Adventuring with Amie

Neverwinter Nights 2 General
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I decided to resuscitate Amie Fern as a companion in the original campaign. I know that this is supposed to be a plot death. (I mean come on!! What is this, a James Bond film? First Amie, then Shandra?) But I happen to like Amie. She is a excellent Generalist wizard which makes her perfect for crafting enchantments. She may not have any dialog after West Harbor, but she is still a loyal companion who fights for the well-being of the team. I usually keep her in the game right up to the end.

Has anyone else tried this? It does require some out of game file manipulation and a little work from the console, but it is not really difficult. She remains a mandatory companion, but I like having her around anyway.

Any thoughts on this? (Please spare me the usual comments about this being a bug or a plot crime. I like to have enough flexibility to enjoy playing the game.) Would anyone else like to try restoring Amie to the team and like some suggestions on how to do it?

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I don’t see why she should not have any conversation. It would not be hard to add to the one she comes with.

I liked Amie too. I would not mind running through the OC with her as an npc.

PJ

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One advantage would be starting really useful crafting right from the moment you hit Ft. Locke. Usually I don’t get to magical crafting to any of my companions until much later.

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Kaldor Silverwand, “NWN2 OC Makeover SoZ Edition”, gives you the option to save Shandra and add her to your party along with a lot of other fixes.

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I think kaldor’s pack gives the option. If it doesn’t I suspect there is either a pack that does.

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If you want to add her as a companion, read this. It’s not that hard (but you should have some minimal skills in scripting, ofc)

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Here is how I usually bring her back.

First you play up to the point just before you enter the mage fight sequence. While Amie is still alive I save the game under quicksave plus two other savegame entries (sounds like overkill I know, but it can make a difference).

Continue playing the game until Daeghun sends you to retrieve the shard. Once you are in the swamp with Bevil quicksave the game and exit.

From Windows copy the 0_amie.ros and Roster.rst from one of the other two savegame folders to the quicksave folder. You will need to confirm to overwrite Roster.rst - 0_amie.ros was already deleted by the game. Now that these two files have been replaced at the quicksave folder, relaunch the game and load the quicksave game.

Use the console givexp command to readjust Amie’s experience points to match yours. Now, VERY IMPORTANT, save the game to a new savegame entry. After that quicksave should work fine.

I have neglected to create the new savegame in the past just to have the game crash when I tried to save and delete my savegame folder.

This procedure will need to be repeated at two other points in the game:

After the Vigil at Solace Glade and After the combat with Lorne.

Probably just need to copy the the Roster.rst file at those two points in the game. 0_amie.ros should still be there.

You will need to be a little bit careful and understanding with her. She was really shaken up by her experience at West Harbor. If she get knocked unconscious, she can lose all of her gear.
I can usually recover her gear if I pick it up before she regains consciousness. Otherwise it tends to fall through an extra-planar portal. You can see where it went, but you cannot get to it. This only happens once or twice though (assuming she gets knocked unconscious).

She is worth it though. She also sticks really close and insists on going on every mission with me. Her security blanket I suppose as I was the one who resurrected her. But I would not have it any other way.

She is loyal and gentle and good-natured, and extremely competent.

This is an RPG after all, so play along ;).

A couple other tips. Apparently the Roster.rst file save experience points for other companions when they are not active in the party. At later points in the game I use gr_dm to make all current companions active just briefly so their ros files can be updated. It makes the process of updating experience points easier after the Vigil and Lorne. I would avoid bringing in companions you have not encountered yet, might cause problems later.

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I have a crafting tip for you. Those crafting gems are hard to come by. Just before you get to Jerro’s Haven, take all of those valuable crafting gems and put them in a magic pouch and give them to Shandra. Then recover them in Act 3 and see what happened.

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Recovering Shandra is actually a little easier than getting Amie back. Just do a special Shandra savegame before entering Ammon’s Haven (before Shandra disappears). Then play the game through until Act 3 starts. Quicksave and exit the game. Go to Windows and overwrite Shandra.ros from the Shandra savegame to the quicksave folder. Same proviso as with Amie. Then relaunch the game and load the quicksave. Use “rs gr_dm” to add her back to your team. You will need to use givexp to adjust her experience points to match yours.

Make sure you save to a new savegame entry before you try to quicksave.
You could run into the same problem with the game crashing and deleting your savegame. But I have never had a problem with a brand new savegame folder.

Do not overwrite the Roster.rst file to try to get Shandra back. This could cause problems with Ammon Jerro.

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That’s some interesting stuff. What I really wanted to do was recover the items I gave her to identify (necessarily, my coolest shit). I forgot she was about to get roasted.

P.S. The new forum looks great!

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Anything you gave to Shandra, you can recover from Ammon Jerro as he will have all of her gear. Of course you may have already figured that out. But if you give her a magic pouch of crafting gems, something interesting happens.

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Oh man I’ve been using my head as Hat rack. I never thought to check Ammon for Shandra’s gear. I’ve been playing the OC off and on since 2011. The year I got a computer that could run NWN2. Even this old guy can learn something new. Thanks for posting this mindrider.:four_leaf_clover::grinning:

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Thanxs! Now can you tell me how to change SOZ so it doesn’t autolevel you at the beginning? I’m guessing it would be in the campaign properties, or the starting area properties.

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IIRC, It doesn’t force you to autolevel. There’s a dialog that appears right before entering the quarter of the ship where you can manually choose to autolevel your party before going ashore.

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It gives the character the xp to bring them up to 4. You don’t have any choice.

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Ok, I see what you mean. If you don’t like this XP boost, open the nx2_enter_levelup script which is located in [Game Folder Path]\Campaigns\Neverwinter Nights 2 Campaign_X2, and adjust the next block of this script:

if ( nStoryStep < 5 )
	nMinXP = 8000;		// Level 4
else if ( nStoryStep < 7 )
	nMinXP = 10000;		// Level 5
else if ( nStoryStep < 11 )
	nMinXP = 15000;		// Level 6
else if ( nStoryStep < 15 )
	nMinXP = 21000;		// Level 7
else if ( nStoryStep < 18 )
	nMinXP = 28000;		// Level 8
else if ( nStoryStep < 20 )
	nMinXP = 36000;		// Level 9
else if ( nStoryStep < 23 )
	nMinXP = 45000;		// Level 10
else if ( nStoryStep <= 25 )
	nMinXP = 55000;		// Level 11
else if ( nStoryStep > 25 )
	nMinXP = 66000;		// Level 12

Then simply recompile it.

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I found it, but there’s two scripts with same name, one with a NCS and one with a NSS extension.

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NCS – is a compiled (binary) version which is used by the game. You don’t need touching it.
NSS – is a source (text) version that you can edit and then compile using Toolset.

The short how-to guide:

  1. Make a copy of that file with a NSS extension and place it in your override folder (…\Documents\Neverwinter Nights 2\override).
  2. Open Toolset.
  3. Go to «File» -> «Open Conversation/Script» (Ctrl + Shift + O).
  4. Type in nx2_enter_levelup and choose the corresponding result from the search window.
  5. After the script is opened you will see the big window with the script code.
  6. Find that block I mentioned above.
  7. Edit it. If you don’t want to get XP at all, set nMinXP = 0 everywhere.
  8. Press F7. If you didn’t make any mistake, there will be the “Compilation is succesful” message in the «Compile Results» log window. The compiled version will be placed in your override folder.
  9. That’s all.
  10. To discard these changes later, just remove nx2_enter_levelup.ncs/nss from your override folder.

P.S. Sorry for my english.

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Your English superb. I tried it and it’s still autolevelling. I can not find a MOD file, so I loaded G_X2 from modules. I tried to save the campaign, too. Here’s what I did, which greened out and compiled successfully:
// if ( nStoryStep < 5 )
// nMinXP = 8000; // Level 4
// else if ( nStoryStep < 7 )
// nMinXP = 10000; // Level 5
// else if ( nStoryStep < 11 )
// nMinXP = 15000; // Level 6
// else if ( nStoryStep < 15 )
// nMinXP = 21000; // Level 7
// else if ( nStoryStep < 18 )
// nMinXP = 28000; // Level 8
// else if ( nStoryStep < 20 )
// nMinXP = 36000; // Level 9
// else if ( nStoryStep < 23 )
// nMinXP = 45000; // Level 10
// else if ( nStoryStep <= 25 )
// nMinXP = 55000; // Level 11
// else if ( nStoryStep > 25 )
// nMinXP = 66000; // Level 12

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Yes, it seems there’s another script that levels up PC. Investigating…