polytope

12 hours ago, KainenMorden said:

I'm running 2 fighters now, will it be difficult to keep one of them alive in tob because only 1 will have defender of easthaven to offhand?

That flail is really only supreme if you can stack it with other sources of physical resistance, i.e. a normal fighter with Hardiness and DoE takes 40% normal damage from hits (effectively 80% on insane), a barbarian would take only 20%, a fighter/cleric or even a high enough level ranger like Valygar would take only 15% with Armour of Faith. On Insane I think you're better off using stoneskinned character and summons to take hits from really damaging enemies, it involves a bit of micromanaging and SCS AI likes to switch targets to injured characters if they're close enough, but rarely switches targets more than once per round, so if you've goaded an enemy into attacking one character you're usually safe to charge in with a few others.

12 hours ago, KainenMorden said:

Also, thinking of giving charname pips in katanas for celestial fury because I will be able to wield blackrazor and have korgan get pips in bastard swords for foebane which is nerfed now in BG2ee...Do I need 2 mages? I only use edwin and aerie for now but aerie is probably the weakest companion in my party right now, I think I will switch her out for HD eventually, still lvl 11 now. 

About Celestial Fury, it's still good, but you'll probably be 15th level before you can even specialize with it, you'll almost be in ToB before your character has enough proficiencies to use it for maximum effect, and stun immune enemies become more and more common (as are high level enemy fighters with berserker/barbarian rage or potions of invulnerability/magical shielding) and you can get the Ravager halberd soon after completing SoA (well, soon if you've already done Watcher's Keep up until the final seal).

I usually have two arcane casters (don't need to both be single classed) because it's so convenient to be able to throw a Ruby Ray and a Breach/Remove Magic in the same round, or Greater Malison and Emotion.

The traumatized elf and bloodthirsty dwarf are incompatible iirc, unless you have another mod to make them get along, I never liked Aerie as a character anyway, but mechanically I think she's fine. Haer would also be a good candidate for using Celestial Fury, since he doesn't need 5 pips to be at his maximum potential with it, whereas it always feels awkward for a fighter who's spent the proficiency points to get grandmastery in one weapon to be wielding one of a completely different type that he's only proficient in.

Hi all

On 4/16/2023 at 7:39 PM, Bartimaeus said:

Make the protection too short and...what, the player fills up their entire 4th level spellbooks with only Negative Plane Protection when they have a difficult series of vampire encounters? Or worse, they just rest in between every battle so they have their spell slots again? Ugh. Level draining and petrification as currently designed in the official games are two really annoying mechanics that don't leave a lot of operating room to avert besides these stupid "I win" spells. Probably a good idea to use subtledoctor's "level draining has a saving throw" component.

20 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

I've been experimenting with 1) allowing a saving throw to avoid level drain, which a) reduces its incidence while still making it a realistic threat, and b) gives you other ways to avoid it (Potions of Magic Shielding etc.) This changes level drain to something that weakens you, rather than kills you; if vampires kill you it will generally still be by reducing your hp to 0.

I've also experiemented with giving level drain an 8-hour duration, which doesn't change its immediate threat but reduces the long-term annoyance.

For what it's worth I found the problem with energy drain to be not its unsavability but the duration, higher level characters (who ofc have better saves) will absorb more level drains before dying anyway, it's just very annoying to need to find a temple or rest twice to remedy it. I think a recovery period of about 1 hour/level drained (thus 1 for your average wraith, 4-5 for the very powerful vampires) seems reasonable... it's not like you'd kite them for that long.

I also made a mod of NPP so that it would last for up to 3 turns but protect only from the first three level draining strikes, much like Stoneskin (on vanilla engine it involves three shell spells, and sectype/school removal, on EE still three separate subspells but at least removal can be done through 321), I also gave vampires a bit better abilities, I haven't published that one because there were other undead that also needed improvement and most players are happy with SCS anyway.

I mean, NPP is almost like Protection From Magic Weapons against level drainers, they can still hit you for (usually) d6 + strength damage (only +4 for a regular vamp, might be +10 for a tough one) but their attack rates makes them fairly unimpressive and trivial to defeat since healing potions are so abundant by the time you encounter them.

11 hours ago, WanderingScholar said:

It's also worth mentioning that the vampires are given another trick up their sleeve in their ability to drain CON on hit from SCS.  This addition gives vampires a bit more teeth since they're a major plot monster in SoA, and the player has to stay on their toes regardless of having NPP or not. In fact, those of you that played older versions of SCS probably remember this ability got nerfed in v32 because of how deadly it was in major vampire fights.

Yes, but this step of making vampires more like mindflayers, (while they have better THAC0 than mindflayers) was done in response to the abundant sources of immunity to level drain, I'd prefer it if such immunity were harder to acquire (and level drain temporary, as is already the case with shadow dragon breath for instance), unfortunately, most AI scripts will assume that the Amulet of Power, Improved Mace of Disruption etc. foil draining, if you replaced those with items that have different filenames (by default AMUL21, BLUN25 etc.) it would likely break some other mod unless you did so with very careful parsing of dialogues and scripts.

With the "mindflayeresque" vampires in older versions you needed either a tank with an AC that dodged all but crits, or (more easily achievable) a F/M type under ProMW/Absolute Immunity, or just the usual extreme sorcerer cheese of Project Image -> Time Stop -> Imprisonment... Improved Alacrity storm for the ones that can't be imprisoned, like Bodhi (the last option was also the way to deal with bat swarms before that ability got nerfed a bit). Such powergaming actually makes the playthrough more dry, simplistic and repetitive in my view.

On 4/14/2023 at 7:22 AM, KainenMorden said:

Quick side note, do you have any opinion on the rogue rebalancing mod or spell revisions? Any other mods you recommend for a tactical challenge with SCS?

I've tried Spell Revisions but don't play with it anymore, IMO some spells were excessively nerfed while weak and unpopular choices were boosted to an excessive degree and it wasn't adequately balanced, sorry. The summoned Death Knight and Negative Plane Protection (it had such a short duration for a good reason) stand out in this respect.

Spell Revisions Revised aims to address these issues but it is a work in progress.

Rogue Rebalancing is good, but there are some collectable items you can acquire from the added content that are also overpowered, the new HLAs are reasonable at least compared to vanilla (at least the Time Trap is gone).

More challenging mods which are compatible with SCS? I can't suggest any besides the post-underdark encounter added by Rogue Rebalancing (it's harder than most SCS content at that point).

More challenging mods instead of SCS? Improved Anvil from blackwyrmlair.net, still the hardest after all these years, critics of that mod often complain that it sort of forces a specific party composition and that the repetitive grouping of certain enemies becomes tiresome, but the newest version (which I haven't really tried) has a lot of new options for single class clerics, and hopefully some of the repetitive encounters will be redesigned to be a bit less grindy... there are also some interesting and unique battles introduced though which get away from the sameness (the battles with Demogorgon and the dragon on the penultimate level of Watcher's Keep are much, much harder and have a lot more content than the SCS versions, there's a dracolich in a secret area in the underdark etc.).

On 4/14/2023 at 7:17 AM, KainenMorden said:

What about using critical strike instead? My plan for this Charname was to mostly take hardiness and critical strike and maybe not take anything towards gww but I'm curious as to your thoughts on what HLAs would work best.

Critical strike is certainly superior when Dual Wielding and for general per-round damage, GWW is only needed if you have a two handed weapon with an interesting on-hit procc... like the Ravager halberd.

As for scrolls, I'd certainly save Stoneskin even though you'll be casting it at a lower level, it will still soak a few hits which will more than make up for your character having lower base hp than a regular fighter. Also Blur and probably Mirror Image (since Ilbratha is only once/day).

I like having more than one fighter-type (if you have just one and they're debuffed then your party's physical damage potential nosedives until you can remedy the problem), on insane difficulty you'll be relying a lot on Stoneskinned characters (although your PC can become one if he has a scroll) and summons to take hits, but with scrolls of Blur etc. your AC might keep you pretty safe from physical attacks by all except bosses.

I think we at least reached a consensus regarding the Assasination HLA, in that it should not be considered a combat protection for the purpose of sectype removal, since the general trend among other offensive warrior and thief HLAs (Whirlwind, Deathblow and the Power Attack->Critical Strike->Smite trio) is to be typeless and schoolless, with the same being true of offensive melee-related special abilities of kits (assassin & blackguard's Poison Weapon, blade's Offensive Spin, kensai's Kai etc.).

18 hours ago, RoyalProtector said:

After all, those things are supposed to be just an exercise of willpower or skill. Nothing magical.

Note that no warrior or rogue HLA can be dispelled, only removed by Breach, whether or not you think that should be the case comes down to the interpretation of what a Breach spell actually does: Detect Invisibility spell reveals both creatures invisible due to an illusion and thieves/rangers non-magically hiding in shadows. Lower Resistance spell can reduce the magic resistance of a monk or wizard slayer, even though that's neither from a spell nor supernatural ability but a result of their training.

On 4/12/2023 at 3:23 AM, KainenMorden said:

Do you agree that HLAs as innate abilities makes the game more difficult?

Generally yes, but it depends upon the character, Improved Alacrity or Planetar usable just once per day is worse than what a regular mage could do, but being able to fill your lvl 9 slots with Time Stops and still have accessible HLAs might be even more murderous depending on playstyle, i.e. Fighter Mages or even plain mages with Time Stop-> Shape Change (Mindflayer form).

The main reason I didn't use this component last time I played was that every enemy mage beyond about lvl 20 has exactly the same list of HLAs which they'll throw at you, without, it's a bit more diverse and sometimes surprising.

On 4/12/2023 at 3:19 AM, KainenMorden said:

Is there another weapon worth putting pips i for this build at this point besides flails?

Since you have a party with at least one other fighter it's not critical but I would say halberds, simply for the Ravager halberd in ToB: You'd mostly be using it with (Greater) Whirlwind HLA, so only three stars are needed (the main difference between mastery and grand mastery is attacks per round, which is always 10 anyway if you GWW). A mage dual classed to a fighter can still use scrolls of Black Blade of Disaster, which might also be worth saving for major bosses.

14 hours ago, Trouveur80 said:

Ennemies know how to use IWD spells. Mages like Lance of Disruption and Vitriolic Sphere, and druids use static charge.

IWD divine spells greatly help SCS clerics to stay alive.

The player will make much better use of those spells than the AI will, especially the new cleric spells. Of the other ones you mentioned...

Druids using static charge, well, except Faldorn (BG2) and Amarande they are usually encountered outdoors where Call Lightning would be a better choice.

Lance of Disruption isn't much more powerful than Magic Missile, usually, on a successful save (18-27 damage for a 15th level caster), and it's crushing meaning it can be soaked by a single Stoneskin and resisted by barbarians, clerics or high level fighters etc.

Vitriolic Sphere isn't really enough burst damage to kill your characters immediately unless 3xVS in a spell sequencer, if they can retreat, then they can be healed/dispelled, note that players can handle damage-over-time effects better than the AI by guesstimating how long they have to survive and counteract it.

Protection from Energy does become a lot more useful in an IWDification playthrough, so prior to lvl 16 any character without spell protections might feel a bit more vulnerable, there is also the Limited Wish for globes on the whole party.

On 4/4/2023 at 3:11 AM, KainenMorden said:

I'm almost done with my BG1 EE insane double damage run with my dual classed fighter/mage. The idea was basically a fighter with some utility, yes I realize there's a strong argument to be made for other f/m multis/duals being far stronger. I went lawful good and rolled an 88 so I had good stats and took 4 pips in long swords, 1 in dagger, 2 in sling. 

How would you play this character in BG2? I'm thinking of dual wielding long swords and flails, not sure if 3 pips in 2 weapon fighting is worth it.

Decent build because you've given up only a small fraction of your hit dice potential to be able to use any item or a scroll that a mage could, in BG1 that's mostly wands, in BG2 you'll have:

• Amulet of Power for level drain immunity
• Staff of the Magi - SCS has a component to remove the invisibility, but not the dispel on hit or saving throw bonuses, very nice if you have the THAC0 to hit things with it.
• Wands again, but including the Spell Striking and Paralyzation ones, can be handy tactically, plus lots of powerful scrolls.

I would probably have gone neutral and two-handed weapons rather than good aligned, so as to use the Soul Reaver along with the SotM, and to never worry about Unholy Blight spamming. Two pips in two-weapon fighting should be enough (SCS doesn't add a lot of AC boosts to enemies) I guess you'll have your next proficiency point at level 9, so lvl 12 before you'll be dual wielding and probably 18 before you're at least specialized in flail (unless you want the 5th star in longsword first, in that case lvl 21).

On 4/6/2023 at 3:35 AM, boof said:

On one hand it makes it easier by giving you "free" level 9 spells that don't take up memorization slots.

On the other hand, a planetar can more or less solo majority of the game for you, and being able to have multiple casts of it per rest makes the game stupidly easy.

There should probably be a separate option to make planetar/deva/elemental prince summons specifically a once-per-day innate (as already the case for paladins) and other HLAs use regular 9th level slots.

It would also be a bit more... believable, if that word can be used about having really powerful extraplanar allies coming when called.

On 3/28/2023 at 10:46 PM, Christian said:

And timestop is a huge problem because your characters auras do not get cleansed during it. If you cast Divine protection before the timestop, it will be gone once the timestop ends and the spells take effect and your aura will be blocked. So it really doesn´t matter if the SCS AI does this intentionally, it will happen quite regularly.

But of course you don't cast Divine Protection if you see an enemy mage or lich attempting a Time Stop, easily recognizable as a slow-casting alteration spell, some people listen for casting vocals, I look for the casting graphics instead which for alteration is either a sharp blue sparkling or a wavy white-gold "tunnel" depending on whether you have vanilla or IWD casting animations. In most cases you can wait until the spell is actually complete if you're a decent distance from the mage before reacting with Divine Protection (Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting and Dragon's Breath have pretty slow projectiles).

Like I said earlier, I think the 7th level version is okay, but not the 5th level one, particularly not when it can be recharged through Wondrous Recall.

On 4/5/2023 at 6:44 AM, KainenMorden said:

I've read its best to install Ascension-IWDification-SCS if I want to play with the IWD spells. So, I assume SCS is balanced against the arcane and divine spells? Do enemies make good use of them?

Unfortunately, the answer is no. As other people have noticed, the enemy AI doesn't know how to use (for example) Mordenkainen's Forceblade, Antimagic Shell trivializes beholder groups (except those containing Hive Mothers!) if you're a fighter/mage, and they can't cope with Divine Protection either.

If you want a longer version, the reviews on this blog explain the problem, it is not something for players looking for a tactically harder game:

https://lilura1.blogspot.com/2022/01/SCS-BG2.html

https://lilura1.blogspot.com/2022/06/IWDification-Mod.html

On 3/26/2023 at 7:49 PM, Christian said:

said Lich will only need one timestop to wait out those protections.

Off topic, but it's a bug that's annoyed me for a long time that short duration buffs can wear off during a Time Stop, I mean, the idea of the spell is that time is frozen for everyone except the caster, poison and such shouldn't continue to tick during Time Stops either, EE didn't fix it.

Anyway, SCS AI does not exploit this, enemies will cast Time Stop but not specifically to wait for your protections to expire... It wouldn't matter though, because fast casting Divine Protection can be used on the fly as a reaction to what an enemy caster does, thus soaking up their most powerful offensive spells (Horrid Wilting, Dragon's Breath etc.) in exchange for the caster's 5th level priestly spells (remember with Wondrous Recall you have a LOT once caster level reaches 11), I could actually accept the 7th level variant, but not this one. In vanilla, the only way to instantly pop up a protection that could absorb a volley of such powerful spells was by the potion of Magic Shielding or Scroll of Protection from Magic, which are very rare resources.

On 3/26/2023 at 9:17 PM, jmerry said:

As for what the casting time should be, there's a general pattern to follow. Virtually every buff in the game with duration four rounds or less has casting time 1 or less. The exceptions in the BG series:

If we're going to talk about developer intent, the designers of IWD gave both spells a long casting time. The general rule in AD&D is casting time = level for Wizard spells or level + 3 for Priest spells with a few exceptions (Animate Dead, Sunray, Finger of Death, (Un)Holy Word, Power Word spells etc.), so the original CT was about on point.

Buffs with a duration based on level like Aid aren't a strong argument about what spells with a fixed duration should do.

On 3/26/2023 at 10:32 PM, Trouveur80 said:

So if I understand correctly, it would be better for now to not install SCS AI over Ascension creatures ?

I previously noticed a strange problem if G3 Ascension Yaga Shura is installed without SCS tougher Yaga, but the Ascension demons component should be skipped for now yes... or play an older version.

17 hours ago, Christian said:

With those casting times and such short durations I would never ever use them.

Most players use Improved Alacrity and Time Stop with comparable casting time to duration ratios?

I mean with the SCS tweaks these spells are very strong protecting from not only melee damage like Protection from Magic Weapons/Absolute Immunity do but spell damage also, so that a cleric whose defenses are dispelled by a lich which then throws a Dragon's Breath at him can respond with Divine Protection (like I said, CT = 0 with the Amulet of Power), even 3x Flame Arrow or 3x Lighting Bolt sequencers etc which usually happen too fast to react to can be absorbed. True, mindflayers (and level drainers, if you didn't have the amulet) can still kill you with attacks, but that's about it.

Also, it's a spell for clerics, who unlike mages don't usually get this kind of fast casting comprehensive protection (ProMW, AI etc., even Stoneskin for all except druids), clerics have better armour options, much more hp (including hp boosting spells like Holy Power and Righteous Magic) and better physical resistance than mages (Armour of Faith, that flail etc.) it's contrary to the way the cleric class always felt and played.

Enemies - in my game anyway - also seemingly fail to recognize that your cleric has become an impervious Mordy Sword when he casts these spells, and waste time swinging at him.

In game the spells are called Divine Protection and Greater Divine Protection, so that enemy priests (most of whom are unaffiliated with Lathander, even if you play evil!) can justifiably use those, both have casting time of 1 and duration of 3 rounds, which is a bit imbalanced with the Amulet of Power making both instant, in IWD(-ification), the spells Shield of Lathander and Greater Shield of Lathander would be casting speed 8 and 9, duration two and three rounds, respectively.

Powerful for the AI controlled priests, but even more so for the player...

Besides Sunscorch and Vampiric Touch, the Command spell should probably also be given a fast projectile rather than none.

Power Word spells besides PW:Blind have no projectile last I checked, but also no save and 100% probability off all effects in the block, so need not be modified (for this issue anyway).

If SCS does not want to duplicate the EET chapter increment code, the trigger for appearance of the rakshasas could be as simple as checking whether the party has returned from Spellhold i.e. GlobalGT("AsylumPlot","GLOBAL",50), or spoken to Elhan.

As for the Raks AI, they lack help scripts to notice and assist each other if you manage to LOS them, because they didn't have any such scripts in vanilla and SCS doesn't know what allegiance in terms of shout ids to give them (this is a problem with many other creatures too, like the warden of the planar prison), and are lower level than most raks you'll meet in game, but otherwise they use SCS rak AI and spellbooks, although memorizing Ghost Armour is redundant for creatures which have a better natural AC.

2 hours ago, Christian said:

One has to wonder, if the game is still beatable once all bugs in SCS and Ascension have been fixed. 

Yeah, back in SCSII version 15 or thereabouts there weren't nearly so many bugged creatures/scripts and it was legitimately harder (besides the existence of other mods which further increase the curve, SCS is the best known though).

It's like with the spiders and demiliches and whatever, I didn't install the component to give Ascension demons SCS scripts, it seemed unnecessary, so I never noticed this one.

Unfortunately, the author is obviously busy offline, but fans keep asking for new releases... which leads to releases without playtesting, especially of late game content.

1 hour ago, jmerry said:

In a similar though less game-breaking vein, you know the fight between Trademeet's militia and attacking animals at the upper right corner of the map? I've had that mage roll Invoker, get Lightning Bolt as an offensive spell, use it to attack an animal and hit a soldier (lethally) as collateral damage, then immediately go hostile. Before the party could even arrive on the scene and get involved in the fight.

Actually, that's an improvement the SCS AI could do in general. The use of any and all indiscriminate AoE offensive spells should be gated behind an allegiance check, so they aren't used when spellcasters are on your side. It's just too easy to turn friends into enemies that way.

Off topic, but I reported that one years ago and DavidW said it was changed in the most recent version, this stands out as a really high priority fix if still happening.

ETA: As for continuing the game without console cheats (that may or may not cause bugs, I can't say) try using a scroll of Protection from Magic on Liia?

17 hours ago, Graion Dilach said:

This mod fucks up all the monsters which use black dragon animations and turn all of them into their shadow dragons. SCS has two such dragons, CtB adds one and one mod adds two more in my game.

16 hours ago, jmerry said:

And there are two black dragons even before any mods (Nizidramanii'yt in Suldanesselar, hell dragon from evil Pride test). Plus a second shadow dragon (Yxtrazzal in Rasaad's ToB quest)

What is this even doing? It's supposed to be a quest mod that affects exactly one dragon. Building that is obvious; you edit one CRE and its associated scripts and dialogue. Globally editing creatures that match a characteristic shouldn't even have been considered.

I don't think it's quite that bad because the patches made on the basis of animation are cosmetic changes to their soundest, the modifications to statistics and inventory etc. check for actual .cre filenames and should only effect the shadow dragon.

PATCH_IF animation = 4609 THEN BEGIN

SAY INITIAL_MEETING @15
SAY BATTLE_CRY1 @16
SAY BATTLE_CRY2 @17
SAY ATTACK1 @18
SAY ATTACK2 @19
SAY DAMAGE @20
SAY DYING @21
SAY SELECT_COMMON1 @22
SAY SELECT_COMMON2 @23

END
END

I wouldn't have done this regexp global patching of creatures either, though, but it's not something new or rare.

ETA: It also gives all shadow dragon breath attacks (SPIN893.spl) a more reasonable projectile, black dragons are supposed to spit a thin stream of acid, shadows more of a cloud. At any rate, I think it's probably good that the .pro not be shared?

On 3/15/2023 at 2:55 AM, Endarire said:

The mod Shadow Magic also modifies the Shadow Dragon.  How do these interact?  I wasn't sure if they would simply overwrite each other.

Thankee!

Temnix hasn't been active here for a long time and he and Artemius (the author of Shadow Magic) did not like each other at all. So I wouldn't expect good result in trying to combine those mods.

On 3/13/2023 at 1:28 AM, jmerry said:

Most of the time, it's a cosmetic bug. There aren't that many spells with multiple real effects that all have saves.

There are (Prismatic Spray, Sphere of Chaos etc., note that this bug interferes with each effect in the block in terms of not only saving throws but percentile probabilities too, they're rolled separately if pause on autocast or one roll is used if not). It's also not really cosmetic to have someone confused without associated string/visuals/portrait icon because you won't know what's wrong with them (depending on how they behave confusion can be mistaken for fear, feeblemindedness etc.).

However, it only matters for spells without associated projectiles, which provide the needed time delay for the autopause to decouple from the effects in the spell's feature block, so fortunately stuff like Prismatic Spray always worked as intended. Sunscorch could simply be given a very fast projectile (I'm sure some other modder has already thought of this).

9 hours ago, Brogan said:

All right.  So I just confirmed that both Expanded Racial Bonuses and INT/WIS/CHA-based Bonus Spell Slots are the 2 components (that I originally used) from this mod (Artemius' House Rule Tweaks) that cause this specific crash.

...

The question I have for those more technically inclined: Do I need to further test this crash with this mod in combination with the handful of mods I listed above that were installed when I first identified the issue with House Tweaks?  Or does the fact that it happens on a vanilla installation more than likely rule that issue out?

That mod does seem to touch the background baldur.bcs script (or bdbaldur/baldur25 for the expansions), but the relevant block should only cycle once in game, so it wouldn't seem to be a script related crash contrary to what I said earlier (in my experience bad scripts do take a noticeable interval, a few seconds, to CTD usually, engine level bugs on the other hand crash in the blink of an eye).

I've noticed that the subspell - C0SPELS2.spl - does call opcode #272 on everyone in the area with a permanent timing mode, I do seem to remember problems with #148 and #272 on dead actors crashing the game (note that things like #272 supposedly only check unpaused game time), then again, timing mode 1 rather than 9 usually means it shouldn't matter for dead actors. We'll wait till the author gets here and has a look, I guess.

So, another question, does this crash still happen if the game is paused immediately on one of your character's death? Does time actually have to advance in game before it triggers?

On 3/11/2023 at 4:54 PM, Guest Brogan said:

After playing for a few hours (and not even leveling up in order to use Healing Blood @ 2nd), I have crashed multiple times.  And as it turns out, the crashes only occur when one of my characters dies.

So that is the issue now.  As far as I can tell, if any of my characters is killed, the game crashes to desktop.

6 hours ago, Guest Brogan said:

Ugh, I literally cannot play now.  I'm at the Shipwreck Coast regain and just ran into "Shoal the Nereid".  After dialog, she automatically kills whoever I forced to talk to her, and as soon as I un-pause the game to let her revive him and prepare to fight the Ogre Magi, I hear the windows "DING", and the game crashes.  And it always takes about a 'round' after any of my non-protag characters portrait goes grey. Meaning I can pause it just after death and quickload a save to avoid the crash.

This is a new one for me.

In the past, some monsters could crash the game to desktop if you killed them while they were facing certain angles, because there were bad frames in their animation sequences, but I'm guessing your party members have the same animations as other people of the same race and character class, who didn't crash the game upon dying, so it's not likely that's the problem even with graphics mods.

The close-to-one-round delay makes me suspect a script is crashing the game, do any of your mods give party members new scripts (or, in the readme say that party AI needs to be on for the mod to function properly, that means they're reliant on a script for some aspect)?

Further testing reveals the MoraleInc() action is also broken, if you want an actually panicked creature, have them ApplySpellRES() some silent .spl, that seems likely to be the least buggy and most easily detectable.