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Thalantyr does not appear to care about his golems

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  • TanthalasTanthalas Member Posts: 6,738
    @Salk

    Just because something is guarded, that doesn't mean that everyone that walks through the front door should expect to be attacked on sight.
    DiscoCat
  • CuvCuv Member, Developer Posts: 2,535
    @Salk I was joking:P Thanks
  • SalkSalk Member Posts: 62
    Tanthalas said:

    @Salk

    Just because something is guarded, that doesn't mean that everyone that walks through the front door should expect to be attacked on sight.

    It pretty much does in many cases. And with Thalantyr's background and rumours about him, it does also make sense.

    @Cuv

    I must have lost my sense of humor...
  • TanthalasTanthalas Member Posts: 6,738
    Salk said:

    It pretty much does in many cases. And with Thalantyr's background and rumours about him, it does also make sense.

    @Salk

    I can't really agree with this interpretation. If something like this happened in real life, Thalantyr would have had his ass thrown in jail already and even in the Forgotten Realms I don't think that the authorities would allow Thalantyr to go killing anyone that enters his open tower. There are plenty of cases of guarded shops (and Thalantyr does run a shop) where they don't gun you down as soon as you go through the open front door.

    It doesn't make much sense to me for only his golems to be automatically hostyle. Thalantyr himself doesn't even initiate a dialogue with you, you always have to go talk to him.
  • BalquoBalquo Member, Developer Posts: 2,746
    I've always liked that the golems are hostile. Adding @Salk 's suggestions such as adding a lock to his door and giving him some dialogue if you do kill the golems would be nice additions.
    SalkAndreaColombo
  • SalkSalk Member Posts: 62
    @Tanthalas

    As I said, we can agree to disagree.

    I can debate each point of yours with what I think is logical (to me, at least)

    "If something like this happened in real life, Thalantyr would have had his ass thrown in jail already"

    Can't really speak about what would happen in real life, can we?

    "and even in the Forgotten Realms I don't think the authorities would allow Thalantyr to go killing anyone that enters his open tower."

    Some wizards are allowed worse than that in the game and are not bothered by the authorities. You have been in Baldur's Gate, I believe. Ever met Ragefast and Ramazith?

    "There are plenty of cases of guarded shops (and Thalantyr does run a shop) where they don't gun you down as soon as you go through the open front door."

    And since there are many cases like that, they should all be like that? What kind of logic is it? And yes, the door should not be open. For me THAT is the bug, for you the hostile welcome is instead.

    "Thalantyr himself doesn't even initiate a dialogue with you, you always have to go talk to him."

    And doesn't that suggest you that he doesn't want to talk to you in the first place? Just let us be happy that he stops his guards once we do.
  • TanthalasTanthalas Member Posts: 6,738
    edited July 2012
    Salk said:


    "Thalantyr himself doesn't even initiate a dialogue with you, you always have to go talk to him."

    And doesn't that suggest you that he doesn't want to talk to you in the first place? Just let us be happy that he stops his guards once we do.

    @Salk
    If he doesn't want to talk to anyone he should lock his door and yet he doesn't.

    If he wants to attack anyone that enters his tower, he himself should also be hostile, and yet he's not, worse, he just stands there while you kill his golems and in the end has no problems in opening his shop for you.

    To support your point of view you need to correct at least two bugs, my view only needs one correction (golems no longer being hostile).

    There's just too many things with the vanilla BG1 situation for me to believe that that's how it was supposed to work.
  • SalkSalk Member Posts: 62
    edited July 2012
    @Tanthalas

    I am not trying to convince you and you won't convince me.

    The fact that the door is not locked is contradictory and I agree with you there, but only there.

    Thalantyr doesn't want to KILL anyone who enters his place uninvited (he does not have a public shop the way others do - he sells privately in his house) but he discourages people from bothering him by being attacked by his guards. At that point you can leave from the door you just entered and that's what he wants you to do.

    Those golems are like guard dogs. They attack on sight. This doesn't mean that the master will also unload a shotgun on your tail, does it?
    Grieg
  • BoasterBoaster Member Posts: 622
    So long as you don't kill any inside the High Hedge, the pissant town wizard is unaffected.
    This made the post worth reading! Hahahaha!

    Why does he live in such a pissant town? hahahah!
  • BhryaenBhryaen Member Posts: 2,874
    @Salk
    You brought up some good points about Permidion Stark's dialog (and the ensuing Journal entry), but keep in mind that the ambitious Mr. Stark is hardly an impeccable source of info- or is all melee against flesh golems ineffective? For sure the Journal line "might be a way to lure them away from the action" is even more poignant with the addition of the BG2 engine...

    As to the irrelevance of killing guard dogs, have you any of your own? I don't, but if I did, and someone even tried to kill them, well, to put it mildly, I'd see it as a hostile act, not something to completely ignore... And golems are slightly more expensive than guard dogs...

    As to your quote of "Page 60," I have the mostly paper Game Manual myself and on Page 32 it says this of Thalantyr:
    The governor of Beregost is Kelddath Ormlyr... In this, he has two powerful allies: the wizard Thalantyr, a conjurer of great repute, and the smith Taerom "Thunderhammer" Fuiruim.
    Of "great repute" and an ally of the goodly-aligned Ormlyr... and yet locks his door and sics golems on anyone who enter despite being a merchant...? It's not the most intuitively laid-out encounter. This is rather irrefutable. Not that it's counter-intuitive that Thalantyr would want guards for his sanctum or that he's so friendly that one would expect nothing but hospitality from him. In fact, I agree with you entirely on his "leave me the xvart alone!" attitude. You don't even get his store unless you initiate dialog twice, so it's not as if he's the most agreeable merchant... But he is a merchant, and when you speak to him and get his "Get the hell out o' here," somehow that makes his golems blue circles? If I had bodyguards I'd have them crowd in front of me if I felt I had to resort to a "get out of my face" line. Note that you can even smart off to him with "I go where I please" without invoking ire from his golems. After you've spoken to him, you can make underhanded threats all you like. In fact, you can even kill Thalantyr without his supposed guards coming to help. So with them off in the back anyway, what are they even guarding?

    From my tests, however, you can't even trigger the golems unless you explore the otherwise empty outer ring of the High Hedge- i.e., they seem to remain without a wander script that might kill "intruders"/ customers until a party member wanders around the corner to stumble on them first. But this just means that his bodyguards are wont to remain precisely where they can't even assist in protecting him. Would you place your guard dogs in a back room of your house and instruct them to sit there unless an intruder gets within sight of them or would you want them near where they can defend you? Apparently you're ok with people killing your guard dogs, so maybe I needn't ask...

    In short, for a new player trying to navigate that encounter logically and sensibly, it just isn't possible. It's all still trial-and-error, just as it always has been.

    Thus, whatever your concerns, you should have nothing to worry about whatsoever as the encounter pretty much remains exactly the same as it was and as you (and probably most others) would've wished... *shrugs* High Hedge controversy averted and all its otherwise super-important gameworld implications...

    @Boaster
    ;-)
  • SalkSalk Member Posts: 62
    @Bhryaen:

    you can not compare the affection one person might have for living animals (guard dogs) to the attachment one might have for golems (which are soulless). The latter might be precious but they're still constructs. The reason they are not just by his side in the house is just because they are there mostly to scare curious thieves that'd like to go around the house and look for treasure (that's what Permidion wanted to do, after all). If you are smart enough to introduce you to Thalantyr following a straight path then you're rewarded by not having to face the golems. I don't find this encounter particularly broken.

    You brought also up some info about Thalantyr being of "great repute" and an "ally" of Taerom Fuiruim but that doesn't exactly negate his unwelcoming manners. There is no strict correlation.

    I can not even buy the " keep in mind that the ambitious Mr. Stark is hardly an impeccable source of info or is all melee against flesh golems ineffective?" because the golems require magical weapons to be hit. Obviously, Permidion does not own a magical weapon and when he tried to fight off the golems, he noticed he wasn't giving them any damage.
  • BhryaenBhryaen Member Posts: 2,874
    @Salk
    I wasn't comparing guard dogs and guard-dog-golems in terms of affection. I'm not much of a dog-person myself, and given Thally's general disposition I doubt it would be a matter of affection for dogs or golems. It's a matter of the inherent threat, no? You can compare the guard dogs with an electric fence in that case: if someone blasts apart your electric fence do you let them stride up to you and have nothing to say about it, armed as you are w shotgun or Lightning Bolt? Particularly if you were on your porch at the time of the fence-blasting. Well, Thally's fine with it... so long as you don't blast the entire fence (and instead drag it off his lawn first) or you simply blast away the entire fence before speaking to him. Hasn't a complaint in the world- not a sausage. That said, if his electric fence guardians are there to guard, what are they guarding? There are no artifacts lying about, just empty back halls, and the only thing that they really can guard is Thally himself, but they're otherwise out of position to do so... So... perhaps they're just there to give a little high-XP challenge to visitors...

    So the case for hostility to violent intruders is made, but then there's the confoundingly apt case for no hostility. He's got a store, and not just a couple items. He's the Sorcerous Sundries of the South. So as much as he doesn't like guests and is openly and repeatedly curt with them, he can't be said to outright oppose guests. He does, after all, say "Get out... unless you've got magic to sell." So he's expressly in favor of guests of a particular sort- sort of. And as we see, despite Permidion's informative obfuscation, the door is unlocked and his golems don't guard him at all- don't even factor in- if you walk straight to him. He doesn't even initiate combat if you outright threaten him in dialog. Plus that he's considered by Kelddath to somehow be one of the pissant town's chief defenders. So why the hostile golems in the back halls at all?

    Given Permidion's "warning," however, it's "smart" to scope out the "dive" first, no? Given his intro, why consider Thalantyr a merchant at all rather than one of many NPCs who do their initial dialog and then go ballistic? There's no way to figure out the parameters of the encounter without just going into it with a reload handy (unless having read the Game Manual, of course, or perhaps having gotten an in-game tip while in Beregost, though nothing prepares the player for hostile +1-to-hit golems lurking about.) How intuitive does it seem to be told that undamageable flesh beasts are roaming the place and then walk into the inner sanctum that has only one way out and nowhere to run? Best to investigate for the flesh beasts first and prepare the exit strategy. There's certainly no way to know that merely attempting to talk with Thal will turn the golems' red circles into blue, and in fact you can have one chasing you right up to Thal and it change at the last second. We all know the schtick by now, but no new player will be able to piece it together by merely being "smart."

    And that's really my main point- not that the golems should or shouldn't be initially hostile, not that Thalantyr should or shouldn't react to his golems being attacked and/ or killed in his view or out- but that it's a poorly thought-out and designed encounter- albeit one with fun ideas to it- that should maintain at least enough consistency and intuitiveness that a new player can indeed figure out how to navigate it successfully by "being smart." Adding a locked door only adds yet another layer of counterintuitive wtf. The way I've spelled out as an alternative setup would do remove the counterintuitiveness and make the "smart" choice rather excessively clear, but, well, it would sacrifice the 4kXP freebie, forcing it to be an all-in-one battle... so... not likely to rally support from all those terrible flesh-golem-haters out there. ;-) Another alternative would be to keep golems constantly hostile, making it always a challenge to reach Thalantyr. Could be fun- and at least a bit more consistent...

    And again, this discussion is just for discussion: the matter is already decided in favor of largely vanilla counter-intuitiveness... and I'm futzing about at work at the moment...
    Salk
  • SalkSalk Member Posts: 62
    Your argument is solid, Bhryaren.

    I agree with you that the encounter is partly counter-intuitive and could have been better engineered. What I don't agree with is "Adding a locked door only adds yet another layer of counterintuitive wtf." because a locked door would be consistent with the intention of discouraging visitors.

    And discouraging visitors is something that is plainly accepted to be one of the factors of Thalantyr's personality. It's supported from different sources and can't be disagreed upon.

    The dialogue would need a moderate lift-up as well. It doesn't make much sense that one needs to speak to him twice to start bartering. It doesn't make much sense that he says "Get out... unless you've got magic to sell." and then you can just buy, having no magical items yourself to sell.

    In the end, I believe that the worst thing would be to leave things exactly as they were in vanilla. What I proposed was a quick, little tweak to make things a bit more consistent internally.

    Making the golems not hostile goes openly against Permidion's words and in that case, we should really rewrite his dialogue.

    I enjoyed the discussion though.

    Thanks to all who partecipated.
  • Avenger_teambgAvenger_teambg Member, Developer Posts: 5,862
    Salk said:


    "Thalantyr is a courtly, solitary man who enjoys walks in the countryside while armed with his Staff of Power. He dwells in a GUARDED estate known as High Hedge, west of Beregost."

    Actually his staff is a bog standard quarterstaff.
  • MilochMiloch Member Posts: 863
    I'd agree with others that I don't think anything really needs changing here (except the crappy light and search maps, which @Yovaneth has already done). There are too many bigger things to tackle, like getting the game to run without crashing almost immediately on Intel chipsets.

    (I notice now that @Avenger_teambg rezzed the thread though, by this forum's standards anyway... you think he should have a staff of power?)
    Grieg
  • Avenger_teambgAvenger_teambg Member, Developer Posts: 5,862
    I don't know. The manual could be 'fixed' too. Or just leave this.
  • BalquoBalquo Member, Developer Posts: 2,746
    That is a BG2 item, correct? If we add that then people will just kill him for it, but maybe if they can kill him then they deserve it. What level is he supposed to be? 17 or something? Is that possible to change now that the BG2 engine is being used?
  • Lord_GayLord_Gay Member Posts: 94
    I'll just add that the golems serving as bodyguards is not their actual purpose. As others have mentioned, if they actually were bodyguards, they would be placed in the same room as Thal. If you want them to be bodyguards, then they should obviously be moved there. Apparently, most gamers haven't managed to figure out why Thal would have two beefy hunks of man flesh hanging out in the back of his home...

    http://www.collegehumor.com/video/3915529/why-terminators-transport-naked
    http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0532.html (last panel)
  • DeeDee Member Posts: 10,447
    I'm surprised to see this thread popping around still. Two pennies from Mr. Pennyway (that's me):

    1: Thalantyr is a level 17 mage and quite capable of protecting himself from unwanted visitors or even intruders. He doesn't need the golems to protect him from most adversaries, and those that would pose an actual threat to him will be undeterred by the pair of rather unimpressive golems he has in his tower.

    The golems are there to discourage thieves from entering his tower in the first place. A low-danger intruder would naturally avoid catching the eye of Thalantyr upon entering High Hedge, and try to find a way around to where the "loot is kept", only to be assaulted by the golems. Thalantyr doesn't intervene or help the golems because, quite frankly, he's too busy for it to be a concern. He is rather content to be studying his spells and enchanting items for Taerom. When the thief has learned his lesson, he will speak to Thalantyr or leave. In either case, the intruder will be sufficiently "roughed up" that he should no longer be a threat.

    2: Thalantyr is a merchant, if a rather asocial one, and thus makes his livelihood by being available to wealthy and intrepid adventurers. Locking his door would be perfectly silly, especially when he has two perfectly good flesh golems to protect his goods and seventeen caster levels of spells to protect himself.

    So the fix that Keith implemented is sufficient, I think. The golems are hostile when you meet them because you meet them while being where you're not supposed to be. They stop attacking you when you speak to Thalantyr because he cancels their "kill order". If you attack Thalantyr, the golems revert to their original orders to eliminate intruders. The door doesn't need to be locked because after all, this is a man who--while not wanting to be disturbed--is willing to talk to anyone with the right amount of coin.
    Miloch
  • MilochMiloch Member Posts: 863
    Aosaw said:

    2: Thalantyr is a merchant, if a rather asocial one, and thus makes his livelihood by being available to wealthy and intrepid adventurers. Locking his door would be perfectly silly, especially when he has two perfectly good flesh golems to protect his goods and seventeen caster levels of spells to protect himself.

    I particularly agree with this.
    So the fix that Keith implemented is sufficient, I think. The golems are hostile when you meet them because you meet them while being where you're not supposed to be. They stop attacking you when you speak to Thalantyr because he cancels their "kill order".
    Isn't that how the vanilla game worked though? I thought the "fix" suggested here (at least originally) was to have Thalantyr go hostile if you kill his golems (which I don't agree with).

    Regarding a staff of power, I dunno if I'd want to see that in BG1. Could give him an undroppable one but undroppable loot is tacky. Still, it is probably true to canon lore... probably says the same thing in Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast. Could give him a "minor" staff of power (i.e. nerfed for BG1).
  • DeeDee Member Posts: 10,447
    The manual describes him as someone "who enjoys walks in the countryside while armed with his staff of power."

    So it's possible that he just doesn't walk around inside his home with it, which would make a kind of sense.
  • Arutha_CrydeeArutha_Crydee Member Posts: 68
    soooooo I killed one of the golems and now thalantyr wont talk to me. is there any way to fix this?
  • Arutha_CrydeeArutha_Crydee Member Posts: 68
    and no i have the chicken and cant complete the quest! dangit!
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