Re: Calling All True Believers...
 

ok, sorry 'bout that... I've been gone....

There are many ways to do this, depending on how you handle your magic items and if you have premade characters or the ability for the player to make them.

If you want your players to be able to make their own characters you don't have the benefit of knowing up front what the ability scores are, so instead have your bonuses to abilities be fixed number bonuses (like say that your girdle of giant strenght gives a flat +7 to str(for example) so you can subtract 7 from the score.

to do a random amount requires making a variable that saves the original ability score so you could return the score to its original number, and I personnally recommend using quests. I'd tell you how to do ASLs but for the problem of I haven't played with them enough to be able to tell you anything about them other than what they SHOULD do (from what I've read in the help).
Premade characters can give you other tricks that you can pull that allow you to set up ability score tracking (or any other number tracking) without using quests that show up in your inventory, if you decide to use premade characters; but it is not necessary.

-SilentThief
PS, I can go into better explanation in more detail if needed.

Re: Calling All True Believers...
 

Yeah, I bet that's what it's doing....

Re: Calling All True Believers...
 

First off, yes, I am wanting to allow the player to make their own characters. I won't be including my party in the final version of the design.
You mention just having my girdle give a flat +7 to STR. How do I do that? Are you talking about doing it through quests? Or an item (which I would prefer)? And my next question is how do I subtract it?
I don't want to do a random amount. Yes, I did think of just coding the character's stat number in the code. (Let's say my girdle ups their STR to 23, and their original STR was 17.) With a bit of unintentional help from Manikus, I figured out how to code "make their STR 23" and when the character unreadies it "make their STR 17." That's surprisingly easy to code. Problem solved, right? No, it's not. Doesn't work with -every- character, I can't take that same girdle and make it work for another character, unless -their- original Str was 17 also.
Yes, more detail would be greatly appreciated, thank you. If you have time....

Re: Calling All True Believers...
 

On a related note, I have a question.
Using that method, is item givng exceptional strength to a character possible?
If so, how? The program won't accept an "/" as valid....

Re: Calling All True Believers...
 

Ok, FD; I can tell you that one simple enough.
The scripts $GET and/or $SET_CHAR_STRMOD are what deal with exceptional strength.

As for your request for more detail I have to tell you, I haven't found a viable answer when dealing with multiple characters and/or non-premade characters. As I'm sure you know, looking for answers in the Flipping help file thats almost 4 years since last revision (and was NOT complete back then).. anyhow I digress

What I know about how 2 do stat modification thru items and have it be reversable is that you have to have a way to set up a variable that has the original stat value so you could return it to the orignal setting. I have a testing mod (actually 3 of them ;)) and in it I had 1 character that was a fighter. if you set a characters experience for a class that they DON'T have, you can test it later. So, for example my fighter is given some Paladin exp thru an event: logic block GPDL script (condition: always)
then select the "..." button and enter this:

$SET_CHAR_PALADINEXP($MyIndex(), $GET_CHAR_STR($MyIndex()));

therefore the character that is NOT a paladin would have thier own strength score (without exceptional str) as thier "paladin exp" that amounts to nothing for now. Then you apply the strength score bonus, having a backup (and I believe that the backup doesn't even add to your EXP on your character screen)

then when you change back you have the opposite on a step event check on every step (or whatever you want, this will allow usable 1 time items easily enough like a potion of giant strength)
$SET_CHAR_STR($MyIndex(), $GET_CHAR_PALADINEXP($MyIndex()));

This has its problems and they are obvious, but I'll say them anyway. First off, you have to limit the character-types/character creation so if you test for paladin exp, its not on a paladin or you could easily be testing out to see if they have strength in the thousands (max is 25 I believe). Second, you couldn't allow a human change class to change to the paladin for the same reason.

Now, since you posted the question I've tried to piece together the answer that would be universal for all characters, and have been unable (it still seems like there should be a way!!!!).
You should be able to use quests (thru scripting GDPL, it HAS to be usable in GDPL) but I couldn't get it. You should be able to use ASLs (logic block handles them fine, trying to do them in GDPL I couldn't get that to works, either.).

Currently the magic system is in the beta stage for reasons such as these. I have been trying to puzzle some solutions out for the common practices we should be able to do and I've pieced together a start, but it is a work in progress and sadly I have school/family/job/real life making hard to puzzle these out. I am pursuing a degree in gaming and simulation, tho; and I hope to actually join the development team to contribute to DC

Sorry I don't have the answer
-SilentThief

Re: Calling All True Believers...
 

Eh. It's cool. I'll try your suggestions. A bit of a disappointment that the program can't do that. But at least this method supplied by manikus has given me the chance to modify characters' stats to what I want. (My namesake character has UBER Strength and my paladin wears a girdle of giant strength. But I found when you make items that modify stats, have the character ready the items then drop them, then delete the items from the database the changes to the stats stay and are permanent as far as I can tell.) And it has allowed me to make some equipment, albeit for -just- my characters. That's something at least. Thanks, guys....

Re: Calling All True Believers...
 

So changing the special abilities work correctly, then? I tried changing these before and didn't get them to work (altho I've learned a bit more since then). What I want to know is, if you change the special ability (thru whatever window) it makes each instance of that special ability work the same way, right? You should see the altered script when you open a later edit of that special ability, as in it saves it?

-SilentThief

Re: Calling All True Believers...
 

It only alters it for that instance. This is a good thing, otherwise, we'd only have 20 or so items with different special abilities. :)
This is kind of anithetical to what DC does when exporting databases- just the script name is exported, not what the script does. I'm sure it's some type of bug. (I've already posted at SourceForge for Tarlanon to take a look at.)
What we need are the ability to add new special abilities through the GPDL or some scripting tool...(remember PAul's idea?)

Re: Calling All True Believers...
 

from your description, Tarlanon shouldn't fix this. Did you ever edit any messages that go along with the special abilities? did it do anything? You are right on the money for needing the ability to add more special abilities

-ST

Re: Calling All True Believers...
 

What I would like him to change is that in the export, if the special ability has not been altered, it would display as now - just the name, but if the script has been changed, then the script would be exported.

I haven't edited any messages (not ocunting changing source code). :)

Re: Calling All True Believers...
 

You've been changing source code? SWEET!!!

-SilentThief

Re: Calling All True Believers...
 

Changing, unfortunately does not equal fixing bugs or adding features. But, one day, maybe I'll make that leap. :)

Re: Calling All True Believers...
 

You changed source code? SWEET!!!
So are you going to do any "manikus releases"? Like after you change some things that you want to alter and you get enough of them and POW! you have a release???

-ST

Re: Calling All True Believers...
 

I've thought about using my own engine for modules I design. I've even toyed with doing a 3e conversion (I think I started this and it's laying around on my harddrive somewhere) not b/c I prefer 3e, but b/c it's open source through the SRD released by Wizards of the Coast.
I've also thought about doing a version for sci-fi/cyber-punk so that I can change stuff that isn't supported through the various .txt files yet.
But, these will never be DC releases. I don't want to take the chance of splitting this project. I'm doing this more for learning purposes and because there was a while when it looked like all the coders had left the room and forgotten to turn of the light; but thank goodness that isn't the case. :D

Re: Calling All True Believers...
 

Well I want to be a developer to program for the possibility of 3 things: Finish version 1.0 (most important of the three), enable overlaying "rulesets" that allow you to add in any portion or all of the optional and side rules for both 1st and 2nd edition (and that includes specialist and designer-created character classes), and lastly make my own selection of those classes and rulesets as an add-on (if anyone else wanted to use them)

-SilentThief

Re: Calling All True Believers...
 

Excellent idea, ST....
I would -love- to see that....
Manikus is right, we don't want to split the project. DC is slow enough in development, nothing could be gained from splitting.
But that special abilities thing was a stroke of genius! :)

And I have a question: Does anybody have Katana and Wakizashi in their Item Editor that they didn't put there themselves?

Re: Calling All True Believers...
 

...Which reminds me...I have to finish creating those super power items....

Re: Calling All True Believers...
 

seems like this woulg work for super-powering NPCs as well...

-st

Re: Calling All True Believers...
 

For NPCs, you can just give them super-powered stats in the editor if you so wish. :)

Re: Calling All True Believers...
 

Er, yeah :rolleyes:.
I got an interesting and wierd trick you can pull. Imagine this, you have a group of items with the special ability edited and for sake of example we'll use item1, item2, and item3 (real original, I know). But what you do is you give the item1 the special ability when you ready that takes item1 away and gives item2. give item2 the ability when you ready it that it takes away item2 and gives you item3, then give item3 the ability to take item3 away and give item1. Make them all as weapons (so the enemy AI will ready them) and do the same damage (for this example). Why? these are the ideas I came up with:
* to keep count of combat rounds. You could use this to assign a quest counter to do timekeeping in a combat (for the edge-of-your-seat timed quest)
* to do special attacks on a set number of rounds (for example, the iron golem is supposed to belch a poisonous cloud every 5 rounds)
* to do 1 time special attacks (like a sword of life stealing that has 1 charge, and reverst to a sword +1 or even a nonmagical sword)
* to do troll regenerate (just code in a +3 hp script on the 3rd item)
* to do a dragons breath weapon (they can breathe up to 3 times, and then the combat goes normally)

Now, these are the hypothetical uses of this. I'll be testing out if it works or not...

Crazy as usual
SilentThief

Re: Calling All True Believers...
 

Actually, I'm going to post this in its own thread.

-ST