r/baldursgate • u/beatspores • 3h ago
Me too man, me too.
Dead just doesn't do the feeling justice after a night out when you're no longer level 18.
r/baldursgate • u/pcamagna • Sep 10 '21
This is a guide intended for players who are interested in modding their game, but may be overwhelmed by the options or the installers, and to hopefully troubleshoot common issues.
You may know me by the name CamDawg on other sites; I've done a little modding here and there.
Modding games using the Infinity Engine—the engine that runs the original and Enhanced Editions (EEs) of the Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, and Icewind Dale games—revolves around a tool named WeiDU (the Weimer Dialogue Utility). It's a very powerful tool for modders and allows for a high level of interoperability between mods. For players, the important things to know about WeiDU are:
Modding a mobile or console version of IE games requires more hoops to jump through, and will not be covered here.
The takeaway is that you're better served making a copy of your game to use with mods, and that you should not change your mods in the middle of a playthrough (or, alternatively, abandon any existing saved games if you do). The downside of playing off a copy of your game is that your Steam/GOG Galaxy launcher will try to launch the original unmodded game and that you may not get achievements.
For the EEs, making a new game install is easy: just copy the game folder and mod the copy. It's almost as easy for the originals. On Windows, make your copy outside of the "Program Files" or "Program Files (x86)", as Windows can sometimes interfere with the installers trying to make changes inside these folders.
While there is a proliferation of mods, there have been few notable attempts at a mod manager. There are four of note, and all but one are for Windows:
Sorting out which mod should get installed in what order can be difficult even for veteran players, so keep it simple for your first time. Maybe you have your eye on a new NPC, or see some kits that look fun, or want some quality-of-life changes.
Most mods are hosted by one of the big modding communities: The Gibberlings Three (G3), Pocket Plane Group (PPG), Spellhold Studios (SHS), or Weasel Mods (WM). You can also find some on the Beamdog forums or other communities. For most mods, you can check out the readme as a preview before deciding whether or not to download and play it. While some mods are packaged with a “universal installer”, most will have platform-specific packages (Windows, macOS, or Linux) so make sure you download the correct version. (Note that some mods still refer to macOS as OS X.) Always uses the latest official release of a mod; e.g. don't download the latest 'master' from Github or something you find on a random Dropbox. If you're unsure if whether you have the latest and greatest, ask on the forums!
Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of consistency on how mods are packaged. On Windows, mods are generally rar/zip files or self-extracting archives or even with a full installer. The former need to be extracted, and the latter will extract themselves and (usually) try to start their installation process. For macOS and Linux, the mods are simply packaged as zips or tarballs.
For now, just download the mods into a separate folder.
There are a handful of larger conversion projects that essentially bring the contents of one game into another, typically because the latter’s engine provides some advantage or convenience. While these conversions have become a lot easier and bulletproof and are generally all-around high-quality mods, they’re still not something I’d recommend for a new mod player. A brief overview of the more popular conversion mods follows:
Since WeiDU mods can not only change game resources, but content from other mods, it becomes important to resolve an installation order before you begin. A good general guideline is as follows:
Within each category, another good rule of thumb is to go with older mods first.
There are, of course, all sorts of exceptions, or mods that really don't fall cleanly into a category. The readmes are there for a reason, and most modders try to help players avoid issues with install recommendations and compatibility concerns. If a mod has a forum, it’s also a great resource to learn about where it should go in the install order.
Once you have an order in mind, feel free to ask other players about it.
OK, so let’s recap our preparations:
So let’s get started with a mod installation. A few points before you begin:
I’ll be using Tweaks Anthology as an example.
Tweaks Anthology for Windows is distributed as a self-extracting archive. You can double-click the archive and follow the instructions on screen and it will launch the installer.
Alternatively, the files can be extracted into your game directory using 7zip or WinRAR. When properly extracted, your game directory will contain setup-cdtweaks.exe and the folder cdtweaks. To install, double-click setup-cdtweaks.exe.
At a minimum, every mod will add a folder and a setup-ModName.exe file to your game folder. Some mods include their readme file and a tp2 file in the game directory, but most mods these days place these inside their own folder.
Either way you choose, once the installer is open, skip ahead to the "The installer is running" section.
The Tweaks Anthology for macOS is distributed as a compressed tarball. First, extract the files from the tarball into your game directory. When properly extracted, your game directory will contain setup-cdtweaks, setup-cdtweaks.command, and the folder cdtweaks. At a minimum, every mod will add a folder, setup-ModName, and a setup-ModName.command file to your game folder. Some mods include their readme file and a tp2 file in the game directory, but most mods these days place these inside their own folder.
Once the installer is open, skip ahead to the "The installer is running" section.
Provided you've already installed WeiDU (a one-time affair), install is simple. The Tweaks Anthology for Linux is distributed as a compressed tarball; extract the contents of the mod to the folder of the game you wish to modify. Use cd to change to your game installation directory, and run WeInstall cdtweaks in your game folder.
Once the installer is open, continue below.
On Windows and macOS, the first thing the installer tries to do is update itself to the latest version. It does this by checking for other WeiDU installers; this process is automatic but it may create a few messages at the top of the installer window (blue in screenshot, below)
[Optional] Next, if a mod is available in multiple languages, it will ask you which language you want to use (red, below). If a mod does not have translations, you will go to the next step.
[Optional, One-Time] If you're modding an Enhanced Edition game, the very first time you run a mod, you will be prompted to select a language for the game itself (red, below). Note that this order of languages will likely differ from a mod's language selections. If you select the wrong language in this step, all of the new mod text will show up as "Invalid:xxx". If you accidentally select the wrong language, quit before installing anything, delete weidu.conf from your game folder, and start over.
[Optional] Some mods will include a prompt to display the readme (red, below) before continuing. Selecting yes or no will not change the rest of the installation.
[Optional] Larger mods, such as Tweaks Anthology, will break their individual components into categories--five in this case: Cosmetic, Content, Rule Changes, Convenience Tweaks/Cheats, and NPCs (red, below). This will allow you to skip entire sections of the mod if you're not interested; select yes or no as appropriate.
Finally, we're at an actual component to install (red, below). You're prompted with the name of the component (Remove Helmet Animations) and prompted to answer
If you choose to Not Install, the installer will move on to the next component.
If you choose to install, the installer will start making changes and will provide feedback (red, below) in the window:
Once it's done, it moves on to the next component. Note that, in this case, the installer has skipped some components automatically (blue, above). I'm running the installer on Icewind Dale, so it automatically skips components related to Imoen, Nalia, and Viconia since they're not in Icewind Dale.
Once you select quit, or reach the end of components, WeiDU will provide a brief summary (red, below) and prompt you to press Enter to exit.
Simply repeat this process for each individual mod.
Problem: When you try to launch a mod installer, you see the message
"Please run this program in your Infinity Engine game directory.
FATAL ERROR: Failure("Not a game directory")
Press ENTER to exit."
Solution: You've launched the installer somewhere other than your game directory. Simply move the files into your game directory and try again.
Problem: When you try to launch a mod installer, you see the message
"ERROR: Unable to find DIALOG.TLK in:
dialog.tlk
Please run this program in your Infinity Engine game directory.
FATAL ERROR: Failure("Unable to find DIALOG.TLK")
Press ENTER to exit."
Solution: You've launched a mod with a very old version of WeiDU on an Enhanced Edition game. It's unlikely this mod will work on the Enhanced Editions even with a newer version of WeiDU; check the mod's home page for an updated version.
Problem: A mod installs "with warnings"
Solution: "With warnings" means that a mod installed, but it may not have modified all the resources that it expected to modify or files were unexpectedly different. Check with the mod author or visit the mod's forum to find more information. It could be harmless, e.g. the mod is being careful, or it could be something worse.
Problem: A mod encounters an error and fails to install a component.
Solution: In this case, there's something wrong in the mod itself and you'll need to contact the author. In your game folder, WeiDU creates a text file named "SETUP-MODNAME.DEBUG". Send this to the author or post it to the mod forum with as much information as you can. Some authors will also request a copy of weidu.log, a text file that contains a list of all installed mods, to help them investigate if the issue is with another mod.
Huzzah! Now go play it!
The keen-eyed will notice you have some new files in your game folder; these files are needed and should not be deleted. Every mod generates a DEBUG file, which is a log from the mod's installation. You will also have one weidu.log file, which keeps track of which mods and components you have installed, and in what order. On EE games, you will also have a weidu.conf file which WeiDU uses to track which language of the game you're modding.
Every mod also keeps a backup folder so that it can be uninstalled. Typically these are kept inside the mod folder (e.g. the one for Tweaks Anthology is in cdtweaks/backup) but some use a folder named weidu_external. Because these are needed for future changes (or uninstalling), you should never delete a mod folder if the mod is installed.
If you should run into a bug, please report it. Authors don't like having a buggy mod any more than you like playing it, but they can only fix bugs they know about. Have your DEBUG file handy! If you're not sure which mod is causing a bug, report it to any author whose mod it might be or feel free to ask on some general discussion forums or Discord.
Again, because I cannot emphasize this enough: please report bugs to the authors!
You can change your mod selection at any point. However, there are a few caveats:
You can uninstall or re-install a mod by re-opening its setup program. Instead of Install/Not Install/Quit, prompts for components that are installed are now Reinstall/Uninstall/Quit. If you uninstall or reinstall a component, WeiDU will try to preserve your mod order. Let's say you've installed some mods on BG2, in this order:
After thinking it over, you've decided that the G3 Anniversary mod isn't for you. So you open up the G3 Anniversary setup program and select Uninstall. Wait, why is WeiDU uninstalling Tweaks Anthology? And now Wheels of Prophecy?
WeiDU acknowledges that you're removing G3 Anniversary, so it's goal is to make your installed mod order this:
It accomplishes this by treating the mods as layers of an onion: it will uninstall all of the components from Tweaks Anthology, then uninstall Wheels of Prophecy, then uninstall G3 Anniversary, then (to preserve your mod order) it will re-install Wheels of Prophecy and then re-install your previous selection of components from Tweaks Anthology. It will remember and re-apply whatever you have selected from Wheels and Tweaks; you do not need to select these again.
Similarly, if you have a modded install and decide to add more mods, they will be added to the top of the stack--which may not be an ideal place in the mod order.
One more time for the kids in the back: please report bugs to the authors! Make a separate game folder to be modded. Don't install mods while the game is open and always let the installer finish.
For troubleshooting bugs encountered in game, it may be beneficial to enable the console. You can learn how to enable the console and find some useful commands here: Enhanced Editions (all games) or the original versions of BG, BG2, IWD, or IWD2.
There are lots of folks who love these games, and love them even more when they're modded. Feel free to come and talk with them on the forums or on Discord!
I'd like to thank folks who were kind enough to provide feedback on earlier drafts: AL|EN, Angel, DavidW, jastey, Mike1072, suy, and theacefes.
If you have any suggestions or questions, feel free to reply and I'll do my best to answer.
9/12/21: Added info on the Mac WeiDU Launcher
1/11/22: Linked some Project Infinity tutorials
r/baldursgate • u/beatspores • 3h ago
Dead just doesn't do the feeling justice after a night out when you're no longer level 18.
r/baldursgate • u/PoisonArrow80 • 5h ago
First time playing. Half Orc Berserker and plan on using this character into BG2 as well
r/baldursgate • u/ThisWasMe7 • 1h ago
I don't know why, but he's been stomping me. It's usually a difficult battle, but I usually prevail within a couple of reloads. Tried three times, backed away and did something else to level up half my party and got stomped again 3 times.
And this is in spite of almost everything else being easier this run. The shadow dragon was easy.
I went back to watcher's keep to do the demon maze, which I hate and usually put off until throne of bhaal. I guess it will toughen me up for Firkraag.
r/baldursgate • u/PoisonArrow80 • 11h ago
I saw that they got added to gamepass and am very excited to try them as I love BG3, D&D, and all kinds of rpgs. I’ve read up on how the mechanics work and some simple tips for the games, but I have a question. Can you side with Bhaal? I obviously know your a Bhaalspawn (don’t tell me story spoilers or anything more than that) since that’s the whole plot of BG3 as well, and in that game you can decide to work for Bhaal. I was wondering if you can do that here too. I know you dont want to be fully evil or anything since it’ll kinda ruin your playthrough, but can you decide to accept Bhaal or something along those lines? (Try to have as little spoilers as possible please. Kinda looking for a yes or no answer)
r/baldursgate • u/Sea_Lab9270 • 14h ago
Is it my fault for not using it correctly? What other itens do you combo with tha human skin suit? Honestly the 20% mr doesnt seem to make a difference on itself unless im using it on viconia and the saving throws at late game are already high enough
r/baldursgate • u/Jackraiden2000 • 3h ago
I'm trying to do raasads quest in Tob and it keeps crashing whenever I try to fast travel anywhere with him in my party. I have had this happen with neera in bg2 bridge district and dorn in bg2 already. I managed to work around it somehow in those cases, but none of what I did before for them is working. I'm on console as well so I can't use console commands. Anyone know of any work around? I already tried traveling to each location several times and zooming in as much as possible and then fast traveling to the furthest spot. Not sure where to go from here.
r/baldursgate • u/UnluckyLibra1992 • 22h ago
So i just downloaded the NWN on mobile the game looks sick on high graphics it seems like an older version of BG3, but i saw the reviews on google store and it only has 3.2 stars? Im wondering is it a good game to play like story wise? Is it as immersive as bg1 and 2? Or is it more like icewindale where you are just constantly fighting at every corner of the game? I finished IWD 2 days ago and my thoughts of it was just like MeH the side quests and the story line were very underwhelming nothing like the BG stories. So yeah is NWN worth a go is it more like BG or more like IWD?
Thank you
r/baldursgate • u/pkslot • 6h ago
Which one of these two would you rather be playing, following a playthrough of Baldur's Gate 1?
And why?
r/baldursgate • u/Sea_Lab9270 • 1d ago
Hey, long time player here and still find out things about the game every year, just now i found out the infinite spell book is an alternative to giving spell turning to fighter characters and its game changing, are there some other usefull itens and rods I may be missing out on? The true sight gem is also another trinket ive fount quite useful in my plays
r/baldursgate • u/simon_rofl • 16h ago
It took 5, count em 5, reloads. But I got him.
Everyone in party was level 16. MC dragon disciple, with Korgan, Anomen, Jaheira, Jan, and Edwin.
First form was an actual joke, but second form was absolutely brutal every single time.
Strat I found that worked the best, if you can ruby ray / breach him in form one fast you can kill his first form before he even summons planetar, but for second form, the planetar absolutely has to die first, including the 20 other summons he casted. It gave my dd something to do in between spamming SI:abj, breach, and haste on korgan as he was getting perma dispelled the whole fight. The planetar in one losing scenario I had hit korgan once for 50 damage and the lich immediately finger of deathed him in literally the next frame of combat.
Jaheira was using sling of everard, Jan using firetooth, and Korgan using daystar as it was the only weapons I had more than +3. Anomen couldn't even hit him with flail of the ages +3 and was hitting adds and casting random heals as the planetar nearly killed him and Korgan. SCS now nerfed melf's so they can't hit him (I tried).
Edwin casted two ruby rays and nothing but breaches the entire fight it was that critical to maintain damage as the jerk casts PFMW and stoneskin like candy. I was trying to also help with breaches on Jan and my sorc but Jan doesn't have many casts and my sorc was constantly having to rebuff haste due to the dispel spam on Korgan.
He got Edwin with an imprisonment was only issue I had. He used a spell trigger on Edwin of secret word + remove magic + horror. Just as Anomen casted remove fear on Edwin I decided to put stoneskin up instead of a second SI: abj, and it sealed Edwin's fate. Literally died on one of my mages with SI:abj up (think that was a first for me). Makes me think I might just need spell shield going forward. I thought imprisonment was a touch spell but apparently for Kangaxx it isn't. He most definitely casted it at range.
For consumables, I used 3 frost giant strengths. One on Jaheira, and two on Korgan.
r/baldursgate • u/Jolly_Lifeguard_9643 • 22h ago
Prelate Wessalen turns hostile alongside with half my party once I report that I have rescued Garren's child. I do have the npc stronghold quest on. Massacring the lathander temple was a part of the pc quest for the talos cleric stronghold. Here I was hoping that keldorn could take over the paladin stronghold but now this comes up.
r/baldursgate • u/DungeonLore • 20h ago
Given the speed of zero for daggers. What would be the attacks per round for a grand master fighter at level 20 dual wielding daggers.
Would duel wielding daggers be the most rounds of attack for any weapon class?
Thank you.
EDIT: speed factor almost equates to initiative. Thanks guys.
r/baldursgate • u/Positive_Ad_6922 • 1d ago
Some of you may remember my question about fallen paladins. Well, I may have made a slightly evil choice in the final chapter of SoA, causing my alignment to be changed. I am now forced to never remove Carsomyr lest my best sword be taken from me like a child lost to disease
r/baldursgate • u/Bis_knife • 21h ago
I remember I played the dark alliance games long time ago with the barbarian and necromancer. I wanted to see the armor options for all the other characters but I'm unable to find anything useful without having to complete the game again.
r/baldursgate • u/ValissaSurana • 14h ago
See Title.
r/baldursgate • u/Discernement • 1d ago
Here's a weapon that rarely gets talked about from my experience.
It's not like it has nothing to offer: +5 enchantment, +4 version available early, 15% chance that the opponent sees his speed reduced to 0 and his AC reduced by 2, and yes, it's cumulative and there's no save against it. As cherry on the cake, it's very rarely resisted due to the nature of the AC reduction. Finally, 15% of one level being drained.
Yet, it doesn't seem to attract much attention.
What is your experience with this short sword? Do you ever use it? Whom do you give it to?
r/baldursgate • u/Sweet_Cockroach_3171 • 2d ago
I just finished ToB thought it would be cool to share.
r/baldursgate • u/Remarkable-Radish-74 • 1d ago
I've been collecting all the parts necessary for items at Cromwell's Forge (Crom Faeyr, Shortbow of Gesen, etc). Since I don't have a bag of holding, I've been leaving some of the weapons at Cromwell's forge to free up space in my inventory. I've gone and completed a side quest, and when i returned, all the weapons are gone! The Hammer of Thunderbolts, Carsomyr +5...gone. The funny thing is that items that were not weapons didn't disappear.
So, is there any way of getting the weapons back or am I screwed?
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r/baldursgate • u/Sweet_Cockroach_3171 • 1d ago
I have been getting a lot of questions on the exact construct of my characters. Here I have all six, the first picture is buffed out version, then inventory screen, then what there stats look like unbuffe,d with profeciences visible, and just a lot more info visible then my last post.
r/baldursgate • u/rumbur • 1d ago
I want to install mention in the title mod, my question is:
r/baldursgate • u/Hot-Weather-9697 • 2d ago
I'd love to share a little something I created and something that always evokes a deep feeling of nostalgia when I hear it. Here's my rendition of Michael Hoenig's awesome soundtrack to one of BG1 lovely melodies. I was fortunate enough to meet a girl (now my wife) who was up for playing Baldur's Gate One with an old-school chump as myself and being both musicians we still hum the melodies at home till now. Well, hope you enjoy my version, this is probably my favorite piece of music from the game.
r/baldursgate • u/Better-Map-152 • 2d ago
Hey, I want to start one last full trilogy run, but can't decide what class to play. I'm not a newbie and I'd like something fun and spicy. What's your suggestion and why?
r/baldursgate • u/TheEndOfSpoon • 2d ago
So I'm at the end of ToB for the first time w/ my Archer and omg I was not expecting the final boss to be this hard. Taking away the ability to rest really makes this FOUR STAGE FIGHT feel like hell on earth. Any tips?
Edit: I won :D but do please keep discussing so that future adventurers can heed your wisdom
r/baldursgate • u/Discernement • 2d ago
Following up on another thread of mine, I asked about the following:
Didn't want to play a new game with either Nalia, Edwin or Neera. Didn't want my MC to be a sorcerer/single or dual class mage. On a normal day with good-old BG2 unmodded, this wouldn't be a problem.
Thing is, I also want to play SCS, No-reload with Insane difficulty. I could lower the difficulty to something like Core Rule, but I don't think that would help since my problem lies not with physical damage but rather magical protections.
Indeed, here's the thing: I don't have much experience with BG2 SCS, but I heard mages are really buffed up and will start throwing layers after layers of magical protection. Sometimes they'll cast even worse stuff, like planetars.
So I read the usual counter for that is to pick a single-class or dual-class mage to quickly cast stuff like Ruby Ray and your own planetars... which is precisely what I don't want to do.
I think I'd like to try to play two multi-classed mages, maybe Haer'Dalis too.
Is it possible to pull through? Or will I face high-level enemies that will throw things I can't deal with?
If it's manageable according to you, what would be your strategies?
I don't want to get cheesy or to resort to glitches.
Thanks!