I've maintained for a while that changing Shadowheart's character arc in Act III rather than Act II is more in line with traditional storytelling, where she'd double down on her misbelief at the midpoint, rather than already overcoming it.
This however seems to prevent Shadowheart's Act III sandcastle romance scene...
because she only starts it by saying she wants to wash off the remnants of the shadow curse, which Sharran Shadowheart has no reason to want. I was expecting this line of dialogue to come up after saving Shadowheart's parents, but it does not - in fact, the party banter lines still treat Shadowheart as a Dark Justiciar in that case, which is one of many immersion-breaking things in Act III (like, conversely, Halsin commenting on Shadowheart learning to swim before that scene has even played). I am confused, though, because the sandcastle scene was rendered with both of her hair colours - implying it was supposed to be possible for this scene to play with a formerly Dark-Justiciar Shadowheart. In fact, this used to be a bug - I got it on my very first run, too - where Selûnite Shadowheart's hair would turn back to black during the sandcastle scene. I also remember Larian announcing that they fixed this bug in one update post.
So is it now a bug in turn that this scene can't be triggered with a converted former Dark-Justiciar Shadowheart?
So, I'm a little confused regarding Karlach's ending, as it sometimes seems to be skipped altogether, and sometimes forces you into one outcome:
On my Honour-Mode run, I didn't do the Steel Watch or Iron Throne, effectively skipping the Act-III part of Karlach's quest, as allying with Gortash is easier when you try to beat the game any way possible. I expected the usual scene on the docks at the end (I blew up Gale), but instead, Karlach's scene was simply skipped, and she showed up to the Epilogue party as if she had gone to Avernus by herself.
Then I repeated this process on another run (not Honour Mode), except this time, I defeated the brain, rather than blowing up Gale. On that run, I was a gith and went with Lae'zel at the end, assuming that, because I once again skipped the Steel Watch and the Iron Throne, that Karlach's ending would be skipped the same way. But instead, she died on the docks, as is commonly expected when going with Lae'zel, as Lae'zel always leaves before Karlach makes her choice.
In both cases, I didn't do the Ansur quest either, so Wyll just remained the Blade of Frontiers on both runs.
So what's the deciding variable here that skips Karlach's scene on the docks? Blowing up Gale? Not being a gith / not going with Lae'zel?
I am seeing a strange visual artifact in certain Lower City interiors, and I am trying to determine if this is a known BG3 issue or something specific with my setup.
The artifact appears as large, faint blue concentric circles (almost like a target pattern) on some walls and floors. It is most noticeable on reflective hardwood floors and other shiny surfaces.
A few observations: -The circles move with the camera -They become much less noticeable when I zoom in closer -They are visible in screenshots -Acts 1 and 2 were fine as far as I could tell -Rivington is completely fine -Even parts of the Lower City are fine -The issue only seems to occur on certain Lower City interiors, specifically upstairs of the Blushing Mermaid
Troubleshooting I have already tried: -Vulcan and DX11 -HDR on and off -DLSS on and off -Different AA settings -Lowering graphics settings -Fullscreen and borderless -Clean NVIDIA driver installation -Clearing NVIDIA shader cache -Clearing BG3 level cache -Reinstalling the game
System Specs: -RTX 5090 -Ryzen 7 9800X3D -240HZ OLED monitor
Other games are totally artifact free, and I have not noticed any visual issues outside of a few specific interiors in the Lower City.
Has anyone else seen this before or been able to reproduce it? I am mainly trying to determine whether this is a known lighting/reflection artifact in Act 3 or if there is a setting I am overlooking.
So I have had this issue with this quest for a couple of months now, before that I could get it to work but not anymore. Game up to date so I think it must be a recent patch causing the issue?
Hag dead in Act 1. Act 3. No sign of Fake Grizzly in the Blushing Mermaid, Show invisible doesn't show her - she's simply not there at all. In the basement lair I can do show invisible, kill a shroom or 3, chuck faerie fire, create water and just about anything else with my party and no sign of Ethel whatsoever - invisible or otherwise.
I see this is an issue reported countless times on steam forums, reddit etc and still bugged?
You don’t need Vulkan to play. I run the game with DirectX11 just fine. Vulkan is only the default option, so you can switch to DX11 in the launcher and keep playing.
I just wanted to say that I have also had this issue. We had just gotten to the Iron Bank and we were mid fight when my connection crashed. I was the host so I continued playing so I could save after the fight. But next time we tried to play no-one could join via crossplay. The one PC player and one Steamdeck player could join via other means.
Would also love a way around this as the only issue is the Xbox player as they have no other options for joining. It's an honour mode run as well, so we cannot re-load a previous save.
A streamer that I watch had this (or a very similar) issue last week. He's in Act 3 and was only able to jump around for a while. He was out of combat. He seems to have fixed it by removing pieces of his gear (specifically his armour) and putting them back on. After doing that, he was able to move around fine for the rest of the session. He even had to reload to that broken point and do it again. It was consistent for him. Hopefully it helps you or someone else with the issue.
For additional context, it happened to him after throwing a piece of armour at a secret door with hopes of breaking it. The armour sort of glitched out and he picked it back up at the base of the door. Then he was unable to move except by jumping.
But it would not promote playing 24/7 at all, quite opposite, I believe.
As I mentioned but vaguely before - amount of "reload penalized experience" might not be fixed - but it could be non linear and adapt to when exactly and how frequent it happens.
Let's say that, if you reload a save from a different date, then what is today - you do not lose any exp at all.
But well, yes, there also might be some other "challenges" with this basic idea.
Rolling back the driver is usually the cure all for this sort of issue and stop automatic updates on drivers. But One thing you might try, is instead of getting the game ready driver get the studio version of the same driver. I have no idea if it will work for you but that worked for me on another game where I had a similar undefined issue. So no guarantees but might be worth a try. If you have GEForce Experience installed that's very easy to do.
bit late here - like a year rofl. I never minded the horns if I'm honest - that would mean I hate tieflings as well and I don't. It was the eyes changing I disliked the most about that transformation. Windows to the soul and all that. Thankfully there is a mod on the Nexus that allows you to either remove the transformation entirely or allow it but keep his human eye - which was the option I went for. Its called Wyll's Mirror by Anshela. it works on patch 8, I tried it on my last playthrough. Of course neither the game or Wyll himself recognises that he looks human or has human eyes instead of what Mizora is supposed to have changed him into - but you can't have everything I guess, that would be the same if you used consol commands as well.
I've been wondering about a possible narrative parallel in Baldur's Gate 3.
After reading the in-game alchemy notes about Haskinn Xhesilaphin and Nikros,
I learned that Haskinn used a mind-reading potion and discovered that his closest friend, Nikros, intended to poison him. Nikros wasn't acting out of hatred—he couldn't bear to watch Haskinn continue suffering from his deteriorating health and believed death would be a mercy. Haskinn then killed Nikros first.
What struck me is how similar this feels to the story of Ansur and Balduran. Ansur also wanted to end the life of someone he deeply cared about because he believed it was the only way to spare him from a fate worse than death. In turn, Balduran (the Emperor) killed Ansur in self-defense.
The circumstances are obviously different, but the emotional core seems remarkably similar: a beloved friend decides that death would be a mercy, and the intended victim ultimately kills that friend instead.
It almost feels like a smaller-scale Dragonborn retelling of the Ansur/Balduran conflict.
Was this parallel intentional on the writers' part? Is the Haskinn/Nikros story meant to echo or foreshadow the Ansur/Balduran tragedy, or is the resemblance coincidental?
Update: Part 3, Chapter 29 & 30 is now published. This concludes Part 3. Hope you enjoy it!
BG3.5 - Hellraisers (Fanfiction) Baldur's Gate 3.5: Hellraisers - an original fanfic story that is a sequel to Baldur's Gate 3 Fanfic: The Afflicted. It picks up immediately after the events of Baldur's Gate 3 as characters from the previous fanfic - Fiovay, Kai, Aelun, Vlyn, and the other members of their party - travel to Avernus. Their quest is to save Karlach but also to hopefully find and rescue Darson, Aelun's father, from the clutches of Demogorgon.
The bigger problem is how they handwaved her not able to touch someone, because it would burn the person, but her clothes, bedrolls, Clive and everythin gshe touches can deal with it very well.
I love Karlach, she is one of my favourites, but this drives me crazy
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