9 réponses à ce sujet

[chessnut0]

I realize that there are many Harrowmont vs Bhelen threads already, but I haven't seen any mentioning the amount of potential xp available by choosing one over the other.
 
The first time I played through I chose Bhelen and the second time I sided with Harrowmont.  There seemed to be more opportunity to gain xp by choosing Harrowmont.  You get to do extra proving fights, you can still visit Aeducan thaig and best of all after you crown Harrowmont there is a big battle with Bhelen and his supporters.  If you give Bhelen the crown, Harrowmont just accepts your decision and there is no battle.

I realize that ultimately Bhelen turns out to be a much better king, but by choosing him you seem to be missing a lot of action.  Am I right, or did I miss something when I chose Bhelen?  Is there a way to get a big battle with Harrowmont if you crown Bhelen?  None of the dialogue options seemed to lead to one.

[friedsashimi]

Harrowmont is either too nice a guy or too smart to resist when Bhelen is crowned, so no big battle. However, there will be a random encounter with dwarven rebels when you travel, though that might happen anyway.

[Sir Ulrich Von Lichenstien]

Yeah you missed the part where you forgot this is a 'roleplay' game, not just a 'lets see how much xp I can get' game.

[Taleroth]

You do not get extra proving fights with Harrowmont.  You can do the Proving either way.  Just like you can visit the one Deep Roads area that is normally part of Bhelen's quests.

Modifié par Taleroth, 02 janvier 2010 - 10:21 .

[McBough]

Sir Ulrich Von Lichenstien wrote...

Yeah you missed the part where you forgot this is a 'roleplay' game, not just a 'lets see how much xp I can get' game.

I'm aware this game an conversation are now ancient, but I have to disagree with this to an extent, because if one were playing as a goody-two shoes, they'd turn down probably 2 levels worth of side quests, and a few hundred sovereigns. Further, regardless of whether the character was lawful or chaotic, in the "real world" ending the blight would supersede all other tasks, which makes me wonder, would he or she take the time to do any side quests at all?

[McBough]

And additionally, would a good character open chests and take treasure and supplies from the Arl's Estate, the Circle, Bhelen/Harrowmont, the elves, etc, his or her trusted allies?

[DarthGizka]

Regarding XP I'd like to mention a couple of things.

You get to raid Aeducan Thaig in any case, but if you go there early on Bhelen's behest then there are more stalkers there (the ones that are attacking Lord Whatshisname to whom you are to give the forged letters). Just avoid talking to the guy unless you want to commit to the Bhelen quest line.

The dialogue with the guy is b0rked, by the way. Even if you had already ascertained that the documents were forged, you cannot tell the guy that Bhelen had tried to pull a fast one on him, and the standard lines do not get tagged with [Lie].

If you really want to maximise XP then create maximum support for the candidate to whom you will *not* give the crown. That way you get to harvest a lot more mutinous deshyrs after your king is crowned.

There are some Bhelenists among the proving fighters whom you can pick a fight with after you crown Harrowmont. I don't think there's anything like that if you crown Bhelen.

P.S.: if you are on a really evil power trip then bring Inferno and/or Storm of the Century to the Assembly... Also, during the provings you can kill Bhelen with AoE spells (I think you can even loot him). He doesn't mind.

Modifié par DarthGizka, 14 janvier 2014 - 09:58 .

[Icy Magebane]

McBough wrote...

Sir Ulrich Von Lichenstien wrote...

Yeah you missed the part where you forgot this is a 'roleplay' game, not just a 'lets see how much xp I can get' game.

I'm aware this game an conversation are now ancient, but I have to disagree with this to an extent, because if one were playing as a goody-two shoes, they'd turn down probably 2 levels worth of side quests, and a few hundred sovereigns. Further, regardless of whether the character was lawful or chaotic, in the "real world" ending the blight would supersede all other tasks, which makes me wonder, would he or she take the time to do any side quests at all?

Why would a chaotic character resist the Blight?  So they could cause chaos personally, or...?  I mean, wouldn't it be more satisfying to just sit back and bask in the mayhem while openly attacking people trying to stop the darkspawn?

My rationale for side quests in RPGs is that you're going to need money, training, and possibly even allies to win in the end... so if you skip everything and try to rush towards the ultimate goal, you're handicapping yourself by being poor, weak, and alone when you face the boss (or whatever the ultimate threat is).  Unless the game gives me a specific time limit, I don't see how it's my character's fault for taking the time to prepeare themselves and their party members.

As for this exp thing, there's a door in Redcliffe Castle that you can repeatedly break into if it matters that much...  the exp gains from killing a few extra deepstalkers is pretty trivial at best, so I'm not sure why any of that should influence anybody's decisions...

Modifié par Icy Magebane, 14 janvier 2014 - 09:56 .

[DarthGizka]

A character can be chaotic good or lawful evil - the two alignment axes are independent. A character who basks in the mayhem would certainly qualify as chaotic evil, Duncan and Loghain lawful evil, Leliana chaotic good (and Morrigan utterly confused; or rather not Morrigan but the idiot who assigned her approval changes).

There is a difference between exploiting glitches on one hand and making the best use of knowledge seeping in from parallel universes on the other (so to speak), so that your umpteenth Warden has the uncanny knack of picking/sequencing his tasks in an optimal manner.

Also, in a world were killing things and questing make you more powerful, people wanting or needing to be powerful will do a lot of questing and killing if they can (within their moral parameters, of course).

Last but not least, a few deepstalkers here and there do add up to several levels over the course of a Blight. My sword & board warrior finished the game at level 23 (hitting 24 during the fight with Archi, i.e. just a tad too late); this enabled her to learn the Whirlwind line of DW feats in addition to her full sword & board training, plus the full Champion, first half of Reaver and the six useful Warrior feats.

Thus she was able to flatten Archi's hordes mostly on her own, only needing team support when there were multiple mages in the picture, with the mage general, and on top of the tower. All defenders were saved by Leliana, Sten and Shale under the able command of Barkspawn, because their training was sufficiently advanced as well. Earlier in Redcliffe, everyone was saved yet the team had bagged almost all of the kills.

And that character wasn't even optimised/metagamed, just thorough and especially diligent about proper preparation and tactics in kill-stealing situations.

Modifié par DarthGizka, 14 janvier 2014 - 10:56 .

[Icy Magebane]

@DarthGizka - Whoops. That poster didn't specify, so I only described my thoughts on a chaotic evil Warden... my mistake. I guess a chaotic good character would see the Blight as a threat, but would feel little responsibility to a group that conscripted them. In that case, it's unlikely that stopping the Blight would take precedence over handling whatever smaller scale injustices they wanted to involve themselves in...

As for this exp thing... again, if that's what matters to a player then they might as well just use the exploit. Otherwise, they should just accept what happens during the story and avoid metagaming. IMO metagaming is also cheating, although it's much more difficult to avoid sometimes because it involves ignoring known benefits in favor of maintaining the rp. Not everyone is willing to do that, or even attempt it.

Modifié par Icy Magebane, 14 janvier 2014 - 11:06 .