How can you store gold with high efficiency in BG1EE and BG2EE?

fewerlaws

How can I store gold with at least 95% efficiency? Without the ability to store gold, either by putting it into a container, or depositing it with a vendor (bank teller?), Wild Mages aren't worth the risk of having in your party due to the 1 in 50 chance per wild surge that 80% of your gold gets destroyed. I'm serious, and being totally pragmatic here. See this: https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Wild_Surge

Realistically, not being able to play a wild mage for fear of losing all your gold is very dissapointing. Wild Magic was a great addition to the game, but the "My Gold!" (roll 95) and "Gold Destroyed!" (17) wild surge events just make it not worth it I think. Even with a 1 in 1000 chance, it still isn't worth it, considering the benefits of wild magic vs the cost of losing so much gold without doing a savegame reload. If it weren't for this, I would definately play a wild mage or always include Neera in my party instead of Dyneheir, Edwin, or the other mages.

I really would like to be able to store large amounts of gold easily, and not via odd game mechanics like Zhurlong the pickpocketer in BG1 who only takes 30GP per conversation. You can only withdraw from him once (twice if you kill him for the 2nd withdrawal).

One way to implement this this would be to add a bank teller at each of the strongholds in BG2, and one at the Friendly Amn Inn in BG1. Adding the ability to receive interest on your deposits (like 2% per game month?) would be a bonus, and would teach players the value of saving money, which is something that more people need to do IRL...

I don't think it would take much effort to code this, and it would save Wild Magic in the game IMHO. What do other people think? Thanks!

UPDATE: Another solution would be to change it from 80% of your gold, to a fixed amount, like 50*the mage's level.

jsaving

I don't like wild magic personally and the surge you mention is enough on its own to keep wild mages out of my parties. That said, there are ways to cope, you just have to make sure you "store" your gold as items rather than actual GP. Choose containers in convenient locations like the Friendly Arm Inn or the Copper Coronet and treat them as your "bank," depositing gems and high-value magic items which you only withdraw when you lack the GP to make a purchase. It's a nuisance but potentially worth it if you see wild magic as a great addition to the game.

sarevok57

fewerlaws wrote: »

How can I store gold with at least 95% efficiency? Without the ability to store gold, either by putting it into a container, or depositing it with a vendor (bank teller?), Wild Mages aren't worth the risk of having in your party due to the 1 in 50 chance per wild surge that 80% of your gold gets destroyed. I'm serious, and being totally pragmatic here. See this: https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Wild_Surge

Realistically, not being able to play a wild mage for fear of losing all your gold is very dissapointing. Wild Magic was a great addition to the game, but the "My Gold!" (roll 95) and "Gold Destroyed!" (17) wild surge events just make it not worth it I think. Even with a 1 in 1000 chance, it still isn't worth it, considering the benefits of wild magic vs the cost of losing so much gold without doing a savegame reload. If it weren't for this, I would definately play a wild mage or always include Neera in my party instead of Dyneheir, Edwin, or the other mages.

I really would like to be able to store large amounts of gold easily, and not via odd game mechanics like Zhurlong the pickpocketer in BG1 who only takes 30GP per conversation. You can only withdraw from him once (twice if you kill him for the 2nd withdrawal).

One way to implement this this would be to add a bank teller at each of the strongholds in BG2, and one at the Friendly Amn Inn in BG1. Adding the ability to receive interest on your deposits (like 2% per game month?) would be a bonus, and would teach players the value of saving money, which is something that more people need to do IRL...

I don't think it would take much effort to code this, and it would save Wild Magic in the game IMHO. What do other people think? Thanks!

UPDATE: Another solution would be to change it from 80% of your gold, to a fixed amount, like 50*the mage's level.

actually that is doable, but would take quite a while since you would have to set the 50 x mage level effect for every level

if you are a bit mod savy, you can use Near Infinity and go into the WILDMAG.2da file and for lines 17 and 95 you can just change the effect to something else using a different spwm*** or just delete the spwm for those numbers and place a * there instead

that should solve your gold losing problem

VanDerBerg

I use Bottomless Bags of Holding component of the Tweaks Anthology mod, so I spend all money on items and potions and keep them on my main char all the time. But that's not because I play with wild mages terribly often, but because I find dealing with inventory incredibly tedious in this game.

fewerlaws

Adding an option for the protagonist to auto pickup all loot that has value (everything except normal clubs, staff, bolts, arrows, and bullets) and auto put it into an Infinite Bag of Holding, or Infinite Scroll Case, Gem Bag, Potion Case, and Ammo Belt would be such a nice feature. It would save so much time for OCD players like me who want to pickup and sell everything. Selling entire stacks of items from inside containers is a great existing feature, that saves on mouse clicks -- just double click the entire stack inside the container to sell all of it to the vendor.

jsaving

There won't be any further quality-of-life improvements for BG/BG2, I suspect, but it would be great if Beamdog introduced something like Pillars of Eternity's "stash" for in-game loot.

Thunderburp

Bit late to the party, but I just store items in a container instead of selling them. I pick the Watcher's Keep so that my capital transfers from SoA to ToB, then move to the Pocket Plane. Before getting access to the Keep, there's Hexxat's TARDIS container or good ol' Ribald's shop.

Money is an overabundant resource though, IMO, only limiting very early game in BG2. I don't know about other people but I've always kept *some kind* of stash at Ribald's even before wild mages were released, so this practically didn't change a thing.


Storing capital as items also means a much larger ability to leverage batch sells: The more a merchant has of item X*, the cheapest they'll buy from players. So just sell a thousand full plates at once to a merchant who's got none and go become the new Lord of Trademeet.

* Does not apply to gems

fewerlaws

If you have 2 or 3 mages in your party, and you want them to have every spell, and you also pay to create and upgrade every item at the forge, then you will not have enough money in BG2 SoA unless you sell a lot of good magic items that you might want to save for later. I picked up every single item and sold all the ones I didn't need, and had a 20 reputation, and I was still short about 200,000GP by the end of the game. Maybe its because I don't sell enough magic items, and I pay to recharge many of my wands (I like to have 1 wand per type for each of my 6 characters, with the exception of Wand of the Heavens, Sleep, and Fear). I wish there were better renewable money farming methods in BG2 that didn't involve repeated stealing or quicksave/quickloading, because that feels like cheating.

I had plenty of money in Siege of Dragonspear -- an extra 400,000GP.

sarevok57

fewerlaws wrote: »

If you have 2 or 3 mages in your party, and you want them to have every spell, and you also pay to create and upgrade every item at the forge, then you will not have enough money in BG2 SoA unless you sell a lot of good magic items that you might want to save for later. I picked up every single item and sold all the ones I didn't need, and had a 20 reputation, and I was still short about 200,000GP by the end of the game. Maybe its because I don't sell enough magic items, and I pay to recharge many of my wands (I like to have 1 wand per type for each of my 6 characters, with the exception of Wand of the Heavens, Sleep, and Fear). I wish there were better money farming methods in BG2. I don't steal and resell items because I feel that is basically cheating.

I had plenty of money in Siege of Dragonspear -- an extra 400,000GP.

how much money do you usually finish off with in SoA?

i usually hit around 500 000 - 600 000 gold in SoA, and then by ToB i hit around 1.5-2.2 million