The complaint I've heard most often is that the evil path is bad because is evil is stupid -- but that's just the Forgotten Realms. The realms are setting where heroes defeat evil and, contra Darth Helmet, evil loses because evil is stupid. In this setting, people do stupid things because they fail to see hook hiding in the bait or the bait is just so tasty that one forgets about the hook.
Selling your soul to a devil = stupid. You will spend eternity in hell.
Worshiping an evil diety = stupid. You will spend eternity having your vitality sucked out by a demon-spider-goddess.
Joining an evil organization = stupid. Name an evil organization that hasn't been burned to ground in the last 100 years or so.
BG 1 & 2, killing people as lamprey faced monster = stupid. Do that often enough and your soul will be destroyed when Papa Bhaal uses you as fuel for his rebirth.
In the realms evil is always a path to self destruction, the question really becomes "why do some travel that path"? And the answer in BG3 is a lust for power. The tadpole, the Absolute will give you power that the druids can't offer.
I'm interested to hear if you have a novel critique but I suspect that the fact you aren't a fan of the BG series becomes a problem.
That's interesting, thank you. Then I suppose a lot of the problem is baked in, and the issue is with FR as a whole. Similarly, I get annoyed with the D20 system being too random and overriding character builds (where "super strong" will still routinely fail to lift things), but what can they do if this is a DnD game? So I guess the point is still valid criticism just useless as feedback.
I did like BG1+2, I just don't consider them sacred.
There are other criticisms of the evil path that it goes from 0>mass murder, no one tries to convince you, offer you much that's concrete (if I"m going to hell, at least appeal to my greed) etc. making it seem like a random side thing rather than part of the main path - but I've read all of that here before, so I'm sure you're familiar with them
