[MOD] High-Power Baldur's Gate Version 1.7

This mod in a nutshell: This mod gives enemies ridiculous powers they have no right to have: xvarts stop time whenever they move, giant spiders summon additional spiders each time they hit you, tasloi use their berserking gaze to make party members attack each other, and much more. The tougher enemies are much worse. There are some enemies in the Cloakwood Mines now that could probably solo Sarevok in the unmodded game with ease. Altogether, the enemies are much stronger as a result of their new powers. The good news is that your party gets powered up as well. Each NPC party member gains additional abilities and passive effects. For example: - Xzar now has permanent Aura Cleansing (he can begin casting another spell right after casting his previous one), and he can cast Control Undead and Energy Drain at will and summon hordes of skeletons which ignore the summoning limit. - Imoen now attacks five times per round no matter what weapon she uses and can cast Phantom Blade, creating a sword which can now attack at long range (allowing her to backstab at long range). - Kivan has increased vision range, allowing him to see enemies who cannot see him back, and he can attack those enemies with ranged attacks from an increased distance. - Edwin can now cast double spells of all spell levels; this also doubles the additional spells from his amulet and his conjurer kit (if he equips a Ring of Wizardry he can cast quadruple spells!). All the NPC party members are given awesome powers like these. In addition, the protagonist - as well as any other player character created at the start of the game - will gain innate abilities based on their class and their kit. For example, a Paladin player character with no kit will be able to cast Draw Upon Holy Might, Holy Power, Righteous Magic, Champion's Strength, Chaotic Commands, Death Ward, Negative Plane Protection, and Critical Strike (ability from Throne of Bhaal) once per day each. Some classes and kits will get abilities they can use at will. An Enchanter can cast Greater Malison at will, and multiple Greater Malisons now stack. A Conjurer can cast Conjure Lesser Kobold at will to get an endless army of kobold meatshields that ignore the summoning limit. These abilities are meant to make them somewhat on par with the NPC party members. The protagonist will also get more powerful abilities from the dreams. By the end of the game, a good protagonist will be able to cast spells like Greater Restoration and Mass Raise Dead, while an evil protagonist will be flinging around abilities like Emotion: Hopelessness and a much more powerful version of Energy Drain. I've greatly empowered all magical weapons and armor, with the exception of certain ammunition and shields. The items usually have new abilities and often have greater enchantment. I even modified generic +1 and +2 magical weapons and armor. For example, the Katana +1 now gives the wielder the effects of Kai while it's equipped (this also makes enemies that use these items tougher). Additionally, I've added a lot of new items to the game. Some of them are original to me; others were taken from Baldur's Gate 2, Icewind Dale, or Planescape Torment. I've spread cool items throughout the stores in the game so that almost every shop sells something interesting. I've increased the rewards from many quests. Now more quests will reward you with unique items you can't get anywhere else, rather than just a small amount of gold or a weak magic item. I've also placed lots of stat-increasing manuals and tomes throughout the game, mainly in the hands of enemies. There are enough of them to get one or two party members to 25 in all stats by the end of the game. The mod is designed in such a way that having 25 in all stats isn't completely broken like it would be in the unmodded game. Although the enemies you face are much more powerful, I tried to avoid spectacle creep as much as possible. For the most part, this mod doesn't pit the party against monsters generally associated with epic level such as balors or liches. Instead, you will usually be facing the same enemies you would in the normal game, except that this mod makes them much stronger. In version 1.6 I did add a dragon to the game, but it's only a juvenile dragon. This mod also modifies content that was introduced in the Enhanced Edition, namely Rasaad, Neera and Dorn, and the areas, creatures and items that are associated with them, as well as the items that Beamdog put throughout the game. This mod adds a good number of combat encounters to the game, often in creative ways. It also places a lot of interesting new monsters throughout the game, like Vorpal Spiders, Burning Wizards, and Insidious Lightning Kobolds. Reasons to try out this mod: - Since the NPCs all have very different powers, the game can play very differently depending on which NPCs you have in your party. - The variety of interesting abilities granted to the player characters, as well as the diverse selection of equipment, allow for all sorts of different builds. - You have great leeway in determining the power level of your party. The mod enables you to change the experience cap and/or have your party start the game at a higher level. The mod has a very flexible difficulty; starting at a higher level will not make the game too easy, but it's still beatable if you start at level 1. - This mod makes the game feel new and different. You never know what creatures, encounters, or items you'll come across in the next stretch of wilderness. You can't rely as much on prior knowledge of the game. Lastly, the mod is just plain fun. I made this mod because I was bored with the unmodded game and I wanted to spice it up. I have yet to go back and play Baldur's Gate without this mod. Other screenshots: [spoiler] [/spoiler] Version 1.7 is out; this is the biggest patch so far. Change log: [spoiler]V1.1: - Gorion can no longer kill the protagonist in the fight with Sarevok. - The pseudodragon, imp, quasit, and dust mephit familiars will no longer die instantly when summoned. - A bug with Gretek's dialog in the Helm and Cloak inn has been fixed. - Phantasmal Killer, Selune's Curse, Selune's Blessing and the cat familiar's True Strike ability now have descriptions. - Most innate versions of Shaman spells now have descriptions in the non-Siege of Dragonspear version of the game. - A typo in the Stupidifier's desciption has been fixed. - Cows no longer produce an unintended string when they use their Great Leap ability. V1.2: - 18 extra components have been added; some of them change spells, some change 2da files, others change classes or kits. - A readme has been added; it explains what the components do. - The Seeking Sword now dispels Mirror Image and Invisibility effects on hit; I gave it a description, and I updated the description of the Seeking Sword ability, and the description of it in the Priest of Helm description. - Archer player characters now get Breach at the beginning of the game as they're supposed to. V1.3: - 4 more components have been added, and the readme has been updated to explain them. - War dogs now cast Dog Haste like they're supposed to. - The Amazing Oopah now loses HP after each explosion as I intended. - Normal doppelgangers no longer deal nonlethal damage. - The spell lists of cleric and druid NPC party members have been updated to match my changes to the spells (I had made certain spells usable or unusable by clerics or druids when they weren't before). - Planetars are no longer immune to +2 weapons. V1.4: - 1 more component has been added; it lets you choose whether to change the starting positions of Quayle, Eldoth and Tiax, so that they can join your party earlier on. - The gigantic Fomorian Colossus is now a regular-sized Fomorian Giant; the BAM files for the Fomorian Colossus have been removed as they had taken up a total of about 60 megabytes, almost half the size of the entire mod. Doing this allowed me to upload the mod folder onto GitHub. V1.5: - The mod now includes an English TRA file. All strings in the TP2 file have been replaced with TRA references. - Some, but not all, of the new magic items that previously only had placeholder descriptions now have actual descriptions. - I fixed some bugs where the contents of certain components would be automatically installed in the main component. V1.6: - 1 more component has been added; it makes the effects of bard songs stack. - I fixed bugs in Chapter 7, and I nerfed Sarevok a bit. - Eldoth's initial dialogue is no longer different if you choose not to install the component that changes his starting position. - Gelatinous Spheres now show their animation correctly. - Tazok's Fist Breath produces fewer fists and won't cause as much slowdown. - Now creatures that use the Fomorian, Glabrezu, Wererat, Greater Feyr, IWD Shadow and IWD Large Shadow animations will have those animations even if Siege of Dragonspear isn't installed. - I added some more magic items to the game. - I modified Adoy's Belt, the Moonlight Walkers, and the Glimmering Bands. - Noralee now gives a more interesting reward for her quest. - I moved the Skeleton Berserker from the thieves' maze to the ruins south of the bandit camp, and I made the skeleton weaker so that it could be beaten at that point in the game. - The special Ring of Protection is no longer worn by Aggrakesh the Infernal Harpy. Instead, it is worn by the ghost Daital. In this mod Daital is very tough and before this version you didn't get anything cool for beating him. - I put a dragon somewhere in the game. He doesn't drop scales but he has a large hoard. - I replaced the Know Alignment spell with Identify Creature, which displays a different string depending on the creature it is cast upon. However, so far I have only given a string to about 10% of the creatures I am modifying. I still have much more work to do. V1.6.1: - Bassilus now has his Gauntlets of Fumbling again (in previous versions I had taken the gauntlets away from him for some reason). - Rilsa's Leathers no longer has the wrong icon, and I fixed a bug that stopped some of the effects of the armor from working. - I fixed glitches in a couple of item descriptions that caused dash characters to be replaced with rectangles. I don't think I've gotten rid of all the rectangles, though. - Most hobgoblins now wear HELM11 rather than HELM01. This means that if you have the subcomponent "Make all helmets invisible, except for nonmagical decorative helmets" installed, the hobgoblin helmets will still be visible. HELM11 looks identical to HELM01, but it's a different file. - Hobgoblin Elites no longer have longer casting times. V1.7: - I added two more components: "Raise the experience cap" and "Revise Wisdom bonus spell table". - Dialogue with certain minor characters has been changed. - I placed more items in certain areas, mainly consumables such as scrolls and stat-increasing tomes. - A previously mundane store somewhere in Baldur's Gate now sells magical darts of all sorts. - Player-created conjurers can cast Summon Small Monster 3x/day. - Player-created diviners can cast Identify Creature 3x/day. - Player-created bards, regardless of kit, can cast Identify Creature at will. - Player-created gnome clerics with no kit will gain the Sequencer Touch ability as they were supposed to. - Player-created clerics with a custom kit will not get Sequencer Touch. - Edwin can now cast Summon Kobold 5x/day. - Alora's "Translocation Trick" ability (which allows her to switch places with another creature) now has unlimited range, and she can now use it 9x/day. - The spells Creeping Doom, Meteor Swarm, Comet, Red Dragon's Breath, and Green Dragon's Breath now have special casting animations. - Kryll and her skeletons have been weakened. - Gibberlings move slower (though they still move very fast) - Winter wolves no longer appear as rest encounters outside the Nashkel Mines. - Elminster's Random Teleport now functions correctly. - Algernon now uses his cloak in combat as I intended. - Rufie now uses his breath weapon in combat as I intended. - Tarnesh no longer casts Larloch's Minor Drain on himself. - Brandilar no longer repeatedly talks to you. - Irlentree no longer transforms into Shalak (which is Zorl's true form). Instead, his true form is a different shapeshifter named Juskal. - During the fight with the warders, Fear now has the Greater Feyr animation. - The unique sprite for the Greatest Basilisk now displays correctly (previously the basilisk had a rabbit sprite for some reason). - Gray Oozes now have fewer hit points and no longer have any magic resistance. - Mustard Jellies now do more damage. - Schlumpsha the Sewer King no longer uses all his psionics at once. - Fire Snakes now have the correct weapon equipped and will use their abilities correctly. - The shapeshifters in the Merchant's League now have the correct name. - The Skeleton Executioner now has the correct name. - Summoned minotaurs now have the correct name. - The Drusus short sword now has the correct name. - The Long Sword +1 ability now works correctly. - The description of the World's Edge sword no longer says that it does piercing damage (that was something from an earlier version of the mod). - The items MEDART80 and MEDART98 now have names and descriptions: MEDART80 is "Dart +2" and MEDART98 is "Zilzanzer's Magnificent Dart +8". - Conjure Lesser Kobold now has its own icon.[/spoiler] Known bugs: [spoiler]- It's possible to get more proficiency points when creating your character than you're supposed to get. This can only happen if you go back to the proficiency screen after spending the points. This bug has something to do with the fact that I've replaced the starting non-magical quarterstaff with a magical staff that gives you proficiency in quarterstaves. I do not plan to fix this bug, because I don't think that the option to be proficient in everything right from the start will make the game too easy. [/spoiler] Tips for playing this mod: - For the first playthrough, play on Normal difficulty. - I recommend installing the component that gives additional experience to the PC at the beginning of the game, and setting the experience given to 10000 or 20000. - When exploring the wilderness, always have a character scout ahead in stealth or invisibility. That way, they will know what enemies are up ahead and your team can prepare for battle without as much metagaming. - Watch out for doppelgangers. They appear very early in the game in this mod and they deal a lot of damage in melee. If you fight a doppelganger, don't let it get near you. You can download version 1.6 from GitHub here. Although I completed version 1.7, I have not yet uploaded it to GitHub and I have not yet made V1.7 compatible with Big World Setup. I'll do those later. In the meantime, you can download the mod right here.