On "benching" followers - particularly Virgil, Sog

Warning, possible spoilers. A lot of text as well and the possible spoilers are littered all over the place, so I'm going to pass using the spoiler tags.


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Hi all,

First time post here so I'm not sure whether to post this into the Hints/Help section or the discussion section. My current Arcanum setup is with the high-res patch, the unofficial patch v081229 (after 1074).

So I have a habit of swapping in/out followers whenever there's some plot relevant to particular people (or I need some more manpower). I do this to keep the balance of the game going, and to get maximum story-fluff through each gameplay. Unfortunately, I'm a conventional "try to hit 100% the first time I play through" kind of guy, naturally with certain good vs evil exclusives I just stick with one path and move on.

Now, I know normally when you dismiss a follower, they'll eventually walk back to where you first meet them or where they "idle". I.e. Jayna at her Dernholm house, Magnus in front of Schulyers and Sons (people who made the ring). The easiest way to make sure these characters don't get "killed/missing" during the trip back to their idle location is to go to where you met them, and then ask them to leave the party (not to wait). The game will resume control of the follower and they'll walk to the exact location where you can find them again. If you leave the area and load another, then come back. They'll still be there, which works out nicely for me. I can get Jayna to make some herbs for me without dragging her around, I can have Magnus come fight with me during his "quest" plot, instead of Sogg.

I can understand how certain characters go off on their own or have an "automatic dismiss" through certain events. It's all well and good. Like Dante going back to the King, and Thorvald(? exiled dwarf on Island) staying at the clan mines after you deliver him there.

Now, this is all well and good, except for 2 characters that are integral to my playing choices/experience. Vergil and Sogg Mead. For some reason I am not familiar with where I can park these two characters so they don't go AWOL after I have them leave my party.

Now I understand that Virgil goes through some "plot" and may be later found in Caladon needing aid, but early on at the Crash site, if I tell him to leave I find that he walks right back to the crash site center and stays there even after I leave the place (to go to town for instance) and then come back early in the game (before I unlock the Shrouded Hills bridge). On one game however, I've lost him before, so I was wondering if anyone could shed any light on that. I will admit I could do a lot more testing with Virgil though, so I'll switch to talking about Sogg. I just wonder if anyone has a better grasp of the triggers/events that handle where Virgil is supposed to be when he's not in your party. *edit* read somewhere that he can wait anywhere forever prior to said events, I'll get to testing it next time I play. That's always useful...

With Sogg, I noticed that as long as I haven't unlocked the Shrouded Hills bridge gate, he'll return promptly to his original tavern location when I dismiss him nearby. I was able to bench him successfully prior to the gates unlocking (or killing/persuading those thieves) despite leveling him up a level, and giving him a weapon (like a dagger). After unlocking those gates and giving him the large-leather armor he doesn't walk back to his original spot when I try to dismiss him. Instead he stands where I left him, and disappears when I load another area (by leaving town and then coming back). Previously I've tried searching all the inns minus Roseborough (I think) and never found the lovable drunkard. I really would like the flexiblilty of being able to swap him out but get him back later, since he's a plot-simple character, but waay too useful as a mule and fighter.

So basically my question is, am I supposed to be able to somehow "bench" these 2 guys? Or am I just missing some sort of minute detail on where I can find them later? I've tried googling for 2 hours at least prior to this post and never found any satisfactory answers (best answer was "maybe he's off to get a drink" - this doesn't help me find him when I've checked all the taverns I can think of). Is this by design, or was I "abusing" game mechanics when I was "benching" characters?

I could do a lot more testing by isolating certain factors and messing around with inventory, plot, or character levels, but given how some of the people here somehow managed to create unofficial patches, and multiple modules, I wonder if anyone has better insight and either a) already know how it's supposed to happen, or b) have a better idea how to investigate this besides working with multiple save files or just not doing this "benching" thing at all.

Thanks,
CK

Edit: fixed Virgil's name. Shock, horror I know.

 

Well, I would recommend just picking a group, sticking with them, and playing the game through. After that, grab a different group, and do it again.

 

Welcome to the forum, cyberkinetic!

I'm afraid I can't be of much help on this at the moment.
After digging through all my remaining notes and even firing up WorldEd (got it sort of working again) to examine Virgil and Sogg, I'm still no closer to understanding this than you are. Sogg *should* return to the Shrouded Hills tavern, regardless of the story-state.

You have my curiousity going, so if I figure this out, I'll post the finding here.

 

He returns to Shrouded Hills. Has every playthrough.

 

Thanks for everyone's replies and interests.

Wolfsbane - are you using the same setup as I am? I'm curious because I just disbanded Sogg inside the SH Tavern and did a quick save. After leaving the area and coming back he disappeared. Using quick-load did not bring him back either despite me just disbanding him and not leaving the area.

Rryo - thanks for looking into it.

I just want to say I'm really curious as to how it *is* supposed to work, not how it's perceived to work, or how it works for some people. I was tempted to file this as a bug and post in the discussion area.

 

I thought Sogg waited in that little grassy area by the bridge out of Shrouded Hills--right before you can switch to the world map.

But I've been wrong before.

 

Just tested what Hawkthorne said. It worked.

For some reason Sogg relocates to the area north of the "camp" where you confront the thieves before leaving Shrouded Hills.

Awesome! Now it makes more sense. So indeed he returns to Shrouded Hills, just for some reason not the Tavern (weird).