How bad can you be?

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I'm thinking of creating my first character that I will take all the way through BG, TOTSC, BG2 ang TOB. But I want to try something other than my typical high and mighty Paladin or my mentally challenged fighter. I want an evil character.

So here is a list of questions because I've never had a Rep score lower than my starting score.

1. What class should I play? I like melee and swords if that helps.

2. What level do you need to be to actually take out a group of Flaming Fist that show up to put a stop to you "evil" ways? Can these guys be stopped or do I have to run away every time? Do they carry anything of real value for gear?

3. Can you actually kill some of the more powerful characters in the game? Examples: Bently, Firebeard, etc. If yes, then at what level and/or when should I try so as not to lose useful merchants?

4. Will I be dirt poor dropping gold at churchs over and over again to keep my Rep up so the Flaming Fist won't whip me out early to mid game?

5. How high a Rep score keeps Flaming Fist mercs away?

6. What kind of good loot can I get by killing people?

7. Should I even try to play evil? Is it more fun than good?

8. What party should I recruit?

Thanks!

 

I can answer the Firebead question. Yep, you can kill him, and it's pretty easy with a thief with a decent Hide in Shadows skill.

I always have Montaron killing him in Beregost, regardless of whether I'm playing good or evil. A nice robe for Xzar, plus 2500XP to boot. Monty likes going out at night to burglar houses, and if he happens to find a witness... well, tough luck.

 

1. Thief multiclasses are very powerful.
2. They just keep on spawning, so no matter what level you are you're going to have a tough going. One thing that they do have that's useful is arrows of dispelling, if they don't fire them at you first, but it's much less trouble just to buy them.
3. Nearly everything can be killed with a little smelly cheese. Levels don't count that much.
4. Plan ahead. Rep doesn't drop that much if it's not that high. I've kept my rep in 10, 8 or 6. If you kill a goodie two shoes with a rep of 10, it'll go down to 8. So going for a killing spree is just not the thing to do unless your invincible, or if there's not any temples nearby. The thing is to know who to kill and when. The tougher the opponent, the bigger the prize. In exp and moneywise.
5. A rep score of 5 is clear out of trouble, with 4 there might be some spawning IIRC.
6. Money, exp some wizard robes and even a very nifty pair of scimitars and a chainmail.
7. Go for it! It's different, and fun! Plus you do get to be a big hero of Sword Coast in any case!
8. You're pretty much stuck with Viconia as a cleric, but she's great! Otherwise, there's plenty of choices to make a 6 member team evil. I'd recommend Shar-Teel, just because she's a real nutcracker, especially when dualled as a thief.

 

1. In both games you'll find at least one evil mage, cleric and fighter, but while you can get Montaron, Shar-Teel and Tiax in BG you won't find an evil thief in BG2.
I recommend F/M/T or F/T multiclass or a human fighter in BG1 who is dualed to thief at some point in BG2. Keep in mind that kensais can't be chaotic while berserkers can't be lawful.

4. The low reputation will also make shop prices more expensive and yield worse rewards.

8. I'd recruit them in the following order: Xzar, Montaron, Viconia (cleric is a must have), Kagain, Shar-Teel, Edwin. You can take non-evil members along when you need assistance in the beginning or even later unless your reputation doesn't get too low. Just switch party members as you like it.
Eldoth and especially Tiax are also strong evil NPCs and smaller parties are also playable, make the fun you want to have your deciding factor, not the power.

 

How will this party do? I want to try for a challenge, and fun, playing 4 mages:

pc - abjurer
xzar
xan
edwin
kagain
montaron

i know.. there's not cleric, so i might swap xan for viconia if i see this isnt working..

 

You can play evil and actually not go low reputation at all, Probablly most people automatically don't consider that to be "evil enough" or something, but if you want to be efficient Evil should you not also be able to manipulate people around you ?

I played a thief/illusionist neutral evil charismatic character, whom basically honeytalked everyone he met, and saw that fooling people into beliving him was a good advantage for future benefit. Of corse the occational backstab and quick gains popped in here and there on isolated situations where noone would notice...

In general i kept reputation between 8-14, worked wonders.

Also i recomend beeing able to cast friends, and having a high charisma of trying to play low reputation games, if not you can give up any hopes of ever affording anything in shops.

 

No evil thieves in BG2? There's a Tiax mod now

 

Having a low reputation is always bad, whether you be evil or good. Keep it in the middle to keep evil NPCs.

 

If you have TotSC you can get a Tome of Wisdom before getting to Baldur's Gate and dual class Xzar into Cleric for a change.

When you play evil you can always do some quests in order to look good and tone down your act:

[after saving some hapless NPC] "off you go and don't forget to tell all your friends that Charname the munificent saved you from a fate worse than death"

[which translates as: now that I've got a good rep I'll be able to get my hands on plenty of loot and gain entry in the right circles... More opportunities to achieve personal power and gain wealth by tricking these fools. They will never see me coming.]

One great thing about having a really low rep is that you can abuse it and go on a killing spree. That means plenty of loot (especially early on and it should be enough to get your rep back at the temple anyway) and getting rid of many boring peasants (for very little XP but there is a fun factor involved) before making donations to the temple. The only real drag is avoiding kids since you can't kill them...

I have fond memories of wreaking havoc on Beregost with a low level thief (it was challenging to get to the temple without being killed, so I daresay this can be entertaining as well).

I'm convinced that a really bad/rotten/scummy PC would rather team up with good characters rather than evil npcs. Who can you trust or manipulate? Minsc or Kagain? Can you trust Montaron or Xzar? Would you be foolish enough to believe what Eldoth tells you?

Let's face it, Jaheira and Khalid are saps. Imoen doesn't have a clue. Minsc is a brute without brains. Ajantis should be a pushover.

There is nothing like manipulating good npcs into doing your bidding without them realizing that you are even worse than Sarevok.

[ February 12, 2007, 11:04: Message edited by: Caradhras ]

 

^ You can't kill kids?

 

Caradhras, that was great! And you have those patsys in BG well figured out.

 

You can kill kids in BG2 but apparently not in IWD games. Never tried it in BG1 though, I had TuTu most of the time.

Caradhras, you really are the epitome of a sinister and cunning evil player character in BG universe!

 

Thanks you're too kind. I may be bad... but I feel gooood!

I don't know why I never managed to kill kids in that game, no matter how hard I tried (and believe me I tried really hard).
A stat draining weapon might work though?

 

Oh, man. I like it all! For all those that suggest playing an up front nice guy who takes more than his due once they turn there backs, I say, THANK YOU!!!!

In most cases, these have always been my evil characters for the longest time. I think that lying and cheating are far more evil than psycho-murderer. The murderer is at least honest about what he's doing. The lier and cheat can fool all around.

So, what loot can I expect to find this time around? What stuff may I never have seen before?

 

Can't really remember anything other special than what you get when you kill certain drow ranger...

So basically you get some cool battles. And by the by, one "kid" is killable. You just have to be careful...

A couple of robes of the good archmagi. Or maybe the other one was neutral...No actually three, since one patsy on a certain island might be killable twice. If you've played evil and done him in twice, it should be even less of a surprise where you find him from in SoA

 

Ah, someone who thinks akin.

I once heard a bard sing a tale about one adventuring troupe of good reputation travelling the Sword Coast. On their journeys they arrived at the town of Nashkel and met a brave warrior named Minsc there. After listening to his story the group immidiately decided to help that poor ranger, and so they left for the Gnoll Stronghold. Eager to see his witch, Minsc hacked way for the group through the forests and up the stairs of the Stronghold. Finally on top, Minsc went into a beserk rage, only to find out after it that he had been abandoned, cursed with the Belt of Masculinity/Feminity and that his beloved witch was dead.

And in reply to the original post, my answer to question number seven is Definetly!

 

Whether you can kill kids or not depends, I think, on your version of the game, and there's also a 'gore' option.

In the fully patched BG1 + ToSTC, you can indeed.

" Let's face it, Jaheira and Khalid are saps. Imoen doesn't have a clue. Minsc is a brute without brains. Ajantis should be a pushover."

Jaheira naive? It's not the impression I got. Khalid and Minsc, maybe, but the latter insists much on goodness, more so in BG2.
Ajantis is a paladin, and they feel evil.

 

What I meant was that an evil PC could "trick" them very easily, they would even *die* for him... and actually they do die -a lot.

Ajantis is self focused, you only have to tell him that you're ridding the Sword Coast of bandits to make him happy (and keep the scalps and bounties for yourself).

-->"What am I doing? Just taking a souvenir, you know what it's like, adventuring and all that... Anyway those bandits had it coming, you were pretty good with that sword of yours Ajantis."

Minsc can't understand much. If you tell him that what you do is good and if it appears to be somewhat good he won't ever object.

-->"Look Minsc, this Firebead mage is EviiiiiiL! I know for a fact he likes to torture little furry animals like Boo! We can't let him live, now can we?"

Jaheira won't leave the PC unless he/she does something blatantly evil (repeatedly).

-->"How could we trust him? This mage knew too much! Look at the book he gave me... 'The Dead Three' that's ominous... Anyway he started his spellcasting when I went back to talk to him. He must have found out that I was unto him and that I wouldn't let go. Look Jaheira, we didn't have a choice... Minsc and I had to take him out, it was between him and us. Right Minsc here is a little crumb for Boo, isn't he such a cute little space hamster? You know what, hold that thought, I've just remembered I heard the town crier saying that a cleric of Cyric by the name of Bassilus is roaming just outside Beregost. Sorry Jaheira, did I interrupt you? You were saying? Right, we really should get moving, this cleric is certainly up to no good."

[ March 10, 2007, 13:29: Message edited by: Caradhras ]

 

Caradhras, that is great. Now write a program so that I can insert all that stuff into BG.

 

Maybe a mod where you could make a mod with options such as that