Corpse Explosion spell

Dark_Ansem

So, once I'm back home I would like to tinker with the idea of creating for NWN a corpse explosion spell like in Diablo 2.

However, I'm concerned whether that is possible or not due to the way corpses are handled in NWN (disappear immediately) and the possibility of destroying loot forever, including plot items.

Any opinion on this?

Sherincall

Corpses are set to disappear in NWN for performance and aesthetic reasons. When you edit a creature in the toolset, in the Advanced tab, there's a "leaves lootable corpse" option. Check that and the corpses will stick around - also all their equipment will be lootable, and looting the armor of a dynamic creature will leave it in its underwear.

If you don't want some equipment to be lootable, destroy it on creature death.

Faerûn

When it comes to the aesthetics of the spell you'll be constrained by what's available in the toolset for other spells and the like, I imagine. That said, the "humanoid body explosion" effect that takes place when an NPC is destroyed by a critical hit might work well for you. Check out some of the other spell effects just in case.

If I remember the Diablo spell and it's intent correctly, I think maybe you could start by scripting the specific container (the lootable corpse left behind, like Sherincall mentioned) to perform an AoE when your custom Corpse Explosion spell is cast on it. If you made this spell destroy the lootable corpse, then you would of course lose any of the items dropped. A possible way around this might be to script it to change the corpse appearance, say from a slain elf to a pile of meat, and prevent the AoE from being performed while it's in that state, post-explosion.

I'm pretty new to scripting myself but I hope this was marginally useful!

Dark_Ansem

Sherincall said:

Corpses are set to disappear in NWN for performance and aesthetic reasons. When you edit a creature in the toolset, in the Advanced tab, there's a "leaves lootable corpse" option. Check that and the corpses will stick around - also all their equipment will be lootable, and looting the armor of a dynamic creature will leave it in its underwear.

If you don't want some equipment to be lootable, destroy it on creature death.

I see, thank you. So even if the corpse was made to explode similarly to the Diablo spell
(Deal 1d6 of damage per Hit Die of target) it would still be possible to loot?

Sherincall

If you destroy the corpse object, you'll destroy its inventory as well. So be sure to move over the items to the secondary placeable when it explodes (destroying any in the process if you want).

Sylvus_Moonbow

By default any equipment placed on an NPCs slots or in its inventory do not have the dropable or pickpocketable checked so as long as this remains but the corpse does not fade when clicked on a message will appear in floaty text that the object has no items. Items with the dropable flag remain inside the corpse if it is set not to fade if the corpse is destroyed by an explosion spell its object is destroyed but the items will then appear as little individual loot bags.

balmz

one idea is a spell from dragon age called walking bomb, you cast it on a target and if the target dies while affected by the spell, it explodes dealing damage to everyone nearby, not quite the same but maybe it could work if doing it on corpses is too hard

Dark_Ansem

balmz said:

one idea is a spell from dragon age called walking bomb, you cast it on a target and if the target dies while affected by the spell, it explodes dealing damage to everyone nearby, not quite the same but maybe it could work if doing it on corpses is too hard

I remember that, thanks!

Dark_Ansem

I don't suppose the game could be updated to make corpses drop by default in order to explode them, yes?