Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Chapter 1 major choice lack of parity **Spoiler**

To be clear, I don't expect that there is a precise balancing of gear, companions, content and experience regardless of which choices you make.

However, having played up to the start of chapter 3 siding with the Tieflings, there is clearly a lot of content in chapter 2 (not to mention a merchant who provides several pieces of unique gear), specific to the Teiflings, as well as associated with the 2 origin companions that you lose, and I expect there will be significantly more in chapter 3.

Siding with Minthara gives you -2 companions net, and from what I have read, a not very reactive companion, plus you end up against the absolutes forces anyway and presumably therefore do not get anything like comparable chapter 2 and 3 content, reactivity, gear experience and so on. Even just the fight itself offers significantly less experience than defending the grove and clearing out the remainder of the goblin camp, along with no notable gear.

Not that I would prefer it, but it would be somewhat more equal if chapter 2 quests and merchants from moonrise tower were locked out to you if you had, you know, massacred one of their armies.

Bottom line is, siding with Minthara is not a compelling choice. It simply feels like the wrong choice. I am not saying there should be no wrong choices (attacking everyone on sight, for example, should not offer the same amount of content and reward as interacting as the game obviously intends you to). But this isn't presented as a clearly wrong choice and a non trivial amount of time has gone into making this an option for you. So why is it so much worse than the alternative? At least in BG2 when the evil options were objectively worse from a reward standpoint, these were largely half arsed and without much effort put in, like with Firkraag or BG2's druid grove. But a significant amount of development time has in my view basically been wasted in order to given players a pretty objectively bad choice, whereby you lose quests, reactivity, 2 full companions, lots of gear and experience. Again, it doesn't need to be exactly balanced, but this is just by far and away the worst outcome.

Realistically, we probably aren't getting parallel chapter 2 and 3 content for siding with Minthara that is comparable with the Tieflings. That being the case, I would propose making the attack on the druid grove at least offer the option to the warn the Tieflings the goblins were on their way and them flee under through the hidden passage, for example. Then significantly buff the forces that the druids bring to bear, maybe have them summon a bunch of animals, who can then defend the gate. Minthara still raises the grove, Halsin is killed off, Wyll and Karlach can remain and you then dont lose a massive amount of gear and content.

It would be nice if there were parallel and comparable content for siding with Minthara, but I recognise this would be a massive undertaking and therefore rather unlikely.

You actually lose 3 party members if you do this choice which is even worse. IMO if going pure evil makes you lose party members you should be able to gain more power from somewhere, maybe more permeant buffs? More evil party members? More evil gear? Not sure but as it stands now if feels like the game is forcing you to be good or you get punished heavily.

Well its 2 net. You can keep Gale if that is what you are referring to, and Minthara is instead of Halsin. However, the loss of two origin characters is a significant loss of content, on top of all future content with the Tieflings.

This is a huge penalty without any significant upside. It also seems very unnecessary. The game even has a secret tunnel under the druid grove for the Tieflings to escape and its not like this is a completely implausible option given the druids were trying to evict them. If you didn't kill the Tieflings, it would feel more plausible that Karlach and Wyll would remain.

I actually felt chapter3 mostly turned away from earlier characters, and while you can run into familiar faces they are hardly relevant. Some choices are retconed (like with the hag) most likely to cover more outcomes will less workload.

Did you actually tried evil path? I was hoping that perhas Goblins will provide alternative content to Tieflings.

I see BG3 evil path in a similar way a lot of other RPGs do it - it is nor narratively or roleplaying wise valid path - it is a detatched "see how much I can screw everything" path. I have been watching retrospective on Fallout3 and the critique of "blew up Megaton" choice - it is that kind of choice - big, nonesensical, something you have no incentive or reason to do, beside "I wonder if I can do it". In general I think choices and player freedom are done fairly poorly in BG3 - they are outstanding as far as production goes, a lot of content and a lot of variables, but I don't think they are done effectively or efficiently. To me it's an equivalent of having a hundered unappealing guns in a game vs 10 varied and well designed ones. It's appealing on surface level, but I am less and less impressed the more I discover.

The tieflings get half killed regardless in Act 2, and the only ones you have any real interaction in Act 3 is Roland and Alfira. That's it. Zevlor is basically nonexistent. The others are one sentence statements zero dialogue choices NPC at Rivington. Act 1 and Act 2 consequences are quickly forgotten and discarded for the jumbled mess of side quests in Act 3. The druids from Act 1 are quickly forgotten about. The Harpers are forgotten about in Act 3.

Honestly, I would have preferred less scattered side quests and focusing on the characters from Act 1 throughout the city and companion quests.



Except it would make no difference because you find in Act 2 that half the tieflings get caught, tortured, and killed by Absolute cultists and the Drider in Act 2, and Zevlor is spirited away. So you know, Minthara, the cultist you helped along the goblins, that same faction you teamed up with kills the tieflings even if they managed to escape the Grove. So it absolutely makes sense that good aligned characters leave your party when you team up with a ruthless, evil drow paladin who sees people only as tools to be wielded for power. Karlach was literally sold to hell for power by Gortash, and Wyll has been a slave to power. I don't know how you expect them to turn on their morals just so you can be evil and ruthless and still have access to their story. It's almost like people don't want negative consequences for choosing evil. Your reward is you get to see the game from the villain's perspective and get the most unique follower race and best class follower, a drow paladin whereas good playthroughs don't have a single drow character and it's all humans and vanilla elves with the exception of Karlach. You also get Halsin as a druid, but druid is a trash class so you will probably respec him to something else. Good players also get another trash class in Jaheira as another mediocre druid, and then Minsc as a trash 2H ranger with no good supporting stat block to play him efficiently unless you respec him to rogue or barb/fighter, and by the time you get to recruit Minsc the game is basically next to over, so he's a wasted character.

and I would rather have act3 from the beginning of the game. I care much more of than survivors of a tabletop campaign I never played.

Now, it is not unusual for areas in cRPGs to be narratively self contained - attempting wide reactivity throughout the game creates challenges. Usually games run into this problem in the sequel, BG3 manages to struggle with its own promised reactivity chapter to chapter. It seems the game is building up to the finale where alliances we forged are to be in some way acknowledged - as long as things we did in the past will be responded to in some form, all will be fine.

The issue I have, is how much of act1 acts as a set up. I don’t have a problem with grove - they are a specific to this area, and their story is resolved. It would be nice of Druids showed up in final battle, or something, but already Halsin/Minthara act as camp/goblin legacy. But tieflings, hag, Mol - they all end of cliff-hanger and “to be continued”. For the game to mostly move forward and focus on something different feels unsatisfying… earlier stories feel unfinished, while act3 feels like a change in focus and narrative.

Well, the Mol storyline is she escaped Moonrise by signing a contract with Raphael and hoped to outsmart him by using the contract to take over the Guild in BG yet find a workaround the payment. In fact, when you return Raphael's contract to her from the House of Hope, you have to not mention you dealt with Raphael or she'll be furious you removed the patron that was gonna make her leader of the Guild, and will not join you in the final battle while stating that when she does take over the Guild in the future, the guild won't take kindly to you, despite what you did for her and the tiefling kids in the past.

The tiefling story is more or less resolved by Act 3 outside Dammon being abandoned as a solution to Karlach. Roland, Kai, and Lea become a family and Roland the master of Ramazith tower, the tiefling kids get jobs as paper boys and salesmen, the tiefling couple are in the refugee camp since they don't have a pass, but will join in once the events of the final battle resolve as the blockade will be lifted. Alfira is resolved to start a music school while Lakrissa helps her financially with her job as a barmaid. The only truly abandoned storyline is Zevlor and his hellriders, but that's because they basically massacred most of the tiefling soldiers in Act 2, so there's literally like 3 Hellriders left including Zevlor, and Zorru can't even be called a hellrider, so it's Zevlor and his liuetenant lady. Even before then, Zevlor told her he fully intended to not pursue a military life in BG and suggested she did the same back in the grove.

Really, it's the hag coven storyline and the Gondians+Dammon fixing Karlach's engine that feels more of a discontinued story from Act 1. Maybe some resolution with the iron gnomes is also missing, because you blow up the Steel Foundry but then they just go chill in their hideout despite all this talk about restoring the status of the ironhand gnomes in BG.

I am not clear what you definition of the term "no difference" is, but having played through act 2, this is clearly inaccurate. Several chapter 2 side quests are related to Tieflings, with obvious follow up indicated with respect to Dammon, Zevlor and Mol at least. And obviously the loss of Karlach and Wyll is a big deal. Given an inaccurate account of chapter 2, I am not confident in your account of chapter 3 either.

As for Karlach and Wyll leaving if you team up with the Drow, again, this could be a persuasion check like persuading some party members to use the tadpole. You could argue it is necessary to infiltrate the cult. Additionally, whatever the plausibility, it is a damn sight more plausible if you haven't killed off the Tieflings that Wyll was actively assisting and with Karlach herself being a Tiefling. The druids are lead by Kagha, who is hardly a very sympathetic character and not taking her side is hardly the most unequivocally evil thing you can do. If the position is "we got the tieflings out and its a shame about the druids, but there were going to lock themselves away and offer no help; we might get somewhere if we work with Minthara", yes its a bit iffy, but I can see Karlach and Wyll both accepting that. And frankly, there are plenty of in game actions you could argue should result in certain party members leaving which don't.

And no, I don't want evil choices to be free of consequences. Not getting Haslin is fine. Not getting access to certain items of quests is fine. What is not fine is the massive NET loss of content without meaningful upside. You go from 6 to 4 party members for half of chapter 1 and most of chapter 2. You lose a lot of quests, experience, items and so on. What is the upside? I would have no issue with these loses if comparable upsides were offered, but this plainly is not the case. And far more realistic than expecting Larian to add a lot of additional content to what, lets be honest, is an option most people wont take, they can work with what they already have. Allowing the Tieflings to escape would be comparatively little work. It would still be consequential (no Haslin, no future interactions with druids), but it would not be a clearly inferior choice. If Larian wants to add in evil specific content comparable to the content you lose from siding with Minthara, great. But there is no likelihood of this actually happening, and that being the case, the best way to make this option less unambiguously the wrong choice is to not strip away as much content unnecessarily.

As for drow paladin, firstly, no its not all humans except Karlach. Laezel is a gith, shadowheart and half elf, Halsin an elf and Astarion both an elf and vampire. So of 6 origin characters, 2 are human. Again, you are just getting basic facts wrong. Secondly, what does having a drow in your party, or Minthara specifically, actually add to the experience? I have played using minor illusion for drow on my main character in the underdark and goblin camp where this is a fair amount of reactivity, but you have to be the one speaking and frankly, most of the difference is pretty superficial and it only matters for the person actually doing the talking. So unless Minthara has a boat load of character specific content (and apparently, she doesnt), who cares.

As for the evil perspective, again, what difference does this make? You can still interact peacefully with the absolute in chapter 2 if you side with the druids, up until you kill Kethric, so no significant change there. And there is no significant difference in how either the mountain pass, underdark and shadow-cursed land plays out, other than losing a lot of content in the latter.

As for paladin, you can respec in this game. Even if you want to keep it thematically consistent, there is no reason why you cannot make Wyll a warlock paladin (works mechanically and narratively) or even Shadowheart a full paladin (honestly, she is more zealous than wise, so arguably it makes more sense). Or just play a paladin yourself. Halsin offers you a class you don't otherwise get also and narratively, making any of the origin classes a druid really makes less sense than making Wyll or Shadowheart a paladin.

There is some nerve to claiming someone is getting the facts wrong when you purposefully misread and handwave obvious, clear sentences. I didn't just say humans, I said humans and vanilla elves. So there goes your first bit of math, considering shadowheart counts for both and astarion, halsin, jaheira, and minsc are humans or elves. And spare me the arbitrary filter of yours that only origin companions count. Jaheira, Halsin, and Minsc are as much characters as Minthara is. That puts the party total to 1 gith, 1 tiefling, 3 humans, one half elf (that's basically a human with pointy ears, barely any elf specific behavior or dialogue), and 3 elves.

Moll has no story in Act 2, she vritually gets kidnapped in Act 2 after a game of chess and then disappears until Act 3, where she can also be missed entirely as the Guild storyline is not even necessary to progress anything, and she's off to some corner in the guild hideout with absolutely no associated quest or story. Similarly, the tiefling storyline in Act 2 is barebones outside Dammon. Their real story ended in Act 1, the focus of Act 2 story is on the absolute cultits, Thorm and his family, and Shar and Shadowheart. Halsin's continuation is even optional and easily missed by many people, as these forums will attest. You try to portray my definition of no difference as a stretch, but then bend over backwards to try to come up with some logic in which Wyll or Karlach would accept murdering innocents (and Kagha being an unpleasant leader does not come even close to leading a goblin raid party to massacre all druids, particularly the peaceful vendor, the inhabiting animals, Nettie and other dissenting druids waiting for Halsin, who you kill to recruit Minthara and who could prevent Kagha from evicting the tieflings) and taking in a woman who is ruthless and shows total apathy to those she considers weak, on top of making it clear she will ally with you on condition of fulfillment of her ambititions and oath, which is to take control of the Absolute power for yourselves, and encourage you to be tyrants. The complete opposite of what Wyll and Karlach are as characters.

And Wyll makes absolutely no sense as a paladin. He pledged himself to a damned devil. In what world are those alignments compatible? Respeccing characters is effectively transforming them out of their designed story to fit practical purposes. Whatever impression you seem to have of Shadowheart, even the House of Grief marks her down as a healer for the Sharrans in the roster. She is canonically a cleric. She didn't duel Lazael when challenged, she wanted to slit her throat while she was sleeping. She's not a paladin in the slightest.