Eric-Ihrno

Thank you. There should be less than 15 creatures, so I'll go ahead and take your advice. The dungeon they're in will be a cave with a pretty simple floor, so the corpses shouldn't be a problem. I'll just have to make sure they can't knock down walls by dying on them.

Thanks to everyone who weighed in about my special irem script. Now I need help with a creature/terain script. I want to make a creature that can get back up again after dying (after a few turns delay). The initial idea was to make the creature script place a custom terrain (corpse) when the creature dies. The custom terrain would then run a script that waits for a few turns before erasing itself and using place_monster to bring back the creature. The problem is, my corpse script runs fine, but only on corpses I place in the editor. It won't work for ones created by a creature script. Is there any way to place a new terrain script while the game is running? I guess I could make the town or scenario script handle this, but it would be rather clumsy as I'd need a separate call in START_STATE for each resurrecting creature.

Ok, I tried Init_State, and the problem is that the creature doesn't actually appear until init_state finishes, so the creature isn't visible in the cutscene. However, I managed to solve the problem by having init_state but my_number into an SDF, which the item script then uses. The cutscene now works as it should. Thanks for the help.

Well, the creature is mostly just a humorous side effect of a wand of terror/dumbfounding. The creature itself (a G.I.F.T.S. that has been harnessed as a weapon of psychological warfare) just appears and talks a bit during a brief cutscene, after which it vanishes. Being hostile shoudn't be a problem since it never actually gets to act. I'll look into putting the text in the creature script, though it waoud have to act as soon as it appeared rather than waiting a turn, so the spider wouldn't start attacking.

I'm making a special item that causes a creature to appear next to the target, say a few text bubbles, and disappear. My first thought was to use place_monster, but you can't control the creature number with this command (thus no text bubbles). My current solution is to put the creature hidden in each town, and have the town script relay the creature number for that town via SDF. Then I use activate_hidden_group and relocate_character to move it to the proper place when the item is used. However, relocate_character doesn't check if the space is occupied or blocked, so the creature often appears inside a wall or on top of someone else unless I do an extensive check of all the spaces around the target. Is there a more elegant way to do this or am I stuck with what I have?

I'd recommend Kelandon's article on cutscenes as well. It's much more informative than the list of calls in the appendix. You can find his page at: http://my.sanbrunocable.com/tomwatts/public_html/home.html

I think it's their magic that makes them arrogant. Just think of Erika, Linda, Garhazad, X, Rone, and probably a couple other human wizards who are equally arrogant, insane, amoral, or some combination of the three. Patrick and Solberg are the only good examples that come to mind. Also, remember that unlike humans, dragons aren't social creatures. Their natural state of existence is solitary, so they probably aren't that good at getting along with other creatures of any species. Mortax is a very rare exception, a dragon with the soul of a human. Come to think of it, you might also think of Erika as a human with the soul of a dragon.

Also, the message_dialog command requires two strings, even if the second one is blank. For example: message_dialog("Testing, on two three",""); note the second set of quotes which do notheing but are required for the game to show the dialog box properly.

The simplest kinds of adjustments are made dhrough the *data file that contains item data. If you don't know what this file is, read the manual. This kind of editing can give an item various properties that already exist in the game. For example, you could make the staff you mentioned add 1 to mage spells or intelligence, or regenerate X spell points when used (like the Rod of Arcana). If you really want the staff to continuously regenrate spell points every turn, you'll have to use a special script for it. Set the item's special class to whatever number you want (class 1 in this example) and then edit the START_STATE in your scenario script file to include: beginstate START_STATE; if(char_has_item_of_class_equip(0,1,0) == 1) { <Whatever you want to happen to the character each turn> } and repeat for each character. This way the effect you create will happen every turn to anyone who has an item of special class 1 equipped. Be warned that the effect will only work for the scenarion in which the character is given the item. It is not transferable because it depends on a special class and script. On a side note, be sure to consider the possibly unbalancing effects of this staff as well. It would be a very powerful magic item.

Thanks. Is there any way to remove blue from the graphic or do I have to edit the graphic file myself? What editor would you suggest? I tried playing around with the different adjust settings and got a bunch of greens, browns, and purples, but no red. Even taking the green cloak and swapping green and red just gives you purple.

I've been having problems using the it_icon_adjust and cr_icon_adjust commands. When I try to tint the color of an item or creature nothing happpens. For example, the following custom item: Begindefineitem 450; import = 16; it_full_name = "Salamander Cloak"; it_floor_which_sheet = 1002; it_floor_which_icon = 5; it_inventory_icon = 6; it_special_class = 1; it_ability_1 = 55; it_ability_str_1 = 1000; it_icon_adjust = 128; Is still purple, not red as should be the case for an icon adjust of 128. I have successfully used other adjustments, such as darkening the graphic or tinting it neutral, but colors don't seem to work. Also, no matter how much fire resistance I give the item (this example has 5000%), the character wearing it still takes damage from fire. Is there any way to grant immunity to fire?

Another realistic trap would be to have an entry room with locked/secret doors to hold any intruders up for a minute. Then, during that time the guards examine them and decide whether to manually trigger the collapsing floor/falling rocks/concealed spikes/whatever. This would reduce the change of accidentally getting the wromg guy. As for ways to get through the trap, besides the obvious ones (secret passages, passwords, keys), the characters could have to dress up in clothing and armor looted from other guards, or perhaps have a certain character with them in order to make the guard think they're friendly, or just fast-talk or bribe him into letting them through.

You're right. It can't be done with the calls available. You'd need at least a call for the item number of an item on the floor and preferably a call that returns a particular item's value. You could make an ability that turns all items of a particular type in the character's inventory (e.g. iron chainmail or gold ore) into coins, but it would be limited. I think it might also be possible to make an ability that turns a character's entire inventory into money, but this would be very, very dangerous if used accidentally. You would use a loop that calls has_num_of_item for every number from 4 to 449 or however many extra custom items there are. The script would know each item's price because you'd program a bunch of SDF's in advance with the price of each item. It isn't elegant, but it soulds like it would work. Sadly, since there isn't a call char_has_item_equip that would work on items without a special class, you couldn't protect equipped items, so the character would have to drop everything he didn't want rendered into gold. Needless to say, I don't actually thing this ability would be a good idea, just that it's theoretically possible.

While you can't make a specially scripted item that stays with you, it would be easy to just edit all the scenarios you download to include the backpack item and then place a backpack right next to the starting location for you to pick up. You couldn't save items in the backpack but it would be almost as good as taking it with you between scenarios. (Just out of curiousity, has anyone used this trick to let their characters take Khoth's wands between scenarios?) But, it seems that your main concern with the backpack is for collecting loot. If this is the case, just add a merchant NPC called "Travelling Merchant" or whatever and include him hidden in each town. Then give the characters a special ability that unhides him and teleports him to their current location so they can sell him the loot as they pick it up. Even simpler, if you aren't that concerned with realism, it should be possible to make a special ability that transforms all items on the ground nearby into an appropriate number of coins. This would of course make it all too easy to get rich, but it would probably solve your problem.

Now, if you want the NPC to actually follow in the footsteps of the party, that would be more tricky. I'd say that you make the NPC completely immoble (mem cell 0 = 2) and then include a script in town state 2 (called each turn) that stores the position of the last character in the party for the last few turns and then uses relocate_char to move the NPCs to those spaces. This would mean having a bunch of variables that store the coordinates of those epaces. Or, if you can make do with just 2 NPCs, you could just add them to slots 5 and 6 in the party.