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

[oldmanpaco]

Docile dogs are a feature. Who likes killing dogs anyway?

 

[hell bovine]

One annoying thing in my current game: after the party lost 4 Reputation thanks to the BG1 NPC Project version of Montaron's actions against Marl and his buddy in Beregost, CHARNAME's Cure Light Wounds spell (not ability) is changed to Cause Light wounds instead. Now why would a Reputation loss change the spells granted by his god?
It doesn't affect Jaheir'a cure spells.
Any ideas?

Is reputation even tracked for other characters than charname (besides everyone throwing a hissy fit if it's not to their liking)? Btw, you can tell Monty to back off, you just can't be polite about it.

 

[octavius]

One annoying thing in my current game: after the party lost 4 Reputation thanks to the BG1 NPC Project version of Montaron's actions against Marl and his buddy in Beregost, CHARNAME's Cure Light Wounds spell (not ability) is changed to Cause Light wounds instead. Now why would a Reputation loss change the spells granted by his god?
It doesn't affect Jaheir'a cure spells.
Any ideas?

Turned out I had accidentally memorized Cause Light Wounds instead of Cure Light Wounds.

 

[octavius]

Hmm...interesting difference between TuTu and BGT: in TuTu the Nashkel mines had lots more Kobold Commandos, while in BGT I only encountered one before entering the lowest level.

OTOH, some of the Kobolds (looking just like regular Kobolds) accompanying Mulhaey had much more HP than a regular Kobolds, and did 11-12 damage despite only having regular Short Swords. What's up with that?
Good thing Imoen had found a Wand of Lightning collecting dust when she invited herself to the Manor House in Beregost.
The Wand behaved different from what I remember. Instead of just unleashing one bolt, which invariably bounced back and did more damage to the party than to the enemies, I could target up to six individual targets.

 

[SwiftCrack]

Oh yeah, the ability pool has Larloch's Minor Drain anyway, not CLW.

 

[octavius]

Installing
~SETUP-BGSPAWN.TP2~ #0 #3 // BGSpawn random encounters between areas (NOTE: Baldur's Gate Trilogy - BGT required): 1.12 BWP Fix
may have been a bad idea.
The random encounters so far have been significantly harder on average than the regular encounters, partly since you can't avoid or buff. So far my party has encountered a small pack of Winter Wolves, whose breath attack is lethal for low level characters, and a Greater Ice Troll who can rip the party apart in less than a minute. I was only able to defeat the latter thanks to 12 bolts (two charges) from a Wand of Lightning.

Also, not a single shattering of weapons and armour so far, despite installing
~SETUP-BGTTWEAK.TP2~ #0 #1502 // Altered item shattering -> Make armor and shields shatter: 11 (5 Feb 12) BWP Fix
and
~SETUP-BGTTWEAK.TP2~ #0 #2400 // Enemy items shatter: 11 (5 Feb 12) BWP Fix
Either both the monsters and me have been very lucky, or something is...uh, broken.

 

[octavius]

Yeah,
~SETUP-BGSPAWN.TP2~ #0 #3 // BGSpawn random encounters between areas (NOTE: Baldur's Gate Trilogy - BGT required): 1.12 BWP Fix
needs to go.
Just got 3000 XP for killing a slow moving arrow target of a Minotaur.

The core component is good, though.

 

[octavius]

For some reason all enemies do double damage in melee. I've triple checked, and I am playing on Core (3), which is the standard rules. I loathe HP and damage bloat, and I have no idea how you can globally change the damage output, except for editing the DIFFMOD.2DA file thuswise:

2DA V1.0

0

DAMAGE_MOD LUCK_MOD

EASIEST -50 6

EASY -25 0

NORMAL -50 0

HARD 50 0

HARDEST 100 0

With this change things are back to normal again. But I can't find any mods that modify this file, so how do they do it?

The EE edition has one advantage over a BGT installation: less buggy. But then it also has fewer mods available.

 

[oldmanpaco]

I had more crashes using a modded EE than i did when using a BWP build.

 

[octavius]

I've had two crashes (one in Candlekeep) so far (reached Dryad Falls after rescuing Dynaheir), but none when I played EE (aborted after exploring Beregost and the Temple area).

Speaking of Dryad Falls, I was disappointed by no interjection at all by Jaheira in the "help the Dryad save the tree" encounter.
I remember the NPC Project had a very interesting interjection there if Monty&Xzar was in the party.

Also, some mod gives to Ludrug's hyenas Halberds +1, which kinds of breaks the pattern of the rest of the game so far.

 

[octavius]

Also, some mod gives to Ludrug's hyenas Halberds +1, which kinds of breaks the pattern of the rest of the game so far.

Turns out if was
~LOLFIXER/SETUP-LOLFIXER.TP2~ #0 #3 // Creature Stuff - Inventory Cleaner (removes items that don't exist and converts them into already present items where applicable): 19022016
~LOLFIXER/SETUP-LOLFIXER.TP2~ #0 #4 // Creature Stuff - Inventory Overhauler (moves invalid but equippable items to inventory and equips anything in the inventory to a free slot): 19022016

 

[Xzar]

Whats the best new mod of this year? Pocketplane is not updating lately.

 

[octavius]

So I installed
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #185 // PnP Fey creatures: v4.51 BWP Fix
and now Sirines are significantly more dangerous than with only SCS installed. I did the mistake of also installing
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6300 // Smarter sirines and dryads
which may have made them too OP.

 

[octavius]

One of my mods must have changes how weapon shattering works.
I've only seen it happen twice, and one of the times was when just walking. Also, instead of the message being part of the combat text, it's now a blurb over the character saying something like "My weapon broke!".
Never seen shields and armour break so far.
These things worked properly with the EE edition.


SCS seems to have "jumped the cheese" somewhat since last time I played.
Daeveron now gets reinforcements; two Guards and two Black Talon Elites every third round or so, even though we cleared out the upper levels.
He also starts with a Web + Stinking Clud Sequencer. Can't remember if he always did that, though.

But the worst so far is Karhk, the mighty Ogre Magi you can release from a jar in the Firewine map.
Even though he says he's weak he starts with all kinds of protections, some from cheating (equipped items that you can't loot).
Combined with being able to (apparantly) insta cast any spell, attack like ten times a round (and always hitting AC -6) and being very hard to hit he's now so over the top that it's no longer any fun when you can only beat him by applying counter cheese, like waiting for his buffs to run out.
I tried having Minsc, who is a pretty good archer, use the Arrows of Dispelling, but he couldn't hit.


BGSpawns make the Ulcaster Ruins much harder. It's now populated by Mist Horrors (need +2 or better wepons to hit) and Skeleton Warriors. My party had to retreat when first visiting.


Not quite satisfied with ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #185 // PnP Fey creatures: v4.51 BWP Fix
It makes Sirines too annoying and Harmadryads mostly harmless, so I prefer SCS's treatment.
Last time I played the Harmadryad in Cloakwood was a major PIA, and I think she could also be talked to. Maybe you needed Jaheira in the party?
Now she just cast one Charm spell and just runs around. She is sorrounded by an entourage of Wolves and Bears, but they are relatively harmless at this stage.

 

[octavius]

Last time I played BG1, using TuTu, I remember having severe difficulties with the Red Wizards, and that Kahrk was hard but manageable.
This time the fight against Kahrk turned out to be impossible without cheesing, abd the Red Wizards were disappointingly easy, even with no pre-buffing at all. CHARNAME being a Cleric of Helm helps, though. After a while he noticed that the first spell mages cast is Mirror Image, so as soon as all MIs are up, he casts True Seeing, which makes things much easier, especially since I couldn't get the TobEx component that makes MI not protect against AEO spells to work. If he casts True Seeing beforehand the enemy mages will not cast Mirror Image. They will still use Invisibily Potions, though.

My CHARNAME is a complete wimp, but still useful.
I decided to make a Cleric, to best balance the canon party (I haven't used Jaheira and Khalid much, though). I decided to keep the first character I rolled who had Wis as his best stat, so I ended up with 9 STR (this hurts, since he can't wear heavier armour than Splint, and he's limited to Warhammers and Slings), 15 Con (16 after using a Tome), 14 Dex and 16 Wiz.

 

[octavius]

Weird, but weapon shattering only kicks in when I (accidentally) hit the party AI button.

Also, SCS has toned down the Doppelgangers since last time I played. They used to have Mirror Images. Now they don't even Call For Help. But then they only give 420 XP anyway.

Of quest mods, Lure of the Sirines Call was bug free this time. There is an option with BWS to not install the Extended Lighthouse Area component, which seems to be what causes the problems.
I'm playing Ascalon's Questpack for the first time, and so far I'm very satisfied with it, despite a few harmless bugs.
Together with BG1 Mini Quests and Encounters, these quest mods blend in well with the vanilla game, and are not unbalanced (so far, at least).

The weakest part of the vanilla game IMO, is probably the whole Thieves Guild business in Baldur's Gate. Why is a party with a Lawful Neutral CHARNAME with a good reputation approached in the first place, and then led straight into the inner sanctum?
And why are the thieves so pathetically weak? The ordinary thugs have 1 HD, and Thuibold the leader has 3 (!) in all stats. Killing off the entire Thieves Guild, which is supposed to be so powerful that they have "monopoly", was way too easy. And no Consequences or an comment from Scar of the Flaming Fist.

 

[gunman]

I don't know if SCS changes that, but ordinary Doppelgangers don't have spell casting abilities, only greater ones cast mirror image or haste.

 

[Jason Liang]

My experience has always been that if you try adding too many mods you'll get major compatibility issues. So I usually stick with the basic essentials, a few novel mods and a few mods depending on my PC class. For example there's absolutely zilch reason to bother with Rogue Rebalancing unless you are actually playing a Thief or Bard, and zilch reason for Animal Companion unless you are PC Ranger or Druid.

That being said, no Finch? Finch is worth a dozen combat tweak mods. Also, BGT you can't play SoD... don't you at least want to try SoD out once?

We should have a poll for Codex approved BG: EE/ BG2: EE mods.

 

[Lilura]

there's absolutely zilch reason to bother with Rogue Rebalancing unless you are actually playing a Thief or Bard

You are a shitposter.

 

[octavius]

I don't know if SCS changes that, but ordinary Doppelgangers don't have spell casting abilities, only greater ones cast mirror image or haste.

Hmm...maybe my memory is faulty...it's been 8 years since last time I played BG.

 

[octavius]

My experience has always been that if you try adding too many mods you'll get major compatibility issues.

Not if you avoid the Big Mods, use BWS, avoid installing mods that try to do the same things, and manually check that your installed components have no obvious conflicts. I think BWS keeps track of most technical conflicts, but there's lots of conceptual conflicts to look out for.

So I usually stick with the basic essentials, a few novel mods and a few mods depending on my PC class. For example there's absolutely zilch reason to bother with Rogue Rebalancing unless you are actually playing a Thief or Bard,

I'm pretty sure the mod affects all NPC thieves and bards as well.

and zilch reason for Animal Companion unless you are PC Ranger or Druid.

Sure, but maybe you will play a Ranger and Druid next time, so why not install it? May save you from re-installing all the mods if you decide to start a new game with a different character.

That being said, no Finch? Finch is worth a dozen combat tweak mods.

I tried her once, and she is probably the least offensive mod companion. But not compatible with BG1 NPCs, I think.

Also, BGT you can't play SoD... don't you at least want to try SoD out once?

I have it on my chronological play list, so maybe in a decade or two. By that time the whole EE trilogy may be worth playing with extra mod support (I really missed Hard Times for EE), and maybe in a few decades Scott Amber's writing and agenda will be preferable to the standards of the future.

The final straw that made me quit BG1 EE was that it made a mockery of the whole Iron Crisis, with ultra cheap +1 Axes, which really was at odds even with vanilla BG1 prices as well. So unless you pretend those items don't exist, it's not possible to play a "hard times" game.

 

[Lagole Gon]

I think I'm going to replay BGII:SoA soon. I'm aiming for a fairly vanilla experience.

So I'll probably need bg2fixpack. Anything else? Is stratagems bro approved?

Any recommendation?

 

[Sykar]

I think I'm going to replay BGII:SoA soon. I'm aiming for a fairly vanilla experience.

So I'll probably need bg2fixpack. Anything else? Is stratagems bro approved?

Any recommendation?

I would approve of stratagems if you plan to play it once and only once only. If you plan on multiple you might consider the vanilla AI just to appreciate the vast improvements stratagems bring to the table since the original AI and especially spell selection is at times horrid.

 

[Lagole Gon]

Yeah, I think these should be enough. Everything else seems like utter crap. Or just insane.

Like this brand new mod:

Imoen is Stone (Windows) 1.0

I feel under a lot of time pressure every time after the incident with Irenicus, Imoen, and the Cowled Wizards at the Promenade. This mod lets Imoen be turned to stone in that fight. The idea is to give the PC more ease of mind to do all the quests in Chapter 2, knowing that Imoen doesn't suffer - and can be turned back to live like Branwen was in BG1 once the PC reaches Spellhold.



Maybe someone should do MOD MADNESS Baldur's Gate Let's Play. All three Nalia Romance mods and both Imoen Romance mods at once. I can't personally do that, I don't rape the things I love.

 

[octavius]

BG 2, unlike BG 1, is perfectly playable vanilla.


Meanwhile in BG 1, I've found out that BGSpawns and SCS have a few minor incompatibilities:

BGSpawns mix Bandits and War Dogs sometimes, but the War Dogs don't react to the Bandits' Call for Help.

BGSpawns spawns enemies "on the fly" as you near a trigger zone, but sometimes these triggers are very close. So for example you fight one group of Hobgoblins right inside a room, but after the fight a second group spawns in the corner of the same (big) room, a group that would have reacted to Calls for Help from the first group if it had alread been spawned.


I found that
~CURSED_ITEMS/CURSED_ITEMS.TP2~ #0 #0 // Salk's cursed items revisions: v3.7
doesn't work well with Hard Times. With Hard Times you find very few magical items, and with Cursed Items most of them will be cursed. Just too frustrating and annoying. May be worth it for a more Monty Haul game.