Charm Person

[kreso]

I have Spell revisions v3.1 and Lost crossroads installed (from the latter, the Charm person or mammal spell is installed).

 

Do you have any suggestions?

Other than posting this in Lost Crossroads forum, no.

[Zoltan]

 

I have Spell revisions v3.1 and Lost crossroads installed (from the latter, the Charm person or mammal spell is installed).

 

Do you have any suggestions?

Other than posting this in Lost Crossroads forum, no.

 

 

 

That forum is really out of date.

And besides it isn't by all means a spell mod bug, it can be a tweak bug also (I'd read many bugs about charm in BG). Alas, I really don't remember the forum, I've read about the same bug, but it wasn't Lost crossroads, that's for sure.

[kreso]

but it wasn't Lost crossroads, that's for sure.

I'm afraid it is. I've checked how spell works, and it can behave as you described due to multiple spells actually being used which change AI type and use iffy timing modes.

If that was or wasn't the author's intent is another question.

[Zoltan]

 

but it wasn't Lost crossroads, that's for sure.

I'm afraid it is. I've checked how spell works, and it can behave as you described due to multiple spells actually being used which change AI type and use iffy timing modes.

If that was or wasn't the author's intent is another question.

 

Thanks!

[Zoltan]

 

but it wasn't Lost crossroads, that's for sure.

I'm afraid it is. I've checked how spell works, and it can behave as you described due to multiple spells actually being used which change AI type and use iffy timing modes.

If that was or wasn't the author's intent is another question.

 

 

I decided to reinstall the whole game again without that crossroad comp., 'cause I don't want to play through the whole saga with this bugs, that looks minor, but realley important, and can be really disturbing.

What do you think, can I use my previous saved game with such a minor changing, or it will be buggy as hell again, and need to start a new one?

[kreso]

What do you think, can I use my previous saved game with such a minor changing, or it will be buggy as hell again, and need to start a new one?

 

Not very likely I'm afraid. You're better off posting this at BWS forum, people who manage it know more about this.

[Grammarsalad]

....

 

Disabling spellcasting and setting physical attacks to zero via eff files is the way to go IMO.

I really like this idea, especially in conjunction with the original charm opcode (so, allowing unique dialog). Any chance it will see the light of day? Edited January 16, 2016 by Grammarsalad

[subtledoctor]

Necroing a very old discussion, but I had a thought on how to make Charm Person act more like PnP, not letting the charmed victim attack his friends etc.

 

Using EE effects: the spell puts them in a state like SR Emotion: Hopelessness, just standing still. Almost like, "lulled" or hypnotized, instead of controlled. Because it is weak 1st-level magic, you use opcode 232 to set a contingency on the victim, where if they are attacked, a spell is cast with opcode 321 to cancel the Charm Person spell. I.e. if you Charm someone and then stab them, they snap out of it and fight to defend themselves.

 

In the old engine, you can accomplish the same thing: apply the Charm/lull effect by "apply .eff as curse" and then set a contingency where, if they are attacked, they are affected by Remove Curse.

 

Dire Charm could basically be the same thing, but without the contingency. So you can beat a Dire Charmed person to death and they won't fight back. (Basically it would be a single-target Emotion: Hopelessness.)

 

And Domination will give you full control over the person, to the extent that they will actually attack their buddies.

[kreso]

Using EE effects: the spell puts them in a state like SR Emotion: Hopelessness, just standing still.

SR Emotion never did that. It causes penalties to AC, damage, and THAC0.

 

 

Using EE effects: the spell puts them in a state like SR Emotion: Hopelessness, just standing still. Almost like, "lulled" or hypnotized, instead of controlled. Because it is weak 1st-level magic, you use opcode 232 to set a contingency on the victim, where if they are attacked, a spell is cast with opcode 321 to cancel the Charm Person spell. I.e. if you Charm someone and then stab them, they snap out of it and fight to defend themselves.

Triggrers like this are faulty. Likewise, Charm already works this way - if you attack a charmed target, he goes red-circled again. Imagine fighting enemies X and Y. X gets charmed. Y attacks him, and de-charms him by hitting him. The spell would be made pointless.

 

In the old engine, you can accomplish the same thing: apply the Charm/lull effect by "apply .eff as curse" and then set a contingency where, if they are attacked, they are affected by Remove Curse.

This is prone to multiple bad things- any damage (even enemy fire) will trigger it. It doesn't even have to be attack for the trigger to fire. Web, Telly Field, Stinking Cloud - all will fire.

[subtledoctor]

Now that I'm pretty happy with the way Invisibility effects can be handled, I want to re-start a discussion on Charm/Domination, which is still in a pretty terrible state IMHO.

 

I still think it's worth exploring the idea of dispelling the Charm if the victim is damaged - think of something like, knocking the sense back into them. Cancel-on-damage has been shown to be unworkable, but what about more damage - opcode 232 can have a condition of "when hit points are reduced to 50%." SO if you have enough sense knocked into you, you can come around and be yourself again.

 

Of course this would fail - or, fail within 6-9 seconds - if you try to charm someone who is already below 51% of their hp total. But, I would humbly suggest that if a person is so damaged that they are literally halfway to being dead, you likely cannot charm them!

 

Note, you could build a save into this, so that when they go below 50% (or x%, whatever the number is) hit points, they can save each round to break free.

 

This would be a good differentiator between Charm/Dire Charm vs. Domination: someone who is Dominated is so thoroughly affected that they will fight to the last and be utterly unable to break free of the effect.

 

As for the difference between Charm and Dire Charm: really, it should be that someone who is merely Charmed will not fight for you. Or, not fight effectively. Zero APR vs. full APR is a way to implement it, but I know kreso doesn't like the silly slap-fighting animation that would result.

 

What about using Feeblemind? Then the Charmed creature would just stand there, dumbstruck. Of course, now we're talking about a 1st-level Feeblemind, which is crazy, but

- any abilities that protect against Charm could be patched to be certain to protect against this spell

- it could have a very low duration, like ~2-3 rounds, where Feeblemind is permanent

- it could be canceled if the target went below x% of their hp total, as described above (maybe they have to make a save with Dire Charm, but not with Charm)

 

Alternatively, maybe just remove Charm Person altogether and change it to something different. E.g. make it a "Hallucinate" spell in the Illusion school, and move Spook to Necromancy (since Horror is already there). Where "Hallucinate" is a single-target Confusion. The Enchantment school will be fine, since it still has Sleep, which so utterly outshines Charm Person.

Edited April 11, 2018 by subtledoctor

[Daxtreme]

I like how you would try to make an actual worthwhile difference between Charm and Dominate!

 

Not sure about the feeblemind part

[Grammarsalad]

Now that I'm pretty happy with the way Invisibility effects can be handled, I want to re-start a discussion on Charm/Domination, which is still in a pretty terrible state IMHO.

 

I still think it's worth exploring the idea of dispelling the Charm if the victim is damaged - think of something like, knocking the sense back into them. Cancel-on-damage has been shown to be unworkable, but what about more damage - opcode 232 can have a condition of "when hit points are reduced to 50%." SO if you have enough sense knocked into you, you can come around and be yourself again.

 

Of course this would fail - or, fail within 6-9 seconds - if you try to charm someone who is already below 51% of their hp total. But, I would humbly suggest that if a person is so damaged that they are literally halfway to being dead, you likely cannot charm them!

 

Note, you could build a save into this, so that when they go below 50% (or x%, whatever the number is) hit points, they can save each round to break free.

 

This would be a good differentiator between Charm/Dire Charm vs. Domination: someone who is Dominated is so thoroughly affected that they will fight to the last and be utterly unable to break free of the effect.

 

As for the difference between Charm and Dire Charm: really, it should be that someone who is merely Charmed will not fight for you. Or, not fight effectively. Zero APR vs. full APR is a way to implement it, but I know kreso doesn't like the silly slap-fighting animation that would result.

 

What about using Feeblemind? Then the Charmed creature would just stand there, dumbstruck. Of course, now we're talking about a 1st-level Feeblemind, which is crazy, but

- any abilities that protect against Charm could be patched to be certain to protect against this spell

- it could have a very low duration, like ~2-3 rounds, where Feeblemind is permanent

- it could be canceled if the target went below x% of their hp total, as described above (maybe they have to make a save with Dire Charm, but not with Charm)

 

Alternatively, maybe just remove Charm Person altogether and change it to something different. E.g. make it a "Hallucinate" spell in the Illusion school, and move Spook to Necromancy (since Horror is already there). Where "Hallucinate" is a single-target Confusion. The Enchantment school will be fine, since it still has Sleep, which so utterly outshines Charm Person.

 

 

I can't believe that I haven't told you about this. I have a version of charm person that makes the target 'stand around' but does not use the feeblemind opcode, so the target can still run scripts (and be talked to). It only works in EE, though.

 

There is an opcode in EE, I think it is 365, that makes the target unselectable. Unselectable targets cannot be controlled, at least by the player--I need to test what happens when it is cast on a PC. I believe it's coded in B_Spells. This is the description:

 

https://github.com/UnearthedArcana/B_Spells/blob/master/spells/tra/english/revised.tra#L175