XP Adjustment for NPC's you have met before in the game feels like Cheating.
DJKajuru
Member Posts: 3,300
Hi there
I just realised that if you had , for instance, a level 2 NPC in your party and then dropped him for another npc , it turns out that if you come back for the first one his XP level adjusts to yours. To me it feels like cheating, or metagaming.
The npc in question was Garrick, I was level 2 with approximately 4000 xp when I left him for branwen and went to nashkel mines. When I came back and picked Garrick once again, at level 3 and about 8000 xp , garrick turns out to have reached the same by standing in the tavern!
I know that "ToB-like" npc leveling is cool, but this adjustment for npc's you had met before in the game (the game itself, not expansions) feels very artificial.
I just realised that if you had , for instance, a level 2 NPC in your party and then dropped him for another npc , it turns out that if you come back for the first one his XP level adjusts to yours. To me it feels like cheating, or metagaming.
The npc in question was Garrick, I was level 2 with approximately 4000 xp when I left him for branwen and went to nashkel mines. When I came back and picked Garrick once again, at level 3 and about 8000 xp , garrick turns out to have reached the same by standing in the tavern!
I know that "ToB-like" npc leveling is cool, but this adjustment for npc's you had met before in the game (the game itself, not expansions) feels very artificial.
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Comments
No.
He's out getting stuff done every day. He just happens to check back in at that same tavern every now and then. Pure coincidence you met him there again when you did.
From a gameplay perspective... it's a change, certainly. But personally, I think I like it. It lets you be a bit freer with swapping around party members.
If you think about it for a moment some things about npc leveling is a bit odd. Jaheria and Khalid are supposed to be experienced adventurers they should not be level 1 NPCs.
Imagine for a moment you lost a npc and needed a new one - here you are at lets say level 5+ or so and you want a mage - you run over to the Friendly Arms where you left a level 1 Neera and viola she is still level 1 but you are all at level 5+ so how is this level 1 mage going to do to help you in your time of need, with only 1 spell (well 2 spells for Neera) and 4 hit points.
However, I stand by my principles that it doesn't feel dynamic .
@Jarrakul , @magisensei. , I'm a bit out of my comfort zone with it because that has never really bothered me - take level 1 neera to durlag's tower with your 7th level party and she'll level up fast enough tp become useful ( not to mention the use of wands).
I've always felt that khalid and jaheira were supposed to be more experienced, but to me wasnt much of a problem either since they acted as if they were better than their original levels. Same for level 1 edwin, maybe he simply didn't use all his powers at the time. If it bothered the majority of players I suppose I can keep using the console to fix it for myself.
BG (or DnD) is nothing but a representation. More than that, it's a representation that's meant to be PLAYED. With GAME MECHANICS in it. Compromises have to be made.
You like some, you hate some. You just hated some.
So if you add a NPC and kick them out they still level up? They shouldn't. Going to have to check that out. If you enjoy playing in your way the easiest way to do it is meet everyone, have them join you for a moment before releasing them and they will stay at their level. Of course this is much easier to do in the earlier chapters before reaching chapter 3 or later chapters where NPC are automatically adjusted when they meet you but you don't have to take those NPCs with you and just stick with those you meet in the earlier chapters or use a mod to bring those NPCs that are in later chapters into chapter 2 so you an meet them all of course you can use console to do this as well without modding as you said.
Of course I would wonder about the sanity (of the PC do you have a low WIS and INT
Of course I think having a level 1 NPC going with you to the tower instead of slowly and painstakingly suffer from gathering xp from smaller encounters almost a cheesy way to level a low level NPC. You have to do it the hard way to really appreciate leveling.
We used to do the same in PnP. If someone couldn't play for a while, when he came back, his character would be on par with the party. We'd pass it off as "off killing orcs" or something. We'd found that mixing levels in a party was more annoying than fun, so we corrected for it.