Using EE Keeper to increase crossbow APR?

CorpusDelicti

I am making a pure thief but want to use EE Keeper to increase her APR with a crossbow. However, when I make the change in her record, for example, to 2.5 APR, her record sheet in the game still says 1 APR. She is currently lvl 1.

How do you increase this?

lunar

You need to edit the item file itself, via a program like Dltcep.

Get Dltcep. Open up a shortbow or crossbow of speed for reference. In its 'when equipped' reference you will see the effects that raise the attack rate to 2. Copy those effects and paste it into the normal crossbow file's equipped list. Save the item file. Ofcourse you need to do this for other crossbows, crossbow+1 etc.

Or give yourself crossbow of speed, it has 2 att/round already.

CorpusDelicti

Is there a good tutorial you can recommend on how to use this program? I'm almost entirely programming illiterate.

CorpusDelicti

I'm running BG:EE on a mac.

lunar

It is pretty self-explanatory, actually, once you fire the program you can see items, edit item-find the item you want, and see its properties in different tabs, etc. Change the numbers and save. That's it.

I am not sure if it works on mac, though.

I can edit the crossbow files and post the edited .itm file here, so you can put them into your override folder and it will work, hopefully. But all the crossbows in the game will be affected, so Garrick will enjoy the bonus too. As well as other enemies who use crossbows. (can't remember any, though)

You want the light crossbow to have 2 or 2.5 apr? I can edit the files when I'm home, a few hours later.

CorpusDelicti

Also, is there a way to edit items in Black Pits, too?

lunar

Items in the Black Pits use the same item files as the original game, so if you put an edited lightcrossbow into your override folder, both Winthrop and Devlin Taralon (that stuttering elf merchant in BP) will sell the same edited light crossbow.

There are a few powerful magical items exclusive to Black Pits. Those few items are not present in Baldur's Gate part of the game. (They actually come from BG2)

CorpusDelicti

Yeah,, when I try to save, the program says I "opened it in read only!" after I made the changes and clicked on "Save Effect As..."

CorpusDelicti

2.5 apr would be cool. Is that a change in the chitin file, and I just swap them out?

CorpusDelicti

FYI — I unchecked the "read only" box. But, when I try to save the change, the program crashes.

lunar

Oh yes, you should uncheck 'read only' box before making any edits. There is no change required in the chitin file, or dialog.tlk file, just the crossbow file is going to be changed and put into override folder. Dialog.tlk is the bulk of all the written text in the game, so if you edit an item description, spell description, dialogue line, etc. it has to be changed, or the text will be wonky and wrong. As long as you don't change any in-game text, you don't have to edit dialog.tlk.

For example, editing the crossbow to add apr is simple. If you want to add a line to the item description like 'Special:2,5 attacks/round' then the dialog.tlk will be edited too, and you'll need to have that edited dialog.tlk file in addition to item file for it to work.

Program crashing must be a mac-incompatibility thing, I never had a crash in DLTCEP.

I can give you the edited crossbow file with 2.5 apr, and once you put the .itm file into your override folder, it should work. Item and creature files are universal, as far as I know, for example the same file works flawlessly both in my pc game and Ipad game. So I think it should work on mac, too.

You have your override folder on mac, right? Where it is located? If there is none, you need to create a new folder named override yourself.

One trick, on pc and Ipad, portraits folder has the overriding priority, that is, if you put an edited item file or creature file into portraits folder, the game will behave as it they are put on override folder and make changes accordingly.

I'll be home in 3-4 hours and see what I can do.

CorpusDelicti

Yeah, the override folder is in the same place at the chitin file. Thanks for doing this.

lunar

Here are two item files, one is lightcrossbow and the other is light crossbow+1. They both should have 2,5 apr as you suggested. I learned the effect type required, the number in value of effect number (1) should be 8, which translates into 2,5 apr. Here are explanations of all effects:
http://iesdp.com/IesdpOld/Effects/bg2e20h.htm

Put these files into your override folder, load your game and equip a light crossbow and tell me the results.

CorpusDelicti

Sweet...totally works! Thanks a ton!

On a side note, when it comes to editing BG2, what is the program to use? Is it Shadow Keeper?

lunar

Glad it works. If at any point you want to return to the vanilla crossbows, simply delete those 2 files in your override and the game will revert the bows to original.

Shadow keeper is used for editing BG2 save games. You can also edit creature abilities, inventories, color, race, class etc. with it, if you want to make the game more difficult. For example, you can give your regular bandits short bows+2 and a couple arrows of detonation and raise their levels to 10 and adjust their HPs, saving throws and THAC0s accordingly, if you want them to be that powerful in your game. (Ofcourse that will make the game horribly and unplayably difficult, but you get the idea)

You can give an enemy mage more spells too, if you like. But he won't be able to use them if that spell is not already in his script. At most basic level, if that spellcaster already casts that spell, you can increase the number of times it is memorised, and they will use the spells more often. All spellcasters have a script they use to cast spells. To assign different scripts to enemies, or edit areas, treasures, dialogues, items, spells in BG2, you need DLTCEP again.

That's what I did:I gave the enemy mage in final battle high level spells like Time Stop, Abi Dalzim's Horrid Wilting, Disintegrate, etc. via Shadowkeeper. Then I exported a high level mage-lich script from BG2, and gave that script to that mage via DLTCEP. In the end, he now both has these spells and the intelligence to cast them. Makes the final battle a lot more challenging, I like it that way.

I love that BG is a game you can change and customise to your tastes, with dozens of allready made good quality mods, but also you can easily learn to edit anything in the game by yourself with DLTCEP and Shadowkeeper. It is fun, creative, engaging, and refreshing.