VARIOUS
ITEMS
SPECIAL ITEMS
SHOPS
MONSTERS
GRAPHICS
OUTDOOR SECTIONS
ENTRANCES/PORTALS/STAIRWAYS
STUFF-DONE FLAGS
SPECIAL NODES
SPELLS
TALKING
TIME
TRICKS/TIPS
THINGS YOU CAN'T DO
BUGS

VARIOUS

What's the difference between "change terrain" and "transform terrain"? I couldn't figure it out from the docs. Thanks.
Every terrain type has a Transform To value. When you use a Change Terrain special flag, it changes a terrain type to a type you select in the special node. When you use a Transform Terrain special flag, it changes a terrain type to the Transform To type set in the terrain type itself. Go into editing terrain types if you want to see what the Transform To values are.

When I use Transform Rectangle. all the terrain turns to cave floor! I see the problem is all terrains have Transform to 0 (Change to Cave Floor) But I can't change it for the terrains before the pit terrain. How can I stop this from happening?!?
Only transform spaces where you can change the transform to value

Also, I did not make a scenario name when I started as I was not sure what it would be. Now I can't seem to get anywhere to put one in. Is there a way to do that or do I have to start over and import stuff into the new file?
Change the first Scenario text message

I have a question on Blades of Exile Scenario Editor. Is their any way to edit the name of a town after it has been made?
I believe you can do this in the Town Details screen. If not, go into Edit Town Text and edit the first string. That's the town name.

I need to have a town with 11 people in it. There's no way around it. I cut all the people I could. The extra 11th person (a vagrant Vahnatai) gets moved to a different town later when a special gets triggered. Can I list him as belonging to a different town and just incidentally put him in this town?
This is mentioned in the documentation. You can put a personality from a different town into a town. You can put personality 117 (in town 12) into town 4, for example.

The docs say that there's a Mess1 field where you type in whatever text will appear when a text response is required. But that field doesn't show up when you create a "Text Response?" node. The place where the field is supposed to be is marked "unused", which means it will be ignored.
This is an error in the documentation. You need to display a message or dialog explaining what the character is asking, and then bring up the Text Response dialog.

I want to create a area where the floor does magical damage, but if you get permission to access the area by someone, the floor doesn't do damage (changed to normal floor). How can I change all the spaces.
I've asked many people, but no one seems to know anything about it.
There are about 20 spaces going in several directions.
Set a Transform To flag for this terrain type to normal floor. Then, when you want these floors to go away, use a Rectangle Transform To special node for the entire dungeon. Bear in mind that this will transform all spaces with Transform To set.

I'm having a problem with making NPCs appear in towns after the player has completed certain tasks. I place the NPCs in a town and set them to only appear when a major event has occurred. When the player completes a certain task related to the NPC, I use a Major Event Has Occurred node to set the corresponding major event code. This should cause the NPC to appear.
However, whenever I do whatever is necessary to trigger the Major Event node, and go back to the town where the NPC is supposed to appear, the NPC is not there. I have to go outside and type '' to reset the town before the NPC will appear. Interestingly enough, if I don't visit the town where the NPCs are supposed to appear before triggering the Major Event special, they appear normally.
This is correct. The town gets saved, and the NPC doesn't appear until the town gets reset (when the party visits 4 other towns or dungeon levels).
This is an unforeseen result of the way the engine worked out, and, alas, all I can recommend is not having the major NPCs not work this way unless you have enough towns or dungeon levels for the party to visit to make sure the town the character is in resets. Sorry about that.

I have a town where once the leader of a bandit fort has been killed, lots of characters change by disappearing or appearing (by the advanced properties, disappear and appear on event). The problem is, characters only appear, not disappear. This is a great problem as before event 1 the cmdr. is ill and has a deputy in place, but after the new commander appears but the deputy is still there. Is this a bug? (I'm using the latest version of the scenario editor for the PC). Thanks.
Towns are remembered for a while. The character may be being remembered as still being there because the town hasn't been reset yet. There is a way around this.
Make the character that disappears its own monster type, like Deputy Fred.
Have a special encounter be called when the party enters the town, which, if the point in the game where the deputy should be gone has been reached, calls the town special node with rids the town of all creatures of type Deputy Fred.
Awkward, but it'll work.

From reading the online docs I don't think there is much of a way to fix this one, but is there any way to make the party leave from the starting town in the normal direction when they leave town for the first time? That is, if the outdoor scenario start is one square to the north of the first town, and the party wants to leave town to the west, is there any way of making them appear to the west of the town?
If you manually set the exit locations for the town, it should override the party starting location.

I can't seem to get boats placed. I put in the coordinates and nothing shows up when I test.
Who knows. One of the fields must be off.

Much more importantly, some of my towns which were started containing grass or grass and flowers appear with strips of cave floor along their western edge when they are entered during play. When I go to edit the towns these strips do not appear anywhere.
Place the party so they can't go within 4 spaces of the town edge.

Hello, I've been working on a scenario, but I've encountered a problem that seems unusual.
I have a base town (warriors grove) which I set up with some scenery and dialogue changes, I then imported that town 4 more times, to create town 0,1,2,3,4.
Now each of these towns has different responses from the NPC's and also different town terrain.
I then set up a variable town entry so that the players actions would trigger off entry to the different towns as he/she progresses through the scenario.
Ok the problem is! as the player enters say town1 instead of town0, the scenery changes just fine, but the dialogue from the npc's remains exactly the same as it was for town0...
I should point out that in town 0, npc's have numbers 0,1,2,3 and for town 1: 10,11,12,13 and I also changed the node numbers since they were copied between towns too..
Anyway this is a bit of a pain, I'm not sure if its just the way it is with importing towns or it is a bug or what? but its all I need so that I can distribute my scenario
Just more of a word to the wise sort of thing. When you import a town, it makes a copy of the town. This includes the personalities of the characters. This is a good thing ... it keeps the personalities from unpredictably being reset. You need to change the personalities manually.

In my scenario, the spirit of an ancient Haakai mage takes the body of one of your party members so he can come back to the physical realm again. how can I get the scenario editor to have the player pick a PC then totally remove the PC they picked from the party?
There is a special node which kills a character. This is the best you can do.

How do I delete a area description rectangle.
The town and outdoor menus have an edit area rectangles option. You can do this there.

Terrain types 246-251 (the special encounter spots with the white dots) are changeable because their number is above 90. When I edit them, they seem to have just the regular attributes of their corresponding terrain types. How then does the game remove the white dot when a one-shot special is triggered on them?
If memory serves, it looks at the terrain type's graphic to see if it's one of the terrain types with a white dot, and adjusts it accordingly. At any rate, I suggest just leaving any special white dot terrain you plan to use alone.

In my newest scenario, The Quest for Gontura, it deals with a Gontura, a sword, that has been sealed up, in a cave, by 100's of Gahges's best mages. Now, the only way to get into the cave is by doing a special task in three other, different caves. I have not gotten up to that part, yet, but I just wanted to tell you that.
Now, I started it, thinking that I had all the room I needed in a 4x4 outside area. I was wrong. I had originally decided to have Gontura in the underground, but had mixed feelings about it. So, I made my outdoor section 3x7, allowing you to go into the underground area, and the upper part of Exile. I had to start a new scenario, but copied my beginning towns.
Now, when I play-tested my work on the scenario, I noticed something strange. Every special node through out my work had the beginning picture from my Intro. Text. Even if the node wasn't set for a picture, it always displayed that picture. I do not know if recreating my scenario did this, or making my beginning town have a secret staircase that leads to the same town, but lets you out of it. I think that this is a bug, but I am not quite sure. Could you please help me with this as soon as possible?
When you use a Display Message node or other node that just shows two message strings (not a 6 message dialog box) the default graphic is always your scenario icon. To customize the graphic, use a One-Shot dialog node.

ITEMS

This is probably a stupid question, but is there any way that you can get all your items taken away, then get them back at a later time?
Nope.

If I rearrange the order of the items in the predefined item list, will that cause the inventory of characters who are brought into the scenario to be changed because the item numbers for various items differ?
No, but good thinking. The starting items are hard coded into the program itself.

I REALLY need to rearrange a large portion of the armor accessory list and there isn't room to just stick rearranged lists at the end of the item list as Jeff Vogel suggests on the website.
Limits of the number of items, terrain types, monster types and so on are just an unfortunate fact of life. It's the only way I can get the system to work. If you need to define a large number of items yourself, other items will have to go.

Also, what happens when your party takes an item with a custom graphic out of the scenario - will the item continue to be shown as the custom graphic?
All items with custom graphics are taken away from the party when they leave the scenario. The party also loses items which summon monsters.

How does one clear the special ability when one changes an item to something that does not have one? For example, I was trying to change the second "Torches" into "Fish" with a custom graphic. I gave up and changed the Vahnatai Robes into my fish.
This is an unpleasant glitch, and I'm glad you called it to my attention.
The only way to do this is to change the item type to Weapon, go into Abilities, press Weapon Abil., and choose No ability. Awkward and bad. I'll fix this later.

Why is there a lock pick option under the reagents section of the abilities menu in the object editor? And how would I go about making something like a more powerful version of lockpicks called skeleton keys? Lockpicks are considered tools and you could only make reagents out of non use objects.
Lockpicks are used automatically when you pick locked doors, and improve the chances of success. The higher the item ability, the more they help.

Just one quickie. Is it possible to make a shopkeeper that sells things that aren't in sequential order? (A rock, a sword, and some arrows?)
No. Recreate the items on the item list in sequential order to have the shopkeeper sell them.

Is there a way to make an item disappear when you leave a scenario, other than making it summon monsters? In the scenario I am making, there is a really powerful sword. I want to make sure people can't take it out of the scenario by leaving before the scenario is completed.
All items with a Special Class higher than 0 or a custom item graphic disappear when you leave the scenario.

Also, in the docs it says for Dialogue Node type 23 (Special Item Shop in the docs or Magic Shop in the editor): "There are 5 different, independently maintained lists of items the shop can give." Do I determine what is in these lists or is it fixed? How can I see them?
It's randomly chosen. The game picks a few loot level 1 treasures, a few loot level 2 treasures, and one each level 3 and 4 treasure. To have an item not appear in a store, don't give it a loot level.

Is there a way to take items away from the party (all scrolls, or for that matter, all items)? [e.g. the party gets captured and their stuff is taken away.]
All items: no. If an item has a special class, you can strip it away.

I'm a user of BOE Windows Version. And I noticed, though the manual says that all items with non-zero Item Level will be taken away from the party leaving the scenario, THE ITEMS REMAINED.
This may be a typo. Items with non-zero special class are taken away.

What I would like to know is exactly what the 'lists of items' referred to are. I believe by knowing this I can avoid placing certain unique items in slots where they might be chosen as buy-able, and also get an idea of what shop has the better choice of items.
The list of items in the scenario. The game goes by the treasure level of the item to figure out whether to put it into the shop. Items which aren't given as treasure don't end up in the shop.

Is there a way to make items stay where you put them, even if you leave town?
That's what the editor documentation is there for. In the Scenario Menu you can find a option for making rectangles where items are remembers even when the party leaves town.

What determines the amount of food an item is if it is food?
Set the item's Item Level.

When you are putting items into a store for sale you start with an item number and then say how many after that to include. But what if you want items from different parts of the list, like one Bronze Broadsword, one Steel Broadsword, etc. I see no way to change the item order or item number.
Modify the items list. Go to the end and make a Bronze Broadsword and Steel Broadsword next to each other.

Is it possible to simply swap the position of 2 items in the Edit Items list? If not, this would be an extremely useful feature to add, especially for designing custom selling lists, and for adding items that use custom graphics.
Just the hard way ... rewriting the items.

I forgot to mention that I'm having trouble getting a monster to drop an item when it dies - I have the item (#383) set to drop 100% of the time, but when I run through the scenario, it doesn't drop it.
Monsters don't drop treasure in debug mode.

SPECIAL ITEMS

Is it possible to make boots that protect you from certain terrain types such as poison swamps or burning lava? The boots should only protect against the specific terrain and not things like weapons, spells, or monsters.
The best you can do is protection from poison or fire.

Is it possible to put the Orb of Thralni in my scenario?
Yes. Just make a special item which can be used, and link it to a special node which makes the party fly.

Can you make special items which are linked to graphics files like the province maps in Exile III?
No.

Is it possible in any way to make special items into maps like you did in the previous Exile series?
No.

I have created a small scenario (for the mac) called The Lost Pearl of Tizzrah. I have not released it yet since I need a question answered for it. I have made a few special nodes, on NPC's, that allows you to give a special item to them, if you have it. It works fine; I have an IF-Then special that allows you to give it to him if you have it. The only way to give it to him, though, is by saying the thing he needs, in dialogue. (This makes it more creative rather than putting a node on the ground, and stepping on it.)
The problem is, is that when I give him the special item, and ask for the same thing again, he will say that I don't have it; making it as though I have not given it to him yet. How can I make it so that he will respond saying that I have given it to him?
When it's given, set some Stuff Done node to 1. When the party asks about whatever the keyword is, check if that Stuff Done flag has been set, and, if so, give the "You gave it already" response.

In Exile III, I think, you could read the Book on Pedestal. How do I make that happen? Also, I read the Docs about 20 times, but I can't figure out how to edit a book. Help!!! Can I only use the already written books, or can I change the writing?
You can't change the writing. If you want customizable books, make them Special Items, not regular items, and have special encounter be called when the item is used. There's great examples of this in Small Rebellion. Look at the Special Items there.

If we had a fishing rod, we could set it up so you could only use it beside water squares, and you would get food.
Make it a special item. When you step on a space you can fish in, have a special node on that space ask the party if they would like to fish.

In my scenario I want to have a certain type of gate open if the party has a special item (Like the "Orb of opening" in Valley of dying things) except activated when the party steps onto this gate and only open that gate. How would I do this. (I know to use the Call Special when used, I just don't know what kind of special to call)
There is an If-Then special node that checks is the party has a certain special item.

I have a monster asking the party to get a special item and bring it to him. Once they do so, he says thank you and takes it. Now how do I get the item removed from the party's special item list?
There's a One-Shot special node that gives and takes special items. All of the special notes are described in some detail in the appendix on special nodes.

Can scenario special items be used during combat? (I suppose I could just try that one).
No.

How can I use specials to make a special item that returns the wearer to a certain town when used? (Like the Amulet of Returning from Exile III)
The outdoor move specials don't seem to work from between sections (am I right?).
Yes. But. You can only make it usable when in town mode. Have a special encounter called when the special items is used, with these nodes ... Town Block -> Text Message Saying Party is Moved -> Move Party Outdoors (move party to outdoor location of town they're moved to) -> Stairway (setting stairway type to 8 makes party be moved automatically without a dialog coming up)
Read the descriptions of the relevant nodes in the Appendix on Special Node Types for more info.

I'm also having problems with a special item. I have my character pick it up, but the game says error out of reach. What does this mean?
A special item must have a number from 0 to 49. You're trying to give a special item with a number outside this range.

How do you make a special encounter take away a special item the group has, like in Exile III when you bring the flower to the dryad?
Can't say this often enough. Read the section in the appendix on the various sorts of special nodes available. Sure enough, there's a One-Shot Special node which can give or take away special items.

There doesn't seem to be any way to remove a special ability from an item once it is given one...
Sure there is, in the Edit Special Items window.

SHOPS

I have BoE, and can't seem to figure out how to make shopkeepers, and how to modify their wares. Could you please assist?
Open Blades of Exile Base (BLADBASE.EXS in Windows). Look in Warrior's Grove. There's several excellent examples of shops in there.

Please help me, me and my little brother are trying to make a scenario but when ever we try it the buy button on the shop keepers doesn't work it just brings up the screen for not understanding.
What should I do to solve this problem?
Give that node the trigger word 'purchase' not 'buy'.

Some characters are not responding to the "buy," or "sell" buttons within the dialogues. I was able to fix this problem for sell, by inserting the word sell into the "xxxx" field, but, of course, this won't work for "buy," because it is only three letters long. I thought that leaving the field as "xxxx" would still make the character respond to the "buy" button, but it doesn't seem to work that way . . . I've looked all through the instructions, but find nothing to help. Can you tell me what might be wrong?
The buy buttons asks about Purchase, not Buy. Set the field to 'purc' and you'll be fine.

MONSTERS

My question is what does the "Absorb spells" monster ability do?
Damage doing spells don't harm the monster. Instead, the damage is absorbed and gives the monster more spell points.

What is the difference between Hostile, Type A and Hostile, Type B? I couldn't find anything on this in the documentation.
They both hate the party, but type A and type B creatures hate each other as well and will fight each other.

Could you describe the guard ability further? I was playing a very good scenario (beginner level), and near the end, I began fighting a Vahnatai Warrior with this ability (you have to)... his health jumped from 65 to 5000+... is it supposed to work like this?!?
Yes. Designers beware! Guards become MUCH MUCH more powerful when they're activated! That's the point of the guard ability! Test your scenarios, and make sure any guard you have to kill is still possible to fight!

I'm having problems with my copy of Blades of Exile. For some reason, all monsters have exactly 4X the health (hit points) they are supposed to have. And also have an extra attack (If "Attack 1 number of dice"=2 normally, it will now have 3). I'm wondering if this is a known bug in the game. Or if I've done something wrong.
When you play a low difficulty scenario with a high level party, the monsters become stronger. Scenario designers should always make sure to set their scenario difficulty at an appropriate level.

When I place too many varied monsters in a town, some of them show up as cave floor. It's because Blades doesn't have enough free memory. So, do I increase the memory in the Get Info box? If I put my scenario on the net, what guarantee do I have that the downloaders have a souped-up version of Blades? Is there some way around this? I really need to know because I'm making a scenario with plenty of monsters and people in each town.
Don't put too many monster types in any given town ... Blades of Exile can only handle so many monsters at once before its memory gets overloaded.

Whenever I design a new monster in an 'unused' slot from the Edit Monsters menu, that monster, regardless of which icon I pick, always makes the 'Eeee' sound when killed, which is often inappropriate.
If memory serves the type of monster (human/reptile/whatever) determines the death noise.

This is a problem I have with the Alien Beast icon, but it's a unique one.
If I select Alien Beast from the pull down monster menus in the Edit town Terrain menu the Alien Beast is placed except that the icon is that of a Packleader.
This is odd. Please let me know whether you're using Mac or Windows and what version of the scenario editor you have.

Is there way to have monsters in a room that do not move until you step into the room?
Set the placed monsters as part of a special encounter group and have a special encounter place them when the party gets close.

Have you ever thought of making a monster ability of "Resists Charm"? If charming is based on the PC's level compared to the target's, then it's possible to charm any monster, even really important ones since a monster's max level is 40, and a PC's is 50.
Setting a monster to be immune to magic should protect it from charming.

A question about your rating system. I notice some of your games are rated Easy, Medium, or Hard Difficulty. Does this refer to the difficulty of the monsters, or the puzzles in the game, or what. About what "level" characters should attempt what difficulty rating.
The difficulty of the monsters. More damaging monsters - higher difficulty. There's more info in the documentation. Also, play the 3 scenarios that come with Blades for an idea of what difficulty goes with what level of monster.

My full version of Blades hasn't arrived yet, but the scenario editor docs that come with the demo don't give any information on how a monster's experience point value is generated.
It depends on the monster's level. The higher the level, the more experience.

This is a question I've had that I can't figure out. It has to do with the type of terrain in the Blades of exile scenario editor that monsters can't walk over. (The tiles marked with a little B).
Go into the terrain editing window for the terrain in question. Blocked To Monsters is one of the terrain abilities available.

GRAPHICS

I'm receiving many "no room for graphic" error messages when loading a scenario on Macs.
Use less different graphics in the towns. This is the only solution. Note, however, that eliminating custom graphics will not help this problem. You need to reduce the use of graphics which come with the game.

In the game I'm making with the Scenario Editor some of the bigger towns keep giving errors when play-tested. They say "not enough room for graphic, debug 0039," or something like that, and doors, once opened, appear as cave floor rather than as open doors.
You're putting too much stuff in the towns and overloading Blades of Exile's graphics buffer. Use less different terrain and monster types.

Can I use the custom icons your company used in your scenarios???
Sure.

What determines the graphic shown when a missile is shot?
The type of the missile (bow, etc.). You can't set this yourself.
It occurs to me that the graphic for sling stone might not be right. I'll look into this.

I used ResEdit to directly change the BoE graphics file. When the scenario is finished I plan to include the new graphics file. Theoretically, it should be fairly easy (for Mac users at least) to switch the graphics files in order to play the scenario. Is that OK?
No. Please don't. The software license specifically forbids modifying The game files, because people always mess up their game files when switching them around and I get the bug reports.
Just use a custom graphics file. It works better, will make your download a reasonable size, and won't mess up the graphics file.

Is there a way to make another terrain type act like type 50 does? I'm creating a scenario consisting of several islands floating in the air. In addition to terrain type 50 (which I'm using as air, instead of water), I'd like to have some other terrain types I've created to use as air as well.
The problem is, when I place them, they are surrounded by grass, and don't connect seamlessly to the other "air" spaces.
Unfortunately, no. Water is programmed to seam up correctly with other things that act like water. If you want air, create them as custom terrains (with numbers > 90) and line them up by hand. It's a pain, but it's the only way to make custom terrain types that line up.

I've noticed that when terrain is changed or transformed, the appropriate "frills on shore" do not accompany the change. I'm trying to set up terrain that swaps between "pit/barrier" and "cave floor" to represent cave bridges that move to different ledges. When I change the terrain, the new terrain has smooth edges, and none of the rough look that normally borders cave floor with pit/barrier. I also end up with a thin line of rough cave floor between two spaces of pit/barrier (one original, one newly changed).
This looks really bad, but changing the pits to water, or something else with no "frills on shore", will change the theme of the whole room.
Is there any way to make the frills show up with the changed terrain? Is there any chance this will be made an automatic feature in future releases of the editor?
Possible, but questionable. A tricky oversight on my part, but difficult to do the way the code is written right now.

One more question, my custom graphics that I used from your other scenarios that you included with the game how do I use those. And yes I tried the online manual and it didn't work.
When you can't get things to work, all I can suggest is try again. Look at it carefully, and figure out where you're not doing the right thing. Also, if you're using the Mac version, early versions of the editor didn't display the graphics, though they showed up in the game. Download the latest version at our web site.

When I made a few custom graphics, I tested them out. The problem is that on my PC, if there is any white on the bitmap image, the game reads it as transparent, so I have some creatures that, when placed on grass, leak green from their white robes or whatever. Any way to fix this?
Use off-white pixels instead of white pixels. White pixels are always transparent, but you can just use very, very light gray instead.

NOTES ON MACINTOSH AND CUSTOM GRAPHICS FILES
Jeff--
Tried the fix suggested for the problem of losing track of the resource fork when using Stuffit Expander to unzip. Did not work, at least where Riddle of the Spheres is concerned. Tried using ZipIt, instead, and it worked fine. Haven't tested the set-creator-and-type approach on other scenarios with custom graphics, but frankly, I expect it would not work on those, either. The problem when Stuffit Expander unzips the archives is not that the type and creator values are incorrect (although it does happen that they are); rather, it is that Stuffit Expander acts on the assumption that they are DOS/Windows files, and therefore have only a data fork. As a result of acting on that false assumption, the file Stuffit Expander will generate has no resource fork-- and hence no PICT graphics. I'm not sure if Stuffit Expander appends the information for the resource fork of ZIPped files to their data forks, or simply discards it; regardless, merely changing the type and creator codes should not fix the problem.
Perhaps, if the resource information were simply appended to the data fork by Stuffit Expander, and if the data fork was previously empty, and if the type and creator codes were recognized by the application setting them as belonging to a file which must contain a resource fork and must not contain a data fork, the suggested fix would work. I'm can't think of a type and creator code combination that would fit that bill, however, at least on a Power Macintosh, because even pure resource files are allowed to contain PowerPC native-mode code in the data fork, which in "fat" binaries would correspond to the 68K-mode code contained in the code resource. Sigh.
Anyway, the ZipIt fix works fine; perhaps you should simply omit the bit about editing type and creator codes after Stuffit Expander has been used to unzip the file. :-(
- Bill (haz1@nwu.edu)

Hi, I'm a Blades of Exile user and I've been making a scenario. I decided to test it the other day and as soon as I started it said: Blades of Exile does not have enough room for these graphics. Some terrain may look like cave floor etc.
You're putting way too many graphics in your towns. Try to cut down on the number of different graphics you're using, especially animated ones. Less terrain types and less monster types, and you'll be fine.

When you edit a placed monster and assign it a facial graphic (for dialogs with it), there is an option to set the graphic # to 0, which should leave it blank. However, when I did this & tested it, I received a long error message about possibly corrupted graphic sheets, then the program continued on as normal. Only a blank, black space appears where the facial graphic normally would be. (Which is what I want.)
I'm on a Mac, and am using a custom graphics sheet. What can I do? Thanks!
Use a custom facial graphic to get a blank portrait. It explains in an article in Scenario Articles how to do this.

I'm receiving a series of error messages that show up in the lower right text window in BoE when I load a scenario I've created. It appears to be associated with custom terrain graphics I've created. Basically, I receive the following message:
No room for graphic.
debug 0 0 2791
And so on.
You've overloaded the buffer Blades keeps track of graphics in. Use less different terrain and monster types in the town.

When I play a scenario with custom graphics, if there is a group of wandering monsters outside whose icon is a custom graphic, instead of seeing the group icon, I see cave floor or some other terrain icon.
Is this a bug in the engine or in the scenarios?
The engine. It was fixed in a later version.

For a long time I was perplexed as to how to place an animated graphic (e.g., waterfall) in a the dialogue graphic box. I finally figured out that you have to type in 400 before the graphic, plus the number of the animation, but I didn't see this anywhere in the documentation, so I thought maybe I'd mention it.
Yeah, this should work. Thanks for mentioning it.

I am starting work on a Blades scenario that will involve custom outdoor terrain. I have run into problems with editing terrain types and then editing outdoor terrain.
I chose custom graphics for grass plus all of the water tiles that run up against water (so I could draw desert islands). When I do this, it seems to break the auto-cleanup in the terrain editor for painting in water. Instead of putting in the appropriate tiles it puts in the same tile over and over again.
If instead I draw my terrain and then edit the terrain types, the terrain looks fine... so all of the custom graphics are getting correctly mapped onto the terrain code #s. I think the problem must be with how the editor automatically fixes water edges... somehow it's getting locked into always painting the same terrain type no matter what. It behaves the same in towns as outdoors.
Answer: This is an odd phenomenon, and not one I've heard about before. In general, leaving the terrain types that get automatically altered (water, mountains, cave walls) alone as much as possible is a good idea. Changing the graphic number itself shouldn't cause any problems, but I'll look into this. There might be a bug.
In the meantime, stick with your workaround. Draw the stuff as normal terrain, and then, before release, put in the custom graphics numbers. This should hold you until I come up with a fix.

I was just wondering - are we allowed to include modified Blades of Exile graphics in our scenario's custom graphics files? What about graphics from previous Exile titles?
Sure, and sure. Just don't use these graphics in your own non-Exile games.
While you're at it, you can use Exile graphics on your Exile web site, as long as you include on the page "Exile graphics are copyright 1994-1998, Spiderweb Software, Inc., all rights reserved."

When editing the graphics of items, how much space is actually used?
When I try to use all of it, I have items that, when placed next to a wall or something similar, they appear to be partially inside the wall.
Read the Custom Graphics chapter in the docs. The base graphic size is 28x36. Each row should have 10 28x36 graphics, one after the other. Items should be positioned in the middle of the 28x36 rectangle. Dialog and dialogue graphics need to be spread over 2 consecutive spaces.

I have noticed that you can't use dialogue pictures in a 1-shot display message node...I had to take a picture from your dialogue picture sheet and put it in my custom sheet then I used a 1-shot message(terrain) and set 1000 as the picture, can you make it so I don't have too? Or can you anyway and I'm just too stupid to find out how?
This is how you do it. If you want a dialogue face in a dialog box, make a custom graphic sheet and copy the facial graphic into it.

I created a custom icon for one of my scenarios, pasted it in like any other custom icon, then edited it with the Scenario Editor. However, the next day, the icon for that scenario was generic!
The only graphics you can customize are described in the custom graphics chapter, and have to be included using the techniques described in that chapter. You can't customize your scenario's icon.

When I choose the monster "Alien Beast" from the M3 menu and click anywhere it displays a big chunk of one of the monster PICT's instead of just the chunk that it is.
Easy to fix. Load Alien Beast in the monster editor and immediately hit OK. Alien Beast will be corrected.

You either have the above graphics (i.e. white castle etc.) or the below graphics (i.e. yellow castle etc.). Is there any way to get both? 'Cuz I haven't found anything on it in the docs.
Edit a different terrain type and turn it into the desired sort of castle.

OUTDOOR SECTIONS

Imagine this situation, please:
Your scenario consists of ONE outdoor section. This section is split in half by a chasm. Slith live on the western half and Nephil on the eastern half.
There are four wandering monster placement points, two on the western side and two on the eastern side. There are four types of wandering monster parties: two with all Sliths, and two with all Nephil.
Given that this is all happening in ONE section of outdoors, is there any way to make sure that Slith wandering monsters only show up on their side of the chasm, and Nephil on show up on THEIR side?
No. To do this you have to have two outdoor sections, one section with the Nephilim encounters and one with the Slith encounters.

You have to help me!!! I made 8 towns and full dialogue for all the towns and I created all the monsters and everything .....But I DONT HAVE ENOUGH ROOM!!! By an accident I only made the scenario 1x1 which I admit was stupid, and I need a way to make more room. Like the way you did in Valley of Dying Things were you made the outdoor section under the school, I need to learn how to do something of that nature or my scenario is going to suck.
Make a new scenario with the outdoors the correct size, and then use the Import Town feature to pull the towns in from the other scenario. If you're using Windows, you may need to download the latest version of the Scenario Editor from our web site for the Import Town feature to work.

I'm having a problem with the "place outdoor encounter." I set everything right and read the documentation to be sure and everything's set, but when I actually play my scenario and I enter the encounter, I get a small message saying "monsters flee" and nothing happens. How can I get it so the monsters don't flee and you have to fight them?
Edit Special Outdoor Encounters. There is a button to the upper right marked "Monsters can't flee party". Press that when editing your special encounter.

I am busy working with my scenario and I have encountered a major problem. I have made 6 outdoor sections and they all look great except I made them too high on the grid, the top one is at X=4,Y=1 and I need to make 2 sections above it.
Unfortunately, because of the way the scenarios were structured, you can't shift around or add or remove outdoor sections. Once the scenario is made, the outdoors is pretty much fixed. It's an unfortunate limitation, but there's not much I can do about it.

Is there a way to call relocate outdoors in the middle of a chain of specials? I tried this, but couldn't get it to work.
Peculiar. It should work. I'll look into this. In the meantime, save it for the end of a chain.

One last question: the "move party to outdoors" town special allows a party to be moved to any outdoor section, but as far as I can tell the "move party" outdoor special only allows the party to be moved within the same outdoor section. Is there a way for a party outdoors to be moved from one outdoor section to another, or do they have to be in a town?
The only way to throw a party from one outdoor section to another is while they're in a town.

When dealing with outdoor areas, does area 0,0 have to be in the top left or can you arrange them differently?
(0,0) is always top left. You can't remap the coordinates.

ENTRANCES/PORTALS/STAIRWAYS

Every time I go into a certain town on a scenario I'm working on for Blades of Exile, the screen turns black and when I try to move it says "you've reached the world's edge". What can I do about this????
It's too close to the edge of the outdoors. Move it farther from the edge.

Can you use a teleporter to move a party from one town to another? I faked one using a stairway disguised as a teleporter.
That's how you do it. Use a stairway node with Extra 2b set to 1. No dialog will appear ... the party will just be moved.

Just had a player report on a weird thing. In ROS, I have a portal that moves the party to another point in the dungeon (a sealed room), than starts a general timer set to run out after 10 moves. The special called when the timer runs out moves the party back to the original portal.
This works fine, unless you go into fight mode and stay in fight mode until after 10 turns have passed. If you do that, the special that should have been activated when the timer runs out is never called/never works.
That's right. The game can't teleport the party when it's in combat mode.
There is, however, a way around it. Use a Combat Block on your special encounter .. you can have the game jump to a special node if the party is in combat. Have that node start the timer over again (at 10 moves). Then, as long as the party stays in combat, the timer will keep restarting until they leave.

When I make a town, I'd like to place it in the outdoors section. But, I don't know how to tell the program "this little lighthouse thing is town #2". Do you understand? if so...please help me soon!!! thanks!!!!
Look in the documentation on editing the outdoors. It's explained quite clearly there. You use one of the buttons on the editing button area.

I've just made 2 good dungeons. I've set the entrance of the first one. In this a stairway brings the party to the second one. Then I've set the entrance of this so that a part of the general map is separated from the "world". But when I play the dungeon and I exit through the second entrance, my party exit near the beginning of the first cave (in a mountain square).
You need to use the special node which changes the parties location outdoors. Read about the different sorts of special nodes.

I'm CONFUSED about the scenario editor in Blades of Exile. First of all, It won't let me have more than 8 town entrances outside. Does that mean I can only have 8 towns??
You can only have 8 entrances PER OUTDOOR SECTION. More outdoor sections, more towns.

As far as I can tell there is no way to use the portals in the blades of exile scenario editor to transport the party to a different town. It's very annoying to have to use a stairway when you supposedly teleporting somewhere. In the next upgrade could you please add a value to the teleporting nodes that would determine what town you'd end up in, thanks.
The stairway special node can already send people to different towns
without showing a dialog box. Use this special node on a portal. There's an Example of this in the lich fortress in Za-Khazi Run, which sends the party into a bug filled pit very far down.

I am creating a scenario where you have to go down to the Tower of Magi from a portal on the surface. The problem is, there are no specials that will let you create a portal that takes you from one town to another. I can fake one using a stairway, but I want custom buttons that say "Step in" and "Leave". If I use a one-shot, then there is nothing to put after that that will transfer from the surface down to the Tower. What can I do?
Read the documentation on the Stairway special node. There is a setting which moves the party to a different level without asking anything. Before this, use a custom dialog with the Step In and Leave buttons.

Can you move a party from one town to another by the move party special node?
If so, then can you move a party from outside into a town using a special node?
I know about the stairway, but is there another way?
The Stairway is the way. Read the special node description Appendix in the docs. One of the values for the flags in the Stairway special node move the party to another town without bringing up a dialog box.

Hi! I've been a fan of the Exile games ever since I played Exile II a year ago. Blades is a great continuation of the series and I am very impressed with the Scenario Editor. I'm working on a very large, complex scenario and I have a question. In one part of the game, you step through a portal and are teleported to an entirely different town. The only special I can find that switches towns is the stairway special.
This node is how you do it. Look in the Editor Docs Appendices, describing the Stairway node. Note that if you give the right value for type of stairway (8, I think), no dialog is brought up and you automatically are moved to the other level. There's a teleporter of this type in Morog's Castle in Za-Khazi Run.

I have a tad of a problem here and I have NO IDEA how to fix it! I have a town where, after you complete the first quest, the Vahnatai mob the town and destroy it with their shapers. That sets an SDF. When you next enter the town, it calls an if-then which checks the SDF. If you have seen the town destroyed, it calls a stairway special which pops you into a destroyed version of the town. The "always change level" is set to 1. When I enter the town the second time, though, it says, in the box in the lower right "Cannot change level now". What do I do?
You can't use a Stairway special node when you're trying to use it. There's an option in the Scenario menu called Set Variable Town Entry. Use this instead.

STUFF DONE FLAGS

I can keep track of the flags if it's just zero or one, but how do you keep track of dozens of them each with two hundred and fifty one possible values? Did I misread something or is the rest of the world just smarter than me?
Take notes. Lots of notes. If flag (0,3) is 0 if the treasure was taken and non-zero otherwise, write that down on a piece of paper. It's the only way to keep things straight.

I could use a little clarification on the stuff done flags. I understand about choosing coordinates. What I don't understand is how they get set to a single number. In example 2 you say that Stuff Done Flag(3,4) gets set to 250, but you don't say how. Does the editor pick the number 250 or do I pick the number 250?
The editor does. Read the information on One-Shot specials. When a one-shot special node is called, the Stuff Done flag in question automatically set to 250. This is relevant when the special is linked to by a terrain type with a white spot on it.
If the first special node called by a terrain spot with a white spot on it is of type One-Shot special, and if the stuff done flag in that special node is set to 250, the white spot disappears. Thus, when the special is gone, the white spot marking a special will be gone to. This is used many, many times in the three pre-made scenarios.

First, the one-shot Display Message special displays its message every time its space is stepped on. How do I get a message to display only the first time the special is called? Do I have to use a stuff-done flag?
Yes.

Just a quick question about the stuff done flags. I understand the whole thing about there being a grid of values that you can change with specials. What I don't get is why there are so many values for a stuff done flag. Does it make a difference if a stuff done flag is set to five as opposed to eight? I mean if you've found a sword or something that's it isn't it,1=found, 0=not found.
There are usually only 3 values for a Stuff Done flag: 0, 1, and 250. 0 usually means not done, 1 means done, and 250 also means done and is used by One-Shot special nodes. Other values might be used, but usually not.

I have been trying to make a message come up only once, but It won't work. Not even if I use a one-shot-display message.
How come?
Who knows? You're not setting something right. Probably you haven't specified a Stuff Done Flag.

I'm having trouble figuring something out. Suppose I want to give the party 100 gold as a reward for completing some task, but want to make sure they only get that reward ONCE. What's the best way to do that?
Assign a Stuff Done flag to the party getting the reward, and use a One-Shot give item special node, with no item set and the amount of gold set to 100.

I'm having problems with the One Time Monster Encounter messages coming up when I have a Wandering Monster random encounter. I really don't understand the Stuff Done flags, I expect. And why there is a Stuff done 1 and Stuff done 2. I've found that if I label all the One Shots 250, I can only use 9 One shots in my Outdoor territories. I have taken to labeling the Stuff Done boxes by the number of the town and then the node, and then using numbers I haven't used for the towns for the Outdoors. For example, I have 8 Towns. Therefore it's safe, I presume, to use 10 as the first number to use in the Stuff Done flag box 1. Then I can go through 0-9 for the second box.
There are 300 different stuff done values to keep things easier to organize. For example, you can have town 0 use flags (0,0),(0,1), over to (0,9), and town 1 can use (1,0),(1,1), to (1,9), and so on. Helps keep the flags straight. That way, you are much less likely to use a Stuff Done flag in town 10 you've already used in town 8.
Similarly, if there are, say, 4 outdoor sections, I tend to give the first section the (100,x) flags, the second section the (101,x) flags, and so on.
Taking notes is generally a must. Also, look at Bandit Busywork ... it's a small enough example to understand. I've been meaning to write an article to help decode it.

Let's say I want a NPC to be personality 0, but after a certain Stuff Done Flag has been set, I want to change the NPC's personality number to 3.
Place two NPCs, one with personality 0 and one with personality 3.
Eliminate one of the when the stuff done flag hasn't been set, and the other with it has. This is the only way to change an NPC's personality.

In a scenario I am designing, there is an NPC who owns a jewelry store. He wants to retire, and is offering to sell his store for 2000 gold (The back room, incidentally, is a place where the party can leave items.) When the party buys the place, they get a special item, the key which lets them in, and the NPC vanishes into retirement.
If the party does *not* buy the store by Day 45, then the geezer passes away, leaving the store to his heir. In his will, it is discovered that he has left a Ring of Resistance to the party, because he liked them. A messenger is dispatched, who delivers the news of his death, and the ring, the next time they enter the town.
Here's the problem: In the event that the party *does* buy the store, how do I get the NPC to vanish without also triggering the effect which announces his death and delivers the ring? If they buy the store, he lives on in retirement, so the delivery of the ring would not be appropriate.
You can set a Stuff Done Flag which, when greater than 0, makes the character not be there anymore. It's set in the Edit Placed Monster window.
Set this flag when the party buys the store. When it comes time for the store owner to die and for the party to get the ring message, use an If Then special node to check if that Stuff Done Flag has been set, and only run that encounter if it hasn't.

I want to have a certain character only sell the party something if they have brought him a special item. I have a stuff done flag assigned and I used the dialogue node type 'response depends on flag' to make what he says different if they have already brought him the item. But how can I get him to only sell them stuff after they bring the special item?
You have to hard code this with special nodes. Have a special node which checks to see if they have enough gold, and, if they go, call a node to give them the item and a node to take the gold away, and a node to set a Stuff Done flag to indicate that the item has been sold to them.

After picking some alchemy ingredients, how do I give a message that the ingredient is still growing and cannot be picked?
There are examples of this in the 3 scenarios that came with Exile. Basically, have the special encounter call a special node checking if the Stuff Done flag for the ingredient being gotten has been set yet. If not, give the item. If it has, jump to a special node which says the stuff is still growing. Three special nodes in all, with an If-Then node being the first called.

The first problem is with a "stuff done" flag (0, 0) which is used to count the number of times a certain event occurs. I had noticed that, when testing, the first time it was 1, the second time it 2, and the third time it was 2! After setting a timer to print out the value each step, I can now say that the behaviour is at least predictable.
Perhaps some node is being triggered which is affecting the same stuff done node, or perhaps this event is somehow happening again and again. One workaround is to use a flag besides (0,0). That way, if another node is affecting (0,0), the new node won't be affected.

Is there a way to set a space to a secret passage depending on the values to a stuff done flag? Can I place a special on a space, set it to if then, and if the flag is set correctly, make the space a secret passage? I couldn't get this to work.
This should work. I'm not certain what you're doing wrong, but an If-Then special which jumps to a Change Terrain node should do it.

SPECIAL NODES

Is there a way to create a question that is answered by typing in something? (Like the Test of Mind in Exile II).
Yes. Use a Text Response special node

I am trying to incorporate pushing a barrel/crate to a location as part of a scenario I am writing. I have found that I can not push the item over a special, and that it also will bounce off slime spots and blood pools. Are these correct, and what else is impenetrable to a crate?
Pretty much special spaces, and anything that blocks vision or movement

I also can not write an "If crate on space" type node. Is there any way to know if a crate is on a space other than spiking the crate with an object and checking for that object?
Nope, although that's a clever solution

I have a few questions. First. I can't find the list for the Type of Damage and the Type of Traps in the docs. Where is it? It asks me what type of trap in 1a field. What is the difference between generic stairway and stairway when you edit nodes in town specs.
There is a list of all the different special node types in the appendices of the editor docs. Run the editor and hit F1 (Windows 3.1/95) to see the editor docs.

I was wondering if it was possible to activate a special encounter when the party attacks a character, like what happens when you attack Erika in Exile 3. I tried a town block, but that didn't activate until the character was already dead.
Hmm. Another possibility for a future update. Right now, there's no way to hook in a special when a town becomes hostile, only when a character is killed.

I was wondering if you could make a town/fort that if the PC's get hostile to the NPC's, it would trigger a special that would close the gates, trapping the PC's inside?
You can only have something like this happen for a special node called is a character is killed (not made angry).
I get a lot of questions along the lines of "I'm trying to use a feature which works, but it doesn't work for me. What is wrong?" Every seldom once in a while, it's a bug, but, more often, you're doing something wrong, and haven't given me enough info to diagnose the problem.
Using this program, you'll have to do a lot of troubleshooting and What's wrong? figuring out. I really can't help most of the time. You'll just have to puzzle through it.

Also, a rewritten, quickly self terminating Quickfire would be very useful. Can you help?
This can be simulated. There is a special encounter which cleans up quickfire (and other such effects). Call this for the entire dungeon when you want the quickfire everywhere to go away.

As for Scenario building. Is it possible that monsters can step on the one shot special give item buttons? I put a special in the outdoors near the starter town, and three others elsewhere. The other three mostly work, but unless I create a party and run them right out to the buttons, some of them disappear! Buttons and all! The only solutions I can think of is either the monsters are picking up the items or it's a bug?
Monsters never trip specials. Check to make sure that the Stuff Done Flag tied to those one-shot specials isn't being used in a special encounter somewhere else. This is the number one cause of disappearing one-shot specials.

Hmm... I read the bug report regarding Relocate Outdoors not working in the middle of a chain of specials, and the suggestion to move it to the end.
I have a RO at the end of a chain of specials, and it displays a couple of messages, but there is no movement, and no message about not being able to move the party, either.
This sort of special node does work correctly, when I've used it in the past. When calling a node of this type, try this: have it be called when the party steps on a certain space (like the floor just before the exit).
Do not call this while the party is leaving town ... definitely won't work.
Valley of Dying Things uses this sort of node a lot. Look in there for examples.

Is there a special node that would let me check to see what type of Pc's are in the party? If the party is in a newly explored region, or a different world, humans might be not be that conspicuous, but a Nephil or a Slith probably would be.
Afraid not. This is something I, quite sadly, forgot.

NOTES ON COMBAT BLOCK:
I am having problems using Combat Block in conjunction with specials. I have a corridor leading to a nice treasure with a trap in front of the treasure. I put a combat block node as the first node of the trap special, before going to the trap, but my PC's can traipse all over the special when in combat mode. I played around with it for a while and discovered that if I use any terrain type with a white dot on it, combat block does not work. I changed the terrain type to a normal floor, and combat block works. Checking the terrain types, I found that the only difference as far as attributes went was that the floor was marked "clear" and the floor w. special, was marked "clear,special" I made a new terrain type to look just like the regular floor, but with the picture the same as the one with the special. Combat block no longer works. Change terrain type to plain floor (no white dot) and combat block works fine.

WARNING ABOUT THE 'SPECIAL THING HAPPENED' SPECIAL NODE
Fields 1b and 2b appear to be reversed. 1b, where it says to list the # of the major event, has the "create/edit" button next to it, and when you press it, it jumps to the number of the node equal to the number of the event you entered. (e.g., enter '2' in the field so it will check status of event #2, and the button jumps you to special node #2.) Field 2b, "call this special..." has no "create/edit" button next to it, which you kind of need.
Has anyone used this? Should I just assume the texts should be reversed? (I'm about to run a test)
As a result of extensive testing by an independent research group (i.e., myself, 5 min.) I conclude the following:
The texts describing fields 1b and 2b are CORRECT. It is the "create/edit" button that is in the wrong place. So don't use it, or you'll inadvertently end up editing nodes that happen to correspond with your event numbers. In order to edit the node that gets called, you'll have to go to your general list of special encounters, edit a new one there, and then put its number in field 2b.

Ok, I've got this scenario where I'm trying to recreate The Odyssey. I'm having trouble with Circe, though. I have a few questions. First of all, there is a special encounter in her house where it says "Do you want to eat this food? yes/no" (actually it's a button, but if it has yes/no I think it'll work). If you eat the food, you're turned into pig and the game's over. If not, you just continue on your merry little way. In Circe's garden, there's a special encounter where you find a special item called the Moly. There is also a talking pig who was transformed by Circe. First question: How do I make it so you can only use the Moly in the vicinity of Circe's house? Second question: How do I make it so that when you use the Moly, four things happen (Circe disappears, the special encounter for food disappears, the pig in the garden turns into a person, and the Moly is gone)? Third question: How can I make the pig-person talk now? Please answer. From Seth.
First: Make the Moly a usable special item. Make the special encounter do an if then to check what town the party is in.
Second: There are special nodes that will do all of these things. In particular, you want to call nodes to make the pig and Circe creature types disappear, and to make a hidden class including the person appear.
Third: Destroy the pig-person who can't talk, and have a pig-person who can talk there with a hidden class.

The largest city in my scenario, Sorren, is under quarantine. The only way you can get in or out is by being searched by the guards at the gates. The point is, if they let you in, I call a swap rectangle terrain, with 0, 0, 64, 64, so it will swap ALL the closed portculli with open ones. There are no other portculli in the town. This doesn't work. The text message for the special will show up in the talking dialog - but when I leave talk, the gates are still closed.
Not sure. There are other things you can try, though, like the Rectangle Transform Terrain (of course, you'll need to set the Transform To field on the relevant terrain types). The Opening Stone in Valley of Dying Things does this sort of thing. Take a look at that.

SPELLS

I was wondering whether it was at all possible to implement a soul crystal in BoE. If not, how could you still make use of the Capture Soul and Simulacrum spells. They are a wonderful Exile feature I wouldn't want to miss.
The intention was that Capture Soul and Simulacrum would now be free (though a bug has made this difficult). There's no way to restrict use of these two spells in the scenarios.

In the Blades of Exile editor, how can I make a Soul Crystal like the one in Exile 3?
Nope ... the party is assumed to already start with a Soul Crystal. They can automatically cast Capture Soul, etc.

Is it possible, with the scenario editor, to make things like the slime pools in Exile III?
Afraid not. There's no way to hook a special node into casting a fireball or similar spell.

Is there any way to get it so that when a character casts a spell, it damages the party?
Nope.

However, there are problems. Blades Editor gives the user no control over spells or alchemy.
And suppose you didn't let players cast spells? What about the half of their parties that are primarily spell casters? What would those characters be good for?

Is there a way to call a special ONLY if the player casts a spell on the subject space?
Only with the spell Ritual of Sanctification.

Mr. Vogel, in previous Exile games there were sometimes indoor sections where the Magic Map spell wouldn't work. Is it possible to make a town or dungeon immune to Magic Map in BoE's scenario editor?
No.

TALKING

I'm trying to use a Text Response If/Then Node inside of a dialogue special encounter tree. The problem I'm encountering is that for some reason the node which presents the question to which the player is expected to answer never appears. For example:
Node 1: Display message: "Will you take the quest?" (Jump to Node 2)
Node 2: Text Response I/T (Yes- Node 3; No- Node 4)
Node 3: "Great!"
Node 4: "Darn!"
Hmm. Nobody has ever tried to use a text response in talking, so I think we can assume that it's buggy. For now, just use a custom dialog box with Yes and No buttons. This will work a lot better, I think.

TIME

By the way, does time pass more quickly outdoors? If not, it seems to me that it should because the outdoors are on a larger scale than the towns.
Yes. One step outdoors equals Ten steps indoors.

I have set a Scenario General Timer to 6000 (2 days). When this expires, a patch of Holly (that has previously been picked) is replenished. If I move, or execute a series of Long Waits, the timer will deplete as it is supposed to, and the Holly is replenished. But if I rest for a few days the timer has not depleted (the patch of Holly is still barren). Is this a bug in the game? Or does resting not use up ticks on a Scenario General Timer?
I believe that resting doesn't affect the general timers. This is because weird things can happen when special encounters are called in the middle of a rest.

Hello, Mr. Vogel. I have a question concerning the amount of time that passes in one day. In the editor manual, it says that two days are about 7500 moves. But, in one of the users' questions I read, he or she stated that one day was only 3000 moves. How many moves exactly?
About 3000 moves. A few terrain types slow sown movement a little and there's some rounding that goes on.

TRICKS/TIPS

An interesting trick:
I've discovered a way to create locked containers(chests, cabinets, etc.). You have to make a unlockable terrain type that changes to a container. The items you want to have in the chest are placed on the unlockable terrain and edited so they are contained in something. This way the player won't be able to access the items until they unlock the terrain and it becomes a container. Of course this isn't perfect. The player has to walk into the object to get the open message and the open message always displays a picture of a door and asks you to bash open the 'door' of the object which, if do this to something like a chest, sounds kind of funny. This can be over come by not making the terrain unlockable and instead using a special which require a special object (key) to change to terrain to a container.
This same principle can be used to make a dead body appear after some monster is kill which contains the items the party gets. You have to make sure there are no barrels or crates in the area of this or the player might push it over the contained items and it will 'pick up' the items. The items will be in the barrel or crate instead of the body.

For a long time I was perplexed as to how to place an animated graphic (e.g., waterfall) in a the dialogue graphic box. I finally figured out that you have to type in 400 before the graphic, plus the number of the animation, but I didn't see this anywhere in the documentation, so I thought maybe I'd mention it.
Yeah, this should work. Thanks for mentioning it.

While messing around with the editor, not my actual scenario, just a junk scenario that I try out my ideas with. Anyway, while I was messing around, I noticed that while in a town, the waterfall terrain would not work! For hours I sat there until I saw it right in front of my face! I just made another terrain type with the waterfall pic and made it a conveyor south! Lo and behold, it worked! Just thought I'd mention it since it wasn't in the docs.
PS: This conveyor technique can also be used to make currents in water. IE. The currents in my scenario that pull you into the whirlpools.
Great trick! Since I'm not sure if this is mentioned in the docs, I'll make it clear now. Waterfalls only work outdoors! They don't work in towns.

I don't know if you have found this, (I'm willing to bet you have though) but if you make a missile and give it a missile property, say lightning, then change the item type to a weapon, you can create a "Lightning Sword" or other weapon that does additional magic damage. Experimenting, I have made other useful items such as "Lock-picking Swords".
I have noticed that you have made it possible to make weapons that do extra magic, fire, and poison, but there is no "cold" weapons??? I really think that should be something added to the newer editor.
(What an interesting undocumented feature!)

This can be for either the "articles" or "questions" section of the scenario workshop. It's just a list of the item type flags that are already being used in the standard list of items, so players won't accidentally create new items that use the same flags.
The following type flags are used in the items in the standard list: 1-19, 21-36, 38-42, 46, 47, and 50.
Flags not used are: 20, 37, 43-45, 48, 49, and 51-1000.
Thanks for the comment. I'm not sure about the wisdom of 3rd party users using type flags. I suggest giving your items with custom type flags a non zero special class, so that the item is taken away when they leave the scenario.

THINGS YOU CAN'T DO

Is it possible to have NPC's that will join the party?
That is, they would become PC's: the NPC would "disappear" from the game, and a new party member would be generated (with pre-determined stats and the same name as the NPC).
Nope. You can't win 'em all. This is one cool thing that Blades can't do.

Is there a way to move a boat to a certain location every time the party enters a town?
No. There are no nodes for moving boats.

Would it be possible for you to give us more possible terrain types?
The 256 can be somewhat limiting, especially when the first 90 can't be changed.
Afraid not. 256 is a pretty serious limit. A byte only represents 256 different values.

How do you make moving walls, like the ones in Exile 3?
You can't.

Is there a better way to spy on stuff done's than a sequence of if-thens with small messages?
Unfortunately, not yet. I'm looking into doing something about this.

Is there a way to award negative experience for killing something(friendly creatures for instance.)
No.

BUGS

I imported a town from one of my scenarios, I had the sizes of the towns the same, but since I made a password for them, I can't import without the program saying "send in $10". I says this every 30 sec. And then it quits on me! What is wrong?
Try upgrading to the latest character editor ... some early windows versions had a bad import town feature. Or, change the password for the scenario to 0 before importing. This might help.

I use the latest version of the Scenario Editor, 1.0.3. A few days ago, I noticed some problems in my scenario. The last town seemed to have been trashed: whenever I tried to edit its terrain, it crashed, and the text + special nodes lists were full of rubbish (random numbers, it seemed, resulting in blank node types, never-ending loops when entering the town in BOE, a 0 by 0 town when I did get in, etc.)
I'm really sorry this happened. Weird crashes can happen at about any time, including during the rather complicated operation of saving the game. Always make sure you have plenty of spare room on your hard drive, and always make sure to back up your scenarios.

Hi! I have the PC version of BoE, and I've found a strange bug with the Scenario Editor. Whenever you make a one time Dialogue (any pic) or something like it, pieces of the text appear when you want to make new messages in different Special Nodes. Like if I have "You will see..." written in one part of the one time Dialogue thingy, that message appears in a different node, when I create it and select any message thing. Is there a way to fix this?
Thanks for the bug update. I'll look into this and try to have it fixed in the next upgrade. If you can come up with some specific instructions for how to, in a new scenario, make this bug reappear, it'll be a lot of help in solving it.
Alas, the scenario editor is a very complex problem, and teeny bugs are appearing all the time. I'm squishing them as fast as I can.

In BoE (for windows), I find that for some reason the cursed items will just stay on! I've equipped Dancing Boots and waited and waited but I still did not get slowed.
May be a bug. I'll look into this.

P.S. I think I may have found a bug, when I try to import a town from one scenario to another, if the passwords aren't the same, I can't save the scenario. It says invalid password. I use the PC version.
This is possible. I'll look into this.

Another problem I had was creating a special item. I used the jump to on the menu and then changed my mind, and decided I didn't need it. But now I can't delete the special. I keep getting a message that I'm inserting the wrong number into the box. I put -1, but when I open up the menu again the number is something like -19427 and the special slot is unusable.
This, on the other hand, may be a bug. I'll look into it.

One more thing when I was working on my scenario and I loaded a town and there was a whole bunch of terrain types all messed up. Is this a bug?
Look on the Bugs page in the scenario workshop on our web site. Also, you can get an upgrade there which will correct this problem.

File this under things that are currently buggy:
When I use the Orb of Foul Vapours in my Mac editor 1.0.3 it fires a 4x4 sleep cloud! When I change it to fire a sleep cloud, it fires a 2x2 sleep cloud, so the problem isn't swapping mislabeled abilities.
When I give the ability Mass Charm to a special item, it pulls a Mass Sleep on every monster within range. This means I have to conceal the item's ability or the player will notice that it is mislabeled.

When I play a scenario with custom graphics, if there is a group of wandering monsters outside whose icon is a custom graphic, instead of seeing the group icon, I see cave floor or some other terrain icon. Is this a bug in the engine or in the scenarios?
The engine. It was fixed in a later version.

One warning from a user:
I spent a long time wondering why some parts of Blades of Exile were corrupting (mainly PC icons on 'Get' dialogue, no status icons, strange text effects). After a few days I realised that my windows settings had been set to large fonts as soon as I set it back to normal fonts the problems were solved. You should probably warn people about this (unless it's only my graphics card that causes this problem).

The Change Boat Ownership special doesn't seem to work at all. Has anyone else mentioned this? Right now I'm working around this by blocking access to the boat until a stuff-done flag is tripped.
I'll look into this.

BUG FOR IMPORTING TOWN
Blades of Exile Scenario Editor V1.0.1(Macintosh) has a bug in Import Town. I imported a town from another scenario which changed the town number. The Town Dialogue was not properly altered by the copy. The first ten slots which describes the personalities were renumbered to correspond to the new town number. The sixty town dialogue nodes retain the old personality numbers. It seems that import should iterate through the town dialogue nodes and adjust any positive personality numbers which were legitimate with the original town number.

I'm having a trouble that might be related to the corrupted town bug, but I can't seem to find the symptoms of that bug described anywhere.
What happens to me is that my towns work fine when I enter them for the first time during play. Sometimes they work well the second time. Sometimes they work well all the time. Now and then, however, the party appears in a vast tract of cave floor. Other than the nearby cave floor the rest of the terrain is unseen. Sometimes a conveyor belt is shown too.
Hmm. This definitely sounds like a data corruption. Maybe the game. Maybe the scenario file. Maybe the editor. Probably not the scenario file, though. I suggest reinstalling right away.

What's with the "Not Enough time has passes since combat to rest" message? I get this message almost every time I use a "rest" special. I have tried putting an advance time of 300 before each rest but that doesn't help. Is there a work around.
This is probably a bug. I'll fix this. For now, don't use rest nodes in an area where the party is likely to get into a fight.

I regret to say I think I have found a bug in the Windows scenario editor. I am making a scenario with over 10 towns; when I built #11, it messed up. The town named changed to "yyyy", except with dots over the "y"s. In the terrain, it showed no town boundaries, all entrances were in the upper left corner, and there were walls and conveyor belts in a zig-zag pattern all over.
This is, indeed, a serious bug in the Windows Scenario Editor version 1.0. There is a workaround.
Whenever you create a new town in the Windows scenario editor, ALWAYS save the scenario just before and just after making the new town. Then you won't have any problems. Hope to have an upgrade available soon.
If you've already been stuck with this bug ...
First, back up the scenario. Then use the Delete Last Town feature repeatedly, saving after each time, until all of the towns in the scenario are correct and uncorrupted. Let me know if you have any trouble with this.

Whenever I create a generic lever in the scenario I am making, strange things happen when it is flipped while playing. The first time I flip it, it turns the lever terrain into a brazier. The next time it becomes a cave floor, and remains a cave floor.
This is a bug in the default scenario. Go into editing terrain. Edit the levers, and change the Transform To field to the number of the other lever graphic.

I'm also having troubles with my game files getting corrupted whenever I try to Delete Last Town, and then make another town over it. For some reason it also complains about a false password, even though the scenario wasn't password protected. I am using the Windows version.
This is, indeed, a serious bug in the Windows Scenario Editor version 1.0. There is a workaround.
Whenever you create a new town in the Windows scenario editor, ALWAYS save the scenario just before and just after making the new town. Then you won't have any problems. Hope to have an upgrade available soon.
If you've already been stuck with this bug ...
First, back up the scenario. Then use the Delete Last Town feature repeatedly, saving after each time, until all of the towns in the scenario are correct and uncorrupted. Let me know if you have any trouble with this.

Are piercing crystals supposed to group together like they did in Exile 3, or is this something you changed for BoE?
Read the bugs area in the Scenario Workshop. Some of the Macintosh bugs may still be relevant.