Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion What would you have preferred instead of the Emperor?

A lot of folks have expressed dislike for what the Emperor is in the game. Some people even debate what the Emperor is in the game.

But something had to be protecting the characters from ceremorphosis. So. What would you have preferred?

What would have been better than the Emperor?

What we had in Early Access, as I often find to be the case. Daisy wasn't perfect, a little too obviously wanted to seduce us into committing atrocities, but it was a stronger foundation for the mystery and the manipulation. I still don't understand why it had to be reworked as extensively as it was. It's not like it didn't work, it was just that there was no plausible deniability so the feedback reflected that. The Guardian is a far cry from the intent of that feedback, as was stripping Wyll of everything interesting about his backstory. Complete overreactions to the general vibe of "wow a lot of this is looking more evil than we expected." Toning down how strong Daisy comes at you out of the gate so that we could get to the real in-depth parts that weren't in Early Access instead of completely replacing it with an entirely separate entity would've been far closer to the intent of most of the feedback I ever saw, and following that example with other reworks probably would have saved a fair bit more time. The only complete rework I fully agree with related to this is how the tadpole powers work now. The progression of whatever transformation was happening in Early Access was VERY INTERESTING but unfortunately also guaranteed a shitload of players were never going to use a single power beyond maybe freeing Shadowheart right at the start, and if they wanted the world to react to what stage of transformation you were at beyond Act 1 that might've been a bit of a nightmare.

The Emperor isn't a bad character to have here, the Guardian role is ALMOST as good, but the problem is exactly that it isn't as good as what we were originally going to get and like many things that got reworked there are still artifacts of what we were originally going to get littering the game punching little holes in the consistency of what we now have. The biggest problem by far however is just that the Emperor makes no sense if you want to do the most reasonable thing in the big moment of choice between him and Orpheus. Deny becoming a Mindflayer or letting him eat Orpheus as many people will and after going on extensively about wanting his freedom he just gives up and spitefully goes back under its control voluntarily. And like the reason the Mass Effect 3 endings suck so much, that seems to happen SPECIFICALLY to force you into a bad choice. Totally nonsensical contrivance that I can only imagine was made because they assumed it'd be another case of "if we don't attempt to force it, 95% of players won't choose it themselves." What would the scenario have been if we had Daisy? Probably more interesting than what we got, and the Emperor could have been off being interesting as the character he was originally supposed to be.

I don't have a problem with the Emperor - he is, what he is and it makes sense. But him being Balduran was a bit too much.

Sometimes I think it should have been Mother Gith in that astral prism instead of the Emperor and Orpheus. Hidden away all those years, imprisoned by the original Vlaakith.

Gith would have been great! I suspect that it was too big of change - they would feel obligated to make a DLC. Because one guesses that Gith's imprisonment was part of the deal with Tiamat. And then the adventurers would need to take on the dragon queen . . .

Instead of the Emperor, I feel the Dream Guardian could have worked better. Especially if they were reworked somewhat.

The Guardian being another adventurer also in the same situation as us, with a tadpole in their head with the ceremorphosis process being halted by outside means.

If said Guardian presented a case AGAINST the use of Illithid powers and absorbing more tadpoles because they, like us, are in the mindset of preserving themselves and "Mind Flayers are bad, lets not be one" (They can be the one remarking that you lose part of yourself when you utilize illithid actions and such - This can also be highlighted in dialogues where the Guardan/companions ask about you but you stop being able to remember. Same thing with talking to illithidized companions)

Then we could have had some unknown force inside the Artifact (The "Daisy") that provided us, and the Guardian, with the halted ceremorphosis and being the voice that urges gaining the Illithid powers.

Who this unknown force ends up being, is debatable. Is it the Emperor? Is it the Elder Brain? Is it some magical Gith that just exudes an anti-ceremorphosis aura because reasons? Is it some "Absolute" character that is being exploited by the cult (Much like Aylin and Ketheric)?

I think that could have been easier to write a more solid story for.

Giving players that choice; do they follow the advice of the Guardian and try and find a way to deal with events without illithid powers to retain their self? Or do they embrace illithid powers and follow the source of their extended survival?

With the endings being something like, if remaining pure, the Guardian whom you've been siding with all game and presumably have grown attached to sacrifices themselves to save you to deal with the Netherbrain. While if you went the illithid route you had the power to save everyone else, but at the cost of your own self as you turn into a Mind Flayer.

Meanwhile, throughout the story you can have clashes between the Guardian and the Daisy. As well as the reveal of Daisy and responses to it (Do you fight them and make them submit to your will? Do you make a deal with them? Do you side with them?)

I feel that would have landed better than "Emperor, who is Balduran because of course he is, wants you to tadpole up because being a Mind Flayer is apparently the bestest thing ever. Meanwhile, the reason for the lack of ceremorphosis is magic Gith man Orpheus. But if you side with the person who's actually been saving you the entire game then Mind Flayer man gets mad and becomes evil because no-one likes Mind Flayers besides him"

yes, i think you hit the point.

i remember the first meeting with the dream guardian, he/she tells tav "i am just an adventurer, the same situation as you.".
we can see the origin setting that the dream guardian should be another "true soul".

this will make the story standfast.

but somehow they insert emperor in stead of the original dream guardian setting, just for his convenient background??

this is a great feedback.

emperor's background shows too heavy burden and daisy is a better one for the role -- dream guardian.

i think that tav should counterattack emperor or daisy in the early act 3 and have a result.
if tav believe emperor or daisy give the 3 stones to him/her, this will lead a bad end in later act 3 to tav.

the screenwritter shouldn't put the issue choice so late in the final, to force you into a bad choice, and mislead tav's destiny hold by emperor -- a untrustable one.

Yeah this would be good too. And conveniently, Tiamat is I think the only God in 5E with a pre-existing statblock to set game design expectations.

My issue with the emperor isn't that he is the one protecting the party, it is that unlike with Daisy you cannot avoid the interactions with him, and that these interactions are nonsensical. If you end up antagonistic towards each other in one conversation, next conversation, both the emperor and my character are acting as if nothing happened.

If there needs to be a plot device of a character, that has to accompany the party to protect them, then I'd prefer this character to be a neutral entity, like Withers.

Or the protection could be purely mechanical, based on the proximity of the prism. In which case the party would be protected by Orpheus, but you would not need to interact with him, and the only choice you make towards the end is whether to free him, or not. Of course, this would mean there would be no "someone has to turn into a mind flayer" plot twist, but frankly that would be a bonus.

Emperor is great for me. He can be a deceptive manipulator, he can be an effective ally. Whatever you want. Plus is a nice alternative to being a githyanki pawn, where Voss treats you worse like a worm, and when he sees that you are the only option to free the prince, he forces you to sell your soul to the devil. What have the githyanki done for the world besides protecting them from mindflayers? Besides, they weren't doing it for anyone outside of their own kind. I have no doubts when I work with the Emperor.

You could basically mod out all the dream scenes with the Emperor and the story would remain intact for the most part with the prism simply being an artifact that shields from illithid influences. The only thing that would probably need a rewrite is the Gith creché scene and the final dilemma.

Yep, the emperor is basically a plot device that could be removed from the game at this point. Even on the playthrough where my character got him to drop the mask, and there was no trust left, even when the party obtained the hammer, the emperor still acted as if they were all working together. I think even his ending speech was the same. They could have at least restored Omeluum's ring to its original function, so that you can skip the rest of the emperor cutscenes after the prism fight, it's not like they matter.

this should be the setting that the original setting feels like.

because this chess game is setting by the one who is behind withers to see the value of mortals via tav.

thus, this game must be held by a neutral entity and withers is the best chosen.

emperor setting is just a very "naughty" setting from the screenwriter who teases player characters.
when player characters get the insight after playing act 3, they will always give a disapproval reaction.

Honestly, I’m fine with the Emperor’s storyline. It makes sense to me, until the final scenes with him. The thing I would change is:


Overall I’m extremely happy with how the game ended now that they’ve added an epilogue! But I think they could tweak the ending to make it work a lot better, and tweak it pretty easily.

this will give an very embarrassed feeling, since if emperor can not gain the 3 stones, he is just a slave to the netherbrain.
in other words, emperor can not do without the 3 stones, and you can see emperor's true colors revealed.

I think the best thing would have been to have the dream visitor function as some kind of manifestation/mediator of the Absolute. That way we could have gotten a better characterisation of the Elder Brain and its goals and motives while also giving more weight and justification to the ending where you control the Elder Brain instead of destroying it. Being seduced into expanding the tadpole's power and its hold over your brain would make much more sense if there was an end goal to this beyond squid man trying to groom you into becoming Illithid against your will because he thinks it will make you more "beautiful". The Orpheus stuff wouldn't need to change much except that his aura emanating from the artefact is enough to shield from the Elder Brain's direct control (as is implied by a certain scene that is still in the game). Either way, an exploration of the inner workings of an alien intelligence like the Illithid mind would have been vastly more interesting if it wasn't constantly undermined by cringeworthy scenes about the Emperor trying to act human and making unbidden shirtless appearances in your dreams. I'm also convinced that the entire Emperor=Balduran plot contrivance that is supposed to make us care about the character completely fails to accomplish anything. Maybe if they had sown some clues about this before act 3 it could have fulfilled its purpose but the way it stands they just shell-shock the player by cramming all of those revelations into an incredibly short amount of time, never letting them gestate enough to amount to anything interesting.

Very well said, Nerovar, and excellent idea! I have a lot of very large complaints about the way Larian handled the game, but the constant disrespect for the setting's lore and flat-out having to retcon Balduran to suit their childish need for some sort of twist is one of the biggest negative points for me. If they needed the Dream Guardian to be some sort of twist that badly, instead of soiling the lore, they could have looked within their own story and used one of their own characters to suit that twist. No need to dredge up old characters or lore characters and ruin them or their legacies. Best idea I've heard so far was the Elder Brain, per your idea. It would definitely hit harder and feel more like 4D chess than "squid with retconned Balduran's memories" or "random adventurer who got squidified," in the case of having to have some sort of "Emperor" character. BG3 is its own self-contained story, and being able to use your own characters for twists and turns instead of cheap memberberries is a good show of mature and intelligent writing, IMO.

I, for one, am not moved by: "And the Dream Guardian...... was Albert Einstein."

you know, this makes me recall an old dnd game -- "never winter night the hordes of underdark".

originally, just our player character go to underdark, but this leads to the surprise final stage -- "beyond underdark" which is about the 8th hell, the master -- an archdevil of the 8th hell, and more over the true names.

... , i think baldur's gate 3 act 3 is "fairly good", yet to be great.
this is why if you ask the players -- "is baldur's gate 3 act 3 good?", the players will answer -- "yes, this is good, but ...??..." but the players don't know how to say "somehow i feel somethings lack".
and i think the somethings are "the finishing touch", just as the final stage of "never winter night THoU".

this makes the plots of baldur's gate 3 feel "good", but can not reach great.

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by the way talking, there is another great game plots, that is "hearts of stone" -- a dlc of the witcher 3.
the plots of "hearts of stone" is somehow great, but the main plots of the witcher 3 is just merely good.

I fundamentally disagree. I think Act 3 is badly designed. I have been saying from the beginning it is both far too bloated and far too lacking at the same time. It should have been split into a minimum of 2 Acts (making 4 in total, maybe 5 with a final, shorter act involving the Netherbrain) with Act 3 and Act 4 both giving far more time to Orin and Gortash respectively. Along with that, far too many quests (especially the companion quests) feel rushed to completion in an effort to fit EVERYTHING in. In other words, they needed to give Gortash and Orin just as much buildup and payoff as Kethric had with their own Acts dedicated to them. Instead, they stunted both and split the act between the two. Combine that with a wealth of other quests and companion conclusions that felt too rushed, Act 3 is a bloated mess with not enough time given to everything that should have been.