My shield broke the game. Help?

[adu767]

Okay, so I have this purely mage-class character, and I had just gotten Azura's Star plus a summon golden saint spell, so I decided that it was time to beef him out with enchantments and such. I experimented with some effects, most of them yielding useful results, but there was one that... erm... broke the game, kind of.

See, the Daedric Tower Shield has one of the highest enchantment capacities of any item I know of, and I wanted to exploit this. I attached "summon dremora" as a "constant effect" on the shield, which would give me a dremora buddy that lasted as long as I wore the shield. Even if he died, all I would have to do is take the shield off and put it back on again, and he would be resummoned. Sounds great, right? NOPE.

You see, when I had the dremora summoned, it didn't come with me whenever I used some sort of transportation, like a boat or silt strider. Eventually, the thing got lost somewhere, and I haven't seen it in like 50 hours of gameplay. I still wore the shield, though. Later, I discovered that whenever I try to take the shield off, the game crashes. There's a "summon dremora" active effect on my character that can't be disposed of, even with dispell, and it seems that taking off the shield and unsummoning the dremora from such a distant loading point makes the game angry with me. I just ignored this for a long time, because all it meant was I was forced to wear an awesome shield, which wasn't so bad. That is, until, I hit the werewolf segment of the Bloodmoon expansion. Now, when I turn into a werewolf, everything I'm wearing gets forcibly unequiped, resulting in the game throwing up in my lap. I think I can go down the path of curing the affliction, but I essentially can't turn into a werewolf no matter what.

Is there any way for me to fix this problem, whether in-game or through some sort of file tweaking? It's also worth noting that long after I got this shield, the game decides to crash whenever I die or try to load a save from anywhere but the main menu. That essentially means that I'm limited to loading a save game ONCE per startup of the game. I'm not sure if this bug is related to the first, but it seems likely. Help?

[adu767]

Also worth mentioning that this character has over a hundred hours or so dumped into it and I have absolutely no saves from before the shield incident, so simply reverting to a previous save isn't an option.

[Wowie]

Since it seems like your game freaks out whenever it finds out that the dremora is MIA, I suggest resetting the dremora, then destroying your shield... Destroying your shield is the easy part, just place it ONTO a summoned creature's body during the split second you have while it plays it's death animation... But first you have to unequip it. It seems like the game is freaking out whenever it checks the dremora, then finds out it's MIA. This includes the "cleaning up loose junk" step of loading a new saved game. I might try using console commands to directly remove the spell effect, and/or the item, thus possibly bypassing the game's check... Another possibility is that you could reset the dremora simply by readying and casting the "summon dremora" spell, thus giving you a fresh summon while forgetting about the old one.

-----------------------------------------------------
Then again, you might just not be using the code patch.

If you're not already using it, I recommend you install the morrowind code patch and morrowind patch project, since it fixes errors like this one.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes3Mod:Morrowind_Code_Patch
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes3Mod:Morrowind_Patch_Project

A couple fixes from the code patch that might be relevant:

Originally posted by morrowind code patch 2.0:

*Delayed spell crash fix. Fixes a crash situation where uncast spells remained in memory or savegame.
*Summoned creature crash fix. Prevents crashes from spell effects bound to creatures that have been unsummoned.

Hey, the shield might even work the way you intended after installing the MCP.

Edit: I read the notes wrong. MCP and MPP do NOT fix this issue.
------------------------------------------------------
Program Files>Steam>steamapps>common>morrowind should contain all of your morrowind files, where you can then place plugins and mods. If you can't find the proper way to install these mods by using google, I'll put the steps here then. Also, disable the steam overlay for this game. If you don't know how, google "disable steam overlay" without the quotes. It causes problems with almost all the major mods for this game.

[adu767]

I'll try that out, thanks! First I'll try simply summoning another dremora though, because I'd rather not add any mods/plugins/fixes at the moment due to the chance of it messing with saves, but if simply manually summoning the dremora doesn't work I guess I'll give it a shot. I'm pretty sure I know how to install mods since I've done it with other games, but I'll keep you posted if I'm having any problems.

[adu767]

I downloaded and installed MCP 2.0, which fixed a lot of things that had been annoying me, but failed to fix my cursed shield. I tried downloading MPP, but the links provided seem to be out of date or otherwise unavailable. I'll try a few more things in-game with MCP 2.0 to see if I can get anything to work.

[Wowie]

I think it might not fix your cursed shield since it wasn't installed prior to the spell's use.
I don't know what to tell you other than maybe trying console commands to remove it.
http://btb2.free.fr/files/morrowind_patch.zip should be a working link to the MPP.

[adu767]

I dl'd MPP, but that didn't work either. What console commands in specific would you suggest?

[Wowie]

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes3Mod:Categorical_Function_List
I don't mess with these too much, so, attempt at your own risk.
*I take no responsibility for possible breaking of save via commands.
I don't even know if these can be used as commands, really.
According to another thing I just read the ingame commands are quite limited:
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Console
And, thusly, my knowledge of the subject has been exhausted.
I have no clue how to fix your current issue but the code patch
should prevent future occurences of the issue in a fresh game...
I think. I'm not sure. Make a backup save first.

Edit: This bug is NOT fixed by the MCP or MPP. I read the notes wrong.

New games suck if you're attached to your character. Wish I could help more. Keep it as a separate save file and someone with greater knowledge than I might stroll through here.

Edit: What would happen if your shield broke or you summoned a bound shield? I'm assuming auto-unequip would crash the game as usual but sometimes strange counterintuitive solutions work like a charm.

[Yoae]

so you should type in the console "player->RemoveEffects, 105" then I think you'll have to unequip the shield before exiting the console or the summon effect will be applied to your character again.

[adu767]

Things that I've tried after installing MPP and MCP 2.0:

Typing "player->RemoveEffects, 105" in console and then closing console
Typing "player->RemoveEffects, 105" in console and then unequipping the shield
Summoning a Dremora and then unequipping the shield
Summoning a Dremora, killing it, and then unequipping the shield
Simply unequipping the shield
Turning into a werewolf
Casting "Bound Shield"
Equipping any other shield besides the one magically fixated to my arm
Dying
Loading another save from within a current save

All of which lead to an immediate game crash. The thing they all have in common, besides the loading crash, is that they involve the Dremora being unsummoned, whether by simply unequipping the shield or by forcibly removing the effect. I'm not sure why the game can't seem to handle the Dremora being unsummoned, or whether it's the distance or apparent permanancy of the effect that causes it to freak out. I guess the only thing left that comes to my mind is to spend a few hours combing the area around Ald'ruhn where I last remembered seeing it, and then trying to kill or unsummon it once I find it, but there's a very small chance I'll be able to find it.

[Wowie]

This error is probably the rarest and strangest thing I've ever seen. Without directly hacking your savefile, I don't know what could fix this. Don't ask me to hack your save file, because I just broke a test save of mine while experimenting, causing the game to crash upon loading the save after giving me more error messages than I could count.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes3Mod:Enchanted_Editor

This is the tool. Don't ask me how to use it. Use at your own risk.

[Yoae]

this may be a long shot
type in the console dremora_summon00000000->sethealth 0
(8 zeroes)
this will kill the dremora (it works, I've just tested it) but it will problbly result in another crash :/

[adu767]

"dremora_summon00000000->sethealth 0" typed exactly as that, without quotes, seems to do nothing, even when I summon a second dremora. The spell effect remains on my magic menu no matter what. If it interests you, I could upload the save file for you to examine, but I'm not sure on the best way to do that.

[Wowie]

the summoned dremora all probably have different id numbers so unless you knew the id of your shield's specific dremora that probably wouldn't help. As for uploading a file to the web, a google search found this: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/best-websites-to-share-files-without-signing-up/ so basically pick one, then upload, then post the link here.

[adu767]

https://rapidshare.com/files/464313242/WEREWOLF0000.ess
This should be it. The shield is obviously equipped and named "Shield of Lingering Dremora."

[Wowie]

For some reason when I loaded the save in my morrowind it just gave a bunch of error messages, then started normally... with the shield starting out as unequipped, and a permanent summon dremora spell in the player character's effects. I'm not going to ask how or why. I just dropped the shield on the ground and saved the game. File upload coming soon.