There is a mod for exactly this called "Don't Eat the Owlbear Egg." I immediately downloaded that one lol.
I mean this just seems like something that must have been scrambled up along the way. Perhaps if eating the Owlbear Egg did something more significant? I don't know, perhaps with diet and exercise, a balanced breakfast featuring the Owlbear Egg might give the party some lasting boon. There could be extra dialogue options in some sort of "are you sure you want to eat the Owlbear Egg?" sequence.
Perhaps there is some disagreement there among the camp companions. A scene similar to the first use of the tadpole. For example Astarion might object, since presumably he's not eating anything on the menu. Not that the game really ever accounts for that, he seems to benefit from random potato pies or Tiefling gruel same as everyone else hehe. Perhaps all this food is just for Tav/Durge, and we're only managing our own appetites? In any case, there could still be a moment like that to reinforce some character stuff.
Maybe Jaheira balks cause she's a Druid, and Minsc has misgivings cause he's a Ranger. Probably nobody wants to see any of the companion characters being all terribly enthusiastic about eating the owlbear egg. Maybe Minthara is into it, that sorta fits. It would be more interesting though, if the Goblins were like all craven and we could trade the Owlbear Egg that way. Maybe Owlbear Eggs are poisonous to Gortash somehow, exactly like Return to Oz? Or maybe there are other options besides just pawning it off to Ester is what I'm driving at. I had my suspicions there anyway. I thought perhaps if we held onto the Owlbear Egg that eventually it might hatch or lead to a follow up. Initially I thought the Owl Bear cub might be some kind of summon similar to Scratch.
The appearance of the Owlbear cub at camp is a little bit random, and potentially easy to miss. There are a few ways to show up show up at the Goblin camp and only see the regular chicken chase. Or to mess up the sequence, and have the Owlbear still chillin' at the Goblin party, even after the camp celebration. Or worse, where Andric kills the Owlbear cub, or something like that happens. Seeing the Owlbear Cub get got is always dispiriting, but maybe if the egg could hatch a second owlbear it wouldn't be such a bummer lol.
I legit thought the Egg would have it's own thing going on, since it's a pretty big moment in the early game, but it almost feels like they were going to do something like that but then just never got around to it. Like an Unfinished Business sort of thing.
I think we can feed to the Dinosaur at the Circus by accident as well, which would probably be frustrating if something interesting were to happen with it in Act III. Just seems like there could have been more moments where the Owlbear Egg came up. It's really just that one exchange, anything else we can do with it is a bit of a waste. Like there's not even an achievement for eating the Owlbear Egg, which would be something. A special Evil ending where we are haunted by this choice? I don't know, that I have the Mod downloaded, I barely remember it's there. Like all the potions I forget to drink, or scrolls I forget to write, just sorta sits there collecting dust till we get to the Monastery. And even then I usually just end up knocking Ester out the second Lae'zel suggests it. She's like the easiest Merchant to Hold, and never seems to notice when we show up the next morning wearing her clothes, like brilliant here we go again.
I mean did no one seriously consider how cool it would be to have Owlbears with different colored feathers. Maybe a great horned owlbear, or a spotted Owlbear, or Black Owlbear, or a tiny Elf Owlbear that's like more mini? Similar to the smaller wolves mod, which I also enjoyed. More options would have been cool
Could eating the Owlbear egg in EA result in a paladin’s oath being broken? I have this vague and probably inaccurate memory that it was treated as an evil act.
Which is a bit of an aside, but it does seem that we’re intentionally being given the RP option to dine on Owlbear egg which I agree would be fine if it weren’t so easy to do by accident. I’d be for making that not possible.
"You may call it 'nonsense' if you like, but I've heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!"
Here's the thieving scoundrel caught right in the act!
Originally Posted by Anska
I don't know if it plays out any differently, if you already have the githyanki egg in your inventory but otherwise, you can tell Esther that you won't get involved and the matter is settled. The quest is not added to your journal and while you can chat with Esther about the experiment, it counts as a decision made and you can simply walk away. The owlbear egg is an option for characters who are a bit greedy or like to lead a cruel experiment astray, but it is not necessary to get out of the situation peacefully. I would even argue that giving her the owlbear egg is not part of a paragon playthrough at all, as it is a con.
Still, I agree that it should not be randomly fed to the cub, a situation during which you don't have control over what is handed out, unlike the long rest menu in which you have control over what you eat.
The thing is the egg is necessary because the point of the thread is laid out clearly - if the player wants to peacefully complete the quest.
That's the whole point. Anything outside of this singular outcome is just personal roleplay working around a problem after it occurs, when the actual point is to solve the problem so it never occurs again. To ensure other people aiming for this outcome don't end up with their egg randomly consumed too. Because although there are numerous ways to work around this problem, workarounds are not the point otherwise I could've just used CheatEngine or the ScriptExtender to spawn myself another egg and completed the quest the way I originally intended.
The point is to solve the issue of the egg getting lost due to bad game mechanics and by doing so locking the player out of a quest outcome, which is laid out in the opening post too; "ultimately leaving the player without a lore-appropriate way to peacefully complete the 'Steal The Githyanki Egg' quest (without everyone dying in ACT III)."
The only other option to complete the quest is to either kill her or give her the Githyanki egg, both of which are terrible choices so I had to choose the lesser evil by stealing it back. I also couldn't have just walked away either because I already accepted the quest hours ago at that point, believing the Owlbear Egg to be in Shadowheart's backpack as I proceeded to complete the entire Mountain Pass. Not to mention that my character roleplay got tainted the moment the egg got consumed anyway, because I'm roleplaying Eilistraee's Sword Dancer (Cleric/Bard/Paladin) who is under the sacred oath (of the Ancients) to preserve the sanctity of all life... which the game defecated upon by making her feed an unhatched baby to its big brother.
Originally Posted by The Red Queen
Could eating the Owlbear egg in EA result in a paladin’s oath being broken? I have this vague and probably inaccurate memory that it was treated as an evil act.
Which is a bit of an aside, but it does seem that we’re intentionally being given the RP option to dine on Owlbear egg which I agree would be fine if it weren’t so easy to do by accident. I’d be for making that not possible.
I could go check, but I'm pretty sure it's just the Oath Of The Ancients itself which unlike the other oaths is very strict when it comes to fighting against neutral NPCs and one of its direct acts against the oath is killing the Owlbear Cub during the battle against its mother. During EA the oath was incredibly clunky regarding NPC attitude behavior and the cub sometimes would remain permanently hostile, so it often led to an oath being broken right next to the egg.
Luckily it stopped being an issue since full release as the oaths got massive improvements, however it can still be an issue within Honour Mode; am playing through the game now as an Oath Of The Ancients Paladin and if the mother is killed before the father, the cub will remain permanently hostile and break the oath of the Paladin if they're unable to flee because its cutscene cannot trigger.
Again, I have no problem with the egg being protected from being fed to his big brother, because it's simply a waste.
But I think in the case of Esther's quest it's good enough that you can peacefully settle it by just saying no and being done with the situation. Same as you can tell Mol that you won't steal the idol for her if you are not generally comfortable with the concept of stealing a holy idol, it will lock you out of the quest reward but that's that. Sometimes the good solution is just to say no and not to accept a very dubious offer with the plan to deceive your employer. And seriously ... giving Esther the owlbear egg does not sound like preserving the sanctity of life to me either, because you can be sure nothing good will happen to that egg. But I think this conversation is going nowhere, so I agree with the request to not make the egg accidental owlbear food but not with the reasoning.
