Donald Hebb

Way to misread the rules, Kel and Thuryl. The rules say that talking about Hex-Editing is bad- but he in no way talked about the Hex-Editing he used to access this information. The topics "NPC Adjacent Space Bug" or "put_stain bug", however, are virulently inappropriate. For instance, stating that "NPCs are not counted while searching" or "put_stain is bugged" is not illegal, nor is posting data about Lethal Blow. Stating that "you can access this in line yada-yada..." is. Anyway, thanks again, Arsenic.

How often does Lethal Blow work, and what EXACTLY does it do? Programming gurus, I'm looking at you... >_<

You could just have the guards set to being neutral, being set to hostile whenever the party is visible. Guards who know that the party can turn invisible would have a variable flipped that causes them to lash out whenever they hear a sound. However, even guards who know where the party is should lose sight of the party if it does nothing for a single round. Also, they should take TREMENDOUS negative penalties to their chances of hitting. (This should be added moreso by Parry and Defense skills.)

There's a million ways to go about this- the way I'd use is I'd pool together each PC's Dex, Gymnastics and Quick Action skills, and turn them into an invisible "Stealth" skill. For each 4 ranks, you'd gain another space within its line of sight where it would not be able to attack you. (Essentially, it would technically be able to hit you with an arrow or something, but the script would tell it, "no! You don't see this person.") This bonus of not being seen would obviously not work at point-blank range (ie. 2 spaces or fewer). A creature on guard would get back some of those lost spaces. Hitting a creature lets it and the creatures around it know that you are there. On the other hand, killing a creature before it has the time to react would go unnoticed by the people around it if the creature is not seen by other creatures.

Beginner Scenarios The desire to make a scenario is understandable. Unfortunately, the desire to start with a large and/or complex scenario is even more so; perhaps you should start with a morceaux. What am I saying? Essentially, start small in more words than necessary. Start very, very small. Not only that, but start off very simply. Reduce your idea until making it any simpler would be boring. For instance, let's say that you want to have demons summoned by Garzahd enslave nephils to attack some rebels on the surface, and the Haakai raises one of the nephils into a giant demon who you have to defeat by retrieving and using Catslayer, the magic greatsword enchanted by the mystic Belthazar et cetera. Too complex. But the nephils idea doesn't sound bad- let's go with that. In my scenario for BoE called Bandits, I start off with an idea of the same idea- Bandits. Give your scenario one unique idea that makes it more interesting and realistic. Perhaps these nephils are very organized, and they have an educated leader who used to be the adopted son of a noble. In Bandits, the leader of the rogues had his wife stolen away by the leader of the town he's harassing. Neither of these ideas are too complex or fantastic, and both create relatively enticing plots. Don't make your ideas overly cliched or incomprehensible. In Bahssikava, you have heaps of Exile/Avernum overused ideas- Undead, demons, golems, Vahnatai machinery, etc., and not a single inspiring villain. Its plotline was very boring as a result of this. On the other end of the spectrum is Echoes (a series of scenarios for BoE), whose plotline was filled with characters who had ample motivations that weren't telegraphed to the player. At least 10 major NPCs were in each scenario, and the party learned a name, picture, and nothing more. Its plotline was very confusing as a result of this. When thinking about how to make your scenario interesting, don't fall into either of these two pitfalls. Then, plan where your party will go in this adventure. Usually, this is the given enemy's lair. You don't have to force the party to go to the lair or not, but it's usually assumed that in a small scenario, there won't be many other places to go. In Ambitious Nephil, the party goes to the Nephilim Fort. In Bandits, the party went to the Bandits' Lair. You can make this more exotic if you want, but for a beginning scenario, I wouldn't. Once you know where the party will go, think about what they will have to do when they get there. In the Nephilim Fort, the party will probably find a locked gate. Fortunately, the party purchased some explosives from the General Store in the nearby city. (NOTICE! Locked gates are often a convenient way to keep a party out of a fort, but the most often-used remedy for this is a secret passage or crumbling wall. Try to avoid that, and go with something more interesting instead, such as using rope to climb onto an unoccupied ledge or explosives to blow into the fort.) Then, think about what else would be in the fort- usually, this involves whoever is in the fort and isn't on a patrol. On the other hand, it might not have to stop there- you could have the fort's denizens run towards the opening the party has just created, pitting the party against more enemies than the party might be able to handle. So tell the party to retreat, and then set a timer for when the guards in the fort stop huddling around the new entrance. Then, the party will be able to enter the fort and sneak around! The general trend is to make everything at least somewhat interesting. For instance, when the party re-enters the fort, think about how the party will get to the educated nephil. Will the nephil flee? If so, what will the party be able to do? Design each encounter accordingly. Furthermore, it helps to think about how each plot nuance will be conveyed- perhaps the nephil leader's extensive library will hint to the party that the nephil is an anomaly. Or perhaps the nephil will speak in perfect English/Imperial- let the party know this! And then, think about how you can communicate the falling-out between the nephil and her/his parents to the party. At that point, the party will not be gunning down random stacks of HP; they will have wandered through a real, vibrant fort, and they will have slain the nephil, or perhaps will have let her/him flee! Now just imagine how much superior the scenario Ambitious Nephil is in comparison to "Demon Nephil Invasion," and it only required a fraction of the effort! A few general warnings to top this article off: 1. Do not use Warrior's Grove. 2. Remember the use of the spray can and frill terrain tools. 3. Custom graphics are easy to implement. 4. Bad custom graphics are easy to implement. 5. Incidental noises can enhance an area's mood. 6. Learning scripting really does help! 7. Custom NPC scripts make for interesting encounters. 8. Never hesitate to ask how to do something.

That's a loophole, yes. Why you would ever WANT to do something like that is beyond me. Hm. Perhaps one could keep track of party member NAMES, or something... Well, it's sorta possible. Point is, it could never profit the party too much, so I'm not sure why anyone would try to do it.

What you COULD do is something like what I did to the party in the Shroud fight- subtract all of the party's spell levels by their current spell levels minus one, meaning that all spell levels become one. Set flags to the spell values so that they can be re-added when the party leaves the plateau. This way, you'll still be spending the same amount of SP, but depending on the party's level, you will do significantly less damage. Alternatively or additionally, you could give all PCs +10 to Magical Efficiency at the beginning of the scenario and take it away when the party is on the plateau- this way, the party would be far more restricted with SP usage. (But remember to take it away at the scenario's end.) And of course, you could take down every PC's mage and priest skills levels down to the level required to cast the given PC's highest spell, cutting SP down significantly. Intelligence could be halved and magery could be eliminated, etc. ...okay, some of these methods are evil. Use them with caution, I suppose.

Warning: This rule does not apply to 1PC parties.

Hey toast, do you ever play legitimately?

He is either a foreigner or VERY young.

Say, could you have more keyboard shortcuts for placing and deleting objects (ie, barrels, blood, etc) like we had in BoE? And does your "hill formation" tool work on the same flawed bases that the one from the regular BoA editor is based on?

I won't join this futile argument, but... Quote: Originally written by Turumby: Thuryl, *i, et. al. have made a lot, ...Thuryl has made one scenario.

I won't join this futile argument, but... Quote: Originally written by Turumby: Thuryl, *i, et. al. have made a lot, ...Thuryl has made one scenario.

(PoD Person, I cannot help but notice that you like Canopy and Bahssikava very much- considering this, why not rate them at the Comprehensive BoA Scenario Rankings forum at the Lyceum: http://p080.ezboard.com/fthelyceumfrm32 )

An option to get rid of the cutscenes? You've got my signature on that one.

(This is TM, by the way.) For the rest of Bandits, the spell Sleep Cloud is VERY effective. In fact, it works on the Rakshasa, and does WONDERS on the "ambush". You can also wait inside of dungeons. Against the trophies, charm the nearest ones with hasted magi. They're quasi-vulnerable to this, making it a decent strategy. The "final" boss is easy enough.

Using a somewhat inferior party, I was able to have the three magi haste themselves first round. (This requires living the first archer's volleys, but that's feasible.) Then each mage will have 8AP, letting them each cast Conflagration twice. Dump 6 castings on the bandits (and anyone else who you can manage), wiping them all out. The archer and evil acolyte alone are manageable.

Quote: Originally written by Solodric: Goes from level 1 to truly epic levels (It should cap off somewhere in the 150-175 range) with really high-level spells as well......if I can make it that big. Trying not to get too ambitious ...you WILL NOT make a scenario this large, I guarantee you. (Unless I'm misinterpreting you, and you're just going to have award_party_xp(); calls littering your scenario, altough I doubt it.)

"The removal of Cloud of Blades struck me as artificial. I do not even use the spell much normally but it seems to me that if a particular spell would have unbalanced your combats then there are other ways to deal with this as a designer(don't get me wrong. Canopy is easily better than anything I could have done.) but this is probably a minor quibble." I took away Cloud of Blades for a very good reason- it does damage depending on the creature's HP total. So a boss like Shroud would take tremendous amounts of HP damage from the spell, making it unbalanced. I'm quite sure that taking the spell away was a wise choice on my behalf for the tactics of the scenario. "I was much more put off by the attempt at inserting new "spells" via wands like Natureshand and so on. I think we all would like to see Jeff take a different stance on allowing designers to create new spells but this is not the way to do it IMO. I realize most disagree with me on this but I can't stand it." I want tactical situations that aren't hingent on Divine Aid, War Blessing, Fireblast, etc. This is the BEST way for me to create more interesting situations for the party that I can see- if you can make combat more interesting without resorting to something similar, you are a better man than I am. "Just create new items and give your baddies susceptibilities to those items, ala LoTR. . . but don't try and pass the wands off as 'new spells' that take up an inventory slot and read as "wand" and don't show up in my list of spells when I go to cast." Then tell me how to do it by any other means. Again, I do not do this because I cannot. "Reminds of when certain BoE - kiddies try to create new PC races by suggesting we use a custom graphic and pretend our Nephils are "elves" or somesuch nonsense. Get over it. The Avernum universe does not have other spells or races or skills beyond what is allowed in BoA and calling a wand you have created a "new spell" in your readme file does not make it so. THat's the sort of "r0L3Pl4y1nG" crap that can ruin a scenario for me." But if you want elves, who's there to stop you? Seems to me as if you think that scenarios become better when they adhere to the Avernum engine and plot- which I, of course, think is utter bollocks. As a designer, I'm offended; as a player, I feel mocked. "Clearly, the amount of suffering you have suffered under while fighting monotonous Vogel combat isn't enough; so designers, please do make combat less interesting for the sake of gaming clichés." So yeah- things are becoming less connected to Jeff's "pristine vision of BoA." So what? BoA, despite what you may think, is NOT A BoA FANFICTION. Even the designers that work in its universe will agree that your proposal is outrageous, and this has been reflected in BoX designing since 1997.

EDIT: Okay, I managed to get background music. Thanks alot!

1) The BoA Editor Appendices are a much better tool once you know basic syntax 2) Playing around- that is, making a scenario that exists just so you can test what you know- is a terrific way to learn

How? And is there any way to turn MP3/WAV files into BoA sounds?

Check the FAQ linked to at the top of this forum.

short get_species(which_char) Or alternatively... species_in_party(which_species)

I'm in. That aside... Would it be possible to allow for CUSTOM sounds? Ya know, like .wav files taking their own sound slots? (I really want to make music as town incidental noises!)