Virtue goes up too much!

[SimDing0™]

1.The mod sounds good, but I've a few evil things in mind (taking all 3 underdark lairs - hey we got to be prepared for the Five, right?) and taking out Belmin Gergas (the weirdo at the Promenade) and (if characters react to quickly)..that scimitar throwing dude (al alaffiff or whatever) if he can't get away in time...

That's not a question. But they'll lower your virtue.

2.If i decide to kill/just seal off Demogorgon, any difference in Virtue? as in Up or Down?

No. But getting Odren killed intentionally lowers it.

3.And does abandoning NPCs mean leaving the pocket plane with Sarevok still inside as you left SOA with 5 NPCS (your party is full?)

4.Or does that mean you leave Imoen to fend for herself in Spellhold as your party is full/you leave someone else behind in Spellhold to take Imoen?

In either case..virtue Up or Down? or unaffected?

You have to take Imoen or refuse her with a better excuse than "I don't like you" to avoid a Virtue drop. This is currently sub-optimal, and Quest Pack will make it rather better.

[Aristothenes]

Last post for today. Thanks for your answers SimDingo. This is a technical question.
If I've downloaded all the finished mods from pocketplane.net
and spellholdstudios.net
and others,

Which do I install first?
All the WeiDU mods say they should be the last...?

Is there a guide somewhere which can tell me which goes first? PPG or FW?

[Imrahil]

As for the Mae'Var quest I doubt any lawful person would kill a CW just becaus an evil RW told them. There even is a way of completing the quest for good people - kill edwin.

After giving this some thought, I really don't see the difference between killing Reyic & killing Edwin.  If anything (& again I'll say that I'd prefer to see a non-violent way of confronting Reyic implemented), just up & killing Edwin seems like a very non-Good way of handling the situation.

- Imrahil

[Lord Kain]

 The only reason you HAVE to kill Reyic is if you want Edwin in the party for is wizard skills or more importantly for the edwina event. You can always kill edwin when he attacks you for the key.

After all, you refuse to murder for him. He attacks you for it so its self defense.

But you shouldn't lose virtue for it. Why should paladins be denyed the pleasure of Edwina.

[Ruben]

Ah as far as I know Edwin is evil. A Paladin theorically shouldn't even be associating with anyone evil. I've heard enough Paladin rehotoric to know that. If you want Edwina, don't play a Paladin. Or don't use Virture eitherway.

[Lord Kain]

yes a paladin shouldn't ally with edwin. But then Baldur's Gate 2 doesn't make that restriction.

[Ruben]

Just because you can, does that mean you should?

The Virture Mod is about Roleplaying and adding depth a characters actions. If a Paladin was told to kill somone by some mage and goes and does it then a Paladin deserves to fall.

[SixOfSpades]

So, if I play a Mage and tell Keldorn to come help me kill Irenicus, he should angrily kick me out of the building? Even if my PC is of Evil alignment, whacking Irenicus will still be a Good thing.

[Kish]

Well, actually...if your PC's Virtue is low enough to qualify for Evil alignment, Keldorn will, sooner or later, attack him/her.  In roleplaying terms, the "proper" course of action for Keldorn would be not to actually swear to serve an evil mage to defeat another evil mage, but rather to learn all he can about Irenicus from you, leave your corpse on the floor of the sewers, and gather a group of his own to hunt down this Irenicus.

[BobTokyo]

So, if I play a Mage and tell Keldorn to come help me kill Irenicus, he should angrily kick me out of the building? Even if my PC is of Evil alignment, whacking Irenicus will still be a Good thing.

Keldorn fought beside you to destroy the CUlt of the Eyeless (unless you refused to have him). He has some reason to trust you. That's different from a Paladin taking an order from a Mage that he knows to be Evil. Of course, a Paladin shouldn't be working for or with the thieves guild at all, but that's BG2 for you.

[Mongoose87]

I'm pretty certain he'll stay with you whether you go after the cult or not

[BobTokyo]

I'm pretty certain he'll stay with you whether you go after the cult or not

True, he will, but he shouldn't. Again, that's BG2 for you; a Paladin sworn to investigate the disapearances above who knows for a fact that there is a source of great evil through a door 20 paces away, and even a Chaotic Evil CHARNAME with an INT and CHA of 3 can talk him into walking away to go rob private homes. Odd game.

[Imrahil]

Just because you can, does that mean you should?

The Virture Mod is about Roleplaying and adding depth a characters actions. If a Paladin was told to kill somone by some mage and goes and does it then a Paladin deserves to fall.

Once again I think it comes back to the question of "Does the person asking make a difference?"  What if the Paladin was "told to kill someone" by Sir Ryan Trawl or Adalon?  Is it just as Evil to attack the Fallen Paladins as it to attack Reyic?  Would we even be debating the Virtue of attacking the Beholders if Adalon was the one who asked the party to do it?

Which of these 3 situations should require a Virtue hit (I'm not assuming a Paladin in these examples, but I am assuming a non-Evil PC)?
1 - The PC is told of a nearby Cowled Wizard.  The PC invades his home & confronts him, hoping to learn about Imoen's whereabouts.  The CW is uncooperative & a fight ensues, resulting in the CW's death.
2 - The PC is asked by Edwin to attack a nearby Cowled Wizard.  Both Edwin & the Cowled Wizard are Evil, & the CW's arrested Imoen, so the PC does as Edwin requests, attacking & killing the CW, hoping to either discover something about Imoen or enlist the aid of the Shadow Thieves in locating her.
3 - The Priests of Lathander are tired of the Cowled Wizards' reign of terror & are concerned that the Wizards will attack them in the very near future.  They ask the PC to perform a pre-emptive strike on the Cowled Wizards by taking out one of their members.  The PC does so, resulting in the death of the CW.

Which, if any, of these are Evil?

- Imrahil

[BobTokyo]

#1 and #2 certainly require a virtue hit. In number 1 you break into the home of someone who has done you no direct harm and who has only harmed you indirectly through association then kill him. In number two you obey a command to commit murder given by a criminal. #3 I'm less sure of; as Lawful characters the Priests of Lathander should not be ordering first strikes against what is effectively an arm of the city government. If the situation is that severe, then it might be possible to do this without a virtue hit.

[Kish]

Priests of Lathander are no more likely to be Lawful than Chaotic.  Lathander is Neutral Good.

[neriana]

I don't think #1 should take a Virtue hit. I don't think any of them should take a Virtue hit, actually.

[SimDing0™]

#1 is not specific enough. "The wizard doesn't decide to tell you where she is, so you kill him" is not a justifiable explanation. "The wizard gets angry at your questions and attacks" is.

#2: All else set aside, you're murdering Rayic without any real indication of him having done anything particularly evil.

#3: Pre-emptive strike in anticipation of what? If the Cowled Wizards are planning to wipe out the Temple of Lathander, than that's fair enough. If there's a rumour going round that one of the cowled wizards might be going to steal a temple acolyte's girlfriend, that's slaughtering them all in advance isn't so good.

[BobTokyo]

Priests of Lathander are no more likely to be Lawful than Chaotic.  Lathander is Neutral Good.

My mistake; for some reason I thought that Lathander was a Lawful Good power.

[jester]

The CWs are by no means a secret organization (being secretive is another issue) but rather a ruling faction in the city like the council of the six of which we do not know how many are members of the CWs. I think they could be more seen as the LAPD (by most not perceived as particularily LG at times). It is the law in Amn. They are law enforcement not just a sect.

Besides:
Number one is wrong: You do not question and kill the CW in Umar Hills. Why? It would be much easier to get answers from someone far away from the city and the shelter of his organization. However you play the story. There is an option to apologize and leave immediately. Rayic surely has a sign on his door that says 'Tresspassers wil be fireballed!'.

[SimDing0™]

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.

I can't seem to reproduce this issue. In may game, it's reputation that suffers. Can anyone else confirm?

[Reverendratbastard]

sobering bite for the day (or lifetime):

Why should everybody else care that you are a soulless spawn of a human god.

   thanks.


  glad i showed up a few months late, or this one'd be more like 8 pages.

[SimDing0™]

Discussion isn't closed, if you've got any comments that haven't already been addressed.

[Reverendratbastard]

 thanks for the clarif.
 hmm, i'll go back through it later, but mostly i think i just wanted to argue. 

[Quitch]

Does virtue still not take itself into account when changing?  Currently it's possible to commit ten minor transgressions, lowering yourself to 1.  So, say ten pick pockets (or whatever minor things you can lose virtue for) would make you worse than someone who slaughtered all the slave children?

That's not right, and it certainly isn't roleplaying.

Virtue should be capped at certain points.  Virtue of 8?  You can't lose virtue for doing X since you've already reached a level associated with someone who does that.  If I can hit 1 without slaughtering towns, something is dreadfully wrong.  Likewise, if I can reach 20 without sacrificing everything I care for in this world, then again, that's not right.

[SimDing0™]

You're right, that's how it should work, and I guess I will finish implementing that soon. It's very awkward to implement using WeiDU though, in dialogue particularly.

An alternative might be to say that if your Virtue is below 7, Virtue drops are all scaled down by 1, so your Virtue dropping by 1 does nothing, dropping by 2 actually decreases it by 1, and so on. It'd work similarly for high Virtue. This'd be far easier to code than individual handling for each event, but I'm not sure how well it'd work.