Commentary on alignment changes: LG

[CamDawg]

Quick recap. Based on the feedback, I'd suggest these changes to the original list:

 

arval.cre = High Mornmaster Arval - Lawful Evil

c6kalden.cre = Kalden - Lawful Neutral (unused, but classed as paladin)

c6levin.cre = Levin Rayn - Lawful Neutral (unused, but classed as paladin)

derrick.cre = Derrick - (unused, but a ranger) Lawful Neutral

c6squire.cre = Squire Cathras (Radiant Heart, assistant to Prelate Wesselan)- Lawful Neutral

chgood07.cre = Duke Eltan (1st Pocket Plane Challenge for evil ) - Lawful Neutral

elotte.cre = Squire Elotte (Radiant Heartist involved in Ranger Cabin Plot) - Lawful Neutral

These should be removed. The first batch are unused creature files, and in the second batch the original alignments fit. elotte is a Helmite per his dialogue and Duke Eltan was LN in BG.

 

hdragsil.cre = Dragon (Tear guardian in a hell trial) - Chaotic Evil

Another toss-up, depending on how you interpret the Pride challenge. I personally don't think the challenge makes sense if the dragon isn't what he seems to be (black dragons are normaly evil and in need of smiting) but there are valid arguments against this interpretation.

 

bharval.cre = High Mornmaster Arval (Temple of Lathlander)- Lawful Evil

Lathander is a NG deity, so I think it's a better fit here.

 

uhogre01.cre = Madulf (pacifist Ogre in the Umar Hills) - Neutral

Lot of debate about Madulf. Consensus seems to be for a good alignment at the least, either LG or NG.

 

jarev1.cre = Harper (Part of Reviane's Harper posse) - Chaotic Evil

Not much consistent feedback here except 'not evil'. Revianne the leader of this pack of harpers, is NG, but the other folks are all some variant of GE-neutral (TN, CN). I'd suggest CN for consistency with her original alignment and party.

 

chgood04.cre = Elven Warrior (1st Pocket Plane Challenge for evil ) - Lawful Neutral

chgood05.cre = Elven Warrior (1st Pocket Plane Challenge for evil ) - Lawful Neutral

Consensus points to good, though there's some good arguments for CG as opposed to LG based on 'default surface elf alignment'. Don't have much of an opinion myself; CG works as well as LG from my point of view.

 

garkid01.cre = Iltha (Garren Windspear's daughter) - Neutral

garkid02.cre = Taar (Garren Windspear's son) - Neutral

Some discussion here as well, staunchly divided between leaving them TN and changing them to LG.

 

balth.cre = Balthazar (normal version)- Lawful Neutral

c6bran.cre = Branet Al-Thon (Paladins of the Radiant Heart vs Bohdi) - Lawful Neutral

c6eric.cre = Eric Vanstraaten (Paladins of the Radiant Heart vs Bohdi)- Lawful Neutral

c6eric3.cre = Eric Vanstraaten (Paladins of the Radiant Heart vs Bohdi)- Lawful Neutral

c6nerit.cre = Nerit (Paladins of the Radiant Heart vs Bohdi) - Lawful Neutral

c6will.cre = William Reirrac (Paladins of the Radiant Heart vs Bohdi) - Lawful Neutral

cutbalth.cre = Balthazar (kidnaps Melissan in a cutscene)- Lawful Neutral

garren.cre = Garren Windspear (He lives in the Windspear Hills ) - NONE

pwauk2.cre = Haletlatess Jillian (halfling woman in temple district, priestess of Cyrrollalee, a LG halfling deity) - Neutral

sarmag01.cre = Errard (mage on walls in Saradush, involved in the Mateo desertion quest) - Lawful Evil

suelle.cre = Ellesime (tree of life Ellesime) - Neutral

suelle2.cre = Ellesime (post SoA finale Ellesime) - Neutral

suelleap.cre = Ellesime (another tree of life Ellesime) - Neutral

Still being changed to LG. pro5 is right--I've added balth.cre, the normal Balthazar, to match the cutscene one. (I suspect Kish has probably gotten so used to Ascension that he doesn't realize he's still LN in an unmodded game. )

 

OK, let's get this thread rolling again.

[Smoketest]

The pride demon spawns one of two dragons depending on whether you give in to your pride: HDRAGRED if you give in, HDRAGSIL if you don't. The red dragon (who has messed up CRE colors so he doesn't look red) will attack you on sight. The silver dragon (whose CRE colors may also be awry) will let you walk up and talk. If you talk to the silver, he'll give you a Tear. You could attack of course, if you're given to CE actions.

 

I may have edited my CREs to be consistent with their resource names; it's been a few years.

 

Note that the dragons don't live there; they are spawned by the demon (HELLPRID) and the silver will 'teleport' away once you have the Tear. Precedent for this is set in the selfishness test where a commoner will be summoned if you are soloing and have no other party members besides Charname. The demons clearly have the ability to bring in 'outside help', if only temporarily.

[devSin]

I think they both use the black dragon avatar in the default game. Unless we change the silver dragon to (appropriately) be a silver dragon, I don't think we should change the alignment.

 

Leaving Madulf and the kids neutral gets my vote. Unless we make other edits to it, I don't think we should bother patching cutscene Balthazar (there's 0 chance you could ever interact with it, so why waste the space).

[CamDawg]

Despite their names, hdragred and hdragsil are identical black dragons--hdragred appears if you give in to your pride. It's hostile by default, can not be spoken to, and has some goodies.

[Smoketest]

Ick, no wonder I modified them then. Do what you will, but they are remaining red and silver in my game.

[Gorilym]

hdragsil.cre = Dragon (Tear guardian in a hell trial) - Chaotic Evil

Another toss-up, depending on how you interpret the Pride challenge. I personally don't think the challenge makes sense if the dragon isn't what he seems to be (black dragons are normaly evil and in need of smiting) but there are valid arguments against this interpretation.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but won't leaving it CE mean that a paladin would fall as the result of killing an evil creature? If this is the case, then definitely change it - though seeing as it's not a "real" silver dragon, LG is not necessarily the best choice.

 

bharval.cre = High Mornmaster Arval (Temple of Lathlander)- Lawful Evil

Lathander is a NG deity, so I think it's a better fit here.

 

Agreed.

 

uhogre01.cre = Madulf (pacifist Ogre in the Umar Hills) - Neutral

Lot of debate about Madulf. Consensus seems to be for a good alignment at the least, either LG or NG.

 

LG IMHO, though I wouldn't exactly go to war if he is made NG instead. The way he selflessly protects that kid (in the ranger stronghold quest) seems especially representative of LG behaviour to me.

 

jarev1.cre = Harper (Part of Reviane's Harper posse) - Chaotic Evil

Not much consistent feedback here except 'not evil'. Revianne the leader of this pack of harpers, is NG, but the other folks are all some variant of GE-neutral (TN, CN). I'd suggest CN for consistency with her original alignment and party.

 

CN sounds good to me.

 

chgood04.cre = Elven Warrior (1st Pocket Plane Challenge for evil <CHARNAME>) - Lawful Neutral

chgood05.cre = Elven Warrior (1st Pocket Plane Challenge for evil <CHARNAME>) - Lawful Neutral

 

To me, the crucial point here is that while an actual argument can (and has been) made for them being CG, none has been made for them being LG AFAIK. So...

 

garkid01.cre = Iltha (Garren Windspear's daughter) - Neutral

garkid02.cre = Taar (Garren Windspear's son) - Neutral

 

The "paladin connection" here is strong enough to warrant LG for these two IMHO.

 

Unless we make other edits to it, I don't think we should bother patching cutscene Balthazar (there's 0 chance you could ever interact with it, so why waste the space).

 

Well, changing the cutscene Balthazar as well is good for internal consistency, and who knows, someone might make the cutscene interactive in the future, or reuse the creature. (OK, I admit that's farfetched) In any case, there are more marginal fixes currently in the fixpack than this one.

[Felinoid]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but won't leaving it CE mean that a paladin would fall as the result of killing an evil creature? If this is the case, then definitely change it - though seeing as it's not a "real" silver dragon, LG is not necessarily the best choice.

Okay, I will. As was said above, hdragsil only shows up if you say you're going to talk. The one you seem to want to change is hdragRED.

[Gorilym]

Okay, I will. As was said above, hdragsil only shows up if you say you're going to talk. The one you seem to want to change is hdragRED.

 

My bad, got them mixed up. No real need to change hdragsil then IMHO, and I think hdragred is fine the way it is. (though it would be more appropriate if it was an actual red dragon, but meh)

[CamDawg]

I was about to point out that answering the demon's questions to get hdragsil instead of hdragred doesn't decide the challenge (and hence hdragsil's alignment still matters)--but it does. The variable is set when it spawns hdragsil, meaning the PC could then attack the (hdragsil) dragon for the Tear without consequence. We my need to consider one more exploit fix here.

[Guest Truper]

Regarding Baalthazar, a statement from David Gaider sure does count as developer intent, but also counts as evidence that the developers were fallible. They may have envisioned Baalthazar as LG, but the story they wrote about him indicates otherwise.

[CamDawg]

For v2, this is going to shake out as follows:

 

arval.cre = High Mornmaster Arval - Lawful Evil

c6kalden.cre = Kalden - Lawful Neutral (unused, but classed as paladin)

c6levin.cre = Levin Rayn - Lawful Neutral (unused, but classed as paladin)

derrick.cre = Derrick - (unused, but a ranger) Lawful Neutral

c6squire.cre = Squire Cathras (Radiant Heart, assistant to Prelate

elotte.cre = Squire Elotte (Radiant Heartist involved in Ranger Cabin Plot) - Lawful Neutral

chgood07.cre = Duke Eltan (1st Pocket Plane Challenge for evil ) - Lawful Neutral

chgood04.cre = Elven Warrior (1st Pocket Plane Challenge for evil ) - Lawful Neutral

chgood05.cre = Elven Warrior (1st Pocket Plane Challenge for evil ) - Lawful Neutral

These changes are dropped. The first batch is unused; in the second batch the original alignment fits better. The third group was being assigned LG, then re-patched to CG (which is good, as CG was the consensus choice).

 

garkid01.cre = Iltha (Garren Windspear's daughter) - Neutral

garkid02.cre = Taar (Garren Windspear's son) - Neutral

hdragsil.cre = Dragon (Tear guardian in a hell trial) - Chaotic Evil

While I think these changes are correct, there's enough debate here for me to defer these to an optional alignment change component.

 

bharval.cre = High Mornmaster Arval (Temple of Lathlander)- Lawful Evil

jarev1.cre = Harper (Part of Reviane's Harper posse) - Chaotic Evil

These are being changed to a different alignment instead of LG: Arval is NG and Jarev is CN (in the optional component).

 

balth.cre - Balthazar - Lawful Neutral

This is an addition to the list.

 

c6bran.cre = Branet Al-Thon (Paladins of the Radiant Heart vs Bohdi) - Lawful Neutral

c6eric.cre = Eric Vanstraaten (Paladins of the Radiant Heart vs Bohdi)- Lawful Neutral

c6eric3.cre = Eric Vanstraaten (Paladins of the Radiant Heart vs Bohdi)- Lawful Neutral

c6nerit.cre = Nerit (Paladins of the Radiant Heart vs Bohdi) - Lawful NeutralWesselan)- Lawful Neutral

c6will.cre = William Reirrac (Paladins of the Radiant Heart vs Bohdi) - Lawful Neutral

cutbalth.cre = Balthazar (kidnaps Melissan in a cutscene)- Lawful Neutral

garren.cre = Garren Windspear (He lives in the Windspear Hills ) - NONE

pwauk2.cre = Haletlatess Jillian (halfling woman in temple district, priestess of Cyrrollalee, a LG halfling deity) - Neutral

sarmag01.cre = Errard (mage on walls in Saradush, involved in the Mateo desertion quest) - Lawful Evil

suelle.cre = Ellesime (tree of life Ellesime) - Neutral

suelle2.cre = Ellesime (post SoA finale Ellesime) - Neutral

suelleap.cre = Ellesime (another tree of life Ellesime) - Neutral

uhogre01.cre = Madulf (pacifist Ogre in the Umar Hills) - Neutral

The rest of these will continue to be changed to LG.

 

I'm in the process of reviewing all of the alignments for v2, so you may see some further edits as things get poked and jiggered. Like anything in the Fixpack, feedback is appreciated, so don't think this is in any way final.

[CamDawg]

Cam:

 

The dragon that's faced in the Hell Pride trial if you do not give in to your pride is coded as CE. I know a couple of players have argued that it should be a good alignment so as to leave no doubt that you're not supposed to attack it (and it also appears to have originally been a silver dragon, though it's a black one in the game).

 

David Gaider:

 

That's odd. I believe originally it was indeed supposed to be a silver dragon. At some point someone must have decided to make it black. Either way I think it works. Even a paladin who thinks that all evil must be destroyed is in itself a sin of pride. But then that gets into the whole alignment argument. It's safest to make the dragon good or at least neutral.

[Ardanis]

ALEX.CRE aka Sir Beverus is a CG paladin. Spawned by AMNTRPxx.BCS reputation trap triggers.

[devSin]

We could change him if we already touch Alex.cre for some other reason, but I'm not a fan of only LNC-axis changes (and lord knows we've had enough grief over alignments in the past to be exceedingly strict).