Death by Crystal Sphere in an Insane Place

[SCP-079]

So... I am not sure what exactly this is. It's part Feedback, part Suggestion, and possibly part Bug-Report. It's not a huge issue, but possibly extremely annoying to some:

There is a place called Aisles of Insanity in a FOIG location, and the entrance is sealed behind a riddle: A Crystal Sphere that you have to interact with in the correct FOIG way to progress.

Interacting incorrectly with the Sphere will cause a Disease. Interacting incorrectly often enough results in immediate death of the character, sent straight to the Fugue, no saves, no damage, nothing, just instant Fuguing.

I found this out only recently, the character I was playing at that time was actually immune to Disease, warded against Death Effects, had Deathless Mastery and very high Fortitude saves against both Poison and Disease effects.

Given the Disease Immunity, I assumed I could now brute-force the riddle. Even though a Disease VFX hit my character every time I failed, no actual harm seemed to be inflicted upon him. No red icons in the upper right corner of the screen, no detrimental effects seen on the character sheet. Then, suddenly, ... Fugue Load Screen. I was puzzled about what happened at first, until I realized a single line in the combat log: If you get any weaker, you will die.

This only warning was extremely easy to miss, given that nothing else indicated any real danger. No damage, no saves, nothing except a Disease VFX.

Maybe this is as it is intended, but it feels buggy - and if this happened to a character with an MoD, well...

Personally, I have not seen this kind of mechanic anywhere else on the server - instead of nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, small warning that is easily missed, instadeath, maybe exponentially increasing Poison or even Magic damage would be a better way to go.

EDIT: I also just realized that despite having been sent to the Fugue, my character has in fact not dropped the gold pieces he was carrying at the time.

[Biolab00]

That place is a riddle upon riddles.
I rate it the hardest since i still can't solve it, much above others that i've seen or found like, obsidian asylum and sibayad tombs etc.

Tbh, i'm not able to solve the subsequent riddles after this particular one that you spoke of.
And this place has been there for since... before migration. Ten of years perhaps.
Yep, till now, i can't solve it and can't fathom where to even find the clues in the game even.

Edit : There're some subtle clues that i've saw when my toon prior to migration solved the first, but was barred on the second because i can't for the hell of me, understand the clues. I came to the conclusion that you'll need to be extremely strong in Lore ( FOIG what type ) and that guessing will never work. It's been years and i already can't recall because liken to the name of that place, it still gives me headache and i've not step foot there ever since then even though it's not difficult to find.

[HeyLadyOfDecay]

I remember completing it years ago, I had to test out two "riddles" and had a desk full of scribbled notes at the end of it.

It's frustrating and from my experience not worth it. Do mind that its been years, maybe the end got better.

[AstralUniverse]

I remember completing it years ago, I had to test out two "riddles" and had a desk full of scribbled notes at the end of it.

It's frustrating and from my experience not worth it. Do mind that its been years, maybe the end got better.

That's pretty much my experience from the couple of times I managed to crack it in the past 15 years. It's legacy content that has never been touched afaik and shouldnt be touched imo. I do agree with the op that the indication that you're about to die should be a bit more bold and clear and harder to miss for disease immune characters, ironically.

[Shadowy Reality]

iirc failing a riddle drains Constitution. If you reach below 3 Constitution you automatically die, which is what I suspect happened to you. Restoration or Negative Energy Protection should prevent that. But it could be that the mechanics changed since I have been there, which has indeed been years at this point.

[SCP-079]

iirc failing a riddle drains Constitution. If you reach below 3 Constitution you automatically die, which is what I suspect happened to you. Restoration or Negative Energy Protection should prevent that. But it could be that the mechanics changed since I have been there, which has indeed been years at this point.

I just tested it again, there indeed seems to be a saveless Constitution drain that does not show up in the combat log. But I always thought this rule was not in effect in NWN? I always thought that ability loss was limited to 3 points ( https://nwn.fandom.com/wiki/Ability_score_loss ); unlike in PnP where your character dies if a score reaches 0 ( https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Ability_Score_Loss ) - and the Wiki does not indicate that ability loss beyond a certain point leads to death, either:

"There are three ways to die:

Code: Select all

One way is by taking so much damage that your character hits -10 hp.
The second is failing a saving throw versus a spell that kills instantly.
Lastly, if any of your characters 'status' meters get to -100%, they will die (that is to say; thirst, hunger, exhaustion and sobriety but not piety)." ( https://wiki.nwnarelith.com/Death#Dying )

[Kuma]

Going below 3 Con will absolutely kill you in NWN. It's the Con drain, not a Death effect.

[SCP-079]

Going below 3 Con will absolutely kill you in NWN. It's the Con drain, not a Death effect.

Is that documented anywhere? I can't find anything about that.

( https://nwn.fandom.com/wiki/Death ; https://nwn.fandom.com/wiki/Ability_score_loss ; https://nwn.fandom.com/wiki/Constitution ; https://nwn.fandom.com/wiki/Difficulty_setting ; https://wiki.nwnarelith.com/Death#Dying )

[Kaeldre]

Is that documented anywhere? I can't find anything about that

It is a bit obscure, but you can find it documented under the comments of some spells and in the talk section on some topics.

Here's one example:
https://nwn.fandom.com/wiki/Infestation_of_maggots

[SCP-079]

Is that documented anywhere? I can't find anything about that

It is a bit obscure, but you can find it documented under the comments of some spells and in the talk section on some topics.

Here's one example:
https://nwn.fandom.com/wiki/Infestation_of_maggots

Wow, that is really, REALLY obscure. That comment makes it sound like it's not even a general thing, but something only some spells do under certain settings... ._.

EDIT: Was my character killed because he was immune? xD "Due to a bug, immunity to disease does not make one immune to this spell. In fact, if it does not come from a feat (divine health, purity of body, or perfect health), then disease immunity causes the saving throws to be automatically failed."

[SCP-079]

So I just did a bit of testing on the PGCC, lowering CON scores via poisons.

Result: CON never goes below 3, no death if CON damage would put the score below 3.

[-XXX-]

Yeah, but lowering somebody's CON to 3 means reducing their max hp to very low numbers and poison also deals actual damage now...

[AstralUniverse]

If the subject is immune to disease they should not be taking con damage nor poison damage from that specific object. I dont want to reveal too much foig but this is definitely a bug.

[SCP-079]

Yeah, but lowering somebody's CON to 3 means reducing their max hp to very low numbers and poison also deals actual damage now...

That's true, yes. But I think the only build that would die just from the CON loss would be Pureclass Wizard (Charlevel * 4 HP + Charlevel * -4 from CON 3) - any other build will have enough HP from class levels to not die just from the CON loss if it's sitting at max HP.

The problem I see is that - by default - /only/ CON damage will not kill you, except under extremely specific circumstances. For characters with an MoD, this riddle would be extremely frustrating, since it can kill you without you expecting it... It feels a bit like a Killer DM moment, when the DM suddenly says you die from something you have not died from before. :/

[msterswrdsmn]

Regarding the low con=death, this is the entire basis of the nwn spell "Infestation of Maggots". It does continuous CON damage until it drops your CON below 3 and straight up kills you.

I love this spell; the longer its active, the harder it becomes to resist due to dropping CON=dropping Fort saves. And since it lowers HP as well, literally any decent attack becomes a one-hit kill after a few rounds.

I'm fairly certain poison can't kill a full HP target based on CON damage based on how its hardcoded into nwn. If it -is- possible, it would take too long to be worth it; ie: cycling through the primary and secondary effects before reapply a second dose of posion.

CON damage can indirectly kill someone because lowering CON to an injured person might drop their HP below 0 when calculating damage vs max HP reduction ratios. I've seen a lot of injured people die taking off their helmets with CON bonuses.

Without giving the riddle away, it -can- be solved, though there is a slight bit of randomness thrown into it between attempts.

Given how the riddle works, its pretty unlikely you'll solve it by brute-forcing it or randomly spamming answers. I can't see any reason a poison/disease immune person shouldn't be immune for this reason.

[Biolab00]

In fact, i'm more surprised that mindflayers can't lower your Int below 3 which directly kills you because they literally ate your brain while you're alive.
I remember that mindflayers in baldur's gate 2 was very very terrifying because of their physical attack more so, than all other ability that they cast.

By lowering con below 3, it's a given death which i find it, not surprising at all during then when i had first encountered it.
I supposed that you can believe that, sometimes immunity does not actually give you immunity for certain magic that goes beyond understanding.

For example, some demons have pure magic immunity ( FOIG which ) and literally immuned. But Hellball / Greater Ruin which belongs to magic that touches the level of gods, ignore such immunity.

Above be a single example yep.

[Skibbles]

This definitely sounds like a bug from my memory of the place. There's other weird issues there too. It really is ancient at this point.

[Kuma]

Given how the riddle works, its pretty unlikely you'll solve it by brute-forcing it or randomly spamming answers. I can't see any reason a poison/disease immune person shouldn't be immune for this reason.

as someone that's brute-forced this non-puzzle with NEP potions before this shouldnt be this difficult

one selection is the correct "start", then you just go through every option after that and loop around til you get the first rune again - I don't feel bad revealing this "solution" as the dungeon goes nowhere cool and it's old.

if i'm wrong and i've missed some symbolism, so be it, but all in all brute forcing it Should work. if something's changed with the spells used to protect then that's perhaps undocumented or unintended. i'm curious.

[Shadowy Reality]

as someone that's brute-forced this non-puzzle with NEP potions before this shouldnt be this difficult

one selection is the correct "start", then you just go through every option after that and loop around til you get the first rune again - I don't feel bad revealing this "solution" as the dungeon goes nowhere cool and it's old.

if i'm wrong and i've missed some symbolism, so be it, but all in all brute forcing it Should work. if something's changed with the spells used to protect then that's perhaps undocumented or unintended. i'm curious.

This is correct and the exact same way I did it many years ago. The first puzzle never made any sense to me. The ones after that make more sense once you consider what kind of place the Aisles of Insanity are, but you can still brute-force all of them.

[msterswrdsmn]

Probably should clarify: by "brute force" I meant "spamming random guesses until it clicks". Once you figure out the pattern it's rather doable, but again, like you said, its a lot of trial and error at first.