Evil party and reputation management

Menkalinan

I've played through BG and BG2 many times, but never with an evil party. Time to rectify that!

I'm planning to play through both games with an evil monk as my PC. Party composition isn't a problem - I know which NPCs I'm going to take with me - but because the games are obviously designed to be played mostly by heroic, good-aligned parties, I'd like to hear some advice regarding reputation management.

It's very easy to get an extremely good reputation in both games, but obviously that is something you want to avoid as an evil party, because evil NPCs start leaving you when your reputation becomes high.

Can you complete quests without constantly getting more reputation, or do you have to resort to killing random people to keep reputation under control? From a roleplaying point of view, it would be better if you could manage it through quests alone.

Musigny

In many cases you can ask for money or rewards. This will not crank up your rep.

lroumen

Metagame as little as possible because the tempting rewards often carry the undesirable reputation gain

Meyahi

You could kill an innocent from time to time to lower your reputation.
I've also heard of a mod where you can pay bards to lower your reputation just like temples increase it.

semiticgoddess

It should also be possible to edit the HAPPY.2da file and set it so that evil characters don't leave when your reputation reaches 19 or 20. DLTCEP and Near Infinity should be able to do that. And I believe there is a mod somewhere that does just that. The mod Meyahi mentioned would also work, though I don't know its name (it might be BGTutu only).

If you're not willing to use a modded game, then the only option would be to avoid reputation gains or kill an innocent from time to time. In BG2, you can also use the Slayer Change, though that takes time to reach.

Menkalinan

Thanks for the replies! I guess I'll have to be extra careful when choosing replies in quest-related dialogues.

I hope I won't have to kill innocents randomly to lower reputation. Such mindless violence doesn't make sense for a lawful evil monk following a strict philosophy.

I have nothing against using mods. Does anybody know the name of a mod that fixes the reputation problem for evil parties?

OurQuestIsVain

Menkalinan said:

Thanks for the replies! I guess I'll have to be extra careful when choosing replies in quest-related dialogues.

I hope I won't have to kill innocents randomly to lower reputation. Such mindless violence doesn't make sense for a lawful evil monk following a strict philosophy.

I have nothing against using mods. Does anybody know the name of a mod that fixes the reputation problem for evil parties?

I think it is this one - http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/32379/bg1npc-for-bgee-prerelease/p1

There is a part of that mod that adds bards to inns that can spread tales of your wicked deeds to gain infamy and lose reputation. There is some other good stuff in that mod too if you're interested in more banter and NPC quests.

elminster

Menkalinan said:

I hope I won't have to kill innocents randomly to lower reputation. Such mindless violence doesn't make sense for a lawful evil monk following a strict philosophy.

Random violence wouldn't make sense, but selective violence might. If you were for instance roleplaying as a monk of the Order of the Long Death.

AstroBryGuy

As @OurQuestIsVain‌ mentioned, BG1NPC has a component that places bards in various inns you can pay to spread the word that you are a fearsome band to be reckoned with.

Also, SCS (http://www.gibberlings3.net/scs/) has a component that can help control reputation gain.

Reduced reputation increase

In general, if you're playing a half-way honorable character in BG2, your reputation fairly rapidly reaches 20 and stays there. The idea of this component is to slow down the rate at which you gain reputation: you can choose the degree of slowdown.

In more detail: any time you would have gained 2 or more reputation points, you gain one fewer point than you should have. Any time you would have gained one, it's decided at random whether you actually do gain it, according to the probability you choose at install time.

semiticgoddess

Your base reputation might help as well. In BG2 at least, your reputation starts out up to two points lower if you're of the right alignment (Chaotic Evil starts out at 8 as I recall; Lawful Good at 12), and having Viconia in your group takes it down another two. But that's only 4 points.

dunbar

Obviously recruiting evil npcs like Viconia and Dorn do your rep. a goodly amount of harm but I've found it pays to be careful about the little things: There are some minor quests (I can think of one in Trademeet for example) where an extra gesture, like informing someone that the task has been completed, earns a rep. point after the exp. points have been awarded.

Menkalinan

Thanks again for your helpful comments! I'll take a look at those mods.

Maybe BG3 will handle reputation differently for all alignments?

Tidus

you can also lower your rep by provoking Trax when you first meet Jan...
heck, I can't stand the guy and do that even for my chaotic good charnames

SharGuidesMyHand

OurQuestIsVain said:

Menkalinan said:

Thanks for the replies! I guess I'll have to be extra careful when choosing replies in quest-related dialogues.

I hope I won't have to kill innocents randomly to lower reputation. Such mindless violence doesn't make sense for a lawful evil monk following a strict philosophy.

I have nothing against using mods. Does anybody know the name of a mod that fixes the reputation problem for evil parties?

I think it is this one - http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/32379/bg1npc-for-bgee-prerelease/p1

There is a part of that mod that adds bards to inns that can spread tales of your wicked deeds to gain infamy and lose reputation. There is some other good stuff in that mod too if you're interested in more banter and NPC quests.

This is an ideal mod component to use if you're trying to balance a mixed party of good and evil aligned characters - it allows you to lower your party's rep to satisfy the evil members without having to resort to intentionally malicious acts that would anger the good ones.

If you're playing as an entirely evil party though, there are probably enough in-game options for you that would allow you to keep your rep low - see below:

1. Accepting Dorn, Viconia, or Baeloth into your party will each lower your rep by 2 points.
2. Be money oriented - demand payment at every opportunity, and choose quests or quest choices that are geared toward gaining or saving money (i.e: following through on Silke's quest, posing as Greywolf to collect Oublek's bounty, refusing to pay money to save the miners, etc.). In many cases, your rep won't increase and may even be lowered by these actions.

JamieWroe

Honestly, the reputation stuff isn't handled great. I like to play evil, but not stupid evil, so I have no problem adjusting reputation in EE keeper or installing the Happy Patch from the tweaks mod: http://www.gibberlings3.net/bg2tweaks/

I don't mind NPCs leaving or fighting because they hate each other but, other than a couple of characters, I don't see why they care that I'm acting good if it's profitable. I refuse to believe Edwin would be happier with me if I started murdering civilians and getting the guards on our back.

Menkalinan

JamieWroe said:

Honestly, the reputation stuff isn't handled great. I like to play evil, but not stupid evil, so I have no problem adjusting reputation in EE keeper or installing the Happy Patch from the tweaks mod: http://www.gibberlings3.net/bg2tweaks/

I don't mind NPCs leaving or fighting because they hate each other but, other than a couple of characters, I don't see why they care that I'm acting good if it's profitable. I refuse to believe Edwin would be happier with me if I started murdering civilians and getting the guards on our back.

Thanks, this sounds like a great mod!

Yeah, I agree that the whole reputation system in BG is less than stellar. It shouldn't be something that burdens the players and forces them to use tricks to keep it under control.

Like I wrote in my previous post, I hope that things will be better in BG3 - if they ever make it!

kcwise

You can also let yourself get caught stealing in one of the homes scattered around the map. When the guards show up to stop you, you can talk to them and choose to fight but instead run away. You'll get a small reputation drop. Or you could kill the guards if you want an even greater drop.