Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Tav vs Dark Urge for a 'good' playthrough

Oh, I’m doing one better. I’m going to play a game with three friends who know nothing about this game. I’m going to be a Dark Urge necromancer, I’m going to lean into it hard, and I’m not going to tell them. They can just figure that out on their own.

They won’t mind. I have been DMing for them for years. They are very used to me playing the villain and I’ll do it in a way they get a kick out of.

That sounds like a lot of fun, Warlocke.

A slight tangent, but it just occured to me that even if you lean into your Tav being a Baldurian, you can never play a character who actually knows any people in the city. You won't have friends there, no family, you can claim the elfsong tavern is your local but no one will know you there. And really if you don't have roots in the city, what's the point of the tag? Either they give us no roots in the city so we really just have to come up with ideas for people not from Baldur's Gate, or they do give us roots and cut us off from any character concepts not from the city. That's the sort of thing which really should be clear as early as possible.

This isnt indicative of not being able to do a good dark urge at all, quite the opposite imo.
The game starts you off with the dead squirrel, to introduce you to the outcome of giving in to the dark urges, as right after you get an important decision wih Gale. Same goes for the episode in the camp, it is directly followed by a choice in dialogue, of either swearing to resist or give in to these temptations from that point forward, acting as a introduction to the character and opportunity to decide which direction to go with it.
As far as Ive seen and heard, (i.e fextralife) after that you will have the choice to resist. There might be some more of these moments of waking up after something terrible has happened, but my guess is that that would be unique episodes related to the origins quest, rather than interfering with or "ruining" other quests. I highly doubt that dark urge simply forces you into a single evil outcome against your will for quests and companion relationships, as what seems like their biggest selling point is to give the player as many directions to go in with the story as possible.

Might be wrong, but imo that would be extremely unlikely and unexpected given larians design philosophy from what we've seen and heard so far.

It's interesting, and has definitely changed my opinion of the option. If I do play a Dark Urge, I'm not planning to try to go good and resist it. I do wish they had done something similar that didn't force you into darkness as well, but I don't know how practical it would be...

The same way as you are bothering to convince people, that BG3 will be a totally disaster of a game, instead of just saying it *might* be a great game, but it's completely not up to your alley. There are people that are so disappointed that BG3 is shaping up against everything they hoped it to be, they tend to twist every interesting bits of news, to prove their point, but also there are group of people, sitting on the opposite side of the table, who try to do a metal gymnastics you described, because they are so positively hyped of this game.

Both groups have place at the table, and naturally both will try to spin their narrative. It's nothing dishonest with being lenient towards the game one is very much looking forward to.

What bothers me in this article, is the possible lack of control over the Dark Urge in some situations. I'm totally fine having to go to great lenghts, to resist the urge. After all, I strongly believe this is exactly the struggle Bhaalspawn should undergo in BG1/BG2, but I wouldn't like to be able to do murderous actions completely out of my control. If anything, I'd rather failing a roll, than not having a chance to react.

Some additional info on this topic here.
https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGat...nsight_how_resisting_the_dark_urge_will/

If you keep resisting the game will roll intimidation checks against you to override your choice.

So does this mean it won't be possible to play a non-oathbreaker paladin without shelling out 2,000g every time you kill someone innocent?

It seems like playing Tav will be a choice between evil and good.

Playing the Dark Urge seems like a choice between evil and less evil

Playing the Dark Urge seems more like choice between "embrace evil" and "trying to resist evil, but fail anyway"

i think you make the point.

because the dark urge is the murderer who does a series of murder in baldur's gate 15 years ago.
this means the dark urge's soul is surrendered and corrupted by his/her dark urge.

thus, how can the dark urge have the confidence to resist his/her dark urge in the beginning of the bg3 ??

the redemption should be that the dark urge seals him/herself or just killed him/herself, return his/her dark urge power to somewhere it belong.

this is hard to do the definition, such as "drug".

someone is forced or lured drug, and then the one spontaneously drugs whenever "addiction episode".

i think you can not say the one can not help him/herself that is innocent.

in my words, the dark urge is an origin sin, and the origin sin poison the dark urge's soul very completely 15 year ago.

...and, tav is the real core, he/she is the real player character -- non-origin character.
whereas, the dark urge is just one of the origin characters.

Well, lets be honest ...
If all you need to do would be just click other dialogue options, it would be quite boring implementation ...

There IS an urge ... and you can try to resist it, but its supposed to be fight, its not supposed to be easy.

..., actually, this is possible to resist dark urge, just you have to gain the appreciation or love of the gods of God AO.

that will require the moral present his/her sincerity to God AO.

and this can not only always have the success saving throw, but also can eliminate dark urge completely in a period.

but firstly, the dark urge have to show his/her value. at least, he/she has to resist all dark urge to the series of murder in baldur's gate 15 years ago(acturally, he/she has failed).

i mean that your player character have to be "the chosen one of the Maker" that you mjust have already walked in to the hidden path toward true end, or you won't have the oppotinuty.

I was watching a playthrough from 2 years ago and at the end I saw something that kind of confirmed my suspicions.

When you're on the boat on the way to Grymforge (Grymforge wasn't even implemented at the time) you got the narrator giving you a rundown of the stuff you did up until that point and the last phrase she says is:


My suspicion was that Tav and DU were always meant to be one thing but at some point in development they made them 2 separate things. Maybe it was because the DU was too dark for some people or because they thought losing control of your character at some points was going to make some people unhappy or what, but it seems to be the case.

Image from ChristopherOdd playthough.

Interesting. I'm very curious just how much the story changed over the EA. I certainly hope they weren't rewriting things in the last few months though

I don't think so, if anything, worst case scenario Tav is DU- instead of DU being Tav+ but the people that don't want to play DU shouldn't be worried since all they stripped from DU is the things they didn't want to see anyway so no harm no foul. Again, worst case scenario.

actually, i suppose tav is the one who succeeds to pass the trial of blood in baldur's gate, whereas the dark urge is a fail one.

in this light, i am afraid that tav's options are only leading to the grey path without evil path.

i can see the official metaphor, tav is sepratated his/her potential evil from the dark urge.
in the official setting, tav is an advanced character-- a chosen one of the Maker, beyond the origin characters ahead the true path.

but, still, it allows some players choose the fallen path for their tav. this is as lucifer who disappoints the Maker.

This is where I'd have to disagree.

By all indications whatever Larian had planned for Tav in EA was much more of a slow buildup, much like the Bhaalspawn of BG I+II. I think I would be much more onboard with that as a storyline for our custom characters, because I never felt like those Bhaalspawn dreams dictated my behaviour. Heck, even Elminster himself shows up to remind you not to let your parentage dictate your destiny. DU feels very much like it could 'take the wheel' from our characters, like Lohse from DOS2, but on a greater scale.

The EA dreams were also more ambiguous in their evil. The bloodlust is concerning, but it also serves as almost a feral instinct that lashes out at the extremely suspicious Daisy.

But there's still the valid question of what, if anything the Bhaal-related plotline Tav was getting has been replaced with. If the answer is 'nothing' than I have to feel like that's a major letdown, since one of the huge draws for games like this is the custom character, and that beign the weakest link would be a real bummer.

I don't think the dreams are related to DU/Tav specifically at all, all the origin companions get the dreams too (or at least they used too, we don't really know now I guess)

I think there's no winning really, some people prefer Tav without the Bhaal stuff, some people want the DU without losing control, etc. I think for people like me prepared for multiple playthroughs and no ''alignment restraints'' it's not really a big deal specially since we don't really know much about Tav or DU past act 1 but I think having DU as the more fleshed out origin and having Tav as more of a blank slate is perfectly fine.

DU is the ''main custom'' character as the devs intended and Tav is alternative for the people that REALLY don't want to play DU for whatever reason (or the other origins). That's the feeling I'm getting.

To be clear, I'm talking about the scenes where you feel something well up within you that has a very hostile reaction to Daisy, which possibly culminates in you trying to strangle her in your dream.

Noteworthy that Tav's dream sequence (as well as DU, presumably) has apparently been completely rewritten. Whether the new dreams hint at deeper story developments down the line for Tav is certainly up in the air, but I wouldn't be surprised if Tav's violent urges and lashing out at Daisy weren't around in the new dreams.


I don't think people would mind DU as much as the 'real' custom character story if there wasn't so much baggage. The 15 years as a serial killer in baldur's gate, for one. Having control taken out of your hands randomly and unpredictably even really early in the game. Honestly it doesn't sound too much fun even as an evil character if you don't like obligate murerhoboing and want to be something a little more subtle.

If I wasn't afraid that I'd be getting a truncated 'default' story playing Tav, I wouldn't touch DU with a ten foot pole. And the fact that by all indications Larian has given Tav no longer has any sort of 'Tav story' makes me feel that's kinda just the way things are.

'No story' vs 'serial killer' just doesn't sound that appealing a choice for a custom character in a game like this that otherwise sells itself heavily on its massive amount of unique story content (origin characters)