You know, I was probably going to do a reply to your wall-of text, but If you can't find yourself capable of the barest modicum of civility, you ain't worth my time. Call me a 'liar' right out the gate is a sure ticket that I'm not going to raise to the bait and engage you further. Glancing at the rest of your 'rebuttals' either you aren't nearly as familiar with the game as you think you are or you are purposefully pretending you don't know about things which have been discussed to the point of common knowledge among the forums, like that siding with the goblins locks you out of more than just Wyll's romance, or that there are more quest rewards tied to working with the grove inhabitants than the goblin camp. I have to come to the conclusion that you just aren't ready to debate in good faith.
Originally Posted by The_Red_Queen
Originally Posted by Leucrotta
it's revealed that your cover is blown right after the goblin party.
Is it?! I totally missed that. Was it something Minthara says?
She tells you that the Absolute wants you dead and then all of the goblins turn on you. Even if you convince her to stand down, all the goblins at the camp are on alert and will kill you on sight. While Nere and the Duergar haven't gotten the message yet, the implications for your future undercover infiltration of the cult don't look great.
it's revealed that your cover is blown right after the goblin party.
Is it?! I totally missed that. Was it something Minthara says?
She tells you that the Absolute wants you dead and then all of the goblins turn on you. Even if you convince her to stand down, all the goblins at the camp are on alert and will kill you on sight. While Nere and the Duergar haven't gotten the message yet, the implications for your future undercover infiltration of the cult don't look great.
Except its just headcannon ... as usualy. What "cover" are we talking about anyway?
After all ... Goblin guarding the gate is willing to let you enter the camp even if you simply compliment his animal ... and spread some s**t on your face. Its not like they particulary care who they let enter. :-/
I still dont understand why cant we change Race for our hirelings. Lets us play Githyanki as racist as they trully are!
For example, when agreeing with Minthara to attack the grove, the game doesn’t give me any indication that it’s going to be possible to then get to the grove before her and prep
Dont she litteraly tells you that she and her army will wait for your signal? That most cruicial part of her plan is that you will infiltrate the camp, and open the gate? O_o
I didn’t think she told you that until *after* you agree to help her, but could be wrong there. You could well be right that I simply wasn’t paying enough attention to exactly what she was asking me to do.
Originally Posted by RagnarokCzD
Originally Posted by The_Red_Queen
But by giving me a “[Deception] Yes, I’ll help you” option the game could indicate to me that I’ll have further choices to make later and can still side with the tieflings after all (as well as giving me the more intangible satisfaction of having my intentions recognised by the game and Minthara a fair chance to realise my insincerity).
1) Thats not how [Deception] works ... [Deception] is used when you are telling somebody a thing they dont believe ... and roll represents chance that they will believe you, or not ... Here, same as when Nettie demands you to swear you will drink the poison ... Minthara have no reason to disbelieve you ... therefore you are not [Decieving] her, even if you lie ... you say exactly what she wants to hear.
I’m not clear on why deception wouldn’t be appropriate here. If my character is intending to betray Minthara at the grove, or even is merely playing along and hasn’t decided whether or not they’re going to support her, they’re not telling the truth if they say they will do as she asks. The fact Minthara isn’t expecting a lie here so probably wouldn’t actively be looking for deception argues to me that the deception check might be an easy one, but not that it’s not applicable at all.
If we turn it around, there are occasions where I don’t have any particular reason to disbelieve an NPC but my insight can alert me to something they’re not being wholly truthful about, or I don’t have reason to think what a companion says is not the whole truth but our linked tadpoles reveal there’s more to the story. I think of this as in effect them failing a deception check, and equivalently Minthara’s insight or tadpole could alert her to my not being on the level, despite her not expecting it.
But if there’s actually a different mechanism from deception within 5e that could or should be used to trigger an NPC insight check or special power like the tadpoles when I’m not telling the truth, then I’m happy to be corrected, and to change my suggestion to use whatever that is instead.
"You may call it 'nonsense' if you like, but I've heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!"
I didn’t think she told you that until *after* you agree to help her, but could be wrong there. You could well be right that I simply wasn’t paying enough attention to exactly what she was asking me to do.
I admit ... you got me confused now if i didnt remember it wrong.
I was allready writing coment on being wrong myself in that case ... but then i said to myself "nah, better check" ... so here it is: 2:08.
It also shows quest reward obtainable only this way. :3 This coment is related to previous discusion.
Originally Posted by The_Red_Queen
The fact Minthara isn’t expecting a lie here so probably wouldn’t actively be looking for deception argues to me that the deception check might be an easy one, but not that it’s not applicable at all.
Well ... Dunno, i gues it depends on your understanding of rules.
My interpretation was what i said ... Even tho i didnt expressed myself corectly, i shouldnt say that she "dont expect you to lie" ... i should have said that "it dont matter to her" ... I mean, she wants you to betray the Grove ... > If you are honest ... you will help her. > If you are dishonest ... she will attack the grove, just as she would if you werent there.
Basicaly there is no difference between her discovering your lie or not ... and if there is no difference, there is no need for roll.
Originally Posted by The_Red_Queen
If we turn it around, there are occasions where I don’t have any particular reason to disbelieve an NPC but my insight can alert me to something they’re not being wholly truthful about, or I don’t have reason to think what a companion says is not the whole truth but our linked tadpoles reveal there’s more to the story.
That is just PC game stuff ... In tabletop you need to ask (or your DM asks you) for Insight roll ... in pc game, the game knows where you can roll and when there is no reason ... it takes away a bit of mistery, but since most of those reveals we get are hardly surprising, its not that bad.
Would be fun tho, if the game would make some fake-inside rolls, just so Narator tells you "she seems honest". Just to keep us a little on edge.
Originally Posted by The_Red_Queen
I think of this as in effect them failing a deception check, and equivalently Minthara’s insight or tadpole could alert her to my not being on the level, despite her not expecting it. But if there’s actually a different mechanism from deception within 5e that would or should be used to trigger an NPC insight check or special power like the tadpoles when I’m not telling the truth, then I’m happy to be corrected, and to change my suggestion to use whatever that is instead.
I wouldnt drag tadpoles into this at all ... they only makes this more messy.
I still dont understand why cant we change Race for our hirelings. Lets us play Githyanki as racist as they trully are!
I didn’t think she told you that until *after* you agree to help her, but could be wrong there. You could well be right that I simply wasn’t paying enough attention to exactly what she was asking me to do.
I admit ... you got me confused now if i didnt remember it wrong.
I was allready writing coment on being wrong myself in that case ... but then i said to myself "nah, better check" ... so here it is: 2:08.
Thanks for the vid, and fair enough. While she gives the detail about what she wants us to do after we agree to help, she does give more indication beforehand than I remembered. Personally, I still would prefer more certainty before saying I’d help her that I wasn’t locking myself into a course of action I couldn’t change, and don’t think the game should expect me to just select an option, particularly a major one like that, saying that I’ll do something without giving me the opportunity to indicate that I don’t mean to go through with it. But I can sympathise with a view that I’m being unreasonably risk averse here.
Originally Posted by RagnarokCzD
i should have said that "it dont matter to her" ... I mean, she wants you to betray the Grove ... > If you are honest ... you will help her. > If you are dishonest ... she will attack the grove, just as she would if you werent there.
Basicaly there is no difference between her discovering your lie or not ... and if there is no difference, there is no need for roll.
Hmm, if I were her I’d prefer to know I was lying and be able to kill me there and then, rather than to potentially have me warn the grove the goblins were on their way, let me call the attack at a time of my choosing, and have to fight me and the tieflings at the same time. But that is getting into the weeds. If I didn’t independently want the opportunity to register with the game that I was lying in this instance in particular, I probably wouldn’t care all that much about whether Minthara had the chance to catch me out. And I’ve already said that this is something I do really want, so I won’t further belabour the point.
"You may call it 'nonsense' if you like, but I've heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!"
I think it's irrelevant. Minthara doesn't care if you're lying. She believes she can wipe you out and the grove regardless. To her, it's a game, and she fully believes she will win. So making a Deception roll is pointless because the result will be the same. She'll play along and pretend you are on her side because she thinks it's interesting and cute that you are trying to outsmart her.
I think it's irrelevant. Minthara doesn't care if you're lying. She believes she can wipe you out and the grove regardless. To her, it's a game, and she fully believes she will win. So making a Deception roll is pointless because the result will be the same. She'll play along and pretend you are on her side because she thinks it's interesting and cute that you are trying to outsmart her.
I’m interested that you take that view as I’d got the impression from discussions on other threads that you have some of the same problems as I do with our not being able to make our motivations clear in the game, and I thought that having a deception check when agreeing to help here would be a nice, simple way to at least partly address this problem in this particular instance (and possibly other similar ones).
Of course, it’s fine if you think it’s the wrong way to go about solving the problem, but is there an alternative you have in mind? Or is this not a point at which you care about registering your intentions?
"You may call it 'nonsense' if you like, but I've heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!"
So I wished to put into actual visual perspective, because I was curious myself, just how much actual content is lost by siding with Minthara, as opposed to siding with the Druid's Grove;
And by looking at such a short summary, it may not seem that bad. But I took some liberty to document every single NPC offering a piece of lore and story dialogue, immediately after the battle without counting the camp scene:
So to put things into perspective.
MINTHARA'S PATH ACHIEVES:
The death of 59 Druid's Grove NPCs
The death of approximately 98 Goblin Camp NPCs (yes I counted all of them)
The death of all 4 merchants on the surface (not counting Zhentarim merchant)
Causes 1 companion to leave (Wyll)
Causes another companion to potentially leave (Gale)
Causes Minthara to potentially die (failed persuasion)
Prevents Shadowheart's romance
All that for a camp scene where we get to socialize with temporarily friendly gobos for one night, a 69 romance scene, an unknown potential interaction with her in the future and a somewhat vague hint on how to approach Moonrise. And that's the best case scenario. Failing a speech check we ALSO lose her. So... literally nothing is gained if that happens.
To me it's an incredibly steep price to pay for so little content and a risk to absolutely have no content.
So I wished to put into actual visual perspective, because I was curious myself, just how much actual content is lost by siding with Minthara, as opposed to siding with the Druid's Grove;
And by looking at such a short summary, it may not seem that bad. But I took some liberty to document every single NPC offering a piece of lore and story dialogue, immediately after the battle without counting the camp scene:
So to put things into perspective.
MINTHARA'S PATH ACHIEVES:
The death of 59 Druid's Grove NPCs
The death of approximately 98 Goblin Camp NPCs (yes I counted all of them)
The death of all 4 merchants on the surface (not counting Zhentarim merchant)
Causes 1 companion to leave (Wyll)
Causes another companion to potentially leave (Gale)
Causes Minthara to potentially die (failed persuasion)
Prevents Shadowheart's romance
All that for a camp scene where we get to socialize with temporarily friendly gobos for one night, a 69 romance scene, an unknown potential interaction with her in the future and a somewhat vague hint on how to approach Moonrise. And that's the best case scenario. Failing a speech check we [b]ALSO lose her. So... literally nothing is gained if that happens.
To me it's an incredibly steep price to pay for so little content and a risk to absolutely have no content.[/b]
I steal this for feedback doc. Report me for theft 🐇😺
So I wished to put into actual visual perspective, because I was curious myself, just how much actual content is lost by siding with Minthara, as opposed to siding with the Druid's Grove;
And by looking at such a short summary, it may not seem that bad. But I took some liberty to document every single NPC offering a piece of lore and story dialogue, immediately after the battle without counting the camp scene:
So to put things into perspective.
MINTHARA'S PATH ACHIEVES:
The death of 59 Druid's Grove NPCs
The death of approximately 98 Goblin Camp NPCs (yes I counted all of them)
The death of all 4 merchants on the surface (not counting Zhentarim merchant)
Causes 1 companion to leave (Wyll)
Causes another companion to potentially leave (Gale)
Causes Minthara to potentially die (failed persuasion)
Prevents Shadowheart's romance
All that for a camp scene where we get to socialize with temporarily friendly gobos for one night, a 69 romance scene, an unknown potential interaction with her in the future and a somewhat vague hint on how to approach Moonrise. And that's the best case scenario. Failing a speech check we ALSO lose her. So... literally nothing is gained if that happens.
To me it's an incredibly steep price to pay for so little content and a risk to absolutely have no content.
Wow, what a lot of work you’ve put into that! Thanks for sharing, and it really helps crystallise how many options for future interactions are being shut down by siding with Minthara, without there being much in the way of evidence as yet that there will be rich content to replace it. But I live in hope!
"You may call it 'nonsense' if you like, but I've heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!"
So I wished to put into actual visual perspective, because I was curious myself, just how much actual content is lost by siding with Minthara, as opposed to siding with the Druid's Grove;
And by looking at such a short summary, it may not seem that bad. But I took some liberty to document every single NPC offering a piece of lore and story dialogue, immediately after the battle without counting the camp scene:
So to put things into perspective.
MINTHARA'S PATH ACHIEVES:
The death of 59 Druid's Grove NPCs
The death of approximately 98 Goblin Camp NPCs (yes I counted all of them)
The death of all 4 merchants on the surface (not counting Zhentarim merchant)
Causes 1 companion to leave (Wyll)
Causes another companion to potentially leave (Gale)
Causes Minthara to potentially die (failed persuasion)
Prevents Shadowheart's romance
All that for a camp scene where we get to socialize with temporarily friendly gobos for one night, a 69 romance scene, an unknown potential interaction with her in the future and a somewhat vague hint on how to approach Moonrise. And that's the best case scenario. Failing a speech check we [b]ALSO lose her. So... literally nothing is gained if that happens.
To me it's an incredibly steep price to pay for so little content and a risk to absolutely have no content.[/b]
Wonderfully put together. Can only agree that this makes it much less enticing to play evil. The evil path should offer as much distinct content as the good path.
Of course evil PCs must face the consequences of their choices - in game that is, with the story moving along and certain content to be unlocked by their choices. But players themselves who play evil must not face consequences of just having less content to explore. Those are two entirely different things, the latter making the game simply less enjoyable.
Crimsonrider: thanks for the detailed comparison. I don't like the evil path- I don't like the npcs in the goblins side ( maybe apart from Gut, she is at least a little bit interesting) and I do on the other hand like most tiefling npcs and some druids. So easy decision for me. Plus the Shadowheart romance is the only one, that interests me.
Last edited by fylimar; 31/08/2208:52 PM. Reason: Typo
"We are all stories in the end. Just make it a good one."
So I wished to put into actual visual perspective, because I was curious myself, just how much actual content is lost by siding with Minthara, as opposed to siding with the Druid's Grove;
And by looking at such a short summary, it may not seem that bad. But I took some liberty to document every single NPC offering a piece of lore and story dialogue, immediately after the battle without counting the camp scene:
So to put things into perspective.
MINTHARA'S PATH ACHIEVES:
The death of 59 Druid's Grove NPCs
The death of approximately 98 Goblin Camp NPCs (yes I counted all of them)
The death of all 4 merchants on the surface (not counting Zhentarim merchant)
Causes 1 companion to leave (Wyll)
Causes another companion to potentially leave (Gale)
Causes Minthara to potentially die (failed persuasion)
Prevents Shadowheart's romance
All that for a camp scene where we get to socialize with temporarily friendly gobos for one night, a 69 romance scene, an unknown potential interaction with her in the future and a somewhat vague hint on how to approach Moonrise. And that's the best case scenario. Failing a speech check we ALSO lose her. So... literally nothing is gained if that happens.
To me it's an incredibly steep price to pay for so little content and a risk to absolutely have no content.
From what i understand some unreleased companions will leave as well if player picks goblin route. (I learned this reading this forum and reddit so not 100% sure on accuracy.)
I have a feeling there are going to be more companions than one might think - at least just based off of what I have seen in my first play through.
I believe if you go the 'evil' route, don't side with Astarian, etc. that there is going to be alternate companions that you can adopt into your party to replace them. They won't be "origin" characters, but instead they will be kind of the "opposite" of the origin character or tie into their story from a different perspective. Perhaps this won't happen with all of them... but I have a feeling the guy hunting Astarian might be a potential party member in the future. I wouldn't be shocked if there are other 'alternate companions' as well - there might even be some that I hadn't thought of.
I could be wrong though. But I do think that would be a pretty cool approach.
Its nice picture ... I like the format a lot ... But informations there seems little incomplete. :-/
By joining Halsin - you loose not just "all future interaction with Minthara" but also Ragzlin, Gut, and who knows how many other goblins ... Larian makes to gues this especialy hard since all NPCs are named ... i would bet on at least Crusher and Spike tho ... they seem a little more important. - While its true that we loose all NPCs from goblin camp ... we dont really know if that loss will be permanent if we join Minthara ... after all, she is talking about us being judged by the Absolute at Moonrise Towers ... while if we join Halsin, there is little to none chance that they would forgive that we murdered their boss. - Also calling Minthara insight "minor" seems hardly fair ... i mean, it seems to me that she is sharing fair deal of intel about cult ... it may be not so interesting as Ketheric Thorm for some listeners, but that doesnt diminish its importance. :-/
By joining Minthara - There is mentioned only romance with Shadowheart ... i admit that i didnt check for few patches, so maybe something changed ... but last time i tryed nobody wanted to spend night with me, but Minthara ... - Again, calling Halsin's lore "plenty" is strongly subjective for same reasons as abowe ... also, quite a lot of that we can still get from his corpse, and journals ... - Counting datamined materials ther are other companions that will leave us if we join Minthara ... but that would be spoiler area :-/
Karlach ... and i believe i have read somewhere that Minsc would dislike it too
- It would be certainly fair to mention that while you can fail persuation Minthara and loose her ... its fairly easy check, and if you dont do anything stupid, i believe its difficiulty 1 ... so basicaly unfailable. - Loosing Halsin as a camp member is good point ... but i believe you also loose Barcus and Volo as your camp companions.
- side note ... i cant help the feeling that counting NPCs in the Grove is little manipulative ... especialy concidering: > that there is fair chance that we will never meet any of those druids ever again (they stay) ... maybe, maaaaaaaybe except Kagha, Rath or Nettie ... > most of them have hardly any interaction, since they only tell us their single sentence and we cant even react on it ... > and (and this is important part) we can loose them EVEN if we side with halsin ... if Kagha finish her ritual ... wich is completely different questline ...
> same obviously goes for Tieflings aswell ... we can loose them, if Kagha finish her ritual ... most of them have hardly anything to say ... But we will most likely meet at least some of them again ...
But ... depending on our futher actions, we can loose them all again ...
Second picture ... I must admit i dont quite understand ... what "lore and story" is lost after battle? O_o All they say to our character is "thank you" ... everything else they tell you prior the battle. O_o
Last edited by RagnarokCzD; 31/08/2207:23 PM.
I still dont understand why cant we change Race for our hirelings. Lets us play Githyanki as racist as they trully are!
I think it's irrelevant. Minthara doesn't care if you're lying. She believes she can wipe you out and the grove regardless. To her, it's a game, and she fully believes she will win. So making a Deception roll is pointless because the result will be the same. She'll play along and pretend you are on her side because she thinks it's interesting and cute that you are trying to outsmart her.
I’m interested that you take that view as I’d got the impression from discussions on other threads that you have some of the same problems as I do with our not being able to make our motivations clear in the game, and I thought that having a deception check when agreeing to help here would be a nice, simple way to at least partly address this problem in this particular instance (and possibly other similar ones).
Of course, it’s fine if you think it’s the wrong way to go about solving the problem, but is there an alternative you have in mind? Or is this not a point at which you care about registering your intentions?
I do want the game to make our motivations clear. The idea of a Deception check isn't wrong or bad. I'm just not sure it's necessary in this instance. If the result would be the same regardless of success, the roll is not needed. That's all I'm saying. It's based on the way I interpreted the encounter.
However, if they DID decide to make it so Minthara calls you out on trying to trick her if you fail the roll, that's totally fine with me too. That would certainly change the entire encounter. If she thinks your lying and attacks, then everything I interpreted is out the window. Either way, I'd be fine with it.
![[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]](https://i.imgur.com/qJpbQiv.jpg)
![[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]](https://i.imgur.com/BOn1ecE.jpg)
