[Mod] Poisoned Pathways - a quest mod for BG2EE
Acifer
Member Posts: 395
Have you ever wondered why Renfeld couldn't be cured? Here's the answer.
Poisoned Pathways is a quest mod for Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition (BG2EE) and Enhanced Edition Trilogy (EET). It adds new content to the game after you encountered Renfeld in the early chapters of the Shadows of Amn storyline. The mod is inspired by the module "Into the Nest of Vipers" by Matthew G. Adkins, published in Dungeon magazine #75.
Trailer:
https://youtu.be/Amh_pqIBaPgFeatures
- New quest content continuing the Renfeld story
- New areas to explore: a haunted elven ruin and a tranquil forest village
- New enemies with custom animations: face Chasmes, Zombie Treants and many more!
- Unique magical items
- Challenging battles and dialogue-driven progression
- Two new custom music tracks created for this mod; one additional music track from NWN
- Approx. 5 hours of gameplay
- Compatible with both BG2EE and EET
Download:
https://github.com/AciferBG/Poisoned-Pathways/releases
Important: Please note that you need to start a new game for this mod to work.
Recommended Character Level
- Level 9+
- The mod includes scaling elements that adapt to the player’s level and difficulty settings.
This mod is available in:
- English
- Spanish
- German
How to start the mod:
- You need to start a new game
- The mod is triggered after delivering Renfeld’s body in the Docks District of Athkatla. After a while, a messenger will approach you within the city.
Compatibility
- Poisoned Pathways is compatible with BG2EE and EET. It does not alter core game content and should be compatible with most other mods.
- This mod has been tested on the following game versions: v2.6; v2.7 and v2.5 iOS
- This mod is compatible with Morpheus' Tactics Remix. When both mods are installed, Morpheus has adjusted several encounters to better match the increased difficulty and gameplay balance of Tactics Remix. You need to install Tactics Remix after this mod.
Documentation:
https://github.com/AciferBG/Poisoned-Pathways
The current release of this mod ends with the resolution of the Renfeld poison storyline. Certain areas introduced in this mod are planned to be revisited in Throne of Bhaal in a future release, though no release date has been set.
Screenshots:
Credits:
@Acifer – Writing, Area Art, Item Graphics & Design, Quest Design, Scripting, Music
@LavaDelVortel – Writing, Additional Area Art, Item Graphics & Design, Quest Design, Scripting, Worldmap Icons
@megrimlock – English version
@ElGamerViejuno – Beta-testing, Spanish version
@morpheus562 – Bug fixing, additional scripting, EEex compatibility, Tactics Remix compatibility
@weigo – BP-BGT Worldmap mod compatibility
Post edited by Acifer on
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Comments
I googled a bit and found "Into the Nest of Vipers". I won't link in here because
the links I found give away some of the story; no clue how much of the story
inspired the background for the mod, so I don't want to add any spoilers
either, one way or the other. But I have a separate question: how did you
choose this as background? From my findings the magazine was published
in 2016 so it is quite old already. Was there a special trigger for the motivation
for Renfield specifically, or was that random?
The quest is not related to the Harpers in any way. The magazine was published in 1999, and when I read it (EDIT years later) I thought it was a perfect fit, so it felt like an interesting starting point for this new adventure.
As all your mods, when I come around to playing again.
*goes to invent a time machine*
Saying that something published in 2016 is old, especially for FR material when the setting was created in 1967 and Realmslore has been published in Dragon since 1979 . . . people have a real weird relation with time.
(I'm looking for a were-cow, and some new sources would be great^^)
I'm still in the learning process when it comes to creature animations, but I hope they look decent enough in-game.
Thank you for releasing this wonderful mod as a birthday present to me! I was glad to see more surface Elven mission content along with the Dwarven content you made elsewhere.
Miyazaki of Dark Souls fame would be proud of your adding a poison swamp area to a beloved RPG, as those have been some of his favorite areas to design.
*hands over a Scroll of Timestop*
You're very welcome, and happy birthday!
Thank you! If you ever decide to translate one of my mods, I'd be happy to support you wherever I can.
By the way: I tested this mod on v2.7 of the game and can confirm that it works fine.
And also, congratulations on the release!
I've now released all the projects I wanted to finish before Silverrealms and Skyfire, so I can focus on them fully now without any hesitation. And once those are done, Bound in Blood will finally get its turn.
*Really enjoyed the mod overall. The art is gorgeous, and I thought there were a nice variety of enemies, some old and some new
*I'm not sure, but it seemed like there was potentially infinite xp from spawning monsters- didn't stick around to see, though
*There's a lot of back and forthing. It's fine overall but there were certain points where it felt like "I just came from Athkatla 30 seconds ago, and now I'm going back?" And that's combined with all of the travel distances being 16 hours- if you want to make sure you rest frequently enough to avoid fatigue, well...
*I think I'm just not very good at spotting everything in your mods, including possibly doors. I've (I think?) finished the mod, but have three separate items that are clearly supposed to be forged in some way that aren't-
Regarding the hidden items, in this particular case it's actually intended as a small riddle:
The Night Fragment can likewise only be obtained during the night.
As for the armor piece in Throne of the Mad God, that's a fair point. It is currently hidden in a chest, but I could move it to a specific enemy encounter in a future update to make it a bit more obvious.
Regarding the XP farming issue, I'll take a look at it.
I'm glad you enjoyed the mod, and thanks again for taking the time to share your thoughts!
I just finished a test-run play-through of the poisonous pathways mod.
Some thoughts and ideas as long as it is fresh. I will describe a
bit vaguely to not give away too many spoilers (and avoid using
like 20 spoiler tags, revealing those is a bit cumbersome IMO):
1) First, the visual work is pretty neat. In particular with the
main tower or whatever it is, the green moving light - at first
I thought that was a moving dragon of some sorts. Such animations
are pretty neat to have in general. There are animations in your
other mods but I think that green slithering was probably the
biggest effect I noticed (may have to re-look at the other mods
here).
2) The most hilarious part of the mod was actually Papa bear giving
a lecture to the smaller animals. Alas there was probably no side
quest associated with that, but that was a pretty epic idea. Speaking
of which, I think some bears are in the mod; is there cross-mod
content with Wilson? Did not see any female bears, so Wilson may
not be interested, though perhaps he would have listend to Papa
bear giving a bed time story to the smaller animals.
3) I think one strong point of the mod is the focus on peace and
poison. I'd say your mods often have a theme at the core; with
the Lost Goddess we have wicked demonic curses as theme, sort
of. Lighthouse mod does not necessarily have a theme per se I
think, but I am sure many pirate ships crashed, so ... pirate
theme it is! And the dwarven mod has dwarves and trolls so that's
a bit of a theme too.
So, from that theme, I think it is good to have a sort of antithesis
to war and chaos, via this mod here. Peace hobos of the world
unite!
The peace village is pretty nice. I guess it is smaller and not
as extensive as the demon city in the Lost Goddess mod, but
there are some neat ideas, such as the two riddle ones. Or the
idea to trade in weapons for peace is, as idea, also great. I
actually decided to not trade in any weapon as the reward did
not seem worth it, but the underlying idea is neat.
Some of the huts are a bit small; I guess this is by design to
fit them onto the map 1:1 right? In other words, if the outside
shows a tiny hut then the inside showing a huge villa may not
make sense. But the huts seemed quite undersized; barely a
single bed fits in.
The items for sale were kind of interesting. They seemed quite
specialized so I did not take any of them, but I suppose they
may fit to characters with a stronger focus on peace/defence.
Guess the mod is a bit closer towards druids as a theme in a
way.
Could perhaps fit in some orphanage or kindergarten for children
having lost their parents and finding shelter. (And then, of
course, evil guys raiding the area!!! But I digress.)
4) With that in mind, I read one somewhat peculiar statement on the
gibberlings forum with regards to "the original Renfield situation
makes no sense". To that I would say it is a fantasy game. Huge dragons
in tiny caves with no real openings never made any sense to me either
and I always wondered about that in the old DnD games "your party
encounters a huge dragon". But with regards to the theme itself
(peace and poison), I think the person who made that criticism
has the wrong focus here. In my opinion the bigger focus is more on
what a mod "brings to the table", and here the peace/poison theme
is, to me, the more important aspect than the "does the Harper
theme align with the mega-poison theme". Actually having an
extension to that storyline is good, in my opinion, since it can
act as focus point to flesh out stories. I don't think being too
critical works here, because if we were we'd have to critisize
most mods, which makes little sense to me.
Though, I think there is one thought after having finished the
mod ... the ability to offset poison, even poison affecting
many cities (also see the disease in Neverwinter Night), is
most likely limited. An antidote has limits too, so I think
the city of peace may have been too confident. But I guess
this is for consideration not with regards to the mod, but
to the "after the fact" situation.
5) Building up on this line of thought, if you are ever in lack
of ideas, I think cross-connecting to the Harpers more may be
nice. Now it already is, of course, but ... if we say that
at the least some Harpers have a connection here, they may
still cause issues. Or perhaps as ex-Harpers - just as
Jaheria could be a good character, and an ex-Harper (if the
main storyline is continued as-is), one could assume some
ex-Harpers are not so good after quitting being a member
(and may not be hunted down either, e. g. some may form
a party).
That could give some room for more assassinations lateron.
See also the cowled menace mod; while that does not have
anything to do with the Harpers really, it has some ambushes.
And that, in turn, is a bit connected to the Harpers, e. g.
where that one mage is assassinated after finding the bird
in the vanilla quest. So clearly the Harpers are not shy
of doing assassinations.
6) There is another mod, peacespeaker, a talking scimitar. The
origin story of the scimitar, though, kind of fits to some extent
to the poisonous pathways mod, in a way (don't want to be more
specific, to not reveal spoilers). Now, the scimitar does not
have much to do with the druid/cleric place of ultimate peace,
but perhaps a dialogue or two options may be useful here; what
would the weapon say upon seeing all those weapons turned in?
Would it want to be turned in as well? This could be another
option for that mod. So not you but for the peacespeaker mod;
I just wanted to mention it here. See:
https://github.com/bucketfulofsunshine/peacespeaker
7) Since there is a lot of peace in that area, perhaps Talos storm
knights (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Talos) could visit
that place and bring some ... violent sense to their peace fancypants
shenanigans. :P (I am not too familiar with the lore though; been
ages since I last read Forgotten Realms. No clue how Talos sees
other deities.)
8) There was a scene where two ... "beasts" were harassed and ambushed.
They spoke of going to the hidden area next (aka find some peace ...
sounds like a weed area for peace hipster smokers), but initially I
could not find these two there. At a later point I noticed I saw
a missing entrance to the left side. Not sure how I missed it.
Speaking of which, by the way ... in the map to the "hidden area",
there are some entrance that were difficult to notice. On the main
map I could not see any markings there. Perhaps a few markings
could be added? "Shrine #1 entrance" or something generic. Not
sure what can be noticed from the outside, perhaps it looks more
like a cave. I also missed the middle entrances for a while, or
rather that there are two entrances; I initially thought I'd
have to look for the hidden person within the forest area, and
wondered how to access it. It became clearer lateron, but initially
I was not sure what is where. On a first play-through I often miss
things.
9) As for the old hag or seer; I understand that she wants something,
but I read a bit superficially. From the diary I was not sure
what exactly she wanted, yet alone how to get it. I decided to go
ahead with the main quest, thus not bothering with forging anything
or something like that, as I was more focused on the main quest.
The side quests were quite ok. Earthworm was short but fun; (I also
did not find the worm because I skipped some entrances until later,
or did not see them.)
The angry female I was not sure what to do with. The diary has a
hint, but I could not seem to be able to find some person that
may be connected. Perhaps it is obvious, but since it was a side
quest I stopped looking at this and continued on the main quest.
10) The fights were mostly ok, a bit difficult in some ways. Not
being able to cast haste slowed down my party a lot. The toughest
fight was actually the one against Der-something or so, the guy
with the blade barrier. It took me about six or seven tries,
then I realised a pattern I could exploit. That pattern was
quite simple: avoid the group damaging effects. :P
Summons distracted the enemy and my party moved to the opposide
end, then worked on the closest enemies. This worked extremely
well, whereas the rush-in-kill-everyone led to various problems.
In particular that group insect swarm thingy was annoying since
it hit everyone in the party. When I split the party up a bit
and positioned them far away, it was easier to handle.
There was then some fight against the final boss I think, but
this one was easier than the fight with many weaker enemies.
Not saying anything should be changed, or not be changed, just
my experience here. My party was level 11 at that point in
time, so it started to be rather easy.
11) The strange "rest in peace" guy was an interesting counter to
the "everyone loves peace and immortality" idea. He may fit with
his complaints in the demon city of the lost goddess mod. There
he like ... nailed onto a cross and THEN he can complain!
I wondered whether the leader of the peace village would notice
that my party helped that guy but no dialogue statement appears
to have indicated that. That's a bit of a head scratcher though.
Would this not take away from the ability to cure more people?
Since the guy tapped into the "origin".
12) By the way, Delgorth has a portrait, many of the other NPCs
don't seem to have. Perhaps they could also get some portrait.
13) One tiny issue I seem to have noticed, is that the World Map
normally shows a blue outlier when the party has not yet visited
an area. For some reason, neither the peace village nor the
target destintion, had the blue outlier deselected. It always
appeared blue, whereas other areas, if you visited them once,
they are no longer with a blue outline but a white outline or
so. Your other mod, e. g. the Lost Goddess, also has that - if
we visit goldspire or what's the name, it will no longer be
blue. So perhaps something is a bit different for that mod.
Overall the mod is quite fine. For me it was quite a bit simpler
than the mad-dwarf-mad-god-mad-dog mod in that I did not have a
real obstacle per se. The only part where I was confused was
when that one guy disappeared and I thought he would be somewhere
in the forest. At that point I was not sure how to proceed; lateron
I noticed some change on the map (I think) so now it is a lot
easier in future play-throughs, but at that time, visually, it was
not completely clear to me where to go (also, because I missed
I think one entry, or the second entry, initially, on that map
as well).
Addendum: the prior user also said something about missing
noticing things. I did notice the entries on the north side,
in the corrupted area, but I also for some reason was not
noticing all entries initially. I first had to go to the right side of
the map, then I looked at the main map again and noticed
that there is a big area in the middle I did not visit yet; and
two entries west of it, which I was unaware. (I could swear
I saw only one entry, so I was confused about that.) I
don't have a good solution for that either, some people
notice things more easily than others. For me, visually
the flowers distracted me since they were brighter in
colour.
(If map markers are not ideal then perhaps there can be some
visual hints. Not sure how much work these are. If too much work
then don't worry, but for instance, there could be new footprints
or something like that. Then again these are probably also hard
to notice in mud. Or perhaps bloodied footprints.
probably not a good visual aid either. I notice these as problems
more on maps when it is dark; also that mod that changes how
light sources work, while it is great, I often seem to have a shorter
line of sight at night, which makes sense, but some cut scenes
then happen outside that line of sight - that's not with regard
to your mods, mind you, but I have several cuts scenes that I
can not see, since they happen outside the vision range; one example
is in the Fall NPC quest, where the ice golem does some actions,
and I think another one I recall is from Skitia's Wings mod one
ambush scene, where my party comes in late from the
south; I initially also don't see the upper part in the north here,
but in vanilla installations I can see that, so I am quite sure this
is due to that light source changing mod.)
and about ~80 characters per line; old habits are hard to break.