DavidW

@Bubb: that's ingenious but there's a bit I don't follow. The original 326 presumably needs to be keyed to some parameter of the caster, e.g. a spellstate set by the item that increases the save difficulty. But can that be done if the save effect needs to be targetted on the spell target, not the caster? (I had similar issues with some summoning spells in SCS that I wanted to have different effects keyed to a 326-type check, and ended up making them target=self to get around the issue.)

If you uninstall SCS, WEIDU will uninstall all the mods you installed after it - but then it will reinstall them after SCS is uninstalled. So it's better to uninstall all the ones after it first.

Reproduced; fixed locally. Entirely an SCS problem - there's nothing wrong with the files you supplied. In case anyone's interested in the cause: - SCS follows a slightly nonstandard protocol in UTF-8 conversions: instead of running HANDLE_CHARSETS on them (to do UTF-8 conversion) in the mod's own language folder, they get copied to an external directory and HANDLE_CHARSETS is run on them there. SCS then uses a variable ('scs_tra_loc') to know where to look for the UTF-8 files. (The reason is to make the SCS mod folder immutable when the mod is installed, which I have as a design goal for various reasons.) - Most of SCS gets its translations through a standard interface, but for various reasons I don't do that with the IWD spells - they have their own code. And I neglected to update that code when I updated to the new way of doing UTF-8 conversions. - So SCS is reading the original language file to get the iwdspells tra entries. And of course the file there is still unconverted. Meanwhile the converted version is just fine, but is sitting unused in an external directory. Of course I never noticed in testing, because I test exclusively in English and UTF-8 conversion isn't an issue there. Anyway, I'll try to upload an updated version in the next day or so. (In the meantime, if anyone wants to fix the problem themselves, just copy dw_iwdspells_arcane.tra and dw_iwdspells_divine.tra from weidu_external/lang/stratagems/[your language] into stratagems/lang/[your language], and then reinstall the first two components of SCS.

Thanks. I'll check it out. It's almost certainly harmless, but where possible I prefer to mark my ALTER_EFFECTS explicitly to avoid that warning, rather than suppressing it via the 'silent' argument - it's useful data.

I don't think I knew it was dispellable. It's an innate power, isn't it, and from the vanilla game? That sounds like a bug - but maybe I'm missing something. (That said, it's a hard enough fight as it is, I'm not in much of a hurry to make it harder!)

Also @Nathan82: I can't immediately see what could be causing that problem with Breach's description. If you want me to debug it I need you to: - uninstall SCS - find the description of Breach just before you do so, and post it - reinstall SCS and see if the problem is still there

@Nathan82: could you find the "stats.ids" file in your override directory and post it or its contents? (This is with reference to the earlier crash bug.)

Those 'possible missing evaluate buffer' WARNINGs are (I think) happening because some mod in your install stack has the MODDER flag left on in its tp2. Those aren't warnings that are supposed to show up in live use of a released mod, but I think if a MODDER flag is set in one mod's tp2 it can propagate to the installation of other mods too. As to whether they're something to worry about: Probably not. My experience of that particular MODDER setting is that it generates lots of false positives, and most importantly, doesn't really know about the AUTO_EVAL_STRINGS setting. If you've got mods that use AUTO_EVAL_STRINGS, particularly if they also use lots of functions (e.g., SCS) then there'll be huge numbers of false positives, and you shouldn't worry about them.

@polytope: yes, clearly something wrong there, thanks.

I'm less concerned by that. Charm actually ought to end your adventure, whereas as Ludwig says, Maze on a solo character is just a time-out. (Also, Charm gives a saving throw.)

Yes, SCS's 'give antimagic spells accurate descriptions' code is clearly going mad for some reason. I'll see if I can work out why. It must be some compatibility issue - it's patched fine on my version. (I do install checks on BGT when I do a major new release, though I don't do much in-game testing of non-EE installs any more.)

Do you mind doing a change-log on scrl07.itm for me?

Great, thanks for this. A few specific comments: - I probably don't want to start down the rabbit-hole of level-dependent scaling. I'm not a great fan of it in a game like BG2, even if I can see the point of it in the situation you're describing. - Davaeorn should still be teleporting. Did he not do it in any of your tries? If so, something may be wrong. - The end-of-chapter-6 battle has been waiting for an upgrade for ages, after I deprecated my first stab at it. To be honest I couldn't think of anything very interesting... but that was years ago. I should come back to it sometime. - I'm not sure what to do about the chessboard; I'll consider your suggestion. - I'm a little torn about the Coronation battle. Liia is a 16th level invoker (and Belt is a 19th level fighter), so of course with sensible spell choices and AI, they way outshine the party. The obvious thing to do would be to lower their levels, particularly, Liia's... but the designers didn't choose those levels (and Liia's specialisation) randomly. They're taken from the AD&D 2nd edition 'Forgotten Realms Adventures' sourcebook entry on Baldur's Gate. It feels like vandalism to erase that!

The best I can say is 'possibly'. Without looking at the atweaks code it's difficult to know. If you can reliably reproduce the crash, try uninstalling one or other of SCS and atweaks and seeing if it still happens.

I’ll put it on the to-do list.

Please hold. We are experiencing exceptionally long delays due to the suspension of the flow of time in your vicinity. Your complaint is important to us. One of our Dark Planetar operatives will be with you as soon as normal time flow resumes.

No you can't Yes you can.

Yes, that looks like an SCS error. I’ll take a look when I have a chance.

You have a remarkable talent for making up claims about the game and speaking them with authority. Lots of liches in the unmodded game, including lich01, have Improved Invisibility memorized, and pretty much every lich script in the unmodded game casts protective spells of 5th level or lower. And the opcode in the lich protective ring is the same one used in Minor Globe of Invulnerability, which the designers obviously knew did not protect against your own spells. I don't see much point engaging further with someone who is just making stuff up.

No news, sorry - it requires me to have a sustained window of time to check it out, and they turn up unreliably. I'll let you know.

I basically agree (and the mod readme agrees) - though since the difficulty slider was introduced, I think a new player could play on Basic without too much trouble and ramp the difficulty up as and when they wanted to.

Then take it down with Pierce Shield, Warding Whip or similar. I don't know how long it's been since I used projected images in SCS, but it must be at least five years. (They're too much hassle.) And even when I did, they didn't get Spell Triggers or similar, so you can kill them before they get their defenses up. There is limited value in engaging with you if you're just making stuff up about the mod. Tell it to Bioware, or to Gary Gygax. Fixing oddities and imbalances in the vanilla spell system isn't SCS's remit, except insofar as I think I have to tweak it to make spell combat viable. It is unsurprising that in a game based on the AD&D rule system, different party mixes are going to find things variably difficult. SCS is, yes, a lot harder if you don't have at least a couple of wizards in the party. That's just the nature of the rule system. To a large extent it's true in the vanilla game too. (That said, it's been solo-no-reloaded by people playing melee classes, so it's clearly not impossible even then.) Nonsense. The game is obviously and explicitly designed to be played by whatever PC class you like. If that wasn't obvious enough from the explicit way the game is presented, the presence of content specifically written for each character class should drive the point home.

Don't worry about it, you were fine. You have a very melee-focussed party, which is challenging in SCS - Aerie is your only wizard, and her multiclassing starts to impose a painful restriction on spell numbers by ToB. You probably want to be using her wizard spells mostly for countering enemy spells. If you're playing SCS on its hardest setting, though, and it's your first playthrough of BG2, I can see why you're finding it hard work. I normally assume people playing at that difficulty have played the game multiple times before.

The basic logic is the same as it's been for over a decade, and isn't far from the implied logic in the vanilla game: - spells like Ruby Ray, Warding Whip etc to drop spell protections - True Seeing, Oracle or a thief's Detect Illusion to remove improved invisibility - Breach to remove PMW (Or else bypass with area effect spells, depending on what other defenses are in play and what level you are.) Wizards have multi-layered protections and you have to do multiple things to drop them. It's totally fine not to like that style of play, but I'm unlikely to alter it now, when SCS has been using roughly this format for 10+ years and remains pretty popular. (Of course, if you turn the difficulty of the mage component down to Basic, it gets simpler.)

That doesn't match my experience or that of quite a lot of people who have given feedback. But sure, if it's your experience, probably don't play SCS or else play on a lower difficulty setting.