HELP! "Fallen Paladin" after Chapter 2

[Gallant Knight of the Realms]

Well Met all. Upon returning to Kuldahar after clearing out Dragon's Eye I've found that my party has been branded "murderers" & "butchers" by the townspeople. The Weaponsmith will no longer do business with me and everyone else says "leave town or else." I don't understand this, since I freed most of the Captive Villagers (even the blacksmith's little boy on the 2nd level). I thought I would be heralded as a hero, but my Paladin is now "Fallen" and can no longer use his magic Long Sword. Was there something I did to deserve this or is it just a plot device to further the storyline and get you out of Kuldahar? Is there any way to redeem myself? The game seems to indicate a way to clear my name by completing the next Chapter. I was just wondering if this twist of fate was avoidable at some point. Thanks for any assistance...
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[Cyril Darkcloud]

Gallant Knight, welcome to IronWorks! [img]graemlins/happywave.gif[/img]

It is certainly an avoidable situation. In fact, it is not even the normal situation. Did you, by chance, happen to do battle near where the prisoners were? If so did you use any area effect spells that may have killed one or more of them?

For you reputation to have fallen so dramatically your party probably was responsibile for one or more innocent deaths within the first two levels of Dragon's Eye. As you do not seem to have intended this, my best guess would be that an area effect spell that somehow caught some of the prisoners was the cause.

While it may be possible for your party to mend its reputation, I do not believe that it is possible within th egame to recover paladin status once it is lost. That character will most likely simply function as a fighter from this point on.

[Gallant Knight of the Realms]

Hey Cyril. You're right that I did not intend for this to happen. the weird thing is that I had returned to Kuldahar a few times before (even after Levels 2 & 3) to sell off items and everything was fine then. It only changed after I left Dragon's Eye altogether (after killing Yxunomei). I really have not paid much attention to see if innocents were in the area during combats. The Infinity engine's combat system is so fast that it's hard for me to keep up with, but yes, I have used area affect spells from time to time, though most of my fighting is done with strictly melee & thrown weapons. IWD is the first "real time" AD&D game I've played, being more used to the "turn based" style of the old Gold Box classics. I'm always in a panic to figure out what's going on in combat so I usually spend most of it just selecting new enemies to kill/healing damage and leave the rest to the AI scripts (usually set to Defensive). I do recall seeing some dead human bodies in a few rooms but was unsure if they were deceased before I got there or not. *gulp* Looks like I might have wasted a few days worth of play and will have to return to a previous saved game. Thanks for the help!!
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[Micah Foehammer]

One way to insure that your paladin doesn't reach fallen status is to make donations to the church in Kuldahar. Spending a few thousand gold can get your reputation up sufficiently high so that the death of single innocent should not cause you to reach "fallen" status.

You must have killed MORE than one of the captive townspeople though. The reputation hit for killing an innocent is usually 4 or 5 points EACH. Normal starting rep is usually in the 10-12 range, add in a couple of points for doing some good deeds and my guess is that your reputation would have been around a 15 or 16 when you hit dragon's eye. I believe that fallen status occurs when you rep falls to 4 but am not positive.

[Gallant Knight of the Realms]

Micah...thanks for the info. I really do not know how or where it happened but I have all my saved games from since I started, so I may go back into a few of them around Dragon's Eye and see where I might have gone wrong. I noticed some innocents also died in a Neo-Orog attack once I returned to Kuldahar but I did not think this was my doing, I just wasn't there to save them in time. If I discover the point in which my luck ran ill, I shall let thee know.
I'm thinking of just re-creating the Paladin and editing his XP to my actual earned level with DaleKeeper. However, I did this once before and he was added to the end of my party lineup (no longer the Leader/spokesperson). How can I change him back to being my top character/first choice? I got IWD second-hand so I do not have the instruction book.

[Cyril Darkcloud]

If I understand you correctly, you are wondering about how to change the order of your party members so that the paladin is in front of the group. This can be accomplished by left clicking on his character portrait and dragging the portrait to the top of the group. His portrait will then be inserted in that position and everyone else will move down one spot.

[Hayashi]

One way to make the battles less hectic is to use the autopause function.

[Gallant Knight of the Realms]

Hayashi...yes, "less hectic" is exactly what I'm aiming for. I've never had much luck with real-time games where you have to react on-the-fly. I appreciate the advice.
Thanks also to Cyril for the info on how to restructure my party. I had tried something similar before but I must have clicked the wrong mouse button. Ya'll have been a great help!
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[Cyril Darkcloud]

Gallent - A couple quick things which you may already be aware of:

1. Hitting the space bar during combat will pause the action so that you can plan, change weapons or select spells, etc.

2. In the options settings for the game you can set preferences for the action to pause automatically when certain events occur such as spotting an enemy.

3. It's also a good idea to hit the quick save key [Q] prior to combat, and after if you're satisfied with the outcome, if that is at all possible so that you do not lose much time if you need to reload.