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Merek and Lothander, possible bug?

Just wanted to share my recent experience with the Merek and Lothander quest (poisoning in BG city). On my last two play throughs since the update, picking up Merek’s antidote after killing him does not cure the poison, nor award exp or finish the quest. Manually drinking it also does nothing. The only way I was able to get the quest to complete was to charm Merek and have him give me the antidote.

Note that I am running an EET install, so I cannot be certain if this is a base game bug or one introduced with a mod. But I thought I’d post about it to see if anybody else was running into the same problem.
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Comments

  • bleusteelbleusteel Member Posts: 523
    I have a different experience with unmodded 2.5.

    Marek and Lothander’s antidotes no longer combine and the poison is no longer cured after picking up Marek’s half. However, I can manually drink Marek’s potion and get cured and XP but then I’m stuck with Lothander’s half which you can’t interact with and no longer appears to have a purpose.
    Pokota
  • WatchForWolvesWatchForWolves Member Posts: 183
    edited October 2018
    I confirm the above. Lothander's antidote does nothing, and the fact that the description mentions how it just looks like "colored water" I actually assumed this is deliberate and that Lothander duped you to get the Geas off of him.

    Marek "gives"(dies) you the real antidote and the quest ends/you get the XP when you drink it.
  • The_CheesemanThe_Cheeseman Member Posts: 175

    I confirm the above. Lothander's antidote does nothing, and the fact that the description mentions how it just looks like "colored water" I actually assumed this is deliberate and that Lothander duped you to get the Geas off of him.

    Marek "gives"(dies) you the real antidote and the quest ends/you get the XP when you drink it.

    Weird, seems like there is definitely something fishy going on. Just a wild guess on my part, but I’d assume either there is a script attached to one of the antidote bottles that isn’t triggering properly, or there was some kind of change to an item or variable involved that broke said script.

    Didn’t the most recent patch notes mention something about making the poison status more visible for the player, or something? Anybody know what was actually changed?
  • velehalvelehal Member Posts: 299
    Same bug. I´ve cured Lothander from his geas, then killed Marek but the quest is not finished (no experience) even if I´ve drunk Marek´s part of the antidote. This is game breaking bug because after ten days my party will die (I´ve tried it).
    Maybe some mod is interfering, but I have very few of them (SCS, NPC Projecet, Rogue Rebalancing, Atweak and Item Revision).
  • velehalvelehal Member Posts: 299
    edited October 2018
    I´ve tried to charm Marek but it doesn´t work for me, he gives me the antidote but the quest is still unfinished (even if I drink the antidote). Does anybody know how to solve it, because I can´t proceed futher.
  • ShashakiroShashakiro Member Posts: 24
    Lothander’s “half” has always done nothing whatsoever, as the text hints.

    The quest worked fine in my 2 unmodded playthroughs.
  • bleusteelbleusteel Member Posts: 523

    Lothander’s “half” has always done nothing whatsoever, as the text hints.

    The quest worked fine in my 2 unmodded playthroughs.

    Generally, in the EEs prior to 2.5, Lothander’s half disappears once you get Marek’s half and you are cured and get XP without manually drinking anything. You are normally left with 10 of Marek’s antidotes in your inventory.

    I’ve only done one playthrough since 2.5 was officially released so I don’t have a broad sampling. I don’t currently have SoD installed. Just vanilla 2.5 - not even an XP cap remover.
  • velehalvelehal Member Posts: 299
    Does anybody know how to solve it with the help of console, how to cure my party and finish the quest? Thank you.
  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,305
    I've done the quest multiple times in unmodded v2.5. I believe that it is deliberate that Lothander's antidote now does nothing and I've always been cured after drinking Marek's (though you do have to actually drink it now). I'm not sure about the journal resolving I'm afraid as I almost never look at those entries these days anyway.
    JuliusBorisov
  • velehalvelehal Member Posts: 299
    Drinking doesn´t help me. The group dies even if I drink Marek´s antidote. The quest remains unfinished and party gains no experience.
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,714
    @velehal Please zip and attach your save at support.baldursgate.com for investigation and help.
  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,305
    I don't suppose it's relevant, but just in case the issue arises I'll mention that the potion has to be drunk by the PC to cure Marek's poison as it is now specifically the PC that is poisoned.
  • BalquoBalquo Member, Developer Posts: 2,746
    @velehal I tested your save and it works as expected. Make sure Aran is the one drinking the potion. If it's still not working for you, then likely one of your mods is interfering somehow.

    I've attached a new save with the quest complete.
    JuliusBorisov
  • velehalvelehal Member Posts: 299
    Thank you very much. Even if Aran drinks the potion, he is still poisoned, so I used your save.
  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,305
    edited May 2019
    In the current version Lothander's potion does do nothing. To resolve the quest the PC (not a party member) does now need to actually drink one of Marek's potions, rather than that happening automatically.

    Reading your summary of actions, the only thing I can think of (other than a bug) is that you may have attacked Marek before talking to him. I agree that doing that should not affect the quest, since that should be tied to just using the antidote, but it's not uncommon in BG to have to talk to someone to complete a quest. There are instances where that's not necessary in similar situations, e.g. you can attack and kill Tranzig without talking to him, but I think those are exceptions to the general rule.
  • benibielbenibiel Member Posts: 8
    @subtledoctor This nearly always happens to me. I *think* Item Revisions is the culprit. Ages ago I found a thread somewhere where someone had the same problem with EET and were given the attached file to put in the override to fix it - it's always worked for me on BGEE too. (I don't know anything about iOS stuff or how different anything is or even if this is a stupidly unnecessary disclaimer, if things break it weren't my fault, guv)

    It *does* do something weird with importing/exporting the character - once you've used it and import the character (even over to BG2EE) you'll get another 10 000xp and the "You have been cured of Marek's poison" journal entry.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0
    edited May 2019
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    Don't you need to have charname use a charge of the 10 use antidote item? I seem to remmeber that being the case.
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    Grond0ThacoBellMathsorcerer
  • mhoghedinmhoghedin Member Posts: 6
    Hello - I also have EET and Item Revisions and have encountered the same bug. I triggered all the right quest parts and got the antidote from Marek's corpse. Drank it with my charname and no dice.

    You mentioned this POTN47 file - I downloaded it and put it in my overrides folder but it doesnt seem to be working...is there another step I am missing?

    Thanks so much!

    @subtledoctor and @benibel
  • mhoghedinmhoghedin Member Posts: 6
    Ah ha! I figured it out. I had to put it in my bg2 overrides folder rather than my bgee :) Thanks so much for the file and the thread guys. The poison is cured and the xp is received!
  • raTlikraTlik Member Posts: 6
    Hello, this quest is still bugged for me, resulting is "game breaker".
    Every time I get the antidote, the quest is being completed, with given XP and Journal update.
    Yet, after few in-game days, my whole party members dies, leaving my MC the only one unaffected.
    Drinking the antidote with all characters makes no change. It only works for the Main Character.
    I tired to kill Marek or charm him to give the antidote to me. Neither of those options resolved the bug.
    I am running of "clean" Steam version, no modes whatsoever.
    Now I have spend 50 h of game play that I cannot finish and am too frustrated to start all over again to get to the same point.

    Anyone able to help? Thank you.
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    @raTlik Which potion are you drinking? The one that Lothander gives you does nothing. You need to drink Marek's potion.

    Also, did you skip any parts of the quest? Did you attack Marek or Lothander before getting the quest?
    JuliusBorisov
  • BalquoBalquo Member, Developer Posts: 2,746
    raTlik wrote: »
    Hello, this quest is still bugged for me, resulting is "game breaker".
    Every time I get the antidote, the quest is being completed, with given XP and Journal update.
    Yet, after few in-game days, my whole party members dies, leaving my MC the only one unaffected.
    Drinking the antidote with all characters makes no change. It only works for the Main Character.
    I tired to kill Marek or charm him to give the antidote to me. Neither of those options resolved the bug.
    I am running of "clean" Steam version, no modes whatsoever.
    Now I have spend 50 h of game play that I cannot finish and am too frustrated to start all over again to get to the same point.

    Anyone able to help? Thank you.

    Could you attach your save?
  • raTlikraTlik Member Posts: 6
    edited April 2020
    @ThacoBell Since the Lothander potion (quantity 1x) will not trigger the end of the quest, I am pretty sure I drunk the Marek ones (quantity 10x) - black ones. Directly from Marek. Either by confronting and killing him or by charming to give me the antidote. Both resulted in the quest being completed (granted 10.000 XP I believe), yet, after few in-game days, all but my MC dies. The latest save I have is when I let both Lothander and Marek lives. No difference.
    Seems like this bug is that the potion 1. removes the poison from character 2. only MC needs to drink it 3. once MC drinks it the effect should pass to all current party members - The 3rd part seems to be bugged. I believe in previous old games, all party member needed to drink it and since they restricted it to the MC only, there must be a lost code from the vanilla game that collides with the new code.
    Solution would be either. A ) fixed the 3rd point B ) reverse the requirement and have the whole party drink it and be affected by it - after-all, there are 10 vials of the antidote.

    Weird thing is that I seems to be the only one having this issue. Bug might be caused by some weird quest combination that I made with my play-through. Not sure. Yet, I cannot continue the game which is pretty sad.

    The quest progression I have done:
    1) Meet both of them and they tell you about the poison
    2) Meet Lothander and he asks for help
    3) Talk to the fortune teller and give info on how to help Lothander
    4) Help Lothander (he gives you fake antidote)
    5) Face Marek (Kill him and charm him to give you the real antidote)
    6) MC (and everyone in party) drinks the antidote
    7) Quest completed (only MC gets the note in a chat that is healed)
    8) Few in-game days later - whole party turns to monstrosities which instantly kills them


    I attached two saves (before confronting Marek and after confronting him by charming him to give me the antidote).
    Thank you for all your help :)
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    @raTlik "whole party turns to monstrosities which instantly kills them"

    That sounds like the werewolf curse, not the poison. Did you start the werewolf island quest and not finish it?
  • raTlikraTlik Member Posts: 6
    @ThacoBell I have indeed started it. Completed by getting on the boat and confronting that old guy that gave me the quest. The husband of that warewolf lady. Oh, this is getting confusing. Is there anything else I have to do to complete the quest? I will check if the journal says its completed. But pretty sure that is the end of the quest.
  • PokotaPokota Member Posts: 858
    edited April 2020
    You have to kill a certain lycanthrope in Ulgoth's Beard after completing Werewolf Island in order to break the curse
    ThacoBell
  • raTlikraTlik Member Posts: 6
    @Pokota Thank you! I will try that. Must be it.
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