Hi there!

I haven't been here in last 14 years... I've just completed BG3 on tactical with vengeance paladin, and old NPCs in BG3 (like Jaheira, Minsc and Viconia (sadly I had to kill Viconia ) brought back my memories about BG2 and great IA times, so thanks to a sudden urge, I searched on internet and was suprised to see IA is still living and V7 came out, and compatible with EE.
I am thinking on relearning game again, and playing 1-2 IA runs... I have lot of time nowadays...
I've tried to remember what kind of parties did I have in old times.
I remember my start with IA V3.2, gnome F/I protagonist, blade bard (or Hear'Dalis) with his incredible spin, inquisitor with insane dispel (all 3 were nerfed later), usual B->Cleric etc.
I don't really remember to my other runs, just as a V6 playtester I played with necro protagonist and Cernd was my main healer instead of usual R or B -> Cleric.
My last V6 run was melee heavy party: vagrant protagonist, riskbreaker, berserker, swashie, usual R->Cleric, Necro.
As far as I remember, sorcerer, or double sorcerer were also great in the team.

Now, I see in V7 some other NPCs and suclasses are buffed, rebalanced. I am a little clueless about protagonist and party composition. As far as I see new rog NPC is good, also Mazzy is buffed to hell. So any recommendation is welcome on this topic (and on weapon proficiencies).

I am still playing my 2nd BG3 run (honor mode, but more than 1 save ) with a bard. When I finished this, maybe I start an IA run. Nowadays I have less patience, and I am getting bored in things easily, so I am not sure if I will have a strength and patience for IA, but I will see it.

Cheers,
Shadan

Well.

My 2cents for as easy time as possible.

Necro
Cernd
Sibel
RB

And after that it's your choice. Valygar the Vagrant is very good, so is Minsc the Barbarian and Mazzy the Champion of Arvoreen. Also Jaheira is a great fighter and of course there's the different F/M versions (I always use), depending on your preference elvish F/M, half-elf F/M or gnomish F/I all are great!

For new content, take an Avenger PC + Neera the Sorceror or an Auramaster + Neera the Wildmage.

Enjoy!

(and welcome back!)

Edit: oh, and for proficiencies

Barbie: 2h weapons, especially swords (you'll hae more than enough proficiency points to distribute)
RB: Has it's own gear, don't remember if it's an exa or a hammer? for 2nd main weapon flail/morning star (so phosphorous offhand)
F/M (all versions): I always take hammers + katanas + scimitars
Valygar the Vagrant: Axe mainhand (it's also missile), usually flails/morning stars offhand ... or clubs (there's a good club +5 now)
Mazzy: Short Swords, Hammers, Clubs

Hope this is of some use!

Hey Shadan.

Welcome back :-) Hope you'll find the newer versions to your enjoyment. Pekkae gave some good advice, you should follow it.

V7 has a new stronghold quest, improved druid protagonists and some rebalanced classes and NPCs. There's also a new NPC mod which you should check out as well. She's pretty strong so the difficulty curve won't feel as hard with her in the party.

Pekkae, thanks for advice! May I ask why do u make difference between avanger or auramaster regarding to Neera class?

I don't really likes multiclass characters because of slow spell progression.
Multi F/C has more melee potential in endgame from HLAs compared to dual F->C, but the dual one has much faster spell progression. Hopefully there ere 1-2 new good cleric HLAs, I don't know.
Wizard multiclasses similar, but better imho, since in high end difiicult fights, cleric usually buffs and heals, not too much time to melee. Multi F/M-es on the other hand are just fighters, even in end game, with better protection from spells, and their main role are to go into melee as other fighters. So fighter HLAs are more usefull on them as on F/C ones.

Thanks for welcome, Critto!

Fast question: As I see EE newest edition is 2.6 on Steam. If I buy that, can I backroll to 2.5? As far as I saw, IA works only on 2.5, doesn't it? Or do u have any other place to download 2.5 from?

I run through the posts in 2024 (pekkae run, nicoper run etc.), my plan V1.0 is the following:

1: Avanger or Shaman protonist: Druid is must because of new content, and I played auramaster with Cernd earlier. I am unsure however which one I chose.
2. Sibel, dualled to cleric at start.
3. Riskbreaker dual weapon flail+axe. I've played this subclass earlier 2-3 times as mercenary, but I saw there is a new weapon for them, and they are quite powerful. Maybe I change Imoen to RB, stolen the concept from Nicoper. I don't know yet, how should I do this.
4. Hesitating between kensai 2hander and Mazzy. Kensai is incredible offensive power, but Mazzy has a new content, hasn't it? And maybe 2 AC tank (Sibel and Mazzy) aren't needed...
5. Again a choice: Neera as wild mage or wizard slayer. Both are buffed as far as I red from Sikret.
6. Nalia as sorcerer.

Well, np. I hope it's some use though there are numerous IA legends active again, so they might have more precise opinions than I do .

Avenger works nicely with Sorceror, for you don't need AoP for the druid's amulet. But if you are playing Auramaster (which is tremendous fun), then you need AoP for druid's amulet. And Wild Mages have class specific amulet, which brings the important -1 to casting time. Alternatively you could use Imoen, as she has her amulet which again doesn't overlap. And Imoen can then use Vecna. End result is similar'ish anyway.

That's of course true, but for F/M there's a potent potion that remedies this a little bit. And yes, there are very effective new HLA's for cleric's including a nice summon! And yup, in my games the multi F/M is basicly a fighter with wizard spells to protect it. It's a very effective combination for my style at least.



I play on the latest 2.6.6.0 (I don't know how to roll back, hah!). The two things that are broken is limited wish globes & sometimes elemetals don't summon properly. So not much imho.




1. Avenger is probably the easiest. Couple it with Cernd, Sibel, Imoen (Sorceror), RB + Barb or a Vagrant and you'll have a blast! That's 4 really good fighter and 2 overblownly effective spellcasters.
2. This is the most OP version. I think.
3. This also doens't overlap with anything weapons wise, so the most powerful equipment is distributed among the rest of the crew
4. Mazzy is awesome. Her only "problem" is that some of the items are overlapping with other equipmet, so you have to make a few tough calls (very late game though....)
5. Can Neera be a wizard slayer? I didn't know that, haha!
6. Would use Neera / Imoen, because of their items. But Nalia most likely works nicely as well! (didn' know she can be sorceror?)

Hope this is of use!

I mean Neera as wild mage or a custom wizard slayer.



I read in nicoper journal. But ssems this was only a plan for him. Maybee Nalia as wild mage and Neera as sorcerer.

Hello!

If you have less patience for non-combat related things, then I highly recommend that you check out ImprovedAnvilTweaks (IATweaks) mod. It has many separate comonents that you can use which affect the game in various aspects. For example there's a "simplified economy" component, which turns most mundane loot into gold, so that you don't have to fill your bags of holding with things that are there just for sell, so it minimizes equipment management and visits at stores. There's also a component which allows you to change the class or kit of many companions, so that you can have your favourite ones in your party, while still maintaining the optimal party composition (so you can change Imoen into a RB or Kensai, choose if Neera is a Wild Mage or a Sorceress etc). Well, it even contains IA version of "no traps and locks", but since you have Sibel, you shouldn't have problems with those.

As for party composition, I guess that pekkae has the most knowledge and experience regarding really powerful classes and compositions

Thanks!

I bought EE on Steam, installed all as DequNew wrote in installation guide:
1. BG2 EE v2.6
2. The Tweaks Anthology: I decided on every component to install or not.
3. IA v7
4. Sibel NPC mod.
5. IA tweaks: almost all components, but I've got error message on ranger questline installation.

But when I started the game, and created multiplayer game, at chosing the kit, all IA specific kit were only an invalid tag. Riskbreaker for example Invalid: 104020, its description Invalid 104.022
What did I make wrong? Any tips?

For any detailed tips you'll need to wait for critto, but one thing I can tell you is that in EE you don't need to start a multiplayer game to create more than 1 character, which is a pretty neat addition.


I also saw that, not sure if it's a 2.6 thing or not, maybe others have more info on that.

Btw I don't know Tweaks Anthology too well, is there a component for multiple strongholds there? It's almost a must-have for IA.

Thanks? I didn't know that.



Yes, there is. TA is an upgraded EoU if I read correctly.

Another question regarding on character stats:
Are using NPCs with original stats, or using some kind of ShadowKeeper to change or max. stats?
What about custom party members? Do u roll until a decent sum and good 18/XX or just edit with SK, and max. all stat?

I don't remember, how we played in IA...

You can roll back to 2.5 in Steam version, I do that myself. Go to properties -> betas in the game's context menu to do that.


I'd say try wild mage out of the two. Wizard Slayer is a bit trickier to play, and wild mage is quite fun and powerful.

No new content, just some further rebalancing of her fighter kit to make it stronger.


Make sure the game is installed in a custom folder, not a Windows' default one (sometimes there are issues with folder permissions on certain versions of the operating system). Steam allows to choose a custom folder when installing a game.
I strongly suggest using the 2.5 version (see above on how to roll back).
Tweaks Anthology was never properly tested for compatibility although I see people playing with it. I would recommend just going with the latest available release of EoU (the installation readme lists the only components you really need, there are just a few).
The ranger thing was fixed in the very latest master of IA Tweaks on github. I did not make a proper release yet. But you can grab it with this link: https://github.com/critto-bg/ImprovedAnvilT...eads/master.zip The bug should no longer occur.

All NPCs' stats are already adjusted, no need to mess about with the editor


Same here. It's not hard to roll a good total dice sum (80-90, depending on the class and kit) and distribute properly.

Tanks Critto! It seems either the rollback to 2.5 or the perfectly working IA Tweaks solved the problem.
However I was not able to install EoU beacuse it missed dialog.tlk from BG EE directory, so I used TA again.

My party is forming:
Avanger
Sibel dualled to cleric
Imoen RB
Mazzy
Yoshi as kensai
Neera as wild mage

I would like to include a sorcerer but I don want custom this time and sadly Nalia can't be sorcerer neither wild mage.
Maybe I will change Neera to sorcerer, get Nalia as mage, and skip Mazzi or Yoshi.

Another question: Should I play EE on core, shouldn't I? No need on normal, and not possible on herder than core?

The issue here is that EoU is shipped with an old version of weidu that has no idea what BG2:EE is. You need to give it the most modern version. Weidu is supposed to update all the binaries in a folder to the most recent version if you put all mods together first. But if it doesn't you can always copy-paste the newer version (for example, the one shipped with IAv7) and rename it into setup-Ease.exe or whatever its name is.


Why not keep Imoen as a sorceress? You will still have to sub someone as Kensai instead of Yoshimo when he leaves. And you need to have someone as RB before you get to Imoen. Are those going to be custom chars? In that case you can switch the roles around and just have Neera and Imoen in their respective default roles.


Core is the same as in the old vanilla BG2, so go with that (unless you want to have an easier experience, of course).

Thanks again!

It is very strange to play BG2 again after so many years playing more modern games... My favourites were the 2 Pathfinder games: Kingmaker and WotR. I've played them many times on hardest difficulty, with my self house rules, like
- no full spellcaster in party, and only melee can CC or deal damage.
- or only divine character allowed into the party
- or only ranged chars
- or no meleetypes, only casters, etc.

But sorry, it is IA and BG forum. So I have to relearn even basic things in BG2 again, and I need to get used to outdated graphics and bad resolution...
I still have a problem, game is quite lagging... Screen is shaky, chars move slowly etc. Maybe the problem is TA option where I choose 100% speed in out game move and casting. I have to reinstall the whole game without it, hopefully that solves the problem.

Regarding the party composition:
Yes u are right... I forgot Imoen and Yoshi will leave. I use custom RB then, keep Imoen as sorcerer, replaces Yoshi with custom kensai, and when Imoen is back, I will see if I swap her in instead of kensai or Mazzy...

I imagine that took a lot of effort, pathfinder is complicated. I doubt you'll have much re-adjusting to the older D&D after that.


Well, the EEs are pretty decent as far as modernisation goes. You can play on a widescreen comfortably without tearing your eyes out.

What's TA? I'm not familiar with it.


IIRC Minsc has some customization optiosn in IA tweaks, you can make him a kensai too. He's a solid choice and available right from the start.

I don' really understand this... Should I rename Setup-ImprovedAnvil.exe to setup-Ease.exe and it will copy all things from Ease directory to the needed places?

You can make a copy of ImprovedAnvil.exe and rename it to EoU's exe(setup-Ease.exe right?). This will allow you to install it correctly. The .exe file is not mod-specific, but it needs proper name to install each mod.

Imoen the RB makes sense to me (I think it was available in IAtweaks). Then you just use Yoshimo and then swap her for Imoen once Yoshimo is gone and Imoen re-appears. That should work. If your Kensai is 2h specialist, it's also nice that you can start to use the RB after it gets some improved abilities, which should be available when you hit spellhold maze. And you don't need to be that careful, especially on lower difficulty levels. The Kensai plays nicely through the start, but you need to use positioning quite a lot where 2H weapons help a lot.

If you have Neera the WM you could then just take Nalia the F/M, that gives you (almost) two full casters with nice casting time bonuses and some effective H2H as well (Give Nalia e.g. 5* in 2H Sword), Neera with golem slayer etc. Then Neera can also Wish properly (Nalia can't). That gives you 5 characters who can dish out a lot of damage in H2H with 2 full casters. You should be able to punch through, without that much trouble. Sibel can also heal through mass cure (it's instant) + club (every now and then).

Avenger PC is superbly strong, with the improved equipment is very effective + CS is about the best summon in the game.

Thanks SparrowJacek! It worked.
But still has a problem with smooth game running. Movement is a bit slow, and figures are shaking a little bit. I don't know, maybe it is normal since it is an old game...

Changed max frame rate in Baldur.Iua from 30 to 45. It didn't help.

Well, the speed issue won't get resolved probably until you go double on the frame rate (from 30 to 60), but keep in mind that it will speed up the internal clocks, i.e. the duration of a round will become 3 seconds instead of 6 (1.5 with Improved Haste) and so on. The choppy graphics is hard to say, maybe try to play around with the graphics settings (turning features like pixel shading on and off) or updating the graphics drivers. I'm on Mac and the graphics situation is much more stable and unchanging here, I've never had those issues so it's hard for me to give a reasonable suggestion.

Thanks Critto! I have a quite new and good PC and video card.
I tried yesterday the exact same thing what you suggest, 60 and even 70 frame rate. Faster rounds is not a problem, since I play only with lot of autopause.
Seems the game is playeable now with 70 frame rate.

No problem. Adjustment for faster rounds is something to keep in mind if you actually start to count them out when doing Improved Alacrity, for example. Faster speed might throw you off because the sound effects are not adjusted when you increase the frame rate so things might seem to be out of sync, or so I remember at least.