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

[argent77]

41 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

There is one file in my override folder that has a space in the filename: "MONKTU 8.DLG."

That's actually a vanilla game file in BGEE which goes back to oBG1. It's most likely unused. There is an identical resource without spaces in the filename (MONKTU8.DLG) which is used by one of the tutorial monks in Candlekeep.

[subtledoctor]

Ah that makes sense.

[Endarire]

Doc, where did you put what mods to make them work?

Thankee!

[subtledoctor]

3 hours ago, Endarire said:

Doc, where did you put what mods to make them work?

I have updated the first post in the thread with the newer, better weidu.log.

Okay, moving on! I have reinstalled everything, but the conceit is the same: install EET with a large gaggle of NPCs, my favorite quest mods for BG1 and BG2, as well as IWD and IWD2 from tipun, and the latest versions of various major rule-change mods, mostly mine. The goals of this install are:

• playtest the Scales of Balance Combat Skills component
• playtest a few other new things, like some kits in Might & Guile
• play IWD with all my favorite tweak mods (not possible these last few years with IWDEE on iOS)
• a blind first playthrough of IWD2 (!), on iOS (!!), with the AD&D 2E rules (!!!)

I just rolled up a Mage Hunter in the BG2 campaign, to immediately dual-class to a cleric with the FnP 'Scion of Bhaal' kit, to continue in spirit the game I played through SoD in my last install. The concept is: Charname was taught by Gorion some techniques to counter hostile spellcasters, which is who he anticipated would someday attack. (He did not see Sarevok coming, in more ways than one.) When Charname learned his true parentage in late BG1, it awoke his divine powers and this manifested as a change in class to cleric - though of course, he is not a cleric of any deity, but rather of his own inherent divine spark, the remnants of Bhaal's power.

I plan to play at least through chapter 3 of BG2, since I have some mod content I need to test. Maybe go through the Underdark and Suldenesselar, since that is a lot of fun. I will almost certainly not play through ToB, since I did that last year and it's just not that great.

At some point I'll break away from BG2 and play through IWD. Six custom characters allows for some real diversity in which mod kits and classes I can use. And then I'll continue on to IWD2. I have adjusted the stats of all IWD2 creatures to be close to the unmodded game (accounting for the changed ruleset as best I can) and I have adjusted monster and quest XP rewards to amounts that I hope will more or less work for the whole game. We will see when I get there how good a job I did.

[subtledoctor]

Okay, so I am going to be a bit streamlined here. Probably won't swap a hundred NPCs in and out of the party.

Minsc died while fighting our way out of Chateau Irenicus. No chance to drag his body out to raise later. (The guy is a mountain.) The same fate befell Grey the Dog. So once I was out in Waukeen's Promenade, the party was:

• Charname, Mage Hunter ranger --> cleric of Bhaal(ish)
• Jaheira, fighter/druid multi
• Yoshimo, Ninja thief
• Kivan, Elven Archer ranger
• Adrian, sorcerer

A few bugs cropped up pretty immediately:

1) Yoshimo's innate abilities are wigging out a big. They disappear and reappear once per round. Something about "semi-innate" function, presumably. This did not happen last time when he was a multiclass F/T Ninja. Dunno if it's related to being single-class this time, or changes I made to the function in between installs. In any event, it doesn't really affect gameplay - I can use the abilities just fine, it's only that I notice the abilities button winking off and on ever so often. Not a big deal, I'll look into it when I can.**

2) Adrian has ~31 1st level spell slots, instead of 6. Not sure what this is, maybe some op42 effect affected him that shouldn't have, and the 1st-level spells wrapped around from 0 to 31. Or something.**

I'll export a savegame back to my computer, should be pretty easy to track down those issues.

As usual for my recent BG2 starts, my route from Wakeen's Promenade took my first to the Southerrn Edge and then to Tangled Oak Isle. There's a bunch of stuff to do there without lots of combat. One of the Southern Edge quests sends me to the Docks, where Yoshimo asks me to talk to Renal, so I did that. Then got into the thieves' guild quest. All of the Mae'Var content can be done without any fights until the end (a mod makes it so don't have to fight Rayic Gethras). Quests completed during this phase:

• Helped Dreppin save Nessie, again
• Obtained a dress for a man's daughter
• Gave some charity to a young prostitute
• Fixed a gnoll's halberd so he could go fight goblins
• Got a toy sword for a young girl
• Secured the Idol of Kozah and gave it to a depressed collector
• Helped a druidic baker make magic pretzels
• Killed a psychopathic playwright
• Retrieved a fishbone for a talking cat
• Began to investigate a disease affecting the Tangled Oak
• Stole the Symbol of Talos
• Retrieved Rayic Gethras' signet ring
• Retrieved some documents for Edwin
• Confronted a 'traitor' with sensitive information about Mae'Var
• Jaheira got cursed
• Recruited Auren Asaph
• Confronted and killed Baron Ployer
• Saved a magically poisoned man and returned him to the Harper Hold
• Asked by Xzar to find Montaron
• Retrieved a stuffed bear from a halfling murderer (who has 97 hit points!!)

Adrian is not a great fit for a party with such do-gooding ways, so he leaves to go drinking in Waukeen's Promenade, and I recruit Nalia D'Arnise. I spec out Auren as a fighter with the Cavalier kit (courtesy of Might & Guile), and Nalia as a cleric of Selune dual-classed to Illusionist.

The SoB Combat Skills component still has some weirdness with dual-classing. Nalia gets weird bonus pips in Ranged Accuracy and Miscellaneous Skills. Need to look into that.** EDIT - ah, I think I see, it looks like an interaction between Combat Skills and 5E Spellcasting. Or maybe an interaction among Combat Skills, 5E Spellcasting, and Dual-to-Kit. I'll have to disentangle these...

I just rested to prepare Nalia's spells and now it's daytime. I'm waiting on the wooden box to finish out the Southern Edge quest. I can investigate the back rooms of the Copper Coronet, or investigate the Bridge District murders, or investigate the Harper Hold for Xzar, or head to Castle D'Arnise to save Nalia's home. I choose the first option, and hit a more serious bug: killing the Beastmaster causes the game to freeze up. Doesn't crash the app, but it freezes things so that I have to manually kill the app. The first time it happened, I killed him and looted his key and bow, then started to walk away. So maybe a couple seconds after he died? Figured it might be a fluke, I tried the fight again. This time I killed him at range, before the other animals were dead, and even thought the fight wasn't over the app froze up within a second.

My first guess was that it could be related to this (an op272 effect trying to work on a dead actor) but glancing at his .CRE file, I see no such effect. In which case it is likely something in the area script or BALDUR.bcs. I'll have to look through the scripts.

EDIT - I tried again, and this time did not cast Stinking Cloud at the end of the corridor. The game kept running after the Beastmaster's death. I managed my inventory a bit, and then back in the main screen it froze up again... for about 10 seconds. Then a banter with Yoshimo fired. So I'll guess that it could be something to do with the modded Stinking Cloud spell, or possibly something to do with the Yoshimo Friendship mod.

Edited March 22, 2023 by subtledoctor

[subtledoctor]

The team progressed. It is now:

• Charname, Mage Hunter -> cleric
• Auren, Cavalier (fighter)
• Kivan, Elven Archer (ranger)
• Jaheira, fighter/druid
• Yoshimo, Ninja (thief)
• Nalia, cleric -> mage

I tried to give Nalia the Cleric of Selune kit, but she does not have the DR Selune kit's powers, instead she has a bunch of invisibility powers. Maybe I fat-fingered the screen when choosing the kit. Also he second kit, Illusionist, is not getting the extra Illusionist abilities from Tome & Blood. Not a big deal, since she shouldn't really be dualling into a kit anyway. So she is something like a cleric of Mask -> generalist mage. Basically. It's fine. She has a bit too many low-level casting slots, to the tune of a few extra Magic Missiles and Acid Arrows a day. I'll track down why, though honestly a couple extra Acid Arrows a day is not a big deal.

There was a new-to-me random encounter while travelling between districts in the city: six strangers demand to know who I am, then they polymorph into forms that match those of my party members. They all seem to be fighter/mages who cast Web and Stinking Cloud and Remove Magic and Sunfire and Mirror Image and Stoneskin. They all seem to have innate free Action and to be completely immune to spells I cast at them. (I didn't see any Magic Resistance checks in the combat log; spells like Holy Smite simply had zero effect.) This was SUPER annoying and seemed very cheesy. I don't know what mod it cam from, but I really did not enjoy it. There are plenty of party-v.-party fights in these games that are interesting and chaotic and fun; this one is not. It seems more of the variety that front-loads the enemies with nonsensical inherent immunity to most likely tactics a player might employ, while still allowing the player to succeed with this or that 'approved' technique - if only the player can discover it. Blergh... gross.

We did the following:

• Eliminated Mae'Var
• Investigated the Harper Hold for Xzar, with... ambivalent results
• Solved the mystery of the Tangled Oak's disease (and passed on the wildly OP loot it gives you)
• Cleared the Copper Coronet's fighting pits, and installed Hendak as the new proprietor
• Trapped the parasite in the Southern Edge
• Gave Wellyn his bear back
• Helped a paladin adopt a daughter
• Renunited Besamen and Baisera for one last embrace
• Confronted and killed Tirdir's kidnappers
• Solved the skinner murders in the Bridge District
• Cleared the Slaver headquarters in the Slums district
• Purchased a license to use arcane magic in the city
• Returned to the Harper Hold and defended against Galvarey
• Traveled to D'Arnise Keep to rid it of its attackers

...and that last one has taken up the bulk of my time. It all went normally, until after I killed TorGal. He mentioned a boss who sent him there, someone "stronger." Who sent them to attack, and why send trolls and yuan-ti? And how did they get into the Keep in the first place? And where were all the soldiers and villagers who lived in and around the Keep? It was perplexing not to find any bodies after the attack...
I searched around the basement, and... lo and behold, I found the secret tunnel that afforded them access. Was the attack over? Could the tunnel be used again? I followed it underground and at the other end I found more reptilian invaders!

Spoiler

 

Ruh roh!

I fought my way through hordes of lizard men and liberated some villagers, who gave me a bit too much XP for the task (** note to self!).

Then I fought trolls and spiders and some Talonite cultists! And liberated some more civilians who gave me too much XP (** note to self) and talked to an obviously deranged cleric of Ilmater who kept babbling about Kuldhar (** note to self) and gave me too much XP (** et cetera).

Then I stumbled upon a necromancer with a veritable army of cold wights and poison zombies and this whole level didn't make any sense (** note to self).

Then I blundered into what appeared to be an Eldathyn sanctuary? But then found what was happening to yet more of the civilians taken from the Keep.

Finally I struck into the heart of the yuan-ti caves, where they were torturing humans and worse, turning them into some kind of human-reptile hybrids. And I confronted a fiend from The Abyss who was behind the whole scheme! Not sure why though, there were a lot of conversational assumptions that I already knew of and was concerned with something called the Heartstone Gem. At any rate the marilith had to be put down, and I recovered said gem. Examination revealed that it is an item capable of "powerful divination," but that I "have no idea how to use it." Hmm... well, maybe someone can tell me how it can become useful...

The loot I obtained from all this spelunking was... a lot:

 

Spoiler

Top row: Presio's Robes, Dead Man's Face, Hammer Flail, Presio's Dagger, Long Sword of Confusion, the Sword of Days, a Returning Throwing Axe, and Bren Muller's Crossbow.

Bottom row: Baleful Mail, the Red Knight's Shield, a Ring of Resistance, Spinesheath, Erevain's Broadsword, Darkened Glory, a Battle Axe: Defender, and the Messenger of Sseth.

Finally I backtracked all the way through these various caves and back to D'Arnise Keep, where Nalia recruited me to become the temporary Lord to forestall her arranged marriage to Isaea Roenall. Seems fine, I'm sure the guy won't mind.

I now have 55,000gp - just shy of the 60,000 that Gaelan told me to collect. Maybe I should see him and talk about it.

...

 

So, this is my little 'easter egg' content in my "IWD Integration mod." It's pretty fun to take a BG2 party to Dragon's Eye! It's definitely on the easy side - the encounters are designed for a 6th/7th-level party, and I am 11th level. But it's not that far away from my power level, especially if faced early in BG2 before I have a lot of powerful equipment. And it's kind of fun to have a party who can really just plow through those hordes of enemies.

A few things still need adjusting - the XP rewards from the villagers/Sheemish/Egenia are too big (though not disastrously so). And all discussion of the Heartstone Gem needs to be removed (Egenia, Albion, and Yxunomei). I'm inclined to simply remove Egenia altogether, and to completely remove the Presio level. I'm not sure about the fake Eldathyn Sanctuary... it's out of place as a place you find in the tunnels of the attackers of D'Arnise Keep; but it fits as part of the community of yuan-ti who are eating and torturing the civilians who were taken from the Keep. I'm on the fence. And Yxunomei's dialogue needs to be completely changed - or Yxunomei herself needs to be completely changed, maybe swapped out for another demon, or a powerful yuan-ti leader, or maybe even a dragon? (But the lizard man king mentions her by name, so if she is removed then his dialogue would need changing too.)

None of that is too difficult. Just a short list of changes:

• Maybe add a line to Captain Arat saying that villagers who live near the Keep have been taken
• Change the villager & Sheemish XP rewards
• remove Egenia
• remove the whole Presio level
• replace Yxunomei's dialogue to explain what she wants with the Keep (as I mentioned elsewhere, something about trying to find the Flail of Ages would make sense, especially given it is an upgradeable artifact in TOB)

The RNG screwed me with that Ring of Resistance, but the other loot is very nice... probably too nice. There's a lot of good enchanted weapons, and some (Messenger of Sseth, Sword of Days, Red Knight's Shield) are extremely good.

Anyway, this really made D'Arnise Keep a properly epic quest. Really fun. I'm pretty happy with it. Now, with all that money, I guess I'm about to move to chapter 3! It was earlier than expected, given I tripled the fee via SCS.

Edited March 25, 2023 by subtledoctor

[argent77]

1 hour ago, subtledoctor said:

There was a new-to-me random encounter while travelling between districts in the city: six strangers demand to know who I am, then they polymorph into forms that match those of my party members.

That's actually vanilla game content. These "travellers" are supposed to be rakshasas in disguise (hence the magic resistance), and can appear after chapter 4 in random encounter areas.

[jmerry]

1 hour ago, subtledoctor said:

There was a new-to-me random encounter while travelling between districts in the city: six strangers demand to know who I am, then they polymorph into forms that match those of my party members. They all seem to be fighter/mages who cast Web and Stinking Cloud and Remove Magic and Sunfire and Mirror Image and Stoneskin. They all seem to have innate free Action and to be completely immune to spells I cast at them. (I didn't see any Magic Resistance checks in the combat log; spells like Holy Smite simply had zero effect.) This was SUPER annoying and seemed very cheesy. I don't know what mod it cam from, but I really did not enjoy it. There are plenty of party-v.-party fights in these games that are interesting and chaotic and fun; this one is not. It seems more of the variety that front-loads the enemies with nonsensical inherent immunity to most likely tactics a player might employ, while still allowing the player to succeed with this or that 'approved' technique - if only the player can discover it. Blergh... gross.

 

This sounds like a vanilla encounter that's supposed to come up in chapter 6 of SoA. The shapeshifters are rakshasa (RERAK01 through RERAK06), which explains their general combat style and immunity to low-level spells. SCS gives them better spells than vanilla (Chromatic Orb, Magic Missile, Melf's Acid Arrow). But ... well, it's not supposed to appear this early. The chapter check must have broken somehow.

[subtledoctor]

55 minutes ago, argent77 said:

can appear after chapter 4 in random encounter areas.

Ah, I’m guessing EET causes this, by rechaptering things. No wonder it’s so hard! …And also their AI stinks. I ended up able to plink them down one by one with a million arrows. Apparently ‘Better Calls for Help’ didn’t reach them…

[jmerry]

Digging in code for the issue ...

EET itself does a global patch for all chapter checks:

Spoiler

//changes chapter numbers in BG2 to use EET continuous chapter convention
ACTION_FOR_EACH var IN BCS DLG BEGIN
	COPY_EXISTING_REGEXP GLOB ~^.+\.%var%$~ ~override~
		PATCH_IF (NOT FILE_EXISTS ~%MOD_FOLDER%/temp/patch/%var%/%SOURCE_FILE%~) BEGIN //need to be added before converting BCS and DLG to BAF and D
			DECOMPILE_AND_PATCH BEGIN
				REPLACE_TEXTUALLY ~IncrementGlobal~ ~IncrementReplaceMe~ //we don't want to patch this one
				REPLACE_EVALUATE CASE_INSENSITIVE ~\([A-Za-z]*Global[A-Za-z]*("CHAPTER","GLOBAL",\)\([0-9]+\))~ BEGIN //this should take care of SetGlobal, Global, GlobalGT, GlobalLT
					SET value = MATCH2 + 12
					PATCH_PRINT ~Patching %SOURCE_FILESPEC%: %MATCH2% => %MATCH1%%value%)~
				END
				~%MATCH1%%value%)~
				REPLACE_TEXTUALLY ~IncrementReplaceMe~ ~IncrementGlobal~
			END
		END
	BUT_ONLY
END

 

That would replace that "GlobalGT("Chapter","GLOBAL",4)" check with "GlobalGT("Chapter","GLOBAL",16)" in the random encounter area scripts. First pass, and we're fine. EET does clean up after itself.

But EET isn't the last pass at those scripts. SCS has a component for these random encounters, which is in your log. It deletes the original version of this encounter entirely, only to replace it with a new block from tactical_bg2/ssl/dw#random.ssl:

Spoiler

// The random group of rakshasa assassins

IF
	OnCreation()
	GlobalGT("RandomEncounters","GLOBAL",1)
	Global("DMWWRandomTravelers","GLOBAL",0)
	GlobalGT("chapter","GLOBAL",5)
THEN 
	RESPONSE #100
		SetGlobal("DMWWRandomTravelers","GLOBAL",1)
		CreateCreature("RERAK01",[488.558],10) // Traveler
		CreateCreature("RERAK02",[500.454],10) // Traveler
		CreateCreature("RERAK03",[552.476],10) // Traveler
		CreateCreature("RERAK04",[427.548],10) // Traveler
		CreateCreature("RERAK05",[525.591],10) // Traveler
		CreateCreature("RERAK06",[585.542],10) // Traveler
END

 

No trilogy check there. It's just a bare chapter check. Same for the other rakshasa encounters added, in which they're after the Flail of Ages.

So ... don't blame EET. This is an SCS bug, failing to account for EET in its scripting.

[subtledoctor]

1 hour ago, jmerry said:

don't blame EET. This is an SCS bug

Oh, huh. Is that #8050, “Improved Random Encounters?” I thought I had excluded SCS as the source, because I did not get this encounter in my last game, and I thought that one had the same SCS components. I must have been mistaken. (Also, like I say, the AI on these rakshasa is garbage, they do not seem SCS-ish at all, so I was looking a different direction.

At any rate, it’s more good information to know, don’t install SCS Improved BG2 Random Encounters on EET.

[jastey]

8 hours ago, jmerry said:

Digging in code for the issue ...

EET itself does a global patch for all chapter checks:

  Reveal hidden contents

//changes chapter numbers in BG2 to use EET continuous chapter convention
ACTION_FOR_EACH var IN BCS DLG BEGIN
	COPY_EXISTING_REGEXP GLOB ~^.+\.%var%$~ ~override~
		PATCH_IF (NOT FILE_EXISTS ~%MOD_FOLDER%/temp/patch/%var%/%SOURCE_FILE%~) BEGIN //need to be added before converting BCS and DLG to BAF and D
			DECOMPILE_AND_PATCH BEGIN
				REPLACE_TEXTUALLY ~IncrementGlobal~ ~IncrementReplaceMe~ //we don't want to patch this one
				REPLACE_EVALUATE CASE_INSENSITIVE ~\([A-Za-z]*Global[A-Za-z]*("CHAPTER","GLOBAL",\)\([0-9]+\))~ BEGIN //this should take care of SetGlobal, Global, GlobalGT, GlobalLT
					SET value = MATCH2 + 12
					PATCH_PRINT ~Patching %SOURCE_FILESPEC%: %MATCH2% => %MATCH1%%value%)~
				END
				~%MATCH1%%value%)~
				REPLACE_TEXTUALLY ~IncrementReplaceMe~ ~IncrementGlobal~
			END
		END
	BUT_ONLY
END

 

That would replace that "GlobalGT("Chapter","GLOBAL",4)" check with "GlobalGT("Chapter","GLOBAL",16)" in the random encounter area scripts. First pass, and we're fine. EET does clean up after itself.

But EET isn't the last pass at those scripts. SCS has a component for these random encounters, which is in your log. It deletes the original version of this encounter entirely, only to replace it with a new block from tactical_bg2/ssl/dw#random.ssl:

  Reveal hidden contents

// The random group of rakshasa assassins

IF
	OnCreation()
	GlobalGT("RandomEncounters","GLOBAL",1)
	Global("DMWWRandomTravelers","GLOBAL",0)
	GlobalGT("chapter","GLOBAL",5)
THEN 
	RESPONSE #100
		SetGlobal("DMWWRandomTravelers","GLOBAL",1)
		CreateCreature("RERAK01",[488.558],10) // Traveler
		CreateCreature("RERAK02",[500.454],10) // Traveler
		CreateCreature("RERAK03",[552.476],10) // Traveler
		CreateCreature("RERAK04",[427.548],10) // Traveler
		CreateCreature("RERAK05",[525.591],10) // Traveler
		CreateCreature("RERAK06",[585.542],10) // Traveler
END

 

No trilogy check there. It's just a bare chapter check. Same for the other rakshasa encounters added, in which they're after the Flail of Ages.

So ... don't blame EET. This is an SCS bug, failing to account for EET in its scripting.

Tagging @DavidW for this.

[polytope]

If SCS does not want to duplicate the EET chapter increment code, the trigger for appearance of the rakshasas could be as simple as checking whether the party has returned from Spellhold i.e. GlobalGT("AsylumPlot","GLOBAL",50), or spoken to Elhan.

As for the Raks AI, they lack help scripts to notice and assist each other if you manage to LOS them, because they didn't have any such scripts in vanilla and SCS doesn't know what allegiance in terms of shout ids to give them (this is a problem with many other creatures too, like the warden of the planar prison), and are lower level than most raks you'll meet in game, but otherwise they use SCS rak AI and spellbooks, although memorizing Ghost Armour is redundant for creatures which have a better natural AC.

Edited March 25, 2023 by polytope
Typo

[subtledoctor]

Meantime, back in Athkatla I was indeed contacted by Brus, as well as Valen. Valen creeped me out so I went to talk to Gaelan Bayle again, and he had this to say:

Spoiler

Small Teeth Pass appeared on my map. Interesting.

Jaheira and Kivan have been asking to get some time outside the gritty city, and a kid named Delon asked me to look into trouble brewing in the Umar Hills, and these acorns have been burning a hole in my pocket. So I will take a tour of the countryside, heading to the Windspear Hills, then to Imnesvale, and then Small Teeth Pass.

Then once we're back in Athkatla, maybe we'll talk to this fellow:

Spoiler

Away we go!

EDIT - before I leave, I wonder if it's worth making some changes to the party. Maybe let Yoshimo stay in the city, and grab someone else for trapfinding? Keto perhaps? Or Haer'Dalis? ("Bards" are functionally mage/thieves in my game.)

The banters from the Yoshimo Friendship mod have been fantastic, I’ll be sad to see him go. (At least I assume they are from that mod. There have been banters between him and Jaheira, him and Kivan, him and Nalia… I suppose it could be from something else, like IEP Banter Pack?

But the Haer’Dalis friendship mod is as good as or better than Yoshimo’s, so it would be a fine substitution. 

Then considering swapping Mazzy in for Kivan.

Edited March 25, 2023 by subtledoctor

[jmerry]

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.