Pregenerated characters

[General Ghoul]

Originally Posted by sirchet

You'd have to have watched the video in post #25 to grasp the deep and very intellectual concept ... SNEAK ATTACK!!brought about by my earlier statement.

Hah hah. That's a mid sentence sneak attack, (very hard to defend against). I've watched that video too many times now and still can't stop laughing at the girl with the very very small "dagger?".

It does 1d3, she needs the extra damage.


Have you seen Hennet yet, he is the real star of the series.

[Avatar_do_Grafite]

Oh, my!

OH MY!!!

This thing is REALLY going to happen?!?

OH MY!

Thats... Perfect!

First off al, let me say:
THANK YOU GAEAR!!!! Aye, I'm LOVING this so much! ^^

Going ahead, lets see...

About the portraits:
Neblin looks great, and puting the right pic on Tordek and Mialee its perfect!

Aramil, Gimble, Kerwyn (don't get the "confused" thing) and Eberk are good too.

Naull its a problem. Well...

As a personal suggestion, how sounds the idea of take the official images of this people and use in the game? I have done this more than once and works fine... I acctually can do the adaptation without any problem.

Regdar HAVE an image in the game, and its usable for players in the "game sample" game (or "intro game", dont remember correctly), in the vanilla version. Why he its not amoung the other pregenerated characters always was a mistery for me...

Althounght I was not able to find the stats for Gimble, I have the stats for Aramil, from the D&D Miniatures game.

[edit]

Ya shall find its stats in this link:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mi/20070315c

He is in the donwlodable stats cards document in the RPG Cards columm in the Giants of Legends line.

For conveninece, Ill put here his stats:

[edit]

Aramil
CG elf Sorcerer 3
Str 8, Dex 16, Con 11, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 15

Skills
Concentration +6, Listen +5, Search +8, Spellcraft +6, Spot +5.

Spells: 0 - Daze, Detect Magic, Flare, Light, Read Magic; 1st - Magic Armour, Magic Missile, Ray of Enfeeblement

He will need a little adaptation, once he is a 3th level character in the DDM game, but its a minor thing. I Suggest to have Bluff, Concentration, Search and Spellcraft as trained skills - his shit is from the 3.0 version of the game, when Bluff was not a Sorcerer skill yet - and just take off Light and Magic Armour from their Spells Know.

[edit]

Oh, and I just figgured that he have no Feats listed. Once he have 18 HP, while the better result in 3d4 is 12, and he have no bonuses for Con, I think that Thoughness is the Feat of choice for him.

[edit]

Just find his stats for the DDM Starter Set, and aye, he have Thoughnerss. And there has a good picture of him, too! I can scann his shit and put somewhere in the net if someone want it.

[edit]

Considering his alignment, I thing Gimble will be turned in a Neutral Character (true Neutral will be good for the possibility of have him in a good array of parties).

Thats all I can thing just right now.


But, once again, thank you so much, Gaear! ^^
(have I said that I'm loving this?!)

[Gaear]

Glad you like it, A_d_G.

Originally Posted by A_d_G

Kerwyn (don't get the "confused" thing)

I just thought the name was ... curious.

Naull its a problem. Well...

As a personal suggestion, how sounds the idea of take the official images of this people and use in the game? I have done this more than once and works fine... I acctually can do the adaptation without any problem.

That would be a no-no, for two reasons: first, it would be outside the artistic aesthetic we've settled on for ToEE and the mod, which is portrait art by Chris Glenn (Troika) and our own HK and Dean. When you muddy the waters too much aesthetically, you end up with ... muddy water ; second, it would technically violate WotC's copyright, and they protect that very jealously. I know the characters themselves are copyrighted as well, but as usual we follow precedent, which in this case is that Troika/Atari used the characters but not their WotC images. They must have been authorized to use the characters (by name).

Regdar HAVE an image in the game, and its usable for players in the "game sample" game (or "intro game", dont remember correctly), in the vanilla version. Why he its not amoung the other pregenerated characters always was a mistery for me...

Do you mean the earth temple commander guy? IMO the image I indicated in the Regdar WotC layout above looks pretty close.

For conveninece, Ill put here his stats:

That's great, thanks.

He will need a little adaptation, once he is a 3th level character in the DDM game, but its a minor thing. I Suggest to have Bluff, Concentration, Search and Spellcraft as trained skills - his shit is from the 3.0 version of the game, when Bluff was not a Sorcerer skill yet - and just take off Light and Magic Armour from their Spells Know.

[edit]

Oh, and I just figgured that he have no Feats listed. Once he have 18 HP, while the better result in 3d4 is 12, and he have no bonuses for Con, I think that Thoughness is the Feat of choice for him.

[edit]

Just find his stats for the DDM Starter Set, and aye, he have Thoughnerss.

That all sounds fine to me.

Considering his alignment, I thing Gimble will be turned in a Neutral Character (true Neutral will be good for the possibility of have him in a good array of parties).

I'd like them to fit in neatly with all the others though, as described above, and the available remaining alignments as such are LN and NG.* Bards can't be lawful (right?), so that leaves NG for Gimble and, consequently, LN for Aramil.

But, once again, thank you so much, Gaear! ^^
(have I said that I'm loving this?!)

You're welcome.

*For your convenience, here's a chart-like breakdown that makes it clearer:

chart.jpg

Enemies and Allies just listed Eberk and Naull as 'good,' and Kerwyn as 'neutral.'

[edit]

Aramil
CG elf Sorcerer 3

Are you sure about sorcerer? Wiki says he's a wizard.

And there has a good picture of him, too! I can scann his shit and put somewhere in the net if someone want it.

Sure, it would be interesting to add to our 'gallery' above, if nothing else.

[Avatar_do_Grafite]

Originally Posted by Gaear

I just thought the name was ... curious.

Well, Sprugnoir have a funny name too... And Eberk, Elmo (that its the portuguese word for "helm") and everybody in this game! ^^

About the art, I wold be glad to make some draws to "complete" the portraits - Naull, Eberk, Gimble, Aramil and maybe Kerwyn and Regdar. The other are perfect or very close and there's no need for new images.

And aye, of course I can see the point about muddy water. I'm just trying to give some options here. :D Acctually, I agrre, of course, with the copyright thing, but I need to raise the posibility.

Do you mean the earth temple commander guy? IMO the image I indicated in the Regdar WotC layout above looks pretty close.

I'm not sure what yare talking about here. I mean the guy with who ya plays the introductory game in the vanilla ToEE. But the pic ya choose are pretty good for me too.

Enemies and Allies just listed Eberk and Naull as 'good,' and Kerwyn as 'neutral.'

Well, Eberk its acctually NG, but I see no problem keeping him as LG. Now let me just point some ideas: considering that Kerwyn is neutral, he shall be LN; This pointed, we shall use Gimble as CN and then Aramil shall be NG without breaking the balance of characters by tendence.

Are you sure about sorcerer? Wiki says he's a wizard.

I'm sure. check the sheet below.

Sure, it would be interesting to add to our 'gallery' above, if nothing else.

Here we go:




[edit]

I just figured that this sheet is of Aramil at level 1. Althought the Feats and Habilities are in the other side of the sheet, we can see here the list of spells he has in the first level. Once Light dont exist in ToEE, just echange it for Flare - one of his next choices os 0 level spells - and its all right.

Ah, and about initiative: There are no impression error here, nor an add mistake; this is a starter set, so everyone have 10 added to his initiative. Initiative is always the same, its not rolled. As the description says: "The one with higher initiative goes first". Always.

[edit]

[Gaear]

Originally Posted by AdG

I'm not sure what yare talking about here. I mean the guy with who ya plays the introductory game in the vanilla ToEE. But the pic ya choose are pretty good for me too.

Yeah, the tutorial guy. That portrait is actually the in-game portrait for the Earth Temple troop commander. Normally NPCs don't have the big portrait, and if you look closely at him in the tutorial, you'll see that somebody just quickly drew shoulders on him for the big version used in the tute.

Well, Eberk its acctually NG, but I see no problem keeping him as LG. Now let me just point some ideas: considering that Kerwyn is neutral, he shall be LN; This pointed, we shall use Gimble as CN and then Aramil shall be NG without breaking the balance of characters by tendence.

I like it. Another bonus would be that we'd have facemen as NG, LN, CN, and NE this way, which would make a faceman accessible by all alignments.

I'm sure. check the sheet below.

Sorcerer it is. Damn the Wiki!

(And thanks for the pic.)

I just figured that this sheet is of Aramil at level 1. Althought the Feats and Habilities are in the other side of the sheet, we can see here the list of spells he has in the first level. Once Light dont exist in ToEE, just echange it for Flare - one of his next choices os 0 level spells - and its all right.

Sounds good.

Ah, and about initiative: There are no impression error here, nor an add mistake; this is a starter set, so everyone have 10 added to his initiative. Initiative is always the same, its not rolled. As the description says: "The one with higher initiative goes first". Always.

That doesn't play a role in character creation anyway, so it's all fine.

About the art, I wold be glad to make some draws to "complete" the portraits - Naull, Eberk, Gimble, Aramil and maybe Kerwyn and Regdar. The other are perfect or very close and there's no need for new images.

And aye, of course I can see the point about muddy water. I'm just trying to give some options here. Acctually, I agrre, of course, with the copyright thing, but I need to raise the posibility.

I'll tell you what, AdG: if I recall correctly, you are a professional artist in some capacity? Why don't you do a trial run with one of the new iconics so we can evaluate it. If it's acceptable, I wouldn't be opposed to adding another couple rows of PC portraits to the mod (7 per row, so you could do 14 or 21 or whatever ... HK did 20 for the mod and Dean did 28, along with Glenn's original 36). I'd prefer to have a relatively equal amount of portraits from each contributer so that it apears balanced, as opposed to 1 from this guy, 30 from that guy, two from the next guy, etc. i.e., muddy water.

A few notes on my take on being acceptable: I'm not so egotistical as to assume that I am the 'decider' when it comes to art being good or not. However, there has to be a standard, otherwise you end up getting a lot of marginal stuff in there and the quality of the mod is ultimately compromised. This is unfair to all the others who have contributed quality material to it, because once there's crappy stuff in there, everyone goes down with the ship. And it's easiest if one guy is the standard bearer, so to speak. (If you do it by committee, it just takes forever and you never have a consensus anyway.)

I try to consistently apply a very high standard for quality in order to protect Co8's reputation and standing in the modding community. So, if you can do a demonstration portrait or two that I think is 1. good (it looks like it was done competently by someone with talent and style), and 2. aesthetically fitting (it fits in with the other artistic styles we use - for example, an anime style would not fit in with ToEE's look), then I will be happy to commision you to contribute more, assuming you're willing. We would then expand the Co8 portrait canon to Glenn, HK, Dean, and you.

Does that sound fair?

[Avatar_do_Grafite]

That sounds fair enough for me.

Ill beggin to make some samples and so we can see what, then.

Ill let people know when the first(s) portraits became ready.

Anyway, thanks for the oportunity. I love this game, and I love the work that the Circle is doying in the mods. My objective it's just to offer some help and support in the best way I'm able.

[Gaear]

[bump]

Is this still gonna happen some day, AdG?

[Ausdoerrt]

BTW, on a random note, there's a quite a large stash of portraits accumulated from various sources that can be found here: http://toee.free.fr/portrait.html

Some of them look like re-edited PHB images Gaear posted.

[Gaear]

Okay, this is done too, minus any new AdG portraits.

• Lawful Good: Alhandra the female human paladin, Eberk the male dwarf cleric, Ember the female human monk, Naull the female human wizard
  
• Neutral Good: Aramil the male elf sorcerer*, Devis the male half elf bard, Jozan the male human cleric, Regdar the male human fighter
  
• Chaotic Good: Hennet the male human sorcerer, Lidda the female halfling rogue, Nebin the male gnome wizard, Soveliss the male elf ranger
  
• Lawful Neutral: Kerwyn the male human rogue, Tordek the male dwarf fighter
  
• True Neutral: Mialee the female elf wizard, Vadania the female half elf druid
  
• Chaotic Neutral: Gimble the male gnome bard, Krusk the male half orc barbarian
  
• Lawful Evil: Bellona the female half orc cleric, Dusk the female gnome monk
  
• Neutral Evil: Darshalla the female half elf sorcerer, Stanford the male dwarf rogue
  
• Chaotic Evil: Moresh the male half orc fighter, The Kern, the male human cleric

* as statted by AdG above

All of these pregens now have suitable portraits, hair styles, stats, and unique voices so they can be used together effectively. Their alignment and class distribution makes all alignments potentially effective.

[J'allan UlDragos]

It would be interesting to form a testing group from these characters... maybe?

I have never used the PreGens, in my personal games. With the recent work put into them, they probably deserve at least a look

[gazra_1971]

Gaear, is it possible to add more portraits to the game that the player can select when creating their PCs?

If so, then could you PLEASE add as many as possible of the new portraits at the link that Ausdoerrt provided in post #38 of this thread?

I find the current selection of portraits in the game to be pretty poor, and I would LOVE to use the new portraits for my PCs without having to muck around with manually adding portraits to the game myself as an add-on pack.

Also, the new portraits use the same artistic style as the current portraits in the game (they look like they were created by the same artist), so the new portraits would not seem out of place at all and would blend in seamlessly.

[Gaear]

It's technically possible to add more portraits, yes, but we're not going to do that unless HK or Dean comes back and adds more, or another skilled artist supplies some in an organized and directed fashion. (e.g., we don't really want 61 new large-breasted elf female portraits, preferring an even distribution among races, sexes, and classes.)

We don't want to add outside source portraits into the base modpack for the reasons I listed earlier (copyright violation in the case of WotC and Bioware an Universal Studios LotR characters and aesthetic consistency in the case of most all of them). Despite any individual opinions about what fits in and what doesn't, what we have now is portrait art from 3 separate artists - Chris Glenn, HK, and Dean. While I think they're all suitable in the fantasy sense, I don't think they all look completely alike. Generally each new contributing artist is going to introduce a new aesthetic into the mix, and when you get too much of that (most games usually have one), the aesthetic becomes so muddied that you no longer have a basic feel for your art. (This is common in fan mods and generally creates that semi-pro or amateur feeling they almost always have.) We don't want that to happen with us. That's why the do-it-yourself pack is there - to allow you to self-modify if what we have doesn't suit you personally while keeping the base content 'pure' for everyone else.

p.s. - Some time ago I actually contacted Chris Glenn and asked if he'd had any other portraits he might be willing to let us use. He said no (in a very friendly fashion).

[Pygmy]

I've never tried the pre-generated characters before today and won't be again.....BUT did you realise Gaear that you only reset ONE of Kerwyn's TWO alignment variables to Lawful Neutral when you were improving the pre-generated characters last summer/autumn?