Quest items cannot be dropped

[Yagiza]

In DFU quest items cannot be dropped except cases when "dropped at" condition used for them. Why?

[Jay_H]

It's a massive headache reduction for everyone. Newbies don't realize that the green-background decanter they dropped on the dungeon floor 39 days ago was the one they needed to poison the guy for the Dark Brotherhood, and now they're forever locked out of the guild. Quest writers have to write failure dialogues for when people should have a quest item but don't... The disadvantages to this method are very few, and patches over a lot of PEBCAK problems.

[mikeprichard]

Jay, here I go again, but is this a change from classic? If so, could you please do your thing at https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Tes2Mod:Dagger ... ifferences?

[Jay_H]

Good reminder

[Yagiza]

It's a massive headache reduction for everyone. Newbies don't realize that the green-background decanter they dropped on the dungeon floor 39 days ago was the one they needed to poison the guy for the Dark Brotherhood, and now they're forever locked out of the guild. Quest writers have to write failure dialogues for when people should have a quest item but don't... The disadvantages to this method are very few, and patches over a lot of PEBCAK problems.

I think such things should be optional (and I'm sure most of the players will disable it). Fixing PEBCAK is not a good idea, 'cause it cannot be fixed at all.
And breaking original mechanics cuts off quest lines.

[JorisVanEijden]

I think such things should be optional (and I'm sure most of the players will disable it).

I doubt that very much. I hear it's one of the most appreciated qol improvements in DFU.

And breaking original mechanics cuts off quest lines.

Can you point to a quest where this particular change causes a problem?

[Jay_H]

We can't change people's behavior, but we can limit how far their bad actions take them

[Yagiza]

I think such things should be optional (and I'm sure most of the players will disable it).

I doubt that very much. I hear it's one of the most appreciated qol improvements in DFU.

And breaking original mechanics cuts off quest lines.

I can't say anything about it. Just playing original Daggerfall I never felt it a problem.
To tell the truth, I just can't imagine a player so stupid, to drop quest item accidentally.

Can you point to a quest where this particular change causes a problem?

I can't say abot classic quests, but in the quests I write, I'd prefer to give player possibility to choose between different branches by removing an item from the inventory before quest event which checks it's presence triggered.

[Yagiza]

We can't change people's behavior, but we can limit how far their bad actions take them

Sure. But I'm also sure, that such things, which break classical mechanics have to be optional.

[Jay_H]

To tell the truth, I just can't imagine a player so stupid, to drop quest item accidentally.

You haven't seen what we've seen.

If you want to be able to write a drop-item mechanic, you can program a "use _item_ do _drop_" action.

_drop_ task:
take _item_ from pc
say 1010

Message 1010:
<ce> You discard the Item.

You can allocate it to specific buildings if you need to give it more than one use.