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Cheating death (like a boss)

Yeah, this just happened while playing the original BG1

My character, a level 1 mage with a measly 4 HP (of which 3 remaining) was about to receive a lightning bolt to the face:



He gulped a potion of healing kept at the ready and at the same time rolled a critical save vs spell (while Silke rolled the minimum damage of 6 for the bolt)



Then he walked away as the lightning bolt was hurling back and forth near the dead body of Silke (no bystanders were injured):



NoonjustfeelinathomeThacoBellGallowglassGoturalKuronacloudkillbeatsallDJKajuru

Comments

  • KuronaKurona Member Posts: 881
    @Gotural Was this rule actually implemented in the original game? I thought it was EE-specific.
    Gallowglass
  • cloudkillbeatsallcloudkillbeatsall Member Posts: 98
    And now Lightning Bolts don't hurtle no more.
  • gunmangunman Member Posts: 215
    Gotural said:

    A level 1 character with full HP but with no more than 13 maximum HP cannot be killed in a single attack.

    Even if Silke, who is a level 10 Bard, rolled the minimum damage on her Lightining Bolt spell, it would have dealt you 5 damage on a successful save (10d6 damage, minimum 10, half on a save).

    You can easily test this yourself by creating a character and editing his Str to 25, giving him +14 damage and he still won't be able to kill Imoen in one hit if she is level 1, he will only do 7 damage on the first hit.


    Interesting, I didn't know that was in the original too. So how does it work, do you have to have full hitpoints to survive the hit, or you only need to have more than 1 HP ?
  • GoturalGotural Member Posts: 1,229
    You need to fulfill all these conditions as far as I know:

    -Be level 1
    -Have all of your HP
    -Your maximum HP is 13 or lower

    And it looks like this was implemented in the original game aswell considering that your character didn't die, or maybe you were playing in Normal or Easy difficulty I don't know, but Silke being a level 10 Bard, the minimum damage of a Lightning Bolt spell on a successful save is still 5 in Core Rules.

    Plus to be able to cast a Ligthning Bolt spell, a Bard must be atleast level 7 if he/she isn't using a scroll, which means that the minimum damage would be 4 I think.
    TalarashaSkatan
  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,305
    It's quite a while since I played vanilla BG1 much, but the level 1 protection certainly applied in vanilla BG2 and I'm pretty sure that was also the case in BG1 (as Gotural says this escape is good evidence of that :)).
    GoturalKurona
  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
    Gotural
  • gunmangunman Member Posts: 215
    Gotural said:

    You need to fulfill all these conditions as far as I know:

    -Be level 1
    -Have all of your HP
    -Your maximum HP is 13 or lower

    And it looks like this was implemented in the original game aswell considering that your character didn't die, or maybe you were playing in Normal or Easy difficulty I don't know, but Silke being a level 10 Bard, the minimum damage of a Lightning Bolt spell on a successful save is still 5 in Core Rules.

    Plus to be able to cast a Ligthning Bolt spell, a Bard must be atleast level 7 if he/she isn't using a scroll, which means that the minimum damage would be 4 I think.

    I was playing on core rules.

    Another thought was that drinking the potion of healing and the lightning bolt damage were added and subtracted from the HP at the same tick, and the damage of 3 was the difference between them (3 starting HP + 9 HP potion - 11 lightning bold damage = 1 remaining HP)
  • KuronaKurona Member Posts: 881
    edited December 2016
    This made me curious so I dusted off the old CDs and installed classic BG1. Made a character with 1 maximum HP, entered the priest house, got attacked by the assassin and immediately killed.
  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,305
    @Kurona - try with a character with more than 1 HP (I think the damage is reduced to allow only 1 HP to remain, but if you only have 1 to start with it kills you).
    KuronaGoturalSkatan
  • KuronaKurona Member Posts: 881
    @Grond0 Yep, you are correct! I modded Shank to have 25 Strength and put myself to 2 HP instead and his first hit caused only 1 damage. And this is a vanilla BG1 install, I didn't even bother to isntall ToSC to test it out.

    So the mechanic is indeed in BG1 and "having more than 1 maximum HP" is also a condition. My curiosity is now satisfied :)
    GoturalGrond0Skatan
  • gunmangunman Member Posts: 215
    Even after a decade of playing original BG1 I learn things I had not noticed over all these years
    Grond0KuronaTalarasha
  • lunarlunar Member Posts: 3,460
    edited December 2016
    Yeah this saves lvl 1 characters from insta gibbing. An ogre can critical hit lvl 1 Xzar and he will survive if he had full (4 hp) with 1 hp. If he was wounded prior, he may get chunked.

    A spell that allows a save will see you survive if you make the save as a lvl 1 character at full hp. If a full hp lvl 1 Xzar gets blasted by a fireball, he will receive 3 damage in the first damage line, and if he makes a save, he will survive. If he doesn't, the second damage line will be huge and possibly chunk a 1 hp remaining Xzar.

    The worst is elite black talons, their arrows do normal plus cold damage, thus the normal piercing damage can drop a character to 1 hp, and the extra bit of cold damage will then kill a lvl 1 character. (unless they happen to wear the belt of antipode in ee, which grants immunity to cold)
    ThacoBellKuronaGotural
  • gunmangunman Member Posts: 215
    Are you saying that the rule does not apply for spells that allow saving throw for half damage and the save is failed? I haven't noticed the damage is split in two parts in the log in that case.
  • KuronaKurona Member Posts: 881
    gunman said:

    Are you saying that the rule does not apply for spells that allow saving throw for half damage and the save is failed? I haven't noticed the damage is split in two parts in the log in that case.

    Just checked to be sure -- @lunar is right. A level 10 Lightning Bolt isn't implemented as "10d6 damage, save for half" but as "two times 5d6, save to avoid the second time". Same for most (if not all) the damage spells allowing a save. So if you fail your save, you'll survive the first hit but not the second.

    If you want to test yourself, just cheat or import a character with Lightning Bolt, start the prologue in Candlekeep and Ctrl+Q Imoen in your party. She's almost guaranteed for fail her save and therefore will die.
    semiticgoddess
  • lunarlunar Member Posts: 3,460
    edited December 2016
    Any spell that has a save for half damage, does the damage in two lines upon a failed save. Even the dragon breaths work like that.

    If the save is succesful, the first line is seen (first half of the damage) and the second line is omitted by the save vs spells line. If the save fails, the spell does two lines of full damage, each line representing the half of the full spell damage. This may be erronously interpreted as the spell hitting twice by some.

    The curious mechanic that protects a lvl 1 full hp character also comes to effect in such spells, so level 1 4 hp Cormyus in the screenshot can survive a 10d6 lightning hit if he makes a save. (Silke is not level 6, she is level 9 or 10, IIRC) Since he has 4 hp, he can take no more than 3 hp damage in a single hit if he has full health. The first half of the lightning (5d6 damage) counts as a seperate hit, and the second seperate hit is blocked by a save. Ofcourse lightning is a bad spell to try this, since it ricochets like wild and can sometimes really hit a character twice. Cormyus was really lucky there.
    Post edited by lunar on
  •  TheArtisan TheArtisan Member Posts: 3,277
    Out of curiosity, what happens with a level 1 character who only has 1 maximum hit point?
  • lunarlunar Member Posts: 3,460
    edited December 2016
    Well, such character will die to any damage, I think. Except stunning damage (non-monk punch) which will drop him to uncouncious at 1 hp.

    Max 1 hp character is kinda impossible, though. Con 2 or 3 gives -2 hp, thus an elven mage with 2 con will have 2 hp at the very least. A mage needs to have 1 con to get -3 hp and have max 1 hp. Familiar death can drop con down to 1, but in all likelihood, such a loss will most likely kill the level 1 character outright from backlash damage. Hmm gotta check if level 1 rule protects against the backlash damage kill. But familiar death first reduces max hp and then deals extra damage, so how the engine interprets this is kinda tricky to guess. I vaguely remember my lvl 1 mage dying from familiar death, but I am not sure if he was wounded prior.
    Post edited by lunar on
  • TheGraveDiggerTheGraveDigger Member Posts: 336
    This safety rule doesn't seem to apply to Jaheira. Pick her up at level one and test her against the Ogrillons south of Beregost.
  •  TheArtisan TheArtisan Member Posts: 3,277
    edited December 2016
    I tested things with a level 1, 1 hp mage. I completely resisted all damage most of the time, but sometimes a spell would randomly deal damage and kill me anyways. Very strange...
  • KuronaKurona Member Posts: 881

    I tested things with a level 1, 1 hp mage. I completely resisted all damage most of the time, but sometimes a spell would randomly deal damage and kill me anyways. Very strange...

    Odd, when I tested in one of my posts above my 1 HP mage would die in one hit (by Shank). But it was a test on original BG1, was yours made in BGEE?
  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,305
    edited December 2016
    Kurona said:

    I tested things with a level 1, 1 hp mage. I completely resisted all damage most of the time, but sometimes a spell would randomly deal damage and kill me anyways. Very strange...

    Odd, when I tested in one of my posts above my 1 HP mage would die in one hit (by Shank). But it was a test on original BG1, was yours made in BGEE?
    That sounds likely. I think in BG1 damage was reduced down to a minimum of 1, so you needed 2 HPs to survive. In BG2 (and BGEE, which was originally based on that engine) damage could be reduced to 0 if you only had a maximum of 1 HP.

    @Artemius_I I imagine the reason spells sometimes killed you was when they did 2 lots of damage, e.g. you failed a save against a fireball - thus resisting the first lot of damage, but being killed by the second.
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