BGII:EE Phaere missing from Female Fighter's Society

Calleklovn

Hi there!

I'm stuck at the point in the game where I'm supposed to meet Phaere at the Female Fighter's Society after Matron Mother locks down the city to prepare for the ritual. When I enter the room, Phaere is there for about a second before she just disappears, and nothing seems to bring her back. Unfortunately, all my quick saves are after triggering this part of the quest, so my only alternative is to load at the chapter save.

I was hoping someone here might know how to fix my save or suggest some debug command I might try to bring this campaign back on track.

Tresset

I will look into this issue for you as soon as I can, but could you first tell me if you are using any mods that may affect this?

Calleklovn

No, not using any mods.

I'm on a Steam Store Mac version, in case that matters at all.

Tresset

Hmmm... Very odd... From what I can tell from your save, it appears you ran out of time to meet with Phaere and the she should have teleported to you and made the city go hostile. It also appears that this happened at the exact moment you were in Jarlaxle's base. I am really not sure how this could have happened, but maybe you finished Jarlaxle's quest and he summoned you to his base at the exact moment the timer expired, and then Jarlaxle kicked you out of his base before Phaere could tell you that you failed and make the city hostile. This is just a theory, but it is the only way I can imagine this happening.

If you have no saves prior to entering Jarlaxle's base for the last time, then I suppose I could try fixing your save so that it is as if your timer never expired, but that would involve a lot of screwing with things. It would be a lot of effort, so if you have a save where you are still in drow form illusion I would try using that one instead. Let me know what you want to do.

Calleklovn

I only have saves after dealing with Jarlaxle as you've described, in addition to the save upon starting chapter 5. So basically, either the save I've uploaded is fixable, or I restart chapter 5 and redo the whole thing. If you say it's a lot of effort which could potentially mess up a lot of stuff, then maybe it's not worth it.

Tresset

It may not be worth it, no... Still, I am pretty good at screwing with things. I would be willing to give it a try sometime later, maybe today or tomorrow. Your choice.

Tresset

By the way, if you want to get out of the situation you are currently in, you would have to make the city go hostile. You can do that by attacking a random drow (note that you have to kill Ardulace to escape, now that the city is sealed) or by entering the following code into your console to make Phaere appear again:

C:SetGlobal("udPhaTimerOn","GLOBAL",1)

Calleklovn

Thanks, I used the code to trigger the event that should have occurred and fought my way out. Better than grinding through an area I was already done with anyway. Thanks for the help!

Skatan

Glad it worked out @Calleklovn!

@Tresset, I'm a curious guy and like to learn new things, so my first thought when I read the OP was to summon Phaere using the creature code. Couldn't that have worked or would the effect have been the same, Phaere instantly disappearing when spawned?

Tresset

@Skatan There are two creature files for Phaere (and Solaufein); each with a different number at the end. udphae01 is the one that exists while you are doing the quests in the city, and remains in existence as long as you are keeping all your timer deadlines. If a timer for her quest runs out, that creature is removed from the game by scripts (which is why the Phaere was disappearing, as described in the OP) and the game turns off Phaere's quest timer and spawns udphae02 next to the player (with some special effects), and this Phaere will immediately dialog the party, triggering the city to go hostile. The code I provided turned on Phaere's quest timer again, which expired immediately, since the timer itself had not been reset when it had expired, and summoned another udphae02.

Using the console to create a new udphae02 would have worked more or less the same way. udphae02 is scripted to dialog with the PC if she detects them nearby, but she would have been created at the center of the screen, rather than right next to the PC as the script would do with the code I gave (and without the special effects too). If a new udphae01 were created, she would disappear immediately.

So yeah, it is kinda the same thing, but I usually prefer to use the in game scripts to accomplish fixes rather than just spawn creatures everywhere. In other cases the console move that would be more obvious to the average player would be less perfect or may not work well at all. For example, in this issue, which I have been fixing for people recently, an unpickably locked secret door refuses to open for some reason, leaving the player stuck with no possible exit. The obvious answer would be a ctrl-j, but that would only bypass the door once, and would need to be done again if the player ever needs to pass that way again (in case they missed something, for instance). I fix it by using the console to set a global variable that triggers the opening of the door, which is a flawless fix for the issue, unlike ctrl-j.

Using variables and existing game scripts is a far more elegant method in my opinion. It also may have the side effect of making me appear more intelligent and knowledgeable to people!