Raven, MST was casted first and SI as 2nd. I thought RRR choses random from same lvl spells btw.
English is not my native language, so maybe I am not as clear as I want. I didnt mean charecter portrait, I meant on character sheet, where all of your active spell is written with your savint throws, weapon skills etc. I am pretty sure that visible animation of both MST and SI is lost after 1 and ONLY ONE RRR. I forgot that there is icon on portrait for these spells, so I will check them again today evening, happily I have saved game before those liches. But I had to reload those fights 2 times, and visible animation was lost all time.

OK, I checked it again yesterday evening 4 times. It seems it is only graphic problem. According to icons on char portrait only one of them are dispelled. Sorry for false report. I had at least 8-10 icons on my char portrait and I thought that those spells which has graphic animation, doesn't appear as icon (like Mirror Image and Blur).

Its possible to get XP multiple times from Jermein in the juggernaut quest. If the party leaves his house before him (after he speaks), they can re-enter, upon which jermein will speak to you and give the xp points again

A strange cheat!!!
If you configure a short key to Nahal Dweomer you can use it without limitation. Select an arcane caster press the shortkey and voila he/she can use it, their contents of spellbook appaer and they can cast any of their spell with a wild surge!!!

Another bug:
With dweomer the contigencies, triggers and sequencers never create wild surges. You can creater a minor seqencer, seqencer and a spell trigger in the same time. But if you do it possible the appaer a bug (every spell you cast come with a wild surge). if i remember correctly only one seqencer/trigger type spell can active the others are failed? Or this isn't bug and you rack your spell in these 3 spells.

A new endless spell circle in chapter 2:
With wild mage you buffing ability only depends your patient and the spell durations, because after you collect ~10k gold you can buy the limited wish scroll from the adventurer marts, so you get some gems, a +2 full plate and an endless spell circle from the beginning of the game. I think must be remove the scroll from the store or raise it value to 30-50k gold because it is powerful if you feel lucky. My favorite moment was when in a hard battle i must cast limited wish with dweomer and the wild surge rolled to area effect so every character of mine summuned a djinni so my badly injured and exhausted party completely healed their spells from level 1-4 are returnd and my not too wise characters summoned lots of rabbit to disract the enemy. With limited wish your party never must rest and you can variate all of your casters spell repertoire before a hard battle!

The evil wild mages rocks in the beginning of IA.

I think i found a Typo in the beholder lair in the Underdark. THe Elder Orb is referred as a Beholder in the Log but if you Tab him he's a Elder Orb

Yes, I had noticed this in my own game too. It's a vanilla game issue. I'll fix it for the next release.

One more thing shouldn't that Eyestalk belong to a Hive Mother?
I just killed another Elder Orb and that one was much easier than the first Beholder/Elder Orb/Hive Mother?

Gorwath

I don't know if this is IA bug or original Vanilla... Nowadays I use Wish spell frequently, and I found very irritating if I don't get really good choses I have to pick an indifferent one. When it is the one which affects party and enemies together most of my summons change to hostile... Even if that was a heal everyone, or intoxicated everyone etc. I can accept, although not fully understand when Breach on everyone makes them hostile, but heal, intoxicate, magic resistance etc. why?

@shadan

The "Intoxicate everyone" is a hostile spell which makes your summoned creatures hostile. That's (arguably) correct.

"Heal" and "Magic Resistance" options of Wish spell don't make them hostile and there is no such bug in the game. (unless you have a local problem in your game). I have tested them myself and I'm pretty sure that no such bugs exist in regard to the heal and magic resistance options of wish spell, but please test them again in your game and let me know the result.

"Breach on all enemies" was bugged in the vanilla game and would make your summoned creature hostile. I have already fixed it in IA v6. See the progress report.

The same applies to contingencies I recall, like chain contingency.

Tried it, you are right, Sikret, my memories were too cloudy... Only breach and intoxicate made them hostile. and my english is not perfect, I thought intoxicate means cure poison, so I wondered why is that hostile...

There are several areas in the game where you might be attacked when you try to sleep. In some of these places you really can make a lot of XPs for almost free. For example in the basement before you enter Tol'Gar you can meet with 4 Yuan'tis. In sum they give you 6k XP and they are really easy to kill. And you can do it several - I think unlimited - times. For those who want to "cheat" it is an easy place to do. Solution could be either that they appear only limited times or they do not give you XP after some battles. Or alternatively a DemiGod of Yuan'tis appears after some battles.

I find it quiet logical to meet common foot soldiers when sleeping so close to Tor'gal. I too normally sleep there, but I use to succeed after two or three times It's a bit annoying when they pops up just around your spellcasters though.

You misunderstood me. It is absolut logical to meet with these guys there. The problem is that I had no difficulties to beat them; my party did not damaged or they were damaged only really a bit. I did not use it to get extra XP but it is possible and any player could do the trick to stay there for a long time, beat them for example 100 times (easily can be done) and make 600k XP.

If you want to cheat, you edit your character. If you don't want to cheat, don't try to sleep more times, try only until you succeed and no enemy comes. Imho it doesn't worth to spend efforts to prevent this, there are a lot of places where you can do this sleep thing.

If you killed Valygar and then open the Planar Sphere and before you enter you speak with Tolgerias then you have the possibility to get two Rings of Ram. If you told him that you tell him where the corpse of Valygar is if he give you more then he give you the ring of ram and some coins. You will get also the ring when you kill him. Ok, it is not a big deal (ring of ram is not a very good item), so, it is not really important to remove it.

I will block this exploit. Thanks, Vuki!

During the mage stronghold quest when the apprentices made all of your items then two days later you are called to go to the sphere by a messenger. My problem is that sometimes this messenger does not initiate the conversation and therefore it is really easy to miss him. The reason might be that I left the area before he was able to start the conversation and when I come back he did not react again. Can it be fixed somehow?

In the V5 bug thread I mentioned the following:


You told me that you would fix it in V6. That is ok but I realize something strange with the Globe spells (minor and major). Major version protects against all 4th or lower spell and it gives you immunity against dispel magic as well. Minor version protects against all 3rd or lower spell but it does not give immunity against dispel however the minor globe is not dispellable. I think it is absolutely not logical. I see some possible solutions:

1. Most logical: Both globes give protection against dispel and none of them is dispellable.

2. Little bit less logical but gives the most interesting gameplay: Both globes give protection against dispel but both of them are dispellable. So, succesfull dispel magic remove the globe but nothing else.

3. Well balanced (IMO): Minor is dispellable and do not give protection against dispel. 6th level Globe remains as it is.

4. Another balanced version: Minor is dispellable but it gives protection against dispel (it is like the 2nd version). 6th level Globe remains as it is.

The problem with the 1st version is that it makes the two spells very similar and there will be no real reason to use the major version (protection against 4th level spell is not a big advantage). 2nd version means that it makes the current Impr. Inv. + Spell Immunity: Illusion + Globe of Invulnerabilty combó - which is extremely powerful because there is no way to remove any spells from the caster - less brutal because 2 succesfull dispel magic spells remove Spell Immunity (and the Globe).

I don't think that such a bug exists in the game. Neither the 6th level spell, Globe of Invulnerability, nor the 4th level minor globe protect against dispel magic.

Raven also mentioned this here (see especially the 2nd paragraph).

Test it again with your own chracters (let one of them cast the globe and another spell which is dispellable; then with one of your other characters who is high level enough cast dispel magic on the first one), you will see that dispel magic works despite the globe. Let me know the result.

I will investigate the problem with the messenger.

Sikret, I have already tested it and my previous post was based on this investigation. My 12th level cleric/mage casted chant on the party then a mirror image and then a globe of invulnerabilty on herself. Chant of course affected all party members. My 18th level blade casted mirror image and minor globe of invulnerability. Then he casted a dispel magic. It removed the chant from all characters including himself but excluding the C/M. All mirror images were removed but none of the globes were removed. So, minor globe does not protect against dispel while globe of invulnerability protects against it. Mirorr image was removed, so the globe did not protect it.

I'm pretty sure that Globe of Invulnerability doesn't protect against dispel magic. The fact that the mirror image on your C/M was removed despite having the globe is a good evidence as well.

Test again and test more than once; the dispel magic spell has always 1% chance to fail despite the difference in levels; perhaps that had been the case with the chant effect on your C/M.

I have tested this in my game just now and did not find that the Globe of Invulnerability made any difference to the effectiveness of the Dispel - other buffs were removed from the character with the globe while the globe itself stayed.

Ohh, I was really stupid. I tested it only once and it was an unfortunate test. Every spell was removed except the spells on my C/M. I should have tested it more than once. I tried now several times and I got different results every time. Next time I will be more precise and I will make more tests. Sorry to bother you with these stupid comments.

However it was not without any reason because finally I was able to find a small bug. First problem is that my monk resisted the spell, so there was one line which says "Dispel effects" and one line which says that "Magic resistance". I think it is a bit confusing. Similar effect happens with globe of invulnerability, the second text line for my C/M says that "Spell Ineffective". It is also confusing. Last issue is that it would be nice to separate when dispel was succesful and not succesfull. Even when it is not successfull the text is "Dispel effects", I think it should show somehow that it was not successfull.

No problem, Vuki!

The animation effect (not the "dispel effects" message effect) has a wrong power number in the vanilla game and also checks magic resistance. if you cast remove magic on a rakshasa or lich, the spell will work, but you will still read the "Spell Ineffective" mesage which relates to the animation only. The same will happen if you cast the spell on a creature with high MR; you will read the "magic resistance" message, but again it's only related to the animation which was supposed to be played above the target's head. I noticed this bug when I was playing the game a few weeks ago and fixed them, but just didn't write about them in the "progress report" thread, because I thought they were minor things.

Don't know if this a bug, but I happens sometimes - I finish Shade Lord with a Vagrant, go to meet mayor who gives me my stronghold. I rest there so that wood spirit Mairliyn or somethiong would show up. Ok, she does, gives me a quest to get rid of some people digging in the wood, I do that, report to her, she goes away. I rest again to trigger Delon again. Sure, he shows up with "I have an offer for you if you wish to hear it". I go to mayor and find out I lost my stronghold and am no longer welcome. What's up with that? This does't happen in all my games, but it does quite often. It used to happen in the vanilla game also, so it is not IA's fault.

It's not related to IA for sure.

I will investigate the case. In my own games, I always talk to the mayor (as well) after completing each quest. I'm not sure if this is the source of your problem, but you wrote that after doing the quest, you only talked to the spirit, yes?

If you have a saved game, reload the game, and after doing that quest, talk to the mayor as well as the spirit and let me know if the bug happens again.

Since you said that the bug only sometimes happens, you may want to test it several times (a few times without talking to Mayor and a few times with talking to mayor and count the number of times the bug happens in either case). Let me know the result.

I think it could be the fact I usually don't bother with those ogres up there. What I usually do is this - talk to them 1.st time, then talk to major, sleep, talk to major to get exp. But I don't talk to ogres again to get the shield. After reloading, I'm pretty sure that's the problem. In my latest run with a Vagrant, I did everything "as it should be done" (talk in correct order with major, ogres, got shield etc) and it worked just fine. God bless Anomen's shield.

Hello, I am a newbie to IA mod and am currently researching it, yet I was able to achieve about 10-15 million xp in Irenicus' dungeon due to a lot of patience and spawning mephits. This is, most obviously, an exploit which I resorted to since I love playing solo and I don't know the mod. But I think that it's good to be fixed, by either fixing the number of mephits spawning from portals, or not giving xp for killing such mephits.

While this is indeed an exploit of the vanilla game which is better to be fixed than left, in a game with IA installed it's not an exploit, it's rather a suicide!

Starting the game with high xp will make the game very hard because you will keep encountering the toughest possible enemies in every dungeon. with high level characters who lacks equivalently decent equipment, defeating those enemies will be too hard specially because some of them may require +3 or +4 weapons to hit which your paty don't have at the start of the game right after Irenicus' dungeon. With inflated xp, spellhold will also turn to be a hell for you.

So, in general, while I agree that this is an exploit in the vanilla game, I don't think that blocking it has priority for IA. As I said, using such xp exploits early in the game will only backbite you.

Also, IA is not a mod for solo-running. No solo character can survive IA without lots of cheating. I strongly recommend to start the game again and play with a party of 5 or 6.

There is a thing in the game which is easilly exploitable, due to the fact that NPCs usually join you at similar levels. The thing is, if you know a certain "quest order" you can easilly gain about 800 - 900 000 exp almost without doing any hard fights (circus, bridge killer, umar hills, thieves whitout picking up quest exp, fwindspear acrons and some fights, even unseeing eye if youre lucky enough) then pick up npcs you want and get high levels very quickly.. Think that could/should be fixed by having npcs always join at a certain level (9 or so).

one other thing, not sure if this is fixable tough.. potion swapping to cast scrolls, very old but probably the ultimate cheese ever

Another thing.

I think that those 'xp gain exploits' just multiplied. I've discovered that for a low reputation, the same old Amnish Guards and Cowled Wizards appear. They are vulnerable to trap damage(in fact, they die in a second), give quite decent xp(30 000 regular guards, Paladins of the Radiant Heart twice as much), and a LOT of gold(each group has five full plate mail suits, and 11 random item slots, which may contain items from the cheapest gem to powerful spell scrolls,including Spell Trap, Ruby Ray, Spell Trigger, Projected Image and the 'rare' Immunity to Level Drain scrolls). This, of course, means, that even if no merchant is lootable anymore, their stuff can all be bought via killing a lot of Amnish Guards. Not to mention the fact that this way all of the party members will become demigods.

This was present in the original game, however I thought that this was fixed. By setting traps, the whole system works clean, fast and without arcane spell casting, meaning that Zallanora is left for later(she carries a bunch of Spellstrike scrolls, and her goons carry a lot of other valuable rare scrolls like Improved Haste). And as for the weapons, weapons +3 can be created by the Enchant Weapon spell, Phosphorous can easily be forged with a lot of money(there are enough weapons and Permanency scrolls around), and Energy Blades are considered to be of +10 enchantment. Not to mention that the most powerful party members will wear a cloak of protection +2 or +3 and a similar ring, plus everyone will have a recharged Wand of something in their arsenal.

BTW, are there enough Permanency scrolls for everything? How many of those are there? I've found three for now, all of them in the Docks district, and I'm uncertain if I'd have enough for all item upgrades.

I think energy blades are "only" +5 and are not that hot in IA anymore, for weapons you'll need far more than only phosporus with +4 enhancement with your exp levels, it makes the game a lot harder if you are very high level couse despite your levels, you won't have the needed equipment.
There are plenty of permanency scrolls, check containers and such also
Btw, you can not find project image in IA, that spell is replaced.
Who is Zallanora?

Well, I will anyway try out the game with a lot of xp, gold, and solo(for now). If soloing is not enough, then I will collect a team of six HLA-heavy characters, and I doubt that I will have any trouble.

Zallanora is the head of the Cowled Wizards. They will tolerate the first arcane casting violence, and afterwards, on five subsequent violations, they will send squads of 4 Cowled wizards to stop you.

SPOILER!


After the fifth group is defeated and another arcane casting violation ensues, then will appear 'the highest order' of the Cowled wizards. They include Zallanora, which is the head of the Cowled ones, 2 regular Cowled wizards and Kollynic Paac(which later helps you send the Solamnic Knights home, and will still do so even if killed in this encounter - a bug?). Zallanora is an ancient lich which has stolen the body of an elf female wizard and runs the Cowled Wizards in Athkatla. This encounter has been made very hard indeed, since in 3 second intervals more Cowled wizards gate in, accompanied by Coin Golems(now all can stop wondering what on earth do Cowled wizards with their Spell License taxes - they make golems, of course).

SPOILER!

Yes, with cheating you won't have any trouble.

We have another forum here at BWL, namely Gaming Discussion for Baldur's Gate 2. Players who are not shy to use cheat or cheese during the game and those who insist on playing the game with fewer than 5 characters in the party should post in that forum (rather than IA's main forum). Of course, I won't read those posts and will not offer technical support to those who ingnore my recommendations.

Good luck!

I haven't posted here in order to make people cheat or cheese. I simply referred to the fact that although this mod tries to strip all cheese from the game, there is still some. I, personally, will try the game this way for now, because I'm unfamiliar with the mod and the fights. Again, this is no cheating IMO, just a cheesy method to acquire a lot of money and xp. But I think that these exploits should be fixed, if possible, something like spawning Amnish guards should carry undroppable plate mails or even undroppable enchanted weapons, no xp gained from such fights, etc.

Just a little suggestion. Since I'm unfamiliar with the mod, I don't know if there is a fixed Spell Trigger scroll in SoA. If not, I think it should be added somewhere, since this is the main reason that I fought Amnish guards in the first place.

Shade lord - did it with a 5 person party. He killed one, and put the other 4 to sleep (emotion I believe). Then he aproached my protagonist (who wes sleeping) and stood by him, not attacking, not casting..nothing until ber/cleric woke up, then shade went after him.

@saros

1- By cheating, I was referring to your intention to add HLA-heavy characters to your party later on. How else newly added NPCs can be HLA-heavy?

2- By ignoring my recommendations, I was referring to your persistence on playing solo.

@Kerkes



This has been discussed before (though I can't find the posts to give a link right now). It's an unfixable bug of the vanilla game which sometimes (not always) happens. Enemies sometimes just fail to see unconscious characters.

1 - I was referring to raising additional NPC's experience to HLA levels by killing a lot of Amnish guards. No cheating. Besides, I need money and certain high-level scrolls.

2 - I like to play solo. On Insane. Otherwise, I admire your reports in your 6-person party run so far. Unfortunately, I hate to rely on luck, and in your reports, while the tactics are great, there is a bit of luck involved. But I will most certainly try the mod with a full party(or solo F/M/C) and no xp exploits, once I'm familiar with the mod.

P.S. I know that you made all NPCs to receive quest xp rewards at joining according to PC levels of experience, but I think that you missed Aerie...she always joins at 161 000 xp no matter how high a level my PC is.

I will block this exploit in IA v6, but as long as it is available, using it is not much different from cheating.

Even if we show some tolerance and call it "cheese" rather than "cheat", it won't make any difference in the main point that players who use "cheat or cheese" should post to the other forum (which I gave the link to).

Reporting an exploit is something, using it is something quite different. Other players have also reported xp exploits to me, but they don't actually use it. When they find an exploit and accidentally gain extra xp, they reload the game and try to avoid it.



That's good news! If you decide to play a full party, you are welcome to send your gaming experience and reports to the mod's main forum; if you decide to solo, send your posts to the other forum.

I really like to play in solo mod as well. However I am sure that you cannot win the game in solo mod. There are a lot of effects that you cannot resist when you are alone and there are a lot of enemies which you cannot kill because you are not able to damage enough to kill. But still I would like to try it after I finish my current 6 characters game and see how far I can get. It will be a fun.

Thanx, that was what I wanted.



I have some reports of people who have won the IA 4.3 with a solo F/M/C, with no reloads on insane until the final battle.

P.S. I will try to report more such exploits if I find any.

P.P.S. @Sikret: Please consider adding a fixed Spell Trigger scroll in SoA somewhere.

As far as I remember, random spawns in Firkraag dungeon level 2(rest interruptions) include Skeleton warriors, carrying sometimes valuable spell scrolls. You may consider fixing this also (if it hasn't been already done).

If it's the bug I'm thinking of, you can work around it. If Player1 is unconscious, then Attack(Player1) will work even when Attack(NearestEnemyOfBlah) doesn't. Most of my scripts have a "if you get this far, there are no targets, so just attack Player1 through Player6 in order" block.

IIRC, IA already adds a fixed Spell Trigger scroll *somewhere* in SoA.

I'm not sure if this a vanilla game bug or IA bug. I'm sure that's extremly annoying. Cerd is very oft loosing all his 4th level memorized spells so I have to set up page four of his spelbook a lot. This proved very deadly a few times because he usually memorizes death ward, and that's not funny when you're fighting mages who are so keen on castin power word kill on poor Imoen or demiliches who will imprison anybody who is vulnerable to it ASAP. Funny thing, all other spells are normaly memorized, only level4 are deleted. This wasn't happening until he got his upgraded staff and hit very high levels (24, 25 or so), and only in TOB.
Same thing happens with my ber/cler dual (levels 9/ 27,28 or so). He usually looses his 5th or 6th level spells without castin any. Any help? I have baldurdash, IA5, unnerfed spell progresion for mages/clerics/druids from bgtweaks installed with no other mods, NPCs or such.

I know, but as I said, reporting an exploit is one thing, using it in practice is something quite different. My complaint was that you kept using that exploit in your game.



Yes, someone did most of IA v4.2 in a solo game, but she did it with many "cheesy" and "cheap" methods and tricks (I have read that report as well and didn't find it interesting from a tactical point of view). Cheesy players are not welcome here in IA's forum.

It's a lot harder in v5. Actually, I'm pretty sure that IA v5 is not soloable without cheating. This is exactly why we don't accept reports from solo-runners in IA's forum. A solo runner will certainly cheat during the game (even though he or she won't be honest enough to admit it). Eventually, the forum will be filled with forged, artificial, and false reports; and that's what we don't want to happen.

Reports are welcome, but if you keep using them in practice, you are not welcome to post in IA's main forum. Start a new game without using such exploits; otherwise you should post to the other forum I gave the link to (this is the last warning).



How do you know that I haven't? So far, you have not played the mod's actual content at all and wasted your time cheating xp, gold and items by killing amnish guards and cowled wizards. As Raven mentioned, there are such fixed scrolls inside the game, you just need to play the mod as intended.

I'm not sure if this is the source of your problem or not, perhaps not; but it shows that you haven't followed the installation instructions accurately. It is strictly and clearly mentioned in IA's readme file that you shouldn't use BG2 Tweakpack.

The problem you reported sometimes (quite rarely though) occurs in the vanilla game, rarely when a character is dead and raised or (more frequently) when a character wields a weapon which grants additional spell slots (it has been seen only for weapons, not for other type of equipment). It doesn't look to be fixable.

I've seen this bug most often with the Ring of Acuity.

BTW I've started a normal multiplayer game, and I will post the more interesting battles. But here are some additional bugs I've noticed when playing:

Amnish Guard loot: when sleeping in the streets of Athkatla, a random Amnish guard may appear to disturb the party to find an inn. Those frequently carry valuable magical scrolls, which may be looted by a quick(hasted) and averagely skilled thief without any penalty.

If a character talks quickly to Cromwell after an item upgrade, some of the ingredients may be preserved and the upgraded item can be still received. However, some times the opposite bug appears: ingredients are all consumed, while the upgraded item is lost.

Thank you. You are playing with a full 6-men party, right?

I'd also like to see the content of your WeiDu.log file. It's a text document in your main BG2 folder. Copy and paste its content into your next post.



Will block this as well in v6. Thanks for the report. But, don't use the exploit in your game. Discover the possible exploits and report them to me, but then reload the game and avoid using them.

I will post the content of my WeiDU file as soon as I'm home. Since I'm usually writing from my working place, I cannot do it now.

I haven't given up the solo, but I will post here only things concerning my party adventure. I have two parralel games running.

BTW, here is another strange bug - if a party's reputation is lowered, and a party manages to defeat several Amnish guard patrols, then afterwards Cowled Wizard patrols do not appear at spellcasting violation on Athkatlan streets.