Closed Discussion: Creature buffs/debuffs in description

[Maiyannah]

So another thing akin to the CRs is that creature descriptions by default list buffs and debuffs. This ones a little stickier since magical auras could almost assuredly be detected on people.

Please express your thoughts in the attached poll and feel free to post arguments in the replies!

[Ouroboros]

So, here's the thing;

If the buff display system in NWN could be configured to do so, I wouldn't mind it showing you the list of buffs on that character when examined, if you fulfilled criteria such as;

• Being buffed with a spell that allows you to tell what they're buffed with. Detect Magic or the like.

• Being present at the time of buffing, allowing you to only see the spells you've directly witnessed being cast on that entity.

• Certain spells having obvious visuals that can be discerned with a DC X Spellcraft check upon examine; Barkskin visually turning a character's skin to have the consistency of bark for example.

However, as far as I'm aware the NWN buff display system doesn't allow for that level of granularity and I'm fairly sure making it abide by the above criterion would be a ridiculously large undertaking for not all that much benefit. In it's default state, I'd say "no", since there's no reasonable way for a character to be discerning when/how those buffs were applied to that entity and it presumes every character is omniscient in regards to that particular bit of meta info.

[Maiyannah]

The idea that comes to mind there is an examine command that uses spellcraft/your own buffs etc to determine them. But that can't really be made to work with the existing system, I'd have to make a seperate command as other PWs do.

[Aurelia Haeryn]

If it's a binary thing of displaying all of it or none of it, then I imagine it's probably better to lean towards not displaying all of it and using something to hint at information if it's needed or important/obvious enough.

[Maiyannah]

Yep, this is a binary setting true/false in settings.tml

We would have to implement our own finer thing in a secondary function, like how POTM has the "examine" ability.

[Maiyannah]

I think a secondary examine function is worth discussing elsewhere but the buffs as implemented by this setting we agree to disable, so I will disable this the next time each server is updated.