Dm How to Thread

Harkker
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Playing nwn since Balder's Gate

Posts: 948

Dm How to Thread Dec 19, 2013 22:28:33 GMT

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Post by Harkker on Dec 19, 2013 22:28:33 GMT

Hello all, Hungry Crow has decided to give dming a go. So be as nice as possible to him while he learns. I decided rather than create a bunch of private messages about this I should just make a thread. If I post something like visual effect numbers I may make that a different post. While a lot of this will be world specfic, I will also try to include some good general tips that can be used else where.

So here is a list of topics.
1) The world of karador is chaotic.

Harkker
Administrator

Playing nwn since Balder's Gate

Posts: 948

Dm How to Thread Dec 19, 2013 23:10:13 GMT

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Post by Harkker on Dec 19, 2013 23:10:13 GMT

The world of Karador is chaotic. The Nature of palettes

Ok so the first thing to tell you is that that world of Karador is chaotic... I am not speaking in a thematic way. I am talking about the palettes behind the scenes. The palettes are messed up. What I mean is that the world is akin to an temple built in the 8th century, rebuilt in the 12 century, had another temple built on top of the old one in the 14th century and is now a gas station.

There is an 8 year of history. The world predates the Cep and the PRC and the DMFI. All of these things have been added after the fact. IN many ways it is like a soup that has had more ingredients poured into it. You might be looking for a flavor and finding that you can't locate it. Ok enough metaphors....

Karador has its own way of doing things that are not standard. Standard resources are things that Bioware made way back when and sometimes do not fit the way we would like them too. For instance if you use a chest from the standard palette it will have scripts that auto generate treasure. That treasure could be things that are not found in karador such as healing kits, or object that have a light effect but no minus to hide in shadows. Creatures from the standard palette will often be armed with weapons that won't drop or can't be disarmed. They also will not leave a corpse when they die.

We use to put much of our custom stuff in the custom pallettes so that they would be easy to find. However the PRC has thrown everything everywhere and it may be hard to figure out what is safe and what is not.

A lot of this info was posted in the building for karador section

karador.freeforums.net/thread/30/karador-zones

Creatures
“Custom 1” has smart creatures that have societies and such. “Custom 2” has dumb monstrous beasts for the most part. “Custom 3” are animals and pets. Custom 4 and Custom 5 are a bit mixed up at the moment, but are generally special creatures you should not use.
Items
As far as items go, we have a ton of custom items. Look under Custom / Special. “Custom1 ” are food and drink. “Custom 2” are DM only items. “Custom 3” has a bulk of the adventuring gear. “Custom 4” is pretty much treasure and loot. “Custom 5” is mostly herbs and other natural reagents.

Pretty much feel free to use any items with some general rules..
No standard gems, we have all custom ones under Miscellaneous / Gems
No standard healing kits, use the healing items in “Custom 3”
No standard lockpicks, We just don’t use them here, we have our own.
No standard lights (torches, lanterns) Karador has all custom ones with a Hide negative.
Be VERY careful adding magic items… if you give away too much you will make the characters out of balance.

Placeables
Use any and all standard and custom placeables you like. Please however to be sure when you put them down that you know what scripts are on them and what they do. Many of the containers have unwanted loot spawning scripts. Some of the statues and corpses turn into unwanted creatures. Basically if it’s not a Karador specific placeable, don’t let any scripts stay on it. As far as Karador specific placeables found under Custom / Special, “Custom 1” has all kinds of neat things that are commonly used and set up to be safe. “Custom 2” has refilling herbs. “Custom 3” has lumbering trees, ore and gem deposits. Basically thing you bang for resources. “Custom 4” has common signs. “Custom 5” is filled with junk that I’m not even sure if it is used or not anymore.

However keep in mind with all of this that the prc polluted our palettes to no end. I have spent countless hours fixing things and I have not made a dent.

If I could take a break from everything it would take me a month to fix this... assuming I quit my job... so

Less is often more.

Harkker
Administrator

Playing nwn since Balder's Gate

Posts: 948

Dm How to Thread Dec 19, 2013 23:25:35 GMT

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Post by Harkker on Dec 19, 2013 23:25:35 GMT

Console commands.

You can find a post on all the console commands here. karador.freeforums.net/thread/185/console-commands

I wrote this a while back but it is still true. I find that you can play in a windowed mode and copy and paste your console commands for speed and ease of use.

instead of hitting the ` key just speak the command with ## in front

The most important console commands are

##dm_setSTR xx ##dm_setDEX xx ##dm_setCON xx ##dm_setINT xx ##dm_setWIS xx ##dm_setCHA xx

which is used to set creatures stats... however do note that is before racial bonuses...
so if you ##dm_setSTR 18 on a halfling, in game it will have a 16 str

Another Useful Consol Command is ##dm_visualeffect XX XX

##dm_visualeffect XX XX is used for creating flashy visual effects either in a location or on a person.
A list of all visual effects can be found here.
karador.freeforums.net/thread/190/dm-visualeffect-xx?page=1#scrollTo=1251

The first set of xx is for the visual effect, the second xx is the duration. if there is no duration set then
so if you use

So if you use

##dm_visualeffect 94 10

that will create the Zzzzz of snoring above someones head for 10 seconds.

If you leave the second one blank it will just go either forever or until its normal set time limit.

to remove an effect you can do the samething except make the duration -1 I think.

Another helpful console command is ##dm_setrace XX this one lies however. it will not set a characters race but instead sets the appearance of that creature. Also it only works on you or whoever you are possessing.

##dm_setCR XX set CR for xp

The Last two that are important are

Another helpful console command is ##dm_setrace XX this one lies however. it will not set a characters race but instead sets the appearance of that creature. Also it only works on you or whoever you are possessing.

##dm_setvarint intname xx this will set an integer of the name of intname(whatever is needed) to a value of xx

##dm_setvarstring stringname xx this will set a string of the name of stringname(whatever is needed) to a value of xx

Last Edit: Dec 20, 2013 2:11:12 GMT by Harkker

Harkker
Administrator

Playing nwn since Balder's Gate

Posts: 948

Dm How to Thread Dec 20, 2013 3:02:12 GMT

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Post by Harkker on Dec 20, 2013 3:02:12 GMT

Ok Faction Command
It should be noted that there are dozens of factions on Karador and they do not all get along. I have made a list that shows the copy and paste for most of the factions. there are about a half dozen not on there)

karador.freeforums.net/thread/191/faction-console-commands

So what do factions mean for dming? All factions have a reputation number form 0-100 The higher the number, the more they like you, the lower the number the more they dislike you. That have this number not only for players but for other factions as well.
If the number is 90 or above the faction will defend that pc/faction if attacked
if the number is 10 or below they will attack on sight

This is important for planning any kind of event. Suppose you have a guard who is secretly a traitor to the realm. He works for the drow. The player uncover this and attack him. If you don’t change his faction, then when they attack him all the other guards nearby will charge the players.

But if however you used the console commnand
##dm_setfaction Drow
on him then the guards and the players would become hostile to the guard

You can change an individual’s faction by using a separate command as well. but that might be easier using the Hit.

Last Edit: Dec 20, 2013 3:03:22 GMT by Harkker