Strange Bug with Anomen and his Holy Symbol

S3nsenmann

Hello everyone,
I'm playing Baldurs Gate 2 on an Ipad Air.
so I'm right before the imprisoned one and after getting the experience for breaking the final seal, Anomen gets a Level Up to 25, where he should get his Holy Symbol. But instead He gets a redded out slot in His inventory which I can click on, but then it says "not usably by: anyone".
Viconia received her Holy Symbol correctly when leveling up to 25.
I tried searching, but didnt anything about this Bug.
Now ofc I could copy the savegame to my MAC, then console the holy Symbol in and maybe even delete the taken up slot in EEKeeper.
But I think I should report this, perhaps someone knows a solution.
I've attached two screenshots, where you can see the slot and the description of the "item"
Edit: I got the symbol after resting, didnt notice this behaviour before, the thread can be closed...

Troodon80

I know you said the thread can be closed, but there's still the strange matter of the unknown item. Does that item get removed when you rest? Do you still have it?

This works fine on PC, so it sounds like an iPad issue. Can you confirm, @CrevsDaak‌?

CrevsDaak

@Troodon80 I'll give you this save, where Anomen has the exact XP to reach level 25, pause the game, enter the Record screen and level Anomen up, go to the Inventory screen without unpausing the game, and you'll see this item the OP is talking about. I tested this in the computer version, there isn't a way of giving 1,5 millions XP to Anomen in the iPad version and it happens the same.

Troodon80

@CrevsDaak, that's interesting. And weird. I'll look into it. :-)

Hurricane

@CrevsDaak @Troodon80‌
I believe this is the same phenomenon I once came across and asked about in the Fixpack forum. If I'm not mistaken, what you see after levelling up is a dummy item that is supposed to get swapped for the real Holy Symbol by script. This was introduced by the Fixpack and fixes the "Clerics Receiving Multiple Holy Symbols" exploit. From the Fixpack Readme:

At level 25, clerics receive a Holy Symbol as a one-time bonus. Because of how the engine handled this, the mechanism for receiving Holy Symbols could be exploited by repeatedly kicking out and re-adding high-level clerics to the party.

The only reason why players might get to see the dummy icon is because if they have paused the game, then level up and go into the inventory without unpausing, the script cannot fire in-between. Trying to summon @CamDawg for confirmation. Now that we see how it can affect unsuspecting players, would it be possible to somehow refine the Fixpack solution or find a better way to achieve this for the Enhanced Editions?

S3nsenmann

I didnt check on Vicona this Savegame, she just had it in her Inventory while I was sifting through my Party Inventory.
And yes, the Item disappeared after Resting and Instead there was the holy Symbol

Troodon80

@Hurricane, I agree that it's a dummy item. Not sure where it was introduced, but I'll take your word on that since it makes sense.

In that case, it might be better to make it so that it can be equipped by everyone. That way, there will be no red overlay. Since it appears that CamDawg was last on about a month ago, I wouldn't expect a quick reply.

CrevsDaak

@Hurricane I suspected that, but as I played very little with the Fixpack I didn't find out that I couldn't be sure.

@Troodon80‌ I think that making it usable by everyone (or just clerics since it will disappear in seconds and you can't move it plus no one else gets it) should work fine.

Also, I've found a bug related to this: if you are in a MP run and have a Cleric created by yourself that has a different alignement than the PC, the cleric will get a Holy Symbol of the PC's alignement, first let me reproduce and then I'll make a thread.

Hurricane

I've just tested this myself. I made a savegame with the dummy item in the cleric's inventory and looked at it in NearInfinity. The item is indeed CDHLYSYM.itm introduced by the Fixpack.

So even though this is "intended behavior" in terms of what is going on, I wish there was a better way to do this. Sure, the item could be made usable in order to get rid of the red overlay, but this is only kicking the problem down the road, because another player might then report that one inventory slot is occupied by an invisible item. The item could also get a name or description that says something like "creating the Holy Symbol, please unpause the game for a second" to make the players help themselves and prevent confusion, but something like that would break immersion of course.

I hope I don't sound too audacious when I say that Overhaul should try to work out a real solution to this exploit, instead of relying on the Fixpack's method. The Fixpack does wonderful things within the limits of what modding can achieve. But the Enhanced Editions should be able to do better than a crude workaround that confuses players. Is there someone from Overhaul we can call to take up this problem, other than CamDawg?

CrevsDaak

Actually, I just got a very good idea, as this happens with NPCs and PCs, particular Symbols could be created for them, plus if a global AND a global checker to avoid this from being triggered, Viconia, Anomen and Aerie will have their own god's symbols, and as you can't kick the PC (unless CRTL+K and it ends the game), this could work well, he won't get it twice.

CamDawg

Hurricane said:

@CrevsDaak @Troodon80‌
I believe this is the same phenomenon I once came across and asked about in the Fixpack forum. If I'm not mistaken, what you see after levelling up is a dummy item that is supposed to get swapped for the real Holy Symbol by script. This was introduced by the Fixpack and fixes the "Clerics Receiving Multiple Holy Symbols" exploit. From the Fixpack Readme:

At level 25, clerics receive a Holy Symbol as a one-time bonus. Because of how the engine handled this, the mechanism for receiving Holy Symbols could be exploited by repeatedly kicking out and re-adding high-level clerics to the party.

The only reason why players might get to see the dummy icon is because if they have paused the game, then level up and go into the inventory without unpausing, the script cannot fire in-between. Trying to summon @CamDawg for confirmation. Now that we see how it can affect unsuspecting players, would it be possible to somehow refine the Fixpack solution or find a better way to achieve this for the Enhanced Editions?
The EE version is a bit slicker IIRC since it uses TransformItem to cut down on the feedback messages, but overall the mechanism remains the same.