SCSII's 'Make the starting dungeon slightly harder' comp. "small cheat"

[Guest guest_david]

The staring dungeon was in vanilla BG2 a laugh. With this small tweak installed the starting dungeon is a really challenge, because it restricts you from resting. It forced me to heavy use of potions.

But it has its own fault. After clearing the whole dungeon my party (Skald protagonist, barb. Minsc, Jaheira and Imoen) went back to the heavy-trapped hall (where the ring of prot. +1 is). The I began resting, 4 dwarves appeared, kill, rest, appear, kill, rest and so on... I slaughtered approx. 100 dwarves , what means 100*420 = 42000 xp and 100*80 = 8000 gold yield

Of course, this is only possible with a well-selected protagonist (like the skald, because at lvl. 10 the +3 attack, dmg and AC is an immense boost for party members, maybe its doable with a heavy-armored fighter if you save enough healing-potions)

[Guest guest_david]

The staring dungeon was in vanilla BG2 a laugh. With this small tweak installed the starting dungeon is a really challenge, because it restricts you from resting. It forced me to heavy use of potions.

But it has its own fault. After clearing the whole dungeon my party (Skald protagonist, barb. Minsc, Jaheira and Imoen) went back to the heavy-trapped hall (where the ring of prot. +1 is). The I began resting, 4 dwarves appeared, kill, rest, appear, kill, rest and so on... I slaughtered approx. 100 dwarves , what means 100*420 = 42000 xp and 100*80 = 8000 gold yield

Of course, this is only possible with a well-selected protagonist (like the skald, because at lvl. 10 the +3 attack, dmg and AC is an immense boost for party members, maybe its doable with a heavy-armored fighter if you save enough healing-potions)

 

So I suggest to minimalize the xp and gold gain from dwarves which are appearing when you try to sleep.

[DavidW]

The staring dungeon was in vanilla BG2 a laugh. With this small tweak installed the starting dungeon is a really challenge, because it restricts you from resting. It forced me to heavy use of potions.

But it has its own fault. After clearing the whole dungeon my party (Skald protagonist, barb. Minsc, Jaheira and Imoen) went back to the heavy-trapped hall (where the ring of prot. +1 is). The I began resting, 4 dwarves appeared, kill, rest, appear, kill, rest and so on... I slaughtered approx. 100 dwarves , what means 100*420 = 42000 xp and 100*80 = 8000 gold yield

Of course, this is only possible with a well-selected protagonist (like the skald, because at lvl. 10 the +3 attack, dmg and AC is an immense boost for party members, maybe its doable with a heavy-armored fighter if you save enough healing-potions)

 

So I suggest to minimalize the xp and gold gain from dwarves which are appearing when you try to sleep.

 

The thing is: if you actually want to do this, I don't mind. It doesn't harm me if you decide to XP farm like this. If you're enjoying playing the game in that way, don't let me stop you. (I do block exploits that someone could do accidentally, but clearly this is only going to happen if you do it deliberately.)

[xler]

I don't want to make a new topic for something so insignificant but perhaps you could make bow/arrows available early on so an archer can contribute to chapter 1. In the unmodded game you can grab a bow and plenty of arrows off the worthless goblins but since they are replaced with dwarves, you can't get any

[Miloch]

I don't want to make a new topic for something so insignificant but perhaps you could make bow/arrows available early on so an archer can contribute to chapter 1. In the unmodded game you can grab a bow and plenty of arrows off the worthless goblins but since they are replaced with dwarves, you can't get any

Ugh, SCS2 replaces the goblins? That might break some quest stuff I've been working on. Why not just add duergar separately?

 

You can get a few bows from containers in the dungeon, at least if some mod hasn't changed that. (Also @OP: you can reduce the gold from creatures with a component from Aurora's Shoes and the XP with Ding0's XP Mod.)

[DavidW]

I don't want to make a new topic for something so insignificant but perhaps you could make bow/arrows available early on so an archer can contribute to chapter 1. In the unmodded game you can grab a bow and plenty of arrows off the worthless goblins but since they are replaced with dwarves, you can't get any

 

 

Ugh, SCS2 replaces the goblins? That might break some quest stuff I've been working on. Why not just add duergar separately?

 

Partly flavour: the goblins in the dungeon don't really seem to fit the overall flavour of the dungeon (on my reading, at any rate) and too-obviously say "I am a seriously feeble creature added to let you get the hang of how to fight". Partly because I think the overall distribution and positioning of creatures in the starting dungeon is pretty good - it's just the actual creatures that I don't like.

[Igneous]

I've recently completed a few runs through SCSII's rendition of Chateau Irenicus and have a few thoughts to share. Overall, I think you've done a rather good job of preserving the vanilla flavour of the dungeon, and the level of challenge introduced is extremely manageable, in my opinion, provided the player's willingness to indulge a few healing potions. Actually, I think there's still, in fact, a little room to increase difficulty. I understand, however, if you are reluctant to make any further changes in this regard, given the name of the component (i.e., 'Slightly harder') and the risk of compromising 'flavour'.

 

On the subject of ammunition, there are actually a few longbows already laying about. (There are one or two of them on the first level of the dungeon, I believe.) Unfortunately, however, there's only one shortbow available near the end of the dungeon. I suppose if your PC's really desperate for one you could snag Yoshimo's, but that still means Imoen will be stuck without a bow for almost the entire jaunt. Not a game-breaker by any means, but still slightly inconvenient.

 

Something slightly more inconvenient is if you install SCSII's 'Remove unrealistically convenient ammunition' component. Since pretty much all the ammunition in Chateau Irenicus consists of the un-enchanted variety, if you install this component all of it will be removed, meaning you will mostly be stuck with crossbow bolts. Perhaps in future revisions of the mod an exception could be made for Irenicus' dungeon when installing this component?

 

That aside, 'Make the starting dungeon slightly harder' is an enjoyable complement to SCSII. Thank you for your hard work, DavidW.

[DavidW]

I've recently completed a few runs through SCSII's rendition of Chateau Irenicus and have a few thoughts to share. Overall, I think you've done a rather good job of preserving the vanilla flavour of the dungeon, and the level of challenge introduced is extremely manageable, in my opinion, provided the player's willingness to indulge a few healing potions. Actually, I think there's still, in fact, a little room to increase difficulty. I understand, however, if you are reluctant to make any further changes in this regard, given the name of the component (i.e., 'Slightly harder') and the risk of compromising 'flavour'.

 

On the subject of ammunition, there are actually a few longbows already laying about. (There are one or two of them on the first level of the dungeon, I believe.) Unfortunately, however, there's only one shortbow available near the end of the dungeon. I suppose if your PC's really desperate for one you could snag Yoshimo's, but that still means Imoen will be stuck without a bow for almost the entire jaunt. Not a game-breaker by any means, but still slightly inconvenient.

Good point. I'll put one further in.

Something slightly more inconvenient is if you install SCSII's 'Remove unrealistically convenient ammunition' component. Since pretty much all the ammunition in Chateau Irenicus consists of the un-enchanted variety, if you install this component all of it will be removed, meaning you will mostly be stuck with crossbow bolts. Perhaps in future revisions of the mod an exception could be made for Irenicus' dungeon when installing this component?

That's an excellent idea.

That aside, 'Make the starting dungeon slightly harder' is an enjoyable complement to SCSII. Thank you for your hard work, DavidW.

 

Thanks!

[Ithildur]

The staring dungeon was in vanilla BG2 a laugh. With this small tweak installed the starting dungeon is a really challenge, because it restricts you from resting. It forced me to heavy use of potions.

But it has its own fault. After clearing the whole dungeon my party (Skald protagonist, barb. Minsc, Jaheira and Imoen) went back to the heavy-trapped hall (where the ring of prot. +1 is). The I began resting, 4 dwarves appeared, kill, rest, appear, kill, rest and so on... I slaughtered approx. 100 dwarves , what means 100*420 = 42000 xp and 100*80 = 8000 gold yield

Of course, this is only possible with a well-selected protagonist (like the skald, because at lvl. 10 the +3 attack, dmg and AC is an immense boost for party members, maybe its doable with a heavy-armored fighter if you save enough healing-potions)

 

I've always completed chateau irenicus without resting as a personal rule for realism... I mean, you're captured by a mysterious powerful mage, he goes off to deal with an intrustion/interruption, and you expect to leisurely spend 8 hours catching some z's? Personally I've beeen waiting for a mod to come along that disallows resting at all in irenicus's dungeon, or even better, you rest, the dungeon rest cutscene comes up, and you are rudely interrupted by the return of Irenicus who throws you back in the slammer or kills you outright (ala the Spellhold asylum if you barge in on him without the inmates alongside you), or kills your mid lvl/underequipped arse with a 'fair' fight using his lvl 9 spells. Regardless, game over.

[DavidW]

The reason SCS allows resting once isn't really for balance's sake: it's because there's dialog (voiced dialog, even) between Imoen and the PC that's triggered the first time you rest, and I didn't want to block it.

[Dakk]

The reason SCS allows resting once isn't really for balance's sake: it's because there's dialog (voiced dialog, even) between Imoen and the PC that's triggered the first time you rest, and I didn't want to block it.

The resting that's not "allowed", is that done by constant interruption from duergars?

[DavidW]

The reason SCS allows resting once isn't really for balance's sake: it's because there's dialog (voiced dialog, even) between Imoen and the PC that's triggered the first time you rest, and I didn't want to block it.

The resting that's not "allowed", is that done by constant interruption from duergars?

 

Yes, iirc.

 

(& yes, in principle that opens up the possibility of XP-farming them, if you know what you're doing and have the right party. Be my guest.)

[Dakk]

Haha, thanks for the farming-offer, but no thanks

Just wanted to know if it was a boring "resting is not allowed here" or done more smoothly with in-game methods. Not surprisingly for a DavidW product, it was the latter

[Ithildur]

The reason SCS allows resting once isn't really for balance's sake: it's because there's dialog (voiced dialog, even) between Imoen and the PC that's triggered the first time you rest, and I didn't want to block it.

 

Perhaps a subcomponent that allows a one time rest, triggering imoen's dialog, and appropriately enough they are interrupted by deurger once, then henceforth resting is disallowed, with a floating text hinting that "You realize trying to rest at this time would be a bad idea" or such....

[Dakk]

The reason SCS allows resting once isn't really for balance's sake: it's because there's dialog (voiced dialog, even) between Imoen and the PC that's triggered the first time you rest, and I didn't want to block it.

 

Perhaps a subcomponent that allows a one time rest, triggering imoen's dialog, and appropriately enough they are interrupted by deurger once, then henceforth resting is disallowed, with a floating text hinting that "You realize trying to rest at this time would be a bad idea" or such....

Why would that be needed?

Instead of a floating text with God-powers telling us what we can and can't do, we have in-game reasons not to rest - attacks by Duergars. The only possible "downside" with that is that you can farm XP and gold by resting 5, 10 or 100 times (if you have a PC capable of beating them). But seriously, preventing rest-farming is not within SCS scope. Indeed, you can do this in several places in BG1 alone (you can have Flesh Golems, Sirines, and other high-xp creatures spawn to interrupt in certain places), and if that's how people want to play; let them. For me, the RP- and immersion factor goes way up when I get to realize by myself resting is a bad idea, instead of being told "silly boy, no rest for you".