Shoal the Nereid death kiss

[Trouveur80]

I don't know if it is a bug or a feature.

After having a character permanently killed by Shoal's kiss, I was surprised and asked on Discord if it was the normal behaviour.

Argent77 kindly explained this to me :

"For party members other than the protagonist there's a 50% chance that the "kiss" only reduces HP to 1 instead of killing the target outright. Both spell variants also allow to save vs. breath at -2 penalty. The way the lethal effect version is applied it can kill permanently if current HP is less than max. HP by a certain margin since the spell removes the total number of max. HP from the target."

Fair enough, but since Shoal following dialog usually allows to ask her to raise the dead, I was wondering if the permanent death by taking too much damage based on max HP was really intended, or was just the consequence of a work around to put a death spell in the old BG engine before the numerous death spells were properly added in BG2.

So I am wondering if the death effect from the kiss should be more like the level 6 Death spell instead of doing flat damage, in order to prevent perma death and thus allows Shoal to raise the dead NPC like her dialog suggests ?

 

1.  

[jastey]

I'm pretty sure that a permanent death is not intended here. My faint recall from oBG1 is that the NPC died, yes, but could be raised again.

[argent77]

1 hour ago, Trouveur80 said:

So I am wondering if the death effect from the kiss should be more like the level 6 Death spell instead of doing flat damage, in order to prevent perma death and thus allows Shoal to raise the dead NPC like her dialog suggests ?

That's not a solution either since Death effects can be protected against by Death Ward.

 

6 minutes ago, jastey said:

I'm pretty sure that a permanent death is not intended here. My faint recall from oBG1 is that the NPC died, yes, but could be raised again.

That's the normal case in BG:EE as well. However, it looks like party members can permanently die if game difficulty is Core Rules or higher and cur. HP difference to max. HP is 20 or more.

[Trouveur80]

11 minutes ago, argent77 said:

That's not a solution either since Death effects can be protected against by Death Ward.

But doesn't death ward should indeed  protect against the death effect from the kiss ? That's typically something you would expect from this protection spell.

[jmerry]

All right, exact mechanics here ...

The nonlethal kiss uses the damage opcode, type ACID, mode "set to value", value = 1.

The lethal kiss uses the damage opcode, type ACID, mode "reduce by percentage", value = 100. And according to this report, that's a percentage of maximum health, which leads to the chunking possibility.

I can already see the simplest way to prevent chunking: use a different damage type. These modes ignore resistances, so that's not a problem, and magic, missile, or poison damage won't chunk.

I don't know whether "set to 0" or "set to 0%" would work for the lethal kiss, but changing the type of this not-really damage certainly does. As it's not directly a death effect, Death Ward won't work unless it's specifically called out. Though Story Mode should keep the victim alive with its min-HP effect.

Edited December 14, 2023 by jmerry

[argent77]

Changing damage type sounds like the best solution for this issue to me.

Changing the effect to "Set cur. HP to 0" seems to put the target into some kind of "undead" state. The target has 0 HP and a grayed out portrait but can still walk around and interact with the world.

[DavidW]

I'll pause briefly to lament this change - the oBG version was much better. But dev intent is pretty clear...

[argent77]

There is another potential loophole with this quest. If you are a spellcaster then you can initiate Shoal's dialog with your familiar which is then either killed or brought to near-dead status in place of a party member.

Aside from the nonsensical-looking dialog options when you talk to Shoal with your familiar, if the familiar is killed then the resurrection attempt by Shoal doesn't work since it only covers regular party members.

[AL|EN]

Who thought one of the most memorable quests would pose such technical difficulties and ways for exploits? This quest was a funny one and I remember lmao when I did it.

[polytope]

17 hours ago, jmerry said:

I can already see the simplest way to prevent chunking: use a different damage type. These modes ignore resistances, so that's not a problem, and magic, missile, or poison damage won't chunk.

Yes, there's no reason a Nereid's drowning kiss should be considered "acid", if anything, it's "magic".

17 hours ago, argent77 said:

Changing the effect to "Set cur. HP to 0" seems to put the target into some kind of "undead" state. The target has 0 HP and a grayed out portrait but can still walk around and interact with the world.

That annoying bugged state can also be caused by using negative value #17 as damage, and iirc becomes especially bugged if they get past -10hp (subsequent damage immunity). Couldn't you just set hp to 100% (in the same feature block) prior to inflicting 100% damage, unless I've missed something?

18 hours ago, argent77 said:

That's not a solution either since Death effects can be protected against by Death Ward.

A similar discussion came up in another recent thread, you're unlikely to be level 7 when you meet Shoal, need to ensure it bypasses Mirror Image though which instant death effects by default do and it's toggleable for damage on EEs.

Edited December 15, 2023 by polytope

[argent77]

6 minutes ago, polytope said:

18 hours ago, argent77 said:

That's not a solution either since Death effects can be protected against by Death Ward.

A similar discussion came up in another recent thread, you're unlikely to be level 7 when you meet Shoal, need to ensure it bypasses Mirror Image though which instant death effects by default do and it's toggleable for damage on EEs.

Imo being able to protect against the death effect should not be a real issue. However, the spell also sets a global which is then incorrectly evaluated in the following conversation and leads to the wrong dialog branch.

[subtledoctor]

What I might do: 1) apply 500 points (or whatever) of “stunning/barehand” damage. I think there are no sources of resistance or immunity to this (barring a couple high-level IWD spells?) but it won’t kill you, it will leave you unconscious with 1 hit point. Then 2) on a 1-second delay, apply 1 point each of several damage types (magic, poison, acid, whatever). No resisting, but no chunking either. 

[polytope]

18 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

What I might do: 1) apply 500 points (or whatever) of “stunning/barehand” damage. I think there are no sources of resistance or immunity to this (barring a couple high-level IWD spells?) but it won’t kill you, it will leave you unconscious with 1 hit point. Then 2) on a 1-second delay, apply 1 point each of several damage types (magic, poison, acid, whatever). No resisting, but no chunking either. 

Stunning damage is blocked by Stoneskin (which you also shouldn't have access to at this point...) and resisted by anything that resists crushing on post OBG engines, if you want to do it that way it'd be better to use a non-physical type with mode of 1 [set to value] = 1hp (like the harm spell and the other possible effect of Nereid's kiss) no delay is actually necessary either (1 second is probably long enough to have your character use a healing potion) so long as the follow up damage is applied after the hp set it in the spell's feature block (but I'd set it to delayed with a delay of zero anyway).

Using opcode #17 also allows the removal of limited timing mode effects with type set to #1 if you're worried about it being foiled by any other buffs (just as those would be lost on a character who dies and is revived).

[DavidW]

Do you think we could reasonably argue that dev intent was just 'avoid this being an instakill for solo players'? 

If so, I think the simplest fix is at the level of Shoal's dialog. If she's talking to player1, use the spell. Otherwise, just use 'Kill()'.