Author Topic: Animal Companion/Familiar Variety  (Read 3579 times)

RedwizardD

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Animal Companion/Familiar Variety
« on: July 19, 2012, 12:44:46 PM »
I'm not sure if this is an old topic or not but I wanted to bring up some thoughts on adding more Animal Companions and Familiars to the world. That being said I think the selection of familiars that we get on this server is quite impressive, but animal companions seem to be lacking by comparison.

Could some of the CEP animals be made into new companions for the Druids/Rangers? Things commonly seen in certain areas of the game?

Possible Suggestions:
- Large Whip Viper
- Crocodile
- Camel
- Ibis
- Lion
- Cooshee (for elves)

There are also some creatures from the CEP I would really love to see available as familiars as well, Including Will'o'Wisps (in game found as Fa Follet and Will'o'Deep) and Parrots (which are in the CEP and would be appropriate for mages from tropical areas.)

How does everyone else feel about it? Any creatures you want to see?

Badelaire

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Re: Animal Companion/Familiar Variety
« Reply #1 on: July 19, 2012, 12:47:20 PM »
Winter wolf. Would be the preferred choice of familiar for my main due to some character development with "The Snowbeast" and the events surrounding him and his mate a while back.

Crag cat would be another Barovian flavour one for familiar/companion.

Hunting dogs, like the Garda dogs, would be fitting too.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2012, 12:50:28 PM by Badelaire »

Winter83

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Re: Animal Companion/Familiar Variety
« Reply #2 on: July 19, 2012, 12:49:37 PM »
And and!

OX for barovian rangers  :lol:

Seriously. I wish there can be a dog picked for a mundane variety. Canonically the most common wolf companions can be easily controlled by the domain's darklord in Barovia, they are no so closely linked to rangers and druids as in other domains. Spies those animals are who will eventually turn against their own 'master' if they are ordered to. (Source: Ravenloft Campaign Setting. Page 14, in the 1st Ed. - Not sure if this was changed in the later editions though )


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RedwizardD

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Re: Animal Companion/Familiar Variety
« Reply #3 on: July 19, 2012, 12:53:35 PM »
Canonically the most common wolf companions can be easily controlled by the domain's darklord in Barovia, they are no so closely linked to rangers and druids as in other domains. Spies those animals are who will eventually turn against their own 'master' if they are ordered to. (Source: Ravenloft Campaign Setting. Page 14, in the 1st Ed. - Not sure if this was changed in the later editions though )

I vaguely remember reading something about this. It's a good point. If wizards can have cats, why can't rangers/druids have dogs? There's at least two models of domestic dog running around in Vallaki.

Bluebomber4evr

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Re: Animal Companion/Familiar Variety
« Reply #4 on: July 19, 2012, 01:02:18 PM »
Animal companions take a lot of palette space (20 blueprints for each one, plus blueprints for any special creature skin or special creature weapon), and we're close to running out of space in the palette at present.

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Feronius

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Re: Animal Companion/Familiar Variety
« Reply #5 on: July 19, 2012, 01:14:02 PM »
I thought I recalled seeing a ranger with a dog before..? Could be wrong. Might've just been a wolf or such RPed as a dog.

Crimson Shuriken

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Re: Animal Companion/Familiar Variety
« Reply #6 on: July 19, 2012, 01:20:43 PM »
A normal siized spider would be awesome for normal familar and animal companions too.
A normal hound instead of a wolf for animal companion or guard faction like Gendarme would be especially awesome too. To be honest there are too many great additions to add than is possible to list. But, I believe EO put a lot of effort into the ones that we do have now and that it required HAK updating if I'm not mistaken so its no small change.


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Amon-Si

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Re: Animal Companion/Familiar Variety
« Reply #7 on: August 16, 2012, 10:41:06 PM »
Can pallette space be expanded? What's involved in that? Just curious, I know next to nothing about how NWN works in that regard :)

what you do must be voodoo

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Re: Animal Companion/Familiar Variety
« Reply #8 on: August 17, 2012, 11:22:22 AM »
Or is it at least possible to make some of the wizard options available for druids/rangers? Raven, bat, cat etc?
I also never understood why there is no dire rat shapeshift form.
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Re: Animal Companion/Familiar Variety
« Reply #9 on: August 17, 2012, 11:30:55 AM »
I thought I recalled seeing a ranger with a dog before..? Could be wrong. Might've just been a wolf or such RPed as a dog.

was a wolf, just a garda gave it the name K9 or something alike:P
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Re: Animal Companion/Familiar Variety
« Reply #10 on: August 17, 2012, 12:56:14 PM »
Animal companions take a lot of palette space (20 blueprints for each one, plus blueprints for any special creature skin or special creature weapon), and we're close to running out of space in the palette at present.

I've seen on another server; They use a hook-script to 'replace' the famiiliars with another appearance when they are summoned. Would you be able to create some sort of widget/token (sort of like subrace powers) to alter the appearance only of a familiar? A ranger who wants a 'hound' could take the wolf and reskin it as a dog or anything like that?

Feronius

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Re: Animal Companion/Familiar Variety
« Reply #11 on: August 17, 2012, 01:23:32 PM »
I thought I recalled seeing a ranger with a dog before..? Could be wrong. Might've just been a wolf or such RPed as a dog.

was a wolf, just a garda gave it the name K9 or something alike:P

Wasn't a garda's dog, but you're probably correct and it was likely just a renamed wolf then.

Geiger

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Re: Animal Companion/Familiar Variety
« Reply #12 on: August 17, 2012, 01:49:44 PM »
Animal companions take a lot of palette space (20 blueprints for each one, plus blueprints for any special creature skin or special creature weapon), and we're close to running out of space in the palette at present.

Can the default NWN ones be removed?

I'd love to see those all replaced with native fauna/non-combat familiars/companions.

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Re: Animal Companion/Familiar Variety
« Reply #13 on: August 17, 2012, 03:23:16 PM »
Animal companions take a lot of palette space (20 blueprints for each one, plus blueprints for any special creature skin or special creature weapon), and we're close to running out of space in the palette at present.

Can the default NWN ones be removed?

I'd love to see those all replaced with native fauna/non-combat familiars/companions.
It wouldn't help with that issue to do that. You can remove access to the default choices, but they'll still exist in the game's resources. Any new ones you create to put in to replace them would just add more resources on top of the ones the default ones take up.

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MistJumper

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Re: Animal Companion/Familiar Variety
« Reply #14 on: August 17, 2012, 05:40:54 PM »
The blueprints can be added in via hak. Same holds true with many things that PotM has, all the herbs for instance, or anything that isn't to "server unique" could be added to the game this way, and not infringe on the pallet.

The pallet limit btw refers to a bug in NWN where if the module reaches 16,000 things, the DM crashes on entry. Haks however, and blue prints that are in haks, do not add to the amount of items in a Module, for instance that is how the CEP can have all that it does and not crash every PW that uses it.


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Re: Animal Companion/Familiar Variety
« Reply #15 on: August 17, 2012, 07:01:01 PM »
The blueprints can be added in via hak. Same holds true with many things that PotM has, all the herbs for instance, or anything that isn't to "server unique" could be added to the game this way, and not infringe on the pallet.

The pallet limit btw refers to a bug in NWN where if the module reaches 16,000 things, the DM crashes on entry. Haks however, and blue prints that are in haks, do not add to the amount of items in a Module, for instance that is how the CEP can have all that it does and not crash every PW that uses it.


No, that's a different issue. The DM client crash issue is about instances on the custom palette. We've been able to avoid that by putting blueprints in the haks and using dynamically-generated items, like the way our loot system and crafting system works.

The issue I'm referring to relates to all palette instances in the module, even if they're in a hak. If there's too many the module will fail to load.

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MistJumper

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Re: Animal Companion/Familiar Variety
« Reply #16 on: August 17, 2012, 08:48:11 PM »
If that is truly the case, its probably time to start cleaning house. In all my time building, I have never heard of anyone reaching the mod load limit. I am actually rather surprised that this is an issue for our builders. it makes me wonder just how much stuff has been added in.

A example of where to start cleaning is the crafted items vs instance of non crafted items. The potion of cowardice has two blueprints, one from the herbalism, one from the loot drop. Many of the other potions are also like this.

Another example, The rusted/rotted armors and weapons that the un-dead have. These items are generally considered junk, are very rarely sold, or used, and left around only to cause lag.
Why not give them regular equipment, have the on spawn add the negative penalties to each item. Less blueprints, same result. One could even have the enchantment polish cloth be used to fix up the armors and weapons to be normal again, making the equipment drop useful and worth while to carry out.

Many of the armors and weapons from the crafting system could be redone to use 1 blueprint for each item type, and whatever bonus or negative added by the crafting process. The item name can also be changed via script, the over all effect: a single iron, bronze, silver, or copper item, created from the same blueprint. This also works out that if the item is made via the crafting, or bought from a store or other PC, it works for other crafting (like gelding or enchanting) I have a script system that does this. I am happy to share it.

Having built many modules over the the last 10 years I get what a colossal undertaking this could be. However, there is benefits to having less clutter. there are script systems available that can take a item, add bonuses, penalties, rename it, and even adjust the way it looks, both style and color. These systems have been tested by the NWN community, and are worth using.