Fallen Blackguards?

Noloir

Based on the Reputation system as a Paladin or a Ranger if Reputation becomes too low the character losses it's class abilities and is called "Fallen". On the flip side if an Evil aligned character's rep say a Blackguard or Priest of Talos has it's Reputation too high does it have a similar effect and if so what are they referred to as, ascendant?

Jarrakul

Nope. Outside of Dorn in his personal quest, I don't think there's any way for Blackguards and the like to fall.

Southpaw

That'd be great, if upon reaching a 16+ reputation, blackguards would be marked "a goody two-shoes" and abandoned b his infernal patron for being "too nice".

(Rather not...the reputation system is already flawed as it is)

Noloir

Southpaw said:

That'd be great, if upon reaching a 16+ reputation, blackguards would be marked "a goody two-shoes" and abandoned b his infernal patron for being "too nice".

(Rather not...the reputation system is already flawed as it is)

How so? It's an interesting concept.

Jarrakul

Well, the problem is that, while lowering your reputation requires doing immoral things, raising your reputation doesn't particularly require doing moral things. It's entirely possible to hit rep 20 just doing jobs for profit. It's difficult to argue that a blackguard should fall because they're too willing to kill things for money.

Arunsun

You can reach 20 rep only by doing quests. And one does quests because it brings profit, not because it raises your reputation.
There are way too many quests that raise your reputation in BG2

semiticgoddess

I guess an evil god would demand that a proper blackguard murder his or her questgivers, to squeeze a little extra profit out of the deal. You can become the Hero of Trademeet and make peace between the druids and the townspeople and still be a true Blackguard... but you'd better kill Lord Logan Coinpurse and loot his body, or else your god might think you're getting tempted by the lure of honest living.

Southpaw

...as I said - the reputation system is already flawed. You can also be a "Villain with good PR".

Lord_Tansheron

You not only can be a villain with good PR, but lots of villains actually LOVE having good PR and do a lot to maintain it.

I guess they should have divided the system into reputation and virtue, the latter being disconnected from what other people think about you. I mean, you can BUY reputation to a large extent! Murdered a few orphans? No problem, give to the church and all is forgiven.

I suppose it's nicely modeled after RL...

Skatan

Lord_Tansheron said:

(Snip!)

I suppose it's nicely modeled after RL...

It's, like so much in D&D, modeled after medieval europe where it was very common to buy penance from the church. Hell, you even got both your previous and your future sins forgiven if you went on a crusade.

Money and morals, if you have one, you often lack the other

Zalson

I think in 3rd edition(?), an antipaladin (so different than a blackguard) has to be careful not to anything good at all, ever, otherwise they lose their antipaladin status.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/alternate-classes/antipaladin

Jarrakul

That's actually Pathfinder. The 3E equivalent is the blackguard (big surprise), which has no such restrictions.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/prestigeClasses/blackguard.htm

It's worth noting, though, that the Pathfinder antipaladin still isn't punished for actions, per se, but motivations. If an antipaladin saves a kitten for selfish reasons (good publicity is very practical), that's well within the constraints set forth by their code.

DreadKhan

I think an argument could be made that the 'good PR' thing is less relevant to a Blackguard or priest/cultist of an evil god. Patrons vary, but Talos for example, or Garagos requires you to make a mess/instill fear. They expect servants to be loud, proud and destructive. Bane is a strange one, his servants would tend to be Lawful, meaning not chaoticly destructive, yet he usually likes his powerful servants to be very open. A Blackguard of Bane would likely not be encouraged to maintain 'a nice image', but they could have a reputation for beingtrue to their (exact) word.

Fiendish patrons though are a bit of an exception, since almost all of them have small, very vulnerable cults which need to avoid notice, ie servants are encouraged to go incognito as needed.

Skatan

I don't know much (hardly anything) about PnP or FR lore, but can Blackguards have an actual deity (like Bane, mentioned above) as patron? I have read they have demons are patrons and that is one thing that differs from being a cleric. A cleric chooses his deity, but a blackguard is chosen by a patron.

Jarrakul

To my knowledge, there's no concrete lore of the subject. BGEE blackguards seem thematically closer to 3-5E warlocks (who get their powers through pacts with otherworldly beings) than to 3E blackguards (who get their powers from evil gods or just the nebulous powers of darkness). This is complicated by the fact that some demons can grant divine spells (usually with some limit on the level), so in theory a 3E blackguard could probably get their power from a demon. And of course many demons (/devils) actually work for evil gods, and at least one devil (Asmodeus, Lord of the 9th Hell) is a god himself. So yeah. The whole thing's slightly a mess.

Grum

Probably a dumb question, but can a god like Talos have blackguards? Kind of like how Ajantis follows Helm.

dr_muds

What about if you give Dorn (or any PC Blackguard for that matter) the helm of opposite alignment? Will he/they lose their abilities or no?

Arunsun

dr_muds said:

What about if you give Dorn (or any PC Blackguard for that matter) the helm of opposite alignment? Will he/they lose their abilities or no?

Nope. Normal paladin must be LG and maintain this alignment, but a blackguard just has to be evil when created.

dr_muds

Awesome! That's changed my party dynamic completely for the latter part of my BG:EE run going into SoD!

Now if only his BG2EE quest didn't require so much rep loss & he could use Carsomyr...

Lord_Tansheron

dr_muds said:

Now if only [...] he could use Carsomyr...

That's the one reason I don't play Blackguard over good-aligned Paladins. 90% if not more of the game's enemies are evil, and that just makes Carsomyr go BONKERS in damage output; the dispel and MR is just a bonus. You hardly ever fight good-aligned enemies, so Badomyr is just not on the same level.

dr_muds

Yeah I agree, to be honest I always go with Keldorn - Carsomyr and all those Inquisitor abilities. However, I am doing a Kensai run through BGEE with the aim of going through the whole saga with one character, including Siege of Dragonspear. I never get Dorn to fit in my good aligned party, and at the moment am running with my Kensai, Minsc, Yeslick, Neera/Coran, Rasaad and Imoen. With the helm of change alignment I can swap in Dorn for Minsc and try him out for the end of BG and SoD.

However for my Kensage run in BG2EE I am going to stick with Keldorn as my pally. Might try a Kensief in a "what if I turned evil run" afterwards, run with an evil party including Dorn just to try him out in SoA/TOB, make all the evil choices like Blackrazor, and then use any item so I can still use Carsomyr.

Gallowglass

Arunsun said:

dr_muds said:

What about if you give Dorn (or any PC Blackguard for that matter) the helm of opposite alignment? Will he/they lose their abilities or no?

Nope. Normal paladin must be LG and maintain this alignment, but a blackguard just has to be evil when created.

Er, hang on, that may be incorrect. According to this recent thread: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/45273/lost-my-blackguard-abilities, Blackguards do indeed immediately Fall if equipped with the Helm of Opposite Alignment. (I haven't tested this myself.)

dr_muds

Not necessarily, as if you carry on reading the thread apparently the blackguard in question only "fell" because when they changed alignment their reputation was incompatible with the requirements of a lawful good paladin, and therefore became a fallen paladin.

Apparently this wouldn't be the case if the party reputation was kept at a high enough level when the blackguard turned good.

dr_muds

I've just tested this theory out by starting a new Blackguard character (Neutral Evil aligned like Dorn) and ClUA consoled a Helm of Opposite Alignment. Equipping it changed his alignment to Neutral Good as expected, but did not make him lose his poison weapon nor his absorb health abilities. Also his class stayed as a blackguard.

However, when I then killed one of the monks and my reputation dropped 5 points, I lost my Blackguard skills and simply became known as a Paladin.

So essentially yes, a Blackguard can change alignment to good and keep their abilities... just keep your reputation high enough as you would for a normal Good Paladin.

Gallowglass

Aha! Okay, thanks for testing that, @dr_muds!

dr_muds

Is there a helm of opposite alignment in BG2EE? If so this is a potential game changer as Dorn or a PC Blackguard could now feasibly wield Carsomyr?

Caeria

@dr_muds The .itm file is there, so if you really wanted to, you could console/EEKeeper it in.

Noloir

dr_muds said:

Is there a helm of opposite alignment in BG2EE? If so this is a potential game changer as Dorn or a PC Blackguard could now feasibly wield Carsomyr?

Can export a char from BG:EE with The Helm of OA. Works just the same.