Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Evil Drow playthrough feedback and bug report

Hi there, this is my fourth time through act 1 so I decided to go with an evil Drow cleric of Lloth, good big evil or go home, right?

My playthrough had me going to the undead/bandit temple, up to the paladins and gnolls then the flaming fist and githyanki to power and geared up, then on to the blighted village

First off, having so many cool interaction for being drow is ALOT of fun. I was able to take the express lane to eviltown while other characters would have had to make *chuckle* SKILL checks. Very satisfying

That being said... it's strange there is no 'breadcrumbs' or intro or attempt to draw you to the evil side. At no point does anybody suggest you join the goblins or the absolute, tempt you with power or anything until you walk into the fort and talk to priestess Gut or Minathra. You have to be intentional and essentially have already played act 1 to know what to do to go for the evil playthrough. Evil needs a recruiter or two out there looking to draw you to their side, after all, they have cookies

Next I walked into the goblin camp, showed my drow-card to all the goblin bouncers and walked into Minathra's room and talked to begin the exclusive evil playthrough content. Again, it would be nice if there was something leading up to this, it's very much a full on evil commitment without any quests or even reasons given for you to be evil. Entice me with loot! Offer me power! Claim you're the only ones that REALLY understand the tadpole, something to make evil feel like it has some seductive quality to it. If I wasn't playing an evil alignment cleric that wanted to spread evil on principal it would have felt very awkward.

Minathra and I plotted to attack the druid grove and there we went. About the encounter itself... it's fantastic. Goblins flying through the air, unique species of spiders, suicide bomber gobblin sappers, it's really really cool, and even on a good playthrough I think some character should make a point of suggesting the goblins be lured into an attack. Attacking the goblins in their fort was cool for my good playthroughs (never get tired of shoving Dror Razglin into the spider pit), but just letting players know that this battle could be an option for a good playthrough, because it was really fun when I went back and did it as good later. (And the drama of keeping the tieflings alive during the battle made me feel more invested)

During the cutscene where Minthara takes her highground, the bodies from the first battle at the grove gate can get in the way of the cutscene and make it look strange

Betraying Zhevlor and hearing him say "You're WITH THEM aren't you?!" was the highlight of the playthrough. That was such an awesome mustache curling moment for my evil character, loved it, loved it.

Combat music didn't play during the encounter

Teiflings got witness from guard killer, probably doesn't matter but it was distracting

Explosive gobbos stood around Taron all three times I played the battle, I had to attack him for the goblins to join me

When I went into Zhevlor's office to finish off the teiflings, I found Arabella dead on the floor infront of her parents, despite saving her from Khaga earlier? Did the parents really kill their daughter before I got in there or is that a bug?

In my first time through the grove purge I had killed Khaga after finding her shadow druid scheme and when I came to attack the grove, her body had moved outside to rest infront of the goblins near the ritual site. The door was locked from the front of the druid barrow so I took the back door and slaughtered them all.

During the battle Tusk the boar was red to me but spent all his time attacking the druids. This also happened all the other times I did the battle as well.

All the times I did the battle Maggran was rooted in place shouting petulant druidic insults at me while I slaughtered his friends

After slaughtering the druids and the Teiflings everwhere I could find them, I still couldn't finish the quest for Minthara on my first playthrough. She stopped in the area before Zhevlor's office, which makes me think that it was either her getting stuck on terrain and not going into the office that was holding me up, or the fact that I killed Khaga first had bugged the encounter.

Accepting that the Khaga kill had bugged it, I loaded up an older save and did the battle again without snitching on Khaga

This time things went smoothly except for tusk and maggran and taran as previously mentioned, Minthara thanks me for being evil and we went to camp to celebrate

The party the goblins threw was frankly anti-climactic. There is so much energy at their camp, they are having so much fun being evil little bastards but this camp celebration felt so flat, especially after having betrayed Wyll, Zhevlor and everyone else who hadn't attacked my drow ass on sight. Good side gets poetry, resolution for Arabella if Khaga killed her and acolades from all the people you saved, but evil just gets some goblins you don't know talking about how great the absolute is. I did like that one goblin that gives you a gift in the hopes that you'll put in a good word at moonrise, that was fun

So personal opinion time, but I didn't like the unavoidable betrayal and subsequent banishment from team evil after the camp. I get we're evil, we betray each other blah blah, but her atttempt to assassinate an upstart should not put you hostile with all the goblin faction. If anything, surviving that attempt after being the star of the attack on the grove should make you a mega-vip. I felt a wrench in my gut after I realized I spent all that time clearing out innocents from the grove for the goblins or the absolute, only to find I had gained no allies, no power and not even an advantage to make me stronger for the journey ahead. I literally betrayed and killed everyone who was nice to me, then got betrayed and ended with zero friends. Wyll left, Gale hated what I did, Astarion and Lae'zel seem indifferent. It just really felt like I was a big idiot for picking evil after all was said and done, I felt like I clearly made the wrong choice and that I was being an asshole just to be an asshole, when the evil way it just supposed to be a different path.


So to summaraize:

Evil needs some breadcrumbs to entice you to do it's bidding, weither that's promises of power, items, a solution for the tadpole or membership into the big fun evil club of evil

The gate battle is awesome and should have NPCs on good side suggesting to 'take on' the goblins by luring them to attack

Evil needs much, much better payoff that doesn't make you feel alienated and foolish for choosing that path

Yea, there is a Goblin in the back of the Tiefling camp. if you free her, she will offer to introduce you to Minthara. however there is no breadcrumbs leading you to her. I think thats where they could put in a lil work, somewhere between Zevlor and Wyll needs to be some kinda reference to the "Goblin prisoner, I wonder what they will do with her" or whatever. Essentially you have to al;ready know this stuff to take that route but they could do a better job leading new players to the encounter. Ironically, its the goodie good route that would have you saving her life though, so its kinda counter intuitive


Someone mentioned in another thread that it felt weird not having the option to side with Kagha. I kinda agree. She feels VERY evil and it kinda feels weird taking down the grove as the "evil" route when the grove is being subverted by an evil druid to begin with

That's true, Sazza can lead you to the goblins, but she doesn't even really make an enticing offer

If you go to the top of the gate a tiefling will flip out over her dead comrade and say she’s going to kill the goblin prisoner. If you follow her she’ll lead you right to Sazza who you have to pass some checks to save.

So... kinda ham fisted but the bread crumbs are there. She should call for help to bring you up to the top of the gate or something. Instead at the gate entrance you can hear a couple arguing... makes no sense narratively or in fact, because the gate is physically closer. Also, observing that and following her means having to pass checks, but if you walk back on your own you don’t.

An event, like a trial or scheduled execution would be a lot better way to intro Sazza, without literally having to chase someone there... but idk, far from the worst contrivance.

I freed Sazza thinking I’d get a free trip into Goblinville and kill the leader... but she darts once you’re out of the grove, and runs right past 3 absolute followers with no interaction. Given how long it takes to navigate through the map-maze, I agree there should be a more direct way to run straight to the dark side.

That’s unfortunate they just turn on you so that the chapter can wrap up. That was like every chapter in Dragon Age 2. Making choice simply the order in which you wipe out both sides...hate that.

I feel you man, never played dragon age 2 because of the narrative issues like that that I heard about.

The more I think about how evil went down on this playthrough the more of I think of how KOTOR did evil right. There were power, cosmetic, fun and story reasons to give in and change over to the darkside, eventually taking down darth Malak and taking over his job as boss of the sith. With how the storyline is for BG3, there is no clear end goal for an evil character in act 1, no big good or big bad to overthrow and replace, no exclusive evil rewards, cosmetics followers or otherwise. It's fine the game has a more cloak and dagger secret uncovering story, but the evil path still needs to feel more rewarding if it can't give us big goals to work towards. And it's not that betrayal itself is a bad story turn, it's just doing it first thing and leaving you high and dry really discourages a player unless you're playing a chaotic evil, kill everything in sight kind of character.

P.S. Hand crossbows are broken and would crash my game to desktop every time i tried to swap weapons with two of them equiped, when I entered a cutscene or removed my main hand weapon. Also couldn't just use one with a shield

good points well made! +1

I've said it a few times before:

We need a party character early on who isn't just "We NeED!!! a HEALER!!!!"
Astarion is open to not getting healed, but he is just as confused as us.

I've often wondered if meeting someone who was sent out to look for survivers early on could help. Preferably without saying anything about the Goblins.

That way we hear about the Absolute as an option to a healer. So when we meet Sazza her saying "Absolute" is the second breadcrumb. Same with meeting Ed and his two novices.

Even when our powers begin to manifest it's met with "oh noes, someone used their powers!" even here Astarion doesn't feel like he's arguing the true path well.
And Minthara... I dunno she didn't feel like a good advocte for it either...


Heck the best Evil suggestion is from Raphael. But he's way to pushy about it. (and is a plotline that doesn't lead anywhere in EA, to the point where he feels a little tacked on)