The Bigg Tweak Pack Readme

Introduction

This mod is a collection of tweaks, fixes and/or cheats. All of these were written by me (with the usual file which was borrowed from some other mod, as duly noted in the 'thanks' section).

Compatibility notes

This mod should be installed as late as possible, in particular after any mod that adds new spells (or items), mods that add smarter fights, or mods that add RealGlobalSetTimer() actions (EG romances).
All these component should install correctly and work over SoA only, but it's untested. Most of these components should also work correctly over Tutu, but that's untested too. (Some of these have no meaning for Tutu, since all the spells/abilities they tweak are of too high level, for example the Nature's Beauty, Imprisonment and/or Wish components).

Installation

Windows

The Bigg Tweak Pack is packaged and installed with WeiDU and is distributed as a self-extracting archive. To install, simply double-click the archive and follow the instructions on screen.

Alternatively the files can be extracted from the archive using WinRAR. If properly extracted, you should have a tb#quest folder, and Setup-tb#tweaks.exe in your BG2 folder. To install, simply double-click Setup-tb#tweak.exe and follow the instructions on screen.

Please re-run Setup-tb#tweak.exe in your BG2 folder to reinstall, uninstall or otherwise change components.

Macintosh

If the mod was previously installed, uninstall it before extracting the new version. Please note that this mod is incompatible with Mod Organizer. The Bigg Tweak Pack is packaged and installed with WeiDU. To install, simply extract the contents of the mod into your BG2 folder. If properly extracted, you should have a tb#tweaks folder, Setup-tb#tweaks, and Setup-tb#tweaks.command in your BG2 folder. To install, simply double-click Setup-tb#tweaks.command and follow the instructions on screen.

Components

List of currently available components (each component will link to a more complete description):

Nature's Beauty Tweaks
Imprisonment Fix
Petrification Fix
Drop Weapons in Panic Removal
Unlimited Limited Wish & Wish
Cheesier Limited Wish & Wish group
Improved Difficulty System
Faster Romances group

Nature's Beauty Tweak

With this component installed, the blinding effect in the Nature's Beauty tweak is reduced to 8 hours of duration. This way you'll be able to rest it off.

Imprisonment Fix

This component fixes the Imprisonment effect, so that it won't terminate the game if cast on Player1, doesn't terminate romances, doesn't cause random bugs with summons, and finally you can't use it for infinite experience points. Differently from other fixes circulating, this one also fixes the Protection from Imprisonment effect, and fixes the instances of these occuring in mods.

Petrification Fix

This component fixes the Flesh to Stone effect, so that it won't terminate the game if cast on Player1, doesn't terminate romances, doesn't cause random bugs with summons, and finally you can't use it for infinite experience points. It also fixes the Protection from Petrification and the Stone to Flesh effects, and fixes the instances of these occuring in mods.

Unlimited Limited Wish & Wish

This component fixes some quasi-bugs with the two wish spells: the Djinii (or Dao) you summon with these, in unmodded SoA+ToB, are vulnerable to Death Spell and are subject to the 5 summon harcoded limit. This component fix both these problems.

Cheesier Limited Wish & Wish group

These are two components, which add cheese possibilities to the two Wish spells:
the Covenient Wish lets you get all choices from Wish if you are not in battle, while not affecting the Limited Wish spell.
the Cheesy Wish & Limited Wish component lets you get all choices from both Wish and Limited Wish, while one-time wishes remain such.

If you have only SoA, you can only install the Cheesy Limited Wish part.

Improved Difficulty System

This component has no effect on an unmodded game, it only makes sense with mods that add smarter enemies according to the difficulty level (EG Ding0's Quest Pack, Oversight).
This component (based on an idea originally contained in the RtW mod) allows you to set the difficulty level to be different from the one set in the slider. This allows you to get more intelligent enemies, while not getting 200% damage.
The difficulty is set via a dialogue with Ggib Eht; if you later want to change your difficulty level, you can either activate the AI, choose your character, and press the 'k' key, or use directly the "RTWMyDifficulty","Global" variable (1=easiest, 5=hardest).

Faster Romances

This component will make romances (and other things that are regulated RealGlobalTimer() ) be faster; this isn't a linear decrement (EG reduce timers by 30% or 50%), it uses instead non-obvious mathematical formulas (a rational constant multiplied for a rational power of the original timer, or the original timer if lower) to make sure that the effect is less relevant on short timers, while being sensible on longer timers. For example, on the Medium setting a timer of half an hour (wall clock) is reduced to 25 minutes, while a time of 6 hours (wall clock) is reduced to only 2 hours.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: I've found a bug / incompatibility / have a suggestion!
A: Contact us and I'll deal with it as soon as possible.
Q: Do you call this a FAQ?
A: Yes. Contact me if you want to suggest a new FAQ to add here :)

Version History

Version 2.01:

Now it may work at all >_>

Version 2:

SFX-RAR, auto launches and updates setup-tb#quest.exe, etc.
Petrification fix added.
Added Convenient Wishes.
Added Faster Romances.
The Difficulty component uses the same variable as RtW mod.
SHS-style readme.
Probably some bugfixes.

Version 1

First version (with Nature's Beauty, Imprisonment, Drop Weapons in Panic, Wishes, and Difficulty).

Credits

This mod was made by the bigg.

Big Thanks:

The people who made this possible, by creating amazing modding tools:

Westley Weimer, for WeiDU and his willingness to constantly improve it.
Jon Olav Hauglid, for NearInfinity and... as above :)
Gustov Montessi, author of IEEP

Modding help:

The RtW team had originally devised the mechanism of the Improved Difficulty System.

Web Issues related thanks:

SConrad, for hosting the forum and mirroring.
The Wizard and Baronius for the additional Mirrors!

Dedicated to:

This mod is dedicated to the memory of Luca Poli, a classmate of mine, who had killed himself on 13 February 2004, Friday.

Contact Info:

I welcome any kind of bug report, incompatibility issue report, suggestion and constructive criticism, and I'll take it in highest consideration - please, keep the trolling to yourself.
The method of contacting me I prefer is via the forum, since this way all the interested players will be able to contribute their ideas.
However, if you prefer to contact only me, this is the e-mail address:

If you turned off JavaScript and didn't see a link above, you'll have to work out the real address by hand (sorry, protecting against spammers is a necessity right now):

spellholdstudios.net after the usual symbol, thebigg before.