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Originally Posted by Stabbey
Originally Posted by Vhaldez
The situation with the player being aware of the tadpole while none of the evil people are is such a strange part of the narrative on Larian's part. I think that should be addressed too, so that the player is not signing up with people who know less about their precidament than they themselves do.


I have to agree; this is really stupid, and it makes following the evil path willingly also a stupid move. There is no point looking for help removing a tadpole from people who are tadpole denialists - evil characters are not always insane, they are generally selfish. Selfish means self-preservation is important, and there's nothing to indicate that siding with the goblins will increase your chances of self-preservation.


Logically, joining the cult should be the fastest way to know where the cult main base is and find out how they control the tadpole.

In practice, you stumbled on a faction of the cult lead by Minthara and she doesn't want competition in her contest to become the Absolute's favorite.

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Originally Posted by OneManArmy
I have not seen a single dialogue or hint in the goblin walkthrough that we can save the tadpole and use its power, that is the problem

Cant say i remember them all ...
But i didnt even seen any oposite ... it seems like they dont even know about tadpoles at all ... except Gut, who claims that she have none.

Originally Posted by kanisatha
It's just when I see the phrase "evil path," I see it as people demanding an "evil" outcome/ending for the main story. And I just don't see how Larian could deliver such a thing without breaking decades of FR lore.

Quite simply actualy ... all you need to do is lead story to some grey area. smile
When Dead Three elevated to gods, it was also conciderable as "evil ending". smile

Originally Posted by Vhaldez
Originally Posted by Abits
Originally Posted by Vhaldez
Who actively try to kill us whenever they hear about our problem.
To be fair the good guys are not much better in that regard
They have Halsin though. Nettie only tries to kill you because she's a novice healer.

True ...
We certainly give our thrust quite easily, since he is just another member of faction that allready tried to kill us.

Originally Posted by Stabbey
Because they are not brain-dead or insane, and can understand the concept of future negative consequences?

Cute ... have you talked to Gale after Rafaels visit?
There is allways someone who thinks he can outsmart the odds.

You did get cards ... play them right, and you will be rewarded ... play them wrong, and you will be dead ...
Odd, that everyone decided to get rid of them. laugh


If my comments bother you, there is nothing easier than telling me to stop.
I mean ... I won't ... but it's easy to say. wink
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Originally Posted by tyrion85
Originally Posted by kanisatha
But expecting an "evil path" to the main story, including some sort of evil ending, in a game that is set in the Forgotten Realms setting, is highly unrealistic. To put it bluntly, evil is just not going to end up "winning" in a Forgotten Realms game.


I'm sorry, but.. what? Many games set in Forgotten Realms have evil endings, including the original BG duo/trilogy! You could become a literal God of Murder, doesn't get more evil than that, in my book

No, that is NOT an example of an evil ending for a game. Evil-aligned gods have always existed in FR lore. You PC becoming one of those gods is not an example of an evil ending. In BG2, even if your PC becomes Bhaal, nothing changes in the Forgotten Realms, or in the Sword Coast, or in the city of Baldur's Gate, or in the lives of any people. An evil outcome would the area of the game descending into evil, with the lives of ordinary average people being plagued with evil things as the result of the end of the story. Perhaps something along the lines of your evil PC remaining mortal and taking control of Baldur's Gate and the surrounding areas and imposing your evil rule, thereby devastating the city, the area, and its people and turning their lives into abject misery. Such an ending to ToB would've been completely contradictory to FR lore, and that's why WotC would not have been willing to sanction it even as just a player option, one among multiple ending outcomes, for BG2. So to repeat, you as the player could be evil and play the game all through as an evil character right up to the end of the game. But the overall main story "path" and ending are decidedly good.

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I don't get why it's such big deal. You can just slap a "non cannon" sticker on it. What's the problem?


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"74.85% of you stood with the Tieflings, and 25.15% of you sided with Minthara. Good outweighs evil, it seems."
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Originally Posted by kanisatha
Originally Posted by tyrion85
Originally Posted by kanisatha
But expecting an "evil path" to the main story, including some sort of evil ending, in a game that is set in the Forgotten Realms setting, is highly unrealistic. To put it bluntly, evil is just not going to end up "winning" in a Forgotten Realms game.


I'm sorry, but.. what? Many games set in Forgotten Realms have evil endings, including the original BG duo/trilogy! You could become a literal God of Murder, doesn't get more evil than that, in my book

No, that is NOT an example of an evil ending for a game. Evil-aligned gods have always existed in FR lore. You PC becoming one of those gods is not an example of an evil ending. In BG2, even if your PC becomes Bhaal, nothing changes in the Forgotten Realms, or in the Sword Coast, or in the city of Baldur's Gate, or in the lives of any people. An evil outcome would the area of the game descending into evil, with the lives of ordinary average people being plagued with evil things as the result of the end of the story. Perhaps something along the lines of your evil PC remaining mortal and taking control of Baldur's Gate and the surrounding areas and imposing your evil rule, thereby devastating the city, the area, and its people and turning their lives into abject misery. Such an ending to ToB would've been completely contradictory to FR lore, and that's why WotC would not have been willing to sanction it even as just a player option, one among multiple ending outcomes, for BG2. So to repeat, you as the player could be evil and play the game all through as an evil character right up to the end of the game. But the overall main story "path" and ending are decidedly good.



I am sorry again, but I really have no idea what you are talking about, and I am actively trying to understand. You are using some (to me) very weird definitions of "an example of an evil ending for a game". Again, I am sorry, but you do not get to be an ultimate arbiter of what is or what isn't an evil ending. Becoming a God of Murder IS an evil ending, in the sense that it was intended by the game's creators to BE an evil ending. Here is a video as a refresher: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8KpbtGhm8s

To quote the video:

Quote

Your tyranny shall be renowned, your strength and guile legendary.
You are the Bhaal-spawn, Lord of Murder, and the mark you have carved upon the Realms shall never fade.


What you are talking about, if I have the liberty to guess since I don't really understand - is the "canon" ending. If that's the case - sure, we can agree on that. But just because one path is considered "canonical", that doesn't mean games don't have alternative endings. There are other FR games like this, NWN2 comes to mind also. But to be perfectly honest - this discussion is pointless to me. There are clearly "evil" paths in D&D games, there are clearly "evil" endings in D&D games, and yes, some (if not all) of these are not "canonical", but that doesn't mean they don't exist. After all, each game, each tabletop session, each campaign is the world on it's own.

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I have loads of criticisms re: the rule implementations but I'm happy with the story so far.

Two points -- 1) Faerun just isn't an evil friendly setting 2) the evil playthrough doesn't have the narrative deficits critics claim. (even if it has bugs)


1)

As @kanisatha has said this is keeping with the FR setting which has always been about heroism. Greyhawk, by contrast, was about grey morality with "neutral" being the default. The evil path should be there but I don't think it should be as compelling as the good path. It should be like BG1&2. We see how few people actually enjoy the path in Larian's numbers, the sales numbers of Tyranny, the failures of Beamdog and it's evil edition etc. Fully supported evil playthrough is a very vocal, very niche market.

I want evil to be in the game -- otherwise my good actions are meaningless -- but I don't want half the game to be dedicated to a path I and most people will never follow.

2) The evil path in BG3 is the same path that Sarevok walked down. He thought he could use the harness the power and not have it harness him. (And he was wrong)

Astarian is key to understanding the evil path. The parasite has freed him from his master, allowed him to walk in the sun, to enter houses uninvited and he wants to know if its possible to take the benefits and leave the rest behind. What if the plan isn't to make you mindflayer? If the absolute wants to him to become the strongest vampire lord in Faerun, well, great! So what if the masters are mind flayers? These masters seems less demanding than the last.

And there are reasons to believe that the tadpole can be harnessed. The absolute wants the survivors of the crash dead. Could it be that the process was interrupted and the protagonists have more control over the "absolute powers" than the absolute intended? Perhaps there is an opportunity here -- infiltrate the new church, find the weaknesses and exploit them.

And you can just be seduced and tempted. I mean really early on you get a powerful set of gloves soon to be followed by a shield and amulet that can only be used if you take the brand and shout the absolute's name. Add to that powers from your seductive dream partner and the promise of drow bewbs and you've been seduced by the power of the dark side.

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Originally Posted by KillerRabbit

Astarian is key to understanding the evil path. The parasite has freed him from his master, allowed him to walk in the sun, to enter houses uninvited and he wants to know if its possible to take the benefits and leave the rest behind. What if the plan isn't to make you mindflayer? If the absolute wants to him to become the strongest vampire lord in Faerun, well, great! So what if the masters are mind flayers? These masters seems less demanding than the last.
Not if I become the strongest vampire lord in Faerûn first.
Originally Posted by KillerRabbit
And there are reasons to believe that the tadpole can be harnessed. The absolute wants the survivors of the crash dead. Could it be that the process was interrupted and the protagonists have more control over the "absolute powers" than the absolute intended? Perhaps there is an opportunity here -- infiltrate the new church, find the weaknesses and exploit them.

And you can just be seduced and tempted. I mean really early on you get a powerful set of gloves soon to be followed by a shield and amulet that can only be used if you take the brand and shout the absolute's name. Add to that powers from your seductive dream partner and the promise of drow bewbs and you've been seduced by the power of the dark side.
But then you are punished severely in almost comical ways for doing that. The evil path gives you less benefits than the good path. If the True Souls you meet keep wanting to kill you upon any mention of the tadpole or even if you get in their way, why would you play second fiddle to them? A pragmatic evil player realises Halsin is their best bet, but this makes them "good" when the help the Tieflings out of the interest of self-preservation.

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Originally Posted by RagnarokCzD

Cute ... have you talked to Gale after Rafaels visit?
There is allways someone who thinks he can outsmart the odds.

You did get cards ... play them right, and you will be rewarded ... play them wrong, and you will be dead ...
Odd, that everyone decided to get rid of them. laugh


Literally nobody in all of Act 1 knows what the tampered-with parasite will do to them. They do know that the standard parasite normally painfully incapacitates the host in a day and kills them within a week. They might know that someone infected can turn within seconds if they poked a certain console on the mind flayer ship. No one even suggests - not even on the evil path - that keeping it is beneficial.

Someone on the evil path needs to acknowledge the existence of the parasite and suggest that it can be controlled, managed, and used for the benefit of the host. That would solve a lot of the problems, and give a motive for evil characters to keep it in. Even if the person on the evil path is lying, it needs to be said to get evil players a reason to keep it.

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Remember the core problem with the entire "evil" route is that the cult is a group of enslaved people that simply don't realize it, not to mention the fact that its a kill everything path with little to no reward. Your character over time learns that all these bad guys have tadpoles in their heads and don't know it. If these people knew about them they would most certainly not be serving the Absolute and instead committing suicide or trying to figure out how to remove them. That means the kick off to going evil is "Hey, these guys are all Mind Flayer slaves, surely nothing can go wrong if I side with them". The potential power offered is also pretty unconvincing, yes people make pacts with demons and other worldly beings, however there are several factors that motivate these choices some of which are:

1)Unsound mine
2)Overriding lust for power
3)Desperation
4)Trickery
5)The deal comes from a god or major entity
6)Other things I can't think of atm

These can be combined as well but the result is usually the person making the pact and then trying to figure out a way to get out of the deal while maintaining the power you've gained. The tadpole in your brain doesn't offer you anything grand and the costs are extreme as it seems that once matured you aren't simply killed but have your soul obliterated as well. I mean hell we didn't make some pact with a fiend, god or other world entity, we had a tadpole stuck in our head against our will. We also have very little indication that the Absolute is anything other than a Mind Flayer grand plan. Evil or not you don't live long siding with an extremely xenophobic alien race, it can never be stressed enough that Mind Flayers don't look at others as anything more than cattle. Also we (the character) are unsure why our tadpoles are different, big question in the story, where the other tadpoles seem to be functioning as intended. Maybe it's due to outside influence, maybe its due to Mind Flayer experimentation, maybe the process of insertion wasn't completed or was damaged during the attack all we know is that it is really bad to have it in your head.

Sure someone like Astarion gets some pretty sweet benefits, they're temporary and end in a bad day. Maybe he'd be willing to risk simply controlling the tadpole due to the benefits but if anything were to go wrong at anytime he dies brutally. Personally having clear and concise lines for good and evil rarely works well in games as the result is typically genocidal or mustache twirling evil and practical/intelligent good. I'd say it would be better to have a single path with various decisions and branch outs rather than two seperate paths with one evil and one good. Though for this story we have no idea what Act 2 or 3 entail.

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@tyrion85, @Abits, see @KillerRabbit's post. The short of it is that you cannot just change a part of the Realms setting into an evil place. Your character can be evil. But no part of the world around you is going to become or represent evil. The FR setting is a GOOD setting. It is a setting where good prevails over evil. ALWAYS. That is the very essence of the FR setting, and WotC will stand by that, canon or not.
Originally Posted by Vhaldez
The evil path gives you less benefits than the good path.

This is a very accurate portrayal of the FR setting. The moral of pretty much every novel written using the FR setting is essentially that evil does not pay, and that even when the evil side "wins," the win is temporary and will soon be reversed by the good side. Heck, the big criticism some people have of the setting is precisely that it is a "goody-two-shoes" setting. For evil-liking people, this criticism makes sense. For someone like me, I love the setting exactly for its goody-two-shoes nature.

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Originally Posted by kanisatha
Originally Posted by Vhaldez
The evil path gives you less benefits than the good path.
This is a very accurate portrayal of the FR setting. The moral of pretty much every novel written using the FR setting is essentially that evil does not pay, and that even when the evil side "wins," the win is temporary and will soon be reversed by the good side. Heck, the big criticism some people have of the setting is precisely that it is a "goody-two-shoes" setting. For evil-liking people, this criticism makes sense. For someone like me, I love the setting exactly for its goody-two-shoes nature.
I don't think the current problems with the evil path are caused by Larian's strict adherence to the FR setting though. If the evil path and all evil characters in the game only exist as cartoonish foils for the good characters to overcome, why even have the player make a choice at all? It would make any evil action in the game pointless and inevitably reversible.

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I agree with some of these suggestions. I also agree with the problems pointed out with the first one.
There certainly needs to be more scenario recognition of having slaughtered the grove first or not having the goblins hostile after which was odd.
I'm not sure Larian needs to fully elaborate on the reasons to go with Minthara motivation wise. The way they use the narrator to flesh out some choices would work in that case. I don't remember the specific lines for speaking with her, but just having one that includes further exposition such as, "You decide to play along, after all, this "Absolute" and "true souls" seems to be a path to learn more about your condition...and the power you might gain..."

As far as people who have been unsatisfied with the "Evil path" so far, I'm not sure where to stand on it. I imagine more opportunities should open up after EA especially in the underdark. I am also curious to see what the individual Minthara says is waiting in the mountains would provide.

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@kanisatha I'm sorry man I really like your comments and enjoy reading them but I'm gonna call bullshit right now. I couldn't care less about FR. I'm not here for it. I'm here to play a video game. You can do any mental gymnastics you wish if it helps convince you bg2 doesn't have a bad ending, but honestly? I don't really care what evil means in FR. Bg2 is fine without it.

As for bg3 Larian themselves defined it as follows:
"74.85% of you stood with the Tieflings, and 25.15% of you sided with Minthara. Good outweighs evil, it seems"
If the word "evil" is what's tipping you off you can call it "Minthara's path" and all the criticism in this thread is still valid. What I'm trying to say is that some of you (and I don't get why) try to excuse bad writing with FR lore.

Last edited by Abits; 30/10/20 08:24 PM.

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It's fine if we want to side with Minthara to gain more knowledge about the Absolute - but that is not written anywhere in the game. We need at least a couple lines setting up that path. Right now it's as if we are crazy.

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@The Drow Warlock I can see that. Putting a few lines making it clear that you are trying to dominate and control the tadpole like Astarian could help. And perhaps this would satisfy @Vhaldez -- if you are trying to become the strongest Vampire in the FR you don't want Halsin because that's a path to remove this thing. The thing that grants you powers. And isn't that what matters? Power? Authority? (and besides his log books tell you he's just guessing)

How is the outcome worse? One path leads you to moonrise towers and another path leads you to moonrise towers. And you get to get trade with the zents.

And yeah, like @kanisatha that's just the nature of the realms. Evil loses. The tag line of BG was "Can you resist the evil inside" Being seduced should be an option but it doesn't mean a happy ending.

Like BG, the evil party is stronger -- your evil party with their tadpole powers could defeat my good hearted adventurers who only have one tadpole power, one's that currently being kept in check by a ring.

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Originally Posted by KillerRabbit
@Vhaldez -- if you are trying to become the strongest Vampire in the FR you don't want Halsin because that's a path to remove this thing. The thing that grants you powers. And isn't that what matters? Power? Authority? (and besides his log books tell you he's just guessing)
Mind you, I'm just roleplaying here (and going off my own hallucination that Larian confirmed we can become a Werewolf and Vampire somewhere before EA). There is no ingame way to convey to Astarion in Act 1 that you are interested in becoming a full vampire yourself, nor should there be. The tadpole and what boils down to Astarion's (and Helia's) side quest content are unrelated. What's more, if I was right and we can become a Vampire / Werewolf, does that mean origin characters can all become it as well? What about Astarion who is already a Vampire or Helia who is a Werewolf? 🤔

Back on topic; Nothing communicates to the player that the tadpole is a consequence free power-gaining device. Omeluum tells you that although ceremorphosis has been put on hold the Netherese magic containing it can be instantly removed by whoever put it in place and then you instamorph into an Illithid. Only crazy people would be inclined to think the Absolute is going to give you any kind of autonomy back once you commit to her and the only reason I can think of to take her side now is if you believe your tadpole is there to stay and this is your life now. If we could ever communicate that ingame the Absolute would probably just detonate us remotely, though.

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@Vhaldez, I don't think the evil characters in the game need be cartoonish foils at all. Never said that. The evil characters in the original BG games are some of the most memorable characters ever.
Originally Posted by Abits
@kanisatha I'm sorry man I really like your comments and enjoy reading them but I'm gonna call bullshit right now. I couldn't care less about FR. I'm not here for it. I'm here to play a video game. You can do any mental gymnastics you wish if it helps convince you bg2 doesn't have a bad ending, but honestly? I don't really care what evil means in FR. Bg2 is fine without it.

Call it whatever you want. The mental gymnastics is on the other side, meaning it is people playing evil in an FR setting game that have to engage in it to believe they "won." You don't care about FR. Totally cool. But WotC does care. A lot.

But let me say this: If becoming an evil god is what passes for a satisfying and fun evil path for you, I would be fine with that in BG3. You get to see it as the "evil path." I get to see it as so *not* an "evil path." We both go away happy. Right? But if something along the lines of you turning the city of Baldur's Gate into a bastion of evil is the kind of evil path you're looking for, sorry but I don't see that happening.

Also, I agree with you that bad writing is bad writing. No excuse for that.

Oh, and no need to be sorry. I can take it. And ditto. I generally really like your posts and always find them interesting. We happen to disagree on this issue. No biggie. smile

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The evil path, while encouraged, just feels inferior from a storyline and value perspective currently.

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Originally Posted by Vhaldez

Back on topic; Nothing communicates to the player that the tadpole is a consequence free power-gaining device. Omeluum tells you that although ceremorphosis has been put on hold the Netherese magic containing it can be instantly removed by whoever put it in place and then you instamorph into an Illithid. Only crazy people would be inclined to think the Absolute is going to give you any kind of autonomy back once you commit to her and the only reason I can think of to take her side now is if you believe your tadpole is there to stay and this is your life now. If we could ever communicate that ingame the Absolute would probably just detonate us remotely, though.


I think you are right that we will have options to become vampires and werewolves. I don't think it needs to be consequence free -- every evil person in Faerun, every person who sells her soul to patron knows they are going to suffer in the long term for their decision. Short term gain for long term cost is evil done right. Look at the original Valut of the Drow modules -- the people who are faithful to Lloth end up suffering endlessly in the demonweb pits. In Avernus anyone who sells her soul to Asmodus ends up becoming a pit fiend doomed to fight the blood war endlessly.

It just needs to be power gaining, not consequence free. The seduction of power is like the seduction of the vampire lover -- you know this could destroy you but you go along anyway. Again, this was the story of Bhaalspawn. The slayer could roflstomp anyone but it too often and you would lose yourself. In this, Larian got it right.

I would support some Astarian like musing for Tav "I wonder if there is a way to keep the powers without becoming a mind flayer"

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I'm not sure why are we even discussing the absolute powers. they have nothing to do with the evil path. they are a completely separate storyline, and you can complete EA (in both paths) with or without them.


Larian's Biggest Oversight, what to do about it, and My personal review of BG3 EA
"74.85% of you stood with the Tieflings, and 25.15% of you sided with Minthara. Good outweighs evil, it seems."
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