Critter Parts mini-mod for Baldur’s Gate: EE
Ravenslight
Member Posts: 1,609
Introduction:
Leaving the remains of all the bears, wolves and wild dogs that my Ranger and Druid protagonist encounter to rot in the sun has always bothered me. It strikes me that they would find this not only a terrible waste of natures gifts, but disrespectful to the creatures themselves. Not to mention the twitch that my packrat self gets when whole groups of critters in the game never drop any items. Yes, I am one of those obsessive creatures that take great delight in finding tiny bits of treasure on the bodies of my vanquished foes.
What started as a slight modification for my own game, grew into a small quest mod. It is a little thing that adds flavor and extra role-play possibilities. I have found myself enjoying it’s addition to my own game so much that I thought it might appeal to a few others as well.
This mod adds harvestable drops to several of the critters that the PC encounters in the game. It does not change anything else about them. It will add these drops to all instances of the following types of animals that the PC encounters, with the exception of special quest specific instances.
Brown Bear
Black Bear
Cave Bear
Polar Bear
Wild Dog
War Dog
Worg
Wolf
Dread Wolf
Dire Wolf
Vampiric Wolf
The dropped items can be sold to any of the merchants in the game who will also buy miscellaneous items. Thalantyr in High Hedge, and the innkeeper in the Feldepost Inn are two such merchants available early in the game. The value of the different hides and meats vary with type.
All like items stack with each other and include:
Bear Meat
Wolf Meat
Wild Dog Meat
Bear Hide
Wolf Hide
Dog Hide
Animal Bones
Additionally, all of the meat drops can be consumed by any character in your party and will return varying amounts of hit points, depending on the type of meat eaten.
The meat must be placed in one of your quick slots in order for it to be consumed.
The Quest:
This mod includes a quest that will eventually allow your protagonist to bring a new NPC some of the dropped hides, meat or bones to have them made into a new piece of armor. The items needed are dependant on which of the three types of armor the player picks to have made. Choose carefully, he will only make one item per play-through.
This mod is meant to add a bit more role-play and flavor to the game. The only fighting involved are the encounters that you would normally have with the critters in the game. These have not been modified in any way.
Please note:
In order to begin the quest, the player must choose to “use” the new “campfire” that appears in area AR4300, the North Nashkel Road. This is directly in front of the big campfire you find in the game after killing the band of Hobgoblins near the road. Just hover your mouse around in front of the campfire to find it at coordinates 3265,0720.
A note about the new armor pieces:
The new pieces were tailored to fit my own play style and fit with what my own protagonists might find useful at the point in the game that they are likely to be able to obtain them. Of course, not every other player will have the same preferences. If other players don’t find them appropriate for use in their own game, they can instead sell them for gold.
I also thought that it might be fun to eventually add more choices to the list that can be made. Ones that might come from the suggestions of other players. Something that they would like to see available in their own games. So I am open to ideas.
They must, of course, fit the tone of the role-play within the mod. The NPC in question has some fairly strong opinions about what he will or will not do.
As novice modders we would welcome any insight that any of you more experienced modders might be willing to share concerning how we might have done a better job in our coding efforts.
Anything that you might wish to share in this area can be posted here in this thread, so that others might be able to benefit from it as well, or if you prefer, you can just use Shadowhawk’s email that can be found in the Critter Parts Readme.
Updated to Version 2.0 April 24, 2016
As of version 2.0 this mod has been expanded to include drops from all of the spiders that the protagonist encounters in her/his travels. A new NPC with an uncommon interest in such trinkets has been added to area AR2200, the first Cloakwood Mines, or Cloakwood Lodge map.
Updated to version 2.1 May 15, 2016
As requested, version 2.1 of this mod has been traified.
Updated to non-beta version 1.0 December 17, 2016
Updated to version 1.1 May 7, 2017
DOWNLOAD LINK:
Click on the Source code (zip) file
https://github.com/shadowhawk703/CritterParts/releases
Leaving the remains of all the bears, wolves and wild dogs that my Ranger and Druid protagonist encounter to rot in the sun has always bothered me. It strikes me that they would find this not only a terrible waste of natures gifts, but disrespectful to the creatures themselves. Not to mention the twitch that my packrat self gets when whole groups of critters in the game never drop any items. Yes, I am one of those obsessive creatures that take great delight in finding tiny bits of treasure on the bodies of my vanquished foes.
What started as a slight modification for my own game, grew into a small quest mod. It is a little thing that adds flavor and extra role-play possibilities. I have found myself enjoying it’s addition to my own game so much that I thought it might appeal to a few others as well.
This mod adds harvestable drops to several of the critters that the PC encounters in the game. It does not change anything else about them. It will add these drops to all instances of the following types of animals that the PC encounters, with the exception of special quest specific instances.
Brown Bear
Black Bear
Cave Bear
Polar Bear
Wild Dog
War Dog
Worg
Wolf
Dread Wolf
Dire Wolf
Vampiric Wolf
The dropped items can be sold to any of the merchants in the game who will also buy miscellaneous items. Thalantyr in High Hedge, and the innkeeper in the Feldepost Inn are two such merchants available early in the game. The value of the different hides and meats vary with type.
All like items stack with each other and include:
Bear Meat
Wolf Meat
Wild Dog Meat
Bear Hide
Wolf Hide
Dog Hide
Animal Bones
Additionally, all of the meat drops can be consumed by any character in your party and will return varying amounts of hit points, depending on the type of meat eaten.
The meat must be placed in one of your quick slots in order for it to be consumed.
The Quest:
This mod includes a quest that will eventually allow your protagonist to bring a new NPC some of the dropped hides, meat or bones to have them made into a new piece of armor. The items needed are dependant on which of the three types of armor the player picks to have made. Choose carefully, he will only make one item per play-through.
This mod is meant to add a bit more role-play and flavor to the game. The only fighting involved are the encounters that you would normally have with the critters in the game. These have not been modified in any way.
Please note:
In order to begin the quest, the player must choose to “use” the new “campfire” that appears in area AR4300, the North Nashkel Road. This is directly in front of the big campfire you find in the game after killing the band of Hobgoblins near the road. Just hover your mouse around in front of the campfire to find it at coordinates 3265,0720.
A note about the new armor pieces:
The new pieces were tailored to fit my own play style and fit with what my own protagonists might find useful at the point in the game that they are likely to be able to obtain them. Of course, not every other player will have the same preferences. If other players don’t find them appropriate for use in their own game, they can instead sell them for gold.
I also thought that it might be fun to eventually add more choices to the list that can be made. Ones that might come from the suggestions of other players. Something that they would like to see available in their own games. So I am open to ideas.
They must, of course, fit the tone of the role-play within the mod. The NPC in question has some fairly strong opinions about what he will or will not do.As novice modders we would welcome any insight that any of you more experienced modders might be willing to share concerning how we might have done a better job in our coding efforts.
Anything that you might wish to share in this area can be posted here in this thread, so that others might be able to benefit from it as well, or if you prefer, you can just use Shadowhawk’s email that can be found in the Critter Parts Readme.
Updated to Version 2.0 April 24, 2016
As of version 2.0 this mod has been expanded to include drops from all of the spiders that the protagonist encounters in her/his travels. A new NPC with an uncommon interest in such trinkets has been added to area AR2200, the first Cloakwood Mines, or Cloakwood Lodge map.
Updated to version 2.1 May 15, 2016
As requested, version 2.1 of this mod has been traified.
Updated to non-beta version 1.0 December 17, 2016
Updated to version 1.1 May 7, 2017
DOWNLOAD LINK:
Click on the Source code (zip) file
https://github.com/shadowhawk703/CritterParts/releases
Post edited by Ravenslight on
25
Comments
I am no experienced modder but I am curious and I had a quick look at your tp2 file.
I think you already plan to externalize your strings to other files (your language section points to an inexisting file at the moment). It's required if you expect your mod to be translated. I suggest using two files, one for the strings used by the installation procedure and one for the game content. The latter should be UTF-8 encoded even if this makes no difference for your own current implementation. Incidentally this will make your tp2 file shorter and easier to read.
It has no incidence in your mod but you may want to flush the memory after the IDS update (CLEAR_IDS_MAP).
Now a less silly comment, even if you document your mod as a BGEE mod you should prevent its installation on other platforms, for instance with a REQUIRE_PREDICATE GAME_IS "bgee" "error/explanation string here" after BEGIN. The string itself can be stored in a tra file.
Thank you so much for taking the time to give your helpful insight. I know Shadowhawk will find it helpful in his ongoing attempts to better understand the best way to do things.
It would only require few changes here and there to account for things like the different size of portraits, the different encode of text (if you plan to traify), the different name of area AR4300, the different way usability of items is handled in descriptions, etc.
We discovered an unintended check this morning that would prevent the campfire from spawning for an evil protagonist. This is what comes of working on too many mods at once. Sorry folks
@agb1
Thank you for taking the time to let us know that you like the idea.
@Erg
We would consider learning to add more compatibility in the future, if interest in the mod justified it.
-Removed unintended !Alignment(Player1,MASK_EVIL) check for the campfire to spawn.
-Fixed missing code associated with the player choosing not to help Tobias.
-Added REQUIRE_PREDICATE GAME_IS ~bgee~ check.
Just an additional note here:
In a upcoming release there will be an expansion of this mod to include all the spiders that the protagonist must encounter in his/her travels. This will involve an additional new NPC with an uncommon interest in such creatures.
I prefer to pick up as much of my party’s gear from my adventures as possible. For example, finding a few fire arrows in the Nashkel Mines is much more fun for me than when I buy them. This part of the mod adds a way for my protagonist to barter for a few poison arrows, darts, or bolts, as well as Antidotes, giving me one more reason for having to kill so many… creepy crawly...shudder… spiders.
In addition, the night time requirement for the campfire to appear in area AR4300 has been removed.
Please note: This mod is currently still being developed and tested on version 1.3 of the game in order to avoid potential problems that might be added by moving to 2.1. Once the game has been patched a bit more we will move on to the newer version. I don’t anticipate problems with what we are attempting to do, but you never know.
If anyone does use this mod on the newer patched versions of the game we would appreciate your feedback concerning whether you have any problems with it or not.
I would like to translate this mod in Italian, but the .tra file is empty. Any chance to fix this?
How nice!
I don’t know exactly what it is that you need, but I will let Shadow know. We were planning an update for the mod to be released this coming weekend, (just some text edits) so hopefully he will be able to include what is missing at that time. If all that you need is not included then, please let us know, as this is more that we are still learning how to do properly. I suspect that it will be on Sunday.
Thank you for your interest.
Just another note for anyone who is trying the mod. We have been told that the mod is working well using the newest patch for BG:EE
I will try to explain myself better.
CritterParts-beta_v2.0.zip\CritterParts-beta_v2.0\CritterParts\Tra\English
The "English" folder has a file called "Setup-CritterParts". This file should contain all the texts of your mod (dialogues, replies, item's name, item's description and so on). Instead, it is empty, so I cannot translate the mod.
Can you please ask Shadow to check this folder and make sure to create a functional tra file? Grazie
I’m sure this will help him better understand what is needed.
Thank you @kaguana
I hope you have fun with it.
Search the same map where you last saw Tobias, AR4300, the North Nashkel Road map. He won’t be found in exactly the same place as when you first talked to him, but he will be found on the same map.
This is assuming that you did talk to Tobias first. Mr. Tanner should not spawn in the High Hedge area unless the player chooses to “use” the new “campfire” in AR4300 and talks to Tobias first, beginning the quest. If this is not what is happening please let us know.
As requested, version 2.1 of this mod has been traified. Thank you for your kind offer to translate it for Italian players. Please let us know if we have not provided all that you need.
It's perfect, thank you!
"beta_v2.1"
Is there a final version of your mod?
Does it work with the latest patch of BG EE?
I have just finished an unmodded game of BG EE and plan to use the Unfinished Business mod for the next playthrough - would your mod interfere with that?
No bugs have been reported, but please do let us know if you run into any.
Please also consider submitting an ini file template for this mod to be included in the BiG World Setup tool. We of course can write the ini file ourselves, but we prefer to invite active authors to manage their mod's relationship with BWS proactively, including deciding what short description they want us to show with the mod. Thanks!
Thank you for your interest in our mod.
CritterParts_v1.0 December 17, 2016
-Removed weight from all harvestable items.
-Slightly increased value of all harvestable items.
-Minor text edits.
As we looked into the modding setups that you mentioned, we realized that it will take more time and knowledge than we currently possess to determine what is needed to make this mod compatible. We are not currently using this type of setup ourselves, so testing possible combinations for potential conflicts with the other mods that your setup includes is not possible until we are done with what we are currently working on.
For instance, at this point I could not say for sure if Critter Parts, which adds inventory drops to many animals in the BG portion of the game, would not mess with some quest animal found later in the type of game setup that you’re talking about, or possibly introduced by another mod.
We ourselves add only carefully chosen mods, one at a time, to our setup so that we can quickly determine what happened if something goes wrong. We won’t be changing our current setup until we have at least released a beta version of our Kerick NPC mod. Perhaps at that time we can take another look at this.
IIRC the vest did not modify AC correctly with the additional protections other than the base AC. I'll check this again with the newest version 1.0
No bugs that I have found yet other than the above two (if they are).
I was using the beta 2.1 v. Trying the newer 1.0v now.
I am using BGEE 2.3 + SoD
I’m glad you are enjoying it.
It does sound like the vest is not working as intended. Thank you for taking the time to leave your feedback. It is much appreciated. We will look into this and figure out where we went wrong.
After refamiliarising myself with the item in question, I will try to explain why we made the choices for the item that we did.
The piece was meant to offer the advantage of being able to equip other magical items of protection, such as the Ring of Princes, at the same time as wearing the armor. Unlike for instance Chain Mail +2, which would not allow this.
Tobias’ quest is introduced at a point in the game that I usually hit fairly early. Although the original thought was to allow spell casting while wearing it, I was concerned that making it similar to something like Elven Chainmail, allowing both the equipping of other protection items and spell casting without removing the armor might feel overpowered so early in the game.
Although the piece is working as intended, we are open to making changes. I had intended to revisit the question of whether to allow spell casting once I had the chance to make my own intended run using my bard. Another possibility would be to allow spell casting, but not the equipping of other protection items.
On the other AC points that you mentioned. Could you provide a bit more information as to what part is not showing correctly for you? In my quick retesting it seems right to me. But perhaps I’m missing something. Or perhaps you have some other mods installed that could be affecting it? It is also possible that the different patch levels are affecting something. Other than quick testing, we prefer to play and mod in version 1.3 At least until all the dust settles around the patching.
Balance can be a tough issue I agree.
With Song & Silence, Rogue Rebalancing, and NPC project that I use it offers other options for bardic armor but your idea and quest adds flavor. I always enjoy finding something a bit more as opposed to buying it in a shop,
Regardless it adds flavor to the game. As a point of interest, n SoD it adds the animal drops without interfering with anything as far as i can tell. The armors transfer to SoD fine as well. The coat is one of the best armor for thieves in BG1 and SoD.
Thanks for checking. I add this mod to all my setups now.
Heh, now sword spider armor would be interesting for a druid or beastmaster. Or maybe winter wolf hide.
Thank you again for your feedback. The bone vest will be changed to allow spell casting in the next update.
I’m glad to hear that it is all working correctly for you. Also that the armor and drops are transferring and working well in the SoD portion. At some point in the future I will probably add an additional use for the drops in the SoD portion of the game.
You mentioned sword spiders. I have been thinking of expanding the Sildah and her spiders portion to include a unique piece from her as well. Perhaps a helm or necklace.
We haven’t used winter wolf pelts in this mod because we are already using them in our upcoming Kerick NPC mod. Trading winter wolf pelts with the “Fire Leaf Clan” in that mod will allow the player to obtain several items as well.
Heh, I found myself still picking up the dropped items just out of habit in SoD even though there was no use for them. Ya got me wanting not to let it go to waste.
Sildah I am sure, could come up with some interesting ideas for an extra item. Spiders have unique properties that could present several little ideas for an item. Web, immunity to web, maybe a bonus to saves for poison, protection from backstab (due to spiders having a large field of view), maybe even summon a spider or something.
The Kerick NPC looked interesting, so good on the winter wolf plan there.
*Come to think of it a reaction from Sildah to someone carrying the sword Spiders Bane could get VERY interesting.*
If that is the case, then it is working as intended. Invisibility should prevent him from seeing you.
If you become visible again, that should trigger Mr. Tanner to approach and start the conversation as normally would happen. At least that is what happened for me while testing out this scenario this morning.