Aluion

Memory cell values are persistant if you save and load a game while in the town. If you leave the town and then return, then memory cells will reset. If you are using basicnpc for your monster, or some other common script, you don't have to make a new script entirely. Just edit basicnpc (or whatever script you are using). In DEAD_STATE, add an if-then statement which checks an unused memory cell. If the memory cell is 0, no item should be placed. When the memory cell is set to 1, then place the item. If you have more than one creature that you need to drop an item, you can just add a different memory cell value for the item. This way, you don't have to have 20 different scripts if you have 20 monsters that need to drop 20 different items. Couple this with other scripts and you can have the monster drop a different item based on stuff-done flags, just by setting a different memory cell, provided that you call the script within the same town and before the fight begins. Of course, if you're using a custom script for the monster anyway, it's best to just take Thuryl's suggestion.

Quote: Originally written by *i: I believe it says in the docs not to allow the character to leave. I'm quite certain it says that in the docs. In fact, I'm looking at it in the appendix right now. I just like testing things to check for and absolve possible workarounds. Plus, I have no work today, and I have nothing better to do with my energy or time.

I've just tested it out in Blades of Avernum. Anytime a player leaves the current town with the party split, an error occurs and the party is reunited automagically with the split character. It does not seem to matter how the character left the current town, whether through a special node or by crossing the town's boundaries.

Assuming you are familiar with the ins-and-outs of Avernum's scripting language.. You could (and this is a somewhat vile solution) check the amount of characters in group 0 (which is the group that contains the PCs). If it is greater than 2 (or one, if you want a singleton), then popup a window telling them to delete some characters and then end the scenario or block the space until they do. If it is less than 3 (2 for singleton), then do nothing. This is quite simple to do via a special node or terrain script. I have some code which does this (though mine inflicts a Dread Curse on players rather than making them delete their party members. It's easily adapted to do either.). The benefit of this is that you do not use pre-fabricated characters, and therefore it allows the player much more freedom in character creation. By the way, the split party calls only work in the current town, as far as I recall (it was that way in Blades of Exile, at least). Therefore, it would not last for the duration of an entire scenario, unless the scenario consisted only of one town, of course. A little warning: If you do this, make sure you do not have any towns in which you can create characters, as then they could simply create a new party member after they passed the special node. Of course, some clever players may come up with ways to bypass this limitation, but no technique is flawless. Also note that this forces their characters to be deleted. It doesn't leave them in Limbo. All of their items will/should be dropped on the ground when they are deleted, but the characters themselves can not be recovered at the end of the scenario. Players who have more characters than the set limit would have to make a new save file, or they would lose their party members eternally. They could not take their party into other scenarios once they completed yours, as they would not have their full party, and all the experience gained in your scenario would be for naught if they use their other party (the one with all their members) in other scenarios.

I just scanned my harddrive and turned up the EXE installations for Exile 2 and Exile 3, so here they are, along with the Exile 1 ZIP file I linked to above, all on my webhost now. If you get an errror when trying to download the ZIP file, right click and click "save target as", or your browser's equivilent. It should then download. Exile I (v 2.0; zipped) Exile II (v 2.0.1; executable) Exile III (v 1.0; executable)

This web site has all versions of Exile available for download VIA HTTP. I have checked to make sure they are the shareware versions. If this website goes down, let me know. My current hosting provider gives me more bandwidth in a month than I ever use in a year (or decade, for that matter), so I really don't mind mirroring a few files. Unnessesary, offtopic, addendum: Oh, wow. There's forums here. When did this happen?