New update ; Customizeable grenades?

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t-ice
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New update ; Customizeable grenades?

Post by t-ice »

I saw there's something about grenades in the latest hak update, so thought it would be a good time ask what and how?

What I wanted to do is very simple: Re-price grenades with prices at about canon, perhaps even somewhat lower in some cases, to balance them in hopes of making them actually a useful tactical option.

This turned out to be more difficult than expected. The main reason being that grenades work by them all having the same item property "on use: grenade". This then calls a script, which latches onto item resrefs to tell what type of grenade we're using. This means you can't make new items work as grenades, since they can't have same resrefs as already existing items. Unless you manage to change the "use grenade" script to recognize the resrefs you gave to your new grenades. Which makes it a not worthwhile pain in the ass to try to create grenades. :(

I thought just using canon grenades, and make a shop that sells only them, and has properly lowered price level. Elsewise fine, but close-to-canon pricing creates the opportunity to sell them to usual price level shops for more than you can buy them for, creating an infinite-money loop for PCs. :o

But now, we have a "fix" to grenades? How does it change things? Can, and how, could I go about creating custom grenades with the fix?
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AcadiusLost
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Re: New update ; Customizeable grenades?

Post by AcadiusLost »

The "fix" is just a minor edit to the base OEI ImpactScripts that handle the function of the grenadelike objects, to allow them to recognize the tags we use on ALFA's grenadelike items. These include:
  • Holy Water (30gp ea or 750gp as a 1/day)
  • Acid Flasks (20gp ea. or 500gp as a 1/day)
  • Alchemist's Fire (20gp ea. or 500 gp as 1/day)
  • Choking Powder (40gp ea. or 1000gp as 1/day)
  • Tanglefoot Bags (60 gp ea. or 1500gp as 1/day)
  • Thunderstones (40gp ea. or 1000gp as 1/day)
Present in the code, and unaltered from their OEI function, are also:
  • Acid Bomb (1500gp ea. or 37500 as 1/day)
  • Fire Bomb (1500gp ea. or 37500 as 1/day)
Both of which are very high-power items.

We have Standards pricing for all listed above, which I believe matches the 3.5E canon pricing. The toolset items should automatically price to these levels in-game, though they may not display the right price in the toolset, due to some fickleness about which 2das the toolset reads from haks and which don't.

The OEI code has support for "Advanced" versions of most of the above (higher DC craft alchemy recipies in the OC) which do more damage, have higher DCs, etc. We could enable these for ALFA use, but we'd need to consider pricing as they aren't canonical items.

Regarding entirely new, "custom" grenade types, it may be possible with custom itemproperties via 2da edits referencing a new spells.2da row, in the same way that we handle new spells. Requires a bit of familiarity with the complex 2da framework and some careful scripting, but shouldn't be impossible. Deciding how such items should be priced and getting the balance "right" is nontrivial though- I like to ground things in canon references, so we have that to fall back on at least. Is there a 3.5E (preferably FR based) source for additional alchemical/grenadelike/gadgety attacks?

I'm not sure we'd want to have effective options priced so low that they become alternative to arrows or spellcasters, as that might start to change the overall "feel" of the game; in my view these work best as occasional use items to tactical effect, rather than a valid "main mode" of combat.
t-ice
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Re: New update ; Customizeable grenades?

Post by t-ice »

Excellent. We do pretty much agree with the target utility of these items, and prices too. I don't have much mind to bringing in the NWN2 "improved" grenade lines, script for customized grenade effects, or the imo-silly-overpowered bombs (especially as coupled to total AI stupidity in gleefully rushing to firestorms). The stock bombs and improved grenades can be used as special plot things if and when a plot calls for it. The canon-ish grenades are what anyone could stuff their pockets with. But all that's really secondary, as if you have a set of UTIs tagged to the "grenade scripts", that's brilliant, and then we can make or modify so-tagged items to fit the balance as desired.

So, I would assume the grenade scripts for these "ALFA grenades" are included with the latest hak update? If you could provide the tags that the items you mention use, then I think I can build UTIs for what grenades we desire for Exodus. Thanks :)
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