I think that D&D and the IE games are unfairly biased against evil characters, and I am working on a mini-mod that will disable or tone down many of the features designed to spite or outright kill evil characters.
Does anyone know how BGII creates the large party of Amnish soldiers and Cowled Wizards that sentence your party to death when your reputation dips low enough? I think that this feature is unfair in the extreme. There are countless evil citizens within the city, many much more evil than your party, yet the guard can somehow track down and execute the player party in particular? What the !@#$? What about Neb, the child killer? What about all the freakin' Shadow Thieves?
I thought that the feature would most likely be implemented via script... but after browsing the game scripts I failed to see any script with an obvious name. Any help would be appreciated. I'd like to either remove the feature entirely or perhaps match the summoned party to the level of your own party (a fair-fight scenario).
a Wounded Lion
The Shadow Thieves get away with a lot due to the fact that they have a huge presence in the city and its rumored that at least one of the Council of Six is a current or former ST. Their activities are overlooked basically by those in power.
The way I always looked at it though was this... You can be evil all you want, but its your actions as an evil individual that determine your reputation. Those actions are open and visible to those around you or your rep would simply not ever grow. Rep is how the people around you perceive you. Many evil people can have a good rep via using people to cover their asses and keep their names and noses clean and never let deeds stick to them. Pays to have those evil henchmen underlings, doesn't it? These types tend to be rich and affluent within the nobility and the ruling bodies, if they're not in the ruling bodies themselves, that is.
Now, think of it from this perspective rather than "Evil is treated unfair." When you start the game, even evil, you start with a neutral rep, do you not? Its your actions within the game that maintain or lower (or raise) your rep. You can be evil in that you're a selfish bastard and out for yourself, yet not do anything that would substantially drop your rep persay. Evil doesn't always = mindless slaughter cuz you feel like it. Barring magic divination of your alignment, only open evil deeds will let anyone know you're evil.
BUT, when your rep starts dropping in the game, that means you've been a very naughty boy or girl within your time in the game. You've done things that give you a preceeding bad rap with everyone, including the Athkatlan guard and CW's. You've been
actively very bad and very evil. So, they're not just coming after you just because you're evil, they're coming after you because you finally got such a negative rep within the city and the people, that tales of your bad deeds hit official ears and basically, you've got a bounty on your head. Sure there are tons of evil people in Athkatla, probably many of them are in the CW's, but the bulk of these evil dudes are not likely out in the streets killing random citizens out in the open, etc. They're likely doing petty stuff that wouldn't draw much notice, if anything at all.
The game can only show a microcosm of life in the streets. It can't show the sheer multitude of people walking the streets, or shopping at vendors, etc. A party of 6 high powered people carrying shiney trinkets consisting of highly magical weapons and armor will stand out and make the common peons take notice of them, thus, nothing you do will ever truly be very secret unless all six of them are really darn stealthy 24/10. If you kill that dude that smarts off to you on the street corner, you'll be seen and talk of 'that group' will spread among the underbelly of the city. The more you do, the more talk spreads like wildfire and you're going to catch the notice of those people that come to catch and execute you.
Frankly, to be honest with you, I'm almost surprised that the ST's don't come after you as well at some point, because your activities within the streets are in a way drawing negative attention to them and drawing the eyes of the guard more closely to their territory.
Anyway, the law coming after you makes perfect sense to me if you take into consideration that its your own actions that dictate that you're now labled 'Athkatla's Most Wanted.'
*edited for error*
Topic: Fair Play for Evil Characters (Read 4127 times)
