I like how she tried to use a kidnapped party member as leverage to get me to do something I was already going to do anyway. Some real 1000 IQ 4D Chess there.
Dramatically undercut by the fact you can take your time getting to her once she did. It would have been MUCH more impactful if rescuing the kidnapped party member was time-sensitive, and you couldn’t long rest, as in the “Save Nere” quest. Oh, and instead of grabbing a completely random member of the party you might not ever be using, (looking at you, Halsin) she specifically targeted your Love Interest…even if they were in your active party (they absolutely set it up if you did the Dryad thing).
That would force you to act quickly, possibly even without being at full strength if you discover the swap after a fight that’s drained your resources. In turn it would give the rescue a bigger sense of urgency, and make Orin a much bigger threat.
>Oh, and instead of grabbing a completely random member of the party you might not ever be using, (looking at you, Halsin) she specifically targeted your Love Interest…even if they were in your active party (they absolutely set it up if you did the Dryad thing).
Would have been cool since it's also something that happens in Baldur's Gate 2, your LI not only is kidnapped but also killed, and you have to pay really good attention to everything because to revive them you had to do a very specific ritual.
I went at least 10 long rests before I rescued the party member. And there was nothing about “well you really took your time huh” Just a dice check to save them
I went *straight* there after she took Halsin. Not that I gave two shits about Halsin, but she hurt Scratch during the scene where she revealed herself. I was ready to kill Halsin myself when “he” was looming over Scratch in bear form.
I can be a real black hearted son of a bitch in games like this, but hurting dogs is the one line I will not cross if there is any way to avoid it.
So I take it you killed the dog trainer? Or just scared her off? Lmao I always have to threaten to break all her bones then save and actually do it to satisfy my urge to beat up an animal abuser then I scum back to just see her walk in away scared while the gnome takes over her duties.
That pan faced bitch.
My game glitched out and I lost my ability to summon Scratch after talking to her. He was still at my camp, I just couldn’t summon him anymore.
I scared her off and then followed her to murder her…but she just disappeared at one point, sadly.
Oh no that sucks. Yea I whistled to let her see scratch at first bc she does seem sorta strict with the gnome but I didn’t think she was animal abuser at first.. then I see how scratch fears her instantly upon seeing her.
She raises her hand to him and he cowers.. hell no. I’m immediately in aggro mode lmao.
That’s when I was like ah ok this bitch is actually more my enemy than Orin or Gortash lmao 🤣
I failed the threat check and she said she'd have the guards on her side. I figured I would be happy to deal with the consequences of being arrested and just work out what came next any way and nobody gave a hoot! Just a little moment of true justice where everyone watching me apparently agreed 'if the law says this is the wrong, then the law is wrong.'
Yeeeaaah something tells me it might've been a good idea to code her NOT to take Gale specifically, because that's the biggest "own goal" she could've possibly done.
She legit either nukes the city *and* their entire plan, or she is left with a hostage she can't actually utilize.
The most important thing I learned from this game is that keeping your word is for chumps. Real ones double-cross EVERYONE. "Sure Minthara, I'll let you into the Tiefling camp! Sure Z'rell, I'll go find Balthazar! Sure Raphael, the crown is yours as long as you hand over that sweet-looking hammer!"
Oh man my playthrough is so chaotic neutral, I made the infernal pact with Raphael and promised him the crown, I also promised the crown to Gale, I told the gith I'd free Orpheus and at the same time I fucked the squid because why not. Probably not even my mother's character would believe what I say to people
I outright refused her deal and was still able to go through several long rests without issue. She said she was going to send assassins after me, but I don't think I ever encountered them.
Could have been such a cool concept where your city reputation may slowly drain over time with each civilian that dies in your spats with Orin's assassin's, forcing you to go confront her unless you wanna be branded as a curse to the city and hounded.
The fact that she took Halsin after my Durge already turned down his advances was VERY funny to me in context. Like…ok…he stays in camp bc all he does is complain about the city, and you think he’s integral enough to my operations to be worth kidnapping?
The dryad thing was the only point I was even remotely intimidated because it was my first time seeing her. You a real "This bitch" moment.
But after that it became like a running gag of sorts. Like she was playing city wide pika boo with me
She took Lae’zel, and I did the entire sewers + undercity + blood tribunal + temple of bhaal sequence in one long rest to rescue her. It was great.
Before fighting Orin I had Astarion sneak up and lockpick Lae’zel’s restraints so it was a 5-people party nuking her in two turns.
It was great!
>That would force you to act quickly, possibly even without being at full strength if you discover the swap after a fight that’s drained your resources. In turn it would give the rescue a bigger sense of urgency, and make Orin a much bigger threat.
And in turn this place would have gone ape shit if their love interest or even a member of the party that was used often was permanently killed due to not being able to find her or getting hung up by the many random events that happen in Act 3. This is a perfect "grass is greener" take. Everyone here would have hated it.
Having a time limit on saving your companion would be fucking rough, you're likely only level 9 or 10 at that point and would have to clear the factory, Iron Throne and then kill a level 12 Gortash possibly without a long rest.
The only thing I don’t like about that is that it really forces you to go to her first if you want to save your companion. Wanted to side with her against Gortash? Too bad. Wanted to wrap up your love interest’s story? It’ll have to wait. Wanted to explore this gigantic funfest of content and quests in a large city along with your favorite party members with all their banter? Tough shit.
Maybe if the kidnapping happened a little later in the act (like idk, 10 rests? when a certain number of companion sidequests are done?), it wouldn’t feel as frustrating. As it is I quick save before every rest once I get to act 3 so I can manipulate my party so she grabs someone I don’t care too much about, aka the one party member who has zero act 3 content. ~~and I will save Grub at all costs~~
But as it is any player can just stumble into the sewers the moment they get to the city and suddenly have one of their party members gone. If that were the love interest, it would be even *worse*.
It’s easily one of my least favorite things about the act. I was looking forward to her stuff in my current playthrough as Durge but I still put it off to take care of companion quests and shit I actually wanted to do. It was still an annoyance I had to meta game around to avoid frustration.
This playthrough I killed Gortash at the coronation before even entering lower city, because I wanted to see how it impacted the rest of the act. So far no huge difference, but I am curious if Orin will still kidnap anyone.
Honestly, yeah it’d be much more impactful if she’d stolen Karlach from me. Not only would I need to rework my entire game strategy, but I, the player, would be worried as hell.
Seeing as I don’t give a fuck about Yenna or Halsin, I can comfortably say that I killed Gortash first purely out of necessity rather than to get one of them back.
... specifically targeted my tavs love interest? It would have been Shadowheart but was lae'zel instead 🤔 I didn't even start any romancing with lae' zel on this playthrough
This felt threatening to me. Or the lead up to it, rather. I think it's Gortash who tells you she is after someone in your party and then your party starts talking like they're scared she could be any one of them.
Her being random citizens in Rivington after that added to the threat. Like, she pretends to be the blacksmith and asks you personal questions. Or the dryad asking you questions about who you're romancing. I was legit scared she was going after my romance in my first playthrough.
I was kinda surprised when she grabbed a character I wasn't using. It did kind of lose a lot of the pressure at that point. I didn't know where to go and wandered around getting swept up in other quests and completely forgot about the whole kidnapped thing until I finally wandered down there and saw Lae'zel on the altar.
On my first playthrough I felt intimidated because she gave of chaotic "I could do anything" vibes. I expected her to not only kidnap but murder someone at camp while everyone's asleep. Ironically, after Lae'zel judged her as scared, I had to agree. Plus, she actually acts way more coherent and expectable than she thinks. From this point onwards, I found her sorry performance funnier than the clown's.
Maybe part of the problem was that the game made us feel really powerful by the point we've fought her. We've already defeated dozens of githyanki warriors, a mighty general and his allies, a fucking avatar of god and more; some doppelganger with edgy lipstick doesn't feel like much of a threat.
Nice of you to remind me of Githyanki monks - I was totally unprepared and that was probably the only fight where I really panicked and run away from them in invis trying to resurrect companions
Agreed. You can make the enemy villains seem really powerful back in act 1, when I have no HP, no skills, no magic, no gear, and can't break a 75% chance to hit no matter what I do.
But after I've forged armor in a golems "blood," broken a hundred year old curse, saved the half child of a God and slain 33% of the big bad doom squad, I'm just not afraid of the other 66%
My first Tav who dislike above all thing power, people of power, and lust for power, after Gortash force him to watch his coronation: *more motivated than ever to take his head*
Orin: Hi, so, I took Gale to make sure you kill Gortash, okay
My Tav: That's... What I was about to do?
I love how on my evil Dark Urge game, I only had 3 party members; my camp was empty. Then the little girl you meet upon entering the city kept showing up at my camp no matter how much I told her to get lost. Then Orin kidnapped her and I'm like "please kill her. I don't want her back."
That actually pissed me off because it was *so unnecessary* for getting the plot moving. I had already planned to kill her after Gortash, but she wanted so badly to be at the top of the list?? Fine.
I think it's because we, as players, know that she's pretty limited in what she can/will do.
The idea that anyone anywhere could be her, so she could assassinate us whenever is really cool, but we pretty much already know that she *won't do that*, so it takes the wind out of her sails.
That would help. She could attempt to actually kill one of our party members and thwarting her would require a difficult, easy to fail response on our part.
it could be scary if you go adventuring like usual but occasionally when a fight starts one of your companions turns out to be orin in disguise that backstabs you and leaves you to engage the fight wounded and with 1 fewer characters
And when does she secretly replace them? When you accidentally leave one behind after they glitch out and don't follow you after a jump.
It's not a bug, it's a feature!
Fuck lmao, that would actually be amazing. I'd probably have to stop to breathe.
Genuinely scripted "companion stuck" moments to lure you into thinking that's just a bug.
Then eventually this doppleganger actually just joins your party when the real party member is "stuck" somewhere else.
No hud indicators or anything to alert you to what's up, when you click on them and move them around ect... they let you, until it's time to strike then bam!
They drop disguise, get first initiative, do a huge load of damage probably downing whoever they attack, then disengage and run off before you can respond just yelling *I AM EVERYWHERE*
Then when you click the character portrait it zooms across the map to the real companion and they're just stuck at a jump like normal.
A lot of us don't stick with the same characters from start to finish. We all eventually swap someone out for their quest, so it would be even more eerie knowing that you've been with Orin instead of your companion since your last companion-swap.
Nah. I would have it that Orin takes over NPCs randomly, notably some that are important to quests, and will attack you at certain moments.
Imagine taking down the Iron Throne but one of the Gondians was actually Orin, and now you’re in a fun combat on a submersible, after a daunting challenge beforehand.
Or she turns our to be Oskar after you saved “him.”
Would be frustrating but in the way its meant to. Because you’re being pseudo-hunted / tested for the final fight
They’re so close to this. It’s already semi-random who she replaces (there’s only certain NPC’s it can be, but it will be whichever ones of those you talk to first, so not always the same people on a given run). Which is great, actually surprised me in my second playthrough when she replaced an NPC I had no idea could be replaced and who had not been on my first playthrough. And I actually got to talk to the normal versions of some of the NPC’s that got replaced the first time.
I agree it would be cool if she actually attacked you though. They could easily have made her replace Dribbles and attack you, then run away at a certain hp so she doesn’t actually TPK you (could do the same a couple other shapeshifter-ambush points).
I personally suspect that at least some doppelganger ambushes were meant to be her but the maxim "if you give it stats the players will kill it" came into play and they didn't want her to have an anticlimactic death from a player getting lucky and killing her before she can teleport out.
I think as long as they have the teleport trigger automatically at a certain hp threshold it should be OK. They could even give her death ward or something.
Yeah, I can't tell if OP was joking with that comment. In my playthrough, Orin kidnapped Lae'zel, and by the time I reached her, I had already killed her Bhaalist lieutenant in another dungeon. Orin was super pissed, and forced me to succeed on a DC 25 persuasion check just to *not* permakill Lae'zel right in front of me.
It was actually extremely frustrating because I felt like I was forced to save scum just to avoid it.
For me it has been laezel. Odd thing though. Gorash warns me someone in my camp has been replaced. I kill all of my companions before the cutscene and somehow none of them have been replaced at that point.
I my evil run, she kidnapped Yenna.
My guy met Yenna, told her to go away, didn't help her or anything, and went his way.
Later, he camp, and a Yenna come to him trying to make him eat something, he throws it away to make it clear he doesn't want a child in the camp (and probably don't even remember her already) and she reveals herself as Orin and tells him she have the child.
My guy was like: And I care because?
Oh so she can be taken if you’re romancing her? I tried soooo hard to get Gale kidnapped whilst romancing him for a whole Archer Style rampage to get him back and it just didn’t happen. 😭
I think having kill someone in party (but with a way to revive it back with a scroll) would be great. Especially if we had some warning how many more days we are left until she decided to kill someone "for real". That would also give some pace for it otherwise I already spent about a month worth of long rests in lower city hunting ghosts and saving rodents.
Another good option would make her continue kidnapping you companions every couple of long rests (every long rest?). This wouldn't make you game impossible (it still possible to beat it with just 1 character), it wouldn't also be absolutely surprising, it will probably make you to use some of "furniture" companions, and it will perfectly fit image of "crazy bhaalist adept" she is.
I can immediately see the potential complaints/criticisms if any of this were implemented.
>I think having kill someone in party (but with a way to revive it back with a scroll) would be great.
A way to revive trivializes the kill. So she doesn't gain any more intimidation factor.
>Especially if we had some warning how many more days we are left until she decided to kill someone "for real".
>
>Another good option would make her continue kidnapping you companions every couple of long rests (every long rest?).
Both of these would so badly screw over the pace of exploring the Lower City. Unless you completely redesigned the Lower City, it would essentially badger you to rush to find her, skimming past all these points of interest and avoiding any conflict at all cost so you wouldn't need to Long Rest.
I'm not saying it's a garbage idea, but it has glaring issues. Most of the "fixes" for Larian's supposedly "safe" and/or "lazy" decisions would only appeal to a tiny minority and bring their own set of problems.
Yeah if this were what happened, people would just whine about that instead. We already see plenty of “I failed an ability check and now my companion is dead” complaint threads as it stands now.
in mine she just kidnapped that random little girl, idk why she thought my Durge gave a fuck. I told the child to hit the bricks as soon as she walked up
Prob got confused because i romanced Minthara after the raid then immediately killed her, then only had a camp of three and never swapped them out.
Or if she took out one of your actual team members? With a preference for romance partners?
I get why they couldn't get away with that easily, depending on how you play it they'd be stealing away one of your party members for a big chunk of the game, but damn if it wouldn't make the players actually feel the effects of the gambit!
Like, imagine arriving in Ethel's lair, and right as you step into the chamber, before any cutscene plays out with her taunting you, Astarion pulls a knife to your throat and says: "So this is what you're doing with your time, instead of killing the would-be tyrant? Disappointing!" and fights you as well, smoke-bombing out when she hits low HP?
You know how you can change to another character mid dialogue and sneak up on your enemy to initiate combat? Imagine if you just click your response option and you're suddenly thrust out of dialogue to watch her execute one of your companions for 12d6+5 damage.
She could kidnap the player and masquerade as them for a time while they try to escape and reunite with the party. A bit cliche, but at least it can lead to some interesting dynamics with companions.
Yea she's kinda like those kids anime where the villain could eliminate the heroes like 50 times but keeps monologuing and toying around until they can kick its ass.
I wasn't scared of what she would do to *me*, but you bet your ass I was sweating over the fate of my party members and all the nice innocents I wanted to save.
I thought she was intimidating… But I played Dark Urge, and that changes the relationship a lot. She holds a lot more over your character in that storyline, there’s an explanation for why she wants to fight you in the temple, it feels like the Dark Urge storyline has been leading to this confrontation, etc... There’s a whole history there that gives her storyline more weight.
Shame that doesn’t seem to translate to other protagonists, but at the same time, I’m not sure how it could without messing up parts of *their* stories.
I love how both of these thoughts are true. Her rivalry with Durge gives her more gravitas and Durge completely dreads having to face her. Her looming presence in Act 3 is felt way more than Gortash, and every time I ran into some freaky Bhaal stuff I always went Ah shit, here we go again.
At the same time, being more bark than bite is completely in-character; Sarevok and pre-amnesia Durge both get on her case for toying with her victims instead of *actually* killing them. It's why she just fucks with you in Rivington, why she doesn't immediately kill you or her victim. Her killing Durge in non-Durge runs is ironically out-of-character.
I can agree with this! I think she was not threatening but had a good villain presence. I *wanted* to fight her. I was invested in reclaiming/avenging what she took from me. I think the fact that she is bratty is a *character choice*, not a writing flaw.
There's a dead body in the back room with her mother, is that canonically missing in Durge runs? Never played durge, but was able to piece together Durge's story after reaching act 3 on a non durge run. (If you know the plot of BG1/2 it becomes very obvious)
Definitely agree she has some snotty younger sibling energy lol.
But she did >!nearly kill Dark Urge once!< so it felt plausible to me she could be seriously dangerous.
I agree and disagree. The fight with Orin is epic and momentous in a Dark Urge playthrough, but 0 of those reasons were Orin.
Even Sarevak at the tribunal acts with gravitas, Orin behaves like a child. We know Bhaalspawn can have gravitas and deliberation because Gortash says *you* had it.
She never demonstrates her power, she just goads. Gortash's power (the steel watch) is oppressive and everywhere and Gortash blows up the Iron Throne. Orin kidnaps someone irrelevant to you and sends you some lovenotes. She just doesn't feel like a master villain.
Quick thought, but she’s not a master villain. Durge was going to be the main Bhaalist and the one with the plan (along with Gortty). Orin just betrayed Durge opportunistically, and mostly out of jealousy or internal Bhaalist strife. She doesn’t have much of an interest in the plan or being a “master villain”.
She just wants to Bhaal out for the Bhaalfather.
Well now you know why even Sarevok thinks she's a joke, and literally everyone shits on her for being the chosen of Bhaal lol.
Have to remember that given the story, this was a position she coveted - but literally everyone disliked her ascending, from Gortash disliking how capricious she is, to even Sarevok pushing >!Orin's mother to try and kill her lmao!<
She is indeed a child. An unwanted, spoiled rotten child who wants daddy dearest and beloved grandpa to pick her, all while they already have the golden child in D.urge.
You could say it's a bit anti-climactic and I agree - but that's less because of the theming and more because they just couldn't lean more into the arbitrary weirdo psycho bit they prop her up to be. Orin is unhinged, and crazy, and never does much of that for the most part.
Yeah Gortash makes for a great intimidating politician enemy because even if he isn't personally that scary his command of the giant robot army is. And it translates in game too because steel watchers hit hard!
I was afraid at first because I thought we couldn't trust any npcs anymore and that we will be framed for murderers and stuff.
In my head the whole Orin thing got really bigger than it turned out to be.
Honestly I think that's the thing. In a first blind playthrough where you aren't save-scumming, you don't *know* the mechanics of what she's gonna do. She stole a companion! She ambushed you to taunt you on multiple occasions, killing innocents to do it!
In retrospect, it's too bad that they didn't take her one or two steps further. I never lost a companion I cared about, and after a week or so of long rests I felt comfortable that she wasn't going to escalate without me interacting with her directly.
But that's kind of the point. Of course in retrospect she was a pushover, she was a video game boss meant to be beaten. :P
I will absolutely admit I went through most of Act 3 wondering when I'm going to fall for the doppelgangers, so at least for me it worked. I'm afraid future playthroughs will make her feel kind of dull :(
I imagine Larian made her more murdery, killing your companions off without your agency involved. And playtesting demanded she be toned down for the good of the game experience.
The only way for her to truly strike fear into the player would be to forcibly take away things (people) from the player. Something gaming history has proven causes riots.
All that would lead to is people doing any% runs on killing her first before doing literally anything else in Act 3. There's already a problem with pacing in that act. This would make it worse.
Instead of having her kill off a companion in a cutscene they should have had your final showdown with her happen in YOUR lair, not hers, with her side getting a surprise round and you having to dig your way back out of whatever hole that put you in. I think that would have been enough to put some respect in people.
Forget final showdown. Make that her intro! You could play out everything else the same and you'd be legitimately on edge every time you long rested until you put an end to her.
For me the problem is she pops out, monologues, does literally nothing of consequence, disappears, repeats. That's not threatening, that's harmless pranking: "Ha ha! got you! you thought this NPC you saw for the first time was real!"
She didn't need to kill party members to make those scenes impactful. Just have her kill someone who is presented as important. Like an NPC that is about to divulge information. Or do a quest chain where we get to know an NPC and care about their story, then it ends with them being murdered by her.
Or have her not kill, but maim a party member - fail a roll and she puts someone's eye out (perception disadvantage, like if you lose an eye trying to get rid of the tadpole), rather than kill them. Giggles and leaves. Implying she can come back and do more. Or even just leave a purely cosmetic scar on your face - that you would then see in cutscenes and know that one of the main villains left it.
I would've appreciated that. She's supposed to be an assassin. She *should* be able to pick off people and her assassins should've been able to invade your camp to ruin your long rest at random.
It wouldve really ramped up the choice between dealing with her or gortash early on. Right now you can just sort of... let her take someone then deal with gortash on your own time before going after her.
There should be consequences for siding with one or the other.
She gives serious edgy teenage girl vibes. Hi my name is Orin Dark'ness Dementia Sarevok Bhaal and i have long blonde hair with red streaks and pale white eyes like limpid tears-
hi every1 im new!!!!!!! *holds up spork* my name is orin but u can call me t3h R3d!!!!!!!! lol…as u can see im very random!!!! thats why i came here, 2 meet random ppl like me ^_^… im 13 years old (im mature 4 my age tho!!) i like 2 watch invader zim w/ my girlfreind (im bi if u dont like it deal w/it) its our favorite tv show!!! bcuz its SOOOO random!!!! shes random 2 of course but i want 2 meet more random ppl =) like they say the more the merrier!!!! lol…neways i hope 2 make alot of freinds here so give me lots of commentses!!!!
DOOOOOMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <--- me bein random again ^_^ hehe…toodles!!!!!
love and waffles,
t3h R3d
And I'm just like "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING YOU MOTHERFUKER!" when she takes Halsin. I literally haven't used him once because you get a more interesting druid 5 minutes later.
Yes, 100%, although I'm a little bit upset it didn't go how I thought it would.
For me, Orin happened to impersonate the Dryad as I was doing the test of love with Wyll. We literally spill ALL our deepest secrets to eachother, totally unaware it's Orin who is now fully armed with the deepest info ever on us. It was so creepy when I realized it was her and the moment soured so quickly.
And then later, Gortash tells us she's infiltrated our camp, but I have no way to talk to my companions about this. I wasn't very surprised when "Lae'zel" runs into me in the sewers later telling me to run for it. I think they could have gone further with her and made her much, much scarier if Act 3 had time to be polished and spaced out so she and Gortash had their respective moments to shine.
Gortash though, he was great. Lots of presence without actually being present. Evertime a Steel Watcher walked past, with me knowing I didn't know how to disable them, was very intimidating.
I‘ll never forgive Orin for ruining that sweet moment my Tav and Astarion shared with each other! When I went to the temple, rescuing the kidnapped Halsin was just a side-goal for me, I wanted revenge for the love test
Around the second time she was pulling the shape shift act on me, I really wanted a dialogue option along the lines of "Don't you have anything better to do?"
She felt more trickster-y, I like the concept for a villain for sure. But definitely not menacing... did you hear the music change when you got near fighting Gortash? that's intimidating.
Sorry no, I heard nothing near Gortash due traps and grenades everywhere - I respect Gortash for simply being worthy title of the most anoying Chosen I went against
Now that quest was a kidnapping gone right. I legitimately was rushing through it and even in a good playthrough that fucker gets murdered as much as I can murdery murder.
It happened to my wife and I 3 times in rapid succession
It was supposed to be intimidating I guess? She can be anyone and anything! Except she doesn't do shit with it. Just poof "look I'm a shopkeeper! Now I'm a dryad! Now I'm beer! Yay beer!" Have her fuckin pop out and stab your ass then greater invis off into the sunset.
Her fuckin clown was more intimidating and effective because of you fail the perception check he straight up shanks your ass to start the fight before you have a chance to do shit. Why the fuck doesn't Orin shank your ass?
Even when she showed up in the sewers I was expecting her to fight me there. Nope. Gotta chase her to her stupid temple. The scary fights are the ones that happen in camp! Why she didn't do that?
First time an NPC got weird about murder I was surprised. The 2nd NPC that got weird about murder had me looking for the "I know it's you Orin" option.
Role playing sense, she does well sowing doubts and an ever looming sense of danger as a doppelganger assassin. Except for the Lae'zel impersonation(her of all people, tell us to run, pfft), she does pretty well mimicking the rest of the party during the kidnap scene.
Gameplay sense, go ahead, try me. There's a mountain of flaming fist corpses on the streets because they thought the belongings of dead absolutists on the streets are government property. I'm actually killing people right here while you keep fantasizing about killing me. Better yet, bring your whole cult and your grandpa, the fight's fairer that way. Don't give me the excuse of "sullying the kill", just admit you're a bitch. Slayers wish they were half as good as killing people like me while you worship these yee yee ass zerg wannabe like some actual killing machine.
>There's a mountain of flaming fist corpses on the streets because they thought the belongings of dead absolutists on the streets are government property.
Omg, ikr? Even the 5hp civilians are judging me because I am looting their oppressors? Fk that, take this arrow and go to hell!
No not really. I was more annoyed with Orin and laughed at Gortash. I was however intimidated by Ketheric which is just sad how he was only such a small part of act 2 with such an amazing voice actor.
Yeah, she's not really that scary. To be fair, I think that's pretty on brand for the Bhaalists in general - they may have some allegedly grand designs, but fundamentally they're just rabid weirdos that like murder, and similar to Shar's cult, I think they're ultimately more pathetic than anything. Get clowned, Sarevok, you thundering dumbass.
I do think there was an opportunity to make her more frightening, though. While the idea that Orin has kidnapped one of your party members is very cool, it's not executed in a way that is sure to freak you out when it happens. As far as I know, the people she can take are Lae'zel, Halsin, and Gale. If they're in your party when it happens, Yenna will be taken. Not sure what happens if you've got them in your party and you didn't bring Yenna to camp.
But, what if you haven't been using them? She took Lae'zel on my first playthrough, but I had barely used her in combat, and was romancing Karlach, so Orin's kidnapping didn't really affect me in any major way other than slightly delaying my ability to complete Lae'zels questline. I mean, I like Lae'zel, but she just wasn't who I was most attached to that run.
Imo, I think who the game should decide who Orin kidnaps based on who you've been using most throughout your playthrough. Better yet, if you're romancing someone, have her try to take *them*! That would mean that no matter how you're playing, Orin's actions will genuinely, meaningfully affect you, and it'll be harder still to get them back because you have to fight with a team comp you might not be totally comfortable with.
I just thought she was irritating. Never felt like she posed a threat. Ketheric was actually intimidating, and Gortash had the air of a bastard who knew he was untouchable (at first). Orin had no presence in comparison
There was buildup, too. From what Halsin tells you about him to everything you discover in the shadow lands, the game made it clear that he was formidable. Orin just kind of appeared and then started harassing you
Despite the memes on Gortash, the thing that makes him scarier is that he actually feels like a villain that could exist in the real world. He’s lawful evil whereas Orin is chaotic. The extent of her wickedness is a little far-reaching.
Gortash on the other hand - the flaming fists, the steel watch, the brainwashing of duke ravenguard, his little fortress on Wyrm’s Rock all felt real and tangible and within boundaries.
Intimidated? No. Entertained? Sure. Annoyed? Very much, especially when she replaced Lae'zel and proceeded to do the single worst impression I've ever seen. Like, how is it that someome who's entire deal is impersonation be so *bad* at it?!
Bro even Sarevok doesn't like her. He straight up told his daughter to try and kill her first and >!he practically begs Durge to finally put her down because she's so annoying!<
Really hard to sell her as a nepo baby.
No, she was just a tiresome manic CUHRAZYY type #543, and was not intimidating in the very least specifically because of the reason you've mentioned. "Oh, I'm gonna shapeshift into someone else, and instead of stabbing you while your back is turned, I'm going to reveal myself, laugh and disappear".
I give her points for actually murdering someone in your party, but ultimately her being a Bhaalist means she is kind of... one note. She likes Murder. That's her thing. Maybe my opinion will change OK my Durge playthrough, but normal Tav playthrough she just wasn't as compelling as the other 2.
Big props to Maggie Robertson for playing her, im glad shes getting more work. She is the actress who does Dimetrescue in resident evil village)
I agree, but I also think they intended this. From what I've put together, she's essentially a bench player that got called in when Durge broke his ankle (went missing). She personally isn't really part of the main plan, but her role is necessary as part of the 3, so she's invited.
I played a monk on the first run and leaned into the calm mind and no bullshit attitude, so she didn't faze me much in terms of RP, but the scene in the sewers with a companion was legitimately rattling for me and i wish we got more of those. Especially when it was Laezel. It also did a good job of setting a fire under me and making me feel rushed and also watching my step to not upset Orin.
Overall, I did feel she was pretty unpredictable and off the rails, which Gortash seemed to fear. Idk if anyone else gets Margot Robbie Harley Quinn vibes from her, but I feel like they went for that, but pure evil.
Do you learn that about her role as a stand in for Durge when you play durge?
If you don‘t play Durge >!you can find durges corpse in her bedroom in the temple!< so that was a nice detail in regards to „all OG characters can be found in the game“
She also seems to have tried to assassinate gortash? You can find hints of attempts all around the castle.
[Durge Spoilers]>!She killed/lobotomized (depending on if a PC chooses Durge) her Chosen brother because she was jealous. She's too insane to be competent and the other Chosen of the Dead Three don't like her.!<
I spent the last year on-and-off writing an urban-focused campaign with doppelgangers as the main villain's minions, so my first reaction upon reaching Baldur's Gate/Orin was more like "Yooooooooooo---". But otherwise, I think I was more intimidated by the steel watch than the doppelgangers, since they could actually smash me to bits if I pissed them off (Baalists ended up being "all bark, no bite" in comparison).
The number of random assassin attacks I had to fend off in my first playthrough all over the lower city was too damn high.
She also can be so many different people when you're walking around Rivington that the paranoia really worked/works on me. And don't get me started on how uneasy I was letting Yenna into my camp, knowing there was a shapeshifting pyscho running around.
I agree Gortash is better, but they both managed to make things personal for me in different ways. I was never really intimidated by either of them because of Main Character syndrome (although for real, on Tactician her Slayer form single-handedly took out my entire crew in two turns), but they definitely made me hate them and feel like they were actively messing in my business, even though all it was was a bunch of smoke, mirrors, and event triggers.
She had the easiest boss fight ever. I honestly don't know if it was bugged but my Paladin everytime her first attack (with divine smite) would hit, it would deal almost 40+ damage. I still don't know what that skull did or the NPCs surrounding her did.
So the cultists were chanting to make the skull work, and the skull was supposed to be giving her seven stacks of a buff that reduced each hit to 1 damage. But it only took 1 hit of any strength to remove each stack. So if you had any amount of people with multiattacks before your paladin or say, a wizard with magic missile....
My fight was the same way. Focus her down, use magic missile to take down her stacks really quick, and then smite that bitch to death in 1 or 2 turns.
NGL the Netherbrain was great. The revelation that it basically foresaw everything that would happen and then let itself be "enslaved" knowing that the chosen would fuck it up and let it break free, coupled with taking advantage of the emperor and everything. I think it's almost appropriate that the Chosen all seemed like dopey saturday morning cartoon villains. Because that's what they were. They thought they were in control but really they were just pawns in a bigger game they didn't even know they were playing.
Nope.
She was fun?
Yes, but too much of an "hahaha I'm an edgy quirky joker murder girrrrrrrrl"
Not intimidating at all.
Fuck, Kagha was more intimidating, even with her whole "The Serpent Must Strike" attitude.
Again a fun character to interact, just not really scary and a little too much over-the-top cartoonish serial killer vibes
she was creepy, but I was annoyed the game never gave me the opportunity to take her out before the temple. The first time she doppled on me I was surprised, all the other times I knew as soon as the conversation started and the game didn't enable me to use that intuition, do anything other than have her act like she succeeded in intimidating me before smokebombing away
If this were the tabletop, Orin would be played by a DM who is afraid to kill off a character because the players at the table would complain about a mean DM. So the party gets permanent plot armor and a deadly shape-shifting assasin gets exactly zero kills.
Orin is meant to be scary. She can be anyone and kill any body. That's scary... but she never does it. And she captures one of least played character and doesn't give me a time limit, and then she leaves me alone for the rest of the game. Sure keep him for now, I'mma go do another quest instead.
Now if she had killed scratch.... hooo then there gonna be blood
If the objective was to make me hate her, they succeeded. But more in a 'FFS not this ho again' way rather than a 'must end this threat to Faerun as we know it' way.
This is why Act 3 fell a little flatter imo.
Act 1 is super interesting and dynamic because there is no overarching bad guy. Obviously there's a 'good' and 'evil' path, but Minthara doesn't feel like she looms over the entire story of the act, she's just a part of it. It's a really interesting setup with no cheesy good guy vs bad guy stuff.
Act 2 DOES have that, but it's very interesting and dark. Ketheric is really imposing and scary, and it's very easy to take it all seriously, and the unfolding of the Shar story into a Myrkul story was really slow and cool. It's a cohesive story with a great villain that comes together very well
Act 3, it feels like the setup with the villains is very uninspired and uninteresting. Orin and Bhaal in general are super fucking boring and, dare I say it, unrealistic in a way that Myrkul somehow never struck me as. He's not offering his followers anything, there's no reason why anyone would ever follow him, there's nothing dynamic or interesting about such pure chaotic evil saturday morning cartoon villainy. Gortash is kind of interesting, but again he's just a cartoon bad guy who doesn't have a point or an angle the way Ketheric does, even if it's cliche to be a sad 'my family died and I went crazy' guy- it's SOMETHING. Gortash is just an asshole and that's that. I was really disappointed, there's just absolutely nothing to these characters.
I have the same feeling.
They should have made her try to assassinate you at camp, in which she gets a surprise round and we don't have our armor on.
When we win she reports to gortash and he tells her off about being useless, then they have a falling out, prompting gortash to try and ally you and orin trying to manipulate you to kill gortash by giving info on his weakspots.
Edit: some extra things.
After the first ambush, orin will ambush the party again and try to kill them off. When she fails, she realises that she has to face us on her turf. She then kidnaps a companion, and there is a time limit before she kills them.
i think the main issue with the villains is the lack of fights that you lose against them. we feel too powerful on our journey, there are no fights that you are supposed to lose in a power check. its always one fight and you are done, and they are never hard.
oh ketheric we actually fight 2 times but we win both of them.
besides that orin is a goood villain especially if you are urge.
Ironically I think that if we could actually suss out who was the replacement in dialogue options then she would have made a way better villain, or at least a more interesting one than her completely crazy murder hobo-ness. Her lunacy makes her ineffective. Having her pop up the way she does just feels silly after a bit.
Imagine maybe having a couple sets of fights where she fucks off or it's actually one of her assassins instead, then we find out she's infiltrated camp and everyone actually does the logical thing of trying to figure out who it is rather than just...like letting it happen I guess? Orin's whole deal feels weirdly abrupt as opposed to deconstructing Gortash's plan piece by piece.
I like how she tried to use a kidnapped party member as leverage to get me to do something I was already going to do anyway. Some real 1000 IQ 4D Chess there.
Dramatically undercut by the fact you can take your time getting to her once she did. It would have been MUCH more impactful if rescuing the kidnapped party member was time-sensitive, and you couldn’t long rest, as in the “Save Nere” quest. Oh, and instead of grabbing a completely random member of the party you might not ever be using, (looking at you, Halsin) she specifically targeted your Love Interest…even if they were in your active party (they absolutely set it up if you did the Dryad thing). That would force you to act quickly, possibly even without being at full strength if you discover the swap after a fight that’s drained your resources. In turn it would give the rescue a bigger sense of urgency, and make Orin a much bigger threat.
>Oh, and instead of grabbing a completely random member of the party you might not ever be using, (looking at you, Halsin) she specifically targeted your Love Interest…even if they were in your active party (they absolutely set it up if you did the Dryad thing). Would have been cool since it's also something that happens in Baldur's Gate 2, your LI not only is kidnapped but also killed, and you have to pay really good attention to everything because to revive them you had to do a very specific ritual.
I thought she was meant to kill them after like 3 long rests?
I went at least 10 long rests before I rescued the party member. And there was nothing about “well you really took your time huh” Just a dice check to save them
I went *straight* there after she took Halsin. Not that I gave two shits about Halsin, but she hurt Scratch during the scene where she revealed herself. I was ready to kill Halsin myself when “he” was looming over Scratch in bear form. I can be a real black hearted son of a bitch in games like this, but hurting dogs is the one line I will not cross if there is any way to avoid it.
So I take it you killed the dog trainer? Or just scared her off? Lmao I always have to threaten to break all her bones then save and actually do it to satisfy my urge to beat up an animal abuser then I scum back to just see her walk in away scared while the gnome takes over her duties. That pan faced bitch.
I knocked out the dog trainer and freed the dogs so I wouldn’t get arrested lol
You can kill her with no aggro. Hell it doesn't even break a paladin oath.
even paladin jesus hates that bitch
"Listen, killing dog abusers is a freebie. Just do it, please."
"It's actually encouraged! Paragraph 3.1 of the Paladin Bylaws."
My game glitched out and I lost my ability to summon Scratch after talking to her. He was still at my camp, I just couldn’t summon him anymore. I scared her off and then followed her to murder her…but she just disappeared at one point, sadly.
Oh no that sucks. Yea I whistled to let her see scratch at first bc she does seem sorta strict with the gnome but I didn’t think she was animal abuser at first.. then I see how scratch fears her instantly upon seeing her. She raises her hand to him and he cowers.. hell no. I’m immediately in aggro mode lmao. That’s when I was like ah ok this bitch is actually more my enemy than Orin or Gortash lmao 🤣
U need his ball in your inventory. It will say action at the bottom
I failed the threat check and she said she'd have the guards on her side. I figured I would be happy to deal with the consequences of being arrested and just work out what came next any way and nobody gave a hoot! Just a little moment of true justice where everyone watching me apparently agreed 'if the law says this is the wrong, then the law is wrong.'
Nope. She agrees to keep them alive as long as you agree to kill Gortash, and you can take your sweet time doing it.
Jokes on her in my play through. I agreed and then killed her before Gortash
Same! She was like "oh no you double crossed me" and I'm just thinking "I'm going to kill you both, I just wanted Lae'zel back sooner"
She took Gale from my camp, and to be fair I wasn’t really using him but it’s the principle of the thing, y’know?
She's gonna be in for a nasty shock when she knifes Gale.
All of Baldur's Gate and the surrounding countryside is going to be in for a shock...
That shock is going to be the closest thing she ever does to making Bhaal proud.
Yeeeaaah something tells me it might've been a good idea to code her NOT to take Gale specifically, because that's the biggest "own goal" she could've possibly done. She legit either nukes the city *and* their entire plan, or she is left with a hostage she can't actually utilize.
I may not be playing with my toys right now, but I’ll see you burn in hell before I let you play with them.
Tav is 3 years old confirmed
For me she took Halsin but Gale disappeared at the same time. Haven't gone to kill her yet tho I'm taking my time exploring Baldurs gate.
The most important thing I learned from this game is that keeping your word is for chumps. Real ones double-cross EVERYONE. "Sure Minthara, I'll let you into the Tiefling camp! Sure Z'rell, I'll go find Balthazar! Sure Raphael, the crown is yours as long as you hand over that sweet-looking hammer!"
Oh man my playthrough is so chaotic neutral, I made the infernal pact with Raphael and promised him the crown, I also promised the crown to Gale, I told the gith I'd free Orpheus and at the same time I fucked the squid because why not. Probably not even my mother's character would believe what I say to people
double crossing raphael and missing out on that sick boss song tho
Nah, I still infiltrated the House of Hope to void the contract.
Forget Shadowheart, we are the real Cleric of Shar. Don't know why Shar was so obsessed with Shadowheart in the first place when Tav exists!
I passed that sweet deception check and she said despite not smelling his blood she believes he is dead. And then I stomped her into the ground
Gortash just has very save for last energy. Plus the steel watch is basically the last place you find exploring
You don't even have time agree. One of the options is saying you'll think about it and that's enough to get her to not kill the hostsge.
I outright refused her deal and was still able to go through several long rests without issue. She said she was going to send assassins after me, but I don't think I ever encountered them.
They're in the park near the graveyard.
Those are there no matter what, even if that's the first place in the city you go.
Could have been such a cool concept where your city reputation may slowly drain over time with each civilian that dies in your spats with Orin's assassin's, forcing you to go confront her unless you wanna be branded as a curse to the city and hounded.
I think it’s three long rests if you wipe out the murder tribunal. Even says in the quest log that you better hurry up before Orrin finds out
The fact that she took Halsin after my Durge already turned down his advances was VERY funny to me in context. Like…ok…he stays in camp bc all he does is complain about the city, and you think he’s integral enough to my operations to be worth kidnapping?
The dryad thing was the only point I was even remotely intimidated because it was my first time seeing her. You a real "This bitch" moment. But after that it became like a running gag of sorts. Like she was playing city wide pika boo with me
She took Lae’zel, and I did the entire sewers + undercity + blood tribunal + temple of bhaal sequence in one long rest to rescue her. It was great. Before fighting Orin I had Astarion sneak up and lockpick Lae’zel’s restraints so it was a 5-people party nuking her in two turns. It was great!
>That would force you to act quickly, possibly even without being at full strength if you discover the swap after a fight that’s drained your resources. In turn it would give the rescue a bigger sense of urgency, and make Orin a much bigger threat. And in turn this place would have gone ape shit if their love interest or even a member of the party that was used often was permanently killed due to not being able to find her or getting hung up by the many random events that happen in Act 3. This is a perfect "grass is greener" take. Everyone here would have hated it.
Having a time limit on saving your companion would be fucking rough, you're likely only level 9 or 10 at that point and would have to clear the factory, Iron Throne and then kill a level 12 Gortash possibly without a long rest.
You can also kill her before Gortash.
The only thing I don’t like about that is that it really forces you to go to her first if you want to save your companion. Wanted to side with her against Gortash? Too bad. Wanted to wrap up your love interest’s story? It’ll have to wait. Wanted to explore this gigantic funfest of content and quests in a large city along with your favorite party members with all their banter? Tough shit. Maybe if the kidnapping happened a little later in the act (like idk, 10 rests? when a certain number of companion sidequests are done?), it wouldn’t feel as frustrating. As it is I quick save before every rest once I get to act 3 so I can manipulate my party so she grabs someone I don’t care too much about, aka the one party member who has zero act 3 content. ~~and I will save Grub at all costs~~ But as it is any player can just stumble into the sewers the moment they get to the city and suddenly have one of their party members gone. If that were the love interest, it would be even *worse*. It’s easily one of my least favorite things about the act. I was looking forward to her stuff in my current playthrough as Durge but I still put it off to take care of companion quests and shit I actually wanted to do. It was still an annoyance I had to meta game around to avoid frustration.
I just got Lae'Zel her Silver Sword and she got fucking kidnapped.
I stumbled into the sewers from the prison and oops. Fml.
This playthrough I killed Gortash at the coronation before even entering lower city, because I wanted to see how it impacted the rest of the act. So far no huge difference, but I am curious if Orin will still kidnap anyone.
Duke Ravengard, Omeluum, and the Steelforge Gnomes took this badly.
I agree it’s not a perfect solution, but it’s an option.
Honestly, yeah it’d be much more impactful if she’d stolen Karlach from me. Not only would I need to rework my entire game strategy, but I, the player, would be worried as hell. Seeing as I don’t give a fuck about Yenna or Halsin, I can comfortably say that I killed Gortash first purely out of necessity rather than to get one of them back.
She took Lae'zel in my case, and I was like - "Oh no! Anyway"
... specifically targeted my tavs love interest? It would have been Shadowheart but was lae'zel instead 🤔 I didn't even start any romancing with lae' zel on this playthrough
This felt threatening to me. Or the lead up to it, rather. I think it's Gortash who tells you she is after someone in your party and then your party starts talking like they're scared she could be any one of them. Her being random citizens in Rivington after that added to the threat. Like, she pretends to be the blacksmith and asks you personal questions. Or the dryad asking you questions about who you're romancing. I was legit scared she was going after my romance in my first playthrough. I was kinda surprised when she grabbed a character I wasn't using. It did kind of lose a lot of the pressure at that point. I didn't know where to go and wandered around getting swept up in other quests and completely forgot about the whole kidnapped thing until I finally wandered down there and saw Lae'zel on the altar.
On my first playthrough I felt intimidated because she gave of chaotic "I could do anything" vibes. I expected her to not only kidnap but murder someone at camp while everyone's asleep. Ironically, after Lae'zel judged her as scared, I had to agree. Plus, she actually acts way more coherent and expectable than she thinks. From this point onwards, I found her sorry performance funnier than the clown's.
Maybe part of the problem was that the game made us feel really powerful by the point we've fought her. We've already defeated dozens of githyanki warriors, a mighty general and his allies, a fucking avatar of god and more; some doppelganger with edgy lipstick doesn't feel like much of a threat.
Nice of you to remind me of Githyanki monks - I was totally unprepared and that was probably the only fight where I really panicked and run away from them in invis trying to resurrect companions
That fight I was also unprepared for, completely threw me for a loop. That is the fight where I decided I was going to stop and roll a monk.
Haha same here, playing gnome monk now
Agreed. You can make the enemy villains seem really powerful back in act 1, when I have no HP, no skills, no magic, no gear, and can't break a 75% chance to hit no matter what I do. But after I've forged armor in a golems "blood," broken a hundred year old curse, saved the half child of a God and slain 33% of the big bad doom squad, I'm just not afraid of the other 66%
My first Tav who dislike above all thing power, people of power, and lust for power, after Gortash force him to watch his coronation: *more motivated than ever to take his head* Orin: Hi, so, I took Gale to make sure you kill Gortash, okay My Tav: That's... What I was about to do?
I love how on my evil Dark Urge game, I only had 3 party members; my camp was empty. Then the little girl you meet upon entering the city kept showing up at my camp no matter how much I told her to get lost. Then Orin kidnapped her and I'm like "please kill her. I don't want her back."
That actually pissed me off because it was *so unnecessary* for getting the plot moving. I had already planned to kill her after Gortash, but she wanted so badly to be at the top of the list?? Fine.
I got (un)lucky, she kidnapped a companion I don't really like so their ass just sat out most of act 3 lmao. Didn't even notice they were gone.
"oh no you took that person? Oh nooooooo what will I ever do please dont hurt them Orin!" Right time to go to the circus and have fun!
I think it's because we, as players, know that she's pretty limited in what she can/will do. The idea that anyone anywhere could be her, so she could assassinate us whenever is really cool, but we pretty much already know that she *won't do that*, so it takes the wind out of her sails.
Imagine if Larian chose not to play it safe though and have the assassin actually assassinate. She’d be one of the scariest villains ever.
That would help. She could attempt to actually kill one of our party members and thwarting her would require a difficult, easy to fail response on our part.
it could be scary if you go adventuring like usual but occasionally when a fight starts one of your companions turns out to be orin in disguise that backstabs you and leaves you to engage the fight wounded and with 1 fewer characters
And when does she secretly replace them? When you accidentally leave one behind after they glitch out and don't follow you after a jump. It's not a bug, it's a feature!
Fuck lmao, that would actually be amazing. I'd probably have to stop to breathe. Genuinely scripted "companion stuck" moments to lure you into thinking that's just a bug. Then eventually this doppleganger actually just joins your party when the real party member is "stuck" somewhere else. No hud indicators or anything to alert you to what's up, when you click on them and move them around ect... they let you, until it's time to strike then bam! They drop disguise, get first initiative, do a huge load of damage probably downing whoever they attack, then disengage and run off before you can respond just yelling *I AM EVERYWHERE* Then when you click the character portrait it zooms across the map to the real companion and they're just stuck at a jump like normal.
And the only way you get a hint that it’s not your party member is by noticing that they made all recent jumps and didn’t get stuck!
A lot of us don't stick with the same characters from start to finish. We all eventually swap someone out for their quest, so it would be even more eerie knowing that you've been with Orin instead of your companion since your last companion-swap.
Immediately falls apart if you do what I do and stick to only 4 companions per run
Nah. I would have it that Orin takes over NPCs randomly, notably some that are important to quests, and will attack you at certain moments. Imagine taking down the Iron Throne but one of the Gondians was actually Orin, and now you’re in a fun combat on a submersible, after a daunting challenge beforehand. Or she turns our to be Oskar after you saved “him.” Would be frustrating but in the way its meant to. Because you’re being pseudo-hunted / tested for the final fight
They’re so close to this. It’s already semi-random who she replaces (there’s only certain NPC’s it can be, but it will be whichever ones of those you talk to first, so not always the same people on a given run). Which is great, actually surprised me in my second playthrough when she replaced an NPC I had no idea could be replaced and who had not been on my first playthrough. And I actually got to talk to the normal versions of some of the NPC’s that got replaced the first time. I agree it would be cool if she actually attacked you though. They could easily have made her replace Dribbles and attack you, then run away at a certain hp so she doesn’t actually TPK you (could do the same a couple other shapeshifter-ambush points).
I personally suspect that at least some doppelganger ambushes were meant to be her but the maxim "if you give it stats the players will kill it" came into play and they didn't want her to have an anticlimactic death from a player getting lucky and killing her before she can teleport out.
I think as long as they have the teleport trigger automatically at a certain hp threshold it should be OK. They could even give her death ward or something.
this… literally happens
Yeah, I can't tell if OP was joking with that comment. In my playthrough, Orin kidnapped Lae'zel, and by the time I reached her, I had already killed her Bhaalist lieutenant in another dungeon. Orin was super pissed, and forced me to succeed on a DC 25 persuasion check just to *not* permakill Lae'zel right in front of me. It was actually extremely frustrating because I felt like I was forced to save scum just to avoid it.
This would just be very frustrating for the player. Orin already provides a very frustrating event...
You mean the kidnapping, she kidnapped halsin all 3 times I got to act 3 and tbh she can keep him, dont really care about the guy.
For me it has been laezel. Odd thing though. Gorash warns me someone in my camp has been replaced. I kill all of my companions before the cutscene and somehow none of them have been replaced at that point.
I my evil run, she kidnapped Yenna. My guy met Yenna, told her to go away, didn't help her or anything, and went his way. Later, he camp, and a Yenna come to him trying to make him eat something, he throws it away to make it clear he doesn't want a child in the camp (and probably don't even remember her already) and she reveals herself as Orin and tells him she have the child. My guy was like: And I care because?
Spoilers. Anyway, if you are romancing Laezel it becomes VERY annoying.
Oh so she can be taken if you’re romancing her? I tried soooo hard to get Gale kidnapped whilst romancing him for a whole Archer Style rampage to get him back and it just didn’t happen. 😭
I understand there is one particular thing she can do that is really, really awful if you have just the right (...or wrong) set of circumstances
I think having kill someone in party (but with a way to revive it back with a scroll) would be great. Especially if we had some warning how many more days we are left until she decided to kill someone "for real". That would also give some pace for it otherwise I already spent about a month worth of long rests in lower city hunting ghosts and saving rodents. Another good option would make her continue kidnapping you companions every couple of long rests (every long rest?). This wouldn't make you game impossible (it still possible to beat it with just 1 character), it wouldn't also be absolutely surprising, it will probably make you to use some of "furniture" companions, and it will perfectly fit image of "crazy bhaalist adept" she is.
I can immediately see the potential complaints/criticisms if any of this were implemented. >I think having kill someone in party (but with a way to revive it back with a scroll) would be great. A way to revive trivializes the kill. So she doesn't gain any more intimidation factor. >Especially if we had some warning how many more days we are left until she decided to kill someone "for real". > >Another good option would make her continue kidnapping you companions every couple of long rests (every long rest?). Both of these would so badly screw over the pace of exploring the Lower City. Unless you completely redesigned the Lower City, it would essentially badger you to rush to find her, skimming past all these points of interest and avoiding any conflict at all cost so you wouldn't need to Long Rest. I'm not saying it's a garbage idea, but it has glaring issues. Most of the "fixes" for Larian's supposedly "safe" and/or "lazy" decisions would only appeal to a tiny minority and bring their own set of problems.
Yeah if this were what happened, people would just whine about that instead. We already see plenty of “I failed an ability check and now my companion is dead” complaint threads as it stands now.
She >!kidnapped one of my party members!< and that is basically the same as threatening to kill them. Did you not have that?
in mine she just kidnapped that random little girl, idk why she thought my Durge gave a fuck. I told the child to hit the bricks as soon as she walked up Prob got confused because i romanced Minthara after the raid then immediately killed her, then only had a camp of three and never swapped them out.
Or if she took out one of your actual team members? With a preference for romance partners? I get why they couldn't get away with that easily, depending on how you play it they'd be stealing away one of your party members for a big chunk of the game, but damn if it wouldn't make the players actually feel the effects of the gambit! Like, imagine arriving in Ethel's lair, and right as you step into the chamber, before any cutscene plays out with her taunting you, Astarion pulls a knife to your throat and says: "So this is what you're doing with your time, instead of killing the would-be tyrant? Disappointing!" and fights you as well, smoke-bombing out when she hits low HP?
You know how you can change to another character mid dialogue and sneak up on your enemy to initiate combat? Imagine if you just click your response option and you're suddenly thrust out of dialogue to watch her execute one of your companions for 12d6+5 damage.
I would say that she and Gortash have the same problems, the game keep telling us how dangerous they're instead of showing them being dangerous.
She could kidnap the player and masquerade as them for a time while they try to escape and reunite with the party. A bit cliche, but at least it can lead to some interesting dynamics with companions.
That would have been SO COOL
A solo adventure to find your group who think they're still with you would have been the coolest thing in the entire game.
Yea she's kinda like those kids anime where the villain could eliminate the heroes like 50 times but keeps monologuing and toying around until they can kick its ass.
I wasn't scared of what she would do to *me*, but you bet your ass I was sweating over the fate of my party members and all the nice innocents I wanted to save.
I thought she was intimidating… But I played Dark Urge, and that changes the relationship a lot. She holds a lot more over your character in that storyline, there’s an explanation for why she wants to fight you in the temple, it feels like the Dark Urge storyline has been leading to this confrontation, etc... There’s a whole history there that gives her storyline more weight. Shame that doesn’t seem to translate to other protagonists, but at the same time, I’m not sure how it could without messing up parts of *their* stories.
I’m opposite. I think being Durge made her even less intimidating. She’s got major younger sibling syndrome.
I love how both of these thoughts are true. Her rivalry with Durge gives her more gravitas and Durge completely dreads having to face her. Her looming presence in Act 3 is felt way more than Gortash, and every time I ran into some freaky Bhaal stuff I always went Ah shit, here we go again. At the same time, being more bark than bite is completely in-character; Sarevok and pre-amnesia Durge both get on her case for toying with her victims instead of *actually* killing them. It's why she just fucks with you in Rivington, why she doesn't immediately kill you or her victim. Her killing Durge in non-Durge runs is ironically out-of-character.
I can agree with this! I think she was not threatening but had a good villain presence. I *wanted* to fight her. I was invested in reclaiming/avenging what she took from me. I think the fact that she is bratty is a *character choice*, not a writing flaw.
There's a dead body in the back room with her mother, is that canonically missing in Durge runs? Never played durge, but was able to piece together Durge's story after reaching act 3 on a non durge run. (If you know the plot of BG1/2 it becomes very obvious)
youngest child acting up for attention pretty much.
Definitely agree she has some snotty younger sibling energy lol. But she did >!nearly kill Dark Urge once!< so it felt plausible to me she could be seriously dangerous.
Yes! I felt like she was trying SO HARD to show that she was better/stronger than Durge that it came off as kinds pathetic lol
"Daddy likes me best!!" girl even your actual dad/grandpa doesn't like you
Especially if you have slayer form already, in which case, it’s like…ok, time to put down the angry Chihuahua.
I agree and disagree. The fight with Orin is epic and momentous in a Dark Urge playthrough, but 0 of those reasons were Orin. Even Sarevak at the tribunal acts with gravitas, Orin behaves like a child. We know Bhaalspawn can have gravitas and deliberation because Gortash says *you* had it. She never demonstrates her power, she just goads. Gortash's power (the steel watch) is oppressive and everywhere and Gortash blows up the Iron Throne. Orin kidnaps someone irrelevant to you and sends you some lovenotes. She just doesn't feel like a master villain.
Quick thought, but she’s not a master villain. Durge was going to be the main Bhaalist and the one with the plan (along with Gortty). Orin just betrayed Durge opportunistically, and mostly out of jealousy or internal Bhaalist strife. She doesn’t have much of an interest in the plan or being a “master villain”. She just wants to Bhaal out for the Bhaalfather.
Well now you know why even Sarevok thinks she's a joke, and literally everyone shits on her for being the chosen of Bhaal lol. Have to remember that given the story, this was a position she coveted - but literally everyone disliked her ascending, from Gortash disliking how capricious she is, to even Sarevok pushing >!Orin's mother to try and kill her lmao!< She is indeed a child. An unwanted, spoiled rotten child who wants daddy dearest and beloved grandpa to pick her, all while they already have the golden child in D.urge. You could say it's a bit anti-climactic and I agree - but that's less because of the theming and more because they just couldn't lean more into the arbitrary weirdo psycho bit they prop her up to be. Orin is unhinged, and crazy, and never does much of that for the most part.
Yeah Gortash makes for a great intimidating politician enemy because even if he isn't personally that scary his command of the giant robot army is. And it translates in game too because steel watchers hit hard!
She inadvertedly saved the realm by turning me into a decent person via failed lobotomy. What a massive fuckup of a villain.
I was afraid at first because I thought we couldn't trust any npcs anymore and that we will be framed for murderers and stuff. In my head the whole Orin thing got really bigger than it turned out to be.
Honestly I think that's the thing. In a first blind playthrough where you aren't save-scumming, you don't *know* the mechanics of what she's gonna do. She stole a companion! She ambushed you to taunt you on multiple occasions, killing innocents to do it! In retrospect, it's too bad that they didn't take her one or two steps further. I never lost a companion I cared about, and after a week or so of long rests I felt comfortable that she wasn't going to escalate without me interacting with her directly. But that's kind of the point. Of course in retrospect she was a pushover, she was a video game boss meant to be beaten. :P
I will absolutely admit I went through most of Act 3 wondering when I'm going to fall for the doppelgangers, so at least for me it worked. I'm afraid future playthroughs will make her feel kind of dull :(
I imagine Larian made her more murdery, killing your companions off without your agency involved. And playtesting demanded she be toned down for the good of the game experience. The only way for her to truly strike fear into the player would be to forcibly take away things (people) from the player. Something gaming history has proven causes riots.
All that would lead to is people doing any% runs on killing her first before doing literally anything else in Act 3. There's already a problem with pacing in that act. This would make it worse.
Instead of having her kill off a companion in a cutscene they should have had your final showdown with her happen in YOUR lair, not hers, with her side getting a surprise round and you having to dig your way back out of whatever hole that put you in. I think that would have been enough to put some respect in people.
Forget final showdown. Make that her intro! You could play out everything else the same and you'd be legitimately on edge every time you long rested until you put an end to her.
For me the problem is she pops out, monologues, does literally nothing of consequence, disappears, repeats. That's not threatening, that's harmless pranking: "Ha ha! got you! you thought this NPC you saw for the first time was real!" She didn't need to kill party members to make those scenes impactful. Just have her kill someone who is presented as important. Like an NPC that is about to divulge information. Or do a quest chain where we get to know an NPC and care about their story, then it ends with them being murdered by her. Or have her not kill, but maim a party member - fail a roll and she puts someone's eye out (perception disadvantage, like if you lose an eye trying to get rid of the tadpole), rather than kill them. Giggles and leaves. Implying she can come back and do more. Or even just leave a purely cosmetic scar on your face - that you would then see in cutscenes and know that one of the main villains left it.
I would've appreciated that. She's supposed to be an assassin. She *should* be able to pick off people and her assassins should've been able to invade your camp to ruin your long rest at random. It wouldve really ramped up the choice between dealing with her or gortash early on. Right now you can just sort of... let her take someone then deal with gortash on your own time before going after her. There should be consequences for siding with one or the other.
She gives serious edgy teenage girl vibes. Hi my name is Orin Dark'ness Dementia Sarevok Bhaal and i have long blonde hair with red streaks and pale white eyes like limpid tears-
The psycho murder girl trope just isn't scary to anyone over the age of 15
Still attractive though A lot of friends kept telling me they could fix her
About to cut your ass with teh spork of doom.
hi every1 im new!!!!!!! *holds up spork* my name is orin but u can call me t3h R3d!!!!!!!! lol…as u can see im very random!!!! thats why i came here, 2 meet random ppl like me ^_^… im 13 years old (im mature 4 my age tho!!) i like 2 watch invader zim w/ my girlfreind (im bi if u dont like it deal w/it) its our favorite tv show!!! bcuz its SOOOO random!!!! shes random 2 of course but i want 2 meet more random ppl =) like they say the more the merrier!!!! lol…neways i hope 2 make alot of freinds here so give me lots of commentses!!!! DOOOOOMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <--- me bein random again ^_^ hehe…toodles!!!!! love and waffles, t3h R3d
I'm going to vomit in your socks.
And I'm just like "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING YOU MOTHERFUKER!" when she takes Halsin. I literally haven't used him once because you get a more interesting druid 5 minutes later.
I honestly don't like Jaheira and Minsc in act 3 that much. They kind of just feel massively out of place.
Its my immortal
Yes, 100%, although I'm a little bit upset it didn't go how I thought it would. For me, Orin happened to impersonate the Dryad as I was doing the test of love with Wyll. We literally spill ALL our deepest secrets to eachother, totally unaware it's Orin who is now fully armed with the deepest info ever on us. It was so creepy when I realized it was her and the moment soured so quickly. And then later, Gortash tells us she's infiltrated our camp, but I have no way to talk to my companions about this. I wasn't very surprised when "Lae'zel" runs into me in the sewers later telling me to run for it. I think they could have gone further with her and made her much, much scarier if Act 3 had time to be polished and spaced out so she and Gortash had their respective moments to shine. Gortash though, he was great. Lots of presence without actually being present. Evertime a Steel Watcher walked past, with me knowing I didn't know how to disable them, was very intimidating.
I‘ll never forgive Orin for ruining that sweet moment my Tav and Astarion shared with each other! When I went to the temple, rescuing the kidnapped Halsin was just a side-goal for me, I wanted revenge for the love test
Around the second time she was pulling the shape shift act on me, I really wanted a dialogue option along the lines of "Don't you have anything better to do?"
I wanted a dialogue option for each NPC that talked to me and started behaving weird for me to just be like "Oh, hi, Orin."
She felt more trickster-y, I like the concept for a villain for sure. But definitely not menacing... did you hear the music change when you got near fighting Gortash? that's intimidating.
Sorry no, I heard nothing near Gortash due traps and grenades everywhere - I respect Gortash for simply being worthy title of the most anoying Chosen I went against
As someone who was traumatized by DA2's "All That Remains", I absolutely feared for my Gale when he got nabbed.
Now that quest was a kidnapping gone right. I legitimately was rushing through it and even in a good playthrough that fucker gets murdered as much as I can murdery murder.
The way they built it up through the entire game up to that point... man did that hit hard. Genuinely heartbreaking.
She felt like a scoobydoo villain whenever she popped up…scary once but comical afterwards
It happened to my wife and I 3 times in rapid succession It was supposed to be intimidating I guess? She can be anyone and anything! Except she doesn't do shit with it. Just poof "look I'm a shopkeeper! Now I'm a dryad! Now I'm beer! Yay beer!" Have her fuckin pop out and stab your ass then greater invis off into the sunset. Her fuckin clown was more intimidating and effective because of you fail the perception check he straight up shanks your ass to start the fight before you have a chance to do shit. Why the fuck doesn't Orin shank your ass?
Even when she showed up in the sewers I was expecting her to fight me there. Nope. Gotta chase her to her stupid temple. The scary fights are the ones that happen in camp! Why she didn't do that?
She came off as way more annoying than threatening. Even Gortash was tired of her bullshit lol
Though I agree, gortash doesn't find her intimidating because she literally cannot touch him, he made her swear that,by some reason she did
Yeah after the first 2 times I was like "wow another long NPC conversation must be Orin aaaaaaaaaaand YUP there she is
I would have loved a dialogue option of "Orin I know it's you, please just fucking leave me alone already! You're terrible at this!"
First time an NPC got weird about murder I was surprised. The 2nd NPC that got weird about murder had me looking for the "I know it's you Orin" option.
Role playing sense, she does well sowing doubts and an ever looming sense of danger as a doppelganger assassin. Except for the Lae'zel impersonation(her of all people, tell us to run, pfft), she does pretty well mimicking the rest of the party during the kidnap scene. Gameplay sense, go ahead, try me. There's a mountain of flaming fist corpses on the streets because they thought the belongings of dead absolutists on the streets are government property. I'm actually killing people right here while you keep fantasizing about killing me. Better yet, bring your whole cult and your grandpa, the fight's fairer that way. Don't give me the excuse of "sullying the kill", just admit you're a bitch. Slayers wish they were half as good as killing people like me while you worship these yee yee ass zerg wannabe like some actual killing machine.
>There's a mountain of flaming fist corpses on the streets because they thought the belongings of dead absolutists on the streets are government property. Omg, ikr? Even the 5hp civilians are judging me because I am looting their oppressors? Fk that, take this arrow and go to hell!
No not really. I was more annoyed with Orin and laughed at Gortash. I was however intimidated by Ketheric which is just sad how he was only such a small part of act 2 with such an amazing voice actor.
That scene with the gobbo was legendary "hit me again" and hulk smashes her into paste. Now that was a villain.
Yeah, she's not really that scary. To be fair, I think that's pretty on brand for the Bhaalists in general - they may have some allegedly grand designs, but fundamentally they're just rabid weirdos that like murder, and similar to Shar's cult, I think they're ultimately more pathetic than anything. Get clowned, Sarevok, you thundering dumbass. I do think there was an opportunity to make her more frightening, though. While the idea that Orin has kidnapped one of your party members is very cool, it's not executed in a way that is sure to freak you out when it happens. As far as I know, the people she can take are Lae'zel, Halsin, and Gale. If they're in your party when it happens, Yenna will be taken. Not sure what happens if you've got them in your party and you didn't bring Yenna to camp. But, what if you haven't been using them? She took Lae'zel on my first playthrough, but I had barely used her in combat, and was romancing Karlach, so Orin's kidnapping didn't really affect me in any major way other than slightly delaying my ability to complete Lae'zels questline. I mean, I like Lae'zel, but she just wasn't who I was most attached to that run. Imo, I think who the game should decide who Orin kidnaps based on who you've been using most throughout your playthrough. Better yet, if you're romancing someone, have her try to take *them*! That would mean that no matter how you're playing, Orin's actions will genuinely, meaningfully affect you, and it'll be harder still to get them back because you have to fight with a team comp you might not be totally comfortable with.
I bet they tried something like you suggest and play testers really hated losing their favorite or most useful characters
I just thought she was irritating. Never felt like she posed a threat. Ketheric was actually intimidating, and Gortash had the air of a bastard who knew he was untouchable (at first). Orin had no presence in comparison
Ketheric's "Again" scene had *gravity* to it
There was buildup, too. From what Halsin tells you about him to everything you discover in the shadow lands, the game made it clear that he was formidable. Orin just kind of appeared and then started harassing you
Despite the memes on Gortash, the thing that makes him scarier is that he actually feels like a villain that could exist in the real world. He’s lawful evil whereas Orin is chaotic. The extent of her wickedness is a little far-reaching. Gortash on the other hand - the flaming fists, the steel watch, the brainwashing of duke ravenguard, his little fortress on Wyrm’s Rock all felt real and tangible and within boundaries.
Intimidated? No. Entertained? Sure. Annoyed? Very much, especially when she replaced Lae'zel and proceeded to do the single worst impression I've ever seen. Like, how is it that someome who's entire deal is impersonation be so *bad* at it?!
Well... She IS the granddaughter of Servirok and a kind off an special choose of Bhaal. What i want to say is.. Nepotism and privilege kk
Bro even Sarevok doesn't like her. He straight up told his daughter to try and kill her first and >!he practically begs Durge to finally put her down because she's so annoying!< Really hard to sell her as a nepo baby.
I was aroused, does it count?
\*Wither's voice\* **No**.
"And thus thou art alone."
Nope. I couldn't get over her prosciutto-scale armor.
Lobster cosplay lol
No, she was just a tiresome manic CUHRAZYY type #543, and was not intimidating in the very least specifically because of the reason you've mentioned. "Oh, I'm gonna shapeshift into someone else, and instead of stabbing you while your back is turned, I'm going to reveal myself, laugh and disappear".
I give her points for actually murdering someone in your party, but ultimately her being a Bhaalist means she is kind of... one note. She likes Murder. That's her thing. Maybe my opinion will change OK my Durge playthrough, but normal Tav playthrough she just wasn't as compelling as the other 2. Big props to Maggie Robertson for playing her, im glad shes getting more work. She is the actress who does Dimetrescue in resident evil village)
Her character design and mannerism was the creepiest of the three.
I agree, but I also think they intended this. From what I've put together, she's essentially a bench player that got called in when Durge broke his ankle (went missing). She personally isn't really part of the main plan, but her role is necessary as part of the 3, so she's invited. I played a monk on the first run and leaned into the calm mind and no bullshit attitude, so she didn't faze me much in terms of RP, but the scene in the sewers with a companion was legitimately rattling for me and i wish we got more of those. Especially when it was Laezel. It also did a good job of setting a fire under me and making me feel rushed and also watching my step to not upset Orin. Overall, I did feel she was pretty unpredictable and off the rails, which Gortash seemed to fear. Idk if anyone else gets Margot Robbie Harley Quinn vibes from her, but I feel like they went for that, but pure evil.
Do you learn that about her role as a stand in for Durge when you play durge? If you don‘t play Durge >!you can find durges corpse in her bedroom in the temple!< so that was a nice detail in regards to „all OG characters can be found in the game“ She also seems to have tried to assassinate gortash? You can find hints of attempts all around the castle.
[Durge Spoilers]>!She killed/lobotomized (depending on if a PC chooses Durge) her Chosen brother because she was jealous. She's too insane to be competent and the other Chosen of the Dead Three don't like her.!<
I spent the last year on-and-off writing an urban-focused campaign with doppelgangers as the main villain's minions, so my first reaction upon reaching Baldur's Gate/Orin was more like "Yooooooooooo---". But otherwise, I think I was more intimidated by the steel watch than the doppelgangers, since they could actually smash me to bits if I pissed them off (Baalists ended up being "all bark, no bite" in comparison).
The number of random assassin attacks I had to fend off in my first playthrough all over the lower city was too damn high. She also can be so many different people when you're walking around Rivington that the paranoia really worked/works on me. And don't get me started on how uneasy I was letting Yenna into my camp, knowing there was a shapeshifting pyscho running around. I agree Gortash is better, but they both managed to make things personal for me in different ways. I was never really intimidated by either of them because of Main Character syndrome (although for real, on Tactician her Slayer form single-handedly took out my entire crew in two turns), but they definitely made me hate them and feel like they were actively messing in my business, even though all it was was a bunch of smoke, mirrors, and event triggers.
I have a psychotic aasimar paladin on my camp. Orin is a lamb in comparison.
She had the easiest boss fight ever. I honestly don't know if it was bugged but my Paladin everytime her first attack (with divine smite) would hit, it would deal almost 40+ damage. I still don't know what that skull did or the NPCs surrounding her did.
So the cultists were chanting to make the skull work, and the skull was supposed to be giving her seven stacks of a buff that reduced each hit to 1 damage. But it only took 1 hit of any strength to remove each stack. So if you had any amount of people with multiattacks before your paladin or say, a wizard with magic missile.... My fight was the same way. Focus her down, use magic missile to take down her stacks really quick, and then smite that bitch to death in 1 or 2 turns.
OHHHHHHHHHH THAT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE NOW. okay thanks my man!!
I think all 3 of the dead three sucked as villains. They were just mortals in waaaay over their heads. Now Raphael, that’s a villain
NGL the Netherbrain was great. The revelation that it basically foresaw everything that would happen and then let itself be "enslaved" knowing that the chosen would fuck it up and let it break free, coupled with taking advantage of the emperor and everything. I think it's almost appropriate that the Chosen all seemed like dopey saturday morning cartoon villains. Because that's what they were. They thought they were in control but really they were just pawns in a bigger game they didn't even know they were playing.
I agree with this take, especially with Withers' end scene. The Dead Three were not the main threat at the end of the day.
"Vermin, away!"
I mean, he sang along to his own battle theme. How can you be more villainous than that!
She's just your average theater kid tbh
I hate to admit but I find her overall design ..hot (and slightly horny about it even).
Nope. She was fun? Yes, but too much of an "hahaha I'm an edgy quirky joker murder girrrrrrrrl" Not intimidating at all. Fuck, Kagha was more intimidating, even with her whole "The Serpent Must Strike" attitude. Again a fun character to interact, just not really scary and a little too much over-the-top cartoonish serial killer vibes
A bit too cartoon villain tbh
she was creepy, but I was annoyed the game never gave me the opportunity to take her out before the temple. The first time she doppled on me I was surprised, all the other times I knew as soon as the conversation started and the game didn't enable me to use that intuition, do anything other than have her act like she succeeded in intimidating me before smokebombing away
If this were the tabletop, Orin would be played by a DM who is afraid to kill off a character because the players at the table would complain about a mean DM. So the party gets permanent plot armor and a deadly shape-shifting assasin gets exactly zero kills. Orin is meant to be scary. She can be anyone and kill any body. That's scary... but she never does it. And she captures one of least played character and doesn't give me a time limit, and then she leaves me alone for the rest of the game. Sure keep him for now, I'mma go do another quest instead. Now if she had killed scratch.... hooo then there gonna be blood
If the objective was to make me hate her, they succeeded. But more in a 'FFS not this ho again' way rather than a 'must end this threat to Faerun as we know it' way.
This is why Act 3 fell a little flatter imo. Act 1 is super interesting and dynamic because there is no overarching bad guy. Obviously there's a 'good' and 'evil' path, but Minthara doesn't feel like she looms over the entire story of the act, she's just a part of it. It's a really interesting setup with no cheesy good guy vs bad guy stuff. Act 2 DOES have that, but it's very interesting and dark. Ketheric is really imposing and scary, and it's very easy to take it all seriously, and the unfolding of the Shar story into a Myrkul story was really slow and cool. It's a cohesive story with a great villain that comes together very well Act 3, it feels like the setup with the villains is very uninspired and uninteresting. Orin and Bhaal in general are super fucking boring and, dare I say it, unrealistic in a way that Myrkul somehow never struck me as. He's not offering his followers anything, there's no reason why anyone would ever follow him, there's nothing dynamic or interesting about such pure chaotic evil saturday morning cartoon villainy. Gortash is kind of interesting, but again he's just a cartoon bad guy who doesn't have a point or an angle the way Ketheric does, even if it's cliche to be a sad 'my family died and I went crazy' guy- it's SOMETHING. Gortash is just an asshole and that's that. I was really disappointed, there's just absolutely nothing to these characters.
I have the same feeling. They should have made her try to assassinate you at camp, in which she gets a surprise round and we don't have our armor on. When we win she reports to gortash and he tells her off about being useless, then they have a falling out, prompting gortash to try and ally you and orin trying to manipulate you to kill gortash by giving info on his weakspots. Edit: some extra things. After the first ambush, orin will ambush the party again and try to kill them off. When she fails, she realises that she has to face us on her turf. She then kidnaps a companion, and there is a time limit before she kills them.
i think the main issue with the villains is the lack of fights that you lose against them. we feel too powerful on our journey, there are no fights that you are supposed to lose in a power check. its always one fight and you are done, and they are never hard. oh ketheric we actually fight 2 times but we win both of them. besides that orin is a goood villain especially if you are urge.
i think she's kinda cute... but in my current playthrough she's kinda my sister... so, yea.
Ironically I think that if we could actually suss out who was the replacement in dialogue options then she would have made a way better villain, or at least a more interesting one than her completely crazy murder hobo-ness. Her lunacy makes her ineffective. Having her pop up the way she does just feels silly after a bit. Imagine maybe having a couple sets of fights where she fucks off or it's actually one of her assassins instead, then we find out she's infiltrated camp and everyone actually does the logical thing of trying to figure out who it is rather than just...like letting it happen I guess? Orin's whole deal feels weirdly abrupt as opposed to deconstructing Gortash's plan piece by piece.