Baldur's Gate & Baldur's Gate II Mod Thread

[Brancaleone]

Is stratagems bro approved?

Strongly approved, just with a modicum of carefulness when selecting some of the difficulty sub-options (i.e. lich spawning).

 

[octavius]

Jason Liang, tell us about Finch and why it's a good companion mod.

 

[Jason Liang]

Finch is a gnome. In the Baldur's Gate games, you can't go wrong with gnome companions. Gnomes are the best companions, and Finch is the best gnome companion in Baldur's Gate 1: EE, if not the whole series. And unlike a different gnome, she is not obssessed with turnips. If you are sick of turnip jokes, Finch is the gnome companion for you!

Finch comes with a bookbag, the only one in the entire game. She shares your interest of filching a copy of every single findable lore tome in the game. Her dream is to build a public library in Nashkel that has every single tome in it, a noble quest worthy of Oghma. She also possesses a pair of magical glasses that can cast Identify! How useful is that. Identify is a wonderful spell that you will cast many, many times throughout your adventures along the Sword Coast.

Finally, Finch helps you check if all of your mods installed correctly. Since she briefly meets you in Candlekeep, if you notice something strange about Finch's name string, dialogue string, character model or voicing, you immediately know that one or more mods has fucked up something somewhere.

Unfortunately your time together with Finch is limited to your adventures along the Sword Coast.

 

[Lagole Gon]

I think I remember Finch release on Pocket Plane Group. Some printed magazine even mentioned it in an article about BG mod scene. Or maybe I'm confusing her with Keto.

 

[Sizzle]

Gnomes are the best companions

Khm, arguably the worst companion in the entire series: Quayle.

 

[Jason Liang]

I think I remember Finch release on Pocket Plane Group. Some printed magazine even mentioned it in an article about BG mod scene. Or maybe I'm confusing her with Keto.

Yes, Keto was the one that's mentioned. And back then, BG2:EE was really a bigger deal than BG1:EE, especially in terms of mods. I was still in college back then (this must have been 2003-2004ish) and a companion mod for BG2:EE was a much bigger deal than one for BG1:EE.

 

[Jason Liang]

Gnomes are the best companions

Khm, arguably the worst companion in the entire series: Quayle.

That's true, but percentage-wise gnomes are quality... one bad apple doesn't change that.

Halflings have a pretty good record too but then Alora. So no race has a perfect track record, but Gnomes (and Halflings) are way above the curve. Yet let's face it, Tiax + Jan > Mazzy + Montaron

 

[octavius]

Gnomes are the best companions

Khm, arguably the worst companion in the entire series: Quayle.

That's true, but percentage-wise gnomes are quality... one bad apple doesn't change that.

Not apple. Turnip.

 

[gunman]

Have you tried Fields of the Dead for vanilla BG1? It is amazing, the equivalent of SCS for BG2/BGT. The spellcasters plays really smart, I was surprised to see Neira in Nashkel inn throwing a glyph of warding that killed half of my party (including PC). Also no more +1 and +2 weapons and items right from the start, hardly in chapters 3/4 you start getting the first magical weapons.

 

[Sykar]

Finch is a gnome. In the Baldur's Gate games, you can't go wrong with gnome companions. Gnomes are the best companions, and Finch is the best gnome companion in Baldur's Gate 1: EE, if not the whole series. And unlike a different gnome, she is not obssessed with turnips. If you are sick of turnip jokes, Finch is the gnome companion for you!

Finch comes with a bookbag, the only one in the entire game. She shares your interest of filching a copy of every single findable lore tome in the game. Her dream is to build a public library in Nashkel that has every single tome in it, a noble quest worthy of Oghma. She also possesses a pair of magical glasses that can cast Identify! How useful is that. Identify is a wonderful spell that you will cast many, many times throughout your adventures along the Sword Coast.

Finally, Finch helps you check if all of your mods installed correctly. Since she briefly meets you in Candlekeep, if you notice something strange about Finch's name string, dialogue string, character model or voicing, you immediately know that one or more mods has fucked up something somewhere.

Unfortunately your time together with Finch is limited to your adventures along the Sword Coast.

Jan Jansen is love. Jan Jansen is life.

 

[hell bovine]

I think I'm going to replay BGII:SoA soon. I'm aiming for a fairly vanilla experience.

So I'll probably need bg2fixpack. Anything else? Is stratagems bro approved?

Any recommendation?

If you want a fairly vanilla replay, but with less enemy stupidity, install just the basic stratagems options:
- core component
- initialise AI
- smarter general AI
- better calls for help
- optional: potions for NPCs, though it can make thieves more dangerous, as they will use use potions of invisibility for backstabs.

If you add smarter mages and priests, this will make the game noticeably harder (and also will solve the issue of liches killing themselves with their own spells), but also different form vanilla, as SCS makes full use of BG2's magic system. If you decide to use it, I'd recommend installing the "Mages/Priests never cast spells instantly" option. Contrary to what the description suggests, they will precast long-lasting buffs (e.g. stoneskin).

Leave out the improved challenges, though. They can be a bit much if you are unused to SCS spellcasting scripts.

 

[octavius]

I think I'm gonna uninstall this component:
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #152 // PnP Fiends -> Mod-added fiends are also affected: v4.51 BWP Fix
It makes fiends (of which there are lots in BG2) Etherealize and Regenerate when they go down to Badly Damaged. Not sure if it's "only" three times, or if you need to do extra damage in one hit, but it's seriously annoying if every fiend is having this behaviour, since AFAIK there's no way to counter it. True Seeing doesn't work.

I actually managed to kill Aec'Letec on his third return (Jaheira with 23 STR and Staff of Striking), but then he reincarnated into one of the cultists, and I realized this was not fun anymore.

 

[octavius]

Finally beat the sucker! But for some reason Minsc's Negative Plane Protection when Berserking didn't protect him from Level Drain.

Oh well, I spammed Fireballs on the Cultists before going in for the kill, and three times seems to be the max times a Fiend can use the Etherealize ability.

So with the BG 1 and TOTSC part of BGT done with I'd rate the difficulty of the battles thus:

1. Sarevok.
Only battle I had to "cheese", by having Sarevok running after one of my guys while the other killed his cronies. Then Sarevok and his play mate continued their Benny Hill routine while the rest of the party used missile fire.
You just can't go toe to toe with the freak. (EDIT: Using BGT + Hard Times you can't use the surrond-him-with-summons-tactic. There's not even any Wand of Monster Summoning in the game (or I didn't find any), so you're kind of forced to trick Sarevok into running after one of your guys.)
I did this before the TOTSC quests.

2. Davaeorn.
Those Battle Horrors are nasty indeed for a low level party. And the Talon Elite reinforcements didn't help. And if you're careless you'll get your whole party immobilized by D's Web+Stinking Cloud sequencer.

3. Aec'Letec.
Death Stare (perma kill if failing save and then not dispelling it), Aura of Paralyze, Level Draining, Etheralize&Regenerate, and the ability to reincarnate in one of his cultists if killed - this guy is a nightmare. But fortunately my party is quite high level at this point (no XP cap, so a level or half higher than the usual max), so I managed to beat the freak on second try.

4. Kirinhale.
The Succubus at the top of Durlag's Tower was nasty indeed with the PnP Fiends installed. XP for her was also adjusted from 3K to 11K.

5. Mulahey.
Hard for a low level party, and some of the kobolds were on steroids.

6. Chess Board.
The enemy don't play by the rules. With SCS installed the pieces rush at you before you can do more buffing than quaffing a potion.
Not as hard as it was last time I played, though, and beat it on second try.

The BGSpawns version of Ulcaster was also very difficult, with Mist Horrors and Skeleton Warriors instead of the nice little doggies (IIRC).


Surprisingly easy:

The Red Wizards's of Thay. Had major problems with them last time I played, but this time it went smooth. I guess my party was a couple of levels higher this time, and having True Seeing helps.

Demon Knight.

Spoiler

For some reason he was much easier if you don't break the mirror. Don't know if this is a bug or by design, though, but with the broken mirror he summoned hostile clones of the party in addition to Skeleton Warriors. With intact mirror - nothing.

 

[Irxy]

Planning to play through BG1EE/SoD/BG2EE, is there a mod to make portraits of recurring npcs consistent through all games?

 

[Sykar]

By the way, am I the only one who edits some stuff like giving some save or nothing spells additional -2 or -4 to resist? I find it kinda ridiculous that the best "insta death" spell is actually Polymorph other and not Disintigrate, Finger of Death and Wail of the Banshee.

I wonder if I should try out the Spell Revision mod maybe instead of tediously edit spells I find to be lackluster or terrible.

 

[Incantatar]

By the way, am I the only one who edits some stuff like giving some save or nothing spells additional -2 or -4 to resist? I find it kinda ridiculous that the best "insta death" spell is actually Polymorph other and not Disintigrate, Finger of Death and Wail of the Banshee.

I wonder if I should try out the Spell Revision mod maybe instead of tediously edit spells I find to be lackluster or terrible.

Monsters have better saves vs. polymorph than vs many other spells. Certain classes save better or worse against certain effects. Do you take that into account? E.g. a Finger of Death is something you would cast on a Wizard or Thief and not on a Priest or Fighter.

 

[Sykar]

By the way, am I the only one who edits some stuff like giving some save or nothing spells additional -2 or -4 to resist? I find it kinda ridiculous that the best "insta death" spell is actually Polymorph other and not Disintigrate, Finger of Death and Wail of the Banshee.

I wonder if I should try out the Spell Revision mod maybe instead of tediously edit spells I find to be lackluster or terrible.

Monsters have better saves vs. polymorph than vs many other spells. Certain classes save better or worse against certain effects. Do you take that into account? E.g. a Finger of Death is something you would cast on a Wizard or Thief and not on a Priest or Fighter.

Sure do but even then they save more often than I like during ToB.

 

[Ramnozack]

By the way, am I the only one who edits some stuff like giving some save or nothing spells additional -2 or -4 to resist? I find it kinda ridiculous that the best "insta death" spell is actually Polymorph other and not Disintigrate, Finger of Death and Wail of the Banshee.

I wonder if I should try out the Spell Revision mod maybe instead of tediously edit spells I find to be lackluster or terrible.

Monsters have better saves vs. polymorph than vs many other spells. Certain classes save better or worse against certain effects. Do you take that into account? E.g. a Finger of Death is something you would cast on a Wizard or Thief and not on a Priest or Fighter.

Sure do but even then they save more often than I like during ToB.

Spell revisions does a lot of things I like, and a lot of things I don't like as well. It replaces multiple spells with different ones, some examples are that it replaces death spell with acid fog, animate dead (arcane) with summon shadow, etc. It nerfs some spells like Cone of Cold down to 15d4+15 from 20d4+20 and makes lightning bolt a 10d8 single target spell. It does things I like as well, such as making mage armor scale with level with it ultimately providing an AC of 3, gives -4 resist to a lot of those save vs death spells you mentioned, adds new spells like Icelance and snillocs snowball swarm.

Overall, I like it, and you can customize your install by excluding changes to certain spells if you want, and you can also change things in NearInfinity afterwards as well.

 

[octavius]

1 Fiend vs 1 Beholder and 2 Gauths - who wins?

 

[hell bovine]

Depends on which modded version you're running. For some reason the scs pit fiends tend to be a liitle shy in my installs, and just run around spamming fireballs and improv. invisibility.

 

[octavius]

SCS and aTweak's PnP Fiends.
I had a scroll of Summon Fiend, and not much else to protect against Beholder rays, so I thought it would be interesting to see if the fiend could get the job done on his own.
Jan tried with both a Nycaloth and a Tanar'ri.

 

[hell bovine]

Never used the aTweaks, so I'm guessing the fiend won?

 

[octavius]

No, the gas bags won both times. I guess immunity to magic trumps mere resistance.

I also discovered later that the Scroll of Protection: Magic does not protect against the Death Rays.

 

[hell bovine]

At least they are not Tactics pit fiends, with their chain gating reaction. That is probably the most ridiculously modded summon in the history of BG2 mods.

Animate dead (the big skeleton warrior version) should win against the non-boss SCS beholders, though they require more micromanaging, because those telekinesis rays tend to throw them across the screen.

 

[Reinhardt]

BG2:EE

(this must have been 2003-2004ish)