subtledoctor

For that case, I recommend installing Rogue Rebalancing thief HLAs, and when installing Refinements, choose “install by class” and install every class except thieves. This way you keep UAI. If you have access to Github feel free to make a pull request, rather than trying to communicate the exact changes. I trust your judgment The Sword Saint is not something I ever looked at, as my only goal has been to make the HLAs work on EE games and work better with Rogue Rebalancing (see above). So I have never looked at the kit’s code (or any other components) and I have no idea how to change thing without breaking things.

Ah, thanks for letting me know. In the meantime you can grab that file from BG2 and drop it in your override folder before installing.

Yeah but I can run Weidu on IWD2, to poll creature stats and spit out a big chart. Then I can take that chart and run some math (convert positive AC to negative AC, BAB to thac0, 3E saves to 2E save, etc.) and apply those values to the creatures in the IWD2 mod. The question for NWN is, how can I get the original game’s creature stats? If I can find an automated way to create a chart, then it is easy. But if it means manually look up each creature in a wiki, or something… forget it.

I don’t know how easy it would be. With IWD2, even though it is in 3E, the file formats have been mapped out and I could access the game files in NI. Then I could get Weidu to read the relevant data and convert it to 2E stats. Whereas, I have zero idea if NWN stats are similarly accessible for an automatic conversion. If it had to be done manually, it would be a lot more work.

If he knows which components were installed, he can manually add them to Weidu.log, and then fire up the CDTweaks installer, and uninstall them. Which, admittedly, will be a lot of work and super annoying. @Morgoth it bears repeating: never ever hard-close the Weidu installer window. Even when it isn’t doing anything, it is an open ongoing process and interrupting that process will corrupt whatever it was doing. And with BG mods, one corrupted mod will screw up everything that comes after it. The crazy thing is, at that moment the window clearly offered an option to press ‘Q’ to properly end the process. That’s all you had to do.

I think they were asking what you are meant to do with the BG2 NPCs while in Neverwinter, if the NWN areas have their own NPCs.

I agree with you there; and I put some work into making those mods compatible with tipun’s version of IWD. I got the NPC mods from Kulyok, Artemius, and Sinaherib working… but Lava won’t let me adapt his. I agree the campaign suffers for their absence. Of course, I use a modified version of tipun’s mods that begin at level 1; I suppose it would not make much sense to have these NPCs if playing the default versions where it is expected that you will take your BG1 party there…

I don’t even know if PLAT08 is the Plate of Balduran, but “carried icon does not exist” sounds pretty crash-worthy. I have no idea where “COLAT08.bam” comes from, what other mods are installed, etc Honestly the quickest fix is not to actually troubleshoot this, but to just grab a copy of the armor from an unmodded game and drop it in /override.

When I first did it, I chose a dialogue line for infiltration, the bandits got made at Teven for bringing me, Tazok challenged me to combat and when I got him to ‘near death’ he was satisfied and I was treated like a fellow bandit. I snuck into Tazok’s tent, maybe fought the bosses there? And then fought everyone else outside the tent. The second time, I chose a different dialogue line for infiltration, Teven took me to the camp, Tazok got angry and set out to kill me, when I got him to ‘near death’ he left and the whole camp came at me. Nothing in particular gave away that the dialogue choice would lead to a different outcome. I also had Ajantis the second time, with the BG1NPCProject - I wouldn’t put it past that mod to do something like that. At any rate it is of little consequence, it was fun either way, I just thought the difference was interesting. I guess? Note, Angel specifically says not to do that. IIRC there was one particular component I wanted that wasn’t in v5… maybe the winter wolf armor? I forget. I manually added a few things to his kit in this game. But I also created a replacement kit for him in the latest version of Might & Guile, so you can use that mod if you are interested in giving Breagar a few more bonuses. No, it seems like it was still too alpha-quality when I made this install. Looks very interesting though! I don’t love that it uses an entire game’s campaign as a quest mod in the middle of BG2, though. Seems a lot like what tipun did with IWD2 - so, eventually I might give it similar treatment, make a mod that makes NWN a distinct campaign playable from level 1. Once it is in stable condition, I’ll inspect it and see how much work it would be. Alternatively… if it is too much work to downconvert for low-level play, given it is currently designed for a PC with 1.5 million XP… it might be interesting to set it up as a continuation of the IWD1 campaign. Maybe I could stitch together tipun’s IWD1 and paladin84’s NWN, to make a single campaign that’s longer and meatier than either one on its own. And TBH it kind of makes sense - what else would the protagonist of IWD1 do after freeing Easthaven, but travel south and look for more adventures? And since in this universe Waterdeep basically doesn’t exist, Neverwinter would be an obvious place to arrive at. We’ll see. Probably a project for later this year.

Already works. All joinable NPCs get a Tome that you can use to change them. Any NPCs you don’t want to change, just throw their Tome away.

Huh, that’s weird. Did you try installing Refinements after TnB? That’s the order I use anyway…

A few somewhat random observations on a re-play after more than a year: 1) There are no good scimitars. My Charname specialized in scimitars as a 1-handed weapon before dual-classing to druid, but as yet I have only seen a single magical scimitar - Rashad’s Talon, a sad example that with Item Revisions has a Cleave effect that… makes it less than one fifth of a Belm. And without Item Revisions is an even bigger nothing-burger, a plus-two enchantment with absolutely no bonus effects. Meanwhile, I’ve seen gobs and gobs of katanas, for which I have no use. The katana fetish is truly strong in the modding community. 2) The mobs in the Cloakwood Mine are oddly weak? I waded through a ton of Black Talon Elites on the way, with magical arrows and decent thac0 and hit points. But in the mine itself, Davaeorn has surrounded himself with guards and hobgoblins who go down in 1-2 hits. It’s a bit weird. 2-a) Hobgoblins in general could stand to be buffed in this game. 3) I had forgotten that at the end of the Cloakwood Mine, there only way forward is through a secret door. Even with Coran standing next to it with Find Traps on, it took like 30 seconds to appear. What happens if you come here with no thieves/elves/dwarves in your party? Does the door just appear automatically after a while? What an idd design choice. I mean I totally get it from Davaeorn’s perspective, but from a narrative or game-design standpoint… like, gamify it! Have a guard drop a verbal hint, maje it require a special sigil, something like that. It’s especially odd in contrast with all the useless fake dwarven runestones for Durlag’s that just litter your inventory - which are so confusing that after 25 years I’ve still never fully grasped which are supposed to be useful and which are garbage.

SCS Improved NPC Customization (I think that’s what it is called) or NPC_EE. Both do basically the same thing, both have been actively updated recently. If you only care about changing Imoen, NPC_EE might be a bit more targeted. It will put a Tome in every NPC’s inventory but you can simply discard them. I think the SCS component might make make more changes to more NPCs. (But, I may well be mistaken about that.)

Yes - point 1 is that the BP mechanism is designed for BP itself, and it operates at last in part by character and area scripts. Those character scripts are problematic outside the context of BP. My mod adjusts the mechanism to rely less on those scripts, since the intent is for BG characters with no such scripts to venture into and back out of BP. So the technique in the mod is a step toward generalizing the proposed “no real death unless TPK” mechanic. Point 2: even with my mod though, the BP behavior still relies on other scripts, e.g. any party members who pseudo-died are “resurrected” via an area script when they return to the waiting area between fights. This would have to be generalized, as I say probably into BALDUR.bcs. But that would be touchy. Point 3: if you get that right, there is still the question of how to protect everyone and make then subject to the pseudo-death mechanism. BP does this via undroppable rings, and my mod expands on their use for this purpose. But that fits the lore of being captured and sent to the fighting pits. You can’t use an equipment slot for this in a non-BP game. Very theoretically you could apply a permanent effect to all joinable NPCs’ .cre files, and to Charname via script in certain select starting areas. This, again, would be touchy. And the consequences of it going awry would be severe, as dying is one of the most fundamental game mechanics. So, there is a path to get there from here. And what I’ve done might serve as a shortcut for one step on that path. But it would still be a major undertaking, for which I have neither time nor enthusiasm. (I really disliked the “take a knee” mechanic in NWN2 for example.)

Huh. Must have been BGT thing, maybe? At any rate I decided to pick up someone who can use longswords. Littlun's been pretty quiet so I dropped her and picked up Ajantis for some classic sword/shield tanking. He was hunting bandits; I was hunting bandits. Perfect. We went searching for the Tazok, clearing most of the Spider Forest, Basilisk Town, Larswood, and Peldvale. Then we tried to infiltrate the Bandit Camp but failed? Which is weird because earlier in this same game, with the other set of saves, I did so successfully. Maybe the presence of a paladin makes them attack me? At any rate that's fine because getting jumped by all the bandits at once when I have no time to prep is the most fun way to do this map. It got a little hairy but I prevailed. Then went back to Beregost. For weeks now I've been waiting for Brandock to join up with Fireface Elvenfart to fix his book. I know this is supposed to happen, I've seen it before in an abandoned EET run. But something seemed wrong. Only by chance I looked at my journal - not in the 'Quests' section but the actual 'Journal' section - and it says I should talk to Brandock about it. So I manually talked to him and, voilà - the dialogue triggered and he made a plan with Firehair. Weird. TBH I don't love this. It comes across as a ham-fisted way to force the player to get into PIDs with an NPC. But I'm sorry, I'm never going to do PIDs with an NPC, any time an NPC mods asks me to install PIDs I decline to do so. It's just not something that interests me - but it seemingly almost caused me to short-circuit Brandock's whole character arc. This earns a solid "meh." Job done with regard to the bandits, I dropped Ajantis and he was like "Aw, I thought we were a team!" - giving big Anomen energy. Good riddance. I picked up Sirene instead, changing her sword from a greatsword into a bastard sword (sorry not sorry) and speccing her for sword-and-board. Into the Cloakwood! I sided with Aldeth Sashenstar because, even though I am a druid, those druids there are dicks. Safana, sensing I am on more of a quest than a gallivant and increasing danger, hiked back to civilization, and I picked up Coran instead. I made Coran a fighter/thief with the Rake kit for single-class thieves... specialization with bows and longswords and single-weapon style, some ranks in the Dodge feat, and... holy cow, this guy smokes! 2+ APR, thac0 well into the single digits, AC -5 or something... he's a monster, and he's not even on my front line! Of course, the question I will soon face is, do I take on Eldoth? I would have to lose someone from the party, which probably means Coran. Which I would prefer not to do,, at least until I get back to Beregost, because Eldoth is a wanker... but I need Eldoth in order to get Skie, and I need Skie in the party for at least some time in order for SoD to make any sense at all. Here's a mod that would be cool: Set a variable when Skie joins the party in BG1. Then in SoD, whether imported or continued via a unified BGEE/SoD game or EET, check the variable in the opening dungeon and if the variable is not >0, remove Skie entirely from all of SoD. Just snip that whole plot and every cut-scene and leave them on the editing room floor. Rewrite the entire last chapter to make Charname's perception as a villain more sensible. I would suggest, maybe, causing one or many important people from the BG coalition to be stranded in Avernus. Maybe when you go into the room, instead of having the door shut, leave the door open so your allied soldiers can witness Charname, however unwillingly, open the portal to hell. And have, like, everyone that whole floor of the castle get pulled in. And instead of the first scene in Avernus when you see about five soldiers being killed by fiends, make it more like 20 or 30. This way even if Charname later establishes his goodness at the trial, people will still fear and hate him just for what his Bhaalspawn essence can do. Just a thought.

Probably? I basically apply something like this in my Black Pits-in-Baldur’s Gate mod. (Or else it was already there and I had to manipulate it in some way. I forget.) Basically apply min1hp to all party members, and when one of them reaches 1hp apply an irresistable Sleep effect and increase a variable value. Have BALDUR.bcs check the variable and if it hits six, blammo, kill the party. Then apply something when combat ends which dispels the Sleep/variable spell and adds 1 hit point. So if anyone survives, everyone wakes up with 2 hp and goes on their way. Something like that. Doable, but probably a bit kludgy in execution.

Sorry, fixed now

Yeah that person isn’t there! It’s just Alvanhendar and two “halfling men.” No innkeeper cleric!

Isn’t there supposed to be an inn in Gullykin? I distinctly recall someone in Alvanhendar’s place who would let us sleep there. But in this game I have to sleep outdoors in the middle of the village. Am I misremembering?

Wow that's great troubleshooting @Connelly ! I didn't even think of that when I read this. Yeah, that earlier component is my kludgy way of putting all the small individual tweaks into a GROUP, without actually using GROUP (because GROUP unfortunately mandates ASK_EVERY_COMPONENT, which can be murder on uninstall/reinstalls with a mod like this with dozens of components. It's one of the things I absolutely loathe about the structure of Tweaks Anthology.) On reflection, since all of the components in this pseudo-GROUP are at the end of the install sequence, I suppose it is really not needed - anyone can simply quit out of the installer if they don't want to install them. So maybe I'll just remove that dependency. I'm readying an update anyway, so... ...And, updated in v2.7.1. Cheers. @AL|EN I don't know if this is something you need to know for PI, but SD Spell Tweaks component #1 is gone and no longer required for the later components.

I mean, UI is better. But limited time turns the oerfect into the enemy of the good. It boils down to, my personal life does not permit time me to learn Lua, and without understanding thoroughly, I wouldn’t be able to do it well and ensure compatibility with other UI tweaks/overhauls. Whereas, with the Weidu I already know (mostly already written!), using dialogues I could probably whip up a complete overhaul of the Favored Enemy mechanic in under two hours, and it would be compatible with everything. And also allow on-the-spot decisions for party-joinable rangers. It’s not great from a game design perspective, just better bang for my buck by an order of magnitude or more. For something you interact with for 5-10 seconds in a hundred-hour game… it’s good enough for me.

Yeah, several other other mods also use nonexistent items as table entries to create the possibility that the creature will have nothing. So I don’t think it’s that. At any rate, I have cleaned up the RNDTRES table, and removed the repeating .EFFs from 13,000 CRE files (the .EFFs were having no effect in 98.5% of cases anyway), transferred everything over to the iPad, and I am moving on. I also disentangled the combination of druid shapeshifts, spirit animal summons, and Samurai ki abilities. It’s a bit if a mess, but only because I am developing the character in such a weird way, and I think it is fixed locally. At some point I will do a major revamp of the ki points system to cover edge cases like this. I’ve got Safana in the party while Imoen shelters with Firenose Elvenknees through this dangerous bandit-hunting stretch. Charname hit level 4 as a druid, and we are now going east, to Gullykin to find Thantyr’s bracers and to Adoy’s Enclave for Neera. Will stop by the Ulcaster and Firewine ruins as well. Then on to the Bandit Camp.

Huh. The only things off I see about RNDTRES.2da are: some rows don't have enough columns - seems like the default version in IWDEE has 20 columns, but my copy in EET has 40 columns. Mot sure if this actually harms anything, but it's an easy fix if so. Some entries look like: "dw#ptn52*2" ...I assume that means the creature gets two potions, but I don't see anything about that notation in the IESDP. Again, not sure if it causes any problems, but easy fix if so. Some entries look like: "DW#BLANK" ...and there is no DW#BLANK.itm in the game. Not sure if this is a placeholder entry for SCS that is supposed to be scrubbed or replaced, or what. It doesn't seem like a great thing to have in the table. Unless pointers to nonexistent files are intentional and are designed to represent a creature that has no item in that slot? Which is fine and fits with the design intent. Even if this was problematic, I'm not sure why it would only cause problems when the creature dies. In fact the more I think about it, maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree. What I'm seeing is: middle of a fight, a creature dies, the game freezes I reload to just before the fight: I try again, maybe the game freezes again I reload to just before the fight: this time I get through the fight, all the enemies die, but the game does not freeze If the problem had to do with RNDTRES.2da, why would reloading make any difference? I loaded a game in the same area, the creatures were already loaded into my savegame, the RNDTRES substitutions should have already happened and reloading the save should make no difference. Hmm. I'll fix those three things in the 2da table, but maybe it's time to look at the area and creature scripts.

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.)

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.