Could someone explain item conflicts to me?

[Sminky]

I've read the manual, I've tried to find videos but to no avail. It seems modding it out for EE is not an easy task. What conflicts with what? I thought it was just magic armour vs anything else but that doesn't seem to be the case (and what actually is magic armour), and rings and cloaks seem to also sometime conflict. It's rather maddening.

There's so much to like about BG2 but in so many ways RPG progress seems to be for the better for streamlined systems. It's a shame the interesting quests and load outs weren't also kept in the future.

Thanks

[Leeux]

It's any armor that has an enchantment bonus, like Plate Mail + 1, Studded Leathed+3, etc. or even unique armors like Dragon Scale ones, that are implicitly enchanted by construction.

I.e. rule of thumb is, if the armor includes +N in the name it's almost certainly true that you can't stack it with protection items.

You can't equip them together with a normal protection item, like Ring of Protection +1 and +2, Cloak of Protection +1 and +2 and same for Amulet.

And also, additionally you can't equip different protection items together. I.e. can't equip Ring of Protection+1 and also a Cloak of Protection.

There are some rings/cloaks/amulet that can have an AC bonus and can be equipped together with enchanted armor.

If you want to mod that, IMO the best (i.e. read: most "balanced", again IMO) way to mod it is to use the PnP Protection Items option from the Tweaks mod, that allows you to equip protection items together with the enchanted armors but the AC bonus provided by the item don't stack, i.e. you only gain the saving throw benefit from the items.

Personal Rant:

IMO it's either 1) mod the the game to be able to combine armors and protection items, or 2) none of the basic enchanted armor for more than half of the game serves any purpose besides just to be a gold source :P

I almost always mod that aspect of the game because it doesn't make sense to me.

I mean, the saving throws bonuses are way more useful IMO that the +1/+2 AC from protection items, specially reaching the end game.

EDIT: To be fair to the games, all of this contrivance lies on PnP rules, if I'm not mistaken... TBH, I'm not too fond of actual PnP DnD myself, so my little knowledge is not reliable on that aspect.

[red255]

that said it only means like a ring of princes+1 AC and +1 saves.

you can stack platemail +1 with a ring of earth control or cloak of the sewers or helm of balduran.
or ring of gaxx.

why, because 2nd edition was rather arbitrary.

Generally speaking full plate + a ring of protection +2 is better than Full Plate +2 with the bonuses to saves. once you start getting better gear, I only use the protection items on the mages as robes of venca and robes of the ___ archmagi and such can be worn with protection items.

the warriors have better options by that point.

[Sminky]

Originally posted by Leeux:

It's any armor that has an enchantment bonus, like Plate Mail + 1, Studded Leathed+3, etc. or even unique armors like Dragon Scale ones, that are implicitly enchanted by construction.

I.e. rule of thumb is, if the armor includes +N in the name it's almost certainly true that you can't stack it with protection items.

You can't equip them together with a normal protection item, like Ring of Protection +1 and +2, Cloak of Protection +1 and +2 and same for Amulet.

And also, additionally you can't equip different protection items together. I.e. can't equip Ring of Protection+1 and also a Cloak of Protection.

There are some rings/cloaks/amulet that can have an AC bonus and can be equipped together with enchanted armor.

If you want to mod that, IMO the best (i.e. read: most "balanced", again IMO) way to mod it is to use the PnP Protection Items option from the Tweaks mod, that allows you to equip protection items together with the enchanted armors but the AC bonus provided by the item don't stack, i.e. you only gain the saving throw benefit from the items.

Personal Rant:

IMO it's either 1) mod the the game to be able to combine armors and protection items, or 2) none of the basic enchanted armor for more than half of the game serves any purpose besides just to be a gold source :P

I almost always mod that aspect of the game because it doesn't make sense to me.

I mean, the saving throws bonuses are way more useful IMO that the +1/+2 AC from protection items, specially reaching the end game.

EDIT: To be fair to the games, all of this contrivance lies on PnP rules, if I'm not mistaken... TBH, I'm not too fond of actual PnP DnD myself, so my little knowledge is not reliable on that aspect.

Thanks

I looked at the mod, https://gibberlings3 how on earth do you install it? especially as i'm only looking to change one thing. Think i've been spoiled with how easy modding games has become.

So madening as for all the 'old game Jank' this the one thing i just can't get past

[Leeux]

Lol no worries... BG modding is a bit convoluted compared with other games :P

Basically, (this applies for any mod, almost,) you need to download the archive from here[www.gibberlings3.net] hit download and follow the download trail up to the point where you have the option to download a file, then chose the exe file for Windows (it's a self-extracting ZIP archive not a real EXE) and execute it. Keep in mind that if your game is installed in Program Files you might have to run that extraction as Admin.

When prompted, point it to the BG root install, the one where you have the Baldur.exe located. If it's steam, it'll probably be something like <steam root>\steamapps\common\Baldur's Gate II Enhanced Edition\ (where <steam root> is the Steam library where you've selected to install the game originally)

That would let the archive extract its contents there, leading to you having in the same folder as the game two items: setup-cdtweaks.exe and a new folder cdtweaks.

When that's done, you can either open a Command Prompt window and CD into the game folder and execute setup-cdtweaks, or just double-click that exe setup and run it. Again, same as before, if the game is installed into Program Files, you'll need to run it as Administrator.

When you run it, the setup will ask you first for Language -> chose the same language as your game (probably English) and then it'll prompt you to open the Readme, in case you want to read it... I'll suggest you to answer "Y" to that and keep the readme open in the back for later use, if needed.

After that it'll start offering Groups of Components, you can skip/ignore all of them except the one called "Rule Changes", and when prompted select Y for that one.

After that, when all Groups are done, the setup will start prompting you for individual components to install, so you'll need to pay attention to the one that you specifically want, i.e. the "Wear Multiple Protection Items", so you can select skip or "N" for all of the other ones that appear, and when you reach that one, you'll have several options to chose from, so you'll be prompted like this:

1) No restrictions. Players can wear as many items together as they wish
2) P&P Style
3) Allow Armor Plus One Protection Item

Or something similar, meaning that those are mutually exclusive options and you need to chose one of them... if you've open the readme before, you can quickly do a Ctrl+F search for "Wear Multiple Protection Items" and lookup the explanation for each one to know what's the option you'd prefer.

I normally pick PnP style myself, but the less restrictive option is ofc. No restrictions and that one lets you decide which house rules to use w.r.t. to protection items. PnP Style is the one I mentioned above where you can wear enchanted armor + 1 protection item but only the saving throw bonus from the item apply.

Once that installation is done, the setup will continue asking you for any other components that are left after that one, and you can simply select "Q" to just quit, or simply "N" for skipping each of them in turn, until it's done.

In any case, *only* the component you've decided to install will ever modify the game files and nothing else will get changed.

EDIT: There's a new mod manager in the works that will make BG modding a bit easier, it's still beta and has some requirements that might cause you to need to do some Windows Update-ing, but if you want to check it, the Project Infinity[forums.beamdog.com] will let you handle mod installation much more easily, once you get the hang of it.

Basically, in order to use that one, you need your Windows to have installed Power Shell 5.x (WMF 5.1) and .NET Framework at least 4.5.2, and then instead of extracting the mods directly to the game's folder, you extract them to a Mods folder and then point the Project Infinity mod manager to that folder as source and it handles all the installation, i.e. lets you directly chose the components to install from its UI.

I wouldn't exactly recommend to commit to it yet, but if you're feeling adventurous, and if luck have that you might have all requirements already installed, it may make your mod installing ventures more painless :)

[Sminky]

Thanks so much for that, i had downloaded everything but that .exe :) which turns out was the installer that i thought it had, i hope i pointed it at the right place as i have a GOG copy.

[Multihog]

Like others have said, mods can "fix" this, but I'd never mod it as I'm a purist. I'm concerned it would ruin the balance of the game.

[Sminky]

Originally posted by Multihog:

Like others have said, mods can "fix" this, but I'd never mod it as I'm a purist. I'm concerned it would ruin the balance of the game.

I got the mod working, as i really hated that system. I havn't noticed a problem with balance (yet), but if i do i guess i'll just slide the difficulty up by 1. It's so nice to not deal with all that inv faff though.