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Reaction broken?


coaster

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Not sure if this is the correct place to post this, and apologies if this is a well known issue.

 

I have a rather odd situation...I'm playing as a chaotic evil F/M/C with very low charisma (3), the usual misanthrope I can identify with. I am in Candlekeep (Easytutu) doing the Fuller's bolts quest, and have found that if I kill someone (eg one of the sleeping folks upstairs in Winthrop's inn) my rep drops by 2 (from 8 to 6), but everyone starts being really nice to me - eg. Fuller gives me the magic dagger reward, Imoen/Winthrop's dialogue is more positive, etc. If I don't kill anyone - everyone is their usual rude selves.

 

In either scenario, the "reaction" stat on my character sheet remains at -8, which is a bit odd. A 3 CHA should give a reaction of -5 (from the manual); I've seen conflicting views on the effect of reputation on reaction, the manual says an 8 rep = no reaction adjustment, whereas Dudleyville reports 8 rep = -1 reaction adjustment. So the total reaction is either -5 or -6, neither of which match the figure of -8 on my sheet...

 

As a test I've rerun this with a totally different character (female halfling thief, albeit obviously also chaotic evil & CHA set to 3), and tried it on both Tutu and "proper" BG1 (the latter with zero mods installed). Same result.

 

Any ideas why this might be occurring? Is reaction broken at low combinations of CHA/reputation (eg could it be "wrapping round" to a high value)? Or is it just that everyone in Candlekeep has a soft spot for a crazy, obnoxious murderer?

 

Cheers in advance

 

coaster

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Kulyok

 

Thanks for the reply - I probably should have made it clearer but exactly the same thing happens in my (non-Tutu) BG1 install, fully patched & Baldurdashed, with no other mods. So it's not an (Easy)tutu issue. I've never seen it before but then I very rarely play such a low CHA character.

 

It would be helpful if someone could check the results with their own install to see if they can replicate it (it is pretty easy to do - start BG1 with a chaotic evil 3 CHA character, kill someone upstairs in Winthrop's inn, then see if Fuller gives you the dagger in his bolts quest).

 

cheers

 

coaster

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Hmm. Will try it myself when I get home from work.

 

If this is true, that this is an issue in vanilla BG1, I'll mention it in the BG1 Fixpack area, if you don't get to it first, though if it is a wrap-around issue, there won't be much that can be done to fix it.

 

Maybe your PC is just that scary. :thumbsup:

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I'm wondering if, like Berelinde has suggested if it is a wrap around issue with reaction modifiers. An extremely low charisma (negative reaction modfiers) plus an extremely low reputation might put the reaction into negative numbers which could wrap around to the other end of the spectrum.

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Confirmed, on EasyTutu and vanilla BG1. Looks like a wrap-around issue to me. Wish there was some kind of CLUAConsole code I could type in to check my reaction rolls.

 

I'll shoot a link over to the BG1 Fixpack, but I don't know if there's much that can be done about it.

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That doesn't seem good. Based on reputation alone, it should be -2 for rep 6, and -5 for cha 3, but coaster says that his stats sheet shows a -8. I can't recall if there is some sort of random function there as well, and these modifiers are just tagged on. If it is so easily encountered, then I'm surprised this hasn't come up before.

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We both know that the BG Manual is far from infallible.

 

I believe there might be a random function thingy going on. However, the preceeding sentence has demonstrated my familiarity with game mechanics, so I think it might be cool to let the BG Fixpack guys get a load of it. And, my friend Caedwyr, that would be you (among others.)

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Thanks for checking, glad it's not just my computer just weird.

 

Dudleyville has a short discussion about reaction here:

 

http://www.dudleyville.com/bg1/miscellany.htm

 

The documentation w.r.t. the correct values for reaction modifiers is indeed a mess. We have:

 

BG1 manual: CHA 3 gives a -5 reaction modifier

TotSC manual: CHA 3 gives a -8 reaction modifier (the readme explicitly states that the previous values were a misprint) - this figure is also the one which tallies with my character sheet in the game, so seems to be the correct one

BG2 manual: goes back to the original (presumably incorrect) CHA 3 = -5 reaction modifier

 

And Dudleyville states that the reputation reaction modifier table in the manual is also incorrect. eg, for a 6 reputation:

 

BG1 manual: 6 rep gives -2 reaction

TotSC manual: as above

Dudleyville: 6 rep gives -3 reaction

BG2 manual: 6 rep gives -2 reaction

 

The mechanics of an encounter reaction also seem confused. At one point the manual says 2 10 sided die are rolled; but then says (which Dudleyville concurs with) that the random number thus generated is between 8 and 12, with reaction modifiers subsequently applied. This sounded a bit weird to me...I haven't got my maths head on, but can "two 10 sided die" actually deliver values which have to be between 8 and 12? What numbers are on the dice faces? Finally, Dudleyville says that "Although the manual talks about random numbers, I have a theory that the number is actually 10." - which would make the whole dice-throwing discussion irrelevant anyway!

 

One final comment to add to this dog's breakfast - your character sheet has both a "reaction adjustment" statistic and a "reaction" statistic. "Reaction adjustment" varies with DEX and is always the same value as the missile attack adjustment. I have no idea what it is supposed to be measuring. "Reaction" is the statistic which varies with CHA, and so is the one discussed above.

 

If the BG1 fixpack folk can make head or tail of all this, they deserve a medal :thumbsup:

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Yes, there are two reaction attributes in the character sheet; the second is missile reaction, and I'm not aware that anybody knows what it is.

 

Reaction could be random, but it's assumed that the bonuses are simply applied to a base value of 10 (your reaction never noticeably changes until something causes the bonuses to change, so it's likely that the base value is static).

 

I believe that the tables are filled correctly (they go from 1 to 25 Charisma and 1 to 20 Reputation), in which case, this is almost certainly a hardcoded bug, so there won't be much anyone can do. Except that it'll work fine in GemRB, I'm sure. ;)

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