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So I've read some of the descent into avernus campaign, so I get those references but hey, it's been 100 years!
How's the politics different, is technology the same? Is Drizzit still Drizziting? Any fun wars or heroics? Gods still the same?

I assume we're all familiar with the first two games so, what else has changed since then that would be cool or helpful to know playing BG3?
Does WotC have other lore for these 100 years or is avernus all that's happened so far?

And if you know of events/changes/innovations/etc over that century, how would you like them referenced or reflected in game?


Minthara is the best character and she NEEDS to be recruitable if you side with the grove!
Also- I support the important thread in the suggestions: Let everyone in the Party Speak
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Quite a bit, actually! Here's some fun facts of mine:

Drizzt *is* still Drizzting, thank you for asking!

Tech's more or less the same, but there's the odd flintlock pistol kicking around now.

Politics are a bit different in a few ways. The Zhents are way less coherent now, being less a shadowy cabal of thugs and wizards and more of small cells of a mafia without any coherent direction. They even come into conflict with other Zhent groups every now and again.
A lot of the bigger cities along the Sword Coast (Waterdeep, Neverwinter, Baldur's Gate, Mirabar and Elturel, to name a few) formed the equivalent of the UN dedicated to keeping the roads and trade safe. One of the more important figures is Lord Dagult Neverember, who is a grade-a asshole who currently rules Neverwinter (Still recovering after a natural disaster) and used to be Open Lord of Waterdeep. He was an embezzling racist who I personally dislike. Laeral Silverhand, an old friend of Khelben Blackstaff now rules Waterdeep as its open lord. The fellow who was kidnapped, Grand Duke Ulder Ravengard, represents Baldur's Gate in the Lord's Alliance and leads the Flaming Fist. Honestly, this isn't the first time he's been kidnapped, probably because he's so competent taht with him in charge the Fist can usually sort things out.

A lot has happened since Descent into Avernus. Two whole editions, in fact! A ton of gods are back too, including the Dead Three, which means that Bhaal is actually alive after the last Bhaalspawn was killed and his divine essence freed. Mystra died and came back again in the time since the original Baldur's Gate games. A bunch of other stuff happened, but this is just the stuff off the top of the ol' dome.


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Basically when 4E happened there was a 100 year time jump and an entire continent appeared on Toril introducing dragonborn while magic went crazy some mountains spontaneously started to levitate, etc.
But 4E was a gigantic failure and in their panic they reset the FR in 5E. They did not undo the time jump, but the extra continent vanished again and everything that was ever popular in D&D was brought back. The old characters from the Drizzt books were reincarnated because reasons, the old gods like Bhaal were resurrected, etc.

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4E happened and everybody died and 100 years went by but it was unpopular so they went back on all the changes and now everybody is alive again and everything is exactly like it was before even though it's 100 years later except Tieflings are now awfully bland and there's boring Dragonborn everywhere.

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A lot has happened in between Baldur's Gate 2 Shadows of Amn, Throne of Bhaal and Baldur's Gate 3, everything is explained in novels and sourcebooks. Technology hasn't changed, but the rules of spellcasting temporarily changed. 15 years after Throne of Bhaal, there was the Spellplague incident and blah blah blah... 4th Edition made us jump 100 years into the future of the Forgotten Realms, a move that pleased NOBODY, especially with Neverwinter being destroyed by the volcano that isn't far from it! Don't worry, Neverwinter got rebuilt.

Drizzt has been through a lot in the decades between BG2 and BG3, you wouldn't believe it. His companions Wulfgar, Catti-Brie, Regis and Bruenor died (Catti-Brie and Regis died during the Spellplague, Wulfgar died at the age of 100, Bruenor died from old age too), but they all reincarnated a couple decades before Descent Into Avernus, though. There have been a few wars, like the Shadovar-Thay Wars. And there was a time when the Cult of the Dragon tried to bring Tiamat out of the Nine Hells. As for the pantheon of gods, they have gone through some crazy crap too. Some gods that died came back during the Second Sundering like Bhaal, Myrkul, etc.

I made a thread listing most of the Forgotten Realms set novels, sourcebooks, comic books and video games in chronological order, from the beginning of time in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting to Baldur's Gate 3.

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Here lies the problem with BG3. Everything is explained in books and novels but not IN THE GAME. Immersion and lore is really lacking. But I guess thats a Larian thing...

Last edited by mr_planescapist; 04/01/21 08:55 AM.
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I assume everything thats relevant will be explained in game, onces there's a game. So far we haven't hit a town yet, and it'd be weird if randos in a druid grove or goblin fort were sitting around exposition dumping about the last century? I expect once we hit a town with a library there'll be books and scholars arguing like BG/Kingmaker/PoE/tyranny/etc did lore, maybe even the evil fortress we;re headed to next. But I wouldn't expect the wilderness to have it.

Also thanks, the reincarnation stuff sounds lame but the rest sounds like it could be fun to come up in game. Especially high level diplomacy between the city states? It could be like arcanum where there's quests dealing with unification and you dont find out till the end of the game if your actions contributing to that or made it all fall apart.

I liked the old Zhents, but having local groups probably makes them more interactable, you can run quests for them and stuff as there just another local faction with local interests and ties to the community, just an ideology rather than like a foreign nation? idk, that's how I read that anyway. I hope they turn up once we hit the city then


Minthara is the best character and she NEEDS to be recruitable if you side with the grove!
Also- I support the important thread in the suggestions: Let everyone in the Party Speak
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Originally Posted by Starshine
I assume everything thats relevant will be explained in game, onces there's a game. So far we haven't hit a town yet, and it'd be weird if randos in a druid grove or goblin fort were sitting around exposition dumping about the last century? I expect once we hit a town with a library there'll be books and scholars arguing like BG/Kingmaker/PoE/tyranny/etc did lore, maybe even the evil fortress we;re headed to next. But I wouldn't expect the wilderness to have it.

Also thanks, the reincarnation stuff sounds lame but the rest sounds like it could be fun to come up in game. Especially high level diplomacy between the city states? It could be like arcanum where there's quests dealing with unification and you dont find out till the end of the game if your actions contributing to that or made it all fall apart.

I liked the old Zhents, but having local groups probably makes them more interactable, you can run quests for them and stuff as there just another local faction with local interests and ties to the community, just an ideology rather than like a foreign nation? idk, that's how I read that anyway. I hope they turn up once we hit the city then

Well, from what I've seen in Early Access, the Second Sundering and Spellplague are mentioned in the game's story. In case you are wondering what the Second Sundering is, it is the overgod Ao creating new Tablets of Fate which caused unpredictable changes in the Forgotten Realms. The Time of Troubles (the incident when most of the gods were forced to become mortals that led up to Bhaal, Bane and Myrkul's deaths), and the Spellplague happened because Bane and Myrkul stole the original Tablets of Fate (as for the spellplague, that happened because Cyric and Shar assassinated Mystra), and Ao basically fixed all the damages the Time of Troubles and the Spellplague have done.

I hate to say it, but there is too much lore to reveal in one game. It's not like nothing has been happening in the Forgotten Realms after Throne of Bhaal and before Baldur's Gate 3, and suddenly with the announcement of Baldur's Gate 3, Larian Studios established all the lore in between Baldur's Gate 2 and 3. There are many novels and tabletop adventures and a few comic books and video games set after Throne of Bhaal, including the games Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2, and Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance 1 and 2. The truth is, the lore has been steadily expanding between the years 2001 and 2020. The Baldur's Gate games are contained stories set in a larger world where there are many things that are happening years, decades and centuries before Baldur's Gate 1, even during Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, and after them. For example, the games Icewind Dale 1 and 2 are chronologically set many decades before Baldur's Gate 1 and 2.

The Zhentarim is still around 100 years after Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, believe it or not. There have been some D&D tabletop adventure games where players have the choice of working with them. Cool, huh?

I think you might like this list I've compiled these past few months.

Forgotten Realms Lore part 1 (starting millennia before Baldur's Gate 1 to Siege of Dragonspear)
https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=675526#Post675526


Forgotten Realms lore part 2 (From Baldur's Gate 2 to the end of the 14th century)
https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=675528#Post675528


Forgotten Realms lore part 3 (From the beginning of the 15th century to Baldur's Gate 3)
https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=675618#Post675618

Last edited by BladeDancer; 04/01/21 05:46 PM.
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Originally Posted by mr_planescapist
Here lies the problem with BG3. Everything is explained in books and novels but not IN THE GAME. Immersion and lore is really lacking. But I guess thats a Larian thing...

It's not Larian's fault at all. The lore has been expanding these past 17 years. Baldur's Gate is not a stand alone fantasy game, it is part of Dungeons & Dragons' Forgotten Realms campaign setting. Even games like Eye of the Beholder 1, 2 and 3, Pool of Radiance, Icewind Dale 1 and 2 and Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2 are set in the same world as the Baldur's Gate games.

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Originally Posted by BladeDancer
I hate to say it, but there is too much lore to reveal in one game.

Yeah but they could do much more. In both BGs you end up in a library with as much lore as you want to read. Those texts said much much more than do the books in BG3. Hoping the devs will put in so lore dump books. After all, this is the advantage of getting the Forgotten Realms license and not the SRD one . . .

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Originally Posted by KillerRabbit
Originally Posted by BladeDancer
I hate to say it, but there is too much lore to reveal in one game.

Yeah but they could do much more. In both BGs you end up in a library with as much lore as you want to read. Those texts said much much more than do the books in BG3. Hoping the devs will put in so lore dump books. After all, this is the advantage of getting the Forgotten Realms license and not the SRD one . . .
+1

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Off the top of my head pretty sure two parallel worlds merged back together and now you have the original elves Eldrin back and I'm pretty sure that's where dragonborn came from also.

Neverwinter online starts off at 4e and pretty sure the newest module is about current forgotten realms.

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since everyone has been shittalking dragonborn:

FR dragonborn are actually pretty cool (in fact, theres no non cool dragonborn, 4e dragoborn are arguably even better)
The entire plane shift bullshit may be stupid, but then again remember that Unther is literaly populated by Egyptians.
from earth. so this entire Stargate thing isnt new to FR.

Meanwhile Thymanther Dragonborn are pretty based.
They dont know wether or not they caused half of their nation to die instnatly (basically 5e happened and the planeshift hting reversed and most of their land safe for their capital vanished)
So they end up beeing a very martial nation in a place in FR that is, lets be real, not very flesehd out at all. Unther is basically on the level of Maztica in terms of "lets just play DnD in a hollywood windowdressing of a historical period and area)
So adding in a new regional power of martial fuckwits that hate dragons btu dotn know how to deal with other humanoids and on top of that do not understand the concept of Gods because in their world there are none, is actually making the region a lot better.

Likewise they also have a military that has some pretty cool ideas.

Overall dragonborn get hated for all the wrong reasons.
if FR lizardfolk were actually well written we didnt need those guys, but alas very few things in FR are very well written

Also on "4e changes were shit", well you forgot about the good parts nameley getting rid of all those overpowered NPCs and letting the PCs actually do somethign on their own, Eberron did the same thing way back in 3.5 and everyone loved it

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Only so much what you can do as game designer here. Larian did a clever and experienced job here.
There is the Gods, there is acients Gods and there is uebergod Ao at some point reset the balance between Good / Evil.
What licenced titles do is agreed upon with Wizards of The Coast and ultimatly Ed Greenwood on some advisory board in the back.

Any background you do know does only make your paranoia worse. None of your companions would pass a CARLA F BAD check for the position of Hero Of The Realm.
It doesn't really matter if you make biased informed or unbiased uninformed decisons.
No Paladin of Tyr on the player menu is quite telling. Doing always the good and help anyone is a bigger challenge to the social storyline than doing outright lawful evil it seems.

Regarding the Game setting you are in a corner not detailed much before in other games or books. Lore doen't matter to find out about each agent.
Critical is how you approach your teams dirty secrets in face óf a clock ticking in the back.
Certain trigger events are advance their lit fuses. Not the resting at night. Just a typical D&D game mechanic with suspense factor.

Gale is a remote triggered time bomb of unknown alignment
Astarion is lawless monster being fed and raised, a selfish time bomb
Shadowheart is a preprogrammen evil time bomb planted for a reason on someone
Wyll is a remote triggered evil time bomb of an unknown pact
Lae'zel is agent of a conflicted evil racist party clearlly adversary to mindflayers but to outsiders as well

Regarding Shar / Selune a perpetual conflict you face a puzzle with no info. Shadowhearts eveil cult is readily visible any time from character sheet info on right click even before your foirst dialogue.
If you don't / can't recruit her first opportunity she will cross your path again. Easy bet veryone of the companions does cross your path again and again and never give up. Call it DM puppet player strings attached.
So with these motley fool you ride an accelerating cart full of volatile explosive down a ever steeper and faster slope with wild turns.
Enjoy the wild ride and see who falls of the cart with a loud bang one after another.

The tadpole is just an distraction. It's the blanket over the explosives delivery carried into the target.
So will you deliver tot the right places informed or uninformed?
Who intervenes to what end? The plan is hidden from lore and not readable from early clues.
That's key to a good plot. Don't waste your time searching outside of the game. It got no point.

The tadpole bends the loyalities a lot anywas you can't just trust obvious alignments.
The DMs leash binds you. Simple as that.

Second Sundering and Tables of Fate is a constant process of certain gods or powerful wielders of magic rise and fall seeking to break the chains binding them. Same goes for Spellplague.
That's the vents creating the ruins you can plunder for lost artifacts. It doesn't really matter to play the game.

The End of Bhaal spawn you caused in BG2 Throne of Bhaal caused him to be restored. Eventually as rumored by Jergal himself. As far as I know these things go by approval of AO as superdiety.

More relevant short term events:

The archdevil named Zariel laid a trap for Ulther Elthurgard in Elturel after infiltration. Helped by Vampires, Zhentarim and Red Wizards of Thay seeking to weaken Baldurs Gate by preventing a closer alliance via infiltration.
So far pretty much business as usual regarding the factions you meet all over these titles.

The whole city of Elturel was dragged into Avenrus 1st level Hell plane to influence the Blood War. Zariels is the archdevil field commander of the Devils faction.
Along with Tiefling refugees Ulther Elthurgard is on his way back to Baldurs Gate after restoring Elturgard back to material plane of Fearun on Planet Toriel.
Back to Baldus gate and the Sword Coast. You'll finnd out at different speeds depending of what you catch from dialogue, how much you talk with people, use abilities on it or sth even use Talk With The Dead Spells.

Zariel is no friend of Tiamat and her Dragons allied to Githyanki. That's an odd reference in save screens like BG1 told hints about Bhaal.
Plus she chained a Bada Yaga hag sponsored Demon to a rock in the Abyss level of Hell planes. Demons are the enemies of Devils in the Blood War of bad against worse.
Devil rivalries with Bel and Baphomet are known. The only open bet is the hag deal you may engage or not.

They key rule flaw is Wyll not carry the one-eyed disadvantage anyways for the glass eye and his real one with the Goblin.
We'll find out soon if there is a glitch needing review or intention to this fact. Sth may need better further explantion or better concealment.

The permanet Shar / Selune conflict plus Drow and Mindflayer dealings help you sort out things a little. The fandom wiki page for eg has everthing you may wish to know.

Anyones Gods, Archmage, Demon or Devils cooldown period over and about to rise again?
Only guesswork on too many options here, better just play.
If anyone find sth a 1000 years ago ot whatever the magic number is, pls post.

No one likes Mindflayers in Nautiloid Spelljammers parked in their yard all too well.
The game doesn't yield info why each companion was plucked from streets of an unimportant small town.
Key question is, why each one of you was on a secret mission exactly there at the same time for the spelljammer to warp in.
And on what signal the Githyanki biz to ambush and track it down came to place.

Everyone regional and off-continent or off-plane seems to have got their preorder ticket for the big party mayhem this weekend on the Sword Coast except you.
Why got you invited to that party first place? As always you are in the middle of it and know little. DM leash of storyline rails here too. No hole in the fence in Act 1 so far yet.

Certainly no braincracking guesswork about everyone evil openly or secretly ships in their minions, weapon and magic for a showdown between gods and godlikes.
As the malicious factions actions happen undercover anyways, discover and unroot them if you wish so but it will only so slightly rock the boats balance.
It maybe worth the XP and loot alone.

Certain well known good factions have their Harper, Bard, Druid, Trader, Gnome, Hellrider, Adventurer and Mercenaries hang out on Chionthar wilderness. They are mildly alert to sth large brewing.
What alignment would plant tadpoles in people and what would lay them dormant with them?

Larian provides the info for the interested user to explore by themselves. That's a valid compromise looking at size and depth of the universe. You can deep dive or just explore and enjoy the story by itself. Anything else woud overwhelm new players. Feel free to google what names and keywords you find in books and texts ingame. What's published hasn't goit the detail level you need as usual in games.
High level lore just get's you down the same slope.

You chose between the 2 gods who sponsor events, Shar and Selune, that are mutally opposed light/darkness dieties.
Dead gods, demons, devils and heroes seek to return for revenge on someone or reset the balance in the Blood War. On first sight you would not align with any of your companions w/o further detail.

You can expect your team to implode along fault lines. Motives are stongly divided about removing or controlling the tadpoles powers from the start.
Can you time these fuses somewhat? Speculative approach ahead for you - good luck.

What road do you personally prefer? 2 will follow and 2 will disdain you choice. They are split by affiliation a second time so you have always 1 single trustworthy ally, one of the half-baked cookies and one on fringe to jump ship running around.
The parcour-de-force doesn't allow you to set them up against each other in circles. You are bound by on timeframe and limited number of options. You can't keep all happy, no matter idling in camp or on the road. You team shares events and your deeds lore at the campfire.

Be it by good intent or survival instinct marginally impacts how you get here and there. Swap avoiding a fight here for get into another there in return.
Someone planted you compnaions as living time bombs to infiltrate certian faction.
If it's rivalry between devils in the Blood War, why not deilver some of them and chose not to on others?
Wyyern poison had it's decisive use case in other minflayer based titles before.

Clock ticks doesn't mean how many times you rest but how many trigger events you ticked.
That's just the same as freeing the female Wizard from Gnolls in time by 4 giving you a powerful companion you miss.

You can't simply sacrifice the least tactical valuable companions subplot. You can't go through encounters alone really well either.
It's about what you are the most willing to sacrifice.

Mage or power.
Rogue or people.
Fighter or allies.
Cleric or ideals.
Warlock or freedom.

The matrix is perfectly reflecting what you bring to the game yourself.

You a cleric diety either repels the fighter or the cleric.
Your a mage either alienates the mage or cleric,
You a rogue either repels fighter ot cleric.
You a fighter either repels the fighter or the cleric.
You a warlock either alienates fighter or cleric.

Central to this is the cleric to heal your team. Who came up with the Shadowheart character is a fairly sadistic DM.
It does autobalance the party to lack skill along the fault line buit into the storylines affiliations. It's eveil DM genious.

Agree / Disagree is not +1 / -1 on the trust scale. The impact of individual actions is hidden. You'll notice approval kicks you to medium but next disagree dpesn't
pull you back to neutral on a companion. Deeds are high / low impact per individual companion.

Background lore may trigger you to attack certain factions unprovoked in the game.
That provokes the strongest reactions on the trust/loyality/morals matrix mechanic.

You can put it as undermining some of you time bombs secret missions.
No matter iff they are aware of them or not.
None of them can be trusted by any means. Reign in you paranoia.

Let's see what decisions you can make before taaking along a certain packe for deivery to any destination.
What clues you can uncover and alter the outcome.
Too early to worry about in the wilderness. This is timed for the showdowns in several factions HQs in Baaldurs Gate or some war camp HQ.

Shadowheart has an appease ooption for a second recruit opportunity in the Druids Cove when the initial one doesn't catch.
Mending broken trust appears to be unavoidable at some point but also a luxury you can't afford more than once at best. if possible at all.
No idea if kick Gale out works long term or make him show up later.
This is about how you human player parcel service works. You can eventually bimble or lose a package and reroute the shipment.
No matter what, there will be funny cutscenes and pure horrors waiting for you everywhere.

Besides, I despise people who threaten me sth catastrophic will happen. Usually it's cathartic anyways.
Just some demon pop up to slay or cut a deal with maybe? The faction we need to ask first if they are ok with devils power surge maybe.
All are double agents spy on each other. How do you fit in?
Are you bait, proxy, agent, target, courier, infiltrator, conspirator, investigator, collaborator, secret signal, pawn, dummy or just stumbled into it?
Are you an agent of the Hod of Luck thrown in as a wrench into the gears of other gods well oiled wheelings and dealings maybe?
You maybe the elemnt of chance upending an otherwise perfect fiendish plan of Devils.
Keep in mind it's not a simple heroic plot you play.

So within rails of thee storyline but the good, evil, neutral, lawful or chaotic is yours to chose entirely. There is a team toleratiing eacch path.
But many times over you'll wish for a Mount Doom volcano rift to throw sth in. Let it be items, fiends, gods or companions.
Drop a parcel into the void.

The most fun you'll get out of BG3 is when you commit yourself to always chose true-to-character options. You got to pick Drow option, the cleric option, the skills trained option that fit's your Drov Lolth Cleric best. You can chose if you save & reload or if you got to stick through with any rolls you do. One other funny was is passing all the outlandiish chances on chains of rolls and see where they get you.
I many times opt to go with the most interesting sideplot on such crossroads.

I'm in the process of my evil-true-to-character after my unsusal chaotic-good-fighter quick run. I stop entering the Underdark hitting Level 4 glass ceiling. I see no need to spoil the story to myself in EA.
I understand the need to balance the higher levels by the developers. Next for me will be the true-to-character do-gooder. The game is thin on that approach as it seems to limit towards team compatibility rather than the ultimately heroic self-sacrifce of helper syndrome. Larian seems to have pulled the plug of that notion on purpose and fairly completely reduced it to irrelevant subplots.

You are operating a bickering and bitching motley fool parcel courier service van disguised as street-cleaning service. You mop up some Gobbo cannonfodder for live training missions while you go and deliver the timed bombs.
Your companions qualify as arrogant pesky or selfish naive tryhards. They are useful but expendable pawns. Whose pawn aare a you, how and why?
That mystery is the focus.

Some hints in the story indicate that at least 1 companion (or all / or all but you) have been around to trap the Mindflayer Nautiloid and Avernus was it's expected escape route or where it came form.
It was eventually on a misson that was leaked by a rival or had a trackable transponder signal planted on it. Not too hard to guess by certain individuals very interested in your team.
Someone ancient and well hidden obviously fiddled with the bombs fuses.That Raphael and a short moment inside Averus is a good bet.
He is fairly open about it and some other guy is also pretty sure of the direction of your fate.
Does that help you ? No. Raphael isn't the devils true name. You can bet on Asmodeus, Bel, Baphometor anyone else connected to Zariel. Or any upstart seeking promotion to Archdevil.
Lore can't nail it down. It would be absolutey foolish incompetent by Larian (see Swen Vinkle, Adam Smith, Chris Perkins release date announcement video) if it would.

Key knowledge you want to access to is in the head of Ultther Ravenguard. You want that rather sooner than later regarding the Blood War factions plans.
The game will include Baldurs Gate scenes and boil down towards a great showdown cliffhanger scene there as usual.That's an absolute nobrainer about the obvious, right?

The story basically sets you up in a way you can start as a dull uneducated farm boy with absolutely no clue about whats beyond your village. Just follow down the single road out of your dead end ghost town peninsula for the big city life.
Deliver your packages alive by any road up or under the mountain.Optional mutually excluvive alliances may or may not exist. For matters at hand you seem t be pretty much on your own and outside of traditional faction rivalries.
The leash of your puppet master is a bit lose at the moment.

With Lae'zel it is unclear if her Cult plain eliminates any infected by "cleansing" and her being proven some arrogant naiive ideologically blinded fool.
Chances are it just fails by the mystery as other options. Either gets you in a fight or some deal. Just like all other options. You'll have to go far to the other side and build trust along the way to find a cure.
Someone of equal power like the Elminster gang. Few Sword Coast plots are decided differently.

Lae'zel maybe less of a time bomb but a useful sharp multitool to protect the delivery.
Someone in Avernus appeared to have had an opportunity and placed a bet on you to thwart an upstart rival and put him back into his shoes.
As Player you can guess that or explore some Forgotten Realms lore.

You fell in a nice featherfall on return to Fearuns material plane. There is a hidden sponsor seeing to that you make this delivery alive.
How much of that in and out of hell was scripted for you or your team? And who where the co-authors of this muppet-play if any?
The why you can't find in the Forgotten Relams lore. It's just happening now and certainly "under NDA" between Larian and Wizards Of The Coast.

Ever wondered why the publisher chose Wizards Of the Coast?
That's you best answer to this. Expect no shortcuts or sspoilers ruining the game being out there.
Does it matter if your job descrition becomes more clear?
I don't think so that it matters if decipher it early or late in the game.
Each and every of their titles storyline was crafted well enough by the Studios team that i never mattered a lot what you knew when.
They are Pros in story design. It mostly ended in a surprise fight if you didn't. Another surprise suspense cliffhanger twist in the plot.
Each time get's better and better in it's mechanics to provide for rails to a story to develop.

They did sth new apparently - a party majority of neutral and evil members.
A nonheroic storyline specifically tailored towards that to play out.It's genius creativity to craft the missing set of mechanics to drive that logic of trust/loyality. To be confident in being able to reverse some proven mechanoics and turn them around 180° degrees. It's a big balls gamble with millions of USD at stake. Admittely a fresh take on bring story-driven RPG to the shops main floor again. This is bent to be a genre redefing title with massive impact in the fanatsy community.
I enjoy being part of exploring that EA.

Lore may slightly spoil the plot for you but it certainly gives you no ingame advantage whatsoever.
You may get trinkets for searching certain corners more thoroughly. What many experienced players habitually do when constantly challenging their ingame limitations looking for shortcuts, loot advantages and exploits.
Usually you could pickpocket or burglar subplot rewards anyways undetected opposed to where you trigger alarms on main plot loot.
Online spoiler pages are fully of that. The have their reason the crowdsource what get's you out of being stuck.

Lore makes for Easter Eggs only by definition of game balance concerns and fairness for new players.
That's what it all boils down too. Decipher the job description and spoil a tad bit of story suspense and some trinkets of loot.
it's your personally prefered trade-off doing things outside of the game Larian can't keep you away from. Your feelings about that secret success sauce may differ from mine.
Doesn't mean you can outsmart the game and they consider you try fair game. Like any DM does with his players.

No way to cut your leash ny lore found yet. That's rather good news, no?

You are the useful idiot expendable drug courier who did someone a favour and took unknown bagge though brided airport security. Now your plane crash landed at destination and you need to pass a few more gates towards delivery of your cargo.
That's all about where you stand by sum up of ingame info and published info equally well. it's all there in clues to find. Everybody digests and processes that detail level differently by different tools.
You can get to this coonclusion by many ways. It just better explains why you can't do certain things like avoid evil mebers on your team. They all are. You liekly are or have to compromise a lot harder. Anyone is treacherous, corrupted, selfish or extraplaner w/o alternative. There is no bunch of lawful, neutral or chaotic good hang out to join you click the hero button though.
Crunch you brain by whatever means and draw your own conclusion. This is just my 50 cents about 2 Act 1 surface runs of EA summed up with no spoilers.
All is pretty obvious if you map it faction by faction. You can chose the mosters to feed. they will blow up harder and make good for the ones blowing less hard and left behind.
I don't thing you can create any disbalanced net positive / negative balance apart from some of your very very own preffered choices.
Cut the all strings of any muppet isn'tin the concept of the puppet master directing the play.

The events added to the Forgotten Realms lore won't leak out of the Larian or Wizards Of The Coast studios doors early. They are bound by NDA magic and someone would lose their soul to the Devil Bankster on the matrieal plane of Earth in the Wall Street of New York. They are Pros in that regard of forming devilish long pacts with fineprint and footnotes in Arial 6.

EA seems to be all about put this to a thourough test of it's bounds.
Hells, if Larian pays me for it i would rig the UI to a Tricentis TOSCA automated test database engine license for fun.

Last edited by vonTreppenwitz; 05/01/21 06:12 PM.

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https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Nautiloid

By the late 15th century DR, nautiloids had become extremely rare. A few mind flayer colonies still had access to a nautiloid, but kept their existence hidden and only used their ships for evacuation of the elder brain in case of an emergency or rarely during an offensive maneuver, owing to their constant fear of being detected by gith hunting parties. At this time, the illithids had lost the secrets of constructing new nautiloids and did not dare risk losing the few they had left.[2]

In the winter of 1489 DR,[8] the research nautiloid Id Ascendant crashed in southern Icewind Dale near the Spine of the World.[9]

That's maybe the most relevant piece of Lore next to Bada Yaga and Zariel and the Blood War on Avernus.

It's likely Mindflayers have been convinced by someone powerful to undertake that risky research and harvest recon mission to Fearun at all. Mindflayers are a paranoid and cautious bunch by all that is known. Or they divened and targeted sth extremely powerful thaat was temporaily exposed and worth to risk their extremely rare and valuable spelljammer for their survial, protection or revenge.

The Gith encounter hints at this being part of the storyline in Act 1 but all on the highly speculative end with nothing diretly useful to play BG3. It boild down too beware of mindflayer abberations and their allies.
Better make friends with their foes and pile up anything for granting psychic resistance you can find for later use.

But that's plain simple advice by viewing the game trailer as well not to sell those poition for +1 trinkets or waste them on anything trivial.


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I just saw the nautiloid was oh, hey the ship from the spelljammer game! It was cool finding out how inlore they're important.


Minthara is the best character and she NEEDS to be recruitable if you side with the grove!
Also- I support the important thread in the suggestions: Let everyone in the Party Speak
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Originally Posted by Starshine
So I've read some of the descent into avernus campaign, so I get those references but hey, it's been 100 years!
How's the politics different, is technology the same? Is Drizzit still Drizziting? Any fun wars or heroics? Gods still the same?

I assume we're all familiar with the first two games so, what else has changed since then that would be cool or helpful to know playing BG3?
Does WotC have other lore for these 100 years or is avernus all that's happened so far?

And if you know of events/changes/innovations/etc over that century, how would you like them referenced or reflected in game?
Off the top of my head the big bullet-points for me were
-The 'big one' for returning Baldur's Gate I and II players is Bhaal's back (along with some other gods). Canonically the bhaalspawn was the one from the books, and the pnp module featuring him ends with his death and Bhaal being reborn, as the final bit of essence (that I thought you gave up to Solar at the Throne of Bhaal, but whatever) is returned.
-Tieflings have been given a 'fixed' appearence thanks to Shenanigans by in hell, no more rolling a D100 to see what they look like.
-A city's been yoinked into the hells, and tieflings are getting blamed/associated with it
-There's a 'good drow' faction for the drizzit clones
-Spellplague happened, which was basically another world melding, and providing justification for new races and stuff being added/big changes to existing lore.
-An Orc lead his fellows into conquoring some territory, following visions, in an effort to create an actual nation of orcs instead of various warbands/raiders/bandits (and give players a source of good orcs for player characters)

Those are the ones I can recall off the top of my head, I don't pretend to be exceptionally familiar with the details and I expect I've missed some things.

Last edited by Some_Twerp753; 06/01/21 12:56 PM.
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Originally Posted by Sordak
FR dragonborn are actually pretty cool (in fact, theres no non cool dragonborn, 4e dragoborn are arguably even better)

Dear god no. Like anything come out of Dragonlance, it is the worst of Fantasy.


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Originally Posted by Dexai
Originally Posted by Sordak
FR dragonborn are actually pretty cool (in fact, theres no non cool dragonborn, 4e dragoborn are arguably even better)

Dear god no. Like anything come out of Dragonlance, it is the worst of Fantasy.
They're cool dragon people that can breathe fire and have a sense of honor! They're great.


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Originally Posted by Dexai
Originally Posted by Sordak
FR dragonborn are actually pretty cool (in fact, theres no non cool dragonborn, 4e dragoborn are arguably even better)

Dear god no. Like anything come out of Dragonlance, it is the worst of Fantasy.

Dragonborn have nothing to do with Draconians....

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