Bag o' NWN2 tech questions

[Regas]

Here are a few tech things I'm having trouble getting my mind around in NWN2, I'd appreciate any feedback and or insights you all may have in answering them.

1) Use Magic devices: can someone tell me the dcs specifically for say using a first level wizard scroll, and activating a wand of fireballs, both at 6th level casting ability? Any thoughts on this skill?

2) Darkness: In playing with this spell it seems to offer no adjustments in combat to those inside the darkness or for those attacking ito the darkness from outside, including that you can target creatures within the darkness. Is this broken in NWN2? is it fixable? if not it seems like it's little more then an rp effect. Thoughts?

3) Inflict wounds: This prayer requires a touch attack, when the attack is made it comes up *hit* 0+0=0. It doesn't appear that the BAB or combat mods are added to the number, and, I'm not even sure a to hit roll is being made. Thoughts?

Thanks for the help,

Regas

[Kest]

The DC for first level scrolls are somewhere in the midteens; I'm not sure what exactly, only that I fail them often enough.

[AcadiusLost]

1) Use Magic devices: can someone tell me the dcs specifically for say using a first level wizard scroll, and activating a wand of fireballs, both at 6th level casting ability? Any thoughts on this skill?

For scrolls, I coded a faithful port of the 3.5E PnP rules for activation. The NWN2 base handling sets a DC by item value I think. In ALFA (and in Exodus, which also uses the ACR):

The scroll is first checked for what level spell it is. If the spell is on several spell lists (bard, sorc/wiz, cleric, druid), it picks the lowest level version which is compatible with the user's stats. Since you need a casting attribute of 10+spell level, a rogue with 10 CHA and 12 INT will try to activate as a wizard, in order to pass that restriction. with 12 CHA and 10 int, they will emulate a sorcerer instead. If there is no combination that allows the rogue to pass the ability check, they will roll a separate UMD check to emulate an attribute (aiming for the lowest requirement). So, say a 10 INT / 10 CHA rogue trying to fire off a Magic Missile scroll.

Your effective ability score (appropriate to the class you’re emulating when you try to cast the spell from the scroll) is your Use Magic Device check result minus 15.

so, with a bit of math, you're aiming for at least an 11 (10+spell level), so you need to roll at least a 26 (11+15).

If your attributes are high enough already, or if you've passed that check, you move onto the activation check.

The DC is equal to 20 + the caster level of the spell you are trying to cast from the scroll.

Caster level takes into account the lowest possible caster level for the spell as being cast- so for example activating a 1st level bard spell as a bard would be DC 22, as minimum caster level is 2 for a 1st level bard spell. For the aforementioned Magic Missile as a wizard or sorcerer, minimum caster level is 1, so 20+1 = DC 21.

Also, failure by 10 or more on this check (or a natural 1 on the d20 roll) triggers a mishap, which may include a number of potential effects, from backlash damage (d6 per spell level) to harmless VFX, to targeting redirection, etc.

For time being, failure to activate a scroll by UMD still consumes the scroll. Due to peculiarities of stacking, I couldn't work around that to my satisfaction.

Also, a synergy bonus of +2 is applied to the rolls for those who have 5 or more ranks in spellcraft.

Answer your questions?

[Regas]

Someone give AL a raise , thank you that was very detailed.

So.. are you saying that each umd check is actually two rolls then?

and how bout the other two questions? anything on those?

Thanks,

Reg

[AcadiusLost]

So.. are you saying that each umd check is actually two rolls then?

It is two rolls if your attributes aren't high enough to cast the spell just by emulating a certain class. So a rogue with 14 INT trying to cast Ice Storm by emulating a wizard could pull it off with one roll (4th level spell, 14 INT is minimum), but if they had 13 or less INT, they'd have to make two rolls. (one for emulating a higher INT, one for emulating a wizard). However, if that same rogue had 14 CHA, they would manage it with one roll by emulating a sorcerer instead (using CHA as the casting stat instead of INT).

Also, the stat emulation use of UMD works for characters who can use scrolls normally as well. By PnP (and in the ACR), a 1st level wizard can try to cast a higher level spell from a scroll with a caster level check, but only if they have a high enough attribute for it. So, a Cloudkill spell (Wiz5) wouldn't be attempt-able by a 14 INT wizard, unless they had ranks in UMD, in which case they'd get a check to emulate 15 INT (DC 30), with a normal caster level check if they succeed.

Wands still use default NWN2 code for now, didn't have time to handle UMD for everything yet, just scrolls.

Not sure on the other two questions, though.

[paazin]

I used inflict wounds rather regularly in the single-player campaign. It seemed to work fine...

[Regas]

Ok, thanks AL.

That clears one up, but I just remembered another. I can't seem to get knock (wiz, second level) to work. Is this spell completely nerfed?

--Reg

[AcadiusLost]

That clears one up, but I just remembered another. I can't seem to get knock (wiz, second level) to work. Is this spell completely nerfed?

To my knowledge, we've not touched the code for Knock. In what context were you trying to use it? (OC, MotB OC, OAS2, TSM?) Possible you were using it on a plot-tagged door, or that the ABR door scripts are missing some special handling that's necessary to get it to work.

[wvincenti]

Does anyone have a list of suggestions for how to modify the NWN2 controls so they behave more like NWN1?

-Bill

[HATEFACE]

Fail controls are fail.

[AcadiusLost]

Does anyone have a list of suggestions for how to modify the NWN2 controls so they behave more like NWN1?

I've found strategy mode, with the camera centered on the character, works very much like NWN1 did, with the only downside being less predictable camera "bumps" from obstacles. If you were playing NWN1 in drive mode someone else is probably better suited to advise.