Baldur's Gate 3

[rusty_shackleford]

so thought I might try

I am using the following mods and would recommend them:

No Alphabets mod
Realms Restored
DeGirlBoss
Dignify
ReallyShadowheart
BetterRomance
WyllsOfToril (I use the black version for a more handsome fellow knightly party member)
NarratorMortanius (replaces the female narrator with an older male voice)
WASD movement mod
3rd person camera mod
Transmog mod
Everybody Dyes Unlimited Dying


I am 80 hours in on Act 2. IIRC I have only had one severe problem so far. I went to kill Karlach but got sucked into a cutscene upon approach before releasing me and allowing me to kill her, and then several hours I long rested and the game decided that I had not killed Karlach and punished me for it. So I had to reload an earlier save and attack her from range to prevent the game from sucking me into a cutscene and the bad thing from happening. That was incredibly aggravating. Otherwise, there have been minor hiccups but nothing game breakingly substantial. I am a little peeved with how I use a dye, but then sometimes my armor's color will shift when I load into a different map/load a save/close and reopen the inventory screen. I haven't felt the game "missing" a lot of content or anything so far.

I would also recommend playing on tactician difficulty. The middle stretch of act 1 becomes a little difficult because you are always just a little underlevelled for the content, and there isn't enough easy encounters to farm (unless you beeline to the goblin fort instead of saving it for last like I did), but it wasn't too bad. Act 2 has been a breeze so far, feels like everything is level 5 or 6 when I am level 8, but then again it seems like the designers only intended for you to clear either the Mountain Pass map or the Underdark and Grymforge maps, not both, so I might be overlevelled? Also, don't worry too much about having to do a lot of research before you play for your build. You can do a full respec at any time (after you get Whithers from the first dungeon near your starting location on the beach) for a measly 100 gold. You can change class, stat allocation, etc.

FYI BetterRomance is outdated. it's superceeded by Even Better Romance. Make sure you have the right one

Again, you guys need an all-in-one install wizard for the mods rather than expecting users to manually install + configure 37 different mods

[Val the Moofia Boss]

► Act 2: Raphael, Arabella, comatose man, portal defense mission, Thaniel and Oliver

Coming out of the other side of the cave of the in the morgue, I get into another trash fight with easily dispatched fishmen that is not worth recounting.

The devil is waiting for us.






I am a little puzzled here. This guy looks very powerful. Near the beginning of the game, he snapped his fingers and teleported our party to his palace, and then unveiled his true formed as a winged demon. The next time (and the last time) I saw him was at Last Light's Inn when it seemed that Jaheira - the hundred+ year old elf druid and leader of the Harpers - didn't notice him. What could threaten him? And if we go by the sim mechanics of this game, I am guessing that this guy is going to be one of the last bosses and thus even more powerful than Ketheric Thorm, who already had absolutely jacked stats and passives when I scouted him atop the tower. So far this game does not allow you to run into enemies way higher level than you, so I presume whatever boss in here is going to be level 8 or 9 max, which would make it of no threat to Raphael.




I remember that I found the kids' parents, and that she went to my camp to wait for me to tell her. Oddly, Withers is talking to her, the first time he has done any story stuff since his introduction near the beginning of the game. Why is this guy following us around again? Does he even talk to the other party members at camp while I am away, or does he just stand in his corner by himself every hour of every day forever?






It seems there is no option to tell this kid that I am taking her back to her people at Last Light's Inn or handing her over to the Harpers to figure out what to do with her. She instead just continues loitering around at my camp, even though she is angry towards me.

I enter the Mausoleum. When I infiltrated Moonrise Towers, I was tasked by L'zell, the necromancer lieutenant of the act 2 big bad Ketheric Thorm, to track down an associate or underling of his called Balthazaar, who was sent here to retrieve a magical artifact but is overdue. Seems like the plan is to either kill him and take the artifact, or to perhaps find out if he is a rebel against Ketheric and aid him, though that seems unlikely.






Online, I have been repeatedly warned that the Temple of Sharr is the point of no return for act 2. Sounds like it is here, so I should leave and go finish the other side content first before progressing the plot again.




I check out the Mason's Guild, but there is pretty much nothing there. Odd to have such a detailed place if there is no content there. BG3 so far hasn't had places that exist just for the sake of existing.








I then remember that I had looted an orange lute from the evil surgeon boss from the "hospital", and that I was supposed to look for the comatose man's lute and somehow use it to wake him up. So I return to Last Light's Inn and play the lute, but nothing happens.






Turns out that I needed to click on Halsin and select a dialogue option, and then in a quest cutscene my character plays the lute and wakes the guy up. Oddly, despite having no musical proficiency, and having just strummed terrible music that annoyed Halsin, in this cutscene my character makes pleasant sounding chords as if he was at least competent.

Wait a minute, did the lute model change in the quest cutscene?






Having woken up the man, Halsin gets enough information to track down his friend Thaniel.








This begins the first encounter in the game thus far that isn't "kill all hostiles". I have to hold a position for five turns. I am easily able to hold the path to the portal. However, the portal has an HP bar, and there are crossbowmen enemies who can damage the portal from afar. The portal gets to dangerously low HP. I have no choice but to have the MC abandon the chokepoint and go hunt down the ranged enemies before they destroy the portal, which they very nearly do.








On the last turn, I have apparently killed all of the waves of enemies, and the portal survives with just 7 HP left.




If Halsin could create a portal, then why can't Gale create portals too? Isn't Gale supposed to be an upper middle tier wizard? He was already respected in Baldur's Gate, appears to have his own residence managed by some sort of talking creature, and then learned esoteric knowledge that most people alive don't know. Would he be able to create a portal straight to Baldur's Gate? There we could relay to them what is going on out here and to rally the armies to kill the Absolute army, and warn them of an incoming ship with shipments of tadpoles.

Halsin returns from the Shadowfell (I presume it is some sort of nightmare dimension) with Thaniel. Didn't Thaniel live over a hundred years ago? If he has spent over a hundred years in this shadow realm, then wouldn't he have been totally twisted and corrupted? It seems like people who have only just very recently entered the Shadowlands without a moon lantern to protect them were warped into monsters.






Wow. That was a lot of bodies I had to click on and loot. Trying to find the ones you haven't looted yet is like looking for a needle in a haystack.




Nice, we have already met the other half.








Halsin finally becomes a playable party member. He comes by default as a shapeshifter (Circle of the Moon) druid. None of the druid forms look really cool, though, and I don't want another character who stands in the back and throws sparkles at the enemy. He seems pretty muscular, so I respec him as a Way of Elements monk so he can punch stuff while also being knowledgeable of the elements.




Seems like this is actually the second half of Thaniel. Oddly, Olivier and Thaniel have different types of horns, with Thaniel having brown deer like thorned antlers, while Olivier has smooth curved black ram horns. I thought that they were different species/races.






We pursue Oliver and get into a fight. He has an extremely thick shield that reflects double damage back at the attacker, so there is no way we can destroy it conventionally. Instead, Oliver spawns waves of weak shadow clone adds each turn that you have to destroy, with each add killed whittling down the shield. It becomes odd when my party is able to eliminate the waves so quickly, that I am passing turns with nothing to do, waiting for Oliver to summon more adds again.




I am very pleased with the tavern brawler Way of Elements monk gameplay. Halsin gets to wave his hands and throw a fireball at the enemy, and then whack them with his Club of Hill Giant Strength, and then beat them up super fast with Flurry of Fists. He does feel like a hard hitting magic martialist.

That makes my choice of Eldritch Knight feel more disappointing due to how useless my offensive magic spells are like arcane missiles, or the tiny Chromatic Orb. It is always better for me to just keep whacking enemies with my spear over and over until I run out of actions. The only spells I get to use are Misty Step to blink across the battlefield to kill a high priority target, or the lock door spell during the infiltration segments. Way of Elements Monk prevents you from just doing the same action over and over (like whacking with the Club of Hill Giant strength), and yet all three actions hit hard.

Oddly, Oliver vanishes when entering photo mode.




It is odd how only in this quest, and in the two segments where La'zel encounters one of her superiors, that the player character is allowed to just let the other party member talk. It seems that other party members would have more relevant insight into the current topic or a stronger connection to whoever we are talking to.




Anyway, Oliver relinquishes his spirit, and Thaniel is saved.






Hopefully that scarring can be healed.

[rusty_shackleford]

when it seemed that Jaheira - the hundred+ year old elf druid and leader of the Harpers - didn't notice him.

Jaheira's portrayal is just unfortunate, really. If near any interpretation of BG2's story is canon then she should be capable of dealing with everything that happens by herself. Any BG2 story where she survives has her coming out of it as powerful enough to defeat gods.
Then again, I don't know if anything actually acknowledges ToB come to think of it. Jaheira was quite powerful at the end of BG2, as in powerful enough to defeat dragons with help, but not near-goddess level.

I remember that I found the kids' parents, and that she went to my camp to wait for me to tell her. Oddly, Withers is talking to her, the first time he has done any story stuff since his introduction near the beginning of the game. Why is this guy following us around again? Does he even talk to the other party members at camp while I am away, or does he just stand in his corner by himself every hour of every day forever?

Think back to where you found Withers.

I check out the Mason's Guild, but there is pretty much nothing there. Odd to have such a detailed place if there is no content there. BG3 so far hasn't had places that exist just for the sake of existing.

The entire western part of the Act 2 map feels like "filler" content, perhaps because it just wasn't fully fleshed out. Nothing happens there of note at all iirc.

---

The game is pretty much unfinished, I saw nothing to suggest it got any major content updates since the original release. My suspicion is they intended to do another "director's cut" like DOS1/DOS2 but couldn't come to a licensing agreement with a WotC that had dollar signs for eyes post-release.
Unfinished — as in Swen was showing off entire areas of the game one month pre-release that were not in the finished build.

I think someone compiled a list of cut content and it's very extensive.

[Reichspepe]

What's up with that new patch from today? Anybody who had the time to see if it ****** up mods again?

[rusty_shackleford]

What's up with that new patch from today? Anybody who had the time to see if it ****** up mods again?

Looks like it's just for corrupted savefiles

[TKVNC]

when it seemed that Jaheira - the hundred+ year old elf druid and leader of the Harpers - didn't notice him.

Jaheira's portrayal is just unfortunate, really. If near any interpretation of BG2's story is canon then she should be capable of dealing with everything that happens by herself. Any BG2 story where she survives has her coming out of it as powerful enough to defeat gods.
Then again, I don't know if anything actually acknowledges ToB come to think of it. Jaheira was quite powerful at the end of BG2, as in powerful enough to defeat dragons with help, but not near-goddess level.

I remember that I found the kids' parents, and that she went to my camp to wait for me to tell her. Oddly, Withers is talking to her, the first time he has done any story stuff since his introduction near the beginning of the game. Why is this guy following us around again? Does he even talk to the other party members at camp while I am away, or does he just stand in his corner by himself every hour of every day forever?

Think back to where you found Withers.

I check out the Mason's Guild, but there is pretty much nothing there. Odd to have such a detailed place if there is no content there. BG3 so far hasn't had places that exist just for the sake of existing.

The entire western part of the Act 2 map feels like "filler" content, perhaps because it just wasn't fully fleshed out. Nothing happens there of note at all iirc.

---

The game is pretty much unfinished, I saw nothing to suggest it got any major content updates since the original release. My suspicion is they intended to do another "director's cut" like DOS1/DOS2 but couldn't come to a licensing agreement with a WotC that had dollar signs for eyes post-release.
Unfinished — as in Swen was showing off entire areas of the game one month pre-release that were not in the finished build.

I think someone compiled a list of cut content and it's very extensive.

It will be interesting to see what Swen does with his new Divinity Project, if only to see if Larian has learned to ship a full game for once.

[Demonic Fate]

Thought you guys would get a chuckle out of this:

So I have this playthrough of BG3 on in the background while I putz around the house, and it's this very sweet and mild mannered British lady, who clearly doesn't love confrontation, doing a blind first playthrough. She made a half elf druid and is approaching the whole thing sort of as herself, trying to be a good person and such. She's got some familiarity playing D&D, but seems less experienced with videogames writ large.

Anyway, she has been bringing this like modern multicultural egalitarian mindset to the game, with this assumption that it's going to have those sorta pap Baby's First Very Special Episode moral decisions where there's the Nice behavior and the Mean behavior. First time I see it is how she gets sorta scandalized at Shadowheart's vocal mistrust of githyanki, all like "Ma'am we're going to have to chat about these racist aspersions later! That's rather uncouth!"

Except now Lae'zel is running roughshod and acting like a violent, bigoted psycho (because she still is at this point), and this poor woman doesn't seem to know how to handle it. She finally mustered the brass to ask Lae'zel to stop forcing the tiefling in the grove to grovel in the dirt for the crime of having seen his friend get disemboweled on sight by a roving gith death squad, and Lae'zel immediately turns to her and snaps like how DARE you speak while I'm speaking, has that tadpole made you as stupid as you look? The response options are basically cringing deference or "Did I stutter? Shut your toad mouth before I shut it for you" and the lady just groans in suffering before letting Lae'zel go back to shoving this poor man face down into the mud

This whole thing is like a moral quandary explicitly designed to torture polite, well meaning British ladies.

[CheesusCrust]

Thought you guys would get a chuckle out of this:

So I have this playthrough of BG3 on in the background while I putz around the house, and it's this very sweet and mild mannered British lady, who clearly doesn't love confrontation, doing a blind first playthrough. She made a half elf druid and is approaching the whole thing sort of as herself, trying to be a good person and such. She's got some familiarity playing D&D, but seems less experienced with videogames writ large.

Anyway, she has been bringing this like modern multicultural egalitarian mindset to the game, with this assumption that it's going to have those sorta pap Baby's First Very Special Episode moral decisions where there's the Nice behavior and the Mean behavior. First time I see it is how she gets sorta scandalized at Shadowheart's vocal mistrust of githyanki, all like "Ma'am we're going to have to chat about these racist aspersions later! That's rather uncouth!"

Except now Lae'zel is running roughshod and acting like a violent, bigoted psycho (because she still is at this point), and this poor woman doesn't seem to know how to handle it. She finally mustered the brass to ask Lae'zel to stop forcing the tiefling in the grove to grovel in the dirt for the crime of having seen his friend get disemboweled on sight by a roving gith death squad, and Lae'zel immediately turns to her and snaps like how DARE you speak while I'm speaking, has that tadpole made you as stupid as you look? The response options are basically cringing deference or "Did I stutter? Shut your toad mouth before I shut it for you" and the lady just groans in suffering before letting Lae'zel go back to shoving this poor man face down into the mud

This whole thing is like a moral quandary explicitly designed to torture polite, well meaning British ladies.

i wanna kill that ******** cringe lady

[TKVNC]

Thought you guys would get a chuckle out of this:

So I have this playthrough of BG3 on in the background while I putz around the house, and it's this very sweet and mild mannered British lady, who clearly doesn't love confrontation, doing a blind first playthrough. She made a half elf druid and is approaching the whole thing sort of as herself, trying to be a good person and such. She's got some familiarity playing D&D, but seems less experienced with videogames writ large.

Anyway, she has been bringing this like modern multicultural egalitarian mindset to the game, with this assumption that it's going to have those sorta pap Baby's First Very Special Episode moral decisions where there's the Nice behavior and the Mean behavior. First time I see it is how she gets sorta scandalized at Shadowheart's vocal mistrust of githyanki, all like "Ma'am we're going to have to chat about these racist aspersions later! That's rather uncouth!"

Except now Lae'zel is running roughshod and acting like a violent, bigoted psycho (because she still is at this point), and this poor woman doesn't seem to know how to handle it. She finally mustered the brass to ask Lae'zel to stop forcing the tiefling in the grove to grovel in the dirt for the crime of having seen his friend get disemboweled on sight by a roving gith death squad, and Lae'zel immediately turns to her and snaps like how DARE you speak while I'm speaking, has that tadpole made you as stupid as you look? The response options are basically cringing deference or "Did I stutter? Shut your toad mouth before I shut it for you" and the lady just groans in suffering before letting Lae'zel go back to shoving this poor man face down into the mud

This whole thing is like a moral quandary explicitly designed to torture polite, well meaning British ladies.

I've never heard a british 'person' say "ma'am". This may well be a fake story.

[Magick]

Thought you guys would get a chuckle out of this:

So I have this playthrough of BG3 on in the background while I putz around the house, and it's this very sweet and mild mannered British lady, who clearly doesn't love confrontation, doing a blind first playthrough. She made a half elf druid and is approaching the whole thing sort of as herself, trying to be a good person and such. She's got some familiarity playing D&D, but seems less experienced with videogames writ large.

Anyway, she has been bringing this like modern multicultural egalitarian mindset to the game, with this assumption that it's going to have those sorta pap Baby's First Very Special Episode moral decisions where there's the Nice behavior and the Mean behavior. First time I see it is how she gets sorta scandalized at Shadowheart's vocal mistrust of githyanki, all like "Ma'am we're going to have to chat about these racist aspersions later! That's rather uncouth!"

Except now Lae'zel is running roughshod and acting like a violent, bigoted psycho (because she still is at this point), and this poor woman doesn't seem to know how to handle it. She finally mustered the brass to ask Lae'zel to stop forcing the tiefling in the grove to grovel in the dirt for the crime of having seen his friend get disemboweled on sight by a roving gith death squad, and Lae'zel immediately turns to her and snaps like how DARE you speak while I'm speaking, has that tadpole made you as stupid as you look? The response options are basically cringing deference or "Did I stutter? Shut your toad mouth before I shut it for you" and the lady just groans in suffering before letting Lae'zel go back to shoving this poor man face down into the mud

This whole thing is like a moral quandary explicitly designed to torture polite, well meaning British ladies.

I've never heard a british 'person' say "ma'am". This may well be a fake story.

lol 'person'. And hmm, it would historically be "miss" or "madam", but most women probably grow up watching a lot of American TV nowadays so I can imagine some of it slipping in.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

► Act 2: The tavern, the necromancer, and the Gauntlet of Shar part 1

It seems the only thing left to do is to check out the Western and and Southwestern sides of the map.

From the central statue in between the hospital and Moonrise Towers, it seems I can travel West no further, only Southwest.


I snuck in preparing to fight these guys, but when I right clicked on a mob to attack it, I noticed there was a talk option, so I picked that and was pleasantly surprised.




It is neat that the MC is brave enough to pull up a chair and sit down right in front of this guy.




How are you supposed to mime drinking, when you did not empty the cup, and then the bartender refills your cup? Wouldn't it overflow and tip him off that you didn't actually drink?






It is also neat that you have a lot of different incidents to pick from, though once again it is bizzare how they all happened within shouting distance of each other in the act 1 area.




It is disappointing that you don't get to actually see his insides burst out like with the hyena in act 1. Was this quest added towards the end of development and they ran out of time to animate it?






The other undead bar goers and staff don't aggro, and seems silly for now. I wonder if that will hold, and if they will attack other, living passerbys once I save this region from Ketheric Thorm and the curse. Maybe I should mop them up for some EXP. Or maybe they might live on and be friendly to passerbys for decades to come?

It seems I can explore no further in the West or South. The only places left to check are North of Last Light's Inn. So I head back to finish the necromancer quest and then go north.

What is this golden light for? When I mouseover with jump or misty step, there is no space for me to land at, so it is completely inaccessible.




I return to the necromancer. Predictibly, he aggros when I try to derail this attempt at punishing dead people, but he goes down ASAP.








I check the area across the bridge to the North of Last Light's Inn, but quickly reach a dead end. How did the Harpers and the Flaming Fist military units get here? How are travellers passing by the two inns supposed to get here? How are the armies of the Absolute supposed to get here? There is no highway or road leading out of this act 2 map. The only entrances/exits are the small hidden Grymforge elevator that Ketheric's army never found, and a narrow **** bridge we crossed into here from the mountain pass map. No way to get to Baldur's Gate by foot as far as I can tell. Is it really only the docks at Moonrise? The Harpers and the Flaming Fists certainly didn't come from that way.






Seems like the only thing left to do is to go the mausoleum to find Balthazaar, take the relic, do the Gauntlet of Sharr, and go fight Ketheric.




I return to Isobel just in case she has more information to share, but she does not.








Back to the mausoleum. There appears to be nothing more to this map. I had to lookup online to find out that I have to press buttons in an order to proceed.






This was a poorly designed and communicated "puzzle". It is hard to diagnoss the issues. When I entered this room, I kept getting knocked back whenever I approach the magic circle in the center, no matter what direction I approach from. I then had to lookup online and find out that I needed to douse the eight small purple chandeliers hanging above. Okaaay... I suppose the plaques on the floor of the hallway outside said something about don't be seen, but I thought that was general lore mantras, and there is no indication here that I need to crouch, and it is hard to tell if I am illuminated or not in this environment. The room before and after dousing the chandeliers looks nearly identical. Now obviously once the light dims a bit, you might think "ah, the light dimmed a bit", but when I first entered into this room it already looked dim and I didn't think light was even a thing I should be thinking about.



Before dousing the chandeliers


After dousing the chandeliers



The next problem is that even after I doused the chandeliers, evidently nothing changed. My character was STILL being thrown back when he approached the magic circle from any position, including the "gap" in front. I had to glitch it by using jump and getting repulsed over and over until something happened and I landed in front of the pedestal and wasn't thrown back, but I am not sure what happened. That did not feel like an accomplishment. Thank goodness this is over.




The main path ahead as skeletons, so I decide to check the sidepaths first.




The party audibly proclaims "an ambush!", and enemy models appear but we do not get yanked into turn based combat yet. I think this is the second time this has happened in the game. I am not sure what the mechanics are for discovering an ambush before it sets off. Anyway, we get into position behind the boss, and kill it in two turns.

Four people - three heavy men with lots of stuff in their bags, two people in clanky plate armor - somehow leapt across a 10 foot gap onto this mushroom with no noise alarming this creature (don't underground creatures like bats have heightened hearing to make up for the lack of light and thus poor vision?), nor disturb the mushroom. Or cause any displacement of air that the creature would feel. This is ridiculous.










There is a forgettable trash fight after this. The empty Dark Justiciar armors look cool.




Seeing the door to Balthazaar open, I decide to go explore the rest of the temple before returning to Balthzaar and proceeding to the final battles. But I then get into a big turn based battle with a level 10 ogre (I am level 8) and many goblins, so I reload and go check out Balthzaar since now it seems that is the next thing to do?

I think this is the second time in this entire 92 hour long game so far that I have seen a fighter class dialogue option.




Balthzaar offers me an item to summon a big brute, similar to the ogre horn near the beginning of the game. I think I am supposed to fight the red ogre with this, or use it as a distraction for the many adds.






Balthzaar talks about how his mother is in a jar on a bookshelf. But when I hold alt to make the names of all relevant items appear (potions, scrolls, gold, books, keys, etc), no jar is listed. So I had to look up online to find the precise coordinates, and then pixel hunt with my mouse to find the jar. (The first screenshot is me mousing over the jar to get the name to appear).






I have Gale cast minor illusion to draw the mobs out of the room so the MC can steal it off of the bookshelf. Frustratingly, the minor illusion only lasts for a couple of seconds. I am not sure why that it is. Is it being dispelled by something? Or does its duration scale with some sort of stat I haven't been keeping up? Or does the duration poorly scale with level 8 wizards? Anyway, after I had spent two minutes tediously casting minor illusion to draw Balthazaar away, I switch to the MC and steal the jar, only to be immediately accosted by Balthazaar. Fortunately I am able to deceive him.






Opening my inventory and right clicking the jar, there is no option to speak with it, and no new dialogue options appear when I talk to Balthazaar with it in my inventory. So I just throw it into a brazier.




Going up a different corridor than the one that leads to the level 10 red ogre, I go into a sideroom, and now Shadowheart wants to spill her blood in a ritual to a "dark goddess". And then gets upset when I tell her not to do that. Why has there been no option to try to talk her out of this evil goddess thing? Anyway, it seems that we HAVE to shed blood to grab the puzzle orbs to proceed through the game, and the only options are for me and her to do it. I don't know if we need an actual Shar organization member to reach the end, and I don't want to become one, so I guess she has to do it.








The stealthy section was a little frustrating to do with the sluggish, janky movement of the character.




We somehow detect an ambush ahead of time again! At first, I was initially confused seeing another dragonborn up top in this long forgotten temple of sharr. Dragonborn mercenaries here? For what reason? But then it turned out to be shadow clones of my party. Interestingly, they do not reflect my dye choices.

I have liked the grotesque, fantastical designs of the Tollmaster, the bartender, and Balthazaar. Much more interesting than the more generic villain/enemy designs throughout the rest of the game. The Hag and Balthazaar are also good villains that make you feel a hatred and a pity for evil. The bartender conversation was probably the most memorable part of this game since the Hag quest.

[Vergil]

[Vergil]

Hmm I should do a playthrough where I give everyone a play by play of what happened....

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Hmm I should do a playthrough where I give everyone a play by play of what happened....

Why are you surprised? I posted here on the HQ my playthroughs of several games as I was going through them. Three Trails games (Daybreak 2, Sky remake, and Horizon), Final Fantasy XI Horizon, Sakura Wars 2, HSR, FF14 Dawntrail and patches, WoW The War Within, Octopath Traveller 0, etc.

[Vergil]

Why are you surprised?

I'm not the surprised one desu

[J1M]

If Baldur's Gate 3 was a movie, the first 45 minutes would be recapping the events of Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 "so the audience won't be lost".

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Okay. The writing here got wonky. It mainly has to do with the worldview of the writers.

► Act 2: finished Gauntlet of Shar

The invisible platforming puzzle was neat. No complaints here.

I am not sure what happened here. I was just walking around and a rat randomly died, and then a while later I saw a rat attack me and then die without me doing anything. And now the rats are acting as if I was the one killing them!




These small elevators are annoying, as I have to manually move the other characters onto it rather than them automatically getting safely onboard.




Levelling up to 9. Once again, it is very frustrating that you can't see what prior feats you have already taken in this respec. Have I taken an ability score improvement feat? Once? Twice? How many times?

I have been reading these Shar books, and it's a little nutty. "Love is a lie" "You have to become a murderer to become a true believer!" and stuff. When I had talked to Shadowheart about Sharr earlier in the game, she made Sharr out to be some sort of god of justice that was only disliked because people don't want to be held accountable. But now it's sounding like - as per actual Shar doctrine - that no, they are actually just nutty evil death cult murder people. But in the dialogue cutscenes with Shadowheart now, there is no option to tell her that this stuff is nuts and to stop putting it on a pedestal.






Now the game wants me to insert the correct Shar book into the pedestal to complete the puzzle. Once I find I book, I read it and then immediately send it to camp, along with all of my other stuff. Now I have to go to camp and search through all of these items just to find that ONE book... goodness gracious






You'd think you would be able to jump there from this distance, no?






Time to tackle the red ogre. Why are there a bunch of demons down here anyway? As far as I can tell, Sharr is not really associated with the "demon" species.




Upon levelling up to 9, I got some 5th level spells I wanted to try out. Unfortunately, they were fire AoEs, and it turned out that these demons are immune to fire damage, so I wiped on my first attempt.






You can pocket ticking bombs? Does the timer still keep counting down while in inventory? What happens if the timer goes off in your inventory? Do all of your items get destroyed?




On my second attempt, the MC and Wyll managed to stab the red ogre over and over and down him really fast. But that then left all of these demon adds which were too tanky and would soon overrun us. I then wondered if I was supposed to use a Charm Animal scroll on the Displacer Beast, but apparently the scroll only works if the target's int is 5 or less, while the Displacer Beast's int was 6. So it turned into a real slog. Gale was near useless with no non fire AoE spells, so he was just summoning the two ice gargoyles to suicide bomb into the incoming demon adds over and over.




One of the demons knocked the MC off of the upper floor, though fortunately I survived the fall.






The Displacer Beast boss makes it up to the party. The MC misty steps back and bursts onto the Displacer Beast. Then it's Gale's turn, but since Gale's cantrip spells are crap, he would do more damage if he thunderwaved the Displacer Beast from this height. The fall damage kills it.




Unfortunately, we are about to be overrun, so we have no choice but to retreat back to the corridor and use it as a chokepoint.






I remembered to ring the bell and summon the big brute, though unfortunately he got stuck and contributed nothing. The MC and Wyll managed to pick off the demon brutes one by one by running out from behind the cover, bursting one down, and running back behind the cover to avoid being killed from range.


The Sharr pedestal/tech aesthetic looks neat.










I get a warning. Seems this is the Act 2 point of no return, so I decide to vendor stuff and to spend an hour reorganizing my traveler's chest. I had to go around hunting for different kinds of containers to put stuff in and then put those containers into the traveller's chest. So I have two crates for all of my books, a box for my dyes, a box for my transmog pieces, a box for old quest items and tadpoles that I don't consume, etc. Unfortunately, enchanted gear and especially explosive barrels are too heavy to put more than a few into a chest and then be able to throw the chest into the Traveller's chest, so I couldn't sort those this way.




Back to the plot.








Hold up. So Ketheric died about 100+ years ago, and that coincided with this region being cursed into the Shadowlands, yes? And Aylin being chained up is how Ketheric is immortal, yes? And Aylin has been chained up here for 100 years? After 100 years of Aylin being chained up here, what prompted Ketheric to have Aylin moved now? Did a century go by and Baldur's Gate never sent another army to destroy this threat in their backyard?






This was initially frightening and I hadn't long rested after the red ogre fight, so I was almost completely out of spells. But then it turned out that hardly any of these mobs could land a hit on us. Almost all of the adds only had 20 HP, so Shadowheart could just cast Spirit Guardians and run by them and 2 shot them.




Funnily, Balthazaar misty steps to the other side of the map to get away from me. I am out of spell charges to cast misty step, but I can leap up the cliff face and just singlehandedly burst him down anyway.






Why couldn't I have told Shadowheart that?




Female narrator scare moment. I presume that this was an AI generated line by the Ser Aylin mod, and Narrator Mortanius didn't have a patch for it.




I am disappointed by the options here. None of them say what I really want to say. I guess #5 is the one that comes the closest, so I'll pick that, but it lacks conviction. There is no option to tell her that killing Aylin is wrong. 1. We have just me this guy and he appears to have been an innocent prisoner. 2. it has not yet been conclusively determined if he must die for Ketheric to be killed. 3. This Sharr stuff is clearly evil.




Now this is where it goes off the rails. Shadowheart has been with us for... 2 or 3 weeks? A month? Through all of these sort of life and death situations? Heroing and saving druid villages from being wiped out, avenging those two guys and saving the young woman from the evil hag? The night time party? Etc. From what she has told us about her childhood growing up under that Sharr matron in Baldur's Gate, we seem to be the only real friends she ever had. And then earlier she was saying that I made her smile and so on. It is incredible that she would forget all of that in this moment. And what about everything else? What about the tadpole in her head, and how our best chance is to stick together? Gale and Wyll have connections that could save us, while Shadowheart's matron in the city doesn't seem to give her the time of day. Also, she was there when Gale told us about the bomb. Is she going to kill Gale and cause the boom to go off? Really?






I turn on non-lethal, but I am not sure if this will actually allow me to KO her and carry her out. I have heard that the game treats KOs as no different from kills.




She is very hard to hit and our swings miss too often, and then she uses chain lightning twice and we all die. rip.




Back in time. Time to choose the next option on the list.




Your life's purpose? It sounded like you had a much more fulfilling time in the month of running around with us than you did under the matron's care. And you are a cleric with HOLY healing magicks to heal people. It sounds like you like heroing. (Isn't it odd how the Sharr stuff is now emphasizing shadow magicks and stealth and Dark Justiciars who have buffs that repel radiant damage, but Shadowheart comes into the party being the opposite? With radiant powers and no evil powers or stealth stuff?).




Anyway, this option also leads to a fight. Back in time again!

Third option just leads to option 2 which leads to 1 again.

Why would I want to trust Shadowheart on this? For the past few hours, she has clearly been hearing voices and is pretending she is not when I ask her what is going on. She lies to me - the leader in charge of this team, and the man she supposedly likes - rather than being transparent. And she has been VERY insistent on being the one who uses a dagger to draw her own blood for all four puzzles, and becoming a Dark Justiciar and killing all of Sharr's enemies. There isn't really any suspenseful "will she won't she" here.




... Shadowheart throws the spear off the cliff the one time I do not try to persuade her? Huh?




... Nothing? It seems like the past month of us has just been... us, rather than Sharr saving you from the Ilithid spaceship, the hag, the goblins, etc.




It feels like the devs are trying to go for something "epic" here, but it fall flats. There is some sort of humming song playing that does not sound very good. And this doesn't feel actually thematically impactful like Gandalf or Aslan coming back.




The devs are doing the Babylon 5 thing of throwing around words such as "the light" or "the truth" as if they have meaning, or trying to sound like the Bible. The devs probably thought that was what made LotR or Narnia feel different from other fantasy. But like Straczynski, they don't actually believe in God or the Truth, so it comes off as whatever.




This is confusing. It seems like in this moment, I am answering as Shadowheart, but the dialogue options do not seem like they have anything to do with Shadowheart, but would have been options for my MC. I can't imagine Shadowheart having just gone through this and now giving a gamey "gimme my D&D legendary weapon!" or something nonchalant like "let's get out of here".




This is confusing. Shadowheart has been a cleric casting holy/radiant spells since the beginning of the game. She hasn't gained any new powers that she didn't already have. Are holy/light powers in D&D from Selune? Then why would Shadowheart have started the game using those powers of a god she mocks? It seems like people can just use whatever colored magick powers and it doesn't determine which god they have to worship or serve or get blessed by.




Does she have nothing to say about the inhuman looking lizardman? No reservations?

If you want to dig deep into it, it doesn't seem like there is the One True God in this setting. No all knowing absolute creator of the universe and all of its inhabitants and is the decider of their fates, who therefore decides what is right and wrong. So in the absence of that, anything goes really. Do whatever you want, it doesn't matter. Which gets weirder when at times people insist that there is an absolute right or wrong anyway.

This game is being written by confused people. But even if morality 101 was beyond their grasp, they should have at least realized that the Shadowheart who was portrayed in this dungeon was not the same character portrayed for the prior 96 hours of the game. Maybe there were multiple writers writing different parts of the game independently from each other, and no one played through the whole product and told them to get all in line.

[Tweed]

Have you guys ever thought about maybe not playing a game that was quite so gay or full of bestiality?

[Vergil]

God exists in faerun what do you mean

[LemonDemonGirl]

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Ao
For **** sakes people.

[Stack of Turtles]

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Ao
For **** sakes people.

better than we've got

[Vergil]

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Ao
For **** sakes people.

Ayo

[Tweed]

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Ao
For **** sakes people.

better than we've got

What kind of god lets elves and halflings exists?

► Show Spoiler

******* and ***** are technically human

[Stack of Turtles]

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Ao
For **** sakes people.

better than we've got

What kind of god lets elves and halflings exists?

► Show Spoiler

******* and ***** are technically human

Elves are cool but halflings were probably a cosmic typo.


***** were made by Ahriman.

[Tweed]

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Ao
For **** sakes people.

Ayo

HOLD ON HOLD ON HOLD ON
WHAT YOU SAYIN' IS
*Makes a bunch of ****** gods that **** up everything on Faerun*
SO WHAT YOU SAYIN' IS
*Let's the time of troubles happen*
SO WHAT YOU SAYIN' IS
*Smacks godly lips*
SO WHAT YOU SAYIN' IS
*Watches Bhaal's ******* children cut a swath of death across The Sword Coast*
WE WUZ GODS N SHEIT!

[Val the Moofia Boss]

► Act 2

► Last chance

Time to long rest, and then vendor stuff at Last Light's Inn before heading out to vanquish Ketheric.










I don't see any need to wake her, and I don't want to get Mass Effected again where I pick an option and it gets construed as me wanting to have casual sex.




What




no






NOOOOO






Gale has Hold Person and it is game over if he gets that off (as well as Haste for Wyll, and also Fireball). He needs to die immedietely. Unfortunately, all of my strikes on him miss, and then he runs out of melee range. Fortunately he does not cast Hold Person on me, but I have been immobilized (frighten effect by Wyll or La'zel, I think). I try to cast Misty Step to reach Gale, but he Counterspells me. In the mean time, I take down those who I can.






With Wyll dead, I turn towards Astarion, who I never geared and is thus the squishiest target. He moves out of melee ranged to pelt me with arrows, which miss. I in turn switch to my crossbow to shoot him twice, but miss. Gale casts Hold Person on me. It is over.






I am curious if this fight can even be won. Unfortunately, each time the initiative roll results in Gale going first and casting Hold Person on me. It takes several reloads before I am able to go first.




Eventually, in one timeline I am able to burst down Gale before he can act. After that, my victory is assured, though I survive with 20 HP left.




Unfortunately, the Owbear cub somehow got aggroed. I cast scroll of Charm Animal on it, but it does not result in combat ending, so I have to kill it too.




I am all alone.




Scratch oddly has nothing to say about me berserking and killing everyone, or the cub. No dialogue option to tell him to seek out a new, better master. Or to bite my throat.




This timeline is doomed anyway since Gale will explode in a few days, and you can't resurrect people you killed.




Strangely, Halsin didn't hear the commotion and run over. There is no option to talk to him. I built him as a Way of Elements Monk who could hit three times per turn very powerfully. Almost as powerful as me. If he had been here when the fight started, there might have been no hope of victory.




He oddly doesn't do much against me, and I burst him down.






Thaniel oddly does not flee for his life and has nothing to say about this turn of events.




I strike Thaniel, but at 0/6 HP he somehow inexplicably still gets a sprint boost and runs away.


I forgot to post this in the Gauntlet of Shar post, but when I long rested there, Withers took the Tiefling girl into his care, and then told me off when I suggested that I would not allow her to be forced to go with him. But now here, he oddly takes no defensive stance against me, and has nothing to say about this turn of events.






Maybe the hirelings who don't talk would be endurable if they looked cool, but no. They all look lame.

Well anyway, this is looking pretty bleak. I have no real, actual party members anymore. I can't possibly go to Jahiera now. She's going to ask why I came back alone. Thaniel might have gone to warn them. The angel Aylin would know what I did. All of the evil party members are dead, and from what I have heard, the only other party member you can obtain in this game is another heroic one. I wonder why the devs implemented a mass death event, only to not provide more replacement (real) party members. Fire Emblem keeps throwing new party members at you throughout the game to makeup for any people who die.

Also, this region is going to blow up in 3 days anyway, so even if I continued I wouldn't be able to beat the game. Is Gale the one party member who can't die in your playthrough, even if you play an evil character and kill off all of the other good guys?

REWIND

Guess I do actually have to wake her.




NO we're not married yet!




I thought I did tell you? I distinctly remember in act 1 at the campsite, I talked to Wyll and told him about the urges. I remember seeing that option on La'zel and Astarion too. If that option was available to Shadowheart, I would have told her too.




Where are the others? There is no way they would not have been woken by this commotion. And they would have had to have helped out to restrain me and tie me up. Gale would be there to cast Hold Person if I broke my bindings, maybe Halsin there to entangle me too, Wyll ready to stab if it came to that, etc.




I have never tried to "flirt" with you in this game.




Wow thanks a lot guys. Wyll and Gale were the first people I told about the murderous urges back in early act 1. I thought you were my righteous, reliable comrades in arms! I trusted in you! And you guys were nowhere to be seen when it came time.






I am still unconvinced about the party apparently being fine with me waltzing around, knowing that at any moment I could be gripped by a literally uncontrollable murderous rage and kill people. To render me perfectly safe would require me to be constantly accompanied 24/7 by several very strong men and wizards to restrain me before I killed anyone, and people on watch throughout the night. For the whole duration of my life. I am what, in my 20s or 30s? That's at least another 50 or 60 years, and all it takes is ONE slip up and people die. This is impractical.

I am reminded of that Bonanza episode about the guy who uncontrollably enters into a murderous rage at random and keeps killing people, including his lover. As much as the heroes felt sorry for him and wanted him to live, they came to the conclusion that there is no way rational way to let him live and executed him.

[rusty_shackleford]

I am still unconvinced about the party apparently being fine with me waltzing around, knowing that at any moment I could be gripped by a literally uncontrollable murderous rage and kill people.

everyone got that one guy in their friend group

[Oyster Sauce]

I am still unconvinced about the party apparently being fine with me waltzing around, knowing that at any moment I could be gripped by a literally uncontrollable murderous rage and kill people.

-guy voluntarily traveling with a murderous githyanki, evil brainwashed cleric, vampire who regularly abducts and kills people, a nuclear suicide bomber, and a black person

[Vaako]

► Act 2

► Last chance

Time to long rest, and then vendor stuff at Last Light's Inn before heading out to vanquish Ketheric.










I don't see any need to wake her, and I don't want to get Mass Effected again where I pick an option and it gets construed as me wanting to have casual sex.




What




no






NOOOOO






Gale has Hold Person and it is game over if he gets that off (as well as Haste for Wyll, and also Fireball). He needs to die immedietely. Unfortunately, all of my strikes on him miss, and then he runs out of melee range. Fortunately he does not cast Hold Person on me, but I have been immobilized (frighten effect by Wyll or La'zel, I think). I try to cast Misty Step to reach Gale, but he Counterspells me. In the mean time, I take down those who I can.






With Wyll dead, I turn towards Astarion, who I never geared and is thus the squishiest target. He moves out of melee ranged to pelt me with arrows, which miss. I in turn switch to my crossbow to shoot him twice, but miss. Gale casts Hold Person on me. It is over.






I am curious if this fight can even be won. Unfortunately, each time the initiative roll results in Gale going first and casting Hold Person on me. It takes several reloads before I am able to go first.




Eventually, in one timeline I am able to burst down Gale before he can act. After that, my victory is assured, though I survive with 20 HP left.




Unfortunately, the Owbear cub somehow got aggroed. I cast scroll of Charm Animal on it, but it does not result in combat ending, so I have to kill it too.




I am all alone.




Scratch oddly has nothing to say about me berserking and killing everyone, or the cub. No dialogue option to tell him to seek out a new, better master. Or to bite my throat.




This timeline is doomed anyway since Gale will explode in a few days, and you can't resurrect people you killed.




Strangely, Halsin didn't hear the commotion and run over. There is no option to talk to him. I built him as a Way of Elements Monk who could hit three times per turn very powerfully. Almost as powerful as me. If he had been here when the fight started, there might have been no hope of victory.




He oddly doesn't do much against me, and I burst him down.






Thaniel oddly does not flee for his life and has nothing to say about this turn of events.




I strike Thaniel, but at 0/6 HP he somehow inexplicably still gets a sprint boost and runs away.


I forgot to post this in the Gauntlet of Shar post, but when I long rested there, Withers took the Tiefling girl into his care, and then told me off when I suggested that I would not allow her to be forced to go with him. But now here, he oddly takes no defensive stance against me, and has nothing to say about this turn of events.






Maybe the hirelings who don't talk would be endurable if they looked cool, but no. They all look lame.

Well anyway, this is looking pretty bleak. I have no real, actual party members anymore. I can't possibly go to Jahiera now. She's going to ask why I came back alone. Thaniel might have gone to warn them. The angel Aylin would know what I did. All of the evil party members are dead, and from what I have heard, the only other party member you can obtain in this game is another heroic one. I wonder why the devs implemented a mass death event, only to not provide more replacement (real) party members. Fire Emblem keeps throwing new party members at you throughout the game to makeup for any people who die.

Also, this region is going to blow up in 3 days anyway, so even if I continued I wouldn't be able to beat the game. Is Gale the one party member who can't die in your playthrough, even if you play an evil character and kill off all of the other good guys?

REWIND

Guess I do actually have to wake her.




NO we're not married yet!




I thought I did tell you? I distinctly remember in act 1 at the campsite, I talked to Wyll and told him about the urges. I remember seeing that option on La'zel and Astarion too. If that option was available to Shadowheart, I would have told her too.




Where are the others? There is no way they would not have been woken by this commotion. And they would have had to have helped out to restrain me and tie me up. Gale would be there to cast Hold Person if I broke my bindings, maybe Halsin there to entangle me too, Wyll ready to stab if it came to that, etc.




I have never tried to "flirt" with you in this game.




Wow thanks a lot guys. Wyll and Gale were the first people I told about the murderous urges back in early act 1. I thought you were my righteous, reliable comrades in arms! I trusted in you! And you guys were nowhere to be seen when it came time.






I am still unconvinced about the party apparently being fine with me waltzing around, knowing that at any moment I could be gripped by a literally uncontrollable murderous rage and kill people. To render me perfectly safe would require me to be constantly accompanied 24/7 by several very strong men and wizards to restrain me before I killed anyone, and people on watch throughout the night. For the whole duration of my life. I am what, in my 20s or 30s? That's at least another 50 or 60 years, and all it takes is ONE slip up and people die. This is impractical.

I am reminded of that Bonanza episode about the guy who uncontrollably enters into a murderous rage at random and keeps killing people, including his lover. As much as the heroes felt sorry for him and wanted him to live, they came to the conclusion that there is no way rational way to let him live and executed him.

Dont think you get a game over if gale explodes in the act 2 area when you moved to act3. You can still get jaheira and minsk in act3. Or just off Isobel like the butler wants... but yeah dark urge playthrough doesnt leave much room to complete all quests you want.

[Unknown998]

So ok. I am playing with no party limit and no level cap and the game quickly turns very easy even on tactician. Id like to spice things up but not by making enemies very strong cuz I want my party to feel powerful hence I would like to increase the number of enemies Im fighting. Are there mods you ppl could recommend?