Placeables are the scenery objects that are not creatures, doors, or tiles (although it is sometimes difficult for a player to tell whether a certain feature is from a tile or is a placeable). Placeables typically include such things as rocks, chests, and statues — the "furniture" of a module.
Useable[]
The objects most easily recognized as placeables are those non-creatures that are highlighted and have their name displayed when a player points at them with the mouse cursor. These are the placeables flagged as useable. Such a placeable can be clicked on, triggering the OnClick event and, in most cases, the OnUsed event. They are also valid targets for some spells. A useable placeable can be flagged as having inventory, making it a container. This is the most common way to store treasure for a player to find. Clicking on a placeable with inventory will cause the placeable's inventory panel to be opened, allowing a player to take items from or place items in the placeable.
Useable placeables are valid targets for bashing, an attempt to destroy the placeable with a weapon. Bashing can be made ineffective by flagging the placeable as plot, which causes the placeable to never take damage. (The player is told that 0 damage was inflicted.) Bashing can be made more difficult by increasing the placeable's hardness. All physical damage (and damage from damage increase effects) is reduced by the amount of the hardness, reported in the combat log as "damage resistance". Since hardness is applied before the plot flag, it can be difficult at times for a player to determine if a given placeable is plot or just really hard. One way to make this determination is to use a weapon that has a non-physical damage bonus (e.g. fire damage, perhaps as an on-hit property from darkfire), as such damage is blocked by the plot flag but not by hardness.
Static[]
Some placeables are purely decorative, allowing no direct interaction by a player. These are not flagged as useable and do not react to the mouse. If a placeable is moreover never changed (e.g. animated or destroyed), it can be flagged as static, allowing the game to optimize some rendering calculations (basically assuming that a visual rendering made when the area is loaded remains valid as long as the area is loaded). This has the side-effect of having the static placeable rendered at any distance, whereas non-static placeables are not rendered until a player is within a certain distance of them.
External links[]
- Converting tileset features into placeables – requires only a text editor and NWNViewer; for beginners