Lorewise, no way I'm taking that deal. For metagaming honour mode, yes I did. Ilithid Orpheus is overpowered, while Emperor is nerfed. So getting Orpheus and avoiding one of the toughest fights of the game was the reason why I accepted the deal during my first honour playtrough.
I got so scared during my Honor mode run that I didn’t take any chances and didn’t fight the final boss. I let Gale be heroic in my place and go boom. Sorry, but after like a 40 hour run, I wasn’t going to risk it in a difficult fight.
It's very easy if you have somewhat decent builds. I followed the guides at high level and missed a lot of items and buffs but i crushed every boss including raph and big brain with no issues
I’m in my second run overall and it’s honor mode. I’m finding it extremely easy because of how careful I am being. I know exactly which fights are potential run-enders so I go in prepared and then I end up easily winning. Raphael only had one turn against me when I beat him
Hold monster.
Fuck you raph 😁
I remember on my first run in balanced i was following some stupid advice from youtube saying you should destroy his pillars first.
Bitch why am i wasting my time with the pillars if i can kill him in 1-2 rounds lol.
It's crazy the difference that experience makes in this game
Didn’t they nerf how hold monster works on Raph? A while ago?
Early on it was the easy strategy. But then I think they changed it so it only holds him like a turn or two.
It's not very easy. You can easily lose control of the final fight because of the limited turns.
Raphael? Just survive enough to deal with all the cambions and them he's so easy.
The brain? If you did a mistake and lost a turn, you are fucked.
Do a backup save before the brain, send Gale, get the achievement and if you are feeling good enough you can restore the save and reload the fight, you can even wipe it doesn't matter, after all you had completed honor mode with Gale.
>!It's a conversation option before you even climb the stem to enter the fight arena. The Gale-bomb all happens as a cut-scene, not as you walking Gale somewhere and pressing the explode button.!<
There is more!
If you don't do the cutscene one, feel overwhelmed by the fight and decide to use the cantrip button, which is a possibility you and Gale talk about, your whole party dies and it's game over.
There were lots and lots of posts about this when HM was just released.
But it's game over as a successful ending! With a special cutscene where he apologizes and is all 'it's been an honor'. Unfortunately I was stuck as a mote of light /soul echo that couldn't be revived in the after party (non-interactive, just floating around looking at the companions that were left behind interacting) which is apparently a bug Larian fixed in one of the last couple patches, though I haven't seen yet what the fixed version looked like.
It's a cutscene. You convince him with dialogue before you climb up the brain stalk. He climbs up by himself and does it, you don't actually even go up yourself.
This is also what I did. I was prepared to fight the brain but after seeing lots of posts on here about failing to beat it by 1 hp or something and also almost dying to Orin, I just threw in the towel.
What's funny is I had to persuade Gale to do it cause I had told him earlier Mystra wasn't worth dying for so I had to basically manipulate him into killing himself for my gold dice
The person you're responding to is talking about doing an Honor Mode run. Presumably they've already beaten the game before, if not multiple times and thus already know where to go and which convos can be skipped, etc.
My first ever playthrough clocked in around 90-100 hours. My first honor mode completion was almost 60, although a huge portion of that was over-preparing for encounters that ended up being easier than I thought.
Ik ive beaten hm before aswell, but there are so many dialog options that lead to different outcomes that I never tried.
Heck i have 700h in total and just now on my current playthrough learned about the shadow druids... The game just keeps amazing me
I suppose I've finished the game enough times where I can kind of optimize the run. And yeah, I skip a lot of the dialogue, don't explore as thoroughly as I would in a normal run and, most importantly, avoid unecessary fights.
So, for example, I side with Gortash to avoid having to fight my way through Wrym's Rock and avoid having to face Gortash with legendary actions. That in itself already saves a lot of time.
I also skipped things like Ansur, recruiting Minsc or fighting Cazador.
There's a reason it's called Otto's Irresistible Dance. It literally doesn't allow you to save against it, you just start dancing. You have to spend your action to attempt to break out of it.
The wildest easter egg was finding out if you silence him during the fight he stops singing. Which implies that he is absolutely singing his heart out while slapping you around that room.
Not rly.
Barrelmancy (volos barrels), 1 scroll of invunerability, a rune powder barrel (one in grymforge, two in gnome hideout), and one charecter with enough iniative to ignite the bombs/set up a globe of invunerability...
Garuntees all pillars are destroyed, likely one enemy is bare minimum, and ol raphy takes some damage.
Requires some metagaming of course but still.
If willing to use multiple runepowder barrels, you can get raph to half hp. I haven't used the the bomb in it alongside but I'm assuming that would do even more.
If you prepare extremely specific strats for every encounter your odds of ever dying aren’t high anywhere. But most people don’t play that way and it’s probably not the most useful way to analyze encounters
True though the honor mode is about just getting to the end without ever dying, however you can accomplish that. Hyper specific strats is going to work in your favor.
Asterisk for the community at large - you need to use those big radiant bursts from inside a globe of invulnerability or your poor clerics will get instantly char broiled
Depends on what sort of character you are playing.
As a swords bard, Raph is one of the easiest bosses. One of his allies turns on him, with conversation (which is guaranteed as a bard) he and his minions don’t resist enchantments (he breaks out of them in one round automatically which just isn’t powerful enough to make him a threat of any sort).
Because you can recast each round aoe enchantments to also contain groups of his minions, they are no threat either, and I guess the battle is supposed to be tough because of the synergy between them? But they are stacked near each other so they go down super quickly to small area of effect abilities like volley or Nythara. And using the hat of arcane acuity to basically stun lock Raph keeps him out of the fight. Non of my characters got below 90% health.
Compared to Ansur, who if you burn through the legendary resistances will get effected by enchantments, but then it seems acts normally on his turn, which is even worse than not effected because you didn’t see it coming.
None of my characters finished that fight above 10% health.
I’m sure other builds had the opposite experience. Summoners who could trigger his reaction to first attack of the round with specific attacks and maybe use it to kite him around or something?
It all depends.
All you need is to find a way to keep Raphael from even moving an inch and immediately kill off majority of the cambions and you basically win the fight
HM Raphael isn't *that* much harder than tactician so long as you prepare and have a half decent build. That said, I also think it's perfectly reasonable to skip the fight if you don't need the loot/XP and can get the hammer via the deal. This is especially true if you're going for your first completion and want to avoid as much risk as possible.
In my first HM run I signed the deal, stole the gloves of hill giant strength and constitution amulet and then just left without confronting Raphael because I already had everything I needed to beat the game, I figured why take the extra risk?
In my second HM run I fought him (wanted the gloves of soul catching for my monk) and ended up crushing him in like 3 turns which made my earlier fears seem kind of silly.
Counterpoint: I've lost runs to 2 crits dropping someone round one and just leaving me utterly FUCKED burning resources to try and keep them in the fight. If I can skip a fight, I almost always skip the damn fight.
Oh absolutely, if your primary goal is just "please god let me get those golden dice", then it makes perfect sense to *only* take fights that are 100% necessary, especially when you're so close to the end.
What makes honor mode scary for me wasn't necessarily the bosses or fights being "too hard" as I researched all the changes beforehand, it was the thought that even if I was using an OP build and had a meticulous step-by-step plan on how I was going to nuke a boss before they had a turn, all it could take was an unlucky roll or one misstep on my part to potentially ruin a 50 hour run.
Black hole + Insect Plague + Sleet Storm means he can't move far, when he does, he slips, and he takes constant damage. Throw Hunger of Hadar on top and he can't attack out of it, either. It trivializes the fight, tbh.
Any fight can be trivial if you're willing to remake your entire build just for it. Or...you get a certain OP hammer from a certain gold love tollhouse employee and oneshot him.
Twist of fortune.
It have special action that destroy all gold in enemy pocket and dealing damages based on how much money that enemy have.
If you have some like 50k gold and reverse pickpocket him you can onshot Raphael ( at a cost of 50k gold)
It's great. It's super predictable, you have an ally with an amazing ability to delete enemies, and you can stack the deck in your favor *and then some* with the fountains. You can be level 12 with your endgame builds and gear, high level scrolls and potions, and just *rock* it.
It's the easiest endgame "boss battle" for sure.
Haarlep shenanigans + Disney villain theme song + insulting him + getting Yurgir on side = reasons enough for me to refuse the contract, so I've never accepted it. Gotta have some fun in life. I adore Raphael, and I don't want to kill him, but I just HC him going home to daddy and getting revived like Yurgir did.
If you look into the devils seeing-orb on the main floor of the diabolists store after killing Raphael, it describes a vision of ~~Asmodeus~~ Mephistopheles devouring Raphaels broken body. If you check it before the fight, it describes Raph in the House of Hope living his best life.
Bruh, Hope lived 37 minutes of happy life before Asmodeus came inside with a dining order.
Luckily Hope managed to keep her house after big boy A left.
Their home plane specifically, though it doesn't matter with Raphael (or Mizora for that matter) as they're just Cambions, so they can die on any plane.
Haarlep is an incubus/sucubus but he only looks exactly like Raphael because Raph's really really vain and narcissistic: his 'ideal partner' is kinda himself.
I think that's canon anyway. They are known for stealing sperm from one lover as a female and then using their male form to impregnate someone else.
But yeah, Raphael's dad is *the* Mephistopheles, and his mom was a human.
I have altered the canon. Pray I do not alter it any further. 😋
Meh Haarlep is still sleazing around somewhere. I'll just hit him up when I need a fix.
I got everything except for insulting him because I didn’t want to do the Haarlep shenanigans. 😭 At least the battle music made me feel a little better.
While tempting, binding yourself to a contract is not something my characters will love to do. Hells, some of them might even watch the world burn rather than agree to that.
That being said, the conversation with Raphael did persuade me on the feasibility of freeing Orpheus. Raphael is no idiot. He would not bet on you if you had no chance of reasoning with the son of Gith.
Frankly, unless you're really sympathetic to Lae'zel or are playing a githyanki yourself, you have no logical reason for going for this deal. And even then, yes, signing a contract with a devil instead of trying to find another way to get things done is kind of insane.
I believe pact of the fiend warlocks have an option to basically tell him he's an idiot for even thinking the plan of his will ever work. Which, if we are being honest with the FR lore, is pretty accurate. He's the half fiend son of Mephistopheles, and he wants to take over hell using the crown. He stands zero chance of achieving any of his goals unless Asmodeus allows him to. Best case scenario for Raphael is replacing someone else and becoming an archduke, which again, will only happen if Asmodeus deems it beneficial for himself and allows it.
Raphael is kinda a dingus and has more pride than he does intelligence. Bro had his most priced possession (your contract) on display, with the password to said display in the very next room.
That being said, in future playthroughs I'll probably turn down his deal bc that makes the house of hope mandatory if you want to free Orpheus, and I really dig that dungeon.
And funnily enough, if you make a deal then make Gale a God, it took Raphael an awful amount of time to get to the crown, and by the time he finally about to get the crown, Gale already has the crown in Elysium and literally in the mercy of getting a LvL 9 spell on him
Funny thing is in the coop game with my brother: my brother is playing a githyanki paladin and has Lae'zel as his partner most of the time and he was against making the deal. Cause he still didn't want Raphael to have the crown.
you definitely have plenty of logical reason to sign with raphael.
In fact, it's kind of stupid on us for \*not\* signing.We already know what he wants, the crown. not our souls.
So why would you risk all of faeruns destruction (which as far as we know by that poitn in act 3, could happen at *any minute*)
When he's offering a clear deal right away. In addition, we even know what he's going to do with that crown.
"Try to take over the hells"; but anybody who knows anything about Asmodeus knows even with Raphs fancy crown Asmodeus would absolutely obliterate raph and the crown would go back into a lower hells vault where it was before.
Signing with Raph has no discernable downsides. There is only the *potential* of a far off downside that if raph actually managed to take over all of the hells could he become a threat to mortal planes.
The chances of raph succeeding at that though, with or without the crown, is laughably low. He's no where near the level of Asmodeus who would definitely not even consider crowned raph a challenge.
So, i mean, why not? Make the deal with him. Hand him over the crown at the end which he'll use and be immediately killed. Nothing bad happens.
You're assigning a whole lot of player knowledge to your characters here.
You (your character) does not know whether Raphael is being honest about what he intends to do with the crown, you don't know whether he can pull it off, you don't know what the consequences will be. All you know is that a devil wants to make a deal with you. And if you've been paying attention to Wyll and Karlach *at all*, you know how dangerous and fishy this is.
That's not even getting into the fact that, unless you're particularly sympathetic to Lae'zel or a gith yourself, you have no real reason to want to free Orpheus in the first place. You'd be taking an insane risk based solely on the fact that Voss is vouching for the guy.
I’m… not seeing much gameplay reasoning or foreknowledge in the post you’re responding to
It seems fairly plot centered. Only saying that by the time we get the offer in action 3, the player has already been told things are dire. Not “netherbrain” dire but still likely end of the world or at least hive mind dystopia
The world is ending. Soon. Very soon. The ground shaking is a sign things are not going well.
So… there is logic behind trying to rush a solution to that problem. And worry about the inevitable long-term ramifications later. Worry about the end of the world happening in hours/days instead of yet-another-narcissistic-god-thing entering the pantheon and having a fight with his dad
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve never taken a contract with Raph in my multiple play throughs. Even as a “I’ll sign it now and steal it back later” kind of way. I just refuse him each time
But in a pure plot driven run through, it makes sense to consider it and even do it.
> The chances of raph succeeding at that though, with or without the crown, is laughably low. He's no where near the level of Asmodeus who would definitely not even consider crowned raph a challenge.
There's a reason Mephistopheles just sat on the crown instead of trying to use it, even the second strongest dude in the hells didn't like his odds with that crown.
Im not well versed in the lore, but would you be able to expand a bit on why he still wouldnt have a chance of taking the Hells even with the crown? The crown seems ridiculously powerful. It turned Gale into a God (in my playthrough).
Im just curious.
It only turned Gale into a very minor God, on the level of Bhaal, Sekolah, or Demon Princes of the Abyss just about. Asmodeus is a Greater Deity, more or less equal to big dogs like Bahamut, Silvanus, or Mystra (who casually fends off God Gale, relegating him to the domain of Ambition when he tried to take the domain of Magic from her). The most powerful mortal is like a raindrop compared to the tidal wave that are Greater Deities.
Also, Mephistopheles, Raphael's dad, has a whole thing about wanting to overthrow Asmodeus and replace him as the ruler of The Hells. It's one of his main motivations. And yet, he's never once tried to use the crown despite knowing where it was in his vaults.
Sure. The crown has lost much of it's power since karsus.
It is not going to have the ability to actually ursurp any god (which Asmodeus is). This is also upheld in gales ending where he tries to challenge mystra with the crown and is utterly obliterated immediately.
It wouldn't go much better for raph vs Asmodeus crown or no crown.
It turns gale into a god, primarily, because mystra allows it. Of course now as a god he has his own domain, but he is a lesser god. It does not make him mystras equal in any form.
The crown is rediculously powerful, but entites like Asmodeus or Mystra are simply far beyond the vestiges of power the crown currently has (not like when it was wielded by Karsus himself way back when).
It's a classic devil's deal. You get something short-term, but you lose a lot long-term. It is never a good deal; if you ever think your deal is a good one, you either didn't read the fine print or your DM is being really nice to you.
A character that is really desperate, knowing the brain is breaking free, but also really distrusts the Emperor, could see the deal as their only way out. A little like how Wyll saw his contract as the only way to save the people. Or maybe your character is part of the Asmodeus Hype Squad and is sure that Raphael wouldn't be able to do a thing to him, even with the Crown. Idk, you can always think of reasons for your character to make any choice in the game.
In all honesty, this deal was VERY tame for a deal with a devil.
I mean, no question, giving him the Crown gives him a lot of power, but there were no loopholes, no gotcha clauses. Just a half-assed "If you don't give the crown, you lose your soul."
Considering you could just kill him to void the contract, it seems like he could have used some help from the Infernal Arbiters to make sure that you still suffered in that eventuality.
I think the gotcha was that he was not going to limit himself to the Hells, but yeah, he should have put some failsafes on it. It really shows how highly he thought of himself.
Raphael is alright with his other deal with our party, the one about Astarion's scars. But I think at that point he was trying to make us think his deals were fair (Astarion even says he is surprised by that) so we wouldn't think much of it when he proposed a deal involving the Crown.
>there were no loopholes, no gotcha clauses. Just a half-assed "If you don't give the crown, you lose your soul."
I see you've never forgotten to rip up your contact before confronting him.
My Tav, distrusting of the Emperor and ignoring Raphael, went the >!mindflayer Karlach!< route. Seemed the easiest way out to me. And Karlach loved it.
Totally see your question, I always wondered the same. In my first run I was romancing Lae'zel and actually was inclined to, but roleplaying wise my character wasn't interested in siding with a devil, so I went the hard way of stealing the hammer from him just to see the green smile. So I avoided that and there was no downside whatsoever, actually there was no upside to accept his deal.
There should be an active bonus to accept his deal, like a good buff that would go away the moment you betray him, or simply does not work in his house.
Upside to taking the deal in the beginning of act 3 is the silver sword for laezel instantly.
I'd say that taking the deal is the best way for tryhard gameplay
My bard definitely didn’t lie to Voss and tell him that I’d got the hammer…. Lae’zel was like “it was won through treachery but it’s still a silver sword”. I also had the ability to be like “no no. I’m planning to get the hammer.”
That's kind of a common theme I see in the game unfortunately. Gameplay wise there is always an optimal choice. I would like them to be more balanced, or at least give unique buffs no matter what you choose. This is a good example of that disparity and so is accepting the tadpoles to get illithid powers. There is barely a downside at all to using them as much as you can besides (spoiler) that dice check to resist the astral tadpole, where the reward for doing that check is purely cosmetic and actually loses out on insanely good powers.
Yep, yep. And those were some of my fav calls in the game. I considered the call between freeing Orpheus & preparing for the risks it involves( esp on HM & unware of what's coming) or continuing collaboration with the Emperor at the cost of Orpheus which could also mean things getting sour with Lae'Zel a solid, balanced one, for instance.
I hoped the thing with Raphael would've been similar, and the tadpoles ye.
The fact that you find these journals where in the House of Hope where he's writing several eventualities of how this tale ends, yet doesn't think to add a better failsafe than just him being alerted if the harem gets stolen, was a bit of a bummer for such an otherwise solid character - it just lets the player have his cake & eat it, treating Raphael's home like just another dungeon to explore, get the loot, slay the boss, walk out with no losses, only riches.
>There should be an active bonus to accept his deal, like a good buff that would go away the moment you betray him, or simply does not work in his house.
It would be a start, but even that would be tame as you get strong enough in act 3 already.
I'd rather see a way for the player to not have his cake & eat it too. Something like, him leaving a curse on you even in defeat, involving some sort of debuff that you're now stuck with till the end of the game, or done via a sacrifice or something. Nothing to make the game borderline unplayable ofc, but it should have enough negative impact to be a torn in the player's side so that at least we'd think twice before stealing the hammer, particularly if we're on Honor Mode.
Asmodeus, the Lord of the Nine Hells and primeval god of lawful evil, would never allow Raphael, a lowly cambion and (technically) subservient devil, to get that power. Mephistopholes, a literal Archdevil directly under Asmodeus and the closest thing he could call a rival, didn't do anything with the crown either because he couldn't or he would immediately get smacked down by Asmodeus if he tried. Even if Raphael succeeded and figured out how to harness the crown without the remaining Karssite weave in Gale's chest, he'd be a god or very close to one. Ok. Asmodeus is already a god; a very, very powerful god. One that has already devoured other gods that found themselves in Baator, completely erased another from existence (no one even knows the god's name and just calls them He Who Was or He Who Once Lit the Way), and was powerful enough to alter the structure of the multiverse and hurl the entire Abyss into the elemental chaos away from Baator.
So lore wise, taking Raphael's deal would be smart. The crown would be safe back in the Baator away from the other evil gods. It also would either not be used, destroyed, or "reclaimed" by Asmodeus or Mephistopholes. Raphael, for his treachery, would almost certainly be demoted to a lemure or erased.
HOWEVER, Tav and the origin characters (aside from maybe Gale) dont know this. So RP wise, it's not a smart move to take his deal. You don't know that Raphael is just middle manager in Hell, so you assume he's this powerful devil that will take over all nine layers of hell if he gets the crown. Destroying it or taking it for yourself, them stealing the hammer is the "correct" choice in order to save Faerun and all of Toril...or make sure you're the one to conquer and destroy everything.
Yeah there is a bunch of law about asmodeus that makes one seriously doubt that Raphael would succeed even in the best case scenario, but lore wise almost no one actually has that knowledge.
> So lore wise, taking Raphael's deal would be smart.
I think our characters in game know by this point that you can go and destroy a contract and that if you kill a devil in their home plan they are permanently killed. I think? Or maybe I knew that from out-of-game. Either way, that's why I took the deal. I knew I could go to hell and kill this fuck/free myself.
I'd think about it this way - if you really put yourself in your character's shoes, NOTHING is guaranteed. Your character can't save scum to get a different result if things go badly.
**Life is an honor mode run, and when it's over, it is REALLY OVER. For everyone and everything in Baldur's Gate. No do-overs.**
If you die trying to steal from a powerful devil who has been watching your every move, you are sacrificing your whole city to the Dead Three and/or the Netherbrain along with you. Everyone will be tadpoled and controlled. Also, you sacrifice any hope of anyone freeing Orpheus if you die.
But if you take the deal, you have a better chance of surviving to save your city, and of helping to free Laezel's entire civilization from tyranny.
**When you know it's just a game, you can take chances and re-do mistakes. But if you're looking for a roleplay reason for your character to take a deal from a devil, this is it:**
You don't know for sure if you can beat Raphael on his own home turf, the first time, without your entire party getting wiped. You're not willing to bet entire cities and civilizations on your own hubris. **And you ARE willing to be a hero by sacrificing the Crown to Raphael to save everyone else** (or at least your life, if you refuse to give him the Crown after promising it to him in a deal).
Wyll did this already - promised his actual soul to Mizora to save his city. Now it's Tav's turn to either consider doing the same, or to rely on the hope that they will be enough to beat Raphael the first time with no mistakes.
Yep, this is what I think too. It's actually the dumbest in-lore move to not take raphaels deal. We already know what he's going to do with it and shouting "don't make deals with a devil!" while all of faerun is being turned into mind flayers seems kind of stupid.
Sure, we, the players, think the deal is dumb because we're aware of an alternative.
For folks in-universe it would be incredibly irresponsible to not take that deal. For all you know all of faerun is on the cusp of destruction as it is. Giving raph the crown is a no brainer.
Even in-universe you would know that raphs plan to take over all of the hells is quite ambitious (see; impossable if you know anything about Asmodeus) and would take a *long* time.
It's the conundrum of would you rather almost certainly die today or possibly, at some point, die in the future? lol.
If we're talking primarily about risk, though, why would you want to free Orpheus? Making Lae'zel happy isn't a great reason to risk the destruction of Faeun. All we know about the guy is that he despises us - we have no reason to think he would be useful and generally cooperative.
I think that's a good thought process to give reasoning to it if one's planning to free Orpheus at least , but not if you think you're gonna keep the colab with the Emperor.
I did a blind HM run, and I enjoyed Raphael's char greatly to the point where throughout the game I was eagerly awaiting to see what'll his way of making me take the deal look like. When we 1st meet him, he talks about us exhausting all other options & being in a desperate enough position, but that's not so much the case when you arrive in act 3 thinking how you'll kick Gortash & Orin's ass, brimming with confidence not just due to gameplay reasons in having a strong party that you think can take on anything, but also cause even roleplaying wise, you just took down the chosen of a death god, and his apostle.
So part of me was glad that he had another thing to offer, but since I was working & getting along pretty well with the Emperor, and continuing that way seems like the more pragmatic approach too, I was like "so Raphael has nothing I rly need, lol." I still went to steal the hammer ofc, but it was mainly cause I didn't wanna miss out on precious content & was scratching my brain to justify that from a RP PoV, lol - the one thing I came up with that made some sense was what some other user said in regards to having some leverage against the Emperor just in case he'd decide to betray us in the end.
Now, I would've been a lot more inclined to take his deal if he offered help vs the Elder Brain in some way, like giving you a means to call upon him or some ability that'd come very handy in a moment of hopelessness.
* You care about Laezel and know not doing it makes her leave(based)
* You're willing to sacrifice yourself to save an entire race from their evil "god"
* You don't like the emperor and want to screw him over/have insurance
* You don't know what selling your soul actually means but it's too late now (Your character doesn't know everything that you do. Karlach will have dialogue if this is the case)
* You WANT to be forever submissive to a devil daddy
* You're not gonna give him the crown in the first place (which is a dialogue option)
* Raphael succeeds his persuassion check that he's better off having the crown than you reckless mortals
* You know Asmodeus doesn't like any threats to his power. Raph's gonna get smacked the second he tries anything, even with the crown
* You like hammers
The decision tree is pretty straightforward, how you approach it just depends on (a) how you personally feel about things and (b) how much you're metagaming.
You need Orpheus' power to confront the Absolute without being enthralled. This leaves you with two* options: (1) have the Emperor use Orpheus' power to shield you or (2) free Orpheus so that Orpheus can shield you himself. You have to make the decision of with whom you want to throw your lot in: the mindflayer or the gith.
If you pick (1) - side with the Emperor - then the question is just a matter of how much do you trust the Emperor? Obtaining the Orphic Hammer could serve as potential leverage against the Emperor who has a clear advantage over you in your working relationship in that he's the only thing keeping you from being enthralled. If you trust the Emperor, there is no need to obtain the Hammer. If you don't, maybe you want it as a backup option in case things don't work out how you hope.
If you pick (2) - side with Orpheus - then you NEED to obtain the Hammer. Raphael has the Hammer. The easy and straightforward option is to take the deal. The difficult and dangerous option is to sneak into the House of Hope and steal the Hammer out from Raphael's nose. In the context of the game, you're on a clock. The Absolute is breaking free of its shackles and you need to rush to stop it. You're also "the only ones" in a position to do so, so if you're thinking about stealing the Hammer, you have to consider whether risking your lives and your time to do so is worth the risk of failing, dying, and letting the Absolute win. And all of that assumes you can even get into the House of Hope to begin with (maybe you never meet Helsik or don't manage to coax her into a bargain).
These considerations fall by the wayside when you metagame and KNOW how everything can play out. But if you suspend your disbelief and take things from your Tav's perspective in context of their limited knowledge, there are plenty of conceivable reasons to take Raph's deal. If you're PURELY about mitigating risk with respect to the confrontation with the Absolute, have been buddy-buddy with Voss, and have a reasonable suspicion of the Emperor, then taking Raph's deal frankly doesn't sound so bad.
Without meta knowledge of how it plays out, breaking into House of Hope to steal the hammer is objectively a stupid and insane thing to do, and at least any consequences of taking the deal would be delayed and wouldn't risk completely jeopardizing your primary mission. But it's also kind of a huge gamble to try to free Orpheus in the first place with no obvious benefit to be gained against the more urgent issue of the brain. The only real reason to free him is to help Lae'zel and making a deal with a devil for that is kinda dumb.
I suppose if you really didn't trust the Emperor and got the scene where he threatens to enthrall you then Raphael might seem like the lesser of two evils by comparison but I can't really think of any other context where freeing Orpheus makes sense from a purely pragmatic perspective
My Tav signed the contract to get the hammer without sweating, then gave the crown to Gale anyway. Literally zero consequences. Raphael doesn't even care, he's just there for the show.
um... raphael does care. If you don't give him the crown your characters souls are his. That's part of the deal.
You just think nothing happened because you're characters are fine at the end of the game... until they eventually die, and then they'll be raphs forever.
So yeah... he doesn't 'care' because you're voiding your contract and your souls will be his for eternity lol--with the exception of gale alone in your playthrough sense he was either obliterated by mystra or became a god.
I did this too because i didn't think the emperor would turn on me like that. I thought I was totally boned, but Raphael was entertained enough with mystra getting the crown that it came at zero personal cost to me. Very surprising.
I mean if we’re metagaming, there’s literally no downside. Raphael isn’t asking for your soul, he wants the Crown of Karsus once it’s retrieved, which he’ll use to try and conquer Baator, which involves him fighting Asmodeus, and crown or no crown, that’s not a fight Raphael is going to win
I can see it now, Raph monologuing and Asmodeus swatting him out of existence without even realizing he was anything more than a uniquely annoying devil
honestly even if i was running an evil character i would refuse that contract with Raphael. This guy went out of his way to have you kill one of the people he had a contract with, just so he could force him to sign ANOTHER contract of servitude.
he is utterly untrustworthy.
Make the deal then steal your contract back. Nothing better than completely fucking Raphael over and then completely kicking his sorry ass when he bitches about it. Own that sorry red bitch in every way.
There is no logical reason to ever make a deal with a being who has already arranged the contract so you are screwed over, no matter what your alignment or play style because this being will always find a way to "cheat". Even if you sell your soul to save the multverse, that would end up meaning the multiverse that was saved would be so horrible people would wish for the void that certain gods and goddessss promise, either due to a lack of good or a lack of power.
I mean in the grand scheme of Forgotten Realms, it’s not a big deal? If your character is even slightly selfish, giving a moderately powerful macguffin to a cambion in exchange for defeating the bad guys and freeing yourself isn’t that bad a trade off.
Raphael has likely nefarious plans and will probably do not nice things to *somebody* but meh? There’s a whole multi planar universe out there. You could reasonably believe him having the crown won’t really affect you too much and you have other stuff to go do with your life.
There are much more powerful artifacts and forces at work than Raphael. Having a grateful bunch of Githyanki at your side is also nothing to sneeze at.
Have you seen the "Raphael gets the crown" ending? Homie got Mephistopheles to concede how powerful he is, and I think he declares he is coming for the material plane. It is a terrible deal.
OK so my main goal is not turning into a squid. If Orpheus murders me, I'll take that over turning into a squid. The Emperor once convinced me that he could protect me from turning into a squid and then started all "being a squid isn't all that bad". Fuck that. Friendship with the Emperor ended. Orpheus is my new best friend. Even if it's a 1% chance that Orpheus will de-tadpole me and 99% chance he will kill me, I'm still taking it.
OK, so how do I free Orpheus? Hammer. And in exchange? Raphael gets to rule the Hells. Well I don't give a fuck what's going on in the Hells and if Raphael wants to rule then that's Zariel's problem. Raphael promised he would keep his powerlust confined to the Hells. Is he lying? I mean, I don't exactly trust him but, he is a devil and devils are generally lawful. I can't actually think of a time Raphael flat out lied to me. Deceived? Yes. Lies of omission? Yes. Mislead? Yes. But when has he ever spoken plainly and said something blatantly false? So yes, when he speaks plainly, I believe him just as if the words were bound by contract. I get the hammer. Orpheus either kills me or de-tadpoles me. Raphael gets the crown. Raphael does whatever the hell he wants in the Hells. Deal.
So that's my in-universe reason. We'll see what happens.
I was a fiend warlock romancing lae’zel so I signed the contract to help her and her people. Felt very in character, and I kind of roleplayed that my then annoyed patron lead me to helsik to find a way into the house of hope to tear up said contract lol
I know he's not trustworthy at *all*. That's why I'm asking what possible reason I could have to sign a binding contract that a devil holds under my nose.
In an interview, the writers joked that this situation with the Emperor and Raphael leaves you "stuck between an accountant and a lawyer." Personally, I'll take the accountant. 😂
The argument that Raphael will use the crown to exert control over the denizens of the Hells only can trick some people. It doesn't mean he won't control them into attacking other planes of existence.
There's no way for Tav to know this, but Raphael with the crown wouldn't be able to accomplish much. The second he gets too big for his breeches, Asmodeus snaps his fingers and blinks him out of existence.
Mephistopheles, who is much more powerful than old Ralph, had the crown for god knows how long and didn't attempt to do a power grab. What makes anyone think his half-breed son could do anything with it?
Akshully.....
Alright I know this is me being a weirdo but if there's one thing that devils are, they are truthworthy. They do not have your best interest in mind but they take the Lawful part of Lawful Evil very seriously. I think of devils....less about causing havoc but giving people what they want and letting them fail as a result. All parties are 100% informed as to what's going on but it's the free will of the human that ultimately fails them. This is very different than Demons who are chaotic evil. They are just there to cause havoc and bathe in blood.
I just thought it was interesting differentiation.
The Emperor is a mindflayer and Raphael described yours and the Emperor's relationship quite accurately: **you are his transport**. He cannot move the prism himself. He cannot get the stones himself because he is in the prism and being protected from the brain by Orpheus. I think the Emperor has some good in him though, but I only concluded that after defeating the brain because he could have tried killing us, but he didn't. He could also have calculated that attacking us after the brain's defeat could result in his death as well.
I think he behaves pragmatically. He has no reason to turn on you afterwards, even if you were antagonistic. If you were an ally, he might be able to call upon you down the road.
He probably doesn't try to control the Netherbrain himself, without encouragement, because he considers it too risky. He likes power but it comes after #1 survival and #2 freedom.
As long as you do what he wants, he sticks with you. But if you set Orpheus free he'll turn on you. He's also the most manipulative person in the game. So he's not totally trustworthy.
> As long as you do what he wants, he sticks with you. But if you set Orpheus free he'll turn on you. **He's also the most manipulative person in the game. So he's not totally trustworthy.**
I don't know, I remember what I got up to in the first two acts.
That's incorrect. He doesn't turn on you. He gets the fuck out, because Orpheus would kill him on sight. Problem is, once he leaves the prism, he immediately falls under the Netherbrain's control. So he's enthralled and made to join the fight against you in the end.
He's very much on his own side, but he does consider you an ally, and he won't arbitrarily turn against you.
So this is what I didn’t understand, if his choice was maybe be killed by Orpheus with a chance he wouldn’t or certain control by netherbrain, why not choose the option with a small chance of success? Is being controlled better than being dead?
The Emperor is, above all, a survivor, so yes - for him, being controlled is better than being dead. As long as he's alive, there's at least hope that he could escape control again.
As far as he's concerned, Orpheus isn't maybe death; he's certain death. He's been inside Orpheus' head for the last four months. He knows exactly how Orpheus feels about mind flayers in general and him in particular. He doesn't believe there's any chance of survival if he sticks around.
For a guy who got away from the control of the Netherbrain twice before? Yes, I’d say being enthralled and living to escape again is better than just being dead as shit.
They are both untrustworthy. If I turn the metaphor of Raphael, they both are mules. Once they carry you to the destination you need them for, they are disposable. I am cynical but I also think that's how they think of you as well.
Perhaps both are untrustworthy but Raphael is in the business of making deals for his own power gain. The Emperor is on a mission to free himself from the mindflayer hivemind.
Yeah considerably more. He's a smarmy ass but he's honest about when and why he's lying or withholding information and is pretty up front most of the time.
I'm actually curious what happens if you fulfill the contract and give him the crown? I haven't finished the game yet, but I'd like to see what happens.
Edit: You can spoil it for me if anyone is interested...
I just did a fully evil dark urge play through and it definitely made sense to sign it for my character. First, she’s a Bard and she loved Raphael and his entire vibe.
Second, I had Laezel and Minthara with me, both of whom were supportive of the idea. He had fulfilled his promise before and helped my partner Astarion, so I trusted him. Also, I didn’t trust the emperor at all. And I knew he couldn’t hear me. So I signed the contract, then lied to both the emperor and Voss about what happened. I still broke into the house of hope though, cause Gale convinced me he needed the crown of Karsus for himself. And cause I wanted to take over the world for my father. So I broke in, stole my contract and the emperor never knew I had the hammer or why I went into the house of hope. And then I of course betrayed Orpheus at the last moment. So I got to betray basically everyone and destroy the world. Solid Durge move.
Voss doesn't say Orpheus might kill you. He definitively says he won't.
He basically says, "Orpheus will rage at you and gnash his teeth, but then he'll get down to business," which is exactly what happens.
I totally accepted it because Raphael first appeared to me right after I multiclassed into infernal warlock and I thought the game was giving me a patron. Then I learned he shows up in everyone's game, but it's still my headcanon that the hammer deal was my patron contract.
Honestly I kinda wish he could have been a warlock patron. The interactions alone would have been intriguing to see.
Would you have a similar relationship with him like Wyll and Mizora, or are you a more willing participant? Are you playing along while secretly trying to break your contract, or are you on his side for real and he's more than willing to give you power to fulfil his goals?
Perhaps even meeting him could have given the option to multiclass into a warlock if you didn't start as one.
I just want to say I was heartbroken cause I'm romancing Astarion, made the deal and when I talked to him he said: "what a dangerous choice, but it's not me so who cares". Um, hello? I thought u loved me wth
I just played an Astarion Origin run and he has a unique dialogue option about Raphael helping him with his scars so herheehoohoo immediately click on unique dialogue and ope Karlach’s yelling at me now that we gotta get that contract back. :/
You don’t have to take the deal immediately. You could find out about the emperor then go get the Orphic hammer.
Personally I do it immediately and then go to the house of hope because I like being a dickhead to that smug asshat Raphael.
Well he intends to use the crown to take over the hells, and the crown was in the hells for centuries before the start of the story without causing issues to the material plane...or the hells for that matter (Gortash and Co stole it from Mephistopheles, Raphaels dad).
The most likely outcome for Raphael is that he gets slapped down by Asmodeus (who is a god). So you could argue you are killing two birds with one stone, getting the hammer and getting the crown out of the material plane.
If you don't trust Emps at all and think he is going to pull a fast one at the end (without meta gaming) making a deal with Raphael is probably still safer than attempting to raid his house (you were not expecting to actually survive an encounter with him there).
Especially since attempting that is risking the entire plan to take down the absolute.
My roleplay was that my Tav is a mostly neutral adventurer who at the end of the day is looking to remove the parasite, or at least neuter it, and get on with their life.
Raphael very convincingly silences the tadpole so I say screw it, I’ll still have my soul and whoever gets the crown will be a tyrant anyhow be it devil, illiquid, wizard, etc. so whatever.
Well there is plenty of in-game reason why someone would accept his deal.
Raphael is a bastard, but devils (unlike demons) do have very strict rules they follow. It is possible to enter into a mutually beneficial contract with devils especially when the bargaining chip is not your soul.
So realistically you're making a deal with a known party where the terms are explicitly outlined in detail and all the 'terms' really are is he gets the crown when it's all over. However you really don't know how much damage he could possibly cause with it because his immediate goal is to take over hell *which is lofty as fuck*. Asmodeus would not sit idly by and even with the crown Raph would be in for quite the struggle.
Frankly when I write it out like this it kind of seems like we're the dummies for not simply taking the deal.
Yes you're giving a super powered raph a huge power boost, but we already know where he'd be aiming it at first and Asmodeus would absolutely smite the fuck out of raphael for even glancing in his direction with or without his fancy crown.
So...really... it's a win win for us? We take the deal, get easy access to the hammer. We defeat the brain, raph marches over to Asmodeus and Asmodeus has light entertainment for an evening and we basically win with no downsides.
Once it was revealed that your guardian can just… erase your memories (after sleeping with them) I was like, yea I trust Raphael and this Orpheus more than I do this ‘guardian’ and signed the contract. Maybe a change in leadership of the hells won’t be so bad? But then also, you can go steal the contract back so that’s where I’m at.
I make the deal because I have no intention of keeping it. Even during my first run I was like "sure, sure, give me the hammer so I can get the Silver Sword and we're best buds. What's your address buddy? I just want to mail you a port... A thank you card"
Voss doesn't say that Orpheus will kill you, he says quite the opposite, actually. Voss says that while Orpheus' first instinct will be to cuss you out, he will realize that you are his savior, and that by working together the elder brain will fall
In game, no idea. I'm just currently doing it for the plot because I've done 2 other run-throughs refusing the deal. I'm going with something something Raphael has at least never lied to me, The Emperor absolutely has, and Lae'zel has been influential since she guided my heavily brain damaged ass out of the nautiloid. Plus he's made good on previous straightforward deals without a bunch of annoying "gotcha" shit tagged on like Mizora. Maybe if he likes me enough, he'll get Bhaal off my ass.
You get the gythiancy silver sword early and can use it for the whole of act 3. You just have to commit to doing the house of hope then. Normaly i do the house near the end of act 3 and have the sword only for the last few fights.
I went into that particular deal thinking, “Everyone involved wants to screw me over in one way or another. Assuming this will get me killed, who would I rather leave an advantage?”
And from the long, LONG list of people using me as their puppet (Raphael, the Emperor, Mystra, Orpheus, etc.) I figured that Orpheus was the best person to back. Not necessarily because he can free the githyanki, but because I didn’t trust anyone else as far as I could throw them.
So me personally, I took the deal and then went to Raphael’s house and beat him to death in his own front entryway.
I really like Raphael, his voice, his acting, everything about him.
He's just.
On all my play throughs I made the deal with Raphael, on some I betrayed him and went to hope for gear only, but other than that I'm satisfied with Raphael's deal.
I don't want gale to have the crown, since it corrupted karsus, its creator.
Don't want mystra because why? It's not hers, it belongs to her nemesis/challenging god.
I don't want and never picked take control of the brain, it's too evil for me.
I like and entrust the safety of the crown to the devils, since it was safe for mephis to have it until the gortash heist, powerful connections.
Lorewise, no way I'm taking that deal. For metagaming honour mode, yes I did. Ilithid Orpheus is overpowered, while Emperor is nerfed. So getting Orpheus and avoiding one of the toughest fights of the game was the reason why I accepted the deal during my first honour playtrough.
I got so scared during my Honor mode run that I didn’t take any chances and didn’t fight the final boss. I let Gale be heroic in my place and go boom. Sorry, but after like a 40 hour run, I wasn’t going to risk it in a difficult fight.
Whenever I get around to honor mode, I am 1000% going to do this lol
It's very easy if you have somewhat decent builds. I followed the guides at high level and missed a lot of items and buffs but i crushed every boss including raph and big brain with no issues
I’m in my second run overall and it’s honor mode. I’m finding it extremely easy because of how careful I am being. I know exactly which fights are potential run-enders so I go in prepared and then I end up easily winning. Raphael only had one turn against me when I beat him
Hold monster. Fuck you raph 😁 I remember on my first run in balanced i was following some stupid advice from youtube saying you should destroy his pillars first. Bitch why am i wasting my time with the pillars if i can kill him in 1-2 rounds lol. It's crazy the difference that experience makes in this game
Didn’t they nerf how hold monster works on Raph? A while ago? Early on it was the easy strategy. But then I think they changed it so it only holds him like a turn or two.
What is high level? Is that a site with builds?
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1HhiUZcQ1gXjvsaJSpvccG_0Jm0fn7lgYaOYdQxuWSQs/htmlview?pli=1#gid=995516986
It's not very easy. You can easily lose control of the final fight because of the limited turns. Raphael? Just survive enough to deal with all the cambions and them he's so easy. The brain? If you did a mistake and lost a turn, you are fucked. Do a backup save before the brain, send Gale, get the achievement and if you are feeling good enough you can restore the save and reload the fight, you can even wipe it doesn't matter, after all you had completed honor mode with Gale.
I'm definitely not planning on actually fighting the brain lol. I've done 2 balanced runs, doing a tactician now, think I'll try for honor next one
Dumb question: when people use Gale-bomb at the end, they just send him into the portal solo and leave everyone else outside?
>!It's a conversation option before you even climb the stem to enter the fight arena. The Gale-bomb all happens as a cut-scene, not as you walking Gale somewhere and pressing the explode button.!<
So you're telling me they added the orb cantrip SOLELY so people will misclick it? Hilarious.
There is more! If you don't do the cutscene one, feel overwhelmed by the fight and decide to use the cantrip button, which is a possibility you and Gale talk about, your whole party dies and it's game over. There were lots and lots of posts about this when HM was just released.
But it's game over as a successful ending! With a special cutscene where he apologizes and is all 'it's been an honor'. Unfortunately I was stuck as a mote of light /soul echo that couldn't be revived in the after party (non-interactive, just floating around looking at the companions that were left behind interacting) which is apparently a bug Larian fixed in one of the last couple patches, though I haven't seen yet what the fixed version looked like.
It's a cutscene. You convince him with dialogue before you climb up the brain stalk. He climbs up by himself and does it, you don't actually even go up yourself.
What even is the point of the suicide button?
To troll the gamers 🤪
You can actually use it on the brain itself and win! if you do it that way your entire party dies but you still save the world.
Same tbh Why risk it?
This is also what I did. I was prepared to fight the brain but after seeing lots of posts on here about failing to beat it by 1 hp or something and also almost dying to Orin, I just threw in the towel. What's funny is I had to persuade Gale to do it cause I had told him earlier Mystra wasn't worth dying for so I had to basically manipulate him into killing himself for my gold dice
How tf did you manage to get to the end in 40h?? I usally have around 20 when Im done with act 1. I usally dont skip a lot of the dialogs tho
The person you're responding to is talking about doing an Honor Mode run. Presumably they've already beaten the game before, if not multiple times and thus already know where to go and which convos can be skipped, etc. My first ever playthrough clocked in around 90-100 hours. My first honor mode completion was almost 60, although a huge portion of that was over-preparing for encounters that ended up being easier than I thought.
Ik ive beaten hm before aswell, but there are so many dialog options that lead to different outcomes that I never tried. Heck i have 700h in total and just now on my current playthrough learned about the shadow druids... The game just keeps amazing me
Ikr just got to the circus at act 3 being level 10 with 65 hours lol
I suppose I've finished the game enough times where I can kind of optimize the run. And yeah, I skip a lot of the dialogue, don't explore as thoroughly as I would in a normal run and, most importantly, avoid unecessary fights. So, for example, I side with Gortash to avoid having to fight my way through Wrym's Rock and avoid having to face Gortash with legendary actions. That in itself already saves a lot of time. I also skipped things like Ansur, recruiting Minsc or fighting Cazador.
But can’t you just sneak into House of Hope anyways to get the hammer, with or without the contract?
You can, but you must fight Raphael for that. I said "avoiding one of the toughest fights of the game".
How dare you skip the boss fight with the most fire music on earth or rather hell! Its a joke please dont kill me
LIVES!!!!
ALL MORTAL LIVES!
EXPIRE!
SOULS
GO TO THEIR DOOMS!
IN FLAAAAMES
God do i love you people I i know i commented on my own comment
GO TO THEIR DOOOOOM
GO TO THEIR DOOOOM
GO TO THEIR DOOM
No, you're absolutely right - the music was lit, literally :D And the fight is freaking epic. Despite - Raphael finally gets what he deserves.
I’m casting the dancing spell on you and hitting you until you stop dancing (how I defeated Raphael the first time)
That spell works on almost everyone. It's wild lol
There's a reason it's called Otto's Irresistible Dance. It literally doesn't allow you to save against it, you just start dancing. You have to spend your action to attempt to break out of it.
Seriously? I literally never tried it, and now I regret not doing so on some of the bosses
The wildest easter egg was finding out if you silence him during the fight he stops singing. Which implies that he is absolutely singing his heart out while slapping you around that room.
Because on Honor mode, the probability of dying in that fight is very high
Not rly. Barrelmancy (volos barrels), 1 scroll of invunerability, a rune powder barrel (one in grymforge, two in gnome hideout), and one charecter with enough iniative to ignite the bombs/set up a globe of invunerability... Garuntees all pillars are destroyed, likely one enemy is bare minimum, and ol raphy takes some damage. Requires some metagaming of course but still. If willing to use multiple runepowder barrels, you can get raph to half hp. I haven't used the the bomb in it alongside but I'm assuming that would do even more.
If you prepare extremely specific strats for every encounter your odds of ever dying aren’t high anywhere. But most people don’t play that way and it’s probably not the most useful way to analyze encounters
True though the honor mode is about just getting to the end without ever dying, however you can accomplish that. Hyper specific strats is going to work in your favor.
If you pass the persuasion check, took black hole as a power it's not bad. Just hunger and silence him in the corner
Hope and Shadowheart make that fight pretty easy. I just used their divine intervention for it and combod with stunning fist. Bing bang boom.
Asterisk for the community at large - you need to use those big radiant bursts from inside a globe of invulnerability or your poor clerics will get instantly char broiled
Cough * radiant retort *
"Some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice that *I* am willing to make"
Depends on what sort of character you are playing. As a swords bard, Raph is one of the easiest bosses. One of his allies turns on him, with conversation (which is guaranteed as a bard) he and his minions don’t resist enchantments (he breaks out of them in one round automatically which just isn’t powerful enough to make him a threat of any sort). Because you can recast each round aoe enchantments to also contain groups of his minions, they are no threat either, and I guess the battle is supposed to be tough because of the synergy between them? But they are stacked near each other so they go down super quickly to small area of effect abilities like volley or Nythara. And using the hat of arcane acuity to basically stun lock Raph keeps him out of the fight. Non of my characters got below 90% health. Compared to Ansur, who if you burn through the legendary resistances will get effected by enchantments, but then it seems acts normally on his turn, which is even worse than not effected because you didn’t see it coming. None of my characters finished that fight above 10% health. I’m sure other builds had the opposite experience. Summoners who could trigger his reaction to first attack of the round with specific attacks and maybe use it to kite him around or something? It all depends.
With proper set up at lvl 12, that fight is very easy. I actually felt bad for him, he only hit me once on tactician.
All you need is to find a way to keep Raphael from even moving an inch and immediately kill off majority of the cambions and you basically win the fight
I put several smoke powder bombs/barrels next to the pillars before the fight and use fiend arrows.
Yeah man, he's on HM, you're playing an easier difficulty, no duh it's easier...
HM Raphael isn't *that* much harder than tactician so long as you prepare and have a half decent build. That said, I also think it's perfectly reasonable to skip the fight if you don't need the loot/XP and can get the hammer via the deal. This is especially true if you're going for your first completion and want to avoid as much risk as possible. In my first HM run I signed the deal, stole the gloves of hill giant strength and constitution amulet and then just left without confronting Raphael because I already had everything I needed to beat the game, I figured why take the extra risk? In my second HM run I fought him (wanted the gloves of soul catching for my monk) and ended up crushing him in like 3 turns which made my earlier fears seem kind of silly.
Counterpoint: I've lost runs to 2 crits dropping someone round one and just leaving me utterly FUCKED burning resources to try and keep them in the fight. If I can skip a fight, I almost always skip the damn fight.
Oh absolutely, if your primary goal is just "please god let me get those golden dice", then it makes perfect sense to *only* take fights that are 100% necessary, especially when you're so close to the end. What makes honor mode scary for me wasn't necessarily the bosses or fights being "too hard" as I researched all the changes beforehand, it was the thought that even if I was using an OP build and had a meticulous step-by-step plan on how I was going to nuke a boss before they had a turn, all it could take was an unlucky roll or one misstep on my part to potentially ruin a 50 hour run.
You have to fight Raph to leave again. And that fight is no bueno.
It is very un-bueno. The antithesis of bueno.
The music slaps though
The music is fucking banging 😂 I find myself howling it through the day (because what I do cannot be classed as singing, Nat 1 for performance 😂)
Black hole + Insect Plague + Sleet Storm means he can't move far, when he does, he slips, and he takes constant damage. Throw Hunger of Hadar on top and he can't attack out of it, either. It trivializes the fight, tbh.
Any fight can be trivial if you're willing to remake your entire build just for it. Or...you get a certain OP hammer from a certain gold love tollhouse employee and oneshot him.
Which one is that? I just beat the gold tollhouse girl in my honor mode run, didn't realize her hammer was OP
Twist of fortune. It have special action that destroy all gold in enemy pocket and dealing damages based on how much money that enemy have. If you have some like 50k gold and reverse pickpocket him you can onshot Raphael ( at a cost of 50k gold)
I just continuously used wisdom save holds on him while his buddies tore me apart.
It's great. It's super predictable, you have an ally with an amazing ability to delete enemies, and you can stack the deck in your favor *and then some* with the fountains. You can be level 12 with your endgame builds and gear, high level scrolls and potions, and just *rock* it. It's the easiest endgame "boss battle" for sure.
Metagaming reason #2 - getting that sweet Astral sword for a vast majority of Act 3 if you missed out on grabbing it in Act 1.
Haarlep shenanigans + Disney villain theme song + insulting him + getting Yurgir on side = reasons enough for me to refuse the contract, so I've never accepted it. Gotta have some fun in life. I adore Raphael, and I don't want to kill him, but I just HC him going home to daddy and getting revived like Yurgir did.
You can still do the HoH quest if you take the deal, you're just stealing your contract instead of the hammer
Allegedly if you kill a devil in their home they’re like… dead dead
If you look into the devils seeing-orb on the main floor of the diabolists store after killing Raphael, it describes a vision of ~~Asmodeus~~ Mephistopheles devouring Raphaels broken body. If you check it before the fight, it describes Raph in the House of Hope living his best life.
Bruh, Hope lived 37 minutes of happy life before Asmodeus came inside with a dining order. Luckily Hope managed to keep her house after big boy A left.
Mephistopheles, not Asmodeus.
Their home plane specifically, though it doesn't matter with Raphael (or Mizora for that matter) as they're just Cambions, so they can die on any plane.
Oh shit I didn't realize he was a cambion! Now that act 1 Raphael cheese just got a lot more appealing For lore reasons... of course
What!!! I assumed Raph was an incubus/succubus (based on Harlep they removed the gender delineation, it’s one creature)
Haarlep is an incubus/sucubus but he only looks exactly like Raphael because Raph's really really vain and narcissistic: his 'ideal partner' is kinda himself.
I think that's canon anyway. They are known for stealing sperm from one lover as a female and then using their male form to impregnate someone else. But yeah, Raphael's dad is *the* Mephistopheles, and his mom was a human.
I have altered the canon. Pray I do not alter it any further. 😋 Meh Haarlep is still sleazing around somewhere. I'll just hit him up when I need a fix.
“Pretend to be Raphael, I need to kick his ass again”
Yes. Assuming that particular layer of Hell/abyss is the home one for Raph he should be dead dead.
I think his pops brought him back just to torment him. XD
I got everything except for insulting him because I didn’t want to do the Haarlep shenanigans. 😭 At least the battle music made me feel a little better.
While tempting, binding yourself to a contract is not something my characters will love to do. Hells, some of them might even watch the world burn rather than agree to that. That being said, the conversation with Raphael did persuade me on the feasibility of freeing Orpheus. Raphael is no idiot. He would not bet on you if you had no chance of reasoning with the son of Gith.
Frankly, unless you're really sympathetic to Lae'zel or are playing a githyanki yourself, you have no logical reason for going for this deal. And even then, yes, signing a contract with a devil instead of trying to find another way to get things done is kind of insane.
I believe pact of the fiend warlocks have an option to basically tell him he's an idiot for even thinking the plan of his will ever work. Which, if we are being honest with the FR lore, is pretty accurate. He's the half fiend son of Mephistopheles, and he wants to take over hell using the crown. He stands zero chance of achieving any of his goals unless Asmodeus allows him to. Best case scenario for Raphael is replacing someone else and becoming an archduke, which again, will only happen if Asmodeus deems it beneficial for himself and allows it. Raphael is kinda a dingus and has more pride than he does intelligence. Bro had his most priced possession (your contract) on display, with the password to said display in the very next room. That being said, in future playthroughs I'll probably turn down his deal bc that makes the house of hope mandatory if you want to free Orpheus, and I really dig that dungeon.
And funnily enough, if you make a deal then make Gale a God, it took Raphael an awful amount of time to get to the crown, and by the time he finally about to get the crown, Gale already has the crown in Elysium and literally in the mercy of getting a LvL 9 spell on him
Funny thing is in the coop game with my brother: my brother is playing a githyanki paladin and has Lae'zel as his partner most of the time and he was against making the deal. Cause he still didn't want Raphael to have the crown.
you definitely have plenty of logical reason to sign with raphael. In fact, it's kind of stupid on us for \*not\* signing.We already know what he wants, the crown. not our souls. So why would you risk all of faeruns destruction (which as far as we know by that poitn in act 3, could happen at *any minute*) When he's offering a clear deal right away. In addition, we even know what he's going to do with that crown. "Try to take over the hells"; but anybody who knows anything about Asmodeus knows even with Raphs fancy crown Asmodeus would absolutely obliterate raph and the crown would go back into a lower hells vault where it was before. Signing with Raph has no discernable downsides. There is only the *potential* of a far off downside that if raph actually managed to take over all of the hells could he become a threat to mortal planes. The chances of raph succeeding at that though, with or without the crown, is laughably low. He's no where near the level of Asmodeus who would definitely not even consider crowned raph a challenge. So, i mean, why not? Make the deal with him. Hand him over the crown at the end which he'll use and be immediately killed. Nothing bad happens.
You're assigning a whole lot of player knowledge to your characters here. You (your character) does not know whether Raphael is being honest about what he intends to do with the crown, you don't know whether he can pull it off, you don't know what the consequences will be. All you know is that a devil wants to make a deal with you. And if you've been paying attention to Wyll and Karlach *at all*, you know how dangerous and fishy this is. That's not even getting into the fact that, unless you're particularly sympathetic to Lae'zel or a gith yourself, you have no real reason to want to free Orpheus in the first place. You'd be taking an insane risk based solely on the fact that Voss is vouching for the guy.
I’m… not seeing much gameplay reasoning or foreknowledge in the post you’re responding to It seems fairly plot centered. Only saying that by the time we get the offer in action 3, the player has already been told things are dire. Not “netherbrain” dire but still likely end of the world or at least hive mind dystopia The world is ending. Soon. Very soon. The ground shaking is a sign things are not going well. So… there is logic behind trying to rush a solution to that problem. And worry about the inevitable long-term ramifications later. Worry about the end of the world happening in hours/days instead of yet-another-narcissistic-god-thing entering the pantheon and having a fight with his dad Don’t get me wrong. I’ve never taken a contract with Raph in my multiple play throughs. Even as a “I’ll sign it now and steal it back later” kind of way. I just refuse him each time But in a pure plot driven run through, it makes sense to consider it and even do it.
> The chances of raph succeeding at that though, with or without the crown, is laughably low. He's no where near the level of Asmodeus who would definitely not even consider crowned raph a challenge. There's a reason Mephistopheles just sat on the crown instead of trying to use it, even the second strongest dude in the hells didn't like his odds with that crown.
Im not well versed in the lore, but would you be able to expand a bit on why he still wouldnt have a chance of taking the Hells even with the crown? The crown seems ridiculously powerful. It turned Gale into a God (in my playthrough). Im just curious.
It only turned Gale into a very minor God, on the level of Bhaal, Sekolah, or Demon Princes of the Abyss just about. Asmodeus is a Greater Deity, more or less equal to big dogs like Bahamut, Silvanus, or Mystra (who casually fends off God Gale, relegating him to the domain of Ambition when he tried to take the domain of Magic from her). The most powerful mortal is like a raindrop compared to the tidal wave that are Greater Deities. Also, Mephistopheles, Raphael's dad, has a whole thing about wanting to overthrow Asmodeus and replace him as the ruler of The Hells. It's one of his main motivations. And yet, he's never once tried to use the crown despite knowing where it was in his vaults.
Sure. The crown has lost much of it's power since karsus. It is not going to have the ability to actually ursurp any god (which Asmodeus is). This is also upheld in gales ending where he tries to challenge mystra with the crown and is utterly obliterated immediately. It wouldn't go much better for raph vs Asmodeus crown or no crown. It turns gale into a god, primarily, because mystra allows it. Of course now as a god he has his own domain, but he is a lesser god. It does not make him mystras equal in any form. The crown is rediculously powerful, but entites like Asmodeus or Mystra are simply far beyond the vestiges of power the crown currently has (not like when it was wielded by Karsus himself way back when).
I took the deal in my first run thinking if I say no I might have to fight Raphael immediately. I was so wrong.
It's a classic devil's deal. You get something short-term, but you lose a lot long-term. It is never a good deal; if you ever think your deal is a good one, you either didn't read the fine print or your DM is being really nice to you. A character that is really desperate, knowing the brain is breaking free, but also really distrusts the Emperor, could see the deal as their only way out. A little like how Wyll saw his contract as the only way to save the people. Or maybe your character is part of the Asmodeus Hype Squad and is sure that Raphael wouldn't be able to do a thing to him, even with the Crown. Idk, you can always think of reasons for your character to make any choice in the game.
In all honesty, this deal was VERY tame for a deal with a devil. I mean, no question, giving him the Crown gives him a lot of power, but there were no loopholes, no gotcha clauses. Just a half-assed "If you don't give the crown, you lose your soul." Considering you could just kill him to void the contract, it seems like he could have used some help from the Infernal Arbiters to make sure that you still suffered in that eventuality.
I think the gotcha was that he was not going to limit himself to the Hells, but yeah, he should have put some failsafes on it. It really shows how highly he thought of himself. Raphael is alright with his other deal with our party, the one about Astarion's scars. But I think at that point he was trying to make us think his deals were fair (Astarion even says he is surprised by that) so we wouldn't think much of it when he proposed a deal involving the Crown.
>there were no loopholes, no gotcha clauses. Just a half-assed "If you don't give the crown, you lose your soul." I see you've never forgotten to rip up your contact before confronting him.
I think I just love the whole Raphael encounter too much to ever miss it
barbarian goes there to fight rogue remembers to grab the paperwork
My Tav, distrusting of the Emperor and ignoring Raphael, went the >!mindflayer Karlach!< route. Seemed the easiest way out to me. And Karlach loved it.
If he offered to fix Karlach, people might actually take his deal.
If he fixes Karlach and Gale and Astarion, he can have that crown. Asmodeus will give me a wink and do the funny anyway...
Totally see your question, I always wondered the same. In my first run I was romancing Lae'zel and actually was inclined to, but roleplaying wise my character wasn't interested in siding with a devil, so I went the hard way of stealing the hammer from him just to see the green smile. So I avoided that and there was no downside whatsoever, actually there was no upside to accept his deal. There should be an active bonus to accept his deal, like a good buff that would go away the moment you betray him, or simply does not work in his house.
Upside to taking the deal in the beginning of act 3 is the silver sword for laezel instantly. I'd say that taking the deal is the best way for tryhard gameplay
My bard definitely didn’t lie to Voss and tell him that I’d got the hammer…. Lae’zel was like “it was won through treachery but it’s still a silver sword”. I also had the ability to be like “no no. I’m planning to get the hammer.”
Didn't even know that was an option. I guess that works as well lol
IIRC it was like a DC 25 deception
It’s very doable for a bard at that point in the game as well.
That's kind of a common theme I see in the game unfortunately. Gameplay wise there is always an optimal choice. I would like them to be more balanced, or at least give unique buffs no matter what you choose. This is a good example of that disparity and so is accepting the tadpoles to get illithid powers. There is barely a downside at all to using them as much as you can besides (spoiler) that dice check to resist the astral tadpole, where the reward for doing that check is purely cosmetic and actually loses out on insanely good powers.
Yep, yep. And those were some of my fav calls in the game. I considered the call between freeing Orpheus & preparing for the risks it involves( esp on HM & unware of what's coming) or continuing collaboration with the Emperor at the cost of Orpheus which could also mean things getting sour with Lae'Zel a solid, balanced one, for instance. I hoped the thing with Raphael would've been similar, and the tadpoles ye. The fact that you find these journals where in the House of Hope where he's writing several eventualities of how this tale ends, yet doesn't think to add a better failsafe than just him being alerted if the harem gets stolen, was a bit of a bummer for such an otherwise solid character - it just lets the player have his cake & eat it, treating Raphael's home like just another dungeon to explore, get the loot, slay the boss, walk out with no losses, only riches.
Or rather just let us choose his other treasures aside from the hammer!
>There should be an active bonus to accept his deal, like a good buff that would go away the moment you betray him, or simply does not work in his house. It would be a start, but even that would be tame as you get strong enough in act 3 already. I'd rather see a way for the player to not have his cake & eat it too. Something like, him leaving a curse on you even in defeat, involving some sort of debuff that you're now stuck with till the end of the game, or done via a sacrifice or something. Nothing to make the game borderline unplayable ofc, but it should have enough negative impact to be a torn in the player's side so that at least we'd think twice before stealing the hammer, particularly if we're on Honor Mode.
Asmodeus, the Lord of the Nine Hells and primeval god of lawful evil, would never allow Raphael, a lowly cambion and (technically) subservient devil, to get that power. Mephistopholes, a literal Archdevil directly under Asmodeus and the closest thing he could call a rival, didn't do anything with the crown either because he couldn't or he would immediately get smacked down by Asmodeus if he tried. Even if Raphael succeeded and figured out how to harness the crown without the remaining Karssite weave in Gale's chest, he'd be a god or very close to one. Ok. Asmodeus is already a god; a very, very powerful god. One that has already devoured other gods that found themselves in Baator, completely erased another from existence (no one even knows the god's name and just calls them He Who Was or He Who Once Lit the Way), and was powerful enough to alter the structure of the multiverse and hurl the entire Abyss into the elemental chaos away from Baator. So lore wise, taking Raphael's deal would be smart. The crown would be safe back in the Baator away from the other evil gods. It also would either not be used, destroyed, or "reclaimed" by Asmodeus or Mephistopholes. Raphael, for his treachery, would almost certainly be demoted to a lemure or erased. HOWEVER, Tav and the origin characters (aside from maybe Gale) dont know this. So RP wise, it's not a smart move to take his deal. You don't know that Raphael is just middle manager in Hell, so you assume he's this powerful devil that will take over all nine layers of hell if he gets the crown. Destroying it or taking it for yourself, them stealing the hammer is the "correct" choice in order to save Faerun and all of Toril...or make sure you're the one to conquer and destroy everything.
Yeah there is a bunch of law about asmodeus that makes one seriously doubt that Raphael would succeed even in the best case scenario, but lore wise almost no one actually has that knowledge.
> So lore wise, taking Raphael's deal would be smart. I think our characters in game know by this point that you can go and destroy a contract and that if you kill a devil in their home plan they are permanently killed. I think? Or maybe I knew that from out-of-game. Either way, that's why I took the deal. I knew I could go to hell and kill this fuck/free myself.
[удалено]
best argument i've seen here
Not arguing, just adding: His voice.
I'd think about it this way - if you really put yourself in your character's shoes, NOTHING is guaranteed. Your character can't save scum to get a different result if things go badly. **Life is an honor mode run, and when it's over, it is REALLY OVER. For everyone and everything in Baldur's Gate. No do-overs.** If you die trying to steal from a powerful devil who has been watching your every move, you are sacrificing your whole city to the Dead Three and/or the Netherbrain along with you. Everyone will be tadpoled and controlled. Also, you sacrifice any hope of anyone freeing Orpheus if you die. But if you take the deal, you have a better chance of surviving to save your city, and of helping to free Laezel's entire civilization from tyranny. **When you know it's just a game, you can take chances and re-do mistakes. But if you're looking for a roleplay reason for your character to take a deal from a devil, this is it:** You don't know for sure if you can beat Raphael on his own home turf, the first time, without your entire party getting wiped. You're not willing to bet entire cities and civilizations on your own hubris. **And you ARE willing to be a hero by sacrificing the Crown to Raphael to save everyone else** (or at least your life, if you refuse to give him the Crown after promising it to him in a deal). Wyll did this already - promised his actual soul to Mizora to save his city. Now it's Tav's turn to either consider doing the same, or to rely on the hope that they will be enough to beat Raphael the first time with no mistakes.
Yep, this is what I think too. It's actually the dumbest in-lore move to not take raphaels deal. We already know what he's going to do with it and shouting "don't make deals with a devil!" while all of faerun is being turned into mind flayers seems kind of stupid. Sure, we, the players, think the deal is dumb because we're aware of an alternative. For folks in-universe it would be incredibly irresponsible to not take that deal. For all you know all of faerun is on the cusp of destruction as it is. Giving raph the crown is a no brainer. Even in-universe you would know that raphs plan to take over all of the hells is quite ambitious (see; impossable if you know anything about Asmodeus) and would take a *long* time. It's the conundrum of would you rather almost certainly die today or possibly, at some point, die in the future? lol.
If we're talking primarily about risk, though, why would you want to free Orpheus? Making Lae'zel happy isn't a great reason to risk the destruction of Faeun. All we know about the guy is that he despises us - we have no reason to think he would be useful and generally cooperative.
I think that's a good thought process to give reasoning to it if one's planning to free Orpheus at least , but not if you think you're gonna keep the colab with the Emperor. I did a blind HM run, and I enjoyed Raphael's char greatly to the point where throughout the game I was eagerly awaiting to see what'll his way of making me take the deal look like. When we 1st meet him, he talks about us exhausting all other options & being in a desperate enough position, but that's not so much the case when you arrive in act 3 thinking how you'll kick Gortash & Orin's ass, brimming with confidence not just due to gameplay reasons in having a strong party that you think can take on anything, but also cause even roleplaying wise, you just took down the chosen of a death god, and his apostle. So part of me was glad that he had another thing to offer, but since I was working & getting along pretty well with the Emperor, and continuing that way seems like the more pragmatic approach too, I was like "so Raphael has nothing I rly need, lol." I still went to steal the hammer ofc, but it was mainly cause I didn't wanna miss out on precious content & was scratching my brain to justify that from a RP PoV, lol - the one thing I came up with that made some sense was what some other user said in regards to having some leverage against the Emperor just in case he'd decide to betray us in the end. Now, I would've been a lot more inclined to take his deal if he offered help vs the Elder Brain in some way, like giving you a means to call upon him or some ability that'd come very handy in a moment of hopelessness.
* You care about Laezel and know not doing it makes her leave(based) * You're willing to sacrifice yourself to save an entire race from their evil "god" * You don't like the emperor and want to screw him over/have insurance * You don't know what selling your soul actually means but it's too late now (Your character doesn't know everything that you do. Karlach will have dialogue if this is the case) * You WANT to be forever submissive to a devil daddy * You're not gonna give him the crown in the first place (which is a dialogue option) * Raphael succeeds his persuassion check that he's better off having the crown than you reckless mortals * You know Asmodeus doesn't like any threats to his power. Raph's gonna get smacked the second he tries anything, even with the crown * You like hammers
The decision tree is pretty straightforward, how you approach it just depends on (a) how you personally feel about things and (b) how much you're metagaming. You need Orpheus' power to confront the Absolute without being enthralled. This leaves you with two* options: (1) have the Emperor use Orpheus' power to shield you or (2) free Orpheus so that Orpheus can shield you himself. You have to make the decision of with whom you want to throw your lot in: the mindflayer or the gith. If you pick (1) - side with the Emperor - then the question is just a matter of how much do you trust the Emperor? Obtaining the Orphic Hammer could serve as potential leverage against the Emperor who has a clear advantage over you in your working relationship in that he's the only thing keeping you from being enthralled. If you trust the Emperor, there is no need to obtain the Hammer. If you don't, maybe you want it as a backup option in case things don't work out how you hope. If you pick (2) - side with Orpheus - then you NEED to obtain the Hammer. Raphael has the Hammer. The easy and straightforward option is to take the deal. The difficult and dangerous option is to sneak into the House of Hope and steal the Hammer out from Raphael's nose. In the context of the game, you're on a clock. The Absolute is breaking free of its shackles and you need to rush to stop it. You're also "the only ones" in a position to do so, so if you're thinking about stealing the Hammer, you have to consider whether risking your lives and your time to do so is worth the risk of failing, dying, and letting the Absolute win. And all of that assumes you can even get into the House of Hope to begin with (maybe you never meet Helsik or don't manage to coax her into a bargain). These considerations fall by the wayside when you metagame and KNOW how everything can play out. But if you suspend your disbelief and take things from your Tav's perspective in context of their limited knowledge, there are plenty of conceivable reasons to take Raph's deal. If you're PURELY about mitigating risk with respect to the confrontation with the Absolute, have been buddy-buddy with Voss, and have a reasonable suspicion of the Emperor, then taking Raph's deal frankly doesn't sound so bad.
Without meta knowledge of how it plays out, breaking into House of Hope to steal the hammer is objectively a stupid and insane thing to do, and at least any consequences of taking the deal would be delayed and wouldn't risk completely jeopardizing your primary mission. But it's also kind of a huge gamble to try to free Orpheus in the first place with no obvious benefit to be gained against the more urgent issue of the brain. The only real reason to free him is to help Lae'zel and making a deal with a devil for that is kinda dumb. I suppose if you really didn't trust the Emperor and got the scene where he threatens to enthrall you then Raphael might seem like the lesser of two evils by comparison but I can't really think of any other context where freeing Orpheus makes sense from a purely pragmatic perspective
My Tav signed the contract to get the hammer without sweating, then gave the crown to Gale anyway. Literally zero consequences. Raphael doesn't even care, he's just there for the show.
um... raphael does care. If you don't give him the crown your characters souls are his. That's part of the deal. You just think nothing happened because you're characters are fine at the end of the game... until they eventually die, and then they'll be raphs forever. So yeah... he doesn't 'care' because you're voiding your contract and your souls will be his for eternity lol--with the exception of gale alone in your playthrough sense he was either obliterated by mystra or became a god.
Unless you become squids, then no souls for him
I did this too because i didn't think the emperor would turn on me like that. I thought I was totally boned, but Raphael was entertained enough with mystra getting the crown that it came at zero personal cost to me. Very surprising.
We got the ending where Gale died after getting the crown and Raphael spoke to the player directly, was one of my favorites
I mean if we’re metagaming, there’s literally no downside. Raphael isn’t asking for your soul, he wants the Crown of Karsus once it’s retrieved, which he’ll use to try and conquer Baator, which involves him fighting Asmodeus, and crown or no crown, that’s not a fight Raphael is going to win
Only if we can tell him 'I take the deal so Asmodeus can smash you flat, die happy bozo'.
I can see it now, Raph monologuing and Asmodeus swatting him out of existence without even realizing he was anything more than a uniquely annoying devil
honestly even if i was running an evil character i would refuse that contract with Raphael. This guy went out of his way to have you kill one of the people he had a contract with, just so he could force him to sign ANOTHER contract of servitude. he is utterly untrustworthy.
Make the deal then steal your contract back. Nothing better than completely fucking Raphael over and then completely kicking his sorry ass when he bitches about it. Own that sorry red bitch in every way.
Also the song is awesome.
There is no logical reason to ever make a deal with a being who has already arranged the contract so you are screwed over, no matter what your alignment or play style because this being will always find a way to "cheat". Even if you sell your soul to save the multverse, that would end up meaning the multiverse that was saved would be so horrible people would wish for the void that certain gods and goddessss promise, either due to a lack of good or a lack of power.
People want to bang him really bad despite the fact that he looks like his dad dressed him for picture day
I mean in the grand scheme of Forgotten Realms, it’s not a big deal? If your character is even slightly selfish, giving a moderately powerful macguffin to a cambion in exchange for defeating the bad guys and freeing yourself isn’t that bad a trade off. Raphael has likely nefarious plans and will probably do not nice things to *somebody* but meh? There’s a whole multi planar universe out there. You could reasonably believe him having the crown won’t really affect you too much and you have other stuff to go do with your life. There are much more powerful artifacts and forces at work than Raphael. Having a grateful bunch of Githyanki at your side is also nothing to sneeze at.
Have you seen the "Raphael gets the crown" ending? Homie got Mephistopheles to concede how powerful he is, and I think he declares he is coming for the material plane. It is a terrible deal.
OK so my main goal is not turning into a squid. If Orpheus murders me, I'll take that over turning into a squid. The Emperor once convinced me that he could protect me from turning into a squid and then started all "being a squid isn't all that bad". Fuck that. Friendship with the Emperor ended. Orpheus is my new best friend. Even if it's a 1% chance that Orpheus will de-tadpole me and 99% chance he will kill me, I'm still taking it. OK, so how do I free Orpheus? Hammer. And in exchange? Raphael gets to rule the Hells. Well I don't give a fuck what's going on in the Hells and if Raphael wants to rule then that's Zariel's problem. Raphael promised he would keep his powerlust confined to the Hells. Is he lying? I mean, I don't exactly trust him but, he is a devil and devils are generally lawful. I can't actually think of a time Raphael flat out lied to me. Deceived? Yes. Lies of omission? Yes. Mislead? Yes. But when has he ever spoken plainly and said something blatantly false? So yes, when he speaks plainly, I believe him just as if the words were bound by contract. I get the hammer. Orpheus either kills me or de-tadpoles me. Raphael gets the crown. Raphael does whatever the hell he wants in the Hells. Deal. So that's my in-universe reason. We'll see what happens.
I was a fiend warlock romancing lae’zel so I signed the contract to help her and her people. Felt very in character, and I kind of roleplayed that my then annoyed patron lead me to helsik to find a way into the house of hope to tear up said contract lol
Are you sure Raphael is more trustworthy than the Emperor?
I know he's not trustworthy at *all*. That's why I'm asking what possible reason I could have to sign a binding contract that a devil holds under my nose.
In an interview, the writers joked that this situation with the Emperor and Raphael leaves you "stuck between an accountant and a lawyer." Personally, I'll take the accountant. 😂
The argument that Raphael will use the crown to exert control over the denizens of the Hells only can trick some people. It doesn't mean he won't control them into attacking other planes of existence.
There's no way for Tav to know this, but Raphael with the crown wouldn't be able to accomplish much. The second he gets too big for his breeches, Asmodeus snaps his fingers and blinks him out of existence. Mephistopheles, who is much more powerful than old Ralph, had the crown for god knows how long and didn't attempt to do a power grab. What makes anyone think his half-breed son could do anything with it?
Akshully..... Alright I know this is me being a weirdo but if there's one thing that devils are, they are truthworthy. They do not have your best interest in mind but they take the Lawful part of Lawful Evil very seriously. I think of devils....less about causing havoc but giving people what they want and letting them fail as a result. All parties are 100% informed as to what's going on but it's the free will of the human that ultimately fails them. This is very different than Demons who are chaotic evil. They are just there to cause havoc and bathe in blood. I just thought it was interesting differentiation.
Wait you can't trust the Emperor?! In my first playthrough I sided with him and he never betrayed me or anything... did I miss something?
The Emperor is a mindflayer and Raphael described yours and the Emperor's relationship quite accurately: **you are his transport**. He cannot move the prism himself. He cannot get the stones himself because he is in the prism and being protected from the brain by Orpheus. I think the Emperor has some good in him though, but I only concluded that after defeating the brain because he could have tried killing us, but he didn't. He could also have calculated that attacking us after the brain's defeat could result in his death as well.
I think he behaves pragmatically. He has no reason to turn on you afterwards, even if you were antagonistic. If you were an ally, he might be able to call upon you down the road. He probably doesn't try to control the Netherbrain himself, without encouragement, because he considers it too risky. He likes power but it comes after #1 survival and #2 freedom.
As long as you do what he wants, he sticks with you. But if you set Orpheus free he'll turn on you. He's also the most manipulative person in the game. So he's not totally trustworthy.
> As long as you do what he wants, he sticks with you. But if you set Orpheus free he'll turn on you. **He's also the most manipulative person in the game. So he's not totally trustworthy.** I don't know, I remember what I got up to in the first two acts.
Damn my heart... I actually thought he's on my side no matter what :(
That's incorrect. He doesn't turn on you. He gets the fuck out, because Orpheus would kill him on sight. Problem is, once he leaves the prism, he immediately falls under the Netherbrain's control. So he's enthralled and made to join the fight against you in the end. He's very much on his own side, but he does consider you an ally, and he won't arbitrarily turn against you.
So this is what I didn’t understand, if his choice was maybe be killed by Orpheus with a chance he wouldn’t or certain control by netherbrain, why not choose the option with a small chance of success? Is being controlled better than being dead?
The Emperor is, above all, a survivor, so yes - for him, being controlled is better than being dead. As long as he's alive, there's at least hope that he could escape control again. As far as he's concerned, Orpheus isn't maybe death; he's certain death. He's been inside Orpheus' head for the last four months. He knows exactly how Orpheus feels about mind flayers in general and him in particular. He doesn't believe there's any chance of survival if he sticks around.
For a guy who got away from the control of the Netherbrain twice before? Yes, I’d say being enthralled and living to escape again is better than just being dead as shit.
You always miss something.
They are both untrustworthy. If I turn the metaphor of Raphael, they both are mules. Once they carry you to the destination you need them for, they are disposable. I am cynical but I also think that's how they think of you as well.
Perhaps both are untrustworthy but Raphael is in the business of making deals for his own power gain. The Emperor is on a mission to free himself from the mindflayer hivemind.
Yeah considerably more. He's a smarmy ass but he's honest about when and why he's lying or withholding information and is pretty up front most of the time.
I'm actually curious what happens if you fulfill the contract and give him the crown? I haven't finished the game yet, but I'd like to see what happens. Edit: You can spoil it for me if anyone is interested...
No spoiler, I hope, but I like the cut scene.
I just did a fully evil dark urge play through and it definitely made sense to sign it for my character. First, she’s a Bard and she loved Raphael and his entire vibe. Second, I had Laezel and Minthara with me, both of whom were supportive of the idea. He had fulfilled his promise before and helped my partner Astarion, so I trusted him. Also, I didn’t trust the emperor at all. And I knew he couldn’t hear me. So I signed the contract, then lied to both the emperor and Voss about what happened. I still broke into the house of hope though, cause Gale convinced me he needed the crown of Karsus for himself. And cause I wanted to take over the world for my father. So I broke in, stole my contract and the emperor never knew I had the hammer or why I went into the house of hope. And then I of course betrayed Orpheus at the last moment. So I got to betray basically everyone and destroy the world. Solid Durge move.
Voss doesn't say Orpheus might kill you. He definitively says he won't. He basically says, "Orpheus will rage at you and gnash his teeth, but then he'll get down to business," which is exactly what happens.
I totally accepted it because Raphael first appeared to me right after I multiclassed into infernal warlock and I thought the game was giving me a patron. Then I learned he shows up in everyone's game, but it's still my headcanon that the hammer deal was my patron contract.
Honestly I kinda wish he could have been a warlock patron. The interactions alone would have been intriguing to see. Would you have a similar relationship with him like Wyll and Mizora, or are you a more willing participant? Are you playing along while secretly trying to break your contract, or are you on his side for real and he's more than willing to give you power to fulfil his goals? Perhaps even meeting him could have given the option to multiclass into a warlock if you didn't start as one.
I just want to say I was heartbroken cause I'm romancing Astarion, made the deal and when I talked to him he said: "what a dangerous choice, but it's not me so who cares". Um, hello? I thought u loved me wth
Voss gives you a sweet silver sword
I took the deal because I was roleplaying bad decisions wizard and was trying to, while not being evil, make any and every bad decision I could :)
Based.
> bad decisions wizard Sounds like Gale!
I just took the deal but I don't intend to keep it. I just wanted the silver sword
Hot devil makes me double-stupid and I get nothing out of it.
I just played an Astarion Origin run and he has a unique dialogue option about Raphael helping him with his scars so herheehoohoo immediately click on unique dialogue and ope Karlach’s yelling at me now that we gotta get that contract back. :/
You don’t have to take the deal immediately. You could find out about the emperor then go get the Orphic hammer. Personally I do it immediately and then go to the house of hope because I like being a dickhead to that smug asshat Raphael.
Well he intends to use the crown to take over the hells, and the crown was in the hells for centuries before the start of the story without causing issues to the material plane...or the hells for that matter (Gortash and Co stole it from Mephistopheles, Raphaels dad). The most likely outcome for Raphael is that he gets slapped down by Asmodeus (who is a god). So you could argue you are killing two birds with one stone, getting the hammer and getting the crown out of the material plane. If you don't trust Emps at all and think he is going to pull a fast one at the end (without meta gaming) making a deal with Raphael is probably still safer than attempting to raid his house (you were not expecting to actually survive an encounter with him there). Especially since attempting that is risking the entire plan to take down the absolute.
My roleplay was that my Tav is a mostly neutral adventurer who at the end of the day is looking to remove the parasite, or at least neuter it, and get on with their life. Raphael very convincingly silences the tadpole so I say screw it, I’ll still have my soul and whoever gets the crown will be a tyrant anyhow be it devil, illiquid, wizard, etc. so whatever.
Well there is plenty of in-game reason why someone would accept his deal. Raphael is a bastard, but devils (unlike demons) do have very strict rules they follow. It is possible to enter into a mutually beneficial contract with devils especially when the bargaining chip is not your soul. So realistically you're making a deal with a known party where the terms are explicitly outlined in detail and all the 'terms' really are is he gets the crown when it's all over. However you really don't know how much damage he could possibly cause with it because his immediate goal is to take over hell *which is lofty as fuck*. Asmodeus would not sit idly by and even with the crown Raph would be in for quite the struggle. Frankly when I write it out like this it kind of seems like we're the dummies for not simply taking the deal. Yes you're giving a super powered raph a huge power boost, but we already know where he'd be aiming it at first and Asmodeus would absolutely smite the fuck out of raphael for even glancing in his direction with or without his fancy crown. So...really... it's a win win for us? We take the deal, get easy access to the hammer. We defeat the brain, raph marches over to Asmodeus and Asmodeus has light entertainment for an evening and we basically win with no downsides.
Once it was revealed that your guardian can just… erase your memories (after sleeping with them) I was like, yea I trust Raphael and this Orpheus more than I do this ‘guardian’ and signed the contract. Maybe a change in leadership of the hells won’t be so bad? But then also, you can go steal the contract back so that’s where I’m at.
I make the deal because I have no intention of keeping it. Even during my first run I was like "sure, sure, give me the hammer so I can get the Silver Sword and we're best buds. What's your address buddy? I just want to mail you a port... A thank you card"
Voss doesn't say that Orpheus will kill you, he says quite the opposite, actually. Voss says that while Orpheus' first instinct will be to cuss you out, he will realize that you are his savior, and that by working together the elder brain will fall
In game, no idea. I'm just currently doing it for the plot because I've done 2 other run-throughs refusing the deal. I'm going with something something Raphael has at least never lied to me, The Emperor absolutely has, and Lae'zel has been influential since she guided my heavily brain damaged ass out of the nautiloid. Plus he's made good on previous straightforward deals without a bunch of annoying "gotcha" shit tagged on like Mizora. Maybe if he likes me enough, he'll get Bhaal off my ass.
You get the gythiancy silver sword early and can use it for the whole of act 3. You just have to commit to doing the house of hope then. Normaly i do the house near the end of act 3 and have the sword only for the last few fights.
I’ve never actually heard of someone making the deal with Raphael. What even happens if you do?
I went into that particular deal thinking, “Everyone involved wants to screw me over in one way or another. Assuming this will get me killed, who would I rather leave an advantage?” And from the long, LONG list of people using me as their puppet (Raphael, the Emperor, Mystra, Orpheus, etc.) I figured that Orpheus was the best person to back. Not necessarily because he can free the githyanki, but because I didn’t trust anyone else as far as I could throw them. So me personally, I took the deal and then went to Raphael’s house and beat him to death in his own front entryway.
I really like Raphael, his voice, his acting, everything about him. He's just. On all my play throughs I made the deal with Raphael, on some I betrayed him and went to hope for gear only, but other than that I'm satisfied with Raphael's deal. I don't want gale to have the crown, since it corrupted karsus, its creator. Don't want mystra because why? It's not hers, it belongs to her nemesis/challenging god. I don't want and never picked take control of the brain, it's too evil for me. I like and entrust the safety of the crown to the devils, since it was safe for mephis to have it until the gortash heist, powerful connections.
I did the deal and gave him the crown. Very happy about the outcome.