6 replies to this topic

[ARKdeEREH]

I have an idea that I think could make a really fun mod, which is somewhat complicated, but in brief involves an army of typically racist paladins fighting a war against the party for having one or more drow in the party.

I have never made a mod before so this would probably be difficult to make, but I intend to start making it as soon as I learn how.

For now I am hoping to find a similar mod already in existence, but I don't know if any exist. Does anyone know of any? Basically, I have played through BG2 several times and have become thoroughly disgusted with the self-rightious paladins who think burning black people (drow) alive because of their race, locking their wives in dungeons, etc. are lawful good activities. I want to challenge them directly in a way other than simply slaughtering everyone in the Hall of the Racist Heart. I want to fight large battles against waves of them, ideally without ruining my reputation for removing their taint from the world. Are there any existing mods for this? If not, is there a relatively simple way that I could spawn a few dozen hostile paladins at once?

Thanks!

EDIT: I can explain my exact idea for creating a modquest in great detail if there is interest, but for right now my primary focus is on learning if there is an existing mod with a war against paladins.

Edited by ARKdeEREH, 29 October 2011 - 04:19 PM.

[Miloch]

Heh. That sounds like it would make a cool mod actually, and a fairly easy one. The only thing remotely similar I know of is Silmarillion, where in theory you can fight a whole mess of elves (if you play on the orcish side, though maybe you can only kill orcs ).

[-JR-]

I'm not sure comparing the drow to black people is fruitful; the drow are evil by nature and culture and well deserving of their reputation. While jarring, Keldorn's reaction to the attempted execution of the "innocent" Viconia is merely a survivalist oversight. It's actually fairly difficult not to distance ourselves from the terror that would be inherent in many of the scenarios the game presents to us.

If you're merely looking for catharsis while you work on your mod, you could fight the fallen paladins under Reynald de Chatillon who are actually doing bad things.

[ARKdeEREH]

I'm not sure comparing the drow to black people is fruitful; the drow are evil by nature and culture and well deserving of their reputation. While jarring, Keldorn's reaction to the attempted execution of the "innocent" Viconia is merely a survivalist oversight. It's actually fairly difficult not to distance ourselves from the terror that would be inherent in many of the scenarios the game presents to us.

If you're merely looking for catharsis while you work on your mod, you could fight the fallen paladins under Reynald de Chatillon who are actually doing bad things.

I'm not sure how else I would refer to drow. I refer to elves in general as people and since drow are black, they would therefore be black people. The same logic could be applied to the duergar. The Lolth-worshipping drow societies definitly seem evil, but I've read all of R.A. Salvatore's books about Drizzt, and while Drizzt himself is an exception, there are many other drow in the series, such as Jarlaxle and Kimmuriel, who are probably neutral. They're certainly not evil. I've read some other Forgotten Realms books by different authors that also have neutral drow as the focus of the books, so I don't think classifying all drow societies as inherently evil is fair, just like it wouldn't be fair to classify all human societies as bad just if some of them are.

I can't remember all the negative things I've seen paladins do throughout BG2, but I've become increasingly annoyed by what I see as their hypocrisy the more I've played the game. Aside from what they do to drow, the paladins in the Windspear Hills get killed because they refuse to listen to the PC when s/he tries to negotiate with them. Sure, they think the PC is a gnoll/ogre, but I thought they were too the first time I played and I still tried to negotiate with them. Had they used these same tactics in Imnesvale they would have killed the peaceful ogres/gnolls there just because they were ogres/gnolls. Paladins also tried to seal the PC in Watcher's Keep because of their own cowardice and because they profiled the PC as evil because s/he was a Bhaalspawn. Their unwillingness to negotiate with and their eagerness to kill any demographic they don't perceive as good is one of the things I don't like about them. It makes them seem comparable to real life religious nutcases from throughout history instead of the rightious warriors that I think they were intended to be. Also, as Nalia points out in one of her dialogues with Keldorn, only fullblooded humans are allowed to become paladins, so the paladins even discrimminate against the surface elves, dwarves, etc. It's also not just Keldorn who supports killing Viconia because she's drow. Anomen was in my party once when I rescued Viconia from the mob, and he (who was planning to become a paladin and did later in my game) also wanted her to be burned alive.

My opinion of them may also be somewhat affected by the fact that I always have Viconia listed first in my party, so that she is the default person who talks to people in my games. Characters react very differently to Viconia than they do to my PC because of the drow thing.

I thought about fighting fallen paladins, but some of the things the fallen paladins said when I did that quest made me sympathize with some of them, although not with their leader, Anarg.

Right now, I'm thinking that a good plot for the mod would be that the party would initially fight a large army of paladins, and while they defeat that particular army the paladin order itself is not completely destroyed. Later a more terrible foe, such as Lolth (based on Viconia's epilogue) targets the party and they have the option of joining forces with whats left of the paladins against their common enemy. Perhaps the paladins could have access to some sort of sword or other item that would make fighting Lolth much easier.

Btw, I tried fighting an army of paladins, which I created using cheats, in preparation for when I learn how to make it into a mod. I used cheats to spawn 1,500 knights of the order, 460 shield knights, about 200 elvish mages, and about 40 human priests in the Umar Hills. I then shot a fire ball into them to get them to attack me and then fought a battle that last over 4 hours real time. I eventually won, but it was difficult and would have been much more so if the knights of order hadn't killed most of their own spellcasters before I even got to them. That's something I'll have to work out when I make this into a mod, making sure the groups who are supposed to be allied don't kill each other. My PC had armor that gave him complete immunity to normal weapons and since the knights of order killed most of their own spellcasters that made the battle much easier than it was intended to be since the knights themselves only had normal weapons. My PC killed about 1,100 of them total, including most of the surviving spellcasters, and the rest of my party had a much more difficult time staying alive because they did not have protection from the knights' weapons, but still managed to kill about 400 enemies between the five of them.

I think when I make this into a mod it would be best if the battle takes place in deArnise Hold or some other structure that can be easily defended, and the party should also have some non joinable allies, perhaps some conscripted citizens from the area around deArnise Hold or some of Elisteree's worshippers that the paladins have been hunting. I think the size of the army (about 2,000 including knights, spellcasters, etc.) is about right, although the knights could perhaps be given magical weapons to make them a little tougher). I'm also thinking of having additional armies of similar size periodically attack the same area if the party fails to visit the paladins' headquarters within a certain time limit and get them to stop either by peaceful negotiations or by killing the paladins' leadership, but if the leaders are killed they won't be able to help against Lolth later. The paladins might also attack Imnesvale because of the deal it made with Madulf and his followers. This could lead to an alliance between the PC and Imnesvale and possibly to Imnesvale becoming a vassal state of deArnise Hold.

Based on the PC's reaction to the events and the exact nature of her/his dealings with the paladins, (and based on how much I can learn about mod building, have time for, etc.) there could be several stronghold quests after this that are all associated with rescuing oppressed groups from various areas and re-settling them in and around deArnise Hold or wherever else the stronghold is located. On the surface these oppressed groups could include drow, duergar, gnolls, goblins, ogres, etc. and in the Underdark they could include humans, surface elves, dwarves, etc. Perhaps eventually one or more of these rescued groups could reciprocate by unexpectedly coming to the party's rescue during an otherwise unrelated quest. Rescues of surface groups enslaved in the Underdark could be helped along by drow or duergar that PC had previously rescued from oppression on the surface. There could also be conflicts between the citizens who were already living in the resettlement area and their new neighbors, which the PC would need to resolve. This all seems like the kind of thing that Nalia's character would really like given her whole "helping others and doing good things" routine and I know she doesn't like paladins because of some of the things she said to Keldorn, so it seems logical that deArnise Hold would make a good setting. Perhaps later on something could happen to Nalia (she gets assassinated by the Roenalls, moves to Athkatla as mentioned in her epilogue, etc.) and the PC becomes the true leader of deArnise Hold, which would give the PC more leeway in terms of what can actually be done.

Edited by ARKdeEREH, 03 November 2011 - 02:54 AM.

[-JR-]

I'm not sure how else I would refer to drow. I refer to elves in general as people and since drow are black, they would therefore be black people. The same logic could be applied to the duergar.

My apologies; I thought you were bringing up the tired and deeply flawed argument that dark elves are symbolic of humans with African heritage.

The Lolth-worshipping drow societies definitly seem evil, but I've read all of R.A. Salvatore's books about Drizzt, and while Drizzt himself is an exception, there are many other drow in the series, such as Jarlaxle and Kimmuriel, who are probably neutral. They're certainly not evil. I've read some other Forgotten Realms books by different authors that also have neutral drow as the focus of the books, so I don't think classifying all drow societies as inherently evil is fair, just like it wouldn't be fair to classify all human societies as bad just if some of them are.

Most real world sociological and anthropological theories lose their poignancy when new species, magic, and blatantly active deities are thrown into the equation. Counterexamples do not invalidate a trend; the prominence of these particular counterexamples is more indicative of our societal adoration of the underdog.

If you could provide a valid motivation, it would work quite well as an evil path (of which there are still far too few). However, I just can't see the extermination of a faction of lawful good people being played off as a righteous action. Moral dissonance kills a story faster than most anything else. Even if it is correct in the mind of an exceptionally chaotic character, it should still cause a huge drop in the PC's reputation. The average citizen wouldn't take kindly to the slaughter of their protectors, even if some of them were stuck up and self righteous.

I hope my disagreement is not taken as a personal attack. I am merely trying to voice an idea I suspect will be in the minds of a significant portion of your audience. Naturally not every mod is for every person, but I would hate to see you put a huge amount of work into something only playable by a small niche.

If it involved, say, an attempt to mitigate ignorant warfare against of a group of Eilistraee-worshiping drow or some such, it would be a different story. Especially if it required a complex series of diplomatic actions to avoid a shade of grey result. As is, though, it sounds as if the party would be railroaded into violence of a morally questionable nature.

Based on the PC's reaction to the events and the exact nature of her/his dealings with the paladins, (and based on how much I can learn about mod building, have time for, etc.) there could be several stronghold quests after this that are all associated with rescuing oppressed groups from various areas and re-settling them in and around deArnise Hold or wherever else the stronghold is located. On the surface these oppressed groups could include drow, duergar, gnolls, goblins, ogres, etc. and in the Underdark they could include humans, surface elves, dwarves, etc. Perhaps eventually one or more of these rescued groups could reciprocate by unexpectedly coming to the party's rescue during an otherwise unrelated quest. Rescues of surface groups enslaved in the Underdark could be helped along by drow or duergar that PC had previously rescued from oppression on the surface. There could also be conflicts between the citizens who were already living in the resettlement area and their new neighbors, which the PC would need to resolve. This all seems like the kind of thing that Nalia's character would really like given her whole "helping others and doing good things" routine and I know she doesn't like paladins because of some of the things she said to Keldorn, so it seems logical that deArnise Hold would make a good setting. Perhaps later on something could happen to Nalia (she gets assassinated by the Roenalls, moves to Athkatla as mentioned in her epilogue, etc.) and the PC becomes the true leader of deArnise Hold, which would give the PC more leeway in terms of what can actually be done.

I like the idea of resolving disputes between the different factions. Nalia already pretty much rolls over on the administrative rights, doesn't she? The reciprocation could revolve around Bodhi's crypt; there's already a few different groups you can ask for assistance in dealing with her.

Perhaps a new order of militant invaders could satisfy the 'good guy turned bad' role you're seeking while sidestepping the incongruity of using the Radiant Heart. It would also explain why your reputation wouldn't go down for killing them. I believe a group of questionable integrity known as the Knights of the Shield was considering allegiance to the Iron Throne in Baldur's Gate I; perhaps they could make a reappearance here.

[ARKdeEREH]

[quote name='-JR-' date='03 November 2011 - 12:10 PM' timestamp='1320358255' post='526240']
[quote name='ARKdeEREH' date='03 November 2011 - 05:34 AM' timestamp='1320316498' post='526206']I'm not sure how else I would refer to drow. I refer to elves in general as people and since drow are black, they would therefore be black people. The same logic could be applied to the duergar.[/quote]My apologies; I thought you were bringing up the tired and deeply flawed argument that dark elves are symbolic of humans with African heritage.

[quote name='ARKdeEREH' date='03 November 2011 - 05:34 AM' timestamp='1320316498' post='526206']The Lolth-worshipping drow societies definitly seem evil, but I've read all of R.A. Salvatore's books about Drizzt, and while Drizzt himself is an exception, there are many other drow in the series, such as Jarlaxle and Kimmuriel, who are probably neutral. They're certainly not evil. I've read some other Forgotten Realms books by different authors that also have neutral drow as the focus of the books, so I don't think classifying all drow societies as inherently evil is fair, just like it wouldn't be fair to classify all human societies as bad just if some of them are.[/quote]Most real world sociological and anthropological theories lose their poignancy when new species, magic, and blatantly active deities are thrown into the equation. Counterexamples do not invalidate a trend; the prominence of these particular counterexamples is more indicative of our societal adoration of the underdog.

If you could provide a valid motivation, it would work quite well as an evil path (of which there are still far too few). However, I just can't see the extermination of a faction of lawful good people being played off as a righteous action. Moral dissonance kills a story faster than most anything else. Even if it is correct in the mind of an exceptionally chaotic character, it should still cause a huge drop in the PC's reputation. The average citizen wouldn't take kindly to the slaughter of their protectors, even if some of them were stuck up and self righteous.

I hope my disagreement is not taken as a personal attack. I am merely trying to voice an idea I suspect will be in the minds of a significant portion of your audience. Naturally not every mod is for every person, but I would hate to see you put a huge amount of work into something only playable by a small niche.[/quote]

Don't worry, I didn't take what you said as a personal attack. I like some of your suggestions. They caused me to think of other complexities that I could add to the story that would make it more interesting and provide alternative options for the player to choose from.

One way that would cause the PC's fight against the paladins to seem like a rightious action is if the paladins harm the local population on their way to attacking the PC's stronghold. If the paladins were not from Amn, they wouldn't necessarily care about the local people and might make reprisals against them for having a lord who harbors drow. This could turn the public opinion of locals against the paladins, who wouldn't appreciate having their crops destroyed or their houses burned. Public opinion in wherever the knights came from might remain in their favor, however, as they would insulated by distance from the knights' actions and would see them in a completely different light. This would be comparable to the real life knights in the Crusades who were hailed as heroes in Europe for liberating the Holy Land, but massacered everyone in some of the cities they attacked including the Christians they were supposedly going there to save. Killing those knights would cause people in the medieval Middle East to like you, but probably would have caused your swift arrest and execution in Europe.


[/quote]
If it involved, say, an attempt to mitigate ignorant warfare against of a group of Eilistraee-worshiping drow or some such, it would be a different story. Especially if it required a complex series of diplomatic actions to avoid a shade of grey result. As is, though, it sounds as if the party would be railroaded into violence of a morally questionable nature.[/quote]

I was thinking of having one big army of paladins initially lay siege to deArnise Hold. The PC would have the choice of escaping out the back entrance, handing the drow over to the paladins, or fighting them off. If the PC fled, all the drow inside the castle, possibly including any drow in the PC's party, would be massacerd. If the PC fled, the paladin quest would basically be over, but there might be some follow-up where the paladins arrest the PC and the PC then has to defend his/her actions or something to that effect. If the PC hands the drow over, the paladins would kill them, including Viconia or any other drow in the PC's party, and the quest would then end. If the PC stays and fights, there would be extreme violence in the sense that the PC would need to defend the castle against an invading army. After that army is defeated, the PC would be regarded as a hero by the inhabitants of the keep that s/he had just saved. There wouldn't be very complex diplomatic contact in this initial battle, but if I developed my entire plot idea into a mod, after that first battle the PC would have the option of traveling to the paladins' headquarters to resolve the dispute and convince them through either good or evil means to stop the attacks. I'm not sure what these negotiations would involve yet. If the PC chooses not to travel to the paladins' headquarters or is too slow in doing so, the paladins will send additional armies against deArnise Hold and other societies they feel are harboring evil races, such as Imnesvale which made the deal with Madulf and his gnolls/ogres. The PC would then have to defeat these armies as well.

My intent was for the PC to eventually make peace with the paladins, although the PC could choose not to do this. Eventually, (in late TOB) a truly epic army of genuinly evil drow will attack deArnise Hold and if the PC made peace with the paladins in SOA they will potentially help fight this army. If they're all dead, they obviously can't help. For this army of drow, which would be the final conclusion of this quest, the number of drow the PC helped earlier in the game would become very important. The army will be enormous numbering in the multi-thousands, and will have numerous spellcasters. It will be much larger than anyone should be capable of defeating without allies or cheats. If the PC rescued certain important drow political leaders earlier in the game a substantial part of the invading drow army will defect to the PC's side, because the soldiers are loyal to those drow political leaders. If not, the PC will need to rely on help from the paladins, conscripted citizens from the area around deArnise Hold, and from anyone the PC saved during earlier quests.

[quote name='ARKdeEREH' date='03 November 2011 - 05:34 AM' timestamp='1320316498' post='526206']Based on the PC's reaction to the events and the exact nature of her/his dealings with the paladins, (and based on how much I can learn about mod building, have time for, etc.) there could be several stronghold quests after this that are all associated with rescuing oppressed groups from various areas and re-settling them in and around deArnise Hold or wherever else the stronghold is located. On the surface these oppressed groups could include drow, duergar, gnolls, goblins, ogres, etc. and in the Underdark they could include humans, surface elves, dwarves, etc. Perhaps eventually one or more of these rescued groups could reciprocate by unexpectedly coming to the party's rescue during an otherwise unrelated quest. Rescues of surface groups enslaved in the Underdark could be helped along by drow or duergar that PC had previously rescued from oppression on the surface. There could also be conflicts between the citizens who were already living in the resettlement area and their new neighbors, which the PC would need to resolve. This all seems like the kind of thing that Nalia's character would really like given her whole "helping others and doing good things" routine and I know she doesn't like paladins because of some of the things she said to Keldorn, so it seems logical that deArnise Hold would make a good setting. Perhaps later on something could happen to Nalia (she gets assassinated by the Roenalls, moves to Athkatla as mentioned in her epilogue, etc.) and the PC becomes the true leader of deArnise Hold, which would give the PC more leeway in terms of what can actually be done.
[/quote]I like the idea of resolving disputes between the different factions. Nalia already pretty much rolls over on the administrative rights, doesn't she? The reciprocation could revolve around Bodhi's crypt; there's already a few different groups you can ask for assistance in dealing with her.
[/quote]


I know Nalia pretty much lets the PC do as s/he pleases, but she is still technically in control and she says something about interfering if the PC's rule seems to obnoxious or something to that effect. I've never actually had her interfere and I don't know if she can, but it would eliminate the possibility of it if she died or otherwise gave up all rights to the castle. I'm not sure if this would be plausible yet, but I was thinking of possibly having the PC establish his/her own dynasty in the keep, which would be impossible if Nalia still owned it. If the PC was involved in a romance with Viconia he could eventually marry her and turn deArnise Hold into a re-established House DeVir in which Viconia and the PC jointly ruled. This is the sort of thing (the idea of a drow ruling a surface castle) that might be part of what antagonizes the paladins into attacking, or it might be something that attracts negative attention from other drow (who don't like the idea of a male non-drow co-ruling a drow house).

[/quote]
Perhaps a new order of militant invaders could satisfy the 'good guy turned bad' role you're seeking while sidestepping the incongruity of using the Radiant Heart. It would also explain why your reputation wouldn't go down for killing them. I believe a group of questionable integrity known as the [url="http://forgottenreal...Shield"]Knights of the Shield[/url] was considering allegiance to the Iron Throne in Baldur's Gate I; perhaps they could make a reappearance here.
[/quote]


I like your idea about the Knights of the Shield. They would fit the bill as paladins, but then I wouldn't have to include Athkatla at all and the locals wouldn't necesarily care as much about their well being as paladins. The Knights of the Shield could be seen as foreign invaders in a sense that the Order of the Radiant Heart would not.

[Miloch]

Still sounds like a good and relatively easy idea to me. It would be as difficult to mod as you want to make it, like most mods. If you just want to make it so you can fight a horde of paladins, you'd just need to implement an area ('easy' being a recycled one, but there are even existing unimplemented ones out there in some posts here ripe for the taking) and then spawn a bunch of CREs. Could even do that in waves with a relatively simple area script (like after a timer or after you kill a certain number, others come out, or make it even simpler and they all spawn at once). Also, what is simple: they aren't (complex) spellcasters, so you can make their own (.cre) scripts rely on whatever AI scripting might already be there (BP or SCS for example - just give them generic BG2 scripts and it'll take care of itself).

Also, it might be worth noting the obvious conclusion that "law" and "good" are not the same and that one can conflict with another - in other words a lawful good character can often pursue law at the expense of "good". This would be less evident in a neutral (or even chaotically) good character (though this discussion could take a political or ideological side I won't get into here). Also, DnD tends to conflate "knights" and "paladins" which would rarely be the case (from an "alignment" perspective) in real-world or even other fantasy-game standpoints. A lot of so-called "paladins" probably tend more toward lawful-neutral than lawful-good (where exactly the balance might tip, or if it does, has to do with individual actions and judgments of their deities).