Hi all,

How can I keep Edwin in my group? He keeps leaving, saying that I "waste opportunity after opportunity". If it helps, my player character is a paladin, and our group has a rep of 20. Is there a patch that would force him to stay?

First, Edwin is evil...with your rep at 20 he will invariably leave. Second, you are a Paladin and should be utterly disgusted to be in the same room with Edwin!!! Take his best equipment and tell him to get lost!

Anyway, I think that evil characters get agitated at 18 and above on rep (look into the tables on NPC reactions at the back of the users guide).

If you are into power-gaming ve role-playing you can do two things without using a cheat:
1) Turn into the slayer 2x and you will lose 4 rep points - then he will stay.
2) Kill someone innocent and I think you lose 7 points - do this in a house to a single person. If you do it outside everyone in the area will get hostile to you! You can go to a temple and buy your way back to the 16-17 range after that. Make sure you save right before it to see if your outcome is a lower rep.

Or you could install some baldurdash tweaks. Go here:

http://members.rogers.com/mrkevvy

Adding Viconia to your party also lowers your rep by 2. You can kick her out afterwards if you don't want her permanently.

This won't work because when you kick her out your rep goes back up by two again.

All good suggestions -- thanks to everyone for replying! I realize I may have angered the evil Edwin by having a heroic reputation, and that I might need to do something to lower my rep like turning into the Slayer a few times. Or I might just install that patch that someone suggested. At this point, it's great to know that I've got options.

BTW, what will I be missing out with a rep of 18 or lower, as compared with having a rep of 20? I might have to pay higher prices when purchasing from merchants because of the lower reputation, but is that the only downside?

Yes the only downside of this is that items will be ever so slightly more expensive.

I'd say get the patch. Even though it seems illogical at first, think of it this way. If you have twenty rep, you're prolly rich. And what other motive is there for evil chars to stay? I think it made sense for BI to make the game like that, but I don't think its cheating to add that tweak. The one thing to watch out for is combos like
Spoiler (Slight)
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Edwin-Minsc

Yeah, they fight, and Edwin gets killed, because he just doesn't watch his mouth when speaking about Boo... Watch out!

Ha! I have those two in my team, and I can't wait to see them have at it. Gotta love Edwin's 'tude, but Minsc is probably doing what everyone in my team's been wanting to do -- kill Edwin.

Quoted from True_Moose:
>>I'd say get the patch. Even though it seems illogical at first, think of it this way. If you have twenty rep, you're prolly rich. And what other motive is there for evil chars to stay?<<

I agree with True_Moose. Wouldn't you think that Edwin would want to stay since I make adventuring profitable for him as well as everyone else in the team? I had Korgan a while back and he couldn't wait to leave as well. But didn't Korgan join the team to retrieve a book that can be sold for a good wad of money? Driven by greed, it makes sense for these evil characters to stay. I'm leaning more towards installing the patch, unless someone out there can provide a good counter to True_Moose. It's not logical for any evil character to quit a team just because they have a heroic reputation. Evil characters, as quoted from the BGII manual, are "motivated by the desire for personal gain and pleasure". They don't care how they do it or where they do it. They just do it.