Does petrification wear off?

Tok

Some enemies can cause the characters to freeze, i Think its petrification. Does it wear off over time? Or do you need to cast a spell to relelase the frozen character?
I Think the sign on the character Picture is a roman 3 or something.

Metalloman

That symbol means that the Character is held.
you need a cleric spell "Remove Paralisys" if you're in the middle of the combat, or just wait: that spell could have different durations depending on the caster's power, it could stay for one round or more, like five, ten, etc.

Tok

Ah, thank you. So you can simply wait?

Shin

Hold usually lasts for one turn, i.e. one minute. Actual petrification will remove the character from your party (or end the game if it hits charname) and turn them grey-coloured. It's permanent, and you won't be able to interact with them again until you cast stone to flesh on them.

Metalloman

Yes, if you are petrified instead of simply held you need the spell "stone to flesh" either in scroll (found in temples) or via the same name mage spell.
if your PC is the one petrified...the game ends, so those spells are useful only on NPCs.

Belanos

Tok said:

Ah, thank you. So you can simply wait?

There's two type of things that can happen. First, you can become paralyzed, which it sounds like this is what you're describing. This condition will wear off in time, or you can cast a Dispel Magic spell or Remove Paralysis to get rid of it earlier. But there's also an effect that turns you to stone. This is caused by certain rare creatures like a Basilisk or a mage Flesh to Stone spell. That doesn't wear off in time. Once you're turned to stone, the only way to become normal again is to have someone cast a Stone to Flesh spell.

Tok

Thank you. Probably was just some paralyzis things then, but now iv met some basilisk, i thnink they were called.

Where can you find protection from petrification scrolls?

Shin

Check with Thalantyr at High Hedge, he carries a lot of scrolls. Later in the game also Sorcerous Sundries in Baldur's Gate.

Moradin

@Tok IIRC Gellana at the Friendly Arm Inn should also have some protection from petrification and/or stone to flesh scrolls.

the_spyder

Protection from Petrification is also a common random drop as scrolls go. During any given game, i will normally have half a dozen by mid game merely from finding them on corpses. it is also a 1st level spell if you happen to have a charname wizard. I highly recommend it because of the basilisks in a couple of areas.

Also, it is noteworthy that carrying around Stone to Flesh scrolls is a very good idea. You can buy them in a bunch of different places. I want to say that the temple in Nashkal has them. I know that the temple outside of Beregost has them.

Basilisks are (or at least they used to be) a random encounter about mid game.

Belanos

the_spyder said:

I want to say that the temple in Nashkal has them.

So why don't you? I know it has at least one there, because that's where I used to buy it from in order to release Branwen at the Carnival so she could join my party.