[LE] Placing an amulet to advance quest in NPC inventory

[cwgortner]

Hi,
I'm developing a custom follower after years of thinking about it. It has a questline, with a custom dungeon, as well as custom dialogue (2,662 words at last count), for which I'll hire a voice actor. Unique armor assets are being designed by a talented collaborator and the follower has been finalized by another talented Nexus modder. The dialogue and story are written; I'm a published novelist, so that comes easy to me.

But I'm a noob with mod development. Learning the intricacies of quest design has been daunting, particularly with papyrus. I think I have a grasp of basics, but tend to get trapped by how to actually implement things in the CK. I'm a fast learner and visually inclined, so video tutorials are ideal, though I've also been reading through the CK wiki tutorials - and drinking heavily on the side :smile:

My questions are: There's a dead body the DB must loot to recover an amulet. Retrieving and equipping the amulet advances the quest. The quest is triggered by visiting the location where the body is; the body's in plain sight and placed via render window. The location also has a trigger to start the quest.

I know I have to make the amulet an alias, then add Use OnContainerChanged() Event script. Do I need another script as well, to advance the quest and create the journal entry? Can you even do this with an object already in a dead NPC's inventory? I'm assuming yes, but can't seem to find the steps. The body is just a vehicle to move the quest, but should it have a quest alias reference, too? It has a journal, with information about the quest, but the amulet is the quest object. When the DB takes and equips it, it should ideally trigger the journal entry to find a knight protector - my custom follower in another location - and the quest moves on from there.

 

Any help / advice / guidance is very much appreciated!!

[dylbill]

I'm not too familiar with quests, but I think you can just use the condition GetEquipped MyAmulet == 1 in the quest stage and have it run on the player.

Edited November 3, 2020 by dylbill

[cwgortner]

thanks! I think I've figured it out with a very useful tip from a Discord channel:

1) Make two aliases. One for the dead body and one for the amulet.

2) The amulet alias will be a "Create Reference to Object", then select base object for the amulet, and Create it in the dead body alias.

3) Put the script on the Amulet Alias and set quest stage from amulet's ReferenceAlias script when equipped or enters player inventory.

Edited November 3, 2020 by cwgortner

[megapatato]

If you're looking for a vanilla quest where this kind of functionality is used, checkout the Thieves' Guild radiant quest The Shill Job, aka Duplicity, EditorID: TGRDU, FormID: 00015D24 (in the CK: Character\Quest\Faction\ThievesGuild\Radiant\TGRDU)

 

It aliases a chest (#11 WeathyHomeChest<sic>) in some home (#4 WealthyHome), and creates the item to deposit (#5 Evidence). The script attached to Evidence uses the OnContainerChanged call to create the appropriate event, and then does some checking to update the relevant quests IIF the new container is the alias container.