So we're exploring the southern half of the Temple level 4 and we rescue Paida, but instead of taking her right home we give her some looted magic armor and shield and keep her at a safe distance in the rear as we finish the rooms. At this point a strange thing happened. No monsters attacked us as we walked through the rooms, similar to wearing the earth temple robes on level 1. Just out of curiosity I went to level 3 and rested, and a group of "wandering monster" Ogres showed up, but instead of instantly attacking they just stood there. Trying to talk to them resulted in the bubble text pop up. So I initiated combat, but after one died the combat ended and the other 4 ogres just stood there again. Killed a second ogre, and then combat ended and the other 3 stood there again. At this point I saved the game, and as an experiment I booted Paida from the party. Then all the monsters attacked us as usual. I loaded the game and brought her home and continued on with the adventure, but later when I have time I will load the game from the point where she is still with the party and see how much of an affect she has on the rest of the encounters. Is this a bug, or are they not attacking us because they see that Hedrack's girlfriend is with us and they don't want to get in trouble?
I usually drag her around long enough to give her a level of Paladin before returning her home, and can positively state all the monsters in the game will react that way. I think it's to prevent her from being accidentally killed by a wandering monster on the way back to Hommlet.
So then, with her in your group you could possibly gain a free sneak attack at the start of every battle. Heck, you could even choose when to start each battle and which baddie to attack first. Are my assumptions correct?
That's odd. I've 'rescued' Paida and continued through the rooms long enough for her to level up to 10th .... and the temple denizens (3rd and 4th levels) have never treated me with kid gloves. The difference might be that I usually leave her very far behind at the foot of the staircase or safely in the previous room/hallway. What might be interesting, then, is an encounter with Hedrack (or even Iuz!) with Paida in the room ...
I also experienced this, although at the time I didn't understand what was causing the problem (although it seems obvious now if you examine my analysis) (http://www.co8.org/forum/showpost.php?p=104920&postcount=213). Thanks for clearing this up, guys!
Do you think maybe she's flagged as part of the same faction as the other girl in the room where you find her so she won't get attacked while waiting to be rescued? I bet she's part of a temple neutral type faction.
She should be friendly to all other factions so that she won't get attacked, that would make sense. But maybe she doesn't change to player faction when added to the party, causing this behavior.
It may be that you join a temple faction when Paida is in the group and in the room. I just tested it, and got some interesting dialogue choices with some of the temple leaders that I've never seen before. Some leaders attack outright, some prepare defenses but don't initiate combat, and most others ignore you. Unless you leave Paida too far behind (in another room or hallway), in which case some of the dynamics change. Paida appears to be untouchable, however -- at least I haven't seen her get attacked yet, even when her unarmed attack should trigger an AoO.
In my current adventure, I decided to keep Paida in my party as a Paladin, but I really didn't want to be able to sneak attack every enemy I encounter. So after some digging, I eventually found the source that causes Paida to make all creatures she encounters non-hostile. After toying around with her factions and category, it made no difference. The answer lies in her san_heartbeat routine, which will trigger every second or so. There's a call in there to StopCombat() found in Co8.py, which as you can guess stops combat. But it does more than stop combat, it permanently turns of any creatures KOS flag which would normally make them automatically attack. So even if you return Paida, those creatures will still be affected by her influence if you return to them later in the game. Here's the code for StopCombat(), for those inclined to be curious: Code: def StopCombat(obj, flag): # game.particles( 'Orb-Summon-Air-Elemental', game.party[0] ) for pc in game.party: for critter in game.obj_list_vicinity( obj.location, OLC_ALL ): critter.ai_shitlist_remove( pc ) if flag == 1: critter.npc_flag_unset(ONF_KOS) obj.ai_shitlist_remove(pc) return So for my current adventure, while she was in the group, I just commented out the one line that called StopCombat() in her san_heartbeat() call found in py00143paida.py and she was just fine till the end. I roleplayed her joining the group by trying to return her to Hommlet, but she found Valden drinking at the Inn and flirting with one of Gunygoot's daughters, so she decided to join us until the Temple fell.
I found that oddly, some of the new random encounters didn't stop combat for her. Everything normally in the game certainly did, though.
You'll notice the same monster encounter behavior if you convince Lareth to join your party, or if you dominate Murraya (a.k.a Curry Leaf). I found all "scripted" dialogues that initiate combat should still commence normally. But all "attack on sight" encounters (whether random or set) result in no combat as long as Paida, Murraya or Lareth are within sight-range of the monster when the encounter takes place. Afaik, there is no "Hedrack recognizes his concubines have joined your party" dialogue. But that would be fun. I never realized there is an "alternate" ending for Paida at the Welcome Wench.
