So I recently got back into playing NWN EE. I made a custom character and gave that character mithral chainmail. I noticed a couple of problems one of which was that the max dex was wrong, listed at +2 but should be +4 also the image is of plate mail and not chain mail. I wanted to see if I could edit this item and correct these things.
Alternately, if someone else has fixed this somewhere else that would be fine.
I’m sorry, but the dex-bonus or +2 for a chainmail (BAC 5) is correct. To get a +4, you need a chainshirt (BAC 4). But, afaik, there is no mithral issue for a chainshirt.
Changing the appearance is actually no problem, if you are a bit familiar with the toolset. If not, you might try PGC (no guaranty, that it will work with the EE). Pretty Good Character Creator / Customizer (PGC3) powered by IGIPE
I’m sorry to say but you are incorrect. One of the properties of Mithral is it raises the max dex bonus by 2. In essence mithral chain is indistinguishable from elven chain but is not necessarily made by elves.
https://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialMaterials.htm
Mithral
Mithral is a very rare silvery, glistening metal that is lighter than iron but just as hard. When worked like steel, it becomes a wonderful material from which to create armor and is occasionally used for other items as well. Most mithral armors are one category lighter than normal for purposes of movement and other limitations. Heavy armors are treated as medium, and medium armors are treated as light, but light armors are still treated as light. Spell failure chances for armors and shields made from mithral are decreased by 10%, maximum Dexterity bonus is increased by 2, and armor check penalties are lessened by 3 (to a minimum of 0).
An item made from mithral weighs half as much as the same item made from other metals. In the case of weapons, this lighter weight does not change a weapon’s size category or the ease with which it can be wielded (whether it is light, one-handed, or two-handed). Items not primarily of metal are not meaningfully affected by being partially made of mithral. (A longsword can be a mithral weapon, while a scythe cannot be.)
Weapons or armors fashioned from mithral are always masterwork items as well; the masterwork cost is included in the prices given below.
Mithral has 30 hit points per inch of thickness and hardness 15.
You’re right, concerning the original rules there is some advantage using mithral. But the question is, how accurat are these rules implemented. In NWN, the +2 dex-bonus is a fixed amount for Armor with BAC 5, no matter what. The weight reduction does not ease the arcane spell penalty too.
I prefer the actual game rules. Are there mods that change NWN so that the game follows the actual SRD?
You could take a look at ShadowM’s HR Base 13.00A / EE | The Neverwinter Vault.
However, any mods such as the one I linked are more aimed at builders rather than players in that the module has to be setup/configured to use the actual content/modifications introduced by the mod. Some mods can be installed as patch haks (see userpatch.ini - Neverwinter Nights 1: EE - nwn.wiki) or as overrides (install to the /override folder), but your mileage will vary.
Note also that NWN is based upon the 3.0 rules and does not include changes made/implemented in the 3.5 rules. Thus, some items might work entirely differently from what you’d expect. Nor was NWN ever intended to be a direct implementation of the pnp 3.0 rules. Some mechanics just don’t translate well from paper to computer.
In the case of Mithral, its basically the same in 3.0 vs. 3.5; however, you just aren’t going to get there without a lot of headaches caused by bumping into hardcoded limitations, the principle headache being that you can’t expand armor.2da (the 2da file that defines armor parameters). You might be able to fudge the abilties a bit by editing the item blueprint, but not without drastically altering its cost.
What Pstemarie said is correct. I think the easiest way is to create a “mithral”-shirt, give it a +3 Armor bonus and the appearance of the mithral-mail. That should do the trick without altering the costs of the item too much.
We looking into adding itemproperties that will allow you to make these changes to max dex and armor check penalty.