Nythrun, a request for your opinion

[Qwinn]

Hi Great mod you have here! I was hoping I could possibly pick your brain a little bit?

 

I'm thinking of doing a mod for Imoen for EasyTuTu and the BG1NPC project that would require changing her class a couple of times mid-game. I was wondering, since you're clearly a guru on the modification of .cre files, if you think this would be possible or realistic?

 

Part of the goal is to be able to dual class Imoen so that she'd be like she is in BG2, and be able to tell a good story and quests about -how- she became a mage, but without the obnoxiousness of losing her thief abilities for an extended period of time.

 

So what I'm thinking is as follows: she'd start the game as a level 1 thief, same as in vanilla. Pretty early in the game - upon arriving at the Friendly Amn Inn, so she's probably barely a level 2 thief at this point - I'd modify her to be a multi-class mage-thief with like 1000/1000 xp. Much later on, when she has achieved a certain level of exp as a multi-class (say, level 7 thief/level 7 mage with about 130,000 xp total) and she'd completed her quests, she'd change to a dual class level 7 thief/level 8 mage with 130,000 xp total.

 

I just wanted to ask your quick opinion: is this even somewhat doable? I know changing a character in-game is entirely different from modifying one at game installation. I'd be willing to take steps to make this easier, such as:

 

1) Removing all her inventory before the changes.

2) Removing her ability to scribe spells while she's a multi-class mage/thief (if this is possible to do), therefore giving her only a couple of level 1 mage spells she can cast during this period (or, better yet, only the spells she has available at Chateau Irenicus at the start of vanilla BG2)

3) Requiring her to leave the party and be in a specific area, and have the party leave the map she's on, before running the script to change her.

 

Don't worry, I won't ask you to do this for me, just thought I'd pick your brain for a moment and see if the idea is flat out impossible/unrealistic to implement, and if it isn't, what kind of dangers I can expect to come across.

 

Thanks -so- much in advance for any suggestions or advice you can offer

 

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Just thought I'd add... I've been reading through the forums half the night looking to see what's possible. I'm thinking that if all else fails, I could potentially handle the issue by making a -kit- to the thief class that represents the in-between status of thief-in-training-to-be-a-mage for her, then using ActionOverride(AddKit) to give her the kit when she acquires a trainer. Then, when she's finally ready to dual class, I can remove this kit the same way kits are removed for a cleric if their alignment changes during the Hell Trials. (I'd have to come up with a way of preventing the player from dual classing Imoen until after this was done, though)

 

From everything I'm reading, this could be made to work. However, I know there's a limited number of kits that can be added to the game, and I don't want to add compatibility issues with every mod out there that also adds kits, potentially having them overwrite one another. So, if it's still possible to change the class directly, I'd still like to go with that if it's possible.

 

Qwinn

 

P.S. I realize now that this probably isn't the best forum I could've placed this thread, if someone wants to move it to Modding Q&A, please do so.

[Qwinn]

Okay, done some more research.

 

Looking like it's possible that the action in ACTION.IDS called "ChangeClass" might do everything I need it to here...

 

Though now I'm thinking the kit might actually be a more interesting idea that would allow me to make that middle period more interesting, heh. That would require a few things though:

 

1. The ability to apply an experience penalty to my kit, or to give it a new experience table. It was mainly this that made me want to change her to a multiclass initially. Basically, I'd want to deduct something like 50-75% of the experience gained. She would level quite slowly, but via the kit she'd be gaining spells almost like a multiclass mage-thief would. The thing is, I want her to hit level 7 in this thief kit at about 130k experience... then when the time comes to dual class, I'd remove the kit, set her xp to 40k, dual class her to mage, then add 90k xp to get her to 8th level mage (allowing the player to level her up seven times adding proficiencies and such as they liked).

 

2. The ability to make her not able to dual class via the level up screen, but when the time comes to enable the ability and to trigger the dual class screen through a dialogue. EDIT: Actually, I should just be able to make the kid unable to dual class, and then enable dual classing simply by removing the kit when the time comes. The second part isn't mission critical - if the player simply has to be instructed that at that point they can and should dual class via the character info screen, then talk to the trainer again to be given their 90k mage xp, that'll have to do.

 

3. The ability to restrict spells acquired. In particular, I'd love it if I could make her thief kit unable to scribe normal scrolls, but able to cast spells and to add spells to her spellbook via dialogues or other special items. Thus the quests that she'd be required to do in her mage training would actually add spells to her spellbook as she went along - specifically, I'd love to do a quest for Imoen to gain each spell that she has by the start of Chateau Irenicus in vanilla BG2. When she's gotten them all, then she can dual class, as in at that point she's gotten good enough at magic to figure out other spells from scrolls. She'll be able to scribe any spell after she's officially dual classed, of course, but her loss of all spells other than the ones gained by the quests at the start of BG2 would be explained as that she lost her spell book when she was captured, but those spells she knew well enough to re-scribe from memory due to her having quested for them and knowing how they work intimately.

 

Does this idea sound interesting at all? And is what I'm suggesting here for my kid idea workable? I may actually be willing to just accept the possible incompatibility with other mods that add a ton of kits, if it allows me to implement the ideas in this thread.

 

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

(Yes, I realize I'm pretty much talking to myself here, heh.. hopefully at some point people will wake up and add some thoughts

 

Just read this thread:

 

http://forums.gibberlings3.net/index.php?showtopic=584

 

 

Ugh. Just making a kit of the thief class isn't going to work unless I make her spells innate abilities (which isn't out of the question, but I'd prefer it as a last resort)... a thief simply can't be given a spell casting button. So I -would- have to start by using ChangeClass to make her a multiclass mage-thief to get her the proper GUI, and then see what other changes I could possibly make.

 

Incidentally, that link says race/class combos are an engine limitation - how then is Imoen given the ability to multi-class by several mods? Are they changing her race?

 

Qwinn

[Nythrun]

I'm sure you've answered all of this yourself already, but while I'm here (and in case anyone else is curious):

 

The only aspect of character selection that's hardcoded to race is which buttons show up during chargen, and whether or not the dual class button is available later in the game- otherwise, humans have no problems being multiclassed and demihumans can dual.

 

ChangeClass() won't let you do dual classes, and sucks. .Cres can't be dual classed by script.

 

Experience can only be incremented by script (another reason why the experience adjustment .bafs generated by this mod are running to 12,000 lines). For set to value, you'd need a spell effect.

 

Tick off every mage school exclusion flag in the kit unusabilities if you don't want the kit learning from scrolls (though she won't be able to use them, either).

 

As long as kits are not selectable by any player race (vide: k_t_h.2da etc etc) you can add as many as you like - see Refinements for gross abuse of this technique.

[DavidW]

Experience can only be incremented by script (another reason why the experience adjustment .bafs generated by this mod are running to 12,000 lines).

12,000 is for wusses. SCS just broke the 25,000 line mark

[Nythrun]

I have always aspired to wussiness.

 

These scripts wouldn't be even one hundred lines long if

IF
 Global("FJDidXpMod","LOCALS",0)
THEN
 REPONSE #1
SetGlobal("FJDidXpMod","LOCALS",1)
AddXPObject(LastSummonerOf(Myself),Stat(Player1,44))
END

were possible, and targeting blocks would be sleek and trim if TokenObject() did anything remotely useful.

 

I shouldn't get frustrated by IE scripting. But it's a lot like delivering a lecture in Sign Language to an auditorium of blind people.