Tav and crew (Shady, Gale, and Karlach) cleared the Goblin Camp front gate relatively quickly (and quietly- Tav used his bow to take out the war drum).

Experienced the second "black screen crash" with the "3 Figures" cutscene at the bridge into the main camp. Sigh. Maybe I need to go with the minimal settings every time the party comes to a bridge? Kinda like when I was a kid and we would lift our feet off the floor of the car as we crossed a highway bridge....

Settings changes again allowed me to get past it- unfortunately, since I did not know it was about to happen the first time, I still had to do a hard shutdown and restart of the PC, which I do not like doing. That is the biggest problem with that bug (I guess it is an Invidia vs. Radeon thing, rather like the old "Apple vs. Adobe wars").

Regardless of all that, I am still very much enjoying the depth and detail of the game. Now if I can just do something about that Phase Spider Matriarch. Need to catch her on the far west bridge and burn it out from under her so she fall into a chasm....

So much to do, so few hit points....

It’s been a while since I fought that battle, but I had trouble with the spider fight until I moved everybody but Assy to the upper cliff area adjacent to the tops of the columns on the far right side of the map. The spiders seemed to have less places to flee to up there.

I found the Cleric spell Poison Resistance makes that spider fight a whole lot easier. I think you need a 4th level cleric for that. My first time without it was a real grind. Since then it has become a lot easier.

Having my toons leveled up (Level 3, I think) and approaching from a different direction made a big difference with the Mama Phasers Set on Poison Spider. (As did burning away some of her web bridges, one with her standing on it so she took falling damage).

Group (Ranger Tav, Karlach, Shady, and Gale) is now deep in the Underdark, trying to map and clear the whole place. Ran into a bit of a hiccup with Glut vs. Spaw because we had already taken out the Coal Gang at the Decrepit Village. Basically, because I did not give the "right" answer to Glut the first time we spoke, he wouldn't reveal his ambitions regarding starting a new circle. However, by talking to Spaw, we got access to the treasure cave AND then Glut asked us to kill everyone and make him King of he Underdark- Fungus Prefecture.

If we survive this little jaunt, I will add Lazy so we can go kick Githyanki buttock... um TALK to the Gith at the Creche she is so hot and bothered about.

Astrid the Bard and crew (Shady, Gale, and Karlach- The "A" Team) discovered that if one Finds the Nightsong, then that means they cannot Rescue the Tieflings afterwards. Oops. Fortunately (for the aforesaid prisoners), there was a saved game.

In truth, I rather like the idea of that kind of "your choices have consequences" result.

Now off to Moonrise Prison.

I finished up a full playthrough of BG3 just a few nights ago. This time I played a Drow named Kalma. She is a break from recent tradition, as I usually play literary characters whom I port over to video games these days. But I wanted to try out playing a Drow in this game. I read that the reason Drow are their own race, rather than a subrace of Elf is because there were so many dialogue tags that were Drow specific, it was just easier to make them separate. So I wanted to see what that was like. Besides, ever since Drizzt Dourden, hasn't everyone wanted to play a Drow?

There are two Drow subraces to choose from: Lolth-Sworn and Seldarine. As far as I can tell the stats and bonuses each receives are the same. But the reactions you get from people are different. Playing a Lolth-Sworn had a lot of people thinking you were going to either murder or enslave them, and plenty of options to threaten and intimidate people. I started as one, but soon decided to go back and restart as a Seldarine. You still get people confusing you for a Lolth Drow, but the game gives you options to say that you are not evil like the Lolth-Sworn are.

The game still plays basically the same. You can still do all the same quests and the like. It is mainly just the flavor of some of your interactions that change. Often people remark on your race and then move on, with the same end result. I found it was like that playing a Tiefling as well. However, one difference was in Act 1, at Waukeen's Rest. If you go past the burning buildings to the barn out back, there is an ox that will automatically attack if a Drow character comes near. There is no option to calm it, even with the Animal Friendship ability. You have to fight it no matter what. Unless you steer far clear.

I played her as a Paladin, which is definitely my favorite class in BG3, and most games these days. I like the blend of magic and physical combat. I went with an Oath of Vengeance Paladin this time however. Where I always played January as an Oath of the Ancients. The Vengeance have number of different abilities, almost all are geared to combat. Which I found to be a downside, because there were just more than I could use in a fight, so I ended up never using about 75% of them. In the end I used Hunter's Mark almost exclusively, and pretty much ignored the rest.

OTOH, it seems to be a lot harder to break your oath as a Vengeance Paladin than the other sub-classes. But by now I have a good idea of what choices will trigger a broken oath as well. Such as attacking a monster without engaging them in dialogue first, and finding an option to Attack there to start combat. (Otherwise the game counts it as murder, even if it is a goblin that is literally bragging about eating someone, surrounded by the viscera).

This time in the circus I called out the Djinn for cheating, and stole the ring he was using to fix his spinning wheel. He sent me to this neat little jungle area that I had to fight my way out of alone. Now I can honestly tell Dr. Ian Malcom that yes, there are dinosaurs on this dinosaur tour. It was a really tough grind, as the dinos just keep coming at you.

There is a new addition to the end of the game thanks to the recent updates. Now after all the usual end slides, you get teleported back to camp to meet and talk to all your companions one last time. That was nice. But it kind of just dragged things out.

In the end it took 80 hours and change, and looking back, I realized that I missed a few quests in Act 3, like the grown up githyanki hatchling in the Society of Brilliance, and the newspaper.

Just because he is such a looker, a Spectator, the Beholder's baby brother

I also accidentally experimented with the quest to get Minsc as a companion. This time once I got to the city I went down in the sewers. I found the area that he and his cultist keepers are laired, went inside, and killed them all. Thankfully Minsc was not there however. I was afraid that might break his quest, but thankfully not.

Then afterward I found a secret entrance into the thieves guild headquarters. They instantly went hostile and attacked me. Instead of reloading an older save, I went with it. It was an amazing fight! I had to retreat a little to get a better position, as 20 or so thieves came at me. In the end I killed the leader of the guild, and all but a handful of its members who did not turn hostile, like Mol and the kid who is a merchant.

I was afraid that might break the Minsc quest as well, since the guild leader gives you the quest to stop the Stone Lord at the bank. I think I found a note about it though, which advanced the quest. So I was still able to go to the bank and get down to the vault. That played out normally. Then afterward I went back to the lair I originally found in the sewers and this time Minsc was there with just a few other cultists. It was a much easier fight than normal. Afterward I was still able to save him and recruit him as normal.

I am glad they took into account that this stuff could accidentally be done out of order. It is often not like that in this game. For example, if you attack Moonrise Towers before you rescue the captured tieflings in the dungeon, they all automatically die. And the game never tells you that you have to do it in the order of rescue first, kill Ketheric second.

Likewise, the game does warn you before you enter the water to face the Nightsong that you will be locked out of certain quests. But it does not tell you what quests. Freeing the tieflings is one. Basically you need to free the captives asap. Do every quest and search every location in Act 2. Then go down into the Gauntlet of Shar and face the Nightsong. That locks you in the endgame of Act 2 and takes you to the assault on Moonrise and Ketheric.

I tried out a new leveling mod this time - UnlockLevelCurve - Level 13-20 I PATCH 6. The game normally caps character levels at 12. This opens it up to 20. There are a number of options for it. I went with the one that uses the original XP progression, rather than making it quicker. Though I did use the submod that evens out the progression in the mid-levels, which are notoriously slow.

Unlike the previous mod I was using, this one allows you to go over level 12 in a single class. With the last mod if you were at level 12 in one class and tried to level up it would crash the game, as it did not have any level 13 data to load. Instead you had to multiclass all your additional levels beyond 11. Which was ok. But the new one is simpler, and allows my mages to keep getting more spell slots.

I wound up finishing the game at level 16, even not doing every single quest. My guess is you can probably reach level 17 using the vanilla XP progression like I did, if you do every single thing in the game. Maybe even 18 if you really grind.


Subnote. I also started using Avariel Elf Race by Ren. It adds the Avariel as a subrace of Elf. You get wings, and permanent use of the Fly spell/ability. Which I find I like a lot in this game. It does not add any new racial tags for dialogue for you. The other characters just treat you as a High Elf. It also allows you to pick wings for the High Elves and Wood Elves. But they are just for show. You don't get the Fly ability with them unless you are an Avariel.

Finally, it also has a bug where it changes Gale and Wyll to High Elves. Their appearance still remains human. But for some reason they get the High Elf race tag, and all the abilities that come with it. When you look at their character sheets, it will say they are High Elves. It is not a deal-breaker. The characters play the same, except now they start with a fire bolt cantrip. So it is no big deal. Just something to be aware of if you play an Avariel.


SubSubNote: I recently discovered that with at least the current game version, you can press the F10 key to remove the game's UI. This makes taking screenshots much easier.


SubSubSubNote: This time I respeced Jaheria as a College of Swords Bard using dual hand crossbows. She is the High Harper after all. I really liked her a lot this way. It feels odd how BG3 throws two Druid companions at you - Halsin and Jaheria. This evens that out. Plus a Bard is always a handy support character to have in a party.

Lol “steer clear”

I need to get back into BG3, but all my gaming time right now is divided between Starfield and Perfect Dark on the Switch.

Rosa: congrats on b34t!nG BG3!! That must be really satisfying.



I know I am replying to a 7-month old post here, but I'm sometimes wondering the same thing! I don't think I'll spend all day playing once I'm retired, but let's say I picture spending half the day, on days I actually do want to escape. Equivalent to weekends for me. Who knows, though? Maybe I'll give up gaming altogether, move to some remote commune or whatever. Learn to play a jew's harp.

> Playing some Baldur's Gate today; it's one of the only games my gaming computer can handle at the moment, and maybe it's a good thing. I've always wanted to get into these older games, problem is the newer 3D games almost always take precedence. Not getting my new GPU until Wednesday, so let's see how far I get.

>> Problem is, this'll be probably the 5th or 6th time I've started BG. I never get far before my party's totally destroyed, I'm totally frustrated, and ragequit for a game I'm more familiar with.

>>> I'm gonna cheat this time, folks. Lopov informed me about EE Keeper long ago, I'm gonna start using it to add potions & stuff to my fledgling party. Does anyone else use EE Keeper?

I use EE Keeper. I like how you can use it to change the classes of your NPC party members. I usually make Minsc either a Fighter or a Barbarian. Next time I play BG1, I plan to use it to make Jaheria a Bard. I really liked how she worked out as one in BG3.

I maintain an ongoing game of BG2 Resurrected and use EE Keeper. Like SubRosa, I use it mostly to adjust Buffy's class and her ablilities like attacks per round. She is an elven mage/thief with pumped up bow skills (from the archer kit). She can't (won't) use melee or backstab at all but her bow has a very high rate of fire and hits very hard. She used to park her party where it was safe then scout/kill everything ahead. Anymore though, she runs solo except when the has an NPC along for their quest.

I actually did try BG3. Did a lot of research, learned how it all works then played for a week. We just didn't get along with it at all so uninstalled it and got my money back from GoG.

EE Keeper is awesome. Really easy to use. I did add a bunch of potions to my party: 5 each of both Antidotes, and also 5 of each of the three Healing Potions. I might also use it to rename some NPCs we meet along the way. Giving them some of my wacky names. I won't rename Imoen or any of the early people though.

Main character's name is Hadden Nuff, lol. It's because Imoen (or the cleric... I forget her name) is always saying "I've had enough of this!"

-----------------------

Name: Hadden Uff

ST: 15
DX: 13
CN: 16
IQ: 11
WM: 9
CH: 14

Sex: Male
Class: Fighter
Race: Human

Alignment: Chaotic Good

Proficiencies: Long Sword, Two-Handed Sword, Halberd, Mace

Oh yeah, antidote potions. Poison in BG1 and 2 is just insane. Every character needs an antidote.

Edit: And now I just saw the name!

Yeah, the game can be freaking harsh even a couple hours outside of Candlekeep. Which is sort of ridiculous in my opinion. In the early days of gaming we could buy modules appropriate for our characters' level. Which gave the party a chance, at least. BG, they're already poisoning our party and performing outright oneblowkills early in the game.

Been playing some Baldur's Gate everyday after work. Hadde Nuff has only died once so far, so that's actually an improvement. We just took care of Tarvesh? (wizard who uses an unfair spell just outside the inn ). In the past, I've gotten stuck here. There's no option at this point, that I've found anyway, because the wizard casts his spell, and then for the next mINUTE or so our party's under effects of a Confusion spell or something. Usually one of my party gets pwned, and I have to start over.

Well this time, everything turned out okay. This time some guards actually stepped up and did their job. Couldn't take the wizard down, but at least they'd occasionally corner him. Anyway, mostly he was trying to attack Imoen. He wasn't able to inflict much damage though.

Everyone attacks Imoen, though! I've noticed this. Out in the wilderness, almost always it seems the wolves, the gibberlings, the hobgoblins go for the party's Thief. Even if I try to place her faraway from the action, they'll usually just follow Imoen, until Hadde and the others are able to engage. It's kind of annoying. Almost like in Oblivion, when EVERY enemy tries to attack our horse.

Anyway. With Hadde is with Imoen, Jaheira, and Khalid. Montaron as well. Xzar got killed. Which is fine. Some shall perish upon this journey. Not Imoen though! Imoen's with Sir Nuff 'til the end!

"Yeah, whatchoo want?" ... "I am gone!"

Sounds like they're a bunch of mutton mongering riff-raff, for beating up on poor Imoen like that.

She probably has the lowest armor class in your group. The enemy AI is probably set to home in on that.

I return to Hadde Nuff tonight. With Hadde are Imoen, Khalid, Jaheira, Montaron, and Xsar. The game is just 7 hours, so I lost about 30 hours after transferring material to the new drive. Hadn't been in the habit of backing up Baldur's Gate saves, but that's alright! I don't mind doing stuff over; this game is that good.

When playing Elder Scrolls, I do my best to avoid spoilers. But while playing BG I've taken Acadian's approach. I don't mind if I'm spoiled! Not so much with the story, but sometimes I look up stuff on an online wiki site, especially enemies. I like being prepared for the enemies in this game.

I intend to return to Baldur's Gate soon. I've already installed both installments. Some initial testing (which I always run through before actual gaming) showed problems with screen tearing / flickering when moving mouse cursor up or down (left and right too, but not that extreme). The most common online solutions weren't of much help, but what worked, was to enable vSync over Nvidia control panel.

My protagonist will probably be a female human of class fighter, subclass berserker. I'm prone to changing my mind in the last second but for the time being it looks like, that I'll stick with the idea. Her alignment will be either neutral or chaotic good, I'm leaning towards chaotic.

Just the other day I wondered, why was Baldur's Gate actually named Baldur's Gate? Because in the first game only the final chapters actually take place in the city and for a while you're even pursued by authorities and exploring the city is difficult in very final stages. The second game takes place in Athkatla and has actually nothing to do with Baldur's Gate anymore. I wonder, if Baldur's Gate maybe even wasn't meant as the original name, but for some (to me unknown reason) the game got this name in the end.

Anyway, I installed some minor mods, like the one that allows characters to rest anywhere, like in caves etc. I also installed two mods that add more interactions between playable characters and romantic dialogues between the protagonist and non-joinable NPCs. There are blackened out love making scenes as well, but mostly it revolves about flirting, taking dinner together etc.

Enjoy Baldur's Gating! I have BG2 Enhanced Edition from GoG installed and it runs flawlessly. With the EE Keeper editor it allows a stunning amount of flexibility regarding mixing and changing classes/abilities.

So which Baldur's Gate are you going to return to? 1, 2, or 3?

What an odd graphical glitch. I have the enhanced editions of BG1 and 2, and they have run really well.

Thanks Acadian!

SubRosa, I'm beginning with 1. I'm sure that my current laptop can't even run 3. I intend to play 3 at some point in the future, when I'm going to buy a new computer. And I plan to buy the new one once TES VI will be released.

What I find odd, is that I already played BG:EE on this laptop about six years ago and I don't recall this flickering/tearing issue. But in any case, the issue's been sloved.

Yeah, it's like TES 1: Arena doesn't have any arenas in the game.

Hey I might be interested in that romantic mod!

Also, interesting class for the protagonist. Why Berserker?

I didn't really give it that much thought, I just know that I've never had a berserker (until now).

As it happens, the berserk state has already come in handy, when Neera (the wild mage), instead of casting some simple spell like a flaming arrow, summoned the demon instead. But thanks to berserk abilities of my protagonist, the demon was brought down.

My party consists of Myrta (the protagonist), Imoen, Neera and Garrick. Or actually, the party consisted. Garrick got killed by an ogre Droth and it was permanent death. So far Myrta has decided to not head to the Friendly Arm Inn, instead she wants to walk her own path. For the time being the party has been busy with exploring areas west of Beregost / south of Candlekeep.

After summoning the demon instead of casting a simple spell, Myrta wanted to exclude Neera from the party and leave her in Beregost upon returning to the town, but the death of Garrick changed the course of events. So the wild mage might stay in the party a while longer.

Aw, Myrta. Pretty name. Did you do the tutorial with Myrta? Or did you just jump into Candlekeep? I did the tutorial with Hadde Nuff, probably for the fourth or fifth time in over 10 years, because I've restarted the game several times since 2013, and every time my party kept getting destroyed, and I'd give up. This time, I'm cheating with EE Keeper though, which gave Hadde an easier start.

Ha ha poor Garrick! He also got pwned in my game as well, but that was a few weeks ago, before my hard drive crashed. I'll have a chance to pick up the guy again, maybe try over.

Good idea keeping Neera. Thing is, other than Jahiera we haven't met any other magic-users yet.

I might have done the tutorial only once, that is when I still owned BG 1 on a CD-ROM. So this means that I maybe did the tutorial about 20 years ago. But because I played BG 2 before BG 1 (my brother bought BG 2 to me as a birthday present in 2003 or 2004, I still consider it to be the best birthday present), chances are that I skipped the tutorial entirely.

I still remember the day, when I got BG2, it was on four CDs in a large plastic box, packed inside a paper black box. One needed to swap CDs when switching areas, of course. On each CD there were portraits of important characters. I recall, that there was Irenicus on one, queen Ellesime on another but I don't recall faces on the other 2 CDs. I assume that it was Bodhi on one of them, but I'm not sure. The original paper box with all CDs is probably still somewhere in the basement of my parents' house, I really need to find it one day. At that time I had no idea that ToB even exists, I thought that the end of BG 2 is the final end of the game.

So after BG 2 I bought myself Baldurs Gate and the Tales of the Sword Coast, this time it was only two CDs, one for the original game and one for the DLC. The box wasn't neither black nor from paper, but white and already from plastic. For some reason Eldoth's face "occupied" the large portion of the back side of this box, IIRC.

Once done with BG 1, I found out about ToB through some forums, that don't exist anymore. I think I was 18 years old at that time, because I remember driving a car already, so that was in summer of 2006, when I finally found ToB being on sale on some internet site, where people exchange all possible stuff. Because ToB at that time was already a few years old and it wasn't sold in stores anymore. I searched lots of Slovenian online shops and private sites but it was sold out. Fortunately the long search wasn't completely in vain, because after a while I found some guy selling ToB and I immediately called him to ask, if he still has the game - the answer was positive. I still remember his voice (sort of), the exact place on the street, where that conversation took place, I also remember that it was quite hot on that day and that I was wearing short sleeves, so it was definitely summer. And I remember that opposite of me, on the other side of the street, I parked my father's Renault Scenic. In that time I didn't own a credit card or anything similar and my parents wouldn't lend me money for games or make payments to some stranger with their cards, so I sent the money per post to him in an envelope in advance and then he sent the game to me. It also came in some black box.

I don't have so fond and detailed memories of any other game than I do of Baldur's Gate.

Nice story, Lopov.

I know what you mean about some games staying with you. For me, they are Baldur's Gate II, Diablo II, Oblvion and ESO.

Chapter One 79 days 17 Hours -- Hadde Nuff, Imoen, Khalid, Jahiera, and Neera travel into the woodsy area southwest of High Hedge. They're still just collecting XP. I'm the sort who usually always has characters who gain a level or two before they move deeper into the game.

But I'm getting impatient for Nashkel Mine! Just before my disc crashed a month ago they'd made that far.

Lopov, that sounds like a lot of disc-swapping! Probably because there wasn't as much storage space and RAM back then.

What is ToB?

I want a Renault Scenic!

Lopov, after reading your description of BG 2's box set, I had to go and check mine. It's similar, 4-disk in a double jewel box, but only disk #4 has a portrait.

My BG1 box is larger, containing 5 disks in a cardboard six-disk fold out holder. There was an empty slot in the disk holder, so I put my Tales of the Sword Coast in it. The empty TotSC jewel case, I put in the Baldur's Gate box. Plenty of room for it even with the two large books included in the BG1 box; a players guide and a game manual.

Sadly, ToB (Throne of Bhaal) sits all alone in its jewel case surrounded by the Icewind Dale series disks and a couple Daggerfall disks.

I really do miss those manuals that used come with the games.

Yeah, there was a lot of disc swapping and if we happened to forget some stuff in another area, accessible from another CD, this could mean excessive swapping in a very short time. Thinking back, it now bears a certain charm, back then not so mcuch.

ToB stands for Throne of Bhaal, the expansion for BG II. BG II + ToB are both in the Enhanced Edition for BG 2.

TotSC stands for Tales of the Sword Coast, the expansion for BG I, also in the Enhanced Edition for BG 1. TotSC adds two new dungeons and two accompanying storylines, whereas ToB adds lots of new areas and a semi-long storyline to the end of the saga.

You can get the first model of Renault Scenic very easy here, they're very cheap, because they're more than 20 years old. Let me know if you intend to import one over the ocean.



I couldn't find the games in the house of my parents today. Chances are that they got destroyed in fire, that caught the house of my parents about ten years ago but I doubt it, because the fire didn't make it to the computer room, where games were presumably stored. Then again, chances are that smoke damaged the paper boxes of these games, so my parents threw them away - but they don't remember doing so. The last chance is, that they're in the attic. Or that I've missed them on today's search.

I found a pic of CDs, that I also had, online. That's how they looked like. I was right in remembering that Bodhi was on the 3rd one and apparently Irenicus was on the two of them.

Oh gosh NO. My family had a Renault 10 and a 12, and also three Peugeots, when I was a kid into high school. Hardly anyone in America had French cars, in fact even in the 1980s when the French were still importing here, getting parts for these "strange" cars was difficult if problems arose.

Sorry to hear about fire in your folks' place. Scary. But also, thanks for explaining ToB. At my slow rate of gaming, I'm predicting I won't even get to BG2 until 2026, perhaps. ES6 will be on its way, etc.

I didn't know that there are familiars in Baldur's Gate. I discovered it for the first time, because I'm running a sorcerer on my current playthrough. Though I spent many years playing Baldur's Gate, I've never run a mage-like character that'd last long enough to remain in my memory. So in Aia's game (the name of my sorcerer) we found out also about familiars.

Aia has a cute little wyvern that she can conveniently place inside her backpack or let it fly around her. The familiar is actually a party member and can be controlled. By default they're quite weak though they can attack and cast the Blur spell. If killed, the constitution of the protagonist gets permanently decreased by 1 point and HPs are lowered as well. Another familiar can be summoned at any time if the existing one dies.

I tweaked the familiar in the EEKeeper. The creature could be edited under the section, called "Edit Out Of Party Members", which was another new discovery for me. I boosted the familiar's HPs and resistances and deleted the effect, that would decrease the constitution if it'd die. I also added to it some basic defensive or clairvoyance-like spells. I didn't increase its basic melee damage, because I don't want to turn this familiar into some powerful t00n but it'll be nice to have a helping hand here and there. Since Aia takes great care of it, she'll probably safely "store" the familiar if she'll sense some big battle ahead, so no harm should be done to the cute creature.

I know about and have used familiars in BG2. Great idea on editing them to be a little more usable!

That sounds really cool. I am filing that away for future play throughs of BG.

Apparently there are different familiars out there, they're based on the alignment. And I must correct myself, Aia doesn't have a wyvern, it's a pseudo dragon. LG and NG get a pseudo dragon while CG gets a fairy dragon. CN gets a cat, LN and TN a rabbit. LE gets an Imp, NE a dust mephit and CE a quasit.




To edit them, one must use an older version of the EEKeeper. In the latest version (1.0.4) the EEKeeper crashes upon starting "Edit out of party characters". Fortunately someone in the Beamdog forums mentioned that 1.0.36 must be used, else I'd be clueless what to do.

I'm assuming that one can add any creature as a familiar through the EEKeeper so if someone prefers to walk around a grown-up dragon, it should be possible.

I have EE Keeper version 1.0.2.4. So that is probably old enough to work.

I have never used the familiars because that permanent loss of a Con point always scared me off. But since you can mod that out and give them more hit points, that is not a worry any more.

January is Lawful Good, so she would get a Pseudo Dragon. A Crow would be ideal, but that is still a good pick for her. She does have some history with dragons after all. Likewise Blood Raven is usually Chaotic or Neutral Good. Again, a Raven would be ideal. But a Faery Dragon would work for her too, given her Irish background.

There's a "bird" listed under appearance options, so it can be modified, but just what kind of a bird is it, it doesn't say. Best to test and see. Actually any creature / animal, that's available in the base game, can be used as a familiar, provided that one fiddles with appearance options.

I deleted the permanent CON loss but I added lots of HP to the familiar and boosted its resistances to make sure it doesn't die. For the time being it still spends most of the time inside Aia's backpack.

My party currently consists of Aia, Ajantis (paladin), Imoen (thief) and Garrick (bard). Aia would often deal with groups of enemies by walking straight into their middle, then casting fireball, while the other three wait on a safe distance.

(Role)playing a sorcerer for the first time makes me still learn new things in each session. Also, ever since BG3 was released, searching on Google for some stuff regarding BG1 and BG2 has become a nuisance, one must really specify good enough that it's BG1 or BG2 stuff, else you're bombarded with results from BG3.

I found out, how it's possible to bring back a dead party member even if the member has been after his death removed from the party, this means that the portrait was removed as well from the column on the right. I didn't find any help online, so I figured it out myself but it's not that difficult.

What happened is that Ajantis the paladin was killed by the succubus and me, being slightly "infected" with the dead-is-dead approach, have decided to honor his death. My protagonist Aia couldn't get over his death (there was a sympathy between her and the fallen paladin), so she brought his family shield to the Temple of Helm in Nashkel, because Ajantis was a devotee of Helm. There, however, I thought of reviving Ajantis and I immediately felt that this act would please Aia as well.

What we did in the EEKeeper:

1 - Tools-Edit out of party characters-Ajantis-Characteristics-State Flag (change from State Dead -> State Normal)
2 - his HPs were still negative so I set a positive value. However, I needed to do this twice. The first time, his HPs reverted to 0 when saving the game, in the 2nd try they remained positive.
3 - Aia and Imoen traveled to the place, where he "died" and there he was back among the living and he immediately asked Aia, if he can rejoin the party. Even his questline didn't get broken.

Roleplay-wise, they revived him with a Reanimate scroll.

Very nice!

Nice, I'm adding that solution to my modding thread as well.

I've also been quietly playing some Baldur's Gate here and there. Hadde Nuff (LG Fighter) got killed a while back so I started all over with Sir Tannley (LG Paladin). Yeah, for me, my party leader has always been Lawful Good, going way back to high school.

With him are Imoen, Jaheira, Kh-Kha-Khalid, and Jarrick (sp?) I'm taking my time getting to Nashkel Mine, allowing my party to collect at least one more Level each of XP, so they hopefully won't get destroyed this time by the *spoiler* in Nashkel.

I updated my copy of BG3 to the latest version which is Patch 7. Their game versions are weird. They call them Patches 1-7, but the real names go like 4.1.1.6072089. And there are a lot more versions than 7. That one is the current version, and it is apparently Patch 7, hotfix 3. So it looks like each Patch has multiple versions, depending on how many updates to the updates that they did. It's confusing.

Anyway, this was perhaps not such a great idea. As I found out the hard way that Patch 7 breaks a lot of mods. I had to go through my entire mod list one at a time to see which ones worked, and which were now broken. Twice.

The first time was using the Baldur's Gate 3 Mod Manager (this is not the mod manager built into the game). It has a bug where incompatible mods will prevent the Mod Manager from saving the load order. So you will make out your load order, save, and exit. Then reopen the mod manager and the order will all be blank, with no mods loaded at all. You have to go through each individual mod to find out which ones are causing the load order not to save. It is not enough to simply remove them from the load order. You have to remove them from the Mods folder entirely.

After I had done that I thought I was in the clear. So I tried starting a new game. Nope. 75% of the way through starting the new game it gives an error message that it cannot create a new game. So once again I had to go through every mod remaining in my list and pull out the ones that do not work. At least this time I did not have to remove them from the folder on the drive. The bad ones just had to be deactivated.

So hours later I can start a new game. I found Patch 7 compatible updates to most of the mods that were not playing nice with the new version of the game. However, for those that did not I found a fix:

Extract the contents of the .pak file with LSLIB Converter App (use the ConverterApp.exe in the suite of tools).

Go to the extracted folder. Find the <Mod Name>\Mods\<Mod Name>\Story folder. Delete the Story folder.

Repack the file, and it should now work.

I did it with the Avariel Elf Race, Magic Missile Enhanced, and Shocking Grasp Enhanced mods, and they work afterward.

Concerning Patch 7 and what it actually does for Baldur's Gate 3, I am not entirely sure. I did notice that now the game has built in mod support, with a link off the main menu to activate or deactivate mods, and to download new ones (I am not sure from where). It does not seem to allow you to change the load order however. So I am sticking to using the old standalone BG3 Mod Manager program.

Urg, that sounds frustrating!

SubRosa, do you find BG3 to be difficult? I read a little about the game and I read lots of complaints regarding the difficulty. Personally, I don't have a problem with this, if you can cheat with a tool, similar to EEKeeper or something more advanced. I've been cheating a lot in BG1 and BG2, because the story is more important to me than mastering combat.

In other news, Rasaad has joined Aia's party and now we're full. There are Ajanatis (paladin and Aia's fiancee thanks to the BG1NPC mod), Imoen (thief), Dynaheir (Evoker), Minsc (Berseker) and of course Rasaad (monk). I disliked Rasaad's vanilla portrait, so I replaced it with this one. So far I've only had Neera from the EE in my previous playthroughs, so Rasaad will be a new experience for me. Dorn and Baeloth don't come in question because I don't run evil-aligned parties anymore.

My first time playing BG3 it was challenging. But that was before I had figured out the ins and outs of how the game worked. After a few times playing - and a few mods added - I don't find it at all difficult. I use one mod called Short Rest Tweaks that gives you as many short rests per day as you want, which refreshes your health and the like. I use another called Action Resources that refreshes your spell and ability uses after each battle. Normally they are once per rest. But I hate that. If you are a magician, you should be casting spells all the time. Not using a sling for 90% of the time and only occasionally casting a spell.

I also use a mod called Tactician Plus to make the enemies tougher, to balance it out a bit.

BG3 now has native mod support for mods, not sure which “patch” added that. I was thinking it was 7 though. That may have been what caused it, but I had problems with mods anytime they released a big update until the mods themselves were updated. In other BG3 news, they have one last (maybe) patch on the horizon, patch 8. This one is going to add a new subclass for each of the classes, as well as add cross system play for multiplayer.


A sling? Did you not have any cantrips that deal damage?

I meant using a sling in BG1, BG2, and Icewind Dale. My wizards in those games usually ended up with a sling because they did not have the proficiency needed to use a bow. So most of the time they stood in the back hucking rocks. Certainly the epitome of awesome mystical might! That is until I found the Phun Cheat mod, that adds a power that lets you refresh your spells whenever you use it. After that my mages were actually using magic in their battles.

The cantrips in BG3 are an improvement over the old system. But they don't really scale up at the same rate that say the Paladin or Barbarian or Fighter does. I can reliably do 100 points of damage per round with those classes in the late game, thanks to extra attacks, rage bonuses, battle master moves, and the like. Firing a triple Eldritch Bolt or Shocking Grasp just does not cut the mustard in comparison.

I just hate the Vancian magic system.

How weird! I’m surprised that there wasn’t something better for wizards and such in those games!

Yes, that's also how I approach it. Jaheera flings throwing daggars or uses a sling if the party is facing multiple enemies but no spells need to be cast. In my party, Jaheera hasn't got any offensive magic really (except Doom, which isn't very effective).

Neera also uses a sling, though at least her spells can cause more serious consequences to enemies! Love putting an entire enemy contingent to Sleep.

A wizard in those games starts out only able to use daggers, darts, slings, or staves. I know that they get weapon proficiency points to spend as they level up. But I am not sure if they have to spend them on one of those four, or if they can spend them to learn to use other weapons.

Though he's far from the main antagonist in BG, my party always has a feel of accomplishment when they kill Davaeron. Maybe it's because you can encounter his brother in wilderness and he tells you, how Davaeorn killed their father or maybe it's because of all those slaves that curse his name and beg you to kill him. Maybe it's even because of his arrogant way of talking when you encounter him. He's one of those evil arch-mages that we like to get rid of in every playthrough.

SubRosa, TheCheshireKhajiit, and/or Acadian, have any of you allowed Xzar and Monty to join your parties early on, and then had them stick around until later in the game?

Sorry, Renee. I only played BG1 one time. Same with Icewind Dale. Where I settled in for many hours was BG2.

Oh, no apology necessary! Was only asking because Lopov and I were comparing notes about those two, and we both realized we found Xzar and Montaron sort of "annoying".

I've allowed them to join my parties (well, Hadde Nuff and my new guy Sir Tannley have allowed them to join), albeit reluctantly, only because there's safety in numbers. Only to find Xzar and Monty getting on my nerves! Was Wondering if anyone else shares this opinion.