11 replies to this topic

[younes]

Hello,

I'm currently playing the beginning of the Watcher's Keep and the "Ritual" add-on from BP177.
I have cleaned up the map and destroyed all the skulls, but I'm not sure I'm doing the right thing when I want to disrupt the countess ritual:
Since she seem to proceed with the ritual regardless of what I say to her, I can disrupt it the following ways:
-either hit her: ritual disrupted, she turns hostile and the golems too
- or I just destroy the golems before she finished her hand waiving, but she finishes the ritual and turns hostile
- or I do nothing and she finishes the ritual but something goes wrong as the golems transform into gellies and diseappear.

I remember the guy giving the quest saying: disrupt the ritual but do not hurt her...
what am I doing wrong!

thanks for the help

-Younes

[erebusant]

Hello,

I'm currently playing the beginning of the Watcher's Keep and the "Ritual" add-on from BP177.
I have cleaned up the map and destroyed all the skulls, but I'm not sure I'm doing the right thing when I want to disrupt the countess ritual:
Since she seem to proceed with the ritual regardless of what I say to her, I can disrupt it the following ways:
-either hit her: ritual disrupted, she turns hostile and the golems too
- or I just destroy the golems before she finished her hand waiving, but she finishes the ritual and turns hostile
- or I do nothing and she finishes the ritual but something goes wrong as the golems transform into gellies and diseappear.

I remember the guy giving the quest saying: disrupt the ritual but do not hurt her...
what am I doing wrong!

thanks for the help

-Younes

You may wish to place her somewhere else . Naturally the golems go hostile when you start to do that.

[younes]

You may wish to place her somewhere else . Naturally the golems go hostile when you start to do that.

Hi Erebusant,

Would you mind elaborating on that?
How can I move a NPC that is not in my party ou do you mean should I try to imprison her ?

-Younes

[OldVeteran]

In the end it doesn't matter whether you kill her or not. The only way to disrupt the ritual is to kill her or interrupt her (by hitting her for enough damage so concentration breaks or using silence spell). Even if you merely interrupt without killing her, she turns into a jelly and dies - this counts as you failing too.

So yeah, you lose either way but the Pontifex doesn't care much.

[erebusant]

In the end it doesn't matter whether you kill her or not. The only way to disrupt the ritual is to kill her or interrupt her (by hitting her for enough damage so concentration breaks or using silence spell). Even if you merely interrupt without killing her, she turns into a jelly and dies - this counts as you failing too.

So yeah, you lose either way but the Pontifex doesn't care much.

There is a way to interupt the ritual without harming her, and fulfil Pontifex's requirements.

[OldVeteran]

Spoil us.

[younes]

There is a way to interupt the ritual without harming her, and fulfil Pontifex's requirements.

Hi again Erebusant

Thanks for the tip about using the Maze spell on her to disrupt the ritual.
But this still does not solve the issue with Pontiflex, as after cleaning the golems, I come to him (BTW I have the travel to the Siege camp map and back to Watcher's keep to get to the keep entrance again) and he states in his dialog that the ritual was disrupted but that the countess is also dead!

help?

[Narm]

I got some different bugs.

When I try to kill the Captain Skull, it just didn't die. Ctrl+Y doesn't help too?

In the end, what's this mod about, I'm getting confuse.

[younes]

I got some different bugs.

When I try to kill the Captain Skull, it just didn't die. Ctrl+Y doesn't help too?

In the end, what's this mod about, I'm getting confuse.

You have to be sure that you killed all the skull protectors (for each skull), before being able to kill it. Otherwise, it will no go below "near death". Some of the protectors can be invisible or wandering about the map, so use "detect invisibility" or "true sight" all the time.
A telling sign that you are ready to kill a skull is: when you have killed all his protectors, you will hear "Noooooooooo!".

Hope this helps

-Younes

[Azazello]

In the end it doesn't matter whether you kill her or not. The only way to disrupt the ritual is to kill her or interrupt her (by hitting her for enough damage so concentration breaks or using silence spell). Even if you merely interrupt without killing her, she turns into a jelly and dies - this counts as you failing too.

So yeah, you lose either way but the Pontifex doesn't care much.

There is a way to interrupt the ritual without harming her, and fulfill Pontifex's requirements.

Spoil us.

Use a certain spell, or a certain type of spell. hint: Mind-altering...

You might have to reload a few times until her saving roll fails, to see the results.

[younes]

Use a certain spell, or a certain type of spell. hint: Mind-altering...

You might have to reload a few times until her saving roll fails, to see the results.

I have tried to look into the countesse's .BCS file (ritcount.bcs) to see what's going on with her and how does she react my my different actions, and still even with your hints, I am confused. So please NO MORE hints but a FULL solution!!
from the BCS file, it seems that any action resulting in the ritualls disruption (mazing her, or confusing her) also results in her death...for me, she always ends up as a mustard gelly and dies! So Pontiflex is never happy about it.
Again from the script file, tyhe only way she stays alive is either taking more than 12 hours to complete the map (the ritual takes place) or you dispell the guardian but do not interfere with her 60 seconds spell casting time (the golems end-up a jellies but she teleports away. In either case, she lives and pontiflex is really pissed at you.
But there must be a way to get it right, because I checked the .dlg file of Pontiflex (ritpont.dlg) and there IS a dialog option where he congratulates you for both disrupting the ritual and keeping the countess alive!. But there are no specific variables that seem to trigger this dialog, so I couldn't track back the variables to see where the change occurs.

So as you can see, I did my homework but still failed. So I think I deserve a solution to this problem, not a hint!

Finally, my impatience come from the fact that since I started TOB, I've run in lost of little bugs, broken quests and inconsistencies that I never had in my SOA mega install (ALL the major mods plus a bunch of little ones, only CtB was a pain in the arse with all the broken variables):
- enemies that don't attack
- cannot frighten a character that needs to (Saradush)
- mage stolen book quest broken (Saradush)
- yaga-shura utterly invincible (yes I got his heart): this is the first and only time that I had to ctrl-Y a battle to progress.

Anyway, enough bitching and more ass-kicking for goodness!

-Thanks

[younes]

Ok, I managed to disrupt the ritual AND to keep the countess alive (or so says Pontiflex).
I am uterly puzzled as to why it worked this time since I repeated the same process, that up to now, was considered by Pontiflex as non satisfactory (ritual disrupted but countess dead).
So this is what I did (kudo to Erebusant for his HINTS ):
1/ After cleaning up the map from the skulls and dispelling the apparition protecting the ritual, the countess starts its dialogue whatever are your dialog options. As soon as she finishes and starts spell casting, use the spell MAZE on her (you may have to do it a couple of time because of her magic resistance).
2/ As soon as MAZE occurs, the 3 golem units go berzerk and engage you.
3/ After you kill the 3 golems and the countess is still MAZED, leave the map IMMEDIATLY and come back to Pontiflex (I could only do it via the Siege Camp map).
4/ This time, he talked to me and was happy that I disrupted the ritual and that the countess is alive!
For my 4 previous attempts, he answered something like: You disrupted the ritual but if you know it or not, the countess is also dead....( I did Maze her in ALL my previous attempts)...

Anyway, thanks for the help guys.

-Younes