Character editors?

[Garth-a-matic]

Are there any character editors out there for IWD2 yet?

I'm not looking to cheat and Uber-Buff my guys or anything, I am actually trying to correct a mistake I made in character generation...

(I gave my Bard a high INT and a not-so high CHA... Result: Poor spell-casting, as CHA is the prime-requisite for Bard casting ability... Too bad the description of the class in the manual does not see fit to mention that... Grrrr.)

[CapnKrunch]

I did the same with my sorcerer. I'm hoping someone has a way to get around poor stat distribution. Otherwise, it's going to be a while.. I've leveled my sorcerer twice since realizing my mistake but each level hasn't offered a chance to modify any stats yet. Bummer.

[WildInTheWoods]

Win Hex works great. You can get it
here The rest isn't as hard as it looks.

From another post.

Create a party and start a game and then export each of your characters. Quit your game and open up the Characters folder. Inside you will find a bunch files for all the characters from the preformed parties you can start with plus the characters you just exported. Each character has 2 files: a CHR file and a RES file.

Okay what he's saying here is to simply start the hex editor and then click OPEN and go to the CHARACTER folder wherever you installed your IWD2(mine is C:\Program Files\Black Isle\Icewind Dale II\Characters). Now look for the character's name with the CHR extension...highlight the name then click open.

Hexedit the CHR file for a character (the RES file is just the characters biography). Scroll down until you find the words NONE.....NONE.....NONE.....NONE......DPLAYER(some number). BEFORE this text will be a series of eight FF's. Skip 3 bytes after the FF's. The next 6 bytes are your characters stats in hex format. Change them to whatever you want, save the file and then restart IWD2 and import the character with its new stats.

Now if you look on your right of the hex editor you will see some gibberish words and every now and then some readable words. Scroll down till you find the words NONE.....NONE.....NONE.....NONE......DPLAYER(some numbers). Now look on the left just before the text and you will see a series of 8 FF's. Now each one of those FF's is a byte, so go to the last FF and count 3 bytes to the right. Sort of like this FF 00 00 00 now the very next byte is the start of your stats...remember, there are 6 stats...STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA in this order. All you have to do to change then is highlight the byte and type in the HEX number you want to change it to. Fortunately Microsquish was kind enough to give us a calculator in windows that can convert regular numbers to hex. Goto Start-Programs-Accessories-Calculator. Now click VIEW on the calculator and then choose SCIENTIFIC. Now to convert normal numbers to hex all you have to do is type the number you want to convert...say 24....and hit the HEX radial...poof instant hex number...18...now we know 24 is 18 in hex. All you have to do now is highlight the byte you want to change and type 18...now that stat is going to be 24 in the game. Now when you're done simply save the changes in the hex editor, close it out, and start the game. Now doing it this way you can now IMPORT your edited characters instead of going through the whole character creation process again. Once your edited party is set...PLAY the game!

I believe you can alter the characters in a saved game the same way by instead opening the mpsave directory, then the folder for your saved game. Hexedit the GAM file for your saved game. Search for a characters name and then scroll down once again to the NONE.....NONE.....NONE.....NONE......DPLAYER section. Stats appear to be in the same spot but I haven't bothered trying to alter a saved game.

I did mine the second way and it worked fine. Just try it. It looks scary, but its really not hard.

Hope it helped.

Lance

[Aregorn]

Thankyou for the tip, I did not try it yet to see if it works but it sounds good for making your own races.

[paulsbo]

Yikes! I think Dalekeeper 2 is a lot more simplified. That hex editor sounds like something for only the techies.

[Aregorn]

You are right Paulsbo, for simple matters like just editing the character abilities, skills, etc, dalekeeper2.beta is quite straitforward, but maybe because of my inexperience with it I found it quite limiting when trying to generate a custom race for instance if I want an elf with an alternative favored class to make it double class Ranger-fighter or fighter-thief without xp penalties, I was not able to do so, at least that was the case in my first try.