One of the characters in my Multiplayer party is an Elven Mage/Thief, a thoroughly annoying fellow. He's short, smelly, crude, obnoxious, overtly lustful, and completely unscrupulous (Chaotic Neutral). Damn good Thief, though. But he needs to have SOMEONE who loves him, so I want to give him a Familiar. I found a scroll of it, but when he tries to cast it I get the message "This spell may only be cast by the main character." Ah, poopie. So I summon up Shadowkeeper and hack a Cat Familiar into his inventory (There are *2* Cat familiars, one of which has better stats--hmmmm). Then I go back into the game & say "Release Familiar," but nothing happens, the cat just sits there in his bag & won't leave. Is there a way to create a working Familiar for a character who isn't the protagonist?

Also, the cat is supposed to be named "Stinky." Is there a way to rename certain items?

I'm just FULL of wierdo questions, aren't I?

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by SixOfSpades:
Is there a way to create a working Familiar for a character who isn't the protagonist?

Also, the cat is supposed to be named "Stinky." Is there a way to rename certain items?

I'm just FULL of wierdo questions, aren't I?<hr></blockquote>

No, no and yes. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Yeah, I'm starting to get the feeling that making this familiar thing work would require some very in-depth, low-level reprogramming--and rewriting BGMAIN2.EXE is something that I have neither the skills nor the inclination to attempt. I've already tried doing it the simple way: I moved the game back to Multiplayer, exported the Mage/Thief and the main character, switched them, loaded the game back up, cast Find Familiar, re-exported the characters, and switched their positions back where they were supposed to be, but apparently when you export a character they lose all of their containers (gem bags, etc.) AND all Familiars. Looks like the smelly guy ain't gonna have a kitty.

Now how's THIS for a wierdo idea: I really liked the concept of roleplaying Thamthon the Thithilian Athathin, so if I was REALLY sick, I'd hack into the game and change the text for almost the whole game: What OTHER characters say to ME is unaffected, but all of MY conversation options have each "S" replaced with "TH." My Info screen has the lisp, too. Yep! [img]smile.gif[/img]

God, this boy needs help......

I'm not sure but I think there is in fact a way to give a non protagonist character a familiar.
I think it goes a little something like this:
Start a multiplayer game with your Mage/Thief as protagonist. Get past the intro sequence and then cast FindFamiliar and you should get your Cat(It is the right one for your alignment, right?). What you do now is export your character and save it as a characterfile.
Then, finally, you start up your multiplayer party again with your new improved Mage/Thief instead of your old one. You can just use the "multiplayer party screen" to put him into your party.
And if all goes well, your irritating ELf should now have a companion to take potshots at... [img]smile.gif[/img]

But keep in mind, I'm not sure if this will work. I haven't tried this myself (and Memnoch seems pretty sure too...). But let us know how it works out.

You should be able to rename the items, even if memnoch says otherwise. go to www.teambg.net (or .com or .org or whatever happens to work at the moment) and grab the tools for the job.

and i saw waaaaaaay back (before the forum software was upgraded and when the search function still worked) a thread describing a way to give anyone a familiar (and not just the standard ones, the guy had a red-dragon). i woudnt like to try and find it now though..

as for the lithping text idea, it would be dead easy (in theory) to change _all_ the text, just open the appropriate files with the appropriate tools (teambg again) and do a search-replace switching th for s. but to do only the text your char says youd have to do it all manualy. good luck...

Hey the idea about changing the text of your character to suit his personality is way cool!!!!! That is true roleplaying my friend, I hope you get it done [img]smile.gif[/img] let us know!

Put your saved games in some folder, and reinstalling BG2. *shrugs*.

it is possible to give familiars to any party member, but you'd have to edit some scripts and CRE files. rather a pain imo, but it was kinda cool to give valygar a wolf.

Oh yeah, about the trick I mentioned earlier. You probably have to use the press-pause-when-the-game-starts-trick when the screen is still black. You can then open your inventory and drop your familiar on the ground. If you don't do this it will probably be removed like all other items if you have anything in your inventory.

Anywayz, I still don't know if all this actually works. Spades, have you tried it out yet?

I tried setting the Elf as my PC, casting Find Familiar, then exporting & re-importing him, but no dice. You know how in the Character Creation screen when you say "Import," you get a message that says 'all Bags of Holding, Gem Bags, etc. carried by this character will be lost?' Apparently Familiars can't be transferred either. I'll try to go to Baldurdash or whatever and see what tools thay have.....

Oh, and I said I'm NOT going to try to have the game to give any character a lisp. Cool idea, I agree, but even *I* am not *THAT* insane.