Privet Property (mod)

[temnix]

Fixed

This mod introduces the outlandish concept of property to the Forgotten Realms.

It would not be possible without @Luke, and it is compatible with all game versions. @Salk gave some sound advice. @eyre noticed a problem.

With this mod items in all indoor areas that are not dungeons begin to belong to someone. When the player takes these valuables that were just "lying around" from chests and other containers and tries to sell them, he will discover that, strangely enough, they are considered stolen. (Were they stolen before they were removed? To this I reply, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to see it, does it make a sound?) Examples of areas where property reigns: ordinary houses, the duchal palace, cabins, Spellhold's main floor and basement (the teleporting rooms are dungeon). In the first game the tents of the bandit camp are an exception; the status of loot taken from robbers would be too questionable legally, for simplicity, you can sell away. The Iron Throne, on the other hand, is a legitimate organization, on the surface, anyhow. The Cloakwood mine is dungeon, but the office building is a property zone. In the second game, everything in the Underdark, Ust'Natha and the sahuagin city can be pawned off there or later, but almost all other civilized places will have property. This includes the De'Arnise hold, which, full of valuables though it is, is not there for your looting, and all crypts and tombs that are known and visited.

Stolen items, of which there will now be many, can be sold only to fences, of course, and there are few of those. In the first Baldur's Gate there is Black Lily in the city, along with Silence and another character, probably known to long-time players, who I won't call by name. A new fence has appeared in Nashkel. Stop by the Belching Dragon tavern (where Volo is). In the sequel one can sell stolen goods to the Shadow Thieves, of course. Besides this, one in every ten stores in any game will be willing to buy stolen goods. This is determined randomly for every installation of this modification. If you want a new arrangement for a new game, reinstall the mod. Any store may turn out to do business on the shady side, even, in principle, temples, although they don't usually buy items. All fences will buy from the party, however. Try selling something to a temple. If they take it, someone there is turning a profit and you can haul in more stuff. Inns with a store have the same chance of accepting stolen goods. If my "Adventurer's Miscellany" is installed, every inn will have a shop, and so there will be that many more chances of coming across one that does. Felderpost's in Beregost is not a guaranteed fence any more, but it has the same chance of being one as any other inn. After one of my test installations Candlekeep's own inn turned out to be a criminal outfit; who knew? That would make a lot of difference, if I were playing that time, considering how little starting money characters receive. You can tell a fencer's den by low, low selling prices.

Nearly all fences, random or preset, share a few characteristics:

• Will both buy and sell, though don't necessarily have anything in stock;
• Buy items of all standard categories - even familiars, if you want to trade them in for some quick cash, only make sure to buy them back;
• Selling prices very attractive, but buying prices atrocious;
• Ignore reputation;
• No depreciation, they will keep taking anything you bring;
• Their selection, if any, also all stolen;
• No five-fingered discounts.

In addition to the change to areas, items carried by innocents and lawmen (Flaming Fist, Amnian soldiers, Watchers, Cowled Wizards), plus the Dukes of Baldur's Gate, are all declared provisionally stolen, whether the party will have fished them out of the owners' pockets or simply hacked those owners up. "Illegally obtained" may be a more accurate, broader sense here. The characters may feel like they are defunding the police when they slaughter whole packs of government magicians, but even selling the helmet of a dead patrolman or a dropped gem requires dealing with the black market. There are no guards who can be killed without reputation consequences as well - no more stooges you are allowed to whack for free plate mail or because it is a shortcut from a quest. 

On the whole, although the player may sometimes get to shop for a great bargain, fences buy at such a discount that the gold glut problem will get a good knock on the nose. Most free finds will have to be used up, not sold, and if the player is determined to profit off them or some killed lawmen, he will have to find his fences and stop by them on a regular basis. Slinging a gunny sack.

P. S. The Icewind Dale series will benefit from the general mechanics, but I could use someone who has them installed and can suggest where to plant a definite, guaranteed fence.

Download

Edited February 28, 2022 by temnix

[Salk]

Interesting mod.

What happens if the Player tries to sell stolen items to non fences? Are they greyed out?

[Endarire]

@temnix
Did you mean Private Property?

[temnix]

Stolen items, as usual, are not accepted by upstanding citizens.

[Guest Modtester]

Hey Temnix,

Really like the idea of the mod. It always bugged me that only items stolen from stores were flagged as stolen but not everything else that i steal. This mod could be considered a fix for the Vanilla games.

There is one small problem i encountered while briefly testing this mod: The gem Phlydia rewards the player after returning her book is also flagged as stolen. Is this intended? I dont see anything illegal about getting something as a present.

[Salk]

I guess the problem there is that NPCs can be pickpocketed so I am guessing this modification flags their items as stolen if they end in possession of the Player.

If that is the case, a revision accounting for specific cases in which the party is rewarded with items (and there are plenty such resolutions to quests) is going to be necessary although I wouldn't know how that might work with quests added by other modifications.

The only solution I can think of is to create a second component for this mod to be installed after every modification introducing quests rewarding the party with items. It would go through the game's scripts that contain the GiveItem() action and remove the stolen flag of each such item via script or spell, if possible. Or, perhaps easier, replace the GiveItem() action with GiveItemCreate(), making sure the original item in the NPC inventory is destroyed. 

Edited May 22, 2021 by Salk

[temnix]

Both old and new item rewards can be covered with this kind of patch. Anybody who gives something is doing it willingly. Yes, I'll include this.

[temnix]

Updated.

[Salk]

Good job, temnix.

Thanks.

[temnix]

Added some afterthought patching.

[Salk]

Hello, temnix.

I have made a small text revision for my own use but I thought I'd submit it to you in case you like it better than the original.

I changed

@4 = ~Do I look like the black market? Get that out of my sight!~

to

@4 =  ~I want nothing to do with stolen goods! Put that away before you get us both in trouble.~

By the way, it seems that this string replacement only applies to Baldur's Gate 1 and EET. Is it so? And if it is so, why not extend it to TotSC, SoA, BGT, (Easy)TuTu as well?

Cheers! 

Edited June 24, 2021 by Salk

[temnix]

The reason I use that string (in several of my mods) is because "the black market" is a more general concept than just buying stolen items. It is a place or a network dealing in illicit products. In this mod items for fences are just that, stolen, but, for example, in "Adventurer's Miscellany" there are phosphoric shields that only Flaming Fist mercs carry. They are equipped as "stolen," even though there is no way to steal a shield. When the party kills a merc and takes a shield, and tries to sell it at a regular store, they will see the rejection message (which is also a hint about where to take it, of course). It's possible to limit the sales of items like drugs, pornography, kidnapped bodies and so on in this way. The update to "Miscellany" I'm working on is going to include a few of these under-the-counter items, and will use this string also. But feel free to edit it for your own game any way you like, of course.

EET and BG1 - yes, that's an oversight. The dichotomy is really between EET and everything else, including the Icewind Dales. They all have the same number for this interface string, special privisions only have to be made for EET (a major pain in the ass when rewriting dialogues, journal entries etc.) I'm going to fix this after I add another component to this mod that I'm thinking of.

[Salk]

Thanks for clarifying the "black market" reference.

Looking forward to the new component you have been thinking of.

[temnix]

The download link here was not working. It is now.

[Endarire]

What about hosting all your mods on GitHub since that's been a stable place to host code long-term?