Hey thanks for answering, and I think that Virtue at least attempts to address a ridiculously simplified mechanic.

"I never considered using the Virtue mod, but I believe that it doesn't have much to do with D&D rules."
....?! In a P&P game the DM can contextually track alignment, not only for good and evil, but lawful and chaotic. One of the most memorable GM vs the players campaigns I had played, we were a good party and the GM aimed for a TPK. He also schemed on how he could turn next week's session into a moral minefield, the most obvious choices leading the party down the moral slide to evil.

I get it though, this is out of the scope of the project and I can respect that.

The fundamental problem, which the current reputation system doesn't account for at all, is that _it does not make sense for evil parties to want a low reputation_.

This is not just in game terms (high costs/hostile npcs, getting attacked everywhere) but also from a common-sense perspective. Reputation is a measure of a party's fame and glory, it doesn't make sense, at all, that an evil party would complain about that.

In fact, it's a genuinely good party that surely would be more uncomfortable at being idolised and hero-worshipped.

Something like the virtue system is essential to add even the most basic level of workability for evil parties. (Mostly) Everyone should want high reputation, the difference should come in how virtuous you are.

The biggest problem I can see, is what are the ramifications of having high/low virtue? Reputation reduces the cost of items and gives a bonus to reactions, but what does/should virtue do? Should it just be confined to whether good/evil party members will complain about your actions/dragging your alignment up or down, or should it confer some bonuses when it is sufficiently high or low?

Hi HeroicSpur,

Should it just be confined to whether good/evil party members will complain about your actions/dragging your alignment up or down, or should it confer some bonuses when it is sufficiently high or low?

I could settle for the alignment thing plus party members being happy or unhappy. In Ps:T, which is arguably the RPG that best employs alignment, being good or evil is mostly a matter of roleplaying. Imho, there is no need to attach in-game "material" effects to everything: some things should just be for the sake of roleplaying. It gives depth to the game and to your actions, as in Ps:T :-)

Having alignment be something more than a fixed line in your stats sheet would be a welcome change for BG:EE. Be it through Virtue (which makes sense, as I agree with HeroicSpur's last post) or simply to it changing progressively depending on your dialogue choices and your deeds as in Ps:T, still a welcome change. It also gives more playability to evil parties.

Whatever way the reputation system is handled, I dont want my evil Npc's to whine anymore about being too nice when the decision you take can't be helped; as in when it's part of the main storyline. Like when you finish the Nashkel mines or Cloakwood mines and your reputation goes up. I don`t want my evil Npc`s whining about it, it's just irritating.

As someone else said, evil Npc's shouldn't even be appalled by the fact that they have a good reputation. Especially not when there's a big reward attached with it. How does it make sense that Kagain would get mad after the mayor of Nashkel just gave us 900 gold or so? Evil Npc's should get pissed only on the occasions when you've got a chance for profit but decide to take the noble road instead and don't get any gold.

Whatever you guys do with it though, It would be cool to have reputation actually show in some way other than the number on the character page. It would be awesome if certain interactions with townfolks and such depended on reputation. For instance when you go into people's homes in Beregost and they usually just shoe you away, with a high reputation they could greet you and be all amazed to see you. I'd like to see more interactions that depend on charisma and intelligence too, Planescape style. I want a reason to turn my intelligence higher than 3 when I'm rolling a warrior. I'd like a warrior with an intelligence of 3 to only be able to answer durr durr! In conversations. Likewise I'd like a character with a charisma of 3 to be called a sewer troll everywhere he goes.

"I never considered using the Virtue mod, but I believe that it doesn't have much to do with D&D rules."
....?! In a P&P game the DM can contextually track alignment, not only for good and evil, but lawful and chaotic.

When I said that I meant that Virtue isn't regulated by D&D combat rules, not that it isn't used in PnP games.

Thought I would bring this here from reddit since its at the bottom and may have been missed and Trent did mention he likes the forums :D

There are a few bugs relating to the day and night tilesets. For now I’ll just post a single example as it may be possible that you will fix this if the textures get “enhanced”.
So tilesets ar0200.tis and ar0200n.tis (the day and night tilesets) from ar0200.are (North Baldur's Gate City). During the night some of the containers and textures are completely missing or replaced and I’ve found this problem in more areas but as mentioned I’ll just post the one bug for now.

Please see the screenshots. It is pretty bad.
Day: http://i.imgur.com/GLyIt.jpg
Night: http://i.imgur.com/ANR02.jpg

Hmm... Reading through the ideas on the matter, perhaps I was too hasty in being dismissive of the Virtue mod- or at least the potential of such a rework. The "reputation" mechanism is clearly broken- or clunky at best. I don't really care about making evil more "playable" since I'm a fuddyduddy that doesn't play evil anyway (whatever evil really is anyway). But the way rep affects evil NPCs doesn't make sense. Nor does it make sense either that killing a lone Fist far out in the wilderness where only gibberlings roam (i.e., the Fist in AREA4000) would cost you reputation. Or do gibberlings run back to Nashkell to share the latest news from the wilderness front?

Just one thing to keep in mind with a virtue stat would be how it would affect new NPCs. How would they know your virtue until they travel with you and experience your actions firsthand? Only then would they be able to assess your character... unless we assume that we're going to tell any new recruit all our exploits immediately upon joining. So to be realistic it would have to be a virtue counter begun (or resumed) for every individual NPC. This is why I think it's just a difficult system to maintain. I think the DAO system works quite well in this regard by limiting everything to NPC experiences with the main character- though it too isn't so interactive that every decisive encounter affects "likeability-" but BG is a different organism and would indeed require a major gamewide overhaul to implement, particularly given how many contingencies would have to be anticipated and scripted for since it would involve starting from scratch.

Like how about a fireball intended to kill Tamoko that also kills a couple innocent Baldur's City bystanders- which at present lowers reputation (perhaps rightly)? Would it affect virtue? You did use it knowing the risk, even if you really did think all bystanders would be safe. Evils might get off on it regardless. A paladin might be mortified over it. But it was an accident... or was it? I make the most of triggering those Nashkell Phoenix Guards since the fireball explosion they make upon death can take out Oublek to get those Prism emeralds back... not to mention the Amnish guards who've got such nice gear on them when they die, particularly the helms (not the BG2 look though). But factor in also that while "inadvertently" killing Amn soldiers and Oublek to avoid a rep loss, I go out of my way (even with reloads) to make sure the Phoenix Guard blasts don't kill any villagers... 'cause I'm just that "virtuous." lol

It's just really difficult scripting a morality system into a game- which is probably why the existing rep system is so limited and not thought out particularly well, as if sort of trailed off at some point...

wingedwolf...
One of the most memorable GM vs the players campaigns I had played, we were a good party and the GM aimed for a TPK. He also schemed on how he could turn next week's session into a moral minefield, the most obvious choices leading the party down the moral slide to evil.

See, this would be quite great if it could happen through the "virtue" system, or even the opposite where evil folks endure some set of challenges that force them to recognize their actions are irreversibly contributing to good in the world. It's just not clear how such a thing is realizable within the context of the BG gameworld.

But I'm still not clear on how much is really on the table to propose changing in the first place. Is it a matter of the pipeline agreement requiring not only that Beamdog not reveal the extent to which they're allowed to modify BG, but also that they not reveal that they're not allowed to reveal such restrictions? Otherwise it should be ok to just say- "ok, we're open for suggestions, but nothing that will change 2E DnD rules," or "nothing that affects the established BG content," or "nothing except the GUI." I mean I'm ok with uncertainty, but I'd rather be contributing to the discussion more effectively. As a resource the BG fan community might be better employed by asking input on specific content/ game mechanics questions which could bring out a lot of play details that might otherwise get missed. Just a suggestion...

About the reputation system, that number doesn´t show that you are known/unknown in the world. It is about you reputation being bad/good. So the low reputation doesn´t mean that people don´t know who you are, it means people think bad about you. It doesn´t make sense if you have reputation 2 and flaming fists are chasing you throughout the land. So I think that system is OK, but yes, there should be more choices. Like when you finish Cloakwood mines, you get +1 reputation when you save slaves and -1 if you leave them to drown.

The alignemnt was well handled in NWN 2, where it changes toward good/evil and lawful/chaotic, depeding on your choices.

Hi Mathuzzz,

The alignemnt was well handled in NWN 2, where it changes toward good/evil and lawful/chaotic, depeding on your choices.

And in Planescape: Torment long before NWN 2 was even drafted ;-)

"@TrentOster

@crawek We haven't planned to remove Tab. You feel we should?"

Yes

Um, no?

If you want an option to remove Tab, fine by me, but don't remove it from the game entirely, I for one don't enjoy pixel hunting.

^ Me neither. Keep TAB all the way.

Tab is a magical invention, why on earth get rid of it? Having experienced the joys of tab I would sooner throw Caruga into a volcano than have it taken away!

From the @TrentOster tweets:

On PC the mouse cursor changes when you pass over something so Tab isn't 100% required

"Required" is a tricky term... Zoom and a reworked GUI aren't exactly required either (is anything?), but...

Yes, I can find the secret hole at the base of the tree outside the FAI without the TAB highlighter, and many people may prefer hunting down that tiny hole with their cursor for a sense of realism, even if it takes them 5 minutes of swiping about like an idiot while the world moves on... But I already know it's there, I'm going to find it anyway, and it does nothing but heighten frustration to be sitting in front of the monitor- especially with better resolution (smaller graphics)- incapable of "passing over" those precious few pixels involved. Plus it helps for making sure you don't miss anything by mistaking containers in a room as part of the background, like in the dark Durlag environment. And if someone doesn't like it, they can always... not use it!

Or even make TAB selectable from an improved Hotkeys section so you can't accidentally trigger it and obtain that evil metagamed information (if BGEE improves that poor, backward Hotkeys section that no modern game would use with its ultrabasic graphics and its forced opening of a separate application on one's desktop in order to access it).

Anyway...

*votes down* {REQUEST} Remove TAB

We are agreed, tab stays!

FAMILIARS

There is an interesting discussion going on at present over on the Reddit, in respect of familiars. Seeing as this is where Trent prefers to see arguments, I thought it might be an idea to bring it over.

Because we now have BG2 spells in BG1, being able to summon a familiar at the start of BG1 grants a creature which is much more powerful than any of your party members.

Equally however, familiars (for their abilities beside boosting HP) rapidly become obsolete as the game progress, the risk of loosing them too great (so they spend all their time in your backpack). Diablo169 described them as being nothing more than 'backpack fodder'.

My request is that both of these problems be dealt with in one swoop, namely by allowing/adjusting familiars so they improve in power with your mage, i.e. each level the familiar improves slightly, but starts weaker.

There are concerns that by allowing familiars to become more powerful, they will essentially become a 7th PC. The way to balance that I feel is by keeping the improvements as they level marginal (i.e. 1-2hp p/level, and a few thieving points).

Their out of battle utility might also be improved, particularly with more/more substantial conversation options.

Also from a general role-playing perspective I would like to see a bit more from familiars. If you're a wizard, they may well be your first ally, and with you to the very end. It might be nice if there was perhaps a bit more ceremony to the first time you summon them (i.e. a short dialogue).

I think a short quest related to the familiar might also be a substantial improvement, it may grant a small boost for the familiar and/or the master, or it might just breath a bit more life into the relationship.

To make sure this new stuff wouldn't be too limited (because only the PC can summon one), I would say that one mage in your party should be able to have a familiar, even if they're not the PC.

I think enhancing familiars would really add/enhance a great dimension of the game. This is especially so considering that now, players will have their familiars right from the start of BG1, so there's more scope for development.

I like the idea of the familiar's power being scalable. In 2e AD&D, there were spells at every level that specifically enhanced your familiar, granting it more hit points, a better AC and saves, special abilities, etc. Something similar to that might be useful - or it could even just be built into the familiar's development, as HeroicSpur suggested.

I second the idea of one or more familiar quests, although I don't know what they would give your familiar that would make sense. Protection from Normal Weapons, maybe, or Immunity to Fire. Or maybe just a load of extra hit points or a higher AC and THAC0.

I do think, though, that allowing any one member of your party to cast it is asking for trouble. Does the familiar stay with the NPC, or with the protagonist? What happens when the NPC leaves your party? Can you have another NPC with a familiar after the first one is gone? And then what happens when that first NPC returns?

Hmm, I was only asking for trouble so everyone could be in familiar territory.

Although in response to your concerns, I would say, the familiar stays with the NPC, if they leave, and you get another NPC who summons a familiar, and you bring the first one back, the first one has his familiar 'unsummoned' (i.e. you have to cast the spell again to bring it back), which is prohibited while the other one has a familiar.

Further seeing as any 'familiar quest' reward would be between the master and familiar, it wouldn't really imbalance the game if more tha one wizard had a familiar.

The other reason I'm asking for allowing other wizards to cast the spell is this; when I get BG:EE, I'll probably be playing through multiplayer with my two brothers. Me as a wizard, but not the protaganist/leader, -I still want a familiar!

Nice dialog on tab, you really discussed the pros and cons.

Well, the pros for the Tab is being able to easily find stuff.

The cons are... being able to easily find stuff?

Keep the tab button... Don't even make an option to disable it thats just plain weird. Just don't press it if you feel like ''pixel hunting'' as someone else said. Baldurs gate resolution is just too small to make this activity enjoyable.

As for familiars, it would be good to make them slightly stronger as you go up in levels. It will be really good for level one mages to have familiars because they are extremely underpowered at the beginning so this will give them a bit of an edge. I'm against giving familiars to Npcs as well though, for the same reasons that have been said before. Ie: Who talks to them and such.. It would take a lot of time to make personalized conversations for all the mage Npc's and their familiars so I say just the PC.

If you are so against it don't press it.
Hunting the entire screen for the tiny ring may be Tanthalas, but not for me.

I'll have to quote Tanthalas on the TAB thing: there really isn't much to discuss. It is a convenience tool to avoid wasting hours in search for a diamond stuck in a tree at the beginning of the game (just to make a popular example). You don't like it, you don't press it.

Convenience is always good, no matter how you put it.

As for familiars, I absolutely agree with the need for their skills and powers to scale. They need to be proportioned to that of their owner at any time throughout the game, and up until a certain level (say level 20, which is the threshold past which you enter epic levels).

In BG2 they were basically obsolete from the very start: you'd summon one just for the extra HP then shove it in your back pack for the whole game lest it gets easily killed and takes away 1 point from your CON score.

In BG1 they'd probably be too powerful from the start. If there is a P&P way around this, like Aosaw suggests, then I'm all for it (I'm a ruleslaywer, so give me as much P&P as you possibly can!). If a P&P solution isn't viable, just implement a different solution 'cause one is needed regardless.

Speaking of rules laywerdom, this is something I have already suggested on Reddit but since Trent said he reads these boards more often, I'll repost it.

It would be really nice to implement P&P bonuses for high INT and WIS scores. As it is now, doing it would require a whole lot of .exe hacking on the modders' part but with the source code at their disposal, developers could do it quite more easily.

High INT and WIS don't currently grant you any bonus apart from extra spells, which aren't really useful unless you are a mage or cleric. It ensues that fighter types are encouraged to min/max their characters seeing no use in high INT or WIS scores.

If P&P was fully respected, though, high INT and WIS scores would grant some nifty spell immunities which would hardly break the game's balance (besides, foes with high INT/WIS scores would have them too) but would definitely make those stats more interesting.

I reckon CON also has a bunch of P&P effects which were left out of BG but could possibly be implemented. I don't have my Player's Handbook handy right now but I could post about them tomorrow.

The more P&P, the merrier :-)

I agree with your push for greater effect for intelligence and wisdom Andrea. If you have a look earlier in this thread you'll see that I tried to push some sort of enhancement for intelligence (on account that it's a virtually useless stat, even for wizards!!!). A rule compliant improvement would definately be welcome.

Also I'm glad that everyone so far seems to be agreed that familiars could do with some enhancement/revision, to allow them to scale with their master.

Also I can understand the position in respect of NPC wizards, it is probably more hassle than it's worth. But please allow PC wizards to summon a familiar (and by that I mean a character created by another player who isn't leader). I don't think its a huge thing to ask.

I honestly never understood why Familiars were limited to the main character. The game didn't even have that many mages who could use the spell in BG2 anyway (Imoen, Edwin, Nalia and Aerie?). Could Bards use it? Not sure if there were human NPCs who could dual-class to Mage.

I've never been a fan of familiars, not even the NWN version which can die without you losing CON, but with the CON-jeopardizing BG sort I'd be hard-pressed to have it out of my backpack other than in a "safe" area. Even if they were to make the familiars' stats increase with levels (like in NWN)- which does seem fitting- as long as that CON risk remains, I'd still leave it in my backpack (if I ever summon it at all). I've heard good use of the fairie dragon that casts an invisibility sphere, and perhaps some could substitute for an absent party thief, but otherwise they'd just stay in my pack anyway. What is the 2E PnP run-down on familiars? Is BG living up to it? I've no idea on that...

On the INT/WIS front (or CON and CHA for that matter) it's great that there is a PnP basis to argue from because, when the Pipeline Lords say "nay," there may be a better chance of persuasion through ruleslawyering than through just a plea for realism or player interest alone. Hm, I wonder if I've still got that PH around somewhere...

People keep saying they're taking their case before the Beamdog court to get it heard by Judge Trent, but BGEE is being led by a team, and whereas Trent seems to be more responsive to discussion on Twitter and here, his partner Cam seems to be more interested in the reddit forum- or so I'm gathering. From his less-active Tweets:

Lot's of great suggestions in the sub-reddit so far, thanks everyone!

So I'm figuring it's good either here or there, but really it's just nicer for larger or more general discussions to be had here anyway.

I can understand why they didn't want to give every mage an easy-to-acquire option for getting twelve extra hit points and a permanent summon right at level 1. A party of mages becomes a party of mages with six imps/pseudodragons, which would quickly get out of hand.

I think limiting it to "Human-created PCs" would be fine. If you've got six human players running around with dust mephits at their disposal, that's better than one human player trying to manage twelve NPCs/familiars.

From the spell descriptions (these are 2e, mind you):

"Normal familiars have 2-4 hit points, plus 1 hit point per level of the caster, and an Armor Class of 7."

So no familiars running around with 24 hit points. Your familiar is a very fragile thing, and should never be on the front lines, even (and especially) at level 1. Especially with that AC of 7.

"If the familiar dies, the caster must successfully roll an immediate system shock check or die. Even if he survives, the wizard loses 1 point of Constitution when the familiar dies."

So you don't take 12 damage when your 24 hp familiar dies - but you might die, which would be worse. ;)

"...materials costing 1000gp in incense and gems..."
"...casting time 2 1/2 hours..."
"...can only be attempted once per year..."

So it costs 1000gp, takes a long time to cast, and realistically can only be done once.

"Cat, crow, hawk, owl, toad, weasel"

So no imps or quasits or pseudodragons. We're looking at basic normal ordinary animals. It does say the DM can allow other animal types, but it does specify "animal".

You also don't get bonus hit points for having a familiar. Not sure where that came from.

The Familiar Enhancer spells (there's one of each level except level 1) each take 72 hours to cast, which makes me think they ought to be quests. Each spell gives the familiar a higher Intelligence score (from 4+1d3 at Enhancer I up to Enhancer III granting 10+1d2), and one or more spell-like abilities.

The abilities range from being only marginally useful (Dancing Light, Feather Fall, Protection from Evil) to things that are almost universally powerful (Dimension Door, Improved Invisibility, Stoneskin). And you get at least one ability from each enhancement.

Now, I don't know that this is necessarily the route you want to take. But a series of mini-quests that "upgrade" your familiar - maybe with a mind for eventually making your familiar into the imp/quasit/faerie dragon that you would normally have at the start of BG2, and beyond - would be a good way to make the familiar an interesting addition to your party without being so powerful as to ruin the balance of BG1.

There's also a level 2 "Find Familiar - Necromancer" spell designed specifically for necromancers, which allows you to attract things like giant rats, imps, and quasits, which is another path worth looking at - instead of having one familiar that grows more and more powerful, just a series of spells that "replace" your familiar with something more powerful.

Personally, I like the idea of a quest-related progression. Just some thoughts.

An additional thought (more of an addendum or an appendix):

I really think that your familiar should have a mini-portrait in the UI. It's an integral part of your character's development, and when it's not in your backpack using your scroll case as a litterbox, you should be able to select it from the UI without having to locate it on the map.

This would also, incidentally, allow you to view the familiar's "character record" - mainly so that you could see its ability scores, THAC0, AC and hit points. In other words, your familiar should "feel" like another member of the party, even if it's not quite as strong as one.

On a similar note, if you put the familiar's portrait in the UI with the rest of the party, that would also allow the possibility for familiar resurrection - which in turn would (I think) mean that we don't need the 1 Con loss that's currently present. Maybe instead, make it a negative level that is restored when your familiar is resurrected.

Very interesting ideas Aosaw, I agree with nearly all of them. I especially like the idea of familiar enhancements being engaged through mini-quests. The 1000gp cost of summoning a familiar might also be an effective limiting factor (if you don't like the idea of boosting a level 1 wizards hp right from the start).

The only one I would probably resist is having a series of familiar summoning spells, I think it would be better to have one familiar which continually improves, especially if you integrate it into the party with its own mini-portrait. The only drawback of that, is that it might be too late in the day to make such an extensive enhancement.