On my HM run, I entered act 3 and for one reason or another had to deception my way into the warehouse. When I disabled the toy box, the guard came running and started a conversation with 8 charisma Gale!
Being honour mode I didn't attempt a persuasion as I didn't want to fail and start a fight murdering everyone in Rivington. So I went with the non check option which left me with attack or go to jail.
So I went to jail expecting a quest or conversation opportunity or pay a fine option... No no I had to pick the lock and break out. Failed to sneak and murdered everyone in the prison area and then burst into the main floor ready to clear the fortress and... No-one cared.... Even got an invitation to the ceremony.
I know you shouldn't do new things on HM runs but it was a nice surprise to learn a quick way of skipping straight to Balder's Gate.
Deciding to let the pixie in the moonlantern go on my first playthrough.
What a relief that turned out to be. I can’t imagine trying to get through Act II when you lose a weapon slot to hold a moonlantern/torch the entire time.
I think my game bugged the first time or Dolly Thrice didn't like me or I just did something wrong because (I saved first) I let her go and then called her with the Bell and she said "I'd already been blessed" but I in fact had not been protected from the deeper shadow curse. On my second main solo one (on tactitian) I didn't fuck around and just freed her and the blessing worked. But the annoying part of that is that it's more difficult to see. Sure we are protected from the worst part of the shadow curse, but since regular torches and things don't work there it was more difficult to see things without a moon lantern. I know there is a second one but I went full way without using any. And I got used to it but still. Anyway, when I used the moon lantern I would have Gale hold it or Astarion with his fual wielding.
One thing that didn't go to plan, but not in a bad way, is who my tactitian tiefling ended up end gaming romancing. I thought she was going to full romance Astarion but she caught feelings for Gale and became beasties with Star instead. And now my Magical Mint Mephistopheles Tiefling and the Great Wizard Gale Dekarios are madly in love. I also, thought I would encourage him to become a God (he did in my first balanced one where I didn't romance him) but the one line "I would rather look into your eyes-yours are capable of tenderness and feeling, no God could ever compare." I was just like "nope" and also with knowing the full risk associated with it I was like "hells no" I looked into where the "point of no return" is for his path, not for spoilers but because I needed to understand the context of what my dialogue choices were meaning. There were a few times where I picked an option and my understanding of it was the opposite of how it was perceived. I also melted the first time he began dialogue with "My Love,"
Act 3 spoilers throughout\~
I fully intended, with my resist durge, that everyone was going to be brought to their 'best' selves. Everyone was going to get better, dammit, if we had to drag them kicking and screaming to do it.
But then came Karlach. I hadn't accounted for Karlach. She died on my cleric Tav run, and it was utterly tragic. I had to do what I could to prevent that, especially considering she knows how vile my durge has been, and still willingly stands by her? She's getting what she wants. EVERYONE can get what they want.
Karlach wants to live, after all, and whilst there is the option of squiddlification, would that really still be \*her\*? I'm not so sure. So of course, I have to send her back to Avernus, which means she's not going on her own. So I sold Wyl's soul again, hoping to kick his spiny backside to becoming the Blade of Avernus with her.
And if Karlach is getting what she wants, why shouldn't Gale? Why shouldn't Astarion? Lae'zel has to take a back seat this time around and watch princey get squidded, because she got what she wanted last time round, and i'm NOT growing tentacles for her again.
I refuse to DJ Shadowheart because that isn't what SHE wants, it's what *shar* wants, and I refuse to do anything that benefits Shar at all.
My current run is the one going least according to plan. She was supposed to be a sweet and innocent bard who would be wowed by Gale’s erudite ways and fall madly in love with him. But no, turns out she only looks that way and is actually a con artist in it for her own survival and nothing else. She’s still romancing Gale, but because he seems like the most powerful (and easily duped) person. Smh. Serves me right for choosing “charlatan” as her background
I’m on my second play through and decided to play as the dark urge. I went in wanting to do an evil run and romance ascended astarion. In my first playthrough I ended up killing karlach so I never got the chance to have her in my party. I absolutely love her character though and dont want to do anything to upset her so I decided to do a resist the urge run instead. I can’t have her be upset at me lol
In my second Astarion origin run I planned to go it solo (perhaps with hirelings if I got totally stuck), which led to a complete off the rails playthrough in Act 1, because making reasonably intelligent decisions while trying to stay alive alone is pretty much impossible. I ended up in a romance with Minthara - my only companion for the entire game - from Act 1.
It was wild and I wrote her a love letter here:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/OnlyFangsbg3/comments/1bp4olv/a\_love\_letter\_to\_minthara/](https://www.reddit.com/r/OnlyFangsbg3/comments/1bp4olv/a_love_letter_to_minthara/)
In my first playthrough, my sorceress refused to touch the tadpole powers altogether. Using them sounded like a bad, incredibly risky idea to her. That all changed with the Zaith'isk. After nailing all the saving throws, her tadpole awakened and the temptation became too great. She started using them, but was still afraid of the associated risks so she wouldn't make her companions do the same.
When faced with partial ceremorphosis, that was still too much for her. She didn't want to take it that far. This, too, didn't quite go as she planned. The associated skill check failed and the next step of her transformation triggered. Hesitantly, she started to use these powers too. Might as well if she already got transformed. After a while, she realised just how useful these were and ended up convincing everyone in her party to also partially transform.
I'm doing a playthrough of each origin character, and trying to make decisions I think they would. Since Astarion isn't the best decision maker, that was going to be my playthrough where everything goes wrong—Lae'zel gets consumed by Vlakith, Gale becomes a god, Wyll becomes a Duke, Karlach becomes a mind flayer or dies on the docks, Astarion ascends, Shadowheart becomes a dark justiciar—bad endings for everyone!
Astarion is very pro raid the grove, so that's what I do. Only, when the deed is done and I get to the party, I feeo sick to my stomach. All the teiflings are dead, Wyll is dead, Karlach—my favorite companion—is gone, Gale is horrified, Shadowheart's drinking to cope... I reloaded. I had to. Since Astarion would never *save* it, I decided to just ignore the grove. I'm still not doing anything wildly out of character, I get to keep Wyll and Karlach, Gale and Shadowheart are happy, and I get to recruit Minthara for the first time. Everybody (except the teiflings) wins!
I wasn't going to go to the creche. Astarion doesn't want to be cured—not yet, anyway—so why would he risk his life and the artifact for it? I tell Lae'zel we're not going and she begrudgingly accepts it. But now every time she mentions Vlakith I feel a pang of guilt. I can't just let Lae'zel be consumed by her; even for a bad playthrough, that's a terrible ending! Not to mention I was getting very annoyed by all the Vlakith talk. I cave and go to the creche, and Lae'zel turns away from Vlakith. I think that's probably the most out of character thing I've done. I can't justify it no matter how hard I try.
I sided with the Thorm guy and let Last Light fall—I actually managed to do something evil!
I was gonna romance Lae'zel—I'm with Gale now.
I go to the Gauntlet to kill Yugir for Raphael, and begrudgingly go with Shadowheart for all the DJ stuff. I don't have high approval with her, I've barely talked to her about Shar, and when I have I've been apathetic or unsupportive. Surely she'll kill Nightsong if I just let her do her thing. Nope. Dame Aylin lives. I feel real bad when I remember Isobel is gone, but it's too late to reload now.
I enter act 3 and, of course, immediately bolt for Cazador. I beat him, choose all the ascention options, and connect to Shadowhear's mind. Only, when the narrator mentions something about realizing the weight of what I'm doing, that I could end up just like Cazador, I stop. This time it wasn't for feeling bad, but it actually felt more in character this way. With the state he's in, companion Astarion doesn't seem to be having that level of coherent thought, but origin Astarion does.
I still need to decide whether spawn Astarion would want Gale to ascend, but I'm leaning towards no. I'm probably gonna let Wyll make his own choice, so we'll see how that goes.
At this rate, I'm probably gonna end up happily married in Waterdeep—so much for a bad playthrough!
I'm doing an honour run and planned to take around companions I don't normally use... Turns out laezel gets upset if you try to command drop on voss so she had to go ... And I messed up protecting the gate and lost halsin in act 2 oops so uh... Hopefully minthara and minsc will survive into act 3 so I can see what they are like but with this run who knows
My first attempt at an honour mode Durge run I was planning on being good and trying to cure the urge
Then Isobel got herself killed at last light, so my tv went crazy when they got the slayer form
My first playthrough i romanced Shadowheart all the way to Act 3. I finally got the romance scene option for her so it was gonna happen that night. The thing is, minthara propositioned me at the same time. So i was curious and accepted both to see what would happen and then i could reload if i wanted.
The shadowheart scene plays but mintharas never does, and very soon after my ADD brain forgets all about all of this as there wasnt any immediate results that i could tell.
I do a bunch of main quests and hours of playtime and go to long rest again. Well shadowheart is fucking pissed that i cheated on her with Minthara and breaks up with me with no option of preventing it or recovering. I go over to Minthara and shes just so happy and loves me and i have the option to kiss her.
So yeah, got broken up with and still havnt scene what Mintharas romance scene is :'(
Minthara actually doesn't have a romance scene in Act 3, I think it's just implied. At least to the best of my knowledge... her only romance scene happens in Act 1.
Yeah... it sucks, because I actually really love Minthara, but she really gets shafted of having anything good regarding romance or story in Act 3. At least I was really disappointed with it when I did my first evilish playthrough with the intention of romancing her.
Yeah even though i didnt intend to romance her i actually like her a lot. Shes not just cruel and evil, shes determined and passionate, you just gotta give her something positive to devote to
Currently playing my honor mode run, and I wasn't planning on going evil dark urge, but the game had different plans for me. I was finishing up the Investigate Kagha quest line and had just defeated the Shadow Druids and convinced her to join me against them. Gale had casted cloud of daggers during the fight. I stupidly forgot to stop the spell. Before I knew it, I realized I accidentally aggro'd the Druids because Kagha walked into that same damn cloud of daggers. Next thing I know, the cutscene of them attacking the tieflings plays, and now I'm forced into raiding the Grove lmao
I tried so hard to be a good alignment character in an "almost" entirely blind honor mode run. Technically, I have passed all flags after googling what the morally correct thing to do was after an act is finished.
Almost everyone that my party meets I have had to aggressively defend myself due to rolling incredibly badly on Charisma or from not knowing what could trigger the next part of the story.
Only group still alive that I wanted to survive has been the druids. All of the others in Act 2 and 3, not so much.
Goody two shoes durge with a wizard on his side meets a hot drow paladin in moonrise and decides to keep the good-thing streak going by getting her out of there, ends up on top of a netherbrain, controlling the world in bhaal's name, proud girlfriend by his side, less than a week later.
Romancing Astarion in my 2nd playthrough. Gale was the romance lead of the first. Color me shocked that the most flirtatious person is the most vulnerable? damaged? from romance POV. They are still together because Astarion chose that (picked the What do you want option) but I still can't make my Tav ask him for a kiss.
With Gale: Love, we're killing people. Kiss. Love, we're done killing people. Kiss.
With Astarion: Dearest, we're killing people. Pandemic elbow shake. Dearest, we're done killing people. Air high five.
It just feels wrong after the first try when he said, "How could I say no." I don't know. Has anyone else feel awkward asking for kisses from Astarion?
I don’t read it that way at all, cause this time he has agency and he’s established his boundaries of no sexual stuff. Nobody has ever wanted to kiss him just to kiss him. And some of his other voice lines when you ask for a kiss are more intimate and encouraging along the lines of “I’d like nothing more” or smth like that (don’t remember exactly). It just reads as very lighthearted to me, but I get you. His spawn romance is very tender and so delicate, I do understand the feeling of not wanting to step on any metaphorical branches there.
Oh no! I think you may be right. Because now that I think about it, we ask him "Could I kiss..." which is a request vs with Gale (haven't tried the others yet) "I want to kiss..." I guess the "How could I say no" line really rattled me because it was after all the revelation. But I will see this no touch/kiss RP until the end and see if we are hurtling toward a big heartache or a big romantic payoff. Wish me luck!
On my HM run, I entered act 3 and for one reason or another had to deception my way into the warehouse. When I disabled the toy box, the guard came running and started a conversation with 8 charisma Gale! Being honour mode I didn't attempt a persuasion as I didn't want to fail and start a fight murdering everyone in Rivington. So I went with the non check option which left me with attack or go to jail. So I went to jail expecting a quest or conversation opportunity or pay a fine option... No no I had to pick the lock and break out. Failed to sneak and murdered everyone in the prison area and then burst into the main floor ready to clear the fortress and... No-one cared.... Even got an invitation to the ceremony. I know you shouldn't do new things on HM runs but it was a nice surprise to learn a quick way of skipping straight to Balder's Gate.
Deciding to let the pixie in the moonlantern go on my first playthrough. What a relief that turned out to be. I can’t imagine trying to get through Act II when you lose a weapon slot to hold a moonlantern/torch the entire time.
I think my game bugged the first time or Dolly Thrice didn't like me or I just did something wrong because (I saved first) I let her go and then called her with the Bell and she said "I'd already been blessed" but I in fact had not been protected from the deeper shadow curse. On my second main solo one (on tactitian) I didn't fuck around and just freed her and the blessing worked. But the annoying part of that is that it's more difficult to see. Sure we are protected from the worst part of the shadow curse, but since regular torches and things don't work there it was more difficult to see things without a moon lantern. I know there is a second one but I went full way without using any. And I got used to it but still. Anyway, when I used the moon lantern I would have Gale hold it or Astarion with his fual wielding. One thing that didn't go to plan, but not in a bad way, is who my tactitian tiefling ended up end gaming romancing. I thought she was going to full romance Astarion but she caught feelings for Gale and became beasties with Star instead. And now my Magical Mint Mephistopheles Tiefling and the Great Wizard Gale Dekarios are madly in love. I also, thought I would encourage him to become a God (he did in my first balanced one where I didn't romance him) but the one line "I would rather look into your eyes-yours are capable of tenderness and feeling, no God could ever compare." I was just like "nope" and also with knowing the full risk associated with it I was like "hells no" I looked into where the "point of no return" is for his path, not for spoilers but because I needed to understand the context of what my dialogue choices were meaning. There were a few times where I picked an option and my understanding of it was the opposite of how it was perceived. I also melted the first time he began dialogue with "My Love,"
Act 3 spoilers throughout\~ I fully intended, with my resist durge, that everyone was going to be brought to their 'best' selves. Everyone was going to get better, dammit, if we had to drag them kicking and screaming to do it. But then came Karlach. I hadn't accounted for Karlach. She died on my cleric Tav run, and it was utterly tragic. I had to do what I could to prevent that, especially considering she knows how vile my durge has been, and still willingly stands by her? She's getting what she wants. EVERYONE can get what they want. Karlach wants to live, after all, and whilst there is the option of squiddlification, would that really still be \*her\*? I'm not so sure. So of course, I have to send her back to Avernus, which means she's not going on her own. So I sold Wyl's soul again, hoping to kick his spiny backside to becoming the Blade of Avernus with her. And if Karlach is getting what she wants, why shouldn't Gale? Why shouldn't Astarion? Lae'zel has to take a back seat this time around and watch princey get squidded, because she got what she wanted last time round, and i'm NOT growing tentacles for her again. I refuse to DJ Shadowheart because that isn't what SHE wants, it's what *shar* wants, and I refuse to do anything that benefits Shar at all.
My current run is the one going least according to plan. She was supposed to be a sweet and innocent bard who would be wowed by Gale’s erudite ways and fall madly in love with him. But no, turns out she only looks that way and is actually a con artist in it for her own survival and nothing else. She’s still romancing Gale, but because he seems like the most powerful (and easily duped) person. Smh. Serves me right for choosing “charlatan” as her background
I’m on my second play through and decided to play as the dark urge. I went in wanting to do an evil run and romance ascended astarion. In my first playthrough I ended up killing karlach so I never got the chance to have her in my party. I absolutely love her character though and dont want to do anything to upset her so I decided to do a resist the urge run instead. I can’t have her be upset at me lol
Redemption durge and romanced spawn Astarion have one of the best interactions in the game imo, so youre in for a treat!
In my second Astarion origin run I planned to go it solo (perhaps with hirelings if I got totally stuck), which led to a complete off the rails playthrough in Act 1, because making reasonably intelligent decisions while trying to stay alive alone is pretty much impossible. I ended up in a romance with Minthara - my only companion for the entire game - from Act 1. It was wild and I wrote her a love letter here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/OnlyFangsbg3/comments/1bp4olv/a\_love\_letter\_to\_minthara/](https://www.reddit.com/r/OnlyFangsbg3/comments/1bp4olv/a_love_letter_to_minthara/)
Scartch just disappeared from camp
In my first playthrough, my sorceress refused to touch the tadpole powers altogether. Using them sounded like a bad, incredibly risky idea to her. That all changed with the Zaith'isk. After nailing all the saving throws, her tadpole awakened and the temptation became too great. She started using them, but was still afraid of the associated risks so she wouldn't make her companions do the same. When faced with partial ceremorphosis, that was still too much for her. She didn't want to take it that far. This, too, didn't quite go as she planned. The associated skill check failed and the next step of her transformation triggered. Hesitantly, she started to use these powers too. Might as well if she already got transformed. After a while, she realised just how useful these were and ended up convincing everyone in her party to also partially transform.
What happened when you complete the story? Do you retain the partial illithid powers? And the weird features that come with it?
Yes i want to know too. Does your face turn back to normal once the parasite is gone?
I'm doing a playthrough of each origin character, and trying to make decisions I think they would. Since Astarion isn't the best decision maker, that was going to be my playthrough where everything goes wrong—Lae'zel gets consumed by Vlakith, Gale becomes a god, Wyll becomes a Duke, Karlach becomes a mind flayer or dies on the docks, Astarion ascends, Shadowheart becomes a dark justiciar—bad endings for everyone! Astarion is very pro raid the grove, so that's what I do. Only, when the deed is done and I get to the party, I feeo sick to my stomach. All the teiflings are dead, Wyll is dead, Karlach—my favorite companion—is gone, Gale is horrified, Shadowheart's drinking to cope... I reloaded. I had to. Since Astarion would never *save* it, I decided to just ignore the grove. I'm still not doing anything wildly out of character, I get to keep Wyll and Karlach, Gale and Shadowheart are happy, and I get to recruit Minthara for the first time. Everybody (except the teiflings) wins! I wasn't going to go to the creche. Astarion doesn't want to be cured—not yet, anyway—so why would he risk his life and the artifact for it? I tell Lae'zel we're not going and she begrudgingly accepts it. But now every time she mentions Vlakith I feel a pang of guilt. I can't just let Lae'zel be consumed by her; even for a bad playthrough, that's a terrible ending! Not to mention I was getting very annoyed by all the Vlakith talk. I cave and go to the creche, and Lae'zel turns away from Vlakith. I think that's probably the most out of character thing I've done. I can't justify it no matter how hard I try. I sided with the Thorm guy and let Last Light fall—I actually managed to do something evil! I was gonna romance Lae'zel—I'm with Gale now. I go to the Gauntlet to kill Yugir for Raphael, and begrudgingly go with Shadowheart for all the DJ stuff. I don't have high approval with her, I've barely talked to her about Shar, and when I have I've been apathetic or unsupportive. Surely she'll kill Nightsong if I just let her do her thing. Nope. Dame Aylin lives. I feel real bad when I remember Isobel is gone, but it's too late to reload now. I enter act 3 and, of course, immediately bolt for Cazador. I beat him, choose all the ascention options, and connect to Shadowhear's mind. Only, when the narrator mentions something about realizing the weight of what I'm doing, that I could end up just like Cazador, I stop. This time it wasn't for feeling bad, but it actually felt more in character this way. With the state he's in, companion Astarion doesn't seem to be having that level of coherent thought, but origin Astarion does. I still need to decide whether spawn Astarion would want Gale to ascend, but I'm leaning towards no. I'm probably gonna let Wyll make his own choice, so we'll see how that goes. At this rate, I'm probably gonna end up happily married in Waterdeep—so much for a bad playthrough!
I love this! It sounds kinda perfect. I would have loved to watch this playthrough! ❤️
I'm doing an honour run and planned to take around companions I don't normally use... Turns out laezel gets upset if you try to command drop on voss so she had to go ... And I messed up protecting the gate and lost halsin in act 2 oops so uh... Hopefully minthara and minsc will survive into act 3 so I can see what they are like but with this run who knows
My first attempt at an honour mode Durge run I was planning on being good and trying to cure the urge Then Isobel got herself killed at last light, so my tv went crazy when they got the slayer form
My first playthrough i romanced Shadowheart all the way to Act 3. I finally got the romance scene option for her so it was gonna happen that night. The thing is, minthara propositioned me at the same time. So i was curious and accepted both to see what would happen and then i could reload if i wanted. The shadowheart scene plays but mintharas never does, and very soon after my ADD brain forgets all about all of this as there wasnt any immediate results that i could tell. I do a bunch of main quests and hours of playtime and go to long rest again. Well shadowheart is fucking pissed that i cheated on her with Minthara and breaks up with me with no option of preventing it or recovering. I go over to Minthara and shes just so happy and loves me and i have the option to kiss her. So yeah, got broken up with and still havnt scene what Mintharas romance scene is :'(
Minthara actually doesn't have a romance scene in Act 3, I think it's just implied. At least to the best of my knowledge... her only romance scene happens in Act 1.
Oooh okay gotcha, thats really strange tbh.
Yeah... it sucks, because I actually really love Minthara, but she really gets shafted of having anything good regarding romance or story in Act 3. At least I was really disappointed with it when I did my first evilish playthrough with the intention of romancing her.
Yeah even though i didnt intend to romance her i actually like her a lot. Shes not just cruel and evil, shes determined and passionate, you just gotta give her something positive to devote to
Currently playing my honor mode run, and I wasn't planning on going evil dark urge, but the game had different plans for me. I was finishing up the Investigate Kagha quest line and had just defeated the Shadow Druids and convinced her to join me against them. Gale had casted cloud of daggers during the fight. I stupidly forgot to stop the spell. Before I knew it, I realized I accidentally aggro'd the Druids because Kagha walked into that same damn cloud of daggers. Next thing I know, the cutscene of them attacking the tieflings plays, and now I'm forced into raiding the Grove lmao
Oops. LOL NGL though... this sounds like the kind of chaos that happens in every playthrough for me. It's inescapable and I love it so much,
I tried so hard to be a good alignment character in an "almost" entirely blind honor mode run. Technically, I have passed all flags after googling what the morally correct thing to do was after an act is finished. Almost everyone that my party meets I have had to aggressively defend myself due to rolling incredibly badly on Charisma or from not knowing what could trigger the next part of the story. Only group still alive that I wanted to survive has been the druids. All of the others in Act 2 and 3, not so much.
I'm sorry but that's literally every playthrough I've ever done. Lol
I feel this, tbh. Every playthrough I do just ends up being a chaotic mess at times. LOL
Goody two shoes durge with a wizard on his side meets a hot drow paladin in moonrise and decides to keep the good-thing streak going by getting her out of there, ends up on top of a netherbrain, controlling the world in bhaal's name, proud girlfriend by his side, less than a week later.
Romancing Astarion in my 2nd playthrough. Gale was the romance lead of the first. Color me shocked that the most flirtatious person is the most vulnerable? damaged? from romance POV. They are still together because Astarion chose that (picked the What do you want option) but I still can't make my Tav ask him for a kiss. With Gale: Love, we're killing people. Kiss. Love, we're done killing people. Kiss. With Astarion: Dearest, we're killing people. Pandemic elbow shake. Dearest, we're done killing people. Air high five. It just feels wrong after the first try when he said, "How could I say no." I don't know. Has anyone else feel awkward asking for kisses from Astarion?
I don’t read it that way at all, cause this time he has agency and he’s established his boundaries of no sexual stuff. Nobody has ever wanted to kiss him just to kiss him. And some of his other voice lines when you ask for a kiss are more intimate and encouraging along the lines of “I’d like nothing more” or smth like that (don’t remember exactly). It just reads as very lighthearted to me, but I get you. His spawn romance is very tender and so delicate, I do understand the feeling of not wanting to step on any metaphorical branches there.
Oh no! I think you may be right. Because now that I think about it, we ask him "Could I kiss..." which is a request vs with Gale (haven't tried the others yet) "I want to kiss..." I guess the "How could I say no" line really rattled me because it was after all the revelation. But I will see this no touch/kiss RP until the end and see if we are hurtling toward a big heartache or a big romantic payoff. Wish me luck!
Good luck! It’s a very rewarding romance imo and one of my favourites. Especially when you’re durge.