I'm having some problems with quests not working. I went back to a fairly early save, but they still aren't working right. Since this is my second game, it's not a big deal, except that I'd really like the house in nulb. Is there some way to "cheat" to get it? Are there any good places to rest reasonably near the ruins?
Current game - "Tim" the enchanter This is just to talk a little bit about the current game I'm playing (the one with the bug problem in the other thread). I've been running only one player character (I've made use of several of the NPC's, usually just elmo, though of course I team up with NPC wizards to gain access to their spell books). It's working out fairly well - he's a fighter 1, wizard 6 at the moment, just starting to explore the temple. Biggest problem is having to rely on potions for heal spells and running out of slots to carry loot (esp. with my desire to carry scrolls and healing potions). I still have to do the meadows and the innyards run areas, I wanted to do the dungeons first to recruit Byrne early for his spells. With power attack, cleave, and combat reflexes, plus a reach weapon (currently a glaive), he is reasonably good at combat (love those attacks of opportunity) as well as being a spellcaster. Knowing what spells could be found where, I've got a pretty good selection because I don't pick spells at level up I can easily find. He took the above feats at level 1, his other feats are 3) spell focus enchantment 6) greater spell focus enchatment, craft wondrous item (the later from the wizard bonus feat). when he gets to lvl 9 he'll take create magic arms and armor. (He won't get to wizard 10 because of the fighter level). The enchantmetn focus is so that he can caputre an army of charmed creatures. The strategy is working pretty well. One other reason the char works is that I rolled until I had a couple of 18's for int and str, plus decent dex 16 and con 15. I decided to build int up to 20 for the extra spells and the extra hard saving throws, since I gave him a fighter level (I gather the created items don't give the extra spells). I recruited Burne for a while, so I was able to get him to scribe his spells, which was nice - also, knowing the game, I don't bother to pick up spells when I level that I can easily obtain elsewhere,. I noticed that Burne also had a spell focus in enchantment. One bug I've noticed and taken advantage of is that "ghoul touch" seems to paralyze enemies even when they make their fortitude saves. Now that I've got "suggestion" though, I'm going to see if I can convert those ogres to my side rather than paralyze them. I already did that with Burne's "charm monster" spell, it worked very well - those weak-willed brutes charm easily, and dish out the damage to the enemy. Right now, the DC is somewhere around 16-17 for resisting his charm spells (I'm not sure why but it seems to be one higher DC for casting charm from a scroll). Also, casting from a scroll doesn't seem to provke "attacks of opportunity" (?). I think 16 is the correct DC, that would be 10 base, 2 for the specialization, and +4 for int. When his int goes from 19 to 20, the DC will be 17 base. If I can craft an Int-boosting item of +6, that will be a 20 DC save vs will for his charm spells. If I was going to do it over again, I might try skipping the fighter level, and make him either a pure wizard or perhaps even a sorcerer. A second char, a cleric with good combat abilities would also make it a lot easier (though it'd slow the level advancement).
AFAIK, all problems with quests not updating/completing are due to having an NPC in the leftmost (first) position in your party (in terms of the row of portraits displayed at the lower left corner of the screen). Switch a PC to the first position and your problems will go away. Otherwise, between the 2nd official patch and the latest Co8 mod pack there are only 1 or 2 remaining problems with dialogue and quests.
Re: Current game - "Tim" the enchanter Been noted before I think. Thanks for the reminder. You must add the spell level of the spell you are casting to the DC. A Charm Person is a level 1 spell. You get +4 from Int modif and +1 from having spell focus: enchantment. All Greater spell focus feats are broken and do not work. Therefore the final DC should be 16. Scrolls sometimes are miscoded with a higher level DC in protos.tab by wrongly specifying the spell level. I will check and see if correction needs to be done.
OK, moving the single PC up to the left solved the quest problem. Now, I have _another_ problem! Almost everyone is attacking me on sight, I'm not quite sure why. I _think_ it may have something to do with my first use of a suggestion spell. Possibly the game thinks I killed a party member? My suggested ogre appeared to me to turn hostile for no good reason, and I wound up killing him. I'm not sure if my symptoms are compatible with killing a NPC, I've never done that before, though I've killed plenty of charmed creatures. (I wouldn't mind reading more about how the suggestion spell is supposed to work, as well. I saw the ogre making a bunch of rolls as we walked around, but he didn't have much of a chance to beat a DC 23, though I assume a natural 20 would save). I gather there is a buglist around somewhere, but Iooked around the c08 website and couldn't find it. I'll have to dig around to see where my last save was..... It's interesting that I'm having a lot more trouble the second time around than I did the first, but I guess that's part of trying out new things.
I tried Suggestion once and didn't seem to have any problems. I think you just need make sure its duration doesn't run out, especially when you rest. That "making a bunch of rolls" thingie happens but doesn't affect gameplay I think. Would be nice to double check the SRD just to be sure though: http://www.wizards.com/D20/article.asp?x=srd35 Hommlet turning hostile hasn't happened to me before so I can't really comment much but what you say may be true: game thinks you've been hostile to characters which you shouldn't. Do you have a "Butcher of Hommlet" reputation? Ever cast any hostile spells (area effect spells) and also hit NPCs by chance?
I did some more experimenting, and the character that's getting the negative reactions is Elmo the drunk NPC fighter. I *think* Elmo is the one who actually killed the ogre, but I'm not positive. Anyway, I can walk up to Brother Smyth in Homlett, and so can Serena the thief (who is currently with the party), but as soon as Elmo approaches, combat starts.
When you Charm a creature in an AD&D game with Charm Person or Charm Monster, they become friendly and non-hostile, yes? If you then kill them, you have attacked and MURDERED a non-hostile creature. So you have slain an innocent and have a reputation as a brutal murderer. That's probably why you are being attacked and I don't think it's a bug. It's a consequence of your actions. The proper way for Enchanters to use Charm spells is to charm some of the enemies so they fight for you against their former allies. Then, when the hostile enemies are dead and the spell wears off, your charmed minions will then go hostile. THEN kill them. You won't get a bad rep for that. ~
In 1 and 2E, the Charm Person duration depended on the target's INT and they had a save frequency based on that. In 3.5E, the Suggesiton spell says Suggestion Enchantment (Compulsion) [Language-Dependent, Mind-Affecting] Level: Brd 2, Sor/Wiz 3 Components: V, M Casting Time: 1 standard action Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels) Target: One living creature Duration: 1 hour/level or until completed Saving Throw: Will negates Spell Resistance: Yes You influence the actions of the target creature by suggesting a course of activity (limited to a sentence or two). The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the activity sound reasonable. Asking the creature to do some obviously harmful act automatically negates the effect of the spell. The suggested course of activity can continue for the entire duration. If the suggested activity can be completed in a shorter time, the spell ends when the subject finishes what it was asked to do. You can instead specify conditions that will trigger a special activity during the duration. If the condition is not met before the spell duration expires, the activity is not performed. A very reasonable suggestion causes the save to be made with a penalty (such as –1 or –2). Material Component: A snake’s tongue and either a bit of honeycomb or a drop of sweet oil. I can't see anything there that would allow repeated save attempts. But for Charm Person (and Charm Monster and Charm Animal are basically ther same) it says: Charm Person Enchantment (Charm) [Mind-Affecting] Level: Brd 1, Sor/Wiz 1 Components: V, S Casting Time: 1 standard action Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels) Target: One humanoid creature Duration: 1 hour/level Saving Throw: Will negates Spell Resistance: Yes This charm makes a humanoid creature regard you as its trusted friend and ally (treat the target’s attitude as friendly). If the creature is currently being threatened or attacked by you or your allies, however, it receives a +5 bonus on its saving throw. The spell does not enable you to control the charmed person as if it were an automaton, but it perceives your words and actions in the most favorable way. You can try to give the subject orders, but you must win an opposed Charisma check to convince it to do anything it wouldn’t ordinarily do. (Retries are not allowed.) An affected creature never obeys suicidal or obviously harmful orders, but it might be convinced that something very dangerous is worth doing. Any act by you or your apparent allies that threatens the charmed person breaks the spell. You must speak the person’s language to communicate your commands, or else be good at pantomiming. I don't know, by any means, but perhaps something like this is going on - the Ogre may be making opposed rolls to follow the Suggestion that he is your friend and ally, or whatever Suggestion you implanted. Maybe it's just programmed wrongly. On the other hand, he might be making Search or Spot checks as you didn't specify what the rolls were, but the context implies saving throw rolls. Note that these spells are not permanent and when they wear off the target will most probably go hostile. If you killed the Ogre when it went hostile, rather than while it was Charmed or Suggested, then I'd have thought that this should NOT affect your rep and cause Good and Lawful characters to attack you (or Elmo). If that is what happened then it might actually be a bug. ~
I did some more experimenting with suggestion (I was able to "suggest" Falrinth), and here's what I found. When the suggested creature makes his will save, you cannot access his "circular menu" to make him do something. When the suggested creature fails his will save, you *do* have access to the circular menu, and you can make him do whatever it is that you want. (In my case, what I wanted was scribing some scrolls, after Falrinth got the necessary experience). It was a bit of a waste, though, all the spells I scribed were in his second (hidden) chest. In combat, as far as I could tell the creature takes no action when he makes his will save. He definitely doesn't turn hostile simply from making a will save. Killing a charmed creature or monster doesn't carry any penalty - I do that a lot. I'm fairly sure that killing a suggested creature does (they become members of the party, in effect), but I haven't gone back to confirm this to be 100% positive. Since I'm not all that familiar with 3.5 rules, I'll leave this to the individual to decide if it's a bug or a feature. Since suggested creatures act like NPC's (they demand a share of the loot, they take a share of the experience, you apparently can't just kill them on a whim), charm is generally a much better spell than suggestion. I'd only bother with suggestion in special circumstances. An ogre probably isn't usually worth suggesting - a hill giant, perhaps may be. I'll be in a position to experiment with "dominate person" shortly . With the current bugs, "ghoul touch" is one of the easiest ways to deal with Ogres, with "Tasha's uncontrollable laughter" a second due to the possibility of a save. It appears that one can walk back from the temple to Nulb without the charm spell expiring, BTW (this may depend on char level). What I did with Falrinth was to camp, rest & regain spells. During the night, after I was finished with Falrinth, his charm expired, and a battle ensued, in which the party killed him. (Actually, because I was futzing arond, I wound up re-charming him a few times, then finally killing him, but that's a long story).
Suggestion does take mental control over an NPC making it PC-controllable. Therefore killing it while under suggestion effect is an evil action per se. However, it should lower your reputation only to an extent, not make everyone want to kill you on sight. Killing a creature after suggestion wears off must invoke no penalty, since the usage of suggestion per se is NOT an evil action. So, maybe wait before you kill them? Anyway, if something attacks you, it is no longer neutral or friendly - it is hostile. Killing a hostile creature MUST NOT be treated as an evil action.
I have noticed that if you take anything from an NPC that is charmed, under suggestion or dominate person when the spell wears off or you ask them to leave they imidiatly become hostile. Maybe this is whats happening, I had it happend with Paida after I returned her to Hommlet and took her to her home finishing the quest she started to attack me this caused the entire village to turn agaist me. thank goodness for saved games.
