Mod proposal: party of characters

[andromacus]

Hi, I know this could be probably hard to do, but I'll try to propose nevertheless to see the reaction

As Daggerfall is programmed to be a single character game, whenever you want to play with a new character (e.g. move from being a warrior to being a mage) you obviously have to start a new game from zero. Unavoidable but also very limiting in a certain sense.

I personally think it would be really amazing to have the possibility to have more characters available in the same game. You could for instance create a party with a male redguard warrior, a female high elf mage, an male nord healer and a female wood elf archer (I think 4 or 5 characters would be a good number) and have the fun to see more than one character "grow" in your adventure.

My idea would be that the "active" character that you move of course will be only one, but pressing a button you could switch at any moment to another character of your party. Try to imagine the possibilities: you could crawl a dungeon with the warrior as active character. You find a locked door and you switch to the thief to have better lockpicking chances. Or you need to reach an elevated platform, so you switch to the mage to cast a levitation spell...

Maybe to make things a little easier (if possible ) the "backpack" equipment could remain the same for all characters and only the equipped ones (weapons, armor, clothes, jewels...) will change from a character to another. If a character dies, the game should switch to the next one (if available), otherwise you go to the death scene.

Another amazing thing would be the possibility to hire characters during the game. Maybe there could be an "Hire" option available on one of the NPCs in various locations (taverns, guilds etc), which could trigger the availability of a randomly generated character (the class could be dependent on the location you are, for example in taverns you could find potentially all classes, while you will find warriors-like in Fighters Guild, mages-like in Mages Guild, healers or monks in Temples and so on). A new character would require an initial fee for the hiring, dependent on his level of expertise. For example, you would get a message like "You found <name><last name> level 5 male Breton warrior. He will join you for 500 gold. Hire him? Yes/No"

I know that this is probably too much, but wanted to make a try!

[Ralzar]

I could actually imagine it like a Might&Magic type setup, with 4 character faces at the bottom, the active one getting some kind of marker.

It's a pretty big mod concept though. I can't really imagine how to pull it off without it just being awkward. Having to jump back and forth between characters. Also, I'd say the character advancement would need a heavy nerf because with just one half-decent character you become godly strong in the game. Being able to fill the role of thief, warrior and wizard in one.


Hiring companions have been discussed before. It's an interesting idea that seems more doable. Perosnally I would like to see the "moneybag" NPC who always stands in the Fighters Guild entrance be changed into offering to hire out fighters. If you search the forums you should run into at least one thread discussing companions/hirelings/mercenaries.

[andromacus]

Hi Ralzar,

thanks for your reply (and for your work so far by the way - the Climate and Calories mod is super! )

I was thinking about something more simple (but of course you know better than me if makes sense or not): rather than implementing the 4 faces at the bottom of the screen, just have two buttons to switch to the previous or next character of the party - if exists (e.g. F11 to switch to the previous character, F12 to switch to the next one). Do you think this could make sense?

About the hiring I will look for the old thread; my idea overall was to give the possibility to include some new character at a late stage of the game in case should not be possible to generate multiple characters in the beginning, or in case some of them should die during the adventure.

Happy to discuss in case.

Thanks again!