Mob Drops

[indio]

I'm setting some mobs to drop specific loot, but often they just don't drop it. I suspect there's some script activity determining what drops in the ACR. Any way to get around it? Mark items as plot?

[indio]

Test questing is proving difficult without understanding how to get an item to reliably drop. Any help would be appreciated.

[Teric neDhalir]

When Cipher added the approved ALFA loot scripts to the ACR it prevented the dropping of anything other than items generated by the ACR. AL did me a workaround script for the OAS because it obviously prevented all my bounty items dropping from spawns, but I think it would be better to have a variable switch on the creature that defines if it uses the ACR loot, custom drops or nothing so that we're all using the same system. Sound possible, Tom?

[Wynna]

I would also find this quite useful.

[AcadiusLost]

Certainly could do a variable check, or have the system always leave items flagged as "plot", or both. Would a "plot" tag be an unwelcome complication for specialized quest drops?

[indio]

Not for me. I've got to destroy items fairly often, so I'll just unmark them as plot before doing so.

[Teric neDhalir]

Certainly could do a variable check, or have the system always leave items flagged as "plot", or both. Would a "plot" tag be an unwelcome complication for specialized quest drops?

I can't think of a reason why it should, but my gut feeling is that there would be a possible conflict in some instances. A simple way of ignoring the ACR drops and allowing "normal" inventory is what's needed.

[AcadiusLost]

The intention of the drop inhibition is/was to make a worry-free way of ensuring that we don't end up with accidental introduction of creatures dropping items that are significantly out of balance for their CR and our standards decisions. It means builders don't have to do those calculations themselves on each blueprint, and means that common and easily-made mistakes (CR 0.25 kobolds with full-value crossbows, for example) don't skew the in-game balance. I suppose I have some concerns that a simple variable setting for ignoring ACR lootscripts might start to become widely used, which pretty much defeats the purpose. Letting plot items pass through the inventory clearance should mean that they're not sellable through non-scripted means, so it still follows the intent of the wealth/loot script.

It does mean more trouble for the quest builder, in that things like special drop pelts can't just be given a value and allowed to be bought by any "Miscellaneous, large" merchant for example, but in some ways we'd like to think of that kind of drop/selling like a repeatable static quest; it would be good to pay attention to whom is doing it, and how often. If nothing else, this is useful for a server design perspective.

Thoughts?

[indio]

Plot works fine for my purposes. Typical situation for me is I need a key dropped by an NPC for either a chest or a door that enables the player either a reward for a non-repeatable quest or a faster exit from a dungeon they've just completed. Or the many other instances where I need a plot-related item to fall from an NPCs inventory.

Skullport has plenty of CR4-7 content, so it would also be good to be able to drop the occasional magic item. I have no issue with these being marked plot and thus unsaleable. It's easy enough to orchestrate the sale of such items through a DM.

[Teric neDhalir]

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for built-in systems that mean I don't have to be constantly calculating XP/rewards. What the global loot drops made go funny for me were the "bounty" items (which you've probably seen on the OAS, AL). "Cashing in" those items is entirely scripted anyway, and only redeemable at one place per type of item. I have spent a good while calculating probabilities off the encounter tables and have set the various item values so that if you went out into wilderness areas and killed everything you encountered the total XP/GP reward on average per party is 60XP + 60 GP per RL hour (e.g. you get 100 for a boar carcase and 2 for a bird, but you'll meet a helluva lot more birds) which is consistent with static quest rewards as I understand them. The main problem is that if bounty items were dropped as well as ACR loot then the rewards would start to be greater. I suppose you could argue that the bounty was "static" reward and the ACR drop was "kill" reward, but I'll let someone more rules orientated have an opinion on that...
Teric
PS That means that making droppable items plot flagged would be ok

[AcadiusLost]

Teric, I'd like to draw your attention to this post:
http://www.alandfaraway.org/forums/view ... 84&t=41202

I've put up a pre-release ACR hak there that allows plot items to drop, please see if that helps address your needs.

[Wynna]

Thanks, AL!

[AcadiusLost]

Just FYI for Wynna or other TSM builders, I've currently got that hak compiled into the Live version of the server as of last night, so you can put plot-flagged items into spawn inventories if you have need of them for quests or otherwise.