Leveling NPCs to taste

SpiffyMcBang

I'm sure this has been discussed somewhere, but I don't know where and I've never been part of that conversation, so screw it: Would you like it if, when NPC party members join you for the first time, you're given the option to choose their proficiencies, thief skills, and so forth up to their current level?

I think that, at minimum, each NPC should have a base setup the designers had in mind. You don't level from scratch; you'd have to remove points from one thing to put them in another. And if someone has an extra-special ability (e.g. Coran's third longbow point), if you take that out you can't put it back in later. Obviously their stat distribution is pre-determined as well and can't be rerolled. These setups are usually good, in general, and give the NPCs some flavor right off the bat.

But some characters, more so in BG1 than BG2, seem interesting, yet I look at their abilities and I'm just thinking, I'm going to need some way to work around this or that decision I'd never have made with their leveling. In BG2, my Imoen/Nalia party had a thief as the PC, so their skill points didn't matter, but if I'd needed them I certainly would have preferred Imoen's open locks nudged to 100 and Nalia's traps at 100 as well. Yet that goes into the question of metagaming, and on and on and on...

So, given the option of adjusting NPCs retroactively, would you take it? Or would you stick with them as they are?

Xavioria

Well isn't the point of NPCs to have a roleplay ability at your disposal? The weapons they use, the spells they have, and the thief abilities (if any) they have are all part of who they are as NPCs. I'm REALLY not trying to sound like a troll, but if you wanted that wouldn't it be easier to just make a multiplayer game with all custom made NPCs?

Delvarian

There is a mod that sets the NPCs at level one so you can level them yourself, I've never used it though as I like the NPCs the way they are even with points where they don't make sense (I'm lookin at you Quayle)

nano

There's a mod where it levels up NPCs from their "base" level (the minimum level you can recruit them at) so you're not disadvantaged by recruiting them later. I like it because it means you don't have to rush the content to ensure your NPCs aren't ruined.

Still, some of them are pretty bad by default. Like Skie... oh man... I like her, but she's even worse than Garrick.

GoodSteve

nano said:

There's a mod where it levels up NPCs from their "base" level (the minimum level you can recruit them at) so you're not disadvantaged by recruiting them later. I like it because it means you don't have to rush the content to ensure your NPCs aren't ruined.

Still, some of them are pretty bad by default. Like Skie... oh man... I like her, but she's even worse than Garrick.

Hahaha, that's funny. No one is worse than Garrick.

KidCarnival

I would like that option for late game NPCs who are gimped simply by being late to the party. (Haha, pun!) Most of them are thieves - Tiax, Skie, Alora - and no-one even gets to them without a thief. It's a different deal to kick out your cleric (has access to all spells anyway) or your fighter (so you just get him/her the other weapon you surely found or get soon) and easily replace them. With mages and thieves, it's likely you already invested in the spellbook and would have to buy some of them again (minor inconvenience for Quayle), or put thief points in the skills you need. Even if you play a thief kit and have a second thief to cover what you can't do (i.e. a Shadowdancer who invests in stealth and takes Safana for traps/locks, or a Swashbuckler who takes Montaron for backstabbing), you distributed the points for a reason. You can't just "use X to replace Y". If your frontliner uses 2HSword or Long Sword makes no difference in the long run, but if your thief suddenly uses Pickpocket instead of Disarm Traps, it does.

So, for BG1, where some NPCs are not available for a long time AND all have a class that makes them inconvenient to replace, I'd say this option would be a good thing, as it would make especially the thieves valid "replacements".

SCARY_WIZARD

I would love this, because every single time I use Level 1 NPCs on BG Tutu and Skie Silvershield comes up...
I make her into some sort of sophisticated badass sneak.

SpiffyMcBang

Xavioria said:

Well isn't the point of NPCs to have a roleplay ability at your disposal? The weapons they use, the spells they have, and the thief abilities (if any) they have are all part of who they are as NPCs. I'm REALLY not trying to sound like a troll, but if you wanted that wouldn't it be easier to just make a multiplayer game with all custom made NPCs?

It would be easier, and it would completely lack any story beyond the basic available quests, or flavor beyond the soundpacks you choose for your party members.

I agree with you that their abilities once you find them are part of who they are, which is why I said they should at least come with pre-set abilities and proficiencies. In the end, however, the best reason to use in-game NPCs is for their personalities and stories- for the roleplaying. And while it's certainly possible to do everything with poorly designed NPCs, having to always account for some glaring flaws or weaknesses (no, I'm not feeding you another effing potion of master thievery) makes certain characters less worth exploring. Late game BG1 NPCs are especially bad in this regard; generally you have to know about them and plan for their addition to your party well in advance, because you'd never replace someone you already have with them.

So, essentially, what I'm discussing is allowing players to set up the NPCs mechanics-wise so they'll be more likely to want to explore the story aspects of those characters. I think it's totally reasonable to feel that if you want to check out an NPC, you do it as they're designed or not at all, but my opinion is that it's unfortunate to have to choose between good basic skill sets and seeing a new character's story, especially if seeing that new story means developing the rest of the group around what that character should have but lacks.

Astafas

I think the NPCs are what make this game so great. So I often change the profs and skills with EEKeeper, in order for me to choose freely among them (otherwise, some would clearly not be an option). I sometimes use CLUA to fetch certain NPCs at earlier level as well. Cheating? Of course. But I've beaten the game so many times, now it's only about the pleasure of the run. :-)