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Illumina, what is required to actually, say, create a NPC mod?
I realize that you have to create the character (and I don't mean the CRE file), give it some depth, etc. More than just the base stats.
Then you have to try to imagine how the new NPC will interact with the other NPCs. I think that this isn't too difficult, but actually translating a few sentences of outline into conversational dialogs seems like the tricky part. Writing the actual code for this is probably the easy part.
Creating items is probably fairly easy, as long as you're not trying to add some strange or abnormal effects.
Creating the actual CRE files is also probably not difficult.
Having a nice portait set that brings the character to life visually helps a lot.
Beyond this, developing and coding cutscenes and encounters that will end in combat may be challenging. I have no idea what would be required here. No doubt it involves editing various ARE and BCS files. perhaps some others as well.
Oh, BTW, I've poked around quite a bit inside of BG2 and IWD1 with Near Infinity. I haven't written a real mod yet. I actually wrote a mini-mod for IWD2 that created a dinky little merchant on the docks, just to see if I could do it. (I could.) But I've never really written a "real" mod.
I'm curious because I'm sorely tempted to try to write my own BG2 NPC mod.
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