just was thinking i was not high lvl enough, and statue with usuno blade dont spawn

Does it mean that I could be lucky getting another item from that place, or is it put into a pool of better places to be acquired from? Ie the boots of avoiding?

Regards

I am stucked in the Good, the Bad and the Ugly:

SPOILER!

SPOILER!


It took me a minute to figure that out too. Perhaps the dialog could be changed or have the person walk to the cave entrance.

Thank's Vardaman. I run around with my hasted bard to check whole area, before I asked help, but it seems somehow I missed that corner.

I know this has been asked before, but the answer was via PM, so here we go again:

SPOILER!


Any answer (PM or otherwise) would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

PM sent.

how many rounds in orc horde?

Play and find it out for yourself.

i try man i try

Sikret, just one question so far....where is a safe container to store stuff. I would hate to put it in to a chest only to come back and find out I have been robbed

Also just wanted to let you know that I have been having a blast playing IA. The battles are good and fair. I have had no problem defeating monster as long as I thought about what I was going to do. I had tried to play IA a while ago and gave up to quick. Now I better understand the tactics envolved.

It is really nice having no bugs and playing a mod that when you come to the forum you see topics about tactics and party composition vice....."I have a bug HELP" Keep at it and I will keep playing and encouraging others as well.

Regards, Nazar

This question was asked before, but I can't find it to give you a link to the answers. Just don't leave items on the ground; any container will do the job provided that you won't lose access to that area later on. I usually use the chest in Copper Coronet (near Anomen's initial location).



Thank you, Nazar!

The mod's "stability" is one of my main priorities. I remember the old days when I was a simple player and had not started modding yet. On those days, I practically gave up playing any mods because of their bugs. Stable mods were (and still are) very very rare. That's why when I started modding, I paid special attention to the mod's stability and was careful not to "mistake players with testers" (i.e. I don't release a mod without testing it and sit to receive bug reports from players).

I had also the great luck of having the cooperation and valuable help of some of the best BG2 players (thetruth, Raven, Dago, leonidas, and others) as my testers during the creatation of each and every version of the mod. Without their help I couldn't be so successful in detecting and fixing possible bugs.

Edited to fix a typo

I concur with you. I was ready to give up playing because i would get half way into a modded game and then have a game ending bug. Of course for me a game ending bug includes using the CLUA. I have had this game since its release and have never used it. Did not want the temptation to change things. I have never even activated it for that matter. With the install I have now (RR included) Avenger said I would need to CLUA in chapter six for the COM encounter. It was due to the graveyard area having some problem that BD Fixpack did not fix. Is there any way that I can fix it by editing with NI? Oh and while I am at it do you have a donation scale for reputation. I can figure it out by paying in 100gp increments at the temple but would rather not waste the time, however if it is meant to be that way i will play thru it! Thanks for the quick response!

Oh and rough estiment on v6?

500 (to change 8 to 9), then 700, 900,1200, 1500, 2000, 2500, 5000. Donation won't increase reputation above 16.



I can't give an estimation release date for now. There are a few quests which still need to be added.

Valiant (who is a great graphics artist) is also making a masterpiece (a new large area) for the Expanded Druid Stronghold and I need his work to be done before completing the new druid stronghold's quests.

Then, depending on whether thetruth will be back in time or not, I may start working on the Expanded Fighter Stronghold and the Extended Twisted Rune quests (since thetruth has told me that he has detailed suggestions and ideas for them, I don't want to start working on these two big quests without his presence. He is currently too busy in RL).

After that, we will have the testing stage for which I will need Raven's precious help for sure. Raven is an amazingly accurate player and tester; I won't release the next version without having it tested by him. He is also busy in RL for now. I will use other testers too (will announce for volunteer testers) but I want Raven to be one of the testers for sure.

The whole process may take a few months. If thetruth is not back within a couple of months, I may release v6 without the Expanded Fighter Stronghold and the Extended Twisted Rune quests (and will postpone them to be added to IA v7).

The discussion about storage.

About the stability and bugs in mods:

This roots in several things that I won't detail now. One of the reasons is the fact anyone can create mods, and modders aren't professionals. Many of the active modders lack the required theoretical and practical knowledge about development and related software aspects. This is natural, because it's our hobby, but unfortunately, some modders are daring enough to make confident statements in topics they don't know in details. Many readers, including modders that aren't so experienced, take these statements for granted. It results in miscellaneous misbeliefs, which lead to statements such as "Improved Anvil is poorly designed, because it doesn't work well other mods". They don't know that a mod of such complexity can't be kept bug-free with a reasonable effort without strict guidelines (considering the efficiency and services of available development tools). They don't know it because they don't know what controlling complexity means.

The misbeliefs also result in buggy mods, because many authors don't feel (and thus don't take) enough responsibility for their work. Don't get me wrong: bugs are unavoidable -- as I've written, most modders aren't skilled in software development. On the other hand, incorrect information and bad morale makes the situation much much worse. Beyond the misbeliefs and arrogant statements, some sites measure their success in mod forum posts, regardless of quality etc.

Efficiency and services of tools is also important, indeed. Some tools could be improved a lot. If possible, I will hopefully make some tutorials and tools to help those who are persistent enough to wait a few years (but I can't promise anything). Of course, this won't prevent (as nothing can prevent) the harmful effects caused by the attitude of irresponsible or self-important modders (who may mislead both modders and players).

Of course, I didn't intend to be off-topic in this thread (though it's random questions but they are strictly for Improved Anvil!), but I felt it necessary to give some foretaste of the reasons behind these things.

Thanks for the link to the storage discussion, Baronius.



I can actually write a tutorial, "How to make your mods compatible with IA", but I don't think that any of those arrogant people will ever use it. The problem here is that even the author of a small kit-mod expects me to revise a huge mod such as IA to make it compatible with his mod rather than re-working his mod and making it compatible with IA or at least making a different (IA-compatible) version of it for IA players (which will take much less time and energy).

I think it may be a communications breakdown actually - "making compatible" can be used to mean two different things here.

Notion 1: how easily could two mods be made compatible by content changes? - for which the answer, for mods that introduce new powers or items, is usually going to be "quite easily, providing the mod doing the introducing avoids introducing certain sorts of items/spells".

Notion 2: Is it possible to make two mods compatible with no content changes at all? - for which the answer is usually going to be "yes, but not easily, and the work would have to be done by IA" - which you're quite-reasonably deciding isn't a sensible use of your time.

So when Ronin talks about compatibility I think he means notion 2 - and it's basically impossible for him to do that inside his mod (I think... I'm not clear on the details. Certainly it's impossible inside TS, where the issue is items that give permanent protection.) I think you mean notion 1, on the grounds that notion 2 is unrealistically time-consuming given the complexity of IA and the details of how it's coded.

well i can tell you that IA is the best mod if you want a challenge . and about mods which are writen and not incompateble with IA ( look at the one of the latest mods asked like Geometric sorcerer which may be compateble with IA, but is way overpowered!!!


P.S.
sorry for my english it may contain some mistakes but i think it is understandable.

If he wanted to do it inside his mod, I could tell him how to do it. Or alternatively, he could make a different version of the kit which is compatible with IA (neither of the two solution is impossible, though the second one is more elegant and easier to accomplish).



For big mods such as TS, the solution is to make a separate compatibility patch (as Vlad and I are currently working on it).

In general, two solution are in principle available. Either the mod's author works with me to make a separate compatibility patch or he will work with me to release a different version of his mod which works with IA.

The latter is already done in case of mods for BG1. Some of them have different versions which work with tutu and can use the extra resources tutu offers. In a similar way, it's also possible to make separate and different versions of mods which are made to work with IA and can also use the extra resources IA adds to the game (such as IA's polygonal system, its new creatures, scripts, item randomizer, et al).

In the Umar Hills Temple I defeated the first lich and tried to fight the second but couldn't do it without resting. So I went back to a save, rested and headed for the second lich but there were no enemies there anymore. The lich and crew were just gone. I also had to delay my fight at the Trademeet crypt, forgot about it and went back much later (Chapter 6) and there are no enemies in there anymore. So I'm wondering if these are intentional or a bug?

I killed one demon (a Tanar'ri) to get the demon heart for Lavok. There is the other demon Lea'liyl who seems to be quite powerful. Could it be that I miss some important items (for example a randomized item) if I do not care about her/him? I postponed this fight to tomorrow because today I was a bit tired of battles. If I am tired tomorrow I will maybe miss this guy but I would like to be sure to not leave behind a critical item.

You will miss a couple of relatively important items, but nothing critical.

Thanks! Then I will kill him. I do not want to miss relatively important items. And anyway it seems to be a funny fight. This will be my first real fight against demaons and it will be a valuable experience before I go to WK.

I am fighting currently with the Shade Lich in Spellhold. I have not too much chance against it at the moment but I try my best. I am able to kill all the Skeleton Lords here and all other monsters (including Fallen Planetar) but I am not able to kill the the Shade Lord itself. The problem is that I cannot harm him with weapons (because he recast his PfMW and I am not able to remove it) and I am also not able to damage him with magic (because he is immune to everything I have). Any hints would be welcome.

There happened some strange effects during that battle:

1. Minor globe of invulnerability has a strange behavior. Sometimes it protects against dispel magic and sometimes not. That is ok. But it happened once that other spells were removed from the characters but the globe was not removed. IMO it should not happen.

2. Some characters are not able to cast spells. Spell is disrupted but no damage (or other effect) were influenced to the character. When a character started to fail his spells then it last forever, so absolutely no chance to cast spells. On the same time other characters have no such a problem. I checked the characters and there were no effect on them (no silence for example). Is this an effect of the Lich?

3. When I cast dispel on the lich then I am able to dispel some of his spells but not all of them. I am able to remove his mirror image but not his fire shield or PfMW. Is the difference that he cast them on different level (MI from scroll and others from memory)?

This behaviour is normal - Minor Globe never blocks Dispel/Remove Magic but conversely is never removed by it either. If you see that a Dispel/Remove Magic attempt fails it will not be because of the Globe, it'll be because of the difference in caster levels. Each time you cast Dispel/Remove Magic there's a chance it'll fail because the enemy caster's level was too high. For equal caster levels the chance of dispel is 50%. For every level the enemy caster is higher your chance drops by 10%. So if you are level 16 and cast Remove Magic at a level 19 mage, there is a 20% of his buffs being dispelled.

In addition to (Minor) Globe of Invulnerabililty, no spell protections are removed by Dispel/Remove Magic. By spell protections I mean spells like Spell Immunity, Spell Shield, (Minor) Spell Turning, (Minor) Spell Deflection, Spell Trap etc. The way dispelling works hasn't been touched by IA, all these things were true in the vanilla game too.

Don't know what could be causing this, sorry.


In this case no, that is not the reason. Mirror Image is always removed by Dispel/Remove Magic (this is an unfixable bug of the vanilla game) regardless of the relative caster levels.

No, you are not right here. Minor Globe of Invulnerability can be removed by - a successful - dispel magic. Check the last sentence in the spell description! BTW, even the 6th level globe can be removed by it.

I finally killed the Shade Lich however he was able to kill my monk. I have also noticed another bug during that battle, a bug that I noticed in other battles also. Whenever I hit the Lich with a weapon which has other types of damages as well (I mean Treefolk's Arm and Flail of Ages here) then the current casting of the Lich was failed - even he was completely immune all of the damage! I do not think it is fair: if no damage was made then spellcasting should not be interrupted. However I think this bug cannot be fixed.

Thanks for the info about Mirror Image. I was not aware of it.

The description isn't accurate, though - try it. Globe of Invulnerability isn't actually affected by DM.

Thanks. So, Minor Globe can be removed but Globe is not. Am I right?

No, like I said, neither can be removed by Dispel/Remove Magic. Many of the descriptions of spells are inaccurate. The only reliable way to find out how they interact is to try them in-game.

Ok, thanks for the info!

Actually I should just add that there is one exceptional case when Mirror Image is not removed by Dispel or Remove Magic - if the mirror imaged character has SI:Abj running. Thought I'd mention it since it could be relevant in a battle with liches.

I still cannot think what is causing your characters to suddenly fail to cast their spells - have you had this happen before?

It never happened before this battle. I tried this battle several times and sometimes it did not happen. Sometimes it happened and when it occured then it seems to select the character "randomly". Sometimes more than one characters were affected and sometimes only one. It affected priests and arcane casters as well.

I followed the installation instruction and I have not installed anything that is not compatible with IA (at least as I know).

Can you say exactly what happens? Is it that you select the spell and the character starts the casting animation, then stops mid-casting? Is there any feedback in the dialogue box to do with the spell failure?

Yes, the character started the animation and then the ususal message appeared (casting failure). No damage was caused, no influence of a spell, nothing. I try to check it now (I have to look for a saved game) and report back if I find anything interesting.

I was not able to find out what caused the problem but I realized that it does not depend on the caster. It seems that all of my characters suddenly have a great chance (appr. 50%) of casting failure. It does not depend on the casting time, magic missile was failed while lower resistance work properly. It also does not depend on the school of the magic. However after some time the effect disappeared and every was able to cast again (5-10 rounds later). I also move away from the lich and it still do not work.

The first time during my tries I killed really fast the Fallen Planetar and the Skeleton Lords. And there was no problem with casting. Second time I wait a bit before killing the planetar and then the effect occurs. Maybe it is not related to the lich but to the planetar?

Raven!

If you send me an email address then I mail the saved game to you and you can test it yourself (and let's hope it depends on the situation and not the installation).

Yes, I think you're right. I believe the Fallen Planetar is using Unholy Word, which causes deafness and spell failure with no save. The deafness symbol should appear on your characters' records - can you test the battle one more time and see if this is the case?

I did not check it but you are sure right. I will check it today evening.

Can somebody help me with location of that 48sided gem for carsomyr upgrade?!

I do not know the location of it either but I am sure that you can get it only in chapter 6 (because you are on low level). Sikret can PM you the location if you do not find it. My guess is that it is on a high level monster in BG2 or WK but definitely not in the drow area (areas where you can get back) and not in other areas of ToB.

We have had a separate topic about the 48-sided Garnet in the forum (link).

Before anyone can send a PM to Kerkes, he should probably mention whether he wants a fully spoilerish PM to tell him the exact location or just some general hints so that he can still enjoy finding it by himself.

Sikret, am I right that only 34 mithrill tokens can be found? Am I right that the reason is to allow create either the robe or a the melodic chain but not both? You are a real bastard if it is true!

Hmm, so nobody knows if there is more then 34 mithrill coins there? I mean the question above was serious. At least the first one.

I don't remember the exact number of mithril tokens in v5. In v6, their number is 35 if i'm not mistaken (enough tokens to forge two boots on the machine and keep the rest to forge the flail; if you want the bard armor, you will have to forgo either a boot or the flail). I didn't understand the relation between mithril tokens and the robe you wrote in your other post. which robe were you talking about?

Robe of Elemental Resistance or something similar, I am at work and BG2 and IA is noit installed here. I need the two boots (15 tokens) to forge it and as I know these boots can be found only here. I also would like to make the improved version of Melody chain and I need the Jester chain for it. If you sum up it is 35 tokens and I have found only 34 but there is a good chance that I missed one somewhere.

Don't bother with 48 gem, found it. Strange thing, I used to do exactly the same thing in my previous IA runs but didn't get it. Maybe I had a full inventory..ah well.

I don't know if this question was asked before but I looked a bit around and I did not see it....

Why is the Multi-Class-Grand-Mastery not recommended for IA?
Does it have some balance issue or is it because it breaks scripts(i can hardly imagine how that would work...)

Thanks in advance

Gorwath

Multi-Class GM is not recommended because enemy mulitclass fighters will not have more than 2* in any weapon; the mod was designed under the assumption that this component is not installed. Installing the component hence allows your multiclass fighters to have an unfair advantage. Similarly, the un-nerfed THAC0/spell tables are recommended so the party and enemies are on an equal footing.

One could also argue that Multi-Class GM is overpowered, but I don't think this is the main reason. Sikret will correct me if I'm wrong, of course .

Does un-nerfed thaco table mean that, for example, thieves and bards get base thac0 of 0, like fighters? I think that's way overpowered, actually it's ridiculous. To have Aerie with Korgan's thac0? Much more than multi grand mastery (besides, you need different kind of weapons in IA so I doubt anyone would put 5 stars at the beggining in something, even more so for multiclasses )

Thieves can get to base THAC0 1, IIRC. Remember, by the time a non-fighter character gets to THAC0 0, a fighter will have many HLA's so the gap in combat abilities is not as small as the THAC0 tells us. I disagree about putting 5* in something right at the beginning, I almost always do this for single-class fighters. Of course, you have to be careful which weapon you choose.

I do put 5 for a ber -cler dual in flails or hammers , but otherwise no. Just like to have everything covered. Now that you've mentioned it, probably staves should cover it for 2h weapon character. It's true about HLA's, but this way for example bards will be pretty much on par with paldins and rangers, which are fighters, while bards are not. I don't use it.