Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Question - Evil playthrough options

Hey all

I find myself curious about BG3's options as far as if supporting an evil party/protag playthrough is viable.

The majority of my playthroughs of the previous games was with a good protag/party, but somewhat regularly I'll play with an evil protag/party. Now, the originals offered evil options and did its best to support evil characters, but the overall narrative and the available options during play were...well, shall we say, Bioware had a very myopic and primitive view of evil in those days (even in their villains for the most part). Bioware's support for evil characters/options could basically be summed up as "strictly psychopathic, homicidal morons." Basically Stupid Evil.

Now I know it would have likely doubled, possibly even tripled the workload to more properly support evil (even neutral) characters narratively, so I understand why. Indeed, the entire narrative is structured around the Bhaalspawn fighting their evil nature. Support for succumbing or embracing it existed, but comparative to the "good" options, they were quite poor (and again, took the form of psychopathic, homicidal thuggery in just about all cases) and generally led to a situation where the game was, for all intents and purposes, unplayable (reputation dipping past about 3 made pretty much made everyone hostile...negating the ability to move the narrative or any other quest forward). Plus with limits on time, engine limitations, etc...I get they did the best they could overall.

So, I'm curious how it will be offered (if it even is) in BG3. I know the basics of the illithid tadpole-in-the-brain bit and how it offers abilities and temptation to the protag (which apes the Bhaalspawn scenario a bit, but even more the Spirit-Eater from Mask of the Betrayer (NWN2 expansion))...but as I understand it, the more one gives in to/uses the tadpole-abilities, it just results in death/becoming a mind flayer/non-playable (which again strongly resembles the Spirit-Eater mechanics from NWN2).

Obviously the early access only goes to a certain point, narratively, but for those who have been playing it, how are the options for playing evil characters? Is it still strictly the 'Stupid Evil' approach...is there more nuanced approaches? Is it even offered in EA?

Personally, I see "dumb evil" right now, because it's obvious that using "tadpole" even for the sake of gaining more power is hurting you. Trusting an unfamiliar cult that doesn't even recognize the presence of a tadpole? Also stupid.

But, as you said, we have too little information. The tadpole is hurting us, but how exactly? Are we going to turn into a monster? Or maybe it will just suppress our will? We don't know that. Maybe we can find the power to reclaim ourselves.

My opinion is that right now the path of evil is only suitable for chaotic characters. These are not very logical decisions that do not look like survival. You literally have to believe in the power of a random cult and its delusions that you will rule in the future. In theory, you can play like "neutral evil" without an evil path. Just choosing evil solutions in smaller situations.

For example, killing Tieflings, helping druids, or making a deal with a Hag. These are not very good decisions, but they will not consider the game as a "path of evil". There are many such situations and options in the game, especially for drow and git, which certainly pleases me.

But I hope path of evil will be corrected or supplemented, so that there is more temptation in this path.

I mean, Larian only collects statistics based on the storyline "path of evil", but there are a lot of evil choices in the game, besides the plot. And many of them are good for playing an evil character. But I don't like the specific plot path.

You can totally be the 'Selfish Evil" kind of person. For example you can completely disregard the tiefling/goblin conflict and move on to Moonrise Towers without helping anyone. You can cause 2 children deaths by refusing to get involved. You can cut a deal with the hag for extra power by letting her escape with a pregnant woman. You can persuade a Zhentarim agent to betray his superiors, steal the chest he must deliver and promise to split the money you will get by selling it and then backstab him and agree to deliver the chest yourself, when the plan gets exposed. There are many choices where you can be rational and evil without behaving yourself like a total psycopath.

Great responses thus far, so thank you for them.

I'm quite curious as to how this kind of thing will be tracked in BG3. BG1/2 had the reputation system, which served its purpose well enough, but wasn't quite good enough. I mean my approach when playing an evil character (generally) is not psychotic but a more intelligent, calculating evil. So I would complete many quests in the "good" vein to increase reputation, so NPCs like me and trust me, at which point I can abuse that trust and make use of it when the time comes (which in BG1/2 basically translates to Evil Points...how much reputation I can burn in order to choose an evil option without the world turning hostile). There's one evil option I very much enjoy in BG2....and that's giving the silver dragon eggs to the demon yourself. So, you go through the Ust Natha bits using the "good" path, until such time as you have the real eggs and the drow have the fakes....let them get blasted, then treat with the demon yourself and give it the eggs.

The big draw back is the evil party members will leave if your reputation gets too high...as there is no option to explain your motives. To reassure them or explain to them that, "Hey, I'm as evil as they come...patience. We earn that trust. We lull them into security...then, they're ours! We will use that when needed and do what we want to do. We can frame whomever we want! Cast the blame elsewhere! Have them help us conceal/destroy the evidence...then, if they show signs they will be unable to live with the deeds asked of them and expose us...well, we help end their doubt and guilt, by ending them. No loose ends."

Anyhoo lol...I do hope the evil options in BG3 go beyond Stupid Evil.

I have high hopes for the evil path, and I think it could be really cool. Right now its more stupid evil though, since joining the evil guys rids you of the best chance of healing you believe you have at that point. There need to be better incentives, and most of all, they need to be better communicated. Also, I wish for once in a game the evil path wouldn't have you mindlessly murder everybody.

I'd be curious if a purely selfish playthrough would be possible without just going pure murderhobo. You'd basically be ignoring 90% of quests, as they're almost all exclusively "help me!!" or "kill them!!!".

In BG3, characters can leave because of your decisions, even if your relationship is neutral or not bad with them. Some characters just leave if you don't choose what they wanted. Some characters, such as Gale or Shadow, can be persuaded. I don't know if this will change in the future or if it will be possible to return our companions if they leave.

Im one of (not many honestly) who loves the Evil (aka Goblin) path as it is ...
True, there is a lof ot asumption, when i created the reasons for my characters to choose this ... but once you start connecting dots, there is actualy a lot of hints, that may or may not be valid.

There is a lot of topics, where we were talking about it quite deeply ... i can recomend:
https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=776216
https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=715499

But in short:
Contrary to popular opinion, i believe that Goblin path is simply brilliant for smart, powerhungry, calculating, and ploting evil character ... asuming s/he is willing to play long game.
(The perfect Origin character for Goblin path in my opinion would be Gale, or ofcourse Astarion ... but mostly Gale.)

True, game never tells you "come with me and you shall have power you cant even imagine" ... and once more true, you can sometimes find yourself being outsmarted, when you try to outsmart someone ...
But honestly that is one of things i really LOVE about it.

Is it tho? O_o

Since as far as i remember, the only situation when your parasite is actualy hurting you, is when you drink te potion Omeluum cooks for you.
And ofcourse there is that night, when your special power manifests ...

In litteraly every other scene, conversation, or situation ... everyone is in awe, that you are in such good health, concidering the situation. O_o

Serious question ... since i dont remember anymore: Did they even tell us what "patch of evil" is? Or did we just added context on forum afterwards?

How is Halsin 'the best chance of healing you believe you have at that point'? Even before you meet him his lab proves that he only met people with the 'improved' tadpoles recently and likely has no clue how to remove them. Infiltrating the cult is obviously the best chance considering that they actually know how the tadpoles works or can point you to the tadpole's origin, so earning trust with the cult by (at the very least) not murdering True Souls you meet makes much more sense for a rational selfish person. The second best chance is githyanki creche, because they've been studying illithids for a long time and may have some relevant information. Halsin seems a weak lead, which is proven later by him being capable only to point you towards the cult HQ, something you can guess on your own.

Alyssa_Fox > I like you allready.

I 100% agree with you on your assessment of evil in BG1-2. It was myopic, simplistic, immature and counter-intuitive. It was silly to think that an evil person would not want a good reputation, especially a lawful evil person who would prefer to work within a structured legal system. Evil people in Bg1-2 were obvious, rude, greedy, and always violent. It was stupid. They rarely portrayed them as "damaged" or with much nuance except maybe for Shar-Teel. They were never authentic.

Having said that Larian has made huge strides in regards to how they handle things in Bg3 which if you play enough you will see more and more of. You have much much more flexibility in regards to paths in this game then you had in the previous games. Some key things:
1) reputation doesn't really matter. You need to do something specific to get a party member to leave. Example: 2) You are not obligated to save anyone. No one has plot armor in the entire EA as far as I can see.
3) Who is evil amongst your companions is not obvious. Even the "good" characters have flaws.
4) Alignment is not visible on any character sheets, which is good. This is one of the biggest evolutions to me in how we approach character building and roleplaying. You don't meet people in the world that have an alignment tag nailed to their head.
5) The only obligatory quest is the one assigned to save yourself from the parasite. Everything else, every other fight, location and situation you find yourself in outside of that is optional.

You have incredible freedom to experience this game however you see fit. Its brilliant.

Are there still things that need work? Heck yes, but I am 100% excited about seeing what we get to play with in the end.

the cult doesn't even know that the tadpoles exist. tell priestess gut that she also has a tadpole and she will say that doesn't know what you're talking about. They think its their godess, the absolute. Therefore they don't know anything about the tadpoles.

And I said that I think Halsin is our best chance, since important NPCs like Zevlor and Nettie claim that he is a powerful healer. Without meta-knowledge of already having played through the game, it makes sense that a character would believe that saving him is a least worth a shot.

It's established that True Souls undergo some ritual in the Moonrise Towers and that True Souls are just lieutenants who follow orders, not the real leaders of the cult. If True Souls are 'made' in the Moonrise Towers, then it's obvious there is some high ranking cult member who either knows some useful information about origins of the tadpole, Absolute or the initiation process. The cult members are kept in the dark, but the cult leadership knows both about the tadpole (thats why they told True Souls in the Act I to kill survivors from the crash) and the githyanki weapon (they ordered its recovery).


Zevlor is only important as a warrior and a leader of refugees and Nettie is Halsin's student. Neither is informed and knowledgeable enough to give you any real advice, they just point you to the most competent local healer. On the other hand Halsin's journals make it obvious that he isn't competent enough to deal with our tadpole and is puzzled by it as much as we are.

Even the companions tell you about it after the next dream. It changes something in you, something "that will never come back". It's not literally "it's hurting you," but it doesn't sound like something good. But I don't think it's necessarily turning us into a monster. Perhaps submission to the absolute and its power affects us in some other way, but it is also bad.

As for the "path of evil", it seems to me that Larian wrote in they statistics "74.85% of you stood with the Tieflings, and 25.15% of you sided with Minthara. Good outweighs evil, it seems."


Right. But we can go to Moon Towers ourselves, we don't need to help the goblins for this. This is the irony. We can go to their "boss" by simply tricking everyone in our path or using a tadpole. We have no reasonable reason to help Minthara.

Later, she can help you, if you persuade her, or she attacks you and you just kill her, which makes the situation even more stupid. In a critical situation, Tav does not have time to help Minthara, and has no good reasons. It doesn't offer you anything in return initially, it doesn't entice you. Another thing is that Halsin immediately promises to help in Moon Towers, even before you help druids or tieflings. Important! What does he tell you about the Moon Towers while still in 'jail', so you can already go to the Moon Towers from there, regardless of the situation with Tieflings.

If we help the Tieflings and druids, Halsin promises to come with us, but Minthara says "attack with me" and promises nothing but "the reward of the absolute". These are empty words, we don't even know what it's about, we just pretend to know.

Cult lowest pawns do not know anything about the tadpoles for sure, but their superiors may know. That's where the infiltration plan starts to make sense.

I see, so your logical conclusion is to not even try saving Halsin, who at the very least could provide you with information about the tadpoles, regardless of if he can acutally heal you or not. Honestly, I've argued about his very topic in length in a different thread, and I'm sick of discussing this. If you think the game gives you any meaningul incentives to side with the goblins other than blind power, you're entitled to your opinion.

Saving Halsin involves killing cult members including True Souls. If you plan on infiltrating the cult full of mind-reading True Souls (and who knows what else) maybe starting your undercover operation by killing their prized lieutenants is a bad idea? Considering that you can interrogate Halsin's corpse, killing Halsin instead of saving him makes much more sense for an evil protagonist, after all dead people can't lie.

The right question here would be: Why do you need them to know?
I mean ... their "Goddess" whatever she is, is obviously tied to tadpoles somehow ... therefore, all you need to do is get as close to her as possible ... and they could serve that purpose perfectly.



You seem like you are forgetting few important details ...

Zevlor > have no idea about the Tadpole problem ... he litteraly tells you that he is presuming that "goblins got you" ... so his recomendation counts only if you were shot, slashed, smashed ... or anyhow else injured in that fight. Nothing more.

Nettie > this one is even funnier ... here you seem to ignore several things at once: for one Nettie tryed to poison you, so she is not exactly thrustworthy i would say ... for two, wich is more important, she really, really, REALLY, desperately needs Halsin back (is she desperate enough to lie to total stranger, for achieving greater good for her, and her own people tho? we can only guess. ) ... and finaly, Nettie indeed presume that Halsin "MAY" (and this is important word) be able to help you, but lets not forget about the fact that first of all, Nettie is a Druid and therefore her whole idea about better chances with Halsin are sourced from the fact that he is stronger Druid than herself, she have litteraly no idea if he would be strong enough to actualy help you, since she have no source of such information. :P

If you would like to pinpoint your actualy best bet ... it would be GIthyanki chreche ...
Their race have the most experience with Mind Flayers, and their extinction in many ways kinda becomed Gith purpose of existence. Lae'zel is indeed a little fanatic, but she never ever even once tryed to decieve you (mostly probably bcs she sees you as beneath her ... but w/e).
Personaly i would not be surprised if there is no purification protocol, and it would be just a fairy tail the obviously Evil Giths are telling their hatchlings, so they dont fear their maturity trial ... and willigly gives their lives, hoping they would be saved. But that is completely different story.

Oh yes, changing is the right word here.

"Something good" is a matter of perspective, speak with Astarion for example and you can see that he welcomes it with open arms.

Also, our companions are showing typical examples of pure xenophobia ... or at least in czech the "xeno" in that word (if translated litteraly), means anything unfamiliar ...
Dont get me wrong here tho, i dont claim that Mind Flayers are anyhow good ... but if you look at their arguments, its allways the same "it is doing something ... that cannot be good sign" ... nobody even knows what does it do, nor even think about why and yet they allready are against it.

The perfect example is your Dreamperson ...
If i remember correctly, your tadole is actualy acting against her ... yet your companions simply expect it to be another Mind Flayers plot. O_o

My point is, we should not take everything that was said as granted ...
Maybe our companions were just overreacting, maybe they are a little paranoid ...
Or maybe some writer in Larian is simply pulling our leg.

True, true ... therefore this is set i gues.

So far we dont know that ...
I mean, yes we do know that Halsin is also aiming for Moonrise Towers ... but we dont know if he would even be able to reach them, maybe there will be another plot twist.
Or maybe we would either get there sneaky with Halsin ... or as a honored guest with Minthara. :P

Therefore, this is pure speculation so far. :-/
Also ... We have no reasonable reason to help Minthara. ... dont be mad on me, but this sentence is HUGE understatement ...
For example few of my characters found several reasons to help her ...
- We can either kill her, or use her ... its impossible to do both ... but if we use her, maybe some day (preferably soon) we will even replace her.
- That Absolute cult might be interesting, for someone who DO have tadpole, and therefore as far as we can say from simple observation in Goblin camp, have ensured higher rank
- She litteraly promises us favour of her Goddess, and whatever that is, its powerfull enough to stop ceremorphosis ... therefore, it allready saved our asses.
- For the simpliest evil adventurers ... if you manage to persuate her, she also promis you gold ...
- And last but certainly not least ... you might sinply want to take revenge of that nasty Druids, who treated you like a piece of s**t, even tho you just saved their grove.

And, as i stated previously, i allways believed that developers are suppose to provide options ... and we, players, are suppose to find reasons for picking the one, we are about to pick.

Why?
Powerhungry traitorous evil characters are stabing each other in the back all the time.
Have you ever heard the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise? :P

Time cannot logicaly be the problem ...
If Tav "does not have time" to attack the Grove, he also "does not have time" to defend the Grove ... the only logical path, if time would be the essence would be ignore them both and go somewhere else.

She do.
At least in last patch, she certainly do ... more than one thing even. :P

This must be new ...
Since as far as i remember, every time i helped halsin out of his cage, once he was out, he started talking that "first thing first" and refuses to talk with me about anything but killing the goblin leaders. :-/
He was pretty smug to be honest, last i time i was even a little sory i didnt start my play with Evil druid so i could left him there to rot!

from https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/speak-with-dead