Thanks! I played through completion of the "saving Halsin" quest 2X, first with patch 3, then with patch 6. In patch 3 Nettie reached for a bundle of "Kelemvor's Blessing"(?), which my Druid immediately recognized as a lethally toxic plant. He explained through available dialog options to Nettie that he was still hoping for a cure, wherein her explanation of how the current outbreak differed from past isolated cases started. At the end of their conversation I agreed to her request that my Druid pledge to kill himself if symptoms developed; I saw it as a far more honorable and ethical response than ANYTHING I had seen from Astarion (who I could barely tolerate, and killed after he revealed his painfully obvious vampirism) or from generally neutral Shadowheart. Larian's writers have significantly improved as well as expanded their BG3 characters, or in the case of Shadowheart, made them far less opinionated and abrasive, largely in response to player complaints! Except for his horrific "frontier justice" comment (I'm from the US, and frontier justice was John Wayne glamorized mass genocide against Native Americans!) Wyll was very likable and proved to be the most useful member of my party (I mistook him for a ranger on the basis of the fight with the Goblins at the Grove Gates), though I suspect that his unwanted relationship with Mizora will spawn more Tieflings. Gale was interesting and well written but keeping him required the lost of multiple magical items, and as a Druid, I bristled at his request that I steal that Idol of Silvanus.
I never played a Druid in versions 2 through 4 of D&D, because their weapons limitation made them so useless. Playing as a High Elf solves this problem, as I favor Longbows and Longswords as weapons.They are a blast to play in BG3, just as bards were a blast to play as the most overpowered class in 3.5 D&D. Druids still suffer from the ecological.and science illiteracy of most D&D and Pathfinder writers, who too often confuse "animal rights" with environmentalism and traditional European Druidic belief systems.
I'm enjoying this game immensely, but too many aspects of the Druids vs Tieflings plot seem to have been inspired or stolen from DAO, which I intensely hated on nearly every level! I did resolve the "Saving the Refugees" quest in favor of both Druids and Tieflings in both full EA playthroughs, but felt that what happens when you confront Kagha about her Shadow Druid involvement was extremely heavy handed and quite unbelievable, so I skip it entirely; and agree with Halsin that she is redeemable and still potentially a fine Druid.
