Pick Up Your Bed and Go (mod)

[temnix]

I was doing this for a few NPC in my big mod, and I thought I might make it available as a general feature. This mod does three things. First, like a few others of mine have done as a matter of course, it replaces "static" avatars of standing peasants, children, beggars and so on with versions that can move. Those "statics" can be seen, for example, propping walls around Beregost in the unmodded game. While the player kills and murders around, all they can do is thrash like fish on a hook. They also cannot walk to the player or a point if given a special script or commanded from the outside - could not, until given normal legs. The other two changes are more noticeable. The commoners and nobles sitting on stools and chairs around the games will jump on their feet and switch to walking avatars in an emergency (folding their seats and taking them along), as will sleeping and snoring NPC on beds. They will then proceed to run about as directed by the rewrites of the SHOUT script, which all of the sleepers and most of the sitters have, along with a lot of other NPC. It concerns mostly the responses of "innocents" to aggression.

If the innocents were attacked or took damage from the party (and did not die), or if their pockets could not be picked, they will redden and shout an alarm, then run for it at a goodly pace. If they simply saw a red-circled creature, e.g. another assaulted innocent nearby, they will also burn the carpet and keep away from the party, but without turning hostile or upsetting anyone else, and might eventually calm down. This goes for sitters and others who are awake, but sleepers are a bit of a special case. They are no longer technically asleep but feebleminded and will not react to anything unless attacked, stolen from, hurt or a red circle comes very near them. They only wake up to shouts from innocents in limited range and in direct line of sound, and then not always to the first one that rings out, so the player can risk dispatching another NPC quickly in a corner or behind a wall somewhere or just hope the first cry or two will be ignored. Awake NPC hear shouts across walls, but if they can be killed in a single strike, they will not get a chance to do any hollering. All innocents now have at least 5 hit points so that they do not always die from the first hit, though.

So far the changes that were implemented through creature file effects. The rewrites to SHOUT were all done by careful patching in places and should be compatible with versions of shouting behavior from other mods, although some of the conditions go on top in precedence. The changes are: NPC will run out of the area to get away from the party, dash upstairs, downstairs, to the courtyard and everywhere; red-alerted NPC will continue to shout wherever they go, even off screen, alarming new crowds, but do so every two rounds (they are hostile, so the Silence spell is going to work on them); lawmen will react to shouts from innocents even after they have reddened, and also even off-screen; evil-aligned creatures with the SHOUT script will make a beeline for the innocents too after they make the first cry out of hostility - it is up to the player to imagine if that is to kill them, to aid them or to lure the party. Hostile innocents and triggered lawmen will remain that way, unless another mod mollifies them farther down in the script. For this reason this mod should be installed after others that cover NPC behavior. Red guards are a snag, obviously, but angry innocents can be chased to some other room or floor or away across the area, if they are keeping the party from resting. They should be dealt with somehow, anyway, before they scare away and alarm the whole vicinity that would listen. A mod that makes charming a more viable long-term solution, like my own "Charmed, I'm Sure," can also come in handy.

Sitters and sleepers have received some middle-range random treasure to make them worth pickpocketing, horns will blare when NPC shout, the prone courtesans in the Undercellar have been given sexy moans to give out instead of tortured shrieks, and escaping NPC will cry to the world in diverse panicky voices. The patching of creatures with the sleeping animation covers all of them except the only four cases I know from the first BG where the character is either wounded or talking on his back: Winski Perorate and Voleta in the maze, Gantolandan in the burgled house, the sick Duke Eltan. There may be other exceptions, other creatures in mods that use those animations, but since there are no criteria to select them by, the player will have to add the exceptions by hand to the tp2, if the creatures are supposed to start conversations, respond or do something else beside playing Oblomov. They cannot commit to any of those careers while they are feebleminded.

Illustration: a botched attempt to comb through the pockets of a patient in the Candlekeep infirmary gets everyone rushing for the door. If the red circle is allowed to escape there, he will find plenty of moderators to bawl to. 

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