Evil party is easier
IkMarc
Member Posts: 552
Around the time you are about lvl5 in Baldur's Gate city. No need to follow the quests and perform good tasks, you can just walk into the factions that oppose you and deal with them. On the way you can kill and loot all you need. Someone has noticed you and the guards have been summoned? Just clear out the room first. No need to watch out with your conversations, the end result is always the same... Flaming Fist enforcers? Who cares? You can carve them up real nice. Don't watch your reputation. You got plenty of gold by this time anyway.
An evil party isn't difficult. It just requires the proper dedication.
An evil party isn't difficult. It just requires the proper dedication.
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Hasn't world's history always insisted on it?
If you're a good person, you can still very much kill anyone who isn't obviously evil. Most of the enemies you face in life are actually neutral and just in your way. Kind-of-a-jerk Iron Throne Mercenary with wife and kids isn't Obviously Evil, he's just a guy who's your enemy. Bandit #3? Yeah, he's trying to earn money to feed his kid sister.
Good characters will stop being good if they start murdering innocents or attacking people without reasonable cause (and even Reasonable Cause is different character to character), not for killing anyone they want for the lulz.
But then, Neutral people don't kill innocent people on a whim either, that's the hallmark of evil, and doing that too much is just Evil.
The only price to pay should be that you're also being a massive douchebag. Evil is easier, there is always a reason for doing it, and it will give you the spoils and benefits for far less trouble - while the only reason to do good is for its own sake, in spite of you suffering for it.
The great advantage of evil is that it can ignore all rules, legal or moral. The good side always fights with a hand behind its back, so to speak. But the great drawback of evil is the lack of trust between its practicioners. In the game this isn't reflected, as evil characters seem to trust evil characters more than others. In the real world Kagain and Xzar would be much more likely to be cheated, robbed or killed by Montaron or Edwin than by Imoen or Khalid.
Both good and evil have their benefits and drawbacks. Doing good instead of evil makes you look more trustworthy, true, but it also has other, worse consequences - such as, for instance, making yourself look weak or foolish in the eyes of certain people. Good is willing to take the chances, while evil usually exploits those: hence you so often see, in movies, the good guy sparing the villain's life, only for him to try and stab the poor fellow in the back or otherwise exploit him for it (and sometimes even succeed!).
But in the end, why do you think there are so many criminals? Why do you think people choose the life of a burglar or a thief instead of doing a honest day's work? Why are there so damn many bandits along the Sword Coast these days? Or, as has been shown recently in the real world, why do people buy guns instead of getting themselves mental health care? Why do terrorists go to war and wish to shoot and kill those of other nationality or religion, thinking of them as evil monsters based on propaganda or being raised by other extremists, instead of trying to actually learn about matters, seek different points of view, and draw their own conclusions? Why do corrupt executives exploit cheap workforce in less-developed countries? Why is there so much oppression and violation of basic human rights? Why do we continue to pollute and destroy our world instead of finding alternative ways of power?
Because it's easy.
It is true that there are still a lot of bad actions happening, but in sheer number they are dwarfed by the number of good actions in this world (just think about mothers and what they do for their children). And they aren't all the result of people choosing the easy way. Plain stupidity and mental disorder explain a lot.
I insist most on my point that evil will more often than not fail (and hence not be the easy choice) because there is no solidarity (or trust) between bad people. But it does exist between good people - even though current day cynicism will often insist it does not.
I will concede this point: evil may sometimes appear or even be the easiest choice. But generally it is not. Fortunately!
It's just evil that thinks good is weak and easy to exploit. Indeed, not everything in this world is evil - fortunately. And often, it may be hard to make the difference between the foolishness of youth and true malice. Some people do not know better, but those people, I think, are in the minority. I'm not saying that evil doesn't fail more often, or that it actually is easy from start to end, but it still appears as the easy choice at first, and that is most of the time enough for those that choose this path: perhaps, in the long run, choosing the road of good would be better and easier, but evil is almost always such in the shorter run, and those that do not like to think too far ahead - or think of themselves clever enough to sidestep the inevitable drawbacks - think they will be better off by choosing the short-term benefit. Hence bandits and thieves and other such ilk, who take the easy path to get a lot of money, and simply think they'll never be caught, or that even in the end it'll be worth it anyway.
1) start with an evil group -
2) drop your rep to 1 or 2 early on (say prior to Nashkel mines)
3) and leave it there for the rest of the game.
Now playing an evil group with rep constantly adjusted to stay around 5-6 might be relatively easy or perhaps after becoming very powerful before dropping the rep down to 1 or two - after stocking up on the best weapons/gear etc - or playing with custom made power builds etc etc.
But right out of the box with a "normal" PC and party of NPCs? Not so much I'm thinking - in fact I suspect most people would be lucky to get such a group to BG City at all playing under those circumstances.
BG doesn't play much different. The characters in the movie acted as normal people mostly, initiating dialogue with a charm that would rival the way most people would treat you or I. The only difference was they would probably kill you afterwards. I think this is why there is seemingly sparse "evil" dialogue in the game. There are dick comments you can choose that IMO are suited for a Chaotic Evil/Neutral NPC.
Never did agree with the reputation level effecting store prices though. In a small area like BG, word travels fast, and I can see why a store clerk would think you deserved to pay more. However I think he would be more likely to give his items away or at least try to sell them cheap to avoid being killed himself. I guess for gameplay they tried to balance it so all that extra gold you acquired through your robbing and killing would be spent with less reward. I feel it was much too harsh though, as the punishment severely limits the desire to roleplay as evil.
Lawful Evil respectfully disagrees.
Of course, many people have pointed out that you're not an average Joe as CHARNAME, so perhaps you're not average Evil either. I would be far more tempted to do an evil play-through if I had dialogue that affected the world like Iago affected the play "Othello."
Reading this is nice, and completely true. My PC uses slings and they are simply lethargic compared to bows, make it very challenging without a bowman.
Although I will say that being a pure evil party in BG2 is a hell of a lot harder than BG1 by a landslide.
as they've added some nice elemental magic bullets to High Hedge