GameBanshee Forums

I have had no luck on resolving my game problems as I listed in my thread ( Major Bug Act 3 ... Help Needed[SPOILER??] ). I have to go back 15 days to possibly correct the problem with Sand hanging my computer.

I noticed something today and that is I gave Sand the 'Staff of Balpheron' for the extra level 7 & 8 spell slots. This was around the time the game starting going into the Sandbag Mode [ Hard Freeze ] and just lately all of my other characters want to attack him but don't. I can't even talk to him w/o a hard freeze. Hard freezes are dangerous to your computer as they can corrupt memory especially your Registry as I have recently discovered. Not very happy about this!!

I think the Staff of Balpheron is not only cursed but also broken and thus the reason for the numerous hard freezes I have had. The curse seems to be a slow one as I have had Sand equipped with it for a while and the crashes began on the 17th of March. I contacted some people about a possible bug in patch v1.04 but have not heard from anyone even after posting in GB Tech Supt forum.

A curse would explain some of the problems I have had with Sand but it should not cause my computer
to go into a hard freeze with no way out of the game short of just powering down of my computer. A
curse would explain why putting my cursor on Sand I get the attack and not the talk cursor and the same
goes for all members of my party. Nobody attacks him like Khelgar has attacked Elanee and Neeshka for
some strange reason out of the blue and they don't fight back. I think Casavir and Khelgar also went at it
but am not sure who started that one.

I reloaded a 15 day old save to see if I could figure out what was happening and noticed something
strange with the Staff of Balpheron properties. These are the normal properties you see when it is in
your inventory:

SPECIAL PROPERTIES:...................... >>> before equipping !!!!
Ability Score Penalty:..........CON -2
Ability Score Penalty:..........STR -2
Armor Bonus:.....................+4 (AC Deflection Modifier)
Bonus Spell Slot:................Sor, Wiz Level 7
Bonus Spell Slot:................Sor, Wiz Level 8
Enhancement Bonus:...........+1
Material:.............................(Alchemical Silver)
On Hit:................................Shocking Grasp Level 3
Only Useable By:................Sor, Wiz
Spell Resistance:................20

I equipped Sand with it and Sand was behaving as normal and I got the normal cursor when I wanted to
talk to him. I then checked the properties of the staff and below are special properties that showed up
when I right clicked on the staff as he had it equipped:

SPECIAL PROPERTIES:.......................... >>> Equipped
Ability Score Penalty:..........CON -2
Ability Score Penalty:..........STR -2
Armor Bonus:.....................+4 (AC Deflection Modifier)
Bonus Spell Slot:................Sor, Wiz Level 7
Bonus Spell Slot:................Sor, Wiz Level 8
Enhancement Bonus:...........+1
Material:.............................(Alchemical Silver)
On Hit:................................Shocking Grasp Level 3
Only Useable By:................Sor, Wiz
Spell Resistance:................20

CHARGES: 30 ( all spell specials were listed separately at least 10
times requiring 10 lines for each spell )
Assay Resistance.................3 Charges/Use
Chain Lightning....................5 Charges/Use
Lesser Mind Blank ...............3 Charges/Use
Lesser Spell Mantle..............4 Charges/Use
Improved Mage Armor...........2 Charges/Use
Iron Body.............................4 Charges/Use
Greater Invisibility................3 Charges/Use
Greater Stoneskin................5 Charges/Use
Dispel Magic.........................2 Charges/Use
Globe of Invulnerability.........5 Charges/Use
Cone of Cold........................4 Charges/Use
Delayed Blast Fireball...........5 Charges/Use
Lightning Bolt.......................2 Charges/Use
Magic Missile........................1 Charges/Use
Protection from Evil..............1 Charges/Use
Scintillating Sphere...............2 Charges/Use
Wall of Fire...........................4 Charges/Use listed at least 14 times
.....................................................................requiring 56 charges


The thing is that Sand had this equipped for awhile before before I noticed any problems and I switched
him out to add Ammon Jerro. The problems began when I switched Sand back in replacing Neeshka while
making armor and weapons with Grobnar as my craftsman. I remember left clicking on Sand to check his
inventory and everything came to a hard stop. HARD FREEZE # 01

I have had seven hard freezes in trying to find out what was causing and the only time it happened was when I attempted to do anything with Sand. Today I loaded that save from 15 days ago and found something that I had never noticed before and that was the equipped status of the staff. Sand never had any use of the staff except for the extra level 7 & 8 spell slots and the armor bonus.

I am stuck with the following: 1) the staff is cursed (it was created by Balpheron on the eve of his ascension to lichdom) and it is broken or 2) the staff is just broken and was never fixed by the developers. I should have read the legend of Balpheron on the inspection sheet [see attachment] closer before I ever equipped it. I had searched the forums looking for cursed items and found nothing. The only thing I found was Koraboros’s cursed Imp. I tried to sell the staff but found it did not have any value.

Now I will post this and see what responses I get especially about cursed items. I then will have my party take a portal trip to somewhere and drop that pernicious bit of evil whether cursed, broken or something else and drop it. I’ll have Grobnar make Sand a staff with sonic damage, damage versus evil and maybe divine damage on it.

I also have to remake all my armor and weapons all over again plus add any enchantments I can to some of the equipment the party is using. I did make a list before I setup my restart fifteen days in the past earlier today.


Kel
*****

I remember using that staff for my Moon Elf wizard and it didn't give me a lick of problems. Also, in all the Forgotten Realms games I've played, cursed items usually don't lead to a) computer problems, b) your own party members wanting to attack you. They usually give you bad stats, aren't removable without a Remove Curse spell, etc etc. Plus, if the staff turned your party members hostile, the description would DEFINITELY say this.

What I'm thinking is that somewhere in gameplay, while you had Sand in the party, there was a glitch with Sand and it carried over into the rest of the game. Maybe it IS the staff, but then I'd say it has nothing whatsoever to do with the staff being a cursed item, but rather with the staff's blueprint or whatever the engine's reading to make it appear in the game. Also, if the staff was responsible for your game crashes, it wouldn't just have appeared slowly, over a longer period of time. Bugged items tend to cause hard crashes ASAP.

My advice? Unequip the staff, drop it on the ground somewhere, and try to play on. If Sand is still giving you problems afterward, you might have to face the dire reality of uninstalling and reinstalling your game, complete with all patches.

Glitched and Gremlinized....I just added that word to my dictionary..lol

Ningengirai wrote:I remember using that staff for my Moon Elf wizard and it didn't give me a lick of problems. Also, in all the Forgotten Realms games I've played, cursed items usually don't lead to a) computer problems, b) your own party members wanting to attack you. They usually give you bad stats, aren't removable without a Remove Curse spell, etc etc. Plus, if the staff turned your party members hostile, the description would DEFINITELY say this.

What I'm thinking is that somewhere in gameplay, while you had Sand in the party, there was a glitch with Sand and it carried over into the rest of the game. Maybe it IS the staff, but then I'd say it has nothing whatsoever to do with the staff being a cursed item, but rather with the staff's blueprint or whatever the engine's reading to make it appear in the game. Also, if the staff was responsible for your game crashes, it wouldn't just have appeared slowly, over a longer period of time. Bugged items tend to cause hard crashes ASAP.

My advice? Unequip the staff, drop it on the ground somewhere, and try to play on. If Sand is still giving you problems afterward, you might have to face the dire reality of uninstalling and reinstalling your game, complete with all patches.

Hi Nin, and thanks for the response.

I came to the same conclusion a couple days after the post because the timeline fit the last known invasion of gremlins in parts of northern Wisconsin. Many are attributed to something called spring fever and I don't mean spring break [ lol ]. And where would sanity be without laughter?

I had to go back 15 days worth of saves to find a good one. That meant redoing all of my crafting for party members. I just have to remember to remove some of the equipment on those most likely to be swayed by the Shadow. It would be nice to have Neeshka stick around but I figure Bishop and she will switch. I enjoy Neeshka and Khelgar's little spats and would normally side with Neeshka. Neeshka is just too dangerous as a rogue and she actually gets more kills than Khelgar with her speed and feats.

I have been to three of your sites and while they seem kind of dark there is much good work there both in the graphical and verbal art. The verbal one that really hit home was "Hold me Until it Sleeps" and I don't know if that is the actual title. My favorite graphical because of the quality and how well it was done is the tapestry(my description from what I saw) Lotr1.gif.

You do have talent. Keep it up and may you always enjoy it even when it seems lke a chore.


Kel
*****