In NWN in the toolset editor, there is a quality you can add to weapons called Vorpal. What is it and what does it do?

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Beware of music. It brings out the animosity in everyone.

A specific enchantment upon a magical sword that, on a crit, severs the head of its victim automatically.

Yay for Google.

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The Massassi-Map
There is no spoon.

[This message has been edited by Spork (edited March 28, 2004).]

Upon failure of a fortitude save.

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Eat the pudding.

That seems exactly like Devastating Critical....

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Beware of music. It brings out the animosity in everyone.

Hey dont ask me, I just copy and pasted it

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The Massassi-Map
There is no spoon.

Devastating Critical is much better, because you can get the DC much higher (40-55) as the DC is based on your strength. The DC on weapons is usually quite weak (24).

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Eat the pudding.

Connection: I went and did some testing. The max DC for vorpal is 25, but if Devastating Critical is taken, the DC is considerably higher later on. Also, to avoid Vorpal the opponent has to make a Reflex save, not a Fortitude save. Thus, Vorpal may be better than Devastating Critical against low DEX classes like Fighter and Paladin since they rarely have high DEX. *thinks for a moment* wait, but the DEX bonus only adds like +4 or +6 to the saving throw doesn't it? If so, those numbers can be overlooked and Dev Crit would be better against those classes.

[edit: I posted this seconds after you did. Some redundancy.]
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Beware of music. It brings out the animosity in everyone.

[This message has been edited by Kieran Horn (edited March 28, 2004).]

I'm not aware of a cap on reflex bonus from dexterity modifier. Vorpal is pretty damn powerful early on, but into the epic levels even strength fighters are going to make that reflex save most of the time, if not all.

Note that a saving throw is always failed on a roll of 1, so there is always a 1 in 20 chance of instant kill with vorpal, or devastating critical. 2 in 20 with both.


An interesting character could be a weapon master using a keen vorpal scimitar with improved whirlwind attack. Decent chance of instant death to all creatures in a 10 foot radius, 10-20 critical range (55% hits are criticals).

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Eat the pudding.

I'm guessing NWN didn't incorporate this, but in the regular D&D rules, if you critically fail an attack with a vorpal blade and fail a Dexterity or Reflex save (depends upon the DM), you sever off one of your limbs, or, if your DM is particularly malicious, you cut off your own head.

In addition, vorpal weapons do not affect undead creatures, as, being undead, they do not need their heads to continue fighting.

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"LC Tusken: the idiot is the person who follows the idiot and your not following me your insulting me your following the path of a idiot so that makes you the idiot"
NMGOH || Jack Chick preaches it

Ermm...I have something close to that. Not Improved Whirlwind, but normal whirlwind and Dev Crit with dual Rapiers, Great Cleave, and if I wanted I could give the rapiers vorpal so a target would have to pass the fortitude and reflex save to survive.

Questioin: How do you modify in the toolset how much XP a character gives you when you kill it? I've looked in the Creature Properties when I put a monster down, but I can't find it.

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Beware of music. It brings out the animosity in everyone.

[This message has been edited by Kieran Horn (edited March 28, 2004).]

Did they ever fixVorpal ? I seem to recall a long time ago that it didnt work, but I havent kept up on NWN for a long time.

I did a test slap of a module. I, myself, have wondered what "vorpal" does.

Here is a demonstration of a Balor failing a reflex save. The arrows have a vorpal DC of 22.

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<scribbly handwriting barely resembling name>

I could have sworn in the DnD rules Vorpal was only on slashing weapons. And I thought it only cut off their head and killed them if you got a critical on it?

Phht, vorpal is nothing compared to overkill on BG I/II. They pop.

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Fight fire with fire! Fight EVERYTHING with fire!

"True as toasted toads!"

I think in BG2 they had a Vorpal blade that wasn't implemented according to the ruleset but rather it was a weapon used to tank through the game superfast for testing purposes.

I recall it doing about 1200 damage with one hit, a bit of an overkill

Another reason why I despise DnD video games - they screw up the rules almost as badly as 3.5e did.

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"LC Tusken: the idiot is the person who follows the idiot and your not following me your insulting me your following the path of a idiot so that makes you the idiot"
NMGOH || Jack Chick preaches it

You mean like what most DM's do?

You don't like the Final Fantasy series either, do you?

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Beware of music. It brings out the animosity in everyone.

...Final Fantasy uses d20 rules?

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"LC Tusken: the idiot is the person who follows the idiot and your not following me your insulting me your following the path of a idiot so that makes you the idiot"
NMGOH || Jack Chick preaches it

No. This is all the damage algorithms for FF IV (2 in US version). This is truly for a mathematician's eyes. But it uses no D20.

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<scribbly handwriting barely resembling name>

It's from the Jabberwocky poem.

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please *

No. I meant that if you expect a certain franchise to spew out the same thing over and over, you must be REALLY disappointed with Final Fantasy. The only thing that stays constant in Final Fantasy are the items and some magic spell names. Everything else changes from game to game.

Besides, there are probably pen and paper rules that just wouldn't make sense to put in a computer version or would make it more tedious. For instance, bed rolls, lamps, food, and other mundane travelling things that you usually need in pen and paper aren't included in the stock computer versions because it wouldn't make sense to put them in if the demographic is looking to quest, level up, kill monsters, and to follow a storyline. Or for another example, there might have been something to do with bludgeoning weapons that they couldn't program or didn't have the time to, so to balance that they gave the bludgeoning weapons the opportunity to be vorpal. You really need to loosen up and realize a game for what it is, not for what you expect it to be or what it's predecessors were.

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Beware of music. It brings out the animosity in everyone.

[This message has been edited by Kieran Horn (edited March 28, 2004).]

What is overkill? I've played BGII and I don't remember anything called overkill.

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Beware of music. It brings out the animosity in everyone.

When you do a lot of damage to an enemy, they gib.

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Superstition brings bad luck.
-Raymond Smullyan, 5000B.C.

The reason I don't like D&D computer games is that they're extremely limited when it comes to interaction with the environment and NPCs. In addition, there's no need to make bludgeoning weapons vorpal, or ranged weapons.

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"LC Tusken: the idiot is the person who follows the idiot and your not following me your insulting me your following the path of a idiot so that makes you the idiot"
NMGOH || Jack Chick preaches it

[This message has been edited by Wolfy (edited March 29, 2004).]

......which was called Critical Hit in BGII. Two names, same rose. Also, where did the word gib come from? I've noticed that being used more lately.

Okay, now it makes more sense. You will probably never get the same interaction capability with NPCs and enviroment from pen and paper in the computer games too. But also you have to think of what kinds of interactions do you not really care about? Gossiping with the local tavernkeep? It's severly limited in computer games. Being able to slap the bar wench on her ***? Yeah, you'll miss it but you can live without it.

Emote wands have also become popular in NWN multiplayer. They let you do many different things like pray, drink, sit in a chair, etc, etc. I've also heard of emote wands that let you bang another character....I'm not sure how that works.

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Beware of music. It brings out the animosity in everyone.

[This message has been edited by Kieran Horn (edited March 29, 2004).]

Critical hit were the same thing in all BG series and NWN. They gib in BG when you bring them below a certain amount of HP, -15 or something. I wish they included gib in NWN, but it wouldn't be the same because in epic you usually die with -38 or so...

Bastions of War does have gib though. It's pretty cool

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Eat the pudding.

Wasn't that the Githyanki (sp?) artifact? The one Saemon gives you the blade of, I think, and you get the hilt when the Githyanki attack you to take it back?

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"This hole is octogo. Ogiganeel. It's Octa.. It's got eight sides."
"We interrupt this program again, A. to annoy you, and B. to provide work for one of our announcers."

There's more of a challenge, because if the DM provides an NPC with information that you need, you have to figure out what you need to ask in order to find out that information. What you're saying is that there's no difference between talking to a real person and chatting with a bot Applet. The possibilities are much greater and, in the end, much more enjoyable.

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"LC Tusken: the idiot is the person who follows the idiot and your not following me your insulting me your following the path of a idiot so that makes you the idiot"
NMGOH || Jack Chick preaches it

Not even that, I mean, look at FFVII to FFVIII. In 7, it was Cure -- Cure II -- Cure III, in 8, it was Cure -- Cura -- Curaga.

Then, in XI, its Cure -- Cure II -- Cure III, but there is another WHOLE set of spells called Curaga -- Curaga II -- Curaga III.

The only thing that stays constant in the FF games, Im pretty sure, is Ifrit, Shiva (Not Ramuh, he was replaced with Quezacotal in FFVIII, only to be replaced by Ramuh again in FFIX) And bahamut. Although Im not positive about bahamut . Along with Cid, there is a Cid in every game (Usually an airship or plane engineer also)


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"Just remember -- No matter how bad things get, Northern Minnesota will always be there"
-- Garrison Keeler

But you also run the risk of the DM having very little imagination or creativity or he/she just being a plain dick and not telling you anything. With the computer you get some level on continuity of immersement into plot and storyline as well as a variety of attitudes and dispositions. And then you take a game like NWN to multiplayer, and you get all those things you could possibly be missing in SP back in the game(provided you are on a strict roleplaying server).

However, I will give you that it is a a little bit harder to roleplay with someone when you have to type instead of speak. But, then again, I have never heard of pen and paper players speaking in character to their friends in the first place. That would just be creepy.

anywa,y I'm going to leave for awhile. i'm going to go download the Community Expansion Pack(a.k.a *** Load of **** Expansion Pack) for NWN. It's 120 MB and will take be awhile.

Also, the computer games are getting closer and closer to the pen and paper rules. I remember BGII being like pen and paper only on the very surface, but NWN is very close to pen and paper rules, with the omissions of things I have said before.

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Beware of music. It brings out the animosity in everyone.

[This message has been edited by Kieran Horn (edited March 29, 2004).]

Remember that the vorpal blade went snicker-snack. Then, the guy left it dead, and with it's head, they went galumphing back.

I guess that might be part of the reason...

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The Earth is the cradle of the mind, but one cannot stay in the cradle forever.
-- Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, The Father of Rocketry

Don't forget Ixion from FFX

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"This hole is octogo. Ogiganeel. It's Octa.. It's got eight sides."
"We interrupt this program again, A. to annoy you, and B. to provide work for one of our announcers."