Sirene permanent rigid thinking bug?

BelgarathMTH

Hi, I'm sure I've seen this mentioned before in here, but there's no way to find it now.

I just went up against the sirenes for the first time in BG:EE.

First of all, Ajantis' protection from evil is not protecting against sirene mind control, and I thought it was supposed to.

I can live with that, but, one of them got him under a rigid thinking spell, and the effect appears to be permanent! I moved my whole party away, and watched the game clock move one hour, two hours.

No way. Is this a known bug? If not, I need to put something in the bug forums about it. Right now, this bug is making the Sirenes map unplayable. Bummer.

szb

Strange, I killed the sirens off a lot of times. I usually go there early to grab the tome, but I had no problems like you. Not sure about the protection from evil spell, but rigid thinking always wore off for me.

Shin

First of all protection from evil doesn't grant any protection from spells, just save bonus and attack roll penalty vs evil creatures.

Second, you sure it's rigid thinking (causes confusion)? Sirines are only meant to cast dire charm - and neither of those abilities are meant to be permanent or even last very long. In the case of charm, it's possible that you accidentally carried out a hostile action against Ajantis to keep him hostile. It's also possible that it bugged out. Charm doesn't always restore non-hostile status when wearing off the way it's supposed to.

BelgarathMTH

@szb, not for me, unfortunately. And I'm certain I saw another post about this! I wonder if it's a bug that's related to some item or active spell? Ajantis was using the Spider Sword of Free Action, and that Helm of Defense you get from the ogre mage, and was wearing the Boots of Speed, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

The Boots of Speed, or a Haste Spell, seem like likely culprits, if this is a bug. There is some kind of interaction going on here, or else a numerical mistake in the spell programming, such that if you roll a one or something like that on the spell duration, it turns into a 66,999 or whatever that weird Cloak of Algernon bug number is.

BelgarathMTH

@Shin, it was Rigid Thinking: icon, state description in the character screen, and all.

Also, sirenes have always been able to cast Rigid Thinking alternating with their Dire Charms. I've had it happen many, many times, in many, many runs on the old BG installs. It just lasted a normal amount of rounds.

szb

belgarathmth said:

@szb, not for me, unfortunately. And I'm certain I saw another post about this! I wonder if it's a bug that's related to some item or active spell? Ajantis was using the Spider Sword of Free Action, and that Helm of Defense you get from the ogre mage, and was wearing the Boots of Speed, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

The Boots of Speed, or a Haste Spell, seem like likely culprits, if this is a bug. There is some kind of interaction going on here, or else a numerical mistake in the spell programming, such that if you roll a one or something like that on the spell duration, it turns into a 66,999 or whatever that weird Cloak of Algernon bug number is.

I think theres a bug where hasted characters take double damage for poision(or poison effect last x2 as long not sure), so its quite possible that there are more haste related bugs around.

BelgarathMTH

@szb, I agree. I think I'll post this over on the bugs forum.

Shin

@belgarathmth Looked into the files now. Right, apparently the sirine melee attack can cause feeblemindedness and confusion. They're both limited to a 150 second duration though, unlike the mage spell feeblemind which lasts until dispelled.

BelgarathMTH

@Shin, ah, perhaps I made a mistake, and it was a Feeblemind that got Ajantis? Does that spell just make a party member stand there forever?

Interesting, if true. If the sirenes are casting fifth level spells now, that makes them much stronger than before, and characters of BG1 level are defenseless against that spell.

I'm not sure why the devs would do that on purpose. If the case is that what I encountered was a Feeblemind spell, then it is game-breaking, and is a bug. Ajantis remained hostile to the party while under both this spell and a Dire Charm, and he was going to stand there forever until killed. Then, even if I had let him die, other party members would have succumbed. And I'm not sure how the game would behave with a dead, Feebleminded party member in the party.

EDIT: oh, you say that the sirene version was supposed to be temporary? Well, it could be the case that they were managing to keep hitting him with a default attack before the spell could wear off. I still think that it's gamebreaking.

Shin

@belgarathmth Yes, the sirines don't actually cast it as a spell, it's an effect from their melee weapons - and that effect is limited to 150 seconds. So unless reapplied it should eventually wear off unless something's wrong.

BelgarathMTH

@Shin, hmmm. Well, if it's not a bug, it could conceivably just be that they kept reapplying the effect.

Dang, these b*****s are powerful, if they're not bugged. BG1 characters have no defense. The only thing I can think of that might work would be an invisible cleric to find them, and cast Silence before they can do anything.

I will probably avoid them completely on future runs. I always play minimal reload, and the sirenes are far too risky with very little to yield in return for facing such extreme risk.

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Pantalion

@belgarathmth

Animate dead. Skeletons have no minds, are immune to poison, and stab them in the face with delightful glee.

In fact, two castings of animate dead is usually sufficient to kill a full troupe of three sirenes or more, much like they can perforate basilisks with little risk.

This, or any other summon expends their resources (including their limited number of arrows) and leaves them open to a facile ranged termination at no risk whatsoever.

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BelgarathMTH

@Shandyr, Flesh golems don't scare me. Sirenes who can permanently mind control my party, now, that's scary.

@Pantalion, holy crap! That's how to beat them with virtually no risk! And you could use an invisible cleric to guide them! Now, if only Lawful Good me didn't find that whole idea deliciously, but prohibitively EEE-V IIIIIIIIL. LOL.

Pantalion

@belgarathmth

Disregarding the moral implications of animating skeletal remains when no dead creatures are present (inferring that the bones themselves are as much a construct of the spell as the animation thereof), if necromancy is barred, then the traditional level 4 spells conjure creatures from the ether. These creatures are fabricated by magic and are entirely expendable without concern for their well-being, as they return to the aether living or dead, making them perfect fodder to expend the 2-3 dire charm spells available to each Sirine.

This coincides with the universal premise for success; delegate.