Why can't I ready Thjorad as a weapon?
  • 1 of 11: You'd certainly like to, wouldn't you?
  • 2 of 11: However, you never can, since the game tags it as a quest item instead of a weapon.
  • 3 of 11: But you can change that if you're willing to do a little file editing.
  • 4 of 11: Go into the "data" directory under the "Might and Magic IX" directory on your hard drive and edit the file DATA.REZ.
  • 5 of 11: *IMPORTANT NOTE*: DATA.REZ is not a text-only file, so editing it with Notepad, Wordpad, or any other text editing utility will ruin the file. You'll need to use a disk sector editor program of some sort. Also, make a backup copy of the file before you edit it, so that you can restore the original in case you ruined the file while editing.
  • 6 of 11: Near the bottom of sector 1,000 (absolute location is 512,457) is a text data entry that starts out with:197,"Thjorad","Quest Item","6","5",4,"20","Maul","This maul first appeared...
  • 7 of 11: Notice that the third data field, which is object usage type, says "Quest Item" instead of "Weapon." You can change that.
  • 8 of 11: However, the word "weapon" is four letters shorter than the words "quest item," so you'll have to scoot the other fields over and put four spaces (or whatever) at the beginning of the description field, giving:197,"Thjorad","Weapon","6","5",4,"20","Maul","    This maul first appeared...
  • 9 of 11: Once those changes are made, run the game and have someone with the Cudgel skill and a Might stat of 60 or more ready Thjorad. You'll notice that once in a while when that person hits an enemy with Thjorad, he'll get a really huge damage bonus.
  • 10 of 11: You can even keep Thjorad for the rest of the game if you have it readied or in a bank's safety deposit box  (or in a store's inventory) when you report success in finding it to Jarl Sven. If it's sitting in someone's backpack, it'll get taken.
  • 11 of 11: If you really want to make Thjorad usable, but just don't know how, send me an e-mail at dunigase@yahoo.com requesting a modified copy of DATA.REZ, and I'll e-mail it back to you. (Note that this is the only kind of game file modification that I'll make and send to you, and only because it corrects a very frustrating error in the game code.)