Adding the Bard Song Ability to a Different Class NPC

[Sir_Carnifex]

I was tinkering around to see if I could add Bard Song to an NPC of a different class. After exporting a Bard PC and looking at the cre. file, I copied the Change Bard Song effect from that to another CRE. After importing that into a game, cheating the CRE into my save, and putting the NPC into my party, there was no noticeable change. Now I'm wondering if this is a GUI issue. Perhaps the ability is on the character, but I cannot access it because that class doesn't have the bard song button in the GUI. Has anyone ever done something like this? Is it possible? Or would it be better to make a special ability/spell that does the same thing?

Thanks for any help.

[Jarno Mikkola]

You can't do this in the classic BG2. Yes, it's GUI among other things. And because the bards skills are on going effects rather than ones per rest ones, you can't well even emulate them via special ability, as least in the non-EE game. Well, on a non cleric's.

[Sir_Carnifex]

I had a feeling that would be the answer.

As far as the spell/special ability goes, I realize that it cannot be duplicated, but the spell could be made instant and given a long duration to simulate bard song. Or perhaps a special item with a number of uses per day would work better.

Edited September 2, 2020 by Sir_Carnifex

[subtledoctor]

Preface: I've worked a long time on recreating bard song in other classes, and have a mod which does that right now... but with certain changes and limitations.

58 minutes ago, Sir_Carnifex said:

but I cannot access it because that class doesn't have the bard song button in the GUI

Yes, the bard song is attached to the modal effect of the GUI button.  The "Change Song" opcode only changes which .SPL file is activated by the GUI button... but it is still only activated by the GUI button.  Any class that lacks the GUI button (i.e., every class except bards and shamans) cannot use bard songs.

Further, that button is hard-coded to be a modal ability - press to turn it on, press to turn it off, repeat ad infinitum.  Without a modal GUI button to turn it on and off, you cannot faithfully recreate the bard song.  And you can't give other classes modal GUI buttons, unless you use an executable hack like EEex.

What you can do pretty easily, is simulate modal effects via innate abilities.  Doesn't even need to be for bard song.  I do this with the Necromancer wizard specialist kit: use an innate ability, and it begins a once-per-round Rebuke Undead ability that is uncannily like the one used by evil clerics when they press the Turn Undead button.  It also removes itself, and gives you a new innate ability: "Cancel Rebuke Undead."  Use that ability, and it stops the ongoing Rebuke effect, and removes itself, and once again gives you the Rebuke ability.  You can turn it on and off as often as you like, just like Bard Song.  (You can also achieve this with an item ability, though in that case you can't change the appearance of the button, so you better have a visual indicator of which state you are in, like a portrait icon.)

There's a further complication: bard song is automatically canceled if you attack someone or cast a spell.  There is no way under the sun to replicate that with faux-modal innate abilities or item abilities.  I treat this as an opportunity to change the way bard songs work: most of my bard songs are relatively low-power, and let you fight and cast spells while they are active, just like 3E "inspirations."  Some  of them stop you casting spells while they are active, and some stop you from doing anything; but these work differently from normal bard songs.  With vanilla songs, if you are in a pickle and need to get a spell off quickly, you can simply do so; the bard song will go away, but it won't stop you.  With my system, if you are singing a song that stops spellcasting and need to cast a spell, you must first stop the song, and then cast your spell.  It is ever-so-slightly more annoying.

That is the biggest sacrifice you would have to make, and to have your kit with bard song that works one way alongside a traditional bard with unmodded song that works another way would just be weird. 

(My current mod simply does away with traditional bards and changes them all to use the new system.  You could also, very theoretically, change traditional bards to use the new system, and hack the underlying .SPL files attached to the hard-coded GUI button to activate and deactivate it, in which case you could have traditional bards using the traditional GUI button, but who can fight and cast spells while singing bards songs.  My mod used to do that.  It was cool... but boy was it complicated to set up. Not only complicated to bind the faux-modal spells to the true modal button, but I made the same resources operate the faux-modal effects via innate ability buttons, so real bards and bards from other classes could use the exact same songs, through different GUIs.  It was cool... but ultimately I want to let bards use more thief skills, which is utterly impossible, so I abolished the vanilla bard class and turned them all into multiclass mage/thieves.  Now they all use a faux-modal bard song system, and 2E-style "demibards" can use the same system, and it is a lot less hassle.)

So the tl;dr: is, it utterly depends on your tolerance for being faithful to the original ability.  If you want to just give some kit a modal ability and call it a "bard song," even though it works differently from normal bard songs, then that is pretty easy to do.  If you find using a different mechanism intolerable (some people do, and that's okay!), then no solution will be tolerable to you.

Edited September 2, 2020 by subtledoctor

[Sir_Carnifex]

Thanks for the detailed answer. Using an item to provide a similar ability is fine with me. I would have preferred to get the actual bard song ability, but I don't mind going to a lesser option (especially when the other one isn't even an option). Considering the character is not a true bard (is actually a mage), using a magical item would work well enough anyway. I was just trying to get a little more of the 3.5 flair rather than being confined as AD&D is.

Thanks again!

[subtledoctor]

Heh.  v3.8 of my mod made bards into real 3E versions of the class: the songs could be maintained while attacking/casting, and they learned and cast spells spontaneously, like mini sorcerers (and had spell lists that included stuff like healing spells).  As of v4 of the mod, they are an unholy mix of 1E (multiclass casters), 2E (there are non-caster demibards that can use bard song), 3E (you can attack and cast while singing), and 5E (learn spells from scrolls like wizards, cast them spontaneously like sorcerers).

For an item, you want to give it zero charges.  Two opcode 326 effects. The first one conditioned on the absence  of a spellstate: casts a spell with 1) opcode 272 - or 177 with an .eff using 232 - casting the bard song effect every round, and 2) opcode 328 setting the spellstate on the caster, and 3) opcode 142 applying a portrait icon so you know it is active.  The second one conditioned on the presence of the spellstate: casts a spell with opcode 321 and 206, canceling and blocking the other spell.

More or less.  Maybe add opcode 144/145 to block spellcasting and opcode 1 setting APR to 0 in the first 326 subspell, if you don't want to allow singing simultaneously with casting or attacking.

[temnix]

The way to go about this is to give the character a special ability, preferably with Caster - keep spell instant casting and "Non-combat only." This ability will apply a Change bard song effect and summon an invisible minion with the following line in its script: ActionOverride(LastSummonerOf,BattleSong()). This will work exactly like a real bard's singing, stop with attacks and spells and so on. For variety one could begin the ability from the Select spell effect, loading a 2DA with different song spells to choose from. 

[Sir_Carnifex]

I'll have to check into that later.  One question about the invisible minion: is it going to cause path issues at all?