Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Huge lack of urgency in the story !

So quick recap. I don't believe the city was in fact Balders gate, your character was already in the pod from what is shown. So they have no way of knowing where the others were picked up, and that a city was attacked by the Naut. There is a remark by Le or even your own character if you pick Gith 'How many people did these gha'aik abduct?' Which means in the pod you have no clue as to whats happening around you.

The fact that the ship, instantly teleports from a nice sunny area, to a frozen canyon area, then to Avernus in the blink of an eye shows that the first city could have been anywhere in Faerun. Add to this Eltereal buying recently vacationing in Hell as someone pointed it leaving BG an island in a sea of refugees leads me to further believe it wasn't BG hit. No refugees appearing around the walls. (could been an oversight) The lack of urgency for several things is probably do to you just landed, if you immedaitly get to grove with no long rest then your still on day 1, it takes a week or so to get from Elteral to BG. so unless you camp repeated each long rest is like going to the next day. you'd have to take 7 long rests for messengers/refugees etc to get to BG. This is on a good day, a day were goblins are not rampaging in the wilds, killing travelers, messengers and such.

I don't think most people are taking that many long rests in quick succession (could be wrong, probly am do to topics about easy to exploit long rests, and others) with the chance of turning into a mindflayer at any moment.

As a note, BG is a wild town and drow, orcs, and all sorts of people are there. Very diverse place. So if they were hitting BG, they wouldnt have to go far to get a nice grab bag.

Nice lore drop, didnt know that!

Well, we know we are *from* Baldur's Gate, but do we know that we were *in* Baldur's Gate when we were taken? The mind flayers may not have been there.

I think thats a good summary haha.

- Elturel goes to hell
- Grand duke of BG goes with it
- Elturel refugees flood BG
- There was severe infighting in BG during power vacuum of duke being gone. Flaming Fist seizing control of city, riots
- People are getting picked up and then ship teleporting away again from all over, hard to verify
- YOU go to hell
- Ship explodes
- You run for help, Druids are the nearest thing of safety on way to BG
- Druids are jerks due to Kagha and her ltitle secret
- Goblins are in the way
- Frantic refugees also trapped
- Everyone wants to get there for a million reasons, many on the road with no news for quite some time - its 3 days from elturel by boat, almost a tenday by foot and there are lots of dangers along the way - especially now that the companion in elturel that kept monsters and undead away has some issues with efficacy [trying not to spoil]

Even if other refugees in the elturgaardian wilds knew, it wouldn't click, and theyre dying and need a place to be. You and your companions probably would talk, but they keep up the "no time to talk, brain worms!" line pretty hard so youre stonewalled in exposition there as thats the only place to get it and its TOO urgent haha

Lloth sworn often raid the surface for slaves, and things, plus your from Menz which is rather close to a mindflayer community. So either you were wondering the underdark got snatched, or got snatched in a raid topside, the same raid that the mind flayers picked up others. as for the tadpoles in the head of those around BG, it could be something else doing that and not the mind flayer.

There is an optional conversation in the ship (talking to everyone is good, and exploring) that occurs to lead me to believe this, especially when combined with a conversation, or a couple off the ship. Though then it gets kinda murky to the specifics. the murkyness is acceptable since we are in the first act, and there is more to come.


reply to ORBAX
even by boat isn't really safe now do if take into consideration what happened to 3 fishermen.

I heard somewhere that the city in the cinematic is not Baldur's Gate, but somewhere nearby, possibly in the territory. But been a while since I heard that.

I mentioned it up there, its Yartar, SE of Neverwinter, a lonnnnng way away from BG.

The issue then, I think, is that this is just enough for a setting and stage. In itself, there isn't enough going on - protagonist wise - for that to constitute a proper first act. They need to expand on the druids and goblins in a way that creates a better sense of atmosphere that reflects the dangerous pressures mounting from the world at large - such as your arrival - on their normal way of life.

Haha youre not wrong. Our characters right now:

I missed that then, I'm sorry about it
But this thread and everyones confusion about what city it is / where we're from as a PC just shows that nobody has a clear sense of what's happening. And that's coming from someone who is prepping Descent into Avernus (so I've read the campaign a few times now).
This proves the game makes a terrible job at providing you with some context. It is just confusing as it is now. The game should tell me where the action takes place exactly / ground it into the lore. I don't want to rely on external intel dropped by the devs during an interview to learn all of this. This is bad storytelling IMO.

We don't know where we got captured. Our PC doesn't provide you with anything personal (like, we don't have any choices to customize him/her through dialog). They could either implement some choices through character creation or let us customize our PC through dialog. But I think the game and the story would benefit from it. It would be more engaging.

Plus, the world needs to react more to what's happening. Your companions should too. I mean if we were all abducted, wouldn't one of our first questions whenever we meet be "what was the last thing you remember before waking up on the ship ?" or "where were you kidnapped ?". Seems like some basic info and a great way to give players something to get involved in the story, and to create a bond between characters.

*channels Shadowheart* "I dont see how thats any of your business. This is only a travel of convenience, once I get this thing out of my head, I hope to never see you again"

*you, tries to say something soothing*

*Shadowheart Disapproves, conversation ends*

Guess we found who is behind the writing of Shadowheart... !

*crouches down and hisses*

Where you got captured, how does hardcoding this affect your actions in the game. If you were caught in say BG how does that affect you trying to get rid of the tadpole? If you were adducted in bed with a Mayors wife, how does that affect how your going to get rid of the tadpole?

A DM being vague about YOUR past in an RPG is allowing you to make that decision, and choice for YOURSELF. From there you can eloberate use what you've created as your backstory to solidfy how your character reacts to this, either internally, or externally through sudden voilence, always using persusion, killing a companion, letting a companion go, traveling alone, not killing anyone they don't need to.

The moment a DM/Game tells you your backstory those choices that are going to make up your character is ripped away from you. If he tells you your a nobody, born to shepards your going to act a certain way. If he tells you your a nobles spoiled brat, your going to act a certain way. If he tells you you have crabs, and were captured in a brothel, with another man your going to act a certain way.
By telling you your no longer playing a true rpg, or your character your playing Theirs. Larian stated they want you to tell YOUR story, and want to help you tell YOUR story.

Larian is letting YOU make your decisions for yourself about your backstory, where you were captured, why you were captured at that time. Your backstory may be as simple as going okay I chose hermit, so Character was grabbed picking berries. or it could be as eloberate as what they had for dinner, what they did on a daily basis. If they had a family, if that family was captured at the same time, if so are they searching for them? If they are would you really be telling your compainions any of it? None of them seem to care about anything other then their own problems, same with the druids, goblins, and others. You might not find your family, but that background and character is YOURS, it's not another pregenerated character that belongs quite literally to Larian Studios. It's yours, and thats what Larian stated they wanted to do, is let YOU tell YOUR story, not Ast, or Le, or Shadowheart, but YOURS.

do you even rp bro?

Rant over

*Orbax slowly rubs your earlobe*

or were you talking about something else

The city is not baldur's gate, it's another city. Swen mentioned it in a stream but I can't remember the name.

Answer is in the thread

Just the whole 'ooooh yeaah, woooosaaaa Senior nick' the whole whats my backstory, why don't I have a backstory, they need to give me a backstory. When backstory is part of making a character in rp, and rpg's. It's why it's called Role Playing, or Role Playing Games, instead of You are this Guy, or That Girl deal with it.

okay wtf I am not enthused why am I an enthusist? I don't feel enthusiam... .grrr stupid little word. *rages and shatters it*

My issue (nothing I get hung up on, mind you) is the seeming irreconcilability of having the tadpole in my head and needing to get it out asap with exploring (spoilers ahead if you haven't gone very far) an owlbear cave, a burning inn, etc. We are, of course, free to pass up all this stuff, but that's not fun.

So here is the thing about knowing certain events that transpired during the cutscene.

First off, the PC does not know a city was attacked. In fact, very few people do. The bulk of the npcs you encounter are those either related to or are refugees from which also wouldn't know about the current state of the city

Not all of your companions came from the city that was attacked.

Also, i kinda think the little thing in the back of your eye , is more of a concern than "I just got picked up by something i didn't think existed."

But let's talk about the Big flying tentacle ship for a moment. You think its urgent to go check it, you are right. as far as the Tiefling who saw it Our definition of what is important does not and will not match with everyone, so why force the urgency on other groups?

During the first few hours of play, it really did feel like there was some bit of urgency if you listened to the side remarks and conversations. Shadowheart actually questions the need for a rest at the moment since there are more pressing matters, heck, i even treated this like 5e and conserved spells all the way until the to see if there was a time constraint . Once you figure out you can long rest without penalty it took away some feeling of urgency.

But let's be real for a moment. You played through Avernus, did you feel the sense of urgency when was being dragged into the river Styx? Let's be honest DiA does NOT HAVE A TIME LIMIT. Though a good DM would tell you how the chains grind as you feel the a brief moment of weightlessness as your feet then collide back onto the ground, or something like that.


There is no reason your PC,most other NPCs, and few companions would know what transpired during the cutscene.

Now maybe you could have hive mind read the mindflayer's mind to see the events that transpired, but again was there time to do so?