Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Evil-Path

Is it just me or does this game feel like it cut a lot of the evil options? I was loving the dark urge at the beginning but after act 1 it kinda feels like it goes down hill with the amount of evil choices. I have been hearing a lot that there’s a lot more good content compared to the evil path and it really saddens me. I was really hoping for the opportunity to be truly evil.

@Timmyboi

I just went through Dark Urge and a couple good playthroughs before that. There's basically one major Dark Urge event each act, and then a series of different responses you can give to various NPCs that are Dark Urge specific. This all culminates in the reckoning in Act 3.

Dark Urge definitely has drawbacks:

- You'll likely lose multiple companion characters you'd otherwise have access to on the good playthrough (Wyll, Karlach (even if you don't torch the grove)) are first off. Jaheira, Halsin, require a very specific dark urge playthrough if you intend to keep them long-term.
- Some side quests (and by extension cool items) will be inaccessible as a result of the lost companions (the awesome rapier that summons a Cambion which Wyll gets for example)
- If you take all of the dark urge (incentives), you'll lose NPC merchant access as well in Act 2
- Dark Urge is much lonelier than the good playthrough for sure

You 'can' be truly evil, but only in the context of sabotaging the good missions. Larian did not put a lot of 'evil' quests into the game. That's the downfall of it I think. Furthermore, the Urge playthrough is even more derailed by Act 3's screwed up pacing than a good playthrough because it's so linear. Most of Act 3 are comprised of 'good' quests. (Save someone from poltergeists, save someone from a hag, find a serial killer, save someone from being torched by a mob, save a political figure etc). It would have benefitted by having opposite storylines (harvest the poltergeists to increase your power, ally yourself with the hag, become a serial killer, lead the mob, capture the political figure). See what I mean?

Most of the time it's better to play such a game with one playthrough as a rather good character.

Only if the game is made so that it is not necessary to have experienced all the situations as a good character, it is no problem to play as an evil character.

Because if you play a game absolutely new, the first time and then decide for the evil way, then that is usually associated with hard cuts and miss a lot of content, because you then often get presented many things shortened.

Only when there are 2 fully implemented strands, one for good and one for evil, is it really well implemented.

But it has a very high appeal to play through the first time such a game, first as evil side.

You realize very quickly that in the scenarios you get into you suddenly always have the problem of blowing up the whole store, so to speak, if you are evil and somehow corrupt the storyline itself piece by piece.
This is often because it doesn't have 2 separate strands.

In BG3 it has the grove and the goblin camp at the beginning. But basically you ally yourself first and a little more intense with the emerald grove.
The Goblin Camp, on the other hand, seems a bit more superficial as an evil variant.
But at least you have 2 points of contact, so to speak.

Most of the time it's like this, that you always have one contact point and if you're the bad guy here, then it usually ends in limited expirations.

You kill just about everything and then somewhat lose the actual intended path of the game.

So it would have to be built in such a way that a full 2nd scenario is always available.
So that it for the evil run, from another environment everything arises and the main story from two sides can be played and there are then also always large sections that work differently on both sides.

I have also found that in BG3 initially, that I as quite evil character, was always a little isolated.
If you come to Jaheira, for example, and now basically want to be the evil part, it's going to be hard, because you tend to lack a counterpart.

If you haven't played through the thing as a rather good character at that moment, you're always immediately faced with the problem of having no choice here but either to play along, or to let it escalate and then go a more stripped-down way.

It also became rather quiet in my camps. Because all the rather good people have understandably left. So I stood there with 4 people, until Minthara came to it.
Even Halsin stormed in and wanted revenge and that also still relatively alone. Here one could have expected more, if he already dances.

So what I want to say is that I love it when there is good and evil and you can decide. But then it also needs such an elaboration of both sides that you can play this completely different. But that's a huge effort.

I heard that there's a way around that, it's tricky but you have to recruit Wyll and Karlach, kill them before raiding the Druid Grove, resurrect them after the Goblin party.

Ketheric Thorm seems like a good evil counterpart to Jaheira, he might be a bit angry that you killed his daughter, however he does mention that he can resurrect her again so killing her is temporary, but I would recommend that Ketheric use modify memory on Isobel to replace her memories of worshipping Selune with memories of her worshipping Myrkul or the Absolute so he doesn't have the same thing repeating as last time, also remove any evidence of Selune worship in the Shadowcursed lands, specifically Last Light Inn to be extra safe, as well as gaslight Isobel by telling her that the Nightsong living in the basement is an insane crazy person who compulsively lies and he can keep his stone as part of our alliance just like Gotash.

Just to respond to one of the earlier posts, talking about the drawbacks of playing as the dark urge. I’m playing as the dark urge right now, but as a resisting one, and I haven’t had any issues with losing the “good” companions honestly. Can’t you play as a “good” dark urge? Granted, I’m only halfway through act one, but the good companions all have very high approval of me and Astarion hates me.

You can have same playthrough as good Tav, except a certain unimportant NPC bard that will not survive. I would say Good Durge playthrough it's much better than good Tav since you're tied directly to the plot.