Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Help the wounded mind flayer

After the ship crashes, we meet a Mind Flayer with HP 3.
I was upset when I learned that he cannot be healed with magic or helped through the action button, or dialogue after passing all the dice rolls.
It may look stupid, but why can't I do it if such a thought occurred to me? I wanted to let him understand that hypnosis does not work for me, but I want to help, talk to him and get answers about the worm in my head
Perhaps we will meet this mind flayer later and he will influence the plot. (in the goblin camp, for example, he will be alive, and he will say something about the fact that we helped him)

Yeah, any game I've ever run, the players would be like, "This is the solution to all our problems!"
Instead it's just played as a moment for revenge.

Yeah I was also disappointed that even choosing all the helpful options he ends up trying to kill us still

I totally think that attempt should be available to you — but it's also reasonable for it to not work. Mindflayers are alien and see themselves as totally superior. There's no "it will be full of gratitude for being saved" path. It's completely reasonable for the game to let you try it — but then the game should make it very very clear that it won't work.

Agreed, but I can totally see players ripping off its tentacles one by one until it decides to talk.

Mind Flayers aren't helpful. However you treat it, you're only one of two things to it: food or breeding stock. They feel massively superior to the humanoid races, and rightfully so. The average Mind Flayer is as much smarter than the average human as the average human is smarter than the average cow.

If you want to be silly enough to save it, there should be a couple different options to do so, but then it makes complete sense that it will just kill you as soon as it's not dying anymore.

Sounds like excellent drama and excitement to me!

It's pointless since you don't even get exp for passing the checks. You have to kill it while it's on the ground. I also beat it recovered and it just vanishes.

Yeah... I tried to talk to it once and it tried to dominate me. Every play-through since I just blast it as soon as I get within range.
Trying to help it and expecting it to be helpful is like coming across a gaunt, growling, foaming-at-the-mouth dog and saying "I'm sure if I try to pet it nothing bad will happen". (Spoiler, it's going to try to eat your hand!)

+1

Why would you possibly want to help mindflayers?
Of all creatures, there no more racist species than mindflayers. They look upon any other races as bugs - literally.
Expecting mindflayer to be grateful, is like trying to converse with hurricane.

You can help the mindflayer by offering your brain.

Frankly, they should offer an options for those who are foolish enough to do it. Probably should also trigger game over screen.

I tried to heal him with the Shadow Heart spell. He was healed ... and died immediately. Bug

That's a bit racist of you!

I wanted to converse with the mindflayer while it was in a disadvantageous position - it's intelligent and it doesn't want to die, and it has a story to tell and knows things, important things. That's a huge part of what social interaction in games like this is all about, but Larian's writers never even entertained it as a possible option that players might want to pursue. Unfortunately, that, and other 'dialogue' sequences scattered through the intro and the early stages of the chapter really do sum up Larian's writing style, and it's distressing and depressing to think that the whole game might end up like this. Larian writes conversations like fights to be won, or expressions of dominance, and nothing else. The idea of having a conversation where someone isn't actively trying to boss everyone else around, or lord their superiority (in some fashion) over the other person, seems to be an almost wholly alien concept to their scripting so far, and that, more than anything else, is going to make the game distasteful and a struggle to enjoy. It was what made DOS2 unenjoyable as well. Maybe the intro and the scenes along the beach and nearby areas where you're gathering your party aren't actually going to be indicative of how conversations go for the rest of the game... but if not they are a terrible, terrible way to start out and introduce players to them.

Or perhaps the Mind Flayer is not particularly interested in conversing with what it views as slaves and livestock. Offer your brain to help it survive, or kill it. There's no other options because the MIND FLAYER is not interested in anything else.


What you're describing does not fit my recollection of my multiple playthroughs to completion AT ALL. There are numerous conversations where you can simply ask questions and get to know more. The only adversarial conversations tends to be ones where tensions are already high. There are options that are less "assert dominance" and more "deescalate the situation," though. They're skill checks for the skill Persuasion. If you're trying to Intimidate, of course it's going to be like you describe.

I'll just say that ideal RPG is one in which the player can make any decision that theoretically can come to his head. BG3 is great compared to other similar games, but there are moments where it could be done even better. Yes, even if he would have attacked me immediately after healing with the ability, they did not even think that someone would want to do it and see what would happen. I just wanted to see something other than a bug. Even if it is an attack and a sarcastic comment from our companion

Agreed. You should be able to heal the mindflayer. It is an NPC and you should be able to cast spells/give potions to any and all NPCs. After which, it should probably attack you. But maybe, just maybe (difficult persuasion check), it puts you into the category of "helpful servant" instead of "food." Or it takes a moment to search your brain, and recognizes that you have a tadpole in your head and thus it should probably try to keep you alive for breeding/Absolute purposes.

Then it could order you to do additional tasks to aid it (tasks that would obviously involve a lot of killing and kidnapping). If you disobeyed or questioned it, you'd have to pass a difficult charisma or intelligence check or it would become hostile. Now that could be an interesting playthrough: having to follow the mindflayer's instructions or risk having your brain eaten, always a single failed deception/persuasion check away from it realizing that you have too much free will and it would be better served eating you.

I could see you going to the grove offering your aid to the tieflings, except instead of leading them to Baldur's Gate you lead them directly to the mindflayer >:)
Or the mindflayer tells you to go directly to the goblin hideout to coordinate with the other True Souls...

If I offered my tabletop RPG players a game where they were all controlled by a vastly superior intelligence and essentially had no free will, I can't see that they would be jumping at the chance to play.

It's bad enough having them play as (reasonably) law-abiding citizens or having a boss or organisation for whom they work. Having the characters literally mind slaves to the GM/mind-flayer's whim would rightly earn me a hard look and revocation of GM screen privileges.