Mages doing save against their own wand? [Split from Please check my install list (2.6 EET)]

[Guest BlackStrapMolasses]

Having not played any of the BG games for years, I decided to replay them using mods and used this list* as a base (changed a few NPC mods IIRC, but have lost the WEIDU log for this install so can't be precise).  It was going OK but increasingly, my sorceress found it difficult to use wands because she would successfully save against herself (even for wands that don't have a target like the WoMonster Summoning).  I don't recall that being behaviour in the unmodded game, so I think it's a mod that's introduced it.  So the questions

1. Was a save against your own wand part of the original game?

2. Which mod might have introduced such a mechanic? (I want rid of it!)

 

* : (link edited in by jastey)

 

[Gwaihir]

I'm going to answer this just to provide a bit of context, altough it's a bit unclear to me what the problem is; what does it mean 'save against itself'? Does the message 'save vs wand' get displayed whenever a wand is used? If that's the case, I never experienced this in my (old) install, so it's probably a conflict between some other mod or component that was added later.

The only problem I had was with the fire wand: the fireball spell plays the animation, but has no effect. Which, by the way, it's still true, just tested this in my very recent new install. Specifically, the projectile used by the wand (PFIRE2.PRO) doesn't work. Changing it into the normal fireball projectile solved the issue. Might be EE fixpack material.

Edited January 28, 2023 by Gwaihir

[jmerry]

The change of the wands to use PFIRE2 was made in patch 2.6. FIREBALL has the "Colored BAM" flag and SPFIREBL.BAM animation in its "projectile info", while PFIRE2 has the "Translucent" flag and SPFIRET animation. Patch 2.6 also added a flag to PFIRE2; flag #22 ("Start random seq") in the "Extended flags" block. Everything else is identical between the two projectiles.

Then again, this all works in the unmodified game. I've played through SoD in patch 2.6, and I would have noticed if the wand of fire didn't work. Some mod must be doing things that interact poorly with the 2.6 changes here.

Edited January 28, 2023 by jmerry

[Guest BlackStrapMolasses]

2 hours ago, Gwaihir said:

I'm going to answer this just to provide a bit of context, altough it's a bit unclear to me what the problem is; what does it mean 'save against itself'? Does the message 'save vs wand' get displayed whenever a wand is used? If that's the case, I never experienced this in my (old) install, so it's probably a conflict between some other mod or component that was added later.

Problem is thus:

-Charname (any wand user actually) attempts to use any wand.

-attempt fails

-Console says:  "Charname: Save vs Breath Weapon"

-Repeat until save fails

-when save fails, wand works as expected.

I figured a mod was responsible, just need help tracking it down.

 

[Gwaihir]

Well, as I said before, I never experienced this issue. Since, as you say, you got most of your install list from my weidulog, the culprit is likely to be found among the changes you made to that list, either adding a mod or choosing a different component in a mod already present. At least it's a start. Sorry, wish I could help you more, but I'm not really knowledgeable about technical stuff.

[jmerry]

Back to the wand ability...

In the vanilla game, the fireball ability (our example here) has exactly one effect: it does fire damage. That's it. Every complication beyond that is added by a mod. What you have there has eight effects, and none of them are that simple opcode 12 damage effect. What they are ... the picture doesn't include enough detail to say.

I went through that 2148884527 number in the first, third, and fourth effects ... looks like that's a check for negative status effects. Sleep, berserk, panic, stun, helpless, charm, poison, slow, blind, feeblemind, confusion. If any of those apply to the target, do ... something. I can't say more given the limited snapshot there.

The fifth and sixth effects reference the spellstate EVASION. It's in the base game, but as far as I can tell not used. I suspect that's a mod trying to emulate the tabletop ability to completely avoid area damage instead of saving for half.

What we need here:

- What, exactly, are the effects in that wand ability?

- What mods altered this wand?

[subtledoctor]

It’s something about Evasion. I can’t see those effects - the link doesn't go to that picture - but the targeting seems to be off for some reason. The wand should allow the target to save vs. breath to avoid the effect (which involves two op318 effects and two op177 effects), if the target has spellstate 252. Something went wrong and is having the user make the save instead. 

Whatever caused it, the fix should be as easy as change the target from 1 to 2 in those 328 and 177 effects. 

EDIT - actually it seems like the target already is 2 in that picture? I don’t understand where that picture comes from? 

Also the Wand of Monster Summoning should not be subject to Evasion even if Evasion were working right. So something is screwy. Need a weidu.log and, ideally, upload the .ITM file of a wand that is showing this behavior. 

EDIT 2 - looking at the picture again, it seems the item file is actually corrupted, which might explain why the targeting is screwy. But again, we can’t actually see the whole picture. (Speaking literally, not figuratively.) Where is that picture from??

I feel like I’ve seen something like this before… I think it’s what led me to make this report at the Weidu forum. But it was not consistently reproducible and I never fully figured out what the issue was. Something about a function running multiple CLONE_EFFECT/DELETE_EFFECT commands on an item with multiple headers…? (Like how the Wand of Fire has two different headers/uses.) As noted in that thread, the issue seemingly disappeared with CHECK_GLOBALS set to zero, so I included that limitation in my mods... so going forward, one thing to do is make sure you are using up-to-date versions of everything you install.

Or, very possibly, the item files were already corrupted by something else when the Evasion mod was applied, which is why the Evasion is malfunctioning.

In any event, can’t know for sure without seeing the actual files. 

Edited January 29, 2023 by subtledoctor

[Guest BlackStrapMolasses]

Thanks for all the contributions.  It looks like behaviour that affected my installation hasn't occurred before and since I deleted the install I won't ever know precisely what components were different from @Gwaihir's base modlist (I'm 90% confident I won't have added any different mods other than NPC ones and similarly confident I won't have used the majority of the kit additions either).  I'll be more systematic in testing the next install (cheat myself all the wands and experiment on that wolf in Lion's Way!) and if similar things occur I'll be back.