Another possibility is if Blackraven can reload a few times, to see if he dies again (which would suggest it's not a bug), or do the enemies leave quickly (which is like vanilla behavior). If he reloaded 5 times, and all 5 times the enemies left quickly, then that would suggest his death was a bug.
Another detail, which is just off the top my head, but was Blackraven invisible at the time? If so, I wonder if that can mess the "retreat" scripts of Bodhi and her minions.
In vanilla, it's always worked like this for me:
1) Bodhi makes her speech
2) PC changes into the slayer
3) PC takes a couple of swings at enemies, enemies take a couple of swings at PC
4) Bodhi remarks, PC what have you become?
5) Bodhi AND her MINIONS leave
That's basically what happens in SCS. But since the vampires are more dangerous in SCS, even that limited contact is potentially dangerous.
The bats alone can do a lot of damage.
This encounter often makes me nervous.
Best,
A.
I'm used to the normal Vampires hanging around. It was Bodhi's prolonged company that surprised me, and that compromised Bart's health the most.
If Bodhi stayed substantially longer than she should have, then a reload on bug grounds may be justified.
Bodhi was still around when Slayer Change expired.
That doesn't make sense. I don't see how that could have been intended. This suggests bugginess.
It's your game and your call. i'd respect your decision either way.
Part of me wants to see Bartholomew continue
What does everyone else think?
Best,
A.
That's basically what happens in SCS. But since the vampires are more dangerous in SCS, even that limited contact is potentially dangerous.
The bats alone can do a lot of damage.
This encounter often makes me nervous.
Best,
A.
If you are saying that is what happens in SCS too, then sounds like Blackraven died to a bug and thus should have the option to reload. I still think he should do some tests to see does this always happen in his install, or was a death a fluke.
If you are saying that is what happens in SCS too, then sounds like Blackraven died to a bug and thus should have the option to reload. I still think he should do some tests to see does this always happen in his install, or was a death a fluke.
Whether it always happens or rarely happens, it could be a bug. A script could have broken.
The fact that Bodhi stayed until after the change ended is -to my mind- evidence of subverted intent. That doesn't make sense, given the structure of the encounter.
Best,
A.
Adele, Half-Elven: Fighter/Druid: The Chateau
Hey, everyone: welcome Adele- fresh off her victory over Sarevok.
Proficiencies: Scimitars x 2, Darts, Slings, Two Weapon Style
Mods: EE, Ascension, SCS v30, ATweaks
Adele has escaped the Chateau and is ready to begin exploring Athkatla. This is my first BG2 EE run. So far, I'm impressed. I was expecting to hate EE. I'm beginning to like it.
Chateau post soon.
Wish Adele luck!
Best,
A.
It would be nice for Adele to succeed - don't think we have any fighter/druid successes yet. But regardless, I hope you have fun with her Alesia. And perhaps carefully aimed dispel magics can get the job done for Adele.
It would be nice for Adele to succeed - don't think we have any fighter/druid successes yet. But regardless, I hope you have fun with her Alesia.
Thank you for your interest, Corey!
And perhaps carefully aimed dispel magics can get the job done for Adele.
She's a multi, so her dispels will be under-levelled for most of the adventure, even if she can aim them.
I'm more worried about status effects, notably fear and stun.
Adele's run is on quasi-hold right now actually, since I want to tweak my install slightly.
One of the reasons I decided to run an F/D is that I wanted to test the ATweaks changes to druidic summons, including Call Woodland Being. I haven't gotten to try the ATweaks elementals yet, but I'm kind of hating the Revised Call Woodland Being component. I'd like to uninstall that.
I'm also tempted to revert the casting times of Doom and Iron Skins. I'm un-fond of the EE/Fixpack v10 changes here.
I'm considering PnP Free Action, too.
Best,
A.
Hi Corey and Alesia, and hi others of course. I did some testing as Corey suggested, both with the companions relatively nearby and with the companions a few rooms away. In my original play Bart was alone, with the others out of sight of Bodhi and the Vampires. (Bart's the best sneaksman and trap disarmer and operates as the party scout.) One or two hits after the Slayer change sufficed to get Bodhi to express her horror and flee to Irenicus. So Bodhi's lingering and her continued fighting during the entire the Slayer change phase, and even afterward, is not an intended effect in my current install.
To me what happened this morning was a bug. I've never had it happen before, and it didn't happen again. Bodhi in my install isn't supposed to fight to the death with Charname in Spellhold. I know some of the no-reloaders here would consider their run a failure if the same happened to them, but I'm leaning toward continuing with Bart. If/when he falls, I want his fall to be legit. I might find that my enjoyment of the run is gone because of what happened, but that's something I'll just have to find out. if everyone agrees with me that this was a bug then I'll continue posting here. If not, I might just continue posting at the Beamdog Forums.
On a separate note, good luck and have fun with Adele! And congrats on beating Sarevok 
(I haven't read your BG1 reports yet.)
Edit:
aTweaks' P&P Woodland Beings are very powerful. I'm not much of a Charmer (in-game, that is 
), so I've had some fun with them, but after a while they become a bit too powerful maybe. It's how I expect to feel about the P&P Celestials, even though this morning I was very happy about Bart's P&P Movanic Deva, for Bart and friends weren't comfortable at all with the prospect of fighting a Lich in their undies.
I agree with you on the casting time of Doom and to a lesser extent Ironskins.
I support your decision, Blackraven.
For the purposes of reloads, we define "bug" as a game-breaking anomaly or design flaw that unambiguously subverts developer intent.
According to your report, Bodhi was present throughout the entire Slayer change period, and she was still present after it ended. That makes little sense given the structure of the encounter: Bodhi is suppose to see the PC become the slayer and then rush to Irenicus. The dialogue leaves little room for debate on this point.
This seems like a clear case of subverted developer intent. And that subversion of intent has broken your game. A reload is justified, as I see it. You may resume if you wish.
That's how I view it, anyways. I'm sure others will share their take.
Best,
A.
Thanks @Alesia for your input and support.
aTweaks' P&P Woodland Beings are very powerful. I'm not much of a Charmer (in-game, that is
I hate them. They're annoying and ridiculous.
The dryad Charms? The hammadryad's Entangle spamming? The nymph's Blinding Beauty? I'm sure this all makes sense in PnP, but it's awful in Baldur's Gate (IMHO). They've ruined every battle that they've been a part of.
The vanilla/SCS nymphs, in contrast, are great: they're balanced and fun.
Unfortunately, if you have the Fey component installed, then Call Woodland Being summons the ATWeaks nymphs even if you don't have Revised Call Woodland Being installed. I've uninstalled the ATweaks Fey.
I suspect that the elemental and elemental kin summons will be overpowered, too, with the possible exception of the princes, who seem nerfy.
There are some things that I really like about the ATweaks creature components, but its beginning to seem like they each have at least one fatal flaw. I may pass on ATweaks all together the next time I setup an install.
Best,
A.
@Blackraven:
That was a freaking bug, continue playing pls.
Dont let it spoil your fun. Rules say: if bug, not legit, reload. So its within the boundaries of a completely legal NR challenge. Dont worry about it and continue is my advise 
!
Cheers!
Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 83 - (update 8)
Pasha, half-elf druid (Grond0) & Rholfre, half-elf dragon disciple (Gate70)
Yesterday saw us engage in a rare evening session. That took place in the dark - the Underdark that is 
. One consequence of playing then was that Gate70 also had Beamdog commitments, so for part of the time he was controlling Rholfre in our game while also making progress through the de'Arnise Hold in another game and paying attention to messages from a third source. There was a limited amount of teasing along the lines of how much better he was playing than usual, but the truth is he was excellent - clearly he's one of those rare men that are comfortable with multi-tasking 
.
In the game we started off with the kuo-toa area. Pasha immediately saw her Archon's dispelled against the beholders - I'm not sure why sometimes it persists and sometimes not - and Rholfre resorted to a couple of wiltings from out of sight to nuke them. She also tried out a nice tactic against the kuo-toa next door - laying down a multiple grease field before pouring in cloudkills.
Summons, particularly a planetar, then helped take down the demon knights, the prince
and the drow at the gate.
Moving on to the beholder area the duo entered invisibly and quickly got out of sight range of the elder orb before sending back summons against it.
A series of summons cleared the rest of the area quickly, though Pasha also relied on the Cloak of Mirroring to get in close to do some bashing (on her own that would be a very dangerous tactic as her saving throws are poor, but she felt comfortable relying on Rholfre for back-up).
The final area saw the illithid receive their come-uppance. Aiming for style points Rholfre tried to drain them in illithid form, but lacked the THAC0 ability to make it count. More typically, summons provided a distraction while Pasha meleed and Rholfre threw MMM. That was potentially hazardous as Pasha's intelligence of 8 makes her a bit vulnerable to illithid, but she wasn't actually drained at all in the area. Pasha was in the midst of advising that we should save one of the roomful of illithid next door to the brain (in order to open the locked door), but realised that no-one was listening
- meaning Rholfre had to go back to where the illithid respawn to use a control circlet on one (starting invisible as she is also vulnerable to psionic attack much of the time). The brain itself didn't have an opportunity to summon its last-ditch golem defenders as it was vorpalled when first attacked .
On exiting the area Pasha went quickly to find the gith - but not quickly enough as her chaotic commands had disappeared by then and she immediately fell down under psionic attack. Rholfre moved in to apply invisibility and the gith were quite happy to spend their time flailing away at a planetar.
The planetar lasted long enough to also help out against N'ashtar and gang on the way to rescue Phaere - Rholfre was low on spells by then so the attackers were spared a death spell, but didn't last long anyway.
The remaining tasks in the drow city were rapidly done without errors and the duo watched a summoned demon strike down the matron mother and Phaere before going on their way. They're currently back at the gate ready to exit the Underdark next time.
Stats:
Pasha, druid 23, 81 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 359 kills
Rholfre, dragon disciple 21, 78 HPs (incl. 7 from ioun stone), 700 kills, 3 deaths (+1 in BG1)
p.s. not for the first time I drafted this report and then accidentally changed the web page. On the old Forums that would have resulted in a lost post - my thanks to the designers of this one for putting in an autosave function 
.
.
... We retreat and go in for round 2. We kill the golems with yoshimo traps. Rayic almost gets us again though.. We lure him towards us and with the remaining 2 traps holding the steadfast mage all the way to the beginning of the area, he FINALLY falls.
... Unfinished Business Pai Nai. 'We must help her. Spiders are the most perfect creatures'... seriously?
Sounds like you're making decent progress Golden - keep it up.
Never saw this guy before in my life, I guess unfinished business fixes this. I refused his ruse.. it was so blatently evil and stupid that I could see the writing on the wall..
This encounter is in vanilla, but he will only appear if you're evil - offering you an alternative evil quest for the druid grove.
By the way, you may have noted a bit of discussion recently about posting of screenshots. I see your screenshots are png. Although that offers better quality than jpg, the difference when posted on the forum is marginal and the file size is far greater. I wonder whether you might take pity on people with lower bandwidth corrections and switch to jpg for posts to reduce loading times?
@Blackraven: Oh no 
... I'm so sorry .
In vanilla BG2EE the PC turns into the slayer and after one round (timer) Bodhi starts her dialog (pauses the game) and her (two) vampires turn into bats and leave. At the end of her dialog Bodhi turns into a bat as well (and as a bat she escapes area as the bat runs 'escape.bcs' script) and another timer (3 rounds) is set and the slayer attacks the party. Once that timer has expired the transformation ends and another dialog starts.
Sounds like you're making decent progress Golden - keep it up.
This encounter is in vanilla, but he will only appear if you're evil - offering you an alternative evil quest for the druid grove.
By the way, you may have noted a bit of discussion recently about posting of screenshots. I see your screenshots are png. Although that offers better quality than jpg, the difference when posted on the forum is marginal and the file size is far greater. I wonder whether you might take pity on people with lower bandwidth corrections and switch to jpg for posts to reduce loading times?
Thanks Grond0.
Having never seen the evil alternative says how many times I play evil...
I use photobucket to copy the links, how am I to change to jpg? My uploads usually don't have too many screens.
Cheers!
I use photobucket to copy the links, how am I to change to jpg? My uploads usually don't have too many screens.
You need to convert them from bmp (which you got via print screen in the ScrnShot folder) into jpg -before- uploading to the photobucket. Use any graphic editing software you like (Paint for ex.).
I use photobucket to copy the links, how am I to change to jpg?
Judging by the file names you're not relying on original screenshots taken in the game. What programme do you use to produce the screenshots? I think pretty much any programme will allow you to save as jpg rather than png. You may be able to set that as a standard option or alternatively just use the save as command and pick jpg.
Got it Serge, I'll try to convert them, thanks.
Cheers!
Welecome back to the thread, Golden.
And best of luck with Alexander!
I agree with Grond0 and Serg that file size reduction is in order. The screenshots you've been posting are in the 600k to 900k range. For reference, the screenshots from Adele's run have been 38K to 75K, less than 1/10 the size of Alexander's shots.
As a Mac user, I batch convert my screens in iPhoto, using the Medium size Medium quality settings. I'm sure others can advise on a suitable Windows app.
If you'd like to use moderately large jpegs (200k-300k) use spoiler tags for most if not all images. And even if you use small images (~50K), consider using spoiler tags for most if not all images.
Once again, best of luck!
A.
Nice start, Golden, even though the permanent loss of Jan is a bit sad. Good to see you in action again, and pretty hardcore too (I always go with full HPs and I do recharge Irenicus's wands).
My uploads usually don't have too many screens.
I found this an interesting observation. I rather remember you as a relatively image-heavy poster
Anyway, what you might find useful is a small program that you download for free: Bulk Image Converter. As its name suggests it allows you to convert all the images in a folder you select, for example from png to jpg.
@Dyara, don't be sorry I've accepted the incident as a reload-justifying bug. So there's still hope for Bart.
Adele, Half-Elven Fighter/Druid: The Chateau
Most of my characters rush through the Chateau. Adele was no exception, although she did linger long enough to rescue the dryads.
And how, you ask, did Adele rescue the dryads? With dryads. You'll understand soon enough.
Facing ATweaks mephits, and lacking both stun protection and invisibility, Adele enlisted Imoen's aid. After an immediate level up granted Adele L5s, and thus Chaotic Commands and Pixie Dust, Imoen's presence no longer seemed necessary. Imoen was retained nonetheless, just for kicks.
The lightning mephit was killed with Imoen's L1s. The mephit near the Sewage Golem was killed by duergars, who had been charmed by dryads created with the ATweaks version of Call Woodland Being (more on that later).
The otyugh was killed by Adele's scimitars, while Imoen's summoned monsters tanked.
Spoiler
Imoen disarmed the traps and recovered the Claw. Adele destroyed the duergars and golems.
Irenicus's captive dryads were a clear affront to balance, and so Adele chose to free them. An army of duergar lay in wait, but Adele had a plan. It worked better than expected: too well, in fact.
Adele's intention was to fight the duergar in melee with disabler support from her Called Woodland Beings. In BG1, playing with the SCS scripted vanilla nymphs, this tactic proved fun. I sought to try it again using ATweaks's version of Call Woodland Being. This was not fun. It was ridiculous.
The ATweaks version of Call Woodland Being summons different creatures at different levels. At levels 7-9, it summons either 2 dryads or 1 hamadryad. Both creatures have 3 Charm Person (-3 penalty). The hamadryads have a party friendly entangle, which they can use at will. If this sounds over the top, then you're right: it is. Adele couldn't fight alongside her dryads because the dryads kept charming all the enemies, leaving no one to fight.
Spoiler
After clearing the way to Ilyich, Adele and Imoen took their one and only rest. Upon awakening, Imoen cast Strength on Adele. She also cast Stoneskins and Armor on herself. Adele cast Call Woodland Being, this time summoning a hamadryad.
Spoiler
After Imoen took a few more buffs, notably MGoI and Mirror Image, it was time for battle.
The hamadryad was the star here. Her Entangles, combined with Imoen's Web, rendered Ilyich's crew harmless.
Spoiler
The hamadrayds charms proved helpful as well.
Victory!
Spoiler
My initial response upon seeing the ATweaks Call Woodland Being creature was: "Wow! Cool! They're awesome!" After the Ilyich fight, I started having reservations. The ATweaks Call Woodland Being creatures have a spammy overpowered feeling, which I find undesirable. I have since reverted to the vanilla spell and the vanilla fey. It's a shame that the ATweaks Fey component is ruined by this. I was happy to fight the ATweaks fey, but I have no desire to summon them. They're silly in the BG world, even if they make sense in PnP.
Onto the portals.
Adele added Yoshimo to the team for the portal encounter. In addition to having enhanced abilities, the ATweaks mephits can open inter planar gates to call in allies. They only have a 25% chance of success, but that element of randomness makes caution advisable. Adele formulated a plan. It worked beautifully. Adele's entire team emerged unscathed, save a tiny nick to Yoshimo.
During her one rest, Adele had memorized three Resist Fire Colds and three Resist Fires, along with a Strength of One. Imoen had re-memorized Monster Summoning, amongst other spells. Yoshimo was instructed to set his traps in the staging area. Adele then cast her buffs, while Imoen summoned her monsters. The thieves hit the shadows, while Adele lingered behind the traps.
As soon as the door opened, the monsters charged- being sure to clear the trap trigger radius. The mephits raced towards them. The thieves then broke for the far portals while Adele waited safely, protected by Yoshimo's traps.
Yoshimo's opening backstab destroyed the radiant mephit portal.
Spoiler
Portal two is down and the mephits are still distracted
Spoiler
Adele joins for the finish.
The gated radiant mephit was the last to go (mephits gated by other mephits don't die when the portals are destroyed)
Spoiler
Only one spell left to cast now: Pixie Dust.
Spoiler
I'll post on the Slaver Quest soon.
Best,
A.
Btw. After exiting the Chateau, Adele completed the Carnival quest. I noticed a bug with the ATweaks shadows: they were frightened for no apparent reason.
Does anyone know how to fix this? If so, drop by the Lounge. For the time being, I've uninstalled ATweaks undead. As an FYI to everyone, I'm now only using the ATweaks mephits and elemental. The elemental component may be removed as well if I can't find a way to preserve the vanilla/SCS elemental princes.
For Alexanders BG1 experience I tried a speed run without the added hp from icewind dale HP rolls (always the upper half) because it feels more pnp / hardcore but it left Alexander with only 60 hp (below average). Luckely I roll a natural 10 first level up so thats 73 hp. Thats good enough.
What I tend to do is use the BG roll system, but then occasionally grant a max roll if my character has had a previous bad roll or rolls. This leads to moderate hitpoint totals, at or near the Icewind Dale range, if desired, while also granting the freedom to go with the rolls whenever one chooses.
I like the BG roll system, but I also hate to see a character permanently crippled by a series of bad rolls. I'm content with this approach.
Anyhoo. Good hunting with Alexander!
Best,
A.
Retour en haut
