Come one come all, I have finally finished this massive mod that I have made for IWD/HOW, I believe it took me over 320 hours to complete in a 3 week period or so but anyways, on to the good stuff, unless you just want to skip all of what this has to offer if you like surprises, so just go straight to the bottom for install details
PS: I will always keep the most up to date mod for download at the bottom of this page for convenience of new comers
First big improvement: Difficulty setting
the difficulty setting now greatly impacts how the game is played, on a lower setting enemies will use less spells and abilities, on higher settings more monsters/ more powerful monsters will spawn, and enemies will use better spells and abilities, to learn more, once you install the mod, check out what the difficulty slider has to say about the difficulty settings
Next: Sound sets have been restored to EVERYBODY
what this means is that EVERY SINGLE NPC in the game has a sound set now ( although I forgot to do the summons from spells, but to be honest they don't really need it anyway) this took a mammoth amount of time and effort to do and the reason why I did it, was to make the game feel more alive, and it actually does help a bit, instead of the dead cold silence everyone had before
Next: More music tracks
speaking about sound sets, I've noticed that IWD can be quite silent, especially when it comes to combat music, so I've added a lot of combat music to the game ( in fact everywhere that can have combat music has been added) I didn't replace any of the original IWD tracks though, so those are still there, to me this music track addition really helps bring the game to life a little better I think
Next: Weapon Proficiencies
weapon proficiencies have had a huge over haul, as in some classes can go as high as 7 points in one weapon, so make sure to double check the maximum proficiency points your class is allowed to have in weapons and weapon styles, even weapon styles can go as high as 5 points now as well, so be aware and check out the new proficiency point system for weapons and weapon styles( also note, if you are at 5 proficiency points and you see that it looks like it's maxed out - because of space limitations- try me, if your class allows it, you can keep pointing the points on, it just won't show up on the level up screen, but it will on the record page)
Next: A whole bunch of new items
I have added a whole bunch of new items to the game, so can be found, some can be bought, I don't recall how many I added, probably close to 50+ I'm thinking, I also tried to make it so they weren't to over powered of an addition, and also there is one secret item that I have added, and there is only one way to get it, so happy lurking
High Quality Bastard Swords:
I noticed that in the original these swords were a little hard to see which ones were plain and which ones where high quality, so I made the high quality ones have a blue hue so it's higher to determine which sword is which
All weapons with abilities attached to them:
I've updated every single weapon in the game to make it more fair, some weapons ( like hold fast ) for example were brutally over powered, so now all weapons have a save for their effect, and most effects have a lot shorter duration for their effect ( although the odd weapon may have no save for their effect, the duration will still be a lot shorter
Magical Two handed axes:
Magical two handed axes will now have a different color to represent their magicalness, so to make them a lot less mundane
Weapons with Damage Resistance:
Because of the Dwarven Defender and Barbarian classes it's very easy to have high damage resistance, especially with some of the weapons in IWD, so I toned down the damage resistance of most of the weapons ( usually 10% is the highest which is still good) also the bone marrow belt I toned it down to 15 % slashing ( as apposed to the ridiculous 50% it had before) all armors have been unchanged though ( since it's mostly studded leathers that have damage resistance, and even the ones that aren't studded leather are quite reasonable)
Armors and Shields with Damage Resistance:
I've updated all the armor and shields that have damage resistance to be less insane then they previously were, thanks to dwarven defenders ( at least before my mod ) you could get over 100 % damage resistance, so now, no armor or shield will grant more than 10% ( except for maybe the odd few )
Next: Stores and Temples have been upgraded
As the title says, A LOT of the stores have been upgraded ( and by a lot I mean all of them) and quite a few of the temples have been upgraded as well so anytime you go to a store or a temple, check out and see what new goodies they have, and speaking about stores, I have made it so items are more expensive and you get less money for selling items so then you don't sit on a moon size chunk of gold the time you get to the end of the game, I've actually found it to be quite effective, plus no one will buy wands ever ( I couldn't make it so if you sold a wand and bought it back, to make it so it only gives a small amount of charges, its always 50 or 100) I did this to help calm down the OPness of wands, so what you get is what you get, so be wary
Next: Experience Points have been altered
you are going to see a familiar experience point allocation if you played bg2, I have changed a lot of the experience to give quest xp to each character instead of just getting that huge wad in one go, (although some quests will give a set amount) again I found this to be a more effective way of doing experience, plus it also helps give you solo'ers a much bigger challenge, also your difficulty setting will sometimes affect your experience from quests as well, the higher the setting, the more you will get, even a few boss enemies' experience point gain are based on the difficulty setting as well
Next: Bonus Experience for traps/locks/ and scrolls
I have added this into IWD since it's already in the bg games, although its not to huge, as scrolls will give level x 50 XP, and you will see what traps and locks will give, and as per usual the higher level your thief is, the more XP from traps and locks
Next: Max Level
I have increased max level to 40, and all it really does is give a little bit of HP gain, a tiny bit of a spell gain, and maybe perhaps a small saving throw gain, I really did it for those people who really want the full experience of HoF mode on insane and not get capped out to quick, with me, I did a full run on insane with the XP boost off, and I think I hit around a little under 3.5 million the time I got to the last boss in HOW, so having the level cap at 40, does not change gameplay all that much for those that are worried
Next: Superior Strength
I have altered superior strength scores ( 18/01-18/99) in which now for every point you have in the 18/xx will give you an extra 2lbs of weight allowance, so a score of 18/20 STR will now allow you to carry 240 lbs, while a score of 18/70 will allow you to carry 340 lbs, this makes it so now matte what your superior strength is, it will affect your weight allowance based on your 18/xx, and 400 is still 18/00
Next: I have changed some spells
there is a small list of spells that I have changed, nothing big, just to add a little big more flavor to them ( plus cloak of fear was bugged and did nothing so I had to fix that HA) so here is the list of spells that have been changed, check out their new spell descriptions in the game:
Chromatic Orb
Defensive Harmony
Flesh to Stone
Cloak of Fear
Flamestrike
Bless
Now it's time for the big ol' .2da list, so here is the rest of the changes I have made according to the .2da files:
Half-Orcs:
get a -2 penalty to charisma as well ( since 19 str/con is too good to only get -2 int)
Alignments:
A lot of classes have had their alignments revamped ( so no lawful berserkers or barbarians sort of thing) plus druid now can be neutral evil or neutral good, so make sure to check for your alignment choices
Character Sounds:
If you have my jon irenicus soundset ( which is on this forum somewhere) you can use it with this mod and his sounds will have subtitles if you like that sort of thing
Classes:
some classes have become more available to more races ( any type of elf can now be a druid, didn't know if that was implemented before) and now gnomes can be bards ( except for blades, since blade is more of a warrior subtype than a musician subtype) plus halflings can be cleric/thieves as well, so make sure to check it out
Dwarven Defender:
the dwarven defender is an outrageously over powered class, especially in IWDEE and what makes it more so is it's ridiculous dwarven defender ability, so I have altered this ability to be more like the DND v3.5 ability to make this class way more fair, and the ability being thus: lasts 10 rounds, the dwarf gains +2 strength/constitution/AC/saves and has the 50% movement rate penalty
Racial Enemies:
there has been some additions to the racial enemies, so make sure to check it out, but also a warning; some of the harder enemy racial enemies might not appear on higher difficulties, so just keep that in mind depending on which difficulty you play on
Hit Points:
I have altered how HP work a little bit, now every class' hp will get a roll up to level 10 ( although thief and mages are still the only one who get a HP bonus at level 10, I cant figure out how to make the rest of the classes do it) plus barbarians and dwarven defenders get 4 HP per level pass 10 instead of 3
Intelligence:
I have affected intelligence a little bit for when it comes to spell learning and how many spells you can have per level the info can be find in this table:
LEARN_SPELL______MAX_SPELL_LEVEL______MAX_SPELLS_PER_LEVEL
9___ 35___ 4___ 6
10___ 40___ 5___ 7
11___ 45___ 5___ 7
12___ 50___ 6___ 8
13___ 55___ 6___ 9
14___ 60___ 7___ 10
15___ 65___ 7___ 12
16___ 70___ 8___ 14
17___ 75___ 8___ 16
18___ 85___ 9___ 18
19___ 90___ 9___ 20
20___ 95___ 9___ 25
21___ 96___ 9___ 30
22___ 97___ 9___ 35
23___ 98___ 9___ 40
24___ 99___ 9___ 45
25___ 100___ 9___ 50
Bonus Priest Spells:
this table has been altered a bit as well, I have made it a little bit more spread, so its a little easier to get bonus level 6 and 7 spells, and I believe at max wisdom you only get +3 bonus spells per level instead of 4, so its only a little different, and not too much of a game changer, some spell levels you might have a spell less than you should, but others you might have a spell more
Lore:
I have altered lore tables a little bit, everyone is the same as before except that clerics now get 2 lore points per level now instead of 1 ( I thought it made sense since a lot of temples can identify, so you would think that clerics would be quite knowledgeable as well
Racial To Hit Bonus:
Dwarves now get a +1 bonus to hit with axes ( since dwarves get a bonus with the waraxe in 3.5)
Reputation:
it is now possible to hit 20 reputation, there is 2 ways of doing it: doing heroic deeds, or spending some serious coinage at a temple, having that higher REP has the same effect that it had in bg, if you are curious on what the new donate table is here it is:
1 5000
2 4500
3 4000
4 3500
5 3000
6 2500
7 2000
8 1500
9 1000
10 750
11 500
12 1000
13 2500
14 5000
15 7500
16 10000
17 15000
18 25000
19 50000
20 n/a
That is how much money you need at that score to raise it to the next point
Random Treasure:
the random treasure tables have been altered quite a bit, where only useful items will be obtained, and plus enemies will now be using those random items instead of them just chillin in a crate or box or whatever, plus some of the better ones will only be obtainable on higher difficulties so player be aware of that as well
Racial Saving Throw Bonus:
I have altered this table just a little bit, it still basically works the same as before except now you don't get the +5 bonus unless your CON is 20 instead of 18, and plus you need at least 12 CON before you even get a bonus period
Pick Pocketing:
some pick pocketing tables have been changed ( like the score you need to obtain certain items; boots, belts etc.) plus there are a lot more pick pocketable targets in the game as well, so if ya got a good pick pocket score, go nuts and find some goodies...
so yeah, that's all I can think of at the moment, there could easily be more added bonuses and upgrades that I can't think of at the moment ( since I revamped the ENTIRE game) so yeah, now for the install:
INSTALLING THE MOD
Step 1:
unzip the mod folder and there is going to be 2 files in there: a dialog file, and the override folder filed with all the goodies
Step 2:
-first, back up your dialogue talk file, it will be in your IWD directory, if you are using steam, it will look something like this:
-Disk C/Steam/SteamApps/Common/Icewind Dale Enhanced Edition of if you got it from beamdog it might look like this:
-Disk C/BeamDog/Games/007xx ( I don't have IWD from beamdog's launcher, but I know it's not 00766, or 00783)
-so where ever your directory is, you want to go there and go to the "lang" file and go to the "en_US" file and you will see the dialogue talk file there
-what you will want to do is copy paste that somewhere safe because that is your original and in case something messes up with this mod, you can always fall back to the original, so make a copy of that one
Step 3:
after you have made your original copy of your dialogue talk file, replace the one that is in your "en_US" folder with one from the mod, this mod add over 1200 string references, so you will definitely need this updated dialogue talk file or else there is going to be a lot of missing strings
Step 4:
now you need to go into the directory where your "lang" folder was ( it also has "data", "movies", "scripts" ect..) this is where you want to put the mod override folder, if you already have one in there, then take all 2377 items from the mod override folder and put them into your existing folder
Warning:
I had no prior mods installed before I made this mega mod, so if you have other mods, you will probably have to install them after this one, since this mod basically replaces everything, and be careful with mods that effect the dialogue talk file, I used the strings directly after the last one ( which I think was around 40830) so if your mods use dialogue strings from 40830-42200 or so, you will see some odd strings pop in the odd place
So, that is the jist of what this mod does, it certainly does add quite a bit of flavor to the game, and please, by all means, if you find bugs, tell me so then I can fix them as soon as possible, I did quite the extensive test on insane difficulty, and based on how my AI's are set up, if insane didn't work, then the rest wouldn't but you never know, so have fun, and tell me your thoughts and feelings, and ask questions if ya got 'em
![:)]( ":)")
They must, of course, fit the tone of the role-play within the mod. The NPC in question has some fairly strong opinions about what he will or will not do.
