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Trickster wrote: ↑ December 22nd, 2025, 05:43

Why are you playing as gay lizard men?

Cipher wrote: ↑ December 21st, 2025, 10:41

Val the Moofia Boss wrote: ↑ December 21st, 2025, 05:20

Which BG3 party members are generally regarded as the best story wise? I wonder if I should install that mod that just plays all party member cutscenes regardless of whether or not they are in your party.

They are all really bad.

Lae'zel shows a change after you earn enough friendship points with her and while still brutally honest and abrasive, is nevertheless loyal to you. I hated her sassy attitude in the beginning but ended up really liking her by the end. Specially because she is the only one of the party members that doesn't have a secret that she is hiding from you. She is just an earnest githyanki warrior trying to remove the tadpole to stay alive as per the knowledge she has due to her upbringing. I wouldn't call her "great" but certainly was the best of the bunch who all keep trying to "one up" each other with their snowflake main character syndrome.

Gale is alright, if a little bit pretentious. If you use the mod that makes him straight (which everyone should) then he shouldn't be a degenerate houndog salivating for your hide and should just be a nice wizard pal.

Wyll is alright if you use the Wyll's of Toril mod to make him a Baldurian instead of a ******. He is kind of a poser but at least he is genuinely heroic in the sense that he tries to do the right thing unlike the other edgelords in your party.

Shadowheart is an emo goth all the way to the very end until you finish her personal quest, then she mellows out but its not really worth all the hassle. She is not bloodthirsty like Astarion so if you are playing a heroic character you can bring her along without having to suffer her nagging too much. Just never push her on her secrets and let her keep the facade and she won't dislike you/***** too much.

Karlach is a straight up redditor. Talks like one too. She has a good melee class, but so does Lae'zel and Lae'zel is considerably less insufferable. Karlach's one good trait is that she is also heroic so she won't be bitching if you are not an evil murder hobo. That's it. It's her only redeeming feature. If you can tolerate the word choices she uses, are playing a heroic character and are looking for another melee character besides Lae'zel, then I guess she is alright.

Astarion is a ****** and as a vampire that tried to feast on my character, he got stake in the heart just like all filthy bloodsuckers deserve, as Lathander intended. From what I've read he is really evil, emo and pretentious. Some find his humor hilarious but I just don't fraternize with evil monsters.

Halsin is just as much of a horndog as Gale, if not more so. Make sure to get that mod or else he is insurable. With the mod, he is somewhat boring with nothing really interesting to add or say. Once you learn that he was only added as a companion due to crazy fujoshi fans wanted him to bear rape them, it all makes sense. I guess he is inoffensive enough.

Jaheira is just as bossy and naggy as she was in BG 1 and 2. I don't particularly care for her that much. I am one of those few that actually liked Khalid and was sad to see him so unceremoniously disposed in BG2.

Minsc is a caricature of the original and Matt Merzer does a parody impression of Jim Cummings. If original Minsc was seasons 1 to 9 Homer Simpson, then BG3 Minsc is late season Homer Simpson, completely flanderized without all the nuance his character once had.

I am being extremely charitable here, I still stand by my statement that they are all really bad but if you decide to engage with the game's companions on the game's terms, then those three, in that order and with those mods, are decent enough. Also, there's a way to have a party of 6 like in the original BG games but it really destroys the difficulty curve, even playing on Tactician.

In terms of "story" content:

► Show Spoiler

Shadowheart has the Macguffin, so much so that she WILL join your camp at some point, no matter what you do. I think she then can die after Act 1 but I don't remember. Her story is not really tied to the Macguffin so I am not sure why the game is so heavy hand it about it. She has some story presence at the end of Act 2 when you go to Shar's temple but that's pretty much it.

Lae'zel has a LOT of dialogue when you visit the githyanki creche, if you let her join your camp, make sure to bring her when you go there. She is also tied to a super important end game character. I think Larian really wanted us to play as her, as the githyanki and mindflayers are the plot they really wanted to tell.

Wyll has a lot of dialogue when you reach Baldur's Gate but outside of his personal quest that is related to his father, who was basically the regent of BG, there's not much to his character in terms of story content.

Gale has a bomb in his chest and can be used at 2 points during the story to end the game in a non-standard game over sort of ending. Outside of that I don't really think he has much of a presence in the plot.

Astarion, was dead when I went to meet Cazador, the man that turned him vampire. I assume he has a role in that part of the story but he died early in Act 1 so... who knows. Not really that important, from the looks of it.

Karlach has a strong tie to one of the 3 main bad guys but is just a few lines of background context and an overly dramatic rant/temper tantrum when you kill him in Act 3. I don't think is really worth it to bring her along.

Halsin has a lot of lines in Act 2 related to the source of the darkness but that's pretty much it.

Jaheira has somewhat a good amount of content in BG but nothing really too big in relation to the plot. Just, she knows the movers and shakers and they know her, as the leader of the Harpers. I think it makes sense to bring her along during Act 3 when you reach Baldur's Gate but not critical the actual plot. The same is true for Minsc to a much, much diminished capacity.

All in all, I don't really think any character is crucial to the plot so bring whoever you like best or whoever has the class features that better suit your party composition.

buttfucker 3000 wrote: ↑ December 22nd, 2025, 06:01

Cipher wrote: ↑ December 21st, 2025, 10:41

Val the Moofia Boss wrote: ↑ December 21st, 2025, 05:20

Which BG3 party members are generally regarded as the best story wise? I wonder if I should install that mod that just plays all party member cutscenes regardless of whether or not they are in your party.

They are all really bad.

Lae'zel shows a change after you earn enough friendship points with her and while still brutally honest and abrasive, is nevertheless loyal to you. I hated her sassy attitude in the beginning but ended up really liking her by the end. Specially because she is the only one of the party members that doesn't have a secret that she is hiding from you. She is just an earnest githyanki warrior trying to remove the tadpole to stay alive as per the knowledge she has due to her upbringing. I wouldn't call her "great" but certainly was the best of the bunch who all keep trying to "one up" each other with their snowflake main character syndrome.

Gale is alright, if a little bit pretentious. If you use the mod that makes him straight (which everyone should) then he shouldn't be a degenerate houndog salivating for your hide and should just be a nice wizard pal.

Wyll is alright if you use the Wyll's of Toril mod to make him a Baldurian instead of a ******. He is kind of a poser but at least he is genuinely heroic in the sense that he tries to do the right thing unlike the other edgelords in your party.

Shadowheart is an emo goth all the way to the very end until you finish her personal quest, then she mellows out but its not really worth all the hassle. She is not bloodthirsty like Astarion so if you are playing a heroic character you can bring her along without having to suffer her nagging too much. Just never push her on her secrets and let her keep the facade and she won't dislike you/***** too much.

Karlach is a straight up redditor. Talks like one too. She has a good melee class, but so does Lae'zel and Lae'zel is considerably less insufferable. Karlach's one good trait is that she is also heroic so she won't be bitching if you are not an evil murder hobo. That's it. It's her only redeeming feature. If you can tolerate the word choices she uses, are playing a heroic character and are looking for another melee character besides Lae'zel, then I guess she is alright.

Astarion is a ****** and as a vampire that tried to feast on my character, he got stake in the heart just like all filthy bloodsuckers deserve, as Lathander intended. From what I've read he is really evil, emo and pretentious. Some find his humor hilarious but I just don't fraternize with evil monsters.

Halsin is just as much of a horndog as Gale, if not more so. Make sure to get that mod or else he is insurable. With the mod, he is somewhat boring with nothing really interesting to add or say. Once you learn that he was only added as a companion due to crazy fujoshi fans wanted him to bear rape them, it all makes sense. I guess he is inoffensive enough.

Jaheira is just as bossy and naggy as she was in BG 1 and 2. I don't particularly care for her that much. I am one of those few that actually liked Khalid and was sad to see him so unceremoniously disposed in BG2.

Minsc is a caricature of the original and Matt Merzer does a parody impression of Jim Cummings. If original Minsc was seasons 1 to 9 Homer Simpson, then BG3 Minsc is late season Homer Simpson, completely flanderized without all the nuance his character once had.

I am being extremely charitable here, I still stand by my statement that they are all really bad but if you decide to engage with the game's companions on the game's terms, then those three, in that order and with those mods, are decent enough. Also, there's a way to have a party of 6 like in the original BG games but it really destroys the difficulty curve, even playing on Tactician.

In terms of "story" content:

► Show Spoiler

Shadowheart has the Macguffin, so much so that she WILL join your camp at some point, no matter what you do. I think she then can die after Act 1 but I don't remember. Her story is not really tied to the Macguffin so I am not sure why the game is so heavy hand it about it. She has some story presence at the end of Act 2 when you go to Shar's temple but that's pretty much it.

Lae'zel has a LOT of dialogue when you visit the githyanki creche, if you let her join your camp, make sure to bring her when you go there. She is also tied to a super important end game character. I think Larian really wanted us to play as her, as the githyanki and mindflayers are the plot they really wanted to tell.

Wyll has a lot of dialogue when you reach Baldur's Gate but outside of his personal quest that is related to his father, who was basically the regent of BG, there's not much to his character in terms of story content.

Gale has a bomb in his chest and can be used at 2 points during the story to end the game in a non-standard game over sort of ending. Outside of that I don't really think he has much of a presence in the plot.

Astarion, was dead when I went to meet Cazador, the man that turned him vampire. I assume he has a role in that part of the story but he died early in Act 1 so... who knows. Not really that important, from the looks of it.

Karlach has a strong tie to one of the 3 main bad guys but is just a few lines of background context and an overly dramatic rant/temper tantrum when you kill him in Act 3. I don't think is really worth it to bring her along.

Halsin has a lot of lines in Act 2 related to the source of the darkness but that's pretty much it.

Jaheira has somewhat a good amount of content in BG but nothing really too big in relation to the plot. Just, she knows the movers and shakers and they know her, as the leader of the Harpers. I think it makes sense to bring her along during Act 3 when you reach Baldur's Gate but not critical the actual plot. The same is true for Minsc to a much, much diminished capacity.

All in all, I don't really think any character is crucial to the plot so bring whoever you like best or whoever has the class features that better suit your party composition.

Pretty sure Gale is already straight, and he's easily the most tolerable of the origin companions.

Oyster Sauce wrote: ↑ December 22nd, 2025, 06:05

buttfucker 3000 wrote: ↑ December 22nd, 2025, 06:01

Cipher wrote: ↑ December 21st, 2025, 10:41

They are all really bad.

Lae'zel shows a change after you earn enough friendship points with her and while still brutally honest and abrasive, is nevertheless loyal to you. I hated her sassy attitude in the beginning but ended up really liking her by the end. Specially because she is the only one of the party members that doesn't have a secret that she is hiding from you. She is just an earnest githyanki warrior trying to remove the tadpole to stay alive as per the knowledge she has due to her upbringing. I wouldn't call her "great" but certainly was the best of the bunch who all keep trying to "one up" each other with their snowflake main character syndrome.

Gale is alright, if a little bit pretentious. If you use the mod that makes him straight (which everyone should) then he shouldn't be a degenerate houndog salivating for your hide and should just be a nice wizard pal.

Wyll is alright if you use the Wyll's of Toril mod to make him a Baldurian instead of a ******. He is kind of a poser but at least he is genuinely heroic in the sense that he tries to do the right thing unlike the other edgelords in your party.

Shadowheart is an emo goth all the way to the very end until you finish her personal quest, then she mellows out but its not really worth all the hassle. She is not bloodthirsty like Astarion so if you are playing a heroic character you can bring her along without having to suffer her nagging too much. Just never push her on her secrets and let her keep the facade and she won't dislike you/***** too much.

Karlach is a straight up redditor. Talks like one too. She has a good melee class, but so does Lae'zel and Lae'zel is considerably less insufferable. Karlach's one good trait is that she is also heroic so she won't be bitching if you are not an evil murder hobo. That's it. It's her only redeeming feature. If you can tolerate the word choices she uses, are playing a heroic character and are looking for another melee character besides Lae'zel, then I guess she is alright.

Astarion is a ****** and as a vampire that tried to feast on my character, he got stake in the heart just like all filthy bloodsuckers deserve, as Lathander intended. From what I've read he is really evil, emo and pretentious. Some find his humor hilarious but I just don't fraternize with evil monsters.

Halsin is just as much of a horndog as Gale, if not more so. Make sure to get that mod or else he is insurable. With the mod, he is somewhat boring with nothing really interesting to add or say. Once you learn that he was only added as a companion due to crazy fujoshi fans wanted him to bear rape them, it all makes sense. I guess he is inoffensive enough.

Jaheira is just as bossy and naggy as she was in BG 1 and 2. I don't particularly care for her that much. I am one of those few that actually liked Khalid and was sad to see him so unceremoniously disposed in BG2.

Minsc is a caricature of the original and Matt Merzer does a parody impression of Jim Cummings. If original Minsc was seasons 1 to 9 Homer Simpson, then BG3 Minsc is late season Homer Simpson, completely flanderized without all the nuance his character once had.

I am being extremely charitable here, I still stand by my statement that they are all really bad but if you decide to engage with the game's companions on the game's terms, then those three, in that order and with those mods, are decent enough. Also, there's a way to have a party of 6 like in the original BG games but it really destroys the difficulty curve, even playing on Tactician.

In terms of "story" content:

► Show Spoiler

Shadowheart has the Macguffin, so much so that she WILL join your camp at some point, no matter what you do. I think she then can die after Act 1 but I don't remember. Her story is not really tied to the Macguffin so I am not sure why the game is so heavy hand it about it. She has some story presence at the end of Act 2 when you go to Shar's temple but that's pretty much it.

Lae'zel has a LOT of dialogue when you visit the githyanki creche, if you let her join your camp, make sure to bring her when you go there. She is also tied to a super important end game character. I think Larian really wanted us to play as her, as the githyanki and mindflayers are the plot they really wanted to tell.

Wyll has a lot of dialogue when you reach Baldur's Gate but outside of his personal quest that is related to his father, who was basically the regent of BG, there's not much to his character in terms of story content.

Gale has a bomb in his chest and can be used at 2 points during the story to end the game in a non-standard game over sort of ending. Outside of that I don't really think he has much of a presence in the plot.

Astarion, was dead when I went to meet Cazador, the man that turned him vampire. I assume he has a role in that part of the story but he died early in Act 1 so... who knows. Not really that important, from the looks of it.

Karlach has a strong tie to one of the 3 main bad guys but is just a few lines of background context and an overly dramatic rant/temper tantrum when you kill him in Act 3. I don't think is really worth it to bring her along.

Halsin has a lot of lines in Act 2 related to the source of the darkness but that's pretty much it.

Jaheira has somewhat a good amount of content in BG but nothing really too big in relation to the plot. Just, she knows the movers and shakers and they know her, as the leader of the Harpers. I think it makes sense to bring her along during Act 3 when you reach Baldur's Gate but not critical the actual plot. The same is true for Minsc to a much, much diminished capacity.

All in all, I don't really think any character is crucial to the plot so bring whoever you like best or whoever has the class features that better suit your party composition.

Pretty sure Gale is already straight, and he's easily the most tolerable of the origin companions.

He was furious at me because I didn't have gay sex with him

CheesusCrust wrote: ↑ November 21st, 2025, 17:19

interesting ****. so this user openly posted her de-niggafied Wyll on surodmg's server about two hours ago, replacing him with Xavier from Love and Deepspace. i see no **** screeching about d*versity in sight. what in matrix bug i just witnessed?

buttfucker 3000 wrote: ↑ December 22nd, 2025, 06:01

Pretty sure Gale is already straight, and he's easily the most tolerable of the origin companions.

Cipher wrote: ↑ December 22nd, 2025, 07:04

Take Gale, for example. In his 2nd convo, he tells you about how magic works and the Weave and such. If you inquiry about it he will elaborate and, at some point, offers to show you a "magic light show". If you happen to agree, the magic light show ends with Gale and your character gazing lovingly at each other, triggering the romance.

rusty_shackleford wrote: ↑ December 22nd, 2025, 07:19

Cipher wrote: ↑ December 22nd, 2025, 07:04

Take Gale, for example. In his 2nd convo, he tells you about how magic works and the Weave and such. If you inquiry about it he will elaborate and, at some point, offers to show you a "magic light show". If you happen to agree, the magic light show ends with Gale and your character gazing lovingly at each other, triggering the romance.

this is actually after they changed it, before it would just trigger a romance scene because you agreed to learn a magic trick

Val the Moofia Boss wrote: ↑ December 22nd, 2025, 21:40

Act 1 to toll house and gnoll horde

► Show Spoiler

Realistically this should be the end of the game, or at least the end of the line for the MC.

There are five other people here and only one of them has to wake and then notice that I am not in my bed. I have gone on monthly Boy Scout overnighter hiking trips numerous times and at night, it's really really quiet, and you can pretty loudly hear people's footsteps in the dirt outside your tent or them moving stuff around. And then logistically, you're just going to have some people awake. Some people who can't fight asleep easily or people who wake up randomly at night, people needing to go use the bathroom, people getting cold and putting more layers on, people taking walks to admire the moonlit landscape, etc. It would be possible for the MC to heft the body and walk out far enough away from camp without causing too much noise. But didn't Mythbusters find out that it'd take 2 hours to dig a grave? Again all it takes is one person seeing you are not there. And then there would be all of the blood and trail of blood to clean up, and it is night, and that'd take a lot of time and you might not find it all. And even if you somehow do clean the blood, they could use magic and probably find her.

I can be as honest as possible and bet on the graciousness of their hearts, but I think if these people put it to a vote they would vote to execute me out of selfpreservation. I can't be banished and allowed to wander by myself until I transform and then go eat or kidnap more people.








Isn't this guy afraid he's going to be next?




Really game?






This looks really cheap/tacky.




Pregnant hyena: this is the second time that the MC has attacked something by stomping with his foot. Does he not use his weapon in cutscenes?

I am half anticipating a twist where the demon mass murderer is going to turn out to be a good girl or something and the game will encourage me to break my word and turn against the paladins to defend her.




I had a frustrating experience with the gnoll horde/stolen crate quest. After I visited the toll house, I was exploring the surrounding area when I came across a cave entrance. I went up the cave disarming the traps, and came across a bridge and leapt across it, and then stumbled upon humans who turned out to be fighting against gnolls. I was instructed to kill the gnoll leader (I presume it'd be a similar situation as the goblin camp chief where you kill him and the other mobs will flee). But he was so far back and there were so many gnoll archers and gnolls who could lob grenades that my level 3 characters just couldn't survive long enough.

So I instead had to send people back across the chasm bridge. I thought that you were supposed to lure the enemies there and then have them run through a gauntlet of burning oil, explosive barrels, and falling rocks, all while pelting them with arrows. But then the mobs would stop at the bridge and wouldn't leap across. For some reason the bridge on my side kept disappearing. I was continuously quicksaving and reloading trying to figure out why it was happening but didn't. Meanwhile, the archers can two shot my guys, and they can shoot further from uphill than my guys can shoot fireballs at them from downhill. So I had to send my guys down to the front of the cave entrance, hoping that the mobs would path around and come down from the bottom. (Is this how this setpiece was meant to be played? With the rocks falling down hill? Now that I think about it, it didn't make sense for the mobs to leap across the bridge and come downhill, as the first rock falling would roll downhill and cause the other rock to fall, so you'd only get one rock hitting the gnolls).






The mobs moved up on the surface, but then they wouldn't come down to the cave entrance. They would just stand on the surface above me. I had Gale step out of the cave entrance, cast chain lightning on the boss, and then step back into covers so he couldn't get pelted with arrows. Then it was many turns of waiting. It sure would have been nice if this game had a turbo mode to fast forward through all of the mob turns.








Eventually I had to run my guys out cover into broad daylight to bait more adds to come down, and then killed them. The chain lightning on the boss expired and he moved too far away overhead out of line of sight for Gale to chain lightning him again. So I had to send my guys up over the surface to run to the other entrance where the two foolish human NPCs were while the MC sat at the bottom of the cave to keep the boss in turn based combat so that it wouldn't reset to full HP.






My guys reached the upper cave entrance and had them enter turn based, and then I was able to move the MC far enough down South that he broke out of turn based combat. He then ran in real time all the way up to right behind the boss. Then I bursted him down.








How was this supposed to have been done?

Cretin wrote: ↑ September 30th, 2025, 02:49

rusty_shackleford wrote: ↑ July 19th, 2025, 06:29

Try to find your favorite comment




Most people have absolutely no idea what the demographics of people who play RPGs is.

The entire game is porn-brained, not romantic in either the modern or classical sense, but as it is Laezel is the best romance in the game and I will die on that hill. If they made laezel look like this:






instead of a frogwoman, shart would be some weird ****** ****** who is also just a moody **** most of the time. Laezel's romance is the only one that has an actual arc and significant character development. Then theres the fact that laezel stomps the **** out of everything in the game while shart is just a mediocre healbot unless you respec.

Also laezel is a fascist, clearly, shes the choice for any self-respecting racist bodybuilder.

You can probably mod Lae'zel to look more human. I used to play with a mod that made her look less gith and more "human with paint and prosthetics on"

Val the Moofia Boss wrote: ↑ December 23rd, 2025, 09:59

I just had an extremely frustrating time where now I might have to redo several hours of playtime because of a bug that there is apparently no mod to fix.

► Act 1 Karlach and Witch quest

Having looted the gnolls and tossed the chest into my inventory, I teleport back to the grove to vendor stuff and long rest. I have 1,700 gold now but I didn't see anything really worthwhile on sale. Now I need to find this Mr. "NF" fella to get more money.

Given that I don't intend to become a serial killer, this will probably be the last thing I get from this guy. It didn't look good on me so I gave it to Wyll.




At the Grove, I notice that there is a door I can go through. It leads to a prisoner area.

I am not a fan of this wishy washy "accountability is bad because we can't hurt people's feelings" ********. She is part of bandits that massacred the village and is almost certainly not an "innocent" camp follower. Execute her.






Teleporting back to the Toll House and going down by the river, I enter turn based mode to kill Karlach, but as my characters approach to melee range we get yanked into a cutscene where we approach peaceably. Before I even get an option to exit out of the cutscene and begin attacking her, we get tadpole visions and the narrator saying "she is a victim, not an agent of evil". This is then almost immediately followed by her boasting about how good of a killer she was for 10 years in an army that ravages worlds. But now Wyll is thinking "hrmmm maybe she isn't evil?". What?!?!








She also accuses the knights of being satan worshippers, but the cutscene gives me no dialogue options to really walk this through or to further interrogate her. The only options I get are to either accept her, let her go, or fight her.






There is no way I can just take her claims at face value (and even if she is right about the knights being evil, she herself is evil too so it's not like we'd let her off the hook either). So it's a "he said she said" situation, and I trust the knights who journeyed far and lost men along the way over the demon boasting about how many people she has killed. Anyway, for a supposed alien supersoldier who is infamous, has 10 years of experience, etc, she was only level 3 and wound up going down really fast.








Strangely, Anders is level 5 (and has two soldiers in his retinue), while Karlach was alone and only level 3. Why did this guy need me to go kill her? Going by the game's UI, he could have easily taken her head by himself. Thanks for the sword.








My suspicion is that this northern part of the map has static higher level mobs, so I need to teleport back to the Southern part of the map around the goblin and do low level stuff over there to get more exp and hit level 4.

I encounter the witch. I don't want to waste limited spells and potions on fighting all of her brainwashed men, so I have Gale cast illusion spells to kite them and their line of sight cones away while we sneak past.




Gale casts feather fall on the group and we leap down to the bottom.




The witch teleports out of thin air as we approach the control panel for the jail cell, and then ports in 3 or 4 masked men. She also ports the captive woman into a jail cell and sets it on fire. The goblins running away when I killed the goblin chieftain, and then being instructed by the two dumbass humans who stood their ground that the gnolls would leave if I killed the gnoll leader, has led me to believe that you should go for the head honcho in this game. So I focus on bursting down the witch. I buff up and coat my blade in wyvern poison. Frustratingly, Gale could not cast Hold Person on the boss because she is not classified as a humanoid, but as a hag (she totally is a humanoid).






In one turn, the MC bursts down the witch to half HP.






On my next turn, I killed her. But then one of the masked men I was trying to save died from a DoT because I had melee them, so I had to reload an earlier save and redo the fight, having Shadowheart incapacitate one. I am not quite sure how I am supposed to save the woman in the jail cell. I have frost arrows but I would presume that they would further damage it and call it to fall, and/or damage her. I have bottles of water in my inventory but I am not sure if throwing them at the jail cell will extinguish the fire.




This time, when the MC went on his second turn to finish off the witch, it wasn't enough damage to kill her and I got pulled into a cutscene. The woman gets teleported out of the jail cell.








The witch then spawns... I think 7 or 8 shadow clones/mirages of her across the entire room? It was a ridiculous number. And they can apparently can all use the hard CC spell person, and they imprisoned 3/4ths of my team. Rules for thee but not for me. I had to do a lot of savescumming to get through this part.




The summoned axe finisher her off.




At the time the boss died, I was at low HP and had a DoT on me, so I almost immediately died. Which was frustrating because as soon as the boss dies, the rescued woman then runs to the nearest party member to talk to. More savescumming trying to heal up in time and run to greet her.

I then talk to the other freed men, only to realize that two of them are masked and not freed and still appear to be tempered/brainwashed/enthralled. Need to rip their masks off. Unfortunately there is no dialogue option when talking to them to rip the mask off of their face, nor does a mask appear in their inventory when you pickpocket them. I tried entering into combat to KO them and loot the mask off like I did with a NPC earlier, but this aggroed another person who didn't have a mask, even when I had Gale use the distract spell to lure the masked NPCs away into a private room and closed the door. Eventually I gave up and left.

Going outside, I meet the widow again. There is a dialogue option for a wand that I hadn't realized that I had picked up (I knew I had looted a staff off of the witch, but not a wand). I wondered if it would be a true resurrection spell like the revivfy scrolls I have, but it only revived the husband as a zombie. I was going to kill him, but then the wife seemed satisfied with it, and given that this is the same franchise as the Dragonlance novels then I am pretty sure this setting doesn't have a real God or a Heaven. I read Icewind Dale many years ago and completely forgot the plot and don't remember there being a real God or Heaven in that book either. So this doesn't seem particularly disordered by the standards of the setting.










I checked back inside the Witch's lair for the other survivors, and to see if there were still masked men in there who needed to be KOed and their masks ripped off. I wasn't sure if the masked men who fought me down below were a different group or the same ones I snuck past who got ported down below.

Well that was a neat adventure. Time to long rest to heal up before going back to the Grove to vendor stuff... huh?









WHAT? We killed Karlach! I talked to Wyll about it! I cut her head off and turned it in to Anders and he gave me his sword! What is going on?




NOOOOOO







I reload to just after I finished doublechecking the Witch's lair. I fast travel to the Toll House and check to verify Karlach's dead body is still there and hadn't despawned or had come back to life and ran off.




Still there. I long rested and it happened again. I then asked Grok and Gemini what was going on. Apparently I have to enter the day time camp and talk to Wyll after killing Karlach and I will get a conversation about it which will update Wyll's quest, and then I go to the night long rest and the devil will act as if Karlach was killed.



There is no conversation about Karlach...

According to Grok/Gemini, I was supposed to have done this while I still had Karlach's head in my inventory (how was I supposed to know that?), before I turned it in to Anders.

So I go to the Toll House to check if Anders is still there. Maybe I can talk to him, or pickpocket the head, or kill him and loot the head (he's level 5 and I have no spells left so that would be pretty hard). But he's gone.





So now it seems I am pretty screwed. Grok and Gemini said that there is fix mod for this. I can only run a script that will cosmetically fix Wyll after he transforms. So I am going to have to redo this all again?

Val the Moofia Boss wrote: ↑ December 24th, 2025, 10:58

The saga continues.

► Act 1: Wyll, Anders, huntsman, Astarion, Gale, burning inn

After wasting an hour trying to save Wyll by following instructions from grok and geimini inputting .osi commands to clear and check flags and spawn Karlach heads in my inventory, I gave up and just wound up having to redo the entire last play session. Some different things happened this time, though.

I reload several hours ago to back when we went to kill Karlach. This time I enter turn based mode and shoot a fireball from across the brook, never giving her a chance to suck us into a dialog cutscene. Shadowheart casts Hold Person and then Wyll and I burst her down and that's it.










To make sure I don't get surprised by a bug several hours from now, I immedietely enter longrest.




I don't understand why Wyll is bothered by this. Karlach has horns and fought in a devil army just like this devil in front of us, the one that accosted us on the bridge to the toll house, and the devil commander that boarded the mindflayer ship and tried to kill us at the start of the game. I wonder if there is quest designer incompetence here and the game thinks I saw the Karlach conversation cutscene in which Wyll and I got mindflayer visions and the narrator telling us she is innocent when that didn't happen in this timeline.




Mizora gives us a robe, though it is of little use to Wyll as he is a swordsman so he wants armor like padded gambesons or brigadines etc. Only Gale wears robes, but the Infernal robe has the same def of 10 that Gale is already wearing, and looks pretty ugly on him. The only thing the robe gives is fire resist, but so far incoming fireballs have been very infrequent. It is worth 1,600 gold. Mind as well vendor it, but the none of the two vendors in this game I have come across yet have 1,600 gold, so I'll have to wait to find a richer merchant.

I go to sleep but don't consume supplies to longrest. In the morning, I realize that my buffs have expired, and that I will need to consume more spell slots to rebuff. Mind as well just consume supplies and longrest again for real. This time, something new happens.









If you only drink from animals, then why did you just try to snack on me?

I am half debating killing him, but since you didn't lynch me earlier for sleepwalking and killing a woman, I guess I will let you off this time. Would've been nice if that was a dialog option I could pick.




Anyway, we head back to Anders and give him the head. He gives me the sword. This time, since so I know that they will vanish, and Karlach has said that they actually serve a devil, I have decided that I want some exp. Thanks guys.




I teleport back to the town and head South to redo the Witch quest. I come across two goblin warriors. Strangely, they do not aggro. Has he not heard that I killed everyone inside? Anyway, more exp.






On the way to redo the witch quest, I come across a huntsman.






This is pretty important. How about we all go back to the camp together and ask Astarion about this and get this resolved? That way I protect Astarion if he is innocent, huntsman gets the info he needs, if Astarion turns out to be bad then we can be there to help save the huntsman, etc. But no, the only option is to either tell him no or tell him where my camp is so he can go there without me accompanying him.




He might snipe Astarion while I am gone. So I immediately go to the day time camp to verify that Astarion hasn't died.




Astarion tells me about himself. Now he sounds much more like a good guy, magically enslaved to an evil vampire lord. Before it seemed like he was a threat and might have been lying. Strangely, it seems like the hunter never turned up after I told him where the camp was.

I see Gale has an exclamation mark so I run over to see the next part of his story. This then leads into an odd scene where Gale and my character stare at each other a little weirdly while soft grand piano music is playing, even though I had installed recommended mods such as Better Romance and Better Alphabets which I heard was supposed to prevent this from happening. Maybe it was too baked into the cutscenes and couldn't be excised, but it's just so weird.












I redo the witch's dungeon. This time one of the masked men adds died. Again. But I can't be bothered to redo savescumming over and over on this long, bullocks boss fight for the fourth time. Hope this doesn't count as having killed them all if this becomes relevant again.

There was also another strange bug. One of the witches' shadow clones spawned near an edge, and then cast hold person on Gale. I had Wyll use Eldritch Blast to hit the shadow clone to dispel it and to release the hold on Gale, but it knocked the shadow clone over the edge into the chasm, but then it snapped back to its prior position. After I killed the witch, all of the other shadow clones disappeared, but that one still remained. When I attacked it, it did not dispel on one hit like the other do, and I once again aggroed the living masked men. So I had to reload and just let that one be. This game is awfully buggy/unpolished.




Back to looking for low level quests and mobs to exp on. Gale eats a 3rd magical artifact and gives us the low down. Weirdly, he admits that he loves a goddess. So why was there the fireworks scene that turned out to be a romance lead in before this? That'd make him a certain adulterer. Is this supposed to be appealing to female players, knowing that the guy they romance is disloyal and might drop them for the next appealing woman that comes his way? Strange design choice.






I discover that the well in town leads to a spider den. A brief scouting shows that there are several medium-large sized spiders in there as well as some other medium-large sized mobs. They are level 3 (my party is level 4) but them being big monsters feels rather threatening, so I decide to come back later.




Heading West of the Northern bridge, I come across a burning inn. This segment was a little tedious because there are fire aoes everywhere and tight paths, which makes it tedious to micromanage the turn based movements of all of the other party members. The guards running in made me think that I had very little time and that I needed everyone to spread out and search for survivors and any objects I should snag before the building collapses. But it seems that there was no timer and I could have just had everyone else wait outside while I leisurely explored the place alone.








Found the widower's money and gave it back to him.

So far, the party members have been very uninvolved in what's happening and in the quest cutscenes and NPC dialogues. It seems that they only ever chime in on their personal quests or at camp. They also never talk to each other during cutscenes or quests. I have only ever seen them talk to each other two times in cutscenes, once when La'zel and Shadowheart met and then when our party met Astarion. Very disappointing.

MrTwinkls wrote: ↑ December 24th, 2025, 20:58

There is a mod that shows if you have available events in camp to not miss them and to not waste time by resting when there are none. The game lets itself be broken too easily.

Val the Moofia Boss wrote: ↑ December 22nd, 2025, 05:54

But they need to be cool. Khajit and Argonians aren't cool.

Val the Moofia Boss wrote: ↑ December 27th, 2025, 12:31

► Act 1: the Spectator boss, Drow band

I was baffled and worried that I had cleared out the map and yet I was getting the "you are underlevelled" warning popup, so I looked up online. Seems like the Underdark is the only thing left to do before progressing the plot, so I go back down to the spider cave and leap down further.

I get a nice cutscene of levitating down, though unfortunately the party members do not fall with you like in The Banner Saga 3.






Fought some minotaurs. Found a lot of crates. A voice started speaking and Gale said it was a Myconid, but upon fully exploring the crate area, I found no other being.






Found a fort, went up a ladder which I think leads to one of the next main plot destinations where you are supposed to kill the other two Absolute leaders, find Halsin, and then report back to the Grove that you have cleared the threat. I don't want to progress the plot yet till I am sufficiently levelled, so I climb back down.






I find the sword in the stone, but it seems to be inferior to Anders' sword. This magic sword requires you to spend a turn to grant an AoE buff, but it has a really short 20 foot radius. Meanwhile, the MC and Wyll are going to be sprinting or teleporting across the map to get into melee range, and hopefully whacking mobs every turn and dealing high damage rather than wasting turns. So I give it to Shadowheart since she does pretty wimpy damage anyway. No real opportunity loss there having her waste a turn on the buff and if we step out of the buff radius.




I then come across some petrified people, which then triggers a boss fight. I get that infuriating Fire Emblem thing of a boss spawning out of nowhere and getting the first turn, and he wiped my party before I even got to move. So I had to reload to the fort, buff up, and shoot the statues from a distance to spawn the boss, then shoot the boss to pull it.






The boss is also really annoying in how he gets like 3 or 4 actions PER TURN, and has a humongous movement distance. So he'd unpetrify a tempered drow, shoot a laser beam and kill a drow I just damaged to free from the enchantment, then paralyze Gale, then shoot somebody, and then fly way out of the MC's and Wyll's reach. I had to do a lot of savescumming, and much of my playtime was watching the loading screen or redoing actions, trying to meticulously explore every option and hope the RNG was in my favor. Not fun.

The first drow the boss frees, Dhourn, only has 20 HP, and unfortunately right before I killed the boss, the boss would always hit Dhourn for a 20 to 26 HP laser beam and one shot him. I even tried summoning Scratch hoping to bait an action from the boss, but it didn't work.




With the boss dead, I talk to the other guy who was freed but wasn't oneshotted. He namedrops Dhourn, and then says he will free the others.




I feel a little bad and wonder what I am missing with Dhourn dead, so I reload to before I pulled and try the boss again hoping to save Dhourn. This took even more savescumming.




In one timeline, I used a knockback arrow to blow the boss off the cliff, but he didn't die. Guess he has a levitation passive not listed in his examine menu?






Trying to save Dhourn was very difficult because my only healer, Shadowheart, had no spell slots left to cast on healing spells or sanctuary, so I had to shuffle potions between inventories and have her throw potions at him, even wasting one of my only two medium sized/greater healing potions to top him off in one turn. Wyll had to waste a turn he could have spent dealing damage to cast the Protection from Good and Evil on him. I tried using the scroll that gives you 7 temporary hitpoints, but apparently it can only be cast on yourself.




After enough savescumming, the RNG goes into my favor and the boss misses not one but two laser beams on Dhourn before moving away to futilely chomp at Wyll, so then we kill the boss.




This guy seems unusually friendly. I thought Drow were supposed to kill non-Drow on sight?




Annnnd it turns out I wasted all of that time and items not for a happier outcome for him to want to kill us. All of the other Drow aggro too.




Unfortunately, it then becomes apparent that my quicksaves were being automatically deleted. I was taking so many of them, but didn't make a proper save before the boss fight began. My last proper save was before I entered the Underdark. So there is no way for me to go back to the better timeline when I had first beaten the boss, Dhourn was dead, and the other Drow I talked to was friendly and was going to revive the others.

Wyll throws him off the ledge.




I have no way of reviving the other petrified Drow, and there is no telling if they will aggro either. Mind as well kill everyone for exp.

Val the Moofia Boss wrote: ↑ December 26th, 2025, 11:06

Gale becomes unusually amoral and gets mad that I want to destroy the evil book.

Oyster Sauce wrote: ↑ January 5th, 2026, 20:59

@Val the Moofia Boss it's not conveyed well, but after clearing the Grymforge map (just read it) you can go back to the first area and then into the mountain pass to do everything there. Both the pass and the forge have entrances to act 2 that cut you off from all act 1 content, but you can freely explore them and go back and forth until you decide to leave.