Item Muling

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This document exists to serve as instruction to allow DMs to move items between modules -- both local and remote -- and serves to explain the difference between the persistency of player characters v. DM avatars. As this knowledge is prerequisite to the use of some DM tools, DMs should make certain that they know how to mule items with their avatars.

Note: Provisional DMs (PDMs) may bring only mundane items (non-magical) into the game on their avatars, and must submit copies of all item blueprints brought in to a mod to the HDM, EADM, or Server Maintainer before doing so.
Note: Local variables are removed from an item as it is muled in. If you are muling a crafting project, or some other item with unique variables, they will be wiped on your avatar.

The DM Avatar

The first and easiest thing to mention about a DM avatar's saving is that it is exactly like single player, even though you are indeed logged into a multiplayer game. This has two very important implications:

  1. Your avatar lives on your hard drive. Anything that would prevent access to it will prevent access to your avatar.
  2. Your avatar will not save anything unless you tell it to.

DM Avatar files can be found in your documents/Neverwinter Nights 2/dmvault folder.

The contents of this folder will be reflected on the avatar selection screen; creating a new avatar or exporing a DM avatar will add a file to this folder. Moving a character file into this folder will make it into a DM avatar, and deleting files will remove DM avatars.

Files inside the folder typically correspond to the names of the avatar. For example: zelknolf.bic, zelknolf1.bic, and zelknolf2.bic will correspond to Zelknolf, Zelknolf (1), and Zelknolf (2) inside the DM client.

The Mule

Getting items from one module to another is a fairly simple manifestation of the above concept, and is useful for DM use with NPCs but should not be used for items to be rewarded to players.

  1. Using the NWN toolset, add the desired item to a local module. A muler's basemod is available on the DM FTP under NWN2/Modules/Zspawn_Localmod
  2. Using the DM client, select Multiplayer -> New and open the module that contains the item.
  3. Select your avatar and join the module, just as you would if you were joining a typical multiplayer game
  4. Spawn the item onto your avatar.
  5. Press escape to open the in-game menu and click Export Character.
  6. Watch the server window for "Your character was exported successfully."
    • You can check your dmvault folder if you wish to confirm that a new avatar was saved.
  7. Once the character is exported, exit to the main menu.
  8. Join the target module as a DM
  9. Select the new avatar-- it will likely be the highest-numbered avatar in the folder-- click start game.
  10. Open your inventory and enjoy the use of the item.