[MOD] Afaaq, the Djinni Companion now available for IWD:EE!

argent77

Afaaq, the Djinni Companion is a mod I have originally created for BG2 and BG2:EE. It features the djinni Afaaq, a unique travelling companion who joins the party as your "seventh party member" and provides interesting dialogs, lots of quests and several new areas or area expansions.

The new IWD:EE component provides the djinni without individual quests or storylines, similar to the "Light Version" for BG2. You can "acquire" the djinni somewhere in Dragon's Eye and have the opportunity to upgrade his powers during your "Heart of Winter" adventures or somewhere in Lower Dorn's Deep.

Feel free to post your thoughts, suggestions, questions or bugs in the main topic for this mod or find out more in the Readme!

ineth

Awesome!

For those who don't know, this is one of the best BG2:EE mods out there.
It's creative, well-polished, and without the cringe factor of most "companion and quest" mods - and lots of technical ingenuity has clearly gone into it.

@argent77 Are you considering to port over some of his quest/storyline as well? It really contributed to making him interesting, in my opinion. Also, IWD could definitely use some more mage encounters...

argent77

Thanks for the praise.

The BG2 storyline doesn't really fit into Icewind Dale. I haven't added any quests yet, mostly because it would greatly complicate the current mod package and also because Icewind Dale ist mainly a dungeon crawler. I might add one or two small quests eventually if I can come up with good ideas.

I have successfully done a full run with him prior to releasing the new version (main story, HoW and TotLM) and can say that his presence really makes a difference. Since he doesn't hog any XP for himself, he is also a good choice for a full six-person party. He comes with his own "Bag of Holding" and one of his innate abilities allows you to identify all items.

ineth

Hm I guess you're right, the whole "underdark drow family" quest-line doesn't really fit anywhere in IWD, nor is there a circus tent with a Dao Genie.

Though the party could still spontaneously encounter a Rakshasa portal or a drow war party...

argent77

I have put together a small number of events that are related to the djinni and his lamp for IWD:EE. It mainly consists of a couple of tough battles. My question is now, how challenging should the battles be?

brus

If you could beat your own encounters on current version, then it's good.
Personally, I like challenging gameplay.

argent77

Currently, the battles are very challenging (especially the last one). They should be (barely) manageable with the right preparations or party compositions, but I'm not sure how difficult they are in HoF mode. Maybe I should lower the difficulty somewhat.

You can always cancel the storyline by using a certain trick however, if you aren't interested in it. I'll describe it in more detail in the Readme.

ineth

I too prefer battles added by mods to be a challenge.
Trash mods already exist aplenty in this game...

Though unless it's specifically advertised as a tactics/challenge mod, they probably shouldn't be harder to beat than the main bosses of the respective part of the game - i.e. Yxunomei for Dragon's Eye, Mebdinga for the Burial Isle, etc.

argent77

I've settled on toning down the battles somewhat in non-HoF modes. The HoF mode battles will still be exceptionally tough, however. As it now stands, there will probably be three encounters throughout the main storyline with increasingly more difficult battles.

brus

Do you use some global variable to scale monsters health or you need to tone every health separately ?

argent77

I'm using slightly different setups for HoF mode battles (usually more or different opponents, but also higher quality loot). I never used HoF mode in my runs, but based on the description in the game options I'd say that the actual power of creatures is automatically modified by the game engine.

argent77

Version 2.1 of the Djinni Companion introduces a simple storyline. It mainly consists of a number of challenging battles, but they should be doable if you're decently equipped and prepared. The creatures are behaving slightly smarter than the average mob in the vanilla game. In some of the Heart of Fury battles you'll encounter more or different opponents.

You can find out more in this post.

SharGuidesMyHand

I recently began a playthrough of IWD with the NPC mod installed, and I'm thinking of installing this mod at some point as well (I haven't yet left Easthaven) - does anyone know if there are any conflicts or bugs that result from installing both of these mods? And is there a preferred order for installing them?

Thanks.

argent77

This mod should not interfere with any other NPC mods. Dialog is mostly handled by the djinni and other mod-specific characters. Two or three plot-related characters provide extra dialog lines as well.

There are no issues with party slots either. The djinni does not join as a regular party member, and as long as you install the mod before travelling to Dragon's Eye you shouldn't miss any content.

BWS installs the Djinni Companion after IWD NPCs and before any tweak mods. But I don't think installation order is important in this case.

SharGuidesMyHand

argent77 said:

This mod should not interfere with any other NPC mods. Dialog is mostly handled by the djinni and other mod-specific characters. Two or three plot-related characters provide extra dialog lines as well.

There are no issues with party slots either. The djinni does not join as a regular party member, and as long as you install the mod before travelling to Dragon's Eye you shouldn't miss any content.

BWS installs the Djinni Companion after IWD NPCs and before any tweak mods. But I don't think installation order is important in this case.

Great, thanks!