Ever wonder why Archery sucks so had in the first Ravenloft game? It's actually because there's an error in the game code. Arrows always do 0 damage. If you've ever killed anything with a bow in Strahd's Possession, it was Undead and you were using an Undead Slaying arrow, because everything else just bounces harmlessly to the ground.

This is a problem I discovered way back in the day of release, but I don't believe it's well known. It stems from the fact that there were two versions of Strahd's Possession, a disk based and a CD based. The CD based included voices and new characters and quests, and it's the one being offered on GOG. Now, when these new quests were added in, some new items needed to be added too, causing a reorganization of OBJECTS.DAT. The arrows were moved to a new position in the hex code, but unfortunately their damage values were left behind, so now the hex for their damage reads 00 in all six instances, instead of the correct 01 06 00 01 06 00 (for sm - 1d6+0, lrg - 1d6+0).

I've made a working copy of Objects.Dat that will repair the issue, but I'm not sure if GOG is interested in community fixes to 27 year old games. If you'd like to fix it yourself, I've included an image of the exact hex that needs to be edited. Or, like, don't use bows like you've been doing. I'm just happy to see this issue finally be documented.

Happy gaming.

That's great, thanks for posting this up.

I don't think Gog will patch the game with this - usually there are some legal reasons involved. But it's great that people out there are still tracking down these bugs and coming up with community fixes.

That's cool. I'll try that. But I'm afraid I still won't use bows, as I'm too lazy to pick the arrows up again. I'd rather use the magical throwing knife or the axe of hurling.

But if you have a knack for hex editing, maybe you'd like to take a look at the sequel "The Stone Prophet"?

GOG uses the version 1.1 of the game and that has a problem with displaying the last few video sequences in the game. Those still work in version 1.0.

https://www.gog.com/forum/dungeons_dragons_ravenloft_series/stone_prophet_crashes_at_the_end_of_the_game
https://www.gog.com/forum/dungeons_dragons_ravenloft_series/missing_video_in_stone_prophet

Hmm. Let me get that far and I'll take a look at it. No promise, but if I figure anything out, I'll take a look. Looks like the patch modified RES9 and CODE.1 and 2. The problem must be somewhere in those.

I actually still have my original Stone Prophet CD, which I think has game version 1.0 . Let me know if you need any info from that one.

I remember getting another copy in the "AD&D Masterpiece Collection", which installed v1.1 but had a rollback patch to v1.0 that acknowledged the endgame issue. Unfortunately I've lost that copy but someone else probably has one around.

I have uploaded a save file: https://turbo.to/g3gcccr3cwm5.html

Simply copy the save08 directory into your prophet directory, start the game and load the 8th save game named "test"

Move a few steps backward and you should get a scene, where Ankthepot battles the Hierophant. But here the screen just shakes and the scene doesn't appear.

Hi there. I have an update for anyone interested in the Stone Prophet missing video. I do not yet know why the issues are occurring, but I have narrowed the problem to the ISO being distributed by GOG. It is not related to version 1.1 or the update. It is also not related to DOSBOX settings.

I created a new ISO of the StoneProphet disc using the Masterpiece Collection. I then deleted gog.game from my GOG - Stone Prophet (which is how they name their ISO) and replaced it with the Masterpiece ISO I created (of course, renaming that file gog.game). Now when I run Stone Prophet from the GOG environment, it now displays the video that was missing from the save file above.

---

If you do not want to delete the ISO GOG provided, there is another solution I can offer, but that too involves obtaining a copy of the Masterpiece Collection Stone Prophet. Once you have it, rename is something manageable, such as SP.ISO and place it in your GOG Galaxy\Games\Ravenloft - Stone Prophet directory. Next open a file in the same directory named dosbox_prophet_single.conf using Notepad. Find the line that points to gog.game and change it to SP.ISO, or whatever else you named it.

imgmount d "..\gog.game" -t iso -fs iso
to
imgmount d "..\SP.ISO" -t iso -fs iso

This will preserve all other GOG functions associated with the game.

---

This leaves you with the need to acquire a copy of the adnd Masterpiece Collection for either solution. Using Google, it isn't really a problem. You're looking for disc 4.

For those who need a few definitions to read this:
ISO file - an image file of the original game CD. It is "mounted" in a DOS enviroment to simulate having a CD-ROM inserted into a drive.
DOSBOX - The third party program used by GOG to simulate the MS-DOS environment from yesterdays computers

Note this solution is NOT fully tested. I haven't played through Stone Prophet fully yet; I've only tested using the save game I provided. No worries though, you can always delete and reinstall.

Hope I helped and happy gaming!

The Masterpiece Collection works, because it uses the version 1.0 of the game. But if you would manually patch it to version 1.1 to get the werejackal NPC, it too would crash during the endgame sequence.

No sir, this was tested with the patch. Changing the ISO does not change the files rewritten on the hard drive. The game continues as 1.1. Additionally, I tested the game by installing manually with dosbox and applied the patch. Both versions were 1.1 and displayed the movie.

I have installed the game freshly from the Masterpiece Collection CD, patched it to version 1.1 and the game crashed during the final cutscene. See the attached screenshot.

The v1.1 issue with the final cutscene is a known issue - on the Masterpiece Collection CD they included a rollback patch to v1.0 so that the final cutscene could be played. Worth checking on the CD for that rollback patch.

When I install the game from the Masterpiece Collection CD (which I just did today) it is version 1.0, that's why no rollback patch is needed. I couldn't find one on my disk either.

I downloaded the 1.1 patch from the internet and applied it manually. And kept a back-up of the old 1.0 version of the game just in case.

Hi, what's that scene there? I don't know Stone Prophet yet. I've only tested that the movie of Ankh vs. the Heirophant plays. Sorry, haven't don't the game before. Return to city?

---

Found my way out of temple. Got two more movies to play, one while leaving, then one as I ran to the town. I didn't see the guy saluting.

Okay, got into the Sphinx. I can confirm that with the method I posted three movies play at the end of the game and that the jackalwere it there in the Sphinx.