Let’s ki- I mean, change! Throne of Bhaal

[kijikun]

I think half the issues are that players were expected to play a certain way  which is why despite almost everyone hating him - Abdel Adrian is still presented everywhere as 'the' Bhaalspawn.  Bioware is only SLIGHTLY better theses days at not assuming everyone is playing default human Mchuman man.  My biggest want from a rewritten or gutted ToB would be for the players actions do actually mean something, I really hate all the 'oh no you might have fought to save this city and won but everyone died anyways!'. Let me save everyone. Let me have the damn wish fulfillment. (see also why DA2 is the only gave to make me throw down my controller and refuse to finish).

[subtledoctor]

Hard agree on the defeat of Irenicus being the ideal climax to the game. ToB has fun fights where you get to go nova on peeps... but that's all it is, a series of fun fights, with you being teleported one to the other. In its way it is not very different from the Black Pits. There is a plot, but honestly not much actually happens in the plot. I mean, Black Pits has a plot too, even though it is a series of cage matches, and it's not half bad!

7 hours ago, moggadeet said:

Someone on reddit pointed out that ToB is essentially an evil campaign, in that you spend most of it killing people and then retreating to your inaccessible villain-lair, and I haven't been able to get that thought out of my head since.

Totally. As I said, Charname loses all agency and just become a bullet (er, arrow?) that is repeatedly aimed at people Melissan wants to assassinate. This aspect of it is super lame.

7 hours ago, moggadeet said:

BG1 is about figuring about who you are, about being shaped into your antagonist's foil. Ironically, Sarevok's hired killers help to shape Charname into someone capable of defeating him. SoD is about learning to deal with the consequences of that knowledge. SoA is about learning that you really, really didn't know what it meant to be a child of Bhaal, and if you can't control yourself, someone else is going to take advantage of you. So, to me, ToB should be about using that self-mastery and pitting yourself against your equals - without just doing Melissan's dirty work for her.

I love this take. This, and I don't like the Highlander thing, as I said. Problem is, without the Highlander thing, the entire point of Melissan kind of disappears. That's why when I first thought about removing the Highlander thing, it naturally led me to trying to remove Melissan herself. And then I faced the question of what ToB is without Melissan.

7 hours ago, moggadeet said:

I also like the idea of expanding the scene with Gorion and Alianna's spirits - Alianna fascinates me, and limiting her to a single cutscene was disappointing. She'd want to ensure Bhaal's resurrection

If anything, Melissan or a stand-in would make more sense if they wanted to actually bring Bhaal back, rather than seize his power for themselves. Again, rather than rehashing the Irenicus plot, bring it around full-circle - instead of being about the Bhaalspawn, make it about Bhaal. We've seen his cultists around, in SoD, obviously there are a lot of people who are not happy about his demise and don't necessarily accept it. (Easy enough for a mod to sprinkle more of this into the SoA campaign.) The premise of Alaundo's prophecy is that Bhaal planted seeds to resurrect himself - that is the danger inherent in Charname's lineage. Moreover, from 5E canon we know that this is exactly what happens! Not right away, but basically all attempts to prevent his return ultimately fail. So the best way to handle an epic-level epilogue to BG2 would be to embrace that inevitability. Sure, it should involve chaos and violence - warlords and armies and monsters etc. - but it should ultimately be a tragic ending. Charname's agency should be subverted, not suppressed. As you put down the warlords and "win" the game, you should in fact be laying the groundwork for Bhaal's return. The Melissan/Alianna figure should be manipulating things from behind the scenes and stay behind the scenes.

Ideally that could look like a Battle of Five Armies situation where all these big players and their armed forces converge on Boareskyr Bridge itself (hey, we have an .ARE file to use now!) in hopes of gathering and using the remnants of Bhaal's power. But then Charname "saves the day" by putting them down, while the Bhaalist agent is secretly gathering the remnants of their power and diverting it to the Throne. Something like that.

Problem is, that moves a lot of the fighting away from the warlords' bases, which means a lot of existing ToB content ends up on the cutting room floor, and a lot of brand new ToB content needs to be made. A very good, but very high-effort, solution.

3 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I have thus traditionally considered the fight against Irenicus to be the end of the game, ... I don't really know what, if anything, I'd want to 'save' from ToB and put into SoA...there's probably something, but I'm hard-pressed to immediately name what.

Right, the genesis of this thread was my realization that I agree with you on this. And so, after considering all of the high-effort solutions described above, my mind turned to potential low-effort solutions. And if you simply unmoor the ToB content from the ToB plot, then you get the skeletons of several potential decent side-quests. Like, the siege of Saradush, taken on its own, could be a BG2 side-quest. Need to give it some background untethered to the Bhaalspawn drama, and tweak it here and there, but at the end of the day it is basically 80% of a quest mod, already done. if you see what I have already created - adding the Black Pits to BG1, sticking three levels of Dragon's Eye underneath D'Arnise Keep, and plopping the Eye of the Seldarine into the Forest of Tethir - you can see that sort of thing is a draw for me.

It's not like other quest mods have anything to do with the Bhaalspawn. So here is a way to get a quest mod added to BG2, for no reason other than people like to add quest mods to BG2... and you could get it done with about 20% of the effort of Fishing for Trouble or Colours of Infinity etc. Amkethran could be another standalone quest - just need to contrive a story for why Charname needs to see Balthazar and Balthazar does not want to see anyone. Abazigal's fortress could be yet another standalone thing - maybe he is stealing silver dragon eggs and using them to create evil dragon-human hybrids that explode whan you kill them ande - okay, maybe something else. but you see the point: if Watcher's Keep works on its own as an addition to BG2, then any of these other locales could be adapted to serve a similar function.

Alternatively... now I have stuck in my head the idea of yoinking the ToB encounters out of the Bhaalspawn plot and maybe adding some other maps, and after defeating Irenicus have Charname and his companions go tumbling to the outer planes. And set up a string of episodes where you try to find your friends and try to find your way home, but in the end you get Sam Beckett'ed...

Edited October 29, 2023 by subtledoctor

[ptifab]

Frankly, I love all those ideas ! And when reading your thoughts, I had the same ideas of breaking all TOB content into single areas. It's true that I was also very disappointed by the endgame content, and I agree that SOD brings a lot of stuff wich can be based to change and improve all of that.

I'm excited to see where this is going ! 

 

[cccow]

Just reading through...and I was a bit unclear when it was indicated that there was not in BG1 stuff that indicated the last one standing element for the various spawn. Not that it matters in terms of creating an alternative if people want... However I have played the game far less than most people here so perhaps I am not aware of other stuff...

- In the original starting video Sarevok proclaims he will be the last...

- The letter in Candlekeep library states (though I suppose it doesn't literally say all but one must die...)

"During the days of the Avatars, the Lord of Murder will spawn a score of mortal progeny. These offspring will be aligned good and evil, but chaos will flow through them all. When the Beast's bastard children come of age, they will bring havoc to the lands of the Sword Coast. One of these children must rise above the rest and claim their father's legacy. This inheritor will shape the history of the Sword Coast for centuries to come."

[Mantis]

I really like the notion of folding ToB into BG2 and tying it to the return of Bhaal. Even after noreloading the trilogy a few times I find ToB to be a real slog storywise, and high level gameplay is not especially interesting. Giving more options for the player is always good, for example some of the alternative content could be used to give an alternative route to the Sahuagin City if the player goes through the portal instead.

[Daulmakan]

On 10/29/2023 at 12:08 AM, subtledoctor said:

If anything, Melissan or a stand-in would make more sense if they wanted to actually bring Bhaal back, rather than seize his power for themselves. Again, rather than rehashing the Irenicus plot, bring it around full-circle - instead of being about the Bhaalspawn, make it about Bhaal. We've seen his cultists around, in SoD, obviously there are a lot of people who are not happy about his demise and don't necessarily accept it. (Easy enough for a mod to sprinkle more of this into the SoA campaign.) The premise of Alaundo's prophecy is that Bhaal planted seeds to resurrect himself - that is the danger inherent in Charname's lineage.

I always thought that was a commentary on the nature of evil-worshipping and crooked portfolios. The very base nature that gives you power is also your downfall when you're weakest.

Amelyssan was Bhaal's greatest follower, and thus should've been the most loyal; she harbored his avatar during the time of troubles, but betrayed him anyway. 

 

Of course, even if that was as intended, it made for a poor plot being lead through the nose when you were at your most powerful during the entire expansion.

[Grammarsalad]

I don't know how far along this idea is, but just putting it out there that it is possible to change starting areas. A few years ago, I had it in my dumb brain that I was going to recreate the Queen of Krynn series of games in the infinity engine. Anyways, you can absolutely change your starting location without completely breaking everything. I had the main character start in (I believe it was) Beregost rather than Candlekeep in bgee. So, I think you could totally "keep" TOB, but tell a different story with it (that would have been my Dark Queen of Krynn game, lol)

Edited November 27, 2023 by Grammarsalad

[subtledoctor]

11 hours ago, Grammarsalad said:

I think you could totally "keep" TOB, but tell a different story with it (that would have been my Dark Queen of Krynn game, lol)

Always thinking about how to minimize time and effort to get something done, this is 100% my idea. Having already experimented on this by injecting Black Pits maps into BGEE and sections of IWD into BG2EE, the idea is basically: change up some scripts, dialogues, journal entries, and map entrance/exit points to keep the content but tell a different story with it. 

What that story would be, is a good question. I have two ideas: 1) figure SoA already has a fantastic story, so shift the ToB content forward and keep the Tree of Life/hell battle as the finale; or 2) something much more wide-ranging and weird, which people probably would not like. 

[Grammarsalad]

11 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

Always thinking about how to minimize time and effort to get something done, this is 100% my idea. Having already experimented on this by injecting Black Pits maps into BGEE and sections of IWD into BG2EE, the idea is basically: change up some scripts, dialogues, journal entries, and map entrance/exit points to keep the content but tell a different story with it. 

What that story would be, is a good question. I have two ideas: 1) figure SoA already has a fantastic story, so shift the ToB content forward and keep the Tree of Life/hell battle as the finale; or 2) something much more wide-ranging and weird, which people probably would not like. 

Yeah, 1 seems like the better idea, imo. And hey, you can do 1, and when you get more confident with it, you can try 2(?)

And yeah, Irenicus is one of my all time favorite villains. He really deserves to be the final big bad, imo.

 

Amy should have a side quest at most. 

[Grammarsalad]

Oh, but I feel like you should find a way to get grom in there somehow. That would be good fun

[subtledoctor]

7 hours ago, Grammarsalad said:

Amy should have a side quest at most. 

Oh, but I feel like you should find a way to get grom in there somehow. That would be good fun

Oh my god, shunt Amy off to some kind of slapstick comedy sidequest? She thinks she is going to become a god and really she is just in a sad grudge-match against Gromnir, or something. Like, replace the sahuagin king and prince with Amy and Gromnir. Or something with a similar tone. If done right it could be hilarious.

[Grammarsalad]

15 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

Oh my god, shunt Amy off to some kind of slapstick comedy sidequest? She thinks she is going to become a god and really she is just in a sad grudge-match against Gromnir, or something. Like, replace the sahuagin king and prince with Amy and Gromnir. Or something with a similar tone. If done right it could be hilarious.

Lol, yup

[Guest the_sextein]

Off the top of my head.  You could make it so that Melissan is part of a sect of priests that have hidden themselves deep in some mountain.  Maybe they plan on waiting for the 5 armies to clash in a particular area that was prophesized and all of Bhaals priests and priestesses would cast a mega summoning together at the focus of mass deaths and literally resurrect bhaal's spirit from hell and form all of the dead bhaal flesh and blood from the battlefield into a new container or body for his spirit and create a new god of murder in that way.  You could even make it so that Melissan straight up tells you what she is and try's to convince you to work for her in Killing other powerful bhallspawn.  If you tell her yes then you go on a series of assassinations while the most powerful remaining 5 slowly merge onto the battlefield.  If you tell her to go pound sand then maybe she starts convincing other bhaalspawn to kill you and you have to go on the offensive. At some point you find out what they are planning and you would be forced to try and stop them somehow. Either trying to convince the armies of the 5 to stand down and possibly failing at that, team up with the armies of the 5 and try to stop the priests who have decided that they would gather you all in this way and slaughter you all in this location one way or another.  They would be constantly scheming to play brother against brother and army against army until the 5 most powerful armies are left where they would lure them to slaughter each other or lure them to that location and slaughter all of them themselves.  The armies themselves would be made up of bhaalspawn that powerful bhaalspawn gathered together in order to protect themselves.  You could even leave posters and gossip around cities that Balthazar or whoever is calling for bhaalspawn that wish to gather for safety in numbers throughout the series of games leading up to the formation of the 5 armies.

The battle of the 5 armies could simply be a backdrop that occurs and melissan could just be one of many priests trying to bring back their dead god.  The goal would then be to stop the priests from leading the armies of the 5 to war or interrupt their summoning plans while the war is waging.  I think a boss fight against bhaal would be a bit silly but  with a story like this you could get creative with all kinds of missions, locations, mass battles, and avoid "the big bad villan " trope and the "I'm the chosen one" cliche.  You could even  infiltrate the priests by playing friendly with melissan and then double cross them and let Cyric in on some plans and team up with him lol.  Maybe you could team up other power players like the coweled wizards and the amnian guard to form your own army.

[Guest the_sextein]

It could be possible that Irenicus was wrong and your soul isn't actually divine.  It's your flesh and blood relation to the mortal god of murder that makes you important for the resurrection of bhaal.  They just need a bunch of flesh and blood to form a new body that bhaal's soul can sync with. Maybe they just need alot of it to form a powerful giant that can survive in mortal rhelm while he finds away to challenge the gods again.  Or maybe they just need a massive sacrifice of his flesh and blood to call the soul back through the mega gate spell they plan to cast together. 

Irenicus needed to ditch the curse on his own soul and the player characters worked well enough in that.  naturally your own body becomes more corrupt and evil without your soul to fight it's evil nature, hence the slayer transformation.  In this way your soul would be the light that fights the darkness of your body that is containing it.

[subtledoctor]

Just want to note that I haven’t given up on this. I have reluctantly let go of the idea of using ToB as a bridge toward suggesting that Charname might one day become TNO from PST. I think that idea was cool, in that a divine-touched, soulless Charname stuck on the outer planes could convincingly eventually become TNO. Which I would only hint at, giving a few adventures and inserting a resurrection that comes with an indelible  level drain effect, getting as I say, Sam Becketted, lost on the planes and ever further from home. A tragic ending. 

However I found a genius essay on Reddit arguing that in fact, NWN2/MotB is the prologue for TNO. And I was convinced that works much better. 

However, the core of that idea, of getting stuck in hell - literally in the afterlife - with no soul, and the core motivation of Charname to get home, still makes a ton of sense. And I have sketched out an idea that continues the adventure after the Tree of Life fight, and uses 85% of the existing ToB content, and stays consistent with Alaundo’s prophecy, but unmoors it (literally) from Tethyr and the Highlander nonsense. The only areas that don’t fit into the idea are Abazigal’s… dungeon, or whatever that is, and Sendai’s stronghold. And of course if you are no longer on Faerun it complicates the status of Watcher’s Keep, which would have to be done before Suldenesselar or else be reserved for the post-Tree of Life portion. 

The beginning of the idea is:

After Charname, mortal and soulless but god-touched, is dragged into hell by the death of a demigod in possession of your soul, then where are you? What are you? I don’t think we can take it for granted that you just magically get your soul back just because you beat Irenicus in combat. You have no machine like the one in Spellhold. So after that combat, you get spat out, alone and unarmed and yet-un-souled, in the wastes of Gehenna. Bereft of the protection of Bhaal’s realm, you are exposed to both evil creatures and the apocalyptic skies. Guided by a mysterious apparition that may be just evidence of fractured sanity, you head to a nearby settlement, which is in dire straits. From there you will have to figure out what happened to your friends, and how to get home. 

I don’t know if this will actually get made.  But that’s the idea; make your way home, through more challenging circumstances than you have ever faced. Or die trying…