Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Ready to Die for Their Principles

One of the things I am doing for amusement is going around attacking steel watch in the city, but making sure to knock out the Flaming Fist who accompany them instead of killing them. That has resulted in some interesting observations:

Ready to Die for Their Principles
When combat starts, the non-enemy NPCs generally flee or cower, no problem so far. But if you perform a theft during combat, e.g., looting an unconscious Flaming Fist, some of them who are close enough will come back into combat saying theft-related dialog like "Who would do something like this?" This includes walking into dangerous areas like the blast radius of a detonating steel watcher. Hence the post title - they are trying to die for their anti-theft principles. If you are playing 'nice', the only way I have found to save the idiots is Globe of Invulnerability - throwing them or attacks that cause movement almost always kills them and Dimension Door cannot target them since they are not allies.

I'm Fine, Mostly
Traveling to a new region and traveling back mostly restores the unconscious Flaming Fists (they wake up), except they may still be down a few HP. Not what I consider a bug, but amusing.

But I am Still Angry
Mostly their dialog doesn't change. But one (name not noted or remembered) generated a warning that the NPC was angry and allowed me to get into trading mode to check her attitude. Despite having an attitude around -50, they did not attack. Not what I consider a bug.

No Benefit for Repeat Offenders
Killing them or knocking them out doesn't give extra XP. Almost certainly an intentional design decision - otherwise you could grind a lot more at early levels.

The sudden bravery in the face of theft is odd.

Along the same lines is Zorru. He cowers before Lae'zel if you open dialogue with him. But if you break into the shack behind him and Pandirna calls for guards, he shows up swinging, not a care in the world. Not at all concerned that Lae'zel is a githyanki.

My favourite one was when I disarmed Nere, then picked up his rapier so he couldn't use it...

... Then all the deep gnomes suddenly had the bravado to start a fight with me, whilst I was literally in the middle of freeing them...

At least this particular interaction got patched out.

But yeah, these kinds of things can happen, as you have to literally code in situational awareness (By way of surpressing the standard "React to crime" behaviour when your party is engaged in combat rather than actually making NPC's aware of what is occuring). Which is generally too bothersome to do unless certain situations come up frequently enough to warrant it (Such as the above mentioned "Stealing Nere's (Or any of the Duergar guards) disarmed weapon" scenario aggroing all the non-combative deep gnomes)

My last run in Lorroakan's tower, (that was before patch 6) , there was 1 civilian there, who was unkillable. If I hit him with a weapon he ran away and regenerated. But he did raise the alarm when I looted the rest of the crowd I killed. So in came a patrol of flaming fist. I fought and killed and looted them too. The unkillable boy raised the alarm again, a new patrol of flaming fist enters, I fight and loot them again, and so on.....

Several patches ago, after helping Dame Aylin defeat Lorroakan, she stepped into a Cloud of Daggers that had not dispersed and aggroed on my party. With her being immortal, I was stuck in a loop of killing her, only to have her revive with the standard crime dialogue about being guilty of murder.