Spawns Looting PC Corpses

[oldgrayrogue]

OK, I have no idea how or if this could be done but think it would be really cool. Two things about PC corpses and chests and such in spawn areas/dungeons have always bothered me. If the gobos kill the hapless solo adventurer why don't they loot his corpse of all the cool stuff he's carting? Wouldn't they then place it in that nifty chest where their fearless leader sits and guard it with their lives? Finding a dead PC on the road or in a cave/dungeon is an unearned windfall. That and empty chests in a throne room breaks immersion to some extent. Is there any way to automatically have a dead PC's gear transported to the nearest lootable and/or designated container? In this way those who find a corpse could RP going in search of the culprits and then actually have to earn the poor dead sap's gear by fighting or robbing the spawns that killed him. What say you gurus? Is something like this even possible?

[Brokenbone]

I've never looked into it, but have sporadically seen certain NPCs in NWN1 servers do this. Often while talking to themselves about their good fortune (some humorous priest NPCs I've seen with dialogue about collections / tithes or something).

If someone with access to the guts of the Sembia module (Valdimir, Ksiel, Arkan, etc.) were to look at least at the workers in the interiors of the stockades on the river Arken, those guys definitely have corpse looting scripts of some sort. Recall it from having dead PCs dragged into a barn and the slaughterhouse dudes wandering around, now and again bending down over the corpse, and slowly stripping items from the container, somehow. I assume that it was something like perceiving a placeable with the appropriate resref or tag (for ALFA corpses) and going and somehow interacting with them. Anyhow, DMs had to adjust that encounter, think it was Electryc doing something relating to goblins wanting cows, since the PCs were actively shooing away the dummy NPC who kept walking past the guys with swords to go poke at and rob corpses.

Probably fairly resource intensive though if everyone had those scripts associated with them (well, intelligent critters maybe, as opposed to wolves stealing your clothes and such).

Net, I've seen it done, can at least ID the one place I last definitely saw it, maybe someone can isolate a script to see about NWN2 portability, and if it's even advisable for resource and other reasons.

No comment on teleporting goodies en masse to chests and such, may interfere with however morgue (and maybe death chests??) are organized.

[psycho_leo]

Most guards in most NWN1 servers had looting scripts of some sort as far as I remember. Racing to loot your fallen enemies before the guards did or protecting your friends remains was a common running joke among player groups.

[AcadiusLost]

We could potentially code this; I'm very hesitant to set it up for the following reasons.

1) the NWN1 versions of this often resulted in strange/OOC happenings as listed above.

2) the despawning of creatures in inactive areas (necessary for efficient server functioning) would result in the OOC disappearance of the items, complicating both OOC tech rezes and IC recovery attempts

3) PC corpses are p-storage containers, which are currently a notorious source of lag and occasional server crashes OnClose(). I'd say they're the worst lag source we have, now that I've gotten PC tools text macros optimized a bit better. The options would be having creatures loot everything at once (one big lag spike, no chance for a PC to interrupt/scare off a creature in the midst of looting), versus having them loot things one or two at a time (potentially causing multiple significant lag spikes, and increasing the odds of a server crash). I'm not even 100% sure that NPCs accessing placeables trigger the same events as PCs, which might further complicate matters.

4) We would also have to code special handling into the OnDeath scripts as well, as the ACR currently bars mobs from dropping non-plot items with more value than would be allowable as treasure for that creature type.

What might be a bit easier might be coding creatures to carry corpses back to their lairs if they're left unattended; this would accomplish some of the IC intent of this, and would have the side benefit of upping the "loot at the end of the tunnel". Even this approach would require some sort of documentation for DMs, though, to make sure they have a way to "find" a missing PC corpse.

[Brokenbone]

I see how AL's 4 points could all be a PITA.

I guess it'd be interesting to see if a simple "things end up in a lair" timer system was good or bad. I wonder how hard that'd be to build? Stick destination waypoints in lairs A thru Z, and "this is a zone of collection" waypoints A thru Z in different geographic areas of control? I.e., die on a map with a "Collector Waypoint A", and the corpse ends up sitting at "Lair Waypoint A" within an hour, assumed to have been carried there by the critters who probably despawned 55 minutes before?

Could even happen in civilized areas I guess. "Collector Waypoint Z" scattered all over a peaceful little town with a temple, and "Lair Waypoint Z" is the infirmary/morgue/crypt/evil torture pit, under lock and key, of the nearby goodly (or evil!) temple? Solves the problem of NPC guards standing two feet from a corpse with 100K gp in loot on it and not doing something about it, automagically gets swept up by kindly (or opportunistic) NPCs who bring it to a temple, dark alley, sewer tunnel, wherever...

PS brainstorming is fun.

[Rotku]

Most guards in most NWN1 servers had looting scripts of some sort as far as I remember. Racing to loot your fallen enemies before the guards did or protecting your friends remains was a common running joke among player groups.

Heh, the Priests. Dumping a body at the priests foot to be raised, and they go and start looting.