Classic Adventures
a Total Conversion For Baldur?s Gate II
VERSION 0.4
A Sir BillyBob/Leahnkain Production
1. Introduction
2. History
3. Installation
4. Walkthrough
5. Credits
6. FAQ
7. Troubleshooting
INTRODUCTION
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Classic Adventures will be a compilation of many of the old and some new classic PnP (Pen and Paper) modules. I fully plan to include series like A, D, G, S, and U into this story. There are several newer mods that will also be included into this project just for some variety.
Contact me at the Spellhold Studios forums if you have issues/problems.
HISTORY
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Classic Adventures starts with "The Sunless Citadel" which is a current mod for the d20 System. You will start the game as a level 1 player and work your way through a fortress that years ago was magically pushed into a giant ravine with the hopes of destroying it's evil occupants. You are tasked with creating a party to go down into the ravine and try to purchase a special magical item from a clan of goblins.
After finishing Chapter 1, you head to Saltmarsh. From there, the "U" series of mods commences (U1 - The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, U2 - Danger at Dunwater, U3 - The Final Enemy). After this series, you can start to head to Selgaunt. On the way, you can stop by a little town called Mistmoor (The Ghost of Mistmoor, Dragon #35).
The city of Selgaunt is not ready yet and is not in this game right now. However the bridge leading into the city is available for you to explore. This area starts the events for some of the other mini-mods. Right now Rihn's quest is available. She has to be in the party for this quest. You will head to Westgate from here as well.
INSTALLATION
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You must have a clean install of SoA and ToB. Install the ToB English Patch version 26498.
This is in Weidu format. To install, unzip the zip file to your game folder and double-click on Setup-Classics.exe. To uninstall, double-click on Setup-Classics.exe again and select the Uninstall option.
The install has 6 parts. You have to install at least the first. You can uninstall the first part later for patch updates. The second through fifth parts come from Wiemer's Ease of Use mod and only need to be uninstalled if totally removing the mod.
You no longer have to use XPpatcher for the starting XP points. I now modify the BGMAIN.EXEfile during the installation. There is a backup left in the SoA folder for you to use if you uninstall this mod (you will have to manually replace the BGMAIN.EXE file).
WALKTHROUGH
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Your parents had retired from adventuring many years ago. They setup a small business and farm near a village called Oakhurst. You have grown up in this town and have learn some class skills from the adventuring knowledge of your parents.
As someone with more skills in weapons than most, you have become the leader of the militia. It is because of this leadership that Mayor Jermien has requested you to lead a party into the mysterious ravine in hopes of negotiating the purchase of some magical apples that hold the power to heal any ailment.
The goblins are normally a pest to your village, raiding farms for food and stealing from merchants that try to travel in and out of town. At summer solstice, the goblins ususally come into town with one magic apple which they sell to your town for 50gp. The solstice is still several weeks away but several farmers have picked up serious ailments that normal potions can't cure. They will not survive until the solstice.
Talk to Jermien down at the village fountain. He will go over all the details one last time for you. There is also an additional quest to find information about an adventuring team that went into the ravine last month and hasn't returned. The mother of two of the adventures is willing to pay for any information you can find about their whereabouts.
After completing the fortress, return to Jermien for a serious surprise. After discussions with him, head to the SE corner of the map.
You are now in the town of Saltmarsh (okay so it looks like Trademeet). Talk to the Militia Captain and she will get your next quest started.
If you have never played the U1-2-3 mods, here is a quick run through.
Talk to the mayor (the captain told you to do this). He will give you the quest to clear out the mansion of it's ghosts. Head out the SouthWest gate.
On the mansion's map, go inside for a strange discovery. Make sure you check all the shelves! Once you have looked around, head upstairs.
Here, there are several locked doors. Enter each one to find more clues. You should find a couple of stupid kids that need rescuing. You will also find a man tied up, Ned. Release him and he can join your group. Once ready, head down the other set of stairs.
In the basement you will find your first couple of major clues. Kill them as you find them. When ready, look for the secret down. After clearing out the skeletons, you will find the original home owner. Check the desk and table for items.
Go through the other secret door and you will see what is really happening out at the haunted mansion. Clear out the place. The boss has to die for you to prove you came here. Watch out for Ned!
Take all of your clues back to Saltmarsh. The captain will meet you at the gate. From there, you all head back to the mayor to confirm your suspicions.
The captain will ask for a council meeting. Come back to the mayor's house after 12 hours or so to begin. She has more information to give to all of the nobles. From here, you will head out to the Sea Ghost.
On the Sea Ghost, clear the ship of enemies and look for more clues. At the bottom level of the ship, you will find another NPC and some major clues. Once done, head back to the fisherman on his boat so he can bring you back to the mayor's house.
Talk to the captain. She is going to want another meeting of the nobles to explain the serious problem you have discovered. Thus ends the U1 module. At this point, your Worldmap now works. The swamp is available to access to start the U2 mod.
In U2, you are sent to the swamp to find the secret location that either the smugglers or the lizardmen are using. You will find this to be the new home of the lizardmen. Go into their lair and talk to the chief. He will give you a quest to help compensate his loses from you (you have been killing his people after all).
The quest consists of clearing out some wyverns nearby. Keep exploring and you will find more secrets.
Return to the chief and he will want you to join them in a battle against a far greater threat to the area, sahuagins! The chief and his minister will explain what is really happening. You need permission from the Saltmarsh council to help. This will also allow Saltmarsh to send troops to the cause.
For evil players, here is a chance to wipe out the lair of all the lizardmen. They are a possible threat to Saltmarsh, right? Also, the shaman leader can have a task for you as well. The rewards from the fight are well worth it!
Return to the Saltmarsh captain and tell her what you discovered in the swamp. She will get the council to agree to send soldiers to the area near the sahuagin fortress (which used to be the lizardmen's fortress). You will also be asked to join in the fight. If you killed the lizardmen, you will still be able to go on to the sahuagin fortress.
On the new area of your map, fight all the sahuagin that you encounter. Assuming you didn't attack the lizardmen, their chief will ask you to go find the minister and talk to him. Find him down at the bottom left of the map and he will direct you to the secret entrance to the fortress that the lizardmen used to escape from the sahuagin. If you are playing evil, you can talk to an aquatic elf in the same place the minister would be.
Your goal inside is to stop a prism that controls the elevation of the fortress. Dropping the fortress down into the water will fill the place with water (which the sahuagin need to breath with); keeping the place raised allows air to flow in (which the lizardmen need to breath with). All you have to do is make sure the prism doesn't work properly.
For added fun, go try to kill the sahuagin chief. This is not required but the rewards will be worth the fight. Killing the lizardman engineer is all that is really required.
When you have finished in the fortress, go tell the minister and the chief what you did. You can now return to Saltmarsh as heroes. The U modules are now finished.
After talking to the Saltmarsh Captain, you will be approached by a little girl. Be nice to her and you can start a small quest I have created for Saltmarsh. This will also begin your series of clashes with a strong evil religion in this part of Faerun. Something we never experienced on the Sword Coast.
Once you have reported your findings to the temple and to the captain, you should head to Mistmoor. This town has a strange history to it. Talk to any of the townspeople then go find the local inn.
The current (and last) Lord of Mistmoor is in a dire situation and needs your help. Offer to help him clear out his family's manor of it's ghosts. Unlike the task in Saltmarsh, there really are ghosts here. Solve the mystery of the ghosts and clear out the manor of the evil residing in it.
When the Mistmoor module is done, head to Selgaunt's Bridge district. Here you will meet several famous people in Faerun. You will also have the chance to finally travel to Westgate and start the Slaver series! Yeah!!!
In Selgaunt, if Rihn is in the party, you will meet Pel'ja. If you agree to her quest, she will teleport you to the Vault of Ages. From here, you get to start a new party. Althon, Rihn, and Vildamyr will automatically join the party. You have two more NPCs you can add, including some new ones. Once you are organized. ask Ilewtharyn to send you to Myth Drannor.
This part of Myth Drannor is the School of Wizardry. Rihn and vildamyr both have several dialogs to give you some history about what happened during the fall of the city. Outside the school, there are several encounters. None require a fight if you are smart enough to talk out of battle.
Inside the school, you will find some bodies of Lashan's men. Lashan himself is no where to be found but someone else here can clue you in to what happened. Again, you don't have to fight. Once you have the information you need, you can leave Myth Drannor. Just head back to Pel'ja and she will teleport you back to the Vault.
Ilewtharyn will be somewhat surprised about your information. He will then heal Rihn and send you all back to the Selgaunt Bridge district. If you haven't already done so, go into the Outlook Inn and talk to Jak and Stein. If you agree to their proposal, you can then talk to Captain Morgan downstairs who will sail you to Westgate.
Chapter 3-
Once you arrive in Westgate, organize your party and check the nearby containers for items that will help you. Head West to leave the area. You want to get out of here immediately. The next area on your map is the abandoned temple that Stein told you about. Search around and you will find it isn't so abandoned.
Clear out the Slavers. Don't forget to go into the temple area of the dungeon, check your map. Once you have cleared the place out, tell the slaves they can leave (extra XP for this). You should now have a new area on your Worldmap for the next slaver area and mod (A2).
A2 is not commplete yet, so you are done at this point.
CREDITS
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Horred the Plague, Hlid, Vlad, Stone Wolf, Avenger, Ken and everyone on the TeamBG, PlagueZone, Forgotten Wars, and Spellhold Studios forums that has answered my questions.
Special thanks to leahnkain, my secret assistant on this project. Also to TheWizard for being the narrator of the story, master bug squasher, and all around nice guy.
A special welcome goes to Celestine who started as a player and is now a full time member of our team. She created the NPC Rivian and is working hard at fluffing out the dialogs that I have made. Welcome aboard!
An additional new member is K'aeloree who has been helping with logic flow and dialogs. You will see a new NPC forthcoming as well.
Jason Compton's banter accelerator is used in this project, so a special thanks to him for letting me include it.
I did pull several pictures from somewhere (long ago, don't remember). So if it is copyrighted and you are pissed, let me know, I can always get another picture. The chapter change picture is from Larry Elmore, one of the best painters of fantasy/Sci-Fi (Larry, please let me keep it!).
A very special thanks has to go to Bruce R. Cordell for creating the original PnP mod this one is based on. Druid mods rock!
Thanks to Dave J. Browne and Don Turnbull for the "U Series" modules. Thanks also to Leonard Wilson for "The Ghost of Mistmoor" mod, found in Dragon Magazine, issue 35.
Graphics:
A big thanks to our Art Director, Plasmocat. Many of the portraits are from her.
Cyrille, Herd, and Leahnkain did some of the other portraits.
Sir-Kill has created several of the new BAMs that you see (item graphics).
Thanks to Rabain and King Diamond for kindly sharing with us much needed maps.
Thanks to Kristopher P. Love (aikurisu) for helping create a picture for an upcoming NPC. (Markessa).
Thanks to Farik Osman for the original lineart for Rivian's portrait and to Ivanna for coloring Rivian.
Thanks to Mythral Eagle for beta-testing CA extensively.
We would like to thank kry1 for her recent help with art. She is available for commission work.
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A special thanks goes to King Diamond who somehow figured out a way of converting the "Pools of Radiance: Return to Myth Drannor" area graphics into something we can use in this game. I guess I could have used screen captures and merged them together, but then I would have had to actually plat that horrible game.
F.A.Q.
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1. This is a Total Conversion. Most mods for BGII will not work with this mod. Item mods will work, however, if it is Ruad or something that effects Cromwell you will have problems since they aren't in this project. NPC/Romance/Flirt/Banter mods will not work.
2. This project includes game engine updates created by Horred for the BP (Big Picture) project. This also limits compatibility with some mods. Do not install any tweak mod (Baldurdash, etc) or Worldmap fixes.
3. The install package will modify the BGMAIN.EXE file. It changes the starting XP amount to 100 instead whatever the amount normally it (7,000?? I don't remember). There is a backup in your SoA folder, so when you uninstall this mod, you can just replace the EXE with the backup.
4. I have many plans for this project. Just to let you know, after completion of chapter 1, you will head to Saltmarsh to begin the U 1-2-3 series of mods. From there, you will go through the Slaver mods (A1-4). The Giants series (G1-2-3) is planned after this. Followed by the Drow (D1-2-3) and possibly Lolth (Q1).
TROUBLESHOOTING
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Q. It doesn't install.
A. Did you install SoA and ToB and the patch for Tob (26498)?
Q. The first area crashes after I build a new character.
A. That means that something didn't install correctly. Either the Worldmap is corrupt or the first area, TC0009 isn't working. You can use DLTCEP to very this.
Q. I installed the Banter Pack and Dungeon-be-Gone mods, now the game doesn't work.
A. (In a terrible Edwin accent) Idiot.
Q. Can the Item Upgrade Mod be installed?
A. Yes, but Cromwell isn't here so there is no one to make the items for you. You can CLUA in them yourself.
Q. I want other parts of the Ease-Of-Use mod!
A. Too damn bad. Sorry, but actually they don't work with the files from BP and from the changes I have made. Therefore, don't install them.
Q. I deliberately made changes to your mod and now it doesn't work.
A. Please go kick yourself. I will NOT support changes made by players. I will however, be willing to fix bugs that you find. So please let me know about them.
Q. But I want Boo!
A. You obviously have a fetish problem and need to go talk to a shrink about this. Please don't play this mod.
Edited by leahnkain, 16 March 2007 - 06:16 PM.
