Alignment change

ShadowHunter

So I think it would be awesome if you'd be able to change your alignment during gameplay.
It's more Role Playing. Because CHARNAME is confronted every day with other people, other opinions, I think it is possible that a evil person goes good and vice versa. I got the idea after reading this:

@LordRumfish
A fallen blackguard:

"It started out as one incident of charity, I swear. The little girl reminded me so much of my hard days at Candlekeep, I brought her the damn cat and I told her death is a part of life. She smiled through the tears and gave me a magic scroll. For some reason, I just couldn't bring myself to be callous. I guess she reminded me of that fiasco when I tried to have a pet snake and it poisoned Hull, and then he sliced it in two. We've never liked each other since then.

Before you know it, I ran across some idiots trying to chop down a dryad's tree for money. How stupid do you have to be to think a forest creature is wealthy? All they care about are rocks and trees and nature. I told them they were too dumb to procreate if they thought a tree was full of treasure, and then they attacked me. After I beheaded their worthless corpses, the dryad smiled and suddenly I felt a little better about... everything. I can't explain it. She must have used some kind of magic on me. Anyway, since she obviously didn't have anything worth taking I just grunted and went on my way.

Suddenly everyone is coming to me with their problems, but I'm getting these discounts at the Nashkel general store because 'you're such a nice guy.' Hey, everyone likes saving money right? That's how I justified it at first. I didn't realize you got tangible benefits for being nice. I tried to go slaughter some people, but my heart just wasn't in it. Besides, people ended up thanking me after I killed Noober! How's a guy supposed to get a reputation as a harbinger of darkness when your victims end up being more disliked than you?

Now I've got a meeting with a priest of Helm that Ajantis arranged for me, and they're using words like 'atonement.' The demon already broke his contract, I can feel the power leaving me... I guess he's disgusted with me. Philosophically, I was completely on-board in Candlekeep, I always argued for personal gain and I delved into the darkest tomes of lore. When I tried to put it in practice though, I just fell short. I guess there could be a positive to all this, maybe I'll have a pleasant afterlife after all. That's kind of like personal gain, isn't it?
Isn't it?"


So I know it is possible for a ranger and a paladin to be fallen , but what with the rest ?
Maybe there would be an option to change your alignment dependant from the amount of reputation you have . Like the "level up" button, maybe there could be a "change alignment" button .

LordRumfish

Perhaps the option opens up if your reputation goes very far to one extreme or the other (conversely, perhaps you can pick a neutral alignment anytime your alignment ranges from 9 to 12). The thing is, 2nd edition moreso than any other edition was in favor of sticking to your alignment until it was abundantly clear to both the DM and the player that a change was in order. It wasn't impossible, but it required multiple steps to get there.

Based on that, I would recommend that there would be a questline introduced to alter alignments rather than just a button.

Xavioria

My mother and I were talking about that last night. I really think that Alignment shouldn't be set in stone, that it should change much like it did in PST. It makes more sense, because power gamers will always choose the options that grant the most in terms of rewards. The only people who play AS their alignments would be roleplayers and I think it's a bit too easy to stray

Mortianna

There is a Virtue mod for BG2 that separates your Reputation from the morality behind your actions (Virtue): http://www.pocketplane.net/mambo/index.php?option=content&task=blogcategory&id=107&Itemid=82/

Quoting from the mod's forum:

The starting Virtue values are:
Evil: 7
Neutral: 11
Good: 14

The textual descriptions on the record screen are:
1-4: Villainous
5-7: Iniquitous
8-12: Equable
13-16: Righteous
17-20: Heroic

The change points are:
Become evil: 1-7
Become neutral: 9-12
Become good: 15-20

I remember being able to maintain a somewhat decent Reputation (8 or 9) while having a Virtue of 1 or 2, which makes all the difference with store prices and NPC reactions in BG2. It also corrects many of the conceptual issues with Reputation, since one can be utterly evil and still be regarded a respectable in one's host society.

Eudaemonium

I really hope the Virtue mod is available for BG2EE. I never actually used it, but I'm really tempted to in the future.

Do your choices impact your Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic ranking too or just the Good-Evil axis?

zerckan

Neverwinter Nights had such feature.
Although it wasn't big deal it was nice too see that your choices effect your character development.
Actualy i'm tempted to play Neverwinter nights now :P

EntropyXII

@Eudaemonium - I doubt it. Trying to discern what is lawful and chaotic along with what is good and evil might take a lot of work. There are also a number of occasions in the game where you are practically forced to take a chaotic or lawful route, which would not be fair on many accounts.

I am curious about this mod however. Did the modder go through every single quest and determine what would count as virtuous? If so, well done. Very well done. I couldn't even imagine the work it would take to separate what would class as an evil act, or just a reputation diminishing act.

LordRumfish

zerckan said:

Neverwinter Nights had such feature.
Although it wasn't big deal it was nice too see that your choices effect your character development.
Actualy i'm tempted to play Neverwinter nights now :P

I was irritated that there were so few options on the Law/Chaos spectrum. Specifically, even if you take the most chaotic options possible for quest resolution, never once did I see my alignment shift towards Chaos.

ShadowHunter

Only if you talked to Qara and said that she's amazing and that everybody else should stick their opinion where the sun never shines .....

Mortianna

@Eudaemonium No, just the good/evil axis (unfortunately). It was bugged the last time I installed it, but I was running several different mods, which I'm sure was the problem.

@EntropyXII Yes, I thought the modder did a thorough job applying the mod to the SoA quests. I don't remember if ToB quests were covered.

I remember my first loss of Virtue in the game:

After the Irenicus/Imoen/Cowled Wizards scene in the Promenade, a block of text popped up on my screen to tell me that I lost 4 points of Virtue "for leaving Jaheira and Minsc to die" in Irenicus' dungeon. Oops! ^.^

Naastriil

I finished BG2 about 5 times in the past and I got my first alignment change.
I am not sure if this was added in EE but in the last chapter my alignment switched from NG to NE.
I hope I can redem myself and get NG again