Importing characters from BG1.

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Hi. I registered here a while back, but recently got back into SoA with some friends (multiplayer ftw) so I've returned with a rather unusual problem.

I originally bought SoA pre-order with the bonus CD, but my old CDs were smashed up so I purchased a new one and I discovered something a bit odd; several of the quirky bugs from the original game have been removed, much to my chagrin, and a simple override wipe can't undo them. The one in particular I wanted to take advantage of was where one would import a character from BG1 and, provided the portraits were no in the BG2 file, the game would skip over everything and not wipe abilities + weapons + spells.

I am most unhappy with this because several weapons from BG1 weren't implemented in BG2, and are thus unfairly unavailable. Not only that, my favourite spell Dimension Door wasn't implemented either, whereas in my original games I could use it all the time.

What I want to know is, how does BG2 distinguish between .chr files saved from BG1 and from BG2, and how can I get around this importing a character from BG1?

 

Look in the faq's section, there is a way to pause the game at the beginning & drop all of your gear so that it doesn't get taken away.

 

I know about that, though it only works in multiplayer. The issue is when importing a character from BG1, rather than BG2, one has to go through the character abjuration all over again - reassigning spells, proficiencies, and ending up with a stripped down character. It is almost as if the multiplayer option which disallows experience and items to be carried over is automatically applied to a BG1 character.

In the original version of BG2, it was possible to bypass all of this and end up with a character identical to how he/she was in BG1. This lead to some problems like with a character who scribed Protection from Petrification as a Level 2 spell in BG1 but had it in the 2nd Level Spell chapter in a spellbook for BG2 and couldn't cast it, being unable to remove the offending spell until TOB.

I didn't memorize it though. :O

 

When importing a character from TOTSC or TOS, taking only the character file and not custom portraits would bypass everything, keeping all spells and items. This was fixed in the final SOA patch and in TOB, so it's only possible with the original SOA only.

There were some interesting perks for Wizards, namely if one had two Rings of Wizardry equipped one had 20 first level spells memorized despite only five slots and two extra 5th, 6th, and 7th level spells. I felt it was quite the counter-balancing effect because Edwin is unfairly more powerful than any PC Wizard, and that's no fun.

I appreciate the option, though I must decline a fix option for the issue. It's connected to my philosophy and outlook on the Bioware infinity games; as a bug hunter I role play myself as a scientist making discoveries in this "fantasy" world, that is, finding and exploiting new bugs and thinking about how they are made possible and what causes them. I feel it cheapens the excitement to merely use an editor to get what I want (though, when I last played BG2 I moved scripting into this category as well) - if possible, I'd like to find a game exploit that someone stumbled on and apply it to my own game. It reminds me of the good ol' days when people were wondering and discussing how to take out the Demon Knight from BG1 in its first appearance to get the Helm of Opposite Alignment, or beating Aec'Letec and figuring out the purpose of those weird scrolls that appeared in BG1 and BG2.

I feel this persistence is what allowed me to discover the "Super Slayer" bug, which was probably the last and greatest bug I ever manage to find. I don't think a patch was made for it, though I told Forgotten Wars about it before they collapsed.

Again, I thank you for the fix, though I would like to find an exploit if possible.

 

I believe the way around this is copy and paste your saved/game character to the BG2 folder.

 

Err, I'm a bit confused. Isn't that the only way to get characters from BG1 to BG2, or is there another way that I'm not aware of?

 

Taking your items from BG1 to BG2 is not supossed to happen because Irenicus takes your stuff away from you.

If you want your original spells in your spellbook just edit them in with Shadowkeeper.

I always play with a BG1 created character because they are simply stronger than a character created in BG2 from scratch.

 

I was able to duel class both a cleric and a fighter to a specialist mage class with different human main characters I made. I've made a fighter/necromancer, a cleric/enchantress, and a cleric/diviner.

Will the game allow my to take my specialist mage status as I move my game from BG1 to BG2?

I noticed the latter only lets you duel-class to a regular rather than specialist mage, different and less preferable than from BG1.