Help overriding default rank values for One-Hit Kill darkspawn?

[esrigby]

I've been trying to make a mod that changes all One-Hit Kill ranked creatures (basically, the darkspawn grunts you encounter in the final battle and in Return to Ostagar) to Normal rank, or at least alters their vanilla values so they're equally tough as Normal.

 

I can't find either Hurlock Grunt or Genlock Grunt in the toolset or source files, so I've followed the steps on a Dragon Age modding blog here to override the rank values.

 

I created the new file creatureranks_NM1HK.gda in override and copy-pasted the row from the Normal rank, except for the ID number 12 which is the default ID for the "grunt" rank.

 

However, when I saved, opened my game, and travelled to the Redcliffe battle, the darkspawn there are still one-hit kills on Nightmare difficulty. I travelled there from a save in camp so the area data during that battle wasn't baked into the savegame.

 

I'm really tearing my hair out trying to figure out how they implemented the Grunt type darkspawn! The only person I know of who's successfully changed it is Flash-- Flash Creatures Rescale is a really impressive mod but I personally only want to alter this one thing, rather than ramp up the overall difficulty.

 

What's additionally puzzling me is that I can change the colour of One-Hit Kill ranked creatures' names just fine, so I know that my own .gda file is active, but they all still die in one hit no matter what I set their level and health values to.

 

If anyone knows where the .utc files for Grunts are hiding (if there are any?), or how on earth they implemented this so thoroughly, or how Flash might have successfully overridden the values, or if I'm just missing a step somewhere, I'd be so grateful for some advice.