Mod Idea - Redemption and Falling for Paladins

Barachiel

Playing through BGEE, I had a thought about how to better handle "falling" as a paladin. I know in BG2EE there's a single chance to undo that status, but that seems a bit... severe. In most editions, fixing that status was simply a matter of doing a quest for your order/church, and if they found it satisfactory, hitting you with the proper spell 4th or 5th level spell (blanking on the name).

So the first part of my idea, is taking that "redemption" flag from the Order questline in BG2EE, and adding it to a couple of BGEE quests, mainly killing the insane priest for the Lathander church in Beregost, and bringing the cursed guard captain to the priest of Helm in Nashkel. There might be a few other good choices, but those are the obvious ones.

This soon dovetailed into another idea. What if there were a quest to let a Fallen Paladin make a deal with a demon, a la Dorn, and respec as a Blackguard? That would be a bit harder to code, I would imagine, but would add some more dimension to the Paladin class and its RP factor.

Unfortunately, I'm about as good a coder as I am a singer, so I doubt I'll be making this myself anytime soon, but thought I'd toss the idea out there in case it inspired someone more talented than I.

Raduziel

Damn, I wish I had this idea.

The Blackguard code is not hard to do, I think. But the only opportunity for this would be at the end of the Soultaker Dagger plot from ToSC.

And IMHO, that should be the only opportunity for a redemption in BGEE.

Dev6

I'm not a modder so I can't help you, but this is a really great idea.

Grammarsalad

I'm totally on board with this. My plan is to eventually do something like this in faiths and powers, though it would be worth it to do this as an independent mod, as well (i.e. that would work with or without fnp). Heh, yup, let's just add one more mod idea to the pile

Raduziel

Ok, here's what I'm thinking - should be quite easy to implement.

The Soultaker plot goes normally. You defeat the Tanar'ri and everything runs fine until you rest.

When you rest, if you're Fallen, a BG2-dream-sequence-like scene appears with an NPC talking to Charname.

This NPCs says that Charname's last action caught the attention of higher powers and two roads are open to him/her.

Two other NPCs appear, an Archdevil and a Solar.

One road will get you patronized by the Archdevil that is quite impressed by your actions against the Cambion and the Tanar'ri and gives you the option to serve him as a Blackguard.

Another road will get you redeemed by the Solar and will restore your powers.

A choice is made, cutscene ends, Charname and his/her party awake and that's it.

What do you guys think?

Barachiel

Oooh, I might suggest a single change.

First, again, in previous editions, repenting from "Fallen" status did not require an Epic Quest on the scale of defeating a demon lord. Second, I feel like offering a class change should be in the offering for both sides.

What if, instead of merely undoing the "Fallen" status, it would allow a Fighter to respec *into* Paladin? Or if not, then let the Paladin change his Kit, as well as undo the "Fallen" status.

Raduziel

@Barachiel

Neither the Cambion or the Tanar'ri are demon lords. In BG2 you have to defeat Firkraag to be able to redeem yourself.

IDK if a Fighter becoming a Paladin would be doable - and TBH I don't like the idea.

Changing Kits is something complicated, I think. Except for some supernatural kits, like the Blackguard, they usually come from lots of training and specialization (as the Undead Hunter and Inquisitor) with or without some social support (like the Cavalier).

Redeeming the Fallen or making it fall harder (which means becoming a Blackguard) seems more plausible IMHO.

Barachiel

I forgot it was FirKraag. yeah, it shouldn't actually be *that* hard, but that's the standard of the game, so we'll stick to it. Disregard my first suggestion.

As for the second, Paladin kits are less about training, and more about gifts from their patron deity.