Mods: EoU, ToD, G3, DCv3, Dbegone
My party:
-kensa : lswords,sswords -dualw (13)
-barba : thsw,halberd,staff (13)
-berserk : flail, axe - dualw (13)
-c/r : hamm, club - sw&shield (11-10)
-blade : katana, lsw, ssw -dualw (15)
-nalia (13)
Items: Ssw of backstab, katana +3, cleric&martial staff +3, halberd +3, lilarcor, club+3, foa+3, freaver.
(any hints of a normal +3 lsword is appreciated)
I choose good meele dmg party cuz i knew the monsters are highly resistand to physical dmg.
Will use flail of defend & wounding on my berserk and carsomyr on my barba later. (cuz it seems palads are weak in IA cuz of Turn, and 2nd i dont want to play vagrant or any other ranger(except c/r for druid spells)
In chapter 3 so far. Did all unmoded quests. Improved quests i did : pirates docks, unseeing eye, mencar, CC, borinall, planar sphere, sewer rakshasa, mekrath+imp, pai'na, firkraag dungeons, de'arnise.
Bad impressions:
enemy mages(some spoilers mb): SPOILER!
SI:Abj & SI:Div . WTF? didnt see any other mage cast anything else, became fast very booring. RRoR need lvl 14(there are many mages battles till lvl 14), r/magic cant buy, and only on sewer party which i can only fight with high lvl(i tried when my fighters were lvl 11, killed all except wizard, so i gave up). Ok i understand "majority" of mages go SI abj&div, but all mages? lol . My tactic was hack'n slash those which didnt have fireshield, and bait with 1 char the others, usually with my blade buffing himself with stoneskin, msturning, msdeflection, mirrorimage, prot from fire, and pfme scrolls, while my party idle in one corner(sometimes r/c buff with dward, and after SI down i went in. Very booring and very limited tactics vs mages. Bad side is most of the time my bait char (blade) died, never had more than 1 char dead after a fight. Hardest fight was Pirate coordinator, i baited with 2 chars blade & nalia, mass stoneskins, pfme, and my c/r very close to them with deathward. Samia & co. was also hard, cuz little space, and group had one very hard fighter. Conster was easy, no char died (killed after 3rd reload, 1st remove magic on my party who was fighting skelly lords, magic dmg spell trigger at near death). Lavok also difficult, cuz of TS + energy blades(lost 1char here also). Greater Yuan-Ti in Darnise Keep was a bit difficult too, cuz of confusion+emotion(my cleric low lvl, to cast enough chaotic commands)
Other thing about mages, they try to debuff completly my chars all the time, before casting any dmg spells, not very smart. More variety or a bit randomness in order of casting spells would be nice. Also they never move, would be nice if they would move around, and detect hidden chars.
I will w8 and see after lvl 14 how my mages will counter enemy mages.
Haerdalis: is a bit hard to get him, so i had to w8 till a higher lvl, while other npc's can be attained easy at start.
Bards: Need some patch to limit to lvl 6 spells like in original game. Cuz Rogue Rebalans & Un-nerfed tables improve their spell cap to lvl 8. Limit to lvl 5 is a bad idea imo like Sikret wants to make them. Also some patch to nerf Pickpocket for Blades after RogueRebalans or EoU (one of them modifies it)
Other thing about mages, they try to debuff completly my chars all the time, before casting any dmg spells, not very smart. More variety or a bit randomness in order of casting spells would be nice. Also they never move, would be nice if they would move around, and detect hidden chars.
I will w8 and see after lvl 14 how my mages will counter enemy mages.
Haerdalis: is a bit hard to get him, so i had to w8 till a higher lvl, while other npc's can be attained easy at start.
Bards: Need some patch to limit to lvl 6 spells like in original game. Cuz Rogue Rebalans & Un-nerfed tables improve their spell cap to lvl 8. Limit to lvl 5 is a bad idea imo like Sikret wants to make them. Also some patch to nerf Pickpocket for Blades after RogueRebalans or EoU (one of them modifies it)
Good Impressions: Anything not mentioned above
. Overall good mod so far. High physical resistance to creatures is nice(especially golems), but some creatures rlly dont need it. I would like mages to have a bit physical resistance too(very little), cuz once breached they are food for fighters. Mages don't cheat like in SCSII(althou you can too since SI is fragmented)I am close to Brynlaw, but i made my impression how the mod will be, i think. Will w8 and see, if things change and how they change.
Good pickpockets(so far) in Athaktla: SPOILER!
Docks
Any hints with good pickpockets is appreaciated just give me City or District.
Last question what are the lvls for normal and improved Spellhold?
Bugs so far: Jaheira dialogue loop, Korgan leave when rep 20, althou i have happy group script from baldurdash(perhaps i should try some happy group from a weidu mod?), no "door" cursor to enter firkraag dungeon in Windspear hills(killed knights-->tp'ed in front of garrens house-->talked to garren-->bandits appeared etc.). Everything went on normal. Just that i had to CLUA myself in the dungeon since no entrance/exit. After i rescued the child got rewared etc. , everything went on just fine. Some global var might been fuc*ed when i arrived to WS Hills.
Will tell you more after im done with SoA.
I know it can be hard to restrict ourselves, but consider it as a challenge and something that prevents future bugs that would completely ruin your game. Yes, even if you keep playing with any such hacks (while not posting any feedback here), you will face critical or fatal bugs sooner or later, which will break your gameplay anyway -- and no one will be able to help. This is a general caution to all players who consider using cheats and unsupported modifications.
On the other hand, don't believe that some mod makers (especially the authors of complex mods) don't help just because they are lazy: in most cases, they couldn't help even if they wanted to. 