Rescuing Garren's Child problem

BlackForest

Hello, I seem to be having a bit of a problem with the Rescuing Garren's (Gerran's?) Child quest. I'm not sure if it's a bug or not, but it seems likely.

I found the child in the locked cell, who told me to get the key from the mage. I went and talked to Firkraag who sent the mage upstairs to wait for me.
No problems so far.

I encountered the mage, and I am not really sure what happened with it. I think I killed him, but he didn't leave a loot-able corpse, and the glowing effects from his spells sort of- ran away. I have looked all over the dungeon, but I cannot find him anywhere. I checked around on the internet, but for everyone it sounds like it was apparently fairly straight forward.

Loub

It is possible he cast some sort of invisibility spell, try using True Sight at the jail area and he should show up.
Either that or he got disintegrated.

Tresset

For some reason, certain mages (including this one) tend to wander off once they become hostile. Probably an issue with their script. My best guess is he is still in the area somewhere... Try checking the corners of the area. If you can't find him then you can create the key by typing the following in the console (case sensitive):

C:CreateItem("key09")

Troodon80

I wonder if this is the same issue affecting some of the other mages in the game (Edit: Ninja'd by Tresset). If he's not in the jail itself, then he may have walked to the top-left corner of the map (or as close as possible).

If you can upload a saved game, then someone can take a look at it. You'll want to Zip up the entire 00000000x-[Save Game] folder and use the 'Attach a file' link just under the comment box here on the forum. I don't think there are any variables that are set after he dies, but it would probably be best to find and kill him anyway.

Tresset

@Troodon80 I can confirm that he runs into the corner as he has done that to me in my games (I just don't have any saved games from there right now). I am wondering if the beholder's 'shoot the corner' issue is caused by the same bug. I actually do think it is the script because when I looked for other mages with Conster's (firkraag's mage)script, Mekrath (Haer'dalis' captor) came up and he exhibits this behavior too IIRC. I would also like to point out that there could be multiple mage scripts with this issue since Vithal (underdark elemental portal dude) has the behavior as well but is on a different script.

CrevsDaak

Tresset said:

I am wondering if the beholder's 'shoot the corner' issue is caused by the same bug.

vanilla beholders have the buggiest scripts in the world (it's an exaggeration but they are by far the worst I think), they use the (SecondNearest([PC]) target, so if you play solo they just shoot to X:0 Y:0 (that's what I get by shoot the corner).
Edit: and re-making all the silly scripts in the game would be my dream! I can't play vanilla without face-palming (and without SCS because mages still easy, but that's another thing), I think that just a good selection of targets/triggers and done for the updating the vanilla scripts, to make the game harder you have SCS.

BlackForest

Wow, that was frighteningly fast. I wasn't expecting to get a response for days.

I checked the points closest to the corners with detect invisibility (that reveals the same things as true seeing, right?), as well as the prison room, but I didn't find him (sneaky little weasel).

I think I give up.

are the NPCs on a level stored in some kind of data structure you can iterate through? like
for (int i = 0; i < creatures.length; i++) {
print(creature)
} or something?
No idea what is do-able with the console.

Tresset

Well, If you still want to look for him, he is probably somewhere in the upper left corner of the area, or somewhere in the green box in the screenshot:

I highly discourage messing with your save file's data structure as that is an easy way to corrupt your saved game. There are far easier ways to get the key than that.

I would recommend creating the key with the console. If you have not activated the console yet then go here for instructions on how to do that. Then, once the console is activated, simply type the following into it (case sensitive):

C:CreateItem("key09")

Doing this will add the key that will open the cell doors into your inventory.

BlackForest

I ended up adding the item with the console. Worked perfectly. Thanks a lot!!
Now to rescue Imoen!

Tresset said:

I highly discourage messing with your save file's data structure.

Messing with the save files data structure?

Tresset

I was referring to your comment here:

BlackForest said:

are the NPCs on a level stored in some kind of data structure you can iterate through? like
for (int i = 0; i < creatures.length; i++) {
print(creature)
} or something?

There is a way to mess with that sort of thing if you have something that can read .sav and .gam files (like NearInfinity) but It is very easy to screw up your save file if you don't know what you are doing.

BlackForest

Oh, I see. Interesting.
Thanks!

Troodon80

@BlackForest, if you still have a saved game that you can upload (even after leaving the area) then we can take a look at it and find out where he is (just in case you run into any problems that require Conster to be dead before you can proceed).