Lol. That's true. My heroic chastity might well have saved the world, or at least the game. I had gone into this thing blind, thinking any mod that added Waterdeep had to be worth at least one playthrough but ... no. It's just too bad; offensively bad. I was thinking of loading an earlier save and playing on with her, but having read through this let's play:
I've decided to just let her walk away in a pique, despite knowing that the famed metropolis of Waterdeep will now bar its gates to me since I am no longer in the good graces of the Sandrah. No amount of quest content and tome-selling stores could be worth putting up with this.
The term Mary Sue gets thrown around too casually these days, IMO, but Sandrah really is one, in the classical sense. A self-insert character who makes everything about her and twists the personalities of all around her such that they exist only to inflate her ego. Truly an awful mod. I feel like I would be being irresponsible not to post a warning for anyone who was tempted to play it due to the impressive scope, as I was. Don't do it. You'll regret it if you do.
The Waterdeep city from this MOD does not look that great, the first area perhaps is still "OK".. but the other areas look more like slum district...it does not look like famed metropolis...However, good area art for city could be very difficult to make...
Some quests actually are really fun, some I will consider worth experiencing at least once, but the problem is.. there are quite a lot of thing that are disturbing and make you can't really enjoy those quests...
One of the reason I played for 300 hours before giving up is, I know the author said Sandrah is not Mary Sue because she will realize someday she is not right in everything, and all her efforts at romance/love/sex backfire for her someday. In fact, I saw some hints in BG1 and SOD that she could be wrong in something most important to her. I wanted to roleplay as someone who refuse her charm, and looking forward to how she reacts once those the author said happen. I thought that would happen in SOD, when it didn't happen, I thought maybe in early BG2, after that probably in Spellhold..then Underdark...eventually I felt like this is taking forever to happen... so I started to worry it will only happen in late TOB...
@Stev
Thanks for the warning! I was seriously considering playing Sandrah Saga since it has Waterdeep, but the mod seems to be all about the self-insert wannabe goddess character.
Glad I helped. I was going to post on the something awful forum to thank the guy doing the let's play myself, but that forum seems to require you to pay to register. So if you ever read this, Vichan, thank you for enduring all that. You—and marcnivar here—saved me from what sounds like a thoroughly miserable gaming experience.
Lol. That's true. My heroic chastity might well have saved the world, or at least the game. I had gone into this thing blind, thinking any mod that added Waterdeep had to be worth at least one playthrough but ... no. It's just too bad; offensively bad. I was thinking of loading an earlier save and playing on with her, but having read through this let's play:
I've decided to just let her walk away in a pique, despite knowing that the famed metropolis of Waterdeep will now bar its gates to me since I am no longer in the good graces of the Sandrah. No amount of quest content and tome-selling stores could be worth putting up with this.
The term Mary Sue gets thrown around too casually these days, IMO, but Sandrah really is one, in the classical sense. A self-insert character who makes everything about her and twists the personalities of all around her such that they exist only to inflate her ego. Truly an awful mod. I feel like I would be being irresponsible not to post a warning for anyone who was tempted to play it due to the impressive scope, as I was. Don't do it. You'll regret it if you do.
The Waterdeep city from this MOD does not look that great, the first area perhaps is still "OK".. but the other areas look more like slum district...it does not look like famed metropolis...However, good area art for city could be very difficult to make...
Some quests actually are really fun, some I will consider worth experiencing at least once, but the problem is.. there are quite a lot of thing that are disturbing and make you can't really enjoy those quests...
One of the reason I played for 300 hours before giving up is, I know the author said Sandrah is not Mary Sue because she will realize someday she is not right in everything, and all her efforts at romance/love/sex backfire for her someday. In fact, I saw some hints in BG1 and SOD that she could be wrong in something most important to her. I wanted to roleplay as someone who refuse her charm, and looking forward to how she reacts once those the author said happen. I thought that would happen in SOD, when it didn't happen, I thought maybe in early BG2, after that probably in Spellhold..then Underdark...eventually I felt like this is taking forever to happen... so I started to worry it will only happen in late TOB...
So with some other reasons, gave up eventually.
The author also says the character works in an evil party, something that doesn't really appear to be true since she gets mad if you do evil things.
You know it’s bad when the modder punishes you for having the audacity to roleplay by taking an evil option by making you lose not only their self-insert, but your entire party as the biggest “f*** you” it can possibly muster.
And while I’m sort of exaggerating in the sense that it doesn’t happen for every evil action you have the false option of choosing, I know for a fact that it happens at least more than once.
Oh and while I only can sort of tell from looking at files (because no way am I ever enduring this abomination the whole way through) this can happen in the endgame. Not only are you punished for getting the evil ending by Roxanne siccing her self-insert, Elminster and several other high-level heroes on you as enemies, but she updated it at some point to delete your party at the same time, forcing you to do the (assumed hopeless) battle by yourself. Just to rub salt in your wounds.
Here's the thing - people get this idea that Roxanne released Sandrah Saga to impress the community with how awesome her self-insert character is. I actually believe the opposite. Roxanne simply does not write for an audience at all.
It's very apparent by design that Sandrah Saga was never meant for anyone other than Roxanne herself. There are no variations in dialogue or decisions because Roxanne doesn't need any. The whole mod is clearly designed to modify the game the way she wants to play it. I've noticed over the years that despite the vocal criticism the mod gets she basically never really makes an true effort to defend it. She doesn't need to. The mod is for her, and she only released it for the community because... who knows. All the unauthorized crossmod exists because she wants to see her self-insert interact with the modding community's work, not for the benefit of the people playing her mod. Even looking at all her other mods, which take ridiculous liberties with the game's plot, it's clear her sole motivation for modding is for author appeal. She's telling the story that she wants, and that's all she needs. She does not care if people like OR hate her mod. It's not meant for anyone except her.
I'll just say that I personally avoid turning any character I've ever roleplayed into a modding project exactly to try and avoid the typical issues with mod NPCs that people complain about. The character who comes closest to being someone I've RP-ed is probably Drake, but even then I was working with themes I've never tried before. Even then I worry that the ideas behind my characters, while appealing to myself, may not be the same for other people. Especially Aura - I was legitimately afraid to reveal a character that was intentionally designed to be animesque with one of the most convoluted backgrounds I've ever written. I counted entirely on an established, likeable personality to save her from becoming a character that could have very easily turned out to be a textbook Mary Sue. Was I successful? I don't know. That's for my audience to decide, and if there are those who think she's a bit too absurd, I'll just have to learn from that.
It's because of this that I think it's completely unfair to place Sandrah in the same category as even mods like Saerileth and Chloe. Saerileth was intended to be an ideal fantasy romance. Chloe was intended as a cool, assertive lesbian romance. I can believe the writers, possibly, had good intentions when writing those mods and genuinely thought they were writing something the community wanted. I feel none of the same for Sandrah. It's entirely a single audience, self-indulgent wank fantasy that was inexplicably shared with the world.
That's enough babbling from me. I think sleep deprivation has removed my inhibitions which is the only reason I had the motivation to write this. I'll just let this be my statement towards the mod for the future.
@Stev
Thanks for the warning! I was seriously considering playing Sandrah Saga since it has Waterdeep, but the mod seems to be all about the self-insert wannabe goddess character.
Glad I helped. I was going to post on the something awful forum to thank the guy doing the let's play myself, but that forum seems to require you to pay to register. So if you ever read this, Vichan, thank you for enduring all that. You—and marcnivar here—saved me from what sounds like a thoroughly miserable gaming experience.
Inspired by your latest update, where you show her throwing the most almighty of tantrums and killing the entire party over your not saving Brage--aided by the cheapness of her, ahem, "goddess" allowing her to spam three Time Stops, Dragon's Breaths, Incendiary Cloud, and various other TOB-level abilities, all while buffing herself to near invincibility--I went and loaded my save to see it with my own eyes.
So I can confirm that she will throw all those abilities at the party even if you are still level 1 or 2 and have not yet arrived in Nashkel.
However, after several attempts, I can also confirm that she can be killed even in that most cheap of states. I kept the party split up and on the edges of the screen so that when she attacked they were ready to flee into the fog of war and break her line of sight. Then I had my level 1/1/1 Fighter/Mage/Cleric use my lone Potion of Invisibility to escape her. We ran away and waited, while sending scouts down to see how she was reacting. She just stood there, and the spells she cast--despite her breaking the rules by being able to cast them at all--stuck to the rules of the game by wearing off eventually. Then I brought the party back and we put her down like the mad dog she was, felling her with a hail of arrows, bolts and bullets.
It was Khalid who scored the killing blow, as it happens. I like to imagine his last words to her were something along the lines of, "And no, I do n-not want to cheat on my w-wife with you. Jaheira is ten times the woman you are, and far more b-beautiful."
For my part, I like to imagine my CHARNAME saying, "That was for what you did to poor Vichan, you absolute monster."
Lol. Prior to this my most satisfying gaming experience with Baldur's Gate--and possibly all games--was soloing the final fight of the Tactics mod against Amellysan and the upgraded Five. It's been over a decade, but that feeling still lingers with me. Killing god-mode Sandrah-Sue at level one hasn't supplanted it, but it was a good second place.
For the record, all she was worth, in the end, was a lousy 5 XP. That, at least, seems fitting.
Inspired by your latest update, where you show her throwing the most almighty of tantrums and killing the entire party over your not saving Brage--aided by the cheapness of her, ahem, "goddess" allowing her to spam three Time Stops, Dragon's Breaths, Incendiary Cloud, and various other TOB-level abilities, all while buffing herself to near invincibility--I went and loaded my save to see it with my own eyes.
What really gets me is that of all the encounters in the game THIS is the one where Roxanne codes herself to turn on you for being 'evil' - the one where the player could genuinely just mess up by getting the riddle wrong (amazing that all-knowing Sandrah, in fact, does not simply solve it for you) and have no choice but to defend themselves. So not only are you punished for being evil, you're punished for so much as making a mistake.
On another note, since I can't post on SA I might as well say something regarding her thoughts on paladins here since it got mentioned. I find it extremely amusing that she accuses Sirene of ruling over the player's decisions considering I can recall maybe two incidents where she takes a decision for the PC and both of them are framed as her being unable to temper her impulsive side and getting the party into some trouble as a result. And one of them was a case where vanilla NPCs already affected your choice to begin with (check bringing Valygar to Tolgarias with basically any good party member). Some might think even that's too many, but then, I was younger and didn't think things through as much back then.
Most of the time she states her opinion and leaves it at that. The only major time where she's vocally critical of the PC is when reputation drops too low because... well, she's kind of obligated to do that. And bear in mind, Sirene is apparently one of the 'better' paladins in Roxanne's POV (though only because she's a tiefling) so...
the only times i remember Sirene overriding you are both in beragost. the silkie encounter and the bar fight.
If you have Sirene or Aura in your party, you cannot take up Gallor's offer to kill Charleston Nib and his diggers for the Idol of Kozah. Either of them will automatically trigger you rejecting Gallor's offer, with Aura knocking you on the head, if I remember......
@Stev
Thanks for the warning! I was seriously considering playing Sandrah Saga since it has Waterdeep, but the mod seems to be all about the self-insert wannabe goddess character.
Glad I helped. I was going to post on the something awful forum to thank the guy doing the let's play myself, but that forum seems to require you to pay to register. So if you ever read this, Vichan, thank you for enduring all that. You—and marcnivar here—saved me from what sounds like a thoroughly miserable gaming experience.
No problem!
Thank you for this, I have laughed so much going over your LP thread, I think I've gone hoarse from the laughing and the "WTF?!" I've said out loud.
I like this line:
"is kind of Roxanne in a nutshell, where she does something technically competent to do something morally garbage".
For the record, all she was worth, in the end, was a lousy 5 XP. That, at least, seems fitting.
That's still 5 XP more than most joinable NPCs.
Of course, sometimes the XP and loot has very little to do with how rewarding it feels to kill someone. To use an example from a run of mine, there was only one thing that could happen when Eldoth explained his plan to party leader Entar Silvershield.
PS: @Vichan, it would be great if you could highlight in your LP that Sandrah is by no means represantative of BG mods in general. It would be a shame if readers are put off by this trainwreck from trying the multitude of great mods out there. Otherwise, highly entertaining LP.
Most of the people on the forums are BG veterans but I've addressed it here just in case. I've been enjoying the hard work of the BG community for over a decade and I'd never want to leave the impression that Sandrah Saga is in any way indicative of the overall quality of mods.
Inspired by your latest update, where you show her throwing the most almighty of tantrums and killing the entire party over your not saving Brage--aided by the cheapness of her, ahem, "goddess" allowing her to spam three Time Stops, Dragon's Breaths, Incendiary Cloud, and various other TOB-level abilities, all while buffing herself to near invincibility--I went and loaded my save to see it with my own eyes.
So I can confirm that she will throw all those abilities at the party even if you are still level 1 or 2 and have not yet arrived in Nashkel.
However, after several attempts, I can also confirm that she can be killed even in that most cheap of states. I kept the party split up and on the edges of the screen so that when she attacked they were ready to flee into the fog of war and break her line of sight. Then I had my level 1/1/1 Fighter/Mage/Cleric use my lone Potion of Invisibility to escape her. We ran away and waited, while sending scouts down to see how she was reacting. She just stood there, and the spells she cast--despite her breaking the rules by being able to cast them at all--stuck to the rules of the game by wearing off eventually. Then I brought the party back and we put her down like the mad dog she was, felling her with a hail of arrows, bolts and bullets.
It was Khalid who scored the killing blow, as it happens. I like to imagine his last words to her were something along the lines of, "And no, I do n-not want to cheat on my w-wife with you. Jaheira is ten times the woman you are, and far more b-beautiful."
For my part, I like to imagine my CHARNAME saying, "That was for what you did to poor Vichan, you absolute monster."
Lol. Prior to this my most satisfying gaming experience with Baldur's Gate--and possibly all games--was soloing the final fight of the Tactics mod against Amellysan and the upgraded Five. It's been over a decade, but that feeling still lingers with me. Killing god-mode Sandrah-Sue at level one hasn't supplanted it, but it was a good second place.
For the record, all she was worth, in the end, was a lousy 5 XP. That, at least, seems fitting.
That doesn't make sense.
Roxan...errr Sandrah DEFEATED?!
Why had not Mystra or Ao himself intervened to save her and destroyed your party? Or resurrected Rox...Sandrah and increased her stats by 100?
Roxanne must correct it in a future update.
That plus turn all of the PCs companions against the PC with even Jaheira falling for Sandrah's vile charms!!!
It seems like the Sandrah Saga would be more interesting if we could skip Sandrah. Hmm. Who's up for that?
It would still be poorly written, atrociously balanced, and tamper with other people's work without permission. I don't think there's any 'saving' this one.
I personally love the idea of post ToB content, which is the main reason I have tried unsuccessfully to play through this mod three times now. At this point I'd rather read someone else's playthrough than try again. Just can't get through it for a variety of reasons. I think I'm just greedy for anything that adds more content to my all time favorite game, regardless of quality. Really too bad the mod author seems to have no respect for other people's work.
I personally love the idea of post ToB content, which is the main reason I have tried unsuccessfully to play through this mod three times now. At this point I'd rather read someone else's playthrough than try again. Just can't get through it for a variety of reasons. I think I'm just greedy for anything that adds more content to my all time favorite game, regardless of quality. Really too bad the mod author seems to have no respect for other people's work.
i do to. but the mod needs to fit naturally into the world and not feel out of place.
So I'm going to chime in here, even though nobody asked for it. I've spent dozens of hours with Sandrah installed, not quite as much as Vichan, and I'm going to approach it from a different angle than most - that of a panromantic polyamorous trans woman. I don't mind all the sex. I don't mind all the casual flings Sandrah has, regardless of whether or not she's in a relationship with CHARNAME (she is, always, but that's beside the point). I don't even mind her shutting down dialogues about wanting her to change her ways, because that's a conversation I myself have had a number of times.
I draw the line at having my agency taken away.
At every turn, every opportunity, Sandrah strips away what little agency CHARNAME has, starting with the most glaring: the choice of whether or not to even be in a relationship with her. As you can see if you've read Vichan's LP Sandrah takes away everyone's agency. If she's there, the story is about her and her alone, and the rest of you are along for the ride.
Every choice the Bhaalspawn is presented with is taken over by Sandrah, to do what the mod author obviously thinks of as the "right" choice. There is no arguing with this. There is only the will of Sandrah and Roxanne.
My favorite challenge in BG1 is taking on the Bandit Camp head on, usually around level 4-5 - but Sandrah tells you point blank you need to go sneak in, instead. So instead of an extremely challenging encounter that I need to handle carefully, especially with SCS installed since it drags everyone into it, even out of the big tent, I instead get the somewhat boring traipse through the camp to take out the big shots first then handle everything else later.
Beyond that, Baldur's Gate 1 had a perfectly paced reveal of CHARNAME's heritage - a pacing that Sandrah decides to absolutely and utterly destroy by being two steps ahead of the plot at every opportunity. CHARNAME is treated as an idiot child in dialogue, who can't put two and two together and come up with four, even as an 18 INT Mage. CHARNAME is characterized as a simpleton buffoon who's only good at surviving lethal encounters, who has to be led along by the hand by this intrusive presence. She even cuts out mod content if she's not present; Jet'Laya, Cuchulainn, and Coconhobair all refuse to spawn and start their mod-related content if I leave her behind at Gorion's gravesite, whereupon she promptly vanishes upon reaching the Friendly Arm Inn and I'm locked out of that content (and there went a 28 hour playthrough down the drain). "That may have been an installation error", you might think, and I redid a new Sandrah Saga install just to double check, clearing away all the possible conflicts, and once again, Jet'Laya and the others didn't even spawn into the game without Sandrah in the party.
But by and large the most offensive thing about Sandrah is Minsc. Roxanne clearly takes the characterization of Minsc as neurodivergent and on the autism spectrum, and her character turns into an absolute sexual predator towards him, carefully explaining arousal to him before taking advantage of his mod-inspired naiveté. Reading it in Vichan's LP was one thing - watching it happen in game was absolutely another, coupled with Dyanheir's whitewashing and being talked down from calling Sandrah out for what she well and truly is - a goddamned predator. Chris Hansen would have a freaking field day with Sandrah - especially since there's likely crossmod content with Saerileth.
The only, only way to have anything approaching a healthy relationship with Sandrah is to have 3 player created PCs, Imoen, Sandrah, and Jen'lig. Adding any other NPCs leads to extremely abusive and predatory behavior. At that point Sandrah almost becomes bearable, because I can get behind one playthrough where my Bhaalspawn is a bit slower on the uptake, but then we get to Imoen's content.
I have not seen a character assassination like this since the early days of the Imoen Romance mod. It's infuriating. (I'm going to be trying the new version, so... fingers crossed.)
In short, Sandrah is everything that people say to fearmonger about anyone not cishet and monogamous. She's a sexual predator that preys upon people because she holds a position of power over them - in this case, it's not the authority of a rank or title, or even personal strength, but the power of the author's favor. But also a position of power, because if you dare go against Sandrah, even the tiniest bit, she can and will take your entire party - if they don't abandon you for her, anyways, and help her kill you.
Despite all this, Sandrah is a beautifully constructed mod, and easily one of the most ambitious ones I've ever seen, and I experienced zero bugs in my personal playthrough - at least, nothing gamebreaking. It's just a shame all that skill with the Infinity Engine tools produced... this.
Edit to add: Oh, and Jen'lig is a beautifully written character that has everything Sandrah lacks. I'd love it if Jen'lig could be split out of the Sandrah saga and divorced entirely from it, because SOMEHOW she wound up really well-written.
I just want to say that I've been following your LP for months now and it is amazing and even (bizarrely) helped me decide to start modding myself. I just couldn't stand seeing all the awful mods you showcased and decided I *had* to do better haha.
I look forward to your TOB portion when you get to it, but you deserve a loooooong break.
Edit to add: Oh, and Jen'lig is a beautifully written character that has everything Sandrah lacks. I'd love it if Jen'lig could be split out of the Sandrah saga and divorced entirely from it, because SOMEHOW she wound up really well-written.
I love your write up and it's so spot on. But I just wanted to single out this point. I haven't seen Jen'lig around *anywhere* outside of Sandrah Saga but I think it's pretty obviously not written by Roxanne. Roxanne shows pretty clearly that she can't actually write any character differently from one another and they all sound the exact same. Jen'lig has a completely different writing style and despite her (intentionally) broken speech, is far more comprehendible than anything Roxanne wrote herself. That's proof enough that she's not behind this character imo.
I'm wondering if at some point some modder came to her with help on their NPC mod and then later dropped out and Roxanne just took what they had and finished it. Unfortunate if so, since it locks a fairly worthwhile and would be great to have outside of this travesty.
For the record, all she was worth, in the end, was a lousy 5 XP. That, at least, seems fitting.
@Stev After a terrible experience with other Roxanne mods (Her Caelar and Corwin mods; the English dialogue is really awful; horrible grammar and blatant spelling errors), I found this thread. Worth reading through the entire thread, and your post was the perfect ending. Beautiful vengeance against BG's worst villain, Sandrah...
...and it's just so unbelievably petty that you get 5 xp for killing her, less than a Gibberling. It's like the modder is wagging her finger at you, punishing the player for not playing through the mod way she intended.
Excited to let everyone know that I've finished ToB in my Let's Play and that it's going to be all Sandrah content from here on out.
And by excited I mean extremely horrified.
I've been lurking your SA thread since the start and it's been a ride. You should get a medal for your service. Congratulations on enduring it to the end.
Comments
The Waterdeep city from this MOD does not look that great, the first area perhaps is still "OK".. but the other areas look more like slum district...it does not look like famed metropolis...However, good area art for city could be very difficult to make...
Some quests actually are really fun, some I will consider worth experiencing at least once, but the problem is.. there are quite a lot of thing that are disturbing and make you can't really enjoy those quests...
One of the reason I played for 300 hours before giving up is, I know the author said Sandrah is not Mary Sue because she will realize someday she is not right in everything, and all her efforts at romance/love/sex backfire for her someday. In fact, I saw some hints in BG1 and SOD that she could be wrong in something most important to her. I wanted to roleplay as someone who refuse her charm, and looking forward to how she reacts once those the author said happen. I thought that would happen in SOD, when it didn't happen, I thought maybe in early BG2, after that probably in Spellhold..then Underdark...eventually I felt like this is taking forever to happen... so I started to worry it will only happen in late TOB...
So with some other reasons, gave up eventually.
Glad I helped. I was going to post on the something awful forum to thank the guy doing the let's play myself, but that forum seems to require you to pay to register. So if you ever read this, Vichan, thank you for enduring all that. You—and marcnivar here—saved me from what sounds like a thoroughly miserable gaming experience.
The author also says the character works in an evil party, something that doesn't really appear to be true since she gets mad if you do evil things.
And while I’m sort of exaggerating in the sense that it doesn’t happen for every evil action you have the false option of choosing, I know for a fact that it happens at least more than once.
Oh and while I only can sort of tell from looking at files (because no way am I ever enduring this abomination the whole way through) this can happen in the endgame. Not only are you punished for getting the evil ending by Roxanne siccing her self-insert, Elminster and several other high-level heroes on you as enemies, but she updated it at some point to delete your party at the same time, forcing you to do the (assumed hopeless) battle by yourself. Just to rub salt in your wounds.
i mean sure early on in baldurs gate modding you had these types. but they tended to come from the same author so you knew to avoid them.
It's very apparent by design that Sandrah Saga was never meant for anyone other than Roxanne herself. There are no variations in dialogue or decisions because Roxanne doesn't need any. The whole mod is clearly designed to modify the game the way she wants to play it. I've noticed over the years that despite the vocal criticism the mod gets she basically never really makes an true effort to defend it. She doesn't need to. The mod is for her, and she only released it for the community because... who knows. All the unauthorized crossmod exists because she wants to see her self-insert interact with the modding community's work, not for the benefit of the people playing her mod. Even looking at all her other mods, which take ridiculous liberties with the game's plot, it's clear her sole motivation for modding is for author appeal. She's telling the story that she wants, and that's all she needs. She does not care if people like OR hate her mod. It's not meant for anyone except her.
I'll just say that I personally avoid turning any character I've ever roleplayed into a modding project exactly to try and avoid the typical issues with mod NPCs that people complain about. The character who comes closest to being someone I've RP-ed is probably Drake, but even then I was working with themes I've never tried before. Even then I worry that the ideas behind my characters, while appealing to myself, may not be the same for other people. Especially Aura - I was legitimately afraid to reveal a character that was intentionally designed to be animesque with one of the most convoluted backgrounds I've ever written. I counted entirely on an established, likeable personality to save her from becoming a character that could have very easily turned out to be a textbook Mary Sue. Was I successful? I don't know. That's for my audience to decide, and if there are those who think she's a bit too absurd, I'll just have to learn from that.
It's because of this that I think it's completely unfair to place Sandrah in the same category as even mods like Saerileth and Chloe. Saerileth was intended to be an ideal fantasy romance. Chloe was intended as a cool, assertive lesbian romance. I can believe the writers, possibly, had good intentions when writing those mods and genuinely thought they were writing something the community wanted. I feel none of the same for Sandrah. It's entirely a single audience, self-indulgent wank fantasy that was inexplicably shared with the world.
That's enough babbling from me. I think sleep deprivation has removed my inhibitions which is the only reason I had the motivation to write this. I'll just let this be my statement towards the mod for the future.
No problem!
Inspired by your latest update, where you show her throwing the most almighty of tantrums and killing the entire party over your not saving Brage--aided by the cheapness of her, ahem, "goddess" allowing her to spam three Time Stops, Dragon's Breaths, Incendiary Cloud, and various other TOB-level abilities, all while buffing herself to near invincibility--I went and loaded my save to see it with my own eyes.
So I can confirm that she will throw all those abilities at the party even if you are still level 1 or 2 and have not yet arrived in Nashkel.
However, after several attempts, I can also confirm that she can be killed even in that most cheap of states. I kept the party split up and on the edges of the screen so that when she attacked they were ready to flee into the fog of war and break her line of sight. Then I had my level 1/1/1 Fighter/Mage/Cleric use my lone Potion of Invisibility to escape her. We ran away and waited, while sending scouts down to see how she was reacting. She just stood there, and the spells she cast--despite her breaking the rules by being able to cast them at all--stuck to the rules of the game by wearing off eventually. Then I brought the party back and we put her down like the mad dog she was, felling her with a hail of arrows, bolts and bullets.
It was Khalid who scored the killing blow, as it happens. I like to imagine his last words to her were something along the lines of, "And no, I do n-not want to cheat on my w-wife with you. Jaheira is ten times the woman you are, and far more b-beautiful."
For my part, I like to imagine my CHARNAME saying, "That was for what you did to poor Vichan, you absolute monster."
Lol. Prior to this my most satisfying gaming experience with Baldur's Gate--and possibly all games--was soloing the final fight of the Tactics mod against Amellysan and the upgraded Five. It's been over a decade, but that feeling still lingers with me. Killing god-mode Sandrah-Sue at level one hasn't supplanted it, but it was a good second place.
For the record, all she was worth, in the end, was a lousy 5 XP. That, at least, seems fitting.
On another note, since I can't post on SA I might as well say something regarding her thoughts on paladins here since it got mentioned. I find it extremely amusing that she accuses Sirene of ruling over the player's decisions considering I can recall maybe two incidents where she takes a decision for the PC and both of them are framed as her being unable to temper her impulsive side and getting the party into some trouble as a result. And one of them was a case where vanilla NPCs already affected your choice to begin with (check bringing Valygar to Tolgarias with basically any good party member). Some might think even that's too many, but then, I was younger and didn't think things through as much back then.
Most of the time she states her opinion and leaves it at that. The only major time where she's vocally critical of the PC is when reputation drops too low because... well, she's kind of obligated to do that. And bear in mind, Sirene is apparently one of the 'better' paladins in Roxanne's POV (though only because she's a tiefling) so...
If you have Sirene or Aura in your party, you cannot take up Gallor's offer to kill Charleston Nib and his diggers for the Idol of Kozah. Either of them will automatically trigger you rejecting Gallor's offer, with Aura knocking you on the head, if I remember......
Thank you for this, I have laughed so much going over your LP thread, I think I've gone hoarse from the laughing and the "WTF?!" I've said out loud.
I like this line:
"is kind of Roxanne in a nutshell, where she does something technically competent to do something morally garbage".
That's still 5 XP more than most joinable NPCs.
Of course, sometimes the XP and loot has very little to do with how rewarding it feels to kill someone. To use an example from a run of mine, there was only one thing that could happen when Eldoth explained his plan to party leader Entar Silvershield.
Most of the people on the forums are BG veterans but I've addressed it here just in case. I've been enjoying the hard work of the BG community for over a decade and I'd never want to leave the impression that Sandrah Saga is in any way indicative of the overall quality of mods.
That doesn't make sense.
Roxan...errr Sandrah DEFEATED?!
Why had not Mystra or Ao himself intervened to save her and destroyed your party? Or resurrected Rox...Sandrah and increased her stats by 100?
Roxanne must correct it in a future update.
That plus turn all of the PCs companions against the PC with even Jaheira falling for Sandrah's vile charms!!!
So much to fix...
It would still be poorly written, atrociously balanced, and tamper with other people's work without permission. I don't think there's any 'saving' this one.
I personally love the idea of post ToB content, which is the main reason I have tried unsuccessfully to play through this mod three times now. At this point I'd rather read someone else's playthrough than try again. Just can't get through it for a variety of reasons. I think I'm just greedy for anything that adds more content to my all time favorite game, regardless of quality. Really too bad the mod author seems to have no respect for other people's work.
i do to. but the mod needs to fit naturally into the world and not feel out of place.
I draw the line at having my agency taken away.
At every turn, every opportunity, Sandrah strips away what little agency CHARNAME has, starting with the most glaring: the choice of whether or not to even be in a relationship with her. As you can see if you've read Vichan's LP Sandrah takes away everyone's agency. If she's there, the story is about her and her alone, and the rest of you are along for the ride.
Every choice the Bhaalspawn is presented with is taken over by Sandrah, to do what the mod author obviously thinks of as the "right" choice. There is no arguing with this. There is only the will of Sandrah and Roxanne.
My favorite challenge in BG1 is taking on the Bandit Camp head on, usually around level 4-5 - but Sandrah tells you point blank you need to go sneak in, instead. So instead of an extremely challenging encounter that I need to handle carefully, especially with SCS installed since it drags everyone into it, even out of the big tent, I instead get the somewhat boring traipse through the camp to take out the big shots first then handle everything else later.
Beyond that, Baldur's Gate 1 had a perfectly paced reveal of CHARNAME's heritage - a pacing that Sandrah decides to absolutely and utterly destroy by being two steps ahead of the plot at every opportunity. CHARNAME is treated as an idiot child in dialogue, who can't put two and two together and come up with four, even as an 18 INT Mage. CHARNAME is characterized as a simpleton buffoon who's only good at surviving lethal encounters, who has to be led along by the hand by this intrusive presence. She even cuts out mod content if she's not present; Jet'Laya, Cuchulainn, and Coconhobair all refuse to spawn and start their mod-related content if I leave her behind at Gorion's gravesite, whereupon she promptly vanishes upon reaching the Friendly Arm Inn and I'm locked out of that content (and there went a 28 hour playthrough down the drain). "That may have been an installation error", you might think, and I redid a new Sandrah Saga install just to double check, clearing away all the possible conflicts, and once again, Jet'Laya and the others didn't even spawn into the game without Sandrah in the party.
But by and large the most offensive thing about Sandrah is Minsc. Roxanne clearly takes the characterization of Minsc as neurodivergent and on the autism spectrum, and her character turns into an absolute sexual predator towards him, carefully explaining arousal to him before taking advantage of his mod-inspired naiveté. Reading it in Vichan's LP was one thing - watching it happen in game was absolutely another, coupled with Dyanheir's whitewashing and being talked down from calling Sandrah out for what she well and truly is - a goddamned predator. Chris Hansen would have a freaking field day with Sandrah - especially since there's likely crossmod content with Saerileth.
The only, only way to have anything approaching a healthy relationship with Sandrah is to have 3 player created PCs, Imoen, Sandrah, and Jen'lig. Adding any other NPCs leads to extremely abusive and predatory behavior. At that point Sandrah almost becomes bearable, because I can get behind one playthrough where my Bhaalspawn is a bit slower on the uptake, but then we get to Imoen's content.
I have not seen a character assassination like this since the early days of the Imoen Romance mod. It's infuriating. (I'm going to be trying the new version, so... fingers crossed.)
In short, Sandrah is everything that people say to fearmonger about anyone not cishet and monogamous. She's a sexual predator that preys upon people because she holds a position of power over them - in this case, it's not the authority of a rank or title, or even personal strength, but the power of the author's favor. But also a position of power, because if you dare go against Sandrah, even the tiniest bit, she can and will take your entire party - if they don't abandon you for her, anyways, and help her kill you.
Despite all this, Sandrah is a beautifully constructed mod, and easily one of the most ambitious ones I've ever seen, and I experienced zero bugs in my personal playthrough - at least, nothing gamebreaking. It's just a shame all that skill with the Infinity Engine tools produced... this.
Edit to add: Oh, and Jen'lig is a beautifully written character that has everything Sandrah lacks. I'd love it if Jen'lig could be split out of the Sandrah saga and divorced entirely from it, because SOMEHOW she wound up really well-written.
Huge thanks for doing it! Your PT is a very definition of "taking one for the community".
I just want to say that I've been following your LP for months now and it is amazing and even (bizarrely) helped me decide to start modding myself. I just couldn't stand seeing all the awful mods you showcased and decided I *had* to do better haha.
I look forward to your TOB portion when you get to it, but you deserve a loooooong break.
I love your write up and it's so spot on. But I just wanted to single out this point. I haven't seen Jen'lig around *anywhere* outside of Sandrah Saga but I think it's pretty obviously not written by Roxanne. Roxanne shows pretty clearly that she can't actually write any character differently from one another and they all sound the exact same. Jen'lig has a completely different writing style and despite her (intentionally) broken speech, is far more comprehendible than anything Roxanne wrote herself. That's proof enough that she's not behind this character imo.
I'm wondering if at some point some modder came to her with help on their NPC mod and then later dropped out and Roxanne just took what they had and finished it. Unfortunate if so, since it locks a fairly worthwhile and would be great to have outside of this travesty.
@Stev After a terrible experience with other Roxanne mods (Her Caelar and Corwin mods; the English dialogue is really awful; horrible grammar and blatant spelling errors), I found this thread. Worth reading through the entire thread, and your post was the perfect ending. Beautiful vengeance against BG's worst villain, Sandrah...
...and it's just so unbelievably petty that you get 5 xp for killing her, less than a Gibberling. It's like the modder is wagging her finger at you, punishing the player for not playing through the mod way she intended.
And by excited I mean extremely horrified.
Let's not be afraid and simply laugh along. LOL!
I've been lurking your SA thread since the start and it's been a ride. You should get a medal for your service. Congratulations on enduring it to the end.