What happened to my magic?!

[Rubytron]

I recently started playing Blades again and I started the Lord Putidus scenario. It resets your stats at the start and for some reason it took my mage/priest spells away too and then it straight up crashed at (I assume) what would have been the end. I took my party out of the scenario and into another and I still have no magic even after I went into the character editor and put my levels back up. This is most perplexing. Are my characters boned?

Thanks!

[keira]

I can't remember atm if BoA gives you spells once you get the levels, or if you have to buy them seperately like in BoE.

 

I believe it's exactly like in BoE, though, so in that case I'd just take a quick romp through the HLPM to get them back

[Rubytron]

Oh my God I'm such an idiot, I put the levels back up but didn't "re-purchase" the spells. Thanks!

[Kelandon]

Crashed? I've not received reports of crashing at the end of LP. Do you have any further details as to what happened (when, at least)?

 

(Though this presumably is of no consequence to you at this point: LP doesn't "reset" your stats at the start of the scenario. It transfers certain skills into others, since there's no magic in the scenario, but other skills are made more useful than they normally are. It then restores them at the end of the scenario. It appears the restore was prevented by some kind of crash.)

[Rubytron]

It happened as I struck the last blow on Putidus and the roof was falling in. It came up with something like "Unhandled exception occurred 0000000000000". Its been sat in my hard drive for a while, it may be that I didn't transfer it properly in the first place. Another non Spidweb made scenario didn't load the dialogue script for a particular town so something's not right somewhere.

[Kelandon]

Er, you struck a blow on Putidus and the roof was falling in? I think that's a losing ending, which means that the thing that caused the Unhandled Exception was a kill_char() call that was supposed to kill the entire party. That's odd. It's not obvious to me why that led to an Unhandled Exception.

 

BoA's bugs are weird.

[Rubytron]

A losing ending? Me? Lose? That's umpossible! Its just a bit of a weird one I guess.

[Mr.TiC]

Hello, it's been a while since last post here, but it seems like the only thread relevant to Lord Putidus' ending so I'll put my question here.

 

I'm having trouble winning the scenario. Whatever I tried to do, I always die in the last fight.

Spoiler

    There is that secret passage to flank Putidus in his throne room, which goes through a bedroom and through narrow passages with 2 NPCs standing guard there, asking you if you have permission to pass. They only let me pass if I chose to lie and say that Lord Putidus gave me the permission. So far so good.

Upon entering the throne room from behind, right next to Putidus, there is the "villain cutscene" where Putidus talks about his evil plans and motives. After that, the fight starts regardless of dialogue options chosen, and Putidus is completely immune to my attacks (he "takes 0 damage"). The result: my party gets killed, and the party death/loss screen pops up.

    Having a save right before initiating the final fight cutscene, I've tried reloading several times hoping to do different things before the actual fight.

There is an NPC (forgot the name) sitting on a chair in one of the castle rooms, who says he'd help you defeat Putidus only if you convince him Putidus wants him harm; well, after finding Putidus' secret journal in one of the hidden rooms inside the castle, the party learns that Putidus absolutely doesn't want to harm the aforementioned NPC, in fact he needs him alive and well in order for his plan to succeed. After learning this, you can lie to that NPC, telling him Putidus absolutely wants him dead, which will result in the NPC turning against Putidus and giving you advice on how to flank him in the throne room, which when you do, the NPC appears there next to Putidus. Putidus then coerces said NPC into turning against you and and window pops up saying your party had no chance and was killed.

    Another thing I've tried was killing this NPC of interest before facing Putidus, thinking "if that NPC is so important to Putidus, killing him should definitely upset his plans". Turns out, my evil act or murder was noticed and Putidus mentions it during the cutscene and proceeds to kill me, as he is still invulnerable to all my attacks.

    I've also tried killing all his guards in the room before fighting Putidus himself, but to no use, he's still immune to attacks.

I know this forum is quite inactive, but perhaps a BoA enthusiast is still lurking here now and then and could help me with this In the meantime, I'll explore the castle areas in hopes of finding something to break the cycle, but after already doing just that for an hour, I'm not very optimistic (which is the reason for this lengthy post).

Also Kelandon's pink and pretty site seems to have vanished, so I can't consult it for additional information.

[Kelandon]

On 9/9/2021 at 10:55 AM, Mr.TiC said:

Also Kelandon's pink and pretty site seems to have vanished, so I can't consult it for additional information.

I have to renew it every now and again, and I just did, so it should be back now. I don't believe there's anything there that would help, though.

Spoiler

When you challenge Putidus, you need Faustulus on your side, and you need to choose dialog options that keep him on your side. That means you need to lie to him and persist in lying to him during the cut scene.

 

EDIT: This is slightly wrong. See below.

If that doesn't work, tell me exactly what happens.

[Mr.TiC]

Hello, Kelandon! About the end fight:

Spoiler

I've lied to him, and saved right before entering the throne room from the back passage, so I could reload if something goes wrong. But every dialogue option I choose ends with him joining Putidus.

I've used a slightly overpowered 2-slith party, since I didn't read the readme and have ignored the pop-up warning. Could it be this could mess up the boss fight dialogue, if the 3rd or 4th party member needs to be present to say something?

Since it's a relatively short scenario, I'll have time to replay it soon, and with a recommended party.

[Kelandon]

No, the scene should work fine with any number or composition of party members.

 

I think I may have mis-stated things before. Here's what's up:

Spoiler

The scene gets to the point where Faustulus appears and there are text bubbles saying:

Faustulus!

Where have you been?

He responds with a few text bubbles.

A dialog box pops up and you choose: (Nothing.)

At that point, the scene should conclude successfully. If it doesn't, tell me exactly what happens—who says what, etc.

[Mr.TiC]

Spoiler

To assure myself I tried both dialogue options, after the text bubbles you mention, both options lead to the same thing:

[bubbles]

Putidus speaks to Faustulus, Faustulus turns against me.

[pop up window]

"you had no chance against both of them, you died"  ...(to paraphrase)

--------------------

I've ran a new party through HLPM (to lvl 10), and repeated the scenario - with better results. The final scene played out as it should have and Faustulus struck Putidus before he could talk to him.

 

There is one difference between my failed and my successful playthrough: talking to the vengeful vendor NPC.

 

My first (failed ending) party, didn't speak to this NPC any further than "let's trade". But this time I did, and he told me to take a message to the starting town, which I did, found the ruined town and went back to him with the news.

I don't know how this side quest could be related with the issue I had with my 1st party, though. Especially since the NPC, when talking to him in the castle dungeons after getting imprisoned myself, didn't have any different dialogue from my 1st game.

...

Well, at least now I know how it ends. After reading the ending pop-up window, I still don't know if I could have done anything else, like burning documents about Putidus' plans.

There were also some doors in the castle I couldn't open - one (difficulty 200) in the room where Faustulus can be found, and the one behind the throne room that's apparently "totally" barred.

[Kelandon]

I think that, in newer operating systems, the run_dialog() call in BoA does not always return the right number. I've seen buggy behavior in Homeland that I never saw making scenarios a decade ago. I suspect that is the reason for this bug.

 

It is true that some of those doors are not openable.

 

EDIT: Oh, and as in all my scenarios, you don't really "win" in LP. You can finish, but no matter what you do, you don't save the people who you set out to save.