ABlake

That's right. Have you used NearInfinity before, btw? It's very user-friendly, and just for this purpose, it is easy too. Just launch it, expand the ARE section in the left panel, then locate the problematic area. From there, in the Actors list, find your way to the .CRE files, and you'll be able to inspect/modify its animation. You just need to know the area code of that area. For example, the Copper Coronet is AR0406.ARE, and the initial Underdark area is AR2100.ARE.

The Moinesse Ninja actually does show up in my installation, apparently because I also have it installed. Only the two faulty duergars' animations show up as "unknown". I never tried the ninja anim before, so I didn't know. Just now I tried it, and it crashed my game too. But then, I never installed Infinity Anim fully properly. Only bits and pieces, and mostly manually. Glad that this works out for you. However, as Vlan pointed out, you might run into this same problem in the future. This happened to me too, a long time ago, and I figured it out the hard way. Most likely there are other creatures in your game that use faulty animations, and the game will crash without being able to finish loading the area they are in. My advice is, if you would spend some time figuring out how to use NearInfinity to open and edit .CRE files, this would help you fix similar issues if you run into them again. The idea is, if an area fails to load, you can use NearInfinity to open that area (.ARE file), then go through all the .CRE's in that area, see if any of them has "unknown" or suspicious animation, and make necessary changes.

Is it crashing without finishing loading now? If yes, it means we're still at the "faulty animation" part. I'm a bit skeptical about the "Ninja" one, you know. Try the file I'm attaching here; I changed his animation from "moinesse ninja" to normal thief human. If no, then it's a different problem... ishadmt1.cre

I think to solve the CRE issue, you'll probably need to change the animation of all the duergars in that area to the non-LOW version - just FIGHTER_MALE_DWARF and MAGE_MALE_DWARF. Why don't you upload all the duergar CRE's files (the ones you originally have in override), then one of us will change them to the non-LOW versions for you. See what happens. As for the occasional crash, this *could* be a bad effect / bad target. Whenever the associated creature performs that action, it crashes the game.

I just noticed that, but the vanilla one also uses that animation. Besides, the other dwarfs also use the "LOW" animation, but apparently only the mage is causing the crash, if you're using the vanilla CRE's? The fighter duergars use the FIGHTER_MALE_DWARF_LOW animation, while the mage uses the MAGE_MALE_DWARF_LOW one.

Wait this file is the one you originally have, or the vanilla one? Because I don't see any problem with this one...

Yeah well if it's a "mage" problem, then there's another mage (the female shadow thief mage) in that area (and one of the assassins can also cast spells). If it's a "duergar" problem, then there's a few more of 'em... But this gotta be a CRE problem, not a script problem, because most creatures in that area won't do anything until a PC enters their line of sight. Maybe the duergars are trying to equip two ranged weapons at once or something (or maybe shield + crossbow). Now if you would go back to the files you originally have, try removing all the duergar ones. Or try removing those that are similar in some way.

I'm starting to get the feeling there are more than one problems here. One faulty CRE (since the loading couldn't finish before, but now it can), and now some script is doing something illegal too... Hold on a sec and I'll try to collect some vanilla scripts for you to try. In the mean time, you could try deleting the .CRE files one by one and launch the game, see when exactly the game *can't* finish the loading. What would make this worse is maybe some spell/effect has bad target...

Ok, try this: I attach here all the CRE files in that area from vanilla game. Extract these into your override folder. I know this is quite a lot of files, but you can just delete them later. This is to see if this is a CRE problem - maybe a creature has illegal animation or is equipped with illegal equipment set. vanilla CRE.rar If this fixes it, then you can start deleting the vanilla files one by one, then we'll be able to tell which one was causing the crash, exactly.

IIRC the first one of the two loading screens would be the autosave, then the next one is the loading of the area. It's hard to tell judging by the log. Do you see any error message in the ToBEx window when the game crash? More often than not this offers an idea what might be the issue (corrupted animation, or some creature equipping two crossbows at once or something similar). Something I might try is, if you have the area AR0603.ARE in your override folder, then move it somewhere else, then retry reloading the area. We can narrow somewhat possible causes of the crash. The next step to try would be to inspect the area script, then move on to individual creature in the area.

According to the report there's a "read out of bounds" error with SPWI202.SPL, "llegal 2-byte read from offset 2402 of 2402-byte file SPWI202.SPL", which is what stopped the installation. I don't know what exactly is wrong with this file, but SPWI202 is supposed to be Detect Alignment and has nothing to do with charm effects, so a quick fix you could try is to locate the file SPWI202.SPL in your override folder, move it somewhere else, install the mod, then move it back in after installation, and hopefully there won't be any other issue with any other file. If your SPWI202 really is Detect Alignment, then that should be it. But if you have some other mod that for some reason changes SPWI202 to a charm spell, then you might need to change it yourself manually later, but I guess we don't have to worry about this yet.

Looks to me like the problem that stopped the parsing is that, in the old BG games the "face" argument (which indicates which direction the creature is facing upon creation) of the CreateCreature action has to be an integer - AFAIK. 0 = S 4 = W 6 = NW 14 = SE and so on. In the EE games you can replace the integer with the actual letters like S or W or NW and it would work. So a line like CreateCreature("TENYA",[536.648],S) would work in the EE games but when you put it in the old games they won't like the "S" at the end there. You have to replace it with 0 (the character faces south upon creation). I guess one way of taking care of this particular error would be to locate and open up the files with problem - in this case AR8100.baf, and it seems PUMBERL.d too - and manually change the letters to the corresponding integers, then run the installer again. Probably not the most elegant way, and it also means messing with the original files of the mod. If there is a process designed to perform this conversion, there should be some other way of fixing it. Not to mention there seem to be other problems during the parsing too. You should wait for more input from others who are more knowledgeable about this conversion process.

Glad I could help. AFAIK, Item Revisions and Spell Revisions do not modify existing strings. They append new strings to dialog.tlk. So your custom strings should be fine. And Spell Revisions doesn't touch items, aside from some weapons created by spells (Black Blade of Disaster, Phantom Blade, etc.) and summoned monsters' natural weapons (Familiars' weapons too, I believe). Make a backup copy of your dialog.tlk before you install mods just to be on the safe side. Of course, if you have made any personal modifications to vanilla items and spells, there will be conflicts. If you run into any problems, uninstalling the mods will *probably* restore things to the way they were. If you want to be more thorough, make a backup copy of your entire Override folder. If you want to be even more thorough, make a backup copy of your entire installation folder : D But this is probably not necessary.

There are two .IDS files involved: PROJECTL.IDS and MISSILE.IDS. With DLTCEP you open the Edit tab, then select Identifiers. First you need to add the name of the custom .PRO file to PROJECTL.IDS and give it a unique ID number. There are two columns in PROJECTL.IDS. The first is the ID number for the projectile, and the second is the name of the .PRO file. Let's say your new projectile is TEST.PRO, then in the PROJECTL.IDS, you need to add a new line, enter a UNIQUE number (hexadecimal or decimal), then write TEST after it. You can uncheck "Hexadecimal" to convert all ID numbers to decimal. To make sure the number is unique, you can check "Order by value". Next is MISSILE.IDS. This is not required, but it is recommended. This file also has two columns: the first is the ID number, and the second is the name you want to call your projectile - preferably a self-explanatory name. Let's say your TEST.PRO is an alternate projectile for Storm of Vengeance, and you want to call it "New Storm of Vengeance". So in MISSILE.IDS you want to enter a new line, enter the ID number, then write New Storm of Vengeance after the ID. One thing to keep in mind: the ID numbers in MISSILE.IDS are ONE UNIT HIGHER than their corresponding values in PROJECTL.IDS. So if your TEST.PRO has an ID value of 400 in PROJECTL.IDS, then in MISSILE.IDS you have to give it 401 as ID value. This is because in MISSILE.IDS there is an extra entry called "None" at the beginning that takes up the value 1. If you don't add your custom projectile to MISSILE.IDS, it still shows up in the list of projectiles when you want to add it to a spell, it just doesn't have a self-explanatory name. All this will make more sense when you open up the two .IDS files and read them. After you have registered the new projectile properly, you can open a spell, then navigate to the "Projectile animation" field. The new projectile will show up with its corresponding ID, name of the .PRO file, and the self-explanatory name that you call it. EDIT: Yes Item Revisions and Spell Revisions are mods for BG2. I've never tried searching for a tutorial for making projectiles. I did a quick search, didn't really find anything. I just figured things out myself over time. Some probably handle projectiles using code, but I prefer to open stuff up and manually make changes.

As far as I can tell, yes, if you have a familiar in SoA, when you're in ToB the game will detect that and move the familiar to your main character. You can verify that by checking BALDUR25.BCS.

By "paralysis" did you mean like some sort of "debuff"? In my experience there are several properties that tend to go along with each element type: - Fire: damage over time, panic - Cold: slow, or frozen (there could be other effects accompanying slow, such as AC and to hit penalties) - Acid: damage over time, AC penalty - Electricity: short duration stun - Earth: some hold kind of effect, like the Stonehold property that Item Revisions gives the Staff of Earth - Magic: up to you, I guess. Maybe some sort of magic disruption effect that applies casting failure? The ranged attack for each type of element should be easy enough to do. There are enough projectiles in the game you should be able to find one fitting for each element. Then there's only the matter of damage amount. The key problem here as I see it is what "projectile" to use for the spells. For example, for a single target lightning spell you can simply make use of the lightning bolt. Single target fire spell: fire arrow, or fireball without AoE explosion. Acid: acid arrow, or the "Acid Blob" projectile. Cold: ice arrow, or blue fireball without explosion. Earth: there's nothing that deals "earth" damage in the game, even though it's a legit element. You'll just have to be creative with this one. You could make something like what the Ring of the Ram does, using the "Small Comet" projectile, and dealing crushing damage. Magic: magic missile projectiles - how many projectiles depending on how powerful you intend for the spell to be. Same with the AoE spells. You have to decide what kind of projectiles you want to use. How powerful the spells are is also a factor that could affect this. I mean, if you use the visual effects of Meteor Swarm, you kinda expect the results to be dramatic too. If you're just using the visual effect of a fireball explosion, maybe not so much. One thing that should be really useful to you is how to modify projectiles: color, speed, number of repetitions, and so on. For example, for a cold AoE spell, you can just use the projectile of Code of Cold, which is a cone. Or you can remove the "cone-shaped" flag so that it will become a full-circle explosion, just like what Sunfire does. As for what exactly each spell does, I think you should start simple. Then gradually come up with things that make sense to you. You could look into Item Revisions and Spell Revisions and maybe the rule books too for ideas. Acid Fog, Incendiary Cloud from Spell Revisions, or Prismatic Explosion from Item Revisions (an ability of the Prismatic Chain), for example.

1) Oh, you're asking how to make a spell that when cast gives you a list of sub-spells to choose from. The parent spell needs to use the effect "Select Spell" (opcode 214), then the Resource should point to a .2DA file in which you list the names of all the sub-spells. For example, the SPWI510.2DA is the list for all the Spell Immunity sub-spells. The middle column lists all the sub-spells: SPWI590.SPL (Immunity: Abjuration), SPWI591.SPL (Immunity: Conjuration), and so on. If you mean a MACE.SPL spell creating a MACE.ITM item, then there's no problem. 3) When using the effects "THAC0 vs. type bonus" (opcode 178) and "Damage vs. type bonus" (opcode 179) in an .EFF file, the Parameter 3 specifies the bonus amount. AFAIK, this way only allows you to specify a fixed amount. Like I said, to make it a varying amount, you need to use .EFF files as on-hit effects using opcode 12 "Damage". In unmodded BG2, Daystar uses the EVILHIT2.EFF as a "While equipped" effect which has "THAC0 vs. type bonus" with Parameter 3 = 2, target = MASK_EVIL. So it gives +2 bonus to hit against all Evil targets. It also has DBLDEAD.EFF as an on-hit effect, which adds 1D8 + 2 magic damage to undead every hit ("double damage"). With Item Revisions installed, Daystar uses EVILHIT2.EFF, EVILDAM2.EFF (+2 damage against Evil), and UDDMG6.EFF (+6 damage against undead), all as equipped effects. Other than that, Daystar also lets you cast Sunray (SPPR707.SPL). In unmodded game the spell can deal a huge amount of damage (1000+) to undead in general. With Spell Revisions installed, it only deals that damage to vampires and shadow-type undead. You do this by attaching .EFF files with opcode 177 "Use EFF file", IDS target = GENERAL, IDS value = UNDEAD (for specific types of undead you need to select IDS target = CLASS or RACE), then the .EFF files themselves use opcode 12 "Damage" which specifies the amount of damage done by the .EFF files. Sunray itself uses UNDDEATH.EFF which in unmodded game deals 1000 (fixed amount) + 14D6 magic damage.

The tasks you mentioned are fairly straightforward to do, but how long or detailed the answers for your questions should be depends on how familiar you are with using the editors to modify game data. A step-by-step instruction might be a bit long. I'm just writing the short versions here for now: 1) Main thing: you use the effect "Protection from spell school" (opcode 204). There are other parameters to set up which depend on the nature of the spell. One quick way to make a spell like this is to make a copy of one of the vanilla Spell Immunity sub-spells, change the corresponding school to what you want, delete all redundant effects. 2) You modify the .2DA file corresponding to the class/kit of that character. CLABFI01.2DA, for example, corresponds to the true fighter. Each column represents a level. You just need to add the innate to the levels at which the character is supposed to gain the innate. Making a kit just for your own personal installation doesn't require any coding in most cases. There are quite a few steps involved and a bunch of files to modify. You can refer to this guide for instruction http://forums.pocketplane.net/index.php?topic=630.0. If it's just for your own use, you only need to work through Part 1 and Part 2. 3) Typically, you attach an .EFF file to the weapon. There are two variations: either as an equipped effect, or as an on-hit effect. If you want to add a fixed amount of damage, you can attach the .EFF as an equipped effect that is always active and gives you bonus damage to a specific type of target. If you want to add a varying amount, like 1D8 + 2 extra damage every hit, for example, then attach the .EFF file as an on-hit effect which procs against a specific type of target.

I'd put the code in BALDUR.BCS and BALDUR25.BCS. The code should be pretty short, so that shouldn't be a big deal. But it can't be just a piece of code, I imagine. As I see it, you first need a custom "spell" that sets party movement rate to 150%, which is to be applied whenever there is no combat. Whenever combat happens, the game needs to remove that spell's effects from your party. And then there's also the problem of when a companion is no longer in party. You probably need to put a piece of code in each companion's personal script to cancel that spell whenever they're kicked out of party. Just my initial thoughts. You should wait for the modding experts to chime in (if they do) : D EDIT: Actually, there's also the situation when you recruit a companion. You want the spell to be applied to that companion upon their joining you. Since you already need to modify companions' personal scripts anyway, you can probably just work with their scripts, leaving BALDUR.BCS and BALDUR25.BCS alone.

I don't use SR v4, even though I keep it on my computer, but I'm not sure what you mean. What do you mean by them being duplicated? And what do you mean by them being "normal"?

Are you using Spell Revisions v4? It removes the spells you mentioned.

If your summoned creature turns hostile if it is injured by you or other allies, it is because in its script there are one or more blocks that say something like this: IF (attacked by allies) THEN Enemy(). First you need to open up its script, search for all the lines that say "Enemy()". This action changes allegiance of a creature to hostile (red circle). To get rid of this behavior you need to get rid of all instances of this line, which essentially means getting rid of all blocks that contain this line. However, unless you're using a custom script, otherwise you don't want to modify existing scripts recklessly, because there are other creatures in the game that use those scripts and modifying them will cause strange behaviors. So what you want to do instead, is first to make a custom script for yourself. If you're using DLTCEP, open a script that you want to use, then save it as something else, then edit the new script instead. Don't forget to put the script in the Override folder. Then give the new script to your summoned creature. It's your own custom script, so you can experiment with it all you want. You can go ahead and delete all blocks that contain the line "Enemy()". Also, make sure your summoned creature is using only ONE script (the one you make for it). A second script will interfere with it.

Could be the "Cast Spell at Point" is messing that up; it changes the caster of the followup spell to the target of the attack. Don't use it; just use "Cast Spell" instead. You don't need "Cast Spell at Point" if the actual spell is always centered on a target. Do this: Melee/Ranged Hit Effect >> Custom EFF (Self, While Equipped) >> EFF set to Cast Spell, Instantly (Yes), 5% chance >> Custom Spell >> Custom Spell has Target set to Living Actor, projectile is Instant Area (Party Only), the effects themselves are set to Preset Target.

Make sure the dragon's allegiance is set to CONTROLLED, not ALLY or something else. Then there's no reason why you can't move him. To add spell with DLTCEP: - Navigate to the "Items & Spells" tab, then the "Memorized Spells & Innates" area - In "Level Slot" field, select the level of the spell you want to add - Priest/Wizard/Innate. For example, choose "Wizard Level 1" if you're about to add a Magic Missile spell. - Next click "Browse" under the "Choose Spell" field - A window will pop up. It lists all the spell resources in the game. You'll have to know which resource is for which spell - for example, the standard Magic Missile is SPWI112. The wing buffet dragons use is SPIN695. + All standard wizard spells start with SPWI. SPWI1xx for level 1, SPWI2xx for level 2, and so on. + All standard priest spells start with SPPR. SPPR1xx for level 1, SPPR2xx for level 2, and so on. (To know which resource represents which spell, refer to SPELL.IDS) - After you've picked a spell, click "New Spell" to the right. Every time you click "New Spell", the spell you just picked will be added to one memorization slot. So for example, if you want the dragon to have five casts of Magic Missile, choose Magic Missile then click "New Spell" five times. With DLTCEP, that's about it. Since the dragon or a summoned creature in general is not a standard NPC and can't join party, so a few steps can be omitted and everything would still be fine. After all spells/abilities have been properly added, you will be able to see them in the dragon's Spell Select / Special Abilities, and can cast them yourself. Personally, as far as spells/items are concerned, I prefer NearInfinity over DLTCEP. More user-friendly. Here we're only adding stuff that are already in the game. If you want custom spells/abilities for your summoned creature, naturally you'll first have to create them yourself.

I suspected that is the case. As it is right now, your dragon is using Abazigal's scripts. I'm assuming you have mods like SCS and/or Spell Revisions? SCS scripts for many enemies specifically instruct them to target PC players and/or friendly (green circle) creatures only, because those enemies can never be a friendly in the whole game. So if you change allegiance of one such enemy to a "friendly" type, the MAJORITY of the stuff that they usually do won't happen, because you, the PC, are not their enemy. Or more precisely, because THEY are no longer ENEMY. There is usually a "check" that goes something like - IF Allegiance(Myself,ENEMY) - that goes before the majority of their actions. It means it requires them to be ENEMY (red circle) for them to execute any of those actions. In most cases, their scripts do have a couple of generic lines near the end of the scripts that instruct them to attack whoever attacks them, for one round or so (using AttackOneRound() or AttackReevaluate() action). This is most likely why you see them attack for a bit, when they are targeted by a hostile, then stop. Making a custom script for a custom friendly like this can be quite easy or quite a bit of work, depends on *what* you would like them to do. If you simply want the dragon to act mostly as a tank, with a dragon's wide range of immunities and resistances, and just basic attack, then that's fairly simple. You can probably just use the vanilla WTASIGHT.BCS, for example, for that purpose. This is a very simple script for a generic melee fighter. This script simply instructs the creature to attack the closest hostile, or whoever attacks them. No potion using, no ability using, no smart target selection. Nothing fancy. The vanilla script is something like 30 lines long. However, if you want your friendly summoned creature to do other stuff, like casting spells, using innate abilities, it could take quite a bit of work. Take the Planetars, for example. The Planetars have many innate abilities as well as standard spells. There are a lot of things they could possibly do aside from basic attacking the closest enemy. The script for a Planetar can be 400+ lines long, as per Spell Revisions, or nearly 4000 lines long, as per the PnP Celestials mod. Another factor affecting how complex the script *should* be, is whether you want this friendly summon to be uncontrollable, or completely controllable by you. If it is controllable by you, the script might be simpler. Because you can give the creature commands to suit the situation, doing what and when as you see fit. On the other hand, if it is uncontrollable, and if you want it to be an EFFECTIVE combatant, usually the script needs to be a bit more specific. You'll need to instruct it to use every single ability that you give it in a reasonably smart manner (it's pointless if you give it a specific ability but never instruct it to use the ability at all), select its target in a reasonably smart manner, and so on. So you probably want to start looking into the codes and play around with them, if you would like to make a custom summoned creature. If you start from scratch, first you want to decide what you want the creature to do, what abilities they have, and so on. Then give them instruction to perform each action. Or, you could take the script of the original enemy, then modify it so that it works even when they are friendly. This could potentially require a lot of work, because you would need to go through every single block (and there are MANY of them, if you have SCS and smart dragons installed) and modify the targeting and triggers. Use NearInfinity and open up the script for the black dragon in chapter 7 and take a look at it, you'll see.