I'm going to modify a pre-existing companion script for my Children of Morrowind dependent orphanage mod, allowing the player to "adopt" a kid if they want. Here is how I want this to work:

Kids in the orphange have the default kid topics from that mod.
Player goes to headmistress to adopt.
If the player's bounty is 0, headmistress will allow option, if bounty is 1 or more headmistress will not allow.
Player buys one or more adoption licenses from her barter screen.
Player takes the license to the matching kid.
If the kid's disposition is under 80 they will refuse to recognize the license.
If the kid likes the player, will get the companion options.

The license objects are mostly done at this point (parchments). Do I just add them to headmistress inventory and turn on bartering? Also, how would I put disposition checks and item checks into the companion activation script for the kids? And, is it possible to set the adoption license barter screen so the price does not change with the headmistress disposition? How do I block barter option if there is abounty? There may be more questions later but for now this may be enough info to make the system work. Also, what do you think is a fair price for an adoption license? Thanks for the help!

Also, it won't let me add a barter interface to the headmistress. Do the objects need to be in her inventory for the option to become available?

Barter and which items the seller sell is controlled by the character's class. You can examine the existing classes under the character menu and assign one of those or create a new class. Either way the Auto-calc Buys/Sells check box for books must be checked for this NPC to sell the parchements.

Okay, she has barter. Can I set it so the price does not change with her disposition? Also, how would I set it so she will refuse to sell if the player has a bounty? Is there a way to remove the items from her inventory if she gets killed (preventing adoption through violence?)

No. Unless you sell the item through Dialog, not the normal Barter window.

You would have to make her a specific Greeting that dose a PC Crime Level check on the Player. If Crime Level >= 1 use Goodbye in the Results window to prevent the ability to Barter.


Place all her for-sale items in containers that are hidden from the player (like below the floor or beyond the walls,) instead of in her personal inventory. (remember that Merchants will sell items from containers that they have Ownership of)
Then when she's dead, all her wares will be inaccessible because they are not on her body.

The headmistress end of things is now completely functional. Now I'm working on the dialog for adoption. I have on my prototype, if you have the adoption license for a child they will receive the adoption topic, which will return one of two options based on disposition. However, every time I talk to the test kid I get the lower-disposition adoption refusal dialog, even though I set the disposition for the adoption confirmation dialog at 80 and the kid had 100. How do I fix that?

Place a greeting in the service refusal dialog that test for the headmistress' id and bounty > 0. By doing it correctly the player will still be able to talk to the NPC but will be unable to make a purchase. If you just use the goodbye result then all of the NPC's dialog will be unavailable.

Well I want "criminal" players to be unable to talk to her, because she is responsible for taking care of a bunch of children, so I'll leave it as is. I also fixed the issue with the test kid's disposition. I should have a working prototype within the hour.

Adoption system functional for all kids! I still have to fix a few of the companion settings and tweak some of the scripts. I'm also implementing a feature where if you kill any of the staff, none of the kids will talk to you, except the ones who have already finalized adoption. During my test I realized it is possible to adopt every kid in the orphanage, leaving it empty. How would I go about changing the staff dialog if every kid is gone?

Love my Templar Argonian and Ebony Orc guards! (orphanage was funded personally by the Duke)

Screenshots coming on the WIP thread in Mods subforum hopefully tomorrow.

I like your idea very much, the more CoM mods the better!

How many kids are there? If there are say more than 20, you could use a global counter 'KidsAdopted', so every time you talk to a kid with their matching licence, the counter goes up like that: Set KidsAdopted To ( KidsAdopted + 1 ). This way you can have different dialogue options depending on how many kids were adopted using the filter global / KidsAdopted > [number here]. That being said, I tend to use global variables too often and there is probably a better way...

Almost functional! Dialogue end done, just need to add the default kid behavior scripts and companion scripts. One final question: If I wanted to play a custom music in the orphanage, how would I make it so the music starts when the player enters the building and stops when the player leaves?

Got music working. However, to do so I had to script it to the door, causing the door not to send the player to its door marker, so I had to have the script place the player outside instead. Now any companions (including adopted children) are stuck inside. How would I go about having the door script check for companions and place them with the player?

Sorry double post due to browser glitch

Post your music script. It sounds like you went about implementing it in an odd way.
The only script that you would need on any door would be to resume normal music when exiting your building. This doesn't mess up the teleport function.

I don't think there is a line of code for normal music, just the streammusic command which plays a specific file. I have the start music command in a global script that checks to see if the player is in the interior cell when they move cells. There is no command to stop music, so I use the streammusic command on the door to play a one-second silence track on exit, after which normal music resumes.

It works now! I looked at another mod's script that involved automatically teleporting companions and realized there was a command I was completely ignoring! The music now starts when you enter the building, and stops when you leave, and your companions come with you. Now on to fix some follow issues and I'm getting very near the open testing phase!