GUI Bug and Harper Hostile/Aggro Problem with Strange Ox at Last Light Inn

[artemisone]

Hello: I am in Honour Mode and for the first time in HM I got to Act 2. (I completed the game earlier in Tactician mode.) I have encountered a very serious bug at the Last Light Inn involving the Strange Ox and the Harpers and I would like advice from others who have encountered something similar and suggestions on how to work around it. It's complicated so I will list the events numerically. I reported this to Larian but I am looking for help from players here on whether they have seen it, or why this occurred, and a work around for the bad results so I can complete my HM run.

This is a GUI glitch as well as an aggro problem.

1. Enter Last Light Inn (LLI) and do the entrance sequence with Jaheira successfully.
2. I had met Dammon in the Grove and he helped Karlach. Talk to Dammon at LLI and he gives me his special armor (I forget what its called). (Karlach was not there so I didn't do that part.)
3. Talk to Strange Ox. I had done this at the Grove and he would not tell me who he was and that ended without incident.
4. After the first convo ended I asked the Strange Ox again who he was and I failed a check and he transformed and a battle started.
5. HARPERS AGGRO: Although the Strange Ox started the fight, after I perform attacks on the Strange Ox the Harpers turn hostile.
5.5 -- THIS IS THE MOST STRANGE: Then on my selected character (the Tav) the GUI disappears. There was nothing on the screen except the frozen image of the battle. I could not end turn for that character or take any other actions - I forgot to try the hotkeys. I went to other characters and were able to end their turns but the battle would not progress. So I saved and exited. When I reloaded the GUI problem was gone but the Harpers were still attacking me. (And oddly they killed the other normal Ox too.)
6. I kill the Strange Ox and decide to flee the Harpers hoping that I can enter peacefully later. I managed to run away but some of them followed me outside into the Shadow Curse. I am immune thanks to the Pixie. As I am running away they start to succumb to the shadow curse. I was able to leave the battle and go to camp.
8. Returned to LLI after a Long Rest and found Dammon dead and the merchant Talli succumbed to the Shadow Curse. I tried to heal her to no effect and she died.
9. The living Harpers remained hostile.
10. Later I entered invisible to recover the loot from the Strange Ox. I was not seen so I don't know if they are still hostile. I entered the Inn invis it looked normal. I didn't make myself seen because it was enough trouble already.

This means that I lost the only merchants in Act 2 outside of Moonrise (they both had important items) and most likely the Harpers help at Moonrise and in Act 3, and I cannot help Karlack any further. And since Honour Mode I cannot go back. ( I found very little on the merchants bodies - not the usual three most expensive items if a merchant dies.)

I had read that you could kill the Ox in Part 2 and get his loot, so I figured that the Harpers didn't care (or someone would have mentioned that). I did not attack any Harpers until after they attacked me (and it was set to not-fatal and I never killed any). And I never stole anything in the LLI, but I did in the Cellar where the stuff was not marked red and I believe that's ok. They didn't aggro until after the Ox fight, so it wasn't the Cellar part that did it.

QUESTIONS:

Is this a bug or working as intended?
Anyone ever seen that disappearing GUI glitch?
Any suggestions to complete Act 2 without the Harpers and the merchants?

As a side note, I have encountered a lot more unexpected failed conversations in Honour Mode than Tactician and I wonder if that is working as intended -- unexpected failed dice rolls in conversations and unexpected hostility from previously friendly NPCs. But it could be because I am a Drow.

[Lani]

Originally posted by artemisone:

QUESTIONS:

1) Is this a bug or working as intended?
2) Anyone ever seen that disappearing GUI glitch?
3) Any suggestions to complete Act 2 without the Harpers and the merchants?

As a side note, I have encountered a lot more unexpectedly bad encounters in Honour Mode than Tactician and I wonder if that is working as intended -- unexpected failed dice rolls in conversations and unexpected friendly aggro.

1) Harper aggro may be due to AoE damage from a spell of yours. There's Harpers in the rafters of that shed and if you clip them with a spell, they don't like that. GUi freeze is a bug for sure. The question is what's causing it.
2) From the description it sounds like "I'm playing with mods that haven't been updated to match up with the current version of the game syndrome" This forum is alliteratively and literally littered with how to deal with that issue.
3) Well, that's the common evil play-through path. Lots of people murder hobo the Inn or fail to protect it and Larian's game design has taken this into account.

Your sidenote on Honour mode describes what people generally consider the challenge of Honour Mode. Nothing shows you how often we savescum even when we say we don't like not being able to. It's a similar logical fallacy as expecting a 75% hit chance to mean you should reliably hit 3 out of 4 times.

[artemisone]

I have no mods at all. Never even downloaded them. But the collateral damage theory about the aggro seems possible.

The Harpers got friendly again after awhile, although some of them still don't like me -- so its going well now.

I think you took my comment about Honor Mode wrong - I didn't mean I got bad hit chances. I mean I got a lot of unusual levels of hostility or failed conversations from NPCs that was not in my prior runs. Maybe its because I am a Drow in this one?

[Lani]

Originally posted by artemisone:

I have no mods at all. Never even downloaded them. But the collateral damage theory about the aggro seems possible.

The Harpers got friendly again after awhile, although some of them still don't like me -- so its going well now.

Ah, I understood your GUI freeze to be a permanent thing, not a temporary one.
This does shift the likely culprit from outdated mods to Level cache or driver issues.

And don't worry, I'll not have you risk your Honour mode save by asking to share it for a quick Mod dependency check since Mods are a lot like STDs when it comes to people claiming they never had them.

The Harpers had the "Temporary Hostile" Status then. Clears up after a rest or map change. Typically triggered by performing 'crimes' like hitting one with your fireball.

Originally posted by artemisone:

I think you took my comment about Honor Mode wrong - I didn't mean I got bad hit chances. I mean I got a lot of unusual levels of hostility or failed conversations from NPCs that was not in my prior runs. Maybe its because I am a Drow in this one?

My main point on Honour Mode was that once you can't savescum (a word I find too disparaging for what it is) you you immediately start noticing all the situations where it would be nice to a lot more than when you have the option to.

I then compared this mental trick we play on ourselves to the one where we expect a 75% hit chance to result in reliable 3 out of 4 hits succeeding.

And yeah, Drow tend to have both disadvantages and advantages in social situations depending on how your dialogue partner feels about Drow and whether or not you're leaning into that. I.e. often you'd have more advantages intimidating than persuading even if equally proficient.

[artemisone]

Thanks for the advice. But on the mods I don’t even know what they are. Not even curious. Believe me or not.
Thankfully i’ve seen no other crashes or similar processing issues. The game runs smoothly