Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Ceremorphosis... A plot hole?

I was reading one of the rulebooks on aberrations and I found something about ceremorphosis that, in my mind, renders half the Act 1 pointless.

When someone gets the tadpole, there is a way to fix it, given that the transformation is caught early enough. You destroy the brain (bash it in or incinerate), the character dies, then you get someone to cast resurrection or true resurrection, then restore the lost brain parts by a healing spell or restoration. It's hard to do because it's super rare for the transformation to be caught so early.

Considering that everyone's transformation has essentially been arrested, and at least Halsin is an archdruid, they should've at least provided an explanation as to why the above method isn't a viable option, because Gale not knowing this solution sounds implausible. Nettie should've at least said "that's not possible with you lot because reasons". At this point it feels like my elven wizard is wandering around in the wilderness for no reason while all she needs to do is find Halsin (a day's work), have Astarion bash her head in (hey he volunteered), have Halsin resurrect and restore her, then say toodles and walk back to Baldur's Gate with Wyll and Shadowheart and maybe Gale. She's a true neutral so she doesn't feel any impetus to stick around and solve this crisis. She wants to skedaddle.

It could've been solved with a line of dialogue but as of now it feels like a plot hole.

The only plot hole is that Gale is carrying a scroll of True Resurrection in combination with the above, and possibly Mr Bones. Aside from that there is no access to the spells so it's not like it would help.

As far as i know he isnt ...
And i would dare to say that he dont know any ressurection spells either ... since if he wpuld he would probably offered more than apllogy to grieving mother whos kid has ben murdered bcs of his false judgement.

But i agree it should have ben mentioned.

I'd be very surprised if in the more accurate lore version he WASN'T a high level druid, if not an archdruis. Probably not a Great Druid, but one of the top three of the Circle? Arundel from IWD was level 14.

Considering that reincarnate is a fifth level spell, a tenth level Halsin (which is not even a full-fledged "druid" but rather an "initiate") should be able to cast it, and offer it as an option with the caveat of "we have no idea what race you'll become". Lae'zel will be horrified, Wyll may not really care, dunno about Gale, Shadowheart may not care, and Astarion will be horrified that he'd lose his pretty face that he can't remember. It'd feel very weird to have initiates leading the grove, though. And Kagha at one point had the title archdruid.

A lot of game mechanics I'm willing to ignore in the spirit of "this isn't tabletop" but if one considers the plot as a novel all sorts of weird things start happening, like why aren't more elves having absolutely allergic reactions to the drow PC or Minthara. Astarion, being a racist high elf noble git that he is, should've made a few comments, if not outright flip out. Elves, especially high elves, absolutely hate the drow that borders on obsession. Or why Shadowheart wanders around a Sharran temple, surrounded by broken Sharran stuff, and doesn't quite get that she's in a Sharran temple until way later. Even if what we suspect of her is true, she should at least recognize all the empty circles and black circles that are on every surface. Also not sure why you can be a cleric of the Dead Three. Last I checked they weren't much more than glorified mortals that don't die. Who's granting their spells?

But for me, the "there are solutions but we will just withhold it from you for no reason" is the biggest plot hole. I want a reasonable explanation as to why having Astarion bash my PC's head in then someone bringing the character back from the dead isn't a viable option, and I care about these things since this is an RPG. Bioware and Obsidian would've addressed the issue.

It's only a bit of a plot hole for this game because we have more access to resurrection magic than a party of this level would or should. Mr. Bones is just offering resurrection for 200 gold, cheaper than a goddamn revivify diamond. Resurrection is supposed to be rare, you can't just pop along to your local temple and pick up a resurrection for little Timmy who didn't make it out of the well.

That said, there's a chance we might be missing something (more than likely, given the fact that we don't have the rest of the game yet). Normally, ceremorphosis take places over a few days to a week, but the game harps on quite a lot that ours is different. Now, remembering the poor woman in the pod on the ship during the intro, she transformed instantly at the push of a button, and it was heavily implied that this could happen to you too.

So, what if your ceremorphosis is actually complete already? If you choose to use the tadpole, or accept the lewd dreams, then you seem to assimilate more with the tadpole, which might mean that by the end of the first act you are actually ceremorphosis-ed, just in a special way that has left your body un-transformed, at least for now. Congratulations, you're an Illithid sleeper!

While this would at least cover the resurrection problem, it creates some of its own, if the ceremorphosis is complete, your tadpole would be gone, absorbed into your brain (technically it would become your brain), but it's clearly still there, because you can still have people examine it even after you hit maximum tadpole assimilation.

Well, after death that tadpoles usually crawl out of the body, we have seen so often enough. Even squashed at least one.

So, theoretically spoken, our tadpoles should crawl out of us with every death. (We also have Withers who resurrects us for 200gold).

Yet no tadpole emerges when we die, not even after a permanent death like when you kill Astarion with a stake. He is not resurrectable, yet no tadpole.

Gales story has a twist with his death...normally the tadpole should also come out then.

I have seen no explanation for this and can only imangin "fate" as one. Which is pretty lazy.

Also, when falling out of the Nautiloid, something saves our live. Maybe the tadpole? Why does this happen only once? With the actual incapacitation mechanic we could easily be transported back to camp with 1HP when dying on the road. That would make more sense when what we have now.

So there are a few small holes everywhere

Our tadpoles are unique even from other true souls. Ethel and Omeluum give more insight. Omeluum tells you that the magic surrounding the tadpoles is much more powerful and unique. Trying to remove it in any usual way would be very bad for you. Also note: when you or your companions die, the tadpole never emerges.

Also, true resurrection is not easy to come by. 99.9% don't know it and can't do it. Also note: you can die and have Withers resurrect you, but you still have the tadpole. It dies with you and is resurrected with you. Same with Gale's true resurrection scroll.

Yeah, I think this is something they should at least address in dialogue. Like, even having it so that Gale finds it weird that after his resurection, the tadpole is still there would help. The fact that there's so many options available to us for resurection does make this an issue. Even just commenting on it so we as the audience know that it's a plot point and not a mistake in the writing would be useful.

Where did you get that? The only difference between the tadpoles is, that we are aware of them and the other true souls are not. This is stated in some conversations. The whole game does not adress any other differences, at least i found none.

The journal of halsin and nettie stated that the tadpole of the drow they fought left the corpse. Every tadpole leaves on death. You can kill them even if you are fast enough and they don't slither away.

First i thought the "downed" mechanic was exactly for that, so that we cannot actually die but have a game over after all party members are out of order.

That would have been a neat explanation since when you lose a fight and are incapacitated you will get dragged to moonrise and become true souls....game over. What we have now is ridicoulous guesswork. We would not have needed Withers ingame who ressurrects us for fking 200 gold. Gales Storyline could start with

Incapacitation instead of his death. The save from the fall could have been something special since a fall on the head from high on might destroy the tadpole too, so it was prevented. Way less hassle with explaining if you ask me.

I'm of two minds on this.

1. I completely agree. Assuming the narrative agrees.

2. But I'm worried the narrative doesn't agree.

What I mean is this: why doesn't Tav's revivify scroll work on Kannon? He just died. It's no different than if Shadowheart or Lae'zel died.

But the scroll only works on party members.

There isn't an "in game" reason for that. It's a conceit of the video game, and I'm afraid we have to just accept it and suspend disbelief.

*

The Edowin scene is there to introduce us to the concept of True Souls, and to show that True Souls have tadpoles. That's the major purpose of the scene.

It only falls apart because we have in game ways of bringing party members back to life.

But I don't think the game necessarily takes those moments seriously, at least not in a narrative sense. For instance, no one ever goes on existentially about how they just died and came back from death.

In terms of the game, it's just a respawn. The narrative works around it, not through it.

And so I suspect it's not even something that gets taken into account with the Edowin scene.

In other words, I think the *flaw* in the writing isn't that the tadpole comes out when someone dies... I think the *flaw* is that the video game has a baked in conceit that allows for revivify scrolls.

I almost think we have to pretend like the party member never died, but rather was close to death's door and pulled back just in time with powerful healing magic.

Or refuse to use the revivify scrolls, which is basically what I do.

Part of the issue, again, has to do with a disregard for the rules. Only select classes can even use Revivify, and if you aren't high enough level, you need to make a roll for the chance to use them. You might fail.

Revivifying also has time limits. Larian doesn't use proper time limits at all, so once again, the mechanics are busted and the game suffers for it.

Revivify is a 3rd level spell only usable by cleric, paladin and artificer. Only if you get to the dead person within 1 minute after death, 10 rounds, can you use it. Even then, using it before you can cast level 3 spells means a roll is required of 13 or higher using your spellcaster ability.

But Larian doesn't use proper time limits. A potion of speed should give you haste for 10 rounds. They give you like 3.

Either way, Kanon makes sense because it is not likely that you'd get to him within a minute. With Ed, I assumed the tadpole immediately emerged, not giving you time to resurrect him. However, that said, they don't even give you a choice to heal him before he dies, which I always thought was odd.

I agree that there are a few plot holes regarding the tadpoles.
- There is an established narrative that tadpoles leave the body upon death, but there is no explanation why this doesn't happen to the PCs
- There is no reason given for why you cannot just crush someone's skull, kill the tadpole, and resurrect the character
- The explanations for why ceromorphosis is not occurring and the development of a "symbiotic" relationship (i.e., tadpole powers) are weak and non-existent respectively.

This feels like lazy / unimaginative writing to me. Or perhaps someone just decided that giving everyone tadpole powers would be "cool" without thinking about how it would affect the story.

If it up to me, the tadpoles would leave the body upon death and crawl back in upon resurrection. There could be some high (perhaps impossibly high) skill check involved if you want to try and prevent the tadpole from crawling back in. I would also recommend Larian either ditch the tadpole powers completely or provide some plausible explanation for the development of these powers and a drawback (like loosing control of your body to the tadpole).

My preference would be to just remove the tadpole powers completely and just have the tadpoles be dormant, at least until you arrive at Moonrise Towers.

Man! You guys are turning me into a defender of Larian because you're going a bit to the opposite end of the spectrum.

This is EA. We're only in Act 1. Give Larian a chance to explain things more. Of course there are things that seem like plot holes, and if we had the whole game and they never explained anything, I'd be in total agreement with you. However, we're in Act 1.

And it IS explained by several people that we have VERY special tadpoles. So special that a cambion wants it for himself. Does he want Minthara's? Nope. Does he want Ragzlins? Nope. Just ours. Ours is a catalyst. It is given authority over other True Souls even. It is a boss tadpole protected and imbued with Sharran/ Netherese Shadow Magic which is keeping it from turning us instantly into mind flayers - or whatever it will actually turn us into. It is even said by Omeluum that whenever we do turn, it will likely be far more excruciating than any other ceremorphosis ever, and it has burrowed so deep into our person that he cannot remove it from us either via connecting mentally with it or by physical or magical means. It is apart of us completely.

People, this is no different from Bhaalspawn. Instead of being infused by the seed of a god, we've been infused by the seed of mind flayers - a special mind flayer seed that has made it apart of the very essence of who we are. It is really no different. We have been reborn as something new and godlike, and it is very different from any other mind flayer parasites ever, including that of other True Souls. THAT is why the Absolute wants us so badly, not just the weapon. THAT is why Shadowheart is called a beautiful weapon by the voice on the ship. We are MORE than any other, and the tadpoles can't be crushed and removed and us resurrected because they ARE apart of us now. If we are rez'd, the tadpole is rez'd with us.

I honestly dont quite understand why would he "need to be high level character" ...
I mean feel free to corect me, but as far as i know Druids are not usualy society where "the strongest rule over all". :-/

Once Halsin is respected and concidered by all others in his circle as their leader, he could and should be their leader no matter what level he have. O_o

Especialy since there is nobody significantly stronger around him ...
As i said countless times in topics talking about Halsin level: In land of blind man, one-eyed is the king.

Not to even mention that level is completely "unroleplayable" stat in my honest opinion ...
Yes, it helps us to figure out how strong certain characters will be and it helps our silly realistic human brains to understand how is that possible that squishy Gnome can dare to fight a Dragon of size as average house.
But beyond that?
There is no room for such mechanic in roleplay for me, sory ... its just number and if it would be hidden (as it should be btw, since DM usualy dont tell you "you met 5lvl druid", do they? :P ) nobody would say even single word at this topic. :-/

For one, Wyll would definietly care, since there is nothing Wyll care more about than Wyll himself ... and his reputation ... he would hardly be able to continue as "legendary blade of frontiers" when he would become something else.

For two, Halsin is not level 10, but level 5 ... so why are we even talking about this?
If we would start "if circumstances would be different" ... then we can also change circumstances right from the start to being able to pick the "brainbug" with long sharp pointy needle through our ear.

I was not aware of this ...
When did that happen?

Agreed ... i was also hoping that in by Drow playthrough people would despise me and some vendors or sidequest givers would simply refuse to talk with me at all, unles i use discuise self.
It was quite dissapointing.

Not that i dont understand that Larian presume (and i think they presume corectly) that most mainstream players would be pissed of if they block out content just by picking cool race ... but for people who knows at least little of DnD (and yes i know VERY little) it is just another source of different kind of frustration.

Yup.

Im not quite sure when, but i believe i have heared Wolfheart in one of his lore videos talking about some event when they reached full godhood.
Try to look there.

I mean ... i would not mind mentioning the option ... probably.
But talking purely for myself, this is something that goes without telling. :-/

After all, as it was mentioned above, you and your companions can quite easily die during your adventures ... some more often than others (looking at you Gale) ... yet no tadpole even gets out ...
Now in Grymforge you can even be pushed to FREAKING LAVA and burn there ... just for the record, do you have any idea how long will human body keep intact in contact with actual lava?
I dont, (at least not exactly) ... but in general, its matter of seconds and its usualy told that "human who would jump into active vulcano would never reach the lava, since he would vaporize faster than he would fall". :-/
So ... in my honest opinion, quite thorough way to be asured that tadpole will not make it out. Yet once we are ressurected that bastard is right there once again ...
Seems obvious to me that this trick with smashing brain with huge rock will not work as intended.

And even if it would ...
Note that all people you meet is strangers to you ... dont tell me that if someone completely unknown to you ... would offer that he would smash your brain off with a warhammer ... and then he would heal you ... you would honestly react like "hells yeah, lets do this right now!"

I dare to presume that cost is there exactly to make ressurection accesible for EA, after all Larian had no idea (at least from start) how often will we die ... and it would be terrible experience if you would not be able to get past first encounter with Intellect Devourers on beach and had no way to ressurect your party members.

In other words i hope in final release this guy will either be removed, or his cost will incerase like at least 10 times as much.

This sounds to me more like plot twist for endgame, than just act.
But it would be fun! :P

Nah ...
Technicaly it become your whole body ... or even more precise, your whole body would become it.

Its called plot armor.

I believe we get quite close to things that are never questioned in fantasy ...
Like how is that possible that i just get direct hit to unprotected head with a Stone Hammer from 200kg Minotaur ... and i just get 2Bludgeoning damage and feel totally fine.

Those are not holes of storytelling ... those are just things that work differently in games.

I dare to believe that Omeluum was comparing our tadpole to regular (aka not-alterned by nethereese) tadpoles ... wich would mean that he didnt mean "our tadpoles", but all true soul tadpoles in general.

In other words he would probably say the same to Minthara, Ragzlin, Gut, Nere, or anyone else ... if he would ever get the change to study her "brainbug".

It would make sence ...
But sadly both Gale mentioned that you litteraly "get him back from the dead" ... and Mol litteraly mentioned that she want the Druids idol "to sell it and maybe get enough money to pay for ressurecting Arabella". :-/

So yeah, ressurection spells are definietly part of this world and should be counted with.

It actually is, as there are 3 archdruids, and 9 in the inner circle (regular druids), and in order to ascend into that circle you have to defeat the currently seated member. If you lose, you automatically lose XP points that bumps you down to a certain level. That's probably how a lot of shadow druids infiltrated the druid order.

Halsin cannot be lore-wise level 5, because that's way too low. 8+d8*4+ConMod*5 cannot give you 90+ HP, unless he has 6+ ConMod (and that's assuming you roll 8 4 times). He's much more upper-level than that. I honestly don't see why he couldn't be a level 10 other than "well, then the party would be wiped out" (a level 1 party getting wiped out by challenging something ridiculous like a dragon, a company of githyanki, or the master of druids should be happening IMHO, because I quite frankly don't cherish the idea of getting wiped out by a level 1 party when MY party is level 15). Larian has set so that the enemies are levelling with you.


At least a year ago. Here's the link: https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGat...tandards_for_becoming_an_archdruid_have/

You're talking about the weird agreement with Jergal, which was pre-Time of Troubles and the Spellplague AND the Second Sundering (basically pre-everything). The Dead Three were mortals in Ancient Netheril times, so their ascent to godhood happened around -360DR. The Second Sundering brought all of the gods back, but the Dead Three were bumped down to Quasi-Deities by the end of the 15th century (remember, Second Sundering ended in 1487DR, so it's been only 5 years), who are basically beings who can't die but are pretty much mortal in every other way. Myrkul is currently serving Kelemvor. Dunno what Bane and Bhaal are doing, but I doubt they'd be able to grant spells. Also REALLY not sure why Astarion doesn't realise that the symbols they see everywhere around the Absolute's Chosens have at least Myrkul's symbol on it, because Myrkul was the God of the Dead for the vast majority of his lifetime and he definitely would've seen the symbol, being a vampire spawn. Myrkul died in 1358DR. Selective blindness seems to curse everyone in this game, since the Gur blithely ignores my PC calling Astarion by his name (not to mention pasty white skin, red eyes, and fangs).


One thing I'd like to point out with Revivify is that the body must be intact. So if your head is burned to cinders, or your brain is bashed in, you can't use it. Similarly, if Wyll's head is cut off during combat, then Revivify shouldn't be able to bring him back, so I guess we are all to assume that no DAO-style murder occurs in this game. Gale's scroll, however, would definitely work to solve at least one member's tadpole problem. It would've created an interesting side plot as Wyll, Lae'Zel, Astarion, and Shadowheart tried to take the scroll. Using the scroll would solve both of Astarion's problems (he's just on the cusp of the expiration date, iirc).

Who's powering Withers' spell? The only guy I can think of is Kelemvor, but the guy was dead long before Kelemvor was even born.

Its called plot armor.

I believe we get quite close to things that are never questioned in fantasy ...
Like how is that possible that i just get direct hit to unprotected head with a Stone Hammer from 200kg Minotaur ... and i just get 2Bludgeoning damage and feel totally fine.

Those are not holes of storytelling ... those are just things that work differently in games.


Plot armor..lol

Well, if the story in itselfs works, i can accept fantasy in all its glory. what we have here is a story that contradicts itself if you just think a little too hard about it. I really hope Whithers is just an EA item like you said, never thought about that and too it for granted (see? i can accept :P)

But the whole story revolves around the tadpole and the True Souls so far. If you can get rid of it by dying and getting resurrected it's bull. If the revivify scrolls and Withers both are EA items, it should work. But that would risk losing party members permanently ( i would not mind )

Gales story with his true resurrection scroll really breaks the tadpole issue for him. After we revive him with his scroll it should go like: Thanks for reviving me...oh...tadpoles gone, i'm off. Cy'all.

They should really think about that or just tell that they know but had no idea how to do it otherwise.

Withers bothers me a lot more than the revivify scrolls. I think Withers should be taken out, as the character is completely immersion breaking and the scrolls much less so. One way to adjust the difficulty of the game would be to modify the availability of revivify scrolls. Just make them very common/cheap for story mode, uncommon/rare/expensive in the base game, and non-existent on the hardest setting.

The shaky undead hanging out at camp selling cheap Raise Deads bothers me too. It's so camp.

It's like a joke but it tries to be all mysterious and ominous at the same time with a serious voice. You can't be that when you're hanging around the camp as a cheap res player convenience feature! I have no idea what they are trying to do with this character and it looks like neither does Larian. This is what I was also talking about in another thread about Larian mixing different styles or genres in the same game. A character like Withers is pure comedy, but this is not a comedy game.

I never needed to buy a Raise Dead from Withers, or used a Scroll or Revivify either. They could easily have a Core Rules or Hard difficulty without those. And on easier difficulties, PC's can just wake up after the fight is over and never die like in Dragon Age. Why exactly do we need Revivify scrolls everywhere and a weird res vendor who follows you around everywhere? Is he going to follow us to Elfsong Tavern and everyone will just be like "ha-ha what a cute undead lich" like they are in the wilderness? No one cares that you have an undead walking around at your campsite. Everyone is just like "Yeah that's just Withers. Say hi Withers." That's comedy.

I noticed that Withers says in his dialogue, "A matter of coin." Then it is only in dialogue words, not spoken words, that (200) appears as the price.

My guess is, upon final completion of the game, they are intending on adjusting this coin amount depending on the difficulty setting you use.

I think Withers is fine, for Act 1. He is a safety net for beginner players who aren't familiar with the game.

Honestly, I think what Larian is doing is a lot of testing for difficulty setting purposes. Make everything dumbed down and weak, give people lots of potions and revive scrolls and see how much they actually use and need. Then adjust the amounts you can actually receive once they implement difficulty settings.

Well, that is, that's my hope as to what they're doing.

Anyway, Withers should probably be removed at least for Act 2 and 3. Having a safety net like him would ruin the overall excitement of the game. You need to know you can die and receive a game over. Otherwise, if you know you always have a Withers to fall back on, especially as you gain more and more gold that you don't need to spend, it kind of takes the danger out of the game and turns it into a casual, relaxing joyride. There's no "seat of your pants" thrill because you always know you can trust good ol' Withers to save your dead companions.

And they REALLY need to implement appropriate time during combat. If I know I have 10 rounds to use a Revivify Scroll on a companion who has just died, and if I don't do it in 10 rounds they're dead permanently? Oh yeah! I'm gonna get my cleric butt over to them and rez them as fast as I can. Also, I'm going to ensure my cleric is more protected if he/she is the only one who can use a rez scroll. Oh yeah! Clerics becomes SO much more important to the team if it is done properly.

I think it is rather simple

badly balanced game with a lot of cheap deaths => easy way to mitigate death => NPC at the camp providing cheap way of rezzing => writers have to sell a universe breaking concept like that so misterious undead with godly connections yadda yadda yadda