ACR death system- weapon droppage?

[AcadiusLost]

Currently, the ACR death scripts force anything carried in the hands at time of death to drop to the ground, rather than into the corpse inventory. Does anyone recall the reasoning behind this decision? Since items on the ground don't survive mod resets/crashes, and are sometimes hard to spot via the engine, this will inevitably lead to some lost gear, both from IC deaths and from tech rez'es.

Is there a particular reason we wanted to implement this way, rather than just transfering to the corpse inventory?

[Burt]

Perhaps to let a fallen PC's allies use the weapon to their advantage without getting bogged down with every item from the corpse inventory?

[AcadiusLost]

I'd thought that might be the explanation- though the way we work it with the NWN2-ACR, clicking on the corpse placeable brings up a container interface- so you don't have to "loot all"- you could just loot the weapon in fairly short order by glancing over the "container" inventory, and just clicking the weapon. In any case, you're looking at also opening up your own inventory to equip it, so it's not a simple operation while in combat.

[Runestaff]

Assuming that is the sole motivation, that doesn't appear to be a convincing argument versus the probability of equipment loss. I cannot personally recall a situation I've been in as a player where the ability to quickly pick up a fallen player's weapon (or lack of such) was ever an issue.

I'm in favor of simply tossing all equipment in the corpse object. That seems a lot simpler.

[Veilan]

Indeed, enough DM time is consumed in NWN 1 with "corpse losses" and "death chest" trouble as is; even if it may be slightly more realistic to drop hand-held gear, I think the gameplay flow and improved loss protection here is the winning argument.

[ç i p h é r]

Allies or enemies for that matter. If my recollection serves at least. I also vaguely recall exploring a GUI option on items - pick up and equip - for this purpose so these items could be picked up w/o having to scroll through inventory (ie quickly and easily), which would obviously be an extremely hazardous thing to do in the midst of combat. I suppose it's no different than being the subject of a successful DISARM attempt. And having the ability to nab someone else's weapon, especially if it's superior to your own, could potentially change the outcome of an encounter.

Perhaps with the updated NWNX dll, we can actually store these items in the database so they persist across sessions as well.

Win win?

[Runestaff]

And having the ability to nab someone else's weapon, especially if it's superior to your own, could potentially change the outcome of an encounter.

So could grabbing someone else's shield, off hand weapon, cloak, or just about anything else on their person if it is better than what you have. Sorry, but I simply don't see how this potential benefit outweighs the potential grief.

It's not exactly the same as getting disarmed, since the affected PC still has the chance to retrieve his own weapon. That's not true of a tech raised PC whose DM now has to track down the lost item or create a new one.

If you can achieve persistency of the dropped items, this is a little less problematic. However, the simplest way of doing that is to not drop them in the first place. Besides, few things seem to cause as much annoyance amongst players as when some PCs are attempting to loot items while others are fighting, which appears to be what this system encourages.

[AcadiusLost]

I'd say there is a distinction between scooping up and equipping a fallen ally's sword to finish off a foe, versus somehow peeling their bloodied armor/cloak off of them in a hurry- the "pick up and equip" rightclick contextmenu option helps make weapon droppage work more acceptably (though it doesn't currently appear as a working option- may or may not be workable currently). We could maintain a cached pointer to the fallen weapon for tech-rez recovery, but we'd also have to have a way to tell if it was a tech rez or an IC rez, which is a distinction we don't make at the moment, as far as I know.

Dropped item persistency would also make the forced weapon drop more palletable- have we seen indications of whether this is doable with the new NWNx plugin?

I'm not especially swayed either direction at this point. Were there other reasons to do the weapon drop?

[Rusty]

I don't remember any good reasons for having the auto drop.

[ç i p h é r]

Besides, few things seem to cause as much annoyance amongst players as when some PCs are attempting to loot items while others are fighting, which appears to be what this system encourages.

The "LOOT ALL" button on NWN2 inventory containers would, I imagine, be the preferred method for looting bodies in mid combat. Having to pick up items strewn about the battlefield would simply slow things down, if the intent was strictly to loot corpses. So provided we can support persistence, I think the only practical difference here is that players would be able to scoop up a dropped item for use in the current encounter.

Also, I don't believe this is limited to weapons. Anything a PC happens to be holding in their hands (equipped) at the time they die will drop.

[Curmudgeon]

Also, I don't believe this is limited to weapons. Anything a PC happens to be holding in their hands (equipped) at the time they die will drop.

I can recall at least one time in recent Beta testing where I dropped an equipped weapon but did not drop an equipped shield on dying.

[ç i p h é r]

Ok, thanks. Might be a bug there then, if shields are not specifically excluded.

[Damart]

Here was I .. clad in my green and yellow hide armour with purple cloak, stylish red boots on my feet and oh so fashionable blue gloves on my hands ...holding my trusty burnished leather-bound and brass rivetted shield on my left arm, in my right hand the most glorious silver blue vorpal blade ever made by Gnomish hand, facing the last remaining Jabberwokky in all of Faerun...

*snickerty-snick* went the blade.. and i laughed as I cut deeply into its unprotected belly!

* Crunch! Crack! * Replied the sound from its teeth as it snapped my spine in two..

And here I lie, rendered assunder and so very dead, wondering why my sword is just out of my reach and yet my shield is firmly in my grip?


Death is soooo unfair!


((corpses dont alwys drop what you expect--how this is all coded is a mystery to me--just play the game))

[Runestaff]

Ok, thanks. Might be a bug there then, if shields are not specifically excluded.

I've seen weapons and shields dropped, so it works at least some of the time. I haven't tested the system with two weapons equipped, or with a torch or lantern, but I would imagine they would be handled similarly.

[ç i p h é r]

Ok thanks for the feedback. Damart's post made me wonder about gloves/gauntlets. If those are equipped in the weapon slots, those would drop too I suppose. Obviously they shouldn't since they are worn, not held. Minor point maybe? but something we can certainly remedy.

p.s. While I believe this is a beneficial feature overall, if player sentiment is the opposite, it can be disabled.