See, for the Small Teeth Pass, I am wondering if I can cast time stop with my sorcerer the second I enter. That way I get half or more or my buffs up including fire, imp haste, etc. If I can't... I just move to area fully prebuffed with my level 20 crew and go to town. Perhaps do WK first. Of course, that assumes that the fireball is actually made out of fire as oppose to just straight magic which would annihilate any party that dared walk up to it. See.... I am curious about what the creator had in mind when they allowed a dragon to blast you, from far off screen no less, the second you enter and every few seconds after that. This might also be one area which I remove eventually but I really don't understand how anyone could actually beat that. It sounds impossible, just on the face. Being blasted repeatedly, non-stop, every few seconds, for 200+ AOE damage from a critter off screen isn't fun and I mean that it really isn't fun. It isn't a challenge you can overcome, you just die. This is what I am trying to avoid. They might as well just steal all of my stuff and lock me a room filled with liches or greater mummies. 

I will say though. The SCS+Tactics+SR+IR+More weapons for cromwell has really changed the game for me. Characters become far more important. Classes become much more interesting. Mutli-class is filled with almost unlimited possibilities. Chapter two is really a rush to get gold to get back Imoen and a ton of stuff has to wait until ch6. If your sorcerers are not level 16 by the time you get to drow city, good luck going against that lich. I love it because it reawakened a very good game and casts everything in a new light or refreshens it. I want to continue to bask in this glow and not be slammed by chease. 

Oh that is interesting. I love most of everything you listed except for

Item taking in Spellhold (impossible as mentioned before)

WK accesible between SoA-ToB (It didn't work and broke my install)

Delay bonus merchant arrival (Robe of Vecna on all spell casters is one of my few cheats because it makes the game much more playable)

Treat HLAs as innates (A terrible idea and the game was never designed with this in mind. Also, I don't think it applies to casters which makes litch fights impossible)

Make starting dungeon harder (No resting is impossible. The game never was meant for this, even on a challenge.)

(No resting in illithid city) (No resting is impossible. The game never was meant for this, even on a challenge.)

So if you have maximum spell casters precasting and one of them is a level 22 priest and a level 16 mage and a few fighters and you happen to have a +2 two handed sword, a non-magical quarter staff (+1 turned to "master"), an amulet which you get an additional +2 spell, and a bounty hunter who can't set traps.... and you go against a priest which casts mirror image, spell reflection, globe of blades, and shield of acorns, 10' protection from evil and gate, then summon diva... yea. I don't see how that is possible, even theoretically. You don't have a way to hit the demons, the diva casts imp. haste with a vorporal sword and more hit-points... this fight cannot be done. If you can do it, you are doing something wrong. It shouldn't be possible for a band of level 8-9's with really crappy gear to take out a gated demon let alone a level 22 amped up priest with globe of blades and a -2 to -5 AC. You die and then you reload and die again and repeat. They say to pick them off 1 by 1 but you don't have equipment to even hit a gate so really, all they need to do is summon one and you die over and over and over. This is what I am really trying to avoid. Like this is really ridiculous. I almost want to try the Small Teeth Pass but I will MoveToArea or cast time stop. Still though, I am really trying hard to avoid cheese. 

BTW, one of my favorite part of SCS is increasing level dependent mobs to maximum level (including liches). With SR, liches become really straightforward once you have two wizards at level 16 and even easier with 2 at level 18. They are almost totally impossible up until that point though. 

So this is an old topic and I have read many things about this but... I am trying to avert an impossible game where impossible is not defined in terms of difficulty but if it is actually possible to win. I have a huge problem with the SCS component where you have all your stuff taken in the Gauntlet, for example, because you have to face greater mummies and a Rashka with a +2 spear. You die. It isn't really all that fun. Even most summons can't hit a greater mummy and how about we don't assume that I have a level 18+ sorcerer and a priest that can cast HLAs. 

To this extent I am worried about tactics. I have 0 problem crtl-Ying most fights but I don't always want to do that. I was thinking about which components to install assuming full pre-battle casting and SR. Improved Illich is out. There is no way I could beat a lvl 22 priest alone, in +2 full plate with a group of level 8 critters when the priest has excellent AI, pre-battle casting and able to summon divas and gate in demons. I don't have +3 weapons or anything that can take down shield of acorns or spell reflection so basically this fight is a wash. It cannot be won unless you cheat like mad. Perhaps that is how people beat it but I have been playing for years and I stare at this as impossible. It is locking you in a room with monsters with 100% magic resistance and immune to +2 weapons and below and giving you non magical weapons and a bit of rest. 

I am concerned about other aspects like this. Sure, tactics cheats. I don't even have a problem with that but which are the better components I should install and which are the ones I shouldn't?

Thanks!

Oh okay then. In that case, instead of trying to install Ascension (which also breaks quite a few other mods, I guess due to it modifying bgmain.exe)  I will do a BWI with most of BP installed but in the bwi.bat select SCS as the AI component. Then, just modify it from there. 

Thanks. 

Hi everyone. So I basically want to run through the game again and I got about 5 minutes in when Imoen sees the dead Kahlead and there something is not triggering correctly. Basically, every time the talk ends, it starts right back up again.

Also, when the Imoen Romance was installed, her dialogue options would not trigger correctly either. I always got the "I sure have to hand it to you for sleeping in this place". Actually, I got that for every trigger when it didn't have to do with the area triggering an event. Now I just get a state flag not getting set but I worry for more.  I really would like to figure this out. I suppose I could do a whole new reinstall but I would prefer not too. My currently Wei. du.log (without the romance and a few other mods which I thought might have been the issue) is attached. Please let me know if you see anything... let me know. Also, for some reason, all of the char select sounds are coming from BG1. I don't mind that but I can't figure out what mod caused that and if this is related at all. 

Thanks,

~Ben

Damn. In that case, damn. I can't use BP because BP and SCS (IMHO a most excellent AI mod) really do not play nicely. Anyway, cheers. I appreciate it. Actually, do you happen to know if SCS installs much the same thing as Ascension? Oh yea, I tried doing an expert install. That was a huge mistake and never again. Actually, this is one of the few older mods I am really interested in. I tried a mess of others but they all managed to somehow crash my game, corrupt something, CTD, or just prevent all progression in some critical way. I am much more now in the school of tiny mods which don't change much and this looked really fun and perfect. 

The subject says it all. I downloaded the latest Ascension for WeiDu and BiG World Install doesn't pick it up and doesn't install it. It is also not on the list of available mods. I don't get it. The documentation says that it should work. Anyway. I installed it on top of a fresh install before I ran BWI. I think I did the correct thing but I am not sure. It is fine that it isn't recognized but please make a note of it in the PDF and tell me when I should install it. 

Thanks!

~Ben

I think I might just revive this dead topic. This mod is really quite good but the journal entries need quite a lot of work. It would work really well if Ailoth Tam spawned next to the guy running the keep and you have to talk with him before you get the world map trigger. Something along the lines of "We found this coward lurking in the bathroom. You should have a word with him." and then you interrogate the guy and the keep master says something like "I know that trade route. Most likely they are stuck here. The terrain is very tough and it is only a few hours walk from here." 

That way you don't have to search the entire 2nd floor for the bathroom (which isn't all that blue). Also I found the guy after I sacked the caravan. So I didn't really get the whole caravan thing either. A much easier way of doing things is something like "You... how did you find us?" <blah blah blah> "There is no way you could have gotten that information without his death. To arms men!" and then the battle begins. Multiple paths through the mod is proving difficult. Also, I know nothing of what to do with the black lotus. 

Anyway, just my 2c. Again, this is great. There are no crashes which I am in awe of. As a point of reference (since this came up with the lighthouse too), being direct is much better than being indirect. There is a fine line between saying something like "Maybe I should check this out..." in the journal, telling people, and just being so vague as to be frustrating. For example, not giving me the key leaves me wondering what the hell I need to do to unlock the lighthouse at which point I would just leave the mod since I have no idea what to do and I would not think to go back and talk with the guy I JUST SPOKE with. Same with this. Why would I ever try to find a random spawn in a bathroom when there is no mention of him at all? Good luck and thanks. This mod is very stable, but there are a lot of kinks to work out. 

So I was playing this through for the 10th time and I was getting a bit board of all the chatter so I decided to go to the swamp, got the stick, and backstabbed the first person who talks to me (I think the archer around the fountain). They never got the chance to talk to me which I think threw off the sequence of the dialogue since no other NPC who was suppose to talk with me ever did. I think a few mods get around by just knowing when a PC goes into the visible rage of the NPC (though I don't know the code behind making this work). Then they just have all dialogue automatically and the sequence is fine. 

Also, I have to request that the staff be amped up a bit to a +4. When a +4 staff is available from essentially the start of the game, any special staff should really be either a +1 with mage specific attributes or a +4 for warriors and thieves. It is really useful and nifty but as a +3 it should not get used while for a +4 it should. Also, I made the item pulse since it was so powerful but that is just for fun really. I modified it up to a +4 and it is really quite fun. BTW, that wouldn't be overpowered. It is the last item you get after clearing an entire map and those fights can be very hard. Also, this way I have another weapon against demi-liches as oppose to just another nifty weapon which I won't use and most likely sell. 

Just a few thoughts. 

~ben

Hi everyone. So I had spent many many hours trying to get this all to just magically work with linux when I realized that I had a windows computer. Wine will not use .bat files which is a huge pain if you want to use Big World Install.bat (which I did because it makes life so much easier) . If you have access to a windows computer I highly recommend doing a full install and run the Big World Install.bat with all of your mods. For the widescreen mod, make sure that this is the screen resolution for the computer you are going to play on. For me, I have a very nice 1080p monitor so I did 1920x1080. I also included the beta of SCS for some of the party AI script fixes. I also used the generalized biffing mod because you just have to. The SCS AI slows down the game quite a lot, generalized biffing makes it playable. 

Anyway, so once everything worked on the windows computer I copied over the 30GB folder. I dd'ed the ToB disk and loop mounted it so wine could find it. Then I ran wine TobExLoader.exe and it just all magically worked. I had BG2, fully modded, in beautiful 1080p. Actual frame-rate depends on location but ranges because 20 in umar hills to 30 in a single room. TobEx is fully wine compatible. There are some dll's which you need to install to get multiplayer to work but that is about it. I am really impressed. 

So I had a mess of pitfalls getting there. Mods are generally not compatible with linux+wine+Weidu.exe. The Weidu for linux died on me a few times and complained that I wasn't running it in the game directory. There are a ton of errors I think accessing a weidu file which causes the mods to crash. This was discovered when I wanted to change something in a mod and 5 other mods had to be uninstalled and re-installed. The mods were installing perfectly under windows but errors caused it to break in linux. 

My message to people trying to run BG2 under wine is to build everything under windows, make sure everything is the way you want it to be, and then move everything over. Assume you cannot change anything once you move it to linux but once it is on linux, everything will work. Not even sound is an issue anymore. It plays with a few flaws but nothing major. It runs at or better than on windows. 

Oh yea, I also have a 10$ Radion graphics card with 512MB of DDR3 memory. It is cooled by a heat-sink. This is not a high end gaming computer and it will play flawlessly. Most of the time I get 27FPS with a full install of SCS running and generalized biffing. I know that this might not be the most coherent post, I am just jubilant right now. I can make this into a step by step guide if need be. 

This bug stems from a bug with the slime. The slime does not need fire to kill it. I walked up with a +3 staff and murdered it in a single hit. It doesn't split in 2 like slimes from Watchers keep. I am guessing this is a different slime than a true fission slime. Anyway, again, using the above code does fix the problem. Yes, I also have SCS 1 and SCS 2 installed. 

So this is the 2nd time or so I have played through most of BG and some of BG2. I am first going to complain a bit, show some bugs, and then say the great things about this. 

TDD is busted 6 ways to Sunday. This mod is so filled with bugs and CTDs that it isn't worth allowing to install. 

CtB needs a walk-through. There are places that I get to and I have no idea what they are or what I need to do there. Even if it is really basic. Until that is done, I would also not allow that install.

In BG, someone should really go through a few items and nerf them. There is a mod where you are chased by a bunch of people for stealing something staff-like. I actually don't even know what I stole. Anyway, +3 weapons with 100% stun on hit no save when you are level 2 is unacceptable. It doesn't matter how awesome you are at playing, it isn't possible to do and you will party wipe without question. 

Stop targeting my mage before level 8. Stoneskin is required and yes, that is great but I have had to raise my mage dozens of times because I would sleep, a random encounter would ensue, and my poor mage would have 15 arrows from 25 kobalds hitting her. There is nothing at all that can be done, particularly at lower levels. 

Chaos is really really powerful before you have chaotic commands. Perhaps limit that to only bosses for a while in the game?

Black Talon Elite archers can hit every shot at my worrier with 18 dex and armor. He has a -7 or -8 AC and every single arrow fired hits. That is sort of ridiculous unless they have a Thaco of 0 or -2 and not even I have a Thaco that good. 

Drop invisibility potions, just get rid of them off of any thief in BG. You don't have true sight, they cost around 500g, why would every single theif I run into have unlimited stacks? If you grant them this, only allow it once or just have them hiding. This pop potion, attack, pop potion, attack, repeat is BS. It might make stoneskin mandatory, but until I get stoneskin I am totally f'ed. 

Oh, also I have a helm which grants true site. People can pop a potion and magically go invisible. I think there is a bug there and it murders my mages. 

Also, can something please be done about critters running away? Yes, that would be the most realistic thing to do but eventually they will die and scattering is crazy. Also, some classes (Kensi, beast master) don't get ranged weapons so it sort of goes like this: Rush critter, stop for hit, critter moves about a foot, rush critter, stop to hit, critter moves about a foot... and I repeated that for about 2 minutes with a few kobalds just to see how long that would go. 

Bonehil orcs can do 10-20 dmg per hit and hit a -4AC almost every shot. So, yea... that is so broken I shouldn't have to talk about it much. For reference, Imoen could do about 3 damage. Range is different than melee. It is sort of acceptable for an enemy or boss to do 30 damage in melee, but range is too powerful. You drop before you move. 

Also, please fix sorcerer spell progressions. For some reason they stop at 4. Early on it REALLY changes balance. Also, with SCS, un-nerfed sorcerers are mandatory just to have the huge number of spells required to bring down mages. Also, in the documentation, there isn't a mention of which mod changes spell progression for sorcerers. Please don't have that as the default. 

Sleep also seems broken. Somehow my 7th level mage was knocked unconscious and it shouldn't work on anything past level 4. I don't know how that worked. 

Oh also, there is a REALLY annoying CtD with the wayvern animation which has not made it into any of the latest fixes. Please fix it. It is really a bad bug involving the death animations. It is particularly painful with random encounters where you can't scroll the screen. 

Now for the good. Default SCS stuff is awesome. It actually makes mages hard. Don't allow tactics and SCS to install together. 

I would alter the stacking from 200% to 750%. If you are allowing item stacking, just max it out. 

Apart from CtB and TDD, every other mod that I have installed has worked and worked beautifully. Also, I cannot complain about not having to write that .bat file. 

This is a totally different experience than vanilla BG. 

I cannot figure out how you managed to get this stuff working together. 

Basically, this is really awesome. This is whole thing is a huge plus in my book. It would be really nice to have people go through the game and work out some balance stuff because some mods install crazy monsters. Those Copper Coronet guards are nuts but at leas they are sort of fair. Bonehil orcs are not. Theif tactics are damn nasty. Targeting mages early on is really unfair. It isn't even cheap, it is really really unfair and impossible to defend against. Ctrl-Y has been good to me on only a few encounters. 

Anyway, if you want me to post the WeiDU logs let me know. 

Thanks!