Help!!

[Tarlanon]

Ok...I have some good news...and some bad news...

The bad news first. Looks like Thieves and their respective abilities (Pick pockets, open locks, etc.) is broken. Unfortunately the math being currently employed in the engine results in a thief at level 9 having an open locks skill value of about 5..depending on the race.

Ok...So some more bad news. Looks like the traits.txt file has absolutely no impact on the game engine. Yes, it loads it and parses the information from the traits.dat database, but it doesn't appear that the engine actually uses this information. Looks like this is something put in place to enable some future function...which is fine.

Ok, here is the good news. I can fix those unscrupulous thieves pretty easily, but I need help. I am not a D&D expert by any means. What I need is a list of the racial modifiers for the thieve's abilities (2nd edition rules, which is what the engine is based on). So for instance a lvl 1 thief has a base open locks score of 25. How much is that base modified by race?

Thanks in advance to you rules gurus!

[Uatu]

Okay, I can send you a link (it's my personal site, would rather not make it public) to a big blob of tables that I assembled from various 2e sources (base thieving scores, race modifiers, armor modifiers, dexterity modifiers, etc.).

Note that in 2e, PC thieves and bards start with a base score and receive discretionary points to add to these scores at 1st level (60 for thieves (max 30 for any one ability), 20 for bards) and more discretionary points each subsequent level gained (30 for thieves, 15 for bards). So... I think it would be hard to do for DC right now.

Originally in 1e, thieves had set scores per level (which seems to be what DC is doing now); 2e also used what looks like the same table for NPC thieves (not sure if the racial modifiers, etc. are the same, but... probably). But anyway... check your PMs.

[Uatu]

Also... I checked and saw that racial modifiers are the same in 1e and 2e; however, the main table (for thieves by level) has some small changes. There are other changes as well...

[Tarlanon]

Well....Thanks to Uatu's tables, I have the basic thieves abilities working now. It will be in the next release.

While I was in there, it turns out there is currently no code to support thieving armour adjustments at this time. I could hard code some values based on Uatu's tables...But they wouldn't apply to any new armour types a Dungeon Crafter created, and could be broken if the name of the armour was changed. The right way to do this would be to create a new field during item creation for the designer to assign a 'impairment' modifier to armour for the things requiring feats of dexterity and precision (like picking locks).

Unfortunately, this will require changes to the Editor, Engine, and item database and as such becomes a significant change. I've added it to the features request for DC so developers can continue to focus on the playability bugs.

So where does that leave our beloved cutthroats and brigands? Their skills are now properly assigned and adjusted based on race, level, and dexterity per the original FRUA code (1e/2e rules)...But the thief can be wearing full plate mail and it won't slow him/her down in getting the lock open on that chest of goodies. That in itself I call a feature!

T

[manikus]

How are the saving throws? I can't remember if it was in DC or FRUA that the thief or cleric did not have saving throws...

[manikus]

OK, I just checked and the saving throws are fine in DC.

As for the armor adjustment ~

/*****************************************************************************
// NAME:    CHARACTER::getThiefSkillArmorAdustments
//
// PURPOSE: 
//
// RETURNS: None
//*****************************************************************************
void CHARACTER::getThiefSkillArmorAdustments()
{

}

Gosh, I don't know what the problem could be.

I think it's great that you've fixed the thieving skills. This will make a lot of people happy.

As for the traits.txt ~ CocoaSpud hadn't planned initially to make any of the .txt files except for config, monster, spells and items; available to after 1.0 but a couple of us complained enough that he allowed some limited use of other files, such as race, baseclass and class. I don't know if the skills file effects anything at the moment...

As an aside, I hate that even though I have the professional edition of VS 2005, I can't really do anything with MFCs. I've never looked to see what MSs official reason for stopping support of MFCs was, but it seems that they would make it easier to migrate a project from an older version of VS to a newer one.

[JonnieR]

Sounds like Uatu's tables should be sufficient for the thieves, however I have the CD of all the 2e rules with regard to characters, gameplay, etc. I would be happy to make this info available anytme the develpment team needs it. Just let me know.

[manikus]

I'm good. I discovered that for each one of my hardback books that I sold that I could buy 3 to 6 electronic books. So, while my wife saw me getting rid of some roleplaying books, I was really acquiring more.

Thanks for the offer though. I wish that WotC would release all of the 1e and 2e into the public domain as open source...

[Uatu]

The thing about some of the rules in 2e is that there are sometimes contradictions, depending on what books you are comparing... (for things like armor penalties, high levels, etc.)

[JonnieR]

I agree Uatu, the CD, while convenient, has some noticable gaps and incoorect info, but between all of us we should be able to resolve any questions.