Baldur's Gate 3 II: The Urge for a Second Playthrough

[Cikomyr2]

In addition to the long rest infodumps Keltest mentioned, Malady the Narrator will chime in at various pivotal moments with key contacts, such as when Wyll corners Karlach.

I hope she describes the pride or love that Ravenguard display his son if he redeems.

Pleaaaaase

[Witty Username]

How do they deal with all the knowledge about the character's backstories you should have when you play them? Is there an infodump somewhere, or do you get mostly the same dialogue and it's just assumed you already know who characters from your backstory are?

There are also take the wheel moments, like if you have dialog initiated by the character in the Tav play through, if you have ever talked to the paladins of Tyr as Karlach you have an idea what I am talking about.

They also have unique dialog choices in places, For example Shadowheart has some unique dialog if she recruits Lae'zel, since she still doesn't actually trust her.

Edit: This is for Act 3, Daughter of Darkness or whatever, turn back now

Spoiler

Show

well, Viconia is dead, and good riddance. serves me right for believing a Drow could be any different.
I have had time to mull it over, and I think this was poorly handled for a few reasons. One, I have said it before and I will say it again, when Larian writes an Evil character they are frustratingly shallow and this is no different.
Broke the cardinal sin of not using Yes, And and went for a retcon of Viconia's non romance ending, that's frustrating. I don't even know why they Alluded to it in the first place as it seems Viconia was not part of the canonical party.

Voice, as mentioned previously, best part of the character, props to the actor for working with what they were given.

And Astral Projection? Now I am just more confused, Why is Jaheria throwing around 4th level spells and getting tapped out while Viconia can whip out 9th level spells casually? wasn't the explanation that the old characters got rusty given they weren't going tow to tow with gods for a long time? was Viconia Merching some S tier nonsense in the time skip?

I will say, this does kinda fit with Daughters of Darkness, so far it has proven middling in terms of its writing, the performance from Shadowheart's actor saves it some, but I feel it has a weird tone problem during Act 2 with poor build up too it and pay off from it.
the beats are fine but I think it needed some more to flesh it out.

Act 2 mild

Spoiler

Show

Like maybe some more weight to the Shadowfel, or a bit more build up to explain why she is as willing to spare the night song.

[Psyren]

And Astral Projection? Now I am just more confused, Why is _____ throwing around 4th level spells and getting tapped out while ____ can whip out 9th level spells casually?

You're being too literal here - {NPC priestess} being able to "astrally project" an image of themselves a couple floors up from their cult's artifact-filled basement, doesn't mean they literally used their own slots to cast the 9th-level spell of the same name. The entire purpose of the House is to be able to inure naive rich people to their way of thinking without revealing what they are or that they have an evil church in the basement after all, so it would have been built from the ground up with that kind of trickery in mind.

Act 2 mild

Spoiler

Show

Like maybe some more weight to the Shadowfel, or a bit more build up to explain why she is as willing to spare the night song.

It was obvious to me:

Spoiler

Show

1) Despite her upbringing, Shadowheart is still a good person at heart even when you first meet her; she approves of Tav's good actions nearly as much as Karlach and Wyll do. You have to go out of your way to harden her before that moment for her to not at least consider mercy.

2) More importantly, the 'Nightsong' clearly knows who she is and knows details of Shadowheart's life that it should have no way of knowing. That's reason enough to at least hear her out.

[Witty Username]

Shadowheart approves of cunning, and a little bit in the other directions, at least as far as I could tell.
Since alot of those involve persuadion and descalating conflict the goodies approve.

You can actually note this disconnect in places early, like starting fights with the goblins will get you points with Wyll, lose points with Shadowheart, and gain points with Lae'zel.
Wyll values heroism
Lae'zel values aggression
So they align when the goblins need a fighting.

Shadowheart will disaprove because she doesn't as much care for direct action.

When all three agree, you are probably doing something real smart or real dumb.

[Rodin]

Shadowheart approves of cunning, and a little bit in the other directions, at least as far as I could tell.
Since alot of those involve persuadion and descalating conflict the goodies approve.

You can actually note this disconnect in places early, like starting fights with the goblins will get you points with Wyll, lose points with Shadowheart, and gain points with Lae'zel.
Wyll values heroism
Lae'zel values aggression
So they align when the goblins need a fighting.

Shadowheart will disaprove because she doesn't as much care for direct action.

When all three agree, you are probably doing something real smart or real dumb.

Shadowheart has quite a few approvals for doing unambiguously good things, in particular anything involving children. If you choose to destroy the Druid Grove, she's absolutely horrified.

Shadowheart's inclinations are toward good, but her upbringing taught her to be evil. That clash (and which wins out) is very important to her character arc.

[Errorname]

Spoiler

Show

well, Viconia is dead, and good riddance. serves me right for believing a Drow could be any different.
I have had time to mull it over, and I think this was poorly handled for a few reasons. One, I have said it before and I will say it again, when Larian writes an Evil character they are frustratingly shallow and this is no different.
Broke the cardinal sin of not using Yes, And and went for a retcon of Viconia's non romance ending, that's frustrating. I don't even know why they Alluded to it in the first place as it seems Viconia was not part of the canonical party.

Spoiler

Show

So my understanding is that Baldur's Gate 3 is taking it's canon endings for the original cast from a WOTC published sequel book, so they might not bear the blame for this particular bad decision. That said, they clearly thought better of having Lorroakan turn out to be Edwin in disguise and they should have done the same for Sarevok and Viconia.

I think their villains are mostly passable with a few real highlights. Raphael and Ethel are basically Disney villains, not deep but a strong and commanding personality performed well. Raphael even gets a villain song. I will say the Dead Three's Chosen kind of fall flat. They're still performed well, but there's clearly meant to be more depth with these three and there really isn't.

Spoiler: Tyranny

Show

They remind me a lot of Tyranny's core trio of Archons (Once-noble hammer wielding general who has fallen into villainy who has estranged his only surviving child whose lover he disapproves of, chaotic evil maniac who loves murder and torture and speaks with the voices of people they've killed, robed lawful evil guy who is failing to keep the others in line and can be persuaded to work with you) and while I'm not going to make a case that BG3 was ripping Tyranny off, once I made the connection I couldn't stop comparing them and I just like the Tyranny ones more

Spoiler

Show

Like maybe some more weight to the Shadowfel, or a bit more build up to explain why she is as willing to spare the night song.

Spoiler

Show

Shadowheart is trying to be a bad person and follow Shar's tenents, but it doesn't come very naturally to her. I think her being unwilling to murder an unarmed prisoner in cold blood without goading makes sense enough.

[Psyren]

Shadowheart approves of cunning, and a little bit in the other directions, at least as far as I could tell.
Since alot of those involve persuadion and descalating conflict the goodies approve.

No, that's part of it but there's more to it than that. She approves when you're kind to children, animals (Scratch/Owlbear), she approves of you saving Sazza from the Tieflings even if you have no ulterior motive for doing so, and anything to do with protecting Karlach because she likes her (such as threatening Mizora with overt violence when she shows up.) If all she valued was "cunning" these wouldn't be on the list.

[Cikomyr2]

Hey guys, just a question.

Does the "imprisoned agent of Zariel" is still there at the end of Act 2 if you drove Wyll out of your party? Can you negotiate a deal with them?

[LibraryOgre]

Finished Astarion's quest last ni... early this morning. I did the Good and Merciful things. I am really mad that I didn't get to hug him right after the climax. He needed it.

[Rodin]

Hey guys, just a question.

Does the "imprisoned agent of Zariel" is still there at the end of Act 2 if you drove Wyll out of your party? Can you negotiate a deal with them?

I don't think so, if Wyll is not recruited the agent isn't there. I'm not sure what would happen if you began the quest and then piss Wyll off enough that he leaves, but I imagine that him leaving would kill off his quests. When I hit Act 3 with my Durge there was a Shadowheart specific questline that assumed she was dead, even though she just got extremely pissed at me and left in Act 2.

[diplomancer]

Hey guys, just a question.

Does the "imprisoned agent of Zariel" is still there at the end of Act 2 if you drove Wyll out of your party? Can you negotiate a deal with them?

No, she isn't, when I was doing my "extremely evil kill everybody run", Wyll left the party after the Grove, and Zariel's agent does not appear at Moonrise Towers

You're being too literal here - {NPC priestess} being able to "astrally project" an image of themselves a couple floors up from their cult's artifact-filled basement, doesn't mean they literally used their own slots to cast the 9th-level spell of the same name. The entire purpose of the House is to be able to inure naive rich people to their way of thinking without revealing what they are or that they have an evil church in the basement after all, so it would have been built from the ground up with that kind of trickery in mind.

I find it very amusing that the books that the House of Grief sells are so much more expensive than the ordinary books... exactly what an evil cult would do to rich people who go for it... and also that the books are basically a bunch of self-help claptrap.

[Witty Username]

I don't think so, if Wyll is not recruited the agent isn't there. I'm not sure what would happen if you began the quest and then piss Wyll off enough that he leaves, but I imagine that him leaving would kill off his quests. When I hit Act 3 with my Durge there was a Shadowheart specific questline that assumed she was dead, even though she just got extremely pissed at me and left in Act 2.

I think that brain worms answer that.

No, that's part of it but there's more to it than that. She approves when you're kind to children, animals (Scratch/Owlbear), she approves of you saving Sazza from the Tieflings even if you have no ulterior motive for doing so, and anything to do with protecting Karlach because she likes her (such as threatening Mizora with overt violence when she shows up.) If all she valued was "cunning" these wouldn't be on the list.

Tbf, as far as I can tell, everyone likes Karlach.

This may be a perception thing, sympathy for animals and children appeared to me as an attempt to make the character feel well rounded.
That being said Shadowheart is pretty agreeable, as long as your not very into Lae'zel, evil players get alot out of swindling and pragmatism, good characters get alot out of deescalation and the pet the dog moments.
I have heard Shadowheart described by others as being True Neutral, and while I think BG3 discarded alignment for a reason, I think the argument works pretty well.

I do think it is a bit frontloaded, there is very little of the positive side in Act 2 by my recollection.

"Sorry if the tag is broken phone is being weird"

Spoiler

Show

And alot of distain for Selune and affiliated leading up. Which admittedly was fun to watch karma take its long moment with the laser sight. But on the other hand makes the pacing for the Guantlet feel off.

[Witty Username]

A minor thing, and possibly showing my hand of how bad I am at this game.

I noticed a weird behavior with extra damage effects, mostly smites. So when you have a downed companion the have 3 death saves, and being hit counts as 1 fail, crits count for 2. But it seems for me smites count as 2 crits, resulting in immediate death, do not pass go etc. Is that a thing people have noticed? And does that feel intended?

Btw, is it just me or are paladin enemies programed to crit at least once a fight? I have double checked to make sure that karmic dice thing is off, but I have sustained at least one crit against pretty much every psudo paladin I go against.

[InvisibleBison]

I noticed a weird behavior with extra damage effects, mostly smites. So when you have a downed companion the have 3 death saves, and being hit counts as 1 fail, crits count for 2. But it seems for me smites count as 2 crits, resulting in immediate death, do not pass go etc. Is that a thing people have noticed? And does that feel intended?

According to the wiki, melee attacks against downed creatures are always crits, and thus count as 2 failed death saves. I suspect that because the smite is a separate source of damage from the attack, it counts as a separate attack (when you smite on a crit, it does display the "Critical Hit!" popup twice) and thus gives an additional 2 death save failures. In other words, it's a bug.

[Rodin]

According to the wiki, melee attacks against downed creatures are always crits, and thus count as 2 failed death saves. I suspect that because the smite is a separate source of damage from the attack, it counts as a separate attack (when you smite on a crit, it does display the "Critical Hit!" popup twice) and thus gives an additional 2 death save failures. In other words, it's a bug.

I suspect it's due to how Divine Smite in particular is handled by BG3 - it's both an attack and a reaction, and the way you set up reactions can lead to some degenerate behaviour. I once messed with my reactions right before smiting someone and forgot to check the "always ask" box. The result was that I smacked my opponent with a level 1 Divine Smite, which then added an additional level 1 Divine Smite as a reaction, a level 2 Divine Smite, and a level 3 Divine Smite - all happening at the same time off the same reaction. The result was that my Paladin burned 4 spell slots on a single hit and dealt somewhere around 50 total Smite damage plus weapon damage. Needless to say the enemy went SPLAT.

I didn't try to replicate it as that felt buggy as well (and was also a good way to burn out all your spell slots very quickly), so I'm not entirely sure if that was just a one time bug or if the reactions really are that broken. I have noticed similar consistent behaviour with Cleave proccing the Ilithid guaranteed critical multiple times per reaction, even though it should only work once.

-----

Finally beat my Honour mode playthrough and got my special dice.

Spoiler: Final fight and ending

Show

I chickened out of the final boss and sent Gale up to detonate the Orb, which gave me an instant risk-free win. Maybe next Honour mode playthrough for actually trying to beat up the brain.

As a result, my ending was unexpectedly sad. PC Karlach turned into a Mindflayer for nothing and now hungers for brains. Gale's gone. Shadowheart no longer gets to see Karlach because mindflayers aren't welcome anywhere, although at least they're still together. I skipped the Cazador fight because he had no good items for me and Astarion wasn't a party member anyway, so he's still eating rats and hiding from the sun. Stopping Minsc's questline after defeating the Zhentarim somehow made it so they are the power in Baldur's Gate now, not the Nine Fingers, so Minsc is in jail.

At least the owlbear is happy though - I had summoned him on a previous playthrough and he died, which removes him from the ending. This time he stayed safely at home and now lives with Shadowheart.

[Anonymouswizard]

Back from my holiday, ready to start playing again. Really I just have to decide between Tiefling and half-drow.

[LibraryOgre]

I think the most accurate Tav/Durge is going to be a GOO warlock, since you are apparently communicating telepathically. As it stands now, if I try a second run, it is going to be an utterly self-hating GOOlock.

[Anonymouswizard]

I think the most accurate Tav/Durge is going to be a GOO warlock, since you are apparently communicating telepathically. As it stands now, if I try a second run, it is going to be an utterly self-hating GOOlock.

Doesn't the telepathy pretty explicitly come from the tadpole?

[LibraryOgre]

Doesn't the telepathy pretty explicitly come from the tadpole?

I was more referring to "never actually speaks in conversations."

[Errorname]

I was more referring to "never actually speaks in conversations."

The game has voice acting for other characters' telepathy and also clearly distinguishes telepathic communication with spoken communication in your dialogue options.

[BRC]

Mildly off topic, but how would people prefer games like this handle dialogue.

From what I can tell the options seem to be

1) You pick the dialogue and we skip over actually saying it (What BGIII does)

2) You pick the general thrust of the statement, but you don't know the exact words your character will say until you hear them (Mass Effect style)

3) Pick the exact words, and the voice actor reads those out (I can't think of any games off the top of my head that do this, but I'm pretty sure I've seen at least one)

[LibraryOgre]

The game has voice acting for other characters' telepathy and also clearly distinguishes telepathic communication with spoken communication in your dialogue options.

Y'all're making me work really hard for a simple joke.

[InvisibleBison]

Mildly off topic, but how would people prefer games like this handle dialogue.

From what I can tell the options seem to be

1) You pick the dialogue and we skip over actually saying it (What BGIII does)

2) You pick the general thrust of the statement, but you don't know the exact words your character will say until you hear them (Mass Effect style)

3) Pick the exact words, and the voice actor reads those out (I can't think of any games off the top of my head that do this, but I'm pretty sure I've seen at least one)

I think style 1 works better for games where your character is fully created by you, and style 2 works better for games where you're playing a pre-established character.

[Anonymouswizard]

Mildly off topic, but how would people prefer games like this handle dialogue.

From what I can tell the options seem to be

1) You pick the dialogue and we skip over actually saying it (What BGIII does)

2) You pick the general thrust of the statement, but you don't know the exact words your character will say until you hear them (Mass Effect style)

3) Pick the exact words, and the voice actor reads those out (I can't think of any games off the top of my head that do this, but I'm pretty sure I've seen at least one)

Generally I prefer the first, even if it alm ost always turns your chracter into someone who barely speaks (I've seen exceptions, but even The Nameless One is incredibly quiet compared to those he speaks to).

I don't have an issue with the second, and get why some people prefer it. It also makes your character feel more a part of the conversation, but almost always comes at the expense of variety.

The third is pretty much just the weaknesses of the other two.

You also forgot 'you pick the general thrust of your statement, but don't know the exact words your character will say as your dialogue is skipped over'. Which yes I have technically seen, albeit in unvoiced games.


My external hard drive died, so I've finally replaced it with an internal SSD. Which I'd been holding off on for the exact reason I'm now annoyed: modern games take forever to download. I'll get back to the game tomorrow.

[Zevox]

Mildly off topic, but how would people prefer games like this handle dialogue.

From what I can tell the options seem to be

1) You pick the dialogue and we skip over actually saying it (What BGIII does)

2) You pick the general thrust of the statement, but you don't know the exact words your character will say until you hear them (Mass Effect style)

3) Pick the exact words, and the voice actor reads those out (I can't think of any games off the top of my head that do this, but I'm pretty sure I've seen at least one)

Strong preference for voice acting, always. Doesn't matter to me whether I'm picking a summary of the statement's meaning (so long as it's accurate) or the exact statement, but I want my character actually speaking. It gives them so much more life, so much more feeling of being an actual character, it's worth any trade-off to me.

[Cikomyr2]

Strong preference for voice acting, always. Doesn't matter to me whether I'm picking a summary of the statement's meaning (so long as it's accurate) or the exact statement, but I want my character actually speaking. It gives them so much more life, so much more feeling of being an actual character, it's worth any trade-off to me.

Complete opposite for me. Forcing voice acting for player decision basically reduce the number of available character the player can pick (usually limited to M/F and do away with accent, demeanor, etc..). And the masssssive increase in cost to voicing the player's dialogue makes sure you will not have much replayability and diversity of available choices.

Unless we reach a point where AI generated voice can spin dialogue without much uncanney valley, i think voiceless lines will always be superior just for the variety of roleplay.

[Rodin]

Complete opposite for me. Forcing voice acting for player decision basically reduce the number of available character the player can pick (usually limited to M/F and do away with accent, demeanor, etc..). And the masssssive increase in cost to voicing the player's dialogue makes sure you will not have much replayability and diversity of available choices.

Unless we reach a point where AI generated voice can spin dialogue without much uncanney valley, i think voiceless lines will always be superior just for the variety of roleplay.

I agree with this, but I wouldn't characterize myself as the complete opposite of "I want my character to be voiced." Because I do. Losing out on the voice acting kills a ton of character, and is the reason I'm never going to do a run with an Astarion PC.

It's just that voice acting in this way is prohibitively expensive. BG3 gives me hope that we might get there someday, given the crazy range of unique NPC lines for nothing more than flavor. They didn't have to make a Dragonborn salesman greet my Dragonborn PC formally, especially since he's a flavor NPC who sells only non-magical instruments and has no quests associated with him (at least as far as I know).

But the number of dialogue options the PC has is on another scale. There's tons of class-specific dialogue that has the same NPC response as a non-specific dialogue option, and that's how they make it work. It's too much.

I really, really, really want my PC to be voiced. It's just that the compromise (less dialogue options) isn't worth it.

As an aside, it really bugs me when gaves have an unvoiced PC that don't have a ton of dialogue choices. Characters like Byleth in Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Joker in Persona 5 could easily have been fully voiced and even have non-cutscene voice acting. They just...didn't decide to do voice acting for them for some reason, despite the characters having comparable dialogue to the rest of the cast.

[Zevox]

As an aside, it really bugs me when gaves have an unvoiced PC that don't have a ton of dialogue choices. Characters like Byleth in Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Joker in Persona 5 could easily have been fully voiced and even have non-cutscene voice acting. They just...didn't decide to do voice acting for them for some reason, despite the characters having comparable dialogue to the rest of the cast.

That's basically what's left of the "silent protagonist" trope from JRPGs - they're not completely silent anymore, but their dialogue (choices or otherwise) is few and far between, and what little voice acting they're given comes down to lines they say during combat, like the Persona protagonists calling out the names of the Personas they summon. Much as I generally like JRPGs more than western ones, that particular element I do greatly dislike and wish the ones that still use it would drop.

Not sure why Three Houses used it, considering no other Fire Emblem game has, even once they started introducing player-avatar characters. Maybe it was just a quirk of Koei Tecmo doing most of the work on the game instead of Intelligent Systems, I guess. Which worked out for the game in every other way, but that one, not so much.

[Psyren]

I'd prefer fully voiced protagonists, but for a game with as many dialogue options and permutations as BG3 that would be a development nightmare so I can see why they didn't. I think Cikomyr is onto something when they say AI is our best hope of getting something like this, and I'm for it as long as the actual actor whose voice the AI is imitating to generate the myriad choices gets paid accordingly.

[Cikomyr2]

I agree with this, but I wouldn't characterize myself as the complete opposite of "I want my character to be voiced." Because I do. Losing out on the voice acting kills a ton of character, and is the reason I'm never going to do a run with an Astarion PC.

It's just that voice acting in this way is prohibitively expensive. BG3 gives me hope that we might get there someday, given the crazy range of unique NPC lines for nothing more than flavor. They didn't have to make a Dragonborn salesman greet my Dragonborn PC formally, especially since he's a flavor NPC who sells only non-magical instruments and has no quests associated with him (at least as far as I know).

But the number of dialogue options the PC has is on another scale. There's tons of class-specific dialogue that has the same NPC response as a non-specific dialogue option, and that's how they make it work. It's too much.

I really, really, really want my PC to be voiced. It's just that the compromise (less dialogue options) isn't worth it.

As an aside, it really bugs me when gaves have an unvoiced PC that don't have a ton of dialogue choices. Characters like Byleth in Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Joker in Persona 5 could easily have been fully voiced and even have non-cutscene voice acting. They just...didn't decide to do voice acting for them for some reason, despite the characters having comparable dialogue to the rest of the cast.

Dont get me wrong, i like voice acting protagonist. But that's if you arent given a choice in the character you will be playing. Its the difference between an RPG where you play Geralt of Rivera and an RPG where you play "whatever you want".

And adding a few extra dozen lines to a random npc so they have catered expression or conversation choices based on the PC's characteristics is a pittance compared to the idea of fully voicing every dialogue itteration a player character can do. And this is even when you have a SINGLE established character to play with - not a theoretical infinity number of alternatives like BG3.

You'll notice that most voiced protagonist story will always branch back to the same plot points, the same demeanor, etc.. because they cannot record Critical Exposition Dialogue #13-C 20 times for the sole purpose of accounting for the previous quest resolution options you may or may not have opted in.

When everything is in text, you can actually have as many variation as the writer care to add. There are no material cost consequences to adding a unique piece of dialogue, since no voice actor has to be paid to record these lines.