is there any way to safely edit the dialog.tlk file in ur ID2 folder so you can make NPCs say different stuff? ive done it before, but the game screws up everytime i go into it and i have to change it back to what it was before (thankfully, i made a backup.) do you need a specific program, if so, what is it?

There is no such thing as "safe edit" of that file.

Although SimDing0 will probably kill me now, I suggest you to download and use WeiDU util which has an uninstall option and supports backups. That means if anything goes wrong, you may simply remove it, reedit or whatever without restoring dialog.tlk file to it's initial state.