Continuity for new NPCs

Trappist

Hi,

Does any one know if the new NPCs like Rasaad and Nira will be availalbe for BG2EE? And if thats the case then do we need to have them in our party at the endof BG1EE?

Are there plans for other new NPCs to be introduced in BG2EE?

Thanks.

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Silverstar

Only the developers knows for sure at this point, but it's a reasonable assumption all three of them will be around in the sequel. Most likely it's not neccessary to have them in the party at the end of the game, much like it isn't for the original cast.

They've strongly hinted there will be at least one new Thief companion of some kind in BGII:EE and I imagine they'll probably add more.

Hopefully any (or at least some) new companions will be ported back to BG too; shouldn't be too hard to do since all the companions are much more bland in the first game (less banter/quests) and they've said other improvements to the games overall will be in both games. That's me hoping and speculating though.

Dee

The new NPCs from BG1ee (Rasaad, Neera, and Dorn) will be in BG2ee, yes. I don't know anything about what happens to them, but the writing is already under way. Expect some good things.

As for other NPCs, I'm afraid I can't comment on that.

Wiggles

@Aosaw

Reading these things from moderators, developers, and modders just seem to be more elegant to me compared to regular comments. It's like they're reading from the Tablets of Fate themselves...

shawne

@Aosaw: Any word on

Baeloth?

Dee

@shawne
Nothing confirmed yet, but on a personal note I would love to see him return.

stygga

I would like a mod that made Montaron escape from the clutches of the Harpers, and makes him a Fighter/Assassin. You can keep Xzar dead, although he will be sorely missed!

SamuelVarg

It is safe to asume that Rasaad will meet that Alogoth-guy.

Eudaemonium

And that we'll discover what the Red Wizards are up to vis-a-vis Wild Mages.

Dorn is a mystery. He has no obvious conclusion. Maybe something to do with his patron?

Sylph

Dorn seems pretty intent on staying in the company of charname.

After Candlekeep, he seems excited about the whole Bhaalspawn revelation. Maybe he'll have some role of trying to prod charname towards the more evil story options?

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Zarakinthish

There is another thread that already ponders the possibility of Dorn being Bhaalspawn due to another Bhaalspawn named Gromnir Il-Khan. The general feeling as far as I can tell seems to be that he isn't because that would mean that they are half-siblings, and there are many people who find that idea quite disturbing and morally objectionable.

shawne

Isn't il-Khan just the name of the orc clan rather than a family name? Gromnir and Dorn may well know each other, but I very much doubt Dorn's a Bhaalspawn - it would seriously screw with the game's ending.

Archaos

It would be quite silly if they didn't return in BG2EE, wouldn't it?

We all want to see Rasaad turning into the engine of destruction monks become in BG2 and having a few words with Balthazar?

Something noone has brought up, what if you meet Neera in Spellhold or there's a scene between her and the Cowled Wizards? She's a WILD Mage, after all. That's a perfect quest hook for BG2.

Dorn will have lots of things to say to Gromnir, I believe. If not, he's quite interesting on his own and if he's a Bhaalspawn too (unlikely, I believe) would be fun.

I wanted a Chaotic Evil Sorcerer in BG2EE since we have only one evil mage, Edwin and noone can compete with him, not even Charname, in spell power and we got Baeloth in BGEE. I absolutely love it and I'll be using him definitely.

Eudaemonium

Edwin and Mr B should not be legally allowed on the same team. So much magic...

shawne

Eudaemonium said:

Edwin and Mr B should not be legally allowed on the same team. So much magic...

Throw Neera in there too and you've got enough arcane power to blow Amn to smithereens.

Archaos

@Eudaemonium
To quote Amelyssan: "Doom await thee!"

Archaos

stygga said:

I would like a mod that made Montaron escape from the clutches of the Harpers, and makes him a Fighter/Assassin. You can keep Xzar dead, although he will be sorely missed!

I'm with you, 100%. I have created a thread some time ago about it. I basically ask for Monty to be recruitable.

Even though I absolutely adore Xzar, I have to admit that he's kinda crappy gameplay-wise and he's vastly overshadowed by Edwin and now Baeloth.

But Monty... Monty is perfect and he only needs a small stat upgrade. Raise his Dex to 19 and maybe the other ones, basically and he's good to go.

There's no conflict with existing content, since you only find an item called "Montaron's Dead Body", which is almost a secret item and could be fake for all we know.

Instead, they could expand on it and make him resurrectible, though they'll need to hire the old voice-actor which might complicate things.

The thread is found here if anyone's interested:
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/6136/montaron-joinable-npc-for-bgiiee#latest

IkMarc

Bhaaldog said:

Perhaps Dorn is also a Bhaalspawn... Oops said too much already

That would seriously screw up the storyline and a lot of dialogue, especially in ToB. Since they are not allowed to change existing content, also dialogue, I think this is impossible.

Nifft

I just want the new NPCs to have dialogs with the existing NPCs, especially Imoen (who greatly lacks for banter in BG2 SoA).

shawne

@Nifft: If BG:EE is any indication, this is quite likely - in my current playthrough Dorn has argued with Shar-Teel, and Neera and Viconia both commented when I picked up Baeloth...

Madhax

Wouldn't the timeline pretty much exclude Dorn from being a Bhaalspawn anyway? I was under the impression that all Bhaalspawn are around the same age, as Bhaal wasn't exactly roaming about from years among mortals. But Dorn has a fairly in-depth background, and has had many adventures before meeting up with the PC. The PC, on the other hand, is barely out of childhood. Unless Dorn has been a blackguard since his teens and is only, say, 21-ish (which doesn't feel like Dorn at ALL), it's chronologically impossible.

Anyway, I want to fight Dorn's patron as a boss battle in BG2EE. Going toe-to-toe with some sort of demon lord would be fantastic. I just hope they don't tie it in to Demogorgon or something.

Eudaemonium

While it would make sense that the Bhaalspawn would be the same age, it kinda messes up when you meet some of the ones in ToB, and before that when you choose to play an elf PC. The BG timeline is all sorts of wonky, though.

KidCarnival

Xzar wouldn't have to stand in the shadow of the other evil casters. He could go the same way as Imoen and be dualed to cleric in BG2, the evil mage/cleric counterpart to Aerie. All other NPCs have their stats slightly increased, so giving him the needed +1 wisdom wouldn't be a stretch at all. Other than his low con - which is not THAT much of a drawback for a caster with decent dex - his stats are fine and making him a dual class would set him apart enough from Baeloth and Edwin, who both can't be dualled. I always felt it's a waste of a very entertaining personality to let Xzar die.

shawne

@KidCarnival: I don't know... I kind of like the notion that some of the BG1 NPCs have their own lives and trajectories, and that you can't always rope them back into your story. Montaron's been a party member since the very beginning in my current playthrough, and the thought of finding his body stuffed into that trunk is going to hit me hard.

KidCarnival

Sure, in theory, that is nice. But the cameos were handled very poorly and out of character. Xzar is a necromancer, he of all people should be able to revive Montaron. I'm certainly not saying *all* BG1 NPCs should re-appear as recruitable in BG2, but there has always been a lack of evil aligned NPCs. Out of all cameos, this is probably the most hated because it's rather senseless and takes away two perfectly good options for an evil party (most notably an evil thief, which simply provides a counterpart to Jan Jansen due to the multiclass).
There are some BG1 NPCs that would not make much sense in BG2 because their stories imply other duties or plans and that's fine. It's just that Xzar and Montaron do make sense, with their backstory and the presence of the Harpers, and it's a huge waste to kill them off like that. I'd rather not have them in the game at all than this.

shawne

KidCarnival said:

Sure, in theory, that is nice. But the cameos were handled very poorly and out of character. Xzar is a necromancer, he of all people should be able to revive Montaron.

I might be remembering this wrong, but isn't Xzar's problem that he can't get to Montaron's body because it's in the Harper stronghold? And when you bring it to him, a Harper agent takes him out before he can revive Montaron? I don't see how that's out of character...

KidCarnival said:

I'm certainly not saying *all* BG1 NPCs should re-appear as recruitable in BG2, but there has always been a lack of evil aligned NPCs. Out of all cameos, this is probably the most hated because it's rather senseless and takes away two perfectly good options for an evil party (most notably an evil thief, which simply provides a counterpart to Jan Jansen due to the multiclass).

It's certainly true that evil NPCs were shortchanged in the original BG2 (though there's something to be said for the fact that the four we do get - Edwin, Korgan, Viconia and Sarevok - are the most formidable of their respective classes, with the possible exception of Keldorn). But BG2EE will supposedly have an evil thief (and a woman at that, which I'm thankful for because Viconia needs a BFF) and, of course, Dorn's coming back. So there does appear to be a shift towards a more balanced party composition for evil RPs...

KidCarnival said:

There are some BG1 NPCs that would not make much sense in BG2 because their stories imply other duties or plans and that's fine. It's just that Xzar and Montaron do make sense, with their backstory and the presence of the Harpers, and it's a huge waste to kill them off like that. I'd rather not have them in the game at all than this.

Actually, I disagree on this point. In the first game, the presence of Xzar and Montaron was a thematic parallel to Jaheira and Khalid: you had these two pairs of agents from competing organizations, and they were both working towards similar goals. In fact, the game pretty much forces you to make a choice eventually because if you have all four in your party they will kill each other eventually.

But in BG2, the Harper/Zhentarim rivalry is irrelevant to your own quest. They're still going at it (which is indicated by the events of Xzar's side quest), but neither group is actively involved in Athkatla's real problems (the Shadow Thieves/Bodhi conflict). Even if you keep Jaheira in your party, her whole storyline ultimately distances her from the Harpers. So in that sense, I can't see an in-story reason for Montaron and Xzar wanting to join up with you again - the Zhents aren't interested in you anymore, so why should they?

Madhax

Eudaemonium said:

While it would make sense that the Bhaalspawn would be the same age, it kinda messes up when you meet some of the ones in ToB, and before that when you choose to play an elf PC. The BG timeline is all sorts of wonky, though.

But the faulty timeline is only apparent with the ages that different races reach maturity, right? It's been a while since I played ToB, but if I recall correctly, none of them have a longer history than Sarevok. If you allow that a Drow and Fire Giant reach physical and mental maturity at the same rate as a human, everything works out. I know that under true D&D rules those races don't mature that fast, but I'm just pointing out a consistency within the BG series.

Dorn, in addition to reaching physical maturity, has years of history behind his character, and it's implied that he's been raiding villages and butchering communities for a lot longer than Sarevok or any of the Five have been around.

Eudaemonium

What about a fully-grown blue dragon with his own full-grown son?

KidCarnival

Yes, Xzar can't get at the body. It's the quest to recover Montaron. That isn't so out of character; I meant that for the cameos as a whole. Xzar/Montaron feels like dangling a carrot in front of my nose - I saw that I can get other BG1 NPCs back, including the first companions I met (Imoen is there, Jaheira and Khalid... is there to a lesser degree). They are all good/neutral and therefore unlikely choices for someone who played evil in BG1. Good/neutral gets continuity, evil doesn't. Evil loses on all ends.

Sarevok may be a really good NPC, but for most of the game, he isn't available. So evil is limited to 3 NPCs, and can't even fill a complete party. I've said it in other discussions, so for completion, here it goes again: It doesn't matter that the 3 evil NPCs are oh so powerful. If you don't play with a full party, you miss out on many things that make BG2 so great - NPC sidequests and banters. If you do fill your ranks with other alignments, you are back to rep management in both directions.
BG2EE will likely have an evil thief, and obviously Dorn. And maybe Baeloth. But that's all not relevant to BG2 and for the dilema of not having enough evil NPCs. Of course I'm glad EE will fix some of these issues, but it can't change how things are in the vanilla BG2.

Regarding the Harpers/Zhentarim... Jaheira distances herself from the Harpers. Why would Xzar and Montaron not do the same about the Zhentarim? Their last assignment obviously got them in a world of trouble, and neither is lawful. Saying "screw this" and joining your party - possibly because they can expect other agents to be looking for them - is not illogical at all.