Infestation Mechanics

[Zelknolf]

Another new feature, meant to handle the probable lack of diversity that will come in the setup (e.g. a vermin infestation might just have different sizes of spiders in each tier; which is reasonable information to be provided to the system, and we should be able to construct a theme/feel of conquered territory from it, so we'll try), infestations, when asked from a group spawn to create a single creature, will produce either 1 creature at that tier, 1d3 creatures at the tier right below it, or 1d4+1 creatures at two tiers below it-- same way that the summon monster spells work in PnP.

Hopefully this will help benefit more-diverse parties (you tend to be best served when fighting a slow trickle of big bads to have a tank and a rogue, while herds of little guys are often answered effectively by fireballs, web, or cleave, and a variety of types of bad guys increases the odds that you'll want/need a good archer or various buffs to thrive)

[HEEGZ]

This is a pretty awesome idea. I'll plan to get DM permissions on whatever server implements this and recruit some guinea pigs.

[Zelknolf]

Another brief update-- back end stuff seems to be pretty well debugged at the moment. Still no UI for a regular DM to set this stuff up, but someone with access to debug commands could set up an infestation with what we have if it were released today.

Will be doing the setups for the boss monsters in the infestations and then moving on to a UI.

Currently imagining something tall and skinny, mostly a sorted (by tier) list of critters in the infestation. Imagine it wouldn't need a lot of buttons on it-- likely drive the "where?" part of it by just assuming that the area the DM is in is the one to be infested. Some initial build that'll be needed once that's done, to set up a pilot server with regions that can't be infested and/or should be capped at infestation severity.

[Zelknolf]

Been working on the front end this week.


As is typical, the front end is hellish in a way that leaves mere mortals gibbering and sobbing in the corner, but some products of the work...

Spoiler:

infestation_gui.png (22.14 KiB) Viewed 2648 times

Some final rounds of testing before release, but should be able to get that out soon.

[Rumple C]

*gibbers*

(Now speaking gibberish)

[Zelknolf]

Would folk have time this weekend to gather up and fight off a hypothetical zombie apocalypse on a fake not-on-the-vault BG? The setup would be to fire up a copy of BG on a private vault/database, so it doesn't dirty real play, organize the various undead on BG into seven tiers and then slap the high-CR stuff like liches as [mini]bosses, seed the infestation in BG's underdark, tell it to calculate as though it was neglected for months, and then let it vomit forth from the various Underdark access points on the server to conquer the surface, which I'm pretty sure will mean that it won't actually infest anything south of Beregost-- but plenty for tests.

This will also likely involve a lever in the start area to turn PCs to some high level and drop some gold on them to make them able to kill some liches, but still able to notice different XP values for different CRs of cleared area (I'm gonna say 15?)



// edit-- bonus cookies: the bosses will probably settle in Throrgar, as that is one of four places on the server able to acquire a tier 7 infestation. Epic fight will be epic.

[Rumple C]

Maybe!

[Castano]

I can be there Sunday, but not Saturday.

[Zelknolf]

Quick bump here as I got some questions after HEEGZ came back and, in normal style, said "Holy crap look at the new tools! Oh I'm gonna murder so many NPCs and endanger so many PCs with this (and it will hopefully be fun)."

The above is a lot of where this came from, but probably important to keep in mind-- killing an infestation's boss doesn't end the infestation. So when you see a rumor post like mine earlier which implies dead bosses, that doesn't mean the content is gone. If there were minibosses who I missed, one of them will be promoted to boss and will refuse to spawn for another 12 game hours. Part of the central design was to make it very difficult for one person to just "do" the staged encounter and leave no content for others.

A DM might also decide that was anticlimactic and just go to one of the still-infested areas, open up the infestation UI, and add another boss to it. Or another tier. Or whatever. (and there will almost always still be infested areas-- can read up to get the details on the mechanics, but the system is designed so that players can push themselves as hard as they care to and not ruin the content for others. A tier 3 area that I clear is a tier 2 area for the next person)

And even if all of the bosses are dead, non-growing infestations will leave slightly-smaller versions of their previous glory in their taken territory until someone comes and kills them off. A bunch of lowbies could take the remains of the north Cloakwood infestation and harass its edges until it's wiped out, for instance. Hopefully getting fun and challenge all the way (and we'd hope that highbies would just tackle the highbie content).



I guess I'd also mention that loot scales by party wealth and size-- so it's in your best interests to fill up a group to go tackle infestation stuff. Especially in that we've also implemented the DMA's combat XP change (so you get more combat XP in groups than you do solo).

[oldgrayrogue]

Love these new mechanics. We tackled gnolls on the road to Nashkel last night with a group of 3. Just scouting and clearing 1 stretch of road with 3 level 1's provided much to RP around. Very nice work Zelk.

[Rumple C]

Yeah, its the best.

[HEEGZ]

I will keep these active on BG indefinitely. Currently there are two running, so feel free to tackle them.

I've got these loosely tied into my campaign plot, which isn't quite revealed yet.

Anyways, feedback is welcome and there is IC BG forum for reporting about your adventures.

HEEGZ came back and, in normal style, said "Holy crap look at the new tools! Oh I'm gonna murder so many NPCs and endanger so many PCs with this (and it will hopefully be fun)."

LOL. I love your way with words.

[Ithildur]

ZOMG dragon ifestation ftw plzkthxbi!





Ok, more like, maybe one baby dragon ... that had somehow inherited an ancient red's treasure horde, yes indeed.