"Better calls for help" breaks a friendly encounter in BGEE (Larry, Darryl, and Darryl in Fire Leaf Forest)

[ktchong]

Something very minor:

In Fire Leaf Forest of BG1/BGEE, there is a tongue-in-cheek encounter with "Larry, Darryl, and Darryl"".  They are a kobold, a xvart and a tasloia, who are supposed to be friendly.   After the party talks to them, they leave the area.  They are not supposed to turn hostile and attack the party.

A monster spawn spot just happens to be very near "Larry, Darryl, and Darryl", (i.e., it is slightly to the northwest of Larry, Darryl, and Darryl.)  That spot randomly spawns either a group of kabolds or xvarts, and those monsters are  hostiles.  The problem is, those random monsters... they call for help, to which Larry, Darryl, and Darryl respond and become hostile (if the party has not already talked to them.)  I do not think that is supposed to happen.

Perhaps Larry, Darryl, and Darryl need to be made an exception to "Better calls for help". 

Edited March 7 by ktchong

[jmerry]

Not new, of course.

The creatures in question are LARRY, DARRYL, and DARRYL2. All have the generic SHOUT script in vanilla, and clearly they should go hostile (and die easily) if you attack one of them. Best solution ... probably give them a faction-specific shout script that doesn't match the random enemies that appear on the map. In their general vicinity, that's kobolds, xvarts, and skeletons.

[ktchong]

Skeletons should NOT be able to call for help because they cannot speak (as per DnD lore.) There are some exceptions like the floating skull Morte in Planescape: Torment, but randomly spawned skeletons are just regular skeletons.

Edited March 13 by ktchong

[DavidW]

'Call' for help is an abstraction: it covers creatures engaging opponents when they see that their allies have engaged. And in DnD it's never been the case that a group of skeletons only partially engage.

[RoyalProtector]

6 hours ago, DavidW said:

And in DnD it's never been the case that a group of skeletons only partially engage

Yeah... but why must poor Darryl, Darryl and Larry throw themselves at you because of some overzealous skeletons seeking your blood?

I suppose it's an unfortunate side effect.

[DavidW]

The original issue is definitely a bug, for sure.