temnix

Some people seem to think that setting a character's experience to 50% will cause him to miss out on half of experience points that come in. In reality he just loses so many points from the deduction, and nothing else.

This is a welcome mod. There is so little of anything for role-playing around here that this is less like a drop of rain in the desert than a frog from the sky. About books: wouldn't it be better to involve the player more actively in reading? Why not make him use an item ability instead? Do it a few times, and the book has been read, and the character gets a lore point. Giving passive bonuses simply for having items in the backpack is not very interesting and takes away interaction. It's true, some players may find clicking on a book a few nights in a row boring, but those are the players who would find leafing through a book boring. Why worry about them? I'm making some books myself now, to be sold in stores. Not to give lore but to give experience to the reader (I'll add a read-aloud option, too, I think, to benefit the whole party). And I'm going to make the player click on them. If a person isn't physically involved, a feature doesn't engage. Also, you are adding all these ways to gain Lore, so it would be nice to introduce some ways to use Lore. For example, why not make it suppress magic and elemental resistance on spell targets? You might be able to channel this before the main spell effects through Apply effects list - > Self - > subspell, if you put this combo on top of the stack, but even if it comes in too late, the effect will be active for the rest of the fight. Make it Non-magical, and it will be as if the character has scanned the enemy's defenses with the first spell and will now benefit from the knowledge, with next shots.

What if this number is zero? The attempt will fail?

What about negative Luck?

That's more detailed than I care to read. I prefer making mods to that great science. My point is, you still need to count the bytes between the offset for the container name (start) and the one for whether it's locked or its key field. PHP_EACH writes there automatically for all containers, but you have to tell it to do it 20 bytes to the right or 55 bytes to the right of the main value, and I'm mystified how people count from 0x12C to 0x5AE with ease. This is not important, however.

I'm not trying to set the value below 0. It can't be lowered even by a point, except, I imagine, through a luck or Dexterity reduction.

Yes, but only in one or both of two places: replacing Class on the character sheet or replacing it on the Inventory page. It's no big loss, but there is at least one mod that uses that space to display something else. Ask some more on these boards for technical details about how to do that.

I've run into this before... The Open locks skill refuses to be lowered either through a negative Increment or by Setting to a smaller percentage. It can be Set to 0, but not lowered. Maybe Remove traps, too. Maybe all thief skills, and then I've been decreasing them in my spells and items and feeling smart in vain.

I would like to go through trap and door scripts, for containers and doors that are trapped, and extend them in such a way that the trap may be triggered on an unsuccessful disarm attempt. For this the contents of the file should be copied on top of it, then I would replace, sextually, Opened() with DisarmFailed() and a random blank RESPONSE rate. I believe I can do that, but I'm having trouble adding the file to itself. I've tried - COPY_EXISTING... APPEND_FILE_EVALUATE TEXT ~%SOURCE_FILE%~ And nothing.

This is right. Thanks. But where do you get the hex intervals between offsets? I can find out what they are in bytes from the resource file, but people around here seem to have an uncanny ability to count in hexadecimal off the top of their heads. You are all cyborgs, most likely... But helpful sometimes.

Neither. It's all valid, but the message appears, I think, only when uninstalling this mod on account of another, installed earlier. Weidu reinstalls the other, then proceeds to reinstall this one, and if the tp2 has been rewritten or something else has changed in the meantime and the reinstallation can't proceed, there is a litany of complaints about "no rule." Well, it doesn't matter. Some quirk of the installer program.

You would need to know a lot about modding to understand what you ask, but I can give you instructions for fixing the problem. Open Near Infinity. Search for a creature file using the name of the troublesome character. Look into the script of that file at the Override level. In that script there is likely to be something like: IF Dead("scriptname") THEN ... Other possibilities exist, but this is the most probable. Replace "Dead("scriptname") with StateCheck("scriptname",CD_STATE_NOTVALID), compile and save the script.

It's GAME_IS ~bgee~. And the like. Point out the mystery here. However, this mostly comes up when the mod fails to install for some reason or is being uninstalled. Then I get these warnings.

Updated.

I need to go through areas, check their containers and, if some flags are set and not set and the "Key" field is empty, enter something in that field. The first part I know how to do, on the monkey-see-monkey-do level, thanks to Luke... COPY_EXISTING_REGEXP GLOB ~.*\.ARE~ ~override~ PATCH_IF (SOURCE_SIZE > 228) THEN BEGIN GET_OFFSET_ARRAY "containers" ARE_V10_CONTAINERS PHP_EACH "containers" AS "ind" => "cont_offset" BEGIN ... I know how to go about changing all containers or, say, all items in them. But now it comes to reading container flags and the Key field, and I can't do that without knowing their offsets. If I could find out, I would do for all containers something like this for the first: READ_LONG 0x4AC flags PATCH_IF ((flags & BIT0) == BIT0) & ((flags & BIT2) != BIT2) THEN BEGIN Then a check for an empty Key field, and after that - to write into that field. Can someone tell me for a big sapphire how to get those offsets? The opposite approach is to use LPF ALTER_AREA_CONTAINER, where I probably don't even need to know the required STR_VAR container_name, if I use INT_VAR silent = 1. I could just make an enormous list beyond the number of containers any area has and shoot in the dark. But even here I would need to know about the flags and the Key field content before patching, or it would be like shooting in the dark with Confucius.

Both old and new item rewards can be covered with this kind of patch. Anybody who gives something is doing it willingly. Yes, I'll include this.

I see ridiculous messages from Weidu about "no rule" for bgee, soa, bg1 and every other game, with GAME_IS. It is as if this "rule" function is broken. I don't always get this message, but I don't ever want to see it. What could be causing this?

Stolen items, as usual, are not accepted by upstanding citizens.

Fixed This mod introduces the outlandish concept of property to the Forgotten Realms. It would not be possible without @Luke, and it is compatible with all game versions. @Salk gave some sound advice. @eyre noticed a problem. With this mod items in all indoor areas that are not dungeons begin to belong to someone. When the player takes these valuables that were just "lying around" from chests and other containers and tries to sell them, he will discover that, strangely enough, they are considered stolen. (Were they stolen before they were removed? To this I reply, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to see it, does it make a sound?) Examples of areas where property reigns: ordinary houses, the duchal palace, cabins, Spellhold's main floor and basement (the teleporting rooms are dungeon). In the first game the tents of the bandit camp are an exception; the status of loot taken from robbers would be too questionable legally, for simplicity, you can sell away. The Iron Throne, on the other hand, is a legitimate organization, on the surface, anyhow. The Cloakwood mine is dungeon, but the office building is a property zone. In the second game, everything in the Underdark, Ust'Natha and the sahuagin city can be pawned off there or later, but almost all other civilized places will have property. This includes the De'Arnise hold, which, full of valuables though it is, is not there for your looting, and all crypts and tombs that are known and visited. Stolen items, of which there will now be many, can be sold only to fences, of course, and there are few of those. In the first Baldur's Gate there is Black Lily in the city, along with Silence and another character, probably known to long-time players, who I won't call by name. A new fence has appeared in Nashkel. Stop by the Belching Dragon tavern (where Volo is). In the sequel one can sell stolen goods to the Shadow Thieves, of course. Besides this, one in every ten stores in any game will be willing to buy stolen goods. This is determined randomly for every installation of this modification. If you want a new arrangement for a new game, reinstall the mod. Any store may turn out to do business on the shady side, even, in principle, temples, although they don't usually buy items. All fences will buy from the party, however. Try selling something to a temple. If they take it, someone there is turning a profit and you can haul in more stuff. Inns with a store have the same chance of accepting stolen goods. If my "Adventurer's Miscellany" is installed, every inn will have a shop, and so there will be that many more chances of coming across one that does. Felderpost's in Beregost is not a guaranteed fence any more, but it has the same chance of being one as any other inn. After one of my test installations Candlekeep's own inn turned out to be a criminal outfit; who knew? That would make a lot of difference, if I were playing that time, considering how little starting money characters receive. You can tell a fencer's den by low, low selling prices. Nearly all fences, random or preset, share a few characteristics: Will both buy and sell, though don't necessarily have anything in stock; Buy items of all standard categories - even familiars, if you want to trade them in for some quick cash, only make sure to buy them back; Selling prices very attractive, but buying prices atrocious; Ignore reputation; No depreciation, they will keep taking anything you bring; Their selection, if any, also all stolen; No five-fingered discounts. In addition to the change to areas, items carried by innocents and lawmen (Flaming Fist, Amnian soldiers, Watchers, Cowled Wizards), plus the Dukes of Baldur's Gate, are all declared provisionally stolen, whether the party will have fished them out of the owners' pockets or simply hacked those owners up. "Illegally obtained" may be a more accurate, broader sense here. The characters may feel like they are defunding the police when they slaughter whole packs of government magicians, but even selling the helmet of a dead patrolman or a dropped gem requires dealing with the black market. There are no guards who can be killed without reputation consequences as well - no more stooges you are allowed to whack for free plate mail or because it is a shortcut from a quest. On the whole, although the player may sometimes get to shop for a great bargain, fences buy at such a discount that the gold glut problem will get a good knock on the nose. Most free finds will have to be used up, not sold, and if the player is determined to profit off them or some killed lawmen, he will have to find his fences and stop by them on a regular basis. Slinging a gunny sack. P. S. The Icewind Dale series will benefit from the general mechanics, but I could use someone who has them installed and can suggest where to plant a definite, guaranteed fence. Download

Spike Buddha sends his regards.

Previously on Apparently No One Knows... Kreggy: I want to set a flag for all items in an area, but the REPLACE_AREA_ITEM action needs a concrete item name in its new_item parameter. McBee: What do you need that for? Spike Budda, entering with cronies: He wants to want to make them all STOLEN. He should work for me. Flash, bang! Wrrr! And now the conclusion... Without a legitimate way to set a flag I took to applying REPLACE_TEXTUALLY to ARE files. While "/(/b.+/b/)" "/1" done to an ARE file replaces items with themselves, it can't set a flag. Expressions from REPLACE_TEXTUALLY are not variables that can be used elsewhere in code, which made my attempts to use INNER_ACTION and check for ~/1~.ITM fail. Otherwise I would know what to add to that textual replacement: the STOLEN flag for a container item replaces the tenth zero in the 14-zeroes white space after the resource name. The view from Notepad: MISC07 and most of the other items have been flagged as STOLEN by hand. The same view from Notepad++: I can replace the straight 14 zeroes with zeroes and the STOLEN mark, but I need to select items in this list of resources. An item's SOURCE_RES is going to be at least several characters long, but REPLACE_TEXTUALLY EXACT_MATCH "/(/b.+++/b/) " "/1 thatsymbol,itwon'tshowhere " ends up hanging up Weidu. Does anybody have a better suggestion?

This is probably the same problem that I had when switching out of BIRD_INSIDE. That was for a spell. When the spell expired or I turned it off and the caster returned to the usual animation, he would be stuck on terrain. There were just two ways off the spot: use Teleport field, but it had to have a real range, not 0, and did not work when 0 was rolled for the random range, and switch to NULL_ANIMATION. After this switch the character could work normally, but no other animation worked for this, and the shortest length of the switch was 1 second. The character was gone for a noticeable period of time. Even if I decreased the duration to a few ticks, the switch lasted no less than a second. So it's the one or the other.

It's high in order for the dice to be rolled on the same eye level regardless of the height of the players and easy for the player in front of the screen to discern. See the dragon screenshot. You still see the dice, don't you? And the idea with dialogue options couldn't work. The system checks for items in the inventory and uses them as the wager. It couldn't tell if the items were valuable or not, kicked off through a dialogue or directly. Not without writing a long list of specific items in BG1 valuable enough for Algernon to bet against his cloak, and for all of the other NPC with valuable items for each of the games. I'm not going to do that. I understand the problem with getting Carsomyr for a turnip, as someone has written here (although that's actually not such a good example, there are sore losers in the world...), but no interface exists for this kind of activity. In more modern games there are probably ready windows and mechanisms for minigames and exchange. I could simply make Algernon and the others refuse to play, but I prefer the minigame to be more useful, not less. If the party can win something valuable from them for cheap, that's a role-playing opportunity and a way to avoid dumb combat or stealing. Balance is less important than fun. Who would care to play if there was nothing valuable to gain? Also there are some restraints. Not everyone agrees to play a second time after winning, for example. If the party loses and Algernon refuses a rematch, it's either a reload, for those who care to go that way, or they'll have to live with that in this playthrough. Cheating at dice is also risky. I'll think if I can use another item flag to set apart mildly valuable items, though. By the way, I think you are going to have a problem with oil on the ground after the 2.6 patch, too. Try that and see if it even appears.

I'm making a new cone projectile, and it's scope is weird. Sometimes creatures in the explosion area are included and affected, sometimes not. A cone needs to be wider than its visual representation to be (more) reliable, and even then... This is an "Any point within range" ability, by the way. It should be this way instead of "Living actor" for more flexible tactics. Does this make a difference? Here are some screenshots of this unruly shape. Here the cone is directed at the character on the left - at his location, that is. The character in between is well within the cone, but not affected. It takes standing in direct line, or almost direct line, from the caster to be caught up. Here she is on the edge of the visible cone (which is a VVC) and inside the wider cone of the actual projectile, but still not receiving the effects... When the cone used None as its Explosion projectile the results seemed to be the worst. I took the example of New_Cone_of_Cold and used Invisible_Traveling instead, then substituted a faster projectile, but even so, there seems to be no way to make the cone catchy unless it's really broad, and then the flared side is too close to the source. If I add another 20-30 degrees to this cone, it's going to start hitting creatures at the midpoint between this spruce tree on the bottom and the caster. Is there some trick to these cones? Do I need special explosion projectiles? Something with width and Pass target, possibly? How would I stop them from shooting off across the map, though?

No, it is just about General. Everything else you change with 72 expires or ends when it is supposed to, on death, for example. You can change somebody's race or class, or both, briefly, for this and that, but as soon as you touch General, it's stuck forever. Can't be undone with spell removal, opcode removal... The only way to get back to the right General is to apply 72 again, but in the case of going from DEAD to HUMANOID there is no condition to use as a trigger to mark that event. Dead creatures can be reached with a permanent contingency that detects STATE_DEAD in a round at most, but STATE_NORMAL doesn't work as a trigger.