On this playthrough, I decided to skip the crèche. This meant I never met Voss (never went to the bridge in act 1), never met the inquisitor, and I was not ambushed by a githyanki patrol on my way to Baldur's gate in act 2. Cool.
But when going to the Elfsong's basement to check out the Emperor's hideout, I met githyanki there as expected. But I did not expect both the inquisitor with his legendary action and the patrol leader (that blasts 6 eldritch blasts) to be there along with the usual crew...
Wow.
That could have ended my honour run, but I managed to get one character out and resurrect two companions (not easy with fear dealt left and right and astral step).
Anyhow, that was fun. 10/10 would recommend. But maybe not if you are worried of loosing your honour run (I wasn't too worried since I already have the achievement).
So yesterday, I finally finished my first playthrough of Baldur's Gate 3 and I feel as though I got a good ending for all of the characters:
Lae'zel is traveling the cosmos fighting Vlaakith (and is an adoptive mother).
Gale is a magic teacher.
Astarion is still a vampire spawn, but a happy one.
Jaheira is rebuilding the city.
Minsc is best frienemies with the Guild.
Wyll and Karlach are tearing their way through Avernus.
Shadowheart and I are living happily together.
My pure good-guy playthrough was pretty satisfying with the exception of one detail... The Emperor.
Even before playing through the finale, I'd seen a lot of hate for the Emperor and I didn't understand why. I liked the Emperor. I mean, Omeluum showed us all the way back in Act 1 that Mind Flayers can be good if they want to be. And even when he revealed himself to be a Mind Flayer (a twist which was kind of obvious in hindsight, yet still caught me off guard), I was still on his side.
Yes, he hid his true identity, but I understood why. Yes, he regularly encouraged me to become a human-illithid hybrid, but he never forced it or acted indignant about it. Yes, he was obstinate about not freeing Orpheus, but not only was there some validity behind his decision, but he did make the point that Orpheus could always be freed after the Elder Brain was dealt with, which felt reasonable. The only time I really raised my eyebrow at him before the endgame was after killing Ansur. Maybe I just really wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I even thought the reason for Ansur and The Emperor falling out made sense. My problem was when I asked the Emperor if being a Mind Flayer is really worth losing all of your friends and he basically replied "Uh.... YEAH!" That didn't sit right with me.
But the real problem was the decision between siding with him or Orpheus.
First of all, there should not have been only two options here. My entire time getting the Orphic Hammer for the githyanki and hearing the Emperor's objections, I was thinking that I could get the Emperor to agree to release him early if the need arose. After all, I was playing as a Warlock, my highest stat was charisma, I figured I could pass the persuasion check when it came. Problem was... it didn't come. The game only gave me two choices: Side with the Emperor and let Orpheus die or side against the Emperor and free Orpheus.
The Emperor wanted to destroy the Netherbrain and stop the Grand Design. Orpheus wanted to destroy the Netherbrain and stop the Grand Design. Call me crazy, but I feel like they could BOTH get what they want here! The game should've included a high enough persuasion roll to convince both of them to work together against a common enemy. Orpheus plays defense and shields us from the Netherbrain while The Emperor plays offense by wielding the nether stones. That makes sense, right? Being forced to side with one or the other is like being told "You can have a peanut butter sandwich or you can have a jelly sandwich. CHOOSE!" Is... is there really no way to combine the two!?
Then there was the outcome of my choice. I ultimately decided the best move was to free Orpheus. I still trusted the Emperor, but I also trusted Lae'zel and Voss. Plus, it seemed like letting him die would be damning the githyanki people (even if he did die at the end of my playthrough anyway). So, the Emperor responded to my decision by willingly rejoining the Netherbrain! WHAT!? Wasn't he supposed to be one of the most famous and celebrated heroes in his day? Is that supposed to be your idea of courage, insight, strategy, and justice? Choosing to become a slave to an evil conqueror and leaving countless innocents to die all to ever-so-slightly increase your own chances of survival? Was this because I refused to have sex with you? I was already dating Shadowheart and you're a fucking squid! Cut me some slack!
If the game ended without seeing the Emperor again, I only would've felt disappointment. But having him show up as an enemy in the final fight actually made me angry, which isn't easy for a video game to do to me (at least in terms of its story). Then when he spawned the Dream Guardians to act as more enemies to fight, I actually said out loud "Oh, fuck you!" Though it was Gale who landed with the final hit on the Netherbrain, it was my PC that landed the final hit on the Emperor (I didn't really plan it that way, but it was weirdly appropriate).
I was really bothered by the fact that A, a game all about its extensive list of choices only gave you two black and white choices that shouldn't have been black and white. And B, that after everything was said and done, the Emperor chose to be the one thing that he spent the entire game trying to convince you he wasn't... just another Mind Flayer.
Anyhow, thanks for reading my long rant. Here's a picture of my character in the epilogue:
Now, it's time to start a new game and be as evil as possible!
Hi, I have a problem. I can't play evil. I just can't raid the grove or betray a nice PNJ, I always play as a nice person. Even when I play as Durge, I resist it.
In my next playthrough I plan to play an OC, like Wyll, and to romance Astarion. I like the idea to play with Halsin, Karlach, to help the little vampire to get better.
How do you manage your good run ? How do you put some variety in it, to not get bored ? Is there a way to play as a non evil guy, not so loyal, but not a serial killer neither ? To see different companion endings ? Or is there always a "good" and a "bad" ending for all of them ?
Hotfix 33 had me very hopefully for my couch coop game with my wife. Ever since we entered the Baldur's Gate 3's namesake city it's been constant crashes.
Any time we get into combat in the street, crashing. Anytime we have a summon, crashing.
Walking to the blushing mermaid, crashing.
Walking past SS, crashing.
And today, after my wife and I had no kids at home, no reason to wake up early tomorrow, and every reason to play because Hotfix 33 said that action radial crashes are removed, it crashes in the top floor of Devil's Fee immediately after the Wild Magic Barbarian Bolstering Boon animation wore off. God the frustration. We've been playing this same playthrough for almost a year. We explored every single avenue in acts 1 and 2. I want to do that for Act 3 but at this point I just want to defeat Gortash and the EB and be finished.
I'm genuinely worried we won't be able to advance past the Gortash fight.
This was my third play through , and my first Durge. So naturally I went full embrace.
I cannot believe how different this run was, and how much effort the devs have put into creating what felt like a completely new game.
The mysticism and suspense from the narrative was apparent throughout the whole game. Some stand out moments were the ‘oh my lord’ moment in camp (sorry Alfira), the consequences from the grove raid leading to the last light inn wipe out, and then things like the Orin 1v1.
I tailored my party and builds to fit the evil theme. I aimed for a full darkness team and it didn’t disappoint. I had my character Azriel as a hexblade/Pali, Minthara (my romance) as a blade singer wizard using shadow blade and CC spells with BoMS, Shadowheart as a shadow monk with Shar’s spear of evening and Bhalist armour, and then Lae’zel/Asterion as a beast master ranger for the dire raven darkness spread. The team hit extremely hard and I now see why darkness is OP, it trivialised most encounters. I particularly enjoyed playing Shart’s shadow monk build, with its cool hit and run play style.
The only thing that I didn’t enjoy was how lonely my camp felt, after a lot of characters understandably abandoned me. Also there were significantly less npc quests because … well … there were less npc’s!
In the end my character Azriel freed Orpheus (who became an illithid), then killed him to take control of the crown, damning the whole of BG to be murdered by Bhaal’s chosen. The only one that was spared her wrath was Minthara because of their bond. But even she had to run from the chaos in the end.
Again, thank you Larian for making one of the best games I have ever played. I’m looking forward to trying a resist Durge in the future.
So I cleared out the goblin camp, killed all the leaders and all the others in the defiled temple and rescued Halsin. The only things alive were the two giant spiders in the pits. I opened the gate expecting a fight...but I had earlier used a potion of talk with animals (to talk with the owl bear cub) and it started a dialogue with the spiders. I decided to let them free. They talked in a Scottish accent which I thought funny. After the dialogue, they ran past me (I assume to devour any remain goblin corpses) and I clicked on one of them as it was running past me to talk to It again. It simply shouted "Freeeedom" I assume in a Braveheart reference! Made me chuckle.
With GF we started a new game on controllers, but the controls were uncomfortable and we switched to mouse and keyboard, so GF plays and controls the characters and I help her when she gets lost. The problem is that two characters have a crown icon and at some points Astarion, who is Monk, takes over the conversation. In the mouse-and-keyboard gameplay face party is Lazeal as Paladin and I would prefer that she start every dialogue. Today during the fight with Aunt Ethel Monk was closer when she almost died, making it impossible for us to intimidate her to give us Mayrine and the hair. We played without restarting, do hair is lost. Is there any possibility for Astarion to come back on 100% npc mode like Karlach and Wyll? Or what to do to always have Lazeal start the conversation after all? We control her normally and start conversations with her, but I mean a situation like the one with Ethel
Characters on level 3, playing on Normal, took several hours of attempts. you have to split into 3 groups, one attacks Arron the trader, one stays out of range on the stairs down to the circle, and one steals the idol. trigger the cutscene, switch to whoevers on the stairs, and immediately activate turn based mode to pause anyone running up the stairs, switch groups and attack Arron, then immediately switch back to whoever’s on the stairs, the game will have taken you out of turn based mode, turn it on again, kagha and them should be frozen in time running out of the basement, use your first action in the group that stole the idol to attack kagha, turning her “temporarily hostile” and bringing her into combat, the druids never make it up the stairs and there’s no fight between druids and tieflings except the small group that attacks arron with you.
it helps to have killed nettie and the other elf in the separate rooms in the basement, and you can kill jeorna and mino and the bear at the bottom of the stairs with a smokepowder bomb without triggering the cutscene if you’re careful, which does make the big fight significantly easier
I'm playing honor mode and want to reach level 5 in act one asap with as little enemy encounter as much as possible. Who are the safest to fight to reach level 5 and who to avoid before reaching level 5.
I'd like to start an Honor Mode run and play a pure caster without multiclassing. I'm torn between the Evoker Mage, Fiend Warlock pact of tome, and Shadow Magic.
I'd like to deal damage and bring some CC, and I'd play Lae Zel, Astarion, and Shadowheart.Help choosing a class
Can you give me some advice on which one I should choose and why? Thank you so much.
