I wish there were some way to just save That Person Who I Currently Can't Save (SPOILERS)

Valendale

I don't count this as a spoiler since no one who hasn't progressed past the point where it's relevant will even know who Clara is.

I really wish there was some way to save Clara, I don't mean as a party member either, I mean, I would really just like an option to save her and send her on her way. Playing a Paladin and having the quest basically forced on me I realized why it is so many people have a problem with delivering a character to her death like that

element

yes a lot of people have said this(me for one) and some even want Clara to stay on as an npc over Hexxat if you save her.

also while I see your point I still feel you'd be best of taking her name out of the thread title

moody_mage

Please change the thread title, despite not having yet played BG2 I now know someone called Clara cannot be saved. It's unnecessary information in the title.

Dashiva

decado said:

Please change the thread title, despite not having yet played BG2 I now know someone called Clara cannot be saved. It's unnecessary information in the title.

No offense, but really? Then it's practically impossible to write a title. In that case you can tell that there are romances, Strongholds and that Neera has a hidden refuge among other stuff. If you are that picky about spoilers then you should probably not be on the boards at all.

moody_mage

Yes really. Romances and strongholds are given. Declaring the culmination of a plot driven storyline in the thread title is not actually giving anyone a chance not to read the spoiler.

With a little imagination the relevant question can still be asked without storylines being given away in a thread title.

For example this is exactly what it is doing;

"The Sixth Sense. Why didn't Dr Crowe know he was dead until the end of the film? (spoilers)"

Kastian

I can't endorse an idea of Clara being an npc, she has effectively been mind raped, if you took away the only thing that was giving her purpose (to get to the resolution of the tomb she proves she has zero other thoughts in her head) then i would say it's 50/50 she would even be more than a vegetable, yes some very capable, driven and powerful characters have been mind raped by ithillids and recovered, but the integral part of that is that they were capable driven and powerful, a little thief who by definition would be no better person than Hexxat in order to be controlled by her so completely anyway (controlled using an item of malevolent creation and intent), would not make a useful npc, i think too many people are endorsing the idea of Clara as an npc purely because they liked her portrait, or have some imagined idea of her being a perfect companion (whatever that entails) to each of them individually.
I could however as my "Good" charname avenged her death, have enjoyed some atleast attempt to save the hapless mind slave, even if it ended in failure, or resulted in a mindless husk that i then had to put down out of mercy afterwards. But that maybe just feeds into my opinion that after all the things seen by a person who watched their father be cut down, then got thrust into a fight beyond their comprehension, and eventually unraveled the master plans of their superior resourced brother and his assembled army might not have a "stand here like a deer in the headlights" approach, especially not to vampires, which of the very least they have encountered in the prison stronghold they most recently escaped from.

That said my evil character welcomed the blood guzzling demon with open (weapon bearing) arms.
Still would have liked to been more than a helpless bunny looking at the tyre as it approached though, it does after all take time to drain a body entirely of blood (yes it can be achieved in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuum, i doubt Hexxat can suck with the force of the vacuum created by space however, and so it would have taken considerably longer) thus enforcing that an armed party of whatever alignment simply stood and watched for a scene that would have played out much akin to the steamroller scene in the austin powers movie. (Possibly even just adding, well that was entertaining, to the first line options of an evil charname would give the sense of yes while i watched you slowly drain an innocent of their life, i wish i'd be informed of the event before hand and could have purchased the required snacks and beverages to comfortably enjoy such wonderful entertainment.)
Please forgive the mindless ramblings, I tend to spill verbal detriment everywhere when imbibing copious quantities of alcohol.

Cuv

It isn't just Clara... what about all those poor rogue souls trapped in the tomb? They were once like her with the same quest, but none completed the task.

Disclaimer: I am neither endorsing nor shooting down the notion of keeping Clara, just commenting

enqenq

@decado

I could tell explain to you why it's very much not a spoiler, but in doing so I would bring the matter closer to an actual spoiler. The irony. Well, the explanation is in the spoiler.

You won't know her as Clara until it's too late.

It is, however, quite impossible to actually discuss this topic without bringing in spoilers, so the spoiler tag in the title is apt.

Fafnir

"That Person Who I Currently Can't Save"

... Xzar?

moody_mage

Fair enough.

All I know is that not having played this yet that someone called Clara is going to die and there is nothing I can do about it. And that's simply from the thread title.

element

@Kastian interesting interpretation, personally I think having a character that had suffered in this way could be interesting if there personal story arc was based around helping them recover from the ordeal.

also i've said it before but it would really be up to the writers in that regard i'm pretty sure they could do something good with it, I think if your willing to except Hexxat who is a bit of a stretch in terms of integration you'd have to accept something similar with Clara

Ardanis

Kastian said:

i think too many people are endorsing the idea of Clara as an npc purely because they liked her portrait, or have some imagined idea of her being a perfect companion (whatever that entails) to each of them individually.

Precisely that, as a cute girl in distress is one of the surest plot devices to provoke sympathy to a character.
As usual in such cases, the question is whether to keep it tragic and somewhat memorable, or go with banal happy ending. And as usual, there's no definite answer to that.

element

I also think if Clara is definitely gunna die it should be done in a way that doesn't just have the PC sit there like a mug and watch it happen

Eudaemonium

Fafnir said:

"That Person Who I Currently Can't Save"

... Xzar?

Dammit, @Fafnir, you beat me to it.

Xzar...

Disgruntler

Kastian said:

I can't endorse an idea of Clara being an npc, she has effectively been mind raped, if you took away the only thing that was giving her purpose (to get to the resolution of the tomb she proves she has zero other thoughts in her head) then i would say it's 50/50 she would even be more than a vegetable,

Her own personality and character came into effect seamlessly, as soon as Hexxat was freed. She was killed right after, but Clara gave no indication of being mindless at that point.

Cuv said:

It isn't just Clara... what about all those poor rogue souls trapped in the tomb? They were once like her with the same quest, but none completed the task.

Disclaimer: I am neither endorsing nor shooting down the notion of keeping Clara, just commenting

Many people did not realize that Hexxat was the cause for all these ghosts. I did not until someone pointed it out. Makes Hexxat appear far more sinister. I believe if more would have noticed sooner, then fewer people would have taken her along.

Ardanis said:

Precisely that, as a cute girl in distress is one of the surest plot devices to provoke sympathy to a character.
As usual in such cases, the question is whether to keep it tragic and somewhat memorable, or go with banal happy ending. And as usual, there's no definite answer to that.

Claras end isn't so much the problem, though it certainly is unfulfilling for good parties. Rather, it's the way Clara is written. It's obvious that something is wrong with her. She just gives too little reason to help her. Droning repetitively about treasure doesn't cut it. I bet 80% of good or neutral aligned players would have taken her to a healer instead of dungeonering, if the choice were given.

Kastian

@Disgruntler Please don't kill me mistress isn't her own character, it's a slaves plea at best, she still has the same hollow voice, so in my opinion, yes she still seems as mindless as the rest of the ghosts hexxat has used up, some try and tell you to turn back, a shimmer or echo of sentience, but otherwise completely without true sentient personality

Amardarial

Maybe she is like the Dr's Clara and never stays dead :P

Disgruntler

@Kastian
It sounded willful to me. Different interpretations, I suppose.
Is there even a precedent of mind control outright destroying the mind in BG?

Melar

Clara's story could be quite expanded, I would like to see her recovering, with the help of the CHARNAME, from that mindless "drone" state.

DrEast

Disgruntler said:

@Kastian
It sounded willful to me. Different interpretations, I suppose.
Is there even a precedent of mind control outright destroying the mind in BG?

YES. Illithid mind control in particular is nasty this way, although that's psionic and not magical. Still, the entire Gith race, with their own psionic abilities, arose out of natural selection applied to the mind flayer's chief slave race, eons ago back on the illithid's home plane. There are quite a few monsters whose mind control eventually kills their targets in the Monster Manuals (especially in the Underdark), although I don't know that vampire mind control ever does, since it's basically just the Dominate spell applied over and over again. Hexxat's mind control, however, appears to be beyond the range of even normal vampire D&D mind control, so who knows where it's coming from? It may well have eroded the gestalt of Clara's mind.

recklessheart

No one else think Yoshimo when they read this thread's title? Whoops.

DrEast

Also, weighing in on the subject: While it's true that some people will just want to save Clara because the portrait is cute, I'd like to point out that good parties don't have a pure-class thief to use either, unless the PC is one. Now, granted, Jan can join a pure-good party and won't leave at 20 rep (the reason an evil thief was needed was that you couldn't have a thief at 1 rep unless the PC was one). Still, the problem with Jan is that a) he's deliberately designed to be annoying (humorous, but annoying) and b) a lot of people have played BG2 a LOT, and taking Jan every time can get wearying, even if you LIKE him. Also, he's not a pure thief; he's a multiclass. And while Imoen can certainly handle any traps or locks that need handling, she's less useful in the other thief skills (particularly the extremely powerful set snares/HLA thief abilities).

From this perspective, the desire of someone playing a good team to save the hapless pawn is understandable; the hope to keep her on afterwards as the party thief is less because "she has a cute portrait" than SHE'S NOT JAN. I'll take brain-dead muttering over turnip-based rambling at this point, even if I have to limit my rep to 18 or so (not hard, especially if you want to Neutralize Viconia at the same time, since that has the same requirements). I'll also point out the following:

1. A good party that wants to turn Viconia Neutral requires someone to romance her;
2. A good party that thus keeps Viconia can not take Keldorn;
3. A good party that thus keeps Viconia is best when the PC is a paladin (to use Carsomyr);
4. A good party with a paladin PC that is roleplaying even a little will want to save the vampire's victim as a matter of principle, and wouldn't mind keeping her around afterwards since they have to worry about rep anyway. Who knows? Maybe she can be redeemed too.
Finally, 5. A paladin PC will not likewise accept a murderous vampire in the helpless pawn's place in the party roster.

So, recommended DLC? Give Clara some love for good parties and let them have a non-gnome thief around.

sarevok57

DrEast said:

So, recommended DLC? Give Clara some love for good parties and let them have a non-gnome thief around.

I think that's a good idea, here is what I think they could do:

have it so when you reach the real hexxat have an option were you can save clara by killing hexxat off instead, breaking the whack spell on Clara, and have her name change over, and then make Clara's personality more up beat and happy ( you just saved her from a vampire so she should be pretty stoked) then after that, Clara will ask if she can join up with you or some jargon because now that she is free, she is free to do adventuring and all that fuss, or you could let her go on her way, she doesn't need side quest extra content garbage and doesn't need any romance nonsense, just another thief option for good aligned parties who are bored of always either using Imoen or Jan, Clara could give some nice flavor to it, and if the dev gods cant make this happen, then hopefully someone can make a mod to make it happen to this degree

Coutelier

It would take hours for a vampire to completely drain a person of blood (through two small punctures in the neck). Even if they could, there'd be no way the vampire herself could actually contain all the five liters it would be. Dracula usually took a few days to kill someone (or nights rather). Of course, how long it would take the victim to die would depend on where they're bitten etc, but it's a bit wasteful, really.

I don't care about Clara. But an alternative to having to take Hexxat with you so that you can access all areas as it were would be nice, since it's obviously untenable to keep her around if you're playing anything other than evil. It looks like my female paladin bhaalspawn isn't going to get any love.

Purudaya

Valendale said:

I don't count this as a spoiler since no one who hasn't progressed past the point where it's relevant will even know who Clara is.

I really wish there was some way to save Clara, I don't mean as a party member either, I mean, I would really just like an option to save her and send her on her way. Playing a Paladin and having the quest basically forced on me I realized why it is so many people have a problem with delivering a character to her death like that

I don't necessarily see a problem with allowing the party to save Clara, but I don't see a problem with the party being *unable* to save her either. There are many other scripted events in this game where characters die and the player is unable to intervene. For example:

There's a scene late in BG2 where an elf sacrifices himself in order to kill a Balor and prevent it from getting a sword/artifact integral to your quest. Playing a good charname with an OP class (kenmage), it would have made more sense for me to just step in and kill the Balor myself rather than allow the elf to die, but that's just not how that part of the story is supposed to go. People often complain about scripted events, but they are what move the story forward in choice-heavy games. Otherwise, you get narratives like those in Skyrim/Oblivion.

I would be for having the option to save Clara because it would be a unique way of introducing DLC - not because there's something inherently wrong with my character being unable to save her. If the devs decide to go this route, great; but if not, I hope players don't get too worked up about it as if it's somehow unprecedented.

DrEast

Purudaya said:

Valendale said:

I don't necessarily see a problem with allowing the party to save Clara, but I don't see a problem with the party being *unable* to save her either. There are many other scripted events in this game where characters die and the player is unable to intervene.

Technically speaking, forcing players to observe/partake in prescripted events where players can not affect the outcome is known as "railroading." A small amount is unavoidable, and can help set the tone when the players have little or no stake in the railroaded event, as the resulting actions are more or less part of the setting. However, when a player is forced to participate in events where they can not effect the outcome, and the outcome has an effect (negative or positive) on the player, it results in a feeling of a loss of agency which is detrimental to the role-playing experience. Wise DM's avoid railroading wherever they can; wise players give a certain allowance to DM's, since plot moving events sometimes need to happen so that the game can progress.

Smart DM's will generally pair necessary railroading with a Magician's Choice, so that players feel they have agency even when they have none. However, in a video game, this is a less useful option (TV Tropes calls this the "But Thou Must!" trope), since the nature of a video game is such that you can plot an entire conversation tree with a little bit of reloading. However, BG and BG2 are, generally speaking, very good when it comes to avoiding railroading while still guiding the story; practically everyone can be killed, short of Elminster and a few plot-important characters (think a DM saying, "Before you can respond, Daeloth flees. His army of followers, however, is still right there in front of you. Roll for initiative!"), and most of those become killable eventually.

One of the few examples of bad BG railroading to highlight the difference is found in the Nashkel mines in BG1. A random mine worker runs up to you and warns you about the "yipping demons." No matter what you say, four kobolds pop up and immediately kill him. "Who cares?" you ask. But a popular mod choice either adds a conversation option or has an NPC automatically yell for the miner to get BEHIND the party, and the Random Miner is thus saved. What does this add to the game, mechanically? Absolutely nothing. What does it add to the experience? Agency!

Enter Clara. Clara's death is a classic example of railroading, and reads more like a video-game cut-scene than a role-playing moment; I half expect it to be laid out in italics, and can practically hear some of my old DM's droning through the blurb with an apologetic grimace. But Clara, damaged as she is, is still a player character. Killing a PC during "flavor text" is the single worst thing a DM could possibly do during a roleplaying session; it violates the trust the players put in the DM to provide them with agency in this fantasy world, and it's something that would result in yells of DM bias and unfairness in a tabletop session. (If the player colluded with the DM to allow a vampire in the party in the way it happens in BG2, it would be different. But the players didn't collude with Overhaul; Overhaul colluded with Overhaul. The difference? AGENCY!) That is why there's such a strong player reaction to save Clara. In a roleplaying game, players want agency.

atcDave

I always try to save that "random miner" from the yipping demons. Some times, if you're very fast, you can. Sadly, he just wanders off with nothing to say.
But I love playing the hero, its what first drew me to RPGs. There usually is a good option in this game. That's great! It means a lot to me. But Clara/Hexxat kind of stands out for not offering one. I would love to see that fixed, even if she remains a lousy thief of little value to the party (although it can be fun to build up a complete rookie into something useful too!); I would much prefer being able to save Clara and kill Hexxat.

leeux

As I said in another thread now closed, the desire of saving Clara has *nothing* to do with her portrait or her being a cute girl. It has to do with the exceptionally low quality of quest writing for this particular event.
It would have been better for Hexxat to release her mind-slave instead of killing her in front of the player... having Clara leave alive and then accepting Hexxat as party member would have been mostly natural. No need for retaliation, no conflict: Clara was just a tool used to lure the party to she can be released, and nothing more. The plot twist would have been perfect equally.

At least, that's my opinion on the matter.

sarevok57

atcDave said:

I always try to save that "random miner" from the yipping demons. Some times, if you're very fast, you can. Sadly, he just wanders off with nothing to say.
Hexxat.

did you know that in the vanilla bg he dies anyways, pretty cool eh? minus the cool part

Miloch

Ardanis said:

As usual in such cases, the question is whether to keep it tragic and somewhat memorable, or go with banal happy ending. And as usual, there's no definite answer to that.

Sure, there's a definite answer. The definitely right and definitely wrong answer.

DrEast

Miloch said:

Ardanis said:

As usual in such cases, the question is whether to keep it tragic and somewhat memorable, or go with banal happy ending. And as usual, there's no definite answer to that.

Sure, there's a definite answer. The definitely right and definitely wrong answer.

Spoken like a DM that prefers telling a story to building a world.