New Custom Item: The Necromanicon

[Gangrell]

Originally posted by Sir Goulum: Er.....I don't have that kind of patience!

Actually, a solo sorcerer can get through the game quicker than an entire party.

Hate to disappoint you Daniel, but when you have something this incredibly over powered, don't expect a good review on it. The history is good but the abilities are much too god-like. Instead, why not have it give a boon to necromancers only? Up their intelligence by a point or two, or perhaps summon two demons instead of one to distract an enemy. Something like +100 to lore is a bit far fetched.

Btw, as far as the chunk deaths go, exactly how does that happen to you guys? The only time I ever got a chunked death was with the dragons at Small Tooth Pass.

[bjorn]

Originally posted by Hank Parsons: quote: Originally posted by SixOfSpades: if Leslie had had Jaheira put on this Ring when things started looking really bad for her, he would have been able to Resurrect her, for free, after the fight.

Let me get this straight... SixOfSpades created/uses an item which basically removes the chunk-threat from the game? LMAO. *And* you support the idea of tossing the ring across the room and equipping it in mid-battle when someone's heavily damaged? Man, chunking is the only way to actually die in this game. You've just made the game impossible to lose. And you talk about overpowered cheese. LMAO. Surely I've misunderstood? Else, the irony is killin' me. [/QUOTE]I am not saying that I speak for Six, but IIRC in Leslie's game jaheira couldent move because of a bug and therefore she got chunked. In that case the ring is just a light bugfix.

But even that is irrelevant when you consider the damage type: What do Mages do against Slashing damage? Stoneskin, of course!

What about Dispell and then maybe 10D20 slashing damage? Or during a few rounds 1d6 slashing over and over again, thus removing the stoneskins and then causing spell failiure? Not sure if that could be coded but it would sure be cool. [img]smile.gif[/img]

I like powerfull items with extrem drawbacks like the DoMT

[ 09-06-2004, 08:40 AM: Message edited by: bjorn ]

[Hank Parsons]

I am not saying that I speak for Six, but IIRC in Leslie's game jaheira couldent move because of a bug and therefore she got chunked. In that case the ring is just a light bugfix.

Maybe so. That wasn't stated in SixOfSpades explanation of his Ring Of Doom item.

Let's face it, "dying" is more like being sent to the penalty box in hockey. You're out of the battle for 5 minutes, until ressurection. The only way to actually die is to be chunked. If it's a NRL game, but you prevent chunking, that's not really ballsy NRL, to me, cuz there's no risk of losing.

Btw, as far as the chunk deaths go, exactly how does that happen to you guys? The only time I ever got a chunked death was with the dragons at Small Tooth Pass.

That illustrates how difficult it is to actually die. Of course we could just acknowledge that Gangrell is *that good* so his characters never died, but there should be at least a possibility of dying when you confront dragons, demons, and the like.

[ 09-06-2004, 03:44 PM: Message edited by: Hank Parsons ]

[Gangrell]

Originally posted by Hank Parsons: quote: Btw, as far as the chunk deaths go, exactly how does that happen to you guys? The only time I ever got a chunked death was with the dragons at Small Tooth Pass.

That illustrates how difficult it is to actually die. Of course we could just acknowledge that Gangrell is *that good* so his characters never died, but there should be at least a possibility of dying when you confront dragons, demons, and the like. [/QUOTE]No, I just refuse to let my characters die.

[Daniel_M]

Hm, well I respect all of your point of views and I didnt realy make this item to be a godlike item, at first possibly but realy what I was trying to do way see what ways and how I can tone it down drasticly. Which leads me to this point.

1) The Necronomicon was never actually used to cast anything: Some archaeologist bozo was dumb enough to read part of it out loud, of course, summoning something evil, but for the rest of Evil Dead 2 (and all of Army of Darkness), nothing is ever successfully done with it--evil things just seem to happen around it.

What im seeing here in my eyes is this, The book has 50 charges and each of those charges has a random effect, naturaly some are good and some are bad. The effects are as followed:


+10 to lore
30% chance that the user summons 1d6 of hostile zombies
25% chance that the user adds +2 to their STR, DEX and CON for 2 rounds
15% chance that the user summons a friendly zombie lord for 3 rounds
11% chance that the user will suffer a curse (-5 to CON and INT for 2 days)
10% chance that the user sufers 10d20 fire damage with save vs death for half damage
5% chance that the user will summon a friendly Glabrezu
4% chance that the user summons a hostile demon lord

So thats 4 disadvantages and 4 Advantages which makes it equel now. So what does everyone think?

Also, remembering back to what Dundee said, should I add a time script in it so the longer you have the book the more bad things happen every day In the end it results in the book vanishing in a 5d10 fireball.

[ 09-07-2004, 10:26 AM: Message edited by: Daniel_M ]

[SixOfSpades]

Originally posted by Hank Parsons: Let me get this straight... SixOfSpades created/uses an item which basically removes the chunk-threat from the game? LMAO. *And* you support the idea of tossing the ring across the room and equipping it in mid-battle when someone's heavily damaged? Man, chunking is the only way to actually die in this game. You've just made the game impossible to lose. And you talk about overpowered cheese. LMAO. Surely I've misunderstood? Else, the irony is killin' me.

Excuse me? I was under the impression that you were an intelligent and incisive antagonist in the area of BG ethics, all the better to ensure lively debate and constructive dialogue. Then again, perhaps the "everybody-dogpile-on-Hank" nature of the Bodhi and Ilyich threads (the reason why I took a leave of absence from them, by the way) has soured you into making crudely argued personal attacks. I hope this is not the case.

Anyway, to respond to your points: The Ring of Doom does not completely remove the threat of chunking, since I do *not* toss the item (or any item, really, except stuff already in Quickslots) from person to person in combat. As a matter of fact, I have never used the Ring myself at all, except for testing it and for bugfixing purposes. If I were to use the Ring, I would give it to what I judged to be the person most likely to need it: Criteria would be

• Relatively low hitpoints for their class
• Relatively high probability of taking large amounts of damage
• Uniqueness of skills

For this last, I mean how easily you could find substitutes for them if they *did* get chunked. People like Nalia and Minsc could be replaced in a heartbeat, but once Jan is gone, you're screwed out of Detect Illusions for the rest of the game.
Then, in battle, if they get caught between a rock and a hard place (Nizidramanyi'it's got 'em backed into a corner, they're low on HP, and he's gearing up for another Black Dragon Acid Breath), I have them reach into their own backpack and equip the Ring.

As for "removing the only way to die / only way to lose:" Hank, what happens when the PC gets killed/Petrified/Imprisoned? Hank, what happens when you lose a battle? Hank, what happens when you download Shadow Thief Improvements? (Well, OK, it's not quite that bad.) It makes no difference to the enemy if one of my party members is chunked, or merely killed. It has no effect whatsoever on the outcome of the battle. In fact, using the Ring of Doom actually *hurts* your odds of winning the battle: If a party member only has another couple of seconds of life, which does more damage to the enemy: Getting a Critical Hit on Vaxall, or committing hara-kiri?

Now, the difference between dying and chunking certainly does weigh heavily on the power scale in future battles, of course. Having Jaheira get chunked means you lose a good Fighter and strong Druid--and no Insect spells for the rest of the game unless you can stomach Cernd. Frankly, that kind of aggravation is not the reason I play Baldur's Gate, and I don't think many others do either. Certainly the Ring of Doom, if used correctly, can be a major asset to keeping your chosen party intact up to the final battle. But it does indeed have its drawbacks: Quite apart from instantly killing the party member, you have to get them back to full health again, Rest to restore the spells lost when they dropped their items, etc.

In essence, all I have done in creating the Ring is to embody in an item the roleplaying ethos of "Bubba's being attacked by Vampires and he's almost dead. If he gets killed by one of them he'll turn into one himself, so let's give him a quick shot to the heart ourselves so we can Raise him later."

[ 09-07-2004, 05:09 PM: Message edited by: SixOfSpades ]

[Gangrell]

(Nice one Six)

Anyway, back to the weapon at hand.

+10 to lore 30% chance that the user summons 1d6 of hostile zombies 25% chance that the user adds +2 to their STR, DEX and CON for 2 rounds 15% chance that the user summons a friendly zombie lord for 3 rounds 11% chance that the user will suffer a curse (-5 to CON and INT for 2 days) 10% chance that the user sufers 10d20 fire damage with save vs death for half damage 5% chance that the user will summon a friendly Glabrezu 4% chance that the user summons a hostile demon lord

Now take a look at this Daniel, I see only one really drawback to this. You may have the boons and side effects evened out but the penalties by far outweigh the positive effects.

Take the curse to intelligence and constitution and the added str/dex/con bonus. The curse, lasts for 2 days while the ability bonus lasts for two rounds, one will hardly make a difference while the other could severely hurt you in a battle. Pretty much from a standpoint, the boons will hardly make a difference while (take the 10d20 fireball) could be the deciding factor between life and death in a battle you can't afford to lose.

If I may.

Summon a Pitfiend or two Skeleton Golems once per day.
Grants immunity to death magic/instant death attacks.
Grants 10% MR.
(If you want downfalls to this, say that after so many days, the character's alignment shifts to evil, they lose Wisdom points, you see where I'm going with this)

My 2 cents.

[SpongeBobTheDestoyer]

Originally posted by Hank Parsons: Let me get this straight... SixOfSpades created/uses an item which basically removes the chunk-threat from the game? LMAO. *And* you support the idea of tossing the ring across the room and equipping it in mid-battle when someone's heavily damaged? Man, chunking is the only way to actually die in this game. You've just made the game impossible to lose. And you talk about overpowered cheese. LMAO. Surely I've misunderstood? Else, the irony is killin' me.

Making the game impossible to lose is already implemented with the option of reloading. [img]smile.gif[/img]

I like the ROD for a normal game but not for a NRL. The thrill of a NRL comes from knowing you could take a huge hit at any time with the permanent loss of a party member. Cheating that possibility defeats the purpose of a NRL, IMO. In a normal game however, the ring would just save you a reload. I'm sure 99% of bgaters reload if they have a member get chunked that they would like to keep.

Originally posted by SixOfSpades: In essence, all I have done in creating the Ring is to embody in an item the roleplaying ethos of "Bubba's being attacked by Vampires and he's almost dead. If he gets killed by one of them he'll turn into one himself, so let's give him a quick shot to the heart ourselves so we can Raise him later."

LOL. Seems like a good justification to me. I would have no problem with a potion that instantly shut down a characters vital signs and made them comatose for a short time either.

BTW Hank, I'm not sure if you're against the ring as a part of the game, or just pointing out that it seems 'overpowered', because there might be a better term for wacking one of your party members in the middle of a battle.

[chimaera]

Originally posted by SixOfSpades: In essence, all I have done in creating the Ring is to embody in an item the roleplaying ethos of "Bubba's being attacked by Vampires and he's almost dead. If he gets killed by one of them he'll turn into one himself, so let's give him a quick shot to the heart ourselves so we can Raise him later."

So why don't you shoot him instead?

[Hank Parsons]

Spongebob said exactly my thoughts on using SixOfSpades' R.O.D. in an NRL game. IMO, this makes it not-NRL anymore. The result is the same as reloading.

If you're showcasing your NRL story online, you should reveal if you've used anabolic steroids, performance enhancing drugs, Control-Y, or SixOfSpades' R.O.D. cheat.

SixOfSpades said: I was under the impression that you were an intelligent and incisive antagonist in the area of BG ethics, all the better to ensure lively debate and constructive dialogue.

Ah. Thanks for the compliment [img]smile.gif[/img]
I hope you didn't take my response as an attack on you. It's not meant as such. As I understand it, you're the maker of the item, not the user.

For this last, I mean how easily you could find substitutes for them if they *did* get chunked. People like Nalia and Minsc could be replaced in a heartbeat, but once Jan is gone, you're screwed out of Detect Illusions for the rest of the game.

In Pac-Man, when you've eaten all the power-pellets, they are gone. In football, if a player sustains a career-ending injury, they are gone from the team. In good games, you can lose the game. This is not Myst (a no-death, no losing "game").

Substitutes, you ask? There's always a way. You can beat BG2 with only one character. There is no skill which is irreplaceable. Don't have Detect Illusions? Try Oracle or True Sight, or wait until the invisiblity goes away.

Hank, what happens when the PC gets killed/Petrified/Imprisoned? Hank, what happens when you lose a battle?

Killed? Ressurect.
Turned to Stone? Stone To Flesh.
Imprisoned? Freedom.
Lose a battle? Run away, heal, buff, return, win.
Get chunked? Hold a funeral, move on. (If NRL)

you have to get them back to full health again, Rest to restore the spells lost when they dropped their items, etc.

That's what you do when you ressurect someone who "died" the normal BG2 way (a.k.a. Got sent to the penalty box, as in hockey).

In an NRL game, this ring simply removes the true challenge of NRL.

[ 09-08-2004, 02:58 PM: Message edited by: Hank Parsons ]