im playing as neutral evil and was propositioned by her..any advantages/disadvanges to picking her over shadow thieves? without spoiling too much, will the outcome be different, certain more/less quests or xp be made availabie, hardships later on etc. thanks folks.

You should, of course do the Mae'var quest before you side with Bodhi. Also if you are a thief and has Mae'var's guildhall as a stronghold you can kiss Bodhi's offer goodbye too.

Other than that the only things you miss are the interactions. Those vampires aren't the most sociable creatures around and you will probably not want to hang around in the vampire lair more than required. (I've had more fulfilling conversations with golems).

You will not really miss out anything important on the item side. You can loot two great magical items, one really great (mace of disruption) and one semi-great (ashen scales) from right under the vampires' noses.

In fact the assault on the Shadow Thief HQ is an extremely lucrative venture in loot. Just remember to loot as much as you can in the Shadow Thief HQ (from right under the Shadow Thieves' noses) before you side with Bodhi. Because after that the HQ resets with new items and inhabitants.

If you think that a bunch of ordinary (demi)human thieves will be no hassle compared to routing a band of vampires you are wrong! The shadow thieves are many and they are prepared! Expect trap and backstab galore if you are not careful. Also brace yourself for an encounter with an extremely deadly fighter and a ditto spellcaster.

If your evil side with Bodhi, it is afterall the evil path. But make sure as mentioned you've done the renal bloodscalp quest first or you won't be able to get Edwin. You get some good items if you side with Bodhi like elven chainmail+1 (good for Jan) and a +3 throwing axe for Korgan.

<font color="lightblue">The only disadvantage is that you get the Amulette of Power a Chapter later. [img]smile.gif[/img] </font>

And, IMO, vampires yield you more Xp when you go and sweep their lair clean. I have done both things, and I would say that siding with thieves is more satisfying, although when hitting the guild (siding with Bodhi will lead you to exterminate thieves) I had a pretty challenging fight. If you choose the evil path, be absolutely sure you ARE prepared. Man, vampire fight was less difficult!

All that? Really?

With a team of goodies I managed to side with Bodhi, and never accepted the evil offers.

The reason? Here it is!

The Elven Chain Aran Linvail has! It is great for Imoen when you rescue her later!

Actually, doing the Mae'Var quests for Renal Bloodscalp automatically made it impossible for me to go for Bodhi's offer. Not sure if it was supposed to be that way...

Ahh, the time I sided with Bodhi I didn't know that Imoen will be available again! that was my first game...

My second game was a generalist mage solo - the one I have finished not long before. Why would a good mage side with evil vampires?? I didn't bother to...

ADD] I sided with Bodhi after doing Mae'Var quest... So I got the money, and got the alliance. What is the problem??

[ 09-23-2002, 08:23 AM: Message edited by: TaSSaDaR ]

But isn't that metagaming, sort of? How would your good mage know they're evil vampires? Of course, the longer you stall your decision, more and more clues about their true nature are dropped, but do you know *officially* right away they're vampires? Not sure, been a while since I played the game...

Nothing then... I probably encountered a bug in the game instead.