Consequences of Unsetting Quest Flag on Items

[Xaranth]

All right, I'm considering making an adjustment to my personal gameplay adjustment mod that unset the quest flag on a variety of items. I was wondering if anyone knew of any 'hidden' side effects of doing so that I may not have considered.

 

Here's what I know will happen:

 

Items will be removable from the Player Character's inventory.

Items will no longer be ignored by RemoveAllItems/RemoveAllTypedItems calls.

Items will have weight.

 

What I don't know is how the game deals with quest items in things like dialogue and such. Did Obsidian use quest/global variable flags to indicate possession, or will I have to make DARN sure that if I stow a quest item, I UNSTOW it before I use it?

 

Finally, if I 'need' a quest item and don't have it, will it break the quest, or will I simply have to hoof it back to wherever I stowed the item before I can make use of it?

[luthienanarion]

It would depend on how the quest was scripted around the check for the item. If it's something that you MUST have at the time the check is made or your house blows up, you'll need to carry it when the game checks for it. If it's something that will get checked for again if you didn't retrieve it yet, you can stow it away and fetch it when it's needed.

 

Also, the game may or may not do a better job of keeping track of items that have the quest item flag such as keeping scripts on them loaded while in remote cells.

[Gribbleshnibit8]

Don't forget that some objects set stages in their object scripts when first picked up. They should have a check to ensure it doesn't get run more than once, but they might not. Removing the quest flag and dropping them then adding them back again later might cause that stage to run again, or a variable to increment again. This could break things, or make quests where you have to find a bunch of the same thing, where an increment variable is used to keep track, break or become very easy to complete.

[rickerhk]

Yep - In my Wendy Gilbert mod, the scripts on the snowglobes run again when adding them back to the player after removing them to the snowglobe stand in Wendys house, so I have to update that Lucky 38 quest variable that tracks snowglobe count. It's a scripted move so the quest flag doesn't enter into it - I didn't touch that flag on the objects.