I have not made it a point to mod my games much (though I did put in the Ease of Use to get rid of "you must gather your party"). I like playing good, but played neutral once to see Jaheira romance (actually got it to work fine without bugs, wow!) and played a neutral with mixed neutral and evil party to romance Viconia. I want to play good again in another game, but do not want to romance any of the main romance characters that come with the game. I am planning to play male.

I noticed both the Nalia and the Imoen romances (I actually had a bit of a crush on Imoen from the first game). I also see the various NPCs out there, and know some of them are romancable (is that a word? ;) ). I was just wanting peoples' opinions about these various add-ons that add romantic options (likes, dislikes, easy, hard, etc.). I just don't want another romance with Aerie! :(

Oh, and feel free to spoil on the game part itself (for example, it's okay to speak about Bohdi taking your romance and vamping her...see the spoiler tag on the title!). However, don't spoil the romances themselves too much, as I would like to play through them (and post quite a bit if I have problems ;) )

I have the simultaneous romance patch downloaded, but I never felt interested in it enough to use it - I like the idea that you have to choose one girl to be interested in, otherwise their bickering dialogue doesn't mean anything...

My favorite is still the Viconia one because I like the way she talks dirty to me [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

[I generally don't use mods - risk of something screwing up; I like to play SoA pretty much the way BioWare released it, with only the bugs fixed - I don't even use ToB anymore, and in fact I'm going to disable the XP cap remover from now on]

[ 05-13-2003, 02:57 AM: Message edited by: Mahlennacht ]

I would suggest Tashia.
There are people that didn't like the Imoen's romance out there, and even if I'm not one of them, I wouldn't suggest it to everybody.
I never tried Nalia's romance, but afaIk it proved so good, satisfying and rewarding that Jason Compton (the author of Kelsey) felt the need to write another :rolleyes: (which is still work in progress).

Otho,I still have to hear about people who tried Tashia and didn't like it: so my suggestion is, go for her!

Hmm...I thought about the Nalia romance, in fact the site is added to my favorites in case I wanted to download, but never got around to it. I've heard both good and bad about Tashia. I have heard almost nothing about the Imoen one. I know that the Imoen one is open to all races/genders; what are the restrictions on the other two? And are there any other romance options?

I absolutely loathed Tashia, but Aerie is my favorite romance still, so what's good for me may not be the same as what's good for you.

If you decide to try any of the Bioware romances, I'd recommend the flirt packs from http://www.forgottenwars.net/npcflirt .

For the sarcasm-impaired (and to clarify the point a bit)--my de'Arnise Romance project isn't a direct "answer" to Arnel's existing one. We both came up with the idea independently, and when I heard of his, I decided that I'd plow ahead with mine unless his was splendidly world-beating. I didn't find it so, so I was undaunted.

As for being tired of Aerie, have you tried her flirt pack yet? You might enjoy filling in the gaps between those now-familiar lovetalks.

Flat out, Tashia's a bit of a Mary Sue. She gets the better of most everyone in the party and nobody has the goods on her. (Disclaimer: it's true that Kelsey does score a fair few points on the proposed "Is your BG2 mod NPC a Mary Sue?" scale.)

Imoen's Romance requires you to basically accept a "different" Imoen. The author adds various game events that make the romance more "plausible." Gone is the girl who's perfectly happy being your sister and says so. Some people think that the characterizations involved reflect poorly on everyone from Imoen to Irenicus, although others swear by it.

Other romance options include Kelsey and Solaufein (both male: Kelsey romances female PCs, Solaufein romances anybody.) Coming soon is everyone's favorite lesbian demigoddess kensai, Chloe.

[ 05-13-2003, 09:40 PM: Message edited by: jcompton ]

For the sarcasm-impaired (and to clarify the point a bit)--my de'Arnise Romance project isn't a direct "answer" to Arnel's existing one. We both came up with the idea independently, and when I heard of his, I decided that I'd plow ahead with mine unless his was splendidly world-beating. I didn't find it so, so I was undaunted.

As for being tired of Aerie, have you tried her flirt pack yet? You might enjoy filling in the gaps between those now-familiar lovetalks.

Flat out, Tashia's a bit of a Mary Sue. She gets the better of most everyone in the party and nobody has the goods on her. (Disclaimer: it's true that Kelsey does score a fair few points on the proposed "Is your BG2 mod NPC a Mary Sue?" scale.)

Imoen's Romance requires you to basically accept a "different" Imoen. The author adds various game events that make the romance more "plausible." Gone is the girl who's perfectly happy being your sister and says so. Some people think that the characterizations involved reflect poorly on everyone from Imoen to Irenicus, although others swear by it.

Other romance options include Kelsey and Solaufein (both male: Kelsey romances female PCs, Solaufein romances anybody.) Coming soon is everyone's favorite lesbian demigoddess kensai, Chloe. </font>[/QUOTE]Actually, I did not know you were working on your own version of the Nalia romance. What I heard about the current one is that it takes her out of character from what you normally see from her, much like what you are telling me about the Imoen romance.

I was debating the flirt pack, but considering what I have seen about them on the posts, I am definitely planning on adding them to the game.

Tashia sounds like a pain in the butt. Might try her one of these days, but will probably hold off on her.

Hadn't heard about Chloe. What's the deal with that one?

Well, the thing about NPCs is that you can always kick them out if you don't like them. [img]smile.gif[/img]
There's a forum for her at http://forums.fwstudios.net ... she's a lesbian demigoddess kensai. Says it all, really. [img]smile.gif[/img] The mod is in beta stages, will feature original voice work, and has a romance for female PCs and Imoen (who doesn't these days?)

[ 05-14-2003, 12:10 AM: Message edited by: jcompton ]

I see that my post proved more ambiguous than i hoped... :rolleyes:

@Nerull, what I wanted to suggest was the following
(assuming that you want to play male as you said):

1) There are two Nalia romances, one finished and one in developement, and since it has been said that the first one portraits an out of character Nalia, I would suggest to wait for jcompton's one to be finished, like me and a lot of other people are doing.
2) If you wanted to romance Imoen, I assume you are willing to put aside all of the problems and prejudices related to the very concept of romancing a sibling/half-sister/childhood friend/whatever, so I would suggest to try the romance.
But be warned: the author decided to put so many options for the player in there,that almost everybody has managed to find something annoying amongst them. If you choose all of the correct options, you get a nice romance, but you get the chance to be cruel to her as well, or to act totally stupid for no apparent reason, or to try to romance her and fail getting her mad at you instead!
Again... you've been warned.
3) I found no major problems or drawbacks in Tashia romance instead... Ok, someone find her annoying, but hey, there's a lot of people that find annoyng any single romanceable npc in the game! ;)

Anyway, my current favourite is Viccy, obviously with the wonderful aforementioned flirt pack from Forgotten Wars [img]smile.gif[/img]
Ahh... lilacs and blood...

I'm not sure Arnel's problem was casting Nalia out of character. Rather, it was the fact that he didn't do anything WITH the character. Really, all we find out about her, aside from a boring and confusing plot involving an old boyfriend, is that she wants to help the needy, and he doesn't really get much deeper than that.

It's not without redeeming moments (the arranged-marriage wedding ceremony is a cute cutscene) but in a day and age where few people tolerate .tlk overwriting mods without a really good reason, you may have a hard time working it into your install.

Heh. Sounds like you're a true romantic. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 05-14-2003, 12:25 PM: Message edited by: jcompton ]

Thanks for the responses! I think I will definitely hold off on the Nalia romance until jcompton's version comes out. I was rather annoyed about a certain main romance's plot (or lack thereof) in ToB (I don't want to spoil, as this is SoA board). So if not much is happening in the Nalia romance, then I might as well wait and see what jcompton gives us... ;)

I might do the Imoen romance just to get it out of my system (hey, what can I say, I was crushed when I found out she was my sister!). If I don't like it, I can uninstall and dream of a better, more ignorant time a little closer to Candlekeep.

Tashia might be fun to do after the other two, especially playing something like a barbarian with 6 wisdom. :D

I am definitely going to try the flirt packs first, though. It kind of annoys me that I have to wait for them to talk to me for anything to happen (read: Jaheira's romance is painful sometimes).

I strongly recommend a dose of flirt packs to alleviate that suffering. You're probably referring to Jaheira (I really don't think it's a spoiler per se to say that the stock Jaheira-TOB romance sucks) and I think we did a very good job sprucing that up, including new epilogues worthy of the relationship.

I don't like to speak out against anyone, but I tried Arnel's Nalia, and was wholly unimpressed by it. She didn't seem to able to grasp the concept that my Fighter/Illusionist didn't want the Keep (I had to drop her, and then return after claiming the Sphere), she absolutely insisted that I take part in the "marriage of convenience" if I wanted to keep her in the party (despite the fact that I was Romancing Aerie), the dialogue is peppered with spelling & grammar errors, and when the script for the marriage of convenience locked up, I uninstalled the thing.

I realize that I may have simply been the victim of bad luck or whatever, but when one observes the proper install order and plays nice, a MOD shouldn't act like this.

Yeah, but it is ToB info, and since this is on SoA board I really didn't want to come out and say Jaheira.

I'm definitely going to install the flirtpacks, but first I am going to finish destroying the game with my Sorcerer (now I see why everyone talks about powergaming!). I purposely did not learn either Project Image or Simulacrum, just to give some meager hope to my opponents. :D

However, I prefer playing good, which means with the unmodded game (if you go all good like I prefer to) you are stuck with Aerie. Thus the reason for this topic! The flirtpacks should help, though.

Wow, if that doesn't put the nail in the coffin! Definitely wait until the new version.

Might just throw the Imoen romance in there just to see what it looks like. And I would probably put Kelsey in the part over Tashia if I am looking for a sorcerer (I've heard plenty of good things about the Kelsey mod).

Don't be too surprised if you end up having to take the keep to have the romance in my mod, too. There are just too many good scenarios to set up there that, quite frankly, I would not want to concoct alternative, non-Keep variants for. However, to soothe your ache, I'll make the Keep available to all classes (a bit more roleplay required to get it, but you can hack that) and not count it against the "one-stronghold limit."

Besides, it will make you that much more a part of her life.

I had the exact same experience when trying out the Nalia romance. Spelling errors break the suspension of disbelief & my game crashed during the wedding scene as well. Count me among those looking forward to JCompton's version.

I've recently installed the Imoen Romance & Tashia (& Kelsey as well). I'm playing through 2 games (yes, it's taking forever), one where my PC romances Imoen, the other where he romances Tashia & also hoping to witness the Kelsey+Imoen romance.

So far, the Imoen Romance is interesting, but only mildly, in that I like the extra interjections & dialogue, but some of the responses (both mine & hers) just don't seem to "feel" right. Maybe I'm just more averse to the whole sibling romance thing than I thought I was. [img]smile.gif[/img] Plus, whenever one of the new Imoen dialogues pops up, it takes a freakishly long time to load, unlike the seamless dialogues I'm used to.

The Tashia Romance is going well though, & is interesting. I've gathered that if you're not romancing her, she doesn't have a lot to say, but if you are, it's entertaining. She has some nice banters with other NPC's, but they're not frequent.

I'm pacing both games similarly & am in the Underdark with both, after which, I've gathered, both romances get much more interesting, so I might have different views later on (i.e. neither has hit XRomanceActive=2 yet).

There has been little interaction between Kelsey & Imoen yet (in my PC + Tashia game), so I can't comment on that aspect, but Kelsey most feels like a "genuine" NPC, in that if I didn't know he was a MOD, I'd never guess. He fits in seemlessly & has tons of dialogue & interjections.

As to Nerull's initial question, all of the above boils down to, at this point, my recommendation would be to try out the Tashia romance if you're looking for a new love interest. [img]smile.gif[/img]

- Imrahil

EDIT: a couple of spelling errors ruined my suspension of disbelief [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 05-16-2003, 09:13 PM: Message edited by: Imrahil ]

The Kelsey/Imoen relationship doesn't "heat up" until TOB. They have two banters in SOA regardless of his romantic status, and then they have a (from memory) 13-session romance in TOB, plus the endgame stuff.

But thanks for the compliment on Kelsey.

[ 05-16-2003, 11:35 PM: Message edited by: jcompton ]

Ah, what the hell, might as well just install all of them (except Nalia). A little extra infighting never hurt anyone. ;)

Hmm...I tried the Tashia romance and it totally fubar'd my game. None of characters would walk more than a few feet. Ugh. I deleted the whole thing. I am trying Imoens Romance now, just to see what happens.

You must have put in the "happy patch"/multiromance portion. Those scripts are notorious for that.

You've mentioned Imoen and Nalia romances....

Where would I go about getting them?

http://www.comtrade.ee/~arnel/nalia/

http://imoenromance.teambg.net/

Imoen and Kelsey's romance is cuteness solidified.

I'll take that as a compliment. [img]smile.gif[/img] And yes, I agree. I actually felt kinda bad for a while there since it seemed to me like players who were romancing Kelsey might feel jealous that Imoen was having so much fun, but based on the feedback I've received, things in TOB like the expanded flirting and the "confessional lovetalk" more than made up any "cuteness" gap that might have been created.