Should killing Sarevok's mentor lower your reputation?

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SPOILERS AHEAD
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At the very end of Baldur's Gate I, just before you enter the Undercity, you can talk to a barely conscious person lying on the ground. Some excerpts:

The man is Winski Perorate, have a look at this screenshot. Besides the fact that he was wrong on going down in history (a BG forums' search for "winski" yields 2 hits LOL!), why the hell does my party suffer a reputation drop of 10 (from 20) as if they just killed an innocent commoner? I have absolutely no theory on this, there's not even a late repentance; the guy's dying and more like "ah whatever, glad about what I've done the past few years " - !

 

Yeah.
You can just walk in and open up on the guys in CandleKeep and no problems.

Well they do put you in jail but you end up there anyhow if you do nothing...

 

Yah, but that's a problem with the rep system as a whole, I found it too funny when I walked the streets of Baldur's Gate after my breakout and commoners and noblemen were screaming when they saw me, talking to them made them cry "The murderers! They are here! Help!"!

But they were all wrong! A look on my character sheet proved once and for all: Reputation: Heroic (20)!


But that's off-topic, I'd like to hear theories on why killing the uber-evil mentor of the ultra-chaotic nemesis of the Sword Coast yields bad reputation?!

 

Just a thought, but I think that it's not about who or what Winski was.

Reputation reflects the actions of Charname and Co, and to stab an unarmed man (dying or not) lying on the ground and not defending himself isn't heroic, regardless what this man did, or what his attitude towards dying is.

Basically, it doesn't matter who your enemy is - the decisions you make reflect who you are. Is killing an unarmed, defenseless opponent really something that fits an image of a hero? IMO, no.

Thus I can understand the reputation drop (though I didn't know it was that pronounced, since none of my parties have ever killed him).

 

For that matter, why is there a reputation drop if no witnesses live to tell about the deed?

 

Ahh, that would be due to all the divinators of the Sword Coast and the brilliant detectives of the Flaming Fist. They know everything. Walls have eyes and whatnot.

 

One would think that the thieves warded their maze against those kinds of intrusions. Aran Linvail would not have that happen.


But to be more on-topic here's another argument: Reputation drops occur whenever you kill a person marked "innocent", not "unarmed & dying" (as Loreseeker stated). You can't tell me that my PC is to consider Winski an innocent after all he has done and that goodbye speech?

The only reason why the rep drop can be justified (in my opinion at least) would be if the man on the ground was a dominated imposter and I had failed to conclude that. But this possibility is so unsatisfying! Good thing that bad reputation doesn't bother me at all at this point in the game - bad thing for Mr. Perorate...

 

I think (never finished BG1) that you loose less rep for attacking a commoner on the streets. I suspect they just used the model of someone important they had come up with before a second time for this guy.

Even if this man was unarmed, so is an average commoner.

In addition, the average commoner isn't involved in a plot to kill lots of people.

Even if there is a rep drop for killing an unarmed man (you can argue this one way or another depending on just how bad the person was and if he was ever going to stage a comeback) there is not a good reason for why it is less just for the party to do in this man than some random person off the street somewhere.



By the way, I LIKE the reputation system as a whole because it is a way of registering (and responding to) if a party does good or bad deeds. I suspect this is a just a mistake in the game programming/design.

 

That would be the next question: Did the designers intend for a rep loss to happen? Maybe they figured this way: Winski explicitly gives you the option of killing him ("Do as you will") and this is therefore some kind of trial of conscience, not unlike the ending of BG2.

Or isn't it?

 

I think they screwed up there. You should lose reputation for killing certain people like Nemphre, but you shouldn't have lots rep for killing Winski, especially considering where he was found.

 

well, thats the justice system for you.

You can't be judge, jury and executioner... he is an unarmed man, a decent person would arrest him so he could stand trial... innocent until proven guilty and all that... until that point your just murdering someone...

yeah??