What's the most creative modding technique you've encountered?

[Awachi]

Bonus points if it's still viable. 

[Jarno Mikkola]

Taking other peoples code, and making it yours. Say like a mod from 2007, that's about 5 lines, and an idea... and making it take at least 732 lines, just cause it was a little bit complicated. And we aren't done yet. Who did this... you are looking at it.

[CamDawg]

The more limited the engine, the more creative you have to be. oBG2 lets you do a lot with projectiles, but doesn't really let you create new AoE spells that play smaller, individual animations within a given AoE (think something like Cloudkill or Entangle). So when IWD-in-BG2 brings in spells with cloud-like projectiles (e.g. Spike Stones) it requires a little creativity.

Spike Stones, in oBG2, only creates an invisible creature at the target point. If the spell has a central animation the creature plays it while it applies the actual spell effects once per round by using an invisible AOE. While it's doing all this, the main creature summons other invisible creatures who, in turn, do three things: use teleport field to move a small, random distance from the AoE center, play one spell animation, and then go away. The original idea was David's, and we still use it in IWDification (code here) and SCS for oBG2 installs.

Detectable Spells is also pretty nifty and a mainstay of pretty much every AI mod.

[temnix]

The "original idea" was nobody in particular's.

I had to come up with a way to scorch the ground for my improved fireball effects. I patched the spells with numerous creature-spawning EFF files. The invisible minions appeared on the spot where the fireball hit. Each one came with a self-cast Teleport field and a script that made it wait one tick and then destroy itself. The minions also had self-targeted, casting-glow-type, draw-as-background PROs - one out of three, randomly. Each of those projectiles drew a different patch of soot on the ground. The result was that the minions popped up, jumped off a short ways, drew their stain and vanished. I had to test for the right teleport distance so that the char would be grouped tightly enough, and this method required EE, or it would be impossible to save the game with those projectiles out. The result: 

Edited March 2, 2022 by temnix

[lynx]

I'd say thebigg's approach to adding scripting support for party members after the 6th to mods, while maintaining compatibility with engines that can't handle it (ie. most) and without modifying weidu itself.