Bardic Appraisal

A Gibberlings Three Mod
Authors: CamDawg
On the Web: Project Page and Forum

Version 2
Languages: English
Platforms: Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux
GitHub: Gibberlings3/Bardic_Appraisal

The Bardic Appraisal mod is a small WeiDU mod that adds an ability to bards (including all kits) that allows them to appraise any identified item in the party. The value reported does not include markup or depreciation.

The Bardic Appraisal mod is designed to work with any variant of the Infinity Engine except for Planescape: Torment (both the originals and Enhanced Editions).

In terms of installation order, Bardic Appraisal should be installed after any mods that add items. The mod will scan all items at install time in order to build its appraisal routine, so any items which are added after this mod will not be included.

At present there is one minor issue: many books in the game are actually classified as 'miscellaneous' items so it's possible they will not show up under the 'book' category when appraising items.

There are a few notes for older platforms, specifically the original Baldur's Gate or original Icewind Dale:

• The mod will add skills to bards via AI scripting, so you'll need to turn on Party AI (even if momentarily) to get this new ability
• Unlike more modern engines, all categories of items will be displayed when you use the ability, not just categories in which you currently possess an item.
• For the same reason, you must go back to the top-level menu (with the categories) after appraising an item.
• You can (accurately, and by their identified name) appraise unidentified items, as there's no specific trigger to check for this

Newer versions of the engine (original Baldur's Gate II, Icewind Dale II, or any of the Enhanced Editions) will not have these issues.

If you should encounter any bugs, please report them to the authors at G3's Miscellaneous Released Mods forum. In addition, Bardic Appraisal is available on GitHub, so fixes and changes can be submitted by the community.

Special Note for Siege of Dragonspear from Steam/GOG
Good Old Games (GOG) and Steam both package the additional content for Siege of Dragonspear in a method that WeiDU, the tool used to install this mod, cannot access. You must run a program called DLC Merger on your SoD installation before you can install this or any other WeiDU-based mod.

Windows
The Bardic Appraisal mod for Windows is distributed as a self-extracting archive and includes a WeiDU installer. To install, simply double-click the archive and follow the instructions on screen.

Alternatively, the files can be extracted into your game directory using 7zip or WinRAR. When properly extracted, your game directory will contain setup-cd_appraisal.exe and the folder cd_appraisal. To install, double-click setup-cd_appraisal.exe and follow the instructions on screen.

You can run setup-cd_appraisal.exe in your game folder to reinstall, uninstall or otherwise change components.

Mac OS X
The Bardic Appraisal mod for Mac OS X is distributed as a compressed tarball and includes a WeiDU installer.

First, extract the files from the tarball into your game directory. When properly extracted, your game directory will contain setup-cd_appraisal, setup-cd_appraisal.command, and the folder cd_appraisal. To install, double-click setup-cd_appraisal.command and follow the instructions on screen.

You can run setup-cd_appraisal.command in your game folder to reinstall, uninstall or otherwise change components.

Linux
The Bardic Appraisal mod for Linux is distributed as a compressed tarball and does not include a WeiDU installer.

Extract the contents of the mod to the folder of the game you wish to modify.

Download the latest version of WeiDU for Linux from WeiDU.org and copy WeiDU and WeInstall to /usr/bin. Following that, open a terminal, cd to your game installation directory, run tolower and answer Y to both queries. You can avoid running the second option (linux.ini) if you've already ran it once in the same directory. To save time, the archive is already tolowered, so there's no need to run the first option (lowercasing file names) either if you've extracted only this mod since the last time you lowercased file names. If you're unsure, running tolower and choosing both options is the safe bet.

To install, run WeInstall cd_appraisal in your game folder. Then run wine BGMain.exe and start playing.

Note for Complete Uninstallation
In addition to the methods above for removing individual components, you can completely uninstall the mod using setup-cd_appraisal --uninstall at the command line to remove all components without wading through prompts.

The Bardic Appraisal has one component. It adds a single, at-will ability for any bard, kitted or unkitted. The ability will prompt a dialogue which will allow you to appraise any identified item in the party's possession. Note that the prices reported by the skill will likely not reflect the actual value you can sell an item for due to the following factors:

• Merchants have a fixed markup, e.g. most will only offer to purchase the item starting at 60% of its value.
• Merchants will also adjust prices up or down depending on your charisma and reputation.
• For charged items, merchants will pro-rate prices based on the remaining charges, e.g. you will only be able to sell a half-charged wand for half of the price of a fully-charged wand. This also means that merchants generally only offer 1 gold for an item that is fully discharged, including X-per-day items that have already been used.
• Merchants will also start to depreciate items after they have a certain amount of them, e.g. after a merchant has five short swords in stock, they will start offering you lower purchase prices for additional short swords.
• Items that are flagged as plot-critical, generally, cannot be sold except in a handful of stores (the BG series has no stores that will take them). When appraised, you'll get feedback indicating that the item is special and that you may not be able to sell it.

The Bardic Appraisal mod was created by CamDawg. For issues, suggestions and general feedback, G3's Miscellaneous Released Mods forum are the best resource. Visit the Gibberlings Three Forums for information on this and any other Gibberlings Three mods on which we may be working.

Like Lore from Learning, Bardic Appraisal was inspired by a suggestion from Cahir as he was playing IWDEE. So while he's already awesome (he's been a long-time Polish translator for other G3 mods), I'd like to thank Cahir for the original inspiration for the mod.

Tools Used in Creation

• WeiDU by Wes Weimer, the bigg, and Wisp
• Near Infinity by Jon Olav Hauglid, FredSRichardson, and argent77
• IESDP maintained by igi and lynx
• Notepad++
• Notepad++ Text Highlighters by argent77
• bammer by Scott Brooks

The modding community for the Infinity Engine has been going strong for nearly two decades now, and is the culmination of thousands of unpaid modding hours by fellow fans of the game. Modders produce their best work and players get the best, well-supported mods when we all work together.

There are two big ways to upset this harmony. One is to claim someone else's work as your own. The second is to host and redistribute a mod without permission from the author(s).

Be kind to your fellow players and modders. Don't do either.

Version 2 - August 22, 2021

• Added support for Icewind Dale II as well as the original versions of Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale. The mod now works on every game that has bards in it.
• Fixed a bug that prevented installation if mod items with an exclamation point were present
• Bards in the default IWDEE party now get this ability
• Fixed typos

Version 1 - August 21, 2021

• Initial release