Flail of Ages +5 Free Action Prevents Haste
Shift07
Member Posts: 11
I finally got my Flail of Ages +5 (with free action "bonus") and was pretty shocked to see that it would disable the haste from my boots of speed every time I equipped it. Further testing showed that it prevents all forms of haste. I played Baldur's Gate 2 years ago and am positive this did not happen then. I hope this is a bug and not a "fix" from what used to happen. If so they rendered the FoA +5 a pretty lousy weapon with just that one change. I'd almost be better off sticking with FoA +4. Anyone know if this is a bug that will hopefully be fixed?
Post edited by Dee on
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On the other hand, you could just dress your character in a different way and have both effects active to satisfy the crowd that believes that 'friendly' free action and haste effects can stack or co-exist together.
I'm of the latter crowd and feel there was no reason to fix this. I hope that it's something that can be returned to how it used to be. If not, then perhaps a mod...
@Shift07, if you built your character around the idea that this was not an exploit, and you are certain that the only thing that makes the Flail of Ages +5 worthwhile is the ability to also have haste, then I would say that editing your character (with EE keeper) to move those five proficiency points to another weapon would be justified. Personally, I agree that this weapon is good even without haste, but if you disagree then there's no point in letting your play up to this point go to waste.
@JTM, I disagree completely. There's always a reason to fix a bug. The goal of the Enhanced Editions, as I understand it, is not to absolutely replicate the experience of the original versions, but rather to bring the original versions forward with new content, bug fixes, and other enhancements. I'd like to think that the original Dev team would have fixed all the bugs in BG and BGII if time and money were not considerations. As such, I don't see fixing any bug as corrupting the games but rather advancing the goals of the original design.
The bug was the way haste and free action items had to be equipped in order to have free action and haste at the same time or they could be combined such that free action cancelled the haste effect. The 'fix' was to have free action cancel any haste effect which is a fix for the crowd that believes they should be mutually exclusive.
So while I have no problems in fixing bugs, I don't consider the haste/free action 'fix' a fix. The reason being is I don't consider haste and free action effects mutually exclusive on a character as they are 'friendly' buffs. This is closer to PnP rules and would prefer the spell to behave more accordingly.
Free Action is a friendly spell and effect which should be just that. It is a spell of 'free action' and not 'normal action'. It's intent is to prevent the influence of magic which 'impedes' movement such as Web and Slow for example. NOT gimp the haste effect and cancel it out like a Slow spell.