New ways for Spellhold

_Connacht_

I'd like to see if there is room for more ways for going to Spellhold.

I can imagine the crowled wizards (if you help them with the planar sphere and prove valuable and loyal, they might send you to investigate what happened to their companions) and the radiant heart if you are a paladin (IMHO a paladin should not be forced to either ally with the thieves or the vampires).
But these ways should be harder to find than the canon ones, you will need to meet particular triggers, so that you won't automatically get these chances.

They can pay Saemon Haravan for you, or give you the money and ask you to infiltrate one of the two guilds and make reports, or do the double agent.
Obviously you won't get Aran's help in chapter 6 if you don't side with him, or the shadow thieves might be your enemies while in Bodhi's lair. You might also be asked to destroy BOTH the thieves guild and the vampires at this point.

I think there is a good mod around but I don't remember the name.

MacHurto

Both options would be great to have. I guess there is no chance that Beamdog does DLCs adding stuff like that to the games, because of the contract, but it is really a shame. I would buy DLCs for party interaction in BG1 and stuff like this in BG2, for example.

Although I guess that outside tablets, there wouldnt be that much money to be made as in PC There are a million great mods to use for free

TheArtisan

Alternatives

FinnTheHuman

How about Charname just goes down to the docks and books passage directly?

God

FinnTheHuman said:

How about Charname just goes down to the docks and books passage directly?

This should totally go like:
'Oy, Mr Verydrunksailor. One ticket to Spellhold. Wait, no. Six tickets, please.'
'Of course. That'd be 6 gold, ma'am.'
Though this dialogue probably needs some arrrrrrrrrrr in it to be believable.

Or, better yet, let Jan Jansen build a nuclear submarine and storm Brynnlaw proper Bhaalspawn-style. Admittedly, it would have to be turnip shaped - but such a means of transportation still makes way more sense than all the shadow-thiefy blood-sucking-undead pointless shenanigans currently in place.

rapsam2003

God said:

but such a means of transportation still makes way more sense than all the shadow-thiefy blood-sucking-undead pointless shenanigans currently in place.

Wait, what?! Jan building a submarine makes more sense than the assumption that the Shadow Thieves or the Vampires have the clout/means to get you on a restricted ship that regularly goes to Brynnlaw?...

Aewyrven

rapsam2003 said:

God said:

but such a means of transportation still makes way more sense than all the shadow-thiefy blood-sucking-undead pointless shenanigans currently in place.

Wait, what?! Jan building a submarine makes more sense than the assumption that the Shadow Thieves or the Vampires have the clout/means to get you on a restricted ship that regularly goes to Brynnlaw?...

It's a remote island run by pirates.... what better place to build a prison with no questions asked by the inhabitants than tortuga? Ask questionsand ye be disappearin!

Besides.... the pirates gotta trade the loot for rum somewhere no?.... can't be too hard to bribe someone to take ya there if ye Tha gold ye landlubber!

Chidojuan

Thanks @Artemius_I! I checked the forums. It appears that this is compatible with BG2:EE, the compatibliity in the readme just hasn't been updated to reflect that. Just in case anyone was wondering.

Malicron

I like the Cowled Wizard option; it seems quite in character (for the in-game version of the organization, at least) to not want to risk one of their own to investigate a possible dangerous situation. Therefore, send the guy who's already taken care of a few problems for you. Bonus if they get killed, since they can take the Sphere for themselves then.

marzbarz

Its just meh the 2 paths vamp or thives end the same at the island, just if you side with thieves you get friends later for a fight. More paths coulda been implemented like you said, there were/are many other noticeably powerful organizations other than shadow thieves and vampires. Paladins, each cleric organization, the cowled wizards, running into saemon and asking him directly to smuggle you in. They only would have needed to add interesting rewards and 2 large/similar quests like the ones before going to the island.

But honestly I think the island and even spellhold should have been a lot more. Its not as overwhelming and dangerous as the people in the game make it out to be really.

Malicron

To be fair, Spellhold's just been eviscerated by Irenicus. It was probably more intimidating before he killed everyone and destroyed everything.

smeagolheart

I tried alternatives back in the day and met the maleficus dude. I found the voice acting took me out of the mood and the options didn't really work for me so I never actually did any of the quests so I wonder if they were OK or not. I would hope that they would be on par with the normal route but I was afraid they would not be.

UnderstandMouseMagic

Paladin way.

Link the Fallen Paladins to Firkrag, build the mention that Firkrag makes about Irenicus to the RH wanting to see him erradicated.

The current reason for Firkrag having a grudge with you is lame, even says it in the game.

So have the "Fallen Paladins" being corrupted by Firkrag (promise of power/riches), you go to investigate further, the Paladins you kill because of the illusion have been cursed because they were uncorruptable. You confront Firkrag, turns out he was helped by Irenicus to take Windspear.

It would explain the vampires/undead and Tazok (undead) in the lair through the Bhodi link.

_Connacht_

I like UMM's idea: Firkraag might have received some sort of help from Irenicus and/or Bodhi. Maybe the deal was to distract the Radiant Heart, so that its paladins would be scattered giving more room to the vampires guild? Sounds perfectly reasonably IMHO. After all, paladins are the worst enemies for vampires, so while Bodhi is still plotting from the cemetery, kidnapping thieves for Irenicus' experiments, it would be safer to weaken their pressure in the city until her plans get completed.

Obviously CHARNAME and the Radiant Heart are unaware of this deal. But Firkraag is no real ally of Irenicus and Bodhi, they just shared a common interest, so the dragon says to CHARNAME: "I know who you are and I know Irenicus, in fact he gave me some aid against the Order, but the deal wasn't about you, thus I won't kill you, because I'm curious to see the outcome between you and Irenicus".
After Firkraag's demise, the Radiant Heart high officers then conclude that it is in the best interest of the Order and the safety of Athkatla to investigate what is going on and who is this Irenicus who helped Firkraag for a reason yet to be discovered.
In the end, IIRC, the Order gave help for Bodhi's lair because "yes we know about that vampire, we were investigating but we didn't have enough resources" or something like that, am I wrong? Thus is perfectly coherent to show more involvment of the Order in Irenicus affairs during the playthrough.