Mod idea - improving language skills

Talk about the mods you'd like to see in Daggerfall Unity. Give mod creators some ideas!
Post Reply
xuerebx
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri May 22, 2020 10:30 pm

Mod idea - improving language skills

Post by xuerebx »

Hi everyone - new to this board but I've been following closely for a while now.

I have an idea to put the vanilla language skills to better use, which has been inspired from Wizardry 8 mythology skill. In Wizardry 8, this skill gives you more information about enemies the more you use the skill or the more you invest in it. Once you start levelling this skill, you'll extract information about the enemy's HP, its name, weakness, attack attributes, etc.

My idea is to be able to extract similar information from combat (and non-combat) encounters e.g. investing in Orcish will allow you to obtain an enemy Orc's HP (maybe an HP bar?*), which would make this skill also useful to combat oriented characters*.

Not sure if this would work when looking at all the language skills (I recognise that perhaps the word 'language' isn't the right terminology, but I don't think there's another skill which is better suited, and I don't think Daggerfall Unity allows new skills to be introduced)

*I understand that there is a mod which provides an HP indicator on top of an enemy, and there's also the archaeologists mod which makes the language skills more important.

Thanks!

User avatar
MrFlibble
Posts: 410
Joined: Sat Jan 27, 2018 10:43 am

Re: Mod idea - improving language skills

Post by MrFlibble »

xuerebx wrote: Thu Jun 04, 2020 11:32 am I have an idea to put the vanilla language skills to better use, which has been inspired from Wizardry 8 mythology skill. In Wizardry 8, this skill gives you more information about enemies the more you use the skill or the more you invest in it. Once you start levelling this skill, you'll extract information about the enemy's HP, its name, weakness, attack attributes, etc.
I remember a similar (but differently named) skill in a shareware Might and Magic clone called Yendorian Tales. But the question here is, how does the knowledge of language relate to the ability to assess the condition of a hostile creature? The original function of this skill in the game makes a lot more sense, the problem is that it is mostly impractical because most humanoids pose very little threat to a high-level PC, and it is more efficient to invest into training your weapons skills anyway.

Theoretically, the game could have a reputation system with humanoids (which IIRC exists for Orcs as a faction but not for others), which would count both hostile encounters and attempts at language use. For skilled users, one could expect other bonuses in addition to pacified behaviour, like getting information from friendly creatures (concerning treasure in the current dungeon, or other monsters, or some other hints), maybe the ability to trade with friendly monsters (to a limited extent of course) right in the dungeon, some bonus items or even side-quests? Or the creature could randomly offer a service similar to guilds and temples, like skill training, potion brewing or even item enchantment.

xuerebx
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri May 22, 2020 10:30 pm

Re: Mod idea - improving language skills

Post by xuerebx »

Thanks for sharing your views.

You're right that using language skills is not the best descriptor for what I was referring to - they're just the closest available unless new skills can be implemented.

However your suggestion of using a reputation system with language skills to extract information, treasure etc is better since it makes more sense and opens up different options (of which you listed a few).

To be honest on further introspect my idea doesn't really work out. My objective was to obtain further information on enemies, such as weaknesses and HP, but as you said investing in combat skills is much more useful (especially for a dungeon crawler such as DF).

Regnier
Posts: 374
Joined: Wed Oct 02, 2019 6:26 am

Re: Mod idea - improving language skills

Post by Regnier »

Ive thought about making an emporer palpatine type of character with language skills as 'manipulation'. This type of idea could work where im going through dungeons pacifying enemies but then what? i cant get any loot off them, they dont protect me.

maybe at higher speech (and other) levels i could receive gold/loot from enemies or they could be hostile to other monsters or at really high speech levels if you pacify a high level orc for instance ALL orcs in the dungeon would be pacified and revealed and would kill the other monsters.

This may be more complicated than i realize but i try to put myself in situations with high language and intelligence skills and think what i could do with that type of influence.
Last edited by Regnier on Wed Dec 30, 2020 10:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

andromacus
Posts: 113
Joined: Sat May 23, 2020 9:07 am

Re: Mod idea - improving language skills

Post by andromacus »

I like this last idea a lot.
Maybe an alternative solution could be: if you pass the language skill check, the enemy is pacified (maybe with the possibility to talk with him). Then if you have also enough Personality, the enemy is turned to a follower/allied. I think this will give much more sense to the language skills

Regnier
Posts: 374
Joined: Wed Oct 02, 2019 6:26 am

Re: Mod idea - improving language skills

Post by Regnier »

andromacus wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 2:51 pm I like this last idea a lot.
Maybe an alternative solution could be: if you pass the language skill check, the enemy is pacified (maybe with the possibility to talk with him). Then if you have also enough Personality, the enemy is turned to a follower/allied. I think this will give much more sense to the language skills
Hell yeah

its a shame that a uniquity such as language is a bit of a joke.

User avatar
joshcamas
Posts: 87
Joined: Mon Sep 21, 2020 7:01 am

Re: Mod idea - improving language skills

Post by joshcamas »

I'm working on a pet mod that can turn an enemy into a follower, while still maintaining their attack logic against other enemies. You can even sleep when you're near them! Perhaps this trick can be used in this case as well.

xuerebx
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri May 22, 2020 10:30 pm

Re: Mod idea - improving language skills

Post by xuerebx »

Glad to see similar ideas being floated - would love to see some coming to fruition!

Post Reply