The making of a campaign

[Relthar]

I figured that someone might get a kick out of knowing what type of work it took to convert a lengthy CRPG to the tabletop. And so I give you some interesting trivia on what it took to make the Baldur's Gate Saga campaign work.

First and foremost is a program called Infinity Explorer. Without this program, the task would have been nigh impossible. Infinity Explorer is bascially a data file viewer for the Infinity Engine games. It was fan created, and allows you to see NPC stats, dialog trees, area maps, traps, treasures, etc. For those who are curious, download it:

home.ptd.net/~relthar/InfExp-0.8pre.zip

It doesn't have an installer. Just unzip it to a folder and run the InfExp.exe file. Look around. Its kind of neat to see how the game was put together. The only other game I know of you can do something like this with is Neverwinter Nights (and it does it better as you have the full toolset).

And now for the grunt work - write-ups of the chapters of the game. No, I'm not going to post those here. But I will give you how many pages of Word document each is:

Chapter 1 - 27 pgs.
Chapter 2 - 36 pgs.
Chapter 3 - 35 pgs.
Chapter 4 - 55 pgs.
Chapter 5 - 112 pgs.
Chapter 6 - 48 pgs.
Chapter 7 - 58 pgs.
BG city side quests - 35 pgs. (and I didn't complete all of them)
Firewine Ruins - 18 pgs.
Ulcaster School - 9 pgs.
General sidequests - 64 pgs.

[Relthar]

And just for kicks, here's the stats I used for Sarevok during the climactic battle within the temple of Bhaal down in the Elder Undercity (the party was 11th level at the time and had a grand total of eight members). Please note that these are pure 3.0 stats, as 3.5 didn't exist at the time.

Sarevok Anchev: male human (Bhaal-spawn) Fighter 15; CR 15, medium-size humanoid (human); hp 181; Init +7 (+3 Dex, +4 Improved Init); Spd 20 ft.; AC 27 (flat-footed 26, touch 13); Atk +26/+21/+16 melee (2d6+15 / 17-20, +3 vampiric unholy flying greatsword); SQ Armor provides permanent protection from arrows (10/+3) and fire, cold, electricity, and acid resistance 30; AL CE; SV Fort +15, Ref +10, Will +9; Str 24, Dex 17, Con 18, Int 17, Wis 10, Cha 15.
Skills and Feats: Climb +11, Diplomacy +8, Intimidate +11, Knowledge (Politics) +12, Knowledge (Religion) +6, Knowledge (War) +12, Jump +11, Ride +12, Swim +3; Blind-Fight, Cleave, Combat Reflexes, Expertise, Expert Tactician, Great Cleave, Hold the Line, Improved Critical (greatsword), Improved Disarm, Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Leadership, Power Attack, Weapon Focus (greatsword), Weapon Specialization (greatsword).
Possessions: Sarevok’s Full plate (+4 spiked full plate with elemental resistance and protection from arrows), Sarevok’s Sword of Chaos (+3 flying unholy vampiric greatsword), ring of protection +2, amulet of natural armor +2, cloak of resistance +2

[Matt Droz]

Hmm... is KotOR on the infinity engine?

[Relthar]

Unfotunately, no. It uses a wholly different engine. The only games that you can use Infinity Explorer with are Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn, Planescape: Torment, and Icewind Dale (this is stated in the readme file for the program). Ice Wind Dale 2 was too much of an overhaul of the Infinity engine to be compatible.

So now you know how I got access to all the cool maps within the BG game for use at the table for the ToSC game. ;D