Evil party member doesn't leave regardless of high party reputation?

speancer

Hello, recently I started playing BG:EE, it's my first playthrough, I'm really enjoying the game, I was sleeping on it for years, I'm glad I finally gave it another try. I was clueless of AD&D mechanics, I didn't even know what all these stats meant (dice rolls) or what THAC0 was, etc I've spent a decent amount of time on research to catch up before I started my playthrough, the research included this forum.

Getting to the point, I have a little problem: I'm wondering if I encountered a bug or is it just my lack of knowledge about this game's mechanics. Thing is, I already have the highest reputation (Heroic, 20 points) and my sole current evil party member seems to not care about that. From what I read, evil characters should leave the party once my reputation is high (they should leave if I hit 19 rep apparently). The evil-alignment character is Shar-Teel, I've met her some time ago in the wild, and she's already been travelling and fighting with my party for a while. She should get annoyed and leave, right? Why doesn't she leave?

I'm not sure if that matters at all, but I play on Core Rules difficulty, my CHARNAME's charisma is 18.

Skomp

I never play with evil characters, but I believe that there has to be a reputation change for the leaving sequence to kick in. So if your reputation is already 20 when the evil npc is picked up, then he/she will not leave unless your reputation changes.

Cloutier

Skomp wrote: »

I never play with evil characters, but I believe that there has to be a reputation change for the leaving sequence to kick in. So if your reputation is already 20 when the evil npc is picked up, then he/she will not leave unless your reputation changes.

^^^
This

Very_BigSword

Hilarious that. Pick up at max rep, any gains you get don't matter because you stay at the cap, be as altruistic as you like. But if you get caught breaking into a chest or are rude to someone she will kick you to the curb

speancer

Skomp wrote: »

I never play with evil characters, but I believe that there has to be a reputation change for the leaving sequence to kick in. So if your reputation is already 20 when the evil npc is picked up, then he/she will not leave unless your reputation changes.

Thank you, that's exactly how it works, I tested it. It's kinda dumb. Turns out I will also not join evil characters to my party, at least not the ones that give reputation penalty, cuz any good deed after that results in them leaving anyway.

Very_BigSword wrote: »

Hilarious that. Pick up at max rep, any gains you get don't matter because you stay at the cap, be as altruistic as you like. But if you get caught breaking into a chest or are rude to someone she will kick you to the curb

Yeah, it's silly I think it would be better if evil characters just refused to join the party with high reputation, instead of them leaving when there's some reputation fluctuation.

ThacoBell

I've used this trick to keep the occasional evil party member around. It doesn't work with Dorn, Viconia, or Baeloth though. Since they trigger a reputation change on join.

speancer

ThacoBell wrote: »

I've used this trick to keep the occasional evil party member around. It doesn't work with Dorn, Viconia, or Baeloth though. Since they trigger a reputation change on join.

Yep, that's how I tested it. I added Viconia on 20 rep and due to rep penalty she brings, she just left on first rep rise. I still think this is kind of an exploit and should be changed. Evil characters should refuse to join party with high reputation in the first place, that would make more sense.

jmerry

In most cases, evil characters do refuse to join a high-rep party. It's just that there are a few loopholes, particularly in the first-time dialogues.

speancer

jmerry wrote: »

In most cases, evil characters do refuse to join a high-rep party. It's just that there are a few loopholes, particularly in the first-time dialogues.

Really? Because both of the evil characters I've met so far joined with no issue (20 rep), but yeah, it happened right after having some interaction with them, like winning the duel with Shar-Teel or rescuing Viconia from Flaming Fist, so that's the loophole, I assume.

So, if I encounter some other evil characters in my journey, they might just refuse my join offer from the spot?

[edited typos]

speancer

And you know what? Last night Shar-Teel just left my party after I did a good deed (unpetrified a stone statue) even though I've had 20 rep all the time. This time around the game just decided that it would add +1 rep even though it shouldn't do that, because rep had been maxed out. Normally when you do something good you'd not even get any rep increase notifications anymore if it's already been on 20, but this time somehow the game gave me "+1 rep" notification and it made Shar-Teel leave. Strange things

ThacoBell

I've had specific issue with keeping Shar Teel with that trick. Not sure why. I've even had her leave despite using atweaks' happy patch. She just REALLY hates good I guess.