Creating a Follower From the Clays of the Earth
Written by Ruelz, ruelz_3@yahoo.com


Greetings, fellow modders. If you are reading this, I am assuming that you have an interest in adding a follower to your module, and have somehow been stopped cold by the technicalities involved in doing it (or you have nothing better to do.) This walkthrough on follower creation should help give you the steps to creating a functional follower that you can interact with at will. There are a few restrictions, however. One, since I cannot know what your modding needs are, this will be a very generic walkthrough. For specific follower needs, you’ll have to post in the forum—I check them every day. The follower we will make will be a human male, and I will refer to him as SAM. (Swiss-Army Man). Before I leap right into the technical details, I feel it mindful to warn you—the act of creating a follower takes a lot of time, and a lot of planning. You should have a layout of your follower before even typing his name into gamedesc.mes. You should know if he will join up with you right away, what quests he might need done first, whether or not he will leave you after certain things are done. I assume that, before reading this, you have read AMTUT, particularly chapters two and three as they pertain to scripting and dialogue. If not, put this away and go do that—I am not going to recap what has already been done before, so I will leap right into creation without prior explanation. Similar to the modding demonstrated in AMTUT, this was all done with WorldEd version 1.0.7.0


1) Creating the Body from Mud

The first thing you must do is pick what your follower will look like, and create him in Arcanum. You are of course free to pick whatever you like, but for the sake of the example here I have chosen a male human priest. You can right click on him, give him clothing and equipment if you like—that won’t affect anything we will do later on. If you wanted to get really clever, you could make an animal follower, like the loyal mutt from Arcanum. Take off the mute and aloof flags, and you could then attach the scripts and dialogues we will discuss later to the animal. But for now, as I said, let’s keep it simple.

The next step is to give him some solid attributes. We don’t want a follower who will simply walk around and swing his fists blindly in battle, so let’s pump him up a bit, shall we? Right click on SAM and hit edit, which will bring up a screen from which you can edit almost every aspect of him. Higher level characters will not typically join with lower-level ones, and for this reason we must keep SAM at a relatively low level. If we had chosen a leveling scheme, the computer would automatically level him up to that point by distributing points into the character for each level we started him at. Since we are sticking with level one, I would advise you to either pick a favorite scheme or leave it up to the PC. Since we didn’t level him at all, we are free to customize. So let’s make him a master at melee, shall we? Click on the box that says "Basic Stats", and it should bring up a list of the eight stats for a character in Arcanum, and allow you to modify them however you see fit. Keep in mind that the editor will not allow you to modify training/point distribution in a skill if the stats do not support it. In other words, a character with the starting dex of 8 will NEVER become a master of anything, and there’s nothing you can do but alter the base stat first. So let’s give SAM a dex, Constitution, and Willpower of 20 each! Knock his intelligence up so you can have him summon more than one something or keep more than one spell going, and modify whatever other stats you like. Heck, set ‘em all to twenty for all I care. He’s your follower. For the sake of this example, and later ones, dex and willpower are the only two you really need to set. Click OK when you are finished, and your next trip is to the SKILLS button. Using the little, tiny arrow buttons, move his number in melee up to 20, and then to the right of that you will adjust his training all the way up to master!

Now, in order to set this up for later, get out of that and click on SPELLS. Click the box for minor healing and Call Fire Elemental (this will give him ALL the fire spells, but don’t worry—later on I explain how to talk him into just summoning the Elemental, at your command.) At this point, I wish to point out that, for a basic follower, you would normally start them at a lower level, most likely one or so to match yours. It depends on when you introduce the character. The leveling schemes are crucial to your follower’s development, so be sure to select a leveling scheme when you create followers in your module! Otherwise you will eventually have a level fifty nothing that only does what you program him to do with dialogues, and that is no fun. OK, that should be about it. Click OK, save the map, and proceed to step two.


2) In Name Only...

Step two of the character creation process is to give your NPC an internal name. When you right click and edit the properties for your half-naked priest (unless of course you clothed him in step one), you should note that there are three fields in the upper portion that will make a difference to your scripting, and to your character. They are the Unknown, Known, and Internal fields. You won’t want to walk around calling your new best friend "Human Priest", so let’s add some individualism! Go to the file tree where your module is located (should be something like C:/Sierra/Arcanum/Modules/nameofyourmodule/…) Once there, you are looking to edit two things. The first one is the mes folder. Open it up, and then open up gamedesc.mes. Here you can add NPC names, street names… etc. Numbers are very important to Arcanum, so one must have one to enter in the NPC. Since I am adding this follower to my mod, I have already created other NPC’s. Therefore, SAM will be numbered {40012} for me. For you, he might be {40000} It all depends on when you create your follower in the scheme of your module. After the number, then create a new set of brackets, and type in the name between them {S.A.M.} Your completed line should look something like this:

{40000}{S.A.M}

If not, fix it to look like that, or cut and paste that into your gamedesc.mes file. This will allow you to fill in the known description for our new follower.

The next step is crucial to future dialogue and scripting. Similar in life to banking, Arcanum doesn’t care what the name of your character is, all that matters are the numbers given to it. We are going to assign a number internally to SAM. WRITE THIS NUMBER DOWN so that you are not constantly looking it up. This number will be referred to when we make scripts later on.

Open up your module folder, and this time you are looking for a folder called oemes. Open up the file gameoname.mes, and you should see something similar to what you had in gamedesc.mes. here is where we assign the internal name. Scroll down a ways until you reach the 8000-9999 range. This is where we label NPC’s. For the sake of example, number SAM 8006. Then, in the next set of brackets, type that number again, followed by S.A.M. You completed entry should match below:

// NPC ranges from 8000 – 9999

{8006}{8006 S.A.M}

In the second brackets, the 8006 is not necessary. However, it will help you find the internal name/number for the character when you go to give it to SAM in the actual World editor.

OK, jump back to the world editor now, and right click on SAM. Click on the field that says "known" and start scrolling…keep going…well, where the hell is it? In Arcanum, one usually has to restart the module for the changes one makes in the mes files to take effect. So save you map, and then click file..open module… and go back to the map where we created SAM. Now let’s give him the name. It should show up with no problems this time, and so you can assign it to his "known" field. Find you 8006 S.A.M. in the "Internal" field, apply it, OK it, and we’re ready to move on to the hard stuff.


3) Come Follow Me

Before I launch into this, I wish to point out that Arcanum is, by its very nature, open-ended. This is a diplomatic way of saying that I could sit here and type for months and still never go over every single scenario that could crop up in order to get a follower. One could have to have a certain quest in a certain state. One could be a certain sex and get the follower because of it. One could be beautiful, and charm the man into joining her. One could persuade, bully, cajole, bribe, and threaten and get a follower. These are all possible—and many, many more—through the wonders of conditional scripts and classy dialogue options. In my experience modding, I have had more success with the dialogue commands and conditions, and so you will find that the style I present to you here relies heavily upon the dialogue commands, not always scripting. However, scripting plays a major role, and we therefore cannot ignore it.

SAM will not say no to us, and will become a follower unless circumstances forbid it. This, we know, is certain. If some of the test and result fields confuse you, read on—I will clear it up in a moment. I will give you a few examples of the dialogue to use for him, and then you can tweak and adjust from there to make the options suit your particular needs. The following examples will show up for your character only if they meet certain conditions:

{1}{Hello there! Who are you?}{Greetings, madam. Might I ask who you are?}{}{}{}{}
{2}{I am @pcname@. I need help with my quest...}{}{1}{qu1000 2}{10}{jo 1 50}
{3}{You WANT to join me, eh?}{}{1}{ch 10}{10}{jo 1 50}
{4}{I'll give you 100 gold to join up with me.}{}{1}{$$ 100}{10}{$$ -100, jo 1 50}
{5}{I'm so sexy you just can't resist me!}{0}{1}{re 70}{10}{jo 1 50}
{6}{Join me, and we will rule the galaxy!}{}{1}{al -500}{10}{jo 1 50}
{7}{I, uh, was wondering if you'd come with me...}{}{1}{}{10}{}

2 can only be spoken if quest number 1000 has been accepted. If you don’t have quest number 1000, or you’ve somehow completed it without SAM’s help, then you will not be able to use this path. If you have no idea what I am talking about, then quests may not be a reality for you yet. Read the end of part IV of AMTUT as well as the editor docs from the website—they aren’t fully complete yet, but you can piece together the information and make a viable quest out of them, in order to test your follower out. Maybe at the end of this I will give you a brief scenario.

3 is the result of a forceful personality. It can only be spoken, therefore, if you have a charisma higher than 10. The key to this and the rest of the options lies in the 5th set of brackets. On page 94 of the worlded manual, one can peruse the available conditions at one’s leisure. Getting the follower to join you after picking an option…That magic is worked in the 7th set of brackets. After this is a summary of how the join command works when you place it in brackets,. As well as what the numbers beside it mean.

4 is the bribery option. You could pay SAM to join up with you here, and it will cost you 100 gold. To make it more or less, just adjust the 100 in both areas.

5 can only be spoken if his reaction to you is 70 or higher—usually the result of a high beauty score. Also, you must be female to use this option.

6 relies on an evil alignment. If you aren’t Vader-esque, then SAM will not go with you.

7 is an all-else-fails, get-me-out-of-this-conversation response, and will result in a failed attempt to have SAM join you.

Suffice to say that in the last field, the result field, the magic of our creation is truly at work. The key is {jo num1 num2}. The jo indicates that, if the Player picks this option, he is making a request of the NPC to join him. The first number, num1, can be either a one or a zero. If you put in a zero, standard charisma limits will apply—you can only have one follower for every four points in charisma. Also, and this is VERY important—If a potential follower is a much, much higher level than you (say, 1 as compared to 50) they will not join you, unless you have God’s charisma. So, if you choose a one, this follower will join you no matter what. For the case of our example, we are forcing SAM to join us. In real life, when you made a follower, where the above brackets have {jo 1 50} you would have {jo 0 50} for a real-life experience. The num2 indicates what line the dialogue should jump to if the joining is successful. If it is not, then the dialogue will go to the usual response line, indicated in the brackets second from the end. As you can see, I have line 10 set up to be the default if there is no way SAM will join you. If he is successful in joining you, dialogue will jump to 50, his portrait will appear in the upper left hand corner of the screen, and all will be well.

Here is the completed dialogue tree thus far for SAM. Yes, you could cut and paste this—I tested it all out before daring to write this walkthrough. I will tell you from experience, however, that you are not doing yourself a favor taking shortcuts, and you will be a less-frustrated modder in the long run if you learn it for yourself. DO NOT TEST THIS YET! READ ON!

{1}{Hello there! Who are you?}{Greetings, madam. Might I ask who you are?}{}{}{}{}
{2}{I am @pcname@. I need help with my quest...}{}{1}{qu1000 2}{10}{jo 0 50}
{3}{You WANT to join me, eh?}{}{1}{ch 10}{10}{jo 0 50}
{4}{I'll give you 100 gold to join up with me.}{}{1}{$$ 100}{10}{$$ -100, jo 0 50}
{5}{I'm so sexy you just can't resist me!}{0}{1}{re 70}{10}{jo 0 50}
{6}{Join me, and we will rule the galaxy!}{}{1}{al-500}{10}{jo 0 50}
{7}{I, uh, was wondering if you'd come with me...}{}{1}{}{10}{}

{10}{I cannot join you because you just don't have that animal magnetism. Sorry. Level up your charisma and we'll have another go at it, eh?}{I cannot join you because you just don't have that animal magnetism. Sorry. Level up your charisma and we'll have another go at it, eh?}{}{}{}{}
{11}{Be seeing you then.}{}{1}{}{0}{}

{50}{I will happily join up with you, @pcname@! Let's rock and roll!}{I will happily join up with you, @pcname@! Let's rock and roll}{}{}{}{}
{51}{Right on, my friend.}{}{1}{}{0}{}

WAIT! Before you try this out for yourself, you really ought to create a script and attach it to SAM’s dialogue! Save the above file as whatever—I called mine 00099_SAM.dlg. Then go into the scriptmaker. You are going to create a conditional script here, and we are setting ourselves up for step number four at this point. Use the conditional statement, "If NPC (obj) is a follower of PC (obj)." The program will ask you to specify what, exactly, the objects are. Input "Attachee" for the NPC and "Triggerer" for the PC. The it will come up with a "THEN" condition. You are looking for the "Dialogue" result. It will ask you for a number, so enter in 100. Why? We have not yet created the dialogue yet for SAM if he is already a follower. This script will check, every time we click on SAM no, and see if he is a follower. If he is, the dialogue will start at line 100. After you enter that in, the computer will prompt you for an ELSE action, into which you will put "Dialogue 1."

Your completed script should look something like this in SockMonkey:

  1. If NPC Attachee is Follower of PC Triggerer,
  2. THEN Dialogue 100

    ELSE Dialogue 1

  3. Return and SKIP Default.

Save this script under the exact name as the dialogue, down to the last character. So in my case, this would be saved as 00099_SAM.scr

Now, close the scriptmaker, and head back to worlded. Right click on SAM, and under Edit, there is a button called scripts. Click on it, give him script number 99 for dialogue, and hit OK. (Yes, you might get an error message about not finding the script. It still works.)

OK! Save your map, quit, and boot up Arcanum, it’s time to see if SAM really loves you or not! Regardless of whether you pick a character or create a new one, SAM should still have an option or two that allows you to pick him up. Try a couple of different ways to be sure you are satisfied they all work, then return to me for part four!


4) Worthless Baggage or Indispensable Companion? You Decide!

We are not creating a Virgil here. We are going to create a follower that is absolutely indispensable for EVERY class of adventurer. Of course, when one makes a mod for real, one should probably not do this, because the game would become entirely too easy. I will merely demonstrate the vast range of things one could have a follower do, and show you step-by-step how to do it.

Open up SAM’s dialogue, and let’s look at it for a moment. If you clicked on him, whether by design or by accident, after he became a follower, you probably got a blank gray screen with nothing on it. This is because SAM is officially our follower now, and every single time we click him, until we tell him to go away, the dialogue is going to try and load at line 100…which, as you may or may not have noticed, is not yet in existence. Time to rectify that problem.

First of all, when we speak to SAM, we need him to say something appropriately subservient to indicate he is ready to serve our every need. So let’s go with…

{100}{How may I serve your every need, oh most gracious and exulted master?}{I revel in the sound of your melodious voice, my commanding mistress!}{}{}{}{}

Wow. The power trips that come with this game! OK. Well, what do we want him to do? Let’s have a follower that:

  1. can identify items for us (at cost)
  2. will comment and help us during quests
  3. can repair items for us (at cost)
  4. can give us apprentice training in pick-pocketing
  5. can summon a fire elemental and heal us on command
  6. will stay close, spread out, and leave
  7. will allow us to probe his innermost secrets (view the character sheet)

Sound like enough to start out with? Good. (We did call him Swiss-Army Man for a reason, after all.) It’s really not as hard as you may think, and hopefully by the time we are done here you will have an even better idea than before about how to get your followers to do various things not yet imagined! I am going to warn you once more, in advance—I do things the long way sometimes, because they are tried, true, and I am 100% certain they will work. For almost every dialogue trick I introduce to you here, there are scripting ways to do the same thing. If that is your strong point, then feel free to deviate. If not, then keep reading!

In a lot of ways, creating a follower can be like making a shopkeeper, only the follower sticks with you and lets you look into his inventory and obeys your general commands. In all cases, when you right click on the follower’s portrait in the upper left hand corner you will already be able to issue the standard commands. I am going over them merely so that you have them, and feel more complete with your follower.

Looking at the above list, the below dialogue will accomplish each and every one of the above. Look over the dialogue below and the list above—I tried to keep them in order. If you cannot make heads or tails of it, keep reading, and I explain what each line is specifically set to do.

{100}{How may I serve your every need, oh most gracious and exulted master?}{I revel in the sound of your melodious voice, my commanding mistress!}{}{}{}{}
{101}{Can you identify this for me?}{}{1}{}{0}{ii}
{102}{I need this repaired.}{}{1}{}{0}{ri}
{103}{T:5}{}{1}{}{0}{}
{104}{[More]}{}{1}{}{110}{}

{110}{How may I serve your every need, oh most gracious and exulted master?}{I revel in the sound of your melodious voice, my commanding mistress!}{}{}{}{}
{111}{I need magical assistance...}{}{1}{}{150}{}
{112}{Spread out!}{}{1}{}{0}{so}
{113}{Wait here for me, SAM.}{}{1}{}{0}{wa}
{114}{(More)}{}{1}{}{120}{}

{120}{How may I serve your every need, oh most gracious and exulted master?}{I revel in the sound of your melodious voice, my commanding mistress!}{}{}{}{}
{121}{Leave me, bothersome baggage!}{}{1}{}{0}{lv}
{122}{Tell me all about YOU, SAM!}{}{1}{}{0}{ce}
{123}{What should we do now?}{}{1}{}{200}{}
{124}{What should we do now?}{}{1}{qu1000 2}{210}{}
{125}{NOW what???}{}{1}{qu1002 2}{220}{}
{126}{Well...I'm at a loss here...}{}{1}{qu1003 2}{220}{}
{127}{Never mind.}{}{1}{}{0}{}

OK, let’s go through this step by step. The first set of dialogue options consists of what SAM says (How can I serve you…blah blah blah…) followed by four options of our own. FOUR is the limit, it would seem, when creating PC responses. I attempted to fit more, but it caused bugs. Since I am only including things that I have tested out and had work in this walkthrough, I am setting the limit at four. Notice how the last command of each section says "more", with a command to go to the next section, and how SAMS text is the same for each of the three? This is how one can create the illusion of being able to jump back and forth between tons of dialogue options.

The first thing we can ask SAM to do is identify things. The text is simple and straightforward, and the dialogue will end after we have him identify things for us. Once you select this option, the {ii} at the end of the line will tell the program to open up your inventory, and SAM will ID things for you at 100 bucks a pop. (Of course, since shared wealth is all part of the whole follower gig, one could get it right back…) Once you close the ID screen, your dialogue with SAM will be over, and if you need anything further you will need to re-initiate the conversation. If you wanted him to say something like "Anything else for you?" or to go back to the whole "What can I do for you" series, then replace the {0} in the 6th set of brackets with whatever line of dialogue you want him to go to. Most people end the dialogue after the service is performed in Arcanum.

The second command we can give is to have SAM repair things for us. If you were really going to include this ability on a follower—and it’s certainly not a bad idea—you would want to edit your follower to give him MASTER repair skills and such. As it is, it might be more realistic to have your followers only capable of field repair (less than professional quality) and save the mastery for the cities.

{102}{I need this repaired.}{}{1}{}{0}{ri}

The {0} in the 6th brackets will, again, end your dialogue. The {ri} is the magic phrase that will open your inventory up in repair mode.

The third command we can issue SAM is to have him train us in the art of pickpocketing.

{103}{T:5}{}{1}{}{0}{}

This is apprentice training only, and he will of course fine you for it. There really isn’t a way around that that I have discovered. Anyway, To have your follower be able to train you in anything, simply include the option {T:X,Y,Z}. In the EditorDocs, you get a numeric listing of what each skill is numbered. X, Y, and Z can all be skills of your choice, and your follower could train you to be an apprentice in all three of them. The nice part about this is that the computer will take care of the actual dialogue for you. Instead of T:5, you will see "I need apprentice training in pickpocketing" show up on your screen, and the follower will respond intelligently.

The fourth is, as I said before, our doorway to more options.

 

 

In the second set of dialogue, we have some of the more common commands, as well as a few Uncommon ones. Observe.

{110}{How may I serve your every need, oh most gracious and exulted master?}{I revel in the sound of your melodious voice, my commanding mistress!}{}{}{}{}
{111}{I need magical assistance...}{}{1}{}{150}{}
{112}{Spread out!}{}{1}{}{0}{so}
{113}{Wait here for me, SAM.}{}{1}{}{0}{wa}
{114}{(More)}{}{1}{}{120}{}

Line {111} will ask our follower to cast some spells. What spells? Well, the response line says to jump to line 150 after selecting this option, so let’s look at line 150.

{150}{What kind of magic?}{Magic? Of course! What do you want?}{}{}{}{}
{151}{Z:24}{}{1}{}{0}{}
{152}{Z:60}{}{1}{}{0}{}
{153}{F:}{}{1}{}{0}{}

The {Z:X} command orders followers to "zap" a spell. The spell is determined by what number you input for X. 24 happens to be fire elemental, and 60 happens to be minor healing. You can now—on a whim—have your follower cast any spell you wish to give them, merely by starting them with it and adding a dialogue option similar to the above. A complete list of the spells and the numbers associated with them can be found in the WorldEd manual.

The {F:} is a line that will create a standard "Forget about it" response and end the dialogue.

Line {112} can be used in many different ways. The last bracket here is the key—if you put {sc} in the final pair of brackets in lieu of {so}, you will have a command to make the follower stay close. These commands are easier to do through the portrait-interface of the follower in the upper left-hand corner, and so I will not waste a bunch of time with details.

{113} Requires a bit of explaining. At this crucial juncture, we must stop for a moment and reflect. We are no longer in the testing phase of our follower—these are nigh the finishing touches we will add. Therefore, it will be necessary to change the follower’s script. In order to have a follower not only wait but to return to us when we speak to him, you need a special line of dialogue to deal with ONLY that circumstance, as well as a script line to call it up. So at this point I ask you to open up Sockmonkey, and open up your script for SAM. Delete everything. That’s right, all two lines of it! Replace the script with the following:

(0) IF npc (Attachee) is waiting for leader’s return

THEN dialogue 500

ELSE goto line 1

  1. IF npc (Attachee) is a follower of PC (triggerer)

THEN dialogue 100

ELSE dialogue 1

(2) RETURN AND SKIP DEFAULT

 

Now, let’s look at the dialogue to go with this:

{113}{Wait here for me, SAM.}{}{1}{}{0}{wa}

{500}{You're back! Thank the gods! Let's continue on!}{You're back! Thank the gods! Let's continue on!}{}{}{}{}
{501}{Indeed.}{}{1}{}{510}{uw 1 520}

{510}{You should have been back ages ago. I want nothing more to do with you.}{You should have been back ages ago. I want nothing more to do with you.}{}{}{}{}
{511}{...jerk...}{}{1}{}{0}{XXX}

{520}{That was frightfully boring. I can't wait to get along on our next adventure.}{That was frightfully boring. I can't wait to get along on our next adventure.}{}{}{}{}
{521}{Off we go, then.}{}{1}{}{0}{}

{113} executes the wait command. The followers portrait will no longer show on your screen, and they will stand there. When you talk to him again, the script will kick in at "If the follower is waiting, then dialogue 500." Why 500? It puts a lot of space between the rest of your dialogue and this spiel, so that if you go back to add some stuff, or have to alter something, it will be easier. You can, of course, use whatever numbers you like.

{500} gets a bit tricky. The overall effect is that if the follower waited too long, (Charisma determines how long they will wait) they will not want to rejoin with you. The command line {uw 1 520} is the key. It orders the NPC to unwait, and, if it is successful, the dialogue will resume at line 520. If unsuccessful, it will resume with the response line, which in this case is 510. In the event you have a follower that was jilted (which is what Arcanum calls it), you will probably want to do something about it so they don’t rejoin, if the game even permit it (One thing I haven’t tested was whether the NPC will, when jilted, rejoin. It is possible that, unless you alter the script when they have been jilted, they will still happily rejoin you, as oblivious as ever.) To give you some ideas, you could fill in the XXX in line {511} with some of these ideas: Lower the NPC’s reaction to you severely, make them immediately turn and attack you for your audacity, or call up a script that makes them utterly ignore you.

If, on the brighter side, everything is successful, the dialogue will resume at 520, which has happier endings to it and will result in you getting your follower back!

If you don’t want to have to worry about charisma and all that when it comes to the wait time, then look at the last set of brackets on line {501}. You see it? {uw 1 520}. Replace the 1 with a 0, and you will now override charisma limits.

The fourth option in the second set will lead you to yet ANOTHER set of options for SAM. This guy really can do it all!

{121}{Leave me, bothersome baggage!}{}{1}{}{0}{re –10,lv}
{122}{Tell me all about YOU, SAM!}{}{1}{}{0}{ce}
{123}{What should we do now?}{}{1}{qu 1000 0}{200}{}
{124}{What should we do now?}{}{1}{qu1000 2}{210}{}
{125}{NOW what???}{}{1}{qu1002 2}{220}{}
{126}{Well...I'm at a loss here...}{}{1}{qu1003 2}{220}{}
{127}{Never mind.}{}{1}{}{0}{}

Line 121 is the command one would use to get rid of SAM for awhile, without telling him to wait. At this point, we come to a more complex law of creating followers. SAM is naïve. You can all-but kill him, and he will still be your best friend in the end. In the event of your telling the NPC to leave, you may want to have another script line that activates, so that he can either say something different, or feel utterly betrayed and hurt by you. As I have it set up now, every time you tell SAM to leave his reaction will go down by 10, so you can only yo-yo him around so much before he will get pissed off and attack you. This ensures that the PC does NOT use the leave command in lieu of waiting and get away with it eternally. As I mentioned before, there are ways upon ways this could be accomplished. I am merely providing the most basic of functional overviews.

Line 122 is redundant, because if you wanted to see the character sheet you could right click on their portrait. But I have included it for you—the {ce} is the magic touch that will bring up a passive character sheet for you to analyze as the PC.

Lines 123-126 I have included as a brief example. Remember how I said only four dialogue options seems to work at a time? This kind of gets around that by making certain options appear at different times. The first time it is available, you will be taken to line 200. This action is only available if you have never heard of quest number 1000. If you see it again after getting a quest, it would take you to a different line number. And each line number would have your follower commenting on the quest in different ways. For example, if you had quest 1000, and it entailed going into a dark basement and finding a little girl, and you had accepted (not completed) this quest, upon conversing with SAM you would see line 124. Upon choosing that option as the character, it would jump to dialogue line number 210, which you would make something like:

{210}{I have heard stories about the massive rodents that live in this basement. I can only suggest that we proceed with extreme caution, and perhaps even consider buying a powerful poison to help protect us.}{I have heard stories about the massive rodents that live in this basement. I can only suggest that we proceed with extreme caution, and perhaps even consider buying a powerful poison to help protect us.}{}{}{}{}

This would give the OC a hint as to what is to come.

A nifty trick you can do is to have the follower mention a quest as well, sometimes in relation to another quest. This is complex dialogue, but it can be done.

Line 127 exits the dialogue entirely, and lets you begin anew.

I hope that, through the course of this walkthrough you have come to at least some basic understanding of how followers work, and how they are made. Once they join you, the hard part is over, and we have created a phenomenally complex follower as it is—most people in Arcanum served one, maybe two functional purposes. SAM was a multitude of services in a single follower. If there are any questions pertaining to this, I will happily try to answer them. You can E-mail me at ruelz_3@yahoo.com, or post your questions at http://www.terra-aracanum.com/phpBB in the modding and scripting forum.