Help Hieronymous Lex

[fantasmeitor]

I hate thieves, especially the ones in Oblivion, I think it would be great if someone could start an anti-crime mod for arresting thieves and discover the thieves guild and send the gray fox into jail, I wish i could help but i dont know how to script quest, but i´m a 3d modeller, if someone´s interested leave me a message.

thx!

[Ferryt]

Heh ... I almost always get involved in the Thieves Guild when I play Oblivion, but would totally support a mod something like this one. I think it would be a wonderful addition to the game to have my thief character in more danger from this sort of thing. As it stands, it's really just too easy to elude guards in most of the missions, and I've never been caught "liberating" items in non-quest activities, either.

 

The mod, as you define it, though, would clash rather badly with the entire Thieves Guild questline. It would be better to integrate it in some manner so that it works hand-in-hand with Thieves Guild quests, making it possible for the player to save the Thieves Guild (and, therefore be able to complete the Thieves Guild quests) or to screw up and have the Gray Fox caught and jailed. If that happens, perhaps a separate quest could be enabled that would allow the player to attempt to spring the Gray Fox from prison. I would not use this mod if it simply, unilaterally, and unconditionally, prevented the Thieves Guild questline from being completed.

[fantasmeitor]

yeaah, that´s even better!

[vvk78]

Interesting thought. I always pitied Lex, he seemed to be universally hated by everyone, probably even his own guards. And believe it or not, when I played the game the first time, I was hoping that Lex would turn out be the Gray Fox! Something like how Peter Parker always captures snaps of Spiderman to land him in more trouble, even though Spidey is his own alter ego.

 

But what you guys are proposing is going to be very difficult to script, and will break quite a few mods based on the Thieves Guild, even if the Thieves Guild storyline is not impacted totally by your mod idea.

[Ferryt]

I didn't know there were "quite a few" mods based upon the Thieves Guild. In fact, I'm not, personally, aware of any that actually modify Lex's behavior or any part of the Thieves Guild questline, and a quick scan through the "guilds" section of the downloads didn't reveal anything. Any well-designed mod that has a quest that interacts with the Thieves Guild questline in any way should be "timed" in accordance with specific quest stages within the Thieves Guild quests, themselves. Any such mod that doesn't actually break the Thieves Guild questline would, therefore, be very unlikely to interfere with any other such mod because the Thieves Guild questline, itself, would be the coordinating factor between them.

 

What I was talking about could, conceivably, break the Thieves Guild questline, and I'd play that mod with the understanding that this might be so. After all, in vanilla Oblivion you can very easily break the Main Quest (I know, because I've done it) so that it can never be finished, sans a restart with a saved game. There are a number of other quests that you can botch, as well. It's all part of playing the game and trying to be prepared for every eventuality.

[MarkInMKUK]

I think that's part of the joy of Oblivion ... in the real world things happening can make other things impossible. I'd like to see more conflicting quests, so that doing one automatically screws another one up ... but that's just my own preference

[fantasmeitor]

Thanks everybody for the replies, I personally wouldn't mind breaking the thieves guild quest, like i said, i hate that guild! (even if i sometimes steal one thing or many with my character) , but any idea is welcome as long as its possible to make a mod. I think it wolud really add to the roleplaying experience and I always thought that helping heurinymous was the missing quest in all oblivion game.

[vvk78]

There are indeed quite a few mods that depend on or modify the Thieves Guild storyline, or its core characters and basic gameplay tenets.

 

Here are a "few" that might interest you to take a look...

• Thieves Guild HQ - Unhealthy Competition and SF Patch
• Thieves Guild Dues
• Thieves Guild Add-on
• Thieves Guild HQ
• SNR Thieves Guild
• Kvatch Rising
• The Next Gray Fox
• Better Gray Fox
• Armor of the Gray Fox
• Be A Beggar
• Play as Hieronymus Lex
• Hieronymus Lex Makeover
• Higher Thieves Guild Fence Amounts
• Thieves Guild Heirloom Quick Fix

Some mods might be only little mods that simply modify an NPC's appearance, change the NPC outfits or add a few items in the Thieves Guild HQ, and these might remain unaffected by other new mods. But, any or all of the Thieves Guild mods, should be considered for possible conflicts, by any new mod that radically attempts to modify (or god forbid, remove!) the Thieves Guild storyline. Also, you should note that a mod that tries to arrest Gray Fox or subdue/destroy the Thieves Guild may also affect any mods that depend on Gray Fox and his cronies (or Hieronymus Lex and his cronies).

 

The level of scripting required to make your storyline mod idea possible without causing disruptions in other related mods, is certainly not simple. What you are asking for, seems almost like the inverse of the Unhealthy Competition mod, on a grander scale. If you don't like Thieves, don't join the guild (or get the Gray Fox cowl and wear it while killing whoever you don't like - blame will ideally fall on the Gray Fox), that's my humble suggestion.

 

Mind you, I am saying your mod idea is doable (maybe with some caveats), but you will need to do a lot of playtesting to avoid/resolve potential conflicts with other Thieves Guild mods, even in unexpected areas (such as the Thieves Guild introduced by Kvatch Rising mod, Reneer's Guard Overhaul and other guard mods, or any of the stealth mods).

 

Personally I like Thieves, but only if they are NPCs. :pirate::happy:

[Ferryt]

Actually, vvk78, none of those mods actually impact the Thieves Guild questline or directly affect the past or future history of any of its essential characters. As an example, the one which allows you to "be" Lex doesn't actually do that. Lex will still be in the game, doing everything he normally does. You just get to play a clone without any of the attached scripting. This is the case with most of those mods, in fact. They might add items to the TG HQ, or even remodel it, but how does that affect the TG questline or anything that Lex is supposed to do? They don't. And giving Lex a makeover? So he has a one-handed sword and a shield, instead of his two-handed sword, and went to the beauty parlor for a hairdo? Unless you intend to fight him (unwise for a thief character) this can have no impact at all on any Thieves Guild activity.

 

The one which allows you to be a beggar doesn't impact anything about the Thieves Guild at all -- totally unrelated. Unhealthy Competition only triggers after you've beaten the entire Thieves Guild questline. This one mod could be prevented from happening by breaking the Thieves Guild questline, such as by letting the Gray Fox get imprisoned, but that should give you, as a thief character, that much more incentive to make certain that your jailbreak attempt actually works.

 

This is what I meant by using the Thieves Guild question to order any mods that actually impact it. If those mods require a particular Thieves Guild quest to be at a particular quest stage then it would be almost trivial to keep them from conflicting. Purely "cosmetic" mods, like Better Gray Fox and Armor of the Gray Fox clearly don't clash with anything which has to do with the progression of the Thieves Guild questline and are, therefore, total non-issues.

 

The mod that fixes the dual-ring bug in Ahdarji's Heirloom quest does only that. It fixes a bug. Again, no possible conflict with anything. The Next Gray Fox? It doesn't even touch on the Thieves Guild questline. All Kvatch Rising does is to ensure that the Thieves Guild is operational in Kvatch. It doesn't affect the questline at all -- at least not to my knowledge, and you could completely break the quest by failing both the Better Thief and the alternate quest to join the TG and what Kvatch Rising puts into the game will still be there (you just won't be able to use it). SNR Thieves Guild is nothing but a cosmetic overhaul. Again, questline impact = zero. Charging dues to guild members and raising fencing rates, again, in no way impacts anything that the mod we've been talking about could possibly alter.

 

Bottom line, none of the listed mods can, as far as I can see, have any possibility of interacting in any bad way with a quest which raises the "heat" on the Thieves Guild and its members, and puts some or all of them into danger of being captured and imprisoned. Sure, there are some characters which are essential to the continuation of the questline. Methredhel and Amusei at some point in the questline act as couriers for the Gray Fox to inform you of your next activity. If they get jailed then that would trigger an additional quest to break them out. Very simple and very easy. Indeed, at some point you will have to spring Amusei from prison, anyway, and not once, but twice! What if you never give him a lockpick the first time? Does this break the Thieves Guild questline? I honestly don't know because I've never NOT given him a lockpick. It's like any other quest. You aren't assured of success at anything you do in this game, although some quests require you to work really hard to fail them.

 

What we're talking about, here, is essentially extending the questline of the Thieves Guild to add additional intrigue and danger, as well as additional opportunity to screw up and break it. There are certainly plenty of such opportunities in all the various guild quests, as well as the main quest, and it's very easy for you to make it impossible for you to complete the full set of Daedric shrine quests. That's one of the things that makes this game so interesting and re-playable.

[ZyaKen]

Okay. I have an idea. How about a separate faction mod. One that gives a faction connected to the Imperial leagion. Writing a whole new script that changes the direction of the Thieve's Guild. Where Harmonus Lex, seeks out this specific faction. To infiltrate the Thieve's Guild, bringing the Grey Fox to justice. Where you can still actually unlock the new guild. To expand the nodded faction, as its commanding master.