Labyrinthitis

On my latest playthrough it felt easier than usual, but I also usually fine-tune settings a lot more. One thing that stood out was that it felt like enemy mages were using the mantle spells more often when before PFMW was almost always used.

I’ve since finished the playthrough, but the WEIDU log is the same as I posted here when reporting some minor SCS issues: https://www.gibberlings3.net/forums/topic/33191-sword-coast-stratagems-v34-edit-343-now-available/?do=findComment&comment=315668 Not EET, just BG2EE with a handful of mods.

I appear to also be experiencing this bug, or something similar, on my current playthrough (Ascension + WoP). defeated Sendai then Abazigal without problems, then fought my way into Balthazar’s monastery. I saved before confronting him, and have tried both working with him and fighting him but it leads to the same issue. if I fight him, he drops a diary and I get a journal update telling me to go back to the stone heads, but the pocket plane won’t take me there - exiting just takes me back where I was rather than triggering any dialogue. The people in Amkethran acknowledge his death and the monks and mercenaries disappear. If I team up with him, the battle with Melissan occurs, and after she teleports away that he tells me to go to the stone heads, and my journal is updated, but the same thing occurs with the pocket plane - no dialogue, just transported back where I was. Spawning PPGuy01 as suggested above gives the dialogue that allows travelling to the Stone Heads location, and the Fallen Solar and group are there. I also hit another issue the first time I fought Melissan with Balthazar - after she is defeated, she gave her dialogue and the game went into cutscene mode, but my party kept attacking and she just stood there taking damage and doing nothing, soft-locking the game. Reloading and redoing the fight resolved this and she teleported away the second time.

I haven't knowingly installed a mod that changes free action, but its possibly a side-effect of another component. I've attached my WeiDU log in case anyone would like to take a look and see if anything jumps out as related. I don't think it's a particularly heavily modded game, it was a set of mods/components I'd hoped would work together without many issues aimed at making ToB and high-level gameplay a bit more fun since it's been a while I've played through til the end of ToB. To be clear, neither the issue with clones getting HLAs or the PI-specific issue are game-ruining for me. I usually don't use PI, it's badly designed imo and too ripe for abuse so tbh @subtledoctor if you have a mod that just removes it I'd be interested for future use. I only used it on my current game as I wanted to test if HLA duplication was impacting both sorts of clones when I noticed Imoen displaying the behaviour. I'm more than happy to not use it for the rest of my current game, and try to have self-control around the Simulacrum HLA spells. To your question around stoneskin - in my current game, a hit that only removes a stoneskin doesn't wake up the mage or cancel the PI. So at this point, I think I've reported the HLA as Innate bug sufficiently for investigation and fixing (assuming its not local to me), and the PI scripting issue looks less and less like its SCS-specific, or better fixed upstream by modifying PI than updating all scripts that might lead to the errant behaviour, but I am more than happy to provide more information and run tests in my current game if it would help identify/fix any problems. In the meantime, thank you both @jmerry and @subtledoctor for your help and insight. WeiDU.log

Right - I accept this might not be an SCS problem at all, but I believe you are incorrect when you say SCS does not change clone spells or combat scripts. I'm only a dabbler with the game files and modding tools, but in the TPA file for the Make HLAs Innate component there is a block that touches Project Image and Simulacrum: ACTION_FOR_EACH copy_spell IN projimag simualcr BEGIN ACTION_IF FILE_EXISTS_IN_GAME "%copy_spell%.spl" BEGIN COPY_EXISTING "%copy_spell%.spl" override LPF ADD_SPELL_EFFECT INT_VAR opcode=172 target=1 timing=1 STR_VAR resource="%resref_new%" END BUT_ONLY END END Referring to https://gibberlings3.github.io/iesdp/opcodes/bgee.htm#op172 - this appears to be a loop intended to update both spells so that the clone will not receive HLA spells by removing them from the spellbook, as per the documentation I highlighted in my earliest post. But it has not worked on my current install - and if it is not functioning it could be having unexpected side-effects on those spells, but that's based on the idea that any code that is not performing its intended purpose without reporting errors is possibly doing something else unintended rather than any knowledge of how the game/mod tools would work in this scenario. Maybe I'm in the "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" zone on this one though and barking up the wrong tree. As for player combat scripts - I know even less about how these work, but I am using the SCS Ease-of-Use AI for all my characters, which I assume does affect my party combat scripts - unless we're talking about 2 entirely different things here? Anyway, I tried some more rigorous testing of PI behaviour and made some observations: This does not occur every time - sometimes the original character will not display this behaviour. Can't pinpoint what makes it occur Does not occur when party AI is turned off Does not occur if I switch to other scripts with auto-attack (e.g. the Standard Attack script), although with the trigger being erratic this is not conclusive. If the original is attacked, hits are not automatic and enemies will definitely miss, and the clone will only disappear if the original takes damage (so a successful hit taking out a stoneskin won't dispel the clone - can't remember if this is vanilla behaviour or not, maybe not based on the mind flayer int drain behaviour you describe). This seems to be one of the more reliable ways of triggering the original AI behaviour - if attacked directly the original seems more likely to respond by fighting back, but not always. Seems to follow AI rules (e.g. if under some sort of invisibility the original seems to not want to break that so won't start attacking, won't target creatures that are imossible to damage such as those under Prot from Magic Weapons). Again, I could be wrong, it just looks like SCS is at least a factor to me. If there's any information that would be useful to test this, or help find the real cause, I'd be happy to investigate and provide.

To add to the above, now that I’ve finally used the spell in the same playthrough, Project Image clones also get all HLAs, against expectations. In addition, when using PI, the original caster is not selectable or directly controllable as expected, but still seem to be reacting as per their AI script. Example: Imoen casts PI. Original Imoen cannot be given commands and clone can be. Enemy comes into sight range of original Imoen. Original Imoen walks to enemy and starts attacking with melee weapon as per AI script settings. As long as clone exists, original Imoen still cannot be directly controlled so this cannot be prevented manually. Does not happen if party AI is turned off. Not clear that this is an SCS problem, but I am using the SCS Ease of Use AI so flagging it in case it is related.

@jmerry Yeah, clones getting all innate abilities is vanilla behaviour as far as I remember, but I assumed the documentation section I highlighted meant that installing the component would change clones to not get HLAs. This makes sense to me as Simulacra are even more powerful when HLA spells become innates, because they aren’t lost with the level reduction when they aren’t tied to spellslots. Clones are already very powerful and tempting to use cheaply so this feels like a reasonable limitation to add. If that isn’t correct, then the docs might need an update then.

I've always though weapon proficiencies are one of the less fun parts of the rules as implemented in the infinity engine games, especially in the BG2 proficiency set. While some choices and limits make the game fun, it goes too far and in practice it seems most people go straight to specialising as much as possible in a single weapon and supporting style, and just ignore a lot of weapons throughout the game - so while you get a big choice of weapon proficiency, it effectively reduces your choices in equipment. How about a more radical approach to proficiencies, that leaves some meaningful choices but in practice allows a lot more flexibility to equipment that weapon you picked up without worrying whether you've "optimised" for it? Instead of any individual weapon or group proficiencies, you ONLY have weapon style proficiencies - so if you are using single-weapon style, and have two pips in it, you will get the effects of two pips in any weapon wielded in that style, alongside any style specific bonuses. Then you can swap between longsword and mace and dagger freely, as long as you wield them on their own, without penalty, but if you equipped two weapons, or a two-handed sword, you would get no bonuses as if non-proficient (unless you have the other appropriate proficiencies). An additional ranged style would probably need to be added for ranged weapons (or even two, launcher vs hurled or something like that), but it would free up even more proficiencies to be used for interesting skills.

Thanks, for some reason I thought they were included in that component even though nothing seems to say they are. As an idea, the option to include them as rarer alternatives could be interesting, or introducing them to specific places in early parts of BG.

Using the latest release of SCS with DragonspearUI++, Ascension, Wheels, IWDification, Luremaster, and TA. The Treat mage and cleric HLAs as innate abilities component documentation says Note that clones (Projected Images and Simulacra) of the spellcaster do not get High-level abilities. but on my current game simulacra from the spell and Vhailor’s Helmet are all getting all the character’s current (ie unused) HLAs, including mage/priest spell HLAs. The only other HLA affecting component I’ve installed is the triple-class tables from TA, and I can’t think of any other mod touching Simulacrum.

A quick question - are the "special" non-magical weapons from IWD, such as the "Flawless" and "Giant" versions of some weapons, added to the BG games from this mod in any way?

Related to this, the ability to turn all time as a factor in all quests: NPCs no longer nag or leave over starting their associated quests (or optionally leave the nag interactions to repeat periodically as a reminder but never leave). Stronghold quests that use timers have them removed, and instead you just interact with the main quest giver to receive the quests, with the next in sequence becoming available as soon as you complete the last by talking to the quest giver again, with the ability to pause indefinitely by simply not interacting with them again until you are ready. Remove the risk of things like losing the thieves guild by not paying dues in time Remove timers to complete quests (like the time limit to reach the Umar Hills for the first paladin stronghold quest). After playing the game so many times these have mostly become a drag when playing. Unrelated suggestion: Display a string when you have tried to cast a spell but are silenced - ordinarily just nothing happens, and it would be good to have a reminder in the log to avoid confusion when you haven't noticed the silenced icon.

No, nor do I expect it to bother many people and I'm not expecting this to be treated as a bug - after all, the spell has been faithfully recreated from IWD, and it's very much a flavour thing really. Thanks for linking your mod - it looks interesting for that tweak and some others, I'll likely try it next time I reinstall.

Summons from the IWD spell Shadow Monsters (and related spells) can be used as the sentient sacrifice in Resurrection Gorge as part of Dorn's quest, but as per the spell description: "This spell shapes material from the Demiplane of Shadow into illusionary monsters" - so arguably they shouldn't count (the same way using summoned undead don't). I know this is incredibly minor but I noticed it while playing after casting the wrong spell. Maybe the bigger issue is that it's hard to differentiate between the different summoning spell icons sometimes.

an evil ranger wouldn't ask if anyone else wanted an evil ranger kit, they would just make the evil ranger kit