DavidW

I think it's important that a FP just applies to the unmodded game. EET should start with FPd BGEE/BG2EE.

A specific reason is that non-hostile spells bypass 102 immunity to spell level, so they have to be manually 206d in MGI.

Rashad's Talon is a unique scimitar in BG1 (referred to as 'scimitar +2' in oBG, but renamed 'Rashad's Talon' in BGEE; the description is basically the same in both versions). In oBG, it's in Durlag's Tower; it persists in that location in BGEE. Beamdog added a loot pile to a remote region of AR2100 (the Cloakwood coast), probably because otherwise it's a promontory that takes a while to get to and has no value. Anyway, it's at least a defensible change, and clearly an intentional one. However, the pile contains the scimitar +2, which is a unique item. I assume that's just a mistake, given that at one point it was just called 'scimitar +2'. In SoD, there is a convenient generic scimitar+2, bdsw1h23, which we could swap. Unfortunately I don't think there's a comparably simple fix for BGEE without SoD.

Actually, looking more generally maybe this is a broader issue - the game's conventions as to what counts as hostile are seriously weird.

These spells lack the 'hostile' flag: Melf's Acid Arrow Skull Trap Is there a reason?

Don't tell me you've never overwritten your own namespace

Not entirely true. BG1 doesn't use any sort of prefix system, but by BG2 Bioware was clearly running into some problems with namespace, and is using an internal prefix system, for instance (all for CRE files): FAM for familiars SAH for creatures in the sahuagin city UD for creatures in the underdark ZIL for Illasera's flunkies In general in BG2 you see groups of creatures referred to as [thing]01...[thing]06, whereas BG1 tends to just use bespoke names. IWD is intermediate between BG1 and BG2. IWD2 is extremely systematic: every creature name starts with two digits indicating the area it's found in, or 00 for area-neutral creatures.

It’s intended. In PnP, the creator of a helmed horror gets to specify 3 spells the horror is immune to. I agree that the Wand of Fire should probably be covered.

Oh, that's interesting. I was looking at GHOULT.itm, which is the Ghoul Touch weapon, but GHOUL1.itm is the actual ghoul weapon, and I see what you mean. On that basis I think there's a very good case for BGEE continuing elven resistance, and at least a fairly good case for BG2EE, especially given that implementation is now pretty simple.

I don't see any in-game evidence at all that the developers intended elves to be immune to these forms of paralysis. (As a matter of PnP lore, elves are immune to ghoul, but not ghast or lich, paralysis. But there is no evidence that I can see that the developers (BD or Bioware) intended to incorporate that feature of PnP in the game.) I agree. But this is a bit out-of-context: that's what I would conclude based just on the in-game descriptive text, but I'm not sure it's fully consistent with other things... as I go on to say. Again, I agree. Paladins items such as "bdhelmca.itm" should of course receive the same treatment (also note that in this particular case, unlike Undead Hunters, the description uses the word "paralysis"...) Again this is a bit out-of-context. I'm not (necessarily) advocating this: I would have advocated it if I was basing it purely on the descriptive text. Right, but see Cam's comment about the descriptive text being updated to match the files when the EEs were made - the original IWD description does not mention either. ("Chaotic Commands renders a creature immune to magical commands. Suggestion, Charm, Domination, Command, Sleep, and Confusion are all spells that fit into this category.") I'm worried that this is trying to infer what it would be sensible for CC to protect against, rather than what the developers intended it to protect against.

It's not quite true that there's no difference. Hold displays the 'held' string, Paralysis doesn't. That's true both at the technical level (175 automatically displays that string and the Held icon, 109 doesn't) and at the implementation level (the game never, so far as I can see, displays 'Held' when you get paralyzed, although it does use the 'held' icon - and, to add confusion, it also displays 'Held' when you get Webbed). But it's a fairly subtle difference. I think removing 175 from the Greenstone Amulet and the Shield of Harmony is hard to justify in a fixpack, just because these items explictly reference the Hold spell in their descriptions - which seems to make it clear that developer intent was at least that they should protect from that spell. I raised CC originally because its description has never said anything about Hold immunity (and even quite experienced players aren't always aware of it).

My guess is that it just happens, and doesn't leave a persistent effect. But you should check, of course.

I think that opcode reduces your current XP, not the rate at which you gain XP.

Reflecting more on this: I think the spellstates that FPEE would use almost entirely overlap with ones SCS uses *anyway*. So I think there's very little actual cost in using this method for FPEE.

OK, here's a fairly systematic analysis of the player-facing 109/175 immunities in the original BG/BG2. (Wall of text warning.) In pre-TotSC BG1, only three player-usable spells/abilities grant protection against 109 or 175. The Ring of Free Action, and the Free Action spell, protect against both 109 and 175, and I think it's pretty clear that's deliberate: the description text for the ring is: 'immune to everything, magical and otherwise, that effects mobility in any way', and the spell calls out Hold Person explicitly as an example of a movement-limiting effect. The Potion of Freedom does not protect from 175, but I feel confident saying that's a bug (fixed in EE): the description says that it 'acts like the spell free action' and the replicates the line from the Ring. ToTSC then introduces two more: the Greenstone Amulet protects against both 109 and 175. Its description says that it 'confers the wearer protection against all charm, confusion, fear, domination, ESP, detect alignment, hold, stun, psionics, sleep and feeblemind, much like the 8th level wizard spell Mind Blank' - there is no explanation given as to why these particular effects are protected against (the descriptive text just refers to 'powerful magics that are bestowed upon the amulet'. Note that the Mind Blank spell doesn't exist in BG1 (or BG2), so we can't directly reference it, and the PnP spell does not correspond very well to this description. Chaotic Commands also protects against both 109 and 175. Its description says that it 'renders a creature immune to magical commands. Suggestion, charm, domination, command, sleep, confusion are all spells that fit into this category.' If I were to assess the situation *as of BG1*, I'd say that: there is no in-game evidence that paralysis is a form of hold, and so it's reasonable to assume that it's a bug to include 109 immunity in the Greenstone Amulet. Nothing in the spell description of Chaotic Commands says anything about paralysis or hold. It is extremely difficult to see why ghoul paralysis counts as a 'magical command', and there is no real in-game evidence to say that Hold does either (the nearest I could do is note that the Greenstone Amulet says that Mind Blank blocks Hold, but that's a stretch - especially in the absence of any PnP reasons). So I would probably conclude that CC shouldn't protect against either 109 or 175: the case is rather clear for 109 but pretty strong even for 175. In both cases I'm somewhat influenced by the fact that ToTSC is an expansion and expansions happen under intense time pressure (more then than now), so it's easier to imagine bugs creeping in here. In BG2, all these effects are present basically unchanged. One small difference is that the description for the Greenstone Amulet no longer references Mind Blank (perhaps because BG2 doesn't contain it), and now says that the amulet 'protects the wearer from all forms of mind attacks, including psionics'. That said, I don't think we can conclude much about overall developer intent from a brief mention in a reused magic item. BG2 also adds several more player-usable 109/175 immunities: Keldorn's undroppable plate armor protects against 109/175 and is described as providing Free Action The Shield of Harmony protects against 109/175 and is described as granting immunity to 'charm, confusion, domination, and hold person' Berserker Rage protects against 109/175 and is described as making the berserker 'immune to charm, hold and fear, maze, imprisonment, stun and sleep'. This list is actually pretty incomplete. (Minsc's Berserk power basically replicates this.) Barbarian Rage protects againsts 109/175 and is described as 'giv[ing] immunity to all charm, hold, fear, maze, confusion and level drain spells' (emphasis mine). It also protects against 185 which is very clearly a bug. Undead Hunters are described as 'immune to hold' and are protected from 109 and 175. They're also protected from 185, which is very clearly a bug. Inquisitors are described as 'immune to hold and charm spells' (emphasis mine) and are protected from 109 to 175. In addition, Cam's right that player-usable attacks pretty consistently use 'paralyze' to refer to 109, and 'hold' to refer to 175. If I were to assess developer intent based purely on the in-game descriptions, I'd conclude: Free action clearly is intended to protect against both 109 and 175 There is virtually no in-game evidence that protection from Hold implies protection from paralysis, and quite a lot of evidence that it doesn't (notably, the fact that about half the 'protect from hold' comments talk about protecting from hold spells). So I would conclude that hold immunity should mean 175 immunity but not 109 immunity. The single exception is Undead Hunters: it's thematically clear that they are intended to be immune to 109, but their description references 'hold'. Here I think I would just bite the bullet and say that's an error in the description, and that 'Hold' should be changed to 'paralysis' in that description and UH should only be immune to 109, not 175. Chaotic Commands doesn't say a word about immunity to paralysis or hold, and there is virtually no in-game reason to think it should apply even to hold, let alone paralysis. So I would strip both from it and conclude that it was added in error during the TotSC rush. (One could just about make the case for leaving Hold, via the Greenstone Amulet precedent. I can't see any case at all for why paralysis should be included.) I'm tempted by that set of changes. (It's fairly close to Luke's suggestions, I think - the thing I would want to avoid there is making some systematic theory as to what hold is and inferring anything from that.) However, I think evidence from the game files cuts against it to some degree. Absolutely nothing in the game available to a player (other than the surely-bugged potion of freedom) provides immunity to 109 or 175 separately: they're always combined. And nowhere in the description text is immunity to paralysis mentioned explicitly: 'hold' is always the term used. So you can at least make the case that it was intentional to combine 109 and 175 immunity for players in order to streamline and simplify the game. That would argue for mostly leaving things alone - though I think the case for removing 109 and 175 from CC would remain strong. (But it would have to be both or neither, on this basis.) Even the use of 'Hold' in the undead hunter description can be read two ways: that kit is fairly clearly adapted from the AD&D ghosthunter kit, but ghosthunters are described as immune to paralysis rather than hold - so someone intentionally changed from the one to the other. The truth is that at this level of analysis 'developer intent' becomes indeterminate. It is clear that there was no central adhered-to style bible for this (if there was, we wouldn't have the radical inconsistencies between 'hold' and 'hold spells'). BG2 was developed in a very decentralized ad hoc way and different people probably made their own, not-fully-consistent, judgement calls. Absent a clear dev-intent signal, I am inclined to let sleeping dogs lie as far as these various player-usable abilities are concerned: if it's ambiguous that something in a 20-year-old game is a bug, we should probably leave it alone to avoid infuriating players. I still think there is a case for removing 109 and 175 from CC, but I don't think we should extend to split immunities on other items/spells. I might code up my previous set of changes for SCS or similar, if we don't put them into FP. (Sounds like SD will do similarly.)

Because Death Ward is a BG2 spell, Death Gaze is just in BG1, and BD wasn’t always great at anticipating how BG2 resources would interact with BG1. i agree that DW clearly should protect.

This is all way outside what I think is in scope for a fixpack. The description for Undead Hunters explicitly uses the word ‘hold’.

I’m reasonably confident (2) is unambiguously not legit in English.

Huh. I’m not sure I even knew there’d been a revised edition.

Actually, on reflection maybe I'm wrong about 175 but not 109. There are other places in the game - the Greenstone Amulet, notably - where Hold is identified as a 'mind attack', and so in the general category of things that maybe CC should work on. But paralysis doesn't seem to fall under either. The problem is that there are other places where 'hold' is clearly used to mean 'paralysis' in power descriptions: the Undead Hunter, most obviously.

Here's an old one: Chaotic Commands blocks paralyzation (109) and hold (175). This has been true ever since TotSC, but there is not a shadow of evidence for it in the description: "Chaotic Commands renders a creature immune to magical commands. Suggestion, Charm, Domination, Command, Sleep, Maze, and Confusion are all spells that fit into this category. This spell also protects the target from psionic blast. This spell affects only one creature and lasts for the duration or until dispelled." The text is adapted from the 2nd edition AD&D Tome of Magic, which is "Chaotic commands renders a creature immune to magical commands. Taunt, forget, suggestion, domination, geas, demand, succor, command, enthrall, quest, exaction, and other spells that place a direct verbal command upon a single individual automatically fail". The spell has obviously been adapted, which is why spells like Maze and Confusion are listed even though they're not obviously 'magical commands'. But Hold Person is conspicuously not listed, and the paralyzing touch of ghouls and carrion crawlers doesn't even remotely seem like a 'magical command'. Against that, of course, it's worked that way for ages, and we might annoy people. (FWIW, on balance grounds I think it's better not working that way: there are other resources - free action, remove paralysis - that address 109/175, and I prefer CC not to be a panacea.) (I suppose one could exclude 109 but include 175. However, the unmodded game has a completely consistent hierarchy: everything that is protected from 175 is also protected from 109. And 109-immunity without 175-immunity isn't really available to players; in-game descriptions reliably say only 'hold immunity' when they also mean 'paralyzation immunity'. So I'd be reluctant to go down that way.)

The idea that backstabs deactivate Dexterity modifiers comes from 3rd edition D&D (ideas from which trickle into the IE games, even though they're mostly AD&D 2nd edition): flat-footed characters "can't use a Dexterity bonus to AC (if any)". (And 3rd edition very carefully distinguishes between 'bonus', 'penalty', and 'modifier': a negative dexterity modifier is a dexterity penalty, not bonus. In AD&D, the defender just gets a 4-point AC penalty if the attacker is invisible.

I don't think so - it applies only to inanimate objects. I'm not sure what it's for to be honest, but it's obviously there deliberately so I'm reluctant to remove it without understanding why it was there. If that's indeed the case, then also things like "spcl415.spl" (snares) should use op185...? It's explicitly described as 'hold' in the text. And shifting it to 185 elides the difference between Snare at that level and at the level when it casts Otiluke's Resilient Sphere.

I think it’s a real stretch to say that something isn’t developer intent because for all we know it was added for testing or because maybe BD decided later it was a bad idea but forgot to remove it. I agree that it’s a bad change, but I’d need some explicit info from the developers before wanting to call it a bug.

Pretty sure SCS is using WIZARD_IMPRISONMENT, not any bespoke version. So it ought to be inheriting SR changes.