Spell Bug: Weird

As in the spell, not in plain weird acting of a random spell


As I can see, it does not got the right saves.

The only saves I have experienced it checking for is ...

> SR
> Death Magic Immunity (It shouldn't, but it does...even though Weird technically isn't death magic)

What it's supposed to have is, first a Will save vs Death, if the target fails, they die. If they succeed the will save, they should roll a Fort save vs death, again, if they fail, they die. If not, they've survived their inner-most fear!

As a sidenote: It used to be Party friendly, the default Bioware version was anyway. Now it isn't.

(and it kinda stunk that we found that out after Aga's first casting of it... and I didn't want to kill you again so I couldn't use any more of my 9th level slots in the darkrealms until I redid the spellbook )

MannyJabrielle wrote:(and it kinda stunk that we found that out after Aga's first casting of it... and I didn't want to kill you again so I couldn't use any more of my 9th level slots in the darkrealms until I redid the spellbook )

I actually knew of it already, but Anna, obviously, is much more well versed in the use of illusion spells than Agamemnon.

But we both know the real reason; Aga totally killed her on purpose , because he finally noticed the subtle woven epic spell she cast on him at the start of the journey. It didn't just grant a boost to AC...but also made him a magnet for Dark Realm penalties, sticking to him like glue, so Anna walks away scot-free.

Conspired with Galitha no doubt to rob Agamemnon of his fun.

Back on topic though.... this morning I was blasting orcs with weird.... they were making the proper saves (couldn't tell if it was proper order.... too many orcs getting zapped).

Perhaps it's just the player aspect of the spell that's causing the wrong saves and affecting party when it shouldn't?

MannyJabrielle wrote:Perhaps it's just the player aspect of the spell that's causing the wrong saves and affecting party when it shouldn't?

Nope, seen it do that to NPCs too...for me, it seems to work on/off randomly...

I compiled a few of examples of the Weird spell in use Thursday, to explain better what I mean:


#1: First the beholder. Here it seems to work as intended, the follow the quirk of the beholder mage...it succeeds will save, but doesn't get to roll a fort save before it's struck death.
#2: As with the beholder mage in example 1...same thing happens. Succeeds will save, no fort save. Still dies...
#3: Here none of the guinea pigsorcs gets any saves at all, they just die.
#4: And again, works fine here.

Hope the above helps in narrowing down the bug

Angel of Death wrote:What it's supposed to have is, first a Will save vs Death, if the target fails, they die. If they succeed the will save, they should roll a Fort save vs death, again, if they fail, they die. If not, they've survived their inner-most fear!

Just to clarify: the will save is for the aspect of "did it affect the target at all", not the dying part - because it's not the only effect of the spell. If they fail the will save, they take damage no matter what, but fortitude protects from dying.

By the way, it should also check for fear, mind-affecting and true sight.

Updating the code a little bit to make it more like PnP D&D (additional effects beyond simple damage on surviving the Fort. save). The true seeing spell or effect or item property does not grant immunity to weird (although true seeing is a counterspell against it). I'm also removing the no-save death for enemies of less than 4 hit dice.

According to the code, here's what will happen after the next module update:

Any creature hostile to the caster:
- check spell resistance
- - failure of spell resistance check means:
- - - will save vs. fear (which accounts for fear and/or mind spell immunity)
- - - - failure of will save means:
- - - - - fortitude save vs. fear
- - - - - - failure of fortitude save means:
- - - - - - - death (death magic immunity doesn't count)
- - - - - - success of fortitude save means:
- - - - - - - 3d6 magical damage
- - - - - - - stunned for 1 round
- - - - - - - minus 1d4 Strength for 12 hours (ability drain immunity doesn't count)

I'll update the spell descriptions with the next aenea.tlk update.

The spell is not respecting either fear or mindspell immunity now. A beholder mage just iced Audrey, my paladin, who has both fear immunity from her paladin levels and mindspell immunity from her gear.

It also apparently had enough caster levels to punch through 40 SR, which I didn't think would be possible for a 12 or 13 HD caster.

Edit... double checked the log. The mage didn't even cast the spell, it was off a scroll, which definitely should NOT have enough caster level power to get trough 40 SR. There was a spell resistance check which was failed... so unless the code was modified to use different rules than normal for bypassing SR, it's bugged too with that respect.

I don't think has implemented the changes he mentioned above into the module yet.

What you mention, I have experienced for quite a while. Some times the saves are done, others it's done as you describes. Odd quirks of how it's been working for a long time now...

Btw it checks for death immunity, and death immunity makes you immune to Weird.

Got death immunity, it didn't check for that. Got the spell resistance check (failed, even though it was off a scroll and I had 40 SR), and then rolled a will save vs fear, and a fort save vs fear. Both of those were a roll of 1, even though I got fear immunity via paladin levels, and mindspell via item.

Was running around with Ramana and Crid last night.  This spell is still ignoring immunties and killing party members.  Aga accidently zapped Ranara once, and then shortly there after Ranara zapped Crideas.  I'm rather certain that they both have both mindspell immunity and fear immunity, and I think Crid may even have had illusion school immunity, but I'm not sure.

Ranara has Immunity to Mind-Affecting and Imm to Death Magic, as I'm sure Crideas does also.  Not Immunity to Fear per se, but the Imm Mind-Affecting has always protected against Fear. (And also have True Seeing, in case the check to resist Weird has been altered to include that.)

I saw in the log that one time early on, Ranara made a Will Save vs. Fear, likely in response to something the Ice Dracolich did, which I thought sort of odd since I had Imm Mind-Affecting.  The Wiki (under Weird) says:

"Immunity to the descriptors (fear or mind-affecting) is applied before the saving throws (if any) and after the spell resistance check, with no feedback if this immunity applies."

So if I have Imm Mind-Affecting, wouldn't that be the counter before a Will check against Fear?

And what's with this 'spell resistance' check?  When it came to the Weird cast by Aga that killed Ranara, the log only states " Ranara Duauth attempts to resist spell :  failure ".  Same when Ranara's Weird killed Crideas: " Crideas Bane attempts to resist spell : failure" .  So does this mean that if one doesn't have enough Spell Resistance, then Immunity to Mind-Affecting won't even be applied?

You would think that mindspell immunity grants fear immunity too.

I just found this link on the wiki talking about behinds the scenes stuff.  Specifically:

1. Saving throws vs. fear return a 2 (or 0 through MySavingThrow()) only if there is an immunity to fear. Mind-affecting immunity does not register as automatic immunity in this case (which means most of the bugs denying a saving throw to those immune to fear do not apply if the immunity comes through the generic mind-affecting).
   
2. GetIsImmune() does not report immunity for the effects that mind-affecting blocks. This means an additional check must be made, if you want to know if a certain effect will be blocked on application.
   
3. Saving throws vs. mind-affecting return a 2 (or 0 through MySavingThrow()) only if immunity to mind-affecting is present. A combination of immunities that block the same effects as mind-affecting will not influence this saving throw.
   
4. In case of curiosity, monk immunity to mind-affecting (from perfect self) acts the same way as all other sources of this immunity.
   

So.... if I undertand that correctly.... there can be situations where a fear effect could slip past immunities intended to block such effects due to how the scripting is actually done.

I know there's an odd place here or there in Aenea where my PCs with mindspell immunity but not also the separate fear immunity have gotten hit by the fear effect.  That's why I tend to double up the fear immunity property with the mindspell immunity property.  It's a bit of a hassle to cover what should already be a covered immunity.... but the places where such a bug happens in aenea are so rare (and we're sorta lucky we caught weird as a definite source of wonkyness)

I will double-check, but I think Crid might have Fear immunity as well. If not, I will be getting the upgrade so I can avoid having broken spells smoke me. Illusion School Immunity will also be going on the list.

Have fun finding an illusiary staff

Another oddity with this spell... minor one.  Last night beholders were chucking this one at me a lot.  When it would 'hit' me (no deaths, but I didn't check the combat log... too much spam to read through), it would cancel my action queue.

The spell Weird does not seem to be party safe.

It was my newbie understanding that Weird was supposed to affect only hostiles?

I thought that meant regardless of partied or not, that it wouldn't affect non-hostiles.

But when it went wrong against friendly non-party, I thought, okay, not 'only hostiles'.

So then I thought, let's try partying.... but that didn't work either.

So, not in any way 'only hostiles'... neither safe for non-hostile non-party, nor party safe.  Not safe for anyone but the caster.

This is now a spell I can only use on solo expeditions, and hope no one wanders by.

Crid got nailed yet again by this spell cast by one of his new allies.

It seems there was a check for spell resistance, but no saving throw, and pretty sure no check for fear immunity.

Yeah that was me, I was under the impression that Crid had both mind an fear immunity. On a side note what ever the molten lion or whatever it is called is not affected by this spell, with the log reporting immunity to death magic, which technically this spell should not be blocked by.

As of patch 1.66 it is not blocked by death magic immunity.

A few of these spells have bugged saves, as I recall from my coding days. Some of them are really insidious, and I ended up recoding all of the saving throw/SR scripting checks as a result. Weird certainly seems to fit the bill.

I have no doubts will stomp this bug...

Default spellscript versions from 1.69 or earlier patches may not necessarily be an issue since every spell in Aenea has effectively been 'rescripted' to run through a larger single script rather than a script for each and every single spell (or more with radial style spells).  With weird working as intended in a default module, but wonky in Aenea, I would say the issue is in the rescripted aenean version.

I think this spell specifically is worthy of being the highest priority for bug fixing, honestly.

My opinion, but still.... folks have been reporting complaints about it since March of 2013.

I agree that this should be the highest bugfix priority.

I can't really play my mage effectively anywhere but solo without this fixed.