My latest super-modded EET game - with more IWD

[InKal]

19 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

 I had hit level 4 as a fighter and dualled to druid under Jaheira’s tutelage.

Jaheira has really bad influence on you. She even made you forget that this is EET, not the original saga. I don't really want to know what she actually did to convince you to dual to druid at level 4 in EET game.

[Connelly]

27 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

I wanted to take Littlun on as my archer, but I can’t find her. Maybe she disappears after the Gnoll Stronghold is cleared? Or if you leave the Bear River map without picking her up right away?

She does. Her introduction is that she's tracking the gnolls that took Dynaheir. She even joins with a timer that pretty much forces you to go straight to the stronghold or she leaves.

[subtledoctor]

21 hours ago, Connelly said:

[Littlun's] introduction is that she's tracking the gnolls that took Dynaheir. She even joins with a timer that pretty much forces you to go straight to the stronghold or she leaves.

Ah. That's annoying. Well, annoying for this playthrough anyway, since it really means you can't have Jaheira/Khalid with you when you go to rescue Dynaheir.

More generally, playing these games together in an EET game is a bit weird. When the games are separate, you figure you will play each game multiple times, and bring different NPCs into your party. So when Safana talks to you like she knows you in SoD, or Mod Kivan does that in SoA, even if you didn't take them along in your most recent game of BG1, you almost surely did at some point in the past. So it kind of works. Whereas, in a single EET  game I know Kivan is going to come up and act like we are bros, and that puts pressure on me to take him into the party for at least a chapter or so of BG1. And ditto J/K/M/D, and Imoen, and Safana, and Brandock and Breagar and Sirene and... lots and lots of NPCs. it definitely complicates my party composition in the BG1 campaign, and makes it a bit more difficult to find room for NPCs like Littlun, Valerie, Flara, etc.

21 hours ago, InKal said:

I don't really want to know what she actually did to convince you to dual to druid at level 4 in EET game.

I'm playing with a modded proficiency system so levels 7/9/13 don't mean much to me. Technically it would have been more optimal to play fighter through level 6, since in my system you get pips every 2 levels and can get mastery at 6. But I wanted Jaheira to leave the party in chapter 3 and I wanted to dual while she was still around for pure role-playing reasons.

As it is I am now a fighter 4/druid 6, with specialization in scimitar/quarterstaff/bows/single-weapon style. So I have base 2 APR with scimitars and 3/2 with quarterstaff (and more damage/crits with 2-hand style). I can get more proficiency points at levels 9, 12, 15, 18 and 21, which will let me get to mastery and base 5/2 APR with scimitars, mastery and base 2APR and extra damage with quarterstaff. That, with a full-level single-class druid. A pretty solid thac0 plus buff spells like barkskin/stoneskin plus lots of spells from a sphere system means I am very flexible and not stuck in a support role.

Also, I had the Samurai kit before dual-classing and the Samurai ki abilities share a point resource with my druid shapeshifting, which means I combine the point pool and have more uses of both sets of abilities.   This is a fun character.

Edited January 26 by subtledoctor

[Morgoth]

I enjoy a lot reading your playthroughs. I would publish your weidu when you start a new one, so people can take inspiration.
 

Agree about the mirror encounter in the Black Hearts. That's the lowest point of the mod, but even if it's the lowest, it's far from being bad. But could definitely be executed better.

Edited January 27 by Morgoth

[subtledoctor]

17 hours ago, Morgoth said:

I enjoy a lot reading your playthroughs. I would publish your weidu when you start a new one

Thanks! I added the most recent install order to the first post in this thread. It is very much broken down into categories: BG1 quests, then BG2 quests, then BG1 NPCs, then BG2 NPCs, then friendship/crossmod stuff, then items, then spells, then IWD stuff, then spell tweaks, then kits and Unearthed Arcana mods, then most tweaks, then EET_end/SCS, then late tweaks. I’ll wait til BG2 to judge whether all the content went in without conflicts, but so far, so good! It’s worth checking out. 

[subtledoctor]

Okay, I may have been swayed by the question of when to dual-class. I went back and loaded a save at 3rd level, before picking up Minsc. I could play this fighter to level 6, picking up more of my fighter skills from the Combat Skills & Proficiencies mod and more ki powers. That would let me get to mastery in scimitars, clubs, or bows. Then dual to druid and focus on quartstaff and 2-hand style, to specialization. 

Then the question is, what kind of druid to be? Options are

1) Regular druid. My ki points from my earlier career as a samurai would work to fuel more shapeshifts per day. Which is cool. But, does not synergize with that weapon mastery. 

2) Totemic druid. The ki points would not synergize with my spirit animal summoning… but it could if I changed totemic summoning to use my “semi-spontaneous-innate” mechanism! Which is maybe worth doing anyway. 

3) Lost druid. Solely for rp reasons. A druid, but tinged with death. Pros: super cool, and access to the sphere of Death. Cons: no access to the sphere of life/healing (!!)

I’m leaning toward option #2. 

Meanwhile, going back to chapter 2 can make NPC management easier. I picked up Breagar and Brandock before Nashkel. Ran through the mines and the SE corner of the map. Then Breagar leaves the party and goes back to the smithy. Perfect! I can drop J&K, and go pick up Minsc & Littlun & Dynaheir. Then go through the SW corner of the map, then trade Minsc & Dynaheir for Breagar & Neera. 

The only thing giving me pause is, when leaving Breagar said something like “Come see me at the smithy - don’t take long!” Does that mean it will get screwed up if I take too long to see him? Sigh. These NPC mods give me anxiety. 

Edited January 28 by subtledoctor

[subtledoctor]

Another note on Breagar: his kit is SUPER underwhelming.

Advantages:

• a bit of fire resistance (meh)
• innate Spiritual Hammer (meh)

Disadvantages

• Can only get GM in two weapon proficiencies (doesn't say what the limit is for others)
• No shield-fighting, no dual-wielding, and (spoiler for the mod's BG1 content)
  Spoiler

  missing a ring slot!

That is rough for a basic fighter kit with not much to do except front-line work. The ability to tank is severely hampered by the lack of shield use, and there's nothing that really makes up for it. I'll have to think of some stuff to spice it up without leaving the "master smith" theme behind. An obvious special ability is the Enchanted Weapon spell... though that spell is of extremely limited utility so it doesn't add much. Maybe something sound-based? The Smith is so use to the ringing of his hammer against an anvil that he can perform a special Thunderwave-style attack? Kind of like a paladin's Smite, but themed for a smith. Maybe something defensive? Maybe the smith's intimate knowledge of the form and maintenance of armor grants a bonus to AC or DR? That would offset the lack of shields - to an extent.

Edited January 28 by subtledoctor

[Morgoth]

I would be interested in an addon to be applied to Breagar to change his kit. Btw, you think it is underwhelming per se, or is it made underwhelming due to the mod you use and the changes they do?

 

[subtledoctor]

59 minutes ago, Morgoth said:

I would be interested in an addon to be applied to Breagar to change his kit. Btw, you think it is underwhelming per se, or is it made underwhelming due to the mod you use and the changes they do?

Actually my mods make him less bad. In my game:

— SWS gives better thac0 and APR

— DW gives better APR but worse thac0, and a slight melee AC bonus

— 2-Handed gives better thac0 and damage

— Shield-fighting gives better defense and shield bash

With Item Revisions’ Revised Shields, you really want a shield for tanking, and dual-wielding is second-best. Breagar can do neither of those things, and I’m not about to have him pitch stones from a sling. However, with mastery in axes and specialized in SWS, he has 5/2 APR and very good thac0. So he is kind of in the same role as a Kensai or something. I gave him the Dodge and Parry feats to keep him alive while dishing out damage. 

The kit I think has less power and less utility compared to other fighter kits and other classes. Not good for tanking, can’t dual wield (the usual way to be a damage dealer), nothing to protect against magic… it feels like the way to make him good is to give him magic items. But you could give those magic items to a warrior with any kit. 

As far as what to do about it: with FnP and NPC_EE I could make hime a Champion of Moradin. (Moradin being god of the forge and the breath of life which actually kind of makes sense for a baker’s apprentice? Kind of?) That paladin kit is sort of similar to the Smith: great with war hammers, and innate Spiritual Hammer IIRC. But it would give him a few spells eventually, and let him Smite and Lay On Hands. 

But that’s dangerous, because I don’t know if he has any script/dialogue checks for his kit (don’t know why he would, but it seems more likely for this mod than others); or less importantly, whether he has dialogues/story elements talking about just being a fighter, not using magic, etc. 

The alternative, which I lean toward, is to code up some fun bonuses for his existing kit on my own machine. Like, doing a sound-based Smite-style thing that can deafen targets? There’s an anti-caster skill. And maybe in fact he is half-deaf himself, and thus resistant to Commands and Power Words? Maybe he can imbue weapons with a selection of bonus abilities - not permanently, of course, without a full smithy and rare elements. But maybe temporarily, for 8 hours or so? 

There’s three ideas just off the top of my head, which would all be pretty fun and useful. If I sit and think for half an hour maybe I’ll come up with more/better ones. Or if anyone has other ideas, I’m open to coding it up. (Not for distribution, but just for personal use.)

[subtledoctor]

Incidentally I’m going a bit crazy with Minsc, mostly because I don’t expect him to spend much time in the party. Usually I change him to the fighter class and the Barbarian kit. Greatswords/axes/clubs and he can use a shield to offset the lack of plate mail, or rage out and go 2-handed to mow down enemies. 

But this time I gave him… the Cavalier kit?? Might & Guile puts it in the fighter class so it works in that you don’t have “Minsc the Paladin” which would be stupid. Fearless, extra tough (poison resistant), protective of others, and “full plate and packing steel!” I mean, it sounds like Minsc. Or, it sounds like how Minsc sees himself in his head. So I’m going with it. And of course he still has his personal Berserk ability to rage out. So, I’m rolling with Minsc the Cavalier. 

[subtledoctor]

Hm. Combining point pools for different kits with pooled abilities is a nice idea, but doesn’t quite work. Each group of abilities only works with itself, with files named for that kit rather than for the stat that governs the point pool. 

On reflection, I should have different abilities that share a point pool stat join together. It won’t change the way they function alone, but would be better for compatibility. 

Will take some work though. 

[subtledoctor]

Progress:

So I went back to level 4, stayed on as a fighter up to level 6. Thanks to my modified XP tables, that was quick, at 22,000 xp instead of 32,000 xp. Getting to level 7 as a druid will take longer with my tables, though - 50,000 instead of 35,000. God, the vanilla XP tables are so weird. A 10th or 11th or 12th level ranger needs four times the xp of a druid at the same level. A ranger with the same xp as the druid would be three full levels behind. That is utterly bonkers! Somehow the AD&D 2E writers took the wacky 1E xp progression and... decided to make it even weirder? Huh?

Anyhoo. So Jaheira and Khalid came and went, Minsc and Dynaheir came and went, and I am back to a variant of the former party: Charname is currently a 3rd-level druid, Imoen is a 6/6 M/T Jinxer; Littlun is a 6th-level Stalker specializing in crossbows and short swords; Breagar is on melee duty with axes and hammers; Brandock is a C/M Seeker of Oghma, on identification duty and casting a huge swath of spells; and we just picked up Neera who stays a wild mage. We're about to do the Black Hearts fights and then go to Larswood/Peldvale/Bandit Camp. (I never mind doing the Bandit Camp twice!) Also will pass through Firewine Ruins on the way to Adoy's Enclave, and I have tweaked things so that Wild Mages actually cast spells better in wild magic zones (I mean, better than other mages - she should have like a 40% chance to cast successfully) so that should be fun.

Here's an even more annoying thing about Breagar: in order to enforce his lack of shield-fighting for plot reasons, the mod puts an invisible item in his shield slot. So you can equip anything there, which is fine and correct. BUT, the game is hard-coded to read that slot when applying fighting styles, so even though he put pips into single-weapon style, and he is fighting with a single weapon, the game thinks he has a shield and gives him no SWS benefits. Which are important benefits at this point: a thac0 bonus, and +APR! Indignity upon indignity! This won't stand, I think I am going to modify that and just be on the honor system to not equip a shield.

EDIT - on the bright side though, I gave Breagar a 'Resounding Strike' ability to spiffy up his kit a little bit, as well as a 50% chance to evade the effects of Chant, Command, and Power Word spells.

Edited February 2 by subtledoctor

[subtledoctor]

I’m getting crashes when enemies die, and it is SUPER annoying. And quite random, very hard to reproduce. I have to restart the app, which, with an override folder of 130,000 files on an underpowered iPad, takes a long time. Just happened twice with “charmed pirates” on the nereid coast  

Someone a few months ago ( @jmerry?) raised the idea that it might be due to repeating .EFFs, but the only repeated effects on charmed pirates are the ones added by my own mod, which I’ve been playing with for years and I never had this before. 

The only other thing I noticed about the charmed pirates is they possess three items: DW#RND06.itm, DW#RND12.itm, and DW#RND22.itm. The items are empty files which are presumably replaced with random loot by… script? This must come from SCS but I don’t know how it is supposed to work. Even when the game does not crash, I am not finding any random loot. So something is misfiring, and… maybe it should be safe to simply remove all of those .itm files from all creatures? 

One possibility: maybe SCS is trying to use the IWD random loot mechanism (otherwise unused in BGEE and BG2EE)? And one of my mods replaces the default IWD random table for use in the IWD campaign added by tipun’s mod (and tipun’s mod itself probably replaces the table before my mod). Knowing that SCS is hyper-sensitive to preexisting .2da table format… this is my current hypothesis.

Question is whether it’s worth fixing, or better to simply rip it out and move on.

[DavidW]

That hypothesis looks likely; certainly I do use the IWD loot system in a couple of places, including potion drops iirc.

[subtledoctor]

19 minutes ago, DavidW said:

That hypothesis looks likely; certainly I do use the IWD loot system in a couple of places, including potion drops iirc.

Ah, that could be. I’ve seen these guys use potions, even though the .cre file has no potions in the inventory. I thought the randomized item replacement was occurring upon their death and was causing he crash; but from this I infer that the random item replacement occurs earlier, maybe when the .cre is loaded? Which, on reflection, is a good way to diversify the capabilities and behavior of otherwise identical creatures! So kudos for that.

And maybe the issue is, an item is being placed that shouldn’t be, maybe with a broken .bam or something, and so causes the crash when it is dropped. Or something. Or maybe a relevant row of the table is missing, and the dummy items drop, and they cause a crash. 

So maybe a fix looks like: install SCS on vanilla BG2EE, and look at the differences between the random tables there and in my install. It’s been a while since I looked at them… I think this system refers to RNDTRES.2da. 

Or, if recreating a working table is too onerous after the fact, maybe those dummy items should simply be marked as undroppable. If they don’t drop when a creature dies, they shouldn't cause problems. (Unless the replacement item inherits the undroppable flag, which presumably would be undesirable.)

Edited February 6 by subtledoctor