I HATE IT!
Hadar
Member Posts: 171
Hey,
I did not intended to play Jaheira, so after escaping Irenicus's Dungeon I sadly asked her to part our ways. I did not intended to play Jaheira because I don't like her but because I wanted to play EE characters though all games (so Neera and Rasaad are with me since BG1) + characters I did not play earlier (Mazzy, Keldorn). And abandoning her after what happened in Irenicus's Dungeon was hard, but what happened recently was just heartbreaking.
So my solid roster consist of Charname, Keldorn, Mazzy and Neera. In Spellhold Imoen will take the last place. Because I need thief so Jan Jansen plays the role (but to Spellhold I will take under leveled Yoshimo - you know why). So before I end second act I want to do all NPC's quest and Jan is always the one who must take a forced leave (which may be irritating because he is my only thief).
So recently I left Jan in Copper Coronet I took Jaheira, to go though her personal quest (Save Jaheira from Baron Ployer's Curse and Summoned to the Harper Hold). After Elminster gave her the harpers pin I was so proud, but it also was the moment to say goodbye.
I though that Jaheira would proudly stand aside Minsc in Copper Coronet, but no and the "goodbye" was heartbreaking. She was devastated that after all we been through I want to leave her for another party member. She said that in my good name she fought and killed her Harper friends and now she don't know where to go. Khalid is dead, I'm leaving her and she cannot go back to Harpers, so probably we will not ever meet again and she just left.
I felt soooo bad, Jaheira, I would not leave you if I was not bonded by the absurd six members party cap. I hate this unnatural cap without any RP sense!
Gosh I would love not be limited by this cap, because I have to hurt my NPC friends feelings when I do not want to! I beg anybody to rid this cap!
@Larian Studios If you are reading this don't established any fixed party size limit. Make it role play - that conflicts between party members are the reason that somebody leaves. And If somebody wants to have big party he must have godlike charisma, to manage conflicts and bring party members together.
I did not intended to play Jaheira, so after escaping Irenicus's Dungeon I sadly asked her to part our ways. I did not intended to play Jaheira because I don't like her but because I wanted to play EE characters though all games (so Neera and Rasaad are with me since BG1) + characters I did not play earlier (Mazzy, Keldorn). And abandoning her after what happened in Irenicus's Dungeon was hard, but what happened recently was just heartbreaking.
So my solid roster consist of Charname, Keldorn, Mazzy and Neera. In Spellhold Imoen will take the last place. Because I need thief so Jan Jansen plays the role (but to Spellhold I will take under leveled Yoshimo - you know why). So before I end second act I want to do all NPC's quest and Jan is always the one who must take a forced leave (which may be irritating because he is my only thief).
So recently I left Jan in Copper Coronet I took Jaheira, to go though her personal quest (Save Jaheira from Baron Ployer's Curse and Summoned to the Harper Hold). After Elminster gave her the harpers pin I was so proud, but it also was the moment to say goodbye.
I though that Jaheira would proudly stand aside Minsc in Copper Coronet, but no and the "goodbye" was heartbreaking. She was devastated that after all we been through I want to leave her for another party member. She said that in my good name she fought and killed her Harper friends and now she don't know where to go. Khalid is dead, I'm leaving her and she cannot go back to Harpers, so probably we will not ever meet again and she just left.
I felt soooo bad, Jaheira, I would not leave you if I was not bonded by the absurd six members party cap. I hate this unnatural cap without any RP sense!
Gosh I would love not be limited by this cap, because I have to hurt my NPC friends feelings when I do not want to! I beg anybody to rid this cap!
@Larian Studios If you are reading this don't established any fixed party size limit. Make it role play - that conflicts between party members are the reason that somebody leaves. And If somebody wants to have big party he must have godlike charisma, to manage conflicts and bring party members together.
3
Comments
general: charname
mlee: minsc, mazzy, korgan, keldorn, dorn, mr tob, anomen, jaheira, custom made kensage, custom made f/M 1, 2 and 3.
rogues: jan, yoshimo, hexxatt
divine casters: aerie, viconia, cernd
arcane casters: imoen, nalia, neera, edwin, haer dalis.
they are under leveled as each get almost only quest xp, and i have some path finding problems, every time the party has to move from A to B i have to micromanage or at least 5 people get lost or stuck in some odd place, but to have 12 toons in mlee, 3 thieves and 7 dedicated casters give some advantage, i need 20 rounds to reach B, but there the battle never last more then 2 rounds, not boss battles last few seconds.
the existing range from 1 to 6 party members already gives problems in balancing the enemies, and the way the developers did it is very good as every party composition from solo to 6 people has its advantages and its disadvantages, there is a balance between number and how fast the toons level up.
allowing larger parties would make that balance impossible.
and there are also balance issues related witht he difficulty settings (and i am not even talking of the problems created by mods).
i understand the rp issues, but after all the game is not only rp.
jaheira's personality is what it is, take her or leave her, you can not change her and you can not pretend that she waits idle every time you change your mind. at least she is not a puppet of you like almost all the other npcs, she has a life to live and a loss to deal with, she is human (half elfish?), bossy but very realistic in it.
you want RP? this is RP...
Yeah, but I just wanted do for Jaheira hers personal quests and if I could I would prefer to micromanage big under leveled party. ;P
From the role play perspective (if your not some kind of sadistic maniac) dumping Jaheira, Minsc and Imoen should never happened. That leaves very little space to play with other NPCs. :c Also leaving Viconia and Sarevok after saving her / resurrecting him it's quite inappropriate.
I understand all the technical reasons why Infinity Engine games had six people party size limit, but from role play and D&D perspective there were no party limits.
And there are these absurd situation when you rescue full party Dynaheir, Xan, Kagain or Mazzy you must dump somebody in very dangerous area.
And I understand the balance problem, but I would be happy if disabling party size limit would be just beta option for advanced players.
and i agree with some of them, the 6 people party limit bring problems for who is already running a 6 people party and has to leave one toon in a dangerous place like when you find mazzy, but after all the quest can be completed without her, a player that cares of rp should probably equip her with some weapon and let her go on her own route as the way out of the dungeon and the forest are already clear.
i know that with mazzy in the party you can get some more xp, but that is no more a rp issue...
the same problem is much worst for a 6 people party without yoshimo in spellhood.
and other caps also have little rp reason, like the one on the traps, why if a thief is able to set them he loose that ability only because there is already a certain number of traps in the area?
but after all to take all the npcs to do all their side quests, take them only for their quest, is not a good way to rp the game. rp wise the party should try to rescue imoen as soon as possible, skipping at least half of the chap 2 quests and then run as fast then they can to save the elves city/catch irenicus before he slaughters all the elves and possibly you loose the chance to reach him and get back your soul.
i am quite completionist and try to do the more quests that i can, but i do it because i like so, not because it is a good way to rp, so if the game make not easy for me to do it (jaheira that can be dropped only once, long timers of some npc quests) i don't think that the game is badly designed from a rp point of view.
that told every player is free to have fun in his own way (inside the technical limits of what can be done, changed or modded), so even if i suspect that the 6 people limit is something hard coded that can not be modded but need a much more complex modification, i hope that someone can mod the game in the way you like. and if so i would gladly try, at least once, to run the game with an army instead of a party...
If you're gonna RP you should at least do it right and consider the logistics.
The only sad thing about the whole situation is that you don't get an epilogue slide for the NPCs that you don't bring with you in the final battle, but which you have regardless taken the time to develop/keep in touch with throughout the game. One of the most serious oversights of EE, IMO (and damn near-unforgivable considering Wilson's epilogue too).
Anyways I've been doing this since the original BG and thank god Bioware figured it out by Dragon Age.
nalia or aerie, solved their quest, have not really a personal agenda, they are at the beginning of their adventurer career, and probably for them to stick with charname's party is the best option. they don't really have better alternatives.
others like korgan, keldorn or anomen are seasoned adventurers and from a rp point of view should have a personal agenda, the dwarf is a mercenary, the paladin has obligations and tasks with the order and the F->C has his personal goal to join the order, for them it has no sense to wait idle in a place, even a safe one, that charname call them back in the party, if that thing ever happens.
i know that at the time the game was created even the idea of romances was quite revolutionary and to have npcs with a personal agenda that is really present in the game was not possible, it come later, probably the elder's scrolls games introduced it, but RP wise we should act as if they have it.
or, if we don't care about rp but have other goals, completionism, power gaming or whatever, we can completely ignore it treating them as pawns that we place on a square in the chessboard forgetting of them until we need them.
and personally i am quite happy that it is like so as it give us more freedom to play the way we want, with the only cost to have to deal ourselves with some rp aspects instead of being forced by the game to do it.
imho the "logistics" thing makes little sense, it is not an army where logistics are crucial, it is a small group of adventurers perfectly capable to rest in taverns or in the wilderness, to feed themselves and to earn the money for what they can need, actually they earn too much money as from the dialogues we know that the 10k reward from firkraag or the 20k to pay to the ST are really high values but they can easily rise 10 or 20 times that amount in a couple of months.
but every player has his way to rp, this is only my opinion, if @Nuin has an other one i am perfectly fine, as it adds value to his gaming and his way is far better then treat the npcs as pawns on the chessboard.
and for jaheira the thing is even more complex, as she is a seasoned adventurer, that has an affiliation with the harpers (that depending on the moment you drop her can be still active or she dropped to stick with you), she is in a very particular moment of her life, her husband has just been killed.
she has also a couple of agendas, with the harpers and as druid, plus the obligation with gorion to help you.
so, if you drop her twice (as the first time it happens she wait for you in front of the harpers building) is legittimate for her to think that yourself have broken her obligation with gorion, obligation that costed her the life of her husband, and to pursue her other agendas, as druid, as adventurer and as harper or someone that has to build a completely new life depending on the moment you drop her.
she is also a strong person, so strong that sometimes is quite bossy with the other people.
i perfectly understand if, as charname know all those things, she don't let him treat her as a pawn cause he has "to do an other npc's quest" or whatever it translates in RP. she did put aside a lot of things and payed an harsh price to stick with you, to pretend that you do the same with her is perfectly understandable.
so at the end i think that the way jaheira acts is not a game's flaw, is a game's plus. is, like the romances, something that the game did some years before the other games to try to give us, at least for her, the feeling to deal with a real person and not with a pawn of our crpg chess game.
Exactly! I never abandon my party member I usually try to leave them in one place together and that place is one that I will go back (Friendly Arm Inn in BG1, The Camp in SoD, Copper Coronet in SoA, Pocket Plane in ToB). I want to believe that we are still one party even though higher force forbids as from travelling all together.
For this moment in Copper Coronet I have following people with finished personal quests: Minsc, Aerie, Viconia, Haer'Dalis, and following waiting to do or finish their personal quests: Yoshimo, Anomen, Korgan, Hexxat. And I wanted that Jeheira would stay with all these people (I even, for RP perspective, dispose her next to Minsc - the one guy she knowns the best from all these people). :P
@gorgonzola
I bear no grudges against Jaheira, I completely understand her. In "real fantasy life"
To be honest, from all available characters in BG2EE neutral or good Charname would only have problem with fitting Dorn, Edwin and probably Hexxat in his party - all other conflicts can be calm down.
And I think that charname the chain of event after escaping Irenicus Prison would be more less in that order:
For me this is the most plausible chain of events - before going to Spellhold Charname would probably met all NPC's besides Rasaad, Cernd, Wilson and Sarevok.
Dorn would be killed, put in prison or proofed that he his beta male and if he want to live he must obey Charname. Edwin would probably leave unless forced to renounce Red Mages and at least tolerate Neera. I have no idea how Charname would react to Hexxat
but RP wise i agree with your plan.
the party members cap is only motivated by engine and balance issues, not by RP.
by the way irenicus power should not be a RP issue, as charname has no knowledge of what is happening is spellhood, not even that irenicus will be the bad guy of the game, for him is only a powerful mage that did some experiments with him and killed jaheira's husband, but that now has been jailed by the CW.
the point is if charname believes or not that he is ready to try to break in a CW prison or need more xp and preparation.
but, as the CW are a really powerful organization from the RP point of view it is even more scarier then to fight a single powerful mage whose stronghold and helpers, as far as charname knows, has been defeated.
I find it one of the more frustrating things about BG2's design that the player is urged so strongly to get on with rescuing Imoen, and then afterwards, the urgency to move quickly to the finale of the game is even more pressing. Meanwhile, I'd estimate at least half the content of the game in the Athkatla area needs to be left undone if the player is trying to roleplay and be really immersed in the main story. And then on top of everything else, almost every party member the player recruits has a long personal quest adventure that the character insists has to be done *right now*. And often several of them say that at once, along with a threat to leave the party.
BG2 is not the only game that falls into this kind of trap. Josh Sawyer admitted in a recent interview that even with the best of intentions, he made a similar mistake in PoE2 where the player is set up with a dire situation involving a mad god and a stolen soul, then put into the beginning of the game with an entire secondary content involving political factions in the Archipelago area, confusing players about which of the two "main stories" they were supposed to be following or prioritizing.
to regard them as prophetic visions or something other is completely up to how a player like to RP them, and actually are not so realistic as prophetic visions, ie during the dream charname has when his soul is stolen he meets imoen and interacts with her, but the real imoen states that she had no part at all in what happened in the dream.
about the rest i agree with you. if someone want to rp correctly when he meets nalia or an other npc with his personal agenda should probably answer "dear lady, i would have gladly helped you, but at now i really have no time as also i have to save someone with the same urgency".
unless there is a rp issue to gather more xp and gear before going to spellhood only the fastest and less problematic quests should be done before paying gaelan and rushing to save imoen.
and after the underdark, where also the minimum possible quests should be made, straight to bodhi and then suldalessanar, the risk to loose track of irenicus, and your soul, is too high to loose time.
And Nalia should show up in Copper Coronet after Charname will do all urgent stuff but still will not have the money xD
Yeah, my biggest frustration with BG2 is the whole "rescue Imoen" thing, and it's one area where BG1 is actually better. You get a chance to experience the game while getting constant reminders that there is more going on. Nevermind the fact Imoen is somewhat ruined by being so far behind if you don't practically bail for Brynnlaw as soon as you cobble together the fee.
I'm not sure how you could have rewritten it, but I agree 100%.
Hell, if this was an actual TV series arc the protagonist would probably spend a week or two in sheer denial while Minsc, Boo and Jaheira try to knock some sense into him ("Is this really what we're up against?").
You still shouldn't be able to do every quest if you're dead set on getting Imoen back ASAP, but you should really know better than to leave the moment you get the required fee. I guess unless you managed to uncover a ton of magical gear along the way.
Getting your essence back is different though. There is no RPing around that, Bhaal's alternate form alone should be pretty damning evidence that things can potentially get sooooooo much worse for you Bhaalspawn given time (even though in-game it curiously doesn't).
The pacing of that game was completely screwed up by that plot element, and it subsequently affected SoD, since Beamdog felt adamant about not letting you take Imoen with you as a result. It's like someone really had a beef with her, and if they couldn't take her out, they were darn sure going to make her irrelevant.
but we can successfully use both apples and oranges in our own recipe, the good or bad taste of the result is given by the proportions of the ingredients.
in other words i see truth in what both @nuin and @Maurvir tell, because they are talking at 2 different planes, role playing and game balance.
a player can, for rp resons, decide to rush to spellhood, and an other one can decide, like @Nuin suggests, that is wiser to be well prepared before facing the cowed wizards or irenicus (depending if the cutscenes are seen as dreams or prophecy/knowledge of what is really happening somewhere else).
and those are choices only related to RP.
then, in both cases the outcome of the rp choices, getting more or less levels and equipment, can be balanced with the other ingredients, that are the player's strength and knowledge of the game mechanics and the settings.
to chose a difficulty setting, to roll very high stats or not, to set the hp gain leveling with a dice roll or always maxed, to use mods that increase the challenge are ways to balance the settings ingredient so the recipe suits our personal taste.
all that has nothing to do with RP, is all about game mechanics, about keeping the balance to a level that for us is challenging, but not too frustrating.
but again this is mixing ingredients in different proportions apples and oranges, not comparing them.
I'm just saying that the extremes of going after Imoen ASAP and taking your time and doing every possible sidequest before rescuing Imoen both don't make sense.
As for Imoen, anything significant happening to her just opens up too many possible plot holes in BG2 I guess. I mean the devs were already hard-pressed to come up with an explanation about how Imoen remains mostly "untouched" until the beginning of BG2 (in the end they just settled with "nothing important really happens to her until your kidnapping, end of story").
I can see where the people who like to dual class Imoen in BG1 and manage that for themselves might not like it, though.
1. Myself, standard Mage
2. Imoen, edited to change her back into a pure Thief (never leaves my party)
3. Aerie, my party's buffer/debuffer/secondary healer (never leaves my party)
4. Jaheira, my party's all-rounder, a fighter/secondary healer/provider of Druid spells (never leaves my party)
5. Viconia, the party cleric (never leaves my party, especially once you change her alignment to Neutral)
6. Minsc, everybody's favourite goofball (he's the one I usually drop to pick up new party members for quests and such. In ToB, I replace him with Sarevok, but if party size wasn't an issue, I'd bring them both!)
7. Neera (I like her personality, although mechanics-wise Wild Mages just irk the hell out of me. As a result, I usually do not bring Neera in a 6 man party, although I'd gladly take her long for the company.)
8. Jan Jansen, still the best comic relief in the series.
9. Mazzy (in this expanded party, she'd be my party's archer and part-time tank)
10. Rasaad (in this expanded party, he'd be the "surgical strike" character I send in to quickly attack spellcasters in the backline.)
Characters who don't make the cut:
1. Anomen's alright, once he attains knighthood and matures up a bit, but he still kinda rubs me the wrong way. After helping him get knighted, I'd dismiss him so he can work directly for the Temple of Helm instead.
2. I generally like Nalia, but I don't need another Mage in the party. I leave her to rule the de'Arnise lands with instructions to contact me if anything major comes up.
3. I leave Korgan to destroy his liver in some dive somewhere after I complete his quests.
4. I dismiss Keldorn from my service so he can go spend time with his family.
5. I actually don't mind Edwin in the slightest, but I don't need another pure Mage in the party.
6. I put Haer'Dalis in charge of running the Five Flagons Theatre.
7. I appoint Valygar as the new Ranger-Protector of the Umar Hills.
8. I appoint Cernd as the new Grand Druid of the Druid circle in Amn.
9. While the completionist in me demands that I stomach Dorn enough to complete all his quests, in my headcanon Dorn's story would have come to a bloody end in the Temple District once I learned what he intended to do at that wedding.
10. Hexxat is quite an interesting character, and my Mage would perhaps have been moved enough by her situation to allow her to work for him, provided she agreed to never kill any innocents. In ToB, he grants her wish to be freed from her vampiric curse.
The devs obviously knew that most soft-hearted players would be seeing a lot of her, so they have rewarded us by making her one of the most versitile and interesting characters in the game.
She's got it all
Super deep dialogue tree, interactions with loads of other party members, detailed and interesting quests.
Comes on strong early with great spells: Insect plague, Fire elemental, and Harpers Call
Great early items such as belm/gnasher to greatly increase combat prowess
Great synergy as a fighter/druid for risky front line spells like natures beauty and harm
Great late game with both fighter and druid HLA's including Greater elemental summoning
She's noob friendly, powergamer friendly AND RP friendly all at the same time
And because she's likley to be in the party the whole game there is a decent chance she'll bust through the L15 druid cap on a normal playthrough.
Even recently she is still giving back, the harpers pin? Ive been playing for decades and saw it for the first time only recently
A strong character, massively rewarding to play, strong on RP, hugely memorable - it's writing like this that makes BG2 playable 20 years later
This works more neatly in ToB, everyone gets to at least be around in your little plane, or in SoD the camp, which works very well and makes you have a feel of an army, even if only a small unit is deployed.
Siege and Throne are different in that they address this and make the approach plausible, Siege due to the narrative and moving army camp and ToB by letting you summon and dump characters.
Am I secretly a jerkface??
You'd be surprised. Have you tried charming Dynaheir? What you learn from the experience might change your mind.
Granted, several NPCs are harder to RP than others into sticking around.
This IS BG1, after all, and if you had to take everything at face value a lot of what happens in BG2 would simply not make any sense. You're supposed to fill in the blanks. You could even RP that each time you left, Dynaheir/Minsc would then investigate the places you mentioned.
If you were just gonna dump her there then that's something different. I'm not even sure why that would be anything like DA:O - remember that if you wanted any progress with NPC relationships in DA:O the point was to visit camp regularly and talk to them especially after something major happened. Ignoring an NPC usually resulted in overall approval loss which would ultimately cause them to leave permanently.