Changing the content for your own pleasure?

Phælin

Hiya!

I'm considering changing Valygar's class to a Wizard Slayer using Shadow Keeper. I think it would suit him better because of his background story involving you know what. Do you consider it a cheat? Is it just too much of interfering with the true original content of the game? Or maybe it is just a way of making things look better? I once changed Kivan into s Stalker for lore/fun purposes - and it was fun - and I'm thinking about changing the class of an NPC again. Yet, still not convinced enough. Some very well known mods (tweaks) can change Montaron into an Assasin already.

What do you think?

Brude

I've fiddled with NPCs & kits a bit & I always end up regretting it. Mostly because it feels like "cheating" and partially because it just feels, for lack of a better word, unnatural.

If you do it, consider upping the difficulty a bit by installing SCS with smarter AI, mages, and prebuffing NPCs, to at least give the Iron Throne a fighting chance.

I love the game but it gets boring when any your party can steam roll just about every opponent & every fight is a foregone conclusion.

FrozenCells

@Prsemkas

Not really sure what the issue is. You changed Kivan before and had fun, this is pretty much exactly the same situation. It's not really important if I or someone else considers that a cheat or messing with the original content (my opinion anyway is that it's not a cheat, and it doesn't), do whatever makes the game the most fun for you. That's the reason you're playing it after all probably.

Personally, I like Kivan as a Stalker both because it matches his character and the kit is more interesting than an Archer. I don't particularly like Wizard Slayers as a class/kit so I'd rather just keep Valygar as he is even if maybe Wizard Slayer makes more sense to his character (a lot more sense).

bigdogchris

Brude said:

I love the game but it gets boring when any your party can steam roll just about every opponent & every fight is a foregone conclusion.

Many, many people play this way. Min/maxing characters is rampant.

ryuken87

How you play the game is entirely up to you, you don't need the permission of others to change something. I change the classes all the time because I want to try more than one new class/kit in each playthrough. I also use convenience tweaks like ammo stacking and bottomless Bags of Holding because inventory management isn't fun. I also use ctrl+j a lot of the time because the walk speed is too slow. It really doesn't matter so long as you have fun.

Shin

What @ryuken87 and @FrozenCells say exactly. Never let other people's ideas of how the game should be experienced keep you from playing it the way you like. If it feels like something you want to do, then it's likely worth a try. If it still doesn't match what you had in mind, tweak it a bit more until it's just right.

Miloch

Przemkas said:

I'm considering changing Valygar's class to a Wizard Slayer using Shadow Keeper. I think it would suit him better because of his background story involving you know what. Do you consider it a cheat? Is it just too much of interfering with the true original content of the game? Or maybe it is just a way of making things look better? I once changed Kivan into s Stalker for lore/fun purposes - and it was fun - and I'm thinking about changing the class of an NPC again. Yet, still not convinced enough. Some very well known mods (tweaks) can change Montaron into an Assasin already.

I take it you've never heard of this mod?

http://www.gibberlings3.net/level1npcs/

Using ShadowKeeper is a cheat. Using a mod to do the same thing is not.

Heinrich

You bought and played the game to have fun, not to prove to others that you can play a game normally.

Besides, from the looks of it, you aren't trying to get out of a level you're stuck on, you just want to make the game more interesting by making changes you believe would make more sense. I would call that modding, very simple modding at least. Baldur's Gate is one of those games I cannot play without mods and I put in mods that enhanced the game play to my tastes.

Don't worry about it. Just have fun.

Drugar

I once changed Jan Jansen into a pure-class assassin, I recommend that to everyone. He's such a scary, scary gnome, cold bloodedly murdering people while talking about his uncle Scratchy.

Phælin

I'll probably stick with stalker. Okay, let me ask You another question then.

Is it possible to fasten some encounters? Anomen, Jan Jansen, Edwin quests... etc.

Miloch

@Przemkas - what do you mean by "fasten some encounters"?

Phælin

@Miloch - Anomens quest starts after 5 in-game days of having him in party, second part of his quest goes after 10 days. Jan Jansen quest starts after 15 days of having him in your party. After Edwin reads the Nether Scroll you need to have him for 12 days in your party for something more to happen, and another 2 days to finish the quest completely.

I wonder how to speed that up!
Without sleeping in inns ofc.
You savvy?

Cheesebelly

Ahh, I remember that time when my game bugged really hard and

Anomen's knighthood test's messenger came to Ust Natha for god knows what reason, when the timer should be in theory stopped in the Underdark

FUN TIMES! :')

Miloch

@Przemkas - it would be possible to mod fairly easily with WeiDU - we would have to identify all the timer variable names and reduce their values. I could consider adding such a component (like to Aurora's Shoes which already has a component that reduces the length of cutscenes) but would need help identifying everything that should be changed.

Near Infinity is probably the best tool to use for this. You can scan all dialogue (DLG) and script (BCS) files to look for certain values, e.g. FIVE_DAYS etc. Doing this shows that for example in anomen.dlg you have SetGlobalTimer("AnomenJoined","GLOBAL",FIVE_DAYS) etc. So I am guessing it would just be a matter of reducing that to whatever you think is more reasonable (TWO_DAYS maybe).