BUG - Can't recruit Pishella after killing *spoilers*

Discussion in 'The Temple of Elemental Evil' started by cloudropis, Jun 11, 2019.

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  1. cloudropis

    cloudropis Member

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    I just completed the Retribution quest by killing one of the traders, letting one escape. After completing the quest by speaking with Burne I checked the Co8 companion list to find out Pishella is recruitable as a companion, yet no matter how much I talked to her the recruit option wasn't available.

    Luckily I always have a dozen or so saves I cycle every time, and I could test the option does appear normally until you kill the trader/s. The last save where I could recruit her was the one in front of the trader, pre-buffing, just before confronting them with the assassin's letter and starting the fight. As soon as the battle is over, even without reporting to Burne, she won't be recruitable anymore.

    Is it safe to just load that save, recruit her, and then kill the traders? What I'm afraid of is that killing them will change whatever flag that doesn't make her recruitable again, and that in the future, if I ever decide to temporarily dismiss her, I won't be able to get her in my party again.
     
  2. Shiningted

    Shiningted I want my goat back Administrator

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    The culprit seems to be flag [426] which has been added by Sitra as part of the Rannos and Gremag shenanigans. Why it is also in Pishella's dialogue I don't know - may be a conflict, may be deliberate. Since you are (in one plotline) checking out R&G on Burne's orders it's not inconceivable that Pishella might have an opinion on it all.

    I think that reloading will let you recruit her, but as it stands, if you dismiss her you should get the same issue :(
     
  3. cloudropis

    cloudropis Member

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    Well, fuck. I've seen, in older threads, other small issues were fixed by the devs releasing a quick hotfix that could just be dropped in the game folder to work. Any chance for something like that? Or even instructions to fix this myself?

    Thanks for the confirmation either way, I'll try to test if killing the traders right away keeps the option available, and if recruiting her beforehand will in fact make her dismissal permanent, just in case.
     
  4. florian1

    florian1 Established Member

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  5. cloudropis

    cloudropis Member

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  6. cloudropis

    cloudropis Member

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    Yep, can confirm that dismissing Pishella after killing the traders makes her unrecruitable too. There's no way around it unless I never dismiss her again. Asked on the T+ thread too, hope there's a fix
     
  7. Shiningted

    Shiningted I want my goat back Administrator

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    Well, no need for the salty language. I'm not issuing a fix for the reason outlined - it may have been some sort of deliberate choice to not have her join after the traders were dead, and I am not going to trample on other people's work when I am not sure why they did things the way they did. For one thing, that could create issues down the line (very unlikely but possible).

    If you want to mod it yourself, that's easy enough. Go to YourToEERootFolder/data/dlg and find a file called 00262burne_apprentice.dlg. Open it with Notepad or whatever else you want to use. Go down to lines 34-37, and remove every instance of the phrase "game.global_flags[426] == 0 and ". Save it again as a dlg file (not a .txt file). That should do it. You won't need to start a new game or anything but of course don't do this with the game running.
     
  8. Sitra Achara

    Sitra Achara Senior Member

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    It makes sense that she won't join after you've reported it. I guess the buggy part is that it's triggered before you do.

    However, in the grander scheme of things, it would make sense if Burne investigated the incident regardless of you reporting it by yourself, so the outcome of him and Pishella shunning you would be the same. I suppose that's one of those cases where you don't explicitly implement it due to the effort involved but treat it as an abstracted given.
     
  9. cloudropis

    cloudropis Member

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    Wha? What salty language?
    Thanks for the instructions, will definitely do this and see what happens.

    Wait, is it normal that absolutely no new dialogue about the traders issue appear for both Pishella and Burne? Because you are making it sound like there's a in-universe explanation given for why she wouldn't join after the quest, but her dialogue is the exact same sans the "hey why don't you join instead of rotting between these books", she doesn't refer to any quest event or anything like that. Burne doesn't either, after getting the reward, and joins me no problem. Am I reading too much into this or did I fall into a bigger bug hole than I expected?

    Either way, thank you both for the help. Do you think are there gonna be consequences like breaking the rest of the quest or something if I do that change?
     
  10. Shiningted

    Shiningted I want my goat back Administrator

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    Starts with 'f', ends in 'uck', isn't 'firetruck'. While we're by and large all adults here, we tend to be polite and not swear, and any site for D&D CRPGs can be expected to have some kids lurking here too. I'm sure there's an official forum etiquette post somewhere that we all probably need to reacquaint ourselves with.

    Anyways, you are right that Pishella should actually say something and not just blindly refuse your offer. (Or refuse to let you make the offer). But unless you specifically trigger the ambush and kill R or G that way (then tell Burne, who is congratulatory), Burne's various reactions to you telling him you killed R&G when he wanted them surveilled and for the rule of law to prevail ("I'll take this to the council") is various shades of, well, shade as the kids say nowadays. So Pishella's reaction is consistent, if not actually spelled out.

    This is what happens when modders change each other's work without consultation <shaking head and 'tsk'ing emoji> But no, I doubt there is any later ramifications to that change I mentioned, now that I look into it a bit. Sitra may say otherwise.
     
  11. cloudropis

    cloudropis Member

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    I see, I'll refrain from that from now on.

    By "triggering the ambush" you mean showing the letter to R&G and then choosing the [Attack] option? If yes, Burne isn't congratulatory at all, he says the taking to the council line. Either way I wouldn't say they are shunning me, they act exactly like normal towards my NG party, the only difference is literally just lacking the recruitment option for Pishellla.

    I think it makes more sense to discuss this issue for what it is (a flag in the code telling me I can't do a thing, whether it was put on purpose or not) instead of pretending, for the lack of a less accusatory word, that it's part of the NPCs's reactivity to my actions. Again, love the help and not hating at all, but it's only making things more confusing to me lol, my last post I even wondered if there were a bunch of new dialogues I wasn't seeing meaning I actually fell in a rabbit hole of bugs in the quest chain I wasn't aware of

    EDIT for clarity: if Sitra straight up tells me this was intended I'm fine with this, but I genuinely don't understand yet if it's indeed intended or just rationalizing why an unintended consequence of the code is justified in retrospect. If it's actually intended for Pishella to not join after making justice with my own hands that's okay, and knowing that I wouldn't even have asked in the first place because it would kinda be cheating, but the lack of new dialogue about them hating me for my actions made me think it was just a bug
     
    Last edited: Jun 13, 2019
  12. Sitra Achara

    Sitra Achara Senior Member

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    I misremembered, Burne only shuns you if you give a cheeky answer about the affair. I guess Pishella should do the same.
     
  13. florian1

    florian1 Established Member

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    I usually show the Assassin letter to Burne before confronting the Traders with it. Burne seems to reluctantly accept the fact that you may end up killing the Traders. Once you kill them in Nulb, and then report to Burne, he becomes overjoyed with the news. Have you tried that sequence and then tried to recruit Pishella? I wouldn't know, as I have never tried to recruit her.
     
  14. cloudropis

    cloudropis Member

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    Ah I see. I showed him the letter and told him to consider I might bring vengeance with my own hands, and he was kinda neutral about it. Definitely didn't shun him, not before nor after, and his and Pishella's dialogues are still friendly like they have always been. Definitely no reason they wouldn't want to work with me.

    Huh, you say at the end of the questline she might be free for companionship again? Could be, can't really try right now though because I'm still low level. Something I may consider testing someday, but for the purpose of having Pishella in my party right now it doesn't really work.
    Maybe Sitra can confirm this?
     
  15. Sitra Achara

    Sitra Achara Senior Member

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    No.
    What I meant earlier is that Pishella should be modified such that she will only shun you under the same condition that Burne does.
     
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