Having trouble unlocking the throne room on level 3 below ground. I got the three runes from the bedroom and killed the doppelganger. I killed the doppelganger in the sparing dummy room. According to the FAQ, the throne room should be open for me to get the helm and continue with the level, but it won't open. Is there something I'm missing or is it a bug?

i think you're supposed to hit one of the training dummies, also have you tried activating the statues multiple times? i'm sorry but i don't remember the specifics anymore, the whole level is damn annoying imo.

You need to:

(1) Hit the dummy on the very right until it says something like "You hear a bolt open (or unlock - you get the idea I'm sure)."

(2) Go to Islanne & Durlag's bedroom, go to the right of the bed, open the drawer, then pick up Kiel's Wardstone, wait for the text box to say "You hear a door open (something like that)" then put Kiel's Wardstone back where you found it.

Do those two things and the door to the throne room opens. WARNING: Keep your wits about you! Remember what you've faced before! That is all.

Also, have you taken a good look at what's on the floor in the first room on that level? Half of it is creepy eh? I mean, if you get creeped out by that sort of thing, of course. :OD

It was the dummy on the right that I missed. I had hit the one on the left. Thanks for the aid, throne room is open now, got a trick to deal with what's inside. Hopefully it will work since its not a happy fight. I hate spell casters.

One word of caution with that throne room (unless this was a bug only I encountered): Don't rest in the throne room after the fight. I did that and when I woke up all the doors were closed and I had no way of leaving. Had to load from an earlier save.

I did not like that floor. I found it cumbersome. Anyone else tried Durlag's Tower with SCS installed?

HOLY. @#%!.

To the right of the throne room is a room with levers on the left wall. The 3rd top one is the one that opens the door to the throne room.

Throughout doing Durlag's Tower, each time my party rested where Erdane is. I've never been the type to rest in dungeons. (SPOILER:) However, I think I might have to now that Im on the level after the one we're talking about here in this thread.

I laughed my head off at the first mage at FOA. The dude doesn't bother walking up to you before talking to him - he talks to you from a distance. And is soon as the convo is over, youre toast. Another encounter that got me was the bard's employer that wants you to kill a couple guys. Best to just leave that encounter for later in the game. She is/was stoneskinned.

But the four little dwarf monsters in Durlag's Tower. Good grief. They were the worst enouncter, for me, in the entire game.

Fun to try though, if you've gamed BG1 so many times that you play all the fights on autopilot.

hmm might try it out after finishing this playthrough (currently in chapter six in BG2), wanna see how badly i get my ass kicked, lol

I've never tried SCS; I usually go with Tactics & Ascension in my BG2:SoA & ToB playthroughs.

I don't have any combat-enhancing mods on my BG1 playthrough, nor do I use BGTutu or Big World; juss straight BG1 + Fixpacks + BG1 Unfinished Business + script so that the game doesn't end upon killing the final boss (so I can play TotSC after I finish the main quest). Even with all that, I still find the combat in BG1 very challenging! I don't charge into fights when the game gives time to think about it, do my best to be prepared for surprise battles, and yet I still find the game very challenging!

(BG1 SPOILER - don't read if you aren't fully familiar with the story; I don't want to ruin the story unraveling for you in your gameplay)

The way I play also makes sense from a roleplaying perspective, at least according to my logic. There simply isn't enough high-level mages wherein they're easily affordable, especially for the folk seeking Charname. They are the Iron Throne's side project (they normally don't operate on the Sword Coast). What's more, it's not the main Iron Throne bosses seeking Charname; it's the son, who is given assets to oversee the banditry operation, not the assassination of some kid whose spent all his life in a library! Thereof, it makes sense that the first assassins that Charname encounters are the incompetents Carbos & Shank, then Tarnesh at the Friendly Arm Inn. The assassins get progressively more talented as Charname grows in power, which coincides with the Iron Throne making more money, and thus more coin for Sarevok to spend hunting Charname (keeping in mind that most Iron Throne folk, both above & below Sarevok on the food chain, don't know the real reasons he's hunting Charname for).

BG2 is a different story, as it takes place in Athkatla, one of the most profitable cities in the game world of Toril. Talented magic users will certainly be present, despite the citizen's fear of magic. It even shows without SCS, I find.

You might give it a try. One cool feature DavidW put into SCS is the relocated bounty hunters. The Amazons and the gnome party are going to come looking for you, instead of moping around in gullykin or wherever, and when they find you is randomized.

And then there's that ogre mage party. No longer standing around in some random house in Baldur's Gate. You'll surely meet them this time.

But yeah, you'd have to use tutu. I keep it simple, usually just tutu, a few tweaks, and a couple fixes. SCS1 breaks up the flow, keeps it interesting.

^ Interesting. Despite my familiarity with the game, I do my best to prevent metagaming. Though to be fully fair, I make Minsc into a paladin (without overpowering him; I take away his Ranger racial enemy & don't give him Lay on Hands), and thus always use Detect Evil, RP'ing he's impelled to do so whenever entering new, foreign, or known to be dangerous territory.

I prevent metagaming the best I can by lessening my party's capability how I can. For example, when facing those Amazons, I'm fighting dogs before I could get to them. Dogs obviously bark when they're excited, and even more so when they're trained to kill, like the dogs found on that map. So naturally, after you battle them, the Amazons are wise to your coming, and thus stealth is no more an option against them. Ditto with Molkar's party south of Gullykin, as the kobold commandos & dread wolves alert them to your presence before you can face them. So stealth isn't an option against them either.

LOL! That 'random' house the ogre mages are in is right in front of the Iron Throne tower, buddy! But even from a RP'ing perspective, it makes sense they're in that house. As much as I'm not into RW or fantasy racism, those ogres won't be able to move freely in Baldur's Gate without attracting the Flaming Fist's attention, specifically some of their wizardry unit, especially with the suspicions about the Iron Throne already, given the lax economy. Similarly, I'm sure the Iron Throne would like them close by, as Charname & party have been nothing short of an absolute wrecking ball to their operations before entering the city.

But yeah, those ogre mages use Invisibility, and thus can move unseen throughout the city (and they don't have below average intelligence like normal ogres, thus they won't give themselves away easily) without being detected, so SCS can effectively make them chase you and still be true to the roleplaying aspect of the game.