Creature re-creation for BGII, help needed

[ericp07]

When I open the .itm files I created, I see a field labeled "Weapon proficiency." Do I need to select something from the list, or leave it as "Unknown - 0"? Having two claw attacks suggests to me that I should set this to Prficiency2Weapon, but I'm not sure, and I don't know if there's an entry that would be appropriate for the bite.

 

I'm adding lines in the mod .tp2 to copy the items under each creature to the override folder. Does it matter whether I add the COPY lines before or after the SET_BG2_PROFICIENCY ~PROFICIENCY2WEAPON~ 3 line?

 

Thanks,

Eric

[berelinde]

The tradition is to have animal weapons (claw, bite) be undroppable, but it would be kind of cool to have the items be droppable, with graphics and all. Maybe if Hinaeriel had enough of them, she could upgrade her equipment, like the upgraded gear would make her immune to backstab or something. Just a crazy random thought I had while looking through this thread. I'll go away now.

[ericp07]

The tradition is to have animal weapons (claw, bite) be undroppable, but it would be kind of cool to have the items be droppable, with graphics and all. Maybe if Hinaeriel had enough of them, she could upgrade her equipment, like the upgraded gear would make her immune to backstab or something. Just a crazy random thought I had while looking through this thread. I'll go away now.

 

Wow! This would be a good way to represent trophy collection I like the idea...but will temporarily shelve it, till I get everything else set up as it should be. Thanks!

 

I didn't flag the attacks as undroppable; the bite could be droppable as fangs, and then there are the claws. I'll double-check the .cre and .itm files to make sure they're not flagged as undroppable, to represent trophies to be collected.

 

Another thing about the Claw Slayer form: movement speed should be 2/3 that of a human. Can I specify this in the .cre?

 

Proceeding,

Eric

[ericp07]

Flagged each creature's .itms as droppable. Do I need to enter anything in the item ability's effect fields for targettype, probability, or string? I'll also have to add SAY lines in the .tp2 for each item, I'm guessing.

 

Thanks,

Eric

[berelinde]

Do I need to enter anything in the item ability's effect fields for targettype, probability, or string?

That depends on the nature of the effect. If it's an attack, your target type will be 3-Creature, but if it's defensive, like immunity to something, that would be 1-self... I think. Items aren't my strong suit.

 

I'll also have to add SAY lines in the .tp2 for each item, I'm guessing.

Yup.

 

SAY NAME1 ~NAME~

SAY NAME2 ~NAME~

SAY DESC ~IDENTIFIED DESC~

SAY UNIDENTIFIED_DESC ~UNIDENFIED DESC~

[ericp07]

Do I need to enter anything in the item ability's effect fields for targettype, probability, or string?

That depends on the nature of the effect. If it's an attack, your target type will be 3-Creature, but if it's defensive, like immunity to something, that would be 1-self... I think. Items aren't my strong suit.

 

I'll also have to add SAY lines in the .tp2 for each item, I'm guessing.

Yup.

 

SAY NAME1 ~NAME~

SAY NAME2 ~NAME~

SAY DESC ~IDENTIFIED DESC~

SAY UNIDENTIFIED_DESC ~UNIDENFIED DESC~

 

Good deal; I'll add a little something to the .tp2 now, and detail it later. Something strange happened to EP#MABPB.itm, the Hunting Panther's bite attack "item": when I open the file in NI, all the fields in Item ability show as 0 and/or Unknown, so I set everything up again to represent the bite as a piercing attack that does 1d6+1 damage, and has the effect I want for the rake attack. I'll save it, quit and relaunch NI, and see if it preserves the data.

 

Thanks,

Eric

[ericp07]

Do I need to enter anything in the item ability's effect fields for targettype, probability, or string?

That depends on the nature of the effect. If it's an attack, your target type will be 3-Creature, but if it's defensive, like immunity to something, that would be 1-self... I think. Items aren't my strong suit.

 

I'll also have to add SAY lines in the .tp2 for each item, I'm guessing.

Yup.

 

SAY NAME1 ~NAME~

SAY NAME2 ~NAME~

SAY DESC ~IDENTIFIED DESC~

SAY UNIDENTIFIED_DESC ~UNIDENFIED DESC~

 

Good deal; I'll add a little something to the .tp2 now, and detail it later. Something strange happened to EP#MABPB.itm, the Hunting Panther's bite attack "item": when I open the file in NI, all the fields in Item ability show as 0 and/or Unknown, so I set everything up again to represent the bite as a piercing attack that does 1d6+1 damage, and has the effect I want for the rake attack. I'll save it, quit and relaunch NI, and see if it preserves the data.

 

Thanks,

Eric

 

It's still happening Every time I open EP#MABPB.itm, none of my changes are preserved in Item ability. When I make my changes in Item ability, I see that there's no effect there. So, I add an effect, make all changes, close that window to return to Item ability, close that window, and save the item file to the override folder, overwriting the existing file. This looks like an endless loop now. Any help?

 

Thanks,

Eric

[ericp07]

Sorry for the double-post. My browser isn't behaving well on this site right now...

 

I've found that, if I open the file in NI by scrolling through the override folder along the left side of the window, I get a file without my changes preserved, as reported above. If I instead open external file, then navigate to the override and select (or type in) the file, it then opens with all my changes preserved. Very strange, but I'll open files that way from now on.

 

- E

[ericp07]

Hello,

 

Here's what I have at the top of my mod's .tp2 file for all the Beast of Malar content I've put together so far:

 

// Beast of Malar

COPY ~Hinaeari/creature/EP#MABHP.cre~ ~override~ // Hunting Panther form

SAY Name1 ~Beast of Malar - Hunting Panther~
SAY Name2 ~Beast of Malar - Hunting Panther~

 SET_BG2_PROFICIENCY ~PROFICIENCY2WEAPON~ 3

COPY ~Hinaeari/item/EP#MABPB.itm~ ~override~

SAY NAME1 ~Fangs of the Hunting Panther~
SAY NAME2 ~Fangs of the Hunting Panther~
SAY DESC ~Fangs of the Hunting Panther: These are the large, sharp teeth the Hunting Panther form of the Beast of Malar uses to clamp onto prey in order to make two rake attacks with its hind claws, as well as to deliver potentially fatal bites.~
SAY UNIDENTIFIED_DESC ~Fangs~

SAY ~Rake attack!~

COPY ~Hinaeari/item/EP#MABPC.itm~ ~override~

SAY NAME1 ~Claws of the Hunting Panther~
SAY NAME2 ~Claws of the Hunting Panther~
SAY DESC ~Claws of the Hunting Panther: These are the large, razor-sharp claws the Hunting Panther form of the Beast of Malar uses to rend prey and to rake with its hind legs if it bites.~
SAY UNIDENTIFIED_DESC ~Claws~

COPY ~Hinaeari/creature/ep#mabcs.cre~ ~override~ // Claw Slayer form

SAY Name1 ~Beast of Malar - Claw Slayer~
SAY Name2 ~Beast of Malar - Claw Slayer~

 SET_BG2_PROFICIENCY ~PROFICIENCY2WEAPON~ 3

COPY ~Hinaeari/item/EP#MABSB.itm~ ~override~

SAY NAME1 ~Fangs of the Claw Slayer~
SAY NAME2 ~Fangs of the Claw Slayer~
SAY DESC ~Fangs of the Claw Slayer: These are the large, sharp, daggerlike teeth that fill the Claw Slayer's wide mouth.~
SAY UNIDENTIFIED_DESC ~Fangs~

COPY ~Hinaeari/item/EP#MABSC.itm~ ~override~

SAY NAME1 ~Claws of the Claw Slayer~
SAY NAME2 ~Claws of the Claw Slayer~
SAY DESC ~Claws of the Claw Slayer: These are the large, curved, scimitarlike claws, including the hooks from the elbows of the creature's font legs.~
SAY UNIDENTIFIED_DESC ~Claws~

 

Is there anything I should change? I mean aside from the descriptive text As for the .cre and .itm files I've created, I'd like to know if anyone wouldn't mind looking them over with an editor, such as NearInfinity, and let me know if I need to make any further changes. If not, I'll ask about any other fields I need to address in the .itm files.

 

At some point, I'll want to find icons to attach to the fangs and claws, since those will be lootable to collect for special benefits TBD...

 

Thanks again for the help! I'll be able to test all this once I can get a playable re-installation of BGII...again...

 

- Eric

[Miloch]

SAY ~Rake attack!~

You have to specify the offset where you're writing that SAY. In this case, it probably isn't one with an alias like NAME1 but you'll have to figure out the numerical value (0x8c or whatever) if it's attached to an effect or something, which should be fairly easy with Near Infinity.

[ericp07]

SAY ~Rake attack!~

You have to specify the offset where you're writing that SAY. In this case, it probably isn't one with an alias like NAME1 but you'll have to figure out the numerical value (0x8c or whatever) if it's attached to an effect or something, which should be fairly easy with Near Infinity.

 

Looking at the file in NI reveals a field "Effects offset" just below "# abilities", with a value of 10a h. I don't know what this means; is that what I need to specify, as you mentioned? There's also "Ability offset" with a value of d2 h. Anyway, those are the offsets listed in the .itm file. Please advise.

 

[Edit]

Looking at a reference here at G3, I noticed that the effects offset for a .cre file is 0x02c4. Is this what I'm supposed to reference? Do I assign something to it?

[/Edit]

 

Thanks,

Eric

[ericp07]

For the rake attack effect that's applied to the hunting panther's bite, I noticed that speed and to hit are both listed as 0. I'm guessing this is consistent with an automatic hit that immediately follows the bite, so hoping all is well there.

 

- E

[Miloch]

Looking at the file in NI reveals a field "Effects offset" just below "# abilities", with a value of 10a h.

That means a value of 0x10a (the h means hexadecimal in NI - in WeiDU, you preface the number with a 0x for the same). But you want the specific text offset in your file, so it won't be the same for just the effects offset. Meaning you'll have to view/edit your effect to see where the text offset is.

For the rake attack effect that's applied to the hunting panther's bite, I noticed that speed and to hit are both listed as 0. I'm guessing this is consistent with an automatic hit that immediately follows the bite, so hoping all is well there.

To hit of 0 is normal for a non-magical attack. Monsters of Faerun specifies either a +8 or +12 bonus for the Beast of Malar claw/rake attack, though that is 3rd ed. rules, and quite beyond the pale for 2nd. edition/BG2 values. I guess that's up to you as the modder, though I wouldn't give it above a +2 value personally, if any. As for speed, 0 means an instantaneous hit, so again, you should use some discretion there (maybe a speed of 1 which is extremely fast).

[ericp07]

Looking at the file in NI reveals a field "Effects offset" just below "# abilities", with a value of 10a h.

That means a value of 0x10a (the h means hexadecimal in NI - in WeiDU, you preface the number with a 0x for the same). But you want the specific text offset in your file, so it won't be the same for just the effects offset. Meaning you'll have to view/edit your effect to see where the text offset is.

For the rake attack effect that's applied to the hunting panther's bite, I noticed that speed and to hit are both listed as 0. I'm guessing this is consistent with an automatic hit that immediately follows the bite, so hoping all is well there.

To hit of 0 is normal for a non-magical attack. Monsters of Faerun specifies either a +8 or +12 bonus for the Beast of Malar claw/rake attack, though that is 3rd ed. rules, and quite beyond the pale for 2nd. edition/BG2 values. I guess that's up to you as the modder, though I wouldn't give it above a +2 value personally, if any. As for speed, 0 means an instantaneous hit, so again, you should use some discretion there (maybe a speed of 1 which is extremely fast).

 

Well, I see ability offset and effects offset, but I don't see text offset anywhere, and now I'm feeling stupid So, I'm stuck there.

 

As for to hit and speed for the special attack, I'll leave both at 0, at least till I can test the creature in-game.

 

Thanks,

Eric

[Mike1072]

SAY Name1 ~Beast of Malar - Hunting Panther~

SAY Name2 ~Beast of Malar - Hunting Panther~

Name1 and Name2 need to be NAME1 and NAME2.

 

For the rake attack effect that's applied to the hunting panther's bite, I noticed that speed and to hit are both listed as 0. I'm guessing this is consistent with an automatic hit that immediately follows the bite, so hoping all is well there.

Isn't your rake attack simulated with a Damage effect (and a Display String effect) attached to the bite item's melee ability? Abilities have speed and to hit fields, but effects do not, so it sounds like you may have added the wrong one when you remade the file.

 

The ~Rake Attack!~ string needs to be written to the Parameter 1 field in the Display String effect attached to this item's melee ability. The Parameter 1 field is the fourth one in and may be referred to as String or String Reference. The far right column will contain the hex offset to use in your SAY.

 

Another thing about the Claw Slayer form: movement speed should be 2/3 that of a human. Can I specify this in the .cre?

You can add an effect to your creature using opcode 176 to achieve this. There's an option to use a percentage modifier.