Adding New Skills

[Legacy_Androrc]

               I had taken a break from modding NWN for some time, and now I'm coming back to it. I distinctly remember there being some sort of bug when too many skills are added, but I don't remember it exactly.

I think it occurred at character creation when setting up skills, in both single-player and multiplayer, but didn't occur at level up.

Anyhow, does anyone know what the skill limit is before the bug strikes?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Karvon]

               As I recall, adding any additional skills pretty much requires you to select an existing PC option on creation, then selecting the create new one from the second screen to avoid the errors and crashes from such. Least that's what I experienced when working with my own custom skills hak and with Mod D20 and Firefly PC creation.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Androrc]

               And that will fix the issue no matter how many skills are had?

I found a post from the old Bioware forums archive saying that the skill limit is 33, by the way, so maybe adding up to 5 skills causes no problems.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Failed.Bard]

               I have forty skills in my mod, and I did initially have a few crash problems, but they were in the cls_skill_*.2da files and not in the skills.2da itself.
 The only real issue I've had with it, is that the new skills aren't selectable until level 2 in a multiplayer environment.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Androrc]

               Yes, AFAIK the problem is with the cls_skill_*.2da, that is, having too many skills available for a class (either as class or cross-class skills) at first level causes the problems.

What were the problems that you had and what did you do to solve them?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Failed.Bard]

                 I'm not sure exactly what caused it.  All I ended up doing to fix it though, was to remove all the filler spaces Bioware had added at the end of each line.
  That was all that was required to fix it, which was odd in itself, and doesn't really offer anything to explain what the problem was.
  As an example, here's my cls_skill_rang.2da:

2DA V2.0
      Label              SkillIndex   classSkill
0     AnimalEmpathy      0            1
1     Concentration      1            1
2     DisableTrap        2            0
3     Heal               4            1
4     Hide               5            1
5     Listen             6            1
6     MoveSilently       8            1
7     OpenLock           9            0
8     Perform            11           0
9     Search             14           1
10    SetTrap            15           1
11    Spellcraft         16           0
12    Spot               17           1
13    Appraise           20           0
14    Tumble             21           0
15    CraftTrap          22           1
16    Bluff              23           0
17    Intimidate         24           0
18    CraftWeapon        26           1
19    CraftArmor         25           1
20    Ride               27           1
21    Balance            3            0
22    Climb              28           1
23    Decipher_Script    29           0
24    Diplomacy          12           0
25    Disguise           30           0
26    Escape_Artist      31           0
27    Forgery            32           0
28    Gather_Information 7            0
29    Handle_Animal      33           1
30    Jump               34           1
31    Knowledge_Arcana   35           0
32    Knowledge_Nature   36           1
33    Knowledge_Religion 37           0
34    Sense_Motive       18           0
35    Sleight_of_Hand    13           0
36    Survival           10           1
37    Swim               38           1
38    Use_Rope           39           1
39    UseMagicDevice     19           0

40 lines, and I haven't had a problem with it in SP or MP character creation.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Androrc]

               Thanks! This information is most useful.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_ShadowM]

               I went back over this to try and fix my crashing with custom skills and have no issues with cls_skill_*.2da but get the crash at exactly 33 skills. I love to see your skill 2da or your skills hak that you use to test with. Thanks
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               I recently added several skills and am suddenly noticing crashing issues. I don't know if the issue is related, but would like to understand if others have run into crashing issues related to skills and how to solve that problem.

I'm not sure if anything in this thread is information I can make use of. "Empy lines at the end of a row causing a crash? Really? Thats weird.

My skill index is at 33 for a total of 34 skills

Is that number a bad one?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Khuzadrepa]

               I was involved in those old forum threads, and from my testing there was bugginess after a total of 32 skills (past line 31 in the skills.2da), however, I never had any crashing issues because of it.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Khuzadrepa, 25 janvier 2012 - 11:57 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_henesua]

               The skills appear to be directly related to the crashing. I removed all of the latest new skills which I had added.The game plays as expected.
First test: skills.2da at index 28. success
Second test: index 31 success
Third test: index 32 success.
Fourth test: index 33.... FAIL!

[edit continuing]
Fifth test: index 34 ... FAIL!

Incidentally... the crash happens at the moment I hit PLAY right after character creation.
Here's the skills.2da
cls_skill_sorc.2da

I've been adjusting the length of skills.2da but not touching the class skill 2das. Everytime I start a new game, create a sorcerer and then hit play to see if it will crash. (I am also testing my new familiars which are working out great)
               
               

               

                     Modifié par henesua, 26 janvier 2012 - 02:42 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_ShadowM]

               Same as henesua, I know it the skill.2da too. I have tested it multiple ways and multiple times, with all the suggestions and still receive the crashes. I have tested with modified cls_skill_*.2da like Failed.Bard suggested and that did not stop the crashes. I have tested with no cls_skill_*.2da changes at all and still receive crashes.  The only way I found around it is to hit premade character then create character. Then the crash goes away because it loads everything properly. If any want to look over the 2da it just my HR_BASE syetem.

HR_BASE

If anyone can fix this I be very thankful 
               
               

               

                     Modifié par ShadowM, 26 janvier 2012 - 03:06 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_henesua]

               I've been wondering if there is anything hard coded about the ride skill. If I could replace that skill with one of my new ones, that would gain me one more slot.

I've since been trying to add skills beyond the magic number, and also add to the relevant class skill list. It doesn't seem to be working.

If I could remove Escape Artist and Ride, this would enable me to add Scry, which is one more skill I'd like to have.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Pstemarie]

               Have you tried running the finished 2da through Excimer's 2da Combinulator? I had a similar issue with a 2da I had added lines to crashing the game, running it through that tool fixed it.

You could also try loading the BioWare skills.2da in excel and seeing if it crashes and burns there. If it does, its most likely a tab related issue which Excimer's tool should be able to fix.

As a matter of principle I always edit my 2da files in Textpad and run them through Excimer's tool, then use the "Save To" command in Excimer's tool to save the file. Since you can review the 2da file - and usually see the error quite blatantly, that tool has saved me a lot of headaches.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Pstemarie, 26 janvier 2012 - 10:54 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_henesua]

               No dice, but thank you Pstemarie.

At this point I just need to know if ride has any hard coded functionality. If not, I'll replace it.

Same for Intimidate... a useless skill anyway. If it is not hardcoded I'll replace that too.

Now I need to decide if I need all of the movement skills...

• Climb is in.
• Swim is in.
• Jump? (could do this as a class feat for all classes and calculate distance  strictly by strength and size and encumbrance with bonuses for certain animals.)
• Escape Artist? (I'd like to keep it and rewrite all the grapple related spells to use it)
• Balance? (could rewrite the grease spell to use it but otherwise it doesn't seem necessary for anything but tightrope walking).

               
               

               

                     Modifié par henesua, 26 janvier 2012 - 01:30 .