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[Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition] PC version ETA Nov 30
Posts
First a quick answer on the latest doubt: Iron Bow of Gesen was +4 even in vanilla, but there you could could equip arrows with it, and within SoA you had no +4 arrows. That's why most of you probably never used the bow against Kangaxx.
Regarding DavidW's statement "I would be unsurprised to discover that Kangaxx is now beyond most SoA parties", he probably meant the standard six men party played with the expected SoA xp lvl. It's clearly not your case, as getting epic levels and HLAs at the beginning of Underdark trivialize the supposed difficulty level (much like obtaining Watcher's Keep equipment, as those items outshine by far the intended power lvl for pre-Underdark equipment).
Now, an apologize for a quite silly error on our side (mine and the other IR author, Ardanis), part of IR's re-allocation component currently is disabled, unintentionally. For example you correctly states Flame of the North is obtained too late to matter, but in fact you should have got it earlier, precisely during Windespear quest, used against you by Tazok himself! Fortunately this shouldn't cause any noticeable problem, but let's say that certain items won't be where we decided they should be.
Some comment on your feedback regarding IR's doing.
Backbiter: I did noticed that Impaler makes it more or less redundant, and I think you'll find it somewhere else if you'll play again with the next IR release.
Skullcrusher: drows are indeed considered humanoids, as well any playable race (elves, dwarves, etc.) but even orcs, hobgoblins, kobolds and so on. Pretty much the same targets that would be affected by a Charm Person spell.
Skull of Death: just to nitpick, it's far from unchanged, as it didn't granted immunity to death effects in vanilla!
Psion's Blade: This sword is too powerful for its current whereabout. It's my fault because we planned to move it at the last minute and I forgot to apply an appropriate nerf. It will probably still be the most powerful anti-mind flayer tool (much like Mirror Shield behaves as THE anti-beholder tool), but not as heavily enchanted as it is now. Speaking of these two expensive purchases, I have a very important question for you: is your party so rich that you can buy everything you wish? In theory we tried to tweak the game to make the absurd amount of gold availability to players in vanilla a little more problematic, but from your posts it doesn't seem like you have any problem buying pretty much everything.
Armor of the Viper: you're probably right about it being underwhelming. I guess I'll have to either make it more appealing or move it earlier.
Ring of Clumsiness & Bracers of Speed: you're right about the former being pointless, I was short of ideas.
Soul Reaver: yeah, something must have been reverted my usability change, as I just checked and it cannot be used by good aligned characters within IR, but it's now usable by neutral aligned ones, unlike vanilla's version, which was usable only by evil creatures. Btw, unfortunately this is one of those cases where we messed up and our re-allocation plan currently doesn't work. The leader of Demogorgon's death knights is supposed to actually equip this weapon and the death armor (aka Casiel's Soul) within IR, unlike vanilla where you get them as reward but weren't actually used.
Deep Guardian's Plate: I shared your doubts when I desigend it, but I wanted to try something different from the almost common magic resistance set up, and I thought some playtesting from players would have helped to determine how good this armor is. You do have a point about being easier ways to obtain immunity to Entangle, Grease and Web, but being immune to opponent's Doom and Chant is handy too, you also get other immunities and it allows various combos (e.g. you can have your mage cast Stinking Cloud + Web and let your warrior fight within them unaffected). Raising the immunity to 3rd lvl spells would dramatically increase the appeal of the armor (immunity to Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Flame Arrow, Skull Trap and SCS beloved Unholy Blight), but back then I considered it actually too much, even considering the armor's drawbacks (e.g. you'd also be immune to buffs such as Haste, or useful cleric's spells such as Break Enchantment, Cure Disease and Remove Paralysis). I'll think about it.
Let me know if I forgot to answer any of your doubts or concerns.
The Drow merchant who sells the Psion's Blade (as well as other stuff) is one of the few merchants with a steal menu in IR. One of Shapiro's highest skills is Pick Pocket, so he tends to swipe what he can because Store Revisions renders the skill more or less pointless. Most of the time I am broke, primarily from buying spells. I have under a thousand gold right now in Chapter 6 thanks to buying level 8 and 9 spells for Xan and Imoen; I even had Cromwell forge items I wouldn't be using for screenshotting purposes, then I reloaded a save without them forged to save money. I've flat-out purchased very little in actual equipment - most of it's been spells and Cromwell upgrading.
Yeah, seeing all these little errors and inconsistencies caused by tweak packs needing to be installed a bit later has pretty much soured me on further BGT installs in the future. I'm almost definitely going with separate Tutu and BG2 installs in the future to avoid this stuff - a few extra cutscenes at the end of BG1 aren't worth this hassle and I will never ever use BWP. Also, I don't even see either the Helm of Darkness or the Helm of Opposite Alignment that it replaces in Shadowkeeper's item listing period. And as far as I can tell, that death knight leader was using the sword, 'cause Jaheira got the shit drained out of her levels.
I do have a question or two and a comment though. First, where in the hell does IR move the Flame Tongue +3? It's normally on one of the Shadow Druids at the end of the druid grove, but it's replaced on the guy by a simple nonmagic scimitar and I have yet to ever see it despite exhausting nearly every place I can think to look. Second, I must ask: why is Water's Edge, the only +3 scimitar in the entire game, on a very easily-missed merchant in Brynnlaw (his store isn't even marked on the map!), where you potentially only visit once and for a very short amount of time? I'd definitely consider moving it into either Spellhold or onto the Pirate Lord's loot. Finally, I'd suggest seriously reconsidering the decision to put the Serpent Shaft +3 on the Ust Natha equipment merchant, especially if it's removed from Watcher's Keep at the same time. It's a very expensive purchase if you can't steal it and it's required to upgrade a ToB item. I know I'd be kind of pissed if I couldn't scrape together the cash to buy it (or missed the merchant entirely) and be left unable to upgrade Ravager.
Steam | TF2 inventory
Fighting Firkraag and Nalia manages to hit him with Polymorph: Other turning him into a squirrel... Which then proceeds to breath flame, Wing Buffet and pretty much decimated my entire party. Fun times.
Got him on the reload though.
LOL I've played this game for so many hours and never figured that out. DOH!
Thanks. Now to see if I can take out the Golems in De'Arnise.
Or you can do what I usually do and just grab that shit and run.
Steam | TF2 inventory
This is done on my every playthrough, every time.
And beaten. God. Damn.
Steam | TF2 inventory
Oh wait! It's really fun seeing all the different responses Yoshimo has to the traps on Brynnlaw in Chapter 4 and how they all call him irrelevant.
Sancturary works good for this.
So I spent most of my time this update doing a few of the harder optional fights SoA has to offer as well as a few things I really should've done earlier on but forgot to for whatever reason. Much forging was done (though, to save money, any items I wasn't going to use were only forged for screenshot purposes and then reloaded and skipped), even more shopping, and I capped it off with some more story progression. The recurring theme here? I should've done a lot of these optional battles instead of some of the stronghold quests before heading to Chapter 3, as I ended up being way overleveled for most of these fights. I seriously overestimated how hard SCS would make them.
I had the forethought, knowing that there's a nasty thief up there, to give Xan and Imoen Clairvoyance contingencies (which protects from Backstab in Spell Revisions), which saved their hides. Most of the really annoying enemies (the kensai with the Celestial Fury and the backstabber first of all) went down from liberal applications of Crom Faeyr and a bit of tough love from Jaheira while Shapiro went to work disarming the initial traps. Rasmussen, the big half-ogre fighter, was a bit tougher to take down, finally eating a Whirlwind of arrows from Mazzy while literally everyone else banged their heads against the annoying remaining mage who, as a last act of defiance, cast Summon Fiend and summoned something I've never, ever seen before: a Cornugon. I still have no idea what all it can do, but I freaked the fuck out when it cast a Fear that managed to send Callic into a panic. Xan had managed to bite it from a Power Word: Kill at one point and Jaheira couldn't go toe-to-toe with the thing for more than a couple rounds before having to back off. Shapiro would plug it a time or two with the Crossbow of Affliction and then run away very quickly, and Imoen slapped Lower Resistance on it and sailed as many Magic Missiles as I could get off into the thing. Callic finally came to his senses and managed to kill it just before it would have killed Mazzy. Aside from the Cornugon surprise, everything else went pretty nicely.
Next up were the various liches around Athkatla: first the Shade Lich, then the lich in the Crooked Crane inn, then the Elemental Lich at the bridge. They all went down pretty easily to the same formula: Pierce Shield, melee to death. The Mace of Disruption sped up the process a little, but they were usually nearly dead from both Jaheira and Mazzy's attacks before the thing procced.
Since I was in the bridge district, I decided to go ahead and tackle the Twisted Rune. Shapiro set up some initial traps at the spawn-in, Callic and Xan summoned a Deva and a Planetar, respectively, and we prepared for the worst. Shangalar teleported to the entrance as usual and immediately died to Shapiro's traps. The Elder Orb and the mage up top ate a Remove Magic from Xan followed by a lot of Crom Fayer from Callic while the others down below... died instantly from the Deva's Holy Word. Bereft of meat shields, the mage with the Staff of the Magi went down shortly after and the battle was won in less than a turn. Welp.
Next up: Kangaxx. I talked about him a bit already, but I decided to go up against him unbuffed first to see what he does in SCS compared to normal. He started with the usual sequencers and contingencies (which then got slammed by a Spellstrike from Xan) and got off his Wish spell. He wished for his double-duration Time Stop and began casting a massive litany of spells at Xan and Imoen, mostly Disintegrates and Flame Arrows. Luckily they both saved against Disintegrate and others like Jaheira and Mazzy ate the Flame Arrows instead, which were all reduced by their fire resists. Normal lich Kangaxx went down after that, and demi-lich Kangaxx popped out. He immediately hit Callic with his Soul Trap spell, Mazing him for the duration of the fight. Jaheira quickly scrambled to use Silverblaze's Negative Plane Protection to avoid the spell's level drain on a successful save and tanked the rest of the Soul Traps, luckily saving against each one. Mazzy, using Imoen's Iron Bow of Gesen, popped Greater Whirlwind followed by regular Whirlwind and took Kangaxx down after that. I was kind of shocked, as I expected him to give even a ToB-leveled party a lot more trouble, but he decided to just spam Soul Trap on Jaheira a lot, so I counted myself fortunate and took the victory.
I then went ahead and did the Limited Wish Adventure, which I always think is a lot longer and more involved than it really is and then worked on Xan's final SoA side-quest. First his friend Ricar took us back to Irenicus' dungeon where we teleported around reminiscing and looking for certain documents from Suldanesselar, finally ending with an Elissime clone summoning an adamantine golem against us, which followed us back through the portal to the Underdark exit. After killing it, Ricar tasked us with looking for a Drow named Hunrae (whom we would've encountered in Ust Natha had I been using a female PC and romancing Xan) whose party he let go after they professed to be Good and trying to start new lives on the surface. We found Hunrae in the North Forest where she - naturally - Detected as Evil and readily admitted to working for Irenicus when we challenged her. Her group went down with ease (Holy Word outright killed most of the group and rendered Hunrae unable to cast). When we returned to Ricar and Elhan with the bad news, Ricar was sent on a suicide mission in the Underdark to atone. Welp.
After a bit of romance dialogue, it was time to actually progress the plot, so I returned to Athkatla and chatted with Aran Linvail. I managed to convince the slimy ass to aid me in fighting Bodhi and then headed off to the graveyard. I didn't even think to ask at the Temple of Lathander for aid, but alas. Bodhi snatched up Jaheira the instant I hit the graveyard and a horde of vampires descended on us, eating a Fale Dawn from Daystar for their trouble, the survivors being quickly cut down by Callic and Xan. The revisited crypt was pretty annoying but not too bad, with Shapiro, Imoen, and Mazzy taking out the hordes of Dread Wolves that would attack from the rear while Callic went around destroying vampires and mists alike with Turn Undead. I had to reload once, though, when a vampire managed to sneak in a Dominate after Callic's enrage wore off, causing Drizzt to attack him. Xan dispelled the Dominate, but Drizzt kept on attacking, killing Callic before I could do much else about it. More vampires were killed, the Shadow Thieves assassins joined us, and then we headed down to the bottom floor. We prepped up once again and Callic strode through the door into Bodhi's chamber, Holy Wording then turning undead while the rest of the group flooded the place, Mazzy using Daystar's False Dawn before doing her level best to keep Bodhi occupied with arrows. Xan and Imoen did the dispel dance followed by a couple Halt Undead spells, and finally Bodhi went down, followed shortly by the couple stragglers. The Shadow Thief assassin Arkanis somehow managed to live, yet Drizzt got mobbed by ancient vampires and clobbered by Bodhi pretty much straight away. Sucks to be him.
After looting the place and picking up Jaheira to get her patched up at the Umar Hills temple ruins (and Shadowkeeper-ing her gear back in because it vanished somewhere along the line), I returned to the graveyard district, this time in order to trigger the semi-optional encounter Rogue Rebalancing has: the Chosen of Cyric.
This. Fight. Is. An. Utter. NIGHTMARE. It's like the Sarevok fight at the end of BG1, but impossible to gain control of. Your opponents are:
Venduris: 23 Assassin
Selina: 17 Sorcerer
Zaeron: 11/12/14 Fighter/Mage/Thief
Grok: 19 Barbarian
Bodak: 13/16 Fighter/Thief (bow-user)
Kerith: 21 Cleric
All of them start out heavily buffed, especially with potions. Just before the fight, Venduris uses his special ring which casts Mass Improved Invisibility on his entire group and they rush you. Selina, the sorcerer, opens with a sequencer containing Slow, Malison, and Chaos, meaning that you must start the fight with a Dispel Magic (and not Remove Magic) or you are hosed. She also carries scrolls of Power Word: Kill, which she will use on anybody who drops below 90 HP. Zaeron immediately casts Mislead, sending his clone off to the north exit of the area, where a bunch of thief traps await; while his clone is out he's always under invisibility, so every attack he does is a backstab. Bodak has an item that lets him cast Mirror Image at will, which he abuses, and the whole enemy group will also get Hasted early on, which not only stacks with the Oils of Speed they've all quaffed, but also the Boots of Speed that Venduris and Grok are wearing - those two can literally get from one end of the map to the other in under a second. Both of Grok's weapons can do on-hit stuns and Hold Person, plus he can do his Enrage and wipe the floor with you. Bodak also has a bow capable of Blinding someone, rendering them all but useless. Oh, and every single person in this encounter - and I mean every single person - has no less than TWENTY Potions of Invisibility, which they will quaff the literal second they are able to, if they don't require a healing potion more.
My first few attempts were utter disasters. My next few attempts were also utter disasters. So were the attempts after that. And the next. And even more. I banged my head against this encounter for nearly two hours, taking short breaks to walk around the house and fume, lest I punch a hole in my wall. Sometimes my contingencies wouldn't fire properly, leading Xan and Imoen to get insta-killed by backstabs (oh, and sometimes the backstabs would do so much damage that the character was killed permanently, despite SCS's code to prevent that). Sometimes script lag would cause the game to not pause when I tell it, preventing Jaheira from getting off her initial Dispel Magic to wipe out the enemy's buffs and any characters in my party affected by Chaos or Slow, leading us to waddle around uncontrollably and get picked off one by one. Other times I'd maybe get Bodak or Kerith down, only to be down to just Callic and Shapiro with no way of keeping up with the sheer number of invis potions they have. More than one fight was lost simply because I could never catch anyone in a Dispel Magic due to how fast they moved, always zipping out of range when I think I have a good lead on them. I even tried 6x Horrid Wilting in Chain Contingencies out of sheer bloody-minded frustration, only to have every enemy save against them doing next to no damage.
Finally, after much planning I finally found something that worked. I set up chain contingencies on Xan and Imoen to do Improved Mantle, Spell Shield, and Spell Immunity: Abjuration (to prevent Zaeron's Wand of Spell Striking from taking them down) along with normal Contingencies of Stoneskin when the enemies first pop into view. They would then both pop Spell Triggers containing Clairvoyance (to prevent being backstabbed), True Sight, and Shadow Door, the latter of which would hopefully cause Venduris and Zaeron to waste time trying to use their uber Detect Illusion thief skills instead of killing somebody. Jaheira would start with Dispel Magic the instant the fight began, Callic would Enrage to ensure Selina's Chaos wouldn't affect him, and both Mazzy and Shapiro bolted as far away from the party as possible, Shapiro tapping the Ring of Invisibility as he went.
I miscalculated Jaheira's Dispel targeting and it got Venduris' party, but missed herself, so she got hit with Chaos and was pretty much useless, though she did make a good target for a while with the Cloak of Mirroring extending her lifespan until Grok's "low" chance of Hold Person triggered and then she pretty much folded. Callic hit a Holy Word to try and weaken the enemy party as much as possible (the Deafness alone hurts casters badly), but sadly both Selina and Zaeron are Chaotic Neutral, and thus immune to the spell. Grok and Venduris were Blinded, though, which was a great boon, and took the former out of the fight for the most part. Mazzy hit Greater Whirlwind Attack and started pelting down Bodak's Mirror Images while Shapiro readied a Death Attack and went for the now-deafened Kerith, missing once, but managing to kill him with a second try. Imoen got tagged with an acid arrow from Bodak which, despite doing no damage due to her Mantle, still caused the acid DoT to tick, making her pretty much unable to do anything spellcasting-wise, so she resorted to firing arrows at good targets. With Jaheira down and the enemy party still at full health though minus a Cleric, Xan made a bold gambit while his Mantle and other buffs were still up: having none memorized himself, Callic tossed him a scroll of Time Stop which he read... and succeded in casting!
First order of business: Spellstrike Selina. Second order of business: cast disintegrate on Selina. Third order of business: Cast Horrid Wilting. The Spellstrike nuked both Selina and Zaeron's buffs, the Disintegrate half-killed her, and the Horrid Wilting finished the job, also managing to take out the weakened Bodak and Zaeron (whose HP as a F/M/T proved his undoing). Just like that, the tide managed to turn and it was down to my Fab Five versus Grok and a still-blinded Venduris. Venduris preferred to hide and wait out his Blindness, but Grok freaked the fuck out and quaffed a new oil of speed, zipping around the battlefield far faster than anyone could catch up to him; Xan and Imoen both couldn't even manage to walk into range to even begin casting Slow. He finally stopped for a second to try and melee Shapiro (who popped Assassination to try and get in a few backstab-damage attacks) and Mazzy took the opportinity to hit her regular Whirlwind, sending a bunch of arrows into Grok and hit-stunning him long enough for Shapiro to land a 68-damage front-stab and Callic to land a quick 40-damage hit before he croaked. Now alone but still content to hide (and since he has an item of non-detection, I can't reveal him), Callic and Xan both dropped Symbols of Weakness on Venduris's ass, then Callic then wound up a Storm of Vengeance, its first damage tick spurring the assassin to attack Callic and sealing his fate, the rest of the party jumping on him and ending him in a damn hurry. Callic used his Blessed Bracers to rez Jaheira, we collected the metric fuckton of loot, and then we got the hell out of Dodge.
Fuck this battle and fuck it hard. It's "fair" in the sense that the enemies don't get any special abilities you can't really get yourself, but it's so stacked against you it's not even funny. The biggest problem is the sheer speed of the enemy group: they all begin hasted via sils of speed, and combined with a later Haste that's cast plus the Boots of Speed some of the enemies wear it's possible to have someone killed in the tiny amount of time it takes to unpause the game and then have a character use a no-cast-time Sequencer. It's also hard - borderline impossible - to get more than one or two of them with any area spell before they zip out of range, making dispelling any later buffs a nightmare. Single-target spells are also largely a waste due to the insane amount of invisibility potions each enemy has and the wild abandon with which they'll chug them will cause them to fail due to target loss. As an aside, I've raided every potion store I've seen in the game so far for invis potions. I only had 11 of them left by the time of this fight. Afterwards? I now have 71. The venerable Teleport Field is also rendered largely useless due to the massive speed of the enemies; even if Grok got teleported to a new position, he could be right back next to his target (or even worse - a different, weaker target) and swinging before the sound effect for the teleportation ended. It's an extremely rewarding fight, as you will see, but damn if it isn't frustrating.
It's one of those fights that, once it was over, I didn't feel a sense of accomplishment or pride. I only had a pounding headache and was frustrated enough that all I could think was "Fucking finally."
All that's left now is to return the Lanthorn to Elhan at the Underdark exit and head to Suldanesselar for the final "dungeons" and the confrontation with Irenicus. Should I head to Watcher's Keep now and do as much as I can before ToB, or wait until I can get back to the world map in ToB before doing it?
Also, since there is no way the loot info for this update is going to fit into a single post, I'll add it to the following one.
Steam | TF2 inventory
I dun goofed a bit. I had no idea that this scimitar (originally just a plain +3 specimen) had been moved from Ust Natha to an obscure, easily-missed shop in Brynnlaw (which also sells a second Namarra +2 for some reason), so I was bereft of a +3 scimitar for Jaheira for the entire Underdark. Due to how obscenely rate magic scimitars are in SoA I am unashamed to say that I used the console to add this in after removing the 11,000 gold it costs first. Not much else to say about it, really. The on-hit is neat though, especially if it's cumulative.
Crom Faeyr +4
All aboard the pain train! It's been a long time coming, but it's finally here and is now the permanent fixture for Callic's main hand (especially since he now has *** in two-weapon fighting and can off-hand the Mace of Disruption). Changed pretty signficiantly from vanilla, it loses a point of THAC0 (and maybe enchantment level too?), its "set to 25" STR is changed to a flat +5 (which is still huge, and the best STR bonus in the game), and it loses the ability to instakill clay golems, stone golems, ettins, and trolls, which is almost useless by the time you get it in exchange for the much nicer ability to throw it as well as the on-hit effect. Oddly enough, Crom Faeyr's actually wasted a bit on Callic, as he's more of an up-close melee type, and the hammer's probably better-suited to being heaved at a distance to get full use out of its abilities.
It's a godly weapon for Viconia or Aerie though, obviously.
The Equalizer +4
Item Revisions tosses the Equalizer a bonus to its enchantment level and a much-needed cleanup of its info card. It loses the THAC0 bonuses vs. various alignments, but keeps the fairly significant damage bonuses. The slight nerf to its THAC0 via vs. alignments is largely made up for, in my opinion, by the enchantment level being raised to +4. Nobody in the party can use it, since it seems to be some bizarre Axiomatic weapon, which means finding a character capable of even equipping the thing, much less using it, is a pain.
The Wave +4
Still a very nice weapon, it's been given a couple little tweaks. Its bonus damage proc is changed from a flat 15 damage to 4d6 instead, but does it in an area of effect and the Fire Eating effect now requires a save, but at a steep penalty. The immunity to Horrid Wilting is actually extremely handy, especially with every SCS mage who has Chain Contingency has a 50% chance of having Horrid Wilting loaded into it.
Iron Bow of Gesen +4
Still an utterly fantastic bow, it now prevents any other arrows from being fired with it. That's no real downside though, as the lightning spears it fires still do standard +4 arrow damage before the bonus lightning damage is applied. IR removes vanilla's 20% bonus to electrical resist, but I doubt anyone would really miss it that much. Currently Imoen's bow, though Mazzy uses it for those times when +3 arrows fired from Tuigan just aren't enough. I should probably have this on Mazzy all the time, as I'd only lose 1 attack per round from Tuigan, but the flexibility of being able to fire any arrow I want with a normal bow is very powerful, especially since Bodak from the Chosen of Cyric was oh so kind as to drop a stack of 50 Arrows of Dispelling.
Silver Sword +4
Item Revisions tosses the vorpal sword a +1 bonus to its enchantment to make up for the drastically reduced chance (vanilla's was 25%) of decapitation. The Keen ability makes it even nicer, and it's now a real toss-up whether a non-Paladin should use this or the Soul Reaver +4.
Celestial Fury +3
Largely unchanged from vanilla's Celestial Fury, as the SCS-ified Guarded Compound is a sufficient deterrent from getting the sword too early. The main difference is that the vanilla version's once-per-day Blind effect is now an unlimited use power that affects a group of enemies, but they can't be affected more than once per encounter. Still an incredible weapon and still arguably better than Hindo's Doom.
Rod of Terror
Unchanged from vanilla as far as I can tell. A neat little staff, though the high chance (20% per hit) of losing 1 point of CHA permanently is a bit of a turn-off, even if CHA isn't a useful stat.
Daystar +4
Almost unchanged from vanilla. The damage bonus from Righteous has been lowered a tad, and it's one of the only weapons I've seen that's gone from a dice roll for bonus damage to a fixed amount instead. It's lost the "save or be destroyed" effect, which probably made it too good of a weapon in general. Mazzy's melee weapon of choice if it comes down to that, plus the Sunray effect can be used even while wielding a different weapon.
Staff of the Magi +5
The one and only. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if this was the item that prompted Demi to actually make Item Revisions in the first place. It's been nerfed to hell and gone (presumably to make it closer to PnP), losing the incredibly powerful infinite Invisibility (I still don't abuse the invisibility on Xan's upgraded Moonblade), the +2 to AC and saving throws, permanent Protection from Evil and charm immunity, the powerful fireball+lightning on-use, and its dispel-on-hit now, like all other items with the effect, requires a save.
Instead, it's been given a very powerful Remove Magic on-use (though it'd be nice if it were more than once a day) and its spell trap is still the best in the game. The 20% magic resistance bonus is also extremely nice, and it actually hits like a +5 weapon now, getting the full +5 THAC0 and damage bonus. It's still an incredibly nice staff and probably the ultimate Fighter/Mage weapon, but it's not the end-all, be-all anymore. Currently Imoen's melee weapon and for using the Remove Magic and Spell Trap abilities.
Ring of Kangaxx
Even though I toot about it, I've always felt Kangaxx's ring wasn't really worth all all the hubbub and mostly gets its bad rap from the cheesy methods people use to get it as soon as they step out of Chateau Irenicus. 1 HP every 3 seconds, while extremely nice, will rarely make or break battles unless you stack it with a bunch of other regeneration effects. Even still, IR's Ring of Gaxx is still a really nice ring, losing the original's 10% magic resistance, its regen rate halved, and its on-use effects changed (to two better ones, in my opinion). On Callic of course.
Boomerang Dagger +2
The reward for the Limited Wish adventure, this dagger can now be used in melee or thrown as preferred, and it's been given a nice Crippling effect. A pretty good little weapon and best if you get it as early as possible, since the Limited Wish adventure doesn't require much combat, though it does drag you into at least three different major questlines by virtue of the areas you need to visit, which is a pain.
Belt of Intertial Barrier
Another goof, I missed this my first time through Trademeet somehow. Item Revisions lowers the saves vs. breath and missile damage by 2 and 5% respectively, and it removes the 50% magic damage resistance entirely, replacing it with a slowing aura. A really nice belt for anyone who doesn't need a STR belt and likes to mix it up in melee, it's on Jaheira for now.
Handmaiden's Mace
Dropped by Hunrae in Xan's personal quest in the North Forest, this would make a fairly nice mace if you could get it in Chapter 2 and not Chapter 6. Not only does it come in at the tail end of SoA, it can only be wielded by Viconia. Pointless.
Life Stealer +4
Definitely not pointless. Coming in from the same quest as the Handmaiden's Mace, this is the first +4 dagger available and it's a very nice one. Not many frills, no Save or Get Fucked effects, just a straight-up life draining with no save. Pretty great dagger until you can get ahold of the Dagger of the Star.
Short Sword of Backstabbing +3
Even longer in coming than Crom Faeyr, the Rogue Rebalancing-modified Short Sword of Backstabbing is finally mine. Almost completely unchanged from vanilla, all it gains is a single +1 to your backstab multiplier. May not seem like much, but that brings Shapiro's backstab multiplier up from x7 to x8. That is very significant and the multiplier applies to both equipped weapons if dual-wielding. If Imoen tosses Shapiro Improved Haste and he runs Assassination (which makes all hits in the next round count as backstabs regardless of position or stealth status), he can and will absolutely ruin things. Best of all it's even upgradeable to +5 in ToB and I even have the spare Rogue Stones to do it with.
Twinkle +3
I didn't kill Drizzt, honest. I didn't even try to get him killed! He did it all on his stupid own! Anyway, Mr. Wish Fulfillment managed to get himself a terminal case of Bodhi to the Face and left me a few presents. I've never actually used his gear before, even in BG1, so I may as well give it a shot now that it's been dropped into my lap. Twinkle's unchanged from vanilla, aside from going from +5 to +3 to determine what it can hit; its THAC0 and damage have always been as a +3. In Jaheira's inventory, though I'm not sure if I'll use it.
Icingdeath +3
Drizzt's other scimitar. A plain +3 weapon in vanilla, IR moves it closer its actual stats in the books. Currently Jaheira's main hand weapon, she's now at 100% fire resist thanks to the red dragon armor. I still have Water's Edge on hand for her to use in case I forgot to install the tweak and Malchor Harpell comes by and takes the stuff.
Mithral Chain Mail +4
Unchanged from vanilla. That long list of "Not Usable By"s should give you an indication of how useful it is for my party. The only two who can even equip it are Callic and Mazzy, and both have as good or better.
Cutthroat +3
Bodhi's sword, originally just a plain +4 shortsword. IR lowers its enchantment level by 1, but gives it two very handy on-hit effects. The silence is quite nice, though the 6 damage over 18 seconds is more flavor than anything. The real meat is the extra 1d6 slashing damage, which essentially doubles the sword's damage. If that extra d6 is factored into the damage that then gets multiplied by the backstab multiplier, then I'd be really tempted to use this over Venduris' sword. Currently sitting in Shapiro's inventory.
Holy Symbol of Lathander
Granted to Callic automagically after getting A Whole Lot of XP. No reason whatsoever to not wear it, and combined with Crom Faeyr brings Callic's STR up to 25, the maximum allowed by the game, period. Finally retired the Ring of Holiness for this; even without it I struggle to find uses for all the level 1-4 spell slots Callic has due to his obscenely high WIS score.
That's all of just the normal stuff. Now we come to the other half of the loot recap: the Chosen of Cyric battle loot.
Our old friend from BG1, back in our possession. Not actually the shield Kerith the Cleric was originally meant to use, he happened to have the same shield in his inventory that matched up with the modified Shield of Falling Stars that Item Revisions tweaks. A happy coincidence and even fitting, considering the Chosen's backstory with Callic. I might use it on Callic again for old times' sake, but I'm not sure.
Venduris' Ring of Concealment
A wordier way of saying "it grants non-detection". On-demand Mass Invisibility is incredibly powerful as Venduris himself displays in the fight. On Shapiro.
Venduris' Shadowcloak
It's a Cloak of Protection +1, Boots of Stealth, and Ring of Danger Sense rolled into one and it's just as crazy powerful as that sounds. The "undetectable alignment" is mostly for flavor purposes that come into play during the Chosen chat before the fight. On Shapiro, though I'm tempted to put it on Imoen if only for backstab immunity in a cloak slot.
Venduris' Luckstone
Remember all that stuff a couple updates ago that I said Luck modifies? All to-hit and damage rolls, saving throws, thieving skills (5% per point of Luck), etc.? Yeah. All that and a bag of crit immunity. On Shapiro, as he's the only Evil person in my party. I'm not certain if it's actually working properly or not, though. Other Luck effects on gear, like the Stone of Good Luck, show up as visible improvements in the stats page on a character sheet, but the Luck from this does not.
Silent Death
Venduris' short sword. Yep, it's very close to IR's Cutthroat. Poison damage with no save is really really powerful, even if it is only for a short duration, and that chance to reduce the target's HP by 20% can be extremely powerful if it activates against the right opponents. Shapiro's main hand weapon for now. The Short Sword of Mask, wherever the hell it is, will be stiff competition for it.
Martial Staff +2
Essentially a transplanted NWN weapon, formerly belonging to the sorceress Selina. Nothing to write home about, the bonus AC vs. melee is pretty nice for a sorcerer who can generally launch more attack spells than a mage can.
Shadowed Boots
REALLY nice boots, once belonging to Zaeron the Fighter/Mage/Thief. Would be on Shapiro for the AC, but his Boots of Speed are generally more useful overall.
Drow Chain Mail
It's Drow chain mail, except this kind doesn't poof in the sun. It actually has better 1 better AC than the normal Drow elven chain you can find in the Underdark, otherwise its stats are identical. Tempted to give it to Imoen. Really tempted.
Geminus
Yep. It's the Ring of Wizardry, BG1 edition, this time with bonus level 2 spell slots as well! Ridiculously powerful, even though level 2 mage slots aren't quite as potent as others. Was on Zaeron to give him endless Blurs and Mirror Images, it's on Imoen now, replacing the old BG1 Ring of Wizardry with the double level 1 slots I kept since the Friendly Arm Inn.
Wand of Spell Striking
Normally I wouldn't list wands here partly because they're not generally as potent as in BG1 and partly because IR locks them in at 10 charges no matter what (which tends to kick me into packrat mode, where I'll hoard the things and never use them), but I'll make an exception for this. This is a ToB wand, found in SoA, and used by Zaeron. This makes him a total asshole. Now Shapiro has it in his item quickslot, and he is the asshole instead.
Blessed Leafcrown
I believe this was Zaeron's helmet, though I could be mis-remembering. Quite powerful, as permanent Bless does some really good stuff. On Jaheira now, partly because only she and Xan could wear it, and partly because she tends to get smacked with diseases somewhat often.
The Salamander's Tongue
Zaeron's old off-hand dagger. Yep. That's a lot of potential extra damage, and more than one of those effects can proc at once. Bonus non-detection is just gravy. In my opinion, the final word in off-hands for dagger-spec thieves.
Spell Diver
Zaeron's main hand weapon. Turns anyone wielding it into a Wizard Slayer and is probably the best melee weapon for the kit itself, as I'm fairly certain the spell failure will stack. This would also be insane on a Blade or Haer'Dalis.
Blindstrike Bow
Bodak's old bow, the power of this thing should be fairly obvious. Blind makes enemy mages useless, as they have to walk point blank to cast anything and it makes melee fighters even more useless because it tanks their THAC0. At the 4 attacks per round Mazzy would have with this thing, a lot of people would have their eyes put out. I'm on the very edge of making this Mazzy's go-to bow.
Rogue's Cowl
The bonus to AC and Hide are both nice, it's the simultaneous Blur + Mirror Image that really make this a remarkable item. Currently on Imoen pending whether or not I find out if Venduris' Luckstone's +3 Luck actually works or not. If it doesn't, this will probably go to Shapiro instead.
Sune's Laurel of Favor
I believe this was Selina's. +1 CHA is fitting for a sorcerer, though it's kind of pointless in BG2. Nice if you're not using IR and want to stack it with the Ring of Human Influence and Blade of Roses for a ridiculously high store discount.
Barrier Amulet
Like the Rogue's Cowl, but in necklace form. Between this and the Ring of Earth Control, Xan has 4 uses of Stoneskin per day from items alone, giving him some more survivability.
Boots of the Fox
Grok's old boots. I hate Grok and I hate his stupid boots. Imoen loves them though. Shapiro could possibly get more use out of them since he's in melee more often and doesn't have the benefit of spells to help mitigate stuff.
Stormcharged Axe
In the hands of a hasted dual-wielding barbarian, that 10% chance to stun may as well be 100%. Utterly ridiculous, especially with no save.
Hold Fast
See above, replacing "stun" with "hold". Hold Monster works on humanoids too, by the way. One guess as to how I know.
Abishai Hide
Grok's armor. The listed effect is a roundabout way of saying it has 15% physical resist. Bear in mind that this was sitting on a level 19 Half-Orc Barbarian with 19 STR, 18 DEX, and 19 CON. You may cry now. Shapiro's currently wearing this, and his other gear more than takes care of the stealth penalties.
Dead Man's Face
The least overpowered of Grok's gear. Immunity to Fear is nice, though Callic has enough level 1 spell slots to cover fear protection and removal.
Steam | TF2 inventory
I also got Fallout 3, Neverwinter Nights 2, Gothic 3, Bioshock, and Assassin's Creed 2 for the same price each.
I don't know where to start. I feel like I'm standing on a pier and looking into the sea. I'm safe at the moment, but if I step over the edge, I'll be trying desperately to stay afloat and struggling for air. Why would I want to do this to myself? The water is deep and dark. Something is moving down there.
Just looking at it makes me panic. I'm not kidding. My pulse is racing and I honest to god want to throw up right now.
Think of the amount of research that single post took. That guy deserves a master's degree in Baldur's Gate Studies.
Sorry you had such a frustrating experience with the battle. It's meant to be very challenging, but not infuriatingly so, and it certainly wasn't my intention to create a frustrating experience for the players. For what it's worth, lowering the difficulty level below "Core Rules" can make various aspects of the fight easier e.g. Selina won't cast PW: Kill and Zaeron won't use Mislead on "Normal" while Venduris backstabs much less frequently on both "Normal" and "Easiest". There are also some useful hints for the battle in the readme.
I'm glad you found a way to beat the encounter in the end. Congratulations, and have fun with the loot. You deserve it.
So SCS changes Trap the Soul from imprisonment to maze? That's uncharacteristically forgiving.
Also, I know you said the voicework was lousy, but how do you find the writing for the Xan mod?
Play Icewind Dale instead! There are, like, four mods! Total!
I assume this is your first time going Baldur's Gate? If so, slow down and start off really small, since you don't really have much of a frame of reference for what things you may want to change. Many mods that add a ton of new custom quests are really shitty and I would generally avoid them until you're very familiar with the game.
Do you need a guide to installing Tutu or just a mod guide? If so, this guide is probably your best bet. As far as mods go? I wouldn't recommend more than:
BG2 Fixpack, which fixes a litany of bugs and problems and is a must-have no matter what
BG2 Tweak Pack, which changes a few things to better suit your play style and does some quality-of-life stuff, like add bags from Baldur's Gate 2 into BG1, as well as some BG2-only weapons, like katanas.
BG1 NPC Project for BG1 only which adds BG2-style dialogue paths, inter-party banters, and even a few personal quests for BG1 NPCs.
Banter Pack for BG2 only, which adds a lot more inter-party chatter and dialogues with some of the quieter BG2 characters.
Widescreen mod for both Tutu and BG2, in case you want to either run at a widescreen resolution or a 4:3 resolution that isn't one of BG2's default ones.
For install orders, doing Fixpack > Tweak Pack > NPC Project > Widescreen for BG1 should work fine, and for BG2 it would be the same except installing the Banter Pack instead of the NPC Project. If you really need some more help you can either PM me here or add me on Steam or something and I'd be happy to chat with you.
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I've tried playing BG2 a couple of times, never getting far before something shiny distracted me. I must have gone through the initial dungeon at least half a dozen times, so I'll also be installing dungeon be gone.
Kangaxx's soul trap is now, I believe, a specially-coded Maze spell with a 3000 second (or some similarly absurd) duration, so it can take the protagonist out of the fight without it being a Game Over or causing romances to break by removing a romanceable person from the party. It also does a very hefty level drain even if the save is made. I had to either whip out a Freedom scroll to get Callic back or get ready to do a lot of Ctrl-Ting.
The voice work for BG2 Xan was largely lousy for the reason a lot of amateur mod voice work is awful: it wasn't recorded on a good studio-quality microphone. The actual guy doing the voice-over wasn't bad, from what I could tell. As for the writing? Eh, it's not bad. I've seen much worse, though Xan seems almost schizophrenic sometimes, bouncing between budding optimism from his personal dialogues with the protagonist and soul-crushing pessimism when it comes to pretty much everything else. There's character growth there, but it doesn't feel as natural as it maybe could be.
His sword is still way over-fucking-powered though.
I think my biggest overall problems with the encounter were the sheer speed of all of the enemies coupled with the very small battlefield and their bottomless sacks of invisibility potions. A lot of the suggestions in the readme for how to approach the battle or tackle certain enemies in it tend to fall apart when someone like Grok can zip from fighting Callic to immediately swinging at Jaheira across the map in the amount of time it takes to cast a Magic Missile, much less Slow or Dispel Magic or, as the readme suggests, Maze; or when an enemy will freely chug invisibility potions round after round to make single-target spells a pain to even start. For example, I've had more than one Power Word: Stun or PW: Blind fail to go off because the target ran far enough away to cause the caster to start having to chase them in order to be in range and then popped an invisibility potion at the last possible second. Detect Illusions and the various Divination spells can only get you so far (and half their group has some form of non-detection anyway!). Any spells with a cast time of 5 or greater were massive gambles to use, otherwise I'd have tried more things like Creeping Doom or Storm of Vengeance. If the speed of the Chosen crew was toned down a tad I think it'd make for a much less frustrating experience, at least in my view as someone who's no novice to BG but hasn't exactly broken the game over his knee.
Dunno if there were some obvious solutions I was missing (I know that in hindsight I should probably have tried to use Grease more to try and slow people down, but the fight is so chaotic that it never crossed my mind), but it usually felt like the fight came down more to luck than anything. If Jaheira failed to get off her initial Dispel Magic? Might as well reload if Callic or Mazzy failed their saves against Selina's Chaos. If Mazzy went down, it was usually a reload then as well.
Also, if you do any future versions of RR? I would love to see a console command to disable the intro cutscene for the Chosen fight, maybe only keeping the cutscene walk-up by the party while scripts fire off the Chosen's buffs and potions. It's a great mood-setting cutscene and is fun to watch... once. I didn't go nuts with drastically changing my party's spells and prepping different sequencers and congingencies for the fight because if I had to reload a save in the graveyard, that meant I'd have to sit through the cutscene in its entirety again.
I also have to say I really do love RR, even if you did neuter the poor Bounty Hunter - the damage/effect changes to the special traps are fine, but losing the ability to "throw" them as well takes a lot of the utility out of the class in my book.
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As you already found out, picking the right Spell Triggers/Contingencies is very important for this battle. Unlike the other buffs, they are not stripped away by the anti-magic wave which makes them extremely valuable. Also, evil(ish) players can tip the scales in their favor by transforming into the Slayer and killing Venduris in a cutscene before the actual battle starts. Lastly, the fight is much easier if you have access to HLAs like Improved Alacrity or Greater Whirlwind.
Unfortunately, skipping the cutscene is not possible for technical reasons. A lot of scripting happens in the background while the cutscene plays and without it, the encounter wouldn't run properly. For this reason, I made sure that a "Final Save" is created right before combat starts, but I understand that it isn't much help in case you need to rearrange the party's spells.
Thanks! In that case, you might be interested in some of my other mods: aTweaks (it's a tweak pack which brings various aspects of the game closer to PnP rules) and Wizard Slayer Rebalancing (a mod which tries to make the kit a bit more appealing while staying largely true to Bioware's original design).
People are often critical of that particular change as it alters the play style which they've come to expect from the unmodded Bounty Hunter. However, once they actually get into the game and experience the revised kit first hand, they often come to appreciate it for different reasons. In any case, they gameplay experience between the unmodded BH kit and the RR version is indeed quite different.
Other stores have enough expensive gear to provide some extra cash. However, I take it you have found little profit from shoplifting, unless you rob them clean? I admit I almost never steal in games, so my speculations about the balance change were based on theory, rather than reality.
Ideally, it should go along with the Revised Thievery component from RR, which allows a peaceful outcome on a failed steal attempt.
Regarding being broke most of the time... I have playtested Store Revisions before the release, and even with the increased to 60k price to sail to Spellhold (SCS2), as well as expending about 50k gold on scribing scrolls (aTweaks), I still could afford to purchase most of the Ribald's artifact stock in Ch.6 before going bankrupt. Although I did not invest heavily in scroll purchases, most of them came from loot.
That said, if you have any specific suggestions about changing mark-ups, they would be most welcome.
Dock District, near the fence of Cowled Wizard's house.
I always visit this guy :unsure: Pirate lord is a good place, but you don't generally kill him, and therefore scimitar would have even less availability, no?
We have put it there because:
1) poisonous items fit the place
2) WK is literally full of high end loot lying under every crevice
3) it does pose a dilemma whether to invest money in future ToB forging, or in the immediate needs (scrolls and anti-illithid/beholder stuff)
PS Now we only need DavidW to join the conversation
I do appreciate the problem of enabling pickpocketing on too many merchants, though, since it can make way too much gear too easily available for groups that use someone like Jan and don't have quite as much self-control.
As far as my money issues (I had Bayle's price set to 40k myself), I think part of it was buying a lot of expensive and valuable scrolls that I was fairly certain I wasn't going to find easily (mostly level 6 and up stuff) or wanted right away and part of it was simply not parting with quite as much stuff as I really should have, like old magic ammo I was never going to use or stuff I was hanging on to "just in case", like a bunch of old crossbows and most of the unique +2 longswords and such. Even still, I had about 120k going into Chapter 6, and a bit of Cromwell forging combined with buying level 8 and 9 spells for Xan and Imoen absolutely killed my wallet. It's a bit better now, but I've never been so rich that I could simply buy Ribald out. Maybe it's just my style of play? I haven't really read up on others' spending and selling habits, so maybe I'm just weird or maybe I've spent more than I realized without thinking about it.
I can't really think of much to suggest as far as pricing is concerned, since things were generally okay and I don't seem to be the typical player when it comes to moneymaking.
Also it is kind of surprising to see so many modmakers come out of the woodwork to comment all of the sudden, though I'm glad for it. I think DavidW actually has posted in this thread before and in response to me bitching about something in SCS a couple years back, though I can't remember. I used to be really down on SCS 2, though I've mellowed on it a good bit since then.
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And now I'm torn between Belm and Crom Faeyr for Haer'Dalis' offhand.
Sixty -40- on Origin for some ME3 goodness.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/brilliantinsanity/
I don't know... It doesn't feel like Baldur's Gate without that dude telling me the obvious.
It's VENTURING FORTH.
If you can't say that tone-perfect from memory, then you can't remove it. Bad Bigity.