Icewind Gate - Delta version

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I have created a ring that will hopefully recreate two of the features of the Undead Hunter kit, immunity to level drain and immunity to hold effects.

In Icewind Gate 2 Delta version the author, Nameless One, had Nalia remain in her slot when she was kidnapped but she could not be selected. I wanted her to actually leave the party as happened in BG2. This involved alterations to the files _cut39A.bcs, _cut 39B.bcs and _cut39C.bcs.

Nalia kidnapping, how to handle this:
(1) Export her to a chr file. If the kidnapping is a surprise to the person playing the game they can Quick Save for a start. Then he or she can load the last Autosave and export Nalia from there.
(2) She is kidnapped, leaves the party and all her gear is given to the protagonist. Any remaining items will be left on the ground, they can be picked up by the other PCs.
(3) Party gets the goods on Isaea and she is then released. After speaking with the protagonist she is presumably invited to return to the party, she rejoins party and (in Character Arbitration) is replaced with the chr file version.
(4) Containers won't be recorded in the chr file hence the other party members will return them to her, if she had any containers to start with.
(5) Any other gear kept by the other PCs, from step (2), will also be found in the chr file, it is now duplicated and should be dumped.

 

Council building: facings for Isaea and Nalia were altered to 15 and 0 respectively.

Now the party is starting to clean out the Graveyard.
In BG2, the funeral for Nalia's father never ends. Well after the entire plot is all over, the four remaining mourners are still there. (Bonchy and Isaea leave after the party talks to them.) This alteration to _AliaFun.bcs seems to have done the trick and made them all leave:
IF
GlobalGT("NaliaArrested","GLOBAL",0)
THEN
RESPONSE #100
EscapeArea()
END
This may leave as much as one whole day between the party leaving the funeral and the mourners departing, but that is the best I can do without excessive complication.

---------- Added 8 hours, 45 minutes and 37 seconds later... ----------

A Pocket Plane ability is possible if it is done the same way as the Svirfneblin Earthquake Scroll. The Earthquake scroll is used to summon an invisible creature with a script, it is that script that sets the relevant local variable in the script _AR2100.bcs.
For the PP ability the Global variable would trigger some code in the game script Baldur.bcs. I have tried this and it has worked. I tried to set the variable directly with an item opcode (#296) but it crashed the game.

This works only once, for whatever reason.

 

Having the Portal Plane code in the creature's script enables the party to use the move to Portal Plane ability around half a dozen times. Then we hit a message: "Summoning limit reached". I don't know how to get around this.

 

I have been trying to make an IWG2 version of Lilarcor. Currently I can get it to work for one area only. Then the party moves to a new area and the game is saved, this scrubs the timer function. I can't get the global timer to work reliably here.
IWD2 does not enable Lilarcor's name to be used as the speaker Object in a line of a text. Using Myself as the name of the speaker makes the string a straight piece of text, just like a room description. The name Lilarcor can be manually entered at the start of the relevant string.
RESPONSE #10
DisplayString(Myself,92580) // WeiDU: BALDUR.BCS DisplayStringHeadOwner("sw2h14",31652)

 

I suspected that you might encounter trouble with Lilarcor.
But I'm curious about spells like 'Wish' with all their variants.
Could they work with Genies and stuff? Can they been converted into IWG?

 

Lilarcor dialog will be okay if I can fix the timer issue. I will need to alter Baldur.bcs but that is no problem.
Fortunately you don't normally need the Limited Wish or Wish spells, the game is usually well balanced. I am no programmer, I am no Infinity Explorer modder. I tried to create Limited Wish but it turned into a hash, the dialog script did not work. My attempts to summon one Djinn lead to the Keep being slowly overrun by summoned Djinns...

 

StDeath.bcs: Shadow Thief guildhall, that script was common to all three thieves in the plot to assassinate the guild leader Aran Linvail. It seems to guarantee that the two loyalist Shadow Thieves will turn hostile and massacre the PCs one at a time. I think I fixed it.

Now I am trying to get the Tiris quest to fire up in Trademeet. Here is the code:
IF
AnyPCOnMap()
GlobalGT("_DEADcefaldor","GLOBAL",0)
Global("geniesgone","GLOBAL",1)
Global("TannerExposed","GLOBAL",1)
Global("JeniaSpawn","AR0304",0)
AreaType(OUTDOOR)
THEN
RESPONSE #100
SetGlobal("JeniaSpawn","AR0304",1)
CreateCreatureObject("_RSKIN05",[ANYONE],0,0,0) // Jenia
ActionOverride("trskin05",Dialogue([PC]))
END

I deleted "AreaType(OUTDOOR)" because it is redundant, all of Trademeet map (BG2: AR2000, IWD2: AR0304) is outdoor and this trigger may not be supported by IWD2.
CreateCreatureObject("_RSKIN05",[ANYONE],0,0,0) // Jenia
This does not compile hence should be the cause of the problem.

File _Rskin01.dlg is Raissa's dialog script, if this can be altered successfully the spell Restoration can be cast via a dialog option.
Appropriate triggers can check that the spell is memorized.
Another option can let the spell be cast from a scroll.

 

Now so far so good. But when you kill the two sickos, Raissa's dialog gets stuck at the stage where she requests the Restoration spell.
Problem seemed to be the variable type "LOCALS", it seems not to work in area scripts or dialog scripts. I replaced it with "AR0304" and the problem went away. ("AR0304" is the area number for Trademeet in IWG2.)
Now I will have to see if I can have the spell cast from a scroll.
To retrieve the skin of Raissa you need to click on it and then wait for five to ten seconds, it is very close to the wall there.
There are four versions of Faldorn, there are two different death variables for her, I included both in the relevant triggers.

 

Seems to chug along quite nicely!

Kudos!

 

I really need someone who is good at IE modding but it is moving along smoothly. IWD2 is the least-modded IE game out there, all too often I have to take time out to research something myself.

After party talked to DM we went to where Raissa was, but there was an orange fire in the place of Raissa, original animation was:
FIGHTER_FEMALE_HUMAN - 24848
I changed this to:
CLERIC_FEMALE_HUMAN - 24592
That seemed to solve that problem, to top it off, Raissa was now able to move around. Until I reloaded the game, what is going on here?
Rejiek Hidesman has a problem too.

Problem seems to lie in the _rskin##.bcs character scripts not in the _rskin##.cre creature files themselves.

 

BG2 has "PlayDeadInterruptable" not just the "PlayDead" found in IWD2. I have dropped the PlayDead and now Raissa moves when the two creeps are dead. She may not be able to pick up items from the ground.

 

I seem unable to get Raissa's script to reliably run for whatever reason. I can't get a lot of the code to work. This is more trouble than it is worth. I will have the Restoration spell simulated by the town script. I have improvised a solution of sorts, that will have to do for now. Generally this quest has been Murphy's Law the whole way through.
Now onto Umar Hills.

 

Area AR1100 Umar Hills, Lost Cabin trigger, strref 32126:
"The door has been barred from the inside and the cabin has been cleared of its contents."
Sounds like what happens when the Ranger-Protector is kicked out of the cabin. But this seems to be always there. I used Ctrl + 4 to highlight the trigger polygons, it was not easy to find the correct one to open the door.
I have brought in a new protagonist so I can check out the Ranger Stronghold quests, which I have never done before.
Two Shadows and a Spotted Lion are hostile but don't attack when you cross the river north of the Cabin.

That pack leader seems to be absent from the cave near the Ruined Temple.
Nalia occasionally spouts the dead Torgal dialog?
Amaunator maze is not enacted, you don't get blasted for walking on the wrong letters.

AR0076: Two Minister Lloyds?! Cured by this trigger: !Exists("uhmay01"). Thus a new Minister Lloyd is not created if one already exists.
Whole Merella quest being assigned again after it is completed!?

 

Scrolling slows down but only in some areas, like the restored outdoors of the Temple of Amaunator and the area below the Cult. Every time you press a Numpad key to scroll it takes 10 seconds of hard drive use before anything happens! This was not evident in the last playthrough, where I had no Bioware NPCs in my party at all. So it should be connected to the presence of NPCs in the party.
Currently I have found two areas affected, but I have only played through bits of the game.
AR0204 The Forgotten Believers -- Temple City (Unseeing Eye Plot) AR0007
AR1400 Shadow Temple Land (Restored) AR0125

Approach, delete one NPC at a time and see if the problem then goes away. No it does not.
Imoen has a Special script 2 of "Default.bcs", this is not found in the IWD2 scripts. I created a new script, "Default.bcs" but this did not fix the problem.

One approach that does seem to work, create your own versions of the Bioware NPCs:
Create a new PC of the desired class and race.
Open the relevant Chr file in Near Infinity and make the necessary adjustments to the file.
Save the file.

Necessary adjustments give your NPC the dialog, script and identity of the real person. Relevant offsets seem to be:
Name 22c h
Apparent name 230 h
String 3cc h
Override script 498 h
Special script 2 4a0 h
Combat script 4a8 h
Special script 3 4b0 h
Movement script 4b8 h
Death variable 5b8 h
Dialog 84a h

New values come from the Chr files of the official NPCs.

This way you can customize the NPC's class(es) to your taste.

 

In IWG2 NPCs are limited to 76 points on creation, plus any racial bonuses. Even after allowing for the 4 points of ability increases that should occur during the game, most NPCs end up with fewer points than they had in BG2. Halfling Mazzy is down 5 points in Strength and she is a Paladin!
Using Near Infinity to alter NPC variables like scripts also gives an oppurtunity to alter Ability Scores. Normally the idea here would be to apply the knife and force each character to have no more than 76, 78 or 80 points. However this may obscure the identity of each character. For example, the temptation would be to lower the Charisma of Imoen to save on ability points, but she is quite charismatic and this would be reflected in what she says and does.
BG2 did not enforce the pen and paper rules about maximum spell level being based on class level and Intelligence/Wisdom. A few spellcasters have bizarrely low ability scores as a consequence. Serious spellcasters in IWD2 need a minimum score of 15 in the spell casting ability concerned to stay on track for attaining maximum spell levels.

Certain races end up with two or four more ability points than others, +4: Aasimar and Drow Elf, +2: Tiefling.
Other races end up with two points less than the default: Gray Dwarf, Deep Gnome and Half-Orc, but none of the Bioware NPCs are from any of these races.

 

Now that is an interesting post.
I had no idea that IWD2 was such a strict enforcer of rules and stats.

If there are not 'mayor' drawbacks, I would stick to the 'less points later' than to strip Imoen or someone else of the stat that defines them.

But I can see how this might be a problem with Races that have powerful bonuses in that regard!

 

Yes, it is strict. You start with 10 in each ability and you get exactly 16 bonus points, no more and no less. You can raise extra points by lowering scores below 10...

 

i will try it after my current BGT walk-through, is anybody still working to improve it or is it a dead project?

 

It is basically dead but I have fixed a few things, see the Bioware forum. My understanding of the scripting is pretty basic.

Save crashes:
Any installed mods in either BG2 or Icewind Dale 2 could cause a crash.
Make sure you follow the instructions about exporting and deleting anyone who joins your party immediately. Otherwise a crash is guaranteed.