#Baldur's Gate 3

1 messages · Page 15 of 1

safe jungle
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Yeah

tiny flint
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It could have been a small but effective cult

safe jungle
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Can’t summon Tiamat by being two bit nobodies

simple spire
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In general, Wyll describes an awesome battle

tiny flint
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I guess so yah

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But like, this is a problem with every origin character’s backstories lol

simple spire
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Except Lae'zel

tiny flint
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Sans like, shadowheart all of them have done things far beyond they probably should be able to, even with the explanation that the parasite weakened them

simple spire
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Who is, in fact, not a legendary warrior but just a githyanki with autism >_>

tiny flint
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I mean she does describe being like, the greatest warrior of her crèche

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And I’ve fought a lot of Gith

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They’re fucking strong

simple spire
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Does she say that?

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I don't recall it

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Anyway yeah in some ways like ... it's funny, BG3's origin characters have the kinds of backstories players in IRL games want to give their level 1 PCs but can't because it makes no sense

tiny flint
tiny flint
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Like Minthara and Halsin have objectively done a lot less then Gale

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And they both start at minimum 5 compared to his 1

safe jungle
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what did astarion do that was far beyond capability of a vampire spawn

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karlach somehow became Zariel's favored shock trooper despite being an ordinary tiefling (for the most part0

tiny flint
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Also his siblings are all kinda strong

simple spire
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Astarion was around for 200 years, I feel like he would be at least somewhat potent

gleaming pivot
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Wyll got weakened by the parasite, it would track that the others got weakened as well.

simple spire
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It's explicitly so

tiny flint
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Oh yah that’s the justification

gleaming pivot
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Hell, Gale even mentions that he's usually better at magic when you first meet him.

simple spire
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Gale was an archwizard

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A whole bunch of companions mention this

tiny flint
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It’s just kinda funny how stories their backstories are for how weak they are at the beginning of the game

simple spire
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It's very "yeah a player would absolutely come to the GM with this"

tiny flint
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Karlach I could imagine would be a player being sneak with it too

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“Oh yah my character was a Tiefling who was forced to fight in the bloodwars after being sold as a soldier”

In session 1

“Oh yah I was pretty much Zariel’s personal bodyguard and enforcer”

simple spire
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I have this mental image of all these players except Lae'zel's showing up to a game without a session 0 and the DM being like "okay, you're level one now"

tiny flint
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I mean I feel like Shadowheart is somewhat reasonable

simple spire
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Shadowheart was sent as part of a 4-person heist squad into Vlaakith's house

tiny flint
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Yah she was trained since childhood to be a cleric of Shar but like, she didn’t do anything to impressive in those years besides be apart of a mission where everyone else died

tiny flint
simple spire
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So like, I don't see her as a Gale-level character, but certainly above level 1

tiny flint
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Fair enough

gleaming pivot
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Man, Lae'zel really is the unlucky one in that group.

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She's trained sure, but

simple spire
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Gale, Wyll, and Karlach are the "shook the planes" characters, Astarion and Shadowheart are the somewhat tough ones, and Lae'zel is Just Some Fighter

gleaming pivot
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Well.

simple spire
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Lae'zel's player is the only one who's actually played D&D before

gleaming pivot
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"Shook the planes"

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Wyll, for being the Blade of Frontiers, does less than you'd think.

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I'd hope Karlach becomes strong with all the shit she went through.

safe jungle
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gale was mistra's lover which uh

gleaming pivot
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And Gale's a special boi 😄

tiny flint
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Yah Gale is by far the most egregious tbh

safe jungle
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not many people can claim that

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former archwizard who was a goddess' lover as a level 1 wizard lmao

tiny flint
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The others at least come close to reasonable, blood war soldier and made a pact as a teen to save their city, Gale is just wild from the base concept

gleaming pivot
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Minthara is a perfectly reasonable power level for someone who was raised in Menzo.

tiny flint
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A former arch wizard, lover of Mystra and someone who found an ancient neatherise artifact

simple spire
gleaming pivot
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Oh, yeah. She's House Baenre. Minthara is a perfectly reasonable level.

tiny flint
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I gotta say the Neatherise artifact may be the most egregious thing Gale does

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I just played through Icewind Dale

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Those cities are super fucking dangerous

simple spire
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Oh, how'd you like it?

tiny flint
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It was alright

simple spire
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I'm literally replaying BG2 on my other monitor

tiny flint
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Oh wait I meant the 5e adventure

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Not the BG2 expansion

simple spire
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Ahhhh

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FWIW IWD is its own game

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Same engine as BG1/2

tiny flint
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Yah I meant to say I played through the rime of the frost maiden adventure

tiny flint
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Also Halsin would probably not be level 5?

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Though even worse then his level it’s that his main weapon was a glaive at one point

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And he’s not proficient in them

rich plover
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his player thought that it was a krull glaive

tiny flint
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Also man I really miss that plot point of Halsin being the one who killed Isobel

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I even liked that it seemed to have been the shadowfell blinding him to a rage

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It was neat

hexed inlet
tiny flint
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I’m so glad I played with the No party limit mod

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Tbh getting people from camp is a massive pain in this game

simple spire
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It used to be worse

tiny flint
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How so?

simple spire
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You used to have to dismiss a party member before getting a replacement

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No "oh yeah Karlach will leave"

tiny flint
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Oh yah

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And it was even worse because whenever you dismiss someone they sound just

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So disappointed

soft tundra
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i wont lie, i kinda miss bitchy party members

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they've really made everyone much nicer since EA

tiny flint
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Idk, I’m fine with mean party members so long as there isn’t a critical mass of them

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Which there kinda was in EA

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Like the game wants you to do side content, if you rush the main story there isn’t that much tbh

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Having 90% of your party complain whenever you do the thing the game wants you to is really annoying

gleaming pivot
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I'm going to point out that Lae'zel is there to complain about you at all times.

tiny flint
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Yah I’m fine with that

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I just don’t want the majority of the party to be that

neon junco
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She got captured so like, how strong is she really

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It's probably creative liberties cause cambions by default aren't really the strong for larger devils, they're like footsoldiers and commanders of the smol guys like lemures. Mizora and Raphael are exceptions cause of backstory

simple spire
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Cambions are half-devils

neon junco
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Raphael being the son of one of archdevils of hell probably gave him an edge compared to a regular cambion in the intro

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Half devil in lore yes but devil enough to be considered a fiend for abilities

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And also a subset of half-fiends, there's a few other half fiends that are not cambions that like require specific parentage

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There's one for drow and duergar plus a specific fiend results in a different half fiend

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As for what's the difference between a cambion and a tiefling with a fiend parent? Can't tell you

simple spire
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Traditionally tieflings were just further generations removed

neon junco
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Yes, 5e has odd examples of tieflings having a full fiend and a full non-fiend

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Like xanathar's

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I remember reading that and being like, so what makes a tiefling a tiefling aka a humanoid, but like a half-fiend a fiend.

rich plover
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fiendishness is a recessive trait

neon junco
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The plot of Arc the Lad 4, 2 half fiend/humans except got more fiend part and the other the human part at birth but then the other half showed up later in life

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Being bullied at fiend school because you're a humanoid and can't get power from the school soul lunches.
Being bullied at human school because you're a fiend and these potions only affect humans

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Same parents

simple spire
tiny flint
gleaming pivot
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So, Mizora isn't great and powerful, but she is smart. Her contract with Wyll is actually great for one simple reason that's real obvious when you think about it.

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So tell me: Where do evil souls go when they die? :p

tiny flint
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Oh yah I see what you mean

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But still she does let Wyll out of his pact somewhat easily

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Like it’s not even she says ||“if you don’t renew the pact your dad dies,” she goes “if you don’t renew the pact I won’t tell you how to find him.”||

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||and yah she does try and kill Wyll’s dad if you refuse but if she doesn’t tell Wyll that then it’s not really a threat, it’s just a random act of cruelty||

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||she’s still lost Wyll’s pact by then||

gleaming pivot
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||If she's lost the pact, then what good is being nice to Wyll, especially when he has just stopped being of use?||

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||She's trying to seem like the only good choice he has.||

tiny flint
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||I get what you mean but it doesn’t actually do anything for her. She’s still evil and I don’t think it’s like, out of character for her to try and kill Wyll’s dad, but I don’t think it advances her position or her goals. If anything it hurts them because she still needs Wyll to beat the absolute or otherwise it’ll hurt hell as well||

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||and killing Duke Ravengard locks off some important information and allies that could have helped the stopping of the absolute||

simple spire
gleaming pivot
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So what's Wyll killed again?

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We know there's a Tiamat cult there. That's a sure-in for Hell.

simple spire
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Tiamat’s worshipers go to Tiamat

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Unless otherwise spoken for by having sold their soul to a devil

gleaming pivot
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Ain't it funny that Mizora shows up just as Wyll discovers the cult?

simple spire
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I mean that’s why I assumed the whole thing was faked when Wyll first told the story

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But yeah even Lawful Evil types who don’t worship anyone might end up somewhere adjacent to Baator rather than in the Nine in particular

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Hence why devils work so hard at recruitment

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As an occupying army, they need to refill the ranks constantly

gleaming pivot
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Funny thing that Mizora's contract also points Wyll towards the infernal.

simple spire
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I mean it’s pretty explicit that it’s so she can send him after people who annoy her or Zariel, or send devils who have gone rogue back to their home plane

gleaming pivot
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Or rivals, yes.

simple spire
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Hence annoy

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He’s a multipurpose tool, that’s pretty explicitly stated

neon junco
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Also like apparently Raphael is responsible for the entire game plot

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Like even the pre-history of it

gleaming pivot
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Troublesome bastard.

neon junco
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This plot was in motion so so long ago and we just have the option to ||go to his own house where he is at his strongest|| and kill him

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||I visited house of hope again, and apparently he was the one that basically made deals with the right netherese folks to cause karsus's downfall to occur and essentially the crown to be made, he made deals with the original vlaakith that led to the rebellion and the prince being put in the prism, he made deals with a thorm to that led to ketheric and everything, he made deals with the adventurer who stole the crown of karsus from his dad's vault, and he was the one that let the sharran's know of the prism to get shadowheart's team to steal it. He is like, the entire plot of bg3.||

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And a lot of this info is just found in act 3 books, like raphael is probably the single most important character in bg3 lore wise and i'm sure like a vast majority of players know him as just the devil guy who maybe had his assistant break someone out of goblin prison

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And they're like, just fine with players not knowing which I think is pretty neat there's just a whole meta plot

simple spire
neon junco
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||but also Raphael also planned for the nether brain by choosing reithwen and the whole brown on nether brain is like Savathun planned this levels of planning||

tiny flint
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It’s very funny then how it’s ||pretty much inevitable you perma kill him in the house of hope then lol||

simple spire
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||But Raphael ultimately gets screwed by having his fingers in too many pies||

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||Because the complexity of what he’s doing causes the party to wind back towards killing him||

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And ||both of them failed to account for “what happens when the adventurers I’ve been using at patsies punch me in the nose”||

tiny flint
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That feels like a very common problem for devils tbh

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||“Surely these people I’m manipulating and antagonizing would never punch me in the nose!”||

neon junco
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If that were me I would underestimate a party that like died to goblins 2 weeks earlier

neon junco
safe jungle
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me with eldritch blasts aimed at its stupid head

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how smart can the ||Netherbrain really be||

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90% of its body is its most sensitive organ

neon junco
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I mean it's like not it has a choice in its vulnerable points, but a psychic brilliant entity with a mini civilization could like make some armor probably

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Even if it's not comfy, probably a good idea if you're leading an invasion of a city on the front lines when you know dragon riders are your sworn enemy

simple spire
neon junco
# simple spire The trouble is that both of their plans depended on those same adventurers kicki...

||Brain yes, I think moreso it was relying on the Emperor to use someone else to act in his own self interest in a way that the brain could take advantage of later which is why the emperor was let go. If the emperor failed and his chosen crew couldn't free the netherbrain before the 3 like did their siege of baldurs gate and make the netherbrain their absolute puppet safe in a fortress city they control? I have no idea what the brain could have done to free itself

I think for Raphael we weren't his only hope as in the only adventurers he set up to essentially take the crown back for himself. The vault invaders failed when they got it out but not to him which he improvised afterwards when it was put on an elder brain, sharrans sort of failed the prism heist when only Shadowheart survived, I think there was one that like died instantly against gortash, I think he hedged his bets with lots of parties to get him the crown one way or the other and seems to either have patience to cycle through many doomed parties to get it or he's just like toying with us for his amusement when he decided to reveal himself to us at level 2 basically cause he's tried a lot of different methods so far. He doesn't actually do anything for us or ask us of anything when we're like nobodies he just pretends to offer a solution and gloats no matter your response (although him sending helsik to free us if we get captured by Gut is pretty helpful if you're not an elf) until like late act 2 with yugrir as a sort of test and you went from struggling with a dozen goblins to potentially solved the shadow curse plaguing the area for centuries in a week, and in act 3 when we're proven ourselves by killing Ketheric he actually takes us seriously and gives us the big task and if we failed then he'd wait for the next crew||

dawn terrace
simple spire
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Mods on the PS5 version is wild

neon junco
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Are they different from PC?

dawn terrace
severe robin
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god no

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Jumpscared by That Face Astarion at the end

simple spire
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The Very Popular Astarion

dawn terrace
neon junco
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Moreso are there console mods that aren't available on PC

dawn terrace
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No? You can only make the mods on PC, and you gotta make sure they work there first.

neon junco
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I'm not sure why the mods on the PS5 version are wild then

dawn terrace
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Because the only two previous games to have mods on a,sony console where extremely restricted. Fallout 4 and Skyrim couldn't have mods with new scripts, or new assets, and had way less storage allowed.

neon junco
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I see that does make sense, i'm waiting for crossplay if they haven't abandoned that

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Modded crossplay would be cool but also a coding nightmare

dawn terrace
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Right now on console its mostly QoL mods, but there's already a mystic class, party unlocker, and level cap increase.

neon junco
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Party unlocker like the 8 player coop?

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Or the one that gives you 16 characters in single player

dawn terrace
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It adds a spell that lets you up the party limit to 16, or reduce it all the way to 1.

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Oh but mods disable achievements but who cares.

neon junco
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If it's the adjustable party limits it doesn't affect human players so you can't have more than 4 humans playing

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I was very excited for that one being in the mod store for 5 to 6 player games

dawn terrace
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The mods says it works in coop, but 4 humans might be a hard limit i think. Also apparently it doesn't trigger the two game breaking bugs related to increase party size.

neon junco
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It does work in coop

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And the limit for human players is 4. There's another mod Party Limit Begone that does allow up to 8 human players to game

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That's what we've been using but it's not on the mod store

dawn terrace
safe jungle
tiny flint
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I don’t trust people who don’t like Wyll

simple spire
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He's a perfectly fine character but kinda boring by comparison with the others

sly flare
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This looks like a little joke which is being massively blown out of proportion but also it's possible there's some stuff with Wyll in the fandom that I don't know about

storm sinew
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fandom

that about answers the question. Fandoms be crazy.

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Not even anything particularly about Wyll, it's just... fandoms, yo.

austere hinge
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I believe it's more that it's kinda known that Wyll repeatedly hasn't been shown in promotional stuff, he gets missed a lot, and people feel like his arc is pretty... basic? But yeah, Wyll gets the short end of the stick most of the time

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Me? I'm just mad at them because of no short companions

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and will forever be mad

storm sinew
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SAAAAAAME

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I have this terminally online theory about it

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Mostly involving the idea that if they made a gnome or halfling even remotely sexy, Larian would get shit for having someone who could even possibly maybe in the harshest most disingenuous takes be seen as "minor-coded" and thus get crap about it

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I really don't think that's true but I've seen that shit go around in other groups and it's a personal pet peeve.

clear kestrel
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Just make them Senshi

storm sinew
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See, Dwarves I think they could do and not face that kind of criticism. But I agree.

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We desperately need a dorf

hexed inlet
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I agree there could totally have been a dwarf

grave prism
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Wyll was kind of a fucking clown in the playthrough me and my friends did so i don't care overmuch for him

simple spire
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People would be huge assholes about it

storm sinew
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Yeah, like, you can still make your Gnome/Halfling character and be nude all you want, but if they wrote one themselves to be romanceable, the terminally online would riot calling them "minor-coded" or child-like, saying you shouldn't sexualize them, etc, calling people that romance them unkind things, etc

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I don't think that Larian actually made the decision based on that, but I think it's possible

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Like "yeah if you romance Glorbobulus the Gnome it turns out you're a piece of shit"

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Glorbobulus could be the most buff, well-built, clearly-adult character ever and they'd still lose their shit

simple spire
neon junco
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DOS2 did have a dwarf companion and I believe you could romance him

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But party being mostly humans and elves, didn't even have a dragon born or half orc

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I didn't play EA but wasn't Wyll also completely different where he was like vicious towards goblins and was basically in a codependent toxic relationship with Mizora

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And he was completely rewrittened

clear kestrel
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There is the Red Prince you can romance in DOS2 iirc

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The lizard man

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Ah wait you mean BG3

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Yeah it just seems kinda a shame to not use more of the options in the game

neon junco
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Between elf/half-elves we had 5 and 3 humans out of 10 companions

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Surely we could have had a few be not elves

clear kestrel
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Trying to think whose the most easy to change

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Halsin I think

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Wyll they probably want to keep Human because it makes him gaining devil features more apparent

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Gale is probably second most easy to change

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But he's held back by "human wizard" being a huge sterotype

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(even though orc wizards are cool af imo)

neon junco
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A maybe hot take, for a grove companion I think Kagha would have been a better one than Halsin. Halsin's story is like 95% done then he does the thing in act 2 and that's it basically.

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Kagha assuming she survives, would be perfect for a redemption arc where she holds onto the shadow druid beliefs and you as a TAV can basically encourage it or push her away from it since she was hesistant about it if you were convincing.

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Maybe even in act 2 ||you give her the option to sacrifice herself to end the shadow curse but that'd leave a weird spot missing in act 3||

tiny flint
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Wyll has the least unique dialogue in the game, consistently didn’t get new stuff in updates, and often gets ignored by even non Larian sources, it’s really common to not find merch of him being sold when all the other origin characters are for example

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Wyll didn’t get anything for him until like, update 6

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He also ||pretty consistently has a less polished quest and romance compared to the rest of the companions, with stuff like him not being able to choose himself to break his pact, and honestly a lot of it being weirdly not about him||

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||hes constantly not getting chances to comment on his own quest, his dialogue being saved for optional stuff even if you have him in your party when you do his quest stuff||

simple spire
simple spire
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Wyll is in some ways the most organic origin character in his current state

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Which ... is what it is, I guess?

tiny flint
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It just kinda sucks when Larian was constantly updating every other origin character, except Wyll you know?

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I don’t think he got an update to his quest until like, update 6?

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Maybe?

neat plume
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You would think the fandom would rally behind Wyll

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But if ao3 is anything to go by

simple spire
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The problem is that he's boring so there's little interest so he stays boring

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So there continues to be little interest

clear kestrel
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He's boring and his act 3 stuff has odd triggers ime

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Like depending on how you deal with Gortash and stuff, you can just miss all his act 3 content

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And that's right when his story is supposed to be ramping up

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With him having a chance to get out of his contract

neat plume
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Still though

simple spire
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I also become increasingly convinced that having his decision to make the pact be actually justified is a big storytelling mistake

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Every other origin character was either indoctrinated, betrayed, or indoctrinated and betrayed

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But Wyll's just the paragon who made the best of a bad situation

neat plume
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I've seen characters who are treated worse in their media have way more way fanfare

simple spire
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It's possible there's a racism component to it but the dude just doesn't grab my imagination, personally

neat plume
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Though they weren't black...

neon junco
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So it makes like makes it louder than it actually is

simple spire
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Is there loud criticism of Wyll? I mostly just don't see him acknowledged, but my finger is not on the pulse of such things.

tiny flint
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I see mostly non acknowledgment yah (or don’t see it…)

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He’s just weirdly not included in stuff he ought to be

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Mostly when the rest of the origin companions or even the less important side companions are

neon junco
simple spire
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Ehehehe

storm sinew
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Honestly, Larian was too cowardly to let you save Sazza and have a goblin in the party

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and I'll not forgive them for denying me a goblin friend

neon junco
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Sazza would have been a fun companion for evil raid grove playthrough

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But goblin wasn't even a choice of player race so sort of understandable

hollow wind
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It really makes no sense to kill grove

neon junco
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For Mintharas approval
But yea I think the big 3 reason as an evil character is power since someone is buffing these goblins so you want power too at all cost, you want to side with the winning side since the goblins were winning the struggle and forced grove to shut itself off and leave goblins uncontested in the area, or you just really hate druids

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There seemed to be more reasons to not raid the grove though, lot more NPCs and characters you can bond to and more quests and storylines that would end if the quest givers is dead

hollow wind
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See if any of the gobbo characters showed up later or had any end game loot it could make sense

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Like I can't see why there isnt a Damon replacement for gobs who has same inventory

neon junco
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There's literally a looter goblin that loots camps

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Why wouldn't that goblin loot all of Damon's stuff

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I will say the early game breastplate of you steal it is really nice and really easy to do

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Makes you like untouchable first few levels

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Or not a chest plate but the one below it as a +1 magic item so it's the same AC as a breastplate at 17

soft tundra
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lots of nice +1 shields early too

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the evil campaign is much more... fleshed out now, i guess, but a big point of a lot of it is "cutting a lot of shit out" because fuck quests youre on a mission, so its shorter by nature

neon junco
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I did evil runs basically to Speedrun act 1 and most of act 2 while getting similar amounts of XP

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After like 3 single player playthroughs I just I've just done everything I would think to do so I'm done with single player for now as there's not much to discover. Multiplayer other players do things I wouldn't think of and it surprises me to be in a new situation or new dialogue every time despite like 6 SP playthroughs

soft tundra
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something that made doing more runs nice was playing Origins and trying to get into neat RP good and evil runs

neon junco
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Do I want to play 6 more times for evil endings it is tempting since I've seen one and it was pretty good how they handled it

simple spire
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just look them up on youtube

neon junco
clear kestrel
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Act 3 spoilers

||>Be Balduran

Rule City of Baulders Gate
Become Mindflayer
Gonna stay good, only eat criminal brains
Command peasent "Let me eat your brain"
They refuse
Refusing an order from the head of the city is a crime
Eat their brain||

neon junco
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Honestly if he did that that's not really towards the top of the worst things he's done

clear kestrel
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Yeah that's just Tuesday

neon junco
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You can't manage chaos without cracking a few skulls

clear kestrel
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Is it bad taste to have mindflayer stickers on a laptop you use to work at the brain bank

neon junco
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I was about to ask what a brain bank would even be for then I remember act 3 ||how steel watchers work||

clear kestrel
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Well they exist irl

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This is not a hypothetical question

neon junco
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I gotta look into those for reasons

tiny flint
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So like, does ||Cazador even know what’s happening with the absolute?|| act 3 spoilers

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Because he kinda just seems to be doing his own thing unrelated to them

neon junco
tiny flint
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||fair enough I guess, he’s wrong but it’s in character for Cazador to overestimate himself post ascension||

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Hmm, ||does Myrkul have domain over vampires, or just unintelligent undead?||

simple spire
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Neither, strictly speaking

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||Myrkul does a lot of stuff with undead but a lot of gods do a lot of stuff with undead||

tiny flint
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Ah ok

safe jungle
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Does myrkul even have a domain anymore

tiny flint
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||so then yah he’s not even related in just a general, the dead three have some domain over vampires, way||

tiny flint
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He likes bones

safe jungle
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Ah, decay

tiny flint
#

Ohhh

#

The one thing vampires don’t do compared to normal undead…

safe jungle
#

Myrkul used to enjoy just manifesting himself at funerals back when he was the god of death

#

Just to fuck with people

tiny flint
#

Honestly based

#

More gods should do that

#

“I’m sorry for your loss” said Myrkul, lord of bones

safe jungle
#

More like

#

“This will be you one day.”

neon junco
tiny flint
safe jungle
#

Of the dead 3 myrkul somehow is the last subtle of them lmao

neon junco
#

I liked how Jergal domain had to be split up into 3 probably a mix of he was very powerful and ancient and the dead 3 are basically Saturday morning cartoon villains compared to other evil deities

safe jungle
#

Just three dudes who decided to one day just challenge what was probably the strongest god short of Ao for his godhood

neon junco
#

Also the dead 3 as mortals were very not competent compared to like other famous figures they found Jergal and he was like why not I don't want this job anymore and just gave it to them without any resistance

tiny flint
#

I do like how it’s implied ||Withers is just Jergal who Ao told to go clean up his shit giving godhood to three shitheads||

neon junco
#

It's not even like ferrying souls or anything just the act of living thing dying empowers one of them.

safe jungle
#

And then there’s murder

#

And any time someone murders someone else which happens distressingly often in faerun, lmao

tiny flint
#

It’s a very violent setting

neon junco
safe jungle
#

Ao also kinda enforces the wall of the faithless so

tiny flint
#

Ao isn’t the best god yah

safe jungle
#

This is why we should invite the eldritch gods

tiny flint
#

Also like, there’s some good gods in FR

neon junco
tiny flint
#

Helm when he isn’t being horribly written is genuinely a protector of the downtrodden

simple spire
simple spire
simple spire
#

Ao is, mind, wholly amoral and distant

#

But

#

Also in 5e Ed Greenwood retconned the wall to be much less shitty

severe robin
#

Wasn't it, originally it was on Myrkul, and then got retconned into being a thing that always existed and has to exist or the universe blows up?

simple spire
#

Possssssssibly? That sounds very 5e, which tbf I do not know the specific lore of

#

Myrkul did it because he was a dick, and then Kelemvor briefly dismantled it and started giving people various reward-and-punishment afterlives before having an incredibly evangelical protestant "realization" and putting it back up to keep the forces of good from throwing themselves on evil's swords to get there

#

Mind even if you accept the Kelemvor's (let's be clear, this means "the writer" -- though not Ed, apparently!) conceit (and we shouldn't) this still doesn't make any fuckin' sense because the wall is not exactly widespread knowledge in FR

rich plover
#

Lorroakan may have protection against all attacks, but my group noticed that he doesn't have protection from ||the floor||. Shortest boss fight ever.

soft tundra
#

that seems extremely fitting

neon junco
rich plover
# neon junco Explain

||Lorroakan has a buff that deals damage to you if you hit him directly, based on the number of surviving myrmidons. (I got cocky and forgot to examine him, so this killed me instantly) "throwing someone" isn't an attack, and the buff doesn't trigger on 1) thrown damage and 2) falling damage. So after I loosened the lid on him, our fighter just tossed him down his tower for 63 falling damage + 12 assorted throwing damage.||

simple spire
tiny flint
#

I think my favorite minor dialogue choice in the game is when in act 3 ||you can tell off the guy complaining about refugees that his accent is from Rivington||

#

||the forgotten realms version of “HEY THIS GUYS FROM JERESY!”||

neon junco
rich plover
# neon junco Oh right ||For a wizard so power he didn't even prep feather fall or a flying sp...

TBF, there's a lot of little details that suggest ||he actually kind of sucks as a wizard, not just as a person. e.g. a wizard PC gets a check to notice that his projections are shoddy for a supposed "great wizard", and if you speak with dead and ask him "who's stronger, you or your apprentice?" he goes "that...blasted tiefling..." which is either a fun case of bullying a corpse or him answering honestly.||

simple spire
#

It seemed kind of vaguely implied to me that ||Loroakan's power is mostly in his panoply and he is using it to masquerade as a great wizard, Sorcerous Sundries being a much older institution than he is||

neon junco
#

||I thought that was the story was he was a middling wizard that like finds something in the vault of his now shop that basically gave him such as illusion of power and that's a reason he gets others for the night song cause he can't himself if he wanted to||

#

I would be funny if we met Lorroakan and he was like a fighter and didn't know any magic but has a horde of magic items at his disposal

simple spire
#

For reference, Sorcerous Sundries appears in BG1

severe robin
#

Yeah, him being ||A mid-rate wizard who lucked into a convincing lie|| was my impression of him

tiny flint
simple spire
#

IIRC like a hundred years back?

tiny flint
#

Oh shit

#

So he’s basically a wizard nepo baby

neon junco
#

||Yea Jaheira is getting old and Minsc was frozen for like 100 years shortly after I assume||

simple spire
hexed inlet
#

the thing I was most curious about is how did he actually get it

tiny flint
#

Murder probably

hexed inlet
#

like he sucks but he has a really cool house full of shit made and used by people much stronger than him

#

so what happened to the last owner and how did he get there

#

he doesn't seem capable of actually killing a powerful wizard

#

he's only level 10

simple spire
#

Also somebody has really built that place up since BG1

#

It didn't used to have a tower

hexed inlet
#

ramazith presumably

tiny flint
#

He does have the vibes of coming from money

neon junco
#

I would expect someone like him to just have a whole bookshelf on his autobiography

#

I don't recall any lore books about him

tiny flint
#

Yah I didn’t find any either

#

he does kinda just, show up, is a boss fight and then dies letting you loot sorcerous sunderies tbh

hexed inlet
#

you can loot his vault without interacting with him

tiny flint
#

Or well, technically you can side with him but… I don’t know why you would

tiny flint
hexed inlet
#

just go downstairs and go there

tiny flint
#

The entrance is where his cutscene triggers

hexed inlet
#

ok yeah you do the cutscene

neon junco
#

You can find a secret passage

hexed inlet
#

I moreso meant you don't have to actually do the whole fight and stuff

tiny flint
#

Ohhh

hexed inlet
#

you can be like "sup" then immediately leave and steal everything he owns

neon junco
#

I think you need a passphrase from stealing to kbow to look for it

tiny flint
#

Oh yah I forgot there is time between you first meet him and you can decide to kill him or not

hexed inlet
neon junco
#

I always do basement then kill him with his own stuff

neon junco
# hexed inlet ?

Does opening the hidden entrance on the first floor not need a passphrase or is it just a lock to pick?

hexed inlet
#

it's not even anything you just press the button

#

the plaques that say what each button does are invisible but you should have some way to see invisible stuff by that point

neon junco
#

My brain is just making stuff up apparently but also I've been to act 3 like 6 times so that's the one I know least and had countless act 1 started but not completed

rich plover
#

oh, lmao, they're invisible? I didn't even realize, I had ||Volo's icepick funtimes||

hexed inlet
#

I've only been there twice

#

yeah exactly

tiny flint
#

also genuinely, what benefit is there for siding with Lorrokan?

#

He pays you, in a game where getting money is a complete non issue

rich plover
#

based on the wiki, the only marginal benefit is that if you messed up Rolan's quest you can still get the same benefit in the final battle by siding with Lorroakan.

hexed inlet
#

idk being a twat

rich plover
#

honestly, yeah, evil for evil's sake

tiny flint
#

Oh yah obviously it’s for the evil players but like, mechanical benefits I mean

neon junco
#

Is it like even a good amount

#

Cause I feel like looting his tower after he's dead and selling stuff would give more

tiny flint
#

Probably

#

He’s got some expensive stuff in there

simple spire
tiny flint
#

Where’s that?

hexed inlet
#

doesn't lorroakan describe himself as occupying ramazith's tower

simple spire
#

Also odds were good that a completionist CHARNAME managed to kill Ramazith personally

tiny flint
#

He’s a fight back in BG1 or 2?

simple spire
#

BG1

#

You can go into his tower and he unleashes monsters on you

#

So you climb and each level has a new type of monster

tiny flint
#

Why?

simple spire
#

For walking into his house when he’s busy being a wizard

#

Anyway at the top you fight him

#

His library has a Tome of Quick Thought

#

Oh actually it’s possible to make a deal with him if this one nymph is still in the city

#

He wants you to deliver her to him for unethical experiments

#

But if she’s already gone (thanks to you) he’s pissy

#

BG1 is a bit crude and has a certain amount of “why are we fighting? Because you’re in my house”

tiny flint
simple spire
#

See now I’m thinking about Sarevok again and how he is functionally a completely different character

tiny flint
simple spire
# tiny flint Wizards, no sense of right and wrong

Because this made me think about Imoen, who was explicitly an archmage rivalling Elminster and legendary Robin Hood figure in the epilogue of ToB (yet goes completely umentioned), and that got me thinking about Sarevok's epilogue

#

Which is rad btw

#

|| In the years following his resurrection by Charname, Sarevok never settled in any one place for long. In Berdusk, he is said to have routed an army of invading orcs, displaying such fearsome power and rage that terrified locals weren't sure whom to fear more. In Westgate, he arrived as conqueror, brutally enforcing his will only to mysteriously vanish months later. He acted like a man that did not know himself, and all the stories agreed that Sarevok was a tortured soul balancing between life and death, never to achieve either. Eventually, he disappeared, said to have assaulted the Abyss itself or even taken his own life. In truth, he journeyed to Kara-Tur to bury his one true love, the warrior Tamoko. He never returned, though the stories endure. ||

#

Sarevok "Not A Bhaal Worshiper" Anchev

tiny flint
#

That’s rad, man now I’m bummed about him in BG3

simple spire
#

I just assume he's a different guy tbh

tiny flint
#

He could just be

#

Just make him a random dude who was Orin’s dad

simple spire
#

Like not in the sense of a different guy assuming his guise, I kind of assume BG1/2 and BG3 are different continuities

#

For my sanity

#

(Really none of the Bhaalspawn gave a shit about Bhaal -- they wanted Bhaal's power for their own)

#

The big name Bhaalspawn you meet in ToB are all legendary individuals who have tamed his power for their own to some extent

tiny flint
#

It is kinda weird that like, in general the dead three have like, actual cults in this game

#

Like people worship them

simple spire
#

I mean they always did

#

There is a cult of Bhaal in BG1/2, even when he's very definitively dead

#

They're generally antagonistic to the Bhaalspawn by the time Throne of Bhaal rolls around

#

If not earlier

tiny flint
#

By the bhaalspawn do you mean the BG1 and 2 main character or the concept of Bhaalspawns?

simple spire
#

The whole score of mortal progeny

tiny flint
#

Ohhh

simple spire
#

The main character is usually called either Gorion's Ward or Charname

#

The Bhaalspawn are quite varied

#

One's even a dragon

tiny flint
#

Oh cool

simple spire
#

Bhaal learned of his impending death during the Time of Troubles, and so used his time as an avatar to impregnate women from all over, hoping to use the kids as a contingency to bring himself back

#

Those are the Bhaalspawn

tiny flint
#

Huh, wait how did Bhaal come back?

simple spire
#

It's a 5e-ism

#

The cult of Bhaal wanted to help him return, but the bhaalspawn in general were more interested in either just living out their lives, or seizing his power for their own

tiny flint
#

I see

simple spire
#

And Bhaal's blood did have an effect on their minds, which some of them conquered and some of them did not

#

The big plot of BG1 is: Sarevok wants to start a war between Baldur's Gate and Amn to bathe the sword coast in blood because he thinks it'll help him ascend to Bhaal's power. He learns of Charname, another Bhaalspawn, and tries to assassinate him, but only manages to kill his foster father Gorion, who sacrifices himself to ensure Charname's escape. Charname becomes an adventurer, slowly pieces things together, and eventually defeats Sarevok

#

BG2 is more complicated, but basically a very mean, astonishingly powerful wizard wants Charname's divine soul for his revenge.

tiny flint
#

Wizards once again ruin everything

simple spire
#

Throne of Bhaal sees the bhaalspawn come into conflict with each other on a grand scale, as the mightiest among them assemble their forces to destroy each other while the cult schemes in the background

#

Charname ends up ||killing all the really powerful ones and eventually only they (and possibly Imoen) remain, and either dissipates Bhaal's divinity to live as a mortal, or ascends to become a god. Canon is that they stay mortal.||

tiny flint
#

I see

simple spire
#

Sarevok gets revived during ToB but has specifically lost his tie to Bhaal

tiny flint
#

Wait so he’s not even a Bhaalspawn by the end?

simple spire
#

Nope

tiny flint
#

So BG3 is explicitly a retcon then

simple spire
#

Or just ignores some things

#

He trades information for a teensy bit of Charname's exp in order to come back to life

#

And then offers to join up

#

Because like otherwise what is he gonna do

#

He has really good stats

#

18/17/18/17/10/15

tiny flint
#

Jesus

simple spire
#

Mind that means less in 2e than it does in 5e

tiny flint
#

I mean those are still good though right?

simple spire
#

Oh they're insanely good

#

But by the time ToB rolls around it is worth noting that a +3 to hit from strength is pretty paltry compared to the +17 he's packing for being a 17th-level fighter

tiny flint
#

JESUS

#

Also I do like that he’s insanely smart too

simple spire
#

Yeah, he studied in Candlekeep for a while to learn Alaundo's prophecies and Bhaal's history better

#

He apparently knows the prophecies by heart

tiny flint
#

That’s cool

simple spire
#

Extremely credible villain in BG1

tiny flint
#

Honestly if I’ve got one major issue with BG3’s writing it’s that ||After Ketheric none of the villains compare||

#

||Ketheric feels like the only one who actually feels competent||

simple spire
#

JK Simmons does such a good job selling him

#

He kinda steals the show

tiny flint
#

Absolutely yah

#

He actually feels like, introspective

#

A trait no other villain shares

#

Like he’s thought about his ideals and plans for more then 2 minutes

simple spire
#

I like BG3 a lot but I could envision an alternate story in which Ketheric was the main villain

#

God the way he's introduced

#

It's so good

#

"Try again"

tiny flint
#

I fucking adore seeing him impaled, rip the halberd out, and hand it back to the goblin

#

He’s so cool

simple spire
#

Simmons is kind of amazing in the role of generally laconic, fearless villains

tiny flint
#

Yah every word he says feels weighty

simple spire
#

He knows how to sell ... sort of disdainful disinterest

#

I'd say he's as good as David Warner as Irenicus (the villain of BG2)

tiny flint
#

I also do adore how, matter of fact he becomes when it gets to the end

#

“I will kill your now. And then I will raise you as my servant”

#

Dude has no more energy for anything

simple spire
#

Even if you try to convince him he can turn back, he sounds at most sort of wistful

tiny flint
#

Yah

#

I’m so curious about the alternative timeline where they made him recruitable

simple spire
#

wait what

#

Was that planned at some point?

tiny flint
#

Yah apparently he was planned but it was cut before release

simple spire
#

Wild

#

I'm not sure how well it would have worked, really, but ...

tiny flint
#

Probably tied to the whole persuasion check to get him to redeem himself

neon junco
#

A lot of named characters in dnd settings are just actual PCs in the early dnd home game that rolled really well and stayed alive long

#

They turned their dnd OCs into video game characters

tiny flint
#

I know Elminster and Mordenkaine were that too

neon junco
#

Up to a point which I don't remember they pretty much only used actual PCs from home games of employees as a sort of like this character representing a module was made in dnd and has played through it

#

I assume eventually especially after hasbro they started making original characters for the setting

tiny flint
simple spire
simple spire
tiny flint
#

Lol

tiny flint
#

I thought they were

simple spire
#

Elminster has a whole series of novels that give him a backstory

tiny flint
#

Well then never mind

#

They’re like, the only exception to this trend

simple spire
#

Elminster is just the guy Greenwood sells cocaine to

tiny flint
#

You think Elminster brings earth drugs for parties back in FR?

simple spire
#

Probably

dawn terrace
tiny flint
#

Y’all think Elminster played BG3?

#

You think he’d be happy with his presentation in it?

tiny flint
#

Just beat (act 3 spoilers) ||Ansur||

#

||It ended with literally every member of my colony on the ground except shadowheart||

hollow wind
#

I almost lost my third honor mode run to him. Total bologna, the big bang boom ability triggered a turn early

tiny flint
#

I just fought (more act 3 spoilers) ||Gortash, and you know maybe I should have expected it with his title being the fist of bane and all but I was genuinely surprised he fought mostly unarmed that entire fight||

simple spire
#

That’s not even that gods favored weapon smh my head

hexed inlet
#

he's a mace guy innit

dawn terrace
#

His favored weapon is The Black Hand of Bane, a magic gauntlet.

tiny flint
#

||dude personally summoned his god to punch me in the fucking face||

#

Also this was already true but especially after that fight

#

||Karlach is my favorite character in this game||

simple spire
#

Even back in 3e

#

No wonder he keeps dying, gauntlets have been ass in every edition

tiny flint
#

Oh shit

#

So yah he is the god of throwing hands

#

Also like, tyranny but who gives a shit about that?

neon junco
#

Does like Bane do anything for Gortash

#

The other 2 gain some sort of favor or power from their deity

tiny flint
#

||bane punched me during the fight||

neon junco
tiny flint
#

Nope

#

||he also calls upon Bane to summon shades of Tyranny and make him stronger during the fight in general||

#

||Gortash does seem to be a proper cleric of Bane||

neon junco
#

Like ||Bringing back Ketheric's daughter and Orin having special Bhaal power and slayer form later on||

#

||Why does Gortash work with Bane?||

#

Oh I see

tiny flint
simple spire
#

||It's not clear if Gortash is a true believer in that line or if, like Bane and most priests of Bane, he is lying about that in order to make his ambitions seem more socially acceptable||

tiny flint
#

||Yah, but whether he’s lying or not, he does have magic from his god||

simple spire
#

||For sure. Bane doesn't especially care if you're a true believer (and therefore a schmuck) or if you're actually on his wavelength and understand that tyranny is for tyranny's own sake. Either way, he's got a servant.||

tiny flint
#

||Ngl the use of Schmuck makes me imagine Bane as basically an old mobster||

hollow wind
#

What class would Gortash be?

#

It feels like he's an artificer like character?

tiny flint
#

Honestly, I’d imagine just war cleric

#

It’s not like he made his war machines

#

He has people (slaves) for that

simple spire
tiny flint
#

Honestly a more modern Faerun forcing Bane to go into the more organized crime business would be rad

simple spire
#

... a Bane vs. Mask conflict would be fun

tiny flint
#

Who’s Mask again?

simple spire
#

Basically the big thief god

tiny flint
#

Ohhhh

simple spire
#

Bane trying to displace the local guilds in a city where Mask is strong could go some very interesting places

tiny flint
#

Yah that’d be interesting to see

tiny flint
#

I’m in the final battle before ||the netherbrain||, and ngl this is probably the most frustrating fight in the game

#

||The fact the game can just spawn new enemies, who can immediately act to stun in a AOE in a fight where there’s targeted AOEs you need to dodge is so ducking bullshit||

hollow wind
#

Nevermind the infinite magic missile spam...

neon junco
#

Last 3 times I had like a super fast character ||and my latest one I was doing a dash barbarian rogue with half illithid powers so I just went from beggining to end door in 1 turn with potion of haste cause after the previous battle with a million NPCs and 6 players we were just tired and wanted to get it over with||

tiny flint
tiny flint
#

And I have beaten Baldur’s Gate 3

clear kestrel
#

Woop

#

Did you Baldur?

tiny flint
#

So many Gates were Baldured

neon junco
#

Yes we saw the Baldur's Gate

#

But what about the 2nd and 3rd baldur's gate?

#

I paid for BG3 and only got 1

dawn terrace
#

Actual Baldur's Gate has 9 whole gates, atleast!

simple spire
#

That really seems excessive

neon junco
#

9 gates if you consider the size of the city in the ttrpg lore and the fact it's a major trade hub seems like not a lot

#

Traffic through those gates must be awful

gleaming pivot
#

Absolutely

safe jungle
#

That’s why there’s a port

#

And secret smuggling routes

#

And bandits around the city

#

See by murdering travelers the total traffic load on the city decreases so that BG urban management can better handle the throughput

#

As number of bandits naturally increase as traffic increases it’s a self regulating system

neon junco
#

Port security seems like a massive pain if you consider like sentient water breathing creatures and water breathing spells and potions

#

Although there are hostile creatures in the port that'll jump you in the streets so maybe not that easy to smuggle underwater

#

But also it seems like half the houses with basements lead to a dungeon

#

If I found out my house had a secret passage in forgotten realm while renovating and moving barrels I'd just move

#

There's like a temple to death cult worshippers or the underdark right there I'm not gon a cover it with up a few barrels I've seen what exists in the underdark

#

And probably a lot of those cavern basements have underwater caves leading to the port monsters

charred niche
#

Do you guys have a favorite soundtrack aside from That One Boss Theme? ||Raph|| I feel like it had a bit less emphasis than Divinity, I'm struggling to pull many

#

Well not less emphasis but perhaps just more tone-setting

tiny flint
#

So why is the cult of bane full of so many doppelgängers?

#

Do they tend to worship Bane?

hexed inlet
#

that's the cult of bhaal

tiny flint
#

Bhaal right

#

Sorry I misremembered their names

hexed inlet
#

and they're orin's buddies bc she's bhaal's chosen

tiny flint
#

Oh alright

rich plover
#

she's a changeling, right? what with the shapeshifting and white skin/white eyes. so part doppleganger

#

(the family that slays together, stays together)

hexed inlet
#

she's a doppelganger

simple spire
tiny flint
#

Oh cool

simple spire
#

The doppelgangers were hilariously bad at acting, though

#

Like yes they could take your face but they like

tiny flint
#

I mean that’s mostly true in BG3 too tbh

#

They reveal themselves super quick

simple spire
#

Are really impatient and generally have poor impulse control

tiny flint
#

also the examine menu basically ruins the surprise every time

#

“Sure is weird this random dude is level 8 and has murderous aura”

#

“Must be nothing”

dawn terrace
#

I wonder if there's gonna be a dead three deity mod for consoles and mac or if it will be shot down by larian because of story conflicts.

dawn valley
#

My issue with the game is that i want Karlach to hug me but i also want to countryside house ending you get with Shart

simple spire
#

Mods

austere hinge
#

Polyamory mod

simple spire
#

Yep

soft tundra
tiny flint
#

Oh sick

deft crypt
#

12? Has it received any new ones before that

simple spire
#

wait wait wait what

simple spire
deft crypt
#

Didn’t think so

neon junco
#

Holy Shart, 12 new subclasses?!

#

Giants barbarian being even better at throwing?!

dawn terrace
#

HEXBLAAADE!

neon junco
#

Time to just yeet everyone

#

Toll the dead already goated and now it does corpse explosion from divinity 2? They are spoiling us

#

Barrelmancy meet corpse exploding mancy

dawn terrace
#

I think it's interesting that they went with Crown over Conquest. I think the rest were fairly obvious adds though.

neon junco
#

It has been a hot minute but giants barb and stars druid are new to me

#

Drunken master, is make other creatures drunk on hit a homebrew for bg3?

#

Swarmkeeper is also new to me

#

Ability to deal psychic damage by making enemies sober is funny

#

Those seem cool but I know in my heart i'll do a bladesinger wizard first again after doing that for the 100th time in the ttrpg

dawn terrace
neon junco
#

I do love how Larian has and is still just doing 5e but homebrewed to be more fun

dawn terrace
#

Oh yeah. I'm going to bet that quite a few of these developers throwing out their own houserules as suggestions.

neon junco
#

Larian has a history of doing that, they retcon'd a bunch of stuff in divinity 1 and 2 for better story or gameplay

#

They do not like to compromise on what they think would be fun for players

#

I wonder how much gets back to wotc, bg3 players just like pushing some of larian's homebrew on the ttrpg scene

dawn terrace
#

My brain went to the reason that they went with the picks they did is because like there's already mods with them but like so many of these are from xenathars and would already have mods too.

neon junco
#

Are some of these classes already mods? They seemed to be subclasses that don't have a community mod but I did not look at subclass mods starting patch 7

clear kestrel
#

12 new subclasses? Damn

dawn terrace
neon junco
#

I was talking about nexus I play on PC

clear kestrel
dawn terrace
#

I looking now and see mods for Crown paladin, hexblade, death domain, etc.

neon junco
#

Oh yea of lot of these are mods

#

Maybe they worked with community creators to basically port it in officially

clear kestrel
#

Makes sense, the most popular sub-classes would be made into mods and would be high priority to be added to the game

neon junco
#

A lot of them seem to be one person

dawn terrace
#

My thought was "oh they don't want to make like Conquest Paladin because it already has a very popular mod". But Death Cleric is also very popular.

clear kestrel
#

Like Hexblade is crazy popular as a subclass

neon junco
#

Larian did reach out to mod makers for patch 7 to make the mod store work well

clear kestrel
#

It's possible that they've worked with modders to add these

neon junco
#

Even the toolkit person

clear kestrel
#

But it also just seems likely that like, why would they add a subclass that is so unpopular, no one has attempted to mod it in

neon junco
#

Which i'm alright with these being added officially if they use the help of modders to basically add in a ton of them quickly

neon junco
clear kestrel
#

Sure, that would be a factor

#

But it would be an excluding factor instead of an including one

#

If that makes sense

neon junco
#

Yea

clear kestrel
#

Like, you propose to add new subclasses to the game, something like Hex Blade has got to be a top 3 one they'd want to add

#

And that logic applies to modders and developers

neon junco
#

Ones on mod store are ones that were possible well via modding so it already excludes super challenging ones

#

I think it also helps the more popular subclasses for 5e tend to be combat ones of stats go up

clear kestrel
#

For sure

simple spire
#

(It probably isn't)

#

(This is a jest)

rich plover
dawn terrace
#

Archfey blade warlock/crown paladin multiclass is just King Arthur

neon junco
soft tundra
#

i also really like being an archer cuz its one of those "identities" a companion doesnt have by default

#

and theres lots of cool arrows

neon junco
#

Having played DOS2 I like how they brought it over to bg3, people really underlook them since it's like not a thing you can consistently account for in the ttrpg

safe jungle
#

maybe I'll actually use gale with the new swordsinger

#

since I usually fill the role of the mage

#

unless I need two artilleries for some reason

#

well, warlock but same hat.

simple spire
#

Bladesinger is still primarily a caster fwiw

#

Or at least it is in 5e

safe jungle
#

and maybe I could reclass or multiclass Wyll into being a swashbuckler

#

that seems right for him

#

definitely gonna make him a hexblade anyways

tiny flint
#

So you still probably wanna take different stuff then normal

simple spire
#

FWIW abjuration wizard can frontline very effectively

#

To the point where it’s a good strat to load up on retaliatory damage effects and run around provoking Attacks of Opportunity

tiny flint
#

That feels, weird but kinda rad tbh

tiny flint
simple spire
#

Spells give a lot of it

#

Fire Shield, for one

safe jungle
#

party of 4 warlocks

tiny flint
#

Overpower Minthara just through pure pact nonsense

simple spire
#

Also if you take a single draconic sorcerer level with white dragon heritage you get armor of Agathys

tiny flint
#

Holy shit white dragonborn get that?

#

That’s super good

#

Oh wait

#

Dragon sorc

#

Not dragonborn

simple spire
#

The trick is

#

You take shield and magic missile as your known spells

#

So you always have those prepped

#

And they don’t care about your charisma

#

So something like 1 Draconic Sorc/10 Abjuration Wizard is super good

tiny flint
#

Oh yah, those are always helpful no matter what

simple spire
#

I ran Gale as that plus 1 Tempest Cleric

#

That gets you Create Water, among other tricks and heavy armor

safe jungle
#

what does create water do

#

make people more vulnerable to being chain lightninged?

rich plover
#

Wet people are vulnerable to lightning and cold damage

simple spire
#

And Armor of Agathys does cold damage

rich plover
#

Does cold damage always freeze wet ground, or is that only on AOEs?

simple spire
#

Only AoEs I believe

#

At least I don’t remember ever seeing it happen from Agathys

#

Cleric 1 just brings a lot of good stuff in general

#

And costs you very little since you’ve already dipped sorcerer and lost the 12th level feat

soft tundra
#

Create Water also helps deal with random area effects when exploring

#

put out all those damned fires

simple spire
#

For 1 cleric level you get: heavy armor, martial weapon, and shield proficiency, bless, create water, sanctuary, heal, healing word, resistance, guidance, shield of faith, and protection from good and evil

soft tundra
#

shield of faith my beloved

simple spire
#

All that’s independent of scaling or DC

#

It is one of the best dips in the game

#

(And frankly a bit of Sorcerer and Cleric fit well on Gale in terms of narrative)

#

It’s probably my favorite spellcaster build period

soft tundra
#

instructions unclear gale is now Fighter 12

simple spire
#

Tons of tricks, very bulky caster, all dips happen early so the build proper is developing near the beginning of the game, synergizes well with good equipment

neon junco
#

That's just laezel irl

#

And it was live on stage too so no photo trickery

hexed inlet
#

that is an extremely good cosplay

tiny flint
pure steppe
#

Is there a big difference in playing a co op run of this with 3 players compared to 4? Might wrangle a 4th and probably looking to be 3

gleaming pivot
#

No one has to have a NPC in their combat load as well.

pure steppe
#

For someone who has never Baldur'd a Gate or played a Larian game besides Dragon Commander is there any onboarding resources to the game?

rich plover
#

I would recommend 3 over 4 players unless either

  • Absolutely no one was comfortable wrangling NPCs
  • Absolutely no one cares about the story or the NPC's quest lines
    The game really wants you to have NPCs in the party, at least temporarily for specific beats in their quests, and it's awkward to temporarily kick out a human PC to let an NPC take their spot.
#

(you could also give everyone the mod that increases the max party size)

neon junco
#

It broke out of the gaming sphere containment

simple spire
#

Single player is heavily focused on the party members and your interactions with them

#

Multiplayer necessarily places the emphasis elsewhere

#

Don't worry about Gate Balduring, this game uses its nominal predecessors primarily as set dressing and will tell you anything you need to know

#

you're better off not understanding the attempts at continuity tbh grumble grumble grumble

pure steppe
#

Are the character builds pretty straightforward?

rich plover
#

It depends. As long as you read all of your abilities you can sort of just keyword match.

#

The game doesn't do a perfect job of explaining e.g. Saves vs checks vs attacks, but you can generally guess that bigger dice and numbers are better

neon junco
#

It's pretty much 5e but with some homebrew changes

#

One of the most universal ones is jump and shove are bonus actions

#

Jump is really nice early on cause it used like 10 feet of movement but you can often jump further for closing gaps

#

The other one cause I know Larian loves status effect terrain shenanigans they did that for lightning dealing double damage to wet enemies, potions if you throw on the ground become a pool and he's everyone in the range

#

You gotta throw it really close but also if you throw it too close you damage them with the bottle

#

Then it heals them

#

Unless it kills them first then they cannot be healed from dead with a potion

#

T on PC is inspect and it let's you get into details for status effects cause a lot of them are homebrewed

#

And sometimes there's menus on menus

#

All the keywords

pure steppe
#

I never got to play 5e past level 5 as one of those fighters with level 1 spell slots so it's going to be all fresh to me

rich plover
#

Oh, that's probably enough to get you started though. Level five is like half or a third of bg3, and you'll have a sense of the things that might exist even if you don't remember the exact rules

#

Full respecs are always readily available

pure steppe
neon junco
#

Respeccing is really cheap

rich plover
neon junco
#

A bit after level 2 but the first 3 levels are pretty fast

#

And you can do a crime for free respecs

rich plover
#

Also: even at the hardest difficulty setting, bg3 has a negative difficulty curve. Unless you're doing the semi-hardcore mode to start, eventually you start to out level challenges

neon junco
#

One thing Larian is good at since you've never played divinity original sin 2. They will let you do almost everything within the games mechanic

#

Pretty much all of the NPCs can be killed

pure steppe
neon junco
#

And they have plans so you don't soft lock yourself

#

So many plans if you kill a quest giver there's often 1 or 2 backup ways to get them

rich plover
neon junco
#

Main quest they did 4 layers of NPC deeps for a super weird thing that was mandatory for the main quest

#

2 voiced NPCs one that exist just in case the players do something really bizarre, then another if the players killed the 1st NPC before doing the weird thing, then a combat encounter and at some point they gave up and put a quest marker with a location you can't kill

#

As there are no characters in the area

#

Also Larians evil is pretty evil, both in the systemic manipulator evil but also has the murder everyone evil, the former have actions that make you question your morality for even selecting iy

#

Real depraved and messed up if you want that cause Larian is catering to everyone

simple spire
#

I feel like a big part of it is that they don't want playing evil to induce bathos, they want it to feel pretty disgusting

simple spire
#

For a lot of CRPGs, the evil choices are so demented as to be impossible to take seriously

wooden bane
#

the game isn't actually super reactive to you disguising yourself, huh

dawn terrace
#

Yeah it's sort of a limitation of taking a spell as complex and freeform as disguise self and putting it in a video game.

wooden bane
#

it seems like it treats it as if your character (whoever they are) was always x race

#

like i just did the whole creche disguised as a githyanki and they still saw through me at the end

simple spire
#

It's one of those things where it would increase the amount of text in the game by 50%

#

Kinda like how they cut dispel magic because it doubled the game size

dawn terrace
#

It's the easiest solution cause all the race dialogue relies on character tags, and the easiest way to give you those tags in dialogue is to give them to your character which means you'll be affected outside of dialogue, say for item effects.

wooden bane
#

yeah it's actually a pretty elegant solution for what it is

#

but you can definitely see the seams in some plot-critical moments

dawn terrace
#

Minor illusion also suffers from the limitations of being a video games cause that spell has a ton of uses but in bg3? Make cat, it go meow. Whic h ironically, you cannot do in table top because you can only do one thing at a time with minor illusion, make an image, or a sound, not both.

neon junco
#

Arguably better for combat since if casted outside of combat forces pretty much all NPCs to go near it and perfect for setting up AoE openers

#

The only instances of disguise self working as an actual disguise to mask your identity is for crime in regards to guards and speak with dead to prevent the "won't talk to its killer"

rich plover
#

It also resets some NPC interactions. E.g. a merchant will have neutral reputation, you'll get more generic dialogue options, etc.

#

Is that useful? ...maybe if you punched a merchants dog?

tiny flint
#

It is pretty helpful if in act 3 you ||accidentally activate the news side quest after a full day of dungeonering so you can’t pass the quest because the stealth mechanics of this game are bad enough when you have barely any spells to work with, so you’re slandered and suddenly have a negative with all shopkeeps, including the one who knows Karlach||

#

||not that I’m speaking from personal experience here||

wooden bane
#

playing durge in act 2 is pretty funny ||if you kill isobel and get everyone at Last Light killed. You just strut around camp afterwards yelling at your party about how hype it was and they all just go 'hey that's kinda fucked up' and never bring it up again||

neon junco
#

Minthara always has the durges back though

neon junco
safe jungle
neon junco
#

Thats why Owlbears are birds as druids can transform into them

simple spire
#

Bearowls are not birds though, no beak :V

rich plover
#

my multiplayer group is grinding through act 3, and is it just me or is the scripting around Gortash and the gondians sort of weird? ||from the quest descriptions, it seems like the intended order should be: meet Gortash > go to steel foundry > rescue families > rescue workers > beat Gort. But if you take the sub down to the Iron Throne, not only do you get a point-of-no-return-y pop-up, he skypes you and tells you he'll kill the families if you dock...|| First playthrough, so I don't really want spoilers, but it feels like we're missing something.

neon junco
#

No that's intended

#

It does not immediately blow up, regardless of when you go to steel watch foundry he'll tell you that and you're supposed to continue as you'll have time to rescue them.

#

Very bond villain vibes

rich plover
#

oh. that's really weird. ||did we misinterpret something and he didn't put the bomb collars on the captives? It didn't make sense to us that he'd know we were coming, have so many motivators that they're handing them out to every random clown (me) wandering into the foundry, and not just...hit the kill button as soon as we landed||

safe jungle
rich plover
#

ahh, okay. thanks! that makes a lot of sense, but I still feel pretty justified in my confusion

charred niche
#

Third Act does get a little hazy

#

Gortash's whole thing feels weird

rich plover
#

he's kind of a hat-on-a-hat of a guy

#

feels like maybe his patron god should be the god of overly complicated plots, not the god of murder

#

out of curiosity, since I'm fighting the urge to look up spoilers ||is the motivator they give you at the foundry just if you want to do a fast/evil/utilitarian resolution to kill all the gondians? or is there a use for it beyond that?||

safe jungle
#

he is the chosen of the God of Tyranny, not the God of Murder

#

Lawful Evil God of Overcomplicated Ambitious Plot

charred niche
#

Still will never understand why he'd choose this idiot clown

safe jungle
#

au contraire

#

you never want to choose someone smart to be your chosen if you are a lawful evil god

#

what if he gets actual good ideas

pure steppe
#

Any suggestions on class makeup to make a good melee character in BG3 that doesn't die much? Going to be picking it up in a few months when my buddies finish their DOS2 playthrough and I have been slotted into the designated tank role

charred niche
#

Not every party has to have a Classique RPG Makeup thing

#

But the game does have a lot of very lovely magic items for heavier fightfolk

safe jungle
rich plover
#

any of the classic martials should be pretty sturdy. fighter, barbarian, paladin. they even gave ranger the option of heavy armor proficiency, which is nice

pure steppe
safe jungle
#

you can do a lot of damage, if you max out DEX you get a lot of defense score

#

(doable with that enchanted glove somewhere)

#

decent con score means respectable hp

#

and you can drink a lot of potion with that extra bonus action

pure steppe
#

The one time I played 5e I did some kind of eldritch knight fighter thing with a couple of low level spell slots and archery so I was going to see how far a conventional sword and board fighter would get

safe jungle
#

ahh

#

don't have a lot of experience with shields except on cleric

charred niche
#

exceptionally far I'd say, idk about shields specifically

#

but fighters are not wanting for cool magic weapons n such

#

also having some Strength means Jumping

pure steppe
#

Shields are pretty optional, I think they just give like +2 AC? I don't mind using a big 2H stick

charred niche
#

which is crazy in this

#

Mobility can get a bit silly

#

Barbarians and Monks just sort of springing across battlefields

#

Also you can Throw people and objects

#

Wait, that might just be barbarian

#

but Push is still mighty

pure steppe
#

My frame of reference is 3.5 era open source stuff like Knights of the Chalice where you had to have weapon proficiency feats so I don't know how viable switching weapons based on loot is in 5e

charred niche
#

A loooot more forgiving than 3.5

#

( do miss some of that ultra-specification, i had a stupid broken chain-fighter monk thing.. ogh.. olden days.. )

safe jungle
#

chain fighter

#

does it summon a chain of fighters to engage the enemy

pure steppe
#

Is there like a character planner out there that can do feat progression planning?

rich plover
#

There are a couple, but respecs are also really easy from early on in act 1

#

(nominally 100g each, but you can ||steal it back with no consequences||)

#

Worth noting there's a patch in the works that adds more subclasses

rich plover
# charred niche Also you can Throw people and objects

also big boost on this as a build that works super well in BG3, compared to paper D&D. Larian loves throwing people and things around, and gives you lots of verticality and hazards to throw people into/off of. Barbarian is best for tossing people around (maybe specifically berserker? IDK), but thrown weapons can stack a lot of damage with Tavern Brawler. Meanwhile, stacking strength and athletics bonuses (e.g. the Athelete feat) let you jump hella far.

#

friend of mine is running eldritch knight with a dwarven thrower to just chunk people with mjolnir (but from mid act 1 was doing ridiculous damage just throwing random crap from his inventory). the only caveat is that returning effects like bound weapons are a little buggy in that they don't always come back to you after a throw

simple spire
#

Something like Barb 6/Rogue 2-4/Fighter 2-4 is extremely durable and deeply amusing

#

Damage isn’t amazing late-game unless you go grab Great Weapon Mastery and that one late-game glaive that’s finesse

#

But it’s alright and you are immune to death

soft tundra
soft tundra
gleaming pivot
#

It depends on how you value +2 HP to the... What, 2 average damage more a 2Hander is gonna give you?

soft tundra
#

the big thing is BG3 has really good magic shields

#

Not just with static AC bonuses so your shield is often +3 or more, but also just useful shit tacked on

simple spire
#

Oh, yeah, if you don't have another paladin in the party you'll probably want one

#

Aura of Protection is Very Strong

pure steppe
#

Does it have a decent range or what does it do, flat AC on top of existing AC?

rich plover
simple spire
#

It basically gives everyone good saving throws

#

Or, well, everyone nearby

tiny flint
#

You can also go oath of ancients for that aura to include resistance to spell damage

#

So halving all spell damage

#

For everyone around you

simple spire
#

Tbh I might nominate something like Ancients Paladin 7/Warlock 5

tiny flint
#

My build throughout the game was full ancients paladin

pure steppe
simple spire
#

That will work fine, the main reason I nominate warlock is honestly so you can go all-in on charisma

#

If you don’t want the three attacks bs, Paladin 8/Bladelock 4 would be great

tiny flint
#

Fair yah

#

I just ||grabbed the gloves of giant strength|| in act 3

pure steppe
neon junco
#

Later Shields also have a homebrew reaction to save or prone human enemies on being hit

#

And prone is homebrewed to end the turn immediately

#

So you can just stop a multi attack on the first hit

#

I'm big paladin fan cause charismatic face tank and for some reason paladins have a ton of class specific dialogue

#

Warlocks have like nothing, or rangers iirc

charred niche
#

A lot of the class fantasy is sort of eaten up by the companions

neon junco
#

The other not charisma classes have class dialogue often giving advantage so you're not bad at dialogue from not being charisma as tav

#

Respect companion classes

#

Gale as barbarian, karlach as monk, Astarion as cleric, laezel as wizard, Wyll as sorcerer, shart as cleric with sacred flame.

charred niche
#

I meant like storywise, Paladins have their whole unique Oath dealie, and a custom wizard is not going to be More Wizardy than Gale

neon junco
#

Yea or tav gith

#

If you take laezel as a gith tav you're the companion to her story

soft tundra
#

Im not a multiclasser i think bg3 pure classes just accomplish so much

neon junco
#

I like multiclassing for variety but single class options were definitely made stronger by some of the magic items

#

That rewarded you more by buffing a class feature that often is class level basef

#

Especially fighter, barbarian, and paladin gear

soft tundra
#

And i want all my feats n stuff

neon junco
#

Depending on difficulty some feats got wild buffs

#

Savage attacker is one as it used to apply to damage riders something so a smite with many d4 damage buffs from random armor pieces would always hit hard with rerolled damage

#

Honor mode specifically nerfs that to be more in line with ttrpg

simple spire
#

I think class 8/class 4 is often very, very strong unless you have something specific you're looking for

pure steppe
#

Fighter champion seems interesting just for the jump bonus, are the combat maneuvers from the other specialty better?

rich plover
#

AIUI champion is still kind of the "I want the fewest options possible" (sub)class. you still get to make choices around feats and gear, but champion fighter doesn't get any build decisions from their class

#

if simple is appealing, great, that's working as intended, but my gut is that most of what it offers can be picked up semi-easily with feats (Athlete) or gear (various rare weapons for crit range, etc.) and that battlemaster is probably more interesting as a mundane fighter, or barbarian for a similar kind of super-buff character

pure steppe
#

Yeah that's what I was thinking too because superiority dice to add to attack rolls seems generally useful

#

How are war domain clerics for punching things while having high AC? Less multi attack?

rich plover
#

haven't played one, not sure. I want to say pretty good? looks like you get a limited number of extra attack charges per rest, rather than whenever you attack. but people seem pretty high on any of the martial cleric archetypes, particularly Tempest (although that's partially because lightning damage is easily juiced up because of how Larian loves terrain effects like Wet)

soft tundra
#

Cleric will always be good because the cleric spell list is one of the best, especially for Act 2 of BG3

severe robin
tiny flint
#

Though a lot of that came from giving her really good armor

#

But it was also armor you can’t really miss

#

But also a lot of it was because of war cleric

neon junco
#

Cleric has a great spell list that makes it great without factoring in subclass. For war domain there's a lot of spells that are concentration one cast and done but lingers so you can spend more time attacking over casting

simple spire
#

Tempest Domain is really good

#

So's Light

dusky bear
#

Question

#

Im at the end of the first area of the game ||when u talk to a dragon rider, before i go into the mountains it tells me to tie any loose ends, can i come back and finisb the quests i didnt finish later? ||

tiny flint
#

It generally depends on a quest by quest basis if you can finish an act 1 quest after entering act 2

dusky bear
#

vicksyHmm maybe i should start a new game, like i stopped playing cause my pc couldnt handle the game no more, and now im on my brother's pc

neon junco
#

I believe the goblin and grove ones automatically resolve

#

So if you did all of those you didn't miss out

dusky bear
#

I finished that one!

dusky bear
#

ok so

#

starting a new game cause i forgot everything

#

so tell me vicksyAww how difficult is this? is it fun difficult? or frustrating difficult?

image.png
#

@neon junco imma ping you cause i saw you active at the other chat vicksySip

hexed inlet
#

I found it fun difficult

#

the game was a bit easy for me without it

#

but it definitely is a challenge

neon junco
#

Uh how good are you with dnd 5e or know divinity original sin 2

#

It is challenging, I started on tactician having played DOS2 and I wiped and had to reload a good amount.

#

But I often felt it wasn't unfair, I often wiped once, learned the deal of the encounter, then won it after that loss,

#

The like main main boss encounters I've reloaded twice but that was the worst of it.

hexed inlet
#

I did like a third of a run on regular diff, got bored, tried again on tactician and beat it in about 70 hours, then played honor mode and beat that first time in 50

#

I'll probably do another honour run just not permadeath when the new subclasses come out

neon junco
#

Damn mines was 80 hours but I did scour everything a ton

hexed inlet
#

I miss "lae'zel, kill this man"

dusky bear
#

I like min maxing builds in dnd vicksyLUL

hexed inlet
#

you can get really strong in bg3 with all the magic items and class features available

neon junco
#

Bg3 has a fair number of homebrew rules

#

Like jump action and shove action are bonus actions

#

But only to push enemies back and knock prone

#

And becoming prone ends the turn.

simple spire
charred niche
#

The prone ending your turn thing is absolutely cursed I will say

#

Utterly pointless change

#

It had the same problem in Div2 but you could hard counter it with some nails

hexed inlet
#

prone ending turns did throw me off basically every time it happened

neon junco
#

Yea ice becomes strong cc

#

I don't think besides just ignoring prone, there's any stat to "resist" slipping. Anything that can be prone probably would be

#

Grease also great

neon junco
#

Having wet condition makes you take double lightning and thunder damage

#

And being in water or puddles makes you get wet

hexed inlet
#

it's a dex save isn't it

neon junco
#

For the ice on the ground?

hexed inlet
#

vs your spell dc