Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Illithid Powers!!

Hi,
So i´ve read about this new Illithid Power System(or IPS :P) and i was wondering what do you think the consequences of getting those abilities will be.

Probably bad...or at least difficult and costly to get out of. This is D&D after all so where this could lead is difficult to predict. We'll most likely have to do something about it later or face a bad ending type consequence but there might also be unexpected ways out like making some sort of deal with a deity or another...but those sorts of things typically come at cost in D&D...some entities might offer to help you out and in exchange they get your soul after you die which you can then then try to work around by finding means to immortality...maybe lichdom, or finding a way to become a god yourself, etc.

Yeah. I´m a bit worried that those powers overpass the negative things that they may have through the story. They seem pretty powerful, almost godlike if you get them all.

I mean....I like more power and skills. But I am really struggling with the idea that in order to do this I am going to need to allow multiple vile little creatures swimming in my brain. I am not even a big RPer, I lean more to the combat strategy and exploration side of things. And even for me this is difficult so swallow (or in this case, drill another eye hole)

I think that is intentional by the developers. It's intended to communicate very clearly and in no uncertain terms that "There's a lot of power to be gained from this but this is definitely a bad idea. You should absolutely not be doing this." And that's the temptation. But I am curious to see where the game goes with it. This being such a reactive game and D&D it's probably not as simple as "this bad"...it will probably be bad but there will probably also be interesting ways out of it as well. Probably not easy or simple ways out but you know...such is D&D.

The temptation seems VERY well done compared to what we have in EA. But I really hope the consequences are huge.

I also want to be rewarded for playing "good" characters and I would HATE to feel that my characters are so much weaker during an entire playthough if it is just about happy / unhappy ending.

I also hope that I'll be able to unlock the tadpole powers of specific character (rather than the entire group automatically as it is in EA).
I would love to be able to use Astarion as a laboratory rat !

I'll put my imaginary clout chips on there being probably zero consequences.

I think, I stay the hell away from those powers. Who wants to have more of those brainworms in their head?
Maybe it is worth doing an Astarion playthrough to test that out - he likes his brainworm and I don't care about him, so don't care, if he gets a bad ending.

There will be a disparity in personal strength between evil and good playthroughs but this is by design. You can choose to go evil and you will end up vastly more powerful but alone vs if you play good you won't be as powerful but you'll have a lot more companions, friends, and allies. It will be a very different experience to reach the city of Baldur's Gate very powerful but alone vs being surrounded by allies. This is what Swen said when answering questions about the dark urge though I think that applies to more than strictly the dark urge. So there is an intended balance there...how much will you sacrifice for power. This is very much intended to illustrate a point. If the game handed you the power anyway regardless of choice then the choice would be meaningless...you wouldn't be inconvenienced in the slightest by just pressing the "do gud" button without a second thought every time. You can be good if you want...but there is a steep price for it just as there is a steep price for going evil as well.

In my opinion the idea of putting more things in your head sounds a bit silly. I think it would seem more reasonable if instead of adopting and welcoming them to your brain, you still killed the other tadpoles but were given the option for your own tadpole to somehow absorbe their essence or something.

It'll destroy any narrative weight imo, but it's Larian, so rule of cool wins out.

Define ''consequences'', if killing your companions or ''forcing them'' to stop you it's not a consequence for you then yeah, 0 consequences.

If being literally unable to finish the game because you're evil is the only thing that constitutes consequence for you then yeah, that's not gonna happen xD

What I really want to know is how they're going to try to logically defend putting more shit in your head. I hope it's intriguing, but I have a feeling it might be hand-waved aside. We'll have to see.

You're probably just absorbing the tadpole's life essence or something, there's no way you're going to stick 15 tadpoles in your brain, it makes no sense thematically, logically or physically xD

but are we ever going to sit down and have a chat and say "so, we're actively encouraging this tadpole in our head right? and that's okay because...?" and hopefully there's a logical reason other than "nothing to lose" or "eh, it's cool".

I think we will, Astarion mentions ''controlling'' the tadpole's powers very early in the game. My guess is we'll get some conversation with the other origins discussing the good/bad of going that route when we first think about enhancing our tadpole via other tadpoles.

I would be very surprised if none of that happens tbh.

We're not actually turning into a mindflayer despite the tadpole, so what exactly is the problem with multiple tadpoles? It's not like we can suddenly turn into multiple mindflayers.

(Yes, I'm definitely going to try a playthrough where I take the 'pole power route. Probably with a fiend warlock, to fit the theme of ideas that trade short term rewards for questionable long term consequences)

The logic there would be the mysterious guardian figure that encourages us to embrace the tadpole's power with the promise she'll protect us. Which I mean...what could possibly go wrong, amirite? Hahahaha. But seriously...if nothing else it's got to lead somewhere interesting...possibly very very bad but interesting nonetheless.

Obviously you're not going to outright die or turn into a mindflayer (maybe you do temporarily), but you're probably going to end up confronting some of your companions with lethal outcomes or getting mind controlled by the tadpole on some decisions, preventing you from reaching certain outcomes on the main story, meeting certain characters or the option to befriend them, etc.

That is a potential risk, yes. But there should be enough tadpoles around to not really need to harvest those of the companions I'm keeping, and I don't think Larian would take away agency too much even though it might have made sense.

The commentary they've made is that they wanted to offer players some form of progression once we reach the point where regular experience levels slow down a bit, and if that's the idea of the tadpole powers then it doesn't seem likely that anything but total rejection leads to total disaster.

Honestly, the fact they're meant to provide late stage progression is what gets my hackles up. I doubt I'll be making many characters who will be power hungry enough to go in for this route, especially if it involves physically adding more tadpoles to your brain. I'm fine with not being as powerful for rejecting evil power, but if the game is just going to be less mechanically interesting, that's what I resent.

Didn't we see an animation of a tadpole literally burrowing into your brain during the last showcase thing? I'm not 100% sure anymore and I'm trying to avoid spoilers at this point, but I think we saw that.

Personally I'm going to play as an unhinged goo warlock and embrace the cutesite.

I wouldn't really assume that, if I recall correctly, Swen emphasized a lot that you might end up all alone if you focus entirely on increasing your power. That could mean that your companions leave because they disapprove of your actions, or that in order to achieve that power you'll need to sacrifice them, maybe you need all the tadpoles available for the final unlocks of the illithid skills tree.

Yeah, but that's if you focus "entirely" on power. There's a lot of wiggle room between "not at all, eek, get this worm out of my brain" and "our name is Legion, for we are... Many!", I would hope.

But you are probably correct that some of the companions won't really like the idea of forming a worm collective. I guess we'll see how that goes. Could be hilarious, could be a total disaster.

I will do a roleplay where my Dark Urge is so terrified of her violent Urges that she will put Tadpoles into her brain in an attempt to escape this. From that perspective it can work.

I'd like to unironically congratulate Larian for making the "fuck around" path inserting ever more tadpoles into your brain. It's so incredibly stupid, it's brilliant. I want to see Astarion stammer: "uhhh... you know, I am a fan of this, but don't you think that's enough?" while the Tav/Durge Mega hive mind cackles in the background.

I want to see the unease in camp, when your companions suspect they may be harvested during a dry spell. I want the ability to actually do so.

Are you quite sure? It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest that if you've begged, borrowed and stolen, exhausted all options, You turn into a mindflayer. That's the plot.

But but you will gain the most awesome power of them all! The power of friendship and love!

🤢🤮

One of the YOutubers, eitehr Fextra or WOlfHeart, said, that the more tadpoles you insert the more dead your brain tissue will look, so I'm pretty sure, putting tadpoles into your brain, is exactly, what they mean.

Yeah I see it as bad. I mean look at the pic, the brain is rotting/dying….

Also, kinda reminds me of Skyrim. When you die, what daedra gets your soul when you are all their champion?

In this case, what mindflayer gets control? Unless… you’re being farmed to be the next elder brain type being…

Ceremorphosis wouldn't actually work with multiple tadpoles in one host...most likely scenario is it would fail and in the process the host and tadpoles would die. If we go with the interpretation that we only use other tadpoles so ours can siphon power off them without actual insertion then we probably would be more susceptible to the tadpole's influence but it was inserted in stasis...clearly not intended to complete ceremorphosis until a signal is sent by whoever controls the stasis. The plan very much appears to be for a mass transformation at an intended time. Personally I wonder if by being allowed all this extra time and our tadpole having a lot more time in the host along with the opportunity to siphon power off other tadpoles might create a unique enough cisrcumstance that our character might transform not just into another mind flayer or into an ulitharid, but into the Adversary.

Well, I think there should be some pretty serious consequences, but I’ve never been a huge fan of when games give you equivalent rewards for being the selfless hero.

Like when a character has an item you want and your options are: to screw them over to get the item, help them in exchange for the item, or help them out of the goodness of your heart and they give it to you to in gratitude anyway.

Maybe being a power hungry A hole should actually give you access to more power and trying to do the right thing a bit less of a no brainer?

I think the main Tadpole, the one that you start the game with, eats the other tadpoles. It's part of Illithid biology where the tadpoles eat each other if left to their own devices. So instead of multiple Tadpoles, you just have one very hungry one who eats the others, and since it has more nutrients is able to more easily infest the rest of your brain. This is how I think it is operating. Too many Tadpoles might just plain old kill you, the Tadpole needs the host body alive to complete the ceromorphosis, it will defend its host from other foreign parasites so it has room to grow.

I would love it if the game kept track of how many times you've used the tadpole, how many tadpoles you've consumed from others, etc. And at the end of the game during the Final Fight you'd get a ST that is more difficult based on this tracker, possibly being impossible. If you fail, you turn into a mind flayer, lose all your sense of self, and join the Mind-Flayer Collective. Game End screen.

That'd be such a ballsy move from Larian. "You took the shortcut to gaining power, giving up parts of yourself and letting a stronger power gain control over you bit by bit. You took a risk and lost. Them's the breaks."

I think the game does track how many times you use the tadpole as well, not just how many you other tadpoles you used to strengthen yours. The early access thing where if you keep using the tadpole for wisdom checks you become marked as a "True Soul" instead is still in the final version of the game and that tracker is different from you gaining more tadpole powers.

My concern is not so much that my character will have less personal power if I choose to have a good play-through but that the game appears to be rewarding an evil play-through by providing a much richer experience to those players who go evil than to those who play a good character. For example, if taking the evil path gives you access to a cool game system that you can't use when playing the good path, I think the good path should give you access to a different cool game system even if it doesn't increase your personal power in the same way.

Companions alone aren't it, because it is possible to play an evil character with companions and even allies.

The last thing I want to see is a game where playing evil gives you 150 hours of content but playing good gives you 120 hours of content... Unfortunately, the kind of information that's been released lately has certainly seemed to be making that argument.

We don't know enough unfortunately, but Larian spoke of trying to tempt players to a more evil playstyle, and creating a unique system would indeed be tempting, as unfair as it seems.

On the subreddit and on here, 95%+ of people don’t trust the tadpole, its powers, or the Guardian who greets you when you use them.

Shouldn’t evil be tempting though?

Isn’t the point of being good to resist such temptations?

Very fair and true (though I can't help but remember Arueshalae musing on the temptations of goodness in Wrath of the Righteous) but I think there's a space between evil being tempting and the evil path being the actually more engaging and interesting way to play. As Boblawblah said, we just don't know enough right now.

I will certainly hope so. It would cheapen the plot so much if there are no repercussions. Questing for power must always come at a cost.

And frankly, I love this idea. "I'm a holy paladin on my righteous Quest! As a servant of Torm I swear that no evil shall....Oh. Wow. Well. Double Crit chance does smell tasty...Maybe just this one."

I think the assumption that the pro 'pole course will be a superior experience to the anti 'pole choices is coming from putting too much weight on Swen's comments about incentivizing those choices. He didn't say there was more or less content or attention to the anti-pole path, just that the pro-pole parth existed.

I love this quote if his from something I saw in the last couple of weeks: "there's no good-path and no evil-path, just choices"

I think a lot of unlikely conclusions and predictions are coming from this assumption.

If there were no real advantages to be gained from the tadpole, the theme of seductive power may fall flat.

I mean, the fact that the tadpole has a whole progression system attatched to it is another bit of evidence that the anti-tadpole path is gonna have less content. And to be honest, I remain quite skeptical of Swen's big claims about how morally complex this game will be. Talk about no good path or evil path, but when one resolution to a quest is slaughtering innocent regufees and the other is slaughtering the cult that wants to kill those refugees, there's definitely a good and evil path.

We don't know that. Possibly, you get locked into a number of endings at some point. Using the tadpole could exclude content as well. Both the endgame and various quests. Even endings to companions' storylines, if they leave early enough because of your actions.

You can also kill Zevlor and the tieflings by Khaga's orders or kill Khaga and the druids for Zevlor wich is more of a grey area. That being said I agree I don't expect many shades of gray.



I agree, most people seem to think that ''evil'' path just has more of everything while I think going that path is going to take away a lot of content from you and it's going to prevent you from meeting or interacting with a lot of characters and prevent you from traversing cecrtain scenarios/situations.

Yeah, I can't speak to the rest of the game from personal experience, yet, but it's absolutely clear that for Act 1 the good and evil "choices" actually form two mutually exclusive paths and saying anything else about it is sheer sophistry.

If evil is more interesting and engaging, why play good?

Because good is more satisfying? Isn't that like good being more interesting and engaging?

I can't shake the feeling that this all sounds like an argument to eat the cake while still having the cake.

so are you arguing that a good playthrough is intrinsically satisfying, and an evil playthrough is not, and needs extra mechanics to make it satisfying?

Why do I have the persistent feeling that playing as the Dark Urge will lead to some accident that will land me on Minthara's side... After all, I almost provoked a fight in the tiefling camp even in the EA.

I know my character won't trust the Ilithid powers. Question is... if the dark urges (which he might try to resist... on occasions) will push him more towards the tadpoles or whether the Dark Urge power is unrelated to them.

Possible act 1 paths:
Support Grove
Support tieflings
Support druids
Support gobbos

Can you not just proceed to the Underdark and Grimforge without choosing any of those?

You'd be down 1-2 companions (Halsin/Minthara for sure and maybe Wyll still).

Edit: Come to think of it, Larian may make your party react if you take no action. You might need to convince Gale to stay

You definitely can, which on a side note implies that nothing that happens in those locations matters THAT much to the overall narrative.

If you break the tadpoles hold on Nere doesn’t he Tell you to tell Minthara? Could that indicate a path you can recruit Minthara without slaughtering the grove?

You'd be missing out on a bunch of experience and loot, as well a number of companion interactions, so your relationships with companions would be very neutral.

The only reason you'd want to is that you're dead set on remaining neutral in others' conflicts, or you're speed-running

for sure, gameplay wise it doesn't make much sense, but I always like to try to 'break' the game and do things the devs didn't expect. I'm curious to see just how big the main story is if you know exactly what is required and what isn't. This is all off-topic though, sorry OP!

I'm not making an argument. Rather, trying to understand the argument being made.

Which to me sounds like:

"I'm upset because they are making the evil path more entertaining than the good path."

"Why does that upset you?"

"Because I want to play the good path."

"Why do you want to play the good path?"

"Because I find it more entertaining."

"I see. You're upset that they're making the evil path more entertaining because you find the good path more entertaining."

--that's what I mean about eating cake and still having cake.

In other words where is the sacrifice for making the good decision? The argument I'm hearing is that there shouldn't be a sacrifice.

Just like, where is the sacrifice in eating cake? Nowhere, because the cake is still there even after being eaten. No sacrifice.

*

Bobby plays evil.

Sally plays good.

They both look exactly the same at the end of the game. Same stats, items, power, everything. Except Bobby fell for temptation every time and always chose to take power over anything else. It's a wasteland out there in Bobby's game. He made tons of sacrifices for all the power he got.

Sally didn't give in. She didn't fall for temptation.

And for all those decisions? Same result.

What the heck was the point of Bobby taking the temptation? What did he get out of it?

All it is is wanting the best of both worlds. Far as I can figure.

Well, you started with a strawman with "I'm upset because they are making the evil path more entertaining than the good path." so we're off to a bad start.

The argument people are making is closer to "An evil playthrough has entirely additional mechanics/systems that the good playthrough doesn't."

So how does the conversation continue if that is the first statement?

I don't know about the rest of the game and I haven't played Grymforge but I haven't felt like I was being rewarded more on ''evil'' playthroughs. That being said one of the ''allures'' of walking the evil path on ANY game is getting more rewards from quests, stronger gear or getting more benefit from situations in general (on some games the way to balance the good path is getting more exp when you're altruistic and don't ask for rewards etc).

This is not a new concept, you get exclusive stuff when you go evil but the same is true for the opposite alignment, that's where part of the replayability comes from.

Who thinks if you take every possible Illithid power you're only going to get rewarded and if you don't use any you're just going to get less content? I think the chances of that happening are very close to 0.

What I think is some people for whatever reason are only able to play good characters and good playthroughs and they're complaining because the ''evil'' path looks interesting and they won't be able to play it, meaning they're going to miss a ton of BG3 content. But thats a ''you'' issue, it's like going to an all you can eat buffet but the only thing you can eat is white bread with butter and you complain that there's too much of the other food and not enough bread.

Let's start making that singular, not plural ''1 additional mechanic'', lets add that is actually not an exclusive mechanic, you can interact with said mechanic and still be good (Wyll has made a pact with a devil and everybody thinks he is a ''good'' character, while most people would agree making a pact with a devil is not something good).
Interacting with that mechanic extensively might end up killing people you don't want dead, giving you permanent debuffs, killing you at the end of the game, making the tadpole mind control you to do things you don't want and/or preventing you to fully control some dialogue options...nobody knows.

What we do know for a fact (since the devs have said so) is that going that route will add benefits but it will also punish you. Will that punishment offset the benefits? Nobody knows and on top of that, it is ''mostly'' a subjective thing, some people might think the punishment is far greater while other people might think the opposite.

That extra "mechanic" is the one that offers power for sacrifice. It's not just a purely "evil" mechanic because it's the mechanic you must resist to call yourself good. But really what you are saying is precisely what JandK pointed out...you want access to the power upgrades of the evil path without sacrifice and consequence. You call it a mechanic while he called it a cake in his analogy...for the purposes of the game it is the same thing. You want access to the power upgrades that come from embracing a darker path without the sacrifice it requires so that you can have a meaningless good path where there is no consequence for giving in to temptation.

I would argue creating two paths with different mechanics and advantages adds considerable replayability. It's too much work to put into most games, but it's not a bad thing inherently.

No, I simply want both good and evil playthroughs to have the SAME mechanics, or at the very least, equal weighted mechanics/systems. If one system is purely designed to tempt players into a specific playstyle, but there is no alternate mechanic that balances it out, that goes against the idea of choice.

right now the 'evil' path has entirely unique powers and an entirely unique custom origin. The 'downsides', if we can really call them that, simply won't be THAT extreme, because the evil playstyle still has to be playable. So unless choosing a single tadpole upgrade, or whatever they're called locks the player into a specific evil ending (which would be atrocious writing on larian's part), from what we know, evil can simply be more powerful with little to no repercussions.

That said, time will tell, this is all just speculation.

=

Exactly my point...you want equal power for zero sacrifice. But no...the extra power of the evil path is balanced for a solo playstyle where you end up alone or with fewer companions at best. You can't have that AND still have full party and other allies who come help you in the big battle. THAT is the entire point of the temptation and sacrifice...the extra party members and additional allies ARE your "mechanic". But that's not what you want. You want easy choices, you want a complete lack of temptation. You want to never have to feel like pressing the "do gud" button over and over might actually cost you something.

We already have a debuff on the game that makes you unable to crit (consecuences of your dialogue options), what makes you think that you won't get penalized (heavily) from abusing the tadpole? (probably measured on different thresholds, like you said, not going to lock you into an evil ending for having 1 tadpole trait)

We're obviously speculating but we cannot know either way (there's probably a sweet spot where you can minmax the tadpole power and not get too penalized, that much I can assume)

Okay, it's clear you're not reading what I'm writing, and have already decided what I'm saying, so let's drop it here. Cheers.

My questions is, is larian ballsy enough to bad end players who use the tadpole?

I hope the "golden ending" at least is locked behind tadpole chastity.

Maybe you end up the slave of whatever is in the cube or the guardian instead a slave to the absolute.

I think the price for abusing the tadpole powers will come in two forms: 1) at some point you will lose companions...either you're forced to kill them or they leave, and 2) you will be locked out of some story paths that would lead to more allies, companions, that sort of stuff.

I don't believe you will necessarily be locked into a bad ending with no way out but you'll probably be locked in a evil aligned ending...though who knows. Maybe some late redemption story arc...though that would most likely not bring back lost party members and allies.

And that's not good enough for you as punishment for taking (lets say) 10 more tadpole powers? I'm trying to understand why ''good'' path is so much worse than ''evil'' path for some people I'm not trying to be sassy or anything xD

If the downsides aren't that extreme, why not play evil?

I would suggest that the answer, boiled down, will amount to: the downsides *are* that extreme. Because it feels crappy making evil choices sometimes. It's painful to hurt innocents and not help when helping is within your power. Not to mention the in-game sacrifices.

I think they're ballsy enough if you're bad enough but we'll see, I do all kind of runs so I'll eventually see the murder hobo, full tadpole, full dark urge ending xD

lol, heck, I hope they let us turn into mind flayers and keep playing

Frankly, people who think the price for the evil powers isn't "THAT extreme" should try playing D&D in a party of one where the DM doesn't go out of his way to accommodate a solo player. It's absolutely brutal, borderline impossible. Those powers from the tadpole might seem insanely powerful but the reality is you absolutely need that kind of power just to be able to survive a solo playstyle later in the game.

Spoilers just in case:

fingers crossed!

Sir, I am a scientist. What I do, I do for science.


Yeah but you are dead if that happens. The DM would take your character at that point and you would re-roll a new one. The Tadpole becomes the Mindflayer. You become some blobs of spare flesh here and there.

Is it still the case that the more you use the tadpole the easier it is for the Cult to control you at Moonrise? Was that datamined? It’s been years since I heard that.

I didn't even know that was the case since I've never played beyond the original EA content (AKA no Grymforge) but that adds to the narrative that the tadpole abusing path is going to punish you harshly.

Datamined stuff might be just red herrings or stuff they just tested out without intending for it to apply to the player or stuff they changed their minds about during development and so on. But I will say...if the player does go through that...there's probably no way back from that one. You'd probably need something like divine intervention. Unless they intend to go through with something along the lines of allowing the player to become the Adversary.

The thing I don't want the "Do Gud" button to cost me is invested play time engaging the game. I want to separate out the Dark Urge for the moment because if that path does indeed end up costing you all or the vast majority of your companions that's definitely a valid trade-off for taking the good path. Especially if the presence of companions opens up late game content that you can't have if you don't keep them in your party or on your side. Instead I'm wanting to look at the non-Dark Urge evil path.

Unfortunately, there's a lot we don't know and the biggest thing we do know right now on this subject has to do with a character who has been completely rewritten so it may or may not apply to the final game. We already know that Minthara and Halsin are mutually exclusive companions, you have to be able to kill one in order to recruit the other. Getting Minthara requires what's normally considered the evil path, and getting Halsin the good path. Obviously, this is the kind of thing I'm fine with. Good gets Halsin content, evil gets Minthara content--neither option is penalized. What is interesting is that in the EA build, taking the evil path also costs you Wyll. While I think it's extremely odd that the willing torturer is the only character who completely refuses to go along with the goblin side, that's a good example of what I think you're talking about.

If choosing evil locks you out of content that you would otherwise have access to by virtue of having Wyll in the group I'm fine with that as an alternative to greater personal power. If, however, there's a good choice further down the game path that locks you out of Astarion's content and they are the only two characters you can lose due to making good vs evil choices then I wouldn't be fine with it because that would mean paying a greater price in engaging content for playing good characters than evil ones.

All of this does of course hinge on the idea that keeping more companions provides more of a benefit than just getting more camp dialogues where you listen to Gale's condescending stories of how great he is and how you should revel in his smugness, basking in the light of his pomposity. What I would really like would be if "redeeming" Shadowheart (as an example) gave her access to certain abilities or even knowledge that was only possible if you took the "good" path. They don't even have to be more powerful than her normal abilities, just different.

I simply want the game to give me an equally rich experience playing good as it does playing evil. If that's the case, I'm fine with it and gaining more benefits from companions is a perfectly valid mechanism to do that. I just haven't seen anything except the Wyll desertion (which may not be in the final game as we don't know anything about the rewrite) to indicate that they have actually carried through with that. If they have, I will have no complaints on that level. Unfortunately, the way evil has been hyped up lately I'm not sure if they have actually done that.

This is a bad take. If you are worried about having more story or the evil paths having more story then you are completely out of touch. The evil playthroughs will have a lot less story because either your companions leave you or you end up killing them and so on and that costs you the ability to experience their stories...there's six companions with origin stories...that's a lot you miss out out on there. Plus any reward/s you might get for helping them out with their troubles.

Pretty much this ^

And almost any rpg in existence rewards/improves the players and the companions after doing their ''companion quests''.

Honestly while people is worried about ''good'' path having less content than ''evil'' I think it's going to be quite the opposite (it usually is). And if the game is good and replayable I play every class and every alignment so I don't have any horse in this race.

The good path also gets Jaheira in addition to Halsin. And probably Minsc, as well. There's a strong chance that the evil path will end up at odds with those two.


A character so cool the DM had to steal it to play it personally.

Wait, so - using the tadpole we have will grant powers, and on top of that, grabbing other tadpoles will grant additional powers? Or has the first mechanic been removed? How is this all tied to the dreams now?

I think using the tadpole in dialogue doesn't so much grant powers but it grants you the ability to get past some speech checks for free but this is mainly a means to drive you down a specific story path. You don't really gain powers or become more powerful by using it in conversations.

As I understand it with the knowledge we have the first mechanic is removed in favor of the new one and the dreams have been reworked into ''the guardian'' (correct me if I'm, wrong)

We’re still on the same page that the tadpole powers are probably a trap though, right??

... huh... I'd be a little upset to lose the dreams, there were so many interesting character moments involved, but none of my characters are about to stick more tadpoles in their heads... meanwhile I'd expect Astarion to be scooping up those unused tadpoles left and right.

No,no. The ''dreams'' are there afaik they're just different now.


Definitely xD

Well yes, of course. The only real question is how many traps are being laid for us by how many people (better pick up disable device as a class skill!).

In my opinion, a good alligned Tav and a resisting Dark Urge seem to have balanced game play strenghts and weaknesses. This doesn't interest me much.

However, approaching this in reverse: what of an evil alligned Tav and Dark Urge?

Does the story path split off somewhere? Is the Durge in an Astarion situation, the tadpole creating free will?

I see this as Larian's way of implementing "lone wolf" mode into the game as you can take tadpoles from companions to increase your own abilities. As to what downsides they produce, I guess we'll just have to wait and see...

I agree 100%. The multi-tadpole in the first instance of poor writing I've encountered as it just isn't consistent with what we are trying to achieve from literally the first second of the game. The system itself is cool and interesting to me but thematically it just doesn't make sense.

I think it would have been better served as one tadpole depicted in the centre of the brain; but every tadpole that dies in its vicinity turns to mist, worms up your nose and empowers your tadpole making it glow; and you can then pick a skill from the tree - which leads to an animation of a new tentacle worming from the tadpole to the skill node on the brain tree to unlock it.

IMO the "correct" way to look at this is that you get a game with 270 hours of content, but your mileage may vary...

If a mechanic's purpose is to act as a temptation and resisting that temptation gets you an equal yet opposite mechanic as a reward it kind of undermines the function of the mechanic in the first place.

That isn't to say there can't be a sort of narrative balance between using it and not using it. Not using it just needs to reward the player in less tangible, measurable ways.

The easiest example is that to maximize your tadpole powers you need to need to harvest True Souls. This will lead you to kill your companions and probably bring you at odds with the Absolute anyway, as you'd want to harvest their True Souls too. You'll burn bridges on both sides of the conflict and likely end up alone against the world.

Or maybe you go halfsies and join the Absolute to harvest the tadpoles of the good companions to strengthen yourself and your evil-aligned companions. But now you're surrounded by power-hungry monsters who are proven willing to turn on their allies. You're also in the organization with the most access and knowledge of the tadpoles, but you're also at odds with all of Baldur's Gate with only the might of one insane cult to fight your war.

Or you resist the tadpole and maintain strong connections to your allies. Maybe you get betrayed by a few of the most evil companions, but you have total trust in the ones who've stuck around and have formed a powerful alliance with various NPC factions that are all uniting to protect Baldur's Gate from The Absolute. You might have less personal power by the end of the story than the first two options but narratively you're much stronger, with loyal allies and armies of good at your back.

my dream date now comes to be "in the flesh" and says shub dozens of bugs up your nose like a good boy... that bitch has a hard sell to make me even consider talking to her from now on

But there could still be content for good characters too. Not rewards per se, but maybe something you can't find on evil paths. Maybe a new quest, some kinds of unique interactions, some another mechanic. Because so far it looks like the only benefit of going good will be the ending while getting to it will be far more barren compared to the evil one. Your journey will be worse and for many this is what matters the most. The journey and it will be barren and boring compared to the other given that Larians barely showed any content for good side and went back on their promise that people would get good Origins later as they first released Neutral and Evil ones to test waters apparently, but now the only good Origin is Karlach and Dark Urge is ultra evil path you can try to be good on.

And good companions you get outside of origins don't look much better, 2 of them are cameos from older games and 1 was not even planned to be a companion and is one due to fan demand. There is severe lack of content for good playthroughs from what it looks like from everything we see and it's not like you will completely lose your companions since Larian confirmed you can change them to be more evil so there is pretty much very little to lose on the journey on evil path while good one doesn't get almost anything exclusive to itself. And again, by content I don't mean more powers, rewards, I mean content as a whole that is unique to playing a good character. That's as if in WOTR you could become a Demon, Lich or Swarm, but there was no Angel, Aeon or Azata path.

I'm fully in favour of differences between good and bad paths, even in favor of evil paths getting better stuff in some ways. It's the framing I take issue with.

I think the best way to put my issues with the new tadpole powers is this; based on what Swen apparently said, the devs identified what they felt was an issue in the design, little to do between level ups late in the game. They then created a solution to this perceived problem. But that solution only applied if players play a certain way. I think that principle is what bothers me. I feel like it's framed not as purely a story or thematic consideration. When it's put like that it makes me feel like... to use an analogy, it feels to me like Larian noticed a crack in the foundation of an apartment building. And they patched it up but only in a way that certain people who agreed to only abide by certain rules could benefit from. Sure you can still live in the building, but if you don't behave the way they want, then you apartment could crumble.

So it doesn't feel like they're doing this to make the evil path more tempting, they're doing it because they consider the tadpole path to be the valid and proper one, and deviating from that is the "other" path, the anomalous one that's there for people to do if they really want to but is weird and niche and doesn't deserve the same attention.

That is the issue too. It's concerning how they do not seem to care about people that want to play good. Their whole thing about temptation is pretty much about how much better you will have a time playing on more evil side while on good side you will not be having fun. That is not doing temptation well I think. That is making your game worse for many people and it's honestly dumb. Doesn't help that an evil path so far looks like a puppy kicking side for no reason too so there is not even room for some more interesting role play as an evil side.