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Further into ScS 5


Guest PetrusOctavianus

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Later you'll have access to the ultimate cheese - Arrows of Dispelling.

I just noticed. They are very effective so far. You call it "ultimate cheese", but I like that now there is a use for them. And having been mostly unable to break through an MGI so far, I appreciate them very much.

 

Yeslick's Dispel Magic is an ability, and like the Arrows of Dispelling it never fails, while the spell is dependent on having as high level as possible.

Ah, I had forgotten that little detail. But the fact of the matter is, I don't like Yeslick, and I prefer not to play with multi-class NPCs. Apart from that, in my current game he's become unavailable (or does he move out of the Cloakwood mine together with the escaping miners and appear somewhere else?).

 

In all my years of playing BG I've never payed with Viconia. Since I role play, I can never see a reason to rescue her. If lawful you'll side with The Law ("I *am* the law!"), if neutral you'll not be involved and as evil you couldn't care less, unless you hate the Flaming Fist. I think I'll play a Chaotic Good character next time; that is about the only alignment I can see helping Viconia.

Guess which alignment most of my characters have... :p. Anyway, in most of my BG games I didn't have her in my party, because I usually don't play evil and I don't like reputation management for the single reason of keeping my preferred party together (the happy patch has only become available for BG games since some time after Tutu). As for playing Lawful, if you ask the Flaming Fist soldier what he'll do with her, he answers "I'll kill her, of course". Somehow I don't think it's the lawful course to simply kill a suspect. You might not want her in your party, but I think almost any alignment can find a justification to resuce her from the FF.

 

Now back to SCS. I have one more two more issues to address - if you could shed some light on these, DavidW, I'd be thankful:

 

Lag:

I have experienced serious lag in some areas. While I don't know if SCS is responsible in all cases, it is the most likely suspect. Here is a list:

(1) Area with Laurel and the Gibberling Horde. The (confirmed) reason is the size of the Gibberling Horde and possibly the scripts assigned to it. The lag disappears gradually as the Gibberlings are killed. My computer is quite fast, so I think there is a reason to look into the performance of this area. This is the worst lag I have seen so far - once the combat starts, it's not much more than a slideshow, making controlled combat almost impossible.

(2) Cloakwood 4 (Wyvern area). I can see no reason why there should be lag. Are the druid scripts responsible (I didn't kill any of them)?

(3) Baldur's Gate Docks. Running around in this area becomes annoying. It's getting so bad at times that my party seems to teleport from point to point instead of walking. Is there anything that I must kill to get the game up to its normal speed here?

(4) Baldur's Gate SE (Area with the Blade and Stars Inn). The same as with the docks, only not quite as bad. And the same question ???

 

Disappeared Ogre Mages

The five Ogre Mages seem to have disappeared from their usual abode S of the Iron Throne building in the Baldur's Gate Docks area, depriving me of much needed xp and an interesting battle - does SCS do anything with them? Since they don't respawn, I don't think the Spawn Randomizer has anything to with this, and as far as I can see, no other mod I have installed touches this area...

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From the readme:

 

Relocated bounty hunters

 

In the original game, a tough group of bounty hunters are waiting pointlessly in a locked building in the Docks, with no explanation as to why. This small component moves them to somewhere more interesting - see here to find out where, if you want to spoil the suspense.

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Ah! I do now remember encountering 5 ogre mages at a pivotal point in the game. So that's what you did with those guys. I too was a bit disappointed though not to find them in BG city.

 

I've always felt like the 5 ogre mages should belong to a quest of some sort.

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I've always felt like the 5 ogre mages should belong to a quest of some sort.

 

Originally I thought about writing one, but I couldn't think of anything clever enough, so I just moved them. It's in keeping with the general principle (enforced elsewhere in SCS too) that bounty hunters ought to seek you out, not just wait passively in optional areas of the map.

 

(Though, from a certain perspective, I admire the ogre mages' style in the original. "Adventurers always explore every damn building on the map. Pick a comfortable-looking one and settle down in it.")

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Guest PetrusOctavianus
Guess which alignment most of my characters have... ;). Anyway, in most of my BG games I didn't have her in my party, because I usually don't play evil and I don't like reputation management for the single reason of keeping my preferred party together (the happy patch has only become available for BG games since some time after Tutu). As for playing Lawful, if you ask the Flaming Fist soldier what he'll do with her, he answers "I'll kill her, of course". Somehow I don't think it's the lawful course to simply kill a suspect. You might not want her in your party, but I think almost any alignment can find a justification to resuce her from the FF.

 

Well, she *is* evil and the FF is probably just following orders.

After all, you are supposed to *kill* the "peeping tom" in Baldur's Gate, without any evidence or confession, to get the XP. Death sentence for a trivial crime, and even without any due process?

 

Also the Paladin in BG attacks you without warning, if there are any evil characters in your party. Hardly "lawful" behaviour from the Paladin! And you lose reputation if you dare defend yourself. Surely, the Paladin, if he survives, should have Fallen for his unlawful behaviour?

 

And then there's Samuel the alleged thief and FF deserter. Desertion is actually a very serious crime, and the game rewards you from helping him, but if you do the lawful thing, you only get 50 gp, and that's all. And you can't even tell his girlfriend the truth, that you are turning him in instead of taking him to the Friendly Arms Inn.

 

Together with the Druids vs the Merchant hunter encounter in Cloakwood (you side with the Druids because of the alow vera balms?!?), these are the quests I hate the most in BG.

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I've always felt like the 5 ogre mages should belong to a quest of some sort.

 

Originally I thought about writing one, but I couldn't think of anything clever enough, so I just moved them. It's in keeping with the general principle (enforced elsewhere in SCS too) that bounty hunters ought to seek you out, not just wait passively in optional areas of the map.

 

I thought this was a brilliant move and one of the most exciting encounters in the game. ;)

 

(Though, from a certain perspective, I admire the ogre mages' style in the original. "Adventurers always explore every damn building on the map. Pick a comfortable-looking one and settle down in it.")

 

He he, my thoughts excactly. ;)

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More things to comment about one or the other battle:

 

Iron Throne 5th floor

Nice. Very nice. I admit I waited until my mages were L9 before I went here, so this battle wasn't as difficult as it would have been without a Cloudkill to interrupt enemy mages' castings. I appreciate the two added opponents - if I recall correctly that enemy archer (Z-something) is new, and he was the most dangerous of the bunch. I can see several ways this battle could be going, in my case I was lucky to disable two of them with a Greater Malison+Chaos for a while, and the priest in the back made the very sensible decision not to walk into the Cloudkill, and kept back until I was done with the rest. All in all this was about as hard as the very first time I played this, not knowing what to expect, way back in 1998. Which is nice.

 

Prat and his cronies

This was not as hard as I expected. I hadn't read the changed details and was surprised to hear Prat's voice coming out of thin air. He did catch me somewhat unprepared, but I did catch almost the whole party in two Web spells. Fireballs from Wands and one Fighter with a Potion of Freedom did the rest. One air elemental had been killed immediately after entering the area, together with two Phase Spiders who had teleported in and almost killed one of my mages (these were altogether more troublesome than Prat).

("Not as hard" is, probably, misleading, because I had met the Grey Clan leaders in-between, an impossible battle that ended with one controllable character getting the last hit on a Sorceress, the others having been petrified, confused or charmed. Everything after that seemed somewhat easier...)

 

Durlag's Tower: The Chessboard

What can I say - I actually fought this battle instead of using my potions of invisibility and absorption to walk through. And won!

My impression in short: The Knights are a bit over-the-top, and the Queen never does anything (that includes queened pawns). In my first attempt the pawns and the Knights swarmed my PC and killed him, the next time they didn't immediately approach, and there was time to cast two Web spells. That delayed the attacks so I could deal with them as they came. I still ended up with two characters at 10% life, invisible (by potion) for their own protection and unable to do anything - but better than dead.

I can't imagine how this would have been going if the Queens (there were 3 at the end) had done anything, or if the King had come forward and cast his Detect Invisibility spell. I'm not sure I'll be playing this component again...

 

Durlag's Tower: The Demonknight

This went strangely. I always go for the mirror and destroy it. Imagine my surprise when exact copies of my party appeared to fight me immediately after I hit it, instead of the usual Mirror Fiends. That fight went seriously wrong, and so in my next attempt I didn't attack the mirror but only the Demonknight. That worked better. I don't know how this battle is supposed to go, but I've always imagined that the copy of my party (harder battle) would appear when I gave the Demonknight the opportunity to use the mirror by not destroying it fast enough, and the (somewhat easier) Mirror Fiends would appear when I destroyed it. This didn't happen.

 

Demon Cultists

Argh - what got into you? The entry to Ulgoth's Beard was always annoying, now it is totally impossible. I needed 16 days to establish a Bridgehead here! The main problem is that my priest was always attacked and couldn't complete her Invisibility Purge, which means that the Cult Assassins became invisible again after their first hit and I couldn't kill them fast enough to prevent a second (and usually deadly on anyone but Kagain) hit on a party member. As it is, after getting a few non-fatal hit in, I had to retreat, and again, and again, until one enemy had exhausted his potions of invisibility and I could kill him, or I got lucky and actually got the Invisibility Purge off. Even after that, I had to retreat one more time.

The other battles, in front of the house and in the house (haven't gone downstairs yet), were noticeably harder but not as impossible as the one immediately after entering Ulgoth's Beard. Anyway, this component will be gone in my next game. Too much is too much. (OK, maybe there is way to go - perhaps with invisibility potions for everyone I can go to a place where I can buff my own party without being disturbed. Perhaps. I still think the Cult Assassins do too much damage)

 

So much for now. I'll be unable to play for a week, so Balduran's Isle, Ice Island and the final battle will have to wait...

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Iron Throne 5th floor

... as difficult as it would have been without a Cloudkill to interrupt enemy mages' castings...

 

Stinking Cloud or Cloudkill cast first from outside the enemy's range of perception, followed with either Animate Dead or Fireball, is one of the most powerful spell combinations in BG1. Then throw in Horror, or later Emotion and Chaos, and it's pretty much a done deal.

 

It would be interesting to see the enemy use the same basic approach on the player, beginning with one of the cloud spells.

 

It's almost cheesey to use those spell combos. I'm not sure how many people use them regularly. But they are used by a good percentage of players it would also present a tougher challenge if the enemy can counter it defensively: enemy priests cast Zone of Sweet Air, or mages cast Dispel. And if enemy priests are high enough level they can Turn Undead to actually get the skellies fighting for them.

 

Use of fireballs from outside the enemy's perception range I'm not sure if there is much reasonably to be done about, in terms of the enemy countering it. I don't think it would be realistic for the enemy to prebuff all the time with Protection from Fire.

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Iron Throne 5th floor

... as difficult as it would have been without a Cloudkill to interrupt enemy mages' castings...

 

Stinking Cloud or Cloudkill cast first from outside the enemy's range of perception, followed with either Animate Dead or Fireball, is one of the most powerful spell combinations in BG1. Then throw in Horror, or later Emotion and Chaos, and it's pretty much a done deal.

 

It would be interesting to see the enemy use the same basic approach on the player, beginning with one of the cloud spells.

Stinking Cloud is countered by enemy mages pre-buffed with Minor Globes, as is the next-best favorite of mine, Web. SCS mages do that pre-buff, so both spells aren't that useful any more against mages later. The only thing they don't do is to dispel the effects, but that's partly balanced by certain enemies using Potions of Freedom.

 

Both spells, BTW, have been used against me by SCS enemies. I even recall one instance of a follow-up with a Fireball. I've also been the victim of Chaos too often to count it all. I've rarely been the victim of Horror, but that's because I *always* buff with Resist Fear.

 

So I think SCS makes a fairly good attempt at using effective spell combinations against the player. What could be done better is to have enemies move out of Stinking Clouds, Cloudkills or Webs while they still can. But I don't know if that can be scripted. Is there a method of detecting if there is an area spell active at a certain point of the map?

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I'm actually having a problem installing version 5 in an EasyTutu game. I'm installing SCS last as per the instructions on Gibberlings. The installation gets about halfway and then I get the following error:

 

[setup-scs.exe] WeiDU version 199

 

ERROR: Unable to find DIALOG.TLK in:

dialog.tlk

 

Please run this program in your Infinity Engine game directory.

 

FATAL ERROR: Failure("Unable to find DIALOG.TLK")

 

Press ENTER to exit.

 

Any help you could provide as to how to get it working would be great. Thanks very much.

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