My evil party is now wanted

Daelric

So I killed a couple Flaming Fist mercs so far on my travels, the last one was while rescuing Viconia. Now I go to the Jovial Juggler to turn in some bandit scalps and Officer Vai has heard of my thuggery and attacks me! I slaughter her and the two other FF mercs she's with (whom I attacked and didn't wait if they turned hostile), now I'm in Nashkel getting jumped by guards (whom I killed). I don't want to surrender or donate to the church to improve my rep, that's not what an evil party would do. Will I be able to finish the game with the minor scuffles with guards and FF? Will it ever turn commoners hostile on me? And will I even be able to enter Baldur's Gate at all? I've never gotten this far with an evil party before.

zur312

i think yes
there is not much they can do to you rather than attack with patrols of FF

elminster

You might have difficulty with the whole Sarevok's grand duke swearing in ceremony. I don't know if the guards will treat you hostile or not (I've played evil playthroughs but evil at like 5 reputation and preferably not any lower).

TheElf

When your rep drops low enough you can't buy anything/be served in inns and such. Still should be finishable but if you haven't entered the gate yet, you'll probably want to suck it up and bribe a priest.

BladeDancer

I wouldn't go around killing every Flaming Fist member you come across (except the one who is after Viconia). Even Sarevok was smart enough to wait until next time to try to kill your CHARNAME instead of going on a rampage to get your CHARNAME as soon as he found out he/she is a Bhaalspawn too.

kamuizin

The guards do not attack you with the grand dukes.

In Naskhel you will bump with a ton of bounty hunters spawing (what is stupid, the BH should hunt the party on the opening also and not only in the town). If they did not fix the spawn bug, be prepared to 60 spawns in 2 minutes on Naskhel (and 60 banters as well).

My advice is to install SCS, there's a tool there that make people do not turn hostile on the party when they witness the kill of an innocent (an innocent on infinite engine understand in fact), that can help you a lot.

If you're liking the gameplay and if you have the old BG2, i suggest to you the Valen Mod for BG2, otherwise keep an eye on this mod to the time someone upgrade it to BG EE, so you can continue your slaughter in BG2 !

I never got inn issues with 1 rep, but the prices are pretty abusive with reputation 1. I suggest BG2 Tweak (BG EE adapted) mod.

There's an tool on this mod called "Change Effect of Reputation on Store Prices", this make repuation bonus become a U. 8-13 rep is the no bonus zone, the far you are from 8-13 reputation (higher or lower does not matter), higher are your merchant purchase bonus.

@BladeDancer, yet it's funny that, if sarevok rushed into a rampage to kill charname, he would probally be sucefful, the waiting that defeated Sarevok in the end !

zur312

there is great mod for "reputation purpose" basicily adding another reputation like statistics that can't be purchased in temples LOL so if you killed someone and give gold to temple you will repair reputation but not this second skill and other things are altered to be more "role playing"

this
http://www.pocketplane.net/virtue

DreadKhan

The spawning thing might ruin your day in bg... The flaming fist compound with 3 or 4 extra ff parties to deal with is, to say the least, not cool.

Extremely low reps in tutu can result in many ff parties ganging up on you, despite the fact that Amn is happy to send 60 bounty hunters piecemeal. Also, if it wasn't changed, you get wang all for some pretty tough encounters. If you can stomp 4 or 5 ff parties at once, you might as well call it a game... Sarevok will be easy.

kamuizin

I hate virtue, in roleplay terms that meant i have to be evil and fool people. I like to see my evil parties as bloodlust bastards that enter into an store and the storekeeper become too afraid (near messing his pants) that he do not dare to charge much for any product.

If i'm rep 1, i already killed a lot of flaming fists, why should the storekeeper feel valiant to overcharge me?

Necroblivion

It should be like in Fallout. High rep means bad people are looking to kill, and low rep means good people are looking to kill you. Both should give lower prices in store.

zur312

Necroblivion said:

It should be like in Fallout. High rep means bad people are looking to kill, and low rep means good people are looking to kill you. Both should give lower prices in store.

that should be really easy to mod i think

dunno about modders

the_spyder

I think there is a big difference between "Playing Evil" and just going around and psychotically slaughtering everyone who gets in your way. If you choose the latter, you can expect people to not like it and try and stop you.

I would point out that donating to the church to help repair your rep occasionally is not against alignment. If it is the difference between getting hunted down at every single turn and actually being able to see some of your evil plans come to fruition, the rep boost can be seen as a means to an end. There's a big difference between being a slimy psychotic SOB and being seen as a slimy psychotic SOB. In short, you can do a lot more evil if people aren't always expecting you to do evil and/or trying to actively stop you from doing evil.

DreadKhan

@the_spyder there is even a real world precedent for the behaviour you are describing. Evil leaders had to maintain good relations with The Church, and bought its favour with tithes of money, land or service. They'd go right back to business though.

Southpaw

I completely agree with @the_spyder. I usually play a "morally-challenged" CHARNAME (at least from Ajantis' point of view), using anything as means to an end and not picking up the Idiot Ball only because that's the "good thing to do". But never once have I ever seen sense in playing like a psychotic marauder, killing everyone in sight just for the sake of evulz.
If you do that, you should be hunted down and killed.

kamuizin

There are many ways to play evil, what i want is the freedom of explore them all, i do not think it's right to restrict the options to hipocrite evil only, in an atempt to justify an engine limitation.

Nifft

the_spyder said:

I would point out that donating to the church to help repair your rep occasionally is not against alignment.

Especially not if you're donating to a Neutral or Evil church, like Umberlee or Talos (in BG2).

the_spyder

@Nifft - absolutely. But even donations to otherwise good churches for the purposes of making you look good so that you aren't under as much scrutiny isn't necessarily a bad thing. As @DreadKhan indicates, there are many MANY examples of otherwise 'Evil' people donating to otherwise worthy causes to appear more philanthropic than they actually are/were.

BladeDancer

@kamuizin

He would likely be successful, but it would bring tons of heat down on him. My point is even chaotic evil players and NPCs should play their cards right or else they'll end up becoming the most wanted guy/woman in the Sword Coast and that'll seriously hamper their progress to their goals.

I'm a good aligned player giving advice to evil aligned players. I'm so hardcore.

kamuizin

Become the most wanted person in the sword coast can be a pretty nice objective. The tons of heat down can be saw as challenge for many (as i do).

For an evil person, be feared is what reputation means mostly.

the_spyder

@kamuizin - not saying you are wrong. Just saying that sometimes the subtle knife can sometimes do more damage than the flaming bastard sword.

For me, if some fool is standing at the front door, yelling at the top of his lungs how EVIL he is, I am less worried about him and more worried about the who might be sneaking in the back door.

kamuizin

Don't take me wrong, i agree with you, my point is that i want freedom to choose how my evil will behave, i can be the cunning evil or i can be the bloodlust one, the engine prevent me to express an bloodlust evil behavior and that's an issue.

Cunning evil is 1 possibility among many, and the player should have the right to choose, but by engine limitations or a bad reputation system that's not possible, what i want is to have that changed, to have more freedom to roleplay.

the_spyder

I gotta kind of disagree with you. i thnk the engine does a pretty good job at what it is trying to do.

Understand that if you go around killing Flaming fist and random citizens or just about anyone who doesn't bow and scrape to you, you are allowed to do that. However, after a few deaders are found and the general idea gets formed that wherever you go, people end up dead, you are going to get a reputation. In exactly the same way that the introduction of Bandits into the region spurred an increase in Flaming Fist, so too your cutting a bloody swathe across the Sword Coast is going to bring those who would stop you from doing that. Actions breed consequences.

Even Saravok understands that he can't just go around killing everyone openly and in full view of the public if he intends to be welcome in Baldur's gate. So he does it covertly and through intermediaries. And his actions, once you find out about them, lead YOU to be the bounty hunter that stops "His evil ways". But that, to me, is the best telling point. If you act like Tazok, you get treated like Tazok.

kamuizin

I have no problem in being hunted, so what's the point in state that i would be hunted by flaming fists? That's part of the bloodthirsty path, i want people to make consequence of my actions, that's part of what i'm building with an bloodthirsty path.

Sarevok clearly play the good reputed evil person, he's trying to entitle himself to the role of Grand Duke after all, a politic charge, but what if i don't want to follow that role? Play nice or be diplomatic?

While by long term we, that live in the society of information, can say that Sarevok's way is the most probale way to success being evil, that doesn't meant that everyone have to play that way, we're inteligent people but what if we want to roleplay people that isn't inteligent, or that are so reckless that even inteligent they can't play nice?

That's roleplay! The freedom of play the way i like, and infinite engine yes, prevent me of do that, thus i say without doubt, infinite engine restrain my options!

What if i want to have a character as Tazok? Brute, Reckless, a bit dumb and cruel? What if i don't have any high ambition at the begin of my adventur and just let things roll out, as most of the bandits we meet on the road?

Infinite engine give impossible consequences to play like that, raise 10X the price of an product isn't coherent, as in PnP i could just kill the merchant and rob him. Evil merchants wouldn't care if i'm evil, to them i'm business, only that.

What if Flaming Fists come at my hells or meet me at tons in the door of any main city? That's what i want, hard fights. What if i could disguise me as it's possible in PnP? Jump the wall of a city? Bribe a guard to make him look to another side when need arives?

If paladins and bounty hunters stalk me at the thousands, all the better. I can prove then everytime more that i'm the strongest.

In PnP terms now, what if i don't care if i'm going to live long, if i just want to live the moment? That the game forbbide me!

You keep an polited banter with me @the_spyder, and i respect that. This above is my opinion and if you disagree with everything above, then all that's left to say is that we agree in disagree.

the_spyder

The only point that we disagree upon is that of the consequences and their intent. You seem to believe that the engine prevents you from acting as you designate. I see that it does not. It merely offers greater consequence than you feel are right or necessary (seemingly).

No one is saying you can't play like Tazok. But if you do, you will be hunted and hounded at every step, as he is. You (Charname) hunt down the Bandits with the intent to end them. You are one of the hoards of bounty hunters that are doing so, you just don't see the others. But if you turn into Tazok, you will see them. Pure and simple. If you could interview Tazok, he would indicate your exact same frustrations I think.

In the end, the infinity engine doesn't restrict you. It does give you consequences. And I suspect that you don't want the consequences.

You say "Why can't I just jump the wall or bribe the guard." If you are some no name criminal (rep 3-4), you probably could. If you were say Dr Doom or Adolph Hitler (rep 1), no guard would come near you or trust that you wouldn't merely kill them anyway. It's a matter of degrees. Beyond a certain level, no one will trust that you aren't going to flat out kill them anyway and so they won't interact with you at all. It is part of the problem.

The reasons normal orcs don't walk around in Cities like Baldur's Gate is because they have the type of rep you are wanting to portray. And so if they show up at the gates, the guards do ANYTHING in the world to stop you from entering. It is simply because they have a combined rep of 1.

But you are absolutely right. We can agree to disagree. That is the strength of the game. People can have vastly different opinions on things and still get along. Cheers.

Palanthis

This is a very interesting discussion, @the_spyder and @kamuizin. You are very respectful of each other which is very nice. I think you are both right !

As for the modifications you request kamuizin, i don't think the devs could make it because it would alter the rules of original BG (which they can't do, by contract, if i'm not mistaken).

However, as you said earlier , we CAN change by ourselves the effect of reputation on merchants, thanks to one component of BG2tweaks. http://www.gibberlings3.net/bg2tweaks/ so i guess this isn't a problem.

I always install it because i feel just like you on this subject. It change rules so that bad reputation (every point below 8 rep) just works like a good rep (every point beyond 13). Neutral rep isn't affected and doesn't have any effect on stores, which is ok for me.

I strongly suggest people interested in evil groups check other modifications of BG2tweaks, especially the cosmetic and change rules sections : a lot of them really spices things for the roleplayers like us, i think.

We can't do anything about the guards attacking low rep groups, but i think it's just fine this way, just like The_spyder explained.

PS : i hope you can understand what i'm saying : i'm french and i guess my english isn't very good ...

the_spyder

I agree that one of the strengths of the game is its modability. Means if we don't like an aspect, we can change it. I hope @kamuizin can get the changes they want to enjoy the game. I might enjoy exploring them as well.