Can you help me finesse this lightsaber??

[Kreidian]

I'm nearly finished my Assasin Lightsaber, but I keep running into a small problem that really bugs me. The saber I'm trying to create should be a finesse weapon which means it can use the Dex modifier for its attack bonus instead of the strength modifier. Normal lightsabers already have this, and considering the kind of saber that it is, I feel it's an important feature of this weapon.

 

I've figured out that it has something to do with the weapon's basetype. The basic lightsaber type, ID# 8 in baseitems.2da, retains its weapon finesse even when I use it for any sort of custom saber. But since I had to create a new weapon type for this custom saber in baseitems.2da, the new weapon type simply behaves like a normal melee weapon, meaning no finesse. As a test I've even made sure that the new weapon type was identical to the base lightsaber type and still I'm left with no weapon finesse. I'm sure the weapon type is being referenced somewhere else for this property, but I havn't been able to find where. The closest thing I found was a reference to weapon finesse in iprp_feats.2da.

 

Doesn anyone know how to get this to work? Any ideas would be really helpful right now.

 

Thanks!

[Jackel]

why not just take a lightsaber base uti and modify it so that it fits your needs rather then making an entire new item ?

[Kreidian]

I tried that but I needed to create a lightsaber with an increased critical threat range and damage multiplier, and there is no way to do that with the uti file.

[T7nowhere]

I had the same problem when I tried to make a two handed saber( I also had to make a new base item and it killed force jump). You are right for some reason the game will not reconize a new saber style and it must be referenced someplace else. I kinda gave up on it and moved on to other things.

 

I don't know if the game even uses iprp_feats.2da(some of the 2da's are left over junk for NWN and a few only use some of what is in them) IF you come up with anything I would be interested.

 

Sorry I can't help, lol If I get some time i'll look into it again.

[Kreidian]

I noticed that force jump wasn't working well anymore. I figured it had to be something simmilar. major bummer.

Still havn't found out where it's referenced, I thnk it's probably buried in a script somewhere, or worse, hardcoded in the executable. But I may have come up with a workaround.

 

I was thinking that I could try to change the settings for the short lightsaber so that it would take on the assasin qualities. I figure this might actually work really well because you only really see Dark Jedi with these sabers in the game, and it would make sense that the sith would have these assasin lightsabers. Sure, it might make them more powerfull, but if built right, these sabers would only be dangerous when you perform a critical strike. So in theory, only one of the player controled characters would really be able to take advantage of it by maxing out the critial strike feats and putting in a Nextor and Opilia (sp?) upgrades into it.

 

I would also enjoy doing something to change the description of short lightsabers to show off their new assasin status if I did this.

 

I'm wondering what you guys think about this?

[Kreidian]

In case anyone's interested. I tried changing the baseitem description for short sabers so they can be deadlier on a critical strike. I gave them a crit range of 3 (18-20) and a crit multiplier of 4. I also increased their damage to 3d6, so that there would be alot to multiply, but still not be too much to handle when you face dark jedi who fight you with them.

 

I also changed the g_w_shortsbr05.uti file (the purple short lightsaber) and turned it into the Sith Assasin Saber. I gave it a +5 attack bonus, and a huge 4d6 massive criticals bonus. I also added the Keen property to it so its threat range becomes 15-20. I changed the purple short saber like this so I could be sure that I could upgrade it properly. I think it's imoprtant that you can add any upgrade crystals you want. You can't, however, change the center crystal since that will change the lightsaber type. Better yet, making the saber like this means that it does in fact use the Dex bonus as an attack modifier and doesn't kill Force Jump when you use it!

 

I also played around with making a new type of robe for my character. I put together what I call Shadow Robes for now (I'm still trying to figure out a better name). It's based off the black Dark Jedi Master Robes. It only has a +3 defense bonus, but it gives a huge bonus to stealth and, more importantly, Dex. And since I gave it a max Dex bonus of +12, you can really make use of the Dex bonus.

 

On my Scoundrel/Guardian, this is a fairly powerful combination. Particularly in combination with the Scoundrel's Sneak Attack, and the full set of Critical Strike Feats. I can often sneak up to an enemy in stealth mode, perform a critical strike and get a HUGE amount of damage that will kill just about anything in a single strike.

 

The only thing I would love to change is the look of the armor that I'm using. Right now I'm only using the basic Dark Jedi Master Robes. But I think it should have a retexture of some kind. I was thinking a retexture of the red Jedi Master Robes would look really good for this armor. I hope some of you have suggestion about that one.

 

Let me know what you think...

[T7nowhere]

Im glad you got your saber to work the way you wanted. changeing all the shortsabers is one way to get around the problem. Nequam did some nice Robe reskins also Colja made some robe reskins.

[Kreidian]

Thanks T7!

 

That will definately be helpful. I'm still working on the shadow armor I created to get the look right. I'm also thinking that I'll want to remake the assasin saber into it's own object rather than just replacing the purple short sabers. Though I think I'll need some help with some of the scripting and retextures.

 

I wonder if anybody's interested, I could probably host the files for these guys somewhere.

[T7nowhere]

Making the saber into it's own is fairly easy and there are atleast a half dozen threads on how to do it. Check here you can also make the armor unique aswell.

 

There only scripting you will need is if you want an npc to give you the items, but even that is pretty easy. The texture for the saber can be edited in any paint program that will let you open tga files. to get your saber to use texture you will have to edit the lightsabers model. how to do that is in the posts in the thread i posted.