Appendix H - Special Encounter Examples

Extra examples can be very useful when making special encounters. Here are a few quick sets of instructions for making popular types of encounters.

As before, to create a special encounter in a town, press the Place/Edit Special Encounter button and click on the space to place the encounter in. To select the special node type, click one of the six buttons at the top of the special node editing window.

Stairway

To make a multi-level dungeon, you need stairways to connect the levels. Suppose town 6 is the first level of a dungeon and town 7 is the second. You want a stairway at (10,12) in town six leading to (20,23) in town 7.

Place a special encounter at (10,12), press the Town Specs button and select Generic Stairway. Below will be fields for the X coordinate and Y coordinate to place the party in. Place 20 and 23 in these fields. Enter 7 by Number of Town to Place Party In. Finally, you need to enter a number from 0 to 7 in the final field (What Text), representing what the description of the stairway will be. Best keep it simple. Enter 0 for an up stairway and 1 for down.

Alchemy Ingredients

In Exile I-III, sometimes outdoors the party could find alchemy ingredients. When you took them, within a day or two, they would grow back. You can do this in Blades of Exile. Suppose you want comfrey root to be in a spot outdoors, and every 2 days, it will grow back. Pick a Stuff Done to attach to the root, say, (101,3).

Place a special encounter outdoors. For type, press One Shots on the special node editing window and select Give Item. Place (101,3) in the stuff done flag fields. Press the Choose button to the right of Item To Give, and select Comfrey Root from the item selection window. This special will automatically give the party the root when they step there. (If you want a dialog box to come up and give the option of whether or not to take it, use one of the Give Item One-Shot special node types).

Now that the item is there, you need to set things so that the item is occasionally replaced. Two days is about 7500 moves. Select Set Scenario Event Timers from the Scenario menu. In the first row (or the first free row) enter 7500 in the Number of Moves Between Each Call field. Press the Create/Edit button to the right, and the special node editing window will come up. Press General and select Set Flag for the node type. Enter (101,3) into the Stuff Done flag fields, and enter 0 in the Set Flag To field. Now, every two days, the comfrey root will be replaced.

Teaching a Spell

Suppose there is a bookshelf in a town. When the party searches it, you want them to learn the spell Firestorm. Look in Appendix VI, and note that Firestorm is spell 10.

Place a special encounter in the bookshelf. To pick the type, press the Affect PCs button and select Give Mage Spells. Press Create/Edit in the Message area to type the message the party will read (e.g. You can now cast Firestorm!), and enter 10 into the Which Spell field.

Now suppose you want the party to only learn the spell if their Mage Lore total is 8. Then make the first node called be an If-Thens Mode of type Has Enough Mage Lore? Set the How Much field to 8. Set the Jump-To special to be the special node called if they don't have enough lore, and the Has Enough Mage Lore special be the node that gives them the spell.

Store Outdoors

Suppose you want a shop outdoors, where the party can buy very cheap arrows. While editing the outdoors, place a special. Press Out Specs on the node editing screen, and select Outdoor Store.

Press the Choose button to pick the first item in the shop, and select Arrows. Enter 0 for the store type (this means the store sells regular items), and 3 for the Number of Items in the shop (so the shop will then sell arrows, iron arrows, and magic arrows). Finally, put 0 on the Cost Adjust field, to make the arrows very cheap.

Secret Passages

It is easy to place a secret passage on any space using special encounters. Suppose you want the party to be able to walk through a certain tree. Place a secret encounter on the tree and make it of type Secret Passage (to select this, press the General button). Set Extra 1a to 0 and Extra 1b to 1.

Random Poison Using Pointers

Suppose you want to afflict a PC with a random amount of poison. The Affect Status node only allows you to specify an exact amount, but by using pointers, you can get the random amount you want.

First, decide on a Stuff Done Flag to store the amount - let's say (4,7). Then, decide on a pointer to point to that flag, such as 156. Now, create a Set Pointer special node (under General) to link the two together - put 4 and 7 in the Stuff Done fields, and 156 in the Extra 1a field.

Next, press Create/Edit by the jumpto field, and make the next node a Set SDF to Random node (also under General). Put 4 and 7 in the Stuff Done fields again, and set Extra 1a amd Extra 1b (min and max) to whatever you want.

Then press Create/Edit again by the jumpto and make an Affect Status Effect node (under Affect PCs). Press Choose by Extra 1c and select poison, put 1 in Extra 1b, and put -156 in Extra 1a.

There you go! When the game runs this chain of nodes, it will fetch the value from Stuff Done Flag (4,7) and use that as the amount of poison to afflict.