Druid alignment

ilduderino

My biggest beef with BG when I played it 20 or so years ago arose on my first playthrough, when took the characters you probably would do if it was real. Imoen was a shoe in as my childhood friend who was now homeless too and then I sought out Gorion's buddies Jaheira and Khalid as advised. I adventured a while with Minsc and Dynaheir too until I bumped into Yeslick, who became my BFF after Imoen. This led to a big dilemma and I couldn't bring myself to ditch Gorion's best buddies and so gave my Rashemi chums the boot. I picked up Ajantis and headed off to Baldurs Gate. At which point my alignment was 20. And Jaheira moaned on ... And on ... And on. Every two seconds bitching about my leadership and being too good. Thanks a lot, great job standing in for Gorion there Jaz. Talk about wicked stepmother. So I ditched her, ran back and got Minsc and Dynaheir and never looked back. It felt kind of hollow though. Jaheira is a Harper, was a buddy to Gorion and Elminster and is basically a do gooder. Why is she moaning on all the time when I'm doing good then? Why isn't she neutral good? Druid alignment makes no sense. Faldorn is more in the true neutral, maybe even neutral evil camp. This thing all messed up, yo. Jaheira should be neutral good in both games.

JumboWheat01

2nd Edition Dungeons and Dragons, my one-block-of-text friend. 2nd Edition.

Jaheira doesn't gripe quite as much now, in fact I dare say she doesn't gripe at all, but congratulates you on finding the "good" path yourself.

mf2112

There is a lot of evil in the land so she can be good for a while but still be neutral overall.

AstroBryGuy

There's a component in Tweaks Antholgy for that.

http://www.gibberlings3.net/bg2tweaks/npc.php

BelgarathMTH

Yes, was going to say, "There's a mod for that". Also, you can Keeper her alignment to the neutral good it should be. And, I think the EE fixed it so that she doesn't give negative comments at 20 reputation, even with neutral alignment.

That druids had to be neutral alignment in 1st and 2nd edition D&D had to do with how the original creator of the game, Gary Gygax, imagined the class. It evolved over time, and got fixed in 3rd edition and beyond so that a druid could be *any* form of neutral, including neutral good. The basic idea had to do with concepts of Nature, and the classic "balance of nature". Nature is a neutral force (druids originally drew their powers directly from nature, without a deity), ergo, druids are neutral.

Jaheira's nagging in the original BG game had to do with the way the reputation system was implemented into the game. (The reputation mechanic is pure BG, not D&D.) That implementation is widely considered to be one of the game's weak points.