For once I'm actually going to solicit advice, and I've not made a start yet.

I've never been happy with the Mazed Band quest part of Tribunal. To me, it's a huge glaring logic flaw - if you have just been told that it's a really, really bad idea to hand the ring over to Almalexia, then why in Oblivion would you do that?

:blink:

I'm trying to think of ways to get the ring to Almalexia without you just being wilfully stupid about it. If she just takes it, it's pretty unlikely that you'd then willingly accept her invitation to go to Sotha Sil - but then again, that also seems silly when you know darn well that it's a trap.

I don't want to make huge, sweeping changes here and I want to do it in a day or two. I think the overall quest is fine - so we just need to motivate the player to a. hand over the ring and b. go to Sotha Sil. It took just ten new entries to change the Caius Cosades questline into something I liked; I'm trying to go for a similarly subtle change here.

I would think that it should be a branching questline:

1. You willlingly hand over the ring - unchanged
2. You try to hand over the ring to Fedris Hler. He would then betray you and give it to Almalexia.
3. You hand it over to Barenziah. We could then just have it so that it is stolen from her and given to Almalexia. (Can easily be done through dialogue.)
4. You keep it for yourself. This is the hardest one because we need to have it removed from you. I was thinking that perhaps just the next time you sleep you get a messagebox on waking telling you that you've been pickpocketed in your sleep.

Now getting to Sotha Sil:

1. You willingly go - unchanged
2. You willingly go because you have to. (Perhaps you get a message saying that Barenziah has been kidnapped and drag there and so you go there to rescue her? Only, of course, she was never there. That could be handled by dialogue explanation from her when you return that she was simply not in her chambers when you went to look for her at the Palace.)
3. You unwillingly go. Perhaps if you point-blank refuse, Almy just zaps you there anyway?

Thoughts?

The options for the Mazed Band quest sound fine, I'd say - while obviously it'd be good to grant the player more than just the illusion of choice, this is as you said a very small-scale mod, and at least it's removing the infuriating stupidity on the part of our beloved bumbling hero.

For the Sotha Sil options, perhaps add to the dialogue of the Argonian who sends you back to the mainland; Almalexia could have threatened him or bought him off, so that if you try to make a run for it, instead of sending you to Ebonheart, he sends you to Sotha Sil? Just a suggestion.

here is somthing I'd like very much, even if it is not exaclty what you are programming, and it would require a bit more than 1 - 2 days...

to meet Sotha Sil.

I was very disappointed when I realized that I couldn't do anything to stop the Goddess to accomplish her bad purposes... :shakehead:


The Mazed Band could be active since when you find it, or perhaps there could be another way to reactivate it, so when Alamlexia aska you to give her the ring, if you refuse, she'll get crazy and will scream something like "you want to keep its power for yourself! Hands! Kill him before he wears the ring!"
Then the doors of the High Chapel would be sealed, and the only chance to survive is to wear the ring, so you may travel to Sotha Sil and meet the god. (waht will follow, we'll see)

Really another way to complete the main quest.

Westly made if I remember correctly, a good Sotha Sil creature or Npc. It could be animated then.

Really, all sorts of things about the Tribunal main quest are completely stupid. The bit that really gets to me is where Almalexia asks you to help create ashstorms in Mournhold - what on earth is your motivation for agreeing to this? And it would be great if you were given a better reason to work for Helseth than "he'll send more assassins" - honestly, this is not likely to scare a character who's the Nerevarine, the head of about six different guilds, and has just killed every Dark Brotherhood member in Mournhold.

Agree with that 100%. When I get to that part of the quest I always wish I had the option to put my foot down and say "no."

As far as the possible options Princess_Stomper posted, I like both of the ones that involve Barenziah. Of course I'm using the Royal Chargen mod so when I see those I think, "Yes, I trust Grandmother. I would be willing to hand the band over to her." Not to mention hearing that she was kidnapped. That would most certainly make my character willing to drop everything and go to Mournhold.

I think those option work well even if Royal Chargen isn't being used. There is something about Barenziah that makes a lot of player characters trust her.

I have to admit, when I played through for the first time, Almalexia's betrayal was actually a bit of a surprise.

Something to keep in mind: the ring needs to go to Ayem to have its powers restored.

Perhaps, while some NPCs keep hinting that it is a bad idea, you can have some of the Temple NPCs reassure the player that the Band isn't evil, it is just a tool to be used (for good or ill).

Alternatively, to motivate the player into handing over the ring, Almalexia could offer the player a reward - perhaps an artifact that had belonged to Nerevar?

Added dialog to Almalexia might help. She brushes away the player's concerns in the vanilla dialog. Perhaps some new dialog could have her explain what she wants the ring for (well, not her real plan, of course). She could say she caught wind that Dagon is planning to invade Tamriel, and she needs it to thwart some of his minions/sleeper agents. The Band can supposedly allow the wearer to travel across all sorts of realms - perhaps even into Oblivion.

- http://www.imperial-library.info/tsomw/tb_10.shtml

Would this add new journal entries or just change the existing ones?

Hm. One thing to remember is that none of the quests are required. If you met a goddess, and didn't trust her, would you openly defy her? Of course not, because she could destroy you. You play nice to her face, and then high-tail it out of there.

What I WOULD like to see, though, is an expansion of the Palace v. Temple dynamic that is briefly touched on in the original quest. Like, if you're a loyal citizen of the Empire, Barenziah starts giving you quests that reduce the Temple's power in Mournhold while still being related to the original main quest (she tells you that Fedris Hler has gone after the Mazed Band, so you have to go after it, kill him, and destroy the ring). Ultimately, you are asked to slay Almalexia herself.

The problem is that while this is technically an option in the game, it obviously doesn't allow you to progress any further in the main quest. Completion of Tribunal is entirely dependent on what TV Tropes calls http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StupidityIsTheOnlyOption. Even if you don't realise the full extent of Almalexia's madness, by the time of the 'weather machine' quest it ought to be obvious that something is very wrong.

Like Forest Stalker, I'm currently writing a fanfic which at some point will cover Tribunal, and I'm already tearing my hair out trying to dream up reasons for my character - who's a sensible woman, and realises pretty early on that Almy's lost it - to complete her quests. (Don't even get me started on the quests for Helseth.) The whole experience would be much less frustrating if Almalexia did a better job of hiding her insanity.

In fact, there are so many things in Tribunal that could use improvement. For instance, why isn't it possible to join the conspirators plotting to kill Helseth? A good character might well decide that Morrowind would be better off without him, while an amoral, selfish one is going to think "well, why shouldn't I kill him and seize the throne myself"? Personally I'd love to see a GHD-type mod that allowed you to do this, even though it would have to be a kind of 'alternate universe' scenario (since Helseth is still alive as of Oblivion).

Actually, I'd say the worst of the Tribunal quest was the goblin army. I interpreted the Nerevarine's surender of the mazed band to be calling Almalexia's bluff, so to speak (I was always suspicious of her, I just couldn't do anything about it with her hands around :toughninja: ).

However, you asked for advice, so I would have the incentive of going to Sotha Sil's city be Sotha Sil's help shutting down the Dwemer climate changer. She admits to you she's unable to shut the machine off or control it, and she uses her godly wiles to convince you to seek the Tinkerer's help. Even as the weakened god she was, she could still pull off something akin to Vivec's waterface, only this is lie-to-the-incarnate-of-your-lover's-face

Edit1- Tribunal is just a messed up expansion period

Edit2- You could possibly randomize the weather in Mournhold entirely for the fullest effect

Lots of thoughts there that need organising before I take it any further. What I really want to avoid is Mission Creep. I want something that I can complete in a couple of days - not a rewrite of the entire game!

I'll list the options I like and then think it over re implementation.

All new dialogue would be additional - filtered above where it supersedes existing lines.

would it be possable to implicate sotha sil into it at all, ( my favorate thing about tribunal is him and his architecture, and i found it the most dissapointing thing that he was " dead ", ) and for those who say it's against the lore technically it's not against the lore to make it able to meet him living on the fact is lore is history of tamriel and the point of modding the games is to add your own ideas meaning that you can easily make soth sil somehow living while making it fit perfectly into the lore itself.

The reason I asked about journal entries is because I'll be adding additional dialog to my companion mod that concerns the Tribunal MQ and if your mod changes the journal entries, there may be issues. I'm not worried about the additional dialog, I just want to make sure that the journal entries stay the way they are. Additional ones won't be an issue, though, but I wouldn't mind a global variable that gets set to one when this mod is running if you do add additional entries. That way I can add additional dialog to my mod if necessary.

Good point: I'll add a global to mine that gets switched to 1 when my mod is active, so other modders can work around it. I wouldn't change existing journal entries.

The simple thing would be to have Barenziah maybe advise the player to play along with Almalexia's game, to see what she (Ayem) is up to.

Or, perhaps a new NPC could do something like that - a Dissident Priest. The NPC would, of course, want to discredit and throw down the false gods. To that end, what would be better than to play along with Almalexia's game and let her own actions condemn her in the eyes of her subjects?

Yeah, I understand - I was just venting my frustration with the main quest in general, not expecting you to implement all those other ideas! I think your suggestion for improving the Mazed Band quest is a good one.

Yes, that makes sense. Thanks

Perhaps the simplest answer to the 'Mazed Band' issue is to have Almalexia be more forthcoming but lie convincingly.
Perhaps she can spin a line about someone (maybe even Sotha Sil, to estabilsh him as a menace early') seeking it to create havoc and she wants it to destroy it. She could even 'fake up' destroying in front of the player?

In The 2920 Series, it mentions Sotha Sil going into Oblivion to strike a deal with several Daedric Princes (to get them to stop invading Tamriel). You can read about the incident http://www.imperial-library.info/mwbooks/2920.shtml#4.

Now, allow me a slight tangent. According to http://www.imperial-library.info/obbooks/doors_oblivion.shtml:


And, as I already quoted in one of my posts above, it is stated in-game that Barilzar's Band has the power to enter Oblivion.

Almalexia could say she needs to give the ring to Sotha Sil so that he might enter Oblivion and deal with some unruly Daedric Prince, since The Dreaming Cave was sealed off.

Then she could be all like "Oh noes! Sotha Sil tricked me, he's gone crazy from losing power to the heart and wants to steal the power from Vehk and me, he's sending Fabricants via the Band!"

I think your ideas are all good ones, Princess, and I'm glad someone's doing this. Tribunal's very railroady.


Yes, this. Personally, I was also disappointed that I couldn't go to Vivec with any of this, even after it became obvious that Almalexia was losing it. You're on speaking terms with the guy, and it seems like something he might want to know (even if he'd probably just send you back on the theory that you can handle it yourself).

It's been way too long since I've done the trib MQ, but I think I remember enough of it after reading your post. What if Almalexia takes the ring forcibly? Then you somehow realize or are told that you should go confer with Sotha Sil to see why Almalexia has suddenly become powerhungry/crazy. Or maybe you realize that for some reason you should go check on him yourself..

But doesn't the player need the ring to get to the clockwork city? In http://www.imperial-library.info/tsomw/tb_17.shtml, it seems that Almalexia is able to teleport the player to the Clockwork City via the band. Could there be some other method, then, for getting to the city?

It would ridiculously easy to mod in another way to the city. I doubt it'd be too hard to make the lore plausible, too.

Maybe this might help:
- http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tribunal:Clockwork_City

So, somehow you'd have to make it such that the player can use the entrance - but there's nothing to say the entrance would be anywhere on Morrowind nor Vvardenfell. Or that it was even a proper entrance at all, and not some sort of Heisenberg uncertainty gate, whose end-point is neither here nor there until Sotha Sil wishes it to exist. In fact, I'm not even sure if the city is on Nirn at all, and not some sort of pocket realm....

EDIT: Ah, so it is a Heisenberg sort of thing. See http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=989859&hl= and/or http://www.imperial-library.info/obscure_text/sotha_sil.shtml

DISCLAIMER: the text isn't in-game lore.

A teleportation spell from a temple acolyte is all that's needed. The clock work sity is an actual place in morrowind, so there's bound to be an old Dunmer who left a convenient anchor for you in his city when sil was still taking visitors.

Still, I prefer the simple "call her bluff" dialogue Berenziah may say. Just a simple journal entry, and she doesn't need to invent new plot angles which will only make the cracked plot worse.