Doing Watchers Keep while playing SoA

[Blue]

I'm not sure whether I should post this in the SoA forum or the ToB forum, but it concerns my SoA game, so please forgive me if I'm doing something wrong by posting here.

I installed ToB while playing SoA chapter 3. This places a new site on the map, called Watchers Keep. After finishing up chap. 3, but before going to Brynnlaw, I decided to go there and have a look, and ended up doing the first 4 levels. This place was brimming with great magical items probably not found elsewhere in SoA, and was a blast in experience points, raising all my party several levels.

This results in my party probably being at a much higher level than we're supposed to, when going to Spellhold and all that, plus we have all those extra magical items. Would this be considered as cheating? I really don't want to cheat, but I thought it would be allright to do it this way, since the site WAS on my map - but now I just don't know. What do you guys think?

Another thing was, that right before going there, I found Edwin's nether scroll. Watchers Keep is a very hard place, and I spent about 20 days there - but travelled to the city or to my keep now and then to sell things and do other stuff. During all this time neither Edwin or any other NPC had any conversation at all - and after continuing with the storyline - going to Spellhold etc. - nothing more happened with Edwins quest. Now I'm finishing up in the drow city, but he still hasn't changed gender or spoken about his scroll - was there a timer on this quest that I screwed up because I spent time in WK? No other NPC has had any more conversations either - except Edwin harassing Minsc a couple of times.

Have I ruined my game now? Should I reload from before going to WK and play on from there? If we ruin our game by going to WK in SoA, why are we given the option to go there then?

Please don't shoot me if this is the wrong forum.........

[Lokken]

First of all, this is the wrong forum

Watchers keep is in the ToB expansion - therefore, ToB forum.

As to your problem, do you have any romance going that might should have progressed? and if yes, did it?

It does seem rather odd, though NPC interaction is decided by realtime game play, and not resting, so you might have travelled and rested very much if we are to find logical explenation

ANothet reason could be, that the game is bugged, this wouldn't be the first time and I doubt it will the last

[Blue]

I had a romance with Anomen, but it came to its conclusion before going to WK - though it's still active, probably waiting for ToB to start... so the romance talk was over anyway...

But I did rest often - WK is very hard - at least at my level when only having finished chap 3 before going there - so I often got grave injuries - and my party members were repeatedly killed. Could that have ruined the game? (I only took care not to get Anomen killed, so the romance would still be active... )

Do you think Edwins quest screwed up because he got himself killed several times?

The storyline after that - Spellhold, City-in-Cave (or Fish City or whatever), Underdark and Drow City - has been a piece of cake because of my high levels and extra abilities and weapons - is this cheating?

[Earl Grey]

Edwin.
Did he change to female? If not then you probably choose the wrong dialogue option when you found the Nether scroll. You must not tell him that it is "party" treasure, only ask that he use it to benefit the party.

Watcher's Keep.
IMO it's quite ok to do WK in chapter 3.
I haven't done that though. My current party were at 2.5 to 3 million XP when starting chapter 4(!) without even entering WK, so you can get extremely high levels without WK.
With high level abilities and 9th/10th level spells, chapter 4 and 5 tend to be one long massacre...

[Lokken]

No, it doesn't ruin the game, but it makes what you consider to be 20days of Time much less, becase as said before, it is the real in-game time that is the important factor in this case.

And Earl Grey might be right, about the nether scroll also, though I wouldn't really know as I've never tried it.

As for cheating, I dont know, I usually get an overpowered party by playing just normally, so I wouldn't consider it cheating.

[Tassadar]

i recommend not doing WK in one big go due to some conversation problems (viconia romance repeats, sarevok not talking, imoen constantly wanting a hamster like minsc)

timers get really stuffed up for some peculiar reason

btw does anyone know how to make edwin remain female? great fun, right boo? =)

[Blue]

Edwin never became a woman - we only had one talk about the scroll, where he said he would study it for some days and would use it for the best of the party. Then we went to WK. Looking at posts in SoA I understand that he should change to a woman some days after that - but he never did - probably because we were in WK. I suppose this is screwed forever then? I spent at least a week of real time in WK because it was so hard.

I had hoped to get the Edwin/Edwina story, so Edwin would stay with me longer before getting hostile with Minsc - I need a good mage! Now he has harassed Minsc twice about his hamster - I suppose this is the beginning of the end for him? I want to postpone the unevitable - is there a way I can get the Edwin quest back - some variables in CLUACOnsole or something? (Don't want to install ShadowK... or other patches, as I've heard it REALLY screws up your game....) but I found a list of item codes for CLUAConsole on the net where there was mentioned an item called Belt of Gender - would that do the trick? (But this would probably be cheating too...?)

By the way, now at the end of the Drow City, my party has about 4,7 mill. XP - and with the drow armor and stuff, every fight is just soo easy - guess I never should have done WK so early - although I haven't done the last level with the Imprisoned one yet....

[This message has been edited by Blue (edited August 24, 2001).]

[Creslyn]

Hmmm...since you got the dialogue line about Edwin using the scroll for the good of the party, then you must have chosen the correct option to get the Edwina thingy. One thing I recall about NPC dialogues is that they must start in a town (or at least non-dungeon) area, and every area (I think) after you enter the Asylum counts as a dungeon area. Seeing as you are nearly at the end of the Drow caverns I would suggest you finish them and then spend a week or two in Athkatla to see if you can still get the Edwina episode. Not sure if that will work, but its worth a try anyway because the Edwina thing IS funny