Viconia's Romance, Reputation 19, 20

Remove all ads!

I'm wondering if there is a way to get "Viccy" to stay in one's party if the party's reputation is 19 or 20 while she is romancing the PC. I'm aware that I install mods to deal with this issue, but would perfer a way to resolve this within the game. In the five years I've owned BG2, I've never had a character break from the party (I use to play almost pure good parties) so I'm not even aware of what happens, if there is a dialogue or what.

If there is no way to keep the Viccy Romance at a reputation of 19 or 20, then I'll just use the Shadow Keeper (the whole puritanical thing about getting too good of deals on items with certain NPCs in the party). I can justify using the Shadow Keeper to lower rep by claiming someone was spreading rumors about the PC being the Son of Bhaal, that should satisfy the RPer in me.

 

There's really no way to resolve it in the game aside from just finding some unfortunate to slaughter if your rep gets too high. Find someone alone and innocent, and just carve them in two. The rep penalty is pretty severe on a high rep, so you shouldn't have to do it very often.

 

ugh... Why can't the woman just stay if she's in love (or whatever a drow female feels for a male), it's not like she's some paladin watching her lover slaughter innocents, she's still getting played quite a bit of gold for helping "the weak and worthless"... Besides she should have gotten herself involved with a Paladin of Ilmater if she didn't like acts of charity! Bioware... we need more RP options here!

 

I know. in my case, anomen left my party while romancing my PC, because I brought Valygar to Cowled Wizards.

 

Viccy will leave you if your rep ever gets to 19, even if you are romancing her. However if your romance is successful, she will no longer leave. That means for a long while you will have to keep your rep at 18 or below, but you could end the game at rep20.

When exactly that change occurs, I am not sure. Felinoid can probably look it up for you.

 

Here is the solution: steal from that veggie merchant (above Rinbald's shop) and fail. Or steal enough and then fail. You lose two rep points and if you want to lose more: hammer the man for daring to speak behind your back.

 

There are actually a few options.

You can delay doing many of the quests until after going to spellhold -- just do enough to get you there (granted, the underdark will be a little tougher). This way whenever you get a couple of rep points for being a boy scout, you just turn into the slayer and drop two.

You can steal from shops that you don't intend to go back to. That's a smaller rep hit than murder.

There are a few quests which can result in a drop in rep -- turning in Valygar is one (as PrincessSuzie mentioned), the silver pantiloons is another. There are several.

IS, you do have more roleplaying options: Aerie and Jaheira. If you want to be a nice guy, you need to hook-up with someone that LIKES nice guys. The opposite holds for Viconia, she's into power and using that power for personal gain (if you play a nice guy, she views you as weak).

Can you adjust reputation with Shadowkeeper? The obvious way to use shadowkeeper for the way you play is to change Viconia's alignment.

 

Shadow Keeper lets you alter your reputation.

Maybe I can have Nalia or Yoshi dig into the pockets of some noble or wealthy merchant (I'm sure Nalia would love to do that anyway), that way I don't have to feel bad for ripping off some poor peasant or hard working shop keeper. I'll just have to get myself into a position where some moronic NPC doesn't go red and just beg for my Paladin's bastard sword to feed on him (never understood why some of the characters who have like 2 or 3 levels in commoner and nothing more would go charging head long at a level 11/12 Cavalier).

 

How about the helm of opposite alignment?

 

You have to cheat to get the helm in SoA, why go throught the extra step if you're going to cheat? I used it on her in BG1 -- she was really great after that (such a cool voice).

 

Err...there is a component of the Ease of Use mod that's called "Happy Party" that stops the complaining, and keeps anyone for leaving the party due to a high/low reputation.

EoU is a great mod with many different components...including multiple romances!

 

just wondering, is there anyway a merchant you stole from will ever become non-hostile again? I've got me a red merchant in one of the tents in Trademeet, he's not selling anything I need, I made sure of that, but I'd rather not have him wander out of his tent and get beaned by a bullet or arrow and then loose 9 points in reputation. Guaranteed I could just stay out of Trademeet since I've already done the quests in that town.

 

Oh geez, haven't you been listening? That exactly what you need! When Viccy starts getting too vocal, just head to Trademeet and execute the pr*ck. If he can't take a little stealing prank, he needs to be "culled from the herd".

 

While certain actions are written with checks that certain people will leave your party (like Valygar being handed back) The rest is just up to chance. If You don't feel like cheating. Save hellishly often and you've basically got a random chance of her leaving. Just the same as with any other alignment pissed off character. 20 has a greater chance of leaving than 19 does and I'll tell you a secret. Leaving an area with a save and load screen with the right timing actually shuts them up and stops them from leading. Or they could frustrate the hell out of you by making you load 5 times. But you can do it without messing with your reputation if you really want to. Somewhere towards the end of the game they stop complaining anyway. And if you have one of those mysterious glitches where you insult the right guy horribly so your reputation drops 9 points. by the time you get that far then it doesn't matter. though you will still have to listen to them complain until you gain another rep point and they suddenly realize your rep is 12 instead of 20.

Also. Any rep gaining moments when your up in the 19 or 20 range usually causes them to immediately want to break from the party. I found this out by handing that little child killer's head from the Lithium quest in at the government building and a couple other spots. Don't ask me why it gives you a rep point though because even the person that you give the head to cringes in disgust.

 

can't stand the prices when my reputation sinks down to 9, so I tend to try to do small acts that only hurt my reputation by a few points... besides... I'm a little squeamish when it comes to killing people who aren't evil... Detect Evil anyone? Unfortunately Fael or whatever his face in Umar Hills loves to warp in a bunch of friends who mast cast Horrid Wilting and kill just about my entire party.

 

Actually, what happens is that party members check rep every time it changes. It's possible to lose a character like Korgan or Viconia when your reputation goesdown[/I. If Viccy or Korgan joins you with a 20 rep and you lose one rep point Viccy and Korgan will break. If you have a rep of 20 when they join nothing will happen until you get a rep change. (While your rep can't pass 20, an increase will still cause a break.) As long as your rep is below 19 after the first rep change you will be in the clear.

 

It also lets you alter aligment. Change Viconia to 'neutral/chaotic good' and she will be repeating "I like of this... arrangement" when she can.

 

Wait a minute - the voices change when you use the helm of opposite alignment? I never knew that (probably because I never used the darn thing).

 

I don't think that's what he meant. They'd have to record a whole other soundset for that (or maybe do some bass/treble shifting or something), and I sincerely doubt they went through the trouble for a cursed item.

 

Aldeth, I was playing a paladin and Viconia was not happy until I put the helm on her.

What I meant was Viconia's voice set for BG1 was great -- it was nice to have her happy with the party (a happy woman sounds so much better than a pissy-moany-kill-you-all woman).