Chaotic Evil Aligment

[Lord Commander Dante]

Hey guys!
Starting a new game today, with a Chaotic Evil Alligment character.
I wanted to ask, among of you who played it before - can i kill npcs in order to loot them like in Fallout 2 ?
I recall killing spree the whole "Den Town" just to get better equipment early on.
I have no intention to kill all of the npcs, but if i do kill some here some there - can this really inflict badly on my game later on?
Like losing quests, and bonuses ?
And my question goes vise versa, any benefits in playing this way ? excpet the obvious which is loot.

[Hopper]

Being an evil lunatic is the hardest way to play.

You'll lose some quests, but probably nothing important.
You have to pay higher prices in stores.
Good aligned NPCs will leave you forever.
Guards will attack on sight.
Bounty hunters will hunt you.
And you can't murder a shopkeeper and steal all his loot like Fallout...

You can always get your reputation back up by donating alot of gold to temples... Unless ofcourse you butcher everyone in the temples.

There's only a few people that you should definitely not attack...
Belt, Liia, Scar, Duke Eltan, and most people in Candlekeep.

[Lord Commander Dante]

"You can always get your reputation back up by donating alot of gold to temples... Unless of course you butcher everyone in the temples." - Gaz
You made me laugh so much :-) Thank you for that!
True Natural will be my pick then!

[Damiarch]

Yea...CE bandits tend to eat steel

[Siege Mentality]

I've actually done a chaotic evil round way back when. It was incredibly annoying because every time you turn up in a city you're getting harrassed by guards. It's really strange, but you have way more options in NPCs with evil alignments than you do good.

[mike_hanna211]

Play a more believable evil PC alignment, like Lawful Evil. Choatic Evil is just unrepentant bloodlust and would tend to ruin most games.

And, yeah it seems that the developers wanted the PC to be evil. Much better NPC selection. As a good PC, it's almost like your stuck with Khalid and Jaheira right from the start; and of course, Imoen. 4 party slots taken right there... then there's Minsc and Dynaheir.

[happy]

playing evil is really fun, evil companions are funny and way less annoying than your usual goodies

but, there are no evil quests, so if you roleplay, you won t help people and have no reason to do the main story

but i still recommand it as BG has a lot of land to wander about
you can play evil in BG1, some good npcs put up a hell of a fight
you won t be able to play evil in BG 2 as all quests and maps are unlocked by helping nice good people

[Lord Commander Dante]

It is such a shame that they never compensate you somehow when playing anything but good.

[Lord Commander Dante]

It's an RPG for crying out loud!

[Thun]

(sorry for being off-topic, but) one of the cool games that let you have fun your way was arcanum, where you could buy a weapon from a merchant, kill him to loot his store, or sneak into his house at night while he was sleeping and steal it.
and if i remember correctly, he would catch on if you tried to sell him back the stuff you stole from him :)
wikipedia link[en.wikipedia.org]

[happy]

speaking of arcanum is never off topic in a rpg game forum

[Garner Irelandia]

a lot of the side quests could be done by a roleplaying lawful or neutral evil character, righting wrongs for their own gain.

Anyway, it is not like lawful good PCs don't unlock front doors and loot chests.

[joe.c.boltoniii]

I wouldn't try Chaotic Evil until you play a few times through.

[The Call of CTulio]

I think that even a chaotic evil would be afraid of those who hold and have more power than him, run a killing a spree would not be very realistic

[Citronvand]

Currently playing a Lawful Evil character. While the evil characters are great, both their personality and power, I can't say the same for the quest/dialog interactions. Usually it's either a good (good as in altruistic/positive) choice and a stupid evil choice. I have to constantly go out of character to manage my reputation. Because actions that lower my reputation are generally more stupid than evil and I'm not roleplaying a stupid character :)

So it's either do the smart but good thing or the evil but stupid thing. Generally I go for the smart thing since I am a intelligent and lawful wizard. But that means my reputation goes up and technically, I'm playing as a good character would. I have to rationalize in my head to "remain evil". But in Baldur's gate reputation is both karma and reputation, so high reputation in the game means I have high karma which means my evil party members get pissed at me and will even leave if it goes too far. So I have to do something stupid evil, totally out of character for me, like, kill an innocent for no good reason just to lower my reputation.

Let me just say how incredibly stupid that system is. Why the hell would an evil character not want fame and fortune ie: high reputation? No, it is much better to be chased by guards and potentially killed /sarcasm. No, reputation and karma should be seperate, so high karma would make evil party members leave and complain while high reputation would not.

Also add to the fact that good characters recieve better rewards/xp than evil character because reasons.

Some quotes from the forums I agree with:

While there are some great and colorful evil characters, you really have to force yourself to do evil or 'stupid' decisions to keep your reputation low. I enjoy playing with the Evil Characters but i couldn't play an evil run based on reputation, makes little to no sense and feels incredible forced.

- The FedEx style, 'help the helpless' routine throughout the game doesn't fit with an evil aligned party at all. There are almost no specifically design quests for evildoers.
- There are many, many quests that offer lower XP or *no* XP if you choose the 'evil' option.
- Dialogue trees are designed so that you won't get quests at all if you play too closely to an evil alignment.
- Shop prices: Discounts if you're good, markups if you're evil. This starts to make a huge difference if you're looking to buy items that cost over 10k gold baseline.
- Powers: Nothing on the evil side matches DUHM.

You can play evil, sure, but it's harder and it gimps your party. People had a point with their complaints. The game is overwhelmingly lopsided in favor of good aligned parties.

...the game penalizes you in a fundamental way for playing an 'evil' party.

All that XP adds up, and eventually it means a good party standing at the gates of Baldur's Gate is going to be a touch more powerful (and have better items, and more money) than one who went bad.

That's a design decision I'll never understand. In one encounter, the party is required to do the exact same thing -- fight off a mountain bear -- yet the good guys get more XP from the quest giver (and loot!) than the bad guys. Why? It makes no sense.

"Smart" evil is absolutely the way to go. The day when Vaudevillian Evil with the whole mustash twisting Baddie is more comical than actually EVIL. However, the execution in the BG series is something very different.

If you don't keep your reputation down, your "Evil" companions may leave you, or at least make nasty comments about your performance and path. If you choose the "False" goodie path enough times, the sickeningly sweet attitude of altruistic self sacrifice, you aren't playing "Evil". You are playing a good character but with an evil alignment.

And this is by design. As stated before, Hasbro wanted the game to be family and kid friendly. So, even though they put Evil choices in, they made sure that they were 'Stupid' evil, basically being a ♥♥♥♥ rather than being evil. They cut down the number of Evil choices. The reduced or eliminated the XP reward associated for most of the quests for the 'Evil' path. They jacked up the costs of things the more you play EVIL. And they made most of the 'Good' path intentionally Disney 'good'.

Lawful Evil: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LawfulEvil
Stupid Evil: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StupidEvil
Smart Evil imo: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PragmaticVillainy