questions about modding a spell

[Ragnarok-X]

so, lets reference Call of the Wild here. When cast, it spawns a werewolf leader and a bunch of wolfs in a foreign province, more wolfs if the province is a forest.
I would like to make something similar and/or alter the spell. What i really like would to see the actual spellentry, how would i go about seeing how this spell actually works inside a .dm file ?

Would it be possible to alter the spell to have spawn more than one werewolf leader ? Would it be possible to make it spawn normal werewolves among the stock wolves ?

Is there some kind of list where each spells actual .dm content is visible ?

[kennydicke]

Ragnarok-X

spawns a werewolf leader and a bunch of wolfs in a foreign province

Easily done, this can be reproduced by a farsummon (wolves) with a commander farsummon nextspell (werewolf).

more wolfs if the province is a forest

This effect can't be copied right now - I tried before. You could alter the spell itself with #selectspell, though.

I would like to make something similar and/or alter the spell. What i really like would to see the actual spellentry, how would i go about seeing how this spell actually works inside a .dm file?

Have you tried the spell list db?
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=43000

Burnsaber pointed me to it, and it's been a *great* help!

Would it be possible to alter the spell to have spawn more than one werewolf leader ? Would it be possible to make it spawn normal werewolves among the stock wolves ?

Yes and yes. This would actually require at least 2-3 different linked (by nextspell) spell entries though.

Is there some kind of list where each spells actual .dm content is visible ?

The closest thing, that I know of, is the spell list db. Another method is looking at the user-created spells in community mods. Although, all of my original spells were made purely from scratch using the modding.pdf - so that's perfectly viable too, just not as expansive. I think the cleanest method is making spells from scratch using the spell list db as a reference.

[Ragnarok-X]

Could you please post an example of the "nextspell" entry you mentioned ? I wasnt able to find anything about it in the dm's i searched in. I get the theory i guess. Using that entry, a new spell will be chained after the original.

[Gregstrom]

There are plenty of examples in the CPCS mod.

[kennydicke]

Ragnarok-X

Gregstrom is absolutely right about CPCS, great examples in there.


I modified this from one of mine:

#newspell
#name "farsummon something else"
#descr "companion to farsummon something"
#school -1 - spell cannot researched
#researchlevel 0 - no research required to cast
#path 0 6 - nature path
#pathlevel 0 1 - N1 required
#damage XXX - input monster ID
#effect 10037 - farsummon
#nreff 1 - summons 1 something else
#end

#newspell
#name "Summon Something"
#descr "Farsummons something."
#school X - enter variable for school, conjuration is 0
#researchlevel X - enter level of spell, I use 0 for testing
#path 0 6 - nature path
#pathlevel 0 1 - N1 required
#damage XXX - input monster ID
#effect 10037 - farsummon
#fatiguecost 0 - add 100 for each gem you want the spell to cost
#nextspell "farsummon something else"
#nreff 20 - summons 20 somethings
#end


The nextspell must come first, or else the primary spell can't find it. This is pretty similar to what you're going for. Of course you'll want to adjust the researchlevel, path, pathlevel, etc., to your desired taste.

[Ragnarok-X]

thanks a lot.

whats CPCS short for ?

[kennydicke]

Cross Path Combat Spells

[Ragnarok-X]

When looking over this, do you think it would work out as intended ?

#newspell
#name "Call of the Wild tier 2"
#descr "Call of the Wild tier 2"
#school -1 - spell cannot researched
#researchlevel 0 - no research required to cast
#path 0 3 - nature path
#pathlevel 0 1 - N1 required
#damage 633 - input monster ID
#effect 10037 - farsummon
#nreff 10 - summons x something else
#end

#selectspell 445
#nextspell "Call of the Wild tier 2"
#pathlevel 0 3
#end



intended effect: spawn 1 leader, the stock wolf pack and 10 more werewolves among the stock wolves.

edit: doesnt work out that well. It spawns the 10 werewolves, but it as well spawns a total of 2 werewolf commanders ?

[kennydicke]

Looks about right. Some notes:

With selectspell, you can use the spell name in parentheses. This is much faster than looking up the spell ID.
EX: #selectspell "Call of the Wild"

You have to close any #newXXX or #selectXXX tag with a #end tag.
EX:
#selectspell 455
#nextspell "Call of the Wild tier 2"
#end

In my experience, when you farsummon like this, the game automatically changes one of the summoned creatures into a commander - this means it would summon an additional 9 werewolves and 1 werewolf commander. Though this may be an erroneous conclusion.

[Ragnarok-X]

Wondering about pathlevel in the chained spell. Are the magic requirements even checked ? Could you in theory create one spell with a base effect at lvl 1, add 9 more chains, each with one level higher requirements and make a "true" self-scaling spell ?

i.e. call of the wild lvl 1 calls 10 wolfs. tier 2 to 9 (all new spells chaining into each other down the road) add 5 wolfs each, but require nature 2 - 10. Would the game check the caster lvl for exact effect or would it run all 10 spells anyway ?