Impressive. I only managed two tries at Hide per round with my AI trickery.
Big two-handers probably aren't the best for this; you want smaller, faster thief weapons. Carsomyr in the hands of a paladin won't reach speed zero until you take two dots in two-handed style and upgrade it to +6. Meanwhile, you can reach speed zero with a +2 or better staff and one dot in two-handed style, or a +2 dagger and nothing else. Or with monk fists from level 1.
Beware the fearsome melee power of Alora (permanent +2 luck, starts with dagger proficiency). Just need that cursed strength belt from Rasaad's quest for some oomph, because it's only 5.75 average damage per hit without that...
Thanks! Credit actually goes to a streamer called cannonsof1812 (earliest mention of this trick that I could find).
Hide with advantage, right? That's a good one too when you have low thieving skill.
This APR trick can be done with higher SF, only not as fast as SF 0. There's manual dexterity required to time each action, so it requires skill. Maybe others have better animation canceling timing than I do and can reach more than 13 APR.
While I agree that staves and fists are good, 2Handers are good too, at least in BG2 because GM proficiency gives -4 SF and 2 pip Two-Handed style gives another -4 for a total of -8. An +2 enchantment 2Hander would have 8 SF base, so you'd reach 0 SF. Kensai's -1 SF per 4 level works too.
I find items that have stackable procs are great, such as stat draining items or poison on hit.
Haha, Alora's permanent luck has never looked so 💪.
The other reason two-handers are good with this trick is range. If you don't have to walk to your opponent, you get those extra attacks in faster. Range 2 for two-handed weapons, 1 for most one-handers, zero for daggers.
Of course, if you're anything but a fighter, you can't get the speed boost from grand mastery; the only other speed boosts for melee weapons are two-handed style itself and the bonuses a monk gets at level 8 and 12. For a non-fighter, staves or monk fists are probably best here because of the long range and excellent speed. Aside from the extreme late game, when high enchantment levels open more options up.
If you do feel like going one-handed ... katanas are very fast, at base speed 3. Celestial Fury is a speed-zero weapon, on top of its excellent damage and absurd on-hit effect. You really can't go wrong with that one.
On the same vein as 2-handed range, there might be solid ranged weapons with low SF. Throwing daggers, darts come to mind. GM proficiency in ranged weapons would open up many more choices like large crossbows or throwing axes and hammers.
Celestial fury also has a stun and electric damage proc, making it even better with high APR. A legendary weapon made even more... legendary.
Haer'dalis' Chaos Blade drains 2 dexterity without save. Its SF is 1. Assuming no enemy has over 20 dex, you can kill most things in a single round through stat drain. Of course, the draw back is gaining no experience.
At some point, a re-rate of all weapons based on SF, range and procs needs to be done.
In your Shapeshifting Inconsistencies post, jmerry, you point out that in BG2EE "you can dual-wield with a manufactured weapon without penalty." This is a cool trick worth mentioning.
With 0 pips in Two Weapon Style, the penalty is 4/8 main/off. With 3 pips it becomes 0/2.
With a manufactured weapon such as Phantom Blade, Seeking Sword, etc, there's no penalty at all for dual-wielding, a 0/0 change to THAC0 which is better than technically possible.
There no point in putting pips into Two Handed Weapon but Single Weapon Style seems to apply here. With 2 pips in Single Weapon Style, the effects are -2 AC and BOTH weapons get a +1 crit bonus.
So the list of buffs are pretty sweet:
No THAC0 penalty
+1 APR for dual-wielding
+1 crit to both weapons
-2 AC bonus
If the created weapon is actually two-handed, then two-handed style applies. The only weapon this actually applies to in the standard game is the spear the Avenger's salamander form uses.
If the created weapon is actually two-handed, then two-handed style applies. The only weapon this actually applies to in the standard game is the spear the Avenger's salamander form uses.
Ah, good to know!
Related to proficiencies and speed factor, I could use a hand verifying something. Grand Mastery is supposed to give -3 bonus to speed factor. When I use CheckStat(Myself,...,PHYSICALSPEED) to see if a bonus of +3 is applied, it hasn't. On the other hand, 2 pips in Two-Handed Weapon Style shows a bonus of +4 with CheckStat. Is the speed factor part of GM bugged?
Another way this was checked is with animation cancelling AttackOneRound. One fighter has Dragon Blade (SF 7) and another fighter has Psion's Blade (SF 5). With GM and 2 pips in Two-Handed, both should reach 0 SF, making them attack exactly at the same time at the start of each round (+2 luck has been applied to remove random initiative). This isn't the case. Psion's Blade strikes earlier and faster in the round. Maybe there's something I'm missing?
Related to proficiencies and speed factor, I could use a hand verifying something. Grand Mastery is supposed to give -3 bonus to speed factor. When I use CheckStat(Myself,...,PHYSICALSPEED) to see if a bonus of +3 is applied, it hasn't. On the other hand, 2 pips in Two-Handed Weapon Style shows a bonus of +4 with CheckStat. Is the speed factor part of GM bugged?
Correct, the SPEED column in WSPECIAL.2DA is ignored by the engine — High Mastery and Grand Mastery do not provide bonuses to speed factor as they should.
Related to proficiencies and speed factor, I could use a hand verifying something. Grand Mastery is supposed to give -3 bonus to speed factor. When I use CheckStat(Myself,...,PHYSICALSPEED) to see if a bonus of +3 is applied, it hasn't. On the other hand, 2 pips in Two-Handed Weapon Style shows a bonus of +4 with CheckStat. Is the speed factor part of GM bugged?
Correct, the SPEED column in WSPECIAL.2DA is ignored by the engine — High Mastery and Grand Mastery do not provide bonuses to speed factor as they should.
How about the Kensai kit. It should boost speed as well? If correctly implemented
Related to proficiencies and speed factor, I could use a hand verifying something. Grand Mastery is supposed to give -3 bonus to speed factor. When I use CheckStat(Myself,...,PHYSICALSPEED) to see if a bonus of +3 is applied, it hasn't. On the other hand, 2 pips in Two-Handed Weapon Style shows a bonus of +4 with CheckStat. Is the speed factor part of GM bugged?
Correct, the SPEED column in WSPECIAL.2DA is ignored by the engine — High Mastery and Grand Mastery do not provide bonuses to speed factor as they should.
I suppose this is a long standing bug that is hard to fix?
Exactly. Well, not hard to fix if you have code access to the engine. Hard to fix or work around for ordinary modders. This one hides in obscurity; weapon speed isn't a visible stat, its effects are subtle, and only non-multiclass fighters can even take the proficiency levels needed for it to matter.
I need help with a glitch in BG2EE v2.6.6 (no mods) that only happened twice. You cast Project Image then use the Wand of Lightning with Vhailor's Helm (Simulacrum might work too) and 3 simulacrum clones are created. Normally in v2.6, Project Image doesn't let you make more clones, but I was able to bypass this somehow. Has anyone seen this?
It gets even weirder. The 3 sim can attack at range while equipped with Kundane. They would swing their weapons in the air, deal damage and the target would recoil as far as 30 range.
There's a lot of potential in figuring out how it's done since it breaks the clone limit and allows ranged melee attacks.
Okay, I stumbled on a different but related trick. This one is real good! Remember the Chain Contingency 3x Project Image trick? This trick is similar but creates 6x Project Image clones. I think EE 2.3 and later prevented multiple copies of Project Image so not even the 3x clone trick was possible but now in EE 2.6 you can create 6 clones.
The setup is pretty easy:
Memorize 1 Vocalize, have Wand of Lightning (WoL) and 1 Scroll of Project Image in quickslot. Use WoL trick on Project Image but don't target yourself 6 times. Pick targets around you. The combat log should say Project Image: <Charname> only once, summon 1 of 6 clones and the original mage should be "frozen" by Project Image.
Using the first clone, use the WoL trick on Vocalize, targeting the original frozen mage 6 times. The frozen mage should then cast 2 of 6 clones.
Using the 2nd clone, repeat the same steps as the first clone until all 6 clones are summoned.
Why does this work?
I have no idea. Other self-target spells other than vocalize work as well. Some self-target scrolls such as Time Stop even create more than one clone. The WoL trick seems to "unfreeze" the Project Image mage for a brief duration. I'm curious to know if anyone knows the scripting reason.
I forgot to mention, the caster needs to wear an item that reduces casting time by at least 1, e.g. Vecna, Amulet of Power, etc.
I've been playtesting with other spells instead of Vocalize. These ones seem to work too: Armor, Detect Invis, Ghost Armor, True Sight, Globe of Invuln, Imp Alacrity, Time Stop.
This one is available much, much earlier. I encountered it a few nights ago in BGEE. It appears to be an infinite gold exploit. I will call it the ThunderDagger Smithy Exploit!
The story
Clearing out the Skeletons in High Hedge, I normally collect a stack of 16 shields, and a stack of 16 short swords to take advantage of the higher pricing. I also had a stack of 16x40 Throwing Daggers and discovered that they were worth a whopping 640gp. (This was not the case in original BG, because they stacked in 10s and the stack sold for 2gp.)
A little later, we were at the Thunderhammer Smithy, where we used a Friends spell to bring prices down. Here we discovered a stack of 10 Throwing Daggers could be bought for 6gp. They can be sold for 10gp.
The mechanics
The shopkeeper often charges a markup of 150 percent, times a discount multiplier depending on reputation and charisma. It is very easy to see this markup percentage by checking the price of a composite longbow and I call it the Composite Longbow Price Index. (CLBI)
Assuming no reputation bonus, the CLBI changes from 150 to 142, 135, 127, 120, and 112 as Charisma increases from 16 to 20. All of these numbers are above 100. (100x1.5, 95x1.5, 90x1.5, 85x1.5, 75x1.5, truncated to the nearest integer)
With 10 points worth of reputation discount, we can get 65x1.5=97. We can buy a stack of 10 throwing daggers for 9gp and sell it at 10gp, netting a profit of 1gp.
With 30 points of reputation discount, we can get 45x1.5=67. We can not buy this stack of 10 throwing daggers for 6gp and sell it at 10gp, netting a profit of 4gp.
The exploit
Get 20 Reputation by whatever means necessary. This is probably done in Chapter Three, still very early in the game.
Obtain somebody with 14 Charisma or better who can cast Friends. Garrick and Xan come to mind.
Memorize the Friends Spell or use a Scroll. Cast it to get Charisma to 20.
Have that person lead the group and have another person with completely empty bags.
Buy 61 stacks of 10xthrowing daggers at 366gp.
Sell 610 throwing daggers at 610gp. Profit is 244gp.
Screenshot
I do not know if this has been patched out in mods. Still new here.
Summons can force/bash locks. Have the summons between the door or chest and the party then group attack. It will cycle through bashing until all the party members have a go at it so they can’t be behind the party. Not a hugely useful thing but there it is. Aerial Servant has lots of strength but not so useful because a cleric has tons of strength buffs at their disposal. Sunnis has a super high strength though so only the toughest locks stop him. And that stupid chest with the Rune of Clangeddin in it grr! Then again Druid can’t use it anyway but that chest has stymied my purists solo mentality on many occasions.
Don't know if this is a known thing. As on 2.6 update Drizzt will defend himself against Gnolls, but if you charm example a wild dog to attack him without starting the dialogue, he will eventually stop attacking the Gnolls and get killed like previously.
Searched the thread and found no mention of this: Item Duplication via Familiar
Confirmed to work in BGEE v2.6.6.0, untested in any other version.
You can duplicate any item that is given to your character via a dialogue, simply by using your Familiar to speak to the NPC in question. For example, let's take the Candlekeep Prologue's "Firebead's Scroll" quest. Talk to Firebead, start the quest. Talk to Tethtoril with your Familiar, and an Identify scroll is added to your Inventory. For some reason, behind the scenes, the same scroll is added to your Familiar's Inventory as well. Return to Firebead, and talk to him with your Familiar: the ID scroll in your own Inventory is removed, and a Potion of Healing is given to each of you. Talk to the Familiar & tell it to return to your backpack, and you now have an Identify scroll and two Potions of Healing.
I have checked that even very rare & powerful items can be duplicated in this way. The Chapter 5 Tome of Understanding, the Cloak of Balduran, etc. Use it on Degrodel & get 12 Stone to Flesh scrolls, instead of 6. Use it on Samuel & get 2 of his bodies (and yes, each one will get you +1 Reputation upon delivery). Any item that can be obtained through dialogue.
[EDIT:] I found an exception, oddly enough again with Firebead. The exploit does not work on his Beregost incarnation (FIREBE.CRE)--talking to him with your Familiar does not give you duplicates of the Scroll Case & "History of the Dead Three", in fact it doesn't give you anything at all. He reacts to your Familiar with his default "History of the Bell in the Depths" line, as if his quest had already been completed. [/EDIT]
This is specifically about targeting actions such as GiveItem on the LastTalkedToBy identifier; if it gives the item to Player1 instead, you won't see this. So, naively from how things work, you'd expect that action to give the item to whoever talked to the NPC - the familiar, in this case. And it does that. But somehow it also gives the item to the protagonist at the same time? Weird.
And it has to be something specifically about familiars that does this. Giving items to clones (as happens when a clone casts Wish) works as expected.
One more exploit in the selfishness test.
The last step in the selfishness test costs 75000 xp. If your character has less than 75000 xp then your xp becomes negative, and suddenly, boom, you can level-up to the highest level.
Now the problem is: how to have less than 75000 xp at the test? The answer is simple: dual class
Now, in vanilla game you can level up to LV41. If you installed some mods that removes the XP cap (so xplevel.2da is modified), usually you will be able to level up to LV40 instead.
A side effect of LV41 is: this level is typically not defined in the class abilities 2das. Warrior benefits from this because you can get 0 THAC0, 5 APR and all 0 savingthrow. On the other hand, spell-casting classes will not have any spell slots at this level and thief also has no backstab damage bonus.
Searched the thread and found no mention of this: Item Duplication via Familiar
Confirmed to work in BGEE v2.6.6.0, untested in any other version.
You can duplicate any item that is given to your character via a dialogue, simply by using your Familiar to speak to the NPC ... [/EDIT]
you can do this with the tears of bhaal as well. i'm sure you can already duplicate them by exporting characters, but the genie from the black razor will give you 2 tears for a +2 -> +4 saving throw bonus. similarly the dragon will also give you a double tear. i was holding 7 tears. i tested it and the test gives you 5 rewards, regardless of what they are. so in my game, one of the eyes stayed open and another eye was double triggered but the cutscene played anyway. as i transitioned to TOB, i realized i still had 2 tears left.
Duplicating tears is basically irrelevant, as you can duplicate bonuses anyway by dropping all tears before the game takes one away. The limit is that you can only get five total tear bonuses; each round closes one eye, and the door opens to the campaign's final boss after the fifth.
One more exploit in the selfishness test.
The last step in the selfishness test costs 75000 xp. If your character has less than 75000 xp then your xp becomes negative, and suddenly, boom, you can level-up to the highest level.
Now the problem is: how to have less than 75000 xp at the test? The answer is simple: dual class
Now, in vanilla game you can level up to LV41. If you installed some mods that removes the XP cap (so xplevel.2da is modified), usually you will be able to level up to LV40 instead.
A side effect of LV41 is: this level is typically not defined in the class abilities 2das. Warrior benefits from this because you can get 0 THAC0, 5 APR and all 0 savingthrow. On the other hand, spell-casting classes will not have any spell slots at this level and thief also has no backstab damage bonus.
That's amazing, could enable some great designs.
EDIT: Tried those selfisness dual combos, and I think the most interesting is Kensai40->Thief41. It will get all of the HLA's of both classes, can hit 7 apr Soul Reaver and 9 apr FoA Crom Fayer combo with -30 Thac0. Practically it will hit anything all the time and make hurt enemy Thac0 14 in a round.
One more exploit in the selfishness test.
The last step in the selfishness test costs 75000 xp. If your character has less than 75000 xp then your xp becomes negative, and suddenly, boom, you can level-up to the highest level.
Now the problem is: how to have less than 75000 xp at the test? The answer is simple: dual class
Now, in vanilla game you can level up to LV41. If you installed some mods that removes the XP cap (so xplevel.2da is modified), usually you will be able to level up to LV40 instead.
A side effect of LV41 is: this level is typically not defined in the class abilities 2das. Warrior benefits from this because you can get 0 THAC0, 5 APR and all 0 savingthrow. On the other hand, spell-casting classes will not have any spell slots at this level and thief also has no backstab damage bonus.
Nice find! What other interesting dual classes does this make? Hmm...
Kensai Thief (as mentioned scales nicely and gets UAI and traps but no backstab)
Wizard Slayer Thief (same as Kensai except MR passive scales, making 100% MR easy to reach)
Cleric Thief/Fighter (No backstab wit Priest of Tyr's Divine Favor, longer Boon of Lathander/Storm Shield duration, more uses of Cleric kit abilities, slightly better Chaos of Battle)
Shape Shifter Fighter (stronger werewolf?)
Mage Thief/Fighter (a combat mage?)
Shadowdancer Fighter (Good for the Shadow Step bug)
Shadowdancer Mage (Lack of spells means the Shadow Clone army bug only works with scrolls)
Assassin Fighter (a strong Assassin?)
Bounty Hunter Fighter (a fighter with trap crowd control?)
Any other interesting combinations?
This exploit doesn't seem to work on Multiclasses or Level Drain.
Turns out if you never Lvl some classes from the beginning of SoA, then you Dual Class and do this exploit, you'll be a Lvl 7/max Lvl, e.g. 7/39 Fighter/Cleric rather than 40/41. I suppose if you wanted to play the entire SoA without ever lvling, this is an option.
Thac0 appears to be 0 for all classes at 41 so the benefit of Fighter are: +1APR, HLAs and proficiencies.
Despite having no spells, a Lvl 41 cleric has a strong Turn Undead.
I tried Level Drain on the Lvl 41 to bring it to a Lvl where the class is defined but it doesn't seem to work.
Expanding on Wild Surge 65, Oops Wrong Spell, the Tanar'ris Death Gaze (SPIN996) can summon Kangaxx (SPIN806) or give you Slayer form (SPIN810) early. Others, like the Cerebus' Moon Dog Howl (SPIN891) can give you the Deck of Many Things Jester effect (50k xp) or give permanent elemental resistances that belong to the Chromatic Demon when they switch forms.
The downside to these is that chances of them happening are extremely low. The upside is that some are game breaking.
There's probably more effects to be discovered. I guess you could craft a truly custom character with enough time.
One more exploit in the selfishness test.
The last step in the selfishness test costs 75000 xp. If your character has less than 75000 xp then your xp becomes negative, and suddenly, boom, you can level-up to the highest level.
Now the problem is: how to have less than 75000 xp at the test? The answer is simple: dual class
Now, in vanilla game you can level up to LV41. If you installed some mods that removes the XP cap (so xplevel.2da is modified), usually you will be able to level up to LV40 instead.
A side effect of LV41 is: this level is typically not defined in the class abilities 2das. Warrior benefits from this because you can get 0 THAC0, 5 APR and all 0 savingthrow. On the other hand, spell-casting classes will not have any spell slots at this level and thief also has no backstab damage bonus.
Playing and losing to Aesgarath when wagering XP will cause any character, not just MC, to lose 50k XP. You can do this twice, so now you can have up to two non-MC party members at lvl 41 before the end of SOA. I suppose you could even rush this and do it at the beginning of SOA.
Comments
Big two-handers probably aren't the best for this; you want smaller, faster thief weapons. Carsomyr in the hands of a paladin won't reach speed zero until you take two dots in two-handed style and upgrade it to +6. Meanwhile, you can reach speed zero with a +2 or better staff and one dot in two-handed style, or a +2 dagger and nothing else. Or with monk fists from level 1.
Beware the fearsome melee power of Alora (permanent +2 luck, starts with dagger proficiency). Just need that cursed strength belt from Rasaad's quest for some oomph, because it's only 5.75 average damage per hit without that...
Hide with advantage, right? That's a good one too when you have low thieving skill.
This APR trick can be done with higher SF, only not as fast as SF 0. There's manual dexterity required to time each action, so it requires skill. Maybe others have better animation canceling timing than I do and can reach more than 13 APR.
While I agree that staves and fists are good, 2Handers are good too, at least in BG2 because GM proficiency gives -4 SF and 2 pip Two-Handed style gives another -4 for a total of -8. An +2 enchantment 2Hander would have 8 SF base, so you'd reach 0 SF. Kensai's -1 SF per 4 level works too.
I find items that have stackable procs are great, such as stat draining items or poison on hit.
Haha, Alora's permanent luck has never looked so 💪.
Of course, if you're anything but a fighter, you can't get the speed boost from grand mastery; the only other speed boosts for melee weapons are two-handed style itself and the bonuses a monk gets at level 8 and 12. For a non-fighter, staves or monk fists are probably best here because of the long range and excellent speed. Aside from the extreme late game, when high enchantment levels open more options up.
If you do feel like going one-handed ... katanas are very fast, at base speed 3. Celestial Fury is a speed-zero weapon, on top of its excellent damage and absurd on-hit effect. You really can't go wrong with that one.
Celestial fury also has a stun and electric damage proc, making it even better with high APR. A legendary weapon made even more... legendary.
Haer'dalis' Chaos Blade drains 2 dexterity without save. Its SF is 1. Assuming no enemy has over 20 dex, you can kill most things in a single round through stat drain. Of course, the draw back is gaining no experience.
At some point, a re-rate of all weapons based on SF, range and procs needs to be done.
With 0 pips in Two Weapon Style, the penalty is 4/8 main/off. With 3 pips it becomes 0/2.
With a manufactured weapon such as Phantom Blade, Seeking Sword, etc, there's no penalty at all for dual-wielding, a 0/0 change to THAC0 which is better than technically possible.
There no point in putting pips into Two Handed Weapon but Single Weapon Style seems to apply here. With 2 pips in Single Weapon Style, the effects are -2 AC and BOTH weapons get a +1 crit bonus.
So the list of buffs are pretty sweet:
No THAC0 penalty
+1 APR for dual-wielding
+1 crit to both weapons
-2 AC bonus
Ah, good to know!
Related to proficiencies and speed factor, I could use a hand verifying something. Grand Mastery is supposed to give -3 bonus to speed factor. When I use CheckStat(Myself,...,PHYSICALSPEED) to see if a bonus of +3 is applied, it hasn't. On the other hand, 2 pips in Two-Handed Weapon Style shows a bonus of +4 with CheckStat. Is the speed factor part of GM bugged?
Another way this was checked is with animation cancelling AttackOneRound. One fighter has Dragon Blade (SF 7) and another fighter has Psion's Blade (SF 5). With GM and 2 pips in Two-Handed, both should reach 0 SF, making them attack exactly at the same time at the start of each round (+2 luck has been applied to remove random initiative). This isn't the case. Psion's Blade strikes earlier and faster in the round. Maybe there's something I'm missing?
How about the Kensai kit. It should boost speed as well? If correctly implemented
Super. Thanks for checking
I suppose this is a long standing bug that is hard to fix?
It gets even weirder. The 3 sim can attack at range while equipped with Kundane. They would swing their weapons in the air, deal damage and the target would recoil as far as 30 range.
There's a lot of potential in figuring out how it's done since it breaks the clone limit and allows ranged melee attacks.
The setup is pretty easy:
Memorize 1 Vocalize, have Wand of Lightning (WoL) and 1 Scroll of Project Image in quickslot. Use WoL trick on Project Image but don't target yourself 6 times. Pick targets around you. The combat log should say Project Image: <Charname> only once, summon 1 of 6 clones and the original mage should be "frozen" by Project Image.
Using the first clone, use the WoL trick on Vocalize, targeting the original frozen mage 6 times. The frozen mage should then cast 2 of 6 clones.
Using the 2nd clone, repeat the same steps as the first clone until all 6 clones are summoned.
Why does this work?
I have no idea. Other self-target spells other than vocalize work as well. Some self-target scrolls such as Time Stop even create more than one clone. The WoL trick seems to "unfreeze" the Project Image mage for a brief duration. I'm curious to know if anyone knows the scripting reason.
I've been playtesting with other spells instead of Vocalize. These ones seem to work too: Armor, Detect Invis, Ghost Armor, True Sight, Globe of Invuln, Imp Alacrity, Time Stop.
This one is available much, much earlier. I encountered it a few nights ago in BGEE. It appears to be an infinite gold exploit. I will call it the ThunderDagger Smithy Exploit!
The story
A little later, we were at the Thunderhammer Smithy, where we used a Friends spell to bring prices down. Here we discovered a stack of 10 Throwing Daggers could be bought for 6gp. They can be sold for 10gp.
The mechanics
Assuming no reputation bonus, the CLBI changes from 150 to 142, 135, 127, 120, and 112 as Charisma increases from 16 to 20. All of these numbers are above 100. (100x1.5, 95x1.5, 90x1.5, 85x1.5, 75x1.5, truncated to the nearest integer)
With 10 points worth of reputation discount, we can get 65x1.5=97. We can buy a stack of 10 throwing daggers for 9gp and sell it at 10gp, netting a profit of 1gp.
With 30 points of reputation discount, we can get 45x1.5=67. We can not buy this stack of 10 throwing daggers for 6gp and sell it at 10gp, netting a profit of 4gp.
The exploit
Obtain somebody with 14 Charisma or better who can cast Friends. Garrick and Xan come to mind.
Memorize the Friends Spell or use a Scroll. Cast it to get Charisma to 20.
Have that person lead the group and have another person with completely empty bags.
Buy 61 stacks of 10xthrowing daggers at 366gp.
Sell 610 throwing daggers at 610gp. Profit is 244gp.
Screenshot
I do not know if this has been patched out in mods. Still new here.
Confirmed to work in BGEE v2.6.6.0, untested in any other version.
You can duplicate any item that is given to your character via a dialogue, simply by using your Familiar to speak to the NPC in question. For example, let's take the Candlekeep Prologue's "Firebead's Scroll" quest. Talk to Firebead, start the quest. Talk to Tethtoril with your Familiar, and an Identify scroll is added to your Inventory. For some reason, behind the scenes, the same scroll is added to your Familiar's Inventory as well. Return to Firebead, and talk to him with your Familiar: the ID scroll in your own Inventory is removed, and a Potion of Healing is given to each of you. Talk to the Familiar & tell it to return to your backpack, and you now have an Identify scroll and two Potions of Healing.
I have checked that even very rare & powerful items can be duplicated in this way. The Chapter 5 Tome of Understanding, the Cloak of Balduran, etc. Use it on Degrodel & get 12 Stone to Flesh scrolls, instead of 6. Use it on Samuel & get 2 of his bodies (and yes, each one will get you +1 Reputation upon delivery). Any item that can be obtained through dialogue.
[EDIT:] I found an exception, oddly enough again with Firebead. The exploit does not work on his Beregost incarnation (FIREBE.CRE)--talking to him with your Familiar does not give you duplicates of the Scroll Case & "History of the Dead Three", in fact it doesn't give you anything at all. He reacts to your Familiar with his default "History of the Bell in the Depths" line, as if his quest had already been completed. [/EDIT]
This is specifically about targeting actions such as GiveItem on the LastTalkedToBy identifier; if it gives the item to Player1 instead, you won't see this. So, naively from how things work, you'd expect that action to give the item to whoever talked to the NPC - the familiar, in this case. And it does that. But somehow it also gives the item to the protagonist at the same time? Weird.
And it has to be something specifically about familiars that does this. Giving items to clones (as happens when a clone casts Wish) works as expected.
The last step in the selfishness test costs 75000 xp. If your character has less than 75000 xp then your xp becomes negative, and suddenly, boom, you can level-up to the highest level.
Now the problem is: how to have less than 75000 xp at the test? The answer is simple: dual class
Now, in vanilla game you can level up to LV41. If you installed some mods that removes the XP cap (so xplevel.2da is modified), usually you will be able to level up to LV40 instead.
A side effect of LV41 is: this level is typically not defined in the class abilities 2das. Warrior benefits from this because you can get 0 THAC0, 5 APR and all 0 savingthrow. On the other hand, spell-casting classes will not have any spell slots at this level and thief also has no backstab damage bonus.
you can do this with the tears of bhaal as well. i'm sure you can already duplicate them by exporting characters, but the genie from the black razor will give you 2 tears for a +2 -> +4 saving throw bonus. similarly the dragon will also give you a double tear. i was holding 7 tears. i tested it and the test gives you 5 rewards, regardless of what they are. so in my game, one of the eyes stayed open and another eye was double triggered but the cutscene played anyway. as i transitioned to TOB, i realized i still had 2 tears left.
EDIT: Tried those selfisness dual combos, and I think the most interesting is Kensai40->Thief41. It will get all of the HLA's of both classes, can hit 7 apr Soul Reaver and 9 apr FoA Crom Fayer combo with -30 Thac0. Practically it will hit anything all the time and make hurt enemy Thac0 14 in a round.
Nice find! What other interesting dual classes does this make? Hmm...
Kensai Thief (as mentioned scales nicely and gets UAI and traps but no backstab)
Wizard Slayer Thief (same as Kensai except MR passive scales, making 100% MR easy to reach)
Cleric Thief/Fighter (No backstab wit Priest of Tyr's Divine Favor, longer Boon of Lathander/Storm Shield duration, more uses of Cleric kit abilities, slightly better Chaos of Battle)
Shape Shifter Fighter (stronger werewolf?)
Mage Thief/Fighter (a combat mage?)
Shadowdancer Fighter (Good for the Shadow Step bug)
Shadowdancer Mage (Lack of spells means the Shadow Clone army bug only works with scrolls)
Assassin Fighter (a strong Assassin?)
Bounty Hunter Fighter (a fighter with trap crowd control?)
Any other interesting combinations?
This exploit doesn't seem to work on Multiclasses or Level Drain.
Thac0 appears to be 0 for all classes at 41 so the benefit of Fighter are: +1APR, HLAs and proficiencies.
Despite having no spells, a Lvl 41 cleric has a strong Turn Undead.
I tried Level Drain on the Lvl 41 to bring it to a Lvl where the class is defined but it doesn't seem to work.
The downside to these is that chances of them happening are extremely low. The upside is that some are game breaking.
There's probably more effects to be discovered. I guess you could craft a truly custom character with enough time.
Example: https://www.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/comments/1dae9wt/comment/l7jxiow/?context=3
Playing and losing to Aesgarath when wagering XP will cause any character, not just MC, to lose 50k XP. You can do this twice, so now you can have up to two non-MC party members at lvl 41 before the end of SOA. I suppose you could even rush this and do it at the beginning of SOA.