Fiars mod! Yet another fanmade BG2 mod begins!

[Bardess]

BG players of the Realms! I dare announce thee a new joinable NPC mod for BG2!

 

I wanted to create my own NPC since first I saw the huge selection of fanmade mods - that was three or four years ago, as I am very young and I was, like, 9 when BG2 came out and wasn't introduced to it right away. Later, I came to adore the game and now I consider it the best PC game ever (with due respect to PlaneScape:Torment, as well).

 

There are many joinable NPC mods, both completed and in progress, that I find worthy of notice and tempting to play. But... Hells, there are so many of them that if you were to, say, write a romanceable NPC mod, you'd have to write more fanmade-NPC-conflicts than actual romance content! Or so it seems to me. And, yes, poor Anomen!

So I still sometimes feel as if we are desecrating the game by installing or creating them... But I'll do it, too, either way!

 

Speaking of creating mods... Fiars is my first one, and I'm still learning things. So far, I've made him appear in the game, learned (I hope) how to write dialogues and I'm still keeping a lot of guides and tutorials on coding and stuff that kind people directed me to. Should you be willing to check what problem is on tap today and help me, you can find the topic HERE.

 

To start with, I have some dialogues and banters for Fiars that I've written last summer, and a few that I did now as well. The old ones need changes, though.

 

About the time it will take me to complete the mod, I have to confess I've absolutely no idea (which doesn't mean it will happen in 5 years either). In general, I love writing things, but I know the inspiration takes me once in a month or so, when I'm able to write two whole new chapters of some story of mine, and then it passes again. That's why I don't know.

 

And here's what is known about Fiars:

 

Race: Human

Class: Assassin

Alignment: Neutral Evil

Str: 16

Dex: 18

Con: 14

Int: 15

Wis: 11

Cha: 14

(Age: about 30)

Background(a short and messy one, not his bio): edit: Ok, he was born a noble in Waterdeep, but considers himself a Luskanite!, because... Twelve years ago, his parents got killed by some bad people (he'll tell you about it in the game). Life grew hard on his younger sister and him, so they left their fancy estate (and a lot of unpaid debts) and joined an assassins guild in Luskan. Ever competing between the two of them, they soon became the guild's elite. Their competitions, however, ended in a parting of ways...

 

I already have some general ideas, but I would like you to tell me if you have any opinions regarding this mod, or any questions that might inspire me to more creative thinking.

 

Note: I came across an NPC mod - Vanim, also a neutral evil assassin. It is not finished, right? I would have liked to play it if it was, but never mind. I'm making my own assassin (I had the idea about Fiars long before I saw the Vanim project).

[berelinde]

Best wishes, and good luck! It's a lot of fun, if you can bear the intermittent frustration.

[Domi]

Don't worry too much about your character resembling someone's other character's class/alignment. Mods are mods. An evil character is nice for a change.

 

My only note will be that unless it is very important for your story that the NPC is from Luskan, Waterdeep might work a bit better for the backstory. Luskan is on the rough side, a frontier town where the pirate lords vie for influence with the Hosttower mages. So nobility is less likely and pirates are more likely to be pr ominent than thieves.

[BigRob]

Good luck to you Bardess, an NPC is a lot of work, but they can be very satisfying to watch unfold and your idea has a lot of potential.

 

Domi does have a point that Luskan is not a city where nobility have much presence, but it could be a good place to find the kind of people who'd form an assassin's guild, so heading north to a frontier city to get away from debts seems a natural way to get there.

[Bardess]

Ok, so he doesn't have to be born in Luskan, but he spent most of his time there I guess I just like Luskan because there are bad people there...

[berelinde]

He could have fled there.

 

I'm sure Waterdeep has its shadier side, too. As the pampered son of nobility, he might have sought out a rough crowd for social interaction, too.

[Bardess]

Hey, that sounds good.

 

I'm so worried about Fiars' personality and whether I am able to make him original. It's the same as writing stories with me - one day I feel like it and everything looks fine, the next one - it seems to me it is all in vain... But the more I hang in here, the more will I have.

[berelinde]

When you feel inspired to write, write. When you don't feel like you're writing at your best, learn coding. When you don't feel like you can manage that, you can always do planning or fiddle with the portrait, or just look for good interjection points.

 

I've found that it never works to try to force writing.

[Bardess]

And when I get sick of it all, I'll cry out for help.

 

A question: how many NPC initiated dialogs do modders usually make for an NPC? I somehow think more than 15 - 20tops would be a little too much. For now, I've only planned the exact content of Fiars's friendly talks (if you can consider a man that expresses his desire to kill you in the first of those talks your friend).

Still planning a female PC romance mod. I'm a bit against PC-initiated dialogs, because those don't exist in the original game. Then again, they usually do in mods and make fanmade NPCs somewhat more real. I'm adding those now. (That's what I feel like writing at the moment. Besides, it's the only thing I learned how to script without problems, for now. I've included the ~(Hit Fiars!)~ option as well ). As for the NPC-initiated flirts, I don't think Fiars needs them very much.

[berelinde]

For your standard BioWare NPC (romance):

 

2 banters with each BioWare NPC for SoA, 1 each for ToB

30-50 interjections including Tree of Life, slayer transformation, and a couple other notable ones

20-25 love talks with the PC

Bodhi abduction

 

and that's about it.

 

For your standard mod NPC (romance), double the number of banters, double (at least!) the number of interjections, probably about the same number of lovetalks, 10-15 talks for a friendship path, player-initiated dialogue, NPC-initiated flirting, a quest.

[Bardess]

Gee, I didn't realize Anomen had that much to say! (though I never let him speak for too long). Is there a way for me to find other NPC's dialogs and banters? I looked for them via Infinity Explorer, but didn't find any lovetalks. Also, I'd like to read all of BioWare's NPC banters.

[Neferit]

I think that DLTCEP is better I use it almost all the time I've downloaded it. So maybe you should try it, too

[Kaeloree]

Bardess, if you would like to read all of Bioware's NPC banters, you can download them at the Sorcerers Place. Let me just find you a link... You can download it here

 

Good luck with Fiars! He certainly sounds fascinating, can't wait to hear and see more!

[Bardess]

Oooh, thank you, Kaeloree. I've been searching through the dialogue files on my own, but they're all in a mess and this is much better.

 

Oh, and I'll try to check out DLTCEP.

 

Made a new portrait And a working one, too

[berelinde]

Nice portrait. Much more BG!