Paladin out of favor or fallen

[Nevyn]

Hi there,

I have a project I am working on where paladins start out with no connection to their powers and need to gain them via IC and IG efforts.

I was wondering what the ways to set a Paladin fallen were other than via allignment hits.

Any help would be greatly appreciated as scripting and me don't see eye to eye very often.

Nevyn

[rshampshire]

The obvious way would be to set some new variable that you could alter dependent on in game actions. So PAL_FAVOUR = 0 at the start and then increase via scripted quest / conversations.

The problem though is that I don't know how you'd hook the spell system in to look at the new variable.

[Li'll Divvil]

Can it be scripted so that the paladin HAS to have a GOD in the DEITY field and then add a variable where he needs a certain amount of points before being able to select a deity?

Or like on avlis the way clerics are scripted, but then couple it to an NPC and a database, e.g. the highpriest of a deity, where a certain number of points need to be gathered before he will "convert" him or "initiate" him

[Silverdragonams]

The easiest way would be to lock the whole class and have it unlocked on completion of certain scripted quests. Much like Avlis does for some of the PrC's.

Otherwise you will probabaly have to make changes to the individual scripts governing the paladins powers to look for a variable or the diety field as was mentioned above.

[PlasmaJohn]

The easiest way would be to lock the whole class and have it unlocked on completion of certain scripted quests. Much like Avlis does for some of the PrC's.

Unfortunately the client doesn't honor the world haks until after character creation, so it's possilbe to create a 1st level paladin despite measures taken to lock the class. However, with some careful scripting of the OnClientEnter event, you can deal with this by booting 0xp paladins, hopefully after sending them a stern message about reading rules/world info.

Otherwise you will probabaly have to make changes to the individual scripts governing the paladins powers to look for a variable or the diety field as was mentioned above.

Bioware has a propensity for hardcoding certain abilities/feats/etc, for example, the passive feats (Immunity to X) cannot be disabled this way. Offhand, only an alignment shift will cover all features, scripted and hardcoded.

If you're not comfortable with scripting, then you'll probably want to take either of the easier approaches (alignment games or class lockout+boot 0xp)

[Nevyn]

Thanks for the info so far, alot harder than anticipated.

Nevyn

[Tigg]

Hmm I've forgotten most of the little I ever knew about scripting...

But what about attacking the problem from the angle of their Charisma? That's where most of the Paladin powers derive from. Could the server on-enter script check paladins for either PallySkinA or PallySkinB, for instance? And apply PallySkinA if they're a paladin and have neither?

PallySkinA could give a significant charisma decrease. For example, if the Charisma modifier is low enough, they'll get no turn undead attempts, no save bonuses, Smite Evil will be at a penalty to attack someone with, no chance of using Divine Might, etc.. The skin could apply spell failure as well. That would basically leave a paladin character's only remaining special abilities being the immunity to disease and, at level 3, the power to remove it. Maybe ICly those could be the abilities granted to the 'applicant' level paladins or something, and anyways those are pretty minor abilities in the majority of settings. Then... once they prove themselves worthy the NPC would remove PallySkinA and they'd be given PallySkinB, which basically has no effect, but allows their charisma back to its true levels and of course no more spell failure.

I'm probably off on a wild, unworkable tangent here but I thought I'd at least run it up the flagpole.

[Naeblis]

Nice Jethro avatar Nevyn!