More Musings

Today I added two more dialogs totaling about 3500 words. Both were extremely complex. One was a so-called "Flirt point" for Tancred. Yay! Thirteen dialogs estimated at 27,000 words left... in Act II.

I'd like to get through a couple quick bullets on some topics I've discussed in the past.

1. I was waiting for inspiration for one remaining sidequest, and it came... I'm going to blatantly rip off one of my favorite encounters from Baldur's Gate I. As a reminder, there are two potential sidequests to be handled in Act I, though the player can only do one or the other. Successful completion of each of these in Act I will open up a separate sidequest in Act II, but I wasn't happy with one of the two I had initially conceived. Though I would consider TMGS more roleplay-heavy than anything else, I am trying to give tastes of many different things during the playthrough. This is partially why the one sidequest I was happy with is essentially an intricate map with a very tactical battle. Therefore, I'd like to make the second sidequest similar. And so... SPOILER ALERT... I have decided to do something similar to the xvart village in BGI. Since my earliest idea for a diviner's series, I've thought of xvarts as a new low-level monster. I think a whole village of them with various defense points would give two 5th-level characters a good fight. END SPOILERS.
2. To date, skill checks that are used in conversations include: Diplomacy, Bluff, Intimidate, Craft: Alchemy, Appraise, Taunt, Lore, and Spot. I have plans to get Listen and Search in as well. Attributes that are checked already are Strength and Dexterity. I'm assuming a high Wisdom, as the PC is a cleric, but I've got plans to include Intelligence as well. Spells that already can be cast from dialogs include: Bless, Lesser Dispel Magic, Dispel Magic, Hold Person, Endure Elements, Scare, Resist Energy, and Protection from Energy. I also have an encounter planned which will allow for Bull Strength, Cure Disease, and Remove Blindness and Deafness. So there will be plenty of opportunities to utilize many different Cleric builds.

I'm still struggling with how to deal with the whole romance thing. I'm beginning to think that having a companion so closely intertwined with the story maybe should allow for the assumption of a romance, though not the enforcement of it, of course. If I go with this, though, there goes the whole two-axis model. *Sigh*