Lawful Evil Sorcerer

Solmage

Hi everyone! For some reason I never registered before, been a lurker for a long time, but now I had a question:

If I wanted to solo as a cheesy lawful evil sorcerer with the insanely overpowered self poly mephit, is there any way to change alignment in bgee OR bg2ee to something good? I have a poor stomach for evil alignments but a lvl 4 spell like that on a class starved for spell variety is just to crazy to (easily) ignore.

I faintly recall a helmet of opposite alignment but being a helmet I'm pretty sure sorcs can't use it?

Would the hell trials switch my alignment to good in bg2?

(Since its possible the answer may be .."just mod it..")
I own the enhanced editions on iPad and I LOVE them to pieces, to the point I can't bring myself to play on the PC anymore. My greatest regret is that apparently we can't add mods without jail breaking, right?

Ammar

Not certain if it is true anymore, but I tried cheating with alignment (EEkeepering it) to get a specific familiar in the past and it did not work well.

I think it turned to the correct (current) alignment familiar whenever I released it from the backpack.

Changing alignment legally in game could plausibly have a similar effect.

Solmage

Well, I don't mind losing the familiar once I change to chaotic good or lawful good or whatever good, since it's only stupid-powerful in bgee, not so much in bg2. I mean if the chaotic good fam still had the invis 10' I'd totally use that, but since it was nerfed the only powerful familiar left is lawful evil.

I want a familiar, one I don't keep in my backpack 99% of bg . mirror image is nice and all, but it's still only one lucky crit from costing me a permanent con point, and I am REALLY fond of playing without reloads. And even then, it's only one cast.

(People always complain how easy the game is and then you ask them how many times they reloaded when an unlucky crit chunked them, or got held by an unlucky save or or or..)

I don't mind legal cheese: I won't re-import a char or cheat, but I have no issues using existing mechanics to do no-reloads.

Lorandar

I'm playing without mods on an iPad as well, and wouldn't know how to pull this off.
On the other hand, why not just roll the lawful evil character, and stick to it durinig the whole saga? It's not like your main evil character will leave the party due to high reputation in case you wish to select the 'good' options during gameplay. So aside from the visual label 'lawful evil' on your character sheet, nothing is forcing you to actually play evil.
Just my two cents...

Solmage

Thanks for the comments. Not wanting to spoiler anything but I think at the end of tob what alignment you are has an effect on how it all ends? Or was it only based on your choices? Last time I finished the game was the year it came out so my memory is kinda foggy, lol.

FinnTheHuman

With ToB you get to choose. But you'll always know that you chose to give up the taint because your character really just wanted to get back to killin everything in Faeruun.

OTOH, there are some options that will be available to you because of allignment, Firkraag, has one iirc. I'm not sure about any quests which will be unavailable because of alignment, but probably.

Solmage

Thanks so much for all the replies!

Ugh, the more I think about it, the more I may just end up having to bite the non-power gaming bullet and not get an useful familiar, ah well. Would have been interesting, but then I really suck at being evil. I feel bad when I try, ^_^ lol.

alceryes

Changing alignment with a familiar in tow in BG is a no-no.
Not sure if buggy or a limitation of the game engine but all sorts of weirdness can happen. You can lose your familiar (as in it just disappears) when putting in or taking out of your pack. AND you will be unable to summon another because the game still thinks you have one.
It also DOESN'T always happen right away. I had a cheesy C/M that I was solo'ing BG with. I changed my alignment early in chapter 2 and my familiar booked in chapter 3! Talk about a pissed off C/M (and player)!!!

DevardKrown

Especially as a Sorcerer don't go Lawful Evil just for the IMP...as Sorc you don't wanna pick find Familiar since it would just waste a Spell slot, so you have to do at least nashkel mines to get the Scroll. at which point the Familiar already lost much of his appeal and is too fragile to keep out, and once you just stuff him in your Backpack you will miss those couple extra HP other familiars give.

and changing alignment will just plain mess up your Familiar ..

on a site note , nobody says you cant make a Lawful Evil char and just be a goody two shoes , i have yet to see any game restrictions from your alignment being good or Evil.

AlexeiVD

Question: what is the purpose of and benefit from having familiar? Though I've played BG plenty of times, just recently begun as mage, found the scroll in Nashkel, summoned pseudo-dragon... And found it absolutely meaningless: low HP, just 1 useless spell, no script / behavior assignment, purely manual pet management ...
Or I'm just not getting something important about it? in BG-II there is a mage with familiar in the Bridge district and that creature (Puke, afaik) is a pretty good magic fighter... is there a way to get similar one?

Solmage

The lawful evil one can polymorph. It can become a bear (3 attacks , 18/00 strength, permanent hasted) , a sword spider (5 attacks) , immunity to web, or a mustard jelly (immunity to normal weapons, immunity to magic)

The chaotic good dragon used to have invisibility 10' radius, which made it in its own way just as powerful (arguably more so) in bg1, but it was nerfed.

As they are right now, only the LE one isn't a walking liability, best kept in your backpack, although if soloing the neutral and evil ones are slightly more useful. In addition to the crazy op lawful evil mephit:

Ferret (lawful neutral) 50% pick pockets, 20% find traps (should be enough to pick pocket algernon's cloak)

Rabbit (neutral) 40% find traps.

Quasit (chaotic evil) can end many bg1 encounters with horror. Can be ended by most encounters with 1 arrow, so needs a lot of micro to stay outside range until needed, cast, run out.

Frankly if they nerfed how many hit points you got from them, but left their hps at 20ish AND made them immune to crits, they could survive (a bit) outside a backpack. I preferred familiars in nwn (hi Panther!) even if it was grossly overpowered, it was FUN.

I might just go with lawful neutral or something like that, and wait until I get the scroll. Or just lawful good and roll the dice until lvl 2 (he only needs to survive until sleep hits) , then into the backpack he goes.

DevardKrown

AlexeiVD said:

Question: what is the purpose of and benefit from having familiar? Though I've played BG plenty of times, just recently begun as mage, found the scroll in Nashkel, summoned pseudo-dragon... And found it absolutely meaningless: low HP, just 1 useless spell, no script / behavior assignment, purely manual pet management ...
Or I'm just not getting something important about it? in BG-II there is a mage with familiar in the Bridge district and that creature (Puke, afaik) is a pretty good magic fighter... is there a way to get similar one?

Main reason to have one is Bonus HP, you will get Half your Familiars HP added to your own in BG1 that's 6 Free HP (4 for Lawful evil! only exception)
in BG2 its 12HP (9 for Lawful evil)
and in TOB its 24 (this time for everyone yay)

you can talk to your Familiar and stuff him in your Backpack , he will Occupy a slot but not being in risks of getting MURDERED! which is bad because that removes the Bonus HP , hurts you for another 10ish damage and removes 1 point Constitution FOREVER !


the second reason to have a Familiar are their Skills..some have things like Invisibility 10' Radius, the imp has one of the Strongest ..LvL5 Spell Polymorph self , allowing him to become magic immune and soak up otherwise deadly stuff..(that's why he has a hit to his max hp because that's very strong early on!) or turning into a HASTED Spider/Gnoll with a flame Halberd dishing out damage left and right.

they also have some flavor Conversations that changes in every Chapter ("you got any advice for me ?" option) The Good ones share one conversation set so do the Neutral and Evil ones.

AlexeiVD

2 DevardKrown:
Thanks a lot!

Solmage

Hey guys, just an update, went with chaotic good sorc, but also started a lawful evil Elven F/M/T - both are really fun to play! Thnx for all the advice so far.

dac0152

Familiar checks for taking in and out of your pack are based on the Law/Chaos axis. So if you wanted the lawful evil familiar, you would create a character as lawful evil and cast find familiar. Then you could EEKeeper your CHARNAME to either lawful neutral or lawful good and keep your familiar normally. If it dies and you have to cast Find Familiar again then you'd need to repeat the process.

If you change your alignment off the Law/Chaos axis, weird things will happen like the wrong familiar showing up in your pack or it disappearing upon release. Hope that helps.

DevardKrown

dac0152 said:

Familiar checks for taking in and out of your pack are based on the Law/Chaos axis. So if you wanted the lawful evil familiar, you would create a character as lawful evil and cast find familiar. Then you could EEKeeper your CHARNAME to either lawful neutral or lawful good and keep your familiar normally. If it dies and you have to cast Find Familiar again then you'd need to repeat the process.

If you change your alignment off the Law/Chaos axis, weird things will happen like the wrong familiar showing up in your pack or it disappearing upon release. Hope that helps.

now that is super interesting and i didn't know that, always had a thing for the Pseudo dragon but also the lawful evil alignment since its just me in games

have to test that

Solmage

Wow, new nugget of knowledge. Now we just need a shadow keeper for iPad