Morninglord Temple Aggression (Invisibility Purge)

[Grendlykins, Simp of Azalin Rex]

This is a really weird one. Oristesen (peppyrook) got absolutely demolished by the Morninglord NPCs in the Temple of the Outskirts just before and we couldn't narrow down the cause. We thought perhaps they'd toggled him to hostile, had a ML player jump on and change his faction relationship with no result. Got word from qwerty that they'd experienced a similar bug and after a lot of experimentation found out that having Invisibility Purge on your character toggles the Morninglord NPCs hostile to you. Allegedly this toggles a lot of other NPCs hostile to you, but so far we've only seen it happen with the ML Temple.

[qwertyuioppp]

Yeah, I've had this happen in Hazlan and at Mist Camp and so I pretty much assumed it just makes all NPCs immediately hostile. There's no visual effect, or mark on the character sheet, so you can't tell if it's even active. The spell is effectively unusable outside of the bottom of dungeons, and since there's no active visual or aural component, it doesn't really make sense that it's turning people hostile.

It doesn't seem to raise OCR, at least.

[peps]

Given how the spell works - it stays for 1 turn/level - it continues to stay on you, but as qwerty mentioned it doesn't actually tell you that you still have it on.

The NPC's naturally remain hostile regardless if you take it off. I was forced to wait for the instance they're in to reset.

[Time_Stomped]

if you are the morninglord faction it won't hostile, but not sure this version -- a dm could grab my cleric

[Grendlykins, Simp of Azalin Rex]

Well that's pretty good news for the Morninglordians but for anyone else, bad news. If you forget to remove the buff before you go back upstairs you get immediately murdered for no apparent reason.

[Geiger]

It makes sense because the spell 'Invis Purge' is actually a hostile spell.

The way you undo spells like this (if you've cast them on yourself) - is to remove your buffs before you come up/go near non-hostile NPCs. Do this by going to the rest menu and using the menu option of clearing self-contained spell effects or something along those times.

[Grendlykins, Simp of Azalin Rex]

Makes sense, yeah, but if it's not something that can be fixed it might be a good idea to have it added to known bugs, so that we get advance warning on it. I've never heard of this bug before and it seems like a very niche bug to find out about with quite dire consequences.

[Time_Stomped]

I doubt it is the kind of spell that could rationally be considered worth killing someone over, especially when lurking invisible evil mages and bodysnatchers could be anywhere.  Abjurations tend to be exceptional.

[Syl]

[raise is hand] Is it possible to have such a spell be cast by mother liz on a timer?

I've been told since I first came here.. becoming invisible in the temple is against the rules.

( sorry I know its semi off topic)

[Grendlykins, Simp of Azalin Rex]

Lizuca reserves her uses of Invisibility Purge for when there's actually something happening. I think the reason behind this is to stop her purging people using invisibility as they depart from the temple, because that could very well get them killed either by werewolves lurking outdoors or the undead sitting at the bottom of the stairs. I've seen a grand total of one occasion where it would have been more constructive than crippling for Lizuca to have it on at all times and that was due to dedicated trolls during an NCE. In that same case it wouldn't have actually stopped the trolling either.

[dark_majico]

It's possible but it would be impractical. For Luzica to cast it there are a few ways to do this. A heart beat script will work but would be an unnecessary strain on the module and the host machine, and it could break they are not 100% reliable I am lead to believe. Also multiple heart beat scripts will be given different priority so there might be an issue there, not sure. The heart beat script will fire every 6 seconds, the script could tell Luzica to physically cast the spell, but she would run out of prepared spell slots very quickly, npc's have spell books like players do and there spells per day are set in the toolset. So alternatively you could create a script that fires invisibility purge at a location at certain intervals, or it could be triggerd at the doors once a PC steps into a trigger area. Luzica wouldn't be casting it, but the spell would be cast over and over giving the same affect, but this becomes harder to explain, who is casting it and why? What is the source of this infinite accourance? We could explain this as a mythol, but why would there be an ancient elven spell cast on this location and what is the power source of the mythol? If we where talking about Ellminsters tower then yes it would be very easy to explain something like this, it's a security measure that you might expect to be in place to protect the 1267 year old Cleric/Wizard/Archmage (and a rouge and a fighter), but it's not really possible to explain such a powerful mechanism for the Morninglord Church and the relativly low importance of the clerics inside the church. There is also a risk it would feel like an OOC mechanic to facilitate an IC rule. It's perfectly legitimate to cast invisibility and enter the church if your character has a reason to do that, so why would we prevent that from happening in such a finite way?

This highlights limitations of the engine that we just have to deal with, the NPC's are mindless sprites that can mimic a few situations fairly well to make them seem more life like, but at the end of the day we can't get away from that truth, and some things we just have to live with.

[Iluvatar / Madness]

I'll add this as well as it might have to be corrected,

I tried to set Oristesen (peppyrook) as a friend to ML fac, but NPC still wanted to get his head.

I suppose the fact the NPC attacked him isn't related to faction stuff at all and it's managed by NPC behavior, but I'll leave this here just in case

[Time_Stomped]

Sometimes its just best to leave it in the hands of a slightly non-amused priest of the morninglord.  But it would be nice to have PCs of the Morninglord be able to give a deputized layman robe that factions you until reset as a workaround for church helpers, since it is mostly is mechanically unfeasible to wear it anywhere else.  Obviously it would have to have an OOC notice that it is strictly to prevent OOC aggro from helpful spells from NPCs and is -not- a disguise.

[Iluvatar / Madness]

Sometimes its just best to leave it in the hands of a slightly non-amused priest of the morninglord.  But it would be nice to have PCs of the Morninglord be able to give a deputized layman robe that factions you until reset as a workaround for church helpers, since it is mostly is mechanically unfeasible to wear it anywhere else.  Obviously it would have to have an OOC notice that it is strictly to prevent OOC aggro from helpful spells from NPCs and is -not- a disguise.

I don't think it would work, that aggro reaction is handled by the NPC behavior and isn't directly related to faction I think, and anyway, once the NPC aggro is triggered against you, even being considered as a faction member won't work, you'll need a reset or a DM, but I'm not sure if they can really do something about that. I'm not sure if what I said is right, but that's how I thing the system works, correct me if I'm wrong.

And for the number of time this happen in a day I don't think it's worth to give out robe like that. Even it's mark as OOC item to help in these case it most certainly will end up being abused, there will always be people who tries to abuse the system sadly.

[Time_Stomped]

That's why it will get wiped out on a reset.  If a CotM PC is giving them out to someone that shouldn't technically have it ICly, they will suffer IC consequences.

[Arawn]

That's why it will get wiped out on a reset.  If a CotM PC is giving them out to someone that shouldn't technically have it ICly, they will suffer IC consequences.

This wouldn't actually change faction behavior, at all. It would accomplish only what the Faction Friend setting already accomplishes. You can end up hostiled by NPCs even in your own faction if you do certain things in front of them. All an item you describe would do is allow a PC to command the Church NPCs, and that is both extremely exploitable and, for the most part, useless.

[Jeebs]

The real problem is if someone else casts it on you, I would think. From what I've seen, you can't clear the spells someone else has put on you from the rest menu. That's the only flaw I see in Treason's suggestion. Perhaps that command could be altered to remove all beneficial effects from your character, regardless of who cast them? That way it can't be used to remove debuffs or negative effects that you're suffering from but still allow you to clear it off with certainty.

[Geiger]

The real problem is if someone else casts it on you, I would think. From what I've seen, you can't clear the spells someone else has put on you from the rest menu. That's the only flaw I see in Treason's suggestion. Perhaps that command could be altered to remove all beneficial effects from your character, regardless of who cast them? That way it can't be used to remove debuffs or negative effects that you're suffering from but still allow you to clear it off with certainty.

That's the thing though - Invisibility Purge IS a hostile debuff. While you can remove it from yourself if you did cast it, the spell is also a debuff spell that if cast on someone else is meant to ruin their day/turn them into a mobile debuff platform.

[Time_Stomped]

It was changed or you are wrong: I constantly spammed invisibility purge against people trying to metagame the back area of the outskirts temple or sneak though, in the right faction gear back in the day.  Faction friend has nothing to do with it.

If it isn't working correctly, it might be something else.

[Iluvatar / Madness]

That's why it will get wiped out on a reset.  If a CotM PC is giving them out to someone that shouldn't technically have it ICly, they will suffer IC consequences.

That would require more coding, which mean time. And as Arawn said,

This wouldn't actually change faction behavior, at all. It would accomplish only what the Faction Friend setting already accomplishes. You can end up hostiled by NPCs even in your own faction if you do certain things in front of them. All an item you describe would do is allow a PC to command the Church NPCs, and that is both extremely exploitable and, for the most part, useless.

Being considered as a faction or friend accomplish the same thing when it comes to that. In this situation, both won't work. Someone who is set as a member of the faction and that posses the faction will also get attack if he/she use this spell for the simple reason NPC consider it hostile.

The only good trick I'd have to solve this right now is, don't use that spell near NPC. Here we are talking about the morninglord NPC, though I suppose it's the same with every NPC out there.

That said.... be careful with that spell

[Jeebs]

The real problem is if someone else casts it on you, I would think. From what I've seen, you can't clear the spells someone else has put on you from the rest menu. That's the only flaw I see in Treason's suggestion. Perhaps that command could be altered to remove all beneficial effects from your character, regardless of who cast them? That way it can't be used to remove debuffs or negative effects that you're suffering from but still allow you to clear it off with certainty.

That's the thing though - Invisibility Purge IS a hostile debuff. While you can remove it from yourself if you did cast it, the spell is also a debuff spell that if cast on someone else is meant to ruin their day/turn them into a mobile debuff platform.

I did not realize this... I haven't used the spell much, obviously. I suppose the solution won't be as simple as I thought... likely the behavior of the NPCs themselves have to be modified.

[Grendlykins, Simp of Azalin Rex]

As per my earlier suggestion, maybe an OOC notation on the spell description warning players of it's unfortunate NPC side-effects would be an appropriate measure, though casting it on another player and then being unable to remove said debuff or not even being aware of it could be quite exploitable; IE player A casts Invisibility Purge on player B, player B fails the spellcraft check to recognize it or even know what it is, wanders around and gets chumped by the local enraged NPCs for their egregious sin of having the debuff on them. My ignorance of the system shows but is there no possible way to make the debuff attach an appropriate debuff icon on the HUD/character sheet?

Edit: Just checked, unless we've modified it on this server Invisibility Purge is a personal-only range spell. Unless scrolls allow it to be cast on other people or we've changed it to work on others without updating the spell changes page, it's a little less grieftastic, but still concerning enough for people not aware of the issue who only find out after being run over by half of Vallaki.

[McNastea]

I did not realize this... I haven't used the spell much, obviously. I suppose the solution won't be as simple as I thought... likely the behavior of the NPCs themselves have to be modified.

While I'm not positive, I think if the spell were made to work on hostiles only it would prevent this from happening

[Grendlykins, Simp of Azalin Rex]

That might fix the issue, yes, but half of the functionality of the spell is that you can either punish your enemies with becoming a walking platform of no-invis or do it to yourself if you don't have any allies that would suffer for it. Also the NPC aggro would still be an issue if you say, cast it on a player set to hostile and then ran off and left them going '...What did I just get hit with? Am I cursed? I don't understand...' Given that Invisibility Purge offers no visual cues as to it's presence on a character, no fancy lights or sounds, not even a debuff icon, it makes very little IC sense as to why you might suddenly draw the ire of every NPC nearby you. Again, this is assuming that the spell actually works like this and can be cast on other targets than yourself.

[McNastea]

Spell level: cleric 3; ranger 3
Innate level: 3
School: evocation
Components: verbal, somatic
Range: personal
Area of effect: colossal (10 meter radius)
Duration: 1 turn / level
Save: none
Spell resistance: no
Additional counterspells: invisibility (spell)

Description: This spell removes the invisibility from all invisible creatures and items. 

As is stated, it's a self cast only which removes invisibility from all creatures in the area (which is 10 meters)

The reason it sets NPC's to hostile is it's actively trying to debuff everything you get close to, whether it has said buff or not is irrelevant, the npc's AI kicks in as if it were under attack by you.

Now, I do agree that it makes no sense for a spell that gives no visual indication of it's working to suddenly make everyone around you want to kill you, even more so because you're not actually harming anything. That's why I was suggesting that it be changed to only effect anyone set to hostile, as then you would cease to anger npc's who aren't already hostile towards you.

However, as it is only a self buff, you can as was mentioned just remove the buff from yourself via the rest menu>remove all self contained spell effects command, which would maintain the integrity of the spell while also solving the problem that people are having with this. It would also keep someone from needing to go in and either change the AI or rescript the spell.