Animal companions & Familiars : a crazy new idea™
Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2020 2:16 pm
Basically, the feedback is this:
Both of them are still vanilla. But variety isn't really necessary on the grounds of "WE NEED A BUNCH OF NEW FAMILIARS."
NWN has not really done a good job rendering these things in the base game.
In PnP most familiars are generic little boons who (usually) do not have application in PVP and only give a minor bonus for it. Think a tiny mouse which gives you +2 hide, a frog that gives you +1 temporary hitpoint, or whatever. Never a pixie that opens all your locks for you and "combat familiars" are a feat investment.
Animal companions are a giant list that you can choose from as you level up and apply your "animal companion" template to.
In NWN its actually pretty straight forward to add new animal companions and familiars. It just requires effort of making level 1-30 or at the very least planning along those lines. Familiars don't really need to change much beyond maybe their base racial type / abilities.
idea:
Make a generic template that skins can be applied too but are effectively the same for Animal Companions and Familiars.
Familiars could be divided between "battle familiars" and the "cute, but mostly useless spies".
IE; Imps, shocklizards, pseudo dragons, hell hounds versus mice, toads, rats, lil baby snakes, tiny spiders.
Animal companions should be set on one generic path that is exactly the same so totem skins / aesthetic choices do not affect the mechanical principle of the companion. So when you make your druid you can change skins on them to choose new animals. MAYBE change them so they can be particular racial types (vermin, beast, animal, magical beast).
That way you can have things like DIRE BEARS, POLAR BEARS, SPIDERS OF VARYING KINDS, HORSES, DEER - etc and not have it be worse than everything else.
Multiple kinds of familiars / animals with unique or crazy abilities = harder to balance against, limiting in quantity due to workload.
Instead, rather than trying to adhere to some very specific, individual prospects make a generic template, apply skins, and call it a day.
(also before anyone begins screaming about pixies being necessary; most people can crossclass 1 point of open lock, and 1 point of disable trap and open most things on the server with investment in gear. Also you can also use knock on most locks. Please let that one rogue out there feel like he has value in the world, you can already live without him.)
Both of them are still vanilla. But variety isn't really necessary on the grounds of "WE NEED A BUNCH OF NEW FAMILIARS."
NWN has not really done a good job rendering these things in the base game.
In PnP most familiars are generic little boons who (usually) do not have application in PVP and only give a minor bonus for it. Think a tiny mouse which gives you +2 hide, a frog that gives you +1 temporary hitpoint, or whatever. Never a pixie that opens all your locks for you and "combat familiars" are a feat investment.
Animal companions are a giant list that you can choose from as you level up and apply your "animal companion" template to.
In NWN its actually pretty straight forward to add new animal companions and familiars. It just requires effort of making level 1-30 or at the very least planning along those lines. Familiars don't really need to change much beyond maybe their base racial type / abilities.
idea:
Make a generic template that skins can be applied too but are effectively the same for Animal Companions and Familiars.
Familiars could be divided between "battle familiars" and the "cute, but mostly useless spies".
IE; Imps, shocklizards, pseudo dragons, hell hounds versus mice, toads, rats, lil baby snakes, tiny spiders.
Animal companions should be set on one generic path that is exactly the same so totem skins / aesthetic choices do not affect the mechanical principle of the companion. So when you make your druid you can change skins on them to choose new animals. MAYBE change them so they can be particular racial types (vermin, beast, animal, magical beast).
That way you can have things like DIRE BEARS, POLAR BEARS, SPIDERS OF VARYING KINDS, HORSES, DEER - etc and not have it be worse than everything else.
Multiple kinds of familiars / animals with unique or crazy abilities = harder to balance against, limiting in quantity due to workload.
Instead, rather than trying to adhere to some very specific, individual prospects make a generic template, apply skins, and call it a day.
(also before anyone begins screaming about pixies being necessary; most people can crossclass 1 point of open lock, and 1 point of disable trap and open most things on the server with investment in gear. Also you can also use knock on most locks. Please let that one rogue out there feel like he has value in the world, you can already live without him.)