Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Mods [WIP] Boss Summons

The HIB_KingBoreas and Cys_Braccus are Global characters (ie the ones who are actually fought during the main campaign). I tried summoning Cys_Braccus and it actually did execute his script somewhat (and ran into the Guest NPC issue).

Regarding Boreas, I think I really have two options:
1) Make Boreas into an Ice Elemental (visually) that has his stats and skills
2) Keep Boreas as a Guest NPC and try to figure out if he can be scripted into doing cool stuff in combat.

I'm inclined to at least attempt #2, since that'll help us grow as a modding community. Does anyone know of any examples of Guest NPC scripts from the Main Campaign, where an NPC follows the party and helps in combat?

Edit: How do I add a custom script to my RootTemplate? The script I have in my Data/Public/Mod_Name/Scripts/ folder isn't showing up when I try to select a Script in the RootTemplate box.

I don't seem to be able to create my own Scripts via the New Script button. It directs me to create the script file in Public/Mods/Mod_Name/Public/Main/Scripts when I try to create the script file in that location

Given that the scripting doesn't appear to work, I'm going down route #1 by basing King Boreas off of an Ice Elemental. Sure, he won't look like himself, but...



It seems Boreas has access to 0-AP costing Elemental summons, making him a true master of the Elementals.

I have also modified his Elemental summons so that they can cast customized skills-


Right now I have just added the corresponding Elemental Shields to his Summons. I might add some other skills later to make them stand out, since his true worth really comes from his summons.

What boss should I do next? I've been thinking it over, and I'm not sure how I feel about the small mini-bosses like the Black Cove spider, Ghoul-That-Guards-The-Lighthouse, etc etc. Outside of their scripting, they really only have like one or two skills that they can use. They don't feel as awesome as the 'true' bosses do (Braccus and Boreas).

Edit: I might take some creative license and base some summons around the other three Elemental Lords.

Now that I think about it, I should make it so that each specialty gets one 'Boss' Summon.
4 elemental lords from Hiberheim-
Water: Boreas
Fire: Fire lord
Earth: Eath Lord
Air: Wind Lord

Other:
Source/Witchcraft: ???
Man-At-Arms- Braccus Rex
Expert Marksman- ???
Scoundrel- ???

Edit: After looking through the files, it appears that the other three lords have the following skills by default-

Wind Lord- Tximista (HIB_WindLord)
Projectile_EnemyBlitzBolt
Projectile_EnemyChainLightning
Teleportation_EnemyFreeFall

Fire Lord- Sua (HIB_FireLord)
Projectile_EnemyFireball
Projectile_EnemyFlare
Target_EnemyHaste
Target_EnemyImmolate

Earth Lord- Lurrean (HIB_EarthLord)
Projectile_EnemyPoisonball
Target_EnemyPetrifyingTouch
Target_EnemyTargetedBless

Now I just need to see how I can adjust them to be appropriate end-game summons.

Edit: Link to build with Braccus and Boreas (although only Boreas is available via the Witch preset, unless you change the SkillSet.txt)- http://www.mediafire.com/download/5aacl6cz5t5a7ln/BossSummons_BraccusBoreas_WIP.zip

Since I haven't specifically detailed this earlier, and because it'd be good to have this info out there, here is a case study on how I'm creating these summon skills.

First with the Editor I find the RootTemplate of the NPC I want to create a customized version of. Braccus Rex uses the Undead_Braccus RootTemplate for example, while Boreas normally uses something like Trolls_IceKing. I right click the RootTemplate I want to make a copy of (for this example, Elementals_Ice to create a visually looking Elemental), "Create new from Selected", and in the box that pops up I point the file path to my mod's RootTemplate folder. Give it an identifyable name (BossSummon_IceElemental_Boreas for mine), change whatever else you want, and click OK. This new RootTemplate will be important for a few steps.

Outside of the Editor, you can create a SkillData.txt file within your mod's Data/Public/Mod_Name/Stats/Generated/Data/ folder (a Generated/Links and Generated/Structure folder might be necessary as well, even if they're empty). The data in this SkillData.txt should be templated after an existing skill. What I basically did was copy/paste the Ice Elemental summon data from the Unpacked SkillData.txt into my mod's SkillData.txt and modify a few values.

Here is the SkillData.txt for my Ice Elemental Boreas-


The name of the first new entry doesn't matter, so long as it's unique. The second one (Summon_KingBoreas_8) needs to be based off of the first one, with the number that follows the underscore equal to the skill's "level" (though this has very little impact ingame I think). The level can be anything; I just used 8 since I based it off of the Ice Elemental summon.

The most important point from the main skill entry is the 'Template' for the summon. The value entered here needs to be set to the GUID of the RootTemplate of whichever NPC you're summoning. Since I made a customized Ice Elemental RootTemplate earlier, I set it to that Template's GUID (6fab0b81-6f65-4a60-a5fd-4e2be4b49ba5 in this case).

The other important points are the "DisplayName", "Description", and "StatsDescription". The values these are set to are what allow the game to display information about your skill. The Ref versions of these values don't really matter, since the game seems to completely ignore them.

Instead, the game looks to the Localization folder. In the Editor (with the mod still open), I open the TranslatedStringKey editor at the top and have it save an empty file to Data/Mods/Mod_Name/Localization/ which is where the game looks for the Mod's TranslatedStringKey files. I then go and set the 'Key's to the DisplayName, Description, and StatsDescription values I set earlier in the SkillData.txt, with the Value being whatever I'm wanting it to be.

In my case, it would look something like this:


At this point, the Skill itself is essentially complete. You just need to be able to add it to a character somehow so that it can be used. What I've been doing is changing the default skills one of the Class presets starts with (Witch) so that it's available at the start for testing purposes. To do so, create a SkillSet.txt in your mod's Data/Public/Mod_name/Stats/Generated/ folder, with the following lines:



Do that, start up a game with the mod enabled, create a witch, and watch as you summon an Ice Elemental version of King Boreas.

Except there's one problem, which is that he doesn't have any skills (and his stats don't match up). These are easily fixable; in the SkillSet.txt you can add the following lines so that it looks like this:



And then in the Editor, with your IceElemental_Boreas RootTemplate open, set his Skillset to "Summoned_Boreas_Skillset". This will allow your summoned creature to use the skills that you just added in Skillset.txt.

Stats and Equipment can be set the same way, using pre-existing values (that King Boreas himself uses). Just look at Boreas' normal Template and copy the Stats and Equipment lines over (I think it was HIB_Boreas for both Stats and Equipment, though I can't recall at the moment).

And with that, your Summoned Ice Elemental is complete, with skills and stats and everything. A similiar process can be used for other custom summons.

Disclaimer: This case study differs a bit from my mod's actual files since I went a step further and created custom summons/skills for my Boreas.

Edit: Well, I stand corrected. The 'Level' does matter for every skill except those of the "None" category (Staff of Magus for example).

I have the basics set up for the other three Elemental Lords. Now I just need to spruce them up, get them into a Skillbook and get them into the game.



Edit:
Now that I am thinking about it, I think it might just be a better idea to make it so that Boreas somewhat mimics the other Elemental Lords (ie remove his awesome Summon skills).

I could add the 0-AP summon ability to the respective Elemental lords (ie Sua the Fire Lord getting the 0-AP Fire elemental summon) and add a few choice skills to their existing skillset.

Thanks to Cisus' guidance on the matter, I have managed to do this:




All that's really left now is for tweaking and balancing (by which I mean adding a whole lot of awesome stuff to them so that they're truly worthy of their titles). All of these will be meant to be obtained mid-to-late-game, since I don't think I'm able to get the bosses to drop them by themselves.

To clarify, this mod will contain the following summons:
Fire- Sua
Ice- Boreas
Earth- Lurrean
Air- Tximistys (or however it was spelled)
Source/Witchcraft- Braccus Rex (since he was the Source King and all that)

I'll probably have them require a level/intelligence consistent with the Earth Elemental summon (the last summon you're able to get), and will be obtainable from the associated vendors. I might have a low level version (level 1 reqs) for those who just want to break the game with cool summons, seeing as how they scale with the level anyways.

So what cool skills would you want to see on them? I'm thinking of adding an Element specific Path skill to each of the Elemental Lords (that function similiar to Firefly), with the key difference of them being able to go say 50 meters rather than the 15/17 meters that the current Path skills are limited to. Braccus, on the other hand, would get that nifty Blood Rain ability and a few Witchcraft buffs.