What it does: there's not much to it, really. See breakdown below. The way it was supposed to be: Feldrin and Brunk, human commander and half-orc lieutenant, respectively, of the greater temple band of 'men and half-orcs' on Temple level 2, both had long and detailed dilaogue about their dislike for each other. Brunk thought Feldrin was uncaring for the squad's half-orc members and frequently got them killed. Feldrin was suspicious of Brunk and thought he was insubordinate. It was supposed to be possible to kill Feldrin for Brunk, expose Brunk to Feldrin, and chum up with Brunk if you were a half orc. The way it actually was: You entered combat upon encountering the group automatically. If Feldrin fell to below half his hit points, on his turn he would cease the battle, surrender, ask some confusing questions about Brunk, maybe provide some other info if you asked for it, and then take off with his troops. Only the troops didn't actually follow, and combat with them automatically resumed without explanation. No exposition on Brunk was ever given; no dilaogue with him was even possible, as near as I can tell. The way it is now: You still automatically enter combat. Feldrin ends combat on his turn when he falls below 75% of his hitpoints (increasing the likelihood he'll get to talk), then provides some expository info on the crew and any extraneous information you seek. He then takes off, but indicates that his troops will not do so. If Brunk has not yet been killed, he'll make a crack about him and leave you all to fight it out some more. If Brunk is dead, he just leaves you to fight it out with whatever troops are left. Why this was done: No matter what, I couldn't get combat to not resume after Feldrin's departure. Too bad, because all the Brunk dialogue could have been accessible that way. As it is now, no one will ever actually speak to Brunk. But being as no one ever actually spoke to him before, as near as I can tell, I don't suppose this is such a big loss. At least now the scenario makes sense, and it does offer slightly more exposition than before - a bit of a delay in the hack and slash proceedings, at least. No audio available, so no new lines. There's still some .py code about Feldrin going off to kill Brunk after he disappears, but I expect this is essentially meaningless, as you will either have already killed Brunk or will soon kill him. Removing the code caused the whole 'run off' thing to break. :dizzy: I'd be particularly interested in knowing if anybody ever had anything at all different happen with this scenario - somehow in fact talked to Brunk, or saw Feldrin kill him, etc. Anything at all different than fight-pause-fight.
@Gaear to be honest, i don't remember those charcters. But the problem seems interesting... Feldrin and Brunk have the KOS flag on the protos? I suppose that their men have it. What if you delete that flag? maybe you can approach them to talk, and the fight could start from dialogue... Or adding in the .py file the script some others characters have, to not fight if you wear the greater temple robe (black and red)? Senshock and Deggum have it at least, and Scorpp too.
Brunk and Feldrin and co. don't seem to have that robe recognition thing. :shrug: I don't consider myself at liberty to make such sweeping changes as switching KOS flags across the board, and that stuff's getting a little outside my range anyway. (My two rules for this kind of modding - which isn't really my natural element - are no protos changes and no new flags or variables. Keeps things pretty simple. ) Basically what I do HK is just try to make the stuff that is there make sense, in a regular guy type of way. But thanks for the suggestions.
I think I actually was able to speak to Brunk once by killing off all the henchmen and just leaving Feldrin and Brunk alive before reducing Feldrin's HP until he broke off combat. Except Brunk's dialogue was something along the lines of "RAWR! YOU DIE!" and just went back to combat anyway...alone.
Ok, no problem Gaear (i just saw it cos i've readed most of dlgs ), i'll give it a try, it's time to be more than the portrait guy Tell me where they are (in my current game, i just meet Romag, didn't go far yet) in the temple, and i'll test that. Deleting flags (Ted?), adding the .py etc and test it in action, and also try in some isolated place by consoling them, maybe the fight starts cos the goons are setted KOS, and Feldrin and Brunk get "caught" in the combat.
You could change Feldrin and Brunk protos from KOS to ALOOF and see what kind of dialouge you get. Just deleting something in protos causes problems, so if an entry is there, don't leave it blank. Both have good loot so they are goners for me.
I never had problems with adding or deleting flags, but it's a good advice. I'll see which one could work instead But goners or not, speaking with them makes things interesting. As Gaear said, they can be set against each other (something interesting for bards), so maybe a litle quest can be recovered. For example, as i said before, i never had the Deggum and others guys dialogues, and they have two (or three) quests available, in one of them Deggum gives you his boots of speed, which i always got cos i kill them, but it's more interesting that way (i think also that there it's where you got a love potion too, and it has sense why ). Also, Kella has something to say about Deggum too, so i'll check that.
Thanks for the info, Jadefang. I checked and was unable to replicate this, though. Brunk and Feldrin are in the west of the greater temple on Temple level 2, below where the stairs let out from level 1 and the minotaur. Just FYI, I did try a variety of .py stuff, all to no avail. There must be something overrriding there that I'm unaware of. Also, I guess you can fiddle whatever you like with this, but I'm pretty much satisfied with it as it is. It's a significant improvement over what was (assuming it works reliably), which is all I was after. Basically HK, my advice to you for techno modding is to identify what your capabilities are and stay within their limitations. Because for the most part, you'll find you're going to be a solo player in this racket.
Interesting factoid about the ALOOF flag - according to Ag it doesn't exist, and it isn't found in ToEEWB. It just shows up in protos.tab :shrug: I still use it out of quaint sentimentality, but its the flags thats its coupled with (like NO_ATTACK) that do the damage.
The few times i've used it worked. I didn't get attacked and got the first shot in. The fight with Smigmal Redhand was one of them and the ogre Lubash another. I created a terrible monster in the very backroom of level 4 and it worked on it(one of Krunch's creations). Don't know. It worked for me.
Just wanted to chime in and add that the only way I could originally get the dialogue out of them is by going in with an invisible character and manually initiating dialogue. And once again, I'd be interested to know what the module has to say about this.
