DavidW

I'll close this thread since v34 is now available - thanks to everyone for feedback and bug reports. I don't always reply, but I read everything, and most of the bugs on this thread should have been addressed in v34.

Sword Coast Stratagems is a collection of interconnected mini-mods for Baldur's Gate (on the BGT/BGTUTU/BGEE versions) and Baldur's Gate II. It is primarily a tactical and AI-enhancement mod: the idea is to make the game's combat more interesting, tactically challenging, and realistic by more effective use of, and choices of, creatures' abilities. It also contains a few rule tweaks and ease-of-use features. Version 34 is largely a bug-fixing release: it fixes several issues (some critical) caused by the release of version 2.6 of BGEE/BG2EE, corrects a severe bug in mage AI accidentally introduced in v33.5, and solves 20-odd more minor issues. It also updates the Icewind Dale spells to IWDEE2.6, makes those spells available on non-Enhanced-edition versions of the game, adds a small new component for BG1 (Improved Carsa/Kahrk interaction), allows enemy spellcasters to use Icewind Dale spells even if the Spell Revisions mod is installed, and makes a few other minor AI and spellsystem tweaks. Grab it direct here. You can also visit the extensive project pages, readme, or SCS forum for more information.

Changelog: New or Substantially Modified Content New experimental 'batch mode' install option, allowing you to choose all components before any of them install. Substantial revision to the IWD spells components, incorporating the latest version of IWDification (joint work with CamDawg): IWD spells are now available on original BG2 as well as on the Enhanced Edition Updated to v2.6 IWDEE spells Spells now match BG2 cosmetic style for visual/sound effects Many bugfixes New component: Improved Carsa/Kahrk interaction New spell tweak: the blinding effect of Nature's Beauty is no longer dispelled by a hostile creature's True Sight spell. Restored 'Improved Abazigal's Enclave' on non-EE installs, thanks to TotoR chasing down the ambient-sound naming issue that was causing crashes. If IWD spells and Spell Revisions spells are both installed, we now use the IWD spell lists, not the SR ones. (You can reverse this in stratagems.ini.) Deprecated the 'innate sequencers' component, at least for now, as it's causing bugs I don't have time to track down. Updates to French and Polish translations. Other Content Changes Experimentally removed the requirement that SCS is installed after EET_end. Druid shapeshift tokens are now createable by the player once per day, rather than just being applied once. (This is a reversion to pre-v33 behavior.) I dislike this aesthetically but it's the only convenient way to allow for various edge cases, e.g. losing the shapeshift tokens when fighting Faldorn. Beholders are a bit more careful not to target obviously-immune creatures like Golems. Intelligent opponents (like, again, beholders) don't try to petrify Mordenkainen's Sword. Enemy wizards now have a moderate preference for Protection from Fire over Protection from Cold. Kaishas now calls a maximum of 15 werewolves as reinforcements. On Enhanced-Edition installs, Smarter Fiends and Celestials now uses a repaletted (green) version of the fiend animation for Nabassus, to distinguish them visually from Balors. (You can turn this off via stratagems.ini). Removed a previous attempt to do something like this through opcode 51 that just looked ugly. Added katanas and wakisashis to 'replace some magic weapons with fine ones'. Standardized item descriptions in 'replace some magic weapons with fine ones' on the EE style. Minor documentation updates. Updated to ToBEx version 28. Bugfixes The script controlling mages' moving and shooting between spells inexplicably got wiped in 33.5, and is now restored. (Thanks to various people, but especially GrimJim, for tracking this down.) Fixed a number of problems caused by the 2.6 update to BGEE and BG2EE: The 'Improved Final Battle' component for BG1 made BGEE impossible to complete due to script changes in 2.6; this is now fixed. 2.6-era mages are now wiser in the deceptive ways of genies and no longer accidentally grant wishes to their opponents. The Balor's Aura of Flaming Death is now patched correctly Suppressed a (harmless) warning in the dragon component 'Better Calls for Help' should now install correctly on EasyTUTU. Tweaked 'Party's items are taken from them in Spellhold'. It's possible this will fix the glitches people have been seeing in this component. (I can't reproduce those glitches myself, which makes fixing it difficult.) 'Wider range of random spell scrolls' should no longer create undroppable items. Hard-difficulty hit point boosts should no longer expire if you go away and come back. Fixed a small glitch in easy-difficulty cleric/mage scripts due to a typo (thanks, Bartimaeus). Fixed a number of other typo-caused glitches (thanks, TotoR). 12th-level necromancers no longer get Invisibility. Beholders now avoid Flesh to Stone at lower difficulty levels. Ease-of-use AI no longer casts healing spells on characters with Spell Deflection or similar. Scrolls of Protection from Magic correctly block spellcasting by the affected creature. (I think it's a bit of an exploit to use this offensively, but I don't block exploits; this was just a bug.) The increased hit points certain creatures (notably dragons) get on harder difficulty settings no longer expire if you go away for a long time and then return. Druid shapeshift tokens should (for real this time) not be taken from you by the Spellhold-items component. Pre-cast versions of spells now receive any changes made by the various spell-system tweaks (previously they were being made before the tweaks, and so missed them.) Notably, this means pre-cast Protection from Normal Missiles spells should block elemental arrows. The BG1 assassin parties can no longer spawn into an ongoing random encounter. Aec'Letec and the Demon Knight in Durlag's Tower can now teleport in combat (as per other SCS fiends) - previously a bug was preventing them doing so in most circumstances. Fixed an EE-specific bug in 'Improved Doppelgangers' that prevented the improved versions from spawning in Aldeth Sashenstar's home in certain scenarios (EE codes this differently from oBG2 and I hadn't caught on). Thanks to a forum poster for a careful analysis of this - I've lost the post but I'm still grateful for it. We (hopefully) no longer mangle hidespl.2da on classic (non-EE) installs. Checks for race=myconid now work correctly on classic (non-EE) installs. Drow katanas are not automatically identified. A few other miscellaneous typos fixed.

Sword Coast Stratagems is a collection of interconnected mini-mods for Baldur's Gate (on the BGT/BGTUTU/BGEE versions) and Baldur's Gate II. It is primarily a tactical and AI-enhancement mod: the idea is to make the game's combat more interesting, tactically challenging, and realistic by more effective use of, and choices of, creatures' abilities. It also contains a few rule tweaks and ease-of-use features. Version 34 is largely a bug-fixing release: it fixes several issues (some critical) caused by the release of version 2.6 of BGEE/BG2EE, corrects a severe bug in mage AI accidentally introduced in v33.5, and solves 20-odd more minor issues. It also updates the Icewind Dale spells to IWDEE 2.6, makes those spells available on non-Enhanced-edition versions of the game, adds a small new component for BG1 (Improved Carsa/Kahrk interaction), allows enemy spellcasters to use Icewind Dale spells even if the Spell Revisions mod is installed, and makes a few other minor AI and spellsystem tweaks. Grab it direct here. You can also visit the extensive project pages, readme, or SCS forum for more information. Full changelog in the next post. EDIT: Updated to v34.1 (9/18/21). Changelog: Aec'letec can now be killed on EE installs (critical incompability with 2.6). Revised batch mode a bit to deal better with reinstalls. Fixed a library-file glitch which was preventing installation of IWD spells on some installs. Creatures that are summoned offscreen by mages and priests are now summoned using the correct level of the spell, instead of the lowest level. Wand of Spell Striking now reduces MR by 20% rather than a level-dependent amount. Rakshasas and liches are no longer immune to the cleric version of True Seeing. Mind flayers have grown tired of waiting for unber hulks to turn up and now work with umber hulks instead (typo in level-dependent spawn component). Improved the handling of non-English-language numbers in the 'increased cost of Spellhold' component. Carsa's new dialog entries are now tra-ified, so they can be translated into non-English languages; so are a couple of stray phrases from the spell tweaks. (Thanks to Roberciik for spotting these.) Smarter Mages modifies Mae'var's Shadow Armor so that it permits spellcasting, rather than removing it entirely from the game. (I thought of just giving it to someone else but the description is a very good fit to Mae'var specifically.) The 'casting failure' icon from beholder/hive mother antimagic rays now has the correct duration. 7th and 8th level druids no longer illegally get Iron Skins. Beholders now use their central eye to destroy illusions (e.g. the Mislead spell clone). Rearranged the order in which we install Detectable Spells and the spell-tweak system, hopefully sorting out a minor compatibility issue with SR. Fire Elemental token now grants correct Dexterity and number of attacks. EDIT: Updated to v34.2 (9/20/21). Changelog: Updated French, Polish, and Russian translations. Druid spell allocation now works correctly on non-IWD installs Another tweak to the batch-mode installer (to enforce component order on reinstall). Description for Mordenkainen's Force Missiles is now correct. Fixed a bunch of compatibility issues between Spell Revisions and the IWD spells components (mostly on oBG2). Fixed some problems with 'Improved NPC customization and management: cleric/mages get spells; thieves don't regain their bonus-skill abilities on rejoining the party. Reverted a mistaken (undocumented) fix to the spellhold-cost component. EDIT: Updated to v34.3 (9/20/21). Changelog: Updated Italian translation. Slight further update to French and Polish translations. Some IWD spells weren't having their projectiles correctly assigned.

Nonetheless.

No, but Spell Shield has often caused problems for beholders. I'll look into it (won't make it into the next release, though, because that's imminent).

If a very experienced no-reload player has found a reliable way to beat a fight, that does not constitute a good reason in itself to make that fight harder. (If this forum was full of people complaining that Sarevok is too easy, even the first time they met him, that would be a different matter, but it's clearly not.) And giving a humanoid opponent an undispellable magic ability just to make things harder is contrary to SCS's design principles.

Honestly, I'm not sure the task of finding Baldur's Gate mods is so very different from the task of finding content generally - say, finding something to watch. This site (G3) and Pocket Plane Groups (PPG) each have a reasonably-carefully curated, though relatively small, collection of mods. You can browse G3 and find a fairly organized mod collection with quite a lot of information on them, and you can assume G3 has vetted them at least at a basic level for code competence and writing quality. So insofar as you trust G3's judgement, that tells you something - though far from everything - about G3 mods. This is analogous to looking for something to watch on Disney +. Spellhold Studios has (had, really) a much more laissez-faire attitude to hosting. Their pages give you organized lists of mods (many more than G3 or PPG) with quite a lot of information about them, and you can have a modicum of confidence in their code at least being functional, but there's much less uniformity, for better or for worse. This is analogous to looking for something to watch on Amazon Video. There are lots of mods advertised in the general mod thread here and on Beamdog, but you have very little idea what you're going to get - except insofar as you can work it out from user comments and the reputation of the author. This is analogous to looking for something to watch on YouTube.

It would not entirely surprise me if LoB gives creatures undocumented resilience against interruption. But that's just a guess; otherwise, I've no idea why this is happening on your install. There is nothing I can think of in SCS that can plausibly do it, and this is not a report I've seen before.

The only thing I'd add to Cam's sensible post is that systematically working out an install order is combinatorically impossible. Baldur's Gate mods care a lot about install order precisely because of how powerful the modding tools available are (you can modify already-modified mods) and with 300+ mods to consider, the number of possible install orders is 300!, i.e. about 10^600. So it's completely impossible to systematically test to find the best order. And working out on theoretical grounds would require one to get into the innards of the code of those 300 mods in a way that's not quite mathematically impossible, but still dramatically beyond any realistic time commitment for a modder or team of modders. (I wrote and maintain SCS, probably the most technically complex mod out there, and I promise you that figuring out the right mod order is horribly more complicated than that.) The best you can do is work out general principles that govern mod order. And those are fairly well worked out, and fairly widely available (e.g, quest/NPC mods early, tweak mods late).

Vampirism? There is a lot of in-game evidence that Bhaal created the Bhaalspawn well before the ToT. ("Bhaal foresaw his own death and sired mortal children in an effort to bring about his return.")

I found that argument persuasive; SCS v34 will address it. On 2.5 and 2.6, that item's Haste seems to be dispel/resist=1, i.e. it's dispellable. Some are stripped already (PnM I think). There's a case for stripping the rest (it's not a priority, since it's mostly cosmetic.)

SCS does not change this. (In fact, I'm not sure I even know how to change it.) What other mods are you using? It's possible LoB does something like this automatically - I have no experience with how it works.

Don’t believe everything you read on the internet. Spell Turning wasn’t even in original BG1 and Beamdog doesn’t add it, unless I’m seriously missing something. Vanilla Kahrk prebuffs with Haste, Pro/NM and Minor Globe, all dispellable normally.

If you can give me an exact reproduction scenario, I'd appreciate it. HOWEVER: If you delay dualling, you will probably break the game. The leveller system does not handle it properly. (Just respec her as a thief if you want her to dual later.)

Kahrk's very high power level isn't intentional design, exactly. SCS's code autogenerates scripts and spells based on the creature's level, and Kahrk is marked up as 12th level in the unmodded game. He's pretty much a legal L12 fighter/mage (there is actually a slight double-counting in his APR from his fighter level that I'll correct in the next version). Furthermore, this wasn't invisible in the unmodded game: it shows up in the number of spells he casts (which is much higher than other unmodded-game ogre mages) so I don't think it's a slip - Kahrk is intentionally much more powerful than other ogre mages in the original game. SCS just gives him a script and spell choices that fully realize his stated power. Now, occasionally I've nerfed creatures in this situation where SCS gives them an unusually large power boost, especially if they're on the critical path. But (as I remarked before in a previous thread on this subject), Kahrk is a completely optional encounter which you only get after a dialog that looks something like this: If you open the jar, I think you get what you deserve.

Balors in SCS are supposed to be able to use Stoneskin once per 3 rounds, though they only use it once per day at lower difficulties. (The documentation is out of date; I'll update it.) It looks as if that's working correctly so far as I can see. If anyone can confirm it's more often than once per 3 rounds, let me know. A small number of exceptionally-powerful Earth Elementals can cast Stoneskin at will; that's intentional. Balors cast at 24th level; incidentally; Jarno's comments in this thread are confused. (If someone's actually seeing them only get one skin, let me know that too!)

No, HaveSpell works fine for sorcerers: it returns true for any spell they have in their spellbook, provided they have at least one slot at that level. If I were doing sorcerer AI from scratch, I'd use globals to set some kind of reserved-slot system to keep slots back for emergency actions, and then turn off the reserved slots for sorcerers who just plain run out of spells. I'd also need quite a different spell allocation system. But (a) there are few or no sorcerers in the unmodded game, and (b) I'm not convinced that the sorcerer/wizard distinction is visible enough to the player to justify the effort.

I can't reproduce this.

I can't reproduce this. On my install, cleric/mages are getting a spellbook normally (once they've levelled).

I don't think this has anything to do with SCS (I don't touch the damage of the dragon-breath ability). It looks like an EET problem.

Sorry, I think I gave you the wrong line. The 'tv=1' to change is line 196, not line 193. (I've just tested that myself on EasyTutu and it works on my install.)

Belated thanks for this list.

Yes; check the 'customize' bit of the ini.

If a mage has Stoneskin memorized, the only thing they can do with that slot is cast Stoneskin. So it makes sense to cast it whenever it's helpful. If a sorcerer casts Stoneskin, it uses up a 4th-level slot that they might have been planning to use for something else. It's much more difficult to anticipate when a player might or might not want to use that slot, so I leave it up to players by default. (This is actually the result of a specific request from someone who played sorcerers, years ago.)