chuft

Just ran into the notorious Durlag's dungeon level 2 bug. I finished the level, but left the level and came back later due to a killed party member I had to get Raised. When I returned, I could not open the doors from the throne room and thus could not proceed to the exit to level 3. The doors from the throne room were locked; they should be pickable, but they were not. Attempts to pick them resulted in no action - no failure message, no lockpicking sound, no message about them being special, nothing, just the cursor changing back to normal. If I tried to do it from a distance the character would not even approach the door, they would just stand there and the cursor would change back to normal. Dudleyville says it fixes the level 2 problem on the site's main page, but the level is not mentioned in any of the specific pages for the fixes, for example the Area fixes do not mention it at all. Does anyone know if Dudleyfixes actually fixed this problem? Ultimately I had to use the Ctrl-J cheat to teleport to where Kagain died so I could get his stuff and proceed down to level 3.

Strange. I have come across a lot of forum posts about mundane darts getting the strength bonus in BG2, and Baldurdash listing it as a bug to be fixed, but so far, no posts about BG1. I wonder if it was something they fixed in TotSC? The guy I am talking about was playing BG1 without TotSC. I just tested mundane throwing axes and darts in my game and you're right, they get no ST bonus. I have no idea though if that is due to TotSC/patches/mods/Baldurdash etc. I guess it doesn't really matter unless someone is playing BG1 without TotSC. It is also possible I am confused and am thinking of the pen and paper campaign he was in, and mixing it up with a live BG1 experience I had when another friend of mine had a fighter/cleric doing obscene damage with slings due to 18/00 strength. Pen and paper 2E definitely allows the strength bonus for darts; see RPGdotNet discussion on darts It appears so. I stunned Hurgan using Darts of Stunning and it looks like he's wearing a helm. He drops one when he dies.

I don't know of any dual use melee/thrown weapons other than the +2 axe of throwing introduced in Chapter 6. The mundane ones are either melee or thrown versions. Now I am curious if the strength bonus applies to the mundane ones. Kagain's strength is so low that normally you don't notice it early in the game when he throws axes and doesn't have access to strength boosting items. I thought thrown weapons were generally supposed to have strength bonuses applied. I recall years ago the guy who first told me about BG using a cheesy "darts strategy" where his fighters with superstrength all threw darts to get the strength damage bonus 3 times a round. The manual on page 77 specifically mentions hurled axes and daggers. I thought that was the main advantage of axes over swords - you don't get all the cool magic items that you do with swords, but you can use your bonuses when throwing them (throwing axes or better yet, a magic axe that returns to your hand, if you can find one). Seems kind of lame that the one item they put in for axemen loses its strength bonus when thrown. It already is slower than arrows. Slings get the strength bonus, it seems lame for someone owning a +2 throwing axe that returns to their hand, to switch to a sling when they want to make a ranged attack and get the strength bonus to damage. Makes the throwing axe kind of pointless. Better to use a +2 melee axe/sling/shield combo with magic bullets, or better yet darts of stunning or wounding. The coolest thing about the axe of throwing is the animation as it flies through the air.

Kagain ventured up to the roof of Durlag's Tower to fight pesky basilisks. He drank a potion of Frost Giant Strength before doing so. He has three proficiencies (+3, +3) in Axe. He had found a +2, +2 throwing axe that returned to his hand under Candlekeep. When he threw it at basilisks, it did around 9 damage. When he hit in melee with it, it did around 19 damage. Clearly his +9 strength bonus to damage was not being applied to the thrown axe damage. I believe it should be.

The Demonknight thing doesn't work. Sometimes he didn't list any save at all against the wand, and he also saved with a 3 (-1). Nothing seems to affect him. Don't know how you are supposed to get the Helm of Opposite Alignment.

for most creatures it probably doesn't matter, it's mostly for the NPC fights you have with assassins, mercenary/adventuring groups in the wilderness, and high level people in Baldur's Gate. For the ones with racial bonuses the fights would be more interesting if they had their racial saving throw bonuses and immunities.

I thought I read somewhere you could use the Wand of Paralyzation on the Demonknight in the entrance room of Durlag's Tower, and get the Helm of Opposite Alignment from him somehow. Well I just tried it, and he saved vs wands with a 4. If the wand truly has a -4 to saving throws, something is amiss.

So the non-joinable NPCs definitely don't get their racial bonuses?

Kagain get the bonus in all the appropriate categories, although it doesn't occur until he levels up for the first time for some reason. That's interesting. What level is Hurgan? It sounds like he is not getting the bonus Kagain is (Kagain's saving throw for wands at 8th level is 7, since he has a 20 CON and gets the Dwarven +5). Really? That's interesting. BG1 doesn't show you the charges, although wands with fewer charges have a lower selling price. Nope, never charmed them. I'm afraid to charm shopkeepers as a rule because I'm afraid they will be hostile next time I see them - I might be confusing this with Arcanum. Also when I did charm someone and tried to pick their pocket, I am pretty sure they turned red when I failed. He wasn't, I was carrying it. I dropped a fireball from the wand into the midst of a melee thinking it would not hurt me since I had the Globe up. But, it did...

Well I did some tests back in Ulgoth's Beard. Sure enough, a fireball wand penetrates a Minor Globe and does damage as if the Globe wasn't there. Apparently a fireball from the wand is being treated as higher than a 3rd level spell. An actual Fireball spell on the other hand does not penetrate the Globe. It appears Wands are, for some reason, given a higher spell level than the spells they cast. The Fire Arrow spell might not have penetrated, there were ankhegs in the area and it is possible an acid spit hit me at the same time as the Fire Arrow and gave the impression that the Fire Arrow is what did the damage. But I tested the Wand of Fire fireball effect under controlled conditions and it definitely goes right through the Globe. For thoroughness I just tested the Aganazzar's Scorcher ability from the Wand of Fire and that goes through the Globe as well. (I had Edwin fire it at my character and do damage while my character had a Minor Globe up.)

Man, this game is getting frustrating. I am on the Ice Island and Edwin put up a Minor Globe of Invulnerability. Despite this, in a fight with Garan he was first injured by a Flame Arrow spell, and then killed by a Fireball, despite both these spells being 3rd level and supposedly blocked by the Minor Globe.

I sent the party to Cloakwood and got waylaid by some wyverns. Both Edwin and my character were blasting away with Wands of Paralyzation. I think out of 8 or 9 tries we got one wyvern stunned. So they do work on wyverns, but it seems much harder than it should be. In my cave battles the wand was entirely used up without ever paralyzing a wyvern. Didn't seem like it had very many charges. Anybody know how many charges the paralyzation wands in the store have vs the one you find in the cave?

Well I tried another Wand of Paralyzation on Hurgan Stoneblade and got him on something like 4 tries out of 5. I don't know what level he is, but 8th level Kagain has a Wand saving throw of 7, presumably with the same dwarven modifiers as Hurgan Stoneblade. It took 84 damage to kill him so he is probably a fairly high level dwarf. Do NPC Dwarves get the racial saving throw bonuses? I used the wand on him on multiple reloads and he only made his save once.

I should note I just another bug, which I had earlier, in Sorcerous Sundries. I could not initiate a dialog with either of the two guys in there. This happened before, as well, before the whole wyvern thing, when Viconia couldn't talk to the shop owner. Eventually she could, after I switched control around to different characters or something and then she could talk to the shopkeeper. This time I was alone and my character couldn't talk to anybody in there. I left the store and then went back in and everything was fine.

Wow I just ran into a serious bug. I decided to drop off my party in Ulgoth's Beard and do some grinding to level up my mage/thief/fighter. So I travelled here and there trying to encounter vampiric wolves, basilisks etc but they were just too hard to encounter even in the correct areas. So I decided to hunt the ever-plentiful wyverns and went to Cloakwood. Well, sleeping in the wyvern cave is about a 90% chance or more of a wyvern waking you up. So I fought a ton of wyvern battles in there. The paralyzation wand, as usual, failed every time (never seen that wand actually work, the wyverns were saving on a 9 despite the -4 the wand supposedly has) and it got used up. So I decided to try the polymorph wand for a change. To my surprise it worked, and a wyvern turned into a squirrel. I took out my dagger and walked over and killed it. It promptly turned into the corpse of a wyvern, which kind of surrounded me since I had been in melee with the tiny squirrel. Then I discovered I could not move out of the area where the corpse was. I could take about one step in each direction and that was it. I was stuck. The cursor showed the entire area as remaining playable, yet I could not move out of it. There was some kind of invisible barrier that did not show up when I moved the cursor over it, but my character absolutely could not move outside the area where the corpse appeared. So I slept and was awoken by wyverns, again and again. They flew all around me but could not attack me because of this unseen barrier. Luckily I had a large supply of arrows and was able to kill them. The unplayable area did not prevent missile fire. The corpse eventually disappeared after a number of sleep attempts, but I still could not get out of the "pocket" in the middle of the floor. Note my character was not "glued" to one spot, as I recall happening in some past game with an area glitch (BG? Diablo? can't remember) where it was possible to end up on an unplayable pixel or something and be unable to move. I could move, but the area in which I could move was only about one character circle in radius. After many wyvern killings from the safety of the pocket I leveled up enough to be able to use 4th level spells and selected Dimension Door. Then I had to kill a bunch more wyverns as I attempted to get 8 hours' sleep so I could use the spell. Finally I got a night's sleep and cast it. I was able to teleport across the room to the stairs. After that I could move normally - in most of the room. I tried walking around. I could not walk into the "pocket" despite the cursor showing it and the area around it as being walkable. When I walked to the other side of the room, my character took a wide detour around this invisible force field area. It was all very strange. Eventually I collected some wyvern heads and left the cave, glad at least I did not have to reload and lose all that grinding. Had I run out of arrows before being able to level up and then "sleep on" Dimension Door, which I just happened to have bought/found earlier in the game, the game would have come to an end and I would have been forced to go back to an earlier save. I suspect it is a bug related to the polymorph wand/polymorph other spell, and what happens when a polymorphed creature is killed.

I'm not saying it's a problem. Just confirming it was not a display error. I had noticed at times it seemed to be truncating the last digit when showing experience and it only just occurred to me last night that it might actually be giving you a lot less experience for killing neutral beings.

I just tested the XP thing with some black bears wandering around with blue circles. If I wound one and it turns red and then I kill it, I get 175 exps. If I butcher one with an overwhelming barrage while it is still blue, I get 17 exps. So apparently, this is a universal behavior of the engine, not something related to Oberan. The game wants you to have fair fights apparently, and not assassinate creatures with blue circles.

I did not think "once a day" was even implementable in BG1 for items.

Thanks. So it does have a limit, interesting, it doesn't say that in the description and with 50, I have never actually used it up in a game. Note if you have Edwin in your party, the owner of the ring (one of the Red Wizards group) won't attack you, so you might be able to get it from pickpocketing him. I have gotten it by killing him after he greeted/threatened Edwin, before he could disappear. The other three Red Wizards disappear after the Edwin dialog so they don't help defend their leader if you kill him before he can walk off. This is probably the safest way to get the ring (taking a cheap shot at the leader before he can leave) unless pickpocketing works against him. Without Edwin (or if you detach him from the party first because you are in the mood for an epic mage battle) of course you are in for a tough fight against 4 mages at once if you are a low level party, which would make getting it early on something of a challenge.

By the way, what is the deal with the Ring of Energy? The order in which I do things usually results in me getting this ring late enough that my characters usually have better options than to use it. But if you got it early on, it seems very powerful. It seems to have no charge limit, unlimited range, always hits, and does 2d6 damage of an unspecified type although it looks like fire. It's hard to see a reason to use anything else if you are a low level character. Is it as good as it seems, or does it really have limited charges? I just tried going on a rampage with it in Baldur's Gate, frying civilians, and never ran out of charges by the time the Flaming Fist enforcers got me.

Interesting stuff. Oberan actually doesn't ever call the guards as a result of dialog, no matter how many times you try to talk to him. If you attack him, he fights alone as well. That seems to be standard behavior; Flaming Fist appear when you open a container, but not if you attack somebody... If you open the bookcase the Flaming Fist appear but I don't know if that's because Oberan is there, or whether it's just one of those "silent alarm" containers that seem to be able to call the Flaming Fist even in an empty house....

I noticed another weird behavior. I went in an inn and Phandalyn got in my face due to me having evil party members. I noticed if I talk to the innkeeper and rest there, Phandalyn is gone when I wake up. I wonder if that is intended. Also he stays blue while attacking you. He also keeps attacking you even if you Charm him and he has a green circle. You can order him away, but he comes back and keeps attacking. Very odd for a Charmed creature. Speaking of vanishing acts, in Oberan's house I did some burglaring and Flaming Fists appeared. I was in the mood for some fun so I charmed some with the cloak and made them fight each other. It was an amusing scene as at one point there were around 9 of them fighting each other in a big mob. Anyway eventually there were only two left, fighting each other in the southwest room on the top floor. I went into the northeast room to hide in shadows. When I came back out a few moments later, the Flaming Fists were gone without a trace. It seemed that the minute I lost sight of them, they disappeared.

His name does say "Oberan" on the screen during the combat and dialogs, but his house is always referred to as "Oberon's estate", see http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/8/89880...aldurs_gate.gif http://www.forgottenwars.com/bg1/maps/x_0700.jpg etc and the journal entry clearly says "Oberon" for the Alatos thief mission. Maybe this is a spelling inconsistency that should be fixed? Anyway keep an eye out when you have battles, I bet you will notice that sometimes it seems the experience is getting truncated. The "kill Oberan when he's still blue circle, only get 90 exp" is reproducible in my game. If I talk to Oberan over and over, he never turns red. If I open his bookcase, Flaming Fists are summoned and eventually attack me, but he still never turns red. He only turns red if you attack him first. So if you want max exps (and there is no reputation hit for this either) you have to attack him but be careful not to kill him (or let him kill himself, as he has the amusing habit of throwing lightning bolts around and killing himself and the Flaming Fists in the area). Once he is red you can kill him for 900 exps. Since I have been using my thief to sneak around and take out enemies (like the various groups that are waiting to attack you on the wilderness maps) with backstabs before they even know I'm there, not getting the exps for them is rather a startling discovery. I thought it was just a display issue till Oberan where I checked and sure enough I was getting 90 not 900 when he was chunked while blue. I will have to see if it happens every time that way. If it does, it has implications, especially for a solo game where you want to get the jump on enemies before they know you are there by killing one or more of them while their circles are still blue. In such a case you can't talk to them and make them turn red without coming out of shadows/breaking invisibility. Also, in groups of enemies, sometimes they don't all turn red at once, but light up in some kind of sequence as the combat gets going. I will have to be careful not to have a prepared fireball or whatever kill any before they get to turn red.

I've noticed an oddity. Sometimes when I kill something, the experience shown is not the full amount. For example it might say "The party gains experience 9" when it means "95" At other times, it's not just a display issue. It's an actual XP issue. For example, in the quest to get the skyship components from Oberon's house. If you sneak up on a neutral Oberon and backstab him to death, you get 90 experience. If you talk to him, attack him without killing him and let him turn red, and THEN kill him, you get 900 experience. This is not just a display typo - I checked the party experience both times and they did indeed get 90 one time and 900 the other. It seems that killing neutral characters with the first attack yields hardly any experience compared to having them turn red and then killing them.

Awesome, just tried it and it worked! Now I have nice colorful magic shields. Thanks!