All of the groups that were originally involved with the story are still involved, but two of them now seem inappropriate choices for faction development. You can still make meaningful choices with them, but their arcs aren't as long or complex as the other groups'.
(Reply to the question regarding the number of factions in TBH)
I think +2 items are pretty appropriate at 8th level unless you're in a low-magic setting.
(Reply to the question of loot in TBH)
The "old" engine had really nice lighting, mostly because we pre-baked all of our lightmaps and had full radiosity. Also, Vance could go through and vertex paint the entire landscape for some really beautiful and subtle effects. That's also what contributed to making the art pipeline really terrible.
The desktop "screenshot" from the old engine is also taken from a very flattering distance. Dennis Presnell was looking at some of the old models and comparing them to NWN2 models. Not only are the textures from the old engine pretty low-res, but the models have about 1/3 the number of polys -- that's 1/3 the number of polys in the low-res model. A NWN2 high-poly model used for generating normal maps is even crazier.
Personal tastes aside, the old engine's art pipeline was absolutely
terrible and there's no way I'd want to use that again. Anyone who
complains about NWN2's walkmesh baking times never had to wait seven
hours for a single level's lightmaps to burn.
(Reply to the question on whether he would prefer to create TBH with the old engine instead of using the NWN2 toolset)
It would be nice just to deal with the main Black Hound campaign and see what happens. I'd estimate about 15-20 modules worth of material, which is an enormous undertaking.
(Reply to the question of whether he intends to continue the storyline beyond the initial Black Hound module)
Still levels 1-8, core PHB classes only (no warlock and no prestige classes).
(Reply to the question concerning the level cap)
In the campaign, you have the opportunity to meet a lot of Sembians, many of them members of the Silver Ravens. At one location, you can come across a group of Silver Ravens involved in a standoff with a group of Red Wizards. Out of personal pride, neither group wants to break the standoff despite the fact they they are out in the middle of nowhere. One of the Sembians is this intense dude named Guelfa who is seething with rage over the murder of a comrade by the Thayans. If you ask him why he's so worked up, he goes off on a bit of a rant.
(a sample monologue from the game)
The Thayans. The Thayans. I will peel the malodorous skin from their blasted frames in due time for killing my kin and countrymen. When I left Saerloon, I was venturing for the trade gold of Archenbridge. I will bring home the coin of vengeance, minted in their defiled, primitive, barbarous, ugly, pig-scrawled, mud-painted, magic-poxed hides!
When a man fights a man, he does it with honor, blade to flesh. The Thayans used eldritch storms to kill my cousin and Ricci's schoolmate. They are not men, but whores of the occult and wretches of dishonor. It is well enough that their women also go bald, since they are no better, simply the mud-brown bitches to the red curs of Thay.
They are lower than dirt, and just a shade lighter. Unsightly, hairless worms that dig their insidious tunnels through the soil of every land to which they spread, uninvited. They bring only iniquity and maledictions, leave only weakness. Spineless, untrue, selfish corruptors, one and all. Had I the hand of Hoar as my own for but a moment, I would drown them in the Sea of Fallen Stars where they could not voice the words that undo nations!
Guelfa of the Silver Ravens, Eleint 12 1375, Highsun
The campaign I'm creating has a lot of reputation trackers. They fall into the following categories:
- Fame/Infamy - These are two values that reflect your overall reputation
throughout the setting (in this case, Archendale, Deepingdale, and
Battledale).
- Archendale, Deepingdale, and Battledale - These three regions each have their own positive and negative scales. Fame/Infamy may be added to any of these.
- Faction - There are six factions one can become involved with, generating positive and negative reps in each one.
- Sub-Faction - When a character becomes embroiled with the inner workings of a faction, they may become exposed to sub-factions: groups that oppose each other on the direction of the parent faction. For example, Red Wizard Progressive and Red Wizard Traditional sub-factions oppose each other on how the Red Wizards should deal with foreign cultures.
- Epithets - These are known throughout the setting, but the places in which they can be increased are intentionally spread out geographically. This is done to make it plausible that people across the region could have heard about you. E.g. the Protagonist gives cruel responses to characters in White Ford, Archenbridge (Archendale), Highmoon (Deepingdale), Hap, and Essembra (Battledale). Those five instances qualify the character for the Cruel Master/Cruel Mistress epithet, and because the rep was built all over the place, it doesn't seem jarring if someone in Lady's Belt, Archendale knows about it.
I'm going to pretend this is a toolset/custom content thread! I've been working on a personal project in recent free time (mostly spent recovering from wisdom teeth being removed). In addition to learning a lot about mapping, I'm starting to get involved in scripting (which I've actually never done much of) and creating custom icons.
Today I worked on aspects of the epithet system for the campaign I'm building. Epithets are specialized reputations that are built over time across the campaign. Unlike local reputations that may only affect interactions with NPCs within a set of maps, epithets draw reactions from characters all over the campaign -- though they are very spread out.
The system itself is pretty simple. Each epithet has a global variable that is incremented in coversation (and occasionally outside of conversation). When the character has increased that particular variable enough, they will be "awarded" with the epithet, which takes the form of a feat. The feat has no statistical bonus, but is occasionally checked in NPC conversations.
Anyway, I made a bunch of icons for the feats today and I am pretty happy with how they turned out.
