Sword Coast Stratagems: Cosmetic and Ease-of-Use tweaks

Skip Candlekeep

The Prologue to BG is a perfectly good tutorial in the Infinity Engine for complete beginners. By the time you return to it in BG1Tutu or BGT, it's unutterably tedious - but you more-or-less have to do it, because even the small amount of gold and XP it gives you is pretty vital for later. It doesn't really even add colour, because realism is always being spoiled by these damn monks telling you which button to press.

This less-than-serious component, inspired by PPG's Dungeon-Be-Gone, lets you skip the whole thing. At the start of the adventure, a guard will come up to you and give you the chance to collect all the cash and XP from him. He'll give you a decent interval to shop, and then teleport you direct to Gorion ready for the start-of-game ambush.

Be warned that the dialogue with the guard is unrealistic and written for laughs (but then, most of the prologue dialogue is unrealistic). Realism is restored once you start talking to Imoen and Gorion.

Remove blur effect from displacer cloak

Like it says really: this removes the annoying blurry graphic when someone wears the displacer cloak.

Stackable ankheg shells and winterwolf pelts

Move Boo out of quick access and into Minsc's pack

I love Boo, really I do, but it's infuriating that he eats up one of Minsc's quickslots. This patch just moves him into a slot in Minsc's backpack. It won't work if you install it after you arrive at Nashkel.

Ensure Shar-Teel doesn't die in the original challenge

Shar-Teel is rather fragile: it's easy to kill her by mistake in the battle where you recruit her. This component guarantees that she survives the battle.

Ease-of-use player AI

I use AI for mopping up easy opponents, for making sure I don't get surprised when wandering around, and as a safety net in complex battles where it's possible not to notice that someone doesn't have a target. The ease-of-use AI is a mild improvement on the game AI for this purpose. Your characters prioritise active targets (they don't bother finishing off held or asleep targets while there are moving ones available) and they don't break invisibility for the sake of attacking. Also, D and F (respectively) shift you to melee and missile weapons. They also have an "auto-cast" mode (toggle it on and off using S): on auto-cast mode, they automatically case Armor and Goodberries, and automatically take Goodberries.