Evil just isn't as rewading...

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It's actually in tactics.

 

I think that this game, for all its brilliance in dealing with a good character, is terrible for RPing an evil character.

In the game, RPing a good or neutral character offers you far more in the way of experience, items, and power. It should be the opposite. You should get better items, better exp, and vastly more power by choosing the evil paths, so that to be good you have to deny yourself the seduction of the power gained by being evil. As it stands, there is no real impetus to be evil, and a reasonably intelligent "power hungry" evil character would probably RP most of the good options anyways.

 

I agree with the comments about this game being much more accesible to good characters. Are there any mods that add evil specific quests and banters etc. ?

 

I still don't think that playing good is more rewarding than playing evil.

You emphasize the flies and overlook the elephants.

You get a little extra gold, extra items (which are only useful for sale) or extra XP in some quests when acting good.

But you can get unlimited gold by stealing and selling items if you are evil.
You can use the gold gained to get unlimited XP by scribing and erasing scrolls and to buy the best equipment.

Together with the things I wrote in my above post I conclude that playing evil is even more rewarding than playing good.

But most rewarding is playing chaotic, using a walkthrough (or reloads) and just taking the option which gives the best benefit, no matter if it's lawful, chaotic, good or evil.
Many play this way and use their phantasy to let obviously evil acts appear good to them.
Low wisdom does also help, the most stupid decisions often yield the best rewards.


@Die_Bad_Guys:

Getting the IMoD is usually evil, you accept a quest and instead of helping the people who trust in you, you betray them. With the artist gone and all available Illithium spent you only made things worse.
But you can construct a non-evil way to get it.

About Gaxx:
Good characters wouldn't break into his house in the first place and also wouldn't open his coffin, so they would never get his ring. And if good characters would offer to help the unseeing eye cult is also questionable.

About the graveyard quest: I'd say a non-lawful good character would help, since good characters help others in need.
A paladin wouldn't kill the lich for this guy, but he would kill it anyway because lichs are evil.

 

@ fel, the lich from TOB, ummm in the "townnameIdontrecall" (the one with the monastery) graveyard.. WHICH BY THE WAY BRINGS ME BACK ON POINT! well I wasnt really there to get back to.. anyway
if you did let the lich take the guy's soul, you'd then have the girl's soul, which would be evil to keep! but oh so nice....

 

Oh. When you said graveyard I thought Graveyard District, not Amkethran. Yeah, letting the lich take the guy's soul would be evil. Killing the lich, OTOH, is just chaotic, disregarding the contract they had. Naturally LG characters would have quite a dilemma on their hands, but I think that can be solved by simply disbelieving "such an evil creature" and killing it right away without going back to the guy for an explanation. Score another one for being a patsy.

Oh, and I believe I heard about a mod somewhere that tied up that loose end and let you use the girl's soul to upgrade a weapon or something. In the vanilla game it's just useless aside from restoring her.

EDIT:
Speaking to the larger topic, evil should be more rewarding. It should also have a downside, though. If you're too evil, people shouldn't want to associate with you, and you'd miss out on some quests as well as perhaps some of the easier options for the quests you do get. But it won't be much of a downside because of the much better rewards you're getting from what you can do. Over all, being evil should quite simply be easier than being good.

Moreover, it should be different! Make it an actual split in the path you take, rather than just ways to do the same quests. If you turn to the dark side, you shouldn't be able to get things like the the Gloves of Healing (a goody-goody item if ever there was one). I find it rather disappointing that no matter which way you go in certain quests, you get one person's items as a reward and the other's from killing them.

[ July 07, 2006, 03:51: Message edited by: Felinoid ]

 

As I've said before, I like to go with nutruel. That way I've no qualms about taking what I want and helping people out at the same time.

 

Isn't it more like CG then?

 

Felinoid - The girls sould gem is anything BUT useless. Use as an Ioun Stone for +1 to a few stats and I think a Neut P or two.

Would be cool as hell to use as an upgrade though thats for sure.

 

Huh. Never noticed that, but you're right. +1 DEX, +1 CON, and 1 Neutralize Poison per day. Damn, now I can't wait to go through again with an evil party.

 

Malla's soulstone can be used to improve the Human Flash armor in Weimer's Item Upgrade mod.

Giving an evil only leather armour with:
AC 0, Protection From Good, +1 DEX, +1 CON, Immunity to Poison, +20% Magic Resistance, +4 Saves.

The lack of an 'evil path' means that you have to slaughter innocents and fight off city guard. But this generally makes sense, the cities you encounter in BG1&2 are generally good places following the rule of law. With the exception of the temple of Talos you're likely to find an evil organisations recruitng people in the street to work with/for them.

An 'evil path' is difficult to define afterall the different alignments would approach it in varying ways. For Chaotics it might just consist of doing the dirty work (stealing/murder/kidknapping etc) as a lowly criminal then someday attempting to sieze power from the good authorities in a violent coup. A Lawful or neutral character would work as part of the system attempting to subvert it to serve themselves.

What BG2 needs is a system where lawful-neutral-chaotic alignment would affect who might talk to them and what quests they are able to get in addition to the good-neutral-evil divide.

 

Who says evil can't be rewarding? First a disclaimer: Fel actually gave me this idea (at least I think it was Fel). There are few things more rewarding than in Chapter 6, your last visit to the Copper Coronet, to release a Pit Fiend in the middle of the tavern, and watch it go ape**** on everyone. (While you obviously protected yourself with a PfE 10'Radius spell.)

 

Then there's the possibility of going into robbing houses, waiting deliberately to be caught and the guards to arrive, and then...slaughter them!

It's rewarding enough, especially in the beginning, since those amnish legionaries, amnish centurions and cowled wizards are tough opponents. Beating them isn't too easy with a party around level 10. And you get a pretty hefty sum from selling their full plates.

Not to mention about waging war against the cowled wizards, which a lawful good wouldn't do.

But yes, there should be some better quests for the evil path. Edwin's and Korgan's quests aren't exactly something that make you tread your heavy boot on the toes of the law. And thieve's guild quests don't really cut it either. Being able to take part in the slave trade that way isn't rewarding enough.

 

This is the second time I've had to correct you, I believe. 'Twasn't me. Unless I was repeating something someone else said, in which case they still deserve the credit.

 

@ Shaiton. Would a CG guy rob houses, pick pockets and all that good stuff?

 

I hate to break this to you, but of the items you listed, only the human flesh and Blackrazor "require" you to be evil, along with the BMU as mentioned (and getting the pantaloons isn't even all that "evil," as all it does is drop your reputation--no alignment shift or falling paladins/rangers). The IMOD & Celestial Fury, etc., can be obtained easily by good characters for easily explainable role-playing reasons. The Ring of Gaxx you get by exterminating a hideously evil demilich, which is something a good-aligned party of the most virtuous sort would do.

Also, unfortunately, good characters are also able to steal from shopkeepers and abuse BG2's thievery exploits just as easily as good characters. Sorry. And for good parties, reputation is a no-brainer; the higher, the better, and that's it. No juggling required.

Evil characters can't:
-use the holy avenger
-be paladins or monks

Evil parties can't:
-reliably stay together once reputation goes to 18+
-reliably take advantage of the heroic shop discount of a reputation of 20
-reliably stay together with with good characters in the party (on the other hand, all good NPCs get along just great with all other good and neutral NPCs)

Even though the evil NPCs of BG2 arguably have the best stats in their class (Edwin wins hands-down in his case), their only other strong advantage is being able to kill Drizzt's party without having anyone leave in disgust. Sarevok does make a nice addition, though--fortunately, to make things even easier for good-aligned parties who already have it easier, he can be converted to good alignment too.

BIO has made some great hack-and-slash RPGs, but they've proven in their games to date that they have no idea how to make a game equally as compelling, deep, and rewarding for evil characters as for good ones. Maybe they'll learn their lesson with Mass Effect, but given their past track record, I doubt it.

 

@Killjoy:

What does playing a good or an evil mean to you ?

Is playing good or evil just choosing good are evil alignment at character creation for you ?

In this case we can just say that good characters have a better starting reputation and are therefore better (although we could argue that for staying good you have to forego the far better reward from the Sarevok Hell Trial).

But playing good means acting like in the alignment description for me.

Evil is just described as selfish.
Smart evil characters shouldn't have problems playing the good character sometimes if they see a greater benefit in this like cheaper shop prices or better rewards.
Sarevok was quite popular in BG, there was even a coronation planned for him.

Evil characters don't have problems fighting themselves or helping good people for a reward in reputation or money.

Good characters on the other hand usually won't fight paladins or help evil villains, invading a house without reason and slaughtering the inhabitants after being asked to leave (guarded compound) doesn't sound good to me, so does pickpocketing Ribald.

Blackmailing for the pantaloons isn't an evil act ? It's pure greed, not even a CG character would act so.
You don't suffer an alignment shift if you kill someone, and if you donate enough at the temple you can extinguish the whole town without becoming fallen, but I don't consider this as a non-evil act because of this.

Stealing, invading houses and opening coffins just for fun isn't exactly what I exspect from good characters.

I'd love to know your "easily explainable" good roleplaying way to get CF, you enter the locked and trapped house without reason, you keep exploring the house after the owner tells you to leave and finally kill the inhabitants defending their home.

1. Evil characters can use the holy avenger. You just need UAI.

2. There are other classes as well, many superior.
You can only play one class.

Paladins and monks are lawful.
If you roleplay lawful you honor your word, you will solve the unseeing eye quest by just slaughtering the kult directly, you'll miss the big sidequest and items like the gauntlets of dexterity. And there are other things lawful characters wouldn't do.
Paladins will become fallen if they do something wrong, the Sarevok trial will only yield useless wis and cha gain instead of +3 strength.

I read something about CN Anomen fighting LG Keldorn or Aerie proving you wrong.

Good parties can't
-reliably stay together once reputation goes down to 6- or so
-reliably stay together with evil characters in the party (on the other hand, all evil NPCs get along just great with all other evil and neutral NPCs)

The only thing that remains is getting only up to 30 instead of up to 50 percent hero's discount, but you can get unlimited money anyway.

Evil NPCs are more reliable than good NPCs, good ones might leave if you side with Bodhi instead with the other evil guild for example, and I heard someone say "Boo says no" when I wanted to take the gem for Adalon's cave by force.
If you hurt someone wrong accidentally during the heat of battle, your reputation might drop down by 10-19 within seconds resulting in the good allies leaving for good, I never heard something about the reputation suddenly raising by 10 with the result of evil party members leaving.


So a little useless extra gold because of better reputation is the only remaining advantage for playing good. That's not much compared to the advantages for playing evil.

 

Lots of strawman arguments there. And yes, there are several ways you can define "playing/role-playing evil," but BIO has never had a good grasp on that, which is why several NPCs' alignment mkes no sense at all with their behavior, and why their games are inherently skewed toward good-aligned characters.

The reputation issue makes evil characters less "reliable." Throughout SOA, you are completing quests with the intention of raising gold for the Shadow Thieves, but your reputation is continuously going up toward 20. Whom does this favor?

Evil characters may indeed have a problem helping other people...because they're evil characters who might prefer to take, rather than barter favors.

The pantaloons business "isn't all that evil" in BG2 because you deliver the noble safe and sound, and it isn't treated as a terribly evil act in game terms because it hits your reputation only (which can be bribed back up)--it doesn't cause any alignment shift or force you to fall if you're a paladin or ranger. Should it be considered an unspeakably evil act? You could try arguing that, except that BIO was too excited to give players the hilariously zany BMU item to think about alignment constraints and role-playing.

Paladins and monks are exceptionally powerful classes that are not available to evil characters. Period. Evil characters don't have special character classes available to them.

The point about good-aligned parties sticking together with a reputation of 6 is preposterous, since there is no game reason to have a reputation that low, unless you've accidentally taken out a civilian, or you're "role-playing" a homicidal maniac, in which case a) you wouldn't have good characters in your party to begin with and b) that's a much less viable way to play the game, since you won't be able to use most merchants and will be constantly hunted by guards.

Human flesh armor isn't any good. Compare the return on effort of getting it vs. the holy avenger.

You haven't outlined "advantages," you've outlined hypothetical situations that 90% of players don't explore because the game will punish you severely for doing so, because BIO designed the game to be played a certain way, as well as to be skewed towards good-aligned characters. If you can't see that, then sorry.

 

Actually, evil monks work just fine and you can get Blackrazor with a good alignment by simply pick pocketing the genie.

Regarding the blackmail example, I have to disagree with the idea that a good aligned character wouldn't blackmail for the silver pantaloons. The woman being held was wealthy and ungrateful.....and very, very rude. While hardly a "good" act, there's no reason to believe that a particularly angry or offended good aligned character wouldn't want to teach her a lesson in humility by making her wait a few more hours for her rescue and being compensated for saving her life. A Paladin wouldn't do it, but we aren't talking about Paladins, now, are we?

 

The problem for me with the idea of evil being more powerful is that one needs to play a certain sort of evil that is IMO extremely unsatisfying. That is, you simply use your pre-knowledge of the items/quests to justify any conceivable course of action as being acceptable to an evil character:

1. if good course of action reaps best reward, erect a silly roleplay excuse for taking the good action like "he is pretending to be good to gain status in the city"

2. if evil course of action reaps best reward, just be evil

3. Justify cheese (sell/stealing, etc.) as being somehow evil

IMO, this is an extremely unsatisfying way to play evil, as all you are really doing is pre-choosing the best course of actions first and erecting some vague RP structure around it to justify yourself.

I'd like a game where you can be actually evil (not just "pretending to be good" RP excuse) for a majority if not the entirety of the game. You CAN be good for the entire SoA/ToB, you CANNOT be evil the entire SoA/ToB (unless your idea of evil is silly and stupid dialogue options or "pretending to be good")