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SCS: just how tough is it?

October 1, 2016, 12:46 pm
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Hi all,

I just completed my second SoD playthrough at insane difficulty (normal damage). I find the combat system in SoD exceptionally satisfying since I've only played vanilla BG1 and SoA years ago. Many combats in the game was challenging enough to force me to make full use resources like potions, wands, and enchanted arrows while not being too overwhelming, with one or two being very stressful but extremely fun (I've got XP cap remover and Thalantyr item upgrade mods, so that might have affected the challenge level too),

Now that I plan to start BG2EE, I've been thinking about getting SCS (and possibly BP Ascension) to set up a more challenging game that emulates my SoD experience. On the other hand, although I've heard good things about SCS I'm still not sure just exactly what this mod offers.

So I guess my questions are:

1) how crazy is SCS AI improvement? (If you've played SoD before it would be appreciated if you compare it to insane SoD AI).
2) I'm especially concerned about mages in SCS (or even just spellcasters in general). I know that mages are generally smarter and much more well protected with their spells in SoD; however I'd like to know if the mages use different combat strategies at all. I'd find it very tedious if all the mages employ the same, albeit likely the most effective, tactic. It breaks my suspension of disbelief too. Sure mages are smart and all that but that doesn't mean they are perfectly rational human(oid)s that always make the most reasonable choice. Mages are just as prone to blind hubris as many normal people in Faerun, if not more so (I mean, just look at the Magisters of Mystra, all are powerful mages, many of whom died from their own hubris or plain stupidity). Personally I'd find it much more satisfying if mages use various tactics, some of which not necessarily optimal.
3)In the same vein as Q2, is there an option to install stronger AI for the archmages like Irenicus and weaker AI for regular pleb mages?

Finally if it makes any difference, I don't plan to use the spell tweak component of SCS - I'd like to keep them as is.

Thanks a lot!
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The dialogue that EE should have added:

January 10, 2017, 5:04 pm
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Headcanons (Spoilers, duh)

January 10, 2017, 6:23 pm
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I don't think I have seen a thread like this so far (only about headcanons for very specific topics), so let's do this.

First of all, let me explain what a headcanon actually is, for all you folks who's brains have not have been implanted with internet parasites like mine has.

Not a headcanon:

Source: xkcd

Headcanon:


Aight? Aight.

So here are some of my headcanons.
I have mentioned some of these before in other threads, but as as said above, I like having a thread for all of them.
Uh, also a warning, a lot of these are about genetics and sex/conceiving :V

1. Half-elves/ Half-orcs are about as fertile as most hybrid animals (i.e. mules, ligers, etc.) meaning they are under most circumstances they are sterile (magic means can help against this, of course). This opens to a few interesting roleplaying possibilities where for example the parents object to their kid marrying a half-elf because they wouldn't have grandchildren or about a promiscuous half-orcs making for ideal prostitutes because they can't get preggers/ can't get their clients preggers. (This topic was discussed in detail in this thread, if you are interested.)

2. Elves can only conceive if they share a soul-bond with their partner. This one is inspired by the comic series ElfQuest. There are of course magic workarounds, but most elves will only fall in love with someone they have a sould-bond with anyway. This is the reason to why Toril is not completely overrun by elves even though they probably spend a lot of time in their long lives with getting it on. The notable exception to this are drow, who have evolved so far away from the elven ways, that they conceive like most other humanoids (their self-destructive ways keep their numbers in check).

3.1 Bhaalspawn only inherit genes from their mothers. The idea is that Bhaal only gave part of his soul (you know the thing they call the 'taint' and 'instinct' in the game). I just can't picture Bhaal as being creative enough to come up with a completely distinguished body for every person he impregnated, so instead the changing was just cosmetical to assure body compatibilty. This is to explain as to why the different Bhaalspawn can share little to no similarities to each other or Bhaal. (I got the idea when reasearching the above mentioned half-elf fertility thing >.>)
I like this idea so much, because this way CHARNAME will automatically bear an uncanny resemblance to their mother, which ads an extra angle (especially to female CHARNAME). Imagine Gorion's growing grief over seeing his beloved child more and more turning into the spitting image of his former lover and later in ToB Charname seing their mother for the first time and their shock of them looking like twins. Yay, drama!

3.2 Alternatively, Bhaal may have borrowed other people's bodies via possession to get the deed done. Which could actually lead to certain Bhaalspawn also being actual siblings on a genetical level. Think Bhaal possessing one of his male priests to shag all the female ones in the same temple. Oh, the chaffing :smirk:

4. Halflings are hobbits. I don't like it that with every re-working of the system/ setting halflings move further and further away from their original form, which are the good ol' inhabitants of the Shire. If it hadn't been for the Tolkien Company (?) sueing TSR back when, they would probably still be hobbits to this day. So what does that mean? Halflings tend to be chubby (thanks to their eating habits), have large hairy feet, almost never wear shoes, can have any natural hair colour (not just black like for Lightfoot Halflings) and usually have curly hair. Oh yeah, that also means that Halflings don't have a natural affinity to be rogues, most will take a good book and a cup of tea in their living room over wandering and exploring any day.

5. Accents/ dialects, architechture and fashion based on this list. And then some. I personally like to immagine the city of Baldur's Gate with a strong dutch vibe, for example. Of course the languages are pre-determined, but people would have an accent based on what ever real world country/ region fits the best. Takes away a lot of the homogeny the Realms tend to have and just makes it a bit more lively. Plus, accents are fun!

6. Mulhorand, Unther and what-not are not populated by descendants of real world people. So apparently the lore states that at one point a portal between the real world - our world - and Toril was opened and a bunch of anciant Egyptians came through and made their home on Faerûn. Stuff like this is why FR also shares some religious stuff with our world, effectively implying that Tyr, Horus and co. are real gods, which annoys my inner atheist and hurts my immersion in the setting. It's dumb and I hate it. I prefer my settings to either be exclusively fantasy or fantasy adaptations of ther real world. Not some wishy-washy in between.

Well, I probably forgot some, but here you go.
Please post your own headcanons and discuss! BG, IWD, general FR, you go for it.
Always love adding up/ refining my own headcanons.
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What is your "perfect" mod setup?

January 12, 2017, 7:58 am
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Unfortunately, I don't have time to start a new playthrough now or in the near future, but I've noticed I try to compensate for this by searching for the perfect mod setup, one that will feel like the game is now finally "completed".

It seems this quest came to an end, so allow me to share what I consider to be my perfect mod setup in order of install (it's for bg2 since that is the game I care most about):

1- Quest pack by SimDing0 (mainly the "revised hells trials" component- the more varied approaches to alignment and neutral path in hells trials are a rare opportunity to make alignment really count as a character development tool)

2- Dorn romance expansion by trinit (evil romance option - well, I did this to flesh out romance a bit)

3- Edwin romance by Laufey (neutral romance option - great mod, for personal use I edited the text to make it fit better with the rest of the game)

4- Valygar romance (good romance option - for personal use only- I put this together for various other mods and few additions from myself)

5- Refinements by Littiz, T.G.Maestro and the bigg (the revised HLA abilities add much to the flavour of the classes)

6- Shapeshifter improvements (just edited the claws so they scale better)

7- Ranger spell fix (enables level 4 divine spells for rangers, much like the paladins have. I got the table on this forum, but can't remember which thread it was)

8- A high resolution portrait pack by ikonomov ( essential for any high-res display, for personal use i made a few modifications to some of the portraits)

9- Druid grove makeover by Ulb ( completely agree with the reasons the author stated for making this mod, it even inspired me to make few modifications to the interior of the grove of my own)

10- Will o' wisp by LavaDelVortel (the shamans are a great class and they need their own stronghold. plus, the extra NPC and kit!)

11- IWD GUI for BG2EE by trinit (made this since I dislike original GUIs for BG games)

12- The Wheels of Prophecy by DavidW (this one doesn't want to install on this setup, so it's on hold for now)

This is it. I feel like these mods correct the most flaws regarding content, visual elements, gameplay tweaks etc. Some of the stuff I made myself, simply because no one else did it and I got tired of waiting. I was considering some friendship mods, NPC mods, spell revisions and such, but I'm wary of installing too many mods at the same time.

All the same, I'm really grateful to the amazing and active modding community that made all the great work and even inspired me to make a few thing of my own, as well as beamdog for making the new games much more accessible and improved it mechanically. I just hope the new updates won't break anything :P

Anyway, I think the modding frenzy has left me, now it's just the matter of finding the time to start a new playthrough.

please, share what is your favourite mod setup for what you consider to be a "perfect" bg2, bg1, sod or iwd game :)
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Best fighter (single or multi) across the series

September 19, 2016, 6:10 am
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Who is the best? The worst? Your favorite? If the NPC is only in one game (i.e. Shar-Teel), would you bring into the next/back to the first?

Edit: If you vote for Mazzy, whom I forgot and also couldn't fit, loudly state your opinion so I can pretend she is in the list. I'M SORRY, MAZZY!

Edit 2: -1 vote for Sarevok, +1 vote for Korgan on behalf of @semiticgod

Mazzy: 3
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Swashbuckler's No-Reload (or few reloads) attempt

October 25, 2016, 2:49 am
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Why this? I should probably test some stuff I made out, given it's available as a public download for SR-SCS users. Given my install; I don't feel as if No-Reload is very viable - hence I made this thread for my run. It will be played as a no-reload for all accounts bar my PC's death, should it come to that.
Install consists of Item/Spell/Kit Revisions, Refinements, Ascension, SCS (all hardest options bar "hardest spawns" and "more annoying trolls"), some tweaks of my own, nerfed XP table, and some Rogue Rebalancing items (mostly for Critical hit protection in BG1 - I won't be using RR bows, darts or similar - just some hood RR puts in Ulgoth's Beard and a +1 club from Beregost).

Anyhow, this is the protagonist - a human swashbuckler with godly stats.


As you can see from his WIS score, the intention is to dual him to a cleric. It will be a late dual however, since I use my own swashbuckler kit revision
- is considered ambidexterous (+2 off-hand THAC0)
- starts with +2 bonus to Armor class, which increases by one every 4 levels, up to +6 at level 17
- gains +1 bonus to his Breath saves at levels 2, 10 and 19
- from level 4, Swashbucklers gain "Swift parry" ability. Each of their melee hits has a 20% chance to grant the swashbuckler an immediate extra attack and a +2 AC bonus vs melee. This ability improves at levels 12 and 19, granting the swashbuckler +1 luck and +2 to his melee damage for the next round.
- at level 14, gains a permanent +1 Luck bonus.
- at level 15, can use "Evasion" HLA 1x/day

Disadvantages:
- cannot backstab nor benefit from backstab multiplier increasing items.
- cannot set traps.


From this - the best level to dual is actually 14 or 15. The caveat is that he shares the same XP table as everyone else (1,7 x thieves' base progression), so level 14 comes at 1,500,000 XP (contrary to 880 000 in vanilla). That's a long way for that fantastic +1 Luck bonus - but it's worth it.
Since most of the bonuses this kit gets are activated in melee combat, he will be played strictly as a melee character, and will be using clubs. Clubs are low-damage (1d4 base) weapons with Item Revisions, but they have a decent speed factor, won't break in BG1 and have few versions with fantastic on hit effects. Also I need a break from my regular flails pick.

Progress so far- I soloed quite a bit to get some XP under the belt before I assemble my party. Ofc, one must choose battles carefuly - gnolls in particular are awful since they crit for massive damage. Spiders aren't fun either with bad death saves on this character.


I bought Mirrored Eyes potions from Thalantyr and went basilisk hunting - avoided Mutamin for now since he's a death sentence for a solo character.


I tried to cheese Mutamin a bit with Korax, but it didn't work. Korax is immune to petrification, but SR changes petrification into a permanent hold-like effect. The poor ghoul isn't immune to that (maybe I should change it..) and dies, while I run to Duralg's.


Using the poor stealth skills (I invested into Open Locks, few points in Find Traps, few in pickpocket) I manage to sneak past the Battle Horrors and kill the basilisks on top, gaining level 7. With that done, it was time to gather my troops. First, Edwin. I love Edwin, he's incredibly powerful with his imba amulet. My main gripe with him is that his BG2 quest is quite hard with SCS if you want to get him quickly. Be that as it may - he levels up on joining so starts with level 3 spells - and knows Haste. SR reworks haste into a single-target spell, but this causes some little AI problems. I tweaked it myself - now it adds +6 to movement speed and + 1/2 apr, lasts two turns, has AoE and is followed by fatigue (-2 THAC0, movement, AC when expires). Imp.Haste is better on all accounts: AoE, +2 AC, +2 breath save, +1 apr, immunity to slow and no fatigue afterwards. It's still much nerfed compared to vanilla Imp.haste (Kit revisions' Whirwind HLA actually works as vanilla Imp.Haste, albeit for only two rounds). None of SR Haste spells doubles the rate of regeneration (or poison).


Now I had enough money to buy the hood with critical hit protection, coupled with Pro Acid scroll I clear the Ankheg farm (mostly for Fire wand) and go to kill Dynaheir; removing all obstacles on the way.


Bad things happened on the way to gnoll fortress - this one being the worst. A lone Ogre-mage charmed my protagonist instantly. This would have been a reload should Edwin fail his save....


Alas, he didn't, and Ogre had no more spells bar two Chromatic orbs. Edwin killed him with Acid Arrows (on a sidenote, I use my own specialist mage revisions, which leads to Edwin loosing both Divination AND Evocation - means no Fireball, Magic Missile and similar. He doesn't really get any bonuses instead, in PnP conjurer gets some but they're utterly nonsensical so.....bleh. I wanted to buff his summon capabilities but it's not as straightforward since I want AI to have the same benefits as my own. Evocation loss isn't so bad with SR anyway.).

After killing Dynaheir, I return to Durlags. This time I don't need stealth, since Edwin is more than capable of killing the Horrors.


I clear out the guardian's floor up to those two slimes; they're a bit too tricky to tackle for now. Dopes are as well, but fireballs cut through mirror images....


Next, Beregost (spiders), FAI (get Jaheira & Khalid. Yes, Khalid. He's a fighter-mage on my install), talk with Dorn.
Up to Ulgoths, pickpocket Dushai. Twice.


Get some quick levels for them...




Note the Ogre Bersekers here. I tweaked the berserker class from Kit Revisions a bit. (this applies to both PC and enemy berserkers).
Once a berserker takes damage, he has a chance (rather high, 50%) to go into Frenzy for 12 seconds. What this does is give him a massive melee damage bonus (+8), a small measure of physical resistance (10%), he takes less spell damage (1 point per die), looses 4 AC points, has +4 to save vs spells and -10 penatly to any breath save he needs to make.
At later levels, he also regenerates rather quickly in this state. This makes Ogre Berserker something you want to stay as far away as possible. Exploiting their poor Breath saves, we kill them at range. This all makes sense only with Spell Revisions (breath save penalty is *bad*).

With that said and done, it was time to visit Nashkel and adopt Dorn. I don't value his kit much, so I use my own version of it
this time.
He keeps his Fear immunity & poison weapon while loosing NPP, he looses the Aura (which is a *spell* in vanilla EE anyway, not an aura) and gets a proper aura (reworked) later on; + he gains some innate spells to boot. It's the first kit I ever made so I'm fond of it. :)
I've also swapped his stats - DEX is reduced to 14, while CON is increased to 16. Due to him being a paladin kit, he retains his spellcasting (I didn't plan on this when making the kit, it's a fighter kit on old engine) but that's fine. He ends up quite being quite powerful I guess...


With him on board, I kill Bassiluss and Greywolf, and get back to finish what I've started with Mutamin. This went horrible, tbh. I had one single Mirrored Eyes potions here. It lasts 5 turns with revisions, but I made all potion buffs dispellable. Poor Khalid gets all his buffs removed asap.


This is bad. Khalid runs back to the party; and all of Muta's basilisks follow him. Crap.
Edwin summons some archers; while Dorn gets petrified asap.


I get rid of one basilisk, while Edwin summons more fodder.


Things get progressively worse as Jaheira gets charmed and poor Khalid succumbs to Sleep and gets petrfied.


Following that, Edwin manages to nail the basilisk with Acid Arrows, while protagonist kills the now out-of-spells Mutamin.


I have a habit on buying Stone to Flesh scrolls with SR - and now I put them to use. Note that characters which are petrfied aren't really "dead" - even PC can be petrified and reverted back provided you have the means to do so.


This has a side effect of not breaking loot or bugging out romances.

With that done, I clear the spider wood north, and return to main plot by killing Mulahey, amazons and Tranzig.




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Places You Know That Could Be Real Life Baldurs Gate Locations.

January 14, 2017, 11:55 am
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I live in the South Of England. and Corfe is not that far from me. Everytime I visit, I expect to see my NPC companions lurking around waiting to join my party.

This is Corfe village and castle.

http://www.dorsetcamera.co.uk/assets/images/corfe_village-5093_1.jpg


So just thought it would be nice to have a thread where people can post images of places they know which could have come from the game and into the real world.
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You know you're spending too much time on this forum when.......

August 12, 2016, 2:49 am
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1. You're not playing enough Baldur's Gate.
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The Baldur's Gate Wiki is in a poor state.

January 14, 2017, 9:23 pm
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Heya, everyone!

Since yesterday (or so ... my sleeping rythmn is way off) I have been trying to fill some gaps and correct errors in the Baldur's Gate Wiki. Well, the Wiki at this point has more holes than a swiss cheese and even though I do love me some swiss cheese, there is only so many holes without ... you get my point.

I know that a lot of folks here on the forums have an astoundingly detailed knowledge on all things BG, so it would be really awesome if you could take all that knowledge and put it over into the wiki.
Check for errors in old articles, make new ones, fill red links, expand stubs.
I know we can turn the wiki into a useful resource for the fandom again.



Also, speaking of which, the Icewind Dale Wiki is in an even worse state ...
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Bith of a beholder

January 15, 2017, 11:39 pm
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From to Volo's Guide to Monster:

Beholders give "birth" by dreaming. During the time in which a beholder rests, his mind never stops working. In case he dreams of a beholder, the reality is warped to create that beholder is dreaming of. The new beholder can be an exact copy of the dreaming one, in which case they will probably fight to death, or a different one. The beholder can dream of a hive of smaller beholders. This way he creates its own colony. Finally, due to its huge paranoia, the beholder can dream of immortality, and therefore he became a death tyrant himself.

The D&D world never stop to fascinate me.
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Baldur's Gate in the real world...

May 22, 2014, 10:22 am
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Let us hunt down the secrets of Faerun on this planet and find the lost cities, towns and wonders of Baldur's Gate! :D

I'll start us off...

The Friendly Arm Inn (Hedingham Castle and Rochester Castle)

image

image
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Average Joe Challenge

December 10, 2016, 2:15 am
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Average Joe Challenge
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As we all know, the rules say stats are rolled as 3d6 for each six stats. This means that the average roll should be 3 * 3.5 * 6 = 63. However, the game is generous enough to make the minimum roll 75 and thus raising the average even higher. I propose a challenge run, where the challenger is encouraged to limit their roll to the average roll of 63.

Rules
1) Roll must add up to 63 (racial bonuses: first roll a 63, then modify with racial bonuses)
2) Only one stat may be below 7; if you are min-maxed to the brim, that's not Joe Average! (Otherwise fighters could do 18/18/18/3/3/3)
3) Optional: No-Reload
4) Optional: SCS
5) Optional: LoB
6) Optional: Solo

When you begin, please post what rules you will be following. Please also post your character(s). I will do an example post next.
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Is Blackguard overpowered ?

February 21, 2014, 3:40 pm
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I am currently tinkering with NI, trying to create some custom kits which would spice up my next playtrough. I am currently in the middle of balance phase, so I've carefuly read trough all kits so I can compare to them. The Blackguard struck me as much more generous than other kits in bonus/malus ratio - especially when compared to other paladins. I would like to ask for public opinion about this issue.

Summary of blackguard kit:

+Lay on Hands upgraded to Absorb Health
+ Immunities to fear and level drain
+ Can control undead, like evil clerics
+ Powerful Poison weapon ability, with more uses/day per 5 levels
+ Powerful Aura of Despair ability, with good level progression
+ Can choose from wider range of alignments (CE, NE, LE - Paladin can be only LG)
- No detect Evil
- No protection from Evil (but may cast it as spell eventually).

Note: I am aware that this is singleplayer game and by no means needs super-duper balanced classes. However I still think that there is a line, which if crossed means less fun in the end.
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Hoa do you roleplay low wisdom?

January 17, 2017, 3:35 pm
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Heya!
Guys , I was wondering : how do you roleplay a character who's got a low (9 or below) wisdom score?

I've been thinking about the BG npc's who are unwise (Shar Teel, Minsc, Nalia..) and I could make out that they have a misconstructed view of reality .

Minsc usually sees reason through Boo's advice, but he is the only one who apparently understands the hamster .

Shar teel is blinded by her hatred and childhood traumas.

Nalia is well intentioned but is unfortunately trying to help a people that she does not really understand while being attached to the paradigms of a noblewoman.

Wise characters are misunderstood by common because they actually see beyond menial problems and have the ability to understand what's really going on . Xzar may be quite a loon but his deeper understanding of life and death gave him the ability to specialize in necromancy, a dangerous school for the unwise.

By following this logic, are unwise characters misunderstood because they actually can't understand basic principles? Shar teel despises all men, her past will always twist her feelings and she is most likely to respond with violence even if it weren't necessary to do so.

What about your own characters? How do you roleplay lack of wisdom?
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Anybody else uses end of round auto-pause?

May 21, 2016, 2:09 pm
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Looks like I'm the only BG player who uses it in the world! I find it useful to manage my spell casters, although it is a bit bugged. I guess I'm more into turn based gaming than real time. So, anybody?
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Misheard quotes!

November 15, 2014, 11:27 am
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This discussion was created from comments split from: Small things amuse small minds.

Because I thought it deserved its own thread! Post what you used to think the characters in BG were saying.
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Introduction and a thank you to Beamdog for reviving these classics

January 19, 2017, 6:51 pm
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So I have followed these forums off & on since the EE's were introduced and I eventually downloaded BG & IWD to my Ipad. I started playing AD&D back in the mid 80s at the age of 11-12 thanks to my brother and many RPGS via commodore 64 (Bard's tale series, Ultima's, Gold Boxes, ect). I was in college when the IE games launched and other than a couple years of Utilma Online (99-2001), I didn't play many PC games. I vaguely remember BG and going almost straight to the mines (could swear i used a created 6 person party) and dying constantly and gave up pretty quick as I didn't have time for it. NWN2 & a persistant world got me hooked for a while, but life kept me busy and outside that and some strategy games (total wars, War of the Ring, ect) I didn't game much til the EEs were announced. I finally bought the BGs for PC thru GOG.com this spring and have played entirely too much with too many restarts. Finally got an Archer to actual Baldur's Gate a month or so ago & still haven't taken a character past chapter 2 in BG2EE.....although I have done most content to that point in different runs. I have been spoiled a bit & avoided that with a play through of SoD and so glad I did so.

Too many posters' to thank for so much insight/help from reading/searching posts. Have downloaded a couple mods (EE Keeper, NPC Banters) and finally decided to concentrate on finishing both BGs before installing new mods. Just wanted to say hello and thanks to this great community and look forward to many more fun adventures!

edit- spelling, still atrocious I'm sure
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Easter Eggs In Baldurs Gate ** Spoiler**

September 9, 2012, 2:35 am
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Iwe heard something about a graveyard and some writing on stones in it...
Anyone knows how many Easter Eggs there are and where ?
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What program was used to create SoD (+bgee npc quest areas) ?

January 22, 2017, 6:01 am
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Out of curiosity, I´d really like to know with what program SoD and the bgee npc quest areas were created?

If at all possible, could you release that program to the community? Be it free of charge or a suitable price, I bet the effect on the longevity and appeal of the game might be as long-lasting as of that custom area designer that was shipped with NWN.
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In-game romances

January 22, 2017, 12:25 pm
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