Failing a quest for being...good?

[BenSt88]

I'm talking about Bokken's "An Ancient Formula". It doesn't help that I'm playing a paladin, and IRL would never experiment on an animal, but did the developers really not leave you a way out of this quest failing for being principled (and not lying as an alternative, which would be a CN choice for me)? A bit of a shock, really.

[Dixon Sider]

You are upset that being good means you fail evil quests? On the flip side... Should your alignment and choices not matter? There are games out there for both type of gamer. This is a game where choices and stances have consequences.

[Tuidjy]

There are other quests that you will fail if you want to stick to good behavior, just as there are quests you will fail if you stick to lawful behavior.

It is the way I think things should be.

If you want a chaotic evil person on your side, and if you want to profit from their abilities, you may have to do some objectionable stuff.

With Bokken, my character got through his quest by deception. Later in the game, I just had to fail some quests, because my paladin would have never stomached what it took to complete them. In one case, I was asked to kill an inquisitor of my own Deity, so that the patriarch of an not-quite-annihilated gang of murderers could forge weaponry for me. Nope.

[BenSt88]

@ Dixon, I didn't say I was upset, just shocked (a little). It's an unusual design choice I think, but I don't disagree that alignments and choices should matter. Also, up to that point, why would anyone assume it was an "evil" quest? He didn't present himself earlier as overtly evil--like, say, Bartholomew did--so I was happy to try and advance his questline. Not just b/c quest = xp, which is meta, but b/c he's an artisan I'm trying to cultivate.

@ Tuidjy, looks like I have some future quest-failing to come, then. Ah well, forewarned is forearmed.

Thanks.

[jsaving]

Wait until you get to the artisan quests.

[jamennej]

Originally posted by jsaving:

Wait until you get to the artisan quests.

That *is* an artisan quest. Bokken is the introduction artisan that you get first to teach you what it is about ;)

[Kurosu]

If you go 100% with your alligment some artisan quests will fail. Bokken is one of them as you have seen. Another quest will fail unless you kill a fellow paladin. On the other hand on another you will need to arrest or kill a specific thief. If you ally with him instead = lose the artisan.
If you want to get all the artisan you might need to sacrifise a bit of your roleplay in their quests. You will need to decide which of the 2 is most important to you. I generally favor roleplay>anything else but I should also say that some of the artisan items are EXTREMELLY strong. And boken's masterpiece is one of them.

[BenSt88]

I'm willing to fail artisan quests to keep the paladin ethos. As I'll be re-playing this game many times, I'll wait for a less ethically rigid PC to try and get all the artisan quests resolved successfully. Thanks for the heads up for this run through; now I won't get all worked up when I fail...

[Kurosu]

Just a friendly tip : make you play your character and not the alligment. Sometimes I picked LN or NG when I was a paladin, and in some rare cases a fe LE or CN.

[CHAO$$$]

I dont see anything wrong with it honestly.

Experimenting on living animals is a common thing in real life. It has real life value and is arguably preferable to experimenting on humans.

If you dont allow people to experiment on animals, all progress gained from experimenting on animals is lost. I think thats really fair.

All hail bartholomew and his troll research. Unfortunate the game tries to sell the lad as a sadist. For science!

The game respects your choice of being a "good" person and lets you deal with the consequences.

[BenSt88]

Originally posted by Kurosu:

Just a friendly tip : make you play your character and not the alligment. Sometimes I picked LN or NG when I was a paladin, and in some rare cases a fe LE or CN.

Well, sometimes you have to pick something other than LG, b/c it's not always an option. So I have picked LN and NG. Maybe once even CG. But the rest I try to avoid, at least for this playthrough. It's funny, I avoided playing paladins in many iterations of D&D b/c I didn't want to be bound by that strict LG ethos, but now that I'm playing one, I don't mind trying to stick w/ it the best I can, and living w/ the consequences. Again, I'll have other characters in future games to make different choices.

[BenSt88]

Originally posted by CHAO$$$:

All hail bartholomew and his troll research. Unfortunate the game tries to sell the lad as a sadist. For science!

The game respects your choice of being a "good" person and lets you deal with the consequences.

Here's another example of how I failed, in a way. I gave him the whip but he didn't become an advisor or even NPC in my capital. Maybe b/c early on I took an anti-cruelty stance re: Dimwit (I had Octavia in the party egging me on to do that, I think). I save-scummed to see different choices available after giving him the whip, but nothing helped (and some led to a fight). Again, live and learn (for future playthroughs).

[thorsson64]

I went for the kinky sex option myself.

[BenSt88]

Another failed Artisan quest, w/ Varrask. I had LG choices...and CE. So, for a paladin, no real choice. Again, not complaining, but noted for future runs w/ new characters.

[jsaving]

Well, at least you didn't pretend helping him was anything but CE. It's a big sacrifice though!

[BenSt88]

Just out of curiosity, for future runs, will I fail artisan quests for strictly being any different alignment than LG? Like, Neutral, or X Evil? Or is it only the strict adherence to LG that sets you up to fail for these quests?