How do I edit character stats safely in shadow keeper?

[Guest jacklhoward]

I am a lazy man and couldnt bother with rolling stats, and would rather edit stas myself to save me from the trouble. I would start out a character with any stat and save the game, edit the save in shadow keeper, then export the character into a character file to import from during character creation. I get a bit worried whether it would mess up my derivative stats like saves vs., thac0, reputation, reactions etc..Would I be safe to edit stats this way? also is it safe about editing stats of characters and party members mid-game?would the change to derivative stats automatically reflected?for example if i want to change Minsc to a berserker, would the changes to thac0, hitdice, saves vs. and abilities made spontaneously or do I need to change all of them bymyself?

Is it so that you only need to check saves for shorties since only they are affected by con modifiers, but why wouldn't the game apply the racial bonuses automatically since con modifiers change if you change your con stats with items or spells? how about thieving abilities? thieving ability stats for my thief party members are all weird. Imoen has 20 find traps and 20 move silently but the rest are zero HOWEVER in the game she has all other thieving abilities regardless of that, and eldoth has 50 pickpocket in game whilst in the editor only 35.

Is there a better way to edit the stats without worrying about derivative stats?

[jacklhoward]

I would start out a character with any stat and save the game, edit the save in shadow keeper, then export the character into a character file to import from during character creation. I get a bit worried whether it would mess up my derivative stats like saves vs., thac0, reputation, reactions etc..Would I be safe to edit stats this way? also is it safe about editing stats of characters and party members mid-game?would the change to derivative stats automatically reflected?for example if i want to change Minsc to a berserker, would the changes to thac0, hitdice, saves vs. and abilities made spontaneously or do I need to change all of them bymyself?

My kagain is lvl 1, if i change all saving throws to 0, but level up again, would that make the saving throws back to normal? I noticed that kagain's stats in the editor has shorty bonuses applied already at lvl 1 (D9/W11/P15/B17/S12), and i cant wrap my head around how recomputation works that way. what if con value changes, how does the game know what numbers to add or subtract since the game only knows saving throws at con 20?

and also what do the stats of thieving abilities in shadow keeper mean? at level one imoen has only 20 in move silently and 20 in find traps, 0 for everything else. but in the game she has more for every thieving skill obviously.

So how do I understand the data for saving throws and thieving abilities present in the editor?

Also why is there a sequence of numbers for levels? my pc has lvl 1 0 0 for a berserker. imoen has 1 1 1 for pure thief. jaheira has 2 2 1.

Edited April 28, 2022 by jacklhoward

[jmerry]

Base saves (including shorty bonuses) are recalculated when the character levels up. The shorty bonus is based on your base CON when you take that level. Read the appropriate column of the 2DA SAVEMONK, SAVEPRS, SAVEROG, SAVEWAR, or SAVEWIZ, apply the bonuses in the appropriate column of SAVECNDH or SAVECNG if it's a dwarf/gnome/halfling, apply a 2-point bonus to all saves for paladins, and cap the whole thing at zero. These recalculated saves would fully overwrite any existing values.

So, for example, if you had Yeslick (CON 17) use the tome to increase his CON to 18, he would immediately gain extra hit points but wouldn't get the 1-point improvement to death/wand/spell saves until he took his next level.

In a sillier (but still true) example, Yaga-Shura in ToB is a level 25 dwarf berserker with base saves 3/5/4/4/6 and 18 CON. If you took him into the party, gave him 4.5 million XP, and leveled him up to 26, the shorty bonus would be applied and his saves would immediately become 0/0/4/4/1.

The thieving numbers present in the creature file are the base skill numbers; the final skill values include bonuses from race and dexterity. If you gave a thief or monk a bunch of extra points, they would keep them permanently; new levels mean new points to assign on top of the old skill. In fact, the BG2EE character Hexxat has some extra skill points in her creature file because she lacks the racial bonuses to thieving that the player races get. A bard or ranger, though? In their case, the final skill numbers get read from a 2DA, so any changes you make would be reset on leveling.

Levels only matter in classes that the character actually has. A single-classed fighter at level 1/0/0 is indistinguishable from a single-classed fighter at level 1/15/26. Don't sweat it, unless the character actually is a dual-class or multiclass character. It matters that Jaheira's first two levels are 2 and 2; the first 2 is her fighter level and the second 2 is her druid level. It doesn't matter what her third level is.

[jacklhoward]

13 hours ago, jmerry said:

Base saves (including shorty bonuses) are recalculated when the character levels up. The shorty bonus is based on your base CON when you take that level. Read the appropriate column of the 2DA SAVEMONK, SAVEPRS, SAVEROG, SAVEWAR, or SAVEWIZ, apply the bonuses in the appropriate column of SAVECNDH or SAVECNG if it's a dwarf/gnome/halfling, apply a 2-point bonus to all saves for paladins, and cap the whole thing at zero. These recalculated saves would fully overwrite any existing values.

So, for example, if you had Yeslick (CON 17) use the tome to increase his CON to 18, he would immediately gain extra hit points but wouldn't get the 1-point improvement to death/wand/spell saves until he took his next level.

In a sillier (but still true) example, Yaga-Shura in ToB is a level 25 dwarf berserker with base saves 3/5/4/4/6 and 18 CON. If you took him into the party, gave him 4.5 million XP, and leveled him up to 26, the shorty bonus would be applied and his saves would immediately become 0/0/4/4/1.

The thieving numbers present in the creature file are the base skill numbers; the final skill values include bonuses from race and dexterity. If you gave a thief or monk a bunch of extra points, they would keep them permanently; new levels mean new points to assign on top of the old skill. In fact, the BG2EE character Hexxat has some extra skill points in her creature file because she lacks the racial bonuses to thieving that the player races get. A bard or ranger, though? In their case, the final skill numbers get read from a 2DA, so any changes you make would be reset on leveling.

Levels only matter in classes that the character actually has. A single-classed fighter at level 1/0/0 is indistinguishable from a single-classed fighter at level 1/15/26. Don't sweat it, unless the character actually is a dual-class or multiclass character. It matters that Jaheira's first two levels are 2 and 2; the first 2 is her fighter level and the second 2 is her druid level. It doesn't matter what her third level is.

thx. also should I keep using shadow keeper or should I upgrade to nearinfinity or something else for editing the game files? I am unable to download and use nearinfinity because i dont quite understand how to do with the instructions given on the github page. also is there a place to look up how save files and the game engine works in general?