[mod] Khalid for Baldur's Gate 2: EE

LavaDelVortel

I think it's the right time to announce my new mods in-progress: Khalid for BG2 EE



The mod allows players to decide who is going to stay for the whole Baldur's Gate 2: EE and ToB game. It places Khalid near Jaheira's cage. Help him, and Jaheira will become unavailable and will be the one taken away by Irenicus and Khalid will be the one to mourn her. Help Jaheira, and Khalid will suffer his original fate. Make your choice and... well... live with the consequences.

The mod includes portrait, voicing, friendship path, new versions of Baron Ployer and trouble with Harpers quests, new items or even a chance for Khalid to get his own kit after the Underdark.

There is no romance, but instead a little new non-romantic path for male NPCs: a new take on brotherhood relationship I once tried to write for a different NPC. It's a deep, yet non-romantic friendship triggered by Khalid's difficult relationship with his half-brothers in Calimshan and Bhaalspawn's not-very-brotherly relationship with Sarevok and lack of a father. Female PC get something too, though - a special gift Jaheira found during the times of the Crusade and gave to Khalid, hoping they would one day give it to their leader together.

To ensure immersion, some original elements of the game are changed (like Khalid's stone figure in the first dream).

Base for the portrait by vishstudio.

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Acifer

This is great news! Your approach to switch Khalid's and Jaheira‘s fate is awesome.

I really appreciate his friendship path - it's both respectful of Khalid’s relation and grief for Jaheira and a great opportunity for a unique brother-in-arms.

I really like his new portrait with reminiscences of his original one (keeping the colors of his scarf, for example).
Great ideas!

LavaDelVortel

Thank you! I'm doing my best.

Endarire

@LavaDelVortel
What were your main inspirations for making this mod?

LavaDelVortel

BG1? Dislike for Jaheira? Chance to give player an additional chance to make some kind of choice? Chance to write dialogues about grief and loss? Many things.

Acifer

If I may add (even if I am not involved): Give players a decent fighter for BG2? And a chance to rewrite a story that seemed set in stone since the release of BG2 in 2000?

LavaDelVortel

There was also a different BG2 Khalid mod, but it was never updated to work with EE and I wanted to try a different approach than the one taken by its author - Zireael.

Anyway, yeah, I wanted to bring him back for many reasons. And I wasn't joking - I wanted to re-tell this story of loss in my own way and allow Khalid's return; both in one mod.

energisedcamel

This sounds great! It's a shame that Jaheira and Khalid are fated to stay apart even in this alternative universe, but the themes sound really interesting. The new kit sounds interesting too. Can't wait to try it

LavaDelVortel

Zireael's version allows you to keep them both, but I wanted something else. Plus, there is a chance the mod got outdated and I'm not sure if it works on EE.
But that's an offtopic.

To add some more info - SoA part of my mod is close to being complete. Just few more talks, some banters and then the ToB part.

ThacoBell

This might have some conflict with the "Turnabout" mod. It lets you summon npcs killed as part of the story to help in the final battle of ToB. Khalid is one of the options.

Mantis37

Well, Tiax is too and there’s a mod for him as well. Just rule that option out if you get that far. Or perhaps Khalid will get vorpaled by a Fallen Solar and make a swift reappearance! Look forward to trying this like all your mods.

LavaDelVortel

Just as you can't enjoy content of Yoshimo's Romance, Yoshimo's Remorse and Keeping Yoshimo at the same time (plus Tortured Souls, that also used to be an option).

Such mods will always overlap like that. I can lock the option of summoning Khalid in Turnabout if this Khalid is in the party, but then, Jaheira will be missing. But... well, you may just use one mod in one of your runs and then use the other one next time.

Cahir

LavaDelVortel wrote: »

Just as you can't enjoy content of Yoshimo's Romance, Yoshimo's Remorse and Keeping Yoshimo at the same time (plus Tortured Souls, that also used to be an option).

Such mods will always overlap like that. I can lock the option of summoning Khalid in Turnabout if this Khalid is in the party, but then, Jaheira will be missing. But... well, you may just use one mod in one of your runs and then use the other one next time.

Yeah, it's easier to work out compatibility issues if those are technical issues. With conceptual incompatibilities, sometimes it's just better to stick to one mod or the other.

ThacoBell

LavaDelVortel wrote: »

Just as you can't enjoy content of Yoshimo's Romance, Yoshimo's Remorse and Keeping Yoshimo at the same time (plus Tortured Souls, that also used to be an option).

Such mods will always overlap like that. I can lock the option of summoning Khalid in Turnabout if this Khalid is in the party, but then, Jaheira will be missing. But... well, you may just use one mod in one of your runs and then use the other one next time.

The problem is, that locks you into summoning an evil alternative, which is a hard "no" for any good aligned charname. I acknowledge that you are the modder and its your call. Just pointing out what I see as an issue.

Maurvir

From an RP standpoint, I think this is a fantastic mod, as it makes the player partly responsible for what happens. It also gives you a choice - and after my last run, I'd be hard pressed to choose. The party had Khalid as a F/M, and that is a powerful combo - even if he couldn't front-line at all.

I have really enjoyed the more emotional complexity and maturity with these sorts of mods, and this feels like it will be even more consequential. It's one thing to regret an NPC, but to regret a party member - and be constantly reminded of the choice - is a whole other.

It is a shame there won't be an option to keep both and let Minsc buy it, though. It there were, I could essentially have the whole band back together in a lot of play throughs.

As an aside, if you do use Khalid's voice files, please offer an option to use the ones from BG1. I felt like Beamdog way, way overdid it on his character in SoD. The stuttering somehow got a lot worse, and his lines felt off compared to BG1.

LavaDelVortel

@ThacoBell - sorry, but... well, This happens. Would you rather not write me that mod? Sorry, but I don't get the point. It's for you to decide to use the mod or not. There hundreds of mods and it's obvious things like that going to happen. There are many mods that change simillar things or affect the same characters. It's for the player to decide what he/she wants and which mods to install and there are just some project that can't go together. Like the Yoshimo oriented ones and I am both author of Yoshimo Romance and (co)author of Yoshimo's Remorse and I do not see a problem of writing 2 mods that can't both "fire" together, as they aim at different things. And it's not like even after installing the mod you HAVE you use him. You can still rescue Jaheira and just enjoy original content.

@Maurvir - thank you. However remember that here he is a normal fighter. He may get his own kit after Underdark, but it depends on how you handle his version of the Harpers' quest. As I said, there are other mods to enjoy if you want to keep both Khalid and Jaheira. Check out Zireael's mod, updated by Tuldor88 (link here) - as for the soundset: I am using SoD's soudnset, but changed it. I removed many lines that would state he is a coward (it's strange it's suggested a couple of times, while he's handling Bridgefort which suggests he's quite brave). Those lines are replaced with other voiced lines, parts from his other dialogues etc, to make sure he can be treated seriously.

GraionDilach

One thing I'd add is that we have seen cases already when a prominent modder revamped an NPC with a fixed role in BG2 and the vast majority of mods were able to have the changes/tweaks to be compatible with that mod (speaking about @jastey's Imoen4Ever obviously).

Sure, this doesn't apply to core design cases like Turnabout (whose incompatibility can be just stated in the readme directly), but seeing how Imoen4Ever fared, I presume the mod NPC banters will be able to keep up with a switch of the events the longer term (especially considering that @LavaDelVortel is prominent enough to get the motion behind him which that other Khalid mod unfortunately couldn't get).

I like the idea here, I do prefer Khalid over Jaheira and I am looking forward to seeing what comes out from this. And I wish good luck for getting the crossmod compatibility in with the banters.

EDIT: On a second thought, that last sentence came out wrong. I meant I wish you success with breaking the expectation of others assuming Khalid bit the dust permanently just with being around.

LavaDelVortel

At first, the mod will probably will be more like a mod that does not offer changes to other mods, BUT I think the best solution would be adding some an option in G3 Crossmod Banter Pack so certain lines could be adjusted to the situation Khalid may be in the party.

First, I may need to focus on completing his story, all the dialogue and making it available as it is, but I am not saying "no" to making this mod work nicely with other mods, if the other modder is fine with the idea.

Greener

Absolutely brilliant!

ThacoBell

@LavaDelVortel You won't get any arguments from me. I just posted what I thought would be a common conflict people would run into and my reasons for why it might be good to fix. I never demanded anything.

LavaDelVortel

I'll be making a list of all sorts of conflicts at some point, will try to remember about this one.
Now, it's time get back to writing...

megamike15

over the years turnabout has slowly started becomeing phased out. like reuinion and it have two very diffrent interpretations of charname's mother.

lollers

You have a lot of mods lava, so I guess this topic is as a good a place to ask about them as any of the others: is there a best order to install them in? The basic tip if I recall correctly is to install anything of the NPC category all together, and then the quest and the new land categories, followed by stuff like SCS and the other tweak mods. You just have quite a long list of things from the first three categories however, and maybe some of them interact with each other? But a mod might need to be installed already so other mods know that there is something for it to interact with etc.

LavaDelVortel

I don't think any specific order is needed They work safe together, so it mostly depends on what else you install, if there are any mods that update - for example - all existing armors in game... such tweaks should go after all mods that add items, but I do not offer such mods like new systems etc. I usually install quest mods, then items, then NPCs, but it's how I do it.

What comes to my mind, is crossmod content - but like... 2-3 weeks ago I moved most of that to G3 Crossmod Banter pack, so... it's mostly there right now

ThacoBell

megamike15 wrote: »

over the years turnabout has slowly started becomeing phased out. like reuinion and it have two very diffrent interpretations of charname's mother.

What is reunion? I've never heard of it. I'd hate for Turnabout to get dropped, having those allies in the final battle is extremely cathartic.

megamike15

ThacoBell wrote: »

megamike15 wrote: »

over the years turnabout has slowly started becomeing phased out. like reuinion and it have two very diffrent interpretations of charname's mother.

What is reunion? I've never heard of it. I'd hate for Turnabout to get dropped, having those allies in the final battle is extremely cathartic.

it's a tob quest mod that goes into detail about your mother,

blue_insides

daym, i'm really waiting for your mod for EE since Zireael's one didn't work in my game unfortunately. keep up the good work <333

Maurvir

For EET games, does this mean you would not get the same Khalid that you had at the end of the SoD content?

LavaDelVortel

I don't think so, I don't use EET and I am not making this mod with such feature in mind, thus the first version(s) for sure won't include such thing. Later? I don't know, depends if someone else is going to help with it and test it on EET. But this NPC comes with a new kit that he may gain later, depending on your actions in SoA, so let's say someone already changed his class/kit in BG1EE or SoD - it may all get weird and possibly buggy.

Anyway - no, first releases won't include it. And there won't be EET compatibility just yet anyway. My priority is to make the mod work smoothly on BG2EE and then with other BG2EE mods. EET compatibility is really far away on my to-do list.

Durandalis

Have you considered the option of saving them both at the cost of having them permanently leave? That would still leave players with a difficult choice. If that isn't a difficult enough choice, you could consider adding some sort of major penalty, like a permanent loss of a stat like constitution or HP for example. Players would really have to ask what they're willing to give up for that happy ending.

LavaDelVortel

No, that's not what I would like to write. I preffer meaningful death and writing about the process of going through difficult moments. What you suggest would require an entirely different mod and rewriting many original lines - many of Jaheira's lines would need to be blocked or rewritten and that would cause even greater conflict with other mods, as many mod NPCs mention Khalid while talking to Jaheira.

Zi's Khalid mod's aim was keeping them both, but that's not what I want to write.