Larian Studios Forums Divine Divinity (English) Help/Tips/Tricks Barrel Bug Or Exploit?

I noticed recently that I can basically take anything I want from people's containers(cupboards, barrels, chests, bookshelfs, etc.) and never have them accuse me of stealing.

The way that I can do this is to carry a barrel(I am sure that a chest would work as well, but I have not tried that) in your inventory and drop it right beside the container you would like to get goodies from. Open the barrel and then open up the person's container. After that, drag the item from their container to your barrel and continue to do so until you have all of their items.

Pick up the barrel and drop it a little distance(as far as it will go before the X comes up), and continue to pick it up and drop it until there is a little bit of distance between your barrel and any people. If you try to take anything from the barrel near people, they will accuse you of theft and try to arrest you.

It is a nice way to get some ill-gotten gains without any reputation hits, but I am curious whether this is a bug or just an exploit on my part.

Thank you. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I think this is an exploit; apparently the game doesn't check if something is being stolen if it is being transferred between containers, just removed from one.

Any container will work for this. You may want to switch to a lower weight container, such as a sack of grain (100) or the book from the thieves' guild (5). You can also just open the container while it is in your inventory, but there is a possible problem if you become over-encumbered.
weight bug and disappearing chests

Thanks for the hints. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I had something weird happen last night. I brought a chest with me to my little stash(I have yet to bring it over to my house in Verdistis) that was from the Black Market in the sewers. When it was empty, it weighed nothing, so I put it into my inventory open. I dropped it at my stash, closed it, and left it there.

I did some travelling, went back to my stash, and placed a couple of goodies inside the chest. When I closed it back up again, *poof*, the chest disappeared along with the goodies! Thankfully I had a quicksave just before doing that, but I was just curious as to why the heck that happened! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />

I don't know what causes this bug, but the problem seems to be mostly with chests that weigh nothing when open. It is apparently a graphical issue, though, since it is still possible to see and access the chests under some circumstances.

Thanks for the confirmation, Raze. I will make sure that I stay away from using chests that way nothing when open. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />

I strongly suspect it has something to do with the way they transform objects when they change states the object is in.

There seem to be a number of bugs along those lines, which seem to have to do with corrupting memory or linking and unlinking the objects incorrectly.

Ive done a fair amount of game programming (and research robotics when I actually had to get back to what they paid me for....) and seen this sort of thing a lot, and in a lot of other games since then too.

I found a lot of these when I was experimenting with what objects could be used on each other. I have the latest patch install BTW.

For example check out what happens when you pick up a number of items that group together, such as straw or barrels, then drop them.

If you open the straw it becomes a single item no matter how many were in the original group. It is also interesting that if you open a straw bundle, then reclose it, you will get the horizontal bundle only no matter what orientation the original straw bundle had.

If you smash the grouped barrels you will have 1 smashed barrel only.

It seems to lose track of state and number along the way and based on what I see I expect that they are doing a transform of one item into another, actually making a new object and freeing up the old one in most cases.

You see something similar if you use a stack of empty bottles on an herb. It uses them all instead of just one. Quite a hassle if you dont catch it and prevent it. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/alien.gif" alt="" />

Another related bug is that you can throw an object clear across the map if you do it right. This seems to have some nasty side effects though, which is to be expected when you hit bugs, and especially those that might trigger issues with memory area subcells and object linked lists, which again I have to expect they are using as that is the best approach overall for such things.

I threw a filled barrel of all sorts of stuff all the way from where you blow up the supply wagon to the area behind the blue boar inn in a single throw. It took a while to go there and land but it got there intact, even though it weighed something like 60 thousand weight units and went over top of various buildings and structures. One odd side note, it made a beep when it landed, like some sort of error sound and since then my crossbow bounces my own poison bolts back in my face..... A really bad side effect which is probably corrupted memory overflowing into either the bow skills or some related area. It happens even if I change to a different crossbow.

Kind of a game killer at that point, and it may be from something else and I only think this was the cause.... cant say without the code to debug first hand.

Let me know if you know of a work around, other than no crossbow for the rest of the game.

I recently got the game as something I had heard was a sleeper game here in the US and it is a really nice effort so I hope that finding bugs like this is still useful to Larian and others as code from one version often ends up in later games and versions. A patch would not be a bad thing to see either.....

Well, happy hunting.

[color:"orange"]You see something similar if you use a stack of empty bottles on an herb.[/color]

You shouldn't. I made lots of potions by dropping a stack of empty bottles on herbs, mushrooms, etc; there should be a filled potion produced on the ground, while the rest of the stack returns to your inventory.


[color:"orange"]since then my crossbow bounces my own poison bolts back in my face[/color]

There is a rare bug which can cause spells to miss-fire, similar to your problem.
Hostile traps / summoned / resurrected creatures

From what I've read Poison Weapon is more effective than Poisoned Arrows, anyway. You can use iZakaroN's SaveEditor (or from Kiya's site, with description) to unlearn skills.


Check your PM (click 'My Home' in the top menu bar, then 'Received Private Messages').


Welcome to the forum. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wave.gif" alt="" />

Try dropping the stack of empties on the ground first, then move it onto the herbs. All the empties go away and you get 1 potion.

One thing I see that is wrong is that there is no check for failure on a move which won't allow the object to go back where it came from or to stack objects, as in the dreaded red X and being over your weight bugs I see posted. That is a simple thing to fix by setting it so the item drops at your feet in or in the nearest clear spot, or you can set up basic stacking rules and make piles which can be loads of fun and add a lot to a game engine as well. Stuff in piles can be hidden in plain sight so to speak.

One game I wrote (on BSD unix) had stacking like that and a fun stunt was to save curse scrolls you found along the way and put them into piles of equipment for people to find and get nailed by when they picked up the bait. Landmines anyone? Worked great for the more intelligent and greedy monsters. Makes for a nice way to start off an ambush.

Anyway, yes this was done with poison weapon and poison arrows, it happened both when they were both active and when they were used singly. Interestingly certain shot angles worked normally while others bounced. The ones that worked were pretty close to or right on the orthogonal axis lines, IE straight up and down or side to side.

I read the PM, thanks. I will check out the editor and see if I can change the same skills over to bows and see if it goes away and get back to you.

While it is interesting in an abstract sense to consider the how and why of these issues, it seems like things like this and the spells bug are pretty much make or break issues for people continuing to play the game.

After a while and a lot of invested time people just get fed up with having to fight against the game engine, which seems to be the rule rather than the exception with games in the last few years.

Almost makes me wish I was back in a research environment with a few million dollars worth of workstations on my desk..... :D

Ah, what gaming would be like if we all had a microvax running bsd unix.....