DM tool: Suppress auto combat XP option, please?

[t-ice]

Could it be possible to add a switch to our combat XP scripts and DM avatars, so that if a flag is turned on on my DM avatar, then no combat XP is given by the standard ALFA scripts when my DM avatar is present at the area the kill happened? And the DM can turn this flag on and off somehow conveniently. (And while it is switched on and activates to deny combat xp, maybe a short note to the DM, so that it's not accidentally left on)

The purpose is to allow for the DM to go "I will manually handle XP here". For cases like where existing tooled critters were modified by DM client, or what have you special circumstance that alter the de facto CR wildly from what the tooled base critter was.

[Zelknolf]

Possible yes, but making it reliable would be a task. Local data on avatars is a flimsy thing at best-- and location for avatars is frequently invalid.

Rather related to the "tells from DMs will randomly not appear on logs" issue and the "assuming that GetLocation will return a real place is fundamentally flawed (and might crash your server)" issue.


The trick of course is that we'd need to make it reliable, or at least predictable (and calculable on the fly for normal people), for it to serve its purpose-- because we want to give a specific baseline from which DMs can work.

[t-ice]

Well, what we have right now is:
1) At start, DM uses "showXP" DMFI tool to get snapshot of XP of every PC present.
2) At end, DM uses "showXP" again to get snapshot of XP of every PC present. Calculate differences of XP automatically gained to what the DM thinks (s)he wants to give and adjust. If DM wants to give extra XP, do so and be happy. If DM wants to reduct XP, woe and lament. (If I use the setXP tool on the DM client, ACR will interfere and anull me, won't it?)
correct?

So I suppose a "give XP" tool, like the "give gp" tool, would also work. So that you can give any number, negatives included? Not quite so convenient, because you need to do the difference math with showXP, but perhaps simpler and more reliable?

[Zelknolf]

ACR won't nullify the reduction, but it will either log it or the logs will read as suspect: XP vanishing into thin air and/or appearing out of nowhere are the sorts of things that look very strange when trying to decipher the past from logs.

The trick with what's presented there, though, is that the necessary unreliability of the feature requested would leave you with the same actions to get it done, because we probably wouldn't be able to promise no combat XP while in the area. That'd only be reliable if we started setting variables on the area object (and if those fail to get cleaned up, we've just ruined an area for static content until the next reset).

Though I suppose we could give you a tool to set the CR on creatures; we're already set up to accept override CRs on creatures-- it just so happens that the only place it's used right now is in zSpawn.

[kid]

why is this needed?

I change CR of things in sessions here and there, mostly up but sometimes down if i need a certain modle+class.

At battle end I ask "how nuch xp did you get for this one" and then accomidate accordigly.

If it was too low I add 10-30 usualy if needed, i've a fair estiamtion by now to how much XP you get for waht CR. if its a high one that i've reduced in power, then at end game I would give 50-70 XP less.. or whatever's needed, usualy by lowering the risk modifier.

Don't think we really need a tool for that do we? It's not like we fiddle with creatures stats segnificntly every session.

[t-ice]

If it was too low I add 10-30 usualy if needed, i've a fair estiamtion by now to how much XP you get for waht CR. if its a high one that i've reduced in power, then at end game I would give 50-70 XP less.. or whatever's needed, usualy by lowering the risk modifier.

Yeah, this works quite well with some bookkeeping.

Though I suppose we could give you a tool to set the CR on creatures

The CR setter would have the added benefit that you don't have to estimate XP directly - estimating CR is likely easier. I suppose the issue about really doing CR by-the-book is that CR's supposed to be per encounter, whereas out combat XP is determined, at least far as I know, per creature. So while a higher-level PC would get 0xp per goblin, facing 30 goblins at once might be a CR worth some XP.

I have to say I did have the ulterior motive that the combat xp null would also be a safety feature on things ported over from Exodus for Amn...

But if it's technically not reliable, well, then it's some more xp bookkeeping for me.

[Zelknolf]

New AI will have the power to do it by encounter (as, in C#, we can actually use collections: which we're also using for things like creatures being aware of how many people are trying to kill them, and for freaking out a little bit if they lose track of one)-- though I haven't worked out the exact scheme with the DMA yet. He's seen my proposal, but like many math-heavy things, it's a slow process.

[kid]

CR setter would be nice. (:

[Curmudgeon]

This seems to me like a request to return to the bad old days of NWN1 when we had no standards and no way of sticking to them. We have a perfectly good system now - is anyone here really claiming that players don't get enough XP?

No. I do NOT approve.

[t-ice]

This seems to me like a request to return to the bad old days of NWN1 when we had no standards and no way of sticking to them. We have a perfectly good system now - is anyone here really claiming that players don't get enough XP?

No. I do NOT approve.

The automatic combat XP system is good only if you don't modify the creatures you spawn on the DM client (and the critter was tooled right in the first place and has abilities that the AI can use well enough - all which is far from given.) If this is not the case the automatic xp system becomes a straightjacket that forces the wrong answer down your throat (be it too much or too little XP in this case). And DMs putting in effort to customize critters are a way to make things far more interesting from gameplay perspective, so a very positive thing. Autopilot systems are excellent in giving the default answer that you usually use, but they do need the option of manual pilot override.

DMs do have the power to give whatever XP they want to PCs right now. Correct XP is a matter of educating DMs, not systems that try to force "standard" XP numbers. The problem just is that the automatic combat xp combined to DM awards can make it hard to know what's the total tally and decide how much "quest xp" should be given. Arguably quest xp should generally be the same regardless of the party using combat or non-combat means to advance the quest. As it is now it's hard for the DM to determine how much XP is given automatically by combat xp scripts, so how much extra quest XP should I give to PCs who managed to solve the problem without fighting? (Or if content I'm using is somehow bugged, and surreal XP numbers are flying around)

Maybe if the DM was informed of combat XP given during the session when checking the boxes in the Award XP widget? That's probably easier said than scripted, as "during the session" needs to be determined... But maybe... If I could flag PCs as "part of my session from this moment on", the game keeping a tab of combat XP on that PC until I de-flag her, and this tally is shown when I open the Award XP widget for that PC?

Then again, maybe this is simply achieved by doing screenshots of "show xp" results before and after. Still, the combat xp information presented in the DM's face during xp decision making on the widget might be clearly more helpful than harmful.

[kid]

Curm, we do make changes to create creatures on the fly.
When creating creature to insert into pallet we set CR anyways...

Is it the easy access to CR changes that troubles you?
I change creatures plenty to suit my needs while I DM. dont allways have the time to create everything in advance and have someone drag it into the creator for me.

Example: I wanted a fishfolk priest, the only one I had was a CR_15, level 14. Lowered it to level 9... now he's CR_10ish... but gives waaaaay too much XP.
A CR setter would allow me to make this priest to give proper XP.

What I do now... is ask after the combat... "How much XP did this give you?" And lower an amount from the tottal risk XP im giving in the end of the session.

If we have reset level tool... (which we do) we might as well have a reset CR tool to go along with it.
Would just make things simpler and the mistake margin smaller.

Not to increace XP gain, sometimes it is to lower it.