Longer Road compatable?, Along with other Mod NPC's? Options

[GreyArea]

Just been looking around for some new NPC's to add some spunk to my party and thought it would be a laugh to have the man himself with me...and Sarevok and Imon for some fun.

Anyways what is the compatability criteria for mods? I have read the list and from what I can gather is thus:

As long as the spells are left along and abilities are unchanged from IA standards (i assume IA overwrites them anyways when you install it last in the install chain?).

Please any assistance with this would be great cos I want to have some fun with them but am unsure if they will make IA go crash crash or just have the possibility of minor inconsistancies.

Cheers

[Moongaze]

I would also be interested in which NPC mods are compatible, or incompatible, whichever list is shorter and easier to put here.
I read Solaufein's spider battle was incompatible, for one?

A little shamelessness... due to lack of any drastic changes, Wikaede should be compatible, as I'm positive my future NPC Lockheart should work, again due to lack of anything drastic. I'm in no way a coder, let alone a good one... so if they turn out to be incompatible, I'd be more than happy to work with Sikret on making them work with IA. The same applies to Vlad and TS/NeJ.

Of course, there's a lot of NPC mods out there, so new things will no doubt be discovered in due time. Even I haven't played all of them.

This post has been edited by Moongaze: Apr 4 2008, 08:04 AM

[GreyArea]

Well to get around the Sola spider battle part open SK and go to global variables/atributes and find the encounter and spider parts and up them to I think its 3 and 4 respectivly.

I dump it down to 0 when playing normally because I console him in at act 1 with 500k exp cos I never have the patience to play most of the game before getting him. So if it is just the battles from the sola mod you can bypass them with SK, the read me states the effects of each command/variable so it shouldn't be too tough

[Raven]

According to the readme, it's not recommended to install Solaufein. I've never used the mod so can't say anything more than that. Similarly I don't know anything about Longer Road.

Sikret would of course be able to answer your questions but he has not been online for some days so I imagine he's busy at the moment.

[Moongaze]

Well to get around the Sola spider battle part open SK and go to global variables/atributes and find the encounter and spider parts and up them to I think its 3 and 4 respectivly.

I dump it down to 0 when playing normally because I console him in at act 1 with 500k exp cos I never have the patience to play most of the game before getting him. So if it is just the battles from the sola mod you can bypass them with SK, the read me states the effects of each command/variable so it shouldn't be too tough

Ah, I see.
Well, best not to install it together with IA, since I'm not too fond of messing with the console unless it's absolutely necessary. =3
The Longer Road adds quite a lot of content, and I seem to remember it also tampers with the XP caps in a way...because of Irenicus' high experience level. Quote from ReadMe: "Experience Cap reset to 40. No need to remove your old one though."

[Arkain]

Well, The Longer Road simply removes the exp cap. As for compatibility it was fine in 4.2. I don't know about IA 5 though. One issue that might be of interest is that there is an important quest which might interfere with some content introduced by IA.

SPOILER!

In WK level 3 you have to solve a quest rather fast to have any chance of actually getting the good ending. As far as I remember IA 5 added a new encounter, quest or something to this level. So there might be a bit of a hassle/problem.

[GreyArea]

Thanks for the heads up regarding LR.

Decided to get rid of it and un-install IA and then installed it afresh to make sure it was ok to run.

I have some NPC's I would like to try out so I am willing to take the risk of it crashing the game...as I am doing it fully aware of it NOT being recommended (decided to not use Sola as an NPC, just the scripts for other NPC's, mainly my casters)

If I find any incompatibilities in my run I will post them here along with the log file of installed mods, it should assist others.

[Raven]

I don't know about IA 5 though. One issue that might be of interest is that there is an important quest which might interfere with some content introduced by IA.

SPOILER!

In WK level 3 you have to solve a quest rather fast to have any chance of actually getting the good ending. As far as I remember IA 5 added a new encounter, quest or something to this level. So there might be a bit of a hassle/problem.

Ah, thanks Arkain. I don't know what is involved in the Longer Road quest in WK but to be on the safe side I would say this feature is likely to make it incompatible with IA (unless the player did WK 3 in SOA, in which case this LR quest would then not be accessible).

[Clown]

Having played both the vew IA quest in WK and the Longer Road quest I would imagine that they should not really conflict with each other as the anvil quest is pretty self contained. The only compatibility issue I can think of is with Jon himself, rapture of the father and the super breach spell especially.

[Shaitan]

Thanks for the heads up regarding LR.

Decided to get rid of it and un-install IA and then installed it afresh to make sure it was ok to run.

I have some NPC's I would like to try out so I am willing to take the risk of it crashing the game...as I am doing it fully aware of it NOT being recommended (decided to not use Sola as an NPC, just the scripts for other NPC's, mainly my casters)

If I find any incompatibilities in my run I will post them here along with the log file of installed mods, it should assist others.

Could you name those NPC's as it could potentially be of interest to others
I tend to use:
Xan
Kivan
Auren

[GreyArea]

Ok here is a list of names:

Valen
Solaufien
Miriam
Neh'taniel

Think there were a few others, I will check my log file

[Moongaze]

Neh'Taniel? Is it stable? Last time I checked, it was still in alpha...

[GreyArea]

Well I un-installed it due to re-reading the readme and finding out new stuff added to spells and some existing spell tweaks which would seem to screw with the IA coding/scripting.

Shame though, would of been fun to have a wraith in the party with a Vampire too...ah well (yes I am going to have Valen in my new party, I love her personality and the play style she 'forces' you to take)

[Moongaze]

Oh, it actually does that to the game? I didn't know that.
Hopefully Valen works, including tactical encounter and everything.
Not sure if IA has a lot of evil options, though.

[GreyArea]

I just had a nasty feeling.

Do the IA Clerics have it programmed to turn undead?

If they do and are high enough level Valen has absolutely NO hope in doing a damned thing without being blasted back to the negative planes (or were ever).

This would sadly rule her out as a possible NPC because I don't want to screw with the IE scripts to turn her from undead to 'living' just for that, no point to it at all.

Crap poo bugger

Well it also means no turning of undead if she is with me which could prove to be problematic it seems with the Skeleton Lords etc that are around.

Looks like my plans are falling apart due to IA's coding grrr...ah well means it will be a bit more fun instead.

Raven would you be able to shed light on if Clerics (good and evil) would actively turn undead if Valen (or other undead, if that makes the question easier to answer) if they are near by? If so Valen and Neh'taniel and Miriam are all out of the picture (due to being vamp/wraith/vamp respectively).

Cheers

*crosses fingers that IA isn't soevil for undead critters*

[Raven]

Raven would you be able to shed light on if Clerics (good and evil) would actively turn undead if Valen (or other undead, if that makes the question easier to answer) if they are near by? If so Valen and Neh'taniel and Miriam are all out of the picture (due to being vamp/wraith/vamp respectively).

I'm pretty sure IA clerics will not try to command/turn Valen, since the scripts do not expect a member of the party to be undead.

Even if Valen is fully compatible, IA does not have much scope for playing evil parties at the moment - substantial parts of the game require reputation 20, including the new Ranger strongholds quests and the quests that take place in the Windspear Hills after Firkraag is defeated. You risk missing out not only on content but items/components if you don't meet the reputation requirement. Just something to bear in mind.

To be honest, I think you'd be better of playing with mods that are not 'not recommended' in the readme on your first playthrough and then experiment afterwards. It would suck to get some ways into the mod and find some incompatibility problem that screwed up your game.

[GreyArea]

Very good and valid point.

Noted and I was thinking the same thing (I even posted on my old party formation thread with a new thought on a new party idea that needs some further improvments).

Cheers...next run through I may try Valen out but thinking that she is best left, for now, in the normal un-modded game (well...non IA game anyways)

[Arkain]

I don't know about IA 5 though. One issue that might be of interest is that there is an important quest which might interfere with some content introduced by IA.

SPOILER!

In WK level 3 you have to solve a quest rather fast to have any chance of actually getting the good ending. As far as I remember IA 5 added a new encounter, quest or something to this level. So there might be a bit of a hassle/problem.

Ah, thanks Arkain. I don't know what is involved in the Longer Road quest in WK but to be on the safe side I would say this feature is likely to make it incompatible with IA (unless the player did WK 3 in SOA, in which case this LR quest would then not be accessible).

SPOILER!

First of all you mustn't enter WK 3 without Jon or the quest will be screwed anyway. If you arive there you'll meet a deva who is close to dying. There's also a bebilith involved which you can and must meet later on. The whole quest centers around three items which you have to find before the deva dies to help not only him but the bebilith as well. I think you have only about 20 hours, maybe less. I usually do it without resting anyway. That's what I meant with "fast", by the way. Anyway, you have to make it through the entire maze (and back, too) to actually find the items. Then there's a little fight in the compass room and finally you can make a decision on how to end the quest.

This is about it. Raven, what are your thoughts regarding incompatibility?

This post has been edited by Arkain: Apr 5 2008, 06:04 PM

[Raven]

Thanks again, Arkain .

If there is not a time limit on exiting the level then I think there is not an incompatibility there. My concern was that the Longer Road quest required you to proceed to the 4th level within a certain amount of time. Of course there are a couple of improved battles in WK 3 in addition to the main new IA quest, which may make progressing through the maze in that limited time rather difficult.

About the abilities of Irenicus: it's possible, even likely, that any Breach-variant would not work correctly with IA's modifications to SI:Abj. It may well be the case that this new spell would bypass SI:Abj completely and render the protections of many IA enemies instantly useless. This would mean some IA battles would become trivial, while others would not be affected.

One might argue that this kind of issue (or one involving IA scripts not responding properly to mod spells or mod item abilities) is not a true incompatibility. I would say it was; one reason to install IA is for the additional challenge - if other mods are eliminating this then I don't think there's any point playing IA at the same time.

** Please remember I don't know anywhere near as much about how IA works as Sikret, and that then my advice is not necessarily the best or the advice he would give - I'm just trying to help out as best I can while he is not around. **

[Arkain]

I have to admit that I'm a bit confused: Super Breach? Rapture of the Father? Huh? TLR's Irenicus is a normal wizard. He has no special spells, no special abilities. Yes his stats are very high and he got his (very powerful) mask, which most notably grants bonus spell slots. He also has most spells in the game copied into his spellbook. Nothing else. There's even a disadvantage, as he can't die in battle or he will cease existence completely and reduce the protagonist's max HP which effectively means that the player has to take care about him for raising Jon from the dead is impossible.