Shapechange and polymorph

After a comment from another player... I had a thought about these two spells.

Could the dialogue be dropped in favor of a vc system like the druid wildshape? That will make switching forms in mid-combat doable, as you can't get the convo started while in the middle of combat.

It's on my to-do list already for the spells re-scripting, so yes, it could (and will) be changed.

While rescripting them, can the item-merging be worked on, too?

That way maybe the polymorphs wont make the caster lose the benefit of gear that adds casting stat bonuses or bonus spells slots, forcing a loss of spell slots and the need to redo spell slots when the effect ends?

I love these spells in PnP, but the technical issues in NWN make it not worthwhile to ever cast them

Item merging would be nice -- powerful but nice. Should work fine, since it's a minor 2da edit at default anyway You may, however, lose spell slots and bonuses regardless of merges, just by virtue of how the engine works, so I'm not sure that'll help much. The only thing that I have seen work for slots gained from casting bonus is to cast the relevant boosting spell to match the bonus.

My question is this: When shapeshifting, any subrace with SR will lose the SR. That makes sense since the PC is no longer of the race. However, upon returning to normal form, they will still have no SR, and resting does not seem to restore it, at least in my circumstance (likely from the use of an int helm and ioun stones). I'm sure this has to do with the way SR is applied to the PCs hide (as a variable, I'm guessing?), which is then removed at shapeshift and returned, but without SR (either the subroutine isn't called, or the variable makes the system think the SR is still active when in fact it is not?)

In any event, this along with the dialog thing mentioned above, made things a wee bit tricky last night

Thanks!

There is a way around the spell slot issue. Grant a temporary +12 stat boost on polymorphing. 1 second, maybe 2 to play it safe, should be enough. While the items are removed, that +12 boost will keep the slots intact. I've seen other servers do such.

It might not work so well for bards/sorcs though, due to how their slots work, but even then, if it helps wiz/druid/cleric casters, that's a plus of course.

Another item merging issue that's always bugged me are the custom property items... statuebreaker cloaks, speedy boots, ect.... it'd be nice if there was a way for them to continue to function while polymorphed. THere's a way to get the boot bonus back, but it's a glitch more than a feature (the backup tool vc command... it will reapply the speedy bonus).

Also, for many of the non-standard shapechange/polymorph shapes... they need at least minimum item merging. A lot of them don't even merge the armor/shield/helm slots... which nerfs them incredibly.

The temporary +12 casting stat boost would help for keeping bonus slots/casts from high stat mod, but there is also the issue of bonus spell slots on gear.

If a PC has a bunch of bonus slots on their gear that go bye-bye when they shapeshift, its a huge hassle to lose memorized spells and have to redo them every time. Totally not worth the aggravation. I think item merging is the only way to accomodate that.... unless multiple bonus slots can be added to the PC skin (or would it need to be the polymorph creature skin, or maybe even both?) just before the shift, and then be removed after the shift ends?

That would still fubar the slots. Even if the polyskin had slots, removing the items that have the slots still erases them rather than transfer them to slots granted by other items. Just by how the engine works, I can't think of a way that it could be done to preserve slots from items while polymorphing. Could do it as an appearance change, but that would lose a good bit of the benefit since a lot of the shapes have strong physical stats, which wizards/sorcs would be looking to capitalize on.

When using polymorph, don't you only keep items that your new form can wear?

The benefit of item properties that are applicable to your new form, and that your new form can wear, yes. However this does not mean that upon shifting back, you lose spell slots or spells already memorized. At least that is the intent of PnP... In nwn the current implementation does not work in line with that intent.

But there's no good way around it, at least for the spell slot issues. NWN limitations. It's some of the things I kinda hate about the Bioware engine, but there's nothing better.

That being said, there's also the issue of the weapon. Upon shifting back to normal, if you use one of the self-upgradeable weapons (Impaler, etc) all of the temporary properties are gone. So, if it happens during a fight, the PC is in a world of trouble. Even out of combat, any weapon enhancing spells will be gone and need to be recast, assuming you have more casts available.

Bump for the magic overhaul (the spell slot via enhanced ability scores idea part of the thread)