Improved Encounters Options

[Berzerkerzz]

I figured I change the thread title. The Sibel mod was alright in the end, could use exit points from the village though.

Riskbreaker: This kit was overpowered before and now ever more so. I removed all the speed bonuses but kept the speed bonus from the new boots later on. Did not upgrade the boots however as they are very overpowered. Also the potions of invulnerability makes the Riskbreaker lose all it's cons. I didn't end up using the Risk Decrement ability as it's overpowered as well. Also thanks to the new Flail of Ages buff this kit is ridiculously overpowered now. Even before v7 I was using the Improved Haste ability only once my mages got lvl 6 slots, otherwise it comes a bit early and throws the game off balance. So to recap: no heal/damage spell, no speed bonus, no use of invulnerability potions, and either tone down passive damage or even the new Flail of Ages bonus damage, and no use IH until your mages get it as well.

Wizard Slayer: I played this with Haste, not Improved. So he had one extra attack throughout the game, around 4 if I remember right. There was no way to play without it and have a character limping behind when moving around the map. I didn't upgrade the Regiment boots either as they are overpowered. I tried not to use the purge magic ability too often because it makes certain battles too easy. Purge Magic was used on a few dragons and other foes to speed up their demise. Some notable encounters where this ability was useful, a bunch of Grave Liches in WK and Demogorgon fight. Sibel was my only arcane caster in that run, dualed to a Mage at 9 wearing Vecna, and the Demogorgon fight would have been not doable without the purge magic from the Wizard Slayer. I did cast it in the middle so everybody got purged including Rozvanke which I baited towards the middle, and so it made the fight significantly easier. It really strips the enemies of their buffs this one. Anyway, Purge Magic is very powerful and I tried not to use it too often, perhaps it would be better balanced as a single target instead of area of effect. It's a strong kit now with ridiculous regeneration but needs basic Haste and the Purge Magic ability throws the game off balance if not use sparingly.

Avenger: Did not forge the Avenger Dream gear as it seemed a bit too overpowered, stayed with Rust Armor. Overall this kit is very strong and in another run I'm using it without the Clan Hunter summon, much more balanced imo without the clan hunter summon. The Clan Hunter could be better used perhaps on a different type of Druid kit.

Archer: Once you change missile damage into piercing he becomes a viable character. A ranged Kensai basically. However Called Shot needs nerfing, I set mine to 4 seconds for the effects. So with about ten shots per round, it would lower the Thac0 by about 8 max and Strength about similar. Seemed a bit too strong still, I think the effects should last 3 seconds, this way it would lower Thac0 by about 5-6 max and STR as well but only to the target that he is focusing on. The point is to soften the target. Archer comes in handy in many tight places but is a bit boring to play and the gear selection is not quite linear.
I set Fire, Acid and Ice arrows to +3 and lowered prices for +4 Arrows. He was using Gesen Bow most of the game and switched to Tuigan Bow and +4 Piercing arrows for the tough fights.


Party was: Avenger, Wizard Slayer, Riskbreaker, Sibel(Swash9/Mage), Shaman, Archer
Difficulty: Hard
No use of tomes, no max hp on level up, no milking of spawns as it throws the game off balance completely, no doing quests of random NPCs and no breach on clerics as their power is severely diminished if breached.

This post has been edited by Berzerkerzz: May 28 2025, 01:01 AM

[morpheus562]

These are from NWN. These are post rendering and before conversion into bams where a few more adjustments are made.

[Berzerkerzz]

These are from NWN. These are post rendering and before conversion into bams where a few more adjustments are made.

I see, is there any guide somewhere on how to insert these animations into the game, I'm talking about the ones which are already converted into .BAM. I could use a few for the next encounters, Umber Hulk Elder for one especially since this one seems to have a slot dedicated already which should make assigning a new animation easier I assume, and a beefier Zombie animation for Theshal.

So whats with the changes? Are you working on an Improved Improved Anvil ?

Yes, I'm further improving some of the enemies and adding a few more here and there, besides that some cosmetic changes and visual effects.
Some other changes as well but they aren't actually in the game. For example no Breach or Remove Magic on enemy clerics or the Avenger with no Clan Hunter, Smilodon or Word of Wisdom.

Will you be compiling all your changes and sharing them?

I don't know, we'll see when it's all done I just hope I manage to finish them all. I only started mid way through the game and I'm still in Chapter 6.

[morpheus562]

I see, is there any guide somewhere on how to insert these animations into the game, I'm talking about the ones which are already converted into .BAM. I could use a few for the next encounters, Umber Hulk Elder for one especially since this one seems to have a slot dedicated already which should make assigning a new animation easier I assume, and a beefier Zombie animation for Theshal.

You can do something like this to add the Umber Hulk animations from IWD and assign it to the creature in BG2.

CODE

COPY ~ImprovedAnvil/resources/animations/umber_hulk_elder~ ~override~ // This is where the IWD Umber Hulk BAMs are located. This will import to the game

// Assign the animation to the elder umber hulk in the game.
COPY_EXISTING ~umbhul02.cre~ ~override~
    WRITE_LONG  0x28 IDS_OF_SYMBOL (animate UMBER_HULK_ELDER)

EDIT: Just submitted a pull request to add the IWD Elder Umber Hulk BAMS and assign them to the IA Elder Umber Hulks. If there are other animations in IWD that are not present in BG, you can go into IWD and export them to a folder, like the one I include for the Elder Umber Hulks, and you can just copy that over to your BG install to use the animations. Also, if the creature has unique sounds, be sure to copy those over too.

To know which files to grab:
- Find the animation you want to grab the bam files from. For our example, lets use UMBER_HULK_ELDER
- At the end of this animation name you will see 0xE0D0. Do a search for E0D0.ini to pull up the respective ini file.
- Here you will see "resref=MUMB". This means you are going to export all BAM files that start with "MUMB" to get all of the Elder Umber Hulk BAM files.
- Plop these BAM files in your game and now you have a fully working UMBER_HULK_ELDER animation set.

This post has been edited by morpheus562: May 25 2025, 12:55 AM

[Berzerkerzz]

I see, is there any guide somewhere on how to insert these animations into the game, I'm talking about the ones which are already converted into .BAM. I could use a few for the next encounters, Umber Hulk Elder for one especially since this one seems to have a slot dedicated already which should make assigning a new animation easier I assume, and a beefier Zombie animation for Theshal.

You can do something like this to add the Umber Hulk animations from IWD and assign it to the creature in BG2.

CODE

COPY ~ImprovedAnvil/resources/animations/umber_hulk_elder~ ~override~ // This is where the IWD Umber Hulk BAMs are located. This will import to the game

// Assign the animation to the elder umber hulk in the game.
COPY_EXISTING ~umbhul02.cre~ ~override~
    WRITE_LONG  0x28 IDS_OF_SYMBOL (animate UMBER_HULK_ELDER)

EDIT: Just submitted a pull request to add the IWD Elder Umber Hulk BAMS and assign them to the IA Elder Umber Hulks. If there are other animations in IWD that are not present in BG, you can go into IWD and export them to a folder, like the one I include for the Elder Umber Hulks, and you can just copy that over to your BG install to use the animations. Also, if the creature has unique sounds, be sure to copy those over too.

To know which files to grab:
- Find the animation you want to grab the bam files from. For our example, lets use UMBER_HULK_ELDER
- At the end of this animation name you will see 0xE0D0. Do a search for E0D0.ini to pull up the respective ini file.
- Here you will see "resref=MUMB". This means you are going to export all BAM files that start with "MUMB" to get all of the Elder Umber Hulk BAM files.
- Plop these BAM files in your game and now you have a fully working UMBER_HULK_ELDER animation set.

Alright thanks, I'll give that a try soon.