use of Find Familiar by a character in MP mode

[Lemernis]

I was intrigued to see in a BGEE game that when I created a party of six characters in MP mode, that a Bard among them who was not CHARNAME was able to cast Find Familiar. (I had set it as a memorized spell via EE Keeper.) This got me excited at first! How neat!

 

But then when I had the Bard party member ask the fairy dragon to jump into the backpack, it went instead to CHARNAME to request to be carried as such. And the creature did then go into CHARNAME's backpack. But when CHARNAME later tried to release the fairy dragon it simply disappeared. And subsequently when the Bard party member casts the memorized Find Familiar spell, he performs the spell animation but the familiar does not materialize.

 

Interestingly, there was no boost to HP for CHARNAME. But the level one Bard did gain an additional six HP to both his base HP and active HP count (putting him at 12 HP, including for the base).

 

So this is a bug, basically. But I am wondering if there is a way for me to use EE Keeper or DLTCP to create a Bard for a MP game that can summon a fairy dragon once per rest cycle in presumably the same manner that Tiax is able to summon a ghast. This would essentially be a summoned creature that can die without any negative consequences to its owner. And in this case the creature would be the fairy dragon familiar.

 

It isn't for a mod. Rather, I'm offering a collection of characters for download at my BG hobby site, that is based on the residents of Candlekeep. See here, and it is in reference to Parda. The rationale for a fairy dragon that may be summoned daily as such is that it is the result of an attempt to make a lizard (iguana) into a fairy dragon that was affected by a wild surge; and consequently the creature has the ability to regenerate itself from its tail.

 

Anyway, any instruction that anyone can provide on this subject will be greatly appreciated!

[Jarno Mikkola]

But I am wondering if there is a way for me to use EE Keeper or DLTCP to create a Bard for a MP game that can summon a fairy dragon once per rest cycle in presumably the same manner that Tiax is able to summon a ghast.

Well, if you clone the spell and use your own resources and so forth, yeah.

One thing though, don't use the familiar creature flag.

[Lemernis]

Thanks Jarno! I'm using NI because that was recommended by someone else--although I am a neophyte to NI. Pecca at the Beamdog forums writes:

 

"It should be easy with NI. Just copy summon ghast spell and change the summon resource to the familiar, then insert the ability to your character."

 

In NI using Search under Spell for "summon ghast" I found SPIN115.SPL. But when I open it to edit I don't see a summon resource for it. And it uses the Barkskin description yet is a Conjuration spell. It is also listed as an Innate spell.

Um, where can I find Tiax's special ability spell?

[lynx]

you can't see the description, so it doesn't matter. The resource would be in the summoning effect itself. And that one clearly is an innate (spin prefix), though that should not matter.

[argent77]

you can't see the description, so it doesn't matter.

Well, on BGEE you can by right-clicking on it. But a lot of innate abilities still have no or wrong spell descriptions (mostly the barkskin one).

[Jarno Mikkola]

I found SPIN115.SPL...

Um, where can I find Tiax's special ability spell?

That should be the spell. Well, I'll tell you about it in the reply to lynx post, but first, you should know that the find function in the NI doesn't find this using the resource name(spin115.spl), but their in game name, so "summon" gives a lots of results, while "spin" gives zero(at least the old versions, argent77 could have changed this).

 

you can't see the description, so it doesn't matter. The resource would be in the summoning effect itself. And that one clearly is an innate (spin prefix), though that should not matter.

Well, that's partially...

Näh, the resource that's referred in the post to Lemernis, was in fact the one in the spell file(spin115.spl/summon ghast)"Spell Ability" that you can open in NI with double click, then you go deeper into the first effect(Type: Summon Creature...) with another double click and then see the resource tag, that's in some cases "chastsu.cre" with an identifier, my game points it to be a "Skeleton" ... that's in the unmodified BG2.

Yeah, I am aware that the above sentence is a multi layered temple, so this sentence is here to make sure you can keep up with it.

In BG1, the spell is indeed used for the Tiax Ghast summoning, but Tiax never joins up with you in BG2, so the BG2's resources reflect this or it wasn't just included in correctly. Now you can install the Tiax mod, that probably uses it's own resources to give him/it the ability. Or go off the boat and walk on water, but only if you can.

All this tells you that you have to adjust to the situation and use your own resources as needed.

[Lemernis]

Well, this is intended for BGEE; although I guess NI assembles the resources for both games, is that right?

 

So... For this spell "Spell ability" has a description to the right. And when I double click on "Spell Ability" it opens a window with three "Effects" at the bottom, the first of which is "Type: Summon Creature (67)." When I open that, I see no box for the summoned creature, though... I wasn't sure if I should click on "Update Value" with "Summon Creature (67)" highlighted in the bottom pane... (i.e., I don't know what that does).

[lynx]

I only use DLTCEP and it's obvious there. Just look where it says "ghastsu".

[Lemernis]

Okay, I will try DLTCEP. Thanks!

[Lemernis]

Palm-slap to forehead as I now realize I ran NI in the the BG2EE 00783 folder rather than the BGEE 00766 folder. But DLTCEP looks like it might be the better route, as you suggest.

[Jarno Mikkola]

I wasn't sure if I should click on "Update Value" with "Summon Creature (67)" highlighted in the bottom pane... (i.e., I don't know what that does).

When you have that, you might have to open the view a bit but you'll see the Resource -Attribute a few lines(11th line from top) after it and the Value that is the creatures reference.

[Lemernis]

For DLTCEP when I run setup I'm getting some errors ("there was an error processing the spell effect descriptions") although it does complete the setup. For game type I chose Baldur's Gate I/TotSC. But when it reads the chitin.key before opining the interface I get this pop-up:

 

I can still run DLTCEP, but I'm wondering if that is normal? or if I should have chosen Baldur's Gate II/ToB?...

[lynx]

bgee moved its dialog.tlks.

[Lemernis]

So, I have modified the Summon Ghast spell SPIN115 to use a fairy dragon. But when I try assigning that Innate spell using EE Keeper to the character in a saved BGEE game, the special ability button doesn't open anything. Was there something more that I should have done?

[lynx]

maybe you need to sleep, I don't know how the originals handle this.