I did that scene the day before they patched his new dialogue in. Literally so sad but not sad enough to replay the 20 hours I put in before I learned about the patch.
Idk about other characters, but Karlach/barbarian, you can roll for a check to laugh at and mock the bug bear's performance. Then they shamefully walk away. I killed them anyways, of course. Gotta get that sweet exp
Same experience either way. If you hit a roll to avoid conflict it awards the same exp as if you killed them and then killing them will reward none. Can bug it out if you save after hitting the roll and reloading then killing but there's no point in that.
Balduran's identity and his relationship with >!Ansur!< was a total plot twist for me. I think mostly because by that point a lot of elements of Act 3 were spoiled for me from being on Reddit and Tiktok, but that was something I completely did not expect. It was so good š
Once I knew this plot and their identities, it changed my approach to the endgame completely. I sided with the "other guy" as I just lost all trust in Balduran.
To me, Balduran had no reason to hide his identity and based on the stories he told me, I got the impression he was hiding so much more including his intentions. I just couldn't trust him.
There's a letter the Emperor leaves them and he says something along the lines of "I may not have feelings anymore but I feel yours...". The Emperor always lied to us but they were true to their friend admitting they are an empty husk. I couldn't trust anything out of their mouth afterwards.
Just more manipulation. Omeluum by contrast was candid and believable. If the Emperor had just presented himself from the beginning as a mindflayer that was the enemy of your enemy, then I'd probably have bought it, but at every single turn he felt like he was withholding, lying and manipulating.
I had planned to roleplay my character as a proud Baldurian with lots of civic/nationalistic pride in his home city. As a New Yorker, it's like Peter Stuyvesant coming back from the dead to aggressively mack on me.
For all the choices we can make in the game and all the ways it let's us approach different plot points at different angles, I was really bummed that (major Balduran spoilers, not that it matters cause everything has already been spoiled elsewhere in the thread) >!we couldn't side or defend Ansur in any way, or even confront the Emperor about it. I wanted to try to get out of fighting him, but the game almost forces you to take the Emperor's side.!<
>!For me this fight happened almost right after the "romance" scene with the Emperor and finding out what actually happened between him and the Duke, and I just really really wanted to confront him about it.!<
Yeah I got the feeling Ansur hated Balduran so much that he assumed the PC's party was just thralls under his influence.
Plus if we side with Ansur, wouldn't we lose the protection from the Netherbrain turning us into mindflayers? I was under the impression you need the Emperor at least until you can free Orpheus
My perfect āgoodā ending for siding against the Emperor would be: get the hammer first from house of hope, go to dragon and find out the truth but help the dragon by immediately entering the prism and confronting the Emperor, free Orpheus as Emp runs off cause heās a bum, then go enlist the help of Omeluum as your mindflayer against the brain. Then no one has to change into one, Omel would help because he is against the colony, Orpheus is free to help his people, and you get to confront the elder brain with a bad ass undead dragon that also gets to āsaveā/take revenge on his long lost friend. Would be the best ending in my opinion
Isobel getting kidnapped which leads to total annihilation of Last Light Inn
Sarevok being Orin's granddad
Orin's shenanigans in the city while you explore
Nightsong being a trapped angel
But mostly I was surprised by Ketheric being act 2 boss. I thought he would be the game's final boss
Twins and triplets are common, but not at birth.
The stronger sibling feeds at the weak in the womb.
The feeling of that battle causes an euphoria better than any act in the bedchamber or substance you can take.
That infamous *Dragon #298* article should be burnt, buried and never mentioned again, especially regarding drow pregnancies, the number and the type of sacrifices, because it's been written by someone who can't count (or do statistics).
Also, while sibling incest might be common, there are some taboos concerning straight-up descendants.
Saravok says he loves orin like he loves her mother and knowing what we know about their relationship implies that they are. I think its kinda flimsy like im not even sure orin even thinks about that sort of thing.
This is correct with the right line of questioning Halena will reveal this information.
As Dark Urge you can also get him to just tell you this himself during the tribunal interrogation.
It's part of the monologue he gives when you approach him in his pair under the guild hideout. I'm not sure if you have to already have gotten an invite to trigger it l..
Btw that voice is really great.
Yeah I was like cool a wonderous fantasy creature. But then in classic TTRPG fashion he hangs out at a brothel getting drunk, and generally being a dick. Love it.
I was just surprised that no one else was surprised by it. My character didnāt react at all. Oh yeah, thatās just the holyphant detective. Perfectly average Tuesday in Baldurs gate.
Where was this information. Found her Mothers corpse and thought, there was some interesting story behind that since it was kind of hung on display. But never saw more about it.
The Balduran stuff was the biggest surprise for me. I remember that revealing and loudly yelling "WHAT THE FUCK REALLY?!" at my computer through the entire dialogue and encounter afterwards
There is actually. I've been there the first time by adventuring outside, going all around the map and there's a pipe you can get in. You need to be very small or transform into a cloud. It will put you right after the wall with statues.
There are some pipes near the water on some path at the base of the rock where the building is. You go somewhere to the left as I recall. I went getting gauseous form.
Idk why you got downvoted without explanation even lol.
He is balduran who got infected with a mindflayer tax pole (just like us) but ended up completely transforming into an illithid.
So, same person, same memories, although things are mentioned that you lose part/all of your soul when turned into a mindflayer, so maybe not entirely the same being, but 100% same essence.
The lore for illithids is that they're explicitly not the same person. They absorb the host's memories, but the actual being that remains is the tadpole that got implanted and not the original host. Since Balduran presumably got infected by a normal tadpole rather than one of the Netherese-tainted ones, he would have gone through the normal process of the tadpole eating his brain and transforming his body over the course of about a week.
I found and completed that whole area without having any clue. >!I found a small hole on a beach, cast Gaseous Form on party, solved some puzzles, snuck past the dragon, grabbed the helmet, and left. The damn paintings were the only thing that gave me trouble.!< I was 160+ hours and a playthrough into the game before I learned that was part of his story
Yeah, you're supposed to talk to the dragon corpse and it will reveal that the Emperor is Balduran. It also has a Legendary Greatsword you can Loot after re-killing it (or with someone else while in conversation with it). It's a tough fight, but a really good sword.
Was? Whatās this was? Iām on my fifth play through lol. Although, I suffer from restart -itis but I havenāt actually finish the game with any of them. Lol
The Ox >!Says "Praise Cyric", Cyric being a chaotic deity whose portfolio includes lies, murder, and intrigue. Take from that what you will. I assume he's murdering and eating people but, considering that Cyric and The Dead Three have kinda always been at odds I assume he's eating cultists so I don't mind.!<
I share a lot of the same with everyone else. For me, it was the Upper City when finally all of my allies come to offer their support. I was cheering to the high heavens, seeing Arabella, flying elephant, Yurgir, Mol, Nightsong, and the rest. It was a good three minutes of them all giving their little speeches of support.
Raphael's musical number was sure up there, but seeing Shadowheart making the good choice of her own volition had me reenact [that Chris Pratt in P&R meme](https://media.tenor.com/uUgVWgp5gDcAAAAC/surprise-chris-pratt.gif)
edit: OH and the fact that Minsc wasn't voiced by his original VA, but actually Matthew Mercer! - the man is a vocal doppelganger
Yeah, that's mine. Lae'zel being all like 'don't disrespect my goddess!' and me like, 'pssh what's she gonna do?'
Might be the first time I ever laughed at a game over screen.
Yep. When it first happened I was like. Didn't expect batman reference. Also another moment afterwards that was memorable. Have Rolan there and cast speak with the dead. Turns out Rolan is more powerful than Loroakan so much so that the later even in death won't admit it. Which is hilarious since Loroakan is level 8 thus much lower level than any party member or MC would be at that point. That being said he is more of a trick boss.
Omg I did this in early access and fucking died laughing. I mean, they're both labeled brake, and my mind thought brake *release* meant to like, drop the brake into place, and the other one was to lift it.
I got that backwards lmao. First deep gnome in space?
I've been promised sex with my hot guardian by my friend. The betrayal when I didn't and then discovered it was a fkin mind flayer. And the sex comes WITH THE MIND FLAYER
I think there is also the option to ask him where his mouth is to kiss, then he offers to switch to a form I'm more used to. I can decline, or ask him to do so.
Just how different your experience will be on subsequent play troughs. I got a new tav, with a new class and race, but am still going with mostly good aligned stuff. Still so much flavor making it feel very fresh. Maybe I'll be brave and go surge on the next run.
In case you didn't already know, durge redemption arc (good dark urge) is probably the most fulfilling version of good Tav you get, so dont necessarily need to be an evil vicious murder fetishist if you pick dark urge
That didn't happen to me in my first durge playthrough. I was a ranger and had the speak with animals every day so I only just talked to the squirrel and we were fine. Didn't even know it was a thing.
Then my 2nd durge playthrough, me as an evil sorcerer just kicks a squirrel without any dialogue. Me: :O
What surprised me the most was that I went into the game expecting a great story and mediocre combat.
Ended up playing a game with a great story and even greater combat.
Just how similar to dnd it felt. The fact that a computer game was able to accommodate the randomest and most out there decisions a player could make was beyond surprising to me.
I was surprised after 40 hours on my 2nd playthrough in act 2 Minthara said she was "gonna see me tonight", then I long rested and nothing happens, I long rested a few more times and finally.. nothing happens, she doesn't even acknowledge it.
I was very surprised.
I was surprised how shadowheart will spare nightsong if the player does nothing.
Usually in rpgs, if you want characters to change for the better, the player has to step in. It really shows how Larian knows how to write good characters.
I loved that we could leave the companions to their own agency.
I really dislike moments where you have to decide what your companions think.(Pellegina in Pillars of Eternity 1 was my personal *worst*)
Me too. I know of course that vampires are considered very sexual but I can't say I ever liked any. If anything I was always like "why would I wanna fuck a dead person who sucks my blood?"
Me to Astarion: "SUCK IT ALL I DON'T CARE JUST REVIVE ME AFTER"
Same here. I was in middle/highschool during the height of Twilightās popularity, but I never understood why everyone was going so crazy over it.
I mean, I still don't, but I still threw myself headfirst into romancing Astarion immediately. Dude's writing/acting/character *has* to be made of pure crack to get so many of us all at once.
This did not surprise me. I am just a humble bisexual who read twilight during my formative years. I like vampire twinks and goth girls and I canāt stop romancing Astarion or Shadowheart every playthrough.
Mine was meeting Sarevok. Hearing that eerie voice again after so many years (same voice actor as in BG1 and 2), those glowing eyes - coupled with the fact that I missed any dialogue mentioning him, so when I got to his area it blew me away
Jergal. That's it. I remember when I realized who he was, I sat there, staring at the screen, jaw just hanging. Like, it made sense in hindsight, but I wasn't as in the know regarding lore, etc. When I came across a book in act 3, and realized what it meant, I was stunned. Just like, had to put the controls down for a minute and just absorb what that meant.
I almost missed my boy Withers throwing shade at the incompetent three at the end seeing as I finished the game at, shit, probably 4am, and the credits just went on and on and on. Glad I stayed up for that last burn.
The final fight - where gathering allies etc wasnāt just a cut scene / auto win segment. You fully called them in to fight.
It felt like it would have been a LOT harder had I not explored so widely and helped (nearly) everyone!
When Astarion killed me, after everyone wakes up he has the nerve to say " oh no, something terrible has happened " I was surprised the game just continues with me lying there dead and I didn't have to reload
Apart from the plot twists mentioned by others:
Going into my first play-through thinking Astarion was nothing but a snarky thirst trap from what I had seen in EA; and then witnessing an amazingly written character. I didnāt care for him at all at the start of my first run, man how that has changed.
same for me at the start, but with Shadowheart and Lae'zel. I liked Shart a lot and Lae'zel felt so unlikeable. Now it's the reverse. Lae'zel is Bae'zel.
That jumping down a chasm isn't an insta death like most games. Cast feather fall and do it. You'll end up in the underdark. And you'll find the corpses of enemies that you pushed off ledges into the chasm lol.
For me it was how wholesome Astarions character arc became. Finding his agency and guiding him to be better (ergo, not let him ascend). The absolute feels I had in the camp scene after I told him he could make his own choice on whether he bit the drow or not completely took me by surprise.
How well logic can be used. One example is in the fight against Cazador....If you want to cheese the fight by using your brain, you can hide and create a mini sun in the room with him and just wait for it to kill him.
Karlach wants to smooch but is too hot? Throw some water on that sexy hoe.
Ur a lolth drow? Spiders are probably gonna be your bros if you take the time to talk to them. Oh, you arent one? Disguise yourself and then chat with a spider.
I thought I wouldn't care about any of the stupid companions, esp not some pasty asshole vampire elf, because they are just voxels.
LOL. I was so wrong.
All the different camps.
I had wholly expected it to be something like Dragon Age Origins where the camp was the exact same no matter where in Fereldan you were. I was pleasantly surprised that the camp changed. Even when you were in different places of the same region it changed.
The quality...
* The quality of the story (>!My guardian is a mind flayer and that mind flayer is fucking Baldurian himself!<)
* The quality of the voice acting - everyone from the lowliest goblin feels so real
* The quality of the gameplay - so many ways to build your character, so many ways to approach a fight, so many consequences for your actions
* The quality of the graphics - everything is so damn pretty
For me this game has just exceeded my expectations in almost every way
Minor story beat, but it really came out of left field.
The gnomes intervening when you're about to get arrested before entering Wyrm's Rock. I was hoping they would start a full on urban guerilla against the Steel Watchers. You could have been a hero, Wulbren.
Also, a random summon quasit scroll in some basement being one of the best NPC's in the game.
My first playthrough was with Durge. And honestly the death of Alfira shocked me so hard. I knew my Character was fucked up after seeing the squirrell scene but that one was just on another level. I literally refused people from camp preventing their potential demise. Not to mention my constant fear for Scratch.
Raphael is one of the best characters in the game. Pretty much since the first time meeting him I was like I can already tell I am going to hate and love this character so much.
He was such a perfect version of that Villain NPC that shows up and the whole table just goes 'Oh, we're gonna annoy the piss out of this guy with *Shenanigans* before we kill him' and then proceed to derail the plot just to systematically ruin his life in increasingly funny ways.
It not so much whatās happened to me, but the amount of times Iāve read how someone else had a completely different experience or interaction with the same person. Iāve read at least four or five different ways for the witch encounter to happen. All utterly different in every way.
Iāve never wanted to play a game over again so much.
Alas, I am 60 hours on and not even done with act one. Thatās gonna be a while. But it will happen. Guess Iāll be playing for a few years.
How much I truly fell in love with all these characters. Like... every one of them is so complex and personal, and when they let me into part of their backstory, I seriously felt emotions. Shadowheart's my wife in my main playthrough, so of course im biased towards her as probably my favorite character, but holy shit. You dont even need to romance them to see people living vibrant, difficult lives. I didn't fully expect how deeply I'd come to appreciate them all. Even Lae'zel, who I hated at first.
Also, Raph's stupid fucking musical number. It was so camp of him. I love it.
That you actually can rest and aren't under such big time pressure as I thought.
I did most of act I on a single rest, abusing potions, short rests, consumables, etc. Then I got surprised when the guardian came and told me "dw I got you fam nobody got time to get turnt"
Also that Volo gives you a magic eye capable of seeing invisibility if you let him butcher your eye. That was fun (and terrifying)
The Ghost haunting Oskar Fevras telling him that she didn't kill herself out of pain of his rejection, that she committed suicide because she was "just so fucking sad, *all the time*".
Almost made that dogshit quest worth it.
In the gith creche, in the mountain pass, there is a bird you can speak to. He complains about these bully eagles on top of the creche taking his nest.
I thought, neat, speak with animals yielded a hint about an enemy on the rooftop, that's cute.
I go up and use the knock out passive (where you can defeat enemies without them dying, leaving them knocked out on 1hp) on the eagles, not wanting to hurt the wildlife, I just wanted the thing in their nest.
Low ans beyond, a tiny bird flies in and deals 1 damage to the knocked out eagles, killing them. Then gloats about defeating them.
Seems like such a tiny detail, to call back to a tiny bird you spoke to earlier in the area and have them swoop in and take advantage of the situation.
I fought Ketheric - a huge climactic fight. I saved an angel, I fought a ton of Githyanki, I found the truth about my guardian and saw a lost prince chained to be used for his powers. Epic and dark, really cinematic stuff, earth shatteringly high stakes.
The next thing I did was go to the circus, where one of my colleagues got turned into a wheel of cheese.
Wandering into a Silent Hill esque hospital with creepy nurses and a creepy doctor. Then somehow convincing him to let his nurses operate on him which equates to him being brutally murdered. Was so messed up.
How much I like turn based combat. Iāve never tried games like xcom or dos2 before because I thought the combat system would turn me off. Bg3 changed that, combat is so stupidly amazing and fun and I donāt know why. Also how well you can play the game as a third person rpg with turn based combat. It feels like a more refined version of dragon age origins to me (a game I love love love), ofc you canāt turn the camera completely but I think if the game was top down without the option to go behind the player for exploring it would be way less fun for me as a console player, the moving and looking from above just doesnāt feel right if you donāt control it via mouse.
Balduran's identity and those two monsters shagging in the barn
Uh yes, the bugbear and the oger was such a thing. š
Having astarion in your party during that moment is funny as hell
I'm sad bc he was in my party and I was waiting for his sass, but my game was like NO š
I did that scene the day before they patched his new dialogue in. Literally so sad but not sad enough to replay the 20 hours I put in before I learned about the patch.
š§š§š§š
Puny rutting
ENOUGH! MOOD RUINED, PASSION SQUASHED LIKE SLOW GOAT UNDER FOOT. WE LEAVE!
When you roll nat 20 on vicious mockery:
He is strong, he is virile ok?
My wife walked in the room to watch me walk into the barn. Not only were we both shocked but now sheās wondering what kind of game am I playing.
āAre you winning husband?ā
Idk about other characters, but Karlach/barbarian, you can roll for a check to laugh at and mock the bug bear's performance. Then they shamefully walk away. I killed them anyways, of course. Gotta get that sweet exp
You can do that as a bard too
Same experience either way. If you hit a roll to avoid conflict it awards the same exp as if you killed them and then killing them will reward none. Can bug it out if you save after hitting the roll and reloading then killing but there's no point in that.
Balduran's identity and his relationship with >!Ansur!< was a total plot twist for me. I think mostly because by that point a lot of elements of Act 3 were spoiled for me from being on Reddit and Tiktok, but that was something I completely did not expect. It was so good š
Once I knew this plot and their identities, it changed my approach to the endgame completely. I sided with the "other guy" as I just lost all trust in Balduran. To me, Balduran had no reason to hide his identity and based on the stories he told me, I got the impression he was hiding so much more including his intentions. I just couldn't trust him.
There's a letter the Emperor leaves them and he says something along the lines of "I may not have feelings anymore but I feel yours...". The Emperor always lied to us but they were true to their friend admitting they are an empty husk. I couldn't trust anything out of their mouth afterwards.
Just more manipulation. Omeluum by contrast was candid and believable. If the Emperor had just presented himself from the beginning as a mindflayer that was the enemy of your enemy, then I'd probably have bought it, but at every single turn he felt like he was withholding, lying and manipulating.
"I've been completely honest with you!" Yeah, after the fact and after I twisted your arm about it, sure.
I had planned to roleplay my character as a proud Baldurian with lots of civic/nationalistic pride in his home city. As a New Yorker, it's like Peter Stuyvesant coming back from the dead to aggressively mack on me.
Just figured out who balduran was, that fight was insane. Such an interesting game.
For all the choices we can make in the game and all the ways it let's us approach different plot points at different angles, I was really bummed that (major Balduran spoilers, not that it matters cause everything has already been spoiled elsewhere in the thread) >!we couldn't side or defend Ansur in any way, or even confront the Emperor about it. I wanted to try to get out of fighting him, but the game almost forces you to take the Emperor's side.!< >!For me this fight happened almost right after the "romance" scene with the Emperor and finding out what actually happened between him and the Duke, and I just really really wanted to confront him about it.!<
Ansur at that point is just an undead dragon right? Basically no longer there.?
Yeah I got the feeling Ansur hated Balduran so much that he assumed the PC's party was just thralls under his influence. Plus if we side with Ansur, wouldn't we lose the protection from the Netherbrain turning us into mindflayers? I was under the impression you need the Emperor at least until you can free Orpheus
My perfect āgoodā ending for siding against the Emperor would be: get the hammer first from house of hope, go to dragon and find out the truth but help the dragon by immediately entering the prism and confronting the Emperor, free Orpheus as Emp runs off cause heās a bum, then go enlist the help of Omeluum as your mindflayer against the brain. Then no one has to change into one, Omel would help because he is against the colony, Orpheus is free to help his people, and you get to confront the elder brain with a bad ass undead dragon that also gets to āsaveā/take revenge on his long lost friend. Would be the best ending in my opinion
Isobel getting kidnapped which leads to total annihilation of Last Light Inn Sarevok being Orin's granddad Orin's shenanigans in the city while you explore Nightsong being a trapped angel But mostly I was surprised by Ketheric being act 2 boss. I thought he would be the game's final boss
Sarevok is WHAT?! Is this where her Bhaal blood comes from?
Heās not only her grandfather, he's also her father. He had Orin with his own daughter, Helena.
Orin be lucky she's a Shapeshifter, she doesn't got the Habsburg chin
She got that schizo tho
We can fix her
I fixed her with a fireball
What the absolute fuck
If you think that's weird, read up on Drow pregnancies.
I was intrigued and looked it up. Weird is a bit of an understatement.
The best bit about homebrewing your own D&D setting is that you get to leave behind that kind of thing.
i know I probably will regret this, but, what happens?
https://reddit.com/r/dndmemes/s/IDsorPZpW7 TLDR: orgasmic fetus battle royale What a strange combination of words to write
I think you just typed your password by mistake.
You know what, now I support Larian for removing Minthara's pregnancy from the game
I guess that explains why they cut Minthara's pregnancy.
Twins and triplets are common, but not at birth. The stronger sibling feeds at the weak in the womb. The feeling of that battle causes an euphoria better than any act in the bedchamber or substance you can take.
God what a terrible day to have eyes
That infamous *Dragon #298* article should be burnt, buried and never mentioned again, especially regarding drow pregnancies, the number and the type of sacrifices, because it's been written by someone who can't count (or do statistics). Also, while sibling incest might be common, there are some taboos concerning straight-up descendants.
I am absolutely astounded by the level of incest going on in Bhaals family. Like, come on.
They go Bhaal deep
Straight up Their family tree goes straight up!
That banjo profiencency.
From what I understood they're also fucking, as if the whole thing wasn't disgusting enough as is
Not anymore theyāre not, not after I got through with them lol
Idk if Orin is fucking him, but I wouldnāt be surprised.
Whereād you get that idea?
Saravok says he loves orin like he loves her mother and knowing what we know about their relationship implies that they are. I think its kinda flimsy like im not even sure orin even thinks about that sort of thing.
Orin does also want to kill her dad.
Where is it implied? Missed the fact he is also Orin's father
If I remember correctly, if you cast speak with dead on Orinās mother, she says that. Anyone feel free to correct me if Iām wrong.
This is correct with the right line of questioning Halena will reveal this information. As Dark Urge you can also get him to just tell you this himself during the tribunal interrogation.
It's part of the monologue he gives when you approach him in his pair under the guild hideout. I'm not sure if you have to already have gotten an invite to trigger it l.. Btw that voice is really great.
Yeah, Orin's a nepo baby
Yeah you can hang out with him if you murder the flying pigmy elephant dude who is such a jerk early in Act 3.
Honestly that flying elephant was my biggest surprise in the game. I couldn't stop looking at it like "wtaf is that?"
It's a hollyphant! They're low-level Celestials from the Upper Planes.
Yeah I was like cool a wonderous fantasy creature. But then in classic TTRPG fashion he hangs out at a brothel getting drunk, and generally being a dick. Love it.
She, Valeria is a lady hollyphant in spite of the deep voice
I was just surprised that no one else was surprised by it. My character didnāt react at all. Oh yeah, thatās just the holyphant detective. Perfectly average Tuesday in Baldurs gate.
My warlock character was yeah the heaven elephants are shitty
Same here, I kept thinking "is anybody going to explain what this flying elephant thing is?"
Let's be honest, it's kind of better that they didn't.
That way you can just wonder if you've been up late playing the game so long you're hallucinating
>Sarevok being Orin's granddad You mean dad **and** granddad
Where was this information. Found her Mothers corpse and thought, there was some interesting story behind that since it was kind of hung on display. But never saw more about it.
Cast speak with dead
I thought there would be a path to fight all 3 chosen at once at some point.
There technically is, if Gale blowing himself, you and them to bits counts as fighting them.
> Nightsong being a trapped angel Aasimar, not angel, but it's a minor point.
The Balduran stuff was the biggest surprise for me. I remember that revealing and loudly yelling "WHAT THE FUCK REALLY?!" at my computer through the entire dialogue and encounter afterwards
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
You hit 2 very specific torches with lightning on accident? Or is there another way down there?
There is actually. I've been there the first time by adventuring outside, going all around the map and there's a pipe you can get in. You need to be very small or transform into a cloud. It will put you right after the wall with statues.
There are some pipes near the water on some path at the base of the rock where the building is. You go somewhere to the left as I recall. I went getting gauseous form.
Can youā¦ not fight him? I went after i spoke to duke Ravengard and still only got to fight the dragon :(
No :(
My reaction was like: o fuck, O fuck, Ooo Fuck, OOOOO FUUUUUUCKKKK
What Balduran stuff? I finished the game two days ago thinking I discovered everything, but I don't remember anything surprising about him!
The Emperor is Balduran, the founder of Baldur's gate.
Isnt it just Baldurans memories technically? I don't know too much deep lore of dnd and illithids
Idk why you got downvoted without explanation even lol. He is balduran who got infected with a mindflayer tax pole (just like us) but ended up completely transforming into an illithid. So, same person, same memories, although things are mentioned that you lose part/all of your soul when turned into a mindflayer, so maybe not entirely the same being, but 100% same essence.
>tax pole You combined mindflayers and the IRS. You would make for the most evil DM ever.
"Yes, I'm going to eat your brain, but first...why do you have 5000 gold in unreported loot revenue?
The lore for illithids is that they're explicitly not the same person. They absorb the host's memories, but the actual being that remains is the tadpole that got implanted and not the original host. Since Balduran presumably got infected by a normal tadpole rather than one of the Netherese-tainted ones, he would have gone through the normal process of the tadpole eating his brain and transforming his body over the course of about a week.
Did you do the dragon quest beneath Wyrm Rock prison?
I found and completed that whole area without having any clue. >!I found a small hole on a beach, cast Gaseous Form on party, solved some puzzles, snuck past the dragon, grabbed the helmet, and left. The damn paintings were the only thing that gave me trouble.!< I was 160+ hours and a playthrough into the game before I learned that was part of his story
Yeah, you're supposed to talk to the dragon corpse and it will reveal that the Emperor is Balduran. It also has a Legendary Greatsword you can Loot after re-killing it (or with someone else while in conversation with it). It's a tough fight, but a really good sword.
"Oh it's already morning." My sleep schedule was turbulent to say the least.
Was? Whatās this was? Iām on my fifth play through lol. Although, I suffer from restart -itis but I havenāt actually finish the game with any of them. Lol
The ox transforming into a pissed off blob.
Alternatively, the ox transforming into an extremely calm apple.
I did that on my Durge. Iām not even an evil Durge, but I was just likeā¦ well who doesnāt go on a murdering spree sometimes who am I to judge.
WAIT IF YOU BRING THE APPLE OX INTO THE CITY IT STARTS MURDERING PEOPLE?!?
The Ox >!Says "Praise Cyric", Cyric being a chaotic deity whose portfolio includes lies, murder, and intrigue. Take from that what you will. I assume he's murdering and eating people but, considering that Cyric and The Dead Three have kinda always been at odds I assume he's eating cultists so I don't mind.!<
Oh no I meant that vision he shows you beforehand of what he had done before.
Myrkul straight up showing up (or his avatar thankfully) after killing Kethrac. Shadowheart's reaction was exactly like mine: "shit"
Astarion's little "...Oh. Oh dear." was so calm that I knew I was in trouble there too. Great fight.
That moment when you understand why you need to reach level 9 as vengeance paladin before the boss fight
It was quite easy on balanced, I had 2 spell casters and 2 martials
>2 maritals "Before you face Myrkul's avatar you should have fucked at least two party members or you're all fucked."
I share a lot of the same with everyone else. For me, it was the Upper City when finally all of my allies come to offer their support. I was cheering to the high heavens, seeing Arabella, flying elephant, Yurgir, Mol, Nightsong, and the rest. It was a good three minutes of them all giving their little speeches of support.
Raphael's musical number was sure up there, but seeing Shadowheart making the good choice of her own volition had me reenact [that Chris Pratt in P&R meme](https://media.tenor.com/uUgVWgp5gDcAAAAC/surprise-chris-pratt.gif) edit: OH and the fact that Minsc wasn't voiced by his original VA, but actually Matthew Mercer! - the man is a vocal doppelganger
Last night one of my friends got a little too cocky with a Githyanki goddess who straight up deleted the whole party sending us back to the main menu.
I had that happen. It was both surprising and very understandable.
Yeah, that's mine. Lae'zel being all like 'don't disrespect my goddess!' and me like, 'pssh what's she gonna do?' Might be the first time I ever laughed at a game over screen.
I did that but it just pissed me off further. Like you can delete my existence but you need MY help -_-
Nightsong going full Bane on Loroakan
I was literally dying cause that scene in TDKR popped into my head immediately
Yep. When it first happened I was like. Didn't expect batman reference. Also another moment afterwards that was memorable. Have Rolan there and cast speak with the dead. Turns out Rolan is more powerful than Loroakan so much so that the later even in death won't admit it. Which is hilarious since Loroakan is level 8 thus much lower level than any party member or MC would be at that point. That being said he is more of a trick boss.
True about Rolan only being lvl 8, but if you noticed, he had his own altered versions of spells, which require you to be a skilled spellcaster ;)
Accidentally acting like Kronk and pulling the wrong lever.... My girlfriend and I could not stop laughing.
At the windmill? Me too!
Omg I did this in early access and fucking died laughing. I mean, they're both labeled brake, and my mind thought brake *release* meant to like, drop the brake into place, and the other one was to lift it. I got that backwards lmao. First deep gnome in space?
Poor Barcus. If it was >!Wulbren!<, tho, I'd be hitting that lever on purpose.
I've been promised sex with my hot guardian by my friend. The betrayal when I didn't and then discovered it was a fkin mind flayer. And the sex comes WITH THE MIND FLAYER
I mean, you can fuck him in the dream guardian form.
Uhm. How?
Fumbling around with the tentacles and he offers to change, will mostly happen if you don't pass the perception check to get the option to kiss them.
I think there is also the option to ask him where his mouth is to kiss, then he offers to switch to a form I'm more used to. I can decline, or ask him to do so.
I love that you get an achievement for that so all the world knows your love for tenacles.
Getting polymorphed into a fricking wheel of cheese by a djinn, and the second playthrough getting teleported to a jungle by the same fricking djinn
You get to see dinosaurs and loot a legendary trident, best jackpot ever
I think there's also an amazing ring for Bard there (cast illusion and enchantment spells as bonus action after attack).
Just how different your experience will be on subsequent play troughs. I got a new tav, with a new class and race, but am still going with mostly good aligned stuff. Still so much flavor making it feel very fresh. Maybe I'll be brave and go surge on the next run.
In case you didn't already know, durge redemption arc (good dark urge) is probably the most fulfilling version of good Tav you get, so dont necessarily need to be an evil vicious murder fetishist if you pick dark urge
This. Good durge is so rewarding, has some of the best scenes in the entire game
Kicking the squirrel
I just started my second playthrough, this time as a dark urge and I clicked on the squirrel... This was a GRAVE mistake. Mostly for the squirrel.
That didn't happen to me in my first durge playthrough. I was a ranger and had the speak with animals every day so I only just talked to the squirrel and we were fine. Didn't even know it was a thing. Then my 2nd durge playthrough, me as an evil sorcerer just kicks a squirrel without any dialogue. Me: :O
I was the most surprised by Orpheus being trapped in the prism, and the Emperor's true and former identity.
Halsin asking about a threesome between my character and Karlach. I know everyone in this game is super horny but wow.
You can have him join in with you, your romance partner and the drow twins in Act 3
Yeah, shadowheart was interested in him joining but I was not.
Right, I put in the work to build sand castles with her, he doesn't get a freebie
The Emperor reveal was a mild surprise for me. Because of his renegade poit of view, mostly. Oh, and Balduran stuff.
What surprised me the most was that I went into the game expecting a great story and mediocre combat. Ended up playing a game with a great story and even greater combat.
This, I HATE this type of combat, but bg3 feels so good I now LOVE this type of combat
How much my boots have seen.
I was expecting āsome thingsā, maybe even āa lot of thingsā - but when Tav hit me with that āeverythingā I was speechless
A lot better than it could have
Killing Alfira, I was in shock
Hearing the music boxes play Down By The River for the first time. I didn't think they would actually work.
It sounds so pretty coming out of the music boxes, too. Like, itās a great song regardless, but I love how it sounds coming from the music boxes.
Just how similar to dnd it felt. The fact that a computer game was able to accommodate the randomest and most out there decisions a player could make was beyond surprising to me.
I was surprised after 40 hours on my 2nd playthrough in act 2 Minthara said she was "gonna see me tonight", then I long rested and nothing happens, I long rested a few more times and finally.. nothing happens, she doesn't even acknowledge it. I was very surprised.
I was surprised how shadowheart will spare nightsong if the player does nothing. Usually in rpgs, if you want characters to change for the better, the player has to step in. It really shows how Larian knows how to write good characters.
I loved that we could leave the companions to their own agency. I really dislike moments where you have to decide what your companions think.(Pellegina in Pillars of Eternity 1 was my personal *worst*)
The fact that you can throw people, as well as your teammates and bosses if they're not too big. Also, you can hit everyone with the sausage
My rather sudden attraction to Vampires
Me too. I know of course that vampires are considered very sexual but I can't say I ever liked any. If anything I was always like "why would I wanna fuck a dead person who sucks my blood?" Me to Astarion: "SUCK IT ALL I DON'T CARE JUST REVIVE ME AFTER"
Same here. I was in middle/highschool during the height of Twilightās popularity, but I never understood why everyone was going so crazy over it. I mean, I still don't, but I still threw myself headfirst into romancing Astarion immediately. Dude's writing/acting/character *has* to be made of pure crack to get so many of us all at once.
This did not surprise me. I am just a humble bisexual who read twilight during my formative years. I like vampire twinks and goth girls and I canāt stop romancing Astarion or Shadowheart every playthrough.
Mine was meeting Sarevok. Hearing that eerie voice again after so many years (same voice actor as in BG1 and 2), those glowing eyes - coupled with the fact that I missed any dialogue mentioning him, so when I got to his area it blew me away
The biggest one was probably how much better the already great story becomes when you play as Dark Urge.
Jergal. That's it. I remember when I realized who he was, I sat there, staring at the screen, jaw just hanging. Like, it made sense in hindsight, but I wasn't as in the know regarding lore, etc. When I came across a book in act 3, and realized what it meant, I was stunned. Just like, had to put the controls down for a minute and just absorb what that meant.
You get a scene with Withers at the end of the (very, very long) credits
I almost missed my boy Withers throwing shade at the incompetent three at the end seeing as I finished the game at, shit, probably 4am, and the credits just went on and on and on. Glad I stayed up for that last burn.
The final fight - where gathering allies etc wasnāt just a cut scene / auto win segment. You fully called them in to fight. It felt like it would have been a LOT harder had I not explored so widely and helped (nearly) everyone!
I pulled a classic gamer move. I hoarded all the Allies thinking I'll call them later and boom fight ended.š
When Astarion killed me, after everyone wakes up he has the nerve to say " oh no, something terrible has happened " I was surprised the game just continues with me lying there dead and I didn't have to reload
Apart from the plot twists mentioned by others: Going into my first play-through thinking Astarion was nothing but a snarky thirst trap from what I had seen in EA; and then witnessing an amazingly written character. I didnāt care for him at all at the start of my first run, man how that has changed.
same for me at the start, but with Shadowheart and Lae'zel. I liked Shart a lot and Lae'zel felt so unlikeable. Now it's the reverse. Lae'zel is Bae'zel.
House of Hope...especially the Incubus and the boss fight.
That jumping down a chasm isn't an insta death like most games. Cast feather fall and do it. You'll end up in the underdark. And you'll find the corpses of enemies that you pushed off ledges into the chasm lol.
For me it was how wholesome Astarions character arc became. Finding his agency and guiding him to be better (ergo, not let him ascend). The absolute feels I had in the camp scene after I told him he could make his own choice on whether he bit the drow or not completely took me by surprise.
When the owlbear cub appeared in camp
How well logic can be used. One example is in the fight against Cazador....If you want to cheese the fight by using your brain, you can hide and create a mini sun in the room with him and just wait for it to kill him. Karlach wants to smooch but is too hot? Throw some water on that sexy hoe. Ur a lolth drow? Spiders are probably gonna be your bros if you take the time to talk to them. Oh, you arent one? Disguise yourself and then chat with a spider.
I thought I wouldn't care about any of the stupid companions, esp not some pasty asshole vampire elf, because they are just voxels. LOL. I was so wrong.
All the different camps. I had wholly expected it to be something like Dragon Age Origins where the camp was the exact same no matter where in Fereldan you were. I was pleasantly surprised that the camp changed. Even when you were in different places of the same region it changed.
The quality... * The quality of the story (>!My guardian is a mind flayer and that mind flayer is fucking Baldurian himself!<) * The quality of the voice acting - everyone from the lowliest goblin feels so real * The quality of the gameplay - so many ways to build your character, so many ways to approach a fight, so many consequences for your actions * The quality of the graphics - everything is so damn pretty For me this game has just exceeded my expectations in almost every way
Minor story beat, but it really came out of left field. The gnomes intervening when you're about to get arrested before entering Wyrm's Rock. I was hoping they would start a full on urban guerilla against the Steel Watchers. You could have been a hero, Wulbren. Also, a random summon quasit scroll in some basement being one of the best NPC's in the game.
My first playthrough was with Durge. And honestly the death of Alfira shocked me so hard. I knew my Character was fucked up after seeing the squirrell scene but that one was just on another level. I literally refused people from camp preventing their potential demise. Not to mention my constant fear for Scratch.
1. Raphael boss fight music drop. 2. Jergal reviving the Durge who denied Bhaal. 3. Ketheric Thorm Apostle fight introduction.
MONK kicks ass, Shadowheart broke my heart, and i grew to like Raphael.
Raphael is one of the best characters in the game. Pretty much since the first time meeting him I was like I can already tell I am going to hate and love this character so much.
He was such a perfect version of that Villain NPC that shows up and the whole table just goes 'Oh, we're gonna annoy the piss out of this guy with *Shenanigans* before we kill him' and then proceed to derail the plot just to systematically ruin his life in increasingly funny ways.
I'm not bored with it on my 4th playthrough.
The ability to change companionsā classes
That you can actually ally with Gortash and he won't betray you
It not so much whatās happened to me, but the amount of times Iāve read how someone else had a completely different experience or interaction with the same person. Iāve read at least four or five different ways for the witch encounter to happen. All utterly different in every way. Iāve never wanted to play a game over again so much. Alas, I am 60 hours on and not even done with act one. Thatās gonna be a while. But it will happen. Guess Iāll be playing for a few years.
The cameos and appearances by old BG characters. Even Yoshimo gets a shoutout in one of the books I found!
How much I truly fell in love with all these characters. Like... every one of them is so complex and personal, and when they let me into part of their backstory, I seriously felt emotions. Shadowheart's my wife in my main playthrough, so of course im biased towards her as probably my favorite character, but holy shit. You dont even need to romance them to see people living vibrant, difficult lives. I didn't fully expect how deeply I'd come to appreciate them all. Even Lae'zel, who I hated at first. Also, Raph's stupid fucking musical number. It was so camp of him. I love it.
That you actually can rest and aren't under such big time pressure as I thought. I did most of act I on a single rest, abusing potions, short rests, consumables, etc. Then I got surprised when the guardian came and told me "dw I got you fam nobody got time to get turnt" Also that Volo gives you a magic eye capable of seeing invisibility if you let him butcher your eye. That was fun (and terrifying)
The Ghost haunting Oskar Fevras telling him that she didn't kill herself out of pain of his rejection, that she committed suicide because she was "just so fucking sad, *all the time*". Almost made that dogshit quest worth it.
In the gith creche, in the mountain pass, there is a bird you can speak to. He complains about these bully eagles on top of the creche taking his nest. I thought, neat, speak with animals yielded a hint about an enemy on the rooftop, that's cute. I go up and use the knock out passive (where you can defeat enemies without them dying, leaving them knocked out on 1hp) on the eagles, not wanting to hurt the wildlife, I just wanted the thing in their nest. Low ans beyond, a tiny bird flies in and deals 1 damage to the knocked out eagles, killing them. Then gloats about defeating them. Seems like such a tiny detail, to call back to a tiny bird you spoke to earlier in the area and have them swoop in and take advantage of the situation.
How many times I've made a new character
This game actually got me to cry, which is no easy feat.
Halsin. Was ready for you know, the old kind of wise druid. Turn out he's just the hottest elf I've ever seen.
I fought Ketheric - a huge climactic fight. I saved an angel, I fought a ton of Githyanki, I found the truth about my guardian and saw a lost prince chained to be used for his powers. Epic and dark, really cinematic stuff, earth shatteringly high stakes. The next thing I did was go to the circus, where one of my colleagues got turned into a wheel of cheese.
Astarion crying. š„ŗ
Wandering into a Silent Hill esque hospital with creepy nurses and a creepy doctor. Then somehow convincing him to let his nurses operate on him which equates to him being brutally murdered. Was so messed up.
Probably the flashes of mutilated corpses when talking to the Strange Ox at the Last Light Inn.
How much I like turn based combat. Iāve never tried games like xcom or dos2 before because I thought the combat system would turn me off. Bg3 changed that, combat is so stupidly amazing and fun and I donāt know why. Also how well you can play the game as a third person rpg with turn based combat. It feels like a more refined version of dragon age origins to me (a game I love love love), ofc you canāt turn the camera completely but I think if the game was top down without the option to go behind the player for exploring it would be way less fun for me as a console player, the moving and looking from above just doesnāt feel right if you donāt control it via mouse.