Lightbringer

Woohoo! Go K4thos, Go!

I'm very glad to hear that. Thanks for the info, K4thos

Good to know, thanks. Shall I assume that, for the time being, EET Setup Tool is the most reliable and stable install tool available right now? (Putting aside the issue of potential mod changes by Roxanne) I hopped over to the BWS forum on Beamdog and there seemed to be plenty of issues being reported (though that could just be all the squeaky wheels experiencing problems that many of us would not). Sheesh, I sound like Edwin o.o (You only wish you sounded like me, you insignificant dust mite!)

True enough. Apologies, I have no idea what this means.

That's troubling. Additionally, I just saw that the Amber NPC mod was updated to v5 on G3 about a day ago, adding native EET support and other bugfixes. On Roxanne's site, she has a version of Amber she updated to include her own crafted ToB content for Amber (which, honestly, I appreciated). Now, however, there are two different "current" versions of Amber in the wild. Messy, messy. I've been debating whether to stick with EET Setup Tool (which, to its credit, has worked smoothly and effectively so far) or to go back to BWS. I think your information, plus this Amber conflict tells me what I need to know to decide. It is interesting how much of the modding community is dependent on trust.

Haha, sounds more like a feature than a bug. I, for one, would keep it as is! (Though I can certainly understand the change -- a little early for such a deadly situation)

Ah! Thanks Jarno I didn't remember where I acquired it from. Glad it's sorted then. Edit: a search for "Baldur's Gate Near Infinity" I just ran produced the github page at the top result. Idk, I was tired when I wrote that previous post. Good to clarify, though.

I love this change! I've been intimidated by SCS for a long time, but finally decided to give it a try *minus smarter mages*. I'm only a little way through BG1 on an EET install (just before Davaeorn) but what I've seen so far is extremely impressive. The first time I saw Carbos use "Poison Weapon" -- and I realized if he hit me, I was dead -- I knew I was in for a ride. (Now that I think on it, if I got hit I could have run to the clinic to beg for the healing potion and survived. How awesomely realistic! My monk PC still kicked his butt.) I'm now a convert. I especially loved the improvements to Ulcaster. Priest's tendency to run, while Sanctuaried, healing on their way out of range is very clever. Kobold mess in Nashkel Mines was loads of fun. "Lesser Vampires" around Firewine from another mod inherited your vampire AI. Very engaging challenge! Centeol surprised me -- enjoyably tough fight. Looking forward to see what you did with the rest. I reminds me of what I do to the D&D modules that I adapt for my home table. I have a heavily modded, multi-megamod install, so I tend to greatly over-level (level 14 or so going into SoA). SCS provides a great bump up in difficulty to match my over-leveled and over-equipped party. I've yet to see how it will scale by ToB, but I have good hopes. In any case, I've been itching to try out smarter mages, but was unsure how to handle the pre-buffing issue. There's no way I want all the craziness involved there, with nearly every early BG1 mage and bard coming at you with stoneskin . With your difficulty slider alteration plus widget, I can fine tune it all very easily -- even on the fly. I've been pausing my current playthrough to wait for IWD-in-EET, and now I'll wait for a completed SCSv32 as well. Cheers, and great work!

It's under the MENU category in Near Infinity. Near Infinity is a game file browser and editor that many of us use to manipulate the game data. You can find it by searching for Baldur's Gate Near Infinity. There are many online tutorials available to show you what you can do (editing items, dialogue trees, shop files, game rules in the 2da files, and much more).

I see that Fade has been added. Thanks. When I went to use the tool on a new install and selected Fade, I received an error during the full BWP install. The BigWorldFixpack attempted to patch to the tp2 in Fade vBETA7.3 instead of Fade v5.1. 5.1 is the current mod. I canceled the patcher for Fade, not wanting wild edits in the install. Just an FYI. I don't know if there's anything you can/should do about it.

For what it's worth, I've played the rebalanced DSotSC mod and didn't find anything crazy. Originally I think there was a vorpal sword outside of the Vampire's castle, but that's been removed. The items were appropriate for late game BG1. Think Durlag's Tower. Overall, I think of vanilla BG1 as overly magic starved, especially compared to the sudden rush of power in BG2. Some of these larger mods help smooth out the power curve a little bit by making magic items a little less rare -- though not strikingly overpowered. Both NTotSC (I've only played Roxanne's interim version .. yet!) and DSotSC are of a similar difficulty and power level as TotSC, maybe a tiny bit more so. I found them to be a very satisfying complement to late game BG1, alongside Stone of Askavar. I'm looking forward to trying out Jastey's more user-friendly take on NTotSC

In case anyone's interested, here is the problem that required all that messing around: With Thalantyr's Item Upgrade, I never received the dialogue choice to ask if Thalantyr can upgrade my items after the first time talking to him. I found the solution buried within his dialogue file. It turns out -- sometime in the last couple years -- it was changed. I didn't have this problem with BG:EE v1.3 or whatever EET RC was out at the time (7?). Apparently, somebody thought it was goofy that Thalantyr played the coy "Rumors?! Bah, there's no mage that wishes to speak or be spoken to ... " game every time you talk to him. Makes sense. A new global was created that flipped from 0 to 1 after the first time Thal says the above. After that, you get to go straight to the shop without engaging in his little hard-to-get routine. Problem is, Thalantyr's Item Upgrade injected it's "can you make items?" dialogue option within Thal's Rumors?! tree. So after the first time, global becomes 1 and you never get to ask again xD Thank goodness for Near Infinity. I simply changed SetGlobal("RumorTalkThalan","GLOBAL",1) to SetGlobal("RumorTalkThalan","GLOBAL",0) in two action states (6 and 18 for my install) and the problem was solved. I suspect that someone at Beamdog made the change for 2.5. Good intentions and all that. Anyhoo, I thought it was an interesting little quirk -- not necessarily an EET bug or anything. Simple solution to a conflict that completely breaks a great mod. I'll go report it on the Thalantyr Item Upgrade forum, unless y'all know of a particular place the report should go.

I ran into a whole slew of errors with the latest RC11 in a BWS heavily modded install. The installation worked just fine. Just a couple of errors that caused a couple components from Klatu's Tweakpack to go uninstalled. No biggie. I discovered that I needed to change a particular mod's components. I uninstalled EET-end. It threw a couple errors, but otherwise proceeded. It was when I uninstalled the component in question that all the errors occurred. Specifically, I found this both with Re-installing Thalantyr Item Upgrade, and also with Un-installing Ascalon's quest pack. Both mods were deep into the install stack, so required lots of uninstalling and reinstalling of mods later in the order. Many, maybe most, mods threw screenfuls of errors of the following varieties (paraphrased in some places): WARNING possible missing evaluate buffer in array WARNING possible missing evaluate buffer in STR_VAR WARNING possible error file xxxxx.(itm/cre/bcr) not found in action ## There were also vast swathes, though infrequently occurring, of errors involving Worldmap Nodes. Is this to be expected? Does it mean my install is borked and needs a do-over? Edit: I solved my problem another way. Thank goodness I made a backup copy of my install before mucking with it xD

Hi Roxanne, Thanks for making this tool. I'm glad to see active maintenance continuing for BWS in one form or another. I've been lurking in and out for a while, but I'm restarting an EET install post-2.5. Looking forward to an eventual IWD inclusion. Can you add Monastic Orders of Faerun and Fade NPC to the EET Setup Tool? From what I've read, they're both EET compatible. Looks like Jastey helped Lava with some of the code to bring Fade up to EET compatibility. Monastic Orders https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/18620/mod-beta-monastic-orders-of-faerun/p1 Fade https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/32581/fade-v4-0-with-tob-released/p1 Thanks!

That seems to be the case so far. So it looks like I'll have to go in and "re-adjust" Isra in BG2 to match my version of her. It makes sense. The Isra-in-BG2 mod was designed so it could be independent of BG1. There's a dialogue line on first picking her up in Amn where you can indicate you two have a history -- thus getting a head start on the romance and altering a few dialogues. Other than that, it was presented as an independent mod. I guess I just made it feel continuous by my own RP and tender ministrations via EEKeeper

I'm currently playing through SoD. Isra works just fine. In fact, she has been with me even in areas where the game assumed I would be alone. I haven't seen the issue referenced in that bug report, and I've been away from the city quite a bit. As for continuity in BG2, I'll find out soon enough. The last time I played her I used her in BG1&2. I didn't have SoD, or EET at that time. For that playthrough, everything was "new" upon reaching BG2, except for my imported CHARNAME. I always use EEKeeper to sculpt any NPC to my own needs in any case, so if I have to "reshape" Isra in BG2 once I acquire her, it'll be no big deal. In my own mind, I'll be the same continuity.

@Roxanne, I expected no less! @Blash2, It is indeed a good thing! Imoen rocks as a thief/mage multi. I made Dynaheir a fighter/mage multi, and between the two of them, they were great. Since you're playing Sandrah, Blash2, I assume you have NTotSC and DSotSC. There's some great items for any caster (including a shortbow that really took Immy up a notch). I also highly recommend Thalantyr's item upgrade. I'm with you. I try to keep as consistent and continuous a party as possible. I dislike swapping characters in and out. In BG2, I've made exceptions for interesting personal quests (mainly Jaheira), but I try to maintain a consistent party throughout. If you want a Paladin, consider Isra. She is a Paladin of Sune, is really well crafted, and will join from Nashkell all the way to the Throne of Bhaal. Here's what I am doing, with a non-Sandrah mega mod install: Lumina (CHARNAME sun soul monk) Isra (Inquisitor) Minsc (Cleric/Ranger) Victoria (Created NPC Fighter/Assassin) Dynaheir (Fighter/Invoker) -- Replaced by Tyris Flare (Fighter/Mage) for BG2 Imoen (Swashbuckler/Mage) -- Temporarily replaced by Nalia (Thief/mage) in BG2

Answer to first question - no. As I understand it, this is because the extra content for Imoen is tied to the choice that the player makes in dialogue, not necessarily to the mere existence of Imoen with a mage element, right?\ So, in theory, could someone select "yes Imoen be a mage/thief" in dialogue, then go into EEKeeper and change her to a Paladin or a Barbarian or a single-classed thief or whatever -- and still get the extra content? Don't get me wrong, it sounds like a bad idea that totally defeats the spirit of things. Plus some of the mechanics of the content might rely on mage abilities that Thief-Imoen does not possess. Not to mention the flavor of the quests might be off from the current version of Imoen. I don't know. I can't say I've never done goofy things like that ...

No, it's not. It's just a bit perhaps easier to do in the current games when you make the NPC's files, but you can set the kit & class to whatever the original game has while you edit the character. And it's about the editing tools. This could be done with Near Infinity a long time ago... but now you can do it within the original games if you just installed the few ToBEx mods(the in BG2 Tweak Packs/Tweaks Anthology), with just the regular make a multiplayer char into an NPC way, without editing race etc facts. For example, you can make a Fighter/Thief that has a Necromancer kit, the last part will just never do a thing, as that effects nothing. Ah, fair enough. I was recalling a line in the old BGTweaks readme that stated that the human multiclassing and demihuman dual classing components were EE exclusive. Makes sense that EE simply allows the ability to be more easily front-end packaged as a tweak component. NI always allows all kinds of fun shenanigans. Right now I'm enjoying that fact that, by allowing Monks to take proficiency in Dual Wielding, I can have an off-hand sword with a main-hand unarmed strike. I essentially get to have the blade wielding monk that I've always wanted now. Broken to be sure -- and a little silly -- but dang cool looking. Of course if I wanted to "fix" that, I could go into NI and edit Monkfist to be a 2h weapon. But as I said, to me it's a feature not a bug

A hint - with Sandrah you will have the chance to dual-class Imoen to thief mage from the beginning via an option in the first talk with Imoen in Candlekeep. This adds far more contents and also two large extra quests for the Imoen/Sandrah pairing in BG1 - just in case such stuff interests you. Sure, but who will detect and disarm traps? Unfortunately I don't have any alternative to bringing Imoen to a decent thief level.. If I recall correctly, you can make Imoen a multiclassed thief/mage with that choice in Sandrah Saga. No dual classing issues -- straight up multi from the start. It's a new feature of EE-exclusive tweak -- humans and non-humans are no longer restricted from dual or multi classes.

Sort of ... .. I think .. From what I've seen from Beamdog, they made more improvements to the EE engine for PSTEE that they will be bringing to the rest of the EE games -- first BG1&2EE, and then IWD:EE. Assuming I interpreted this blog post correctly.

I know I'm a bit late to the party but ... Welcome back K4thos!!!! We missed ya, bud From what I've been seeing from Beamdog, they're planning to patch BG2:EE and IWD:EE with the next set of patches from PST:EE this fall. Looking forward to shaking out IWD in EET after that. Now I need to get with the program and finish up my full EET playthrough from many months ago. Darn those "other" games that occasionally grab my interest...

C:SetGlobal("CheckViconiaMatch","GLOBAL",1) AND C:SetGlobal("ViconiaMatch","GLOBAL",1) unless you have the convenience cheat from tweaks, in which case all males should qualify. Set those globals before you ever meet Viconia. They have to be set before you meet the NPC? Good to know.

IIRC, there's an option within Tweaks Anthology that removes gender/race/reputation/alignment restrictions from the vanilla Bioware romances. I've never romanced Viconia (I don't recruit evil NPCs), so I'm not sure why you couldn't with a male elf. Does she not romance elves? If not, that Tweak option should fix it. As I understand it, that tweak does not change mod romances -- just the vanilla Bioware NPCs. If you're just wanting to start a romance, there's always the SetGlobal option through the console. I'm going to have to defer to others on exactly what those commands are, as I'm a little fuzzy on it myself. I think there's one command to set the requirements to be met, and then there's another command to set the stage of the romance. You could also search for BG2 romance console commands, and I'm sure the internet will cough something up

Thanks Roxanne. She's STATE NORMAL. The effects list all involved THAC0, Spell protections, proficiency mods, and local variable settings. I checked the local variable settings, and none of them referenced bddest. Well, I guess I'll find out if my Imoen reappears later.