My take on "A Dark Stormy Knight" adventure

[mellonril]

Hi! I am learning how to mod ToEE using Co8 and Temple+.
I've started by studying the other mods, particularly those developed by Anatoliy.
I chose the Dark Stormy Knight adventure as it is small in size and has few NPCs/dialogues.
I've done some initial testing using the tutorial maps to find the correct camera angles and sizes for the new maps.
The background graphics are rendered using the Blender game engine, then split and recomposed on top of one of the existing maps.
For now, only the Hightower tomb is in development, but I'd like to add the exterior maps as well.

I'd like to use this forum post as a development journal and to ask any quick questions about modding.

At the moment the party will enter the tomb through the main entrance.
The main hall has three passages, two of which are closed by barred doors. The passage on the right leads to the chamber with the stone chest inside. After some time, a rat swarm will break through the doors leading to the main hall.
Once the party has killed the rats, they can proceed to the other corridors.

Here's a quick video about the first room:


The scripting part is a series of timevents to play the sounds/particles and spawn the rats.
I am using popup-box function to add some Area Descriptions (I like that you can use them to pause the game as well).

Questions:
1# Are the rats (smaller ones, not the DireRats) supposed to do always zero damage?
Or is it a bug created on my side?
From the manual, even if they have 1d3-4, they should always do a minum of 1 damage.
https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/rat.htm

Minimum Damage
If penalties reduce the damage result to less than 1, a hit still deals 1 point of damage.

When compare with the rat familiar:

Is the +4 damage added by the dev on the proto to counter the -4 from STR?
Rat familiar also have disease as the DireRat.

Is the rat familiar the only small rat found in the game ?
Co8 Rats List:
{12050}{Rat} #obj_t_generic
{14056}{Dire Rat} #small#1008#3510#1d4#disease
{14068}{Vapor Rat} #small#1009#3550#1d4-4 | mc_type_magical_beast
{14405}{Fiendish Dire Rat} #same as DireRat but extraplanar, monster resistances
{14433}{Giant Rat} #no disease
{14451}{Legendary Rat} #small#1008#3510#1d8+2#disease --> Is this for WildShape only?
{14905}{Rat} #This is the rat familiar | tiny#1008#8200#1d3#disease
{14998}{Dire Rat} #same as DireRat

I need to choose whether to keep them like this (possibly adding the Flanker AI strategy to help the dire rats?) or to add the damage or disease to them.
What do you think about it?

 

[mellonril]

I've added new portraits for Rats and Dire Rats.

I'll probably change them again in the future, but for now, I just wanted to have something visually different between the two.
I was thinking about preparing a training set for AI like stable diffusion for future portraits, but for the moment the NPCs present in ADASK are few and it's not worth it.

I have reworked the proto for the basic Rat searching the forum for information about how to properly set damage, hitbonus, and skill points for monsters.
I have found these threads:
Creature feature: https://co8.org/community/threads/creature-feature.4370/#post-45089
Meaning of various object flags: https://co8.org/community/threads/meaning-of-various-object-flags.3088/
Protos.tab fields: https://co8.org/community/threads/protos-tab-fields.532/#post-3022

My rats do no damage with what appear to be the correct settings in the prototype.
And that is what it should do as the Manual entry; I now have to find a way to add the minimum damage of 1 to them

I discovered this section in Spell760 - Summon Familiar.py that explains why the familiar rat has a different profile than the standard rat:

The Rat Familiar has a value of 6 in the "To Hit Bonus" of the proto.
The game Attack window shows a +8 BaseAttack (+2 from?)
For a Wizard of first level (BAB +0), the "To Hit Bonus" from his master would be zero, so I don't think it counts in my test.
Then it has -4 STR and +2 DEX correctly listed.
I'm still not sure where the +4 damage comes from, given that the creature damage dice is 1d3.

I have also noticed that the Rat familiar does one kind of damage the first time it attacks (unarmed attack), and from the second turn on, uses the Bite attack as saved in the Proto.
Tested vs. the poor village boy at the start of Hommlet (Co8 NC only and with Temple+):

I think I'll try Temple+ modifiers to add the minimum damage of 1 to my Rats.
I hope to learn new stuff in the process.

 

[curds]

If I may offer some criticism:

You don't really need to have text like this in a computer RPG with semi-decent graphics - the player can already see they're in a chamber with three exits, two torches, etc. I would only bother to describe the scent.

 

[mellonril]

Hi curds! Thanks for your constructive criticism.
I am in an experimentation phase where I try a bit of everything to learn how it should work.
The popup-box at the entrance will probably be removed at the end, but I am still thinking about using them in other situations.
There are now two popup boxes that spawn in two different situations, based on party location.
- If the party is in the main hall when the doors break down, it will show this:

- If the party is inside the room on the right when it happens, it will show this instead:

Damage
I didn't find a way to ignore the zero damage and add a rule for the minimum 1 damage so I have modified the Rat proto "Creature Damage Dice" to 1d1.
This is what it shows inside the game:

I'll keep it for now.

AI
I have added a check for the Rats inside san_start_combat so that if the two Dire Rats are dead, the other small rats run away from the fight.
I had some difficulties with the script, in the end I have decided to use a obj.run_to() plus a timed destroy (return SKIP_DEFAULT).

I need to find a way to add the rats that ran away to the experience calculation for the encounter.

 

[AugustDrake]

How's it going so far? Been following with great interest.