hmm.... i have to resist the urge to offer for some reason.... oh yeah, Chevar will sheath whip me if i do. I recommend you read tutorials. It's always a good thing to learn yourself, and it's not really all that difficult, and especially not kits.

Modding actually isn't that hard. That's mainly due to the quality of modding tools that are available. It sounds like an overpowered NPC to me.

If you know what you want, just give it a shot, it can't hurt. If someone else does the work for you you're likely to feel let down in the end..

Can polymorphed beings reproduce while polymorphed?
When they return to their natural form what happens to the embryo?

I guess they are stuck in their current form while pregnant.

That would be my conclusion as well.

I'm not saying their can't be a 1/2 rakasha, i'm just saying it should come up.

The whole half Rhakkshasa or half dragon thing confuses the heck out of me.. half demon, well I can figgure that out. Incubus, Succubus, Demonic interventions sure..

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Half dragon? Without being crass.. how do the eggs get fertilized? The most interesting case of this would be a Succubus trying to seduce a lizardman..

Succubus - "So, what do you think?"
Lizard man - "Okay, you lay eggs now, I fertilize them later!"

I suppose there is some age old question to this;

Can polymorphed beings reproduce while polymorphed?
When they return to their natural form what happens to the embryo?

In the case of very incompatable types (female dragons dont have a uteris), what what would happen?

If a male Dragon polymorphed into a human wouldn't their seed be human, not draconic?

Magical reproduction - Wouldn't the dragon object to their offspring being such a low life form?

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Half Rhakkshasa?

Rhakshasas in AD&D, last time I checked like to have PC races for diner (literally)

It's like trying to breed a cat and a dog.. it just doesn't work.

Rhakkshasa spell immunity is so insanely high (or was in the last edition I played) that the liklyhood of a magical conception would be almost impossible.

In a different game system, in which trolls are a playable race there were indeed troll elf hybrids (3 of them), which took magical intervention, years and years of failed attempts, and a 30 year courtship between the two characters. But the makeup of trolls in that game system are very different! The plotlines involved in a hybrid of non PC types is insanely complex unless the sire is a god/demigod or equivelent (IE Baal)

-----------------------------------

Okay, feel free to be offended, but wouldn't it be more logical to just say to heck with the halfbreed, and make a straight out Rhakkshasa, which joins the group in order to manipulate them for their own grim amusement?

Last time I look there was a topic here.. Guess it changed.

Listen, I've been watching the argument here.. and frankly I think it's more than a little silly. Every gamer has their own views of what does and doesn't constitue a good game. I've played over a dozen different game systems, and ran half that many. I designed my own, and stopped in the middle of version 5. Of the course of all of this I discovered a few simple truths.. I will take a moment to try and impart one of these truths.

My fifth edition was designed with so it could be played at three different 'reality levels' - five technically, but reality level 1 and 5 were completely unsuccessful..

REALITY LEVEL ZERO - real world physics - if a human is shot in the head with a .45 at point blank range they DIE - I don't care how many 'hits you have, unless you get lucky enough for it to deflect off of your skull (which can happen), you die.

REALITY LEVEL FOUR - beyond high fantasy - High fantasy games are fun once in a while, but this level os for those few annoying players that want to feel like their character's are 'gods'.

If the game is either two close to reality, or two far from it, MOST players will not enjoy it!

I've played Paranoya, which is a blast, but it is a game that deliberately does NOT take itself seriously - The GM's job is to try and kill off everyone as quickly as possible - send in the clones(the number of clones is determined before the start of the game)!

I've listened to a AD&D player gloating about one game in which they were in a dungeon and while crawling through tunnels they fought and killed 20 turasque! (sp).. I asked them why they were crawling, and how were there twenty - their DM was a hack.. a turasque is something like 300 feet long and 100 feet wide with 400hps and it's unique... this person liked playing at reality level 4.. but any normal gamer would toss their character and their GM out of a gaming group.

reality level 1 is low fantasy, and reality level 3 is high fantasy.

High fantasy is fun, but hard to run if you want to challenge the players.. Three characters CAN defeat an army, head on, in high fantasy games. They can be fun, it's like being an anime character. (Fist of the North Star comes to mind first). However for a high fantasy game to be sucessfull all the characters need to want to play in this reality, and the game needs to have a start and end point. they play a single saga, and then RETIRE, possibly to make a guest appearance in a future story. otherwise they will eventually become bored with their character (unless they're one of those ones that claim to have characters that killed every god in an entire mythos. (or worse yet if you ever say the origonal dieties and demigods - the entire Cthulu mythos!)

Low fantasy games can also be fun, but it's more work for the GM because you have to do more defining of the world, there's a higher level of politics, intrigue etc. I've met very few GMs that can competantly run a game at this reality level. The few that can pull it off keep their players engrossed for the length of the game, untill they run out of story ideas. as with high fantasy it's a good idea to have a logical ending point so it doesn't go down the toilet when the GM starts running out of ideas. Characters have a higher mortality rate in low fantasy games.. My favorite example is Cyberpunk by the book - with all then cyberpsychosis rules fully intact.

Then there's good old reality level 3. This is the place where most games are written, and where most players end up spending their time.. it's free range, geared so the characters have a good chance at survival, but still have to face their own mortality.the amount of detail differs with the experience level of the GM, but as long as the stories are enjoyable the players will have fun.

I've known GM's that do nothing but run adventure modules that were very well liked by their players.

When I run a game at this level the players either have a good or bad time depending on thier own decisions. I throw them in a HIGHLY detailed world with an EXTENSIVE history, start them just before they hit adulthood. They explore the world around them ingame, interact with NPCs, get jobs, and watch the news, read the paper to find out about places to explore (it's a sci-fi fantasy hybrid world dating back to 1987)

Personally I can't stand power-gamers, more so in traditional games than computer games. However the power-gamers like it that way. I get anoyed with games that are too close to reality, because I want to escape from reality, that's why I'm playing a game!

Just decide what reality level you enjoy playing at, and stop starting fights with people that would rather play at a different levels. There is no answer to what is best, only preferences. Debating which preference is better is silly.. The problem is, us gamers tend to be fanatical about our prefered level of play..

eight words: Irencius breaking into song and dance in mid-sentence.

I think that falls under the category of my previos post; BG2; The Musical.

To the sound of music; Irenicus - "No walls can con-tain-me.."

Skat beat; Minsc - "Boo's a tricky hampster i hid in the cage, but you done wannah know where, where where."

Rap; Aerie - "Here's my tale it'll take lotsa time, You're gonnah have to listen to one more whine!"

Heavy metal; Imowen - "It fealt like he was turning daggers in my head, now I really want him Deeeeeeeeeead!"

you get the idea.

Okay this one just hit me.. The never ending adventure MOD.
(also known as dejah'vue mod)

When you die you are sent back to the lab, where another clone wakes up, and the adventure starts all over again. And just to make sure the 'fun' goes on and on the last battle is a cutscene in which irenicus kills you using the finger of death spell.

(adds millions of hours of gameplay)

my 2 cents worth seems to be traveling further and further.. I have to say something completely stupid now

I made a Barbie Mod for my daughter.. not much of one thank god not a TC! It was for my daughter's amusement just a portrait and custom sound bits complaining about her shoes being uncomfortable(outside), her hair being dirty(inside), and about breaking a nail when she get's hit.. it amused my daughter (3 at the time) for about 15 seconds.. even she thought it was a stupid MOD idea apparently. Naturally I replaced the sounds and image of Aerie to make it - I figgured with all of her whining it made perfect sense.

reading through all of the mods that should NOT be made something truely horrible came to mind..

The BG2 Musical mod, in which all of the voice actors sing all of their lines..

Imagine John Irinicus' "No walls can contain me" speach sung to the tune of "the sound of music"

<SHUDDER!>

Here's one that should probably be on the list, even if I WOULD like to see it..

A mod in which Aerie stops complaining and finally just get's it over with and kills herself - at which point the Ilithids come out of hiding and appologize for years of atrocities. Her incesant whining annoyed them so much on a psychic level that they were just striking out randomly trying to stop it. They're not evil, just misunderstood (and sorry about the whole brain eating thing, but they sure are tastey. No, really Just ask Hannibul he'll tell you!)

An image just popped into my head of Irenicus singing "Iiiiii ain't got noboooooody.  Nobody!"

I must now kill all of you. 

Muhuhaha! The madness is spreading! let me see your papers; I have mine!

wait i got another one! the utopia mod! a game in which everyone gets along and there are never any problems.. the goal is to play it to the end wihtout hitting your computer WITH A HAMMER!

{Let's see how many people object to this one.}

A portrait MOD in which changed the graphics of all of the female NPC's

Make Visconia look lots better..
Put weird ribbons in the hair of all the rest of them.
Make it look like Nalia has two black eyes.
Give Imoen a page-boy haircut, and give her less feminine features.
Give all of them pissed off facial expressions.
Make Aerie look stoned.
Using metal coils give jahera dreadlocks



.. Oh wait that's already been done, and they called it Baldur's Gate 2.

My wife and I kept looking at the portraits saying "what were they thinking?"

The S&M MOD - nothing ever dies, but if you beat them well they'll follow you for life. If not, they leave in disgust.

I have a better idea for a romance mod that shouldn't be made.. The main character is a bisexual hemaphrodite eunich, and everyone they meets has a romantic interest in them.

i can just see them casting FF, can't you?

A long time ago when I played my first mage in a PnP game I cast FF.. my familiar died the same day.. have never cast it since in PnP, or in a game.

I don't know if this has been mentioned already, but dual-classing into kits would be cool, probably impossible, but cool

It would also lead to grossly overpowered characters.

Easier to do it via the CLABXXXX.2DA file for a specific kit.

On another note, Chevar, have you discovered anything yet?

Oh, sorry I thought I already got into this.. I decided to just start work on my world transition project, and say to heck with sector editing for now..

sector editing takes a lot more attention than my kids will allow.. it'll have to be put on the back burner.

(Dear God, please forgive me...)

I was trying to put you off SoftICE, but I'll make it less appealing.

Making a no-CD crack for BG2 would probably be very hard, and definitely very, very boring to attempt. It also may be impossible (hahaha).

Learning how to crack would teach you really neat stuff about how calls are actually made to the CPU etc., but IMO this is much too hard to even think about if you're a beginner.

And more importantly, cracking is way outside legal technicalities, and talk of it doesn't belong here, but on a cracking forum.

it's not hard.... just download it. bg2nocd.. I use it so I can play with different mods on the same system while working on mine..

ow Psiclopse.. I'm hacking an EXE.. I don't have the source code!

Okay, it looks like my goal will be to see if there's away to modify race/class limitations, and add kits to the classes that don't have them (doubtfull).. after I'm done with that I'll post my findings.. I'll see if I can find anything about the reputation cap, but that sounds like a needle in a haystack.

Ehm... it'd be nice to know what can be changed if you hack the exe... ?

That's what my expedition is to find out >,, it's more a thread for hard-core modders that are pissed at the limitations of the game engine.

Okay.. I'll be hacking away at the exe file inbetween working on other projects.. How about we start a wishlist of possible changes you'd like me to test for?

I wrote this before but lets recap:

1. The data files are not different from the exe. They are part of the program. So modifying just one game file would be illegal regarding the EULA. On the other hand, even bioware/blackisle [rip] praised modding.

2. Obviously the hack will alter only data embedded in the .exe, not code lines. There are MANY tables embedded in the exe that didn't made it to a .2da or specialised data file.

3. It is harmless to hack the exe (except for bypassing copy protection). Therefore no one cares.
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Now, what would be interesting, and most likely possible

1. i would like to see any way to alter race/class/etc restrictions.
2. the number of weapon proficiencies

I've been looking to see if I can add subclasses to the three classes without any.. I'm wishing I had all of my old SLS tools from 15 years ago, then it'd be easy - I could decompile and recompile while running the darned thing.

I don't even know what, if anything, I'll be able to find. but it's something to do.

How about this

Any permissions granted
herein are provided on a temporary basis and can be
withdrawn by Interplay Productions at any time. All
rights not expressly granted are reserved

Blah blay.. Bioware said they don't care what's done with it, and all interplay will say about hacking the exe is that they "nolonger support it"..

Yadda Yadda

Please keep this discussion off the cd-crack line.

That is illegal and such activities are not allowed in these forums.

Humble appologies.

True dual classing rules. IE, being able to dual-class anything into anything (provided you met the requirements), and being able to dual several times. A human NG Thief/Bard/Ranger should be possible.

I completely agree with that, and maybe increasing party size? But I think you need the source code for that one

Can't muck with the party size. There's no way for me to track that one down. I spent about 7 months trying. I even have a copy of a CHU file around here somewhere where an extra portrait socket is designated and placed.. it wont display it on the screen, and the exe say "don't think so!" tracking down the function call and altering the value would be real rough.... and as previously stated, you would need to modify the portrait sizes if you added more than one.

Now if I could only find a copy of TOB ANYWHERE.. GRUMBLE!

http://www.ebay.com

-Galactygon

I was thinking more like a store..

Yadda Yadda

Exactly. Interplay are pretty much bankrupt, and Bioware is hardly going to sue a modding community they have praised for mucking around with aging software.

Also, most people legitimately own BG2, due to it's size. It's harder to pirate. Therefore thay've probably made truckloads of cash off it already.

Real world does not equal legal technicalities.

Now if I could only find a copy of TOB ANYWHERE.. GRUMBLE!

FOr some reason my editor isn't working worth a damn on this computer.. and the other one (mine) is too slow to run it through the decompiler.. so I'm giving up for now..

Besides I just got something that's been on my wishlist for 2 years, so a modding I will go..

Simpleton/Wyrm.. I'm impressed. The World Transition Project has been working on building resource collections for the modding community. I'm currently converting about 40 animations from other game platforms (UO, Diablo 1 and 2, and next up will be arcanum).

You did a great job converting that anim. I look forward to seeing future work. If you're interesting in community distribution, let us know over on BlackWyrmLair .

Our current FTP space is around 10 gig, and more is ours for the asking.