Let's put the Black Pits 1 into BGEE!

[DraikenWeAre]

Don't know if this is incompatibility with another Mod or this Mod itself.

But after tier two boss fight, I'm having this bug where in the normal BP Najim is supposed to be summoned and give dialog but here it just keeps spamming in and out of cutscene mod .

Weidu.txt

[subtledoctor]

35 minutes ago, DraikenWeAre said:

Don't know if this is incompatibility with another Mod or this Mod itself.

But after tier two boss fight, I'm having this bug where in the normal BP Najim is supposed to be summoned and give dialog but here it just keeps spamming in and out of cutscene mod .

Do you have Near Infinity? If so find BPNajim.cre and see if he has a 'Script Name" set. (Should be "bpnajim" or something very like that.) If not, then it is indeed related to another mod, installing this hotfix should fix it.

Thanks for the feedback. My work on the "Reflections" BG1/SoD mod has made me a lot more comfortable with modding dialogues, so addressing these issues with Baeloth is next on my list.

[DraikenWeAre]

Seems to be another Mod that's causing the issue, since it's still present after trying the hotfix.

Don't know which it could be though.

Edited May 2 by DraikenWeAre

[DraikenWeAre]

I just want to make two suggestions for this mod.

I don't think the geas ring should be present it causes more issues than it's worth as if a Charecter reaches zero they get stuck in an unconscious state, (or atleast remove the min1hp effect from the rings)

Maybe just put an npc the player can talk to ,to rest and reset spells.

Additionally If the invisible referees can be removed entirely, they are completely (100%) pointless and just preven lt Charecters walking paths.

(I sorted out my previous issue by quickly pausing and just useing command console to port najim in and talk to him quickly)

Edited May 5 by DraikenWeAre

[subtledoctor]

1 hour ago, DraikenWeAre said:

I don't think the geas ring should be present it causes more issues than it's worth as if a Charecter reaches zero they get stuck in an unconscious state, (or atleast remove the min1hp effect from the rings)

Additionally If the invisible referees can be removed entirely, they are completely (100%) pointless and just preven lt Charecters walking paths.

That is all from the vanilla Black Pits, not this mod. This mod doesn’t recreate the Black Pits; it just sends you there. Apart from a couple adjustments to prevent you being overloaded with XP and to account for the special game-ends-if-you-die nature of BG1’s Charname, this is completely the standard Black Pits experience. 

1 hour ago, DraikenWeAre said:

Maybe just put an npc the player can talk to ,to rest and reset spells.

You can actually just use the ‘rest’ button in the waiting room where the shops are. I plan to remove the vanilla auto-recovery script, so that if you want to restore HP and spells you must do it manually. 

[DraikenWeAre]

The issue I was facing was that the sleep state wouldn't go off when entering back into the waiting area.

Like I understand why it's in Black Pits, to prevent the whole gameover die effect but in this mod it seems to be causing more issues than it should, as I read through the pages of this post and from my own experience. I was basically am playing to avoid the minhp affect, reloading when any party members enter the sleep state.

I ended up removing it from the override and it made the ring dissapear completely, which got rid of the issues, so I feel atleast if you removed the minhp1 effect for this mod, it would be better.

Becausd Charname being able to die in the main campaign isn't an issue to most.

20 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

You can actually just use the ‘rest’ button in the waiting room where the shops are. I plan to remove the vanilla auto-recovery script, so that if you want to restore HP and spells you must do it manually. 

I'm able to rest in the waiting area.

Unfortunately I have a conflict with the revised rest component of SCS recent updates where I have a limited amount of rests based on provisions outside an inn.

Fortunately I discovered that Najim is actually coded to beable to talked to manually for a rest, this isn't noticible normally since he always despawns after a cutscene.

But when I spawned him and talked to him manually I noticed that.

So I want to leave this information atleast for those who have that SCS component installed.

......

Lastly I don't want to overstep my bounds but I have a suggestion to make again.

I read a few pages before that some feel this can feel jarring when compared to the rest of the game and that why would Charname employ Baeloth in SOD if he made you fight and kill for him without remorse.

Potentially maybe instead of writing Charname to wanting to visit the underdark for adventure. Instead it could be written as a Trick as Baeloth is hired by the Ironthrone or Sarevok (not directly maybe but through potentially Daveron) .

Baeloth agrees as he see's the party as good additions to his blackpits if they able to cause so much trouble for the Iron Throne, (obviously getting irritated by how good you are eventually)

And then when you finally defeat baeloth, he begs you to let him live and that he'll help you fight against those who employed him, so you get the chance to either kill him for good, or make him join the party with the barrythl barrityls burden ring (which already can't be removed from baeloth) written to be the slave ring you apply unto him given to you by najim.

 

Just a thought.

Edited May 6 by DraikenWeAre

[subtledoctor]

22 minutes ago, DraikenWeAre said:

feel atleast if you removed the minhp1 effect for this mod, it would be better.

But the Black Pits standalone campaign is still in the game, and I don’t want to change that. The MinHP sleep/wake works for me… sounds like you might have a mod interaction interfering with it, Hard for me to pin it down from here.

Further, what if a character does die here? There are no avenues to Raise Dead.  Now we get into the realm of, do we add temple services to an NPC? Who? Why? (Not to mention I don’t know how to do that.) And why would Baeloth give you the means to raise dead, when by the end of the adventure he wants you permanently dead? Of course that raises the question of why you have min1hp rings in the first place… but now we are acknowledging the weakness in Beamdog’s content - for which there is no immediate fix. 

However, as I say, I have picked up some skills in the meantime. I can probably prevent the min1hp rings if you enter the Pits from BG1, and provide say, three scrolls of Raise Dead in a store there. That will fix the goofy min1hp behavior, and give you some (limited) options to keep your BG1 companions alive. 

53 minutes ago, DraikenWeAre said:

Potentially maybe instead of writing Charname to wanting to visit the underdark for adventure. Instead it could be written as a Trick as Baeloth is hired by the Ironthrone or Sarevok (not directly maybe but through potentially Daveron) .

That’s a good idea. The current dialogue is really a jokey placeholder, it was not intended to be particularly good writing. It is simply designed to present the player with a binary choice (play this extra content, or have this extra NPC) which operates via dialogue. Give his initial complaint, I should probably rather have him use subterfuge: “I am a good drow, like that Drizzt guy! Bad drow are after me! Please help, oh mighty heros!” This way a good-aligned party might be suckered into the BP, while an evil-aligned party might bot care and would be more interested in recruiting him. 

 I don’t want to change the cut scene where he talks about being “dangerously diminished” etc. If he was hired Sarevok’s crew, why is he diminished? Why would he turn on them and join you? There is a fundamental problem here: the only reason for him to be diminished in power is if he was already defeated by a party in the Black Pits. But at the time you are likely to see this cut scene, it is too early for you to have done so. So it is a case where your dialogue choice retroactively changes history: if you go to the Underdark, then Baeloth was if here all along on a recruiting mission and his “diminished” dialogue is unrelated or subterfuge (see above); if you recruit him, then he has been level drained after being killed in his own arena.

It might make sense for someone else to kidnap you or trick you on Sarevok’s behalf: a duergar, perhaps, or maybe even Najim. It could be scripted to happen after clearing the Cloakwood Mines, perhaps; and Baeloth's own appearance could be delayed until after that. This would work with the game’s timeline a lot better… but it would reduce the amount of time you could have Baeloth in the party. Which some players would hate  

Could also separate the two events: receuit Baeloth early, or not; and then later, when you are an appropriate level, have a kidnapping scene with Najim. If Baeloth is in your party at the time, then it is a direct betrayal, and you must complete the BP with a 5-man team. If Baeloth is not in your party then it could be written as something arranged by the Iron Throne. In fact Rieltar makes a good threat about acting against you, and post-Candlekeep might be an optimal time to play this content. So it could be set up as a scripted travel encounter after leaving the Candlekeep exterior map… hmm…

[DraikenWeAre]

I think your Idea is a very good rework of what I said.

Potentially it could be, he was hired by Sarevok, used Subtefuge like you said to join your party.

Then have a scripted event that only occurs if Baeloth is in your party, where Najim appears and ports the party to the Black Pits.

Meaning Baeloth was just getting a grasp of your party and how good they were before setting up an ambush with Najim and whoever is alongside him in the encounter. 

The encounter could play out like the beginning of BP2 where a Fallen Planetar shoots Otiluke's Spheres on the beginning party to capture them as they fight those who came with the planatar but here najim is the one shooting the spheres at the party.

(mind you while difficult to win that fight, it is actually possible but just very very very hard because of that Otiluke's Sphere no save ability of the planatar and the enemies being high level, but there's even dialog for if you win that fight)

The encounter I think would best be placed after the cloakwoods mines being cleared.

Lastly if you complete the Blackpits, you can either kill baeloth for good or allow him to join the party with a gaes ring on to prevent any futher betrayals.

[subtledoctor]

Okay I think I have a pretty good plan for this. The party will be waylaid by enemies Najim ("and must defend yourself!"). I think, if Baeloth is not in the party, he will appear as well. After some witty banter, he will disable the group and boom, you are transported to the Pits. If Baeloth is in the party, then he will crow a bit about backstabbing you, then leave the party and send you to the Black Pits with just five guys. What I need feedback on:

1. If Baeloth is not in the party, you should have a chance to avoid being abducted. Like, maybe the player just doesn't want to play through these fights. There should be an out. Should this be in dialogue with Baeloth? How would he be convinced to let you go? Maybe bribery? Maybe more than one way? Maybe intimidation also - convince him you are the child of a god and he really, really doesn't want to mess with you? Anything else come to mind? (I have not played with Baeloth much, I don't know what his personality is like.)
2. If Baeloth is in your party, you should likewise have a chance to convince him to stay in the party, and continue your adventure toward Sarevok rather than abducting you. What arguments would work in this context? Should the dialogue basically be the same? Or would it play out differently?
3. If Baeloth is in your party, and you do get abducted and sent to the Black Pits with five party members... what should happen to the equipment he is wearing? The realistic move is to simply have it disappear with him. But, that's also kind of a jerk move as well. But again, realistic! And you will be able to buy new stuff in the BP stores, so maybe it's okay? Thoughts?

-----------------------

• It's going to take some time to get a new version of the mod ready with all-different cut scenes and approach to the abduction. Meanwhile, I have updated the current one to version 0.9.5. This one patches Baeloth's dialogue instead of overwriting it, so it should handle NPCs and the BGEE-vs.-EET issue much better.
• This also removes the min1hp rings (I'm pretty sure), which means you can die in the arena! There are now five Raise Dead scrolls in the shop of Dinguer the Mad, so, don't let anyone die more than five times!
• Finally, this rebalances the prices of some of the gear from IWD.

Cheers!

[dark0dave]

@subtledoctorthank you for working on this mod! I love Baeloth. I am actually working on a mod for Baeloth in BG2, and I am definitely interested in this.

Here are my thoughts. They are just my opinion. You are the author and I respect your point of view. So feel free to ignore me.

1. I think you should be able to bluff your way out with some good dialog choices (god stuff seems fun). I don't think Baeloth can be bought off. His interest is being at the center of attention not being rich.
2. You should not be able to keep him. I don't think its in his character to not go to the black pits. Unless you can convince him its a trap or something, I can't think of anything that would work. It also makes it difficult to refer to a consistent Baeloth (SoD/BG2) in the future.
3. I think he keeps the equipment. Baring any quest items. Go for realism here

 

Edited May 12 by dark0dave

[subtledoctor]

1 hour ago, dark0dave said:

You should not be able to keep him.

Well, in the normal game you can just recruit Baeloth and play with him in the party all the way through the end of BG1. The goal here is not to take that option away from players; but simply to give them an alternative (playing through the Black Pits) that they can choose to do instead of recruiting Baeloth.

1 hour ago, dark0dave said:

I don't think Baeloth can be bought off. His interest is being at the center of attention not being rich

I guess that's a good point. I think the subtext of the abduction will be something like, Irenicus paid Baeloth to do it. He'll have a line like "someone wants you to be tested... and I think that could be so much fun!"

I need it to be pretty obvious through the dialogue that you have a choice to do this, or a choice not to do it... but maybe bribery is not an effective way. Maybe I'll make an option to try to bribe him, but it won't be successful.

[dark0dave]

9 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

Well, in the normal game you can just recruit Baeloth and play with him in the party all the way through the end of BG1. The goal here is not to take that option away from players; but simply to give them an alternative (playing through the Black Pits) that they can choose to do instead of recruiting Baeloth.

I definitely see that, but if players go to a specific location with Baeloth, it would be difficult to talk him out of going to the Black Pits. I am not sure how that dialogue would go. If you provide this option, I think we we have to solve the following:

1. What alternative does the player provide or threat to prevent him going there.
2. How do we deal with djinn in that case?
3. How do we keep the dialogue going forward consistent with this.

I'd like to make my mod work with yours so if you set some kind of global for this so I can use it that would be greatly appreciated!

9 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

I need it to be pretty obvious through the dialogue that you have a choice to do this, or a choice not to do it... but maybe bribery is not an effective way. Maybe I'll make an option to try to bribe him, but it won't be successful.

Perfect. Yes, bribery would fail, I love the idea of offering him money it offends him and he teleports you there directly. Some thing about not being a cheap act or whatever.

I can hear the line already:

"Bribery my bilious baboon? How dare you devise such a devious offer to one as devout and delectable as my devilish self. "

Edited May 12 by dark0dave

[subtledoctor]

I might have you write the dialogue for me 

I don’t plan to have the player go anywhere voluntarily; it would be a forced random encounter area. In fact it would probably be right after you leave the Candlekeep catacombs, so it would be interesting to make Charname come to grips with their heritage by pretty quickly providing an opportunity to use it in dialogue for purposes of intimidation. 

As to how Baeloth chooses Charname… if we imply he was hired by Irenicus, that causes complications, because if you convince him not to abduct you he would anger Irenicus. Off-screen, to be sure, but it might complicate for a BG2 mod like yours. 

But that’s not necessary. Maybe the implied backstory is, Irenicus simply alerted Baeloth to Charname, saying “look, it’s a teenager with a summer job as a librarian's assistant; nothing could be more boring. But what an underdog! How the fans would love to see someone like that turn into a champion!” And Baeloth might find that irresistible. 

If you go and fight, they both win; Baeloth gets a crowd-pleasing fighter and Irenicus gets to observe a Bhaalspawn under extreme pressure. But if Baeloth is talked out of it, he has not meaningfully betrayed Irenicus. 

[dark0dave]

On 5/12/2024 at 1:34 PM, subtledoctor said:

I might have you write the dialogue for me 

I would be honored.
 

On 5/12/2024 at 1:34 PM, subtledoctor said:

As to how Baeloth chooses Charname… if we imply he was hired by Irenicus, that causes complications, because if you convince him not to abduct you he would anger Irenicus. Off-screen, to be sure, but it might complicate for a BG2 mod like yours. 

But that’s not necessary. Maybe the implied backstory is, Irenicus simply alerted Baeloth to Charname, saying “look, it’s a teenager with a summer job as a librarian's assistant; nothing could be more boring. But what an underdog! How the fans would love to see someone like that turn into a champion!” And Baeloth might find that irresistible. 

If you go and fight, they both win; Baeloth gets a crowd-pleasing fighter and Irenicus gets to observe a Bhaalspawn under extreme pressure. But if Baeloth is talked out of it, he has not meaningfully betrayed Irenicus. 

I prefer not involving Irenicus. Its much more amusing and more like Baeloth to snatch a librarian assistant. I think you are right that Baeloth would find the underdog irresistible.

And now, to enhance your evening pleasure we have... WHAT this can't be right.. Ahem, Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the curiously critical curator!

Edited May 14 by dark0dave

[subtledoctor]

Yeah but why you? It’s too convenient. I think it makes sense that a disguised “Hooded Man” might nudge Baeloth toward you. Almost nothing else makes sense as to why Baeloth would abduct Charname in particular. The Sword Coast is already lousy with adventurers who would put up a good fight. But Charname is special: young and inexperienced, but with hidden reserves of strength and resourcefulness. (Presumably.) 

Possibly Sarevok might set it up as a contingency in case you escape Candlekeep. It would fit with his prior practice of hiring assassins. But I think it’s a bit more likely that the Hooded Man is moving pieces around his little chessboard. Maybe he doesn’t want you to stop Sarevok; if Sarevok succeeds in bring war to Baldur’s Gate and empower himself using the death of those in the city (my vision is, his plan was similar to what Kalak tried to do in Tyr in the Dark Sun setting, if you ever read that)… presumably Irenicus could still overpower Sarevok and use his thus-empowered soul to ascend. In which case, best to remove Charname to the Underdark. Only after you surprisingly beat Sarevok does the Hooded Man turn his attention to you, in SoD.

Maybe? It’s all just speculative headcanon. I would not actually spell anything out in concrete terms. Just a quick line from Baeloth, like “it was suggested you might make for good sport in the arena. You certainly don’t look like much. Oh well, let’s give you a try!” And let the player interpret the “it was suggested” as they will. Heck maybe Firkraag frequented the Black Pits and he thought it would be fun to send Gorion's Ward there! Not every mystery needs to be solved.

Edited May 14 by subtledoctor