This is already easy to do with mods and savegame editors.
Been there, done that. Maybe others have had more success, but I've had repeated misery. The "easy" mod option requires Level1NPCs which requires you to pore through every single NPC in the game, including modded-in ones that it recognizes, choosing everything specifically ahead of time for each NPC or skipping each one. This is time-consuming in itself, but then you have to reinstall your game to implement it. It's buggy and fails to work for every NPC, and it requires yet another entire new game reinstallation if you want to change anything. This is just a misery as an "option."
As to savegame editors, I tried savegame editing Imoen from thief to bard using Shadowkeeper on recruitment and as soon as she tried to level up, it crashed the game, so yet another string of lost gameplay hours and yet another startover. The savegame editors aren't game-based. They just meddle with the game- and maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. In too many ways it doesn't. I'd rather the security and ease of a well-implemented game option like what AndreaColombo suggests.
As to it being "detrimental to immersion" or "weakening the NPCs as believable characters," that is your opinion only. For me the game still lies ahead, Sarevok still threatens, all the encounters and challenges still loom and beckon, the entire multiplicity of hours fighting and selecting my way to victory haven't left the road ahead. There's nothing you can do with NPCs that affects that reality of the game, but with the Level1NPCs type of option you can make that reality a lot more fun- if you want. Can Ajantis be other than a paladin? Hell, yes! I'd love to make him a squishy mage instead just for the fun of it. Or you could make him a Wizard Slayer without even contradicting his tendencies, but if you do alter his class seemingly drastically, so what? It just adds a new flavor to the game: Ajantis remains. If that's "hacking" the game, then why have these "Difficulty Settings" thingies or any game options at all? Each fundamentally alters your experience of the game... and yet none breaks it.
Again: for those who want to keep their games unchanged, that option should remain and be the default. Nothing should force NPC changes on such souls so sensitive to any change of Alora from a thief to a cleric or Branwen from a cleric to a thief. But for those who would like to experiment and play around with NPCs after playing the game over and over the same way for a very long time (it's been over a decade for me) this option would be nothing but excellent fun built-in to the game. *shrugs*
@Lunever The only "common ground" can be having the Level1NPCs type game-changer be optional and non-default...
*Sigh* Redistributing classes is to extreme. Leaving anything as it is automatized ignores that an NPCs stats only depend on when you meet him. Can't we find a reasonable comprimise? Basic stats and number of XP as given, anything else as per levelup?
@Lunever It's a game- one in which leaving Gore on makes your enemies explode in chunks of meat. Merely changing NPC class is not "too extreme." There doesn't have to be a "middle ground" because there doesn't have to be one way that all people play. That's the point of having options... NPC recruitment (with the option on) would start the NPC as they're already given, and the player would change to the degree they wish. Or at least that's my conception of the option. No one who chooses the option is forced to "redistribute classes" either... Keep it the same but give Minsc katana instead- or choose Blindness for Dynaheir instead of Magic Missile. The BG world's your oyster. ;-)
Can Ajantis be other than a paladin? Hell, yes! I'd love to make him a squishy mage instead just for the fun of it.
"I am Ajantis, squire paladin of the Order of the Most Radiant Heart, servant to Helm, son of the noble family of Ilvastarr. I am here to hunt down the vile brigands who assault those traveling these roads. What of you?" - "When I introduced myself, you perhaps heard when I referred to myself as a Squire knight. I am on a quest to earn my right to be a full fledged member of the Order of the Most Radiant Heart. (...)"
Nothing Ajantis says makes sense unless he's a Paladin. You can't let the player choose his class when every bit of script and dialogue related to him are clearly designed with a Paladin in mind (a young, idealist paladin at that).
If you want custom NPCs you can: - Start the game in multiplayer mode (already fully supported option) - Add new NPCs with mods - Use Shadowkeeper - Use the Level 1 NPCs mod
I'm sure that between all that there's well enough room for NPC customization as it is.
If that's "hacking" the game, then why have these "Difficulty Settings" thingies or any game options at all? Each fundamentally alters your experience of the game... and yet none breaks it.
You're proposing something that alters the storyline in arbitrary ways that will not make sense. None of the actual options do this.
Again: for those who want to keep their games unchanged, that option should remain and be the default. Nothing should force NPC changes on such souls so sensitive to any change of Alora from a thief to a cleric or Branwen from a cleric to a thief. But for those who would like to experiment and play around with NPCs after playing the game over and over the same way for a very long time (it's been over a decade for me) this option would be nothing but excellent fun built-in to the game.
That's exactly what mods are for. That they may be buggy is not an argument for their inclusion in the core game.
Nothing Ajantis says makes sense unless he's a Paladin.
Do the lines have to match the class to make sense? I know what he says- certainly by now. I've heard his voice and lines before over and over throughout these years. And the dialogue in BG1 is not, alas, particularly involved, so the NPC quests and encounters don't lead CHARNAME any particularly radical way off any available beaten path. So at this point I'll enjoy Ajantis' particular company in an Enchanter Ajantis as much as in a Paladin Ajantis, while the lines continue to make sense regardless. Would I want to make him a Wild Mage or Assassin? Well... dunno. Might be good fun though, maybe for one playthrough each. I mean, after playing as many games as I have... and after all the games I'll likely be playing when BGEE is out... yeah, I could do pretty much anything I wanted with BG, no problem for me at all, even mage-ify or assassin-ify the "young, idealist paladin." Why limit Ajantis that way? Why insist on it? What would be the point? Absurdity isn't a crime, as neither is the theater of the absurd... something that- if you've played BG yourself- you might note is an integral part of BG's game world... I could get Larry, Darryl, and Darryl to explain it to you, but even their autographed endorsement of this Feature Request probably wouldn't suffice... (A Monty Python law officer now intervenes on behalf of Helm to call for the cessation of silliness...)
You can't let the player choose...
Those type of terms don't appeal to me...
If you want custom NPCs you can play multiplayer, or Icewind Dale. Baldur's Gate's NPCs are characters with well-defined personalities based largely on their class.
I already addressed the multiplayer/ IWD "option" in the parts of my posts you conveniently left out- easier to ignore good points, I suppose, but I'll reintroduce the point below more generally. Do I disagree that BG's NPCs have well-defined, even cartoonishly-ascertained personalities that are based largely on a class? Not at all. You simply insist that no one be allowed to diversify their classes regardless. Why bother insisting? What's it to you how I or anyone else plays regarding the default content? What if lots of people would find it quite fun to play Xzar as a Thief with his sidekick evil Priest of Talos Montaran who constantly makes threats of killing people and eventually breaks the party with a fight against Sorcerer Khalid and Barbarian Jaheira? You cannot accept people being enabled to enjoy the game that way? "Go find some other way to play my game!"
But then again your extreme position is a ruse because it doesn't accurately represent the view of the majority of those who support a Level1NPCs option that enables changing a character's class. Most people would probably not use the option to run the NPCs with classes distinctly different from their given class, but would more likely- as I also already mentioned (ignored that too)- do such heinous, game-breaking, fun-quashing class shifts as changing Montaran to an Assassin rather than leaving him a Fighter/Thief. Or they'd make Xan a Fighter/Enchanter (so his otherwise useless Moonblade actually meant something). Or they'd make Kivan an Archer- or perhaps even a Stalker, given his hunt for the murderer of his beloved- rather than a pure Ranger. Or they'd make Eldoth a Blade for all his flamboyance. Or they'd dual class the Tempus-loving Branwen from Fighter to Cleric- or, hell, make her a Paladin. Or they might make Coran the wyvern-hunter a Bounty hunter instead (or perhaps a Jester given his awful portrait). There's one mod devoted to making Jaheira a pure Druid- not such a radical choice. (And neither she nor Khalid as a Bard is exactly anti-Harperish.) Nor would it be radical to make Fighter/Cleric Yeslick a pure Cleric. Or they might make Minsc a Berserker given the way he already behaves. (What about Minsc requires being a Ranger? His talking rodent Boo...? The Giant Space Hamster? And what about Minsc "makes sense?" Yeah, I don't run with Minsc as a result of him "making sense.") Or they'd give precious Ajantis a Paladin kit instead of keeping him a pure Paladin. How outrageous! That wouldn't make sense! BGEE shouldn't allow this sort of thing canonically! But if kits were available at the time BG1 first came out, what would the devs have chosen for these "well-defined personalities based largely on their class?" The choices made for BG2's NPCs might answer that... Well, with this option in the ToB-enhanced BG1, BGEE allows players to tweak accordingly. And veteran players would tweak and like it very much, thank you.
If that's "hacking" the game, then why have these "Difficulty Settings" thingies or any game options at all? Each fundamentally alters your experience of the game... and yet none breaks it.
You're proposing something that alters the storyline in arbitrary ways that will not make sense. None of the actual options do this.
The actual options can give monsters ridiculous, metagamed hit points. The actual options can make NPCs talk to you or not talk to you at your command. The actual options let you cheat in your scroll memorization chances or Level Up HP. The actual options can widen or reduce your visual field, stretching the fabric of the very world itself, or increase and decrease how loud things are around you, including that nice music that never seems to play behind my steps IRL. Such arbitrary powers over the world certainly don't "make sense," and they fundamentally alter how your game unfolds and how your encounters will be experienced from start to finish. "Ban them forthwith! We need the game only in one unchangeable way that makes the same "sense" every time we play!" Yet- actually- those types of options affect the game on a constant basis throughout it- unlike this particular option which would only make it possible for an incongruity between an NPC's class and their rather scant introductory and occasional lines. For the entirety of the rest of the game, the "storyline" of BG is utterly unchanged by Ajantis not being a Paladin: your struggle to figure out what's happening, stop the iron shortage, even defeat the bandits as Ajantis so wishes, and ultimately defeat Sarevok. Whether you defeat the Iron Throne leaders with a Wild Mage Dynaheir and a Swashbuckler Alora and- most shockingly- a Cavalier Ajantis, you still need to do so with all the relevant tactics that a Wild Mage, Swashbuckler, and Cavalier require. You just get to experience their voices and accompaniment in the process. The storyline remains utterly (and apparently stupefyingly) intact. Sarevok wants you dead- murdered even- regardless of who you recruit or what class they are or whether another player doesn't like the class choice you've made for your NPCs. And ultimately you write your own storyline by your experience and choices in the game, not by just taking a story spoonfed to you with some "arbitrary" class ridigity. So a BGEE that encompasses that sort of freedom has the advantage.
That's exactly what mods are for. That they may be buggy is not an argument for their inclusion in the core game.
In fact, besides how great this option would be for expanding replayability, offering players an unbuggy, fully-functional, in-game alternative to the oft-disheartening modding experience that can easily turn players off of BGEE is a most salient reason why to include it in the "core" game (though the Advanced Options are not exactly "core" given that they're not the default). Rather than dismissively relegating players to a buggy, one-change-per-install, clunky-interface, antiquated mod, the devs can recognize the years-long popularity of the mod's intended purpose for BG players since the mod came out... and instead release BGEE with a version that incorporates the fun built-in so that people who for one reason or another can't or don't mod- maybe haven't even heard of modding- also get the chance to customize their parties as they play and replay vanilla BGEE until they'd like to do their own tweaking.
Like I've said before (somewhere), there are times when story consistency should take a backseat to gameplay.
With BGEE having all the classes from BG2/ToB (+ the new kit), it would be great if we could play with all those kits AND be able to interact with all the characters of BG1 (as limited as they are). Making a multiplayer game and assigning all characters to yourself will inevitably make you lose that (you'd basically be playing Icewind Dale).
Its really annoying that we have all these kits to play around with, but if we want to use the BG1 characters, we can only enjoy them one at a time. This option would help with that.
Nothing Ajantis says makes sense unless he's a Paladin.
Do the lines have to match the class to make sense?
Well, yes, that was my point. Dynaheir's storyline is that she's a rashemi witch sent with the ranger Minsc to protect her and was captured by gnolls. Edwin also refers to her as a witch. If the game gave the player the option of changing her class arbitrarily, then that blows that entire story up.
It doesn't change the main storyline, but BG isn't just about the main storyline. There's quite a lot of interesting side-stories involving your own party members, and the little there is is enjoyable and gives them a lot of life and personality.
You're asking for a feature that only veterans of the game might like because they already know the game by heart and can abstract away certain story details which at that point they don't care much about.
What's it to you how I or anyone else plays regarding the default content? What if lots of people would find it quite fun to play Xzar as a Thief with his sidekick evil Priest of Talos Montaran who constantly makes threats of killing people and eventually breaks the party with a fight against Sorcerer Khalid and Barbarian Jaheira? You cannot accept people being enabled to enjoy the game that way? "Go find some other way to play my game!"
With this line of reasoning you could justify just about any feature - "just don't use it if you don't like it!"
In fact, besides how great this option would be for expanding replayability, offering players an unbuggy, fully-functional, in-game alternative to the oft-disheartening modding experience that can easily turn players off of BGEE is a most salient reason why to include it in the "core" game (though the Advanced Options are not exactly "core" given that they're not the default).
I think your request would be conviently answered with a good game editor like many modern RPGs have - The Elder Scrolls series for instance. There, those experienced players who want to alter the world in arbitrary ways can do so relatively easily, knowing that they're actually messing with how the game was designed and can break things in various ways. A good game editor would also encourage higher quality mods in general, including but not limited to a mod that allows changing existing game NPCs at will.
Because it's not as simple as just changing a character class. You'll have to also be able to change a character starting equipment (a mage can't wear and wouldn't be carrying plate mail and a sword); his stats - NPCs stats are tailored to the class they use -; his known spells if you make him into a mage or cleric. Then the portrait won't fit, the soundset won't fit, and potentially any script that assumed a particular class out of an NPC might break (this might actually be why your game crashed when you changed a character class through Shadowkeeper).
Comments
As to savegame editors, I tried savegame editing Imoen from thief to bard using Shadowkeeper on recruitment and as soon as she tried to level up, it crashed the game, so yet another string of lost gameplay hours and yet another startover. The savegame editors aren't game-based. They just meddle with the game- and maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. In too many ways it doesn't. I'd rather the security and ease of a well-implemented game option like what AndreaColombo suggests.
As to it being "detrimental to immersion" or "weakening the NPCs as believable characters," that is your opinion only. For me the game still lies ahead, Sarevok still threatens, all the encounters and challenges still loom and beckon, the entire multiplicity of hours fighting and selecting my way to victory haven't left the road ahead. There's nothing you can do with NPCs that affects that reality of the game, but with the Level1NPCs type of option you can make that reality a lot more fun- if you want. Can Ajantis be other than a paladin? Hell, yes! I'd love to make him a squishy mage instead just for the fun of it. Or you could make him a Wizard Slayer without even contradicting his tendencies, but if you do alter his class seemingly drastically, so what? It just adds a new flavor to the game: Ajantis remains. If that's "hacking" the game, then why have these "Difficulty Settings" thingies or any game options at all? Each fundamentally alters your experience of the game... and yet none breaks it.
Again: for those who want to keep their games unchanged, that option should remain and be the default. Nothing should force NPC changes on such souls so sensitive to any change of Alora from a thief to a cleric or Branwen from a cleric to a thief. But for those who would like to experiment and play around with NPCs after playing the game over and over the same way for a very long time (it's been over a decade for me) this option would be nothing but excellent fun built-in to the game. *shrugs*
@Lunever
The only "common ground" can be having the Level1NPCs type game-changer be optional and non-default...
It's a game- one in which leaving Gore on makes your enemies explode in chunks of meat. Merely changing NPC class is not "too extreme." There doesn't have to be a "middle ground" because there doesn't have to be one way that all people play. That's the point of having options... NPC recruitment (with the option on) would start the NPC as they're already given, and the player would change to the degree they wish. Or at least that's my conception of the option. No one who chooses the option is forced to "redistribute classes" either... Keep it the same but give Minsc katana instead- or choose Blindness for Dynaheir instead of Magic Missile. The BG world's your oyster. ;-)
Nothing Ajantis says makes sense unless he's a Paladin. You can't let the player choose his class when every bit of script and dialogue related to him are clearly designed with a Paladin in mind (a young, idealist paladin at that).
If you want custom NPCs you can:
- Start the game in multiplayer mode (already fully supported option)
- Add new NPCs with mods
- Use Shadowkeeper
- Use the Level 1 NPCs mod
I'm sure that between all that there's well enough room for NPC customization as it is. You're proposing something that alters the storyline in arbitrary ways that will not make sense. None of the actual options do this. That's exactly what mods are for. That they may be buggy is not an argument for their inclusion in the core game.
With BGEE having all the classes from BG2/ToB (+ the new kit), it would be great if we could play with all those kits AND be able to interact with all the characters of BG1 (as limited as they are). Making a multiplayer game and assigning all characters to yourself will inevitably make you lose that (you'd basically be playing Icewind Dale).
Its really annoying that we have all these kits to play around with, but if we want to use the BG1 characters, we can only enjoy them one at a time. This option would help with that.