Picked up a Shambling Death Wand as a drop from one of the enemies.
Party gets infected by Rot at pickup... deals 1 dmg per second until vitality is at 1.

I have 600 HP... and no way to cure it, other than wait it out.

That's just mean Larian, :'( had to load game, and repeat the fight.

Its not a prank. If you talked to the enemies before you killed them, and passed the charisma checks, she tells you that the wand was made through tenebrium and that one risks rot by using it.

Unfortunately winning rock paper scissors isn't something you always do.

Well, the problem is that you don't have to use it to get infected by rot. And another problem is that you maybe don't even know what rot means at that time. It's just a bad location/timing for this encounter...

That's another thing actually, I swear the rock paper scissor game is rigged. I never EVER get any draws with NPCs, I either win or lose. This particular encountered they had 5 charisma points, meaning I would never know about this rot wand if I lose more than twice.

then its time to fight charisma with charisma! or just press space to skip und reload until you win.

You mean charisma vs Time Travel :P feels like cheating to me.

I'm not sure it's rigged--but I always assumed the game is just saving players some time. If every AI choice between rock paper scissors was 1/3, you'd have to sit through potentially a lot of ties.

Of course, you can't help it in multiplayer, but I figured whatever you choose (say rock), the computer will automatically eliminate that choice, and give you 50/50 on paper or scissors. You'll either win or lose the result, which in both cases moves things along at least.

Rot is a slight annoyance at best, just pop a heal every now and then, no big deal.

Or use a bloodstone to remove it.

The original post says "I have 600 HP... and no way to cure it, other than wait it out. "

No way to cure it means no bloodstone, SO... pop a heal every now and then as it is merely a slight annoyance.

What does that wand actually do anyway?

Honestly, I haven't found out myself so far after clearing both Hiberheim and Luculla Forest completely...

Can you use the Death Wand on the shambling mound that is guarding the wishing well? I just beat him down, but considering his resistances, that might be what they were intending.

Yet reloading to remove the consequences of your choice is not?

Interesting set of principals you have there.

Oh the horrors of losing 1 HP per second, it gave me nightmares for weeks

One is a decision and a failure on my part for not investing in charisma. I shouldn't be able to win it without the proper investment.

Another is an unexplained item that you were conditioned to pick up (Always pickup loot, at no point does the game say "this loot is poisoned or will kill you or analyze loot skill) that will eventually lead to your annoyance or death.

So that's what infected me with rot that one time, without any apparent reason.

But you can without ever reloading. I won the charm contest with the woman in the tub when she was an 8 and I was a 2. So you can have a chance of winning.




Was a surprise wasn't it? Nice when games have surprises I think, good or bad. /shrug

Sure, but it would be nice to have a loremaster/perception check to warn you that picking it up would do bad things. Most games I can remember would warn you about cursed items if you had the ability to ID them.

But there was a host of conversations that clued me in. Tenebrium poisons you and you get rot, you learn that in Silverglen, then the enemies tell you it is made of Tenebrium but yes, you do have to pass a check. In most of my matches I am 6 v. whatever, meaning I only have to win twice and I don't remember investing in it, just counting it as a valuable stat for my leader when itemizing.

There are RPGs that also killed team members off in the middle of the story. Did you complain about the game not warning you to take all your equipment off the character, too?

Anyone tried doing it with high Lore or perception?

Anyone has any reason to push Lore higher then two points that are easy to get from gear?

There is a difference between the game hinting that you should be aware of something and popping a dialogue box telling you that something is about to happen. Foreshadowing is a useful story element.

Baldur's Gate: simply talking to a nymph on one of the costal maps makes her kiss you and kill you. If you talk to her with your main char, it's game over, you have to reload.

No warning whatsoever.

Others have already posted there is a lot of chatter about the rot in silverglen. The immaculate that drops it herself suggests that controlling one of those creatures required something "special".

What other foreshadowing do you want other than a dialogue box popping up with "careful, sh*t is going down"?

I agree to an extent, but this could have very well been an item that is undetectable by such skills. I am sure you remember various modules in AD&D where a given item was an "exception" to the skill system and required special checks only available to the module or a given situation (ie a charm check to get the person to tell you).

Don't get me wrong, I would love to see layered skill applications as you mention, but there are sometimes where the GM takes liberty in the story in order to preserve the surprise.

My pen and paper games where comprised of engineers, physicists, chemists, etc... if the GM were entirely confined to the rules of the book specifically, the games would have ended up quite boring.

Worst game ever!!! Wait... oh... umm... uhh... Not fair!!!!

Maybe something like:

{Pause}

[You are currently in a situation where you might make a bad decision]

[The item you acquired may or may not prove to be harmful to your character]

[You appear to be equipping the item, are you sure this is what you want to do as this action may or may not result in a detrimental effect to you character]

[You have just equipped the item, if this was not intended, please --click here-- if you do not wish to receive the detrimental effect that you were warned about previously]


If that is the case, well... Bethesda I hear makes wonderful games for such.

Sure. Just more options to use the stats of combat is always cool. Always seems that games focus so much on combat that you don't get a lot of reasons to develop non combat traits. DOS seems to be doing pretty well with that in general.

Lol I wish my real life came with that many warnings when I'm about to do something stupid

I blame the years of "action" focus on games. All the subtle systems of conversation and world interaction were lost on the companies whose main focus was fast play and flashy visuals.

Bioware attempted to bring about depth in conversational RPG aspects initially (Old Republic, Jade Empire), but unfortunately the AAA studios took over and turned them into nothing more than teenage dating simulators.

Yeah, how many times do you wish you got a warning for something you were about to say that would anger your wife? Man... if you could market and sell that, you would be the richest person on the planet!

Yes but baldurs gate is ... what?.... 15 years old? Also, the annoying thing is that you are used to picking up enemy loot and all of the sudden that kills you and you have to redo the fight. While talking to a nymph... well... if you talk to a sex-crazed demon I would have saved...

This is cruel prank? I'll tell you what's cruel. Devs told us that every character is killable.

So try to kill most annyoing character in game - damn Zixzax. He is lvl 24 (or 26, dont remember), but I'm ok with this. He has more AP than my whole party combined, but I'm ok with this. He is Very Important Char, so he should be strong.

But when after really long and tough fight, you'll finaly succeed and kill him... He will just respawn. Yup. He is fkin immortal. So much for dev's promises.

Why I'm even playing this game, when this damn immortal imp could go and kill all of the bad guys himself? Coz, you know, he is immortal? And they can't kill him? But instead this half-god send bunch of weak humans to save the world. Is he just lazy, or wtf? This is kinda retarded.

Hm, firstly he is clearly insane. Secondly, its quiet possible he can only be immortal so long as he is in the End of Time.. if you notice, weird things happen in the place. Also you're main characters are some sort of destined people do their mission. They're the only ones the weaver of time ever spoke to and blood stones react to them. Which implies the Imp would not succeed as it's not his destiny.

They never promised they'd stay dead.

Btw, if you use the "Death wand" on Volde.... I meant "the guardian" you'll one shot him. (Btw "the guardian" looks exactly like the monster you just killed before picking up the wand.

Oh cool, didn't know, doesn't have any description why would I use it on the guardian?... I just teleported him to lava and insta killed him.

Good to know that's how to kill that guardian. I beat on him for 30 minutes.

It really doesn't matter how many warnings you get, people are still going to pick it up because they are going to think that they need it for something. No one is going to just leave it. The only solution I can think of is if your character opens the special chest you have just for that ore and they put that wand directly into the chest. Not sure that's even possible without touching the wand though. And of course if you did do that and avoided getting rot, can you still use it on the guardian?