I never found a way to use his story/nuke ability, which is probably why I hate him. I’m not sure what his whole backstory adds since it means sacrifice. At least, I never found a way to let him sacrifice without losing the rest of the group.
There was lots of lore about it, but maybe you missed it because you hated the companion whose quest was centered around it.
It was a netherbrain because it was created by Netherese magic (the crown). That was the same magic that Gale tried to harness when he pissed off Mystra.
Also the bit of Weave embedded in Gale isn’t Mystra’s Weave but the corrupted Netherweave produced by the Netherese guy in the moment when he shattered the original Weave. So, yeah, there was a good bit of lore around the whole thing.
Random Act I Evil Play Thoughts
I never saw any dead tiefling children after the Grove was invaded. I did learn that they were going to hide in a secret cave and have a decent idea where that place is (one of the kids scurried off there when I threatened him for pickpocketing me) but it never came up after that. Maybe Mol survived after all. Classic Mol. People in my group were fairly chill about what we did though Shadowheart quipped that maybe she shouldn’t pat our backs too hard for slaughtering a bunch of noncombatants.
Karlach is apparently on the Druid Listserv because the moment I found her, she was all “I’ve been looking for you for what you did to those druids”. I intimidated her into shutting up, then Asterion aggro’d her by stealing her shit and now Karlach doesn’t have to worry about her engine any longer.
I can’t have Minthara join until at least Moonrise? Lame. My group is just me, Vae’zel, Asterion, Shadowheart and Gale. Gale’s riding the bench since I can druid enough magic that he’s not really needed as much as a rogue, tank-cleric and fighter.
I had to laugh when I told the Creche nursery guy that I’d raise the egg as if it were my own. I wasn’t lying – selling your child sounds totally on brand for a Lolth-Sworn Drow male.
I was originally going to work with Nere except he’s a total prick and fuck that guy. Only room in my game for one dick Drow. Two, one Minthara comes back. Having done the creche stuff (diplomacy broke down in a hurry) I’ll bench Vae’zel for Minthara.
That Grymforge golem fight is still obnoxious gamey bullshit
I laughed at my character saying “No one back home will ever believe this” while trotting through a mushroom-filled cave. Sure, man, no one in Drowsville will ever believe you were in a cave.
I respec’d Shadowheart to Life cleric this time. It’s working but I miss getting extra tricks. The description for your subclass spells says “This is a better version” but they’re identical as far as I can tell.
I multiclassed Asterion into ranger at 5 (after his Rogue ASI) and all those Favored Enemy options are lame. Also, I’m not as impressed with Assassin as most of the internet, possibly because I can’t be bothered to “set up” combat most of the time. Will probably respec him into Thief since the extra bonus action attack is worth more to me.
I’m on Act III, but I won’t post any spoilers. Were the programmers a bunch of thirsty boys? I only ask, because it seems like almost every NPC wants to bang my character. Men, women, demons, and other such horrors. Even when I don’t engage in much dialogue, they make passes at my character and it’s just weird.
Besides the companions being romanceable, I don’t recall too many others who make a move on you. One notable Act III exception: The emperor will make a move on you but, in the story climax, it seemed obvious (to me) that he was manipulating you to convince you to complete ceremorphesis.
Other Act III Spoiler:
Mizora is just a horny-ass devil. It’d be weirder if she wasn’t trying to get down. Also, if you’re in a relationship and say so as a reason not to have sex, she says it’ll be your little secret. Then she immediately tells your partner afterward. Again, she’s a devil and fucking around with you.
Eh, maybe they’re all just thirsty in Belgium 
. It’s seems a reasonably diverse writing staff, gender-wise. Here’s senior writers John Corcoran and Adrienne Law with senior origin narrative designer Baudelaire Welch (who apparently was in charge of romances), in a short interview largely about sex in BG3.
IMHO the characters and the companions in particular are a bit too horny. But while sexual reactivity is a little over-tuned (and anecdotally it seems a lot of players agree it can be a bit much), I usually don’t find it much of a distraction. More a quirked eyebrow level of thing. But I have learned to not be flirty with everyone - that way lies madness 
. I stick to a maximum of one romance and ruthlessly prune the others (helps that I’m also not into the polyamorous Halsin).
My character happens to look a lot like Gale. Long brown hair, human…his features are more chiseled while I look like a muscular doofus.
So when Gale asked me to “watch possibly his last sunrise together”.…I happened to be wearing a snazzy purple velvet shirt that nearly matched his.
We looked like the most ridiculous homoerotic harlequin romance novel cover you can imagine*. Made that much worse because I don’t actually speak. Just make dumb doe-eyed expressions.
- Theres was a forbidden affair! They could hide their love from the others, but not…FROM THEIR GODS!
I don’t do them either. I’ve played the Mass Effect series 4-5 times and I keep meaning to do a renegade Shepard playthrough but…I just can’t.
Maybe I will do it for BG3 but while I really want to see that side of the game I don’t think I will.
It also seems that “evil” playthroughs are not really “evil” but just more snarky and kinda being an asshole. I don’t think game developers really want to portray what a truly evil character would really do. It’s just too disturbing. At least, that is what I have seen some comments suggest. Since I have not tried it yet I can’t say for certain.
Renegade Shepard is just Shepard punching more people in the face.
I admit I have punched the reporter in Mass Effect.
That’s true, but it’s certainly possible to do evil things in Mass Effect. Multiple genocides, for instance.
You probably did need to find the hideout.
I thought I had; I even went and clicked on it during the fight. No big deal though, I’m not about to feel upset that I didn’t get to rat them out.
I got an achievement only claimed by 0.7% of players for getting Sazza (the imprisoned goblin in the grove) out of trouble in Acts 1 & 2. I assume you have to be playing an evil run to pull it off (given who you need to interact with) plus they try to throw you under the bus at one point which doesn’t help their odds.
I signed Minthara onto our payroll and was relieved to learn that she comes with her magic boots. I was a little worried that you had to kill/loot her to get them but thankfully they’re just part of her loadout. They prevent you from going Prone if you’re concentrating on a spell and were a primary piece of kit for Shadowheart running around with Spirit Guardians since going prone is an insta-concentration break. Anyway, I welcomed Minthara onboard and immediately stole her shoes.
I’m going to try running Minthara as a sword-n-board style since last game it was Vae’zel & Karlach with two-handers and now I still have Vae’zel with a 2-hander/GWM. Not entirely confident that I’ll like it but what’s another 100gp between me and my man Withers?
Thank you for posting this. Not sure it’s a spoiler but just in case.
For me, that’s not enough. Again, I used to be steeped in FR history, so knew of an elder brain from a Netherese wizard. It truly fits for that character to do this, so in my mind it’s them.
The bigger spoiler for FR lore though is
Gale’s whole backstory and quest is how we got Sammaster, who started the Cult of the Dragon. Maybe if it was picked up and new FR lore did that, that would be cool. That means getting a new FR lore book from WotC, though, and I don’t see that happening.
Gale is still a whiny baby to me.
That’s awesome! Thanks for sharing!
This. One of the examples of CE I used back in the day was Simon Phoenix from Demolition Man. He did whatever he wanted when he wanted. I’m thinking of when he shoves the museum goer into the wall. Or when he is constantly trying to kill Dr. Cocteau and can’t. Bob was lucky to survive. I mean, this is the definition of the Joker! I still don’t know how those guys get followers when getting on that guys bad side is a death sentence. (And I just realized Joker’s Bob didn’t survive.)
Thanks for the conversation!
Yes! Shoving enemies is one of my favorite things to do in combat. It is so satisfying to push them off a ledge or into fire or ice – and all with a bonus action that was going unused.
I just finished Act 2. For some reason I am lot slower than everyone in this thread. I was disappointed with my Vendor options in Act 2. My camp trunk has a literal ton of vendor trash to sell.
I’ve been living with my decisions which has created some compelling storytelling. However: I lost Isobel as soon as I got to the Last Light. I had to kill off the NPCs which closed off a bunch of questlines. I never gave Dammon a single piece of infernal iron.
A couple of random things:
- I just discovered ‘T’ for tooltips. Not sure how I missed that in the tutorial, but it is really helpful.
- I remapped center camera (Home) to CapsLock and it has made camera control a lot less painful.
- Void bulbs are fantastic for crowd control. I’ve had them since the tutorial and wondered why you would use an action to do 1 HP of damage.
Because of these boosts I feel like this is the point where you get a lot more tactical options. You transition from “What is the best thing each character can do this turn?” to “How do I maximize the party’s impact this turn?”.
If Lae’zel kills with her first attack, can she reach someone else? If her second attack leaves someone with 2 HP, can I get Astarion in place to use his off-hand attack and finish them?
I wouldn’t really say that. I’ve had multiple opportunities to torture and murder (or order the murder) people. Sometimes I’ve gone with it, sometimes I haven’t though that’s mainly been to advance my own goals. And “I only didn’t kill you because you’re a useful tool” isn’t exactly being a great guy. Granted, I’m not going full murderhobo sociopath but rather “Ruthless advancement of power” so my take on it may differ from someone who just wants to burn it all down. I go less for snarky and more for arrogant drow noble.
Going an evil route does lock you out of stuff which is a weird complaint I hear from some people (not here but it’s a common ‘evil’ lament). Yes, of course being evil means some people don’t want to join/deal with you. There’s at least five companions locked out I believe (Wyll, Karlach, Jaheira, Minsc, Halsin) and you get one in return. I’m not sure if there’s any gear exclusive to being evil* but I know I’ve lost a number of items by going evil (anything from a post-Grove tiefling trader, namely)
-
Actually, there’s someone in Moonrise who tells you to ask for her ‘special stash’ with the quartermaster but I’m not sure if you could bluff your way into it on a good run. It does include some nice +2 CON magical heavy splint mail though.
Oh, also having to carry this stupid lantern around with me is way more obnoxious than the chance to free the faerie and get blessed
Well, you are very wrong. At least with regards to this game. You can be truly evil.
There’s some pretty obvious lines that I doubt many devs would want to cross both morally/ethically and just being able to sell their game (even if they had no morals or ethics). You’re, thankfully, not going to find mainstream games that let you be that sort of evil.
On the other hand…
Act II Spoilers
I lied my way into Moonrise, told Jaheira I was cool and got her to believe me, went upstairs, got Selune’s blessing from Isobel right before I helped kidnap her, came back downstairs and told Jaheira “Oh no, the Absolute!”, watched all her friends turn into undead in front of her, I helped kill them then, while she was mourning the Harpers being wiped out, gaslit her into thinking that she was just weak for failing her friends and letting this happen and that she needed to be more like me if the Absolute was going to be stopped. She was going to go to Baldur’s Gate to warn them but I convinced her to hang in my camp because she’d need me.
That feels somewhere below the Neutral line on the ole Alignment Meter to me.
Baldur’s Gate speedrun done in 4:15 (as in 4 minutes, 15 seconds). No commentary…I am honestly not sure what all is being done (not even sure if there are spoilers but best to assume spoilers in the video below). But 4:15 is crazy.
