Easy mega-mod installation in 5 minutes. (Huge, Ipad compatible!)
lunar
Member Posts: 3,460
in BGII:EE Mods
Okay, this is the whole installation I have on my Ipad and pc. It has many mods, customisations, and a lot more I personally added. This is an easy, overwrite installation. You don't need to spend hours to install scs, item randomiser, etc. All these great mods are already here, and can be dropped to override folder, or portraits folder, even on Ipad, and the whole process will take 5 minutes or so. And you will have a very modded game, with lots of tweaks, challenges and what not I find to be just the perfect playing experience. So this is a convenience installation for my personal collection of mods. With respect to the original mod authors for their awesome work.
WHAT DOES THIS 'MOD' DO?
-It is a super easy installation for various mods I liked, on top of some tweaks and enchantments of my own. It is compatible with the pc, and Ipad version. (and should also work on Android) To install, just drop all of the files in portraits folder in the rar, to the place your own portraits or override folder should be. Simple as that. This will save up to 3-4 hours of time required to install all of these mods from scratch.
-Since this mod is compatible with Ipad, unjailbroken, I did not touch dialog.tlk. There are caveats, like when mages prebuff you will see random dialogue instead of their buffs. Some spell descriptions have garbage text, mainly, the spell protection removals edited by scs, all you need to know is now they have area of effect and can be targeted on invisible enemies.
Also, random text for when a potion is drunk by an enemy. For perfectionists, it is terrible, but I am used to this and actually, prebuff lines being garbage ups the difficulty as you can not tell which spells the opponent has up. Also, custom spells I added, mostly ice spells, had to use names allready existing in the game, but luckily, there are names that are very appropriate I used with no trouble. You won't see in-game descriptions for the new spells, however I wrote about what they do. Oh and also, Gaelan bayle will still talk about 20k gold, however he wants to say 80k, and the main plot won't advance until you have at least 65k! These are side effects of the easy installation, also compatibility for unjailbroken Ipad.
DISCLAIMER (super important!)
-I do NOT own these mods. The mods are the creations of their authors, and I gave links to them where applicable. This mod of mine is just a simple, mega-installation, and that is all. I want other players to enjoy these mods like I do, and I wanted to give them a very easy way to do so, by means of sharing my own mega mod installation. I do not take credit for any of the hard work involved in those mods.
It is not like the authors charge money for the mods, so I don't think there are any copyright issues. Hopefully. I repeat, this is just an easy mega-install mod, I do not own any of these mods, anybody can download these mods themselves on the net and do what they please. This 'mod' of mine is just a simple tool to have said mods installed alltogether in like five minutes. On Ipad too, no less! It is more like a homage or respect for the mods involved.
Here are the original mods used in this installation:
Sword Coast Strategems-awesome, awesome work. It makes all enemies smarter and challenging. I have the maximum difficulty options installed for most anything, including prebuff for mages/priests, and I also increased the levels of casters a bit. Hardest spawns excluding liches in dungeons. Gaelan Bayle also require 65k gold instead of 15k. In the asylum, partys items get taken, etc.
The main site for the original mod:http://www.gibberlings3.net/scs/
Item randomisation:This uses the randomisation at every start of the game method, so each time you start a game in Irenicus dungeon, after Imoen opens your cell, there will be some pause and lagging while the game modifies all of the item locations. Most every important item will be randomised, and will appear in new, random places every time you start a new game! Wonderful!
The main site for the original mod:http://www.gibberlings3.net/item_rand/
Ashes of Embers:Only the universal weapons for all classes mod. This makes all weapons usable by anyone. However, some more exotic weapons have some high stat requirements.
The main site for the original mod:http://www.pocketplane.net/mambo/index.php?option=content&task=blogcategory&id=92&Itemid=77
Rogues Rebalancing:Only the revised thievery options, for to disable potions of thievery from stacking. Also fences can no longer be stolen from.
The main site for the original mod:http://avenger981.github.io/doc/readme_rr.html
Improved bams:Original bg2 item bams for the game. The main site for the original mod:http://www.gibberlings3.net/impbams/
BG2 paperdolls:From my own mod, bringing old BG2 paperdolls back.
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/37669/glows-and-paperdolls-mod#latest
Oversight mod:Only the improved comet component, with a blue graphic and cold damage.
The main site for the original mod:http://www.gibberlings3.net/oversight/index.php
1pp:only the empty inventory slot look taken, for a more byzantine look.
The main site for the original mod:http://www.spellholdstudios.net/ie/1pp
Portraits:alternate portraits for Jaheira, Imoen and Neera. Plus some pc portraits all taken from the thread:
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/5339/alternate-npc-and-pc-portraits-just-because-p/p1
Most notably, Isandir has many portraits I took from the thread, also check his own site for even more awesome portraits. Beamdog should have hired this guy! http://isandir.com/
Also some portraits from the mod thread:http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/33271/the-candlekeep-party-spoilers-including-a-speed-game-competition/p1
New font:new font for item descriptions and another new font for floating text. I like to play with bigger fonts from options, second biggest choice, but the fonts in item descriptions and float texts get too big and ugly. Wit these, I can play with big fonts in game play and item descriptions/float texts look cool.
Original fonts threads:http://www.shsforums.net/topic/56710-bigger-fonts-for-baldurs-gate/
http://www.shsforums.net/topic/38626-bigger-fonts-for-bgiitob-and-other-ie-games/page-2
On top of that, some tweaks of mine:
-More and more enemies and random treasures in most places.
Most notably, Irenicus dungeon has a lot more duergars from scs mod, and is quite a challenge for the beginning of the game. No longer the first dungeon is trivial or boring. Added some random treasures here and there to compensate for the added challenge. Added two custom enemy shadow thieves that utilise a wand. (only one charge)
Shadow temple has a very big shadow and shadow fiend spawn rate, the place is dangerous to stay for long. Hint:equip Arbane's shortsword or other free action items/spells to survive shadow fiends. The shadowed forest area has some added specters.
Sewers behind the temple area has some burning undead archers spawns. My own custom monsters, heavily influenced by the burning dead archers from diablo 2 sewers in act 2. They are quite tough if you don't take counter measures.
Planar sphere has more cannibal halflings. The hellish planes have a lot more demons and a nasty imp spawn rate:you must not stall for too long! Tolgerias is a deadly conjurer of highest caliber and Lavok is a vile, vile necromancer.
Captain Haegan and Beastmaster are buffed to be a kensai and archer, respectively. They also use scs scripts, so beware! Added many additional guards to slavers hq, and a rune assasin near the entrance from sewers.
Added more mustard jellies to the sewers beneath the copper coronet. Hint:Use magical crushing weapons and have a good ac vs blunt attacks.
Bodhi's hideout in both chapters have more vampires added.
Many more skeleton warriors and undead are added to graveyard areas. Some additional, some random treasures added in to compensate for the challenge.
Vampiric mists spawn a lot more frequently in the entrance pool to Firkraag's dungeon. Also Ruhk the transmuter is a beast thanks to scs scripts.
Added some wights to Dragomir's tomb.
Added some skeleton warriors to guarded compound, and some additional treasures.
Added some real ettins, ogres, and an evil adventurer party to Neera's wild forest. (they have nice loot, and their mage does not cast spells, but uses wands!)
Added some crazy cowled wizards to the main Spellhold outside area:they barely escaped Irenicus and they are angry, very angry.
Added some lich minions of Irenicus to Tree of Life.
-Tweaks
Potions of thievery do not stack. Fence shops (those that buy stolen items back) pay less for items and can not be stolen from. Courtesy of the rogues rebalancing mod.
Wands of all kinds can not be sold to be re-charged. Added some wands to more enemies as loot. Wand of spell striking and rod of resurrection can be sold to be re-charged as usual, however.
Scrolls of restoration can only be used by clerics, monks and paladins. This makes the cleric a more of a necessity than luxury. (everyone can heal and restore via scrolls and rod of res. in the original game!)
Additional potions, wands and scrolls added to many enemies. They will use those items, if you fail to kill them, however, thanks to scs scripts.
Added graphic effects to enchantment, invocation, necromancy spell hits ala iwd. Spellcasting glows are not from iwd, as my previous mod had, but has their colors more saturised and a bit changed.
-Custom new ice themed spells that replace the useless ones. Taken from various pnp resources, and given existing names so as not to dirsupt dialog.tlk
Ice shard:replaces infravision. 1d4 cold damage to single target and slows for 1 round. (source:Gemidan's icicle)
Ice dust:replaces luck. 2d6 area damage, uses silver dragon breath animation so the area effect is somewhat random, slows the targets and covers them with a nice blue icy tint if they fail a save vs death.
Paralysation ray:sinle target, paralyses for 1 round/lvl on a failed save. (source:Gemidan's paralytic missile)
Heal:the reverse vampiric touch spell, named healing touch in pnp. Replaces non-detection. It heals like a cure light wounds spell but paralyses the caster for 3 rounds if he fails a save. Definitely not safe to use in battle.
Dr.Freeze Death Ray:works as iwd ice lance, with cold scorcher effect. 5-30 cold damage and save or held for rounds. Paints the victim blue also has a chance to slow. Replaces detect illusion. (source:iwd ice lance)
Ice Storm:damage reduced to 1-8/round but has a chance to either slow or blind the enemy for 1 round.
Empathic manifestation:the closest name in the game to empathic healing spell in pnp. It heals 2 hp/level but damages the caster same amount. The damage is non lethal so it can not kill the caster, it can drop him uncouncious, however. Replaces mage remove curse. (source:emphatic healing pnp)
Protection from poison:replaces lesser air elemental spell, works like a protection from poison scroll with a duration based on level.
Cold stone:the closest name in the game to Otiluke's Freezing Sphere. Replaces conjure air elemental. This spell has two alternative castings:first is creating the stone to be held in the hand, it is a throwable item that blasts like a fireball and does 6d6 cold damage to a radius, save for half. It uses the blue fireball projectile but the blast is fire-colored, which is not as nice as I hoped. It also slows down enemies and has a %2 chance to turn an enemy into ice. This spell can be cast in advance and held in the hand, then after casting another spell it can be released instantly. It has a duration of 1 turn. The second casting alternative is the cold ray from iwd, 1d4+2 cold damage per level to a single target, however a save avoids all damage. (source:Otiluke's freezing sphere pnp)
Meteor swarm:launches a small, exploding pebble to each target in the initial area of effect, each pebble explodes for 4d10 damage, save for half. The more enemies there are, the more explosions will happen and this spell has the potential to be devastating under right circumstances.
Comet:does half crushing half cold damage, courtesy of Oversight mod.
Planetars and devas nerfed, their duration is 10 rounds like the elemental princes. Also they have pnp stats and spells. (reduced resistances and spell selection, in most cases)
-New portraits:Various portraits taken from the alternate npc portraits shared on these forums, and a few I created myself from the various models I find on the net.
HOW TO INSTALL
Just drop the 'portraits' folder onto your bg2:ee main folder. Mine was located in:
C:\Program Files\BeamDog\Games\00783
Also, you can copy and paste 'portraits' folder directly onto Ipad, using Ifunbox to get access to BG2 folders.
Go User applications, Baldurs gate 2, and then enter the 'library'. This is where you should copy the whole 'portraits' folder, AS A FOLDER.
Ifunbox no longer works with ios 8.3 so you need an old version of ios or wait for Ifunbox to update to new ios.
This should also work on Android, just drop the whole portraits folder to where it should.
The whole process should take 5 minutes or so (slightly more on Ipad)
To uninstall just delete the whole portraits folder.
WHAT DOES THIS 'MOD' DO?
-It is a super easy installation for various mods I liked, on top of some tweaks and enchantments of my own. It is compatible with the pc, and Ipad version. (and should also work on Android) To install, just drop all of the files in portraits folder in the rar, to the place your own portraits or override folder should be. Simple as that. This will save up to 3-4 hours of time required to install all of these mods from scratch.
-Since this mod is compatible with Ipad, unjailbroken, I did not touch dialog.tlk. There are caveats, like when mages prebuff you will see random dialogue instead of their buffs. Some spell descriptions have garbage text, mainly, the spell protection removals edited by scs, all you need to know is now they have area of effect and can be targeted on invisible enemies.
Also, random text for when a potion is drunk by an enemy. For perfectionists, it is terrible, but I am used to this and actually, prebuff lines being garbage ups the difficulty as you can not tell which spells the opponent has up. Also, custom spells I added, mostly ice spells, had to use names allready existing in the game, but luckily, there are names that are very appropriate I used with no trouble. You won't see in-game descriptions for the new spells, however I wrote about what they do. Oh and also, Gaelan bayle will still talk about 20k gold, however he wants to say 80k, and the main plot won't advance until you have at least 65k! These are side effects of the easy installation, also compatibility for unjailbroken Ipad.
DISCLAIMER (super important!)
-I do NOT own these mods. The mods are the creations of their authors, and I gave links to them where applicable. This mod of mine is just a simple, mega-installation, and that is all. I want other players to enjoy these mods like I do, and I wanted to give them a very easy way to do so, by means of sharing my own mega mod installation. I do not take credit for any of the hard work involved in those mods.
It is not like the authors charge money for the mods, so I don't think there are any copyright issues. Hopefully. I repeat, this is just an easy mega-install mod, I do not own any of these mods, anybody can download these mods themselves on the net and do what they please. This 'mod' of mine is just a simple tool to have said mods installed alltogether in like five minutes. On Ipad too, no less! It is more like a homage or respect for the mods involved.
Here are the original mods used in this installation:
Sword Coast Strategems-awesome, awesome work. It makes all enemies smarter and challenging. I have the maximum difficulty options installed for most anything, including prebuff for mages/priests, and I also increased the levels of casters a bit. Hardest spawns excluding liches in dungeons. Gaelan Bayle also require 65k gold instead of 15k. In the asylum, partys items get taken, etc.
The main site for the original mod:http://www.gibberlings3.net/scs/
Item randomisation:This uses the randomisation at every start of the game method, so each time you start a game in Irenicus dungeon, after Imoen opens your cell, there will be some pause and lagging while the game modifies all of the item locations. Most every important item will be randomised, and will appear in new, random places every time you start a new game! Wonderful!
The main site for the original mod:http://www.gibberlings3.net/item_rand/
Ashes of Embers:Only the universal weapons for all classes mod. This makes all weapons usable by anyone. However, some more exotic weapons have some high stat requirements.
The main site for the original mod:http://www.pocketplane.net/mambo/index.php?option=content&task=blogcategory&id=92&Itemid=77
Rogues Rebalancing:Only the revised thievery options, for to disable potions of thievery from stacking. Also fences can no longer be stolen from.
The main site for the original mod:http://avenger981.github.io/doc/readme_rr.html
Improved bams:Original bg2 item bams for the game. The main site for the original mod:http://www.gibberlings3.net/impbams/
BG2 paperdolls:From my own mod, bringing old BG2 paperdolls back.
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/37669/glows-and-paperdolls-mod#latest
Oversight mod:Only the improved comet component, with a blue graphic and cold damage.
The main site for the original mod:http://www.gibberlings3.net/oversight/index.php
1pp:only the empty inventory slot look taken, for a more byzantine look.
The main site for the original mod:http://www.spellholdstudios.net/ie/1pp
Portraits:alternate portraits for Jaheira, Imoen and Neera. Plus some pc portraits all taken from the thread:
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/5339/alternate-npc-and-pc-portraits-just-because-p/p1
Most notably, Isandir has many portraits I took from the thread, also check his own site for even more awesome portraits. Beamdog should have hired this guy! http://isandir.com/
Also some portraits from the mod thread:http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/33271/the-candlekeep-party-spoilers-including-a-speed-game-competition/p1
New font:new font for item descriptions and another new font for floating text. I like to play with bigger fonts from options, second biggest choice, but the fonts in item descriptions and float texts get too big and ugly. Wit these, I can play with big fonts in game play and item descriptions/float texts look cool.
Original fonts threads:http://www.shsforums.net/topic/56710-bigger-fonts-for-baldurs-gate/
http://www.shsforums.net/topic/38626-bigger-fonts-for-bgiitob-and-other-ie-games/page-2
On top of that, some tweaks of mine:
-More and more enemies and random treasures in most places.
Most notably, Irenicus dungeon has a lot more duergars from scs mod, and is quite a challenge for the beginning of the game. No longer the first dungeon is trivial or boring. Added some random treasures here and there to compensate for the added challenge. Added two custom enemy shadow thieves that utilise a wand. (only one charge)
Shadow temple has a very big shadow and shadow fiend spawn rate, the place is dangerous to stay for long. Hint:equip Arbane's shortsword or other free action items/spells to survive shadow fiends. The shadowed forest area has some added specters.
Sewers behind the temple area has some burning undead archers spawns. My own custom monsters, heavily influenced by the burning dead archers from diablo 2 sewers in act 2. They are quite tough if you don't take counter measures.
Planar sphere has more cannibal halflings. The hellish planes have a lot more demons and a nasty imp spawn rate:you must not stall for too long! Tolgerias is a deadly conjurer of highest caliber and Lavok is a vile, vile necromancer.
Captain Haegan and Beastmaster are buffed to be a kensai and archer, respectively. They also use scs scripts, so beware! Added many additional guards to slavers hq, and a rune assasin near the entrance from sewers.
Added more mustard jellies to the sewers beneath the copper coronet. Hint:Use magical crushing weapons and have a good ac vs blunt attacks.
Bodhi's hideout in both chapters have more vampires added.
Many more skeleton warriors and undead are added to graveyard areas. Some additional, some random treasures added in to compensate for the challenge.
Vampiric mists spawn a lot more frequently in the entrance pool to Firkraag's dungeon. Also Ruhk the transmuter is a beast thanks to scs scripts.
Added some wights to Dragomir's tomb.
Added some skeleton warriors to guarded compound, and some additional treasures.
Added some real ettins, ogres, and an evil adventurer party to Neera's wild forest. (they have nice loot, and their mage does not cast spells, but uses wands!)
Added some crazy cowled wizards to the main Spellhold outside area:they barely escaped Irenicus and they are angry, very angry.
Added some lich minions of Irenicus to Tree of Life.
-Tweaks
Potions of thievery do not stack. Fence shops (those that buy stolen items back) pay less for items and can not be stolen from. Courtesy of the rogues rebalancing mod.
Wands of all kinds can not be sold to be re-charged. Added some wands to more enemies as loot. Wand of spell striking and rod of resurrection can be sold to be re-charged as usual, however.
Scrolls of restoration can only be used by clerics, monks and paladins. This makes the cleric a more of a necessity than luxury. (everyone can heal and restore via scrolls and rod of res. in the original game!)
Additional potions, wands and scrolls added to many enemies. They will use those items, if you fail to kill them, however, thanks to scs scripts.
Added graphic effects to enchantment, invocation, necromancy spell hits ala iwd. Spellcasting glows are not from iwd, as my previous mod had, but has their colors more saturised and a bit changed.
-Custom new ice themed spells that replace the useless ones. Taken from various pnp resources, and given existing names so as not to dirsupt dialog.tlk
Ice shard:replaces infravision. 1d4 cold damage to single target and slows for 1 round. (source:Gemidan's icicle)
Ice dust:replaces luck. 2d6 area damage, uses silver dragon breath animation so the area effect is somewhat random, slows the targets and covers them with a nice blue icy tint if they fail a save vs death.
Paralysation ray:sinle target, paralyses for 1 round/lvl on a failed save. (source:Gemidan's paralytic missile)
Heal:the reverse vampiric touch spell, named healing touch in pnp. Replaces non-detection. It heals like a cure light wounds spell but paralyses the caster for 3 rounds if he fails a save. Definitely not safe to use in battle.
Dr.Freeze Death Ray:works as iwd ice lance, with cold scorcher effect. 5-30 cold damage and save or held for rounds. Paints the victim blue also has a chance to slow. Replaces detect illusion. (source:iwd ice lance)
Ice Storm:damage reduced to 1-8/round but has a chance to either slow or blind the enemy for 1 round.
Empathic manifestation:the closest name in the game to empathic healing spell in pnp. It heals 2 hp/level but damages the caster same amount. The damage is non lethal so it can not kill the caster, it can drop him uncouncious, however. Replaces mage remove curse. (source:emphatic healing pnp)
Protection from poison:replaces lesser air elemental spell, works like a protection from poison scroll with a duration based on level.
Cold stone:the closest name in the game to Otiluke's Freezing Sphere. Replaces conjure air elemental. This spell has two alternative castings:first is creating the stone to be held in the hand, it is a throwable item that blasts like a fireball and does 6d6 cold damage to a radius, save for half. It uses the blue fireball projectile but the blast is fire-colored, which is not as nice as I hoped. It also slows down enemies and has a %2 chance to turn an enemy into ice. This spell can be cast in advance and held in the hand, then after casting another spell it can be released instantly. It has a duration of 1 turn. The second casting alternative is the cold ray from iwd, 1d4+2 cold damage per level to a single target, however a save avoids all damage. (source:Otiluke's freezing sphere pnp)
Meteor swarm:launches a small, exploding pebble to each target in the initial area of effect, each pebble explodes for 4d10 damage, save for half. The more enemies there are, the more explosions will happen and this spell has the potential to be devastating under right circumstances.
Comet:does half crushing half cold damage, courtesy of Oversight mod.
Planetars and devas nerfed, their duration is 10 rounds like the elemental princes. Also they have pnp stats and spells. (reduced resistances and spell selection, in most cases)
-New portraits:Various portraits taken from the alternate npc portraits shared on these forums, and a few I created myself from the various models I find on the net.
HOW TO INSTALL
Just drop the 'portraits' folder onto your bg2:ee main folder. Mine was located in:
C:\Program Files\BeamDog\Games\00783
Also, you can copy and paste 'portraits' folder directly onto Ipad, using Ifunbox to get access to BG2 folders.
Go User applications, Baldurs gate 2, and then enter the 'library'. This is where you should copy the whole 'portraits' folder, AS A FOLDER.
Ifunbox no longer works with ios 8.3 so you need an old version of ios or wait for Ifunbox to update to new ios.
This should also work on Android, just drop the whole portraits folder to where it should.
The whole process should take 5 minutes or so (slightly more on Ipad)
To uninstall just delete the whole portraits folder.
1
Comments
Aside from that, I can proudly say this is the most heavily modded/modified bg2 you can get on an unjailbroken Ipad. And you can get it up and working in about 10-15 minutes. (Copying files is slower on Ifunbox. And there are A LOT of files, naturally.)
So, all new dialogue lines added by scs is invalid, but you can click on them and the game progresses. Just tested. Steps for improved Abazigal lair:
-Kill Draconis as usual
-grab the empty potion battle from the were-wyvern inside
-swim to cave, kill lizardmen (surprisingly tough!)
-enter new cave, there will be new dragon number 1. the dialogues are all invalid, but it does not matter, it ends up in a fight. when badly wounded, if you choose the right dialogue option he gives up a nice amulet, and stops fighting.
-collect the breath potion from the pool in the same room
-go to other cave by swimming, the kuo toa cave
-reach the jailed monk, however he does not have rope. there is a new invalid dialogue option to show this
-return to Amkhetran inn, choose the new invalid dialogue option when talking to innkeeper. he will give you the rope
-return to lair, in the entrance, scs will greet you with 4 new dragons. they all have invalid dialogues but it does not matter much, they gloat, and threaten, and fight to the death.
-when all dead, you have the breath potion, and the rope, enter the lair and proceed as usual.
This component was just too cool to omit from the installation. Despite the invalid dialogue lines, the battles and quest proceed flawlessly, as described above.
Just look at that, it is the epitome of power when you are battling multiple dragons!
Speaking of dragons, I have added some new dragons to a few places in the game, as well. Dragons have substantial treasure in gold and gems.
Dispel magic display abjuration-green light effect when hitting:
Haste displays bluish alteration light effect. Also magic missiles display magenta splash hit effect.
Old, legacy bg2 paperdolls and more detailed look for empty inventory slots:
Ice dust spell affecting the three gals. Notice their skin is bluish:they have failed a save and are slowed. Also, spell icons are from iwd, for spells ice dust and paralysation ray (the last one in the bar)
Dr.Freeze Death Ray spell. (Ice lance concept from iwd) Nalia fails a save and is held. Notice also blue skin.
Paralysation ray affects Imoen. (Gemidan's paralytic missile spell from pnp)
New finger of death graphic (from iwd)
New fonts for item description. These are seperate from the font of the game, so if you use large fonts from the options, item descriptions do not become pages long to read. Very convenient.
You need to unzip. The 'portraits' folder is needed. It is 250 mb or such big that's why I had to rar it.
Unzip the portraits folder to your desktop. I am unsure how rar works on macs, though.
Copy the whole 'portraits' folder to under library section of bg2 (on Ipad). As a folder.
Or just copy all of the contents inside my rared portraits folder to your own portraits or override folder. (thousands of files!)
Cool animation for the Death spell. I got this animation from bg2 refinements mod, forgot to mention.
http://www.shsforums.net/forum/116-refinements/
At the start of the bg2 game, after Imoen saves you, there will be a significant lag and freezing. This is item randomisation doing its work. After half a minute it should resume.
Open up inventory, go pick the items for new bams, cast some custom spells, and tackle the ogre mage near the genie in the dungeon. With scs he should buff heavily. (although prebuff dialogue lines will appear as garbage, this is natural.)
If it is freezing for a few minutes, it means item randomisation works. Now go tackle the ogre mage to check if scs also works. (the two main big mods, bread and butter of this installation)
This seems Like a HUGE deal. how did you do this?
Making this installation from scratch will take a lot of hours. It is only for convenience's sake, heck I save this file for my own use, should my ipad or pc gets formatted, I just install bg2 and in five ten minutes I can get my full modded installation back. I just wanted for others to have the same luxury, if they are interested in difficulty mods.
I agree, however, it is a blurry area. I myself would have been happy if anyone posted a modded game easy to use like this, or posted about my own mod to make it easy for others to play. And I hope no modder would be offended for this. I do nothing but praise their work all the time.
Other changes I added up because I have an amateur interest in modding and I love bg2 just so much.
If you haven't played scs before, this game may be too difficult for you as I was not really light-handed when choosing the installation, I picked most of the hardest options. However, scs is very customisable and if you are interested, you can have your own installation with the mod, with some of the easier options. Starter dungeon is very difficult, and you need Jaheira, Minsc, Imoen and use all of the potions/scrolls/items lying around. Even I, as a very experinced player, have some hard time with the dungeon at the start of the game, but I found that exhilarating and refreshing over looting arrows from goblin corpses.
Protip:if you play as a totemic druid, spirit animals rip duergars apart:they don't have any magical weapon. Also, you may get lucky to get some high lvl scroll drops, so use them when you can with Imoen.
So, my custom spells (if you chose a mage or sorcerer you should have seen them) inventory paperdolls, new fonts, scs enemies, new random treasures, everything works? Oh, also I changed the otyugh creature in the dungeon to some more dangerous critter. (The frost key it normally carries should be in another table in the same level)
P.s.
Is there a way someone could do this for bg1npc? I've always wanted to play that.
Unfourtunately, bg1 npc and other big quest mods need to modify dialog.tlk. Dialog.tlk is the sum of all written-in game dialogues and item/spell descriptions in the game. As it so happens, it sits in an untouchable folder in the unjailbroken Ipad.
(The post our kind @subtledoctor linked may have a new method to circumvent this, I need to experiment when I have the time)
Thus, this installation does not modify dialog.tlk. Hence, enemy prebuffs messages appear as random text. They are supposed to say:enemy mage-stoneskin (cast previously) however, since there is no such line in the original dialog.tlk, it defaults into something random.
Also, new dialogue added by scs in Improved Abazigal lair, won't show. It is not important as it can be done without reading the new dialogue, as my walkthrough shows, and scs at core is a difficulty enhancing mod. Obviously, bg1 npc, romance and big quest mods add ton of new dialogue and written data, and thus are impossible to enjoy by using this method. Npcs will talk new dialogues but without a modified dialog.tlk you will see either 'invalid links' or random garbage text, and then what is the point of the mod?
I can get the awesome spell revisions, item revisions, and kit mods BUT due to their nature, they add a huge amount of written text and without dialog.tlk they will be pretty much unplayable. Same goes for the epic mod that is Ascension. Together with Turnabout mod+wheels of prophecy mod, they turn ToB into epicness it should have originaly been!
So, how is the game going, able to escape Irenicus dungeon yet? Graphical enchantments work as intended? (New paperdolls, bams, etc)