"Questionable" quests (spoilers)

W

Wender

Well-known member
The quest 'Purge the Heretics' is terrible from the viewpoint of an aspiring hero. You have to wipe followers of a religion because a priest of another religion tells you to do so.
I know that later it is known that Gnomon is a Lord of Dust so there's the explanation.

I was thinking, for role-playing as a good-aligned or some kind of hero, which other quests do you find having questionable premises?

I can think also of the little "Miller's Debt" solo quest in Harbor. The game is huge and maybe there are not much so evidently evil as "Purge the Heretics", but I was curious to see if anyone recalls more.
 
Dragnilar

Dragnilar

Dragonborn of Bahamut
I agree. There are a lot of quests, including these, that I think we can chalk up to the limitations of the games own role playing mechanics / features.

I don't like it myself, but unfortunately the game is almost 20 years old now and has a seemingly ever shrinking dev team and budget. So, I don't expect DB/SSG to put a lot of work into enhancing the role play mechanics.

As a result, I tend to just now ignore the limitations or work around them by not playing the quests when my characters class/alignment doesn't fit.
 
jotmon

jotmon

Well-known member
Its all perspective....

We are considered 'good' by eliminating the evils of the world after invading the so called 'monsters' homes... smashing breakables killing the women, children/unborn eggs, pets and anything else that gets in our way and then looting everything of value..

all because some random NPC offered a reward for taking on the quest.

...players are basically mercenaries for hire...

....Kobold still hate you....
 
Last edited:
jotmon

jotmon

Well-known member
Bringing the Light:
The Church of the Silver Flame does not hesitate to execute its moral judgments with the sword.

Find the illicit Gamblers' Den in the Harbor, near the Leaky Dinghy tavern. Put a stop to the immoral behavior in there by destroying the gambling tables and their criminal guardians.

..basically party was hired to smash and murder those in the Gamblers den by the church of the Silver Flame for offending their moral code...
 
W

Wender

Well-known member
jotmon said:
Its all perspective....

We are considered 'good' by eliminating the evils of the world after invading the so called 'monsters' homes... smashing breakables killing the women, children/unborn eggs, pets and anything else that gets in our way and then looting everything of value..

all because some random NPC offered a reward for taking on the quest.

....Kobold still hate you....
Click to expand...
So true... But in many quests, if you are role-playing, you could "skip" the more barbaric behaviour (e.g. not breaking eggs in Freshen the Air or the last of Saltmarsh, not killing every optional mob, etc.) and directly zerg to the final goal of purging the "greater evil", whereas in Purge the Heretics every step you make is going to be evil because the quest itself is evil.
 
W

Wender

Well-known member
Krelar said:
A couple posibilities:

Price of Freedom, you're breaking dangerous prisoners out of jail, include some you put there in the first place!

A Relic of Sovereign Past, the duergar haven't done anything wrong, they happened to find a sword that the church lost centuries ago (and wasn't actually theirs to begin with) and you go in and slaughter them to steal it back.
Click to expand...
Price of Freedom gives you even more XP the more criminals you free! Nice one :)
 
M

misterski

Well-known member
It's because Inquisitror Gnomon is a rakshasha in disguise and serves the Lords of Dust. It's another sign of the corruption of the Church of the Silver Flame as depicted in the lore. The Catacombs storyline is another sign of the church's corruption. It's still crappy that a hero would agree to take the quest in the first place, however.
 
L

Lotoc

Well-known member
The biggest example is probably Frame Work.
Eberron is a setting where inherent evil isn't really a thing for sentient races, we go into a minotaur settlement with over a hundred villagers and it's heavily rewarded to cut them down to the last.
Dorris even reminds us warforged aren't edible when we're done as such a slaughter is unnerving even for a follower of the Lord of Blades.
 
Col Kurtz

Col Kurtz

Well-known member
misterski said:
It's because Inquisitror Gnomon is a rakshasha in disguise and serves the Lords of Dust. It's another sign of the corruption of the Church of the Silver Flame as depicted in the lore. The Catacombs storyline is another sign of the church's corruption. It's still crappy that a hero would agree to take the quest in the first place, however.
Click to expand...
its not the church that is corrupt...it the few evil NPC's that take advantage of people's good will.

people are responsible for THEIR actions.. its a concept lost to the younger generations
 
M

misterski

Well-known member
Col Kurtz said:
its not the church that is corrupt...it the few evil NPC's that take advantage of people's good will.

people are responsible for THEIR actions.. its a concept lost to the younger generations
Click to expand...
Read up on the church lore. It's not completely corrupt but corruption runs throughout the church due to the influence of the daelkyrr that is being imprisoned by the church's founder. Inquisitor Gnomon is just an example of that corruption.
 
N

Neo

The One
I don't like how the mother scorpions in toxic treatment are not just invulnerable. They get clipped by some AOE affect and you have to kill it and then the little baby scorpion is just sitting there all alone.
 
Cheeps

Cheeps

Tired Member
Wender said:
The quest 'Purge the Heretics' is terrible from the viewpoint of an aspiring hero. You have to wipe followers of a religion because a priest of another religion tells you to do so.
I know that later it is known that Gnomon is a Lord of Dust so there's the explanation.

I was thinking, for role-playing as a good-aligned or some kind of hero, which other quests do you find having questionable premises?

I can think also of the little "Miller's Debt" solo quest in Harbor. The game is huge and maybe there are not much so evidently evil as "Purge the Heretics", but I was curious to see if anyone recalls more.
Click to expand...
If slaughtering halflings is evil, I don't want to be good.

Gnomon was a hero.

He was still himself when he issued the order to put down those halfling heretics because his hands were not backwards like a Rakshasa when they shapeshift.

I won't even accept the end quest reward from him for purge the heretics, because killing halflings is reward enough.

If I do religion builds, I always pick silver flame cause they hate halflings as much as I do. (y)
 
B

Blunt Hackett

Well-known member
For people who rolled an evil character, the list of questionable quests is much longer.

It's kind of a weird problem. In most D&D pc games I've played, your choices and alignment matter a lot more, except the ones that have no story and are simply a dungeon crawl. In DDO, everything is instanced. The only lasting impact is the favor you gain which means you're going to go against your alignment a lot.

DDO is like the inverse of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Your decisions whether good or bad, lawful or not, please your clients and always have the same outcomes. We're basically all neutral mercenaries working to please whatever faction we need to benefit from.
 
PaleFox

PaleFox

Well-known member
Sensitive topic, there is a lot of murder hobo in this game.

I never understood trashing the place and get extra xp for it either.

I mean, what is so heroic about those things?
 
B

Blunt Hackett

Well-known member
PaleFox said:
Sensitive topic, there is a lot of murder hobo in this game.

I never understood trashing the place and get extra xp for it either.

I mean, what is so heroic about those things?
Click to expand...
Yeah, we trash more than Link does.

I always thought it was weird how many games have you waltzing into people's houses and rummaging through their stuff. Then you go and talk to them, and they don't even bat an eye if they saw you do it. And killing people in the streets is fine too as long as they were the bad guys and you're the hero. Even heavy roleplay games suffer from these things.
 
W

Wender

Well-known member
The prequel to isle of dread, where you have to go to a bar and find a sauhagin, if you start breaking crates the bartender complains. I think it's the only one where I've seen such in DDO.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top