NEW improved henchman AI and exp exploits

UberJason · Post by **UberJason** » Tue Jul 09, 2002 6:01 am

Hey all,

I was checking out the Bioware boards and found a link to improve your henchman AI:

http://snow.prohosting.com/wperpo/

There is also an inventory management script that allows you to change your henchman/familiars/animal companions equipment.

Quite frankly, this is awesome. There is a new command "buff me," that we'll cause spellcasters to buff you, and now they will switch weapons when using missle weapons in close combat. No more stupid attacks of opportunity! Yay!

One other thing... Have you all noticed that exp points vary based on the strength of your summon monster? Case in point, my level 3 cleric with the animal domain fighting with his dire wolf gains 7 xp per escaped prisoner (my companion is the half-orc fighter). Wihtout the wolf I get 30 xp per prisoner! That's more than a four fold difference! I noticed that the reverse occurs when I summon a low level monster at higher level battles. I get more xp for the encounter than I should. This could very easily be exploited at higher levels. i.e. summon a dire badger, tell it to stay put and then proceed to slaughter a bunch of melee fighters, reaping a lot more xp than you justly earn.

-UberJason

Rob-hin · Post by **Rob-hin** » Tue Jul 09, 2002 6:51 am

Nice link.

Perhaps I'll give it a try, we all know the AI isn't all that!

Kameleon · Post by **Kameleon** » Tue Jul 09, 2002 12:48 pm

Originally posted by UberJason
I noticed that the reverse occurs when I summon a low level monster at higher level battles. I get more xp for the encounter than I should. This could very easily be exploited at higher levels. i.e. summon a dire badger, tell it to stay put and then proceed to slaughter a bunch of melee fighters, reaping a lot more xp than you justly earn.

Now that is an interesting piece of evidence in the puzzle of whether henchmen/summons/familiars affect the XP you get. Some people have said that having a partner lowers the XP they get. Others that it raises it. If their level is higher than the monster's, maybe they make you get less XP? Noone has given a decent explanation of this phenomenon...yet.

fable · Post by **fable** » Tue Jul 09, 2002 1:08 pm

Re: Re: NEW improved henchman AI and exp exploits

Originally posted by Kameleon

Now that is an interesting piece of evidence in the puzzle of whether henchmen/summons/familiars affect the XP you get. Some people have said that having a partner lowers the XP they get. Others that it raises it. If their level is higher than the monster's, maybe they make you get less XP? Noone has given a decent explanation of this phenomenon...yet.

Makes you wonder if the developers sit out there reading this kind of thread, laughing their rears off, doesn't it?

Mathurin · Post by **Mathurin** » Tue Jul 09, 2002 1:10 pm

Wouldn't surprise me. They are the only ones that know for sure and as far as I know they aren't telling.

Kameleon · Post by **Kameleon** » Tue Jul 09, 2002 1:15 pm

Re: Re: Re: NEW improved henchman AI and exp exploits

Originally posted by fable
Makes you wonder if the developers sit out there reading this kind of thread, laughing their rears off, doesn't it?

Oh, I have absolutely no doubt of that...

If you're out there, I really like your game, but I wouldn't mind knowing how it works. Or do you just want to email me the source-code? Address in profile

Catalyst · Post by **Catalyst** » Tue Jul 09, 2002 1:26 pm

The XP system in 3rd Edition is based on two things: your Effective Party Level and the Challenge Rating of your opponents.

Defeating creatures whose Challenge Ratings are higher than your party level is worth huge XP. If your average party level is 4, defeating a creature of CR 6 is worth twice as much as defeating a creature of CR 4 (and defeating a CR 8 creature would be worth four times as much). Likewise, defeating creatures with a CR lower than your party level is worth very little indeed.

That said, having a hireling or companion whose level is higher than yours raises your party level, and so defeating creatures results in much less of a reward. If you summon a very *weak* creature, the average level of your "party" goes *down* and so the game rewards you big time for defeating the same CR creatures. This isn't a proper implementation of the 3rd Edition rules (animal companions should never factor into your Effective Party Level) but oh well.

One last thing--you split any XP you earn with your henchmen, 50/50. As far as I can tell, you do *not* split XP with your animal companions, summoned creatures, or familiars. Unless I'm mistaken here, you could theoretically solo the game (no henchman) with weak summoned creatures and rake in the experience.

Keep us posted!

Kameleon · Post by **Kameleon** » Tue Jul 09, 2002 1:30 pm

Originally posted by Catalyst
The XP system in 3rd Edition is based on two things: your Effective Party Level and the Challenge Rating of your opponents.

Defeating creatures whose Challenge Ratings are higher than your party level is worth huge XP. If your average party level is 4, defeating a creature of CR 6 is worth twice as much as defeating a creature of CR 4 (and defeating a CR 8 creature would be worth four times as much). Likewise, defeating creatures with a CR lower than your party level is worth very little indeed.

That said, having a hireling or companion whose level is higher than yours raises your party level, and so defeating creatures results in much less of a reward. If you summon a very *weak* creature, the average level of your "party" goes *down* and so the game rewards you big time for defeating the same CR creatures. This isn't the proper implementation of the 3rd Edition rules (animal companions should never factor into your Effective Party Level) but oh well.

So how come, with a hireling (who has to be one level less than me and so will lower my average) I get less XP for a monster than when on my own?

Catalyst · Post by **Catalyst** » Tue Jul 09, 2002 1:35 pm

Kameleon--see my edited post. Your hirelings/henchmen get an equal share of all XP earned, whereas summoned creatures do not.

One thing that confuses me:

with a hireling (who has to be one level less than me and so will lower my average)

What do you mean, when you say the hireling has to be one less level than you? In my first playthrough, my character was level 3 and I signed up Tomi (the rogue) who was level 4. In fact, the manual states that if you hire someone of lower level than you, they can be automatically levelled up (via dialogue) to match your level, for consistency (and to prevent XP cheating, I imagine)...

Kameleon · Post by **Kameleon** » Tue Jul 09, 2002 1:40 pm

Yes, at first they may be a level or two above you. However once you level over them, they no longer stay that far above you. THey level only when you level, and in that case Tomi wouldn't level up to 5 until you got to 6. It is this same thing that makes me wonder about the experience splitting - why do henchmen take XP when they only level when you do? It seems that this is rather redundant...and they don't have an XP readout of any sort so it is impossible to check.

Mathurin · Post by **Mathurin** » Tue Jul 09, 2002 1:43 pm

As a DM I know how 3rd Edition xp works and you struck the biggest point of contention. In D&D anything summoned, as well as animal companions, and familiars are considered part of the character for means of experience, it is simply assumed the character will make use of these things, thus they have no affect whatsoever on xp, and yet in NWN they seem to thus NWN does not use D&D xp charts. And as for the followers that is jacked up too. If they are going to take away from your xp then they should do just that, they should recieve a part of your xp and that should be it. Yet since they are able to be leveled for free simply by speaking to them, and they level automatically when you do, thus they can be given huge amounts of xp for free, they can't have their own xp totals, thus they shouldnt be earning any or hindering your own character from earning xp. The game needs to have one or the other. They should either gain xp normally as a character by the amount you use them or they should simply be determined by your own level and have no specific xp totals of their own.

Catalyst · Post by **Catalyst** » Tue Jul 09, 2002 1:56 pm

However once you level over them, they no longer stay that far above you. THey level only when you level, and in that case Tomi wouldn't level up to 5 until you got to 6.

Ah, that makes sense, as Tomi hasn't levelled up quite some time. I magine this artificial one-level difference is there to keep the henchmen in a support role, and your PC the main power under your control (or something).

As for the experience division, it makes sense too. After all, you're effectively doubling the party size, even if the only character whose levels are directly controlled by the XP totals is your main character. This system, along with the auto-resurrect of any killed henchmen, was probably designed for simplicity and minimal management.

Mathurin--I agree with you, the NWN engine is definitely broken with respect to summoned creatures and how they affect experience totals. I hope Bioware releases a patch to fix this. However, within the boundaries of a video game, the way henchmen have been implemented makes perfect sense. You only have one character. If your 18th level Sorcerer needs a Rogue to open a locked door, he can't drag Tomi Undergallows the 4th level Rogue to do it...Tomi would be killed by the first beholder that came around the corner.

It doesn't fly with the D&D core rules, but it's streamlined to remove frustration. Even in Baldur's Gate, NPCs were higher level depending on what level you recruited them at. NWN doesn't generate NPCs the same way, so they came up with this (admittedly lame) system instead. I do have confidence that if the NWN community is half as dedicated as the Baldur's Gate 2 community as far as mods, the quirky henchman system will be the first thing to get a facelift. Or an axe.

Xyx · Post by **Xyx** » Wed Jul 10, 2002 8:58 am

This is insane. I just had to try it out. A character with a summon, an animal companion and a familiar will get about double XP! One level of Duid, one level of Sorcerer and n levels of whatever you like, and off you go.

Kameleon · Post by **Kameleon** » Wed Jul 10, 2002 9:38 am

Cheesy...

Originally posted by Xyx
This is insane. I just had to try it out. A character with a summon, an animal companion and a familiar will get about double XP! One level of Duid, one level of Sorcerer and n levels of whatever you like, and off you go.

Please, noone tell UserUnfriendly, OK?

cjdevito · Post by **cjdevito** » Wed Jul 10, 2002 10:01 am

I've been experimenting along these lines, and it all comes down to level of the summon/familiar/companion involved. Bottom line, easiest way to 'milk' xp is to play as a mage/sorceror (xp seems to be weighted by the class you play. No idea why) who takes a level of another xp-heavy class (rogue works, so does bard). Then run around with a Monster Summoning I critter and a low-level familiar (some of the familiars have levels above your wizard/sorceror class level, some have equal to it. Take one of the equal ones). A 3 wiz/1 rogue with appropriate familiar and summon can get well over 100 xp per diseased thug in the no-mans land, for example.

Ares2382 · Post by **Ares2382** » Wed Jul 10, 2002 10:55 am

CJ, I have been experimenting too, and found that in my experience atleast I get the same XP regardless of which creature I have summoned, hell once I summoned a 20th lvl Demon via Gate spell and got the same xp for killing a fire giant as I got with a dire boar. I think Bioware needs to look this over and do some major fixing with XP.

cjdevito · Post by **cjdevito** » Wed Jul 10, 2002 11:15 am

Hey Ares. Man, that's really weird -- I got the exact opposite experience, that level of summon made a difference. I've been experimenting with low end monsters and summons, I haven't tried high levels yet. The only thing I can think of is that -you- were high enough level above the fire giant (which I recall someone elsewhere said were very,very low level (like 7 I think) for some unknown reason) that even averaging in the much lower level summon wasn't enough to bring up the CR/exp value.

Just a guess, but that's all that occurs to me.

Nygma · Post by **Nygma** » Wed Jul 10, 2002 11:48 am

Started a new cleric, and noticed something weird about xp.

I was able to scroll my log and noted every fight since the ambush to when I met Fenthick and Desther.

When the attack began, I immediately summoned a dire boar (level 7). I got 4 exp for every weak goblin I killed. Then I joined up with Pavel. 5 exp for every weak goblin I killed (same dire boar still with me). Then I leveled up to lvl 2. 8 exp for every weak goblin, still with Pavel and dire boar.

Does this make sense to anyone? The only explanation I could think was that maybe like Diablo II, you don't get max exp for hanging out with high level characters (like my boar

), and leveling up meant I got a larger share of the exp. But then why did I get 1 more exp after joining up with Pavel???

cjdevito · Post by **cjdevito** » Wed Jul 10, 2002 11:54 am

I think the game averages CRs.... not apparently levels, as some classes accumulate more experience then others... of everyone in a "party", then checks how much a monster is worth versus that averaged CR level, then you get that value (It's not split).

Looking at your example, you were level 1 with a level 7 summon.... your averaged CR was 4 (presumedly. It may have been weighted by your class). I don't know what level Pavel is, but let's assume 1. With the three of you, your averages CR was 3. Lower CR equates to more xp on kills.

This doesn't explain the slight jump in the xp you earned when you hit level 2, though. I don't have that figured.

Wraithus Dire · Post by **Wraithus Dire** » Wed Jul 10, 2002 12:07 pm

My guess would be

You = Lv1
Boar = Lv 7

Average Level of Party = 4 (which is 7+1/2)

When you grabbed Pavel:

You = Lv1
Pavel = Lv1
Boar = Lv 7

Average Level of Party = 3 (which is 1+1+7/3)

Thus, picking up Pavel actually lowers the average party level.

If the Goblin is level 2, your first party would get less XP because the difference between your party (Average Level 4) and the goblin (level 2) is 2; whereas with your second party you (average level 3) and goblin (lv2) is only differing by 1.

Even if you level up, the Average party level is still 3.3 (2+1+7 divided by 3)

This is just a wild guess, though. I never read any of those offical type rules - never even made it through the manual. Reading - bah! Why read when TV tells me everything I need to know.