Protagonist can die

[DraikenWeAre]

@jmerryI get what you're are saying , but I don't think its as hardcodded as you think.

On my current installation I have the mod Wild Mage additions, and there's this spell called Hornung's Random Dispatcher, where it works like Imprisonment does.

lore wise it's supposed to send a Charecter a random place across the multiverse, so basically Imprisonment with no return function. 

When I cast it on party members it removes them just like Imprisonment and Petrification,  only they can't be brought back as I said .

So I decided to cast it on my player Charecter and they dissappeard , removed from the party and I was unable to bring them back, while still able to keep playing the game with the rest of the party

I don't think the modder who made WMA had thought that spell through when he added it but shoudn't there be a way to replicate that same kind of "bug" (which I consider a feature) onto Petrification and Imprisonment. 

Edited September 13, 2023 by DraikenWeAre

[jmerry]

There are variations; some versions of the game end the game immediately if player 1 is removed from the party, and others don't. As I recall, BGEE 2.5 caused an instant game over if it was ever unpaused after removing player 1 (and BG2EE didn't). Then I just tested the same in 2.6 - no game over. Well, that makes protagonist swap shenanigans easier.

On the other hand, petrification and imprisonment also set death flags. And that's built into the opcodes. Those death flags mean they'll end the game unless it's a "protagonist can die" area.

[DraikenWeAre]

@jmerryok so two questions.

Firstly can't those flags be removed?  (Don't know if this is a dumb question, since I don't know anything about making mods)

Secondly if not , coudn't a replica fake petrification and Imprisonment be made who would remove the Player Charecter from the party but behave like the original petrification with the whole one hit chunk pieces gameover thing and maybe also game over if the party is empty.

(Potentially with a flag that either stops any quest from proceeding if Player 1 isn't there or gives a timelimit of like 10 days to restore them or gameover)

Edited September 13, 2023 by DraikenWeAre

[jmerry]

Can you have petrification that isn't death? No. Can you have imprisonment that isn't death? Unknown; there was something in the original games, but the IESDP calls it out as untested and likely not there in the EE. And this is on the level of "what the opcodes do", which isn't accessible to ordinary modding at all.

Can you do fake petrification and imprisonment? Sure. But it's pretty involved, and might have side effects. For example, the obvious way to do fake imprisonment is Maze with a permanent duration. But there are ways to grant immunity to maze, like the Chaotic Commands spell, that don't protect against imprisonment. How would you handle that interaction? It's not simple.

[DraikenWeAre]

@jmerry well couldn't you just copy the Hornung's Random Dispatcher into a fake Imprisonment, change the Animation to Imprisonment and make freedom able to reverse it.

Then copy however it makes player one to be removed from party and appy it to both a fake Imprisonment and Petrification (but also make Petrification like increase damage to a character by like 400 times or somthing to still get the chunked effect if they get hit once).

Don't know if I'm asking for too much here.

[Allbrother]

Sorry for butting in, but I got curious and took a look at that spell - it changes the target's script to kick it out of the party (if it's in it) and then to DestroySelf() and give some approximation of its xp value. Not sure if that's recoverable, but if instead it Deactivate()ed (would it still process scripts?) it and left a block to Activate() and assign join dialog when global is flipped and a freedom spell to flip that global, maybe that could work? Just spitballing here...

Edited September 13, 2023 by Allbrother

[DraikenWeAre]

@Allbrother honestly if it did all that , it would literally match the actual description of Imprisonment (except of course the being under the earth thing).

Though if all that can be combined together, I don't see why it shoudn't work, but again I don't know anything about modding or codding, etc.

I just hope it's feasible.