Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Kagha

I think the desire to avoid standard story tropes and to create something 'totally new' that hasn't been done before, is kind of landing them in a cul de sac with this first act.

Throwing Kagha and Shadowdruids at us right out the gate (literally) makes the whole druid narrative rather less interesting than if the same thing happened a bit further down the line. So the first Druid we meet kills a devil kid for no good reason? OK, I guess so. But you know it just lands a bit different with no prior set up.

I had much the same general impression with pet intellect devourer Us in the prologue. Like legit the very first conversation in the game is going for the gross out angle? Alright. I mean I get it, they don't want to do Candlekeep again and be accused of boring writing, but some of this stuff just feels reaching and kinda off the deep end sophomoric. Like "wouldn't it be cool if we inverted every expectation!" Not really lol

Its just a weird way to pitch D&D, especially to new players. Can you imagine if this shit came out in the 80s? Reaganites would have had a field day, like "Obviously Dungeons and Dragons is Satanic. It starts in Hell, and what about the children?!!!" Well they can just fuck right off and die I guess heheh. I'm in no way opposed to a solid Evil arch for Charname's adventures, but without some nuance and a bit of subtlety it just doesn't land like it might otherwise.

I like the Kagha character, I'd take her in the party as a Faldorn 'feed the worms' alt Druid archetype if that was on offer. Join team shadowdruid and wrap it up in thorns! Sure thing, I'm there. But I just think they're trying to cover too much ground right at the beginning. There's no easing into it, like you'd typically see in a campaign designed for new lvl1 characters.

I wish they'd consider a more mundane start, maybe with a prologue to their current prologue (set in Baldur's Gate with an emphasis on lvl1), so new players could enjoy a bit more of the standard Adventure fair before they get launched out a cannon straight into the dark. If this game had to serve as an introduction or primer to D&D, the way the first Baldur's Gate did for many people, its missing a bunch of tried and true hooks.

ps. I dig her hair cut
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Kagha

I got through helping Kagha.. yes, we have serious problems with this root.

Kagha looks quite friendly towards MC, even if he is drow (there are special lines).
Zevlor was already killed at the time of the conversation with her, for this they even made a special dialogue option.
On this, work on "Kagha root" ended and the problems began:

1. The task of Kagha is not clear when she says that we should deal with the tieflings after Zevlor's death. I killed everyone, When trying to kill tieflings (the girl's parents), druids become aggressive. I don't understand what she wants from me.
2. Immortal tiefling children ... oh, this looks like a bug, not censorship. Let them just run away somewhere when I start killing adult tieflings, okay?
3. When we go to the camp, there is a note in the journal that the tieflings left the camp.
When we return we see this picture: the children of the tieflings are still in the grove of the druids, and the druids have become aggressive. Not a single dialogue, they are just aggressive and that's it. Why? I helped Kagha!
4. When I killed all the other tieflings and came to the Kagha, there is no option to report it to her.
5. There is no reward for killing tieflings. I would like some simple artifact, the right to visit the grove (we are not refugees, but the guests who helped them), and a potential ally of the Kaga if she meets us in the next acts.
6. No vine has grown, the rite is not complete.
7. We have the label "hiding from the law", it is incorrect, we are enemies of tieflings in the grove of druids but not the law.
8. The lack of an adequate response to my actions from all tieflings

I think a possible "neutral" root was buried here. There is no reason to help Kagha now, it doesn't look like a path - it looks like a dead end.

Perhaps she doesn't need to be a Shadow Druid, just a Druid vying for power with the Khalsin. We already have evil heroes, it should be made neutral.
If we help her, we should have a task from Kagha to resolve the situation with Mintara peacefully (a truly neutral path, or possibly neutral evil depending on the player's decision) or kill the goblin leaders (a neutral good path for lovers of elves and druids, which will be no different from helping the tieflings, except for the fact that on the party will be druids)

In general, there are a lot of things to think about if it won't be difficult for Larian.
The druids can either become Minthar's neutrality/allies, or replace the tieflings at the party - for ex
Larian can remove this possibility altogether, it would be better than leaving the illusion of choice with a dead end.

I don't want this to be an extra waste of resources that can be spent on more important quests, but the Kagha root in the form in which it is in the game is now completely unplayable. At least cosmetic improvements are needed so that there is no feeling of "dead end"

Thank you for your extensive comment, I will go through everything one subject at a time;

You ran into the bug / feature of certain druids acting as generic guard NPC's responsible for crime handling in the entire grove, not taking into account that they actually hate the Tieflings. Until separate flags are set up for the ritual site area and the caves, this is going to keep popping up like it did in 1, 3 and 7.
Can only agree here. Olodan makes things unnescessarily complicated (where did she come from? how did she manipulate the entire grove into following her?). I don't think Minthara would want to cooperate with the druids as Sylvanus is a serious threat in the region for some reason.
There should be at least something for Kagha in the long run, yes. I think she is meant as a one-off character and that druids in general might not even become important again after Act 1, so her character and faction seem irrelevant now.
It's not a path, I don't know why people keep saying it is. There are only two paths, the Tieflings and the Goblins. Making Kagha a third path would be great and something I would encourage if Larian does not want to rewrite her.

It had me second guessing myself, I thought I had just misunderstood the portrayal of druids in FR as neutral keepers of balance. All of a sudden they have populist demagogues and xenophobic bigotry and all.

Yes, if there are two big paths in the first act - tieflings and goblins, Larian can keep the whole point but add cosmetic changes with the help of druids:

After we dealt with Zevlor, Kahga must give us a quest to resolve the situation with the goblins peacefully or hostilely, depending on our decision.

1.) A party with druids after goblin leaders killing (good way). No difference except that there will be druids at the party, and maybe this will open up a one night romantic option with Kahga. Who will become the leader of the druids depends on our decision, we can fulfill Kahga's secret request to deal with Halsin when we find him, or not. I think female characters will get Khalsin at the celebration party, and one night option with him, they will be pleased.

2.) Druids who performed the ritual and transferred the bodies and loot of tieflings to the goblins and a declaration of their support from Minthara (goblin party, evil way).
And Kahga transfer to Minthara information that the captured bear is Khalsin and must be executed. But in comparison with the classic evil way, this one will be more "kind". Minthara congratulates us on killing tieflings and the leader of the druids, and forcing Kahga to recognize her leadership and authority in the region.

If the Druid Grove is sealed and deprived of tiefling support, the goblins will not be able to attack it, and will probably agree to a compromise. In which Kaga will be a vassal in exchange for saving the grove of sylvanus.

From the point of view of game mechanics, it will be much easier to implement the changes above than to give us a third neutral "Kahga path", in the end we get the same result as now. But it will give us a real choice and the freedom of role-playing, not a dead end

Hmm yeah, that would be the only way I could see the druids convincing the goblins to a neutral path. However, wasn't Minthara's motivation simply show of power through slaughter in the region? She may or may not be able to be reasoned with if that is her motive.

Out of curiosity, when does Kagha ask you to slaughter all the tieflings? Whenever I've spoken to her the deal is that I help Zevlor and the tieflings leave, not that I murder them all for her.

I also experienced lol from double standards - when Kagha kills a tiefling child it's ok, no censorship, and when we go to kill tieflings and their children, their children run around with 0 hp and spoil the immersion.
Oh, well, you can still kill goblin children, that's ok and tiefling children aren't ok

I’m not asking for the ability to kill children in the game (I’m not interested), but I don’t like the fact that the game looks bugged due to double censorship standards. I don't care about the tieflings and their children, if they can't be killed, let them all run away from the Druid Grove to be eaten by wolves, so they find a new home or something like that. Or let it be just bags of loot instead of their bodies when I deal fatal damage to them, but not this bug

From the combination all the plot lines.

It seems to me that Kagha wants to close off the grove so that the shadow druids can have an easier time taking over the grove AND keep safe from goblins. They don't want the tieflings maybe partly due to what happened before with the town descending into hell (these are the tieflings that were part of that.) The druids were conflicted in keeping the tie flings because they just became leaderless and Kagha was a strong figure to band around to (This type of stuff happens) They are leaderless because the goblins captured Halsin. Halsin said that the goblins were causing an imbalance. So as a druid, killing/stopping the goblins is actually GOOD.

The tieflings were bringing in goblins attacks. Thus the tieflings were also causing an imbalance. So Kagha, a member of the shadow druids, decides to close off the grove. If she really was 100% committed to shadow druid ideology, she would've just killed the tieflings herself, but she was trying to radicalize the grove into shadow druids.

Simply put

Refugees from Hell have come to reside in our grove after a pretty large incident concerning Hell.
Leader taken by Goblins
Goblins are attacking trying to kill refugees.
Shadow Druids try to fill vaccum- Blame refugees for goblin attack
PC can either help tieflings or let them die.
Kagha don't care as long as they are gone before they close off the grove so she can take control


Shadow Druids are pretty harsh when it comes to anyone messing with nature. Now imagine a Hellspawn (Which already get bad rep) taking one of your relics. They gonna be pissed.

I don't really understand the disconnect here.

If a certain race of people with a bad rep come to a grove that is being taken over by extremists that believe anything that upsets with nature and balance should be destroyed or leave then I don't find this arc to be too unbelievable personally.

was off screen though wasnt it ?

As it is, Kagha is a very mustache-twirling villain. And the Tieflings are overly innocent and good. It should be a difficult choice between who you want to side with. Both parties should seem reasonable, and following either path should offer a satisfying story.

Currently Kagha is I HATE PEOPLE, I MURDER CHILDREN, I WANTS HAVE COUP, I IS VILLAINY!!!! It's all way over the top. Villains like this are expected for small encounters where you need to know almost immediately who the bad guy is and need to feel okay about slaughtering your opponent. But for full on locations like the druid grove, complete with story lines, multiple characters, and evolving plots -- for those we need more complex characters and situations.

You only find it by snooping and reading journal's but the Grove was almost entirely out of food, they literally couldent support the trifling any longer.

All the while during this Halsin is experimenting in secret on the dead drow, and decides to leave for the ruins, caring nothing about the empty food stores

The no-food angle sounds like great "meat" for the story. Kagha would be 100x more reasonable if she was struggling to feed everyone. "We can't go outside the grove to look for food because of the goblins, and everyone here will starve if these refugees stay. They keep saying they are about to leave. Always about to leave. Are they going to wait until every scrap of food is gone?"

Kagha should also play up more that Halsin abandoned them. She doesn't want to make these hard decisions, but Halsin left her no choice.

It's true. I played a high elf on my first playthrough, and when I saw the elf druids I thought I'd have an interesting choice ... no, no choices for an elf lover. Kagha is bad, not neutral. I had to help the tifflings kill Kagha.

It's strange that tieflings, creatures from hell, are the most positive characters in the first act, is this such a performance against racism from Larian?

She mentions it too him if you dont reveal the shadow druids iirc.

For it to make an impact, these sorts of struggles should come out in your first conversation with Kagha. Her conflicted gray areas should be apparent right at the beginning so we as a player struggle as well. Otherwise she comes off as a cartoon.

I find it unbelievable that a leader like Halsin could let his grove slip so hard into meme nativist populism, up to the point where even if you help the Tieflings leave and have Halsin discipline Kagha the damage she's seemingly managed to do is irreversible. Is Halsin just full of shit and oblivious to the problems his grove had? How does Olodan facto into this, give that her motivations are just "hail shadow druidry"? Sometimes it feels as though everyone is under the influence of some kind of spell. Not to mention that this makes the shadow druids a totally unrelated evil faction the Absolute's forces can wipe out by accident. Why?

A few notes:

-There is a shortage of resources at the grove. The halfling trader mentions this for example, the druids cannot feed the tieflings.
-Tieflings are not "denziens from hell" they are people who have devil blood in their ancestry. A cambion (Mizora and Raphael are cambions and the creatures fighting the Illithids in Avernus are cambions) is someone born directly from the union of a material plane denzien and a devil).
-Shadow Druids simply don't want people of any kind around. They are isolationists who believe nature can only be protected if the world is brought back to a primordial state by any means necessary, which usually means killing people. They don't want the tieflings in the grove not because they are tieflings but simply because they are not shadow druids.
-Kagha is not a Shadow Druid (yet) when you meet her. She's falling for them though. You have the chance to prevent this from happening.
-If you listen to Kagha and read her correspondance with Olodan you learn that Olodan KNEW about the assault on the grove and offered Kagha a way out IF she was willing to bring the grove under the Shadow Druids control. It's very possible the Shadow Druids are part of the conspiracy threatening the Sword Coast.
-Also, Silvanus' Grove is important to the plot. The druids were the ones helping the Selunites stop the forces of Shar years before (check the murals inside the grove). The tadpole is protected by netherese Shadow Magic which was the gift of Shar to the Netherese survivors of Karsus' Folly (the Shadovars). All of this is connected.

Halsin made some bad calls. I would not say that he is full of shit, but his leadership skills are lacking, or he simply didn't prepare the druids for a scenario were they would be under threat, so when it came down to it the other druids did not know what to do in his absence.

It's the same thing that would happen in any workplace. If the boss/leader leaves without giving proper guidance on how to handle certain situations, things are going to turn into a shit show real quick especially if the second in command is someone as incompetent as Kagha.

Halsin was also probably counting on being back in the Grove and not being absent due to him getting captured.

Helsin sucks it is known (fight me fanboys!!!). The worst first druid ever. But it's not the first case of a druid grove going rogue. Not even the first case of druid grove going rogue in Baldur's Gate games.