Romance: pokemon style (spoilers. duh.)

Julix

Hello everyone.
Short time reader, first time poster.

I know that BG2 is not a game where typically everything can be seen in a single play-through - and trying to do otherwise can be quite stressful, when you have to scan through global variables in the eekeeper to keep things going. However, there's something quite satisfying about the freedom that comes with knowing what variables do what; and I want to explore the game in a way I hadn't before.

My story:
I was wondering with Jaheira and Neera when...

Neera asked me about Jaheira, and I said I only thought of Jay as a friend, but that I'd talk with her in private later about that.[ Then I checked globals and Jaheira's romance was still active. I also noticed a Neera-jaheira-conflict variable, so I decided to mess with that to see what would happen. I've been with both ever since and now they're both at 2 and so far there hasn't been any more complaining. I really enjoy saving time here and getting to experience both romances independently but at the same time.

Then later I realized there aren't too many other romancable characters and they would add up to a relatively balanced party if I had them all. - I would use a multiple-romance mod, but I was told most of them are icky, as they mess with variables that can end up conflicting - and when that happens I wouldn't know what went wrong where. If I do it all manually I think I'd be able to manage.

I've been starting all the strongholds one after the other.

Relatively properly, to get an experience similar to the one intended. So I reclassed my main character appropriately before starting each, then after assumed the next class and reset global variable: playerhasstronghold to 0 once I moved on to the next. The quests rarely require you to continue to be of the same class for long.

I also am trying to see as much of the other NPCs as possible. Sofar I haven't made Jaheira nor Neera wait for me anywhere (and risk breaking the romance) but with the eeKeeper I could fix it.

Plans for party development

I'm currently in Chapter 2 (though I have done more than half of all side quests). Apparently my Charname doesn't like Imoen as much as I thought, or he'd really go rescue her. - Jay's and Neera's dialogue options seem to be stuck until the appropriate trigger (which is still quite a while from now) so I'm considering throwing them out for now, so while I finish up the side quests I have talkative company. I think Minsk(and Boo) would enjoy becoming Aeries which-guardian, and I'd enjoy taking along the bard to have him romance Aerie. Then reset both of their variables, have her romance me and me defend her from him. When all that is done Minsk and the bard get the boot, and Aerie can tag along until I add Viccy to the mix. Not the other girl, Hexxa... But there's that red-head mod-added bard as well.

RPG rationalizations

Yes what I intend to do seems horrible from a rpg perspective (until you realize that my Charname has charisma score of 22 (18+2 from rose sword+2 from nymph mantle). I always figured with that high charisma there should be way more options than bg2 currently allows. He also has some kind of magical personality disorder where he keeps accidentally tuning into other people's experience. For about a few weeks he first thought he was a cleric and then really believed he was a paladin, and apparently the God he temporarily served thought that too. - I don't mind flipping the alignment around a lot, because although he's actually chaotic neutral, that would make him predictably unpredictable (i.e. you can count on not being able to count on him) - which he's not. You can't even count on that, as sometimes he'll be just fine for weeks at a time. ;-)

Then when it's time to go save Imoen I'll take all the romancable females and Imoen and keep the party together for the rest of the game. Let's see who do we have then? Charname, Imoen (Mage/thief), Viccy (priest tank), Aerie (spells a la mage/cleric), Neera (mage), Whatshername (Bard).

The challenging part here for me will be balancing the different variables and learning more about how they work as problems arise.

A second run through will be more evil, less completionist, and fast. An evil female would date Anomen (chaotic neutral version) and Hexxa and take em go save Imoen (maybe even with the romance mod, and genetically "dad" doesn't contribute too much anyways). Maybe that monk too? I tend to keep a relatively high reputation anyways. Also that sorcerer red head. So Char, Imoen (traps and spells), Anomen (tank-cleric), Hexxa (pure thief), Kay (sourcerer) and R (monk).

Gotta catch em all!

Julix

CrevsDaak

High charisma don't gives option you might notice, as intelligence does, where options given by abilities are denoted is in Planescape Torment, the paradies of interactions, it even gets over BG2, and then, again, maybe you don't notice the things goven by high CHA, but sometimes there are some, I don't know where they are, dialogs amuse me from the coding perspective, but I love them in the game.

Julix

[rationalization]My RPG rationalizations would involve interactions "off panel" :-D You know how (not sure if this is banterpack or original) Jan will start telling a story and people act as though he'd already told them some? - I see that as he did it while we weren't looking.

And I'm sure Jaheira wasn't actually silent during our act of love making but that too (for better or worse) was off panel. -- So the conversations and interactions necessary to somehow keep 3 women in the same group either in the dark or happy about sharing him with others I can similarly come up with on my own in my mind. :-)

So I didn't mean to suggest high charisma does do that, I just meant it ought to.

Notice how the damage almost doubles for a little girl with a staff going from 18 strength to 18/00, while the difference from 11 to 12 isn't nearly as dramatic. Lower AC given by more dexterity does reduce the chance of getting hit in a non-linear fashion as well. Say they can hit you only if they roll higher than 9 (i.e. hit 55 % of the time) and you change that to requiring a 10 or higher (50%), that's a difference of 5 % but it is basically means they'll hit less often by a factor of 0.9. Now from 18 (hit 15 % of the time) to 19 (10 %), the absolute difference (5%) stays the same, but they only hit you 2/3 as often as they did when they needed to roll 18's. At the very end there's "diminished returns" because they can always hit you on a 20, no matter how far you better your AC.

High wisdom or intelligence are epic, because they (combined with which spells are known) make the difference between one spellcaster and another.

High constitution lets you regenerate!

High Charisma in true D&D ought to be awesome as well. Anything above 18 is super rare and above 20 is likely to be due to magic. Irresistibly charming, you just can't quite take your eyes off him/her.
[/rationalization] :-P

I just finished Jaheira's harper pin thing, as I was starting to run out of things I really wanted to do. Have Aerie now but somehow her romance doesn't seem to be coming along (stuck after the nightmare, when Neera said "someone's got a crush on you"). Changed romance status back to 1, but got to check those other values... assume OHN_Aerieconflict or what ever it was called is responsible for that.

Anyways, I just had a great wildmage battle moment with Neera.

Kangaxx related spoiler:

Didn't know or forgot that he becomes more powerful after I first kill him, so when I realized I ran away asap. I realized then only Aerie had the protection from spell school thing memorized - but Neera still had her 1st level magic surgy thing. I took that to create that 5th level spell (at +4 caster level non the less, chaos is awesome!) and it worked first try. She already had the hillgiant strength belt and a load of buffs and the +4 staff so she ran in to start beating him up, while the rest of the party hid under the ferry dragon's 10ft invisibility spell. Then I worried the time might run out on the protection from abjuration, and she'd die (which is baaaad, cause I refuse to engage in necrophilia behaviour) so my (at this point dual wielding bard) storms in and tries to use that sunlight ability on that long sword (you know the one), and Kangaxx doesn't even flinch. meanwhle Neera keeps chopping away doing loads of critical hits of 2-5 damage damn those resistances. Time to put the swords to use: offensive whirl (or what ever the bard/blade ability is called) and in to save the girl... He hits him twice (for low damage each time) and he dies. [Off panel: Neera is pissed, at first, about the kill steal, but then looks at Waromyr's expression of (appearingly) genuine relief, as though he just stormed in to help her and though he had been actually worried. They kiss], grab the ring...

...and get out of there with their new loot. Not sure if I'll use it, because the remaining parts of chapter 2 might get too easy otherwise. Perhaps [rp reason] due to affiliations with the paladins and the clerics such an object of evil should be kept somewhere safe instead... like on the table in the copper crown, near the bartender... he'll keep en eye on it. And the rest of those deadly artifacts "hidden" there, like that paladin sword [that he can't seem to wield anymore, ever since his soul mirror shifted on to this bard energy -- but he never was one for big swords anyways.





EDIT: Downside to being irresistible - people really don't want to leave you alone! I wanted to kick Jaheira out to have mazzy and minsk and aerie do some bonding... but if I make her leave she won't wait around. I could kick out Minsk for mazzy, so I can do her plot and skip the banter. then kick her out for the elf bard to see if he'll hit on Aerie, though I'm not sure I could see that ending well, unless I already did the entire romance with Aerie...

She's the mom to my child, but you're a nice guy and I'm busy killing things. You want to be company to my wife and raise him/her for me? Great! But one scratch on either and you're dead meat. See you after what ever happens in ToB, guaranteed. Unless I make to many other quarter bhaal spawns and forget this one...

EDIT2: Not thaaat irresistible, apparently... Found out about the CLUAConsole:SetGlobal("[name]romance","GLOBAL",1) for speeding things up. Did the entire Viconia romance still in chapter 2.

At the end she can leave without me kicking her out. However, it's semi-permanent (until ToB). Aerie however will take care of my cleric needs and her romance won't advance until the main plot does. And Viconia is being really mean to the other love interests, making the rp element of all of them tolerating this kind of situation slightly harder to believe. Then again those tormenting dialogues might be fun to watch. Damn, my charname is twisted. Reputation of 20 and loves helping out where it matters, but really enjoys seeing people cope with little struggles...

EDIT3: I'm enjoying the Dorn part of things more than anticipated. His straight evil-ness is very much out of sync with my main char, but since I don't usually run evil parties and I wanted to see the romance I guess my char could have spawned illusions for Dorn to fight, so he thinks he's doing evil when he's actually being played... pretty high wisdom though, might not work for long. -- anyways, the reason I love it is because I forgot to delete the "lay hand on" paladin ability after the class change.

So after beating Dorn into a pulp until he says enough, Charname layed his hands on him, to make him feel a lot better

EDIT4: HAHAHAHAHA! I just had a great moment in drow town - "I... I can't." - "Why?" - "Because I belong to another." - "Who?" - ... options are Jaheira, Neera, Dorn and for some reason Rasaad???*

*I didn't even do anything with that guy. And why not Arie or Vici? - at this point Vici already decided not to be too close to me as to not to put me in danger, so that I could see... but why arie? --- *goes to check variables*


EDIT5: Neera in

Hell

happens to say "I sense... great evil.... fabled treasure... and probably some spiders." :-D