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Fun fact: in her early iterations (previews and gameplay videos coming out before EA) Shadowheart did NOT have an armor showing off her affiliation with Shar.
Someone at Larian at some point probably decided that it would be a nice visual touch, without thinking too much about the narrative implications.


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Somewhat related to Gale's remarks, we see every pod that the companions were held in, Astarion's is near where we find him, Karlach's is up river from where she's hiding, we potentially free Shadowheart from hers, and there are three four in the first chamber apart from our own, for presumably Lae'zel, Gale and Wyll and one other. Much more than some off the cuff banter, Wyll's timeline seems to be the bigger culprit, he doesn't mention the ship much and I always got the impression he'd been with the Tieflings for a while.

Last edited by Sozz; 31/07/22 01:10 AM. Reason: found another pod in the first chamber
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Originally Posted by Tuco
Not sure what you mean? The Absolute has his own emblem.

These thralls used to have the medallions with the [three different] emblems of Cyric, Bhaal and Bane, unless something changed.

Amulet of the Absolute:. https://images.app.goo.gl/E6K7rwWNNzyTVtEz7
https://www.google.com/search?q=bg3+amulet+of+absolute&prmd=sivn&sxsrf=ALiCzsZCek2QLCHYBLmo9HsQdofR9_EHVA:1659230298826&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiXkr_E-qH5AhXCBjQIHSFSDx0Q_AUoAnoECAIQAg&biw=432&bih=812&dpr=2.5#imgrc=Nx2fL_GB4Vy57M

Check Nere's
https://www.google.com/search?q=bg3...w=432&prmd=sivn#imgrc=wf10MjVtUiLTgM

Last edited by GM4Him; 31/07/22 01:23 AM.
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Originally Posted by Sozz
Somewhat related to Gale's remarks, we see every pod that the companions were held in, Astarion's is near where we find him, Karlach's is up river from where she's hiding, we potentially free Shadowheart from hers, and there are three four in the first chamber apart from our own, for presumably Lae'zel, Gale and Wyll and one other. Much more than some off the cuff banter, Wyll's timeline seems to be the bigger culprit, he doesn't mention the ship much and I always got the impression he'd been with the Tieflings for a while.

I was literally just reading something on reddit about Wyll's timeline. I'll copy/paste it here.

The following quote was written by someone named agouzov on reddit, and I think it's a good summary:

Quote
Here's my understanding of the sequence of events:

-Wyll is born to a noble family in Baldur's Gate. He is raised by a domineering, emotionally absent father.

-Wyll seeks a way to rebel, tries his hand at recreational thievery and is caught.

-His father decides to teach him a lesson and enrolls him in the Flaming Fist mercenary company, which is the main law-keeping military force in Baldur's Gate.

-Wyll proves an incompetent soldier, and is mocked and shunned by his new comrades in the Fist.

-While defending a small outlying village against a goblin attack, Wyll is beaten unconscious and left for dead. One of the goblins takes his eye as a trophy.

-A cambion lady named Mizora contacts Wyll and offers to make him a legendary hero, which would allow him to get revenge on the goblins, as well as show off to his father and former comrade in arms. Wyll accepts, promising his soul to the Nine Hells after his death as payment.

-Using his new powers, Wyll develops a reputation as a legendary hero. Stories about "the Blade of Frontiers" begin to circulate in the region.

-Wyll begins having second thoughts about the infernal contract and tells Mizora he wants to renegotiate. They have an argument, during which a mind flayer ship suddenly shows up and captures them both. Wyll gets a tadpole inserted in his eye.

-After the ship crashes, Wyll scampers off in search of Mizora and stumbles upon the Grove before Tav. His reputation as the Blade of Frontiers earns him a warm welcome there.

-Wyll meets Tav and joins their party.

-Mizora contacts Wyll through his Stone of Sending, telling him she was captured by goblins. She offers to let Wyll off the hook regarding his side of the contract if he comes to her rescue. Enticed by the prospect of keeping his warlock powers without losing his soul, Wyll tries to push Tav towards attacking the goblin camp, pretending he's doing it to protect the tieflings.

-When his secret motivations eventually become known, Wyll confesses everything and asks Tav for help rescuing Mizora, who has been shipped to the Moonrise Towers in the meantime.

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Right, I forgot about Mizora, that's the extra pod explained.

That's a pretty good timeline, given everything we can glean from the EA

Last edited by Sozz; 31/07/22 01:39 AM.
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Why Tiefling parents seem all Norman Rockwell, yet all tiefling children are into organized crime.

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Originally Posted by Van'tal
Why Tiefling parents seem all Norman Rockwell, yet all tiefling children are into organized crime.

Lol. So true.

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Originally Posted by Van'tal
Why Tiefling parents seem all Norman Rockwell, yet all tiefling children are into organized crime.
Well, the children are implied to be for the most part orphans and not their sons and daughters, but that aside, yeah...The contrast is a bit bizarre.


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Originally Posted by timebean
Originally Posted by RagnarokCzD
Feel free to corect me, but as far as i know Intellect Devourer dont even have mouth, or teeth to nibble anything ... meaning, quite logicaly, this sentence cannot be taken litteraly and may be just Gale colorfull way of describing that you seemed dead.

.

This. Agree 100%.

Also, I personally left a bunch of dead/dying/thralled folks in the nautiloid and pods because I was trying to escape (I assume you all did too). So I am not irked with any of my companions that dod the same, Gale included. I also accidentally killed two people hooked up to weird chairs and turned another into a monster by pushing a button. Nobody is perfect.

Also there WERE intellect devourers running/scuttling around. And I DID wake up on the fllor with a head injury and the first thing I saw was a busted pod.

Jesus Christ…picking on this line is ridiculous. It is ALL there.

There is nothing wrong with Gale’s line, unless you want characters with no personality as your companions. Ie, exposition dumpers like in Kingdoms of Amular. Not liking him based on his personality is fine, of course.

The issue with me for Gale is where u meet him imho. Just popping out of a portal (sus) and right next to everyone else (boring).

Asterion’s knife pull is fine with me. He is a bad guy. If you don’t like it, kill him. Do agree with the vapor death tho. That would add flavor.

Shafowheart’s armor is annoying. Will mod it, personally.

Ok. Crucible's worth of blood is a metaphor for "When I saw you, you were lying in a pool of blood. Lots of blood.". Intellect Devourer nibbling at your ear is a metaphor for "There was an intellect devourer hovering near you."

Play the beginning again. You wake up. No pool of blood. You just say "oh my head.". Well. Yeah. You got infected. You've been through a lot.

Look around. No intellect devourers. Mind flayer? Yes. Thralls? Yes. Imps? Yes.

So all I'm saying is that it's not clear. It's a weird thing to have him say because at no point do we find ourselves in that circumstance. You can assume that is what he's referring to, but you don't really know and you can't clarify.

Also, the pods don't belong to anyone but Lae'zel and the PCs in the initial pod chamber. They are reserved for multiplayer. They do not belong to the origin characters. Start the game on 4 player mode and each player starts by 1 of the pods.

Last edited by GM4Him; 31/07/22 03:11 AM.
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Or it could be hyperbole. The guy is prone to purple prose. The pods could be for multiplayer, but how often does the multiplayer factor into the single-player game like that? Also you'll comment about others escaping if you click on them, what happens with you do that in multiplayer? I'll go out on a limb and say that every origin character will probably end up there if you decide to play them, even if that is kind of boring.

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Here's another point. In the movie scene, Lae'zel is the first to escape. She is perched on the only path you can take. Why does she stop you, but she didn't stop Gale?... Assuming Gale left one of the pods in that beginning chamber before you but after Lae'zel?

See? I always presumed Gale and Astarion and the others were elsewhere on the ship, perhaps the big pod chamber you find later. But then, Gale's comment makes no sense at all.

I'm just saying. It doesn't add up.

Last edited by GM4Him; 31/07/22 03:45 AM.
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Originally Posted by GM4Him
Here's another point. In the movie scene, Lae'zel is the first to escape.
Nah, she's just the only one shown to escape in the cinematic. It doesn't mean she's the first or the only or anything else.
While Astarion conversely is implied to be someone who got free from his pod only after you, since he comments on the fact that he saw you passing by.


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Originally Posted by timebean
Asterion’s knife pull is fine with me. He is a bad guy. If you don’t like it, kill him.
Oh if only we could ...
Sadly, Larian strictly forbids it, so they removed our "attack imediately" button. frown

Now we can either metagame, and kill him before we even talk to him ...
Or we can politely accept his apology, or let him sarcasticly mock the fact we are offended by his attack with smile on our face ... and then, and only then, after all is cleared and we are friends ... wel can split his skull in half.

Honestly if there is single thing REALLY WRONG about meeting our companions, its the fact that Astarion is THE ONLY ONE we cannot attack straight from the dialogue. -_-

We can even kill Gale, who just stepped out of portal and didnt interact with us in litteraly any way ...
In what universe is that so horrible crime, to deserve such fate ... especialy compared to litteral assault and atempt to murder, wich we are forced to "just accept"? laugh

Last edited by RagnarokCzD; 31/07/22 07:42 AM.

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Originally Posted by Tuco
Originally Posted by GM4Him
Here's another point. In the movie scene, Lae'zel is the first to escape.
Nah, she's just the only one shown to escape in the cinematic. It doesn't mean she's the first or the only or anything else.
While Astarion conversely is implied to be someone who got free from his pod only after you, since he comments on the fact that he saw you passing by.

I still don't buy it. Astarion says "I saw you on the ship. You were with those tentacled freaks.". This implies the helm. That is the ONLY time we are with the mind flayers in any way helping them.

I don't know. I seem to be the only one who thinks the writing is confusing as a butt cheek with a face drawn on it, but to me it seems like things are said that never happened.

Let's bring up SH in her pod and how you need illithid powers now to open it. Same basic thing. No actual explanation. I've given possible reasons why it COULD make sense, and people bit my head off for it because, to them, I'm assuming something and it makes no sense. Well. Yes. I'm assuming. The whole freaking game makes you assume things all over the place.

I assume SH was thrown in the pod special from everyone else because the mind flayers knew she had the weapon.

I assume Gale meant he saw me on the floor outside my pod with an intellect devourer hovering over me even though there's NO blood (just checked) and no sign of an intellect devourer besides Us until you get clear of that whole area.

Astarion says he saw us with those tentacled freaks, but he was stuck in his pod. Right? So how'd he see us WITH them so that he'd assume we were WITH them? We must again assume his pod was where? Maybe suspended from the ceiling out of sight in the helm? Maybe?

We assume Gale didn't kill the goblins, but SH killed like 4 devourers by the crypt entrance by herself if you take that path... Somehow... So why wouldn't we assume Gale killed the goblins who are of the same cult as the mind flayers on the ship... Or are we assuming the mind flayers maybe picked up a TON if cultists of the Absolute on their attack run in Yartar? Even still, it's all assumption.

My point is, everything seems actually like it was just thrown out there without reason. I'm left with a lot of guessing and attempting to reason through things without enough details and evidence. Companions don't make sense. The environment doesn't make sense. The evidence doesn't add up to any real logical conclusion.

I have tried to write up BG3 as fan fic to make sense of it. I've tried now writing it up as a tabletop campaign to make sense of it. I've tried playing it over and over again to look for new details and such that I've missed, and it still doesn't make sense.

Again. Maybe it's just because it's EA, but I'm afraid it's not seems to me more like they're being like - Basically, who cares who the fishermen are on the beach or where they came from or why they were on the beach or in the water near that place? Who cares that there's no living village anywhere in the entire vicinity even though your character makes a comment that there's fresh water so there must be a settlement that all those fishermen came from? Who cares how a dozen intellect devourers died in the beach? They're just weak, baby monsters who die easily. Right?

Who cares that SH is a poster banner child for Shar? We'll pretend she's not. Who cares that Astarion pulls a knife on you? We'll have him laugh and smile and everyone will pretend he didn't. Who cares HOW he saw you with mind flayers from his pod helping them? Who cares why SH needs illithid powers to activate her pod? Who cares when Gale saw you in a huge pool of blood with a devourer near you? Who cares who killed the goblins?

Who cares what Damays means when he mentions an explosion he and his tiefling friend heard and want to go explore? Explosion? Can you elaborate? Can I go check it out too? Nope.

Who cares why Voss and Quedenos leave the Gith patrol to perform a mundane task like inform the other Gith that the weapon has been found when he could just kill you easily and take it and then bring it to Vlaakith himself?

I feel like it's an anime, and my son is telling me, "Dad. Stop. Don't question the anime."

Fine. If that's how this game is going to be, I'll just play it and not question the anime.

Last edited by GM4Him; 31/07/22 07:44 AM.
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Originally Posted by RagnarokCzD
Originally Posted by timebean
Asterion’s knife pull is fine with me. He is a bad guy. If you don’t like it, kill him.
Oh if only we could ...
Sadly, Larian strictly forbids it, so they removed our "attack imediately" button. frown

Now we can either metagame, and kill him before we even talk to him ...
Or we can politely accept his apology, or let him sarcasticly mock the fact we are offended by his attack with smile on our face ... and then, and only then, after all is cleared and we are friends ... wel can split his skull in half.

Honestly if there is single thing REALLY WRONG about meeting our companions, its the fact that Astarion is THE ONLY ONE we cannot attack straight from the dialogue. -_-

We can even kill Gale, who just stepped out of portal and didnt interact with us in litteraly any way ...
In what universe is that so horrible crime, to deserve such fate ... especialy compared to litteral assault and atempt to murder, wich we are forced to "just accept"? laugh
You can kill Astarion during the knife attack- just switch to SH and attack with her and If he isn't dead then, you are all in a fight. Attacking with SH does even make sense, since she threatens Astarion during the conversation. I always kill him that way.


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So Astarion originally had an attack immediately option in his introduction and then Larian took it away? I have to wonder if they noticed a lot of people immediately killing him and decided to take away the choice to alleviate it, rather than trying to change the scene to something that wouldn't naturally instigate his murder.

It's so frustrating how non-existant Larian's check-in with us are. I wasn't part of the alpha testing for Wrath of the Righteous, but post release they were sending out surveys about what players did and didn't like. They even sent one about crusade mode just last month, and before they announced they were making a second season pass of expansion content, they sent out a survey asking about what people wanted in DLCs. That's more engagement post-development than Larian has come close to having.

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As I said. I am trying to think of my players as I rewrite the Tabletop version. I'm trying to make it so players would actually maybe want ANY of these origin characters in their party.

The only way to do that is for the characters to be a bit friendlier and a bit less... Well... Don't know how to put it... Stupid. Players need to have reasons to WANT them to join them.

So Shadowheart will try to lie to them, saying she is a cleric of a different, good, trickery goddess, and she'll lie and say she picked the armor off a corpse in some ruins. Astarion will try to act like a noble elf from Baldur's who is a victim and desperately needs their help. When they connect to his mind, he'll admit he's part of Cazador's Thieves Guild, but mean Cazador treats him so badly. Now he's free. Maybe the heroes can help him start a new life. No daggers unless the players pull them on him first.

And Gale will be straight forward and mostly honest with them, explaining that he saw them by the pod - again, had to rewrite the Prologue beginning to include them waking up in blood - and he had no spells and was too weak himself to help. And he feels badly about it.

I don't know what I'm going to do about Lae'zel. She's a jerk, and I can't really think of a good reason to convince players to want to have her join them. The only thing I can think of is having her say something about how they are connected. Something is admittedly different with their tadpoles, and perhaps together they can figure out what's happening. She's an expert, so it would be good for the PCs to take her with.

Wyll is the easiest, but even with him, the whole "oh... You what? Saw a devil in my mind. Nah. You're mistaken" thing has to go. In my experience, player don't like it when they know someone is OBVIOUSLY lying to them. They don't trust them, and they don't want to travel with them.

I plan on having Wyll admit he's a Warlock and has a fiend patron. "I'll tell you more about it later. I promise. Right now? Here? They think I'm a hero. Imagine what might happen if they learned I have a devil mistress as my patron. They don't need that right now. They're already discouraged and afraid. I bring them some hope, even if it is small. Please don't take that away from them."

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Originally Posted by fylimar
Attacking with SH does even make sense, since she threatens Astarion during the conversation.
Exactly the reason i didnt include it. smile

Originally Posted by Gray Ghost
So Astarion originally had an attack immediately option in his introduction and then Larian took it away?
Yup ...
Thats one of strongest, and basicaly main reason why i keep complaining about Larian being really bad DM ...
Who just forces you to bad situation, and then give you set of really bad decisions to resolve it, once again forcing you to choose. frown

Originally Posted by GM4Him
Players need to have reasons to WANT them to join them.
I believe this isnt intended scenario from Larian ...
Look at the game as a whole, we arent suppose to be group of people who want to travel together ... we most likely shouldnt be even friendly ... we are suppose to be just bunch of completely different individuals, who are forced by things they cannot control to cooperate or die.

I believe they did this bcs it sounded like something else than we usualy get, and so we arent so devastated when our group will split at the end of Act I.


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To me, it does make sense that Astarion thinks our Tav is in league with the mindflayers who captured him: It is implied that he saw us walking around the nautiloid while he was still trapped in his pod. Before some of the pods were damaged, the cultists we encountered were the only ones who could roam freely, aside from the mindflayers. So I think it is quite understandable that he assumes that our Tav is also a cultist, and should know about the parasites. Unlike Gale, he does not know anything about tadpoles and ceremorphosis, so interrogating a cultist would make sense.

Of course, putting a dagger to someones throat is clearly not a nice action, but it is something my Tavs could excuse under these circumstances, when everybody must be extremely tense.


As for the attack option: I think the option to attack should be there for every companion - or for none. Personally, I would not attack any of our companions, but if players want to choose this option, it should be equal for all companions.

Last edited by Lyelle; 31/07/22 01:30 PM. Reason: Added: Attack Option
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Originally Posted by Lyelle
To me, it does make sense that Astarion thinks our Tav is in league with the mindflayers who captured him: It is implied that he saw us walking around the nautiloid while he was still trapped in his pod. Before some of the pods were damaged, the cultists we encountered were the only ones who could roam freely, aside from the mindflayers. So I think it is quite understandable that he assumes that our Tav is also a cultist, and should know about the parasites. Unlike Gale, he does not know anything about tadpoles and ceremorphosis, so interrogating a cultist would make sense.
What makes little sense, then, is that under the assumption that you are one of the bad guys in league with mindflayers (except he just saw you killing other intellect devourers, by his own admission, but ok...) it would be a clever idea LURE US into making a kind gesture for him.


Then again, admittedly I'm not as terribly offended with Astarion daring to bare his fangs at me, the holy Protagonist, as some other people seem to be.
No, I have to admit I'm rather growing to dislike Astarion far more for the type of person he's proving to be on the long term, rather than for the bad first impression.
So far, I think he's the worst character in our party by a landslide. The other companions may be reticent, opportunists, single minded or what else, but no one comes close to it in being gratuitously mean spirited.

He's a whiny hypocrite that thinks it's incredibly amusing to mock, punish, kill or and inflict gratuitous suffering on others, but at the same time becomes incredibly touchy and melodramatic when he's the target of any of the aforementioned.

Last edited by Tuco; 31/07/22 01:27 PM.

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