It's not the GOG version, it's TuTu. The area numbers have changed. Where vanilla areas are prefixed with 'AR', TuTu areas are prefixed with 'FW'. So Ulgoth's Beard in TuTu would be FW1000.

Thanks, that worked.

Do you think some nondescript +1 equipment will suffice for the start of TotSC or will it put me at some large disadvantage not to have any special items (my PCs have rather heroic stats between 16-18 in the relevant abilities)? I want the game to be challenging enough so that I don't get bored, but not frustratingly hard (very subjective, I know).

Also, I noticed that on leveling up my mage didn't gain any new spells - does BG handle it that way (no automatic spells, no choosing, learn by scribing) or is that a side-effect of cheating with the XP?

Without giving too much away, any +1 weapons or above will be a boon, even necessary against some creatures. The stats of your characters will reflect in different ways. A warrior needs high Strength because it's important for To Hit Dice in melee; a mage needs high Intelligence to be able to learn spells from scrolls, and the amount he/she can learn in total; a cleric need high Wisdom because it conveys bonus spells; a thief requires high Dexterity because it enhances thieving skills -- Dexterity is also important for ranged attacks, as opposed to Strength in melee... etc. You mage does not automatically get spells on level up -- as opposed to a Sorcerer or Cleric. Spells have to be learned from scrolls that you find or buy. Same for a Bard.

Whoops, sorry, I guess I didn't express myself that clearly. I've played through all the IE games in the past, as well as lots of NWN, Eye of the Beholder, Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures etc., even some AD&D pen and paper in my youth, so I'm familiar with the basic rules, I just don't know anymore what kind of equipment the developers would expect a player to have at the end of BG and if high stats could help lowering the difficulty a bit (although knowing D&D, probably not, since equipment is such an important factor). :)

But I guess I will be fine since I can always change the savegame with Shadowkeeper or do some regular BG questing on the side if I feel like it. Is Durlag's Tower a one-way street or can I always return if I find it's too difficult for the moment or I'm missing something?

Something I've noticed while exploring the town is that my journal does not update. I get a message "Your Journal was updated" etc. but the journal and the quest page are empty. Is it possible that some things like the Journal won't work until you've triggered something first, e.g. spoken with Gorion and left Candlekeep? This time I just teleported out of it without speaking to anyone, maybe that caused the game's quest function to break?

EDIT: Yep, seems like you have to leave Candlekeep and get your first Journal entry, that is start the first chapter proper, before the journal will work. Now that I did that, the journal appears to function and keep track of quests like it should do. Hopefully nothing else will break due to me skipping all the BG content.

Durlag's Tower, and Wolf Island, will require that you have more than basic weapons to complete. In fact, you won't even get INTO Durlag's Tower without magical items. There are a few encounters that you can do to 'legally' get enchanted weapons.


Edit: Forgot to add that you can come out of Durlag's Tower if you find it too taxing, but there are things to remember, most importantly are to keep hold of the ward stones if you intend to return!


********** POSSIBLE SPOILERS **********

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Dagger+2 -- Hentold, east of Carnival.
Dagger of Venom (+2) -- smithy in Beregost.
Flail+1 -- Bear cave west of Nashkel and Icharid in Ulchaster.
Mace+1 -- Smithy in Beregost.
Morning Star+1 -- Drakar near Gullykin.
Halberd+1 -- Cave SW of Nashkel
Quarter Staff+1 -- Silke in Beregost.
Quarter Staff+3 -- Sold in Ulgoth's Beard.
Bastard Sword+1 -- Feldpost Inn, Beregost.
Longsword+1 -- Smithy in Beregost.
Longsword+2 -- Greywolf near Nashkel Mines.
Short Sword+1 -- Smithy in Beregost.
Short Sword+2 -- Zargal, SW of Beregost.
Scimitar+3 and +5 -- Drizzt... if you have the nerve!
Warhammer+1 -- Raiken, Peldvale.
Warhammer+2 -- Bassilus, SW of Beregost.
Two Handed Sword+1 -- Arghain, NE of Nashkel.

Composite Longbow+1 -- Feldpost Inn, Beregost.
Shortbow+1 -- Smithy in Beregost.
Sling+1 -- Smithy in Beregost.
Magical ammunition -- Smithy in Beregost.

I may have missed some, but those are the ones I can recall.

There is also one Bastardsword +1 that you can steal from a chest from the Balck Smith in Beregost. You can also buy a magical crossbow (speed -1) from the same vendor. Honestly I always purchase this and the dagger of venom from him as the dagger is extremely useful against spell-casters.

So far, I've played through the two island adventures, Durlag's Tower's upper levels and the first of the dungeon levels below, and it went more or less smoothly, still challenging with the meagre +1 equipment I cheated in, but in a fun way, just the right difficulty.

There was one other issue arising from the fact that I skipped the regular Baldur's Gate campaign: One of the new quests required me to visit Baldur's Gate and that area is supposed to be shut off for players until they reach chapter 5 (I think), so I had to use the console to teleport myself inside. Wasn't really worth it either (I forgot what a pain it is to navigate through Baldur's Gate and find what you're looking for); if I had to do it again, I'd probably just let the required item spawn in Ulgoth's Beard and stick to the new areas.

Right now I'm a bit tired of inventory management in BG, but at this point I don't want to mess with Shadowkeeper anymore and prefer to just work with the equipment I find in the game. Still, I'd like all ammo and potions and gems and scrolls to stack unlimited and the bag of holding to be truly bottomless, so I can be a packrat and still enjoy the game at the same time.

Do you think it's safe to apply this mod retroactively to my Tutu installation or would that make my savegames unusable? I really only want to apply the few convenience tweaks mentioned above, nothing else.

It will be safe, but some of the tweaks will not occur in areas that you have already visited. Stores, for example, are saved in your save game, so won't be updated if you've already visited them. But you can always add that Bag Of Holding via Shadowkeeper if you wish. The stacking limits will be updated, though.

Cool, thanks!

I've completed my playthrough of the expansion and would like to say thanks again to everyone who made suggestions in this thread, and especially to Hickory. Everyone's posts have been really helpful, but I'm not quite sure which of them would qualify best as "the" solution ... Or should I write up a summary in case anyone else is interested in playing TotSC without BG?

*POSSIBLE SPOILERS*

The island adventures were quite nice (the longer one more so than the shorter), and Durlag's Tower was a challenging and very enjoyable dungeon crawl. I didn't care much for the cult encounters in Ulgoth's Beard though. The boss fight was ridiculously tough compared to everything I've encountered in Durlag's Tower and in the end I just cheated my way through it. I didn't bother to reload and retry often enough in order to beat the battle the right way, especially since it was the last quest and I wouldn't have gained anything worthwhile from it anyway (apart from the feeling that I did it, and I didn't care all that much in this case.)

I don't wish to derail the thread at all but this problem does involve easytutu. Is anybody else having trouble downloading the degreenifier exe from the easytutu page? I can't even find it being hosted on any other sites either.

I didn't try to download it before because I didn't need it for my playthrough, but when I try now I get a 404 error ... That's unfortunate. :(

None of the EasyTuTu files appear to be available, and haven't been for at least a few days. I personally prefer BGT, which doesn't have this silly 'green water' issue -- I don't know why TuTu does.

I've uploaded a copy for you

http://www.fileswap.com/dl/5DUSyImzBG/