Gnilbert

Join Date 03/2003

+36

[MOD] Gnilbert Mod 0.7: Elemental Disciples, Magic Staves, Special Training, New Sovereign Talents

Thank you for all the feedback!

The features for version 1.6 are described HERE.

You must start a new game if you want these changes to take effect.
This is an update to the earlier versions (0.5, 0.6). It includes the following content:

Sovereign (Fire/Earth/Air/Water) Mana Talents
[added in ver 0.6]
    I added these 20 point talents to allow me to test out other elements of the mod and decided to leave them in for those who want to use them. They may or may not be "balanced." Each of these talents allows your sovereign to "act like" a shard of the appropriate element.

Leadership Talents / Training
[added in ver 0.7]
    The idea here is that your leader (or a champion, if he buys the training from the items shop), can direct other units in combat to greater effect. During Sov creation, they are available as 4 talents: Bold, Brilliant, Daring and Inspiring Leader. They are based on Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity and Charisma respectively. In the items shop, they are available as items with "Tactics" instead of "Leader."

Special training for units
[added in ver 0.7]
    These "items" you can add to units in the designer allow you to give them special abilities.
- Herbalist training: Gives the unit a healing ability that scales with its unit size
- Assassin training: Give the unit a short ranged damage/weaken ability based on Attack

Elemental Vestments.
    These are the robes worn by those little people who stand around all day and stare at your shards. In game terms, I've provided 4 robes that represent the "profession" of Fire, Earth, Air, or Water "Priest/Monk/Cleric/Fanboy." They provide the unit (which can be your Sovereign) with a "Blessing of X" (tactical) ability that scales in power with the number of shards (of that element) you control.
The robes provide 2 Essence to the unit, and the blessings cost 1 mana per cast. They target a single friendly unit at any distance, and currently last 2 turns.
* Ver 0.6: Added these robes for females as well.
* Ver 0.6: Vestments now unlock in the items shop and for unit training when you learn "Shard Harvesting" for your race
** Ver 0.7: (Oops!) I added a cost to these items so you can actually buy them in the shops!

Fire Vestments granted spell: Target unit gains +5 Attack per Fire Shard
Earth Vestments granted spell: Target unit gains +5 Defense and + 3 attack per Earth Shard
Water Vestments granted spell: Target unit gains +5 Health Regen per Water Shard
Air Vestments granted spell: Target unit gains +15% Dodge chance per Air Shard

Magical Combat Staves.
    I hate giving my wizard lord a bow or sword to make him effective in combat. I want him to feel cool right from the get-go. To this end, I added 5 magical staves, each that gives the wielder a (tactical) ranged, INT based attack that costs 2 mana and +3 Essence. The effects of each scale based on the number of shards of the appropriate element you control. Your sovereign can pick one when he's created, but you can only train units with them when you control at least one shard of the appropriate element type. (The Death staff is currently an exception to this)
* Ver 0.6: These staves now unlock in the items shop and for unit training when you learn "Shard Harvesting" for your race
** Ver 0.7: The attacks now cast 2 mana. I struggled with whether they were overpowered, but finally realized that putting magic damage the way I think it should be into the existing system probably wasn't the best idea. Regardless, I doubt they'll stay unbalanced past SD's first update.

Fire Staff: 50% INT damage, +25% per Fire Shard
Earth Staff: 30% INT damage +25% per Earth Shard, -5 Defense
Water Staff: 30% INT damage +25% per Water Shard, CombatSpeed set to 1 for 1 turn
Air Staff: 30% INT damage +25% per Air Shard, 60% chance to lose next turn
Death Staff: 30% INT Life Steal +25% per any Shard

Unholy Mana / Temples
[unfinished in ver 0.7]
    Go ahead and ignore any references you see to these. They're part of my current project where I'm going to introduce Holy/Unholy mana that isn't granted by shards, but is instead built as an alternative option on Arcane Temples. I'll have more on this one later.

Please let me know about any gross errors you find in the mod!
Also, if anyone wants to submit better flavor text, I'll be happy to shuffle it all in.

Happy modding,
Gnilbert

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Smith Of Dreams

Nice as always.

Thanks Gnilbert!

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Heavenfall

Join Date 07/2008

+441

I still say the slow effect from the water staff won't work They borked SetUnitStat

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Quoting Heavenfall,

reply 2

I still say the slow effect from the water staff won't work They borked SetUnitStat

Doh! That was even on my list of things to fix! Thanks, Heavenfall - I'll go ahead and update it in my current version while I'm thinking about it.

Gnilbert

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** Ver 0.7: The attacks now cast 2 mana. I struggled with whether they were overpowered, but finally realized that putting magic damage the way I think it should be into the existing system probably wasn't the best idea. Regardless, I doubt they'll stay unbalanced past SD's first update.

Does that mean that units you make with the staffs won't be able to use the special abilities? Because as far as I know regular units don't have mana...

If that is true perhaps you could add a " mana pack " of some sorts that adds 2 mana to a unit when equipped.

edit: Never mind I just know realized that the robes add +2 to essence... I made female sovereign/units before in the .05 ver so I never seen/used the robes. Sorry...

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I really like the commander pack. Great work Gnilbert.

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Maybe you should focus on the "elemental" theme of the mod and keep playing with the shards, and the magic and so on, and left the new special trainings and these thing out of this mod. This will help to make your mod more balanced, more compatible with other mods, and even more appealing.

Adding new "elemental" buildings, new "elemental" trainings, new "elemental" weapons, new "elemental" NPCs, fit better than adding ton of cool things (like the herbalist and assasin training) with no relation between them and the mod theme.

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Last night I broke my own rule about "I'm not going to be adding tiles/effects." I've created a "Wall of Stone" improvement for cities. I made it an actual wall type, so it goes around your city properly and everything. I'll likely add it to the files tonight, along with a few fixes to other things that aren't wired properly. The problem is, I'm trying to decide how to add it to the mod - I'm not really loving any of my options, so I thought I'd throw it out there for discussion:

- Make it buildable from the city itself. Make it require 1 earth shard and some other costs. Possibly require the beginning wall technology. This one isn't great because it feels decidedly unmagical.

- Add it as a spell in the Earth spellbook. This isn't a great option because I'd need to give you a file with a new version of the Earth spellbook definition - and that doesn't sem to play nicely with other spellbook mods for the same book.

- Add a new spellbook option for your Sovereign, Defense (or similar). I'd make the individual "Wall of X" spells tie to one or another elemental shards. I don't love this because it doesn't put the spells where you'd expect to find them. Earth Wall should be in the Earth spellbook, darnit.

As a side note, you won't be seeing a "Wall of Fire" or "Wall of Wind" from me anytime soon - I've discovered that the wall tiles don't actually show their particle effects in-game (even the built in ones that have particle effects like ChimneySmokeNew). I'll be posting it as a bug here in a sec.

Gnilbert

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Heavenfall

Join Date 07/2008

+441

Have you tried doing it as a spell? I mean, are you sure that the correct gamemodifier can actually be cast? Otherwise you don't really have an option.

If it works, I like the last option the best. Honestly, the spells are already ALL OVER, summoning spells mixed with everything else between damage and buff spells. We know they're going to change that anyway. But the user has already gotten used to scouring through the spell list to find the right one.

Edit: Absolutely stay away from option 2. It's my single biggest regret from the bugfix mod that I couldn't make it work better with other mods. Hopefully in the future they can improve how we change/add to already existing types.

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Quoting Heavenfall,

reply 8

Have you tried doing it as a spell? I mean, are you sure that the correct gamemodifier can actually be cast? Otherwise you don't really have an option.

Yeppers - I've been using it as a (known from start) spell to test variations on the wall tile designs. You can use the GameModifier from the Hedge Wall improvement (something about upgrade wall, I think), but substitute your own wall definition in instead. There are a couple of weirdo details you have to watch out for when you're making your tiles, but other than that it was simpler than I'd have expected... except for the hours I spent trying to figure out why my particle effects weren't working when the walls show up in game - before realizing that there's weren't either!

Gnilbert

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As another side note - I'll totally do a tutorial on custom wall creation once I get a chance, if someone else hasn't already done one by then. Of course, Dragon*Con is this weekend, so I'll be in RPG heaven until Monday!

Gnilbert

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Wow this looks cool! I'm gonna have to give this a try for sure!

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ElanaAhova

Join Date 09/2008

+105

Thank you Gnilbert for planning to do a tutorial: I look forward to it!

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I'm having an issue..everytime i use the bonestaff my game crashes. the moment the animation plays. so if there is an easy fix i'd like to hear it thanks.

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