The Four!

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This is about the item mod I am making for SP members. I started it as a new topic, because you will find considerable new changes in my plans.

I thought that making a mod which includes one single item (an item which caused so many disagreements and controversies about its properties) is not so much fun.

Hence, I decided to expand my plan to make a mod which can be more fun, for me as its maker, and for players who may play it. The mod's name is "The Four". It contains four new items. Each item is guarded by its own special guardians. Here is the list of the items and their guardians:

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Items:
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1- The robe

Robe of Eloquence

This ancient and extraordinary robe has led all of its previous owners to death. While it boosts spellcasting abilities to a considerable extent, It has devastating disadvantages. Once a mage wears it even for a moment, he or she will be subject to most of the item's disadvantages for the rest of his or her life.

Advantages:

- Wearer's aura is cleansed
- Wearer can memorize one additional daily spell per spell level

Equipped disadvantages:

- Immunity to all methods of healing
- Incurs -3 Penalty to Constitution and all saves

Permanent disadvantages:

- Immunity to all healing spells
- Immunity to Regeneration

Usable By:
Mage (Single/Multi/Dual class, except Kensai-Mage)

2- The Ring

Melodic fury

Zafir was a knowledgeable bard in Calimshan. However, When he was waylaid by a brigand of kobolds, his lore didn't help him much. When he was near to death, he wished that he was less knowledgeable but had better fighting abilities. It is said that this last request was fulfilled and Zafir killed a good number of kobolds before his heroic death. His fury transferred into his ring when he died.

*Cursed Item*

Equipped abilities:
+5 to hit bonus
Permanent Improved Haste
Immunity to slow
+15 HP bonus

Lore: -40 Penalty
Intelligence: -2 Penalty
Disables theiving skills button

Usable By:
Bard

3- The gloves

Gloves of Spell Weaving

Aswad was a high level mage known for his extraordinary experiments on animals. Druids were angry with him and prepared a large army to destory his stronghold. Aswad who had anticipated such an assault had already prepared this magnificent artefact for a possible confrontation. His gloves gave him considerable immunity against druids and he truly surprised them in the battle. However, the side effect of the very same item was the cause of his death when he failed to make an important save vs. a finger of death spell.

*Cursed Item*

Equipped abilities:
+1 Bonus to casting speed
Immunity to Creeping Doom, Insect Plague and Summon insects spells
-2 penalty to save vs. death

Usable By:
Mage

4- The helmet

Sunlight

While worn by a druid, this shiny golden helmet reflects the slimmest lights of any environment directly to the eyes of the enemy as if they are struck by sunlight, incurring penalties to their THAC0s and Armor classes. But due to its high conductivity, it also incurs 25% penalties to the wearer's resistance to electricity and Fire. Only druid's are so attuned with nature to have such a low penalty. Others would have burnt immediately had they worn the helmet. The wearer also requires to have a minimum of 12 intelligence to know how to adjust the angle of the light's reflections on the targets.

*Cursed Item*

Equipped abilities:
Protection against critical hits
Armor Class: +4 Bonus
THAC0: +4 Bonus
-25% Penalty to Fire and Lightning resistance

Requires 12 intelligence

Usable By:
Druid

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Guardians:
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1- Guardians of the robe:

An undead Cleric/Fighter accompanied with a Gem Golem. (Gem Golem is a new monster initially designed by me and used in Improved Anvil mod.)

Location: The Lizardmen hideout in Planar Sphere

2- Guardians of the Ring:

An Elemental Lich accompanied with a high level fighter/vampire

Location: Slavers' HQ Temple district

3- Guardians of the Golves:
A high level fighter/mage accompanied with an Elemental Golem (another new monster)
Location: Druid Grove wilderness (You can avoid them by not going to the west of the grove)

4- Guardians of the helmet:
Two Gem Golems and a Coin Golem (a new monster)
Location: Eastern Caverns in Underdark

[ September 07, 2006, 10:36: Message edited by: Sikret ]

 

Did you mean band of kobolds, or even band of kobold brigands?

Gloves? What slot do they go in?

EDIT: I forgot about gloves going in the bracer slot.

How about making him non-hostile, perhaps with some interesting druid-bashing dialogue. And then you would have to have either Jaheira or Cernd in the party for him to get into an argument with them and go berserk. With it being almost certain that Cernd will be around for easy pickup during or after the Trademeet quests (his wait point after being dismissed is just east of the Grove), it wouldn't be much of a requirement (not to mention that you could just plain attack him) and would help keep accidental fights to a minimum, as well as adding a little flavor to the encounter.

And to account for PC druids and mod NPCs, aside from the dialogued arguments there could be a check on Player1 through Player6 to see if anyone is a druid, and in that case he'd just go berserk after a short rant instead of the argument. Naturally the arguments would be weighted higher to allow them to fire instead of the druid check if either of the Bioware druids are in the party. Basically, it's a similar thing to Viconia and Belmin Gergas the Elf-hater.

I take it this is to prevent Jaheira from wearing it but not Cernd?

[ August 22, 2006, 03:00: Message edited by: Felinoid ]

 

Oops! I actually meant to write "brigade".

Gloves!

Very intelligent comment about intelligence!

And thanks for the suggestions, Felinoid! I'll consider them for sure.

 

I'm not sure the Ring has sufficient drawbacks. -40 lore and -1 Int? I wouldn't even think twice about putting that on a Blade. I'd almost say it should disable spellcasting or takes away spell-buffs on the wearer, if you're looking for an actual drawback to the item.

 

I agree with Xanthus, that ring would be a must for a blade. I don't know if it merits fully disabled spell casting though; is there any way you could reduce the number of spells per day per level instead, maybe a loss of two or three spells per level?

 

What do you mean by 'permanent disadvantages'? Just carrying the robe causes these? Is it cursed or what?

 

That was covered in the other thread. It means that once you've put on the robe, even if you take it off you're permanently afflicted with those disadvantages.

 

That means you could just take it off and use something else ... Is that what he's trying to do?

 

Well, you only retain the disadvantages, I wouldn't advise putting it on unless you plan to keep it on for a while .

I like the ideas. The robe, especially, has evolved quite nicely from its earlier iterations.

 

will there still be two versions of the robe?

 

Thanks for the comments!

Well, the items' disadvantages (the ring's included) were not supposed to be so bad to entirely discourage players to use them. The fact that you need to defeat powerful guardians is also a factor.

As for the ring, my main concern is its guardians. If you install my Improved Anvil mod, everything will be ok, but without it, players may easily use the cheesy scrolls of protection from undead to collect the ring. (IA replaces those scrolls with a less cheesy sort of scrolls). The same is more or less true about the undead guardian of the robe.

Honestly, I don't like the idea of decreasing a bard's daily spells, because they already cast few spells. If you think that the ring needs to have more disadvantages, please think more and give me some other suggestions in harmony with Zafir's last wish to make him less knowledgeable. (Perhaps more penalties to Intelligence?)

One more question: Do you think that I have chosen a good name for the gloves? I doubt, because the name doesn't imply anything about the immunties the item grants against druidic spells; it merely fits well with the casting time bonus.

 

IMO it's not a good idea to use that kind of terminology in the stories - it's not like the guy stopped to roll dice, he just died 'cos he'd been "weakened", as it were. At least that's how the item stories usually are in the original game, they don't mention Saves or dice rolls, but the things they represent.

Btw Finger of Death uses the Save vs Spells.

 

As I said before, the other version of the robe will be sent privately to anyone who wants it.

I have tweaked it to use save vs. death. I just forgot to mention this change in my initial post.

It will be installable as an optional component.

I may even include the replacement of scrolls of Protection from undead in the optional component of this item-mod for those who don't plan to install Improved Anvil.

[ August 22, 2006, 14:08: Message edited by: Sikret ]

 

Something about bug repellant, maybe? Beekeeper gloves? ...I'm just about to head to bed, so I wouldn't be surprised if these were horrible.

 

The Flyswatters would fit

 

Hands of the Swarmkiller
Bane of the Blackforest
Archdruid's End
Aswan's Pride

i can't help thinking they sound like stuff out of diablo 2, but hopefully they'll help

 

The mod is ready.

Is anyone willing to test it before its release? I think it's better if we have the mod tested by a few players before I submit it to the site.

What I need to be tested in particular is the difficulty of the battles with guardians. It is good if these battles can be tested by players with diverse levels of experience and also with parties with different levels.

It will be excellent if we can have two types of testers: Those who have Improved Anvil mod and those who don't.

Any number of testers will be accepted, but I hope that we will have at least one or two testers of each of the two types mentioned above.

Fortunately, you won't need to start a new game after installing this mod. Testers can simply install this mod over their other mods and open a saved game to go to fight with the guardians of the four.

 

I'll be willing to give it a go if you want.

 

Thank you. I sent you a PM.

 

I'll give it a go too, Sikret. I don't have Improved Anvil.