Chain Contingency, and fast?

Malahm

Where's the earliest conceivable oppurtunity to get a chain contingency scroll? I don't really want to have to wait till the end of SoA for Ribald to stock it...is there a quicker way to get it legit?

This is in regard to a WM solo.

sarevok57

noope, ribald is the quickest way in SoA, in ToB the holmes there in saradush sells two copies of it, but there is no way faster than ribald

Malahm

sarevok57 said:

noope, ribald is the quickest way in SoA, in ToB the holmes there in saradush sells two copies of it, but there is no way faster than ribald

Not even in a random loot pool, or pickpocketed from mages, or nobles, or something?

Off-topic: can you pickpocket an NPC more than once, if you zone out or wait a week, etc.?

sarevok57

Malahm said:

sarevok57 said:

noope, ribald is the quickest way in SoA, in ToB the holmes there in saradush sells two copies of it, but there is no way faster than ribald

Not even in a random loot pool, or pickpocketed from mages, or nobles, or something?

unfortunately not, the only level 9 spell that is in a loot table is spell trap, so you will just have to go with contingency until you hit chapter 6

Malahm said:

sarevok57 said:

noope, ribald is the quickest way in SoA, in ToB the holmes there in saradush sells two copies of it, but there is no way faster than ribald

Off-topic: can you pickpocket an NPC more than once, if you zone out or wait a week, etc.?

nope, once you pick pocket someone for their goodies, that is it, once there is nothing more to steal, then there will never be more to steal from that NPC

Malahm

Ahhh...tyvm for your concise answers. Now it seems a bit intimidating to try, lol. I guess having CC to take the challenge out of a hardcore WM would be nothing to be proud of. It would've been satisfying, though. Makes a sorc or multi look weak.

Grond0

Are you playing with EE? If so then it's no longer possible to stack chaos shields into a sequencer or contingency and get multiple benefits from them. That means you do have to take some risks if you want to progress with a WM .

Malahm

Grond0 said:

Are you playing with EE? If so then it's no longer possible to stack chaos shields into a sequencer or contingency and get multiple benefits from them. That means you do have to take some risks if you want to progress with a WM .

I tested with an editor (in BG1EE, though), and it seems that spells cast from a contingency have no chance to surge, nor does the contingency itself. So you can Nahal's a CC and the spell cast therefrom will be safe. One difference is that casting with Nahal's makes CC actually have a cast time of what I suspect is one full round, while usually it goes off the instant it's selected. That last point also makes it insanely OP.

This behavior mirrors that from the classic games, I believe.

Grond0

I agree that spells cast from a contingency won't surge. However, it's not possible in the EE to cast sequencers / contingencies using Nahal's (at least in v2.3).

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kjeron

@subtledoctor
Nonsense, sequencer and contingency spells can be cast through nahals.

What you can't do is put nahal's, sequencers, contingencies, identify, wondrous recall, or find familiar into a sequencer/contingency(CONTINGX.2da).

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Grond0

kjeron said:

Nonsense, sequencer and contingency spells can be cast through nahals.

@kjeron You sound very confident about that, but have you actually tested it? Here's a screenshot from unmodded v2.3 showing spell sequencer and spell trigger as known spells and another screenshot showing all spells selectable to be cast through Nahal's - notice anything missing?

kjeron

kjeron

We're both right:
BG1/Sod/IWD Nahal's is a Wild Mage spell that selects all known mage spells.
BG2 Nahal's is an Invocation spell that respects CONTINGX.2da.
When will they ever fix BG2's nahal's...

Grond0

@kjeron To double check I tried the same test on another v2.3 installation I've got with a few mods added. Then, to triple check, I went back to an old v1.3 installation. Just to make sure it wasn't a PC vs NPC issue I also spawned Neera to see if her behaviour was different.

Those checks confirm that it's not possible to use sequencers or contingencies through Nahal's in any of my EE installations. If that's not the case for you then I guess it's perhaps to do with where the game was bought - I have the Beamdog versions. Do you have any alternative explanation?

Kurona

I tried as well and obtained the same results as @Grond0: impossible to select sequencers or contingencies for Nahal's Reckless Dweomer. Otherwise it correctly displays the known spells list. I bought the games from Gog so I don't think it's Beamdog-launcher exclusive behavior.

Near Infinity tells me there is a unique parameter for the Select Spell opcode: 2 (Unknown). Pretty sure it didn't exist in the original. I'm not an expert by any means but there might be something hardcoded here.

Edit: My SoD installation however uses the old 1 (Known Spells) parameter and I still can't pick sequencers. Mystery.

Malahm

Wow... I'm glad I mentioned that I was testing in BG:EE. I guess it's a balance thing, to disallow contingencies to be cast through NRD.

kjeron said:

@subtledoctor
Nonsense, sequencer and contingency spells can be cast through nahals.

What you can't do is put nahal's, sequencers, contingencies, identify, wondrous recall, or find familiar into a sequencer/contingency(CONTINGX.2da).

I should mention, though, that in my version of BG:EE (which is 2.something), with an EEKeeper'd Neera, I can load Nahal's into a chain contingency, and if I place two or more in the same contingency I can cast Nahal's nonstop for as long as I preserve the Nahal's "menu" by not left-clicking anything else.