Who doesn't like a good reputation!?

Solusek · Post by **Solusek** » Thu Jan 06, 2011 8:06 pm

Hey there,

I've just started a new game of Baldur's Gate 1 planning on playing the whole Saga once more. Playing as an evil character again this time I remembered one thing that has been bothering me since the very first time I've played BG - evil NPC party members get angry about a good reputation, even to the point that they will leave eventually.

While this might be understandable for chaotic evil characters, which tend to be a little dumb in general, it's just plain stupid and illogical for cunning lawful evil or neutral evil characters as they clearly benefit from a good reputation. This is especially true for lawful evil characters - having a heroic reputation while following all sorts of evil activities behind the scenes should basically a dream come true for most of them. And that's also exactly what my main char is going to do...

To make a long story short, is there any kind of mod out there for BG1 or BG2 to "fix" this issue? I've been searching various mod sites but haven't come up with anything useful yet.

So long,
Sol

Stworca · Post by **Stworca** » Fri Jan 07, 2011 8:43 am

For BG2 there are [url="http://www.gibberlings3.net/bg2tweaks/index.php"]"Tweaks"[/url] which allow you to make all characters happy regardless of your rep, and also re-activate the happy lines of neutral characters, that were disabled in vanilla.

Rav · Post by **Rav** » Sat Jan 08, 2011 7:09 am

Yeah, the reputation system isn't perfect. It tries to be two things at the same time:
1) Reputation. So far so good. You solve big quests successfully, and the people of the land will hear about it, giving you discounts etc.
2) A number indicating how evil or good you are. This works not quite so well.

There are some quests that no one in the game world would ever hear about (no witnesses etc.), but still you get a reputation point because you did something "Good".

Because the reputation system is also the Good/Evil indicator, you have your party members complain and leave depending on your reputation number. I think this problem wasn't solved till Mass Effect (which tracks "good/paragon" and "evil/renegade" scores separately (ie. two 0-100 scales) instead of one scale.

QuenGalad · Post by **QuenGalad** » Sat Jan 08, 2011 3:37 pm

Pocket Plane Group made a [url="http://www.pocketplane.net/mambo/index.php?option=content&task=blogcategory&id=107&Itemid=82"]virtue[/url] mod that's supposed to address this. Although I've never tried it so have no idea how it works in practice.

Incidentally, is anyone else bugged how neutral characters are never happy? They complain about either too high or too low reputation, which is really annoying. I think they might have at least made them say their "happy" lines if party reputation is around 10. As it is, I only discovered what "content" line Her'dalis has when I changed him to CG in shadow keeper (long story). As to Jaheira, I wouldn't be surprised if she turned out not to have one recorded at all

.

Ode to a Grasshopper · Sat Jan 08, 2011 7:42 pm

QuenGalad wrote:Pocket Plane Group made a [url="http://www.pocketplane.net/mambo/index.php?option=content&task=blogcategory&id=107&Itemid=82"]virtue[/url] mod that's supposed to address this. Although I've never tried it so have no idea how it works in practice.

Incidentally, is anyone else bugged how neutral characters are never happy? They complain about either too high or too low reputation, which is really annoying. I think they might have at least made them say their "happy" lines if party reputation is around 10. As it is, I only discovered what "content" line Her'dalis has when I changed him to CG in shadow keeper (long story). As to Jaheira, I wouldn't be surprised if she turned out not to have one recorded at all .

The new happy patch in the Tweakpack has an option where Neutral characters make happy comments at neutral reputations.