Wow, that's one of the strangests bugs I've read about here. Curious what it is, hope someone smart strolls by and nabs it.

What I meant is, I take char 1 XP, add char 2 XP, add char 3-6 XP, then divide by 6 and give everyone equal Every chapter or so is plenty sufficient for nobody to fall behind, even with some unfortunate deaths. XP was never an issue for me, I cheat with SK when it feels good Long live single player games.

No no, I mean I do everything before Spellhold, and only then set out leaving the most bitchy tasks only And so I always have to have some character I'll later have to kick out/go as 5. And I so don't have the heart to let poor Yoshimo die. I remember my tears first time I played I tell him to leave me be and imagine he'll live happily ever after. It's not a matter of technicalties. Every now and then I like to even up party's XP by SK anyway taking a medium. But I would like very much to have a complete party from the get go

When I wanted Xan in BG1 to complete my setup I tried to rush Nashkel mines right away. The Duergar welcome party made me sad xD I didn't want the 'standard' team this time, so I took only Imoen from that (cause who can say no to those eyes). But damn, did I make a mistake taking Branwen... I think she will be scraping Anomen's heels in the line of my hated NPCs. I thought she was more for me before

Bag of holding on the donkey? I've noticed that mod before, but what do you mean? Does it eat your crap duplicate or not (hence solving all such issues)? xD From the party I can just drop stuff down, but that's not the point. I mean like, in BG1 so far I've found about 20 "Varscona +2" swords, two Shadow Armors, duplicates of some druidic maces and goodies like that that were probably not meant to be found again and again Same with "Mail of the Dead +2" that just keeps popping up all over.

Party-building wise my biggest beef is always Imoen, classes and kits are way down on the issue list I mean, do I play with 5 party members through 3/4th of the game? Do I keep dragging some n00b along and keep replacing him/her with another temporary n00b? WHAT DO. I never know. I think last time I played with a party of 5. Which isn't as fun as party of 6. But this game has me in some quasi-roleplaying vice, and I don't know if I could tell Imoen to go on her merry way and still enjoy the rest of it xD #girlproblems

Ha, by master of obscure cheese I didn't mean bug-abuser though More like hiding places, throwing clouds out of vision, using invisibility to wait out some buffs, sending waves of summons one-by-one to bait some pesky fireballs and stuff like that. I never did any sort of gold cheats or spell cheats. That's no fun for me Why play if I can win everything right after leaving Irenicus' Dungeon cause I got bajillion of gold, best items, and a 1-button winnage? Pf

How do you remove duplicates of unique items? If that's easy, that's one thing I'd do.

@Kreso

I did, longish time ago. I found some way around that, but I don't remember it well enough to tell you I'm a genius of obscure cheese when it comes to BG xD

@TDouglas

Thanks a lot for telling me how the transition works like I'll have no qualms doing a fresh install then and just exporting my characters and importing to the new game. The only issue might be "Learn through use" mod, but I'll just hit some beggars once or twice to get the proper variable going and then SK it to the value I had at the end of BG1

I'm a graphic designer (let's say), so my computer is good enough to run anything BG has to offer, I'd say, as long as the engine itself allows it. And yea, I still have that stupid idol with me, and the armor. I'm glad some mod added a bag of holding to Davaeorn, but I had enough issues finding someone to carry that crap through half the game haha. Then again, I could just trash it. It's not like I NEED that sword, it's just the completionist in me that made me keep the junk.

I generally try to avoid old versions of mods though. Even if new ones do some silly things, they tend to be more stable and less buggy all the same, and it's more important. I probably ticked some option that removes overpowered items (I recall there was one), but I also installed the Stuff of the Magi mod, because it said it's put in some specially picked enemies. Which is fun. I don't mind some 4 items put in powerful hands to surprise me when I get it. I'll take anything that will surprise me in this game nowadays But I mean, legitimately surprise me, not be 40 magical arrows on every gnoll or something xD That's no good.

Hmm... I'll tick that invisibility option when I redo the install then. I assume it makes someone permanently invisible? I don't want to check the readme because I know the locations of the items are listed there and I want no spoilers xD

Hmm, I don't know, did I get to ToB in a modded game? I don't think so. I think each time something got broken in SoA/I rushed through cause of some romance and Irenicus got me I remember though last time I played, I actually had to use spells like Breach or Lower Immunity and all In vanilla game I just took whatever dealt most damage+some defensive buffs and rolled with it. Not even chaotic commands xD I had no idea you could protect yourself from imprisonment, I never really needed to

Yea, but I recall Abazigal's son had Imprisonment spell, didn't he? It's been a long time ago, but I'm almost sure of that. What does a solo-player do about that? You can't just skip the bastard, can you?

Well, I'm sure it gives someone plenty of satisfaction It's like every challenge. That's why I install the hardest mods I can find to feel accomplished when I FINALLY get the right tactic for some encounter But gods, I cannot imagine doing no-reload as a completionist haha. I mean, you play 20 hours, do the quests, gather everything, and then you suddenly die. And what? Do you start over? Do the same quests etc all over again right after? Or do you wait for a year to get over the frustration and perhaps forget bits to make it feel less repetitive?

Aerie and Minsc examples remind me of a time-challenge my mods gave me last time I played xD It wasn't voluntary, but something bugged real bad, and my NPCs were slowly becoming unresponsive No amount of cheating or SKeepering helped. First I lost Aerie, then a bit later Minsc followed. Then the bug had taken Jaheira. It was like a race with time I tell you ;D

I had no idea that Maze/Charm were ending the game honestly (never played a solo game, kills the fun for me). That sounds really stupid for a no-reload challenge (or a normal game even). I mean, there's not even a way to save vs. Imprisonment, is there? Not sure about Maze. And doing a save vs. Charm is such a damn random thing. What do you do? Avoid every mage/sirine before you get Helm of Charm protection? What about the Imprisonment/Maze?

@The Imp

I'm pretty sure it was BP It's a guess, but the "buggy" script name was BPWDASGT.BCS. BUT! But my hope is that it was something about NtoSC being incompatible with it or something. I'll have to port around BG2 a bit more I guess, becase

@Kreso & CrevsDaak

I do want there to be more enemies or some new skills in them and to have things that SCS doesn't touch upon also improved. And - and that's probably what gets me into bugs - I want those goodies alongside SCS AI and the components it has :< I'll look for some creature that also has similarly-named script and I'll port to see if they're fine.

Although it looks like this particular issue is super easy to fix if only I know the other script that should be there. I'd just check with vanilla game, but I don't recall orc mages/shamans being there at all? Aren't they from IWD or something? Damn, shame on me. I THINK there were regular orcs in Windspear Hills, but I thought I knew this game better xD

@Kreso

Wait, is the NoReload meaning also you cannot pause? So your wife could distract you like that? Also, you cannot save and go to sleep? I thought those things ended only with character's death xD But still, it's not something I'd ever enjoy. I like to play slowly, I don't take any pleasure from rushing things or getting frustrated for dying for whatever reason. If I see a lich and my team is lvl 8 fresh out of Irenicus' prison, you bet I'm gonna try to fight that lich, die in 2s, and decide I'm not that awesome

Kit-wise, I never play with kits. I don't know, they irk me, I don't like them. I only like Wild Mage cause that kit is just fun Unless it sucks in most of my gold, I notice it the next day, and I have to go back X hours or my OCD will kill me xD That Anti-paladin sound fun. Not. I mean maybe if you play single character in a deviously modded game and normal class would just not suffice. I don't know, to each their own, I play my own way too that would make some hardcore challengers gnaw at their mouse cable. I use the dreaded Mage/Rogue/Fighter, cause I hate Jan, I like to use Katanas, and I like spells and tactics they allow for

Also, I guess I'll try using bows this time I never even knew the arrows of dispelling were strong. I don't think I ever used any after my 1st playthrough. Simple math:

1 character = 1 bow

but

1 character = 2 shiny magical weapons that I cannot just... *sell*, cause that would be BLASHPHEMY, CMON

I didn't really look at the bugs part I've been using mods for far too long to mind, and I know SCS is being updated (kudos to all) which makes it better each time I play. I'm sure whatever bugs are left they are a breeze now.

The only thing I worry about after the review, is that if I don't install BP components, and roll only SCS it will be too easy. Also, AFAIR those Tactics components mentioned here are also included in another mod, and that another mod [could it be BP here?] is marked as preferred to Tactics actually.

I couldn't download Polytweak when I did the install. Is it also in that poor rpgdungeon site? I had to search a LOT to finally stumble onto someone kindly pasting ImpAsylum somewhere. And your signature makes me sad, cause I also had a big headache finding that thing and you link it right there xD

I use BWS for the entire install, I trust it to order everything nicely. I remember installing mods in the times when it didn't exist, and I'm not too keen on that particular time travel. I LOVE this software. I'd throw kittens at it.

Hm, the review you linked says that SCS generally doesn't make everything much tougher. Maybe I'm a masochist, but I had a BLAST in original Tactics (I believe) Irenicus' Dungeon. The no-rest, no-door-closing, fuck-you-you're-doomed version. Took crazy tactics, but daaamn, when I got out! What a satisfaction

Although I think Tactics' Irenicus was overdoing it. I never got there, but I read the "walkthrough" and it seemed insane, and basically allowing to do it using 1 tactic only. That's not so fun.

I would certainly love for the entirety of the game to get much more difficult. It makes me think and be glad I found that sick item X after much struggles, cause I feel I actually need it

Generally while doing the installation I used Big World Setup. There I looked at every component's notes, if they said, for instance: component X from BP preferred to SCS. SCS preferred to Tactics. Then I installed the BP one. If it said (as it mostly did), SCS preferred to BP and Tacticts. BP preferred to Tactics component Y etc, I chose SCS one.

So, if I were to do a new install (and I'm considering that after I'm done with BG1, I want to get rid of iitem pack, stuff's OP, and change some other minor things), I assume that's not the best logic to go by? I should just skip entirely the BP part? I want a challenging game with smart (but non-cheating), more difficult opponents.

Also, could someone please tell me what's the real difference between using the BG1->BG2 transition with the BiG World as opposed to starting a new BG2 game with exported characters? I'm very curious, and with the possibility of needing a new install (really don't want some AI cabbagery), I'd like to know what I might be losing.

@Kreso

Do you recall any specific instance/fight/area where it happens? I'd port and check. My go-to check is always the sewer party in SoA sewers, as they didn't work right for me the past 2 BiG World installs, but this time they work just fine.

@The Imp

What other mods could be the problem? Any special offenders to look out for?

~~

When I look at it all, I see it'd be quite a feat to construct a stable installation with plenty new content (aside of HUGE mods, like NEJ or SOU, those kinda break my game immersion, no offense to creators, I'm sure they're awesome in their own right, but they feel too much like total conversions for me) that doesn't feel like cheating I've looked at the topic surfing around the front page here that somewhat touches on the issue, but his selection doesn't appeal to me. I've played this game so many times I want real, big changes and solid amount of new content, not just subtle refinements But while I seem to have done better this time, balance-wise, my team's still swimming in gold and OP lewts. Granted, fights were tough enough to make me feel I earned most of it, but I definitely have to install Aurora Shoes & Boots gold component next time around, and steer clear from funny vendors. Someone sold me a Mage Robe that lowered sorcerer's AC to 0 Comparing that to Archmage robes, they look just saaaaad, haha. But I just couldn't resist the shiny ._.

And there you have it, Linthar I replaced the Default script in my orcs with the DW#whateveryourshad, and the orcs are working nice and smooth.

I was so careful not to install any overlaying AI scripts this time (knew it was an issue), and yet I still managed to derp out. Oh well, at least in this case the cause is clear and easily fixable

Come to think of it, let's be useful for anyone with similar issues:

ORC3.CRE -> default script replaced with DW#ECL6.BWS

ORC4.CRE -> default script replaced with DW#2ENC6.BCS

I wonder if BP will give me any more issues like this :<

I'll paste scripts then, but what's odd is that it worked the same way after I replaced them with some other scripts just to check if anything will happen

First is: OVERRIDE SCRIPT - GENSHT01.BCS

Second is: DEFAULT SCRIPT - BPWDASGT.BCS

EDIT: I removed the scripts from here, too long and probably not even relevant. They're in the file attached to the post just in case, but I guess it's a conflict more than a script issue.

Nobody knows? I guess I'll have to skip that mod entirely then. Sadpanda though. Attaching one of the original extracted orcs (the one I was fearful of mauling, it's a priest I believe), just in case someone had a clue.

20. [model] In NtotSC, there are "Orc Victim" models (people on spikes). They are unusually large, and also pixelated. So I guess they were meant to be smaller, which would fix both issues.

biggie 21. [AI]  Orc Mages and Clerics in NtotSC suddenly stopped casting any spells. They did cast in this very installation before, then I go back (it was too difficult before) and they don't. They stand around twitching (EDIT: it's shooting sling, I realized), or attack by staff. It's so weird, and actually defeats the purpose of the mod (too easy). No clue what could've caused it, I've reloaded and older save and they still don't cast anything, so it's game-wise, not save-wise. I checked other mages in the game - both BG1 and BG2, and they're all working fine.

I did a fresh install (beside the other one of course), this time with Stratagems Fix, just to see if the issue persists. It does. In this install I also removed spellcasting in armor (seen somewhere it caused a bug with priests for someone... though in my case it's just those orcs). No change. Old savegame, as well as brand new, both had orc mages and priests shooting me with slings.

EIDT: Bah, this one really ruffles my jiffles, it sounds like a challenging quest and this way it's WAY too easy. I've actually gone and opened Near Infinity. I found my orc victim ORC03.CRE, exported it (so I had backup in case the original exploded), then started messing with it. But since I've no idea what I'm doing, nothing happened. Though I expected at least something weird xD Nothing changed at all. I took that default script and copied it to override, general, and class (one by one when nothing happened). But, well, nothing happened ;< I'd put something else there, but I've no clue what. Or if that even matters. Am I even modifying the orc or did generalized biffing or whatever else block it?

PFF. Going to sleep. I suck. Merry Christmas guys, in case I didn't get a chance to drop by tomorrow. Hugs.

16. [NPC] Centeol drops items on her death. Exact duplicate of what's in the "container" beside her. Theoretically you can't walk on top of her corpse, but telling character to pick up her junk and giving them a moment to try to budge through yields the drop.

So I've downed Davaeorn after a toughish battle (yay! challenge! even had to use a potion other than healing one) and made my way to Friendly Arm Inn to deal with the copious amount of collected junk (I'm so rich with these mods, sitting at 260k gold after already spending close to 200k, but with the amount of assassins and other noobs coming after me I guess it's no surprise. They drop what they use). But if someone wanted to use the mods I did and not swim in gold they might need to go harder on balancer. Though I wonder if that wouldn't remove items from enemies making them easier to fight. I didn't want that, I guess that's why I am where I am

17. [audio] And so in front of the Inn's walls stands a new chick, I talk to her, accept the quest, kick her out of the party, and soon enough a... something triggers. It belongs to Dark Side of the Sword Coast, and is made like the BG1 dreams, but the audio is completely distorted, sounding like someone lowered it's pitch and pace considerably. And by considerably I mean a submerged demon trying to speak kind of voice.

18. [AI Script] Ease of Use character AI. They don't pre-cast Stone Skin (used to, I remember in BG2 for sure), but they try to precast mage armor all the time after rest. Which is fine seeing how it lasts 8 hours, but isn't, seeing how it's cast over 5 or so rounds. If the precast was to be accelerated for that too (like healing), it doesn't work for me. And makes little sense this way.

19. [oddity] Randomly my characters have strange values of Armor Class (like, -22 instead of -12 for example). No clue whatsoever, it goes away randomly too, I catch it every now and then, but it's gone moments after/after rest. But I might not catch other instances of it. No idea if it's visual bug or something.

This, I believe, won't be a bug, but I still haven't stumbled upon Viconia. I use those mods that move NPCs to more convenient locations (unless trapped), but I've traversed through all of the basic locations aside of the Lighthouse and I've yet to bump into her. There's 1 place mid-Peldvale swarming with ogre magi that I had to leave for later, but it's not near her usual spot, and I doubt someone'd call that a more convenient location I'll investigate later on. Cheers.

15. [quest] Maybe I did something wrong, but I never got the quest to kill Basillus from Kelddath Ormlyr. I got the symbol now with me, but he ignores it. Beregost town crier says I'm a hero and Basillus is dead.

If I remember correctly, you need to be rude to him, aka say he can't serve you in anyways which leads to exiting from talking to him. As the other option was to see what he has to sell. It was odd...

I tried the whole 2 options before, one is the shop, the other just closes the conversation entirely. I tried talking with Charname, with character carrying the Basillus symbol, and with Charname carrying it. It shouldn't make any difference, but just in case. The last thing left to try is to load an old save and see if the option was there at the game's start, but by the way all other quests are built in BG1, this shouldn't be happening. I haven't a clue, I'll report back after the load and check.

@Bloodtitan

Good luck, bro! Thumbs crossed

It's such a shame that those Ascalon mods got weird translation I actually couldn't understand, for the life of me, what was I supposed to count when speaking to those 3 guys in Beregost. I'm at the Balor-vs-Gnome quest and it such a cute flavor. I hope one day someone will be able to straighten the language up a little, because other than that, they seem to be very nicely done, and add a bit of surprise for veteran player like myself, which is always oh-so-welcome

15. [quest] Maybe I did something wrong, but I never got the quest to kill Basillus from Kelddath Ormlyr. I got the symbol now with me, but he ignores it. Beregost town crier says I'm a hero and Basillus is dead.

Forsooth, I am not there yet I see. I'll go ahead and scratch that point then!

I know they normally are, I'd actually rather they weren't, so it felt like an actual transition And that they may live happily ever after with Khalid and Dynaheir. Alas, I guess that'd be too much fishy work, and so nobody took that task on :<

I don't know, maybe I CLUAd the wrong one, I took the code from Baldur's Gate wiki, it's very possible it was the other one then. Still - the main issue here, is the Ulcaster Spirit not giving the weapon at all.

As for arrows, books, and most of the things so far really - those things don't matter to me, I'm not a modder, and I've no skill to fix them or do anything about them. I pretty much just report whatever I find odd, out of place, or possibly unintended. Not for my sake, but rather in case someone wanted to make a fix/patch/see what others stumble upon

Nothing so far crapped on my experience in BG1 in the least, so I'm perfectly content with those small things, and won't near NI or any other editor to try and "fix" them That rarely ends well when done by someone with no experience, and I'd only try that if I had some actual bug that actually bothered me But thank you. I'm sure if anyone ever thought of looking at those issues, your clarifying posts will come in handy

11. [item] Arrows of Fire. There seem to exist two instances of those. They are exactly the same, but they don't stack. Both are dropped by Kobold Commandos - 2 of the normal ones as always, and 18 something of the other kind. Pretty sure they come from the same mod that adds arrows everywhere.

12. [crash-like-something] Yea, it's not exactly a crash, and it might not even be caused by one thing, but it happened several times when I was fighting skeleton mage in Ulcaster ruins (where wolves of Ulcaster are). Since I don't crash anywhere else at all, it's likely something goes bad here. But it was more like game-freeze, no errors, not a crash on spell/item/creature spawn. Two times it even unfroze, others it wouldn't, but I actually got through this fight after managing to save in the middle of it and start from there. No idea.

13. [item] The book that the Ulcaster's Spirit wants is duplicated. I'm really sorry, I have no clue where I found the second one (possibly the wraith walking on the surface of the ruins, but I'm not sure, I didn't pay attention to it at first). I could turn both of them in, get the reward twice.

14. [stores/items] Can't sell the following things anywhere (greyed out): potions, armors, wolf pelts, ankheg shells (I could sell one of those to Taerom, but he ignored any new one). The Nashkel vendor also doesn't buy my wolf pelts, and I recall he used to.

~~

@MicBaldur

I think I only did the dog-soup way once. But I was a much less roleplayee kid than I am an adult I would go around killing everything, rats, bats, squirrels, so that my main character had more kills than other party n00bs Good times. I also had to do EVERY quest, and discover every discoverable pixel on every map. Without ctrl+j, that took some patience in BG1. But one does not argue with one's OCD xD So yea, there was a quest for dog soup, so dog soup had to be made. Now I just make Umber Hulk soup.

~~

On a side note, what's better/safer - continue with BG1 to BG2 transition, or just export the characters and make a new game? I honestly have no idea how the transition works, never made it to that very end of BG1 before something lured me into BG2 too strongly. But this time I will. And so I wonder. No clue if there's some scripts that could go wrong, or if maybe I should do an install with that SCS fix (so far nothing went wrong with AI anywhere). Or if it actually transfers useful stuff and is more fun to use it. I don't have Minsc or Jaheira in my party, I guess 50 times of taking them along was enough haha. I'm almost inclined to ditch Imoen as well and take someone fresh. But I don't know if my roleplaying inclinations would stomach that.

@ The Imp

I'm not sure if I understood what you said about 8, but I didn't mean balance at all. It's exactly the same item, it just lost its unique name somewhere in this install/in its mod update

10. I did. I've met the Hobgoblins in Temple (with leader) and Bandits in Peldvale (without) around the same time. I was just wandering around maps looking for random stuff before continuing onto the Bandit Camp.

6. I do have a druid. If there's a mod that does it, it's entirely possible that it's the case. I don't meet any suspiciously friendly gnolls or gibberlings.

So far everything's working wonderfully. The only things I've got to list are minor details here and there. Nothing game breaking, no crashes, no stuttering of characters or camera. Amaze. I know that BG1 is the safer and less script-heavy part, but so far I hadn't had ONE serious issue after getting rid of Kurtz.

7. [NPC/AI] I don't know if it's intended or not, but many of the dogs tend to be friendly. That includes wolves in ambushes, dogs in the Nashkel Mines shack (though these guys were hostile once, and the next time I went there they weren't). Sometimes I get "ambushed" by a bunch of friendly war dogs that the scatter around happily I don't really mind this bug. I like dogs, don't need to slaughter them.

8. [item name] I recall vividly last time I played through BWP BG1, there were daggers dropped by kobolds that had a chance to deal damage to the user as well. They were called "Nome Stikka" or something very, very similar. This time the daggers are there with the same properties, but they're just called "dagger". I mention this in case it pertained to more items introduced by whatever mod is responsible for Nome Stikkas - I can't judge, because I didn't finish BG1 part, so I don't really remember anything else that could've lost its name.

9. [item] Stone to Flesh arrows are unusable. They deal d6 damage, and hence destroy the stoned character before they can cure them.

10. [event/NPC] Before the Bandit Camp plotline, I bumped into Chill goblins in the Temple area, told them to go suck it, then killed them all, as I want to storm the camp this time around. I then found a group of bandits in Peldvale, I think they used to also be there for the purpose of joining them, but this time they had no leader. They were friendly, I could talk to them and they shared a gossip about Tazok that upgraded my journal "Bandits!" entry. I'm not sure that should've happened if I didn't ally with the bandits.