When, sometimes, you, like, TOTALLY die.

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I'm not entirely certain what causes this to happen, but some instant death effects, death while petrified, and possibly damage that throws a character too far into the realm of negative HP, sometimes cause a character to disappear entirely from your party, in the process of dying. Since his portraint ain't there, you can't target him with raising and resurrecting spells. Targeting the spell at his pile of dropped equipment does not work, eventhough the cursor does light up when pointed there.
I suppose this exists to reflect those cases in aD&D, when you can only be resurrected by a Wish, right? Well, would a Wish really work? Is there any way at all to get back a character who was killed off in such an extreme way?

A secondary question is what exactly are the circumstaces in which this would happen - what are the requirements?

 

Like you already mentioned, this happens when character endured too much damage to stay in one piece. Petrification, and the shattering of the "statue" is an example of this. If character drops over -10 HP it's called chunking IIRC. I believe that in PnP this is known as "dead from massive damage". There simply isn't body left to resurrect. That character cannot be brought back, at least not in BG. In PnP a Wish or a Miracle would work, me thinks. The only way to avoid this is to play in difficulty less then Core rules, where characters cannot die permanently.

 

So wish would be useless for this, in ToB?

Btw, in pnp, the "death from massive damage" optional rule is a different thing: it says that when you take 50 or more hitpoints of dmage from a single attack, it kills you unless you succeed a System Shock check, even if you had enough hitpoints to normally survive such a loss of hp. It doesn't deal with being thrown too far into the negatives, or with making reesurrection any tougher. {also, "Miracle" didn't exist in 3e}

 

The only way I know to get the NPC back from that kind of death is to reload from a previous save.

 

I like this option, it can be frustrating when you lose an NPC you intended to keep in your party, but it adds some "danger" to the game.

 

Bummer Anomen is so hard to replace. He's both a decent tank and seems a better priest than Viccy {eventhough she's single class, so she should be better}. I hate him, but he's too efficient to replace. :={ If i take another priest instead {like Aerie}, i lacl brute force, and if i take a tank {like the dwarf}, i lose valuable divine aid. Khaira should be a decent compromise, but she seems to kinda suck.

 

Backstab, critical hits, and extremely strong opponents (golems etc.) are nasty things which can cause chunky death. If a NPC's HP drops far below -10, he/she is chunkified, gone for good. This can happen very frequently if you play on hard or insane setting.

Fire and lightning also does this, only, it toasts the body rather blackly. Cold turns to victim to frozen solid, which shatters. Petrified victims are gone for good if their statues are subjected to any kind of damage.

Oh, and Disintegrate...well,that sort of thing does not leave anything at all to be ressurected.

You have to reload or live with the untimely demise's consquences!

 

Tressym, I assume you meant Jaheira in your last post. She's really awesome, given the chance, but Cleric and Druid spells are very different.

 

On the two lowest difficulty settings, I think your characters cannot permanently get chunked.

There's a few things that I don't get. First is whether elves can be raised from the dead (meaning -10 HP or worse) or not. They couldn't in other AD&D 2E games. Other races can still be raised depending on their CON. And sometimes bringing the character back drains his CON permanently - which is a small price to pay for a second life.

I get the feeling BG2 didn't implement those ideas. Once a character gets to 0 HP or -9 HP, they die and need a raise dead. (Before you just need cure spells.) And when they get to -10 HP, they are dead and need a raise dead (same as before) or chunked - which could be the analog of CON too low. But for raising elves... I think I've had Aerie die horribly a few times and I always brought her back.

 

you get chunked - you rest in pieces

[ November 01, 2006, 11:12: Message edited by: el M ]

 

Imprisonment will also make your characters dissapear entirely. This can be countered with Freedom cast near where they were last standing.

 

Elves can be raised in Baldur's Gate. Supposedly there is a percentage chance of failure for all characters based on low con, but I can't say that I recall a resurrection spell ever failing on me. So I'm not sure if that is really coded into the game.

 

Are you sure? 'cause I seem to remember, that in good old BG I couldn't ressurrect elves, only in BG2??

 

I do not know about BG1, but you can raise elves in BG2. You can not raise elves in IWD though, you need ressurection. And no, game designers did not implement the 'ressurection survival check based on your CON' idea to the game. Unless NPC is chunkified, he/she can always be raised or ressurected.

 

In a no reloads game, chunkification has screwed me. I lost a level 16 Korgan and a level 15 Valygar, and had to replace them with a level 12 Mazzy and a level 8 Minsc!

At least my guy is still going!

 

Lost my Jaheira in a no reloads game. Her badly timed explosion left me & Keldorn alone in the underdark. Not very nice. Should have played with easier rules

 

No reloads game...I envy you guys, sounds like quite a challenge! Then again I am trying new IA mod now, so I can not play a no reloads game for the sake of my mental health, if nothing else!

Oh poor Jaheira...at least she is with Khalid now!