Playing as male charname for the first time
Cvijeta
Member Posts: 417
Hmm... So, which romance is recommended...Aerie or Jaheira? I want to do harpers hold quest, could I turn Jaheira down at the beginning?
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If your answer is Liberace, light up the candles and romance Aerie.
You may also want to check out on romanceable NPC mods. Like the de'Arnise Romance mod for instance if you wish to flesh out Nalia quite a bit.
I had never played as male charname (still don't) and couldn't believe how much I found out which you have no indication of if you play female.
Viconia's though for some reason really got to me. I still remember the first time I played it back in the early 2000's. I find it the most emotionally engaging.
Jahiera's though is the longest and with the most content. It is the better 'strategic' one for XP, content, etc.
About par for the course if you went to an all girls school.
A discussion about
Anyhow, I always found it odd that all male romances in BG2 tend to be either elven (Aerie, Viconia) or half-elven (Jaheira, Neera) women. Not counting Dorn's here. Which is why my post also ended with the suggestion of NPC mods like in Nalia's de Arnise Romance case. At some point it just gets old dating those long ears.
Just think of those young male devs in their early 20*s more than 15 years ago having to draft a romance in front of their PCs. Aerie was their dream come true.
The game has a nuch larger audience today including some of us who are a bit more grown up and with our real life experience meanwhile. Nalia, Ninde, Dace Linton, Amber and, and...
Not like that would be a valid reason for making all of BG2's love interests into sermon loving priests either way.
The original developers probably either envisioned for players to mostly play macho warriors in shiny armors or skulking bhaalspawns in the shadows. Otherwise there would have been at least some non-casters amongst them. Heck, even Haer'Darlis who was planned to be an alternative to Anomen is a caster. Which only strenghtens my assumption.
I really feel like she needs a year or two on her own with the Harpers for grieving and carefully thinking out the next stage in her process. She has been so much a part of a fairly consequential marriage partnership, with Harper activities to boot. Too many memories of the complicated personality of Khalid, the would-be warrior always bravely struggling to get beyond his innate timidity....
She has also always seemed to me to be closer to 35+ yrs old, while Aerie seems like early 20s personality and Viconia 25-30 with a fairly broad experience.
Viconia is more interesting, partly because I have rarely included her in my Neutral-Good playthroughs of BG1. Her BG2 dialogues are a huge improvement!!
Now I need to think about romance in BG2 with one of my female Charnames...!! Anomen---Naah! Haerdalis, possibly. Jan Jansen!!?? Now THAT could be....kinky!! Lolol.
Still waiting for the Tiax Romance mod for my daughter of Bhaal.
You might be right, however a big part of the fun and intrigue which surrounds Jaheira's romance and dialogue with you (which strangely doesn't seem to play a big part in the other 3 original romances) is that you are the son of a God and life in your company is turbulent beyond all measure of normality. The romance does address this, and several times it is shown that Jaheira isn't totally keeping up with you. If you do not romance her but bring her through ToB, her epilogue does reveal that she lost some part of her personality and understanding of the world to the chaos of travelling with the Bhaalspawn. Jaheira's romance acknowledges the context of the romance way more than the others, and in doing so, I feel it foregoes being criticised for "happening at a bad time". You're the son of Bhaal. It's always going to be a bad time!