So, I've installed the 3rd patch now, in the middle of my current game. Just yesterday, I got my party down to the 4th level. Midway down the main corridor was something new and unwelcome... a trap.
The trap consists of a regular eruption of electrical energy in the corridor, in between two diagonally-positioned control boxes. The distance is great enough that the only way to get through without making a saving throw is with the Boots of Speed. Damage is nasty if you fail the save, maybe 25-45 points of damage, plus your character(s) can get stuck there, making several saves while you struggle to get them moving, which is lethal to anybody except Scorpp.
My thief tried to disarm the trap, but the game didn't respond as though it was a trap-disarming situation. Then my thief opened the control box, which looked like a treasure chest. Opening the control box gave me a dialogue box telling me that there was a ball of light and giving me some peculiar dialogue options:
1. Talk to the light
2. Attempt to disarm.
3. Close the box.
Talking was useless, and every disarm attempt by my 9th level thief failed, even though he has a double-digit score in disarming devices. I tried zapping the control boxes with lightning, and casting Dispel Magic, with no results. I even tried an Ice Storm, but that quickly fizzled.
Ultimately, I had my spellcasters put 2-3 different anti-electricity spells on each party member and sent them running through one at a time. Everybody got through with no or minimal damage, leaving them in good shape for the big battle with Hedrack, except for all those spell slots wasted on the resist energy stuff.
After a brutal battle that used up nearly all my spells, my party wanted to rest before moving on, but we kept getting nasty wandering monsters like Ettins. So we wanted to leave, but now some of my people lacked any protection (the ones who got killed by Iuz and brought back by Cuthbert), and this trap just killed my best fighter. His corpse is laying in the middle of the trap area, and we can't safely get at the body to Raise Dead.
Does anybody have advice for how to overcome this new trap?
Btw, the patch seems to have restored the combat AI to the smarter creatures, they have gone back to that nasty habit of running around my front guys to strike hard at the spellcasters in the back. Overall, I like the patch, just not that trap, which seems slightly dysfunctional.
The new trap. **SPOILER**
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Lord Plothos
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This trap was installed in Livonya's mod, for anyone who is confused by never having seen it.
I believe she's going to eliminate it in her upcoming 2.0 release.
To get around it, I have read that you can select a character, press C to enter combat and move past, for it won't affect you in combat mode.
I believe she's going to eliminate it in her upcoming 2.0 release.
To get around it, I have read that you can select a character, press C to enter combat and move past, for it won't affect you in combat mode.
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Thanks, I'll give that a try once I get home.
I just remembered a couple of other unusual things that I noticed yesterday. Iuz killed Scorpp during the fight. After the confrontation between Iuz and Cuthbert, Iuz raised Hedrack from the dead and turned the rest of the dead into zombies, as usual, then Cuthbert raised my dead people, including Scorpp and my dwarven fighter. Scorpp was still visible in my character icons at the bottom of the screen, but disappeared from the initiative icons at the top of the screen, so he never took any more actions in the fight. And, he was invisible, not in the game transparent invisibility way, but he no longer showed up on the screen, except for his (empty) blue circle when I clicked to move the whole party after the fight. Scorpp moves with us, but he's invisible and his inventory is completely empty. He won't take actions in fights anymore, and I can't dismiss him, or talk to him at all.
The other odd thing... when Iuz departed after he and Cuthbert raised everybody, he thwacked my dwarven fighter twice, possibly just because he could and my dwarf so close to him. It was amusing, although he did lots of damage with those two smacks.
I just remembered a couple of other unusual things that I noticed yesterday. Iuz killed Scorpp during the fight. After the confrontation between Iuz and Cuthbert, Iuz raised Hedrack from the dead and turned the rest of the dead into zombies, as usual, then Cuthbert raised my dead people, including Scorpp and my dwarven fighter. Scorpp was still visible in my character icons at the bottom of the screen, but disappeared from the initiative icons at the top of the screen, so he never took any more actions in the fight. And, he was invisible, not in the game transparent invisibility way, but he no longer showed up on the screen, except for his (empty) blue circle when I clicked to move the whole party after the fight. Scorpp moves with us, but he's invisible and his inventory is completely empty. He won't take actions in fights anymore, and I can't dismiss him, or talk to him at all.
The other odd thing... when Iuz departed after he and Cuthbert raised everybody, he thwacked my dwarven fighter twice, possibly just because he could and my dwarf so close to him. It was amusing, although he did lots of damage with those two smacks.
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Lord Plothos
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Well, he shouldn't smack you. Liv changed a bunch of AI stuff, but the dieties have been messed from day one. I played a game where Cuthbert came and did nothing while I killed Iuz, then just stayed there wandering around. When I tried to talk to him, he just kept screaming "Iuz!!!!!", who of course lay dead at my feet (which were now wearing his boots). 
Anyway, about the problem, this issue is common with NPCs at this point. I believe if you kill him (area affect spells should work), then you can resurrect him and he'll come back without a problem. Just use the console to set his exp and your money back to where they should be, and all's well. If you can't manage to kill him, I think there's a way to do it from the console. Let me know if you need it, and I'll try to track it down.
Anyway, about the problem, this issue is common with NPCs at this point. I believe if you kill him (area affect spells should work), then you can resurrect him and he'll come back without a problem. Just use the console to set his exp and your money back to where they should be, and all's well. If you can't manage to kill him, I think there's a way to do it from the console. Let me know if you need it, and I'll try to track it down.
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More field research on the new trap:
It is nastier when you are trying to leave than when you enter. On the way, your people run through without pausing, usually only "rolling" two saving throws. On the way out, after the really big battle with Hendrack in my case, your people pause after each saving throw "roll", such that you may end up making anywhere from 5-10 saving throws. Without adequate protection against electricity (for example, Kella only had two Resist Energy: Electricity spells on her), and failing several saves can be absolutely lethal.
I tried your suggestion regarding going into combat mode, and it works well, in a bizarre fashion, except for one serious hitch. You enter combat mode, and the trap is still functioning, but here's where it gets bizarre... the trap gets a portrait in the initiative track, a featureless blue head and shoulders with a large aqua "T" on the face, vaguely suggestive of a certain kind of medieval helm. Oh, and the trap has a name when you put the cursor on that portrait... trap is named "Treasure Map #2", which of course carries the implication that it must have an associate named "Treasure Map #1" somewhere else in the World of Greyhawk.
Anyway, "Treasure Map #2" is a lazy entity, it only shocks people standing in the danger zone when it's Treasure Map #2's turn in combat. The game slows down during that action. but ultimately there is only one attempted zap. So, the good news is that it's quite easy for each of your party members to jog safely past Treasure Map #2 without getting zapped, as long as they don't finish their movement in the danger zone. The bad part? You can't leave combat mode, and you still can't do anything to those control boxes, either in or out of dialogue, to stop the trap from working. This is extremely unfortunate, because it means that your group will need to Dimension Door past this trap everytime you want to visit the Nodes, or else waste many spell slots on the shockproofing.
I re-fought the big battle with Hedrack, it's almost always good fun since my group is usually strong enough to smash the enemy, except when Iuz is zapping people. This time, my mighty 8th-level ally, Pintark, the former orc prisoner, got killed by Iuz, but the rest of my group was still alive when Cuthbert showed up. (Btw, I applied the first patch way back when I was going through the moathouse the first time, and that may be why I've never had a bizarre outcome with Iuz and Cuthbert. Then again, the most damage that one of my groups ever did to Iuz was 8 points, from several magic missile spells. Killing Iuz probably causes Cuthbert to act weird.
Anyway, this time Pintark turned weirdly ghostlike. He follows my group around, but he won't fight or talk to anybody. Also, his equipment is all missing, and he no longer shows up in the little 3D picture on his character sheet, even when I gave him some clothes to wear. Cynically, when I noticed that he could still use potions on people as long as it wasn't a combat situation, I loaded him down with my healing potions, making him the non-combat medic. But then he went and sold all the potions the next time we were at Mother Screng's! Very frustrating. It will be nice to nuke him and bring him back to life,as you suggested, although I will really miss the Masterwork Cleaver that he lost. I'll check back with you if I'm having trouble putting him down and bringing him back.
Overall, I like the idea of the new trap, it's just the execution (and placement) of it that I don't enjoy.
It is nastier when you are trying to leave than when you enter. On the way, your people run through without pausing, usually only "rolling" two saving throws. On the way out, after the really big battle with Hendrack in my case, your people pause after each saving throw "roll", such that you may end up making anywhere from 5-10 saving throws. Without adequate protection against electricity (for example, Kella only had two Resist Energy: Electricity spells on her), and failing several saves can be absolutely lethal.
I tried your suggestion regarding going into combat mode, and it works well, in a bizarre fashion, except for one serious hitch. You enter combat mode, and the trap is still functioning, but here's where it gets bizarre... the trap gets a portrait in the initiative track, a featureless blue head and shoulders with a large aqua "T" on the face, vaguely suggestive of a certain kind of medieval helm. Oh, and the trap has a name when you put the cursor on that portrait... trap is named "Treasure Map #2", which of course carries the implication that it must have an associate named "Treasure Map #1" somewhere else in the World of Greyhawk.
Anyway, "Treasure Map #2" is a lazy entity, it only shocks people standing in the danger zone when it's Treasure Map #2's turn in combat. The game slows down during that action. but ultimately there is only one attempted zap. So, the good news is that it's quite easy for each of your party members to jog safely past Treasure Map #2 without getting zapped, as long as they don't finish their movement in the danger zone. The bad part? You can't leave combat mode, and you still can't do anything to those control boxes, either in or out of dialogue, to stop the trap from working. This is extremely unfortunate, because it means that your group will need to Dimension Door past this trap everytime you want to visit the Nodes, or else waste many spell slots on the shockproofing.
I re-fought the big battle with Hedrack, it's almost always good fun since my group is usually strong enough to smash the enemy, except when Iuz is zapping people. This time, my mighty 8th-level ally, Pintark, the former orc prisoner, got killed by Iuz, but the rest of my group was still alive when Cuthbert showed up. (Btw, I applied the first patch way back when I was going through the moathouse the first time, and that may be why I've never had a bizarre outcome with Iuz and Cuthbert. Then again, the most damage that one of my groups ever did to Iuz was 8 points, from several magic missile spells. Killing Iuz probably causes Cuthbert to act weird.
Anyway, this time Pintark turned weirdly ghostlike. He follows my group around, but he won't fight or talk to anybody. Also, his equipment is all missing, and he no longer shows up in the little 3D picture on his character sheet, even when I gave him some clothes to wear. Cynically, when I noticed that he could still use potions on people as long as it wasn't a combat situation, I loaded him down with my healing potions, making him the non-combat medic. But then he went and sold all the potions the next time we were at Mother Screng's! Very frustrating. It will be nice to nuke him and bring him back to life,as you suggested, although I will really miss the Masterwork Cleaver that he lost. I'll check back with you if I'm having trouble putting him down and bringing him back.
Overall, I like the idea of the new trap, it's just the execution (and placement) of it that I don't enjoy.
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Lord Plothos
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There is a loooong thread with a few mentions of the trap here and there over at co8:
http://www.co8.org/forum/showthread.php ... icity+trap
The highlights include something about beating temple residents (by doing non-lethal damage, I am guessing) to get a password, or else "killing" the trap with an ice storm spell. If you don't know that particular spell, you can use the console to get a scroll. Type:
give 9237
Let me know if that works.
http://www.co8.org/forum/showthread.php ... icity+trap
The highlights include something about beating temple residents (by doing non-lethal damage, I am guessing) to get a password, or else "killing" the trap with an ice storm spell. If you don't know that particular spell, you can use the console to get a scroll. Type:
give 9237
Let me know if that works.
Proud user and advocate of [url="http://rptools.net/doku.php?id=maptool:intro"]MapTool[/url]for all my RPing-at-a-distance.
(Use the lastest 1.3 build - it's still beta, but stable and far better than 1.2)
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I tried Ice Storm a couple of days ago and that didn't work, but now that you mention it, a couple of fights involving trolls opened up a dialogue box when I was down to the last troll, indicating a possibility of extracting info from them. My current party is not very good at the social skills, though, so we killed 'em.
I will read through that thread you linked to, and try some other things out. Thanks for the advice.
I will read through that thread you linked to, and try some other things out. Thanks for the advice.
I read through the 13 pages of that thread that you linked to, and tried everything except for getting info from the trolls. I would have to go too far back to my previous save and re-fight that intense battle with the Fire Temple to have a chance at interrogating 4th level trolls about the trap.
Here's a summary of what I have tried that didn't work, and everything that I tried with the first control box I also tried with the second:
1. Disable Device (9th. level Rogue, with disable device score of 13).
2. Open control Box, talk to ball of light.
3. Open control Box, attempt to disable device.
4. Cast spell Dispel Magic on both control boxes and trap zone.
5. Cast Ice Storm on both control boxes and trap zone.
6. Fireball on both control boxes and trap zone.
7. Call Lightning Storm on control box, trap zone.
8. Cast Knock Spell on control box.
9. Start a combat, and have my people run through trap zone with nobody still in it when trap's initiative comes up in combat order. This works fine, except that the combat never ends because the trap can't be killed in combat.
10. Let Scorpp club the control box.
Here's two things that worked, but left the trap functional, which is a huge and unacceptable hassle for a location right in the way of access to the nodes:
1. Boots of Speed get one person through safely.
2. Casting at least two spells that protect from electricity on each party member, but that's a lot of spell slots.
Also, I am still having problems with Pintark, my orc ally who was killed by Iuz and raised by Cuthbert. I can't kill him, not even by clicking on his portrait during combat, and the area of effect spells don't effect him. He won't drink Belsornig's poison that I placed in his inventory. Pintark can't be talked to now, so I can't ask him to leave the group, so he is counting against my 8-character limit.
Also, Pintark is invisible, and even his 3D portrait looks empty now. However, he still takes a share of the loot, and since all of his own equipment vanished, he has plenty of space for more stuff in inventory. It's like my party is being haunted by a ghost. From what I can tell, this only happens to my npcs that killed by Iuz and raised by Cuthbert.
Now, I installed this 1.5 patch while I had a game in progress. Could that have caused some of my problems?
Here's a summary of what I have tried that didn't work, and everything that I tried with the first control box I also tried with the second:
1. Disable Device (9th. level Rogue, with disable device score of 13).
2. Open control Box, talk to ball of light.
3. Open control Box, attempt to disable device.
4. Cast spell Dispel Magic on both control boxes and trap zone.
5. Cast Ice Storm on both control boxes and trap zone.
6. Fireball on both control boxes and trap zone.
7. Call Lightning Storm on control box, trap zone.
8. Cast Knock Spell on control box.
9. Start a combat, and have my people run through trap zone with nobody still in it when trap's initiative comes up in combat order. This works fine, except that the combat never ends because the trap can't be killed in combat.
10. Let Scorpp club the control box.
Here's two things that worked, but left the trap functional, which is a huge and unacceptable hassle for a location right in the way of access to the nodes:
1. Boots of Speed get one person through safely.
2. Casting at least two spells that protect from electricity on each party member, but that's a lot of spell slots.
Also, I am still having problems with Pintark, my orc ally who was killed by Iuz and raised by Cuthbert. I can't kill him, not even by clicking on his portrait during combat, and the area of effect spells don't effect him. He won't drink Belsornig's poison that I placed in his inventory. Pintark can't be talked to now, so I can't ask him to leave the group, so he is counting against my 8-character limit.
Also, Pintark is invisible, and even his 3D portrait looks empty now. However, he still takes a share of the loot, and since all of his own equipment vanished, he has plenty of space for more stuff in inventory. It's like my party is being haunted by a ghost. From what I can tell, this only happens to my npcs that killed by Iuz and raised by Cuthbert.
Now, I installed this 1.5 patch while I had a game in progress. Could that have caused some of my problems?
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Lord Plothos
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[QUOTE=Shellhead]Now, I installed this 1.5 patch while I had a game in progress. Could that have caused some of my problems?[/QUOTE]
I'm not sure, but I believe it might be problematic. I think I recall Liv recommending starting over when you use her patch, but I'm not sure. I know others have reported similar problems, though, so it may not be that this is the cause of your problems. I'm sorry to say I don't have much experience with Liv's mod.
You should probably drop a post over at co8, as just about everybody over there plays Liv, and Liv herself may even reply. Can't do much better in terms of getting help with a mod than to find the creator.
PS: Sorry I couldn't be more help.
I'm not sure, but I believe it might be problematic. I think I recall Liv recommending starting over when you use her patch, but I'm not sure. I know others have reported similar problems, though, so it may not be that this is the cause of your problems. I'm sorry to say I don't have much experience with Liv's mod.
You should probably drop a post over at co8, as just about everybody over there plays Liv, and Liv herself may even reply. Can't do much better in terms of getting help with a mod than to find the creator.
PS: Sorry I couldn't be more help.
Proud user and advocate of [url="http://rptools.net/doku.php?id=maptool:intro"]MapTool[/url]for all my RPing-at-a-distance.
(Use the lastest 1.3 build - it's still beta, but stable and far better than 1.2)
(Use the lastest 1.3 build - it's still beta, but stable and far better than 1.2)
I finally found a decent way around the new trap, at least to finish out this game. Assuming you've already fought the big battle with Hedrack and are just travelling to the Nodes, have your wizard-type use Dimension Door to hop over the trap area. Then have that same character walk solo to the desired portal to the Nodes and jump in. Just like any other door that opens into a new area, not just a new room, the rest of your party magically appears together.
EDIT: works even better on the way out, as that trap has a nasty tendency to stop character movement with each zap on the way out. Use Dimension Door to hop over trap, then send that character up the stairs and everybody else safely follows along.
EDIT: works even better on the way out, as that trap has a nasty tendency to stop character movement with each zap on the way out. Use Dimension Door to hop over trap, then send that character up the stairs and everybody else safely follows along.
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Lord Plothos
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Of course, if you're leaving, you might as well just use teleport.
But nice thought. I'll often do the moving just one character thing when roaming around Hommlet, as going through a door will bring everybody there.
But nice thought. I'll often do the moving just one character thing when roaming around Hommlet, as going through a door will bring everybody there.
Proud user and advocate of [url="http://rptools.net/doku.php?id=maptool:intro"]MapTool[/url]for all my RPing-at-a-distance.
(Use the lastest 1.3 build - it's still beta, but stable and far better than 1.2)
(Use the lastest 1.3 build - it's still beta, but stable and far better than 1.2)
Even after fighting Hedrack, my wizard was only 8th level, so Dimension Door was the way to go, until I finally got her up to 9th. This game started out as an experiment... Thieves' Guild, all five starting characters were rogues. By the time I finished the moathouse, only two of my original characters were still alive, and one of them switched over to cleric as soon as possible. With the AI of Liv's mod, it became even harder to keep my wizard alive.