Baldur's Gate II Under-Represented Items Mod Author: Westley Weimer Current Maintainer: CamDawg \/ Release 11 \/ http://www.weidu.org/ Table of Contents ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I. About II. Installation III. Items IV. Known Bugs V. Thanks VI. FAQ (No Spoilers) VII. Pricing VIII. Notes from CamDawg IX. Changes Section I. About ("simplified English") ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This mod adds items to Baldur's Gate 2. The items come from Icewind Dale 2. Only certain kinds of items were chosen. Items were selected to flesh out smaller weapon families. Here is a complete list of weapon types chosen: Two-Handed Axes Darts Halberds Short Swords Maces Hammers Spears Quarterstaves Daggers Bastard Swords Where possible, both low-power and high-power items are added. This allows characters to master these weapon types and remain competitive with more traditional warriors. These items are accessible via a new merchant. Conlan (from IWD2's Kuldahar) sells them in Ribald's Adventurer's Mart (AR0702) and outside the Watcher's Keep (AR3000). This mod makes the game easier. It makes powerful items available. Without it, a fighter specializing in maces has few weapon choices in most of the game. With it, that fighter can use special effects or deal elemental damage. Hopefully this will also make the game more fun. You may be inspired to replay the game with non-standard (e.g., non-flail, non-katana, non-two-handed-sword, non-longsword, non-sling) weapons. See Section III for an item list. Section II. Installation ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ BGII is required. ToB is optional but recommended. This mod should work fine with any WeiDU mod. See the webpage for details. As of version 7, the Enhanced Edition of the game is supported. The two conversion projects--Baldur's Gate Trilogy and Enhanced Edition trilogy-- are also supported. Unzip the main ZIP file into your BGII main directory. This is normally: C:\Program Files\Black Isle\BGII - SoA\ Run (click on) "Setup-Underrep.exe". First, pick your favorite language. Currently available: American English Francais (Mathrim Cauthon) Italian (Stoneangel) Polish (Aristo - The Stars of Mystra) Russian (SERKOS, aerie.ru) You can have any color as long as it is black. There is only one component to install. You may always uninstall them later by re-running "Setup-Underrep.exe". You do *not* need to start a new game to take advantage of anything you installed. The components should install correctly for international players who have both DIALOG.TLK and DIALOGF.TLK. Section III. Items ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Baron" Sulo's Hook (dagger) Bastard Sword of Wrath Belib's Everlasting Torch (mace) Brutal Impact (hammer) Caballus' Whispering Staff Cat's Paw Dagger Charged Short Sword of Wounding Cornugon Hide Armor Delnar's Eye Gouger (dart) Dire Plague Darts Elven Chainmail of the Hand Flaming Burst Mace of Disruption Girdle of Beatification Greataxe of Blurred Visions Greataxe of Digestion Greataxe of Elemental Bursts Greataxe of Ice Greataxe of Might Greataxe of Vampiric Flame Halberd of Speed Holy Greataxe of Justice Holy Hammer of Corrosive Burst Holy Swizarnian Hammer of Lucerne (halberd) Infernal Halberd of the Defender Life's Blood Drinker (spear) Lolth's Cruel Sting (short sword) Mace of Goblin Slaying Mace of Holy Smite Mace of Stunning Frost Burst Massive Greataxe of Flame Massive Halberd of Hate Miasmic Bastard Sword Monkey Paw of Discipline (mace) Phantom Staff Pudu's Fiery Blight (halberd) Rage of Chaos (bastard sword) Returning Poison Tipped Dart Returning Stun Dart Slow and Steady (hammer) Spear of Stunning Staff of Greater Spell Resistance The Dire-Hammer Valorfoe Twelve Paces (spear) Vampiric Dagger Viper's Fang (dagger) Xvimian Fang of Despair (dagger) If you can't find Conlan or want to see the items with their descriptions, try: CLUAConsole:CreateCreature("u#conlan") Section IV. Known Bugs ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I am currently soliciting "price change" suggestions for these items. Let me know how you think specific items should be adjusted. Please quote percentile increases or decreases, since the absolute price depends on your reputation and charisma. Keep in mind that one goal is to make these items available somewhat early. Note from CamDawg: v7 does make some pricing changes, and I'd like to continue to solicit pricing feedback. Section V. Thanks ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Special thanks to Jason Compton, who continually encourages me to do more one-day mods. This one took five hours. Looking back, I'm not sure why it didn't take less. :-) Probably because I had to hand-convert the items from IWD2 to BG2. Apparently I should have spent five more minutes making the README readable. Next time I'll look into one of those NPCs, I guess. Special thanks also go out to Scarlet Tang and Gwen Morse, who probably won't ever read this. We'll wave at Lisa Jonte as well :-). Section VI. FAQ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Q: Why are many of these items +5? A: In IWD2 high-plus items abound. Q: Those prices are too high/low/sideways! A: As above, please send me explicit percentile price changes. Q: But do you have any role-playing suggestions? A: Yes. Go download and install Kelsey. Have him and Anomen join your party. Give Kelsey one of the new staves or darts. Give Anomen one of the new maces. Listen to them talk. Recruit Valygar and have him actually use a spear. Pick up Mazzy and make her a front-liner with a short sword. Grab Korgan and have him use two-handed axes. Listen to them talk. :-) Maybe your PC can branch out into halberds. Q: Name all of the weapons that can deal acid damage. A: Acid Arrows, Flail of Ages, Frostreaver, Root of the Problem, Blackblood. From Weimer Mods: Pitchwife, Sanchuudoku, Greataxe of Digestion, Holy Hammer of Corrosive Burst, Miasmic Bastard Sword, Brutal Impact. Section VII. Pricing ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Originally, the item were priced at 10% of their default IWD2 costs. IWD2 items often cost 250,000 gold. With an average charisma and reputation these items tended to cost between 10,000 and 30,000 gold. However, this led to some items being quite cost effective (e.g. Lolth's Cruel Sting, Rage of Chaos, Hammer of Lucerne) and others being way too expensive (e.g., Infernal Halberd, Wrath, Vampiric Flame). New Theory. Let's imagine that you've got a 9th level fighter with grand mastery, 3 attacks per round and 18/75 strength and 18 dex. This is reasonable for the early game. You're against a foe with AC -5, 50% fire resistance (fire res is the most common in the game, and improved mages will be completely immune to it), a saving throw of 5. This enemy is 75% likely to be evil and 25% like to be any other alignment :-). Your THAC0: 12 -2 (STR) -3 (GM) = 7 Your Bonus Damage: +3 (STR) +5 (GM) = +8 With a standard +2 Long Sword you do this much damage in one round: 3 Attacks * (THAC0 7-2=5, AC -5 = 0.5) * (1d8+2+8 = 14.5) = 21.75 Of course, "expected damage" isn't the best way to get a handle on things (Celestial Fury's "stun" is hard to figure in, but it's _strong_), but it will give us one clue. As an aside: Holy Smite (when cast by these weapons) does 5d4 (save for half, blindness) which we'll approximate as: 3d4*.75 + 3d4*.75*.25 = 7 points of damage. Here are the expected damage values from the underrep weapons plus some ==normal in-game items== (and their pre-markup [costs]): 00.0 == Fortress Shield +3 (+7 vs. missiles) [9000] == 12.1 Sulo's Hook (AC +3, +1 saves, 15% MDR) {9000} 15.0 == Long Sword +0 [15] == 16.9 == Mace +1 [1500] == 17.4 Flaming Burst Mace of Disruption (disruption) {1800} 18.2 Goblin Slaying {1800} 18.2 Vampiric Dager (heal-2) {1800} 18.2 == Long Sword +1 [1250] == 18.4 Belib {1800} 19.9 Mace Of Stunning Frost (stun) {3000} 20.3 == Mace +2 [2500] == 21.1 Infernal Halberd Of The Defender (AC+1) {2500} 21.8 == Long Sword +2 [4250] == 21.8 Spear of Stunning (stun) {3000} 22.3 Cat's Paw (hide, silently) {2500} 23.3 Viper's Fang {2500} 23.9 == Mace +3 [3500] == 24.0 Mace Of Holy Smite {2600} 24.3 Vampiric Flame {2600} 24.6 Miasmic (33% stun) {2600} 25.6 Whisper (silently, mass invis) {2700} 25.6 == Long Sword +3 [6250] == 25.9 Stun Dart {2700} 27.0 Poison Dart {2800} 27.2 Valorfoe (terror) {2800} 27.3 == Lilarcor +3 (no charm, no confuse) [3000] == 27.5 == Crimson Dart +3 [1250] == 27.9 == Staff of Rynn +4 [13500] == 28.9 == Frostreaver +3 [4700] == 28.9 == Celestial Fury +3 (stun) [7800] == 29.0 == Belm +2 [3000] == 29.5 Elemental Bursts {4700} 29.7 Twelve Paces (reach, breach, lower res) {5000} 29.7 == Flail Of Ages +3 (slow) [4500] == 30.1 Lucerne (disrupt) {4700} 30.1 Rage of Chaos (chaotic commands, chaos) {8000} 30.2 Xvimian Fang (5% petrify, 20% emotion) {8000} 30.4 Wrath {4700} 30.6 == Dragon's Breath Halberd +4 [6500] == 31.6 Lolth (free act, 33% web) {9000} 31.9 Monkey Paw (15% panic, 5% confuse) {4800} 32.2 Phantom (reach) {4900} 36.9 == Fire Tooth Dagger +3 [5500] == 38.0 Greater Spell (15% MR) {5000} 40.7 == Scarlet Ninja-To +3 [20000] == 42.9 Blurred Visions (+3 AC, +1 saves) {18000} 42.9 Life's Blood (heal-2) {15000} 43.1 == Storm Star +5 [5500] == 44.0 Pudu's Blight (25% stun, 5% lower res) {15000} 44.6 Massive Halberd of Hate {15000} 47.3 Slow and Steady {16000} 48.1 Halberd of Speed {16000} 48.3 Holy Greataxe of Justice (blind) {16000} 49.3 Might {16000} 50.2 Brutal Impact {17000} 50.4 Eye Gouger (90% remove magic, 5% blind you) {1000} 51.7 == Flail Of Ages +5 (free action, 5% mr, 33% slow) [9500] == 52.2 Holy Hammer of Corrosive Bursts {17000} 52.8 Charged Short Sword {17000} 53.8 Digestion {18000} 53.8 Ice (50% cold res) {18000} 54.6 == Staff of the Ram +6 [8500] == 54.7 Massive Greataxe of Flame {20000} 59.1 == Angurvadal +5 (no level drain) [9750] == 61.2 == Throwing Impaler +4 [20000] == 72.9 == Crom Faeyr +5 (trolls) [15500] == ---- Plague Darts {8000} The first thing to note is that weapons really do make a difference. Crom Faeyr does five times as much damage as a mundane long sword in this scenario. General Commentary: Sure Striking (+5) is basically worthless. You only ever really need +3 weapons (if you're going after Kangaxx you have your own special plans). Disruption is also not very handy -- sure, you could perhaps take out a vampire nest easily, but you can already do that with a 1000-gold scroll of Undead Protection. It's also worth noting that the default BG2 prices (even for those things meant to be purchased in stores) appear to have been assigned at random. Example: Long Sword +1 < Mace +1 < Mace +2 < Lilarcor +3 < Long +2 < Mace +3 < Long +3 Specific Commentary: Sulo's Hook -- this is clearly a +2 small shield that happens to be in dagger form for our kensai or mage friends. If you could actually use a shield you'd probably rather have Harmony, Reflection or Order. We'll price this equal to the Fortress Shield. It provides less protection, more saving throws... but unless you have stars in dual-wield it will pull your main-hand thac0 down. Eye Gouger -- this should be the weapon of the gods (a dart with strength bonuses and a high enchantment, plus remove magic)... except for that bit where it blinds you for hours unless you make a save vs. poison, making it basically useless (because once blinded the engine will walk you into the middle of the melee where you will get pounded because of the blindness penalties). So you can basically only use it if your saves are all sub-zero, which happens loosely at the end of the game. Xvimian Fang -- if you have multiple attacks per round, the Emotion casting will end up putting most of your enemies (from humans to beholders, and not just the one you're attacking) to sleep. Thus it's more expensive than its neighbors. Plague Darts -- about 10 plague darts can solo Captain Dennis and his squad or Mencar and his gang or Tarnor's friends in the sewers -- 10 Insect Plagues are not to be sneezed at, especially since multiple castings more or less guarantee panic in the enemies and no spells from the spellcasters. Thus these things have to be expensive or they become "make money fast" in the early game. Valorfoe -- the terror looks strong, but then you spend all of you time running after some yellow-circled guy... Lolth -- since the web from this doesn't come from a spell, you can end up paralyzing things that would normally be immune (e.g. liches, golems). Free Action is also hard to come by. Rage of Chaos -- chaotic commands is strong and the chaos effect is very strong (example use: confusing mages through their stoneskins) since it doesn't come from a spell. Section VIII. Notes from CamDawg ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For the most part I've tried to leave the readme intact since this is ultimately Wes' mod. In v7 I made a first pass over item prices after discussing it with folks in Discord, though I've externalized a price table so players can adjust this with some quick tp2 and tpa editing. Otherwise it was just some modernization, tracking down and fixing the stuff listed in 'known issues', some additional routine bug testing, and packaging it up and making macOS and Linux versions. Thanks to Law, Auve, Thundax, and the rest of the Discord folks for feedback. Section IX. Changes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Version 1: * Initial public release. Version 2: * README translated from Gibberish to English. Thanks, Jason. * "+2d6 vs. X" weapons now do "+1d6+6" instead of "+4". Curse you, Infinity Engine, I'll not be defeated by you! Version 3: * Goblin Slaying mace usability and proficiency corrected. Version 4: * Mathrim Cauthon from the D'Oghmatiques has supplied a French translation. Thanks! * Added Russian translation by SERKOS (Aerie.ru). Version 5: * Rage Of Chaos now displays strings and animations when it confuses something. * Staff of Greater Spell Resistance now correctly grants Magic Resistance instead of Magic Damage Resistance. * Prices adjusted (see above). * Cruel Sting free action bugfix, Rage chaotic commands bugfix. Version 6: * Added Italian translation by Stoneangel. Version 7 (CamDawg, May 27, 2021): * Updated for the Enhanced Editions and EET * Items which had an x% chance to do an effect were generally off by 1% * Many weapons were too slow as weapon speed was not accounting for their enchantment bonuses * Two-Handed axes now use a more axe-like mix of attacks rather than a halberd mix, e.g. more slashes and less thrusting attacks * Some on-hit weapon effects, such as blindness from the Holy Greataxe of Justice, could incorrectly interact with spell protections due to incorrect power levels * The poison damage of the Greataxe of Blurred Visions and the Life's Blood Drinker was doing 1 damage per second instead of the intended 1 damage per round * Added thieving penalties, correct usabilities and strength minimum to the Elven Chainmail of the Hand * Various items were not providing combat feedback/visuals/portrait icons for their on-hit effects, e.g. the stun effect of Returning Stun Dart +1, the panic and confusion effects of the Monkey Paw of Discipline, etc. * The "undead destroyed" message for disruption items was never displayed because of effect misordering * The Cornugon Hide Armor was not properly restricting arcane spellcasting * The Charged Short Sword of Wounding +5 was missing its poison damage * The Mace of Goblin Slaying +1 was erroneously providing a save chance to its slay effect * The new magical armors will now count against wearing multiple protection items. * Conlan will now spawn correctly in ToB games. * Items which provide an additional +2d6 damage against certain alignments now do the correct damage instead of the previous +1d6+6. * Weapon descriptions were cleaned up; specifically they now list weapon speed and conform better to the existing weapon descriptions * Conlan's dialogue was translated, but was always being compiled in English due to an old dialogue file * The two darts that cast spells on their targets were causing a second, unnecessary projectile to move from the wielder to the target * After some Discord feedback, tried to take up Wes' to-do of price adjustment. This has been externalized to a separate library so players can tweak these values to their own specs by some slight modification to the tp2 and library. Version 8 (CamDawg, June 5, 2021): * Added Polish translation, courtesy of Aristo from the Stars of Mystra translation team * Added metadata for Project Infinity Version 9 (CamDawg, May 18, 2022): * Fixed bug with Delnar's Eye Gouger where its dispel-on-hit ability rarely worked. It now uses the same parameters as the dispel-on-hit abilities of Carsomyr or Staff of the Magi. (Credit to riklaunim for the bug report.) * Certain item abilities now take advantage of EE-specific engine features, e.g. items which drain life will now use the new EE flags to do so in a more consistent and bug-free manner * Rage of Chaos, which provides Chaotic Commands as an equipped effect, will now copy the effects of Chaotic Commands at install time, in case another mod has altered the spell * In anticipation of the EE Fixpack, the items will use the various IMMUNITY spellstates to prevent effects that should be blocked, e.g. a creature immune to web may still get some effects (like sounds) Version 10 (CamDawg, May 21, 2022): * Updated Russian translation * A few minor adjustments to the immunity spellstate code for EE games Version 11 (CamDawg, September 19, 2022): * Further changes to prepare for EE Fixpack * Corrected portrait icon for Greataxe of Ice +5 * Massive Greataxe of Flame +5 was only adding 1d6 fire damage instead of the listed 2d6 * Greataxe of Might +5 had an incorrect minimum STR * Greataxe of Vampiric Flame was adding 2d6 fire damage instead of the listed 1d6 * Ranged weapons now use projectiles that better match projectiles used by other items, e.g. the throwing darts will use 1pp-style projectiles if available * Infernal Halberd of the Defender was doing 2d10 fire damage instead of the listed 1d10 on 10% of hits * Pudu's Fiery Blight was doing 1d10 fire damage instead of the listed 2d10 on 10% of hits * Cornugon Hide Armor should not be usable by Avengers * Caballus' Whispering Staff now uses the mace animation like other one-handed staves * Corrected weapon speeds for Life's Blood Drinker, Twelve Paces, Lolth's Cruel Sting, Charged Short Sword of Wounding +5 * Poison immunity could end up blocking the sound effects from Life's Blood Drinker's HP drain on EE games * Lolth's Cruel Sting would display the 'poisoned' icon even if the poison was blocked by magic resistance. Its Free Action will also block stun, if that option has been installed from the BG2 Fixpack * The duration for the Chaos effect of Rage of Chaos was too long * Corrected some miscellaneous file errors (e.g. leftover IWD2 flags). These shouldn't have affected gameplay, but are fixed anyway. Version 12 (CamDawg, September 22, 2022): * Fixed the encoding of the Polish translation (thanks AL|EN!)