Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Why even have "evil" path?

Camellia is one character that gives you an ultimatum, either do what she wants and completely fuck up your morally good character or you kill her on the spot. It's ok, some characters are set on not changing... I could see Karlach like her.

Or they could have gone the Ember route with Karlach, whom doesn't give you any sorts of ultimatums and she stays with you even if you are evil, it's generally a good recipe for good banter and arguments on what's good and what not.


I love you.

One of the major things about this is that people associate "Evil" as specifically "Murderhobo".

When Evil in DnD alignment is more just self-serving as opposed to just "Lets be a dick and murder people because we can"

Sure, you do have Chaotic Evil creatures and characters that ARE murderhobos or want to mass genocide. But it's not the only depiction of "Evil"

Technically, the whole Creche situation is completely Evil. You don't hand over the artifact because YOU WANT it for your own personal gain (That gain being not squidifying). The Emperor is Evil because his entire motivation is self-preservation.

But people gloss over those aspects because the "Good" path railroads you through these things anyway and you literally just game over if you pre-emptively murder the Emperor or if you actually hand over the artifact (One of the many problems caused by the stupid plot device...)

An "Evil" path doesn't even necessarily have to follow the Absolute. In fact, a character that was evil and wasn't a murderhobo would end up going the "Neutral" path in Act 1, as it's not in their best interest to get involved with the quarrels of the Goblins/Tieflings.

It's one of the annoying things about writing in general. There's so many possibilities that can take you down different paths and even possibilities that take you down the same path but for different reasons. An evil character could help the tieflings just because they want to get the information out of Halsin and he won't talk unless you murder the Goblin leaders just as much as an evil character might side with Minthara and go wipe out the tieflings because she's offering the Absolute (Which is suggested to be power and is at the very least, status within the organization) or an evil character might just peace out because none of this concerns them and they just want the tadpole out of their brain.

Yet no writing will ever account for that. It's all "If you help people = Good path" and "Murder everyone = Evil path", no nuance. No involvement of character motivations.

I'm torn on which one to romance on my current playthrough xD I played Azata first, and playing Demon now, I'm shook over how different things feel in certain interactions...

But as far as companions are concerned, I'd be okay with BG3 having companions like Harrim (pf Kingmaker), for example. Not necessarily evil, but just neutral weirdos with their own fun spin on life and fun interactions. I feel like game suffers from every NPC being romance-able, and we're missing out on funner companions as a result - I'd like to have a kobold buddy, or a golem, or something! The world of BG3 is so whacky, but companions are all so grounded

That is all true, though all those revelations regarding the nature of 'the Absolute' and its role in the chosen's plans are not information you have beforehand. I think you can still justify your evil character initially taking that path and eventually coming to the realization that 'serving the Absolute' means partaking in the plot of the chosen, either by helping it succeed or by usurping them. This is enabled by having the prism in your possession, allowing you to freely pursue your own agenda. It could even be used to fuel the Dark Urge quest to reclaim their seat as Bhaal's chosen.

Agree again. When it comes to romances, I prefer quality over quantity. But like I said in my previous post... I don't like how romances are handled in bg3. I definitely prefer older rpgs and their systems with restrictions even if that means I will end up without a romance. As a lesbian, I'm really used to it in games ¯\_(?)_/¯ I prefer good story over pandering.

And this is why Pathfinder wins once again with companions and story. Not everyone was romancable and that was a good thing.



Fellow Camellia enjoyer <3

Wrath of the Righteous is one of my all time favorite games. Frankly, I think the reason that it works so well is because of its own restrictions it presents. Because you choose which path you want to go down and then you have to stick to that path until a few set places. You get to choose what story you want fairly early on, and you still get choices and flexibility within that story, but the choice of story still applies. I think that if Larian tried making WotR they'd have done something stupid like trying to make it so you can switch paths whenever you like and nonsense like that.

Speaking of Owlcat, I played their Rogue Trader game and it was the first and likely only game where I played an evil run to the end. I don't like playing evil, but playing a Chaos aligned character felt really cool and fun and while the story didn't branch as drastically as it did in WotR, I still felt like they really tailored the chaos run quite well. I also think that characters were a bit more lenient with me than perhaps they should have been, but I don't mind that, something had to be sacrificed and I'm glad that was it.

I think a big part of why Owlcat manages to pull this sort of thing off and Larian didn't is because Owlcat seems to put emphasis on making the story about the player character, whereas Larian, at least with BG3, seems to focus on the player behind the screen. I feel that everything is geared towards letting the player get away with doing dumb stuff, and they don't really consider Tav to be a character who is meant to have agency. The player has agency in that they can go wherever and poke whatever they like, but Tav is a husk through which the player is able to see what happens if they do any given thing. In BG3, the story isn't about Tav, the story is another thing for the player to see and prod at to see what silly reactions pop out. Whereas in all three of owlcat's games, the story felt well and truly ABOUT the main character, about their experiences, struggles and how they change or develop as a result of those experiences.

Fellow heretic <3
Heretic path in RT is one of the most unpolished ones, but even in that state, it was still so fun, that I can't get myself to replay game as a dogmatic xD

Overall, in Owlcat's games, I always enjoyed playing evil characters, and never felt spited or slighted by the game for my choices. There was always unique content for the path, it felt worthwhile and it felt rewarding on a story basis - and story would make me feel bad for being a bad person too, you can't go without it. I think this sort of thing is doable but it's probably easier for Owlcat because their games don't feature a lot of VA or cutscenes.

It's still very doable for bg3 though. Not the scope Owlcat's games have, but... smaller, definitely. But of course, we won't see anything of the sort, because Larian refuses to fix poor Minthara 7 months after the premiere and she's an evil companion. If we can't get some solid fixes on one NPC, then we definitely won't get some unique "evil" fixes for the game.

Totally agree. It's very unfortunate that they chose to make all companions romanceable and by consequence limiting most of them to young, medium size humanoids.

Unpopular opinion here: I miss the old alignment system, and I also miss the Monk and Paladin classes having to choose deities.

Honestly, I think this is due to the changes in the world today. I'm 61 and I feel like I don't belong on this planet anymore, let alone playing RPG games.

I do have hope, though, and it makes me happy to see that Wrath of the Righteous is as developed as it is. I played it a bit when it released, but stopped because I knew they would keep adding to it. Kingmaker is completely finished, so I'll play that first. The only thing I hate is that the companion AI is just... meaningless.

Also, I still have hope for Dragon Age 4. Origins is still one of my favorite games.

And I still haven't played the last Mass Effect DLC and I just purchased the Legendary Edition and ME2. And there's another ME game in the works as well.

As long as we still keep giving feedback, there is a chance that new games will be made with these issues in mind and not just driven by social media (which is the lowest common denominator). My wish for the world is that social media becomes a pariah.

Damn, that Wyll sounds like a character I would actually keep in my party. Such a shame they changed him. I saw a video where they said the change was done because he wasn't popular, but I don't think he's very popular now either. When patch 5 hit, it took days for his epilogue videos to be posted on YT, while other characters had them almost immediately.


Thank you, I really appreciate it. First Astarion getting changed, now Minthara...

I saw videos of some of his scenes and I so wish they were readded to the game, they really showed a lot of nuance, like you said. We even created a thread about it some time ago, but I doubt it's gonna change anything.


The old Bioware is dead, I'm afraid. Now it's just another studio that EA ruined. You could see a drop in the quality of their games as soon as they got purchased. Almost all, if not all the talent that made it what it was, left a long time ago.

It's not even that they're all romanceable that's the problem. It's that they're all sexable.

It is completely possible to have a non-sexual relationship. Since relationships are not defined by sex. So you could have a romance with say a golem, just one where you don't end up banging or having 40234537434 patches to improve kissing scenes.

A secondary limitation to companions are that most of the companions are Origin characters, meaning that someone can play as them which means they have to fit into the narrative of "Gets tadpoled > Finds a party of other tadpoled people > Said people try to get in bed with you > Become squid". So having any more unconventional characters simply doesn't work, like having an Origin character Golem or Skeleton literally cannot function with the base plot point of being tadpoled.

There's of course characters like Halsin, Minthara, Jahera and Minsc which are non-Origin companions where such unconventional characters can work... But these were last minute companions and implemented purely for fanservice anyway...

I think this is a big part of the problem and why I also feel that Owlcat's crpgs (and games like Pillars of Eternity) are superior to BG3 when it comes to roleplaying. The full voice over for BG3 limits the possibility to give us more story and more roleplaying opportunities because every dialogue needs a VA (who are quite expensive) and an animated cutscene (a lot which are done with mocap).

I think I've been so spoiled after playing through all of the WotR paths that I was really confused about the lack of additional content when playing the evil route in BG3.

Meanwhile you have Solasta that fully voices player characters... Even allows you to tune your characters personalities based on select traits... AND has every party member interact with every dialogue...

Something that's also missing in BG3. Companions interactions during dialogues, or interactions between each other in the camp etc... But at this point we're going completely offtopic.

At this point it would be better if they removed the rest of the "evil" content. The illusion of freedom can only lead to disappointment. It's fine if a game does not provide an alternative evil path, but it's not fine to "punish" the players for their choices with a simple lack of content.

Can someone outline what an evil path looks like from a storytelling perspective?

For instance, I know what a good path looks like. You start, get a call to action of some sort, then face challenges along the way to overcoming an evil. There's a dark moment where it looks like you're not going to win, and at the climax you basically succeed or fail. That's kinda the simple version.

Now say you're evil. I guess you still get a call to action of some sort. You still have to face challenges along the way. But the challenges presented in the story are evil, by nature. So this becomes a story of evil overcoming evil? Or is your challenge to join the evil?

I mean, what exactly are people wanting to happen? What is it that you picture your character doing that your character can't do?

1. Joining Gortash? What does that look like? You just want two thrones at the end? One for you and one for Gortash?
2. Something else? What?

Maybe you could join Ketheric and lead the army to attack Baldur's Gate?

--I guess what I'm saying is that it feels like a completely new game would have to be written within the confines of what's happening. For example, if you join Gortash, what changes? Are you and Gortash suddenly hashing out plans, doing quests and overcoming some obstacle together?

I have been wondering about this too. I picked up BG3 because I was thirsty for a good immersive sim. I am totally ok with a linear story as long as I have variety in how I deal with the problems presented to me and especially act 1 is doing a really good job in this regard.

Making the tangent a bit longer and coming from immersive sims, I really liked how the first two Dishonored games treated the "good" and "evil", low and high chaos paths, because it was treated as cause and effect. If you were careful, showed restrained and went for none violent options, you inspired the city as a whole and the NPC in particular to be less cruel as well. If you went murderhobo, otoh, the whole city would be in uproar and - with a dog-eats-dog mentality confirmed - you created a much crueler world through your actions.

I would have liked a similar approach in BG3, especially in regards to the other tapolees. You learn relatively early that all of the cultists are influenced or tadpole controlled. You can make use of the tadpole powers yourself or reject them for your own benefit, but you can't really do anything for the poor dupes under the Absolute's control. I am very glad we get to save Minthara now because no matter what you think about Drow, she didn't deserve that.

So from my point of view, making the "good" and "evil" routes more about variations within a linear storyline would be my preferred approach - characters might be on different sides depending on choice, more or less cultists (does raiding that shipment stash in Moonrise even change anything?) depending on if you tried to destroy tadpoles or not, &c. I also like it if the "good" choice isn't the fun and easy choice but maybe the mechanically harder one - which they do on several occasions. It would have been fun if the tadpoles actually corrupted you and allowed the emperor to take away some of your agency.

That is actually a really good question. I'm interested in hearing peoples' answers to this.



I think that would be an interesting approach that I'd have enjoyed. Dynamic but less likely to result in unsustainable content bloat.

For me, it would mostly just be changing the ending to something more satisfying. Like instead of Gortash dying to the netherbrain you could actually rule with him or choose to betray him in the end. Then it could show the effect you've had on Baldur's Gate, what became of your old companions, have some parting words with them etc. Or maybe you could have an epilogue party with your companions who are down with evil lol. Other than that I'm personally pretty satisfied with the rest of the game. It would be nice to have more of a reaction to your evil choices from various people throughout the game, but I wouldn't mind if just the endings changed to something more substantial and with some closure other than just sitting on top of the netherbrain looking evil.