Any way to make Shar-Teel unkillable

[berelinde]

By some freakish coincidence, Ajantis took on Shar-Teel and chunked her. Which would make it really tough for her to join the party.

 

Any chance she could be made unkillable?

[Macready]

Hello -

 

I believe her script has her cut off combat when one of the two combatants has less than 50 percent hit points. Since she is bugged right now such that only the lowest level incarnation of her is ever available, it isn't too hard for her to die before the script to quit activates.

 

The EasyTutu "hotfix" pack, in conjunction with the latest EasyTutu release, will fix the Shar-Teel starting level bug. Using this most recent update, then, if you level a bit before first visiting her, she'll most likely have enough hitpoints to survive until the "quit fighting" AI kicks in.

[cmorgan]

I wonder if unequipping all weapons and just using fists would work; is HTH both stunning and actual HP loss? I know I remember that from PnP - does the BG2 engine do this too?

[WizWom]

Yes, it would not be hard to make some changes for Shar-Teel to have a MinHP1 object until she joins.

 

But it's so lovely to see her explode in chunks... She just well, deserves it. Arrogant wench :-)

[Linguist in Training]

I wonder if unequipping all weapons and just using fists would work; is HTH both stunning and actual HP loss? I know I remember that from PnP - does the BG2 engine do this too?

 

I believe that's how it works. Instead of killing you at 0 hps, you pass out at 1 hp

[berelinde]

Ah, but I'm doing a test drive with SCS, so she'd actually start at 0 level.

 

Here are some thoughts I've been processing in the hours since I posted that:

 

Ajantis starts at 0 level, but has a sword that compensates for his lack of level should he be forced to fight the party as the result of one of his encounter dialog options. The sword is destroyed and replaced by a regular longsword when he joins.

 

Shar-Teel will always start out by fighting, so it might make sense if she were similarly equipped.

 

On further reflection, this might actually be more of an SCS issue, so I'll put a pointer on that board to look here for an unanticipated outcome. It isn't exactly a bug, since there isn't anything happening that isn't supposed to happen, but it might be improved if she survived the encounter.

 

In retrospect, I should have realized that Ajantis packs quite a whallop, and has a tendency to pounce on nearby hostiles immediately. So I could have taken away his sword before talking to Shar-Teel. It didn't help that he was the only guy in the party at the time. If he hadn't attacked her the moment she turned hostile, I would have chosen him to attack her anyway, and wouldn't have taken away his sword then, either. But maybe he wouldn't have scored that critical hit.

[cmorgan]

No, berelinde, I think that this is something either SCS or BG1NPC should deal with - any time there is a quest initiation situation or joining interaction where you have to completely anticipate the interaction in order to successfully complete it, it is expecting that the player already knows what is going to happen!

 

WizWom's minHP item idea is a good one to act on; it probably should be SCS since we are talking 0 level joining behavior, but if DavidW would rather we do it, no problem. (He is away for a few days, so there may be a delay before he responds). Until we get it fixed, Linguist in Training has the out -- the "fists first" approach is the one to go with. I do that anyways, since i figure most of my party wouldn't walk around with drawn steel all day - too many callouses, blunt edges, and "ooops... sorry"

 

On the good side of things, it means I fixed a bug; one playtester had a problem where the fight never happened. SharTeel stop talking, raised her sword, and then immediately joined the party! Now that should only happen if the player who is fighting starts below or drops below 50% hp.

[berelinde]

OK. I see your point. Most people do walk around with weapons readied, so Shar-Teel is unlikely to encounter a party equipped to subdue.

 

While I think SCS would be just as capable of fixing the problem as BG1 NPC, I don't know if everyone who wants Shar-Teel in the party is going to be playing with SCS. But then, with the new version of Easy Tutu that fixes Shar-Teel's joining level, it might only *be* a problem with SCS.

 

So I'm thinking this might be something for you and DavidW to work out.

 

In a way, I'm happy. I've found yet another bit of JML weirdness (JML=Just My Luck), and that has the potential to improve gameplay, so that might be fortunate, if inconvenient.

[WizWom]

Nah, I chunked her using a straight up BG1NPC project Tutu install.

 

So, it's a problem with Shar-teel in general.

 

When I used to play BG1/ToSC, I'd accidentally kill her about half the time.

[cmorgan]

Sounds like BG1NPC should do something AND SCS should do something! I will get on it this Friday.