Planar Alignment Effects

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Teric neDhalir
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Planar Alignment Effects

Post by Teric neDhalir »

Let's say I'm looking to script something that mimics the alignment effects of a plane, which gives negative circumstance bonus to CHA/WIS/INT checks. Should this be for skills only and is the easiest way to do it just write out all the EffectSkillDecrease () functions longhand for everything affected? Or just give a EffectAbilityDecrease () so that it affects everything? Or something else clever that I've not thought of?
Cheers!
Zelknolf
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Joined: Tue Jul 05, 2005 7:04 pm

Re: Planar Alignment Effects

Post by Zelknolf »

Checks are defined in the SRD by the basics.

There's actually quite a lot to tackle if you're looking to write up some aligned outer planes, which you'll probably need to submit some work to the ACR to accomplish.

For things that can be represented by skills adjustments...
Intelligence: Appraise, Craft, Decipher Script, Disable Device, Forgery, Knowledge, Search, and Spellcraft checks.
Wisdom: Heal, Listen, Profession, Sense Motive, Spot, and Survival checks.
Charisma: Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, Gather Information, Handle Animal, Intimidate, Perform, and Use Magic Device checks.

Which of course should be linked to a commonly-detectable effect, like an invalid-image VFX. And then we need handling at logout/ login to check for them and make sure they you're not double penalizing the player (because those penalties will totally stack with themselves if you apply them twice). And then we note that you can't actually count on them staying linked across a logout/login. Because NWN2. But setting an invalid spell Id on the effects is even less reliable. Because NWN2. Locals are pretty reliable, though. You might do an "I'm in this plane" local, and use it to know if you have to look for rogue skill penalties. Or a local object that is a copy of the PC stripped of faction hidden in a windowless van, so you can harvest its kidneys I mean effects.

And then you'd need to decrease the results on all ability checks, which is best represented inside the ACR's ability check logic, and making sure that every scripted ability check that you run inside of the plane calls into the ACR's ability checks. Shouldn't be too tough; anything you did to resolve the logout/login problem with skill penalties can also be checked here.

And then Turn Undead (which is unfortunately named; FR clerics can turn pretty much anything if they have the right domains and feats) is also a charisma-based check, which is best represented by editing the turn undead script to account for penalties associated with planar travel. Same deal as ability checks.


Basically, you should write this project as an ACR one, and get it into the haks. The stuff you want to do works at a slightly lower level than modules usually do. It'll be a struggle to try to manage it at a higher level with odd applications of effects.
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