(somebody on the G3 boards reminded me that I ought to get round to advertising this)

Sword Coast Stratagems II (SCSII), a Gibberlings 3 mod, is a (primarily) tactical mod for BG2, along the lines of my Sword Coast Stratagems for BG1TUTU and BGT. It attempts to make the game's enemies fight more realistically, mostly by significantly improving their AI. It's very customisable (46 independent components) and should be compatible with pretty much all other BG2 mods. It's deliberately "low-key": it introduces almost no new magic items, treasure, or experience, and it only rarely gives enemies new unique powers and resistances. Playing SCS II shouldn't exactly feel like a whole new game - it should feel like the old game, but with much more realistic and intelligent adversaries.
SCS II is currently BETA. It's pretty stable, though: it's gone through about eight closed-beta releases over the summer before being released as open beta. You'll probably see the occasional glitch if you play it, but you're unlikely to run into anything game-breaking or drastic.

You can download SCS II at http://www.gibberlings3.net/scsii/. Anyone interested in exactly what the philosophy behind its approach to AI is might want to check out http://forums.gibberlings3.net/index.php?showtopic=11484&hl= for a discussion.

I guess it is not compatible with IA, right? I know, I know, sorry for asking, please do not bash me!

OK, I really loved Sword Coast Strategems I for TuTu, if this is as good as the first mod, I know I have to try it...but when, I am not sure...hmm. :hmm:

Depends on your definition of "compatible" - but, basically, no. It certainly breaks Sikret's relatively stringent rules for what counts as compatible, and it probably breaks even my much more lenient ones.

To quote SCS II's readme:

Realistically, Improved Anvil is almost completely incompatible with SCS II on technical grounds (quite aside from the major conceptual incompatibility!) Players who really, really want to try it could have a go at installing SCS II over the top of Improved Anvil (in which case, which one of SCS and IA takes precedence will be highly random) or vice versa (in which case, IA will almost always take precedence) but I don't recommend this and I doubt IA's author does either.

I'm pretty sure Sikret would say IA is incomaptible as well. IA requires Baldurdash, while SCSII requires the G3 Fixpack. Both mods use detectable stats (I think); Sikret says that mods using detectable stats are incompatible with IA. I'm sure there are many other reasons. Plus the tactical approach of SCSII just seems to be much different conceptually from IA.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to trying this mod out; it looks like it has a more balanced approach than Tactics. I'm not going to try it right away, though - I'm kind of BG2'd out after my IA run-through, and I have some other games sitting on my floor that I want to get to. But I'll get the itch back soon enough. :)

OK, I never meant any blasphemy, no sirs, I respect and love the work of both groups. I can play one BG2 game with IA and another with SCS II installed, those mods are well worth it, I know.

Also, forgot to congratulate and thank you good people for creating such great mods still. I am sure many players appreciate what you do, including my humble self!

Blasphemy?

No need to worry at all - as far as I'm concerned feel free to play all, some or none of SCSII in combination with whatever mods you want. But I don't think trying it with IA will lead to a particularly rewarding gaming experience.

About halfway through SoA with a (more or less) full install of SCS II, and I'm having a blast. It manages to be as challenging, and sometimes more challenging, than Tactics without really modifying the stats and resistances of enemies. Spell-casting enemies are MUCH more challenging, even though they have the same abilities as in the vanilla game, their increased intelligence makes previously pushover battles such as Rayic Gethras, Tolgerias, Ihfateer, etc.. into fun, extended battles.

There is an option to allow instant pre-casting of long duration spells to simulate pre-battle buffing for enemy spellcasters. I found this to be pretty cool, as it buys them a little time to run through their scripts.

There's also other cool tweaks, like adjusting the price Gaelan Bayle asks (I chose 100,000 GP for an excuse to stay in chapter 2 longer), and preventing the permenant death (chunking) of party members (so you can play on CORE rules with less reloading. Why not just play on Normal? ToB gives +6 to luck on Normal mode).

If you've never played a Wizardslayer before, this is a good mod to play one as. Or change Valy's class to Wizardslayer.

I'm also enjoying my SCS2 game at the moment, a well done mod with a lot more room for roleplaying then in IA.

The mod also seems to works just fine with Baldurdash. I'm not a big fan of G3 Fixpack so I went along with Baldurdash/SCS2 combination and have encountered 0 problems so far...

OK, cool - that's good to know. For practical reasons I didn't test with Baldurdash but I'm perfectly happy to support it.

Aah I really like your mod concept.

There is one thing bugging me... my characters are always at least in the boring Stoneskin gray or Prot. f. Evil glowing mode. (Which makes clothing, hair color..different clothes a pretty superfluous feature)

Maybe something like:
List of memorized protection spells with phase/level
When party enters combat/or/ Hotkey Buffs On
Cast every spell of list.
20 Seconds after party leaves combat /or/ Buffs Off
Dispel every spell of list & remorize it.

Well that would be my stylish yet powergamers dream...

Cute... but I think a bit beyond the scope of the mod's player AI (which is to save you labour, not work around the game's limitations).

On the other hand, Avenger seems to have worked out how to patch the game to remove the Stoneskin colour change... I might include that in the next version.