Stein, the Athkatla Graveyard robber - where is he?

[jle30303]

The first time I ever played through Baldur's Gate 2 - when it first came out 20 years ago - I encountered a grave robber named Stein, with a couple of his mates in the Athkatla graveyard.

I haven't seen him since, pretty much no matter what time of the day or night I go. Apparently he's supposed to be there at night but I never see him there.

Sometimes however, Detect Evil seems to suggest that he is present? Even though somehow not enabled or visible... So under what conditions does he appear?

Or is he in fact bugged, and present at some space on the map that the player can't access? On one occasion I'd swear that I cast a Fireball at the spot where he should have been, and his corpse suddenly appeared on the ground, but am I mis-remembering...

[Zotliatlicor]

Sometimes he shows, most time he doesnt. I have found him on some games outside the crypt with the Shadow Fiends, where he wants to sttrike a bargain with me to enter for him. But i havent seen him in ages (litterally)

[jle30303]

Does anybody else - who could look at the scripting files either for areas or people, and understand what's going on there - have the ability to shed any light on this?

I'm wondering if it's a case of something like he has to be there the first time because the script that disables him in the daytime (if you go there in the daytime) forgets to re-enable him at night, or something?

[Zotliatlicor]

From Gamebanshee's Walkthrough page:

"Inside this tomb, you'll encounter a mummy and two shadow fiends. Outside the tomb, at night, you might run into a grave robber named Stein. If you take offense at his profession, or if you try to blackmail him, or if you have Anomen in your party, then the encounter will turn violent, and you'll have to fight Stein plus two muggers. You'll only earn 2000 xp for winning the battle, and the grave robbers won't drop anything interesting when they die, so don't worry if you can't get Stein to spawn."

They have always said "might", and at night. The Baldurs wiki dont mention Stein at all in its creature catalouge. And i remember him, but that was in the old game before EE. He might be cut content now.

Anyhow's, it is not a big loss i think.

[jle30303]

My feeling is that there is some kind of bug with his appearance that prevents him from spawning - or possibly that prevents him from *respawning* once he is disabled due to visting the Graveyard at the wrong time of day.

The only times I've ever encountered him - twice - have been when my FIRST visit to the Graveyard was at night. I wonder if that could be it.

[jle30303]

I asked the same question on the Beamdog forums and got the answer that he seems to be placed in an illegal position and flickers in and out of existence, being very difficult to see unless you can get the cursor in *exactly* the right place, and even harder to interact with.

This appears to have been a "problem" that was introduced with patches to the original game, whose unpatched version way back when the game first came out did not have such a problem of actually seeing him.

I notice this to be the case with another character - the black market merchant in the Bridge District: he seems to be placed in a position that conflicts with his own stall and makes him hard to pick out (although he is, at least, visible, unlike Stein unless you manage to stand in exactly the right spot), and could do with being moved just a little further forward...