Third - I mean, fifth! - attempt at a large EET game on a tablet

[subtledoctor]

8 hours ago, jmerry said:

Hey, that sounds like you have a mod that actually does something meaningful with Small Teeth Pass. In the base game, it's the least interesting overworld area on the map, and I include all of the BG1 wilderness in that; no quest content whatsoever, not really on the way to anywhere, no high-level encounters. All it has are some random spawn points full of generic monsters and a bit of scenery.

Yup - my IWD Integration mod puts a link to the Severed Hand fortress there,

• if Charname has not already done the IWD1 campaign earlier in the EET game,
• and if you have already found the alternate Sword Coast version of the Dragon’s Eye caves and recovered the Heartstone Gem,
• and if you have agreed to give the Heartstone Gem to the Shadow Thieves in lieu of paying the usual fee. 

(There is no lore about Severed Hand/Dorn’s Deep outside the IWD games, from what I can tell. So in an EET game that does not incorporate the IWD campaigns, there’s no reason Severed Hand could not be located, say, near the edge of the Forest of Tethyr.)

This playthrough is my test run for the mod. Everything is working well so far, apart from a few dialogue tweaks I’ve identified. PartyHasItem([Heartstone Gem]) is currently a requirement to enter the Severed Hand fortress, so you need to have found the earlier Dragon’s Eye easter egg content first. In the future I might add an entry requirement to possess part of a powerful creature in addition to the Gem, such as dragon scales or an immortal demon’s heart. Just to provide more rationale for running around the countryside before heading to Spellhold. 

…

Separately, I must note that Yxunomei was defeated a bit too easily. I might need to beef up her abilities. Not sure how best to do that… maybe give her a bunch of memorized spells and an SCS fighter/ mage script? Right now it seems like her whole script is, “cast Cloudkill and then melee with high APR.” My Aerial Servant took her out before she even got near my party! At least give her the chance to cast Death Spell to clear summons.

I suppose… I think all the dialogue with her is when she is in the form of a child. Then the child disappears and the hostile marilith spawns beside where the child was. If I’m recalling that correctly, I could just change what spawns there. Easy-peasy. 

Edited March 26, 2023 by subtledoctor

[subtledoctor]

So I went to the Windspear hills to return the acorns from the dryads trapped in Irenicus' lair. On the way I was ambushed by some ogres and orcs, but once they were dispatched they changed into knights! Garren Windspear took me in and said he would appeal to the Order of the Radiant Heart to convince them I was tricked. This leads to my single favorite line in this game, when Charname has been pranked a single time by the dragon and says to the guy whose entire life has been ruined something like "This slandering of my reputation is unbearable. You cannot know my pain."

Anyway, we clear Windspear, but left Firkraag there. Then went to the Umar Hills to investigate wolf sighting and humanoid deserters and a missing ranger and a mimic. Solved all the problems and dispatched the Shade Lord, and they made me the new ranger. Sure, I'll keep an eye on the place.Then I went to Small Teeth Pass. For being on the edge of a forest, the vegetation in the place seemed weird and stunted and out of place. Almost like some force had twisted it. We crossed a ravine and then came upon a very old elven fortress, with five spindly towers in states of decay and long-ago disaster:

Spoiler

I went in and fought through throngs of... undead? Beings. A bunch of former goblins and orcs, and higher up the shades of former elves. We got to the top of Labelas Tower, awakened a baelnorn, and it activated the Heartstone gem for me. Also, a couple elven shades gave me a bit too much XP... a couple more adjustments I need to make.

We left Small Teeth Pass, went back to D'Arnise Keep to deal with an angry merchant. Then went back to Imnesvale to deal with an angry noble. Now we are swinging back to Athkatla to tell Gaelan that the Heartstone Gem is activated and ready for use.

Severed Hand works really well here! It's a nice prestige dungeon with lots of lore that works very nicely in chapter 2 of SoA. Nothing was particularly dangerous - there is no end-boss with a power spike. But it was cool. The only thing out of place was a couple conversational references to "elves of The North" but it's not even enough to be that notable. Even the loot isn’t too crazy - there is noticeably less OP loot here than there was in Dragon’s Eye. The one piece that is beyond the pale is Kaylessa’s elven chain armor. Lordy! That wouldn’t be out of place in Suldenesselar, or even TOB.

Next: testing Heart of Winter.

EDIT - huh, Hjollder won’t Wind Walk me to Lonelywood. Weird - I just moved the .CRE file from Kuldahar to Athkatla. Need to check into what’s happening there. 

Edited September 7, 2023 by subtledoctor

[subtledoctor]

I went to back to Athkatla, and we went to the funeral of Nalia’s father. Then we uncovered and destroyed the power behind the Cult of the Unseeing Eye. Then Nalia was kidnapped by Iseaa Roenall. Upon her return we went to Trademeet to investigate the animal troubles. At the Druid Grove I had a realization: I have installed the “get any stronghold” component of CDTweaks, mostly because I’m playing a warrior-y guy and I want to take charge of D’Arnise Keep. But this component makes the game think you are a druid, which means you cannot have Jaheira or Cernd challenge Faldorn. Only Charname can. 

Luckily as a custom F/C I was well-suited to defeat Faldorn. I declined to become the new leader of the grove (RIP Golden Lion  ) and we went back to report the victory to Lord Coprith. Then I prepared to go tackle Ihtafeer. But upon resting at the inn, Keto was informed that her presence was required ASAP in the Umar Hills to compete in a barding competition. Then a messenger teleported in from Baldur’s Gate to let me know that Skie had been revived. Then Delon showed up and said ogrons were attacking Imnesvale. I went to Imnesvale and immediately Danno appeared to tell Mazzy that here sister Pala was poisoned and we needed to return to Trademeet right away!

Well. Some quests are stepping on the toes of other quests. One or more of these can fail if you do a party-required area transition in the wrong direction, even if no time passes. So I need to figure out how to untangle this knot. 

[Endarire]

What quests were doing baddies?

[megrimlock]

I thought I should ask this here since your new topic on release of v0.8 of your integration mod avoids spoilers - I have obtained the Heartstone Gem and have not paid Gaelan his fee. I can't get any dialogue option for him to either mention or else take the gem. Am I missing a step? I'm concerned this will lock me out of Severed Hand access later.

[subtledoctor]

22 hours ago, megrimlock said:

I thought I should ask this here since your new topic on release of v0.8 of your integration mod avoids spoilers - I have obtained the Heartstone Gem and have not paid Gaelan his fee. I can't get any dialogue option for him to either mention or else take the gem. Am I missing a step? I'm concerned this will lock me out of Severed Hand access later.

Yes, if you get the Heartstone Gem and then talk to Gaelan, it should pan out this way. As you can see, it is working in my game. 

In my game I had enough cash to oay the fee when this happened; do you? It’s possible I missed setting the dialogue option to fire if you don’t have enough money. I.e. if you haven’t had that encounter with Brus telling you to talk to Gaelan. I’ll double-check. 

I’m finding all of these dialogue patches to be difficult. Hjollder in particular is throwing me for a loop.  

[megrimlock]

Yes, I did have enough money (i.e. the 15k to trigger Valen and Brus approaching me), then when it didn't work I reloaded my autosave and bought some random crap off the fence in the Slums to get below the threshold and went to Gaelan again without sufficient money to see if that was it. No dice. I don't have Alternatives installed - I can't think of anything else that would affect Gaelan's request for the fee. I do have Mae'Var's guildhall already?

I'll try again with v0.8 in my next install.

[subtledoctor]

3 hours ago, megrimlock said:

Yes, I did have enough money (i.e. the 15k to trigger Valen and Brus approaching me), then when it didn't work I reloaded my autosave and bought some random crap off the fence in the Slums to get below the threshold and went to Gaelan again without sufficient money to see if that was it. No dice. I don't have Alternatives installed - I can't think of anything else that would affect Gaelan's request for the fee. I do have Mae'Var's guildhall already?

I'll try again with v0.8 in my next install.

Can you grab GAELAN.DLG from your override and upload it here?

[megrimlock]

Sure

GAELAN.DLG

[subtledoctor]

Okay, make a backup copy of yours, then drop this one into your override folder, and see if it doesn’t work now. 

GAELAN.DLG

Edited April 14, 2023 by subtledoctor

[megrimlock]

That worked, thanks!

[subtledoctor]

The WEIGHTS are different in your install vs. mine. 

I’ll update the mod soon to account for this…

[subtledoctor]

I’m getting frustrated. I have a weird off-by-three error in some kit menus, and I cannot for the life of me get Shield Bashing to work in this game. I can confirm all the files are correct in NI, I can test that they are working in a desktop game, but after I transfer them to the iPad… no change. 

Which is weird because I have updated other files on the iPad and they change just as they should. Every game, I typically install Will to Power’s ‘Dark Sun Mode’ to give Charname a wild talent (because Charname is special) and then remove Dark Sun Mode and everyone else gets a 3% chance for one. I occasionally find some spell that needs to be manually added to the 5E casting system. Et cetera. Over the course of an EET game I typically have 15-20 little updates that overwrite files with corrected versions. But for some reason it just isn’t working right now. 

Maybe something about Shield Bash using a custom projectile? I overwrite the .PRO file but it doesn’t change… or maybe the existing .PRO file gets loaded into the savegame so overwriting the one in /override has no effect? EDIT - maybe I can try simply adding a whole new projectile and updating the relevant spells to use it…

And the menus… I have no idea. Maybe it’s something about the GUI? EDIT - oof, maybe it has to do with the Dual-to-Kit mod’s UI changes. I’ll look there. 

Or maybe I screwed up the file updates with regard to case sensitivity. I try to always capitalize every filename but mistakes happen. 

I’ve just started an IWD2 game, and I’m really tempted to just reinstall everything before going too far…

Also, incidentally, I’m about an hour into IWD2 and so far it is GREAT! So many nice little touches. Like this:

I rolled a paladin for my party lead, and I’ve see this more than once. I was like Dude wtf! I need to buy you a better sword! So amazing that Black Isle actually added role-playing class penalties like this. 

I’ve only been in Targos so far, but I’m really liking the overall tenor and the writing. (ROFL at the drunk mercenaries who steadfastly refuse to believe there is a goblin massacre of the townsfolk going on right outside the tavern.) 

Edited April 17, 2023 by subtledoctor

[subtledoctor]

Okay, I think I have finally figured out what is going on with my games. Maybe. The good news is, I do not believe my troubles are related to any mod bugs, so this sort of thing should not happen to others using these mods.

By way of explanation: several months ago I started to put together an EET install. I stopped the installation right after installing Will to Power and Refinements, and then stopped and uninstalled a few things for two reasons: 1) I wanted to put Refinements before WtP; and 2) I wanted to back up the game folder before any of my own mods were installed. This way, if I updated my own mods, I could start with the backed up game folder and skip the first half of the install routine (EET/quests/NPCs), to get things done quicker. Later on, I uninstalled several other mods from this half-done game folder, because I have been experimenting with tipun's IWD1_EET mod and IWDification and my own IWD_EET_Integration mod.

So now I have this half-done install, right before IWDification. And I have used this half-done folder for my last three attempts to install things. Herein lies the hiddne source of my troubles.

Just as Weidu will leave strings in DIALOG.TLK when you uninstall a mod, and re-use those same strings later if you reinstall it, it appears that Weidu preserves some information about kits that have been uninstalled. Because for whatever reason, installing mods on top of this half-done game somehow hoses KITLIST.2DA. Three kits, including the one from Eilistraee's Song and the Yvette mod, end up removed from the file, leaving holes in both the kit indexing and the IDS numbers. Then, about 40 kits later, Refinements adds three 'shadow kits' and Will to Power adds four psion kits, but the indexes and IDS numbers for these get bunched up and duplicated. The result is that the ~40 kits in between Yvette and Will to Power are incorrectly indexed, and the psion kits are busted. Trying to unravel these problems at the end of the install is exceedingly difficult - reindex the kit numbers and the CLASTEXT.2DA strings become misaligned; fix those and the IDS numbers are still wrong, leading to problems with e.g. NPC_EE NPC customization scripts, or Dual-to-Kit; fix that and the QD_Multi multiclass helper spells get applied to the wrong kits, leading to problems with e.g. Faiths & Powers sphere spells; etc. It's playing whack-a-mole, and all the problems that crop up seem to be problems with individual mods, but when I look at the mods they seem fine.

Now that I understand what the actual problem is, I think I've managed to fix it locally. I have simply removed the Elistraee's Song and Yvette kits from KITLIST... if I need any NPCs that would use them, I'll have to assign them new kits via NPC_EE instead. Everything seems to finally be working in my game, allowing me to play; and the next time I reinstall mods I will do so from the ground up. I will put the latest weidu.log at the beginning of this thread, and I have rolled up a 6-person party to play tipun's IWD2 with the 2E BG2 rules. I'll document that in this thread.

Here's to moving on and actually playing that game!

[mickabouille]

Would you consider that a bug in weidu?

While it's fresh in your head,maybe you could attempt to describe the behavior at https://github.com/WeiDUorg/weidu/issues ?

I guess the project is not extremely active and advances by fit and starts, with a massive backlog to boot.

But even having an issue filled could serve as documentation of sorts for the issue?