Bugs picked up in new Ascension/SCS

[DavidW]

I found a few bugs in BG2 while coding the latest versions of Ascension and Fixpack. (Most but not all are also present on the EE). Here's a quick list (Ascension fixes here, SCS fixes in next reply).

1) The vanilla Slayer Change power is a complete mess in vanilla BG2 (it's much better in the EE). The polymorph powers are rather awkwardly distributed between the spell and the weapon, risking various edge-case bugs, and the way that SLAYER_BACK_TO_HUMAN deactivates the player-killing backlash power has the side effect of giving the player immunity to magic damage for a period of time.

There is a recoding in ascension/powers/improved_slayer_powers.tpa, lines 338-375, using sectype trickery to fake up EE's 321 opcode.

2) There is a typo in a block of AR5203.bcs (controlling the spawning of Yaga-Shura's army). In the last block, the trigger refers to EXTRACOUNT2, and pretty clearly ought to refer to EXTRACOUNT3. There is a fix (using my alter_script library) in lines 434-439 of ascension/tougher/yagashura.tpa

[DavidW]

(SCS fixes from here on; fixes for all can be found in the first few lines of stratagems/initial/initial.tpa, though some use my bespoke SFO function-library)

3) Shocking Grasp is listed as a combat protection, and so removed by Breach; this doesn't seem to make any sense

4) I guess there's some space to debate if this is really a bug, but 'Berserk' displays its 'when the effect ends, you lose 15 hp' warning even when used by an enemy.

5) The power levels of Fire Shield are inconsistent: one fire shield marks the effect that applies the backlash damage as power 0 and the backlash damage itself as power 4, the other is vice versa. How much difference this actually makes in game I'm not sure but there are some edge cases, at least, where it can apply.

6) A bunch of innate abilities are marked as wizard/priest spells, which has the cosmetic effect of the creature using them saying 'casts' inappropriately. They are: BLACK_DRAGON_INSECT SHADOW_DRAGON_SHADOWS NYMPH_CONFUSION ABAZIGAL_SHOCKWAVE BURNING_MAN_CINDER_SHOWER BLUE_DRAGON_BREATH LAVA_BURST BEGUILE DEMOCHM SPYANC01

7) Protection from Magic scrolls don't remove undispellable buffs from the user.

[CamDawg]

On 6/10/2019 at 6:59 PM, DavidW said:

1) The vanilla Slayer Change power is a complete mess in vanilla BG2 (it's much better in the EE). The polymorph powers are rather awkwardly distributed between the spell and the weapon, risking various edge-case bugs, and the way that SLAYER_BACK_TO_HUMAN deactivates the player-killing backlash power has the side effect of giving the player immunity to magic damage for a period of time.

There is a recoding in ascension/powers/improved_slayer_powers.tpa, lines 338-375, using sectype trickery to fake up EE's 321 opcode.

This is just me being anal-retentive, but because secondary types are technically limited, I fixed this in a slightly different way. The delayed damage/message is farmed out to spells (spin823a-e) and the return-to-human spell blocks these explicitly. The rest (moving the spell effects to a new slayerw3) is the same.

On 6/10/2019 at 6:59 PM, DavidW said:

2) There is a typo in a block of AR5203.bcs (controlling the spawning of Yaga-Shura's army). In the last block, the trigger refers to EXTRACOUNT2, and pretty clearly ought to refer to EXTRACOUNT3. There is a fix (using my alter_script library) in lines 434-439 of ascension/tougher/yagashura.tpa

Fixed.

On 6/10/2019 at 7:05 PM, DavidW said:

3) Shocking Grasp is listed as a combat protection, and so removed by Breach; this doesn't seem to make any sense

SCS changes this to Offensive Damage (10), but isn't this more suited to direct damage? Ghoul Touch and Chill Touch both use combination (12) as their secondary.

On 6/10/2019 at 7:05 PM, DavidW said:

4) I guess there's some space to debate if this is really a bug, but 'Berserk' displays its 'when the effect ends, you lose 15 hp' warning even when used by an enemy.

Fixed; this now only plays on EA: GOODCUTOFF. Also included Minsc's Berserk (Gorf uses it too) and cover the second string for when the berserk ends.

On 6/10/2019 at 7:05 PM, DavidW said:

5) The power levels of Fire Shield are inconsistent: one fire shield marks the effect that applies the backlash damage as power 0 and the backlash damage itself as power 4, the other is vice versa. How much difference this actually makes in game I'm not sure but there are some edge cases, at least, where it can apply.

Fixed. I've standardized all of this on power 4.

On 6/10/2019 at 7:05 PM, DavidW said:

6) A bunch of innate abilities are marked as wizard/priest spells, which has the cosmetic effect of the creature using them saying 'casts' inappropriately. They are: BLACK_DRAGON_INSECT SHADOW_DRAGON_SHADOWS NYMPH_CONFUSION ABAZIGAL_SHOCKWAVE BURNING_MAN_CINDER_SHOWER BLUE_DRAGON_BREATH LAVA_BURST BEGUILE DEMOCHM SPYANC01

Fixed.

On 6/10/2019 at 7:05 PM, DavidW said:

7) Protection from Magic scrolls don't remove undispellable buffs from the user.

Fixed.