2nd playthrough 'evil but not always' consequences

[ahsanford]

Need some 2nd playthrough advice.

First playthrough was a pretty much by the book good guy.

2nd playthrough I've sacked the grove, sided with Minthara, etc. and I'm just starting the Act 2 start in the shadow curse area. Did everything in Act I including Underdark / Forge / Creche.

The goal of the playthrough isn't 'Now I'm a CE murder hobo'. It's more about simply making different decisions than my last playthrough. So I'm not married to being evil so much as seeing what is behind door #2 vs. my first playthrough.

I think it's pretty well established that the 'all evil all day' playthrough lacks depth and closes a lot of companion/quest doors. So I am trying to get a unique 2nd playthrough of Acts 2 and 3 -- making many alternate decisions than my first -- without just murder-hoboing everything and whittling down the all the companions and quests I might do.

So:

1) What are the hard triggers that box out Minthara and Jaheira from both eventually being companions? Sacking Last Light = surely Jaheira's out, but what about:

Siding with Last Light and then losing Isobel?
What about killing the Nightsong?
Anyway to see out Shad's dark justiciar line and keep Jaheira in the mix? It is 100% one or the other?

2) How far do I have to play out Minthara's original vision of running to Moonrise and what follows (which I haven't done yet) vs. possibly tossing my lot in with the Last Light folks? Short of sacking the place or helping take Isobel is there any point of no return where Last Light goes hard non-negotiable hostile?

3) Kinda eager to get Minthara in the party and see how she acts with the rest of the companions. Is she only at end of Act 2, or can I actually get her sooner?

Thx,
A

[Silyon]

1.) My evil Durge playthrough managed to get Jaheria after killing Isobel and framing Markus for it after he flies off with her body, then swiftly changing topic to dealing with the shadow-zombies with a persuade check when she confronted me. I was rather surprised, but she's hanging out in my Camp now and I'm curious to see if she still becomes a full companion once I kill Kethric.

2.) To my knowledge, the only requirements to recruiting Minthara is that you side with her to kill the grove, then sleep with her during the party afterwards. If you don't sleep with her, she'll end up attacking you that night and you won't be able to talk her down. After that, she gives you the Harp and moves on to Moonrise ahead of you.

3.) Provided the set-up from Act 1 is done, you'll encounter her in the throne room the first time you visit moonrise. She'll be branded a traitor and sentanced to execution. After this event you can jailbreak her at any time, at which point she'll immediately join you.

[ahsanford]

Originally posted by Silyon:

1.) My evil Durge playthrough managed to get Jaheria after killing Isobel and framing Markus for it after he flies off with her body, then swiftly changing topic to dealing with the shadow-zombies with a persuade check when she confronted me. I was rather surprised, but she's hanging out in my Camp now and I'm curious to see if she still becomes a full companion once I kill Kethric.

2.) To my knowledge, the only requirements to recruiting Minthara is that you side with her to kill the grove, then sleep with her during the party afterwards. If you don't sleep with her, she'll end up attacking you that night and you won't be able to talk her down. After that, she gives you the Harp and moves on to Moonrise ahead of you.

3.) Provided the set-up from Act 1 is done, you'll encounter her in the throne room the first time you visit moonrise. She'll be branded a traitor and sentanced to execution. After this event you can jailbreak her at any time, at which point she'll immediately join you.

A+ thanks

Any thoughts on Kill Nightsong / Shad Dark Justiciar happening *and* keeping Jaheira alive / with the party? Are those mutually exclusive events?

- A

[Silyon]

Originally posted by ahsanford:

A+ thanks

Any thoughts on Kill Nightsong / Shad Dark Justiciar happening *and* keeping Jaheira alive / with the party? Are those mutually exclusive events?

- A

I can only presume at the moment, but I don't think Nightsong is tied to Jaheria in any way outside of the last light massacre. Jaheria's got the same kind of protection as Isobel gives you, so she won't fall to the shadow curse directly. But the rest of the Inn still turns, and there ain't no way a 200+ grandma elf's surviving that many zombies by herself. Presumibly when you're on your way back to Moonrise after killing Nightsong, you can stop by Last Light and find her body.

I've not played things out that way yet, so it's all conjecture. Am curious now though.

[ahsanford]

Originally posted by ahsanford:

Any thoughts on Kill Nightsong / Shad Dark Justiciar happening *and* keeping Jaheira alive / with the party? Are those mutually exclusive events?

Originally posted by Silyon:

Presumibly when you're on your way back to Moonrise after killing Nightsong, you can stop by Last Light and find her body.

So I'm going to read that as yes, they are mutually exclusive. I have to choose Dark Shad OR Jaheira. Can't do both, right?

- A

[talemore]

It's not easy to be good. You are killing people every time battle start. Ask the corpses who killed them.

Strangers came, started battle, killed me.

[GLsimtam]

Presumably you'll have to go to the inn and trigger Isobel fight first (and blame Marcus) before pursuing Nightsong. Some folks reported that Jaheira didn't join them, though there are also accounts of people killing the Nightsong and recruiting Jaheira. Not sure, maybe it has do to with the other big choice for evil route - but if you want to keep Shadowheart you won't side with Balthazar (you can try it out just to see what happens)

[ExcaliburV]

Originally posted by ahsanford:

So I'm going to read that as yes, they are mutually exclusive. I have to choose Dark Shad OR Jaheira. Can't do both, right?

- A

You absolutely can. You just have to kill Isobel yourself and sack last light, then pass the checks to convince Jaheira you didn't do it. Then she will go to your camp and be safe, in which you can have Shad kill the Nightsong when you get to the Gauntlet. Jaheira will be recruitable after you kill Ketheric, and Shad is a DJ

[ahsanford]

Originally posted by ExcaliburV:

You absolutely can. You just have to kill Isobel yourself and sack last light, then pass the checks to convince Jaheira you didn't do it. Then she will go to your camp and be safe, in which you can have Shad kill the Nightsong when you get to the Gauntlet. Jaheira will be recruitable after you kill Ketheric, and Shad is a DJ

Sneeeeeaky. I dig it.

I’ll be honest: I feel like taking the side of Minthara and committing to it is the deal that just keeps taking away from the total game experience.

Just Minthara for Wyll? Fair trade.

But no: Karlach, too. Horrible loss there.

And Halsin. Not a terrific character IMHO, but a vital narrator / plot bridge that gets you through the act I to act II transition — and that role is sorely lacking thus far on my second playthrough.

And (apparently) potentially Jaheira if you don’t tap dance very carefully.

I get the decisions have consequences — I adore the game for committing to that — but it just seems like the depth and richness of the game is lost if you make one key decision and kind of ride it out. With Minthara, I’m hard-pressed to think of a bigger decision in terms of the shadow of the consequences It creates.

With plot and potential endings for the game, they hit it out of the park with all the different things you might do. But it seems like companion allegiances are highly gated by some painfully binary calls. That seems against the spirit of how open-ended the game is.

- A

[ExcaliburV]

Originally posted by ahsanford:

Originally posted by ExcaliburV:

You absolutely can. You just have to kill Isobel yourself and sack last light, then pass the checks to convince Jaheira you didn't do it. Then she will go to your camp and be safe, in which you can have Shad kill the Nightsong when you get to the Gauntlet. Jaheira will be recruitable after you kill Ketheric, and Shad is a DJ

Sneeeeeaky. I dig it.

I’ll be honest: I feel like taking the side of Minthara and committing to it is the deal that just keeps taking away from the total game experience.

Just Minthara for Wyll? Fair trade.

But no: Karlach, too. Horrible loss there.

And Halsin. Not a terrific character IMHO, but a vital narrator / plot bridge that gets you through the act I to act II transition — and that role is sorely lacking thus far on my second playthrough.

And (apparently) potentially Jaheira if you don’t tap dance very carefully.

I get the decisions have consequences — I adore the game for committing to that — but it just seems like the depth and richness of the game is lost if you make one key decision and kind of ride it out. With Minthara, I’m hard-pressed to think of a bigger decision in terms of the shadow of the consequences It creates.

With plot and potential endings for the game, they hit it out of the park with all the different things you might do. But it seems like companion allegiances are highly gated by some painfully binary calls. That seems against the spirit of how open-ended the game is.

- A

I wouldn't call it tap dancing. Unless you bee-line for the gauntlet, you'll probably have to resolve the kidnapping at Last Light well before you encounter the Nightsong. It felt fairly natural for my evil character to help kidnap Isobel to shore up her deception of being loyal to the absolute, only to strike when the source of Ketheric's strength was in front of her. The only thing that seperates whether you get Jaheira or not in that series of events is a single dialogue check.

I do agree that getting Minthara requires you to lose a lot for very little in return, which puts a weird shadow over the playthrough. A lot of things feel kind of empty, and it's unfortunate that we don't get different NPCs to interact with to replace the ones we lose- companions and non-companions alike.

[Silyon]

Originally posted by ahsanford:

Originally posted by ExcaliburV:

You absolutely can. You just have to kill Isobel yourself and sack last light, then pass the checks to convince Jaheira you didn't do it. Then she will go to your camp and be safe, in which you can have Shad kill the Nightsong when you get to the Gauntlet. Jaheira will be recruitable after you kill Ketheric, and Shad is a DJ

Sneeeeeaky. I dig it.

I’ll be honest: I feel like taking the side of Minthara and committing to it is the deal that just keeps taking away from the total game experience.

Just Minthara for Wyll? Fair trade.

But no: Karlach, too. Horrible loss there.

And Halsin. Not a terrific character IMHO, but a vital narrator / plot bridge that gets you through the act I to act II transition — and that role is sorely lacking thus far on my second playthrough.

And (apparently) potentially Jaheira if you don’t tap dance very carefully.

I get the decisions have consequences — I adore the game for committing to that — but it just seems like the depth and richness of the game is lost if you make one key decision and kind of ride it out. With Minthara, I’m hard-pressed to think of a bigger decision in terms of the shadow of the consequences It creates.

With plot and potential endings for the game, they hit it out of the park with all the different things you might do. But it seems like companion allegiances are highly gated by some painfully binary calls. That seems against the spirit of how open-ended the game is.

- A

That right there is one of my bigger annoyances with doing an evil playthrough. You lose way too much by sacking the Grove for minimal return. It would absolutely be a lot of work, but there ought to be at bare minimum alternative characters for each one you give up by going that route.

Not for want of potential either. There's several goblins that could join in place of Karlach, like Salazza, He Who Was or one of the Orcs traveling to Moonrise with the Drider replacing Halsin, and more if we were to sit and think for a minute. Not like entirely new characters would need introduced, just deepen some existing ones a bit.

[ahsanford]

Originally posted by Silyon:

Not for want of potential either. There's several goblins that could join in place of Karlach, like Salazza, He Who Was or one of the Orcs traveling to Moonrise with the Drider replacing Halsin, and more if we were to sit and think for a minute. Not like entirely new characters would need introduced, just deepen some existing ones a bit.

+1 for Sazza and maybe 1 more neutral / nuanced character who is a bit more malleable alignment-wise.

I don't need a bloodthirsty gang of murderers. Keep in mind I'm not playing an explicitly evil playthrough. I just had two choices -- Grove or Goblins. (There's a way to skip both, yes, but it's dodging to plot to me.)

Then there's also a way to get Minthara but keep Karlach and Wyll (with or without mods), but it's placing two characters that were never intended to be a in party together -- so there will be no fun banter lines recorded I would guess.

I just need people that can see balance/tradeoffs in a decision. Shad was very well written -- independenly of her main plotline -- to respect the enemy's game, play out a seemingly bad hand and see where it goes, etc. whereas Wyll and Gale (both fine) were relatively one note about doing the right thing (and Karlach not terribly far off from that).

- A

[zeta]

It's just disappointing that after you did all the biddings for Ketheric, you'd still end up in jail with him being the boss and no difference in the story arc thereafter. so the question becomes why'd you do anything for him at all...

[zeta]

Originally posted by zeta:

It's just disappointing that after you did all the biddings for Ketheric, you'd still end up in jail with him being the boss and no difference in the story arc thereafter. so the question becomes why'd you do anything for him at all...

I mean by siding with the black hand of Bane, at least you can avoid one boss fight and some… not much but still seems like a fair if not great deal.

[ceetee_oh]

Originally posted by ahsanford:

Originally posted by Silyon:

Not for want of potential either. There's several goblins that could join in place of Karlach, like Salazza, He Who Was or one of the Orcs traveling to Moonrise with the Drider replacing Halsin, and more if we were to sit and think for a minute. Not like entirely new characters would need introduced, just deepen some existing ones a bit.

+1 for Sazza and maybe 1 more neutral / nuanced character who is a bit more malleable alignment-wise.

I don't need a bloodthirsty gang of murderers. Keep in mind I'm not playing an explicitly evil playthrough. I just had two choices -- Grove or Goblins. (There's a way to skip both, yes, but it's dodging to plot to me.)

Then there's also a way to get Minthara but keep Karlach and Wyll (with or without mods), but it's placing two characters that were never intended to be a in party together -- so there will be no fun banter lines recorded I would guess.

I just need people that can see balance/tradeoffs in a decision. Shad was very well written -- independenly of her main plotline -- to respect the enemy's game, play out a seemingly bad hand and see where it goes, etc. whereas Wyll and Gale (both fine) were relatively one note about doing the right thing (and Karlach not terribly far off from that).

- A

Glad you asked this question as I'm in second playthrough and have debated keeping Minthara at the Grove. Tav is Durge duergar (female, is that even canon? dunno), keeping Gale, Laezy and whoever fits at the time. If I drop Wyll, Karla, Halsin, only other 4th option would be Vamp Boy. Or keep a Shar-worshipping, Nightsong-killing Shadowheart. Hmm. Then have Gale blow up the world so I don't have to slog thru the full Act 3 before next playthrough. What is high-level Minthara like/worth?

[BioPhreak]

I did this just to see what changed in cut scenes but being an evil murder hobo and trying to kill every NPC. I did find a few NPCs that 'cheat' to survive.

Cheat i.e. in turn based mode they still act outside of it (not frozen movement, still act freely while other NPCs were frozen in place) if attacked will auto heal making it very difficult to kill them (pretty much need to do it all in one round and trying to coordinate attacks outside of turn based combat with the target moving about is difficult) and some even teleport if not killed in one quick go (i.e. remaining HP is 2 they don't heal just teleport away).

Sad somethings were programmed this way but I enjoyed the popup for killing Jaheria as a murder hobo.