92 replies to this topic

[Quitch]

  First, I do support the idea of making getting to Imoen CHARNAME's top priority. However, one concern:

The party may be be seriously underpowered for the Underdark and the second Bodhi battle if they rush to rescue Imoen ASAP, especially if they have other mods installed. Saying "Well then come back and do the Underdark quests later" is a cop-out; it requires the player to use out-of-character information to guide the character's decisions. That's the kind of weak role-playing that the Imoen time limit is meant to avoid. You might want to consider making the Beholder and Mindflayer lairs inaccessible until the party reaches a certain level, or giving an item reward for getting to Imoen early. Perhaps Irenicus found a large number of confiscated magic items in Spellhold, most of them potions and protective scrolls, including Protection from Magic (for the beholder city) and plenty of potions of genius and defense (for the mindflayers). He still hasn't sold off the equipment if you get to Imoen in under X amount of time, but if you take too long he found a buyer and the items are removed from the game (or show up in the hands of a merchant later in the game).

Nonsense. It is out-of-character information that allows the player to buff up, complete a romance, buy new equipment, etc. Without knowing this were a game, no true friend would spend a month completing minor errand runs instead of dashing after their childhood friend.

You've got it arse about face.

I'd agree that wandering all over Amn, buying equipment, romancing, etc. while Imoen suffers is crap roleplaying, and posted as much. Once the party lands in the Underdark without good equipmen, all it takes is one "wrong" turn to kill them all and force a reload; that too is crap roleplaying, which seems to be what you are trying to avoid by imposing the time limit in the first place. The only ways around that are;
1) Player just doesn't take the low level party into the Beholder and Mindflayer lairs, relying on out of game info to make that choice.
2) You as the mod-maker block those areas to low level parties. No out of game info needed to allow the party to survive.
3) You as mod-maker provide them with enough equipment to take on those areas and survive; I suggested potions and scrolls, as those items are less likely to cause ballance problems down the line. Slightly cheesier than just blocking the areas off, but less cheesy than forcing the use of out of game info.

If you intend to stop one form of bad roleplaying (leaving Imoen to rot), good for you. Why force a different form of bad roleplaying in the process?

Why do I need to help them do anything? If they rush after Imoen and find themselves ill-equipped for the next section, then the logical path would be to move through that section as quickly as possible, and there is no need to clear any of the areas you mention to finish that section. To even worry about that before reaching Imoen is out-of-character all by itself.

[SimDing0]

From CHARNAME's point of view, why shouldn't he just turn right, cross the south-eastern, bridge and walk straight into the Beholder lair? As players we know that's the wrong path, and that Charname should talk to the Duregar merchants to get hints about Irenicus' location; CHARNAME does not know that. As players we know that CHARNAME should go first either to the prison sphere or the deep gnome villiage to get hints about the area and entry to Ust Natha; we know that there is no way to Irenicus through the south-east tunnells, and that entering them will get a low-power party killed. CHARNAME doesn't.

If CHARNAME chooses to clear out an entire beholder lair rather than looking around for other paths, CHARNAME probably deserves to die...

[kirkjobsluder]

To be fair, both the beholder and the Illithid areas are pretty dangerous gotchas with little warning in the game. I would be nice if there was some sort of "danger rune" sign similar to the illithid lair in the Sewers.

[kirkjobsluder]

To be fair, there are some serious continuity problems involved.
1: Yoshimo. When was he hired and geased? Did Irenicus intend for the PC to escape, and hired Yoshi in advance?
2: Spellhold. Irenicus does not make his move until you pay off one of the thieves guilds. What happens while Irenicus is locked up other than the nasty dreams?
3: It usually takes me 48 hours to clear out the vampires and do the first confrontation with Bodhi. Lets assume 7 days from the payoff to getting into Spellhold. How does Irenicus get all of that equipment and thieves, finish up the experiments, and strip away Imoen's soul? That is one round-trip supply shipment from spellhold.
4: How can Bodhi beat the PC to Spellhold, and have time to play around with thieves for long enough for Irenicus to make note of it?

The timeline is loaded with problems.

[TheBalor]

To be fair, there are some serious continuity problems involved.
1: Yoshimo. When was he hired and geased? Did Irenicus intend for the PC to escape, and hired Yoshi in advance?
2: Spellhold. Irenicus does not make his move until you pay off one of the thieves guilds. What happens while Irenicus is locked up other than the nasty dreams?
3: It usually takes me 48 hours to clear out the vampires and do the first confrontation with Bodhi. Lets assume 7 days from the payoff to getting into Spellhold. How does Irenicus get all of that equipment and thieves, finish up the experiments, and strip away Imoen's soul? That is one round-trip supply shipment from spellhold.
4: How can Bodhi beat the PC to Spellhold, and have time to play around with thieves for long enough for Irenicus to make note of it?

The timeline is loaded with problems.

1. He could have hired him as a servant and geased him as part of the deal. Yoshi could have also been one of the people who captured CHARNAME. He was fairly quick-thinking, so making up some cock-and-bull story about being captured wouldn't be too hard.

2. The cowled wizards are not rank amatuers. They hold some very powerful mages in Spellhold, and so there would have to be some pretty heavy-duty wards up to keep the inmates from escaping and blowing up the entire island. It would probably even take a mage of Irenicus's caliber a while to figure out a way around them.

3. Bodhi had clearly been operating for quite some time before the PC escaped. She could have been rounding up thieves in preparation for the experiments, and shipped them over after spellhold was overthrown. A teleport circle would be well within Irenicus's powers to set up, allowing bulk transport of prisoners. Also, the former master of the island had been performing experiments on inmates. Jon could modify the equipment already in place to match his needs.

4. A teleportation spell coud be easily had.

That is stretching a bit thin in places, though.

[Shadow Angel]

4: How can Bodhi beat the PC to Spellhold, and have time to play around with thieves for long enough for Irenicus to make note of it?

Another option for the question is that Bodhi travels to Byrnlaw on the same ship you do. After all, Saemon is taking her money also. Once the ship is close enough and after dark, Bohdi and minions transform to bats and fly in, Bodhi to spellhold and the others to the docks to further delay the party.

This has one advantage in that a teleport spell always has a chance of missing the target by miles which would put Bodhi in the ocean and vampires will die if left in running water for to long, at least in the PnP rules. Although the better the destination is known, the less chance of an error. Also Spell Hold probably has wards to block most means of entry via magic.

As for Bodhi's behavior, Irenicus knows her and their shared curse well and the changes would most likely be easily noticible for him.

Wouldn't change Imoen's state of mind, just the loss of her soul.

[Jinnai]

Mostly agreed.

Still, this mod is tweaking things to enforce consequences for roleplaying a character that pisses around monster hunting instead of making a bee-line for Immy. That will drop the party into situations that were designed for higher level, better equipped parties. Having to step up and say, as a player, "Better not turn that corner; I'm too low level to handle it" breaks immersion. If part of what the mod is trying to do is encourage good role-playing, IMO it would make sense to set up the situation so that the player doesn't have to use out-of-game knowledge to survive.

And it's Duergar; had to Google.

Still, why should the character turn the corner instead of not, unless he has very specific knowledge about what lies to that corner and its nessary to go that way.

But anyway i think it should be a more a matter of time in BG time, not playing time. Thus a party who stops and rests a lot should have more problems than those who don't with reguards to getting imoen fully intact.

[TheSisko]

Well, I'm playing BG2 for the first time, and it took me 29 days to reach Spellhold...I see that puts me dangerously close to "poor" even for a new player.

It took me quite a while to raise 20,000 (I didn't know 15,000 was enough)...how the hell is a first time player supposed to know that the best money quests are the circus and the slavers? It's not like the guard outside indicates it. I did the Valgyar quest, which seemed like it would give a decent reward, but then you find out he's innocent. Exactly the same thing with Fiirkraag...he promises you 10k but then he screws you over.

Another problem I had was that I didn't realise the "haste" spell made you fatigued...and since I used it before every battle, I had the party complaining *all* the time about beeing sleepy & so on, so I probably rested 2/3 of the 29 days before I realised it was the damn haste spell's fault.

Also before I realised the value of scouting ahead with "hide in shadows" or an invisibile character I reloaded a LOT. I'm now at Chapter 6 and my party is around level 14, I did NOT do any of the lairs in the underground, though I did kill the first two beholders to get the eye. I had about 60k when I left the underdark.

[stinky_Ogre]

So you've just entered one of the most dangerous places ever, after having rushed to rescue your childhood friend. As an experienced adventurer, you understand that you're ill-equipped to take on some things on the surface of Toril, let alone The Underdark. You're just going to jaunt around corners because you can?

[Jinnai]

You've just rescued your childhood friend, defeated a mad mage, and chased him to the Underdark (possibly stopping to fight through a city full of shark men on the way). You don't quite know where you are or what to do next, so you start exploring the tunnels looking for a way out. Some fish-men seem to be guarding a bridge; tough fight for a low level party, but you kill them. Why wouldn't you go into the first cave you came to after that fight, expecting more fish men and maybe a way out? Then, without warning, you find yourself facing two foes who can instant kill you and/or most of your party.

Yes, we as players know that's the wrong path. Charname, even if he did talk to the Duergar, may not.

Amd why would said party go to through the first cave of shark men whom they already know will be a difficult fight instead of continuing on to see if there is an easier way?