What is your reputation around the time of the return to Candlekeep?

chimeric

I want to write a simple reputation mod, but in order to guess how big an adjustment would work best I need to know the Reputation of people's parties around the time they are accused of murdering the leaders of the Iron Throne.

As for me, I've generally played good-aligned parties, but not always doing every laudable quest, and sometimes I had to donate to make up for a few wrongs, so my Reputation at that point was 15-16 or so. Those who push the heroic theme can probably have it under 20 by then, but I realize that evil-aligned parties will want to keep it low. But how low? After all, a little under average already brings bounty hunters and the Flaming Fist on the characters' heads, and that's just inconvenient. So when playing with an evil party I preferred to keep my reputation in the neutral zone, around 12, even though it always made me dream of discounts. What about you? Let's talk about your current party, or if you prefer, your favorite one. You can also share your thoughts on the inconvenience of low Reputation, if notice that.

Return to Candlekeep is Chapter Six.

tbone1

I usually play good aligned characters; my favorite class is probably Cavalier.

JumboWheat01

I admit to being a bit of a side-quest nut, so I hit 20 reputation quite quickly. Plus I have a tendency to play Lawful Good characters, so I normally start with a good boost.

ThacoBell

I usually hit 20 rep by the Nashkel Mines. I always play a super goody two shoes, albeit a VERY sarcastic one.

Ayeotiee

Must we be so insufferably charitable?

dunbar

I usually play neutral aligned characters and invariably have one or two 'evil' npcs in my party so I manage my rep to keep it just on the 'good' side of neutral.

Kurona

I hate them Flaming Fist pansies.

Kamigoroshi

I blame the lack of bathing facilities for that.

deltago

that is when I am rolling good.

when I am rolling evil, it hovers from 3-5.

when I am rolling neutral, it hovers 13-18.

BillyYank

I usually hit 20 before the bandit camp.

DJKajuru

It hits 20 pretty fast, but if I got evil characters I try decrease it in the nicest possible manner.

OrlonKronsteen

Traditionally, if I'm playing good my rep will be at 20 long before I return to Candlekeep. On some evil runs I'll keep it in the 9 to 10 range if I'm playing a calculated character who likes to keep up appearances or not draw too much attention. On a really evil run, my rep will be in the 5-8 range. However, I just started using the Tweaks component that provides shop discounts for low rep as well as high, so in my latest run I'm letting it drop to two or three (and avoiding towns where guards will attack you) and letting it trickle up to about 5. I presume it will be at 5 or 6 when I get to Candlekeep. I'm not sure what my reception will be there if I return with a rep of 3.

Skarose

Currently playing an Evil run in which I've had a blast slaying the meddlesome "Chosen of Mystra", but as my party arrived to the City of Baldur's Gate (After taking care of a little business with Elminster) I went ahead and purposefully raised the party's reputation to 10 so I could recruit Rasaad for his quest reward(Belt of Shar-Teel) and I also love DUHM for my MainChar.

Currently @ 11 on our way back to Candlekeep!

sarevok57

unless im evil, I always have 20 rep going into chapter 6, since I do all the quests in the game, it is so easy to have high rep,

even if your rep is crap the time you hit chapter 5, there are quite a few quests in bg the city that will increase your rep as well

and even with an evil team I usually hover around 16-17 rep ( since in reality if people are complimenting on good rep and complaining on bad rep, it really doesn't make a difference either way so lulz to the evil chums)

also, the reason why I like keeping the rep a bit high is the bhaal spawn abilities you get,

if your rep is 11 or higher, you get the good ones ( in my opinion) cure light wounds x2, slow poison x2, and especially draw upon holy might x2, very useful abilities, especially for the melee types ( which I play quite often), this also makes it so you can be an eeeevil character and good the "good" bhaal spawn powers, which I take some sort of silly pleasure in haha

and even back in the days when I killed drizzt and took a reputation hit, I could easily hit back up to 20 before the bandit camp without having to donate money to any temple, plus 20 rep is quite useful as well, 25% discount on things you buy ( even though there is so much money in the game, but at early points in the game it can be nice) and it gives a +4 reaction bonus to NPC checks ( again if you have 19 cha it almost doesn't matter, but still nice to have)

SirBatince

sometimes I kill shandalar and drizzt in a row and completely forget about it.

O_Bruce

I mostly play good characters, so my reputation often is like 20 by that points. But, sometimes I play neutral or evil characters, and thus my reputation can be different. And there, in case of minimal-reload playthroughts, I can be indirectly responsible for innocent's death (for example by Wild Surge) and thus, be a heroic person with terrible reputation.

It's not like reputation system allows you to be despised hero or loved villain... If there is something that definitely needs an overhaul is the repuation system. It sucks, makes little sense and is limiting.

Nightingale

I tend to play good-aligned characters, and due to the frankly ridiculous number of opportunities to increase your reputation in game, you can be sure that I'll be at max by the time I get back to Candlekeep. My neutral characters tend to be pretty loved as well because of this. If they aren't at max rep, they're pretty damn close (between 16 and 18).

The only characters that aren't paragons of virtue are my evil characters. And because of how difficult it is to play the game with a party reputation below 6, even they don't have THAT low of a reputation (usually between 7 and 9).

On a side note, the reputation system (especially in BG1) is REALLY bad. With the game being rife with opportunities to increase your reputation while simultaneously having hardly any means of lowering it (short of offing some poor sod), most characters are very limited in how they play. Either they are saints, helping everyone and everything with nary a thought about a reward, or they're murderous psychopaths, willing to partake in any base activity, simply because they can. Any attempt at a middle ground eventually pushes you toward the good side of the spectrum unless you partake in some serious metagaming (for me, it's repeatedly getting caught stealing while in Flaming fist territory and evading arrest).

chimeric

I think there are plenty of Reputation mods.

My number one gripe with low Reputation, though, is not that getting there is difficult, but that everyone tries to kill me like a dog. What I should like to see instead is bounty hunters and the Flaming Fist descend on the party if they've committed some specific offenses in a certain number - like killed several children and more than several innocents, which should be tallied in a global variable. No amount of stealing should count towards this. When that variable gets above a threshold, then you become wanted until the end of the game, and nothing or only some special-case redemption can change that. Ruining Sarevok's plans and saving the Dukes of Baldur's Gate may be such a case - clearing your record, so to speak. But otherwise that reaction should be fixed, and Reputation should be separate and float up or down as the game develops.

Some of this is easy to implement, but only the experts around this place can judge the rest.

lroumen

My roleplay dictates it is different every time. For a nice chaotic run I also roll a die to determine any dialogue response. The rewards I miss out on....

Skandii

What I usually do is clear every map south of Baldur's Gate before I go there, so I'll have a heroic reputation in no time.

Tad_Has_A_Cold_Olive

A doctor recently diagnosed me with "Chronic Hero Syndrome."

Balrog99

I usually play a lawful neutral or lawful evil character unless I'm playing a cavalier. If lawful evil I keep my intelligence and wisdom high enough that I role-play keeping the reputation high to mask my true intentions (which will eventually be godhood!).

JumboWheat01

Tiax desires to have words with you and your intentions.

GenderNihilismGirdle

If I'm evil, I tend to keep the reputation above 9 at all times regardless, as high as I can manage it without party member loss UNLESS I'm doing an all-custom evil party in which case TRY AND COME AT MY OPTIMIZED TEAM OF LETHAL KILLERS DO-GOODERS SEE WHERE IT GETS YOU

but mostly I play good so 20 well before the return to Candlekeep vast majority of the time tbh

megamike15

not my fault most of the quests from the bgqe mod gives reputation boosts.

chimeric

So more reputation-lowering quests are needed?

[Deleted User]

I'm a proud goody two-shoes.

jastey

megamike15 said:

not my fault most of the quests from the bgqe mod gives reputation boosts.

Excuse me? There is 11 quests in bgqe. One of them gives a rep increase for all PCs. One. Three others give rep increases, but only if the PC is super-polite (slime quest), makes altruistic gifts (family quest), or doesn't forbit to tell about his/her help (babysitting quest). For different reply options, no rep increase. So, don't blame it on my mod if your PC is a super-goody two shoes.
EDIT: Comments like these are frustrating because I spent a lot of time and thought into keeping rep increases low. But there you go.
EDIT2: Oh, and for the slime quest, the family quest and the babysitting quest there are evil solutions that also lead to a rep decrease. So, for these three you have the choice: rep increase, no rep change, rep decrase, depending on the PC's actions and choices.

GreenWarlock

@jastey without knowing the mod in question (I don't play mods) all I can say is you are off to a bad start with the basic unmodded game already having too many rep-boosts, especially for a goody two shoes party. Unless you script some routine rep hits - which would also annoy players - it is very difficult to add any more rep-boosts into the game and retain a notion of balance, it comes pre-broken.

That isn't to say you should not try - rep as a reward is a nice ego boost for the goodly types, even without XP, and that may be an interesting trade-off. Some resolutions boost xp, but role-play the goodly line, and you give up the XP for a satisfying conclusion with a rep boost instead?

jastey

As I said, there is three possibilities to lower your rep in bgqe. (But you *have* to play evil for that. I am not talking "kill them all". I spent some effort into making them interesting evil choices.)

And I forgot to give XP in the first version of the mod (and also because I didn't want to off-balance XP increase), and no, it wasn't recieved well.

AstroBryGuy

Also, SCS has a Reduced Reputation Increase component. I play at 25% probability.

Reduced reputation increase

In general, if you're playing a half-way honorable character in BG2, your reputation fairly rapidly reaches 20 and stays there. The idea of this component is to slow down the rate at which you gain reputation: you can choose the degree of slowdown.

In more detail: any time you would have gained 2 or more reputation points, you gain one fewer point than you should have. Any time you would have gained one, it's decided at random whether you actually do gain it, according to the probability you choose at install time.

http://www.gibberlings3.net/readmes/readme-scs.html#misctweaks