Resurrecting Imoen

[The Conquistador]

Someone started a subject here a long time ago when they could not resurrect Imoen. I am having the same problem. The earlier poster never received a satisfactory answer. I confronted Tazok or Tranzig in Feldepost's Inn at a low level and lost Kagain and Imoen to a lightning spell. Fortunately the lightning spell also killed the bad guy! Unfortunately, the temple won't resurrect Imoen! Is it because she's the most "permanent" NPC, designed possibly to stay with you the entire game? Whatever the reason, the temple takes my 400 gold, I get the freaky sound, but no resurrection, and no refunds! I even tried the Nashkel temple, but same problem.
Oh, and for the record, I hate the lightning spell. Bounces around way too much and is too powerful.

[Firestormalpha]

Hmmm... my knowledge of the game mechanics isn't all that great, but I believe that at least based on the ruleset that the game is based on, resurection is not an absolute certainty. But I recall no problems resurrecting anyone in my games (that is assuming I want them back). But that's the only reason I can think of for the temple taking your money but not reviving her. Another possibility is some kind of game bug. Are you patched? Are you supposed to be patched? Have you installed any mods that might be causing the issue? That's everything I can think of.

All NPC's have an equal shot at sticking with you the whole time.

And yeah, lightning spell is one of those outside spells, depending on your mastery of angles and such.

btw, welcome to Ironworks, hopefully someone will come along who can actually give you a useful answer.

There was a member who frequented this forum a while back whom we called Six, he had/has an interesting guide on BG and the rules applied within it. Sadly I no longer have the link.

[ 05-07-2007, 10:44 PM: Message edited by: Firestormalpha ]

[The Conquistador]

Hey, thanks a lot. What a quick reply. I forgot to mention I have the "new" 3 CD set TOSC. It's supposed to be fully patched, I believe. I haven't modified it in any way. Thing is, I know someone else had trouble resurrecting Imoen. AFAIK you're supposed to be able to resurrect any character you still have a portrait for.
Thanks for the welcome! I've spent a lot of time over the past year or two reading posts here about this game - very enjoyable to read them.

[Illumina Drathiran'ar]

Hi there, hello, and welcome to Ironworks.

I have heard about difficulty resurrecting Imoen, but when I heard about it, it was under very specific circumstances.

Do you have a save before Imoen died? At this point, the easiest thing to do would be to patch your game. If you can't resurrect her after patching, you should probably just reload whatever you have while she's still alive and try and keep her from dying. It sucks, I know, but right now I'm not sure what else to tell you. There might be someone around who can help you cheat her back in- and I wouldn't consider that egregiously unethical as your inability to resurrect her is the result of a bug (like you said, if her portrait is there, she should be resurrectable).

Hope something in there helps.

[SixOfSpades]

I have never heard of this bug before--and I've heard of a lot of bugs.

The only Raise Dead problems I'm aware of are the purchaseable scrolls restored by Unfinished Business--due to some quirks of the game engine, the scrolls don't do diddly squat (although the brains behind the mod in question may have fixed that by now). As Illumina said, it's a definite certainty that if the dead character's portrait is still in your party, any temple will always be able to bring them back to life--or at least that's how it's supposed to be. Firestormalpha, you're correct in that BioWare originally intended each character's Constitution score affect their odds of surviving a Raise Dead attempt, but this never actually made it into the game--the spell is 100% successful, every time . . . unless of course you have a bug or two.

Conquistador, I take it you were able to resurrect Kagain?

Frankly, I'm not sure if The Original Saga is bug-free or not. Sure, it says that it's fully patched on the box, but really, are they gonna say anything else? You might visit forums.pocketplane.net and/or forums.gibberlings3.net and read the news on patches & fixpacks, to see if The Original Saga is really all it was cracked up to be. For fixing this one bug, though, the best option would probably be to download the program called Sword Coast Keeper (Google it), and use it to hack Imoen to 1 hitpoint. This may or not restore her to life, but it probably should.

You should also consider starting a new game, getting to the Friendly Arm Inn or Beregost, killing Imoen (or anybody, really), and seeing if you can Raise them in that game.

[ADD] You cannot CLUA in recruitable NPCs, at least not in BG1. They will appear, yes, they have their standard joining dialogue and equipment, yes, they will obey your orders, yes, but as soon as you try to Save your game or go through an Auto-Save with them, the game immediately crashes.

[ 05-09-2007, 01:39 AM: Message edited by: SixOfSpades ]

[The Conquistador]

Yes, I had no trouble getting Kagain back. I thought about going and getting Safana, but decided to reload since I had a save on the previous area. I played several hours today and made a lot of progress! Party of 5, mostly level 4. Kagain, Imoen, Edwin, and Branwen. I made my main character a Druid so that I could get raise dead before the end of the game. It seems it would be impossible to get level 5 cleric spells otherwise. Of course, Jaheira is multi-classed, so can not attain level 5 cleric spells in BG1.
I love Kagain! Only with axes can you apply proficiency points to melee and ranged weapons at the same time! I did this in IWD also. Also, I love the regeneration of 20 con. Just traveling between areas regenerates him, and even just walking around he heals. Saves a lot of potions and heal spells when he's your tank. I try to rest as little as possible for the challenge, and to avoid cheese.
I asked the resurrection question about Imoen mainly because I don't want it to happen again. A reload this time wasn't a big deal. Also wondered if anyone else encountered, but looks like it's rare. If I have any more problems with that, I'll google Sword Coast Keeper like you said. Thanks again, everybody!

[ 05-09-2007, 04:02 AM: Message edited by: The Conquistador ]

[ZFR]

What you could try and do, is go to a temple, save the game then kill Imoen and see if you could raise-dead her to see if that was just a one-time glitch or a permanent bug. Then you can reload.

And by the way, as far as I know Raise-dead is a cleric-only spell, so your druid won't get it. Yes the manual doesn't mention which spells are cleric's and which are druid's...

[Klorox]

Must be a bug, you should be able to resurrect Immy based on game mechanics.

It's a late SoA spoiler (I'm only going to hint here), but I personally don't think Imoen should be able to be resurrected from a storyline point of view.

[SixOfSpades]

Well, technically, you shouldn't be able to resurrect Elves, either.

And yes it's true, Raise Dead is a Cleric-only spell (and Clerics can't reach Level 9 under the EXP cap). In BG1, the only Level 5 spells that your Druid will be able to cast are Animal Summoning II and Cure Critical Wounds.