Okay folks, we'll open this up for you guys to request items you'd like to see in the module. Bear in mind that posting a request here is not a guarantee that the item will be made. Also, please
only post item requests for the loot tables here. This is not a general item feedback thread or a thread for asking a DM to give you a special item or a new system or crafting component. Posts discussing things and/or derailing the topic will be deleted.Here are the guidelines:
Basic Item DesignWhen designing items, be it either for your PC or stores, it's always ideal if you can make them usable for general purpose as well. This is both because of performance consideration, and also because it would benefit in creating a wide array of items available for other situations like loot etc. In the same manner, try to not create new items if some of the items on the current palette could easily equate your needs.
Be in line with the setting when creating items. Make them Ravenloft, classical, gothic, stoic, raw and gritty. Humorous items can be fun the first time, but they rarely stay that way when repeated, and thus, their use quickly fade.
Also, be sure to set the items to unidentified magical. This even applies to items you want sold in stores, as they'll always be marked as identified there. Make a description for them as well, preferably with a background story. Avoid describing the specific item as unique however, as it also greatly reduce the potential use. Often, you can simply describe how the first of the specific item was made and tell it's story that way.
Item balance and target pricesOne of the best ways to judge an item's power is by the cost of that item. It's easily visible in the toolset so you can adjust items to fit our agreements fairly easily. While there's several downsides and loopholes of judging by item price, it's really still the most feasible and practical way of determining and comparing an items power and establish some standards. It will also make sure we don't blow our economy by having items that are sellable at excessive prices, and the treasure system is designed to judge what to spawn by gold value. If we feel that some items properties are excessively imbalanced price-wise, we can alter the 2das associated and up the prices they generate.
For all regular, non-magical items, the cost increase of the item properties should never exceed 200 above the version of the item with no item properties applied. This does allow for some simple item properties to be applied to things, but mainly things that are reasonable within what's non-magical properties (like +1 hide for a black cloak). If you want to design non-magical varieties of items that provide more significant advantages, make sure they have drawbacks too that put them within this price range. This is also a consideration of conceivability. For example, if an extra large and weightily greatsword gives only clear advantages, it's fair to assume that all greatswords were designed this way per default.
Some non-magical items can exceed this bar of price increase, but then, they should be considered of exceptional craftsmanship. However, applying extra cost to reflect aesthetic/material value, like a jeweled sword or a golden armor should not count against these limits.
For magical items, the price increase against the base item itself should never go past 8000.
You might find it hard to stay within these ranges, but applying some negative properties should make it fairly easy - and likely create some much more interesting items. Please don't use the purely price reducing property to reduce price to be within range, however. That breaks the entire balance. In same regard, when designing drawbacks, make some that matter. A greatsword with a wisdom or intelligence penalty would hardly impact the wielder, for example. Of course, to enhance the roleplay/story aspects of the items, you can still apply these penalties, but don't use them to balance out the end price - e.g., don't count them when determining if the item is within the price limits.
WeaponsWeapons should generally apply to the same standards, but with a modifier applied. This is because individual weapons need to be balanced toward each other still, and NWN doesn't automatically consider that when determining price. As an example, a bastard should still have the same relative advantage over a long sword, to keep the exotic feat worth it - and sacrificing wearing a shield by using a two handed weapon should provide some relative advantage as well. Thus, to calculate the price range of a melee weapon, use the maximum noncritical damage of the weapon, divided by 8 and apply as modifier. As an example, a greatsword with a maximum damage of 12 would have the modifier of 12/8 = 1,5 meaning a greatsword could go up to 8000*1,5 = 12.000 gp value increase and a scimitar with maximum damage of 6 would have a modifier of 6/8 = 0,75 meaning a scimitar could go up to 8000*0,75 = 6.000 gp value increase.
Item properties you should generally avoid:Ability Modifier - Starting to bring in ability modifiers is opening the gates to a mayhem of imbalances, exploits etc. An example workaround could be that instead of giving a +1 to charisma to represent aesthetic value, you can give a +1 influence/perform.
Immunity: Ability Drain - This property has the problem that it not only makes the wearer immune to attack-induced ability drains, but also all other forms, including those applied by our systems, like subracial modifiers, making it a major factor of imbalance.
* use/day - In most terms of NWN, a day only represents the time between resting, thus items that have uses per day are quickly becoming much more frequently used. Since these items never run dry, we could end up with individuals carrying such items for every needed situation, effectively making them more powerful than a spellcaster and incredibly hard to toy with as a DM.
Overly restrictive usability - Items that are only usable by one or a few classes or one specific alignment has a very narrow usergroup. This isn't ideal since it greatly reduce the potential diversity other classes experience. Therefore, try to limit the usage of these restrictions.
NWN Engine Quirks The NWN has some quirks that differentiate it from PnP D&D, and it also uses 3.0 D&D, not 3.5, and many of those aspects are hardcoded and cannot be changed.
Attack Bonuses are more powerful in NWN because they bypass Damage Reduction (remember also, NWN uses 3.0 D&D DR, which is very different from 3.5's DR). Be careful about giving an item too many attack bonuses, such items are more powerful than they appear to be.
On-Hit: Cast Spell effects can cause performance issues. Most spells were designed under the assumption that a character could cast at most two spells in a round. When it is triggered on-hit, however, a spell can be cast much more often, potentially twelve times per round. Injudicious use of this item property can cause the game to lag. Also, no matter how many On Hit: Cast Spell properties you give an item, only one will ever be used, the highest gp-cost one.
On Monster Hit abilities only work on creature items
Armor and Shields can have On Hit effects as well as weapons, triggering when the owner is hit instead of when the owner hits something with a weapon.
Missile-launching weapons such as bows, crossbows and slings do not benefit from damage bonuses and do not trigger On Hit effects, as you do not actually hit with that weapon. These must be applied to the ammunition instead.
Custom Content Quirks: We have used haks to open up previously unavailable item properties. Some of them work, some of them do not. Also, as we have made some changes to spell, On Hit: Cast Spell effects may not work as intended.
The following item properties do not work: Boomerang, Dancing, Vorpal (use On Hit: Vorpal instead), Wounding (use On Hit: Wounding instead)
The knock spell has been altered on this server to give a large bonus to the Open Lock skill instead of instantly unlocking something. As such, you should avoid the On Hit: Knock item property.
Item Cost Parameter works, but should not be used. It is used in a few exceptions for mundane weapons that lack abilities they should have but don't due to hardcoded engine limitations (for example, nunchaku and sais should be able to be used with the Flurry of Blows feat, but since the engine won't allow it, the weapons were given a +1 Parry bonus to compensate). These exceptions are only handled by the Dev team and will not be considered or allowed on items suggested here.
Not all feats listed under "Bonus Feat" will work when added to an item, particularly if it is a feat that requires levels of a particular class (e.g. Barbarian Rage).
We have a custom poison system on PotM. To use it, select a poison type from the Poison property. Each poison has its own cost attached.
Materials:Certain materials have different properties when armor and/or weapons are made from them. These will count towards the item's cost. You will have to add them manually.
Weapons: Stone: Attack and Damage Penalty -2, Weight Increase 5 lbs.
Bone: Attack and Damage Penalty -2, Base Item Weight Reduction 40% of weight
Obsidian: Attack and Damage Penalty -1, Base Item Weight Reduction 80% of weight
Bronze: Attack and Damage Penalty -1
Copper: Attack Bonus vs. Racial Group Fey +2, Base Item Weight Reduction 80% of weight, Decreased Damage -1
Iron, Steel: no changes
Cold Iron: Attack Bonus vs. Racial Group Outsiders +1
Silver: Attack Bonus vs. Racial Group Shapechangers +1
Mithral: Base Item Weight Reduction 40% of weight
Adamantine: Enhancement +1 (light or medium weapons) or +2 (heavy weapons)
Alchemical Silver: as Silver, above
Wooden Weaponry: Only certain weapons can effectively be made of wood. The club, quarterstaff, sap, and all bows and crossbows can be made from wood without suffering a penalty. Any bludgeoning weapon can also be constructed of wood, but those not noted above suffer a -3 penalty on attacks and damage. Weapons that deal piercing or slashing damage cannot be made of wood.
Darkwood: weapons that can normally be made of wood without penalty gain Attack Bonus +1 and Base Item Weight Reduction 40% of weight when made of darkwood. There is no bonus gained for weapons not normally made of wood.
Armor and Shields: Bone: maximum AC of 3
Wood: maximum AC of 3 for armor, no change for shields
Coral: maximum AC of 6
Shell: maximum AC of 3
Bronzewood: same AC as metal but gains Base Item Weight Reduction 80% of weight
Chitin: same AC as metal but weight is doubled
Bronze: AC is always -1 that of steel armor
Mithral: Arcane Spell Failure -05%, Base Item Weight Reduction 40% of weight
Adamantine: AC +1, Damage Reduction +1/Soak 5, Weight Increase x2
Darkwood: Base Item Weight Reduction 40% of weight (shields only)
Format:-Item name
-Item type
-Description of the item
-Statistics
-Appearance (for weapons: list the part number and color for the top, medium, and bottom. For armor, list the appearance number for each armor part and approx. color, for "miscellaneous" items, take a screenshot of the icon used and post it)
For example:
Item Name: EO's Hammer of Greatness
Item Type: Warhammer
Description:The original version of this hammer was forged in the depths of Toril by an angry dwarf who wished to create the most awesome hammer. Over time, many weaker replicas were made and some found their way into Ravenloft.
Statistics: +1 Enhancement Bonus, +1AC, +1/5- Damage Reduction
You should build the item in the toolset to get the right costs and appearance #s. DO NOT SUBMIT THE ITEM TO US. This is merely so you can get the appropriate costs. To do this, create a new module, then edit the module properties. Go to "custom content, and make sure the following haks are listed in this order, from top to bottom:
rl_2da_v195b
rl_addons
rl_creatures
rl_mountain
rl_placeables
rl_ruralcity
rl_tilesetaddons
rl_tiletextures
cep2_top_v24
cep2_add_doors
cep2_crp
cep2_custom
cep2_core7
cep2_core6
cep2_core5
cep2_core4
cep2_core3
cep2_core2
cep2_core1
cep2_core0
ctp_common
ctp_loadscreens
ctp_elf_interior
ctp_exp_elf_city
ctp_goth_int
ctp_goth_estate
Under "custom TLK file", make sure it says "ravenloft"
Then compile/rebuild the module and save it. You should be able to make your own items at this point. In our module, negative effects lower the cost of an item. So giving an item an ability score penalty (ex: -2 WIS), will lower the cost of the item, as will damage vulnerability, etc.
PLEASE DO NOT SUGGEST ITEMS THAT REQUIRE CUSTOM SCRIPTS.