Made another biggish BG2 install

[subtledoctor]

Well, I got it working in that it installs, enemy mages do drop spellbooks, and player mages/bards can use the dropped spellbooks to learn spells.

However, "working" is not the same as working as the Bigg intended. He notes:

Quote

• Sorcerors can use the Spellbook to both gain experience and learn the associated spell(s)
• Specialist mages can use the Spellbook to learn spells from their forbidden school(s)
• Intelligence limits to the number of spells a character can learn, as well as the chance of failing to do so, aren't applied
• Thieves who have taken the Use Any Item can use the Spellbooks to learn (but not cast) spells and gain experience for doing so

I'm pretty sure all of those abuses/exploits can indeed be done in my game. None of the changes I made to make it installable addressed those issues. Off the top of my head I can see how to address the first and last issues with opcode 319. But I don't see an immediately obvious/easy way to prevent learning forbidden schools or beyond the intelligence limit.

[Graion Dilach]

Shameless self-advertising - my own solution might be more primitive, but since it hands out already-existing spell scrolls, all those issues with the spellbook are avoided completely.

[Quester]

Thanks Graion, I will try your option instead.

[Mordekaie]

On 10/5/2021 at 5:33 AM, subtledoctor said:

I'm using Spell Revisions v4 beta 18, with a couple small tweaks of my own and the "Spell Rev Revised" fixes by @grodrigues applied after (applied after the main component, but before the 'Deflection Blocks AoE' component). Those fixes and more are currently being bundled into the main branch of Spell Revisions, for a putative v4 beta 19... but I didn't want to wait, so I just applied what is available now. Everything seems to work pretty well so far.

Preparing my EET install. As i had some issues with SOD2BG2, SR or SRR, IWDification and LotLM, i am doing some tests focusing on those mods on a clean BG2EE.

- I know that i want to include some Spell Revisions (SR or SRR or a "mix"). What is the main difference between those two ? I don't know which one to consider.

- I also want to complete with IWD spells (without getting annoying doublons). At the moment i am going with IWDification over SCS IWD spell versions because i may be interested by some other components from IWDification.

- I didn't install 55 - Spell Deflection blocks AoE spell form SR/SRR because i read that it is not compatible with IWDification.

 

I did one install with SR and an other one with SRR for comparaison.  They both show warnings or errors within the debug files and i don't know what to do next. It looks quite ok with SR (beside some warnings that could be harmelss) but i have major issues with the SRR install. Would you give a look at both if you have some time ?

Debug-SOD2BG2_SR_IWDification_TotLM.txt Debug-SOD2BG2_SRR_IWDficiation_TotLM.txt

Edited March 29, 2022 by Mordekaie

[subtledoctor]

So:

- This may be a bit controversial but if you want SR then I would grab the latest master commit from here rather than using an official release version. The latest commit is basically 4 beta 19, which is basically, probably, finally going to become the official v4.0 release. Grodrigues has been tirelessly implement fixes and improvements there, and you can get the benefit of that.   (I say controversial because my stance is usually “don’t use untested nightly commits, use a release version!” But in this case I’ve been keeping an eye on it and the latest commit is in very good shape, and in fact it is what I am installing in my own game. 

1 hour ago, Mordekaie said:

Spell Revisions (SR or SRR or a "mix"). What is the main difference between those two ?

- SRR is just SR, plus a bunch of Bartimeaus’ personal tweaks, which he rolled up in a branch of SR rather than coding up separately. Use SR if you want SR. Use SRR if you want Bart’s changes.

I don’t know what you mean by “a mix” but I don’t advise messing with it too much. 

1 hour ago, Mordekaie said:

also want to complete with IWD spells (without getting annoying doublons). At the moment i am going with IWDification over SCS IWD spell versions because i may be interested by some other components from IWDification.

 This is fine... sort of. Remember that most mods are a collection of “components,” and in most cases each component is really a mod all its own. There’s probably zero difference* between installing [IWDification spell pack + IWDification other components] versus [SCS IWD spell pack + IWDification other components]. At some points in time the latter combination has been noticeably superior. At the moment, there is probably little difference. 

* Case in point:

1 hour ago, Mordekaie said:

didn't install 55 - Spell Deflection blocks AoE spell form SR/SRR because i read that it is not compatible with IWDification.

I just ran tests and it looks like both IWDification (v1.0+) and SCS IWD Spells (v33+) are both compatible with SR’s NWN-style AoE Deflection. Just have to install SR first.  (So is Faiths & Powers. TotLM spells might or might not be... but to be safe, just make sure you install IWD spells from IWDification or SCS before installing TotLM. 

[Mordekaie]

3 hours ago, Mordekaie said:

I'm using Spell Revisions v4 beta 18, with a couple small tweaks of my own and the "Spell Rev Revised" fixes by @grodrigues applied after (applied after the main component, but before the 'Deflection Blocks AoE' component). Those fixes and more are currently being bundled into the main branch of Spell Revisions, for a putative v4 beta 19... but I didn't want to wait, so I just applied what is available now. Everything seems to work pretty well so far.

Mix was refering to what you said above. Now i understand what you meant. You mainly installed v4b19. Does your mod  "Subtledoctor’s Random Tweaks" is also included in this v4b19 ?

If not i will definitely look at your tweak mod at one point.

1 hour ago, subtledoctor said:

This is fine... sort of. Remember that most mods are a collection of “components,” and in most cases each component is really a mod all its own.

Thanks for the precision. I tend to forget about that.

I just did an install with v4b19 (i guess the Docs folder within the master folder can be deleted; and i created the missing setup-spell_exe with the last version of weidu.exe).

I am going to go with this v4b19 version. I will probably check  Bart’s changes in the future (for now SRR seems to mess up with IWDification and TotLM as shown in the debug above).

1 hour ago, subtledoctor said:

There’s probably zero difference* between installing [IWDification spell pack + IWDification other components] versus [SCS IWD spell pack + IWDification other components]. At some points in time the latter combination has been noticeably superior. At the moment, there is probably little difference. 

At the moment i still go with [SCS IWD spell pack + IWDification other components] but i will probably install the other components i want somewhere else in my load order (not in the spell section).

My objective to build my own personal EET is really time consuming as i am almost ignorant about programming and modding, but i really can't just applied a load order from an experienced modder. I am keeping track of everything i am doing to share the whole process with the community. thanks for your extended patience and time.

One last question : in my load order, should i put the Item section before or after the Spell section? I have seen both options implemented and i don't know which one is less "conflictual".

Edited March 29, 2022 by Mordekaie

[Quester]

28 minutes ago, Mordekaie said:

i created the missing setup-spell_exe with the last version of weidu.exe).

Sorry for my ignorance, but how exactly do you do that? Since I want to do the same.

[subtledoctor]

36 minutes ago, Mordekaie said:

Mix was refering to what you said above. Now i understand what you meant. You mainly installed v4b19. Does your mod  "Subtledoctor’s Random Tweaks" is also included in this v4b19 ?

Ah, I see. Yes - Grodrigues' "Spell Rev Revised" is an add-on mini-mod with a few fixes for SR 4b18. I'm pretty sure it is not necessary with 4b19. (Not to be confused with Bartimaeus' "SRR" which is a alternative/replacement for SR, not an add-on.)

My Random Tweaks are meant to be installed after SR. It is not incorporated with anything, it is a collection of further tweaks that you can optionally install later. It gives you spell-by-spell choices to change various vanilla spells and SR spells. (I place this after all spell mods, and before all kit mods - to the extent there is a clean line of division there.)

41 minutes ago, Mordekaie said:

in my load order, should i put the Item section before or after the Spell section?

I tend to put item mods right before spell mods. My most recent install looks something like this:

• a bunch of quest mods
• a bunch of NPC mods
• G3Anniversary
• crossmod
• several item mods including IR's main component
• SR
• IWDification
• TotLM
• SD Random Tweaks
• DR kits
• S&S kits
• some RR tweaks
• Refinements HLAs
• Tome & Blood
• IR Store Revisions
• More Style for Mages
• the rest of IR
• Unearthed Arcana class/kit stuff
• CD/House/Poly/Klatu tweaks
• Scales of Balance
• SCS
• NPC_EE

I can't say that's "correct" compared to someone else's order... and I can't say for sure nothing got removed in a way that I just didn't notice. (I don't tend to look for every mod-added feature in a comprehensive way.) I can say the game played well, and I didn't see any noticeable bugs or things that got in the way of playing. Splitting up IR like that is unfortunate, but it may be necessary for it to work properly with MSfM. It may not be necessary... but I can at least say for sure that the two mods played nicely together when I did do it this way.

24 minutes ago, Quester said:

Sorry for my ignorance, but how exactly do you [create the missing setup-spell_exe with the last version of weidu.exe]?

Find any "setup_xxxx.exe" file from a relatively up-to-date mod - or download the latest official weidu.exe - and literally just rename it to "setup-Spell_rev.exe"

[Mordekaie]

50 minutes ago, Quester said:

Sorry for my ignorance, but how exactly do you do that? Since I want to do the same.

When you  extract a mod, you have to make sure that each extracted mod folder contains :

- setup-"modname".exe

-"modrname" folder

- Inside the "modname" folder, you also have a "modrname".tp2 file.

Nb: the key here is, this is the same "modname" for all 3.

Nb : the mod folder can have any name.

For example:

You download Spell Revisions (.exe or .zip; it doesn't matter). After extracting with 7zip for example you should get a folder with a name (like Spell_Revisions-v4b18; you are free to change its name).

Within that mod folder you should find : a modname folder (here it is spell_rev) and a file setup-spell_rev.exe. Within the spell_rev folder there is a .tp2 file called spell_rev.tp2

 

Master version of mods may come without this setup-modname.exe next to the "modname" folder. In that case you copy the last version of the weidu.exe (weidu installer) and you rename it.

You will find the latest version of the wiedu installer here : https://github.com/WeiDUorg/weidu/releases/tag/v249.00

I download : WeiDU-Windows-249-x86.zip. You look for the weidu.exe. This is the weidu installer to use.

 

Edited March 29, 2022 by Mordekaie

[Mordekaie]

29 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

Ah, I see. Yes - Grodrigues' "Spell Rev Revised" is an add-on mini-mod with a few fixes for SR 4b18. I'm pretty sure it is not necessary with 4b19. (Not to be confused with Bartimaeus' "SRR" which is a alternative/replacement for SR, not an add-on.)

My Random Tweaks are meant to be installed after SR. It is not incorporated with anything, it is a collection of further tweaks that you can optionally install later. It gives you spell-by-spell choices to change various vanilla spells and SR spells. (I place this after all spell mods, and before all kit mods - to the extent there is a clean line of division there.)

For me SRR was refering to Bartimaeus' SRR

Thanks for the load order. It completes what i have. In particular i wasn't sure about IR Store Revisions. I like the description from the readme but i was almost ready to remove it because it is also supposed to be Incompatible with mods that add new items into vanilla stores (from the readme???). Any confirmation about this ?

I also put MSfM with other item mods including IR's main component.

[subtledoctor]

I don’t think it is incompatible any more... that bit of the readme is old. There are way to patch items into stores non-destructively, though IR/SR are old and do a fair amount of straight overwriting. I *think* I saw other mod items for sale in stores affected by Store Revisions... but I’m not 100% certain. Might be worth moving it higher and putting other item mods after it (but still before the rest of IR). I’m going on feelings, to some extent; I don’t know the best method with real precision. 

Personally I’m not totally sold on Store Revisions. I kind of like the idea of Item Randomizer better... but that mod is old and not actively maintained. So potential pitfalls there as well. The absolute safest bet is to skip both of them. 

[Mordekaie]

I am working at the item section and i have been looking at your load order as i include most of your item mods (and some more with in particular RR items).

Any particular reason to put Item Upgrades (Weimer's) not in the item section and with quest mods ?

I promise this is my last request for today. I am trying to arrange my item section before going futher.

Would you also give a look at my item order below (and component choices) and let me know ? By the way this an EET install so it will include BGEE item mods too.

Thalantyr - Item Upgrade

0 - Thalantyr - Item Upgrade

Unofficial Item Pack

(2) From @Daeros_Trollkiller : Some of the items aren't imported correctly, some of their effects not working properly. I am not going to knock it too much though. It did serve as inspiration for my mod.

 

(3) From @Gwaihir: deleted a line in the mod's tp2 file that overwrites a file and thus makes it incompatible with 'the cowled menace'. This is what got deleted (i don'tknow  if this is still relevant ???)

COPY ~Unofficial Item Pack/new_items/MAGE18Z.CRE~ ~override/MAGE18Z.CRE~

at line 182 in the .tp2 file inside the mod folder

0 - Unofficial Item Pack

2 - Gourmet from Underdark

3 - Holy symbols

4 - New Items

5 - SoD items                  - Instead SoD2BG2 IU

6 - Better archery shop

7 - Reworked free action  - Not sure about this one ?

Item Revisions 1/2 : Main component

0 - Item Revisions by Demivrgvs

Rogue Rebalancing 1/2: Items

(3) The Short Sword of Backstabbing will not be modified if IR is detected (to avoid duplication)

(4) 2 step installation - First step to install items:

7 - Additional equipment for Thieves and Bards

8 - Upgradeable Equipment

Heart of the Wood

0 - Heart of the Wood (WeiDU version)

Improved Horns of Valhalla

(2) Doesn't IR also provide almost the same changes ?

0 - Improved Horns of Valhalla

D2-Weapon - A Souls-inspired Weapon Pack

0 - A Souls-inspired Weapon Pack

Stuff of the Magi

0 - Use new, less cheesy items AND Add them to creatures' equipment (recommended)

Rolles Safyer

(I don' know about this mod and Rolles Safyer is probably better installed early with other NPCs?)

0 - Rolles Safyer
10 - Bag of Holding in Irenicus Dungeon

More Style for Mages

- At the moment MSM v1.57 is not fully compatible with EET, in particular BGEE content (Wizard's Staff , Circlets, Circlet of Revelation…) won’t be installed. So i installed a non-official updated MSM v1.57 (with the updated;tp2) from the mod thread. Thanks to @Gwaihir for reporting this.

- Familiar components are not compatible with EET: EET and Familiars G3

1 - Add Wizard's Staff with 14 new color sets

2 - Add Staff of Wizardry
8 - Add ranged attack + replace invisibility with increase of casting speed 

10 - Add circlets

12 - Add Wizard's Hat

13 - Add Wand Case

14 - Add a stone of teleportation

16 - Add robes with no colorsets

SoD to Baldur's Gate 2: Enhanced Edition Item Upgrade

(i am not sure about its place as some load orders move it in different position or even divide its in few steps?)

0 - SoD to BG2:EE Item upgrade by Daeros_Trollkiller

3 - Update names, appearances, icons, and lore values of existing dragonscale-based items...

4 - Update resist type for original Shadow Dragonscale Armor for consistency with new variants: Acid -> Magic Damage)

Incompatibility issues with mods like Thrown Hammers

30 - Cosmetic Enhancements for Existing Items (does not affect function)

31 - Remove annoying item effects, ie: blur, shadowed, physical mirror, spell trap. (Does not affect spells)

32 - Remove pulse-glow visual efects from armor, helmets, and shields.

33 - IWD-Style on-hit visual effects.

 

[subtledoctor]

18 hours ago, Mordekaie said:

Any particular reason to put Item Upgrades (Weimer's) not in the item section and with quest mods ?

Don’ really know. If I did that, I got it from somewhere. Maybe the old BWS order. 

TBH after this recent run, I think I’m not going to use the old Item Upgrade any more. The items are a bit crazy, and don’t have the most flavor, and are sometimes quite different from the IR source items. By the end of SoA I already had so much stuff that there was no reason to burn cash on the Item Upgrade stuff. And the upgrade dialogue is SO long and annoying to get through. I think my next run will only use the vanilla upgrades and the newer SOD upgrade mod EDIT - having looked at that one more closely, I think I'll pass on it as well.

Edited March 30, 2022 by subtledoctor

[Guest Morgoth]

@CamDawgI remember you planned or thought (?) to change the dialogue style of cromwell

I think @Magushad the same idea. Are you still considering it or...?

[Guest Morgoth]

On 3/18/2022 at 6:10 PM, subtledoctor said:

 Irenicus seems to have Improved Alacrity (oh and he is wearing a duplicate of the supposedly unique Robe of Vecna) and... casts Simulacrum five times? Because suddenly I am being attacked by six Irenicuses. But it's not simulacrum, because my anti-illusion spells do nothing.

TPK in probably less than 24 seconds.

Feh. Irenicus and the Solar, at least, have resistance or straight-up immunity to all of the fun tools I have acquired as a late-game high-level mage... so, remind me what is the fun of being a late-game high-level mage? The scripts all involve ForceSpell so they can interrupt me but I cannot interrupt them. I'm sure there is some "correct" sequence of buffs that could get through this... I'm sure the encounter was coded in such a way, with certain assumptions (like, all clerics have access to all cleric spells, and you can cast Wish and Chain Contingency instantaneously mid-combat, etc.), that you can 'figure out' the correct strategy. But, I hate that shit. I don't want to find the "key" to the fight, that's some Legend of Zelda shit. It's not what this game has been about for the last 100 hours.

 

Irenicus having clone, illegal and unlootable equipment is pretty pretty bad > and one of the reasons nowadays i dont use ascension anymore unless it s with the longer road mod.

Thats some tactics mod stuff, not intended to be remotely fair.

In my games i use wheels of prophecy and the component that do not touch fights but only dialogues from ascension. All the rest is a no.