Kerzenburgforum: Brandock the Mage updates to v Beta 16!

jastey · April 5, 2022

Brandock the Mage NPC Mod

Brandock is a mage NPC for Baldur's Gate. He is friendly and helpful and very interested in magic books. 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.

Please note: So far, the mod officially contains BG1 content only. Brandock should already be fully functional in SoD with reactions to most game events, 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 SoD and BGII is not done yet.

Version Beta 16 comes with changed and improved compatibility options for aTweaks "Allow Mages to scribe memorized spells onto scrolls" component. 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.