Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

Valefort wrote:It would be much longer of course but doable, there aren't that many temples.

I have my doubts about that.

The clerics are supposed to have god specific entries, and if I remember correctly, some of those entires are currently missing. Therefore I think it is unlikely that an unique "alternative item" - per cleric - will happen.

I may be wrong about it.

NegInfinity wrote:

Valefort wrote:It would be much longer of course but doable, there aren't that many temples.

I have my doubts about that.

The clerics are supposed to have god specific entries, and if I remember correctly, some of those entires are currently missing. Therefore I think it is unlikely that an unique "alternative item" - per cleric - will happen.

I may be wrong about it.

All I can picture are Surfacers getting healed at the Temple of Lolth in Sshamath, for some reason, and it irks me. (Realistically, it probably wouldn't happen, but still.)

I like your ideas on this topic, NegInfinity, and I support pretty much all of them -- especially the bit about diseases and poisons; immunity to these effects is not at all special when there are exploits that effectively give every character immunity. Some races (Duergar, for one) have ECL penalties because of these features, and it amounts to penalizing a player for nothing, if poison (in this example) is otherwise meaningless. The idea that Restoration would only dampen the effects of poison/disease/neg. energy is compelling too, and I think well worth looking into.

I feel that, if NPC clerics are given these abilities, they should only work if you share the alignment, with a step in either direction, of that Deity. Ergo, a Cleric of Lolth would only heal characters that are CE, CN, or NE, while a Priest of Lathander would only heal a PC that is of LG, NG, CG, or N. This does get tricky with some deities, such as Ilmater, who would be inclined to heal just about anyone considered "suffering", etc., but on the whole, it might be a good place to start. It would also make Alignment matter a little more in the larger world.

However, the fetch-quest idea is compelling, too -- maybe there are certain components required that the user has to pick up for the ritual. Like a Diamond for a Resurrection, for example, or some rare herbs for a poison cure, that sort of thing. Could they be inventory items harvested in the wild? The Script checks for the item in the inventory, and consumes it if it's there, and informs the user that they are missing it if they are? Then a character could have a few handy if they wanted to be prepared, or just do the "fetch" part preemptively on their way to the NPC. If these required items are harvested, it would make sense to have a random chance to find them (survival for herbs, appraise for diamonds in ore, maybe?, Alchemy for the ingredient to cure poison, etc.). There are many ways to spin this that would allow characters who specialize in variations in this field to be more useful.

That's my 2c on the matter, anyway. I love where this discussion is going. Can't wait to hear more ideas thrown around!

~ Moose

Let me be clear... I am only talking about a Lesser Restoration. Nothing huge. Maybe even a cure disease. Both of these, your average cloister clerics should be able to achieve. For the right price.

I do not see an issue with this to be done. Even the text says that you don't look well... that to me, means I am sick and not feeling well, i.e. lesser restoration or cure disease.

I am not asking for a Heal spell and a Greater Restoration or a Miracle spell.

Certain NPC clerics already do some of this, don't they? The priestess in Soubar, for example. She definitely has removed negative levels from me before.

Well the priest I used was at FAI.

Let's also remember this is a game for fun. (note many different types of fun, yada yada).

Anyway. If we make someone work for a restoration, raise dead beyond the gold fee. We may want to consider 'just how long it will take'.
The ultimate risk is either:
- that dead player having to log off;
- server crashing;
-probably a couple others.

If we delay a 'raise' and return to the material plane because we 'want to slow things down', then we may need to understand that these may be the unfortunate risks involved.

There may be solutions already in place? I haven't had a chance to see/test them though.
How do we deal with dead player bodies, in between server resets, log off periods etc. Will they have to wait unneccessarily long in the fugue because of unfortunate timing due to extended work involved in a raise?

Spose the plus side is, if the NPC option is 'too much of a nuisance', then people will try and seek out cleric PCs, either ICly or OOCly. More player engagement? Don't get me wrong, I've played my fair share of clerics over the years, and too feel they are cheapened by the McGuyver scrolls/wands/Jim'sClericServices utilitarians. But I also see the other side of the coin and potentially why these easy facilities are currently the way they are. And I have chars that have found them very useful.

i play a cleric, and i feel it's okay to have npc temple clerics offer basic services, like lesser restorations, etc

it's not like you can hire him as a henchman and take him on adventures with you. we're just talking about basic services

Normally the npc clerics already heal you from most things, unless something has been changed here. I think it would be great if they also could remove curses. Actually it is just annoying if you are cursed, can't move and no cleric is around. And there is no reason why a cleric of a temple shouldn't be able to remove the curse.

I really would miss the non umd raise dead scrolls. It is bad enough that you already can't go to all places without a cleric or druid who protects you from deathspells. If you won't be able to bring back a player, you would have to carry him back to the next cleric. Iccly it would be maybe fine but oocly it would very often just be the end of the evening as the playtimes are not endless. Also in our party we often just play the death of players as being knockedout and the scroll is just some smelling salts.
I think we already have a lot of clerics, druids and fs around. They still have their place in rp when it is about to ask the gods for help. I don't like to make that classes even more important.
It is already bad enough that they are so much out of balance because of the restricted items. The original NWN2 game developers didn't go up to +10 items and added immunities not just for fun. Also I am sure the past bgtscc developers didn't make the raise dead scrolls available for everyone without any reason.
Actually I wished I could buy non umd wands or potions of protection from negative energy, deathward, greater stoneskin, high cl magic ressistance and all those spells that make clerics, druids and fs so overpowered just for the sake of balancement. They still would have an advantage as they don't need to buy it or they could buy it to save themselves a spell slot wich could be used for one of the many good spells that never get used because most clerics use all their spell slots for the many wards.

Having penalties after death would be really annoying and probably just make the people leave after they died. For me it is bad enough having to run back to the FAI if a vampire drains me. I really don't want to wait until I find a pc priest who helps me. In the end I would just ask a mate if he could jump in with a cleric to help me or log off.
Dying at lvl 30 also often ends with the end of the adventure and so I really avoid it. For me it is penalty enough to get teleported back to the FAI, though I wouldn't mind loosing some gold. Nine out of ten times it is the end of the gaming day for that character and it still feels like a great lost to me.

In my opinion it is never a good idea to let the players enjoyment depends on a special player build. There should always be a npc solution for such problems. In a single player game were you have a party you normally include a druid or cleric for the healing. But this is a pw where you only can play one character at the same time. There is often no pc cleric around and I think it should be also playable if you are a non diviner. That is why I like the idea of allowing the temples to offer more services.

p.s. : There are diseases that can't be healed by healkits as they have a DC. Also you need to use a potion of lesser restoration if you got an ability malus and during a fight you can't heal very good. So fur sure the immunities are useful.