NPCs in SoD: What we know so far.

miker60

I'd like to use this thread to discuss what we know so far about the returning NPCs and new NPCs in SoD. I'll also provide some comments and thoughts about NPCs I'd like to see carried from BGEE into SoD and given the "enhanced" treatment to flesh out their personalities.

THE NEW NPCs
We can infer the following from the description of the new NPCs:

M'Khiin is a goblin shaman. On top of being a newly playable class this is a newly playable race as well. I'd be a little surprised if M'Khiin wasn't neutral to maximize the ability for everyone to give the new class a try no matter what alignment their BG1 play through had been. She is however, the most obvious choice to be an evil NPC of the new characters.

Captain Schael Corwin appears human. (I don't recall seeing any non-human members of the Flaming Fist.) She is described as a "deadshot archer". I'd imagine she is either an Archer (Ranger kit) or a Fighter with proficiency points placed into bow skills. Not sure about alignment but the description text seems to point to her leaning towards good or neutral good.

Voghiln appears to also be a human. He is a Skald (bard kit). Bards have to be neutral in alignment.

Glint is a gnome. Based on his description text he appears to be a cleric/rogue. Baravar Cloakshadow is a god of neutral good alignment, this may provide a clue into Glint's alignment.

My thoughts: None of the new NPC's leap out as being evil in alignment. M'khiin is the most likely candidate to be evil, but I've described above the reason I'm guessing she is neutral. With a skald, shaman, and very possibly an archer we have NPCs in 3 new kits/classes. Glint appears to be a good cleric/thief (an inverse of BG1's Tiax)

ROMANCES/CARRY OVER INTO BG2EE
I'm interested to see which, if any, of the new NPCs has a romance built in. My 2 most likely candidates would be Schael and Glint as eligible for a romance. I truly hope Beamdog finds a way to work these 4 new characters in to BG2EE (or bring their story to an appropriate end in SoD).

I don't recall hearing whether the BGEE romances will continue into SoD but I find it unlikely there will be no acknowledgment/continuation if you have started a romance with Dorn, Rasaad or Neera. On the other hand I think it would be premature for Beamdog to start an artificial beginning to either the Viconia or Jaheira romance.


NUMBER OF NPCs
Right now we know of at least 16 NPCs for SoD: the 4 new NPCs (Captain Corwin, Voghiln, M'Khiin, and Glint) 4 returning Enhanced Edition NPCs (Dorn, Neera, Rasaad, Baeloth) and 8 NPCs from the original BG who will continue to accompany you at some point on your SoD quest (Khalid, Jaheira, Minsc, Dynaheir, Imoen, Edwin, Viconia, Safana).

It will be interesting to see how Beamdog fleshes out Safana and her personality since she appears destined for more "screen time" in SoD and we know of her ultimate betrayal in BG2. I'd also like to see how a player character/Dynaheir/Minsc triangle plays out.

BGEE has 29 playable NPCs. BG2EE has 21.

Its safe to say there is room for a few more NPCs in SoD. There are plenty of interesting NPCs from BG who would benefit from an enhanced treatment and SoD would be a good opportunity to give them some personality.
In addition to giving Dynaheir and Khalid a chance to shine before their ultimate fate at the beginning of BG2 I am going to nominate 2 characters of each alignment type I'd like to see Beamdog make playable in SoD and given they depth of a BG2 NPC.

Good: Coran and Adjantis. Both are interesting characters and Adjantis' tragic fate would be made more poignant if you travelled with him more/got to know him better (and a total tragedy if he was romance-able in SoD). Coran, on the other hand, ends up traveling with Safana during BG2 and if she is going to get additional screen time this would be a good opportunity to flesh out his character some more as well.
Neutral: Branwen and Faldorn. Branwen is a complete blank slate for the developers to have fun with. She could be given a proper kit and would make a good possibility as a romance. Faldorn plays an interesting cameo role in BG2 and giving her more "screen time" in SoD would add gravitas to that situation.
Evil: Shar Teel and Tiax: Shar Teel's personality and recruitment duel always stuck out to me even though BG1 NPC's were flesh out to a far slimmer degree than in BG2. Tiax seems to be the kind of character that a game designer would have lots of fun scripting for. He show up again in BG2 so including him for expansion would be welcome.

shawne

miker60 said:

M'Khiin is a goblin shaman. On top of being a newly playable class this is a newly playable race as well. I'd be a little surprised if M'Khiin wasn't neutral to maximize the ability for everyone to give the new class a try no matter what alignment their BG1 play through had been. She is however, the most obvious choice to be an evil NPC of the new characters.

Dorn was the first blackguard NPC, though. It might be more accurate to say that the Shaman class will probably have some flexibility in alignment restrictions - that doesn't necessarily mean that M'Khiin has to be Neutral as well.

Fardragon

As a member of the Flaming Fist we can be fairly confident Corwin is lawful.

If they are following 3.5 Shamen are probably restricted to part-neutral alignments (like bards). I suspect the goblin is CN or NE.

We know Voghiln is NG from BP2.

I'm pretty confident Branwen will not be among the NPCs that will acompany the PC. She would have been a far more appropiate choice for the canon neutral party than Dorn if she was included. The presence of Safana in most of the parties shown seen so far suggests Coran isn't included. His presence would undermine Corwin's claim to be a deadshot archer.

Remember this is a Beamdog game, so they are likely to put Beamdog characters front and centre.

Gallowglass

Agreed, @Fardragon.

I'm really quite uncomfortable with Dorn as a member of the canon Neutral party, it doesn't seem appropriate for such a hardcore-Evil guy. A Good or Neutral party might co-operate with him temporarily for tactical reasons, and a player might sometimes choose to include him in as a long-term member of a Neutral (or perhaps even Good) party for some particular role-playing reason (and indeed I've done that once), but as a default for Neutral he's not very plausible.

This suggests to me that none of the more natural choices for canon Neutral are available in SoD.

shawne

I don't know, it seems simple enough to justify in the context of the story - Dorn's patron wants the Shining Lady stopped, and Dorn's willing to work with you to achieve that goal. SoD takes place before Ur-Gothoz starts cranking up the dial, so Neutral parties shouldn't have too much of a problem.

Besides, we're talking default starting parties here - you can probably drop Dorn for Corwin before the campaign even really begins.

Fardragon

There are certain doors under Dragonspear that Ur-Gothoz might want to ensure aren't disturbed. Dorn being involved isn't really a problem. He is just a stylistically very odd choice for inclusion in a neutral party to finish BG1 with, even if they have good reason for recruting him for the trip to Dragonspear.

One has to conclude that no better choices(Branwyn, Kivan, Kagen, Faldorn, Garrick) where available.

shawne

Fardragon said:

One has to conclude that no better choices(Branwyn, Kivan, Kagen, Faldorn, Garrick) where available.

None of those are really suited for melee combat besides Kagain, and it'd probably be more of a stretch to explain his presence than Dorn's - his sole defining character trait is greed, and he's not likely to just abandon his shop in Beregost and go running around in the North...

Fardragon

Branwyn and Kivan are both competent in melee. And we aren't talking about running around in the north, we are talking about who you finish BG1 with.

I'm sure you will be able to recruit all the SoD-significant BG1 NPCs around the city, even if they weren't in your final party (even if you have never met them before).

Davide

At 1:16:40 of the video on Twitch, you can see on the Journal the title of a quest involving Skie. I guess that she'll be there too.

shawne

Davide said:

At 1:16:40 of the video on Twitch, you can see on the Journal the title of a quest involving Skie. I guess that she'll be there too.

More likely she inherited her father's title and took his place among the Grand Dukes - hence "Skie's Grand Plan"...

miker60

shawne said:

Dorn was the first blackguard NPC, though. It might be more accurate to say that the Shaman class will probably have some flexibility in alignment restrictions - that doesn't necessarily mean that M'Khiin has to be Neutral as well.

You are absolutely right that I'm engaging in pure speculation abut M'Khiin being neutral. I simply laid out the best reasoning I had for why I thought they might make the only Shaman NPC neutral. Won't be stunned to find out she is evil (I am going to have both a good and evil player character ready to run through SoD at launch).

The Dorn comparison is reasonable except the blackguard class has to be evil so there really isn't an option. They also clearly designed Dorn and Hexxat to answer a niggling players complaint from BG2 that a purely evil party didn't have as many NPC options as a good party. Dorn gives an evil player someone equivalent to Keldorn to recruit with the need to tiptoe around your reputation points.


Regarding Dorn in the neutral party: I wasn't very concerned about him being included. As others have said, I imagine you'll be pretty free to recruit and customize your own party fairly quickly in SoD after a story driven first dungeon where Beamdog wanted a little more narrative railroading to script out the beginning of your journey (just like in BG2).
Plus, neutral doesn't necessarily mean all neutral characters, but rather a balancing act of good and evil.

Davide

shawne said:

Davide said:

At 1:16:40 of the video on Twitch, you can see on the Journal the title of a quest involving Skie. I guess that she'll be there too.

More likely she inherited her father's title and took his place among the Grand Dukes - hence "Skie's Grand Plan"...

That might be, even if few minutes before, during the Prologue, there was no such an entry in the Journal, as if Skie's quest were acquired between that moment and Chapter Three. Anyway, considering that the game is in Alpha, many things might still need to be adjusted and what I observed might not mean a lot.

Gallowglass

Davide said:

At 1:16:40 of the video on Twitch, you can see on the Journal the title of a quest involving Skie. I guess that she'll be there too.

There's somewhere else in the announcement video (I can't find it now) where you can actually see the content of the "Skie's Grand Plan" journal entry. I can't recall it precisely, but it was something to do with finding something in the new Dragonspear locations.

The presence of this journal does imply that we've at least met Skie earlier in the game, but quite possibly she'll now be a quest-giver rather than a recruitable NPC.

shawne said:

More likely she inherited her father's title and took his place among the Grand Dukes - hence "Skie's Grand Plan"...

I doubt that. The titles aren't heritable, they're elective. Theoretically the enfranchised nobility could suddenly have elected Skie, but that's not very plausible because there's no indication that she has ever had any interest or engagement in the politics of the city, instead she has recently ran away from that life rather than embracing it, and she has had only two weeks between BG1ee and SoD to change this.

More likely, at the start of SoD, the duchy is still vacant pending a new election. I suppose it's possible that the reason we'll be given for her becoming unavailable is that she now intends to start an election campaign to succeed her father, but it'll take some good writing to make that sound convincing.

Gallowglass

miker60 said:

Plus, neutral doesn't necessarily mean all neutral characters, but rather a balancing act of good and evil.

True, and with Good-aligned Khalid included (because he goes with Jaheira), there's certainly room for an Evil character ... but while some of the milder Evil characters can fit into a Neutral party quite comfortably, Dorn is more insistently Evil. For example, I agree that it makes sense for Kagain to leave after BG1ee to go mind his shop, but if he were still available (sold his shop, say) then he'd look plausible in the canon Neutral party because he's simply greedy and unscrupulous, not revelling in mass murder like Dorn.

Fardragon

The thing with Skie is I would see her as a better thief for good parties than Safana, who has definite leanings towards evil. Of course, to finish BG1 with her, you probably have Eldoth as well. It would be nice to hear that she dumped him in SoD, and he is rotting in the Baldur's Gate dungeon.

Aramintai

Gallowglass said:

he'd look plausible in the canon Neutral party because he's simply greedy and unscrupulous

That just sounds like another sort of evil, which he is. Not every evil character has chaotic evil alignment, you know.

Buttercheese

miker60 said:

Glint is a gnome. Based on his description text he appears to be a cleric/rogue. Baravar Cloakshadow is a god of neutral good alignment, this may provide a clue into Glint's alignment.

I actually once played a character with the same set-up in a multiplayer game with a friend (where his char was protagonist and mine was de-facto an NPC companion) o.o

Winterisle

One question: I see that Glint doesn't have a beard, which is pretty unusual because gnomes un BG usually do. Will his paper doll be bearded or will he use a halfling one?

Funny enough, right now I'm going through BGEE with a true neutral cleric/thief multiclass gnome...

Davide

Gallowglass said:

Davide said:

At 1:16:40 of the video on Twitch, you can see on the Journal the title of a quest involving Skie. I guess that she'll be there too.

There's somewhere else in the announcement video (I can't find it now) where you can actually see the content of the "Skie's Grand Plan" journal entry. I can't recall it precisely, but it was something to do with finding something in the new Dragonspear locations.

The presence of this journal does imply that we've at least met Skie earlier in the game, but quite possibly she'll now be a quest-giver rather than a recruitable NPC.

Yeah, I didn't come back to report this, but I saw too, afterwards, the full content of the Journal entry; it says something like she escaped from some camp or site.
In any case, it doesn't clarify whether she is a recruitable NPC or not. She might be just a quest-giver, as you wrote.

Vitor

Are the old NPCs voice actors of BG1 returning for this installment? I think it would be splendid to have the voice actors of Minsc, Jaheira, Edwin, Imoen, Viconia, etc.

I know that Dorn and the other new characters will have voice actors for this new chapter, but it wouldn't be nice to play with the old original characters that we love all muted for the whole game.

Arcanis

We know for sure that Minscs voice actor has been casted, but no other names are announced yet.
Beamdog did admit that they have tried to get as many of the original voice cast back as possible, so yeah, I
think there are some good chances of other familiar voices

Vitor

NUMBER OF NPCs: 33

I've just watched the live Q&A, and it's official that all NPCs from BG1:EE will be in Siege of Dragonspear. At some point one of the designers said that we can import our entire party from BG1 to SoD. So, it's confirmed. If you have Skie or Faldorn in your team, they'll come with you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqeX7eMLZAc

My main concern now is if the original voice actors will all be returning for this installment. I love the fact that Minsc's voice actor is returning, but what about the others? Playing with muted NPCs isn't as funny as playing with all that vivid group of heroes that makes Baldur's Gate the best RPG of all time.

I guess I'd even prefere to limit my party to just the NPCs that would be casted. Even recasting is not a totally bad option. I understand that arranging contracts for all those people that worked in the original title almost two decades ago could be hard... It's the ideal, but sometimes it's not just possible. So, recasting some NPCs still is a better move then letting them muted.

Another option would be to just not bring to this expansion the characters that couldn't be cast. I personaly think it's a best option then muted NPCs...

Fardragon

Yes, we know you can import any of the original NPCs. But for many of them, it will probably jut be to say goodbye. They couldn't fully develop 30+ NPCs for BG2, when they had up to ten times as many people working on the project, they sure aint going to be able to do it now.

Arcanis

Fardragon said:

Yes, we know you can import any of the original NPCs. But for many of them, it will probably jut be to say goodbye. They couldn't fully develop 30+ NPCs for BG2, when they had up to ten times as many people working on the project, they sure aint going to be able to do it now.

Well, BG2 is thrice as long as SoD, so it is kinda hard to compare.
And considering the Skie quest -a rarely used character- they seem to at least try to give npcs more depth.
But before we turn this into another discussion, we should wait till we actually know more, since currently
all we have are a couple of random screenshots, a vague statement, probability and personal opinions.

For the record: I think we will be able to use everyone in some capacity and they will leave/be unavailable
only in the later (or even last) chapters and for good reasons. There *may* be points were you can't use
them, but will be able to take them with you at a later point.

Fardragon

The thing with party members is if you want them to interact with each other, the amount of work increases parabolicly (proportional to n squared). Or, to put it another way, the more companions you have, the more work it is to add an additional interactive companion.

That doesn't apply if the NPC isn't a party member. They just have a fixed amount of dialogue with the PC only.

Arcanis

We will have to wait and see I guess.
I have realized that I get too worked up in this kind of discussions
maybe i'm overly optimistic, maybe Beamdog has found a solution (like.. increasing the number of npcs that
won't work together or so..).

Fardragon

There is kind of a way round it, at least for some. That is to provide some kind of in-game clue that certain NPCs won't have anything additional to say, but will come along if you insist.

For example, if you import a party that includes Kagain:

Kagain: "Well, I'll be gettin' back to my shop."
CHARNAME: "You are handy to have around, will you stay for this sack of 50,000 gold pieces?"
Kagain: "Sure, but don't expect me to be holding your hand this time."

Another hint could be for the conversation to be text only, rather than voiced.

Arcanis

Fardragon said:

There is kind of a way round it, at least for some. That is to provide some kind of in-game clue that certain NPCs won't have anything additional to say, but will come along if you insist.

For example, if you import a party that includes Kagain:

Kagain: "Well, I'll be gettin' back to my shop."
CHARNAME: "You are handy to have around, will you stay for this sack of 50,000 gold pieces?"
Kagain: "Sure, but don't expect me to be holding your hand this time."

Another hint could be for the conversation to be text only, rather than voiced.

Mhm, that does sound like a good idea. A renewal of motivation would also make sense characterwise..
since -to stay with your example- Kagain has little reason to follow you around just out of the goodness
of his heart..

miker60

And its is a great opportunity to expand the characters personalities and given them more I socialized motivations and a storyline that could be drawn to a conclusion in the end of SoD.

Nachtwache

Do we know what old BGI characters are getting a little more depth in terms of personal quest and/or dialog (except for Skie)? I always wanted to here more about the evil and mad Tiax and Xzar.

Arcanis

@Nachtwache
I always saw the quest about Skie running away as a personal quest that would allow us to learn more about her. ^^