@atcDave aaah... viewpoint on the lawful/chaotic good/evil alignment and how they should be interpreted can be discussed for eternity.
It is why I love this game! :P
We will disagree, shrug, shake hands and not go off topic.
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Why not start a multiplayer party of Paladins? Start a crusade across the realms?
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Stroll on! That's awesome! *Anduin starts rolling up Paladins... Curses vehemently... Loads up EEper and starts changing the race of his newly created Paladanic heroes to Gnomes... Starts playing, laughing maniacally... Starts worrying if he should ever use the turn undead ability due to personal reasons...*
I played lots of runs that took me around 1-2 weeks in BG1 and never stole anything, one was with my Priest of Lathander->Mage and the other with my Berkserking Cavalier.
Plus your scale is all wrong. Remember int below 10 means they can't even talk properly!
According to the 2E AD&D manual, only creatures with 1 INT can't talk, and they can communicate with grunts and the liking. With 9 INT you can learn two languages, and with 18 you can learn 9 IIRC.
I never flat out steal from merchants or pickpockets regardless of good/evil alignment. Only the occasional unguarded chest in a home. The game just isn't built on a good system for thievery. Everyone simply turns red on a failed theft/pickpocket, forever. That will not do, to say the least. If there were better fine, bribe or even jail sentencing I would probably steal a whole lot more in the game.
I played lots of runs that took me around 1-2 weeks in BG1 and never stole anything, one was with my Priest of Lathander->Mage and the other with my Berkserking Cavalier.
Plus your scale is all wrong. Remember int below 10 means they can't even talk properly!
According to the 2E AD&D manual, only creatures with 1 INT can't talk, and they can communicate with grunts and the liking. With 9 INT you can learn two languages, and with 18 you can learn 9 IIRC.
Check the 3rd ed. Remember BG2 has many features of both eds... Such as two pips in dual wielding for rangers for example.
I played lots of runs that took me around 1-2 weeks in BG1 and never stole anything, one was with my Priest of Lathander->Mage and the other with my Berkserking Cavalier.
Plus your scale is all wrong. Remember int below 10 means they can't even talk properly!
According to the 2E AD&D manual, only creatures with 1 INT can't talk, and they can communicate with grunts and the liking. With 9 INT you can learn two languages, and with 18 you can learn 9 IIRC.
Check the 3rd ed. Remember BG2 has many features of both eds... Such as two pips in dual wielding for rangers for example.
In some ways that is something that is much more likely to have come from 2nd edition rules. Rangers that are wearing studded leather or less get no penalty to their attack rolls if they are dual wielding. I assume they just made it a general bonus (but with some penalties) to simplify the game.
I know nothing about how intelligence works in either edition so I can't really say anything about that.
Remember int below 10 means they can't even talk properly!
LOL. So George W. has an INT below 10? That explains a LOT.
My personal subjective scale goes like this.
Any stat between 9-11 are 'average'. Anything between 6-9 are weak heading towards debilitating. I think a 6 INT is Hodor - Hodor. Anything below 6 is power gaming.
But there is value in power gaming. And so long as you are having fun, who cares what you need to do to get there? Have fun?
@Elminister I said check. Cause I couldn't find it! I know it is in either 2nd or 3rd. But I trust @CrevsDaak . I know in NWN you had special dialogue options if your int was below 10. (3.5 Ed. for NWN I think...)
@the_spyder yeah. Your right. But it is a rule that made sense. What int level would you say would start to effect speech?
I do like the Hodor comment. He has int of 8 though. He knows how to look after people. Some creatures would be able to communicate at such levels.
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*Anduin continues his crusade*
I know how to make it even harder... Not only will I not steal... As a Paladin, I refuse to use any blade that has spilt the blood of the innocent, or dishonour myself by wearing the armour of my enemies!
I know in NWN you had special dialogue options if your int was below 10. (3.5 Ed. for NWN I think...)
I can attest to this. Back in the day, I remember re-rolling a character specifically because of this. Though I thought it was still an awesome implementation of intelligence.
@Anduin - on my personal scale (not even remotely official or based on anything other than personal subjective opinion), particularly for 2E where stats are rolled using 3D6, an average is 9-10. Given that, I would say the average farmer has 9 INT. I would say that the village idiot would be in the 6 range and that rudimentary speech would have to start lower than that.
Even given 3E, you have a number of points that average out to 11 per stat. Having a 9-10 would be JUST under average. Considering the Kardashians (just to pull a name completely at random) there are people with WELL below average INT that can still speak (quite loudly it would seem). Add to that the proliferation of 'Reality TV' and the number of people who think that professional wrestling is Real and I would think that number was quite high. So I would not set the "INT below 10 means you can't speak" bar. I'd personally put it much lower.
But then this is a game. I say play it the way you want. If you want to set the bar there then maybe they can speak, but they don't make a lot of sense? Maybe they can't speak very well, but are savants at other things? Who knows? But then I once played a ranger that didn't believe in magic, so take anything I say with a grain of RP salt. it's role playing, so have fun with it any way you want.
What a lovely discussion. I've been reading this with great interest, although I see it evolving a bit into an INT discussion. I'd like to go back to the stealing question. I must say I'm surprised to see that many people don't (or hardly) steal, apparently irrespective of the class they roleplay. As to myself, in metagamed/powergamed no-reload challenges my charnames (often thieves) or their companions (when not playing a thief myself) tend to open and loot pretty much every chest they encounter, even if that requires breaking into a locked house. In the city of Baldur's Gate the first thing I usually do is quaff potions of master thievery and go on free shopping spree And to be honest, even in properly roleplayed playthroughs with good-aligned parties I find RP justifications for theft of important items. For example, my Beast Mistress wouldn't steal herself but in BG City she broke up with Coran because he had been acting like a jerk to her, and he later tried to make it up and offered her a couple of 'gifts' she couldn't refuse...
In sum: no theft would indeed be a bit of a challenge for me.
A challenge @blackraven hasn't tried? Then I think I must challenge you. Try the regular SCS, No Reload, with no stealing allowed! (Party is fine, but party can't steal for you.)
A challenge @blackraven hasn't tried? Then I think I must challenge you. Try the regular SCS, No Reload, with no stealing allowed! (Party is fine, but party can't steal for you.)
LOL Challenge accepted, though not sure yet when or with what character... It shouldn't make the game a whole lot more difficult I think. It's just the kleptomania that needs to be controlled.
I havent found much use in theft in BG1... however I am only on my first play through. My party is good natured, pretty much all Good aligned except Xzar who is only with them due to similar interests. (taking down this iron throne) Xzar lets me get my evil out, I use him to sneak into people's homes and kill innocents to keep rep down and for Role play.... dude's a necromancer, he needs his bodies... I play it off as the rest of the party is sleeping in the tavern while Xzar lurks... This is the only bit of stealing I have done... basically killing people and taking what they had... however... all of my finds so far have been useless... I find more loot from random "rest" attacks then looting people's houses...
From a RP perspective none of my party are thieves... However the two leads are Dwarves (Gloren and Yeslick) so perhaps I might start robbing people for gold. Even a good Dwarf cannot break his greed for gold. But I find myself doing darker things in order to keep Xzar in the party with us... like flat out murder... its funny OP states that he isnt a murderer but a thief, where I kind of play a character in my party the opposite.
A neutral good thief would steal if they personally thought that they had good reason. They don't feel necessarily compelled to follow laws. Imoen might steal from a rich house to further what she sees as furthering the cause for good. She stole little things from Candlekeep probably because she didn't think it would cause any harm. She wouldn't straight loot houses in Beregost, but if it really championed a cause for good and didn't harm anyone, I think her stealing would be a no-brainer.
@atcDave, I think what Anduin was trying to elucidate on with those examples is that chaotic tend to be blind to the "rules of he road". He wasn't trying to say that they would be reckless with the intent of harm like an evil would, rather he does what he thinks is right (whatever speed or method of driving) regardless of the rules.
That said, I don't steal unless I'm an evil or particular neutral party. Though, at times I'll break with the trend if important items are involved.
Add to that the proliferation of 'Reality TV' and the number of people who think that professional wrestling is Real and I would think that number was quite high.
Take that back! Andre the Giant was real
I generally play to whatever I'm playing. In general my good characters don't go around stealing or murdering. Maybe a chaotic good character would swipe Algernon's cloak or something. Even when I play evil, I find stealing to be generally not worth it. There's typically not much worth the hassle to steal out of houses. I normally don't bother putting points into pick pocket with my thieves, so I can only do that when I'm taking a bard along.
I love it how almost every philosophical or original thread boils down to people arguing about alignments and/or stats. *Picks up a bowl of popcorn and starts munching*
By the way, I'd love to see a LG-Paladin-crusade run through BG. Especially with @Anduin as a creepy Undead Gnome Inquisitor and @KidCarnival as a confused Beholder Cavalier...plus perhaps some more peculiar characters, like a LG Battlehamster Berserker @booinyoureyes ...
About Imoen, good characters and pickpocketing: I think Imoen picked pockets in Candlekeep mostly out of being a naughty teenager as @atcDave said. I can't see her really taking from commoners either, and you see the moments in which she pickpockets are mostly in jest (Keldorn). It fits in with her bubbly class clown type personality.
I feel as though her development as a thief shows this-
It seems that this was the area in which she concentrated the least, and went more the "adventurer" route with her skillset, as Dave said in his post about spies and scouts.
I was always a big fan of Tasselhoff Burrfoot from the Dragonlance books. The Rules list him as 'Chaotic Neutral', but I would list him as Chaotic Good, because his heart was always in the right place. It was his fingers that weren't. I don't think he steals out of malice or a desire to become rich, but more because other people's property just comes naturally to him.
Keeping alignment out of the entire equation, I think there are logical reasons why some segments of just about any alignment might steal. Steal to eat when you are starving. steal to get something back that was yours to begin with. Steal to level the playing field with someone. Steal out of necessity or because of being coerced. Steal as the lesser of two evils. Steal as a practical joke. etc....
I am reminded about how Bilbo Baggins bridled at the title of Burglar. So most of my Half-ling 'Thieves' are 'Expert Treasure Hunters' as a result (copyright infringement and all). Scout also works. And my Gnome Illusionist/Thief (Rablsnorvin Finkelgruber) is an 'Adventurer Extraordinaire' (supra-genius).
@the_spyder - I agree on Tasslehoff Burrfoot. Even though he was in the story for comedic relief, even though he quite set the loonie-kender-archetype, he was still quite likeable and funny. To him, that thing others would call "stealing" just came naturally due to his curiosity.
My adventurers and (especially) Thieves are usually just very cynical people, living in a crapsack cynical world, where stealing something is not viewed as necessarily bad, but means to an end.
Kenders do not steal. They just find all the stuff clumsy big people keep losing. To say otherwise is quite offensive and may bring the wrath of all kenders on you
If i just stop of use ctrl+J on the game for the boringness of walking all the way from one point to another, that would be a start for me in not stealing (cheating).
Comments
If a person walked around and saw thieves all the time, I would call them paranoid.
Plus your scale is all wrong. Remember int below 10 means they can't even talk properly!
It is why I love this game! :P
We will disagree, shrug, shake hands and not go off topic.
...
Why not start a multiplayer party of Paladins? Start a crusade across the realms?
...
Stroll on! That's awesome! *Anduin starts rolling up Paladins... Curses vehemently... Loads up EEper and starts changing the race of his newly created Paladanic heroes to Gnomes... Starts playing, laughing maniacally... Starts worrying if he should ever use the turn undead ability due to personal reasons...*
As it is, not worth it.
I know nothing about how intelligence works in either edition so I can't really say anything about that.
My personal subjective scale goes like this.
Any stat between 9-11 are 'average'. Anything between 6-9 are weak heading towards debilitating. I think a 6 INT is Hodor - Hodor. Anything below 6 is power gaming.
But there is value in power gaming. And so long as you are having fun, who cares what you need to do to get there? Have fun?
@the_spyder yeah. Your right. But it is a rule that made sense. What int level would you say would start to effect speech?
I do like the Hodor comment. He has int of 8 though. He knows how to look after people. Some creatures would be able to communicate at such levels.
...
*Anduin continues his crusade*
I know how to make it even harder... Not only will I not steal... As a Paladin, I refuse to use any blade that has spilt the blood of the innocent, or dishonour myself by wearing the armour of my enemies!
Oh bugger...
*Anduin reloads again*
Even given 3E, you have a number of points that average out to 11 per stat. Having a 9-10 would be JUST under average. Considering the Kardashians (just to pull a name completely at random) there are people with WELL below average INT that can still speak (quite loudly it would seem). Add to that the proliferation of 'Reality TV' and the number of people who think that professional wrestling is Real and I would think that number was quite high. So I would not set the "INT below 10 means you can't speak" bar. I'd personally put it much lower.
But then this is a game. I say play it the way you want. If you want to set the bar there then maybe they can speak, but they don't make a lot of sense? Maybe they can't speak very well, but are savants at other things? Who knows? But then I once played a ranger that didn't believe in magic, so take anything I say with a grain of RP salt. it's role playing, so have fun with it any way you want.
Now 'Read' is a different thing all together.
As to myself, in metagamed/powergamed no-reload challenges my charnames (often thieves) or their companions (when not playing a thief myself) tend to open and loot pretty much every chest they encounter, even if that requires breaking into a locked house. In the city of Baldur's Gate the first thing I usually do is quaff potions of master thievery and go on free shopping spree
And to be honest, even in properly roleplayed playthroughs with good-aligned parties I find RP justifications for theft of important items. For example, my Beast Mistress wouldn't steal herself but in BG City she broke up with Coran because he had been acting like a jerk to her, and he later tried to make it up and offered her a couple of 'gifts' she couldn't refuse...
In sum: no theft would indeed be a bit of a challenge for me.
From a RP perspective none of my party are thieves... However the two leads are Dwarves (Gloren and Yeslick) so perhaps I might start robbing people for gold. Even a good Dwarf cannot break his greed for gold. But I find myself doing darker things in order to keep Xzar in the party with us... like flat out murder... its funny OP states that he isnt a murderer but a thief, where I kind of play a character in my party the opposite.
@atcDave, I think what Anduin was trying to elucidate on with those examples is that chaotic tend to be blind to the "rules of he road". He wasn't trying to say that they would be reckless with the intent of harm like an evil would, rather he does what he thinks is right (whatever speed or method of driving) regardless of the rules.
That said, I don't steal unless I'm an evil or particular neutral party. Though, at times I'll break with the trend if important items are involved.
I generally play to whatever I'm playing. In general my good characters don't go around stealing or murdering. Maybe a chaotic good character would swipe Algernon's cloak or something. Even when I play evil, I find stealing to be generally not worth it. There's typically not much worth the hassle to steal out of houses. I normally don't bother putting points into pick pocket with my thieves, so I can only do that when I'm taking a bard along.
*Picks up a bowl of popcorn and starts munching*
By the way, I'd love to see a LG-Paladin-crusade run through BG. Especially with @Anduin as a creepy Undead Gnome Inquisitor and @KidCarnival as a confused Beholder Cavalier...plus perhaps some more peculiar characters, like a LG Battlehamster Berserker @booinyoureyes ...
I think Imoen picked pockets in Candlekeep mostly out of being a naughty teenager as @atcDave said. I can't see her really taking from commoners either, and you see the moments in which she pickpockets are mostly in jest (Keldorn). It fits in with her bubbly class clown type personality.
I feel as though her development as a thief shows this-
Baldur's Gate Imoen pick pocket: 25
SoA Imoen pick pocket: 35
It seems that this was the area in which she concentrated the least, and went more the "adventurer" route with her skillset, as Dave said in his post about spies and scouts.
Keeping alignment out of the entire equation, I think there are logical reasons why some segments of just about any alignment might steal. Steal to eat when you are starving. steal to get something back that was yours to begin with. Steal to level the playing field with someone. Steal out of necessity or because of being coerced. Steal as the lesser of two evils. Steal as a practical joke. etc....
I am reminded about how Bilbo Baggins bridled at the title of Burglar. So most of my Half-ling 'Thieves' are 'Expert Treasure Hunters' as a result (copyright infringement and all). Scout also works. And my Gnome Illusionist/Thief (Rablsnorvin Finkelgruber) is an 'Adventurer Extraordinaire' (supra-genius).
My adventurers and (especially) Thieves are usually just very cynical people, living in a crapsack cynical world, where stealing something is not viewed as necessarily bad, but means to an end.