Avoiding the Exploding Freezing of Cold Damage
kjeron
Member Posts: 2,368
I found a rather simple solution to avoid the Freezing Explosion caused by dying of massive cold damage and thought I should share:
A character that is Mazed or Imprisoned while they take massive cold damage will not receive the associated "Kill - Exploding Freezing" effect, but it will still be dead and frozen (STATE:FROZEN DEATH). Imprison is a dead end for its various hard-coded aspects, but Maze works just fine so long as the creature is not immune to the Maze effect. Fortunately, most items that grant creatures immunity to Maze are MinHP items, which have no risk of a Freezing death anyway. Unfortunately, the Barbarian and Berserker's rages grant immunity to the Maze effect, so they will have to be edited to match the Chaotic Commands spell, which grants immunity specifically to the Maze Spell itself, not the Maze effect.
Anyway, Effect order:
Maze(213): Permanent/Death, Param2:Use Duration(1)
Damage(12): Cold, Permanent/Death
Freedom(212): Permanent/Death
Target will remain as a frozen statue until it is hit, similar to a petrified creature. It will no longer explode on its own if left untouched. EXP is awarded the same way as petrification: once for freezing it, and again should you defrost and kill(or freeze) them again later.
Add the defrost effect(14) to all fire spells right before their damage effect and it will defrost and kill them normally, so no item destruction.
Can't edit weapons that deal fire damage to do this though - the weapon's own hit registers before any of their effects have a chance, shattering the creature before it can be defrosted, even if it doesn't deal any damage.
All that's left to do is make "Ice to Flesh" spell/scrolls to defrost without killing.
With IWD:EE opcodes, you can even make certain spells that deal cold damage ignore already frozen enemies, so it won't shatter them.
Also learned something else I did not know while doing this:
Petrified and Frozen creatures are not treated as "Helpless", you actually have to "roll to hit" and destroy them, its not an automatic hit like being held/asleep/etc.
A character that is Mazed or Imprisoned while they take massive cold damage will not receive the associated "Kill - Exploding Freezing" effect, but it will still be dead and frozen (STATE:FROZEN DEATH). Imprison is a dead end for its various hard-coded aspects, but Maze works just fine so long as the creature is not immune to the Maze effect. Fortunately, most items that grant creatures immunity to Maze are MinHP items, which have no risk of a Freezing death anyway. Unfortunately, the Barbarian and Berserker's rages grant immunity to the Maze effect, so they will have to be edited to match the Chaotic Commands spell, which grants immunity specifically to the Maze Spell itself, not the Maze effect.
Anyway, Effect order:
Maze(213): Permanent/Death, Param2:Use Duration(1)
Damage(12): Cold, Permanent/Death
Freedom(212): Permanent/Death
Target will remain as a frozen statue until it is hit, similar to a petrified creature. It will no longer explode on its own if left untouched. EXP is awarded the same way as petrification: once for freezing it, and again should you defrost and kill(or freeze) them again later.
Add the defrost effect(14) to all fire spells right before their damage effect and it will defrost and kill them normally, so no item destruction.
Can't edit weapons that deal fire damage to do this though - the weapon's own hit registers before any of their effects have a chance, shattering the creature before it can be defrosted, even if it doesn't deal any damage.
All that's left to do is make "Ice to Flesh" spell/scrolls to defrost without killing.
With IWD:EE opcodes, you can even make certain spells that deal cold damage ignore already frozen enemies, so it won't shatter them.
Also learned something else I did not know while doing this:
Petrified and Frozen creatures are not treated as "Helpless", you actually have to "roll to hit" and destroy them, its not an automatic hit like being held/asleep/etc.
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Comments
Afaik, defrost opcode had no effect in gameplay, and there is no way to prevent frozen corpses from exploding.
I have developed a flesh to ice spell even, replacing phantom blade spell (no one bothers to use it) it was like a lower lvl flesh to stone, but with a very shorter range and a save vs death. (so easier to save for nearly every creature, except mages.) By the by, why doesn't vanilla flesh to stone require a save vs petrification?
- The Ice to Flesh Spell scrolls are added to any store that sells Cone of Cold or Stone to Flesh. The Ice to Flesh Protection Scrolls are added to any temple that sell Stone to Flesh Protection scrolls. ICEFLESH.ITM and ICE2FLSH.ITM if you just want to console them in. The spell is added at the next available level 5 slot, so I don't know what it will be named.
- Frozen creatures are still considered hostile, so you cannot rest in there presence, and if you have Party AI on they will be attacked and shattered.
Why does Flesh to Stone have a Save vs. Spell instead of Save vs. Petrification? I had to check, and I still can't believe it's true.