Companions not gaining XP

[ElliotKane]

I have just started playing with the toolset for the first time (May lead nowhere, but even so..) and I created some new companion characters from basic (Non-companion) blueprints.

 

Adding them to the party roster and to the player's group by conversation options, I then unleashed them on a small test encounter, only to run into a problem: whilst my PC gains XP, his companions do not.

 

I am using the proper companion scripts, and they seem to do everything just fine, from equipping to conversing. They just don't gain XP.

 

As a test, I used the same conversation options to recruit OC companion Qara (I appear to be her only fan, poor girl! :D). She will join my group, do everything she should... and gains XP. So the problem has something to do with my self-made companions, and I have no idea what.

 

Any pointers or ideas would be gratefully received.

 

Thank you for your time.

[Tchos]

I always liked Qara. She became a loyal ally after being treated well and given the space to grow into her specialties.

 

From what I learned from Kaldor Silverwands guides, companion XP needs to be non-zero before the normal gameplay XP will function. I recommend inspecting his Silverwand Sample Campaign (located on his blog) and using the method he used to force-grant new companions at least 1 XP in their initial conversation (or more XP if they're supposed to start at a higher level). His method worked for me.

[ElliotKane]

Thanks Tchos :)

 

I found the problem after a lot of hammering away at it (About five minutes ago) and careful comparing with companion characters from other modules. There's a statistic in the middle of the character sheet called 'Designer XP Mod' that needs resetting from 0 to 1. Because it's right in the middle of a whole list of stats and such a small change, I had completely overlooked it.

 

As for Qara - I found her to be one of the most unique and interesting characters in the OC. I always regretted that no-one ever made a Qara romance mod.

[Tchos]

You're absolutely right. I found the very same setting when I made my own campaign, and had forgotten about it, but I wrote about it here. If you're interested, I invite you to read more of it, as I describe many issues that I came across as a novice modder, and how I dealt with them, which may be useful to you.

 

I suspect the main reason for the lack of many romance mods in general is that I've heard the opinion that it's jarring for a usually voiced character to have some unvoiced dialogue (such as from a mod). NWN2 is a special case, though, where there are in fact some places in the actual game where characters' dialogue is not voiced. But it's true that Qara's lack of popularity is probably to blame for her being left out of even the unfinished romance mod attempts.

[ElliotKane]

Thanks for the link :) I am hungrily devouring all the 'how to' stuff I can find right now, as you can imagine.

 

(And I suspect you are right about Qara)