Splitting one PC from the party

[Thralni]

I have gotten an idea of something I think myself is quite cool, but for that I have to be able to split a PC from tha prty in such a way, that the player can't use that PC: it's the exact opposite of what you can do with the existing calls (which is to split one PC from the party and play only with that PC, I want to plit one PC from the party and play with the party). Now of course it's possible (Kelandon did it in Bahssikava), but that's not entirely what I want. If there is not other way I'll do it vua Kelandons method (which is to move a chosen PC to a secluded spot and charm him heavily. It would be nice, though, if there are other ways.

[Niemand]

I think Kelandon's method is how you'll have to do it. The party splitting calls only make the party temporarily into a singleton.

[Lilith]

Of course, you could also just kill the PC, but that would be inconvenient.

[Lazarus.]

The only alternative I can think of is to kill one character, and later use restore_pc to raise him. You'll have to have him pick his equipment back up, but I think it's still the cleaner option.

[Lilith]

Ha ha.

[Thralni]

I did think about killing the poor guy/woman, but I didn't know for sure I could resurrect him/her without losing his/her stats. If i do use this method, will the character be intact (that is, no stat loss) when I resurrect him/her?

[Niemand]

I think so, though if you find it doesn't work that way, you can always record the character's stats in a set of flags, and then restore them after resurrection.

[Thralni]

Okay, thanks. I'll try that.

[Ishad Nha]

Why so bloodthirsty? Experience from Exodus shows that repeatedly webbing a PC makes him/her absolutely useless. Then there is sleep too. When you want to have the PC rejoin the party just cure the relevant effect(s).

[Lazarus.]

That strategy means that the player is stuck in combat mode, and the 'split' character still appears in the roster. I think killing the char would be an improvement.

[Sudanna]

But wouldn't killing the character allow resurrection by a priest? Please forgive Nalyd if this is a horribly naive question. You could alway attempt to get around that by increasing how dead they are (Petrification, dust, etc.).

[Niemand]

Not if he doesn't put in any priests who do resurrections.

 

EDIT: Oh, now I see. You meant Return Life, not npc healers. Sorry.

[Thralni]

As lazarus said, the party will be stuck in combat mode, which means that, before a tick passes, the player has to put in extra time to get all characters moving, so that their ap have been used (unless he does "defense" all the time) and the turn ends, and another tick passes. Conclusion: this takes up unnecesary time. Instead of that, it would be a lot better if the party could just move around normally.

 

I don't think a priest with resuurection will be a problem. I'm designing for a level 20-30 party, and I have yet to find a scenario in which one can resurrect at a high level (more than 1).

[nikki.]

If you wanted to be doubly sure that they couldn't resurrect the dead PC, just remove all balms of life from them.

 

And to stop them from making more, you could just remove that recipe for the duration of the scenario.

[Dikiyoba]

Or just turn off the resurrection spell, if that would be easier. Because someone will play through your scenario with a god party.

 

Dikiyoba.

[Thralni]

I added a notice in the Readme file and a message_dialog call in the scenario start state, alerting people to read the readme file before playing, like I did in WtRM. That way I hope to alert people about the fact that their character will be killed. I generally don't like taking away spells, so I will only do that if it's really necessary. I also don't know why anybody would want to use a god party for TNS...

[Nioca]

To just generally cause havoc in most cases. Think about it: using a god party, you don't have to concern yourself with combat much, other than dealing gratuitous amounts of death.

[Thralni]

Then me thinks a god party will be mostly useless, as a puzzle is a puzzle is a puzzle is a puzzle, and it doesn't matter if it's combat based or not. By just hacking through, you won't win anything in most cases.

[John S]

Some people use god parties to avoid difficult combat. Some people also use the same party for every scenario for convenience.

[Sudanna]

And some people just play through scenarios for the story value. And, apparently, balms of life aren't required for resurrection in BoA. They just heal. Odd, isn't it?

[Thralni]

Maybe I'm just naive, but I trust my players to just read the readme, and thus read they should not resurrect their fallen comrade if they don't want to break that part of the scenario.

 

Also, what I meant with my earlier comment about using godparties: What I meant was that hacking through will not win the puzzles for you. Upon rereading it, I thought it might have been a little unclear, because what people might have understood is "You won't win the scenario," which of course isn't true. No, the puzzles I try to design will make you think about what to do, and hacking through all the enemies will probably get you nowhere. You will have either to attack a very specific thing or do a series of specific things, after which you can defeat the enemies. So that's why a god party may not be usefull.

[aka Ravenwing]

I seem to recall having this same question for Kel a while back (though I doubt he remembers). Actually, it was really more of a suggestion for the battle arena in the HLPM. I don't recall what he said about it, but I was kind of curious as to why Jeff didn't include the feature into BoA, as he used it in the prior Avernum games.

 

Kind of a bummer, too. I could make good use of that for at least one or two of my scenario ideas.

[Kelandon]

I don't think so. Splitting off one character so that three are active and one is inactive has not appeared anywhere that I can remember in the Avernum Trilogy. Splitting off one character so that one is active and three are inactive has been used, but that's available in BoA, too.

[Malimar]

I could have sworn there was in at least one of the original three Avernum games the option to leave one of your characters in a room somewhere temporarily. Maybe it had something to do with having the option to have somebody join you and you needed to have only four people. Or maybe I'm imagining things.

[Kelandon]

Oh, that. That's kinda different, but yes, you could do that. Huh. That actually would've been nice if Jeff had included it.

[Nioca]

I have a solution: set_mobility.

 

Just have some sort of chamber off to the side of the dungeon, and use the set_mobility call to paralyze the desired party member. Then have the party enter combat, and do whatever has to be done. The paralyzed member can still shoot, cast spells, etc., but would be unable to follow after the party, essentially separating him entirely. Then, when the stuff is over, simply use the relocate_character call to move the character back over to the party.

 

I got this idea because I'm working on something slightly related for Veritas.

[Thralni]

And there comes back the problem I wanted to avoid: i want the party to be out of combat mode, as I'm sure it will irritate most players that they won't be able to move in normal mode. I didn't test the kill thing yet, but I already coded it, and it will stay there unless it doesn't work proparly.

 

It seems like a very interesting thing, though, to use in a puzzle. I will keep it in mind.

 

So even though I won't use it for what you suggested it, I'm sure I will find an other use for it.

[Lazarus.]

That idea isn't really any different than webbing/paralyzing the character, except that the player would have to make that character wait every turn.

 

Just kill the sucker and be done with it.