Sword Coast Stratagems

A Gibberlings Three Mod
Author: DavidW

Version 35
Languages: English, French, German, Italian, Polish, and Russian
Platforms: Windows, Linux (Enhanced Edition only), Mac OS X (Enhanced Edition only)

Sword Coast Stratagems (SCS ) adds about 90 optional components to Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition (including Siege of Dragonspear), Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition, Baldur's Gate Trilogy, Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition, Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal, Baldur's Gate Trilogy, and Baldur's Gate 1 TUTU, mostly focused around improving monster AI and encounter difficulties, but also including a number of cosmetic and ease-of-use components, tweaks to abilities, new and modified spells, and a full implementation of the Icewind Dale spell system in Baldur's Gate. On the lowest difficulty settings, SCS mildly improves the intelligence and immersiveness of the game's enemy AI (and makes full use of the Icewind Dale spell system or the Spell Revisions spell system, if you have them installed). At higher difficulty settings, you should notice enemies behaving much more intelligently and realistically.

1. Overview
2. Installation
3. Compatibility with other mods
4. Contents
   • A. Spell System Revisions and New Spells
   • B. Gameplay Tweaks
   • C. AI Enhancements
   • D. Tactical Challenges (BG1)
   • E. Tactical Challenges (BG2)
5. Customization options (contains spoilers)
6. Additional notes on contents (contains spoilers)
7. Acknowledgements
8. Copyright Information
9. Version History

Sword Coast Stratagems is a collection of mini-mods for Baldur's Gate series of games. It is compatible with the Enhanced Editions of Baldur's Gate I and II, the original edition of Baldur's Gate II with the Throne of Bhaal extension, with the "EasyTUTU" conversion of Baldur's Gate to the Baldur's Gate II engine, and with the 'Baldur's Gate Trilogy' and 'Enhanced Edition Trilogy' combinations of the two games. As of version 35, it also has (experimental, limited) support for Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition. It is not compatible with the original BG1, or with the original BG2 without Throne of Bhaal, or with the original Icewind Dale.

Sword Coast Stratagems contains many optional tweaks to various aspects of gameplay, but at its core it is a tactical/AI mod. It carries out a fairly systematic restructing of the games' core artificial intelligence, affecting spell and proficiency choices, kits, high-level abilities, and most importantly enemy AI scripting, with a full install rewriting the AI of practically every creature in the game, though in most cases without significantly affecting their core abilities. It further offers a large number of tailored components that modify individual set-piece encounters at various points throughout the two games. The idea throughout is to make combat more challenging, interesting, and most importantly immersive and realistic, insofar as that can be done with a 1990s-vintage game engine - I focus on trying to get enemies to use their abilities intelligently and effectively, and in the harder parts on making moderate changes to their powers and spells, rather than the brute-force method of increasing hit-rolls, saving throws and the like.

Since there are a lot of tactics mods out there, of very different styles, it's probably simplest to describe the distinctive features of SCS. (I don't want to suggest that all of these are automatically advantages: there are lots of different styles of play, and different mods fit different people.) Some more thoughts of mine on how to assess tactical mods can be found here.

• SCS plays fair. I've made a fairly sustained effort to ensure that SCS opponents fight by the rules and don't use powers denied to the player (other than obvious things like dragons' breath weapons, liches' ability to see through invisibility, etc!) This is probably most notable for spellcasters - SCS mages don't randomly get uninterruptible spells, improved casting time, free Alacrity, or the like. (In fact, I've removed these powers from creatures in the vanilla game occasionally, though I haven't done so systematically.) However, "fair" is sometimes in the eye of the beholder, so please do read the component descriptions if this is important to you!
• SCS is highly sensitive to the difficulty slider. SCS has five difficulty settings (Basic, Improved, Tactical, Hardcore, and Insane) and the great majority of enemies are affected by the slider. At the lowest settings, SCS is about as difficulty as the unmodded game on Core difficulty; at Improved and Higher then enemies will behave much more intelligently; at higher difficulties, the enemies make more systematic use of their powers, and occasionally gain ability boosts. The difficulty of each individual component may be set in Enhanced-Edition games via a new control on the Gameplay page, or on non-Enhanced games by a new special ability granted to your character; in either case this overrides the difficulty slider for that component.
• SCS is very focussed pure AI. Most components of SCS muck around rather little with the core powers of creatures, and hardly at all with their abilities, resistances, saving throws and the like. Its main focus is on getting creatures to do as much as they possibly can with their existing abilities. In particular, its targeting is very careful - hopefully you'll almost never see a mage do something stupid like cast repeated spells at someone immune to that spell.
• SCS is quite low-key in its changes Where SCS does modify something other than AI, it usually does so in a relatively undramatic manner - adding a few more creatures, giving a creature a couple of other magic powers in keeping with powers it's already used, and so forth. It doesn't give new ultra-powerful spells to creatures who didn't have any magic before, or give creatures massive damage resistances, for instance. (Again, there's not necessarily anything wrong with doing this, it's just not what SCS is about).
• SCS is very customizable. Feel free to install whichever combination of components you like - there is a separate one for each major AI / tactical change.
• SCS is systematic. I've tried to be very thorough in making sure that there aren't "gaps" in its AI modifications - so that all hostile wizards, for instance, and not just some, are upgraded.
• SCS tries to be as compatible as possible. I've done the best I can to ensure that SCS will install on top of other mods (especially non-tactical ones) without causing problems for either. In particular, SCS dynamically alters its scripts to take (some) account of new magic items introduced by other mods.

Overall, playing SCS shouldn't exactly feel like a whole new game - it should feel like the old game, but with your foes acting much more intelligently and realistically.

SCS also makes a number of additions and tweaks to the spell system, including a full implementation of the Icewind Dale spell system on Baldur's Gate (which will be used by the SCS AI if installed), 15 new spells (likewise) , and small modifications to about 100 existing spells. In earlier versions of the mod, all were focused on tactical challenge - some make the game a little easier, others make it a little harder. As of version 35 the spell-system modifications have reached a scale that I have broken them out into their own mod ('Stratagems of Mystra') but they are all still available in SCS. A small group of these modifications are installed by default when you install any tactical or AI component, since the scripts assume that they are present (advanced users can deactivate them); the rest are optional.

Finally, SCS contains a few miscellaneous tweaks to gameplay, a few ease-of-use features (notably, an ease-of-use player AI script with a large number of convenience features) and a few "flavour" features that don't really affect gameplay but hopefully aid the feeling of immersion in the game world.

If you have installed version 31 or earlier of SCS, you must completely uninstall (and preferably delete) it before installing this version.

Installation is fairly straightforward. Run "stratagems.exe" and tell it to install in your BG:EE folder, BG2:EE folder, BG2 folder, BG1TUTU folder, EasyTUTU folder, or Baldur's Gate Trilogy folder, as appropriate. If nothing happens, run "setup-stratagems.exe", in this folder.

(Finding this folder for the Enhanced Edition can be a bit tricky; it's the folder with "CHITIN.KEY" in it.)

On Enhanced-Edition installs, SCS requires version 2.6 of the game (for all I know it works on 2.5 and earlier, but I don't officially support it).

Batch mode installation option
SCS, like any multi-component mod, normally asks about a component, installs it, then asks about the next component. Since some of SCS's components can take a while to install, this can be tedious. Version 34 and later ships with an experimental 'batch mode': if you select this (by installing the 'batch mode' component, which should be the first component offered to you) then SCS will ask about all components first but will not install them. After you have chosen your components, you will be offered a new component, 'finish batch mode installation', which will then install all of them. After you've done this, a file (stratagems.bat) will be created in the weidu_external/batch subfolder in your main game folder; clicking on it will uninstall and reinstall all your chosen options. (An optional alternative is to create the stratagems.bat folder but not install anything.) Batch mode is currently only available for Windows installs (basically because I don't know how batch files work in OSX or Linux and don't have a testing environment for them).

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 Modmerge on your SoD installation before you can install this or any other WeiDU-based mod.

This game discusses the base game, then mods in general, and then goes through specific mods in alphabetical order.

Games

SCS is designed to work with any of the following install options:

• Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition (version 2.6)
• Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition (version 2.6)
• The Enhanced Edition Trilogy (EET) combination of BGEE, BG2EE and SoD (based on v2.6 of BGEE/BG2EE/SoD)
• Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition (version 2.6)
• The original (or GoG) Baldur's Gate II, with the Throne of Bhaal (ToB) expansion installed
• Macready's "EasyTUTU" version of Baldur's Gate Tutu", again with both TotSC and ToB installed
• The Baldur's Gate Trilogy (BGT) combination of BG1, TotSC, BG2 and ToB into one game

If you are playing on the original Baldur's Gate II, or on BGT, you need to have the (G3) BG2 Fixpack (available here or here) installed before installing SCS.

SCS probably also works with the original "Baldur's Gate Tutu" conversion of Baldur's Gate I to the Baldur's Gate II engine, with both the Tales of the Sword Coast (TotSC) expansion to BG1 and the Throne of Bhaal expansion to BG2 installed, but is not routinely tested on that install.

SCS is compatible with the Siege of Dragonspear (SoD) expansion to BGEE (v2.6), but makes few if any modifications to content from that expansion.

SCS probably works on versions 2.0-2.5 of the Enhanced Edition games, but they are not officially supported. It probably does not work on versions 1.3 and earlier.

SCS does not work with the original Baldur's Gate, or with versions of Baldur's Gate II that do not include Throne of Bhaal. It requires the offical patch (26498) for Baldur's Gate II to be installed if you are not using the Enhanced Edition. (Do not install the "beta" official patch 26499, which is bugged.)

SCS is compatible with Max OSX or Linux only for the Enhanced Edition. (SCS requires either the Enhanced Edition engine or ToBeX, and ToBeX is Windows-only.)

If you are using EET, SCS probably can cope with being installed either before or after the EET_End component. (My testing mostly assumes 'after'.)

Mods in general

SCS attempts to be as compatibility-friendly as possible. It is probably not compatible with most mods that change enemy scripting or AI. One of its components (improved NPC customization and management) is incompatible with any mod that removes dual-classing from humans. Otherwise, SCS should be compatible with most quest, item, NPC and tweak mods (I don't know of any significant incompatibilities with currently-used mods other than those listed here.)

Several components of SCS, on Enhanced Edition installs, alter the user interface (UI). This always risks incompatibility with other UI mods. The general rule is that you should install SCS after any other mod that alters the UI (SCS aims at compatibility-friendly editing of the UI but a lot of mods just overwrite it.) The specific modifications are:

• 'thief skills are spent in multiples of 5%' makes a very discrete and limited edit and is unlikely to cause problems. (The same edit is made in 'improved NPC customization and management'.)
• The main 'initialise' component adds a difficulty fine-tune button to the UI. It does so in what aims to be a pretty compatibility-friendly way, but it may still cause problems if you have sufficiently drastically edited the UI. Most likely, the component will detect that the UI has been substantially tweaked and will avoid making its own changes (defaulting to the non-Enhanced Edition method of setting the difficulty) but there is some chance of your UI being cosmetically messed up. If this becomes a problem, you can force the UI edit to be skipped (and the non-Enhanced version to be installed) by setting 'Force_Difficulty_Widget' to 1 in stratagems.ini (see under customization).
• The 'revised resting' component makes a small edit to the UI to display the number of rations you have available, and to impose the requirement that you need rations to rest.
• The 'revised inns' component makes a small edit to the UI to display the effects of different inns better, and to apply the benefits of resting.
• The two new-spell components alter the UI to permit more than the usual maximum number of spells to be installed. This is done differently from OlvynChuru's 'ClassSpellTool' function (in OlvynChuru's Spell Pack, and some other mods). SCS will try to move the ClassSpellTools over to its system, so things should work fine provided SCS is installed after OlvynChuru's Spell Pack and any other mod that uses the ClassSpellTool function. However, I haven't tested this extensively. Installing OlvynChuru's Spell Pack after SCS's new-spell components will almost certainly break your game.
• The 'improved NPC customization and management' alters the UI to correctly grant thief skills at first level. It is likely (but not guaranteed) that this will be compatible with cosmetic UI modifications, as long as SCS is installed last.

I have tested SCS's UI components with Lefruet's UI and Pecca's Dragonspear UI++. They seem to work fine on both (I am more confident of this on Lefruet's UI, since I found the Dragonspear UI++ quite buggy.)

In general, when installing multiple mods, it matters which order you install them in. A rough guide is:

1. The (G3) BG2 Fixpack (if applicable, i.e. on non-Enhanced BG2 and BGT)
2. GUI mods (on the Enhanced Edition)
3. The Ascension mod
4. Mods which add new quests and similar game content
5. Mods which add new joinable characters
6. Mods which change the spell or item systems
7. Mods which add new kits or class abilities
8. Mods which tweak aspects of gameplay

Within each category, as a rule of thumb you should install older mods first. SCS is a tweak mod, so it should be installed towards the end of your installation. Ideally, SCS prefers to be installed last, but several other tweak mods (aTweaks, BiggTweaks, BG2 Tweakpack) also say "install last" in their readmes. You can generally install any of these listed mods after SCS fairly safely. Other mods, and in particular any mods that add new items, really need to be installed before SCS.

On more complicated installs, if you are using the Icewind Dale spells, new spells, and spell-tweak components of SCS then you may get better results if you install those two components fairly early on (before kit mods, in particular) and then install the rest of SCS at or near the end of your install order. One alternative is to use the versions of these components in the stand-alone 'Stratagems of Mystra' mod (or in the 'Talents of Faerun' mod). Another alternative is to use the IWDification mod instead of SCS's version of the Icewind Dale spells; as of version 34 of SCS and the Fall 2021 version of IWDification, the two are essentially identical.

Ascension

Ascension is fully compatible with SCS. By default, Ascension enemies use their own scripts instead of SCS scripts, although a number of components change this. (Note in particular that the Ascension "tougher Demogorgon" component is overridden by the "Improved Fiends" component of SCS.

aTweaks

aTweaks was designed to function with SCS, but is now quite out of date (and not currently maintained). It was designed to be installed after SCS (this is an exception to the usual rule that SCS should be installed last) but I am unclear whether this is still the right advice. At the moment I'm fairly sure its Fiend components are at least partially incompatible with SCS Smarter Mages and Improved Fiends; to be safe, use one or the other. Its other components are probably compatible with SCS.

Big Picture

I believe that the latest version of Big Picture aims at some level of SCS compatibility. I haven't been able to investigate myself. On balance I'm inclined to think that for a stable install you should choose one or the other, as both try to do broadly similar things in rather different ways.

BG2 Fixpack

SCS requires the (G3) BG2 Fixpack when used on BG2 and BGT installs. You can download it here or here. The Fixpack is not needed (or usable) on EasyTutu or Enhanced Edition installs.

Item Randomizer

I think Item Randomizer is best installed before SCS, because SCS assigns weapon proficiencies to creatures according to which weapons they have, and Item Randomizer shuffles those weapons. One SCS component moves some over-powered items later in the game; if Item Randomizer has already moved them, they won't be moved again.

Item Revisions

SCS should be compatible with Demivrgvs's and Mike1072's "Item Revisions (IR) mod. IR should be installed beforeSCS (and indeed before most mods). Some IR components overlap with SCS features; these features will be silently skipped on an install of SCS.

IWDification

IWDification also offers a conversion of the Icewind Dale spell system to Baldur's Gate. The differences between SCS's and IWDification's versions are fairly subtle: there some minor differences in how to resolve tensions with the existing BG2 system, and at a coding level SCS's version is a systematic and automated pull of resources from IWD:EE whereas IWDification works on a more case-by-case basis. Also, IWDification works on non-Enhanced Edition games. In any case, use one or the other (SCS's version won't install if IWDification's version is detected). It is possible that the two will be merged at some point in the future.

OlvynChuru's Spell Pack

I believe this should be compatible with SCS provided it is installed before SCS. Installing it after SCS will break your game.

Quest Pack

Quest Pack's AI and creature enhancements should be compatible with SCS . Install Quest Pack first, then install whichever components of SCS you want: they will override the Quest Pack for the affected creatures. Quest Pack still has some content not influenced by SCS : notably, it improves Mummies and Umber Hulks.

Refinements

As of version 32, SCS no longer makes use of high-level abilities from Refinements.

Spell Revisions

SCS should be compatible with Demivrgvs's "Spell Revisions" (SR) mod (version 4 beta 16 or later), and if SR is installed, SCS's spellcasters will make fairly systematic use of the new and revised spells in SR. SR should be installed beforeSCS (and indeed before most mods).

Some SR components overlap with SCS features; these features will be silently skipped on an install of SCS.

SCS's implementation of the Icewind Dale spell system is compatible with SR in the technical sense: duplicate spells will be skipped and (if appropriate) Icewind Dale area-effect spells will be patched to be blocked by Spell Deflection and the like. But I haven't made much attempt to smooth over any incongruities between the systems. By default, SCS AI prioritizes IWD spell lists over SR spell lists if SR is installed; there is a customization option to reverse this.

Stratagems of Mystra

Stratagems of Mystra is a self-contained packaging of the spell-sharing, spell-tweak, and new-spell components of Sword Coast Stratagems. It needs to be installed before SCS if you want to use it rather than SCS's own versions (they are identical in any case).

Tactics

The Tactics mod is an old tactical challenge/AI mod, and was an inspiration for SCS. By this stage, most of Tactics is incompatible with SCS, though you may have some luck getting its kits and discrete new-encounter components (Ritual, Kuroisan, Red Badge, Lich in the Docks, Fighter/Illusionist in the Docks, Improved Crypt King) to work. Try at own risk, and install Tactics before SCS.

Talents of Faerun

My new Talents of Faerun (ToF) mod (which is mostly a combination of tweaks to kits, classes and abilities, rule-system changes, and new high-level abilities) should be fully compatible with SCS. It should definitely be installed before SCS. The spell-sharing, spell-tweak, and new-spell components of ToF are identical to those in SCS.

Several of ToF's changes will be allowed for by SCS. Specifically:

• If you install ToF's various new priest kits, SCS's 'smarter priests' component will assign them to many priests.
• If you install ToF's new High-Level Abilities system, it will be used by those components of SCS that assign high-level abilities.
• SCS will use ToF's proficiency system if it is installed.

Tweaks Anthology

The Gibberlings 3 Tweaks Anthology can be installed before or after SCS; both should work. It probably makes sense to put last whichever one you think you're more likely to modify in play. For most people I probably recommend putting Tweakpack last. (Also, it takes much less time than SCS to uninstall and reinstall.) The main disadvantage of doing so is that if you modify the spell system, SCS won't be able to detect it - but the effects of that will be fairly subtle.

SCS's 'improved NPC customization and management' component requires humans to be able to dual-class. If you want to remove dual-classing from humans using Tweaks Anthology, don't use 'Improved NPC customization and management'.

Wheels of Prophecy

SCS is fully compatible with my Throne of Bhaal content-enhancement mod, Wheels of Prophecy. Install SCS after Wheels of Prophecy.

Unless otherwise noted, all components are for all forms of the game. 'Not IWDEE' indicates a component that works with any install except Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition. Components that affect Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition (BGEE) also affect Siege of Dragonspear.

Install arcane spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition (not IWDEE)

This component includes almost all the arcane spells in Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition that are not already included in Baldur's Gate. (I think Contact Outer Plane is the only exception on Enhanced-Edition games, though a few others are missing if you are using BGTUTU/BGT/original BG2). For the most part, if a spell is present already in BG2 then the IWD version is not used. Scrolls of the new spells are scattered throughout the game; they should be about as common as equivalent-level spells in the main system.

The system is slightly tweaked to resolve some thematic inconsistencies with the existing system:

• The IWD version of Mordenkainen's Sword summons a weapon which the caster can use at range, rather than summoning swords that act as independent monsters. Since both versions of the spell are quite fun, I have included the IWD version, renamed as Mordenkainen's Force Blade.
• The IWD elemental animations look very different (bulkier, more humanoid) than the BG2 ones. To avoid visual awkwardness, I have used the existing BG2 water elemental animation instead of the IWD one.
• The fifth-level IWD 'conjure water elemental' spell has been renamed 'conjure lesser water elemental' and a sixth-level 'conjure water elemental' spell has been added; the magical-battle aspect of elemental summoning has been removed.
• The collection of creatures summoned by Monster Summoning has been systematically rebalanced, focussing on humanoid creatures; this is to avoid thematic overlap with spells like Spider Spawn and Carrion Summons.
• The BG2 Emotion: Hopelessness spell has been overwritten by the IWD one, to ensure consistency with the other Emotion spells added by IWD.
• In IWD, summoning spells have green icons; in BG2, they have red icons. I recolor all BG2 summoning spells to green.

A full list of arcane spells added, and documentation for each, can be found here.

SCS's 'Smarter Mages' AI will detect and use the IWD spells if they are installed.

Install divine spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition (not IWDEE)

This component includes pretty much all the divine spells in Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition that are not already included in Baldur's Gate. (A few are missing if you are using BGTUTU/BGT/original BG2.) For the most part, if a spell is present already in BG2 then the IWD version is not used. Party-joinable spellcasters gain access to the new spells (provided you started a new game).

The system is slightly tweaked to resolve some thematic inconsistencies with the existing system:

• IWD's third-level 'Prayer' spell is about as powerful as BG's second-level 'Chant' spell, while the IWD version of 'Chant' halves the caster's movement and blocks their spellcasting. I split the difference, installing the IWD versions of both spells but removing the disable-spellcasting effect.
• BG's sixth-level 'Physical Mirror' spell reflects all missiles and lasts nine rounds. IWD's sixth-level 'Entropy Shield' spell deflects all missiles, gives immunity to many spells, boosts damage resistance and armor class, and lasts one round per level. There's just no real reason to learn Physical Mirror in place of Entropy Shield. (Theoretically the reflection power is nice, but any half-way intelligent enemy will just notice it.) The simplest solution is to change the level of one of the spells; in my judgement Physical Mirror is underpowered for sixth level and Entropy Shield is about right, so I lower Physical Mirror to 5th level.
• IWD restricts its Cause Wounds spells to evil casters (and its Cure Wounds spells to good casters), but the BG versions aren't so restricted. I remove the restrictions. (There is an ini option to override this; see here.) In addition, BG Cause Wounds require a melee hit, whereas IWD Cause Wounds are just range=touch; I standardise to the IWD version.
• In IWD, summoning spells have green icons; in BG2, they have red icons. I recolor all BG2 summoning spells to green.

A full list of divine spells added, and documentation for each, can be found here.

SCS's 'Smarter Priests' AI will detect and use the IWD spells if they are installed.

Install bardsongs from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition (not IWDEE)

In Icewind Dale, bards have six different songs to choose from (gaining access to the first at 1st level and to another at each odd level up to level 13). This component makes these songs available to (non-kitted) bards in the various Baldur's Gate games.

Use Baldur's Gate-style insects in Icewind Dale (IWDEE)

This component replaces the Insect Plague and Creeping Doom spells from Icewind Dale (which summon fairly weak monsters) with the Baldur's Gate version (where the swarm does damage and disrupts spellcasting).

Make the Baldur's Gate version of Mordenkainen's Sword (as well as the Icewind Dale version) available in Icewind Dale (IWDEE)

The IWD version of Mordenkainen's Sword summons a weapon which the caster can use at range, while the BG2 version summons swords that act as independent monsters. Since both versions of the spell are quite fun, this component makes the BG2 version available in Icewind Dale (and renames the IWD version to 'Mordenkainen's Force Blade').

Install all spell tweaks

This component installs the whole package of Stratagems of Mystra spell tweaks. (If you don't select it you will be given the chance to select tweaks by category.)

Full documentation for spell tweaks can be found here (broken down by mod component) or here (broken down by spell modified).

For more fine-grained control of which tweaks you install (beyond what the component system allows) see under customization.

Core Stratagems spell-system changes (assumed by Sword Coast Stratagems mod)

These tweaks alter a range of spells, mostly but not entirely focussed around a spellcaster's defenses and abilities to remove other creatures' defenses. What unites them is that all are assumed by the enemy AI in Sword Coast Stratagems, and enemy spellcasters may act quite strangely from time to time if this is not installed. These components will be automatically installed if you install any of SCS's AI or Tactical Challenge components if it is not installed here. (details)

Baldur's Gate-inspired tweaks to Icewind Dale spells

Tweaks in this section alter Icewind Dale spells to more closely match how they work in Baldur's Gate / Baldur's Gate II. In most cases this slightly increases the power of the spell .(details)

Changes to Restoration

Tweaks in this section alter the Restoration and Lesser Restoration spells. (details)

Changes to shapeshift spells

Tweaks in this section alter shapeshift spells, making them more flexible and somewhat more powerful. (details)

Icewind Dale-inspired tweaks to Baldur's Gate/Baldur's Gate II spells

Tweaks in this section alter Baldur's Gate / Baldur's Gate II spells to more closely match how they work in Icewind Dale. In most cases this slightly increases the power of the spell. (details)

Rebalancings of slightly-too-powerful spells

Tweaks in this section rebalance various slightly too-powerful spells. The enemy AI in Sword Coast Stratagems will sometimes behave a little oddly if this component is not installed. (details)

Spell school changes

Tweaks in this section alter the schools of certain mage spells. (details)

Spells increased in power

Tweaks in this section somewhat increase the power of various spells which (in my subjective judgement) were a little under-powered compared to similar spells at the same level. (details)

Add 9 new arcane spells (BGEE, BG2EE, EET, IWDEE)

This component adds 9 new arcane (sorcerer/wizard/bard) spells to the game, mostly focused on elemental effects. A full list can be found here. SCS's 'Smarter Mages' component will use most of these spells if they are installed.

Add 6 new divine spells (BGEE, BG2EE, EET, IWDEE)

This component adds 6 new arcane (cleric/druid) spells to the game, mostly borrowed from the Divine Remix mod. A full list can be found here. SCS's 'Smarter Priests' component will use some (to be honest, not many) of these spells if they are installed.

Revised Elementals

Requires either IWDEE or a mod (SCS, SoM, ToF, or IWDification) that introduces the IWD spells into BGEE or BG2EE.

This component revises the stats and abilities of the various elementals (earth/air/fire/water) that appear in the game or can be summoned, as well as the elemental-summoning spells themselves. The goal is to make elementals more interesting and varied, and to make elemental summoning a more interesting tactical option. Overall, elementals are significantly more powerful with this component installed. The detailed changes are as follows:

• The general statistics of elementals are systematised, and slightly improved at higher levels, as follows:
  • 8-HD elementals get Strength 18/00, Constitution 16, AC 2.
  • 12-HD elementals get Strength 20, Constitution 17, AC 0.
  • 16-HD elementals get Strength 21, Constitution 18, AC -2.
  • More powerful elementals get Strength 22, Constitution 20, AC -4.
• Elementals get damage resistance depending on their type: air elementals get immunity to electricity and 75% resistance to missile damage, earth elementals get 50% resistance to slashing/piercing/missile damage and 25% vulnerability to crushing damage, fire elementals get 125% resistance to fire damage and 50% vulnerability to cold damage, water elementals get 75% resistance to crushing damage.
• Elementals get type-specific melee abilities:
  • Air elementals are surrounded by a whirlwind effect which inflicts slashing damage dependent on their HD (2d8/rd at 8HD, 3d8/rd at 12HD, 4d8/rd at 16+HD) with additional damage to mist creatures, disperses clouds, and gives a 50% spell failure chance. Their attacks deal slashing and electrical damage: 2d10+1d6 electrical at 8HD, 3d10 +2d6 electrical at 12-16HD, 4d10 +3d6 electrical for more powerful elementals.
  • Earth elementals' attacks inflict crushing damage: 3d8 at 8HD, 4d8 at 12HD, 5d8 at 16HD and above. Their attacks knock their opponents away unless they make a save vs. paralysis (at +2 for 8-HD elementals, at -2 for 16-HD elementals or more powerful elementals).
  • Fire elementals' attacks inflict a mixture of crushing and fire damage (2d8 + 2d6 fire at 8HD, 3d8 + 3d6 fire at 12-16HD, 4d8 + 4d6 fire at 16+ HD). Their attacks set victims on fire if they fail a save vs. breath weapon (at +2 for 8-HD elementals, at -2 for 16-HD elementals or more powerful elementals), inflicting the fire damage again each round (an additional saving throw may be attempted each round to extinguish the fire).
  • Water elementals are surrounded by a quenching aura that extinguishes fire shields and similar spells. Their attacks inflict crushing damage (3d6 at 8HD, 4d6 at 12-16HD, 5d6 for more powerful elementals) and can partially drown their victims if they fail a save vs. spells (at +2 for 8-HD elementals, at -2 for 16-HD elementals or more powerful elementals). Drowning creatures are slowed, -4 to hit, -4 AC, -4 saves, can't spellcast, and take 1d3 magic damage per second; a new saving throw can be attempted at the end of each round.
• More powerful elementals (16+ HD) receive innate powers usable once per 10 rounds: Whirlwind for air elementals, Spike Stones for earth elementals, Shroud of Flame for fire elementals, Smashing Wave for water elementals.
• Priest elemental-summoning spells are tweaked to differentiate 6th- and 7th-level spells, and to allow summoning of all four elemental types:
  • The 6th level priest spell 'Conjure Fire Elemental' now has a 60% chance of calling a 12-HD elemental, a 35% chance of calling a 16-HD elemental, and a 5% chance of calling a 24-HD elemental.
  • The 7th level priest spell 'Conjure Earth Elemental' now has a 70% chance of calling a 16-HD elemental and a 30% chance of calling a 24-HD elemental.
  • A 6th-level priest spell 'Conjure Water Elemental' is introduced, with a 60% chance of calling a 12-HD elemental, a 35% chance of calling a 16-HD elemental, and a 5% chance of calling a 24-HD elemental.
  • A 7th-level priest spell 'Conjure Air Elemental' is introduced, with a 70% chance of calling a 16-HD elemental and a 30% chance of calling a 24-HD elemental.
• The quest spell 'Elemental Summoning' has been renamed 'Elemental Swarm' and now summons four 16-HD elementals, one from each elemental plane.

These components could equally well be called "miscellaneous tweaks".

Move or modify some overpowered magic items (BG2,BG2EE,EET)

This component affects a handful of (in my judgement) overpowered magic items in BG2. Some are intrinsically a bit broken, others are just available much too early. The component moves some items into treasure hordes found later in the game, and slightly decreases the power of others.

Items affected are: the Helm of Vhailor (moved), the Robe of Vecna (moved), the Cloak of Mirroring (moved), the Rod of Resurrection (modified so as to resurrect creatures with 1 hit point rather than at full health), the Staff of the Magi (modified so that its invisibility power needs to be actively cast, not just activated by equipping it), and Carsomyr (modified to grant a saving throw to its dispelling power).

See here for where items have been moved to. Advanced users can disable any particular item's movement or modification via the ini file.

Replace +1 arrows and other projectiles with nonmagical "fine" ones (not IWDEE)

This component replaces the weakest magical projectiles with non-magical ones of high quality. The main point is to make the "Protection from Normal Missiles" spell less ineffective when used by enemy spell-casters, although I think there are also cosmetic advantages.

Replace many +1 magic weapons with nonmagical "fine" ones (not IWDEE)

This replaces most of the standard (i.e. non-named) +1 weapons in the game with non-magical equivalents: they still give you +1 to hit and damage but they don't give you +1 to initiative and they can't harm creatures that are immune to normal weapons.

This is mostly a cosmetic change: I wrote it because otherwise there are implausibly many magic weapons lying around the Sword Coast. It has two significant effects on the game, though. Firstly, +1 weapons cost a lot less (about a third as much). This mostly works against you (you generally find +1 weapons on enemies and sell them). More seriously, the iron plague affects "fine" weapons. I actually quite like this (feels more realistic, and makes the iron plague more a part of the game) but if it's just going to annoy you, don't use it: you can choose to have Fine weapons without the effects of the iron crisis. (It's clear from what you're told in-game that the crisis affects all iron (even iron not forged from Nashkel ore), but some people feel this is outweighed by the annoyance of having your high-quality weapons break so much. It's up to you.)

My alpha version of this component (for BG2) changed +2 weapons too, but that turns out to have unwanted effects on game balance - +2 nonmagical weapons are great to use against mages with the Protection from Magic Weapons spell running, and the protagonist is probably immune to nonmagical weapons in ToB and needs to be affectable by at least some opponents.

This component applies to all versions of Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II (though on BG2 installs there is no iron crisis, of course). For technical reasons there are actually two separate versions (one for BG2, one for TUTU/BGT/BGEE): the right one for your install should be selected automatically.

Reduce the number of Arrows of Dispelling in stores (not IWDEE)

Arrows of Dispelling are arguably a little overpowered (they are all-but-eliminated in BG2, though some mods reintroduce them). This component gives you the choice of removing all, or all but five per store, of the Arrows of Dispelling from the stores throughout the game.

Standardise spells between BG and BG2 (TUTU, BGT)

At the moment, BG1Tutu and BGT are both a bit inconsistent in their use of BG2-only spells (like Stoneskin or Holy Smite). Non-player characters don't have any of these spells, and enemies don't use them, but party sorcerors, clerics and druids have access to them, and party mages can choose them at first level.

This component offers two alternative ways to resolve the inconsistency. The first (available only for BG1Tutu players) blocks player access to all BG2-only spells except for Find Familiar and the various wild-magic spells.

The second alternative reintroduces into BG all of the new wizard spells of fifth level or lower. Some are added to stores, others to treasure caches; see here for all of the locations.

Note that this is not needed for BG:EE because the BG2 spells are already available. (In fact, the code to make them available is based on SCS code, so in effect this component is already included in BG:EE.)

Wider selection of random scrolls (BGEE,BG2EE,EET)

Scrolls in random drops in BG:EE are selected from the same range as in vanilla BG, and so do not include any of the newer spells introduced in BG2. And random drops in BG2:EE include a rather small subset of all available spells. This component changes random drops so that every 1st-8th level wizard spell for which a scroll exists will have some chance of dropping. (The probability that a given creature or treasure chest contains a scroll of a given level is more-or-less unchanged, but the range is wider.) This component will also add mod-added spells (such as the Icewind Dale spells from IWDification) to the random drops.

Wider availability of wizard spell scrolls in Icewind Dale (IWDEE)

Icewind Dale:Enhanced Edition is somewhat stingy in its placement of wizard scrolls, especially for scrolls of spells absent in the original Icewind Dale. This component provides more generous allocation of scrolls, both to stores (each spell is available in at least one store, and two for more common spells) and in random treasure. The store allocation is determined randomly when the component is installed; the treasure allocation is determined randomly when each scroll is found.

Reduce the power of Inquisitors' Dispel Magic

Inquisitors have a very fast powerful Dispel Magic ability, which is cast at twice their level. In most bits of the game, this is usually much higher than the majority of spellcasting enemies. This component reduces the power of the Dispel a little; you can choose to use it at 1.5xlevel or at 1xlevel.

More appropriate-speed bears (not IWDEE)

In the original Baldur's Gate games, bears wandered around the map in a slow and stately fashion. This made them fairly unrealistic as opponents, since they couldn't catch up with the party (they were also a bit inconvenient as choices of creature to shapeshift into or summon). To quote an earlier version of this readme, "If you're in the woods, and you run into an angry bear, don't worry about it. Bears can't move very fast, you can outdistance it at a brisk walk".

In recent versions of the Enhanced Editions of the games, bears have been sped up so they move at the same rate as the party. But this means in turn that the random bears you occasionally run into in the wilderness charge all over the map, looking a bit unrealistically frenetic and also being more likely to crash into the party and go hostile.

This component tweaks the movement rate of bears so that they go at the same speed as the party when hostile but about half that when friendly (and so that summoned and shapeshift-originating bears always move quickly). The underlying code is completely different on the original game and on the Enhanced edition, but the effects should be similar.

More realistic wolves and wild dogs (TUTU,BGT,BGEE,EET)

In the real world, wolves rather rarely attack humans; indeed, they normally keep their distance. In the Sword Coast, though, wolves are apparently ruthless, fearless predators that think nothing of attacking even large parties of heavily armed adventurers. (And, as a corollary, even wilderness-oriented types like rangers and druids spend much of their time fighting off attacks from implacable wolf packs.)

This component makes the behaviour of wolves (and also wild dogs) a bit more realistic. They won't usually attack humans (they still do sometimes: it's been a harsh winter and game is scarce). They'll generally retreat if more than a few of them are injured or killed. If you approach them, they might take a bite out of you, but just as likely, they'll keep their distance.

This component has no effect on non-"normal" wolves (dire wolves, winter wolves and the like), since for all I know, they really are ruthless predators. Its main point is to spare the author (who rather likes wolves) the heartache of perpetually having to cut them down and listen to the rather sad yelp they make when you kill them.

As of version 35, this component does not affect wolves in the Wood of Sharp Teeth (the forest east of the Baldur's Gate-Beregost road), since Forgotten Realms lore says that the beasts in the wood are unusually savage.

Improved shapeshifting

This component (inspired in part by Wesley Weimer's Shapeshifter Rebalancing component) modifies all of the druid innate shapeshift abilities (and the druid/cleric elemental-shapeshift HLA) to be useable instantly (that is, without requiring a six-second cooldown before the next spell can be cast). It does so by creating "symbolic paws": if you equip one, you instantly shapeshift. Other than that, the effects of the shapeshift are largely the same as previously, though some of the ability score and attack bonuses have been tweaked slightly. Note that shapeshifting still blocks spellcasting.

This component is incompatible with Talents of Faerun's 'Revised shapeshift powers for druids and avengers' component. (I had two rather different sets of ideas for shapeshift; choose the one you prefer!)

Decrease the rate at which reputation improves (not IWDEE)

In general, if you're playing a half-way honorable character, your reputation fairly rapidly reaches 20 and stays there. The idea of this component is to slow down the rate at which you gain reputation: you can choose the degree of slowdown.

In more detail: any time you would have gained 2 or more reputation points, you gain one fewer point than you should have. Any time you would have gained one, it's decided at random whether you actually do gain it, according to the probability you choose at install time.

Improved NPC customization and management (BGEE,BG2EE,EET)

This component makes it much easier to customize NPCs and to make sure they keep up with your main character even if you swap them in and out of the group. When it is installed, NPCs (including mod-added NPCs) join your party at level zero. If you want, you can activate a special 'customize' power on their innate abilities to change their class and kit to whatever you like. After that, you can level the character to first level and choose their proficiencies, skills and the like. The character will continue levelling until they reach about the same level as your character. (The 'customize' power is unavailable once you increase above level zero.)

If you kick the NPC out of the party and subsequently re-recruit them, they will again start levelling until they reach about your character's level. (To be more precise: they are given that level which they would have if they had as much XP as you do; they get given exactly the right amount of XP to reach that level.)

Engine limitations lead to a few slight awkwardnesses with this component. Firstly, mages and bards have their spellbooks selected from a fixed list (you don't get to choose yourself). Secondly, if you have the Party AI disabled, you may occasionally notice minor glitches in the amount of experience your characters receive (this will be most noticeable if you use the customize program to change a character's class). Turning AI back on (even if only briefly) will resolve this (though it is possible to get a slightly-too-high level character if you change from single-class to multiclass and then level without AI on). Thirdly, a few NPCs in the game have illegal statistics (for instance, Coran has three proficiencies in bows); these will be lost if you use this component. Fourthly, wild mages will have to save and reload in order to get their special spells (Chaos Shield and the like.) Finally, it is not possible to let rangers choose their favored enemy.

As of version 33.2, the component should be able to allow for other mods that let humans multi-class, nonhumans dual-class, and multi-class characters select kits. However, it is incompatible with any mod (notably the component of Tweaks Anthology) that removes the ability to dual-class from humans - basically because the component doesn't know what to do with the existing dual-classed humans in the game, like Imoen.

Some NPCs are only partially affected by this component: notably, Wilson the bear and the joinable vampire in BG2EE cannot be customized; nor can the sorcerer added in Baldur's Gate and the aasimar in Siege of Dragonspear.

This component makes very extensive use of features of the Enhanced-Edition game engine, and so is not (and never will be) available for original BG/BG2.

Important note:Dual-classed NPCs begin at level zero in their original class; you level them until they can't level any more, then dual-class them, then level them again. Do not delay dual-classing them - it is likely to break the game. (If you want to adventure with them in their original class, just respec them to that class.)

Allow player to choose NPC proficiencies and skills (BG1TUTU, BGT)

At the moment the various NPCs who join your party have their existing proficiencies, thief skills etc. determined for you according to what the designers of the original game had in mind. There's nothing wrong with this, but it can be interesting - especially if you've played several times - to have more flexibility.

This component gives you the chance to select each character's proficiencies from scratch. It does so in a slightly convoluted way (to get around game-engine difficulties): when a new NPC joins your party, they start at level 0. They immediately go up a level, so you get to choose their starting skills. As soon as you've levelled them, they gain enough experience to go up to first level; after levelling again, you advance to second level, and so on until you reach the original intended level. For engine reasons, rogues gain additional powers, usable from your innate-ability bar, to finish increasing their skills.

This component is superseded on Enhanced-Edition installs by 'Improved NPC customization and management'.

Thieves assign skill points in multiples of five (BGEE,BG2EE,EET, IWDEE)

This component edits the user interface so that thief skill points are spent in multiples of five. This is purely a convenience tweak: there is no real reason to spend skill points in smaller increments and it can be tedious to have to do so. The edit is compatibility-friendly and is unlikely to interfere with other UI mods.

As of version 35, the effects of this component are automatically applied if you install 'Improved NPC customization and management'.

Revised handling of death effects like disintegration, petrification and imprisonment (BGEE,BG2EE,EET)

This component makes various changes to the way certain catastrophic effects - like imprisonment, petrification, or permanent death due to massive damage - are handled. The changes are:

• Characters who die 'permanently' by being (e.g.) incinerated or disintegrated are no longer kicked out of the party (more precisely: they immediately rejoin the party). They may be restored to life using the 7th level Resurrection (but not 5th level Raise Dead) spell. (If they are kicked out of the party while dead, they are lost forever.)
• Characters who are petrified likewise remain in the party. If kicked out (e.g. because you need to leave the area to get a Stone to Flesh scroll) they remain in the area and can be restored as normal.
• Characters who are imprisoned immediately rejoin the party if restored by a Freedom spell.
• Imprisonment of the main character no longer ends the game. The character is unavailable but remains in the party; the game continues unless all other party members are killed or rendered helpless. After about 12 hours, the dark taint in the main character's soul will overwhelm the imprisonment effect and free the character - though this release of unconstrained power may have short-term consequences if you have already experienced the power of the Slayer.
• Likewise, petrifying the main character does not end the game; the main character can be restored as normal through Stone to Flesh and the like, and will not be targeted by enemies or affected by damage while petrified. Again, after about 12 hours, the dark taint in the main character's soul will overwhelm the imprisonment effect and free the character.
• The Resurrection spell now has a material component - a diamond - which is consumed upon casting. If you have no diamonds, the spell will fail. The spell also cannot be used in combat. Resurrection spells cast by a temple do not require diamonds, but the cost has been increased by 1,000 gp.
• Rods of Resurrection can still be used in combat, but their maximum number of charges has been decreased (to 3) and their cost increased (to 15,000 gp base price).

There are some technical limitations on this component. Firstly, it works only for joinable NPCs (indeed, only for those installed when you install this component). Player-created secondary characters are unaffected and behave as per the normal game. Secondly, if two (or more) characters are permanently killed in very quick succession, only one will rejoin. (Basically, if a second character is perma-killed before the first rejoins, the second is lost.)

Be warned that this component is somewhat experimental and hacks a fundamental feature of the game. It's been tested, but there may be unexpected long-term effects.

Revised resting: resting in the wild uses up provisions (BGEE,BG2EE,EET)

This component (somewhat inspired by the Pillars of Eternity CRPG) changes the way resting works, in the hope of making it somewhat more meaningful as a constraint. You now need Provisions to rest in the wilderness or in a dungeon. The maximum number of provisions you can have is set by the difficulty slider: 8 at the lowest difficulty, and one fewer at each successively higher difficulty. (This can be fine-tuned using the 'fine-tune difficulty' button on the Gameplay options page; see the 'Initialize AI' component for details.) Each rest consumes 1 Provision, and once you have none you cannot rest again. You can see how many Provisions you can have by hovering over the Rest button (they are not shown on your inventory).

The main way to recover Provisions is by resting at an inn; once you do so, your Provisions are fully restocked. If you have druids and/or rangers in your party (the more the better) you also have some chance of replenishing your Provisions if you rest in the wilderness (but not in a dungeon or the Underdark). There are a small number of additional ways to replenish Provisions in the game.

The Provisions system only operates in the main BG and BG2 campaigns (including Throne of Bhaal); it does not operate in Siege of Dragonspear or either of the Black Pits campaigns. It silently deactivates during the finales of the respective campaigns (you don't need to worry about Provisions in the Undercity of Baldur's Gate, or in the Abyss).

Revised inn rooms: more expensive, more benefits (BGEE,BG2EE,EET,IWDEE)

This component (also somewhat inspired by Pillars of Eternity) alters resting in inns so that it gives you a minor benefit (except for Peasant-quality inns), with the strength and duration of the benefit increasing with the quality of the room you rent. In parallel with this, all room costs have been increased, with the increase being larger for the more expensive rooms.

Skip the Candlekeep tutorial sections (TUTU, BGT, BGEE, EET)

The Prologue to BG is a perfectly good tutorial in the Infinity Engine for complete beginners. By the time you return to it for the Nth time, it's unutterably tedious - but you more-or-less have to do it, because even the small amount of gold and XP it gives you is pretty vital for later. It doesn't really even add colour, because realism is always being spoiled by these damn monks telling you which button to press.

This component gives you two ways around this problem.

The first option (which leaves the tedium unchanged but resotres the verisimilitude) just removes the green-robed monks. The less-than-serious alternative choice, inspired by PPG's Dungeon-Be-Gone, lets you skip the whole thing: at the start of the adventure, a guard will come up to you and give you the chance to collect all the cash and XP from him. He'll give you a decent interval to shop, and then teleport you direct to Gorion ready for the start-of-game ambush.

Be warned that the dialogue with the guard is unrealistic and written for laughs. Realism is restored once you start talking to Imoen and Gorion.

Allow the Cowled Wizards to detect spellcasting in most indoor, above-ground areas in Athkatla (BG2, BG2EE, BGT, EET)

The Cowled Wizards claim to ban magic everywhere in Athkatla; in practice, though, they only complain if you cast spells out of doors. This component extends their watch to most indoor, above-ground areas in Athkatla (there are a few exceptions, mostly places where wizards live (e.g. Prebek's tower) or where it's likely that the owners have made arrangements with the Cowled Wizards (e.g. the Copper Coronet).

Increase the price of a licence to practice magic in Athkatla (BG2, BG2EE, BGT)

The default price for a magic licence from the Cowled Wizards is 5,000gp. This component allows you to increase it to an amount between 10,000gp and 50,000gp, depending on which option you choose during installation.

Increase the price asked by Gaelan Baele (BG2, BG2EE, BGT, EET)

This component aims both to make it more realistic for the player to linger in chapter 2 of SoA (which in gameplay terms is often rather tempting, but is hard to justify on roleplaying grounds) and to add an extra challenge by restricting the player's wealth in the first part of the game. As everyone knows, in the unmodded game Gaelan asks the player to provide 20,000gp. With this component installed, he will ask for more - between 40,000gp and 120,000gp, depending on which option you choose during installation. The actual price he settles for is three quarters of this.

This component only works properly for languages where either (a) the numbers '15,000' and '20,000' always appear as numbers rather than text, or (b) the language permits a search-and-replace on the equivalents of 'fifteen thousand' and 'twenty thousand'. I think this applies to pretty much all European languages but I'm not confident beyond that.

Make Watchers' Keep accessible between SoA and ToB (BG2, BG2EE, BGT, EET)

In roleplaying terms, the natural time to explore Watchers' Keep is between the end of Shadows of Amn and the start of Throne of Bhaal. Before chapter 4 you're probably too weak; in chapters 6 and 7 of SoA you're in a desperate race against time; in ToB, the way the start works makes it difficult not to take random time off from urgent business to explore Watchers' Keep. Also, the NPC dialog in Watcher's Keep is ToB-only, and won't play if you do it before you start ToB.

This component moves the start location of Throne of Bhaal to Watchers' Keep, so that you're moved there immediately after the end of SoA. You can then explore WK to your heart's content. When you want to start ToB, just leave WK via the world map. You can still return to WK after leaving.

Be warned: you don't have any stable base, or any way to change your party, as long as you're starting at WK. If you find you need either, you'll need to do the first part of ToB. Similarly, although you could start a new game of ToB using this component, this is only a good idea if you're masochistic enough to want to solo Watchers' Keep with a starting-level ToB character!

Randomize the maze in Watcher's Keep (BG2, BG2EE, BGT EET)

This component is for the benefit of people who've now basically got the Watcher's Keep teleport maze memorized. It randomly rearranges the maze to one of three different alternative configurations. Don't install or reinstall this component while you're exploring the maze (before you enter it, or after you've left it, will be fine).

Remove unrealistically helpful items from certain areas (BG2, BG2EE, BGT, EET)

Vampires do not stockpile stakes in their lairs; magic golems are not usually found near stashes of nonmagical weapons; demons' lairs are not usually stocked with books explaining how to eliminate their defences and wands stocked with the requisite spells; trolls are not generally found in places filled with fire and acid arrows; cities under siege do not generally have large quantities of +3 weapons for sale in bars. But in BG2 all these things occur. Presumably this is intended to reduce frustration, but I just find it spoils my suspension of disbelief. This component tries to remove all such implausibly-placed items. (Obviously, things like stakes and fire arrows are still plentifully available, but you can't count on just finding them lying around where you want them.)

Remove unrealistically convenient ammunition from the game (BG2, BG2EE, BGT, EET)

Similarly, the game has vast stashes of ammunition lying around for the taking, presumably because the developers thought you'd be bored of having to buy it. This component removes all the ammunition from containers, for those who find things just a bit too convenient to be realistic.

This component can be fine-tuned. You can choose to remove only the non-magical ammunition, to remove all the ammunition except those nice +3/+4 items you find in Throne of Bhaal, or just to remove everything.

Delay the arrival of the "bonus merchants" in the Adventurers' Mart and the Copper Coronet (BG2, BG2EE, BGT, EET)

This component causes the "bonus merchants" (Deidre and Joluv) to appear a little later in the game (by default they are in the Adventurers' Mart and the Copper Coronet, respectively, as soon as you go there). One of them (chosen at random) will appear once you've started Chapter Six; the other will appear once you've either completed four of the "stronghold quests" or recovered the Rhyn Lanthorn.

You don't need to have the bonus merchants already installed (e.g. through Tweak Pack) to run this component; if you do, it won't matter.

Treat mages' and priests' High-Level Abilities as innate abilities rather than memorizable spells (each may be taken only once) (BG2, BG2EE, BGT, EET)

This component causes the 10th level spells that mages get as High-Level Abilities, and the Quest spells that priests get likewise, to become disentangled from existing 9th level mage spells and 7th level priest spells. If installed, 10th level and Quest spells are no longer added to the character's list of spells to learn. Instead, each can be cast once per day in addition to the character's normal spells. Each spell can only be taken once. Note that clones (Projected Images and Simulacra) of the spellcaster do not get High-level abilities.

The component should be compatible with other mods (notably Refinements) which change the High-Level Ability system. If it is installed, SCS mages and priests will also receive High-Level Abilities in this way.

This component will be skipped if you are using the Talents of Faerun high-level abilities component, since it is already included in that component.

I'm grateful to TheBigg and Vilcakis, from whose rather similar mod I took significant inspiration, and to Ardanis for the suggestion that each ability should only be available once, which changed me from a strong opponent of this change to a (cautious) supporter.

Make spell sequencers and contingencies into innate abilities

This component makes Minor Sequencer, Spell Sequencer, Spell Trigger, Contingency, and Chain Contingency into abilities that your mage and bard characters acquire automatically when they reach the appropriate level, rather than needing to learn from scrolls or spend spell slots on. The abilities can be used from your innate ability bar, and can be used once per day each, out of combat only. (Scrolls of these spells are removed from the game.)

This is mostly a quality-of-life tweak, as it reduces (but does not eliminate) the pressure to sort out your sequencers, change your spell choices, and then rest. It also ameliorates what is otherwise a big power disparity between characters who have or have not obtained the scrolls of these spells.

As of v35, this tweak does not affect Sorcerers.

Ease-of-use party AI

This AI script, suitable for all characters, is not intended to help you fight difficult battles, but it might make your life simpler (especially where pre-casting spells is concerned - SCS virtually requires you to do a lot of precombat spellcasting of long-duration spells, but it's tedious to do manually.)

On the Enhanced Edition, the Ease-of-Use AI replaces the standard "advanced AI", and is documented on, and may be customized from, the script control screen. On non-enhanced edition installs, it can be controlled via hotkeys. On Enhanced Edition games, you can change the hotkey choices using the main keybindings menu; to do it on a non-EE install, see(and the choice of hotkey can be customized; see under customization.

Also on the Enhanced Edition, pre-casting is disabled by default for spontaneous casters (sorcerers and shamans). You can re-enable it via the console (see under customization).

On either edition, the script has fairly minimal combat functions: it will attack in melee or at range, prioritising non-helpless opponents, not fighting if the character is turning undead, and not wasting Minute Meteors, Energy Blades or Invisibility. Out of combat, the character will use low-level healing resources if needed, will activate long-duration once-per-day items, and can be instructed to cast long-duration defensive spells on the party by hotkey: C for Chaotic Commands, V for Death Ward, B for Protection from Fire and Protection from Magic Energy, Z for a paladin's Protection from Evil. (These spells are cast at a highly accelerated rate, and will not be cast on characters who are already protected.)

You can further customize the character's action in several ways. The exact details vary between the Enhanced Edition and the original game; see the in-game description of the script for details.

Cosmetic change: stop Stoneskins from changing the caster's colour (BG2,TUTU,BGT)

The Stoneskin spell causes the recipient to turn a uniform grey colour, which is realistic but does get a bit monotonous when your spellcasters are permanently protected by it. Note that this effects NPC mages too. This tweak (which uses Ascension64's "ToB Extender" and so is unavailable on the Enhanced Edition) removes the colour change from the spell.

Improved Textscreens (BGEE,EET)

This small, cosmetic component makes two changes to the textscreens shown in Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition. Firstly, in BGEE the scroll speed is slightly faster than the speed at which the text is read aloud. This doesn't matter in most cases, but in the very long textscreen when you sail to Balduran's Isle, the written and spoken text gets completely out of sync. I slow down the text so that the voiceover remains level with, or slightly ahead of, the displayed text.

Secondly, I turn the text introduction to Ulgoth's Beard itself (which just appears in your text box when you arrive) into a proper (though not voiced) textscreen.

The distinction between this section and the next two ("tactical challenges") is a bit arbitrary, but basically components in this section either don't alter creatures' abilities at all, or do so in a relatively low-key way.

Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components)

This component makes some (mostly minor) tweaks to the spell system, which are assumed by the AI (see here for details). It also carries out some preprocessing that's necessary for any of the other AI/tactical components to function.

(Specifically: it marks up many spells so that the AI can detect them, makes some bugfixes to various creatures with the wrong stats or immunities, creates many resources to be used later, and installs the difficulty control.

Once this component is installed, the difficulty settings in the game will be rebalanced and renamed. There are five standard difficulty settings:

1. BASIC: Enemies choose their targets and use their spells fairly unintelligently. They refrain from using some of their more dangerous special abilities and spells. (This is roughly the level of the unmodified game's 'Core' difficulty.)
2. IMPROVED: Intelligent enemies attack and use their powers fairly sensibly, though most will not use class abilities, and some of their most dangerous special abilities are still avoided.
3. TACTICAL: Enemies continue to use intelligence in their targetting, and now use most of their powers and often call for help from nearby allies. Spellcasters begin casting some spells in advance of combat, especially if they arrive in the area in sight of the party. Some supernatural creatures gain the ability to use their abilities instantly and uninterruptably.
4. HARDCORE: Enemies now use all of their powers as effectively as they can; a small number receive a boost to hit points. Some enemy numbers are increased. Spellcasters more aggressively cast spells in advance. In the later game, some of the most powerful spellcasters begin to use High-Level Abilities.
5. INSANE: Several enemies receive further boosts to their abilities and their numbers; spellcasters aggressively cast spells before combat; use of High-Level Abilities now occurs (for the most powerful spellcasters) throughout the game.

The original game also makes some hardcoded changes to monsters' and party abilities and resistances, depending on the difficulty; in SCS, these are disabled. (On the Enhanced Edition, you can re-enable them via the Gameplay page, during play; on non-Enhanced editions, you can change the ini file to re-enable them when installing this component.) On the Enhanced Edition, you can also play on Legacy of Bhaal (or Heart of Fury on Icewind Dale), which very substantially increases creatures' statistics as well as including all the SCS effects from Insane difficulty.

You can override these difficulty settings for each component separately. This works slightly differently on different versions of the game:

• On Enhanced-Edition installs, a new button has been added to the Gameplay screen. Pressing it brings up a menu which allows you to set a difficulty for each component you have installed. These settings are global: they apply to any game you are playing. (Because this component edits the user interface, there is some chance of compatibility problems with other UI mods. See under Compatibility, above.)
• On non-Enhanced-Edition installs, a new ability has been added to your protagonist's innate ability bar; activating it will bring up a dialog menu that allows you to set a difficulty for each component that you have installed. These settings are specific to your current game (they are stored in your savegame file). if you find the difficulty-control power annoying (and if you have the cheat console enabled) you can remove the control via a dialog option. The control dialog can be activated by typing C:CreateCreature("dw#diffi"). (Power users can also set difficulty variables directly at the console; see under Customisation.)

For a very small number of components, there are additional difficulty settings above INSANE: SUPER-INSANE and LEGACY OF BHAAL (HEART OF FURY in Icewind Dale). These are, intentionally, only activatable using the fine-tuned control (or if you have Legacy of Bhaal / Heart of Fury selected); this is so you don't blame me when your tenth-level party gets eaten by liches using Dragon's Breath.)

Smarter general AI (not IWDEE)

This component improves the generic AI used in melee and ranged combat throughout BG2. In addition, it rearranges creatures' choices of proficiencies and (where appropriate) high-level (non-spellcaster) abilities, assigns kits to some fighters and thieves who don't currently have them, and ensures that creatures have correct (or at any rate consistent!) saving throws, attack rolls, levels, and kit abilities. It will mostly affect fighters, thieves, and monsters without large numbers of special abilities.

Main features of this component include:

• Enemies will try to choose targets more intelligently. This will be most noticeable for ranged attackers - the game's engine makes it difficult to safely tell melee fighters to do much more than "attack nearest".
• Melee attackers will fairly quickly notice that their opponent is immune to their attacks (if you're protected from magic weapons, for instance) and will try someone else; ranged attackers will similarly notice spells like Physical Mirror.
• Thieves will use their backstab and hide-in-shadows power as much as they can, and will avoid wasting backstabs on characters with Stoneskin or Mirror Image.
• Enemies will use potions if they have them (though this component doesn't give them any).
• Enemies with class abilities (e.g. Kai) or high-level abilities (e.g. Whirlwind Attack) will use them.
• Enemies above a certain minimum intelligence will usually prioritise opponents who are not stunned, held or otherwise helpless. From their point of view, they're fighting to win, and if they kill all non-helpless opponents they can finish off the helpless ones at their leisure. (They will, however, finish off nearby vulnerable opponents in preference to chasing up distant ones.)
• In Baldur's Gate I, various creatures who foolishly moved up to talk to the party, or sat immobile while being surrounded, will now initiate conversation at a distance.
• About a dozen (in BG1) or about seventy (in BG2) creatures now have kits assigned. Kits used are archer, assassin, barbarian, berserker, kensai, swashbuckler, and wizard slayer.

This component is sensitive to the difficulty setting (some of these settings apply to Better Calls for Help, below):

• BASIC: Enemies have fairly minimal intelligence, and show little discrimination in how they use their attacks and abilities. Human and demihuman enemies do not use their class abilities and magical items. Groups of creatures will attack together, but will not call for help from other groups.
• IMPROVED: : Enemies become somewhat smarter, avoiding dangerous regions and choosing their targets intelligently; they still do not use items and class abilities. Thieves will attempt to hide if out of sight of the party.
• TACTICAL: Enemies use potions and class abilities if they have them; in particular, thieves will use invisibility potions, if they have them, to get out of sight in combat. Enemies often choose to begin combat at a distance rather than walking up to you for a chat. Intelligent opponents will sometimes call for help from nearby groups. Selected high-level thieves and fighters use High-Level Abilities.
• HARDCORE or harder: all eligible thieves and fighters use High-Level Abilities.

Better calls for help (not IWDEE)

This component substantially improves the (in BG1 almost nonexistent, in BG2 rudimentary) scripting for monsters to help one another. Even the stupidest monsters will fight in groups (so the advance-a-few-steps-at-a-time strategy will fail); intelligent monsters will call out to nearby allies. There are some ways to abuse this component but generally it seems to strike a good compromise between amazingly unrealistic behaviour on the one hand, and the entire map emptying towards you on the other.

This component is sensitive to the difficulty setting; it shares a setting with Smarter General AI, above.

Smarter general AI and better calls for help (IWDEE)

This component is the Icewind Dale version of the Smarter General AI and Better Calls for Help components (for technical reasons they are combined). It mostly works quite similarly: the main difference is that Icewind Dale enemies have a wider variety of targeting preferences in combat ('savage' creatures will prioritize the wounded or disabled; 'brave' creatures will prioritise strong or powerful opponents, 'smart' creatures will prioritise vulnerable opponents but skip disabled opponents; 'stupid' opponents will just attack the closest target).

Smarter mages

This component drastically improves the intelligence of pretty much all the arcane spellcasters (liches, mages, fighter/mages, thief/mages, bards) in the game. It does so in three ways:

1. Better choices of spells and sequencers. The spell lists of mages are systematically restructured to swap useless for useful spells. I've tended to err on the side of variety over usefulness: Maze is less useful than Horrid Wilting but it's still fairly useful, so I've kept it; but Larloch's Minor Drain just can't compete with Magic Missile (unless you're using Spell Revisions), so out it goes. Enemy sequencers, spell triggers, contingencies and the like are all completely reworked. Both the spellswap and the sequencer choice are done at random (though occasionally I've tweaked it for specific mages) - I think an 18th level wizard has about 4000 different possible combinations of contingencies and sequencers! Spell choices, including sequencers and contingencies, will change each time you reinstall SCS .

2. Much better targeting. SCS mages are very, very careful to choose sensible targets for their spells and to avoid silly or unrealistic actions. They will renew magic defences as soon as they are destroyed, try to show some discernment in when to use antimagic attacks, prefer to target fighters with Dire Charm and mages with Power Word: Kill, etc. Multi-class characters will try to intersperse their mage and non-mage abilities. There is quite a lot of randomness, though - partly because it's tactically unwise to use too-fixed a strategy, but mostly for variety.

   SCS tries extremely hard not to cheat. It's impossible within the engine to be completely certain of this, but as far as I can manage, no SCS mage does anything that the party can't (assuming that you have installed the Spell Tweaks components of SCS ). There are two exceptions:

   • NPC-summoned fiends (which are summoned, almost exclusively, by liches) behave a little differently from PC-summoned ones: they remain directly under the control of the caster. (On Enhanced Edition installs, it is actually possible for player characters to acquire this ability, at the risk of their immortal soul.)
   • I assume that NPC wizards (who have years and decades more practice than the PC) can specify the conditions on which their contingencies go off with more discernment than the PC, so I haven't restricted myself to the conditions that the game allows for PC spellcasters. Otherwise, I have kept to the standard Contingency rules even when the unmodded game breaks them (no choosing different targets in the same sequencer; no 9th level spells in Chain Contingency, etc.)

   SCS mages obey the rules on invisibility: only spells which can be cast at a point on the ground can be used against improved-invisible opponents. So they will cast Horrid Wilting or Fireball at your improved-invisible character, but not Breach or Magic Missile. One unavoidable game-engine, glitch, though, is that (unlike with PC spells) an NPC-cast Fireball will land at the feet of its target even if s/he has moved after casting began. I can't do much about this. Note that sequencers cannot be, and are not, targetted at invisible opponents (even if they contain area-effect spells); but note also that liches can see through invisibility (even in the unmodded game).

   Out of mercy, enemy mages won't cast Imprisonment on the main character. If you're masochistic enough to want to change this, enter CLUAConsole:SetGlobal("DMWWImprisonPlayer","GLOBAL",1).

3. SCS allows mages to cast some spells instantly, to simulate casting before battle begins (in BG2 it's very difficult to script enemies to do the sort of pre-battle buffing that PCs can do). The amount of pre-battle casting depends on the difficulty setting.

This component also makes some systematic adjustments in the levels of NPCs. The unmodded game is very inconsistent: it often makes casters much too-low-level for the spells they have (this matters because many spells have different effects at different levels, and also because Dispel Magic depends on the difference in levels between the casters.

Finally, many wizards will be specialists of one sort or another (I use necromancers, conjurers, invokers, and enchanters, and also elementalists if you are using the new arcane spells), and this should - hopefully - lead to a lot more variety in the kind of spell use you see.

The component uses whatever memorization rules are in the game. If you've installed a component which changes the number of spells a caster of a given level can learn, this will apply to enemy mages too; if you've opted for High-Level Abilities to work as innate abilities rather than spells, this is how mages will use them.

Since Irenicus is a mage, this component upgrades him too. He gains no new spells, but he should use his existing spells more effectively, and this makes him a lot more dangerous (particularly in his final incarnation). Illasera is a fighter-mage in the unmodded (non-Ascension) game, so if you don't install Ascension then she gets upgraded. If you have the "Smarter Clerics" component then Sendai is also upgraded (unless you've installed "Tougher Sendai" from the Oversight mod).

Smarter Mages is very sensitive to the difficulty slider: due to its complexity, there are three separate settings.

The main difficulty setting for mages has these effects:

• BASIC: Mages have fairly limited intelligence; they will renew their defenses periodically and to some extent avoid really unwise uses of their magic, but no more. They use only defensive sequencers and contingencies.
• IMPROVED: Mages use their spells intelligently, choosing the most appropriate targets and paying careful attention to their own magical defenses. They will mostly refrain from using offensive sequencers and contingencies.
• TACTICAL: Mages now also use offensive sequencers and contingencies. They have some chance of sensing the presence of invisible opponents and using divination to reveal them.
• HARDCORE and above: Mages capable of casting it will normally use Melf's Minute Meteors (and similar spells) between casting spells.

The prebattle-casting difficulty setting for mages has these effects:

• BASIC: No mages cast spells in advance of combat (though they may still use Sequencers and Contingencies to rapidly raise defenses once combat begins).
• IMPROVED: Mages advance-cast a small number of spells with a duration of at least several hours (like Stoneskin).
• TACTICAL: Mages advance-cast any defensive spells with a duration of at least one turn per level. If they appear in sight of the party, they also advance-cast defensive spells with a duration of at least three rounds per level; if they appear out of sight of the party, they may also advance-cast some long-duration summoning spells.
• HARDCORE: Mages advance-cast any defensive spells with a duration of at least three rounds per level. If they appear in sight of the party, they also advance-cast defensive spells with a duration of at least one round per level.
• INSANE: Mages advance-cast any defensive spells with a duration of at least one round per level.

The High-Level Ability difficulty setting for mages (applies to BG2 only) has these effects:

• TACTICAL and below: No mages use High-Level Abilities.
• HARDCORE: Especially powerful mages use High-Level Abilities, but only in the Throne of Bhaal section of the game.
• INSANE: Especially powerful mages use High-Level Abilities, throughout the game.
• INSANE PLUS: All mages in the Throne of Bhaal section of the game who can cast ninth-level spells use High-Level Abilities. In the rest of the game, only especially powerful mages use them.
• LEGACY OF BHAAL: Any mage in the game capable of casting ninth-level spells uses High-Level Abilities.

Smarter Priests

This component upgrades the intelligence of the clerics and fighter-clerics in the game, in much the same way as the "Smarter Mages" component does for mages etc. It is sensitive to the difficulty setting in the same way as that component (note that priest and mage diffiulty may be set independently).

By default, this component gets enemy druids to use the 'improved shapeshifting' style of shapeshift (made available for players by this component). You can turn this off by setting no_swift_shapeshift to 1 in stratagems.ini (see under customization for more detailed instructions).

If you are using the priest kits from my 'Talents of Faerun' mod, most NPC priests will be assigned a kit and will use that kit's spell choices and special abilities. Across the three games, I use priests of Auril, Bane, Bhaal, Corellon Larethian, Cyric, Gruumsh, Helm, Ilmater, Iyachtu Xvim, Kossuth, Lathander, Lolth, Malar, Mask, Myrkul, Selune, Shar, Talona, Talos, Tempus, Tymora, Tyr, and Umberlee.

Potions for NPC

Potions are one of the most effective and cheap ways for a humanoid creature to enhance its combat ability. The party collect literally hundreds of them through the game and can easily buy hundreds more; it's not that realistic that enemy NPCs don't have them. This component gives healing and protection potions of various sorts to humanoid NPCs; it also gives combat-boosting potions to fighters and invisibility potions to thieves. The potion allocation is based on level (the higher level your opponent, the more likely he is to have good potions); it also requires a higher level for a Throne of Bhaal NPC to have potions than for a Shadows of Amn one, since Throne of Bhaal is crawling with mid-level grunts, and a higher level for a Shadows of Amn NPC than for a BG1 one.

The component also applies to Icewind Dale; however, somewhat fewer Icewind Dale creatures receive potions.

This component "plays fair", in the sense that potions are given to NPCs when they are created, not beamed into existence just in time to be drunk. This means you'll probably end up with (even) more potions if you use this component, since you'll be able to steal a few from enemies who are killed before being able to use them. However (as Alesia_BH pointed out to me on the Bioware boards) it's not exactly unrealistic that glass bottles get smashed in the heat of battle. So be default, only 25% of potions are recoverable. You can tweak this in the ini; see under customization).

The Superior Healing potion only gets given to enemies in Throne of Bhaal (to preserve a flavour difference between the two components).

Improved Spiders (not IWDEE)

This component enhances the AI (and in some cases, the abilities) of most of the spiders you meet in the game. Its effects will be most noticeable in BG1 - it makes the Cloakwood, in particular, quite challenging. Basically, there are two main changes: giant spiders cast (single-target) webs every few rounds, and wrap their opponents in webbing when they bite them, and phase spiders teleport more effectively. All spiders also have an increased predisposition to attack webbed opponents and poison them.

This component is sensitive to the difficulty slider:

• BASIC: Spiders behave mostly as they do in the unmodified game.
• IMPROVED: Phase spiders use their phase-shift ability reasonably intelligently to target opponents, and sometimes use it from off-screen.
• TACTICAL: Giant spiders gain the ability to spit webbing.
• HARDCORE and above: Giant spiders get a modified bite attack that does less poison damage, but wraps the target in webbing.

Smarter sirines and dryads (TUTU/BGT/BGEE/EET)

This component improves the intelligence of sirines - their charms will be better targetted and they make more intelligent use of their invisibility. It also adds a little defensive magic to the hamadryad of the cloakwood - she is hopefully a little more of a challenge now.

Slightly smarter carrion crawlers (TUTU/BGT/BGEE/EET)

This small component gives carrion crawlers a slightly smarter script - they know enough to continue paralysing moving opponents before feeding.

Smarter basilisks (TUTU/BGT/BGEE)

This component spreads basilisks' gaze attacks around, rather than mechanically petrifying the nearest target. More importantly, it gives them the intelligence to see (eventually) that some targets are immune altogether, and to concentrate on others.

Improved Golems (BG2, BG2EE, BGT/EET)

This component doesn't really make golems smarter (they're supposed to be stupid) But it streamlines their scripts a bit, gives their weapons a sensible range, makes them immune to Lower Resistance and to poison, and tries to prevent situations where golems get stuck behind barricades. It also fixes an animation glitch in the Iron Golem animation - this hopefully makes iron golems a bit prettier when they attack and blow clouds. As of version 22, it also gives clay golems a cursed-wound weapon, as in PnP Dungeons & Dragons. (You can turn this off before installing - see the customization section.)

Improved Fiends and Celestials

This component overhauls the "Fiends" (i.e., Baatezu and Tanar'ri, aka Devils and Demons) and "Celestials" (i.e. Devas, Planetars and Solars) throughout the game. More than any other component of this section of SCS , this component not only upgrades their scripting but actually gives them a variety of new magical abilities. I've based the abilities the fiends received on a combination of 2nd and 3rd edition pen-and-paper D&D; details can be found in the Spoilers section. However, the fiends' basic combat abilities and defences remain essentially unchanged: other than a certain amount of systemisation (where two similar-looking fiends have wildly different immunities, for instance) I've left their hit rolls, damage, immunities, magic resistance etc pretty much alone. In fact, in one or two cases I've removed a power (e.g. permanent haste) that seemed to be added as a cheesy way of making a fight harder.

On Enhanced-edition installs, the component also recolors Nabassus (they become green) to make them visually distinguishable from Balors. (You can deactivate this via the Customization options if you want to.)

This component is sensitive to the difficulty setting:

• BASIC: Fiends will attack fairly unintelligently. They will use some of their offensive magical powers, but not the most lethal ones, and mostly will not teleport, attack your magical defenses or renew their own magical defenses.
• IMPROVED: Fiends will choose their targets intelligently, attack your magical defenses, and use most of their offensive magical powers.
• TACTICAL: Fiends can use their magical powers instantly and without risk of spell failure. They will teleport around the battlefield for tactical advantage, try to renew their own defenses, and use virtually all of their magical powers. Demon princes will summon demons once per three rounds.
• HARDCORE: Fiends receive a modest (+50%) boost to their hit points. Balors will use their Implosion power, but only in Throne of Bhaal. Demon princes will summon demons once per two rounds.
• INSANE: Balors will use their Implosion power whenever they are encountered. Demon princes will summon demons once per round.

Smarter Genies (BG2, BG2EE, BGT, EET)

This component improves the various genies (djinni, efreet, and the like) in BG2. Mostly this is done by improving their scripts and systematising the rather chaotic list of spells and abilities that different genies get (in the original game, if you charmed a genie you'd see that it had a totally different list of spells from the ones it was actually using!) However, the component also changes summoned genies so that they count as "Gated" rather than "Summoned"; the practical consequence of this is that they are immune to Death Spell. This makes genie-summoning rather more useful.

This component is sensitive to the difficulty setting:

• BASIC: Genies will attack fairly unintelligently, and mostly do not use their invisibility or protective powers.
• IMPROVED: Genies attack intelligently and use all of their magical powers.
• TACTICAL: Genies can use their magical powers instantly and without risk of spell failure.
• HARDCORE and above: Genies receive a modest (+50%) boost to their hit points.

Smarter Dragons (BG2, BG2EE, BGT, EET, IWDEE)

This component improves the intelligence of all the dragons in the game (including Adalon and Fll'Yissetat, but Abazigal is only modified if you also install the "SCS AI for Ascension" component). It tries to do this without granting them new spell-like abilities (the main grey area is exactly how many spells dragons should have: the unmodded game is somewhat inconsistent about it). At any rate, in play you should - hopefully - see dragons being a bit more discerning with their targeting and their spell priorities.

The component also systemises dragons' immunities to be consistent through the game, modifies dragon breath to penetrate magic resistance (the unmodded game is a bit inconsistent on this point, but since the spell Dragon's Breath goes through MR, presumably real dragon breath should too!) and lets dragons cast spells at a more realistic level (usually 15-25 or so).

On higher difficulty settings, the component increases dragon hit points very substantially - tripling them, in fact. At the moment dragons have about 200 hp, which by the late stages of Shadows of Amn really isn't enough to go toe-to-toe with an entire party. Somehow, it doesn't seem right that dragons have to rely on Stoneskin and Protection from Magic Weapons - this component gives them the ability to hang around in battle for longer.

This component is sensitive to the difficulty setting:

• BASIC: Dragons behave essentially as they do in the unmodified game, though they do not use spell sequencers and triggers.
• IMPROVED: Dragons use spell sequencers and triggers, and are intelligent enough to attack pre-emptively if the party is clearly preparing to attack them.
• TACTICAL: Dragons gain the power to cast their spells instantly and without risk of spell failure.
• HARDCORE: Dragons gain a significant (+ 200%) boost to hit points.
• INSANE: Dragons have a 50% chance each round to regain use of their breath weapon.

Smarter Beholders (BG2, BG2EE, BGT, EET,IWDEE)

This component upgrades the AI of the beholders, gauths, elder orbs and hive mothers in SoA and ToB. (It basically tries to do it non-cheesily, but it's hard to define this exactly since beholder powers are almost all scripted). Beholders get to use their eyestalks about once per ten seconds each, but they will tend to manage to get through more of them in a round; their targeting has also been drastically improved (the new scripts are about 150 times the length of the old ones!)

In accordance with PnP 2nd edition rules, beholders are now immune to most (not all) of their own eyestalks, which makes them more willing to bombard their way through Spell Deflection. I have added a Telekinesis eyestalk (more for fun than for increased challenge). And I have borrowed, with thanks, the Quest Pack component which allows beholders to lose their eyestalks when damaged. Beholders are also unable to use eyestalk powers when blinded (although their allies may use anti-magic rays to remove the blindness).

Hive mothers use the same range of powers as in the original game, but use them more efficiently, and use their eyestalks in the gap while they're waiting to cast spells again. Elder orbs were tricky because of the rather inconsistent range of powers they show in the unmodded game, but I have interpreted them as casting spells just as standard mages do, and as knowing 2 spells of each level. Their choice of spell, and of Contingency, Spell Trigger et al, has been optimised more, and they too use eyestalk powers while waiting to cast again (and show a preference for short-casting-time spells, so as to allow more eyestalk use.)

It might be worth noting that, even in the unmodded game, hive mothers can see through invisibility (though elder orbs cannot).

In addition, SCS beholders use an alternative form of their antimagic ray. In pen-and-paper D&D, a beholder's eyestalk blocks all magical effects, beneficial or otherwise, on the target for as long as it's targetted. In BG2, the eye is more powerful: it removes all magical effects, blocks spellcasting for several rounds, but doesn't block enemy magic attacks (including the beholder's other eyestalks). If this component is installed, the beholder antimagic ray blocks all magical effects, including harmful ones, for one round, and also disables magical activity (spellcasting etc) by the target for one round; this is supposed to simulate the beholder bathing the target with its antimagic ray for one round.

This component is sensitive to the difficulty setting:

• BASIC: Beholders use mostly their less-lethal eyestalks (Charm, Fear, Domination, Paralysis, Cause wounds, Slow) and do not use their magic-suppressing central eye. Hive Mothers use only their weaker magic.
• IMPROVED: Beholders also use their central eye against mages and party defenses. Hive Mothers use their full range of spells.
• TACTICAL: Beholders use their Death, Petrification and Telekinesis eyestalks; they use the Telekinesis eyestalk to steal some party items (notably the Shield of Balduran, if you have it).
• HARDCORE: Beholders steal items slightly more quickly.
• INSANE: Beholders use their Disintegrate eyestalk.

Smarter Mind Flayers (BG2, BG2EE, BGT, EET)

This component improves the intelligence of the mind-flayers and their kin (specifically, it upgrades flayers, ulitharids, vampiric illithids, and the Master Brain). It allows the illithids to use a somewhat wider range of abilities than before (notably, they have access to a few physical psionic attacks, like Ballistic Attack, and they can astrally travel to more convenient bits of the battlefield); it significantly improves their targetting; it allows them to use each power every 2-4 rounds and choose the most appropriate available power; it lets them avoid attacking targets who are immune to their abilities or to their physical attacks.

The component also makes a few changes in how psionic powers work. It mildly increases the damage done by physical psionic attacks (though not to anything like the extent that Tactics does) and it changes "anti-psionic" items so that they do not protect from physical psionic attacks. (On my interpretation, "Ballistic attack" involves using psionics on a rock, not on a PC). This gives illithids a few more options when facing enemies who are shielded from mental attack. The component also systematises illithid magic resistance and level, so that all of them are 90% magic resistant (previously there were a few exceptions) and the same level. As of version 16, it allows illithids' detonation power to destroy skeletons automatically (in accordance with the 2nd edition rules, as it happens).

If the "Smarter Mages" component and this one are both installed, the Alhoon is also upgraded. I interpret him as a L18 mage with the psionic powers of an ulitharid, I also give him the "split mind" psionic power, which allows him to cast a spell and use a psionic power in the same round. (Yes, purists, this is a valid 2nd edition psionic power!) This guy is now fairly dangerous.

This component is sensitive to the difficulty setting:

• BASIC: Illithids use few powers, and use them fairly unintelligently.
• IMPROVED: Illithids use Maze and telekinetic attacks; their general targetting intelligence improves.
• TACTICAL: Illithids' inhumanly high intelligence means that they can ignore Invisibility spells. They use Astral Travel to move quickly around the battlefield, and are too alert for resting to be viable in their cities.
• HARDCORE and above: Illithids' strange physiology and psionic protections grant them 50% resistance to physical damage. Illithids use their psionics to quickly destroy nonliving opponents such as skeletons.

Improved Vampires (BG2, BG2EE, BGT, EET)

This component upgrades vampires' intelligence and abilities, roughly in line with pen-and-paper Dungeons and Dragons. They should target their magic more effectively, pick on people vulnerable to their level drain, and so forth. The component also standardises vampire statistics a bit (usually increasing vampire ability scores slightly). It allows vampires to summon wolves, bats, or rats (the bat summoning was present in earlier versions but has been toned down), to drink blood (which drains Constitution) as well as draining levels, and to make much more use of their various shapeshifting abilities (bat, rat, wolf, gas cloud).

This component does affect Bodhi, but only if you don't install the "Improved Bodhi" component (in other words, if you want Bodhi to use her original-game abilities more effectively but don't want to give her the extra powers of that component, install Smarter Vampires but not Improved Bodhi).

This component is sensitive to the difficulty slider:

• BASIC: Vampires fight fairly unintelligently and do not use their supernatural abilities, other than occasional shapeshifting.
• IMPROVED: Vampires show more care in choosing their targets, actively seeking vulnerable targets; they use their dominating gaze on opponents.
• TACTICAL: Some vampires summon rats, bats or wolves to aid them. All vampires gain the ability to drink blood (draining Constitution) as well as attacking with energy drain. Some powerful vampires gain other supernatural powers.
• HARDCORE and above: Some more powerful vampires gain further supernatural powers, mesmerising their opponents or taking mist form to sneak up on them.

Smarter Githyanki (BG2, BG2EE, BGT, EET)

This component improves the githyanki in the game, mostly through better scripting for their psionic powers (those which they demonstrate in-game in one way or another), although it does also slightly raise the level of some of the stronger gith. It also makes the same general upgrade to psionics that the "Smarter Mind Flayers" component does. Finally, it upgrades the githyanki lair in ToB by the rather simple expedient of opening all the doors. ("Sir, just a suggestion, but maybe we should fall on our enemies all at once rather than dividing our forces into four bite-sized chunks?")

Smarter Throne of Bhaal final villain (BG2, BG2EE, BGT, EET)

This component upgrades the AI of the final villain of Throne of Bhaal, in both their Ascension and non-Ascension forms. I try fairly hard to use only those abilities actually demonstrated in-game, although I do fix a bug in the non-Ascension version whereby their last form wasn't using quite the right script.

Revised Icewind Dale undead (IWDEE)

This component slightly alters the capabilities of some of the Icewind Dale undead (at present, wights, mummies and the single lich are affected). They are altered to be closer to their pen-and-paper abilities; the lich also gets the benefit of SCS mage scripting.

Smarter Illasera (BG2, BG2EE, BGT, EET - requires Ascension)

This component changes the AI of the Ascension version of Illasera (and her flunkies) to match the SCS norm. Hopefully this makes them more rather than less dangerous (although Ascension AI is pretty good, so I'd welcome feedback).

This component has no effect on the non-Ascension version of Illasera (who is a standard fighter/mage and gets modified by the "Smarter Mages" component). Both the original and the finale versions are affected.

Smarter Gromnir (BG2, BG2EE, BGT, EET - requires Ascension)

This component changes the AI of the Ascension version of Gromnir Il-Khan (and his flunkies) to match the SCS norm. Hopefully this makes them more rather than less dangerous (although Ascension AI is pretty good, so I'd welcome feedback). Both the original and the finale versions are affected.

This component has no effect on the non-Ascension version of Gromnir (who is a standard fighter and gets modified by the "Smarter General AI" component).

Smarter Yaga-Shura (BG2, BG2EE, BGT, EET - requires Ascension)

This component changes the AI of the Ascension version of Yaga-Shura (and his flunkies) to match the SCS norm. Hopefully this makes them more rather than less dangerous (although Ascension AI is pretty good, so I'd welcome feedback). Both the original and the finale versions are affected. The finale version no longer has the slowly-decreasing damage resistance, since that doesn't make sense absent the events that cause it in Chapter 8; his damage resistances start at their final values.

This component has no effect on the non-Ascension version of Yaga-Shura (who is a standard fighter and gets modified by the "Smarter General AI" component).

Smarter Abazigal (BG2, BG2EE, BGT, EET - requires Ascension)

This component tries to upgrade the AI of Abazigal. Both his humanoid and dragon forms are affected; if you have Ascension installed, so is the finale form of Abazigal, and so is his companion Tamah. I try to systematise Abazigal's magical talents a bit, but I don't do anything for which there isn't some existing in-game justification.

Give Ascension versions of Irenicus and Sendai SCS abilities and AI (BG2, BG2EE, BGT, EET - requires Ascension)

Ascension demons use SCS abilities and AI (BG2, BG2EE, BGT - requires Ascension)

These components do exactly what they say: they modify these aspects of Ascension to fit the SCS norm. (Note that only the chapter 10 version of Sendai is affected: the chapter 9 version will use SCS scripting anyway.)

Though the distinction isn't hard-and-fast, components in this section are less concerned with improving the intelligence of creatures, more concerned with increasing their abilities and numbers. (Though hopefully, creatures remain intelligent and changes remain fairly low-key.) All components in this section are for TUTU/BGT/BGEE installs.

Improved doppelgangers (not IWDEE)

The doppelgangers in chapter 5 and later are by and large nothing like powerful enough to be an interesting challenge to a Tutu party at that level. This component (which has been overhauled for version 22) improves them mostly by systematising up, so that all ordinary Dopplegangers you meet are as powerful as the toughest ordinary Dopplegangers, and similarly for Greater Dopplegangers. It also increases the power and resources of the doppleganger assassins you meet late in chapter 7, giving them access to some spellcasting power.

This component is sensitive to the difficulty slider:

• TACTICAL and below: Doppelgangers are at their baseline level.
• HARDCORE

Tougher Black Talons and Iron Throne guards

This component upgrades the Black Talon Elite and (most of) the Iron Throne mercenaries to L5 fighters. This doesn't have that much effect on the Black Talons (though they are now immune to Sleep); it's quite a substantial boost for some of the Iron Throne flunkies.

Improved Deployment for Parties of Assassins

Two groups of assassins (one made up mostly of dwarves and gnomes, one made up entirely of amazons) hang out in the vicinity of Gullykin. This component removes them from there and makes them proactively hunt the party down instead - they'll show up at random times in chapter 3 once the main character hits third level.

As of version 24, the assassins spawn in the usual random-encounter areas on TUTU and BGEE games, and on BGT games with BGSpawns or BGT-Tweaks spawns. (The old behaviour is fun, but a repeated source of bug reports!) If you want to hold on to the old version, you can force it via the ini file.

Improved kobolds

This component substantially increases the number of kobolds met, and adds some tougher "Guards" and "Chieftains" - the Nashkel Mine becomes less of a walkover, especially if "Better calls for help" is also being used.

This component is substantially based on a small subcomponent of the old "Dark Side of the Sword Coast" mod for BG.

Warning: this is, surprisingly to me, one of the more controversial components, as it's really a fairly sharp increase in difficulty. If your usual play-style is to go to the Nashkel Mines at first level, you may find it tediously difficult (both because you're too low-level to cope with the kobolds, and because you haven't had a chance to get used to SCS).

Relocated bounty hunters

In the original game, a tough group of bounty hunters are waiting pointlessly in a locked building in the Docks, with no explanation as to why. This small component moves them to somewhere more interesting - see here to find out where, if you want to spoil the suspense.

Improved Ulcaster

This component improves two of the tougher monsters in Ulcaster: Icharyd and the Vampiric Wolf. Both are pretty straightforward opponents in Tutu (more so than I remember from the original BG) and this component gives them a fighting chance. Both gain a few more hit points and some special powers (the Vampiric Wolf's powers are specific to the one in the ruins, they don't apply to all vampiric wolves).

Improved Balduran's Isle

This component makes a number of changes to the "Balduran's Isle" component of Tales of the Sword Coast. A couple of the main fights are made more interesting and the dialogue with Kaishas and Mendas is substantially altered. It is now possible to seek a significantly less bloody resolution to the island voyage. (See here for details.)

The non-tactical part of this component is now also a component in "The Calling", a new Gibberlings Three mod. They are compatible; install the Calling first.

Improved Durlag's Tower

This component improves the tactical challenge of a number of the key battles in Durlag's Tower. It is designed to be used with the "Smarter Mages" and "Smarter Priests" components, though it's playable without them. (See here for details.)

Several of these battles are now quite hard, though still perfectly doable by a seventh-eighth level party.

This component is sensitive to the difficulty slider:

• BASIC: The guardians of the first level (Love, Pride etc.) use no supernatural abilities.
• IMPROVED: The guardians use their supernatural powers, but quite infrequently.
• TACTICAL: The guardians use their supernatural powers more frequently.
• HARDCORE and above: The guardians use their powers almost constantly. The Demon Knight's mirror generates copies of the party, not generic Mirror Fiends, and the Demon Knight itself is significantly enhanced.

Improved Demon Cultists

This component ups the capabilities of the demon cultists you meet in TotSC. (See here for details.) It's also pretty difficult for a party that isn't already 7th-8th level - be warned.

Improved Cloakwood druids

The druids of the cloakwood, even with improved scripting, are a pushover for a well-played party. This component increases their levels slightly and gives each a couple of low-level acolytes.

Improved Bassilus

This component slightly increases Bassilus's level; it also makes his undead flunkies die off a little less quickly even if you say the right thing to him.

Improved Drasus party

This component upgrades the group of mercenaries you meet in chapter 4 guarding the Cloakwood mines: each gains a couple of levels.

Improved Red Wizards

This component adds three levels to each of the Red Wizards of Thay you can meet in the Wood of Sharp Teeth.

Improved Undercity assassins

This component enhances the (optional) final group of assassins you meet - each gains about three levels.

Improved Carsa/Kahrk interaction

At Firewine Bridge, you meet a crazed mage (Carsa) with a bottle that contains a powerful Ogre Mage (Kahrk). If you insist on taking the bottle from her, she releases Kahrk and dies; otherwise, she runs off.

SCS's 'Improved Mages' component makes Kahrk rather dramatically more powerful than he is in unmodded BG, giving rise to an accidental boss fight. But awkwardly, you can't delay this fight until you're ready for it, because Carsa initiates contact and will run away permanently if you don't - you have to metagame by not entering her area until you want the encounter.

This component modifies Carsa's dialog so that she will just hang around at Firewine Bridge if you don't take her bottle from her. It also (as an exception to usual SCS policy) adds a new treasure (a magical katana) to Kahrk, in keeping with his optional-boss status. (You can disable this at the ini if you want to.) Kahrk uses this new weapon in combat but otherwise he is not further improved by this component (but by all accounts he's pretty nasty just from Smarter Mages).

As a consequence of Carsa's modified behavior, there is also now a (somewhat narrow) way to defeat Kahrk without killing her.

Tougher chapter-two end battle

Tougher chapter-three end battle

Tougher chapter-four end battle

Tougher chapter-five end battle

These components improve the strength and numbers of the opposition in the end battles in chapters 2-5 - they are "upgraded" rather than massively overhauled, so they still aren't ridiculously hard. See here for details. (There isn't currently a version for chapter 6 - I was dissatisfied with my previous one but haven't gotten around to putting something new together.)

Improved final battle

By the end of the Tutu version of TotSC, the final battle of BG isn't much of a challenge. This component tries to change that and provide a worthier finale to the adventure. It turns out that Sarevok didn't just flee to the Temple of Bhaal because it looked pretty - he has other surprises... (see here for details).

Improved miscellaneous encounters

This component mildly increases the difficulty of a half-dozen or so battles scattered through the game, usually by increasing opponents' levels by one or two. It creates "divertingly" difficult fights rather than really stiff challenges. See here for the specific battles if you want to spoil the surprise!

Though the distinction isn't hard-and-fast, components in this section are less concerned with improving the intelligence of creatures, more concerned with increasing their abilities and numbers. (Though hopefully, creatures remain intelligent and changes remain fairly low-key.) All components in this section are for BG2, BG2EE, BGT installs.

Make the starting dungeon slightly harder

This is a very low-key modification to the initial dungeon. It replaces the pathetic goblins with duergar (which I think has a better "feel" to it in any case) and it prevents you from sleeping more than once. (I allow you to sleep once because (i) it gives you a chance to choose your spells, and (ii) Imoen has some rest-related dialogue that I don't want to block.)

Improved Shade Lord

This component upgrades the Shade Lord, mostly by giving him additional magical powers (though his hit points are also increased). Unlike most SCS components, this one doesn't make any particular effort to stick with the vanilla game or with anything from PnP source material: like the Wolf of Ulcaster, the Shade Lord has his own unique abilities.

Spellcasting Demiliches

This component (which requires "smarter mages") makes demiliches more like their third-edition versions. The demilich Imprisonment ability has been nerfed: it now grants a saving throw vs. death at -5, although it also causes level drain even on a successful save. Demiliches are still 100% immune to magic, but they are not additionally immune to spells of L6 or above (this means that high-level antimagic works on them).

On the other hand, demiliches are now by-the-book 35th level wizards with significantly accelerated casting times (and the ability to use their Imprisonment ability in the same round that they cast a spell). (Only the demilich in WK has access to HLAs.) The net effect should be to make demiliches quite significantly more dangerous.

Tie difficulty of level-dependent monster groupings to the difficulty slider

At various points in the unmodded game, BG2 chooses the strength of the monsters you face based on your level. Typically there are four encounters, and which one you get depends on your experience level.

This component causes the game to give you somewhat tougher choices. It is sensitive to the difficulty setting:

• IMPROVED and below:Random monster spawns are as in the unmodified game (so, tied to level and game progression).
• TACTICAL: Random monster spawns are slightly enhanced from the unmodified game.
• HARDCORE: Random monster spawns are significantly enhanced from the unmodified game.
• INSANE: Random monster spawns are very significantly enhanced from the unmodified game.
• LEGACY OF BHAAL:Random monster spawns are maximum difficulty, whatever your level or chapter.

Improved Random Encounters

This component adds a little more variety and challenge to the "You have been waylaid by enemies" encounters. The main point of this component was not so much to make random encounters more difficult (though it does that too, to some extent) as to make them less repetitive - there are now about a dozen encounters, and the order in which they occur is somewhat randomised.

Improved D'Arnise Keep

This component adds more trolls to the keep, including some powerful spellcasting spirit trolls, and upgrades Torgal a bit.

The component, though not identical to the "Tougher Torgal" component of Tactics, is strongly influenced by it. The main differences from the Tactics version are a wider variety of troll reinforcements (not just spirit trolls) and a (hopefully!) cleverer, but slightly less tough, Torgal (who, in this version, has not stolen one of the flail heads).

Improved Unseeing Eye

The original Unseeing Eye is actually a fairly ineffectual high-level spellcaster. This component shifts it into an Elder Orb (I assume that, just as the Eye grants magical sight to its blind followers, so it grants itself the magical use of its eyestalks even though strictly it's blind; I do assume its central eye is inoperative, though) and makes it virtually immune to damage (Demilich-level immunities) until the Rift device is used. Even once the device is used, the Eye will still put up a reasonable fight.

Improved Bodhi

This component is inspired by the Improved Bodhi in Westley Weimer's Tactics mod. To quote from the readme to that mod:

Sigh. Bodhi is worth 91K XP -- more than almost anything else in the game. And yet she is a mere brute-force melee fighter who doesn't even drink healing potions. We make her more intelligent ... and give her some impressive pseudo-magical powers associated with vampires of myth and legend. Bodhi gains dominion over bats, the cold, the ground and the grave.

The SCS version of Improved Bodhi is updated to use modern WeiDU coding (to help with compatibility-friendliness) and SCS AI scripting.

You can fight Bodhi in chapters 3 and 6; in chapter 3 (again, following Tactics) she'll pull her punches.

This component is sensitive to the difficulty setting:

• BASIC: Bodhi is protected only by fledgling vampires and by a few other undead, and uses few supernatural abilities.
• IMPROVED: Bodhi uses her Buried Alive (slowing and weakening), Touch of Death (vampiric touch) and Call of the Mistress (control undead) supernatural powers; her allies include two full-strength vampires.
• TACTICAL: Bodhi also uses her Cloud of Bats (similar to Insect Plague), Abyssal Darkness (blindness) and Sepulchral Sleep (unconsciousness). Her allies now include four adult vampires.
• HARDCORE: Bodhi also uses her Chill of the Grave (cold damage) supernatural power; she is served by two vampire mages.
• INSANE: Bodhi's physical abilities and resistances are substantially enhanced (matching the original Tactics version); she gains a permanent Deathly Shroud (cold fire shield) and is immune to first and second level spells. Two ancient vampires join her defenders.

Ascension version of Bodhi uses Improved-Bodhi abilities

This component extends 'improved Bodhi' to apply to the version of Bodhi you encounter in Ascension. It (obviously) requires both Ascension and Improved Bodhi.

Party's items are taken from them in Spellhold

This component does essentially what it says: when the party are captured in chapter 4, their equipment is taken from them and they have to survive the maze beneath Spellhold without it. A small amount of nonmagical equipment is available relatively quickly in the Asylum. Players (even solo players) might want to note that Imoen does carry the Enchanted Weapon spell.

This component is rather similar to a component of the "Big Picture" mod, but it's coded rather differently: most importantly, it creates a dynamic list of all the items in the game, which should prevent the "missing-item" bugs that caused some problems with the Big Picture component. It's compatible with the Big Picture version in the following sense: if you install the SCS version after the BP version, SCS dynamic-item-generation will be added to the BP version but that version will otherwise be left alone. Don't install the BP version after the SCS version, though.

This component is sensitive to the difficulty setting:

• TACTICAL or lower: A Clay Golem (hard to injure, and with cursed wounds in SCS) is removed from the Asylum.
• HARDCORE or above: The Clay Golem is left in place.

Improved battle with Irenicus in Spellhold

This component improves the clones summoned by Irenicus in the end-of-chapter-4 battle (see the Spoilers for details).

Improved Sahuagin

This component improves all sahuagin in the game (but especially the ones in the sunken city). No new creatures are added, and no special powers are granted, but the sahuagin statistics are systematised and generally improved slightly, and their scripting is smarter. (Various clues in the vanilla game suggest that sahuagin priestesses are cleric/mages; I disregard this and treat them as standard clerics.)

Overall, this component should be a bit more difficult than the vanilla sahuagin, but nothing like as powerful as Tactics' Improved Sahuagin.

Improved beholder hive

This component (adapted from Quest Pack) adds a few extra beholders to the hive in the Underdark, notably including a Hive Mother.

This component is sensitive to the difficulty setting:

• BASIC: The Elder Orb moves to a more sensible place in the hive, but there are no other changes.
• IMPROVED: A beholder is added to the hive.
• TACTICAL: A Hive Mother and a beholder are added to the hive.
• HARDCORE: A Hive Mother, a beholder, and two Death Tyrants are added to the hive.
• INSANE: A Hive Mother, three beholders, two Death Tyrants, and two gauth are added to the hive.

Rebalanced Troll Regeneration

By default, the trolls in Infinity Engine games regenerate slowly, but upon being reduced to 1 hp go into a coma - in the coma they can be killed by fire or acid but are immune to all other effects. By fairly common consent, this doesn't work so well. Troll regeneration is too slow to make much difference in combat, and the iconic role of fire or acid is reduced to a coup de grace. (It doesn't help that the actual implementation is a bit glitchy, with trolls often taking a while to enter their coma phase.)

This component (inspired by the Pathfinder RPG) makes two modifications to trolls. Firstly, their base regeneration rate is doubled, and while regenerating they cannot die (they still go into a coma at 1 hp). But secondly, any time they take fire or acid damage their regeneration is halted for one round. So as long as you keep fire or acid damage active on a troll, they can be harmed and killed normally - but if you stop doing so, they will rapidly recover.

(There is actually a third modification: for technical reasons, fire and acid do one extra point of damage to trolls.)

Improved Drow

This component makes a number of small improvements to the drow of chapter 5 (it doesn't affect the drow of Sendai's enclave). It slightly increases the combat proficiency of drow soldiers, it adds a few extra drow to one of the Underdark ambushes and a few extra priests to the Ghaunadans; it improves the drow battlegroup defending the doors to the Underdark; it slightly optimises House Jae'llat nobles and adds one more noble and a few commoner priests and mages.

Notably, it also dramatically beefs up the defences of Ust Natha (as of version 8. The place is a drow city, not the kind of place that even a 15th level adventuring party should be able to wipe out. Now, more defenders will continuously spawn. Initially, this will be disorganised, low-level groups. After that, the drow will get more organised and start sending serious war-parties against the party. Eventually truly powerful groups of mages and high priestesses will turn up.

Warning: this component is not intended to make the conquest of the drow city somewhat more interesting and challenging: it is meant to make it virtually impossible, especially on higher difficulty settings. It's possible to beat the drow and conquer Ust Natha without exploits, but it will be extremely difficult and it's not the intended playstyle (i.e., if you manage to do it, don't complain to me that it's too difficult or time-consuming!) The sane thing to do is to get out as soon as you can; even that will probably be a bit trickier than usual.

This component is sensitive to the difficulty setting:

• BASIC: Ust Natha is defended by two disorganised groups of drow and one elite force of mages and clerics.
• IMPROVED: Ust Natha is defended by four disorganised groups of drow and one elite force of mages and clerics.
• TACTICAL: Ust Natha is defended by four disorganised groups, an organised war party and three elite groups.
• HARDCORE: Ust Natha is defended by four disorganised groups, three organised war parties, an elite group of mages, and a Matron Mother with demonic allies.
• INSANE: Ust Natha is defended by four disorganised groups, seven organised war parties, two elite groups of mages and clerics, an elite group of mages, and a Matron Mother with demonic allies.

Improved Watcher's Keep

This component makes small changes to a few areas in Watcher's Keep to make them more tactically interesting. The changes aren't too dramatic; they shouldn't change the feel of the place much. See the spoilers section for details.

Improved Fire Giant Temple

This component improves various aspects of the Yaga-Shura part of chapter 8. Fire giants acquire some high-level abilities; elemental creatures are slightly improved and given better scripts; a couple of bonus monsters are added.

Improved Sendai's Enclave

This component improves a number of sections of the approach to Sendai. Drow spellcasters become slightly higher-level and can summon more dangerous allies; the drow war-parties are tougher and reinforced by other creatures; the illithid ambush is less of a joke. Also, the final battle with Sendai is modified: no actual creature in the battle is altered at all (though other components of SCS will alter them) but the statues activate and attack in a more efficient fashion.

Improved Abazigal's Lair

This component improves some parts of Abazigal's lair by adding several new encounters and toughening up the existing ones. See the spoilers for details.

Improved Minor Encounters

This component slightly improves the difficulty of a small number of encounters scattered across the game (see spoilers for details).

A significant amount of "fine tuning" of SCS is available over and above your install options and the difficulty settings. There are three ways to do this: the console, the ini file, and override files. The first is done during play after installing; the other two must be done before installing.

Note that just because I make the option available, that doesn't mean I recommend using it! All this section is "at own risk" to a greater or lesser degree.

The console can be accessed in the original version of the game by (1) adding the line "Cheats=1" (without the quote marks) to the baldur.ini file in your game directory, just below the line "[Game Options]", and then (2) pressing CTRL-SPACE in-game. For the advanced version of the game it's marginally more complicated, so I'll just get you to google for it.

The options are all controlled by setting certain global variables, which is done by typing this command:

C:SetGlobal("[Global to set]","GLOBAL",[value to set it to])

So for instance, to set the variable SeduceBodhi to 3, type

C:SetGlobal("SeduceBodhi","GLOBAL",3).

If you're not playing on the Enhanced Edition, replace "C:" with "CLUAConsole:", as in

CLUAConsole:SetGlobal("SeduceBodhi","GLOBAL",3).

The variables that can be set in SCS are these (all start as 0):

• DMWWDisableBeholderTheft - set to 1 if you want to block beholders from stealing the Cloak of Mirroring or the Shield of Balduran with their telekinesis eye.
• DMWWImprisonPlayer - set to 1 if you want enemy spellcasters to try using Imprisonment on your main character - which, be warned, ends the game if they succeed. (If you are using either Spell Revisions or TheBigg's safe version of Imprisonment, this is controlled by DMWWMazePlayer instead.)
• DMWWMazePlayer - set to 1 if you want enemy spellcasters to avoid using Maze on your main character (which ends the game on solo mode, and which some people dislike even in group play). Note that the convention is opposite to DMWWMazePlayer, because I use Maze by default.
• DMWWDisintegratePlayer - set to 1 if you want enemy spellcasters (and beholders) to try using Disintegrate on your main character; set to 2 if you want them to be willing to use triple-disintegrate sequencers on your main character. This only applies to Spell Revisions.
• DMWWPetrifyPlayer - set to 1 if you want enemy spellcasters (and beholders, and dao) to try using Flesh to Stone on your main character.
• DMWWNeutralPrebuff - set to 1 to allow neutral mages and priests to have long-term defences like Stoneskin in place, rather than insta-casting them when they go hostile. (Arguably this is more realistic, but it can be offputting.)
• DMWWTimestopMeleeAlways - set to 1 if you want to allow enemy fighter-mages (this in particular affects Irenicus in Hell) and Melissan to attack during Timestop spells. (By default, they only do so on INSANE difficulty, or TACTICAL difficulty for Melissan.)
• DMWWTimestopMeleeNever - set to 1 if you want to block Timestop melee even on the hardest difficulty settings.
• DMWWIllithidsAreVisible - set to 1 if you want to prevent Illithids (on Tactical difficulty or above) from being invisible by default even when the player is not in sight.
• DMWWNoSkeletonDetonate - set to 1 if you want to prevent Illithids (on Hardcore difficulty or above) from using their psionics to destroy skeletons.
• DMWWBonusMerchantSpawn - set to 3 if you're bored of waiting for Joluv and Deirdre to show up.
• DMWWNoFiendTeleport - set to 1 if you want to block fiends from using Teleport Without Error.
• DMWWNoSkeletonDetonate - set to 1 if you don't want illithids' psionic detonation to destroy skeletons.
• DMWWSorcerersBuff - set to 1 if you want the Ease-of-Use AI to get sorcerers to auto-cast spells.
• DMWWShamansBuff - set to 1 if you want the Ease-of-Use AI to get shamans to auto-cast spells.

In addition, on non-EE installs all the difficulties for the individual components are controlled by global variables, on this scale: 0=DEFAULT (i.e., follow the slider), 1=BASIC, 2=IMPROVED, 3=TACTICAl, 4=HARDCORE, 5=INSANE, 6=INSANE PLUS, 7=LEGACY OF BHAAL. If you want to bypass the innate-ability dialog and set the difficulty directly at the console, you can find the variable names in stratagems/lib/data/difficulty_controls.2da.

The file "stratagems.ini", found in the stratagems directory, allows fine-tuning of install options not available via the main installer. To do this, just edit the file in Notepad or another text editor. Each line consists of a configuration option, then '=', then a number (or in one case a string). The only thing you should edit is the number (or string).

The current player-usable options are listed below, by section. (Don't change anything not listed; these are work-in-progress and/or part of the testing framework.) I list the default value in parentheses after the setting.

Spell system changes

These variables all control the individual changes to the spell system (see documentation here). Setting each to 1 disables the respective change.

Nerfed items

These variables control the individual item tweaks in the 'Move or modify some overpowered items' component (see full details here). Setting each to 1 disables the respective change.

Component tweaks

These make small changes to individual components.

• Mage_Level_Add(0) - this value is applied as an additive modifier to the level of all mages in the game (subject to a minimum level of 1 and a maximum of 40). So if you set it to "-5", all mages will be 5 levels lower than in the baseline install.
• Mage_Level_Scale(100) - this value (which must be a positive integer) is applied as a percentage scale to the level of all mages in the game (subject to a minimum level of 1 and a maximum of 40). So if you set it to 125, all mages will be 25 percent higher level than in the baseline install. Mage_Level_Scale is evaluated before Mage_Level_Add.
• Priest_Level_Add, Priest_Level_Scale - as above, but for priests
• No_Deployment_Change(0) - set to 1 to bypass the changes in (BG1) deployment made by the "Smarter general AI" component. (This reverts to the setup where creatures stand around waiting to be attacked, or come up to you to talk to you before attacking.)
• No_Cursed_Golem_Wounds(0) - set to 1 to bypass the cursed wounds caused by Clay Golems.
• Bypass_Dragon_Immunity_Changes(0) - set to 1 to prevent "Smarter Dragons" systematising the various immunities available to dragons.
• Spellhold_Easycore(0) - set to 1 to get access to your stolen items (in "party items are removed") before the final confrontation with Irenicus. (This mildly tangles up the plot.)
• Fiend_Staying_Power(150) - this is the actual percentage multiplier for the hit points of fiends if you install the "increased fiend hit points" subcomponent.
• Dragon_Staying_Power(300), Genie_Staying_Power(150) - as for "Fiend_Staying_Power".
• Sendai_Component_Is_Sendai_Only(0) - if set to 1, the Sendai's Enclave component only enhances the final encounter with Sendai.
• Force_Old_Assassin_Spawn(0) - if set to 1, the C3 assassins spawn in the old (pre v24) fashion.
• No_Spirit_Troll_Magic(0) - if set to 1, the enhanced spirit trolls are removed from "tougher d'Arnise Hold". (They're included by default.)
• No_Swift_Shapeshift(0) - if set to 1, druids will not use their swift-shapeshift powers.
• Potion_Version(6) - this controls what fraction of enemies' potions break and are lost. Takes a value from 0 to 8; the fraction of lost potions is this number divided by eight.
• Dispel_Arrow_Maximum(5) - this controls the maximum number of dispelling arrows permitted by the 'reduce dispelling arrows in stores' component.
• Do_Not_Lose_Soul(0) - if set to 1, demon summoning will not endanger your party members' immortal souls.
• Keep_Cause_Wounds_Alignment_Restrictions(1) - if set to 1, the Icewind Dale alignment restrictions will continue to apply to Cause Wounds spells.
• Troll_Regen_Multiplication(2) - this is the amount that troll regeneration is multiplied by in the 'rebalanced troll regeneration'.
• Troll_Regen_Addition(0) - if you set this to a non-zero value, trolls regenerate that many extra hit points per second if you are using 'rebalanced troll regeneration'.
• Teleport_Maze_Number(0) - set to a number between 1 and 3 to force a particular layout for the revised teleport maze (this may be useful if you are expecting to uninstall and reinstall frequently).
• No_Nabassu_Color_Change(0) - set to 1 to deactivate the (Enhanced-edition only) recoloring of Nabassus.
• No_Kahrk_Treasure(0) - set to 1 to remove Kahrk's new magic weapon.

Hotkeys

These allow SCS's default choices of hotkey to be modified.

• hot_key_A(A) - set this to another letter or key, and the hotkey described in the text as 'A' will be changed to that letter. (In game documentation will not normally be updated.)
• hot_key_B (etc) - likewise

Other settings

These make more general tweaks.

• AI_Is_Omniscient (0) - set this to 1 if you want enemies to have full knowledge of what protective items you are using. (The default as of v32 is that enemies only notice your protective items after the first failed attempt to use a power on you.)
• AI_Does_Not_Detect_Items (0) - set this to 1 and enemies will completely fail to notice your protective magical items. (This is likely to cause some odd behaviour.)
• Do_Not_Fix_Save_Errors (0) - set this to 1 and errors in the saving throws for creatures will not be corrected. (At present, inappropriately weak saving throws are automatically fixed.)
• Do_Not_Fix_THAC0_Errors (0) - set this to 1 and errors in the attack rolls for creatures will not be corrected. (At present, inappropriately weak attack rolls are automatically fixed.)
• Genai_Does_Not_Adjust_Kits(0) - set this to 1 and the "smarter AI" component will not adjust the kits of creatures, nor enforce legal kits on kitted creatures.
• Genai_Does_Not_Adjust_Levels(0) - set this to 1 and the "smarter AI" component will not adjust the levels of creatures.
• Genai_Does_Not_Adjust_Profs(0) - set this to 1 and the "smarter AI" component will use creatures' original weapon proficiencies rather than rewriting them.
• Conceal_Prebuff_Spell_Names(0) - set this to 1 if you don't want pre-buffing wizards and priests to display strings like "Stoneskin (cast previously)" when their buffs go up.
• Force_No_HLA_Repeats(0) - set this to 1 if you have a mod (like Vilkacis') installed that allows wizards and priests to learn HLAs as if they were innate abilities rather than spells, and you don't want enemy wizards and priests to take more than one of each ability. (If you're planning on taking more than one of each yourself, be ashamed.)
• thac0_tolerance(6) - this controls how much a creature's thac0 can be better than its legal level for SCS to assume it ought to be corrected, rather than left in place as deliberate. Set it to zero to disable SCS's correction of too-good thac0. Set it to 99 to ensure that all thac0s are made legal. (Only weapon-using creatures are affected.)
• enable_difficulty_based_damage_changes(0) - set to 1 if you want to re-enable the hardcoded changes to monster attack strength and similar at difficulties other than HARDCORE. (On an Enhanced Edition game, you can do this in-game trivially anyway.)
• difficulty_icon(v6) - this chooses which icon (from stratagems/lib/diff_icon) is used for the difficulty widget. (It normally has no effect on Enhanced Edition installs, where the difficulty widget is replaced by a UI edit.)
• force_difficulty_widget(0) - set this to 1 to prevent SCS's 'Initialise' component attempting to edit the UI to add the difficulty fine-tuning button (in which case SCS defaults to using the difficulty widget, on your innate abilities bar).
• force_difficulty_dialog(0) - set this to 1 to force SCS's 'Initialise' component to use the dialog-controlled version of the difficulty system (activated by a button on the gameplay screen). This is the way difficulty worked in v34 on EE installs. (This has no effect on non-EE installs.)
• library_override(none) - this allows you to include external custom SSL libraries. DO NOT USE UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING. if you set this to a value other than 'none' (say, 'mylib'), SSL will attempt to load library file weidu_external/data/stratagems/mylib.slb. External libraries are processed last, so you can use TRIGGER to add entries to existing triggers or TRIGGER_REPLACE to redo entries entirely. You can include multiple libraries like this: mylib1|mylib2|mylib3". If the library isn't present, or is malformed, SSL will fail, breaking your install.
• iwd_overrides_sr(1) - this determines which of IWD and Spell Revisions' spell lists is prioritized on installs where both are present. By default, IWD is prioritised; set this to 0 to reverse this.

Biffing settings

• No_Lizard_Biff (0) - by default, the animations for lizard-man weapons (which are absent from the base game but restored by Tougher Abazigal's Lair) are BIFFed on non-EE installs. Set this to 1 if you want them dumped in the override instead.
• Do_Not_Biff_IWD_Resources (1) - by default, the resources for the IWD spell system are not BIFFed on install. Set this to 0 if you'd rather have them put in a BIFF file.

In many cases, choices of spells, kits, creature levels and the like are externalised to text files which are then user-editable using Notepad or similar. You do this at your own risk. Here is a list of the files that can be edited. In each case the file format is fairly self-explanatory (though you may need to look up the resource names of creatures from Near Infinity).

• High-level Abilities
  • genai/hla_choices/hla_always.2da: list of fighters and thieves who get to use High-Level Abilities at TACTICAL difficulty.
  • genai/hla_choices/vanilla/[kit].2da: default choices of High-Level Abilities for fighters and thieves. (A row is chosen at random; powers are granted sequentially along that row.)
  • mage/hla.2da: list of mages who get to use High-Level Abilities on difficulty settings below SUPER-INSANE.
  • mage/hla_choices/vanilla/[kit].2da: default choices of High-Level Abilities for mages. (A row is chosen at random; powers are granted sequentially along that row.)
  • priest/hla.2da: list of priests who get to use High-Level Abilities on difficulty settings below SUPER-INSANE.
  • priest/hla_choices/vanilla/[kit].2da: default choices of High-Level Abilities for priests. (A row is chosen at random; powers are granted sequentially along that row.)
• Kits for fighters and thieves
  • genai/kit_override/bg2/[kit].2da - assigns kits to bg2 characters. Just list the creature resource name in the appropriately-named file. Note that only some kits are supported; an unsupported kit will be set, but won't have any in-game effect.)
  • genai/kit_override/bg1/[kit].2da - same for bg1 characters. Creatures should be listed in non-TUTU form, i.e. without the initial "_".
• Levels for fighters and thieves
  • genai/level_override/bg1.2da: overrides levels for BG1 fighters/thieves. Creatures should be listed in non-TUTU form, i.e. without the initial "_".
  • genai/level_override/bg2.2da: overrides levels for BG2 fighters/thieves.
• Choices of non-defensive spells for mages
  • mage/spellchoices/[vanilla]/[type].2da (where "type" is "necromancer", "conjurer", "invoker", "enchanter", "fighter-mage", "mage_thief", "bard", "elder_orb", "conjurer_lich", "invoker_lich", "necromancer_lich", "vampire" or "rakshasa"): the standard spells used by mages at each level (after the basic allocation of protective and utility spells has been made). Spells are chosen at random from each level. (Note that adding a spell not on the list at all probably will not lead to anything useful, since the mage will not cast that spell.)
  • mage/spellchoices/demivrgvs/[type].2da: as above, but this version is used if Demivrgvs' "Spell Revisions" mod is installed.
  • mage/spellchoices/iwd/[type].2da: as above, but this version is used for HLAs if the Icewind Dale spell system is installed (and Spell Revisions is not installed).
  • (Defensive spells are controlled from the "spellchoices_defensive/[spell system]/[type].tph" files in the mage directory, with the vanilla spell system file being used if there isn't a specialised one. But this is code, not data, so only touch it if you really know what you are doing.)
• Choices of non-defensive spells for priests: as mage, with the obvious replacement of "mage" with "priest". (Possible types are "cleric_good", "cleric_neutral", "cleric_evil", "druid", and "avenger".)
• Choices of kits, levels, alignment and individual spells for specific mages and priests: controlled by [mage/priest]/override/[bg1/bg2]/[alignment/kit/level/spellchoice].2da. The format should be self-explanatory.
• Choices of spells for auto-levelling characters: controlled by leveller/spellchoices/[iwd/demivrgvs/vanilla]/[kit-or-class].2da. The choice of iwd/demivrgvs/vanilla depends on the spell system; if there is no non-vanilla option, vanilla is used.

Note that the descriptors in this section, by default, assume "Insane" difficulty; some details may be modified at lower difficulties.

Move or modify some overpowered magic items

The moved items are as follows:

• Vhailor's Helm is now worn by Gromnir Il-Khan, who is not afraid to use it.
• The Robe of Vecna is now worn by Azamantes, the lich guardian of the Seal of the Imprisoned One.
• The Cloak of Mirroring is now worn by Vongoethe, the lich in Amkethran.

Re-introduce potions of extra-healing.

There are three potions at the temple in the Friendly Arm Inn, five each at the Song of the Morning temple at Beregost and the Lady's temple in Baldur's Gate, and eight at the High Hall of Wonders in Baldur's Gate.

Standardise spells between BG and BG2

The locations of the new spells are as follows.

• Feldepost's Inn: Reflected Image, Spook, Deafness
• High Hedge: Spook, Power Word: Sleep, Ray of Enfeeblement, Deafness, Minor Spell Deflection, Protection from Fire, Protection from Cold, Hold Undead
• Sorcerous Sundries: Power Word: Sleep, Ray of Enfeeblement, Minor Spell Deflection, Protection from Fire, Protection from Cold, Hold Undead, Melf's Minute Meteors, Contagion, Secret Word, Farsight, Wizard Eye
• Alai: Minor Sequencer
• Davaeorn: Stoneskin, Remove Magic
• Andris: Remove Magic
• Denak: Teleport Field
• Dezkiel: Stoneskin
• Halacan: Detect Illusion
• Kysus: Fire Shield: Red
• Niemain: Spider Spawn
• Nimbul: Find Familiar
• Resar: Fire Shield: Blue
• Tranzig: Glitterdust
• Venkt: Spell Thrust

Relocated bounty hunters.

These are the five ogre magi in the Docks district. They turn up just outside Candlekeep as you arrive at the start of chapter six.

Improved Balduran's Isle.

Three fights are modified:

• The battle with Karoug. Karoug himself is left alone, but Daese lives up to the villagers' warning about the wolfweres' magical powers. She becomes an eighth-level mage.
• The confrontation with Kaishas. Kaishas becomes a greater werewolf, with Free Action and immunity to all weapons except cold iron. (This seems to have been intended in BG1 but not properly implemented). She will also call for help from the tunnels: reinforcements will arrive at a rate of about one werewolf per round.
• The final battle with Selaad. Selaad and Baresh are now both greater werewolves, as well as being respectable opponents in human form - Baresh is a twelfth-level fighter, Selaad is a tenth-level mage. Only once reduced to below 25% hit points will they take on their wolfman forms.

In addition, it is now possible to talk your way past Kaishas and on to the boat. Your protagonist needs either Intelligence 14+, or Wisdom 14+ and good alignment, and you need to have saved Maralee's baby and befriended Durlayle or Delainy. (This was an aspect of the original game that's always infuriated me - I liked Kaishas.)

Improved Durlag's Tower.

Four fights are modified:

• The battle with "Love", "Pride", "Avarice", and "Fear" on the first dungeon level. They get extra hit points and/or regenerative capability, and three get improved magic powers.
• The doppelgangers on the second dungeon level - they are instructed to use their specific powers a bit more effectively. (This mostly affects Islanne's doppelgangers; it won't be all that effective without Smarter Mages).
• The duplicates that can emerge from the Mirror have been upgraded slightly.
• The chessboard battle has been significantly upgraded and is now quite difficult. The chess constructs have gained a variety of immunities (electricity, normal weapons, mind-affecting magic) to represent their status as constructs rather than humans; the pawns have gained more hit points. The King is now a 9th/7th level fighter/mage and the Queen is an 11th level mage.
  (For what it's worth, my own solution to the fight was to refuse to play the chessboard game: make everyone immune to lightning and just go where you want. You should have enough potions of absorption by this stage.)

Improved demon cult.

The cult consists of:

• Cult Guards: 8th level fighters. Their hit points are increased from 39 to 65; otherwise they're left alone. But note that 8th level fighters usually get pretty good battle potions from Smarter Potions.
• Cult Archers: originally 8th level thief archers, they're changed into 8th level fighters (more hit points and better battle potions).
• Cult Assassins: 8th level fighter/thieves. They get extra hit points and a stack of Invisibility potions (they'll only use them if you have Improved General AI installed).
• Cult Wizards: originally 3rd level wizards (in practice), they become 8th level and get Wands of Paralysis (a surprisingly nasty weapon in BG1).
• Cult Enforcers: in the original game they're actually listed as high-level fighter-mages, but they don't use any of their fighter-mage powers. I take their classification more seriously: they are now 10th/10th level fighter-mages, though with only L5 spells and below, and they use their Wands of Frost. These guys are very dangerous.

The demon Aec'Letec gains standard Nabassu scripting (this doesn't make that much difference) but Tracea Carrol, previously a weakling wizard (c. L6), is now 11th level. In addition, the six cultists from whom Aec'Letec draws strength will now defend themselves. All in all, this makes the final battle with Aec'Letec pretty tough. I recommend the use of Arrows of Dispelling on your own party to dispel Aec'Letec's Death Gaze.

Improved miscellaneous encounters.

The full list is:

• Laurel the paladin's gibberling hunt. As it stands this is a ridiculous encounter - the "horde" of gibberlings is tiny. I've quadrupled their number - it's still not a difficult fight, but it's a more realistic one.
• Cythandria, Sarevok's paramour, is currently guarded by a pair of hopeless ogres; they're replaced by Stone Golems.
• Slythe the assassin gains a level (which brings his backstab into quadruple-damage territory). He also slugs a potion of invulnerability, and receives a Non-Detection spell, before the battle starts.
• Jenkal, the halfling traitor in Gullykin, is currently a 4/4 fighter/thief. I raise her to 6/6 and give her some potions of invisibility. Jenkal will flee if badly hurt and will turn up again later in the game. More seriously, the secret passage in Jenkal's home is now blocked, requiring you to go the long way through Firewine Bridge to reach the Ogre Mage.
• Hairtooth and Gnarl, the half-ogres at the bridge to the gnoll fortress, become 5th level fighters and get an appropriate (18/95) strength score.
• Sunin (the randomly encountered mage in a house in Baldur's Gate) is raised to 11th level.
• Tamoko's level is increased to 14, so she's slightly more of a speed bump to end-of-game-level parties.
• The "amazon" group of assassins gain one level each. (This is really just to make them immune to Sleep.)

Tougher chapter-two end battle

This is the fight with Mulahey at the bottom of the Nashkel Mine.

Mulahey is raised to seventh level. Mulahey's tough kobold allies are redesignated as "Kobold Elites" and improved a bit. The allies that he summons later in the fight are beefed up a bit too.

If "Dark Side based kobold upgrade" is installed, the kobold elites get poisoned daggers and the summoned allies include some kobold guards.

Tougher chapter-three end battle

This is the fight with the Iron Throne adventurers in Tazok's tent.

Britik the gnoll gets a strength potion and a slight level increase. A few Black Talons and Chill are added to the tent.

Most importantly, if you talked your way into the bandit camp, by the time you get out you'll find that Taugosz has smelled a rat, and you may have to fight your way out. And if you storm the camp, the Iron Throne adventurers won't be content to wait for you - they'll come out and attack.

Tougher chapter-four end battle

The confrontation with Davaeorn at the bottom of the Cloakwood mine.

The battle horrors, instead of being summoned by traps, are there already. They're enchanted to be immune to fire, lightning and web (I'm following pen-and-paper rules here, more or less.)

Also, Davaeorn gets Iron Throne reinforcements periodically.

Tougher chapter-five end battle

The six acolytes are left alone (though if you are using the Smarter Mages/Priests/general AI components you'll notice a big effect). However, they are joined by two new acolytes: a half-elven fighter/thief and a human thief, who begin the battle invisible. You get some warning of the change if you read the dialogues lower down the tower carefully.

Sarevok and his three acolytes (Tazok, Angelo, Semaj) are joined by a fourth: Diarmid, who the party briefly encounter at the very end of chapter 6. He's a fighter/mage rather like Angelo.

More crucially, Sarevok is the beneficiary of a spell which lets him draw protective strength from his followers. You won't even be able to hurt him until at least one is dead, and killing him requires all four to have died. (Not terribly original, I admit, but in the original battle you might as well just ignore everyone else and go straight for Sarevok. This way it's a proper fight against a team of opponents. And hopefully the added dialogue is smooth enough not to make it feel contrived.)

Improved fiends

Alu-fiends:

• Charm person, at will

Balors (cast at 24th level):

• Fire Storm and Implosion, once per day each.
• Stoneskin, once per 3 rounds.
• Teleport without Error, Remove Magic, Telekinesis, Symbol: Stun, Symbol: Death, and Domination, all at will.
• Permanently wreathed in flames (Fire Shield effect)

All Balors now wield the vorpal swords that the Watchers' Keep Balors wield; but these have been modified so that they kill but don't chunk, and so that they allow a saving throw (vs death, at -4).

Bone Fiends (cast at 12th level):

• Teleport without Error, Improved Invisibility, and Cone of Cold, all at will
• Permanent Fear aura

Cornugons (cast at 17th level):

• Teleport without Error, Remove Magic, and Lightning Bolt, all at will
• Permanent Fear aura

Demon Knights (cast at 18th level):

• 20d6 fireball, once per day
• Power words: stun, blind, and kill, once per day each
• Symbols of Death and Stun, once per day each
• Remove Magic, twice per day
• Teleport Without Error, at will

Erinyes (cast at 12th level):

• Teleport without Error and become invisible, at will
• Charm Person and Unholy Blight, at will
• Protection from Magic Weapons, once per day

Glabrezus (cast at 17th level):

• Teleport without Error, Mirror Image, and Remove Magic, at will
• Power Word: Stun, Unholy Blight, and Confusion, all at will

Lesser Demon Lord (casts at 25th level):

Interpreted as a powerful Balor, but with Abyssal Flame Strike (15d6 fire damage, 15d6 magic damage, bypasses magic resistance) 3/day instead of Implosion, Wail of the Banshee 1/day instead of Fire Storm, Truesight 3/day, and Power Word: Kill 3/day.

Mariliths (cast at 20th level):

• Stoneskin, once per three rounds
• Protection from Magic Weapons, once per five rounds
• Cloudkill, once per three rounds
• Animate Dead, once per three rounds
• Remove Magic, Teleport without Error, and True Sight, at will
• Blade Barrier and Telekinesis, at will

Maurezhi (cast at 10th level):

• Improved Invisibility and Blur, once per day each
• Protection from Magic Weapons, once per five rounds
• Animate Dead, Hold Person, and Cloak of Fear, at will

Nabassus (cast at 12th level):

• Powerful silence spell (-5 to saves) once per day
• "Death gaze" (damaging gaze attack) automatically, once per round (in addition to other powers)
• Teleport without Error, Paralysis and Vampiric Touch, all at will

Pit Fiends (cast at 24th level):

• Teleport without Error, Remove Magic, and Improved Invisibility, at will
• Meteor Swarm and Unholy Word, once per day each
• 20d6 fireball and Symbol of Fear, at will
• Permanent fear aura

Succubi (cast at 12th level):

• Minor Spell Turning, once per day
• Cure Critical Wounds (self only),Teleport without Error and become ethereal, at will
• Charm person, at will

Yochlols (cast at 15th level):

• Flame Strike, once per five rounds
• Spider Spawn, once per three rounds
• Domination, Improved Invisibility, Remove Magic and Teleport without Error, at will
• Heal, three times per day

Chromatic Demon (cast at 28th level):

• Remove Magic and Teleport without Error, at will.
• Chain Lightning, Fireball, Cone of Cold, an acidic blob attack based on the acid blob trap, and an airburst attack based on the dragon's Wing Buffet, at will when in the appropriate form.

Demogorgon (cast at 30th level):

• Initial Chain Contingency, containing Protection from Magic Weapons, Aura of Flaming Death, and Spell Turning.
• Initial Contingency, containing Stoneskin.
• Stoneskin, once per two rounds
• Protection from Magic Weapons, once per six rounds
• Summon demons, once per two rounds; doing so also partially heals him and restores his Magic Resistance
• Storm of Vengeance and Dragon's Breath once per day
• Implosion, once per 30 rounds
• Earthquake, once per 20 rounds
• True Sight, Death Spell, and Unholy Word, each once per six rounds
• Finger of Death, Breach and Spell Strike, each once per 3 rounds
• Dispel Magic and Teleport without Error, at will
• Charm hostile demons, at will

In addition, Demogorgon has a gaze attack (either a charm or a confusion effect) which he can use each round in addition to his spells. My original version of Demogorgon also had a Time Stop usable once per day (as in Ascension) but I worried that this was too much; if you want to turn this back on, enter SetGlobal("DMWWDemogorgonTS","GLOBAL",1) at the console.

Smarter Beholders

The beholders can now use their telekinesis power to steal the Cloak of Mirroring and the Shield of Balduran. They don't do it in the first couple of rounds, then they have a 1/3 chance per round (per beholder). The idea isn't to make the items useless but to block the move of just giving them to one person and sending them in. If it annoys you, you can turn it off at the console: set DMWWDisableBeholderTheft to 1.

Give HLAs to mages and priests

If you install the "only selected" components, then the following creatures are affected:
ToB mages: Yaga-Shura's lieutenant; Sendai and her statues; the Skeleton Mage; the fire giant mages; Karun the Black; the Hell Trial form of Irenicus; Semaj; Draconis; Illasera (non-Ascension version); Iycanth the Mad; all named liches.
ToB priests: Yaga-Shura's lieutenant; Sendai and her statues; the Skeleton Priest; Nyalee; Berenn; Ameralis Zauviir.
SoA mages: Alchra Diagott; Suneer; Irenicus (all forms); Shangalar; the Shade Lich; the Elemental Lich; Layene; Kangaxx the Lich; Lagole Gon.
SoA priests: Matron Mother Ardulace, Stalman, Hindra Jae'llat

Improved Irenicus in Spellhold

The clones are now direct copies of the party.

Improved Watcher's Keep

The statues on level one are rearranged: a fighter becomes a thief, a random monster becomes a high-level mage, and an archer gets a proper archery script. Some random extra fiends are added to the teleport maze as random encounters for when you return to already-cleared areas. The two spellcasting glabrezu gain four brethren. The number of mind flayers in the lair on level four is greatly increased.

Improved Drow

The drow defenders of Ust Natha look like this (on insane):

• Group A: disorganised raiders (about every five rounds)
  • Three L9 fighters, two L9 archers, a L12/12 fighter/mage
  • Two L9 fighters, two L9 archers
  • Four L9 fighters, two L9 archers, a L10 cleric
  • Four L9 fighters, a L11 mage
• Group B: serious war-parties (every four rounds)
  Each party comprises six L9 fighters, four L9 archers, a L10 cleric, a L14 cleric, a L12/12 fighter/cleric, a L11 mage, and a L15 mage. There are four of these war-parties.
• Group C: elite battlegroups (every ten rounds, with another Group B war-party between each battlegroup)
  • Four L9 fighters, three L17 mages
  • Four L9 fighters, two L12/12 fighter/clerics, a L18 cleric, a L18 mage, a glabrezu, and two nabassu
  • Two L11 mages, a L15 mage, a L22 mage, and four stone golems
  • Six L9 fighters, two L10 clerics, two L12/12 fighter/clerics, a L14 cleric, a L20 cleric, two balors and two glabrezu.

At lower difficulty settings, some of the groups get removed.

Improved Fire Giant Lair

Fire giants become Berserkers, and will get HLAs on higher difficulties. Flaming Skulls become tougher and get access to Stoneskin and more powerful fireballs, and Burning Men get a dispel-magic attack; both get a smarter script. One of the groups of fire creatures behind the force fields is replaced by a group of Efreeti and a Fire Lich (a creature removed from the original game). Imix becomes tougher and gets a Greater Whirlwind ability. A red dragon of about Firkraag's strength joins the giants in the inner temple.

Improved Sendai's Enclave

Drow mages are raised to 16th level; drow priests are raised to 17th level. The random (and weak) drow spawns in the city region of the enclave are replaced by two war parties - one backed up by glabrezu, one by beholders. Odamaron gets two apprentices (one vampire, one lich) and two skeleton warriors. The pathetic illithid ambush is replaced by two battles: one with the vampiric illithids reinforced by three more illithids with umber-hulk guards, one with a three-stage illithid strike force consisting of human thralls, illithids, and ulitharids supported by umber hulks. Sendai's statues animate once per round whether or not the previous one is dead.

Improved Abazigal's Lair

The Earth Elementals are replaced by Lizard Men, as are the Salamanders. A strike force of baatezu (two pit fiends, four cornugons) attacks the party on their way back from collecting the Breath Potion. All eyes except the eagle eyes get better targetting; the sentinels now summon much tougher monsters (elementals, mordenkainen's swords, efreeti, and skeleton warriors). A strike force of tyrant golems (golem beholders; lots of HP and 100% MR) and undead beholders protects the entrance to Iycanth's sanctum.

More importantly, there are two new encounters with dragons. The bone fiend area where the Breath Potion is has been replaced with the lair of a yellow dragon (and L20-odd mage) who was ousted by Abazigal. You have to fight the dragon one way or another, but depending on how the conversation goes, it may not be to the death. There is a rather nice item available if you play nice, and the dragon's scales if you play nasty.

Part way through the lair, you'll have to return to town. On coming back, there will be a posse of dragons waiting for you: two black dragons, then a green dragon, and finally a red dragon.

The dragon encounters have (for a tactical mod) a reasonable amount of dialogue; I welcome feedback on it (and everything else, as usual.)

Improved minor encounters

• The Twisted Rune's fighter Revanek gets some equipment (this is almost a bugfix) and Vaxall the beholder becomes an Elder Orb. (Code borrowed from Quest Pack with thanks.)
• The Guarded Compound fighters become, respectively, a berserker and a barbarian, and the traps in the compound no longer affect the slavers.
• The Murderers who work with Irenicus are upgraded to 7th level thieves
• A few extra creatures are added to the Druid Grove (code borrowed from Tactics with thanks)
• Imix is now immune to his own traps
• The Unseeing Eye guards are slightly tougher.
• The elemental guardians of the Underdark portals are slightly tougher and have some magical abilities and some sidekicks.
• The defenders of the temple of Talos (if you do the good cleric quest) have been upgraded: there are more Storm Knights and a temple mage, and the Knights are now cleric/fighters.
• Nyalee gets a Mirror of Opposition that can make hostile copies of party members. The skeleton warriors in her area get the normal skeleton-warrior resistances.
• The Docks muggers are now thieves (not fighter/thieves) and don't endlessly respawn.

Over the decade and more that this mod has been available, I've benefitted hugely from dozens of players and modders. The list below is probably incomplete, and I apologise for anyone I've left out.

• For the game itself: Bioware and Black Isle, sine qua non
• For hosting: Gibberlings Three, and especially Pete Camagna ("CamDawg") and Kat Bella ("TheAceFes")
• For tools: Westley Weimer, Valerio Biggiani ("TheBigg"), and Fredrik Lindgren ("Wisp") for WEIDU; Jon Hauglid, devSin, and others (for Near Infinity)
• For information about the game; Ascension64, for ToBEx; the various contributors to the Infinity Engine Structure Description Project
• For the code to convert IWD spells from EE to classic BG2: CamDawg
• For code tips and actual code: SimDing0, Westley Weimer, Nythrun, Demivrgvs, Mike1072, Ardanis, Steve, Taimon, Wisp, CamDawg (and I think many others)
• For help with BGT: Ronin69hof, Pro5, cmorgan
• For help with BGEE: Cheesebelly, AndreaColombo
• For BGEE itself, and also for giving me advance access to the BGEE and BG2EE betas: Everyone at Beamdog
• For translation: Leonardo Watson, ClanDLAN, Yarpen, Immortality, Nugrud, Etamin, Cahir, Graoumf, Leonardo Watson, Stoneangel, Improbabile, and many others
• For testing, bugfixes, bug reports, and related suggestions: many of the above, and also Berelinde, Demivrgvs, Gort, Lemernis, Temujin, Avenger_RR, Stworca, Bursk, Coaster, Erebusant Grand_Dracolich, Jadefang, KGub, Nythrun, PetrusOctavius, Polytope, Raven_Song, Shaitan, thetruth, Wanderer, Mad Mate, Kreso, Dakk, Draztik, GrimJim, ToTor, and many others
• For the version 31 maintenance release: Mad Mate, K4thos, AstroBryGuy, burner1023, Ilya Ivanov, agb1, critto, subtledoctor, whiteagnus, CrevsDaak, khelben, and especially Mad Mate, AlienQuake, and CamDawg
• For icon design: Ulb, Bartimaeus
• For patience: Hannah Wallace
• For impatience: Leo Wallace and Maia Wallace

Sword Coast Stratagems is ©2006-Present, David Wallace.

Since in practice I'm obviously not going to sue anyone, I'll use this section to say what I'd like people's attitude to re-using and redistributing my mods. Basically, I don't mind what you do with the code provided you (a) give me full credit when you borrow or re-use my code in your own mod, and (b) don't actually mirror this mod (or any modified version of this mod) somewhere else.

Changelogs for versions 1-21 of SCS and SCSII can be found in their respective v21 readmes in the "doc" folder.

New or Substantially Modified Content

• (Provisional, experimental, partial) support for Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition:
  • The 'Improved General AI', 'Better Calls for Help', 'Smarter Mages', 'Smarter Priests', 'Potions for NPCs', 'Smarter Dragons', 'Smarter Beholders', and 'Improved Fiends' AI components now work in IWDEE
  • New IWDEE-only AI component: 'Revised Icewind Dale Undead'.
  • The 'Reduce the power of inquisitors' Dispel Magic', 'Improved Shapeshifting', 'Thieves Assign Skill Points in Multiples of Five', and 'Ease-of-Use party AI' gameplay components now work in IWDEE
  • New IWDEE-only gameplay component: 'Wider availability of wizard spell scrolls in Icewind Dale'.
  • The various spell-tweak components mostly now work in IWDEE (the exceptions are tweaks that make BG spells more like IWD)
  • Two new IWDEE-only spell components: 'Use Baldur's Gate-style Insect Plague and Creeping Doom instead of Icewind Dale versions' and 'Use Baldur's Gate-style Mordenkainen's Sword in addition to Icewind Dale version'

New BGEE/BG2EE-only component, 'Revised handling of death effects like disintegration, petrification and imprisonment', that (among other things) allows you to resurrect characters who are disintegrated or killed by massive damage, keeps petrified characters in the party, restores imprisoned characters to the party on freeing them, and stops the game from ending if the main character is imprisoned or petrified.

New EE-only component, 'Revised Elementals', that revises the stats and abilities of the various elementals (earth/air/fire/water) that appear in the game or can be summoned, as well as the elemental-summoning spells themselves. The goal is to make elementals more interesting and varied, and to make elemental summoning a more interesting tactical option.

New BGEE/BG2EE component, 'Revised Resting', that requires you to use provisions to camp in the wild. You can restock provisions by resting at an inn, or (if you have enough druids or rangers in your party) by foraging; the maximum number of provisions you can have at a time is controlled by the difficulty slider.

New EE-only component, 'Revised Inns', that grants a modest buff for resting in higher-quality inns (and also significantly increases the cost of a higher-quality room).

A significant number of new spell tweaks (none of which are required by SCS AI), including:

• Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting no longer affects creatures without moisture (note that the new 'Telekinetic Storm' spell, below, partially fills the resultant tactical hole - that tactical hole was why I didn't do that sooner)
• Rebounding lightning bolts only inflict damage once
• Symbols and Power Words move to the school of Enchantment
• Energy Drain removes 5 levels rather than 2
• Larloch's Minor Drain has increased damage at higher levels
• Symbol of Pain no longer permits a saving throw
• Mordenkainen's Force Blade is now used with the THAC0 of a fighter at the same level as the caster (instead of half the level)
• Lots of small changes to BG spells to match more closely how they work in IWD, and vice versa (I didn't do this systematically, only when I significantly preferred one implementation to another)
• Fairly substantial revision to Polymorph Self: the druid-overlapping forms are removed, along with the ogre and flind; the spider form gets a minor web-spinning power; four new forms are added (Hill Giant Barbarian, Ogre Mage, Hell Hound, Rat); in addition, you get to choose your first form at time of casting rather than having to wait a round. This is mostly about rebalancing a spell I find underwhelming, but also about thematic distance from druid shapeshifting (and about removing the idea that a polymorph spell lets you create a powerful magic weapon!)
• Fairly substantial revision to Shapechange, along similar lines: the werewolf and elemental forms are removed; the mind flayer form gets some damage resistance, can use psionic blast at will, and lets you spellcast; the iron golem form gets a breath weapon; the giant troll form gets substantially increased regeneration and permits spellcasting. (These are intentionally fairly powerful - the spell is supposed to be competitive with Time Stop and Imprisonment, after all.)
• Removal of the IWD spell 'Antimagic Shell', which doesn't fit will with BG2's existing range of antimagic and counters.
• Haste and Slow effects now fully cancel each other, and Slow always imposes a (non-cumulative) -4 penalty to THAC0 and AC. (This tweak requires the Enhanced Edition.)

15 new spells (9 mage, 6 cleric), with the mage spells mostly focused around elemental effects and the cleric spells mostly borrowed from Divine Remix.

Smarter Mages now uses the new mage spells, and includes elemental specialists as possible mage specialization choices, if the new mage spells are installed). (Smarter Priests uses some of the new priest spells too, though the effect is much smaller.)

Multiple changes to achieve compatibility with my forthcoming 'Talents of Faerun' mod (if installed):

• If Talents of Faerun priest kits are installed, many priests will be given those kits (across all three games, I use priests of Auril, Bane, Bhaal, Corellon Larethian, Cyric, Gruumsh, Helm, Ilmater, Iyachtu Xvim, Kossuth, Lathander, Lolth, Malar, Mask, Myrkul, Selune, Shar, Talona, Talos, Tempus, Tymora, Tyr, and Umberlee).
• If Talents of Faerun high-level abilities are installed, they will be used by Improved General AI, Smarter Mages, Smarter Priests, and all components that rely on those.
• SCS will use the modified proficiency system in Talents of Faerun if it is installed.

New component, 'Include bard songs from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition'. (This is identical to the equivalent component from IWDification.)

'Make spell sequencers and contingencies into innate abilities' has been restored.

Other Content Changes

• On EE installs, the difficulty fine-tuning system is now integrated into the user interface, rather than being controlled by dialog. (As a side effect, difficulty fine-tuning settings are global on EE installs, rather than being stored in your savegame).
• On EE installs, the hotkeys for the Ease-of-Use AI are now integrated into the main keybindings section.
• Deprecated resurrection-rod changes on Enhanced Edition, as it is obsolete as of 2.6.
• Tweaked the algorithm for 'wider selection of random scrolls'.
• Deprecated a few minor fixes on EE that were done natively in 2.6.
• 'Faster bears' is now 'More appropriate-speed bears', and has been recoded on EE, to reflect the fact that EE bears are already sped up, so that the problem is now that they move too quickly when just ambling around the wilderness.
• 'Improved NPC customization and management' now handles thief XP at first level internally to the usual levelling system, without the awkward workaround of granting special one-off abilities. For technical reasons, this means that this component now automatically installs 'thief skills are spent in multiples of 5%'.
• 'Improved NPC customization and management' now skips Baeloth (it was already skipping Caelar and Hexxat), because features of the character are too awkward to make compatible.
• 'Improved NPC customization and management' now warns players that they can't select a favored enemy for Rangers (so far as I can see this is impossible in the current engine).
• 'Improved NPC customization and management' now warns wild mages that they need to save and reload to get their wild-mage spells (again, this is working around a hardcoded limitation).
• 'Treat mages' and priests' High-Level Abilities as innate abilities rather than memorizable spells' now ensures that all such spells are cast at the minimum level at which they can normally be used (18 for wizards, 14 for priests) - otherwise dual-classed characters get very low-powered versions of these abilities.
• If you install the appropriate spell tweak, Entropy Shield now protects generally against Abjuration spells (but not antimagic spells like Secret Word) - this is more for technical reasons than anything else, as the previous version was a bit glitchy).
• If you install the appropriate spell tweak, the casting time for (Greater) Divine Protection has been increased to 3, and the spell now protects only against physical damage (this is an attempt to rebalance the spell given feedback that it's overpowered - further feedback welcomed).
• Mages who are neutral on the Law/Chaos axis now summon tanar'ri, rather than having a 50% chance each of tanar'ri and baatezu. (Avoiding Blood War issues between casters' summons was proving too fiddly to prevent otherwise.)
• Reorganization of the component structure: all new-spell and modified-spell components now share a group (and this collective set of new and modified spells gets referred to as 'Stratagems of Mystra' in its documentation, because I want to be able to use it in ToF too).
• Rearrangement of the spell-tweak system components and their documentation to make it more transparent, along with a substantial reduction in the number of spell tweaks required as part of the core AI install.
• Enemy spellcasters now recognize the Exaltation spell.
• Enemy spellcasters make more effort to bring down Entropy Shield.
• If you are using the spell tweak to Nature's Beauty, it also sets the duration to 999,999 seconds rather than making it permanent (this permits it to be removed more straightforwardly).
• Various tweaks to spellcaster spell choices (we use less Control Undead, for instance).
• Creatures notice the protective effects of Barbarian and Berserker rage after one attempt to affect them, rather than instantly. (This is actually a technically-motivated change to fit in better with Talents of Faerun.)
• If the new 'revised handling of death effects like disintegration, petrification and imprisonment' component is installed, then spellcasters (and beholders) will be less reticent about using Disintegrate, and less reticent about targeting the main character with Imprisonment and petrification.
• In BGEE (but not in Siege of Dragonspear), most (I think?) Enhanced-Edition-added mages and priests get SCS mage scripting.
• Stalman, and two of the statues in Watcher's Keep, are raised to a high enough level to get HLAs. (They still only get them on the highest difficulty settings.)
• There is now a variable (DMWWNoFiendTeleport) that turns off fiend (or celestial, rilmani, etc.) teleportation. (The reason for this is that there are persistent reports that fiends teleport on top of people and trap them. I'm unable to reproduce those reports despite some effort, so I can't address the bug directly. If you have this problem, the workaround is to turn off fiend teleportation with this variable. And if you can find a scenario where the bug is reliably reproduced, I'd appreciate hearing about it.
• The psionic 'ballistic attack' power is now marked as OFFENSIVEDAMAGE rather than MAGIC_ATTACK (and so, inter alia, is not blocked by Spell Shield).
• Breach now bypasses spell immunity by being effectively level 10 (on reflection the mismatch with Spell Turning isn't as bad as the alternatives).
• On Enhanced-Edition installs, SCS removes rapid regeneration from fiends, celestials, dragons, and Berenn the priest (in each case in their AI component). This regeneration is in the original game but non-functional due to a bug. The Enhanced Edition fix that bug, but in doing so quite sharply disrupt game balance (which was playtested in the no-regeneration regime).
• Wolves and dogs in the Wood of Sharp Teeth are no longer affected by 'realistic wolves', in recognition of Realmslore describing the Wood of Sharp Teeth as 'feared more for its less intelligent denizens, who are numerous and savage...' (1e FRCS, 'Cyclopedia of the Realms', p.90).
• For technical reasons, the effects of 'thieves gain skill points in multiples of 5%' are now included in 'NPC customization and management'.
• Crossbows and clubs have been added to the 'fine weapons' component.
• On Enhanced-Edition installs, the AI initialize component now gets temples to cast Dispel Magic at 20th level, not 1st level.
• Davaeorn's teleport sequence is now part of Smarter Mages rather than Improved Chapter 4 end battle (I actually did this a version or two ago, but forgot to document it).
• 'Grant large, amorphous, solid, or similar creatures immunity to Web and Entangle' spell tweak now also covers Grease.
• 'Party's items are taken from them in Spellhold' now lets you ask Saemon to wait for you while you collect your gear. (Thanks to ScrambledKhegs for the suggestion.)
• 'Smarter Yaga-Shura' now sets the values of chapter-10 Yaga-Shura's damage resistance to 69% rather than 60% (matching the level it eventually ends up at in the chapter-8 battle.)
• The 'restoration restores ability drain' tweak now works on non-Enhanced Edition installs.
• Simplified the way translations are used in 'Increase the price asked by Gaelan Bayle', fixing some bugs that would occur in certain languages along the way.
• 'Improved TotSC textscreens' has been retitled 'Improved Textscreens' and now slows down the text by a UI tweak rather than through spacing out the string.
• 'Improved textscreens' now uses the unused Ulgoth's Beard mosaic (thanks to Ychap for spotting it!)

Under-the-hood changes (not visible in game)

• Updated to Weidu v249.
• tra files are now all encoded in UTF-8.
• Standardized readmes (somewhat) on US English.
• Lots of small under-the-hood changes to incorporate parts of 2nd-edition SFO (this will mean something to maybe 5 people, everyone else can ignore it).
• Changed the nomenclature of the spell states SCS uses to detect immunity items from (e.g.) ITEM_CHARM to (e.g.) CHARM_IMMUNITY, to match the conventions for the forthcoming EE fixpack and save on spellstate bloat.
• Updated Detectable Spells to 4.03, to fix a bug noted below and to detect Exaltation and Entropy Shield.
• SCS's install of Detectable Spells now skips a couple of stats that are redundant given ToBEx/EE.
• Some under-the-hood changes to manage ToF/SCS compatibility.
• New items in 'improved Abazigal's enclave' and 'Improved Kobolds' are now created from existing items rather than copied in direct.

Bugfixes

• Incorporated Icewind Dale spell fixes from IWDification (mostly due to CamDawg).
• 'Wider selection of random scrolls' should no longer create invisible undroppable items.
• Fixed a nasty bug where the psionic (illithid) version of Maze caused the player permanently to be ignored by enemy spellcasters; many thanks to jmerry for identifying this. (It is actually a consequence of a more general bug in the 'Detectable Spells' function, whereby Detectable Spells was ignoring requests to manually set the duration of a detection.)
• BG1 masterwork weapons are no longer flagged as enchanted on BGT/TUTU installs.
• Fixed some problems with dual-classed characters in the NPC auto-leveller.
• The auto-leveller now correctly detects BG-only NPCs in EET and SoD-only NPCs in SoD.
• Restored demiliches' Trap the Soul ability (it had been deleted in error).
• Solars now get their spells properly (thanks to jmerry for untangling what was going wrong here.
• Planetars and Devas had accidentally been removed from 'Smarter Fiends and Celestials' when the two components were combined; they've now been restored.
• 'Smarter Priests' now installs correctly if you set the 'no swift shapeshift' ini option.
• NPCs with kits now receive the right number of special abilities (previously they were only receiving one, even at higher levels).
• Sorted out a complicated set of issues involving the Spell Shield effect of Impervious Sanctity of Mind (many thanks to jmerry for diagnosing this).
• Help scripts now work harder to avoid creatures going hostile when attacked by confused allies of the party.
• Sorted out some logic errors that may have been preventing Gromnir using Vhailor's Helm correctly.
• Fixed typo in 'remove convenient items' that meant a couple of items weren't being removed.
• Thorn Spray damage is no longer negated entirely on a successful save.
• Fixed a typo in the defensive-spells code for Smarter Priests if Spell Revisions is installed (thanks, mercurier).
• The (single) difficulty variable check in 'minor BG1 encounters' was undefined; it now piggybacks on the general-AI difficulty (thanks, Ychap).
• Fixed a dozen or so chapter checks that weren't working in EET (thanks, Sephira)
• New journal entries in Kaishas's quest now properly get added to the 'Mysterious Island' group (thanks, Ychap).
• Raemon's bandit flunkies now spawn correctly (thanks, Ychap).
• A bunch of random numbers in the make-lich, make-fire-giant, vampire, etc, code are now working correctly (thanks, Ychap and supasillyass).
• Fixed a minor problem with dialog in Kaishas's quest (thanks, CamDawg).
• Demilich protective item is now edited a bit more delicately (thanks, Ychap).
• Slightly more robust removal of the Candlekeep 4th-wall-breaking text messages (thanks, Ychap).
• Fixed a couple of errors in the code for HLAs as innates (thanks, Ychap).
• Sleep and Color Spray should be better targeted when the target is dual-classed,
• Class-based constraints on potion allocation are more strictly enforced (thieves don't get invulnerability, monks don't get oil of speed; thanks, jmerry).
• Tightened up potion use (notably, enemies should now drink invulnerability potions if they have them - thanks, Person).
• Eler Had has calmed down and no longer gets the Berserker kit even though he's a thief (vanilla bug that was confusing SCS script allocation; thanks, Person).
• You now recover all the reputation you lose if Dorn joins the party, once you have the good sense to kick him out again (thanks, Mercurier/jmerry).
• Spell Shield is now discharged the first time it blocks a beholder antimagic ray, rather than blocking them indefinitely.
• If you are using the "go to Watcher's Keep between games" component, Neera's ToB quest can't trigger in Watcher's Keep (this was causing trouble with map access). Thanks to jmerry for tracking this one down.
• Enemies should now detect Divine Protection and avoid attacking creatures protected by it.
• Non-hostile spellcasters no longer use area-effects spells that can affect their allies and turn them hostile.
• Archers and spellcasters no longer make ineffectual attacks on creatures protected by Entropy Shield.
• Mekrath has recovered from a debilitating bout of underconfidence and is now a sensible level again.
• Fixed some logic errors in chasing offscreen characters.
• Anadramatis has had a chat with Mekrath and has recovered her self-esteem: she now has an appropriate THAC0 (-6 rather than +8).
• Restored Demon Knight teleportation, for real this time.
• Drow katanas in the improved Sendai's enclave should now disintegrate more reliably.
• Added a note to the description of the 'install batch mode' component to make it clearer to the player what to expect (it initially de-installs, which isn't a bug but looks like one).
• Kobold shamans (from 'Improved Kobolds') now get assigned mage scripting properly.
• 'Grant large, amorphous, solid, or similar creatures immunity to Web and Entangle' spell-tweak component should now be working correctly.
• Slightly rearranged the order in which items are removed in Spellhold, following reports that it might be more stable that way. (Thanks to ScrambledKhegs for the suggestion.)
• 'Smarter Yaga-Shura' no longer reduces chapter-10 Yaga-Shura's fire resistance, but does reduce his magic damage resistance.
• Scripts for doppelgangers in 'Improved Durlag's Tower' now compile correctly.
• Beholders mostly don't target GOODBUTBLUE creatures (this is basically to avoid problems with the Phaere/Solaufein fight with a beholder).
• Neutrals don't go hostile when attacked by confused creatures.
• Improved Textscreens now works on EE (thanks, Ychap).
• Timestop detection works properly on SoA as well as ToB (thanks, supasillyass).

Compatibility fixes

• The difficulty system, if it encounters a UI it doesn't know how to patch, should now be a bit better at going to the backup innate-ability system rather than just sulking and throwing an install-time failure.
• On SR installs, we no longer check alignment before casting Holy Smite/Unholy Blight (thanks, Person)
• On SR, we (probably, usually) don't use two Haste effects in a row (thanks, Person)
• 'thief skills are spent in multiples of 5%' now enforces the rule that all thief kits gain skill points in multiples of five (otherwise you could get stuck on the levelling screen).
• Smarter Mages no longer gets upset at not finding Conjure Water elemental if you have sequentially installed Spell Revisions and the IWD spells.
• The core spelltweak that allows antimagic spells to penetrate Improved Invisibillity now works on Spell Revisions installs. (Feedback from the SR community seems to suggest this is the right current behavior; see https://www.gibberlings3.net/forums/topic/37009-scs-dealing-with-mage-invisibility/page/3/#comments
• The difficulty system now correctly detects the chapter on Enhanced Edition Trilogy installs.
• The 'improved general AI' component now integrates more smoothly with IWDification's 'randomized equipment' component.
• The 'fine weapons' component now integrates more smoothly with IWDification's 'randomized equipment' component (my high-quality weapons overwrite IWDifications').
• Removed a block that was trying to fix an issue in SRv4 that the latest release has fixed already, and was causing (harmless) WARNINGs.

New or Substantially Modified Content

• New experimental 'batch mode' install option, allowing you to choose all components before any of them install.
• Substantial revision to the IWD spells components, incorporating the latest version of IWDification (joint work with CamDawg):
  • IWD spells are now available on original BG2 as well as on the Enhanced Edition
  • Updated to v2.6 IWDEE spells
  • Spells now match BG2 cosmetic style for visual/sound effects
  • Many bugfixes
• New component: Improved Carsa/Kahrk interaction
• New spell tweak: the blinding effect of Nature's Beauty is no longer dispelled by a hostile creature's True Sight spell.
• Restored 'Improved Abazigal's Enclave' on non-EE installs, thanks to TotoR chasing down the ambient-sound naming issue that was causing crashes.
• If IWD spells and Spell Revisions spells are both installed, we now use the IWD spell lists, not the SR ones. (You can reverse this in stratagems.ini.)
• Deprecated the 'innate sequencers' component, at least for now, as it's causing bugs I don't have time to track down.
• Update to German translation (thanks, Leonardo Watson)

Other Content Changes

• Experimentally removed the requirement that SCS is installed after EET_end.
• Druid shapeshift tokens are now createable by the player once per day, rather than just being applied once. (This is a reversion to pre-v33 behavior.) I dislike this aesthetically but it's the only convenient way to allow for various edge cases, e.g. losing the shapeshift tokens when fighting Faldorn.
• Beholders are a bit more careful not to target obviously-immune creatures like Golems.
• Intelligent opponents (like, again, beholders) don't try to petrify Mordenkainen's Sword.
• Enemy wizards now have a moderate preference for Protection from Fire over Protection from Cold.
• Kaishas now calls a maximum of 15 werewolves as reinforcements.
• On Enhanced-Edition installs, Smarter Fiends and Celestials now uses a repaletted (green) version of the fiend animation for Nabassus, to distinguish them visually from Balors. (You can turn this off via stratagems.ini).
• Removed a previous attempt to do something like this through opcode 51 that just looked ugly.
• Added katanas and wakisashis to 'replace some magic weapons with fine ones'.
• Standardized item descriptions in 'replace some magic weapons with fine ones' on the EE style.
• Minor documentation updates.
• Updated to ToBEx version 28.

Bugfixes

• The script controlling mages' moving and shooting between spells inexplicably got wiped in 33.5, and is now restored. (Thanks to various people, but especially GrimJim, for tracking this down.)
• Fixed a number of problems caused by the 2.6 update to BGEE and BG2EE:
  • The 'Improved Final Battle' component for BG1 made BGEE impossible to complete due to script changes in 2.6; this is now fixed.
  • 2.6-era mages are now wiser in the deceptive ways of genies and no longer accidentally grant wishes to their opponents.
  • The Balor's Aura of Flaming Death is now patched correctly
  • Suppressed a (harmless) warning in the dragon component
• 'Better Calls for Help' should now install correctly on EasyTUTU.
• Tweaked 'Party's items are taken from them in Spellhold'. It's possible this will fix the glitches people have been seeing in this component. (I can't reproduce those glitches myself, which makes fixing it difficult.)
• 'Wider range of random spell scrolls' should no longer create undroppable items.
• Hard-difficulty hit point boosts should no longer expire if you go away and come back.
• Fixed a small glitch in easy-difficulty cleric/mage scripts due to a typo (thanks, Bartimaeus).
• Fixed a number of other typo-caused glitches (thanks, TotoR).
• 12th-level necromancers no longer get Invisibility.
• Beholders now avoid Flesh to Stone at lower difficulty levels.
• Ease-of-use AI no longer casts healing spells on characters with Spell Deflection or similar.
• Scrolls of Protection from Magic correctly block spellcasting by the affected creature. (I think it's a bit of an exploit to use this offensively, but I don't block exploits; this was just a bug.)
• The increased hit points certain creatures (notably dragons) get on harder difficulty settings no longer expire if you go away for a long time and then return.
• Druid shapeshift tokens should (for real this time) not be taken from you by the Spellhold-items component.
• Pre-cast versions of spells now receive any changes made by the various spell-system tweaks (previously they were being made before the tweaks, and so missed them.) Notably, this means pre-cast Protection from Normal Missiles spells should block elemental arrows.
• The BG1 assassin parties can no longer spawn into an ongoing random encounter.
• Aec'Letec and the Demon Knight in Durlag's Tower can now teleport in combat (as per other SCS fiends) - previously a bug was preventing them doing so in most circumstances.
• Fixed an EE-specific bug in 'Improved Doppelgangers' that prevented the improved versions from spawning in Aldeth Sashenstar's home in certain scenarios (EE codes this differently from oBG2 and I hadn't caught on). Thanks to a forum poster for a careful analysis of this - I've lost the post but I'm still grateful for it.
• We (hopefully) no longer mangle hidespl.2da on classic (non-EE) installs.
• Checks for race=myconid now work correctly on classic (non-EE) installs.
• Drow katanas are not automatically identified.
• A few other miscellaneous typos fixed.

Incremental updates

• Version 34.1 (18th September 2021)

  Bugs mostly identified by Tresset and jmerry on the Beamdog forums, so thanks

  • Aec'letec can now be killed on EE installs (critical incompability with 2.6).
  • Revised batch mode a bit to deal better with reinstalls.
  • Fixed a library-file glitch which was preventing installation of IWD spells on some installs.
  • Creatures that are summoned offscreen by mages and priests are now summoned using the correct level of the spell, instead of the lowest level.
  • Wand of Spell Striking now reduces MR by 20% rather than a level-dependent amount.
  • Rakshasas and liches are no longer immune to the cleric version of True Seeing.
  • Mind flayers have grown tired of waiting for unber hulks to turn up and now work with umber hulks instead (typo in level-dependent spawn component).
  • Improved the handling of non-English-language numbers in the 'increased cost of Spellhold' component.
  • Carsa's new dialog entries are now tra-ified, so they can be translated into non-English languages; so are a couple of stray phrases from the spell tweaks. (Thanks to Roberciiik for spotting these.)
  • Smarter Mages modifies Mae'var's Shadow Armor so that it permits spellcasting, rather than removing it entirely from the game. (I thought of just giving it to someone else but the description is a very good fit to Mae'var specifically.)
  • The 'casting failure' icon from beholder/hive mother antimagic rays now has the correct duration.
  • 7th and 8th level druids no longer illegally get Iron Skins.
  • Beholders now use their central eye to destroy illusions (e.g. the Mislead spell clone).
  • Rearranged the order in which we install Detectable Spells and the spell-tweak system, hopefully sorting out a minor compatibility issue with SR.
  • Fire Elemental token now grants correct Dexterity and number of attacks.
• Version 34.2 (20th September 2021)
  • Updated French, Polish, and Russian translations.
  • Druid spell allocation now works correctly on non-IWD installs
  • Another tweak to the batch-mode installer (to enforce component order on reinstall).
  • Description for Mordenkainen's Force Missiles is now correct.
  • Fixed a bunch of compatibility issues between Spell Revisions and the IWD spells components (mostly on oBG2).
  • Fixed some problems with 'Improved NPC customization and management: cleric/mages get spells; thieves don't regain their bonus-skill abilities on rejoining the party.
  • Reverted a mistaken (undocumented) fix to the spellhold-cost component.
• Version 34.3 (20th September 2021)
  • Updated Italian translation.
  • Slight further update to French and Polish translations.
  • Some IWD spells weren't having their projectiles correctly assigned.

New or Substantially Modified Content

• Updated Russian translation (thanks to Arkie)
• New Enhanced-Edition-only component: improved Tales of the Sword Coast textscreens. (This spaces out the text in the go-to-island textscreen to keep pace with the spoken text, and moves the intro text when you arrive at Ulgoth's Beard into a new textscreen.)

Other content changes

• Various tweaks to shapeshift tokens: they no longer count as daggers for proficiency purposes; they block any changes to Strength, Dexterity and (for Earth Elemental form) physical damage resistance; they now do token-appropriate damage types (instead of all doing Slashing); they are now granted direct when you level up, instead of the 'create token' spell being granted instead
• On EE, IWD spells (and any third-party spells you have installed) are now available for hotkeys
• Fiends more often avoid using attack spells against obviously-immune targets
• High-level wizards will try to take down antimagic shells
• High-level wizards carry Spell Strike slightly more often
• The fear auras of demons, dragons and liches no longer penetrate an antimagic field or the protection from a Scroll of Protection from Magic

Bugfixes

• The NPC auto-leveller now works (mostly) even if party AI is turned off
• Added a guard into the NPC auto-leveller so that it fails more gracefully if there are any other problems (characters should level once and stop, rather than infinitely levelling)
• A few characters who are plausibly enemies to fight (currently Caelar (SoD) and Hexxat (BG2) ) are no longer set to level zero. (A side effect is that these characters cannot be customized.)
• NPC auto-leveller now more robustly ensures that NPCs who go hostile aren't invincible.
• "Wider range of random spell scrolls" component is recoded to work slightly differently, and to avoid (I hope) the duplicate-scrolls bug.
• 'Earth/Fire elemental transformation' are no longer mislabeled 'Earth/Fire elemental token' on the HLA select screen
• 'Ease of use AI' hotkeys can now be reallocated from stratagems.ini at install time (previously this wasn't working properly)
• 'Ease of use AI' no longer spams Impervious Sanctity of Mind
• Fine flails and composite bows now do the correct amount of damage - thanks to Merlin for catching that
• Entropy Shield no longer displays (harmless) cruft when cast
• Entropy Shield blocks Flame Strike properly
• Fixed glitches in the ds_make_detectable function (they were causing a couple of spell-labelling problems)
• Summoned lesser air elementals no longer look like myconids
• Cure Moderate Wounds now properly matches the other (level 1-5) healing spells
• Storm Shell is no longer non-functional
• Balor swords now grant a save vs death at -4, and kill without chunking (this had been lost at some point)
• Some minor fixes to 'innate triggers': triggers no longer appear on sorcerer spell-selection screens; Contingency is properly named in the quickbar and on level-up; Contingency no longer appears in sorcerer spellbooks.
• Baresh's lycanthropy is now less virulent: he no longer transforms into two werewolves
• Better journal handling in 'improved Balduran's Isle'
• Rogues now use the 'Evasion' HLA
• Bandit camp should more systematically gang up on the player if they go hostile
• On non-EE installs, an incompatibility between Innate HLAs and Smarter Mages was causing CTDs; it's been fixed
• The area-assigned scripts for Torgal's giant trolls no longer overwrite their creature-file-assigned scripts (this was largely cosmetic on EE, but made them unkillable on vanilla)
• Improve demilich saves, give immunity to mace of disruption
• Impervious Sanctity of Mind's SPELL_SHIELD splstate now removed correctly
• Rakshasas and demiliches no longer absorb their own Sunfire spells
• Truesight dispels blindness instead of just blocking it
• Time Stop was not properly being marked for detection
• The various anti-defense spells now correctly record whether they take down an Anti-Magic Shell (the only one that does is Spellstrike)
• The modifications to protection from normal missiles no longer prevent Physical Mirror and Entropy Shield from reflecting Flame Arrows
• Spellcasters do not avoid using summoning spells against foes protected by an scroll of protection from magic or an antimagic shell
• Summoned fiends don't attack each other
• Player can't target summoned fiends before they're properly gated in (hopefully actually working this time!)
• Vampires now use their bat cloud correctly
• Vampire summons turn up near the vampire, not offscreen (this was throwing bugs on EE due to the redefinition of the CreateCreatureOffscreen function in EE).
• Conjurers can now use the scrolls added by IWD spells
• Righteous Wrath of the Faithful handled correctly by DS
• Faldorn and Cernd fight properly when Cernd is not in the party (for real, this time).
• Cosmetic fix: the text on antimagic spells is better aligned
• Though it remains controversial that Death Spell can be used to kill insects, it no longer annoys friendly NPCs so much that they turn hostile

Compatibility Fixes

• Item Upgrade now avoids using Contingency scrolls if Innate Contingencies is added (thanks to Cam for the code)
• Most of SCS's functions now throw warnings, instead of failing outright, if they run into a broken item from another mod (e.g. "cmstq04.itm" from Dark Horizons)
• Fixed some largely-cosmetic issues with Spell Revisions and Item Revisions compatibility, which were throwing WARNINGs at install time
• Guarded some more against malformed copies of the max-spell 2das
• Somewhat more systematically allowed for fighter/mage/thief characters in 'smarter mages'.

Incremental updates

• Version 33.1 (31st May 2020)
  • Updated French translation (thanks to Jazira and Gwendolyne)
  • Updated Russian translation (thanks to Arkie)
  • In rare circumstances, liches were summoning Planetars on too-low a difficulty setting
  • Spell hotkeys now work for high-level mage spells
  • Hotkey 'D' is no longer remapped to 'Q' by default
• Version 33.2 (3rd July 2020)
  • Corrected a typo which prevented some mage/thieves from getting proper scripting
  • Optimized the troll-regeneration code to increase install speed
  • Foreign language translations of the new strings in the IWD spells components no longer get corrupted (which in some cases was causing crashes)
  • Fixed a stutter bug with 'Improved NPC customization and management' (previously, if you never turned on the AI for a character they would stop moving every few moments). The stuttering remains if you haven't yet levelled the character, but that's not a problem as you should be levelling them immediately in any case.
  • 'Improved NPC customization and management' no longer hard-codes the assumptions that only humans can dual-class, that only nonhumans can multi-class, and that only single-class characters can have kits. This should improve compatibility with various other mods. (It remains incompatible with any mod that removes dual-classing from humans, as it doesn't know what to do with existing dual-class characters like Imoen.)
  • The tweaked version of Entropy Shield is now correctly identified by Detectable Spells.
  • The console command to stop enemies targeting the main character with Maze now works (thanks to Polytope for spotting the bug here)
• Version 33.3 (19th July 2020)
  • Deprecated the Chinese, Korean and Spanish translations, as they haven't been updated since 2012 or so and the mod has changed radically since then.
  • Language entries now note for which version the translation was most recently updated.
  • SCS's function language no longer chokes on resource names with hyphens in (no base-game files do this, but it was breaking compatibility with some mods)
  • SCS now allows for the edge case where a spell-memorization file contains a column entirely of zeroes (again, this was blocking compatibility in rare cases)
  • SCS's 'correct antimagic descriptors' function now allows for malformed spells with no name (this was causing crashes when Dark Side of the Sword Coast's spell system was installed)
• Version 33.4 (23rd August 2020)
  • Updated Russian translation (thanks to Arkie)
  • Guarded against the variable that tracks Time Stop not resetting to zero when the spell ends (I don't have a theoretical explanation for how this happens but there's some evidence that it does, and that it causes sporadic bugs, including Sendai's statues not activating).
  • Aec'letec's Death Gaze now works properly. Witness the power of this fully armed and operational nabassu.
  • Fiends in a few install configurations (notably BGTUTU/BGEE installs) weren't getting Teleport without Error.
  • Mages should no longer use Spell Sequencers when out of range (thus wasting the spell)
  • Player-summoned fiends should now attack properly
  • On non-EE installs, Iron Skins was being treated as a Spell Protection when precast by enemies
  • The BG2 Improved Random Encounters now check Player 1's XP, not Player 1's level, when deciding what to spawn. (The new XP totals correspond to a fighter's XP at the old level.)
  • Giant Spiders should no longer use their Web Tangle attack more often than once per round
  • Giant Spiders are now properly affected by Fear
  • Necromancers no longer use Blindness (for some inexplicable reason, when I coded spell choices I thought it was Necromancy, not Illusion)
• Version 33.5 (10th October 2020)
  • Updated to WEIDU 247; some tweaks to resolve compatibility problems.
  • Archers now get their proper script
  • The Cult Wizard in Ulgoth's Beard is now a more reasonable level.
  • Conjurers no longer use divination spells.
  • Under the hood: many updates to SFO function library.
• Version 33.6 (12th October 2020)
  • Fixed a slightly esoteric SFO bug that was blocking installs in some circumstances.
• Version 33.7 (28th October 2020)
  • Non-English-language installs that lack a string will again use the English version instead of failing to install. (Bug introduced by 33.5's changes.)
  • Cure Moderate Wounds no longer gets mangled on a Spell Revisions / IWD Divine Spells install.

This version is built on v30 code; hopefully it incorporates all the fixes and translation updates from v31 but there is some chance of reversions.

New or Substantially Modified Content

• Systematic integration of the difficulty slider (and per-component difficulty customization) into scripts; hardcoded difficulty-based adjustments are deactivated by default
• Substantial streamlining of the mod structure:
  • "Initial" component is only required for AI/tactical components (it's silly to require its various changes if someone just wants to skip Candlekeep)
  • All spell-tweak components have been integrated into the Initial component (but can be adjusted via the ini) - since they're more-or-less assumed by the AI, playing without them doesn't count as a "recommended" install and so I'd rather install them by default
  • Most item-tweak components have been integrated into a single component (though again, power users can deselect individual components via the ini)
  • As listed in the v31 change-log, eight of the gameplay/ease-of-use components have migrated to the Tweaks Anthology and are deprecated.
  • Remaining non-tactical/AI components have been collected together into "Gameplay".
  • All customization options for AI and tactical components have been absorbed into the new difficulty system, so that they can be adjusted in-game rather than at install time
  • Smarter Celestials and Improved Fiends have been combined; 'Mages/Priests get High-Level Abilities' has been absorbed into the Mage/Priest components.
• New components: include IWD:EE priest and mage spells.
• Smarter Mages and Smarter Priests will now use Icewind Dale spells, if they are installed via IWDification or via SCS itself (and if Spell Revisions is not installed)
• Big increase in level of support for Spell Revisions; I think I pretty much fully allow for its changes now.
• Major overhaul of scripts (in particular targetting), to take advantage of new Enhanced Edition / ToBEx and to allow for the new spell systems. Far too many changes to list, but in particular:
  • Spellcasters will now notice your protective items only after their first failed attempt to use a spell on you. (They still notice visible spell effects immediately.)
  • Spellcasters are now more willing to use their single-target spells to try to break through a wizard's Spell Deflection. (This is experimental; let me know how it plays out.)
  • Moderate increase in the number of spells used (even without Spell Revisions / Icewind Dale spells)
  • More careful targetting of area-effects spells to avoid friendly fire (and so, more willingness to use those spells)
  • Substantial increase in the variety of contingencies, sequencers and triggers used (and sequencers/triggers are chosen at install time now, not when you first encounter the mage)
  • I make a bit more effort to make mages use more distinctive abilities. (For instance, invokers now pretty much have a monopoly on Fire Shields, and don't use illusions; necromancers are fond of cold spells.)
• Additional tweaks to the standard spell system:
  • Removed the spell-battle framework for summoned elementals
  • Fiend-summoning spells now summon alignment-appropriate fiends (I always did this for enemy mages with 'Smarter Mages' installed, but now I do it for the PC too
  • Elemental-protection effects now give complete immunity to the effect (i.e. it doesn't disrupt spellcasting) if the damage resistance is 100% or more (EE is in the process of rolling this out but it hasn't come to BG2EE yet)
  • Player-cast Symbol spells are now party-friendly. (NPC ones always were even in the vanilla game, so this is a fairness tweak.)
• Tweaks to the Icewind Dale spell system. (Some of these are rather more drastic than the changes I make to the vanilla system; feedback welcomed. My ulterior motive is to experiment a bit with improving priest magical defenses.)
  • Circle of Bones now lasts for 1 round per level
  • Shield of Lathander and Greater Shield of Lathander have been renamed to something neutral (Divine Protection/Greater Divine Protection), are self-only, and are not restricted to evil characters.
  • Impervious Sanctity of Mind (which was a L7 self-only spell functionally equivalent to Chaotic Commands) now has a longer duration, includes a Spell Shield, and prevents spell failure effects.
  • Thorn Spray now does a tolerable amount of damage.
  • Acid Storm now functions more like an area-effect Vitriolic sphere (previously it was more or less an automatic way to shut down spellcasters).
  • Mordenkainen's Force Missiles has been nerfed at higher levels (maximum 4 missiles, maximum 15 hp splash damage per missile), since it was pretty ridiculous otherwise, especially in Sequencers.
  • Create Boneguard has been added as a L9 necromancy spell, basically stealing the Boneguard from Monster Summoning VII.
• Faster Bears now works on EE.
• Early Access to Watcher's Keep now works on EE (and no longer blocks access to Watcher's Keep in SoA).
• Big improvements in install speed, especially on heavily kitted installs. (It still takes a while, though.)
• New EE-only component: improved NPC customization and management. (This is an EE version of 'choose NPC proficiencies and skills', but much more powerful and (I hope) robust.)
• New EE-only component: wider selection of random scrolls in Baldur's Gate I.
• New EE-only component: rebalanced troll regeneration.
• New EE-only component: restoration spells restore ability drain.
• New component: make sequencers and contingencies into innate abilities.
• New component: increase the power of cure and cause wounds spells.
• Substantial edits to the Abazigal's enclave component: no tactical changes, but cutscenes and dialogs have been tightened up, and two reused areas have been replaced by new (well, tweaked, reflected, and recolored) areas: Anadramatis now has a proper-sized cave for a dragon battle.
• I've decided that I need to require ToBEX on non-Enhanced Edition installs. Unfortunately, this means I no longer support non-Enhanced versions of the game on MacOX or Linux.
• On the Enhanced Edition, ease-of-use AI now replaces the Advanced AI, and can be customized using the controls under "Customise/Scripts".
• Added yochlols, rilmani, and the lesser demon lord to "Improved Fiends and Celestials".
• Deprecated 'more resilient trolls' component.
• Deprecated the auto-installer, in anticipation of Zeitgeist (and because it's a bit hacky). Scream if you want it back.
• Deprecated 'move hell items' component, since this is now fixed both in EE and in v12 of the Fixpack.

Other Content Changes

• Removed the beholder burn-thru option (since EE, at least, handles burnthru correctly) and fixed on the PnP-style antimagic eye as a default.
• On EE installs, enemy invisibility spells now hide the spellcaster's animations.
• Reduced use of fiend summoning by mages (mostly, only liches summon fiends now).
• On EE installs, if you're not using Spell Revisions (and at the risk of their immortal soul) it is possible - though difficult - for party members to acquire the ability to summon non-hostile fiends. (This removes a piece of enemy cheating I was always a bit uncomfortable with.)
• Demilich Trap the Soul no longer causes level drain (actually changed earlier, but only now documented)
• Slightly reduced rate of vampire constitution drain.
• Priest AI use of Cure Serious Wounds touch attacks slightly tweaked.
• The "extra spell scrolls" component now includes a scroll of Improved Mantle (this was claimed in the documentation but not implemented).
• Slightly reduced allocation of invisibility potions to thieves.
• Alhoon now fights to the death.
• Balors now use Telekinesis to pull in victims, as well as repel warriors.
• Moved the Cloak of Mirroring to Vongoethe.
• Daitel, being a ghost, is now immune to nonmagical attacks.
• Added a couple of yochlol to the drow ambush groups in Sendai's enclave.
• Smarter Priests now includes the Priestesses of Umberlee in Baldur's Gate.
• Carbos and Shank have been expelled from the Assassin's Guild.
• Nevaziah is now level 14, and so less overwhelming for players who recruit Edwin. (If you prefer the original one, just edit stratagems/mage/override/bg2/level.2da before installing.)
• Slightly increased the number of 'real' magic weapons left by the Fine Weapons component.
• Revised Bodhi's summons (she doesn't summon in chapter 3, when she's just playing with you; her summons in chapter 6 are sensitive to the difficulty slider.
• Gibberlings now get AI more suited to their intellectual capacities.
• Even though it's so last year, Davaeorn bows to practicality and actually wears his Robe of the Evil Archmagi; he lends his redundant bracers to his hired help.
• Recoded Spellhold Item Removal component so that you still get your inventory in the dream sequence.
• Undead don't drink potions
• A very small number of thieves (notably the skeletal assassin) use scrolls, rather than potions, of invisibility
• Tazok no longer drinks potions before the final BG1 fight starts
• Shamans can now use kobold poisoned arrows
• Elites at the bandit camp now get dialog

Under-the-hood changes (not visible in game)

• Recoded "add spell immunity scrolls".
• REQUIRE_COMPONENT now used to detect components, mostly replacing marker files.
• Rearranged external folder (and renamed it weidu_external to make it clearer that others are welcome to share it).
• Restructured crossplatform code to allow for EET and generally be more readable.
• Broken the single tra file into per-component tra files (for all languages).
• Upgraded SSL to include new SSLBoolean settings, TRIGGER_REPLACE library option, and use of scsargumentN in triggers.
• Updated function library.
• Updated to Weidu 246.
• Updated Detectable Spells.
• Smarter Abazigal component no longer biffs the lizard-weapon icons on Enhanced-Edition installs (unnecessary, and messes with iOS installs).
• Complete recoding of the mage/priest blocks to support IWDification, SR and the new spell system. Each mage and priest now has their own bespoke script.
• Streamlined detection of BG1 characters.

Bugfixes (some but not all of the v31 fixes are called out here, as they have been implemented differently)

• detect-cloud code no longer fails on installs where some cloud spellls are absent (including current-version BGEE)
• Mulahey's scripting (in "tougher chapter 2 end fight") now works properly on TUTU and BGT installs
• Extra kobold spawn in "harder kobolds" now calculates the chapter correctly on BGT installs
• Fixed a typo that was preventing the no-dispelling-arrows component from functioning properly
• Duplicated BG2EE use of the more discriminating LastKilled trigger for the Shade Lord's shadowmaking (and tightened it up a bit on non-EE installs too)
• Fine longbows and shortbows no longer give an unintended +1 to damage
• A couple of changes to allow installation on a vanilla Tutu install, even though I don't officially support it.
• Anadramatis the yellow dragon now attacks with claws and fangs rather than unarmed
• The Priest of Cyric in the North Forest had both dual melee weapons and a sling, which causes crashes (stealth vanilla bug); the sling has been removed.
• Abazigal gets the effects of the "improved dragon staying power" subcomponent on non-Ascension installs
• The various avatars in the Durlag Lovefight are now explicitly immune to Avarice's poison cloud
• "Earlier Watcher's Keep" component now permits access to Watcher's Keep in the Shadows of Amn portion of the game
• Ettercaps and wyverns now correctly use their poisoned weapons.
• The staircase between the two levels of the Guarded Compound is now magically blocked during the fight with the Guarded Compound team, since there have been reports of glitches caused by people flitting between levels.
• Baalor telekinesis power is now correctly named.
• Invisible mages wander a little less far at the start, to avoid wandering away from the battle entirely.
• Ini-based adjustments to spellcaster level no longer cause trouble when the adjusted level is below zero.
• Smarter Mages and Smarter Priests now handle level adjustments to multiclass spellcasters more delicately.
• Corrected a couple of mismatches between Improved Shapeshifter paws and their descriptions as regards paw enhancement level (werewolf tokens changed to match the descriptions; other descriptions changed to match the items).
• On non-EE installs, attacking INNOCENT mages now causes reputation loss.
• Planar warden was getting an erroneous extra attack
• Creatures now correctly flee Storm of Vengeance.
• Insect plague/fire-shield changes should now work again.
• Player-summoned hotkey control now a bit smoother.
• Player-summoned creatures with ranged attacks now use them properly.
• Fixed a glitch in the Help script which in some circumstances causes enemies to home on to an invisible PC.
• "Recover items from Hell" no longer breaks the transition to ToB on some installs; component generally recoded to be more resistant to problems in the future.
• Support for variable libraries (and in particular for SR-specific libraries) now works properly
• Fixed a typo causing the fission slime "fix" to install on EE installs rather than *non*-EE installs.
• Corrected a glitch in Ascension Irenicus's Mislead.
• Several mages (including a couple of rakshasa, a kobold witch-doctor, and a few BG2EE-added creatures) inadvertently got skipped by "Smarter Mages" and are now included properly.
• The Cleric/Mage statue of Sendai no longer erroneously retains its old-style cleric/mage script.
• "Improved minor BG2 encounters" now correctly changes the traps in the Guarded Compound.
• The traps in the Prison Plane are now PC-only, as NPCs are apparently setting them off inappropriately.
• Clerics now correctly use Blade Barrier in their prebuff sequences.
• The tanar'ri summoners in Watcher's Keep no longer cast their spells instantly (among other things this brings the animation level in that encounter under control).
• Vithal now gets allocated a combat script correctly.
• Many rakshasa nobles have their level increased in Smarter Mages (the automated code was assigning a level that was too low for the powers they show in-game and that didn't respect the power differences between Ruhks, Rajahs and Maharajahs).
• The Planar Prison warden now acts intelligently when enemies attack and then retreat.
• Recoded fine-weapons component to update code and correct some glitches with weapon shatter.
• The initialisation component externalises the effects of the Wand of Spell Striking to spells (you won't see this in game but it makes the wand play nicely with various tweaks to Breach).
• Breach now properly affects rakshasas.
• Corrected some serious logic/naming errors with Abazigal; in particular, he should now use his SCS script if "Smarter Dragons" is installed, and Tamah should spawn correctly.
• Fixed some install bugs in "Antimagic penetrates invisibility", and taken advantage of new EE functionality.
• Gromnir now uses Vhailor's Helm if he has it.
• Nalmissra gets her proper script if "smarter fiends" is installed.
• Various help-script tweaks.
• Kobold poisoned weapons now grant saving throws properly.
• Spellhold item removal no longer messes up stacked items.
• Ascension Fallen Solars no longer have demon flunkies
• Fire Shield is no longer blocked by Mirror Image (vanilla game fix)
• Party summons no longer overreact to friendly fire
• Balors no longer drop flails
• Traps in the Planar Prison don't affect thralls (for real now)
• A non-party-member Cernd now fights effectively against Faldorn
• Enemies now run out of Cloudkill and Writhing Fog (previously they were being skipped by the detect-cloud algorithm)
• Genies, illithids and fiends now move out of clouds (when appropriate)
• Noble efreeti have received counselling, and no longer self-harm with Flame Arrows when alone
• Solars no longer teleport to inaccessible points
• Bodhi and her vampires avoid using (possibly-gamebreaking) spells during the quasi-cutscene fight in the Asylum
• Insect Plague subcomponent now affects Black Dragon insect swarm
• Mysterious + signs no longer appear on the character sheet
• Innately cast wizard/priest HLAs are now preserved on export/import
• Innately cast wizard/priest HLAs now respect the rules on prerequisites and mutually-incompatible HLAs
• Corrected some mismatches between components' names as used in the installer and as seen in the readme
• Taken steps to prevent odd cases of creatures resting in combat when they momentarily lose sight of the party
• Earth Elemental token correctly gives 50% DR, not 100%
• Fire Elemental token's extra fire damage is now working
• General pass through Bodhi's abilities, correcting a number of minor issues
• Fixed a baseline-EE bug that caused certain weapons that do poison damage to have all their effects (not just poison) blocked by poison resistance
• Fixed a baseline-EE bug with the summoned-monster script that caused them to stutter if their target went invisible
• Caught some missing summons who Smarter AI wasn't giving a script

Compatibility fixes

• lib_macro is a little less fragile in the presence of third-party CLAB errors
• Various copy routines fail a bit more gracefully when some idiot leaves a broken file in the override
• We now recognise that SR v4 True Seeing cures blindness
• Flagged a (hidden) fix of a Fixpack/Ascension compatibility problem to apply only on non-EE installs (EE installs don't use the fixpack)
• We now determine the maximum spell level for any spellcasting type at install time (this fixes compatibility, in particular, with mods that increase the maximum level of bard spells)
• Code to remove broken items (iplotxx, etc) is now a little more robust, which might help some compatibility issues.
• RP part of Werewolf Island is now skipped if it's already been installed via The Calling.
• Fixed various compatibility problems (notably, duplicate of Tamah) with the new EE-friendly version of Ascension.
• Fixed a bug in new Ascension that was nerfing Demogorgon's summoning power.
• Items moved by 'Move or modify some overpowered magic items' now only move if they haven't already been moved by another mod.
• Beholder, illithid and fiend changes are now made to any creature with the right script, not just a hardcoded list.
• 'Smarter Vampires' no longer gets confused if SR version of invisibiliy is present.
• Fixed a bug in SR that can cause enemy-summoned Death Knights to be attacked by their allies
• Fixed a bug in SR that prevented Holy Smite causing blindness

Incremental updates

• Version 32.1 (4th June 2019)
  • Updated Italian translation (thanks, Improbabilile)
  • Fixed glitches in the difficulty system for Ascension
• Version 32.2 (10th June 2019)
  • Fixed some typos in the Italian translation
  • Preprogrammed teleport sequences (e.g. Davaeorn's) should no longer crash the game if triggered after the caster's death
  • 'Alignment-appropriate fiend summoning' subcomponent is now compatible with Tome and Blood
  • SCS code to give IDS entries for SR spells is a bit more robust against a third mod messing with spell.ids
  • Fixed a serious problem with DS that was causing crashes on non-EE installs
  • Wand18 no longer has 2 projectiles
  • Wild mage Chaos Shield didn't work properly due to a bug in Detectable Spells
  • Auto-leveller gives wild mages their innately-granted spells
  • We now edit Greywolf's script more surgically, so that it works properly on EE
  • Insect Plague tweaks are now working correctly
  • Bodhi in Ascension uses her Fire Shield (on Insane) and her other powers
  • Abazigal in Ascension doesn't come forward before his cutscene triggers
  • Fixed a vanilla bug in Fire Shield where some versions of Fire Shield were coded as zero-level and so bypassed certain immunities
• Version 32.3 (23rd June 2019)
  • Protective-item detection now fixed
  • Improved Dragon hit points now work correctly when Ascension is installed
  • Fixed the 'customize NPC level/class' ability, which 32.2 broke.
  • Corrected typo in spell-revisions IDS file.
  • Druids no longer get Armor of Faith if Spell Revisions is installed.
  • NPC-detection code now allows correctly for NPCs in SoD.
  • 'Fear' in Durlag's tower is no longer indestructible in certain (mostly EET) situations.
  • Journal and chapter updates are now handled slightly more elegantly by 'Make WK accessible' component
  • Under the hood change: we now do script edits using the newer alter_script library rather than the lib_bcs library in sfo. Inter alia, this handles spaces in scripts properly, which was causing install failures in some (rare) circumstances.
  • Although his Balor flunkies still chafe under Irenicus's yoke, they no longer attempt to rebel by attacking him or his other servants in Hell. (Actually, this was a wider bug that might have affected other Balors too.)
  • Nabassu paralysation aura now requires only one saving throw, as intended
• Version 32.4 (14th July 2019)
  • The cutscene with the black dragons in Abazigal's lair no longer hangs
  • Summoned boneguards get the right size animation
  • Summoned ogre berserkers get Enrage
  • Fixed a vanilla bug in the EE summoned-monster script that makes it stutter when foes go invisible (this was fixed in BG2EE on 32.3 but not on BGEE)
  • Bombardier beetle stun/deafness now grants a saving throw (see full readme for details)
  • Bombardier beetle stun no longer displays duplicate or inappropriate strings
  • Fixed some oddities in spiderwebs on BGEE/Tutu
  • Dorn no longer gets duplicate abilities in 'Improved NPC customization/management'
  • Some summoned monsters were missing on BGEE versions of IWD spells
  • IWD-spell-summoned creatures' weapons are now unbreakable
  • Added an in-game note to tell the player they need to save and reload to get Wild Mage spells after using 'NPC customization and management'
  • Druid swift-shapeshift is now controlled from the ini, rather than checking if the player is using swift-shapeshift (this was supposed to be present in v32.0 but was broken)
  • Lizard man shades now have weapons
  • Cause Light Wounds no longer does duplicate damage
  • Storm Shell doesn't stack with itself
  • Cure Serious Wounds and Cure Critical Wounds now have their alignment restrictions removed properly
• Version 32.5 (20th August 2019)
  • Italian translation updated (thanks, improb@bile)
  • IWD vampire-mage spell list referred to SUMMON_BONEGUARD instead of CREATE_BONEGUARD, causing Smarter Mages installation to fail in (rare) cases where a L18+ vampire mage was present
• Version 32.6 (22nd September 2019)
  • Updated function library to use a new and hopefully more reliable area-reflecter for Abazigal's lair
  • Various fixes to the NPC customizer:
  • Mage/Thief is now available as a multi-class option; fighter/mage/thief is not duplicated
  • Sorcerers should now level up correctly
  • Characters whose class is customized into or out of a multiclass should now level up correctly
  • Customised characters now gain levels according to their new class, not their old class
  • If you dual-class a character, they no longer gain extra XP
  • Sorcerers no longer get extra spells
  • The Cowled Wizards have noted the softening market in heroic quests and have lowered the maximum charge for Spellhold from 1,120,000gp to 120,000 gp.
  • Creatures with immunity to normal weapons no longer use Protection from Normal Missiles
  • Restored compatibility with IWDification
  • Lesser elementals now have the Small animation again
  • Priests normally refrain from attacking under Sanctuary
  • Fiends no longer use spells in the dead-magic area in WK
  • Insect Plague should no longer be cast on targets who are protected from it
  • Innate contingencies should now use the correct level for dual-class and multi-class mages
  • The Baldur's Gate thieves' guild have reconsidered their loyalties and no longer automatically support Resar if he attacks the party
  • The Ogre Mage leader in the ambush outside Candlekeep now goes hostile properly
  • Odamaron's lich apprentice is properly named
  • Odamaron's apprentices are now guaranteed to be the same alignment as he is (this prevents Blood War clashes if they all summon fiends)
  • Temporarily disabled Improved Abazigal's Lair component on non-EE installs. The new areas are causing CTDs that I can't immediately work out how to fix (and I don't have time right now for an extended investigation)
  • Improved Shapeshifting now installs correctly on top of CDTweaks "enforce dual-class proficiency restrictions". (There is a bug in the CDtweaks component that corrupts the CLAB files; I fix it en passant.)
  • Random potion drops should no longer lead to occasional crashes on large installs
  • Balors now use Implosion properly
  • "Fine weapons" component no longer removes magic weapons from summoned undead
  • Cleared up some minor issues with summoned fiends
• Version 32.7 (6th October 2019)
  • Fixed nasty bug with NPC customizer
• Version 32.8 (22nd February 2020)
  • Fixed compatibility issues with SRv4b17+
  • Fixed wrong mod version displayed for non-English installs

This version is a maintenance release, packaged by CamDawg, though the work is from others. ALIENQuake had colected a lot of these for BWS, and they were happily (and easily) integrated. Mad Mate also had another huge chunk of fixes, for which we were very grateful.

• CamDawg provided the following fixes:
  • Updated Detectable Spells to the most recent version (v3.95). This should fix some miscellaneous installation errors.
  • Fixed the bug where the party could fail to be transported to the chessboard in Durlag's Tower in EE games
  • Fixed the crash with the druid Osmadi when he tried to shapeshift by removing his cursed item in EE games
• One of the patches was broken; thanks to Ineth2 for the fix
• DavidW resolved a conflict between SCS and Wheels of Prophecy
• K4thos provided several fixes:
  • Integrated many, many fixes to make SCS fully compatible with EET
  • Fix for Viconia in EET for the move NPCs component
  • Fix for unkillable Sarevok in EET game
  • Stopped Mulahey from spawning wave after wave of enemies
• AstroBryGuy provided the followiing fixes:
  • fixed the missing header for caster_shared.tph
  • fix for joinable SoD NPCs whose DVs do not match their pdialog values
  • fix for flame arrows and Kobold Commando flame arrows
• burner1024 had a fix for fiends
• Ilya Ivanov provided a fix for installing fiends without Smarter Mages
• agb1 provided the following fixes:
  • Fixed for the macro_read_in_spells_per_level failing when mxsplXX.2da had an all-zero column
  • updated the EET compatibility patch for Allow NPC pairs to separate
  • Updated Allow NPC pairs to separate to use the cpmvars libraries
  • Also fixed a bug where Allow NPC pairs to separate would fail on a standalone install due to a missing macro call
  • read_in_NPC_dialog macro is now ToB-aware
  • Removed redundant chunk of code
  • Updated Wheels of Prohecy compatibility code from v4 to v5
• Etamin and Cahir updated the Polish translation; Bartek and Etamin did as well
• Graoumf updated the French translation
• Leonardo Watson provided an updated German translation
• critto provided a fix for the Reduce the number of Arrows of Dispelling in stores component
• In addition to providing the updated repo to base this version on, ALIENQuake added a patch for Ascension compatibility
• subtledoctor provided a fix for SCS choking while pasrsing spell.ids
• whiteagnus provided a fix for non-English EE games
• CrevsDaak provided the following fixes:
  • A fix for the player1 translation file for EE games
  • A fix for an install failure
  • A fix for SCS/Wheels of Prophecy compatibility
• khelben provided a fix for init scripts on Ascension games
• Mad Mate provided the following fixes
  • Additional fixes to CamDawg's DS update
  • Corrected the script name for Brendan
  • Fixed a bug (identified by kreso) where low level priests could get high level spells if Refinements was installed
  • 'Innocent' druids were skipped in the divine spell patches
  • SCS made copies of liches, but never installed the main lich from which copies should be made
  • The new realistic wolves only worked in Tutu games
  • Abazigal should now spawn Tamah if you use Ascension-based components
  • Some miscellaneous typos that prevented patches from being executed, plus other miscellaneous typos
  • Various assassins were not getting their stuff because of a typo
  • Scripting glitch that prevented Irenicus from acting in Ascenion games at the Throne of Bhaal
  • Schlumpsha did not receive the correct weapon
  • Scripts were added to the wrong hobgoblins
  • SCS was not properly detecting Spell Revisions
  • Melissan adjustments were not properly detecting Ascension
  • The wrong prebuff version of Blade Barrier was being called
  • Dragons were not using their dragon-specific prebuff spells
  • Resolved a conflict involving with Infinity Animations around fiend animations
• The following components have been deprecated since they're moving to Tweaks Anthology:
• Make party members less likely to irreversibly
• Allow BG1 NPC pairs to separate (BGEE, TUTU, BGT)
• Allow Yeslick to use axes
• BG1 NPCs go to inns
• Move BG1 NPCs to more convenient locations
• Move Boo into Minsc's pack
• Stackable ankheg shells, winterwolf pelts and wyvern heads (BGEE, TUTU, BGT)
• Ensure Shar-Teel doesn't die in the original challenge

• Updated Polish translation (thanks, Bartek)
• "Modify breach" really and truly affects liches this time. (Maybe? Maybe?)
• "Skip candlekeep" classic version works correctly.
• Ease-of-use AI installs correctly on BGEE/TUTU installs.
• Fixed cosmetic problem with werewolf tokens.
• NPC precast blade barriers now work.
• Under-the-hood change: vampire and lich simulacrum-immunity spells are now auto-built from the corresponding items.
• Slightly more forgiving code to allow for Ding0Tweaks (probably fixes the false positive that's blocking vanilla TUTU installs)

New or Modified Content

• Restored "Improved Vampires" component on EE installs. (I can no longer reproduce the crash bug, which makes me cautiously optimistic that BG2EE 1.3 has solved it.)
• Upgraded to WEIDU v237
• "Improved Watchers Keep" now makes all statues into golems (suggestion, and code, by Mad Mate).
• Various wizard spell uses are slightly more sensitive to spell turning, minor globes, and the like. (Thanks to Kreso and Raest for suggesting and coding these.)
• Ease-of-use AI now uses Bhaalspawn innate healing ability.
• Quick-cast mage spells used by the ease-of-use AI no longer attract the attention of the Cowled Wizards.
• Better use of Talosar spells.
• General AI is a bit more willing to attack weakened (but non-helpless) opponents.
• High-level wizards fairly reliably carry Spell Thrust or Secret Word to deal with Spell Shields.
• Wizards don't use Timestops during their (or their allies') Alacrities.
• Slightly toned down use of Teleport Field.
• Enemies are aware of the effects of barbarian/berserker rage.
• More customized spell selections for rakshasas.
• "Elemental arrow" component now removes the (undocumented except on EE) bonuses to hit and damage from fire arrows.
• Kobold commandos get an enhanced Dexterity score and an extra pip in Shortbow (low-level humanoids are only normally allowed 1 pip) to compensate for the decrease in their abilities from standardising THAC0 and toning down elemental arrows. (They should now be about back up to vanilla power).
• Hobgoblin elites get designated as Fighters for the purposes of proficiencies, to compensate for THAC0 standardisation.
• Deprecated "Faster Bears" on BG2EE installs, since 1.3 does this automatically.
• Fiend hit point changes are now calculated relative to their actual pre-SCS values, not hardcoded. (This mostly means that they're higher.)
• Candlekeep fourth-wall-breaking tutors now get removed on either version of skip-Candlekeep.
• Under-the-hood updates to SFO install function.
• Under-the-hood change: detection of the Cloak of Mirroring is now externalised to a DirectDamageSafe trigger.
• Under-the-hood change: externalised SSL library dependence in SFO calls to SSL.
• Under-the-hood change: an argument of "null" to an SFO automatically-generated ASCII or ASCII20 edit function prints a blank string (inter alia this suppresses a harmless SFO warning in "improved Fiends").
• Documentation change: I no longer officially support Tutu v4 (i.e., I don't do install tests on it, though I'll probably respond to reported problems). I still support EasyTUTU, BGT, vanilla BG2, BGEE, and BG2EE.

Bugfixes

• Paranoid liches don't get confused when Improved Fiends isn't installed (thanks to Mad Mate for spotting original issue)
• Izefia's druid flunkies now built properly (thanks to Mad Mate for spotting original issue)
• Iron Throne mooks in Candlekeep no longer turn the whole keep hostile (thanks to Mad Mate for spotting original issue)
• Corrected a typo that prevented fiends from using Dispel Magic correctly (thanks to Raest for spotting this)
• Corrected a typo that prevented mages using one of their sequencers in some defensive contexts (thanks to Raest for spotting this)
• 9th-11th level wizards may be able to cast Oracle (thanks to Kreso for spotting that they couldn't and identifying the cause)
• Clerics and druids now use Chaotic Commands in prebuff routines (thanks for Kreso for spotting that this wasn't happening)
• Fixed several miscoded trigger blocks in spell-use and power-use scripts (thanks to Kreso for catching these)
• Beholder antimagic eyes now get implemented correctly even if v4 of SR is installed (thanks to Mad Mate for catching this).
• Tightened up handling of INNOCENT spellcasters. (In particular, INNOCENTs don't need to change class in enhanced-edition installs; some bugs also fixed. Thanks to several people for identifying this issue.)
• Creatures inappropriately coded as PALADIN in the core game no longer use paladin abilities. (Thanks to Mad Mate for identifying them.)
• Irenicus, the Fire Lich and Azamantes are now correctly handled by Smarter Mages. (Thanks to Raest for spotting this problem.)
• Added a couple of missing lizard man weapon animations (thanks to Miloch for spotting this).
• Disabled BIFFing of lizard-man animations on OSX installs, as (dashteacup tells me) it causes crashes on OSX.
• Removed (harmless) cruft from Irenicus script and projected-image/simulacrum script (thanks to Mad Mate for spotting it).
• Hostile clones of players now get appropriate combat scripts (thanks to Mad Mate for spotting this).
• Guarded Compound glabrezu should now appear correctly even when Improved Fiends is installed (thanks to Raest for spotting this).
• The Black Pits version of Cursed Wound is now used in Enhanced-Edition installs (this should sort out the bugs with it on EE installs - or at any rate, if not blame Beamdog!)
• "More consistent breach", in its eternal oscillation between working for liches and not working for liches, now works for liches.
• "Allow spellstrike to penetrate Magic Protection Scrolls" now works correctly again (the fix for Spell Shield was confusing it; thanks to Raest for spotting the problem).
• NPC clerics now use the NPC version of Blade Barrier, as per the original game (this has an effect only if the Blade-Barrier spell component is not installed)
• Fiend animation IDS names now recognise the EE changes to those names (thanks to CrevsDaak for spotting this).
• Dispel Magic scroll is now handled correctly on EE installs. (Thanks to Crevsdaak for spotting this).
• Mod now installs correctly on EasyTutu.
• Option 2 for mage and priest prebuffing now works properly on the BG1 part of the game.
• Bugfixes coded by Mad Mate:
  • Tyrant Golem in Abazigal's Lair is now correctly built
  • Components that use golem functions can now be installed in isolation.
  • Ascension version of Abazigal gets his death script correctly.
  • Mariliths use the correct telekinesis spell.
  • Fixed logic error in hive mother antimagic-eye use.
  • A couple of missing instant/prebuffed spells are now correctly built.
  • Fixed a typo in the SFO code to build Gaal's creature file.
  • Cleric-mage Sendai's script now parses correctly.
  • QuestPack version of project image now allowed for correctly.
  • Ease-of-use AI now uses casting-time-speedup spell correctly.
  • Missing chromatic-demon slime attack restored.
  • Smarter Mage component now installs correctly even if HLAs are not being used.
  • Smarter Mage sequencers now make use of Carrion Summons correctly.
  • Confusion in code logic for installing cleric/mages fixed.
  • Fixed incorrect death variables for some Elemental Princes summoned by NPCs.
  • BG1 priests use longterm buffs correctly (old code from SCSI v21 left unupdated)
  • Alhoon code now correctly loads required resources.
  • Refinements nerve poison effect correctly parsed.
  • Find Familiar scroll correctly allocated in "Standardise BG1 spells".
  • Fixed logic error in Improved Drow City installer.
  • Irlentree doppelgangers spawn properly.
  • Avarice (from Durlag's Tower) correctly flagged as thief (a typo had been preventing this).
  • Timestop from Wish spell now works correctly.
  • Smarter Priests now correctly checks for Improved Shapeshifting component.
  • Xvarts respond appropriately to calls for help.
  • Smarter Golems component now suppresses too-large golems in AR1202.
  • Better Calls for Help does a better job of removing redundant scripts.
  • "Improved general AI" now does a better job of skipping creatures whose AI shouldn't be improved.
  • "Smarter Mages" now correctly modifies randomly-encountered yuan-ti.
  • Removed a typo that prevented ease-of-use stackable ankheg shells from being properly handled by Taerom.
  • Fixed a typo in script controlling "choose proficiencies".
  • Druid flunkies get death variables.
  • Watcher's keep access component correctly adds Forest of Tethyr entrance coordinates, if you travel there from WK.
  • "Smarter Mages" and "Smarter Dragons" now correctly allow for the possibility that the Ascension-Abazigal component of SCS is installed before them.
  • Azamantes correctly gets at least one Improved Alacrity.
  • Sendai's combat script is no longer overwritten.
  • Laskal is correctly treated as a druid, not a cleric.
  • Corrected error in some vampires' script allocation.
  • Corrected error in SR efreet compatibility code.
  • Davaeorn now gets his scrolls correctly.

Compatibility Fixes

• Disabled (rudimentary and incomplete) use of Divine Remix spells. (One day I'll do this properly but for the minute it's just getting in the way and doing more harm than good.
• Some rudimentary support for Item Revisions, following suggestions from Kreso.

New content

• Updated to WEIDU v236 (and deprecated v27's workaround of the v235 bug).
• Mildly tweaked combat scripting for Love et al (probably invisible in-game).
• Davaeorn's flunkies spawn slightly less frequently and no longer run through webs so readily.
• Slightly tweaked Davaeorn's scripting.
• Priests make more attempt to remove blindness.
• Updated French translation (thanks to Isaya).

Bugfixes

• High-level paladins and blackguards no longer summon devas out of combat.
• Fixed vanilla issue with paladin/blackguard Summon Fallen Deva: it no longer crashes the game when un-memorized via script.
• Improved Random Encounters modifies the random-encounter script less destructively, and no longer breaks Dorn's random encounter.
• Abazigal now uses his antimagic sequencer correctly.
• Mages no longer chuck meteors at invisible or sanctuaried targets.
• Sarevok still challenges player if approached at range.
• In BGEE installs, the (small) number of mages that now use Contingencies have them correctly described.
• "Improved starting dungeon" no longer stops the game starting in BG2EE.
• Troll spawns around the d'Arnise Keep no longer cause a sporadic crash bug.
• Corrected code bug with code that was supposed to prevent some creatures from being allocated potions.
• On TUTU/BGT installs, chess players and dwarven doom guards are now race=golem, which prevents them from getting potions. (This is already the case on BGEE.)
• Prevented (rare) situations where non-warriors used strength potions.
• On EE installs, Durlag's Tower love-fight wardens no longer appear twice. (They don't appear twice on non-EE installs either, but that's not new!)
• "Avarice" is now designated as a thief, correcting a BGEE bug where he doesn't use his backstab.
• Mages and priests should now use scrolls correctly (no more random "reads a scroll" messages).
• On installs without "Improved Shapeshifting", avengers no longer shapeshift into lesser basilisks (cool though that does sound).
• Davaeorn's Battle Horrors are no longer mislocated on EE installs.
• Davaeorn's flunkies now spawn correctly.
• Fixed an ordering error which meant pre-cast protection spells don't protect against sequencer-cast attack spells. (Main noticeable effect: Davaeorn's MGI doesn't protect him against his initial sequencer.)
• Mages hopefully no longer melee when they have Minute Meteors available.
• Blinded mages and thieves no longer automatically go invisible.
• Phase spiders no longer teleport to invisible or sanctuaried creatures.

Compatibility fixes

• Worked around variable conventions for DISPEL_/REMOVE_MAGIC in a somewhat more compatibility-friendly way.
• We now work around duplicate entries in gtimes.ids in a less destructive way, inter alia not breaking BG1NPC romance timers.
• Kit-adding function should no longer choke on Divine Remix kits (this may help with other issues on megamod installs too, though I haven't tested it).
• Various bits of code should now skip corrupted files (and print a WARNING).

Additional fixes added silently after release

• Fixed a function-library problem with signed integers; the only problem I'm aware of caused by this was that some creatures with very negative THAC0 (notably Melissan) were having it inappropriately modified.
• In rare circumstances, Fighter/Mages weren't getting their level set correctly.
• Irenicus in Hell now has his correct spell set.
• Irenicus in Hell is now included on the list of SoA creatures that get HLAs.
• On BGEE installs, Imoen now leaves and rejoins the party correctly.
• Mages and thieves no longer go invisible if they are paralysed or similar.
• Priests don't bother to remove blindness caused by Holy Smite, given its brief duration.
• Breach now correctly affects liches et al.

• Worked around a WEIDU v235 bug that was preventing install of some components on BG2EE.
• Fixed a bug with the extend_script function that inter alia was breaking Kaishas' interaction with the PC.
• "NPC pairs separate" is more robust.
• Temporarily disabled the "Smarter Vampires" component on BG2EE installs, as it's causing (animation-related?) crashes that I don't currently have time to track down.
• Vampyre in the Book of Kaza crypt is toned down a bit.
• Kaishas now gives the sea charts if you resolve the island quest peacefully.

• Updated to WEIDU v235.
• Fixed v25 bug that prevented immunity effects being cloned to apply to sequencer-cast spells.
• "1/4" option on Reduce Reputation Gain now works.
• Imoen, though still annoying in other respects, no longer pretends to be a dwarf on BGEE/TUTU installs when asked to wait at an inn.
• Minor optimisation to kit-enforcement function.
• "Improved Durlag's Tower" no longer requires "Smarter General AI" to be installed.
• Creation of the "setup-stratagems" exe file is slightly more robust.
• Carnifex no longer thinks he's Agent Smith.
• Support for non-English languages on a BGEE/BG2EE install (thanks for Wisp for the trick for doing this).
• Updated autoinstaller to allow for language change above (this was missing on 25.x, causing problems).
• On EE installs, a change in Mulahey's dialog compared to vanilla BG1 meant that in certain circumstances he'd spawn unlimited numbers of kobolds.
• Corrected a few typos in the English dialog file (thanks to Grieg for identifying them).

New components or major changes

• Updated function library. (You won't notice this in game but it's a significant coding shift.)
• Updated to WEIDU 234; associated changes to BGEE installation process.
• BG2EE support.
• Updated French translation (thanks to Mornagest).
• Updated Russian translation (thanks to Silent).
• Updated Polish translation (thanks to S Lukasz).

Minor content tweaks

• Incorporated the EE text for Power Word Blind.
• Included AI support for Dark Moon and Sun Soul monks, and for Paladins (rudimentary only) and Blackguards.
• On EE installs, a couple of creatures are designated as Blackguards.
• Monks now use Lay On Hands.
• Allowed for the (admittedly kinda theoretical) case of good-aligned casters summoning Celestials.
• Spellcasters now summon Celestials even if "Smarter Celestials" isn't installed.
• Added console command to disable illithids' habit of going invisible on spec (favour to Angelsfury).
• Added BGEE journal support.
• Changed shadow thief battlemage from conjurer to invoker (to avoid glitches with her summoned help's allegiance if/when she changes sides) and lowered her level (she's normally supposed to lose).
• Intelligent creatures no longer attempt to charm Cavaliers.
• Being able to recover your items in Spellhold before confronting Irenicus is messing with the plot logic (of when you meet Saemon/find the portal) so I've reverted to the original where you get your items back after the final Ch4 battle. Squeal if it's too hard (or put spellhold_easycore=1 in the ini to restore previous behaviour.)
• On non-enhanced versions of the game, "Faster Bears" (if you don't also use Improved Shapeshifting) does not affect the speed of shapeshifted druids. There are serious difficulties in implementing this on vanilla BG2; it's doable but a pain, so ask nicely if you use this.
• Peasants and townspeople (i.e. L1 innocents) no longer propagate shouts or turn hostile when they hear a shout; they just get the hell out of Dodge.
• Semaj no longer bothers with his original scripted teleport.
• Tightened up the code for creatures going hostile if attacked (and, under the hood, externalised it to an SSL trigger block).
• Creatures with a character class and the default (=9) value for a class-relevant ability score that has in-game effects (STR,CON for fighters; DEX for rogues; WIS for clerics) now have it randomly set to something sensible.
• Mildly tweaked mid-level mages' Minor Sequencer choices towards offence.
• Marked a few gith as fighter/mages based on some evidence that they were originally intended that way.
• Mildly tweaked mages' defensive preferences in favour of Mantle et al over PMW.
• Deprecated stronghold component.

Bugfixes

• Updated and debugged function library, fixing various problems en passant, notably including various area crashes.
• Spell Trigger string is now correct on a non-EE install.
• Liches are now immune to Cloudkill.
• Descriptions of Breach et al are now correctly patched to allow for Iron Skins on a BGEE install.
• Inquisitor dispel magic fix now correctly applied.
• Corrected a typo that prevented the Universal Sequencer component from working.
• Fine weapons on BGEE/TUTU should now shatter correctly.
• Realistic wolves should now be working properly.
• Werewolf (and other shapeshifter) tokens should now be made properly.
• Reputation-increase component now sets rate correctly.
• On TUTU installs, "remove tutors from Candlekeep" no longer breaks hit point initialisation.
• "Remove tutors from Candlekeep" now also removes the ones in the inn.
• Corrected a logic error which could lead to both lots of assassins spawning at the same time.
• Kobold chieftain now gets his proficiencies correctly.
• Ogre assassins now spawn correctly.
• Wolf of Ulcaster should correctly use its powers.
• Additional werewolves spawn correctly.
• Worked around a rather subtle BGEE shift in the way some actions work that was causing Icharyd to break.
• Kobold ambush on mines level 3 now triggers correctly.
• Power Word Blind has a correct scroll description.
• Wand of Spell Striking version of Breach is correctly modified (should be relevant only on Enhanced Edition).
• Corrected errors in the group designation for some "Gameplay" components.
• Correction of THAC0 errors is less aggressive.
• Fixed some glitches in the assignment of (mostly thief) HLAs.
• Cambions no longer cast spells instantly.
• Clay Golems' Cursed Wounds effect should work correctly now.
• Wizards now correctly handle the situation where Smarter Fiends is not installed.
• Devas now get a proper script.
• Fixed some serious problems with Smarter Fiends fiend-summoning spells.
• Beholders' sequencers and prebuffs work correctly even if the beholder component is installed later.
• Mages' Minute Meteors and Energy Blades are now dispelled by Dispel Magic.
• Fixed a glitch in the spellcaster-level algorithm which was giving too-high levels to spellcasters with illegally many low-level spells.
• Brimstone gets proper dragon scripting etc.
• Sahuagin priests correctly receive stoneskins.
• A few djinni missing their combat scripts now get them.
• "Skip Candlekeep" now works properly on a BGEE install.
• Beholder flesh to stone is no longer broken.
• Irenicus now has the presence of mind to confiscate Shadow Thieves' potions before casting Rapture of the Father on them.
• Spells with persistent graphical effects (e.g. Blade Barrier) no longer lose those effects when cast as part of a prebuff routine.
• In certain circumstances, mages were trying to Imprison the protagonist.
• Davaeorn no longer gets potions of Superior Healing.
• Cambion spellcasters no longer lose their combat scripts.
• Ogre Magi are less pusillanimous and now engage in combat.
• Death Knight in Durlag's Tower now receives his combat script.
• Demogorgon and Melissan have been back to mage school and now realise that their version of "Stoneskin" cannot be dispelled by Carsomyr.
• Skeleton Warriors are now consistently flagged as undead that are immune to turning. (In vBG1 their turning immunity is rather crudely handled by making them MONSTERs rather than UNDEAD; BGEE restores their UNDEAD status but ignores turn immunity.) Among other effects this should prevent BG1 skeleton warriors from using healing potions.
• Fallen Solar in non-Ascension games now summons allies correctly.
• Beasts in the Copper Coronet more reliably go hostile.
• Clerics' wisdom is now correctly figured into their number of spells.
• The Ascension version of Gromnir now gets a proper combat script.
• The "Smarter Gromnir" component now allows correctly for players who have Ascension but not Tougher Gromnir, or vice versa, installed.
• The twelfth statue in level one of Watchers' Keep now activates correctly.
• Fixed (harmless) offset mismatch in Anadramatis' amulet.
• Vampyre now correctly affected by Vampires component.
• Gith fighter-mages now get their psionic abilities.
• Female demons no longer exemplify feminist critiques of gender essentialism.
• Resources required for Cythandria's golems are now correctly present.
• BG1 greater werewolves no longer drop Rings of Free Action.

Compatibility fixes

• Now that Big Picture main component is much more broken down, there's no reason to overwrite BP generic scripts, so we don't.
• Make some effort to force SSL to output lowercased files. (If I'm still sometimes doing uppercase, someone shout.)
• Muggers only disappear in the docks and the slums, not indoors, avoiding problems with multiple use of SPMUGGx.
• Various spell and item components now check for Spell Revisions/Item Revisions and install only if it isn't present.
• Removed a couple of redundant spell-sequencer scripts from Ascension wizards.
• Make proper allowance for the fact that Cacofiend (aka Summon Death Knight) is a Necromancy and not a Conjuration spell in SR; ditto for cleric Gate. En passant, this should solve a nasty crash bug with SR/SCS combinations.
• SR's "Sphere of Chaos" and "Cause Critical Wounds" should now be used correctly.
• On SR+SCS installs, enemy-summoned glabrezu no longer attack their summoner.

New components or major changes

• "NPCs wait at inns" now works on BGEE.
• "Allow NPC pairs to separate" now works on BGEE.
• Updated German translation (provided by Leonardo Watson)
• Updated Polish translation (provided by Luk S)

Minor content tweaks

• Minor file-structure tidying.
• Tweak to the ssl_to_bcs macro so as to allow more standard "location" arguments.
• Imix's attacks (in Improved Fire Giants) now count as +5.
• If a component fails to install, users are invited to visit the forum, not to email me.
• New option for genies: increase hit points by 50%. (This was in the readme but not actually implemented.)
• Externalised the level of hit-point increase to genies, dragons, celestials and fiends to stratagems.ini.
• "Standardise BG1 spells" now allows for 5th level mage spells: Once copy of each such spell is now available from Sorcerous Sundries. (Suggestions for more imaginative distributions are welcome!)
• The spells that summon shapeshifter tokens are now named for the tokens, not the shapeshift itself (hopefully less confusing).
• Humanoid creatures with slightly too-good THAC0s now have them trimmed back to legal levels. (I think in most cases in the vanilla game this is done to crudely allow for weapon proficiencies et al. Since I now do that explicitly, there's some double-counting going on. Occasional cases where the THAC0 is radically too good are left alone.)
• Minor under-the-hood changes to SFO function library.
• Where possible assassins now spawn in random-encounter areas, not on the main maps. (Can be overridden at the ini.)
• Credus the bandit no longer initiates dialog if the bandits are all hostile.
• Fine-tuned the auto-installer.

Bugfixes

• We now use the WEIDU newline and tabulation variables rather than the previous kludge, which should help (at least) Mac installs (thanks to Wisp for suggestion).
• Summoned wolves are exempt from the non-hostile wolf component.
• The install options for the "remove unrealistic ammunition" component now display correctly.
• Fixed a typo that displayed a nonexistent string (15046) in some circumstances where a user tried to install a component that required another missing component.
• "Improved Sendai's Enclave" now installs correctly even if "Smarter Mages" is not installed (previously fixed in SCSII and un-fixed in v22...)
• "SCS scripting for Improved Abazigal" now installs correctly even if "Smarter Mages" is not installed.
• "Improved BG1 minor encounters" fix for Jenkal was erroneously being applied to Slythe (caught by Adanedhel).
• Davaeorn no longer stands around like a lemon when he's finished his core attack routine.
• On Enhanced Edition installs, Shar-Teel's duel with men no longer has odd results (either when picked up, or in the Basilisk area).
• If the does_not_detect_items ini flag is checked, ENCHANTMENT_IMMUNITY warnings are no longer displayed.
• "Improved Fire Giant" scripts hadn't been properly moved over to the new SCS format.
• Red and green dragon scripts in Abazigal's enclave now compile properly.
• Avengers now buff correctly.
• Synchronised some disparaties in gtimes.ids between different versions of the game, which was messing with script parsing in a couple of places.
• Moved shapeshifter token summoning over to 122 from 255, which might prevent random vanishing of tokens.
• Increased hit points for fiends should now work correctly.
• Sorted minor issues with the Nashkel merchant's winter-wolf pelt quest.
• Better Calls for Help now insulates Irenicus's dryads from other creatures.
• Bonus Merchant component is no longer broken.
• SSL scripts now compile correctly even if "AI_does_not_detect_items" is set to 1.
• Mulahey is no longer supported by several hundred kobolds! (A spawn-more-kobold script was erroneously being given to some of his flunkies and then malfunctioning; the script has been removed from the flunkies and also rewritten to be proof against that sort of malfunction.)
• Tweaked bandit, and generic help, scripts to hopefully reduce the incidence of creatures homing in on invisible PCs.
• Corrected a couple of glitches on the BGT version of "NPCs wait at inns.
• Improved chapter 5 battle: the dual-wielding assassin wasn't getting the correct weapons on non-TUTU installs.
• Creatures with "wander randomly" instructions (i.e., the old WDASIGHT and WDARSGT) now follow them.
• A few mages were sometimes getting illegally many defensive spells.
• "Welcome to Candlekeep" message is correctly removed if skip-tutors is installed on BGEE.
• On BGEE, "unusable by" information no longer appears twice.
• On BGEE, "CHARNAME" is now correctly rendered (at least if you use the auto-installer).
• Fixed a find/replace error that was messing up Bassilus's undead.
• Fixed a typo that prevented Aec'letec's cultists from defending themselves.
• Fixed a problem in the vanilla Enhanced Edition shout script.
• General AI no longer suppresses monsters' battle-cries. (Thanks to Pecca for spotting this one.)
• Consistent Breach now works properly.
• Ulcaster component now works properly.

Compatibility fixes

• Creatures with illegally high character levels no longer cause install failures.
• "Move NPCs to new locations" now correctly checks if the equivalent BG1NPC component is installed.
• Spell Revisions' wizard spell "Create Undead" is now correctly handled by SCS (this previously caused an install failure if SR was installed).
• SSL scripts required for Spell Revisions fiends and celestials are now compiled correctly (this also previously caused an install failure if SR was installed).
• Since SR no longer modifies the Wand of Spell Striking, neither do we.
• SR's "Sunscorch" spell should now be used correctly.

• Corrected a number of BG1 creatures which were L30 in their second level in the vanilla game. (This messes with SCS's algorithms for THAC0 and saving throws.)
• Updated French translation (thanks, Mornagest).
• Updated Russian translation (thanks, Silent).
• Bassilus component now installs on BGEE v2014. (Sorry, modding a game still under development means shooting at a moving target...)
• Bears in BGEE no longer have warp drives.
• "Fine weapons" component should now work correctly in TUTU.
• The "improved minor encounters" component correctly locks Jenkal's door.
• Teven's bandits should now go hostile correctly.
• The ogres who've incurred Sarhedra's ire should now more reliably register as dead.
• On BGEE, Mulahey doesn't spawn a double helping of kobolds.

• Unified SCS and SCSII into combined version
• Complete recoding of the mod from the ground up (desperately needed to make it half-way maintainable after eight years of unplanned development) using a "functional" coding style intended to work at a much higher level of abstraction
• Compatibility with the Enhanced Edition of BG
• New automated install program
• Streamlining of the component structure: some smaller options are now moved out to the .ini file and some components are merged. (I think no actual customization options have been lost, but the previous structure was a bit forbidding for new users.)
• Systematic restructuring of "improved general AI" component to rebuild creatures' choices of proficiency, HLAs, and kit-provided abilities, from scratch
• Reorganising of general AI scripts to be more adapted to the particular creature's weapons (this means more scripts, but shorter scripts; hopefully this reduces lag.
• Substantial expansion in the number of kitted creatures
• Clay golems now cause cursed wounds (a la PnP)
• Deprecated "Improved Irenicus in Hell" (I coded it as a favour to someone ages ago, but I don't really feel its flavour meshes with SCS. Squeal if you want it reinstated.)
• Deprecated "Improved final battle in [BG1] chapter 6". (I've never really been happy with it.)
• Rewrote the Doppleganger component, removing the non-PnP ability boosts and standardising doppleganger abilities.
• Too many small tweaks, bugfixes, optimisations and consistency adjustments to keep track of