Projects Update

Ossian
I spent a bit of time today cranking out some deadlines for Ossian. As usual, I can't discuss that, so onwards to things I can discuss.


The Maimed God's Saga
I've promised this now for a couple posts, so I think I'll drop a screenshot right off the bat of an example of the individualized items that the companions will be carrying with them. I'll let the picture speak for itself.

However, I have been doing some looking around on the net for information about who controls Calimport. I've been able to find a name for the 1372 DR range (shown in the picture), but I haven't had any luck finding a comprehensive list that will tell me about the 1361 DR time frame. If anyone reading this blog happens to know for 100% certainty, please post a comment, and I'll give you 1) sincere thanks and 2) a credit in the module readme file.

Areas
Finished off one area I've been working on and then ripped off another area from my old 'Diviner's Fire' module that hasn't yet (but will eventually) see the light of day. Hey, I liked the area. That means I have four of the eleven areas I need for Act I finished.

Above, the protagonist and Tancred take a stroll at dusk along the River Delimbiyre.

Conversations
I'm making progress on this front trying to set up a really heavily-scripted encounter that will allow the player a huge amount of leeway in choosing how to handle it - like a half dozen or so unique solutions. Let's just leave it there for now.

General
I'm finding that there are certain advantages to knowing the protagonist will be a fifth-level cleric and the one companion will be a fifth-level ranger. All of my battles can be exactly defined versus letting some generic AI spawn in a few enemies. I'm looking at between 15-18 major encounters that will feature potential combat, and I want each of them to be 100% unique. In some case, this will simply mean specialized scripting to have the enemies try to trick, surround, or trap the PC - in other words, show cunning. In other case, this means allowing the PC and the companion to formulate a plan ahead of time that will alter the way the battle develops. In some cases, there will be alternate ways around the combat, and I don't just mean the three tried-and-true dialog skills. We'll see how successful I am, but that's the plan right now.

I also have the intention of making every skill a cleric can take be potentially useful. I imagine many of the people who play this mod will take the usual cleric skills - i.e. Concentration, Heal, and Spellcraft, but I intend to make smooth talkers, item-crafters, lock-pickers, and so forth all able to bypass some problems others will face. In short, I'd like to be able to handle any cleric concept the players can imagine within the Tyrran dogma and still allow them to utilize their character to the fullest. Again, that's the plan, but I do have a bit of work to do to determine how I'm going to work things like Appraise and Slight of Hand in.

Gone this Weekend
I'm heading about an hour and a half north this weekend to St. Augustine, FL. My wife and I are celebrating our fifth anniversary by returning to the same B&B we went to for our honeymoon. I say 'celebrating' because our actual anniversary was way back in March, but the period of intense business interfered, and so we postponed until this weekend. Therefore, no 'Maimed God's Saga' this weekend, but truth to tell... I won't miss it.