So there I was, thinking how IWD had never appealed to me since there was basically minimal character interaction between party members, whilst at the same time thinking about the fact that I'd probably never craft a gloriously overpowered full custom party in BG, and I thought of an idea.
Flexible NPCs.
Basically, at character creation for characters after the first, much like you can select a voice set, instead you can select an entire NPC personality, noting that character as an NPC in the eyes of the game, for banter, subplots and so on (or dialogue at the beginning of the campaign).
Personalities could be available based on gender, race, class and alignment flags.
So for example a Korgan personality would have:
Male.
Races allowed: Dwarf (adding other races as a possible if their dwarfiness never comes up as a plot point)
Alignments Disallowed: Good (meaning any mix of Lawful through Chaotic, Neutral or Evil is allowed)
Classes Disallowed: Cleric. (the dialogue excessively mentions axes)
So any evil Dwarf you made could be marked as Korgan, so long as they weren't Good and weren't a Cleric.
The Coran personality (Coran doesn't, from memory, make much class or race specific chatter) would instead have:
Male.
Races allowed: Elf, Half Elf, Human, Halfling, Gnome, Dwarf, Half-Orc
Alignments Disallowed: None.
Classes Disallowed: None
So a Coran character might potentially be attached to any male would-be NPC (or just the elves/half elves, depending on backstory concerns). A Jaheira nature lover character could be any non-evil Elf, Half-Elf, must be Ranger or Druid... And so on.
Meanwhile, you would be free to stat them as you pleased, giving you full control over your characters and party composition (and power level), whilst still giving you the personalities and NPCs you were interested in interacting with, and they would interact with your party leader, and one another, accordingly for the full plot experience.
Any thoughts?
Flexible NPCs.
Basically, at character creation for characters after the first, much like you can select a voice set, instead you can select an entire NPC personality, noting that character as an NPC in the eyes of the game, for banter, subplots and so on (or dialogue at the beginning of the campaign).
Personalities could be available based on gender, race, class and alignment flags.
So for example a Korgan personality would have:
Male.
Races allowed: Dwarf (adding other races as a possible if their dwarfiness never comes up as a plot point)
Alignments Disallowed: Good (meaning any mix of Lawful through Chaotic, Neutral or Evil is allowed)
Classes Disallowed: Cleric. (the dialogue excessively mentions axes)
So any evil Dwarf you made could be marked as Korgan, so long as they weren't Good and weren't a Cleric.
The Coran personality (Coran doesn't, from memory, make much class or race specific chatter) would instead have:
Male.
Races allowed: Elf, Half Elf, Human, Halfling, Gnome, Dwarf, Half-Orc
Alignments Disallowed: None.
Classes Disallowed: None
So a Coran character might potentially be attached to any male would-be NPC (or just the elves/half elves, depending on backstory concerns). A Jaheira nature lover character could be any non-evil Elf, Half-Elf, must be Ranger or Druid... And so on.
Meanwhile, you would be free to stat them as you pleased, giving you full control over your characters and party composition (and power level), whilst still giving you the personalities and NPCs you were interested in interacting with, and they would interact with your party leader, and one another, accordingly for the full plot experience.
Any thoughts?