Baldur's Gate 3

Aria

@Cobalt There’s a few instances in the game where I really feel like a response of “Fuck you people. I tried to be reasonable, but now I’ve decided I’m leaving out your front gate, even if that means murdering all of you to get there.” is appropriate and even encouraged by the game.

Also, if you’re in the githyanki creche…

…And accidentally brought the entire monastery down by taking a certain item out of a certain place without completing the side-quest to get the thing that makes it okay to do that…

Definitely talk to Astarion after revivfying him. His meltdown is amazing and hilarious.

Duke Whisky

I found out after a long rest, if you do nothing. You lose a party member. 🥲

So turns out Shadowheart is pretty viscous but, damn, she looks so good in Lae’zel’s armour.

Tez

@Cobalt there was a super funny hilarious joke in here but I can’t get the spoilers to work right so you can just look in the edit history if you are curious.

@Aria I had a lot of fun with that particular bit that you spoilered. I hadn’t realized I had missed the part as you mentioned, so I just thought that what happened to me was the normal course of things. When @Roz told me she was at that part, I eagerly crowded over to watch her play so I could see her reaction.

Imagine the look on my face when she just put the crest in to the lock and the whole fucking monastery didn’t blow up with a three turn race against the clock to get out before it blew.

Aria

@Tez said in Baldur’s Gate 3:

@Aria I had a lot of fun with that particular bit that you spoilered. I hadn’t realized I had missed the part as you mentioned, so I just thought that what happened to me was the normal course of things. When @Roz told me she was at that part, I eagerly crowded over to watch her play so I could see her reaction.

Imagine the look on my face when she just put the crest in to the lock and the whole fucking monastery didn’t blow up with a three turn race against the clock to get out before it blew.

I had actually solved the puzzle to get the thing to prevent the consequence, but was unable to pass the stupid checks to get into the room with the quest-reward. Like, every single one of my companions failed even after I hauled my ass to the other end of the monastery so I’d be able to go to camp and swap people out.

Obviously I needed to know what I missed and was incredibly disappointed that I got neither the quest reward nor the hilarious Astarion meltdown dialogue options.

astarion

(Sulking, actually, but this gif will do.)

Cobalt

@tez that’s actually what happened!

@Aria yeah, I had to drag in Karlach, who I had already boosted to the relevant attribute to 20.

Solstice

Astarion’s epilogue scene

If you didn’t let him become an evil mega-vampire had me in stitches. Everyone else getting the character moments and Astarion just shrieking in the sunlight and skittering off to find shade. “IT WAS NICE WHILE IT LASTED!”

Perfect. Utterly.

Pavel

@Solstice

Sorry not sorry.

Prettty close to Karlach’s epilogue, that.

Solstice

Solstice

Unrelated:

Astarion Goose needs to be a mod.

https://youtu.be/6CNAL3kFRDo

Pavel

Roz

@Aria said in Baldur’s Gate 3:

I had actually solved the puzzle to get the thing to prevent the consequence, but was unable to pass the stupid checks to get into the room with the quest-reward. Like, every single one of my companions failed even after I hauled my ass to the other end of the monastery so I’d be able to go to camp and swap people out.

Fun fact about that check:

You can use grease to loosen up the statue that gets stuck.

@Solstice said in Baldur's Gate 3:

Astarion’s epilogue scene

If you didn’t let him become an evil mega-vampire had me in stitches. Everyone else getting the character moments and Astarion just shrieking in the sunlight and skittering off to find shade. “IT WAS NICE WHILE IT LASTED!”

Perfect. Utterly.

Ugh, I actually HATED that.

Astarion can have so much growth and development, and having him end on a punchline like that – and with the possibility of one of your companions saying something brutally thoughtless about the whole thing (I had Gale just be like “lol well guess we’ll never see him again” – felt awful to me. It turned the whole thing into a punchline.

Cobalt

I haven’t finished my main play through but I’m thinking of streaming a full on murder hobo play through, where anyone who isn’t a companion gets the knife.

Tez

@Cobalt NOT MY LIL THIEFLING BABIES!!!

Pavel

@Tez It’s okay, children run away when at 0hp.

ETA: Ask not how I know this.

Solstice

@Roz

On Astarion:

I think they either really bungled his chances to grow throughout much of the game, not limited to the epilogue - or they made his lack of growth a calculated choice. I’m leaning to the latter.

As he’s currently characterized: Rip the fangs out of that boy’s head and he’s stripped down to an indignant complainy nobleman who gets angry if you help the peasants and has to be dragged kicking and screaming to not commit murder on a mass scale, including the children he lured to their deaths. And sulks about that extensively before grudgingly admitting it was a good thing.

Honestly, him zipping offstage to the sunlight equivalent of yakkety sax as his ‘good ending’ is about the best the person he was could hope for. He can go spend a century or two finding redemption in the Underdark! Popular spot for it.

We could not fix him - and I do suspect that’s the point.

So given all that, I was all about it.

Cobalt

@Tez said in Baldur’s Gate 3:

@Cobalt NOT MY LIL THIEFLING BABIES!!!

that will be hard, it is true.

But murderhobo gotta murderhobo

Roz

@Solstice said in Baldur’s Gate 3:

@Roz

On Astarion:

I think they either really bungled his chances to grow throughout much of the game, not limited to the epilogue - or they made his lack of growth a calculated choice. I’m leaning to the latter.

As he’s currently characterized: Rip the fangs out of that boy’s head and he’s stripped down to an indignant complainy nobleman who gets angry if you help the peasants and has to be dragged kicking and screaming to not commit murder on a mass scale, including the children he lured to their deaths. And sulks about that extensively before grudgingly admitting it was a good thing.

Honestly, him zipping offstage to the sunlight equivalent of yakkety sax as his ‘good ending’ is about the best the person he was could hope for. He can go spend a century or two finding redemption in the Underdark! Popular spot for it.

We could not fix him - and I do suspect that’s the point.

So given all that, I was all about it.

Yeah, idk if I just made different choices? But he definitely grew a whole lot in the playthrough I did.

I don’t think it was either “they bungled his growth or made a conscious choice not to have him grow,” I think it’s “he can grow a lot or a little, he can make good or bad choices, it just depends on what choices YOU make, and what you encourage from him.”

It wasn’t the point that I couldn’t fix him, because I absolutely helped to make him a better, more empathetic person. That’s why his comedic sendoff felt so awful.

Solstice

@Roz

~~Maybe I missed the approval cutoff for the more sympathetic reactions.~~

Edit: Really seems like you need to be romancing him for much of this to surface, which feels a missed opportunity.

bear_necessities

@Cobalt said in Baldur’s Gate 3:

@Tez said in Baldur’s Gate 3:

@Cobalt NOT MY LIL THIEFLING BABIES!!!

that will be hard, it is true.

But murderhobo gotta murderhobo

I tried to murderhobo and the grove is where I realized I am not capable of being a murderhobo lol

Roz

@Solstice said in Baldur’s Gate 3:

@Roz

Definitely not ruling it out. On a heavily intricate game like this, I suppose it’s hard to say that we had the same experience.

At least for me, by the time we reached Cazador, it took me dragging him by the heels to not murder the 7000 folks assembled there, betray the party, or leave. If your experience was a different one, still more kudos to Larian, but I assumed from the articles I’d read online that this was a common thing and a reason to avoid bringing him to his own quest resolution.

So yeah. ~~Maybe I missed the approval cutoff for the more sympathetic reactions.~~

Edit: Really seems like you need to be romancing him for much of this to surface, which feels a missed opportunity.

(Also, uh, spoilers being weird for anyone on this post? Clicking my own spoiler is expanding Roz’s.)

Lol yeah I can’t see your spoilers But FWIW, I didn’t romance him my first playthrough, but I still felt like I saw a lot of growth from him from our friendship.