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How do you play evil in Baldur's Gate 2?


Zeckul

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It's a well-known fact that Baldur's Gate 2 heavily favors good actions over evil ones; evil alternatives to quests, when they exist, often mean tons of lost experience if not good items. For instance, in the Copper Coronet, if you kill Hendak for Lethinan, the Beastmaster won't appear afterwards, robbing you of the Tuigan Bow (3 shots per round), plus you lose the chance the complete the Slavers quest, about 36K XP per character, although you can still go there kill everyone if you're so inclined.

 

So how do you play evil in Baldur's Gate 2? Do you take the evil alternatives even when they're clearly inferior? How do you handle romances? What arbitrary acts of evil (murdering, thieving etc) do you commit while staying in the bounds of acceptable reputation? What does it mean to be evil to you and how do you rationalize your actions?

 

I'm curious to get everyone's opinions as I'm in the early stages of an evil LP of BG2, and I usually play this game with good characters.

 

By the way, I asked the same question at the BG:EE forums, but I also wanted to get input from this community.

Edited by Zeckul
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Poisoning the druid grove was fun :shifty:

 

I never did the xp math, just played it for the sake of variety, siding with Bodhi, leading Anomen down the path of damnation etc.

“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice.” - Albert Einstein
 

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I never persistently tried for an evil character, for some reason it never really appealed to me.

 

Random massacre due to miscasting dangerous spells, on the other hand....

 

My BG2 character was probably the most bipolar one ever.

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RPing isn't about reward economy, it's about doing what the character would. If you know ahead of time that the vile path you're making your character take will result in an invincible goddess of judgement appearing at the end to send you to 100 hells of eternal torment, RPing is staying on that path of evil, because that's who the character is.

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  • 2 years later...

Do what I do. Play the game as a good guy until right before you fight irenicus. Then go to every city and kill EVERYBODY. Careful though. Amnish soldiers will spawn endlessly until the game crashes. Then in throne of bhaal, do the same. Be a good guy, then at the last minute kill everyone. As i say " Bhaal thinks he's the lord of murder? Screw Bhaal, I'm the lord of murder."

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There's a component in the mod aTweaks called "Unbiased Rewards" that levels the playing field somewhat for a few particular quests for evil paths. I've always felt the game was too lenient in giving out huge XP rewards - if you do the majority of the game's content - so I currently play with a to-75% creature and quest XP reduction in a very vanilla mod install.

Edited by Bartimaeus
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How I have existed fills me with horror. For I have failed in everything - spelling, arithmetic, riding, tennis, golf; dancing, singing, acting; wife, mistress, whore, friend. Even cooking. And I do not excuse myself with the usual escape of 'not trying'. I tried with all my heart.

In my dreams, I am not crippled. In my dreams, I dance.

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