Larian Studios Forums Divinity II The Dragon Knight Saga / Flames of Vengeance (English) Divinity II - The Dragon Knight Saga It's so easy when you're evil... ;)

As Voldemort once said: "There is no Good and Evil - there is only power, and those too weak to strive for it." And with regards to DKS, that seems to be the case, because although you pursue the main quest with good intentions, not only do you recklessly cause a lot of collateral damage in doing so, but some quests even reward you more when you're a straight-up douche .

I thought we might just quickly collect those quests here where it's of more personal benefit to you, with regard to experience / skill points / gold and equipment, to be a total a**-hole.

I'm talking about both Ego Draconis and Flames of Vengeance here, so this will contain spoilers for both.


Broken Valley
- Richard and the Goblin Hearts:
I guess this is a quest almost everyone accepts, because otherwise it's a lot of perfectly good gold you're throwing away. There's no better start to a game than become a bounty hunter, if not to say goblin hitman, right away! Fortunately, most goblins attack you anyway, thereby easing your conscience, but eh - you're still killing for money !
- The tavern:
Covering up the mess the seekers caused, rather than reporting them to the lieutenant so they can get their just punishment, could be considered "good" because you save them from a deadly mission in the end. But of course, they also set you up to become a thief, and you have to lie for them. And you do this before you know that the penalty mission will result in their death.
- Similarly, becoming friends with Martis, entering the bandit camp and accepting quests for them, i.e. becoming an actual bandit for a certain amount of time, is of much more use in total than simply mindreading Martis and telling the bandit camp position to Louis right away.
- Locke, Kunrath, and the bunny:
Even though it seems to be pretty obvious that Locke is lying, blackmailing poor Kunrath is the wiser choice, because it makes Locke lower his prices, and you can still find out the password for his cart by mindreading the cart itself.
- David:
Blackmailing him is definitely worth something; either you get his gauntlets, or you make him run away by threatening to report him to Richard, and then you can mindread him later on.
- Farmer Karl:
If you kill him rather than just turning him over to the guard, that will yield you more experience points, obviously. Gotta love some vigilante justice!
- Father Roman:
Giving him the artifact he requested from Lovis's tower results in his death - but it's an additional quest. So if you give it to him knowingly, does this count?
- Eugen, the dude near the bandit camp with dissociative personality disorder:
I think Clyde's ring is more useful most of the time than the axe of the savage, but in order to get it, you have to kill the good guy and let the barbarian loose to wreak havoc in Aleroth.
- The ambush:
If you side with the bandits and kill the travelling merchants, that is actually part of a quest. I remember saving the merchants the first time I got there (but then again, I had already sent the seekers to the bandit camp anyway), and I remember they reward you as well, but not in the context of a quest, as far as I know.
- and of course: The Killer Bunny!
Being animal-friendly just isn't worth it. If you spare the bunnies, you're missing out on one of the most powerful - and therefore most rewarding experience-wise - enemies of the game!
- killing the guy who's soulbonded to a chicken however is of very little use - you only get an achievement for it. But I guess that still kinda counts?

Sentinel Island
- Turgoyn and Ulfmar's ship:
Not sure if it counts as "evil", but being selfish and reading the book should give you more experience than giving the book to Turgoyn. Then again, you could argue how this is even selfish on our part; after all, Turgoyn just wants to show off in Aleroth with his knowledge, and feels entitled to our services. So in this case, forfeiting the quest actually seems to be the wiser choice, rather than being "bad" just to complete a quest.

Orobas Fjords
- Bellegar's cavern:
Whatever you do here, go hard or go home! But if you go hard on the good side, you will have to make quite a number of sacrifices (healing potions, experience points, etc.) When you go hard on the evil side, you have to do some pretty nasty stuff, but do you have to sacrifice anything? And aren't the ultimate weapons of evil that you find at the end just as powerful as the ultimate weapons of good?
- Saul:
Better kill Saul . Even though he's completely innocent. But that's what you need to do to complete the quest, and there's no redemption if you save him.

Aleroth (Flames of Vengeance):
- Alsbetha:
Blackmailing her is more effective than turning her over, because she lowers her prices as a result.
- The necromancer (forgot his name):
There's this necromancer guy who wants three pieces of jewelry from recently deceased people to make them his spirit slaves. If you complete that quest, it will give you more experience than the three single quests which are in competition with it.

Anything else I forgot?
Wouldn't be surprised if DKS provided even more incentives to come over to the dark side...

I guess it is one of those things I've seen elsewhere in that the evil option is often the easier and more expedient one; often there's consequences for doing so down the line, can't remember if there are in DKS or not other than a general feeling of "meh, I kinda wish I hadn't done that". In my case I try to draw a line somewhere between occasionally disreputable but without major consequences (mainly so my character doesn't end up being unrealistically saintly: not that I am myself, obviously, but being of an autistic bent I can tend to be unhelpfully black-and-white about things if I don't watch myself) but not doing things that I would consider actually unconscionable, such as actions that could be avoided which result in death (with certain exceptions for people who are unquestionably bad: which is in itself an arguably questionable opt-out) or other major problems.

An awful lot of them are grey areas though. Some people like them but I do prefer something that's more obviously right vs. wrong. Still, if they are doing shades of grey, at least they generally do them properly compared to e.g. the Tenpenny Tower quest in FO3 which was very clumsily done in that it bit you on the arse whichever way you played it.

The one that I really struggled with was being forced to choose a trainer knowing whoever wasn't chosen would be killed. Still not sure whether it was better to make the choice (especially nasty in the case of the weaponsmith which was couched pretty much as deserving vs. useful) or to leave it to the island to choose at random. There was more death in DKS than I prefer, though I admit I have a bit of an unrealistic "I want to save everyone" thing going on.

Well, the trainers can settle that matter themselves by dueling. This of course means that you end up with Hermosa (who is the better choice with regard to gameplay mechanics anyway), because Kenneth is reluctant to fight her while she is not.

That said, the whole idea of "I won't fight a woman because our Dragonslayer codex forbids me to" is just one of the laziest pieces of writing in the entire game. Just seconds earlier, Kenneth bragged about having trained Commander Rhode - how is he supposed to have done that if he's not allowed to fight a woman? You can either be protected from danger or you can become a Dragonslayer - not both at once.



The weaponsmith only wins the competition because he is the one to set up the rules - Radcliffe suggests both should forge the best sword they can craft. Wesson however has told you before (since you usually meet him before Radcliffe) that he is an armoursmith in Aleroth, not a swordsmith. So had the task been for each of them two forge the best armour they can create, probably Wesson would have won.



Philosophically, there is no moral option here. Theoretically, if you get a suboptimal set of servants, picked at random by the island, your whole enterprise of saving Rivellon is at stake, possibly resulting in even more deaths.

When there is no morally correct choice available, there are only ethical choices left - meaning the lesser of two evils, specifically in this scenario: If four people have to die anyway, who is most deserving to live, in comparison - "deserving" hereby meaning "most useful for the greater good of saving Rivellon".

I agree the general concept of the game not giving you alternative options at certain decisive points of the plot is one of the main weaknesses of DKS: Even when you've played the game already and know some things are stupid, you still can't prevent your character from doing them because your main quest demands you to.

That said, I do find it quite in-flavour that, if you have to make such a life-or-death choice at some point in time in the game anyway, that it's enforced by an entity representing nature - in this case, the spirit of the Island. It makes sense for her to think in harsh terms of natural selection, even when it wouldn't be strictly necessary.

Effectively, anyone you don't choose as your servant dies anyway, because as we know Damian covers the whole ground of Sentinel Island in poisonous fog shortly afterwards, so...

If a wolf were to attack me, I'd skin it afterwards and sell the skin. I wasn't hunting it for the skin. Same with the goblins.

Martis: I think of it as scouting out the camp for the Lt. Spies need to fool people - not evil in my book.

Locke: Most rewards aren't big enough to be really missed and I just don't like Locke.

David: I don't blackmail him. Apparently, in Rivelon, if one signs the dotted line for the military, it's for life so, helping someone out who simply made a bad choice who wants to farm isn't an issue to me. Again, the reward gain is minimal do I don't care.

Karl: sometimes I turn him in, sometimes I let him go. I never kill him or bribe him. The only one I sometimes give vigilante justice to is the "feed the cooked priest meat to the boss" woman. Of course, then you lose some rewards because the priest giving you the mission doesn't like vigilante justice.

Father Roman: if you use the stone to unlock an area you get a nice weapon and a fair amount of EPs plus the good father lives and you complete the quest.

Belegar's moral choice cave: I am not sure but I've read that the paladin sword is better then the sword of the damned one.

Saul: He allows building up the training arena if you pick Kenneth and save him. Otherwise, I just refuse the quest by telling the real murderer that I won't hear of it. Then I release him anyway after dueling the guard (cheapest way) to get in.

Other things to consider: while you technically don't know this (ah, but I do as I played more then once) but not choosing Wesson kills two people. Still, I choose the drunk as it avoids the awful general Raze fight.

I steal people blind (other then lock picking - waste of skill points IMO) while being a goody two shoes. I wish I didn't need to steal or that there were consequences to getting caught but alas, early on money is so tight that I do it. That's one thing I liked about the Gothic games - hunting brings in more money then theft.

You don't need to become a bandit, or help them. It doesn't matter which side you choose when you encounter the ambush; I was actually hoping to be able to tell Ragnar I helped the traders, but the response available, while true, was vague enough he assumes you were merely unsuccessful in helping the bandits.

Even if you agree to kill Saul, you can change your mind after speaking to him. IMO it is better to trade Arben's Sword for the chalice.


Lockpick is very useful, and having level 2 in Broken Valley village allows you to get a skill book, so that takes care of one of the levels. It's not like skill points are that scarce that you'd need to pass up on loot.

Hmm; never agreed to kill Saul so I didn't know that was a way to get the chalice. By that time, there are better swords then Lord Arben's and you can't sell it so it seems a good trade to me (ie, I totally agree).

I forgot about the lock picked skill book. In addition, although I never did it, I assume when you pay the 5000g to unlearn all of your skills that you can use them any way you wish meaning one can have lock pick early then delete it later. The skill book makes me feel better about another thing too - I kept thinking that it would be easy to make lock pick more meaningful by sometimes having keys inside locked chests rather then lying around. The game already does this sort of thing with requiring mind read to get many items. For example reading the larian's, er, librarian's (ghost) mind to be able to read a book that increases something (skills, I think).