Some more questions about importing
LelandGaunt
Member Posts: 83
I'm finishing a playthrough of BG1EE right now, after returning from the return to Candlekeep all that's left to do is the TotSC stuff plus the final story portions.
This time I want to try out SoD for the first time, haven't downloaded it yet (Android, waiting till now seems to have paid off, half price at the Play Store right now
).
After reading through some threads on that subject, I'd be grateful for some clarifications just to avoid messing things up:
- it seems that more or less "everything" carries over from BG1EE to SoD, all equipment plus inventory (except for losing your gold somewhere early). Or is it just charname's, but not the companions' inventories? Any exceptions or things to keep an eye on?
- Containers like gem bags and such seem a little complicated, some say they do carry over, some say they don't. Some say they only carry over if you "play BG1 in the SoD engine", what exactly does that mean? Is it like in BG2EE, where SoA and ToB are basically a "bundle" and finishing the former leads directly to the start of the latter, as opposed to my current situation where BG1 and SoD will rather be "separate entities"? If so, is there a way around that? Like for example accessing a BG1 savegame in SoD and just finishing the Sarevok fight "in the SoD engine"? Or if not, would it be safer to just take some of the valuables out of the containers and put them in the inventory (inventories)?
And a related, general question: how is the difficulty in SoD compared to 1 and 2? Is it well "balanced" for such importing things like starting it with a group with all that fancy BG1 endgame equipment? Or could it make things "too easy" to start with for example 50k gold worth in gems and jewelry?
Thank you all in advance!
This time I want to try out SoD for the first time, haven't downloaded it yet (Android, waiting till now seems to have paid off, half price at the Play Store right now
).After reading through some threads on that subject, I'd be grateful for some clarifications just to avoid messing things up:
- it seems that more or less "everything" carries over from BG1EE to SoD, all equipment plus inventory (except for losing your gold somewhere early). Or is it just charname's, but not the companions' inventories? Any exceptions or things to keep an eye on?
- Containers like gem bags and such seem a little complicated, some say they do carry over, some say they don't. Some say they only carry over if you "play BG1 in the SoD engine", what exactly does that mean? Is it like in BG2EE, where SoA and ToB are basically a "bundle" and finishing the former leads directly to the start of the latter, as opposed to my current situation where BG1 and SoD will rather be "separate entities"? If so, is there a way around that? Like for example accessing a BG1 savegame in SoD and just finishing the Sarevok fight "in the SoD engine"? Or if not, would it be safer to just take some of the valuables out of the containers and put them in the inventory (inventories)?
And a related, general question: how is the difficulty in SoD compared to 1 and 2? Is it well "balanced" for such importing things like starting it with a group with all that fancy BG1 endgame equipment? Or could it make things "too easy" to start with for example 50k gold worth in gems and jewelry?
Thank you all in advance!
1
Comments
So, on Android containers don't carry over (my first time SoD was on Android, too, learned that the hard way), but your and your companions' inventory does, so make sure to take everything you need out of the containers, but be prepared that you can't carry everything (good excuse to use up some potion buffs in the final BG:EE fight).
I'm not sure about stuff on the floor, meaning the dropped loot from BG:EE final fight. I don't remember if that imports.
About balance in SoD: You'll be surprised by a few new enemies and different AI behavior, so don't worry it might be too easy with an import. It was meant as an extension.
Also, I don't want to spoil you, but don't worry too much about being overequipped and too rich to make SoD challenging. There are a few surprises along the way that will require you to adjust.
Don't expect it to be the same as BG, only continued. It's a different experience, but an enjoyable one IMO. I don't think you'll be bored.
Yeah I was already kind of afraid I'd lose the containers, hence the question, so now I can prepare myself accordingly and choose some best-of-goodies to keep around, some Laeral's Tear necklaces maybe (or probably better stacks of star sapphires or some such? Iirc Durlag's Tower has quite a few of those things and they take up just 1 inventory slot), Protection from Magic scrolls might come in handy I'd bet, and of course that second Evermemory, not sure if I'll pick someone up who can actually use that, but it sure is valuable. And because I'm still highly unsure how my party will look or what proficiencies they might have eventually I'll probably hold on to some of the +3 weapons from Durlag's etc. Man, all 4 of those new companions look super interesting, no idea how to get them all in one party
There's loot in the final BG1EE battle? Haha I didn't even know that, when I killed Sarevok the credits rolled immediately... remnants from the original vanilla plus later TotSC days or something to do with mods?
Yeah well, I admit I kinda spoiled myself a little bit, so I (at least think that I) already know a bit about how things might roll in the beginning...
I don't remember 100%, but I'm fairly sure reputation carried over as well, because I recruited one of the new NPCs later whose joining makes you lose 2 rep because she's a goblin, and I wouldn't have risked that as a paladin with rep 12.
I don't know if there was loot in the final battle of BG, but the question is important if an NPC dies there and drops their inventory.
And about the starting dungeon, since you asked,
Also, holding on to a few +3 weapons is an excellent idea. I wouldn't waste inventory space on jewelry for money, I'd take magical items instead, but if you have room to spare, sure.
Another not too spoilery advice: Make sure your frontliners at least have some skill with blunt weapons. Fire damage won't hurt to have, either, be it spell or item.
Edit, about returning to Baldur's Gate just now:
You can turn yourself in to the Flaming Fist or avoid them (I did the latter. Sleep/paralyze wand /hold person helps). If you want to play evil, you can kill them all I suppose, but I never tried that and don't know the consequences, except reputation drop of course.
Ah okay you meant "loot" more in the sense of "your companions' stuff in case they should die there". Yep, in my first Sarevok fight I lost two men, well one man and a woman really, Dorn and Xzara^^ but that wasn't really an issue because I imported into BG2 from there. Guess I'm gonna try and finish this fight without any casualties this time just to be sure, might make for quite a challenge.
Edit: or if that doesn't work I guess I could just import from a quicksave right before the final battle or does it have to be the "final save"?
Yeah I kind of figured that there might be some kind of "Imoen after Irenicus' Dungeon"-like situation or something. And I also read from some guys that companions might lose all their good stuff somewhere down the road and just have some generic equipment instead when you get back to them (like Minsc just having some simple +1 sword or so?). Guess I can't save ALL their goodies then, but I'll try to keep at least a handful of the great things...
Okay, so good equipment has higher priority than mere valuables? Gotcha.
Blunt weapons, eh? Thanks for that tip, hmm that might become an issue. Looking at the list of available companions none of those new guys seem to be too fond of such things (or even of melee in general?), maybe Glint? Jaheira's already reserved a place in the party anyway, but maybe I'll have to get Minsc back too then and let him focus more on maces than his usual two-handed swords. And maybe favor my spirit bear a little more instead of that super AWESOME snake
Stealthy scouting is very useful here. If you have a thief/monk/ranger with good stealth, they can scout ahead to see where the patrols are and go around.
The sewers help too - no patrols down there, and you can go basically anywhere in the city through them.
If you get caught once, they'll take you to the prison in the Flaming Fist castle. There's a chance to escape, but after that they're all hostile and will just try to kill you.
The mercenaries inside the Flaming Fist castle (if you go to help Eltan) are not regular Flaming Fist, and killing them doesn't hurt your reputation.
But I'm still not quite there yet, first I'll have to finish some of the TotSC stuff and then go buying back some of the great blunt weapons I sold down the road as per @Arvia 's advice^^
And no, Imoen is absolutely not good at sneaking around, but I still have something like 250k gold so I guess I could just buy every single potion of invisibility in the entire game
Incidentally, one really nice sewer shortcut? There's an entrance to the sewers in the Iron Throne basement, and then it's a very short walk to an exit into the Undercellar.
As for stealth ... an Imoen who never invests into stealth skills at all, puts on the boots of stealth, wears the shadow armor, and drinks a potion of perception (6-hour duration) ends up with a 70% stealth chance. Definitely good enough for scouting. Or you could stack more of those potions for an even better chance; you'll find a decent stack of them in Durlag's Tower.
Nah those boots of stealth are one of those quest items I actually brought back to the quest giver (unlike that girdle of piercing), but Imoen does of course wear the shadow armor (best leather in the game if I'm not mistaken?).
And to get at least slightly back to the original topic: from what I've gathered so far, charname's inventory might be the only place in early SoD where items are really 100% safe whereas companions may or may not have all of their stuff "vanish into thin air" after they leave the party, is that about right? Or might any of the classic quintet of Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid, Minsc and/or Dynaheir work as another easy and most of all SAFE "secondary mule" of sorts?
The thing is, in order to get a better understanding of the whole system I've read quite a LOT of threads about that topic here by now, and while that sure made some aspects of it clearer, I'm still a bit confused about others. Of course, there might occasionaly have been conficting informations, other things were just phrased in a rather unclear manner and then there were some points which seem special depending on the platform you use (like that Android or mobile specific loss of containers @Arvia described in an earlier post). Plus, some of those threads were already pretty old (some from back in 2016) so I guess that those might very well contain outdated infos about things that have been changed and bugs that have been fixed over time...
So, some additional questions:
1. There is that storage chest to which you gain access in the early game after that initial dungeon, somewhere in the palace? And all the items from all the companions' inventories you have at the start get transfered there, but not the things they have currently equipped, right? Only exception here seems to be Imoen who gets a kind of own "personal" chest somewhere nearby?
2. I've seen lots of reports about problems concerning your "old" BG1 companions that you carry over to SoD who start the early game with all their BG1 equipment, but when they rejoin the party later some or even all of that equipment has disappeared and is replaced with generic items. A popular example here seems to be Minsc who, after you get back to him later has lost his Spider's Bane +2 and instead just carries a regular +1 sword, but other names like Jaheira were also mentioned in that context. Are things like that still an issue or were those rather bugs which have all been fixed by now? Will they still have their good stuff when I get back to them or might some if not all of it get "lost" in the process?
3. Assuming that points 1. and 2. are as described, a rather obvious but of course pretty metagamey "solution" to avoid possible problems could be to simply strip all companions of all their equipment (or at least of all things you really want to keep) before leaving the initial dungeon, putting it in their inventories and thus making sure it at least shows up later in that chest, right?
But that too looks like it might possibly lead to another problem cause in another thread here
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/71829/characters-and-items-transfer-from-bgee-to-sod-actual-state-possibly-spoiler
It says that this chest has a storage limit so if the game would try to store "too many" items in it, some of them might just get deleted. So the question here would be: is that storage limit really an issue and if so, what is "too many", does anyone know the exact number of how many items the chest can store?