temnix

Rumors at the inns ARE the quest givers. On a shoestring budget.

I'm having trouble milking loot from dead creatures. There are basically four ways to get a creature to appear dead on a map: 1) put something in the area script that will kill it (not universally useful); 2) give it a script or effect that will kill it (liable to happen in front of characters' eyes, breaks immersion); 3) put a creature in STATE_DEAD; 4) leave it at STATE_NORMAL but set its current hit points to 0. The first two ways make it possible for a creature to drop what it's carrying, but, as I said, they are not something that could be lifted and applied across the board. For special situations only. Usually the games use method 3 to place bodies around maps, but 4 works too. Either way they keep their stuff. This is a problem for what I'm working on, but it's also something that shows up in an unmodded game. Right now, with all changes deleted, I fail to find the ring on the body of Joseph the miner in Nashkel (the greenstone ring for his wife). It's just not on top of him, though it is in his inventory, only it doesn't get dropped. I tested and it makes no difference where items lie, in paperdoll slots or in the backpack. It is the same with, for example, dead guards. How is this business with Joseph supposed to work? How can I make a dead creature drop items?

There is a font of role-playing possibilities in rumors at inns and temples. They would be near perfect as sources of quests. Unfortunately, actions don't work in rumor tables. They can't set globals or change anything else. I have been trying to get around this limitation in a frighteningly realistic way, putting there actual information about people and places player characters could not know about themselves. Such-and-such is there or there, at such a time, under such conditions. (Somebody might add a line to the Nashkel rumors to justify finding the ankheg armor in the fields, which is just an easter egg otherwise, and I couldn't touch it in my own game.) But it would be better to enable script actions there.

Edit: still putting the lastest touches on. This will be out in a few days.

What is ToEE? Anyway, my inspiration was probably a red Magic the Gathering card. This one, maybe. I thought there should be more to combat.

I ran Near Infinity, and the spell scroll is there, but not in any store or on any creature.

What I meant was that I'm not interested in this project one way or the other. If it makes modding more convenient and inspires some people, good. If they want to include my material in some fashion, fine. But I'm not going to upload anything, I have better things to do. The mods will be here, and that's enough.

I'll say this much about project infinity, that they may convert my mods if they like. I don't mind.

This bit of code is supposed to add a cure, Cure Disease (SPPR317), to temples, if they don't already have it. But it ends up messing STO files up. Does anyone see a problem? I'll credit you in my mod. PATCH_IF (("%flags%" BAND 0b00010000) = 0b00010000) BEGIN READ_LONG 0x70 "cure_off" ELSE 0 READ_LONG 0x74 "cure_num" ELSE 0 SET "sppr317" = 0 // cure light wounds // check if cures already available FOR (index = 0; index < cure_num; index = index + 1) BEGIN READ_ASCII ("%cure_off%" + ("%index%" * 0x0c)) "resref" PATCH_IF ("%resref%" STRING_COMPARE_CASE "sppr317" = 0) BEGIN SET "sppr317" = 1 END END // add cures if not already present PATCH_IF ("%sppr317%" = 0) BEGIN // if cure not already available INSERT_BYTES ("%cure_off%" + ("%cure_num%" * 0x0c)) 0x0c WRITE_ASCII ("%cure_off%" + ("%cure_num%" * 0x0c)) ~sppr317~ // resref WRITE_LONG ("%cure_off%" + 0x08 + ("%cure_num%" * 0x0c)) 200 // price END END

There is this line of code, which probably everyone uses to select NPC companions or not NPC companions in patching: PATCH_IF FILE_CONTAINS_EVALUATED (~pdialog.2da~ ~%deathvar%~), "deathvar" being the script name. For some reason this keeps returning true for creatures without a script name or with "None" there. Why?

This is only going to be useful to me if answered quickly. It might make an upcoming mod better, if not, not. I mean random sleep encounters. The bodies of slain monsters are whisked away. Where and how? It doesn't depend on having permanent bodies or not, and protection from and removal of opcodes Remove creature, Replace self, Maze, Imprisonment, Unsummon and Disable creature don't help. Yet I recall that I once managed to keep them in, only I don't remember the method.

Because immunity to Illusion doesn't prevent a creature from casting Mirror Image. But I will let this drop.

I should mention here that while I was testing ~bgee~, installing SoD over a folder screwed up all my mods' strings. Not only were they wrong as installed, but even after I uninstalled the mods completely and installed them afresh, they were still incorrect. I had to remove SoD and come back to modding without. It's not the ~bgee~ check's fault, of course, but something SoD can do.

What's Project Infinity?

Okay, thanks. But can somebody confirm that ~bgee~ includes SoD? I have been writing ~bgee~ everywhere. If this excludes SoD, I will have to update a lot of mods.

I think this effect shields creatures from spells cast from outside the party. Or perhaps by enemies. Am I right?

1. Summary 2. Compatibility 3. Who you can talk with 4. Mercy: giving it... 5. Interlude: should you keep your word? 6. ...offering it... 7. ...and begging for it! 1. Summary. These games don't have much in the way of the material in the title, so let's see if we can introduce a bit of ethical turbulence to these still waters. This mod prepares most creatures, all the ones you can reasonably have some conversation with and who have some interest in their continued existence, for opting out of combat when they are badly hurt. Some will ask for mercy, and the party may grant it, letting them live. Others, wounded so, will listen to offers of surrender from the party. And finally, sorely pressed PCs themselves can throw in the towel, or something like it, and abandon their companions to save their lives - or even switch sides and join the enemies against those they just called comrades. 2. Compatibility. Made on the Enhanced Edition, should work on "classic." 3. Who you can talk with. Most living beings want to keep living, and undead would like to continue on their merry way also. But it also takes conveying the intent. If a creature has a mind, if it is not a machine, if it can communicate its desire to be spared, then it may be involved in a talk of surrender when it descends below 30% of maximum health (around the "Badly Injured" level). Surrender is not like running away or flying berserk, it is an offer from one side or from the other. This kind of conversation is possible with a man, a halfling, a dragon, a rakshasa, an ogre, a ghoul, a vampire, but not with a golem, an otyugh, a dog, a beetle, an elemental, green slime or an ordinary skeleton raised by Animate Dead (skeleton warriors may be fair game). Winter and vampiric wolves are monsters and intelligent enough, but normal animals are out. On top of everything, some normal people just have a fanatically high morale and will not have anything to do with any surrendering. In the large pool of remaining candidates only 20% will ask for mercy. Still, over the course of adventuring with its many encounters, their white flags will fly around with some frequency. 4. Mercy: giving it... When a creature asks for mercy and the party wishes to grant it, the fight does not stop for it right away. The PCs must refrain from attacking the enemy or hurting it with spells during the next round, while the other side still goes after them. If the creature is attacked or damaged (by anyone, the party or somebody else), the offer will be considered rejected and the creature will fight to the last with the strength of desperation, which is considerable. Spellcasters in particular discover great reserves in themselves on death's door. The party would do well to listen to offers of surrender from beset wizards. If the PCs refrain from hostility during this round, the deal will be struck, the creature will become neutral, move to the sides, out of the fight, and the party will earn its worth in experience. The characters will not get the creature's items, however. Giving mercy is considered a noble act, on the whole. Doing this consistently, the party main gain somewhat in reputation later on, but rejecting an offer, that is, attacking or damaging the creature, is not penalized. On the screenshot above three xvarts indicate that they may cease fighting, while the one on the lower left already wears the blanc of surrender and heading off. 5. Interlude: should you keep your word? Sparing an enemy is the easiest way to take it out of the fight, but, besides not getting the loot, the party will not, of course, satisfy any quest demands for the destruction of this particular enemy they spared. The creature will have to be killed then or the quest abandoned. And surrenders may happen by misunderstanding, if the party simply fails to manage enough aggression while the creature waits. Once done, though, the surrender is official. If the creature dies now, no matter who kills it, the party will lose reputation immediately - though only for civilized folks. Civilized or civil, take your pick. Public opinion will not care if you break a promise to xvarts, ogres, orcs, bugbears, giants, dragons, ghouls and the like, all undead and "monsters," in fact, and you can dispatch those foul half-orcs in any quantity, too, the seventh race that they are. A human or a dwarf is another story, of course, and rakshasas look so gentlemanly in their stylish hats. In short, if the surrendered one is a disagreeable sort, the characters must look into themselves for guidance regarding the treatment of PoWs. A surrendered creature will not engage in dialogue or give any quests. Mercy can be given only once, too. Don't expect to be believed if you attack now. End of interlude 6. ...offering it... Although only a minority of eligible creatures will themselves ask for mercy, all of them will become open to offers of it after reaching that < 30% hit points depth. Even if the creature heals itself up, the experience will get it thinking. The PCs can use their new special ability, Offer Quarter, on these Badly Injured candidates. (If a character does not have this ability, let somebody else use it to teach.) Since the party has no business meddling in others' fights, it will only work on red-circle targets, not on neutrals clashing with each other. The offer must be made from a short distance and is 50% likely to be accepted. If not, the characters may try again the next round. Edwin is giving a chance to an ogre while Viconia flees several more. One of them is hurt badly and showing the white feather, though. 7. ...and begging for it! What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Members of the party can give up to save themselves in a pinch, even at full health. To attempt this use the other special ability, Surrender, on one of the enemies of the same general category you can discuss these things with. You may even try to surrender to those stern high-morale types that ignore offers of quarter. Whether it is rational to submit to ogres or, say, ghouls in the long run (to dinner or so) is debatable, but at least this rescues a character from imminent death. (Note: a PC who surrenders steps out of the party, and because games of the Baldur's Gate series cannot continue without the protagonist, Surrender is not available to the Bhaalspawn. In Icewind Dale no party members are essential and all can use the ability, but remember that it is still game over if there is no one alive left in the party.) Opponents are eager for an opportunity to "get" an adventurer, so this offer is accepted 80% of the time. If not, you can, of course, try again. What happens next depends on who you are surrendering to - alignment makes a big difference. Of course, one rarely has the luxury of choosing who to appeal to, but sometimes yes. Neutral alignment will simply want the character out of the picture. Just as any prisoner he himself might have taken, he will put on the white of submission and walk off to the side. There he will stay and can be gotten into the party later the usual way, with some explaining to do, no doubt. Evil-aligned enemies will force the character to fight on their side, or perhaps this was his intention... Putting on the black of treason, he will fight against the PCs until such time as all the other foes have been put down. Then he will turn neutral. Both maneuvers cost the character 1% of experience, and the colors of disgrace can only be cleared by the ultimate sacrifice. What really happened there? How will it go? There are many possibilities, opportunities rather, because these are, or were meant to be, role-playing games! Viconia sides with hobgoblins against the party. Download

1. Summary 2. Compatibility 3. Detect Magic 4. Intimidation 1. Summary. Like the anfisbene or Dogcat, this mod is two things in one body. Detect Magic brings a spell of the same name to wizards and priests, one that will find magical items on creatures, whether they always had them or obtained them by lucky rolls of random treasure. It will give a separate indication if the items are powerful (expensive), and when cast by a priest alert to cursed items. Intimidation is a character ability for most warriors and all half-orcs. Meant mostly to be used on neutrals, outside of combat, it can shoo them away to where convenient and interrupt all those greeters walking forward eager to announce something to the party, such as that they are about to kill the characters off. 2. Compatibility. Detect Magic should work on all games and versions, but Intimidation uses advanced effects. Its files will not be installed on a "classic" game. 3. Detect Magic. This is a 1st level Divination spell. All wizards of various combinations (and sorcerers) receive it for free automatically at the beginning of their career - or as soon as you install the mod. Bards, characters who switch to wizards later and others can avail themselves of Detect Magic scrolls, sold at all of the main magic stores in the games. Priests also have it, and in line with the AD&D tradition their version is somewhat different and superior. Unlike the wizards', theirs will detect cursed items. There is no saving throw against the spell, but magic resistance stops it. When a creature has something to detect, it will glow. Cast by a priest, this is the order of findings: 1) cursed items, worn and not, including cursed scrolls and the Murky Potion - the target will pulse orange quickly; 2) magic items worth at least 5000 gp or scrolls worth at least 1800 gp (5th level spells and above, see below on scroll prices) - flash a bright violet; 3) lesser magic items or ongoing enchantments, obvious and not - flash red. More important readings obscure those below. For example, somebody with a cursed scroll in the inventory will pulse orange even though the creature may have a vorpal sword in the backpack. The spell does not tell directly which items are cursed, but you can be smart with your own inventory and figure it out. Now, item prices in the games are wildly scattered and irrational. A sword +3 is worth less than a wand of lightning. I can't know what price-adjusting modules you may have installed on your computer, my chosen threshold of 5000 gp is at the level of the weakest wands. As for scrolls, vanilla-game prices are ridiculous - ridiculously uneven and ridiculously low. A scroll of Cone of Cold is worth 500 gp, while Confusion costs 1200 gp. No high-level scroll approaches the price of Wish, which could perhaps make sense in a tabletop game, but not here, where Wish is so lame. And so on. This mod puts scroll prices on a system: Level Price 1 100 2 300 3 700 4 1200 5 1800 (appears as a powerful item to Detect Magic) 6 2500 7 3200 8 4000 9 5000 Note that, given store mark-ups, this will make scrolls far more prohibitive to buy. No longer will you be able to empty High Hedge's selection with a couple of thousand but will have to devote considerably more of your earnings to stocking the mages. Given the gold glut in the games, this is probably a good thing, although later on, with most spells learned, you may begin to sell scrolls to stuff the purse. While money is short, though, who gets the gold is a good trigger for role-playing. Detect Magic works in a shallow, broad cone. On this screenshot Edwin's amulet responds. I had a different screenshot, one that showed an ogre assassin, Larze, walking up to the party and glowing under the spell. He might have rolled up something magical in random treasure, but more likely this was due to his basic undroppable ogre's morningstar, which, like all undroppable weapons, is flagged "magical" in the vanilla game, even without any special properties. I recommend using my "Monsters Beat Enchantment" mod, which unmagics all those, because otherwise you are going to get a lot of false positives. Even animals may glow, because their claws might have that unfortunate property. Finding an item or a curse on a creature earns some experience for the party, one time for every target, only not from your own party members. Yes, and Boo is also non-magical now. (Sorry, Boo.) 3. Intimidation. This special ability is given to all warriors (fighters, paladins and rangers) of the human, elf, half-elf and dwarf races (no gnomes or halflings). Half-orcs also receive it, regardless of class. Among NPC and monsters ogres, giants and other big brutish types possess it, so if you need to scare somebody in a pinch, you can try to procure an ogre. As with all abilities that I make, if a character for some reason does not have it, e.g. a former party member was outside when this mod was first run, invite the character into the party and have someone else use the ability. The newbie will learn. Intimidation works in a rather short range and forces a saving throw vs. spell on the target, initially with a +2 bonus, when used on a neutral. Every 4 levels the roll improves until -2 at the 17th level, and the number of creatures than can be intimidated at once also increases, until 3 at that final stage. In a fight hostile characters are already attacking the party, there is already plenty of intimidation in the air, so the ability is much less effective against red-circle creatures: the bonus starts at +8 here. Either way having Strength of 18+ improves the roll by a point, and Charisma of 16+ by another. Here I want to note that the games don't always show successful saving throws, there may be no bottom-window message for a save. You will see "Browbeat" there if you succeeded, if not, you did not. So what, finally, does Intimidation do? If it works, it will stop the target in its tracks and send it scampering away a short distance. You can use this to shoo away potential witnesses, hearers of shouts, guards and so on. What is more, the creature will lose the desire to speak with the party. Grok the half-orc-shaman-with-Intimidation and eretre the halfling-fighter-without brush off an unpleasant encounter. All in all, it will be with the creature as if the conversation has already taken place. The dialogue of the target will be advanced to the next state, if there is one. If you talk to the neutral now, after he stops his mad run, and he has something else to say, it will be as if you are addressing him a second time. (The first thing I did was intimidate Winthrop at the Candlekeep Inn to get past that unbearable "10000 gp entry fee" conversation.) Note that you may spoil things for yourself if you do enter a conversation at this juncture, it may create confusion with quest givers. The change is only temporary, though: if you have left the creature alone, it will return to the initial dialogue state in an hour. (If you did talk to it, you don't get to reset the relationship.) The desire to bring the word to you will also return. You can keep 'em down with more rudeness in the meantime, though. I must say, yelling at people with impunity can become an addiction. Abdel the fighter hollers at random townsfolk in Saradush. As a final note, while you can intimidate animals, in combat and out, they are not so smart and may as easily as not fly into a rage and attack you or whoever is nearest. Perhaps you might find a use for this, too. Download

How does Weidu handle game extensions used in GAME_IS? Rather, does it treat expansions as separate entities from the main games or as optional additions? For example, if I write GAME_IS ~iwd~, will this include installations with Heart of Winter, Trials of the Luremaster? If I write ~bgee~, does this include SoD, when it is installed, or do I need to write separately ~bgee sod~?

1. Summary 2. Compatibility 1. Summary. "Ultravision" replaces the former Infravision spell and scroll, the potion, helmet and ring with the same function to permit their users to see beyond walls and other obstacles. They will find all warm-blooded creatures in a large 120-degree cone in front of them. "Warm-blooded" means that undead and constructs are not detected and slimes, insects and reptiles are found with difficulty. It helps to study a suspected direction longer to bring them out. It's not necessary to start a new game. 2. Compatibility. This module was made on EE, and it seems that it doesn't run on old versions of the games. I upload a hopeful version, but the chances are slim. Download

In version 3 Detect Noise has been changed. It doesn't reveal creatures beyond walls any longer, only gives a screen message if someone has been heard. However, the probability of detecting has been improved a great deal, and the listening cones are even larger. If you want to see what goes on beyond obstacles, use my new mod - Ultravision.

How do I enter the color values in the parameter with Weidu?

I did not touch the mechanics of the projectiles. This is, strictly speaking, only an illusion of rays.

No, it was simply the fact of having a CLEAR_MEMORY in the tp2 before the value setting. I'm sorry, my mistake. The code works otherwise.

I found a VVC file controlling animation for beholder rays, one that apparently was never used. With some downsizing and tweaking, this, I believe, is how the rays were supposed to look. The archive includes the animation and the ray projectile. Beholder Rays.rar