Hate away, my friend ;)
The Diseased Ones have been there for millennia. They have forgotten their names, their god. All they know is that they’re trapped, doomed, because of a god whose name they no longer even remember. All they can do is direct their hatred toward the temple, the symbol of their god and their confinement.
But you’re able bring them a tiny spark of hope… And they remember.
Well, Jaheira has one. The most important shield in the game.
First download the poorly named modmerge utility and run it. Instead of merging mods, what it does is prep your BG installation for the installation of multiple mods (or mod packs). If you’re just installing one mod / mod pack, you (probably) don’t need mod merge.
Download the mods / mod packs you want and run them. They’ll open a crude, 1998 vintage DOS window and ask you to install the individual mods. One. At. A. Time. You’ll need to have another window open that describes what each mod really does. Make a typo? Screw something up? Do it all over again. Get an updated version? Do it all over again.
You’ll have to look at your WeiDU.log file to see what mods are currently installed. Probably.
It’s a pita, it’s ugly… but some mods, like Unlimited Stacking, and Increased party movement speed outside combat really make it worth the hassle.
I’m running BG2 Fixpack, Tweaks Anthology, and LeUI.
So these are the only choices…
Thanks. I thought there was a one stop tool back in the day to make modding easier, but I’ll try this.
I mean, it seems only appropriate for discussing a BioWare game.
I’m a little confused why upon level up - THACO decreases - however, most magic weapons add to THACO? Which is better?
Your THACO decreases as you level up (so you need to “roll” a lower number on a 20 sided die)
+1 weapons, for instance, give you an addition 1 point of damage,
AND 1 bonus point on your 20-sided die role to increase your “to hit” chances.
See the THAC0 portion of the equipment screen below.
The weapon has THAC0+2, which is -2 bonus to THAC0!
AKA +2: -2
BASE THAC0 16 lowered to 14.
It’s really simple. I don’t know what is so hard to understand…
There’s a tool for EE installs (BG and BG2) called “EE Game Setup Tool”, this is based on “Big World Setup Tool” (now defunct) that I used extensively in the past with no issues. GitHub - EE-Mod-Setup/EE-Mod-Setup: A Tool for automated mod installations on EET, BG2EE, BGEE etc
Takes care of downloading all the mods you select, description of each mod, resolves mod conflicts (when possible) and sorting out the install order. Actively maintained.
Thank you both on the THACO education!
THAC0 is so cool - I love that you can find entire pages dedicated to just this concept, often commenting “see, it’s not as complicated as everyone thinks, is it?”
My favorite encounter in the BG games is when you run into another band of adventurers in BG2, who then attack you, because that’s what murderhobo adventurer parties do.
It’s actually not. 3.0 was a godsend. The death of THAC0 should only be celebrated.
The internet is the death of sarcasm. Sorry, should have put in the /s
THAC0 is natural to me, but only because I spent so much time on it through the years.
It started with spending hundreds of hours reading and poring over the 1st Edition AD&D books. I never really played any D&D campaigns with people, but would do plenty of simulations on the rules and do many scripted battles and dungeon runs myself.
It continued with many more hundreds of hours playing and finishing all of the Gold Box games, and others through the years. I believe the Dark Sun games were still THAC0 and I played through those.
I also spent hundreds of hours coding and testing my own C64 game that was based on 1st edition rules and was sort of a randomized dungeon simulation complete with dungeon levels up to 10, random encounters based on the tables in the AD&D books, and treasures given based on the tables there also. It was pretty fun actually, but I couldn’t continue adding things like more special attacks and spells as I ran out of memory and my coding efficiency wasn’t the best!
I really should do another playthru of Baldur’s Gate with the EE versions. I believe I finished the first long ago, but couldn’t get through the high end battles of BG2 as things just got to chaotic for me with all the enemy magic to try to process and control. I had a great time with IWD again in recent years.
I hear you. I was almost always being terribly sarcastic about it.
80-stack arrows is the best thing since potion cases!
I’ve finished BG1 for the first time yesterday. I’ve played BG2 back when it was released a couple of times shortly after release but now I see I didn’t get the rules at all. A lot of RPG fans don’t care about actual gameplay and would probably get more from Telltale games. So I remember BG2 having fun epic stories and good writing, but even though more than 15 years have passed I still remember annoying level drain and the fact that every freaking mage had layers of magic defense you have to take off.
Now that I actually understood how BG works I’m impressed by what an improvement 3E was. It’s still a mess that should never have been digitized in this form (same for Pathfinder) but it’s a decipherable mess. Consistent rules for stats and multiclassing are god send. Also it makes so that even fighters have something to do in the fight.
Come to think of it, I’d call Knights of the Old Republic a decent take on d20. It still had a problem with fake attack animation and primary stat 12 being functionally the same as 13 but it worked much better for videogame.
This is how THACO worked in the old red set Dungeons & Dragons game. You rolled a D20, and looked on this table for what Armor class you hit.
What is the problem with fake attack animations? Also, is there a page that summarizes the more arcane parts of 2nd edition rules?
Fake attack animations were more of a problem for me in real time action games like the earlier Elder Scrolls games.