Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Release Date Revealed (31st of August 2023)

As someone without an AC unit, playing a demanding title at the tail end of august will at least make me avoid cooking myself with my graphics card.

Yeah, another example of poor art direction in this game.

How? O_o

I mean ...
I get the satire (or at least i hope it was satire) ... but even tho those spikes may seem weird, they are far enough to be perfectly safe ... sure, you cant lay your head on your own shoulder, but besides that? I dont see any problem.
And BTW ... if your neck is moving 5cm to the side when you try to turn your head ... you should probably see some doctor, bcs thats not natural movement. :-/

Despite seeing the pic of it multiple times in this thread, I have only just noticed that the sticky out bits on the … are those parts pauldrons? … are actually taloned hands.

I’ll agree that elements of the armour are impractically OTT but I’m perfectly okay with that, even if I’d prefer something a little more understated for my own characters. I do like the gold brocade padded undershirt bit, though, and hope we might see something similar in other armour sets. Aesthetics being my top priority when selecting adventuring wear, of course.

It's classic fantasy over the top unrealistic armor. Probably wanting to make the neckguard(if you can call it that), resemble a tadpole's mouth.

The problem is, even on the "normal" or supposed normal looking armors things don't mix and match, and there is no such thing as continuity in armor, or uniformity. I talked about this on the thread about Simmons, so i won't write it again, but i seriously hope armor and especially plate armor is being looked upon, because problems like the armor not aligning correctly was never an issue. No games lately suffer from this, not even DOS2. Except BG3. It does suffer. I hope at some point someone from Larian can answer that for me, the other option is to wait until late August to find out o.o'

We seem to have a mix of very default armour and high fantasy invention. In a pre- steam engine world, I suppose his armour broadcasts he's /rich/ rich. Speaking of realism, is every armour designed for battle?

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/aams/hd_aams.htm

This doesn't say, but I do wonder if his armour isn't purposefully ornamental/ceremonial. Thoughts?

It’s magical, and like magical armor in almost every single game, it’s a bit impractical and ornate.

He's also evil, which means you get coded with excess. A good paladin, might have less ostentatious armor, but to show that same character has fallen to evil, you give him some ridiculous kit, to show he's no longer on the straight and narrow.

I did some search, and there is a "Shadowheart -- Dark Justiciar card". A "honorary order of secret society within the priesthood of shar"

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Dark_Justiciars

Rumour has it, they need to kill a cleric of Selune to be eligible...

I wonder if they know each other. Was Shadowheart's kidnapping, despite having the relic, even unwanted pre memory loss? Oh, the drama

Now, when you mention it ...
What class is Ketheric supposed to be anyway?

I though he should be Cleric ...
But then they said Necromancer ... so i though Wizard ...
But that armor seems heavy ... so Paladin?

They're all capable of necromancy-ish magic because of their equipment, seemingly. In theory. It might be unrelated to his class?

If he's a core paladin, he's none of the subclasses we know. So, Cleric/Paladin hybrid? Or oath of vengeance, which is not implemented yet?

Death Domain Cleric with Heavily Armoured feat? Or some form of multiclass ?

Would that make him a poached dark justiciar, now follower of the dead 3? (Are the absolute powerful enough in death domain?)

Another thing, death domain gets their last spell at level /9/. An important perk at level 8. This might be the most interesting evidence yet, for an act 1 villain!

"At 8th level, you gain the ability to infuse your weapon strikes with necrotic energy. Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can cause the attack to deal an a 1d8 necrotic damage to the target. When you reach 14th level, the extra damage increases to 2d8."


"The Death domain is concerned with the forces that cause death, as well as the negative energy that gives rise to undead creatures. Deities such as Chemosh, Myrkul, and Wee Jas are patrons of necromancers, death knights, liches, mummy lords, and vampires. Gods of the Death domain also embody murder (Anubis, Bhaal, and Pyremius), pain (Iuz or Loviatar), disease or poison (Incabulos, Talona, or Morgion), and the underworld (Hades and Hel)."

http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/cleric:death

Don't forget that the term Necromancer doesn't necessarily mean the same thing in-universe that it does for us.

He might be an Oathbreaker, so they could give him all sorts of bespoke powers. Not to mention the tadpole stuff.

Indeed, but... it confuses me personally that his new oath wouldn't be to his new deities. He's clearly a fanatic. This rejection could be an interesting personality detail, especially if he still values Shar above all. But, does he? Who's side is he on?

http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/paladin:oathbreaker

Some Paladin level details -- level 15 is important for the resistance to all non magical weapon damage. Level 15 boss?

Another point: undead in moonrise tower (trailer). Botched Experiments and all. If /he's/ a necromancer, he might be a good one.

Is he a fanatic? His VO is about finishing what he started, which should be a reference his dead daughter and the Dark Justiciar War, but we also know that Ketheric tried to get the Sharrans at Grymforge to worship him over Shar, a blasphemy. As far as I know, nothing from the Moonrise curse has anything to do with Mind-Flayers or the Absolute, which appears to be fairly recent. Not that they aren't connected.

Also like you said, if Shadowheart is working for the Sharran's then Shar and the Absolute are at odds.

My incomplete understanding of the lore is problematic here. But, netherese magic is shadow magic, which may or may not come from the shadow weave?

The tadpoles are produced using this magic. Deciding factor here if that means Shar has to be involved...

Ketheric is a clear oath breaker, then. I suppose, he wasn't about to take up another oath? Can someone just forge another? Still, he seems so much like an incredibly vengeful guy. Maybe that's compatible with being an oath breaker. Revenge to honour something vs revenge /in/ destroying something out of hate?

I know at least that Paladins need to make their oath to/before some power. The absolute may well sponsor him, or just have similar interests. It would make him a more interesting villain to not be a mind controlled quasi slave.

The thing with Shadowheart is, I don't know if they took her memory because she wasn't on board with the tadpole insertion. So, the journey to Bg is a lie and they set her up to be abducted. Especially, if the artefact had bonded to her (planning its break out) and made her reject the absolute's influence. Or maybe, the tadpole was just a safety measure in this express delivery of the artefact. If their faith is being puppeteered by absolute spies, it could be trouble.

Possibly, the absolute just has a netherese bastion. Shar does oppose them. But, the missing memory is so fishy. Something is going on here. Past cleric of Selune is not someone I'd have carry the artefact, unless the artefact was captured by the Selunites and its attachment made this the only way to transport it. Something like that.

This whole Oathbreaker stuff might just be for the PCs, It's just as likely Ketheric is a classic anti-paladin, or my favorite a Death Knight. Maybe he just traded in his Selunite template for a Sharran one. Being a resurrected hundreds year old Selunite, turned Dark Justiciar, turned tadpole infected cult leader will get you a pass from me for a lot of things.

I don't know enough about Shadow Magic to really comment, but I have to guess that people can use it without supplication to Shar. People have done a lot of theory crafting around the Shadow Magic, but to me it's just one of those hand wavy things you see to explain away super-extra-powerful magic. Why can't a Hag deal with it?...Shadow Magic, bro. How do we stop magic from solving all our problems? More magic.

Well In A Theory the artifact is the trapped essence of Gith, kept hidden by Vlaakith on Creche K'liir, where a commando squad of Sharran's stole it. Before themselves being abducted by the Mind-Flayers, possibly also after the artifact.
If they were in league with Absolute, I'm not sure why you'd go through that extra step.

By my grand theory, the absolute would then have only succeeded in this smooth capture because of spies in the Sharran order... Muahahaha.

Yeah, I literally don't know. I'm really just hung up on Shadowheart's strange memory loss.

"You fool! I haven't even reached my final form!" -Shadowheart shortly after having her memories returned by Ketheric Thorm