BG2 - Chloe NPC Mod Review

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BGII/SoA – Chloe NPC Mod (Modification Pack)
Version 1.2
Review first posted on: 24/02/2005
Review updated on:
Website: http://chloe.fwstudios.net/
Forum: http://forums.forgottenwars.net/index.php?showforum=11
Download: http://www.3ddownloads.com/fwstudios/Hosted%20Mods/Chloe

Chloe is a Human Female TN Kensai. Although she is Human, she CANNOT be dual-classed. She will only romance a Human, Elven or Half-Elven female. However, Imoen’s presence is required for her flings to convert into a romance. If her romance with the PC is going nowhere, she will romance Imoen on her joining the party in Spellhold.

Currently only the SoA portion of the mod has been released. However the mod may be installed with ToB too. The mod is packaged in Weidu, so compatibility with other mods should not be a problem. It is also Macintosh compatible.

Chloe can be found in the Pocket-Plane of Air, in the first level of Jon Irenicus’ dungeon. Unfortunately, Dungeon-Be-Gone doesn’t recognize Chloe. So you have to endure pretty much the entire first level of the dungeon to get to her. Her stats are as follows:
STR: 13
DEX: 25 (Yeah, I know. More on this later.)
CON: 16
WIS: 12
INT: 12
CHA: 14
TOTAL: 92.
She also has 100% resistance to Electrical damage.

Depending on when you pick her up, Chloe comes in four flavors of Levels 7, 9, 13, and 15.
At level 7 her proficiencies are spent on:
Scimitar ***
Short Sword **
Two Weapon Style *
In later versions she will have spent the latest proficiency point on:
Level 9 – Short Sword
Level 13 - Two Weapon Style
Level 15 - Two Weapon Style

Weapons

She comes dual wielding Wrath of Akadia, a Scimitar +3 (+1d2 electrical) which casts Blur 1/day, and Lathandar’s Flame, a Short-Sword +2 (+1d2 fire) which grants 25% fire resistance, that only she can use (actually anyone with 23 Dex can). Other than that, she comes naked.
Her weapons will be upgraded automatically once during SoA, in Spellhold, to Rage of Akadia, a Scimitar +4 (+1d4 electrical) which casts Improved Haste 1/day and Blur 3/day, and Lathandar’s Blaze, a ShortSword +3 (+1d4 fire) which grants 50% fire resistance. The manner in which her weapons were upgraded also wasn’t all that unbelievable.

Are her weapons overpowered? Yes and no. Yes, because you won’t find many such powerful scimitars and short-swords in the unmodded game. No, because no straight Kensai would bother with them. CF, FoA and IMoD are a few of the weapons in the OC which leave her blades in the dust. Don’t get me started on Weimer’s Weapon Upgrade
The ToB portion is supposed to further upgrade these to a Scimitar +6 and a Short Sword +5. Now that’s possibly overpowered.
Note: Her Lathandar’s swords have 0% chance of casting their spells. This bug will be rectified in v1.3

Personality

Chloe is a bitch who won’t stop talking. She has a highly abrasive attitude and, good or bad, the NPCs wish she were elsewhere. She might be lesbian, but does mean that she is incapable of having a normal conversation with males? She talks to all the original games NPCs at least twice. No content has been written to incorporate other, more famous, mods. Hence, there are no interactions with, say, Kelsey or Solaufein.

She cares about saving her skin over anything else. Thus, unlike the original NPCs, there is a chance she might dump you at the Tree of Life and not follow you to Hell. This is a side of the TN attitude we haven’t seen yet.

Chloe is a mercenary who fights for the sake of fighting itself. Give her coin and she will take up your cause. Probably the only reason she joins in the group is to sate her bloodlust. If she doesn’t like the way you dumped her, she might ask for some GP before she rejoins you, if at all.

Background

Chloe’s background story says that she is the bastard child of a human and Akadia, the Goddess of Air. Her tribe, which adopted her at the behest of Akadia, is the one which founded the Kensai style of fighting. She is a straight Kensai and can’t be dual-classed. So if you ever had a Kensai PC but never managed to resist making him a Thief or Mage, Chloe is for you.

Yes. Her Dex = 25 bothers a lot of people. Thankfully, Chloe is not an Archer. Being a straight Kensai, the Dex stat is only useful insofar as it improves her AC by 2. So it doesn’t make her overpowered. For role-playing AD&D gurus out there, keep away.
Her 13 Str doesn’t seem to really affect her, she still kills a lot.

Her strengths and weaknesses are all a function of the Kensai class. She is not a tank. If she gets mobbed, she’s chunked. A few critical hits from her and her opponents are chunked. Her weapons mean she will have a lot of kills to her credit early on.
Personally I preferred the Single Weapon Fighting style for her. Properly outfitted, she was able to compete with Anomen in terms of AC. And criticals at 19 for a Kensai

Gameplay & Story - Pros & Cons

+ Chloe is pretty well integrated into the game. In addition to her introduction, she has two quests in SoA.

+ Her Chapter 3 quest, though small, is well timed and blends seamlessly into the original game. The reward however is a misshapen lump of metal which is of no use throughout SoA. Apparently we shall have to wait for the ToB portion to be released for culmination of that story. Personally, I would have preferred closure within SoA itself.
- Chloe’s Chapter 6 quest is only available if the PC is romancing her. This one isn’t as good as the first imo. Too many cut-scenes and lack of control destroy interest in the story.

+ Having a TN character that refuses to work with Bodhi might rankle with some players but it is well explained in her background story. I wish it too was included in the install file.
- Her behavior on meeting Renal however is inexcusable. Only a “Chipmunk with a sugar high and a death wish” would talk or act like that. The whole time it had me thinking Stabbity death imminent!

+ A small portion of the dialogues are voiced.
- The background music that plays whenever she is about to have a conversation with the PC is a dead giveaway though. It screams MOD ALERT!

+ Requiring that Imoen be present for the romance to flower is constraining. But then, you can always make that decision beforehand.
- Chloe’s insistence on having a romantic talk almost whenever you go to sleep bugged me. I had to press ‘z’ twice. I also experienced a slight lag before all of her dialogues.

- The mod tries very hard to make Chloe the centre of attention.
- PC is the child of Bhall; Chloe must be a child of Akadia.
- PC finally meets Imoen in Spellhold; a long cut-scene must be introduced to put Chloe back into the spotlight.
- PC is conversing with any important quest character; Chloe must pipe in with her 0.02$.
- PC gets Bhall powers; Chloe gets 25 Dex. The author says that Chloe’s Dex is a result of her heritage and training, and that she would have been able to better express this aspect of Chloe within 3E rules. 25 Dex in BGII translates to 40 DEX in IWD II. No one in the multiverse can be more dexterous!!! IMO this is just a lazy way of getting people to notice this NPC mod amongst all the others.

Rating
4/10

[ February 23, 2005, 21:54: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

 

That was interesting and told pretty much everything I wanted to know, being a roleplayer as I am. Based on what you said, I could draw a few conclusions:

a) It's overpowered, like majority of unofficial BG2 mods.
b) Her personality isn't that interesting and shifts the attention from the player to the game itself, which is one of the very basic mistakes game-developers do.
c) A few typos: "Bhall."
d) Generally speaking, it does not blend in to the game.

However, one, very important point was left open: Imoen-Chloe romance. You have to admit it; guys will be downloading this mod only because it features a lesbian romance, thus it would had been very nice to tell if it was graphic/annoying/good or generally taken worth it. Myself, I will avoid this mod, but that info still has some curiosity value...

 

Do you not like NPCs giving their opinion on quests? Or does Chloe just do it too often?

 

Chloe's personality appears to be deliberately unpleasant and self-centered. In that, she's interesting because it's not a design choice many NPC designers, official or moddery, make. (hell, even the Cockney Barfighting Bruces have a soft spot for their mothers.) That said, yes, there are some seriously questionable design choices, not so much relating to what Chloe does but to how the rest of the gameworld fails to respond appropriately... such as the episode with Renal, or the fact that Chloe literally heckles Anomen _as he is asking the PC to sleep with him._

 

I wouldn't say Chloe was that overpowered. My Kensai[12]/Thief[x] had more kills. CF + Kai + x5 Backstab = overpowered
The Imoen-Chloe romance is not nearly as graphic as Viconia in the Flirt pack. Its just a lot of talk basically. Half of which I didn't get. There are a couple of dialogues about breasts but nothing in a really sexual manner.

A few times when she speaks up: Outside the Circus Tent, Aerie as an Ogre, Aeries illusion removed, Coo dialogue, Anomen opening his mouth (all the time), with Sassar of Beholder Cult, Skinner Lieutenant ...
I stopped taking screenshots sometime after that. I have not included her numerous dialogues with Aran Linvail since there is some history there.

Agree with jcompton. Her personality is interesting even if you don't always agree with her. This ofcourse means that she is nothing like the Bioware NPCs. Again MOD alert!

 

I find the rating 4/10 a little harsh :
- as said in the review, she is not overpowered, the 25 dex just shows she has something special (daugther of a godess), and just gives a +2 bonus to ac, the weapons are quite standard for its class at the begining of the game. She has no special natural power as the main character in the game, so she is not that powerful !
- the fact that she is the daughter of a godess fits very well with the TOB scenario, even if it's quite original in the SoA story. This and her very unusual personality makes her one of the most original npcs I ever found in bg2 (the humourous part is very important too, and it was not mentioned in the review, making lots of funny situations !)

The cutscene when Imoen joins the party is not so much to have spotlight back on chloe but it allows her to improve her magical weapons at a critical moment, quite appropriate in fact.

The bad sides I found though :
- the weapons which can't cast their spells as they should, it's an obvious bug which should have been fixed earlier
- maybe a lack of specific quests ? The first one is good even if the fight is rather hard at that moment in the game, too bad the reward is unusable
- no tob portion, but her forum says the work has just begun on this.

Considering the rating of Kelsey (10), I would definetely give her more than 5, 7/10 seems appropriate.

 

Why didn't I see this post earlier Like it when someone notices my work

About the review. The rating frankly mirrors my attitude towards her by the time we were done with the Underdark. I was mightily pissed off with her. She is more annoying than either Aerie or Mazzy. Its love her or hate her I guess; and I went from one to the other over the course of the game.
Then again I'm not a guy to give even Kelsey a full 10/10. Perhaps an 8.5...

This does not include the feeling that her dialogues are OOC and seem to be coming from the mouth of a charecter with 18Int, 18Wis & 18Char ... if not more. You must have Keldorn in the same party as hers to really appreciate how bad it gets.
And humour? Other than the way in which she puts Anomen in his place (and she does a fine job of that ) I dont really remember anything humourous about her.

Her weapons are overpowered for when you get her in the game, not just for their enchantment but also for their combat and special abilities. IIRC no original charecter comes decked with a +3 weapon and you need to have done atleast one major quest before you can get/ afford your first +3.
Also she had the highest kills/chapter amongst all NPCs in a melee oriented party. How did it go in your game?

It really is a matter of how you look at her. Thanks for your reply and welcome to the boards

 

Thanks for the welcome !

Well, I must say I have not played her very far until now, I am just before the underdark now, and I don't lke to know the fact that she might leave the party before hell just because she is a neutral character... So I understand your point : maybe the begining is much better than the end with this character.

For the weapons I still think they are not overpowered, at the begining at least : only the short sword is +3, the scimitar is +2. And you can get a +3 two handed sword in the game without any major quest (just a mini quest to get this speaking sword). If you add that the spells like protect from negative plane don't work, then they are really not overpowered !!!

Yeah she gets the best score for the melee fight, but she is a kensai with 2 magical weapons, so it definetely makes sense, she is also geting a lot of damage because she does not want to wear any armour...

So before the underdark she still deserves more than 5/10, I'll see how it gets later...

Thanks for the review anyway !

 

So I found a neat portrait that made me decide to play as a girl for a change. (This is a big change if you know me well.) That same day I was scrolling through the mod list at the Pocket Plane site and I see Chloe. Haven't tried that before, I think to myself (OMG teh l3zbi4nz!!!1). Might be a hoot.

Shows what I know.

It's bad enough she's so smug and the position of her sword makes her small portrait look like she's wearing a cheesy hat. She starts off by threatening Minsc and Boo, and you know that anyone who does that gets a major red flag in my book. When I saw the banter with Keldorn I uninstalled Chloe.

Great literature is, they say, always controversial. Great art is not, they say, appreciated in its creator's lifetime.

Chloe is neither.

A dual-wielding Kensai with 25 Dexterity and fiery red hair screams "Mary Sue!" of the first and worst variety. Yes, everyone gets a little Mary Sue-ish with their characters. Kelsey's portrait is based on a photo of his creator. My Baldur's Gate character Trevelyn represents my desire to be a strong and brave protector, and the character Jose in one of my published short stories and several unpublished ones has the same political views as I do. But these examples are within the rules of the game. They play the game and they live and die, by the game. There are beings in the Dungeons and Dragons mythology who can do no wrong and whose attribute scores get into the 25 range. They're called gods, and I'm sorry for being blunt, but it's the truth. An NPC like that is nothing but an attempt by her author to show how much better she is than the game (the way Keldorn fawns over a lesbian barbarian is sickening). If Chloe floats your boat, fine, I'm not going to stop you from playing with her. But don't come to me evangelizing. I don't want to hear it.

 

Well, at least we know who'll win when they elect the Bitch-of-the-Month.

I played through SoA using Chloe a couple of years ago, being influenced in part by the very positive comments about her on the old Interplay (now Inertplay) boards. I thought she was a hoot; and I loved her abrasive, sh*t-kicking attitude. The romance with Imoen was actually a little touching, and there was never any question of her leaving the party. She was so good as a fighter that I (Heresy!) dumped Minsc.

Sorry if she's not your style, but 4 out of 10??--Get real!

 

4/10? Ouch. It's a shame you don't like NPCs that don't bow to your divine will and don't agree with you all the time. I thought Chloe was wonderfully written. She doesn't take crap (something I've noticed in her author), but she gets a little softer and less bull-headed towards the end.

As for abandoning you before you go to Hell, as I recall, she only does this if you really screw up and tick her off. Think about it, would you risk your life for some jackass? I don't think so.

But maybe I'm just being biased, being friends with her creator and all... though I played the mod through before getting to know her.

 

Thanks, Sevarus; I do think we need some pro-Chloe posts here.

I just went back and looked at my final save in BGII, and found that Chloe had registered 37% of the party's total experience points. Though this is not an outrageous percentage for the main fighter in a melee oriented party, it is a bit on the high side, and the argument that Chloe is overpowered probably has merit.

But I think most of the complaints here are more related to her attitude, and with these I have much less sympathy. It is puerile to think your associates will always agree with you and pander to you. In this respect, and I think it is her most important aspect, Chloe is a breath of fresh air, acting for herself, not as an agent of You, Master of All. There are plenty of NPC's who'll do whatever you ask of them. Take them; give Chloe her 4/10; and be content.

 

The only thing I liked about her was the way she responded to Gaelan's "coo" ... Other than that she ranks among the most irritating NPCs I have ever tried.

Do you remember Eldoth in BG1? He had a strong personality, was no pushover but he gave you some reasons to take him with you. Chloe is intrusive and her presence can be disturbing, all in all she is worth a try if you're bored and really want to hate someone other than Anomen.
4/10 is not that bad considering her flaws.

 

To those here who think the mod is well made; here is a little test.
Do not take Nalia into your group and don't go to her keep either. Rescue Imoen from Spellhold and allow her to join your party. Then, in Chapter 6, go cleanse the keep of its invaders. You might want Nalia to join in at some point of time. Note the first banter between Chloe and Nalia. Chloe bitches to Nalia about the fact the Imoen is still in captivity! Nuff said.

 

Yeah, and try and see what happens if you sell her weapons... very odd.

 

Wow, a mistake in a mod? No way! Maybe instead of griping about it here, you could stop by the Chloe forums and let Lucy know there's a bug?

 

Well, I´m not sure it´s a bug per se, but she starts yapping on about her weapons non-stop...

 

Actually, my comment was directed towards Shrikant.

Her weapons are very important to her. I mean, what if you had, say a pet that you loved very much, and someone just took it away and sold it because you "would be better off with something different"? Okay, not the greatest example, but I hope you get what I'm trying to say.

 

The Chloe/Imoen romance is very strange. This whole mod is a very pompous one with little to redeem it besides the fact that Saerileth and other mods by their makers exist to take last place... well, them and Nathaniel, but mostly them.

 

I'm using this mod at present and although I was enjoying it a lot at first (loved her trying to explain to Minsc that she's gay), now I just wish she'd shut up for 5 seconds. Also (although this is no fault with the mod) I don't find myself liking Kensais much - she seems to take way too much damage. Thinking I might ditch her for Mazzy.