Hex-Editing Saves and characterfiles

[Lanatir]

Ok, i know im not the only one that likes to dabble with those kind of things. Back then on the C64 it was the disk monitor (finding anything with that included searching the whole disk, sector by sector, block by block until you found something halway recognizable), later on the PC with any Hex editor.

Now i wonder, since Krome has put so much extra effort into making savegames and character files compatible among the different chapters, what kind of nonsense are we actually able to do with editing the files? Giving us an Archmage in BT1? Or even a Chronomancer? Activate the ZZGO Spell? I know it should be absolutely possible to break the 18 limit on attributes. I dont wanna mingle with this until i finished the game at least once, but im really curious about the possibilites

What do you guys think?

[SK_1759]

First we have to find the file for the remasters that contain the characters. I wouldn't mind dabbling with that kind of thing. Getting a blessing from the creators would be an added bonus.

[see]

Grab the autosave file (it's in %APPDATA%\LocalLow\InXile Entertainment\The Bard's Tale Trilogy\saves\ on my machine) , load it in your hex editor (I'm using the hex editor plugin for the 32-bit version of Notepad++); all your characters are in there, with their stats after their character name. (There's actually an earlier bit of the file of ASCII tags that'll tell you in what order the stats appear in a character.)

And you can indeed increase attributes past 18 and have them show up in the game.

[TheSpearman]

Any idea on which are the co-ords of the party on their current map? The remaster has the same issue as the original, where it's possible to get stuck in catacombs level 2, if you save after passing a one way door. So I'm looking at losing 18 hours of play if I can't move the party back before that.

[Kothyxaan]

Eh... location is icky.
Search for facing.
One down from the "c" of facing is your party gold.
Then use your money as a starting point (this is assuming your using a hex editor, and each line is 16bits, and you convert your money into hex)
go down once from the first bit of your money, this number is East co-ordinates, 3 bits later is N co-ordinates, 3 bits later is East co=ordinates and 3 bits later is north co-ordinates again.
One of the North or East may be a +1 or -1 not sure how or why (facing maybe?, also not interested enough to figure it out either)

Example!
You have searched for facing, you will see this:

BardsTale.Facing

your party has 200 gold, you will see C8 one down from the "c" of facing

you are at co-ordinates 12e, 13n, down one from your party gold is this:

0C 00 00 00 0D 00 00 00 0C 00 00 00 0D 00 00 00

You want to change your location to 8e 21n, you will change the above numbers to:

08 00 00 00 15 00 00 00 08 00 00 00 15 00 00 00

I hope that made sense.

@see Damn... notepad++ has a hex editor plugin! Good to know I must look this out.

Hmmm... I'm guessing I just necro-threaded, nm, it may help someone else.

[TheSpearman]

I appreciate the effort any way.

In my case I just restarted the game and didn't make the same mistake.

[Kothyxaan]

I appreciate the effort any way.

In my case I just restarted the game and didn't make the same mistake.

Aye those dungeons can be treacherous. Not sure if there is a bug in the dungeon where you kill the crystal golem.
I killed the golem, but went the wrong way after the snaking corridor, missed the wizard chap you were meant to speak with and tried going back to golem room, it was closed off with no golem there, even going back to the adventures guild removing all party didn't work (room was still closed off and c-golem still AWOL, which is why I put effort into finding the dungeon co-ordinates).
Anyone else have this problem? Was I missing something, was there an alternate way to the wizard chap?

PS. Glad you sorta sorted it out @TheSpearman. I have started making a pre-dungeon save game named "break glass in case of emergency" in case of such circumstances (the hex editing is a last resort).

[Lanatir]

apparently they moved the savefiles somewhere else now. havent found them yet

[Midnight Angel]

Hmm... Mine still are under Users\[Username]\AppData\LocalLow\InXile Entertainment\The Bard's Tale Trilogy\saves

[Lanatir]

nope. i checked and rechecked and checked again. it is no longer there

[Zadkiel]

They appear to have been moved to:

<your default steam install folder>\userdata\<your steamID>\843260\remote\saves

[see]

Looks to depend on your platform; GOG Galaxy saves are still at the old place.

[dduttonnc]

Grab the autosave file (it's in %APPDATA%\LocalLow\InXile Entertainment\The Bard's Tale Trilogy\saves\ on my machine) , load it in your hex editor (I'm using the hex editor plugin for the 32-bit version of Notepad++); all your characters are in there, with their stats after their character name. (There's actually an earlier bit of the file of ASCII tags that'll tell you in what order the stats appear in a character.)

And you can indeed increase attributes past 18 and have them show up in the game.

I tried this. I can’t find any stats after the characters name.