Tsk. It’s just karma. The morally upright “good guy” PC that never steals need never suffer from that flawed mechanic. I’m sure the developers did it that way on purpose to punish your thieving ways 
.
Well, except for the Idol of Silvanus. Moll needs that - poor little one-eyed urchin just trying to make her way in a hostile world sniff 
. Also that one has only ever required one deception check from me.
IGN did a great interview with Swen Vincke (Lead Director), Adam Smith (Lead Writer) and Crystal Ding (Fellow Lead Writer & Story Plotter) where they discuss the Companions, Raphael & Emperor and thoughts that went into each (including how they changed in development), thoughts on becoming illithid, take the chance to debunk a few things (like there being some wealth of cut/unfinished Karlach quest content) and basically just get really into the writing and characters of the game. Obviously it’s one huge spoiler fest but well worth the read.
In more personal news, I don’t know what possessed me to think “Hey, I should go fight the legendary spider matriarch at level 3 on my Hero run, seeing as how she wrecked me the first time I tried her on normal mode at level 3” but I did and managed to survive by the skin of my teeth. MVP was the spiritual weapon who managed to distract her and a gob of spiderlings down below while we rained arrows and spells down on her.
That’s a great article, thanks.
There is a reference to the ‘crime system’ in Patch 4 that confused me. Turns out they were referring to a bug they introduced in Patch 4 that was causing all of the Act 3 performance issues. The root-cause is really interesting:
I found Halsin a bit creepy. My character was a female Dwarf and I looked at Halsin as like a father figure when suddenly he was trying to mack on me. Yikes.
Halsin was the only character that came uninvited to my camp. And then wouldn’t leave. It’s unfortunate he had a tragic swimming accident and that I never figured out how to resurrect a “companion” by talking with Withers.
Yenna says “Hi” 
(Ok, I know what you meant but had to laugh anyway)
My first playthrough, I tried to let Halsin down easy with a “Hey, flattered but I’m seeing someone and don’t want to mess that up” and he just said “Yeah, bring her too so I can smash you both” which, uh… read the room? Halsin also has some – over-enthusiastic – defenders online compared to anyone else I’ve seen. How dare you find him creepy!
Mostly, Halsin strikes me as fairly pointless to have around since Jahiera offers the same class and Halsin’s story is done by the time you can use him as a companion. So he basically just tags along through Act 3 and bitches about how stinky cities are. Also maybe gets kidnapped which frankly feels like Orin doing me a favor. With almost every other companion’s story coming to a head in Act 3 with a bajillion climatic moments to wrap up, I can’t spare a party slot for someone who doesn’t have much to offer.
IIRC Halsin wasn’t planned as a companion until Larian got positive feedback about him in early access.
I never used him though. I basically don’t use anyone you can’t get right away, although I will be using Minthara on my current run. So maybe I just don’t like druids or fan service.
Yeah, my understanding is the same: Halsin was supposed to just be an NPC but a bunch of EA people wanted him as a companion so they added him late into development. Thus his character arc being over before you can add him to your party and he’s basically along for the ride.
Which is understandable and no grief to Larian for including him. But I have five-to-seven other people all with separate plot-relevant things to do in the city and no party slots for someone just crashing on my camp’s couch. Minthara at least brings a unique companion class (and some hilarious dialogue)
I think the best playthroughs are ones where you select four or fewer companions and invite no one else to your camp. Keeps the plot lines cleaner. Save the others for other playthroughs.
I’m glad no one told me about the Iron Throne mission. I can’t stand clock missions like that. I know I didn’t get the optimal outcome.
I still don’t know if Gale and I did it when he was doing his “I don’t want to be alone bullshit”
This was one of my favorite sections with a pretty significant caveat. You had to be very precise and plan out the run from the start up do everything. Made the stakes high. My caveat is my second run through, the Duke was dead in his cell and I have no clue why. He was alive in my first run when I rejected mizora’s offer. It was very anti-climactic and confusing when I got to his cell.
Iron Throne is a tough one even if you know what to do. You need everything to fall into place perfectly to get a full “win”. A single failed save against a net or whatever will result in a less than perfect outcome (though the game doesn’t respond poorly to that in most instances). I predict that, if I make it that far on my Honor run, it will not be a perfect win
Last time I handled it by flooding the field (no pun intended). In addition to my four party members, we dragged in four ghouls, an earth elemental, an air elemental, Us the Intellect Devourer, and a dryad. Flight helps for rescuing Ommelum since you can just float over the doorway instead of wasting time picking the lock (and he can float out the same way if he doesn’t just teleport out). Have whoever rescues the Duke bring a scroll of Dimension Door.
Of course, this is all stuff you learn AFTER you failed miserably out of ignorance.
It’s possible to keep it past the initial intro?
If you befriend it on the ship, you can find it again in Act 2 in the colony hive. It’s caged in the gross corpse room with the mumbly bugbear(?) butcher guy. Fight/Convince to open the cage and it’ll become a summonable pet (with significantly better stats & attacks than before)
When trotting around town, it’ll mindbend everyone else around it into thinking it’s a kitty 
I deliberated between “he”, “they” and “it” pronouns for Us
The only pronoun for “Us” should be “they” I would think…
I think there’s a good chance I skip it in my honor run. It’s mostly a story thing vs character improvements. I think just a tadpole as a long term benefit.
True. On the other hand, the chance of an actual wipe is minimal, you’ll just manage a 50% rescue.
You’re right, but it still didn’t feel right.
Honor Stuff: RIP Mirkon, who got one-shot by a harpy and no one among the tieflings actually cares (as in, I can’t tell anyone “Oh hey, Mirkon is dead”). Even as an orphan, Mol didn’t ask and I wasn’t given the option to tell her.
Yeah, I actually thought it was one of the more poorly designed encounters in the game. Instead a cool race-against-the-clock jailbreak, it feels like an unfair puzzle that you’re not even supposed to win on your first attempt. And since you don’t actually have to save everybody and you get nothing special if you do, even the win conditions are opaque.
Off the top of my head I think it was my least favorite fight. I ended up using more or less the same tactics as you - a million summons, a pile of haste potions, and dimension door via Gale.
I rescued the Duke but nothing else. Lots of blood on my hands.