Some questions about the On Hit: Cast Spell property in the toolset

[Memnoch]

I've been having a play with the On Hit Cast Spell property that Bio have put into the toolset with HotU and I wanted to know how to only make an On Hit Cast Spell effect fire only a certain % of the time. The way it works now it appears to fire each time a successful hit is made. Even though monsters get a DC/Save check as to whether they suffer damage, the effect itself, including the visuals, still fire each successful hit. Is there a way to make this happen only a certain % of the time without scripting it?

For example I want to put in an On Hit Cast Spell which casts a Great Thunderclap 10% of the time on each successful hit. The weapon becomes way too overpowered otherwise. Any idea on how to do this without scripting it?

[Chewbacca]

Sorry, no way to do it without scripting.

If it is even possible to do with scripting, it may be a big pain in the ass I think. You would have to run a script that adds the item property to the item 10% of the time the character hits. I cannot think of an event handler that would do this effectively and effeciently off the top of my head.

BTW-There is a discussion in the NWN forum, thread called 'item creation', includes talk about the benefits and drawbacks of using this item property.

[ 02-15-2004, 01:12 AM: Message edited by: Chewbacca ]

[Memnoch]

Gee, this is a bit of a bummer...kind of makes it pointless to use this property, eh.

[Epona]

I like that idea Mario - I enjoy all the weapons that have that sort of feature in the IWD games - it adds that bit of uncertainty. I have no idea how to do it though.

[Memnoch]

Yes, well, if a spell fires on each successful hit it pretty much makes a weapon massively overpowered. Imagine putting something like On Hit: Cast Sunburst on a Divine Mace or something - you'd only want it to fire 5% of the time because if it fires every time it makes the weapon hugely overpowered. I'm a bit disappointed with that property then.

Chewy, where's that thread you're referring to? There are a million threads there with "item creation" in the text at the Bio forums.

[Epona]

Originally posted by Memnoch: Chewy, where's that thread you're referring to? There are a million threads there with "item creation" in the text at the Bio forums.

I think he means my thread in the NWN forum here? It's near the top of the page. Unfortunately there's no info on how to do this, but an interesting discussion about casting spells on hit (mostly about the drawbacks) sparked by my mentioning some monks gloves that cast chain lightning on hit. Now if I could get them to do it say 1% or 2% of the time that would be great, so if you do manage to find out, could you point me in the right direction?

[Chewbacca]

Yeah, I meant in the NWN forum here! Sorry for the confusion.

Anyway I was thinking, it may be somewhat easy to script using the on-hit cast spell: unique property. This route will only work for the module the item is designed and scripted for.

I gotta go to work now but I can help pursue this idea more later if interested....

[SpiritWarrior]

You could do it with a hakpak or script it in as a unique property but then that defeats the purpose.

You could do it with the regular Onhit though, setting Blindness to a DC of 14 let's say, and applying some posistive damage. Call the item 'Solar mace' for instance and there you have it. The only thing that is lacking is the vfx but trust me, sunbeam on an Onhit will quickly lag you.

[Memnoch]

If you don't mind, Chewy, that would be good. I'll be pursuing it myself. The peeps at the Bio forums don't seem to know how to do it either. [img]graemlins/awcrap.gif[/img]

No rush though. [img]smile.gif[/img]

SpiritWarrior, I don't mind scripting it as I'm not planning to cart these items around online - they're going to be for specific mods. It's just REALLY annoying to be given this property but in a form that makes it just about impossible to work with from a gameplay balance point of view. I'm not sure how difficult it was to even put it in but what it's missing is a DC check on firing on successful hit. That would make it workable and useable.

[ 02-16-2004, 06:56 AM: Message edited by: Memnoch ]

[Legolas]

What you could do is use the "On Hit Cast Spell: Unique Power (OnHit)". From there it should be easy enough to script the DC check, some random factor in %chance at casting the spell, the amount of spells of which kind to be cast, visual effects, the list goes on.
Although it's not ideal, many things in the toolset could do with a little expansion. I name as examples the control over spellbooks and the incomplete list of feats under the BonusFeat property.