Ember's Lute (A Music Performance Mod) (2024)

• automatically accompany your performances on supporting instrument types,
• put on a dancing light show of instrument 'charms' that varies by song,
• lets you toggle instrument-specific support on/off mid-performance (except for The Weeping Dawn).
  

Performing "The Weeping Dawn" will have your avatar joined by the Spirit of a Tiefling Bard who will sing along with you. Perhaps it is Alfira, or her mentor Lihala, or someone else entirely. I've left that for you to decide!

>>This mod doesn't contain music assets, it calls the music events fromthe BG3 base game, or the Divinity DLC song pack (if you own it). The only requirement is Norbyte's Script Extender. It will (is intended to) still work if you do not own the Divinity Song pack DLC, but you won't be able to perform its three songs - Sing For Me, Divinity Main Theme, Queen of the High Seas.<<

What's Included
By my own admission, this mod is a bit of a smorgasbord! It started life as a learning exercise on BG3, and later evolved into enhancements themed around the music performance mechanics. The quickest way to overview what it is about is to watch the short video linked above. All of the features in this mod are enabled through equipping one of its themed instruments:

Ember's Lute of Musical Sprites

This lute is themed around playing with musical sprites or spirits. Sprites will appear automatically whenever the avatar performs a song on the lute and will join in with the music on supporting instruments. Check your passives to toggle specific instrument types on/off throughout a musical performance.The sprites can be summoned twice-per-day, after which a long rest will be needed before they appear for any music performances.

• There is a unqiue and custom musical sprites VFX for each of the songs (6 if you have the DLC).
  

• Mild Mockery: a no-damage version of the cantrip Vicious Mockery that is shareable with the party. Party members can insult anyone (or each other), without violent retaliation. It triggers the same automated voice dialog as Vicious Mockery.
• Musical Coercion Curses: apply a curse that makes people dance or sing when a specific song is played.
• Etc. etc., you get the idea. This is not an evil lute, but it is a bit of an a-hole.
  

Lute Trader Locations

• Act 1 - the halfing by the entrance to the druid and tiefling den
• Act 2 - the harper quarter master at the Last Light Inn
• Act 3 - the Chromatic Scale store
  

All Ember's Lute items will appear on vendors inside an Ember's Lute treasure chest. If you cannot see this chest on one of the above vendors, take a long rest and try again. If you have the Tutorial Chest Summoning mod, you can also find the Embers' Lute chest inside thecartilaginouschest.

Load Order
Because this mod does not overwrite any base game instruments, music statuses or music files, this mod should not impact other mods in your modlist. All statuses, stats, spells, items etc. in this mod are prefixedto minimise the chance of conflict with another modder's work *. In general, load order shouldn't matter, but there may be exceptions (see next subheading).

* If you believe this mod is impacting another mod in your load order, please report.

Interrupted Music Performance Issues / No Performance Animations
Unfortunately I can't offer the same assurances in the other direction, as it will depend on what the "other" mod does and how it does it. A mod - including non music oriented mods - can potentially impact music performance mechanics, regardless of their mod load order. If you are using a race mod, then it is worth confirming your character has performing animations before adding this mod (especially if you have not used the music performance system in a while). Even if you are not using a race mod, it is still probably worth confirming. Some mods that continuously re-apply statuses can interrupt music performances.

As of version v1.2.7.2, this mod has been updated to reduce the chance that another mod cancels down the music performances on Ember's instruments. If you have been experiencing music performance interruptions, try updating to this version and see if it helps.You can also try installing the musicperformworkaround pak under the Optional Files section. Read this article first for a quick overview of what it does. This pak is safe to add or remove mid-playthrough, so it might be worth a try to see if it helps.

Dependencies

Norbyte's Script Extender is a requirement for this mod to work correctly.
I recommend that you confirm you can see the message on your BG3 Main Menu screen, which should read something like

"Script Extender v16 loaded, built on May 14 2024 21:45:04" in the bottom left hand corner of the screen.

While this mod may appear to work if the Script Extender is not installed, it has been 100% developed and tested with Script Extender active. Certain features that require it will not work without it: the Weeping Dawn performance, the Mild Mockery cantrip, and the DLC music pack check. I'm also likely to make future changes to the mod on the assumption that Script Extender is available. But the main reason is the point about testing. I don't have capacity to test with and without Script Extender, so am not able to offer much (or anything really) in the way of confidence that things in this mod wouldn't start to behave erratically without it.

Known Issues

Weeping Dawn

• Not tested in multi-player mode. In theory, basic start, join and stop performances should work. Might encounter odd issues if multiple player avatars are far enough apart to each start their own Weeping Dawn performances in parallel.
• Save persistence is not implemented. In other words, if you Save the game mid-performance, it won't reload back into the same state (animations play but audio does not restart.).
• If you exit to main menu mid-performance, the music will continue to play. Fixed.
• Song looping is not implemented. The Weeping Dawn will playthrough once and if the performance has not been cancelled by the player before the song finishes, then you will see silent animations continue until the player moves (or performs another song).
  

Other - Performing with Party Members

• This mod was designed around the idea that the lead music performer (whoever starts the song first) has the Ember's Lute equipped and is accompanied by sprites or spirit NPCs. It should be fine to equip other party members with instruments from this mod if you would like to do so, although you may sometimes hit unintuitive or unexpected reactions - like another party member joining in automatically, or a musical silence attempt not "working" because there's another Musical Conductor in the same aura space.
• I will be doing bits of work to try and better support party mode with this mod. The most recent version added a potion which lets you turn a party member into a "musical spirit". This is the recommended way to perform with the party for now - party members who have consumed this potion will automatically join in with the lead performer (like how the gnomes do).
• Meanwhile, if you experience strange things happening with multiple instruments equipped across the party, it could be because instrument auras are tripping over each other. You should be able to "reset" this by unequipping / re-equipping each instrument. This action clears down any statuses applied to the instruments.
  

Known Conflicts / Compatibility Information

I'll update a list here of mods that I know either to not work with this mod, or require a specific load order.As of v1.2.7.2, Ember's Lute includes an update that should make it less likely another mod cancels down its performances. If you have been experiencing interrupted music performances, try updating to this version.

• The Divine Curse Framework has an open bug on music performances.Updating to Ember's Lute v1.2.7.2 might help to prevent custom statuses interrupting music performances (though the DCF bug still might override performance anims, not sure). As of 8 June, DCF has fixed the issue in the latest version.
  

• Magical Musical Instruments was confirmed to interrupt the music performances on instruments in this mod, due to the custom scaling auras it adds based on Performance skill. Updating to Ember's Lute v1.2.7.2 should stop this from happening. I believe these two mods should be able to happily co-exist from v1.2.7.2 onwards (and the VFX with the Expert auras it adds are nicely complementary to the VFX in this mod), but it might require a tweak to this mod now and then depending upon what future updates MMI makes. If you are Reporting a Bug for Ember's Lute, please let me know if you also have MMI installed and what version of it.
  

The rest of this section is probably most relevant to any mod authors that might have a technical question about how this mod works.

• This mod has been designed to pivot the music performance enhancements around equipping its custom instruments. Using vanilla instruments, or another mod custom instruments will not trigger any of the custom statuses, auras, spells in this mod. Because of this, I can be reasonably confident that the enhancements this mod adds to the game are respectful of the hard work of other music modders! On occasion, it may need the instruments from this mod to be stashed in the Camp Chest to avoid conflict with another music mod.
• This mod does not replace any base game music statuses, spells, instruments. All statuses, spells, instruments, templates are inherited variants of the originals, and are all prefixed to minimise a risk of breaking another modder's work.
  
• It is likely to require unequipping the Ember's Lute instruments to switch between the functionality of this mod, and another mod that changes the music performance mechanics. Depending on what the other mod does, its music changes may not work on the instruments in this mod, since they use alternate versions of the base game music statuses.
• Any music mods that override the performance songs with custom music, might result in several different audios all playing at once when using the music sprites or the gnomes. It depends on how the mod has implemented the song replacement, but it would be no different than if you performed a song in the base game mode with multiple performers on different instruments joining in. A quick way around this would be to use the silence passives in this mod, to have only one performer at a time.
  

Other Relevant Info

Note on Multiplayer Mode

This mod is currently untested in multi-player mode. Given most of it is implemented with configuration, not code, to leverage the BG3 base game as much as possible, there isn't a specific reason why it wouldn't work in multiplayer mode. The exception is The Weeping Dawn, where I wasn't able to find a way to extend the musical performances without jumping into script extender. No idea if this will work in multi-player mode!

Notes on Summoning in BG3

This mods makes a lot of use of summons for calling in characters that can play a variety of different instruments.The following points aren't really confirmed issues, just a couple of things I have an eye on which I'm sharing for transparency.

• If you are in a busy Act 3 area, you might see a bit of a crowd freezing effect the first time the summons enter the world when performing on the Musical Sprites lute. Adding 4 summons to the player party, registering with triggers, all in a single "turn" - the BG3 engine is working pretty hard in the background, so just let it do its thing. Once summoning is complete, then performance seems fine.
• The scaling of summoning over time (specifically save game data size). To err on the side of caution, if you do decide to experiment with extreme summoning for whatever reason (like 20 gnomes if you gave each party member a copy of the lute and summoned them all), I'd recommend you keep it to a once-off, or experiment and then reload an earlier save point.
  

Should I Install This Mod?

If you are after a mod that adds useful utility or improves the gameplay battles in a meaningful, scaleable way, then most definitely this is not the mod you are looking for! If whimsy and silliness is more up your street, then I'd love it if you gave this mod a look and let me know what you think.

How Do I Install This Mod?

Installing this mod follows the status quo for installing almost all BG3 mods. I've included a brief summary below, but for thorough installation instructions, including details on where to find BG3 path locations and so on, this is an excellent resource:BG3 wiki.

BG3 Mod Manager

The recommended way to install this is with LaughingLeader's BG3 Mod Manager.

• Choose the Manual Download option from the Files tab on this Nexus page, then in BG3 Mod Manager, go to File -> Import Mod...
• If you do not already haveNorbyte's Script Extender, then go toTools -> Download & Install the Script Extender in BG3 Mod Manager.
• To activate this mod, simply drag it from the right-hand panel to the left-hand panel in BG3 Mod Manager.
  

Vortex
If you are comfortable with Vortex, then there should be no problem in taking advantage of the Nexus integration as a convenient way to install this mod quickly.

• The only thing to keep in mind is that if you do not already haveNorbyte's Script Extender installed, you will need to do it manually. Fortunately, this is very easy to do - just follow the instructions in the link.
  

Manually

• If you wish to install manually, then you will need the information held inmodsettings.lsx, which can be found as an Optional download on the Files tab.
• This wiki page has a great set of instructions for manually installing BG3 mods.
• You will also need to follow the steps for manually installingNorbyte's Script Extender, as per the Vortex instructions.
  

How Do I Uninstall This Mod?

Because this mod add new items, uninstalling requires pre-requisite in-game steps to erase custom mod items. The mod provides some tools to help with this, as well as an in-game book with instructions.

Update

:
I have just finished testing uninstalling this mod with Volitio's excellent Mod Uninstaller.It works really well as a way to track down and cleanly remove custom items. Custom items are one of the main causes of the crash to main menu issue, after trying to load a Save Game following a mod pack removal.

• There are a couple of other pre-requisite mods of Volitio's you will also need to download and install - the signposting and instructions are all on the Nexus pages.
• Before you use the uninstaller in-game, be sure to dismiss any active summons from the mod and unequip the lutes from your characters and companions.
  

You don't have to use the Mod Uninstaller if you prefer to clean items manually or use the tools this mod provides, but I would definitely recommend it, especially if you have many mods - remembering which items came from which mod is a real mental management overhead!

Refer to the README for more information on installing and uninstalling.

Thanks and Credits
A list of mods that appear in some of the images and videos uploaded to this page:

• Tav's Hairpack, by Toarie - https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/213
• Extra Gear, by pooteeweet - https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/3483
• Fancy Camp Clothes, by pooteeweet - https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/6919
• PseudoKociaras' Heads by PseudoKociara - https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/6152
• Izzli's Pigments and Tinctures by Izzli - https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/4706
• Transmog Enhanced by Eralyne and Wayden - https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/2922
• Gleaming Sun Reshade at Baldur's Gate 3 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)
  

(Please let me know if you spot a mod I might have missed and I will add it).

Massive thanks to:

• Norbyte for Script Extender and the LSLib Export Tool
• LaughingLeader for BG3ModManagerand the BG3 Modding Tools
• ShinyHobo for the BG3 Multi-Tool
• Shivero's VFX Auto Color Changer
• An anonymous IRL friend who was guinea pig for some early mod testing
  

Permissions

All the assets in this mod, are either derived and adapted from the BG3 base game, or for better or worse (mostly worse), my own creation.

Anyone is welcome to unpack this mod to inspect how things have been put together and you do not need to request my permission to do this. Provided you can make sense of the chaos! This mod has grown organically over the last few weeks I've been working on it, and it's the result of a LOT of experimentation, trial and error. I've gleefully jumped in to pretty much every rabbit hole that piqued my curiousity as I tried to figure how how the pieces fit together. So, structurally, it won't offer the most straightforward examples of how to achieve things in BG3. I've tried to compensate for this with lots of comments to explain whatever madness was going through my head at the time.

>>There are no music assets included in this mod. All music used is calling existing in-game BG3 sound events only.<<

DLC

A quick explanation of how this mod handles the Divinity DLC songs, for the curious or concerned.

This is one of the areas the mod makes use of Script Extender to access Osiris procedure calls. The method used in this mod mirrors what happens with the default music instruments when they are equipped as closely as possible. It will request a DLC check, and if this responds as the DLC unavailable, the mod will set a hidden status that switches the custom instruments to use alternative spell containers that do not have the DLC Divinity songs.

It's important to note that this is purely about UI control (whether or not the DLC song icons appear), and does not interact at all with any music assets. The reason to remove the spells from the container on the instrument is that they would play silent animations if the player cast the spell, but did not have the DLC pack installed.