distinctly unsexy (any good modellers want to help, would be great) and meant to indicate vulnerability, not sexy -- there's already LOTS of sexy in nwn2-land. Go get clothes. Or if that's a pain, just delete it and disregard.

 

All "stock" female models for the above-mentioned armors have been athleticized to be made flat-chested rather than the stock voluptuous models in order to minimize clipping issues -- this is required in order to avoid having the second layer of armors be laughably bulky. (You can be voluptuous and sexy in a dress, but an actual warrior would be binding herself down, not to mention the weight and rigidity of armor on the chest, not to mention that athletic builds are simply different than "sexy model" builds, and somebody who hikes long distances in armor on adventures is going to look a lot more like the former than the latter.)

 

Changes to the Armor system:

1. Mithril and adamantine are now reflected in AC and max dex bonus, rather than DR. This is to avoid conflicts with other DR sources and some outright broken things (such as adamantine shields simply not working in game).

2. Hide equivalents to mithril and adamantine are included - if you make a basic armor out of a thicker/stouter hide, that shows up in your AC. If you take a really good hide, and make it as thin as a regular armor, you may wind up with something as protective as a regular leather armor, but more supple -- think the difference between a good horsehide vs cowhide jacket.

3. Some lightweight clothing-type armors are classified as clothes so that low level monks can get a little loving, and because even wizards need heavy coats now and then.

4.  Bonus AC from the rigid layers are intended to not stack with standard wizard and cleric buffs where it's possible to prevent them from doing so (but then, if you're in a module, Mister Wizard gets a rest from being a buff-bot, yay).

5.  Shields *improve* rather than diminish parry. Marozzo can rest in peace.  (Yes, parry is broken, but frequently useful for low-level play, particularly for stick-and-move characters.

 

Weapon System

 

Significant alterations are made to the weapon system.

 

Weapon damage types: all weapons are now either piercing, bludgeoning, or slashing. No hybrids.

 

Proficiencies:

All curved blades are shifted to Exotic proficiency, though druids retain the use of scimitars.

Bastard Swords are removed from Exotic and moved to Martial.

Morningstar is moved to Martial (it is a d8 weapon far superior to any other simple weapon).

Kama is used as a generic term meaning "wierdo monk weapon," and several varieties are provided.

Warhammer retains its exceptional x3 crit, but its base damage is downgraded so as not to be quite so potent as to outclass the warmace.

 

Damage realignments:

Sickle is downgraded to d4, but like scythe, inflicts a x4 crit.

 

Shared Feats:

 

The current system of proficiencies and feats gimps Fighter by forcing him, if he's to hold his ground with other classes, to specialize. But since specialization is single-weapon-only, this results in weird stuff like a Fighter walking away from a seriously good weapon that's closely related to something he's very good with, because it's not the precise weapon with which he's invested Feats -- and mechanically, he's right to do so!  Several bread-and-butter weapons which are closely related now share proficiencies, with the notable exception of Weapon of Choice for the Weapons-master class.

 

Only martial and exotic weapons can share feats: rogue, simple, or wizard weapons never do.  A rogue can use a hand-axe, but his weapon focus in hand-axe isn't going to do him any good with a battle-axe or skirmisher's axe.  A warrior, on the other hand, can pick up pretty much any axe and benefit.

 

New Weapons:

 

Though the kama and quarterstaff get some loving, all new weapons are Martial proficiency.

 

Buckler: equips in the hand *as a weapon,* grants shield AC bonus (in the blueprint), allowing swashbucklers to benefit more from twf and particularly twd.  Inflicts bludgeoning damage.

Javelins:  piggybacks on Darts (because they're the same flipping weapon, it's just a size thing). Basically just some extra models and blueprints. Includes throwing knives.

Skirmisher's Axe:  as hand axe, except shares proficiency with larger axes, can be used for Power Attack but not Weapon Finesse, d6/x3, piercing-slashing.

Lance and Pike:  As spear, they have reach, but come with a built-in AC penalty, to reflect how worthless they are at close quarters and how hard it is to duck and dodge trying to balance out a long pole.

Slingbomb: a one-shot alchemical weapon, essentially sling and flaming sling-bullet in one.

Arbalest:  a VERY heavy crossbow which "goes away" (is destroyed) when shooting. It is "reloaded" by use of a cranking device.  It is thus very slow to load, and very hard-hitting.

 

Blueprint-based Weapon alteration

 

Some weapons can be altered to allow a slashing weapon to be used for bludgeoning or for thrusting (striking with the poll on an axe or military pick, or halfswording with a long sword), or to allow the grip to be shifted in order to focus primarily on offense or defense (non-spear pole weapons).  This will also probably extend to allowing some small shields to either be held on the arm or in the grip so that they convert from "shield" to "buckler" and vice-versa. Damage output may vary along with damage type (usually less damage on the secondary damage type).

 

Weapon Groupings

 

Longsword   1d8   19-20   x2   Slashing   Medium   Martial

Bastard sword   1d10   20   x2   Slashing   Medium   Martial

Greatsword   2d6   19-20   x2   Slashing   Large   Martial

                  

Scimitar   1d6   18-20   x2   Slashing   Medium   Exotic or Druid

Sabre   1d8   18-20   x2   Slashing   Medium   Exotic

Katana   1d10   19-20   x2   Slashing   Medium   Exotic

Falchion   1d10   18-20   x2   Slashing   Large   Exotic

                  

Handaxe   1d6   20   x3   Slashing   Small   Martial, Monk, Rogue, Spirit shaman

Skirmisher Axe   1d6   19-20   x3   Slashing   Medium   Martial

Battleaxe   1d8   20   x3   Slashing   Medium   Martial

Greataxe   1d12   20   x3   Slashing   Large   Martial

                  

Estoc   1d10   18-20   x2   Piercing   Large   Martial

Koncerz   1d8   18-20   x2   Piercing   Medium   Martial

Rapier   1d6   18-20   x2   Piercing   Medium   Martial, Rogue, Bard, Elf

Dagger 1d4 19-20 x2 Piercing Small (as standard)               

             

Light hammer   1d4   19-20   x2   Bludgeoning   Small   Martial

Warhammer   1d6   20   x3   Bludgeoning   Medium   Martial

Military Pick   1d6   19-20   x2   Piercing   Small   Martial

Morningstar   1d8   20   x2   Bludgeoning   Medium   Martial

Warmace   1d12   20   x2   Bludgeoning   Large   Martial

                  

Halberd   1d10   20   x2   Slashing   Large   Martial

Glaive   2d4   18-20   x2   Slashing   Large   Martial

                  

Kukri   1d4   18-20   x2   Slashing   Small   Exotic

Yataghan   1d6   18-20   x2   Slashing   Medium   Exotic

Kopis 1d8   19-20   x2   Slashing   Medium   Exotic

Falx   1d8   18-20   x2   Slashing   Large   Exotic

                  

Shortsword   1d6   19-20   x2   Piercing   Small   Martial, Bard, Rogue

Stiletto   1d4   18-20   x2   Piercing   Small   Martial

                  

Lance   1d10   20   x3   Piercing   Large   Martial

Pike   1d10   20   x3   Piercing   Large   Martial

                  

Buckler   1d4   20   x2   Bludgeoning      Martial

 

---

It is very likely that I will scour the old vault offerings for the light crossbow/musket blueprint and include that with credit of course given.

[rjshae]

Sounds ambitious. The one concern I would have is about moving the curved blades to exotic--in many cultures they were just the standard bladed weapon type. I think just grouping weapons like you have would take care of the issue.

[Dann-J]

 

The one concern I would have is about moving the curved blades to exotic--in many cultures they were just the standard bladed weapon type.

 

 

Surely those were *exotic* cultures (from a eurocentric point of view).

[Happycrow]

Indeed.  My specialty is east-central european military history, and I am routinely shocked at the degree to which military equipment I utterly take for granted in my research is considered absolutely *outlandish* by my western-euro-oriented peers.

 

There is plenty to critique in such a system and lots of places where this won't make all comers happy.  In general, the exotic weapons are slightly superior in some ways, but also less versatile in others.  The vanilla version of this being set for Faerun, where the cultures using the curved weapons *are* by and large exotic, it fits reasonably well, but as always, I would expect a DM/designer to fold, spindle, and mutilate for his own ends, just as Gygax and Arneson suggested.  

[rjshae]

Ah, well okay. I thought this was intended to be generally applicable, rather than specific to western-euro. No matter.

[Dann-J]

A lot of the Forgotten Realms areas appear to be based on mediaeval europe, where katanas or scimitars would certainly have been seen as 'exotic' weapons not usually trained in. However if you were playing as a character from Calimshan or Shou-lung, such weapons would indeed be every-day weapons.

 

Unfortunately NWN2 doesn't have any true regional feats; only more generic 'background traits'. Otherwise you could have characters choose a region of origin, and the appropriate feats could be added automatically. A character from Shou-lung could receive exotic weapon proficiency for free, for instance, and perhaps take penalties in other areas (such as in bluff and diplomacy, due to a slight language barrier).

[Happycrow]

Absolutely agreed, Dann-J. Most of nwn2-land is entirely devoid of culture to begin with.  Culture and race are assumed synonymous. On an older PW I helped develop, regions were used as subraces to affect pretty much exactly what you're talking about. In one of those steppe cultures, for example, everybody had weapon-spec composite shortbow, whether they were warriors or not...because that's how they got dinner. If they knew how to use it in the first place, they were damn good with them.

 

Rjshae, making every weapon in the game either simple or martial is about twenty minutes in baseitems.2da -- It's not a show-stopper at all for somebody who wants to roll it that way... just change 46 to 45 in the proficiency column on ten rows or so (may have the wrong number, it's late) and you're completely good to go.  Flip stats around in baseitems.2da to your heart's content -- that's a single evening's task to determine the your desired balance points (note that in this system, a heavy sabre is mechanically superior to a longsword) and then mod to suit.

[Tchos]

Absolutely agreed, Dann-J. Most of nwn2-land is entirely devoid of culture to begin with.  Culture and race are assumed synonymous.

 

I believe it's a problem of what's presented to us in these offerings.  The Forgotten Realms sourcebooks and novels are very good in painting detailed pictures of very different cultures amongst the various races.  The wood elves of Meredelain have an entirely different culture from the sun elves of Myth Drannor, for instance.  But we generally aren't getting that diversity in the computer games based on the setting.  There's a strong tendency on the part of publishers to give people what they're most familiar with, especially as development costs soar ever higher, as a safer bet.

 

One thing that annoyed me with the early Pathfinder setting material of Golarion was that while they made a great effort in creating different and distinct cultures, they seemed to be focused almost entirely on human ones.  Humans seemed to be the only polycultural race, at least at first, with everyone else having monocultures.  It seems that there's been more development for the other races since those early days, though, so this probably isn't a problem anymore in that area. 

[kamal_]

What I refer to as "non western-european standard" is indeed something I see as very much lacking. There are tons of great and interesting settings with their corresponding stuff and lore to be found outside western european standard. I am bored with western europe.

[Happycrow]

Yup, Kamal. That's partly why the (distinctly non-western) leather and metal lamellar is in there, as well as various non-western weapon variants.  I was seriously tempted to alter/include the armor from My Samurai is Fight, but I'm still not entire confident of my ability to convert that to the other races, since it's set up as human only.  If there was interest I'd be happy to include additional non-western armor variations (though they'll still need to ride on the "efficient" models, since hak size is an issue in PW-land where I "live.").

 

This is an angle I wasn't really expecting.  If folks are interested, Char-ai-neh, behter, yushman, and jawshan would be all pretty simple additions to include (though I am hardly a pro texturer -- it will be instantly obvious what I've made, vs. what I've cadged from the far-superior ACME folks), and I've done metal and chitin "turkish pot-lid" armors (having a brain fart, can't remember the name) in the past as well.

[-Semper-]

i would rather base a custom amor rules system on damage reduction than the stacking of ac. the heavier the armor is the easier the wearer is to hit, but the less damage comes through. also armor should reduce walking speed. combine this with individual damage reductions and you instantly create a tactical element. now the weapon and attack rate is more important to overcome armor. how much speed/agility am i willing to sacrifice for security?

[kamal_]

There was at least one PW that implemented armor as DR complete with different DR values depending on whether the attack was piercing/slashing/bludgeoning , and I'm almost positive armor weight affecting movement speed is available as well.

Personally I'm fine with the abstracted AC system.

[Happycrow]

I dev'd on one of the worlds (World of Charun) which implemented precisely that -- in fact, it was my system.

 

Tales of Moonsea uses a hybrid AC/DR system currently.  This is an evolution out of that, using abstracted AC plus %damage immunity versus a given attack type.  Basically, what I discovered and confirmed with other folks is that AC-tanks still tend to rule the game, because at the right "ledge" (for a given AC-vs-Ab), a single point of AC is functionally equivalent to 100% damage immunity.  They're thus fundamentally fungible.  

 

The problem with going with static DR on armor then goes into how many other class/feat/spell abilities wind up getting devalued/crunched because of it.  So this system moves away from that into %immunities combined with AC so as to make all three damage types worthwhile and all armor/weapon choices worthwhile, as opposed to the known "pointless" weapon/armor choices currently existing.

[Happycrow]

Hey gents.

Got all the armor blueprints done and ready (at least all the base ones - model and texture refinements such as additional non-western stuff will come in round 2, and I figured out how to make a helmet with an honest-to-goodness shoulder-covering mail or scale coif, too).  

 

But I'm going through and doing the weapon blueprints, and have stumbled into a bit of a head-scratcher:

 

Why would nwn2 recognize my baseitems.2da in override, but not in my campaign folder? I've certainly seen modules put 2das in the campaign folder before (Bad Habits being the one in question), and eventually this stuff will probably have to go into a hak anyway, but I'm a little leery of making a product which would require a 2da in override.

 

Any ideas?

[Dann-J]

Baseitems is one of the 2DAs that won't work in the campaign folder; only in override or in a HAK. Why this should be the case for some 2DAs but not others is a mystery.

[Happycrow]

That explains it!  Thanks, Dann-J.

[Happycrow]

Non-western armor options added:

 

• Karuta
• Kikko
• Behterets
• Char-ai-neh
• Krug

[Happycrow]

Added hide variations:  snakeskin, carapace, crocodile.

Added felt tabard.

 

All the weapons 2da work is done, now going through and tightening up on some of the models, should have a version-1 release this week, and of course some pictures so people can take a look at whether they think it's worth using and/or pillaging for their own needs.  =)

[Happycrow]

Well.  This is mostly a fail.

I can set up a module where the additional weapons show and work just fine, but they're not working in the haks for my PW for some reason.  And the belt layer will display if you make an armor ahead of time in the toolset and build it that way, but it won't display dynamically if a player takes it off or puts it on (nobody cares about this sort of thing for module play, where everybody runs around fully-armored and sword-in-hand the entire adventure, myself included, but for PW roleplay it's quite different).  So I will soon release the files publicly in case anybody's interested in having a go with the material or, if nothing else, picking-and-choosing through some new models.

[4760]

And the belt layer will display if you make an armor ahead of time in the toolset and build it that way, but it won't display dynamically if a player takes it off or puts it on

I've got the same problem (which is why I haven't released the Valsharess's set yet): the belt appears/disappears as expected in the toolset, but in game you have to move to another area for the belt slot to be visually updated. I even made several blueprints (with belt/without belt), same problem.

The only way I had it working was if the armor was on the ground: putting it on/off worked nicely.

 

Maybe in your case an OnEquip/OnUnequip script (forcing the PC to put the armor on the floor and then take it and equip it) would solve your issue?

 

It wouldn't work for me as I intend the armor to be part of a set (armor, belt, helm, boots) so the Equip/Unequip is not an option because each time the armor is equiped/unequiped, its properties and those of the the other items are modified.

[4760]

they're not working in the haks for my PW for some reason.

What are the results? If "not working" means the appearance is not correct, maybe you've got an item part number conflict? If on the other hand the problem is for spells or properties, maybe it's related to the 2da not being compatible with haks? (sorry I can't be more precise, I just remember that some 2da HAVE to be in the override; they won't be used if put in haks. But I don't know exactly which ones are concerned).

[Loki_999]

I'm not aware of any 2das having problems in HAKs. Not unless they are something specific to an expansion or something, and even then, HAKs should work. We have just about every 2da in the game in our HAKs and not aware of any issues with them.

 

I'd also be interested in hearing what not working in this case means, and which 2das.

[Happycrow]

baseitems.2da is one of those, which is where the new weapon types  like lances, glaives, etc, appear.

 

I'm stuck on the belt-type issue. Only thing I can think of is that there used to be floating around a sort of adjunct to charlie's appearance changer used on some PWs which let you tailor the appearance of your gear.  But I haven't the foggiest how it works or what's required to make it work.

[Happycrow]

4760, you can confirm that if a player equips a belt-item, and then transitions to a new area, that belt item visibly updates on the model?

If that's all the problem is, then it's a system quirk I can easily put up with, and that part's a go.

[4760]

Yes Happycrow, I confirm that items which are equipped in the belt slot and which appear in the toolset (meaning they must have a mdb file and be set as belt items in the blueprint) also appear in game after an area transition.