TotalMilk90

Yeah I think the inns/taverns can be justified because it is a pretty major travel hub with lots of traders/travelers going through. The single map does make it seem small though so I get it. The City Watch I added is just a handful of Beregost Citizens who want to help police the town since the thieves have been more active. Looking at the wiki though, it says the town is actually protected by about 200 guards from the Temple, as well as the Flaming Fist. A lot more than I would have thought. Pretty neat actually. 

1 hour ago, jastey said:

I'd like to add crossmod with BST's smugglers.

I'm all for it.

Quest spoilers:

15 hours ago, moggadeet said:

And one more thing, since she's intended for both BGEE and SoD - do you intend to offer different SoD dialogue depending on whether or not she was recruited in BGEE? Extra dialogue that a lot of players might not even see is a nuisance, but dialogue that fails to account for "we have literally never met" or "We painted each other's toenails! I thought we were besties!" is pretty immersion-breaking.

Haven’t made it this far but yes that will give me something to think about.

2 hours ago, jastey said:

Ajantis was Keldorn's squire.

I don’t think I ever knew this. That’s pretty cool honestly 

Cool thanks for the recommendations! I’ll take a look through those, and maybe even play some through and see what I can learn 

Man I forgot how fun and addicting modding can be. I’ve really been getting deep into this mod lately, cleaning things up and adding more content.

One major thing I’ve been working on is better choices for good-aligned players, instead of targeting innocents you’re going after fences, slavers and thieves. At least that’s how I wrote the lore for some existing characters. I also made an optional quest for the black lotus smuggling since I couldn’t justify a good character doing that for any realistic reason.

I’ve added a City Watch to Beregost who good players can align with to fight back  and eradicate the thieves guild.

Now, since thief rp is more my style, I’ve made up for the “good” route by adding some optional guild quests that get real street level. Back alley muggings, city watch murdering, rival thief battling, stealing, looting the whole nine. All on the side streets of Beregost after lights out.

I’m also working on a new mod with an npc attached, Circle of The Grey Ribbon, where you join a Church of Mask. This one will be a little more dark and evil, but won’t see much progress until I’ve finished up with the Gorgon updates.

9 hours ago, jastey said:

On the same time, spare too exotic / special backgrounds.

I almost fell victim to this at first, really just because it was fun to think about , but then my better judgment kicked in.

6 hours ago, Isewein said:

they must needs have some connection to the story of the game, be that through their own stake in the matter of the Iron / Bhaalspawn crisis

That would be nice, especially concerning the iron crisis.

5 hours ago, mickabouille said:

(Of course, you'll have as many contradictory preferences as you get responses )

I really like all the different perspectives, I’ve actually never played an npc mod before but I think I’m going to try out a few to get a feel for them play wise 

3 hours ago, Lava said:

I would love to see a mod about two tieflings struggling to open a bakery

Now it needs to happen 

Gratitude for the detailed response! These are all great ideas and exactly the kind of helpful insight I was looking for.

4 hours ago, moggadeet said:

An imperfect/flawed character (both narratively and mechanically). Perfect people tend to be unconvincing and flat.

Interesting point. Not something I originally thought about, but now I totally agree. Being flawed can give them a chance to grow and mature as the story progresses which could add more depth and relatability to the character. I will be keeping this in mind when I get more into it.

4 hours ago, moggadeet said:

Unique kits or underrepresented classes are certainly a plus.

Cool. I love new kits/spells/abilities and all that as long as they have a realistic progression. If I can do it right, I plan on making a kit for thief/cleric multi class involving Mask.

4 hours ago, moggadeet said:

Everyone likes them. A well-written character is going to have conflicts of some sort - maybe not extreme ones, but they're not going to get along with everyone.

This one is giving me some fun ideas. Looking at you Ajantis. (sorry jastey) 

4 hours ago, moggadeet said:

It's specifically race and gender romance reqs that I personally find somewhat irritating at times, though of course any character should be expected to have preferences.

Well said and I agree with both points. 

Again, thanks a lot for taking the time to share these. It's all great advice that I'll be thinking of along the way.

Awesome! Thanks, I was missing the EVALUATE_BUFFER

@jmerry @jastey

Thanks for the lessons. My understanding of dialog was not at that level. The 2da files look really convenient and I wasn't aware of those at all. Also thanks for the link, I am interested in reading through it today.

Regarding the cpmvar, are you saying use its joined dialog file line in lieu of the "J"?
For instance, monty in the cpmvar list:  OUTER_SPRINT "MONTARON_JOINED" "MONTAJ"

Would simply be:

INTERJECT_COPY_TRANS h_yumild 1 imotoyum1
  == %MONTARON_JOINED% IF ~IsValidForPartyDialogue("Montaron")~ THEN
    ~I've always loved a good ghost story.~
END

Does handling it this way require adding anything to my tp2 file? 

I only vaguely remember using some of these for eet compatibility and that was a while ago.
 

Actually, thanks! That worked on my test block.
 

I was using Lava’s White Queen mod as reference which uses the J, but I assumed that was just a bg2 thing so it never crossed my mind to try it.

I've been adding interjections into my Gorgon's Eye mod, but for some reason Imoen's are the only ones that are actually triggering. I went back to this test block with other companions after noticing they weren't working. It's just a simple one-liner said to a mod-added creature in the middle of their dialog.

This will work:

INTERJECT_COPY_TRANS h_yumild 1 imotoyum1
  == IMOEN2 IF ~IsValidForPartyDialogue("Imoen")~ THEN
    ~I've always loved a good ghost story.~
END

This will not work:

INTERJECT_COPY_TRANS h_yumild 1 imotoyum1
  == AJANTI IF ~IsValidForPartyDialogue("Ajantis")~ THEN
    ~I've always loved a good ghost story.~
END

For all non-Imoen companions, I can see that their interjections are being added to their dialog file, but not only do they not trigger, they also force the conversation to close instead of continuing to the next dialog block.

Seems weird, but maybe I'm missing something? Anything insight would be appreciated.

I have an outline for a new npc with a small story/quest attached. Female, cleric/thief, evil, romanceable, for BG:EE and SoD only currently.
 

Im just looking for a few thoughts from people who have played or made npc mods about what types of things are generally good ideas you like to see in them, or conversely what are some common pitfalls they might fall into that may not be so obvious?

I like it a lot and think it’s a great idea. I always get more enjoyment out of passive skill upgrading vs getting new abilities. I think it adds a better sense of level progression.

Any plans to do other classes too?

37 minutes ago, Clockwerk said:

Rogue Rebalancing does this and uses backslashes to display the brackets, i.e. \[Intelligence\].

Personally I've always liked it.

Works perfect, thanks for that!

34 minutes ago, jastey said:

How did ( ) not work for you? I use text like ~(He smiles.) Blabla~ without problems.

You're right I mixed it up, I tried a bunch of different characters it must have been {} that didn't work.

Yes, thank you I noticed that as well. I could not use parenthesis either ()

Oh that is a neat idea actually and a good point, thanks for sharing

I really liked this mechanic in KOTOR games where it would show what stat is giving you extra dialog choices. I'm thinking it might be cool to add this feature to my mod instead of it being hidden, so you'll know that you're getting secret dialog.

My only concern is that it may look out of place since stat checks are not shown like this any other time throughout the game.

What do you guys think? Will choices like #4 on this look odd? This specific example would only appear if the PC has a wisdom score of 16+.

On 6/2/2023 at 1:31 PM, Glittergear said:

Just wanted to say that I'm really enjoying the mod!

Thanks, I’m glad you like it and I really appreciate the feedback!

Glad you got it figured out and are enjoying it, thanks!

On 3/16/2023 at 11:47 PM, Brogan said:

I noticed over on the Beamdog forums somebody mentioned the only way to get the quests with a paladin is via an alignment changing item, correct?

Sorry the late response but yes that should work. The guild leaders initial dialog only checks for lawful good so once you get past that you can play the rest of the mod with any alignment. 

Sorry you’re having trouble!

In a previous quest Baldwin should have moved from his usual spot to over where Rigaldo is. He should be pretty close behind him. If he’s not there now, do you ever remember him being there? There should have been a forced dialog with him and Ariosh in that spot when the bombs quest first started.

That’s a good idea. If I add it to his inventory I could make 3 different outcomes with the quest giver. Killing gerard, pickpocketing, or doing it the way the guild asks through intimidation could all end the quest differently.

The only real problem is that second possible quest with Gerard is fairly major so if he dies there’s a lot of finagling I’d have to do for it to make sense and imo would lessen the story.

On 11/8/2022 at 1:31 PM, Endarire said:

How could/should the quest be modified to allow Gerard to die and still proceed?  Would someone be open to reviving him?  What about having someone else replace him?

For the sake of not getting roadblocked I could add the item to his inventory and there could be new dialog when you turn the quest in if you kill him saying it wasn’t an ideal outcome or something.

For his next quest, him being revived could actually fit in and make sense but honestly I see it as too much effort for one small instance. I’ll consider it though because the second part is important. 

7 hours ago, ahungry said:

There's a quest issue - if you kill Gerard for the pendant, he won't drop it (I chose to kill him despite his innocent status, when using the dialogue implying he/his guards would die).

Similarly, it should probably be on him as a base item for pick pocket purpose as well?

Thank you!

This was done intentionally because Gerard needs to be alive for another quest that he's involved in. The dialog choices are actually based off your strength and have 2 different ways that it can play out. If you threaten to kill him and he sends his guards after you, he will toe the line after they are dead and give you the pendant if you talk to him.

The guild doesn't want you to kill Gerard, they just want you to scare him into paying his dues again. That's also why it's not pick pocketable, it's really more of an intimidation/extortion quest than just a fetch job.