Starting a new game with an evil party

[ZFR]

Hi,

I already finished BG2 twice (once with ToB, once without)... both times with rather good (allignementwise) parties. So now I want to play it again this time to try out an evil alligned one (I wonder if I will be successful... I always RPG'ed with good allignment... the only time I played a good/evil mix in IWD2 to try some quests the evil way, some things I simply couldn’t bring myself to do evilly ). I also want to try the new classes sorcerer and monk (I played both in IWD2 3ed rules, never in 2nd edition).
Oh, and I’m using Baldurdash and all patches but without any mods whatsoever.

Anyways my planned party:

Main character: Sorcerer, male, neutral or chaotic evil.
Monk, human, female, lawful neutral
Korgan
Viconia
Jan
Edwin

So my questions:

1) What ability scores for the monk and sorcerer... Besides the obvious STR DEX CON, for the sorcerer does INT affect it anyway like it does for wizards? Does charisma affect it anyway like it does in third edition? For the monk does wisdom affect it anyway like it does in third edition.

2) I want to romance Viconia, and I want sorcerer to be an elf. I heard it’s not compatible. Is it true? Is half-elf okay then?

3) I haven’t played Edwin before so I can’t remember. Can he be dualclassed to anything?

And now spoilers ahead
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
4) For the planar sphere, the evil way would be to accept the government wizard’s quest and kill valygar. If I do it this way will I be able to normally have the sphere as my stronghold?

5) About romancing Viconia, I heard she can turn neutral in ToB. Is it possible to have a successful romance without her turning neutral (I want her to stay evil)? And I need general advice on romancing Viconia the evil way. What to do and what not to do.

And finally
6) The two times I played I sided with the shadow thieves. This time I want to side with Bodhi. Now I understand if I do so the thieves will turn hostile. What about the thieves’ quests then? And I don’t mean Aran Linvail’s (which obviously cant be done if you sided with Bodhi) quests but R Bloodscalp’s one about exposing that other guild. Should I do those before siding with Bodhi? This is important because through that quest I get Edwin. Does it mean that if I side with Bodhi getting Edwin would be not possible?

That is all for now. Thanks for all the help. Any other general advice is appreciated.
ZFR

[Odruith]

Ok. I'll start with #6:

If you side with Bodhi before doing Renal's quest, Renal will be hostile. Do you really think the Shadow Thieves are gonna like the fact that you killed their master, Aran Linvail? [img]tongue.gif[/img]

#5: I'm not sure, I haven't been able to follow the romance through to ToB as yet, but I think Viconia turning neutral is just what happens anyway. And remember Chaotic neutral and true neutral can still be roleplayed as 'evil' at times.

#4: If you kill Valygar and take his body to Tolgerias, you can never get the sphere as a Stronghold. But I think you can still get it if you just kill him and use his body to get in.. eventually killing Lavok etc etc. Can't remember exactly.

#3: You really shouldn't dual-class Edwin. As a pure mage/conjurer(or whatever) with Robe of Vecna, a +4 dagger or Staff of the Magi, even he can be a bit of a tank with some immunities and stoneskins thrown on to kill say... golems.. or a certain Lich(the +4 bit) Edwin is a nice rounded spellcaster. He should stay that way. And from a roleplaying point of view, why is a Red Wizard of Thay going to take up a second class?... They don't call them Red WIZARDS for nothing [img]tongue.gif[/img]

#2: To romance Viconia I believe you need to be either human or half-elf. Most surface elves despire the drow whether evil or not. And the Drow despise the surface elves.

#1: I think for a Sorcerer you need to try get high charisma and intelligence. For a Monk a good str score is probably good, along with Con and wisdom. And of course dex for both.

Anyway. As an evil player myself, I use a half elf fighter-thief named Arundhel.

Usually I use, Korgan, Viconia, Jaheira, Edwin, Haer'Dalis in my party. Because they suit my needs best. Haer'Dalis can get a bit annoying.. always calling me a raven.. or making bad bird puns.

[ 02-06-2004, 11:53 AM: Message edited by: Odruith ]

[JrKASperov]

I've been playing an evil party with a halfling fighter/thief. Fills up the hole in the Edwin-Korgan-Viconia shite. I listened to Viconia whine about beregost, and after that, she excused for being so open. I naturally told her I was not listening anyway, so now she doesnt talk to me anymore. You gotta love it!

[Dayhawk]

1. I can't answer for the monk, having never played one, but the sorcerer in BG2, by some quirk of fate doesn't use either Cha or Int. other than casting from scrolls, int is mostly worthless. Sorcerers get the same number of spells given to them to chgoose from no matter what stats they choose. that being said i usually try to boost dex/con/int as high as possible with str coming afterwards.

2. Elves are bad. Elves hate drow. drow hate elves.

3. Agree, don't bother dual classing Edwin. he's pretty much the best arcane spellcaster in a non-modded game, why take away from that majesty?

4. Spoilers ho!
.
.
.
.
.
.
Spoilers: With my solo thief (since i didn't want Valygar in my party ever) I just killed him, then used his body to get into the portal. I'd assume that's the evil way of doing it, cuz you still get to kill Tolgerias (god that was a hard fight on a solo thief)

5. Romance shouldn't be affected by her neutrality. She's still a drow just uhh...nicer?

6. Do Renal Bloodscalps quest first (you want to get Edwin early anyways). If you side with Bodhi first, you'll get screwed out of it. You can actually do this quest like riiight out of the gate. it's really not that hard and i did it with my solo thief for the stronghold before pretty much any other quests.


hope that answers all of your questions. cheerio

[shamrock_uk]

5. As far as i remember, to successful romance her you have to be pretty evil anyway - she's attracted to strong men who just take what they want. The best options in the romance are those which reflect cruelty and power IIRC

2. You can always download a patch (Happy patch? i forget) which removes romancing restrictions. Obviously not compatible if you're roleplaying properly though

[Dundee Slaytern]

You can either have a badboy romance with Viconia, or a redemption romance with Viconia. Your choice.

[Faceman]

Originally posted by ZFR: 1) What ability scores for the monk and sorcerer... Besides the obvious STR DEX CON, for the sorcerer does INT affect it anyway like it does for wizards? Does charisma affect it anyway like it does in third edition? For the monk does wisdom affect it anyway like it does in third edition.

INT does not affect the sorcerer, but you shouldn't tone him down too much for roleplaying reasons. Go with 10-12. High Charisma would be sensible too as he will be your party leader

2) I want to romance Viconia, and I want sorcerer to be an elf. I heard it’s not compatible. Is it true? Is half-elf okay then?

Viconia will not romance an elf, hlaf-elf will be fine however. Yet you could always cheat into it. Only thing you have to do is change the ViconiaMatch variable to 1.
use

code:

---

CLUAConsole:GetGlobal("ViconiaMatch","GLOBAL")

[/QUOTE]to find out what value it has (0= no romance possible, 1=romance possible)

code:

---

CLUAConsole:SetGlobal("ViconiaMatch","GLOBAL",1)

[/QUOTE]to set it to 1.

3) I haven’t played Edwin before so I can’t remember. Can he be dualclassed to anything?>

Dual-Classing Edwin would be a shame. He is one of the best if not the best mage in the game

4) For the planar sphere, the evil way would be to accept the government wizard’s quest and kill valygar. If I do it this way will I be able to normally have the sphere as my stronghold?>

Bringing the body to the wizards would be the lawful evil way. As a neutral or chaotic evil character you could also use the body to get entrance to the sphere yourself thus later obtaining the stronghold

5) About romancing Viconia, I heard she can turn neutral in ToB. Is it possible to have a successful romance without her turning neutral (I want her to stay evil)? And I need general advice on romancing Viconia the evil way. What to do and what not to do.

You can finish the romance without turingn her, and generally turning her is the hard way, so just be a bad boy and everything should go smoothly

And finally 6) The two times I played I sided with the shadow thieves. This time I want to side with Bodhi. Now I understand if I do so the thieves will turn hostile. What about the thieves’ quests then? And I don’t mean Aran Linvail’s (which obviously cant be done if you sided with Bodhi) quests but R Bloodscalp’s one about exposing that other guild. Should I do those before siding with Bodhi? This is important because through that quest I get Edwin. Does it mean that if I side with Bodhi getting Edwin would be not possible?

Just do Renal's quest before you side with Bodhi and everything should be fine.
Now go terrorizing the city of coin

[Zarr]

Just something to note: Edwin can't be dualclassed as he doesn't have suffecient(sp) stats to be dualed into anything. And I wouldn't dual class him if you could anyway because as Faceman said as a mage he's simply superb!

[ZFR]

Thanks all for the replies...

The only reason I wanted to dual-class Edwin was because i thought three spellcasters (sorcerer, edwin and jan) might be too much... won't dual-class him though since it's not possible (and like you said not nice roleplay-wise since he's Thayan).

Once again thanks all for contributing.... [img]smile.gif[/img]

EDIT:
and I'll start as half-elf then... since Viconia hates elves

[ 02-07-2004, 04:33 PM: Message edited by: ZFR ]