Changing Prologue Weapons

[mirinaxrolande]

Hello there, first time poster! I have tried to find a mod specially to change the weapon that populates when the first demons appear in the prologue. I was going to do a two-handed warrior run, and instead of having her pick up a great sword, I was hoping to start her out with a great axe instead. Is there a mod that specifically does this, or this this more in line with editing meshes? IÃâm by no means a modder, though I am sure I could tinker around and figure it out eventually.

 

Thanks for any help yall can give!

Edited December 31, 2020 by mirinaxrolande

[apomorph]

This is pretty easy to do in Frosty. There's a few things you'll need to change:

 

Search for "prefab_chargen_equipment." Open that up, and under the Object tab, find the commands for giving and equipping two-handed warriors with their great sword (all classes' starting weapons and armors are in here, and not in any order, so it's a bit of a mess). (To save you some work, it's nodes [7] and [8].)

 

Now find the great ax you want her to start with. You'll want the file name for it that starts with "equip_." This file includes the weapon's stats, appearance, etc. For example, if you wanted her to start with the Barbarian Battleaxe, it's "equip_greataxe_t1_1." You can either open up files in Frosty until you find it (the DisplayName will be visible once you open the file), or save yourself some time and use the wiki to look up the item ID: https://dragonage.fandom.com/wiki/Barbarian_Battleaxe (lower right column).

 

Okay, now make sure you are highlighting the great ax you want in the bottom left hand box of the file explorer in Frosty. Back in that prefab_chargen_equipment file, click the arrows that are next to the "equip_greatsword_t1_1" under nodes [7] and [8], and you'll see it replaced with "equip_greataxe_t1_1." Now, after you save and export your edits to a mod, when you start a new game as a two-handed warrior, she'll equip that greataxe.

 

There's one more thing to do for immersion if you want. In the cutscene before fighting the first two demons, do you want the mesh of the greatsword to be a greataxe as well? That's pretty easy to do as well, but takes a bit more work. Essentially, you'll want to swap out the weapon part meshes under "Start_Weapon_Warrior_2H." There's a greatsword blade, grip, and pommel mesh there. You'll need to swap out the ObjectBlueprint files of the greatsword (W_GSW_001a_head, _grip, and _pommel) for the corresponding ax components. I haven't tested this in-game like I have with editing prefab_chargen_equipment, but that (very probably) should work. The only difficult part here is finding which ObjectBlueprints actually correspond to your ax's meshes. I personally don't know of an efficient way or searching for them, because the part_app files don't declare the ObjectBlueprint files as an outright reference.

 

Sorry, explaining the part_app thing is probably another paragraph you don't want to read. Here's my cheat: go to da3/equipment/weapons/part/models/w_gax in Frosty. You can open up the files that end in "_mesh." When you have a mesh open, change the view mode on the upper center bar to BaseColor so you can actually see it. A lot of the meshes are names similarly to the weapon "equip_" file they correspond to, but not always. Once you've confirmed which meshes are your ax's blade, grip, and pommel, there should be another file in that folder with the same name but no "_mesh" ending. These are the ObjectBlueprint files. You can replace the greatsword's component ObjectBlueprints in "Start_Weapon_Warrior_2H" the same way you swapped out the "equip_" files under "prefab_chargen_equipment."

 

I hope this helps!

Edited December 31, 2020 by apomorph

[mirinaxrolande]

Dude, this is AMAZING. Youâre the absolute best for writing all of this out! I cant believe the detail on this; you are truly amazing. Thank you so much!

[apomorph]

Glad I could help! Lemme know if you try editing the Start_Weapon_Warrior_2H file and the method I described doesn't work. I was looking at these files the other day because I wanted to have my rogue start with just one dagger, but I ended up just removing the second dagger from the file that loads in the starting weapon cutscene meshes (Layer0_dsg_0200_pro_firstcombat) instead of touching the dagger's actual appearance.