I’m in Honour Mode during the Moonrise Towers battle, and Jaheira just got herself killed by stealing my turn (and thus, giving the entire enemy army an extra turn). This happened because of a game behaviour I didn’t expect to happen:
I snuck through the entrance with my party right up to the border of the enemy sight cone, hoping to get some surprise attacks in. Gale (Abjuration Wizard) was at the front, so he was pulled into the conversation with Z’rell, and into battle afterwards. Since he has the Alert feat, he was first in the turn order, with Jaheira right behind him.
I only realised my other party members hadn’t been pulled into combat once an entire round of enemies had completed their turn. Thus, when Gale’s turn came back around, I switched to my Tav to pull my other characters into battle. At that moment, though, I saw Jaheira just continue her turn (as said above, she was in the turn order AFTER Gale), and the turn order continued from there, skipping Gale’s turn even though I hadn’t passed it yet.
Of course, Jaheira, lacking any basic survival instincts, was right in the middle of the enemies, in Panther form, but that didn’t give her enough HP to survive.
And in contrast to Wyll, who can be revivified if he dies in the Emerald Grove fight, Jaheira is gone for good (and, as a result, I won’t be able to recruit Minsc, either).
Since combat usually freezes when it’s one of your own characters’ turn, I must admit I do feel kind of cheated. Usually, I start combat encounters with Shovel, and even if only Shovel is in combat and enemies get a turn right after that, once it’s Shovel’s turn again, I always had all the time I needed to guide my party into combat.
I had no way of knowing Jaheira would just continue the turn order when I clicked away from Gale to my Tav, without actually passing Gale’s turn.
When the dialogue with Z’rell ended, I expected everyone to be pulled into combat as usual. The fact that didn’t happen was on me, since this can happen when group sneaking. We were all standing within a red sight cone at that point, so I thought all of us had been spotted, and were therefore in combat. Guess the sight cone the other three party members were standing in was that of the Harpers.
So maybe sneaking up to the front gate was a dumb idea on my part, even though it’s usually not a disadvantage to sneak, and certainly feels smarter than just walking straight through the front door unhidden, like I used to do on previous playthroughs.
But the game simply skipping my in-combat character’s turn when I switch characters, because a friendly NPC is right after me in the turn order?
Has this happened to anyone else? Is it specific to Jaheira, or can this happen with any friendly NPC that comes after you in the turn order (or may technically share initiative with you)?
I’m playing unmodded, as the Honour-Mode achievements wouldn’t work otherwise.
