Good- and Neutral-aligned Shapechange spell

[Rayenoir]

At the present time, four of the five available forms for the Shapechange spell are evil.  Fire Giant, Balor, Red Dragon, and Death Slaad.  The other remaining form, the Iron Golem, is a construct.  It is my suggestion that since the Gate spell is capable of spellhooking as appropriate to alignment, if it's possible, that the giant, balor, dragon, and slaad be replaced with something appropriate to alignment as well.  Granted, as I've made abundantly clear previously I know next to nothing about NWN scripting so I don't know how labor-intensive such a thing would be or if it is even in fact do-able.  However, it would make for much better RP on the part of some people to assume good-aligned or neutral-aligned shapes for their character, as some may consider the evil forms currently available with distaste.  Thanks for consideration.

[Eight-Bit]

Rayenoir - 11/26/2006 3:33 PM At the present time, four of the five available forms for the Shapechange spell are evil. Fire Giant, Balor, Red Dragon, and Death Slaad. The other remaining form, the Iron Golem, is a construct. It is my suggestion that since the Gate spell is capable of spellhooking as appropriate to alignment, if it's possible, that the giant, balor, dragon, and slaad be replaced with something appropriate to alignment as well. Granted, as I've made abundantly clear previously I know next to nothing about NWN scripting so I don't know how labor-intensive such a thing would be or if it is even in fact do-able. However, it would make for much better RP on the part of some people to assume good-aligned or neutral-aligned shapes for their character, as some may consider the evil forms currently available with distaste. Thanks for consideration.

 I think it's a grand ol' idea.

[steverimmer]

Yeah brought this up a year or so ago...maybe longer, I know it isn't a priority but it always seemed strange to me that a druid would choose to shapechange into a golem

Would be nice if you could have a variety of natural forms to choose from instead.  Of course with all the changes coming up it might be a while before anyone can look at this.

[Eight-Bit]

steverimmer - 11/27/2006 1:37 PM Yeah brought this up a year or so ago...maybe longer, I know it isn't a priority but it always seemed strange to me that a druid would choose to shapechange into a golem Would be nice if you could have a variety of natural forms to choose from instead. Of course with all the changes coming up it might be a while before anyone can look at this.

 Or it might be one of those things that make new players think... "Oh man... this is easily the most awesome server ever!"
  If anything, by my fraying concept of logic, this is easily the most important addition Layonara could ever need.

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

Fraying, aye, but no less valid... Then again, it's a ninth level spell. The first anyone'll get it is level seventeen, which, after a year I still haven't reached (even with my highest-level char).

Still, an ethereal form would be pretty sweet, as would a Fine form OTHER THAN A PIXIE. Pixies are annoying, after all, and must all die. Perhaps a Will-o-Wisp?

[SquareKnot]

Changing this spell isn't hard technically. The problem is choosing and balancing the new forms. And no matter what you choose, there will be the people who complain that their favorite form is not available to them any more, that the spell's been nerfed, that other alignments get cool forms but their alignment has weak ones, that one form eliminates the need for an entire class, etc. And initially, some of that may be true, as it's really hard to balance these things. That's where the time consuming work comes into play.

It's the deity based summons all over again. How many threads are there about Xeenite water elementals or "My summon III is stronger than my summon IV"...

[Dorganath]

Well the tricky thing about Shapechange is that the options aren't set dynamically. Either we'd have to disallow certain forms based on alignment or have three different versions of the spell, each with its own forms, for each major alignment and also restrict casting of that version of the spell based on alignment.
  At least that's my initial, knee-jerk reaction to the idea without actually looking at a single line of code. It's trivial to modify it for different forms, and if Shapechange was just a single-form spell, it would be easy. But it's not, and therein lies the complexity.

[Falonthas]

umm.. druids shift into elementals not golems

[Dorganath]

Falonthas - 11/28/2006  10:17 AM  umm.. druids shift into elementals not golems

 I believe you're thinking of the feat Elemental Shape  and not the spell Shapechange.

[SquareKnot]

Actually, having looked at the code, the form is dynamically selected. All the subradials call the same script, nw_so_shapechg. In that script, it finds out what spell number it was called as (based on the subradial selection) and picks the shape at that time. So if the subradial icons were changed to something generic for each type of shape (offensive, defensive, tiny, big, whatever the different forms would have in common across alignments), then the main script could know that the player wanted the 4th (let's say big) form. From there, the specific creature for "big" could be selected based on alignment and then passed to EffectPolymorph(). EffectPolymorph() gets the shape data from polymorph.2da. So if the other new shapes were added to polymorph.2da, then their 2da line could be passed to EffectPolymorph and give the new forms, all based on alignment determined at casting time.

That said, the hard part isn't a few 2da edits and 2 extra if-then-else clauses in nw_s0_shapechg. It's picking the shapes and balancing them. I have no idea how to go about doing that.

[Dorganath]

Oh, thanks for looking. (I have no access to code where I am, sadly)
  I did know that they all went through the same code, but what I was meaning by "dynamic" was the sub-radial options themselves. Your idea does kind of work around that nicely, at the expense of actually being able to see at-a-glance what your shape would be.
  Interesting thinking.    
  Balancing forms is something the GM Team would do, so there's no real worry there. Suggestions for what those forms should be are always welcome.

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

Ideas here, for the Shapechange form types...

Dragon (Red [E] Silver [G] or Topaz [N] assuming we have the crystalline dragons - otherwise Silver or Bronze)
Golem (No preference here - perhaps keep them Iron across the board?)
Giant (Fire [E] Cloud [G] Stone [N])
Outsider (Balor [E] Trumpet Archon [G] Xorn [N])
Magical Beast (Slaad [E] Will-o-Wisp [G] Sphinx [N])

I'm not sure which of these monsters we actually have in NWN; this is just from a quick glance through the SRD.

[steverimmer]

Of course druids should be able to turn into nature type shapes.  I don't think they need to be powerful as they already have the Animal and Elemental shapes, so really they should be shapes that can be used for RP reasons.  

I always liked the idea that a druid should be able to turn into a tree, maybe giving the ability to be not designated as hostile by any creature but with the downside of not being able to move or perform any action except reverting back to their normal form.  Of course this may not be possible so if not then a treant would be nice, all the other shapes could be different animals or plants perhaps.

Drow and other races which originate in the underdark should be able to change to underdark type critters...but less powerful of course

[Dorganath]

There is only one druid on the server who can turn into a treant, and that came as the reward for his ECDQ.
  Just an FYI.

[Eight-Bit]

I believe that this spell has a lot of potential.

Good Aligned -
Dragon Form - Gold, which is pretty much a mimic of the Red but with the different skin. A breath attack for each would be nice.
Golem Form - ?
Giant - Titan - Fire Giant with a maul, instead of a greatsword, that deals Electrical Damage.
Outsider - Celestial Deva - Something like the level 9 Good/Toran summon, but a little weaker and without a Holy Avenger weapon.
Outsider

Neutral Aligned

Dragon Form - Prismatic Dragon (A weaker version, of course.)
Golem - Iron Golem
Giant - Stone Giant - Ability to throw rocks?
Outsider - ?
Outsider - ?

Druidic

Dragon Shape
Golem - Shambling Mound
Giant - Greater Werewolf
Outsider - Forest Render
Outsider - ?

Evil

Golem - Demonflesh Golem - everything else is fine.

[Chnmmr]

I wouldn't have thought druids would -want- to turn into outsiders other than elementals.  I suggest that instead of outsider shapes druids get plant shapes.  One thing that could be done is make one of the forms a Fey shape like a Dryad, Nymph, etc.

[Rayenoir]

Outsiders are simply nature from a plane other than the Material.

[Falonthas]

can druids be gold dragons too? or would we have a choice being neutral

and forest render would be the giant one not greater werewolf since those techically are evil

so dragon
shambling mound
forest render
griffon would be nice
eagle


those would be my choices

[Chnmmr]

Rayenoir - 12/5/2006  2:10 PM

Outsiders are simply nature from a plane other than the Material.

There we go, so they don't belong in toril do they?

[Rayenoir]

We aren't in Toril.