Modifying Turn Undead Level

Arctodus

Hello all,

I'd like to know how to modify the Turn Undead skill of the Undead Hunter Paladin. To boost this kit a bit, I'd like to be able to Turn Undead like a cleric of the same level. I'll also give him Remove Paralysis as an innate ability, thus copying the benefits of the Ghosthunter of the 2e Paladin Handbook. That way, Undead Hunters get thematic benefits that boost their ability without being OP.

I tinkered around with EEkeeper and NearInfinity, but, since I'm not yet very savvy with these tools, a few pointers would be appreciated. Thanks !

Arunsun

If technical details do not matter to you just read the TL;DR


What you want to do is to use OPcode 323 which modifies your turn undead level and apply it to the undead hunter.
I attached a zip spell file so that you may see how it's done (Kudos to subtledoctor and Grammarsalad, it's the one from FnP). If you have FnP installed then just look for this spell in the override folder, if not then put it into your override folder and open Near Infinity.
From there you can edit the increment as you want to, change the name of the spell etc... I'd advise you make your own copy of the spell in case you intend to install FnP or already have, so that you can modify the spell without interfering with FnP.

Now, still using Near Infinity you want to open the CLABPA04.2da file, which is the ability table of the undead hunter.
A paladin turns undead as if he were 2 levels lower than a cleric, IIRC.
If your CLABPA04.2da is unaltered it should have 7 lines. All I did here was adding an extra line (copypasting the 7th line), changed its name to ability 8, changed the name of the AP_"spell" to AP_+my spell name, and moved that part to level 3 (replacing level 1 with ****).
AP_ means that you will APply this spell to your character when he reaches the level correspunding to the column, in our case the third level since this is when a paladin becomes able to turn undead.
GA_ means you will Grant the Ability to your character, so you'll typically find it in your innates afterwards, but that doesn't apply in our case.
Here's a picture of what it should look like:




I just created a undead hunter and opened the save with EEKeeper, and here is what his effect table looks like:
I highlighted the last line which is the one that matters to us:
The type of effect is 0x0143, which equals 323 in hexadecimal, so it's the right OPcode that was applied, and the first parameter is 4, which means I added 4 levels to my turn undead level. This was just for testing purpose. As I thought, EEKeeper wasn't updated since that OPcode was introduced, hence the lack of name and documentation over it, and why you couldn't find it in the effect list.


TL;DR: If your game is unmodded or has no mod that modifies Undead Hunter, I attached a zip with a custom spell file (that uses my own prefix so there should be no conflict with other mods) that increases your turn undead level by 2 (to match that of a same level cleric) and the custom 2DA table to apply that to the undead hunter at level 3. Just paste the two files in your override folder and you should be good to go. Tell me if anything went wrong. You will have to start a new game (or at least have an undead hunter whose level hasn't leveled to level 3 yet) for this to properly work.

Arctodus

Many, many, many thanks to you, @Arunsun ! Everything is working perfectly. At level 8, the Undead Hunter can explode basic skeletons, which means it is working as intended.

You're right : I was looking for the effect in EEKeeper, but couldn't find it. I've played around a bit with effects before, but never with CLAB files. WIth your example, I have a better understanding of how things work now. I'll probably add Remove Paralysis the same way in the CLAB file too, now that I know how to instead of adding it periodically through EEKeeper.

Just one thing, though : the 8th line in the CLABPA04 in the 2DA subtree doesn't appear in NI for me. I looked into the 2DA and the Override subtrees, and couldn't find anything. It's strange, because everything's working fine. The effect also shows up in EEKeeper.

Anyway, a bunch of thanks again !

Arunsun

Arctodus said:

Just one thing, though : the 8th line in the CLABPA04 in the 2DA subtree doesn't appear in NI for me. I looked into the 2DA and the Override subtrees, and couldn't find anything. It's strange, because everything's working fine. The effect also shows up in EEKeeper.

Actually you can freely add lines to CLAB tables (there might be a cap, but it's waaaaayyyy above anything what you might have to care about). All I did was, like I said, copying the seventh line and pasting it below the actual line named "ability7", because at first I wanted to add the effect at level 1, then I realised it was useless since a Paladin can't Turn Undead at that level so I moved it to level 3 and so the line became useless because I could have added it to any other line with an unoccupied level 3.

Arctodus said:

You're right : I was looking for the effect in EEKeeper, but couldn't find it. I've played around a bit with effects before, but never with CLAB files. WIth your example, I have a better understanding of how things work now. I'll probably add Remove Paralysis the same way in the CLAB file too, now that I know how to instead of adding it periodically through EEKeeper.

Giving you a bit more details since this is an active ability rather than a passive one:

Make a copy of the existing Remove Paralysis and modify a few parameters:
Make it an innate spell (instead of a priest spell)
Maybe modify the casting time, since innate abilities usually have a casting time of 1 (dispel magic or true sight from inquisitor are good examples). But IIRC Remove Paralysis already has a very low casting time
Add it to the CLAB table with the GA_ prefix at any level you want to, on any line as long as it is unoccupied at that level.

Have fun with it now! There's nothing quite as pleasant as modding your own game and even if this is pretty basic, well you gotta start somewhere