Fire cross bug

[LemmingofGlory]

As most people already know, if place your character in the flames coming from a fire cross, you take damage over time. If you happen to die to the flames, and then restart in town, you will see your corpse at the starting place in town. Do not attempt this alone if you want to retrieve something you left on the floor since you are practically immobilized for the duration of the game. This in no way leads to permanent death as you will be fine rejoining the same game or entering a new game.

You can still use belt potions and spells, and if you try healing or resurrecting your own character, your corpse disappears. In a coop game some time ago, I tried either healing or resurrecting a friend's corpse that resulted from this bug. Either spell resulted in his game crashing, though I can't confirm if it always happens since i have only tried this once.

Let me know if anyone already knows about this bug. I have not been able to find any mention of this on the internet.

Restarting in town dead is always an interesting prospect! I'm familiar with what I've termed "Lichery" (a pasttime in which I gleefully engaged in public games) wherein obtaining negative hitpoints and attempting to heal oneself results in several humorous form of deadness. So I'm curious as to whether this is happening with every character that dies from a flaming cross. It just seems to me that I should have perished from a flaming cross at some point in my Diablo career (as I've perished from everything else I can imagine -- purposefully and otherwise) yet I've only encoutered the kind of oddity you describe in the very special situation of possessing negative hps and being healed (as healing will set your hps to 0, which will simply kill you again). However, I have not experienced a crash while being in a "Lich" state.

Here is what is known:
1 - Environmental damage from a flaming cross should be considered "trap damage"
2 - "Trap damage", like monster damage, will result in your character dropping items
3 - No other trap (that I know of) has resulted in a player character being dead in town upon Restart


Happy Fun Lich Time:
If memory serves, here's how "going lich" works, but bear in mind it's been a few years. First, let's name some states of deadness.

• Corpse: Character is visible, dead, and lying on the ground. I believe inventory is may be manipulated if player starts the game as a corpse, which is important if you need to remove some -HP items so that you can come back to life. "Restart in Town" may be disabled, thus necessitating res.<>
  
• Lich : Current HPs < 0, Max HPs = 0. Inventory may be manipulated, since character is technically "alive".<>
  
• Extraneous Lich Case : Current HPs = 0, Max HPs = 0. I don't recall precisely if having Current HPs = 0 is treated the same as having Current HPs < 0. I believe the two states are treated essentially the same way, except Current HPs = 0 is displayed in red initially and then in white if the character is healed.<>
  
• Ghost : Character is invisible and immobile. I believe inventory is accessible.<>
  [st]
  
  1 - Drop HPs so that Current HPs < 0. The game will force Max HPs = 0. In town, you will not die. Downstairs, I believe you will, but I don't believe items are dropped.
  2 - Death will occur from any sort of healing (potion, Pepin, Heal Other), since it will (inevitably) set Current HPs = Max HPs = 0. Items will not drop if this occurs in town; don't recall dungeon, if I ever knew (gameplay with HPs < 0, though amusing, is highly discouraged as it leads to MS Bug Abuse). It's fun to do since people can't help themselves: they'll want to heal you... and then you can be silly and curse their name, their first-born, and their ancestors.
  3 - Healing a second time before hitting the ground (e.g. healing twice quickly at Pepin) will cause your corpse to disappear ("ghost") before it hits the ground. You will be immobile and (IIRC) immune to auto-targetting resurrection attempts (the second heal "tops off" your HPs so the game doesn't think you need a res). I believe you'll be able to restart in town, probably as a corpse.
  
  -Lem (aka AntiquePopsicle, Tasty Frozen Lich)