evil side quests
FrdNwsm
Member Posts: 1,069
I swore to myself I wouldn't take on any more side quests until I had cleared up the current mess of them. I still have 6 to finish off. Would have been down to 4, but then I accidentally rescued Haer'Dalis (or however you spell his name), and now I have to do something or other with this portal gem I found. Oh, and the Temple of Torm wants me to do more stuff for them as a result of clearing out those Eyeless morons. (You want me to let you do what? Pluck out my eyes? Seriously??? What a bunch of idiots!) Fine; I'll deal with those two tasks when I get the time.
Although, Torm's quest is that statue commission thing; the priest made it sound like there was a time limit involved. Is there actually one? If so, I'll have to move it to the top of the to-do list.
On the other hand, I'm OCD enough that I don't want to omit anything. I know Korgan and Hexxat want stuff done; I also know that Hexxat definitely won't mix with Keldorn and I suspect that other conflicts might arise as well. So, I was thinking to park all the good guys off in a corner somewhere to swap stories about how good they were, while I got together an evil crew to take on some presumably less reputable tasks. I suspect I had better do this sooner rather than later, before my reputation goes up and I scare them off.
(I sure as hell hope that Cernd doesn't have any more stuff to do now that we got his kid back. His has to be the WORST druid kit ever!)
MyChar is true neutral so doesn't care about who he works with, but he would prefer everybody to make nice with each other and not squabble (i.e. not kill each other off) while were on a mission. I was thinking to get Korgan, Hexxat, Viconia, my Bhaalspawn self, and maybe use bubble-brained Neera for magical backup; she's developed a mean streak, and I haven't finished her quests yet. Who would be good for the 6th spot? There's always Yoshimo, but that might be redundant since Hexxat is a thief, and also, as far as I know, he has no agendas pending. Haer'Dalis maybe? Edwin clearly qualifies, but again, I don't think he has any quests still pending now that we have put down the secessionist Shadow Thief splinter guild he was working for.
Any other suggestions?
Although, Torm's quest is that statue commission thing; the priest made it sound like there was a time limit involved. Is there actually one? If so, I'll have to move it to the top of the to-do list.
On the other hand, I'm OCD enough that I don't want to omit anything. I know Korgan and Hexxat want stuff done; I also know that Hexxat definitely won't mix with Keldorn and I suspect that other conflicts might arise as well. So, I was thinking to park all the good guys off in a corner somewhere to swap stories about how good they were, while I got together an evil crew to take on some presumably less reputable tasks. I suspect I had better do this sooner rather than later, before my reputation goes up and I scare them off.
(I sure as hell hope that Cernd doesn't have any more stuff to do now that we got his kid back. His has to be the WORST druid kit ever!)
MyChar is true neutral so doesn't care about who he works with, but he would prefer everybody to make nice with each other and not squabble (i.e. not kill each other off) while were on a mission. I was thinking to get Korgan, Hexxat, Viconia, my Bhaalspawn self, and maybe use bubble-brained Neera for magical backup; she's developed a mean streak, and I haven't finished her quests yet. Who would be good for the 6th spot? There's always Yoshimo, but that might be redundant since Hexxat is a thief, and also, as far as I know, he has no agendas pending. Haer'Dalis maybe? Edwin clearly qualifies, but again, I don't think he has any quests still pending now that we have put down the secessionist Shadow Thief splinter guild he was working for.
Any other suggestions?
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Being without an at least semi-organized overall plan of approach is driving me up the wall. Is there a list of NPCs and their quests somewhere? I was thinking of getting one of those BG2 walkthrough guides; there seem to be a number of them. Any recommendations?
Yes. In particular, she also won't mix with Anomen. (You can have them together for a few days, long enough to do a couple of quests, but not permanently.) Reasonable plan. One caveat - if your protagonist is romancing someone, then be wary of dropping your romantic interest from the party, especially if it's Jaheira.
No, once you've rescued his son, that's it for Cernd's personal quest.
Cernd isn't popular, since a lot of other players have got the same impression that he's a very weak character because they've recruited him early. However, this impression isn't actually true. The Shapeshifter kit has a peculiar power-curve as it levels up, and it just so happens that the time when you're most likely to meet him is the weakest part of his curve. If you persist with him, he turns into quite a powerful character - once he hits level 13 (mid-SoA) and becomes able to transform into a Greater Werewolf, he's suddenly pretty useful in melee (just keep him in Greater Werewolf form) up to around the end of SoA, then later once he hits level 15 (end-SoA or early-ToB) and gets a huge boost in spells-per-day, he's suddenly a pretty powerful caster (especially for summonings - he's the best summoner in the game). By the time he becomes a good caster he's ceasing to be so useful in melee (because by then the enemies are stronger), so at that stage you keep him in human form instead of shapeshifted, and move him from front-row to back-row. Thus it takes more management to keep him useful, but once you know how to use him, he's actually very good.
Yoshimo doesn't have any more personal content until you go off to rescue Imoen, but if you have him with you at that point then you'll see another detail of the main plot which you don't otherwise get.
Edwin does have more personal content than just the Guild work. In order to trigger it, you have to have him with you when you visit a particular location, and (IIRC) you need to do this in Chapter 2 or 3 because I think it might be locked out if you wait until later. For reasons which will become obvious, Edwin's further content dove-tails quite well with Korgan's quest - the quests aren't actually connected, but Korgan's quest will take you to the location you need to trigger Edwin's quest.
Neera's quests can be completed anytime, that can wait until later. However, you can't have Neera and Edwin at the same time - Neera's enemies are Red Wizards and Edwin is a Red Wizard, so she won't work with him. (Well, not usually, although I've discovered that this isn't true all the time.) Not all of them, but many do. There are lots of quite good guides to original BG2, but mostly not yet updated to include the additional BG2ee content. GameBanshee and Sorcerer's Place both have very good guides to the original (non-EE) content. Haeravon has a guide (AFAIK the only one so far) which also includes the EE content, but it's text-only rather than a graphical guide, and he's irritatingly opinionated (and IMO wrong about some points).
Oh and my advice about those walkthrough guides would be not to take one.
It is not a problem if you did not do all the quests the game offers you in a single playthrough. I mean, miss some, start another playthrough, find some new, etc...
Using a walkthrough guide will ruin the pleasure you might take in discovering the game, everything will be mechanical, you won't even have to try by yourself. I wish I were in your situation, discovering the gigantic world that is BG2.
"I wish I were in your situation, discovering the gigantic world that is BG2."
What I have discovered is that I need better protection! 27 reloads due to MyChar getting offed, and I'm sure that number will climb. Where's that +10 full plate mail and the ring of 100% magic resistance?
I'm a half-orc. I don't think anybody likes half-orcs, and especially not half-orcs descended from the God of Murder. Well, Hexxat has said some suggestive stuff, but I suspect she's more interested in my red blood cell count than my sperm count.
I would still advice you not to take such a guide, because you will simply use the guide any time you are stuck, rather than trying and figuring out by yourself, which is IMHO the main point of RPGs.
Concerning half orc romance, all the new NPC, as well as Viconia IIRC, might be interested by Half Orc (Hexxat is a Lesbian though).
You should use Celestial fury, it is one of the best weapons in game.
I am letting Yoshimo use it, since he's my current katana specialist. He's probably drooling over it in his sleep right now. Currently, though, I'm besieging the red wizards, and I've got a decent crew for that, I think. I got tired of trying to be subtle with them, and now I am making guerrilla raids on their HQ. Two wizards down and a couple more to go.
Once they run out of magical backup, their mercenary lackeys should be easy prey. I'm not sure why, but this resulted in my reputation going down to "disliked". I mean, I'm pretty sure there were no innocent bystanders harmed; well, not THIS time around anyway. The last time I inflicted collateral damage on civilians, it went way down to "despised". Are the Red Wizards really all that popular with the populace?
Some of them are real slimebuckets, btw. Anyone else catch that bit where one of them in a side room is trying to coerce one of his mercs into giving him oral sex?
Part of the lasting interest of a game like this, the reason it's maintained an active user-base for so many years, is re-playability. I'm a completionist too, I can't feel that I've really completed the game unless I've completed all of it (except insofaras some choices are mutually-exclusive) ... but you don't have to find everything and do everything in your first run through. Managing to play a "really complete game" can be an achievement towards which you aspire over several runs, not something you need necessarily expect to be able to do in your first attempt. It is indeed part of your game-objective to acquire good equipment, specifically including some decent defensive kit! Don't worry, eventually you'll accumulate plenty of it.
You actually can eventually get armour even better than you're asking for - the best in the game is effectively "Full Plate +11" (although it's not called that), but you can't get it until Chapter 9 (mid-ToB), and only under certain conditions. However, you don't really need armour that good, and it's only in the game as an "easter egg" ... last time I completed BG2ee, I fought the end-of-game Final Battle with that in my inventory, and actually forgot(!) to wear it, but nevertheless I still won quite easily. For SoA, ordinary (non-magical) Full Plate with various defensive rings (etc.) is actually quite sufficient, although you may want a little more than that in ToB.
There's no ring of 100% MR, although with a combination of various items and the natural abilities of certain character-classes, it is eventually possible to reach 100% MR ... but only in a couple of particular cases, not on a whole party, and you don't need MR that good. With good saving throws, modest MR, and the right buffing, you can withstand anything the game can throw at you ... except that there are a couple of spells, which a few enemies do know how to use, which completely ignore (i.e. work regardless of) your MR, and therefore call for more tactical thought.
I wasn't necessarily asking about something that hands me all the solutions on a silver platter. But I don't even know what all the spells are that one can learn, don't know what many of the creature's capabilities are, etc. Knowing this would help me plan better, and stop me from making unwarranted assumptions ... like thinking elementals would be immune to web
And maybe get a sort of suggestion as to what order quests might best be done. They're pretty variable in difficulty right now. I just got done bringing Neb to justice and that was absurdly easy; on the other hand, I'm deferring the Trademeet Djinn quest. I have no way of knowing how tough a Raksasa is in game terms, but considering that the originals were Hindu demons, I'm assuming they're probably a lot harder to take down than Neb was. And I'm not even going to touch the Mind Flayers yet; just walking down the corridor towards their vicinity gave me problems. I figure that's the designer's way of warning me off.
I had hoped there might be something like a game manual hidden somewhere in the files, but I don't see any such thing. If I hadn't been a face-to-face D&D player for many years, I'd have no idea what was going on. Assuming that your customers are all familiar with the game to that extent is neither good marketing nor sensible package design.
Also, the release notes for the current patch are downloadable from links in the News section of this forum.
If there's a manual, then the download should tell us that! Sheesh! OK I'll go look right now.
And there is a Rakshasa at the center of the sewers. One that gives you the Sewer cloak.
Two good resources for spell lists are Play It Hardcore and Xyx's Spell Reference. The former has a complete list of spells with commentary, and includes some EE content, though I don't think it is complete. The latter does not have EE content and many of the things marked "bugs" or "cheese" seem to have been fixed in EE, so use it with caution. However, it is a great resource for deciding what spells to ignore, which is half the battle in learning to be an effective spell caster.