Changing a mod added NCP into a different (custom) race

[CTRLALTDETH]

After taking a year long break from Oblivion I decided to start again. Having never modded, but really liking mods, I spent lots of time downloading from the nexus. Today while playing through Tears of the Fiend again, I realized that I don't really like the character design for Allecia Ehothorn (a character in TotF). After looking on the nexus, I could find no replacement, as expected. So I took it upon myself to do it.

I downloaded a well made custom race based off of blood elves from WoW. It suited her character. I then downloaded the construction kit, and spent the next hour figuring out what I was doing (mainly guess work), then edited the character (...or characters, there was maybe 10 of her listed). Went well, expect the game crashes whist loading my saves. Thankfully all I had to do was replace the edited TotF ESP file, sadly I overwrote my edited one, destroying the work. I'm fine with starting over but I first need to know where did I go wrong?

I read somewhere that editing an NCP into a custom race can have complications. For those curious, this is the before and after on my now long gone work.

 

TL;DR

How do i change an NCP's race when it is a custom race, and an NCP added from a mod.

 

Additional information;

Allecia Ehothorn was originally made using a vanilla race, with no mods to be dependent on.

[fg109]

I don't have the blood elves mod, but I assume that like most mods, it is a .esp file. By changing the character Allecia Ehothorn into a blood elf, you have made your modded TotF dependent on the blood elves mod. However, the construction set is unable to assign .esp files as the master to other files. So, there are three ways to fix this.

 

1. After you save your mod, open up Wrye Bash, find your mod, right click and select add master, then choose to the blood elves mod.

 

2. Use the Construction Set Extender to create and save the mod.

 

3. After loading the TotF and blood elves mods, go to the character -> race. Right-click the blood elves race and choose to duplicate it. Use this duplicate blood elves race for Allecia Ehothorn. Doing it this way, you don't need to make your mod dependent on any files (other than Oblivion.esm).

Edited June 7, 2011 by fg109

[CTRLALTDETH]

I don't have the blood elves mod, but I assume that like most mods, it is a .esp file. By changing the character Allecia Ehothorn into a blood elf, you have made your modded TotF dependent on the blood elves mod. However, the construction set is unable to assign .esp files as the master to other files. So, there are three ways to fix this.

 

1. After you save your mod, open up Wrye Bash, find your mod, right click and select add master, then choose to the blood elves mod.

 

2. Use the Construction Set Extender to create and save the mod.

 

3. After loading the TotF and blood elves mods, go to the character -> race. Right-click the blood elves race and choose to duplicate it. Use this duplicate blood elves race for Allecia Ehothorn. Doing it this way, you don't need to make your mod dependent on any files (other than Oblivion.esm).

 

I take it you've done this sort of thing before, it's all quite fun, but very new territory for me... Or should I say it is old territory that I've been nonchalantly observing from a safe distance until now. yes, lets go with that a little wordy, but sufficient.

 

I'll try your advice, and yes it is an ESP file, the only race I've seen that has an ESM is lattamer V.3. I never had to pay attention to ESP or ESM, as long as ESM came first in the load order, never even knew why that had to be, but these solutions of yours make it all clear to me now.

I'm learning so much today, thank you.