Level1NPCs Discussion

[Kulyok]

Just make sure Edwin the Sorcerer retains his extra spells: Edwin the Sorcerer in EasyTutuKits doesn't, at least in my game. Still six spells per level.

[Gorilym]

Just make sure Edwin the Sorcerer retains his extra spells: Edwin the Sorcerer in EasyTutuKits doesn't, at least in my game. Still six spells per level.

 

I don't think he should get more than six spells per level as a sorcerer - IIRC, as a conjurer he gets one extra spell per level for his amulet and one for being a specialist mage. If he were to get the specialist mage bonus as well as a sorcerer... I shudder to think.

[Andyr]

A fluff point: Edwin's extra spells are meant to be there because in pnp the Red Wizards can cast an extra spell of each level, to represent their expertise in magic. The Red Wizards really dislike Sorcerers (as they short-cut the years of devoted study and focus Red Wizards strive for, not to mention they cannot become specialists) so from a lore point of view Edwin the Sorceror does not make sense. So the extra spell is because he is a Red Wizard. But I figure the people who might want to make Edwin a sorceror would probably not be too keen on removing the bonus-granting amulet.

[cmorgan]

Well, folks, I am at anyone's disposal on this, and willing to work on anything that is codeable. I have already learned tons just helping play with the idea (unfortunately every time I learn something, the first thing I learn is that there is much more to learn ).

 

The good thing here is that if we get community action (say, someone builds a master 2da for all profs for all weapons for all possible classes/kit combos, and someone else grabs the "list of specialized additions to .cres"), we can tinker with with the details as we go.

 

That being said, you are right Andyr - I think that if you are adding a mod option which changes Edwin to a Sorcerer then you are completely ignoring the backstory and creating a new one. If so why should Edwin keep the cool amulet? If someone is desparate to change the class to a new one, and truly wants to give special advantages, then they can always SK or CLUA in something suitably powerful and invent their own backstory.

 

I'm not putting a damper on things; I'll help do legwork on any of this no matter what. I just think that if someone is going to radically change from the existing characters so that they do not fit the plot exactly as written, they should definitely expect that the Shiny New Katana is not available. Valgayar grew up in the slums of Amn, learning how to assassinate people ad therefore never had that silly long thing getting in the way. It was sold for gambling and extortion money somewhere along the way!

[Gorilym]

The Red Wizards really dislike Sorcerers (as they short-cut the years of devoted study and focus Red Wizards strive for, not to mention they cannot become specialists) so from a lore point of view Edwin the Sorceror does not make sense.

 

[silliness]

The part about Red Wizards disliking Sorcerers could actually work in favour of a sorcerer Edwin, as all the Red Wizards encountered in BG1 / 2 seem to dislike Edwin!

[/silliness]

 

That being said, you are right Andyr - I think that if you are adding a mod option which changes Edwin to a Sorcerer then you are completely ignoring the backstory and creating a new one. If so why should Edwin keep the cool amulet? If someone is desparate to change the class to a new one, and truly wants to give special advantages, then they can always SK or CLUA in something suitably powerful and invent their own backstory.

 

All true, my point about Edwin was that even if he retains his amulet / red wizard bonus as a sorcerer, one couldn't possibly expect him to get the specialist mage bonus as well - especially as he's no longer a specialist! (mind the minor tongue twister )

 

But I'll stop distracting, go back to your productive pursuits...

[Lemernis]

I'm into Forgotten Realms lore, as I think it adds depth to the characters. So FWIW I agree with Andyr.

 

I think there's lots of room to expand creatively within the bio for each character. But when a modification moves blatantly out of sync with FR lore, then the gameworld seems to lose some of its integrity (to me).

 

I mean, alternatively the game is there to have fun with however one wishes. No question about that. But FR is such an extensive and wonderfully detailed setting that it seems like more fun to deepen and enhance the lore that exists. Just one man's personal opinion.

[NiGHTMARE]

You also have the issue of whether to include classes that normally wouldn't be allowed due to the NPC's race and/or alignment.

[Azazello]

Again, people, you're talking 'story'. This mod is about playing with kits - story-be-damned. It's played for fun; nudge-nudge-wink-wink if a NPC is not using the class/kit optimally designated.

 

Call me UnAmerican for saying so, but I truly believe that whatever class/kit a player assigns to his/her NPCs, in the privacy of his/her own home, and that is not causing injury or suffering to someone else, is his/her own choice.

 

Yes, yes, assigning improper class/kits, like masturbation, kills a kitten (or kittens, never could get that one straight); still, until a pile of dead kittens start to appear, I say assign away.

 

I'm ready for the CRE creation thingy, but I'm not sure what is needed. Just make Level 1 versions for each NPC regardless of class/kit? Will the higher level versions be created via coding, or will manual versions be needed?

[Azazello]

cmorgan, feel free to concentrate on the BG1NPC release - especially the BGT version. We'll come back to this effort later.

[cmorgan]

Got it ... and I will do anything I can with BG1 NPC. The difference is that i can sometimes spend lunch hour or between lesson times working on the Wikki, but have to wait and spend what gaming time I have at home to work on BG1 NPC. Plus, frankly, I am in a corner on BG1 NPC, and this helps me learn more about how the game works. I am hoping that will translate into better BG1 NPC bugfixing.

 

The good news... on the vast majority of installs, as far as we know, there are extremely few (and no permanently game-stopping) bugs on either Tutu or BGT. There are far less than in any other version, and folks have been playing the mod for yeras, so it must be mostly ok! The bad news is that the remaining ones that are popping up are true head-scratchers, some of which are not replicable on my install. Just so you know, priority this week is 1. help with testing/compiling v197 of WeiDU so BG1 NPC folks can't accidentally permanently uninstall their Romance Timers when reinstalling a portion of BG1 NPC, 2. isolate the 10 BGT triggers associalted with X#JCLEAN so I can research whether Tutu needs similar fixing for BCS calls, and 3. build an area script assignment library so that Mac and Windows versions of Tutu v4 do not have problems with Drizzt's area (and any other ones that modders may run into where an area script is left unassigned).

 

If you make any progress on the .cres, please let me know - that wikki tp2 did install, just had big errors!

[Azazello]

Just a quick pop-in so say: thanks for all the efforts.

 

Nythrun, you and I are sharing psychic waves, as the idea of allowing players to pick any installed kit was something I wanted to write about for some time. I'm glad to see that it's not as difficult a process as I imagined.

 

I'm even more excited that it might be possible to create the CREs from scratch. Again our minds meld - I kept using the term 'Frankenstein' in my head.

EDIT: I'm even more excited that CRE creation might be avoided.

 

cmorgan, I love the Goal tag in the wiki. Exactly the point of the original mod, and this one too.

 

Hey, I got an Accounting exam to fail tomorrow, so I can't dedicated any respectable time to this now, but hopefully over the weekend.

[Guest Guest_Nythrun_*]

Wasn't sure if he'd reasonably had time to acquire any new equipment - so I'll exclude all versions of Yeslick too, thanks.

 

Looking at BG1NPC project has uncovered a snag: apparently some tutu creatures are using v1 eff structures in the .cre files (I had no idea).

 

I'm not sure if it's better to set them all to v2 and disregard existing effects, or try to maintain the orginal structures here; will have to do some testing.

[Miloch]

I think that having a weapon and helm should be fair enough for Branwen at any XP, but from memory, wasn't Yeslick a prisoner? It would make sense that he wouldn't have any posessions, regardless of his level.

Dynaheir was also a prisoner and possibly Branwen... in any case she was stoned (not sure what happens to "unpetrified" equipment in realistic terms, but either way it's perfectly plausible she had nothing special).

 

I picked this thread up somewhere midway and tried to trace it back to a description but without much luck. Could someone give me a short summary of what this mod is trying to do?

[Guest Guest_Nythrun_*]

Basically, it's:

1. Pick any joinable NPC you have
   
2. Assign them any class (and kit if you wish, chosen from whatever is in game)
   

That's all

[Kulyok]

Assign them any class (and kit if you wish, chosen from whatever is in game)

 

Does it mean it will work with any kits added by mods(not just, say, Divine Remix), provided this one is installed last?