I've really been enjoying both the Bristlelick and Shades of the Sword Coast mods for Baldur's Gate. I've been running it via Gog Galaxy. Unfortunately, things went kaboom when I purchased Siege of the Dragonspear. Gog automatically added it to my Baldur's Gate build and suddenly it wouldn't open anymore, maybe due to the number of different mods I had.
I copied over my save files, uninstalled the game, reinstalled it, and went back and reinstalled the various mods I'd used. Here's where it gets weird for Bristelick. His name has been changed to "I'm really sorry about all this, Pritchard. Uh, there was a—a misunderstanding, that's all. It got out of hand. Unfortunate, but it happens. You might still be able to revive these men if you act quickly." I take it that that's a line of dialogue from Siege of Dragonspear somewhere? His sound when clicked is something along those lines, too. And it looks from NearInfinity like another couple of NPCs I haven't encountered yet have had their names changed similarly.
My last save game from before Bristlelick is dozens of hours back, and when I tested going back to that one, his name and audio were rendered the same way.
I know I can change his name, but I'm wondering what other issues might be lurking under the hood and if anyone has any suggestions for how to straighten this all out. Uninstalling and reinstalling Bristlelick didn't seem to work either.
Sadly, that's normal to BG modding. You should never update and/or reinstall game mid-run. Strings (in-game text) numeration changes and you end up with gibberish.
There is a chance that you may restore Bristle's soundset and name if I added "something is weird with your voice" option among player-initiated dialogues, but other characters will still have wrongly assigned strings.
Sadly, there may be other problems happening, because state of the world map and areas are also stored in savegsmes and when reinstalling stuff, things can get messed up.
All of this is also why many mods will tell you to start a new game. Otherwise things may turn into a mix of normal and broken stuff, references and text links. It's just how this engine works, let's remember it is a very old one.
Sorry for being the bearer of bad news, but that's the reason behind that rule...
Lava Del'Vortel, also known as Weasel. Enjoy my mods. They were made by a fan for other BG/IWD fans. Want to buy me a coffee? Read this post first.
Thanks. To be fair, I didn't intend to update the game. I saw Siege of Dragonspear on sale and snagged it. Gog auto-installed it with Baldur's Gate.
I went back into the Gog settings and figured out how to deselect Siege of Dragonspear, then updated the mods again. But it's still a big mess. I was able to correct Bristlelick's name and sounds via NearInfinity, but found out that all my modded quests had disappeared, too.
I keep vacillating between trying to do different fixes, starting BG over entirely, or just dropping it and moving on to another game. Sigh.
It doesn't matter if you disabled SoD, the update was most likely done already + you reinstalled stuff, so yeah... I'm afraid the only solution if reinstallation of the game and installation of the mods you want to play and starting a new game. Sorry.
I appreciate the info. If I decide to start a new game, does the following process sound like it should work? I just don't want to goof up and get the order wrong.
Uninstall the game, deleting any extraneous files out of the game's folder
Reinstall the game, this time accepting the Siege of Dragonspear content so that it's there the whole time
Run DLC Merger
Install the mods I'd like. Should this order work?
04-21-2026, 01:59 PM (This post was last modified: 04-21-2026, 02:01 PM by Lava.)
Hey!
I don't know what tweaks you have in mind, but I think these are usually installed as the last ones, because of you let's say want tweak how swords work, then many of such mods also apply tweaks to mod-added swords, etc. It's the same with "all dialogues pause the game" - the tweak is also applied to mod dialogues.
It's not a huge mod list, so apart from that, it should work fine. Make sure you are not skipping some mods that may interest you. Check Gibberlings3, as well as other pages, including mods made by people like The Artisan or Skitia or some other skilled authors.
Cheers!
Lava Del'Vortel, also known as Weasel. Enjoy my mods. They were made by a fan for other BG/IWD fans. Want to buy me a coffee? Read this post first.
Hey, so I started a new game with a bunch of the mods you recommended. They've really been adding to the experience. Bristlelick question for you: I had him in my team for quite a while, dropping him temporarily from time to time to follow other NPC-specific quests. The latest time I went to add him back to the party, dialogue with him wouldn't initiate. Anything I can do/tweak via the console or NearInfinity to "goose" him into joining again? (He and basically all the recruitable NPCs I've encountered are camped out in "My Very Own Hideout.")
1 being "You want me to leave?"
0 being "You want me back?"
There is no situation when the variable is set to a number greater than 1, and I have a feeling you are either in SoD or BG2, and that would mean you abused the Hideout. I already advised against doing that here: https://www.weaselmods.net/showthread.php?tid=2832&pid=4641#pid4641
Lava Del'Vortel, also known as Weasel. Enjoy my mods. They were made by a fan for other BG/IWD fans. Want to buy me a coffee? Read this post first.
Hmm. Nope, I'm in Baldur's Gate 1. I hadn't read the thread and it didn't occur to me that dropping NPCs at that location would be abusing the game at all. If anything, I figured that was the intended use since it has a lot of open space and only a few containers. I was treating like the equivalent of the base in Baldur's Gate 3. I don't know much about the variables, but will see if I can find/tweak it in NearInfinity. Anyway, I love the character and have really enjoyed what your mods bring to the game.
The variables decide are used to identify state of quests and talks. As I said, I don't know any reason why no talk trigger when you click him. Check the variables in near infinity. You may also use console to force someone to join, but that does not set any variables so it could get even messier.
As for the purpose - nope, it's just for items and for taking breaks. Storing companions there may cause huge story / NPC problems. Check the other thread for more details.
05-25-2026, 09:53 PM (This post was last modified: 05-25-2026, 10:03 PM by khelos.)
OK. I guess I can kick everybody out to the Friendly Arms or something.
Regarding Bristlelick, can you tell me where/how in NearInfinity to look to find those variables? Would it be in the .gam file or somewhere in the compressed save file?
Never mind. I figured it out and that fixed it! Strange! It was set to 30, but I have no idea why. It wasn't anything I even knew how to tweak.
