I highlighted two relevant things:
First, from what I understand of illithid lore (and who knows it may have changed over the years), they are not actually beyond emotional attachment. Even mindflayers dominated by an elder brain can have thralls they treat as pets and get upset when they die. Moreover it isn't unheard of for them to occasionally retain properties of the person they sprang from. So (at least from what I know) it is not actually true that if such topics come up within an independent mindflayer that it is necessarily manipulation.
Second: The lack of difficulty is absolutely, one hundred percent Larian's fault. The absolutely absurd levels that martials can reach in this game are completely down to the ill-considered, completely unbalanced itemization and homebrew rules that they themselves put into the game. It is *resolutely* not 5e's fault, it is *not* a feature of 5e that martials become this ridiculously overpowered at 12th level, it is absolutely, *completely* Larian's own doing.
On the first: I meant emotional attachment as in its romantic/carnal-adjacent aspects. They are asexually reproducing hermaphrodites, and a race that is inherently pragmatic to the core. As for the retaining the original person's properties...
...from what I remember, it can only happen in impossibly rare circumstances (which the game brushes off as the Emperor's old self having an "extremely strong personality") since the original soul gets destroyed upon transformation (which the game mentions, and Withers specifically alludes to) thanks to things no less powerful than effectively divine intervention. My guess is that the Emperor's memories are planted by the elder brain since he was let loose on purpose as part of its grand plan. Besides, the reveal that his whole "friendly neighbourhood mind flayer" backstory was a lie meant to lull the PC into trusting him does pretty much undercut his charade entirely - too bad the game forgets that he says that and, as mentioned above, still makes him go through the whole "why won't you trust me" episode.
And on the second: I have to disagree, I am afraid, because I've had the exact same scenario happen in Solasta, where the rules are a lot more accurate and the itemization is reined in. Potions of too much strength are just as available there though, so that might play a role, but still - a level 11 fighter with a good weapon capable of doing 6 attacks per round at ~20 damage each plus criticals makes everything the casters are capable of in terms of damage pale spectacularly by comparison. In BG3 it's just even more pronounced thanks to the great weapon master feat (a PHb one!) in combination with the Battle Master's accuracy boost compensating for the -5 penalty you're taking. It's not 3.5e where shields can provide ridiculous AC boosts and dual-wielding can make you attack 6-7 times a round to compensate for how plainly superior two-handed weapons are raw damage-wise.
About the only damage-dealing spell that remained useful throughout in BG3 in my experience was cloudkill, and the mega Magic Missile you get from the Red Knight book, which is practically endgame. Monks too are busted, which you can get a first-hand experience of during the Act 2-3 interrim. Stunning Fist working on everything in existence, just like sneak attack, is rather stupid. Though I don't disagree with there being way too many plain broken items, like the gauntlets of disadvantage against combat maneuvers and heavy armor reducing damage far too much.
Overall, the final third of the game needs a big rebalance (and the level cap should really be 14, there's more than enough XP in the game to get there...), and Act 3 really shows that the game got the Dragon Commander treatment of being released as-is. Something did feel off about how the marketing in the final months took a 180 and the release date got shifted to an earlier day of all things. I suppose Starfield didn't hamper the sales much this way, at least... Still, the community update 24 read as disingenuous, because you can see the seams holding the release version together in some places. Owning up to having messed up would have probably been a better move rather than saying that what we got was all intentional.
