Reputation drop from donating in Talos and Umberlee temples

Edvin

Simple logic:

If you donate money to church good or neutral God = Reputation rise
If you donate money to church evil God = Reputation drop

Supporting evil Gods should not bring more popularity.

1) Talos dogma is self-serving, demanding utter obedience from his priests and instructing them to spread destruction where they might. You cannot bribe his servants. Donated money will not be used for good purposes.

2) The Bitch Queen is very chaotic (and evil) goddess. People who donate money to their temples, usually planning a longer journey by sea (and even then there isn't sure protection). Her followers do not conduct any charity or community work. They are more like (not very reliable) travel insurance.


P.S.
Finally, we will be able reduce reputation, without killing random citizens!

argent77

I fully agree. There are only very few ways for evil parties to adjust their reputation negatively without resorting to murdering innocents or using mods. I've always wondered why you couldn't donate at the Temple of Talos or Umberlee to decrease your reputation. People would most likely think poorly of you if you're publicly supporting the work of priests who are spreading the word of evil.

There is currently no way to define whether to increase or decrease reputation. However, the STO resource which enable the party to donate still contains 16 unused bits in their flags field. One of them could be used to determine whether to increase or decrease reputation. The amount of money to increase a single reputation point is defined in the column "BASE_CHURCH" of REPUTATI.2DA. Using the same values for negative reputation adjustments doesn't make sense, but it might work if the values are applied in reverse order (i.e. reputation 1 uses the amount for reputation 20 and vice versa).

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Edvin

@argent77
Yes, that is a good idea, but if all the churches use the same file, how you want to distinguish good churches from evil?
I do not think that this can be so easily modded...

On this one we will need official support.

argent77

They are unique. Temple of Talos uses TEMTALOS.STO and Temple of Umberlee doesn't appear to offer any services at all (from what I've seen in NI), although there is an unused STO file available for the temple (TEM0609.STO).

elminster

The umberlee temple in BG1 doesn't offer any services. In BG2 they do.

SapphireIce101

I agree, donating to temples of evil gods shouldn't grant reputation.

scriver

Of course they grant good reputation. You are helping sate the greed of the gods and keep the deities pacified and content/unangry with the settlement, thereby lessening the chances of their divine wrath bringing down storms and other natural disasters on the people there. Who wouldn't like such an unselfish person? A true protector of the weak!

:P

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argent77

@Shandyr That's a good argument. However, the donation system in the game is also kept very simplistic. We can safely assume that supplicants have the opportunity to tell the priest what they are praying for. The townsfolk may pray for a good harvest and the like, but adventurers are more likely praying for selfish reasons, especially in temples of evil deities. I would still like to see such a feature in the game.

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Edvin

scriver said:

Of course they grant good reputation. You are helping sate the greed of the gods and keep the deities pacified and content/unangry with the settlement, thereby lessening the chances of their divine wrath bringing down storms and other natural disasters on the people there. Who wouldn't like such an unselfish person? A true protector of the weak!

:P

Good point, but in our case invalid.

"Ao himself has commanded the gods not to interfere with the Bhaalspawn."

Charname is safe from divine wrath.

Nimran

You could also put a puppy in front of the temples, and have one of your characters kick the puppy to get -1 reputation per kick. Just a thought.

scriver

I don't see how being "protected from divine intervention" would have anything to do with whether or not you gain or lose reputation by donating.

Edvin

Shandyr said:

As an afterthought:
If donating money at a temple of an "evil" deity really decreased reputation as a general rule, then I imagine those temples would run into a financial problem.

Who would donate to such a temple anyway if that practice was outlawed?

Only those people who either don't care about their reputation or who want to have a bad one.

Have you heard about Satanists, Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses?
Even Islam is nowadays considered as "evil faith".

Try to publicly donate 10 million to support Islam.
Your reputation will be destroyed.

Edvin

scriver said:

I don't see how being "protected from divine intervention" would have anything to do with whether or not you gain or lose reputation by donating.

You practically saying, that something as supporting evil gods is impossible.
It does not matter who gets the money, there will always be used for a good purpose.
It is not a bit naive view?

So if I will support Lolth, good people will not be bitten by spiders, right?

scriver

That's not what I said at all, and I don't see what that has to do with what being "protected from divine intervention" has to do with how your reputation changes due to temple donations.

Edvin

@scriver
You have to think on a larger scale.

The Gods cannot harm you or help you, so you cannot buy God's favor.
Thus the only reason why CHARNAME donates money is direct support for the faithful of a certain God.

Talos dogma is self-serving, demanding utter obedience from his priests and instructing them to spread destruction where they might. You cannot bribe his servants. Donated money will not be used for good purposes.

The Bitch Queen is very chaotic goddess. People who donate money to their temples, usually planning a longer journey by sea (and even then there isn't sure protection). Her followers do not conduct any charity or community work. They are more like (not very reliable) travel insurance.

scriver

People are not aware that gods are "forbidden" from interfering with you, so why would that affect your Reputation?

Edvin

Did not you read my last post?

If your donations will not bring any good (In most cases rather evil), why you should get a good reputation?
It makes no sense.

scriver

Reputation is what other people think of you. Other people do not know gods are "prevented from interfering" with CHARNAME. To them you're just another guy. Thus whether or not gods can do anything against CHARNAME has no relevancy as to the effect of his actions on his Reputation.

Edvin

*sigh*
This is hopeless.

I don't know how to explain it even more simply.
Evil people won't do good things with your money!

Bad Gods = Bad people = Bad things = Bad reputation

Do you need pictorial version to understand something so simple?

scriver

The mob doesn't do nice things with my money either but they do even less nice things with my store if I don't pay them.