Lilarcor NPC Mod v1.0

semiticgoddess

Everyone likes Lilarcor. Everyone likes the Mordenkainen's Sword spell. And everyone likes NPCs. So why not make Lilarcor into a floating sword NPC?

This is a simple mod that allows you to turn Lilarcor into a party member by speaking with the sword. He'll float around, poke your enemies, and deliver his typical dialog lines. Lilarcor possesses some unusual abilities, but has a number of distinct limitations to offset his various strengths. He has more item restrictions than a Wizard Slayer and the worst stats of any character I've ever seen in the IE games (his stat total is 51; a peasant's total is 54), but he also has sky-high APR and a reasonable set of immunities and resistances, all befitting a floating sword.

Power-gamey stuffs:

[spoiler]

STR 15

DEX 10

CON 14

INT 4

WIS 3

CHA 5

Starts at level 7 with only 1 proficiency point, in two-handed swords

3 base attacks per round

Immunity to charm, domination, fear, confusion, Hold Person, web effects, poison, disease, petrification, blindness, deafness, and Intelligence drain

Unable to use armor, helmets, boots, gauntlets, bracers, scrolls, or potions

Can only use one weapon, the +3 two-handed sword (you can use the Better Enchanted Weapon mod to help him hit stuff like the Ravager, but he'll never be able to hurt Clay Golems)

50% fire resistance

80% cold resistance

40% electricity resistance

20% slashing resistance

-20% crushing resistance

40% piercing resistance

60% missile resistance

0 base AC

+2 penalty to AC vs. crushing

-2 bonus to AC vs. piercing

-4 bonus to AC vs. missiles

[/spoiler]

The mod is very young and has undergone only the barest of testing and no play-balancing, but it should stand up fairly well, as the mod is fairly simple and his advantages and disadvantages are both pretty impactful.

Raduziel

Good idea. I thought it would be something more complex - like a quest that would break Lilarcor's curse and he would become a human once again - but good idea anyway.

NWN have some portraits that are only weapons, I think one of them is a two-handed sword.

Cheers.

semiticgoddess

I actually prefer Lilarcor as a sword. Besides, replicating his banters as a human character would probably involve some heavy scripting, since currently his banters are hard-coded and tied to the actual item Lilarcor, SW2H14.itm.

I've updated it so he has a nicer portrait, the sword portrait from NWN.

jastey

I admit first I checked the date, it's not 1st of April.

The idea of Lilarcor floating on its own I like. I think I'd prefer him/it(?) not taking a party slot, but accompanying the player scripted as some kind of "familiar", though (sorry if this is not the intention of the mod). Just because deciding who to take along is so hard already.

semiticgoddess

Unfortunately, familiars vanish permanently if they should ever die. It's probably possible to prevent this using some scripting (that is, make the character immortal but cause them to fall down after hitting Near Death), but disablers can interfere with those scripts, and immunity to disablers could damage game balance.

jastey

Yes, I know what you mean. I played with the "7th party member concept" a little in one of my mods, and it comes down to "this is getting a little overpowered, if the player wants to abuse it" (in the meaning that as 7th party member, the NPC cannot die and gets healed after the fight etc.) But I was facing the same problem how to prevent permanent death and also not using complicated things like "drops a corps the PC has to carry to the next temple for resurrection" etc.

SharGuidesMyHand

I haven't even tried it yet, but just the idea alone deserves a "like."

Is he, or do you plan to make him, recruitable through the pocket plane in ToB?

semiticgoddess

@SharGuidesMyHand: I suppose I could add a dialog option to that effect, but I'm not familiar with the process. All I know how to do is create a new dialog or overwrite an existing one; I've never patched a new thread onto an existing dialog. Wouldn't Lilarcor continue into ToB as long as you kept him in the party during the final fight of SoA?

SharGuidesMyHand

semiticgod said:

@SharGuidesMyHand: I suppose I could add a dialog option to that effect, but I'm not familiar with the process. All I know how to do is create a new dialog or overwrite an existing one; I've never patched a new thread onto an existing dialog. Wouldn't Lilarcor continue into ToB as long as you kept him in the party during the final fight of SoA?

Yes, but I sometimes do ToB-only runs.  No biggie though.