Creature Types
 

Certain items are weapons designed to work especially well against particular types of creatures. The Frost Brand long sword is useful for fiery creatures, the Flame Blade for creatures of cold, then there is the variety of Long Swords for use against Lycanthropes, Reptiles…
Now some of these creature classifications don't occur among the prescribed forms:
"// Form (combinable - none, mammal, animal, snake, giant, large (even if icon is 1x1)".
Possibly, creature classifications like Reptile, Dragon, Humanoid, Lycanthrope could be made into Special Abilities. Hopefully an item script can check if the wielder's opponent has the relevant Special Ability and is thus a Dragon, Reptile, creature of the lower planes or whatever.

Re: Creature Types
 

One thing that is difficult about AD&D is that although fiery monsters tend to be weak to watery/cold attacks (for example), the result can be many various things (and is not unified), like:

Double damage (rare)
+1/die damage
Other effects

Perhaps we should try to list up all the possibilities given first...

Re: Creature Types
 

DC scripting would enable the damage done by the scripted weapon to be totally variable? If that is the case you won't need to worry about having a template capable of handling all possible cases. Need to check this with Manikus.

Re: Creature Types
 

To answer the original question, yes and yes. :D:D:D

I believe the example I used in the other thread was that if you want to check one-eyed, pigeon-toed dwarves who did their post doc work in Calcutta, no problem. All of these classifications are very easy to check for using Special Abilities and a simple script. :)

Re: Creature Types
 

If a Baaz Draconian is killed by a melee weapon, the weapon may or may not get stuck in the Baaz corpse for some time. In a computer game this means that the weapon is unreadied, removed from the PC's inventory and added to the treasure pile. (The treasure the party gets if it wins rather than loses or flees the combat.)
This could be effected by having the Baaz steal the weapon when it dies.
Aurak Draconians have a special dying form that is immobile and attacks with double damage blows. Then explodes with a bang some rounds latter. So when it dies, an Aurak could be replaced by a new monster, a Dying Aurak

Re: Creature Types
 

I'm not sure what you mean by giving weapons variable damage - they already do a random amount, like 1d5 or 3d4 (1-5 or 3-12).

Everything else sounds like it can be done. :D

Re: Creature Types
 

By "variable damage" I meant damage that was not chosen from a list of possibilities like:

• Double damage
• +1/die damage
• Target slowed/diseased

Damage whose formula could be written by the designer from scratch.

Baaz script should handle the weapon stuck in Baaz body issue. Otherwise every melee weapon in the game would need a script just to handle the Baaz.

Re: Creature Types
 

I find what you call variable damage confusing. All of the stuff in your list is accomplished by script...is it that you don't want to use other peoples? Perhaps there is still miscommunitcation about Special Abilities - they are all scripts. Even the ones hardcoded in .914 - they're not hard-coded any more (well at least by the time the next release comes out), I'm writing scripts for all of them.
Scripts can be attached to all database artifacts - items, monsters, spells, Special Abilities, NPCs, race, class, baseclass. Scripts can also be used to trigger events and in the Logic Block event.

Re: Creature Types
 

"Variable damage" sounds like 5d6&. Perhaps a better description would be: "damage derived from a formula where the designer can write the formula however he/she pleases".
Possible formulas include: one point per level, the wielder's current hp...
(The last one you will need for a Krynn Dragonlance, said lances are staples of Krynn's history.)
If the designer can write the formulas any way he/she wants, we won't need to list all possible formulas in advance before we can begin scripting.
Edit:
It does not matter what a Special Ability is, script or not, as long as it is detected by other scripts. A script for a Frost Brand sword would need to be able to detect the Special Ability of fire-dwelling creatures. (If we are using Special Ability to record creature type, being fire-dwelling would be a Special Ability. Presumably the Fire-dwelling special ability script would contain nothing much, but as long as it can be detected by other scripts.)

Re: Creature Types
 

The Special Ability capability is a little
bit a misnomer. And it is very confusing,
perhaps because of its generality. But your
second paragraph (the "Edit:") captures
much of its essence.

A Special Ability is something that is attached
to an object along with a parameter. So, for
example, we could attach "Alergic to Peanuts"
to a "Blue Ant" with parameter 2 and "Alergic
to Peanuts" to a "Red Ant" with parameter 3.

Special Abilities can trigger scripts. "Alergic to
Peanuts" might trigger the script named "Compute
Damage" (at the time damage is computed in
a combpat context). The script could look at the
weapon used (was it a Peanut?), look at the
target's Special Ability to see if it was "Alergic
to Peanuts", and, if so, multiply the normal damage
bmy the parameter (2 or 3 in our example.)

So, in this case, the Special Ability, "Alergic to
Peanuts", is really a disability.

The key concepts:

1) Special Abilities can trigger "Hooks" in the code
to run scripts at critical times.
2) Scripts can examine Special Abilities of the objects
involved.
3) Special Abilities and their associated scripts will
come pre-coded for the standard objects (Manikus is
doing a lot of this and has become the world-renowned
expert in all things Special).
4) The Special Abilities and their associated scripts
are open source to any designer to modify, add, or
delete as desired.
5) We are finding (Manikus can set me straight if I am
wrong) that a certain base-level of scripting functions
has sufficed to do a LOT of the necessary work. So,
it seems likely to me that they, and perhaps just a few
more, will suffice for many of the requests on your
wish-list.

http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawik...cial_Abilities

and

http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawik...lities_Scripts

Re: Creature Types
 

Sounds great! Looks like we may be able to do things like iron golems are immune to spells except for lightning bolt, which slows them, etc... (I think) :D

Re: Creature Types
 

I think so, too.

Give Iron Golem "Electric Immunity".
Give Lightning Bolt "Electric".

In "Electric Immunity" script you
see if the spell has "Electric" and

a) if not, then supress all damage.
b) if so, slow

Note: I don't know what slow is and we
probably have not implemented it yet.

Any questions? This stuff is simple on the
surface but confusing in action. At least
for me. I suppose the digit '0' was confusing
to the Romans until they got used to it.

Re: Creature Types
 

I think it may be: Iron Golems are slowed by electrical attacks generally. In which case scripting is even easier.
I don't have access to a copy of the Monster Manual though.

Re: Creature Types
 

Sounds great! :D I think we should have a slow thing working already, as there is a 3rd level magic-user spell called "Slow" (basically halves speed/attacks, I think).

Re: Creature Types
 

Slow is working. :)

Re: Creature Types
 

Here is the chapter and verse about Iron Golems from the SEADS site. Look at the left side of the screen and you will see a Journals bar, among other things it lists the PHB and the Monstrous Manual. There is no download as such.
http://www.seads.org/rpg_stuff/rpg_fraim.htm

"Combat: The iron golem conforms to the strategies listed for the stone golem except as described here. It has a strength of 24 for the purposes of lifting, throwing or breaking objects. The iron golem is immune to any weapon, except those of +3 or better enchantment. Magical electrical attacks will slow it for 3 rounds, and magical fire attacks actually repair 1 hit point of damage for each hit die of damage it would have caused. All other spells are ignored. Iron golems are subject to the damage inflicted by a rust monster. Once every 7 rounds, beginning either the first or second round of combat, the iron golem breathes out a cloud of poisonous gas. It does this automatically, with no regard to the effects it might have. The gas cloud fills a 10 foot cube directly in front of it, which dissipates by the following round, assuming there is somewhere for the gas to go."

Edit:
You can download the file yourself by choosing Select All, copy and then paste into a Word document. In RTF form it comes to 3MB after I change all font to Arial. Creating a Table of Contents is easy in Word, just use the Edit > Replace function to change all 24 point Normal (Web) font to Heading 1 style.
I don't know if Manikus will object to the download or not. If he does not it can be uploaded to this forum.

Re: Creature Types
 

Actually online you can find quite a few 2e resources for AD&D. If you visit my forums, I have a thread devoted to the links that include Monster Manual, Players Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, Tome of Spells and more. :)

I'm using the 1e rules for everything. I've even been defaulting to 1e over FRUA if they're different, and the way they handle monsters and their special abilities is usually at least a little different. :D

Re: Creature Types
 

Importing from FRUA to DC is easier if they are both 1E. You could probably devise standard 2E versions of the DC dat files for when 2E is wanted.

Re: Creature Types
 

FRUA is 1e, but they simplified some things. DC is a more robust engine/editor and will not need to simplify some of those things.

DC can support 2e, that's for sure, but it's outside of the purview of default DC. :)

Re: Creature Types
 

Those links in your forum you could make sticky here, that would enable people to research Iron Golems&, even if they don't have the Monstrous Manual.
Really need a downloadable version of the MM, the dotd.com version can only be saved one page at a time. Not all countries have internet plans with unlimited data download, at least some have a variety of plans, the cheaper of which have a measly 200MB per month data download limit.

Re: Creature Types
 

I can't make anything sticky here, I'm not an admin, just an active poster. :)

Besides, I like having my own forums, even if only a couple of people ever look there.

Re: Creature Types
 

I will need to talk to an administrator here if I want anything sticky, the only one is Ziroc?
If DC were to take off you would probably downloadable references here, the download limits might apply to a few people.

Re: Creature Types
 

When DC really takes off, people can always be pointed from here to other forums, like the FRUA Community forums where the administrators are much more active than Ziroc is.
Not to mention the obvious that I run my own forums. :)
I hope that many people will use the SourceForge forums where Paul and I are moderators.
This was the first DC forum, but it's pretty small (for the DC part) and most of the active folks are also members of the FRUA Community forums. :D