Did BG III inherit the ironic item placement (IIP) problem from the previous game? For example, IIP is when you get an acid-dealing weapon only after you wipe out a troll colony, or you get a set of fire resistant armor only after you face a great red dragon. I am more of a planner type of person, so I would like to be able to scope out some info about my next major encounter, and then go find the stuff I will need, sort of like the way Perseus had to go out and find the Medusa head before facing the Kracken. The Greeks knew how to avoid IIP.

Well, if you were a troll wouldn't you hide the acid dripping weapons that could kill you ?

An Dragons are certainly smart enough to stash away any armor that would protect you against them.

BG2 really mastered that art form.

My first thought was like books on the floor and weapons on the bookshelf, but yeah, now I remember what you mean haha.

The plate you get after killing Firkraag would certainly have been helpful to have while trying to kill Firkraag. Just like the black scale would have been pretty helpful to kill Thaxllssillyia. Though we did get repeats of Red and Black dragons with Watcher's keep stuff and the expansion. I was kinda more bummed that most of the kickass dragon weapons and armor were tinted hot pink, which kinda clashed with the crimson Red red of the badass full plate. Minsc could pull it off with that helmet I suppose, or Mazzy but otherwise seemed to clash a bit with the better gear. The balduran arms and armor were pretty useful for beholders, but the merchant who sold them was also an expansion, so I didn't remember them until well after the Unseeing Eye stuff, but still pretty solid throughout.

I did love the dragon scale armor concept though, and wished we had seen a Dragon of every color in the main game, but we did get a Blue in Throne of Baal. Dragons were all BG2 fair though in the 10+ lvl content. In BG1 best in dragon battling was just the Wyverns. I liked how siege of Dragonspear introduced a Green dragon set up, like oh shit, but SoD doesn't quite count since its all pretty linear. I also like the idea of scouring for equipment like Perseus or doing the labours like Theseus or Herakles in anticipation of a final confrontation. The way they did Firkraag, it would have been cool if the armor was a penultimate side quest for the Paladin stronghold, meant to be endgame after returning from the Underdark, but I also liked the idea of it being made from the scale so that wasn't too much of a bait and switch. Fire is always a problem so the plate was quite useful throughout. It would have been cool though, if not going class specific if the scales could be turned into different types of armor or shields instead of just pegged to one.

Really? Heracles really could have used that impervious lion hide while facing the Nemean Lion.

Perseus really could have used that head that turns everyone who looks at it to stone while facing (OR DID HE REALLY) Medusa too

Off the top of my head, the only item I can think of that would be helpful specifically to the encounter area where you find it is the Anti-web Boots(name eludes me). Depending on where you enter the spider cave you may end up going half way through it before you get to the boots that allow you to freely traverse the place.

There's a chest, in a nest on top of a pinnacle in the underdark that took me a long, long time to get to, (needed fly) and all I found inside was a middle finger, I think it might be a quest item.

Hmm, let me think a bit here ... what could one do with a middle finger? Uh, well I guess, ummm, well no not really ... gosh, nope. I can't think of a thing, since there are no fingerprint readers in D&D. Or are there?

That's FANTASTIC!!! I hope that is actually something that you encountered in a game... if not, I immediately propose that we push to have that put somewhere in this one! If I drove myself crazy finding the one combination of special requirements to get to that one far out of the way place that I just knew I could get to and I finally got there just to discover that the developers had literally given me the middle finger... I would laugh my ever loving you-know-what off... They could even name it "Larian's middle finger", just to drive it in a little deeper... Oh, man... I'd get such a kick out of that. Alternatively, instead of a middle finger, they could give you an edible item labeled 'A bag of *Richards"...

Ha no it didn't actually happen, what I actually found was 3 or 5 gold, but I love the idea of easter eggs for people spending a little too much time trying to glitch the geometry.

There are a lot of chests that seem to have placeholder non-loot, so I'm hopeful the BG sense of humor about loot will show itself.

IIP is generally good as long as that doesn't make the loot absolutely worthless.

If you only get a weapon of anti liches after killing the only lich in the game that doesn't feel satisfying. But if you get it after killing a particularly hard one, and there will be more in the future, then the humor is felt but there is still a reward. Or if it is the only lich, the weapon should have other effects to make it worth it.

That being said, in general it is pretty great to have IIP.