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Cythereal posted:Ah, Gavin. An innocuous enough NPC on the surface, and if you don't pry any deeper he'll remain just that. But there's some real At first blush, Gavin isn't *terrible*. He seems a reasonably okay guy, and his baggage could fit in the carry-on bin, which is more than a lot of mod NPCs can claim. And it's possible to play the Gavin mod and get a blandly nice romance out of it. But dig a little deeper, and you'll discover that it's possible to be emotionally abusive AS gently caress to this poor guy. And he will just take it. The awful thing about the Gavin mod is he's not the problem, Charname is. quote:If I sound prejudiced against Gavin, it's probably because when I approached his modder about crossmod content with Valerie she went on a homophobic rant about gay people not existing in the Forgotten Realms and that Valerie would be considered a sexual deviant.  (Out of curiosity , Cythereal, since you've said you'll probably never complete Valerie's BGII content: How do you think she and Kelsey would get along, since he's terrified of the Cowled Wizards?
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Jan 22, 2021 16:04
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content beneath the surface if you care to go looking, and he's the first NPC we've met who will boink Imoen in BG2.
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I like that it's taken 7 updates to cover what should be ~20 minutes of gameplay because modders are allergic to restraint. Please tell me you're at least using dialogue accelerators because if this is the natural pace...Walrus Pete posted:
Right? It makes it way creepier to me. Gives the mod less of a "creepy neckbeard" vibe and more of a "Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo" vibe. Cythereal posted:This is also why Khalid was killed off in BG2, according to the developers. Informal polls found that the most popular player party in BG1 was the PC, Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid, Minsc, and Dynaheir. Khalid and Dynaheir were much less popular than their paired characters, so when that group was made the PC's canon party, the less popular of the paired NPCs were killed off Interesting! I always assumed it was just because the devs thought it would be too much of a PITA to deal with Khalid's stutter and Dynaheir's archaic language in BG2's greatly expanded dialogues. Though I guess their ways of speaking might have contributed to them being unpopular. Also Dynaheir kicks rear end now but I guess she was a pretty terrible mage in BG1 Classic.
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Jan 22, 2021 16:13
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Fighting Trousers posted:(Out of curiosity , Cythereal, since you've said you'll probably never complete Valerie's BGII content: How do you think she and Kelsey would get along, since he's terrified of the Cowled Wizards? All of Valerie's BG2 and ToB stuff is written and the dialogue is coded, what's not finished is mostly technical stuff about getting her to appear in-game and interact properly. Also, she'd without question pick a fight with almost every single one of the EE NPCs, which is another reason I left the modding community when the Enhanced Editions came out. She'd probably shrug at Kelsey, as far as she's concerned the Cowled Wizards are doing their job and it's a necessary job (in particular, she in her ignorance will tell Charname that Imoen is perfectly safe and fine at Spellhold). She... gets rather thoroughly disabused of this view throughout BG2 and winds up effectively kicked out of the organization by ToB and never returns. Beyond that she probably wouldn't think of Kelsey much at all, they may be sorcerers but their backgrounds, how they think of their abilities, and how they approach magic are completely different. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Jan 22, 2021 |
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Jan 22, 2021 16:15
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Now what issue would Valerie have with Wilson?
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Jan 22, 2021 16:34
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Oh also what's the issue with Chloe? I know literally nothing about her mod other than that it's normally mentioned in the same breath as Saerileth.
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Jan 22, 2021 16:44
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Servetus posted:Now what issue would Valerie have with Wilson? I have no idea who that is. Neera, incidentally, is one of the things that pissed me off about the Enhanced Editions. Fluff-wise, she's wrong. Wild magic, in the Forgotten Realms in 2E or 3E, is not something you're born with. Wild magic is something that has to be very specifically sought after, and what it does is rip apart the fabric of the Weave - the underlying structure of magic - to channel for more power, at the cost of safety and, well, damaging the raw fabric of magic. Wild magic was extremely rare and forbidden in the Realms until the Time of Troubles, when Mystra's death shattered the Weave across much of the Realms, creating zones of wild magic and dead magic where the Weave is coming apart at the seams or completely gone. Wild mages became more common after the Time of Troubles as some mages sought to harness that power, even though it further damages the Weave. If you're a wild mage, it is not an accident and it is not something that's just a part of you. You are deliberately ripping apart the raw fabric of magic in the cosmos for power. It's a divine commandment from many good-aligned churches, including Mystra and Torm, to oppose wild mages and work to heal the wild magic and dead magic zones. Neera's writers seem to have confused wild magic with sorcery, and I think 4E or 5E Realms finally included a wild sorcerer class variant.
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Jan 22, 2021 16:48
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Wilson is a BG2EE-only party member who is a proper and upstanding gentleman rather than the hot mess the edition actually used for advertising. E: Also Neera is annoying. Like, fundamentally breaking the universe for reasons of writers not bothering to look at the material, sure, sure, but also you're gonna clash if you're not a fan of manic pixie dream girls
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Jan 22, 2021 16:59
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Legit surprised Sandrah didn’t solve the Bassilus conversation for you
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Jan 22, 2021 17:12
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It's amazing how Sandrah checks off every single Mary Sue box. She's practically a textbook example of how not to write an original character for fanfiction. The farther you go along, the more interested I find myself in all of the other modded in NPCs and the less I want to see of her. Of course, Sandrah's the LP's focus, so I'm just gonna stick around to watch the trainwreck.  On another note, anybody have NPC mods that they'd recommend? I've played the BG games a lot but never used a single mod for them.
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Jan 22, 2021 18:23
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Rosemont posted:On another note, anybody have NPC mods that they'd recommend? I've played the BG games a lot but never used a single mod for them. There's this NPC mod which completely revamps the game, you've probably never heard of it. yeah I know. uhh, I like Aura, even if she is a bit mary suish? https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/65891/v2-9-aura-a-gnome-artificer-npc-for-bg-ee-sod Private Speech fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Jan 22, 2021 |
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Jan 22, 2021 18:26
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Cythereal posted:Honestly? Sandrah gives me predatory vibes. A feeling like she's very deliberately exploiting her physical beauty and overwhelming presence to prey on anyone even vaguely susceptible for her own use even if it's always nominally consensual. You're not wrong!
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Jan 22, 2021 18:54
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Rosemont posted:On another note, anybody have NPC mods that they'd recommend? I've played the BG games a lot but never used a single mod for them. Finch, already seen here, is a pretty good one. I can't laugh at her because I've been a librarian for most of my professional career in real life and Finch is based on stereotypes of librarians, but she's fun enough and harmless. For Baldur's Gate 2, I'm fond of Sarah if you want a ranger who isn't Valygar or Minsc. She's not a complicated or especially deep character, but I find her a likeable and pleasant character. JohnKilltrane posted:Oh also what's the issue with Chloe? I know literally nothing about her mod other than that it's normally mentioned in the same breath as Saerileth. You know Sandrah? Imagine if she was marginally less talkative and prone to overriding the plot (and God help me that's something I'm typing) and was written by a guy with lesbian and samurai fetishes. Good Lord, Sandrah's on par with Chloe if not worse and we're only at Beregost.
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Jan 22, 2021 19:09
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Rosemont posted:On another note, anybody have NPC mods that they'd recommend? I've played the BG games a lot but never used a single mod for them. Personally I quite liked Vienxay, Emily, Recorder and Helga. Admittedly I only got as far as the bandit camp before I got distracted away from my game but I enjoyed their presence and stories quite a lot.
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Jan 22, 2021 19:41
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JohnKilltrane posted:Oh also what's the issue with Chloe? I know literally nothing about her mod other than that it's normally mentioned in the same breath as Saerileth. She will hit on your female PC with all the subtlety of a drunk frat boy. It verges on "hey baby you dtf" territory.
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Jan 22, 2021 20:21
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Why do so many of these mod NPCs have normal non-fantasy names
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Jan 22, 2021 21:17
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Chapter VIII - Oh bloody me, where's ma brain. Time to work our way through Beregost. Let's talk to Breagar first.  I'd accept but I'm afraid he'd talk my ear off at every opportunity.  Poor Kivan. I wish someone would help him. I forgot to screenshot this the first time I was here but Sandrah gains an ability every time she visits a temple, it seems. Nothing noteworthy yet, though. Just after deciding to rest outside of the temple...  THE TEMPLE IS RIGHT THERE loving H-  ...Well, I suppose it's nice to be included for once. Later, during the night...  And with that the healing process could finally begin. Deciding to explore the temple surroundings we stumble upon a nobleman.  Sandrah's extensive knowledge even extends to one-note 'whatever' side characters! In the north-east I fought some vampiric wolves that kicked my rear end to the Hells and back. Luckily Sandrah was there to heal us up.  While nursing our wounds Garrick tries to lighten the mood.    That's funny, I don't remember a cave being here. Thankfully for us he decides to run away towards the direction of said cave. Once inside...  Eep. Let's leave this for later, shall we?  I'm a sucker for Kivan's BG1NPC content, I'll admit. Let's head back to town.  The screen fades to black afterwards, yugh... Let's check on Landrin.  The tea even heals you.  Almost done in this town, finally. There's a few loose ends to take care of, though.  It sure is, Imoen.  We head to Feldepost's to get Firebead his book.  A scroll upstairs, huh? I don't think I've ever bothered to explore there in my many hours of playing.  Oh God, Firebead fucks!  In a nearby chest we find the scroll.  Interesting. Before we can do anything with it there's something we have to straighten out.  Oh God Sandrah I'm so sorry reload reload relo-  Good idea, let's try it out!  Who's Alzaligrundel? Who's N.? What's all this about a portal? The plot thickens! Next we go to the large house in the northeast of Beregost. Travenhurst manor.  Believe it or not we'll see this place again later.  Oh boy, wacky shenanigans incoming. We exit to a downpour.  I definitely prefer Jen'lig to Sandrah, that's for sure. And with that we're FINALLY leaving Beregost. We'll get to some other odds and ends (Kagain) later. The next two screens should be light on content so hopefully we'll reach Nashkel before the end of this chapter.  I chose answer 3 instead of 2 at the end there, my mistake. Nice talk tho-  Oh poo poo! No conversation about the fight we just had, but Sandrah finally recognizes the dagger I took from Gorion's corpse.  The conversation ends after that no matter what you pick. Seconds later Sandrah decides she has more to say.  And mere seconds after that...  At least they're not shacking up, not yet anyway. After some fights I decide to rest again, when I wake up...  God, the chemistry is just unreal.  Bub Snikt, the walking Wolverine cameo, has a portrait now. He didn't want to join our party though. Shame.  That's weird, I don't remember a cave being here.  A wounded elf?   This is followed by a fight with a heavily wounded Illithid, luckily he tried to eat Imoen's brain not knowing that there's not much to devour to begin with. He goes down without much effort and we receive a whopping 4000 XP(!)  Illithids on the Sword Coast? What is this, Baldur's Gate III? Vichan fucked around with this message at 02:33 on Nov 7, 2021 |
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Jan 22, 2021 21:19
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Sorry guys, I really wanted to get to Nashkel at the end but there's just so much poo poo happening I decided to end it here.
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Jan 22, 2021 21:41
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So... telling her to break things off with Garrick doesn’t go well, but What happens if you boot Garrick from the party ( or force kill him? ).
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Jan 22, 2021 22:09
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Zarfol posted:So... telling her to break things off with Garrick doesn’t go well, but What happens if you boot Garrick from the party ( or force kill him? ). We'll find out soon enough!  JohnKilltrane posted:I like that it's taken 7 updates to cover what should be ~20 minutes of gameplay because modders are allergic to restraint. Please tell me you're at least using dialogue accelerators because if this is the natural pace... I think I have it enabled, yes. I didn't tweak anything specifically so I might be wrong. Sometimes I pause the game and alt-tab so I can edit screenshots and the like, this doesn't seem to affect normal banters but Sandrah's banters fire more rapidly I think. I'm not planning on changing this behavior because this means we can ditch NPC faster than we normally would. Then again sometimes the banters will just fire one after the other with no explanation given whatsoever. I've never seem them come one after the other this quickly before, not even with banter accelerators at their highest level. Cythereal posted:If I sound prejudiced against Gavin, it's probably because when I approached his modder about crossmod content with Valerie she went on a homophobic rant about gay people not existing in the Forgotten Realms and that Valerie would be considered a sexual deviant. Christ, that loving sucks. Is homophobia even a thing in the Forgotten Realms?
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Jan 22, 2021 22:19
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Vichan posted:Christ, that loving sucks. Is homophobia even a thing in the Forgotten Realms? Officially, no. It was something that was just never talked about in the actual Realms splat books, but a lot of the officially licensed novels had gay people because, well, Ed Greenwood is like that. Gavin has the slight excuse in that he's a priest of Lathander, the god of marriage, human fertility, childbirth, and children among other things, so that probably colors his outlook. But in-setting turning that into homophobia would be rather odd. Valerie's not terribly open about it, but that's more because she's just personally shy and unsure of herself when it comes to personal relationships. Which is one of the things I meant about Valerie sounding subtly off and wrong when Roxanne writes her - Valerie never at any point goes "Yo I'm a lesbian." She doesn't make a specific effort to hide it, and some NPCs pick up on it, but she would never in a million years go "Yo you're hot and smart and nice, you dtf with another woman y/n?" This is also the stance that most gay/bi NPC mods take. They generally don't advertise it but don't hide it, and assume that Faerun is chill with it. It's just every once in a while you run into a homophobic modder, or on the other extreme the likes of Chloe. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Jan 22, 2021 |
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Jan 22, 2021 22:26
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Jay Rust posted:Why do so many of these mod NPCs have normal non-fantasy names Because most of them are self-inserts or unrequited real-life obsessive crushes of 'normal' non-fantasy people who lack originality. I wish you'd taken Breagar just to see if there's an amount of unnecessary dialogue that will actually overload the game. And to see if there's a male NPC Sandrah won't gently caress. Vichan posted:
N is the king of Team Plasma, of course! I hope he's brought his dragon.
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Jan 22, 2021 23:06
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Black Robe posted:I wish you'd taken Breagar just to see if there's an amount of unnecessary dialogue that will actually overload the game. And to see if there's a male NPC Sandrah won't gently caress. I might bring him to the Nashkel mines, I haven't decided on a party yet. Kivan and Garrick are definitely out though. (Both will return from time to time)
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Jan 22, 2021 23:09
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Vichan posted:I might bring him to the Nashkel mines, I haven't decided on a party yet. Kivan and Garrick are definitely out though. (Both will return from time to time) Doesn't Kivan have some sort of timer running to kill Tazok or he leaves the party for good? Honestly can't remember with how many companion characters there are (especially in my game) so could be misremembering.
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Jan 22, 2021 23:19
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Thunderclan posted:Doesn't Kivan have some sort of timer running to kill Tazok or he leaves the party for good? Honestly can't remember with how many companion characters there are (especially in my game) so could be misremembering. Good point, completely forgot about that. Does the timer stop if I kick him from the party? Can I edit some values in EEKeeper so I can keep him around longer?
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Jan 22, 2021 23:26
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God Sandrah and the elf is just so bad. "Oh man, it sucks that your gf died, it's very sad but I am deep and eloquent. There's a hole under my spandex armor and only you can temporarily fill it." Bonus points for "I am known for my eloquent conversation on all the important social events in all the big towns". It's such a clunker for someone who is supposed to be a manipulative seductress (or whatever the hell is going on with Garrick and dancing). I mean, it would probably work on young men inexperienced with women, but Kivan is a 200 year old elf.
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Jan 22, 2021 23:54
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:It's such a clunker for someone who is supposed to be a manipulative seductress (or whatever the hell is going on with Garrick and dancing).
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Jan 23, 2021 00:06
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anilEhilated posted:Is she, though? To me, the dialogue seems more like the author was completely unaware of how predatory she comes across. I have no idea how else to interpret the "hey Garrick I'm done with you help me pick up the PC" scene.
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Jan 23, 2021 01:38
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Razakai posted:Isn't like 1/2 the lore of FR done by Ed Greenwood? I'm pretty sure that means that the default sexuality in this setting is "pansexual orgies". So Sandrah banging the entire party does check out at least in one aspect
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Jan 23, 2021 02:01
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It just never ends! I feel i repeat myself, but  Maybe we should all just get together and write a better megamod. Awful's Gate, anyone
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Jan 23, 2021 07:09
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I just had a terrible thought. How bad might the combo of Sandrah and Shar-Teel in the same party be? Seems like in a sensible world Shar-Teel might be full of insults and disdain towards Sandrah for basically bedding every male she possibly can as soon as she can and as often as she can, but since the world has been corrupted into more of an Everybody Loves Sandrah version, I somehow suspect they would end up best buddies...
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Jan 23, 2021 09:22
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vilkacis posted:It just never ends! I feel i repeat myself, but Lowtax can be the bad guy
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Jan 23, 2021 09:29
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Thunderclan posted:I just had a terrible thought. How bad might the combo of Sandrah and Shar-Teel in the same party be? Seems like in a sensible world Shar-Teel might be full of insults and disdain towards Sandrah for basically bedding every male she possibly can as soon as she can and as often as she can, but since the world has been corrupted into more of an Everybody Loves Sandrah version, I somehow suspect they would end up best buddies... I'm more expecting Sandrah to leave if you keep any technically-evil NPC around for longer than it takes for her to initiate the next conversation, which is apparently some sort of New York Second thing. She's just knows they're bad people because she's so insightful, see; it's not prejudice at all.
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Jan 23, 2021 09:32
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Xerophyte posted:I'm more expecting Sandrah to leave if you keep any technically-evil NPC around for longer than it takes for her to initiate the next conversation, which is apparently some sort of New York Second thing. She's just knows they're bad people because she's so insightful, see; it's not prejudice at all. Or just not even give the player an option to recruit them, not the first time she would have taken a choice out of player hands.
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Jan 23, 2021 09:48
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:I have no idea how else to interpret the "hey Garrick I'm done with you help me pick up the PC" scene. I don't think it even occurred to the writer that this should affect the rest of the characters.
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Jan 23, 2021 10:25
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Chapter IX - She has no steady boyfriend at the moment. Shaken after encountering the Illithid we head further south.  Little does Jen'lig know that an unseen entity is controlling their every move.  I'm running out of things to say here.  I much prefer his BG1NPC conversations. After these distractions we arrive in the southern Coastway, notable for having almost nothing of note happening in vanilla BG1. No quests and only two (quite memorable) people to talk to.  God drat it, Sandrah. Stop ruining Imoen.   The amulet shown here can be delivered to a guy in Beregost. It used to be a part of the BG1: Unfinished Business mod before being added in the Enhanced Edition.  Speaking of Unfinished Business, it adds this guy who we'll see more of down the line.  Lord Foreshadow hinting at Neverwinter Nights here.  Imoen and Sandrah being as far away from me as possible is a comforting thought. One person left to talk to here, the infamous Portalbendarwinden!  I think Imoen is still suffering from the Illithid attack.  What an interesting character. And that's all for this area. So little to do that I managed to fit it all in a few screenshots even with all vanilla content attached.  BG1's cutscenes are amazing.  Uh-oh.  Gods, I thought we'd never get here.  I thought Kivan was just the coolest when I first tried BG1NPC, maybe that's blinding me to his melancholic whining.  After a fade to black Haiass gains a level! (I think this is dependant on reaching set points in the game, not actual battles fought)  This encounter kicked 10 year old me's rear end more times than I can count. Now she goes down before even managing to land a hit.  While a good night's sleep sounds nice I was really hoping to visit the local store to see what's in stock.  Why does Henning get a portra- Oh no...  Please, no...  After a fade to black we get the hell out of there.  Yes, *I* am the one in the limelight.   Sandrah's a 'woman of the world' alright. Like she'd respect Imoen's crush if Henning didn't only have eyes for Imoen.  Garrick seems oblivious to Sandrah's little therapy sessions. After finally getting some rest at the Nashkel inn.  C'mon, Sandrah. Why would anyone ever get that impression? We soon run into Berrun Ghastkill, the town's mayor.  You'd almost forget that we have a main quest to follow.  Over here we have Valerie, a mod NPC made by our very own Cythereal. She has crossmod content with Sandrah and I'd *really* love to bring her along but since her content's spread out too much that won't be possible... ...Not in this playthrough anyway.  A visit to the Nashkel temple nets Sandrah another cure disease spell.  Sandrah really gets around. (There's another hint there, by the way. See if you can spot it!)  Going back to the store didn't do anything. Maybe it's for the best. In the local tavern we meet quite the celebrity.  Garrick fanboying out is hilarious. I think we can all see where this is going, though.  I don't know how much more of this I can take. We get a book out of the conversation, let's examine it.  Riveting. Leaving the inn (while giving a certain bald man and his hamster a wide berth) Sandrah spots someone dangerous.  We will get to him in time, not to worry.  Effective, though maybe a bit harsh...  We find this cloak next to the Ankheg armor, interesting.  I get the feeling we'll run into her again. Anyway, it's been a long day. Time to sleep some more at the inn, let's hope I won't get any horrifying nightmares while I'm at it!  And just like that the beast claims another victim.
Vichan fucked around with this message at 02:34 on Nov 7, 2021 |
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Jan 23, 2021 13:55
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I'm tempted to start keeping a doom clock of the implied-to-explicit sex scenes this mod has, because it amuses me in a "What the hell is wrong with this person?" kind of way. As for Valerie, I've talked about her in this thread a fair amount, but now that she's actually shown up I should probably note that I wrote her originally as, primarily, a creative writing exercise. There'd been a survey of the NPC and romance mods available in the community at the time, and it was noted that f/f romance options were by far the rarest - and that there were none at all in BG1. I'd been contemplating doing a BG1 NPC mod, so that survey lead me to try writing an NPC mod for the trilogy that would be a f/f romance option that could accompany you through the whole series, and specifically have the extra condition that it be a happy, pleasant character arc without any grimdark story aspects or horrible drama as tends to plague gay characters (especially gay women) in the media. Enter Valerie, about whom the worst you can say is that she has self-esteem issues centered on being a sorceress from a nation that hates magic, she has a troubled relationship with her family, and she's prone to drinking when she feels anxious or stressed. A pity that her BG2 and ToB component will probably never be finished despite being about 90% done, but I think that ship has sailed. At least I'm still reasonably proud of my writing with Valerie. Unlike the other mod NPC I made, who we may see in BG2. Thankfully I've been informed that Sandrah apparently does not have any crossmod content with him...
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Jan 23, 2021 14:24
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It's incredible just how much work's gone into this mod and it's astounding just how awful it is. god wasn't there that one tob mod that made irenicus a *romanceable party member* ?
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Jan 23, 2021 14:49
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Once again,
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Jan 23, 2021 14:53
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Sandrah's pernicious aura is transfoming everyone around her into a raging horny polyamorist and it's just not as fun as the pornos made it sound.
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Jan 23, 2021 17:12
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Too good not to share here.
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Jan 23, 2021 17:33
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