38 replies to this topic

[Argent77]

File Name: Trials of the Luremaster for Baldur's Gate
File Submitter: Argent77
File Submitted: 06 Feb 2019
File Category: Trials of the Luremaster for BG2:EE

This is the Icewind Dale expansion "Trials of the Luremaster", made available for BG2:EE, Siege of Dragonspear and EET (Enhanced Edition Trilogy).

The quest starts by talking to the halfling Hobart Stubbletoes, who can be found either in the Umar Hills Inn (SoA), Amkethran Inn (ToB) or in the southeastern area of the Coalition Camp (SoD). In the course of the adventure you have the opportunity to explore a haunted castle, test your mettle in challenging combat and lift an ancient curse. In addition to the original adventure, the mod provides various story and combat improvements as well as interactions from all of the Bioware and Beamdog NPCs.

Components:

1. Trials of the Luremaster (requires BG2:EE, SoD or EET patched to 2.0 or higher)

This is the main component. It installs many new areas, creatures, items, spells and everything else needed to enjoy the adventure. (Recommended party strength: level 11 or higher.)

The mod makes a number of slight changes to the adventure to bring it more in line with the Baldur's Gate universe. Spells and items that are only available in Icewind Dale and have little or no relevance in the adventure have been replaced by similar BG2 spells or items. Moreover, several events, scripts and creature animations have been expanded, improved or adapted to Baldur's Gate style.
 
This component also makes a good number of unique Icewind Dale spells available to the player. They are added to various stores, creatures and containers.

2. Rebalance weapons and equipment (requires the main component; not available for SoD)

Many items in Icewind Dale are more powerful than items found in Baldur's Gate II. Since the mod allows you to gain access to several powerful weapons, armor and equipment, it may diminish the challenge from the rest of the game. This component replaces these items by less powerful variants.
 
Note: Because of balance reasons this component is automatically installed by the main component "Trials of the Luremaster for Baldur's Gate" in a Siege of Dragonspear game.
 
3. Reduce experience from monsters and quests (requires the main component)
 
The whole adventure allows you to earn about 300,000 to 400,000 XP which can be too much depending on when or where you start the quest. This component allows you to reduce the experience gained from killing monsters or granted by completing quest stages. You can choose from the following options:

• Reduce by 25 percent
• Reduce by 50 percent
• Reduce by 75 percent (Recommended if you start the quest in the Coalition Camp, Siege of Dragonspear campaign.)
• Grant no experience

4. Allow to trade with Hobart before starting the adventure (requires the main component)

This component allows you to trade with Hobart's store even before you accept to join his adventure.
 
Attention: Some of the items for sale are quite powerful and may reduce the challenges of the rest of the game.

Click here to download this file

[jastey]

Congratulations to the release! Does TotLM(BGII) require the worldmap mod?

[Argent77]

Thank you!

 

No, this mod doesn't add anything to the world map. The party is conveniently teleported there and back again.

[The Imp]

Aah, yeah, this adventure, unlike the original IWD adventure, is a single strait tube without worldmap interaction.

Congrats.

 

Hmm, does K4thos know about this ... so he won't be doing the exact same thing... aka is this a co-operation ? Hopefully.

[Argent77]

K4thos will certainly know about it. However, his mod goes a different way by importing the required files from IWD:EE and converting them on the fly, so there isn't really much in common (except for some bits of extra content which is already shared, afaik).

[Ithildur]

Quite interested in this mod especially after seeing Argent77's impressive scripting and general work on other mods. My only concern is overall gameplay balance; I'm very picky about avoiding the tons of mediocre/poorly balanced mods out there but still end up with XP and wealth bloat in SoA from several mods plus some EE content (even after avoiding SoD). Any idea how much additional XP might be gained from going through this?

Edited by Ithildur, 13 December 2019 - 05:49 AM.

[Argent77]

You'll mostly gain XP by defeating enemies. I'd rate XP gain for most creatures as average though (ranging from 100 to 5000 XP in average, slightly more for boss creatures). The mod is aimed at higher level parties though, so the amount of XP should still be manageable. I'd say you won't level up more than once or twice. More problematic could be the amount of powerful items you can get there, since they are aimed at the original IWD setting. However, the mod provides an optional subcomponent to take care of that.

[Argent77]

A new release is available: Trials of the Luremaster for Baldur's Gate v2.0

This version makes the mod available to SoD and ToB. In addition to the Umar Hills Inn you can now also meet Hobart in the Coalition Camp (SoD) or the Amkethran Inn (ToB).

The subcomponent "Make IWD spells available to the player" of the previous version caused some trouble in combination with SCS or IWDification. It has now been merged with the main component and should work well together with other mods.

Full changelog:

• Made adventure available to Siege of Dragonspear.
• Added multiple starting points of the adventure (SoD:Coalition Camp, SoA:Umar Hills, ToB:Amkethran).
• Merged subcomponent "Make IWD spells available to the player" with main component to solve compatibility issues.
• Added optional component to reduce experience gained during the adventure.
• Added partial Spanish translation (thanks Chidojuan).
• Added partial Polish translation.
• Various bugfixes.

The mod is currently available in English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish and Polish.

Edited by Argent77, 18 April 2020 - 04:34 AM.

[Prof Errata]

If only this mod could be adapted for BG2ToB Classic…It would be great…Well if it’s possible…

Edited by Prof Errata, 18 April 2020 - 09:49 AM.

[Argent77]

This is a port from the Enhanced Edition version of IWD and uses many EE-specific features. But even the classic IWD version wouldn't run in classic BG2 without doing a large rewrite because it used IWD-specific features not available in BG2.

[Prof Errata]

Well, It’s said. I hope nevertheless we’ll have BG2EE in French one day…But thank you for efforts.

[chimaera]

The subcomponent "Make IWD spells available to the player" of the previous version caused some trouble in combination with SCS or IWDification. It has now been merged with the main component and should work well together with other mods.

Thank you! My druid's very happy now.

[chimaera]

The party has now made it out of the castle and I can report back that I've run into no bugs.

 

My only (very minor) criticism is that there is still too much magical loot, even with the 'rebalance weapons and equipment' component. The party ended with over 80k gold afterwards.

[Argent77]

Thank you for the feedback. Yeah, that campaign showers you with exceptionally powerful equipment. I'm not so much concerned about the money (you've probably collected that amount or more in BG1, too). However, magic items can make a difference in the game. The current state is still adapted to BG2-SoA level of equipment which is probably too much for SoD. I'll see if I can "rebalance" the loot even more.

[Endarire]

@Argent77
As for rebalancing loot, what about adding an option to make Trials loot SoD quality initially and upgradeable to be SoA or ToB quality eventually?

[Argent77]

As for rebalancing loot, what about adding an option to make Trials loot SoD quality initially and upgradeable to be SoA or ToB quality eventually?

Dynamic adaptation of loot is very complicated and in many cases impossible or prone to errors. I'll try to rebalance static loot further instead.

[Argent77]

A new version is available: Trials of the Luremaster for Baldur's Gate v2.1

This is mainly a bugfix release.

Changelog:

• Rebalanced Harpy Wail.
• Reduced number of SPELL.IDS additions.
• Improved "Rebalance weapons and equipment" subcomponent.
• Added workaround to deal with compatibility issues caused by mods using Detectable Spells library.
• Removed unused spell 'Heavenly Inferno'.
• Fixed invalid resource references in various mod files.
• Fixed typos in Italian translation.

[The Imp]

If my ancient memory is not completely off the track, this portion of the IWD could be also started as an independent campaign, is there anyway you could make this into being an independent campaign in the EE games ? I am of course talking about the option in the BGxEE games, similar like the Black Pits were.

[Argent77]

If my ancient memory is not completely off the track, this portion of the IWD could be also started as an independent campaign, is there anyway you could make this into being an independent campaign in the EE games ? I am of course talking about the option in the BGxEE games, similar like the Black Pits were.

Not quite. In IWD this adventure is part of the "Heart of Winter" expansion (or more like a bonus adventure that was later integrated into the HoW campaign). I don't think the mod is big enough for a separate campaign though. The scale of the adventure is probably similar to Watcher's Keep.

[Argent77]

A new version is available: Trials of the Luremaster for Baldur's Gate v2.2

Note: Because of technical reasons this version is only available from GitHub. Fixed.

Changelog:

• Added Project Infinity metadata.
• Fixed potential display issues with component names in WeiDU.log and Project Infinity.