Joseph's greenstone ring and items of dead creatures

[temnix]

I'm having trouble milking loot from dead creatures. There are basically four ways to get a creature to appear dead on a map: 1) put something in the area script that will kill it (not universally useful); 2) give it a script or effect that will kill it (liable to happen in front of characters' eyes, breaks immersion); 3) put a creature in STATE_DEAD; 4) leave it at STATE_NORMAL but set its current hit points to 0. The first two ways make it possible for a creature to drop what it's carrying, but, as I said, they are not something that could be lifted and applied across the board. For special situations only. Usually the games use method 3 to place bodies around maps, but 4 works too. Either way they keep their stuff. This is a problem for what I'm working on, but it's also something that shows up in an unmodded game. Right now, with all changes deleted, I fail to find the ring on the body of Joseph the miner in Nashkel (the greenstone ring for his wife). It's just not on top of him, though it is in his inventory, only it doesn't get dropped. I tested and it makes no difference where items lie, in paperdoll slots or in the backpack. It is the same with, for example, dead guards. How is this business with Joseph supposed to work? How can I make a dead creature drop items?

[temnix]

No matter. Problem solved.

[Guest Test]

Would you kindly share what you discovered?

[temnix]

Not discovered. I thought I could probably get the items dropped with an invisible minion, and it worked. I patched all creatures in STATE_DEAD or with 0 current hit points with a custom spell summoning a minion (duration should be 9, Instant/Permanent, or summons on the dead are unreliable), and the minion does ActionOverride(LastSummonerOf,DropInventory()) before destroying himself.

[Guest Test]

Thank you.