[1.2] Missing monsters (including a boss) in AR 0511 in Durlag's Tower

Rann

In the southwest area of AR0511, I encountered the two flesh golems (1976,2330) while sneaking about. I managed to lure one of them back to my party waiting at (1284,2344) and finished him off. I then attempted to lure the other one -- and he was simply gone. I searched the entire level, and he wasn't there.

I thought that was odd, but ignored it, though I was irked not to have the opportunity to miss out on the XP from it. However, I just encountered the same thing with Fear. I parked my party in (409,1820) and went off to answer Love's riddle, having already answered the other riddles. I then sped back to the party and lured out Avarice, Pride, and Love. Avarice was last -- he actually softened himself up with the Cloudkill spell, and then we finished him off. All during the Cloudkill, I kept getting messages that Fear was immune to it, so I know that Fear was very close to Avarice. So, after Avarice fell, I went to attack him -- and he was totally gone, just like the flesh golem. I searched the entire level and adjacent levels, just in case he "slipped" accidentally through a stairway -- he simply could not be found.

This seems like a pretty bad bug and worth investigating before BG2:EE ships, in case it has the same problem.

Rann

(Saved game attached.)

Mathsorcerer

If you use Near Infinity you could edit fear.bcs and add

IF
Global("WardensMove","LOCALS",0)
Dead("love")
THEN
RESPONSE #100
Enemy()
MoveToObject([PC])
SetGlobal("WardensMove","LOCALS",2)
END

which will force him to seek you out and prevent the other part of his script from triggering and making him try to move to Love. If you don't use Near Infinity then I can upload the script file for you to put into your override folder.

Rann

Much obliged! I don't use NI, I fear (pardon the pun) -- if you had a script handy I'd give it a whirl and see if Fear is in fact gone or just lost (though I still think there's a bigger problem here, given the flesh golem).

Interestingly enough, I'm not seeing the problem (yet) on the next level, where I've been luring out Greater Ghouls, so it's possible that this is not an endemic problem.

Mathsorcerer

No, as long as you can get down to the next level I wouldn't worry about Fear at all. I checked your save game file and sure enough his state is still "normal" so he isn't dead. *shrug* That is particularly odd, though, I have to admit.

Rann

Just had it happen again on the next level -- and this time there's no possibility that I am mistaken. It was a Phoenix Guard, standing roughly at (915,650) in AR0508. I caught sight of him, minorly wounded him with one arrow, ran back to my party at the door so that he was left behind in the fog of war, made sure everyone had missile weapons turned on, and then turned around and went back to him -- and he was *gone*. No hiding, no explosion -- just gone. In that tiny room, there is no place to go, so this is clearly a bug, and a bad one.

Mathsorcerer

hrm....I don't have an answer for that. I wonder if he somehow managed to walk into an impassible area on the map as it has been demonstrated can happen with your party members? *shrug* I haven't encountered that but I do agree that you aren't mistaking what is happening. The Phoenix guards death triggers a spell that has a chance to replace them with another copy of themselves but the copy doesn't start off invisible.

Rann

And... with one of the chessboard bishops too. Yuck.

Mathsorcerer

You don't happen to have any mods installed, do you? I should have asked earlier but neglected to do so. I don't use other people's mods, only my own, so sometimes my game experience is different than that of most other people.

Rann

Nope, no mods. I take both my BG:EE and my whiskey straight up.

Rann

Only thing I'm doing different than normal, actually, is that I'm playing with DebugMode=1 in order to compensate with control-R for a different bug (one where CHARNAME loses HP on reloading on a save -- see elsewhere in the forum for details.

Mathsorcerer

I'll take one of those whiskeys, myself. I'll take a second look at the file you uploaded earlier and see what I can come up with.

I saw the other thread about losing health on reloading but I haven't encountered that bug, either, and I have a wizard slayer whose con is 20 but she doesn't lose health. I may even try equipping Bentley's Buckler, as well, just to bump her con to a 21 and see what happens.

Myrmuzduur

I'd just like to add here that for me those Flesh Golems just were not there. I wondered why at the time because I'd remembered them from a previous playthrough.

I had no problem with the Wardens. Though I gathered all their items and did their quests before talking to them so they probably didn't have a chance to glitch.

prophet1

I have encountered a similar thing as well a few times. I don't have a screenshot handy, but a more-or-less reliable way of replicating this would be:
1) draw attention of several hostile creatures
2) move away, breaking line of sight and causing them to disappear in "fog of war"
3) it's possible one of the conditions for this to happen is an obstacle of some sort on the projected path of the hostile creatures towards the retreating character. I.e. they have have to walk around something to reach you.
4) come back to lift fog of war - sometimes one of the creatures "vanishes" and is nowhere to be found.

I suspect this bug may be closely related to this one:
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/7908/bug-bounty-imoen-walked-through-mountain-of-gnoll-fortress#latest
Look at the attached screenshot of Yeslick running through a wall - if this can happen to player-controlled characters, it's plausible this could happen to AI-controlled creatures as well.

Tagging @Dee so he takes notice.

Mathsorcerer

Well, the good news is that I found Fear. I looked at the ar0511 file from the saved game and his current position is 1536.1572, putting him in the little hallway to the southwest of the portal down to the next level.

The bad news is that I don't know how it transpired that he became broken in this manner--you couldn't see or interact with him (it?) and he couldn't interact with you. Truly bizarre.

Rann

Interesting. In one of the cases (Golem), an obstacle was involved. With the Phoenix Guard and the bishop, that wasn't the case. Glad I'm not crazy, though (at least in this case) -- my profuse thanks for the investigation here, @Mathsorcerer, and for the loop-in, @prophet1!