Episode 28: You Can Count On Vampires!

What a bit of a selection of things to tell you about in this blog! My efforts (for what they are) have been tested in a number of directions, as health permitted during this difficult time. There may be another word with "V" in it that we are all talking about of late, but for this blog, I am going to restrict its application for the monster, the vampire! (The other word was "Covid", but that's the first and last time I will mention it.) So, what's been happening ... read on ...

CLASSIC MONSTERS!

You may recall from a few months back that I managed to put together some scripts that will manage lycanthropy in my next module. Now, in a similar vein, I am trying to rework another horror classic: the vampire! However, none of my vampires will be "Count" like characters ... or at least, they will definitely not be like the caricatured beaten to death more times than even the hardiest of undead characters, "Dracula" if I can help it. I aim to have them simply be the monster that D&D has made them and try to escape the stereo-type portrayal if possible. But who am I kidding! I reckon the "Dracula" character is so embedded in our psyche that it will be impossible to escape some mental images of that persona.

New Visual Effects

So what's new? Well, I discovered that NWN2 did not support the gaseous form that we are familiar with when a vampire wants to avoid an untimely end. Therefore, I had to script a version of that. (See video link below for a demo.) On top of that, I was not happy with the way the vampire model relied on a spell to try to dominate its victim rather than use a gaze attack, so I updated that too.

I also applied some of my previously developed "undead" scripts to ensure level drains work alongside any Life Essences a PC may be carrying. In my modules, Life Essences can act as a barrier towards level draining, in that some undead will drain these from PCs before actual levels.

Other than that, most (if not all) other vampire aspects are covered, from needing magik weapons to hit, fast healing, blood (constitution) draining, damage and other resistances. They are quite a formidable foe, but one that can be overcome if the party of heroes go well prepared; normally with a cleric and accompanying spells.

In Development

I still have some scripting to do with respect to their coffins and stakes, but that is all going to tie in with other plot related stuff and so it will come together in time. And you can thank my wife for their inclusion, as she wanted me to write a story based upon the return of one of her favourite characters from The Scroll (module 1), and this is where it led to. I won't say who that character was, but some of you who have played module 1 already may well be able to guess. :)

GAME OPTIONS!

As most players will know, vampires have the power to dominate their victims. This led me to looking at the various effects that I would need to have the vampire employ, which in turn led to the game option function, GetScaledEffect. This function is basically called when some effects are used on a player to alter the overall effect according to the Game Difficulty settings. Unfortunately, this section of the NWN2 game appears a little buggy, and so I determined to look a little closer at this too, especially as vampires use the dominate effect.

I discovered a number of small issues, but enough differences to what I expected to make me decide it needed "fixing". It's still currently a work in progress, but I do now have a greater understanding of the various effects involved and hope to have an update to this section of the game not before too long. I may even consider releasing another update for module 1, subject to any requests for it or not. If no-one asks for it, then I may just leave it as an update if and when module 2 is released.

The Vampire Combat Video demonstrating new effects ....