Icewind Dale II: Hidden Prism Recovery Mechanism (Verified)
GameArchaeologist
Member Posts: 1
While trying to recover what appeared to be a soft-locked save in the Ice Temple, I found and verified a recovery mechanism that I could not find described in the walkthroughs or discussions I consulted.
My game was in the following state:
Prism disabled.
Temple Maintenance no longer available.
Oria already defeated.
Nathaniel refused to continue until Auril's altar was destroyed.
Every guide I found recommended reloading an earlier save.
Instead, I inspected the game scripts with Near Infinity.
The relevant code is in 41PPFIRE.BCS:
IF
Global("PrismDeactivated","MYAREA",1)
Global("41PrismFire","MYAREA",2)
CheckSkillGT(LastTrigger,6,Use_Magic_Device)
THEN
RESPONSE #100
FadeToColor([0.0],0)
SetGlobal("41PrismFire","MYAREA",0)
SetGlobal("PrismDeactivated","MYAREA",0)
DisplayString(LastTrigger,39936)
AdvanceTime(300)
FadeFromColor([0.0],0)
END
String 39936 reads:
"With a careful touch you skillfully repair the prism."
This suggested a simple experiment.
I temporarily increased one character's Use Magic Device from 6 to 7, selected that character, and clicked the Prism firing control.
The repair sequence executed exactly as indicated by the script. The message appeared, the Prism was repaired, and I was able to continue the dungeon normally.
I also inspected 41NICK.D and found that Nickademus repairs the Prism by executing:
TriggerActivation("PrismRotate",TRUE)
TriggerActivation("PrismFire",TRUE)
SetGlobal("PrismDeactivated","MYAREA",0)
This suggests that both repair methods ultimately restore the same Prism state by clearing the same area variable.
One question remains.
Nickademus clearly contains dialogue to repair the Prism, yet that option never appeared in my playthrough even though PrismDeactivated was set. If anyone knows what additional condition suppresses that dialogue, I would be interested in understanding the complete logic.
Hopefully this saves someone else from replaying several hours of the Ice Temple.
The Computer Game Archaeologists
My game was in the following state:
Prism disabled.
Temple Maintenance no longer available.
Oria already defeated.
Nathaniel refused to continue until Auril's altar was destroyed.
Every guide I found recommended reloading an earlier save.
Instead, I inspected the game scripts with Near Infinity.
The relevant code is in 41PPFIRE.BCS:
IF
Global("PrismDeactivated","MYAREA",1)
Global("41PrismFire","MYAREA",2)
CheckSkillGT(LastTrigger,6,Use_Magic_Device)
THEN
RESPONSE #100
FadeToColor([0.0],0)
SetGlobal("41PrismFire","MYAREA",0)
SetGlobal("PrismDeactivated","MYAREA",0)
DisplayString(LastTrigger,39936)
AdvanceTime(300)
FadeFromColor([0.0],0)
END
String 39936 reads:
"With a careful touch you skillfully repair the prism."
This suggested a simple experiment.
I temporarily increased one character's Use Magic Device from 6 to 7, selected that character, and clicked the Prism firing control.
The repair sequence executed exactly as indicated by the script. The message appeared, the Prism was repaired, and I was able to continue the dungeon normally.
I also inspected 41NICK.D and found that Nickademus repairs the Prism by executing:
TriggerActivation("PrismRotate",TRUE)
TriggerActivation("PrismFire",TRUE)
SetGlobal("PrismDeactivated","MYAREA",0)
This suggests that both repair methods ultimately restore the same Prism state by clearing the same area variable.
One question remains.
Nickademus clearly contains dialogue to repair the Prism, yet that option never appeared in my playthrough even though PrismDeactivated was set. If anyone knows what additional condition suppresses that dialogue, I would be interested in understanding the complete logic.
Hopefully this saves someone else from replaying several hours of the Ice Temple.
The Computer Game Archaeologists
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