Thief's Detect Illusion Not Working Reliably at 100+ Points

bbross

Current behavior :
Thief's skill "Detect Illusion" fails to dispel illusions even at 100+ pts. I experienced 3 notable occurances in my last playthrough : an invisible Ashirikuru in Durlag's Tower, Shaldrissa's mirror image in Undercity and Semaj's mirror image during final battle.

Expected behavior :
Notwithstanding the occasional critical failure (if that even applies), 100 pts in Detect Illusion should successfully and reliably dispel any illusion regardless of any non-detection spell.

Note 1 : if that's not a bug, I would really, -really- appreciate having more information on how that skill works.
i.e. how success is tested, what modifiers apply, etc.

Note 2 : not sure I should open another bug report for this but if one attacks a target and -then- activates "detect traps", one is able to do both at the same time.

smeagolheart

@bbross

seems like a bug to me. It should work.

Note that your illusion detecter must not engage in another activity (such as running off and attacking) or that will cancel the detect traps modal action. The ability should fire off every round (6 seconds). I have used it and seen it work in BG2.

" Detect Illusions - Perhaps the most overlooked ability in Baldur's
Gate II. This acts as a True Sight that your thief can activate by
selecting "Find Traps" as a modal action. If you're going to use
this, you probably want to go all the way as fast as you can, since
generally you want to dispel illusions as fast as possible (although
the circus illusions are harmless and leaving a Detect Illusions at
10% on for a few rounds doesn't hurt you any).
In some respects, a high level Detect Illusions is even better
than True Sight, since it doesn't wipe out your own illusions and
since you essentially have an infinite use of it.
So what are illusions? The really annoying spells, fortunately for
a high level Detect Illusions: Mirror Image, (Improved) Invisibility
(which also includes Shadow Door, Invisibility 10' Radius, etc.),
Mislead (yes!), Simulacrum (woah!), Project Image (holy crap!), and
Blur. Also, the werewolves and shadows in the Circus Tent are
illusions, but the clones in Irenicus's dungeon are not (though they
seem like Simulacra of your characters).
The only problem is that it takes a while to "activate" after
selecting "Find Traps." Fortunately, this doesn't really
translate into anything but a shorter casting cost of a True Sight." - From this good reading: http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/470765-baldurs-gate-ii-throne-of-bhaal/faqs/27550

bbross

@smeagolheart

Thanks for your input.

I confirm that I was unable to produce the skill's desired effects in those 3 instances even when standing still next to the target (modal action enabled, of course). I tried several times, even bumping Detect Illusion to 150, 200 and 250 with EE Keeper.

It worked in every other situation I used it in. Just failed in those 3 occurrences.

Dispel Magic and Remove Magic spells still worked.

Oh, and as far as Ashirikurus are concerned, it consistently failed on one of them, but worked on others. The rebellious one's position is shown as a red dot on attached image.

Tresset

@smeagolheart Check out issue #4232 next time you go to redmine.

I think that would explain this behavior.

"Many enemy spellcasters use items to simulate pre-buffs such as mirror image or stoneskin. The problem is that since these effects are granted by equipping effects and not from a proper spell, they lack spell schools and secondary types. This leads to odd bugs like stoneskin not being subject to breach or mirror image not going away from detect illusions." ~ @CamDawg

AlexT

@Tresset A fix for the Shaldrissa/Semaj Mirror Image bug is in the works.

As for the Ashirikurus, it can be assumed that they are initially hiding in shadows so we're not making any changes there for now.

bbross

Thanks for the (impressively quick) feedback and clarification.