Importing Characters into TofL?

[Charles the Paladin]

Fellow Adventurers!
I finished HoW. I believe I did the "expansion only" option because it was the only way I could get my characters from IWD into the game. When I finished HoW, I got the credits and was forced to start another expansion game. When I imported my characters back in, I got them at the same level when I finished IWD. Any way I could get my HoW characters imported at their current levels? I'd like to reap what I sowed if you know what I mean...Looking forward to your replies!

[jmsteven]

There should be two party export files, and you might have imported the IWD one instead of HOW.

[Charles the Paladin]

Could you walk me through importing the right files?

[Charles the Paladin]

Tried to figure where the files are and if there are two sets. Little luck in understanding what's what. Please help. Thanks.

[Aerich]

I'm a bit foggy on this, Charles - I haven't done an expansion-only game. I was going to leave this for someone else who might understand your difficulties better, but I'll take a crack at it.

1) I can't recall if HoW automatically exports the characters after you've beat big 'I' (as it does after you finish big 'B' in IWD); if it doesn't, I'd recommend doing so right before taking out the idol.

2) When you try to import into a new game, take a careful look at the character files you can import. Are there several to pick from? If your characters are automatically exported at the end of HoW, the filename should reflect that.

I'll fiddle around a bit tonight and see if I can come up with anything more helpful.

[Aerich]

I created an expansion-only HoW game with imported characters, and it worked perfectly. I assume it should work the same for an expansion-only TotL game, if that's what you're wanting to do.

I think what jmsteven was referring to was that (if I'm correct in assuming that your characters are automatically exported after finishing HoW) there will be two files for each of your characters. One set will contain the characters as they were when you exported them from IWD, the other set will contain the characters as they were when they were exported after HoW. Perhaps you mistakenly imported the wrong set.

Try again - create a new game, take the import option on the character creation screen, then scroll down on the list of characters, and I'm betting/hoping you'll find the ones you're looking for. If you're not sure which ones are yours, just try importing and see if you recognize them (and their levels). You can delete imported characters anytime, so try all the characters that it is possible to import to see if the ones you want are there.

If there's been some mixup (say the characters weren't exported), I'd go back to your last saved game from HoW and export each character separately (in the Record screen there is an option to export character - it's easy, just enter a filename [e.g. HOW_PALADIN] and it'll save it to the directory containing characters available for import). That should enable you to import them wherever you please.

Hope this helps - let us know if it works out for you.

[Charles the Paladin]

Thanks Aerich and jmsteven. I'm embarrassed to say I had never imported characters before and was thrown off by the "automatic" import that happens with the expansion game. With your tips, I finally found the true way to import the characters- I found them all quite intact (both IWD and HOW versions)! Thanks!