An insane idea comes to mind

[highv priest]

Now as per my understanding of ResMan it loads the resource when you call it from the server, but what I'm wondering is could it be possible to modify the monster stats that are normally unaccessable(such as monster speed, base hit points, perception range, spells slotted, and even the classes themselves as examples) in the ResMan folder using Leto or even System32 to copy the file from a different folder that Leto modified the file in.

If you can modify monster files in the ResMan folder on the fly using Letoscript(creating a method by which the server can automatically change any stats on the creatures allowing you to fully have monsters scaling in power as you saw fit without creating many different blueprints of them or leveling them all up the instant they spawn) then it opens up some really fun and awesome PvM designs. Think of a daily challenge where spawns in one section of the server all became bard/bg/rdd's with DM speed, challenging you to defeat them for a to be determined reward. Imagine if the level 2 fairies all of a sudden became level 40 fairies leveled as monk/wm/rogues. Hell the possibilities are quite infinite and so is the entertainment value. Think of other such examples as the Mad Moxxi DLC for Borderlands where you have players pitted in an arena with some sadist ring leader facing off against previous spawns they easily destroyed that have been brought back as ubers of themselves. Imagine the possibilities of instituting rules changing each round such as "Super Speed!!!!", relog the players with modified moverates acting like a loading screen and let the games begin as the players and monsters all move super fast!

My question is does ResMan actually load them when you call them or does it load them when the server loads(essentially acting as a secondary cache in that case)?

[virusman]

Yes, it loads resources when the server requests them.
And yes, you can use Leto or nwn-lib to edit the resources before loading them. I recommend Ruby+nwn-lib since it's a more flexible and reliable library, backed by a mainstream programming language with all its libraries. And, unlike Leto, both are active and supported.
In fact, quite a few servers already use this approach. For example, I've seen somewhere that you can buy a house in-game, upload a module via web interface, then the server unpacks the .mod file, checks everything for validity, then copies the resource files to ResMan folder and loads the area in the game (with NWNX Areas).
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In Soviet Russia, NWN plays you!

[Ravine]

[axs]

[Baaleos]

ResMan loads them in real time - each time the resource is demanded.
So if you create 5 monsters who's resref is mymonster

It will load the utc file 'mymonster.utc' 5 times.
You can change the utc in toolset, move the utc to the external sources folder, and create another 5 creatures, and the creature will reflect those changes.

That being said - I think resman might be configured to cache the utc in memory, and only load new external versions of it if the external file differs from the internal.

I use resman alot for debugging.
I can be logged into my server, have toolset open, compile a script, upload to my external sources folder, and test the script without having to restart the server.