Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Using the tadpole powers

Havent noticed much of a change if i use the powers or not. Have played to lev5 and only used it once , for shadowheart, and have used it at every opportunity. Is that something that will change with act II+?

thanks in advance

Don’t know. There seem to be an indication of some consequence, but it is difficult to even speculate what such consequence could be.

For now using tadpole will trigger some camp cutscenes and unlock class specific tadpole power. As far as I know EA builds don’t go any further than that.

You only used it once but also at every opportunity? There are lots of dialogue opportunities to use the powers unless you are murder hoboing your way through the game. 😂

Are we talking here about the illithid dialogue options, or about the tadpole class combat abilities we get after the illness scene?

Using the dialogue options leads to a number of dreams culminating in feeling like something has changed if you push on past all the dire warnings but I don’t think further consequences are implemented in early access, though I assume they will be in the full game.

I’m actually not sure whether using the combat abilities has a similar effect, or can be done freely once they’re obtained. I tend to forget I have them and haven’t played around much to work this out.

As @The_Red_Queen says, using the Illithid tadpole dislog options to control conversations with NPCs will eventually result in you crossing a threshold, after which, the dialog options to use the tadpole are labelled [TRUE_SOUL}.

This does not affect the story in EA, but it seems likely to be the main plot device from Moonrise Towers onwards. Within EA, you can safely use the tadpole until you receive a class-based tadpole power for yourself and companions ( some of which are quite cool ), without actually becoming a True Soul or suffering any lasting ill effect.

When the game releases in August ( or whenever ), this may not be true; any use of the tadpole dialog options may have a lasting impact.

thanks , have to watch out for the tadpole power, didnt notice it when i used it at every opportunity.

I hope that using the tadpole powers too much has a significant consequence down the line. However, the most natural consequence of using a brain parasite is that brain parasite gaining control over you...which is a very tricky thing to do in an RPG.

If there's no consequence and using the tadpole powers makes your strictly stronger in all cases...ugh.

My guess, is that it makes you become a symbiote. An unused tadpole would be closer to a parasite.

The best spies are both perfectly human and perfectly in tune with the Absolute. If you don't merge, it can only ever attack your mind. It's much more insidious when you've become one entity. Perhaps, you usurp the Absolute in that route instead of saving the world from it.

It might be interesting to see how different origin characters handle that role. It's also technically a special ending for each character and explains their playability a bit

I tend to avoid using both options, as they are labeled dangerous and evil. The dialog power is not that important for me, I use it very sparsely if ever. Quite often I even want fights and not avoid them. Maybe later it might be sometimes mandatory to use it, to avoid dire consequences?
The combat abilities from the tadpole are mostly too good to be true. I played a lot of classes from 1 to 4 the last time and I'm not even sure wether I always got the powers because I never tried to use them, to not get used to them.

There have to be consequences from both options, otherwise it would be a terrible lore deficiency. But, as said by others, it's difficult to find something good here. My thoughts are, if you use it up to 9 times, you have 1 hp less, if you use it 10 times or more, the Absolute takes full controll over your main char for the whole last boss fight. Maybe that should be balanced a bit better yet ...

Yes here I am also pretty much in a quandary. I'm playing custom party, so I have dialogue with every single character in the camp scenes. So I can go through all the answers, so to speak, but I'm afraid that I'll only have half of my team later on, in case they transform or whatever the consequence might be. On the other hand, I don't want to miss out on any cutscenes or dialogue and try to max it out as much as possible. It's hard to fathom how far I can go....

I only know that the narrator sometimes tells me that I have lost something irretrievably.... and it is not a permanent loss of attributes... which underlines the argument of a loss of control...

It’s seemed a pretty fundamental system of the game from the start of early access, with a lot of work put into bringing it to life through dreams and so on. The writers surely have had a very clear idea of what they want to do with tadpole usage from very early in development.

However, I’m neutral on whether using the tadpole combat abilities should count towards becoming a true soul. As long as it were clear one way or another, and there was some sort of in game explanation, I’d be fine.

Ideally, to me, it would be great if the tadpole combat abilities did indeed count towards becoming a true soul and/or unlocking the dreams.


Agree (about things needing to be clear). However, I would say : the animations displayed when using the tadpole combat abilities don't look like they are without consequences...they are terrifying 😅 I've only tested them during my one and only evil playthrough, but I remember thinking something like : "Oh, that looks like a baaad idea to use that 😅".