Hey there fellows, first of all another introductory saying hello, after my post in the belching dragon tavern and having hung around in the chat with igi and sir-kill. Thanks for this what-seems-to-be-lovely mod, if it turns out as good as it looks, and i can up my game to its standards i will be having lots of fun and replay value, and also thanks to all the contributors around here that have posted so much useful tactical information to read, so i dont have to ask every question myself (and probably would be the 462nd asking).

I'm in doubt a bit how to start this thread, for several reasons, one of which is i dont want to know too much, i want the mod to surprise me, though on the other hand, the level of the mod seems so high certain things seem tactically wrong (or impossible) choices and i wouldnt like noticing this only halfway my game. An example of this is the Skald class which is talked about in one of the party-composition threads below here, if i remember correctly i solo'd trough the game with one of those (or was it even a jester?), and would not directly see reason why this character class would have trouble in IA, had i not read that thread. This would be a minor thingie if the skald would be a custom, easily replaced (i like coping with including the available characters into resource-management), this example brings me to my first question to you guys:

I have been thinking about my party-composition as well, as many here seem to do, and something which is always nice to discuss about, gathering the knowledge displayed in earlier threads on this it seems i would need 4 'fighters', 2 mages and 2 divine mages, something i would've chosen myself probably. However, in picking the two arcane ones, i notice nobody seems to pick Edwin over here, is there a tactical reason for that, apart from him not being able to cast divination spells (True Sight), which could be taken care of by second mage or divine means. Many players here seem to favor Nalia, but i dont see the added value of her, she has no specialist school which means she'd lose spell slots over Edwin (not even taking into account his extra spells), and she loses xp to a in my opinion redundant amount of thieving abilities, especially when considering Mirror Image, Knock and other spells. Anything i'm missing here or need to know?

I already made a small venture into the mod, being knocked around by Suna Seni a bit, I was planning to pick up my old favorites for this, like Haer, Edwin and Jan, or Viccy for her MR, but reading trough the different composition threads here, that doesnt seem to well an idea, especially for this being my first hand at the mod, which leads me to following some of the more accepted thoughts on parties, being a Vagrant, a Berserker->Cleric and a full class Half-orc Barbarian. Adding to that i will try to use Imoen as a sorc, Keldorn (tank/backup divine) and Edwin. I'm a bit in doubt on that last one though, i think i can easily say he is my favorite bg-series npc, but as said, reading trough all the topics here it seems there's something to say against him.

Hmm, thinking about Edwin another time, he is a tad evilish of course, and that would deny me 18+ reputation, please tell me that is not obligatory. I seem to remember a few things from threads about 'evil' being a bit underrewarded in this mod compared to 'good', if this is so, how severe is this, both in terms of content as tactical/itemwise power?

I will be using this thread some more to post my advancement and ask questions, though it will not be of an AAR type, mainly because it seems Sikret does not like people doing so without first proving they can do such things detailedly and accurately, and i'm not sure how well i score in those areas . (as in i dont want to be misleading, and my aars might very well be that, not that i allow myself to be misled by such things, but hmm, trailing off here, hmm since im trailing off anyway, i remember a bug from waaaay back in that solo game, which i didnt see amongst the fixed issues, not that i tried to find if it were fixed, but in BG2 i could sing bard songs with my misled bards image. (you see what reminded me of that one )

Hmm, i might as well ask the cheating question here as well, i will of course play along Sikrets rules, its his mod, so its his rules i play, but i do wonder about some do's and dont's following from the somewhat overstretched domains of the cheats listed, what i mean is, before i step on anyones toes, what can i change around with a tool like shadowkeeper, the pdf states any use of this or alike tools is cheating, and shelved under the cheating part that can create bugs, but when reading trough the different party composition threads i see several people adapting npcs classes to other ones, like Jaheira -> fmc, Imoen->bard, etcetera, and it doesnt seem these people are warned that will destabilize their games, which then brings me to the question what does instabilize my game? Does adding a bag of holding do such? Does changing a chars con to 16 do such? Does the do not use tools just apply to chars with custom equipment (even though imoen has a belt)? Does opening and saving the file with no change already corrupt things? Is there no issue at all and is it just a zero-tolerance policy to keep players from trying their hands at it? Please explain, even though i am unsure whether i will even use a tool like that (preferably not) the way things are written up regarding the issue make me clouded towards it.. (better said, examples, examples, please, more examples, and that comes from a former logics-student )
(hrmm, maybe another small thought on this, i was just rereading the pdf on cheat and cheap again, and i noticed the removing/relearning of spell scrolls is in the cheap section, while xp/gold/item exploits are in the cheat section, i dont really see the difference between that and summoning monsters for xp, or selling items from alchemy abilties, isn't it just adding xp, which you could just as well via the clua.. (and maybe even more wrong than the others regarding role play)?

fyi by the way, my game is Vanilla+patch+baldurdashfix&dialog+Dungeonbegone+easeofuse+the 5 bugfixes from the bugs thread+IA. Ease of Use fixes tweaks are: infinte stacking, true grandmastery, shut up you know which sound, fast cut scenes, unnerfed tables, xpcap, multistrongholds, bonus merchants, female edwina, dialog&romance bugfixes, all from the v27 version which i saw advocated somewhere as the best version. (edit, ah yes, in case you were wondering the the several reasons, i seem to have vented them a bit already as well, they were regarding the AAR and cheating policies, which are written in such a way i'm a bit afraid to open up the subjects, but it seems i did anyway.)

No it's not just a zero tolerance policy. Some NPC's items will become unusable if you changed their classes. There may be other problems as well, I don't know for sure.

As you say, players have edited various Bioware NPC's and Sikret has not commented. I think sometime in the past Sikret will have posted an explanation for which NPC's it is *not* ok to edit, I suggest you look for that.

Yes I agree.

You should install just the Baldurdash Fixpack, not the Game Text Update. Not sure if this is what you mean by 'dialog'.

Sikret is busy in RL right now and he may not have the time to give a reply to you for some time. If you want to guarantee there are no problems in your game I suggest you don't take risks with editing NPC's (make your own custom NPC in multi-player mode instead), giving yourself a Bag of Holding etc.

The first time I played the mod I deliberately did not read comments on party composition on the forum and I had to restart the game several times with different parties. However I agree you do not want to get halfway through the mod and then realise you should/shouldn't have picked some particular character. Hopefully you'll get some feedback from other players.

In IA Nalia, not Edwin, is your ultimate mage. Just re-forge her family signet ring and you'll see.
Let her drink 2 potions and she'll disable all the traps, give her one or two more potions and she'll opens all the locks = xp boost. Imo disabling traps/opening locks via thief skill is much, MUCH better than using spells, not to mention triggering traps by stepping on them, coz it makes gameplay better. And you don't need thief - pretty weak class in IA, even F/T multi needs you to be his babysitter until UAI when using scrolls: PfMW and the like finally prevents him from dying in the first, second round of the fight all the time if left alone for a second.
When talking about divine spellcasters I redomended you taking Anomen in the party. He's probably the most underestimated/underrated NPC in entire game (vanilla and other mods) maybe exept Cernd, on the other hand Viccy is one of the most overrated, she's only good for the romance, but IA is not about romances I suppose.
Yes, she can bufff you up, but she can't stand on her own during the fight. Anomen can do this, a couple levels of fighter and decent str and con makes quite a difference. He equals Viccy in buffing, so....you've got the picture.

On a sidenote: I'm really delightful that IA brings some balance into the force by giving this two gentelemen (Anomen and Cernd) some justice and credit they're truly deserve. In case of Cernd more than some.


Yes, clua yourself bag of holding is a cheat, but imo justified (one and only!) coz inventory system in BG2 blows, just BLOWS! It's horrible beyond belief. But I must say that I don't do this in my recent games coz there is some mini-boss in the mod who drop bag of holding when killed and if you clua yourself this item the fun of the fight drastically decreased which is very bad. And not having BoH somewhat forced you to think beforehand - instead of just mindlessly storing your stuff in a bag - and sell useless items almost immediately which is very good.

Thanks for the quick replies!

Raven: thanks for the info, i'll deinstall the gametext as well, just to be sure nothing goes awry here, seems especially the scripting is something put much effort into, won't risk anything there. As for the character alterations, yes i will indeed just create mp chars for that (to be sure again, does it matter if i move the mpsave to the single player directory next? (making sure the item randomizer has started of course)), the questions were just because i dont know where to draw the line when editing in stuff is concerned, maybe Sikret might shed some light on this though i must admit i will prolly not do so myself anyway (i pretty much only use editors to put in quest-specific items that were lost and made me unable to advance, for instance i once lost the symbol of Mulahey in TuTu due to freezing him with the wand of frost, which not only cracked the storyline, but as well didnt allow me to rest anymore).

Matti: hmm, i feared as much on the Nalia case , we'll see, i guess i'll use both until i get Imoen back, as for Anomen, he was not among those for a reason, he is one of my old favorites, but i guess he's good enough for IA (Although i do tend to follow his evil path, which might make him less useful), i just coined Viconia because it seems resistances are key in this mod, and she already starts with a high one in magic, on the other hand she is very weak in hp indeed, and lacks the apr. I'll take that Ber->Cler over him this time though, i already enjoyed Ano again my last game. Cernd might be an idea, but what i gather from the Auramaster kit i rather have a fourth tank with Keldorn, who has a little divine power as secondary in the late game, along with a good dispel, as well i am not that much into custom kits and characters, so i guess including one of them (the Vagrant) is already enough to start out with. He could use the upgrade indeed, and i will prolly try him out in the not so distant future, i can stomach Cernd pretty good as well.
Use Any Item, whoops, forgot about that one once again, let me think if i can fidget that in somewhere, is dualclassing the barb (no halforc then though) an idea? indeed the buffing of rogues will be pretty important, and i expect backstabbing opportunities will be less around and decisive as well. I have also been doubting on the Blade, he is my more favorite UAI type actually (why i listed Haer), but it seems he might be a weak choice for a first-timer as well, i guess a F->M will do better (i was thinking the Qst grandmastery type). UAI isnt very needed prolly of course, but it does give you much more treasure to enjoy in the late game instead of not being able to use it altogether and having to sell it and wait a long game again.
As for that Bag of Holding, as said above, i prolly wont get around to it, but it is indeed one of those cheats i would allow a lot of people, especially when they play with fewer party members and such, though indeed the management can be much fun, in my BG1 no reload runs Strength was a great level 2 spell, and Potions of it were all bought and sorely needed to get the treasure of my dead companions to church, even the purple one .

Quite true.

Every kind of xp/gold/item exploit is plain cheat. The relearning spells exploit was mistakenly listed among cheap methods in the pdf file; it should have been listed among cheats. However, this exploit will (most probably) be blocked in v6; so, we can remove it from the pdf file once v6 is released.

For reference:



In my own play, I've modified Minsc and Viconia with the Level 1 NPC mod and had no noticeable issues.

Nalia is more helpful than Edwin because she can use more gear and her stats are more promising. Indeed her ring is very powerful once upgraded, however it takes a long while before you can actually forge it. If you don't need a thief I think Edwin has an edge early game because of his extra spells. Until Nalia catches up with her ring he's going to be more helpful in the mage section, hands down. If you take also Keldorn, then you'll still have True Sight available.

I like Viconia very much because she's really sturdy with the Human Flesh Armor. Her hitpoints are rarely a problem for me and her magic resistance allows her to dodge the finger of death spells very well. I think Anomen is limited by his fighter abilities, so you want him to go melee and not cast very much (because he wastes precious improved haste time), whereas Viconia is best used when focused on the divine casting, both defensive and offensive. Cernd is a good tradeoff as a faster caster, but he does lack a few handy cleric spells. It's what you prefer most in my opinion.

Bezerkers are okay to dual into a thief. Just try to catch some of the physical resistances before you do and keep a few easy quests to buff the thief part rather quickly.

Berserkers do not gain physical resistances, that's Barbarians (who cannot dual class).

Barbarians, yes... that is what I meant (and what Toverkol asked), but somehow I ended up typing berzerkers.

It's fine, I knew what you meant. I only mentioned it to prevent any confusion for other people reading the thread.

i'm not sure how to say this, but i feel a need to share this, first of all i still want to express my thanks to all who replied here, and everywhere actually, this seems a really nice IE forum, albeit it lacks a bit of everyday Gaza and Georgia type of topics.
What i wanted to say though, and it might have been foreseen a bit considering my posts, i actually got to playing the mod due to posts from Saros.. I dont care whatever methods he used to play his games, i dont care whether you guys feel he's raping Sikrets great work, i just want to say, give the guy some respect, he wrote great AARs, he even made advertisement for your mod, you even got me playing it. What happens? the fellow gets flamed into oblivion, under rights that claim to be Geneva.
I know i should in a sense not be posting this, i don´t want to open up old graves, and i surely dont want to critisize you guys on great works achieved, but still, i feel the need to tell this, if not only because of the queerness of the situation.

Don't worry, Toverkol! We respect everyone who deserves to be respected. Frauds and liars don't deserve it though.

It's not about the methods he uses in his games; he is certainly a pure cheater who doesn't know sound tactics and keeps using cheats and cheap methods to hide his incompetence and inadequate skills. But as I said, this is not the reason for which he doesn't deserve to be respected here. The main reasons are the many "lies" he wrote in the past as well as his habit of using fake accounts to keep returning and repeating the same old lies over and over again. (Also, note that his main account was not banned here yet when he started this habit. I remember a period of time in which he had at least 3 or 4 active accounts here and was pretending that they were all different people supporting him; that's one reason -among many other reasons- for which I believe that he is a "mentally disfigured" person. You may be astonished if I tell you that even this user is saros who sent more lies about the mod and the way enemies in the mod use their contingnecies and spell triggers. Kerkes replied to him here.)

PS: Don't let your gaming thread go offtopic please. Use it for your questions about the game and the mod.

saros here. Using this nick because this is probably not blocked in the forum. (again, PM me at Bioware if you don't believe it is my post) It seems Sikret removed my earlier post. Toverkol, Sikret is a LIAR and do not matter how often he deletes my post, everyone knows he is a liar. He constantly deletes my posts, and he is a great liar about IA as well.

For example: you will experience that IA doesn't let Layenne die before she Wished. Very silly and probably buggy too. Sikret deletes all posts of players who report this kind of bugs. He lies about other bugs as well.

dude looser, get a life.

Toverkol,

I'm sorry, saros keeps spamming in your topic; I deleted some of his posts, but he keeps sending and I have to lock your thread. This is the price you have to pay for your mistake in defending a fraud. You ruined your gaming thread. Feel free to open another topic for your game if you wish.

As a side note, saros actually and unintendedly proved (again) that he is a cheater. Layene is unkillable only if the player cheats during the battle with twisted rune. It's one of the hidden anti-cheat features of IA to expose such frauds. He cheats and whenever the mod detects his cheats, he calls it a bug. His posts were/are full of such false bug reports. I hope you can see now why we call him a liar. We (IA testing team and myself) usually laugh at his reports, because we know what he has reported is because of his cheats during the game. (A big number of players have already finished IA for many times; if the mod really had the sort of bugs saros is talking about, someone would have detected and reported them in the past, not to mention that we have tested each of those battles countless times. It's obvious that saros constantly cheats in the game and encounters the mod's hidden anti-cheat features.)

And yes, the guy is a loser; take this as a lesson for future, Toverkol! Don't defend a fraud when you don't really know the full story.

Here is a PM I've received from a player (just to show that any player with a little bit knowledge about the game and the mod could easily understand that saros is a fraud). I won't quote the entire text of the PM, because I don't want to reveal the player's identity:



There are actully a few even more solid evidences for the fact that he is a liar, but I'm not going to write them, because it requires revealing some of the mod's hidden "cheat-detection" features which I'm not willing to reveal (because I don't want cheaters to know about them). I hope those people who were naively defending saros will now understand that he didn't deserve it.

As a side-note regarding the possible locations of robe of vecna, I have changed the probabilities in IA v6 and have also improved the encounters at the two easier locations (but even with the current probabilities in v5, what the player has written in his PM to me is true; it's a matter of simple math to calculate the probabilities).