There is (don’t get excited) a character switch icon during dialogue but it doesn’t actually change the speaker. Near as I can tell, its only value is to have someone sneak off to do sneaky stuff while the NPC is preoccupied with the initial speaker.
Yeah, I think I’ve used it for that purpose once or twice. It’s fun for that, but what I want is a way to have my bard with like +9 persuasion and Friends be the one talking our way out of trouble, rather than Karlach suddenly jumping up like, “Hey, lemme handle this negotiation!”
That’s one of the minor quality of life things i miss from WOTR, conversation skill checks are party based and it just assumes the best person for the job will do the roll.
Probably half of my quick-loads were because the wrong party member got pulled into an important conversation. Karlach, you’re NPC of the year but your job is the smashy smash, not the talky talk.
Hey game…how bout a reminder that
Ulma’s kids got kidnapped by vampires (I admit I may have walked right past them. I didnt look in every vampire cage.) Still…
Because I didnt get a reminder the choice was:
-
Let 7007 vampires live or
-
Let one vampire live that even as a lord we could kill in our sleep.
If I had just a little more reason to not kill all the vampires, I would have. It was a tough choice. A reminder of the kids would definitely have helped me.
There was definitely signs of it. (Act 3 spoilers)
There’s a cage as you’re entering with little kid vampire spawn in it. I didn’t have Astarion in my group at all that run so I didn’t have much context for the whole thing just that I had a cage full of vampire kids. I killed them all anyway since, you know, vampire kids are still vampires and I couldn’t just let them loose to do vampire stuff. Then I met the Gur and said “Hey, killed your kids 'cause they were vampires” and they said “Cool, cool…” and all was good.
My game said
“You killed all the vampires including Ulma’s kids that you said you’d find. You may want to speak to her.”
I was like 'Who the fuck is Ulma??"…I looked her up and said “Oh yeahhhh…oops”.
Spoilers for what happened to me. The Gur were not cool with me.
They met me in the hallway and I had to kill them. Just more corpses on the path to justice.
Here’s a deep cut. Theres a definite 'end of the Dark Tower Saga" feel to all this in my runthrough. I’m not here to play more games. I’m not here to hear monologues. I’m gonna march right into that murder council and slaughter them and go kill Orin.
I only just now figured out you can place objects in your camp like teddy bears on shelves.
facepalm
You can go to your YouTube history, search for the video you watched, and remove it from there.
Tales of Evil: Addendum Edition
Late Act II, Early Act III Spoiler Lore Dump
An update since I ended last time before wrapping up Act II not realizing the significant ending. After sweeping the illithid colony under Moonrise and defeating Thorm (which was all by the book though no Wyll meant no Mizora meant no rapier, sad) we popped back in the throne room where Minthara was relaxing in the seat of power and quipping how she’ll never get tired of sitting in dead men’s chairs. We had a chat and she casually mentioned how, with Thorm’s rock, we were 33% of the way to controlling the Absolute for ourselves. Girl, it’s like you read my mind. She also told the story of how she was living in Menzoberranzan (I’m not looking up the spelling) when a couple of Absolute missionaries came through and knocked at her door. She, as one does, killed and flayed them before hanging their corpses from her front porch as a warning to future solicitors but remained curious about who would dare do this.
So she set off to trace them back and located Moonrise. She snuck in with her men and Thorm was waiting for her with a feast and offer for alliance between Moonrise & Drow Town. During the state dinner though, Orin shows up, tells Thorm that she wants her, murders all her men in a flash and carried Mindy down into the basement to get wormed. She spent the next however long under the mind control of the Absolute and hated Thorm, hates Orin a lot and seems largely ambivalent about Gortash. Being free of the Absolute’s power, she has also rejected the teachings of Lolth as a different pair of shackles and has gone all No Gods, No Masters if you ignore her plan to become a God-Queen. This hatred for Thorm & Orin was also the source of her becoming an Oath of Vengeance paladin which makes me wonder what her day job was prior.
Anyway, Mindy and I share a common dream and my approval with her went up a full 25% between conversations in the throne room and soon after. Which is nice because Shadowheart has gone from greeting me with “Well, MY day has gotten better…” to “Dark Lady’s blessings upon you” which is a lot less fun. Oh, and Jahiera is back! She was missing from camp after we killed Dame Aylin so I assumed that just removed her but she’s a full-fledged team member now and I immediately stole her scimitar that works off Wisdom (not as good as the rapier but I’ll take it. Literally). Level 9 or 10 and I can finally stop casting Shillelagh each time we enter combat. She was standing right there as Minthara and I discussed taking over the world but she also doesn’t realize that we kidnapped Isobel, got her Harpers killed and murdered Selune’s kid for an evil deity so…
I’m now in the Baldur’s Gate suburbs (Minthara approved of me telling the orphan girl to shove off) and stopped into the circus long enough to get the legendary trident and play The Dating Game for more Mintara likes. Otherwise will probably skip most of the side questing. No clowns, no letter collection, no toy bombs, etc. Just stuff directly tied to the story/characters. Well, and Auntie Ethel. Gotta do Auntie Ethel.
I held off on posting since the thread has slowed down but enough happened that I thought I’d give it an update.
Tales of Evil: Career Goals
Extensive Act III Spoilers
Having arrived in Baldur’s Gate, I set myself towards hitting my major team goals early. I popped into Sharess’s Caress to talk to Raphael and make a deal for the Orphus Hammer, then busted in on the Dryad escort for my +1d6 buff then got into the Gatehouse to strike a deal with Gortash to kill Orin. Minthara expressed some reservation about letting Gortash be a third in our power-sharing scheme but we all know that Gortash isn’t living through this. With that all out of the way, we set off for the House of Loss where, unlike my first game where everyone was looking to kill Shadowheart as a traitor, this time we were invited in with minimal snark.
When we reached the big Shar conference room, Viconia decreed that Shadowheart had failed to retrieve the artefact and thus failed Shar. Shadowheart countered that she was now super-blessed by Shar and Viconia was a failure. We had another option or two to convince the clergy which mainly consisted of “Check out how awesome Shadowheart is” and when Vicki finally had enough, we had about 75% of the clergy on our side. Viconia died in two rounds and only lasted that long thanks to a Sanctuary spell. We had the option of sparing or killing her and decided to put her to the sword. She died with some prattle about how someday someone will come for Shadowheart which is real big talk from a woman who was literally trying to set up a sham trial to eliminate Shadowheart not five minutes ago.
With that done, we progressed to the next room and Shadowheart got to meet her parents. Shar said that the final trial was for Shadowheart to kill them and, as a sweetener, said she wouldn’t remember them afterward anyway. Remembering her failure in the Shadowfell, this time I actively encouraged her to finish the task, her parents called her Jenevelle and she angrily responded that her name is Shadowheart before ending their lives with a clench of her wounded fist. Shar congratulated Shadowheart on her promotion to Dark Pope and, true to her word, when I asked Shadowheart about the two corpses in the room, Miss Heart responded that they must have been a couple random nobodies from the ceremony; a sad tribute to a goddess like Shar but who can guess what the gods want. Oh, Shar also restored much of her memories of her time in the church as well. Not all though, she still didn’t recognize her old bestie who is now quartermaster but at least they’ll have time to catch up since said bestie doesn’t need to flee now. Finally, at some point Shadowheart celebrated her becoming a Dark Justiciar by cutting her bangs.
I had a nice moment with Minthara where she asked to join minds so she could see herself through my eyes and we pledged our devotion to one another. So that was nice. Minthara also said that murdering her parents made Shadowheart a true woman on this day so that was nice as well.
We stopped at the Society of Brilliance only to find it the Society of Bloodsoaked floors and scattered loot. Turns out that hatching a kidnapped Gith egg and raising the kid inside isn’t all that great of a plan. Whoops! RIP Hobgoblin mushroom scientist guy.
The next step was supposed to be Astarion and his ritual but Orin rudely kidnapped Lae’zel before we could get started. I WAS going to skip the whole Open Hands Murder quest but it turns out that you need that to get to Orin so I grudgingly got that started. But, fun twist, when I saved Figaro from his assassin, Figaro walked into my leftover Moonbeam spell after combat and killed himself. I looted the corpse and which spawned an agent of Bhaal who said “Great job!” and said I could meet the Tribunal after getting another hand. Know what’s easier than stopping murders? You guessed it!
I had previously saved Cora Highberry and maybe felt a twinge guilty when we visited her house again and I stepped out of my Fog Cloud to see some foster orphan saying “Thanks again for saving Cora!”
Now we’re carrying a couple extra hands with us and an invite to see the Tribunal. Also, we got attacked by vampires last night because Astarion’s plot is still a thing. Oh, and I decided to have Gale do the mega-worm thing because I don’t care about Gale’s story (I covered it in Game #1) and he can go become a mind flayer. Taking the mega-worm power made his face get covered in dark veins and shadows so he looks like he just caught an airbag to the face.
All in all, I’m fairly impressed by the differences in story and expanse of the branching paths.
I’ve been reading your evil play through notes and enjoying them.
I’m on Act 3 and seeing more bugs and unexpected pathing decisions. And I’ve got a few invisible items stuck in my inventory. I think I confused it when I was selling the 2000 pounds of junk to the first vendor I could find.
Final fight was frustrating until I figured out
Take everyone right or left and summon your friends to the middle
Kind of dissapointing theres no summary for all the NPCs I got killed in the final fight
Tales of Evil: That Escalated Quickly
So Very Many Act III Spoilers
With my couple of ill-gotten hands (not sure there’s another kind), I went back to the Tombstone shop, spoke the magic phrase and visited the Bhaal Tribunal. Sarevok started in on his stuff and I was “No one cares, man” so he skipped to the actual judging of my deeds. Seeing as how they say “This corpse can’t talk so tell us how you killed it”, I’m not sure how effective this is at judging my bloodthirst versus my creative storytelling but I passed and was invited to the second round. In the antechamber was the shackled Hollyphant Sherlock and… you want me to kill it? To prove how evil I am? Man, I’d kill that damn Hollyphant anyway and the rest is just value added. Fuck that annoying thing. Minthara got the killing blow on it and so she proceeded into the giant blood pool for her baptism. She said that the title of Unholy Assassin sounded good on her.
Becoming an Unholy Assassin of Bhaal opens up a new merchant. He’s a ghost and so you can’t pickpocket him which is sad. I did buy Astarion new armor that radiates the Aura of Murder effect, giving enemies near him Piercing Vulnerability. Also it looks real sweet.
Next stop, Orin. While there’s other ways to goad her into a fight before she can kill her hostage, I snuck into her bedroom through a side tunnel, Spoke Undead to her mother’s displayed corpse and learned that Sarevok was the one who commanded Orin’s murder. I threw this bit of family drama at Orin and she rushed me without needing any skill checks. She died lickity-split and killing all the other trash was more trouble than the boss fight. This is becoming a theme. Astarion got new stabbers and is a ball of DPS. DPR?
With Lae’zel finally freed, we made a quick detour at Sorcerous Sundries, told Larrokean “lol Nightsong be dead” and grabbed the evil book to let me finish the Necromancy of Thay. I’m bitter that Shadowheart gets to summon cooler undead than me (Spore Druid is pretty underwhelming) but at least now I can summon a gaggle of ghouls.
Oh, about that. When we finish a long rest, the first order of business is to summon pet: Astarion summons his familiar and beast pet, I summon a flying ghoul, Shadowheart summons a mummy, maybe if I’m feeling especially punchy I throw in a dryad or elemental and THEN it’s buffing everyone with Longstrider/Heroes Feast/Aid before we head out. Unfortunately, you can’t just pull undead out of the ground, you need to actually have a corpse. And a different corpse each time. We WERE exhuming the available graves in the cemetery for corpses but those ran dry so now we go find a quiet spot (ironically, often the tombstone shop), Asterion’s cat makes a meow, some refugees run in to find the source and, well, we walk out with a mummy and a winged ghoul. Don’t look at me like that; I’m an Unholy Assassin of Bhaal, it says so right there.
Astarion’s been having quite a day so we put a big finish on it by going to find Cazador. Walking into the ritual chamber, Astarion gets bitched out by some of his prey over the decades but I’m keeping him on his A-game. The fight is supposed to start with Astarion getting sucked into shackles across the map after the dialogue but I’m no sucker and we open with a Silence on Cazador before we’re in cut scene distance. Cazador launches himself next to us, which was the stupidest possible tactic, and he not only didn’t last the round he didn’t make it past Astarion & Minthara. We spend what feels like an eternity killing friggin’ bats and pull Cazador out of his coffin. For the second time in as many days, a companion asks me to be their eyes for them as I stare at Astarion’s bare back while he rather intensely carves the symbols engraved into him onto Cazador’s back. Both the ladies are enthusastic about this, Shadowheart saying that she had to sacrifice people for her goals so she wouldn’t deny Astarion the same. Minthara basically says “Attaboy, grab that brass ring”. Astarion casts the ritual, becomes the Vampire Ascended and starts going on about how the world will cower before him. Huh.
Luckily, Astarion also says that becoming a Super Vampire will take some time but he’s ready to go battle the Elderbrain. I mention that perhaps we don’t need to kill the brain, we can just control it and he’s down with that so perhaps we can find alignment yet. Or not. Either our gambit works and I don’t need to worry about crazy vampires or it fails and I don’t need to worry for other reasons. We head out, kill some Gur monster hunters too dumb to turn around and call it a session. At one point, I think “Technically we just killed 7007 vampires, dumb hunters” and then Astarion makes that exact same point in game. Rock on. I think I’m skipping the Iron Throne prison as I don’t need Wyll’s dad or the Gondian gnomes; I already have a sack of Wulbren’s magic C4. Plus this way I don’t alert Gortash about our sudden but inevitable betrayal.
I used mage hand to push over half of Orins followers of a ledge before the fight even started
I don’t think you need to fight them at all. Both times I’ve just gone to the center where the table is, fought Orin and her ring of servants (that she draws from while she’s alive and they’re protected with Sanctuary) then everyone up top just comments on the fight after if I click on them. Unless you meant the ones near the table but I don’t know if you can shove someone protected with Sanctuary
So theres two near her and several near the ledge in the circle. I pushed all the ones near the edge. Didn’t bother with the two near her…I wanted to give her a fighting chance. Might not have worked on them anyway.
And yeah after the fight, the ones up top were like, “You should go.” …so i did.
So Im doing a dark urge run now. Very funny moment for anyone who is familiar with it.
Alfira the Tiefling bard shows up, and I’m thinking “I didn’t know you could get her as a companion! I like her and still haven’t seen what a bard can do.”
Next morning.
Phoebe: “Ohhh noooo.”
I’ve finished Act II on my solo playthrough. Wow, does the Dream Visitor complain that I’m not recruiting any companions. Halsin was very persistent as well, but I think he’s finally taken the hint and doesn’t show up at my campsite anymore. I need to see if Volo is still lurking about, otherwise it’s just me, Withers, and Scratch.
Man, you could have at least picked up Arabella to keep Withers company.
Been playing Team Evil here but just running some stuff (Ethel’s Return, House of Hope, Umberlee Funeral, etc) that doesn’t have an interesting Evil branch so nothing to report on.
Running through the city with a bunch of summoned undead in tow is both amusing and obnoxious. Everyone scatters and yells at you as you pass by and guards will follow you for a bit. This can be helpful to clear people out of a room so you can steal stuff or pick locks, but it also means having to chase down your fleeing quest NPCs to talk to as they try to escape the Ghoul Parade.
I never found that character in Act II. Definitely alive at the end of Act I.
I’ve noticed other differences on the playthrough that’s not obviously due to player actions. I’m not sure if it’s randomness or a missed die roll or simply order of exploration. For example, the tiefling wizard Zolan (sp?) got zombified without any chance for me to save.
For sure the bits that are obviously focused on one character (for example, Gauntlet of Shar, or the Gur tribe) play very differently without that character.