Relationship is a mechanic that abstractly determines how much an NPC likes you.
Relationship is only somewhat related to whether or not a creature is actually hostile to you, or will attack you. A creature with a negative enough relationship will turn hostile if they were neutral before, but many creatures spawn hostile, and raising their relationship doesn't turn their hostility off.
Relationship is most important for determining when you can marry your companions, how adventurers treat you (how much they cost in Elona+), and in Elona+, as a prerequisite to use an Astral Light Pen. In addition, you will unlock the [evochat] (Mostly a role playing purpose feature) option in the dialogue window with your pet after reaching Friend(Accredit) relationship in Elona+.
Levels of Relationship and Impress[]
Impress is the in-game word for the score an NPC has for their relationship to your character. It appears on the left of the text box when talking to an NPC, and changes to impress status appear in the text log at the bottom of the screen unless they are a <boss character>.
Relationship Level | Impress Points Needed |
Foe | 15 or below |
Hate | 16-24 |
Annoying | 25-39 |
Normal (50 is the default) | 40-74 |
Amiable | 75-99 |
Friend (shows up as Accredit after ver. 2.19) | 100-149 |
Fellow (shows up as Trust after ver. 2.19) | 150-~199 |
Soul Mate (shows up as Ally after ver. 2.19) | ~200-299 |
*love* (shows up as *Ally* after ver. 2.19) | 300 or above |
Raising Impress[]
NPC Impress[]
There are several means of raising impress levels with NPCs that aren't in your party:
- Talking to an NPC that can talk can randomly increase or decrease impress. This seems to depend upon your character's charisma and the target character's level. In general, better charisma leads to more random positive changes, while higher level NPCs tend to require higher-charisma characters to gain impress. Shopkeepers and guards have high levels, and are harder to get along with. Also note that this will not increase impress above 100.
- A love potion, or food spiked with love potion, can be used to increase relation, but do not give the potion to the NPC directly.
- Sleeping with the NPC can be another viable tactic. Just give the target an identified bottle of non-cursed alcohol to get them drunk, then offer them "a little tail" when you talk to them. Be aware that you need to have plenty of remaining stamina, may catch a disease, and will take a one point karma penalty (barring secret treasure of the wicked) for doing so.
- Token of friendship should only be given if you are already at "Friend" impress level.
- Elona+ adds a series of gift items such as Valentine's chocolates and others that can be purchased and given to NPCs.
- Gift items are sold at general vendors rarely and at a low cost as well as from souvenir vendors at an extremely high cost, (over 150,000 gold for the lowest quality). Gifts can be made of different materials and have different suffixes like furniture though it does not seem to be the case that it increases the impress boost. Gifts come in different qualities with "a cheap gift" being the lowest quality worth 12 impress, a "so-so" gift being worth 25, an expensive gift is worth 50 impress, a "hot and crazy" gift roughly 60, and a "crazy epic" gift having a base value of 100 impress. The quality of a gift determines its base potency, higher quality gifts can add a massive spike in impress. A "hot and crazy gift" or a "hot and gorgeous gift" raised an NPC from <Neutral> to <Friend> while a "crazy epic gift" further raised this relationship from <Friend> to <Soul Mate> in one use. Gift items also give double impress at low impress values (at least <Hate>) and start giving around a quarter impress upon reaching <Soul Mate>.
- In Elona+ 2.06, after you successfully marriage your pet, there will now an additional drop item named "Jewel of MXX - (gemstone name)" ex: Jewel of M01-Garnet, where MXX equal to the month you married on. You can give this item to any NPC to raise impress. When you gift this to an NPC whose birthday anniversary is the same month, impress will be increased moderately.
Pet Impress[]
Members of your party have other options:
- Just let them kill things. Tell all your other pets to wait at the bar, and go pick fights with random enemies, letting the companion you want to raise relation with get kills. Alternately, just keep them in your party as you adventure, and if they are any good at all, they'll reach "Soul Mate" relationship eventually.
- Engagement rings or necklaces can be given to pets. Note that this will take up their inventory slots, and trying to take the jewelry back drops impress and destroys the jewelry.
- In Elona+, if you raise master/servant relationship with pets while having Candle of Luluwy in your inventory, the impress will go up by 3(?) and a special message is displayed.
"You've dropped wax to [pet name] from Candle of Luluwy"
Losing Impress[]
NPC Impress[]
An NPC, especially an adventurer with low impress, can become hostile to the character. Use a disguise kit, spell, or scroll of disguise to make them no longer hostile, and speak to them to try to halt their hostility.
- Talking to an NPC, especially when they have no remaining Attract, can randomly drop Impress.
- Hostile acts or damaging an NPC in any way drops impress. This includes damage from any sort of environmental hazard created by you, such as fire or acid, non-damaging hexes, or even thrown potions that have beneficial effects.
- Being caught pickpocketing from that NPC will drop impress significantly.
- Giving an NPC a love potion does massive damage to impress. Either mix the potion with food or throw the potion on the ground and hope they step in it if you want to raise impress.
Pet Impress[]
Pets do not follow the same rules:
- Pets lose impress if they are killed, even in the Pet Arena.
- Pets don't lose impress for being damaged (or affected by hexes or other such things) by your character - they do seem to lose attract, however.
- Pets lose massive impress if you try to take any sort of engagement jewelry from their inventory. Also, just trying to get the jewelry back will involve them swallowing the ring. (In game-terms, deleting the item without having anything to do with food.)
- Non-pet NPCs do not do this when traded for engagement jewelry - you can hire an adventurer, give them engagement jewelry, and then trade to get it back from them.
- Pets never gain or lose impress (or attract) for talking.
- Female pets will lose a great deal of impress for being bashed for no good reason.
Attract[]
Attract's full function doesn't seem to be entirely clear.
At least, on the surface, it appears to be a measure of the current mood of an NPC. It goes down as an NPC is annoyed, which unfortunately includes every time you talk to them. Since this applies to shopkeepers every time you look at what they have to buy or sell, they will frequently hit minimum attract.
Attract is represented by little "faces" on the bottom left of the NPC dialog box.
Having no attract appears to cause an NPC to stop making idle chatter with the player character, (instead saying "[character name] is bored" or some other indicator of their displeasure) and will make their impress level tend to go down as you interact with them further.
Performing seems to also drain attract, and may have a function in curtailing how much money they are willing to throw at you.
Attract also appears to be counted among pets, where it seems to merely reflect how often you've hit them with "friendly fire" recently. It may have an impact on how quickly their impress status rises or declines, and having max attract is necessary for marrying them.
Elona+[]
Master/Servant Relationship[]
Beginning with version 1.43, Elona+ adds another relationship mechanic to the game known as the Master/Servant Relationship. It functions by making pets be "patient" with items at their feet - that is, not automatically eating up food at their feet. While its functionality overlaps somewhat with that of the Tamer's Whip, it has the distinction of allowing a middle ground from the default "eat everything at your feet" and "don't eat anything at your feet". In addition, higher values make pets more obedient towards forced sleep sharing.
Its value with pets is shown on the same screen as the normal relationship/impress values.
Raising/Lowering the Relationship[]
All pets begin with a master/servant relationship level of 50 (Peer). By default, the only way to influence the relationship level is to affect them with love potions (throw directly, mixed/dipped with food only raise impress) - normal or blessed love potions will make a pet more obedient, while cursed love potions will cause a pet to be more free-willed. The amount raised by normal and blessed love potions depends on the current relationship value (e.g. at 50, both love potions raise the value by 17; at 100, they raise the value by 12; at 200, they raise the value by 5). Cursed love potions, however, always lower the value by 15.
Another way to influence the relationship level is by interacting with your pet, instructing them to not pick up items from the ground. While this mode is active, pets still have a chance to eat food at their feet based on the master/servant relationship level.
If Tamer's Whip is used instead, similar effect can be archived with either "Prohibit" choice, meaning the first choice only prohibit eating, while the latter not sure if intended but prohibit both eating and picking up stuffs.
"[pet name] is gazing at the food with a pained expression"
"[pet name] could not endure, [pet name] starts to eat a corpse of [name]"
By interrupting a pet while it is eating something at its feet, they will become more obedient (relationship value is raised by 34 at 50; 17 at 100; 12 at 200). Letting them continue will cause them to be more free-willed. This will only affect the master/servant relationship once per day.
At max relationship level, they have roughly a 1/300 chance of eating food at their feet.
Additionally, pets will have a higher price when sold to the slave master based on master/servant relationship level.
Ranch Animal[]
Patch 1.89 added several ways of affecting the master/servant relationship level of ranch animals, as follows:
- Ranch animals will have their master/servant relationship and Impress increased when their size increases, and decreased when they shrink.
- Teaching a ranch animal tricks (by giving an item) via the conversation window will raise the master/servant relationship, as well as give a small amount of perception experience to player and pet
- The "Consume Livestock Feed" action at the register will increase the master/slave relationship of all animals on the ranch.
Master/Servant Relationship Titles[]
"Your master relation with [pet name] becomes [relationship title]."
Title | Values | Other |
---|---|---|
*Dog* | 300 | |
Fidelity | 250 - 299 | |
Subjection | 200 - 249 | Will not resist during forced sleep sharing. |
Amenable | 150 - 199 | Will not resist the initiation of forced sleep sharing. |
Docile | 100 - 149 | |
Peer | 0 - 99 | |
Uninhibited | -100 - -1 | Will automatically fail the patience check. |
Cat | < -100 |
Special Commands[]
A list of special commands available at Amenable+ Master/Servant relationship that alters non-battle pet behavior labeled as "Instruct non-battle action" or "Give special instructions" in their talk menu.
Command | Effect |
---|---|
Roam while breaking apart | Roams around the map while not in party, standard pet behavior |
Dull while breaking apart | Seems to be similar to above |
Stand while breaking apart | Stands still on spot while not in party, similar to some seminar teachers |
Follow while breaking apart | Follows player while not in party, similar to fire dragon childs |
Do main job while accompany | Standard pet behavior as part of party |
Perform | Pet performs similar to bards etc, Always active |
Propagate greatness of god | Pet preaches/converts, Always active |
Dance | Pet uses fascination dance similar to butterspy, Always active |
Exterminate Snail | Pet acts like cleaners when sighting snails, Always active |
Do Prostitution | Pet propositions other npcs similar to prostitutes, Always active |
Do not train in town | Pet does not use its held gold to train skill potentials in town |