Companions\Familiars smacking doors and chests?

[Tame]

Is there a mod to make this stop? It's very annoying when they always want to fight doors and chests for no reason.

[Karthris]

They want to open them for you. I just always order them to follow me when i don't want them to do that.

[Proleric]

Also, in decent modules, the companion conversation has an option like "Stop helping me with locked chests and doors".

I can't remember whether that's allowed in the OC, but it certainly applies to the better fan-made modules.

Conversely, when you actually want companions to bash something, hit it yourself, then use the Attack Nearest command on the PC's radial menu. All companions will join in.

[DrLoboto]

YMMV, but I find the keyboard shortcuts more convenient for quick orders than the radial menu, once you get accustomed to them.

For example:

To tell all of your companions to stop what they're doing, press V-W-X ("Don't move").
To tell them to attack at once, press V-W-E.
To tell them to follow you, press V-E-E.

You don't need to guess these commands or know them by heart either, pressing V opens up a menu in the bottom left corner listing various submenus, e.g. W for combat, E for Exploration, and if you press one of those letters you get a list of command shortcuts from that subsection. With time you'll memorize the ones you use most often, and then it will be quicker than using the radial.

Just a suggestion though.

Oh, and btw, if you need to try and open a couple of chests or doors without your companions interfering, just tell them to stay put pre-emptively before you touch the locks. (Or tell all of them to stay put, then tell your rogue companion to follow you, so he/she will still try to help you.)

[Tame]

I appreciate all the feedback. Seems it's just something I have to deal with, unfortunately. The VWX thing is very useful, though. I think that'll be faster than navigating a menu every. single. time!

[Tesseract]

I haven't used it myself, but the override version of Tony K's Henchmen AI mod may add something like Proleric describes to the OC.

[red255]

yeah that was something added in the expansions.

[Proleric]

You might like to persevere with the radial menu. When I was unfamiliar with it, it seemed clunky, but now it's second nature, I'd say it's faster than the keyboard.

Alternatively, you can add keyboard shortcuts to quick slots as a text macro.

[DrLoboto]

The advantage of keyboard shortcuts is that you don't need to click on wherever your companions currently are or on your own character who might be running at the same time etc.,* it does not interfere with any mouse actions or camera movements. It does come with one caveat though, in that it only works for the entire party. If you want to single out specific companions, unfortunately, you still have to use the radial for that.

Text macros are a great idea in theory, but in my experience NWN already suffers from a lack of quickslots as it is. The spell-casting characters I play usually don't have any quickslots to spare; although I guess it could work for the fighter types (but since familiars were mentioned in the thread title, I assume the OP plays casters, too).

That being said, I think it should be possible to put radial commands in quickslots directly, so you would not need to do a text macro for telling the party to hold the spot or follow you, would you?


* EDIT: Granted, you could click on their portraits, too, I guess. In the end it just comes down to personal preference.

[Tame]

As I progressed, this became a much smaller issue, since I can break almost any chest in one whack. No more 30 second battles trying to beat a chest's DR to get 5gp, lol. Thanks all!