Changing Familar

Skatan

Hello,

I want to create a "fake" animal companion for a ranger, so I want the animal to be as a NPC so that I can give it orders and that it has an inventory etc, but I don't want Wilson. So, I'm thinking about a couple of different ways to do this easily:

* Recruit Wilson and edit him so that it's not really him. I don't want him though, I want to RP another animal companion and changing Wilson would still make it feel like it's Wilson.
* Can a familiar be changed in eekeeper to be as an NPC? Like if I summon it and then force-joining it with the ctrl- command (forget which letter it is). I don't think I can edit its avatar in eekeeper since it's not an actual NPC (meaning I can't summon ie the rabbit then edit it to look like a wolf in keeper?).
* Create a generic character without a soundset, maybe a monk, then just changing the picture to make it look like an animal. EDIT: and change the sprite/avatar to match the companion animal as well, ie a wolf.
* Other? I'm open for ideas, as long as it's easy enough that I can do it myself I'm not very good at anything but eekeeper


Thanks!

SmilingSword

I love the monk idea. You could go one further than changing the picture. You can change the character sprite with one of the commands in the console.

The only problem with that is I think it reverts to the default sprite on level ups. So you would have to change it back after each level. I don't know if it's possible but you might be able to change the sprite in EEkeeper. If it is then it's probably a better bet.

Skatan

SmilingSword said:

I love the monk idea. You could go one further than changing the picture. You can change the character sprite with one of the commands in the console.

Yes, I meant also to change it's avatar/sprite model to ie a wolf or whatever animal I choose. My ranger still haven't made up his mind what animal companion he wants All I know is that it ain't a bear. Maybe a wilddog or a troll.

Edit: And btw, I often change the avatar/sprite of CHARNAME, ie from a elf to a human sprite if I want my elf to look a bit more burly, and it never changes back. I haven't tried it on other sprites though.

deltago

You can always force an animal to join your party after consoling it in.

Ravenslight

I have changed the in game appearance of characters that I have made using the appearance tab in EEKeeper. Not all of them worked well, but some of them, like a bear or a spider did. I never leveled up one of the animal ones, so I can’t be positive that they wouldn’t change, but I don’t see why they would. I know that when I do something like change the appearance of my human mage to that of an elven mage, it works just fine. No problems with leveling up.

Skatan

deltago said:

You can always force an animal to join your party after consoling it in.

but I think they can't level if you do this. I've tried it once before by adding a golem to my mage (because every mage should have one!). I think it was stuck at the stats it had. I want my animal companion to act and behave like a NPC (though I might restrict its levels to not make it to great).

A panther would be cool. Used to have one when playing NVN.

Skatan

Ravenslight said:

I have changed the in game appearance of characters that I have made using the appearance tab in EEKeeper. Not all of them worked well, but some of them, like a bear or a spider did. I never leveled up one of the animal ones, so I can’t be positive that they wouldn’t change, but I don’t see why they would. I know that when I do something like change the appearance of my human mage to that of an elven mage, it works just fine. No problems with leveling up.

OK, I'll try that then! I've had the same experince with normal sprites, like you.

Ravenslight

Let us know how it works for you.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Skatan

That's a good find @subtledoctor! This looks very much like what I was after. The only problem is that I'm currently playing on a comp without internet, but I may have to rectify that since the idea of this mod is very similar to what I had imagined.

Skatan

Update:

My stalker found a lone dreadwolf roaming the woods the other day. Initally the wolf showed neither fear nor anger towards the ranger, which was uncommon for an animal encounter. The experienced ranger immideately noticed that something was different with this wolf. It had something behind its eyes.. it had intelligence. The ranger began charming the animal, slowly talking to it and fed it some dried meat. The wolf obviously relaxed in the rangers company and, once the meat was eaten, lay down next to the ranger, who was crouching next to it. The ranger made camp there that evening, and together they sat throughout the night, gazing into the dark together. A bond was created that night, and the next morning the wolf followed the ranger even though the charm spell had wore of a long time ago. They became inseparable.
________________________________________________________

My dreadwolf I Ctrl-Q'ed into the team and altered to some extent in keeper. Initally it was quite buggy and the dread wolf kept crashing the game when it attacked. I had to make it a class, so made it monk. Initially I had intended to keep it as natural as possible, and only adding some HP and maybe damage etc manually on level ups. But once I made it a monk it stopped the crashing, for some reason, so now the wolf is a level 2 monk. I've removed all the monk abilities though and slightly altered the wolf's stats (it began with a straight up 9 stat line, so I gave it a more reasonable statline 16/16/10/7/3/3). I also came with a static, unremovable ring for some reason, which I removed. couldn't see what stats that ring confered.

After visiting the wolfwere island, my intent is for my wolf to get a mutated version of that lycantrophy, enabling him to turn into a wolfwere; a wolf shaping into a humanoid. It felt fitting for some reason I also played around with the idea that the wolf would be some kind of weird bhaalspawn, like if bhaal had hooked up with a werewolf woman or something, hehe.. but I skipped that idea since I know too little about the canon stories and didn't want to take too much liberty.

Edit: btw, by making the wolf a monk he gets detect traps, which thematically fits perfect! If he would have had detect illusions as well, that would have been epic. Also, I've given him detect evil since it's a common "myth" that canines can sense evil, hehe.. that was more for RP flavour though. The dog is netural evil now, but will get a change in alignment after some time in the compamy of the ranger.

Ravenslight

Lovely! I would enjoy reading more updates as you progress in the game.

The_Cheeseman

The ring in your dread wolf's inventory was probably granting it various immunities and resistances, as dread wolves are undead creatures. Maybe not the most natural choice for an animal companion. ;-)

Skatan

The_Cheeseman said:

The ring in your dread wolf's inventory was probably granting it various immunities and resistances, as dread wolves are undead creatures. Maybe not the most natural choice for an animal companion. ;-)

The wolf retains the full resistance vs cold and magic cold damage, as well as, 50% vs electricity even without the ring. Oddly enough, though, the stats were all 9's, so maybe the ring alters it or the APR etc.

That's exactly it! The idea for this ranger and his companion is the idea of a very oddly matched couple, for the ranger to see a friend in that ugly, shaggy, fearsome wolf and for the wolf to see that this ranger is more than just another meatbag he wants to eat.