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, winterwolf pelts and wyvern heads

These aren't infinitely stackable in the "standard" inventory-management mods, or at least they weren't last time I checked.

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 party AI

This AI script, suitable for all characters, is not intended to help you fight difficult battles, but it might make your life simpler (especially where pre-casting spells is concerned - SCS II virtually requires you to do a lot of precombat spellcasting of long-duration spells, but it's tedious to do manually.) The AI has 5 functions:

  1. The character will fight, prioritising opponents who are not immobile and helpless, not fighting if they're trying to Turn Undead, and not wasting Melf's Minute Meteors, Energy Blades or Invisibility (the idea of this AI is to help you mop up weak opponents, so it conserves resources). You can shift the character between melee (D) and ranged weapons (F) using the hotkeys.
    If you'd rather that your character did not enter melee, you can toggle melee off by pressing (K). Characters with melee toggled off will fight if enemies are in weapon range but won't be proactive about getting into range.
  2. The character will cast some long-duration spells when out of combat. There are 4 settings for this, which you can toggle through using (S). On setting 1, the character uses no spells. On setting 2 and up, the character will cast all of the following spells if they are memorized (and not already active): Stoneskin, Iron Skins, Armor, Melf's Minute Meteors, Goodberry.
  3. On setting 2 and up, the character will consume Goodberries if injured and out of combat. On setting 3 and up, the character will also consume potions of healing. On setting 4, the character will consume potions of extra-healing.
  4. On setting 2 and up, the character will automatically activate the following items once per day: the Cloak of the Stars; the Gargoyle Boots; the Belt of Fortitude.
  5. The character will cast some spells, by hotkey, on the whole party. This casting is highly accelerated, cannot be done in combat, and only casts on characters who are not already protected. Its main function is for later in the game when you can afford to carry enough spells to protect the whole party. The hot-keys are: C for Chaotic Commands; V for Death Ward; B for Protection from Fire, Protection from Lightning, and Protection from Magic Energy; Z for the paladin's Protection from Evil. (The latter key is already allocated to a hotkey (sleep) - sorry, I was running out of hotkeys. To use it you'll need to disable Z in the Configuration program.

    This component is identical to the equivalent component in SCSII.