Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General I'm new to the genre, how complex can interactions get?

Hello, I've been dipping my toes and pacing around the side of the pool, but I'm finally getting into this game.

(first hour spoilers?)

Last night I had Shadowheart with me and I ran into Astarion. He did the thing where he distracts me and puts a knife to my throat.

Ok, so I have Shadowheart and the ability to switch characters.

However, I wasn't sure how I could use this to my advantage, or if I was just REALLY asking too much. I don't understand a lot of the systems yet, I don't have a DnD background, and I'm also new to playing CRPGs.

My goal would have been to use Shadowheart to get the drop on Astarion while's he's got his face in Tav's hair. Shoving him just started a fight but I didn't see what else I could do. I just wish I had a choice to not let him trick me but also not end up with a simple fight. (I've felt this a lot of times where I walk up and then I'm just fighting randoms. Like 2 our of 4 encounters so far. I wish I could do just anything, even if it fails, other than lop off their heads or KO them. I've tried using Shadowheart's charm.)

I ended up using non-lethal methods to take him down and I stole his clothes. That was amusing enough. However his body just lay there and disappeared after I long rested.

I will be overjoyed if he shows up later and I can talk to him, but it looks like the game just considers him dead.

So, I would like to get a feel for how far off I was with thinking that my plan could have worked? Or maybe if I just used a different action it would have worked?

You were very close! What some people do is kill him and then revive him using a scroll. He will have special dialogue if you do this, and there's no hard feelings because he was holding a knife to your throat.

I haven't used non-lethal much so I'm not sure if someone can be revived from that state. I imagine they could be, maybe with Help or just regular healing. Finally, if you want to pass ability checks and skip combat, you can use the Guidance cantrip from Shadowheart to improve your rolls during the check.

Hot dang, it's really cool that reviving would have worked. It's pretty exciting actually, now I'll know to keep trying interesting solutions.

I'm still fumbling around with my abilities, this is very enlightening. Thank you for the info on the Guidance cantrip, I managed to fumble enough to use Guidance once or twice, I don't remember that button right there under the die UI being there before, but it helped me discover that option.

Thank you again!

You don’t remember it being there because it wasn’t.
It’s an addition of the last patch.

when you are in a dialogue scene, there is a passive roll system running in the back. The type of check and success or not show at the left corner of your screen. In this case, it's a perception cheek. If you succeed the perception cheek, you'll just see him about to drag you to the ground, the conversation is pretty much the same.