...What the hell?

[Guest Icarian]

Ok, something very annoying just happened to me.

 

I installed BG2+ToB+official patch, and created an inquisitor (took me almost three hours of unblinking, hand-hurting torment to roll the stats I wanted).

 

After completing Jon's dungeon, I exported my character, and left several saves behind (auto, quick, named). Then I decided to try out tutu, and installed a number of mods for both games (widescreen, scs, scsii, fixpack, npc project, banterpacks, crossmod, questpack, npcflirt, and a couple of those new npc mods).

 

I started playing tutu with a wild mage, and got to Peldvale before deciding that scs is not really my cup of tea (improved AI is one thing, but pre-buffed mages with stoneskin and improved invisibility dominating my fighters and throwing high level magic missiles at my fragile level 2 caster is just ridiculous).

 

Anyway, I went back to BG2 to check something, and the game just gives me the finger. No saves anywhere to be found, no exported characters, nothing. All gone.

 

I used search, hoping to find them misplaced somewhere on my HD, but nothing comes up. They've been deleted, and not by me. What's that about?

[Guest Icarian]

And here's the real funny part: the custom portrait and voice the character used are still there.

 

I can only assume that one of these mods, or the installation of tutu itself, somehow "reset" the saves and characters, but I don't know when it happened exactly. Still, the bug is too big to be ignored. I don't want to spend entire days playing just to have my progress randomly deleted. Tutu crashes as well. It only happened a handful of times, usually while crossing from one area to another, but it's still a pain.

 

I think I'll go back to playing the game unmodded, and I advise anyone who plans to use them to back everything up first. Had this happened when I had all those 30+ characters in the game folder, I would've needed medical attention.

[Lemernis]

So much to respond to in this post!

 

Your frustration is due to first-timer inexperience. Don't give up, the mods are great. It just takes some familiarization.

 

I installed BG2+ToB+official patch, and created an inquisitor... Then I decided to try out tutu... I went back to BG2... No saves anywhere to be found, no exported characters, nothing. All gone...

 

There is the BG1 Tutu platform and the Easy Tutu platform. Which one did you use?

 

If you installed EasyTutu, that creates a folder in C:\Program Files named "BGTutu". IIRC, when you play Tutu your saved Tutu games and any PCs you create/export will be saved there.

 

For your BG2 saved games and characters look under C:\Program Files\Black Isle\BG2- SoA (specifically in the "save" and "characters" folders, respectively).

 

One thing I cannot speak to is whether the installation of BG1 Tutu (as opposed to Easy Tutu) wipes out any BG2 saved games and characters. Others on this forum can advise about that.

 

Easy Tutu states that your BG2 and BG1 installations are unaffected by Tutu.

 

IIRC BG1 Tutu might require a fresh installation of both BG2 and BG1? I'm not sure at all about this, but I suppose not following that protocol could wipe out previous saved games and characters... Again, others here can tell you if that is or isn't so.

 

I use Easy Tutu and it's been so long since I played with BG1 Tutu that I can't recall much about BG1 Tutu. You can look through the readme (linked above) to see if it sheds any light on the subject.

 

took me almost three hours of unblinking, hand-hurting torment to roll the stats I wanted

 

With cheats enabled, during the character creation process you can press Ctrl+8 and it will give the character all 18s. If you wish (and hopefully you do) you can lower some (or all) of them. You can also use Shadowkeeper to change any character's stats. Let me know if you want instruction how to do that, it's very easy. So your paladin can at least be painlessly recreated if you like.

 

I started playing tutu with a wild mage, and got to Peldvale before deciding that scs is not really my cup of tea (improved AI is one thing, but pre-buffed mages with stoneskin and improved invisibility dominating my fighters and throwing high level magic missiles at my fragile level 2 caster is just ridiculous).

 

SCS is highly customizeable. You do not have to select prebuffs.

 

If you were having trouble with enemy spellcasters with prebuffs installed (and yes, they are very tough that way), I would recommend the following components as an excellent core installation. There's plenty of other tweaks you can make that don't directly affect the combat AI scripts--look at those too obviously. But this set of components definitely increases the difficulty substantially without totally busting your balls:

 

Detectable spells (required)

Detectable items (required)

More consistent Breach spell (always affects liches and rakshasas; doesn't penetrate Spell Turning

Antimagic attacks penetrate improved invisibility

Reintroduce potions of extra-healing

Standardise spells between BG and BG2

Ease-of-use player AI

Smarter general AI

Better calls for help

Potions for NPCs

Smarter Mages - Mages never cast short-duration spells instantly at start of combat (option 3)

Smarter priests - Priests never cast short-duration spells instantly at start of combat (option 3)

Smarter deployment

 

Now, even without prebuffs installed enemy mages will still cast Contingencies and Spell Triggers right away. So you still do have to contend with those. Enemy mages' use of Improved Invisbility (combined with Minor or full Globes of Invulnerability) is daunting, but it can be overcome. Installing the component "Antimagic attacks penetrate improved invisibility" will help.

 

There are many ways to defeat SCS's enemy spellcasters. The mod challenges you. It shakes you out of the easy ways of winning that you've grown accustomed to in the vanilla game. The whole idea is to offer more of a tactical challenge. If you run into what seems an insurmountable difficulty post about it and others will offer advice.

 

I think many players get conditioned to finding an approach that works; but then when presented with a new type of tactical problem... especially given the confusion of battle, and often micomanaging a party of six... it's easy to kind of lose your focus in battle... even though you may be pausing constantly. It took me a while to grasp that when a battle seems unwinnable with SCS or SCSII, what I need to do is kick back and relax, take note of what spells the enemy is using, read up in the manual on what spells can counter them, and then try out various countermeasures.

[Guest Icarian]

There is the BG1 Tutu platform and the Easy Tutu platform. Which one did you use?

EasyTutu.

 

If you installed EasyTutu, that creates a folder in C:\Program Files named "BGTutu". IIRC, when you play Tutu your saved Tutu games and any PCs you create/export will be saved there.

Yes. My Tutu saves are still there. That was never an issue.

 

For your BG2 saved games and characters look under C:\Program Files\Black Isle\BG2- SoA (specifically in the "save" and "characters" folders, respectively).

I did. They're simply not there anymore.

 

IIRC BG1 Tutu might require a fresh installation of both BG2 and BG1? I'm not sure at all about this, but I suppose not following that protocol could wipe out previous saved games and characters... Again, others here can tell you if that is or isn't so.

That's probably where the problem lies. I had to install EasyTutu twice actually, because the first time I had widescreen on, and it doesn't support the 3-disc version of BG1 (something I wasn't aware of at the time).

 

With cheats enabled, during the character creation process you can press Ctrl+8 and it will give the character all 18s. If you wish (and hopefully you do) you can lower some (or all) of them. You can also use Shadowkeeper to change any character's stats. Let me know if you want instruction how to do that, it's very easy. So your paladin can at least be painlessly recreated if you like.

 

In all my many years of playing BG, I never once used cheats.

 

I like to keep my characters as legitimate as possible, as silly as that sounds.

 

Speaking of which, is it even possible to detect cheats and/or Shadowkeeper editing?

 

SCS is highly customizeable. You do not have to select prebuffs. If you were having trouble with enemy spellcasters with prebuffs installed I would recommend the following components as a good core installation. There's plenty of other tweaks you can make that don't directly affect the combat AI scripts. But this set of components definitely increases the difficulty substantially without totally busting your balls:

 

I'll try that.

[Lemernis]

IIRC BG1 Tutu might require a fresh installation of both BG2 and BG1? I'm not sure at all about this, but I suppose not following that protocol could wipe out previous saved games and characters... Again, others here can tell you if that is or isn't so.

That's probably where the problem lies. I had to install EasyTutu twice actually, because the first time I had widescreen on, and it doesn't support the 3-disc version of BG1 (something I wasn't aware of at the time).

 

Hmm. Easy Tutu isn't supposed to affect the BG2 installation at all. I don't know what happened there.

 

With cheats enabled, during the character creation process you can press Ctrl+8 and it will give the character all 18s. If you wish (and hopefully you do) you can lower some (or all) of them. You can also use Shadowkeeper to change any character's stats. Let me know if you want instruction how to do that, it's very easy. So your paladin can at least be painlessly recreated if you like.

 

In all my many years of playing BG, I never once used cheats.

 

I like to keep my characters as legitimate as possible, as silly as that sounds.

 

Speaking of which, is it even possible to detect cheats and/or Shadowkeeper editing?

 

I can appreciate that approach.

 

There are some cheats that are helpful just to reduce some of the tedium of the game, though. Mainly Ctrl+J which allows you to move characters to wherever you set the cursor to. I don't use it to cheat, per se. Just in lieu of trudging all the way across an area when there's no encounter to be had. And for a succession of areas, especially, it also makes that less of a chore as well.

 

Did you mean can SCSII detect any changes made by SK? David Wallace can answer this better than anyone, but I would think that the scripts that detect the party's spells and items will work regardless of how those spells or items got there. I.e., if they're there, they're there. The scripts are just checking to see if they're present, and if detected it produces the "then this happens" piece of the enemy's AI. I don't think the scripts check for party members' ability scores for example. I'm a non-coder so to get the authoritative answer check with David in the SCSII forum.

 

But as for ability scores many players would rather not spend hours rolling dice. After creating your BG2 character, Shadowkeeper would allow you to edit as follows:

 

1) save the BG2 game (i.e., make a 'named' or 'archived' save) when you first begin the game

2) close the BG2 game (I exit BG2 entirely, not sure if that's really necessary though)

3) in Shadowkeeper open that archived game

4) adjust the character's ability scores

5) Save within SK

6) exit SK

7) reopen the BG2 game.

 

SCS is highly customizeable. You do not have to select prebuffs. If you were having trouble with enemy spellcasters with prebuffs installed I would recommend the following components as a good core installation. There's plenty of other tweaks you can make that don't directly affect the combat AI scripts. But this set of components definitely increases the difficulty substantially without totally busting your balls:

 

I'll try that.

 

Yeah, just to follow up a bit more on what I wrote above, it definitely requires a new, more thoughtful approach. Mainly, you have to figure out how to crack the enemy mages' Contigencies and Spell Triggers.

 

You may know this already, but in case you don't: to do this when you first fire up the game go to Options > Game Play > Feedback and basically select all the 'Messages' options. Then you can see all the spells the enemy is casting, which spells are getting through and which aren't, state changes to the characters, the attack rolls, etc.

 

Again, I recognize that you probably already know how to do that. But I'm just emphasizing that the key is to study what protections the enemy spellcasters are using. Once you get a handle on that, you can figure out how to take them down.

[Guest Icarian]

Now, even without prebuffs installed enemy mages will still cast Contingencies and Spell Triggers right away. So you still do have to contend with those. Enemy mages' use of Improved Invisbility (combined with Minor or full Globes of Invulnerability) is daunting, but it can be overcome. Installing the component "Antimagic attacks penetrate improved invisibility" will help.

 

There are many ways to defeat SCS's enemy spellcasters. The mod challenges you. It shakes you out of the easy ways of winning that you've grown accustomed to in the vanilla game. The whole idea is to offer more of a tactical challenge. If you run into what seems an insurmountable difficulty post about it and others will offer advice.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind a tactical challenge. That's why I installed the mod in the first place.

 

The insurmountable difficulty comes from having absolutely no means of overcoming said magical defenses at such a low level (1-3). Silke and Nimbul, for instance, are nearly unbeatable at that stage of the game (with pre-buffs on, at least). Stoneskin, globes, invisibility, high saves (combined with the use of spells you can't save against)... I hate to admit it, but I had to lure Nimbul into the Nashkel store, then rest until his defenses expired to beat him.

 

Did you mean can SCSII detect any changes made by SK?

No, I mean in general, does cheating leave any visible traces in exported character files? Or is a character who leveled to 40 from scratch exactly the same as one freshly created in Shadowkeeper?

[Lemernis]

Now, even without prebuffs installed enemy mages will still cast Contingencies and Spell Triggers right away. So you still do have to contend with those. Enemy mages' use of Improved Invisbility (combined with Minor or full Globes of Invulnerability) is daunting, but it can be overcome. Installing the component "Antimagic attacks penetrate improved invisibility" will help.

 

There are many ways to defeat SCS's enemy spellcasters. The mod challenges you. It shakes you out of the easy ways of winning that you've grown accustomed to in the vanilla game. The whole idea is to offer more of a tactical challenge. If you run into what seems an insurmountable difficulty post about it and others will offer advice.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind a tactical challenge. That's why I installed the mod in the first place.

 

The insurmountable difficulty comes from having absolutely no means of overcoming said magical defenses at such a low level (1-3). Silke and Nimbul, for instance, are nearly unbeatable at that stage of the game (with pre-buffs on, at least). Stoneskin, globes, invisibility, high saves (combined with the use of spells you can't save against)... I hate to admit it, but I had to lure Nimbul into the Nashkel store, then rest until his defenses expired to beat him.

 

It's been around a year since I played the BG1 leg of the series with SCS, so I can't quite remember any of the details re: which spells Silke and Nimbul throw at you...

 

If Silke and Nimbul are casting Contingencies to buff with invisibility and globe, given how early in the game they're encountered I would think they would be the lesser versions of the spell, i.e., Invisibility and Minor Globe of Invulnerability. Invisibility can be countered with Detect Invisibility or Glitterdust, both level 2 spells. Minor Globe can be removed with the level 3 spell Dispel Magic... I can't recall if a mage in BG1 is typically able cast level 3 spells that early in the game, or not... And I can't recall specifically which spells Thalantyr makes available for sale...

 

It's not ideal obviously, but you can cast spells from scrolls until you're able to scribe them...

 

But anyway, the answer to Invisibility and Minor Globe should be to cast Dispel Magic to remove the globe, then Detect Invisibility (or Glitterdust, if that's available).

 

Once you remove those spell protections from an enemy mage, I have found Blind and Hold Person to be wonderful follow-up spells. BG1's enemy spellcasters are actually quite helpless when blinded, and then sitting ducks for Hold.

 

I do remember that both Tarnesh and Zordal cast Sleep, which is rather devastating. So I found it imperative to disrupt their spellcasting. The best way I have found to do this (from the vanilla game, actually) is to use a Wand of Magic Missiles. I always apply the same approach to Silke and Nimbul, actually. Ditto for Bassilus. Again, I've always done that even in the vanilla game. So spending some gold on an extra Wand of Magic Missiles or two is not a bad investment.

 

Did you mean can SCSII detect any changes made by SK?

No, I mean in general, does cheating leave any visible traces in exported character files? Or is a character who leveled to 40 from scratch exactly the same as one freshly created in Shadowkeeper?

 

Hmm. I'm not exactly sure. Don't know what kind of traces SK changes would leave, if any, in the character file. My guess is none. Just non-coder's guess mind you, take with a grain of salt. Others here will answer that one.

 

In any event, I think in order to gain all the various skill increases that come with levels, the safest way to artificially increase levels is use the CLUA Console (i.e., via enabling cheats) to level the character up in-game. For your example, I'm not sure what would happen if all you did was increase XP via SK... I would expect that once you started the game you'd be prompted to level-up the character. But when you're going from 1st to 40th level in a single leap, I wouldn't trust the game engine to grant all the various skill increases faithfully. I'd be worried about glitches.

[Lemernis]

A few more SCS tactical pointers for early in the game:

 

Spellcasters in your party play a major role. In the early going, especially, Xzar, Edwin, Dynaheir, and Xan will prove major assets.

 

Charming even one member of an enemy mob can really make a difference. The more you can charm, the better. And then have them attack their fellows with their weapons unequipped. If they have spells, have them use them on their comrades.

 

The non-spellcasting members of enemy mobs are very susceptible to the combination of Sleep and Horror. This is a dynamite combo. Takes them right out so you can concentrate on the spellcasters.

 

Use potions liberally. In the vanilla game they aren't really needed all that much. In a SCS game they can turn the tide.

 

Spook is a much better spell than many know. If you can cast Doom first (no save, unless protected by Spell Immunity: Alteration) and succeed with Glitterdust, then a successful Spook, all told that lowers saving throws by a whopping -12. Glitterdust can also Blind, incidentally. So if it all comes together you'll have a panicked, blinded enemy with his or her saving throws dramatically reduced. (By the time you can cast Greater Malison as well, at the end of the game, so much the better; then it's a total -16 to saving throws.)

 

And to reiterate, when you're getting your butt kicked the trick is to slow everything down, and pause a lot and study what the enemy is casting. There's always a way to overcome it, but it does require that you spend some energy figuring it out.

[Evaine Dian]

1) save the BG2 game (i.e., make a 'named' or 'archived' save) when you first begin the game

2) close the BG2 game (I exit BG2 entirely, not sure if that's really necessary though)

3) in Shadowkeeper open that archived game

4) adjust the character's ability scores

5) Save within SK

6) exit SK

7) reopen the BG2 game.

You don't have to exit the game when using Shadow Keeper.

[Guest Icarian]

Thanks for all the feedback.

 

I still think that installing all of the tactical "improvements" makes certain encounters (that were pushovers normally) almost impossible, for a wizard. Not impossible per se, but at the level you're supposed to tackle them, it requires a lot more loading and AI/engine abuse than I'd like.

 

At low levels, you have neither access to 3rd level spells (so dispel doesn't become an option until you reach level 5, if memory serves me well), nor the HP to survive a single high-level magic missile shot. Interrupting spells also becomes impossible, because the enemy casters have all their protections up the moment the coversation is over.

 

So, I have decided to retire the wild mage for now, and try again with an inquisitor.

[Lemernis]

At low levels, you have neither access to 3rd level spells (so dispel doesn't become an option until you reach level 5, if memory serves me well), nor the HP to survive a single high-level magic missile shot. Interrupting spells also becomes impossible, because the enemy casters have all their protections up the moment the coversation is over.

 

I don't recall it being that difficult. But I haven't played the start of BG1 with SCS since late last summer.

 

You do need to get a mage to level 5 in order to be able to scribe/memorize Dispel Magic, that's true. That's not going to happen before you encounter mages like Tarnesh, Silke, Zordal, and Nimbul. So if Minor Globe of Invulnerability is being used by enemies that early, that's probably posing too much of a challenge.

 

Seriously, I'd post about it in the SCS forum and see what David Wallace says. But first take careful note of what enemies are actually casting, and think of what spells you can use yourself to counter their spell routines.