Can someone post a link to a relatively bug-free and reasonably user friendly item creation program for a modding noob? Thanks in advance. My idea for an item

Short Sword of True Striking

Despite its plain appearence, the history of this sword is steeped in blood and deceit. Rumored to be a weapon blessed by Mask and granted only to his most faithful assassins, this sword strikes unerringly at the target. Past wielders of the blade have often reported a mysterious force guiding their thrust. Those on the recieving end could not be reached for comment.

Stats
1d6+5

Special ability
True strike - 3 times a day, increases thaco by 10.
Usable only by thiefs

http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/IEmodding/index.php

Try Cromwell's smithy there, it looks easy enough.

Though I never tried it, I fear. :o

Cromwell's Smithy has been abandoned by its creator and no longer has active support; apparently it also has a number of outstanding bugs. Stick with something like Near Infinity or DLTCEP--both are very capable, but folks usually prefer one over the other based on their user interface preferences.

If you are looking for a user-friendly tool, then IEEP is your choice; however, it is not as capable as DLTCEP. There are certain things you can do with DLTCEP, but you can't do with IEEP.

DLTCEP is the best, but it is not very user-friendly for beginners. The best thing to do for a beginner is to work with both in conjunction with each other: Doing the easier things with IEEP and the more complicated things with DLTCEP.

Just one important note: Don't go for the latest version of DLTCEP! It seems to have bugs. Use some version older than version 7. (For example, version 6.7 works seamlessly.)

Near Infinity is even less user-friendly than DLTCEP.

[ October 14, 2006, 02:23: Message edited by: Sikret ]

I've found Cromwell's Smithy to be very user-friendly despite its lack of support, and once you learn what not to do (most notably: trying to extract an item without first having at least a New Empty Item in place), it's very simple to use. But it's definitely only for personal use, and I wouldn't suggest using it if you're going to be changing your mod lineup very often, because a re-install will remove the description the program 'blunt forces' into the dialog.tlk and you'll have to do it all over again. Not to mention the potential mismatch problems for saved games if that description was somewhere in the middle of your mod installs, as you'd have to make it exactly the same and put it in exactly the same place.

It has a few bugs (maybe 2 or 3, and not all are critical ones). And since Windwalker didn't refine certain functons (he is away), it's possible that some of the reported bugs were just due to incorrect use of the program by the modder. Furthermore, it isn't a broken tool, i.e. it won't corrupt or break your mod/game in an irreversible way.

So it depends on the task you will use it for. Many of its users who we got feedback from, didn't experience any problems. BWL decided to discontinue its hosting because of the few bugs and that its author is away. As for my personal opinion, I agree with Felinoid that it's good for personal use, but I don't recommend it for the development of bigger mods.

If the consequence of any bug appears in your mod, you will notice it when installing the mod's package and/or testing it in your game. So it has little chance that you will release something that contains invisible bugs due to Smithy. It also has an item making Wizard as well, which is a very handy tool. Too bad Windwalker lost the source long ago, and he is away so he can't support or perhaps re-code it.

Thanks for the feedback guys