Managing evil and reputation
SpiffyMcBang
Member Posts: 160
Right now I'm playing a good/neutral party, but I'm really just doing it because I tried rolling as evil and it was turning into a mess. I looked up some rep charts and determined my rep could get down to 6 before I started having problems with guards randomly spawning, but unfortunately I managed to whittle it down a little too quickly- not hard to do, seeing as chaotic evil starts with only an 8 rep- and created a snowball effect. It actually wasn't a problem for my ridiculous half-orc fighter, but her entire party was getting blown up because they were all level 1 or 2.
I realize you can't just go around being a terrible person until you're strong enough to handle the repercussions, but looking down the road, it seemed like there was no real way to keep your rep from cratering unless you spend a boatload of money on keeping it up through charitable donations. And unless you do that, you'll end up not being able to buy anything from shops on top of being assaulted by guards in every town (even if you can handle it, I imagine it's quite a pain).
So if you've played a successful evil group, how did you manage your reputation? Did you have to know when you'd get a rep hit for certain behavior so you could avoid it? Did you actually play somewhat like a goody two-shoes at the start so you could create rep padding until you were able to be your most terrible, evil self? Or is there a way to just be awful from the start and still manage to make it through?
I realize you can't just go around being a terrible person until you're strong enough to handle the repercussions, but looking down the road, it seemed like there was no real way to keep your rep from cratering unless you spend a boatload of money on keeping it up through charitable donations. And unless you do that, you'll end up not being able to buy anything from shops on top of being assaulted by guards in every town (even if you can handle it, I imagine it's quite a pain).
So if you've played a successful evil group, how did you manage your reputation? Did you have to know when you'd get a rep hit for certain behavior so you could avoid it? Did you actually play somewhat like a goody two-shoes at the start so you could create rep padding until you were able to be your most terrible, evil self? Or is there a way to just be awful from the start and still manage to make it through?
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My house rule is to have a maximum of 14 rep for an all evil party. Starting out with 8 at best, that means I will avoid quests that are not worth the +1 rep (skip Joia's ring altogether, not pick up Belt Fetish Ogre quest, to name the early ones) and use the -1 rep opportunities (statue woman, necklace) to balance the rep I get from minor quests I can't/don't want to avoid. As example, getting the scroll case from Firebead will give +1, but it's worth to take senseless rep because the reward is too useful to skip. If it's just XP or gold or an item I don't really need, I skip.
14 max rep isn't too bad for store prices (though I was quite surprised when I first saw the prices for a good, 20 rep party... a wizard staff is 6000 gold for me, as good 20 rep paladin, I can get it for under 3000). Charisma can balance prices a bit, too. It's a good threshold to justify taking some + rep quests - as a villain with good publicity, but not too good - and it allows me to go back down to 8 with just one commoner kill before I turn in quests that bring the rep up again (Scar really spams + rep in the city, but luckily you can blackmail the noblewoman as a constant source of - rep to counter it.)
Realistically, yes, it takes some meta gaming to manage reputation for evil parties. The game is geared toward good/neutral parties and there are only few truly evil acts you can commit. Most of playing evil is head canon.
But the short answer is, when you are low level and crunchable, be painfully nice to everyone, just knowing that some day you will drive them before you and hear the lamentation of their women as you grind them under your iron boot heel at higher levels.
Think of a bully in the playground. He isn't going to go out day one and start picking on other kids. he will wait until he has a possey and a good backing. And he isn't going to be rude to the teachers until he knows that he can get away with it. Once he gets his power base up though, it is all over but the crying.
Same with BG. go and explore. You should be able to get to level 3-4 by the time the mines are cleared out. Keep your rep low enough so that you get the negative dreams, but don't go around killing people for looking at you cross-eyed until after you have some decent armor and weapons. THEN kill em all. If nothing else, it will really jack up your XP later on because you will have the blood of so many wimpy Flaming Fist guards on your hands that you won't be able to sell their armor fast enough.