Baldur's Gate & Baldur's Gate II Mod Thread

[Xeon]

I got my ass kicked by the Rokh Transmuter. I was level drained by the damn ghosts and removed my True Sight, The Rukh kept casting invisibility on himself so Edwin could not dispel his protections and none of my weapons or magic worked on him. Used Cerberus but he couldn't reveal him with his True Sight, don't know why. Had to buy time until he ran out of invisibility and then dispel his protections and kill him. Later, there was a group of Elder and Ancient Vampires who drain my constitution, don't think I can protect against it.

I decided to re-load and move on to Chapter 3, If I can do more quests after I get the Mace of Disruption then I'll do so and if not, I'll do the rest after I get back in Ch6 I think.

I think the only thing left in Athkatla is Planar Sphere and Liches, Anomen and Jan need some time for their quests to trigger and I don't want to waste a lot of time doing nothing or rest spamming so I think I'll do them later, possibly when I get back unless there is a simple Clua or Keeper option to speed them up. I recruited them and dismissed them, I think time will still pass for their quests. Haer'dalis got bugged out, kicked him out after I got back from Planar Prison and he said the same thing about delivering the gem to the theater when I find it even after doing that and just finishing his quest. Found him in the theater and talked to him, seemed normal then disappeared and showed up beside the inn keeper upstairs, talking to him again and he seem upset.

Where is Maheer? Would like to upgrade the Silver Horn to Iron since I already have Diamond and Beljuril but there is no one by that name. There is Storekeeper, Murtlen, Quataris and a guard, none of them offer an upgrade.

 

[Somberlain]

Used Cerberus but he couldn't reveal him with his True Sight, don't know why.

In SCS, mages often use Spell Immunity: Divination, which makes them immune to True Sight etc. You can use AoE disablers like Dispel/Remove Magic or my own favorite, Detect Illusions thief skill. Once you get it to 100, it works 100% of the time and enemy can't defend against it. It can also be used infinitely.

Where is Maheer? Would like to upgrade the Silver Horn to Iron since I already have Diamond and Beljuril but there is no one by that name. There is Storekeeper, Murtlen, Quataris and a guard, none of them offer an upgrade.

He is one of the fat merchants in Waukeens Promenade, he is standing on a wooden platform. His technical name is just a "Storekeep", I think, so you need to actually talk to him to see his name.

 

[Xeon]

Thank you very much.

Since Viconia is a pure Cleric, is it wise for her to be the one who cast Dispel Magic? since it says depends on the level of the caster compared to the level of the enemy. She is Lv14 Cleric and PC Lv11/10 C/R. Edwin is Lv12. Jahiera is the same as PC with Lv10/11 in F/D.

Yoshimo only has 10 in Detect Illusion, Kinda my fault, I have been raising Yoshimo's pickpocking instead. Thought to try and steal everything from shops. he has 110 in Pickpocket and can be raised to 177 with Potion of Power and 2 Mind Focusing. He has Glove of Pickpocketing and Masterbelt from Rogue Re-balancing. I stole all Scrolls I could, RR removed the ability to pickpocket the Shadow Thief's merchant so no infinite money anymore. I think I'll pick up Jan, he had 116 in Detect Illusion IIRC, makes him very valuable now if he can help Edwin by casting magic and also dispelling invisibility without having to waste slots on True Sight.

 

[Somberlain]

Thank you very much.

Since Viconia is a pure Cleric, is it wise for her to be the one who cast Dispel Magic? since it says depends on the level of the caster compared to the level of the enemy. She is Lv14 Cleric and PC Lv11/10 C/R. Edwin is Lv12. Jahiera is the same as PC with Lv10/11 in F/D.

Bards and Inquisitors make the best dispellers, while bards also make great buffers. Inquisitors (like Keldorn) dispel twice at their own level and since bards and thieves have lowest xp requirements, they will always have a lot higher caster level than other casters with the same amount of xp. I also prefer bards to Inquisitors because arcane casters get Remove Magic which only affects enemies. I always play with an evil party anyway.

So yeah, it's always best to use the one with the highest caster level.

Yoshimo only has 10 in Detect Illusion, Kinda my fault, I have been raising Yoshimo's pickpocking instead. Thought to try and steal everything from shops. he has 110 in Pickpocket and can be raised to 177 with Potion of Power and 2 Mind Focusing. He has Glove of Pickpocketing and Masterbelt from Rogue Re-balancing. I stole all Scrolls I could, RR removed the ability to pickpocket the Shadow Thief's merchant so no infinite money anymore. I think I'll pick up Jan, he had 116 in Detect Illusion IIRC, makes him very valuable now if he can help Edwin by casting magic and also dispelling invisibility without having to waste slots on True Sight.

Thieves get the most level ups so it's not too late to start raising Detect Illusions, it caps out at 100 anyway.[/QUOTE]

 

[Xeon]

Man, I am a moron. I thought I needed to kill Bodhi, don't remember if I did or not in vanilla so I thought I needed to kill her but nope, she was a mean bitch, she drains 5 CON each hit and probably has tons of health. I just couldn't do jack to her, most I did was dropping her to Injured before killing me. My main was maxed buffed with everything, spell and potion, got him to -14 and with Mace of Disruption +2 and still nada, every one of her hit connected and each hit took 5 CON.

Finally decided to cast Misled by Edwin and go and kill the Vampire and summon her, she instantly knocked him unconscious, but I think she gets bugged out when she does that with one member in sight of her since it happened twice, she just stood there in front of knocked out Edwin not doing anything. Anyway I summoned a Fire Elemental and lured her away from Edwin to the Pool of Blood and finally when he woke up he finished casting Feeblemind, did not work but after killing the summon she decided to go. I wasted almost 3 hours thinking and doing different strategies trying to kill her and all I needed was to hold on for a little while.

Found this thread and apparently the only protection against Ability Drain is Protection from Magical Weapons. Dunno if the screenshot is from the Tactics SCS version or the Toned down version but yea, I am not looking forward to fighting her again. Also found this thread, it lists all the magic spells and explains if they are useful or not in SCS, its mainly for SCS solo tho but its still amazingly useful.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Doesn't Protection from Negative Energy make you immune to level drain?

 

[agris]

Doesn't Protection from Negative Energy make you immune to level drain?

Yep, at least Vampiric. I don't recall for tactics/SCS/Ascension modified encounters if some bosses use a TotallyNotLevelDrain level drain that bypasses PfNE.

 

[Xeon]

Yea, Negative Plane Protection protects from level drain, in SCS vampire can also drain abilities as well. PC has Mace of Disruption +2 which also protects from level drain so he was safe from that but the CON drain which was kinda hard to handle.

Improved Vampires (BG2, BG2EE, BGT)
This component upgrades vampires' intelligence and abilities, roughly in line with pen-and-paper Dungeons and Dragons. They should target their magic more effectively, pick on people vulnerable to their level drain, and so forth. The component also standardises vampire statistics a bit (usually increasing vampire ability scores slightly). It allows vampires to summon wolves, bats, or rats (the bat summoning was present in earlier versions but has been toned down), to drink blood (which drains Constitution) as well as draining levels, and to make much more use of their various shapeshifting abilities (bat, rat, wolf, gas cloud).

This component does affect Bodhi, but only if you don't install the "Improved Bodhi" component (in other words, if you want Bodhi to use her original-game abilities more effectively but don't want to give her the extra powers of that component, install Smarter Vampires but not Improved Bodhi).

Improved Bodhi (Tactics remix)
This component is very closely based on the Improved Bodhi in Westley Weimer's Tactics mod. To quote from the readme to that mod:

Sigh. Bodhi is worth 91K XP -- more than almost anything else in the game. And yet she is a mere brute-force melee fighter who doesn't even drink healing potions. We make her more intelligent ... and give her some impressive pseudo-magical powers associated with vampires of myth and legend. Bodhi gains dominion over bats, the cold, the ground and the grave.

The SCS version of Improved Bodhi is updated to use modern WeiDU coding (to help with compatibility-friendliness) and SCS II AI scripting. She comes in two versions: a "hardcore" version which has the same stats and powers as Westley's version, and a toned-down version with stats closer to Bodhi's vanilla-game stats, less ferocious saving-throw penalties for her spells (-4 instead of -10) and no Deathly Shroud (Bodhi's lethal Fire Shield power).

You can fight Bodhi in chapters 3 and 6; in chapter 3 (again, following Tactics) she'll pull her punches, slightly more so in the toned-down version than the hardcore one.

Edit:
Started a solo run in Baldur's Gate 2, no import. Trying to play Berserker and got blinded in the room near the second forge area after portal. Tried resting didn't help. Was going really well too but now I am walking a few inches at a time to find my way to the end, only ones left are the Shadow Thiefs on the way to the exit.

I installed the tweak to remove unidentified items, locks and traps, only thing I dislike about it is that I only have 1 Draw Upon Holy Might, because I started at Average Reputation.

 

[hell bovine]

Man, I am a moron. I thought I needed to kill Bodhi, don't remember if I did or not in vanilla so I thought I needed to kill her but nope, she was a mean bitch, she drains 5 CON each hit and probably has tons of health. I just couldn't do jack to her, most I did was dropping her to Injured before killing me. My main was maxed buffed with everything, spell and potion, got him to -14 and with Mace of Disruption +2 and still nada, every one of her hit connected and each hit took 5 CON.

Finally decided to cast Misled by Edwin and go and kill the Vampire and summon her, she instantly knocked him unconscious, but I think she gets bugged out when she does that with one member in sight of her since it happened twice, she just stood there in front of knocked out Edwin not doing anything. Anyway I summoned a Fire Elemental and lured her away from Edwin to the Pool of Blood and finally when he woke up he finished casting Feeblemind, did not work but after killing the summon she decided to go. I wasted almost 3 hours thinking and doing different strategies trying to kill her and all I needed was to hold on for a little while.

Found this thread and apparently the only protection against Ability Drain is Protection from Magical Weapons. Dunno if the screenshot is from the Tactics SCS version or the Toned down version but yea, I am not looking forward to fighting her again. Also found this thread, it lists all the magic spells and explains if they are useful or not in SCS, its mainly for SCS solo tho but its still amazingly useful.

If you are fighting the Tactics version, then from what I remember acid was her weakness. Also, if she has no way of removing spell protections (haven't tried the Tactics plus SCS version; I'm not sure about that), then having a mage with protection from magical weapons draw her attention in melee is you best bet (spell sequencers and the like can't be interrupted, so if you use those to buff, your mage should be relatively safe).

I think Tactics gave her a lot of immunities (due to her being an old vampire), therefore spells like feeblemind are probably not going to work. You can always try death fog to see if acid does her in, but you need to spam that spell because one cloud will do only little damage.

(it really gets funny if you take Solaufein along, because his undead form is ridiculous and tops even Bodhi)

 

[oldmanpaco]

Started a solo run in Baldur's Gate 2, no import. Trying to play Berserker and got blinded in the room near the second forge area after portal. Tried resting didn't help. Was going really well too but now I am walking a few inches at a time to find my way to the end, only ones left are the Shadow Thiefs on the way to the exit.

I installed the tweak to remove unidentified items, locks and traps, only thing I dislike about it is that I only have 1 Draw Upon Holy Might, because I started at Average Reputation.

Doing a solo run with a fighter seems just about impossible. Especially with the mods you have installed. You would need a F/M at a minimum and should probably go with the F/M/T.

 

[Xeon]

I read this thread, the poster is using Berserker soloing BGT on Hardcore rules (SCS/No Reload/No Resting) so I kinda wanted to try it, its kinda fun, didn't need to rest at all in the first dungeon but I did, to try and cure Blindness but that didn't work. I am not gonna use the very strict rules but I am gonna try. Only thing I dislike about it is it takes forever to find hidden doors because of the Human race I think. I finished the slavers quest line, dealing with the trolls was kinda of a headache, I installed all of the options of SCS except for moving the special items so there was no arrows in the ship, kept knocking the trolls until I finished all the slavers then went to store bought arrows and went to kill them.

2 Images from the thread

I found what most of the items used are but I have no idea what the boots and girdle are. I didn't know how to dispel Mage protection but BBMorti told me in shoutbox to use Dispel Arrows so I am gonna try that and hope it works. No idea otherwise on how to deal with high level mages.

If you are fighting the Tactics version, then from what I remember acid was her weakness. Also, if she has no way of removing spell protections (haven't tried the Tactics plus SCS version; I'm not sure about that), then having a mage with protection from magical weapons draw her attention in melee is you best bet (spell sequencers and the like can't be interrupted, so if you use those to buff, your mage should be relatively safe).

Thanks, will try Acid when I meet her again in Ch6. I don't think I can let her attack my MWPed mage, SCS tends to let enemies change their targets all the time, for example if I attack her with NPP melee, she will ignore me and attack others with no protection or weaker targets first if she sees them. Edwin is lv13 so still no access to Lv7 spells yet. I did try to have Edwin use MWP with Silverblaze from Rogue Re-balancing quest I think (1D4+3 (+5 Vs. Vampires) but kept missing.

 

[hell bovine]

I read this thread, the poster is using Berserker soloing BGT on Hardcore rules (SCS/No Reload/No Resting) so I kinda wanted to try it, its kinda fun, didn't need to rest at all in the first dungeon but I did, to try and cure Blindness but that didn't work. I am not gonna use the very strict rules but I am gonna try. Only thing I dislike about it is it takes forever to find hidden doors because of the Human race I think. I finished the slavers quest line, dealing with the trolls was kinda of a headache, I installed all of the options of SCS except for moving the special items so there was no arrows in the ship, kept knocking the trolls until I finished all the slavers then went to store bought arrows and went to kill them.

Dwarves (or any short race, really) are better suited for this sort of challenges because they get better saves. A human is going to have a much worse time against anything with spells, whereas I suspect a dwarf can take many SCS mages head on, with rages and potions to buff your saves. For a human I'd rather choose a swashbuckler (halfling would be better of course), because they can use detect illusion to dispel illusions, and later on they can use mage scrolls to defend themselves from the game-over spells.

 

[Xeon]

Summons are broken, don't know if its an oversight with SCS or its because of another mod possibly aTweak since I think its the only thing that changes summons but summons are extremely broken. I am almost sure its aTweak. I don't think I experienced this during BG1. I installed aTweak after reading the elemental summons of vanilla are worthless and aTweak make them still viable, saw Xor's WeiDU Log and he had it after SCS so I installed it as well in BG2.

I cleared the first 2 floors of Watcher's Keep. First floor, everyone beside the PC was invisible by 10' Radius spell in the kitchen. Used Sanctuary on the PC after the ritual and went to the room with the lich and 2 golems and summoned 4 skeletons, I originally just wanted to try and divide the enemies but they were never detected so I ordered them to attack someone and then lore them away but still didn't aggro, I figured they might as well keep attacking and managed to kill everyone beside an invisible mage and the adamantite golem without any combat. This is the second time this happened, first time was in the Planar Prison with the Warden I think.

I made the Flail of Ages +4 with the poison head. Edwin is finally Lv14 and got access to 5 slots in Lv7 spells. I am still doing quests, finished Jan's quest and now trying to do Anomen's. Tried to kill the Gate Lich but still having a little problem with the room being too small and I can't leave when I enter but getting a little easier, might be able to with a little more preparation but don't want to waste rare scrolls on Jan. will try killing Thax again and finish the Firkraag area and hope the undead enemies didn't upgrade to liches.

Solo Bersekrer, I started over with a Dwarf and finished quests and enemies in Slums, Graveyard and Bridge district, no liches yet. I am thinking of console in a Bag of Holding. Horror seems decent, I was attacked during travel and only had Horror so figured I'll use it and made everyone panic and managed to kill all the spell casters and then everyone else. No resting is kinda hard, I am trying to be too careful of using enrage with every mage battle and mostly using temples and potions to heal but yea. Kinda wish if I finished BG1 and imported, having a 20 CON and higher level would have made things a lot easier.

 

[hell bovine]

Summons are broken, don't know if its an oversight with SCS or its because of another mod possibly aTweak since I think its the only thing that changes summons but summons are extremely broken. I am almost sure its aTweak. I don't think I experienced this during BG1. I installed aTweak after reading the elemental summons of vanilla are worthless and aTweak make them still viable, saw Xor's WeiDU Log and he had it after SCS so I installed it as well in BG2.

I cleared the first 2 floors of Watcher's Keep. First floor, everyone beside the PC was invisible by 10' Radius spell in the kitchen. Used Sanctuary on the PC after the ritual and went to the room with the lich and 2 golems and summoned 4 skeletons, I originally just wanted to try and divide the enemies but they were never detected so I ordered them to attack someone and then lore them away but still didn't aggro, I figured they might as well keep attacking and managed to kill everyone beside an invisible mage and the adamantite golem without any combat. This is the second time this happened, first time was in the Planar Prison with the Warden I think.

In my experience even with SCS installed, enemies generally can't deal with an invisible party, summons or not. I have just finished a fighter/thief & Imoen (who never dual-classed) run through the first part of BGT, and fights got much easier once I've got two cloaks on non-detection.

(Of course then it turns out that in BGT the characters get imported "as they are" into BG2, which means no magic for Imoen, and I forgot I installed improved Illyich from Tactics. :D)

 

[GarfunkeL]

Some enemies have True Sight or cast it or Dispel when they "suspect" that you're nearby. But it's not that different from endless summoning cheese or massive aoe-spam from the edge of the map. Human player will always find the weak spots of a game and can then cheese/exploit it as much as they want.

 

[hell bovine]

Some enemies have True Sight or cast it or Dispel when they "suspect" that you're nearby. But it's not that different from endless summoning cheese or massive aoe-spam from the edge of the map. Human player will always find the weak spots of a game and can then cheese/exploit it as much as they want.

Not in BG1, or at least I haven't found any spellcasters with true sight. The lower invisibility detection spells get stopped by the cloak. I don't think a thief sneaking up on an enemy and backstabbing is the same as hiding behind a wall of summons, however, especially since SCS thieves do the same. But yeah, I agree that invisibility/hiding are the AI's "weak spots".

 

[GarfunkeL]

No, I meant using invisibility on few summons to make the AI not react to them at all.

 

[Arcanchosin1]

Playing through Baldur's Gate with SCS finally made it to baldur's gate and man i love the challenge mages can be a bit of a pain though.

 

[hell bovine]

No, I meant using invisibility on few summons to make the AI not react to them at all.

Ah, never used that.

I think the bigger problem is that the enemy AI is incapable of, for example, moving their asses to a wall to prevent backstabs, and I don't think it would be even possible to mod that into the game.

 

[Xeon]

Yea, so I am in Spellhold Asylum, I don't have any of my equipment per the choice I made during the SCS installation. But I also installed Bodhi component from UB where she chase me around, I haven't even rested once and she's already here with a group of vampires I think, I only have normal weapons and barely any armors, no potions at all. Chances of survival and getting out of this place are not looking good.

 

[GarfunkeL]

There is one insta-death trap in there that you can abuse to get rid of enemies on that level.

 

[Xeon]

I think you are referring to to the walls north, near the room with Bag of Holding if I am not mistaken, they seem to be permanently closed, was already like that when I uncovered the fog.

Bodhi only spawns on PC so I parked the PC in the room with the Bag of Holding while in Stealth and she showed up, I sneaked outside and closed the door. Picked a fight with the YuanTis near the head statue and she didn't show up, tried resting and she didn't show up. When Edwin killed her group, she retreated and then she shows up again when I tried resting. So I could let her undisturbed there and clear out the entire place, Not sure if this still applies if I go to the other parts of the dungeon. Abusing this, kinda makes the reason for installing the component pointless tho.

Edit:
I was wrong, the fucking trap is active it was just closed and when I got near it, it killed half of my party. I cleared the first and second areas, only thing left is the portal in the first area, I managed to kill the Werewolf but the second fight with the Fiend is pretty damn hard, he keeps summoning more and more demons that can easily overpower my summons.

Dace was pretty annoying, he kept retreating and healing or something, took very long time to kill.

 

[hell bovine]

I think you are referring to to the walls north, near the room with Bag of Holding if I am not mistaken, they seem to be permanently closed, was already like that when I uncovered the fog.

Bodhi only spawns on PC so I parked the PC in the room with the Bag of Holding while in Stealth and she showed up, I sneaked outside and closed the door. Picked a fight with the YuanTis near the head statue and she didn't show up, tried resting and she didn't show up. When Edwin killed her group, she retreated and then she shows up again when I tried resting. So I could let her undisturbed there and clear out the entire place, Not sure if this still applies if I go to the other parts of the dungeon. Abusing this, kinda makes the reason for installing the component pointless tho.

Edit:
I was wrong, the fucking trap is active it was just closed and when I got near it, it killed half of my party. I cleared the first and second areas, only thing left is the portal in the first area, I managed to kill the Werewolf but the second fight with the Fiend is pretty damn hard, he keeps summoning more and more demons that can easily overpower my summons.

Dace was pretty annoying, he kept retreating and healing or something, took very long time to kill.

Ah yes, the infamous power that only the PC has: knowing how to operate a door handle. :D

If it's any consolation, I just cheesed through the improved Illyich fight, because my poor fighter/thief wasn't strong enough to take on them in combat, and it didn't occur to me to simply leave them be.

 

[Xor]

Yeah, I never install the Bodhi hunts your party component. It's a pain in the ass to deal with when your party is mostly casters.

 

[Xeon]

Any advice on how to fight Irenicus? so far I am getting my ass kicked by him, badly too. I remember in vanilla, the wizards finish him fast and then die and I only have to deal with the clones and then assassins. So far, the wizards keep dying fast and then I end up getting killed as well. I thought of using Gate and release 2 demons on his ass and everyone else but he does use dispel magic on my party and also the demons kept killing the mages instead of my enemies first.

I didn't see my equipment yet and I did hopefully made sure to clear everything, which kinda sucks since so far, only PC has a decent armor, everyone else either no armors or very basic chain armor stuff, no usable weapon except for a club against Undead. I read that in SCS they are exact copy the clones, does that mean they have access to all my learned spells or just the the ready to cast spells? and items, does it count the items in my inventory or just the equipped ones?

Screenshot

Irenicus has not been injured in any of them, still shows uninjured in all of them, I just can't do anything.

He keeps also spamming Time Stop.

Edit:
Colons only copy the ready to cast spells and only the equipped items I think.

Managed to kill all the colons doing that but I have zero chance of doing anything to Irenicus. The mages only manged to get him to Barely Injured, Imoen has 6 arrows of Dispelling but did not work. I also have to keep in mind that there are invisible assassins probably right after, dealing with high level mages is pretty fucking hard.

SS2