Orions_Stardom

I recently suffered a tragic and mortifying loss: the 8(ish)-year-old laptop that I had been using to test NPC Tweak and the Multi Install Tool, died. This was mostly my fault, of course, for taking to it with a screwdriver. But still, it gave me pause to think about the ridiculousness of the situation. This machine was dedicated to running Baldur's Gate 2, and occasionally Icewind Dale 1, because I don't look at them near enough to justify dual-booting my main machine (running Linux) just for them.

With each new post to the NPC Tweak and Multi Install Tool forums proclaiming that something else doesn't work, or my latest attempt at a bug fix didn't work, I am reminded of the simple truth of it. There is no way I am qualified to maintain either of these tools. I do not know WeiDU - every bit of code that has been added to NPC Tweak since it moved to G3 has, AFAICR, been written by Cam. I rewrote the Multi Install Tool in order to make it more extensible to other games and platforms. It worked better (read: it worked) before.

When I started forums for 'Team Cabala, the yet-another-mod-team mod-team', and later when I renamed it to 'Team Limbo', I was in high school, and I was just beginning to take an interest in programming. When I moved to G3, I was a first-year undergraduate. MIT and NPC Tweak *were* my side-projects, to do between assignments and in holidays.

Now, I am hoping to start an Honours degree in the new year, and have - pending release of grades and one supplementary exam - done everything I can to earn my bit of paper. And I have other side-projects now, involving programs I use every day.

When I joined G3, there was almost every other week a post from another modder 'leaving f0revar!!11' (for, usually, the third or fourth time). Now it's my turn.

I have not payed any real attention to the goings-on of the modding community in nearly two years. I have not played an Infinity Engine game in nearly four. It is time for me to move on.

And, not to put words in his mouth, but I believe that andrewas has felt this way far longer than me.

I hope that new maintenance can be found for both of my projects. I hope that someone, somewhere, can justify putting in the time and effort required to make them work.

So, thank you Gibberlings 3. Thank you Cam, thank you andrewas. Thank you everyone who has reported bugs, and thank you everyone who has tried to help fix them.

I recently suffered a tragic and mortifying loss: the 8(ish)-year-old laptop that I had been using to test NPC Tweak and the Multi Install Tool, died. This was mostly my fault, of course, for taking to it with a screwdriver. But still, it gave me pause to think about the ridiculousness of the situation. This machine was dedicated to running Baldur's Gate 2, and occasionally Icewind Dale 1, because I don't look at them near enough to justify dual-booting my main machine (running Linux) just for them.

With each new post to the NPC Tweak and Multi Install Tool forums proclaiming that something else doesn't work, or my latest attempt at a bug fix didn't work, I am reminded of the simple truth of it. There is no way I am qualified to maintain either of these tools. I do not know WeiDU - every bit of code that has been added to NPC Tweak since it moved to G3 has, AFAICR, been written by Cam. I rewrote the Multi Install Tool in order to make it more extensible to other games and platforms. It worked better (read: it worked) before.

When I started forums for 'Team Cabala, the yet-another-mod-team mod-team', and later when I renamed it to 'Team Limbo', I was in high school, and I was just beginning to take an interest in programming. When I moved to G3, I was a first-year undergraduate. MIT and NPC Tweak *were* my side-projects, to do between assignments and in holidays.

Now, I am hoping to start an Honours degree in the new year, and have - pending release of grades and one supplementary exam - done everything I can to earn my bit of paper. And I have other side-projects now, involving programs I use every day.

When I joined G3, there was almost every other week a post from another modder 'leaving f0revar!!11' (for, usually, the third or fourth time). Now it's my turn.

I have not payed any real attention to the goings-on of the modding community in nearly two years. I have not played an Infinity Engine game in nearly four. It is time for me to move on.

And, not to put words in his mouth, but I believe that andrewas has felt this way far longer than me.

I hope that new maintenance can be found for both of my projects. I hope that someone, somewhere, can justify putting in the time and effort required to make them work.

So, thank you Gibberlings 3. Thank you Cam, thank you andrewas. Thank you everyone who has reported bugs, and thank you everyone who has tried to help fix them.

The current developmental series is 5.1.x ; the latest development release is 5.1.11.

The developmental versions contain up-to-the-minute features and bug fixes, but are basically untested. These versions may contain serious bugs, and should be treated as pre-alpha.

If you are not using these versions to help develop or test the Multi-Install Tool, please consider using the 5.0.x versions.

To be notified of new developmental versions as they become available, track this topic.

Links

• Readme
  
• Download the Multi Install Tool 5.1.11, for all platforms
  

Please see the readme for a full list of changes.

Given the vast differences in power between the average adventurer and unarmed townsfolk, I've never been a fan of seeing Commoners blithely ignoring their own frailty, doing stuff like wandering around in areas full of monsters, or walking right up to a heavily armed Fighter->Cleric and yanking his helmet right off his head.

Well, there is a guard.

Personally, instead of the Messenger script, I would favor the 'Unusable Item' method, where the items simply get replaced to reflect the fact that Anomen's gear has rejected him as he rejected his father's orders.

I'll think about changing this again,

About ANOPLAT.ITM: Is this the version that grants NPP, or the one that grants immunity to Blindness & Backstab?

According to the description, it grants NPP. Which means there's probably still the old bug where it casts NPP as soon as its put on, rather than granting it while equipped. Damn. This is what happens when I don't actually play the game, least of all with my own mod, for about 4 years.

The immunity-to-b-things one is what you sent me a couple of years ago, with your feedback on the mod, yes? If so, I think it unlikely that I would have ever put it in the public mod, for the same reason that I took this long to fix the rest of this component - various personal things got in the way, and I lost interest in this stuff. And, naturally, that email fell victim to my reliance on free-of-charge webmail - the ones that say 'if you don't login for x days, all your mail gets deleted... (I have logged into that account about once in the last 2 years - since I got gmail. I will find a proper solution one day.)

Rambling aside, though, it is the same plate that was in 2.7, unless I've done more work in the last 12 months than I think, but I don't think I have.

Code! Yay!

But wait, there's more: Cam and I (mostly Cam) have come up with a solution for the meta-gaming problem: if the party is outdoors in Athkatla, and picks up Anomen's heirlooms after you've decided to not kill Saerk, a messenger will appear and take them from you. They'll just dissapear if you pick them up inside the Delryn Estate.

Delryn estate code:

/*
* NPCTweak 'Anomen' component.
* AR1001.BCS Extension.
* Take Anomen's heirlooms if he isn't killing Saerk, and is at home.
*/

IF
OR(2)
	PartyHasItem("ANOHELM")
	PartyHasItem("NPSHLD")
GlobalGT("AnomenDecide", GLOBAL, 2) // We're not killing Saerk
THEN
RESPONSE #100
TakePartyItemAll("ANOHELM")
TakePartyItemAll("NPSHLD")
END

Right. Since the Anomen Component first came into existance, I've been using the most horrid mechanism I could come up with to take his heirlooms from him, and give his armour to him, and there've been numerous bugs over the last few years purely to do with this. These include, off the top of my head: the heirlooms are swapped with non-functioning versions of themselves instead of being taken away, infinite copies of these items can appear, no explanation is ever given in-game for anything, multiple copies of Anomen's Armour can be obtained, and I break Lilarcor somehow.

Now I got Windows 98 working on my BG2-enabled computer again, I have decided to finally lift myself off my arse, and fix these bugs. And since I decided the same about three years ago, and even had something coded which I subsequently forgot to publish and then lost, I'm stickying this topic so people keep bugging me until I actually fix it this time.

The current script uses vars that are set in dialogues, so the idea now is to use those dialogues directly to do the appropriates. This should ensure that everything only happens once, gives us a chance to explain what's going on, and should unbreak Lilarcor (however I broke it in the first place). It would probably be good to also have Cor remove the heirlooms from Anomen, rather than replacing them with non-functioning versions. CamDawg has also suggested that we should have a script aswell as this, which just takes the items, as a backup for the case where the heirlooms are put down before talking to Cor, and picked up again afterward. I'm still undecided as to whether we should do this - opinions welcome.

So, without further masses of prose, the technical side of it. According to Near Infinity, we need to:

TakePartyItemAll("ANOHELM");
TakePartyItemAll("NPSHLD");

At COR.DLG state 25 ("If you leave now you are forever banished from this place"), or 26 ("You are nothing, boy, nothing!"). Possibly want an extra state here to say about the items being taken - but the idea is possibly put well enough with what's there now.

And,

GiveItemCreate("ANOPLAT", "Anomen", 0, 0, 0)

At HPRELATE.DLG, state 6 ("Go, then, Sir Anomen, and serve the cause"). We DO need something here to explain the armour. Something like "You are granted this armour, with which to serve." would work, although it's more than a little corny. But then, so is everything else Anomen - we stick with that, unless something better comes along.

Which only leaves writing some Real Code to achieve this, and scrapping completely the old AnoTweak.baf .

With apologies to any potential users which we may still have,

Due to hinderances in our personal lives, our combined lack of creative writing skills, and the lack of work we've done on this project (essentially, what you see in this forum is it), andrewas and I have come to realise that this project is unlikely to go much further than where it is anytime soon. In other words, this mod is no longer officially being worked on. To this end, I have removed Third Way from the mod lineup on the wiki, and asked that this forum be moved into inactive.

Here's how I see it. Valygar entered the army and learned some soldiering skills, like any good patriotic noble kid. He grows up to be a fighter, shying away from the magical talents in his family. Yadda yadda yadda, then the planar shere show up and the Cowled Wizards start hunting him. He has to go into hiding. From his underground contacts who smuggle him out of the city and his ranger friends out in the country, he picks up a whole new set of skills -- thief skills. His ranger friends can teach him about some rangerly things, like stealth, but just being friends with rangers  wouldn't necessarily impart their druidic abilities.

Can you provide any in-game evidence for this particular chain of events? That is: is there any mention in game of how he picked up stealth, or is this just a way of filling in gaps? If the latter, I don't think it would fit in NPCTweak (but then, I could always be convinced otherwise).

Final note: why be so selective with this mod? Look at how the NPCkit mod allows you to choose any mage kit for imoen and Nalia -- why not pick the top three ideas from threads like this and make them all options during installation?

Because I aim for the solution that makes the most sense, rather than giving many options that all make more sense than the default.

My main selling point, though, is the describtion of the hathran (Dynaheir's class) in the FR:Campaign Setting, who is supposed to have a low level barbarian cohort escort her on her journey.. and presto! there is Minsc.

Would it be possible to provide a transscript of that description? As I've said before, I think it more important to look at the rationale of a rule than that rule itself. If we have available the description of that class, I think we could have a much better discussion on whether a barbarian Minsc would make more sense as Dynaheir's companion (as well as a more informed one). To my understanding of the Barbarian and Beserker classes, I think they would be equally appropriate for Minsc - but, like anything else, feel free to argue the point.

Rangers don't change racial enemies in 2e. 

The same rules that dictate that explicitly allow themselves to be overloaded in the name of a good story. Thus, as far as I'm concerned with the implementation of this mod, those rules can be ignored if they would leave a character eshcewed by their own personality. 'Because the rules say x, y, and z' is not a valid reason for something to be included, or not, in NPC Tweak.

Valygar has a fair amount of 'rangering' background in the game: he has a cabin in the iwlderness and it is there where he is hiding (as opposite to staying in the city). He is definetly well-aquainted with the local rangering populuce, since they protect him as one of their own. Stalker kit also gives a leeway there, saying that rangers of that kit are well accustomed in the cities. In a conversation with Mazzy Valygar speaks rather wistfully about stealth skills. His scouting background was already previously mentioned. If he wants to travel anywhere, it is Neverwinter as opposiute to Waterdeep as he mentions to Mazzy (ie wilder region vs civilized region). He speaks of his father as of a man with a merry laughter and love of the wilderness - and who but a ranger or druid would put this into a convo about his dear dead father? He is also quite terrified by his parents turning undead - a non-direct pointer on the 'nature' connection.

 

But what background there is to make him a Kensai? As far as we know he had never traveled East or anywhere beside Amn for that matter.  Even his katana is not *his* per se - it is a hereditary blade that could have been aquired as a curio by one of his mage-anscestors who played around with enchanting it. His hatred of magic gives a reasonable grounds to make him into a Wizard Slayer imo, but a master of the sword that spends his whole life perfecting his swordplay? He seems to be too guarded of a character for that. Plus he comes from a traditional noble family; if he would have gotten any training at all in sword play in his youth it would have been traditional style, ie heavy armor; and his military training would be all about sneaking around, cutting thorats quietly if he has to, rather than about flashy one on one mortal combats.

 

Uhm, sorry about the rant. I am sort of attached to Valygar and all things valygarish.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Now that is the type of justification I wish I could do.

Unless anyone has objections, as of the next release Valygar will no longer be turned into a kensai.

For the original suggestion of rebalancing his armour, I think that is more suited to an item mod than an NPC mod.

And for changing his racial enemy, what makes lich more suitable than golem?

Arcane Nalia

 

I've wondered...why is a noble like Nalia a thief? Sure, they wanted to give her a Robin Hood-like theme, but quite honestly...a level 4 thief doesn't do much in BG2, except when you start using potions and such. Aside from that, there are three Mage/Thief characters in the original game, two of which dualclassed, and only one single-classed mage, who can't even use Identify. My suggestion? Change Nalia into a single-classed Invoker. Give her a normal staff and 40 normal darts as her initial equipment, and change her spellbook to avoid including Conjuration/Summoning spells. These lost spells can be replaced with some equally useful spells from other schools (Agannazer's Scorcher instead of Acid Arrow, for example). Her stats could remain as they are.

 

Yes, Nalia's thief class makes sense in the story, I suppose, but that's beside the point.

Idobek summed it up quite nicely

Valygar Tweaks

 

Valygar is wary of arcane magic. He doesn't trust it. Then...um...why is he a Stalker, who get three arcane spells as priest spells? Change him into an Archer or Ranger instead. That way he will retain his ranger-like nature, while not including any arcane magic into his available spells. Alternately, just remove the three arcane spells from his book (though that would be a disadvantage to his Stalker kit). Or perhaps change Valygar's kit into Wizard Slayer.

 

Valygar's leather armor is quite powerful. The only stronger suit of leather I've encountered is the Shadow Dragon Scale, in SoA at least. It offers a lot of protection and a great AC. In comparison to other NPC's, his armor is probably one of the most powerful NPC-linked item available. I'd suggest toning it down a little, offering a weaker AC bonus and removing some of those extra resistances, now giving a protection against magic.

As it stands, we change Valygar into a Kensai and remove his armour (since Kensais can't wear armour). Main reason I don't like Archer or plain Ranger is because I don't think he behaves very much like a ranger at all - but if he is a ranger, I agree with Domi that Stalker makes the most sense.

Anomen Tweaks

 

When Anomen fails his test, he gains nothing special, aside from different dialogues. I'd say...when he turns to Chaotic Neutral, change his charisma to 11 or 10, and raise his wisdom to 14. Hopefully that will better reflect his more rebellion personality, and the fact he has learned something new from his bad experiences.

What has he learned? It doesn't seem to me he understands anything more, or that he accepts what happened.

But, if you can justify any of these things with in-game evidence, I will definately implement them.

A bug is, well, a bug. It's anything that isn't right, from a broken install routine to an erroneous apostrophe. All information on all bugs is welcomed.

A bug report should be as detailed as possible - prefer extra information to terseness, even if that information is potentially irrelevant.

As a guide, try to include the following:

• Your version of the Multi-Install Tool.
   
  
• What is wrong.
   
  
• Why this is wrong (and what you would expect).
   
  
• If it's during gameplay, when you see it.
   
  
• Anything else that can help to reproduce the problem.
  

Please report each new bug in a new thread. Also, please include some detail about the bug in the title, as well as your version of the Multi Install Tool.

Also, see if it has been reported before - adding detail to an existing bug, rather than posting a new report, is often less work for you and more helpful for us.

This forum should also be used for feature requests.

Feel free to contribute code or ideas to fixing any bug. All input is welcomed and appreciated.

A bug is, well, a bug. It's anything that isn't right, from a broken install routine to an erroneous apostrophe. All information on all bugs is welcomed.

A bug report should be as detailed as possible - if you think it's a little on the long side, it's probably just right.

As a guide, try to include the following:

• What is wrong.
  
• Why this is wrong (and what you would expect).
  
• If it's only noticable after specific events have occurred in-game (if this isn't already obvious).
  
• Anything else that can help to reproduce the problem.
  

Also, see if it has been reported before.

Feature requests should also be posted to the forums. Please include the words 'Feature Request' in the title or subtitle of the post.