Subrace mod

[ahungry]

Lore wise, it happened to Viconia (multiple times) and she has to travel hidden/cloaked/in the shadows - even Drizzt isn't parading around in cities.

I never did D&D other than 2nd edition, so I'm not really familiar with the whole, "no such thing as an evil race" that I've seen mentioned recently in discussions about 5E, but Drow are definitely and inherently evil - Drizzt is a plot-armored exception - it's literally his whole shtick - the "Good" Drow.

It would get annoying, hence why we rarely see Drow on the surface, except in raiding parties - I guess the problem with this RP based penalty in BG is there aren't any sewers with vendors/inns (like evils had in Everquest) or evil based cities - if your rep gets too low in BG, you'll just have a bad game experience.

[The Artisan]

42 minutes ago, ahungry said:

I never did D&D other than 2nd edition, so I'm not really familiar with the whole, "no such thing as an evil race" that I've seen mentioned recently in discussions about 5E, but Drow are definitely and inherently evil - Drizzt is a plot-armored exception - it's literally his whole shtick - the "Good" Drow.

Source? Drizzt isn't the only canonically non-evil drow out there. Zaknafein his father was a good drow. Liriel is a good drow. There's a whole religion centered around good drow converting others, which was the actual reason Eilistraee joined the Dark Seldarine to begin with. She was a goddess in 2e according to material too, so there's no retcon there either.

Several books detail how authoritarian drow culture is and how young drow go through a very lengthy series of indoctrination into becoming evil. There's nothing inherent or supernatural about it. It's fascism.

Edit: and to keep things on topic, if you don't get attacked by random civilians for having Viconia there is no reason in gameplay for it to happen to player characters. It's just annoying.

Edited February 26, 2022 by The Artisan

[ahungry]

16 hours ago, The Artisan said:

Source? Drizzt isn't the only canonically non-evil drow out there. Zaknafein his father was a good drow. Liriel is a good drow. There's a whole religion centered around good drow converting others, which was the actual reason Eilistraee joined the Dark Seldarine to begin with. She was a goddess in 2e according to material too, so there's no retcon there either.

Several books detail how authoritarian drow culture is and how young drow go through a very lengthy series of indoctrination into becoming evil. There's nothing inherent or supernatural about it. It's fascism.

Edit: and to keep things on topic, if you don't get attacked by random civilians for having Viconia there is no reason in gameplay for it to happen to player characters. It's just annoying.

I'm no guru on the matter - just a yeoman who has played a lot of BG   (and read through some of the Drizzt books)

From Forgotten Realms wiki, they had this to say (note, I didn't read this previously, but it closely mirrors my suggestions):

Quote

Good Drow

 

Unlike creatures such as orcs,^[50] drow had no innate inclination towards evil, with their morality having been colored by their society.^[46][51] "Good drow" made up about 15% of the entire race, although most of them weren't actually of the good alignment, being merely chaotic neutral or lawful neutral. Within Lolthite societies, even drow with a disposition towards what was considered good generally had problems developing a strong personal sense of morality. They generally behaved the same way as evil drow due to social pressure, as being soft in any way was lethal in drow society and often resulted in the death of such drow.^[51]

Only truly exceptional "good drow", such as Drizzt Do'Urden, were capable of freeing themselves from a Lolthite society.^[51] The majority were found out and sacrificed to Lolth, and those who managed to leave their settlements would often die in the dangerous wilderness of the Underdark.^[52] Furthermore, even those who escaped the cruelties of the Underdark found it more difficult to form long-term friendships than most races did^[24] and had to constantly be on the lookout for pursuers who could kill them.^[53]

So, most "good" drow are actually of neutral alignments, and even then, make up ~15% or so, many of which end up found out/killed.

I especially enjoyed the closing line, mostly because it resembled my (poor game suggestion) "pursued/hunted" disadvantage.

[subtledoctor]

17 hours ago, ahungry said:

I never did D&D other than 2nd edition, so I'm not really familiar with the whole, "no such thing as an evil race" that I've seen mentioned recently in discussions about 5E,

I think you would might be disappointed. Now half-elves are the happy, respected products of joyous unions and are appreciated and loved by the communities on both sides of their parentage. Now, you have to actually have demon blood in order to be sullen and maladjusted and face suspicion and prejudice from strangers.

(Tanis Half-Elven would like a word with WotC...)

EDIT - on the topic of drow, I think the best interpretation, and consistent with 2E source material, is the drow are not necessarily inherently evil. But they are raised in a despotic culture where, like in some real-world dictatorships, the ruling elite use violence and control of information to rule the populace by fear, creating an environment where showing weakness can mean death (or worse) and being cruel is the surest way to survive. Drow were born into this environment and raised by parents operating within those constraints, and end up being cruel and evil more often than not... but that doesn't make them inherently evil. Even in such environments there will be some who have thoughts of living a better life, and of acting better toward those around them. And some will even act on those thoughts, at great peril, like those who decide to follow Eilistraee.

EDIT 2 - sorry, this has already been covered. Also I love that "unlike those scumbag orcs..." opening line there

Edited February 26, 2022 by subtledoctor

[kijikun]

I think the point is as we are getting very off topic is having random towns people attack you would be very annoying. Plus while  I can see maybe the flaming fist stopping you a bit more often on the roads, I don't think towns people are going to start throwing stones at ever dark skinned elf that comes through with an obvious adventuring party.  And probably all of it would be a bitch and a half to program for poor Tipun and I would say out side of this scope of a mod that just adds in subraces and their stats.                                         

[subtledoctor]

5 hours ago, kijikun said:

I think the point is as we are getting very off topic is having random towns people attack you would be very annoying.

Oh yeah of a course. That was a complete non-starter from the word go. I think the discussion was about the suggested requirement that Charname must be evil to choose that subrace.

Frankly this is all silly, I've yet to see anyone propose actually meaningful trade-offs. So many subrace mods are just justifications to make Charname 'moar powerfull!' My personal way to mod stat bonuses for races is +1/+1/-2/-1. Yes, that's a net negative compared to humans. But 1) it makes humans a reasonable choice, and 2) if you care about the stats where you get the +1 then it's still worth it. Elves can only get 16 CON, not 17, but if you want to make a 19 INT mage then you'll still choose elf.

Contrast with these aasimar or tieflings. You get a net boost to ability scores, and quite useful elemental resistances for ~100+ hours of gameplay, and the cost is... an XP penalty you literally cannot notice. I just fought Irenicus at the end of SoA, and my Charname has over 4,000,000 XP. And that is with a mod that reduces all combat XP in the game by 50%. I still had over 4 million. So here, I could have had higher stats, plus permanent elemental resistances, and the "downside" is that I would have only had 3,800,000 XP?  Or better, I could have had magic resistance for the whole frickin' game, and I would have 3,600,000.  I mean, what's the difference? I declined to resurrect Sirene after the Bodhi fight so I went and recruited Ajantis to replace her. He only had 2,000,000 XP - half of what Charname had. And you know what, he performed just fine. If someone is perfectly effective with only 50% of my XP, then is a 5% or 10% reduction going to be noticed? No.

I've said it before, but a mod for drow should make them 2E accurate and only give them MR when they are in the underdark. Just add something to the Underdark area script adding 50% MR to drow party members, and add something to the map where you meet Elhan removing it. It would be a cool little bonus, without being stupidly powerful all game. Also, give the light blindness thing some real teeth - say, -4 to hit/-2 to saves/+3 to casting speed in outdoors+daylight; -2 to hit/-1 to saves/+2 to casting speed indoors or outdoors+night. (I read something about how any amount of light can disintegrate drow weapons, unless they are in a lead-lined sealed container... why not apply the same rule to their vision and apply some penalties even at night and indoors?)

I know, there are supposed to be role-playing consequences for being a drow, or a planar. You think the conversations written in these games would be as they are if Charname was a drow? Or a tiefling? But no mod is going to rewrite all the NPC interactions to take that into account, and realistically this isn't a game where you role-play, it's all about combat. So make the trade-offs meaningfully about combat. Make them meaningfully equivalent. Have tieflings take 25% extra damage from blunt weapons. Give aasimar... I don't know, give anyone who is evil +2 to hit and damage against them. (People can't stand uppity jerks like aasimar... and even if this particular aaasimar isn't an uppity jerk, they will still seem like one because of the deva's blood running through their veins.)

Saying "choose this race and the whole game is on easy mode" is just... well, not my cup of tea.

OK, rant off, good night folks.

Edited February 27, 2022 by subtledoctor

[jastey]

2 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

But no mod is going to rewrite all the NPC interactions to take that into account

There was one (non-weidu) in the makes like 200 years ago. Its authors vanished before anything was released.

2 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

realistically this isn't a game where you role-play, it's all about combat. So make the trade-offs meaningfully about combat

For me that's a really really sad and harsh - but I guess true statement. I welcome everything that does not enforce the combat aspect myself.

2 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

give anyone who is evil +2 to hit and damage against them. (People can't stand uppity jerks like aasimar... and even if this particular aaasimar isn't an uppity jerk, they will still seem like one because of the deva's blood running through their veins.)

I sense Subtledoctor's Subrace Mod forming?

[subtledoctor]

5 hours ago, jastey said:

I sense Subtledoctor's Subrace Mod forming?

Ha ha, no. i have no interest playing BG as a drow who grew up in the sunny seaside resort town of Candlekeep. I've modded races to have -2 penalties instead of -1 penalties... that's enough for me.

5 hours ago, jastey said:

For me that's a really really sad and harsh

I mean, it's just the game that Bioware made.

Spoiler

It's more or less the best that anyone could do with computer games. Your basic D&D session was storming a dungeon and facing Bargle the evil wizard, right? Or whatever module you think of, Pools of Radiance, ToEE, etc. So that's what they coded as games. But in D&D role-playing is all about the freedom of deciding what to do. Maybe instead of attacking one zombie at a time you take your rope (you packed a rope, right?) and dip it in lantern oil (you packed a lantern right?) and created a makeshift wall of fire that attacks all the zombies at once. Maybe your bard pretends to be Bargle's long-lost nephew, and that's why you are making your way through the dungeon - not to attack him, but for a tearful reunion, after which you can take over the world together. I just saw a thread on the GitP forums about a player who, in a surprise move and not knowing what it was, ate a slaad tadpole. The role-play opportunities there are incredible! The player would fail a roll and burp uncontrollably, giving away the party after they cast Invisibility 10' Radius. Or insult a royal patron, or something. Hilarious hijinks. Another thread talked about a player casting unlimited Wish spells through a simulacrum, and boy what an opportunity to turn the simulacrum into a Real Boy and become a nemesis trying to take over the player's life, or something.

The Infinity Engine (or the Morrowind engine, or basically any computer game) cannot model that kind of D&D gameplay, because its nature is improvisational, and you can't code for that. One of the best examples is the Disintegrate Spell. BG2 does spellcasting better than any game before or since. But can you cast Disintegrate on a door? On a chest? On the base of a stalactite hanging above an enemy? No, it can only be used as one among many save-or-die spells against living creatures. (The best I can do as a modder is rename it to "Discorporate" and mention in the description that it only affects live or otherwise mobile enemies.) The much-vaunted D:OS2 lets you interact with the environment... but even there you can only do certain things that the devs specifically set up, achieving particular effects in particular circumstances in particular arenas. There is nothing improvisational about that, which is why the best effort at environmental interaction to date still leaves a bad aftertaste with players.

What we get is three possible dialogue responses in dialogues that last about a minute. "Romances" that lead to implicit sex, explicit declarations of love, and even babies being born, with the amount of interactions that you typically have in a third date. Even in PS:T, the best example of this ever made, the only real difference is having five or six dialogue responses instead of three. There's still no freedom to actually role-play. But on the other hand, these are still great games for what they are, and good writing and interactions and story is still valuable. I just finished SoA for the first time in years, and what is striking me is that from Spellhold through Suldenesselar through ToB, the game has turned into a simple series of set-piece battles. It might as well be IWD. What makes the mid-level game great is that you are doing all that combat in the course of quests. You talk to people and they have their own stories, it's not just "me hesitant Lord of Murder, everyone fight me for supremacy in orderly fashion, in the end there can only be one!"

So for me, mods that add people with good writing are great. More NPCs with distinct personalities bring the game alive. I have enjoyed seeing snippets of their personalities, and I have enjoyed party member interjections when they were in response to important things that happened, like difficult battles or events with relevance to the NPC. I have not particularly enjoyed interjections that are out of left field, or the romantic stuff that seems superficial and forced (like when Sirene said "I must confess, it seems that I have fallen in love with thee" and all I could think was "...why?"). I have not really enjoyed the conversations about coming to terms with my dark divine heritage; I want to to come across in the game through events - not though holding someone's hand as they process their tiny piece of my character's trauma.

Spoilered all that for being off-topic, sorry.

[kijikun]

See I always assume that if I'm playing a drow that they, well, pass for one of the surface elf races (ie like my icon, could pass as a grey elf) or is half drow half surface elf (and one of the shocks is that you are part drow, GASP) or idk under a long term illusion to look like a surface elf that gets stripped away by good ol' Jon in BG2.  But yeah it's pretty much an rp thing though I very much appreciate mods like this that let me play around with it.  I'm pretty sure my two fav romance mod elves would not be down so much for a drow lover (what would Xan find worse that your Bhalspawn or that you're any part drow). XD

[Jarno Mikkola]

11 minutes ago, kijikun said:

See I always assume that if I'm playing a drow that they, well, pass for one of the surface elf races

Yeah, no. Got to ask you, does this pass as a human:

"Yeah, no."

Edited February 27, 2022 by Jarno Mikkola

[kijikun]

3 hours ago, Jarno Mikkola said:

Yeah, no. Got to ask you, does this pass as a human:

"Yeah, no."

From the forrgotten realms wiki because I cannot be assed to get out my second ed books when your being an ass to me about my personal rp ideas in my own game - "Drow skin tones ranged from dark grey,^[29] jet-black,^[23] and obsidian,^[15] (with various shades of blue),^[9][25][24] the albino drow known as the Szarkai being an exception.^[23] Drow had white, black, or purple teeth, while their gums, tongues, and throats could be red, pink, or purple.^{[23]" "}Moon elf skin was pale, often with an icy blue hue. Moon elf hair was commonly black, blue, or silvery white, although human-like colors were heard of as well, though very rare." 

Also considering some of the debates about the drow, their skin color and real world prejudices do you not think maybe using a monkey for this is in really really fucking bad taste?

[CamDawg]

36 minutes ago, kijikun said:

Also considering some of the debates about the drow, their skin color and real world prejudices do you not think maybe using a monkey for this is in really really fucking bad taste?

Yes, seriously, what the fuck? If you don't know the history of this specific imagery w.r.t. racism, go educate yourself.

If you do know the history and posted it anyway, fuck off. Then keep fucking off until you hit a sign that says "no fucking off past this point", and then keep fucking off anyway.

[Jarno Mikkola]

The last time I read a book about the Forgotten Realms, the drow primary character was portrayed as darks skinned elf with white hair and teeth, not some non distinct colored elf that could easily be misidentified as anything else than a second class citizen, no wait a drow, as he escaped from a bad place, and while on surface, he was always looked with suspicion, by everyone else except his "found family".

PS; it's not just race that's being talked here, but other differencies as well. Religion, Sexuality, the high and mighty Social Class, to name just a few.

Now, that's more true to some than others, but I can try to empathize. I would say that that never happened to me, but I can say I was ¤&/&/ lucky that it didn't, but that was likely because where I live, and on the people that rule here, rather than what I ever did. And I can look other people with less of a suspicion because of it.
See, it's usually two way street.

Edited February 28, 2022 by Jarno Mikkola

[Endarire]

Guys and gals, let's have this discussion civilly in another thread.

@tipun, what do you say?

[subtledoctor]

Jarno, the problem is not with your beliefs about mythical blue-skinned fairies, but with your choice of imagery. Take that shit down, it is overtly racist at worst, and even if you are wholly ignorant and have the most angelic of intentions, it is still squicky as hell.