after my party fought and killed the shadow dragon, I realized my druid avenger had been level drained and lost his special shapechanging abilities (fire salamder, spider, baby wyvern). . . but restoration didn't bring them back. Now it seems I am perminately without them.

HELP. has this happened to anyone else?? how do you fix it? Is it a bug in the BG2 engine????

frustrated and puzzled.

Have you tried resting yet?

When a spell caster get's level drained he loses some spells he has memorized so maybe (hopefully) this is something similar.

If nothing else works perhaps it can be fixed by using ShadowKeeper.

Just one other thought, and I am guessing here. You have used 'restoration' on the character but the Temples offer 'greater restoration' (and there is a cleric spell as well). I never really noticed any difference between 'greater' and normal restoration during the game. Perhaps the 'greater' spell also restores lost abilities (although it doesn't mention that in the manual). It's probably worth a try in a temple before mucking about with shadow keeper. I also agree with the rest first idea above.

If these don't work and you need help with shadowkeeper to restore the abilities then:

'You can get Shadowkeeper from the editors section of this BG2 site.

Use it to load your latest game, make sure your character portrait is showing, select the 'Innate' tab, choose add spell, select the 'Shapeshift/shapechange whatever', save the changed file (using a different name to be safe), cross your fingers, load it and see if you can now use those abilities you lost. Good luck.'

You might also have a look at the following site that offers a number of unofficlay patches for common BG2 bugs - I don't know if there is one for your problem but it might be worth a look:
http://members.home.net/mrkevvy/fixes.html

ok, now I really don't know what is going on.

I had rested so it wasn't that, and did restoration and greater restoration. None of these things brought back my Avenger abilities. I then used Shadowkeeper to add the shapeshifting back in, but once in the game, they still do not show up!

ARRRGGHHHHHHH.

OK I know how frustrating this type of bug can be. I had one a while back that no one could help with and I had to abandon the game in the end. Anyway, just one more quick check of ideas: are you sure you haven't got any curses or anything acting on you? (no little icons in the portrait) are you sure you are not wearing any armour or such that might inhibit an ability? (Take everything off and try again) Have you done anything to upset any of the programmers at Bioware?

Being serious again though, if you are sure nothing will work, do you want to send me a copy of your save game file. I can't promise anything but sometimes someone new looking at a problem can see something that has been overlooked. (If you do send it, please zip it first so it doesn't take ages to download).

You can also try contacting the Bioware support people (although they couldn't fix my bug either). Got to the following site:
http://www.bioware.com/support/support.shtml

then click on the 'Email Baldurs Gate 2 Info' option. This opens up an email to the support people. Describe the problem you are having and provide as much detail as possible about your PC, memory, graphics, sound, procesor, operating system etc. Probably best not to mention using Shadowkeeper as they might blame that (ignoring the fact that you had the problem before using it).

A nasty bug, Just like the one with the sorcerer's spellcasting!
Frustrating....but I think you should try to finish the Trademeet druid stronghold quest. In the end, I think you regain your special druidic abilities just like the paladin in his stronghold quest. This is only a theory, I can't prove it, because I never played a druid ever, sorry.

well, I fixed my problem, but not in any way that taught me what happened. Finally got Shadowkeeper running and added the shapeshifting back in (forgot to add the number of spells learn when I did it last, so they registered '0' and still didn't show up). Opening this editor is like being offered gifts from the darkside - dangerous but I am trying to be noble. So I have my abilities back - (great when I have run out of spells and then become a kickass melee fighter) but still don't know why i lost them.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Hooray, and there was much rejoicing. It's always nice when someone overcomes one of these blasted bugs. Your comment about setting the number of spells is also useful. i wouldn't of thought of the problem of having zero so the ability not showing (normally I would expect it to show the ability greyed out or something).

Anyway, congrats and welcome back to the game. :)

I kinda stopped using my avengers shape change when he got cool spells

If i remember correctly greater restoration gives back all hipoints lost.