NPC Item drops

[Castano]

Am I mistaken in thinking you can add your own variables to items?

Given how obtuse NWN can be, I'm also assuming you cannot manually set gold values, as again, it'd cut down on worry if you could just set them to have a value of 0.

You can set gold values to 0, but that would mean doubling up on all Alfa's items. One set for PCs/Loot, one for NPCs.

[t-ice]

Am I mistaken in thinking you can add your own variables to items?

If that is the case, and you can add them, is it not possible to set a variable on all should never be in PC hands items and then knock up a DM item that simply checks PC inventories for items with that variable?

Well, I suppose that might be doable, but a horrible cludge. Going through the vault to get PCs that aren't currently on will be harder in many ways (and at least I wouldn't know how). If I'm hands-on as the DM, checking such drops should be not much of a problem, now that the issue is known. The problem is that there is no way to set a flag on an item I have left behind on a creature, so that PCs can tackle the creature later when I'm not on, and the NPC item wouldn't drop. Note that it might be very long indeed until I would be IG at the same time as the PC who killed that creature.

Finally, the dmfi "local variable tool" has a habit of crashing the game on you if used to set variables (can be used to read).

[Cast_No_Shadow]

Yeah it was a dirty idea. Guess it just comes down to keeping an eye on things and putting a (IF YOU HAVE THIS ITEM SOMETHINGS GONE WRONG DON'T USE\SELL IT INFORM A DM) in anything new tooled up for this purpose.

[Brokenbone]

If you as a DM think OOC or unintended items are getting out into the wild, post a sticky in your server forum about reporting "Too Good to Be True" items.

Example: (1) Report them and get a reward or some kind of IC or even OOC replacement. Like if someone has this Ogre Club which IC would actually be a sapling, not a wonderful super-club of 2d6 damage, could say, "here's a masterwork Warmace and uh... 200gp worth of plunder and trinkets you sold off from the ogre's beltpouch." With a hearty attaboy to go with it.

Don't take the chance to report them, and instead a DM discovers them, say, a week or two after the announcement (or WORSE, discovers you sold them for huge gold rather than do as asked and alert a DM), simply take the thing away or any other ill gotten gains (gee I figured it was OOC to have an Ogre super-club, but since a merchant was going to pay me 3500gp for a sapling, I took it and bought this magic armor and ring).

If there's suspect items (things you THINK are leaking into the wild), I'd have thought clicking the log and running a search for like, a tag or an item name or something wouldn't be a big deal. Copy paste everything to a document or whatever, and I guess search for a word like club or something, seeing when and if any acquired / sold / traded...

Good discussion though above of "some of the things in the toolset, do not mean what you may think they mean," hah.