Spellcasting Exploding Death

[Guest anonMT]

In vanilla BG2 TOB, I've encountered a strange case in the Underdark where a lich that has been chunked is still casting spells (it looks like it's flying) and IIRC couldn't be harmed proper by weapons and armour. I was wondering if it was possible to have a character with the dead or exploding death flag still be alive and functioning in BG2; there's been a case of characters who get exactly -10 HP remaining in a party as chunks, they can then be healed back to 0 HP but can't be resurrected proper as flying body chunks. Could this happen?

[Guest anonMT]

So, I did some experimentation and I've run into a question - do script stop functioning for PCs when they die? Or NPCs for that matter as well; I think Anomen from my party has died and I've had to reassign him a new script.

[Icendoan]

I think they have one more script round, for Death() triggers and executes true blocks with that command. PCs wouldn't however.

 

Icen

[Guest anonMT]

So, how would one allow PCs to have after-death scripting rounds? Set the script to .bcs format or somehow swap it with the "default" script? There's also the question I think of targeting PCs after they're dead...but I'll get to that below.

 

...

 

I've done some research on the "spellcasting exploding death" phenomenon and here's what I've discovered. What differentiates the exploding death in Baldur's Gate and Shadows of Amn is characters do not go up to 1 HP when a Raise Dead spell is performed on them. This applies to Harper's Call as well, but I don't know if "Resurrection" worked as well since it's not in BG and I installed TOB before I could experiment in SOA. The characters can be healed from -10 to 0, though, they just can't get back up to that. The spellcasting Lich chunk I mentioned earlier that couldn't be targeted was likely the result of a Simulacrum getting cast after the Lich had been chunked, or somehow the Lich gained HP after it had been chunked. I'll have to do a run through the Underdark to be sure.

 

Characters are kept in the party after getting chunked by what I believe is an error in their default script, the kind that lets them attack characters close to ones they're attacking though it's not selectable from the scripts directory. I don't know what triggers this error but I suspect its when a lot of action is taking place - Sarevok battle in BG1, Firkraag battle in SOA. The characters can rejoin a party after getting chunked, though they have -10 HP and can't be selected or resurrected proper because they can't be targeted by spells except Raise Dead/Harper's Call. In BG2: SOA I managed to raise Keldorn to 0 HP, but not beyond that despite my best efforts using that Rod of Ressurection or the Raise Dead/Harper's Call spell. I was hoping there would be some kind of "change state" parameter to allow him to come back, but unless I could target him to heal him to 1 HP (I suspect Resurrect might have done this since it heals HP as well)

 

Things are different in TOB for some reason; characters CAN be resurrected from "permanent death" (no matter what it is) provided they are still in the party, or the Raise Dead spell was cast but hadn't taken effect by the time the character had already died. They end up as a swirling mass of flesh and can't move, but otherwise they are very much alive (despite colour changes). "singed" death characters come out normally. In order to get these flesh bags to change location I had to either use Polymorph: Self or use the Wand of Polymorphing from BG1 to give them a body, though their default was still the swirling flesh animation. They can't be targeted outside of the party menu, though enemies can still attack them.

 

What I suspect is the problem in BG2 is the permanent death parameters have been changed, now whatever flag made them "permanent" has been removed by patched TOB. A bit of a disappointment, I was hoping to use some bizarre ritual to bring back perm dead characters, now it seems like people could get passed that problem by accident.

[BigRob]

Still, I didn't realise that you could do that at all, so it might be an interesting thing to put in a game, particularly if you can solve the swirling meat-lump animation problem. Perhaps a script to reassign the proper body permanently could work.

[Guest anonMT]

The flesh bags can be moved if one plays a game of "baseball" - using the Staff of the Ram's knock back to kick them over to another part of the screen. Ring of the Ram does much the same, though that seems to be the only way to move them. It worked when the characters were "in party" but still dead during SOA as well.