Master of the Menagerie & Evil cleric dominate undead

I have noticed that creatures summoned with MotM semiclass do not respond to commands like follow. Is this a bug, or simply an unfortunate scripting necessity? On a related note, undead dominated by the cleric's turn undead do not attack the cleric's enemies. All they do is follow you around until the domination wears off (usually at a very inopportune time) and then they attack you.

Both of these abilities are very nice to have, but they would be much improved if the scripting could be resolved. Nonetheless, thanks as always for the awesome work you do on Aenea!!!!

As far as domination of undead goes, it was working for me a night or two ago with a 4th level cleric (on some skeletons and zombies). The undead followed me around and attacked other undead in the graveyard for me.

MotM, I'll have to look at the scripts. Basically what it does is use the base monster from the palette (the one captured) and call it as a summon. It could be because it isn't a "normal" summon it doesn't have all of a summon's normal scripts. I'll have to see if there's a way to give a summoned creature normal summonedfollower scripts after it's called.

The Amethyst Dragon wrote:

MotM, I'll have to look at the scripts. Basically what it does is use the base monster from the palette (the one captured) and call it as a summon. It could be because it isn't a "normal" summon it doesn't have all of a summon's normal scripts. I'll have to see if there's a way to give a summoned creature normal summonedfollower scripts after it's called.

One method is to put on a dominate effect, which temporarily changes the scripts, and then copy it, which should render those changes permanent.

http://nwn.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=460497&forum=47

A_Vagabond wrote:

The Amethyst Dragon wrote:

MotM, I'll have to look at the scripts. Basically what it does is use the base monster from the palette (the one captured) and call it as a summon. It could be because it isn't a "normal" summon it doesn't have all of a summon's normal scripts. I'll have to see if there's a way to give a summoned creature normal summonedfollower scripts after it's called.

One method is to put on a dominate effect, which temporarily changes the scripts, and then copy it, which should render those changes permanent.

http://nwn.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=460497&forum=47

Wow ... just...wow .... That is almost "scripting abuse" .... what an awesome way to think about gaining henchmen/summons/animated dead/familiars/animal companions/flame twins and all kind of things...

For our puposes we would be looking at setting the copy's faction to the summoning PC's faction...
... so we summon "subject A" .. ((whatever it happens to be))
... possibly make "subject A" dm-invisible/imaterial to the player/pc ...
... background domination effect to set NW_ACxx scripts to "subject A" ...
... copy dominated "subject A"... call it "Subject A_D" ...
... destroy "subject A" ...
... set "subject A_D" master as summoning PC ...
... set "subject A_D" faction to that of summoning PC ...
... set flag/variable on "subject A_D" to denote it was a summon/familiar/animal comp/pally mount/animated dead etc etc ...
... adjust default OnConversation script (Dialogue NW_CH_AC4 ?) to find type-of-summon variable and launch correct corresponding dialogue if have a master....
... set "subject A_D" to ~DetermineCombatRound~ to get it to start doing "something useful" right away ....


Awesome...

Result ; all "extra party members controlled by AI" act as though they are the much more useful "dominated monster/working henchman" ... with one scipt to adjust how they appear... and distinguished dialogue scripting to adjust everything else ... .... ....

The problem that you run into is that the summon effect (which the MotM uses) can only use blueprints in the game palette. It doesn't create a creature, then add it to the party as a henchmen...it sets up a special situation where the summoned creature is treated like a spell effect, with a duration and a limitation on having more than one at a time.

I can try seeing if a permanent domination effect will help. I won't be changing the basic workings of the class to using the henchmen option like I did with summoning spells, since I want to retain that guaranteed limitation of a single creature in service at a time.

Ahhhh, I see. Like the standard summon effect, subbing in the appropriate resref. Nifty.

I don't know how many scripts for events differ in your critters, but you could have a local var t check and then executescript or fork behavior with the proper script depending on need.

I may be wrong, but isn't there a limit to 1 dominated creature slot per PC? Switching the MoTM summons into the dominated slot could deny the PC regularly dominated helpers. I know I use dominated creatures a good bit with my wizard and cleric MotMs.