@Wise_Grimwald: How do I keep Zordral from killing the other mage? I don't mind if the reward is lower; I just want to know how to save her.
I don't know which quest that werewolf thing is from. I know basically nothing about my install besides the fact that it has SCS and SR and IR. I've never even heard of some of the mods I'm using. But I posted my WeiDu log here, so maybe that has the answer.
@Wise_Grimwald: How do I keep Zordral from killing the other mage? I don't mind if the reward is lower; I just want to know how to save her.
I don't know which quest that werewolf thing is from. I know basically nothing about my install besides the fact that it has SCS and SR and IR. I've never even heard of some of the mods I'm using. But I posted my WeiDu log here, so maybe that has the answer.
Wow! You have even more mods than I do! Does it work, or are there bugs?
Re Zordral see below. At the end, two answers give you a reward, the other doesn't. The rewards are not the same. Answer 1 gives cure poison. I think that it is the second answer that yields no rewards. (The Sirene mod just adds her line. There is no other difference.) Fortunately I had a saved game in the area. In my actual game, unlike this demonstration, Sirene wasn't killed.
@Wise_Grimwald: I installed all of my mods courtesy of BWS. There's a download link and a walkthrough for the process here.
I would recommend trying it out, with the caveat that you should not install the component that limits your XP rewards (you should be able to find it in the mod list during the installation process). I have complex feelings about that component (in some ways, it's actually more balanced given the content of my mods), but overall, I think it's best not to install it.
The downsides of BWS: 1. BWS can take a long time to install. I had more problems than normal and it took three or four days before I figured out how to run it. Other folks who pay closer attention to the walkthrough might get it done in one day. 2. BWS can bloat your game in terms of memory. Near Infinity takes an extremely long time to load, so looking anything up is harder. 3. There are weird bugs here and there, which can't always be reproduced. Sometimes I enter areas and the whole map is unselectable, and only quitting the game and re-launching it will fix it. I think I've had two or three random crashes with no clear cause. The game has also crashed when trying to cast Shadow Monsters; some characters don't get their intended kit abilities; Faldorn had three copies of Entangle memorized and there was no way to ever unmemorize them; and I think some other, more minor issues I don't remember.
But there's been nothing that seriously held back gameplay, or required me to do anything complicated to fix. There's a remarkable degree of compatibility; BWS seems to account for almost all incompatibilities and resolves them just fine. I think the bugs only come from the base mods themselves; the only risk of using BWS is the fact that you can install more mods than you know anything about.
The upsides of BWS: Mountains of new content. Cool stuff, weird stuff, dumb stuff, broken stuff, and everything else. Put together, it limits your ability to metagame and encourages you to try out different things, since it widens your options in terms of spells, items, kits, and party members.
@semiticgod Regarding your quote "I would recommend trying it out, with the caveat that you should not install the component that limits your XP rewards" I use the Drizzt Saga part for that which raises the limit without eliminating it. I find that to be optimal.
2. BWS can bloat your game in terms of memory. Near Infinity takes an extremely long time to load, so looking anything up is harder.
Just biff your entire override folder with generalized biffing. If you aren't on OS X or GNU/Linux there's no reason why you shouldn't be doing this (IMO, and mainly for installs that big). http://www.shsforums.net/files/file/741-generalized-biffing/
And now we finally arrived to the Mutamin's Garden. First, invisible Imoen scouted the whole map and marked the enemies on the map and then we prepared to deal with them (yes, it takes a time but it is safe and on the other hand it justifies our own pre-buffs when we need them). Khalid applied green scroll Pro vs Petrification and led some skellies to deal with group of Basilisks in the south part of an area. But pretty soon it turned out that neither our skellies are immune to new SR Basilisks gazes nor green scroll Pro vs Petrification actually protect vs them... Moreover, green scroll Stone to Flesh doesn't cure that stoned condition and Remove Paralysis spell failed as well. And the fact that Dispel Magic is party friendly in SR doen't help either. In this stalemate I've looked for help and my friend @Aasim confirmed that this is "The Thing That Should Not Be" and a kind of consequence of using Spell Revisions without Item Revisions. He made a minimod to fix that (thanks again for that!) and mentioned that Break Enchantment spell should work vs those stoned conditions. It indeed worked and after applying his fix we cleared the rest of Basilisks on the map under the protection of Potions of Mirrored Eyes.
We hired a friendly Ghoul Korax to deal with Mutamin and he doesn't failed us (Mutamin dropped a nice Full Plate Mail for Jaheira):
Next we've encountered some roaming adventures and I'm still wonder which of my previous actions have led Imoen to such conclusions:
Nonetheless, the fight ensured. Slow, followed with Silence and supplemented with Korax's "stand still and be killed" where all that needed.
The loot was average and as Korax was so effective lately we left him feed on the remains to sate his neverending hunger as a reward for his service.
In search of the source of bandits plague we plunged into the woods. Now, with Full Plate and other gear Jaheira's AC is so splendid that she could tank melee/missiles enemies without any fear to be hurt. The main threat for her now are Charm spells as she succumb to them quite easily. Even Khalid is less susceptible. Vs Corsone and his numerous animals we used Silence, Web and Confusion followed with Holy Smite and final mopping.
After both Larswood and Peldvale cleaned we were ambushed en-route to Bandit's Camp by Morvin & Co. We immediately went on all available sources of invisibility (Sanctuary, Invisibility) to buff ourselves and then just fried them down while they stubbornly chased after Imoen.
In the Bandit's Camp Imoen again scouted ahead all the map and then we took a position in the south-east nook. Taugosz Khosann was pre-buffed with Oil of Speed but not of Freedom so he was easily separated from the others, Held and killed just as his friends arrived:
We filled the approaches to our position with all kinds of disablers (Stinking Cloud, Web, Entangle) and took the enemies one by one. Each of their leaders found it essential to express to us their respects - seems we became well-known around already:
Another Full Plate, Manual of Quickness of Action, some essential spells and Composite Long Bow +1 where our reward:
In the Cloakwood Lodge Seniyad triggered Jaheira's personal quest and we entered the Spider's territory. After dealing with welcoming committee of some Phase Spiders Imoen as already usual scouted ahead and we dealt with the "outdoor" encounters
Jaheira stepped inside the Spider's Nest with the intention to lure them outside but something went wrong. Aside from the fact that the dialog with Centeol appeared to be somewhat broken in my setup (I still don't understand what she has to tell us), Jaheira was immediately Held by Giant Spider and we were forced to change our battle plan "on the fly' rushing inside to save her. I cast Invisibility on her just in time only to be Web tangled myself. My Mirror Images kept me relatively safe for a while and Xan Confused most of the enemies. A careful (as much as it was possible in such confined space) use of wands and spells allowed us to get out of this predicament without casualities.
Deeper in the Woods we had to deal with various Druid groups. Not much to tell here as Web and Silence were all we need and the main treat was their Charms as it took much longer to run away from charmed Jaheira then to deal with her charmers:
To save Beador (Jaheira's quest) we had to be careful not to harm him with AOE spells so opened with Slow & Confusion, had to save vs numerous Charms or use Break Enchantment when they have connected, add more Slow and Confusion, use arrows and friendly AOE (Holy Smite) instead of just spam Fireballs... I hope it worth it in the end (this is the first time I do that quest).
With Jaheira tanking Wyverns were just a joke:
and back in the Druids area we were confronted by Andarthe. Being all that scary looking he doesn't managed to cast a single spell and soon yield begging for mercy. We were ready to spare his life but unfortunately can't stop neither Ice Blast nor Ice Arrow already mid-air... Even though he dropped a pretty nice spear we felt bad of such outcome so just free Maretha and left Amarande alone.
Seniyad rewarded us with Club +2, The Eye of The Storm - an excellent weapon for Jaheira at long last (I always prefer blunt weapons to all else) and we left remaining Druids to deal with their controversy by themselves. We took our time to finish Coran's duty and sent him to the growing company in the Joviar Juggler Inn.
At the Mines entrance Imoen scouted a hostile party guarding the pass so we sent a charmed guard at the bridge to soak some of their spells:
Then Rezdan advanced alone to check out our position and hit me with Dispel Magic. But as it already happened before MSD stopped it outright and even though combat log says "Grim Face - Dispel Effects" all my buffs remained intact...(bug?). I also tried here a Spell Thrust spell on him (with SR it's an AOE spell) not targeting him directly but a point on the ground and it did nothing... Well, at least it works when I target a person directly.
Still alone he cast Monster Summining II on Khalid and Charmed him so we had to use Break Enchantment while Viconia Silenced him and sent running in fear.
Drasus and Genthore joined the fray, Rezdan recovered from panic and after an exchange of some spells (Slow, Hold Person) I foolishly let Xan to cast a Skull Trap on Rezdan (Near Death already) to finish him off not paying attention on Genthore nearby (he is the weakest of the four). And you can guess what happened next - we've experienced our first death in the run as Genthore one-shot Xan with critical...
Some Holy Smite, Flame Strikes, Ice Blasts and Agannazar's Scorchers later they fell. All but Kysus who even doesn't appeared for now.
We went back to Beregost Temple to revive Xan, sold excessive stuff and returned to the Mine's site. At the same moment we began to cast buffs Kysus DDoored in our midst. He opened with Greater Malison, followed with Domination on Khalid and Charm on Imoen (guess he knew only they could hurt him through the Stoneskins with Ice/Acid Arrows) but at the same time I stripped his spell protections with Spell Thrust. Viconia lured Khalid to the north and cast Sanctuary to park him there while I cast Break Enchantment on Imoen.
The party is divided - Viconia and dominated Khalid on the north, Slowed Jaheira trying to chase Kysus in the middle and me, Xan and Imoen to the south. Kysus have brought two lots of Ogre Berserkers whom we lured to the south frying with Scorchers en-route.
While we were busy with Ogres Kysus concentrated all his attention on Jaheira - Ray of Enfeeblement, Flame Arrows (which she failed to save) and PW:Sleep when her HP ran low. Jaheira is in serious trouble so Viconia rushed ahead to cast Cure Light Wounds (the only healing spell she had memorised). Me too ran on resque with Healing Touch while Xan suddenly found out that Lightning Bolts from the Wand strike right through the Mirror Images and Stoneskins so he began to spam those bolts on Kysus like there is no tomorrow. Two lots of those where enough to finish Kysus off:
In the Mines the first lot of guards met us right near the entrance so we need to fight in the very confined and inconvenient space, nearly unable to move:
Fortunately Hareishan joined only with the next lot of guards. She spent two first rounds casting Waves of Fatigue on us while we held some of her guards forming a brick wall to block the pass. I tried Spell Thrust on her but was disrupted (and poisoned) by one of the archer guard. Viconia managed to hit Hareishan with Flame Strike through her protections, we cast Confusion and threw some monsters into the crowd. Hareishan flew into the main room and after dealing with her helpless guards we found her there. Her MGoI expired, spells nearly ran out so it was a matter of few rounds to finish her
Yeslick joined the Crew of the Joviar Juggler Inn, Jaheira's excellent AC was all we need to clear the thrash mobs on the next level and after Spell Thrust applied Natasha's fate was sealed:
Boots of Speed dropped by Natasha were invaluable in the fight with Davaeorn. Invisible Imoen disarmed all traps there and scouted a pair of Battle Horrors. As usual Davaeorn opened with Web+Stinking Cloud Sequencer>Dimension Jump and began to cast Evocation spell (Fireball as it soon turned out) while I lured Battle Horrors away to Scorch them:
After hitting with Fireball near the entrance Davaeorn DDoored near me only to catch up Spell Thrust in the face and waste another Fireball vs my Minor Spell Deflection.
I stripped his Illusions (Mirror Images and Improved Invisibility) with Detect Illusions spell but he has another Mirror Images memorised. The reinforcements arrived so we need to thin their ranks a bit and I finished the second Battle Horror with Ice Blast (the first one was killed by Jaheira not long ago).
More guards arrived and gathered around Davaeorn on the crossroads - a perfect place for Web+Fireballs combo but Davaeorn slipped away and as my MSD ran out Dominated me, cast Detect Invisibility on still invisible Imoen and Charmed her. Xan and Viconia who were hiding near entrance had to join the fray. We used all our resources (potions of explosion, wands of fear) to keep the waves of guards at manageble state.
Our main threats are still Charms/Dominations vs which we have not reliable protections and which Davaeorn threw generously in our midst. And only when he ran out of those we could cool down a heat of the fight a little bit. In the end Davarorn was freezed in place with Ice Blast making him a statue of ice gazing accusingly right deep into my soul. Does what he saw there made him peace, I don't know... Stoneskin scroll, Helm of Glory, Tome of Understanding, some kind of Ioun Stone with Cold protection, Bastard Sword +1, +3 vs. Shapeshifters and Ankheg Plate Mail were most notable loot there.
Exhausted and wounded we flooded the Mines burying Davaeorn's ice statue deep under the freezing waters and returned to the warm saloon of Joviar Juggler Inn, warm both by fireplace and the heat of the hearts of our numerous friends there who are eager to hear the every last bit of details of our recent exploits.
2. BWS can bloat your game in terms of memory. Near Infinity takes an extremely long time to load, so looking anything up is harder.
Just biff your entire override folder with generalized biffing. If you aren't on OS X or GNU/Linux there's no reason why you shouldn't be doing this (IMO, and mainly for installs that big). http://www.shsforums.net/files/file/741-generalized-biffing/
Do I take it that mods that you are likely to want to change should be installed AFTER biffing?
I am thinking in terms of mods like divine remix where I might want to change the deities available. (Also I am hoping that it won't be long before the bugs in it are ironed out, in which case I will need a total reinstallation of that mod.
On the road again. I decided to check the closest inn to the Thunderhammer's and literally ran into another assassin. I was forced to flee the inn and he was chasing me through whole Beregost before I managed to stop him. He had another bounty notice on his body - someone really wants me dead. I can't imagine why would someone do that, and who could that be. Anyway, I spent a night in the inn, woke up early morning, stopped at Thunerhammer's as they opened and stocked up and moved south. Nashkel it will be, or maybe even Amn - the one going after me must cease to attack me for sure then.
page 6
Now I start being really angry. Came to Nashkel, entered the inn and got attacked AGAIN! I didn't want to cause any fuss in the main room, so I exited to the street, and few people helped me fight the assassin there - a guard, and some kind of a monk. We have had a chat after - interesting guy, though I am not sure I would be able to keep up his strict standards.
I have met some officials in Nashkel - a major Berun Ghastskill, who is asking for help clearing the iron mines, and a bounty hunter officer, who told me about a bounty on some thief and also on murderer former captain of the guard. I do not think I am the right person to look into the mines, but I might be able to check around Nashkel and try to locate the thief and the murderer. Maybe. After some consideration, I have decided against doing so. There was a local who was pestering me with tons of stupid questions, and I am sure he will let know everybody I was here, so I intentionally let him know I am going towards Amn. I left Nashkel to south, but secretly I have turned around and I now go North. I am sure Baldur's Gate will be able to hide me among the people there. I will travel off roads, so hopefully the person hiring thugs on me will not notice the change of the direction I am heading.
page 7
Bad dreams overcame me. I can feel something growing inside, a power I have never imagined. Almost as north as Beregost, I encountered a wolf. All of a sudden a fire burst of my mouth, leaving large portion of scorched earth and the wolf fleeing. It is hard to concentrate now, in fears this might happen again when there are people around. I have to learn controlling the power, or get rid of it. Oh, I have almost forgot. The wolf I spoke about was obviously chasing a chicken... a talking chicken. It turned out that the chicken is poly-morphed mage apprentice who want poly-morphed back. I promised to bring him back to his master in High Hedge, so that is where I am going now. I am tired. The way was harsher than I expected, I am not sure I can make one more step further. "Walking" off roads is not as pleasant as I thought - next time I will try to use roads, but once someone is around, hide in the undergrowth. It should work the same. In High Hedge I have delivered Melicamp (which is the apprentices name, by the way) to master Thalantyr. Seems like Melicamp stole some artifact off his master, but master Thalantyr was generous enough to oversee it and help Melicamp back to human form. I have delivered the components and master Thalantyr reversed the polymorph - interesting feat, I have to remember it for next time. I was then able to check out on master Thalantyr's possessions myself, and I have to say I will return here again in the future with more money. Some of the things are fabulous!
page 8
I have followed the path from High Hedge to Beregost. Despite the fact I wanted to stay away from the town, I need to restock again. I also thought about checking out a home of a gnome named Landrin who I met in Friendly Arms inn - she spoke about some spiders, and the cobwebs might nicely burn within my breath. I must check out whether I can control the power enough to put it to good use. The spiders were monstrous! I was disgusted as well as impressed. The encounter didn't go that well, after the initial burnout the spiders chased me throughout Beregost in anger, but I managed to get rid of them. I took up the proof and some items Landrin wanted and set on journey towards Friendly Arms Inn. Tired again. I don't like walking - I must get a horse. Landrin liked the items and rewarded me handsomely. Tomorrow, I will be at Baldur's Gate.
@semiticgod Regarding your quote "I would recommend trying it out, with the caveat that you should not install the component that limits your XP rewards" I use the Drizzt Saga part for that which raises the limit without eliminating it. I find that to be optimal.
Oh, I'm not talking about the XP cap. I'm talking about a mod that goes through the entire game and reduces all sources of XP, anywhere and everywhere, to a quarter or a third of their normal value. It's not really a limit as I said; it's more of a sky-high tax.
@semiticgod I completely misunderstood what you were saying. I haven't installed a mod such as you are describing. Well perhaps I have, but not installed those parts.
There are some things that I won't touch. That is one of them. Also I will never have a thief wearing plate armour unless it is especially made for thieves, or have clerics using sharp blades or mages casting wearing metal armour.
@Wise_Grimwald It's only the sphere system in Divine Remix that's completely out of wack: everything else should function fine.
I'll still want to change the kits that are available. You cannot have them all available simultaneously, unless there is a mod that makes that possible nowadays.
@Neverused@Wise_Grimwald: My install has like 20-30 different kits. I assume that's either Divine Remix or Faith and Powers. My install also lets me dual-class into a kit using a special ability that brings up a dialogue that can change my kit, though it doesn't always give all of the abilities when I do.
The spheres system doesn't appear to work quite perfectly. There are level 1 Aid spells that only affect the caster instead of any target, level 3 Prayer spells that have no discernable effect, and there are so many level 2 cleric spells that I think some are actually missing, because the icons won't fit in the spell selection screen.
2. BWS can bloat your game in terms of memory. Near Infinity takes an extremely long time to load, so looking anything up is harder.
Just biff your entire override folder with generalized biffing. If you aren't on OS X or GNU/Linux there's no reason why you shouldn't be doing this (IMO, and mainly for installs that big). http://www.shsforums.net/files/file/741-generalized-biffing/
Do I take it that mods that you are likely to want to change should be installed AFTER biffing?
I am thinking in terms of mods like divine remix where I might want to change the deities available. (Also I am hoping that it won't be long before the bugs in it are ironed out, in which case I will need a total reinstallation of that mod.
Yes. You can unbiff and rebiff, but it takes a lot of time and it's usually not worth. Anyway if you biff too early on it's worthless because you'll end up having 3 versions of the same file (on the original game's biffs, on the new one and the new version of the file in the override folder). I usually install only level1npcs after biffing so that I can change my npcs to whichever thing I like without having to rebiff my entire install.
In 2012 @neoesprit wrote: Yep I remember being able to scroll the kit list with Tobex... I really don't understand why Beamdog didn't took care of this stupid limitation considering the trillions possibilities for adding kits via modding... They said they'd include Tobex features to BG:EE, but apparently some feature didn't make it.
What I am wondering is whether since then Beamdog have developed something on the same lines as the Tobex feature, or if some other mod now has that feature.
The spheres system doesn't appear to work quite perfectly.
If I'm not mistaken, Divine Remix's Sphere System and Spell Revisions are not compatible. The SR readme states it, if I remember correctly. I remember wanting to try them together, but decided not to after a few researches a while ago.
IWDification and SR can cause similar problem, but only if you install IWDification before SR. It's not a problem for you, though, because you have BWS. I can't use it, because Mac.
Edit : It's sad, because there's a good chance that it will mess up even higher divine spell levels too. Can't quite confirm this, but it's entirely possible...
2. BWS can bloat your game in terms of memory. Near Infinity takes an extremely long time to load, so looking anything up is harder.
Just biff your entire override folder with generalized biffing. If you aren't on OS X or GNU/Linux there's no reason why you shouldn't be doing this (IMO, and mainly for installs that big). http://www.shsforums.net/files/file/741-generalized-biffing/
Do I take it that mods that you are likely to want to change should be installed AFTER biffing?
I am thinking in terms of mods like divine remix where I might want to change the deities available. (Also I am hoping that it won't be long before the bugs in it are ironed out, in which case I will need a total reinstallation of that mod.
Yes. You can unbiff and rebiff, but it takes a lot of time and it's usually not worth. Anyway if you biff too early on it's worthless because you'll end up having 3 versions of the same file (on the original game's biffs, on the new one and the new version of the file in the override folder). I usually install only level1npcs after biffing so that I can change my npcs to whichever thing I like without having to rebiff my entire install.
I was under the impression that level1npcs wasn't compatible with SoD yet. Am I wrong?
2. BWS can bloat your game in terms of memory. Near Infinity takes an extremely long time to load, so looking anything up is harder.
Just biff your entire override folder with generalized biffing. If you aren't on OS X or GNU/Linux there's no reason why you shouldn't be doing this (IMO, and mainly for installs that big). http://www.shsforums.net/files/file/741-generalized-biffing/
Do I take it that mods that you are likely to want to change should be installed AFTER biffing?
I am thinking in terms of mods like divine remix where I might want to change the deities available. (Also I am hoping that it won't be long before the bugs in it are ironed out, in which case I will need a total reinstallation of that mod.
Yes. You can unbiff and rebiff, but it takes a lot of time and it's usually not worth. Anyway if you biff too early on it's worthless because you'll end up having 3 versions of the same file (on the original game's biffs, on the new one and the new version of the file in the override folder). I usually install only level1npcs after biffing so that I can change my npcs to whichever thing I like without having to rebiff my entire install.
I was under the impression that level1npcs wasn't compatible with SoD yet. Am I wrong?
No. It's compatible with BG:EE and BG2:EE, but I haven't updated it to work with SoD yet. I just said level1npcs as an example tho, since I can't biff my EE games anyway (cuz OS X).
Huh. Every installation I've tried with DR's Sphere system crashed my game on start, with or without SR. Even through BWS. I thought it was just non-functional at the moment. The more you know, I guess.
Barl Archer 9 -> Cleric: The problem with playing close to midnight is that my memory gets really scattered about events. Let's see:
Druid grove's the next quest we undertake, taking Cernd into the party for the duration of the quest. With both him and Jaheira, we have 3 Fire Elementals available to us, so the trolls really aren't that big of a problem. Well, until we go into the troll mound itself: the Giant Trolls prove to be too much, so Neera gives us one of her two Invisibility: 10" radius. Yoshimo grabs the Bracers of Archery and Gnasher (Item Revisions switches the Spear of the Unicorn and Gnasher's location) and successfully uses Hide in Shadows to get out unscathed. The Greater Earth elemental is then taken down away from the trolls, and the two druid fights are cheesed slightly: I avoided killing the trolls in the first one, getting their fighters weakened, and the second fight was a complete rout after Silence affected everyone but the named Druid. Neera used her second invisibility to get us past the bridge of spawning death, confusion, and just general pain.
The Shambling Mounds are finally, finally enough to get Barl to level 10, and he reclaims the Tuigan bow for his 4 APR rather than his single. Oh, and his THAC0 dropped to 0 while wielding a shortbow from 12 or so, so... Death and destruction time. But the rest of the grove: the Grizzly Bears were honestly incredibly painful, as Minsc couldn't get a single Charm off and tanking them hurts, darn it . The Dalok fight: Pro. Electricity is given to Barl as an insurance, but the one surviving nymph from the grizzly bears turns out to be a hero. With one Hold Monster, she managed to paralyze the second Druid, the Mountain Bears they summoned, and the 6-man squad easily demolishes Dalok and the Adherant after that. Under Improved Invisibility, Cernd gets a couple summons off and Faldorn is Held by a Nymph and summarily executed by summons. We leave Cernd behind there. Returning to Trademeet, Barl claims Tansheron's Bow as his own for infinite +3 arrows.
Now that he's a Ranger again, time for the Temple Ruins. No spawns are worse than Skeleton Warriors, so Fire Elementals courtesy of Jaheira kind of just mop up the entire dungeon with Barl shooting from behind Notably, though, there are two regeneration items here, so health is no longer a real concern outside of fights. We still pass on Thaxxy for now: no level drain protection is asking for trouble. Shade Lord fight: Neera turns everyone invisible from Thaxxy's lair to the southwest, so we can see Shadow Patrick and the Shadow Altar. Casting Pro. Lightning on himself again, Barl duels Patrick with bow and arrow, inevitably coming out the winner. The Pro. Lightning's for Patrick's cloak, which returns 6d6 (I think?) electricity damage 20% of the time upon being hit. Mazzy, Jaheira, and Minsc tank shadows while Barl then takes out the altar. Stealth shots are finally used to kill the Shade Lord himself, though a couple missteps forced a Potion of Invisibility from Barl.
@Neverused: Do you not take screenshots? Most of my posts on my runs are based on sessions that took place days or weeks before; I use the screenshots as reminders of what happened during the fight.
@semiticgod Sometimes I do... It's irritating to, since I'm running Windows 7 on this junkpiece of a laptop, and there's no good way to take full screencaps on Windows 7 that I could find. There was a script that I found, but that saved it into PNG files that I would later have to convert to JPEG to not upload pictures a megabyte large every time. It turns into an hour extra to update, depending on the number of pictures, and as my playing time's already kind of limited...
@Neverused: Does your computer have no screenshots in the BG/BG2/IWD folder(s) in Documents? Because I didn't even know that folder existed until somebody pointed it out to me. Overnight, I found thousands of screenshots I didn't know had successfully been saved.
I use Windows 10 and not 7, but on this computer and on Windows 8, EE automatically takes screenshots and puts them in the BG and BG2 folders in Documents; I didn't need to use any external programs to take them. The format is BMP, which I switch to JPEGs using IrfanView's bat function. I can convert 500 screenshots in under 5 minutes with Irfanview.
2. BWS can bloat your game in terms of memory. Near Infinity takes an extremely long time to load, so looking anything up is harder.
Just biff your entire override folder with generalized biffing. If you aren't on OS X or GNU/Linux there's no reason why you shouldn't be doing this (IMO, and mainly for installs that big). http://www.shsforums.net/files/file/741-generalized-biffing/
Do I take it that mods that you are likely to want to change should be installed AFTER biffing?
I am thinking in terms of mods like divine remix where I might want to change the deities available. (Also I am hoping that it won't be long before the bugs in it are ironed out, in which case I will need a total reinstallation of that mod.
Yes. You can unbiff and rebiff, but it takes a lot of time and it's usually not worth. Anyway if you biff too early on it's worthless because you'll end up having 3 versions of the same file (on the original game's biffs, on the new one and the new version of the file in the override folder). I usually install only level1npcs after biffing so that I can change my npcs to whichever thing I like without having to rebiff my entire install.
I was under the impression that level1npcs wasn't compatible with SoD yet. Am I wrong?
No. It's compatible with BG:EE and BG2:EE, but I haven't updated it to work with SoD yet. I just said level1npcs as an example tho, since I can't biff my EE games anyway (cuz OS X).
I am wondering in what way is it incompatible? Would it cause problems when recruiting party members in SoD or EE? Or is it just that it would have no effect on them?
2. BWS can bloat your game in terms of memory. Near Infinity takes an extremely long time to load, so looking anything up is harder.
Just biff your entire override folder with generalized biffing. If you aren't on OS X or GNU/Linux there's no reason why you shouldn't be doing this (IMO, and mainly for installs that big). http://www.shsforums.net/files/file/741-generalized-biffing/
Do I take it that mods that you are likely to want to change should be installed AFTER biffing?
I am thinking in terms of mods like divine remix where I might want to change the deities available. (Also I am hoping that it won't be long before the bugs in it are ironed out, in which case I will need a total reinstallation of that mod.
Yes. You can unbiff and rebiff, but it takes a lot of time and it's usually not worth. Anyway if you biff too early on it's worthless because you'll end up having 3 versions of the same file (on the original game's biffs, on the new one and the new version of the file in the override folder). I usually install only level1npcs after biffing so that I can change my npcs to whichever thing I like without having to rebiff my entire install.
I was under the impression that level1npcs wasn't compatible with SoD yet. Am I wrong?
No. It's compatible with BG:EE and BG2:EE, but I haven't updated it to work with SoD yet. I just said level1npcs as an example tho, since I can't biff my EE games anyway (cuz OS X).
I am wondering in what way is it incompatible? Would it cause problems when recruiting party members in SoD or EE? Or is it just that it would have no effect on them?
It has no effect on them. You aren't even asked to modify them (returning BG1 NPCs in SoD also aren't affected).
Neverused: Does your computer have no screenshots in the BG/BG2/IWD folder(s) in Documents? Because I didn't even know that folder existed until somebody pointed it out to me. Overnight, I found thousands of screenshots I didn't know had successfully been saved.
I use Windows 10 and not 7, but on this computer and on Windows 8, EE automatically takes screenshots and puts them in the BG and BG2 folders in Documents; I didn't need to use any external programs to take them. The format is BMP, which I switch to JPEGs using IrfanView's bat function. I can convert 500 screenshots in under 5 minutes with Irfanview.
@CrevsDaak I have Windows 10 and on my keyboard you need to press the shift key to get to PrtScrn. However American keyboards are different so it could be different there. On my computer the screenshots go to the ScrnShot folder which is inside the Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition folder which is in Documents. As @semiticgod said: they are produced as bitmaps which I open in Paint to turn into jpegs before posting.
After arriving in Baldur's Gate the duo did a quick round to pick up the Eagle bow, tomes and Cloak of Balduran. The Iron Throne party were left alone, although later on we did wonder if they should have been done in order to get a ring of free action.
Back in Candlekeep Prat suffered in some skull traps, but their area of effect wasn't quite large enough to deal with Tam as well and he got hits on both Del and Feldris before going down himself.
Slythe failed to make any impression on the wall of summons placed in front of him. For once the fight at the Palace went off perfectly with Feldris rapidly working through the dopplegangers with dispelling arrows. Once they were all dead Belt was successfully lured into a side room. He took relatively little damage, so the improved invisibility cast at the start of the fight on Liia wasn't needed this time.
After fighting through the maze the duo retraced their steps and went to Ulgoth's Beard to pickpocket Dushai for his ring. Then it was back to the Undercellar to fireball the party there before moving on to the temple. Sarevok was dispelled with one shot and Semaj got a few more before he went down - leaving Sarevok helpless against a stream of summoned monsters.
We've only briefly been in SoD before and not made it out of the starting dungeon - but this time we did manage that, if not too much more.
A couple more areas were negotiated without doing most of the quests, but we failed to get over Boareskyr Bridge after going in search of a wardstone in a neighbouring area. That required us to defeat Ziatar, who I hadn't come across before. I should perhaps have been wary after Gate70 described her as 'half-dragon', but failed to take precautions and was immediately sent running by dragon fear. With lots of cultists running to help out their mistress it wasn't too long before Del's flight ended in tragedy.
A distinct lack of screenshots, but the remainder of our session went along these lines = 5 seconds silence in memory of Del. = Random selection of characters. = Hmm, another arcane caster for Grond0. Random selection x2 for him. = Roll characters, start SoD, realise why we had 3 / 6 weapon profs instead of 2 / 4. = Re-roll characters, start BGEE. = Finish the Candlekeep chores, and annoy a guard in the clinic. = Ignore Gorion's advice and head to the coast to blind and poison Shoal the Nereid. = Buy Marl a drink and find a book for Firebead. = Retrieve Zhurlong's Daorem's boots. = Grab a Two Handed Sword +1 from Arghain for Char. = Dig up some ankheg plate for Char. = Speed-date Noober. = Day-trip to the lighthouse, helping Ardrouine then playing with sirines and flesh golems. = Return a letter to Mirianne after applying a suitable 2nd class delay in postal delivery. = Picking up a couple of green scrolls and using them to foil basilisks and aid Tamah. = Poison Mutamin. Blind Baerin then let Korax snack on paralyzed Kirian, Peter and Lindin. = Sell some loot at High Hedge. Mark Firewine Bridge on the map for next time, should be bracing.
Mugshots
although Grond0 is using this image we both think I used it initially and shared with him for an earlier attempt. I had a quick search and the closest source I could find was the destroyer image at mitemitei.com/h/sige0101.htm
A brief session today confirmed Meilum didn't take kindly to being challenged.
After picking up the remaining girdles, a tome of Leadership and boots of the north Char headed underground to deal with Ankhegs.
The Doomsayer didn't last too long.
Neira managed to hold both adventurers, but proved unable to kill Char before he struggled free to kill her instead.
Picking up a tome from Durlags Tower was somewhat delayed when a Battle Horror took several minutes to be beaten. Char was reluctant to take on the second but Daorem had saved her Blind ability and insisted. Char obliged, and Daorem was finally able to almost get her hands on the tome.
Daorem has spotted four potions of mirrored eyes, so it looks like Char wants to clear the roof of basilisks next time.
Comments
I don't know which quest that werewolf thing is from. I know basically nothing about my install besides the fact that it has SCS and SR and IR. I've never even heard of some of the mods I'm using. But I posted my WeiDu log here, so maybe that has the answer.
Wow! You have even more mods than I do! Does it work, or are there bugs?
Re Zordral see below. At the end, two answers give you a reward, the other doesn't. The rewards are not the same. Answer 1 gives cure poison. I think that it is the second answer that yields no rewards. (The Sirene mod just adds her line. There is no other difference.)Fortunately I had a saved game in the area.
I would recommend trying it out, with the caveat that you should not install the component that limits your XP rewards (you should be able to find it in the mod list during the installation process). I have complex feelings about that component (in some ways, it's actually more balanced given the content of my mods), but overall, I think it's best not to install it.
The downsides of BWS:
1. BWS can take a long time to install. I had more problems than normal and it took three or four days before I figured out how to run it. Other folks who pay closer attention to the walkthrough might get it done in one day.
2. BWS can bloat your game in terms of memory. Near Infinity takes an extremely long time to load, so looking anything up is harder.
3. There are weird bugs here and there, which can't always be reproduced. Sometimes I enter areas and the whole map is unselectable, and only quitting the game and re-launching it will fix it. I think I've had two or three random crashes with no clear cause. The game has also crashed when trying to cast Shadow Monsters; some characters don't get their intended kit abilities; Faldorn had three copies of Entangle memorized and there was no way to ever unmemorize them; and I think some other, more minor issues I don't remember.
But there's been nothing that seriously held back gameplay, or required me to do anything complicated to fix. There's a remarkable degree of compatibility; BWS seems to account for almost all incompatibilities and resolves them just fine. I think the bugs only come from the base mods themselves; the only risk of using BWS is the fact that you can install more mods than you know anything about.
The upsides of BWS:
Mountains of new content. Cool stuff, weird stuff, dumb stuff, broken stuff, and everything else. Put together, it limits your ability to metagame and encourages you to try out different things, since it widens your options in terms of spells, items, kits, and party members.
It's very new and very strange.
If you aren't on OS X or GNU/Linux there's no reason why you shouldn't be doing this (IMO, and mainly for installs that big).
http://www.shsforums.net/files/file/741-generalized-biffing/
(BG1/ToSC: SCS/Spell Revisions/aTweaks/Item Randomiser)
Chapter V - Deep in the Woods.
TOC:
1. Einleitung.
2. Chapter I - Trapped and Scared.
3. Chapter II - Damsels In Distress.
4. Chapter III - Night of the Wolf.
5. Chapter IV - In Darkness Let Me Dwell.
And now we finally arrived to the Mutamin's Garden. First, invisible Imoen scouted the whole map and marked the enemies on the map and then we prepared to deal with them (yes, it takes a time but it is safe and on the other hand it justifies our own pre-buffs when we need them).
Khalid applied green scroll Pro vs Petrification and led some skellies to deal with group of Basilisks in the south part of an area. But pretty soon it turned out that neither our skellies are immune to new SR Basilisks gazes nor green scroll Pro vs Petrification actually protect vs them... Moreover, green scroll Stone to Flesh doesn't cure that stoned condition and Remove Paralysis spell failed as well. And the fact that Dispel Magic is party friendly in SR doen't help either. In this stalemate I've looked for help and my friend @Aasim confirmed that this is "The Thing That Should Not Be" and a kind of consequence of using Spell Revisions without Item Revisions. He made a minimod to fix that (thanks again for that!) and mentioned that Break Enchantment spell should work vs those stoned conditions. It indeed worked and after applying his fix we cleared the rest of Basilisks on the map under the protection of Potions of Mirrored Eyes.
We hired a friendly Ghoul Korax to deal with Mutamin and he doesn't failed us (Mutamin dropped a nice Full Plate Mail for Jaheira):
Next we've encountered some roaming adventures and I'm still wonder which of my previous actions have led Imoen to such conclusions:
Nonetheless, the fight ensured. Slow, followed with Silence and supplemented with Korax's "stand still and be killed" where all that needed.
The loot was average and as Korax was so effective lately we left him feed on the remains to sate his neverending hunger as a reward for his service.
In search of the source of bandits plague we plunged into the woods. Now, with Full Plate and other gear Jaheira's AC is so splendid that she could tank melee/missiles enemies without any fear to be hurt. The main threat for her now are Charm spells as she succumb to them quite easily. Even Khalid is less susceptible. Vs Corsone and his numerous animals we used Silence, Web and Confusion followed with Holy Smite and final mopping.
After both Larswood and Peldvale cleaned we were ambushed en-route to Bandit's Camp by Morvin & Co. We immediately went on all available sources of invisibility (Sanctuary, Invisibility) to buff ourselves and then just fried them down while they stubbornly chased after Imoen.
In the Bandit's Camp Imoen again scouted ahead all the map and then we took a position in the south-east nook. Taugosz Khosann was pre-buffed with Oil of Speed but not of Freedom so he was easily separated from the others, Held and killed just as his friends arrived:
We filled the approaches to our position with all kinds of disablers (Stinking Cloud, Web, Entangle) and took the enemies one by one. Each of their leaders found it essential to express to us their respects - seems we became well-known around already:
Another Full Plate, Manual of Quickness of Action, some essential spells and Composite Long Bow +1 where our reward:
In the Cloakwood Lodge Seniyad triggered Jaheira's personal quest and we entered the Spider's territory. After dealing with welcoming committee of some Phase Spiders Imoen as already usual scouted ahead and we dealt with the "outdoor" encounters
Jaheira stepped inside the Spider's Nest with the intention to lure them outside but something went wrong. Aside from the fact that the dialog with Centeol appeared to be somewhat broken in my setup (I still don't understand what she has to tell us), Jaheira was immediately Held by Giant Spider and we were forced to change our battle plan "on the fly' rushing inside to save her. I cast Invisibility on her just in time only to be Web tangled myself. My Mirror Images kept me relatively safe for a while and Xan Confused most of the enemies. A careful (as much as it was possible in such confined space) use of wands and spells allowed us to get out of this predicament without casualities.
Deeper in the Woods we had to deal with various Druid groups. Not much to tell here as Web and Silence were all we need and the main treat was their Charms as it took much longer to run away from charmed Jaheira then to deal with her charmers:
To save Beador (Jaheira's quest) we had to be careful not to harm him with AOE spells so opened with Slow & Confusion, had to save vs numerous Charms or use Break Enchantment when they have connected, add more Slow and Confusion, use arrows and friendly AOE (Holy Smite) instead of just spam Fireballs... I hope it worth it in the end (this is the first time I do that quest).
With Jaheira tanking Wyverns were just a joke:
and back in the Druids area we were confronted by Andarthe. Being all that scary looking he doesn't managed to cast a single spell and soon yield begging for mercy. We were ready to spare his life but unfortunately can't stop neither Ice Blast nor Ice Arrow already mid-air... Even though he dropped a pretty nice spear we felt bad of such outcome so just free Maretha and left Amarande alone.
Seniyad rewarded us with Club +2, The Eye of The Storm - an excellent weapon for Jaheira at long last (I always prefer blunt weapons to all else) and we left remaining Druids to deal with their controversy by themselves. We took our time to finish Coran's duty and sent him to the growing company in the Joviar Juggler Inn.
At the Mines entrance Imoen scouted a hostile party guarding the pass so we sent a charmed guard at the bridge to soak some of their spells:
Then Rezdan advanced alone to check out our position and hit me with Dispel Magic. But as it already happened before MSD stopped it outright and even though combat log says "Grim Face - Dispel Effects" all my buffs remained intact...(bug?). I also tried here a Spell Thrust spell on him (with SR it's an AOE spell) not targeting him directly but a point on the ground and it did nothing... Well, at least it works when I target a person directly.
Still alone he cast Monster Summining II on Khalid and Charmed him so we had to use Break Enchantment while Viconia Silenced him and sent running in fear.
Drasus and Genthore joined the fray, Rezdan recovered from panic and after an exchange of some spells (Slow, Hold Person) I foolishly let Xan to cast a Skull Trap on Rezdan (Near Death already) to finish him off not paying attention on Genthore nearby (he is the weakest of the four). And you can guess what happened next - we've experienced our first death in the run as Genthore one-shot Xan with critical...
Some Holy Smite, Flame Strikes, Ice Blasts and Agannazar's Scorchers later they fell. All but Kysus who even doesn't appeared for now.
We went back to Beregost Temple to revive Xan, sold excessive stuff and returned to the Mine's site. At the same moment we began to cast buffs Kysus DDoored in our midst. He opened with Greater Malison, followed with Domination on Khalid and Charm on Imoen (guess he knew only they could hurt him through the Stoneskins with Ice/Acid Arrows) but at the same time I stripped his spell protections with Spell Thrust. Viconia lured Khalid to the north and cast Sanctuary to park him there while I cast Break Enchantment on Imoen.
The party is divided - Viconia and dominated Khalid on the north, Slowed Jaheira trying to chase Kysus in the middle and me, Xan and Imoen to the south. Kysus have brought two lots of Ogre Berserkers whom we lured to the south frying with Scorchers en-route.
While we were busy with Ogres Kysus concentrated all his attention on Jaheira - Ray of Enfeeblement, Flame Arrows (which she failed to save) and PW:Sleep when her HP ran low. Jaheira is in serious trouble so Viconia rushed ahead to cast Cure Light Wounds (the only healing spell she had memorised). Me too ran on resque with Healing Touch while Xan suddenly found out that Lightning Bolts from the Wand strike right through the Mirror Images and Stoneskins so he began to spam those bolts on Kysus like there is no tomorrow. Two lots of those where enough to finish Kysus off:
In the Mines the first lot of guards met us right near the entrance so we need to fight in the very confined and inconvenient space, nearly unable to move:
Fortunately Hareishan joined only with the next lot of guards. She spent two first rounds casting Waves of Fatigue on us while we held some of her guards forming a brick wall to block the pass. I tried Spell Thrust on her but was disrupted (and poisoned) by one of the archer guard. Viconia managed to hit Hareishan with Flame Strike through her protections, we cast Confusion and threw some monsters into the crowd. Hareishan flew into the main room and after dealing with her helpless guards we found her there. Her MGoI expired, spells nearly ran out so it was a matter of few rounds to finish her
Yeslick joined the Crew of the Joviar Juggler Inn, Jaheira's excellent AC was all we need to clear the thrash mobs on the next level and after Spell Thrust applied Natasha's fate was sealed:
Boots of Speed dropped by Natasha were invaluable in the fight with Davaeorn. Invisible Imoen disarmed all traps there and scouted a pair of Battle Horrors. As usual Davaeorn opened with Web+Stinking Cloud Sequencer>Dimension Jump and began to cast Evocation spell (Fireball as it soon turned out) while I lured Battle Horrors away to Scorch them:
After hitting with Fireball near the entrance Davaeorn DDoored near me only to catch up Spell Thrust in the face and waste another Fireball vs my Minor Spell Deflection.
I stripped his Illusions (Mirror Images and Improved Invisibility) with Detect Illusions spell but he has another Mirror Images memorised. The reinforcements arrived so we need to thin their ranks a bit and I finished the second Battle Horror with Ice Blast (the first one was killed by Jaheira not long ago).
More guards arrived and gathered around Davaeorn on the crossroads - a perfect place for Web+Fireballs combo but Davaeorn slipped away and as my MSD ran out Dominated me, cast Detect Invisibility on still invisible Imoen and Charmed her. Xan and Viconia who were hiding near entrance had to join the fray. We used all our resources (potions of explosion, wands of fear) to keep the waves of guards at manageble state.
Our main threats are still Charms/Dominations vs which we have not reliable protections and which Davaeorn threw generously in our midst. And only when he ran out of those we could cool down a heat of the fight a little bit. In the end Davarorn was freezed in place with Ice Blast making him a statue of ice gazing accusingly right deep into my soul. Does what he saw there made him peace, I don't know...
Stoneskin scroll, Helm of Glory, Tome of Understanding, some kind of Ioun Stone with Cold protection, Bastard Sword +1, +3 vs. Shapeshifters and Ankheg Plate Mail were most notable loot there.
Exhausted and wounded we flooded the Mines burying Davaeorn's ice statue deep under the freezing waters and returned to the warm saloon of Joviar Juggler Inn, warm both by fireplace and the heat of the hearts of our numerous friends there who are eager to hear the every last bit of details of our recent exploits.
Current state:
Grim Face: Cleric (6) / Illusionist (6), 444 kills (Davaeorn);
Jaheira: Fighter (6) / Druid (7), 272 kills (Battle Horror);
Khalid: Fighter (7), 756 kills (Greater Basilisk);
Imoen: Thief (8), 308 kills (Druid);
Viconia: Cleric (7), 104 kills (Sword Spider);
Xan: Enchanter (8), 85 kills (Sword Spider) [1 Death].
to be continued...
I am thinking in terms of mods like divine remix where I might want to change the deities available. (Also I am hoping that it won't be long before the bugs in it are ironed out, in which case I will need a total reinstallation of that mod.
Arwin's diary, page 5
On the road again. I decided to check the closest inn to the Thunderhammer's and literally ran into another assassin. I was forced to flee the inn and he was chasing me through whole Beregost before I managed to stop him. He had another bounty notice on his body - someone really wants me dead. I can't imagine why would someone do that, and who could that be. Anyway, I spent a night in the inn, woke up early morning, stopped at Thunerhammer's as they opened and stocked up and moved south. Nashkel it will be, or maybe even Amn - the one going after me must cease to attack me for sure then.page 6
Now I start being really angry. Came to Nashkel, entered the inn and got attacked AGAIN! I didn't want to cause any fuss in the main room, so I exited to the street, and few people helped me fight the assassin there - a guard, and some kind of a monk. We have had a chat after - interesting guy, though I am not sure I would be able to keep up his strict standards.I have met some officials in Nashkel - a major Berun Ghastskill, who is asking for help clearing the iron mines, and a bounty hunter officer, who told me about a bounty on some thief and also on murderer former captain of the guard. I do not think I am the right person to look into the mines, but I might be able to check around Nashkel and try to locate the thief and the murderer. Maybe.
After some consideration, I have decided against doing so. There was a local who was pestering me with tons of stupid questions, and I am sure he will let know everybody I was here, so I intentionally let him know I am going towards Amn. I left Nashkel to south, but secretly I have turned around and I now go North. I am sure Baldur's Gate will be able to hide me among the people there. I will travel off roads, so hopefully the person hiring thugs on me will not notice the change of the direction I am heading.
page 7
Bad dreams overcame me. I can feel something growing inside, a power I have never imagined. Almost as north as Beregost, I encountered a wolf. All of a sudden a fire burst of my mouth, leaving large portion of scorched earth and the wolf fleeing. It is hard to concentrate now, in fears this might happen again when there are people around. I have to learn controlling the power, or get rid of it.Oh, I have almost forgot. The wolf I spoke about was obviously chasing a chicken... a talking chicken. It turned out that the chicken is poly-morphed mage apprentice who want poly-morphed back. I promised to bring him back to his master in High Hedge, so that is where I am going now.
I am tired. The way was harsher than I expected, I am not sure I can make one more step further. "Walking" off roads is not as pleasant as I thought - next time I will try to use roads, but once someone is around, hide in the undergrowth. It should work the same.
In High Hedge I have delivered Melicamp (which is the apprentices name, by the way) to master Thalantyr. Seems like Melicamp stole some artifact off his master, but master Thalantyr was generous enough to oversee it and help Melicamp back to human form. I have delivered the components and master Thalantyr reversed the polymorph - interesting feat, I have to remember it for next time. I was then able to check out on master Thalantyr's possessions myself, and I have to say I will return here again in the future with more money. Some of the things are fabulous!
page 8
I have followed the path from High Hedge to Beregost. Despite the fact I wanted to stay away from the town, I need to restock again. I also thought about checking out a home of a gnome named Landrin who I met in Friendly Arms inn - she spoke about some spiders, and the cobwebs might nicely burn within my breath. I must check out whether I can control the power enough to put it to good use.The spiders were monstrous! I was disgusted as well as impressed. The encounter didn't go that well, after the initial burnout the spiders chased me throughout Beregost in anger, but I managed to get rid of them. I took up the proof and some items Landrin wanted and set on journey towards Friendly Arms Inn.
Tired again. I don't like walking - I must get a horse. Landrin liked the items and rewarded me handsomely. Tomorrow, I will be at Baldur's Gate.
Metagame:
Arwin Hawksong, lvl4; 32 hp; Reputation 15
Spells learned: Identify (1), Invisibility (2)
Abilities gained: Dragon Breath, Cure Light Wounds
Important items gained: -
There are some things that I won't touch. That is one of them.
Also I will never have a thief wearing plate armour unless it is especially made for thieves, or have clerics using sharp blades or mages casting wearing metal armour.
The spheres system doesn't appear to work quite perfectly. There are level 1 Aid spells that only affect the caster instead of any target, level 3 Prayer spells that have no discernable effect, and there are so many level 2 cleric spells that I think some are actually missing, because the icons won't fit in the spell selection screen.
Yep I remember being able to scroll the kit list with Tobex... I really don't understand why Beamdog didn't took care of this stupid limitation considering the trillions possibilities for adding kits via modding... They said they'd include Tobex features to BG:EE, but apparently some feature didn't make it.
What I am wondering is whether since then Beamdog have developed something on the same lines as the Tobex feature, or if some other mod now has that feature.
IWDification and SR can cause similar problem, but only if you install IWDification before SR. It's not a problem for you, though, because you have BWS. I can't use it, because Mac.
Edit : It's sad, because there's a good chance that it will mess up even higher divine spell levels too. Can't quite confirm this, but it's entirely possible...
Barl Archer 9 -> Cleric:
The problem with playing close to midnight is that my memory gets really scattered about events. Let's see:
Druid grove's the next quest we undertake, taking Cernd into the party for the duration of the quest. With both him and Jaheira, we have 3 Fire Elementals available to us, so the trolls really aren't that big of a problem. Well, until we go into the troll mound itself: the Giant Trolls prove to be too much, so Neera gives us one of her two Invisibility: 10" radius. Yoshimo grabs the Bracers of Archery and Gnasher (Item Revisions switches the Spear of the Unicorn and Gnasher's location) and successfully uses Hide in Shadows to get out unscathed. The Greater Earth elemental is then taken down away from the trolls, and the two druid fights are cheesed slightly: I avoided killing the trolls in the first one, getting their fighters weakened, and the second fight was a complete rout after Silence affected everyone but the named Druid. Neera used her second invisibility to get us past the bridge of spawning death, confusion, and just general pain.
The Shambling Mounds are finally, finally enough to get Barl to level 10, and he reclaims the Tuigan bow for his 4 APR rather than his single. Oh, and his THAC0 dropped to 0 while wielding a shortbow from 12 or so, so... Death and destruction time. But the rest of the grove: the Grizzly Bears were honestly incredibly painful, as Minsc couldn't get a single Charm off and tanking them hurts, darn it . The Dalok fight: Pro. Electricity is given to Barl as an insurance, but the one surviving nymph from the grizzly bears turns out to be a hero. With one Hold Monster, she managed to paralyze the second Druid, the Mountain Bears they summoned, and the 6-man squad easily demolishes Dalok and the Adherant after that. Under Improved Invisibility, Cernd gets a couple summons off and Faldorn is Held by a Nymph and summarily executed by summons. We leave Cernd behind there. Returning to Trademeet, Barl claims Tansheron's Bow as his own for infinite +3 arrows.
Now that he's a Ranger again, time for the Temple Ruins. No spawns are worse than Skeleton Warriors, so Fire Elementals courtesy of Jaheira kind of just mop up the entire dungeon with Barl shooting from behind Notably, though, there are two regeneration items here, so health is no longer a real concern outside of fights. We still pass on Thaxxy for now: no level drain protection is asking for trouble. Shade Lord fight: Neera turns everyone invisible from Thaxxy's lair to the southwest, so we can see Shadow Patrick and the Shadow Altar. Casting Pro. Lightning on himself again, Barl duels Patrick with bow and arrow, inevitably coming out the winner. The Pro. Lightning's for Patrick's cloak, which returns 6d6 (I think?) electricity damage 20% of the time upon being hit. Mazzy, Jaheira, and Minsc tank shadows while Barl then takes out the altar. Stealth shots are finally used to kill the Shade Lord himself, though a couple missteps forced a Potion of Invisibility from Barl.
I've done a bit more, but I'll update that later.
I use Windows 10 and not 7, but on this computer and on Windows 8, EE automatically takes screenshots and puts them in the BG and BG2 folders in Documents; I didn't need to use any external programs to take them. The format is BMP, which I switch to JPEGs using IrfanView's bat function. I can convert 500 screenshots in under 5 minutes with Irfanview.
As @semiticgod said: they are produced as bitmaps which I open in Paint to turn into jpegs before posting.
Del, elf diviner (Grond0) & Feldris, dwarf assassin (Gate70)
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/860309/#Comment_860309
After arriving in Baldur's Gate the duo did a quick round to pick up the Eagle bow, tomes and Cloak of Balduran. The Iron Throne party were left alone, although later on we did wonder if they should have been done in order to get a ring of free action.
Back in Candlekeep Prat suffered in some skull traps, but their area of effect wasn't quite large enough to deal with Tam as well and he got hits on both Del and Feldris before going down himself.
Slythe failed to make any impression on the wall of summons placed in front of him. For once the fight at the Palace went off perfectly with Feldris rapidly working through the dopplegangers with dispelling arrows. Once they were all dead Belt was successfully lured into a side room. He took relatively little damage, so the improved invisibility cast at the start of the fight on Liia wasn't needed this time.
After fighting through the maze the duo retraced their steps and went to Ulgoth's Beard to pickpocket Dushai for his ring. Then it was back to the Undercellar to fireball the party there before moving on to the temple. Sarevok was dispelled with one shot and Semaj got a few more before he went down - leaving Sarevok helpless against a stream of summoned monsters.
We've only briefly been in SoD before and not made it out of the starting dungeon - but this time we did manage that, if not too much more.
Daorem (dark moon monk, Gate70) and Char (blackguard, Grond0)
A distinct lack of screenshots, but the remainder of our session went along these lines
= 5 seconds silence in memory of Del.
= Random selection of characters.
= Hmm, another arcane caster for Grond0. Random selection x2 for him.
= Roll characters, start SoD, realise why we had 3 / 6 weapon profs instead of 2 / 4.
= Re-roll characters, start BGEE.
= Finish the Candlekeep chores, and annoy a guard in the clinic.
= Ignore Gorion's advice and head to the coast to blind and poison Shoal the Nereid.
= Buy Marl a drink and find a book for Firebead.
= Retrieve
Zhurlong'sDaorem's boots.= Grab a Two Handed Sword +1 from Arghain for Char.
= Dig up some ankheg plate for Char.
= Speed-date Noober.
= Day-trip to the lighthouse, helping Ardrouine then playing with sirines and flesh golems.
= Return a letter to Mirianne after applying a suitable 2nd class delay in postal delivery.
= Picking up a couple of green scrolls and using them to foil basilisks and aid Tamah.
= Poison Mutamin. Blind Baerin then let Korax snack on paralyzed Kirian, Peter and Lindin.
= Sell some loot at High Hedge. Mark Firewine Bridge on the map for next time, should be bracing.
Mugshots
although Grond0 is using this image we both think I used it initially and shared with him for an earlier attempt. I had a quick search and the closest source I could find was the destroyer image at mitemitei.com/h/sige0101.htm
Daorem (dark moon monk, Gate70) and Char (blackguard, Grond0)
A brief session today confirmed Meilum didn't take kindly to being challenged.
After picking up the remaining girdles, a tome of Leadership and boots of the north Char headed underground to deal with Ankhegs.
The Doomsayer didn't last too long.
Neira managed to hold both adventurers, but proved unable to kill Char before he struggled free to kill her instead.
Picking up a tome from Durlags Tower was somewhat delayed when a Battle Horror took several minutes to be beaten. Char was reluctant to take on the second but Daorem had saved her Blind ability and insisted. Char obliged, and Daorem was finally able to almost get her hands on the tome.
Daorem has spotted four potions of mirrored eyes, so it looks like Char wants to clear the roof of basilisks next time.