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The Fields of the Dead has been released


Echon

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The Fields of the Dead, a mod for Baldur's Gate - Tales of the Sword Coast, has finally been released.

 

The primary aim of this mod is to correct as many aspects of the game as possible according to AD&D 2E rules. This affects the NPCs, creatures, items, spells and rules of the game. Engine limitations prevent some of these rules from being implemented, however.

 

The AI of the entire game has been given a massive overhaul in order to increase the difficulty and the AI no longer cheats. Specifically, enemy NPCs use unique scripts instead a few shared scripts. As the XP cap has been raised, a couple of fights towards the end of the game have been made harder to provide a challenge for the party.

 

This mod also features new content in addition to changes to the existing game. New spells for wizards and priests, new magical and mundane items, and new creatures are all fully integrated into the game. There are new unique magical items as well as a range of new potions and ammunition. Prepare to wear gloves of thievery, shoot bullets of lightning and drink potions of superior healing. The enemies you meet will make use of the new spells and items and you should expect to encounter new creatures in the existing areas. Note that while the selection of magical items has increased the amount of magical items has decreased.

 

Although the quests and the plot of the game remain the same the environment has undergone some changes to prevent metagaming. Expect traps to be relocated, new traps where none were before, magical items to appear in different parts of the game and so forth.

 

Finally, the mod adds a new area to the worldmap. It can be visited at any time like the other wilderness areas but is geared towards an experienced party. You should expect a challenge.

 

Tales of the Sword Coast and TotSC Patch 5512 are required to play this mod.

http://www.bioware.com/games/tales_sword_c...upport/patches/

 

FotD site: http://www.pocketplane.net/fotd

Forum: http://forums.pocketplane.net/index.php?board=54.0

 

-Echon

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No. It doesn't work with TuTu

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."

 

- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

 

"I have also been slowly coming to the realisation that knowledge and happiness are not necessarily coincident, and quite often mutually exclusive" - meta

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I still have an uber-modded BG2/ToB lurking on my hard drive with several games I boot up occasionally. Some of the BG2 mods out there are excellent: I can't imagine now playing BG2 without, say, Tactics or Unfinished Business or Ascension.

 

Admittedly, I now play primarily with small parties of characters I've created myself. I currently have a very silly evil party who are working for Bodhi, attempting to take out the insanely powerful "improved Shadow Thieves" which are courtesy of aVENGER'S excellent thief-themed mod.

 

In fact, the only games I've got on the go at the moment are Rome:TW, Medieval: TW, BG2 and I'm thinking of playing HotU one more time.

 

Cheers

MC

sonsofgygax.JPG

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I currently have a very silly evil party who are working for Bodhi, attempting to take out the insanely powerful "improved Shadow Thieves" which are courtesy of aVENGER'S excellent thief-themed mod.

 

Heh, I'm glad you're enjoying it, but be careful, I've been getting some reports that the basement level of the improved ST guild can be too hard for low level parties, so try taking it on at about 1.5 million XP per character.

 

Sigh, I wish I could have implemented my original idea for that particular component. You see, I actually wanted to make it a completely stealth-based, sneaksy type mission with fully optional combat, patrolling guards, disguises, silent kills, many skill checks for bluff/intimidate and even a few alternative plot solutions which, among other things, included kidnapping Aran Linvail and replacing him with a doppelgenger. In short, it was supposed to be a homage to the Thief games where the accent would have been put on stealth and wits, rather than solving everything through combat. Unfortunately, at some point I got so tired of fighting the Infinity Engine and creating clunky workarounds for some very basic things (for example scripting guards to hear and detect movement) that I scrapped the whole thing, salvaged some of the better AI scripts, and retrofited everything into a simple combat oriented encounter.

 

In any case, I marvel at Echon's patience and perseverance for what he managed to accomplish with the BG1 version of the IE, it must have taken a lot of time and effort. Great job! :thumbsup:

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I've completed it once before with a level 16 or so party and it was still tough, namely because of my distaste for having arcane spell users in my party. Luckily, I had a backstab-proof barbarian on the team!

 

Anyway, its a great mod that I recommend heartily to anybody looking to put some new lead in the old BG2 pencil.

 

Cheers

MC

sonsofgygax.JPG

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If this worked with TUTU I would definatly check it out :shifty: Unless...

 

What does this mod add to the game that Tutu does not, gameplay wise?

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."

 

- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

 

"I have also been slowly coming to the realisation that knowledge and happiness are not necessarily coincident, and quite often mutually exclusive" - meta

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The Fields of the Dead Patch v1.01 has been released and contains the following fixes:

 

Strength of One interruption

Chant exploit

Arrow of Detonation teleportation

NPC special abilities

Really removes Chaotic Commands

Portrait Icon descriptions

Armor and Grease description

Crash in AR3327

Small Shield +1, Medium Shield +1 and Large Shield +1 descriptions

 

Get it here: http://www.pocketplane.net/fotd

 

-Echon

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