How do you make NPC's Essential until certain quests?

[Demonasius]

Hey folks, just a quick question. I was wondering how does one make an NPC Essential up until a certain point in a quest or upon quest completion?

[vforvic]

The command is SetEssential TheNPCsID 1 or 0. So "SetEssential LucasSimms 0" would set Lucas Simms as not essential and "SetEssential LucasSimms 1" would set Lucas Simms as Essential. You just need to find a place to put this script command.

First you would just click the Essential box on the NPC in the GECK. This starts the NPC as essential. Then in your case you normally could set the command to make them not essential in one of the Quest Stages Script in a Quest so when that Quest Stage runs it will run the command in the Script. This can be a little different in some cases, but this is the basic way to get it done.

One case I would consider as different would be adjusting a Vanilla Fallout 3 Quest. If you put the command straight into the vanilla Quest Stage Script it could easily get overwritten by other mods that on purpose or accident affect that same Quest. In that case I might make my own dummy quest to hold my own quest scripting. The below for example would set Lucas Simms as essential after you complete Stage 10 of the Baby Steps quest, which is after you walk to dad.

scn babystepssimms
int doOnce

Begin GameMode
if GetStageDone CG01 10 && DoOnce == 0
   SetEssential LucasSimms 1
   set doOnce to 1
End