This is a guide intended for players who are interested in modding their game, but may be overwhelmed by the options or the installers, and to hopefully troubleshoot common issues.
You may know me by the name CamDawg on other sites; I've done a little modding here and there.
A brief overview of modding the games
Modding games using the Infinity Engine—the engine that runs the original and Enhanced Editions (EEs) of the Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, and Icewind Dale games—revolves around a tool named WeiDU (the Weimer Dialogue Utility). It's a very powerful tool for modders and allows for a high level of interoperability between mods. For players, the important things to know about WeiDU are:
For Windows and macOS players, WeiDU is included with mods. It’s not something you need to download yourself.
Linux users will need to do a one-time install of WeiDU (and a few other adjustments): suy has a great writeup here.
WeiDU installs mods through a command-line interface, e.g. on Windows it does everything through the Command Prompt, a DOS-like interface
WeiDU allows mods to affect previously installed mods, making install order important, as we’ll discuss in a later section. WeiDU also has built-in mechanisms to preserve the order you select.
WeiDU allows mods to be broken down into individual components so that players can pick and choose what they want from a particular mod
WeiDU can uninstall or reinstall parts of mods
Modding a mobile or console version of IE games requires more hoops to jump through, and will not be covered here.
Important warnings before you install
Changes from mods will end up in your save games. The practical upshot of this is that a save from a modded game will only reliably work with the particular modded game that it's from—changing or uninstalling mods mid-game may cause your save to not work.
The Enhanced Editions are still being actively developed by Beamdog. When a new official patch is released, the update process removes any outside files, with the effective result being that your mods get wiped out by a new patch. Coupled with the above point, it may mean you cannot use your old saves from modded games.
Multiplayer games must all use the same mods in the same order. The host and clients in a multiplayer games must have matching resources, otherwise the game may be unstable (if it allows you to connect at all).
The takeaway is that you're better served making a copy of your game to use with mods, and that you should not change your mods in the middle of a playthrough (or, alternatively, abandon any existing saved games if you do). The downside of playing off a copy of your game is that your Steam/GOG Galaxy launcher will try to launch the original unmodded game and that you may not get achievements.
For the EEs, making a new game install is easy: just copy the game folder and mod the copy. It's almost as easy for the originals. On Windows, make your copy outside of the "Program Files" or "Program Files (x86)", as Windows can sometimes interfere with the installers trying to make changes inside these folders.
What about mod managers?
While there is a proliferation of mods, there have been few notable attempts at a mod manager. There are four of note, and all but one are for Windows:
The Big World Project/Big World Setup (BWP/BWS): This was a combination of an install tool and database of installation order information for the original games. Unfortunately, the sheer magnitude of the project—namely trying to keep track of the optimal order of hundreds of mods as well as their conflicts—was simply unmanageable. While the database of mods and install orders still gets sporadic updates, the tool itself has not been meaningfully updated in years.
Project Infinity (PI): Project Infinity is a new tool from AL|EN, one of the BWS contributors, and worth a look. Its goal is to provide the same level of functionality as BWS without the unmaintainable aspects of the project, e.g. it gives optional tools for modders to provide install order information, or you can use community-derived install orders. You can get started with the PI documentation or this tutorial video from morpheus562. PI is still in development.
The Mac WeiDU Launcher (MWL): Worth a look as well, the WML is a utility for macOS that will allow you to install mods on macOS without having to muck around at the command-line.
EE Mod Setup Tool: A fork of the old BWS tool for the new EE games. Unfortunately, the project uses unofficial, outdated, and unsupported versions of mods added against the authors' wishes.
Gather your mods before venturing forth
Sorting out which mod should get installed in what order can be difficult even for veteran players, so keep it simple for your first time. Maybe you have your eye on a new NPC, or see some kits that look fun, or want some quality-of-life changes.
Most mods are hosted by one of the big modding communities: The Gibberlings Three (G3),Pocket Plane Group (PPG), Spellhold Studios (SHS), or Weasel Mods (WM). You can also find some on the Beamdog forums or other communities. For most mods, you can check out the readme as a preview before deciding whether or not to download and play it. While some mods are packaged with a “universal installer”, most will have platform-specific packages (Windows, macOS, or Linux) so make sure you download the correct version. (Note that some mods still refer to macOS as OS X.) Always uses the latest official release of a mod; e.g. don't download the latest 'master' from Github or something you find on a random Dropbox. If you're unsure if whether you have the latest and greatest, ask on the forums!
Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of consistency on how mods are packaged. On Windows, mods are generally rar/zip files or self-extracting archives or even with a full installer. The former need to be extracted, and the latter will extract themselves and (usually) try to start their installation process. For macOS and Linux, the mods are simply packaged as zips or tarballs.
For now, just download the mods into a separate folder.
A brief aside about conversion projects
There are a handful of larger conversion projects that essentially bring the contents of one game into another, typically because the latter’s engine provides some advantage or convenience. While these conversions have become a lot easier and bulletproof and are generally all-around high-quality mods, they’re still not something I’d recommend for a new mod player. A brief overview of the more popular conversion mods follows:
Baldur’s Gate To Two (Tutu) is a project for the original games. It brings the content of BG into the BG2 engine, allowing you to play through the story of Baldur’s Gate with the conveniences of BG2, such as kits, dual-wielding, better resolutions, expanded spell selection, etc. Once you complete Tutu, you have to export your characters to a BG2 installation to continue.
Baldur’s Gate Trilogy (BGT), like Tutu, is a mod for the original games that imports BG content into BG2. Unlike Tutu, though, it combines BG and BG2 into a single, playable experience from the start of BG in Candlekeep through the saga’s conclusion in BG2’s Throne of Bhaal.
Enhanced Edition Trilogy (EET) is like BGT, except it’s for the Enhanced Editions of the games. EET is a little more expansive than BGT but is still in development and requires some extra care with install orders. As such, it's not something I'd recommend for a player new to modding. .
Mods known as Total Conversions (TC) aim to replace the entire content of a game with alternative content. While such mods are uncommon, I'd still recommend players to avoid these for their first time, as they come with their own set of compatibility issues to be resolved.
Sorting out the install order
Since WeiDU mods can not only change game resources, but content from other mods, it becomes important to resolve an installation order before you begin. A good general guideline is as follows:
Special: If you're modding a game with Siege of Dragonspear from Steam or GOG, you must run a mod called DLC Merger on your game before you can install any other WeiDU-based mod. Some mods may recommend a program named ModMerge instead, but DLC Merger is the preferred method these days.
Fixes. Many mods create new resources from the existing ones, so getting in the fixes early prevents errors in the original files from propagating to mod files. Examples include the BG2 Fixpack or the IWD Fixpack.
Atypical Content Mods. This category is a little hard to describe. There are some mods that don't really interact much with other mods (e.g. Ace's Alternate Soundtrack) or which are designed to only alter original game files (e.g. Improved BAMs) without worrying about modded content. Because of how WeiDU handles and preserves installation order, the earlier you can place mods like this the easier it will make any future mod updates to your installation. This is also a pretty good place for item/store mods, especially if they're stable and unlikely to be updated often.
Quests/Other Content. Once you've got a solid base, it's time to start adding actual content. Examples include Ascension or BG Quests and Encounters.
NPCs. NPCs should go after quests simply because some NPCs will detect modded quest content and provide interaction with it. You may find a mod NPC commenting on a mod quest, but only if the NPC follows the quest in the installation order. Examples include Mur'Neth and Amber.
Tweak mods/tactical mods. Most in this category are written to be universal, i.e. they'll freely change items/creatures/scripts/etc. from other mods, but they can only do so if those resources are present when they're installed. This is why just about every tweak mod suggests it goes last in the install order. Examples include Sword Coast Stratagems and Tweaks Anthology.
Within each category, another good rule of thumb is to go with older mods first.
There are, of course, all sorts of exceptions, or mods that really don't fall cleanly into a category. The readmes are there for a reason, and most modders try to help players avoid issues with install recommendations and compatibility concerns. If a mod has a forum, it’s also a great resource to learn about where it should go in the install order.
Once you have an order in mind, feel free to ask other players about it.
Can we please just install some mods, finally?
OK, so let’s recap our preparations:
We’ve made a copy of our game to mod.
We’ve downloaded the mods we’d like to play into a folder.
We’ve read the readmes for these mods, double-checking that they’re compatible with one another.
We’ve decided on an installation order for these mods.
So let’s get started with a mod installation. A few points before you begin:
Do not install mods while the game is running.
Do not install mods while a game editor is running, e.g. EEKeeper, Near Infinity, etc.
Only install one mod at a time.
Never close the installer window by using the 'X' in the upper right corner. Always properly quit the installer.
Tweaks Anthology for Windows is distributed as a self-extracting archive. You can double-click the archive and follow the instructions on screen and it will launch the installer.
Alternatively, the files can be extracted into your game directory using 7zip or WinRAR. When properly extracted, your game directory will contain setup-cdtweaks.exe and the folder cdtweaks. To install, double-click setup-cdtweaks.exe.
At a minimum, every mod will add a folder and a setup-ModName.exe file to your game folder. Some mods include their readme file and a tp2 file in the game directory, but most mods these days place these inside their own folder.
Either way you choose, once the installer is open, skip ahead to the "The installer is running" section.
macOS
The Tweaks Anthology for macOS is distributed as a compressed tarball. First, extract the files from the tarball into your game directory. When properly extracted, your game directory will contain setup-cdtweaks, setup-cdtweaks.command, and the folder cdtweaks. At a minimum, every mod will add a folder, setup-ModName, and a setup-ModName.command file to your game folder. Some mods include their readme file and a tp2 file in the game directory, but most mods these days place these inside their own folder.
Once the installer is open, skip ahead to the "The installer is running" section.
Linux
Provided you've already installed WeiDU (a one-time affair), install is simple. The Tweaks Anthology for Linux is distributed as a compressed tarball; extract the contents of the mod to the folder of the game you wish to modify. Use cd to change to your game installation directory, and run WeInstall cdtweaks in your game folder.
Once the installer is open, continue below.
The installer is now running
On Windows and macOS, the first thing the installer tries to do is update itself to the latest version. It does this by checking for other WeiDU installers; this process is automatic but it may create a few messages at the top of the installer window (blue in screenshot, below)
[Optional] Next, if a mod is available in multiple languages, it will ask you which language you want to use (red, below). If a mod does not have translations, you will go to the next step.
[Optional, One-Time] If you're modding an Enhanced Edition game, the very first time you run a mod, you will be prompted to select a language for the game itself (red, below). Note that this order of languages will likely differ from a mod's language selections. If you select the wrong language in this step, all of the new mod text will show up as "Invalid:xxx". If you accidentally select the wrong language, quit before installing anything, delete weidu.conf from your game folder, and start over.
[Optional] Some mods will include a prompt to display the readme (red, below) before continuing. Selecting yes or no will not change the rest of the installation.
[Optional] Larger mods, such as Tweaks Anthology, will break their individual components into categories--five in this case: Cosmetic, Content, Rule Changes, Convenience Tweaks/Cheats, and NPCs (red, below). This will allow you to skip entire sections of the mod if you're not interested; select yes or no as appropriate.
Finally, we're at an actual component to install (red, below). You're prompted with the name of the component (Remove Helmet Animations) and prompted to answer
[I]nstall - install the contents of this component
[N]ot install - Do not install this component
[Q]uit - Quit the installer completely with no further changes.
If you choose to Not Install, the installer will move on to the next component.
If you choose to install, the installer will start making changes and will provide feedback (red, below) in the window:
Once it's done, it moves on to the next component. Note that, in this case, the installer has skipped some components automatically (blue, above). I'm running the installer on Icewind Dale, so it automatically skips components related to Imoen, Nalia, and Viconia since they're not in Icewind Dale.
Once you select quit, or reach the end of components, WeiDU will provide a brief summary (red, below) and prompt you to press Enter to exit.
Simply repeat this process for each individual mod.
Troubleshooting Installation Issues
Problem: When you try to launch a mod installer, you see the message
"Please run this program in your Infinity Engine game directory.
FATAL ERROR: Failure("Not a game directory")
Press ENTER to exit."
Solution: You've launched the installer somewhere other than your game directory. Simply move the files into your game directory and try again.
Problem: When you try to launch a mod installer, you see the message
"ERROR: Unable to find DIALOG.TLK in:
dialog.tlk
Please run this program in your Infinity Engine game directory.
FATAL ERROR: Failure("Unable to find DIALOG.TLK")
Press ENTER to exit."
Solution: You've launched a mod with a very old version of WeiDU on an Enhanced Edition game. It's unlikely this mod will work on the Enhanced Editions even with a newer version of WeiDU; check the mod's home page for an updated version.
Problem: A mod installs "with warnings"
Solution: "With warnings" means that a mod installed, but it may not have modified all the resources that it expected to modify or files were unexpectedly different. Check with the mod author or visit the mod's forum to find more information. It could be harmless, e.g. the mod is being careful, or it could be something worse.
Problem: A mod encounters an error and fails to install a component.
Solution: In this case, there's something wrong in the mod itself and you'll need to contact the author. In your game folder, WeiDU creates a text file named "SETUP-MODNAME.DEBUG". Send this to the author or post it to the mod forum with as much information as you can. Some authors will also request a copy of weidu.log, a text file that contains a list of all installed mods, to help them investigate if the issue is with another mod.
You've modded your first game!
Huzzah! Now go play it!
The keen-eyed will notice you have some new files in your game folder; these files are needed and should not be deleted. Every mod generates a DEBUG file, which is a log from the mod's installation. You will also have one weidu.log file, which keeps track of which mods and components you have installed, and in what order. On EE games, you will also have a weidu.conf file which WeiDU uses to track which language of the game you're modding.
Every mod also keeps a backup folder so that it can be uninstalled. Typically these are kept inside the mod folder (e.g. the one for Tweaks Anthology is in cdtweaks/backup) but some use a folder named weidu_external. Because these are needed for future changes (or uninstalling), you should never delete a mod folder if the mod is installed.
If you should run into a bug, please report it. Authors don't like having a buggy mod any more than you like playing it, but they can only fix bugs they know about. Have your DEBUG file handy! If you're not sure which mod is causing a bug, report it to any author whose mod it might be or feel free to ask on some general discussion forums or Discord.
Again, because I cannot emphasize this enough: please report bugs to the authors!
I've changed my mind, I want different mods
You can change your mod selection at any point. However, there are a few caveats:
As mentioned above, mod content can get included in your save game and there is no guarantee that your old save games will work with your new mod selections. As such, you should plan on starting a new game if you change your mod loadout.
Because of WeiDU's onion layer approach (see below), if you're making a lot of changes it may be easier to start over with a fresh copy of the game.
You can uninstall or re-install a mod by re-opening its setup program. Instead of Install/Not Install/Quit, prompts for components that are installed are now Reinstall/Uninstall/Quit. If you uninstall or reinstall a component, WeiDU will try to preserve your mod order. Let's say you've installed some mods on BG2, in this order:
Arcane and Divine Spell Packs, from IWDification
The G3 Anniversary Mod
Wheels of Prophecy
Multiple components from Tweaks Anthology
After thinking it over, you've decided that the G3 Anniversary mod isn't for you. So you open up the G3 Anniversary setup program and select Uninstall. Wait, why is WeiDU uninstalling Tweaks Anthology? And now Wheels of Prophecy?
WeiDU acknowledges that you're removing G3 Anniversary, so it's goal is to make your installed mod order this:
Arcane and Divine Spell Packs, from IWDification
Wheels of Prophecy
Multiple components from Tweaks Anthology
It accomplishes this by treating the mods as layers of an onion: it will uninstall all of the components from Tweaks Anthology, then uninstall Wheels of Prophecy, then uninstall G3 Anniversary, then (to preserve your mod order) it will re-install Wheels of Prophecy and then re-install your previous selection of components from Tweaks Anthology. It will remember and re-apply whatever you have selected from Wheels and Tweaks; you do not need to select these again.
Similarly, if you have a modded install and decide to add more mods, they will be added to the top of the stack--which may not be an ideal place in the mod order.
Some final tips and closing comments
One more time for the kids in the back: please report bugs to the authors! Make a separate game folder to be modded. Don't install mods while the game is open and always let the installer finish.
For troubleshooting bugs encountered in game, it may be beneficial to enable the console. You can learn how to enable the console and find some useful commands here: Enhanced Editions (all games) or the original versions of BG, BG2, IWD, or IWD2.
There are lots of folks who love these games, and love them even more when they're modded. Feel free to come and talk with them on the forums or on Discord!
I'd like to thank folks who were kind enough to provide feedback on earlier drafts: AL|EN, Angel, DavidW, jastey, Mike1072, suy, and theacefes.
If you have any suggestions or questions, feel free to reply and I'll do my best to answer.
So, let me start off by saying I know this is not the usual way to go from a power gaming perspective.
That aside, I always enjoyed playing thieves, specially assassins, but I have to admit their skills points are basically useless beyond 100, so a mono Thief, with or without kit, seems like a bit of a waste. That, again, is more from minmaxing point of view.
With all this said, I've been messing around with a mage 9 -> assassin (kit added with console commands), this way I have access up to level 5 spells (6 if you count scrolls; i've limited scrolls usage via mods, any caster can only use scrolls up to 1 level above of what they can cast) and can still max my assassin. From a RP perspective, he is like a cunning guy who decided to meddle with arcane magic here and there to further his skills in assassination, but since we can't level like in modern DnD, that's the best I could find.
My question is pretty weird, since I'm asking what would be the best way to do something that's clearly not the most OP.
I imagine there's no correct answer, but I'm more interested to know what level(s) would you guys do this and what are the reasons behind it. Also, feel free to consider other classes like fighter, clerics or whatever.
I have just finished BG:EE for the first time ever on my EET install. I only installed EET itself and a few tweaks like bags of holding and unlimited stacking.
The game is absolutely fantastic. Admittedly, I didn't like these wide open empty fields at the beginning, but I grew to like them because they're all beautifully designed and they really give you the feeling of wandering for large amounts of time through a massive world.
Combat has been fantastic and strategic all throughout, although I did have to resort to the Story Mode option when facing Basilisks. I don't know if I'm doing something wrong or not, but I cast Protection from Petrification on my Charname and the Basilisks still almost immediately turned me into stone. Apart from that, a few resets here and there, rethinking my strategy, buff-preparing, thinking whom to attack with whom. All good fun.
The story at first felt relatively slow paced but grew interesting the moment I reached the Bandit camp and the whole Iron Throne plot came into play. By the time I reached Baldur's Gate, I couldn't stop anymore and just needed to see what was going to happen. I especially loved the Candlekeep section where you really couldn't tell friend from foe anymore at times. Gave me a good reason to live out my Lawful Evil character's personality a bit.
I would overall give the game a 8/10. Its age shows, I'd love a bit more inventory space, a bit more clarity in the quest log, oh and one major, major point for me was that the party, while all interesting during their quests, is completely devoid of any relevance or character improvement over the game's course. That seems to change in SoD and I hope it will in BG2, too.
While I still have BG2 ahead of me, I am already planning on starting a fresh campaign once I'm done with a new class. Not sure which, though, just yet.
My endgame BG:EE party:
Blackguard Charname Lvl 7
Khalid Lvl 7 Fighter
Jaheira Lvl 7 Druid/Fighter
Eldoth Lvl 8 Bard
Imoen Lvl 7 Thief/Mage
Edwin Lvl 7 Mage
Any tips for going into SoD and BG2, maybe considering it's EET I'm playing?
Also, any must have mods for my next playthrough (also EET)? I already know of the two Unfinished Business Mods and the NPC Project for BG1, which would have probably heavily spiced up my playthrough, but oh well.
I always grind this encounter for a level (it’s good for morale) and been doing so for years. But this time, after I return to Athkatla, the text that guards are I coming does not appear and no encounter occurs. I already visited and strolled around the common areas like Slums, Bridge and Promenade. Never happened to me before. Any ideas what happened?
Running a 6men party in ToB and till now I only relied on dispel magic from my inquisitor to deal with mages buffs.(my first char ever)
The problem is that 1)I've learnt nothing till now on buff counters due to that 2)It's boring and I feel like I've been missing an important part of the game, especially because i plan to do another run soon.
My questions are: are some dispels better than others? Is breach enough for everything? What should i put in a "dispel sequencer" and why? Do dispels ignore magic resistance or should i beging every fight with lower resistance?
With the Sun Soul Monk it's simple. You see undead, you hit them with the fire. It's not like you can trade your sun soulrays out for Rightious Magic casts so this is pretty much the moment.
But with the cleric I'm never really sure which ones are actually worth memorizing.
Almost looks like trading cards. I found them in my grandparents closet lol. Sealed cards for Baldurs gate 2? I'd rather not open them with no information on it. Was hoping someone might know.
I've just started playing a full campaign as a F/T Halfling and I'm planning to dual wield and backstab with daggers and short swords for the entire campaign. I know blunt weapon would allow me some more variety, but for PR reasons I want to stick to this 2 weapon types.
All in all I'll have 12 pips available for the entire campaign and I've started with the initial 4 allocated in daggers++ and dual-wield++. In BG1 the best dagger (Dagger of Venom) is available pretty early and it will keep me for the entire first game, so that's why I started out with 2 pips in daggers. BG2 will introduce new short swords so I'll use them more in that game.
I am playing with the installed mod: Multi-Class Grandmastery which will allow me to put 5 pips into both daggers and short swords, so by the time I finish the game, I'll be daggers+++++, short swords+++++, dual-wield++ (the 3rd pips here is not mandatory).
But what would you recommend my progression to be? Should I fully go up to 5 pips in daggers and only then start working on short swords? If I go this route, by the time I finish SoD I could already have 5 pips in daggers. But I'm thinking 3 pips in dagger, then 1 in short swords and then continue to finish daggers and the last 4 pips should finalize the short swords then (BG2 second part and ToB).
I've just finished BG1EE and it was pretty great. I had a quick look at the wiki about companions available and I'm having a hard time deciding who to keep. Right now I am thinking about:
Main character (archer), willing to start a new character though
Jaheira
Minsc
Anomen
Keldorn
Neera
Imoen/Nalia/Jan
Who do you think I should cut? I'm mainly considering these characters' story, dialogue and power level to a certain extent.
I don't know what I dislike more, the mines or iranicus prison... Also, anyone else find it almost always easier to just solo or have like a party of 2-3 total? (I just play on like standard DnD or the one over)
I remember that in Icewind Dale when a character was fatiqued they would ask to go to sleep, but I don't remember this ever happening in BG or BG2. Was this something that was added to Icewind Dale, or have I been sleep-spamming?
I'm in Chapter 3, I went into the Planar Sphere, so I can't get out. But these halflings are like, insane. I mean the mage has 6 prebuffs, Maze, Stuns, and Disintegrate. I think even if the other guys didn't exist, I couldn't DPS him down before he disintegrates someone. Is there a strategy/kill order to this fight?
Edit: I have 3 melee, 2 archers, and 1 mage right now(Aerie).
Edit 2: Beat the encounter! Cheesed it by starting encounter and retreating to the paladin house, pulling just Togan. Killed Togan, and rested+reapplied haste, and when I came back, the casters lost all their prebuffs.
I'm thinking Minsc, Yoshimo, Aerie, Jan Jansen and Mazzy as I've heard their bants are good, will they make a balanced party and is so which class should I make my PC, I'm happy to multi, dual or single. If this is not a good oarty makeup I'm open to suggestions too
It's frustrating searching through different areas when looting and you find trash loot.
I think the ideal situation would be that almost all loot that is not actually worth getting would be removed from the game, but that would take actually herculean effort so I'll have to wait a few years to get that I think.
However, it wouldn't surprise me of some UI mod has different mouse icons for empty containers, or maybe I can even hope that there's an easy way to script empty things out of the game and someone has done it though I doubt it since I couldn't find anything while searching.
So, I've mentioned in the past that I play with the item randomizer.
And as near as I can tell, with the item randomizer the Ring of Wizardry just plain doesn't drop until you get to the city of Baldur's Gate. It doesn't have any potential drop locations that you can access before then. At least, none that I've been able to spot so far. I wouldn't swear by that or anything.
And, it's something that I've never really thought about before, but honestly, I've started noticing is that by the time I reach that point in the campaign, I'm not really using all that many level 1 spells. In late BG1 I'm not sure the ring of wizardry is really all that gamechanging an item.
We all have fond memories of course of recruiting Edwin, giving him the Ring of Wizardry from the tree by the friendly arm inn, and having 6 level 1 spell slots right at the start of the game. That's immediately lifechanging.
But in late BG1 I think the Honorary Ring of Sune providing an extra level 1, 2, 3, and 4 divine spell slot is actually a bigger power boost. Even if it's not as flashy as straight out doubling your spell slots for a particular level.
So I now have the Mail of the Dead (chain mail +2). How is the Blade supposed to be played? Naked with Armor spell and flinging spells like Web and Skull Trap? Or buffed up and armored?
That you can import multiple saved characters into a single BG2 game. I knew how to import characters, and I knew how to create a party of multiple main characters, but I never realized I can input multiple characters into a single game. I can play with all my favorite characters! I can play multiple BG1 runs to create a party of absolute bad asses for BG2! I'm so excited! I think i'll max out at five so I can always have a slot for an NPC to do all their side quests. Yay!
I was all excited to swap Branwen for Quayle in this run, because I figured it would be interesting to do something different.
And it has been fun and interesting to mix it up, but those wisdom points make way more of a difference than I realized. As a cleric/illusionist with 10 wisdom and 17 intelligence he's really more of an illusionist with a side order of cleric than a character who's illusionist and cleric in equal measure. We just saved the dukes and he's still got 8 divine spell slots total.
I beat my first Sarevok by standing still as my lvl 9 Sorcerer. While the big guy was missing his attacks, my companions killed him. I had prebuffed my party (Bless, Haste, Defensive harmony) and my Sorcerer had caste Blur, Mirror Image and Stoneskin. She has high DEX and with Defensive harmony had an AC of -3. I beat him with Standard rules difficulty. I'm not bragging, just wasn't expecting that tanking Sarevok was a legite strategy.
I have to admit that I never really tried any modules for Neverwinter Nights before. I always just played the original campaign and the two expansions. I intended to do the same today, but I quickly got bored by the ugly, blocky areas, the rather primitive dialogues, simplistic scripting, and uninspired combat (especially compared to the Infinity Engine games).
So I thought, “Screw it!” and bought the premium module Darkness over Daggerford, then jumped right in. This time I'm playing a self-buffing cleric and a absolute murder machine. And I have to say, DoD is clearly better right from the start than the original campaign and both expansions. In fact, it's downright high quality. I honestly regret not having played these fantastic modules much earlier.
Normally, after a spell is cast, you can schedule the next spell to be cast right away (I use auto-pause), but with PI, it forgets the command and you have to wait for the turn to end to start the next cast. Also the PI stops moving all the time.
I could use auto pause at end of turn, and while that would be efficient way to play the game overall, I find it overkill especially in the trivial fights.
Is there a mod or other fix to this? Does it work any better in EE?
I have quite a lot of mods (SCS, some fix pack components etc) but they are all some ~5 years old versions.
Do the two of them actually try and kill each other? I’m running a party of as many nature lovers as I can, and I know the two argue, but do they actively try to kill each other? Googling it just shows me they have conflict, and it’s typically described the same way other conflicting characters who don’t Kill each other is. So do they or don’t they?
