Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Good Urge ending is insanely disappointing (SPOILERS)

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1. About Good Urge

A lot of the similar characteristics is there from Evil Urge - a deep and unknown desire to kill, puppeteered by Bhaal through Sceleritas in the background, but the Good Urge chooses to discover the source of this darkness and overpower it. With the occasional slip, the Urge shows incredible willpower to quench the evil within them, which causes them both great mental and physical pain at several turns in their journey, culminating in being murdered by Bhaal. But in that death the Bhaalspawn is redeemed, and Withers, using the part of the Urge's soul that was not struck down by Bhaal, brings them back to life. Their dauntless courage leads them to make incredible sacrifices, and based on the way I played it, led all the companions down a good path, defeated Raphael so that he doesn't pose a threat to anyone any longer, freed Orpheus to liberate the Githyanki, became a Mind Flayer in Orpheus's stead, destroyed the Netherbrain, asked Orpheus that both they and their companions be remembered, and took their own life in the end to ensure that the last remaining Illithid never has the chance to turn on their friends, but also to deny Bhaal their death, and to forever free themselves from evil temptations. It is the greatest tale of redemption one could ask for, one that ironically stems from the jealousy of the Urge's sister - and Orin paid a heavy price for it.

And had I played companionless (or only with Lae'zel because she is a god damn fantastic companion with the best character development out of all the sidekicks), I would have booked this story a 9/10, but dear lord there are SO many issues that surround a Good Urge that I can't help but feel incredibly disappointed.

2. Beating the dead horse still

I complained in my previous post a lot that Act3 is insanely unfinished. I will complain again. My GOD there are so many important plot points that are insanely disconnected.

Let's begin with the Emperor. My god what an awful character, even from the very beginnings as the Dream Visitor. Despite his age, accomplishments, experience and status, he never once considers that there might be people who doubt his claims. He gets annoyed like a bloody child when anyone demands answers out of him, and even then he keeps bullshitting, despite his very own goal being the salvation of Faerun. And I'll say this: it is perfectly understandable that he doesn't want to appear in his Mind Flayer form, that is not what I'm saying, but the people he protects have minds and doubts of their own, and he never makes an attempt to extend the olive branch. And a lot of the dialogue is weak with him as a result - you never once get to extend the olive branch of your own, you can either side with him or be against him in dialogue choices. Never once is an option given to say "bro, you must understand that we have ALL the fucking doubts in the universe, but let's start clearing all these up nice n steady, you claim fantastical things and I want to believe but you're you, so please" but instead "yea you're chill" or "nah bro" - for a game that otherwise has very in-depth conversational options, it lacks it with one of it's key characters that makes the ENTIRE PLOT possible. This culminates with Orpheus, where he is extremely adamant that "no he's evil!" and never once is there an option for "can you at least let loose your magic so that we can talk to him" - in fact, he gets so bloody pissed at the fact that you free Orpheus that he straight up chooses the winning side in his mind, which is the Netherbrain. Yes, his goal is the salvation of Faerun, and he has good reason to believe that Orpheus is just going to go "no" but there is a LOT of build up with Kith'rak Voss and the many books you can find about Orpheus that he is more than capable of objectivity and putting his differences aside.

The primary takeaway here is that in his quest as a heroic adventurer who wants to save Faerun, he overlooks his own characteristics, and decides that saving both Faerun and the Githyanki is simply impossible, something that is built up to be more than possible, and actually occurs - Orpheus, Voss and Lae'zel ride away at the end of the game on the back of one of the best arcs in this game. Every time the Emperor speaks, the plot weakens, and he desperately needs a rewriting to not be so painful. In my playthrough, he pissed me off so much that I glitched two Watcher Greatswords onto my Fighter so I can oneshot the Emperor on turn1 on Tactician to make him shut the hell up. If anything, he should be elated, if still cautious, that the salvation of two instead of one is more than possible. Yes, Orpheus might give the tadpoled and the Emperor a bad look, but he would also see Voss, his most loyal ally and his companions team up would get him to think, don't you agree?

Next up, it's Raphael again. Bro wants the Crown for himself, he wants to rule, yadda-yadda, we know this from the previous post. I still don't get how killing Raphael isn't a primary objective. Both for Evil and Good Urge, Raphael should be a GIANT red flag, the biggest of them all. Imagine making all that sacrifice (or racking up that many bodies as Evil) only to overlook Raphael and get backstabbed by the end. But again, he really has no relevance on the plot because he is a side objective, and it's stupid. He's been built up from the very beginning of Act1 - we saw the war in Avernus, we met Raphael not soon after during our adventures, we learn that he wants to end the war in Avernus, we learn that he is a manipulative and powerful bastard, and we learn he wants all that power for himself. Sooooooooooooooooooooooooo... why is he a side objective?

Now we can speak of companions. A lot of them seem to be simply along the ride? Lae'zel and Jaheira are the only ones that actually care about what happens in the world - somewhat. After I one-turn killed Orin (because apparently, she can die in a Shapeshift unlike anyone else? Isn't she supposed to revert back to her humanoid form?) and rejected Bhaal, no one really seemed to care? And I had Jaheira, a romanced Shadowheart and Wyll in my group. All Shadowheart could say was "well you pulled me out of the dirt so ty" YOU JUST WITNESSED YOUR LOVE OF YOUR LIFE GET BRUTALLY MURDERED AND RESSURRECTED, HELLO? While one might expect Jaheira to be more stoic, she should solicit some form of reaction as well given her history, and Wyll just straight up rawdogged the entire thing, standing there looking pretty.

It's the same bloody deal at the end at the docks. No one other than the Urge and Lae'zel herself gets emotional over her leaving to fulfil her dream and duty. Not every companion fancies her (especially Shadowheart), but surely everyone would have some sort of reaction after having spent so much time together in what was a historic adventure that resulted in the salvation of one and the upcoming salvation of another? And at the end of the docks, when I chose to take my own life, only the Astarion who only had about 11 affection points shouted in panic at the Urge to stop. Everyone else just watched? Not to mention the notion that you don't get to say goodbye to anyone, especially to a Shadowheart who herself took the life of her parents out of love? Wouldn't she be incredibly heartbroken to witness not just her parents, but her lover die after only being able to spend so little time with them? Normally, I'm a sucker for a tragic yet beautiful ending, but because of how weak the epilogue is, I was wishing that Withers would just come along and resurrect us again and put us back in our mortal body (somehow) because it was such a narratively weak moment that it deeply hurt the Urge's final moments. And I guess we had to witness Karlach blowing up with only Wyll really reacting to the entire thing. No one else had an epilogue. None of the sacrifices and losses are remembered, none of the places we visited are brought up again, none of the factions and people we helped, nothing. Oh, and, by the way, I completely fucked up Wyll in my playthrough, because:

3. No one's tried the front door

To be plain: I sequence broke the game. HARD. I was going to make a separate post about this, so I'll just copy paste my draft here:

In Act3, when you first go to pay Gortash a visit and before triggering Orin's kidnap sequence, you are not actually forced into interacting with Gortash. If you have access to Invisibility, you can sneak up on him and kill him on the spot (in fact, it is rather easy actually, at least with the Fighter I was playing with a pre-used Haste from Wyll and a Diluted Oil of Sharpness and fighting Gortash solo, from Explorer to Tactician). Once the deed is done and you get out and let the abduction sequence go through, your companions will still talk as if Gortash was alive and that we have to accept the deal with Orin, despite the fact that Orin herself has congratulated us on killing Gortash so quickly. This sequence also locks you out from making use of Gortash's hands and receiving the password "Sicarius" from Orin, despite the deal being that you get entry to the Murder Tribunal if you take care of Gortash, forcing you into interacting with the Murder in Baldur's Gate plot if you want to progress the story (where, magically, if you only loot the bag of hands off of the Assassin, you still learn Sicarius). This also locks Mizora out of joining you at the camp and destroys the Steel Watch Foundry without interacting with any of the relevant ways to blow it up to disable the machinery, yet all the Steel Watchers remain functional and will immediately attack the Urge once spotted. You also can't rescue the Grand Duke anymore.

Which kind of made following the plot along really difficult, alongside losing access to a significant portion of Wyll's story, making him an extremely weak character in Act3. It just seems like a weird way to break the game, because in Act1, Voss has protections against an event like this - you just simply can't kill him, you are FORCED to interact with him, yet Gortash has none?

4. How the companions think about the Urge

And perhaps the strangest of all - everyone, excluding Jaheira and your romanced companion (if you have romanced someone to begin with) kind of don't care about the urges and them being a Bhaalspawn? You can tell them that you constantly have dark thoughts and urges, you can tell them that you're the child of the literal God of Murder, and everyone's like "oh we all have our difficulties in life, you're good bro" - which in itself I don't think is bad, the bad part of this I feel is moreso the fact that only a romanced companion and Jaheira finds out about your true identity. Jaheira implies at several points that redeemed Bhaalspawns never once get a peaceful sleep in their life, that she and her companions were woken up many times to blood-curling screams from their Bhaalspawn friend having nightmares, and SHE EVEN SAYS that Bhaal has much more control over the Urge than her previous companions. The Urge, in all honesty, seems extremely dormant throughout the entire plot.

This didn't jump out to me as an issue in the Evil playthrough as - and as I even picked so in a conversation with Sceleritas - I played into being a psycho, not really needing the Urge to commit atrocities, but here, there is a genuine lack of Urge moments. Beyond getting Alfira killed, your hands are never forced, nor do you have to win saving throws against the Urge to protect your allies and yourself. Which in turn means that your companions kind of don't really have any reason to fear you, despite having psychotic episodes? Despite sleeping in the middle of the camp, surrounded by people who would absolutely hear the Urge throwing a fit in their nightmares? No distrust, no inner mental torture over the Urge trying to do their best, no suspicions? And especially with how weak the scenes are when you reject Bhaal in his temple, the Urge might just be a custom Tav with not much else going for them. The only difference is Alfira's death (and getting the Deathstalker Mantle in return).