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Lightbringer

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Everything posted by Lightbringer

  1. I might very well skip the SCS improved Sarevok next run. I've loved the other Tactical Challenges so far, though I've yet to try any in BG2 yet. I installed them all. Next up is D'arnise Keep, so we'll see what T'orgal has in store for me. That's awesome! Themed parties are fun. I kind of do that already, being so Good aligned. Heck my "full canon" run with IWD-in-EET will have 2 (two!) paladins. You're right about how much it helps you dig into the spells and figure out new ways to do things. I forgot you made Scales of Balance! That's a great mod. I love the compacting of proficiencies. I adapted a version of your proficiency awarding system for my games, with a similar philosophy. Probably wise. Vanilla Sarevok is already stupid hard. I would keep the others in BG1. They weren't too crazy and added good flavor. Don't plan on doing Nashkel Mines below level 3 if you do Dark Side Kobolds. Also, totally do Dark Side Kobolds, as it makes the (otherwise rather boring) Nashkel mines so much more fun. I especially loved the Wolf of Ulcaster. Before SCS, I had a very brute force approach to everything. I played a "use sword on monster" style. Changing it up meant I hurled a few fireballs first from potions and necklaces. If I got real spicy, I'd bring my one wizard in to cast web. I had one wizard, one cleric, and everyone else was a warrior. SCS has encouraged me to diversify a little and try a few new things. I'm new at this too, and it's working pretty well. In fact, with all the multiclassing, I actually have two wizards now (audible gasp!) as well as two clerics. 'Course, they're also fighters (one cleric is a ranger), so I can still go warheads on foreheads if I wish. It sounds like you'll do just fine. SCS kind of breaks you in gradually. Just be ready to load/reload before some fights if you get surprised by clever tactics. Then stomp face! Heh. I don't know which mod caused it (there are many potential culprits), but I just had a beholder teleport in with a couple gauth randomly in the Temple Sewers near Roger's Sea Troll. Gonna be a woolly ride! (I kicked its floating butt)
  2. There's a playstyle difference. I almost never use buffing potions, and I despise the "surround 'em with summons" strategy. I should use more potions, so that's on me, but I feel like if I have to resort to summon surrounding, I didn't really win the fight. Maybe one or two critters to distract or aid (and that rarely), but no more. I want to be able to face down my foes. In the vanilla BG, I remember the lots of summons strategy was the preferred method to take down Sarevok (and apparently the SoD boss, too). I always resented that. It was like forcing the player to admit that Sarevok was the superior force. It also felt like bad design -- intentionally making it so the foe could not be reasonably defeated by the power in your hands. It felt like a stolen victory -- like Sarevok should have won. Now, my charname can win on her own. Much more satisfying to me. So, @Cahir you've got a range of suggestions from a few different playstyles and associated progressions -- all valid in their own right by personal preference. Now you get to craft your own!
  3. Yeah, SCS makes that underleveling a big problem. SCS Sarevok was a huge challenge -- easily the toughest fight so far. Of course, it's supposed to be. I used the SCS tactical challenge. I was, as told, a few levels ahead, and WAY better equipped than vanilla. I had max HP (even wizards were around 100hp), very high stats (MC monk had unbuffed Str of 21), buffed ACs in the -16 range (MC was -26), saves near zero or negative (worst save was a 2), all THAC0s below 5, most near zero. That was with Prot from Evil, Defensive Harmony, and Inv potions for everyone, and Draw Upon Holy Might for charname and clerics (Minsc and FinchNPC). All were warrior multiclasses plus a paladin. It was still a massive challenge. I was actually powerful enough to stand toe to toe with him just a little. It was enough to finish him off after downing all but Angelo. By the way, SCS Angelo has 8th level spells. I ate an Abi-Dalzim's from that punk. I don't feel bad being a little higher level when facing that kind of nonsense. To be honest, I still ended up using ctr-Y (the healing cheat) to rez Imoen during the fight, just because I didn't want to deal with any scripting issues of her being dead and her gear on the ground for the transition to SoD. @CahirI should mention Finch for BG1! She's an adorably bookish little gnome cleric who is BG1 only. Impeccably voiced and lots of fun. She can be found at Pocket Plane Group if you need a cute cleric gal. Ohhh, if only I was taller ...
  4. Idk, I haven't really found things to be a boring cakewalk, for SoD or for BG2 so far. I actually nearly got my butt kicked by the pirates behind the Inn in the docks. NPC groups are quite dangerous. Hephernaan in SoD was far harder than the end boss. Interestingly, I one-shotted the lich in SoD river caves with a backstab before all his protections triggered. The caster group in the dwarven city was a beefy challenge but quite satisfying. I haven't really felt truly in danger a whole lot, but that's right in the sweet spot for me. I prefer to feel perfectly measured to crush my enemies. I don't want to walk through them like tissue paper, but I'm good with balsa wood. Maybe pine. But no harder. I also don't always take my full party with me everywhere. Sometimes I have my charname solo for a bit, or have just her and a couple warriors. If she gets into too much trouble by herself (oops! she found a cluster of myconids and umber hulks and is perma-confused and being pummeled to death), I don't hesitate to ctrl-J in an appropriate character and pretend they've been shadowing her to assist. Or reload a save and try again. For bigger battles I always include everyone, strategize, and still might have to try it a couple times to avoid a character death, or a frustrating mass-save-failure. I also don't rest spam. I try to avoid using resources, and I typically don't rest more than once per map, often once per 2-3 maps. I guess it all depends on play style. Even being a couple levels ahead of expectations, with SCS everything's felt just about right to me.
  5. @CahirDid you install the various tactical challenge options for SCS? In particular, the Improved Final Encounter (Sarevok)? If so, I wouldn't reduce XP at all, and remove caps. It's a dang tough fight. I was able to win, but barely, and it took me a couple of tries. Not frustrating, but a big challenge to chew on. Let's see... DSotSC and Grey Clan added a good chunk of XP that you wouldn't have, plus Secret of Bone Hill early on. I also kept a version of BG2 XP for traps, locks, and spell learning. (reduced for by about half for spell levels 1-3, full for spell levels 4+, and traps/locks xp reduced by diminishing amounts until thief level 7 whereupon normal amounts resumed). Upon facing Sarevok, I had about 860k XP, or 430k XP per class, multiclassed. This meant my paladin was level 10, and my other multiclasses were around 9/10 or so, depending on class. On an almost completely vanilla run with the cap removed, I remember reaching level 9 with my monk upon entering the Undercity. Basically, I was about 2 levels higher for the end of BG1, 3 for my one single classed character. And that was with no reduction, a few more substantial mods, and spell/trap/lock xp. With your modlist, and assuming you don't allow skill/spell xp (or use the minimus versions), you can probably shave a full level off of my results. I entered the Chateau at about 1.3 million XP. That may sound like a huge jump, but it meant only about 1 more level in each class for my multiclassed characters. Basically, I start BG2 at about level 10/10, or 11 single. With none of my great gear, I still found the SCS version of the chateau to be quite a nice challenge, with duergar instead of goblins and only 1 rest allowed. @subtledoctor and I have differing views on balancing BG-EET. If I recall, correctly (and please correct me if I don't, Doc) he prefers to adhere closer to the vanilla feel and progression. I'm comfortable with a stronger power curve . You'll need want to take that into consideration as you weigh our varied suggestions
  6. Glad to hear it. I think you'll like NTotSC. Your power level tastes sound similar to my own. With everything I found in BG1, I still got some upgrades in SoD. I installed the keep all items tweak for EET, then proceeded to stash almost all of them in Mira's chest. I actually like the big reset in BG2, as I love the joy of discovering new toys. Plus, I have almost all the mega and quest mods for BG2 installed, so there will be no shortage of swag to pilfer
  7. Your judgements are what I anticipated, based on your requirements, and are the most likely to not produce headaches for you. I debated mentioning DSotSC, as it seemed the most likely to be outside of your parameters. For Northern Tales, I think the separate component I was remembering was for Dark Side. I'm not sure what extra spells and such NTotSC adds. I think it was Dark Side that does that. Sorry for the confusion. Those two NTotSC components are also included in UB, iirc. Feel free to use whichever source you wish. I think I went with UB. I thought about bringing up the bug reports on Slow Boat. Honestly, I didn't run into any issues. The quest initiated just fine, I found the encounter, and the shop and reward were waiting for me. There were some spelling errors in a few of the item descriptions, but I just ignored it. You'll have to decide for yourself what your tolerance for such things is. Mine is (I gather) on the high side for community. The reward item is really cool -- a head slot wearable by anyone with upgradeable abilities -- sort of a blindsight bandana (the lore is much more descriptive). It was perfect for my monk charname -- enough that I made it her constant headpiece for the whole saga. Regardless, it's a small mod, and you'll be fine without it if you so choose. It has a permanent slot in my mod list. Also, I wouldn't sweat SCS too much. I generally avoid difficulty mods like the plague, as I do not like frustration. I love SCS. Now that you can adjust the difficulty by component in real time during a playthrough, there's no reason not to dive in. I also started out with everything on the Improved settings. I actually got a little disappointed in the casters, so I bumped it up to Tactical. I've left it there since early BG1. When you do your OP Megamod run (which is kind of what I'm doing now), be sure to check out the Tactical Challenges components. Might avoid them for this quasi-virgin run of yours. I think I might post a write up of my powergamer-but-not-munchkin modding strategy, once I've finished the playtesting it. I've kind of taken half of everyone's suggestions and smashed them together, adding my own ideas to the mix. It's worked really well so far. (The gist is -- give me all the power, but make me earn every piece of it, pile on all the content available, no caps and no reductions but everyone multiclasses to reduce overleveling, and use SCS to keep things from being too easy) One last word about NToTSC. It does increase the power curve of BG1. Not terribly, but it does do so. I don't consider this a bad thing, as I have always felt BG1 was overly lacking in a power curve -- especially compared to the rocket ride of BG2. If you are expecting to finish your modded BG1 with the same power level as an unmodded BG1, then you should avoid most everything I listed except maybe the quest packs. If you're fine with being maybe 20-30% more powerful when you take on Sarevok -- and thus less likely to have to resort to the boring wand of summons strategy -- then these will serve you very well. Have fun with your run, dude! It sounds like you're getting set up for a helluva great ride. I know mine has been so far
  8. Heh. Well, that just might very well explain what happened, then.
  9. I'm doing my current run as sort of a test for an experience rate theory of mine, and to vet all the mega mods in my order. Once IWD-in-EET drops, I have a more "official" run in mind. Plus I have a couple friends that have never played the BGs (I know, right???) and I promised them a multiplayer campaign off of it all. My perspective with the Item Upgrades is that the product of the recipes is wholly different than either the vanilla or Revised item, but it's your run and your rules. Hmmm .... I haven't really delved into my BG2 quest mods yet, so I can't vouch. I do recall the BG2 Questpack as very good, as well as Unfinished Business -- both already on your list. I can speak for BG1 quest mods. One caveat: My own restrictions are not as narrow as yours, so I'll try and let you know where they may diverge. As an example, I make liberal use of Shadowkeeper and Near Infinity to craft the game to my own desires -- not hesitating to change stats and proficiencies of NPCs. I make Imoen a Fighter/Mage and chalk up her thief-talk to personality instead of combat ability. That said, here's what I found fun: I see you have BG1 MQ&E. Very good choice, excellent little events. Unfinished Business, of course, too. Stone of Askavar was really fun. A light little quest that spans much of the BG1 wilderness and makes use of existing areas in a clever fashion. It also has several new areas and a cool culmination. Some of the fights were challenging, but would fit right in to an SCS playthrough. It was well balanced, power-wise. Grey Clan Ep1. This one surprised me at how inventive it was. You have to know going in that there is no Ep2. It plays like the intro to a larger story and ends with the reveal of a larger power-org at work in the Sword Coast. As long as you're okay with leaving it there, it has some pretty engaging encounters and events. It is also a bit challenging, but nothing too crazy. Twas a Slow Boat from Kara Tur. Simple mod that adds a single (admittedly challenging) encounter to the shipwreck coast in order to unlock a store with very unique items. All eastern-themed, so perfect for that Monastic Orders of Faerun monk you may be planning. Also, I love Monastic Orders of Faerun. My elven Monk/Fighter multi is a delight, and I can't wait to try out a Monk/Mage in my next playthrough. Northern Tales of the Sword Coast. Jastey did a fantastic job rebalancing and modernizing this classic mod. All the broken and unbalanced items and fights have been fixed. The additional spells and items seeded to the rest of BG1 is an optional component, so you can leave that out if you want. It's now very easy to follow the plot through all the journal entries, and all the missable triggers have been made more open. What's left is a really cool plot that plays out across a whole slew of new areas and involves a cult of Bhaal as well as a conspiracy to resurrect an orc warlord. It also includes nifty additions to both the Temple and Firewine maps to spice up the early BG1 game a little. The original mod may have had its issues, but I highly recommend the new version. Dark Side of the Sword Coast. This one comes with some caveats. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and the current version for EET rebalances the overpowered content. However, it is a dungeon crawl, particularly the final quest. Expect about 8-10 levels of every interior cave/mine map filled with enemies. It was a meat grinder, and a fun romp for pre-Sarevok training. Bonus, there's a tie in to both Sarevok's plot and a well known power-group revisited in BG2 at the very end of DSotSC. One very important key tip: During the last quest in Dark Side, you will enter a map that looks like the Flaming Fist jail and aid a dwarf against vast hordes of Duergar. For all that is holy, TURN OFF SCS's "give potions to fighters and rogues" components before entering that map. Otherwise it's a very hard and tedious slog. Without, it's just a big brawl against many dozens, as was intended. Turn it back on after, of course Finally, Ascalon's quest pack. A lot of fun little events in the vein of Mini Quests and Encounters. Some a little silly, some much more serious. A new favorite of mine. Most of these mods add in new items that do change the power balance of vanilla BG1. Nothing was crazy, though. It was like fixing what felt like a drought of magic in BG1, before a massive spike in BG2. All of the more powerful items are involved in quests you won't get until the end of BG1 -- post Cloakwood, at least. It also helped balance out the increased difficulty of SCS. It didn't feel as flush as Siege of Dragonspear -- perhaps a little more like Durlag's Tower-plus. Between Durlag's, NToTSC, DSotSC, and SoD, I actually felt like there was an even progression of power from Candlekeep to Amn -- where everything takes off like a rocket.
  10. This thread is a great find. I'll be referring to it for future runs. Your mod setup goals seem very similar to mine -- difference being that I have most of the mega mods and only a few NPCs and only one class/kit mod. It's been pretty bug free, as far as I can tell. Once IWD-in-EET is released and stable, I have run #2 planned. I'll check out some of what you end up with then. Last time I tried Item Upgrade, I wasn't using Item Revisions, so I can't speak to compatibility. I can, however, verify that every one of the Thalantyr Item Upgrade recipes works just fine with IR. If Item Upgrade works the same way, (and I guess it would?), then there shouldn't be a problem.
  11. I can provide some reporting. I have progressed from the start of BG1 through SoD, and I am currently in the early parts of SoA. I checked my Weidu log and it looks like I installed SCS, ATweaks, and CDTweaks after EET_end. In fact, though it's been awhile and my memory is a little fuzzy, I recall there being an installation issue with placing some or all of those three before EET_end -- possibly with nested dependencies requiring all 3 to be at the end. I think it might have been that SCS complained about not after EET_end, and maybe CD and A Tweaks needed to modify things that SCS did, and thus went after. Maybe? I have encountered little to no bugs so far. I have a heavily modded mega-mod setup. Many NPCs, many tweaks, a few kit changes, Item Revisions, Spell Revisions, Ascension, Wheels of Prophecy, Item Upgrades, and more quest and mega mods that you can shake a stick at. SCS has propagated properly through everything (almost, see below). Vampires added by NTotSC had the enhanced AI of SCS, and Orc Mages and Priests in Secret of Bone Hill were likely way more challenging than the mod authors intended. SCS is functioning fully in SoA too, so far. The one thing I think I observed, however, is that I don't believe SCS changes were applied to SoD encounters. Well ... I think the trolls might have been improved. They were tougher to put down than vanilla. The green dragon definitely wasn't. Then again, I was overleveled. I don't think the spellcasters were SCS-ified though. It honestly didn't bother me too much, and I enjoyed SoD anyway. In any case, it's all back for SoA. Duergar in the chateau, mephits summoning reinforcements, casters and vampires ahoy. Edit: I installed SCS v32.7 and EET v1.0 RC12
  12. Lightbringer

    ToB news

    Thanks for the confirmation. I figured it was the case, but wanted to be sure.
  13. So long as I get to find XP and treasure in my possession due to that "reliving", that's good with me too. Magic can do funky things. I'm easy. I just don't want a bunch of hand wringing to unnecessarily delay the project.
  14. Yeah, probably not. Though right now, your idea seems pretty good, now, and the most modular. Everyone can receive (or make) the version they most like. Reviewing past posts, K4thos seemed pretty convinced that making them all simultaneous would require too much story rework and was not an option, either. Well, you and I can dream, can't we?
  15. Ah, could be. Been a long time since I played through IWD1. Probably wouldn't affect the simultaneous plotting idea, regardless. Nah, I never forget that -- it's a given. Last thing we heard from him was that he hadn't settled on a solution after opening it up for ideas. I just thought I'd revise my contributions to the discussion. I'm a novelist by profession and I recognized that we had the design equivalent of writer's block. When all your available options seem to conflict and contradict each other, often you need to backtrack and challenge the assumptions that lead you to the present problem. One of the underlying assumptions was that IWD, IWD2, and SoD couldn't all exist in the same time and space together. By challenging that I was able to devise a potential solution that avoids much of the messiness we had encountered with time travel, wishes, matrix simulations, etc. It's always up to K4thos to do what he will or won't with our ideas. I just wanted to present one that may work, in case he still hasn't found a solution.
  16. Crenshinibon is a reference to the Icewind Dale series of novels, and unconnected to the video game, iirc. You bring up good points about IWD1&2 needing reconciliation. The more I think about it, the more I see that they can actually sit together in the same timeline, in the same worldspace. No need for time travel or other shenanigans. First, let's get out of the way the fact that this is not perfect, nor canon, nor anything like that. Then again, neither is the whole concept of IWD-in-EET. It isn't really about seamless lore, but about getting to play through IWD with our BG-EET party. Also, I have played fairly little of IWD2 -- only up to the doors of the Ice Temple. Much of what I can speak to about it is from the experiences of others and web resources. SoD, IWD1, and IWD2 are all about one thing -- a fiendish (in fact, infernal) invasion of the Realms. I believe the antagonists of IWD2 are supposed to be half-fiend scions of Belhifet or something? Regardless, you have 3 different antagonist sets each leading a separate incursion into the Realms. This actually sets up a pretty cool idea of a coordinated three-pronged attack that the Bhaalspawn thwarts. Change the Name of IWD1 or SoD's antagonist as I already mentioned. I believe the main issue with IWD2 is that you revisit some areas of IWD1 -- namely Kuldahar, Dragon's Eye, and the Shattered Hand. Every other part of the game occurs elsewhere. You can actually have IWD2 occur alongside IWD1 if you do one thing -- prevent moving into the final 2 chapters of IWD2 until after you go through the Shattered Hand in IWD1. I took a look at the sequence -- the conflicting areas in IWD 2 all occur at the very end of that plot. Even if you're doing the events Up North in parallel to each other, enough time elapses in IWD1's plot between Kuldahar and the Shattered Hand that by the time you need to return to Kuldahar in IWD2's plot, the changes are justifiable -- a week or more. Of all the maps, IWD2's version of Kuldahar Pass is the most changed -- namely it's no longer snow covered. Okay, well that's due to the big tree starting to wake up. How could it happen so fast? Good question, ask Sylvanus next time you see him. "A Druid Did It". Not perfect, but if that's the worst case we're in good shape. The rest -- Dragon's Eye, and the Shattered Hand -- could all be that the Infernal Twins' forces moved in to occupy the areas you cleared out for them a couple weeks ago. Easy. Even references to taking revenge for some action by a party of adventurers a century ago could be referring to the original portal that Jerrod closed. With this, you have two versions of the revisited maps -- one for IWD1's plot, and one for IWD2's plot. Once you move into the final chapters of IWD2's plot, the maps get swapped. Am I missing anything? Could easily be -- my memory of the two games is thin or even missing in parts. I still think it could be done with a little creativity.
  17. I just finished SoD for the first time, fully experiencing what we've all been talking about. Guys, there's ZERO reason for the end boss of SoD to be the same guy as the one in IWD1. It's effectively an Easter egg. The name Belhifet appears a bare handful of times. I think Hephernaan might speak it in audio once. We are twisting in the wind and coming up with time travel schemes and limited wishes and all kinds of other stuff for no reason. Change his name. Seriously. Make it a near homophone (sounds-alike) like Gelhifet or Pelhifet. It will appear in floating text as Hephernaan speaks it that one time. The player is in the middle of preparing for a tough fight -- the discrepancy between the audio and the text will be minor and not really relevant. No need to alter audio files. Additionally, it implies that the two arch-fiends could be related. They could be executing a two-pronged attack on Faerun -- from the North and the Sword Coast. We don't need to conjure all these contrivances. All we need to do is change a single character in a name probably less than a dozen times. In IWD-in-EET, the antagonists in IWD1 and in SoD need not be the same individual.
  18. Sounds somewhat similar to a problem I had with a mod NPC -- the infamous stutter bug. She would keep attempting to initiate conversation every round, but fail to actually do so. Likewise, this NPC had no PIDs at first, but developed some later. On investigating this (kudos to the person who wrote that stutter debug script), I learned much about what triggers banters and other dialogue -- scripts and dialogue trees. The fact that no NPC is bantering makes me think there's some larger issue at work than a simple script conflict. Some trigger is not being met on a whole-game level. If you had more time (and I sympathize with fatherhood!) I'd suggest getting Near Infinity and Shadowkeeper, and start exploring the global variables and game scripts. Hopefully one of the experienced modders will have more useful insight and a simple solution. To help them out, find a file in your game directory called weidu.log. Open it in a text editor and copy its contents to a post here on the forum (using spoiler tags, if you can). The solution might lie in whatever options you chose in CDTweaks or the banter pack.
  19. Lightbringer

    ToB news

    Quick question: I've seen mention a few times around the web that Amber currently can't even enter ToB. I had assumed she would just be silent, but still in the party. Can I get a confirmation either way? I am using EET, if that makes a difference.
  20. I haven't had to edit the ini file to get what I want out of it. Mages at one difficulty, Trolls at another, etc. I've been able to use the in game dialogue to change the difficulty modes for the various options. Definitely not a newbie mod, not for a first playthrough, but there's a reason why it's one of the most popular mods out there ... I'm assuming that the OP will go and look at the descriptions of the mods I mentioned and make his own judgement call on whether it's what he wants in his game. Good to know that much of UB was included in the EEs. Not all, I think though, right? I know the Kidnapping of Boo event was one of my favorites for BG2 UB. I don't think that was included in BG2EE.
  21. I would also look at the Tweaks Anthology -- offers a lot of options in addition to EET Tweaks and many QoL improvements. If you like banter, then the NPC Project mods are a must have. Other than that, a quick scan through the categories in G3, Pocket Plane Group, and Spellhold Studios can give you a good survey of the landscape. Popular options include various new kits (haven't tried) and additional joinable NPCs (preferences vary widely). Maybe Unfinished Business (1&2) to tie up a few loose ends. I'm also a fan of Spell Revisions (especially with SCS, below), but that may change things more than you want. If you want to shake things up a little later on, I so very highly recommend Sword Coast Stratagems. It's a difficulty mod that mainly focuses on AI. Makes things a lot more interesting without being punishing, and is entirely modular (keep this, ditch that). I normally eschew difficulty mods, and I have completely come around to this one. Probably not recommended for a first time, though. If you're already a BG vet, give it a go.
  22. Looks great! I'll definitely check it out on my next playthrough
  23. True, but I'm also not inviting Sarevok over for tea Maybe not the most realistic, per se, but a far more fun and effective game experience Also, I can neither confirm nor deny whether I recently installed my fifth auto-turret underneath the spice rack in my kitchen. Last Thursday.
  24. Another one in the "unexpected consequences" camp for SCS: It is WAY easier to keep the Grand Dukes alive in BG1 during Sarevok's Coronation. Lia Jannath immediately has Stoneskin, Fireshield, Dispelling Screen, Spell Deflection, Shield, and Ghost Armor. The first thing she does is cast Teleport Field, regularly scattering all the Doppelgangers, and the second thing she does is cast Shadow Door, disappearing from sight. So much better than vanilla
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