I've reached Verbobonc after what was the first bugless run I've had with this game lol. I'm really happy that I had no gamebreaking issues or CTDs in fire temple or in them elemental nodes. Great stuff with T+, it all runs really, really smooth.
I saw that the Black Jay's ring is now in Deklo Grove on the spider corpse and I remember it was on the Moathouse frog before. I found no notable issues until Verbobonc except during the Balor fight in Fire node, which is still the hardest fight in the game for all the wrong reasons. We should be able to counter fear during that fight but no matter how many times I tried I wasn't able to counter it with bard's songs or Remove fear, nor any other buffs helped amp my toons against it, it all seemed to be just based on individual luck(a natural 20 roll save). Also the Balor managed to charm a target under Circle of protecc against evil several times. I found a workaround for fear by casting Web to trap the character with Scather near him and "cancel" the fear effect by making the character stuck near him. Things that helped me beat him were not buffs but luck is what I'm saying. I'm not saying he's too OP btw - heck, iirc he should have a Vorpal sword in 3.5e, but that encounter should be looked at again there's some things amiss I'm sure about it. I know that we can pickpocket every guardian for the gem and sneak out, I know it isn't mandatory to even do any of that - just saying that this fight maybe needs a bit of tweaking to make it more available to someone that comes prepared for it (holy weapons, fear counters, god-slaying Fragarach/Scather).
But I came here mostly to talk about Verbobonc - cause as soon as I started doing quests there the old symptoms and bugs returned. Starting with the Under Attack from Underground quest - enormous spider on second level was bugged and status effects like silence and web remained on characters in the description, had 2 CTDs and my fighter was unable to attack once (empty action bar glitch). Things to note: waifu NPC Meleny is the only NPC in my party and she would always annoyingly sound the combat before it initiated but spider sometimes remained friendly or the combat would only start if I order party to move around a bit, once I had to C, or the combat would stutter-start after awhile with combat music going on/off repeatedly (once just went CTD after such stutter). I have the Alert AI across rooms enabled so the entire quest had me chasing drows on alert from across 2-3 rooms, I had to run towards Matriarch and get vision of her in 2 turns cause she was casting from where she stands, her priests too. So one Hommlet NPC and Alert AI, maybe relevant. I managed to get past it and the dragon by carefully saving and monitoring my toons status, reloading whenever I saw something fishy.
Second thing - and this is where I got out and started posting - is the Fear of Ghosts quest. I remember doing it without issues few years ago but now I can't get it to work. First I bought the castle and tried resting inside - ghost attacks and withdraws, then I remembered it has to be night so I exit, pass time to evening and go b to second floor. I hear the groan, I see the ghost and I attack it = nothing. He just chills there, no name 36/36 HP, walks around. So I reload the save b4 I buy the castle and tried step by step - so, I notice the board has msg from fresh prince of Gnome Air, I get the quest from him, wait till night = ghost on the second floor still doesn't do anything if I attack. I tried talking to the rabbit hole Gnome before and after attacking the damn ghost = nothing from the ghost itself. I found out that I can cast turn undead on it and make my game CTD when I go outside to check for second ghost tho. I just can't make it start a dialog. I'm curious about several things here, since I found no details about them anywhere:
-I got the castle offered directly at the store, does it need to be posted on the notice board first? Didn't get it there and idk if maybe it needs to show there first
-is there a specific series of quests I need to do before the castle? I am a bit cloudy on my previous run but I believe I did the castle among last of my quests. Currently in Verbobonc I've done the bounties, drows, dragon and Family turmoil without going back to the Elysia (it says completed in the logbook after I convince the viscount and I wanna pretend it ends there tbh, cause I'd rather believe that my dragonslaying, demigodkilling, discerning helmet wearing 20+ WIS and CHA Liberator Extraordinare main would know better than to play into that petty, sloppy and quite frankly dumb finale).
Yes, I have met the prerequisites for the ghosts, the big 3 are dead no charms used during the fight, all 3 dead and looted etc.
