BG2: What am I doing wrong?

[blatantninja]

Any recommendations? I like the idea of the Big mod, but the buggy parts worry me. I played the Dark Side of Sword Coast mod years back. I remember enjoying it to some extent, but some of the changes it introduced (like the vampires that level drained with NO recourse) pissed me off.

I'd like to add some more to do for this play, but I'm not that interested in additional romances or tactics, I'd prefer story. I looked through the mods on Pocketplane, and just didn't find too many that jumped out.

 

[DeepO]

Any recommendations?

I don't know any good huge story/quest mod for BG2, just some smaller ones:
G3 Anniversary mod, Dungeon Crawl, Unfinished Business (excluding buggy Kidnapping of Boo and Restored Minor Dialogues components) and Quest Pack (excluding buggy Additional Shadow Thieves Content and Revised Hell Trials components, it also has an AI component but it's just a mild rise of difficulty level).

Well, for story purposes I usually install some NPC mods, but I'm not sure if that's what you're looking for, because the story is told mostly via PC-NPC dialogues but they usually come with a quest of two.
Those best written, bug - free and with both SoA and ToB content are Angelo, Kivan and Xan imo. Another good thing about these 3 is that all of them made an appearance in the first game so having them in the party ties the plot nicely together, if you're continuing from BG1. Kivan and Xan have rather extensive dialogues with PC, some quest content and talk about the first game's events a lot. Angelo is not that talkative but has a really cool personality, some quests and since he was Sarevok's henchman in BG1, he makes ToB more interesting if you're having Sarevok in your party.

The only mod, other than Ascension and these NPC which significantly enhanches ToB, is Longer Road which gives you the opportunity to have Irenicus in your party. It adds a lot of dialogues and having him along is basically one huge quest. And he has a lot of agenda in Watcher's Keep (so rather don't go there in SoA). He's a bit overpowered but other than that, it's an excellent mod.

For some additional banters between original NPCs, Banter Pack works well, Crossmod Banter Pack gives some talks between Kivan and Xan, and if you're going to romance one of vanilla characters, install Flirt Pack for additional fun.

For some funny ocassional diversion I'd install Romantic Encounters as well, some of the encounters are seriously hilarious.

Also Weimer's Item Upgrade Mod gives Cromwell and Cespenar a lot of new things to do and you get the better chance to beat Ascension with this mod installed .

One Pixel Production art pack takes care of the horrible BG2 avatars and such.

Well, that's just about it.

Here's recommended install order for the mentioned mods:

BG2 Fixpack
Ascension
Unfinished Business (stay away from those buggy components)
Quest Pack (stay away from those buggy components)
G3 Anniversary
Longer Road
Dungeon Crawl
Romantic Encounters
Xan (also has flaming swords animation component from 1pp which is cool)
Angelo
Kivan
Banter Pack
Crossmod Banter
NPC Flirts
Item Upgrade
One Pixel Productions (v2)
BG2 Tweaks

All mods can be found at one of these sites:
http://www.pocketplane.net/mambo/
http://www.gibberlings3.net/
http://www.spellholdstudios.net/
http://weidu.org/main.html

Imho, such setup shouldn't dissapoint you.

P.S.: If you'd ever decide to try some full scale tactical mod, don't bother with anything other than Sword Coast Stratagems.

 

[purpleblob]

Mod recommendation for BG2? My fav topic. I'd recommend following:

Unfinished Business -- PPG
Quest Pack -- PPG
Romantic Encounters -- G3
Assassination -- PPG
Crossmod Bater -- G3
NPC flirt pack -- PPG
Kelsey NPC -- PPG
Xan NPC -- PPG (there are 2 xan mod as far as I'm aware)
Tsujatha -- CoM
Yasraena -- CoM

I'd not recommend Longer Road. Not that it's bad or anything but it make Irenicus sound like a wussy pot. I like him the way he is unmodded. Also, I didn't find Kivan mod quite so impressing. Not that it's bad. I can see why some ppl will say it's a fantastic mod but it just wasn't my cup of tea. Beyond the law wasn't too bad either but it is rather complicated. I had to heavily rely on walkthrough most of the time.

And just a tip -- if you want to install any mods from SHS, install them FIRST. They usually overwrite any contents installed earlier.

 

[blatantninja]

Cool. Thanks! I'm only about 4 hours in, so maybe I'll just restart. Wife's gone for the weekend and it's supposed to thunderstorm the whole time. I'm gearing up for some heavy nerding!

 

[blatantninja]

PurpleBlob and DeepO,

Quick couple of questions. I just cleared out the De'Arnise Hold and Nalia asked me to take over the keep. I didn't really realize what was going on and agreed to it. However, I am playing a Lawful Good Cleric/Ranger, and had started the stornghold quest for the Temple of Lathander.

So, first off, can I still complete the Temple quests? I know you can get only one stronghold.

Second, which stronghold is preferable? The hold will give me money (though it seems you rack that up pretty quick) so that's a bonus.

Funny thing though, I never realized that this was even an option to get the hold as a stronghold. I had Nalia in all my other plays, and IIRC, if she is in the party, that other family takes over and you can't enter anymore.

 

[Prime Junta]

PurpleBlob and DeepO,

Quick couple of questions. I just cleared out the De'Arnise Hold and Nalia asked me to take over the keep. I didn't really realize what was going on and agreed to it. However, I am playing a Lawful Good Cleric/Ranger, and had started the stornghold quest for the Temple of Lathander.

So, first off, can I still complete the Temple quests? I know you can get only one stronghold.

That can't be true -- I got both the De'Arnise hold and the Planar Sphere as my strongholds, with my kensai/mage munchkin character.

Second, which stronghold is preferable? The hold will give me money (though it seems you rack that up pretty quick) so that's a bonus.

Trust me, you really won't miss the money from the stronghold -- it's more like a rounding error compared to what you rack up by selling lewt.

Funny thing though, I never realized that this was even an option to get the hold as a stronghold. I had Nalia in all my other plays, and IIRC, if she is in the party, that other family takes over and you can't enter anymore.

Not so -- it depends on your class. It sounds wrong that it was offered to you: I thought you were only supposed to get it if you were playing a fighter (single, dual, or multi-class). Iggy the Inquisitor didn't get the offer, but Munchkin the Kensai/Mage did. Nalia was with the party in both cases.

 

[blatantninja]

That can't be true -- I got both the De'Arnise hold and the Planar Sphere as my strongholds, with my kensai/mage munchkin character.

Did you have any mods installed? Everything I've seen says that even if you are dual or multi-classed, you only get one.

Trust me, you really won't miss the money from the stronghold -- it's more like a rounding error compared to what you rack up by selling lewt.

yeah, I figured as much. I do like the idea of having a stronghold outside the city though.

Not so -- it depends on your class. It sounds wrong that it was offered to you: I thought you were only supposed to get it if you were playing a fighter (single, dual, or multi-class). Iggy the Inquisitor didn't get the offer, but Munchkin the Kensai/Mage did. Nalia was with the party in both cases.

Yeah, I read that as well, maybe it is one of the mods I have installed. It's been so long since I played, but I do remember I played through as a Paladin once and a Mage once and neither time got offer the hold.

 

[Prime Junta]

Did you have any mods installed? Everything I've seen says that even if you are dual or multi-classed, you only get one.

I did, so that's probably it. I tried to pick ones that were bugfix or tweak only, no new content or anything.

Yeah, I read that as well, maybe it is one of the mods I have installed. It's been so long since I played, but I do remember I played through as a Paladin once and a Mage once and neither time got offer the hold.

Very likely.

 

[blatantninja]

I did, so that's probably it. I tried to pick ones that were bugfix or tweak only, no new content or anything.

Have the bugix and tweak as well, so that might be it.

Sounds good to me though, the more stronghold quest the more XP!

 

[Maylander]

If you actually manage to get two (it is possible by getting them in a certain order), you can complete both. The tricky part is actually getting two - not completing them.

However, you must've had some sort of mod installed, because the Keep is the fighter stronghold (fighters, monks and barbarians). A ranger/cleric would get access to one of the three Temples, and the cabin in the Umar Hills. Truth be told, I don't think it's possible to get both of those, no matter the order you try to get them, as they've never been bugged as far as I know.

 

[blatantninja]

Cool. I'm more interested in buffing my characters by getting all that easy XP!

 

[DeepO]

Hm, it might be Multiple Strongholds component from BG2 Tweak Pack.
I always install the second variant of it - it keeps class restrictions but if you're a multiclass you can have both strongholds of those respective classes.
If you've installed the version without class restrictions, prepare for some serious running around :lol:. I've never tried that myself but I can imagine it might be quite exhausting to manage, say, seven strongholds at once .

Alternatively, if you've by chance installed DeArnise Romance mod (which is great btw) from PPG, it allows you to get DeArnise castle regardless of class. You just have to play a character which is romanceable by Nalia, I guess.

Maybe you could check it in your Weidu.log found in BGII-SoA directory.

I think that ranger and cleric strongholds are two of the weaker ones while fighter stronghold is my second favourite (after the bard's "stronghold") so you certainly might have more fun with it.
But if you indeed installed the hardcore version of the Multiple Strongholds component, well, good luck then .

 

[purpleblob]

I actually like Cleric stronghold better than De'Arnise hold. I don't know which gives you more total experience but while choices to earn most experience for De'Arnise hold was quite clear, cleric stronghold was bit more blurred and required thinking. At least for neautral clerics, it was. I've never played Evil nor Good cleric characters.

 

[blatantninja]

Well, I think I'm done with the Cleric stronghold, now doing the mage one as well! (can't turn down free magic items!)

I did a couple of the TDD quests, and I see what was meant by unbalanced. The first two assassination questions were pretty easy, haven't got to the third yet though. I did the Hall of Knowledge quest. Wow, whoever designed that should never turn on a computer again. I couldn't tell you how many times I reloaded. The enemies weren't that tough, but it seemed in almost every encounter, at random one or more of my characters would die and often permanently die. Then when you finally get to the end, the Death Knights are a complete joke! Whoever designed that shouldn't turn on a computer again!

 

[DeepO]

Generally, if you'd REALLY have some problems with party members permanently dying, you might try lowering the difficulty to normal for some battles. I think that normal setting prevents chunking. However, it shouldn't prevent petrification and imprisonment.
Alternatively, there's one component of Sword Coast Stratagems II which prevents most of permanent deaths on all difficulty settings (of course, you shouldn't install this for the ongoing game).
The last game I've played before my computer went nuts was with the full SCS installed and I was really glad for having that one installed.
Chunking really sucks.

 

[blatantninja]

If I remember right, there was a way to turn off permanent death in the setup as well. I might need to check on that. I don't mind getting my butt handed to me on ocassion, and heck, I don't even mind if occasionally the butt whipping is so bad that someone permanently dies (granted I'll probably reload!), but when it's every single battle over about 30 seperate encounters, I'm not a fan! I also don't like having to drop down out of the core rules.

 

[Maylander]

The only way to turn off permanent death, is to lower the difficulty setting. For all I know, there might be mods capable of removing it though.

 

[purpleblob]

Just wondering. What's TDD quests?

 

[blatantninja]

The Darkest Day, one of the 'mega-mods'

 

[blatantninja]

Well so much for TDD. The two locations for new towns aren't popping up on my map despite getting the map scrolls from the kender and the salesman. SoS doesn't seem to be fairing any better so far, I got one of the animations, but can't seem to get it to go any farther!