Using EE Keeper to adjust GoG games

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Ok, I realized I'd messed up my character - my choices of weapon proficiencies included one I can never use; thus locking me out of the one I DO use. (Longbow instead of shortbow).

Somebody suggest I try using EE Keeper to fix my character rather than start completely over (getting past that first wizard assassin took like 12 tries.)

But I'm a bit at a loss to figure out the exact directory path they are looking for with the two paths they want. I got down to this point for the main game directory:
CProgram Files (x86)\GOG Galaxy\Games\Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition\data
And this point for my game/save files:
CUsers\User\Documents\Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition
- and I'm missing something from at least one of those directories. EE Keeper gives a "I can't find. . ." error message. It seems to be looking for .cre files.

Does anyone have any ideas?

 

Probably the Virtual Store.
It would have been better to install to something like Cgog games\Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition than Program Files since Windows Vista and later takes extra care to protect virtual stores, and if you install any mods without using "run as administrator" it will put them in the virtual store.
https://www.networkinghowtos.com/howto/windows-virtual-store-location/

Look in %localappdata%\virtualstore and see if there are any files there.
alternately you can try
CUsers\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\VirtualStore
You can of course substitute your username for %username%.

 

You broke the first rule of using any Windows OS post XP: Never install shit in program files.

 

Hm, I figured out after watching a video that I should not have linked the main game directory to the \data folder; just to the Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition folder. With this change I was able to open the saved game editor; but it shows no games in the listing. I am guessing that the game/save files are in the cloud and there-for not available? Is there a way to download them to a local save file?

 

Are you playing the GoG version of the steam version?
There should be local version of the save games regardless, so I think this is an issue with EEKeeper not knowing where your saved games are kept.

 

GoG. Ok, you gave me the hint that got it; I needed to point the save file pointer INTO the save file folder and everything appeared. Gee, all this work so I can swap one point of longbow proficiency to shortbow - playing a half-elf bard so I don't get to use longbows. And of course I'm so squishy I'm trying to let others tank while I pelt enemies with arrows.

 

That is odd, bards in both P&P and the original BG2 can use longbows.
There are a couple of warrior-only (fighters, barbarians, rangers, paladins and their variants/kits) composite longbows, but bards can use most longbows, but not composite longbows.


I just looked up using Dan Simpson's BG2 Items FAQ and the only bows not usable by bards are:

• BOW01 - Composite Long Bow
• BOW02 - Composite Long Bow +1
• BOW09 - Ripper +2
• BOW10 - Heartseeker +3
• BOW11 - Strong Arm +2
• BOW16 - Composite Long Bow +2
• BOW24 - Composite Long Bow +3 (Throne of Bhaal)

Granted Heartseeker is one of the best bows in SoA, and if you have the strength Strong Arm is pretty good too, but those are the only 7 bows a bard (race is irrelevant) can't use.
The Elven Court Bow, and the Mana bow are probably slightly better for a bard since their THAC0 is less than a fighter and +4 THAC0 is better than Heartseeker's +3, but they don't give a damage bonus. Still better to hit and do slightly less damage than to miss and do no damage.

 

I found a basic longbow and it wouldn't let me arm it. I thought it was weird as heck that it would let me put a proficiency point in the weapon and then I couldn't arm it. My character has a strength of 17 and dex of 18 so those shouldn't be a factor. Or at least I think it was a simple longbow; maybe I'll have to go back and double check. That would be ironic if I went to all that trouble and I could actually use the longbow. I played 2E for about two weeks; then our GM bailed on us and we never saw her again. I never even had reason to buy a single book. By the time 2E came out my main group was playing everything but D&D. I ran RuneQuest 2E for about two years, maybe a bit longer. Eventually though I got tired of micro-managing skills on a percentage scale. One of their other games: King Arthur Pendragon used the basic RuneQuest system; but simplified for a d20 - that was much better IMHO. I decided that +/- 2% on a skill was fairly meaningless. It just makes creating NPCs and critters for the party to fight (or otherwise interact with) way more difficult for the GM. Then I ran/played GURPs for several years, I really liked the idea of being able to customize races and create new ones without worrying if I'm creating something imbalanced. But again the micro-managing got boring after a while and I wanted something simpler. Bad rules can wreck a game for a group; but good rules don't automatically make a game great if the GM sucks. I'm still trying to find that perfect blend of simple yet customizable. The best thing about D&D4E was the HUGE number of races you could play. I like that they are adding many of them back in for 5E. But it would be really neat if they created a book to show how to create new races. I've been contemplating creating a setting that incorporates more cultures than simple Euro/Medieval ones. For instance during it's hay-day Constantinople had contact with all of Europe; lots of Asia including China; and many parts of the middle-east and North Africa. I want a setting where you can not only play a human from a different culture; you can play a few fantasy races native to that culture without just reskinning Elves and Dwarves and Halflings.

 

I'd right-click on the bow in question and look at the requirements. Bards can NOT use the "Composite Long Bow", and IIRC you can only find composite long bows and short bows in Irenicus' Dungeon. In addition the composite long bow requires 18 strength, so your bard couldn't use them anyways (without a Belt of ___ Giant Strength or Gauntlets of Ogre Strength, or finding and using a "Manual of Gainful Exercise" to raise STR to 18. I think you can sort of cheat and drink a potion of strength to equip the item, but then you can't change weapons once the potion wears off. Not as big a deal for armor, but weapons I tend to swap between missile and melee frequently, even for mages when enemies pop up right next to your party like when fighting the slavers for Celestial Fury).

The basic long bow on the other hand

P.S. I actually did a copy/paste from Dan Simpson's "Item FAQ" instead of trying to transcribe from the game or making screenshots. You can blame any errors on Dan's 20 year old FAQ.

On the subject of PC races, I don't recall which book it was (somebody else in our group owned it, but we passed the books around so that we only had to buy one copy of a given book), but there WAS a book in 2E for helping DM's design new races. However, IIRC both the Dungeon Master's Guide and/or the Monster Manual touched on creating new player character races and using non-standard races such as ogres or kobolds for player characters.
I have no idea if this is the case in later editions.

 

You were correct; I think I found composite longbows on some hobgoblins and misremembered them. I went back to my last save of my original character and went to the shop and bought an actual longbow and armed it without trouble. Whoops. Thanks for letting me know. I remember 2E having a splat book for playing non-humans like Orcs and Goblins; and a later one for customizing classes a little. 3E or 3.5E had a book for converting humanoid creatures to play as PCs, so for instance you could play a young 1HD troll as a 1st level character; then divide your levels between a PC class and your monster class until you reached full normal HD. But there weren't any rules for creating new races from scratch. 4E pretty much took every humanoid of medium size or less and made a PC race from them. The Feywild source-book included Satyrs, Pixies, and Hamadryads (a dryad whose life is tied to an entire forest and can travel freely as long as she has a magic acorn from her forest) as PC races. For 5E the WOTC page has info on a variety of alternate PC races as well as having several in various source-books including the Eberron world-book. But again there is no transparency on how PC races are created to make it easy to customize new ones.

There is an old Sega pair of games: Shining Force I and II where your party can include races like centaurs, birdmen (basically Aarakocra), wolfmen (hairy men who can sometimes shapeshift into werewolves) and a variety of others. I liked that idea so much I created a D&D campaign set in an Elven Forest where the elves had suffered bad attrition in various wars and decided to let other forest-friendly races colonize the edges of the forest. I had to invent several races I wanted from scratch but I tried hard to make sure they were balanced with the normal races. But I liked the idea of a campaign setting where humans weren't dominant and many other races were more common. I started running that one from the 2E Basic Compendium; then switched to 3E before they started hitting level-caps. I still had to cobble together some of the races I wanted in that game.