Brandock the Mage NPC Mod (Kerzenburgforum)

[jastey]

Kerzenburgforum

 

Brandock the Mage NPC for BGT, BGII, BG:EE(SoD), BGII:EE, and EET

For his portraits, please see here.

Author: jastey
Portrait Artist: Acifer
German Soundset Voice Actor: Reader of the Runes
English Soundset Voice Actor: BignatiousMacIntosh
Languages: English, German

Brandock the Mage is an NPC Mod for BG1 for the whole Baldur's Gate Epic. It is natively compatible with BG:EE, SoD, BGII, BGT, BGII:EE, EET. No Tutu.

Please note: So far, the mod contains no official BGII content. Brandock can be met and join the group in BGII, reacts to the mage stronghold and sphere quest, and has an epilogue, but apart from that content for BGII is not done yet. SoD content is finished but not yet fully translated to German.

 

Description

Brandock is a mage NPC for Baldur's Gate. He is friendly and helpful and very interested in magic books. Most times he gets time to study magic books the group encounters in the game it will increase his lore score. While travelling with Brandock, the PC learns about why he is at the Sword Coast and where he is from - both deeply connected to well known locations of the BG games but I do not want to spoiler too much. Brandock talks a lot, and there will be several topics along the game's story that will keep his thoughts - and mouth - busy.

Brandock comes with friendship talks, own quests, and banters with some NPCs, and player initiated dialogues. The latter offers the possibility to ask Brandock a lot of questions to topics he mentioned or events in game.

In BG1 Brandock will wait at the Coast Way in the north. He needs help to fight an Ogre who is camping in front of a cave where Brandock needs to go in and retrieve some of his possessions. The Ogre can also be killed without Brandock in party but he will only recognize it after joining. The Ogre is the one that has Unshey's girdle.

In SoD, Brandock will be in front of the Ducal Palace, waiting in the crowd. There is a small sort-of quest that starts when the group is near Sir Rayphus after leaving the camp(s) at least once. From the original SoD crew, Brandock banters with M'Khiin, Corwin, and Glint.

In BGII he can be found in a small house in the north west right besides the sphere in the slums.

Brandock's Stats and Portrait

When first met in BG1, he will be a second level mage with the spells Armor, Burning Hands, Charm Person, Protection from Petrification, Identify, Magic Missile, Chromatic Orb, Resist Fear, Mirror Image, and Sleep in his spell book.
When starting a new SoD or BGII game, he receives correspondingly more experience points and has more spells in his spellbook. Also his equipment (cloak, staff, sling) is more powerful when starting in SoD or BGII.
Brandock will level up upon first joining in BG1, SoD, SoA, and ToB when the PC's HP are higher than his. Also every time Brandock's XP are lower than the PC's when rejoining the group after being 7th Party Member.

Brandock's alignment is Chaotic Good.

His stats are the following:

• STR: 15
• DEX: 13
• CON: 13
• INT: 18
• WIS: 12
• CHA: 13

Brandock starts with an increased Lore base score of 10 due to story reasons.
For the English version, Brandock's soundset was spoken by BignatiousMacIntosh. German soundset is spoken by Reader of the Runes.

Brandock's portraits were generously created and provided by Acifer. There are three alternate portraits to chose from in an optional component, see here.

Walkthrough/Spoilers

Finding Brandock's possessions will start a cycle of dialogues and after that his quest. Retrieving his possessions as early as possible will make sure the quest will start before going to Candlekeep, which gives more content.

Having Brandock in party when bringing Melicamp to Thalantyr will trigger an event which will remove Brandock from the party until Melicamp is restored. This event is interesting for Brandock's personal development, but the mod can also played without it. The event can be prevented by forbitting Brandock to help Melicamp with a spell.

7th party Member Mode

If you need the party slot for someone else, Brandock can be kicked out of the party and told to "stay close", then he will follow as a "familiar" or, as I call it "7th party member". If in 7th party member mode he needs to join the group from time to time to level up, can be selected and given commands, as well as told to use quick slot items. All his dialogues, banters, and interjections will trigger as normal.
To rejoin the group, talk to him and tell him you need "access to (his) inventory", and he will rejoin as a full party member.

The "7th party member mode" has lots of issues and quirks. Make sure you read the notes in the readme throroughly if you want Brandock to follow as 7th party member.

 

German Discussion Thread at Kerzenburgforum

Modpage at Kerzenburgforum

Direct GitHub Download

[Guest Chicken7023]

Hello ! Just finished BG1 with Brandock. I really enjoyed him and wanted to keep him in SOD, but he is verry buggy. At the beginning of the game, his PID was firing on loop (if I picked Korlasz's orders on the table, and after Korlasz's arrestation), and although he does spawn in front of the Ducal Palace, I can't talk to him. Nothing happens when I click on him. Is there a variable I should check or adjust ? 

I also wanted to know if you planned a romance path for BG2.

Thank you !

[Guest Chicken7023]

Forgot to say that Corwin didn't mention Brandock as she was supposed to !

[jastey]

Chicken7023: that sounds very buggy. Corwin was supposed to mention Brandock before heading out to the city. The variable needed to talk to him should be set when he is in front of the palace (it is set in the script that puts him there). Something went very wrong or I managed to upload corrupted SoD content which is still under developpment.

If you want to try your luck, Global("C#BrandockSpawn","GLOBAL",6) should be at "6" to talk to him at the beginning of SoD. If there is more problems, it might be wiser to let him wait for now until SoD content is released officially (sorry Brandock).

The stutter in Korlasz' Crypt could totally be my fault. Thank you for the reports, I'll look into it when I'll find the time.

Thank you for the kind words, I am glad you enjoyed the BG1 part at least!

 

[Guest Chicken7023]

Hello ! Thank you for your answor.

I reinstalled the latest version and it works (for now). But the crossmod didn't install, with this message :

ERROR Installing [Brandock the Mage: Crossmod Content], rolling back to previous state
Will uninstall   0 files for [C#BRANDOCK/C#BRANDOCK.TP2] component 10.
Uninstalled      0 files for [C#BRANDOCK/C#BRANDOCK.TP2] component 10.
ERROR: Unix.Unix_error(20, "opendir", "")

Not that it really matters to me, just pointing it out for next version

[jastey]

Thanks, but would you post the whole DEBUg into a spoiler, I am missing the actual error message, i.e. whiat exactly caused the component to fail.

[Guest Chicken7023]

Spoiler

What should be done with all components that are ALREADY installed?
[R]e-install them, ninstall them, kip them, [A]sk about each one? s

Installing [Brandock the Mage: Crossmod Content] [Beta_14]

SoD detected...
loading 1 tra file
loading 1 tra file
loading 1 tra file
loading 1 tra file
loading 1 tra file
loading 1 tra file

EndlessBG1 detected.
Stopping installation because of error.
Stopping installation because of error.

ERROR Installing [Brandock the Mage: Crossmod Content], rolling back to previous state
Will uninstall   0 files for [C#BRANDOCK/C#BRANDOCK.TP2] component 10.
Uninstalled      0 files for [C#BRANDOCK/C#BRANDOCK.TP2] component 10.
ERROR: Unix.Unix_error(20, "opendir", "")
Please make a backup of the file: SETUP-C#BRANDOCK.DEBUG and look for support at: Please post at G3 or Kerzenburgforum, refer to readme.
Using Language [English]

I do not have endless BG1 installed !

[jastey]

Thanks! I'll look into it.

[jastey]

Oh wow I'm such an idiot.

Will be fixed in the next version.

[jastey]

Brandock the Mage updates to v Beta 15!

Changelog:

- Fixed install error if EndlessBG1 is not installed.
- More SoD content, with checks for Road to Discovery mod.
- "Durable Scrolls" should have three charges and are no longer stackable.
- BGII: Brandock will only write pages of his book if the book is in inventory.
- BGII: After writing the first page, the empty book should no longer be in inventory.
- Typo corrections.

[Mordekaie]

@jastey I have just been adding Brandock in my modlist and The Lure of Sirine's Call needs to go after Brandock according to Project Infinity. Would you confirm this rule ?

 

Edited March 22, 2022 by Mordekaie

[jastey]

Argh, that was me, mixing up the definitions of "before" and "after" in the meta data file again. Brandock has crossmod, so Brandock needs to be installed after Lure of Sirine's call. Will be fixed in the next update of LoSC.

If you go into the mod folder "sirinescall", open the file "sirinescall.ini" with an editor (not MSWord) and change the line

Quote

After = c#brandock

to

Quote

# After = c#brandock

or just delete the line the dependency will be gone (I hope PI updates reading in the files). The crossmod is nothing dramatic, though, so installing LoSC after would be no problem, unless if it's violating other install rules of other mods.

Thank you for checking!

[jastey]

The mod updates to vBeta 16! Have a look at the readme to see how the compatibility options for aTweaks "Allow Mages to scribe memorized spells onto scrolls" component changed (to the better!). Also, the cutscene was reverted to the long version - but there is an install option to make it short again and for the EE it is now skippable by pressing the "Esc"-button. And more fixes and improvements.

Changelog:

- New component "Make Cutscene in Thalantyr's Abode Short" added, including description in readme.
- Cutscene in main component is long again, and skippable for EE (in both versions).
- Added more reply options to the "book is finished" dialogue in ToB.
- Brandock's special ability "Scribe Spell Scrolls": some higher spells will not be available in BG1 even though Brandock reached appropriate spell level; for EE, he will only be able to write durable scrolls for spells he has in his spellbook; Fixed minor bugs in Brandock's restored book dialogue and handling; removed fade-to-black cutscene for normal scrolls.
- Brandock's restored book: he will offer at lower level to write pages; same spells should not be offered more than once; added available spells to journal entry; corrected description of book pages for EE.
- Added more trigger to some comments so Brandock will not say them upon joining late in game when he wasn't present when it happened.
- Invisible helper cre will only spawn if Brandock is in party (Gorion's death site, Nashkel Carnival).
- Fixed compatibility with aTweaks component "Allow Mages to scribe memorized spells onto scrolls": other mages should be able to write their spells onto scrolls.
- Compatibility with aTweaks component "Allow Mages to scribe memorized spells onto scrolls": rewritten the two options and added description to readme.
- SoD optimizations: changed how bdbanter.2da is created; all banter files of NPCs will be created if not present; updates and improvements with regard to my updated SoD NPC Tutorials.
- Updated install order syntax in the .ini.
- Typo corrections.

[mickabouille]

Hi, I never played with this mod but this'll be in the next time.

I'm a bit startled by the numbering. I'm totally of the advice that numbering is completely arbitrary (and choosing whether it's arbitrary is itself arbitrary). But having 16 beta versions seems somewhat cautious. Unless it's the beta for the 16th version?

[jastey]

@mickabouille Brandock is supposed to be an NPC for the whole Saga, but only has official content for BG1 so far, anything for SoD and BGII is not fully tested yet. I will switch to "v1" once SoD content is finished. Until then, I'll just keep increasing the Beta tags. And I found more bugs and made more updates than i expected (and I am ready to admit).

And of course, thank you for your interest!