Hendryk's Content

#212285 Lets all FAQ Chrysta

Posted by Hendryk on 26 June 2005 - 05:15 AM in Chrysta

Ah, he's around somewhere; just distracted. Supposed to be back in a week or so.

#197586 The Mod for the Wicked!

Posted by Hendryk on 02 April 2005 - 11:33 PM in Mod for the Wicked

You're missing a lot of the fun of dealing with Demo if you forget that he's been Evil much longer than the PC. However much he might appreciate being released from WK (probably not much) or enjoy the Helmite snack, he is also going to be keeping an eye on the PC. He's got four, so he can afford it.

Now once you are gearing up for the final battle with Melissan, old Demo should pay a social call. He has been watching and by now is aware of just how much free power there is in that fountain. He'd like more than a sip of that juice himself, though he might try to fool you by pretending that he has come to "help" against Amelyssan. However that works out, he wouldn't truly care what you, or Melissan or the solar or even Ao, himself, might think. Demo would want to increase his own power, conquer a neighboring layer of the Abyss or two, gain more power from that, conquer more of the Abyss, eventually win the the Blood War, take over the Hells and...Well, you get the idea. An utterly rapacious demonlord does not play nice. And that is exactly the sort of consequence that should befall an Evil PC who is also stupid and trusting.

#200031 The Mod for the Wicked!

Posted by Hendryk on 13 April 2005 - 04:26 PM in Mod for the Wicked

Oh, Demogorgan could still show up here. Announce that he's there because "Although mortals would have it otherwise, I pay my debts." Then he'd help do Amellyssan. Then reveal to the PC that another debt which Demo feels he owes is one of hatred. Hatred towards the PC for finding him in that shameful prison. He would blot out that memory - and the PC in the process. The PC could then try to bargain, claiming that his/her affinity for the Throne is the only means left for Demo to partake of some of it. Demo says "Ha! You love your wretched mortal existence so much that you would barter the power of a god for it? Very well. I accept." Solar then shows up, says "Now boys! It is NOT supposed to go this way." PC & Demo kill solar. Demo proceeds to drain throne dry (whatever the agreement was.) Demo, now twice as tough as before, says "Fool as well as coward. Not even the fount of a god cancels a debt of hatred for a lord of demons!" Demo proceeds to pulverize the party. End game. Player reloads, chooses banter option #2 and fights Demo (plus allies) for the throne.

#199812 The Mod for the Wicked!

Posted by Hendryk on 12 April 2005 - 03:42 PM in Mod for the Wicked

I think that while Demogorgan might offer to "help" against Melissan first, he'd probably want all the power there for himself and wouldn't take No for an answer. In fact, he'd probably bring enough help along that he wouldn't even take Yes for an answer; just kill everyone and help himself.

Of course, one of Demo's senior assistant demons (who had gotten used to acting independently while Demo was a captive in WK and is *not* pleased that his old boss is back) could double-cross him and jump into the fountain first, so the PC, Demo and Mel could all have a nice chat over what to do about *that* resource hog. Then you could have bargaining with the added fun of Melissan bidding against you.

#197093 The Mod for the Wicked!

Posted by Hendryk on 31 March 2005 - 12:53 PM in Mod for the Wicked

You don't seem to be suffering from any shortage of good - excuse me, of Evil - ideas here. Perhaps a non-spoilerish indication from you about what you intend doing first, now that you're busy in the protected forum and all, would stimulate more input.

#190910 The Mod for the Wicked!

Posted by Hendryk on 01 March 2005 - 06:56 PM in Mod for the Wicked

Also, a way through Ust Natha in alliance with Lolth/Mother A that would allow an Evil party to blast all the surface elves encountered. All that would be needed is to get Lolth's attention during the ritual. She wouldn't want Irenicus to become an Evil male elvish god; if nothing else, as a god, he would be too enticing an alternative to the male drow now under Lolth's sway. So she'd want the PC to succeed in stopping Jon and would order Mother A to provide those services which Eltan currently offers regarding entry into Suldanesselar. Thus, Eltan and the rest would be dispensible - and fun, if some of their arrogance gets through before they discover your real intentions.

#199897 The Mod for the Wicked!

Posted by Hendryk on 13 April 2005 - 04:18 AM in Mod for the Wicked

I dunno. I have a hard time believing that Demo would regard both Mel and the PC as anything but overweening mortals who are, at the Throne, at a level of power that is way over their heads. If you wanted Demo to give the PC a pass there, you could take the angle that the PC's innate Bhaal essence is magnified by its affinity to the Throne so that Demo has to take cognizance of it. It would need a very delicate touch though to have the PC so powerful that Demogorgan is forced to show some grudging respect and yet still make it plausible that the PC is willing to bargain away some of power to get Demo's help. Demogorgan should, I think, regard any sign of willingness to negotiate as a sign of weakness or folly. Of course, it might be a trap, too. Let Demo link himself to the Throne and then use either Mel's or the PC's power over the Throne to drain *him*. If you made him sufficiently arrogant and condescending beforehand, that'd be a nice payback for him.

As for the Solar, she knows a lot and she delivers the final decision of "the gods" to end the battle but I don't know how powerful she'd be at the Throne all by herself. Probably she'd invent some 'duty' that required her to run away and 'inform' someone that things were getting out of hand at the Throne. If she stuck around, she'd almost certainly be destroyed.

#199365 BGIII

Posted by Hendryk on 10 April 2005 - 08:31 PM in Baldur's Gate Series

From Gorion's letter:

"For reasons unknown to me, he (Bhaal) sought out women of every race and forced himself upon them. Your mother was one of those women..."

#210872 Chrysta Screenshots

Posted by Hendryk on 17 June 2005 - 01:55 PM in Chrysta

However (and you knew there was bound to be a "however" somewhere in here, right?), my one small note is that Haer'Dalis would know there are more than celestials, cambions or alu-fiends Out There.

Heheh. Since HD is one of the other cases himself and was long resident in Sigil, that's pretty much a given. If it is really unobvious that he's just using those three cases as examples (listing all the possibilities might get a bit tedious, no?) then perhaps his last bit should be:

"Neither celestial, cambion nor alu-fiend are you my hummingbird, nor any other race, singularly or in combination, which I can name from a rather extensive experience. While imperfectly helpful, that is not nothing."

She says that she must then be a prime (which canonically isn't capitalized, but is in the game, so you're spot on). I think HD would be gentleman enough to either agree that, yes, she is likely a prime, or gently correct, that no, that isn't necessarily what he meant.

He might but since he hasn't anything really substantive to add to an already overlong banter, it might be as well to let him be gentleman enough to let the lady have the last word. If Sir K would prefer, it would certainly be easy enough to have Chrysta seem less definite in her line by adding a "probably" or "seem to be" to it to make your distinction clear there.

#207243 Developer Diary Comments Thread

Posted by Hendryk on 29 May 2005 - 08:54 PM in Chrysta

I'm rather more interested in your...um... personal notes. If you are going to become a chemical engineer, might I suggest that the vast, untapped shale oil, coal tar and oil sands of the New World might be a better destination than the depleting oil fields of the Old? Some reasons are:

1. More people here speak English, of a sort, and somewhat fewer are inclined to shoot you on sight. Almost nobody would want to blow you up and you can even get British football scores in a lot of places. More homey, you know?
2. Over the medium-to-long term, you'd probably do better financially in a start-up venture than somewhere in the bowels of a huge corporation fighting it out over diminishing returns.
3. By helping to provide an economically and environmentally sound (not to mention timely!) way of bringing much needed energy resources to market, you'd be doing the world a lot more good than would be possible anywhere else.

Of course, in the Middle East, they have the 1001 Arabian Nights. Here, we only got season 6 of the Sopranos. No contest there but surely a paladin would be expected to forsake something for the greater good? Even a dual-classed paladin/chemical engineer?

#205416 Developer Diary Comments Thread

Posted by Hendryk on 18 May 2005 - 07:00 PM in Chrysta

Does 'bi-weekly' mean twice a week or once a fortnight? Or either, depending on how you feel?

#212342 Forum bug reports

Posted by Hendryk on 27 June 2005 - 06:05 AM in Directives from the Director

The old FW URL doesn't transfer here.

#210816 Who is Chrysta?

Posted by Hendryk on 17 June 2005 - 06:16 AM in Chrysta

Oh, right! Sorry! That was the new Treasure in Bodhi's spiked-trapped room that I wasn't to mention, huh?

#210812 Who is Chrysta?

Posted by Hendryk on 17 June 2005 - 06:01 AM in Chrysta

Will a general Heal Serious Inflammation take care of that or will we have to find an affliction-specific scroll somewhere ingame?

#195156 Can I take your BG2 playing order please?

Posted by Hendryk on 23 March 2005 - 12:52 PM in Chrysta

Number two. Most of my PCs in SoA acquire a stronghold and develop ideas about eventually settling down in Amn. Thus, they tend to do a thorough job on quests in chapter 2; partly because they wish to gain enough power to beat Irenicus and partly because they simply want to check the place out for future consideration. Having no great or specific foreknowledge of the demands of ToB, they don't of course realize that they are wasting their time by considering a future in Amn.

#198276 Keldorn <3

Posted by Hendryk on 06 April 2005 - 01:00 AM in IE Mod Ideas

Our RL manners and morals are not those of Faerun. And Keldorn is, besides Good, also highly Lawful which means that the structure and customs of society, including expectations of and about the nobility, would also have a very strong claim upon him. Keldorn certainly couldn't just brush all that aside merely to avoid a painful choice for his own case.

#208420 Which ones came along in BG1? (poll is closed!)

Posted by Hendryk on 05 June 2005 - 05:32 PM in Mod for the Wicked

Sometimes I think Korgan IS Kagain. I mean personality wise they are almost the same dwarf. The only difference is the name and stats.

It's a question of emphasis. Kagain is a goldbug. If he got rich enough, he wouldn't much care if he never killed anything else ever again. Korgan, otoh, would like to be rich mainly because being rich would free up more of his time for killing more (and more interesting) things.

EDIT: Hic! Simultaneous posts!

#215429 Which ones came along in BG1? (poll is closed!)

Posted by Hendryk on 17 July 2005 - 04:12 AM in Mod for the Wicked

For Monty, I'd suggest stats of STR 13, INT 14, WIS 9, DEX 18, CON 17 & CHA 6. Not amazingly strong, even for a little chap, but quick, tough, pretty smart and utterly repellant.

#214532 Which ones came along in BG1? (poll is closed!)

Posted by Hendryk on 10 July 2005 - 04:19 AM in Mod for the Wicked

NOw how will you justify Montaron being there without Xzar

Easy. Montaron hates Xzar's guts. After being stuck as Xzar's gofer in BG1, he was stationed in the backwater (from the Zhent pov) of the Sword Coast again and *AGAIN* as nothing but Xzar's caddy. So he got pissed off, told the Zhents where to stick their stupid assignments and is now a freelance murdering psychopath with a Zhent price on his head.

That'll complicate the PC's life if the party meets any real Zhents along the way but it could also make relations with the Harpers - different, if not actually more pleasant.

#215462 Which ones came along in BG1? (poll is closed!)

Posted by Hendryk on 17 July 2005 - 09:52 AM in Mod for the Wicked

Yeah, I know. I wasn't seriously suggesting that you do that; just trying to give an accurate stat pic of how I'd think he should be. I would suggest leaving his STR and, possibly, his DEX alone and just adding +1 or 2 to his CON though. And if you can see your way clear to lowering anything on him, his CHA should definitely be worse than a "low-normal" score of 9. Perhaps because of the number of times he got all banged up in BG1?

#209467 Detectives (f and m) wanted!

Posted by Hendryk on 11 June 2005 - 03:58 AM in Mod for the Wicked

The Graveyard
The Mournful Paladin and the Little Girl

Maybe a bit more evil dialog. Something like provoking the Paladin or telling him a few lies.

Heheh! For a PC of sufficient INT, WIS or CHA, play on the paladin's sense of guilt until he falls on his own sword over his son's grave. Then go talk to the priest of Lathander:

PC: Gee, there was a paladin back there that might've done but he's dead. Killed himself because his neglect murdered his previous ward. Guess it's fate but I'll have to take charge of this poor little girl myself to save her from the orphanage.

Then sell the brat to Lehtinan for 10 gp.

#209491 Detectives (f and m) wanted!

Posted by Hendryk on 11 June 2005 - 07:20 AM in Mod for the Wicked

Thinking about it a little more, you should sell her, after some haggling, to Lehtinan for only 2 gp - plus "a round for the bar". That way, you get a +1 to Reputation for your generosity.

#193817 The Chrysta Code

Posted by Hendryk on 18 March 2005 - 05:29 AM in Chrysta

As regard to #5, I sort of doubt you will take that so seriously as to under-write Chrysta's story. Still, should you be so tempted, please remember that hardly anyone here would play BG2 again without a new and interesting mod to make it worthwhile. So if the focus seems to you, at times, to shift a bit too firmly to Chrysta, bear in mind that your target audience will be perfectly ok with that.

#193812 The Chrysta Code

Posted by Hendryk on 18 March 2005 - 05:14 AM in Chrysta

As regards #1, conversations can be interesting and amusing without necessarily being competitions with "winners" and "losers". Cernd and Jaheira would tend to be very supportive of one side of Chrysta while Korgan, if he tolerates her at all, would at least be an exemplar for the other while Edwin and Haer'Dalis might, respectively, have a fourth and a fifth take on her, none of which (except Edwin's) would involve winning and losing.

Also, no modder is equally familiar with or has equal respect for all the official NPCs. So, to the degree that a mod NPC is permitted to shine too extensively at the expense of the official ones, it's very often because the modder either doesn't know or heartily dislikes the official NPC in question. If you recognize such a situation in your own writing, that's a good time to call for volunteers for the other half of the banter. You would still, certainly, set the framework for it but getting help from someone else who does know and like the other NPC tends to produce a livelier talk on both sides.

#196603 Your party!

Posted by Hendryk on 29 March 2005 - 04:36 PM in Baldur's Gate Series

I asked him that a while back and he only uses SK. I'll let him explain it though; I never could get it to work.

And UU, some of your discoveries would be well worth writing up as a tutorial. Not as hilarious as your cheese guide, maybe, but almost as useful - especially for demented modders seeking to make unique NPCs.