Wondering about the morality of something I did...

So I'm at Tarant and I broke into the house of the magical items shopkeepers. The one with the Dark Magick store behind the light Magick store. I cast that lockpicking spell on one of the chests in that room and immediately I was attacked by one of the shopkeepers that was sleeping at the time. So I killed him and the strange beast that was in there. Now usually Magnus would frown upon attacking innocent people, but for some reason he didn't say anything and his reaction towards me hasn't changed. So after that I did the same thing to the dark magic shopkeeper (killing him that is) and still I got no comment from the goody dwarf. Needless to say that the loot gaining from this is HUGE. On one of the shopkeepers, aside from some pretty cool magic items, is more than 20000 gold(!). On top of that, the chests in the house contain all of the items the shopkeepers had for sale.

So basically my dilemma here is weather these actions are considered cheating or an exploit of some sorts or maybe its perfectly normal that Magnus had no reaction change and if so, what is the reason?

 

Magnus is a Techie and those others was magick it is ether that or they was part evil or both.

 

I don't think that him being a techy has anything to do with it. I thought that maybe because I was attacked by the shopkeepers (as a result of me trying to steal their stuff) then Magnus considered that as an act of hostility and therefore was happy to join the fight. But then I remembered that I had another similar situation with another shopkeeper at a different city (I'm not a clerk murderer, honest, it was just experimentation ) and Magnus got upset. So I don't know...

 

I find he gets upset at mages faster than he gets upset a Techies but most likely the shop keeps he didn't mind killing had a little evil in them. try attacking a Dwarf or Techie and he might get upset more than attacking a Elf or Mage I think.

don't take my word as law but it sounds like him when I played 7-2 years ago. lost my disks when PC died and finaly found new copy.

*waits for mail to come bringing full game so he doesn't have to just play demo*

 

Hmm.. I don't know...

Anyone else have any thoughts on this. Maybe less about technically about how it happened and more if you think its morally ok(gameplay-wise)?

 

do it in front of a guard if he doesn't attack you or warn you it is morally ok.

LOL same goes in real life if you can do it in front of the police and they don't worry about it then it is ok.

edit: I DON"T think you should try to steal from a shopkeeper in real life or kill someone or steal from them and kill them.

generally if a shopkeep starts to fight me I quit game and start at last save unless I'm playing evil or like on demo have nothing left to do and just kill everyone.

 

That's what I initially thought, but as I said earlier, in another situation I was trying to steal from someone's chest and the guy went at me and Magnus considered that wrong. So basically we have two situations in which the exact same actions were performed and yet at one of them Magnus had a negative reaction whereas at another he didn't have any. So this brings me to the assumption that maybe it has something to do with the person's alignment. But wouldn't the Light Magic store clerk will have a good alignment and the Dark Magic store clerk will have an evil one? If this is the case, then my assumption would have been wrong since Magnus didn't react when I killed both of them...

LOL, yea I got it, it's ok. Thank god for games like Arcanum and Fallout that do let us do the unthinkable huh...

 

Ok, I've done some more testing and I think I know whats going on here.
I've attacked both the light magic shopkeeper (LMS from now on) and the dark magic shopkeeper (DMS from now on) separately. Magnus reacted negatively when attacking LMS and had no reaction when attacking DMS. I then wanted to see what happens when either of them initiate the attack. So I attempted to steal from each of their chests to aggravate them and again, Magnus's reaction towards me dropped when stealing from LMS and didn't change when stealing from DMS. So what all of this means is that Magnus reaction is probably tied to the type of alignment of the character that I'm attacking.

So how did I manage to kill them both with no reaction penalty from Magnus? The key is the extra creature that was in the room. By attacking it first I aggravated both of the clerks without actually harming them directly in any way (Like attacking them or stealing from them).

So I guess that this is the answer for the phenomenon. But I still I want to ask you guys what will you do in this situation? Load an earlier save because you consider this to be some sort of an exploit or maybe continue playing regularly as no real rule was broken?

 

I would Load an earlier save not because it is wrong but because I want the cheasts to fill up again tomorrow so I can loot them allot of times and not just once.

so basically I would goto last save to not kill them because I want to steal from them some more. does that make me bad?

 

Yes, it's because of their alignments. The dark magic shopkeeper has an alignment of -35, the baleful hound -50, and the good shopkeeper (southernmost shop) 10, which is the default value. Magnus (and most good followers) will get upset if you attack anyone with 10 or more alignment. The 3 NPCS I mentioned here all belong to the same faction, so attacking any one of them (i.e. one of the evil ones) will cause all of them to attack you if they see you (i.e. the good one attacking you later). They are also considered "owners" (notify npc) of all the doors and the chests, so if any of them catch you picking locks, they'll attack.

The magic smith and guard in the left shop are in a different faction, but they still have the same "ownership" of the property, so they'll attack you if you pick locks, but not if you attack one of the other 2 shop owners or the baleful hound. Not like they'd see you anyway, though, since they sleep in a different room. However, the guard of the magic shop is social class "guard," which means he'll defend anyone from Tarant, i.e. all 4 others... so, it's complicated, but that's one of the good things about Arcanum, I think.

 

I gotta say, that's a very clever system. And makes sense too. It's really cool that it makes Magnus differentiate between the good guy attacking me after attempting to steal from him and him attacking me without me actually harming him directly. Basically, in Magnus's eyes, I attacked a bad guy and it's evil pet which is perfectly normal and then this other good guy attacked us for no justified reason, which is why it was ok to kill him too.

So in any way you don't think it's an exploit?

 

no exploit.

 

It is possible to cast Unlocking Cantrip on the chests, without making anyone angry, by scrolling the screen in various directions.

Unfortunately you need 100% MA to unlock them, but the constant supply of stuff really makes it a nice (and questionable) feature

 

After killing them both I went to the magic smith and he attacked me. So I guess he was in the same faction as these two. So I had to kill him also and his guard. I then decided it was way too much and even if it's not considered an exploit getting all these stuff for free whenever I want isn't very challenging. So I loaded a save game just before all of this massacre and went on with my game normally.

 

You killed them? That wasn't wise. Make thieving character, go back once a week, and resupply yourself with their shit. ^__^
Oh, and it's much simpler to just do the quests for Lockpick mastery, and then get magnus to make you an autoskeleton key. It's kinda cheap to use it if you're a magic char, but it doesn't cause any harm, so oh well, lol. (imo, at least)

 

Well no, I loaded an earlier save so they're alive and well now. I already moved on and I think I'm going to buy my stuff fair and square. It's not like I'm poor or anything, I have like 40K. It's not very hard to pile up gold in this game...
I really think that what I did before is kind of an exploit. I think that gaining this much loot (It's actually infinite) needs to be accompanied by some kind of penalty. Thats unless you're playing an evil character. So yea, I have 100 MA which lets me unlock pretty much anything, but I'm not going to use it if I know that I'm going to get caught.

 

Meh, I steal stuff because I know eventually I'll've to buy that damnable boat, since there'sn't a chance in hell that I'm going to let the Bangellian Sword be destroyed.

The above message contains a mild spoiler.

 

I have no idea what you meant but it sounds like a spoiler. I haven't finished the game yet so please refrain from posting unnecessary information.

 

I apologize for that. However, all of what I was referencing is optional parts of the game, and therefore I wouldn't worry about it. It's feasable that you won't've to ever worry about what I mentioned, and thus should ignore it. ^__^