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Is there a way to keep both Minsc and Edwin?

I remember that it was possible in BGEE, is it possible in BGEESoD?
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  • ShynShyn Member Posts: 73
    So far I have not found a way sadly... Installed various versions of happy patches and the likes, but they still seem mutually exclusive.

    If anyone has found a way, I would like to know aswell.... I like them bickering, no judging :wink:
  • h44nzh44nz Member Posts: 2
    Shyn said:

    So far I have not found a way sadly... Installed various versions of happy patches and the likes, but they still seem mutually exclusive.

    If anyone has found a way, I would like to know aswell.... I like them bickering, no judging :wink:

    I know a way how to do it. But if you like Dynaheir, you will not like it. I always did this in my playthroughs in BG1 because I really dislike voice of that witch (annoying as hell).

    Anyway, as soon as you find them, recruit both, then kill Dynaheir* and remove her from your party. As soon as you stumble upon Edwin, tell him to join your cause. Mincs will not mind.

    *Just a quick additional note, I found that if you kill her in the inn immediately after joining, she will appear in the crowd when you are leaving the city, subsequently she is also present in the camp, therefore you can recruit her later if you change your mind.
  • deltagodeltago Member Posts: 7,811
    h44nz said:

    Shyn said:

    So far I have not found a way sadly... Installed various versions of happy patches and the likes, but they still seem mutually exclusive.

    If anyone has found a way, I would like to know aswell.... I like them bickering, no judging :wink:

    I know a way how to do it. But if you like Dynaheir, you will not like it. I always did this in my playthroughs in BG1 because I really dislike voice of that witch (annoying as hell).

    Anyway, as soon as you find them, recruit both, then kill Dynaheir* and remove her from your party. As soon as you stumble upon Edwin, tell him to join your cause. Mincs will not mind.

    *Just a quick additional note, I found that if you kill her in the inn immediately after joining, she will appear in the crowd when you are leaving the city, subsequently she is also present in the camp, therefore you can recruit her later if you change your mind.
    So you can chunk her right in front of Minsc and he won't bat an eye? Seems like an oversight.
  • ShynShyn Member Posts: 73
    h44nz said:

    Shyn said:

    So far I have not found a way sadly... Installed various versions of happy patches and the likes, but they still seem mutually exclusive.

    If anyone has found a way, I would like to know aswell.... I like them bickering, no judging :wink:

    I know a way how to do it. But if you like Dynaheir, you will not like it. I always did this in my playthroughs in BG1 because I really dislike voice of that witch (annoying as hell).

    Anyway, as soon as you find them, recruit both, then kill Dynaheir* and remove her from your party. As soon as you stumble upon Edwin, tell him to join your cause. Mincs will not mind.

    *Just a quick additional note, I found that if you kill her in the inn immediately after joining, she will appear in the crowd when you are leaving the city, subsequently she is also present in the camp, therefore you can recruit her later if you change your mind.
    This does not work. It would have worked in BG1... But in SoD both Edwin and Minsc comment on each other as soon as one of them joins the other in the party. This happens even if Dynaheir is dead. In fact it doesnt seem to have anything to do with her. I was even able to split Dynaheir and Minsc with a little trick and Minsc doesnt seem to mind it.

    I would love to have both Minsc and Edwin in a single playthrough. They are my favorite personalities in the BG series (for different reasons obviously). And I am actually holding off playing SoD untill I find a solution for that problem. And I still have not.
  • h44nzh44nz Member Posts: 2
    edited April 2016

    I did this in previous version of the game, therefore it might not work for the current one as you pointed out.
  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147
    I managed to keep them both in a run long ago (pre EE)after first finding out they would fight by a fight breaking out.

    Basically micromanaged never letting them stand close together. So any pause in walking/fighting/action, positioned them on different sides of the room or different areas if possible (when an NPC is out scouting for traps and everybody else standing around and waiting) ect.

    Was forced to do this because I was in the Underdark and needed them both.
    Only the once though, once bitten, twice shy.
    Edwin is far more valuable than Minsc, and I think I read that Edwin is always killed if they fight?
    And on that run, both got through TOB to the end.

    Now thinking about it, that must have been almost my first ever run through BG2/TOB as it was very important, as far as I was concerned at the time, to bring through the BG NPC's for the whole story.
  • RawgrimRawgrim Member Posts: 621
    h44nz said:

    Shyn said:

    So far I have not found a way sadly... Installed various versions of happy patches and the likes, but they still seem mutually exclusive.

    If anyone has found a way, I would like to know aswell.... I like them bickering, no judging :wink:

    I know a way how to do it. But if you like Dynaheir, you will not like it. I always did this in my playthroughs in BG1 because I really dislike voice of that witch (annoying as hell).

    Anyway, as soon as you find them, recruit both, then kill Dynaheir* and remove her from your party. As soon as you stumble upon Edwin, tell him to join your cause. Mincs will not mind.

    *Just a quick additional note, I found that if you kill her in the inn immediately after joining, she will appear in the crowd when you are leaving the city, subsequently she is also present in the camp, therefore you can recruit her later if you change your mind.
    Characters showing up after you kill them is something they need to fix. Otherwise it is just way more railroading. "You shouldn't have killed this character so we fixed your mistake".

    + actions having consequences is always nice.
  • rapsam2003rapsam2003 Member Posts: 1,636
    edited April 2016
    Rawgrim said:

    Characters showing up after you kill them is something they need to fix. Otherwise it is just way more railroading. "You shouldn't have killed this character so we fixed your mistake".

    Actually, considering how the Forgotten Realms (and Sword Coast, to be more specific) setting works, that's fine. It's entirely possible that someone decided to be kind and take the dead person to a Cleric of Lathander, who then would resurrect that person.
    Rawgrim said:

    + actions having consequences is always nice.

    Yeah, but not breaking continuity because the player was a dick is also nice. It's also funny when, in BG2, you ask a character who died, "Didn't I kill you?" or "Didn't you die?", and the dialogue just kind of brushes over the fact like it was no big deal. It's like, "YEAH, BUT I'M BACK, BRO!".

    Frankly, killing a character is a pretty chaotic evil thing to do, in the first place. Letting them die on purpose, also chaotic evil. Sealing them in stone via the scroll "flesh to stone", chaotic evil. Unless you're literally going to be THAT GUY who actually is Chaotic Evil, then you have no reason to be wantonly killing your party in the first place. Actions need to have consequences in context of the story (which they do), not in context of the player being a dickhead (and thereby messing with the story).
  • RawgrimRawgrim Member Posts: 621
    edited April 2016

    Rawgrim said:

    Characters showing up after you kill them is something they need to fix. Otherwise it is just way more railroading. "You shouldn't have killed this character so we fixed your mistake".

    Actually, considering how the Forgotten Realms (and Sword Coast, to be more specific) setting works, that's fine. It's entirely possible that someone decided to be kind and take the dead person to a Cleric of Lathander, who then would resurrect that person.
    Rawgrim said:

    + actions having consequences is always nice.

    Yeah, but not breaking continuity because the player was a dick is also nice. It's also funny when, in BG2, you ask a character who died, "Didn't I kill you?" or "Didn't you die?", and the dialogue just kind of brushes over the fact like it was no big deal. It's like, "YEAH, BUT I'M BACK, BRO!".

    Frankly, killing a character is a pretty chaotic evil thing to do, in the first place. Letting them die on purpose, also chaotic evil. Sealing them in stone via the scroll "flesh to stone", chaotic evil. Unless you're literally going to be THAT GUY who actually is Chaotic Evil, then you have no reason to be wantonly killing your party in the first place. Actions need to have consequences in context of the story (which they do), not in context of the player being a dickhead (and thereby messing with the story).
    By that logic everyone we kill in the game should just show up later. No consequences. If you killed Dynaheir she should attack you afterwards. As it stands now it is just railroading. The game fixes your "mistakes" as you go a long. In effect the writer is telling you you played the game wrong.

    Bg2 didn't have an import feature for choices made in BG1. I don't think any game had that back then. It is a fairly new feature. Hence why things were handled that way. You can't really blame a game that is almost 20 years old for not having features that are fairly new now.
  • ShynShyn Member Posts: 73
    Several dead people got ressurected for the purpose of dragonspear in my game.... Its kind of annoying.

    But what I really need is a happypatch that works on SoD too, so I can play with the personalities I want to have around. And not for powergaming (since they are both quite good) but simply the fact these two are my all time favorites.
  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147
    @Rawgrim

    BG2 had continuity issues with characters, but as the developers of SOD said themselves, there is "a year" between the original games and we don't know anything that happened during that time.
    So although continuity breaking to some extent, it was reasonable and it was very possible to RP reasons for original characters to be missing, unknown, forgetful, dead, ressurected.

    SOD has removed that year.

    And have to say, that there is a certain arrogance of the developers to insist that certain NPC's who have now been being played with for nearly 20 years, (and the huge wealth of mods ect.), have to be ignored.

    It's railroading for no other reason than they wanted to.




  • rapsam2003rapsam2003 Member Posts: 1,636
    edited April 2016
    Rawgrim said:

    Bg2 didn't have an import feature for choices made in BG1. I don't think any game had that back then. It is a fairly new feature. Hence why things were handled that way. You can't really blame a game that is almost 20 years old for not having features that are fairly new now.

    Of course, I'm simply explaining the basic logic as to how they said "it worked" back then.

    However, you bring up another solid point. Is it even possible, from a technical standpoint, to really kill characters? The Infinity Engine is still what the EE versions of the game are based on. Is it feasible to have this as a feature? We don't know at this point. If it is a possible feature, the devs would have to implement, because modders do NOT have access to the engine's source code.

  • ObjulenObjulen Member Posts: 93
    It's going to be hard keeping Dynaheir dead since Beam Dog can't change BGII. She has a conanical death, which can't be altered. Railroading it may be, but I suspect that the opening line from SoD is more than a bit tounge-in-cheek about how things will always turn out the same at the end of SoD.
  • FardragonFardragon Member Posts: 4,511
    Conan killed Dynaheir?!

    I knew he was jealous of Minsc!
  • RawgrimRawgrim Member Posts: 621
    Objulen said:

    It's going to be hard keeping Dynaheir dead since Beam Dog can't change BGII. She has a conanical death, which can't be altered. Railroading it may be, but I suspect that the opening line from SoD is more than a bit tounge-in-cheek about how things will always turn out the same at the end of SoD.

    Dynaheir getting killed in SoD doesn't change anything. None of the games lets you import choices anyway. So if she dies in SoD, and you don't resurrect her, she should stay dead. Whatever happens in BG2 happens. There will be differences anyway, since you can only import your character and not any of the in-game choices from bg1\SoD anyway.
  • ObjulenObjulen Member Posts: 93
    edited April 2016
    Rawgrim said:

    Dynaheir getting killed in SoD doesn't change anything. None of the games lets you import choices anyway. So if she dies in SoD, and you don't resurrect her, she should stay dead. Whatever happens in BG2 happens. There will be differences anyway, since you can only import your character and not any of the in-game choices from bg1\SoD anyway.

    BGII's compatibility with saved data isn't relevant. If BeamDog added that feature, they'd still be obligated to leave the overall story and plot of BGII unchanged, so they would still need to make sure that Dynaheir was alive at the end of SoD so she could "meet her destiny", as it were.

    The begining of BGII wrote the end of SoD years ago. It's unreasonable to expect that there would be anything BUTa railroad from SoD when the end had already been written by BGII's begining.
  • RawgrimRawgrim Member Posts: 621
    edited April 2016
    Objulen said:

    Rawgrim said:

    Dynaheir getting killed in SoD doesn't change anything. None of the games lets you import choices anyway. So if she dies in SoD, and you don't resurrect her, she should stay dead. Whatever happens in BG2 happens. There will be differences anyway, since you can only import your character and not any of the in-game choices from bg1\SoD anyway.

    BGII's compatibility with saved data isn't relevant. If BeamDog added that feature, they'd still be obligated to leave the overall story and plot of BGII unchanged, so they would still need to make sure that Dynaheir was alive at the end of SoD so she could "meet her destiny", as it were.

    The begining of BGII wrote the end of SoD years ago. It's unreasonable to expect that there would be anything BUTa railroad from SoD when the end had already been written by BGII's begining.
    Yes I get that. But you can still kill her in BG1. No railroading there, and there was no issue. By your logic you shouldn't be able to even die in SoD because BG2 happens later. Minsc, Viconia, Jaheira, Edwin, Khalid and Dynaheir should be immune to damage. They all have to "meet their destiny", after all.

    Just spawning dead characters like that is bad writing for an rpg. It removes consequences from your choices. Might as well just be a movie.
  • rapsam2003rapsam2003 Member Posts: 1,636
    Rawgrim said:

    Just spawning dead characters like that is bad writing for an rpg. It removes consequences from your choices. Might as well just be a movie.

    Hold on, so using the movie analogy...we should ruin the 2nd movie because movie1.5 had some different options? No, that's not how CANON choices work. You are free, as the player, to make ANY CHOICE YOU WANT, but those choices are not necessarily canon.
  • RawgrimRawgrim Member Posts: 621

    Rawgrim said:

    Just spawning dead characters like that is bad writing for an rpg. It removes consequences from your choices. Might as well just be a movie.

    Hold on, so using the movie analogy...we should ruin the 2nd movie because movie1.5 had some different options? No, that's not how CANON choices work. You are free, as the player, to make ANY CHOICE YOU WANT, but those choices are not necessarily canon.
    Didn't say they choices were canon. That would be impossible to do without an import.

    But you can't just make characters immortal and remove choice from an rpg, due to a sequel. Just spawning a dead character over and over is arguably the biggest case of hand-holding in an rpg I have ever seen. It is like the writer is just fixing your mistakes as you make them, because the story didn't take deaths into account at all. It pretty much removes any say the player has in the story. Bad move in an rpg. the player should be firmly planted in the driver's seat in an rpg, and not be a passenger. Especially in a follow up to an rpg known for its freedom.
  • BelleSorciereBelleSorciere Member Posts: 2,108
    Fair, but it's not like this is a new thing, given that SOA sets you up with characters you might have killed or not even traveled with.
  • rapsam2003rapsam2003 Member Posts: 1,636
    Rawgrim said:

    Didn't say they choices were canon. That would be impossible to do without an import.

    But you can't just make characters immortal and remove choice from an rpg, due to a sequel. Just spawning a dead character over and over is arguably the biggest case of hand-holding in an rpg I have ever seen. It is like the writer is just fixing your mistakes as you make them, because the story didn't take deaths into account at all. It pretty much removes any say the player has in the story. Bad move in an rpg. the player should be firmly planted in the driver's seat in an rpg, and not be a passenger. Especially in a follow up to an rpg known for its freedom.

    Well, most of this is a moot point, since Beamdog probably cannot change things like that.

  • megamike15megamike15 Member Posts: 2,666
    before sod, bg2 assumed you finished the game with the canon party. so people that used other npcs felt annoyed at the time. haveing to make a head canon just to make this work. now with sod it does not matter what party you use you will always end with the canon one.

    in my personal view thats was the best thing sod could do as now you don't feel forced to use the canon party anymore unless you want to.

    sod had to end a certain way using the " it had no import' argument does not change this.
  • mf2112mf2112 Member, Moderator Posts: 1,919
    Rawgrim said:

    Rawgrim said:

    Just spawning dead characters like that is bad writing for an rpg. It removes consequences from your choices. Might as well just be a movie.

    Hold on, so using the movie analogy...we should ruin the 2nd movie because movie1.5 had some different options? No, that's not how CANON choices work. You are free, as the player, to make ANY CHOICE YOU WANT, but those choices are not necessarily canon.
    Didn't say they choices were canon. That would be impossible to do without an import.

    But you can't just make characters immortal and remove choice from an rpg, due to a sequel. Just spawning a dead character over and over is arguably the biggest case of hand-holding in an rpg I have ever seen. It is like the writer is just fixing your mistakes as you make them, because the story didn't take deaths into account at all. It pretty much removes any say the player has in the story. Bad move in an rpg. the player should be firmly planted in the driver's seat in an rpg, and not be a passenger. Especially in a follow up to an rpg known for its freedom.
    You know if you kill Minsc and Jaheira in BG1, amazingly they still show up in BG2. Edwin too. Freedom. Gotta love it.....
  • rapsam2003rapsam2003 Member Posts: 1,636
    mf2112 said:

    You know if you kill Minsc and Jaheira in BG1, amazingly they still show up in BG2. Edwin too. Freedom. Gotta love it.....

    That's basically @Rawrgrim 's point...

  • WayniacWayniac Member Posts: 132
    edited April 2016
    In Final Fantasy VII, if I let Aeris die and do not resurrect her, she still shows up so she can be killed.

    Half-Life allowed me to kill Barney... every time I saw him... yet he still appeared in Blue Shift.

    This is hardly a new issue for video games. How many characters do we have that we would have to create alternate lines for? Khalid, Minsc, Jaheira, Dynaheir, Safana, Coran, Xzar, Montaron, Edwin, Imoen, Ajantis... am I missing anyone?

    Of those characters, several have a huge part (Jaheira, Khalid, Minsc, Dynaheir, Edwin, Imoen). Asking the developers for your choices to carry over means creating an entirely new game for some of them. After all, what if I chunked Imoen? Now the entire plot line of BG2 is screwed.

    And as @Dee mentioned in another thread:
    Dee said:

    For Dynaheir, keeping her alive would mean:
    1) Creating new banters and side quests for Dynaheir
    2) Eliminating Minsc's banters with Aerie--notably the ones where he takes her on as his witch
    3) Changing the arc of Minsc's character as someone who has lost someone he cares about
    4) Creating new banters between existing NPCs and Dynaheir, notably Edwin (he can't talk about how she's dead anymore)

    That means the developers would have to essentially create an alternate line for each of the six major characters. Not only that, but some of them are not independent choices. There would have to be different dialogue completely for the following scenarios:

    1) Jaheira alive, Khalid dead
    2) Khalid alive, Jaheira dead
    3) Khalid and Jaheira alive
    4) Minsc alive, Dynaheir dead
    5) Dynaheir alive, Minsc dead
    6) Minsc and Dynaheir alive
    7) Edwin alive
    8) Edwin dead
    9) Imoen alive
    10) Imoen dead

    Choices 1-3 result in a massive revision of character interactions. Choices 4-8 result in a massive entangled mess of characters interactions that must all be revised and rewritten. Choices 9 and 10 essentially result in two different games.

    I understand the idea of wanting complete continuity, but as a whole, I think the request over multiple games is a pretty demanding one. As with any game in any sequel, there are assumptions that are made in order for it to work.

    After all, when Half-Life 2 came out, nobody said, "How is that possible? I made the wrong choice at the end of Half-Life, so Gordon Freeman shouldn't be alive."
  • FardragonFardragon Member Posts: 4,511
    Accept it, any fictional character whose name isn't Uncle Ben can recover from being dead as often as they like.
  • RawgrimRawgrim Member Posts: 621

    before sod, bg2 assumed you finished the game with the canon party. so people that used other npcs felt annoyed at the time. haveing to make a head canon just to make this work. now with sod it does not matter what party you use you will always end with the canon one.

    in my personal view thats was the best thing sod could do as now you don't feel forced to use the canon party anymore unless you want to.

    sod had to end a certain way using the " it had no import' argument does not change this.

    Yeah but BG2 didn't keep respawning your dead characters just to force you into a set playstyle. If a character died you had to resurrect the character, or leave the character dead.

    The best thing SoD could have done is to use characters that aren't in BG2. Simple as that. That would have created no problems at all. Could just have had the "canon party" show up near the end and travel off into the sunset with you.
  • RawgrimRawgrim Member Posts: 621
    Wayniac said:

    In Final Fantasy VII, if I let Aeris die and do not resurrect her, she still shows up so she can be killed.

    Half-Life allowed me to kill Barney... every time I saw him... yet he still appeared in Blue Shift.

    This is hardly a new issue for video games. How many characters do we have that we would have to create alternate lines for? Khalid, Minsc, Jaheira, Dynaheir, Safana, Coran, Xzar, Montaron, Edwin, Imoen, Ajantis... am I missing anyone?

    Of those characters, several have a huge part (Jaheira, Khalid, Minsc, Dynaheir, Edwin, Imoen). Asking the developers for your choices to carry over means creating an entirely new game for some of them. After all, what if I chunked Imoen? Now the entire plot line of BG2 is screwed.

    And as @Dee mentioned in another thread:

    Dee said:

    For Dynaheir, keeping her alive would mean:
    1) Creating new banters and side quests for Dynaheir
    2) Eliminating Minsc's banters with Aerie--notably the ones where he takes her on as his witch
    3) Changing the arc of Minsc's character as someone who has lost someone he cares about
    4) Creating new banters between existing NPCs and Dynaheir, notably Edwin (he can't talk about how she's dead anymore)

    That means the developers would have to essentially create an alternate line for each of the six major characters. Not only that, but some of them are not independent choices. There would have to be different dialogue completely for the following scenarios:

    1) Jaheira alive, Khalid dead
    2) Khalid alive, Jaheira dead
    3) Khalid and Jaheira alive
    4) Minsc alive, Dynaheir dead
    5) Dynaheir alive, Minsc dead
    6) Minsc and Dynaheir alive
    7) Edwin alive
    8) Edwin dead
    9) Imoen alive
    10) Imoen dead

    Choices 1-3 result in a massive revision of character interactions. Choices 4-8 result in a massive entangled mess of characters interactions that must all be revised and rewritten. Choices 9 and 10 essentially result in two different games.

    I understand the idea of wanting complete continuity, but as a whole, I think the request over multiple games is a pretty demanding one. As with any game in any sequel, there are assumptions that are made in order for it to work.

    After all, when Half-Life 2 came out, nobody said, "How is that possible? I made the wrong choice at the end of Half-Life, so Gordon Freeman shouldn't be alive."
    I agree with your points. But you are missing mine, I think. There was no import, so choices couldn't carry over. Simple as that. and that is an acceptable reason for why Minsc etc is alive in BG2, even if you killed him in BG1.

    Nobody is asking Beamdog to add an import. The issue is that the game just respawns dead NPCs and stuffs them infront of you over and over again to force you to use them, or whatever. Beamdog is basically saying "You are playing an rpg wrong. Let's fix it for you". The game was linear to begin with, but this stuff takes it to a whole different level. Why even bother to give the characters hitpoint at all? They are clearly supposed to be immortal in SoD.
  • RawgrimRawgrim Member Posts: 621

    Rawgrim said:

    Didn't say they choices were canon. That would be impossible to do without an import.

    But you can't just make characters immortal and remove choice from an rpg, due to a sequel. Just spawning a dead character over and over is arguably the biggest case of hand-holding in an rpg I have ever seen. It is like the writer is just fixing your mistakes as you make them, because the story didn't take deaths into account at all. It pretty much removes any say the player has in the story. Bad move in an rpg. the player should be firmly planted in the driver's seat in an rpg, and not be a passenger. Especially in a follow up to an rpg known for its freedom.

    Well, most of this is a moot point, since Beamdog probably cannot change things like that.

    Yes they could easily have made SoD less linear. It just had to end a certain way. The journey to the end could have had way more freedom, and a lot less hand-holding and railroading.
  • SedSed Member Posts: 790
    Considering it's a magical world with gods, magic and whatnot.. even if someone was killed, that NPC could easily be brought back by someone else than Charname.

    Live with it :)
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