Depends on how often I visit a temple But usually a couple of people I dislike gets chunked from behind after they've stopped talking and think they can just turn their backs to me and walk away. Some coppers to the local cleric usually takes care of it but in the end I don't bother since money is not really a concern and that's the only reason other than RP reasons that you need to keep up the rep. So, quite commonly my charnames, unless obviously good, end up in the bottom range, just shy of the flaming fist limit.
1) People' Reputation is much higher by return to Candlekeep's time than I expected;
2) There should be more quests that decrease Reputation;
3) There should be more of a point to keeping a low Reputation, such as quest options and welcomes available only to evil characters.
Well, that's something to think about. Here is another possibility that comes to mind. What would you think about a game mechanic that forced you to commit evil deeds - either directly demand that you, for example, kill innocents every now and then, or make you keep your Reputation low? One way to implement this would be though evil familiars. The NE familiar, the mephit, is really the computer adaptations' placeholder for that alignment, in pen-and-paper AD&D mephits are just quasi-elemental pests; imps and quasits for LE and CE, on the other hand, are proper candidates for familiars, but they are messengers of hellish powers and respond to a call only to nudge the summoner towards damnation. Otherwise you just get a toad or something. With a game mechanic like I suggest, the evil fams might punish the indolent "master" with Constitution penalties.
Characters other than mages may get to have a familiar as well. In real world Europe, there were many folk tales of "helper spirits" one could hatch from a special egg or just buy from those who have, and those spirits would live in a glass jar or a box and come out to steal neighbours' milk, find treasure, make rain etc. No connection to hell, originally, but when demonologists and inquisitors classified all magic as a dark pact, these spirits in court accounts started to behave like little demons, demand that the master commit evil deeds, feed them his blood etc. The concept changed. In AD&D we have a little bit of everything, but originally anyone could own this kind of helper, not just witches.
Instead of a game mechanic that forces you to do evil there should just be more quests for evil characters or rep decreases for some existing quests that don't grant you them. I'm thinking thieves guild here
I like to play True-Neutral Mage Multi-class so both Charname and Imoen are interested in early purchase of discounted Archmage Robes. In view of this I usually purchase a few Rep pts early in the game to get to Rep 13 Day 2, which also helps to get Wand of Sleep before Nashkel Mines and Ankhegs. [Note: Never been tempted to molest Drzzt!]
On the whole I think Devs could have made Rep loss more of a Challenge within Main story-line. Perhaps in BG city after essential major purchases have been made and Gold is not a problem. An under-utilized monkey-wrench that could have explored a different line of interest?? Just sayin'
I usually try to keep my party at an average reputation level because I like to mix my party members. And for doing NPC related sidequests, its quite nice that the reputation is not an issue for them to join.
Who can tell whether the price of boosting Reputation in a temple is hard-coded or written somewhere in the IDS files? This seems like the place to kick the system.
Comments
1) People' Reputation is much higher by return to Candlekeep's time than I expected;
2) There should be more quests that decrease Reputation;
3) There should be more of a point to keeping a low Reputation, such as quest options and welcomes available only to evil characters.
Well, that's something to think about. Here is another possibility that comes to mind. What would you think about a game mechanic that forced you to commit evil deeds - either directly demand that you, for example, kill innocents every now and then, or make you keep your Reputation low? One way to implement this would be though evil familiars. The NE familiar, the mephit, is really the computer adaptations' placeholder for that alignment, in pen-and-paper AD&D mephits are just quasi-elemental pests; imps and quasits for LE and CE, on the other hand, are proper candidates for familiars, but they are messengers of hellish powers and respond to a call only to nudge the summoner towards damnation. Otherwise you just get a toad or something. With a game mechanic like I suggest, the evil fams might punish the indolent "master" with Constitution penalties.
Characters other than mages may get to have a familiar as well. In real world Europe, there were many folk tales of "helper spirits" one could hatch from a special egg or just buy from those who have, and those spirits would live in a glass jar or a box and come out to steal neighbours' milk, find treasure, make rain etc. No connection to hell, originally, but when demonologists and inquisitors classified all magic as a dark pact, these spirits in court accounts started to behave like little demons, demand that the master commit evil deeds, feed them his blood etc. The concept changed. In AD&D we have a little bit of everything, but originally anyone could own this kind of helper, not just witches.
On the whole I think Devs could have made Rep loss more of a Challenge within Main story-line. Perhaps in BG city after essential major purchases have been made and Gold is not a problem. An under-utilized monkey-wrench that could have explored a different line of interest?? Just sayin'