Unofficial Arcanum Patch (Original Thread)

[Xor]

I'm pretty sure with the Medallion of Beauty the reward is set for two girls. I was hoping she'd pay me, but I got stuck with a threesome.

There's no option to ask for money if you're male, but you can if you're female. The quests are a little different, too.

Upon completing your mastery, Albert Leek gives you what he says is a Magic Ring that allows you to move more silently. The ring in question has a +2 to prowling enchantment (rather pointless concidering you're already a Master at the point at which you recieve it). I suggest changing it to +25 to NP.

Drog already said he didn't want to change the balance in this patch, and developer intent is pretty clear here.

 

[Faceless]

Is it though?
The dialogue says its effects are x but the item itself has an enchantment of y.

 

[Depressed Construct]

Upon completing your mastery, Albert Leek gives you what he says is a Magic Ring that allows you to move more silently. The ring in question has a +2 to prowling enchantment (rather pointless concidering you're already a Master at the point at which you recieve it). I suggest changing it to +25 to NP.

True.

 

[Earth Nuggets]

[Edit - Nevermind. Only legitimately completing the quest to find out Qintarra's location triggers Raven's presence. Whatever.]

 

[carlstar]

talking to the Orc blacksmith in blackroot and when talking about the inkeepers jewlery box i got the option to say
"Has Mr Hallaway been a good customer over the years?"
Twice.
This isnt a low Int character by the way.

 

[carlstar]

Even though it is kind of handy i know you arnt meant to be able too.

I teleported to K'na Tha even though i havent found Hardin's pass allowing you to get to the Glimmering forest. havent even found still water yet.

 

[Donovan]

First of all, thanks for the great patch. I was just starting to replay Arcanum after all these years and am glad to see people still interested in it.

I noticed a bug with Arvid Millstone's dialog (Wheel Clan miner). When you accept his quest, you get both the "My pleasure, Arvid" smart dialog and the "I come back when I kill it" dumb dialog. The dumb dialog (line 62 of 02957Arvid_Millstone.dlg in Arcanum3.dat) is coded for int 5 when it should be -4. I'm guessing the dumb PC would have no dialog options.

Also, I'm not sure if people consider this a bug but if you take the persuasive route with Randver (Loghaire's son) and use the passage under the throne, you never get permission to enter the Dredge (global flag 2650 I believe, according to 02814Dredge_Guards.dlg). If you end up returning Loghaire to the throne, you can never get this flag set because Randver is gone. I'm not sure if failing to return Loghaire but completing the quest still allows you to get the flag or not, but I assume not.

I would suggest setting the flag when Randver opens the throne passage, since he IS giving you permission to enter the Dredge. Alternatively there should be a way to get permission from Randver or Loghaire at a later time. It seems a bit silly that you can go in the back way but not the front way, and there are no game-altering reasons not to allow it.

 

[Donovan]

Should have waited to finish his quest before I posted!

Upon completing Arvid's quest, you get both the "I've yet to kill the creature" and the "I've killed the creatures"...the first (line 72 for smart and 78 for dumb) should probably be gated on global flag 2614 not being set.

Also, there is some inconsistency on whether it is creature singular or creatures plural. I think it fits the surrounding dialog and the situation if it starts singular (all of the initial acceptance dialog is singular or ambiguous), but then turns out to be "a family of spiders" as all of the post-completion text indicates. That means the following changes to 02957Arvid_Millstone.dlg:

Line 39 should be "beasts", not "beast".
Line 40 should be "them", not "it".
Line 79 should be "monsters", not "monster" for the second sentence.

Also, just noticed that line 91 says "a family crystalline spiders", while it should be "a family of crystalline spiders".

 

[carlstar]

Bangellian Deeps.
Attacking the paladin slaves upsets Dante. He says you shouldnt attack such good hearted people. Surely they arnt considered good anymore are they?

 

[Kharza]

The melee & dodge expert trainer in Blackroot(the one who teaches you only after you've listened his stories about the war) tells you his fee, 500, but doesn't actually take it.

 

[carlstar]

Ashbury pigs are good. good people complain if you kill them. Then again maybe all good people are vegetarians.

Pigs just should not be good. just silly

 

[Depressed Construct]

Agent of Molochean Hand in Shrouded Hills didn't have Bates' ring when I killed him (I sold him the ring before).

Also, when you first talk to Lukan as a low-int. character you have only two options: to provoke him into attacking you or say "urgh" and leave but if you have chosen second one (line 11), when you talk to him next time you'll have new option - to negotiate about crossing the bridge or offer to do something for Lukan (line 8). I think this third option (line 8) should have been available from the beginning - I got confused first time. Maybe it wasn't because I've taken Constable Owens' quest to eliminate thieves on he bridge before talking to them but I rewrote earlier savegame and cannot check this.

update: I'm not sure if it's a bug or supposed to be so, but if you return Albalah his artefact, Brehgo's quest doesn't get cancelled until you talk to his spirit.

Another annoying trifle: Lukan and his bodyguards run away in combat which gives you tangible advantage (especially in TB mode).

 

[Faceless]

You can double play that quest by returning the artifact and then killing Albalah.

 

[Depressed Construct]

You can double play that quest by returning the artifact and then killing Albalah.

Yes, you're right. I just checked.

 

[Earth Nuggets]

I teleported to K'na Tha even though i havent found Hardin's pass allowing you to get to the Glimmering forest. havent even found still water yet.

That's exactly what I did earlier. If you find Qintarra by yourself, Raven apparently doesn't appear and you can't progress the game. Completing the quests to find out the location, I believe trigger her presence.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

I noticed a bug with Arvid Millstone's dialog (Wheel Clan miner). When you accept his quest, you get both the "My pleasure, Arvid" smart dialog and the "I come back when I kill it" dumb dialog. The dumb dialog (line 62 of 02957Arvid_Millstone.dlg in Arcanum3.dat) is coded for int 5 when it should be -4. I'm guessing the dumb PC would have no dialog options.

Yes, there was a mistake. Thanks.

Also, I'm not sure if people consider this a bug but if you take the persuasive route with Randver (Loghaire's son) and use the passage under the throne, you never get permission to enter the Dredge

I believe this was intended.

Upon completing Arvid's quest, you get both the "I've yet to kill the creature" and the "I've killed the creatures"...the first (line 72 for smart and 78 for dumb) should probably be gated on global flag 2614 not being set.

Yes, and I've also added the gf check to lines 71 and 77 as well.

Also, there is some inconsistency on whether it is creature singular or creatures plural.

This is easily explained. The miners don't know what the hell is killing people there. Nobody came back alive. But once you find out that it was a family of spiders then they are referred to as "creatures".

Also, just noticed that line 91 says "a family crystalline spiders", while it should be "a family of crystalline spiders".

Thanks, fixed.

Attacking the paladin slaves upsets Dante. He says you shouldnt attack such good hearted people. Surely they arnt considered good anymore are they?

Well, they are "slaves". so I'd assume they are being controlled by the Cursed Palladin against their own will.

Ashbury pigs are good. good people complain if you kill them.

Could it be considered a good deed when one slaughters innocent animals?

 

[Langolier]

I noticed that the Stilleto now is nuetral, which I know you changed, but I noticed the TH bonus is gone. Seems kind of odd to me considering the stilleto is slower than a fine steel dagger and does no FT damage. Edit: the Stilleto also costs a lot more than a fine steel dagger.

Also, when you bring Mr. Hallaway's strongbox back from the blacksmith he asks you how you got it back. At that point you can tell him that you either negotiated a fair price, stole it back, killed Garret, or that Garret returned it for free. This seems broken to me since one would think that you'd only be able to answer with how you actually retrieved it. If you were really meant to lie then I would expect [Lie] to be in parenthesis like in other cases.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

I noticed that the Stilleto now is nuetral, which I know you changed, but I noticed the TH bonus is gone. Seems kind of odd to me considering the stilleto is slower than a fine steel dagger and does no FT damage. Edit: the Stilleto also costs a lot more than a fine steel dagger.

There was no TH bonus in the first place.

 

[carlstar]

Attacking the paladin slaves upsets Dante. He says you shouldnt attack such good hearted people. Surely they arnt considered good anymore are they?

Well, they are "slaves". so I'd assume they are being controlled by the Cursed Palladin against their own will.

It does mean if you want to complete the quest of destroying "The Scourge", a hexed sword, you have to dismiss any "good" aligned characters while you kill them all. Maybe that is what was intended, too be one of those annoying quests. I bet if you kill the slave master the slaves will still attack you and when you attack back the good NPCs will be upset again.

Ashbury pigs are good. good people complain if you kill them.

Could it be considered a good deed when one slaughters innocent animals?

The pigs are in the way and a farmer needs to get rid of them for his crops to grow. Just as if it was rabbits, birds, wild dogs or other animals. Maybe Troika thought farmers were evil because they kill pests that hurt their land.

 

[Sodomy]

I don't know if this one is intentional, but:

Talk to Magnus before going to Schuylers and Sons, but don't have him join.

Talk to the Schulyers, don't kill them.

Come back out, have Magnus join.

Have him wait for you somewhere.

Try to get him to rejoin. This time, he'll refuse to join because you talked to the Schuylers.

Shouldn't he refuse to join the first time if that's the case?

Also, and perhaps this should be saved for a controversial patch since it currently works in the manner described in the manual, but shouldn't followers with the "heal" skill automatically make attempts for you, like they do with pick locks?

 

[Faceless]

They do automatically heal you if you put bandages in their inventory.

 

[Fez]

Also, when you bring Mr. Hallaway's strongbox back from the blacksmith he asks you how you got it back. At that point you can tell him that you either negotiated a fair price, stole it back, killed Garret, or that Garret returned it for free. This seems broken to me since one would think that you'd only be able to answer with how you actually retrieved it. If you were really meant to lie then I would expect [Lie] to be in parenthesis like in other cases.

I disagree with this. There are many times in the game when options were offered without it being labelled as "LIE". Simply labelling it as a lie without any changes to the mechanics of it could work as hand-holding for the more forgetful or dim player, I suppose, as I would expect you know what you did in the game and can play the role as you like when you choose the option. You know what is a lie when you say it because you just did it.

It is not broken though and does not need fixing other than the possibility of going through all the variations to set the "LIE" tag on what the player didn't do in that situation and perhaps adding some skill-based roll or check to see if the lie worked (this would actually make it worth while changing). This is unnecessary though if it is too much work. Forcing me to answer in one way by removing all the other options in this case is completely shitty and not at all what I want.

 

[Sodomy]

They do automatically heal you if you put bandages in their inventory.

Ah, didn't know that. I always tried it the same way I have them attempt lockpicking (that is, put the item in my belt pouch and use the command myself, at which point they intervene); thanks for the information.

 

[Depressed Construct]

There's a problem with Ristezze's dialoge. When playing low-int character you can ask about "Pee Sk-k-y-lerr-rr" (line 425) even if you brought Ristezze one (or both) special items and then he asks you to bring him these items again. If you have one of them (you can simply buy them back - Bessie Toon's boot costs only 4 coins) you can give it away and get experience points every time you do so.

Heh, I've found a way to check normal lines in this playthrough as well - potion of intellegence.

update: Another little thing concerning Ristezze, with nomal-int character: line 105 (found out about Schuylers already), his responce "... A very important piece of puzzle, eh, my friend? Ristezze has been very free with information, no? What have you to offer Ristezze?" doesn't make much sence. I think you shouldn't be able to ask about Schuylers again if you got the information you needed.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Bumping this, in case it went unnoticed:

I have a request to everybody who's testing (or even simply playing) the game now. I'm going to make potato plants and lemon trees to have regeneratable inventories, and since they aren't prototypes but unique containers, I need a full list of all of them in the game.

Also, fixed various bugs you've been reporting, and still checking some of them. In case you haven't noticed the first post gets constantly updated, so you can check out the progress at any time. Thank you for your reports!

Also, the half elves debate seems to be died away. Anyway, PC half elves now use elven art just like NPC half elves, for the sake of consistency.