Need help with modified Hold Undead spell

[subtledoctor]

I'm tearing my hair out. I need to make a spell with the following characteristics:

- not targeted; affects all enemies within some certain range of the caster

- affects undead only, with a hold or Slow effect or something like that

 

I made a spell with ability/header target = Caster, using projectile = bignarea.pro (large area, enemies only), with 'entangle overlay' (154) and 'movement rate adjustment' (126 or 176) effects targeted at 'preset target.' This works perfectly - all enemies in range of the projectile save and if they fail they are affected by the pseudo-entangle.

 

But if I swap out the movement and entangle effects for a Hold2 effect aimed at General/Undead (literally copied from the 'Hold Undead' wizard spell), it fails utterly. Undead don't save, and are never affected.

 

(FWIW I'm testing on the Tattered Skeleton at the beginning of SoD.)

 

I also tried targeting the ability at Caster, with a range of 30, and no projectile, and changed the effects to target 'anyone except party.' Still no joy - undead are completely unaffected.

 

I also tried switching the Hold2 effect to a 177 'use .eff' effect, pointing to an .eff file that applies a movement speed reduction via opcode 126. In the .eff I set the 'impact projectile' field to match the projectile of the original spell, bignarea.pro. Still no joy.

 

I'm going crazy here. Why is it so easy to entangle anyone, but so hard for something that only affects undead? The kicker is, I have definitely made this work before as a bard song, I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong that it won't work in this context.

 

(Before you say it, I think having Caster as the ability target is non-negotiable, because this effect is being cast via opcode 146 from another spell and there is no opportunity to target it at a 'living actor' or a spot on the ground.)

[Ardanis]

You're not seeing things, I can't get it to work either.

 

Do you use 175 or 185? Undead are immune to 175, while 185 works fine.

[Jarno Mikkola]

You sure the skeleton is not undead. Recheck the .cre file... remember the skeleton warrior from BG2 too, they are not undead because you are not supposed to be able to turn them.
And no, the undead are not immune to the opcode effect 175, this particular one has a ring that provides that, the ring95.itm specifically, that makes it immune to opcode 175. Near infinity gives the effect 46th number.

[Ardanis]

Ring95 is the "undead traits" item.

[Fiann of the Silver Hand]

Try using the False Dawn spell from the Daystar sword as the template. It sounds like 99% of what you want besides the spell effect.

[subtledoctor]

...or it could be that I'm an idiot, my 'switch bard song' effect was switching to the wrong song and there was no feedback to indicate that to me.

 

(Also, the spell has to continually re-cast itself to mimic a repeating 272 effect, without the bugs involved in repeating 272 effects. But I don't think it could re-cast itself with target: Caster if it uses a non-party projectile. So I put the undead effects and the projectile into a subspell.)

 

Working now!

[Fiann of the Silver Hand]

Unchecking the idiot box is often my fastest and most reliable solution .

[Avenger]

You sure the skeleton is not undead. Recheck the .cre file... remember the skeleton warrior from BG2 too, they are not undead because you are not supposed to be able to turn them.

And no, the undead are not immune to the opcode effect 175, this particular one has a ring that provides that, the ring95.itm specifically, that makes it immune to opcode 175. Near infinity gives the effect 46th number.

 

Come on. You deny yourself in a single sentence

[Jarno Mikkola]

So ?

Ring95 is the "undead traits" item.

Yeah, but from the games files perspective that's not the same thing. As it might just happen that a mod maker adds a couple of dozen undead creatures and no one noted that they should also add this item to them.

So all your mods(well, the Detectable Spell/Stats user mods) of course use that as the marker it is and the enemy clerics turn all the party friendly undead that they notice ... and not some underhanded proficiency lookup effect.

Ouh, and maybe, just maybe, the DS could make the unmodified armors also feature correct enchantment levels...

[Ardanis]

Yeah, but from the games files perspective that's not the same thing. As it might just happen that a mod maker adds a couple of dozen undead creatures and no one noted that they should also add this item to them.

 

That would be said mod maker's task to do their homework, really.

Ouh, and maybe, just maybe, the DS could make the unmodified armors also feature correct enchantment levels...

 

As far as I can tell, David has already explained everything that was there to be said about armor enchantment. It is not used by the game, and there is no one 100% reliable way to detect it in automated mode.

The DS is also a dynamic patch, which doesn't make things easier.