User:Drammel

Drammel's Notes
After a couple months of learning and fidgeting with NWN2 scripting I've gotten to the point where I feel that I can make an accurate translation of Tome of Battle: Book of the Nine Swords. The groundwork for swift and immediate actions function properly, and the basic indexing functions for the "spellbook" work, so I figure it's time to reserve some ranges and leave some notes on how I'm coming along on the project.

If you're reading this, "Hi!".

This project is a result of many things. My love for the Tome of Battle, the lack of love for it from any DM I know, my love for NWN, my descent into insanity, and a lot of free time while I look for a job. I figure learning how to script might help with that last bit.

The Tome of Battle has been called 'spells for melee' and 'the prototype for 4th edition' and these are true, sort of. If you're not familiar with it at all it's best to think of it as an alternate casting system, like psionics. However, that's only the skin deep view. While the ToB does have specific classes made for it most any melee class (or non-melee depending on your build) can utilize it. The core strength of the ToB, in my opinion, is that it opens a berth of options to D&D melee classes on par with what is available to the spellcasting classes.

Most melee classes in D&D tend to descend into a 'one trick pony' routine. That is, any optimization tends to direct the melee fighter into being able to only one thing and do that well, whereas a wizard or sorcerer, for example, can adapt to most any situation based on their available spells. The Tome of Battle makes great strides in correcting that shortcoming. It isn't true spellcasting, but a unique system that opens options up for the melee classes and allows them to become just as versatile. It is in this spirit that I hope to accomplish my translation to NWN2.

Current Status
I don't expect to update this too frequently. I've got this funny phobia about posting any text online. Yes, I know that's what I'm doing right now, but I need a place to keep notes on what I'm doing. It helps me keep focused on one part of the project, rather than branching off and working on a bunch of little bits at a time. That and I'm all about conquering phobias. (Sort of...)

3/4/2009: Currently, toying around with 3ds max trying to learn how to create a few custom animations for the strikes. Thankfully, I have a buddy that worked in animation for a while and he's given me some pointers.

As this is my first update I should mention what exactly it is I've done so far.

You might have noticed in that little manifesto at the top that I said I've successfully implemented swift and immediate actions. What I mean by this is that, yes, I've bypassed the main action queue, and have implemented them as in Pencil and Paper rules. Almost half of the maneuvers in ToB rely on swift actions so this was the first thing that I had to make sure I could do before anything could happen. As I understand from reading the NWN2 forums this is something of a big deal, so I'm kinda proud of that.

I've created a menu which opens a spellbook (maybe I should start calling it a maneuverbook?). Anytime you try to create a custom spellcasting class the game wants to give that character every spell in the game. It was kinda tacky so I decided to rebuild the spellbook and quickspell menus. They look and feel mostly like a wizard's spellbook except that you can't bring it up via hotkey or hotbar (really nasty engine coded stuff as far as I can make out). So I made a small menu graphic to open those up without waiting on the action queue and it functions well enough for me to put a stamp of approval on. My plan is to eventually implement some coding that prevents the Maneuvers Readied and Known screens from being opened during combat (as per PnP) except if the player has the Adaptive Style feat. As it stands though I still need to debug the maneuvers so that can wait until all of them are completed.

So far as maneuvers go I've made two of each type so far. 2 Stances, Strikes, Boosts, and counters. I created them mostly to debug swift actions and test what I've dubbed the quickstrike menu. Surprisingly, strikes have been the hardest to implement. Since they bypass the main action queue but, are by and far standard actions rather than swift I've had to find a way to requeue them. That has involved (so far) creating script that mimics the attack roll, the damage roll, their VARIOUS modifiers, and the extra fun I'm dealing with now, combat animations. Did you know that there are no combat animations that can be called from the toolset? I'm halfway tempted to just let my warriors drink animation their foes to death.

Anyway, that's the hard and fast of what I've got. More later when I learn what the hell I'm doing with 3ds Max.