Edwin, his amulet, Chain Contingency and non-English translations

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Fair warning: this weird and rambling topic is not for the faint of heart. There will be copious amounts of cheese and obscurities.

I noticed something funny while trying to optimize Edwin's spellbook. But first, a bit of background...

Project Image and Chain Contingency are probably the two sickest spells ever, sicker than even Time Stop into Improved Alacrity. In case you weren't aware...

1. Project Image lets you double up on your entire spellbook and your quickslot items.

Edwin now carries a neat stack of 5 Scrolls of Time Stop, so, if I wanted, I could have him cast it 42 times every day of the week.

2. Projected images do not care about the summoned creature limits.

If I wanted, Edwin could create an army of 23 Dark Planetars.

And...

3. You can cast Chain Contingency any time.

You can cast it while the game is paused, you can cast it in the middle of casting another spell. It does not count towards your "one spell per round" limit.

The same applies to regular Contingency, but that one is far less versatile.

How is this related? Getting there in a moment...

I wanted Edwin to have Chain Contingency permanently available. I'm not going to cast it in advance, set it to something like 50% hit points, and then fill it up with some defensive cocktail like Protection from Magical Weapons, Stoneskin and Mass Invisibility. I plan to cast it in a fight that looks like it could go sour, set it to See Enemy, and then fill it with triple Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting. 60d8, save for half.

Of course I also wanted to have a single Improved Alacrity available for ye olde Project Image into Scroll of Time Stop into Improved Alacrity into unload entire spellbook.

So what does this have to do with his amulet? Well...

Edwin gets 3 bonus spells of each level; 1 from his kit and 2 more from his amulet. Funny thing is... even though his clones carry the Staff of the Magi (they're invisible) and wear the Robe of Vecna (they cast superfast), they do not have the extra spells from his amulet. That means that even though the real Edwin currently has 5 level 9 slots, his clones "only" have 3.

I wanted those 3 to be Improved Alacrity and double Summon Dark Planetar.

And exactly what does that have to do with translations?

No matter what I did, Edwin's Project Images would always have Chain Contingency, Improved Alacrity and a single Summon Dark Planetar.

I remembered something about level drained spellcasters losing the spells in the last slots on the page, so I made sure to memorize in this order:

1. Improved Alacrity
2. Summon Dark Planetar
3. Summon Dark Planetar
4. Summon Dark Planetar
5. Chain Contingency

No use; the clones always had Chain Contingency, Improved Alacrity and a single Summon Dark Planetar. I then reordered his memorizations a dozen times, trying all sorts of configurations, with different spells thrown in for good measure. No use; always Chain Contingency.

Then it occurred to me... the clones get the first three spells in alphabetical order.

So... what if you play a translated version of the game? French? German? Italian? Is it different? Is there a language in which Edwin can memorize Chain Contingency without having to pass it on to his clones?

Anyone have a non-English game to check on?

...

But the tale is not over yet... The reason I did not want his clones to get Chain Contingency is because they can't put spells in it and Edwin doesn't get the contingency. But that is not all there is to it. Clones can cast Chain Contingency, someone can put spells into it and someone does get the contingency. Just not the clone. Instead some seemingly random other party member gets to fill and use it. Sucks if it's a tank, nice if it's your Druid.

Long ago I was under the impression that if you were quick to select someone else while casting the contingency (you'd have to use the keyboard because you had to be really quick), the one selected would get the contingency. I can't remember if I verified it then, but I can't get it to work now. Ah, the mysteries of a 12 years old game...

In addition, the game repeatedly crashed after too much experimentation. Reader beware.

 

Yep, these spells are broken. Chain contingency and project image combo is nasty. Set Chain Contingency:Self, when helpless, 3x Project Image. Then cast Project Image yourself. Your image appears, but you are helpless, chain contingency kicks in, and you have four active images. Oh, the possibilities. Have them cast timestop with 1 second delay each, and you can bombard enemies with unending spells, each can empty all of his spell book in improved alacrity frenzies, laying waste to EVERYthing not immune to time stop. Also, make sure your original caster has spell trap up and going, and have your images throw an imprisonment and finger of deaths on the original, to restock the chain contingency/project image spells. Voila, infinite number of spells, the epitome of magical cheese.

 

The fixpack "fixed" that particular 'sploit.

I prefer Power Word: Kill and Power Word: Stun. They're faster and not as likely to kill me if the Spell Trap fails for whatever reason.

 

I don't complain about the fixpack fixing that because often at lower levels of the game before you get level 9 spells I'd set contingency to fire on helpless and try to do something about it, like do a dispell magic or an invisibility. When using project image, this would cause it to misfire, wasting it. If using a C/F/M or a C/M I'd have it set to cast "remove paralysis".

 

I believe what got fixed is that Project Image now makes you immune to Project Image, so you can't ever have more than one.

 

Sounds like an exploit.

 

That's because it is!