SoD is already going to take away all our dwarves, Yeslick and Kagain. And, all of our bards, Garrick and Eldoth.
How do you know that?
He decided it is so and most of his "arguments" involve new npcs and that SoD takes away all of the companions. Well, going back to my run with the npcs that will be lost in SoD. ^^ The only thing we know is that not all of the companions will be available *all* of the time. Which is no surprise since we still need to end with the SoA starting party, since SoD is the bridge between BG end and SoA start.
@elminster My point is that degrees of distinctness matter. Yes, you could make another Half-Elf Fighter or another Human Conjurer and succeed, but it still is a repeat of what's already been done and the bar to be fresh and different is that much harder. There's a reason why there aren't 4 Elven Male Fighter companions, they would lack mechanical distinctiveness and it would be hard to make the roleplaying aspect of them so interesting to make that distinction interesting. Even if it was 3 Elven Male Fighter companions and 1 Halfling Male Fighter companion, the mechanical similarity would be undeniable but the roleplaying aspect would likely be improved. (please don't get hung up about the above, it's not the most important point).
Let me put it another way, SoD's NPCs will be: Jaheira, Khalid, Minsc, Dynaheir, Safana, Dorn, Neera, Edwin, Baeloth, Viconia, Rasaad, Captain Schael Corwin, Voghiln the Vast, M'Khiin Groubdoubler, Glint Gardnersonson
Siege of Dragonspear is set out to be the first Baldur's Gate game with no Dwarf, no Halfling, and no (non-Drow) Elf companion.
As I mentioned before and you neglected to comment on: It would be nice since this game is the first Baldur's Gate game to visit a Dwarven locale that a Dwarven NPC is available to experience it there too.
You mentioned commonality of races. Well, Dwarves, Haflings, and (non-Drow) Elves are more common than Half-Elves and Drow and there's 3 and 2 companions of those respectively.
So, these points and the points made before point to a more diverse and more fun game with Voghiln the Vast as a Dwarf.
Siege of Dragonspear is set out to be the first Baldur's Gate game with no Dwarf, no Halfling, and no (non-Drow) Elf companion.
As I mentioned before and you neglected to comment on: It would be nice since this game is the first Baldur's Gate game to visit a Dwarven locale that a Dwarven NPC is available to experience it there too.
You mentioned commonality of races. Well, Dwarves, Haflings, and (non-Drow) Elves are more common than Half-Elves and Drow and there's 3 and 2 companions of those respectively.
In the FR humans outnumber all the other playable races by something like 1000:1. Therefore any non-human companion is a statistical anomaly.
A dwarven bard would suck. They only know songs about gold.
The problem I have with him is that human sprites don't have beards and gnome sprites always have beards (unless they're going to change that). Yet they make a human ZZ Top bard and a beardless male gnome.
By that, you mean idle speculation based on a few minutes of demo footage.
To be fair, I think the replacement of Imoen with Safana as the only change for the "canon party", when combined with the knowledge that she will be dual classed into a mage, is a pretty compelling indicator that you will not be able to use her at least for a bit. The fact that many voice actors are not returning also seems like a strong indicator of not featuring certain NPCs. I don't think his speculation is that far off.
One thing, is a dwarven skald even legal? Would a dwarven skald be able cast spells? This game is based in 2nd ed right and to my knowledge dwarfs can't cast arcane magic in 2n ed. So besides being a silly thing to ask for, is also an impossible thing to ask for. We have more than enough extra special snowflakes thank you very much, so I'm fine a drunk human instead of a drunk arcane spell casting dwarf.
One thing, is a dwarven skald even legal? Would a dwarven skald be able cast spells? This game is based in 2nd ed right and to my knowledge dwarfs can't cast arcane magic in 2n ed. So besides being a silly thing to ask for, is also an impossible thing to ask for. We have more than enough extra special snowflakes thank you very much, so I'm fine a drunk human instead of a drunk arcane spell casting dwarf.
I ...completly forgot about that.. But yeah, you are right, dwarves can't cast *any* arcane magic (...which strengthens my theory that DA:I is nothing more than a veiled "what if irenicus would have succeeded" =P) It would go beyond special snowflake. Another reason against dwarves: They are not really charismatic (shown through the charisma penality) and charisma is the main trait of the bard.
@SmilingSword Half-orcs can't be Paladins or Antipaladins or Blackguards. Minsc can't be a Ranger due to his low Wisdom. Neither of the former are a big deal nor is this one. You all forget that the Complete Book of Bards Introduced Demi-Bards for Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings. Dwarves had the Chanter Kit which introduced about 4 different songs, but forbade spellcasting and so on. Arcane casting dwarves should not be a big deal at all in Baldur's Gate.
Actually, there is a high probability that Minsc got his class totally legal. There was a huge blow on his head *before* he startet totalk to a certain hamster, so the blow could easily have addled his brain and thus reduced his wisdom 8and intelligence), perfectly legit RP. ^^
Dorn.. illegal class, can't explain that one aside from "the DM allowed it" ^^
But it is different in this case. Voghiln is a skald. In BG skalds are normal bards with a different song and less PP. But dwarves can't use magic (and are rather uncharismatic for the most part). he hasn't a special non-magic bard kit, he has a standart one and unless you also want to change the kit your argument about the demi-bards is moot.
@Arcanis: Supposedly, the lore behind the Blackguard kit should make it accessible to any race - all it takes is a pact with a fiend, after all. Dorn even tries to corrupt Mazzy. The only reason it's race-locked is because mechanically it's still a Paladin kit. Not sure the same could be said for skalds.
@shawne Yeah, that makes sense. Too bad they couldn't (or haven't) delocked it =/ Also.. just a lore question, wouldn't an evil god also be able to make you into a blackguard?
In my opinion, Voghiln's portrait was the best drawn from the four announced new NPCs. By it looks, it sure could be a great dwarf... But it could be a good viking too. I hadn't found him in BG2... Is it from a quest of Neera, Dorn or Rasaad? If he was already there, and if there he's a human, so I don't see a point in asking him for to be a dwarf. (I answered this thread before knowing that. And yes... By just his portrait, I thought he was a dwarf).
The script is already written and the voice actors probably have already recorded their part by this point. There is no chance beamdog would call for a rerecord.
@Fardragon There is no Blackguard in 2e. The closest thing is an antipaladin that appears in Dragon 39. It's unprecedented to have a kit of a class which reverses the requirements of the base class. Any Blackguard would really be it's own class like the antipaladin is. Beamdog likely made Blackguard a kit for ease of design.
Mazzy wanted to be a Paladin. If BG2 was designed for 3E, she totally would have been a Paladin! The only reason for that was designer wish to adhere to racial restriction rules. As a note too though, there were demi-paladins from the complete paladin's handbook, but they decided not to implement that in 2E.
At any rate, Half-Orc Blackguards are cool as are Dwarf Skalds. It's okay to have some minor exceptions for NPCs. Designers do it all the time. I recall a story about a 2e D&D developer who played a dwarf paladin in a campaign.
@vitor There is no need to redo voice work. Just cut any recorded lines referring to being a human.
@Fardragon I don't think they were. Can you give a reference?
Originally in Dragon, I think, reprinted in Unearthed Arcana as an NPC only class. Negative charisma was a feature. I don't have my 1st edition resources to check, but I had actually stopped playing DnD by the time 2nd edition was released (I moved on to Traveller, Golden Heroes, and FASA Star Trek) so I wouldn't remember it.
I realize I'm necro-ing this thread just ever so slightly, but here goes anyway. A couple of points:
1) This is one of the silliest requests I've seen yet on these boards. I'm 95% sure (and that's with my Int bonus) that the only reason this request was made was because Beamdog's artists decided to give Voghiln a big beard in his portrait. If Voghiln had been either clean-shaven, or had been given a non-Dwarf-like facial hair scheme, we wouldn't even be talking about this.
2) Some of you seem to not be very clear on 2nd edition AD&D rules. Allow me to clarify. In tabletop AD&D, Dwarves can never, ever, ever cast wizardly magic. Ever. Not even a little bit. Not even for funsies. It doesn't happen. This means that, necessarily, they can't be Bards, because Bards *do* cast wizardly magic. HOWEVER, as has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, the Complete Bard's Handbook introduced the concept of "Demi-Bards," which allowed the demihuman races traditionally devoid of Bard-dom (Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes and Halflings) to advance as members of this class using certain specific kits. The Dwarves had two kits they could use as Demi-Bards: the race-specific Dwarven Chanter, and the Skald. So, yes, Dwarf Skalds in AD&D were a thing. But it should also be noted that the tabletop Skald is very different from the BG Skald, in that the tabletop Skald doesn't begin play with magical ability (because, as the flavor text explains, a Skald comes from a society that "does not have a written language" [which is somewhat problematic if you use the Skald in a campaign that uses information presented in the Historical Reference handbook "Viking Campaign," which has rune magic that is *based* on having a written language, but I digress; whatever the justification, the Skald does not start with spellcasting ability, and this is the Dwarf's "in" to advancing with this kit in tabletop AD&D]).
3) As stated, the Anti-Paladin was first presented in DRAGON magazine # 39 (July 1980), and then re-printed in The Best of Dragon Magazine Vol. 2. This is the basis for the Blackguard kit in Baldur's Gate, and the Blackguard class in later iterations of D&D. It's not 100% accurate to say there were no Blackguards in 2nd edition AD&D, because "Blackguard" was actually one of the level titles for the Anti-Paladin class (5th level). Though, technically, the Anti-Paladin was a creation of 1st edition that never received the 2nd edition makeover, so it *might* be more accurate to say there were no Anti-Paladins in 2nd edition; but since the rules differences between 1st and 2nd editions were so slight that you could basically mix and match your gaming material at will, this is pretty negligible. Two things are worth noting when using the Anti-Paladin as any sort of precedent in Baldur's Gate. First, the Blackguard and the Anti-Paladin are pretty different mechanically; the BG Blackguard is a weird, evil Paladin kit (likely implemented this way to keep from having to add-in an entirely new class), and it has slightly different abilities (the Anti-Paladin's Lay On Hands ability does harm enemies, but it can't be used at range and doesn't heal the user like the Blackguard's drain does), although they do adhere to a similar theme. It's also worth noting that the Anti-Paladin class, as presented originally for 1st edition AD&D, is given as an NPC-only class; it was not designed with player characters in mind, rather it was built as something for DMs to use to create cool villains for their campaigns. Which leads nicely into what is my actual second major point: nowhere in the original 1st edition text presenting the Anti-Paladin is there ANYTHING resembling a race resstriction. (EDIT: the text *does* say the following: "... the Anti-Paladin represents everything that is mean, low and despicable in the human race." This *could* be read as a race restriction, but it is not given explicitly as such and could be interpreted more as a description of the Anti-Paladin's characteristics for roleplay purposes rather than as an expression of what races can and cannot follow this class) This is uncharacteristic of 1st and 2nd edition material, which often limited powerful classes to keep them out of the hands of non-human races, but since the class was designed as an NPC class this can be explained away as giving DMs latitude over their own campaigns. Or, it could merely have been an oversight on the part of the designers: we might read the text and be expected to understand that the Anti-Paladin was intended to be humans only, if only because they mirror paladins and have abilities similar to paladins. Regardless, according to the letter of the text, a Half-Orc Anti-Paladin (or a Half-Orc Blackguard) probably would not be so outlandish a thing, especially given that the Anti-Paladin is described as the sort of villain who frequently associates with orcs, goblins and other evil humanoids. (in other words, Dorn might not be the extra-special snowflake we all think he is)
4) In conclusion, rules-based justification for a Dwarf Skald is mixed. On the one hand, tabletop rules and lore allow for a "Dwarf Skald," but BG engine rules prohibit such a thing (and the implementation of the Skald in BG is very different from the tabletop version of the kit). But regardless of rules or tabletop limitations, you might still use Dorn as your precedent to suggest this can be fungible: if there's a good enough backstory backing it up, why not a Dwarf Skald? All of this pales, however, in light of the following: Voghiln is an ESTABLISHED character in the lore, and he is HUMAN. No, he is not a very tall dwarf who uses a human sprite. That's silly. Sure, it might be nice to have another Dwarf companion. But at the expense of ret-conning an established character, or even establishing the incredibly ridiculous precedent of saying that some Dwarves might be tall enough that you can use a human sprite for them? Even if that were true (and I'm not even going to bother putting effort into researching whether it's ever been done in any published D&D lore), a "tall dwarf" would not have human body proportions (dwarves are always described as being "stocky" and having "heavy" features compared with humans), and so a human sprite would not be appropriate for a trans-racial Voghiln. A better alternative for this discussion would be to suggest that a new dwarf companion be added to the game, but even that might be a bridge too far for SoD. As it is, Beamdog is probably in the finishing stages of developing the game content, and asking for a new NPC to be implemented would probably not be the most beneficial thing since it would likely delay release. (especially when you consider that they are probably also working simultaneously on implementing new SoD features into the larger Enhanced Edition family of games; giving us the Shaman kit for BG2 [and IWD?], and providing for the continuation of SoD NPCs into BG2 and ToB) Therefore, poll or no poll (and, based on the results, I think the community has spoken anyway), I don't think this is likely to change before SoD's release.
Ok, now when I think I'm ready to read through all these petitions that I've already heard of even without entering the Feature Requests forum section thanks to the Activity page and other sources, I'll start with this one.
To tell the truth, I've got used to the BGTweaks mod option that allows dwarves to be bards. I've got used to it so much that now I can't even imagine that there're no rights that allow this thing. I'm very much with @Grum on this: dwarves just look, just sound ale and song. Thus a skald is a 100% option -> this is my answer if you ask what do I think about dwarven bards.
But the thing is we're talking about an NPC in a game that has been in works since 2012. So more or less the concept of an NPC is already set. The thing that makes it even clearer is the fact that Voghiln has already been involved in the Beamdog product.
So, they simply cannot backtrack. Moreover, changing the NPC's race is a major decision that cannot go unnoticed by those people who created and improved the character as a concept and as someone who interacts with other characthers. Man, all Voghiln's dialogues should be different if he's to be a dwarf and not a human. I'm starting to think about dwarven activities, their views, their religion... And then special phrases, special comments. How can it all be changed on this stage of the game production?
It can't.
So even though I adore dwarven skalds, I'm absolutely sure that Voghiln's race should stay intact.
Some of you seem to not be very clear on 2nd edition AD&D rules. Allow me to clarify. In tabletop AD&D, Dwarves can never, ever, ever cast wizardly magic. Ever.
In fairness the game is based off of 2nd edition rules but it has never followed them to the letter. Just ask the mage duergar in Irenicus's lair
Comments
The only thing we know is that not all of the companions will be available *all* of the time.
Which is no surprise since we still need to end with the SoA starting party, since SoD is the bridge
between BG end and SoA start.
Let me put it another way, SoD's NPCs will be: Jaheira, Khalid, Minsc, Dynaheir, Safana, Dorn, Neera, Edwin, Baeloth, Viconia, Rasaad, Captain Schael Corwin, Voghiln the Vast, M'Khiin Groubdoubler, Glint Gardnersonson
That's
Half-Elves: 3
Humans: 7
Half-Orcs: 1
Drow: 2
Goblins: 1
Gnomes: 1
Wouldn't it be nicer as:
Half-Elves: 3
Humans: 6
Half-Orcs: 1
Drow: 2
Goblins: 1
Gnomes: 1
Dwarves: 1
Siege of Dragonspear is set out to be the first Baldur's Gate game with no Dwarf, no Halfling, and no (non-Drow) Elf companion.
As I mentioned before and you neglected to comment on: It would be nice since this game is the first Baldur's Gate game to visit a Dwarven locale that a Dwarven NPC is available to experience it there too.
You mentioned commonality of races. Well, Dwarves, Haflings, and (non-Drow) Elves are more common than Half-Elves and Drow and there's 3 and 2 companions of those respectively.
So, these points and the points made before point to a more diverse and more fun game with Voghiln the Vast as a Dwarf.
The problem I have with him is that human sprites don't have beards and gnome sprites always have beards (unless they're going to change that). Yet they make a human ZZ Top bard and a beardless male gnome.
So besides being a silly thing to ask for, is also an impossible thing to ask for.
We have more than enough extra special snowflakes thank you very much, so I'm fine a drunk human instead of a drunk arcane spell casting dwarf.
But yeah, you are right, dwarves can't cast *any* arcane magic (...which strengthens my theory that
DA:I is nothing more than a veiled "what if irenicus would have succeeded" =P)
It would go beyond special snowflake. Another reason against dwarves: They are not really charismatic
(shown through the charisma penality) and charisma is the main trait of the bard.
There was a huge blow on his head *before* he startet totalk to a certain hamster, so
the blow could easily have addled his brain and thus reduced his wisdom 8and intelligence),
perfectly legit RP. ^^
Dorn.. illegal class, can't explain that one aside from "the DM allowed it" ^^
But it is different in this case. Voghiln is a skald. In BG skalds are normal bards with a different song
and less PP. But dwarves can't use magic (and are rather uncharismatic for the most part).
he hasn't a special non-magic bard kit, he has a standart one and unless you also want to change the kit
your argument about the demi-bards is moot.
Also.. just a lore question, wouldn't an evil god also be able to make you into a blackguard?
Or you could eekeeper it without guilt.
Yes, I believe evil deities sometimes have blackguard servants.
The script is already written and the voice actors probably have already recorded their part by this point. There is no chance beamdog would call for a rerecord.
Mazzy wanted to be a Paladin. If BG2 was designed for 3E, she totally would have been a Paladin! The only reason for that was designer wish to adhere to racial restriction rules. As a note too though, there were demi-paladins from the complete paladin's handbook, but they decided not to implement that in 2E.
At any rate, Half-Orc Blackguards are cool as are Dwarf Skalds. It's okay to have some minor exceptions for NPCs. Designers do it all the time. I recall a story about a 2e D&D developer who played a dwarf paladin in a campaign.
@vitor There is no need to redo voice work. Just cut any recorded lines referring to being a human.
This thread is really making me wish they never would've removed the "disagree" and "moron" buttons.
1) This is one of the silliest requests I've seen yet on these boards. I'm 95% sure (and that's with my Int bonus) that the only reason this request was made was because Beamdog's artists decided to give Voghiln a big beard in his portrait. If Voghiln had been either clean-shaven, or had been given a non-Dwarf-like facial hair scheme, we wouldn't even be talking about this.
2) Some of you seem to not be very clear on 2nd edition AD&D rules. Allow me to clarify. In tabletop AD&D, Dwarves can never, ever, ever cast wizardly magic. Ever. Not even a little bit. Not even for funsies. It doesn't happen. This means that, necessarily, they can't be Bards, because Bards *do* cast wizardly magic. HOWEVER, as has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, the Complete Bard's Handbook introduced the concept of "Demi-Bards," which allowed the demihuman races traditionally devoid of Bard-dom (Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes and Halflings) to advance as members of this class using certain specific kits. The Dwarves had two kits they could use as Demi-Bards: the race-specific Dwarven Chanter, and the Skald. So, yes, Dwarf Skalds in AD&D were a thing. But it should also be noted that the tabletop Skald is very different from the BG Skald, in that the tabletop Skald doesn't begin play with magical ability (because, as the flavor text explains, a Skald comes from a society that "does not have a written language" [which is somewhat problematic if you use the Skald in a campaign that uses information presented in the Historical Reference handbook "Viking Campaign," which has rune magic that is *based* on having a written language, but I digress; whatever the justification, the Skald does not start with spellcasting ability, and this is the Dwarf's "in" to advancing with this kit in tabletop AD&D]).
3) As stated, the Anti-Paladin was first presented in DRAGON magazine # 39 (July 1980), and then re-printed in The Best of Dragon Magazine Vol. 2. This is the basis for the Blackguard kit in Baldur's Gate, and the Blackguard class in later iterations of D&D. It's not 100% accurate to say there were no Blackguards in 2nd edition AD&D, because "Blackguard" was actually one of the level titles for the Anti-Paladin class (5th level). Though, technically, the Anti-Paladin was a creation of 1st edition that never received the 2nd edition makeover, so it *might* be more accurate to say there were no Anti-Paladins in 2nd edition; but since the rules differences between 1st and 2nd editions were so slight that you could basically mix and match your gaming material at will, this is pretty negligible.
Two things are worth noting when using the Anti-Paladin as any sort of precedent in Baldur's Gate. First, the Blackguard and the Anti-Paladin are pretty different mechanically; the BG Blackguard is a weird, evil Paladin kit (likely implemented this way to keep from having to add-in an entirely new class), and it has slightly different abilities (the Anti-Paladin's Lay On Hands ability does harm enemies, but it can't be used at range and doesn't heal the user like the Blackguard's drain does), although they do adhere to a similar theme.
It's also worth noting that the Anti-Paladin class, as presented originally for 1st edition AD&D, is given as an NPC-only class; it was not designed with player characters in mind, rather it was built as something for DMs to use to create cool villains for their campaigns. Which leads nicely into what is my actual second major point: nowhere in the original 1st edition text presenting the Anti-Paladin is there ANYTHING resembling a race resstriction. (EDIT: the text *does* say the following: "... the Anti-Paladin represents everything that is mean, low and despicable in the human race." This *could* be read as a race restriction, but it is not given explicitly as such and could be interpreted more as a description of the Anti-Paladin's characteristics for roleplay purposes rather than as an expression of what races can and cannot follow this class) This is uncharacteristic of 1st and 2nd edition material, which often limited powerful classes to keep them out of the hands of non-human races, but since the class was designed as an NPC class this can be explained away as giving DMs latitude over their own campaigns. Or, it could merely have been an oversight on the part of the designers: we might read the text and be expected to understand that the Anti-Paladin was intended to be humans only, if only because they mirror paladins and have abilities similar to paladins. Regardless, according to the letter of the text, a Half-Orc Anti-Paladin (or a Half-Orc Blackguard) probably would not be so outlandish a thing, especially given that the Anti-Paladin is described as the sort of villain who frequently associates with orcs, goblins and other evil humanoids. (in other words, Dorn might not be the extra-special snowflake we all think he is)
4) In conclusion, rules-based justification for a Dwarf Skald is mixed. On the one hand, tabletop rules and lore allow for a "Dwarf Skald," but BG engine rules prohibit such a thing (and the implementation of the Skald in BG is very different from the tabletop version of the kit). But regardless of rules or tabletop limitations, you might still use Dorn as your precedent to suggest this can be fungible: if there's a good enough backstory backing it up, why not a Dwarf Skald?
All of this pales, however, in light of the following: Voghiln is an ESTABLISHED character in the lore, and he is HUMAN. No, he is not a very tall dwarf who uses a human sprite. That's silly.
Sure, it might be nice to have another Dwarf companion. But at the expense of ret-conning an established character, or even establishing the incredibly ridiculous precedent of saying that some Dwarves might be tall enough that you can use a human sprite for them? Even if that were true (and I'm not even going to bother putting effort into researching whether it's ever been done in any published D&D lore), a "tall dwarf" would not have human body proportions (dwarves are always described as being "stocky" and having "heavy" features compared with humans), and so a human sprite would not be appropriate for a trans-racial Voghiln.
A better alternative for this discussion would be to suggest that a new dwarf companion be added to the game, but even that might be a bridge too far for SoD. As it is, Beamdog is probably in the finishing stages of developing the game content, and asking for a new NPC to be implemented would probably not be the most beneficial thing since it would likely delay release. (especially when you consider that they are probably also working simultaneously on implementing new SoD features into the larger Enhanced Edition family of games; giving us the Shaman kit for BG2 [and IWD?], and providing for the continuation of SoD NPCs into BG2 and ToB)
Therefore, poll or no poll (and, based on the results, I think the community has spoken anyway), I don't think this is likely to change before SoD's release.
To tell the truth, I've got used to the BGTweaks mod option that allows dwarves to be bards. I've got used to it so much that now I can't even imagine that there're no rights that allow this thing. I'm very much with @Grum on this: dwarves just look, just sound ale and song. Thus a skald is a 100% option -> this is my answer if you ask what do I think about dwarven bards.
But the thing is we're talking about an NPC in a game that has been in works since 2012. So more or less the concept of an NPC is already set. The thing that makes it even clearer is the fact that Voghiln has already been involved in the Beamdog product.
So, they simply cannot backtrack. Moreover, changing the NPC's race is a major decision that cannot go unnoticed by those people who created and improved the character as a concept and as someone who interacts with other characthers. Man, all Voghiln's dialogues should be different if he's to be a dwarf and not a human. I'm starting to think about dwarven activities, their views, their religion... And then special phrases, special comments. How can it all be changed on this stage of the game production?
It can't.
So even though I adore dwarven skalds, I'm absolutely sure that Voghiln's race should stay intact.