use of Find Familiar by a character in MP mode - potential creative fun from an apparent bug

Lemernis

I was intrigued to see in a BGEE game that when I created a party of six characters in MP mode, that a Bard among them who was not CHARNAME was able to cast Find Familiar. (I had set it as a memorized spell via EE Keeper.) This got me excited at first! How neat!

But then when I had the Bard party member ask the fairy dragon to jump into the backpack, it went instead to CHARNAME to request to be carried as such. And the creature did then go into CHARNAME's backpack. But when CHARNAME later tried to release the fairy dragon it simply disappeared. And subsequently when the Bard party member casts the memorized Find Familiar spell, he performs the spell animation but the familiar does not materialize.

Interestingly, there was no boost to HP for CHARNAME. But the level one Bard did gain an additional six HP to both his base HP and active HP count (putting him at 12 HP, including for the base).

So this is a bug, basically. But I am wondering if there is a way for me to use EE Keeper or DLTCP to create a Bard for a MP game that can summon a fairy dragon once per rest cycle in presumably the same manner that Tiax is able to summon a ghast. This would essentially be a summoned creature that can die without any negative consequences to its owner. And in this case the creature would be the fairy dragon familiar.

It isn't for a mod. Rather, I'm offering a collection of characters for download at my BG hobby site, that is based on the residents of Candlekeep. See here, and it is in reference to Parda. The rationale for a fairy dragon that may be summoned daily as such is that it is the result of an attempt to make a lizard (iguana) into a fairy dragon that was affected by a wild surge; and consequently the creature has the ability to regenerate itself from its tail.

Anyway, any instruction that anyone can provide on this subject will be greatly appreciated!

Pecca

It should be easy with NI. Just copy summon ghast spell and change the summon resource to the familiar, then insert the ability to your character.

I was experimenting with permanent familiars for NPCs some time ago. My idea was based on the summoned creature recreated on each new map if the familiar's owner was present there.

Familiars's script:

IF
	!InMyArea("edwin")
THEN
	RESPONSE #100
		DestroySelf()
END

IF
	Global("edwinfam","GLOBAL",0)
THEN
	RESPONSE #100
		SetGlobal("edwinfam","GLOBAL",1)
		Ally()
END

Owner's Script:

IF
	!InMyArea("famcatx")
	Global("edwinfam","GLOBAL",1)
THEN
	RESPONSE #100
		CreateCreatureObject("famcatx","edwin",1,1,1)
		SetGlobal("edwinfam","GLOBAL",0)
END

I had some issue with them sometimes not removing themselves from visited areas though. Never figured it out and moved on other things.

Lemernis

Thanks, Pecca! I'm a neophyte to NI, so would appreciate being walked through it. In NI using Search under Spell for "summon ghast" I found SPIN115.SPL. But when I open it to edit I don't see a summon resource for it. And it uses the Barkskin description yet is a Conjuration spell. It is also listed as an Innate spell.

Um, where can I find Tiax's special ability spell?

argent77

Ignore the spell description. A lot of innate or special abilities haven't their description text updated yet. The spell is correctly named "Summon Ghast" though.

The spell effects are stored in the "Spell ability 0" section. Double click on it to open a new window with the list of spell effects. The same applies to the effects themselves if you want to inspect them more closely.

Lemernis

Thanks @argent77. Under Edit for the spell, I don't see "Spell ability: 0." "Spell ability" has a description to the right. And when I double click on "Spell Ability" it opens a window with three "Effects" at the bottom, the first of which is "Type: Summon Creature (67)." When I open that, I see no box for the summoned creature, though...

argent77

@Lemernis‌ SPL resources are using nested structures to store their specific abilities.

Tiax' "Summon Ghast" spell (SPIN115.SPL) looks like this in my unmodded game:


If you double-click on the selected entry, another window opens with the list of effects for this spell:


You can double-click on the desired effect to inspect it more closely, for example the "Summon creature (67)" effect:


The summoned creature is specified in its Resource field. To change the creature you can simply select another creature from the list at the bottom and click on "Update value".

Lemernis

Problem I'm having is that when I open the effect I get this:



I'm running NI in C:\Program Files (x86)\Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition\Data\00766 which is where the BGEE CHITIN.KEY is.

argent77

Try using the current NearInfinity snaphots.

Lemernis

Also, not sure if this matters, but I have "Spell ability" and not "Spell ability 0":

Lemernis

Ah, I see. I will try it with Snapshots. Thanks

Lemernis

Okay got it. Thanks! I just tried testing it by assigning it the Parda character in my MP game via EE Keeper, and I don't see the spell. But I'll have to tinker with this some more tomorrow, as I'm off to work now.

Lemernis

Got a free moment and thinking about this some more: the spell is to be added as an innate ability, right?

Pecca

Yes.

argent77

Lemernis said:

Got a free moment and thinking about this some more: the spell is to be added as an innate ability, right?

Yes, the "Summon Ghast" spell is defined as an innate. Apparently you can add it to a character with the script action AddSpecialAbility(), but I've never tested this.

Lemernis

Hmm. When I press the innate button for Parda in-game after adding the spell it doesn't activate anything. Using EE Keeper the spell SPIN115 was added for him under the Innate tab, and I gave memorization x1. Should I try adding it via the script action? If so how?

argent77

I had trouble with EE Keeper as well. The innate ability was added to my character, but it was lost permanently after casting it once. Instead, I had more luck using this script block:

IF
  Global("SPIN115Added", "LOCALS", 0)
THEN
  RESPONSE #100
    SetGlobal("SPIN115Added", "LOCALS", 1)
    AddSpecialAbility("SPIN115")    // Summon Ghast
END

To give this ability to one of your party members, create a script and convert it into a BCS file with WeiDU. Rename the extension to .BS and copy it into the game's scripts folder. Assign this script to your character and activate Party AI. A short text message will inform you that the ability has been added, and that's it.

Lemernis

Sorry, just a little lost having never done any of this before. Using NI, can I create a new script by pasting the above code into NONE.BS under Scripts, and then Save As... something like PARDAFAM.BS?

I just ask this because I don't see an obvious way to create a new script.

With what I described above I now have this



But it looks like I need to next select compile. If I do so, after the script compiles when I select Save, will I have the option to Save As? Or will it just modify NONE.BS?

If I can Save As, I would assume that it the location will be the same Scripts folder that NONE.BS is in.

argent77

You can export the unmodified NONE.BS as a template for your new file by clicking on Export...->"script code". Select the "scripts" subfolder, enter a new filename and save.
To make the new file visible in NI, you'll have to press F5 or select Game->"Refresh Tree" from the menu. Afterwards you can add the script code from above into the newly created BS file, click on Compile and save.

Lemernis

Thank you again @argent77 (especially for your patience). I'm almost there. :-) How do I assign a script to the character? Under which tab in EE Keeper, that is. Or do I do it via NI by opening the .chr file? Or rather it looks like a .cre file for Parda when I open the MPSAVE game in NI.

argent77

You can do it the same way as you're applying any other combat scripts to your character. In the game select your character, open the record screen and click on "Customize"->"Script". Select the newly created script (it's probably at the bottom of the list) and activate Party AI. After a few moments your character should have a new innate ability.

Lemernis

Lol, right! Thanks

Lemernis

Awesome! It works. :-) Thank you so much!

Very neat to see this accomplished, and again I'm very grateful.

Lemernis

There's more that I would like to do with this. I think I'll make it a mini-mod to make it a bit easier to use the characters in a MP game. I'm going to have to use weidu to modify Parda's custom spell with a new name and spell icon anyway, so I might as well have it install all the files.

But I'm also considering tackling it as a full-fledged mod by making them playable NPCs. More on that here. I would appreciate feedback on it but I think I'll make that a separate discussion.

Lemernis

Ugh, still trying to get this worked out as a mini-mod.

Posting the mod files here for assistance, mainly for Jarno's help at G3 (can't seem to upload files there).

Lemernis

I have this available now as a mini-mod for a MP game, see here.

I have just one more hurdle to making some final tweaks to this thing. For some reason I am unable to use EE Keeper to add spells (at 1x memorization) under the Innate tab for the characters I have created, i.e., to any of the .chr files (intended for use in an MP game) that the mod copies to the "characters" folder. I can usually just use EE Keeper and under the Innate tab add the spell. It's not showing up in-game for some reason, though.

I recently uninstalled BGEE and reinstalled it to C:\Users\(user name)\Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition\ with the installation directory for EE Keeper now set to C:\Users\(user name)\Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition\Data\00766\. And I can edit other things in games such as the party members' abilities, inventory items, and so on. I just can't get innates to show up. (They do appear in EE Keeper, just not the game.)

And I'm working with .chr files that get imported into the game from the characters folder versus .cre files for the characters of the same name. But I tried changing the file name just to see if that was causing the problem. But the result was the same: the innates don't show up.

Another question: how do I increase the Lore points that a character earns on level-ups? (The Candlekeep scribes I created as clerics should have a higher Lore ability that 1 point per level, I feel.) When I change the Lore value to 10 in the .chr file using NI and save, the characters still only gain 1 point of Lore ability rather than 10.