Author Topic: Familiars - Inventory? (Read 6600 times)

Feronius · « **on:** December 30, 2012, 10:32:33 AM »

I wondered whether it was possible for a familiar / animal companion to have an inventory, much like the pack oxen have.
I had the intention of getting a raven to use as a messenger bird, but realised it'd be much more interesting to actually give it sealed letters and use the trade function.

So my question is - Would it be possible for familiars to carry items? And if it is, would it be something that would ever be considered?

I realise there is a possible exploit in this, putting yourself out of harm's way by simply using a familiar to take the risks. Although I'm not sure if it even is an exploit.
I honestly don't see much potential abuse, since hardly any familiar can communicate (so you'd be cheesing, RPing poorly or breaking various other server rules.)
And even if it is abused, the cost for a dead familiar / animal companion are currently the same for your character dying. And whatever they'd carry would be lootable.

- Is it possible to script familiar / animal companions to have an inventory? Much like the pack oxen have.
- Would the items they carry vanish when the pet is unsummoned? Or remain "saved" on them?
- I assume the familiars / animal companions would become lootable on death like pack oxen do? (Their remains would need to be part of the "loot" or an option to pick them up?)
- Could familiars be allowed to use the trade function when possessed? Or is this not scriptable?
- Can you disable the ability to give the familiars / animal companions coin? (That -would- be abused, as a free bank to prevent gold from dropping upon death.)

If the answer to any of the above questions is "no", then I can safely assume the whole suggestions wouldn't fly.
At least not if you want to use a raven as an actual working messenger bird to deliver letters with.

dutchy · « **Reply #1 on:** December 30, 2012, 11:31:00 AM »

I like the idea of messengers maybe script them uhm best I van explain my version is harry potter and that owl tower where the owls are only then with ravens or something

Thus a global msg system ?

Feronius · « **Reply #2 on:** December 30, 2012, 12:04:30 PM »

I guess you could implement messenger birds as a seperate buyable companion, like the pack oxen.
But it kind of defeats it's purpose if you can't posses and trade with them, as it's a bit redundant to have a messenger bird if it requires you standing next to it to work. Might as well hand the letter over personally.

You could of course use forums and I could even whip up a nice looking image, but an actual in-game representation would still be neat.

Major Tom · « **Reply #3 on:** December 30, 2012, 01:01:05 PM »

I always liked how Familiar worked in Baldur's Gate 2, myself.. you summoned it the once, then you let it snuggle up in your backpack in the meantime. Sure, it took up inventory space by doing so, but it felt more 'natural'. I imagine doing that would, in a way, circumvent the unsummoning factor, at least, since by telling your familiar 'get in the bag', it registers which items it has on it, sorta like the warehouse might do, and then saves that info to the 'Familiar' item in your inventory. Basically it'd be a separate PC Info item, dedicated to familiars.

With some of the larger-sized familiars like Hellhounds, you could perhaps say that it shrinks, or transforms into a figurine, while it is in your inventory.

RedwizardD · « **Reply #4 on:** December 30, 2012, 02:20:57 PM »

It would be rather comical to see a little 8 str wizard trying to haul around a pack with a Worg in it.

Giving a familiar limited inventory would be pretty nice though. Delivering messages and packages and that sort of thing.

Legion XXI · « **Reply #5 on:** December 30, 2012, 02:29:00 PM »

Yeah, I'd say just make it drop everything it is holding into a lootable bag on death/unsummon.

Major Tom · « **Reply #6 on:** December 30, 2012, 02:48:35 PM »

Quote from: RedwizardD on December 30, 2012, 02:20:57 PM

It would be rather comical to see a little 8 str wizard trying to haul around a pack with a Worg in it.

Giving a familiar limited inventory would be pretty nice though. Delivering messages and packages and that sort of thing.

Well, hence why I said 'shrinking down'/becoming a figurine. I dunno, personally I always found it funny how seemingly you would somehow need to re-cast Find Familiar repeatedly, just to bring forth a familiar, when the original intent and purpose of the spell was to create a permanent companion, so for me it's really just my questioning of the NWN mechanic itself. Then again, we've already scripted it so that familiars now need to be revived.. so taking it a step further and removing the constant summon/unsummon factor would probably be beneficial.

BahamutZ3RO · « **Reply #7 on:** December 30, 2012, 02:56:36 PM »

I've always viewed the mechanical summoning of the familiar as the act of calling your familiar to you. Fane's cat is always out there, spying on people.

...And on topic? Yes please. This would be great. Of course, it'd also be great if the NPCs wouldn't try to kill my cat. D:

Feronius · « **Reply #8 on:** December 30, 2012, 03:24:10 PM »

So besides it being a fun idea, does anyone even have a remote clue on whether it's achieveable? Or how hard it would be to implement?

Legion XXI · « **Reply #9 on:** December 30, 2012, 03:46:27 PM »

It's very possible. There are a ton of servers that allow you to access familiar inventory the same way the campaign lets you access Henchmen inventory. I think it actually comes default as of last patch, though I could be wrong. Maybe it was specifically disallowed here?

dutchy · « **Reply #10 on:** December 30, 2012, 04:30:33 PM »

Inv would be nice for the wizards but do they need it ?

As for the rest of the classes it would be nice to indeed send actual letters

I am seeing this as a 2 part idea

Major Tom · « **Reply #11 on:** December 30, 2012, 04:47:35 PM »

It'd be interesting to expound upon it by creating an effective Pet/Familiar system.. since, like I said, Find Familiar is rather a single-use spell and then you and your Familiar are together for keeps.. And since it's originally a spell to be cast, rather than a unique wizard/sorcerer 'Ability', Bards would be able to cast it from a scroll.. Rogues could trick a scroll via UMD, and so on.

Norture · « **Reply #12 on:** December 30, 2012, 04:54:57 PM »

Quote from: dutchy on December 30, 2012, 11:31:00 AM

I like the idea of messengers maybe script them uhm best I van explain my version is harry potter and that owl tower where the owls are only then with ravens or something

[Begins having horrible flashbacks and stares vacantly forward]

_{Owls are the scariest thing on the server.}

Feronius · « **Reply #13 on:** December 30, 2012, 05:09:06 PM »

I was thinking more along the lines of ravens used as messenger birds, like you see in the Game of Thrones, as opposed to eh.. Harry Potter owls.
But of course the possibilities are endless. The main idea was to have it benefit RP though, not for any other real gain or benefit.

Perhaps the carrying capacity could simple be lowered to an amount that allows RP orientated items, but prevents them from becoming pack oxen 2.0 variants.
Although I'm not sure if it's automatically calculated based on the strength stat of the familiar / animal companion, it'd be a bit lame if familiars were used for mining though.

Anyhow, if it's possible to open up pet inventories, I wonder... is the whole "possess and use the trade function" part possible as well?

Norture · « **Reply #14 on:** December 30, 2012, 05:42:32 PM »

Quote from: Feronius on December 30, 2012, 05:09:06 PM

I was thinking more along the lines of ravens used as messenger birds, like you see in the Game of Thrones, as opposed to eh.. Harry Potter owls.

Bro, one day you're getting mail from an owl, before you know it you're a snake and wondering wtf happened. This so-called "Game of Thrones" has nothing on the game of wizards. If Harry Potter is the only thing that comes to mind, consider yourself blessed. And pray that should you ever see the owl, it is on positive terms.

Oh, and I like the idea of a small familiar inventory. I was just trying to figure out how to RP sending a letter to someone via familiar, actually.
The only major issue I see is familiars being used to transfer heavy items such as ore or corpses. Even if the familiar is encumbered, players could hop zone to zone and the familiar would pop to that zone with you. Although, I don't know how much of an issue this really is given that wizards can already cast empowered bull's strength and polymorph and be able to carry a huge amount of weight. It would also put your loot at risk to exploit with a familiar. Assuming familiars drop backpacks on death containing any items on them at the time, people could kill them and snag your stuff. And if that familiar is encumbered and you're hopping ahead of it to pop it zone to zone, you won't be there to save it.

BalorVale · « **Reply #15 on:** December 30, 2012, 06:02:50 PM »

Something interesting as well is if they could have inventory can we have barding for our animal companions? I remember playing many a PnP Game inwhich I lived in fear of my animal companion dying and thus it was almost as well armored as I was.

All of these sound like good ideas.

dutchy · « **Reply #16 on:** December 30, 2012, 06:14:51 PM »

i did mention ravens somewhere.

Feronius · « **Reply #17 on:** December 30, 2012, 06:17:47 PM »

Not to mention that raising a familiar costs as much as a bringing back a corpse.
That might be pocketchange for some, but to most of my characters it's a reason to reconsider taking the risk of them dying.

Major Tom · « **Reply #18 on:** December 30, 2012, 06:26:09 PM »

Yeeaahh.. I think that price definitely needs to be dropped. By about 9/10ths. A familiar, in many cases a weak and fragile lifeforce, is not the equivalent of a fully matured humanoid. The 'required energies' to bring it back aren't even remotely similar.

It's like saying that you need the same resources to create a skeletal dragon as you would to create a zombie chicken.

RedwizardD · « **Reply #19 on:** December 30, 2012, 06:53:28 PM »

How does one even revive a skeletal bat? It's already dead.

herkles · « **Reply #20 on:** December 30, 2012, 06:55:18 PM »

Quote from: RedwizardD on December 30, 2012, 06:53:28 PM

How does one even revive a skeletal bat? It's already dead.

Magic

but I would love to be able to carry stuff with my familar and use them as messengers.

Honoun · « **Reply #21 on:** December 30, 2012, 07:01:11 PM »

The basic concept of this idea I say yes, bring it on... I think we are all mature enough to not abuse this system anyway.

Feronius · « **Reply #22 on:** December 30, 2012, 07:34:05 PM »

Let's not discuss the prices of raising familiars here though, it's been brought up before. I was merely saying the risk and cost are high enough regardless.
And I fully agree, we should be mature enough to not abuse this system if it will even be possible. Besides, there's much worse exploits I could think of already there.

And you don't revive a skeletal bat, you raise the dead.. reanimation? Animating the bones again. (I guess it is kind of crude that you need to visit a priest for it though.)

Norture · « **Reply #23 on:** December 30, 2012, 09:12:48 PM »

Quote from: Feronius on December 30, 2012, 07:34:05 PM

And I fully agree, we should be mature enough to not abuse this system if it will even be possible. Besides, there's much worse exploits I could think of already there.

Not true. I can think of several things that had to have been nerfed due to player abuse. I think the more important thing is the abuse that could be done with a familiar storage system likely isn't terribly significant, since casters have far more powerful tools available in regards to transporting objects. You get polymorph at level 7, so what's a level 6 mage going to do with it? Carry more mink hides?

Actually, there is exploit potential in cross classing. Although I haven't heard of any crossclass wizard build that is less than 7 levels OR isn't part of a triple class build (in which case I've only seen one, which had 2 wizard). And in situations like that, I could imagine the issue would become ninja looting and using the pet as storage. How much of an issue that would be I don't even know, since any high level looter likely has the resources to carry things.

Perhaps the question to ask is, if this sort of system is feasible, would it be possible to have a weight maximum on the pet backpack (as opposed to encumberance, where a weight limit would prevent anything heavier than X amount from entering the bag)?

Feronius · « **Reply #24 on:** December 30, 2012, 09:55:40 PM »

I was more thinking that if any player would go through so much effort to abuse the systems, he wouldn't need to bother with familiars.
Things like stealthruns, cheesing, muling, etc. instead are far more efficient if you truly wish to waste your time on exploits. Anyhow, any of these would obviously lead to bans and is unavoidable mechanically.

I think a weight limit like you mention it Norture does make sense, but wouldn't be very effective. People could still dump familiars full of ores or diamonds and so on.
What about changing the size of the inventory? If that's possible. For example only giving familiars a space of 4 squares, that way they can lumber letters and small objects only. And not much at once.