Turn Off Essential

[Gerokeymaster]

Can anyone here tell me a way to make a character that is normally essential not essential? I have a mod I'm working on where the main NPC questgiver is set to essential, so that the player can't break the quest by randomly deciding to kill him. But at one point in the mod, I want the player to have the option to have a sort of "non-standard game over", where they can choose to fight and kill the NPC instead of helping him. I have it set to close the dialogue and have the NPC attack the player if the option is picked, but since the NPC is normally essential, there's no way for the player to kill him(which I'll set to trigger the quest to fail and a message to pop up saying why). I want to know if there's a script that "turns off" an NPC's essential status. The only thing I could think of was the console command "setessential", but that doesn't seem to be a recognized command in the GECK's scripting. I tried looking the problem up online as well, and couldn't find anything beyond just not making him essential to begin with, which I don't want to do. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Fallout2AM]

It is the right command: http://geck.bethsoft.com/index.php?title=SetEssential

 

But you will have to use the base id and not the ref it

[Gerokeymaster]

And that's what I did wrong! I used his REF when I tried doing setessential in the result script. Thanks for the help!

 

Edited to add: Also, since my problem seems to be solved, anyone with the power to lock topics is free to do it to this one!

Edited November 13, 2014 by Gerokeymaster

[luthienanarion]

Keep in mind that any NPC that becomes a player-follower will be considered essential until they are fired if the player does not have Hardcore mode enabled.