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

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.

This looks like a much more interesting implementation then previous (getting a fixed ability based on your class).
Keen to roleplay this ingame and deal with the consequences.

There is literally no proof for that. You're creating worst case scenarios out of thin air. I'd also like to see you not lose companions without extreme levels of savescumming -- what you're saying is empirically untrue for early access. You will not be getting Halsin, Jaheira and Minsc in that playthrough. Probably not even Gale and Wyll. Maybe not even SH and Lae'Zel since they are vehemently anti-Tadpole, evil or not.