Of Simulacrums, Projected Images and their exploits

[Daulmakan]

Sorry. My bad. As Fyorl said, they get mixed up in the discussion.

[Fyorl]

Yeah I agree, it's not limited by being an illusion. I'd also vote that the Simulacrum has items as that seems to be the developer intent although I don't particularly agree with that intent.

[Guest Guest]

My 2 cents:

 

Agreed with everyone that project image and mislead are illusions and should be treated as such. That doesn't seem to be controversial.

 

The real debate seems to be about simulacrum. I don't really buy the "Vhailor's Helm tells us what developer intent was" logic. If it was restricted to -only- pure class fighters, then maybe, but it's only restricted against mages, thieves and bards, same as any other helm. Jaheira could use it and have it cast spells, so could any fighter/mage, so could any cleric. Keldorn's simulacrum could do true sights and dispel magics. And it's still quite useful even for pure fighters, same as most summons are - as cannon fodder.

 

Put me solidly in the "no items duplicated for simulacrum" camp. It's not only very hard to justify from a game world perspective (duplicating multiple artifacts with an 8th level spell just doesn't gibe with the limits of magic as we know them, be it PNP or BG), it's exceedingly unbalancing from a gameplay perspective as well.

 

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Bah... that last post was by me... hate forgetting to log in.

 

Qwinn

[WizWom]

OK, then, simulacrums would run a "DestroyAllItems()" script as soon as they are made? That makes sense, although it's annoying, because you can't give an item to a simulacrum and have it equip it (without a HUGE bloated script, and then the item will go away when the simulacrum expires).

 

And, I guess, one could exploit undestroyable items, if there are any that can be equipped.

 

I'm really leaning toward the implementation of Simulacrums as project acquired familiars.

 

Off to test script to make something a familiar...

[BigRob]

The real debate seems to be about simulacrum. I don't really buy the "Vhailor's Helm tells us what developer intent was" logic. If it was restricted to -only- pure class fighters, then maybe, but it's only restricted against mages, thieves and bards, same as any other helm. Jaheira could use it and have it cast spells, so could any fighter/mage, so could any cleric. Keldorn's simulacrum could do true sights and dispel magics. And it's still quite useful even for pure fighters, same as most summons are - as cannon fodder.

A pureclass fighter without equipment is pretty much useless. For a start it's going to do no damage whatsoever. Also, even if it has 100+ hitpoints, with an AC of 10, it's going to be struck every time by just about any opponent you're likely to be facing, so it'll die with incredible speed. On top of that, since BG2 lacks a useful taunting mechanism, it may well be ignored by opponents, so it won't even provde a small buffer for your real characters.

 

 

Put me solidly in the "no items duplicated for simulacrum" camp. It's not only very hard to justify from a game world perspective (duplicating multiple artifacts with an 8th level spell just doesn't gibe with the limits of magic as we know them, be it PNP or BG), it's exceedingly unbalancing from a gameplay perspective as well.

 

Limited Wish could likely duplicate the effects of a minor artifact in PnP (none of the items in BG2 are really up to true artifact level), if only for a short time, and it is a 7th level spell, not an 8th. I can live with the idea of simulacra not having items, as (almost) anyone able to cast it will have some kind of spell capability, and therefore be of some use, but I'd think that Vhailor's Helm at least should allow equipment to remain. Who's to say the Helm isn't some kind of artifact itself?

[WizWom]

Put me solidly in the "no items duplicated for simulacrum" camp. It's not only very hard to justify from a game world perspective (duplicating multiple artifacts with an 8th level spell just doesn't gibe with the limits of magic as we know them, be it PNP or BG), it's exceedingly unbalancing from a gameplay perspective as well.

 

Limited Wish could likely duplicate the effects of a minor artifact in PnP (none of the items in BG2 are really up to true artifact level), if only for a short time, and it is a 7th level spell, not an 8th. I can live with the idea of simulacra not having items, as

 

(almost) anyone able to cast it will have some kind of spell capability, and therefore be of some use, but I'd think that Vhailor's Helm at least should allow equipment to Name("COPY",myself)

remain. Who's to say the Helm isn't some kind of artifact itself?

 

It's not a big deal to dup the spell - but the trouble comes in just doing the DestroyAllEquipment() to one type of "COPY" creature and not another.

 

I guess this in the script they run

IF
Global("WXNerfMySimulacrum","LOCALS",0)
Name("COPY",myself)
!Class(Myself,MAGE_ALL)
THEN
RESPONSE #100
SetGlobal("WXNerfMySimulacrum","LOCALS",1) // prevent item destruction if not a mage - because we're using the Helm of Vhaillor, supposedly.
END

IF
Global("WXNerfMySimulacrum","LOCALS",0)
Name("COPY",myself)
THEN
RESPONSE #100
DestroyAllEquipment()
SetGlobal("WXNerfMySimulacrum","LOCALS",1)
END

Which does give the minor bug that thieves using scrolls of Simulacrum with UAI qould get simulacrum with items.

[Fyorl]

Another option would be to have the Helm of Vhaillor cast a 'custom' Simulacrum spell which is the same as the vanilla one. Then you can modify the original Simulacrum to destroy all its equipment in every case.

 

That way there's no bug with UAI.

[BigRob]

Aye, that was the kind of thing I was thinking about.

[WizWom]

In fact, can't you set a local variable by effect? Then we don't even need a custom spell, just an additional bit on the Helm's effect to cast the spell.

 

Effect 265, set global, resource "WXNONERF", value 1

 

Bother. Simulacum have no scripts set.

OK, then this needs to be in BALDUR.BCS

 

IF
Exists("COPY")
Specifics("COPY",0)
THEN
RESPONSE #100
	ActionOverride("COPY",ChangeAIScript("WXSIMUL",OVERRIDE))
	ChangeSpecifics("COPY",177)
END

 

And the script WXSIMUL needs

IF
Global("WXNERFSI","LOCALS",0)
G("WXNONERF",0)
THEN
RESPONSE #100
	DestroyAllEquipment()
	SetGlobal("WXNERFSI","LOCALS",1)
END

IF
GGT("WXNONERF",0)
THEN
RESPONSE #100
	SetGlobal("WXNONERF","GLOBAL",0)
END

 

I had to do it this way, since there's no way to check locals on another creature.

 

Anyway, this will nerf the first simulacrum; if I had a way to change the scriptname of something, I'd change the scriptname of COPY to WXCOPY to keep the BALDUR.BCS from finding the same copy over and over.

 

Since the Simulacrum will now have an override, the script could be extended to allow the simulacrum to be a party member for a round or something, so you could equip it. But then we have to remove the NONERF code from the helm, lest it be used as an infinite items exploit.

[Galactygon]

About Misled Images: setting their class to Wizard Eye (210) is a better workaround than placing a blank spell for their bardsong.

 

-Galactygon

[Nythrun]

Remove the gui button interface completely? It's certainly a clean solution.

[devSin]

Yeah. I'm not in favor of further changes beyond our current fixes (the discussion seems to imply that we're not going to get a unanimous decision) as there's no evidence for any in the default implementation, but changing the illusions to an NPC class (well, other than INNOCENT or FLAMING_FIST) seems easiest.

[WizWom]

I came up with a better way than patching BALDUR.BCS... the simulacrum gets a spell applied to set it's colors, SIMULACR.SPL

 

Add an effect #82, set AI script to the Destroy items script above.

 

Additional code could be added to that to equip items, but I think that might be bloat. And you have to figure out how to get them to drop when the simulacrum expires.

[aVENGER_(RR)]

I came up with a better way than patching BALDUR.BCS... the simulacrum gets a spell applied to set it's colors, SIMULACR.SPL

 

Add an effect #82, set AI script to the Destroy items script above.

 

Note that several mods also alter the Simulacrum AI (i.e. Quest Pack and SCSII). Furthermore, some mods deliberately assign special scripts to opponents' simulacrums so applying your script via BALDUR.BCS might cause problems as well.