i'm currently having problems getting ID2 to play so i figured i'd give ol BG2 a look see.
what mods would you recommend for BG2?

Many many good mods. But if you are a first timer, go with patch, a bug fix mod (baldurdash or G3 fixpack) and a few tweaks only. G3 tweaks are very useful and makes the game much more enjoyable.

For quests and additional content, Dungeon Crawl, and Tower of Deception are exceptionaly good. Romantic encounters are very nice and spicy too. Some good NPC mods are Xan, Kivan, Kelsey (ofcourse!) they are all well written with the biggest content available, and are romancable.. I have heard Assasinations is also a great mod but I haven't played it yet.

If you are an experienced player only:
For increased difficulty, Sword Coast Strategems II combined with Tactics and Ascension (only if you have expansion ToB) are great. Improved Anvil is totally different, with huge and cool components which really remake the game, and the most tactical and clever and difficult battles avaliable!

Note that you need G3 fix pack for SCS II, and Baldurdash for IA games. Exclusively.

well i've installed shadows over soubar. man that was a big mode instalation.
where does it start?

i also installed tower of deception.
where does that one start? / where is it located?

will these 2 run "together"?

i also have dungeon crawl but i havn't installed it yet. will it work with the other 2?

i'm looking to start from the beginning of SoA and all the way through the ToB. but i'd like to know where these take place / start so that i can get the "full effect" of them :)

Shadows over Soubar starts in the promanade. This thief is trying to pickpocket someone.
Here is a link from my experience.
http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=46605

well i tried to d/l the walkthrough for shadows over soubar but when i try to open it i get the error message: can not load word for windows 6.0 files

is there some place else i can try and d/l or read it from?

Most of the exclusive SP guides are in Word doc format, so you're going to need it sooner or later. If you can't get Word, download OpenOffice (http://download.openoffice.org/), which should open it just fine too.

many thanks! can read it now. thanks! much appreciated!

You're welcome.

i also installed tower of deception.
where does that one start? / where is it located?

Crooked Crane Inn (City Gates) - Tian is name of a man you should talk to.

If I had to pick only one mod to play it would be EasyTutu. The ability to play BG1 in the BG2 engine just adds more to gameplay and atmosphere for me than any other single work.

If you want a good thief with a good romance I recommend Fade. I'm doing a run with her and having fun.

shadows over soubar
tower of deception.
dungeon crawl
secret of bone hill

will they all work if they are all installed or should i use only 1 or 2 of them?

i would also like to add:

samurai kit Baldur's Gate II: SoA/ToB Samurai Kit by Maurolava
Slightly Improved Ilyich by Razfallow
improved firkrag by Findae
masmune Sword Mini-mini-quest by ShadowDaemon
Throne Of Bhaal Enhancements From BioWare's Senior Designer David Gaider
masmune also says:
^--NOTE: You'll need to use some TeamBG tools to install it, and have ToB as well.
any idea what file(s) i need?

The Secret of Bone Hill requires BG1Tutu or BGT.

is it a BG mod or a BG2 mod?

I wouldn't recommend installing too many mods at once. Some people love mega installs, but personally I find the fewer you install, the less problems you'll have. For example, try Assassinations in one game and Dungeon Crawl in another. And always do a clean install before runthroughs.

It is for the BG section of the game and requires Tutu or BGT to be installed to play, as Razfallow mentioned.

Improved Anvil is the absolute best mod I've played, by far.
version 4.2 was just conceptually imcompatible to most other mods, because other mods add XP and items which reduce IA's challenge rate. But now version 5.0 and up will replace some of the original spells, like Mislead, with new stuff. This makes it even more incompatible, as who knows what enemy mages will cast when they were coded to cast Mislead. IA is only recommended if you're up for a challenge, and are willing to forego megamodding.

Check IA's forum here:
http://forums.blackwyrmlair.net/index.php?showforum=99

BTW Shadows over Soubar is buggy, you'll need the walkthrough at hand to avoid big errors.

I'd probably recommend against Shadows over Soubar if you also want to complete ToB or even get to the end of SoA -it tends to dump a lot of XP and uber items and I found it completely ruins the challenge of the rest of the game. Playing just SoS is quite a lot of fun though, just not anything after it.

IA is really more for very experienced players, and it's still insanely hard then. I really wouldn't recommend playing it if it's your first run through BGII in a while - you'll get slaughtered. But yeah it probably is the best mod out there -give it a shot for your next run through.

Tower of Deception is just about perfect imho - it fits perfectly in with the vanilla game, doesn't seem at all out of place, doesn't bring any incompatibilities to the table and doesn't give out ridiculously high amounts of loot or XP. It can be started by talking to someone in the crooked crane inn. I think it's recommended that you have access to at least 1 +3 weapon.

Quest Pack and Unfinnished business add a few quests, items and dialogue and are also quite good, but can be a bit buggy at times - if you intend on installing them it might be worth searching around for what other people think are the best components.

Ease of Use *or* the BG2 Tweakpack are also high on the recommended list as they really streamline the experience. I'd install at least one.

how do you destroy the "astral shard" in the tower of deception? i've tried +5 weapons. i've tried piercing, slashing, bludgeoning. i've tried that special sword you get before that fight. i've even tried magic spells. nothing works. doesn't matter if i kill the guardian first or not. any ideas?
i looked for a walkthrough for the tower of deception but no luck finding one :(

Akridian, have you tried fire?

just tried fire. no luck.
tried using the stonefire axe and a wand of the heavens. neither did anything.

Try Fireball.

well i tried the fireball necklace the guardian dropped and it worked. fireball works but other fire spells don't? what's up with that? :rolleyes:

thanks for the help people. much appreciated :)

fireball works but other fire spells don't? what's up with that?

That's intentional. Dragon's Breath and Comet work as well (though few players may have access to those high level spells at that stage of the game; so Fireball is the main spell to use).

I think the astral shard requires a spell which releases powerful amount of fire. So a lighter won't destroy it :)

well got the shard all taken care of. blew it up :p

now i've another problem. i have the improved firkraag mod going but when i get there there is no firkragg. has anyone else had this problem?

Firkraag is on vacation.

lol. i wonder how many frequent flyer miles firkraag has :p

i've tried resting and going back. i even tried resting where he should be. no luck. his little mage guy is there. the guy with the key to free the girl.

what is the code for "summoning" firkraag?

CLUAConsole:CreateCreature(" ????? ")

also what is the code for the person that approaches the party that asks them to go to the umar hills. i forget who it is. i'm wanting to get to valygar and mazzy

now i've another problem. i have the improved firkraag mod going but when i get there there is no firkragg. has anyone else had this problem?

Firkraag is on vacation.

That's what's improved about him. He now has the intelligence to realize he needs a "vacation" before it's too late. Maybe he'll send a postcard. :D

Dungeon-Be-Gone.

I'm a chronic restarter and I would've given up on this game a long time ago if i had to crawl through Chateau Irenicus everytime.

Dungeon-Be-Gone.

I'm a chronic restarter and I would've given up on this game a long time ago if i had to crawl through Chateau Irenicus everytime.

Yeah that is most certainly a must have for players who finished the game at least ones without it. :D

I don't actually mind Irenicus' Dungeon :D

Mods I have tend to be restoration type mods, such as unifnished business, restored trials and have the restored ToB heads currently.

Also quite like the flirts for a bit of a laugh :lol: they're good fun.

Me neither. The only bit that pees me off is the back and forth between the djinn area and the dryads to get the flask and acorn quests done. Otherwise I quite like it!

(And yes I like mods that add extra quests, characters and dialogue, rather than mods that make battles stupidly hard or add overpowered items and whatnot.)

Pretty much the only reason I play through Chateau Irenicus is that I like to be in control of my characters development.

I like SCS II - its challenging but sensible. The only thing that irritates me is that sometimes it seems enemy mages dont quite play fair. And I still think the Improved Invisibility and Immunity: Divination should never be allowed, its just too cheasy (since even though anti magic attacks with AOF can bring it down, you have to hit a moving target with something that doesnt home in).

TOD is good, and BG2 Fixpack and Tweakpack are must haves.

Me neither. The only bit that pees me off is the back and forth between the djinn area and the dryads to get the flask and acorn quests done. Otherwise I quite like it!


I usually just CTRL-J it. It's not cheating, but working around stupid dungeon design...
What I don't understand is why the dryads would have the flask if Irenicus has no respect for them...

Anyway, back on topic. I quite like Avenger's Rogue Rebalancing. Makes a thief or bard worth playing IMO. Also, 1PP and Level1NPC's are a must.

Pretty much the only reason I play through Chateau Irenicus is that I like to be in control of my characters development.

I like SCS II - its challenging but sensible. The only thing that irritates me is that sometimes it seems enemy mages dont quite play fair.

Care to elaborate? They're supposed to play fair, but you might have found a bug or oversight.


And I still think the Improved Invisibility and Immunity: Divination should never be allowed, its just too cheasy (since even though anti magic attacks with AOF can bring it down, you have to hit a moving target with something that doesnt home in).

Waiting for enemy wizards to start their own spells can help.

Care to elaborate? They're supposed to play fair, but you might have found a bug or oversight.

Most mages that I came across have Stoneskin up at the very least. The slaver mages in the slaver stockade in the slums are one example - although I had the smarter mages component set to "Never instantaneously cast spells at the start of combat", they both had Stoneskin. I had to dispel magic on them out of sight to be able to backstab. Granted, most mages, being in a profession that requires high intelligence, would have some protection even if they werent expecting visitors. The problem is, I think having them with protections active goes against the stated intent of the component, and also means backstabbing is not an option for removing powerful mages unless you have a means of dropping their protections, which is impossible to do without making them turn hostile unless you use dispel magic.


Also, when I fought Lavok, I couldnt attack him before he had turned hostile, even if I did used Dispel Magic on him beforehand. I couldnt affect him at all.

I suppose, in using a difficulty enhancing mod, that I should expect a certain amount of anti-cheese tactics built in, such as it being more difficult to catch opponents unawares.


Waiting for enemy wizards to start their own spells can help.

Thats what I have to do, but if they are completely invisible and free to move, you cant see any traces of them until the spell has been cast. If its a timestop, it may be too late. With Lavok, I hemmed him in with my party so that he couldnt move, and I could reliably guess where he would be.

Dont get me wrong though - I get frustrated with the difficulty of fighting mages sometimes, but I still enjoy it. Its a great mod, I like your stated intent with the mod, to provide difficulty without cheesy tactics. Generally its about right for me.

Most mages that I came across have Stoneskin up at the very least. The slaver mages in the slaver stockade in the slums are one example - although I had the smarter mages component set to "Never instantaneously cast spells at the start of combat", they both had Stoneskin.


Got it. Okay, that's deliberate. The "instantaneously cast spells" component is for shortish duration spells. All mages, whatever component you're using, will cast long-duration spells like Stoneskin and Minute Meteors - they'd be mad not to, in fact.

I don't think this counts as "not playing fair", though, since the player can do exactly the same. (I suppose I could have scripted them to actually cast the spell offscreen rather than autocasting it, but I don't think that makes much practical difference.)


Also, when I fought Lavok, I couldnt attack him before he had turned hostile, even if I did used Dispel Magic on him beforehand. I couldnt affect him at all.

SCS2 doesn't do anything special to him. Are you sure it's not just that your Dispel failed and then you were hitting his Stoneskin? He's quite high level.



Thats what I have to do, but if they are completely invisible and free to move, you cant see any traces of them until the spell has been cast. If its a timestop, it may be too late.

I'd call this "challenging" rather than "cheesy", but sometimes it's a matter of taste!


Dont get me wrong though - I get frustrated with the difficulty of fighting mages sometimes, but I still enjoy it. Its a great mod, I like your stated intent with the mod, to provide difficulty without cheesy tactics. Generally its about right for me.

No apology needed! I'm very happy to have comments of any kind. (My reply was mostly because some reports like this are genuine bugs in SCS, some are differences of opinion about what should be in it.)

Got it. Okay, that's deliberate. The "instantaneously cast spells" component is for shortish duration spells. All mages, whatever component you're using, will cast long-duration spells like Stoneskin and Minute Meteors - they'd be mad not to, in fact.

I don't think this counts as "not playing fair", though, since the player can do exactly the same. (I suppose I could have scripted them to actually cast the spell offscreen rather than autocasting it, but I don't think that makes much practical difference.)



True. I dont really mind it, neither spell is particularly powerful and can be dispelled easily. It only irritates me because it limits the usefulness of backstabbing!


SCS2 doesn't do anything special to him. Are you sure it's not just that your Dispel failed and then you were hitting his Stoneskin? He's quite high level.



The Dispel Magic I used was my inquisitors dispel magic, cast at twice his level (which would make it about level 22 I think). I seem to remember him changing colour from grey (stoneskinned) to normal. Pity I dont have a save game, could go back and check.


No apology needed! I'm very happy to have comments of any kind. (My reply was mostly because some reports like this are genuine bugs in SCS, some are differences of opinion about what should be in it.)

Great, I look forward to finishing the rest of the game. I've done 6 of the 8 strongholds, now I just need to do the Tower of Deception before I go off to Spellhold. So it will take a while!

My last playthrough was with SCS II v4 I think, got to Watchers Keep before I lost interest for a while, when I regained interest a new version of SCS II was out and I felt compelled to upgrade and start again (fresh install).

I'm not the kind of guy that likes uber difficulty, hence why your mod appeals to me, but I'm considering upping the difficulty level (currently I play on Normal, am thinking of Core. Yes I know thats far lower than is normal for Sorcerers place).

One question - what level should you be for the improved shade lord? I had defeated Thax'll Sylia (barely) but couldnt scratch the shade lord. On this playthrough I'll be doing the shade lord after spellhold, so my party should be at level 14 or so. Maybe 15 or 16.

The other thing is that it would be nice if your "Give dragons improved staying power" offered more fine grained control, eg 60% bonus hitpoints instead of 200%, or only bonus hitpoints for dragons starting from Irenicus's steed (by which point you should be high level anyway) onwards. Just so that you have a hope in hell of beating Firkraag and Thax'llsylia and the rest are still challenging.

Up to you though, I suppose some people will still find improved dragons with instaneous spells and 3x hitpoints easy!

One question - what level should you be for the improved shade lord? I had defeated Thax'll Sylia (barely) but couldnt scratch the shade lord. On this playthrough I'll be doing the shade lord after spellhold, so my party should be at level 14 or so. Maybe 15 or 16.

That sounds fine, but to be honest I don't really know what the ideal level is! My last playthrough took him down fine at around level 13-14, I think.


The other thing is that it would be nice if your "Give dragons improved staying power" offered more fine grained control, eg 60% bonus hitpoints instead of 200%, or only bonus hitpoints for dragons starting from Irenicus's steed (by which point you should be high level anyway) onwards. Just so that you have a hope in hell of beating Firkraag and Thax'llsylia and the rest are still challenging.

I'll give that some thought.

Thanks David W.

One more question for, well anyone who knows the answer. What is the point of Non-Detection? I gave the cloak of non detection to my thief, but he still gets revealed by divination spells (at least one of them was True Sight, I think most of them were Dispel Illusions though).

Was he using Invisibility or Hide in Shadows?

IIRC, Non-Detection may be only affecting Invisibility spells. I'm not certain; I could be getting muddled with another mod.

Hide in shadows I think.

I'll test with invisibility and maybe improved invisibility. Lets hope I havent sold the cloak already!

Dungeon-Be-Gone.

I'm a chronic restarter and I would've given up on this game a long time ago if i had to crawl through Chateau Irenicus everytime.

why all the hate for the dungeon of Irenicus? i love it. except the 1st 2 minutes where you have to sit there while he has his fun.
question for those that "skip" it. where do you pick up jaheira and minsc?

question for those that "skip" it. where do you pick up jaheira and minsc?

You pick them up before you leave.

Dungeon-Be-Gone only introduces an npc (Jasper St. Baird) who can skip you to the exit of the dungeon, you choose when to talk to him and do what you want in the meantime, like freeing old friends.

Its then possible to complete most of the dungeon, go back to the cages before you exit, get Jasper to teleport you to the exit and get all the magic items you've collected given to you again. :evil:

At the very least you should collect items (BGT option to import more BG1 items) and do quests (nej2) that don't normally exist in the vanilla game and aren't gathered or finished by Dungeon-Be-Gone.

I usually just CTRL-J it. It's not cheating, but working around stupid dungeon design...
Generally, though, it might break mod content in certain circumstances.

Hmm. I just tried out Imoen romance. Despite it is always shunned by people, it was a very memorable gaming experience. I have always been a huge fan of Imoen, and the mod gives her the amount of interaction and banters she should originally have. That, and cutscenes, dream sequences, etc. are just like an art! The music changing depending on dialogue branches, many many cutscenes perfectly done and the dialogues and everything are so in-character with Imoen. Loved the wide variety of available responses in dialogues too, from sugary sweet to funny (slight spoiler: I really laughed loudly when I read the 'it's party orgy time!' response, that was unexpected and totally cracked me up!) to indifferent to heartless and even downright nasty and terrible!

I seriously encourage everyody to throw their prejudices and 'ewww, she is your sisteeeer!' crap away and give this mod a shot. This is just a game anyway. No need to make such a big fuzz about it, or debate whether love between charname and Imoen would be incest.

Too late, you've already used the magic words "Imoen" and "romance" in the first sentence...

Heh, I know, but I think people are being very unfair to this nice piece of work.

Heck, I was soo scared of trying this mod as everybody kept yelling 'it is buggy as hell!' 'it is soo sick and disturbing I want to pluck my eyes out!' so I ended up postponing it...

Well now I did try the mod and here are the facts:the mod is not buggy, with the latest mod patch, I have never encountered a bug even in my mega-mod install! And the mod is written by an artistic and creative mind, the quality of cutscenes and dialogues and usage of different music clips show this. Simply dismissing the mod by calling it sick and buggy is very unfair IMHO.

Given you can't pick up Immy until Chapter 4, how long is it? (Would you need to go pick up Imoen sooner rather than later, like Solaufein?)
Just curious.

Well now I did try the mod and here are the facts:the mod is not buggy, with the latest mod patch, I have never encountered a bug even in my mega-mod install!
Could I ask what fan-made fixpack (e.g. BG2Fixpack, Baldurdash) did you use (if any)? Just wondering.

Given you can't pick up Immy until Chapter 4, how long is it? (Would you need to go pick up Imoen sooner rather than later, like Solaufein?)
Just curious.

You don't have to rush to Spellhold. In fact, you shouldn't. The romance starts and advances in chapter 2 as usual, however Imoen only 'talks' to you in dream sequences when the party rests. Those dream sequences are cool, artistic and elegant cutscenes like the original Imoen-Jon Irenicus-Bhaalstuff dream ones.

However, romance dreams only start after those initial, original, Jon-Imoen dreams are concluded. You have to have those romance dreams, or else the romance will not be started once you rescue Imoen. So if you rush to Spellhold, Imoen romance won't be triggered.

So you can take your time and do other quests in chapter 2 as usual, and as you have sweet dreams with Imoen, the romance will develop. But you should give up all other potential romance partners! The mod will detect if the charname has an active romance with another NPC (if they have developed after the few first lovetalks, rejecting the romances in the few first talks won't do harm) and will kill the Imoen romance. Suprisingly this also applies to most mod-romance NPCs as well!

After rescuing her, the romance continues as normal banters throughout Spellhold mazes and opens up most memorable dialogue branches, richest party interaction with bioware NPCs, and lots of other stuff! Kinda like a director's cut version of Imoen, shedding light to much of what she had to go through while being held captive, but also to the childhood memories and first adventures of Imoen&Charname. (I especially loved those parts!)

If you like party interaction, cool and sometimes funny banters, and memorable, elegant, artistic cutscenes, you will love this mod, just like I did! Another thing I liked, you can force-talk to Imoen any time, and depending on the situation, how wounded the charname or Imoen is, more interesting and different dialogue branches would be available. I can not forget the one when Imoen barely survived a nasty explosion with only 1 HP!

So, Imoen romance mod does not have 25+ lovetalks, but the content is very big, filling and entertaining and is very well written/directed (in case of cutscenes)

Could I ask what fan-made fixpack (e.g. BG2Fixpack, Baldurdash) did you use (if any)? Just wondering.

Sure, I have SCS II installed right now so I had to get BG2 Fixpack. (I install Baldurdash for my Improved Anvil games, however, as I stated on the first page of this topic.) Ofcourse I had the original BG2 patch before everything, and I also had the Imoen romance mod's own patch....why did you ask?

Sure, I have SCS II installed right now so I had to get BG2 Fixpack.
Actually SCSII tries to support Baldurdash (and unfixpacked installs, come to that), though it's written on a Fixpack base so that's certainly my recommendation. I've had positive reports of Baldurdash/SCSII experiences, though with the odd glitch.

I was just wondering, Silverstar, thanks. I must have missed it somehow that you had SCSII installed, by the way.

As everybody knows, I am mostly interested in difficulty enhancing mods, and I love both Improved Anvil and SCS II. Both have high quality scripts and encounters, but they are so very different nearly in every other aspect that I can not have both at the same time.

But this is cool. An Improved Anvil run totally feels very different than a SCS II one (spell system, kits, monsters, battles, quests, even NPCs like Imoen!) and vice versa. It is like I can play two similiar yet very different games!

If I can finish my SCS II run (close to ToB right now) I will go and start and IA run with its newest version. By the time that too is finished, hopefully SCS II's new version will be available and so on, so on...since my school takes most of my time, I don't think I will have to worry about what mod to play next for a very, very, long time though.

Both SCS II and IA are very good mods for difficulty and tactical oriented players. I highly value and reccomend them to experienced players! (but as I said, you can only have one at one time!)

mmh my favorite mods are

-Refinements... woo fancy HLAs
-Rogue Rebalancing Mod... memories the shadowthief compound (one of the earlier nastier versions) still make me sweat^^... I like the design

-Imoenrom ... imho she never talked enough... and this mod has the best writing of all the mods I've played... imho the quality of the romance/banters is more than worth the slight discomfort of "incest" between godchildren. I imagine it worked just like "virgin mary",... with rejoicing teletubbies dancing around.

-PlanarSphere mod... ok it's buggy, partly unfinished and with a ridiculous story but there is something heart-warming in blasting a group of orks with a fireball that spawns a new fireball for every hit it makes... ...sigh... explosions causing explosions that's what magic is about :p