Thoughts on editing the classes of NPCs?

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For my next playthrough, I'm thinking of using ShadowKeeper to switch Korgan to a Barbarian, Viconia to a Cleric/Bounty-Hunter and Solaufein (from Weimer's mod) to a Blade. I'm wondering if anybody has done this sort of thing before and can comment on it.

RP-wise I can pretty much make it fit. The "spiritual" difference between a Berserker and a Barbarian is minimal; Viconia is a Drow and as such was involved in surface raids and the hunting of people; and Solaufein takes great enjoyment from poetry, art and philosophy, all of which are very close to the Blade's ethos.

Power-gaming-wise (which, I freely admit, is very important to me) I think the above are improvements on their original classes, although I do admit there is some personal taste in the matter. I find the cooldown of the Berserker rage incredibly annoying, and towards the end of the game the Barbarian's few extra HP and damage resistance will be very useful. I'm really keen on giving the Robe of Vecna to Viccy to improve her spell-casting (and MR) and I think her sky-high dexterity will complement thievery extremely well. Finally the Fighter/Mage just levels too slowly, and I just think the Blade's medium-level abilities (powerful spell-casting, Offensive/Defensive Spin) and later HLAs (UAI, Time/Spike traps, Improved Bard Song) are truly fantastic.

Any thoughts on this idea, or if you just want to debate the finer points of Blade vs. F/M or Berk vs. Barb, please comment away!

 

I do this regularly these days. I've played the game so many times that I want to try out different party combos, or just generally have certain party dynamcis that I enjoy, but I don't want to lose banter (which would happen if I created characters from scratch in multiplayer).

I'm fond of turning Minsc into a Berserker. I've played Jaheira as a ranger/cleric and as an archer. And I've made a handful of other changes. I typically like to keep characters within the spirit of their personalities, but that's just me. But yeah, it's a great way to mix up gameplay while have the enjoyable banter.

 

There's a mod at G3 called Level 1 NPCs that let you do exactly the same thing without mucking around with SK.

 

I second that, Level 1 NPCs is the way to go. Especially if you are not a modder. Everything is done in one hit.

 

For some reason I thought that Level 1 NPCs only let you kit the characters, based upon their class. Having looked it up again, I see now you can also change classes and more! Seems pretty good. Will consider it. Unfortunately I play with quite a few mods so it might take a while to see where it fits best in the installation order. So, thank you Splunge and Ishad.

I'm trying to decide what to turn Sarevok into: torn between Wizard Slayer and Weimer's Anti-Paladin (a kit from Tactics). I will already have a home-made half-orc Anti-Paladin though, so a second may be superfluous; on the other hand, the kit absolutely rocks and since having one AP is really good, having two would probably be even better! And I wouldn't be able to give a belt of giant strength to a WS, which is a major draw-back. But on the 3rd hand (despite having not tested this), I think a WS and an AP will complement each other's abilities very well (the AP is basically an evil clone of the Inquisitor kit). Very confusing!

I'm pretty much ignoring the other standard Fighter kits as they really don't seem to fit Sarevok's persona particularly well. I haven't really considered any others introduced by various other mods, yet, so any ideas you have would be welcome!

 

If you don't want to go the route of installing another mod, here's an explanation of how to change classes in SK that was written up several years ago.

I'm not a modder, and I use this process regularly. I've never had an issue with it.

http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/showpost.php?p=244886&postcount=3

Spoiler

Open Shadowkeeper and open the game you want to adjust.

Note the experience points, you'll need them later.

Do the following:
Set hp (max and current) to 1.
Set level to 0 / 0 / 0.
Set experience to 1.
Erase all proficiencies.
Erase all spells (and inate abilities).
Set class to monk.
Set all the thieving skills to 0.
Also set the 'to hit' to 20 (just to be sure -- I don't think you need to though).

Save the file and quit.

Restart SoA and choose the edited game. Minsc will need to level up. Follow the level up as normal and Minsc should a level 1 monk.

Save the game under a new name and quit.

Go back into shadowkeeper and adjust the experience points back to whatever they were (or cheat and give him more). Save and quit.

Go BACK into SoA. You should get another level up indicator. Bingo! You have your Butt Kicking For Goodness Monk at the level appropriate to your experience.

The only thing left is to use SK once again to adjust your hit points to what you feel is appropriate.

 

That is the approach used by Level 1 NPCs mod. It leaves the game to handle all of the headaches of increasing powers and skills as you progress beyond level 1.

 

I've found that when you use Shadowkeeper to change a class, you often don't get certain level 1 bonuses and immunities inherent to the class. An undead hunter will not be immune to level drain, and an assassin will miss some bonuses.

The solution is to have a newly created character with that class and kit, and copy the effects from that character to the one you are changing the class for.

 

Level 1 NPC' is much simpler than that; "the route of installing another mod" is not complicated - there are no issues with this particular mod in terms of compatibility, and since it recommends installing near the end, it shouldn't be a problem installing after the fact; the only limitation is it won't work on NPC's that have already joined.

Or instal Level 1 NPCs.

 

I was responding to this comment. I'm sure level 1 NPCs is great, but if the OP isn't comfortable for whatever reason, I wanted him to know what the manual option looked like.

 

I believe there's an option in SK, under the "Innate" tab, where you press the "Kit" button and select the relevant kit and the levels from which you'd like the character to receive the abilities: e.g. Assassin, levels 1 through 15 grants 4x Poison Weapon and 3x Set Snare.

However I'm not sure how the game engine handles things like the Assassin's +1 Thac0/Damage, i.e. whether it's automatically applied if one changes the kit to Assassin, or whether it only applies the bonus if one actually starts the game using that kit.

The mod certainly sounds very effective and easy-to-use. The only problem I have with it is that I'll almost certainly want to change characters' kits in subsequent play-throughs, and due to the fact I'm using the Tutu GUI, Widescreen and Generalised Biffing mods (a. I believe these three must be installed last and b. biffing prevents the installation/uninstallation of all previously installed mods) it becomes tricky to alter the settings of the kits/classes of the various NPCs. I may install it initially, but will probably subsequently just edit NPCs using SK.

And thanks very much for the info! Pretty useful stuff, I've already started trying it out with various PC ideas I've been having.

 

My experience has been that it is the latter. You need to copy the effect that gives that bonus.

 

As in from the "Affects" tab in ShadowKeeper?

 

Probably, the computer with BG2 is off-line along with Shadowkeeper, as it looks like something is wrong with the IDE system. Either both hard drives are experiencing problems at the same time, the cable is bad, or the primary IDE controller is going bad.
I'm going to try replacing the cable this weekend, but obtaining hard drives between 100-127GB is difficult these days.

Anyways, until I can fix it, I can't play any of the Infinity Engine games or anything on that system, which is just about everything that runs under Windows 98SE with 8mb integrated video.

Fixing it shouldn't be too difficult if I can find some spare hard drives. It's a dual boot Windows 98SE/Windows XP Pro system, with each OS installed on a separate hard drive.

 

I can't comment on the assassin, but I do recall receiving the attack bonuses when I've SK'd over to a swashbuckler in the way that you suggest.