Need advice on reforming party

Moradin

Hi guys, I call once again on your wisdom so that I can solve a situation in my party.
Right now my party is composed of my main, a warrior; Dorn; Neera; Imoen; Edwin and Yeslik. I have cleared the Cloakwood mines and am just about to flow them. Problem is, when I flow the mines, Dorn and Edwin walk away. Yeslik pushes me to flood the mines and I sincerely don't remember if he'll remain in the party whether or not I flow them, but I suppose he'll leave if I don't. My reputation is at 18 atm and after flooding the mines it increases to 20, prompting Dorn and Edwin to leave. Provided that Dorn I can likely re-recruit at the Friendly Arm inn (even with a rep of 20? need info on this), Edwin leaves and I don't think I can get him back. I tried killing Edwin and kicking Dorn out, but after flooding the mines, when I go and resuscitate Edwin, he just leaves.
I tried Viconia as a cleric, but she's just too weak for my play style and I prefer Yeslik in any case. I have no idea where Viconia is right now, because I left her in the mines as soon as I met Yeslik.
I could recruit Ajantis to serve as backup muscles, but I kinda like the Dorn guy and would also like to complete his quest in Baldur's Gate.
The way I see it, there are three possible scenarios:
1) I kick Dorn and Edwin, get Ajantis and continue with a 5 man party;
2) I kick Yeslik, get Branwen (she's still turned into stone, but she's also not half as decent as Yeslik) and continue this way without flooding the mines;
3) I kill someone that allows my reputation to drop a notch or two, just enough so that when I flow the mines it doesn't reach 20. In this case, though, I would likely still have the same problem once I reach BG. I'm kind of a do-gooder...

Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

KidCarnival

Viconia is still in the mines and you could reach her without triggering the rep event? She'll lower your rep -2 when she joins, which you can repeat until it is save to get the quest reward. Dorn and Neera will go to the Friendly Arm Inn if you remove them (and can re-recruit them), but the others should stay where you drop them. Same as Viconia, so you can have her join several times. I think.

Oh and if you switched the clerics, Viconia should be where you picked up Yeslick; 2nd (?) level.

SirK8

I too needed a way to keep Dorn, I haven't even made it to the flooding part yet, but I had to keep avoiding certain quests to keep my rep from hitting 19. Eventually I went with your option 3. Now, CHARNAME is no cold blooded killer, but when we went back to Feldpost Inn in Beregost, Dorn and Marl got into a shoving match even though we had previously deescalated the situation peacefully. Well eventually shoves came to blows and Dorn gutted Marl with his sword, it looked bad on the party since Dorn had re-instigated the fight, but CHARNAME was willing to look past it for now.

Just to warn you though, I think the higher your rep is, the harder it is hit when you kill someone that gives you a rep drop.

the_spyder

I will tell you that if you accidentally kill someone in Baldur's Gate while fighting any of the battles in taverns that you encounter, your rep takes a -10 PER kill.

But the real answer to these problems are that you really have to micro-manage your reputation when playing Evil. You shouldn't be letting the rep get up to anything close to 18.

SirK8

The challenge is trying to be NG, and allowing some evil party members. Naturally CHARNAME is doing acts that increase reputation and doesn't want to go around being evil, but is willing to overlook some things that other party members do, due to their usefulness to the group. I usually play minimal reload, but this time around I've had to reload my game several times to keep Dorn in my party since I can't always remember if a quest will boost rep or not.

Ignatius

Are there any *cough* accidental deaths in the big city that could, RP wise, have rep dropped?

the_spyder

Well, if you really want to play that way, there are several Flaming Fist members wandering around the wild that are just begging to be 'Accidentally' done in. Also, there is a loon in Berogst Jovial Juggler that the world won't miss too much. and he will attack you if you 'accidentally' get caught picking his pocket. Any combination therein should bork your reputation to the point where you won't have the same problem.

But this has always been my problem with 'Evil' in Baldur's gate games. In order to play evil you really have to meta-game. And you have to come up with increasingly ridiculous reasoning why you are acting a certain way, just to keep your evil members (or the good ones) happy. and if you aren't really careful, you end up out in the cold with no way to restock or get quests.

Yeah, it can be done. but I'd be surprised if it can be done without meta-gaming. Which maybe doesn't bother some players. And that's fine.

Ignatius said:

Are there any *cough* accidental deaths in the big city that could, RP wise, have rep dropped?

Yeah, be careful about 'Accidental' deaths in Baldur's gate. They take a very dim view of that. (-10 reputation PER instance. At least at high reputation that is).

Ignatius

Would killing the FF guy south of Beregost drop my rep? I usually never kill him, and have avoided him in my current playthrough so far... there's also the one in the area where you can rescue Samuel that might work. But I have already been there so RP-wise it makes little sense. Or siding against the forest dryad maybe? would that drop reputation?

Moradin

Thanks for the advice guys. The biggest problem I have is nor really with Dorn, as you said he can be re-recruited at the Friendly Arm Inn. Edwin is the main problem. Once he leaves, I don't think I can re recruit him anywhere. I think the safest way to play it is to lighten the world of a few souls that won't be missed by many. @the_spyder you said there's someone in the Jovial Juggler I could gut without having my rep zeroed, could you be more specific? Because I've tried killing a random commoner in Beregost andgot a full -9 to my rep (and of course all the city became hostile).

SirK8

@Moradin - I believe @the_spyder is referring to the looney upstairs in Jovial Juggler that is wiggin out about the paladin downstairs that is "watching" him. You'll probably take the full -9 to rep, though I don't know for sure cause I've never taken him out. If you resolved the Marl situation peacefully, you should be able to go back and kill him for a rep drop but other's should not go hostile. I honestly don't know if you can kill someone without taking a full -9 when you are sitting at 18 rep. If you haven't already done the archaeological site encounter, you can accept the quest to off the one guy, then don't really kill him but turn the idol over, I think you suffer -2 for that, though you won't get to fight the doomsayer, so you'll lose out on XP, but gain I think 900gp.

the_spyder

@Moradin. yeah, as @Sirk8 says, there is a crazy guy upstairs at the Jovial Juggler. If you talk to him he will go on and on about how there is a paladin downstairs that is watching him. If you talk to him long enough, (like 2 exchanges) you will come to the conclusion that he is crazy. If you pick his pocket, or try to steal his stuff from the chest in the room, he will go hostile and thus allow you to avoid the nasty little problem with not wanting to murder him for no reason. After all, he attacked you first.

As for the rep hit that you take, it must scale based on your current rep level. When my rep was 10, I got -2 for killing him. When I ganked someone in BG with a rep of 20, I got -10. So it might be the higher your rep, the worse the penalty. I guess I was figuring that, because you were in a big city, the penalty was worse. But that may not have been the defining factor. In that case, having Viconia back might be your only choice till your rep is manageable. Which just makes the whole thing that much worse. But then again, even if that is the case, taking a -8/9 for one death will solve your problem quite nicely. And the loon is alone, so you don't have to worry about it stacking with collateral damage of other bystanders having to be killed as well.

Moradin

@the_spyder @SirK8 thanks for the clarifications. I discovered that a solution would be to force kill Marl in the Feldepost Inn, and I get a -9 rep. I will try the other guy as well, but the outcome would likely be the same. Right now I have an even more annoying problem: when I get out of the mines to do the killing, as soon as I reach Beregost, Yeslik tries to talk to me to say, hey we need to flow the mines. Problem is, he goes as if he wants to start conversation, but goes on and on with "you need only ask" and "clangeddin's will be done", does nothing else (doesn't attack, doesn't cast spells, hell he doesn't even walk!) and is quite annoying. I suppose this is a glitch of some kind I hope to be able to solve by loading an older saved game. Let's hope it works...

Moradin

Partial solution to my problem: cast Edwin out before flooding the mines. After flooding, he'll be where you left him and will rejoin the party even if the reputation is 20. The only problem is that Dorn won't join in again. So now I have Edwin in my party, rep 20 and Dorn that says: "you'll see the error of your ways soon enough. Be gone!". I think the only solution is to kill someone...

the_spyder

maybe sabotage your reputation and try again? With Dorn being a newer member, he might actually check reputation (the way Viconia does) before being willing to join.

rdarken

You could just take out one of the slaves. It'll be a big hit when you're at 18 (-9), but you'll get an immediate +2 after finishing the mines, which will put you back at 11. There are a lot of +rep quests in BG, plus you can always donate to a church.

Moradin

@rdarken I think your solution is the easiest, since it won't require to go back to Beregost. I just hope that killing one won't get the others to hostile. I'll try that in the morning and let you guys know. hanks to everyone for the advice and suggestions.

the_spyder

rdarken said:

You could just take out one of the slaves. It'll be a big hit when you're at 18 (-9), but you'll get an immediate +2 after finishing the mines, which will put you back at 11. There are a lot of +rep quests in BG, plus you can always donate to a church.

with evil components to the party, I would counsel against spending any coin to raise reputation. Lest he end up right back where he was. And yeah, there are a fair number of + reputation things in Baldur's Gate. So beware.

Moradin

the_spyder said:

with evil components to the party, I would counsel against spending any coin to raise reputation. Lest he end up right back where he was. And yeah, there are a fair number of + reputation things in Baldur's Gate. So beware.

Yeah I thought that much: it's just too expensive to increase one's reputation based solely on temple offers. I pass on that. I tried what @rdarken suggested, but unfortunately there is no miner left anymore in the mines. So the best solution is still to get out of the mines, head to Beregost, kill one of those two guys it was suggested earlier and live with it. I'll try it later and let you know. I just hope Yeslik doesn't get mad and starts speaking without any reason as I described before: he can be quite the pain in the a$$...

Ignatius

I also needed to decrease my rep after flooding the mines - not for the same reasons but because I wanted to recruit a specific evil NPC for the rest of my playthrough. My PC being good, it was an issue RP-wise. I bumped into the FF mercenary south of Beregost who threatens to arrest you, killed him - no rep loss. I went to the south-eastern most map where Samuel is to be rescued, and killed the FF mercenary who is looking for him: rep took a -10 nosedive.

Lemernis

If you have an archived save before entering the Cloakwood mines (it's a good idea to make regular named game saves along the way for this reason), I would go back to that and drop rep by having Imoen get caught stealing in a house. Or having Dorn kill anyone who mouths off to him in Beregost (Marl is a good candidate).

You can also have Neera practice Nahal's Reckless Dweomer (using that to try to shape a spell like Clairvoyance) with just one commoner visible within eyesight range, and eventually she'll cast a fireball or summon a demon or something untoward that will kill that innocent. Although that can be a bit tedious and time consuming to get the desired result.

Another thing to lower rep without being outright evil is you could click on a certain gravestone in Nashkell and there will probably be some civilian deaths resulting from what follows.

When playing with a mixed alignment party either avoid all the rep + 1 quests, or if you do some at least don't speak to the quest-giver after doing them.

KidCarnival

I usually see that I keep my rep at 15 at most, if it hits 16, I start looking for people to accidentally die. It gets difficult once you killed the obvious targets (Flaming Fists roaming around in the woods alone). There's a lone child picking berries between Beregost and Nashkell that can be offed without getting anyone hostile since there are only some orcs and ghasts, if anyone.
Roleplay-wise, it's certainly more difficult with Dorn and Edwin because they aren't chaotic. Xzar, on the other hand... I don't know, that guy is just crazy, suddenly starts yelling about a dragon with rabbit feet and attacks random commoners... RP-reason to manage rep via temple donations - I only do that if my PC is a cleric. He pays respect to the temple that raised his dead group members, regardless of deity. Being a Priest of Talos and hence chaotic usually works well enough.

Killing a commoner without failed pickpocket at rep 16 drops me to 11 or 10, so if I turn in a + 1 rep quest right after, I'm still far from turning entire cities hostile. To make up for the price increase... cast sleep or charm in houses while robbing them. Gets me an average of 14 rep throughout the game, ok-though-not-stellar prices and keeps my party happy. (All evil except Branwen, and she doesn't complain either way. Too distracted by Eldoth inviding her to dinner.)

rdarken

@Moradin You can kill the slave who gives you the reward as he's walking away. I don't know if that will stop the evil guys from leaving, though.

Moradin

@rdarken: tried that, the problem is they leave as soon as my rep reaches 20 (hence, after I speak to the guy right after flooding the mines). So even if I kill the slave that gives the reward, I would still loose them. The solution would be to dump Edwin and Dorn before speaking to him, then get the rep to 20, kill (and I think you get a -10 at that point) and ask Edwin to re-join the party. As for Dorn, I would need to go back to the Friendly Arm Inn to re-recruit him, but I think it would work.
Edit: just did what I was describing before: killed the miner as soon as he gave me the reward (I dumped Edwin before speaking to the miner). My rep passed from 20 to 10, Dorn confronted me, but since I managed to kill the miner before he talked to me, he gave me the option whether to remain in the party or not. I then re-recruited Edwin back in the party. Now everyone is happy, and I'm sitting at reputation 10. Thanks guys, problem solved, at least for now...