[MOD] Ophysia NPC v1.2
Llewren
Member Posts: 59
I'm very happy to announce the release of my first mod!
This mod introduces Ophysia Lorines to Baldur's Gate: EE, a half-elven Skald hailing from Daggerford. A self-proclaimed warrior-storyteller, she has journeyed to Nashkel to help put a stop to the iron crisis. While she masks many of her vulnerabilities with teasing nonchalance, she’s driven by a deep-seated desire to do good in the world and live life to the fullest.
Included in the mod is a portrait, custom voice set, at least one banter with every companion, optional interjections, a friendship path comprising of 9 talks in BG1, and 4 talks in SoD — as well as 3 additional "budding" romance talks exclusive to female PCs.
In comparison to the other bards on offer in Baldur’s Gate, Ophysia is designed to be more suited to combat and can fill a variety of roles in your party. She can be found in Nashkel’s Belching Dragon Tavern, and in Siege of Dragonspear can be recruited in Baldur’s Gate city.
Many thanks to the readers of the Smoldering Mods Bar for your support and to all the wonderful modders in this community that inspired my passion for modding.
MOD PAGE
DOWNLOAD
This mod introduces Ophysia Lorines to Baldur's Gate: EE, a half-elven Skald hailing from Daggerford. A self-proclaimed warrior-storyteller, she has journeyed to Nashkel to help put a stop to the iron crisis. While she masks many of her vulnerabilities with teasing nonchalance, she’s driven by a deep-seated desire to do good in the world and live life to the fullest.
Included in the mod is a portrait, custom voice set, at least one banter with every companion, optional interjections, a friendship path comprising of 9 talks in BG1, and 4 talks in SoD — as well as 3 additional "budding" romance talks exclusive to female PCs.
In comparison to the other bards on offer in Baldur’s Gate, Ophysia is designed to be more suited to combat and can fill a variety of roles in your party. She can be found in Nashkel’s Belching Dragon Tavern, and in Siege of Dragonspear can be recruited in Baldur’s Gate city.
Many thanks to the readers of the Smoldering Mods Bar for your support and to all the wonderful modders in this community that inspired my passion for modding.
MOD PAGE
DOWNLOAD
Post edited by Llewren on
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Comments
Congratulations on the release!
The only question now will be, who will do her rating on SMB?
I suppose I’ll have to leave that up to folks in this thread
Since you're a reviewer or journalist yourself, I apologize in advance—you're not going to get any convoluted words from me. I'll get straight to the point.
Cons:
Voice Acting: Her voice feels dull and uninspiring, especially for a bard or skald. There’s no excitement, no battle cries, and nothing that conveys a sense of energy or presence.
Weapon Proficiencies: Two pips in bastard swords feel arbitrary. Is this supposed to align with her backstory or skills? If so, it’s not well-explained.
Buckler Bonus: The extra attack per round when using a buckler seems overly generous. Why is this ability tied to her? It feels unearned or poorly justified.
Backstory: Her reason for joining the party ("investigating the crisis") is vague and lacks a compelling hook. Both her introduction and biography feel uninspired.
Starting Spells: - if you recruit her like me on third level of charname she is coming with almost no spells. Her first level spells are less then optimal
Pros:
Portrait: Absolutely perfect! It suits the character beautifully and is very in tune with baldur's gate spirit which so many mods fail at. Well done!
Effort: For a first mod, this is a commendable attempt. Kudos for creating something and sharing it with the community.
Utility: You’ve tried to design a versatile character who can contribute in different ways. This effort deserves recognition.
Notes:
Role in the Team: Her niche is unclear. At this point in the game, a party needs either a strong frontliner or a reliable support caster. She doesn’t excel at either role. The skald song is nice but doesn’t feel impactful enough to justify her inclusion.
Creative Politeness: It seems like you aimed to create a broadly appealing and non-invasive NPC. While that’s understandable, it feels like you held back too much in your creative choices.
Kudos once again, for now I am not convinced. I'll give her a change for few more hours i guess.
Thanks for trying out the mod and commenting. The idea for the mod was to provide an NPC that feels as though she fits in with the vanilla and EE NPCs. Ophysia’s motivations are explored more deeply later on — and conversations with her give opportunities to read between the lines as to why she’s here and what she’s doing.
You can buy and find spells. Ophysia comes with the spells that make sense for her character, and it's not as though a bard can cast many spells even at third level. The same goes for the bastard sword proficiency and her buckler — how many companion abilities and items are “arbitrary”? Tiax’s ghoul, Dynaheir’s heal poison, Neera’s staff… is Coran's extra pip in Longbows explained adequately? Ophysia has these unique quirks because they make her more interesting and they align with her being a flashy but strong swordsman.
The bulk of Ophysia’s content is in her friendship path. That is what I am most proud of. You’re free to not like the mod. I made it for me, and no one else.
Maybe I can review it and hope nobody notices…
My personal taste is to enhance difficulty and challenge.
I'd rather see more personality - Garrick is hated but i love the guy.
While the individual parts look powerful, when it comes down to it, Ophysia isn't a powerhouse designed to take the place of an SCS-Hardcore go-to pick. She may have benefits to her kit as a character but ultimately she will fall short of a pure fighter or a mage. The idea was to give her something that will make her fall a little less short than, say, Garrick. In the same way that Voghiln has a helmet that protects against critical hits — that's a big deal for a bard in an SCS install.
Her personality and backstory may seem modest at first, but that's intentional — it's a story that she's projecting into the world so that she doesn't have to face the aspects of her past that now seem unsavoury to her. A majority of this is subtextual in BG1.
Just my humble opinion - if you want a Skald, do one. For now she seems tamed.
So for me personally a bard is a good addition, and you have to give modders props for adding anything to a game considering how old just the EEs are let alone base games.
constructive criticism however is nothing to be ashamed of.
Your criticisms largely seem to focus on things that aren't a priority in design for me, so it may be that it’s just not for you. That’s totally fine! Ophysia is the result of 20+ months of work, learning an entirely new skillset and pushing myself to finish a dream project of mine. I’m infinitely pleased with the result, even though there are things I can and will improve in both updates and in future mods.
Whatever dude, gratz on release. to each their own and good luck
If you carry Ophysia’s buckler all the way to Siege of Dragonspear, you can upgrade it with some defensive properties!
I would guess, you've chosen a SoD exclusive BAM for it? Or do you use your own?
Apart from that, I would agree with some of the points Eryk said. Especially the weapon choice seems a bit odd. You want her to use bucklers, wich is decent for bard like characters who utilize a fencing Style of fighting, but on the other hand you give her two (illegal) pips in Bastardswords? A type of swords, also known as "One- and a Half-Handers", because of the more brute and ruthless way of wielding it with one or both Hands in exchange.
That's a bit contradictiory and needs to be explained in her biography in my opinion.
Thanks for letting me know. The BAM is SoD-exclusive. I plan on implementing a custom one to fix this issue.
I've made an EET Setup with Ophysia installed in the BG1 Part. Wanted to try some new Mods and Updates anyway. So, let's see how it goes.
Installing and converting seemed to have worked flawlessly.
Always nice to have more options for bards.
As for the stats I don't care that much, I use Artisan's skald overhaul anyway.
Eager to see the banters and interjections.
– 13 new interjections included in BG1.
– Tweaks to Ophysia's biography in BG:EE and in SoD.
– Tweaks to Ophysia's joining sequence dialogue.
– Moved Ophysia's interjections during Dorn's player-talks to the core files of the mod.
– Fixed Ophysia's behaviour during Dorn's 'romance fight' in BG:EE.
– Fixed Ophysia's Buckler not having an icon without Siege of Dragonspear installed — it now has a unique BAM and a new colour scheme to match it.
Additionally, your script AR0119.BCS has a line for CreateCreature("SHATSK",[564.378],SWW); however, no such creature file exists. Do you intend to have a unique creature here?