Drizzt Is Not Stupid
a mod for Baldur's Gate Tutu, by Macready

While I haven't read the Salvatore books, I know that Drizzt is supposed to be a hero of the Forgotten Realms universe.  His brief cameo in Baldur's Gate is intended to enrich the player's experience as he or she adventures in that universe, but all too often players are tempted to rob or murder him for his exceptional equipment.  Of course, it is next to impossible that a low-level party would be able to take down such a foe, but with the exploits possible by taking advantage of poor AI (or by outright cheating), it happens a lot.   I vividly remember reading the Baldur's Gate forums at SP a long while back, noticing that this was the first stop for many players, and thinking, "if there is one thing I'd like to change about the game, that's it."

It is all too easy to buff Drizzt up to demi-god status (and speaking of that, the BG designers already did that to him to a certain degree), but I hate that sort of thing as well.  It annoys me to no end when I see a wizard cast four spells in a single round, or any other similar action which flagrantly violates the laws of the game world as I experience them myself.  So, with all that in mind, here are the changes enacted by this mod:

• You can't pick-pocket Drizzt.  I find it highly unlikely that this exceptional figure could have his prized weapons nabbed right from his hands by some fledgling rogue.
• Given the limitations of the game engine, Drizzt is too vulnerable to fight out in the open and by himself.  If the player angers him to the point of making him an enemy, he will withdraw in order to choose a more fitting (i.e., less exploitable) arena in which to resolve the conflict.
• Although this mod does create the opportunity for Drizzt to reappear at a later time, his role is still restricted to a brief cameo, as was clearly intended.  The reappearance is just a relocation of the conflict phase of the encounter with Drizzt, if conflict should arise.
• I always felt that Drizzt was a little too quick to jump the gun and kill the player's party, even if provoked.  Hence, he now offers a non-violent alternative to the player if the player's party meets the requirements (and most parties will meet them at the stage he reappears).
• If you are really spoiling for a fight, you will eventually get one.  Please note that Drizzt has been slightly toned down to make him play by the rules -- no more 10 attacks per round and flat-rate 30 point damage bonuses, since I am assuming these aspects of his original incarnation were designed to hasten his gnoll slaughtering.  His AI has been improved a bit to compensate, though, so without some luck, about the best you can hope for is to fight him to a stalemate.

And that's it.  Very small in scale, virtually nothing in the way of new content...but Drizzt is not stupid any more.

Requirements

• Baldur's Gate Tutu.  I developed the mod on Tutu v4, Tutufix v15.  If you have already encountered Drizzt or visited the city of Baldur's Gate in your current game, you won't get the new content until you start a new game (or fall back on an earlier save).
• It really shouldn't matter when it is installed in terms of overall mod installation order.  Since it performs interactive file patching, it is very safe to install late in the order.

Technical Blather

• The "gnoll encounter" Drizzt is patched such that his items cannot be stolen, and so that he can escape if you provoke him to enemy status.  _DRIZZT.CRE and _DRIZZT.BCS are the files patched.
• One area file is patched to use an area script if it didn't already (the default status), or has its script extended if another mod has already assigned it a script.  I won't say which area file so as not to ruin any surprises, but you can see which one is changed by looking at the TP2 file if you just have to know.  The same area is also patched to fix an entrance so that the party is facing a sensible direction in the new area after having just entered.

Nothing else is changed.  All other mod content comes in the form of seven new files.  All of these files are prefixed with "MAC", so it is highly unlikely they will conflict with existing Tutu resources.

Download

Download the self-extracting package and extract it to your Tutu folder.  The setup program will run automatically.  Run the Setup-DrizztIsNotStupid.exe installer (WeiDU, of course) to uninstall it.

DrizztIsNotStupid-Tutu-v2.exe (last updated 08 Mar 2006)