Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion What would you have preferred instead of the Emperor?

Daisy seems better,

I agree that the flaw of act three is lack of polish but I don't think the problem is bloat. I do agree that Gortash and Orin needed more of build up.

For me, as someone who cares about lore, act 3 doesn't seem like it's taking place in faerun. It's robot fights, convincing the factory workers that they have nothing to lose but their control collars, and necrofire hellfire surface fights. Gortash is written to be an empty shell of person, a populist politician with no real core to him and while that sounds promising it turns out that finding that there's no there there isn't very fun.

Besides he dies on day 3 or so. And then you just need to forget about Orin and accept that there is no reason to focus on the other quests. Yes Shadowheart I meant to save the folks but perhaps we should do that after we stop the people in from exploding into mindflayers?

You really need to forget about the main plot - which is pretty easily done - to enjoy the boss battles.

So it's hard to say what's wrong because if you focus on the parts it seems good. Yes I liked Shar Cloister fight, yes I liked the Cazador battle, yes the city is lovely and feels like Baldurs Gate ( if you ignore the foundry). But the plot doesn't tie those together.

In BG3 there was a thread that tied the various side quest together. You need to raise enough money to pay off the shadow thieves. (and, in my head cannon, get strong enough to take on superpowered archmage)

And, as I've said before, it starts on bad note. For some reason you side with The Emperor over the Githyanki. And I don't know why my monster hating Tav did that.

It's Gith vs Mind Flayer who do you side with?! "The Gith! " <game over>

F8

It's Gith vs Mind Flayer who do you side with?! Uh. I guess anything other than "side with the monster" leads to game over so . . .

Good choice! Because the only reason someone would try to kill a eldritch horror that lies, manipulates, enslaves and murders is xenophobia glad you got past your aversion to tentacles. "Well, that's not really . . ." Don't argue bigot, just apologize to nice squid man.

"Oh I'm going to give him a piece of my mind!"

Actually no you won't. You will listen while they talk and accept that we've given him the good lines. Please enjoy the film, we put lots of effort into it.

"But I want to say . . ."

You've said enough, bigot.

Whatever, onto the next part of story, I guess.

Glad you came to your senses.

Whatever the original story was ...

Agreed wholeheartedly, KillerRabbit and Greviouss. Well said.

From the datamining, the original story looked so exciting and full of depth, with all sorts of branches and alliances to make, lesser of two evils, etc. I genuinely mourn the story we should have gotten but never did. I'll take "tadpole trying to seduce us into embracing ceramorphosis and the artifact with its mysterious imprisoned entity protecting us" over the Emperor and his awful twist, and how railroaded we are into going along with him until the very end.

I actually regret playing EA because knowing what we're missing significantly lessens my overall enjoyment of the game. Ignorance is bliss, as they say.

That little tangent is exactly how it feels to talk to the Emperor. Well said.

hahaha

yes, i know your feeling.
strictly, the screenwriter should consider polish the second half the story.

i said that a game story is "good", the score is 75/100.
and you are talking that how to polish a game story to 85+/100 (great~excellent).

i think that if some important factor or event delays the netherbrain's threat, this will make our player character has plenty time to explore the city.
or there is some threat beyond the netherbrain, we gain enough buffer time after defeat the netherbrain, this is also make our player character has plenty time to explore the city.

..., since the game official post --"this game can be played again and again", we have 6 patches now, and might be coming more.

i think that we can have 10% expection to hope the act 3 overhaul.
though the revision scale should be as an expansion pack, but i think they have enough funds to do the things that they original plan, not the rushed edition.

This isn't at all imaginative, but I would rather just have the artifact be a powerful ward that radiates a magical aura negating forms of mind control / telepathy / what have you. No need for anyone to 'live' inside it.

I understand that that would break a number of story lines, but I'd rather accept a magical macguffin than endure the insufferable Emperor Exposition and his absurd backstory.

in the fact, i am curious that how many players see the emperor's true appearance the reaction is -- "oh, my God! what is it !!!?"

this should be interestring to have a survey -- "happiness index"

as i was said, this chess game is setting by the existence who can order withers.
i do not think the existence's taste is so bad to ruin players' feeling.
a true love is the core award for the players, not a tease to the players.

this should be a big inducement that encourages players stop game play after they finish act 2 :roll:

Yep, all those annoying conversations, and you still arrive at the same ending as if they don't matter. At least with Daisy you could skip the dreams.

I'm ok with the emperor. I think it works better than "Daisy". The way I interpret it is that the emperor put the tadpole in you. Then, takes care of you while posting you to fight against the brain. But also has a conversation with you about how he used to be an adventurer before turning and about his independence from the brain is important to him. And at some point Ommelum question if his race is evolving. That for me is the key. The emperor is an evolution and, in a way, the illithid that you are becoming, the tadpole, is his "child". Or at least another like him. It is an attempt to create more independent Illithids like him. The illithid you might become won't be YOU, but the tadpole with your memories and part of your personality. A new being. I think that for the emperor, romance included, what he sees is the illithid you are supposed to become. Someone like him. In that sense, many things he says are "not lies" from his perspective. But of course he is not saying that you would be absorbed by the tadpole and no longer be you.

For me, they should have show that by taking away some choices (showing them in grey but not allowing to pick them) the more tadpoles you consume and the more illithid you have become. Since you are no longer you. But it is just my take.

That would be an improvement. I could also come to like - or rather learn to love to hate - the emperor if:

1. Tav had any good lines

2. Your words had any impact

The idea that you working with a master manipulator with a god level charm skills is good set up for a villain. But we never really get a scales drop from our eye moment. Instead we listen to him speak and our responses boil down to: "please say your next line now"

Compare this with Shadowheart who has meaningful responses to critical questions and your responses really do alter the relationship. Having romanced Shadowheart twice I decided to take a hostile tone in my current run. "Whatever Sharran" And now she's dead: Lae'zel and I were forced to kill her. I feel bad for her.

Something that would have been fun would be if Raphael could have given us something that broke the illithid charm and allowed Tav to ask challenging questions.

Raphael: ". . . very well, I'll be here if you reconsider. But, before you leave, please accept a parting gift. If you feel tongue tied when speaking to the illithid say the words "purgare animum meum" and even the strongest charm will be broken. I think you'll find that the cat has your tongue. And his claws have dug quite deep.

I like the story. I also agree with the premise as outlined in some posts in the "The Emperor Tadpoled us" thread that "Daisy" was the Emperor but that Larian changed her to the "guardian" because they were aware players were not embracing her offers and powers as she seemed too evil.

Is it the greatest story ever told? No. but it is good enough and better than I was expecting. I bought the game for all of its attributes and while the story was important, it was not the most important feature to me.

I suspect that Daisy was the absolute, the force protecting us may have been The Emperor, yes. In any case I've never swallowed a tadpole - it's just stupid on top of being evil - and the change to guardian did nothing to make me think that it would be good idea to trade bits of my brain and soul for power.

While I agree it was designed to make tadpole consumption more - well - palatable to the player it didn't succeed. So returning to the question that started the thread. Part and parcel of what I would like to see changed is for players who avoid tadpoles to be rewarded. And avoiding a will check for a cosmetic change doesn't do that.

emperor does hide and mislead the issue things. and, emperor does want the tadpole replace your will finally, just as his tadpole replace balduran.

but i read dnd official setting, a very few hosts can conquer their tadpoles' will and gain the control after they transfor to an illithid.
ommelum is one of the very few examples, but balduran isn't.

i think our player character can keep his will well via proper will saving throw, since our player character holds the prism and will gain the stones, which can much reduce the DC of will saving throw.

so, your player character's dialog options won't be limited, just you have to dice proper for the options.

in this light, i think emperor is too mild, since our player character don't have the reason give him the 3 stones.
and emperor ought to try hard to cheat your stones when you gain the first one.
but the embarrassed thing is -- if you counterattack him, you will loose the protection from the prism.

this is why some players suggest the protection is from the prism itself nature, we neen't and best don't have emperor as a meduim.
they suggest the original daicy -- the tadpole replaces emperor.
daicy will be much nastier and more aggressive to try dominate you if you reject her.
and your player character can counterattack/control her once you gain the first nerther stone.

Omeluum is talking about the modified tadpole here, since he doesn't know how it was done.

The emperor is written like an entry from wikipedia; illithids have always viewed themselves as superior and everyone else as lesser, and that is what the emperor meant by evolution. Even him dealing woth loneliness by mind thralling Stelmane is classic mind flayer. The only unusual aspect of his personality is that he remembers being Balduran, before BG3 this was only possible with gnomes. The only mind flayer that is the outlier, is Omeluum, as he indeed does not act as expected.

The issue is that even if the manipulation is obvious, due to the above, you still have go along with it. Because the interactions with the emperor, even antagonistic, don't matter. With Daisy there was an alternative path at least. Effectively the emperor is just Larian making it easier for thrmselves, because instead of writing two paths through the game, there is just this one with no reactivity.

Couple points. Omeluum isn't an outlier in this particular sense. Mindflayers that have or are born with arcane power exist in the lore and they usually go one of two directions: killed outright or they escape/get kicked out because the arcane power makes them especially resilient to control.

The Emperor on the other hand is just a normal ceramorphosis'd mindflayer, and as he tells you himself he has no such ability to resist an Elder Brain. The memory you can kinda get away with handwaving since he gets rescued quickly after the infection. Spending enough time with those memories and without being controlled would probably make that sense of self stick more as Mind Flayers used to develop independent personalities before the Elder Brains took complete control of their colonies as a survival measure after their empire was overthrown. The main problem with the Emperor isn't that he remembers who he was, it's more that in spite of EVERYTHING he says and does, if the toddler doesn't get his way he just takes his ball and goes home. That only makes sense in the case where his goal was always to rejoin the colony which it explicitly is not even when he leaves to do it.

There's also the issue with who the Emperor was actually supposed to be. As far as I can tell, he was retrofitted into the role of Guardian, and Daisy was going to have a different far more thematic approach while he was going to have something separate going on at some point. For a campaign with such a focus on mindflayers, meeting Balduran transformed into one would genuinely be a pretty sick thread to pull on if it didn't feel like it was in the wrong place. Him being so hesitant to let you find out makes a lot more sense if he's trying to maintain secrecy about his position in the city rather than just because he doesn't want HIS ONLY ALLY WHO MIGHT HAVE EVEN ESTABLISHED GREAT TRUST WITH HIM to know anything.

I don't mean Omeluum's arcane powers, but how he acts. Omeluum finds companionship with Bluurg and doesn't seem to try to transform him, or mind thrall him. He does not prioritize his own life above others, even asks you to rescue the duke intead of him on the submarine.

My guess is that the emperor was intended to be the main antagonist; perhaps the idea was that instead of being controlled by the elder brain, he was the mind flayer that controlled it instead.

OH, I get you now. There's a small chance they took that from Critical Role season 1. At some point I think during the campaign wrap-up Matt talks about an arcane mindflayer they encountered early on after it was exiled and living alone, and how if they actually established trust and companionship with it, it could actually have become a real ally and friend to them. Otherwise that's also probably pulled from the lore bits about how they develop their own personalities. One that felt the need to escape because they weren't under control might have sympathized with those that mindflayers WOULD control and decided not to engage in such a thing. I don't know of any other notable examples, but it's the exact type of interesting thing that players would want to engage with in a tabletop campaign so I can see why they wrote Omeluum this way. Being willing to prioritize saving others is at least nicely consistent with the research he's doing to find alternate viable sustenance for his species.

i catch an interesting description from https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Mind_flayer
can our tav possible be "the Adversary"? if conditions are gothered.


While partialism normally takes the form of a few random memories, it is possible, if extremely uncommon, for a complete memory complexus capable of individual action to survive the ceremorphosis process. There were no records of these partial personalities being cognizant enough to escape active attempts at destruction, but there was an illithid myth of an entity called the Adversary, an illithid whose partial personality was strong enough to subsume the mind flayer's personality and sought to overthrow illithidkind under the innocent guise of a fellow mind flayer. There was no evidence for the legend, but it was popular as a story to frighten young-adult mind flayers.[88] However, one illithid calling itself The Emperor was somehow able to retain all memories of its previous life, and consequently broke free from the illithid hive mind to pursue its own agenda.