Valygar
velehal
Member Posts: 299
Is it possible to hire Valygar in chapter 2 and delay the Planar Sphere quest to chapter 6. Will he stay in the party or leave after some time?
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Comments
yes
once he joins there is no time limit in which you have to do the planar sphere, in fact you could complete ToB without doing it
Or, you could recruit him just long enough to get the door open and send him back to his cabin once you are in.
If you like him and want to flesh out his backstory a bit more the Unfinished Business mod adds back some interesting cut content
even a neutral or legal evil one should not do it, as there is no gain in doing it and who knows, he maybe can become useful in the future.
and anyway to RP the other party members seeing that you use a person and then have no problem in killing for no reason this former comrade, without feeling worried for themselves seems to me very problematic, i, being a npc, will flee away from the party and such a charname very fast in that situation...
i would flee in the night to be not stabbed in the back by that a**hole i was helping at risk of my life.
it is also possible to recruit valigar, open the sphere, drop him inside it, kill whatever has to bo killed, take him again with the party for the final interaction with lavok and then send him to his cabin to farm a little more xp, but why to kill him?
also maybe is not the best possible choice for scs + ascension, but still is a strong npc, his stabs can be very useful, even in tob, and his armor limitations are something that is possible to live with.
and by the way i am not sure that to play always towards the maximum power of the party to beat the maximum difficulty settings we are able to beat is always the more fun way to play, sometimes playing not super optimized parties, with npcs that we seldom use at our difficulty limits, dropping a little the difficulty (ie maybe not using all the most difficult scs settings) can be just as challenging and more fun.
i find to play minimum variations of the same super powerful party run after run boring, so lately i am much more focused in making my parties less powerful then in making the enemies more powerful.
I chose to take Valygar just long enough to pop the sphere, then sent him back to his cabin. I hate he won't get to see his long lost relative, but I prefer the party composition as it is. Of course, I haven't actually entered the sphere yet, so the party still has time to change its mind.
I also agree that even evil characters wouldn't necessarily stab an NPC in the back just for the giggles. Chaotic evil, perhaps - with a side of psychopathy, but not lawful or neutral evil. Evil is primarily self-serving, and it doesn't generally serve anyone's interest to randomly kill folks that could be useful in the future.
Well, you were recruited to capture him, but since he won't follow peacefully, a lawful evil character wouldn't mind bringing him back dead or alive.
In fact, in my lawful evil runs, I take extra care NOT to talk to Tolgerias, and just meet Valygar "by chance" while investigating the deaths in the Umar Hills.
Arguably, the same applies to a lawful neutral character.
A lawful good character would probably refuse Tolgerias' request altogether
A lawful neutral character might still help Valygar if he decides that he did not actually break any law and Tolgerias is operating on his own. A lawful evil Zhentarim might decide it is better to keep Valygar around to get full access the sphere.
And recall that Tolgerias never outright asks you to kill Valygar.
It may just be me, but I always play a Lawful Evil character as someone who will uphold his contracts to the end. In other words, the "evil" part means he doesn't care if he is "employed" for a good or evil task. The "loyal" part means he won't go back on his word (unless betrayed first or if the task was not what was agreed upon in the first place obviously, he's not an idiot).
My way of picturing "lawful" behaviours is probably why I rarely play one, always ending up with part-neutral alignments, more in adequacy with my "free will" personal character.
Precisely: this character would not care about the reason behind Tolgerias' mission: the man asks something simple: he wants to hire a bounty hunter to find someone for him. Plus, he pays you.
The fact that Valygar is or is not a murderer, that he had reasons, that he was only defending himself from being abducted and blah blah blah, wouldn't concern my evil character.
Sure, he only gives you the details about the mission after you give your word, but that's just how confidientality clauses work IRL too
The only "discovery" you make while talking to Valygar is that Tolgerias and the cowled wizards plan to use him (or his body) to open the Planar Sphere, but that can't be considered as a betrayal or even a lie from Tolgerias, the reason why he wants to capture Valygar does not concern you.
The lawful part is that I would be a henchman, recruited to do someone's dirty job, and Valygar's pleas wouldn't mean squat.
EDIT: after thinking about it, I forgot that Tolgerias asks for your cooperation without saying anything at all about what the job entails (not even saying "I want you to find someone for me"), so I understand what you meant. But that's just bad writing IMO. Technically, nobody in their right mind would ever go past this part in the conversation with Tolgerias, whatever their alignment.
Exactly. I personally can't really resolve the issue of charname accepting this quest unless they were chaotic neutral or chaotic evil.
Chaotic stupid, perhaps?
this can be a good enough reason for every charname that want to be sure to really do everything possible to rescue his comrade and friend.
it maybe can seem a paradox but a paladin or lawful good charname should be rp wise the one that has the better reasons to accept the deal, maybe changing his mind after he actually find the ranger.
not a chaotic evil or neutral one.
the other 2 alternatives he has are to side with a criminal thieves organization or with vampires, tolgerias is found inside a governative building and member of an organization that is at least tolerated by the official power (even if fighting the CW if you don't pay for the licence the amn soldiers side with you) and at that point there is no clue that you are asked to find or kill an innocent person under false premises for the sake of power of tolgerias and the CW.
IIRC from his dialogue, Valygar’s main focus is evading/opposing the Cowled Wizards generally, rather than entering the Sphere, so it seems reasonable that he could take his time before entering it.
nalia can take care of most of the traps and locks, maybe with the help of a potion for some of them, anomen has a spell to detect traps where nalia's skill is not up to the task, and lady d'arnise has a spell to open locks and can tank almost every trap (but a certain one in the maze that kill everybody) using SI or mirror images+ luck.
valygar can do the scouting and stabbing, to scout both nalia and anomen have their invisibility spells (later the SoTM also, that with the cloak of not detection make immune to true sight).
gliph of guard and skull trap/delayed fireball can be used instead of the thief traps.
having also haer dalis the party would have also the super powerful hla traps, but is possible to live without them, the only thing that is really missed is detect illusions.
i have a lot of fun using thieves, but i like your party as it allows to use almost all the thief capabilities without actually having a proper one (nalia is a powerful mage with some lock and trap disarming skills and a bow, certainly not a real thief...).
I like that party because the characters are more mature generally... all of them have already learnt some valuable lessons life wise and Nalia shows potential to develop to weigh up good and evil versus power, as we see in TOB, just as Valygar has done.
As I get older I tend to veer away from the more in your face and evil characters, although I still find Korgan rather amusing (funnier than Jan IMO)