How can Anomen and Nalia be so naive at SoA levels?

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In Shadows of Amm, your characters start with decent levels of experience. As do all the NPCs that you meet. IN P&P, 5th level and above was considered a fairly respectable level. Certainly not on par with Elminster, but not a wet-behind-the-ears beginner either. Yet, in the game both Anomen and Nalia act like I'd expect first or second level chracters to act.

If this had been BG1 with BG1 levels, I could excuse it, but these NPCs are experienced people. How can they be so unworldly at the same time by 2E rules?

 

Well, the rules for the computer games were fudged a bit, to keep the vision of the story in tact. To make them level 1 would make them unreasonably weak, but to alter their personalities to reflect the standard level 5 character would compromise what the developers wanted to portray them as. There are many other liberties taken with the DnD rules, and personally, I see them as mostly inconsequential.

 

It's a limitation of CRPGs. Ideally the personalities of the NPCs would change every few levels to reflect experience but practically this is not possible. Also notice that Keldorn and Anomen are the same level, even though it is blatantly obvious that Keldorn has loads more experience in life (being a few decades older helps). The personalities seem to change slightly in ToB and they do reflect more maturity and experience for many of them, but by then they're around level 20 so it's about time they matured!

 

Also there is experience gained from both on the field, and years of practice and dedication.

If your character got to level six from practicing from inside candlekeep training in magic, it would be a lot tamer and your view would be a lot calmer than if you improved your spells by slaughtering your enemies with well timed and frantically cast magic missiles... which you have to.

 

Perhaps it was cultural prejudice. Both Nalia and Anoman are from wealthy backgrounds -- could someone at Bioware have been jealous of upper class? They certainly stereotyped the two wealth kids as brats.

Either that or they wanted to give you NPC's you didn't mind dying (or killing for that matter).

 

Their naivete doesnt seem incongruous to me. I'm 50 years old, and I still can be pretty dumb about stuff. Especially when it comes to the opposite sex

 

... everyone is naive about the opposite sex.

 

There's an opposite sex?! How on earth would THAT work?



Brings up the point that
level != life experience
level = skill experience

BG doesn't give roleplaying XP remember

 

^I agree with that. A level zero (basically, a commoner, or an 'innocent' class) village elder can be very wise and knowledgable about the ways of the life. So a relatively high lvl adventurer can still be very naive and full of character flaws and wrong ideas...still being able to survive and level up with the help of his instincts, friends, skills, or just sheer luck. That happens. Sometimes even the dumbest people become hugely succesful in what they do.

There will eventually be a time of enlightement ofcourse, but this differs from character to character...And in some cases, changes are minimal at best:some are gloomy serious and bossy from the start and remain that way for the most part (Jaheira) while some are destined to be an eternal child forever. (Imoen)

 

Perhaps there should be a naivity rating for NPCs through the game

Or at least ordered banters to show change. Nalia changes quite briskly in the expansion after all. The others don't seem to change so much.

Bah I need to install my BG games again to play through properly! I'm beginning to miss gaming my own games... ironic on my course

Threads like this are really useful though for it.

 

Nalia changes a lot in ToB. Keldorn stops [snip] in ToB too. (I managed to get both through the Underdark together, but it still is [snip] in SoA).


Also I agree that how naive you are isn't based on how skilled you are with a sword and so on. You could have a stupid or unaware 20th level fighter. And Nalia has had a moderately sheltered upbringing. I like her because she is a decent mage and can handle a shortbow at the same time. Plus she can [snip] in ToB 2 different ways.

[ToB spoiler chunk masked below]:

Spoiler

First way is to use the machine to give her +1 Int (so she has 18 like Edwin) and the other is to just level her up enough that she starts getting special high level abilities. Once you get her to that point she casts the ability as she does a spell and you can get her to learn 9th level spells in the same spellbook slot. This can lead to tough choices between what you want her to do but it works. The planar or solar she summons is quite good spellwise (not just combat so don't use them as cannon fodder) because they can raise and heal half the party during combat (useful in a tough fight).

[Please don't post ToB content in the SoA-only forum, as per forum description. -Tal]

 

They watched too much Teletubbies at level 1.