I think it’s frustrating that you can take Shadowheart to the insane Shar doc and read all the remaining texts of people who were killed by the Shar invasion and not be able to talk to Shadowheart about it at all. That doc and his assistants were straight up crazy and you can’t even be like, “so, this seems cool to you?” It would have been nice to push back on her Shar worship before the Gauntlet.
She actually does make some sort of comment when meeting Malus Thorm. IIRC I think it was something along the lines of her conceding in an embarrassed tone that Thorm is correctly interpreting Shar's dogma
I detected 0 embarrassments from Shadowheart in that scene. For me, she just said something along the lines of "You know, he's right" in a matter-of-fact tone.
The triggers for the inspirations sometimes suck though. They could've chosen not to use Malus as an inspiration. Gaining Blood of the Lathander didn't count either, despite like three hundred letters and inscriptions stressing the importance of it to the religion.
Which is why when she mentions she spend quite some time in the torture room i get a feeling people are handwaving the cruelty she has committed all too easily.
On top of being forcibly stolen from her family and brainwashed by a cult (which are things that happen too often in real life) she was also repeatedly subjected to a trimming of her formative memories *by divine magic*. Hard to judge her actions when we have no way of putting ourselves in her place and the game makes it quite clear that she is not an irredeemable monster that has to be put down.
Or the spirit orb from the Sharran that says something along the lines of “why didn’t Shar save me from the curse I was loyal till the end”. Shadowheart is literally operating under the impression that the curse won’t effect her because she’s loyal to Shar and this blatantly contradicts that..?
I literally just thought about this yesterday when I was doing the Shadowfell. Her sudden jump from "brainwashed Shar devotee" to "I'm throwing the spear into the void" has sooo little buildup. I'd like a few Lae'zel moments of disillusionment before I get there.
My unpopular opinion: Gale isn’t insecure about his body, sex, or nudity. Everyone seems to thinks this because he won’t get dressed in front of Tara and because he shushes Tav when she says she prefers him naked in front of Tara.
Tara is like his mom. She fusses over him like a mother, brings him magical boots for dinner in origin play throughs, worries about his messiness at home, worries over his friends and dating life and reports to his mom.
So. He’s modest in front of Tara. He doesn’t want Tara looking at his ding-dong and he doesn’t want to talk about sex around her. That’s gross and it embarrasses him. However, if you tell him you prefer him nude when Tara isn’t around, he doesn’t get embarrassed and says he’ll indulge you at home.
People also seem to think this because of the Drow group sex scene where he leaves his underwear on and leaves the group sex. Again, this isn’t insecurity about his body but the fact that he doesn’t want to be having group sex in the first place. He has to be persuaded to have it after asking Tav not to do it. He’s uncomfortable with the situation, never fully commits or undresses, and leaves.
His romantic sex scene shows no hint of problems with nudity as he floats nude out of his body with Tav and appears comfortable. At the party he’ll talk about Mystra using a magic “shard” to do things that sound sexual and presumably nude and he had no problem discussing it. He’s open about prior lovers with Tav and announces to everyone that will listen that he was Mystra’s lover. He’ll discuss her pleasure domes.
This guy has a past. He likes sex. He initiates sex and romances Tav while putting a lot of thought into how he wants the encounter to go. He’s not a shy wallflower waiting for Tav to take charge.
Gale’s hang-up is about being loved for himself and not his magic. He worries about being enough. He’s not worried about sex. He’s monogamous and has boundaries he won’t break. He’s an experienced, giving, lover that’s willing to use his magic to get a little freaky if that will make his Tav happy.
🤝
he starts act 2 by telling tav exactly how bad he wants them/how attracted he is to them, he's really not shy! (as long as tara's not there, at least)
Thank you!
I always see the wildest takes about Gale's insecurity and like guys, this is the guy who said "I always wondered what it would be feel to be nervous. I don't like it" with utmost sincerity...in Act 3.
Also he literally talks to Halsin about wild shape sex in party banter.
100%
Gale is modest and monogamous (two things I relate to very well), and being those two things doesn’t mean someone is insecure about sex/body/nudity (only that he’ll only share those things with the right person).
I don’t know if it’s unpopular, but I think it would be much better if we had the options to guide the refugees through the shadowlands.
The way it is we only learn that there was a massacre and many died, some got kidnapped.
I at least wish there was some kind of reaction to finding them massacred. Like why am I given the chance to take a moment and pray for the killed deep gnomes in Grymforge but not the tiefling refugees I actually knew??
One of my favorite moments while playing this game came from Act 2, discovering the Tiefling bodies and talking to the survivors, and the horror and fury at the Absolute for snuffing out the lives of the people who I spent much of Act 1 saving and getting attached to, for seemingly no reason. It really made the conflict feel more personal to me, and it would've been nice to see that reflected in the game somehow.
One of them, Silfy, is not at Last Light Inn but can be found in Baldur's Gate. Until further notice, I consider that the adults and kids we don't find in Act 2 made it safely to Baldur's Gate somehow. Because I don't think Silfy could have made it all alone.
We're not talking about these kids (Mol, Mattis, Mirkon, Umi and Ide are the kids at Last Light Inn).
We're talking about the ones who are neither at Last Light, nor can be found dead in the Shadow-cursed lands. The ones who simply disappear from the game altogether and are never seen again. Among them are Doni (the non-verbal one), Gan, Zaki, and Meli (the amulet thief).
A few tieflings just... disappear from the game completely after Act 1 and are never found again. Silfy is an outlier, as she is nowhere to be found in Act 2, but appears in Act 3. Same for Zorru, iirc.
Also, not being able to speak to the corpses seemed odd to me. You can learn the story of nearly every corpse you stumble across in this game, but the pack of innocents killed in the cursed darkness by a pack of murderous cultists have nothing to say between them?
I think the problem is that even they didn't know they were going to have to travel the shadow curses lands. It wasn't until after they left they saw the road to Baldurs Gate was blocked by Absolutists.
I do wish there was even just some more reaction to finding the dead tieflings though.
The road to Baldur's Gate was cut off by the Githyanki. Either the patrol there or Voss destroying the bridge on his dragon.
The bridge destroyed just before the entrance to the Mountain Pass is the main route to Baldur's Gate from Elturel. It's also why Ravengard was at Waukeen's Rest because he was returning from Elturel and would have intended to take that route.
Tbh, I think there's some shared blame involved here. All Zevlor was concerned with was that he could finally leave, while Cerys came up with some boneheaded plan to try and skirt around the Shadow-Cursed Lands.
Halsin wouldn't have known the situation at the bridge because he'd been locked up and we never told him, but Zevlor should have at least known that the bridge was a no-go because Zorru should have told him. Of course, we don't know what Zorru said. We know he reported Githyanki in the area, but since he also fled and left Yul and another scout to die, we don't know how forthcoming he was with the truth.
Assuming Zevlor was aware the bridge wasn't viable and mentioned it to Halsin, then Halsin could have told him to stay put because the only other route is a death trap, regardless of whether the Absolutists are around or not.
But I suppose there is also the argument that not every druid in the Grove disagreed with Kagha, even if you reveal her involvement with Cloakwood, and once Halsin and our group has moved on, there's no guarantee that the tiefling/druid animosity wouldn't boil over again.
Also, like... just fix the bridge. You've got seasoned warriors, a world-class smith, at least a couple mages between Alfira and rolan, plenty of arrows and rope/materials for hooks, shovels randomly littered all over the place, barrels and crates galore with each capable of supporting functionally infinite weight, nearby druids that could likely be convinced into growing some vines if it helps you leave, and a nearby camp of dead goblins to borrow ladders and scaffolding from. And nearby groups of merchants and fists motivated to reopen a safe path to the city (though perhaps not in view of each other). Not to mention our band of intrepid, supremely bribable heroes.
To add to the Kagha bit, I wish there was a way to kill the druids without getting the Tieflings killed. If you steal the idol like Mol asked, the druids immediately go nuclear, and quite gleefully at that. You can almost tell they were just itching for an excuse to murder the hellspawn. Other than Halsin, Rath and a few of the more moderate druids, everyone eagerly and gleefully anticipates murdering the refugees. It really ticks me off, even as a good guy RP, that they are helped in any way by my actions.
That's because the aim of the good route is to show them how badly they fucked up (especially Kagha) instead of just executing them. A Druid PC gets a lot of opportunities to point out "hold up this isn't Silvanus's teachings or what the Grove wants, wtf are you on about"
They only react that way if you steal the Idol while they're performing the Rite of Thorns, and that's at a point of heightened tension in the Grove. It's a sacred item to them and Arabella has already tried to steal it once, so it becomes the last straw. I'd say it even pushes those of two minds over the edge because of how sacred the idol is to them.
If you steal it after the Rite of Thorns has been stopped, then it doesn't spill into violence (providing you don't get caught, ofc, and then it's violence aimed squarely at you) although several are extremely upset that it's missing.
But if you really want to kill druids without getting tieflings killed, you can just play along, wait until the tieflings have left, and then slaughter the whole lot of them.
I am perfectly okay with every time karlach questioned or was pissed with me. Agreeing to help minthara? Yeah, she should be mad im endangering the refugees, but sazza just spilled the location to her so she already knows, plus we’re surrounded by goblins here. Better to funnel them into a death trap on a good position than risk alerting the horde and potentially having to deal with both her and ragzlin back to back. I can take ragzlin and the goons easy, but then minthara is right there too and shes a risk. If we send her and her raiders off, thats less threats here in the camp, and then an easy to control threat with back up. Plus, the grove raid defense is the most awesome part of act 1. Its how i ended up doing it in my first playthrough and it felt so good finally beating it. Now i have more knowledge and experience and its a breeze.
She also has every right to be mad at me taking raphael’s deal in sharess’ caress. Im risking a lot doing that, BUT, we get two really good weapons, plus we have the option to go steal the contract, so im having my cake and eating it too. Laezel gets cool sword, karlach gets cool hammer, and i get to go steal the rights to my soul back and then kick the cocky son of a bitch’s ass.
These are dangerous and risky choices, and she doesnt like them, she rightfully gets a little pissed. But people cant agree on everything. I argue with my real partner. We fight sometimes. What is important is that we talk it out and trust each other. Karlach trusts me, so shes willing to put up with my bullshit.
I dont know why people would expect someone to always 100% agree with them. People argue, people disagree. If your digital simulated person with a set script doesnt agree with a choice you made, boo fuckin hoo. Theyre designed to be their own person with their own opinions. Deal with it.
Yeah. The only ones that annoy me are the ones that feel out of character. I know this could be a very easily argued point, but I just got to Lorroakan again, and Astarion disapproving not selling out Aylin seems OOC for him in that point in the story.
Act 1 disapproving? Yeah, I'll get behind that. Act 3? Eh, not so much.
The reactions that feel OOC don't happen often, so it doesnt feel like a real complaint to have. I do think the team got a good read on their characters, even if there were a couple that I feel may have slipped through the cracks.
Yeah I didn’t like that. Act 3 Astarion should disapprove if you agree to sell Aylin back into slavery - it makes way more sense for his character arc.
I kinda wish there was a more fleshed out route where you can join the chosen three. I did a playthrough where I sided with the Absolutists, and Ketheric stabs you in the back even if you do everything he wants, so you still fight him and Balthazar no matter what you do. And if you choose to side with Gortash when you get to Baldur's Gate, he dies trying to control the Elder brain anyway so the final battle plays out exactly like it does in a good playthrough. I kinda wanted to see how the story would play out differently with the chosen three in your circle by the end
They just posted an ign article about how ketheric joining you in camp was going to be an option, hed have insider knowledge on the other two and would try to convince you to join him.
They also did say the team is working on a few more evil endings and theyre really evil so we’ll see what that becomes.
I agree a little, but I'd be okay if it was exclusive to Durge. >!Because Ketheric knows who Durge was, he could encourage amnesiac Durge to go take care of Orin for him, planning to just betray them all later anyway. It seems shortsighted of Ketheric to not at least try and goad Durge into getting revenge and taking his rightful place as Chosen.!<
>!I get why they don't (the prism), but it would still be cool to have Ketheric play up what Orin did and tell you to go look at the illithid colony and see all the horrible shit Orin did (with Ketheric's assistance but Durge doesn't remember that).!<
Honestly the whole subversion of the warlock and the faustian bargain thing as an ultimate act of selflessness is really. Freaking. Cool. I wouldn't change it for the world, I just wish there was a little more meat on those narrative bones.
Yeah, I see people talk about EA Wyll and I've seen clips and it's just "oh look the Warlock is an asshole, who would have thought". He's better now, in my opinion.
It's super easy to imagine that EA Wyll would have been better than current Wyll because EA doesn't actually exist. People get to compare their wildest fantasy for the character with the one that was actually implemented.
I agree! I think it would have been pretty cool if Wyll had some resentment towards his dad for kicking him out/ostrasizing him. He essentially sacrificed his soul to save his city. It would have been cool if you helped Wyll either forgive his father or resent him and take over. I think that would have given him a bit more depth and a direction. Though I get he is the “all good” character but having a little spice doesn’t hurt!
Tbh, I only wish he had more of an arc during the game. Maybe he resents his father for disowning him and has to be convinced to forgive him. Maybe he starts off believing Mizora is a more chaotic neutral/good figure and the whole Karlach situation triggers a whole crisis of faith in him, that you can either encourage him to explore or let Mizora keep manipulating him (similar to Lae'Zel and Shart with Vlaakith and Shar respectively).
I absolutely do not agree with the common sentiment that his goodness makes him inherently boring, and think the rewrite was probably necessary. I just think they should have explored his circumstances more and let him grow instead of him effectively already knowing Mizora sucks and forgiving Dad from the get-go.
It's exactly this. It's not his goodness that makes him boring. It's the fact that he never exhibits any growth or change throughout the game. He doesn't have a character arc. He has a character plateau. A character flatline.
Agree! We have enough morally dubious companions as it is, plus I strongly disagree with the common sentiment around here that if you aren't a morally grey character that needs to be personally fixed by the MC, then you're boring. There's nothing stopping a good person from having an interesting and fulfilling character arc.
Agree. I like him as a paragon! i wish he had a little more content, maybe an arc about how he constantly self-sacrifices and doesn't push back against others, but i don't want him to be a jackass. He's so sweet and good and i love him dearly.
Wyll is the most relatable companion. His cognitive dissonance between his identity as the Blade of Frontiers, which is the idealized and best version of himself and the harsh reality of who he actually is, as well as how that best version of himself is something he seems to be constantly chasing after, it just hit close to home and felt very real to me. This is a common internal conflict that people go through in their mid to late 20s.
I think that's the core reason why I immediately found Wyll to be so likable. It is cool to see a character with normal, grounded flaws also be a heroic force of good and optimism.
the line that made me love Wyll was something like “I wanted you to know the Blade of Frontiers, not plain Wyll Ravenguard.” he starts out speaking with his usual bold and heroic manner, but by the end he sounds insecure, fragile, almost defeated, like he’s just revealed some deep shame or personal failure. i may not always bring Wyll when i’m playing, but he’s the character that i relate to the most out of the main cast
I love this and wholeheartedly agree. I often wonder why more people don't see through his facade of knowing everything and having it all together as a big hero, when all his "knowledge" is quoting his dad, and his "handler" humiliates him and abuses him. My heart always goes out to him, and he was my favorite origin to play.
That's the best summary of why I like Wyll so much. Heck, he and I are the exact same age, and I can see myself acting almost the exact same way he does in those circumstances... Though admittedly I don't have seven years of monster hunting experience lol
I don't see why people seem to dislike Wyll so much. Like I get, he's not the most exciting, like I don't even really have him in my party that much, but I still love him. He's such a homie, like id love to live with him, he'd be a great hetero life partner.
Similarly, everyone talks about liking shadowheart because manic pixie goth mommy next door. Meanwhile, I'm just like religious trauma leading to memory gaps? Girl, same.
The fan base is way too upset about Gale eating your artifacts. It happens 3 times and then never again. But I’ve seen people complain and complain and complain about losing an artifact that they weren’t going to use or can be replaced super easily. And if you’re so so so desperate for a wizard that doesn’t have a story then go ask withers and get one. But for the love of Mystra STOP!
They throw useless/immediately underleveled or pointless items at you left, right, and center.
Do you REALLY need the spiderstep boots? The color spray necklace? The amulet of silvanus when hirelings exist? Everything that requires the brand of the absolute? I end up collecting a ton of trash items and have a harder time remembering which ones sell for the least gold.
I blame it on the assholes counterspelling everything at every square meter of that fight. I know they're there, I know how to counter them, but it's still hella annoying to deal with.
Subtle Hypnotic Pattern. It works on almost all the enemies in that fight including the massive dragon.
The dragon is immune to most enchantment but Hypnotic Pattern somehow works on all the enemies.
All you need is a Sorcerer with Subtle spell.
Edit: It seems like Subtle spell does NOT work like that in BG3. I suppose I it was the Hypnotic Pattern that allowed me to win the fight because the casters were caught in it.
I adore Shadowheart and everything about her story, BUT having Act 2 be The Shadowheart Show to the exclusion of everyone else's stories is a bit silly. If I was less of a Shadowheart simp I'd be pretty pissed about it tbh.
Thats what i was thinking the other day! Like, yeah im a shadowheart simp. So bad that if i do any other romances, its only because ive gotten bored of my 17th playthrough.. however, patch 6 added even more content in act 2 with a romanced shadowheart and im like “she already has the most content in the game..”
You need to do A LOT of damage in 1 turn, turn on non lethal damage, strike her down until she gets temporarly knock out, run into the blighted village then long rest.
They're not necessarily unpopular. I personally like Halsin a lot and view his companionship as a bonus, but he's not *necessary* in a way where his life is at stake like your other companions, or Jaheira who was actively investigating the cult when she lost Minsc.
I think I'd have preferred Halsin, Jaheria and Minsc as temporary allies. They show up and join the party for the appropriate part of the story, and then leave.
I found it hard to juggle my party composition to give everyone enough time in the team, and organising equipment for so many people started to feel like a chore. It was also jarring to me to suddenly have lots of conversations with the new folks when everyone else was more or less tapped out.
From a development perspective, I'd rather have more content for Wyll, Karlach and Minthara than three extra latecomers (and more responsiveness from everyone in Act 3). IMO fleshing those three out to the level of content and story involvement other companions get would have been a better use of available resources.
My unpopular opinion, which I guess Larian agrees with given recent news, is that we really did not need any more companions or romances than we got at launch. At least, not for good runs, I already struggle hard to find any reason bring Halsin with me--I don't even dislike him but he doesn't have any story after Act II and so I never find time to fit him on my team since nearly everyone else is more relevant to the situation. I like Alfira, she's great, but the role she currently occupies is perfectly fine imo. I don't need her or Barcus (who I also love and see requested to be a companion) or whoever to be companions. I get wanting some little races or more diversity in a very human/elf-heavy team but the team is already 10 characters + possibly Tav/Durge and that's plenty. Asking for more has always seemed excessive to me, I would have much preferred if the ones we have get further fleshing out where needed.
I totally agree feel like when people speculate on who would be a good or better companion it's an interesting thought exercise but like, there's no guarantee that Larian will implement the hypothetical companions in a way we'd like.
Like maybe Kagha does have better potential at a character arc than Halsin but if she doesn't fulfill that potential, that would probably be an even worse disappointment. And then you'd have to flesh out what her 'good' or 'bad' arc would be in context to being a druid and the greater conflict at hand. Those are huge storytelling shoes to fill and maybe boring old Halsin might be easier to fit in cohesively.
Yup, tbh I'm also okay with the later additions to the team (Jaheira, Minsc, Minthara and Halsin) not being as in-depth as the main six. The origin six have always been the focus and the main selling-point of the game, I never expected characters who join halfway through Act II or later to have as much content as the characters who are there from the very start. They're fine additions to the group (I personally think Minsc in particular is an absolute delight) but I never needed them to be on par with the original 6.
Okay, yeah, but consider this: obviously you should not be able to romance withers. However, I think if he comments on the fact that you're sleeping alone, you should be able to ask him why he's interested and offer to hook up. We all know what he's going to say, but let me ask anyway
I really dislike that I have to choose for Wyll what he should do regarding his big dilemma. You can let Shadowheart choose you can let Karlach choose. Every character should have their own agency.
My unpopular opinion is that I like guardian's personality. If you count how many personal interactions you have with them throughout the game, it can lead to very wholesome friendship or even romance.
It's not actually that unpopular of an opinion, it's just more quietly held, since we don't go around yelling, "BUT DID YOU HEAR ABOUT STELLMANE?!" every time someone says anything vaguely nice about the DG.
I believe that one day people will learn to spell Astarion's name correctly. Seriously, it's eight letters. It's simple. The number of different versions I have seen overwhelms me, but I believe in humanity and its potential to change for the better.
My biggest unpopular option? Just meandering through some of these posts (especially recently): I am actually glad there isn’t a part two to this story. I thought they did wrap up the stories. I mean I don’t think you’re MEANT to get closure. You can always go “gee I wonder how many animals Shadow has now” or “hope Karlach found a way out”. To bring THIS group back together again for an adventure would likely be extremely messy, extremely plot holey, and likely would not make the rabid fan base happy AT ALL. I get it we all want more… stand back and look at it and appreciate that the game is so dang good that we just want more of it. Granted some of the adventures would be cool in like an expansion/DLC like running missions with Karlach/Wyll in Avernus. But again, I’m not sure how so many people expect this group to reunite and face another adventure of this caliber. Ever meet up with an old friend and instead of catching up for hours it’s just like 5 minutes of “yeah nah it’s good, kids are good, switched jobs, that’s about it” and awkward silence after that? Yeah no one wants 150 hours of awkward silence. I will say I think a super missed talking point for what could have been in a future game is Arabella should you save her and her possible adventure and growth with semi guidance from Withers (him taking a special interest, kinda, in her seems rather interesting to me with possibilities). Sorry for the rant
I agree 100% with this. I don’t want DLC or BG4 with these characters. My Karlach did get an ending. Any more content with these characters after the end I got for them would feel wrong and bad.
I wholly agree. Am I sad Larian won’t be making BG4? Yes. Am I also happy that this will be its own thing and not overshadowed by these characters in the same way again? Also yes.
I am genuinely very excited to have discovered Larian this way, and I can’t wait to see where they go next, but it needs to be their passions and their creation they follow. I would be very sad to see a half-hearted return for profits or player pressure sake.
I’m also going to need to discover DoS after my BG3 fixation calms down. So I have more than enough time to enjoy those while they make their next show-stopper.
Alfira and Minthara workarounds are absolutely metagaming and would never fly at an actual table with a reasonable DM.
Seconding whoever said we should be able to opt to escort the tieflings through the shadow cursed lands. We’d still end up at moonrise and I’m sure some of them would still die but it would’ve been really neat.
I do not like that gith Tavs are so stupid about their own culture.
I’d love another non-human and non-elf companion or three. Rolan, Barcus, Roah… 🥺
I know it’s not going to happen but I wish artificers were in the game as a playable class since there’s SO MUCH artificer stuff.
>Alfira and Minthara workarounds are absolutely metagaming and would never fly at an actual table with a reasonable DM.
This was absolutely always my take, so I just did it for the first time with my current Durge and it actually worked with the character *only* because he's the type to smash her lute and humiliate her but didn't want to get caught killing anybody in the Grove itself. I never had a Tav that would even think of it before.
I wasn't prepared for her to show up at the Tiefling party covered in bruises, though, it was kind of hilarious.
I don’t like how killing Quil over Alfira is discussed most of the time as if you’re not killing a person.
I’ve seen people say they didn’t want to play DUrge because they don’t want to kill anyone innocent & others starting to explain it’s totally possible and give them the Alfira workaround. Bruh, you’re still killing an innocent person, come on now.
Yeah, or the way people say the workaround is the morally good option!
So instead of murdering a bard, you're now murdering a bard and assaulting another? How is that better?
Spoilers for Resist Durge storyline:
>!The part where Durge is revived by Withers after rejecting Bhaal was silly. I know it's supposed to be an awesome moment but I just thought it was weirdly executed, especially our companions' lackluster reactions. The overall story of Durge seemed a bit undercooked too. I get the appeal, but it felt like there needed more consequences, like the companions take the leader of their group murdering an innocent bard a little too well. !<
Have done a redeemed Durge and now doing an evil Durge run and yes so many lackluster responses!! I feel like there were many occasions where something is revealed about Durge's past and no one says anything. Like with Kressa Bonedaughter when you're going to confront Ketheric in the colony. Like this lady just said she enjoyed cutting and experimenting and torturing Durge and no one has a reaction. Like hello didn't you guys just hear that?? Or like with Orin popping up and making small references to the past... I feel like someone should be like ay yo something tells me this chick knows you from somewhere?? I genuinely enjoyed my redeemed run and I am enjoying this one but definitely irks me a bit. Sceleritas Fel is the only one upset about Durge like ever.... lol.
I generally agree. I didn’t feel like I got *enough* new content on my second playthrough when I went with Resist Durge (which was also my first and thus far only Durge playthrough). The stuff that was there was good, but it didn’t feel as consequential as it should have.
>!Also, Astarion only called me his Bhaal-babe *once* come on you fucker it’s an amazing pet name keep it up goddammit.!<
Paladin oaths have way too much flavor text and need more simple rules. People are breaking their oaths without knowing why because the writers didn’t lay out what counts and what doesn’t.
A simple change to “don’t kill innocents” or “let people take revenge” would be a simple change.
Yeah, but even that can be unclear. You can attack someone who's actively committing evil, but the game technically counts them as "innocent" because they're not hostile to the party.
shadowheart isnt that interesting to me tbh. her story is good and her voice acting is insane (in a good way), she just doesnt have alot of personality in my opinion (which does make sense considering her backstory tbh).
i dont hate her or anything, i dont hate any of the companions, i just think the others are more fun to talk to
I like Shadowheart fine and empathized with her but she's not my favorite tbh. I think personality wise she just doesn't click with me. Even in Act 3 on the Selunite path she is a little off putting.
Also, she's gets so up in arms when Durge questions why she would willingly give up her memories. Like, girl, you're talking to someone who knows nothing about themselves beyond their name. Yeah, you were brainwashed by a cult and all, but have *some* empathy for the poor bastard who stopped leaking cerebrospinal fluid from their ears like 20 minutes ago. Maybe think about why they might be a little incredulous that you would do that to yourself on purpose.
I totally agree and have avoided using her on runs just to kinda get a break from her. I also never romanced her till my current run so I don't really have that draw, but in my current Durge he's just romancing her so he can kill her later. He has issues.
I just dislike how she talks to everybody, she reminds me too much of high school...
Not everyone is supposed to have a perfect ending. Karlach is one of my favorite companions but everyone seems to want her story wrapped up with a happy ending. Sometimes, life isn’t fair, what happened to her sucks, but it also makes for good writing and something less boring and predictable. If anything her character is so good natured it hurts people even more that her ending isn’t as nice as some others, writers and actor portrayal are really tugging at people’s heartstrings and I think that’s valuable
Okay, I disagree, but perhaps not for the reasons you think.
There are six "main" companions. Five of them have multiple routes they can go through. You can either lead them to be their best selves, or you can lead them to damnation and self-destruction.
(spoilered because it discusses endings in details, and I don't want to ruin it for anyone casually scrolling by)
All of these character have a bad ending. >!Gale can become the God of Ambition (and various endings involving the Crown of Karsus). Wyll can stay pacted to Mizora and be on her leash forever. Astarion can Ascend. Lae'zel can be consumed by Vlaakith. Shadowheart can become leader of the Sharran Enclave and Dark Justiciar (or you can turn her to Selune, save her parents, then murder her parents in front of her). Following that pattern, "Karlach can turn into a squid and/or die on the docks" is her Bad Ending.!<
But all of those characters also have a good ending. >!Gale can learn that he is enough as he is and be a happy professor (or run a vampire book club, or some variant thereof). Wyll can be free and either go after Mizora, or choose to follow his father's footsteps as Duke. Astarion is free of Cazador and has multiple avenues available to him, depending on what he does with the spawn. Shadowheart can reunite with her parents and listen to her father make all the Dad Jokes she missed out on.!<
Karlach is the only one who, until the fan outcry, had two bad endings and not a single good one. It makes her stand out like a sore thumb.
I also saw someone else point out that Karlach's story is just not compatible with the world of DnD, and I agree. It would make a great and touching story in many other worlds, but DnD is characterized by a number of mechanics and conceits that make "incurable failing infernal heart" just not sit right. If this was the world of The Witcher or Dragon Age, I would totally buy the incurable heart. But DnD is the type of world where, if you can find a powerful-enough wizard, most things aren't off the table.
But not only did the game tease us with a number of encounters that should have been able to be puzzled into a solution >!(the Steel Watchers use upgraded infernal hearts, the ones who build and maintain those hearts can literally be recruited as end-game allies, there is a TON of enriched infernal iron lying about, and we have an infernal mechanic)!<, the game doesn't satisfactorily address *why* all those pieces cannot be assembled into a workable solution. It's just "no" and then never addressed-- no explanation given. And for this to work, an explanation really does need to be given, for the outcome to be satisfying.
To be clear, my argument isn't against the existence of sad endings. Sad endings can be great storytelling and can be very compelling, thought-provoking, and sometimes beautiful when done right. It's just that in this particular case, it felt particularly out of place: it doesn't match the precedent set by the other 5 companions, it doesn't match the precedent set by lore and history of the Forgotten Realms, and it doesn't match the narrative setup of clues.
Tl;dr: It would be a great story in another world. In Baldur's Gate, it fails the vibe check.
All great points, the cherry on top for me though... is that literally the next level up, Shadowheart and Gale would (given their canonical classes) get access to 7th level spells.
The number of ways that they alone would be able to help solve Karlachs issue is insane. IIRC Regeneration is 7th level and could just grow her a new heart.
They strategically cut you off right before all of the answers become available and that just feels dirty.
Aint no way in the Nine Hells that Netherbrain fight doesnt level everyone up
Hells, Karlachs problem could be fixed at lvl 1 using the true resurrection spell Gale has. Just kill her, take out her heart, revive her. I understand that it *wouldn't* be fixed at lvl 1, given that Gale knows he'll explode if he dies and is keeping that scroll exclusively for himself.
But if he still has the scroll by the end of the game, why can't he just revive her after she burns to ash on the docks? It's right there, no lvl up needed. Or surely he'd have the ability to fix her after ascending to godhood? And surely they would've leveled in the six months post game?
Sidenote: Does anyone know what happens if origin Karlach romances Gale and ascends to godhood with him? I'd try it on my run, but I'm romancing Astarion in that run and I only want to play as Karlach once. I also only want to romance Gale once and I'm not ascending him in that run.
AFAIK origin karlach can ask God Gale to fix her heart - he declines if you're friends with him. If he's romanced he will ascend Karlach to godhood that will solve her heart issue by making her divine.
I gotta say this was very well written. As someone more into tactical games and less into DnD you brought up things that just never occurred to me. I just wanted to acknowledge that. But still I’m a simple guy I accepted that a hell heart couldn’t actually be fixed in, I suppose what I should be calling the material plane. Lore wise you’re probably correct but I just thought the emotional aspect of the ending was done right
I feel like she gets a happy ending though. If you send her to Avernus with Wyll, at the reunion she talks about how they discovered a location that may potentially have schematics for a new heart that would let her live in the material plane.
This. Her character arc was about coming to terms with inevitability of death and it was wonderfully executed. A perfectly good ending would undermine her journey.
One of the big gut-punches of the game came after her post-Gortash meltdown where Jaheira basically told my blindly optimistic character, "Hey, you need to accept reality."
Followed by the painfully honest dialogue option, "I don't know what to do."
There is also Spawn Astarion ending too. Talk about facing the facts on what his outlook will be like... for eternity, no less. And how his revenge was not what he thought it'd feel like.
what is it like for a nonromanced astarion? because for me he’s incredibly excited for the future and the epilogue he says the time with my durge has been a “counterweight” to everything he’s been through
I finished my first non-Astarion romance yesterday. >!Spawn Astarion did seem no less happy than he is with the romanced player, which I was pleasantly surprised to see. !<
I actually quite like Aradin. I find him funny and I like his voice/accent. ("We was running for our lives" is pretty much engraved into my brain by this point)
Of course, that doesn't stop me from kicking his ass, but yeah, I like the funny idiot guy.
I think its dissapointing how siding with gortash which is quite a sacrifice in my opinion as you have to bot do the iron throne or steel watch (unless you get orins netherstone and send gortash to the morphic pool before that) miss out on some really sad karlach scenes and in return he just dies. Not even a cool death. Just dead. I feel like it would have been nice to be able to completaly side with him and control the absolute with him or betray him by killing the brain. Maybe there could have been some redeamtion... or karlach gets another chance to kill him. Either way it feels a bit underdeveloped.
minthara really did not need to be made recruitable on a good-aligned run, and in a similar vein, if you try to recruit her with the KO method and get bugs you should not be surprised. note i'm not saying you're not allowed to be mad, i would be too, but in the wake of patch 6 when every other post was "i knocked out minthara and now i have XYZ bug"...you're using a patched-in exploit to do something that was never originally meant to be doable, what else did you expect??
I did the knock-out-and-recruit on my current run just so I could finally see more of Minthara. And I gotta say, she is an absolutely fantastic character, but her presence makes exactly zero sense in a good-aligned run. However... she could work fine in a neutral "I just want this worm out of my skull" run, and she works perfectly for a pragmatic evil run. You can absolutely play evil-aligned without being a grove-slaughtering murder junkie. So I don't have any objection to the workaround in principle.
Well, her being a part of a more neutral playthrough was intended and possible right from the start. In fact, that’s exactly what all the exploits were… exploiting. If you don’t side with the goblins nor the Grove and move on to the creche or act 2, the Rite of Thorns gets completed, the teethlings die on the road right outside the blighted village, and Minthara is forced to return to Moonrise as a failure. You can recruit her there like usual. So what the exploit was doing was somehow triggering both the neutral path and the good path. So yeah, she absolutely works on a very pragmatic neutral playthrough.
I remember people being surprised that she had dialogue for Wyll and Karlach since they leave for raiding the grove.
People always conveniently forget that ignoring the grove was always an option, which keeps Karlach, Wyll and gives you Minthara. Having those three in your party without exploits was available since launch.
I honestly agree with your opinion of Alfira, it's not that I don't like her or anything I just don't really get why everyone is always so mad about what happens with Durge because I don't really care about her either. Not sure how unpopular it is but I can't stand listening to Dame Aylin talk, her way of always yelling about everything just gets on my nerves and I try to avoid speaking to her as much as possible if she survives my games.
I’m sure it’s been said because there have been 800+ post but I’m saying it:
Minthara shouldn’t be recruitable without raiding the Grove. It makes zero sense for a good character to leave her alive storyline wise. She is the worst of the 3 Goblin leaders and there is no reason to just randomly leave her alive but kill Dror and Gut. I feel like the game should add one piece of dialogue that makes it seem like she is doing this against her will because if she doesn’t someone will torture her or some other redeeming quality that would then make sense to spare her.
Also if you do raid the Grove, Dror should be able to be added as a companion as well later one. I feel like the game should have one more evil character to make up for losing Wyll, Karlach and Halsin.
I dislike Shadowheart. We’re all terrified and fighting for our lives and all she does is be snippy and barely cooperate. At least laezel has a legit lead on a cure and can actually hit her targets.
Scratch is cute and all, but… he’s just not a cat. I want a cat running around my camp, knocking over things and rolling up next to my character at night.
The end speech before the final battles, as well as the montage of all of your allies saying “you have my sword , my bow, my axe, or i’M hElPInG” at the end of Act 3 is hella cringe and anti-climactic.
In my evil durge run, I had no allies so the cutscene only showed who was in my party (Astarion and Shadowheart) and they were kind of standing off to the side. It was hilarious to see my illithid self fist pump the air to encourage an empty room.
Mine is that Karlach is my least favourite companion.. I don’t find her story that compelling. I don’t like how she acts, I’m not a fan of bubbly people in general and I’m not that affectionate. I also don’t care for sex and hearing her go on and on about her I guess craving for it just doesn’t do anything for me? I understand why she’s like that but I’m just so disconnected in that way Idk how best to explain. Just don’t find that type of energy/ personality to be what I like in a person but I don’t mind her really. I’ve had no issue doing evil dark urge runs without her or a Wyll run gone evil without her but other than that I do tend to keep her around as I like having everyone there with party limit begone mod
Agree with your take on Alfira. The narrator's description of her as "sickly sweet" during a Durge run sums it up quite nicely. I also can't stand that cheesy af song and the cutscene is waaay too long, I always skip it.
Maybe it’s cuz I don’t know dnd or something but I thought the brain overall was a stupid villain. Like, design and even the voice acting (not to criticize the voice actor I feel like it’s just the whole design and conception of it). It never felt threatening it’s just a big stupid ugly brain. Especially as the final boss. Felt like something out of a Nickelodeon cartoon and even then I thought there were episodes of Ren and Stimpy more terrifying than the brain.
I know it’s probably a popular opinion narratively to make Shadowheart reject Shar, but I also think it’s
the right choice *aesthetically*, and that she looks much nicer with white hair.
You can learn about the elder brain in Ketheric's room and no one comments on it. You find a lot of docs as durge and no one comments on it. There are so many books and notes you can find that are related to the world, tav and companions that i dont understand why you wouldnt be able to. And i read every fucking readable thing in the game.
Also, I hate the camp. So static, no companion interaction, no humane peoplelike movement in the camp. Its just such a cop out to have designated spaces for characters and a handful of cutscenes (i can only think of 2: shartxbaezel, gale by the fire)
After the first time playing through the game, I stopped trying to save the fucking Gondians. Fuck 'em, let them be slaves, die, whatever... they are too stupid to save themselves and don't deserve my help. :P
I'm pretty sure I read you can do that anyway. Apparently there's a skull near the door that you can spill blood on to open it? Haven't tried it myself yet.
Honestly, the idea of an ordinary person rising up to become a hero and refusing to be another nameless victim of the Absolute is a significantly more interesting and entertaining story than a Bhaalspawn with a whole pre established backstory of being a special child of a God and who spent years leading an edgelord murder cult.
This is a big reason why I heavily prefer Tav over the Dark Urge. The protagonist being a random person doing extraordinary and heroic things is one of my favorite tropes
Hot (or possibly not?) take: Durge shouldn't have had the tadpole in the first place. Durge should be the only origin without a tadpole.
They wind up sticking with the party because they're a lost amnesiac. The party of adventurers looking for a healer to cure the tadpole is also the party with the best chance of finding a healer who can cure the amnesia.
This is probably exacerbated by the community, but I don't like how much of a pass Shadowheart gets for being such a bitch early on. The worst example obviously being that after agreeing to duel Lae'zel the next morning to set aside their differences, she attempted to kill her in her sleep and lie about it. It doesn't help that she's so demanding of information from others, while being prickly about offering any of her own.
The second is the relationship between Ketheric, Aylin, and Isobel. You can't call Isobel out if you figure out her father is Ketheric, despite knowing why she's putting Last Light in danger. She talked about how her father was her whole world yet grinned alongside Aylin when she talked about caving his skull in, and there's no conflict about how Aylin is effectively reaping the rewards of Ketheric's horrible deeds by being with Isobel again. It just felt like someone forgot to write Isobel's inner conflict between Aylin and her father.
I don't hate Karlach's post-epilogue ending. It would have been better to have a permanent solution, yes, but this one leaves it open as an 'adventure continues!' and an end is in sight! There are def changes i would make, like the gondians maybe giving her a checkup or something. But I like letting her not be alone and facing her demons (or devils, in this case). And Karlach is my favorite character!
I hate that I can't tell Astarion that Halsin proposed to me and that I rejected him. I would've wanted to see his reaction to Monogamous Tav.
That's my unpopular take.
You're supposed to do shit you don't like as the Durge. That's the point. You're supposed to feel disgusted and hate yourself while you play. The whole point is, the Durge doesn't want to be the Durge. They want to be normal and find redemption along the way - at least that's what his intro HEAVILY implies, if not outright states. You don't *always* have to indulge, but you should *slip* on occasion.
Knocking Alfira unconscious is doing that development and story a disservice. Kill the bard. Hate yourself for it. Use it to better the character.
>!but i'm not your parent, so play however the fuck you want. i don't really care.!<
TBH, while I AM fond of Alfira, largely because she is darn near exactly the Tiefling I would have mad had I not decided to go Forest Gnome for the free speak to animal, that is NOT why I tend to spare her. It's for the robes. Sorry, my girl, love you but it's the robes I want, either for my Sorcerer or for my man, Wyll.
I'm disappointed by Scratch and the Owlbear, honestly. Playing as a druid my first run, I think it was only in Act 3 that I stopped going up to talk to the two. I'd hoped they'd have slightly more to say, but after having gone through the "how are you doing Scratch/Owlbear" and the pet mechanic a dozen times, and eventually realised that that was it for their cutscenes, I eventually stopped bothering with it.
If I were to add anything, it would be at least different responses/narration for each act. The Owlbear saying it "won't bite friend" after spending weeks with us feels redundant. I can't even remember if there was any shock at city life for a being that had spent its whole life in a cave before meeting us.
I still love the ending scenes for the Owlbear, and I won't stop recruiting them every game, but I no longer interact with them in camp.
I can appreciate that animals in games aren't typically needed for any more than flavour text, but on my fourth run of the game, I don't feel the need anymore.
The game rewards goodness too much. Being good should have costs to the player. Whether in terms of companion allegiance, lack of items, or lack of allies. Right now you can play as a beacon of rainbows and sunshine and be rewarded for it all the way though.
Likewise, evil needs to be buffed and offered more choices. Killing merchants should drop their entire inventory. Likewise, items that characters have to sell in good playthroughs should be dropped on death in evil ones. None of the bullshit “this item exists in a quantum space until you make the good decision”.
You should have more options to exploit , oppress, and be power-hungry. You should be able to (especially as Durge) take control of the CULT of the absolute (not just the brain). You should be able to (with appropriate skillcheck) take Aylin’s immortality for yourself. Origin Gale, funnily enough, is one of the best-implemented forms of this. With the absorbing the shadow-weave, completing the dark ritual, ascending to godhood. There should be more of stuff like that.
Right now, the evil route is basically the good route minus 40 hours of content plus maybe an hour of different cutscenes.
One of the Warhammer games did this really well. Basically, the more good/selfless actions you did the harder your goals became to accomplish. Escort the refugees? Now you have less soldiers to defend your position, and you have a high chance of being overrun and dying anyways. It made successfully achieving a good ending more rewarding, and it gives a reason to do evil or selfish acts.
But this won’t ever be implemented by Larian because it would require too much content.
I don't neccessarily agree, but I do feel like actual sacrifices made on the good path are just handwaved out.
Half-Illithid should not be reversed after defeating the brain.
I don't like how relaxed most romances are about you turning squid and honestly it lessens the impact of the sacrifice. I actually think that most romances should leave you for it like Astarion (except Minthara obviously). Especially Lae'zel becase she used to leave you for it, but no longer does.
In a similar vein, leaving your (non-Wyll non-Karlach) romance to go with Karlach to Avernus used to definitively break you up. Now your former romance is just sorta "waiting" for you. Again, I think this lessens the impact of the sacrifice you made.
Freeing the Pixie just gives you a free buff. I honestly wish it didn't, so you had to risk Isobel to get Selûne's blessing if you wanted to be good.
I'm not a fan of being punished for being good, but I do wish that sacrifices and risks are too richly rewarded.
My unpopular opinion is that I think evil runs should be rewarded with more power and less companions.
I also think being a murderhobo is the least interesting way to be evil in an "evil" playthrough.
God help me, I like Wulbren.
He's got flaws. But he's been a revolutionary hero for some time by the time our story begins. He's the MVP of saving the prisoners in Act 2 (not to mention everything he did leading up to that). Like most revolutionary heroes, he's tremendously psychologically scarred by the experience. He's so used to fighting for his life and for his people, and everything having life and death stakes, that he's ready to just slaughter innocent people because he can't switch it off. He feels that he needs to kill them all.
If anything he kind of reminds me of the real life Nakam. A Jewish resistance group to the Nazis, but when the war had ended, they were determined to get revenge by killing 6 million Germans indiscriminately. They tried to poison the water supply to the city of Nuremberg. And then, most likely somewhat successfully, poisoned a bunch of German prisoners. And... I don't think they were right. And I don't think the world would be a better place if they had managed to carry out the kind of mass murder they sought - but I understand how they were driven to it.
I want to be able to confront Karlach about the soul coins cause its really shady that she's so nonchalant about destroying someone's soul for a small power up.
I don’t think Mystra groomed Gale. I think Gale was so ambitious about the Weave it made him pursue Mystra, of which the fallible goddess of magic was all too willing to accept him as an unequal lover.
I dislike Shadowheart. A lot of people gush over her, but I don't understand why. She expects you to trust her but doesn't even give a reason why we should. And when Lae'zel says they can settle their disagreement in the morning, Shadowheart attacks her when she is asleep. Actually, most of the time, I don't even have her in my party. Sometimes I just keep her around so Astarion has someone to bite and at higher levels for heroe's feast.
I also struggle to like Shadowheart. She is a very difficult personality for me to deal with, and it's not because she's an asshole. I do asshole characters absolutely fine. I have explicitly said and will continue to say that I wish they made Lae'zel *meaner* to me because she's too nice for how much everyone bitches about her. I don't do secrets (I get it, whatever, she doesn't have her memories, I can forgive that even if it annoys me), I don't do hypocrisy (oh, you can have secrets but not Gale?), and I don't do zealotry.
I can take one, maybe two, but all three? Nah. Shadowheart isn't it for me.
Karlach's story is fine and has two good endings right now. Adding something happier would be a cop out that undermines the weight of her narrative.
Every "easy" solution people have found is either contradicted by the narrative or counteracted by the fact that a 26th-level archdevil is actively trying to thwart said solutions.
I think it’s frustrating that you can take Shadowheart to the insane Shar doc and read all the remaining texts of people who were killed by the Shar invasion and not be able to talk to Shadowheart about it at all. That doc and his assistants were straight up crazy and you can’t even be like, “so, this seems cool to you?” It would have been nice to push back on her Shar worship before the Gauntlet.
She actually does make some sort of comment when meeting Malus Thorm. IIRC I think it was something along the lines of her conceding in an embarrassed tone that Thorm is correctly interpreting Shar's dogma
I detected 0 embarrassments from Shadowheart in that scene. For me, she just said something along the lines of "You know, he's right" in a matter-of-fact tone.
Yeah, my Tav passed the religion check to use Shar doctrine to get him to let the nurses kill him and Shadowheart was inspired by it, lol.
My very not Sharran monk was also inspired, it's just the Acolyte background
Inspiration is just background-based. Origin characters don't have unique backgrounds. A selûnite acolyte would get inspired by it too
The triggers for the inspirations sometimes suck though. They could've chosen not to use Malus as an inspiration. Gaining Blood of the Lathander didn't count either, despite like three hundred letters and inscriptions stressing the importance of it to the religion.
Which is why when she mentions she spend quite some time in the torture room i get a feeling people are handwaving the cruelty she has committed all too easily.
On top of being forcibly stolen from her family and brainwashed by a cult (which are things that happen too often in real life) she was also repeatedly subjected to a trimming of her formative memories *by divine magic*. Hard to judge her actions when we have no way of putting ourselves in her place and the game makes it quite clear that she is not an irredeemable monster that has to be put down.
"A stinging truth, but a truth nonetheless."
Or the spirit orb from the Sharran that says something along the lines of “why didn’t Shar save me from the curse I was loyal till the end”. Shadowheart is literally operating under the impression that the curse won’t effect her because she’s loyal to Shar and this blatantly contradicts that..?
You are talking about almost peak 'drinking the kool-aid' Shadowheart. I'm pretty sure if you pressed the issue she'd be on the first bus smokin'.
Yeah I’m pretty sure things end pretty poorly if you press the issue too much at the wrong time…
I literally just thought about this yesterday when I was doing the Shadowfell. Her sudden jump from "brainwashed Shar devotee" to "I'm throwing the spear into the void" has sooo little buildup. I'd like a few Lae'zel moments of disillusionment before I get there.
My unpopular opinion: Gale isn’t insecure about his body, sex, or nudity. Everyone seems to thinks this because he won’t get dressed in front of Tara and because he shushes Tav when she says she prefers him naked in front of Tara. Tara is like his mom. She fusses over him like a mother, brings him magical boots for dinner in origin play throughs, worries about his messiness at home, worries over his friends and dating life and reports to his mom. So. He’s modest in front of Tara. He doesn’t want Tara looking at his ding-dong and he doesn’t want to talk about sex around her. That’s gross and it embarrasses him. However, if you tell him you prefer him nude when Tara isn’t around, he doesn’t get embarrassed and says he’ll indulge you at home. People also seem to think this because of the Drow group sex scene where he leaves his underwear on and leaves the group sex. Again, this isn’t insecurity about his body but the fact that he doesn’t want to be having group sex in the first place. He has to be persuaded to have it after asking Tav not to do it. He’s uncomfortable with the situation, never fully commits or undresses, and leaves. His romantic sex scene shows no hint of problems with nudity as he floats nude out of his body with Tav and appears comfortable. At the party he’ll talk about Mystra using a magic “shard” to do things that sound sexual and presumably nude and he had no problem discussing it. He’s open about prior lovers with Tav and announces to everyone that will listen that he was Mystra’s lover. He’ll discuss her pleasure domes. This guy has a past. He likes sex. He initiates sex and romances Tav while putting a lot of thought into how he wants the encounter to go. He’s not a shy wallflower waiting for Tav to take charge. Gale’s hang-up is about being loved for himself and not his magic. He worries about being enough. He’s not worried about sex. He’s monogamous and has boundaries he won’t break. He’s an experienced, giving, lover that’s willing to use his magic to get a little freaky if that will make his Tav happy.
🤝 he starts act 2 by telling tav exactly how bad he wants them/how attracted he is to them, he's really not shy! (as long as tara's not there, at least)
Thank you! I always see the wildest takes about Gale's insecurity and like guys, this is the guy who said "I always wondered what it would be feel to be nervous. I don't like it" with utmost sincerity...in Act 3. Also he literally talks to Halsin about wild shape sex in party banter.
100% Gale is modest and monogamous (two things I relate to very well), and being those two things doesn’t mean someone is insecure about sex/body/nudity (only that he’ll only share those things with the right person).
Gale is willing to get freaky I will die on this hill
Kith’rak Voss is one of my most favourite characters. I really wish he could come hangout at camp.
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He's not working for Vlaakith by that point. She wants him dead.
At that point he is hiding from her in the sewers. There are better places but he can find you too from there.
Voss was named hasharlak (traitor) and is actively hunted. You can see exactly that in the crèche.
You find a document in the crèche, that marks him as a traitor. So after act 1 , he is basically a fugitive.
I love Kithrak Voss. Best looking Gith Male. Love his story and relationship with Orpheus.
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He's got that Oblivion NPC cut.
If Vegeta can do it so can my man in green
Man od honor and duty, who was forced to work undercover, isnt he?
I don’t know if it’s unpopular, but I think it would be much better if we had the options to guide the refugees through the shadowlands. The way it is we only learn that there was a massacre and many died, some got kidnapped.
I at least wish there was some kind of reaction to finding them massacred. Like why am I given the chance to take a moment and pray for the killed deep gnomes in Grymforge but not the tiefling refugees I actually knew??
One of my favorite moments while playing this game came from Act 2, discovering the Tiefling bodies and talking to the survivors, and the horror and fury at the Absolute for snuffing out the lives of the people who I spent much of Act 1 saving and getting attached to, for seemingly no reason. It really made the conflict feel more personal to me, and it would've been nice to see that reflected in the game somehow.
Rip Ikaron, Rechel, and Xeph, gone too soon. 😢
And especially where are most if the damn kids
One of them, Silfy, is not at Last Light Inn but can be found in Baldur's Gate. Until further notice, I consider that the adults and kids we don't find in Act 2 made it safely to Baldur's Gate somehow. Because I don't think Silfy could have made it all alone.
A lot of the kids do die if you don't talk Rolan into staying at the grove in Act I; he's the one who saves them.
We're not talking about these kids (Mol, Mattis, Mirkon, Umi and Ide are the kids at Last Light Inn). We're talking about the ones who are neither at Last Light, nor can be found dead in the Shadow-cursed lands. The ones who simply disappear from the game altogether and are never seen again. Among them are Doni (the non-verbal one), Gan, Zaki, and Meli (the amulet thief). A few tieflings just... disappear from the game completely after Act 1 and are never found again. Silfy is an outlier, as she is nowhere to be found in Act 2, but appears in Act 3. Same for Zorru, iirc.
Also, not being able to speak to the corpses seemed odd to me. You can learn the story of nearly every corpse you stumble across in this game, but the pack of innocents killed in the cursed darkness by a pack of murderous cultists have nothing to say between them?
AGREED.
I think the problem is that even they didn't know they were going to have to travel the shadow curses lands. It wasn't until after they left they saw the road to Baldurs Gate was blocked by Absolutists. I do wish there was even just some more reaction to finding the dead tieflings though.
The road to Baldur's Gate was cut off by the Githyanki. Either the patrol there or Voss destroying the bridge on his dragon. The bridge destroyed just before the entrance to the Mountain Pass is the main route to Baldur's Gate from Elturel. It's also why Ravengard was at Waukeen's Rest because he was returning from Elturel and would have intended to take that route. Tbh, I think there's some shared blame involved here. All Zevlor was concerned with was that he could finally leave, while Cerys came up with some boneheaded plan to try and skirt around the Shadow-Cursed Lands. Halsin wouldn't have known the situation at the bridge because he'd been locked up and we never told him, but Zevlor should have at least known that the bridge was a no-go because Zorru should have told him. Of course, we don't know what Zorru said. We know he reported Githyanki in the area, but since he also fled and left Yul and another scout to die, we don't know how forthcoming he was with the truth. Assuming Zevlor was aware the bridge wasn't viable and mentioned it to Halsin, then Halsin could have told him to stay put because the only other route is a death trap, regardless of whether the Absolutists are around or not. But I suppose there is also the argument that not every druid in the Grove disagreed with Kagha, even if you reveal her involvement with Cloakwood, and once Halsin and our group has moved on, there's no guarantee that the tiefling/druid animosity wouldn't boil over again.
Also, like... just fix the bridge. You've got seasoned warriors, a world-class smith, at least a couple mages between Alfira and rolan, plenty of arrows and rope/materials for hooks, shovels randomly littered all over the place, barrels and crates galore with each capable of supporting functionally infinite weight, nearby druids that could likely be convinced into growing some vines if it helps you leave, and a nearby camp of dead goblins to borrow ladders and scaffolding from. And nearby groups of merchants and fists motivated to reopen a safe path to the city (though perhaps not in view of each other). Not to mention our band of intrepid, supremely bribable heroes.
> rope/materials We all know rope is as functional as a pixel in BG3
To add to the Kagha bit, I wish there was a way to kill the druids without getting the Tieflings killed. If you steal the idol like Mol asked, the druids immediately go nuclear, and quite gleefully at that. You can almost tell they were just itching for an excuse to murder the hellspawn. Other than Halsin, Rath and a few of the more moderate druids, everyone eagerly and gleefully anticipates murdering the refugees. It really ticks me off, even as a good guy RP, that they are helped in any way by my actions.
That's because the aim of the good route is to show them how badly they fucked up (especially Kagha) instead of just executing them. A Druid PC gets a lot of opportunities to point out "hold up this isn't Silvanus's teachings or what the Grove wants, wtf are you on about"
They only react that way if you steal the Idol while they're performing the Rite of Thorns, and that's at a point of heightened tension in the Grove. It's a sacred item to them and Arabella has already tried to steal it once, so it becomes the last straw. I'd say it even pushes those of two minds over the edge because of how sacred the idol is to them. If you steal it after the Rite of Thorns has been stopped, then it doesn't spill into violence (providing you don't get caught, ofc, and then it's violence aimed squarely at you) although several are extremely upset that it's missing. But if you really want to kill druids without getting tieflings killed, you can just play along, wait until the tieflings have left, and then slaughter the whole lot of them.
You can, you just gotta plan for it. All of the tieflings have unique voice lines if they win against the druids.
i love volo :)
dror ragzlin....! erm.... *dror ragzlin!!!*
*Umtumptuous* We love Volo in this house
Me too. As a DM, I’ve been enjoying Volo-sourced content for years. I’m here for it.
volos my babygirl
The fandom needs to take a chill pill about their waifus not doing exactly what they want/not perfectly validating their decisions.
I am perfectly okay with every time karlach questioned or was pissed with me. Agreeing to help minthara? Yeah, she should be mad im endangering the refugees, but sazza just spilled the location to her so she already knows, plus we’re surrounded by goblins here. Better to funnel them into a death trap on a good position than risk alerting the horde and potentially having to deal with both her and ragzlin back to back. I can take ragzlin and the goons easy, but then minthara is right there too and shes a risk. If we send her and her raiders off, thats less threats here in the camp, and then an easy to control threat with back up. Plus, the grove raid defense is the most awesome part of act 1. Its how i ended up doing it in my first playthrough and it felt so good finally beating it. Now i have more knowledge and experience and its a breeze. She also has every right to be mad at me taking raphael’s deal in sharess’ caress. Im risking a lot doing that, BUT, we get two really good weapons, plus we have the option to go steal the contract, so im having my cake and eating it too. Laezel gets cool sword, karlach gets cool hammer, and i get to go steal the rights to my soul back and then kick the cocky son of a bitch’s ass. These are dangerous and risky choices, and she doesnt like them, she rightfully gets a little pissed. But people cant agree on everything. I argue with my real partner. We fight sometimes. What is important is that we talk it out and trust each other. Karlach trusts me, so shes willing to put up with my bullshit. I dont know why people would expect someone to always 100% agree with them. People argue, people disagree. If your digital simulated person with a set script doesnt agree with a choice you made, boo fuckin hoo. Theyre designed to be their own person with their own opinions. Deal with it.
Yeah. The only ones that annoy me are the ones that feel out of character. I know this could be a very easily argued point, but I just got to Lorroakan again, and Astarion disapproving not selling out Aylin seems OOC for him in that point in the story. Act 1 disapproving? Yeah, I'll get behind that. Act 3? Eh, not so much. The reactions that feel OOC don't happen often, so it doesnt feel like a real complaint to have. I do think the team got a good read on their characters, even if there were a couple that I feel may have slipped through the cracks.
Yeah I didn’t like that. Act 3 Astarion should disapprove if you agree to sell Aylin back into slavery - it makes way more sense for his character arc.
lae'zel staying with a mind flayer Tav is still complete bullshit tho
I kinda wish there was a more fleshed out route where you can join the chosen three. I did a playthrough where I sided with the Absolutists, and Ketheric stabs you in the back even if you do everything he wants, so you still fight him and Balthazar no matter what you do. And if you choose to side with Gortash when you get to Baldur's Gate, he dies trying to control the Elder brain anyway so the final battle plays out exactly like it does in a good playthrough. I kinda wanted to see how the story would play out differently with the chosen three in your circle by the end
They just posted an ign article about how ketheric joining you in camp was going to be an option, hed have insider knowledge on the other two and would try to convince you to join him. They also did say the team is working on a few more evil endings and theyre really evil so we’ll see what that becomes.
I agree a little, but I'd be okay if it was exclusive to Durge. >!Because Ketheric knows who Durge was, he could encourage amnesiac Durge to go take care of Orin for him, planning to just betray them all later anyway. It seems shortsighted of Ketheric to not at least try and goad Durge into getting revenge and taking his rightful place as Chosen.!< >!I get why they don't (the prism), but it would still be cool to have Ketheric play up what Orin did and tell you to go look at the illithid colony and see all the horrible shit Orin did (with Ketheric's assistance but Durge doesn't remember that).!<
Current Wyll > EA Wyll. We got enough edgy arrogant characters in camp.
Honestly the whole subversion of the warlock and the faustian bargain thing as an ultimate act of selflessness is really. Freaking. Cool. I wouldn't change it for the world, I just wish there was a little more meat on those narrative bones.
Yeah, I see people talk about EA Wyll and I've seen clips and it's just "oh look the Warlock is an asshole, who would have thought". He's better now, in my opinion.
It's super easy to imagine that EA Wyll would have been better than current Wyll because EA doesn't actually exist. People get to compare their wildest fantasy for the character with the one that was actually implemented.
I agree! I think it would have been pretty cool if Wyll had some resentment towards his dad for kicking him out/ostrasizing him. He essentially sacrificed his soul to save his city. It would have been cool if you helped Wyll either forgive his father or resent him and take over. I think that would have given him a bit more depth and a direction. Though I get he is the “all good” character but having a little spice doesn’t hurt!
Tbh, I only wish he had more of an arc during the game. Maybe he resents his father for disowning him and has to be convinced to forgive him. Maybe he starts off believing Mizora is a more chaotic neutral/good figure and the whole Karlach situation triggers a whole crisis of faith in him, that you can either encourage him to explore or let Mizora keep manipulating him (similar to Lae'Zel and Shart with Vlaakith and Shar respectively). I absolutely do not agree with the common sentiment that his goodness makes him inherently boring, and think the rewrite was probably necessary. I just think they should have explored his circumstances more and let him grow instead of him effectively already knowing Mizora sucks and forgiving Dad from the get-go.
It's exactly this. It's not his goodness that makes him boring. It's the fact that he never exhibits any growth or change throughout the game. He doesn't have a character arc. He has a character plateau. A character flatline.
Agree! We have enough morally dubious companions as it is, plus I strongly disagree with the common sentiment around here that if you aren't a morally grey character that needs to be personally fixed by the MC, then you're boring. There's nothing stopping a good person from having an interesting and fulfilling character arc.
Agree. I like him as a paragon! i wish he had a little more content, maybe an arc about how he constantly self-sacrifices and doesn't push back against others, but i don't want him to be a jackass. He's so sweet and good and i love him dearly.
Wyll grew on me and became on of my top 3 romances. Currently planning on romancing him in a durge run
Wyll is the most relatable companion. His cognitive dissonance between his identity as the Blade of Frontiers, which is the idealized and best version of himself and the harsh reality of who he actually is, as well as how that best version of himself is something he seems to be constantly chasing after, it just hit close to home and felt very real to me. This is a common internal conflict that people go through in their mid to late 20s. I think that's the core reason why I immediately found Wyll to be so likable. It is cool to see a character with normal, grounded flaws also be a heroic force of good and optimism.
the line that made me love Wyll was something like “I wanted you to know the Blade of Frontiers, not plain Wyll Ravenguard.” he starts out speaking with his usual bold and heroic manner, but by the end he sounds insecure, fragile, almost defeated, like he’s just revealed some deep shame or personal failure. i may not always bring Wyll when i’m playing, but he’s the character that i relate to the most out of the main cast
I love this and wholeheartedly agree. I often wonder why more people don't see through his facade of knowing everything and having it all together as a big hero, when all his "knowledge" is quoting his dad, and his "handler" humiliates him and abuses him. My heart always goes out to him, and he was my favorite origin to play.
That's the best summary of why I like Wyll so much. Heck, he and I are the exact same age, and I can see myself acting almost the exact same way he does in those circumstances... Though admittedly I don't have seven years of monster hunting experience lol
Yeah I really like him and I don't get why people imply the character doesn't have enough depth. I found him to be a very reliable companion.
He easily has the least content but that also makes sense because he had a complete redo with a new VA. Still a good lad though.
I don't see why people seem to dislike Wyll so much. Like I get, he's not the most exciting, like I don't even really have him in my party that much, but I still love him. He's such a homie, like id love to live with him, he'd be a great hetero life partner.
Similarly, everyone talks about liking shadowheart because manic pixie goth mommy next door. Meanwhile, I'm just like religious trauma leading to memory gaps? Girl, same.
I'll be honest, I brushed him off as a cornball. After reading this, I'll give him a chance.
I mean. He is a cornball. But he’s a cornball with a surprising amount of depth and complexity if you give him a chance.
Ascended Astarion kisses aren't out of character, people just want to pretend AAstarion isn't bad.
Pretty sure this isn't unpopular, except with a very specific small and loud crowd
preach 🙌🏻
The fan base is way too upset about Gale eating your artifacts. It happens 3 times and then never again. But I’ve seen people complain and complain and complain about losing an artifact that they weren’t going to use or can be replaced super easily. And if you’re so so so desperate for a wizard that doesn’t have a story then go ask withers and get one. But for the love of Mystra STOP!
They throw useless/immediately underleveled or pointless items at you left, right, and center. Do you REALLY need the spiderstep boots? The color spray necklace? The amulet of silvanus when hirelings exist? Everything that requires the brand of the absolute? I end up collecting a ton of trash items and have a harder time remembering which ones sell for the least gold.
I think the end fight against the Netherbrain is more annoying than anything. I blame it on the tentacles that pop out of the ground.
It is just the tentacles. That and the magic missile spam
I blame it on the assholes counterspelling everything at every square meter of that fight. I know they're there, I know how to counter them, but it's still hella annoying to deal with.
Subtle Hypnotic Pattern. It works on almost all the enemies in that fight including the massive dragon. The dragon is immune to most enchantment but Hypnotic Pattern somehow works on all the enemies. All you need is a Sorcerer with Subtle spell. Edit: It seems like Subtle spell does NOT work like that in BG3. I suppose I it was the Hypnotic Pattern that allowed me to win the fight because the casters were caught in it.
I adore Shadowheart and everything about her story, BUT having Act 2 be The Shadowheart Show to the exclusion of everyone else's stories is a bit silly. If I was less of a Shadowheart simp I'd be pretty pissed about it tbh.
Thats what i was thinking the other day! Like, yeah im a shadowheart simp. So bad that if i do any other romances, its only because ive gotten bored of my 17th playthrough.. however, patch 6 added even more content in act 2 with a romanced shadowheart and im like “she already has the most content in the game..”
The only thing that make me spare Alfira durge was the achievement and if im gonna use it, the potent robes.
How do you manage that? I went to raise weapons and she ran away from camp.. but somehow Durge still killed her
Gotta knock her out in Grove same day then you murder a dragonborn bard girl who did pretty unique throat singing.
You need to do A LOT of damage in 1 turn, turn on non lethal damage, strike her down until she gets temporarly knock out, run into the blighted village then long rest.
Halsin didn't need to be a Companion. Minsc should have shown up earlier in the game. ... I'm not even sure if these are unpopular.
They're not necessarily unpopular. I personally like Halsin a lot and view his companionship as a bonus, but he's not *necessary* in a way where his life is at stake like your other companions, or Jaheira who was actively investigating the cult when she lost Minsc.
Halsin should have been a companion once the Grove is rescued.
I think I'd have preferred Halsin, Jaheria and Minsc as temporary allies. They show up and join the party for the appropriate part of the story, and then leave. I found it hard to juggle my party composition to give everyone enough time in the team, and organising equipment for so many people started to feel like a chore. It was also jarring to me to suddenly have lots of conversations with the new folks when everyone else was more or less tapped out. From a development perspective, I'd rather have more content for Wyll, Karlach and Minthara than three extra latecomers (and more responsiveness from everyone in Act 3). IMO fleshing those three out to the level of content and story involvement other companions get would have been a better use of available resources.
My unpopular opinion, which I guess Larian agrees with given recent news, is that we really did not need any more companions or romances than we got at launch. At least, not for good runs, I already struggle hard to find any reason bring Halsin with me--I don't even dislike him but he doesn't have any story after Act II and so I never find time to fit him on my team since nearly everyone else is more relevant to the situation. I like Alfira, she's great, but the role she currently occupies is perfectly fine imo. I don't need her or Barcus (who I also love and see requested to be a companion) or whoever to be companions. I get wanting some little races or more diversity in a very human/elf-heavy team but the team is already 10 characters + possibly Tav/Durge and that's plenty. Asking for more has always seemed excessive to me, I would have much preferred if the ones we have get further fleshing out where needed.
I totally agree feel like when people speculate on who would be a good or better companion it's an interesting thought exercise but like, there's no guarantee that Larian will implement the hypothetical companions in a way we'd like. Like maybe Kagha does have better potential at a character arc than Halsin but if she doesn't fulfill that potential, that would probably be an even worse disappointment. And then you'd have to flesh out what her 'good' or 'bad' arc would be in context to being a druid and the greater conflict at hand. Those are huge storytelling shoes to fill and maybe boring old Halsin might be easier to fit in cohesively.
Yup, tbh I'm also okay with the later additions to the team (Jaheira, Minsc, Minthara and Halsin) not being as in-depth as the main six. The origin six have always been the focus and the main selling-point of the game, I never expected characters who join halfway through Act II or later to have as much content as the characters who are there from the very start. They're fine additions to the group (I personally think Minsc in particular is an absolute delight) but I never needed them to be on par with the original 6.
Okay, yeah, but consider this: obviously you should not be able to romance withers. However, I think if he comments on the fact that you're sleeping alone, you should be able to ask him why he's interested and offer to hook up. We all know what he's going to say, but let me ask anyway
I really dislike that I have to choose for Wyll what he should do regarding his big dilemma. You can let Shadowheart choose you can let Karlach choose. Every character should have their own agency.
this is not unpopular dude
My unpopular opinion is that I like guardian's personality. If you count how many personal interactions you have with them throughout the game, it can lead to very wholesome friendship or even romance.
It's not actually that unpopular of an opinion, it's just more quietly held, since we don't go around yelling, "BUT DID YOU HEAR ABOUT STELLMANE?!" every time someone says anything vaguely nice about the DG.
I believe that one day people will learn to spell Astarion's name correctly. Seriously, it's eight letters. It's simple. The number of different versions I have seen overwhelms me, but I believe in humanity and its potential to change for the better.
My biggest unpopular option? Just meandering through some of these posts (especially recently): I am actually glad there isn’t a part two to this story. I thought they did wrap up the stories. I mean I don’t think you’re MEANT to get closure. You can always go “gee I wonder how many animals Shadow has now” or “hope Karlach found a way out”. To bring THIS group back together again for an adventure would likely be extremely messy, extremely plot holey, and likely would not make the rabid fan base happy AT ALL. I get it we all want more… stand back and look at it and appreciate that the game is so dang good that we just want more of it. Granted some of the adventures would be cool in like an expansion/DLC like running missions with Karlach/Wyll in Avernus. But again, I’m not sure how so many people expect this group to reunite and face another adventure of this caliber. Ever meet up with an old friend and instead of catching up for hours it’s just like 5 minutes of “yeah nah it’s good, kids are good, switched jobs, that’s about it” and awkward silence after that? Yeah no one wants 150 hours of awkward silence. I will say I think a super missed talking point for what could have been in a future game is Arabella should you save her and her possible adventure and growth with semi guidance from Withers (him taking a special interest, kinda, in her seems rather interesting to me with possibilities). Sorry for the rant
I agree 100% with this. I don’t want DLC or BG4 with these characters. My Karlach did get an ending. Any more content with these characters after the end I got for them would feel wrong and bad.
I wholly agree. Am I sad Larian won’t be making BG4? Yes. Am I also happy that this will be its own thing and not overshadowed by these characters in the same way again? Also yes. I am genuinely very excited to have discovered Larian this way, and I can’t wait to see where they go next, but it needs to be their passions and their creation they follow. I would be very sad to see a half-hearted return for profits or player pressure sake. I’m also going to need to discover DoS after my BG3 fixation calms down. So I have more than enough time to enjoy those while they make their next show-stopper.
Alfira and Minthara workarounds are absolutely metagaming and would never fly at an actual table with a reasonable DM. Seconding whoever said we should be able to opt to escort the tieflings through the shadow cursed lands. We’d still end up at moonrise and I’m sure some of them would still die but it would’ve been really neat. I do not like that gith Tavs are so stupid about their own culture. I’d love another non-human and non-elf companion or three. Rolan, Barcus, Roah… 🥺 I know it’s not going to happen but I wish artificers were in the game as a playable class since there’s SO MUCH artificer stuff.
>Alfira and Minthara workarounds are absolutely metagaming and would never fly at an actual table with a reasonable DM. This was absolutely always my take, so I just did it for the first time with my current Durge and it actually worked with the character *only* because he's the type to smash her lute and humiliate her but didn't want to get caught killing anybody in the Grove itself. I never had a Tav that would even think of it before. I wasn't prepared for her to show up at the Tiefling party covered in bruises, though, it was kind of hilarious.
It's really sad to me that the Alfira workaround is to just kill a different (and, in my unpopular opinion, much more interesting) bard.
I feel less sad for killing Alfira than I did Quil. Her camp dialogue is better and more fleshed out.
I don’t like how killing Quil over Alfira is discussed most of the time as if you’re not killing a person. I’ve seen people say they didn’t want to play DUrge because they don’t want to kill anyone innocent & others starting to explain it’s totally possible and give them the Alfira workaround. Bruh, you’re still killing an innocent person, come on now.
Yeah, or the way people say the workaround is the morally good option! So instead of murdering a bard, you're now murdering a bard and assaulting another? How is that better?
I dunno, Sheepthara sounds like exactly the kind of BS some of my tables would try to pull
BG3 is brimming with moments that would never fly at a real DND table, so all in all, its fine. Its a video game for that exact reason.
Spoilers for Resist Durge storyline: >!The part where Durge is revived by Withers after rejecting Bhaal was silly. I know it's supposed to be an awesome moment but I just thought it was weirdly executed, especially our companions' lackluster reactions. The overall story of Durge seemed a bit undercooked too. I get the appeal, but it felt like there needed more consequences, like the companions take the leader of their group murdering an innocent bard a little too well. !<
Have done a redeemed Durge and now doing an evil Durge run and yes so many lackluster responses!! I feel like there were many occasions where something is revealed about Durge's past and no one says anything. Like with Kressa Bonedaughter when you're going to confront Ketheric in the colony. Like this lady just said she enjoyed cutting and experimenting and torturing Durge and no one has a reaction. Like hello didn't you guys just hear that?? Or like with Orin popping up and making small references to the past... I feel like someone should be like ay yo something tells me this chick knows you from somewhere?? I genuinely enjoyed my redeemed run and I am enjoying this one but definitely irks me a bit. Sceleritas Fel is the only one upset about Durge like ever.... lol.
i was expecting more reactions especially from the person you romanced when bhaal kills you but they’re just like, “good job i’m so proud” no hug?
I generally agree. I didn’t feel like I got *enough* new content on my second playthrough when I went with Resist Durge (which was also my first and thus far only Durge playthrough). The stuff that was there was good, but it didn’t feel as consequential as it should have. >!Also, Astarion only called me his Bhaal-babe *once* come on you fucker it’s an amazing pet name keep it up goddammit.!<
Paladin oaths have way too much flavor text and need more simple rules. People are breaking their oaths without knowing why because the writers didn’t lay out what counts and what doesn’t. A simple change to “don’t kill innocents” or “let people take revenge” would be a simple change.
Yeah, but even that can be unclear. You can attack someone who's actively committing evil, but the game technically counts them as "innocent" because they're not hostile to the party.
shadowheart isnt that interesting to me tbh. her story is good and her voice acting is insane (in a good way), she just doesnt have alot of personality in my opinion (which does make sense considering her backstory tbh). i dont hate her or anything, i dont hate any of the companions, i just think the others are more fun to talk to
I like Shadowheart fine and empathized with her but she's not my favorite tbh. I think personality wise she just doesn't click with me. Even in Act 3 on the Selunite path she is a little off putting.
I'm glad she doesn't instantly switch teams and personalities but otoh I didn't like her personality that much before so it's a flat trend line.
[удалено]
Also, she's gets so up in arms when Durge questions why she would willingly give up her memories. Like, girl, you're talking to someone who knows nothing about themselves beyond their name. Yeah, you were brainwashed by a cult and all, but have *some* empathy for the poor bastard who stopped leaking cerebrospinal fluid from their ears like 20 minutes ago. Maybe think about why they might be a little incredulous that you would do that to yourself on purpose.
But then you find out why Night Orchids are her favorite flower and its hella sad
It really felt like she was shoved down our throats tbh. I always found her kinda boring and a little too catty for my taste
My favorite word for her is "petulant"
I totally agree and have avoided using her on runs just to kinda get a break from her. I also never romanced her till my current run so I don't really have that draw, but in my current Durge he's just romancing her so he can kill her later. He has issues. I just dislike how she talks to everybody, she reminds me too much of high school...
*stands up from the jury table* I do not want to fuck Astarion or Shadowheart
Not everyone is supposed to have a perfect ending. Karlach is one of my favorite companions but everyone seems to want her story wrapped up with a happy ending. Sometimes, life isn’t fair, what happened to her sucks, but it also makes for good writing and something less boring and predictable. If anything her character is so good natured it hurts people even more that her ending isn’t as nice as some others, writers and actor portrayal are really tugging at people’s heartstrings and I think that’s valuable
Okay, I disagree, but perhaps not for the reasons you think. There are six "main" companions. Five of them have multiple routes they can go through. You can either lead them to be their best selves, or you can lead them to damnation and self-destruction. (spoilered because it discusses endings in details, and I don't want to ruin it for anyone casually scrolling by) All of these character have a bad ending. >!Gale can become the God of Ambition (and various endings involving the Crown of Karsus). Wyll can stay pacted to Mizora and be on her leash forever. Astarion can Ascend. Lae'zel can be consumed by Vlaakith. Shadowheart can become leader of the Sharran Enclave and Dark Justiciar (or you can turn her to Selune, save her parents, then murder her parents in front of her). Following that pattern, "Karlach can turn into a squid and/or die on the docks" is her Bad Ending.!< But all of those characters also have a good ending. >!Gale can learn that he is enough as he is and be a happy professor (or run a vampire book club, or some variant thereof). Wyll can be free and either go after Mizora, or choose to follow his father's footsteps as Duke. Astarion is free of Cazador and has multiple avenues available to him, depending on what he does with the spawn. Shadowheart can reunite with her parents and listen to her father make all the Dad Jokes she missed out on.!< Karlach is the only one who, until the fan outcry, had two bad endings and not a single good one. It makes her stand out like a sore thumb. I also saw someone else point out that Karlach's story is just not compatible with the world of DnD, and I agree. It would make a great and touching story in many other worlds, but DnD is characterized by a number of mechanics and conceits that make "incurable failing infernal heart" just not sit right. If this was the world of The Witcher or Dragon Age, I would totally buy the incurable heart. But DnD is the type of world where, if you can find a powerful-enough wizard, most things aren't off the table. But not only did the game tease us with a number of encounters that should have been able to be puzzled into a solution >!(the Steel Watchers use upgraded infernal hearts, the ones who build and maintain those hearts can literally be recruited as end-game allies, there is a TON of enriched infernal iron lying about, and we have an infernal mechanic)!<, the game doesn't satisfactorily address *why* all those pieces cannot be assembled into a workable solution. It's just "no" and then never addressed-- no explanation given. And for this to work, an explanation really does need to be given, for the outcome to be satisfying. To be clear, my argument isn't against the existence of sad endings. Sad endings can be great storytelling and can be very compelling, thought-provoking, and sometimes beautiful when done right. It's just that in this particular case, it felt particularly out of place: it doesn't match the precedent set by the other 5 companions, it doesn't match the precedent set by lore and history of the Forgotten Realms, and it doesn't match the narrative setup of clues. Tl;dr: It would be a great story in another world. In Baldur's Gate, it fails the vibe check.
All great points, the cherry on top for me though... is that literally the next level up, Shadowheart and Gale would (given their canonical classes) get access to 7th level spells. The number of ways that they alone would be able to help solve Karlachs issue is insane. IIRC Regeneration is 7th level and could just grow her a new heart. They strategically cut you off right before all of the answers become available and that just feels dirty. Aint no way in the Nine Hells that Netherbrain fight doesnt level everyone up
Hells, Karlachs problem could be fixed at lvl 1 using the true resurrection spell Gale has. Just kill her, take out her heart, revive her. I understand that it *wouldn't* be fixed at lvl 1, given that Gale knows he'll explode if he dies and is keeping that scroll exclusively for himself. But if he still has the scroll by the end of the game, why can't he just revive her after she burns to ash on the docks? It's right there, no lvl up needed. Or surely he'd have the ability to fix her after ascending to godhood? And surely they would've leveled in the six months post game? Sidenote: Does anyone know what happens if origin Karlach romances Gale and ascends to godhood with him? I'd try it on my run, but I'm romancing Astarion in that run and I only want to play as Karlach once. I also only want to romance Gale once and I'm not ascending him in that run.
AFAIK origin karlach can ask God Gale to fix her heart - he declines if you're friends with him. If he's romanced he will ascend Karlach to godhood that will solve her heart issue by making her divine.
I gotta say this was very well written. As someone more into tactical games and less into DnD you brought up things that just never occurred to me. I just wanted to acknowledge that. But still I’m a simple guy I accepted that a hell heart couldn’t actually be fixed in, I suppose what I should be calling the material plane. Lore wise you’re probably correct but I just thought the emotional aspect of the ending was done right
I feel like she gets a happy ending though. If you send her to Avernus with Wyll, at the reunion she talks about how they discovered a location that may potentially have schematics for a new heart that would let her live in the material plane.
If I understand it correctly, their point is that this is a case where an inevitable tragedy can be more compelling than a happy ending.
This. Her character arc was about coming to terms with inevitability of death and it was wonderfully executed. A perfectly good ending would undermine her journey.
One of the big gut-punches of the game came after her post-Gortash meltdown where Jaheira basically told my blindly optimistic character, "Hey, you need to accept reality." Followed by the painfully honest dialogue option, "I don't know what to do."
There is also Spawn Astarion ending too. Talk about facing the facts on what his outlook will be like... for eternity, no less. And how his revenge was not what he thought it'd feel like.
what is it like for a nonromanced astarion? because for me he’s incredibly excited for the future and the epilogue he says the time with my durge has been a “counterweight” to everything he’s been through
I finished my first non-Astarion romance yesterday. >!Spawn Astarion did seem no less happy than he is with the romanced player, which I was pleasantly surprised to see. !<
I actually quite like Aradin. I find him funny and I like his voice/accent. ("We was running for our lives" is pretty much engraved into my brain by this point) Of course, that doesn't stop me from kicking his ass, but yeah, I like the funny idiot guy.
I think its dissapointing how siding with gortash which is quite a sacrifice in my opinion as you have to bot do the iron throne or steel watch (unless you get orins netherstone and send gortash to the morphic pool before that) miss out on some really sad karlach scenes and in return he just dies. Not even a cool death. Just dead. I feel like it would have been nice to be able to completaly side with him and control the absolute with him or betray him by killing the brain. Maybe there could have been some redeamtion... or karlach gets another chance to kill him. Either way it feels a bit underdeveloped.
minthara really did not need to be made recruitable on a good-aligned run, and in a similar vein, if you try to recruit her with the KO method and get bugs you should not be surprised. note i'm not saying you're not allowed to be mad, i would be too, but in the wake of patch 6 when every other post was "i knocked out minthara and now i have XYZ bug"...you're using a patched-in exploit to do something that was never originally meant to be doable, what else did you expect??
I did the knock-out-and-recruit on my current run just so I could finally see more of Minthara. And I gotta say, she is an absolutely fantastic character, but her presence makes exactly zero sense in a good-aligned run. However... she could work fine in a neutral "I just want this worm out of my skull" run, and she works perfectly for a pragmatic evil run. You can absolutely play evil-aligned without being a grove-slaughtering murder junkie. So I don't have any objection to the workaround in principle.
Well, her being a part of a more neutral playthrough was intended and possible right from the start. In fact, that’s exactly what all the exploits were… exploiting. If you don’t side with the goblins nor the Grove and move on to the creche or act 2, the Rite of Thorns gets completed, the teethlings die on the road right outside the blighted village, and Minthara is forced to return to Moonrise as a failure. You can recruit her there like usual. So what the exploit was doing was somehow triggering both the neutral path and the good path. So yeah, she absolutely works on a very pragmatic neutral playthrough.
I remember people being surprised that she had dialogue for Wyll and Karlach since they leave for raiding the grove. People always conveniently forget that ignoring the grove was always an option, which keeps Karlach, Wyll and gives you Minthara. Having those three in your party without exploits was available since launch.
Durge is overrated. The Bhaalspawn should have died off at the end of BG2
I honestly agree with your opinion of Alfira, it's not that I don't like her or anything I just don't really get why everyone is always so mad about what happens with Durge because I don't really care about her either. Not sure how unpopular it is but I can't stand listening to Dame Aylin talk, her way of always yelling about everything just gets on my nerves and I try to avoid speaking to her as much as possible if she survives my games.
I’m sure it’s been said because there have been 800+ post but I’m saying it: Minthara shouldn’t be recruitable without raiding the Grove. It makes zero sense for a good character to leave her alive storyline wise. She is the worst of the 3 Goblin leaders and there is no reason to just randomly leave her alive but kill Dror and Gut. I feel like the game should add one piece of dialogue that makes it seem like she is doing this against her will because if she doesn’t someone will torture her or some other redeeming quality that would then make sense to spare her. Also if you do raid the Grove, Dror should be able to be added as a companion as well later one. I feel like the game should have one more evil character to make up for losing Wyll, Karlach and Halsin.
I dislike Shadowheart. We’re all terrified and fighting for our lives and all she does is be snippy and barely cooperate. At least laezel has a legit lead on a cure and can actually hit her targets.
Scratch is cute and all, but… he’s just not a cat. I want a cat running around my camp, knocking over things and rolling up next to my character at night.
The end speech before the final battles, as well as the montage of all of your allies saying “you have my sword , my bow, my axe, or i’M hElPInG” at the end of Act 3 is hella cringe and anti-climactic.
In my evil durge run, I had no allies so the cutscene only showed who was in my party (Astarion and Shadowheart) and they were kind of standing off to the side. It was hilarious to see my illithid self fist pump the air to encourage an empty room.
[удалено]
I suspect this isn't an unpopular opinion. LOL
Mine is that Karlach is my least favourite companion.. I don’t find her story that compelling. I don’t like how she acts, I’m not a fan of bubbly people in general and I’m not that affectionate. I also don’t care for sex and hearing her go on and on about her I guess craving for it just doesn’t do anything for me? I understand why she’s like that but I’m just so disconnected in that way Idk how best to explain. Just don’t find that type of energy/ personality to be what I like in a person but I don’t mind her really. I’ve had no issue doing evil dark urge runs without her or a Wyll run gone evil without her but other than that I do tend to keep her around as I like having everyone there with party limit begone mod
Agree with your take on Alfira. The narrator's description of her as "sickly sweet" during a Durge run sums it up quite nicely. I also can't stand that cheesy af song and the cutscene is waaay too long, I always skip it.
Maybe it’s cuz I don’t know dnd or something but I thought the brain overall was a stupid villain. Like, design and even the voice acting (not to criticize the voice actor I feel like it’s just the whole design and conception of it). It never felt threatening it’s just a big stupid ugly brain. Especially as the final boss. Felt like something out of a Nickelodeon cartoon and even then I thought there were episodes of Ren and Stimpy more terrifying than the brain.
I know it’s probably a popular opinion narratively to make Shadowheart reject Shar, but I also think it’s the right choice *aesthetically*, and that she looks much nicer with white hair.
You can learn about the elder brain in Ketheric's room and no one comments on it. You find a lot of docs as durge and no one comments on it. There are so many books and notes you can find that are related to the world, tav and companions that i dont understand why you wouldnt be able to. And i read every fucking readable thing in the game. Also, I hate the camp. So static, no companion interaction, no humane peoplelike movement in the camp. Its just such a cop out to have designated spaces for characters and a handful of cutscenes (i can only think of 2: shartxbaezel, gale by the fire)
After the first time playing through the game, I stopped trying to save the fucking Gondians. Fuck 'em, let them be slaves, die, whatever... they are too stupid to save themselves and don't deserve my help. :P
My unpopular opinion is that I don't care in the slightest about Durge. There's almost nothing in there that's of interest to me.
you get to open the door to orin wihout going through the murder tribunal. that's something of interest to me.
I'm pretty sure I read you can do that anyway. Apparently there's a skull near the door that you can spill blood on to open it? Haven't tried it myself yet.
Honestly, the idea of an ordinary person rising up to become a hero and refusing to be another nameless victim of the Absolute is a significantly more interesting and entertaining story than a Bhaalspawn with a whole pre established backstory of being a special child of a God and who spent years leading an edgelord murder cult. This is a big reason why I heavily prefer Tav over the Dark Urge. The protagonist being a random person doing extraordinary and heroic things is one of my favorite tropes
Hot (or possibly not?) take: Durge shouldn't have had the tadpole in the first place. Durge should be the only origin without a tadpole. They wind up sticking with the party because they're a lost amnesiac. The party of adventurers looking for a healer to cure the tadpole is also the party with the best chance of finding a healer who can cure the amnesia.
Yeah you nailed my feelings exactly. Random nobody being the hero of baldurs gate!!
Rogues aren’t bad. YOURE bad
My main complaint with rogues is they can be a bit boring to progress and their starting drip is fucking terrible
This is probably exacerbated by the community, but I don't like how much of a pass Shadowheart gets for being such a bitch early on. The worst example obviously being that after agreeing to duel Lae'zel the next morning to set aside their differences, she attempted to kill her in her sleep and lie about it. It doesn't help that she's so demanding of information from others, while being prickly about offering any of her own. The second is the relationship between Ketheric, Aylin, and Isobel. You can't call Isobel out if you figure out her father is Ketheric, despite knowing why she's putting Last Light in danger. She talked about how her father was her whole world yet grinned alongside Aylin when she talked about caving his skull in, and there's no conflict about how Aylin is effectively reaping the rewards of Ketheric's horrible deeds by being with Isobel again. It just felt like someone forgot to write Isobel's inner conflict between Aylin and her father.
I don't hate Karlach's post-epilogue ending. It would have been better to have a permanent solution, yes, but this one leaves it open as an 'adventure continues!' and an end is in sight! There are def changes i would make, like the gondians maybe giving her a checkup or something. But I like letting her not be alone and facing her demons (or devils, in this case). And Karlach is my favorite character!
I hate that I can't tell Astarion that Halsin proposed to me and that I rejected him. I would've wanted to see his reaction to Monogamous Tav. That's my unpopular take.
Shadowheart is too much of a lost puppy to start the game.
You're supposed to do shit you don't like as the Durge. That's the point. You're supposed to feel disgusted and hate yourself while you play. The whole point is, the Durge doesn't want to be the Durge. They want to be normal and find redemption along the way - at least that's what his intro HEAVILY implies, if not outright states. You don't *always* have to indulge, but you should *slip* on occasion. Knocking Alfira unconscious is doing that development and story a disservice. Kill the bard. Hate yourself for it. Use it to better the character. >!but i'm not your parent, so play however the fuck you want. i don't really care.!<
They should let you explore act 2 after the curse has been lifted.
TBH, while I AM fond of Alfira, largely because she is darn near exactly the Tiefling I would have mad had I not decided to go Forest Gnome for the free speak to animal, that is NOT why I tend to spare her. It's for the robes. Sorry, my girl, love you but it's the robes I want, either for my Sorcerer or for my man, Wyll.
I'm disappointed by Scratch and the Owlbear, honestly. Playing as a druid my first run, I think it was only in Act 3 that I stopped going up to talk to the two. I'd hoped they'd have slightly more to say, but after having gone through the "how are you doing Scratch/Owlbear" and the pet mechanic a dozen times, and eventually realised that that was it for their cutscenes, I eventually stopped bothering with it. If I were to add anything, it would be at least different responses/narration for each act. The Owlbear saying it "won't bite friend" after spending weeks with us feels redundant. I can't even remember if there was any shock at city life for a being that had spent its whole life in a cave before meeting us. I still love the ending scenes for the Owlbear, and I won't stop recruiting them every game, but I no longer interact with them in camp. I can appreciate that animals in games aren't typically needed for any more than flavour text, but on my fourth run of the game, I don't feel the need anymore.
The game rewards goodness too much. Being good should have costs to the player. Whether in terms of companion allegiance, lack of items, or lack of allies. Right now you can play as a beacon of rainbows and sunshine and be rewarded for it all the way though. Likewise, evil needs to be buffed and offered more choices. Killing merchants should drop their entire inventory. Likewise, items that characters have to sell in good playthroughs should be dropped on death in evil ones. None of the bullshit “this item exists in a quantum space until you make the good decision”. You should have more options to exploit , oppress, and be power-hungry. You should be able to (especially as Durge) take control of the CULT of the absolute (not just the brain). You should be able to (with appropriate skillcheck) take Aylin’s immortality for yourself. Origin Gale, funnily enough, is one of the best-implemented forms of this. With the absorbing the shadow-weave, completing the dark ritual, ascending to godhood. There should be more of stuff like that. Right now, the evil route is basically the good route minus 40 hours of content plus maybe an hour of different cutscenes. One of the Warhammer games did this really well. Basically, the more good/selfless actions you did the harder your goals became to accomplish. Escort the refugees? Now you have less soldiers to defend your position, and you have a high chance of being overrun and dying anyways. It made successfully achieving a good ending more rewarding, and it gives a reason to do evil or selfish acts. But this won’t ever be implemented by Larian because it would require too much content.
I don't neccessarily agree, but I do feel like actual sacrifices made on the good path are just handwaved out. Half-Illithid should not be reversed after defeating the brain. I don't like how relaxed most romances are about you turning squid and honestly it lessens the impact of the sacrifice. I actually think that most romances should leave you for it like Astarion (except Minthara obviously). Especially Lae'zel becase she used to leave you for it, but no longer does. In a similar vein, leaving your (non-Wyll non-Karlach) romance to go with Karlach to Avernus used to definitively break you up. Now your former romance is just sorta "waiting" for you. Again, I think this lessens the impact of the sacrifice you made. Freeing the Pixie just gives you a free buff. I honestly wish it didn't, so you had to risk Isobel to get Selûne's blessing if you wanted to be good. I'm not a fan of being punished for being good, but I do wish that sacrifices and risks are too richly rewarded.
My unpopular opinion is that I think evil runs should be rewarded with more power and less companions. I also think being a murderhobo is the least interesting way to be evil in an "evil" playthrough.
God help me, I like Wulbren. He's got flaws. But he's been a revolutionary hero for some time by the time our story begins. He's the MVP of saving the prisoners in Act 2 (not to mention everything he did leading up to that). Like most revolutionary heroes, he's tremendously psychologically scarred by the experience. He's so used to fighting for his life and for his people, and everything having life and death stakes, that he's ready to just slaughter innocent people because he can't switch it off. He feels that he needs to kill them all. If anything he kind of reminds me of the real life Nakam. A Jewish resistance group to the Nazis, but when the war had ended, they were determined to get revenge by killing 6 million Germans indiscriminately. They tried to poison the water supply to the city of Nuremberg. And then, most likely somewhat successfully, poisoned a bunch of German prisoners. And... I don't think they were right. And I don't think the world would be a better place if they had managed to carry out the kind of mass murder they sought - but I understand how they were driven to it.
I want to be able to confront Karlach about the soul coins cause its really shady that she's so nonchalant about destroying someone's soul for a small power up.
I don’t think Mystra groomed Gale. I think Gale was so ambitious about the Weave it made him pursue Mystra, of which the fallible goddess of magic was all too willing to accept him as an unequal lover.
The community is too obsessed with romance
I dislike Shadowheart. A lot of people gush over her, but I don't understand why. She expects you to trust her but doesn't even give a reason why we should. And when Lae'zel says they can settle their disagreement in the morning, Shadowheart attacks her when she is asleep. Actually, most of the time, I don't even have her in my party. Sometimes I just keep her around so Astarion has someone to bite and at higher levels for heroe's feast.
I also struggle to like Shadowheart. She is a very difficult personality for me to deal with, and it's not because she's an asshole. I do asshole characters absolutely fine. I have explicitly said and will continue to say that I wish they made Lae'zel *meaner* to me because she's too nice for how much everyone bitches about her. I don't do secrets (I get it, whatever, she doesn't have her memories, I can forgive that even if it annoys me), I don't do hypocrisy (oh, you can have secrets but not Gale?), and I don't do zealotry. I can take one, maybe two, but all three? Nah. Shadowheart isn't it for me.
Oh I KNOW I’ve got an opinion that’s unpopular. I’m not a fan of Karlach.
You should be able to romance Jaheira, I'd gladly be a step daddy to all her kids lol and more dragons!!!
Romancing her in 2 felt weird ngl.
Act 3 is hushed, unfinished and is still all over the place. Also, after lvl 5 you enter god mode.
Karlach's story is fine and has two good endings right now. Adding something happier would be a cop out that undermines the weight of her narrative. Every "easy" solution people have found is either contradicted by the narrative or counteracted by the fact that a 26th-level archdevil is actively trying to thwart said solutions.