Actually, what interests me more is if there is a (narrative) downside to not consuming tadpoles. The game appears determined to goad me into being incredibly stupid for reasons I can't decipher. So is there any downside, apart from the obvious, ie not having access to psionic powers and maybe being locked out of a specific illithid-themed ending option? An acceptable ending, for me, is one where, if I do not invoke any alternative willingly and knowingly, my character can walk out of this story intact and in full control of their physical and mental capacities, while the world is more or less OK. Like for instance, the "stay mortal" ending option of Throne of Bhaal.
As for there being no advantage for the "good path": not consuming any tadpoles is not "the good path". It is morally neutral. You might feel tained and disgusted by it, but that's not the same as evil. Good or evil are determined by what you do with your psionic powers. What it is, however, is incredibly stupid. So the question is: should there be an advantage to acting with reasonable prudence, rather than with utterly reckless abandon? Well, unfortunately the universe does not always reward prudence, so not having this doesn't come across as a dissonance. What does come across as a dissonance, however, is the game goading you into consuming tadpoles, even suggesting that you might want what they have to offer in a totally non-neutral way, in form of a main quest, in spite of its very obvious stupidity. It feels like one of those conformism tests where they put you into a room with people who all make an obviously wrong decision, to see if you will go along with that in spite of knowing better.
Not acting as if I had INT 6 is its own reward IMO, and I'm fine as long as my character can walk out of the story with both them and the world intact. But as a gamer of course I want to explore all this stuff, and I have a hard time coming up with a character who would do this, even without any narrative consquences attached.
Last edited by Ieldra2; 10/08/23 05:50 AM.
