Baldur's Dale, The Infinity Engine Games Thread Options

[SubRosa]

That sounds really cool. I am filing that away for future play throughs of BG.

[Lopov]

I know about and have used familiars in BG2. Great idea on editing them to be a little more usable!

Apparently there are different familiars out there, they're based on the alignment. And I must correct myself, Aia doesn't have a wyvern, it's a pseudo dragon. LG and NG get a pseudo dragon while CG gets a fairy dragon. CN gets a cat, LN and TN a rabbit. LE gets an Imp, NE a dust mephit and CE a quasit.

That sounds really cool. I am filing that away for future play throughs of BG.

To edit them, one must use an older version of the EEKeeper. In the latest version (1.0.4) the EEKeeper crashes upon starting "Edit out of party characters". Fortunately someone in the Beamdog forums mentioned that 1.0.36 must be used, else I'd be clueless what to do.

I'm assuming that one can add any creature as a familiar through the EEKeeper so if someone prefers to walk around a grown-up dragon, it should be possible.

This post has been edited by Lopov: Nov 22 2024, 11:21 AM

[SubRosa]

I have EE Keeper version 1.0.2.4. So that is probably old enough to work.

I have never used the familiars because that permanent loss of a Con point always scared me off. But since you can mod that out and give them more hit points, that is not a worry any more.

January is Lawful Good, so she would get a Pseudo Dragon. A Crow would be ideal, but that is still a good pick for her. She does have some history with dragons after all. Likewise Blood Raven is usually Chaotic or Neutral Good. Again, a Raven would be ideal. But a Faery Dragon would work for her too, given her Irish background.

[Lopov]

There's a "bird" listed under appearance options, so it can be modified, but just what kind of a bird is it, it doesn't say. Best to test and see. Actually any creature / animal, that's available in the base game, can be used as a familiar, provided that one fiddles with appearance options.

I deleted the permanent CON loss but I added lots of HP to the familiar and boosted its resistances to make sure it doesn't die. For the time being it still spends most of the time inside Aia's backpack.

My party currently consists of Aia, Ajantis (paladin), Imoen (thief) and Garrick (bard). Aia would often deal with groups of enemies by walking straight into their middle, then casting fireball, while the other three wait on a safe distance.

(Role)playing a sorcerer for the first time makes me still learn new things in each session. Also, ever since BG3 was released, searching on Google for some stuff regarding BG1 and BG2 has become a nuisance, one must really specify good enough that it's BG1 or BG2 stuff, else you're bombarded with results from BG3.

[Lopov]

I found out, how it's possible to bring back a dead party member even if the member has been after his death removed from the party, this means that the portrait was removed as well from the column on the right. I didn't find any help online, so I figured it out myself but it's not that difficult.

What happened is that Ajantis the paladin was killed by the succubus and me, being slightly "infected" with the dead-is-dead approach, have decided to honor his death. My protagonist Aia couldn't get over his death (there was a sympathy between her and the fallen paladin), so she brought his family shield to the Temple of Helm in Nashkel, because Ajantis was a devotee of Helm. There, however, I thought of reviving Ajantis and I immediately felt that this act would please Aia as well.

What we did in the EEKeeper:

1 - Tools-Edit out of party characters-Ajantis-Characteristics-State Flag (change from State Dead -> State Normal)
2 - his HPs were still negative so I set a positive value. However, I needed to do this twice. The first time, his HPs reverted to 0 when saving the game, in the 2nd try they remained positive.
3 - Aia and Imoen traveled to the place, where he "died" and there he was back among the living and he immediately asked Aia, if he can rejoin the party. Even his questline didn't get broken.

Roleplay-wise, they revived him with a Reanimate scroll.

[Acadian]

Very nice!

[Renee]

Nice, I'm adding that solution to my modding thread as well.

I've also been quietly playing some Baldur's Gate here and there. Hadde Nuff (LG Fighter) got killed a while back so I started all over with Sir Tannley (LG Paladin). Yeah, for me, my party leader has always been Lawful Good, going way back to high school.

With him are Imoen, Jaheira, Kh-Kha-Khalid, and Jarrick (sp?) I'm taking my time getting to Nashkel Mine, allowing my party to collect at least one more Level each of XP, so they hopefully won't get destroyed this time by the *spoiler* in Nashkel.

[SubRosa]

I updated my copy of BG3 to the latest version which is Patch 7. Their game versions are weird. They call them Patches 1-7, but the real names go like 4.1.1.6072089. And there are a lot more versions than 7. That one is the current version, and it is apparently Patch 7, hotfix 3. So it looks like each Patch has multiple versions, depending on how many updates to the updates that they did. It's confusing.

Anyway, this was perhaps not such a great idea. As I found out the hard way that Patch 7 breaks a lot of mods. I had to go through my entire mod list one at a time to see which ones worked, and which were now broken. Twice.

The first time was using the Baldur's Gate 3 Mod Manager (this is not the mod manager built into the game). It has a bug where incompatible mods will prevent the Mod Manager from saving the load order. So you will make out your load order, save, and exit. Then reopen the mod manager and the order will all be blank, with no mods loaded at all. You have to go through each individual mod to find out which ones are causing the load order not to save. It is not enough to simply remove them from the load order. You have to remove them from the Mods folder entirely.

After I had done that I thought I was in the clear. So I tried starting a new game. Nope. 75% of the way through starting the new game it gives an error message that it cannot create a new game. So once again I had to go through every mod remaining in my list and pull out the ones that do not work. At least this time I did not have to remove them from the folder on the drive. The bad ones just had to be deactivated.

So hours later I can start a new game. I found Patch 7 compatible updates to most of the mods that were not playing nice with the new version of the game. However, for those that did not I found a fix:

Extract the contents of the .pak file with LSLIB Converter App (use the ConverterApp.exe in the suite of tools).

Go to the extracted folder. Find the <Mod Name>\Mods\<Mod Name>\Story folder. Delete the Story folder.

Repack the file, and it should now work.

I did it with the Avariel Elf Race, Magic Missile Enhanced, and Shocking Grasp Enhanced mods, and they work afterward.

Concerning Patch 7 and what it actually does for Baldur's Gate 3, I am not entirely sure. I did notice that now the game has built in mod support, with a link off the main menu to activate or deactivate mods, and to download new ones (I am not sure from where). It does not seem to allow you to change the load order however. So I am sticking to using the old standalone BG3 Mod Manager program.

[Acadian]

Urg, that sounds frustrating!

[Lopov]

SubRosa, do you find BG3 to be difficult? I read a little about the game and I read lots of complaints regarding the difficulty. Personally, I don't have a problem with this, if you can cheat with a tool, similar to EEKeeper or something more advanced. I've been cheating a lot in BG1 and BG2, because the story is more important to me than mastering combat.

In other news, Rasaad has joined Aia's party and now we're full. There are Ajanatis (paladin and Aia's fiancee thanks to the BG1NPC mod), Imoen (thief), Dynaheir (Evoker), Minsc (Berseker) and of course Rasaad (monk). I disliked Rasaad's vanilla portrait, so I replaced it with this one. So far I've only had Neera from the EE in my previous playthroughs, so Rasaad will be a new experience for me. Dorn and Baeloth don't come in question because I don't run evil-aligned parties anymore.

[SubRosa]

My first time playing BG3 it was challenging. But that was before I had figured out the ins and outs of how the game worked. After a few times playing - and a few mods added - I don't find it at all difficult. I use one mod called Short Rest Tweaks that gives you as many short rests per day as you want, which refreshes your health and the like. I use another called Action Resources that refreshes your spell and ability uses after each battle. Normally they are once per rest. But I hate that. If you are a magician, you should be casting spells all the time. Not using a sling for 90% of the time and only occasionally casting a spell.

I also use a mod called Tactician Plus to make the enemies tougher, to balance it out a bit.

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

BG3 now has native mod support for mods, not sure which “patch” added that. I was thinking it was 7 though. That may have been what caused it, but I had problems with mods anytime they released a big update until the mods themselves were updated. In other BG3 news, they have one last (maybe) patch on the horizon, patch 8. This one is going to add a new subclass for each of the classes, as well as add cross system play for multiplayer.

I use another called Action Resources that refreshes your spell and ability uses after each battle. Normally they are once per rest. But I hate that. If you are a magician, you should be casting spells all the time. Not using a sling for 90% of the time and only occasionally casting a spell.

I also use a mod called Tactician Plus to make the enemies tougher, to balance it out a bit.

A sling? Did you not have any cantrips that deal damage?

This post has been edited by TheCheshireKhajiit: Dec 2 2024, 07:50 PM

[SubRosa]

I meant using a sling in BG1, BG2, and Icewind Dale. My wizards in those games usually ended up with a sling because they did not have the proficiency needed to use a bow. So most of the time they stood in the back hucking rocks. Certainly the epitome of awesome mystical might! That is until I found the Phun Cheat mod, that adds a power that lets you refresh your spells whenever you use it. After that my mages were actually using magic in their battles.

The cantrips in BG3 are an improvement over the old system. But they don't really scale up at the same rate that say the Paladin or Barbarian or Fighter does. I can reliably do 100 points of damage per round with those classes in the late game, thanks to extra attacks, rage bonuses, battle master moves, and the like. Firing a triple Eldritch Bolt or Shocking Grasp just does not cut the mustard in comparison.

I just hate the Vancian magic system.

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

I meant using a sling in BG1, BG2, and Icewind Dale. My wizards in those games usually ended up with a sling because they did not have the proficiency needed to use a bow. So most of the time they stood in the back hucking rocks. Certainly the epitome of awesome mystical might! That is until I found the Phun Cheat mod, that adds a power that lets you refresh your spells whenever you use it. After that my mages were actually using magic in their battles.

How weird! I’m surprised that there wasn’t something better for wizards and such in those games!

[Renee]

Yes, that's also how I approach it. Jaheera flings throwing daggars or uses a sling if the party is facing multiple enemies but no spells need to be cast. In my party, Jaheera hasn't got any offensive magic really (except Doom, which isn't very effective).

Neera also uses a sling, though at least her spells can cause more serious consequences to enemies! Love putting an entire enemy contingent to Sleep.

[SubRosa]

I meant using a sling in BG1, BG2, and Icewind Dale. My wizards in those games usually ended up with a sling because they did not have the proficiency needed to use a bow. So most of the time they stood in the back hucking rocks. Certainly the epitome of awesome mystical might! That is until I found the Phun Cheat mod, that adds a power that lets you refresh your spells whenever you use it. After that my mages were actually using magic in their battles.

How weird! I’m surprised that there wasn’t something better for wizards and such in those games!

A wizard in those games starts out only able to use daggers, darts, slings, or staves. I know that they get weapon proficiency points to spend as they level up. But I am not sure if they have to spend them on one of those four, or if they can spend them to learn to use other weapons.

[Lopov]

Though he's far from the main antagonist in BG, my party always has a feel of accomplishment when they kill Davaeron. Maybe it's because you can encounter his brother in wilderness and he tells you, how Davaeorn killed their father or maybe it's because of all those slaves that curse his name and beg you to kill him. Maybe it's even because of his arrogant way of talking when you encounter him. He's one of those evil arch-mages that we like to get rid of in every playthrough.

[Renee]

SubRosa, TheCheshireKhajiit, and/or Acadian, have any of you allowed Xzar and Monty to join your parties early on, and then had them stick around until later in the game?

[Acadian]

Sorry, Renee. I only played BG1 one time. Same with Icewind Dale. Where I settled in for many hours was BG2.

[Renee]

Sorry, Renee. I only played BG1 one time. Same with Icewind Dale. Where I settled in for many hours was BG2.

Oh, no apology necessary! Was only asking because Lopov and I were comparing notes about those two, and we both realized we found Xzar and Montaron sort of "annoying".

I've allowed them to join my parties (well, Hadde Nuff and my new guy Sir Tannley have allowed them to join), albeit reluctantly, only because there's safety in numbers. Only to find Xzar and Monty getting on my nerves! Was Wondering if anyone else shares this opinion.