Mod Idea: Zaram Maldovar NPC

ZaramMaldovar

Now I know nothing about coding, but I'm hoping to get some help with the writing phase so that when I make a find who is good at coding I can make this mod because I've always wanted my character to be in the game.

So here are my basic details (subject to change of course) I've worked on some stuff for all the games but I'm focusing specifically on BG1 at the moment.

Zaram Maldovar
CN Human Dragon Disciple
Str: 10
Dex: 15
Con: 16
Int: 17
Wis: 7
Char: 15

Starting Location, only details I have figured out for all games:
Mutamin's Garden as one of the statues (BG1)
Repository of Undeath as hired help alongside Daran Highhammer (SOD)
Crooked Crane, fighting the Lich inside the tavern instead of in the secret room (BG2-Subject to change)
Starting Equipment:
Staff of Maldovar (starts out as a normal Quarterstaff but can be upgraded throughout the series, still working out how that will work)
Traveler's Robe
Sling

Story (still working on actual biography page):

Zaram is the biological son of Gorion and Phyldia (subject to change on mother if neccesary). At some point he had a falling out with his parents and began adventuring only to find himself face to face with Mutamin who turned him to stone. That was decades ago and luckily for Zaram the party happens to rescue him after defeating the mad gnome.

Features:
1. Due to being CHARNAME's stepbrother, Zaram should have an interesting friendship path with the player.
2. Multiple interjections to characters and areas
3. Multiple interjections the the main plot of the story, particularly when the party returns to Candlekeep in Chapter 6
4. One Minor and One Major Quest (still working out details on those)
5. At least One Banter with other NPCs (still need to RP with some of the NPCs to decipher his reactions to them) though he should not be compatible with some of them for long.
6. Will romance Neera provided the player does not (Though it is more or less attempting to flirt with her in BG1)

Raduziel

A piece of advice from someone who knew nothing about modding until two weeks ago:

The best way to see in game a content you want is doing it yourself. There are some nice guides around here and Gibberling's forum and the modding community is very helpful to save us when we get stuck. In the past two weeks, I've been asking for help from pretty much everyone that ever did a mod that I liked.

Believe me, it's not rocket science. Some things are hard and a lot of trial-and-error and reverse-engineering is needed, but if I learned it pretty much everyone can do the same. All you need is patience, humbleness to know your own limits, politeness to ask for help, a little notion of logic and some creativity to develop your own solutions.

I never did an NPC mod (it's my next goal after I finish the releases of my kit mods) but for what I'm discovering it's not that hard. Just start with something simple and as you learn new tricks (and you'll learn lots of them) you improvise your creation.

My first mod, the Undead Predator, was remade a total of twelve times. The Redeemer, my second one, nine. The Slayer only one. And my last one, the Undead Hunter Revision, two. Of those remakes, most were because I learned something exciting and tried to implement it (like the last update on both the Predator and the Redeemer).

The people who actually mod tend to be occupied with their own mods, so it's ok to ask for help (well I hope it is because I ask a lot especially from @Grammarsalad , @subtledoctor , @kjeron and @Gwendolyne ) but delivering a whole project can be a little too much.

Of course, you're free to do as you please, as I said it's just a piece of advice from someone who was in your shoes not so long ago.

Here's something to help you start your addictive journey if you want to.

Good luck!

ZaramMaldovar

@Raduziel
Well what do you think of my basic outline? I'll be doing several playthroughs to think and am of course open to advice. I still have yet to ever have certain NPCs in my party so that's the first thing to work on. I just got through having Yeslick in my party for BG1, him and Branwen made a great combo.

Raduziel

I never did an NPC mod, but I think your idea a little too ambitious for a freshman (I committed the same mistake when I started).

1) Starting as a statue is a thing that'll have to learn. And you'll need to learn a lot of things already, so I would leave this idea on a shelf for now. IDK how hard it is, I'm just saying what I would do.

2) Same goes for the lich thing. To do that you would need to edit the area to a- remove the lich from its original location, b-place it in the tavern, c-make your NPC fight him without dying, d-make sure that no plot-related character would die in the battle, e-be sure that the players won't take an accidental Reputation hit (think about the frustration for Rangers and Paladins).

3) I think that anything that touches Gorion and/or Candlekeep can be very problematic in terms of storytelling and you probably would have problems with a mob of angry purists.

4) For what I read from your character in another thread, being in the Repository doesn't seem to fit. Why not put him in Boareskyr Bridge throwing at the crusaders all the fire spells he can?

5) I really don't know about the quest. Don't have the faintest idea of the amount of work it takes, but probably a major one would be a little too much. I think that @LavaDelVortel and @WarChiefZeke can give you some advice as they have awesome NPC mods with a quest included.

6) Be careful with the staff's upgrade to not make something too OP (like Edwin's amulet of Alora's rabbit foot.

Another tip: check the tp2 file of as many mods related to the content you want to build as you can. You'll be impressed on how much you can learn doing this. The Undead Hunter Revision initial release was made in a few hours thanks to a reverse-engineering that I did with the Wizard Slayer Rebalancing.

ZaramMaldovar

@Raduziel
Hmmm.....4 is good....I like 4.

YOU GET A FIREBALL! YOU GET A FIREBALL! YOU GET A FIREBALL! EAT FLAMES AND DIEEEEEE!....oh hello (charname) I didn't you see there. I heard you were up here fighting the crusade but I didn't expect you to be here specifically. So it's true that the other routes are shot then? Damn, that's a shame, I was hoping to restock on supplies in Baldur's Gate but it doesn't look like I'll be doing that any time soon. Mind if I join you? Figure there's more crusaders to burn somewhere down the line right? And hell it's even for a good cause, figure pops I'd be proud.

Grammarsalad

I don't really know anything about npc mods, but the best way to learn is to look at other mods.

I know that somewhere there is a nice little npc mod that is also a tutorial of sorts (the tutorial is in the code iirc--i.e. it actually tells you what they are doing.)

*looking*

It looks like it's Branwen for bg2:

http://forums.pocketplane.net/index.php?topic=28623.0

JuliusBorisov

I also suggest to use a tutorial by @LavaDelVortel in the Wildsurge magazine (run by @deltago ). Start with the Dwarf issue from here:

https://www.wildsurge.ca/archive

ZaramMaldovar

@JuliusBorisov
Thanks, Julius. I appreciate it.