Personally, I'm of the opinion that Virtue doesn't go up
enough. Freeing the slaves in Ust Natha? Killing Dola Fadoon? These are both actions that benefit (relatively) Good-aligned Innocents, at the expense of some gold and exposing the party to potential discovery in a hostile environment. Yet the Virtue counter stays solid as a rock.
Where's the Virtue boost for clearing out a huge lair of Vampires that's been preying on the blood of the innocent? For singlehandedly tearing down a stronghold of Evil Thieves? For saving the Tree of Life?
Or let's consider the Temple District. Go Pickpocketing in the Temple of Helm, get caught at it, and seven people see you--
and you take a Virtue hit for each one of them. So the message here is that robbing a lone person in the woods is more "virtuous" than robbing someone in a crowd? If anything, it's Reputation that should suffer relative to the number of witnesses.
Next, suppose you get caught burglarizing the Temple of Lathander, and in the scuffle, a Morning Knight gets killed, and your Virtue understandably takes a hit. So, you trot across the street and kill a follower of an
Evil religion--and
that nails your Virtue too! What gives?
Most Stores should adjust their prices relative to party Reputation.
Temples, however, should adjust according to Virtue.
Demi-Temples (such as Wallace in Trademeet) are a grey area....maybe have them take the average from both?
A Paladin will Fall after committing a
single unvirtuous act? As in a single ONE MEASLY 1-POINT VIRTUE DROP? Pardon me, but I think that's just a tad extreme, even for by-the-book Paladins. If a Paladin had mystical foreknowledge of exactly how every decision (s)he made was going to turn out, then yes, that "blade runner" ideal could apply, but this sudden-death approach means that any Paladin who's roleplaying anything less than 18 INT, 18 WIS, and 18 CHA is royally screwed. I would set the conditions for Falling to be if
a) Virtue drops below 12, or
b) Any single event that causes Virtue to drop by 2 or more points.
Next up on my comment list is that NPCs should remain in the party even if their Reputation is completely at odds with their Alignment: I can certainly see Edwin being pleased as punch at being hailed as a hero (laughing up his sleeve the whole time at these pathetic simpletons who are so easily misled)--as long as he knows what the party has
really been up to behind everyone's backs. Keldorn, similarly, could tolerate being Despised (he suffers through Anomen, doesn't he?) as long as he can testify that the PC's actions are actually good and true.
Lastly, everybody talks too much. I can barely walk across a map area without some party member piping up with a comment on how pleased/displeased they are with my Virtue. Even the Happy comments get annoying after the 200th time. How much can this be slowed down? Once every couple of hours shoulf be plenty. Also, the Virtue comments cause the party members to stop whatever they're doing and tell the world just how they feel. If they're walking, they stop walking. If they're in Stealth, they break Stealth. I've never seen a spell get disrupted from this, but only time will tell. Note that it is not the Reputation comments that cause this--only Virtue.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On the whole, I think Virtue is a great idea that was well implemented--that's why I wrote you a negative post, same as I wrote for Kelsey.
That makes sense, doesn't it? I just think it still needs work, and my feedback will probably be helpful. Good job and good luck with future work!
P.S. It's really weird watching the "Virtue vs. Hell Trials" duel right before the final battle. "She's Neutral Good!" "No, she's True Neutral!" "Neutral
Good!" "True
Neutral!"