Mod:TXT.BSA Format

The TXT.BSA file found in the GAMEDATA directory contains a ton of useful information. This page contains any useful information or formats gleaned from it. Feel free to contribute any new information or correct any errors found.

Magical Items List

The start of the TXT.BSA file starts of with a long list of close to 300 magical items along with the spells and effects of each. The general format of each item is as follows:

Name[0x09](string)[0x0D][0x0A]
ID#[0x09](#)[0x0D][0x0A]
Item[0x09](#)[0x0D][0x0A]
Spell[0x09](#),(#),(#),(#),(#)[0x0D][0x0A]
App[0x09](#),(#),...,(100)[0x0D][0x0A]
Adv[0x09](#),....(100)[0x0D][0x0A]
Uses[0x09](#)[0x0D][0x0A]
Level[0x09](#)[0x0D][0x0A]
[0x0D][0x0A](junk characters...ignore)[0x0D][0x0A]

The [0x09] is the ASCII character 9 which is a TAB. Similarly [0x0D] and [0x0A] are the Carriage Return and Line Feed characters. The (string) and (#) represent a variable text string or a decimal number. More detail on the description of each field follows. The item data starts at offset 4 and the last item begins at offset 0x6A08 (27144) and ends at 0x6A72 (27250). As you can see, item records are not fixed length so you'll have to read and parse line by line to get all the data.

Name Field

Well, this obvious contains the name of the item. There doesn't appear to be the same notation as in Daggerfall with the '%it' string (for those familiar with it) but the string contained is merely attached to the end of item name. So typical item names are 'of the Something', 'of Something Else'. There are a few items with complete names such as 'Battlespire Cape of Arcane Sight' which may possibly be identified with their ID#. Not sure how long the names can become before causing problems in the game.

ID#

This number is unique for each item (I think) and is most likely used by the program for identifying it.

Item

This field usually takes on a value of 0-4 and I am unsure what exactly it does.

Spell

This field specifies which spell the item is enchanted with and is divided into five sections:

[cast when equipped], [cast when used], [cast when strikes], [strength], [type]

The cast sections hold the spell number to be cast when the object is used, etc... A number of -1 means that there no spell contained. All the known items have only one spell effect so multiple spells (ie, casting when used and casting when strikes, etc...) may not be possible. The known spells with their numbers follow.

Number	Spell Name	Number	Spell Name	Number	Spell Name
-1	No Spell	12	Vampiric Drain	21	Cure Health
1	Summon Monster	13	Delayed Damage	22	Jump
2	Detect Spell	14	Unknown	24	Running
3	Cure Health or Detect Enemy?	15	Spell Reflection	25	Teleport
5	Invisibility	16	Spell Resistance	26	Shield
8	Slowfall	17	Spell Absorption	27	Resistance to Elements
9	Continual Damage	18	Damage Health Spell	28	Unknown
10	Poison	19	Fire Shield	39	Resistance to Elements
11	Confusion	20	Cure Poison	40	Unknown

The strength of the spell is a number ranging from 1 to 8, with 1-3 being a minor effect, 4-5 being moderate, 6-7 being major, and 8 being very potent (and rare). There are a number of discrepancies in the spell strength and strength listed in the various books, but one can assume that this is a typographical error (Major and Minor effects are often reversed). The strength has some different effect on different spells. For example, for summon monster the higher the strength the more powerful/smart the monster summoned is. For damage based the more damage it does, for healing the more damage it heals etc...

The type of spell relates to which element it belongs to.

Number	Type
0	All/General?
1	Fire
2	Frost
3	Magic
4	Poison
5	Shock

Depending on the spell the type section has slightly different effects. For damage spells the type is never 0 while for resistance spells a type of 0 means resistance to all elements. Of course for some spells (like, Cure Health, etc...) this section has no meaning.

App Field

This field relates to what skills are effected and by how much. This is a variable length field which is of the form.

App ([skill], [modifier]), 100

Examples:

App 100

App 10, 20, 100

App 10, 20, 11, 15, 12, 30, 100

In other words, there is a list of skills and modifiers terminated by the number 100. The modifier is the amount by which the skill is increased, or decreased (since negative values are allowed). The skill numbers are as follows:

Number	Skill	Number	Skill
1	Jumping	12	Thaumaturgy
3	Stealth	13	Mysticism
4	Swimming	14	Short Blade
5	Backstabbing	15	Long Blade
7	Running	16	Hand to Hand
8	Destruction	17	Axe
9	Restoration	18	Blunt Weapon
10	Illusion	19	Missile
11	Alteration

Adv Field

This is another variable length field of the form.

Adv ([Ability])

Examples:

Adv -1

Adv 10

Adv 20, 12, 13

If there are no abilities enchanted into the item, a -1 value is found. Otherwise there is a list of one or most ability numbers:

Number	Ability
10	Fire Immunity?
24	Athleticism

There are many more abilities which are unknown (numbers up to 50 have been observed) and these are all things like resistances, immunities, weaknesses etc... (as found in the character creation process).

Uses

Well, this contains the number of times a magical item can be used. For items without spells it would hold how durable the object is. Typical values here are 10 or 20 uses although a few items have values of 30 or even 50. Several 'special' quest related items have a value of -1 indicating that they cannot be used or destroyed (most likely).

Level Field

Most items have a level value of 0 although a few have a value of 1 or 2. Perhaps this relates to how powerful the item is, I'm not sure. Perhaps it's not even used at all.