Playing BGII for the second time

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You must reload! Mazzy cannot be lost! Let Nalia go (she's a ***** anyway), and hurry to the Harper Hold to help Jaheira.

 

^Now we are at a disagreement eh Fel? I like Nalia and do not bother with Mazzy.

But if she had nice stuff with her, I guess you should reload.

What about killing Mazzy, then accepting Bodhi's offer, THEN raising her, will she still go?

 

I'm still not sure I understand what is so 'evil' about accepting Bodhi's offer. The Shadow Thieves are hardly a bunch of samaritans.

Anyway, much is Mazzy was an integral part of my party, reloading for this would be against my general approach to this game. I don't think I would have as much fun if I just reloaded every time something didn't quite go according to plan because then there is no risk.

But I still need a new plan for my party. Liam knows he needs a core party of 4 if he is to save Imoen. Three isn't going to be enough!

 

Never before did I know there is such an option working for Bodhi 0o. Now I wonder if and how would I do that?

 

@Warmonger:
Once you get the fifteen grand, Valen will show up and talk to you. After she leaves, Brus will come up and talk to you too. There's your choice. Either head to the Graveyard District and talk to Bodhi (right near the entrance), or go to Gaelan's house and accept the Shadow Thieves' offer. (Bodhi won't take you in if you're a pure thief, though; she says something about loyalty and splits.)

@HB:
F*** that! Get Mazzy back pronto. Something so important is worth a single reload. And Bodhi is more evil because she's a vampire. (Not to mention that she's working with Irenicus, but Liam wouldn't know that yet.) She's severely unnatural in more than one way, which really ought to sit poorly with an R/C (if you claim to be RPing, that is ). Not only is she undead, an affront to nature in the first place, but she's an elven vampire! Elves would rather die a true death (and NOT go to their afterlife) than become one of those unholy abominations. Of course, it was probably easier for her since she doesn't even have a soul, which is yet another reason to despise her.

At least the Shadow Thieves can be shrugged off as following the darker side of their natures, but an elven vampiress is downright sickening.

 

Am I supposed to even know that she is an elven vampire? I hadn't noticed that come up in conversation yet. I thought we found that out later.

 

No you don't know she's a vampire when you talk to Bodhi herself though you have seen others.

And I'm of the opinion she's the good option honestly. Yes Keldorn and Mazzy and one or two others leave. Aerie complains but she'll stick with you. Minsc complains a bit if I recall. But she gives you options to do something worthwhile instead of the dirtiest deeds unlike the thieves who you can only go off and murder and commit vile crimes for them and not even necessarily against people that are doing something evil by the way the storyline goes.

It seems like they really wrote them backwards. I consider siding with the thieves Neutral at best and more picking between two evils. So I like siding with Bodhi which is what I rarely do because I usually have people like Keldorn.

 

I have the Quest Pack, so I can side with the Shadow Thieves and still get a chance to whack them later.

 

OK, I have taken these comments on board and will progress on the following basis:
- Liam has made a naive heat-of-the-moment decision to take up Bodhi's offer.
- By doing so, he has lost one of his most valuable team members.
- But he can't back out now because the Shadow Thieves now see him as an enemy.
- So he's going to have to go along with Bodhi's requests as much as he can, because it's now his only way of getting to Imoen and Irenicus
- He also knows that he has little chance of being able to meet his obejctives with only Aerie and Jan as companions so he has a sub-objective of finding another person willing to help him out.
- He reckons it will need to be someone who can be physically tough in a fight. Options he might explore include:
* Jaheira (wonder what happened to her?)
* Minsc (can we go crawling back to him?)
* That grumpy dwarf in the Copper Coronet (but he looked a bit dodgy....)
* Anomen (although he did seem a bit self-involved)
* That Valygar fellow that the government bloke wanted us to catch (but we don't know much about him)
* If all else fails, an army of skeletons and woodland beings.....

 

Well, I would think the ears might tip you off. And didn't you notice the numerous vampires you've come across fighting the Shadow Thieves under her command? If you want to play it naive, that's fine; it certainly suits you fairly well.

As for your new core member, you couldn't do better than Mazzy. But since you're determined, I'll give you a tip to prevent you from screwing up your game the rest of the way. Take Korgan for absolutely no longer than you have to. He literally makes Aerie cry by his very presence; keep him around long enough and she'll leave, which will break the romance. Take him only long enough to do his Book quest, and then kill him yourself for being mean to your woman.

Korgan might make a good interim decision while you try to decide who to take permanently, but that's it. Valygar can't really tank as well as the others. Jaheira, Minsc, or Anomen would work, but you don't really need Anomen's divine power between Liam and Aerie, and Jaheira and Minsc are sort of a backslide.

 

Plotwise, there is no hint as to the fact that Bodhi and Irenicus were originally elves until you confront Bodhi in Chapter 6. Both Bodhi and Irenicus look human.

And as flagrantly obvious as the vampire thing may be to you and I, what with the running around at night, transforming into bats and setting up meetings in cemetaries, the protagonist's dialog options do suggest that he or she is brick-stupid enough not to put all this together, which would come as little surprise to me.

 

I think that siding with Bodhi can be a good act, as you get a chance to strike at the heart of Great and Horrific Shadow Thieves. You destroy their guild and then you can destroy Bodhi's too, eventually, you clear them both.

SThieves are downright evil, just speak to any good citizen in docks, they will have much to tell. Oh, have you also visited the torture rack in ST guild? Sick is not the enough word for that.

 

There is no 'good act', both groups are distasteful. But no organised crime syndicate could ever be as depraved as a circle of vampires. Yeah, the shadow thieves have a torture chamber, but they don't have enormous reservoirs of human blood and a room that's essentially a large blender.

 

Am I the only one who remembers the PC *joining* the Shadow Thieves (Baldur's Gate chapter 411) in the first game???

HB, if Minsc is waiting for you at the CC (or wherever you dumped him), I would pick him up again. He probably forgot all about you kicking his hieny to the curb. Next choice would be Valygar when/if you find him.

 

But bear in mind that Vlaygar is not a tank, he will die pretty often if you sue him as one. He is a blitzer fighter, can do impressive damage with Celestial Fury and backstabs, and he can dual-wield pretty well. Send him into fray either hidden or when after big heavy brusers are sent.

 

I guess I have been watching too much Blade and Buffy and no longer instantly think of vampires as being irrevocably evil. Anyway, I still think that both options are pretty evil.

My quest to find the right 4th member for the party continues but, at the moment, the best 4th member is Cerebus the Moon Dog. He rocks. He runs really fast, can become invisible and mirror imaged, causes fear in enemies, provides the party with protection from evil, can do a healing lick, and I've yet to see him take a hit. He's been great at taking out the random Shadow Thieves that keep attacking us (boy, do I hate being the victim of backstabs!)

 

Hold on a Second. The way Bodhi presents herself there aren't immediate connections to her and the Vampires. She willingly gives up information that the Shadow thieves won't. She let's you choose between the most dispicable jobs and not doing them. Yes the Vampires are attacking the thieves. There is something going on between them. Bodhi's excuse for meeting in the Grave Yard is more than plausable. No prying eyes. How many times has that been a credible movie device?

And in BG1 you don't join the shadow thieves. You join the local thieves guild for the city of Baldur's Gate. The thieves in that area are written as autonomous while others are linked to the Iron Throne. It's own criminal organization and generally end up as your enemy as you progress through the game.

The Forgotten Realms Boxed Set does list the Shadow Thieves as a totally evil organization with heavy investments in Amn. To the point that they even have an assassins guild of their own there and take on all manner of business without any scrupels about doing it.

So taking out both groups really is the only right way to go through the game if you ask me. And assigning the shadow thieves as the good way was just a matter of them going Bodhi= "Evil". Anything against Bodhi="Not Evil" and they wrote the game that way. While cheesy the story flows better when Bodhi="Appears good but betrays you and is one of your big villans" to me. Even though it is heavily done in like everything.

Specially considering in the first part of the game the Shadow Thieves don't give a lick about killing you too even though you were only a prisoner to Jon Irenicus.

 

I'm not going to continue this discussion here. I'll post a link once the new topic is up.

EDIT:
Okay, here it is. I even made it into a poll.

 

Anyway....we've got Valygar now so we're doing the Planar Sphere. Valygar is good at hiding, but I'd forgotten how hard it is to actually backstab anyone (have to be be hidden, have to be behind them, they have to be backstabbable etc etc).

I'm now glad that both Aerie and Jan have spells like Breach because there are more of those instant-immune-to-everything type enemies in this area.

One thing we have discovered though is that Cerebrus the Moon Dog does not like being burnt. If you set off a fireball near him, he turns red and starts attacking you. Luckily, he forgets all about by the next day and is your friend again.

 

Hmmm, party composition and party roles are a big part of the fun of this game. I'm still trying to work out what everyone's role is in this party and how best to play them. This is a summary of what they do:

Liam (R/C) - main tank, talker. Only ever casts two spells (Ironskins and Champion's Strength) then wades into the front-line with the Flail of Ages. Usually everyone else just hangs back and waits for him to finish killing the enemies.

Aerie - main role is actually identifying magic items and learning scrolls. Occasionally has to cast Breach or Lower Resistance and sometimes heals Liam.

Jan - locks and traps. Sometimes casts Haste on Liam and his snares are useful from time to time.

Jaheira - does almost nothing. Without a +3 weapon she can't do much against the really tough monsters. Her main role is actually to stand in the way and act as a decoy so that Aerie and Jan don't get surrounded. Her -10 AC helps.

Valygar - sometimes does some sneaking but the only reason he is still in the party is that he is the only one who can actually use a bow. Also helps protect Aerie and Jan when surrounded. Has no +3 weapon so is limited against tough enemies.

I wonder if I am really getting the best out of this party, which has really become a bit unbalanced since we lost Mazzy.