Yet Another Thread About A Big BG2EE Install

[jastey]

@subtledoctor I try to gather the info which mod added it. You could look into NI and search for the script that does that in your game, though. It should at least give you the possibility to stop it. As far as I know, the lightning is going to kill CHARNAME at some point, at least that's what happened to the player(s) I recall.

[subtledoctor]

Okay, looks like it is for All Things Mazzy?  According to this, there should be a journal entry that pops up alongside the lightning:

Quote

Today I was hit with lightning shooting from the sky along with a woman's voice asking me as to the location of her necklace. I assume this something to do with the necklace I stole from the Temple of Talos. Perhaps I could talk to the priestess and give back her necklace or otherwise appease her.~

I never got that message, which is why it was so mysterious.  

Edited July 10, 2020 by subtledoctor

[jastey]

6 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

Okay, looks like it is for All Things Mazzy?  According to this, there should be a journal entry that pops up alongside the lightning:

I never got that message, which is why it was so mysterious.  Of course, I still don't have any clear idea of what I'm supposed to do.  Is the necklace supposed to be in my inventory somewhere?  Was it supposed to drop after the Mae'Var fight?  (I think the priest of Cyric was part of that fight, and I killed him.)  Am I supposed to go to the Talos Temple?  (Seems unwise!) 

If the mod is telling a story through my gameplay, then... tell the damn story!  Be the narrator!  Help my charatcer make it happen in the game!

Tagging @BCaesar

[subtledoctor]

10 hours ago, Shin said:

this is part of the 'every mod and dog' mod. The bee normally shocks you every now and then, but just the one carrying it and not the entire party. If I remember correctly you can drop the bee off toward the mid-left side of the Imnesvale map near some vaguely termite nest looking structures; getting close enough should trigger a dialogue.

So I’ve been over to the far-left side of the map, where the bee says stuff like “vee are so close! I can hear zee ozzer bees!” but I’ve walked around every square inch of that section of the map, and nothing happens anywhere I go. So I seem to be stuck with an undroppable item in my inventory (why make it undroppable??) which is dependent on a script that is clearly fragile enough to break, and no access to a save editor to remove the damn bee. This is extremely frustrating. 

And people ask me why I don’t like to use scripts in my mods? This is why. 

[Shin]

34 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

So I’ve been over to the far-left side of the map, where the bee says stuff like “vee are so close! I can hear zee ozzer bees!” but I’ve walked around every square inch of that section of the map, and nothing happens anywhere I go. So I seem to be stuck with an undroppable item in my inventory (why make it undroppable??) which is dependent on a script that is clearly fragile enough to break, and no access to a save editor to remove the damn bee. This is extremely frustrating. 

And people ask me why I don’t like to use scripts in my mods? This is why. 

To the best of my recollection, it's this area. Looking at the script, there's also supposed to be a bear there that triggers the event. If not, try creating clbr1 and clbr2 and setting G("CliffSeesBear",1).

[subtledoctor]

2 hours ago, Shin said:

To the best of my recollection, it's this area. Looking at the script, there's also supposed to be a bear there that triggers the event. If not, try creating clbr1 and clbr2 and setting G("CliffSeesBear",1)

There are two bears there, with red circles, but they don't acknowledge me in any way.  I walked all around them, and I killed them, and it made no difference.

I can use the console now (thanks Luke), so I'll try changing that variable.

EDIT - nope, that didn’t work. I just made the be droppable and threw it away. The journal entry will never get closed out, but whatever. I just want to move on  and go kill me a beholder demi-god. 

Edited July 10, 2020 by subtledoctor

[subtledoctor]

Anyone know how to start the Fishing For Trouble quest? I read somewhere that you are approached by someone in the City Gates area? That never happened to me. I have gone to the Gov’t District West area, talked to the weird gnome who pretends there are no beholders upstairs, and started dealing with the dispute about the name of the Dragon’s End Tavern. But I don’t remember what is main quest and what is side quest with this mod. How do I actually get to the fishing village?

EDIT - sorry, disregard this. I have the note for Elminster, I just haven’t yet been to the place I need to take it to. But it is one of my next travel destinations, so it should start soon. 

Edited July 22, 2020 by subtledoctor

[subtledoctor]

Apparently Delon, or whatever that kid's name is, doesn't exist in my game?  The one who tells you to go to Imnesvale.  1) I never saw him in Athkatla, I had to take the Tolgerias quest to find Valygar in order for Imnesvale to appear on my map.  And now, as my fighter/druid is the ranger-protector of the area,* I recently removed Lord Igen from the ruins (the first stronghold quest).  I went back to see if they needed anything done, but all was quiet, so I went to Trademeet.  Handling Trademeet's problems took a few days of fighting, resting, and traveling.  No more than 72-96 hours in total.  I went back to Imnesvale again and suddenly they are all "where have you been, former ranger? Jerk!"

That's annoying.  I have to backtrack and replay all of Trademeet, and a bit of other random stuff like Nalia's father's funeral.  Maybe I'll go to Imnesvale in the middle of the Trademeet quests to make sure they don't take too long.

* I have CDTweaks "strongholds for anyone" component installed.  I assume this is the issue.

Also, some mod added a guy named "Jadaranth" in the sewers, who wants a bunch of potions from me.  When I gave them to him, Charname was forever after stuck with the Spell Deflection animation.  Was SUPER annoying, especially since it took a while for me to figure out what did it.  That also required backtracking several days. Staying away from that guy now.

[subtledoctor]

Definitely something screwy with the Ranger stronghold quest. I played through the druid grove again with the following results:

1) Go straight from the grove to Imnesvale without stopping off at Trademeet: there’s nothing going on. 

2) Go to Trademeet from the grove, turn in quests and kill Rejiek, then go back to Athkatla, then go to Imnesvale (+24 hours vs. #1): the mayor tells me I am no longer fit to be the town’s ranger. 

3) Go to Trademeet from the grove, turn in quests, then go to Imnesvale (+8 hours vs. #1). Nothing going on. I sleep at the inn, then I see Delon in the morning!. (+16 hours vs. #1.) Delon gives me the first speech, as if pointing me to Imnesvale for the first time. I walk 10 yards to the mayor’s house, and the mayor tells me it’s too late, they hired the Order of the Radiant Heart to deal with the problem and I am no longer fit to be the town’s ranger.

4) Mostly the same as #3: I go to Imnesvale after Trademeet (+8 hours), but this time I sleep in Merella’s cabin instead of the inn (now +16 hours). This time I see Delon and he gives me the correct speech, about an orc invasion. He tells me I have three days to get to the town. The mayor gives me the quest and now I can continue. 

I’m happy I still have a chance to get the Moon Dog Figurine, but there’s definitely something wonky with these stronghold quests...

[subtledoctor]

Oooo, found a kind of nasty interaction between NPC_EE and the newer versions of the QDMulti multiclass kit function.  The QDMulti spells at each level cast a secondary spell that uses opcode 206 to protect against the initial one; this is to make sure that all the kit effects don't get re-applied erroneously if, say, an NPC joins, the leaves, then re-joins the party.  Or joins, is kidnapped, and then is recovered (I forgot how much party-member-kidnapping there is in this game.)

But in the case of NPC_EE, you might have a kitless multiclass, who joins the party; they will have the QDMulti spells cast on them for each experience level, but the spells will have no effect except to cast the secondary spells immunizing the NPC from the main ones.  Now when you use NPC_EE's kit-choice ability, the AddKit script action will run through the CLAB table for the kit... but the NPC is now immune to the QDMulti spells, so they don't get their new kit abilities.

I think two things need to be done about this.  First, the QDMulti spells should have initial 318 effects blocking the spell from working if the NPC has no kit or the trueclass kit (0 or 0x4000).  Second, NPC_EE's kit-choice ability for multiclasses should use opcode 321 to cancel the secondary immunity spell, on the off-chance that the NOC is not kitless, but actually has a kit and the player just wants to change it.

@argent77 I'm fairly sure that this only affects NPC_EE - I can't think of any other mods that would invoke the kit table like this after it has already been done.  There is Kit Tomes and stuff like that, but AFAIK that is old and only handles single-class kits. So I can (will) add a fix to NPC_EE and everything should be hunky-dory.  But, there could be an interaction like this, very theoretically.  Depending on your tolerance for imperfection, you might want to code the fix directly into the QDMulti function.  As I can see, that would need this added at line 174:

APPEND ~splprot.2da~ ~D5_KIT_IS%TAB%152%TAB%-1%TAB%1~ UNLESS ~D5_KIT_IS~
COPY_EXISTING ~splprot.2da~ ~override~
	COUNT_2DA_COLS cols
	READ_2DA_ENTRIES_NOW rows cols
	FOR (row = 1; row < rows; ++row) BEGIN
	  READ_2DA_ENTRY_FORMER rows row 0 ~stat~
	  PATCH_IF ~%stat%~ STRING_EQUAL_CASE ~D5_KIT_IS~ BEGIN
	    SET kit_is_row = %row%
	  END
	END
BUT_ONLY

...and then this at what is currently line 185 (right before the 146 effect in %resref1%.spl):

      LPF ADD_SPELL_EFFECT INT_VAR insert_point = 0 opcode = 318 target = 1 parameter1 = 0 parameter2 = %kit_is_row% timing = 0 duration = 6 STR_VAR resource = EVAL ~%resref1%~ END
      LPF ADD_SPELL_EFFECT INT_VAR insert_point = 0 opcode = 318 target = 1 parameter1 = 16384 parameter2 = %kit_is_row% timing = 0 duration = 6 STR_VAR resource = EVAL ~%resref1%~ END

Finally, way down at what is currently line 474, where the 177 effect is added, "insert_point = 0" should become "insert_point = 3" so the 177 effect is inserted after the 318 effects but before the 146 effect.

[subtledoctor]

I realized I haven't actually talked much about my team, and what they are encountering in the game. 

For the beginning of the game I went without an arcane caster. Lionidas the Light Mystic was a dual-class still without his fighter levels, so Minsc took the lead.  As  barbarian, he had decent damage resistance and his barbarian Rage ability made him a powerful damage-dealer.  Lionidas did some light tanking - although limited to leather armor, he can cast Mirror Image spontaneously.  (I was thinking about playing an Earth Mystic - the earth being where we inter our dead, right?  An Earth Mystic can be very strong: Barkskin at low levels, Stoneskin at mid levels, and the ability to summon earth elementals at high levels.  A Light Mystic is a bit more ephemeral; on the defensive side, he gets Reflected Image and Mirror Image at 2nd/4th level, and on offense gets things like Sunscorch, Wall of Moonlight, and False Dawn.  Not as directly powerful, though strong against undead.)  I picked up Auren Asaph in the Copper Coronet, a straightforward armored sword-and-board fighter.  Behind Lio was Yoshimo, a fighter/thief Tomb Runner able to handle traps & locks, item identification, and some light combat.  And then there was Jaheira, a single-class druid set to cast spells spontaneously because man, her WIS score really suffers.

I went through the Southern Edge quests, because they are combat-light.  I liberated the Copper Coronet.  I did a favor for the Shadow Thieves at Yoshimo's request, leaving Mae'Var and Edwin dead.  I freed the circus from its illusionary enchantment and picked up Aerie, who is largely unchanged but gets a Priest of Baervan Wildwanderer kit on her cleric side.  This makes her a bit of a lightweight druid: no shapeshifting, but she has animal- and plant-based spells, as well as the ability to summon a spirit bear once per day, like the vanilla Totemic. Then we did the Baron Ployer and Harper Hold quests.  I headcanoned it as more of a betrayal by Jaheira than the game presents it, and sent her away.  I also let Yoshimo go his way, as he is really a lone wolf.  This is the new reality for the Hero of Baldur's Gate: framed for the murder of a friend, then abducted and taken to Amn, and now my old companions are falling away one by one: killed, or kidnapped, or drifted away.  The only one left from the old days is Minsc!  I'll always have Minsc, right?  I said, right...?

To replace Jaheira and Yoshimo I picked up Nalia and Keto.  Nalia is a Psionicist(/thief) and is very enjoyable to have in the party.  She's a very serviceable party thief, and has fairly powerful psionics on top of that.  Keto is a Meistersinger, a mage/thief with some animal summoning and plant-based spells, plus bard songs.  I solved the skinner murders, destroyed the Cult of the Eyeless, then left Athkatla and liberated D'Arnise Keep.  Then I went to Imnesvale... and tragedy struck.  In trying to focus light through the mirror to enter the desecrated temple of Amaunator, Minsc was surrounded by countless shadows, and overwhelmed.  It was like something out of PS:T.  He was the last of my old companions,* now I am alone in a strange land, surrounded by strange people like ginger yarnspinners, and wingless winged elves, and adventurers from Beregost who weren't cool enough to run with me back in the day. I still have the Soulkeeper dagger, and I am told that Skie Silvershield might still be inside it, possibly retrievable if I am willing to do something abominable and sacrifice an innocent life to take her place.  She was not really a companion, but she is the last link to the past...

(* Okay technically Yeslick is sitting drinking in the inn in Trademeet, and Xan has been standing in the street in the Government District for weeks on end, night and day, sticking out like a sore thumb with that fire sword and proving that elves really don't sleep.  If I feel like I want to fit them into my party, I'll pretend to meet them for the first time. But I don't know if I will.  The front-line choice will be either Isra or Yeslick (or Keldorn or Anomen but, uh, no thanks).  Unfortunately I've changed Xan to a Bladesinger in this install - a fighter/thief bard with spells up to 7th level.  That makes him a replacement for Keto - not Aerie.  In fact I have somehow screwed  myself out of a high-level mage in this install.  Aerie is a cleric/mage; I changed Imoen to a multiclass M/T Spellfilcher; I changed Nalia to a Psionicist; I changed Xan to a fighter/bard; and I changed Edwin to dead.  There is still Kelsey, but he's a sorcerer, and I like mages because I don't like the way sorcerers' known spells are constrained and the way they make scrolls useless.  There is Adrian, but I let him out of the party a long time ago and he was annoying.  (And I short-sightedly installed him as a sorcerer, since it would mean extra firepower to get me out of Irenicus' dungeon.) 

Hmm... maybe I can install the Evandra mod?  I haven't been to the Planar Sphere, so she can still fit into my game... but would it work to install it right at the end?  And to migrate it over to the iPad... I would probably have to move the whole override folder and dialog.tlk over, rather than just doing a small update with a few files.  And that could create problems with my savegame.  It's risky...

Anyway, that's in the future.  At the moment Nalia was kidnapped so I did the Trademeet quests with:

• Lionidas (fighter/druid, Light Mystic)
• Auren (fighter)
• Mazzy (ranger, Truesword of Arvoreen)
• Keto (mage/thief, Meistersinger)
• Aerie (cleric/mage, Fastpaws of Baervan)
• Cernd (Northern Druid)

This is a powerful crew.  The Northern Druid kit is great, with giant beetle and yeti shapeshifts and lots of summons.  Mazzy is incredible, with great AC, dual-wielding the Rift Hammer with a dagger and a dead shot with the Tuigan Bow.  And Lionidas has turned out to be a beast.  He has the Skin of the Forest armor, which simulates my revised Barkskin, a.k.a. one Stoneskin every round.  He can cast spells spontanously, so can cast reflected Image or Mirror Image as needed in combat, not to mention Divine Protection (formerly IWD's Shield of Lathander, immunity to damage for three rounds).  Plus a bunch of disabling spells like Sunscorch and False Dawn, and Faerie Fire on hit, and innate Draw Upon Holy Might, and a couple psionic wild powers, not to mention mastery with scimitar and quarterstaff and longbow.  I went into the Druid Grove challenge unprepared - I had buffed Cernd so he could challenge Faldorn, not realizing that Lionidas is technically a druid, and if charname is a druid then you must fight Faldorn yourself, you cannot have Cernd do it.  Faldorn is tough - SCS has her attack while shapeshifted and very quickly casting spells between attacks, plus she is pre-buffed with Stoneskin, Free Action, and Chaotic Commands.  She summoned at least nine leopards to help her, and here my chosen kit cannot summon anything at all (and Auren had Kitthix).  Still, I was able to keep my defenses up for the entirety of a  pretty drawn-out battle, and ultimately killed her without taking a scratch. 

I haven't done many mage fights yet, but even there Lionidas will be effective: FnP Mystics get access to the sphere of magic, so I have Spell Thrust, Secret Word, Breach, Minor Deflection, and Globe of Invulnerability.  It's still not as good as a proper mage with Ruby Ray, Pierce Shield etc., but still I will be more effective than the average priest.  (Especially with my Magic Battles Revised mod, with which low-level magic attacks and defenses retain some utility.)  I can't go spell-for-spell with a proper archmage, but in mixed battles I can roll in with a Minor Deflection up (blocking AoE spells thanks to Spell Revisions), which affords me a round or three of extra protection beyond what most warriors have.  I think I won't be as powerful in the late game, but in mid-level play this character has every freaking angle covered.

Anyway after Trademeet I have left Mazzy with her family; I freed Nalia and she decided to take a break with Auren.  So now it's just Lionidas and Keto and Aerie.  I ran into Rasaad and decided to investigate the Twofold heretics with him, and I met Saerileth and she can come along because she can tank and will eventually arrange a trip to Sigil.  I was going to grab Fade as my mid-/late-game thief.  I changed her into a multiclass mage/thief and was planning to use NPC_EE to make her a Jinxer.  But the damn thing doesn't work; I can't manage to give her the proper bard attributes.  I have no idea why it isn't working, but it's going to change my plans.  I picked up Alora to use the MnG Halfling Whistler kit, and now we're going to do Rasaad's quest.  When it's done I'll drop Rasaad and finally find Valygar (I've been avoiding that one spot on the Umar Hills map since I don't want to meet him yet). Valygar will be a Psypher, a ranger/psionicist, and I have his friendship mod installed, so maybe he'll be interesting enough that I will keep him?  If not I'll dump him and go get Mazzy back, because she is awesome.   After Sigil I'll drop Saerileth and take either Isra or Yeslick as my holy warrior tank.  And then the question will be whether to keep Alora, or maybe Haer'Dalis, or take Skie.  Hey, maybe I can dual-class Skie to mage...?  That could solve my mage issue!  Decisions, decisions...

Edited September 17, 2021 by subtledoctor

[Caedwyr]

Thanks for the update.  Lots of good stuff in here.  Regarding Fade, be warned that her Friendship track is apparently bugged, but with how NPCs are cycling in and out of your party that may not be a big issue.

Seen any fiends yet?

[subtledoctor]

I guess I won't be using Fade, anyway.  I even changed her .CRE to set her kit manually, and it didn't work.  I suspect that is due to this:

~METWEAKS/METWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #14 // No Party Required area transitions

I think this means that any areas traversable by a single party m ember are considered the "same area."  Meaning, even though Fade is with Aran Linvail and not accessible until the beginning of chapter 3, her .CRE was loaded into my savegame way back in the very beginning, the first time I entered the Docks district, and that means the only way to edit her is via savegame surgery.  Which is an annoying proposition when playing on an iPad.

So my party thief will have to be someone else, and if I want an MnG bard it will have to be someone else (Keto has no TOB content so I was going to retire her at some point).  And my secondary arcane caster will have to be someone else.  Maybe that means I pick up Haer'Dalis... I really was planning to skip him this time around, but suddenly he's the only Bard.  Well there's Xan too, but he's a F/M bard not a M/T bard, wihch means if I take Xan as my secondary arcane caster I'll need someone else as my party thief.  Sigh.  Maybe I'll let Imoen survive after all...  With Xan along the end-party could look something like:

• Paladin or F/C (Isra/Yeslick?)
• Ranger (Mazzy/Valygar)
• F->D (Charname)
• F/M (Xan)
• M/T (Imoen)
• Mage (Evandra/Kelsey/Aerie...?)

Or:

• Paladin or F/C (Isra/Yeslick?)
• Ranger (Mazzy/Valygar)
• F->D (Charname)
• M/T (Haer'Dalis/Keto)
• C/M (Aerie)
• Mage (Evandra/Kelsey...?)

In either case, there are issues with the "Mage" slot.

[subtledoctor]

Btw, I wanna know the joker who came up with this idea:

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

Each of those things spits out several myconids every 12 seconds or so, and each of those has a chance every round to confuse my guys.  (Of course, I don't have anyone who can cast Chaotic Commands yet.)  There is no way to engage any of them without setting off the next ones in the chain.  Trying to use missile weapons to take them out one-by-one is dangerous; trying to bomb them with fireballs is costly and somewhat ineffective.  In the end I was able to wad into the fungal mist and chop them down by hand, but... man that is just nasty.  And myconids do not give enough XP given the danger this poses.  Not nearly enough.

Edited August 1, 2020 by subtledoctor

[Bartimaeus]

As a test, I once summoned probably like 40 hobgoblin archers and had them fight against spellcasting-triggered SCS Cowled Wizards, and the Hobgoblin Archers pretty easily won. Overwhelming numbers can sometimes be just that: overwhelming.