Ridiculous Reputation Loss
webspyder
Member Posts: 27
In the Gibberling Mountains (east of Nashkel Mines) there's a Flaming Fist soldier that gives you the Samuel Deserter quest. There are multiple dialog options that lead to him attacking you for the crime of having a smart mouth. Now, this is a long mercenary in the wilderness who attacks charname for mouthing off. How can anyone possibly rationalize a 6 point rep hit for this? This should fall into the same category as the merc chasing Viconia or the group of them you meet on the South Beregost Road.
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Keep in mind, that no matter what..A small donation to the church will win you back the hearts and minds of all the people!
If you find yourself in a fight with minions of the law you can of course choose not to kill them. Running away or knocking them unconscious will keep your reputation stainless ...
Maybe he might could shed some light on it, if it would change there with the mod.
Regardless of mods though, my own take on this is if no one sees and the Flaming Fist (or whoever) does not have a successful investigation, CHARNAME rep should not take a hit.
I reckon as things are now, the base system tries to combine alignment and rep together, in a strange way.
I have always thought it would different to have an alignment change system mod as well, as in 'old skool' AD&D, with resultant penalties to XP. That would be interesting.
EDIT: I would think it would take repeated visits of a rep lvl to enact, but it would be harder to work in with evil playin good for advantage, and maybe easier with 'good' killin innocent, so maybe not, hehheh.
The mod at the moment likely does not cover this particular encounter. But it's something I can look into for it.
Yeah I don't disagree with that, but I think it's a problem with the whole reputation system at large. It's not really complex enough. The harper in BG and the paladin in the tavern are also two situations that could qualify as self-defense imo.
The stuff with the donations is just so meta gamey.. and stupid. By following that system, the temples are apparently responsible for clearing your name..as long as you have enough money.
Not shady at all...^^
I agree that doesn't make much sense, but that's how reputation works in the game - you can't hide your evil deeds. If it helps, you could think of the Flaming Fist as employing diviners to find out what happened to their missing personnel ...
The Flaming Fist were founded by Duke Eltan and are working officially as law enforcers in Baldur's Gate and the surrounding area. No wise citizen would mess with them.
You've already said that you understand how the reputation system works. Everyone recognises that system has flaws, but it's based on the idea of distinguishing between good and evil acts. It's not always clear in advance which category the game will place an act in and I agree it could have been argued that saving Viconia was evil. However, I think it is generally in keeping with classifications elsewhere in the game that saving the life of a hunted refugee is classed as a neutral act even when that refugee is a drow (you're also not penalised in reputation for letting the Flaming Fist take her though).
Person starts off with a smart mouth, next thing they're fighting to become the next "God of Murder"(tm).
"Just doing my duty, ma'am"
But seriously, I love the inconsistances in game, keeps it interesting IMO. That you are so irritated to make a thread shows that you are engaged enough for it to matter.
And that's the strength of BG.
Where as the guard on your way to nashkel would go off pretty easily. And you can easily find out that the guard going after Viconia is basically being a bigoted jerk but You don't have to fight him to make him stop either.
I think @fateless hit the nail on the head - all three Flaming Fist fights are different enough to warrant different penalties.
Road to Nashkel - They pick a fight with you unless you talk them out of it (these days I usually say I'm working for Amn, which is risky but I don't use CHA as a dump stat and I'm usually trying to keep decent Rep). They're at fault, so no rep impact is expected.
Viconia - He's being an asshole and attacks you if you call him out on it, but you end up losing rep if you take Viconia anyway so it balances out.
Samuel's hunter - This guy's just doing his job in trying to bring Samuel (a deserter) to justice, and as has been stated before, you have to go out of your way to pick a fight here. It's obvious that you're at fault if a fight starts, and a rep hit makes the most sense here. I'd rather it were a specific scripted hit instead of the standard "you killed an innocent OMG" hit, however. What makes this situation odd is he shouldn't have jurisdiction in Amn, but does anyway because the map devs weren't paying attention to political borders. It really should be an Amnish soldier, not a Flaming Fist (since Lena wants you to take him to the FAI for sanctuary, which isn't really under FF jurisdiction either but is closer to BG and an unscrupulous patron could more easily kidnap him from there...)
Admittedly, it's been a while since I paid attention to what Lena said, was Samuel a Flaming Fist deserter?
As for it being a FF soldier. Technically the border is somewhere in the maps just south of Nashkel. Nashkel is a bordertown but it's technically in the BG overseen lands. This is why there are Flaming Fist in the area. While they primarily are the city guard and soldiers for BG they are also in smaller numbers used to keep piece in lands traditionally surrounding and seen as overseen by BG itself. Technically they spread farther north too but we never really see them because the game doesn't carry that far north.
Simply replying "We don't have to answer your stinking questions!" makes him hostile. While mouthy, it hardly gives him right to try to be judge, jury and executioner not to mention it's just stupid, he's outnumbered 6 to 1. It is, at best, poor writing. By the way, the rep hit fails to take context into account here too. If you encounter Samuel first and have him with you, you have to kill the Flaming Fist to protect Samuel. Are you saying it is more evil to kill to protect a deserter than someone who is actually evil?
You can look at and treat the one as your heading to Nashkell as Neutral Evil (He's using the law to enforce his will and not really be good). He's all about doing whatever he feels like as long as the Law protects him or he can bend the law to put him "in the right".
The third one with Viconia is actually more complicated. Viconia may be an evil race but you are technically protecting an innocent. The FLaming Fist may be going after an evil race but ultimately he's trying to murder somebody for no reason. So the whole situation washes out at Neutral at best. Your actions in almost every way are doing something evil and doing something good at the same time and only how you colour it with your perception of the character makes one side better than the other.
The fact that nobody is around is partly a mechanical issue and partly trying to put real world scenario's into play. You could argue that when it comes to killing. Doing particular acts shows on you in some untangible but reactable way by the people around you when it comes to a world where good and evil are in some sense personified. Or you can argue that you can't be sure somebody didn't happen to wander by and stay hidden in the tree's or whatever that you didn't see and report what you did.
@fateless: In the unmodded game, NPCs will leave your party if your reputation clashes too much with their moral alignment. The EE NPCs can come back, but OG NPCs never will if they leave over Reputation. I believe that the threshholds are 19+ for evil characters, 4- for good and 2- for neutral. I'm much less certain about the low end of things since I don't enjoy being a murderous asshat and that's pretty much the only way you can stay on the low end...