Deleting Xan as Amber's potential lover for the next version

[Kulyok]

At long last I have adjusted Xan's morale parameters, so they match Bioware characters' - version 4(released) and above have them. Please, delete Xan's death variable from the list(I think it is checked more than once) of custom NPCs that cannot romance Amber - he'll fit into the first, Bioware+Kelsey+correct morale parameters category now.

[Darios]

At long last I have adjusted Xan's morale parameters, so they match Bioware characters' - version 4(released) and above have them. Please, delete Xan's death variable from the list(I think it is checked more than once) of custom NPCs that cannot romance Amber - he'll fit into the first, Bioware+Kelsey+correct morale parameters category now.

 

Great, thanks. If only more people took care of such details, we would not need that bulky checklist at all... But at least it will be one condition shorter in the next version.

[jastey]

What is meant by " morale parameters" in this context, if I may ask?

[Kulyok]

Amber romances player two and it is essential that she doesn't romance Tsujatha or Sola instead.

 

For that, authors have included checks. It is very inconvenient, however, to put Name<>Keldorn, Name<>Jan and so on, especially since player-created player 2 may indeed be called Keldorn - right?

 

So, there was a need of some parameters that Bioware/mod NPCs have one way, and player-created character - another. This parameter is morale(I think 5 for Bioware's, 0 for player-created, since they should never run around in fear).

 

Unfortunately, not all mod NPCs write their morale parameters in the .cre file correctly, which is why, I assume, extra name checks had to be included. Now that I've fixed Xan's morale parameters, there should be one check less.

 

I hope it's clearer now.

[jastey]

Thank you. I never heard of this before, so is there a tutorial /something about the right morale parameters, or: what did you do to Xan's .cre to make it fit?

[Kulyok]

Morale break at 5, morale recovery at 60: open .cre in NI, you'll find it easy enough. Right under the stats(str, dex, cha)

[berelinde]

Oddly enough, I did this with Gavin, because I figured that I'd eventually want him to work in BGT, so he'd need to be ready not to be romanced by Amber.

[jastey]

Yeah, thank you, just go on giving me the feeling I've lived under a rock.

 

Thank you, Kulyok, I will check as soon as I typed this. EDIT: Yes, I had it wrong, too. Corrected! Maybe I'm blind or something, but mentioning this in an NPC tutorial would be great. I at least never heard of it before.

[Darios]

Yeah, thank you, just go on giving me the feeling I've lived under a rock.

 

Thank you, Kulyok, I will check as soon as I typed this. EDIT: Yes, I had it wrong, too. Corrected! Maybe I'm blind or something, but mentioning this in an NPC tutorial would be great. I at least never heard of it before.

 

Well, I don't think it's been all that widely acknowledged, so no need to feel bad.

 

I don't think it actually affects anything in the game, which is probably why most people never paid any notice to it. We came across it when we found out that there is no explicit marker in the .cre file that would indicate whether a given creature is a PC or an NPC. When we were figuring out how to code the P2 romance, we needed one, so we went through the .cre files of Bioware NPCs and compared them to the cre of a PC included in a save game, looking at whether there was any parameter whose value would be consistently different for PCs and NPCs. The only thing we found were the morale values, which solved the problem for the Bioware NPCs. Unfortunately, not all that many mod-NPCs followed the Bioware convention, and that's why we needed the extra checks.

 

But yes, we are all for publicising this little tidbit of information as much as possible, in the hopes that someone else somewhere would some day write another NPC romanceable by P2 for us multiplayers. What I should of course do, is to write a detailed P2 romance tutorial based on our experiences, but I really don't have the time right now...

[Kulyok]

I don't think it actually affects anything in the game, which is probably why most people never paid any notice to it.

 

It's got to do with these rare moments, when you're in battle with a Red Dragon, two party members are dead, others are dying, and suddenly Keldorn bolts and turns yellow and starts running, and Xan stays in place, stoically casting Magic Missiles, and it's, like: "Hello? I've a feeling that something's very, very wrong..."

 

In other words, if character's Morale Break is at 0, as Xan's was, he'll never turn yellow, just like player character, and you never get to hear his "running in fear" sound. Morale Recovery is "how long he's going to be running around in fear". But I'm probably stating the obvious.

[Darios]

I don't think it actually affects anything in the game, which is probably why most people never paid any notice to it.

 

It's got to do with these rare moments, when you're in battle with a Red Dragon, two party members are dead, others are dying, and suddenly Keldorn bolts and turns yellow and starts running, and Xan stays in place, stoically casting Magic Missiles, and it's, like: "Hello? I've a feeling that something's very, very wrong..."

 

In other words, if character's Morale Break is at 0, as Xan's was, he'll never turn yellow, just like player character, and you never get to hear his "running in fear" sound. Morale Recovery is "how long he's going to be running around in fear". But I'm probably stating the obvious.

 

Oh yeah, I should probably rephrase and say that it doesn't seem to make any difference whether you set it properly or not, although of course it does, but only under very specific circumstances. You can very well leave the morale break to 0 and the NPC will still work fine (a bit too fine, in fact, as Kulyok pointed out). I guess it's been ignored mostly because no-one ever paid attention to those values and what they really mean (and I suppose many modders make the cre files by first creating a PC and then converting it to an NPC, which will result in an initial morale break value of 0). Since they are basically the same for all Bioware NPCs (I think), it doesn't really seem significant in terms of the characterisation of your mod NPC. Although they could very well be if they were seen as character stats like any others - NPCs could very well be made to behave differently under pressure. Do I smell a tweak mod here...

[berelinde]

And don't forget that cavaliers are immune to fear.

 

It would make sense if Keldorn were braver than Edwin, but what would you use to differentiate NPCs then?

[Guest erik]

Minsc has morale break 3 in BG2. So he's a bit braver than everyone else (assuming he's not berserk or newly witch-deprived, of course).

[jastey]

And don't forget that cavaliers are immune to fear.

But that would mean a cavalier should have morale break set to zero? Or doesn't iot matter, as the "immune to fear" is set somewhere else?

[Kulyok]

These two are different, as I recall: immunity one thing, the morale break the other.

 

Anyway, it boils down to this:

MoraleBreak=0 - player character( multiplayer-created character )

MoraleBreak>0 - NPC, custom or Bioware character

MoraleBreak<0 - silly