Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Anything for the club of healthy brain enjoyers?

I've thought about this quite a bit.

On one hand, it's really great that a game at last puts something *really* tempting into my path, that some of my characters might actually end up using and not feel they've gone the risky/evil path for no good reason. That's great.

On the other hand, there seems to be content on it that from the player perspective, you wouldn't want to miss, and not at all for gameplay reasons. Just think of those dream sequences. If you consistently refuse to use illlithid powers, then you won't get them. And they appear to be such an integral thematic element of the conflict within yourself that is created by the tadpole.

From yet another angle, giving the tadpole anything seems really stupid from any character's point of view, so can I justify going down that path with any character of INT 10/WIS 10 or higher? As far as our characters know, using those powers might just trigger the ceremorphosis we've been apparently unexplainably lucky to avoid. So, as I imagine my current character telling Astarion thinking about it: What does survival matter if that which survives is not you?

In the end it comes down to this: no, I'll not feel shafted losing out on those cool powers. That's part of resisting the temptation. What I will resent is losing the narrative elements which are thematically important, like at least some of those dream sequences, if I do the intelligent thing and not use those powers. And I also don't like that I have to be stupid to make a decision to use them.