Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Obvious Tadpole solution? Why ignored?

Hello! Been enjoying the game so far, did 2 full playthroughs to the end with one that basically cleared out the entirety of overworld and underdark maps.

But something has been bothering me as a blindingly obvious solution to the tadpole problem: Death.
Minor spoiler for owlbear, on the path to it you meet a dead true soul. Seconds after death the tadpole comes out and you can kill it.

This poses a question: Why can't you just have a party member die, wait a few seconds, kill the tadpole, revive?
You have the scrolls to do so. You can also revive via other means in camp via some pretty easy story progression and 200 gold.
Sure, the tadpole cant be removed via physical or magical tampering but death seems to make it pop out right away. And that makes sense, I think this is a pretty viable in universe solution to the problem.

Which makes me wonder why does the party not... try it? Just go "hey if I die in combat wait for the tadpole to pop out before you bring me back" or just actually die on purpose. Since this is a vastly preferable fate to becoming a mindflayer and the party is all too eager to get rid of it. With this fairly simple, easy and doable right now solution instead of going on a wild goose chase?

Just a bit of feedback from my end on how just... odd it is that the party doesnt even consider it with how easy it is. And observed to work by the dead true soul popping out a tadpole seconds after death. I'm only vaguely familiar with 3.5e and that scene made me realize how easy it is to solve the issue. Kinda got me going "oh hey! We found a solution to our problem!" dont think you can even handwave this away.

Hahaha... yea. That's the obvious "non-permanent death" issue in all fantasy settings with relative easy access to revival magic. The usual answer is: "Because fallen characters aren't truly dead" or "Death is only permanent if the soul departs to the farplane/afterlive, etc.", or something like that. This issue creeps up regularly in most fantasy games, novels and novels...

ahem, no, obviously a revive scroll just is a dried and wrapped tadpole that get's magically inserted into your brain! and nothing changes...

Problem with fallen characters not truly being dead is, they are truly dead.

Like, one of your companions talks about how the Fugue Plane isn't that great after you revive him. Meaning they were, in story terms, 100% dead until you brought them back.
This also links to the revive option in camp which makes it super clear that your companions do in fact literally die in battle but can be brought back.

It is very much an issue with certain settings, but in terms of the plot for BG3 and the setting of FR its a bad fit. Since while it's expensive to be brought back from the dead its fairly doable. Alongside being, hilariously enough, the easiest solution to getting rid of the tadpole.

Bigger issue is that it doesn't seem to be accounted for at all. Might just be handwaved away with us having super special tadpoles amongst even the special tadpoles but that's... a bit much with how much convenience exists just to keep the party together.


Hope I don't come off as a bit too negative, genuinely enjoying the game and it's a blast. But I'm here after playing and enjoying the life out of DOS2. The plot hole just struck me as a bit too obvious especially with the game saying 2 different things, alongside the lore.

Yeah, the way Raise Dead works in D&D is you literally are dead, your soul is in the afterlife, you know who is raising you and can choose to come back or not.

But...we're dealing with Revivify, which has a time limit of 1 minute and is a 3rd level spell instead of a 5th level spell with a time limit of 10 days.

The idea being that the tadpole can wait out the 'minute' or so of story time. You'd need Raise Dead and let them be proper dead for a day. Of course, Raise Dead requires an in-tact body and the worm could destroy the head as a final act of vengeance. Then you'd need Resurrection, a 7th level spell.

Yea... sadly, it is very obvious that Larian doesn't have the firmest grasp of the setting, so to speak. Ah well, we'll see how the final product will turn out...

If Gale dies and you do the tasks he tells you to do, then you get a scroll of true ressurection. Which should remove the tadpole as it cleanses the body of all afflicted diseases.

What about the camp follower who can do so for a fee of 200 and revive no matter how long the companion was dead? I've no idea what spell he uses. But he seems quite powerful.

It does come off as Larian not having the best grasp of the setting yes. And Wotc not offering the best advice or looking close enough.

I don't think 2020 WotC still cares all that much, to be honest... they want to bring the IP to a new/wider audience, and they hired a popular RPG developer to do so.

One thing you're forgetting that isn't directly stated in the game yet (so its absolutely an understandable thing to miss) is that Revivify can only bring you back up to 1 minute later. By the time a party member fights he tadpoles influence enough to kill it, you're gone to the plane eternal. Now the robed dead man seems to have a more powerful spell at his disposal, so you have a point there. Also, your vamp friend can kill you at midnight while revivify can still bring you back at 6am so point made for you there too. This will be ironed out, I'm sure. The other element is that you're under some sort of divine/arcane/evil machinations that are stopping the progression of Mind Flayer-itis. Who stopped you from bonking your dome at the beginning when you fell off the ship? Why can't anyone remove it? Why does it have a protection method even a Mind Flayer doesn't understand? There's far more at play here than the other True Souls have experienced.

Only thing that contradicts the theory that you can die to remove the tadpole, despite the game clearly showing that this is the case in a scene, is that when Wyll dies he never has a tadpole leave his body.
For me he died 2/3 playthroughs at the gates of the druid grove. And both those times no tadpole no matter how long he has been dead.

No idea if its oversight, unfinished cause beta, plothole, weird tadpole stuff.

And then theres yeah if Astarion kills during feeding... why did the tadpole not leave a corpse?

Might be plot, might be not. I'm kinda iffy about if they make it a special tadpole that is special amongst special tadpoles. A bit too much special for me.

Both Raise Dead and Revivify deals with existing dead body. And providing that tadpole technically is a part of your body at that point - it gets revived as well.

The only way truly get rid of tadpole is to use resurrection, true resurrection or reincarnate. (or Clone, for arcane spellscasters)

Well, or major restoration that is... obviously all those options not available for low level party.

That doesn't account for the fact that the tadpole does leave a dead body on its own free will. Which is even shown in game within a cutscene with a dead True Soul.

So would the tadpole be teleported back into the body if you revive it other methods?

I hope this is addressed. Maybe they could make this one guy with a tadpole escapee not a thing.

OP you mixing story and game mechanics. Dead is real only when the story says so, and then only the story can revive, scrolls won't. It's fine as a funny discussion, but the story decides alone what happens, how and when.

I think the obvious anwser is because story reasons. Also we are thinking as gamers and not as people. Even if we we had an option to bring recently dead people back to life, I sincerely doubt that many people would be all that willing to take it. Oh hey you got a tumor in your head. Take this shotgun and blow your own brains out. We will revive you soon after and you will be FIINNNNEEEEEEE.

Also, 200gp for a resurrection spell is VERY cheap compared to how expensive it is in-universe. So I guess the anwser why they dident think of it is a combination of game mechanics amd story reasons.

Lae'zel seemed perfectly okay with dying to "fix" the tadpole problem, without any promise of resurrection.

Except the story does say so. Especially with our mage companion who ends up in the afterlife essentially.
We are dead dead until revived, the KO mechanic exists for dead but not dead yet reasons.
The resurrection via 200gp, which yeah is insanely cheap. More so since there are no copper or silver coins. Seems to be based on the fact that you are dead story wise.

Same counts for companions who aren't members of the party, like Wyll who died 2/3 playthroughs at the gate before he even joined my party. So he ceased to exist as a character right then and there.

I'm not really mixing story and mechanics up. Just a pretty logical extrapolation.

The problem with the shotgun to the brain analogy to remove cancer is that well... if you're brought back you'd still have it. While the tadpole leaves a dead body because it doesn't want to be in a corpse nor can it survive like that. Hence why it escapes even in game in a cutscene.

In universe, this is a perfectly reasonable thing to do considering you don't know when you'll end up a mindflayer. Would you really take the chance of going out on a wild goose chase that might not net you a cure when you can just... do it literally right then and there and the worst thing you get is wasted coin? Or a scroll?

It is super low risk. More so if they just ask not to be brought back to life if they fall in battle, to see if the tadpole really would leave. Which by all logic and lore it should.


Yeah, its purely a plot contrivance that this isn't a solution. But that makes me wonder if that means the plot, or such easy access to resurrection, was a good idea for the FR setting. Personally I can see why it's like this from a game mechanic but that doesn't fully excuse the plothole. Since it just seems odd setting a story in a setting but having it be rather contrived to even work. It's not a big thing, or a major thing. It's just a bad thing that is. And only exists due to ease of access to resurrection within the very start. I know it'll be rarer afterwards but even with 200gp price that's pretty cheap and easy to access. And is still a cure you can work towards by proxy of tadpoles bailing out.

Which is kinda great since this is really the only issue I have with the game. It's really good besides, with well made quests (in structure ignoring any EA issues), interesting stories, great interactions etc etc. Overall its a great experience with little to complain about. At the very least for me. I'm not huge on DnD or FR stuff. But this just stood out to me.

Maybe they can insert this idea as a joke later on.