Author Topic: Yoshimo Story Mod  (Read 9805 times)

Offline Moschops

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Yoshimo Story Mod
« on: January 12, 2009, 12:39:54 AM »
I have an idea for a mod, though I'm not entirely sure if it's been done.

It's actually pretty simple: If Yoshimo is in your party, you'll have to fend off a series of attacks by a group of Paladins from his homeland sent to bring ol' Yoshi to justice for a terrible crime.  You can shoose to protect him or give him up to his hunters...

or

If Yoshi isn't in your party, a Paladin will ask to join your party and your help in hunting him down.  Yoshi could have all kinds of stupid mousetraps set up for you as you chase him around the countryside.

It's pretty simple in concept, and it would be a chance to wring some XP and interaction with Yoshi without having to carry him through to spellhold.  (ie, get the same amount of XP you would get by returning his heart to the temple of Ilmater)

Offline ddv

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Re: Yoshimo Story Mod
« Reply #1 on: January 14, 2009, 11:33:33 AM »
Wow. Yoshimo seems to be the flavour of the month. There's the Keep Yoshimo mod, the Yoshimo Friendship in NPC IEP, a modder @ SHS saying she was considering a Yoshimo romance for her next project, and now this!

But that aside, are there even paladins in Kara-tur (and what god would they serve)? And also, your idea of making a joinable paladin is a whole project in itself.

Offline Moschops

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Re: Yoshimo Story Mod
« Reply #2 on: January 14, 2009, 11:52:22 AM »
Wow. Yoshimo seems to be the flavour of the month. There's the Keep Yoshimo mod, the Yoshimo Friendship in NPC IEP, a modder @ SHS saying she was considering a Yoshimo romance for her next project, and now this!

Yikes.  I didn't realize so many folks were working with Yoshi.

Quote
But that aside, are there even paladins in Kara-tur (and what god would they serve)? And also, your idea of making a joinable paladin is a whole project in itself.

I don't see why they wouldn't.  A common translation for the type of warrior that served the emperors of China is "Cavalier", although that may relate more to the traditional role of mounted knight (cavalier and cavalry being cognate).

There are a plethora of gods such a Paladin could serve.  In Shou Lung they worship the Emperor and the 9 immortals and I don't see why a paladin wouldn't be able to draw power from those gods.  Chan Cheng (God of War and Bravery) and Fa Kuan (God of Justice) leap to mind as likely candidates.

I've put a little bit of work into developing the NPC, though I haven't really done any modding before and learning WeiDU is taking a little more time than I would like.  Right now I'm just trying to get the Kit for the paladin done, and then I figure I would work out from there.

edited for malformed BB code tag
« Last Edit: January 14, 2009, 11:58:22 AM by Moschops »

Offline SixOfSpades

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Re: Yoshimo Story Mod
« Reply #3 on: January 14, 2009, 02:23:37 PM »
There are a plethora of gods such a Paladin could serve.  In Shou Lung they worship the Emperor and the 9 immortals and I don't see why a paladin wouldn't be able to draw power from those gods.  Chan Cheng (God of War and Bravery) and Fa Kuan (God of Justice) leap to mind as likely candidates.
You've got something of an error in geography here--true, in Shou Lung and its neighbor T'ulung, the most popular religion is the Celestial Court you mention, but I'm almost positive that Yoshimo & Tamoko are from either Kozakura or Wa, where most citizens subscribe to the religion known as Eight Millionism, in which one's ancestors are venerated as dieties. Naturally, this guarantees a vast supply of gods for a paladin to worship, but with so many of them, an individual god would be relatively quite weak, so a Kozakuran paladin might be better off serving a cause or virtue, rather than a specific god.

Offline Moschops

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Re: Yoshimo Story Mod
« Reply #4 on: January 14, 2009, 03:03:41 PM »
There are a plethora of gods such a Paladin could serve.  In Shou Lung they worship the Emperor and the 9 immortals and I don't see why a paladin wouldn't be able to draw power from those gods.  Chan Cheng (God of War and Bravery) and Fa Kuan (God of Justice) leap to mind as likely candidates.
You've got something of an error in geography here--true, in Shou Lung and its neighbor T'ulung, the most popular religion is the Celestial Court you mention, but I'm almost positive that Yoshimo & Tamoko are from either Kozakura or Wa, where most citizens subscribe to the religion known as Eight Millionism, in which one's ancestors are venerated as dieties. Naturally, this guarantees a vast supply of gods for a paladin to worship, but with so many of them, an individual god would be relatively quite weak, so a Kozakuran paladin might be better off serving a cause or virtue, rather than a specific god.

I see what you're saying, but my intent was to be that while Yoshi would likely be from Kozakura or Wa.  He seems very well traveled...after all he *is* in Amn after all...and it doesn't seem unreasonable that he may have made some enemies along the way.  Perhaps one of the feudal lords of Shou Lung, for example (which is the basis for the concept).

To be honest, though, while my knowledge of actual Asian history is pretty good, the history and geography of the Kara-Tur aspect of the game universe is pretty vague to me; way back in college we did some gaming in that campaign setting and I don't remember it being part of the Forgotten Realms universe at all.

I really appreciate the comments and the suggestion.  Thanks!

Offline SixOfSpades

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Re: Yoshimo Story Mod
« Reply #5 on: January 14, 2009, 06:14:14 PM »
Oh, ok, I just assumed Yoshimo and his pursuer had to be from the same country. My bad. But a paladin of Eight Millionism still has one real advantage: You can write NPC banters about his beliefs without having to go out & buy Faiths & Pantheons to get the canon lore on Fa Kuan. :)

You're probably thinking down this road already, but just in case: I think the idea would work better without Yoshimo. If you're making one all-new recruitable NPC already, why not two? It would avoid mod conflict, allow more freedom in designing the Thief (although there are almost no non-Humans in Kara-Tur, more's the pity), allow for keeping him through the entire game, etc.

Offline Moschops

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Re: Yoshimo Story Mod
« Reply #6 on: January 15, 2009, 08:19:54 AM »
Oh, ok, I just assumed Yoshimo and his pursuer had to be from the same country. My bad. But a paladin of Eight Millionism still has one real advantage: You can write NPC banters about his beliefs without having to go out & buy Faiths & Pantheons to get the canon lore on Fa Kuan. :)

You're probably thinking down this road already, but just in case: I think the idea would work better without Yoshimo. If you're making one all-new recruitable NPC already, why not two? It would avoid mod conflict, allow more freedom in designing the Thief (although there are almost no non-Humans in Kara-Tur, more's the pity), allow for keeping him through the entire game, etc.

Thanks for the great advice!

This is, of course, putting the cart before the horse; I'm still in the process of getting a custom made *kit* to work.  But I work better with an ambitious goal I can break down into smaller parts (plan your work, work your plan), and I figure that's a good way to learn.

btw, your KitPack has been a veritable treasure trove of insight as I have been going through this process.  Thanks for your efforts.

Offline Moschops

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Special Abilties
« Reply #7 on: January 15, 2009, 08:30:21 AM »
Ok, I'm at the part of the process where I'm trying to put together the special abilities.  I extracted CLABPA03.2da to get an idea how my kit's special abilities should be set up and looking it over I have a few question I hope some folks can answer for me before I get to work on it in earnest:

1. Each immunity is in it's own spell file.  Is there a reason why all the immunities couldn't be integrated into one spell?  Same for disabling buttons.

2. Is there a list of opcodes somewhere?

3. Is there a maximum number of ability rows you can have?  Am I correct in assuming that the numbering scheme is ABILITY1 to ABILITY9 and the ABILITYA to ABILITYZ?

And from an experienced modder's point of view, what's the most efficient tool for mucking about with spell effects?  Should I just use Near Infinity/DLTCP, or does someone have a tool that does a little more that I don't know about?

Offline SixOfSpades

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Re: Yoshimo Story Mod
« Reply #8 on: January 15, 2009, 03:07:14 PM »
Thanks for the Kitpack plug, but just be aware that it's not a perfect example: Some of the kits are a bit buggy. But the theory's good, so I guess it's safe to learn from.

1. There's no limit (as far as I know) to the amount of stuff that can be crammed into one SPL file. The only reason to break it up would be if different classes/kits would be using closely related effects, e.g., Kit A is immune to Sleep, Kit B is immune to Charm, and Kit C is immune to Sleep and Charm. Note: Make sure to use the "Permanent after death" timing mode for stuff like this. The plain "Permanent" mode is for things that wear off when you die, like Polymorph and Feeblemind.

2. DLTCEP has them listed (of course, otherwise you wouldn't be able to use them) with their full descriptions, but if you want to view all of them at once, they're also on IESDP. IESDP isn't a program, it's a website you can save to your computer, full of modder-helpful data. (Caveat: I've found some of the information, namely the kit abilities, to be somewhat inaccurate, but maybe I was working with an out-of-date version that has since been corrected. Besides, it taught me to always double-check everything with DLTCEP.) I'm almost positive you can find a download link for IESDP on this site, and their forum is at Gibberlings Three.

3. The numbering scheme is ABILITY1 through ABILITY99 . . . I don't know if you can put letters in there, or go beyond 99, but I doubt it, and I also doubt you'd need to apply more than 99 separate SPL files at any given level.

Everyone, including me, swears by DLTCEP for making spells. It's pretty good at items & creatures and stuff too, but for getting down to the real nitty-gritty you'll be using Near Infinity. Infinity Explorer is almost a must-have as well, but it's read-only, good for checking files & viewing animations. I also use DLTCEP for making the BAM files for custom icons.

 

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