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NPC's, Romance and divine magic!

So i looked at the NPC's to figure out who i wanted to romance in my 3 player party. And then i noticed that every NPC you can romance (Anomen, Viconia, Aerie, Jaheira) are all divine spellcasters. Do you think this was made on purpose to make it easier to get them into your party? Or just a random fact.

Comments

  • SionIVSionIV Member Posts: 2,689
    I always felt that in ToB there should have been a quest that somehow restored her wings. Now if only they had done something with her personality....
  • karl_maulderkarl_maulder Member Posts: 133
    Well, Aerie can't cast Regeneration in SoA, and technically shouldn't even be able to cast level 7 priest spells due to her low wisdom(if the PnP rules where implemented correctly).

    Personally i would rather romance Nalia than the other Npcs. Never liked Aerie or Viconia(never play evil), and jaheira just looks dumb in BG2 instead of her Angelina Jolie look-a-like picture in BG.
  • CoutelierCoutelier Member Posts: 1,282
    edited July 2013
    People tend to assume that Aerie's either a perfectly sweet little angel, or vile evil manipulative harpy... she's neither really. When you really start looking, you find that she is shy and tries to be nice, but she's also aggressively determined. You see later on she obviously really takes to fighting and adventure as well.

    As for why it's impossible for her to restore her wings, we can only guess; something about their magical nature just prevents it, I suppose. But also a major part of her character development is finding her own identity.

    And why they're all healers... I don't know. It seems to be in a lot of video games though that the love interest is often the party healer.
    Post edited by Coutelier on
  • MalicronMalicron Member Posts: 629
    I always wondered about Aerie's wings. Even if regenerate wouldn't work, you'd think Wish would do the trick.
  • SionIVSionIV Member Posts: 2,689
    Malicron said:

    I always wondered about Aerie's wings. Even if regenerate wouldn't work, you'd think Wish would do the trick.

    As you can get the ogre mage quest from the limited wish scroll. It would have been cool if the wish scroll would have opened up a quest chain for Aeries wings, and perhaps another quest for Sarevok in ToB.
  • CoutelierCoutelier Member Posts: 1,282
    edited July 2013
    Malicron said:

    I always wondered about Aerie's wings. Even if regenerate wouldn't work, you'd think Wish would do the trick.

    Who knows; an avariel's wings can't really be natural, and maybe are a 'gift' from their goddess. But if they don't take care of them, they're gone forever (the goddess overlooked situations like Aerie's, but gods are often like that. I mean, the Greek gods were very good at turning people into animals and monsters, but not so good at turning them back... it just wasn't something they thought they ever needed to do.)

    Or, maybe Aerie just doesn't really want her wings back. Like she understands on some level that even if she had them, she couldn't just go back to Faenya Dail and expect her life to resume like it was. Not now that she's been exposed to what the outside world is like, and knows that there are people out there like her who need help. She'd also have to explain to her parents where the hell she's been...
    Post edited by Coutelier on
  • the_spyderthe_spyder Member Posts: 5,018
    edited July 2013
    Tresset said:

    There will be more choices in BG2:EE. most of those are not divine casters.

    Hmm. There was one thing that always bugged me about Aerie's romance. Her lost wings were a central point to her romance. The thing that bugs me though is that she gets a spell called regenerate which is capable of regrowing lost limbs as per its own description. I'm pretty sure her wings would qualify as lost limbs...

    I always felt it was a matter of timing. If you cast regeneration within a given time it would regenerate lost limbs, but if (for lack of a better description) your body got used to the change, that the magic wouldn't restore something lost years ago. Ok, a bit of a reach there, but...

    To take it another direction, Jordi LaForge's eyes wouldn't regenerate from the spell, but Worf's spine would. Or something.

  • CoutelierCoutelier Member Posts: 1,282

    Tresset said:

    There will be more choices in BG2:EE. most of those are not divine casters.

    Hmm. There was one thing that always bugged me about Aerie's romance. Her lost wings were a central point to her romance. The thing that bugs me though is that she gets a spell called regenerate which is capable of regrowing lost limbs as per its own description. I'm pretty sure her wings would qualify as lost limbs...

    I always felt it was a matter of timing. If you cast regeneration within a given time it would regenerate lost limbs, but if (for lack of a better description) your body got used to the change, that the magic wouldn't restore something lost years ago. Ok, a bit of a reach there, but...

    To take it another direction, Jordi LaForge's eyes wouldn't regenerate from the spell, but Worf's spine would. Or something.
    Geordi LaForge... but anyway, Aerie does say that the muscles on her back have grown too weak to support wings. Maybe that's what she really meant.
  • ReadingRamboReadingRambo Member Posts: 598
    edited July 2013
    All interesting points about Aeries wings. But as @malicron pointed out, wish would work. Heck, wish could give minsc and boo wings, there is no logical reason why it couldn't restore hers (logical might have been a poor choice of words when referring to magical wishes, however.).

    In addition, there is a 3rd level wizard spell called "fly" that, while not restoring her wings, would work to alleviate much of the pain of which she lost.

    Overall, her wings subplot, while working to establish her personality and character building, just doesn't make sense in such a high fantasy and sorcery setting involving a Demi-god ascending to divinity.

  • chuukoguchuukogu Member Posts: 40
    Geordi rules, and so does Worf. Since I couldn't have either of them in my good-aligned party, I took Aerie instead. It turned out that she ruled! These three well written characters all rule for similiar reasons.
  • CoutelierCoutelier Member Posts: 1,282
    edited July 2013

    All interesting points about Aeries wings. But as @malicron pointed out, wish would work. Heck, wish could give minsc and boo wings, there is no logical reason why it couldn't restore hers (logical might have been a poor choice of words when referring to magical wishes, however.)

    Overall, her wings subplot, while working to establish her personality and character building, just doesn't make sense in such a high fantasy and sorcery setting involving a Demi-god ascending to divinity.

    In addition, there is a 3rd level wizard spell called "fly" that, while not restoring her wings, would work to alleviate much of the pain of which she lost.

    They didn't include that in BG though... but I think it's one thing for all this to be possible within the rules of the game. I think when you're storytelling you have to imagine there are really far stricter limits to what's possible and that nothing is really that easy.

    I'd like there to be 'real' djinns, so if you wish to be able to fly, he'd make it so that gravity no longer affected you, and you're lighter than air. And you'd go up... and up... and up, until you either freeze to death or suffocate because there's no more oxygen. Basically, no one wise enough to cast 'wish' ever would.
    Post edited by Coutelier on
  • Lord_TansheronLord_Tansheron Member Posts: 4,212
    There's always a certain degree of grayness regarding story-related issues that otherwise could be fixed with magic. Resurrection, for example, is a constant problem; you have people die to the story all the time, and yet that is somehow different than your companions kicking the bucket every time you fail a saving throw - nobody bats an eye when they die and get resurrected over and over again.

    I suppose you could see the story-deaths as being "chunked" in the game, but it still isn't exactly an elegant solution. Aerie's wings is a very similar problem, and not the first of its kind; there's lots of blind or otherwise maimed heroes around that for some reason can't seem to be restored. Given the power of wish spells, you'd think almost anything would go, but that would leave us with a fairly boring world if any conflict or problem can be solved simply through such high-level magic.
  • ReadingRamboReadingRambo Member Posts: 598
    edited July 2013
    Lol I wonder if priests of Faerun use the term chucked....

    "I'm sorry sir, but there is nothing we can do. Your halfling rogue... he's been..... Chuncked-ti-fied..."
  • KaltzorKaltzor Member Posts: 1,050
    Regarding Aerie's wings... While making the final decision in ToB, CHARNAME does say that he could use his god powers to restore her wings... Atleast when romanced... Though it does give the romance kind of a bad ending as you become too busy being a god...
  • CoutelierCoutelier Member Posts: 1,282
    edited July 2013
    Kaltzor said:

    Regarding Aerie's wings... While making the final decision in ToB, CHARNAME does say that he could use his god powers to restore her wings... Atleast when romanced... Though it does give the romance kind of a bad ending as you become too busy being a god...

    Yeah, Aerie doesn't get too enthused about it either. For one thing, it might mean losing a person she loves. But also, by then I think she's gotten used to the idea that she doesn't need her wings anyway.
  • MalicronMalicron Member Posts: 629
    Kaltzor said:

    Regarding Aerie's wings... While making the final decision in ToB, CHARNAME does say that he could use his god powers to restore her wings... Atleast when romanced... Though it does give the romance kind of a bad ending as you become too busy being a god...

    I always wondered why you couldn't become a god, restore/resurrect all of your companions, give the finger to fate, possibly pausing long enough to give Cyric a good kick to the crotch for that "help" he gave you in the pocket plane, and make yourself mortal again.
  • BeetleBeetle Member Posts: 46
    Coutelier said:


    And why they're all healers... I don't know. It seems to be in a lot of video games though that the love interest is often the party healer.

    I think it's because clerics/healers are the class that people are least likely to play. So making the romanceable characters clerics means the are more likely to fit a need in the PC's party. (other than "that" need)

  • CoutelierCoutelier Member Posts: 1,282
    Malicron said:

    Kaltzor said:

    Regarding Aerie's wings... While making the final decision in ToB, CHARNAME does say that he could use his god powers to restore her wings... Atleast when romanced... Though it does give the romance kind of a bad ending as you become too busy being a god...

    I always wondered why you couldn't become a god, restore/resurrect all of your companions, give the finger to fate, possibly pausing long enough to give Cyric a good kick to the crotch for that "help" he gave you in the pocket plane, and make yourself mortal again.
    You really think it would be wise to kick a god in the crotch, and then make yourself mortal? O_O
  • KaltzorKaltzor Member Posts: 1,050
    Malicron said:


    I always wondered why you couldn't become a god, restore/resurrect all of your companions, give the finger to fate, possibly pausing long enough to give Cyric a good kick to the crotch for that "help" he gave you in the pocket plane, and make yourself mortal again.

    Well... The Cyric part, I think he would hunt you down if you did that, but the rest would work.. Maybe if nothing else, create an avatar to stay around.
  • Lord_TansheronLord_Tansheron Member Posts: 4,212
    I think you underestimate the changes you'd undergo if you actually became a god. Mortal minds probably can scarcely comprehend what it would be like to ascend to godhood, so it's not a huge surprise that your priorities shift considerably. You may have vowed love and everything, but who knows how a god looks at these things - they may be but flimsy notions in the grand scheme of divinity. An analogy would maybe be a child vowing certain things with all their heart, but upon growing up realizing that there are more important things to take care of now.

    Also, I do believe that deities are not all at the same level of power in the Forgotten Realms, much less so freshly ascended ones. Even as a god you may not want to just go and kick Cyric in his holiest of holies, as he'll likely find a way to make your existence quite miserable indeed...
  • KaltzorKaltzor Member Posts: 1,050

    Well, Aerie can't cast Regeneration in SoA, and technically shouldn't even be able to cast level 7 priest spells due to her low wisdom(if the PnP rules where implemented correctly).

    Well, I don't think the stat restriction to casting spells would really work in BG as there are limited ways to increase stats... Though I dunno if the PnP had the same thing...
  • SionIVSionIV Member Posts: 2,689
    Aerie isn't all that bad, let's not talk about our favored ranger.
  • CalmarCalmar Member Posts: 688
    SionIV said:

    And then i noticed that every NPC you can romance (Anomen, Viconia, Aerie, Jaheira) are all divine spellcasters. Do you think this was made on purpose to make it easier to get them into your party? Or just a random fact.

    ...but, but there is also Neera...
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