"A Mix-Up" Quest (k0c00y06) legal reputation not clamped -100 to 100 [RESOLVED]

[Hurricane Otter]

There's a bug with the classic quest "A Mix-Up", which I'm not certain has been reported yet. For those who aren't familiar, this is the merchant/innkeep quest where you are accused of stealing a gem, your reputation in the kingdom tanks, and you have to engage in a lengthy quest chain to redeem yourself.

According to UESP, the quest is supposed initially subtract 200 regional reputation from your character, to a minimum of -100, rendering you "hated". Then, upon completing the quest, the game adds +110 regional reputation to your character, bringing you above "common citizen" to +10 "respectable". This makes the quest one of the few ways to gain regional reputation.

(On a side note, I don't think the reputation arithmetic described above is very well-designed. My character started out with +20 rep in the kingdom before accepting the quest. Because, as I understand it, all players finish the quest at +10 regional rep, this would be a net malus for my character, providing no benefit at all and making it a trap of sorts. It would be better if my character received a +10 bonus to her initial starting rep, placing her at +30.)

The bug I've encountered is that the quest subtracts 200 regional reputation from the character, but it *doesn't* zero out the rep at -100. My character with a +20 reputation was brought down to -180; upon completing the quest and receiving the +110 bonus, she was left at a regional reputation of -70, "pond scum". So there seems to be no way to complete the quest and end up in positive territory. My reputation in the kingdom is nuked, and I'm now faced with the prospect of having to restore a save prior to accepting the quest in order to salvage the game.

Sorry if it's already been reported somewhere before... Also, if there's an in-game console command to set my regional rep, please let me know!

[Jay_H]

I had previously noted it in my fixes, but I think your conclusion is well-placed. We'll have to verify first that legal rep does not bottom at -100 to begin with.

I'll also move this over to the questing section of Bug Reports Good work.

[Hurricane Otter]

No problem. The simplest way I can think of to fix this, which would solve every extant problem with the quest, is just to have the quest turn-in award +210 reputation. This would erase the regional reputation nuke and add a nice rep bonus as incentive as well. I imagine it would take all of five minutes to remedy, if that.

[Jay_H]

I could, but the preferred method is to change the engine to match classic's. We'll see what Interkarma says In the meantime, do you have a save near the time of the bug? That'll help make sure it gets solved more easily.

[Interkarma]

I can confirm that regional reputation isn't being clamped at -100 to +100. Adding code to clamp this now in a way that is retroactive with saves that have already gone below -100 or above +100.

[Interkarma]

Legal reputation is now clamped from -100 to 100. This will be applied when loading an affected save game.