So I did my first playthrough as a True Neutral Zariel Tiefling Cleric of Kelemvor, I'm now doing a Chaotic Evil Lolth Drow Beastmaster Ranger and just finished helping Minthara kill everybody. Here's my feedback so far on my evil playthrough. Just feedback, no bug reports. This will get long.
The beginning of the raid feels very short, there should be another tiefling or two up there. I didn't get much past yeeting Zevlor off the wall into the middle of goblins before all the tieflings guarding the wall were dead. Zevlor's speech also made me feel like a horrible person for betraying him. Good guilt tripping. Still yeeted him. I think another evil option would be to force Zevlor to open the gates himself, involving intimidation rolls and him trying to jump you and cut your throat like Astarion's introduction. Also the goblins killed the tiefling kids before I got to them. I want to be evil, let me kill the tiefling kids myself. I got to kill a goblin child, on screen, in cold blood, why do I not get to the murder the tiefling children for maximum evil? Also, for more maximum evil? The Zhentarim trader in the goblin camp talked about the goblins selling prisoners to her. There's surely a market for tiefling slaves, perhaps tying them up and delivering them to her for some extra gold.
After the tieflings were dead and Minthara went into the little cave, she just kinda chilled out and started praying to the Absolute. She told me to go kill the druids. I wasn't quite sure what she's doing there or why she's not helping kill the druids? Is it supposed to be her 'test' of me? The whole time I'm trying to kill 15 druids with just 4 people and a bird I'm thinking, "Does she want the job done or does she want to test me, pick one Minthara, because this is ridiculous."
The druids themselves were a tougher fight than the tieflings, but still easier than fighting Dror Ragzlin and his entourage. Mainly due to the terrain difference, in Dror Ragzlin fight, I had enemies coming in 3 different directions on my party and one character got War-Cry'd into the spider pit. For the druids, I just kept to the top of the staircase while they filtered up. One of them Wild Shaped into a Spider and became too big to get up the stairs and spent the majority of the fight making spider noises and jumping around the grove. One of them kept casting Entangling Vines AOE on the stairs which entrapped more of her allies than mine, which made the fight way easier when there were 3 druids just standing there in the vines not moving or attacking because their AI didn't want to risk the saving throws involved in moving.
Nettie in my opinion should have more HP, or more healing ability. The healing on the druids did introduce a new challenge the Dror Ragzlin fight didn't have, but I focused fired the healers and with their low HP, they were down very easily. She's even mentioned by Halsin as a very good healer-in-training, but she healed less than some other druid I hadn't even talked to. The druids in general seemed to lack ranged attacks, which is likely the reason my 2 ranged characters were the only ones to live. I had to lead the druids up the staircase to the Death Wish goblins, who had a pretty amazing detonation chain that wiped out three druids. It should be easier to get the goblins to help you with the druids, they just kill a couple of tieflings kids and sit around boasting like hotshots. The trader dwarf had a crossbow, but did not seem to do much with it. The bears should also have a little bit more HP in my opinion, they were the most terrifying part of the fight besides Kagha.
As for the post-raid party in the camp - The good option gets a lot more dialogue from the tieflings. We see Marricko murder Kagha in cold blood in what is possibly the most badass scene in the game. The evil option doesn't really have an equivalent. The goblins are all unnamed and don't really have much in the way of dialogue options. Easy fix is just giving all of them names pulled out of a "Goblin Name Generator" and some of them having dialogue options discussing their raid and future plans. Maybe a goblin boasting about what he's going to do with his loot, or Volo's goblin girlfriend learning how to sing and performing. I also want to make Volo dance, for the evil points. We also don't get a permanent camp buddy being evil like good players get Halsin. Obviously Minthara can't stay, but maybe Volo's girlfriend.
Minthara's romance cutscene - wow that was a lot of drow boobs. Very good stuff. I got whiplash from how fast she went from kissing me to trying to kill me. It felt like the conversation ended a little quickly compared to how long Halsin talked about Moonrise. She also only mentioned the mountain pass road, not the Underdark or Risen Road path. Considering Wyll's quest talked about how the drow took Mizora to the Underdark, I expected her to at least mention the Underdark as an option.
I would also like a chance to at least roll to convince Wyll to stay. Maybe by convincing him this is all part of the bigger picture to free ourselves, the ends justify the means, give me a chance for redemption, sometimes sacrifices have to be made, etc. It was a true gut punch to see him leave though.
Finally, outside of the goblins vs tieflings arc, I actually had some trouble finding evil choices. Ethel for example. Didn't really feel chaotic evil to save Mayrina, but I still wanted closure on the whole Ethel shebang. Maybe an option to team up with her, do a quest to find something she needs for the Mayrina stew, and then she becomes a trader selling those potions you find on her shelf and other goodies, or she gives you a special ability for helping her. The owlbear was another example where I didn't see much of an evil choice. I told the novices to go find the owlbear, but then they assumed I'm coming with them. So I followed, they died to the owlbear, I killed the owlbear and the cub. Didn't feel all that evil outside of killing the baby. I headcanoned myself as telling them to sacrifice themselves to the owlbear. Perhaps an option, if you have Speak With Animals and why wouldn't you, to converse with the owlbear and tell her she can eat the novices in exchange for whatever goodies the last person she ate had.
In general, there should be a stronger incentive to be evil, like the fights being easier or getting extra abilities or choices or loot. I think I actually got less loot being evil. Evil choices in Pathfinder Kingmaker for example open up new kingdom councillors, more loot, skipping or easier fights, and even another companion. Selling prisoners, getting gifted something from Minthara (besides her ass in your face), or getting an evil companion would all be cool ways of rewarding evilness.
Loving the game and probably gonna do a third playthrough after this one is done.
