Quest glitches in Act 2

I'm playing version 1.3.2 for the first time, although I have completed the un-modded game once before, several years ago. I noticed that you start the game with the Horadric Cube, presumably for crafting purposes, but this causes quest glitches in Act 2. Deckard Cain is delivering dialogue early, and acting as if I've already completed part of the related quest; also, the quest in my quest log allows me to play his dialogue that normally plays when returning the Horadric Scroll to him. If this was an unavoidable outcome of having the cube early, I guess I can live with that (although you don't really need to do much crafting in Act 1) - but I'm also getting The Summoner quest early. Is it supposed to be this way? All the NPCs in town are commenting on it and acting as if I've already met him, and it's confusing. If I was super-familiar with the base game, I probably wouldn't care as much, but it's been several years since I last played, and I don't really remember what they're talking about.

P.S. The guard outside the palace says the "you may not pass" voice line when approached, but his dialogue box says "you may enter the palace".

Most of the issues you're experiencing are probably a result of the cube being made available. Over the years the cube has been used for several recipes so having it available was in act 1 was necessary. If you can't get into the palace, talk to Drognan. If that doesn't work, use blink from

Pax Mystica

Pax Mystica
Staves
'Tir'
Runeword Level: 10
+1 to All Skills
+7% to Spell Damage
+(2 to 5) to Blink
Elemental Resists +(11 to 15)%
(11 to 13)% Magic Find

to get inside.

Im guessing that you played online and so Kaelan can speak that way if other player was messing with quests outside of your party. What Fumbles said can help you but in scenario if you got Horadric Staff already, I dont see it clearly in your post.

If you dont remember main questline you can follow Quests.

There are also two shortcut recipes available in Horadric Cube for Horadric Staff and Khalim's Will.

► Shortcut Recipes copied from Documentation

Looking for a way to skip some of that long and boring content? Create your own quest items and give the questgivers the middle finger.

Arcane Crystal x2 + healing potion → Horadric Staff
Arcane Crystal x2 + mana potion → Khalim's Will

You do need to create the quest items in the difficulty where you intend to use them, because they are earmarked by difficulty.

First of median challenges you need to worry about (cuz got Maximum Level Requirement of 50) will be Level Challenge 1 on Hatred difficulty, you can read about it in The Documentation under Quest button, you will find there other Challenges and Ubers too, so take your time reading.

@Fumbles Wouldn't it have been possible to create a cloned Horadric Cube which functioned the same as the regular one, but wasn't tied to the questline? And then when you were supposed to get the cube as in the vanilla game, you instead would pick up a "voucher" that just activated the quest flags?

@Unda No, I haven't played online at all. Kaelan is not actually letting me into the palace, but his dialogue is saying I may enter. I don't have the Horadric Staff or Scroll yet, I haven't even left Lut Gholein. I'm not really interested in any Median challenges, I just want to experience the game again without the headaches of the un-modded version.

I suppose that since the quest glitches look to be un-resolvable, I'll just look up the relevant plot information online. Disappointing, but better than nothing.

Please don't take this as any sort of negativity towards the mod - I'm really impressed with how well it plays and have been enjoying it a ton. I'd prefer if it was less quest-glitchy, but it's certainly not bad enough to make me uninstall the mod.

Kaelan will not let you walk into Palace cuz you didnt finished The Tainted Sun quest in Claw Viper Temple (located near Lost City), part with breaking Altar where Amulet of the Viper will be droped. Teleporting to Palace was only solution when Jerhyn for some reason was inside and not in dialog range, which was only case when you ofc finished mentioned quest.

Earlier on the way, you should get Staff of the Kings from Maggot Lair (located in Far Oasis) to be able cube it with Amulet.

If your single player save game got corrupted some weird way and you still cant enter Palace after what I described above then you should create TCP/IP game which will allow you to refresh instance and quests should be available and Kaelan unbugged.

The problem with Kaelan here is not that he's not letting me in the palace - he shouldn't be - but that his text box is saying "You MAY enter the palace".

My first impression was that you made this thread cuz your quests was messed up and at some point you couldnt continue or finish them. I was trying to find solution and help you cuz original D2 game often got bugged in Act2, so it was nothing new to hear.

In original D2 on blizzard servers people always was giving Cube to their fresh chars in Act1 for additional space so as you can see scenario which you described with initial post is not of Median origin.

Horadric Cube in Median during years was always needed in Act1 for many reasons and things, some was removed or moved to other acts with different patches, examples: Catalysts was available in shop | Meditation Candle and Sacrifical Heart reagents to create Honorific Gear | to summon Volrath from LC0 you needed to cube Median Statue to get oskill and it had restriction of character to be Maximum Level 5 | Character Orb | Mystic Orbs etc.

Now back to the point, if you feel lost with quests dialogs and its chronology you can always read it here, just click on specific NPC's name and there are all dialogs listed:
https://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Act_II

Now when its more clear that its not gamebreaking glitch, your feedback and report about mod fits in here MXL 1.3 Bugs&Feedback.

Dang it, I looked for a thread like that and didn't find one, I must have missed it. Thanks!

Checked your post in feedback section, point 2) is just dialog box error from original D2, dont know if it was fixed by blizzard in later patches but for your information MedianXL is based on Patch 1.13c.

What you described in point 1) there, is also not a problem caused by mod, simple thing is that Horadric Scroll, Horadric Cube, Staff of the Kings and Amulet of the Viper isnt locked as linear, so you are free to get any of those pieces in order as you wish and NPC's dialogs can be triggered in different ways cuz of that. The only difference between original game and mod in that matter is that you got Horadric Cube from start cuz Halls of the Dead (where Cube originally was) is used as transition to Uber Levels. In short, same confusion you experienced in mod can be found in original game.

To confirm or deny your problems with The Summoner quest triggering out of nowhere I used my untwinked characters which im currently playing on hardcore, playing them all simultaneously with similar levels so was able to try two 'Entering Act2 scenarios".

First:
What you said earlier "I noticed that you start the game with the Horadric Cube, presumably for crafting purposes, but this causes quest glitches in Act 2." is not true cuz it didnt cause anything wrong, will explain it further. When you starting Act2 in mod you got only opened Quest 2 which saying "Take the artifacts to Cain in Lut Gholein" and after talking to him its changed to "Search the Halls of the Dead under the Dry Hills for the Cube. Search the Maggot Lair under the Far Oasis for the Shaft. Search the Claw Viper Temple for the Headpiece.". For me all seems fine cuz you got already Cube and should continue with looking for Staff and Amulet. I did talked also with each NPC in Act2 and nothing unusual occured at this point, I also didnt left town thru gate yet. Next step was to go and get rid of Radament plus take Horadric Scroll, killed him but when opened chest then no Horadric Scroll droped from it, so explain to me how you droped Horadric scroll if you talked earlier with all NPC's , have you left town gate maybe before that? At this point no The Summoner quest was triggered.

Second:
What you said in initial post "also, the quest in my quest log allows me to play his dialogue that normally plays when returning the Horadric Scroll to him." is not true. Tried it in game on realm now and Cain is only speaking "You have quite a treasure there in that Horadric Cube. According to Horadric lore, the Cube can restore a Horadric Staff. To do it - use the Cube as you would a scroll. When the Cube opens, place both pieces of the Staff into it and use the Cube's transmute power. You'll be pleased to know that the Cube has other alchemical uses as well... Six gems plus one sword transmute into a socketed long sword. You may also transmute two quivers of crossbow bolts into one quiver of arrows, while two quivers of arrows yield one quiver of bolts. I must leave it to you to discover other formulae." which is as it should be. Due to Horadric Scroll not droping in first scenario, with second scenario I did not talked to Cain at all and had Scroll from chest and after that talked with Cain and he opened only above dialog.

For both scenarios after some time waiting near Palace, Jerhyn is like teleported near you with ! and he is triggering The Seven Tombs quest.

Now Im not quite sure that you did what you said in that thread, have you didnt mentioned some steps you made like leaving town, messing around or anything else? Cuz as I said earlier no The summoner quest was triggered with both scenarios I tried. Curious if you was able to recreate The Summoner problem in your other single player game.

Interesting take on the Quest issues, something I never bothered to look into myself. After having played the game endlessly, I honestly don't even remember what any of the dialog says. To me, the dialog of D2 was never that engaging as it was in D1 and didn't really add much to the game play experience; it had always been by far the weakest part of the game. I do, however, like your idea of adding in a cube clone so the classic quest story line remains untainted. You should put this in the thread about upcoming patch.