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

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.

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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.