Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Daisy, the Absolute, and the Emperor [SPOILERS]

As long as we are railroaded into helping the emperor he will suck as it also means he must stay a empty shell so that he is compatible with everything, no matter hiw well this is explained. And as long as Larian wants to keep their consequence free tadpole superpowers we will be stuck with the emperor.

Daisy at least promised conflict and meaningful decisions. The Emperor has none of that.

It's deeply ironic if the tadpole powers remained just as unpopular of a mechanic despite the idea being that the Emperor and them being consequence-free was supposed to make them more appealing.

They are pushed much too hard as "something you will absolutely need to survive" when the game is a cakewalk even without them, while someone playing a tadpole-abstinent character will reject them on principle, and the way they are obtained and generally implemented clashes too strongly with the game's (granted, already rather unfaithful) attempts at recreating a 5e (and D&D in general) experience.

Now, if certain moments (like the colony in Act 2) changed depending on your state of parasite attunement, or if your degree of consumption affected your base values (say, a +1 to Intelligence and Wisdom per every few tadpoles, enhanced saves, higher attack) were the game actually difficult enough to warrant wanting to resort to tadpoles (and having consequences for doing so), it'd be a different story. Otherwise you have an allegedly dangerous condition which you are encouraged to indulge in for the heck of it. I guess it's a modern lifestyle thing, so it fits with the rest of the less-than-impressive bits of writing the game has.

It would have been so nice if we saw some things differently, or could interact with more things in the colony if we had consumed some tadpoles.

Regarding Daisy, I never thought I was supposed to be tricked into trusting it. I was going to do at least a couple playthroughs - one using the powers and one without them, with different characters whose personalities fit the decisions.

Exactly, as if I wrote it myself.

On another note, did Larian comment on the state of the story or fix any of the story problems yet? I got tired of waiting around so I have been gone from the forums for a while. Any news on a definitive edition maybe?

No, you, as the player, weren't supposed to be tricked that way, but with Daisy, you could roleplay a character who was, quite literally, being seduced into using the tadpoles. You can play such a character without feeling stupid, because we all know sex can make even the best of us do stupid, self-destructive things. Meanwhile, the Emperor wants to convince us of the reasonableness of using the tadpoles, which...it plainly isn't, and in order to do it nonetheless you'd have to be either the dumbass of the century or reckless to the point of insanity. Thus, the Emperor's suggestions always come across as suspicious to anyone with INT or WIS of 8 or greater. But if you play that way consistently, the game "rewards" you by being forced into mind-flayer-ness. Yuck. Well, you or someone else on your side, but thematically, it makes no difference.

Yea that's what I meant. But people say Daisy was changed to the Emperor because players didn't trust it, which was surprising to me, because of course you wouldn't trust it, but you can rp someone who wants what it's selling.

The reason Daisy was removed and the entire plot rewritten at the last moment with an obvious drop in quality was because Larian wanted players to use tadpole superpowerz because according to Larians thinking, not having even more broken powers is lame and boring.

Weird reason. I'm sure people would have used the tasty worm superpowerz more than enough because there's enough content to do more than one playthrough.

And for me this had the opposite effect. I never use them now because the only consequence is that my character looks different if I consume the very special worm.

For some reason Larian decided last minute to rewrite the game to cater to people who only play one run. They removed all consequences and decision to lock you into a path and generally made everything experienceable with the exception of Minthara which was too big of a change to add.

I agree, or rather I want to, and maybe that's part of why I want to try so hard to like the Emperor as a character. For me, I don't see the Emperor as a complex character as written, but I think there's enough that people can infer complexity if they want. I think that process of interpreting a character's actions can be a ton of fun, it's just unfortunate that for a major character, players need to do a lot of the legwork. But I'll also admit that I found all of the companions to be thoroughly uninteresting, so it isn't a super high bar for me. However, I'm not sure that I'll ever really like the Emperor as a concept, mostly because it'll always represent the departure from what appeared to be a more interesting story to me - one with choices and consequences, where the weight of the player's situation felt heavy. As you and others have mentioned, due to the role the Emperor has to fill, it really is limited in what those consequences could be, so I'm not really expecting there to be any huge changes there. As I had previously mentioned, it would be absolutely shocking to me at this point if Daisy, or rather, consequences to tadpoles returned.


Also, I want to be clear I don't think it's necessary (or would be good writing) if the story spelled out every detail about the Emperor, but I suppose part of what feels unsatisfying to me about the character is that it feels as if the game makes a habit of using what should be "big reveals" almost as throwaway lines. For instance, I brought up that I didn't feel as though the game gave proper attention to how much the Emperor retained of its host's memories/personality because for mindflayer lore, retaining any significant portion of those should be a big deal. I guess I should go back and review just what is covered, but I believe that we really only get the Emperor itself claiming that it retained them - with the game making a few attempts at showing that the Emperor does have memories of its past life - the personality factor is a little trickier. We never actually met the Emperor's host, not even in the earlier Baldur's Gate games so there isn't much to work off there. The point I wanted to make about the Emperor liking being an illithid is that it seems ill-fitting that it would allow those personality traits to seep through, assuming what we see is that original personality, especially as doing so only undermines its goal of working with us to assure its freedom. If we don't assume this, then the Emperor is acting uncharacteristic of an illithid, just because?

Another issue I have, especially related to this, is that the game makes what should be a big deal ultimately of little or no relevance. Apparently, the Emperor having any of its host's memories or personality had zero effect on it breaking free from the elder brain and may have only played a role in it being the mindflayer the Absolute chose to retrieve the astral prism. It feels as though the choice for the Emperor to have retained its memories/personality was all to help build it up as a more trustworthy character to facilitate players consuming additional tadpoles, which feels extremely weak and a very disappointing use of what should have been a big deal.


That is one situation that I think rather than any additional explanation, it should really just be outright removed. I don't feel as though the Emperor's decision to join the Absolute makes any sense for it. Certainly what feels the worst about that situation is there's not even dialogue to offer working together, which, I do agree does make sense for both sides.


This is fair and it's not a point I disagree with people about - it's not necessarily that I think Daisy alone was going to be a more interesting character or that what Daisy was and was trying to do wasn't incredibly obvious, but I think part of the issue with examining what we got in EA with Daisy, regardless of whether or not you actually played EA, is that it only showed half of the conflict. In EA, we never met the one who would be our protector - datamining during EA showed this was likely to be Orpheus, though it's possible that they had intended to change it, maybe to the Emperor even.

On that note, I really liked that we didn't get confirmation that we were being protected in EA Act I. I think it helped create a sense of tension that made our situation feel as dire as the premise sets it out to be. Technically, this may exist to some extent still, as you need to long rest to trigger meeting the Guardian. But in the earlier version of the game, the tension lasted at least throughout the end of Act I. As others have pointed out, this doesn't really work with consequence free tadpoles so when they were removed so too was any lingering tension that really just makes the story feel bland in my opinion.

That might be changing? Spoilers I suppose because it's from apparent Patch 4 datamining and not confirmed


I think the furthest we ever got in that regard is the news/announcement shortly after release of Larian saying they were interested in "doing more after all" - whatever that entails. I don't remember hearing any work on story outside of some adjustments to companions - like the Karlach ending or the above spoiler, but nothing for the main story.

Interesting to see that this thread is still going strong. The latest patch has somewhat rekindled my interest in this game but I inevitably run into the same issue I've had after my first playthrough.

The Guardian/Emperor as it exists right now makes any prospect of replaying this game thoroughly uninteresting to me as its main purpose is to always railroad you back to a very narrow path, thereby rendering a lot of the interesting, pivotal choices during the game's main story utterly meaningless. The character effectively functions as a roadblock that tells you "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further". Once you realise that your inputs in all of the scenes involving the guardian have no consequences it becomes very hard to sit through them again and actually take them seriously. But I guess that's just kind of hole you dig yourself into when you create a character that is effectively a mystery box inside a (literal) mystery box.

Oh, I remember this thread. From months ago.

The Emperor is my biggest gripe with this game. I get it, there is Illithid powers and you want me to use it if I want to.
It would've made so much sense... If the Emperor was just the ACTUAL EMPEROR of Illithid Empire and not Balduran's ill-chosen nickname. Because you have *actual* considerations to make when it comes to your allies, and the objectives of your companions.


Orpheus route: Kill everything Illithid
Illithid Emperor route: Free the Elder Brain and destroy the Gith
Jerggyl's Mortal soul route: Save the city, cure yourself
Bhaal route : Murder everything.

And, I don't know, maybe:
Vlaakith Route: Capture/secure Oprheus, kill the Illihid.
Vampire/ Shar route: Save the City, rule it from the Darkness.
Mystra/ Selune route: Save the City : Bring magic and light and sparkly things that glow in the darkness.
Ultimate Gale 2.4 Beta EXTREME Edition: Prove you are Mystra's Equal.

And if all else fails, pissed off everyone - begged, borrowed and stole:
Raphael route: Secure the Crown [and get Karlach's heart back?]

Love it. For story but especially for roleplay purpose. As Shar's chosen and with an ascended vampire lord in the crew how did I become the hero of Baldurs Gate? ("all the [efforts] it was worth it for this *happy end, final curtain*)

Something like your suggestion is what we would have got, if the ending of the main story received the same attention and polish as act 1. And frankly, it's what has been advertised ("choices and consequences.") Still looking forward to a DE...

It's funny though, how you can be standing there with Sharran SH, ascended Astarion and Minthara, and the narrator will go on about you being a hero. I'm sure the tieflings, the harpers and those 7000 souls we just sacrificed to give Astarion bigger fangs would beg to differ.

I generally don't like the hero talk, especially when the main character is singled out in dialogue to proclaim that they did something. Most of the time the thing in question was a team effort and I would prefer to be able to express that. After all, even though your companions are npc, they are supposed to be your character's friends, it's just rude to not treat them as equals.

As for the tadpoles, I have never used more than two per character on Astarion and Gale because I felt that Lae'zel and Shart simply wouldn't allow such stupidity. ^^ I was also surprised that there only is the slightest ramification, when you use one. (You can't stop on the astral tadpole and have to succeed a wis check to deny it.

I feel the same way. I still enjoy talking about the game but I really don't have desire to play again unless that railroad moment is removed.

I will give credit to Larian for adding the party at the end. Luckily I had a save right at the end had the opportunity to read the epilogues. Lae'zel's dialogue dampened the feeling of failure I was left with at the end. I assumed that any rebellion without Orpheus' power was doomed to failure - glad to see that's not the case.

The need to transform someone into an illithid still doesn't sit well.

Will Larian feel compelled to change that at time when people are getting BG3 tattoos and the game is winning every possible award? I hope so but it's a pretty slim hope.

How far Larian would sully their creative/artistic choices to satisfy.... 16 people on this forum who wish the ending would *theoretically* (not actually surveyed within minimum 1000, random sampled, player base) --- make *all* the player happy... I wonder?

Halsin exists, there's nowhere further to go really.

I am not familiar with the discussion revolving around Halsin, which I am sure involved healthy amount of conspiratorial thoughts, 10 kilograms of negative presumptions and bad faith discussion.