Summoned/Tamed Creatures.

[DeathCow]

• Many of the ideas for new classes require that the code for Charm/Enslave/Tame/Summon abilities be reworked. Actually, in fairness, the old code needs to be discarded and a new code created. The purpose of this thread is to create the framework in which the revised coding will work. This information is needed to continue the creation progress with many new abilities both for old and new classes.? That being said this argument will be broken into four different categories; #1 Shared rules governing both charmed and? summoned creatures, #2 rules that govern only summoned creatures, #3 rules that govern enslaved creatures, #4 additional misc thoughts.
  
  #1 Shared Rules Governing PC Controlled NPCs
  
  
• To begin all PC controlled NPCs should appear in a secondary party list. NPCs under your control should be visible not only to yourself, but any member trusted enough to be in your party. Example.?
  
  Code Select Expand
  [HP=290]par?
The following NPCs are under your party's control.?
You have the following NPCs under your control.?

Wild Dog [H :19%]?
Forest Spider [H :99%]?

You are following Satan?

DeathCow Beast Master [H :100%]?
Satan Priest [H :66% M :6%]?

  
• if this were Satan's screen?
  
  Code Select Expand
  
[HP=99/MA=9]? par
The following NPCs are under your party's control.?

Wild Dog [H :19%]?
Forest Spider [H :99%]?

The following NPCs are under your control?

You are your party's leader?
Satan Priest [H :66% M :6%]?
DeathCow Beast Master [H :100%]?

  
• In the above example, Satan and DeathCow are wandering through the darkwood forest. Satan is the Party leader and DeathCow is following. DeathCow has charmed 2 monsters, a forest spider and a wild dog. DeathCow can see their HP % listed under the NPCs under your control sub-menu of the party-command. Satan, Death Cow's party leader, has the ability to see the 2 charmed monster because he is in the party with DeathCow.?
  
  
• The rational.? The ability to see a controled NPCs health statics quickly is vital a characters ability to affectivly use monsters in combat.? It allows the NPC to be more like a companion and allows for ease of healing.
  
  
• Second, PC controlled NPCs should be affected by some spells. Although not all spells should affect every monster, as a general rule monsters will be affected by healing spells such as minor healing, mend and divine mercy. PC controlled NPCs will not be affect by spells that boost stats, characteristics, and abilities. Example, bless, chant, divine mercy, mass frenzy. PC controlled NPCs should not be affected by spells and abilities meant to harm other outside the party. Example: any spell using Target-Full Attack Area.?
  
  
• The rational. The ability to heal NPC follower is important so a PC can move around quickly while keeping his NPC party alive.
  
  
• Third, PC controlled NPCs should act in a similar fashion to how they would without being in the party. Example: A warlock bandit should protect his charmer from combat based damages and should continue to use spell like blur and magic missile while swinging 2x per round.?
  
  
• The rational.? The only change that a NPC should under go while transitioning to PC control is a change in hostility, weakening a monster due to a charm spell is both unfair to the player and strange in RPG terms.
  
  
• Forth, Limits should be placed on PC controlled NPCs.? No more than <although this number is complete arbitrary it seems to be a popular number in parties> 6 NPCs should be controlled by a single PC at any given time. If a PC controlled NPC is no longer able to follow its master it will wait until it able to follow taking no actions, including attacking other NPCs and hostile PCs. This is to prevent abuses.?
  
  
• The rational.? 6 would be the upper limit of charming and summoning abilities.? Although 6 is the upper limit certain charm/summoning spells could limit this futher.? The number 6 is being used because it is currently the maximum limit for players in a party.? Although 6 is the upper limit charming/summoning abilities should be carefully examined before allowing large amounts of followers.
  
  
• Fifth, A PC will be unable to attack NPCs in their control while remaining in control of it.? If a PC in control of a NPC becomes hostile towards the NPC appropriate actions will take place.
  
  
• The rational.? This measure must be taken to prevent PC abuse of the controled NPC system.
  
  #2 NPCs charmed by PCs
  
  
• First, A charmed NPC will always respond to the most specific charm spell. Example: The evil mage Chelm has cast enslave on a wild dog and the lovely and goodly hearted druid Daymia casts Charm animal on it, Daymia will attain control over the dog because her spell is the most specific spell. If two spells of equal specificity are cast on the same creature the first charmer will retain control of the charmed being.?
  
  
• The rational.? This allows for more specialized characters to display a mastery of their particular charming domain.
  
  
• Second, if the PC takes Hostile action against a charmed NPC then the charm spell will be broken prior to the affects of the hostile action taking effect. Example: Satan the evil priest has cast Control Undead on a skeleton from the graveyard.? Satan has decided that the Skeleton is worth more to him as 45 experience than it is as a follow so Satan decides to kill the skeleton.? Satan types: TURN skeleton. At the same time Satan receives the message *Combat Engaged* the charm spell is nullified and the skeleton attacks Satan freely during the first combat round.? Because of the abilities of draining spells, something will need to be done to prevent abuse. Example 2: Locke the level 30 neutral druid has cast poison bolt on a rabid wolf.? Locke attacks the rabid wolf for one combat round.? After damages are exchanged, Locke casts charm animal on the rabid wolf.? Combat is broken when Locke casts charm animal however the effects of the poison bolt spell are still damaging the NPC. There are two acceptable results.? Either the charming will negate all spells previously cast on the NPC or the damage from the poison will cause the NPC to attack the PC.? If the second is the case, the NPC should attack prior to the NPC taking damage from any spell.?
  
  
• The rational.? This rules must be put in place to prevent PC abuse of the controled NPC system.
  
  
• Third, charmed NPCs will look like regular NPCs to non-part members.? If a charmed NPC is attacked by a PC other than its charmer then it will remain under its PCs control however it will attack the PC that has engaged it in combat.? A NPC that is targeted by any spell that is marked as evil in combat will attack the offending PC regardless of any PC control.? If the controlling PC leaves the room the NPC will follow the controlling PC.
  
  
• The rational. This allows for controlling PCs to ward off potential attack by masking the extent of their abilities.? Charmed monsters do not glow hot pink and any PC that encounters them will either need to be verbally told these monsters are under my control or join the controlling PC's party to discover which monsters are currently being controlled.
  
  
• Forth, NPCs charmed by PCs should still be governed by the rules all monsters obey. A monster cannot move from one map to another. A monster cannot move away from its lair domain. No more than 15 monsters can enter 1 room at any given time. All of these rules should continue to apply to NPCs charmed by PCs.
  
  
• The rational.? This rule is put in place to prevent PCs from using the charming system to move monsters to an area that the monster power level would be incorrect for.? In short, this is a means to prevent charmed monsters from slaying low level characters.
  
  #3 NPCs summoned by PCs
  
  
• First, NPCs summoned by PCs will never act on there own accord. Unlike charmed NPCs, summoned NPCs take only the actions their summoner directs them to take.? They will attack NPCs and PCs that their summoner attacks, but will not defend themselves from attack.?
  
  
• The rational.? This rule is important to prevent PC abuse of the summoned NPC system.
  
  
• Second, NPCs summoned by PCs are worth 0 experience.
  
  
• -The rational.? This rule is important to prevent PC abuse of the summoned NPC system.
  
  
• Third,? an NPC summoned by PCs always have different names than other NPCs in GreaterMUD.?
  
  
• The rational.? This rule is in place to prevent PC abuse of the summoned NPC system.? It also allows scripting players to ignore certain monsters as it would acknowledge them as being harmless unless the PC controlling chooses to attack.
  
  
• Forth, a PC attacking an NPC will gain 1 evil point for attacking the NPC unless the PC who summoned the NPC has attacked that PC, therefore directing the summoned NPC to attack.? The NPC will then be marked with an asterisk and no evil points will be gained from attacking the NPC.?
  
  
• The rational.? This is to prevent the abuse of players who's class' depend upon summoned NPCs to gain experience.? Two examples, one a scripting summoner (without this rule) could easily be rendered helpless by someone persistantly killing his summoned NPCs, two a high level character could easily abuse a lower level character by killing his summoned NPCs persistantly.? 1 singular evil point is a small punishment, however it prevent persistant abuses.
  
  
• Fifth, a new flag or ability should be added to help control possible summon abuses.? This flag or ability should mark certain summon abilities with maximum at a time.? For example. Hagrid the level 75 dark-elf Summoner has just gained the powerful spell Summon Elder Wyrm.? Elder Wyrm are very powerful and summoning more than one at a time would make Hagrid more powerful than he should be.? So the Summon Elder Wyrm spell has been limited to only allow one Elder Wyrm to be active in a PCs party at any given time.
  
  
• The rational.? This rule's intent is to create a quick and easy way to limit the potential abuses? of PC summoned NPCs.
  
  
• Sixth, the ability to guard the PC should be avaible to some summoned NPCs.? Not all summoned NPCs should have this ability because it is quite powerful.? All NPCs with this ability should be limited to 1 at a time and the mana cost for such NPCs should be high.? When a NPC who is guarding a PC dies in combat the damage should be applied to the PC who was being guarded and the damage absorbed by the guarding NPC should be subtacted from the total. Example 1 Combat: DeathCow the level 50 Beast Master is being guarded by a summoned Guardian Dog.? Miles a level 55 warrior attacks DeathCow killing his Guardian Dog.? Once Miles kills the Guardian Dog Miles' reattacks DeathCow in that same round.? The damage DeathCow takes depends on 4 things.? DeathCow's Ac, DeathCow's Dr, DeathCow's Dodge, and the amount of damage absorbed by the Guardian Dog that round.? Basically Miles gets a second attack this round and the damage he does to DeathCow is totalled up.? Then the damage the Guardian Dog took is subtracted.? After that calculate is complete a single message is generated to display the damage DeathCow took(instead of displaying the extra combat round miles had then subtracting the damage)Example 2 Spell Damage: DeathCow a level 50 Beast Master is being guarded by a summon Guardian Dog.? DeathCow is attacked by the evil level 60 mage Chelm.? Chelm's attack kills DeathCow's Guardian Dog and damage rolls over to DeathCow.? Chelm now casts his spell a second time at 0 mana cost to Chelm.? The damage is calculated against DeathCow's magic resistance statstic and then the damage taken by the Guardian Dog is subtracted.? When all this is done a single message is generated to detail the damage DeathCow took from the damage rollover(instead of displaying Chelm's extra attack round and the subtraction process) With both melee combat and spell combat the Damage must always be greater than 0.? IF the damage is not greater than 0 then their is no change in HP and the single message generated reflects this.
  
  
• The rational.? This a powerful tool meant to allow new defensive techniques in GreaterMUD.? A damage roll over rule is important however to help prevent potential abuses.
  
  
• Seventh, NPCs summoned by PCs should not have to obey all of the rules that govern normal NPCs.? Summoned NPCs should be able to move from map to map. NPCs summoned by PCs should be able to use go commands and enter a room through a searched exits. NPCs summoned by PCs, in general, should be able to freely move about the realm as long as they remain with in the PCs party.? This includes the Summoned NPCs entering into room that would normally be too crowded for a monster to enter.
  
  
• The rational.? This is to allow classes who depend on summoned creatures the ability to free move about the realm as any other class would enjoy.
  
  
• Last, if a summoned NPCs PC has left the realm the NPC will wait for a period of 15 minutes for the PCs return.? If the PC returns within 15 minutes the timer is reset and the party may continue as normal.? If the PC does not return the NPC will commit sepuku and disembark from the realm.
  
  
• The rational.? This is to prevent PCs from abusing the PC summoned NPC system.
  
  #4 MISC
  
  Various control mechanisms can be introduced to control certain types of PC controled NPCs.? ?
  
• 1.? A new spell ability that reduces hit points by a percentage of the monsters maximum hit points. We will call this ability ReduceHPby%.? ReduceHPby% can be used to control both NPCs charmed by PCs and NPCs summoned by PCs.? A charm spell could include the ReduceHPby% ability.? Given the Value 5 the monster would only live another 20 spell rounds, or 60 seconds.? Similarly, NPCs summoned by PCs could be controled in the same fashion.? A summoned NPC could have a create spell with ReduceHPby%-25.? The summoned NPC would only stay alive for up to 24 seconds, just under 5 combat rounds.? As the summoner grows in level the spell used to summon the NPC could grow to allow the NPC to remain alive longer.? Example.? Lets use giant cows as our example summoned NPC. DeathCow the level 10 goodly hearted summoner is attacking Meppy the level 15 evil gypsy homewrecker. DeathCow wishes to summon giant cows on Meppy.? Deathcow types GCOW MEPPY.? <The spell GCOW is a level 10 spell with the single ability Summon with the value 0.? Its base range is 2000-2000.? There are three Giant Cows in the monster data files.? They are monsters 2000, 2001, and 2002.? Each are exactly the same except that each of them have different cast when created spells.? Giant Cow 2000's spell is ReduceHPby% 25, 2001's 10, and 2002's is 3.? The spell can summon the more powerful version as the summoners level increases by increasing the value of the summon every few levels.? > Because Deathcow is only level 10, his Giant Cow only remains for four rounds.? Because of this Deathcow is forced to retreat and gain? few levels.? DeathCow returns at level 15.? DeathCow types: GCOW MEPPY.? This time the Giant Cow remain for 19 rounds.? DeathCow successfully kills Meppy on the 18th combat round and shortly after Meppy's death the Giant Cow is unsummoned.

[Reece]

I was looking at that and i think it might cause a problem ina boss fight. If you have a full party with full npc's and you hit the combat round there goes some scrolling. In fact even walking around it would pass by very quickly and more than likely you would have to scrollback to see the top. I suggest a seconary menu for the npc's such as npar or something such to minimixe the amount of lines produced at one time.

[DeathCow]

Hey thats a good idea.

[Reece]

Be careful i have a limted amount of good ideas and i think getting near my life quota........3-4 maybe ?

[DeathCow]

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