I'm so confused and turned on right now... (first time beating Baldur's Gate 2) [spoilers]

Varwulf

I wanted to beat this game with a friend of mine from the UK before beating it in single player, well, today we accomplished that feat!

I played as a Cavalier (pure Lawful Good) who ended up romancing Aerie throughout our playthrough, while my friend played a Kensai/Mage of a True Neutral alignment. Needless to say it left a lot of interesting situations where we had to decide what to do, but usually my character won out in the end

So, we ended up siding with Drizzt to help us take out Bodhi. The best part? He ended up chunking Aerie before we could save her from Bodhi's vampirism. Then he basically was all like, "Well, that was fun dawgs, welp, see ya!" and left my poor character to mourn over the meaty chunks that once was his beloved.

Maybe that is what led to the WTFness that happened next? lol, I know it's my ignorance as to how the ending of this game plays out, but after you complete the trials in hell to bring out Irenicus for the final battle, my character's alignment switches to Lawful Evil (among other things) after you turn in the tears. Wait, huh? What? I did the "good" options as far as I was aware. I sacrificed my own DEX, hit points, experience, to save the innocent - I didn't give into my wrath - the only thing I did give into was the greed one because my Kensai/Mage friend really liked the sword. Lawful Evil? Now my Cavalier is destroyed for good (well, until I EEKeeper him).

The icing on the cake? We replaced Aerie with Anomen (so we could have a proper-ish healer, I referred to him as Aerie 2.0 (without benefits)), and without even doing Anomen's questline he becomes SIR Anomen at the end of this!

LOL, so my good, stable, not crazy Cavalier becomes Lawful Evil and Anomen becomes Lawful Good? Baldur's Gate 2 Enhanced Edition, you troll!

I think this is partly why I like the Icewind Dale series just a little bit more :P At the end of it, you can just re-use your characters again, the ones you built up and grew to love so much over your playthrough, rather than have them completely destroyed at the end of it by confusing game mechanics :O

Still, this ought to make the Throne of Bhaal playthrough that much more interesting. To top it off, my Purifier +4 now is repelled by my evilness Such a cruel, cruel fate. BG2EE is an unforgiving mistress lol!

meagloth

That sounds like an awesome run, RP wise. I could never let my friends get chunked, I cheese everything and my favorite spell is power word: reload.

Heindrich

Poor Aerie...

My Charname tried SO hard to avoid killing her in my first playthrough. (Oteluke Sphere'd her whilst the party tried everything possible to find a solution.) When it became clear that we'd probably have to 'kill' her in order to save her, he asked Jaheira to be as gentle as possible in the execution, as he couldn't stomach doing it himself.

If anyone in the party actually chunked her, he'd probably turned into the Slayer and taken revenge immediately. I guess losing Aerie permanently would be a good reason for your Charname to go 'a bit evil'.

Anyways, your journey is not yet done. Irenicus may have fallen, but your tormented Bhaalspawn has not found peace...

golingarf

Drizzt really ought to have a script that makes sure he doesn't do that. But yeah, taking along automated NPCs is never a good idea. I think I used Drizzt in that battle the first time, but I wouldn't do it again. As for your Paladin falling, you definitely deserve it. You answered your own question about the trials - why would you pick the evil path in *any* of them?

Heindrich

@golingarf

Oteluke's Sphere is an often overlooked spell. I think it's great, especially for those playing no-reload or min-reload. I had one in my spellbook for most of the game precisely for unpredictable situations like that. Initially cos of the uncontrollable Slayer change, but it's saved my bacon on more than one occasion.

golingarf

That's probably good advice. I never use that spell.

Varwulf

@Heindrich That is more or less how I was looking at it as well, yeah. Sadly, we didn't have Jaheira for the end of our playthrough, because my friend pissed her off when she was held by the throat by those bandits, and we lost interest in her (as characters) for the rest of the game after that. Shortly after doing her harper questline, we said adios. She still writes me. But I don't write back. What am I afraid of? In all seriousness though, you have my utmost respect for taking so much effort to try to save your Aerie. She can get on my nerves at times (irl), but she is so sweet and innocent, it's impossible for me to dislike her.

@golingarf One would assume that picking one debatable evil path out of (five?) making me evil seems pretty harsh :P Though for this reason (and many others while playing these games in multiplayer), it makes me really want to see a much more sophisticated system in Baldur's Gate 3 for multiplayer that allows all characters to be completely separated morally speaking. Heck, I'd love to even see my friend able to romance someone separate from the char my CHARNAME is romancing, etc.

It'd be even really neat to have each player able to have his or her own party, and the parties can interact with other parties and the like. So much potential here

golingarf

Maybe, except that the whole thing exists exactly for that reason, and you know that. Besides, Paladins are supposed to fall if they commit *any* evil act *ever.* So choosing what you know is the evil option in a setting where you know you are being tested to see if you will make evil choices definitely and decisively makes you 100% not a Paladin.

Varwulf

@golingarf As I said, harsh Especially since my rep remains 20 despite that "evil" act. Seems odd that killing the last 730 monsters I killed wasn't evil but in this case it was. Also, seems odd to me that he mentioned that killing him will release him from his trouble, and he even implies that it'd okay to do so. I guess killing Old Yeller was an act of evilness too?

golingarf

Well, the system they used for Paladins to begin with was a little ridiculous and was really designed to make people not worry about it. I think you fall if your reputation goes below 6, or something like that. Really you ought to fall if your reputation ever drops, no matter what it is.

Varwulf

@golingarf Yeah, 6 rep is pretty strange to me, you'd think, as you said, it'd go down over the first actual evil act, not the 7th lol

golingarf

Yeah. You can even make a Paladin who habitually murders children for fun, but donates a lot of money to the church.

Still, the greed thing: way out of line.

Heindrich

Varwulf said:

@Heindrich That is more or less how I was looking at it as well, yeah. Sadly, we didn't have Jaheira for the end of our playthrough, because my friend pissed her off when she was held by the throat by those bandits, and we lost interest in her (as characters) for the rest of the game after that. Shortly after doing her harper questline, we said adios. She still writes me. But I don't write back. What am I afraid of? In all seriousness though, you have my utmost respect for taking so much effort to try to save your Aerie. She can get on my nerves at times (irl), but she is so sweet and innocent, it's impossible for me to dislike her.

Jaheira becomes such a powerhouse. You might end up missing her more than you think...

But Aerie, poor Aerie, you really did miss out on her development as a character. I liked SoA Aerie, I loved ToB Aerie, even though she didn't really develop into a powerhouse character like some people said she would. (Probably cos of how I used her.)

I had an equivalent thread to what you got now. But I won't link it to u cos I completed ToB, and I don't wanna spoil it for you. But I will say...

Advance with caution my friend... both the permanent fatalities in my playthrough occurred in ToB. (Anomen and Jaheira).

ChildofBhaal599

so wait you don't get the body item if the vampire romance was chunked? i guess I lucked out on my first playthrough where I took drizzt, but then I think I made my charname 1v1 it for the emotional battle with his now vampire lover. i just don't remember ever having a moment where an item wouldn't drop unless it was something like flesh to stone or disintegrate. maybe you missed it?

that also happens to be where I failed on my first playthrough with the trials. too much metagame I was blinded from seeing I was being tested there lol. i just keepered out the alignment change variable because I intended to make sarevok good and the change was in the way

WebShaman

Aerie needs to be saved so that she can be sacrificed by hand on the Throne of Bhaal!

Mwahahahahaha!

Varwulf

LOL, well, fear not friends, this was one of many playthroughs, and I tend to have more control over some outcomes if it's single player anyway The reason it took me so long to finish this playthrough is because it was multiplayer, and I refused to play single player passed the point I reached in multiplayer.