First, I mean Second, try at a big(ish) EET install

[Chitown Willie]

2 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

Try this.

Thanks Subtledoctor!

I'll be patching a completed install, but ordinarily I assume this hot fix should go right after Spell Revisions?

In other words:

~SPELL_REV/SETUP-SPELL_REV.TP2~ #0 #0 // Spell Revisions: v4.19
~SPELL_REV/SETUP-SPELL_REV.TP2~ #0 #20 // Mirror Image Fix: v4.19
~SPELL_REV/SETUP-SPELL_REV.TP2~ #0 #30 // Dispel Magic Fix: v4.19
~SPELL_REV/SETUP-SPELL_REV.TP2~ #0 #60 // Update Spellbooks of Joinable NPCs: v4.19
~D5_SR_4B19_SLEEP_FIX/D5_SR_4B19_SLEEP_FIX.TP2~ #0 #0 // fix Sleep in SR v4b19
~SONG_AND_SILENCE/SETUP-SONG_AND_SILENCE.TP2~ #0 #0 // Changes to trueclass bards and thieves, and unmodded game kits (required for other components): v15

 

[subtledoctor]

6 minutes ago, Chitown Willie said:

I assume this hot fix should go right after Spell Revisions?

I don’t think it matters. May just as well do it at the very end of your install order. That’s how I install hotfixes unless they specify otherwise and provide a good reason. 

EDIT - also please be aware that hotfix is design for EE 2.0+ games only. 

Edited January 18, 2023 by subtledoctor

[subtledoctor]

Okay, done with SoD! I forgot to talk about party makeup! I had a talk from Sirene about leaving the party, and Drake was boringly silent for a while. So they made room for Jaheira and Khalid, to make the next game transition a bit more meaningful. My headcanon is that they've been there with the Coalition army, watching over Charname and providing advice, and now at the end they step up to fight directly alongside him. So we have:

• Charname: ranger 8 -> cleric of Bhaal 11
• Khalid: cleric of Torm 5 -> ranger 10
• Jaheira: druid/ranger 9/9
• Emily: fighter/mage 9/9
• Imoen: bardic thief/mage 9/9
• Brandock: transmuter 10

Khalid is awesome with this build. Being a straight warrior but with some divine magic up to 3rd-level spells, with an emphasis on protection spells... it wouldn't be so useful in late-BG2, but at this stage it's amazing. (I chose ranger for his dual instead of fighter because it was at the insistence encouragement of Jaheira - there's even dialogue to support this, and some of his voiced lines in BG1 express discomfort in urban areas. Yes it's sub-optimal but I don't care... 5 levels of cleric make up for a lot, and a little birdy told me his inability to attain grandmastery won't matter...)

I keep seeing in walkthroughs/guides that

Spoiler

...if you convince Caelar to fight with you, she is a powerful ally who can almost go toe-to-toe against the BBEG.

Well, this is who ended up taking down the BBEG:

I was embarrassingly powerful. Of course the game tries to prevent you buffing too much, what with that annoyingly long elevator ride and such. But it also throws high-level summoning items at you! So the beginning of the fight was basically: Charname: start buffing, while team members summon a water elemental, a couple ankhegs, a stone golem, an earth elemental, and a spirit bear... if the summons got taken down, there were plenty of replacements - more elementals from scrolls, druid animal summons, 1d4 mephits, demi-shadow monsters, and oh yeah I've had this "Skeletal Pipes" items since the Candlekeep basement that summons eight skeletons, and they seem noticeably more durable than normal 1HD skeletons (or maybe they've been buffed by MiH Corporeal Undead?). The item is cool in concept but unreasonably powerful in execution... I might modify it to cut the summoned number in half, and maybe give it a set number of unreplenishable charges, like the SoD summoning items.

So everyone kept the spawning baatezu away with summons and arrows, while Charname buffed, and buffed, and buffed some more. Then he walked over to Mr. BBEG and smacked him down, hard.

Then, I return to the castle and I spot this:

What's Hobart doing in Dragonespear?? I never actually saw his sprite, but I guess he's around somewhere. I assume (hope) he'll make an appearance in Amn as well. Is he following me? Maybe Charname's power and deeds have attracted his master's attention just like they attracted attention from others... Hobart is getting a special ability there because the Scales of Balance 'Combat Skills' mod grants special bonuses to all non-joinable NPCs with the Thief or Fighter class, to make them a bit spicier on the assumption that any non-joinable NPC is an NPC I will someday fight... because let's be honest, this is literally and figuratively a game about a murder hobo. (And I apologize if anyone finds that term offensive, which it really is when you think about it...) This played out in a cool way because a bunch of people in the huge army battle were running around with effective boots of speed, or with strength boosts, or with bonus on-hit effects, etc.

The SoD denouement/epilogue was cool. I have several mods installed focused on SoD, most by @jastey. Things played out differently than I remember from the first time I played SoD, and Charname went toward the game transition with a purpose, which is pleasing and consistent with the overall arc of games' story. And it perfectly leads right into @Lava's BG2 mod. A nice bit of cooperative mod-added cabling connecting the games here. Kudos. (If I had any wish, it would be to see that cabling continued further into BG2 and even to ToB, rather than something that is wrapped up quickly pre-Spellhold. But Lava is only one person, with a lot of great projects, I really can't complain about them.)

Anyway yadda yadda, suddenly I'm in a cell, with Irenicus! And all my horrifically OP equipment is gone! And then here comes Imoen, aaand we're off into Shadows of Amn. I usually like "Chateau irenicus," how it forces you to rely solely on your character's stats and abilities, instead of a bunch of purchased equipment. But this time, it felt a bit stale. It really makes you run around a bit too much, and the 2nd level is shorter and more boring than the 1st level, and the 3rd level... oh right, there is no 3rd level. A big "Meh." This time around, Charname and Imoen and Jaheira had all their spells memorized, which was more than enough to get through the dungeon. (I favorably recall times I've played, like, a mage or cleric with few or no spells memorized.) But there was one very weird thing: I was getting messages that Charname - and only Charname - was fatigued. And he must have been, like, massively fatigued, because every time I swung a weapon at someone I saw stuff like this:

Roll 18 - then a 14-point penalty for a result of 4: miss. Then maybe a roll of 9, with a 5-point penalty for a result of 4: miss. Roll 14, with a 10-point penalty for a result of 4: miss. You see the pattern. Every attack roll I made was hampered by penalties, of varying size, which invariably brought the result to a number that missed the target. This is super weird. My best guess is that the EET transition assumed Charname has been awake since being kidnapped - maybe Irenicus was using sleep deprivation torture? - and so is suffering from a massive Luck penalty that makes every attack roll miss. Maybe? Whereas, Imoen and Minsc and Jaheira had to spawn in to the area, so their fatigue stats are at 0? That  might explain it. (EDIT - I was at day 172 when leaving Baldur's Gate, and I'm at day 204 leaving Chateau Irenicus, so this could make sense.) Or maybe it's the intentional result of some mod? After the cut-scene in Waukeen's Promenade, the effect went away and now Charname is not fatigued at all. At any rate I could just stand in the back row and use spells, and honestly it kind of makes sense for a torture victim who was near to having their soul ripped away would be a bit crippled in these circumstances. So... I'm honestly not complaining about this. I kind of like it. (Heaven help me though, if I was a basic fighter trying to solo the game... might have to just run through to the dungeon exit with all the enemies on my tale.)

Minsc heroically died on the way out, but I found a kensai named Chloe there, who helped. She has 25 DEX, and engages in some conversation with Imoen that is very much not in keeping with Imoen's state of mind in the rest of the dungeon. Eh, not a keeper. Yoshimo joins, and I spec him as a fighter/thief with the new Might & Guile Ninja kit. And... wow, he kicks serious butt with this build. Maybe that kit is too good... good thac0, good thieving, good AC with the SoB Dodge skill and bonus offensive effects with the Fighting Dirty skill, plus several semi-magical abilities he can use with ki points. (Reflected Image, Shadowstep, Sanctuary, Knock, and the Drowse cantrip.) Super effective party member. He's a keeper. I also met Breagar there, he has a suboptimal kit (focuses on single-weapon style, no tanking with a shield), but that's fine. He'll take Minsc's place on the front line, so he's a keeper... for now. I don't think he's actually explained what he was doing in there, so, we'll see. He is LG on his character sheet so I assume he's legit.

Kivan approached me in the Promenade, and joined. This is the mod Kivan, which is a separate .CRE file from the one in the BG1 campaign, so I had to spec him over again with NPC_EE. He lost his points in dual-wielding and I had to use up two pips to reinvest in them... I'm sure I had fixed that?? Maybe I fixed it after I made this install. (EDIT - nope, it's current... need to take a look at that mod.) I specced him as an Archer since I find the Stalker to be super underwhelming in this install.

So that's where we are: the very beginning on SoA, with Charname/Breagar/Jaheira/Kivan/Yoshimo. I might pick up Aerie right away for some arcane support, though I know there are at least 2 more potential party members right here in the Promenade and at least... 3 more? waiting in the Copper Coronet. Hm, maybe I'll run down and do the Southern Edge quests before heading to the CC.

EDIT - and, very much neither here nor there, but I just happened to glance at the Athkatla Slums page on the BG Wiki and... what's with all those NPC portraits? For Brus, Gaelan Bayle, Bregg, Cohrvale, etc? I think they might be taken from the Portraits Portraits Everywhere mod?? Wasn't it discovered that many of those portraits were used without permission or attribution? What are they doing on the official BG Wiki?? (Gee, I wonder who might have put them there... )

EDIT 2 - I removed a link to the BG Wiki because it ran some script or something that crashed my browser and made my entire laptop unresponsive for a few minutes. WTAF is going on there?

Anyway, on to BG2. I need to think about what quests to do when, and which NPCs to take on, and whether to stick with a core group or cycle them in and out as much as possible.

Edited January 19, 2023 by subtledoctor

[subtledoctor]

Recruitable characters I met in Chateau Irenicus: 

1. - Imoen
2. - Jaheira
3. - Minsc
4. - Breagar
5. - Chloe
6. - Yoshimo
7. - Adrian

Minsc died tragically, Imoen was abducted. Adrian was freed but sent on his way, Chloe fought her way out with me but upon reaching the surface we parted ways. Breagar and Jaheira and Yoshimo are still in the party.

Recruitable NPCs in Waukeen’s Promenade: 

1. - Kivan walks up to me immediately, joins up.
2. - Dace approaches me rather aggressively, I rebuff her.
3. - Vienxay wants 600gp to bail her out of being arrested. Uh, no. 
4. - Alora is lurking in the back of the Adventurer’s Mart, but I won’t talk to her yet. 
5. - I rescue Aerie from the Psycho Circus. 
6. - Isra and Helga and Emily are in nearby taverns.
7. - I purchased a drawing which will eventually turn into Yvette. 

There are at least 7 more joinable NPCs waiting in the Slums district as well.

Hopefully not a serious bug: the commotion of Vienxay being arrested mentioned she had a dispute with “Lady Yuth,” who I think is the woman selling arcane scrolls in the back of the Adventurer’s Mart? Perhaps coincidentally… there is no woman selling scrolls in the back of the Adventurer’s Mart. My only arcane caster at the moment is Aerie, so the lack of spells isn’t an immediate concern… but it is worrying. I don’t know if it’s a bug I need to fix, or if it’s mod content that will fix itself if I have patience. (EDIT -  this is from Item Revisions. No problem here.)

I’ve gone to ground to get my bearings and start the process of raising money to rescue Imoen. We went to the Southern Edge district and did some small jobs there. One of those needed a trip to the Temple of Oghma in the Docks district; there, Yoshimo wanted to check in with Renal Bloodscalp. Renal hired us to work with Maevar, who in turn tasked us with a burglary in the Temple district. That’s where we are now: about to head back to Maevar, who will point me to yet another joinable NPC. (Edwin is #23, if you’re keeping count at home.)

So… soon I will have some choices to make. 

My rough plan is to finish out the business with Maevar, then do the Copper Coronet quests, and then trigger the Harper Hold quest. As much as I hate getting rid of Jaheira because she’s so damn strong, she’s also a Bioware NPC and thus she must go. Maybe I’ll make an early dash to Haer’Dalis (#24) this game? But man, the Planar Prison is so damn hard if you don’t have at least two arcane caster… but, getting HD early could let him take over as thief for Yoshimo. Alternatively there’s Fade (#25), I could recruit her quickly if CC + Maevar + Harper Hold + Graveyard + maybe Tangled Isle give me the $60K needed to pay Gaelan’s fee… then HD could replace her in the late game. I’d love to resist taking HD for once but he is so good, and his writing is more engaging i.e. tolerable than any other NPC, bar none. 

Aerie would likely go as soon as I find another arcane caster - even a half caster, like maybe Keto (#26). But then again I do have the Wings mod installed, maybe it’s worth giving Aerie some time in the party? She is usually so insufferable, is it worth keeping her around to see the mod content?

(EDIT - and for those keeping count, there are at least three NPCs in the government district, and one in the temple district. Two in Umar Hills, at least one near Trademeet, one in the Windspear Hills... sort of... bringing the count to 33 off the top of my head, and I know I'm missing some...)

Edited January 31, 2023 by subtledoctor

[jastey]

On 1/19/2023 at 7:23 PM, subtledoctor said:

I just happened to glance at the Athkatla Slums page on the BG Wiki and... what's with all those NPC portraits? For Brus, Gaelan Bayle, Bregg, Cohrvale, etc? I think they might be taken from the Portraits Portraits Everywhere mod?? Wasn't it discovered that many of those portraits were used without permission or attribution? What are they doing on the official BG Wiki?? (Gee, I wonder who might have put them there... )

I tried to raise some attention to this here, but obviously, people do not care enough, and most obviously, not the Wiki people. I will not start investing time on the wiki pages though, it is pretty clear that there are people / a someone who wins this battle for spending free time to shape public appearance to their favor.

[jastey]

On 1/19/2023 at 7:23 PM, subtledoctor said:

I removed a link to the BG Wiki because it ran some script or something that crashed my browser and made my entire laptop unresponsive for a few minutes. WTAF is going on there?

I was thinking about making a joke that you now have a malware that checks whether you are using EE Setup Tool or PI and silently will install Sandrah Saga onto all BG(2) games it detects but I do not mean to sound ungrateful towards the Wiki people who are spending their time there in earnest. They might have been overwhelmed by aggressive contributions just like the IE community was.

[subtledoctor]

So I picked up Aerie, to have an arcane caster, and then we had a conversation with Gaelan Bayle. Then, from the chaos at Waukeen's Promenade we went to hole up at the Hole in the Wall in the Southern Edge district to figure out our next move. We need to raise 60,000 gp in order to pursue Imoen and Irenicus, and I only have about $2K on me at present. We helped out a few people in the Southern Edge, most notably Mairo Mudclapper. The little quests for people took us to various other districts in Athkatla, including the Slums, Waukeen's Promenade, and the Docks. I tried to keep a low profile but at the Docks Yoshimo said it was fairly urgent that we check in with Renal Bloodscalp. He hired us to look into his rival Mae'Var, so we did that. Mae'Var hired us to do a common burglary at the Temple of Talos, so we did that. He then introduced us to Edwin, who asked us to assassinate Rayic Gethras. I'm not sure I'm down for that, but I'll play along for now.

Jaheira is poisoned by an old foe seeking revenge. We deal with that and while tracking down his mage allies we try to get a license to use arcane magic, but it costs $10K! In the Slums I meet a half-orc from the Bank of Calimshan who wants help collecting debts. This can help us financially, so we agree. One debtor in the Bridge District sends me to the Graveyard District. There we help a paladin and a little girl, and talk to the ghost of a murdered halfling child. We loot some tombs to scrounge some money. Then to the Copper Coronet to deal with Llynis. We try to sleep to regain spells, but it turns out that the 5E casting mod mechanism to restore a mage's spells includes a spell coded as arcane, and some mod (SCS?) is allowing the Cowled Wizards to detect arcane spellcasting indoors. Yikes.

So we sell a bunch of gems and mastercraft weapons and spend $10K for a magic license - a financial setback, but necessary. Then deal with the parasite at the Southern Edge. Meantime Breagar has been looking for the Axe of Berronar, and apparently Marina at the thieves' guild knows something about it. She sends me to a gnome in Waukeen's Promenade, who sends me to Thunderhammer Smithy, who directs me to the Troll Mountains.

Traveling among the different districts of the city has led to three back-alley ambushes: one by seeming common thugs, one by a group specifically seeking me out, and one by a group who were trying to poison and kidnap a guy named Renfield. I return him to the docks district, then did some snooping for Xzar, to his demise. I rested, and Jaheira just left the party on some Harper business.

And that's where I am now. Will probably do some business in the city - Rayic Gethras and Copper Coronet? - and then finish the Harper's Hold, and then head to the Troll Mountains for Breagar.

Edited January 28, 2023 by subtledoctor

[subtledoctor]

I finished out the jobs for Mae’Var, but I have not yet reported back to Renal. Edwin is no more. Jaheira took off with Meronia on some Harper business, saying she would be back soon. In her absence, we solved the Murders in the Bridge District and eliminated the Slavers from their stronghold in the slums. Hendak is now running the Copper Coronet. 

I’m having a bit of a problem with custom portraits. Also, I’m trying to help out Jackal for the Bank of Calimshan, but I cannot find Sheila anywhere. Similarly, I am looking for a monster in the Bridge’s Block, I am looking for clothing of a particular color, but I cannot find anything like that anywhere in the district. I guess I haven’t looked in Delosar’s or the Five Flagons yet…

I don’t know if I can’t find those two people because 1) I am not good at finding them, 2) the mods are a bit too vague about what they want me to do, or 3) there is some problem with my install. Hard to say which one without specific information, but I cannot find anything written about them on the internet.

[subtledoctor]

The "Dirty Fighting" feat is amazing. Every time a thief lands a hit, I have to save or be affected by one of three effects; one of the effects is 1-round blindness to simulate having sand thrown in your eyes, and I added a 3-second fear effect, applied so as to bypass fear immunity, to simulate jumping away from your attacker to get free and try to clear your eyes. It adds some really effective chaos to front-line melee. The assassins in Rejiek's basement were that much more dangerous. (And, also, Yoshimo is that much more dangerous!) Good stuff.

Edited February 1, 2023 by subtledoctor

[Fishmalk]

On 1/30/2023 at 5:10 PM, subtledoctor said:

Also, I’m trying to help out Jackal for the Bank of Calimshan, but I cannot find Sheila anywhere. Similarly, I am looking for a monster in the Bridge’s Block, I am looking for clothing of a particular color, but I cannot find anything like that anywhere in the district.

Spoiler

Sheila is in the SE of the slums district, on that wooden platform to the right you never have any reason to go to.

 

The bridge block investigation is all within that area until you need to leave for something, which the mod is very explicit about. Go to the room near the entrance with all the hanging coats and walk around for your next clue about a handprint.

 

[tipun]

I didn't read the whole thread. But I saw that it was said here about problems with cutscenes and zoom. Separately, I do not support HoW, but in full IWD this has long been corrected. As soon as I have the opportunity, I will correct the rest of the errors. This mainly applies to IWD2. Since IWD1 is already quite stable.

[subtledoctor]

Yeah, I'm a bit leery of using the full IWD1 mod since 1) I don't actually want to play my BG party through the IWD1 campaign, and 2) I really like @argent77's implementation of TotLM. I suppose I could install IWD1_EET, and ignore the IWD1 campaign, and use my own mod to put Hjollder in a BG2 area so i can play HoW on its own, and use my own mod to remove Hobart from Lonelywood, and hope that the IWD1_EET mod can coexist with TotLM-in-BG2EE without breaking anything in the latter mod (not to mention IWDification for IWD spells). I guess it's worth a try... but considering how late in a campaign I get to that content, it would really suck to get there and only find out then that something broke.

Meantime, I am having a problem with the IWD (Demi-)Shadow Monsters spells and I can't figure out why. I put these in the Faiths & Powers sphere of Shadow, and they are meant to be the main method for this Charname to summon stuff. But they only seem to be summoning the least number of creatures with each cast. Here is the spell header for a level 10 caster:

Spoiler

SS1GOB2.CRE has a power level of 2, and the ones below it have a power level of 3. So at 10th level this should be summoning five low-level goblins, or a lizard man plus three goblins, or some combination like that. Instead all I get is one goblin of the lowest level.

Hmm... maybe it's something about opcode 148? Thanks to 5E memorization rules, this gets cast from an innate ability with op 148, param1 = 0 param2 = 1. That innate casts the priest spell. Are the innate caster level and divine caster level getting mixed up somehow? I would expect that the innate outer spell would use my innate caster level (dual-class, so (8+10)/2= 9) and the priest spell it casts would either use my innate level (9) or my priest caster level (10). But this seems to be treating me as if I am level 1, or something.

[jmerry]

There's only one place opcode 331 is used in vanilla BGEE/BG2EE: the shaman dance spell spsh004.SPL. And it uses mode 0 with count and dice parameters zero to summon exactly one creature every time (when the probabilities permit). 2DA specified by the "Resource" field. Does opcode 331 even work the way you're expecting?

Searching through the files, I can find exactly one instance of the summoning opcodes that summons more than one creature in a single effect: the wand of monster summoning. That uses opcode 127 with table MONSUM02 and a total power of 48 (Gnollsu = 8, wolfdisu = 14, hobgobsu = 20, ogresu = 20).

Anyway, it seems that if you're using different headers for every caster level anyway due to duration, you could specify a total power level using mode 1. That also opens up the option of not locking it to exactly the caster level.

[subtledoctor]

1 hour ago, jmerry said:

There's only one place opcode 331 is used in vanilla BGEE/BG2EE: the shaman dance spell spsh004.SPL. And it uses mode 0 with count and dice parameters zero to summon exactly one creature every time (when the probabilities permit). 2DA specified by the "Resource" field. Does opcode 331 even work the way you're expecting?

Searching through the files, I can find exactly one instance of the summoning opcodes that summons more than one creature in a single effect: the wand of monster summoning.

Pretty sure op331 is used in IWDEE (and IWDification) by the actual Shadow Monsters and Shades spells. That’s what I modeled my versions on. (I think the Shaman summons are one of the additions to BG(2)EE that were enabled by the incorporation of IWD code in the 1.4/2.0 patches.) Also I tested the spells when I made the mod that alters them… I only had not tested them in a heavily-modded environment like this where they are filtered through innate abilities.

1 hour ago, jmerry said:

Anyway, it seems that if you're using different headers for every caster level anyway due to duration, you could specify a total power level using mode 1

That specifies a number of creatures, not a total power level. A bit more crude and random in effect, but it still suits my purposes, so I can do that. It’s working better this way in my game, now I need to change the mod as well.

EDIT - to be specific, I have all of the spells set to summon three shadow creatures at 9th level and below, 4 shadow creatures at 10th-14th level, and five shadow creatures at 15th level and up. The three versions differ by what kind of creatures each one creates:

• Shadow Monsters: goblins and lizard men
• Demi-Shadow Monsters: elite goblins and tough lizard men
• Shades: trolls and umber hulks

That creatures are of the illusionary type, so they can bypass the summoning limit (if present); they are weakened by True Sight and obliterated by Oracle. They appear powerful (multiple umber hulks from a 6th-level spell!) but they have small hit point pools and their attacks don't cause any damage unless the target 'believes' the wound (fails a save vs. spells). The spells are intended to be distinguished from basic meat-shield summons, and embrace the idea of weaving shadows together to make something scary and distracting, but not entirely substantial.

Edited February 7, 2023 by subtledoctor

[subtledoctor]

It occurs to me that, while I don't think it makes sense to shoehorn the IWD1 campaign into the BG1 campaign, parts of it could actually work very well. Specifically, in chapter 6 of BG2, instead of the "Extended Lanthorn quest" that requires lenses for the Lanthorn to work, you could make the Heartstone Gem required for the Lanthorn to work correctly. Go to the Temple of the Forgotten God, to Dragon's Eye, and to the Severed Hand. Larrel can fuse the two items so that they can pierce Irenicus' magic, and then you bring the combined item to Elhan and then proceed to Suldenessellar. That could be a more interesting way to include parts of IWD and be more involved and fun than the way the extended lanthorn quest works.