Improved Integration of tipun’s IWD mods

[subtledoctor]

This is kind of a ‘mod for a mod,’ in that it cannot be installed unless another mod is installed first. (And that mod cannot be installed unless a third mod is installed before it!) But don’t be intimidated! 

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So: first off, this is just for EET. tipun’s IWD mods require EET, they cannot be installed just on BGEE or BG2EE, and there’s nothing I can do about that. 

Second: this is all about modifying the way you experience content from tipun’s IWD mods. These include 1) a mod that adds the whole IWD game into your EET game, 2) a mod that adds the whole IWD2 game into your EET game, and 3) a currently rudimentary mod that adds some hooks allowing you to get to the Ten Towns and back from the Sword Coast. 

This IWD EET Integration mod requires all three of those to be installed. Now, that may sound intimidating (two whole games stuffed into your game??), but it’s really not bad! Each of those only takes about one minute to install, and they have not caused any problems in my game. Yes, each of those games has its own story and its own place but my view is, making BG2 content mods is hard and inefficient, and here is a metric ton of professional-quality content we can pick and choose from! So why not. 

A further note about tipun’s mods: they are designed with a specific vision about how IWD content presents itself in your game. He intends IWD1 to be played by a party before starting the SoD chapters; so the IWD goblins have like 60 hit points and thac0 12 and all XP awards are tiny. IWD2 content is designed to be played after you get through the Underdark in BG2, so the enemy stats there are even more inflated. 

I have different ideas about how to encounter IWD content. One, I want the IWD campaigns to be playable from level 1, like you can start other campaigns from the main menu. Two, I want IWD content to be integrated a bit more selectively into an EET game. Certain sections of IWD work as distinct quests or prestige dungeons, but the main IWD storyline can remain distinct. So this mod has several components to support this alternate way of interacting with IWD content. 

Component 100 puts the IWD games into the EET ‘Campaigns’ menu.

It basically does what it says on the tin:

Note however, the content of the two IWD campaigns (enemy stats and scripted XP awards) is still balanced as tipun designed. The following components address those issues. 

Components 110 and 115 adjust XP awards and enemy stats (respectively) for playing the IWD1 game starting at level 1, instead of from inside an EET game at level ~7. 

Components 130 and 135 adjust XP awards and enemy stats (respectively) for playing the IWD2 game starting at level 1, instead of from inside an EET game at level ~16. 

Component 150 adds Hjollder to the Bridge District in Athkatla so you can play the HoW quest on its own in the early part of SoA. This will work independent of any of the earlier components. If you have already started Hjollder’s quest from some other point, he will not be in the Bridge District. NOTE: this is still being tested, there could be some issues with scripts getting you back to Athkatla from HoW.

Component 155 removes a few wildly OP items from Burial Isle in HoW: Blood Iron, Young Rage, and Svian’s Club.

Component 160 adds some IWD1 locations (some Dragon’s Eye interiors and the Severed Hand fortress) to the area around Athkatla as part of a new small quest. Severed Hand is here retconned as being an elven outpost at the edge of the Forest of Tethir; the Dragon’s Eye content is simply some caves in the sword coast full of trolls and yuan-ti. The marilith at the end may or may not be Yxunomei, it does not really matter.

This content is discoverable very early in SoA, you will need to look for it (pay attention to any unresolved mysteries). But if your party has already been to Easthaven by whatever means, this content will be closed off to you.

Edited September 5, 2023 by subtledoctor

[subtledoctor]

In case there are any questions about how Trials of the Luremaster in integrated: it isn’t. I suppose it is still available as normal in Lonelywood, and I might tweak Hobart’s presence at some point. But if you want to play TotLM as a prestige dungeon in EET or BG2EE, I recommend Argent77’s excellent TotLM-in-BG2EE mod. Tipun suggests installing Argent77’s mod after tipun’s mods for best compatibility. I have a game set up this way right now, and I’m in the process of testing everything. 

[Shin]

Been away from the game for awhile, but really cool to finally have it all available as a single, comprehensive and moddable install. Only Black Pits 2 missing now.

[subtledoctor]

33 minutes ago, Shin said:

Only Black Pits 2 missing now

It’s in there! 

EDIT - I mean, as a separate campaign. I don’t think there’s a reasonable way to integrate it in an EET campaign without ripping it apart and making a completely new mod, like Black Hearts does with BP1. 

[Endarire]

Thankee, doc!

I too want to know how TotLM in EET works with IWD in EET in terms of compatibility, bugs, and redundancy.

[subtledoctor]

Well Argent77’s mod is completely independent, so AFAIK there are no shared resources and no conflicts. (That is distinct from what this mod does, which uses some mildly convoluted scripted conditions to let the same areas and content be played differently from different originating points. For example, if you find your way to the Dragon’s Eye caves from Athkatla, you will completely skip the level with Presio and his cold wights, and Yxunomei’s dialogue will not mention Kuldahar or her adversary. If you go there from Easthaven, it will all play out normally. But both approaches use the same files.)

In my current install there are two different Hobarts - one in tipun’s Lonelywood and one in Imnesvale - and each will bring you to a different version of TotLM. As I say, I might add a component to this mod to address it - remove one Hobart if you’ve already taken the quest from the other - but it’s a low priority. 

(EDIT - I suppose it’s possible the two versions of TotLM might use the same variables or something. Trying to play the content twice might not work. (But why would you do that anyway??) All the more reason to remove the second Hobart after you’ve played it.)

The only place there might be issues is with IWD spells. Currently there are lots of ways to get IWD spells into your game: IWDification, SCS, FnP, b_Spells, TotLM_in_BG2EE, and IWD1_EET. Maybe more. I know FnP, b_Spells, and TotLM_in_BG2EE are all deferential, they will step out of the way if you already installed spells from IWDification or SCS. I don’t know if tipun’s IWD1_EET is similarly deferential. I don’t really know how it deals with spells. I actually would really like to know the answer, because IMHO IWDification has the best, most bug-free implementation of IWD spells in their EE incarnations, so I want to make sure those are the spells in my game.

Right now I have installed IWDification spells —> IWD1_EET —> TotLM_in_BG2EE, and everything seems to be working well. I am not seeing any problems in the game. But I’m not totally sure whether everything is optimized and using the best versions of the spells? It’s possible tipun’s mod overwrote some IWDification spells. I haven’t had the time to crack open the game to do a deep dive into the files.

If anyone has any insight into this I would appreciate any info.  

Edited April 12, 2023 by subtledoctor

[argent77]

IWD1_EET and TotLM-in-BG2EE share quite a lot of resources, since they both are more or less straight imports from IWD with only slight modifications. TotLM-in-BG2EE prefixes several resource and variable names to avoid potential name collisions while IWD1_EET does not. I would also be interested how well both mods work together.

The only real issue I noticed is when you use IWD1_EET Hobart to teleport to the castle courtyard. Hobart's IWD1_EET dialog initializes a differently named master quest variable (without prefix). Everything else should (theoretically) not interfere with the game outside of the adventure.

Edit: That doesn't appear to be an issue either, since Hobart's dialog file is also replaced by TotLM-in-BG2EE. However, after the quest is completed the party will return to the Umar Hills Inn instead. I'll see if I can fix that by another mod update.

Edit 2: There is at least one more compatibility issue. The ring that can be used to return from Castle Maluradek is not updated by TotLM-in-BG2EE and therefore doesn't work correctly. You'd probably have to return manually via cheat console. There may be more issues, but I have to play through the whole mod to identify them. It may take a while.

Edited April 13, 2023 by argent77

[subtledoctor]

16 hours ago, argent77 said:

There is at least one more compatibility issue. The ring that can be used to return from Castle Maluradek is not updated by TotLM-in-BG2EE and therefore doesn't work correctly. You'd probably have to return manually via cheat console. There may be more issues, but I have to play through the whole mod to identify them. It may take a while.

Seems easy enough to address. I can do it here in this mod, or since I’m knee-deep in this stuff already I could test out some solutions and give you the code  

I am testing right now and HoW integration is not working with the IWD1_EET mod. At first Hjollder would not teleport me to Lonelywood - he acted as if I start a new HoW-only game with characters already in Lonelywood. I set a variable to fix that, but now Hjollder does not teleport away after bringing me there, and when I go to the Barb Camp the game thinks I’m further along than I am. (Elk Tribe people attacking Wyrm Tribe people, and conversations about following Wylfdene’s spirit. And the Glacier place is already on my map.)

So I need to figure that out before component 150 will be usable. 

[Shin]

21 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

It’s in there! 

EDIT - I mean, as a separate campaign. I don’t think there’s a reasonable way to integrate it in an EET campaign without ripping it apart and making a completely new mod, like Black Hearts does with BP1. 

Hmm, yeah, I mean like with BG1/SoD, even without mods the BP1 resources are included and you can essentially just teleport your party to the BP starting area and the scripts will kick in. Is it the same with BP2?

[subtledoctor]

Oh I don’t know. I’ve never played BP2 and don’t know how it works. I’ve read that it has major story conflicts with BG2/ToB, so it wouldn’t make sense to send an EET party there. (Unlike BP1, which has almost no story conflicts and I actually made a mod to let a BGEE/EET go there.) Would there be technical problems, if you were willing to tolerate the plot problems? I don’t know. Very possibly. 

[Endarire]

Black Pits II: Neera's ToB quest takes you to some of the same areas as BP2.  It's a mini-BP2 in essence.  There will likely be story conflicts.

IWD 1 in EET: Tipun told me he didn't add any IWD spells to this mod, but I'm unsure if we properly understood each other.  I'd much prefer to use IWDification's version of IWD spells since it's SCS compatible and doesn't require game version 2.6.  How to do that?

Thankee!

[subtledoctor]

On 4/13/2023 at 3:53 PM, Endarire said:

I'm unsure if we properly understood each other.  I'd much prefer to use IWDification's version of IWD spells since it's SCS compatible and doesn't require game version 2.6.  How to do that?

Your guess is as good as mine. This is all largely untested. I’ve got a game with all of this installed and a thread in the General Discussions forum where the weidu.log is posted. Feel free to use that as example of my best guess. 

Edited September 5, 2023 by subtledoctor

[subtledoctor]

I've updated the mod to version 0.9, fixing a potential-but-unlikely dialogue hole, and I think fixing the issues with getting to and from HoW.

I think there is still a balance issue that needs addressing, in that the gear dropped by the Luskan mercenaries is just too damn good. Not a huge deal, though. I’ll get around to it. 

Edited April 14, 2023 by subtledoctor

[argent77]

On 4/12/2023 at 10:40 PM, argent77 said:

IWD1_EET and TotLM-in-BG2EE share quite a lot of resources, since they both are more or less straight imports from IWD with only slight modifications. TotLM-in-BG2EE prefixes several resource and variable names to avoid potential name collisions while IWD1_EET does not. I would also be interested how well both mods work together.

The only real issue I noticed is when you use IWD1_EET Hobart to teleport to the castle courtyard. Hobart's IWD1_EET dialog initializes a differently named master quest variable (without prefix). Everything else should (theoretically) not interfere with the game outside of the adventure.

Edit: That doesn't appear to be an issue either, since Hobart's dialog file is also replaced by TotLM-in-BG2EE. However, after the quest is completed the party will return to the Umar Hills Inn instead. I'll see if I can fix that by another mod update.

Edit 2: There is at least one more compatibility issue. The ring that can be used to return from Castle Maluradek is not updated by TotLM-in-BG2EE and therefore doesn't work correctly. You'd probably have to return manually via cheat console. There may be more issues, but I have to play through the whole mod to identify them. It may take a while.

After a quick walkthrough I can say that the mods are currently not fully compatible (and will probably never be). You may get stuck at some point without the use of cheats or resource modifications, and scripting of several creatures doesn't work correctly.

I have already fixed (most of) these issues in the devel branch of the mod. Some other (non-critical) issues are probably not fixable without undesired side effects, such as several of the unique creature improvements and some creature scriptings. This is mostly because IWD1_EET uses a different mechanism to control creature behavior which clashes sometimes with the way how TotLM-in-BG2EE handles creatures.

[subtledoctor]

@argent77 Thanks for looking into it!