I'm too good, I need to do something bad, but what?

Pause

Ok, so yes, I am running a good party, but I've been sitting on 20 reputation for a while now and I keep getting more points that do nothing but go to waste. So, what can I do to bring my reputation down without doing something really bad and crazy?

ThacoBell

Why do you need to bring your rep down?

PaulaMigrate

The method to do it without doing something outright evil is to use those bards (FAI, Larswood, Nashkel inn near Volo) to spread some negative rumours about you.

Zilber

Kill Drizzt? Recruit a goblin in SOD? Ask for rewards and persist?

OrlonKronsteen

Unless you want an evil NPC in your group and you're worried about them leaving, there's no mechanical reason to lower your rep. 20 rep is a boon in that you'll get the maximum discount at shops. On the other hand, if you want to lower it for role-playing reasons (e.g. you don't want to be a goodie-two-shoes) you'll have to resort to one of the many time-honoured methods of lowering rep, such as: killing innocents; breaking into a home and deliberately getting caught; or doing one of the quest paths that lowers rep. You'll have to choose a method based on your role-playing concept (killing innocents may go too far). Personally, I find this kind of rep management unsatisfying and I'd probably just settle for the 20 rep.

Pause

ThacoBell said:

Why do you need to bring your rep down?

OrlonKronsteen said:

Unless you want an evil NPC in your group and you're worried about them leaving, there's no mechanical reason to lower your rep. 20 rep is a boon in that you'll get the maximum discount at shops. On the other hand, if you want to lower it for role-playing reasons (e.g. you don't want to be a goodie-two-shoes) you'll have to resort to one of the many time-honoured methods of lowering rep, such as: killing innocents; breaking into a home and deliberately getting caught; or doing one of the quest paths that lowers rep. You'll have to choose a method based on your role-playing concept (killing innocents may go too far). Personally, I find this kind of rep management unsatisfying and I'd probably just settle for the 20 rep.

Getting points going to nothing is something I don't like. I guess it is wanting the feeling of working towards something that I am looking for.

I realize the original game came out a long time ago - so games have become much more involved with things like sidequests. Don't get me wrong, I really love this game, but I wish they had made it so it was harder to top out on good or bad.

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PaulaMigrate said:

The method to do it without doing something outright evil is to use those bards (FAI, Larswood, Nashkel inn near Volo) to spread some negative rumours about you.

I never use bards in any game I play, but this is interesting, I didn't know something like this was even possible - I may have to check it out.

mch202

I don't think it will affect your reputation, but killing Khalid can be a good start ;-)

jastey

The bardic adjustment that makes it possible to hire bards to lower your rep is part of the BG1 NPC Project mod.

Gallowglass

Pause said:

PaulaMigrate said:

The method to do it without doing something outright evil is to use those bards (FAI, Larswood, Nashkel inn near Volo) to spread some negative rumours about you.

I never use bards in any game I play, but this is interesting, I didn't know something like this was even possible - I may have to check it out.

In the unmodded game, it's not possible.

With the mod, it's not a matter of recruiting a Bard companion, it's that you can persuade a bard in an inn to sing about you. If they sing unpleasant rumours about you, then of course your REP falls.

PaulaMigrate

jastey said:

The bardic adjustment that makes it possible to hire bards to lower your rep is part of the BG1 NPC Project mod.

Yes, I should have mentioned that. It's hard for me to imagine somebody playing the game without this mod added.

Gallowglass

Pause said:

Getting points going to nothing is something I don't like. I guess it is wanting the feeling of working towards something that I am looking for.

You'll just have to get used to that, I'm afraid. Not just REP gains going to waste, but also you'll usually reach the XP cap well before the end of BG1, and therefore there'll be loads of XP also going to waste.

Pause said:

I realize the original game came out a long time ago - so games have become much more involved with things like sidequests. Don't get me wrong, I really love this game, but I wish they had made it so it was harder to top out on good or bad.

Well, that's understandable, but it would've had to have been done by the original developers.

The EEs haven't much changed the REP-relevant quests - one REP-quest now works which was previously incomplete, and it can yield either +1 or -1 REP, but (IIRC) no other changes. Thus there has always been an issue of REP going to waste if you're a good guy all the way.

Likewise, it was already the case pre-EE that you'd easily reach the XP cap before the end, and therefore have lots of late-game XP going to waste, although the EEs have made that happen even earlier.

Since Beamdog are contractually obliged not to change the old content, there's very little that Beamdog can do to ameliorate these wastages.

(Incidentally, you may be relieved to hear that once you get to BG2, it's not nearly so easy to hit the XP cap until you get very close to the end, and nor is there quite so much excess REP available.)

elminster

Pause said:

Ok, so yes, I am running a good party, but I've been sitting on 20 reputation for a while now and I keep getting more points that do nothing but go to waste. So, what can I do to bring my reputation down without doing something really bad and crazy?

Get caught stealing and then try to bribe the guards. Then (if that doesn't drop your reputation) kill one of the guards "accidentally"

OrlonKronsteen

You won't find too many fans of the reputation system. It goes up and down too easily and the sound of the NPCs constantly praising or complaining about each point gained or lost gets annoying really quickly. Add to that, it sucks when your team members leave because of rep. Now, I'm fine with good members leaving after bad deeds (and I'd argue they should usually leave sooner, and immediately following atrocities), but it really irritates me when the evil NPCs leave due to high rep. I can see some of them leaving, like Xzar or Monty, maybe, but others, like Viconia and Edwin, should be fine with having a high rep as it would help them hide in plain sight. It's also unrealistic that stores only give you a discount with high rep. If anything you'd think you'd get a better discount for having a low rep due to the intimidation factor.

These days I usually deal with reputation by completely ignoring it. I install the Tweaks Anthology components which make all NPCs completely neutral about rep and which allow discounts for low rep in shops. This way I don't have to manage or even think about rep in my games, other than shop discounts which I don't really worry about anyway.

Pause

Gallowglass said:

Pause said:

PaulaMigrate said:

The method to do it without doing something outright evil is to use those bards (FAI, Larswood, Nashkel inn near Volo) to spread some negative rumours about you.

I never use bards in any game I play, but this is interesting, I didn't know something like this was even possible - I may have to check it out.

In the unmodded game, it's not possible.

With the mod, it's not a matter of recruiting a Bard companion, it's that you can persuade a bard in an inn to sing about you. If they sing unpleasant rumours about you, then of course your REP falls.

That's actually cool, this would be awesome, to keep having to do good to combat the bad rumors, lol, I like it. So below is the link I found to the NPC Project Mod:

http://www.gibberlings3.net/bg1npc/

Will this work with BG:EE basic game by itself? I have BG:EE 1 & 2 but not the trilogy installed.

Edit:
Nevermind, I am not using any NPC's as companions, I created all my characters through multiplayer and imported the save into single game.

jastey

Take this link instead. https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/39422/bg1npc-v22-8/p1

And you don't need to take NPCs along. The bardic adjustment inserts bards into some inns you can pay for lowering your rep. It might even be a single mod component so except for the basic mod component and the bard rep adjustment you don't have to install all the NPC banters and romances if you are not interested.

WatchForWolves

Killing Firebead then Drizzt is a nice combo that gets you from 20 to 6 rep for a "reason"(the reason being XP and loot) I always do it before the Bandit Camp/Cloakwood so I can get the "evil" dreams there for that sweet 2x Horror.

Mantis37

SCS has a component to slow rep gain down, so you don't hit 20 for a good while.

Zagacious

Kill Drizzt you will lose like 10 rep and get 12K Exp and items

fateless

unless your particularly ocd about it. learning to ignore them may be for the best. otherwise you can start demanding to be paid and stuff. which will skip that rep reward on several quests. But it's always seemed like BG1 has like 3 times the rep boosts over what you'll need.

I've had characters where I start out chaotic evil just for the 6 rep. played good simply for the best rewards. always refused the rep boosting options that forgo rewards and still found I had way more rep than I needed to get to 20.

As for Viconia. She does have good reason not to want a high rep. It's not hiding in plain sight for her. It's increased scrutiny and increased chance to be attacked for simply being a Drow in her mind based on her experiences in the past. Anonymity is better in her opinion.

DreadKhan

I suspect the original plan was crazily enough that completionist runs would be rarer, hence extra rep availability and gobs of useless XP. Also nigh useless gold, unless you love using only the best magic ammo.