Imoen's dialogue lines, which relate to thieving Options

[Ardanis]

To turn bright nice Imoen into a grunt with the heavy stick sounds monstruous.

[Magnus_025]

@Sikret: Ok! So I will not fear to awake your fury. Ha, ha. I haven't played through IA enough to actually forge something so I didn't knew that Aerie couldn't use that staff. I even didn't read the new items to "keep the surprise". I will not continue arguing because as I see you have as many followers as detractors in the "Imoen issue". My opinion is as you know. Have you decided yet?

[Providence]

To turn bright nice Imoen into a grunt with the heavy stick sounds monstruous.

I have to agree with this. I don't expect my opinion to matter, but to me, BG2 is as much about role-playing as it is about tactical power-gaming. I think IA balances those aspects quite well in it's current state. I do, however, fear that turning the witty and charming Imoen into a staff-wielding Wish-machine will damage that balance.

From my point of view, making it an optional component sounds like a good idea. The pure power-gamer could still get their Strength- and Wisdom-heavy Sorcerer, while the roleplayers could choose the good old Imoen. But as far as I've understood, Sikret is reluctant towards optional components in his mod... so it may not be an ideal solution after all.

This post has been edited by Providence: Aug 2 2007, 09:33 PM

[Raven]

To turn bright nice Imoen into a grunt with the heavy stick sounds monstruous.

I have to agree with this. I don't expect my opinion to matter, but to me, BG2 is as much about role-playing as it is about tactical power-gaming. I think IA balances those aspects quite well in it's current state. I do, however, fear that turning the witty and charming Imoen into a staff-wielding Wish-machine will damage that balance.

Nobody is saying you have to use Imoen that way. If you don't like the Wish spell, then you don't have to have Imoen learn it. And many players I'm sure will never have Imoen use a quarterstaff in combat at all. I think Sikret wants the option to be there in case anyone does want to make use of it.

[Providence]

Nobody is saying you have to use Imoen that way. If you don't like the Wish spell, then you don't have to have Imoen learn it. And many players I'm sure will never have Imoen use a quarterstaff in combat at all. I think Sikret wants the option to be there in case anyone does want to make use of it.

I know she won't be forced to cast Wish and wield a staff I was addressing the changes in her stats (i.e. lower int/cha for higher wis/str).

[lroumen]

And you can always change her back in your own game, or tweak Nalia in your own game. It doesn't matter in the end, does it?

[Providence]

And you can always change her back in your own game, or tweak Nalia in your own game. It doesn't matter in the end, does it?

If you think that tweaking Nalia will solve the issue, you haven't taken the point... I tried to see the situation from a role-playing point of view, in which case it won't make much sense to have a completely changed Imoen emerge from Irenicus' dungeoen; much stronger and wiser, but equally dumber and less charismatic. And she has completely forgotten her thieving skills... it makes perfect sense to a powergamer, but not to a roleplayer. In my opinion, both of these factions should be heard before a final decision is made, but , well... that's just my opinion.

Sure, Imoen can easily be ShadowKeepered into either of these incarnations no matter what solution Sikret chooses. But this debate regards what the "official" solution should be.

This post has been edited by Providence: Aug 3 2007, 11:26 AM

[Baronius]

I can't find it in this thread, what are the final latest "updated" stats of Imoen? (Of course Sikret might have changed on it meanwhile.)

[lroumen]

Imoen Vanilla BG2:
Strength: 9
Dexterity: 18
Constitution: 16
Intelligence: 17
Wisdom: 11
Charisma: 16


Last I understood Sikret wanted to give Imoen 17 strength, 18 wisdom and mentioned a charisma decrease to 9 and an intelligence decrease (to unknown value):
Logically I can derive the following result:

Imoen IA Current thought:
Strength: 17
Dexterity: 18
Constitution: 16
Intelligence: 9
Wisdom: 18
Charisma: 9

But! Sikret also got the idea (I think from Magnus) that as a Child of Bhaal she could get some minor bonuses over her original total statvalue (87 -> unknown value)


PS:

And you can always change her back in your own game, or tweak Nalia in your own game. It doesn't matter in the end, does it?

If you think that tweaking Nalia will solve the issue, you haven't taken the point... I tried to see the situation from a role-playing point of view, in which case it won't make much sense to have a completely changed Imoen emerge from Irenicus' dungeoen; much stronger and wiser, but equally dumber and less charismatic. And she has completely forgotten her thieving skills... it makes perfect sense to a powergamer, but not to a roleplayer. In my opinion, both of these factions should be heard before a final decision is made, but , well... that's just my opinion.

Sure, Imoen can easily be ShadowKeepered into either of these incarnations no matter what solution Sikret chooses. But this debate regards what the "official" solution should be.

Me as well as others have made similar roleplaying suggestions to Sikret in this thread. Read a page earlier. I think in the end it's Sikret's decision so I will welcome everything he does. But it doesn't mean that we cannot criticise it and give alternate suggestions.

This post has been edited by lroumen: Aug 3 2007, 12:11 PM

[Magnus_025]

An idea from me? Whoah, I'm actually doing something useful! He, he, just kidding.

[Baronius]

But! Sikret also got the idea (I think from Magnus) that as a Child of Bhaal she could get some minor bonuses over her original total statvalue (87 -> unknown value)

I agree, higher charisma (14) and intelligence of 10 would be good. Sarevok also has high stats. Some players might criticize the new Imoen for being too powerful or unbalanced, but I think that's just because most NPC mods are indeed overpowered in terms of stats (at least I heard this). IA is balanced, because it introduces a justified "powerful vs. powerful" approach (which is both reasonable and fun). Several features in IA that would look overpowered in other mods are totally balanced inside IA.

[Sikret]

1- Role playing has little to do with "stats". If you start the game with a paladin or a ranger protagonist, you will usually (almost always) have a protagonist with a low intelligence score. But will you think of your protagonist as a dumb or a half-witted person during the game? Will you role-play him as if he is an idiot just because he has low INT? Of course, not. (Actually, your protagonist says and does some brilliant and ingenious things during the game that IF role-playing was dependant on stats, those brilliant things could not be said or done by a character with an INT lower than 18. The point, however, is that role-playing a character doesn't depend on the character's stats. The same is true in P&P AD&D. If you role bad dice for your character's INT, it doesn't mean that you have to play the game like an idiot and if you say something brilliant and ingenious during the game, your DM will not say that he doesn't accept that sentence because your character's INT is 10! If it was so, noone would want to continue a game after roling bad dice for his INT. In other words, you don't need to allow your character's stats to hinder your imagination and role-playing style.)

2- Moreover, you do not actually role-play Imoen in the game. Imoen's dialogues are all written for her and you have no choice or option about what she says. You only role-play your protagonist.

3- There is nothing in the game (no dialogue, banters, etc...) about Imoen which may have any contradiction with her high WIS and STR.

4- Similarly, there is nothing in the game which necessitates that Imoen should have high CHA or INT.

5- Some players have made a subjective personal picture of Imoen in their own minds. They can try to re-build a new picture. As I said, there is no concrete evidence in the game which says that Imoen should have low WIS and STR or high CHA and INT.

6- My own personal (and admittedly subjective) impression of Imoen's personality has always been that she is not really a good choice for leadership. Hence, a low CHA seems even to make more sense.

7- For those who are concerned with questions such as "how could Imoen's stats change so radically in BG2 compared to BG1?", magic is the answer. When you wear a giant strength girdle or drink such a potion, magic increases your strength (without any need to do exercise similar to what we need to do in RL to increase our strength).

For the abovementioned reasons, the role-playing considerations are spelled out. The only true criterion we have is "efficiency". As I said before (and some of you agreed) if I'm going to make Imoen a sorcerer, I wouldn't make her an incompetent sorcerer. If she is going to be incompetent I will still prefer to make a custom sorcerer in the game.

So, let's start examining her stats and see how can we optimize them for an efficient sorceress:

Her DEX and CON are both fine in the vanilla game. We don't need to touch them.

Wisdom is the most crucial factor which shouldn't be less than 18.

Strength stands next. A strength of 17 is enough because it gives the +1 bonus to THAC0. THAC0 bonus is more important than damage bonus. So, we don't need to increase it to 18, because 18 gives the same THAC0 bonus that 17 gives.

So far, the following stats are fixed:

STR: 17
WIS: 18
DEX: 18
CON: 16

Now we need to distribute the remaining 18 points between INT and CHA. If we divide them equally, both will be set at 9. However, luan made a good suggestion and said that we can give some extra points to Imoen, I agree, but I'm not going to exaggerate using this suggestion. Since INT is a tad more useful than CHA, I will add one point to her INT. The final stats would be:

STR: 17
INT: 10
WIS: 18
DEX: 18
CON: 16
CHA: 9

Of course, it's needless to mention that you can edit her stats in your local game using Shadow Keeper or any other editor. You can even SK Imoen back to her thief/mage class if you are more comfortable with the situation in the vanilla game (having two identical NPCs), but if you decide to change Imoen back to thief/mage there is an important point which you should have in mind:

If you change back Imoen to thief/mage, you will also have to erase "Ray of Fragmentation" from her spellbook. The scrolls of this new spell are quite rare inside the game. As a sorceress, it is acceptable that she has picked the spell, but if you change her back to a mage, you will need to find the scroll of this spell for her.

Please, also note that this thread was not originally about Imoen's stats. It was rather about dialogue lines which need to be changed. So, please just send me any dialogue lines which you thikn I may have missed to fix and still requires fixing (i.e. any dialogue line about thieving and such things).

Important note: The discussion about the stats is over. No more comments on this issue, please. This thread is for the dialogue lines only; stay on-topic.

This post has been edited by Sikret: Aug 8 2007, 01:10 PM

[lroumen]

An INT score of 9-12 equals the normal IQ of 100. An int of 6- is a drooling person who can say only "arghllll - you soo funny". Anything above 15 is already highly intelligent and values of 20+ == mastermind to godlike status. Same with the other stats really. A strength of 9-12 puts a character at an average, whereas ~18 puts him or her at the gym 24/7.

But I agree with all you said. The stats are chosen, no need to linger. We're likely to play with her regardless of stats/profession and I think you made a good choice.