Therakul

I'm trying to find where the icon adjustment info is in the docs, but I must be blind tonight, because I can't see it. Can anyone help out this poor, struggling designer?

Okay, more questions... If a beastie is in a dark area, can it still use missile attacks? If said beastie is in darkness, does its armor class improve? Is it possible to change the lighting on the wandering monster encounter areas? Finally, has anyone made any creature sheets for dwarves? You know, the short, bearded dudes with the subterranean home decor?

Go ahead and make it Kaelandon, I'm working on a scenario that is for 40th level parties and higher. It's not a very long or big scenario, and I have no clue as to when I'll have it finished, but still, there are some people working on them.

Okay, yes I double posted, but 's been a while since I came with another question. Does anyone know if it would be possible to make a creature carry around a field of darkness? If it is possible, I'd love to get help on it. I figured that would set the stage for a very interesting fight. I want to make it so that when the party encounters these things outside, all they see is a bunch of dark areas advancing on them. Then, whenever a character gets near one of the beasties, the beastie is only momentarily visible. Like I said, this would be really cool, but I haven't got a clue about how I'd go about making that happen.

Actually, I could see the point in having both karma and reputation play a factor in a scenario. If Karma is high and rep low NPC's would treat the characters like a criminal (although priests/divine entites would pay more attention to the karma than the rep); if both were high, NPC's would go out of their way to be helpful; if both were low, the characters might be contacted by the local theives' or assassins' guild; if rep were high, but karma low, a few people would be very suspicious of you, but everyone else would try to be helpful. Alternatively, the rep could be used to determine whether or not powerful people would take note of the characters, while karma determines the NPC's reactions to the characters. Kind of like name recognition and personal reputation (unknown/celebrity, and famous/infamous).

Personally, I wish that there was an "Auto-wall" feature that would make walls at the outside edges of all "solid stone" terrains. That would have saved me a heck of a lot of time when I was making my map. I kind of doubt it will be put in though, as it would probably require more than just a bit of work. Oh well, you can't have everything.

Or you could make them custom terrain or objects that go through a cycle that shows the explosion as a series of still shots. You might even get it all to happen quickly enought that the transition is fluid (although I kind of doubt it, but you might).

There is also the fact that with the Character editor, at least when it comes to leveling a character up, I found that I had to change the ExP of the character, and then save, load, get a point or two, go up almost two levels, get another point, save increase the ExP again, and then repeat. I don't know if I was just stupid and missed the "easy way" or if it had to do with the fact that the party was already in a scenario and it's level could not be tampered with so long as the party was currently active.

Ooh, okay, thanks! That did the trick.

First time designers might also wish to follow the KISS rule (as I have with my first effort). KISS stands for: Keep It Simple Stupid! This is not meant as an insult to your intelligence, it just makes it a complete word, rather than three random letters. Seriously though, I looked at a few articles, read through them, and then thought about what I wanted to make. I decided to go for a very simple scenario so that I would have some time to get familiar with Avernumscript. Dialogue, my weakest point in writing, will be limited; quests will be simple; and the areas to move through are small. Keeping it all small and simple will make your first effort much easier and, most likely, much better.

Earlier, I asked about ways to move or delete a town entrance from the outdoor map (as I goof and put one somewhere I no longer wish it to be). Can anyone give me some instructions about how to do that? Please, remember, I'm a newbie designer, use small words and easy to understand instructions.

Thanks Kelandon. I'm not to sure what you're referencing Drakey, but if you're talking about the Fission Dragon, it's out. I'm too lazy to take the time to try scriping that all in. Instead I'm working on coming up with a new man sized monster that can actually challenge a higher level party. In terms of balancing the treasure for a higher level party, would knowledge brews as an infrequent/rare drop from the aforementioned monster seem unbalanced?

First off, where can I find information about adding a boat? Also, can I place a boat outside or set up a call to "create" a boat that the party has just found?

Edit: Okay, that clears things up. I'll probably come up with some more questions over the next week or so.

Okay, I figured out where I kept exiting the town to, but I still haven't figured out how to change where in the outdoor section my party ends up after exiting the town. I went under the outdoor pull-down menu and set the starting location at just outside of the town; but evey time I test it, the party appears in the middle of the section. Can anyone give me any tips on how to fix that?

Okay, before I even worry about anything else; how do I make it so that when the party leaves a town (like, oh say, the warrior's grove) they appear where I want them to on the out door map? Every time I try to get a feel for actual travel time in the game, I just end up in a large black area with walls around it and nowhere that I can move to. The walls aren't stopping me, it's the lack of terrain, but I can't figure out where the party is when they get outside, or else I'd fix it. Also, can you move/delete a town entrance once it's been placed?

Ah yes, but who said anything about it being required combat? It's actually a punishment for players who pick the wrong route. Even if they do beat the thing (which I will probably tone down, just a bit) I'm going to advance the clock several hours. This scenario is supposed to punish explorers and reward runners. If and when I get this out, you'll understand after seeing the name.

Despite my protestations of not wanting to make a scenario, I found myself starting one after reading through several articles. Unfortunately, my scripting skills are lacking. I have no idea as to how long I will be working on it, but I will probably be asking for lots of help. On to the first question: I'm just a bit confused about setting up some special combat encounters. I want the party to meet up with a new type of beastie (ie an original monster) that will be challenging for higher level parties. Can anyone provide a few tips as to what kind of abilities I might try to throw in? I also need some way to alter the amount of time the party has left after the fight. Unfortunately the time limit on my scenario (as planned so far) is 2-3 days, so I need something that takes a few hours off. Edit: I don't know if I'm just sadistic or something, but one of the beasties that I'm planning on putting in is a level 50 "Fission Dragon" that splits every time it's hit, is immune to most spells, and carries around a blade barrier (just to make sure it splits a lot). Does that sound like a bit much?

I won't claim to be very good at this stuff, but even if I started a scenario, I probably wouldn't finish it until about 5 years had passed. Anyhoo, here's an idea for a town that fits both Drakey's idea and cuts down on things unrelated to the scenario directly. Picture this: an army encampment. It is where your first mission begins. Either through an attack on it by enemy forces, or a task given to your "infiltration unit" by a colonel (or a general, I'm not very good with military ranks). You go out kill the enemy wizard or kill off a large number of his subordinate wizards. All of the spells maintained by said mages suddenly break apart upon the death of their creator/s (yes I'm stealing this from Mercedes Lackey's books). When you return to the camp, everything is in shambles. The magical energy released by the exploding spells has wreaked havoc and is twisting reality. Then you find out that the Mage-lord that you supported has been assassinated and that the problems were caused by his spells all ripping apart (or by the enemy weapon that was used to kill him). Each time you finish a quest to rescue someone, or gather information, or destroy some magical monster, something in the camp changes. On top of that, people are evacuating the area, so there are fewer and fewer people that you can talk to, but they now have more to say. Eventually, you will reach the point where the party evacuates too, but that they need to sheppard the most recent casualties out to a safe rendezvous. In just about every part, the town changes, in some cases drastically, in others, very little; but the town is a dynamic part of the scenario. On the other hand, since just about everyone is a soldier, you don't have to find houses or jobs for them; all of the "streets" are straight and neat; and, almost none of the people have to have original dialogue, just give them a speech window that tells about how you talked to the soldiers and that they chatted with you while they were off duty (or told you that they can't talk because they are heading out for their daily duties). I know, I probably shouldn't talk, because I don't really intend to write my own scenarios, but I thought I might be able to at least help generate ideas for other people.