How do you play evil in Baldur's Gate 2?
Zeckul
Member Posts: 1,036
It's a well-known fact that Baldur's Gate 2 heavily favors good actions over evil ones; evil alternatives to quests, when they exist, often mean tons of lost experience if not good items. For instance, in the Copper Coronet, if you kill Hendak for Lethinan, the Beastmaster won't appear afterwards, robbing you of the Tuigan Bow (3 shots per round), plus you lose the chance the complete the Slavers quest, about 36K XP per character, although you can still go there kill everyone if you're so inclined.
So how do you play evil in Baldur's Gate 2? Do you take the evil alternatives even when they're clearly inferior? How do you handle romances? What arbitrary acts of evil (murdering, thieving etc) do you commit while staying in the bounds of acceptable reputation? What does it mean to be evil to you and how do you rationalize your actions?
I'm curious to get everyone's opinions as I'm in the early stages of an evil LP of BG2, and I usually play this game with good characters.
So how do you play evil in Baldur's Gate 2? Do you take the evil alternatives even when they're clearly inferior? How do you handle romances? What arbitrary acts of evil (murdering, thieving etc) do you commit while staying in the bounds of acceptable reputation? What does it mean to be evil to you and how do you rationalize your actions?
I'm curious to get everyone's opinions as I'm in the early stages of an evil LP of BG2, and I usually play this game with good characters.
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Comments
You CAN'T roleplay effectively in Baldur's Gate. Never have been able to, so I don't bother. My character's concept is enough for me. The Bhaalspawn's story is inherently one of goodness. You don't really have the choice to end things in an evil manner unless that manner is just "HURRRR DIE."
I'm not going to fault the game for it, because I mean it was made when I was like 12 years old and the fact there's a lack of real moral ambiguity is one of the reasons future BioWare titles did a significantly better job of allowing you to play your guy how you want to play him and not get punished for it.
Oooohohohoho /moronic evil laugh
Or you could say that my character has a sixth sense and knows where the items and xp lie better
Even an evil person i guess would be screaming buttkicking for goodness if that was making him more powerful
That being said, it really depends on your actual alignment (lawful, neutral, or chaotic), how much you wish to stray from your alignment, and how much you wish to preserve some story elements.
Being lawful or neutral will play a big role in dialogue choices as well as who your enemies are and who you will tolerate as a "friend". All of which are "usually" your choice. While playing chaotic, the whims of your fancy determine who lives (if anyone) and who dies (usually everyone). Although, even as a chaotic-aligned character, if you play true you will still be choosey about whom you kill.
Aside from playing pure chaotic, I think it is assumed that you would preserve and explore most story elements and because you are "evil" you choose obvious evil lines of progression. For instance helping Bhodi as opposed to the Thieves Guild. Another example is whether you choose to use the slayer when things get tough. But to your specific examples, there are obviously opportunities missed in the writing of some (or more) side quest plots.
So to try and answer your question, when I play as an evil character, I don't worry about quest rewards in terms of experience or items because, really your choice to "be" evil is RP and making choices based on in-game rewards isn't (necesarily). When it comes to quests that don't give me an obviously evil aligned play style, I probably ignore them. That doesn't mean I wouldn't pick pocket a quest NPC while exploring a particular area or even fight them if they mouthed off to me.
Ultimately, if you are playing evil you will want to preserve storyline elements to ascend as the new god of murder. And if you're chaotic you will probably kill whatever you can that gets between you and your desires.
Cheers
Evil isn't always the easier path. More often than not it's the more "costly" path in BG2. You have to devise creative strategies for gaining the rewards you would otherwise get by following the good path. Also, you don't always have to pick every single evil path offered to you. Sometimes it might be in your best interest to follow a good path if it will bring a greater evil consequence (like your PC becoming the next Lord of Murder). Smart evil is not counterproductive evil. Stupid evil is doing evil without consideration for the longer term.
Generally your reputation will be your guide. If you're 12 or 13+, then you're not doing evil the right way in the game.
I might be an evil bastard who happens to hate slavers as well for instance.
But oh well.
I can still pretend i looked at them really scarily while i freed them ~_o
No, not on XP matters, i fully suffer the XP lose, but that's not a big deal if you know how to play, the right quests alone just on the begin of the game, can push you level fast and equal the level of whom join you later to be higher, too.
When i play Chaotic/Neutral Evil (and in some playthroughs in Lawful also), i cheat in gold, but i have a good reason for that, cos when i play evil, i'm roleplay that alignment to the core, so every playgame that i compromise myself to have 1 of reputation, i fill my gold quota with CLUAConsole:AddGold(""). With 1 of reputation, all merchants in the game raise their prices 10x.
Of course i don't do it with abuse, otherwise the game lost fun, i even take care to have always less than what i should have. I played this game (BG II in fact) in more than 100 gameplays (serious this) so i have more or less an base of how much prices are and how much gold i should have after some quests.
So, this is how i counter the BG II evil lack of content (or even BG II punishment for evil).
Besides the above, when i play evil i try to follow my alignment to the core, the most difficult are lawful evil alignment, cos sometimes i don't know if an behavior is lawful or if it's good, sometimes it's hard to know, but by other side a lawful evil character should have no problem with a high reputation, as reputation is also his respect among society, something lawful evil characters want.
I have more fun with chaotic evil, i make all the game quests in the evil way (firkgaark, Copper Coronet, Trademeet and Umar Hils), and also i try to always take the evil mini plots (overcharge Haer'Dalis for the gem, kill the gnome for the light jewel when he says that the gem is with him, kill some slaves in underdark among many others.
There's only one rule that i always follow when i play evil for low reputation: Only lose reputation through events, cos i face reputation loss as a reward.
It almost always boils down to:
"If you are good, then you save little Timmy from the well, than take him back to his mother, who will then give you a secret magic item that opens an entire new quest in an enchanted cave full of wonderous creatures and rewards.
If you are evil, you find little Timmy in the well, and drop an anvil on his head. Laugh."
There is almost never a really detailed and devious evil path, it's always just "kill everyone". If I play an evil character, I want to be the scheming evil mastermind rather than the dumb bully...
On the other hand a lot of games have the same type of quests for the good side, so it less of an issue.
(You are good? Than kill the evil orcs in the forest! You are evil? Than kill the good dwarves in the caves!)
She told Nalia she'd help her, but demanded to be paid upfront. Then she send Nalia to wait for her at the keep. Needless to say, she has no intention of going there anytime soon. What does she care if some servants and soldiers and stupid nobles get killed? If she ever gets around to clearing the keep, she will the take control of it and the first thing she'll do will be locking Nalia in a dungeon to make sure she doesn't make trouble for her.
She snubbed Anomen, but might recruit him later if she needs some cannon fodder.
She recruited Korgan and boy, was it a love at first sight. She's going to get herself this hunk of a dwarf, and to hell with the game's mechanics. Anyway, she took her party to Seven Dales Inn and hey, did you know that
When she encountered the poisoned harper, she just left him there to die of poison.
Doing the quests for Renal Bloodscalp she killed the deserter, killed the mage, and killed the guy with the documents. (I laughed manically at this point, because the dialog box said
Then I stopped playing for a while, but when I go back to it, I plan to:
Side with Bohdi an slaughter the thieves guild.
Recruit Keldorn and keep him just long enough to advise him to have his wife killed, then boot him out of the party so that he can be all alone with his grief.
Advise Trademeet to have Cernd executed (don't know if they will, but I'll advise that).
Definitely get the human skin armor. I might not use it, but I will have it.
In Umar Hills I'll turn into a slime (with sewer cloak) and kill all the chickens, steal the gem, then scare the peasants with stories of a mud monster eating their livestock.
Throw away the acorns, so that the dryads are trapped in the dungeon forever.
Recruit Valygar, then hand him over to the cowled mages. (If he resists, I'll kill him and use the body to enter the sphere).
Put Yoshimo's heart on the altar in my keep's chapel, so that he never gets peace in afterlife.
Side with Firkraag, kill the kid, steal the deed, leave Garren to live in misery, collect reward from Firkraag, then attack and kill him anyway and take his stuff.
There are also things Malica'd like to do, which aren't possible, like for example:
There. That's how I play evil in BG2. Do a lot of those choices cut me off from a ton of XP and items? Sure. Does it matter? Not really. There are many, many items in BG2. You'd never manage to use them ALL at once, and you end up selling most of them anyway, so you might just as well not get them and enjoy becoming an utter bastard for a while. :P
Edit :
OR EVEN BETTER!
The only reason I'd consider playing evil in BG2 is the human flesh armor. I still never actually crafted it, because I always ended up playing as a good guy and didn't have the nerve for killing a silver dragon right when major plot advancement is near.
I poison the druid grove instead of fighting Faldorn because I think it is justice to hold the druids accountable for their actions and do not think it is okay to let them get away with their frequent murderous raids on their neighbors. Apparantely that's an 'evil' option, so I lose reputation for doing it, but the difference in items and experience never seemed significant.
I also burn down all racist establishments and slaughter their inhabitants, such as the inn of the Seven Vales in Waukeen's Promenade, which refused to serve Viconia because she was a drow and the High Order of the Radiant Heart because Keldorn tried to murder Viconia because she was a drow. The Order also turned me off because they tried to kill me and my party in the Windspear Hills despite my civil response to them, just because they thought I was an ogre (as if good ogres are impossible) and then put a price on my head because I wouldn't grovel to Garren Windspear.
I also thought that justice would be served if I held the crowd accountable who were going to burn Viconia alive because she was a drow. I thought it fitting that they burn alive instead, so I killed them all with a fireball. Evidentally, that was also 'evil' and caused my reputation to go down drastically. Apparantly it is also 'evil' to travel with Viconia so my reputation went down 2 from that as well.
Lots of cowled enforcers and their henchmen harrassed me because of my low reputation and because I ignored their regulations and used magic in Athkatla. I killed everyone who came after me and eventually they stopped coming, at least due to the magical use.
I also sometimes do other evil options which I know are evil either because they are good sources of experience or because I think they are fun to try. Some examples are:
I kill every dragon I come across since they're a great source of experience. The silver dragon is considered a good character, but I usually kill her anyway so that my party can get the experience points. I also often kill Saladrex, who seems like a nice person, but as a dragon is worth a significant amount of XP. I also consistently kill Drizzt and his party and take their items and I sell them so that teleporting mage can't take them back.
In BG1 I once had an idea to kill as many Flaming Fist enforcers as I could and to collect their helmets as one could bandit scaps so that I could keep track of how many of them I had killed. I kept them in drawer in a house in Beregost. I killed so many that eventually it took about 5 minutes just to scroll through them all. I would keep killing Flaming Fist enforcers until I got so badly wounded that I couldn't fight on. Then I would go to the nearest church (which I usually fought very close to) and buy back my reputation, heal myself, resurrect any NPCs if needed, and then return to the fight. Since I had 6 million gold that game money wasn't really an issue when it came to buying back reputation.
Once in BG Tutu I imported my ToB PC in and re-created my ToB version of Viconia using Shadowkeeper so that I could get revenge against the people of Beregost for their mistreatment of Viconia that I had learned about through the romance dialogues. Ironically, she left me because I had managed to change her alignment to True Neutral, but my PC killed every single person in Beregost and all the Flaming Fist people who tried to stop me.
"Double cross Renal and attack him the moment he hands me my reward, just so I can take his stuff."
it's impossible to be done, on the first moment that you provoke hostility inside the thief stronghold, Arkanis will spawn and kill you in seconds, he's imortal there (i tested this with ctrl+y) and anything he hit is killed on the spot, no matter magical protections.
"Advise Trademeet to have Cernd executed (don't know if they will, but I'll advise that)"
Can't be done, no option for this, just poison the grove and be happy with it
"Throw away the acorns, so that the dryads are trapped in the dungeon forever."
Pure lost of XP, speak with the djinn in the pocket air plane inside irenicus dungeon before you speak with the dryads and you get a more neutral banter (trade the service for the djinn flask).
"Recruit Valygar, then hand him over to the cowled mages. (If he resists, I'll kill him and use the body to enter the sphere)."
Just kill him outright, if you take him to tolgerias alive, he will disappear when you speak with him, saying that you betrayed him, if you deliver the dead body to him, you can't enter the sphere. Even Korgan advice to you follow alternative more profitable patches.
You can't become a partner with Lenthian atm, neither deal in the astral prision, the most evil thing there would be give a fuck and do not enter the portal, but that would make you lose a lot of money, item and xp.
Faldorn does not deal with corrupters of the Land, much less with an unnatural aberration that's you, a spawn of Bhaal (she says that, just for you know). Besides, she's not evil, she's neutral (even in her radicalism) and there's nothing more evil than poison the land, don't you agree?
@Cheesebelly, before the patchs in the game, when you had an evil alignment was always possible to choose to trade the eggs for items with the Demon Lord, i believe this option was take off later with patches, but Valen mod, if valen is in the party make this option mandatory (and valen get an ubber bonus, and 2 magical items, instead of one that was lended to PC character in the original past option, the halberd).
@Communard, BG II discourage the play of evil characters, a single throw example doesn't change that, when the game does not punish you for be evil (in the evil quests) he force you in single patches. It's an defect, and i hope team BG to fix this one.
The urgent thing to be changed is how low reputation reflex on merchant prices, the game should make a U bonus, the far you get from 10/11 reputation, the less an item will cost. To solve the problem fully reputation must be reworked, but changing reputation to the way i suggested already solve most of evil problems.
In real life a lot of people choose to do evil things, because they are more profitable. Evil=/=psychopath.
Ideally an evil PC should be able to get different, but equally detailed solutions to most quests, it is just that these do not exist in BG2 (and most games for that matter).
And the merchant thing makes no sense. "Hey guys, here comes the incredibly powerful band of psychopatic murderers who killed everyone and their dogs in the neighboring village. Let's try to make them angry by selling them our shitty gear for an increased price!" I do not think that is how it would go down.
I don't think that a merchant would try to blind rob a full evil party aknowledge for their evil. If you don't want to equal the price bonus to 20 reputation, ok, but serious, if this was roleplay, i would either steal the item (but the woman that sells the robe can't be robbed) or i would extort, kidnap a relative, curse her or do something to get what i want. I don't have those options.
You can ask her to tone down the blood thirsty-ness but sometimes she still has to hunt.
I recommend her as a mod but especially if you want to play an evil character.
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As far as gold for evil parties, why use the CLUAConsole when you can just steal from everyone and sell it to the thieves guild? If you really want to boost your gold, then just steal if from the guild and sell it back to them. I personally prefer to abuse a game mechanic than resorting to the CLUAConsole for anything but fixing bugs. As an evil party heading into the underdark, you could also donate to the b**** queen before you leave Brynnlaw to make prices more manageable if you so desire.
It had well tought out, complex quest paths and a lot of fun opportunities. Sadly it also had huge balance issues, and if you played a spellcaster every fight got trivial after a few levels...it would be a great target for an "enchancement".
I was especially happy with the evil option in the Hell trials that resulted in +2 to my strength bonus, alongside Blackrazor, aaaaand another wooping +2 to constitution
I've played entire games with my reputation hovering around 1. Everything costs at least 10 times more than it normally would, not just powerful items. Sure, the guards are called, but they won't necessarily survive their encounter with my party and I may still want to buy new items. If it costs 30,000 or more gold for even just a relatively weak spell scroll, it presents a serious problem. It also doesn't make sense for the merchants to insist on so blatantly gouging me after they just witnessed me annhilating the cowled henchmen they called.
By the way i totally agree with you about Valen mod, one of the best mods i played in BG II, play with her and Kindred Mod, and you probally finish killing half of the game NPCs
@Communard, with 1 of reputation i am attacked all the times, i kill thousand of guards just by walk in the city, after that or a merchant is ververy confident or he's very stupid, In roleplay terms i could kill him at take his items, but engine doesn't allow me to do this.
Evil merchants should not care about what i do, Iron Throne is the best and most precise example of what i'm saying, they want money, and if i have it they want to trade with me. Another example, is that even if i poison the grove in BG II to save Trademeet, the merchants will aknowledge me yet as an hero, the guild master for example will say that the mayor is enraged with me but she doesn't care cos i saved business, therefore i'm a hero for her and she give me all the reward for the Djinn quest. Lawful evil merchants can be displeased by chaotic behavior, but not by evil behavior.
In Ush Natha specifically, we SHOULD NOT receive any bonus or penality from reputation, we're disguised there after all.
I agree with your last statement, that we should have free access to the merchant wares if we kill him, but that would be a lot overpowered. So, if the engine is too limited to work this, the engine shoudn't give me the villian makeup prices. The steal option to all merchants is the one that make most sense as a immediate solution for the problem, but that doesn't solve the roleplay problem.
I'm evil, the guards can't stop me, so make up all the prices is an invite for a quick death, i suggest if not a U equation starting from 10/11 (if the devs do not agree with me in this), a radical limit discount. What i mean is, if i have 3-8 reputation, i get penalities, but with 2 or 1 reputation, i should get a discount, i'm not famous, i'm infamous and obvious dangerous also.
Another suggestion to work with the previous, is a control of Reputation by Charisma, starting from 10 to 18. Each point above 10 in charisma should add a reputation tolerance for low reputation, so if i have 13 in the 3 points above 10 give me 3 low reputations points of tolerance, 9 (1), 8 (2), 7 (3), so in this situation, 7 in reputation shouldn't penality with any make up.
Radical reputation positions should be respected in the game, so 1/2 or 19/20 should always direct for discounts
Ps: the guards should become a lot stronger than they are at the moment, and they should be the only hostile NPCs to level with the party, to maintain a mechanic control, after all if you want to be evil you have to deal with the consequences.
my only exception is that if (as an assassin) i'm hired to do a job, i do it, because to renege on it would damage my reputation as a contract worker. however should i feel that the reward to shaft my employer outweighs the incentives to fulfil the contract i'll shaft every time.
he was mostly motivated by greed and gold, but also was also lazy and preferred to take the easier option even for less reward; would only kill when paid to or when attacked or insulted (he kills for gold, so why ever kill for free?), so if faced by a superior looking group (think the a-holes from den of the 7 veils), he'll remember oh yes and he'll be back...