I learnt that... when ordering an ankheg armor from Mr. Thunderhammer, if your character has 22 charisma at the time, AND 6000 gp, you can talk the smith into making the armor within just one day, instead of ten. Never happened to me before. Truly, a charming mage with a Friends spell can accomplish nearly anything.
I think that may be new with BG:EE. I'm pretty sure I remember hearing something about them changing how long it takes to make ankheg armour a while back.
I've just learned that summoning a Nymph and telling it to Dominate you when you don't have any party members is an automatic game over.
And you would want the nymph to dominate you because of your submissive nature or was there actually some gameplay reason you thought this might be a good idea?
I discovered that the journal notes from Dorn are all song titles: another one bites the dust, bad to the bone, dirty deeds done, bad and dangerous to know ( well actually it should be mad, bad and dangerous to know, but its almost the same)
I've just learned that summoning a Nymph and telling it to Dominate you when you don't have any party members is an automatic game over.
And you would want the nymph to dominate you because of your submissive nature or was there actually some gameplay reason you thought this might be a good idea?
The thought process went something like 'Let's see what Nymphs can do... hmm, Dominate... wait, can I...? Huh. Apparently, yes. Also, I need to reload.'
On another note, if you have more than one, they can dominate each other, though they'll be hostile when it wears off. I also summoned four nymphs, had two dominated and waited for them to wear off to see what would happen. Results were predictable; the two pairs promptly attacked each other. Lots of biting and clawing and spells flying around.
Nice! I always just assumed it was immune because it was a named sword. I always returned it to him, or sold it for profit, and never used it myself.
Also, I'm pretty sure the time requirement for the Ankheg Plate Mail was lowered in a patch. It used to take 10 days, as previously mentioned. It still takes too long and should be automatic like Cespenar's upgrades.
A thing I've learned about BG today. Sometimes it may be fresh, and fun, and interesting, not to use ever so cautious no-reload approach while playing and just give it a go.
My group of still lvl 1 characters (except for the main character, a Blade) was ambushed by bandits - and this ambush is the one with more of them (there're 2 types of bandit ambushes). I would always try to protect the main character and leave the area ASAP in such cases. But this time, when I already retreated to the eastern side (with Xzar and Viconia dead), I decided to give them a fight. See if I can do it.
Kagain down. Dorn down. Montaron at 1 HP. And my Blade, under the Offensive spin (with 17-16-16 in STR-DEX-CON), just wrecks everyone.
OK, something really, really silly and pathetic I found recently.
You know when you go down into the "pit of the faithless" (Unseeing Eye Quest) that Tad tells you is the only way in. Then there's a fight in the passage before it opens out into the cave type area (before any bridges.
Well anyway, there is a corpse lying just on the right side which is lootable. Never noticed it before, oh my, something new..........
Today I learned that Jenkal, a halfling from Gullykin who smuggled in kobolds, goes to the BG city after you find him out. Apparently, he goes to another Ogre-Mage - the one from the Sewers (the one you need to kill when Scar sends you).
Usually, in my games, I always do Firewine and Gullykin after the first visit to BG (because of the higher risks with SCS in Firewine fights) and haven't seen that. In fact, I usually try to end Jenkal in one round before he goes invisible.
This time, however, I had to go through the Sewers again (sometime after I first killed the Ogre-Mage) in order to find a corpse for Arkion. And was surprised to hear Jenkal speaking with me from the shadows (he even has a special dialogue line for this) before he attacked:
Normally in the process of creating maps for BG, if major changes need to happen to an area it's easiest to just make an entirely new map and swap it out. The best example of this is chapter 6's Candlekeep which is way different from the prologue's Candlekeep for obvious reasons. The tutorial guys are gone, everyone there says different things, you can now enter the library and can't enter the barracks, etc. So looking at it in the files it's a completely different map with different scripts and all that. And it's easy to do because Candlekeep is in its own map section in the wilderness, you can just change out the whole thing. It doesn't have other area dependencies.
However in at least one case they didn't want to have to do this...the Thieves' Guild in East Baldur's Gate needs to change in chapter 7 due to the fact that you get teleported there to chase Sarevok. Anything that may have been going on there needs to be halted, people who may have had quests for you should no longer offer them, we're in the final stages of the game not the general city exploration phase anymore.
But the Thieves' Guild has map connections to East Baldur's Gate, so they'd probably have to swap that map out too, and therefore also change all the other map connections there...it's a big huge mess.
So rather than build a new Thieves' Guild plus everything connecting to it, there is a script that runs that checks if the player is currently in chapter 7, and if so it casts a spell to kill everyone in the Thieves' Guild and replace them with new versions of themselves who say different things to the player.
But the fact that it kills these people means that their equipment, their leather armor, is left lying on the ground where they were.
So this is why when you're teleported to the Thieves' Guild to chase Sarevok, there's leather armor lying on the ground everywhere (right underneath all the thieves standing around).
Interesting, I thought it was done just so it seemed that either the Flaming Fist had acted against the guild (some NPCs in my modded install refer to that), or that it was the carnage that Sarevok left behind on his way to he undercity.
In Chapter 7 if you go to Merchant's League and talk to Aldeth Sashenstar, he will betray you and secretly call Flaming Fist. I don't know if it is a part of a mod, but I have only learnt this during my latest playthrough.
In Chapter 7 if you go to Merchant's League and talk to Aldeth Sashenstar, he will betray you and secretly call Flaming Fist. I don't know if it is a part of a mod, but I have only learnt this during my latest playthrough.
No mods involved; after you are framed for murder he reports you if you talk to him (that little piece of s**t)
No mods involved; after you are framed for murder he reports you if you talk to him (that little piece of s**t)
I see. Well, at least I managed to kill him before he was able to flee (it didn't affect the reputation anyway). We saved his life twice(!!!) during the recent weeks and that's how he repays us? Next time I'll side with druids in Cloakwood, that's for sure.
I learned that darts are awesome and totally worth the micro.
Gave Alora the cheetah boots and a selection of darts, and allowed myself the cheesy tactic of switching out dart types via inventory screen mid-combat. She and Korax basically soloed Mutamin (Edwin helped with a Spell Thrust and Protection from Petrification). Several hits on him with Darts of Wounding while Korax ate the basilisks, and he just stood there failing to cast spells until he died.
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On another note, if you have more than one, they can dominate each other, though they'll be hostile when it wears off. I also summoned four nymphs, had two dominated and waited for them to wear off to see what would happen. Results were predictable; the two pairs promptly attacked each other. Lots of biting and clawing and spells flying around.
Also, I'm pretty sure the time requirement for the Ankheg Plate Mail was lowered in a patch. It used to take 10 days, as previously mentioned. It still takes too long and should be automatic like Cespenar's upgrades.
My group of still lvl 1 characters (except for the main character, a Blade) was ambushed by bandits - and this ambush is the one with more of them (there're 2 types of bandit ambushes). I would always try to protect the main character and leave the area ASAP in such cases. But this time, when I already retreated to the eastern side (with Xzar and Viconia dead), I decided to give them a fight. See if I can do it.
Kagain down. Dorn down. Montaron at 1 HP. And my Blade, under the Offensive spin (with 17-16-16 in STR-DEX-CON), just wrecks everyone.
You know when you go down into the "pit of the faithless" (Unseeing Eye Quest) that Tad tells you is the only way in.
Then there's a fight in the passage before it opens out into the cave type area (before any bridges.
Well anyway, there is a corpse lying just on the right side which is lootable. Never noticed it before, oh my, something new..........
All the gold should be hoarded.
Today I learned that Jenkal, a halfling from Gullykin who smuggled in kobolds, goes to the BG city after you find him out. Apparently, he goes to another Ogre-Mage - the one from the Sewers (the one you need to kill when Scar sends you).
Usually, in my games, I always do Firewine and Gullykin after the first visit to BG (because of the higher risks with SCS in Firewine fights) and haven't seen that. In fact, I usually try to end Jenkal in one round before he goes invisible.
This time, however, I had to go through the Sewers again (sometime after I first killed the Ogre-Mage) in order to find a corpse for Arkion. And was surprised to hear Jenkal speaking with me from the shadows (he even has a special dialogue line for this) before he attacked:
"Jenkal will flee if badly hurt and will turn up again later in the game." https://gibberlings3.github.io/Documentation/readmes/readme-stratagems.html
Still, this is what I've learned today (even while I've been playing with SCS for years).
Normally in the process of creating maps for BG, if major changes need to happen to an area it's easiest to just make an entirely new map and swap it out. The best example of this is chapter 6's Candlekeep which is way different from the prologue's Candlekeep for obvious reasons. The tutorial guys are gone, everyone there says different things, you can now enter the library and can't enter the barracks, etc. So looking at it in the files it's a completely different map with different scripts and all that. And it's easy to do because Candlekeep is in its own map section in the wilderness, you can just change out the whole thing. It doesn't have other area dependencies.
However in at least one case they didn't want to have to do this...the Thieves' Guild in East Baldur's Gate needs to change in chapter 7 due to the fact that you get teleported there to chase Sarevok. Anything that may have been going on there needs to be halted, people who may have had quests for you should no longer offer them, we're in the final stages of the game not the general city exploration phase anymore.
But the Thieves' Guild has map connections to East Baldur's Gate, so they'd probably have to swap that map out too, and therefore also change all the other map connections there...it's a big huge mess.
So rather than build a new Thieves' Guild plus everything connecting to it, there is a script that runs that checks if the player is currently in chapter 7, and if so it casts a spell to kill everyone in the Thieves' Guild and replace them with new versions of themselves who say different things to the player.
But the fact that it kills these people means that their equipment, their leather armor, is left lying on the ground where they were.
So this is why when you're teleported to the Thieves' Guild to chase Sarevok, there's leather armor lying on the ground everywhere (right underneath all the thieves standing around).
No mods involved; after you are framed for murder he reports you if you talk to him (that little piece of s**t)
Gave Alora the cheetah boots and a selection of darts, and allowed myself the cheesy tactic of switching out dart types via inventory screen mid-combat. She and Korax basically soloed Mutamin (Edwin helped with a Spell Thrust and Protection from Petrification). Several hits on him with Darts of Wounding while Korax ate the basilisks, and he just stood there failing to cast spells until he died.
Actually I must try darts of wounding, arrows and bolts of biting vs Davaeorn. We'll see if protection from normal missiles will stop any of those.