[SixOfSpades]

Originally posted by Magness: And that the existing groups have existing headquarters in the city, whereas adding a new faction would seem to require finding a place to put them.

On that note, I'd like to say a word about congestion. In BG1, you could wander around the towns of Beregost, Nashkel, and Gullykin, and explore the nine maps of the city of Baldur's Gate, and overall, roughly half of the homes you entered belonged to common townspeople. They didn't offer you any quests or have wonderful loot stashed upstairs or turn into Liches and attack you, they simply directed you to the inns if you needed a place to stay (the nicer ones might offer you their floor to sleep on), or their kids would make fun of you, or they pointed out that an unlocked door is not an invitation for total strangers to come and tour their home.
In the city of Athkatla, however, every third home contains a Lich. There are just TWO homes in the ENTIRE CITY that are home to simple people, uninvolved with any quest. In short, the city of Baldur's Gate is full of people who live there. The city of Athkatla is full of people for you to kill. I, personally, hate this.

I am therefore opposed to any mod that treats a house full of Commoners as a space to be filled with something nasty. Take the Lich in the Docks: What the hell is she doing there? An incredibly nasty Lich who would give the Twisted Rune a run for their money feels the need to hang out in the rattiest tumbledown shanty in the city? This makes no sense. No, what this game needs is more space: Athkatla cannot hold any new locations, unless they are actually NEW locations. Hence my idea of putting the Wizard Slayers' Guild in that curious little unused building in the Government District. Heck, if I had my way, I'd expand the entire city, adding a Residential District, a Kara-Turan District, etc., to correct the Lich/Commoner ratio.

All in all, I think that all roads would probably lead to getting the boat ride with Saemon Havarian.

All roads except the Cowled Wizards. They would Dimension Door you directly to Brynnlaw (Spellhold itself would be protected with an anti-teleport shield, just like Hogwarts), and accompany you to Perth the Adept's home, to borrow the Wardstone. But Perth had gone nuts, and the usual combat follows. The trick with this route is to discover who the traitor is if Yoshimo isn't in the party, and how the party learns to distrust Saemon if he's never done anything bad to them.

Originally posted by Luvian: I also see no reason why a Priest of the Morninglord, god of Spring, Dawn and birth would help you fight an order of mage. Especially when there is an invasion of undead in the city...

You know, I think I've changed my mind about that: They have no real reason to move against the Cowls or Irenicus, but they do care a whole lot about Undead. I can see their helping you to a goal that has nothing to do with their god's portfolio, provided you help them with a task that falls directly against that portfolio. (Siding with them could also put a tweak in the Sir Sarles quest, where you are encouraged to use the illithium yourself instead of investing it in an artwork.)


As for the Order of the Radiant Heart, the Order itself cannot be implicated in aiding any action against an established agent of the government such as the Cowled Wizards (and, by extention, neither can Prelate Wessallen), but I suppose a faction of younger Paladins (mostly Inquisitors) would be chafing at the bit to eradicate evil, even Lawful evil, from their city, and therefore might arrange passage for you. I mean heck, it's hardly a disloyal or criminal act to discover the location of a prison, and maybe charter a boat there. You might be able to choose your path with these Paladins: You could move against Bodhi and the Vampires (in which case an Undead Hunter becomes your advisor), or against Linvail and the Shadow Thieves (and an unkitted Paladin becomes your best buddy).

Originally posted by Cerek: As for quests, the game already provides two quests that everyone goes on without any real justification - The Guarded Compound and the Twisted Rune. The PC never actually receives ANY directions or instructions to explore or investigate either of these places in the current game.

I agree with the others: The Twisted Rune is *NO* place to ask Chapter 3 parties to be. And I'm perfectly all right with having a few major battles totally outside the realm of established quests, the PC doesn't have to be directed through every little step.
The (unmodded) Guarded Compound, though, is roughly the same level of difficulty as Bodhi's or Aran's lairs, and a Good-aligned faction could easily discover their links to the slave trade and ask the PC to wipe them out. If the Improved version is installed, you could simply check for that and, if it's there, have the PC recieve a big stack of Invisibility potions and a Rod that contains 3 charges of an Inquisitor-level Remove Magic. The fight will still be tougher than unmodded Bodhi, but at least it will be roughly in line with a Chapter 3 boss battle.

Originally posted by Magness: I don't know about trying to instigate fights with the Cowled Wizards out in public. For one thing, won't this potential hurt your reputation? Also, doesn't this place the publlic at considerable risk? That is, starting a fight with people who may think nothing of flinging around fireballs at you, etc. while there's innocent civilians about.

All the Wizard Slayers would have to suggest is that you perform this baiting at night, when most of the people have gone to bed, and in a large area with no one about, such as the middle of Waukeen's Promenade or the Government District.

Originally posted by Link: Is anyone actually reading my post or are you just all ignoring it altogether?

We read it, it's simply that the Harpers are going to be a major headache. A plot where the Harpers ask you to eradicate the slavers in the Copper Coronet, the Slaver Ship, and the Guarded Compound is simple enough, but the complications that arise as soon as the Jaheira possibilities are considered just throw a massive monkeywrench into the works. As we all know this, any idea that mentions two rival factions of Harpers sparks an automatic 'pain!' reaction. It might actually be easier if we ripped up Jaheira's quest and romance by the roots and re-wrote them in their entirety (so that they actually worked this time), and in such a way that left room for using the Harpers as a path to Spellhold, whether Jaheira was in the party or not.