NPC looting

Discussion in 'The Temple of Elemental Evil' started by Brother gus, Jan 5, 2005.

Remove all ads!
  1. Brother gus

    Brother gus Member

    Joined:
    Jan 5, 2005
    Messages:
    1
    Likes Received:
    0
    I have been checking out the forum here for ideas and help for a while. Thanks.
    A while back I got real tired of npc’s grabbing loot. Then they never want to get rid of it and run around carrying on about how they are “ineffective carrying so much†or they are “carrying too much junkâ€, (yet she never drops anything). So I came up with a way to prevent npc’s from grabbing loot, before I read how to edit into the game and stop them.
    I would fill up their inventory with gloves and rings. With their inventory full when looting they get the response of not enough room for item. They would still grab gold and silver but it would all drop at their feet. I’d then just have to nudge them over and have another pc pick everything back up.
    The gloves and rings weigh 0 so they don’t overburden themselves. And if you need to readjust the equipment you can equip the rings or gloves to open up a space for a time. Can also fill their inventory with arrows, bolts ar anything weighing 0. I found the earth temple rings were great, since each took up its own space.
    It is important though to take everything away from them before going near anyone who trades. They’ll sell everything right off. Then you have to buy it all back or find more.

    -gus
     
  2. Rook Hudson

    Rook Hudson Member

    Joined:
    Jan 22, 2005
    Messages:
    83
    Likes Received:
    0
    I have a problem with your solution to NPC looting. It is this: when NPCs fill up their inventories with loot they don't stop looting, at least when I play TOEE. Instead they keep on looting but SECRETLY dump the excess loot onto PC inventories. You notice this when you open up a PC inventory and go to drop, transfer to another PC/NPC, or sell an item, or stack of items, and the message 'NPC will not drop this item' or words to that effect comes up. It is thus possible for a PC to have an inventory where one or more spaces are now carrying NPC looted items. This is bad, but it gets worse when an NPC dumps a few looted stackable items, like crossbow bolts, onto a PC inventory and stacks them together with the PC stack of crossbow bolts already present. The result, a greedy NPC can capture with a few bolts a PC stack of many, many bolts and thus claim ownership of the lot. This is doubly bad because now the next time that PC gets any bolts they go straight into the stack on his/her inventory which has been taken possession of by some greedy NPC. Even if you kill all the NPCs in your party you can never regain those grabbed inventory items, due to some bug in the game. Your 'solution' to load up NPC inventories with gloves and boots is actually therefore no solution at all but a recipe for disaster because when that NPC has no room left on his/her own inventory he/she will keep on looting but dump the loot on a PC inventory.

    My solution is to not loot bodies but wait until the bodies disappear and loot the piles of treasure left behind, as NPCs do not loot in this situation. This is a hassle with wandering encounters however so I am hoping Troika will fix this looting bug eventually, a.s.a.p. Looting of containers is also a problem which my solution cannot fix. Another solution then offers itself. Take the greedy NPC back to your safe base, and kill them with 'friendly fire' (such as repeated magic missiles) if you want to get their stuff before they load up to the max with junk, or get them'accidently' killed in some battle somewhere. Then reincarnate or revive them with a spell. Sure they lose some ex.p. but it beats having them running around overloaded and holding on to things best used by other party members.

    Rook Hudson
     
  3. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

    Joined:
    Apr 27, 2004
    Messages:
    11,029
    Likes Received:
    42
    Use Co8 3.0.4. Your looting problems will be solved.
     
  4. masonl

    masonl Member

    Joined:
    Apr 7, 2005
    Messages:
    1
    Likes Received:
    0
    I have Co8 3.0.4 installed and there are still 2 of my player characters that have items they can't drop or sell.
     
  5. Allyx

    Allyx Master Crafter Global Moderator Supporter

    Joined:
    Dec 2, 2004
    Messages:
    5,001
    Likes Received:
    250
    If paying your NPC's (like your supposed to) is a problem, go to the downloads forum and look for Drifters Humble NPC's patch. Fixes the whole thing right up.
     
  6. Lord Plothos

    Lord Plothos Established Member

    Joined:
    Apr 3, 2004
    Messages:
    550
    Likes Received:
    0
    You can still choose to give them their fair share of money by putting stuff in their inventory and selling it from there, if you feel they aren't getting their dues. You aren't forced to, but they aren't forced to be idiots either. Fair trade.
     
Our Host!