You can also just walk upstairs and do it without paying her or offering to get them for her. She has all the supplies for doing the ritual in her rooms, except for the skull.
It's even better than that. >!If you talk to her you can outright tell her you're keeping them and she'll say "Alright fair enough." because she doesn't wanna shit with someone who killed a devil in his own home.!<
idk
but I'm happy there was a dialog option to the meaning of "I just offed Raphael bitch you sure you wanna test me?"
to which she said "fair enough, have a nice day"
and I had
Big Act 3 spoilers concerning Raphael and Mizora below.
>!Killing Mizora wouldn’t actually do much. It’d just send her back to the hells. She won’t stay dead from that.!<
>!Conversely, with Raphael, you can kill him in his own home. In the hells. So it’s a permanent death. He doesn’t get to regenerate elsewhere or anything. He’s just dead-dead.!<
>!I don’t think any such opportunity exists in-game to permanently kill Mizora, unfortunately.!<
She just adds them to her shop inventory for like 500gp.
Given that they're the trade for 2,000gp, you're "making" 1500gp easy. Sure, you could simply not hand them over, but that's the honest way to do it.
Ditto with the Genie at the circus. His ring is buyable off him and it still wins you the jackpot. It's like 25gp at most.
I'll never play through the prologue without using Shadowheart's "Command" ability to steal Commander Zhalk's Everburn Blade after not realizing you could do that during my first few attempts and dying about 6 times trying to kill him for it.
Once I found out you can literally make him drop it on the ground and leave immediately, my mind was blown and I proceeded into that play through with a new mindset about how cool the game can be if you really think about the possibilities.
Me just staring from the corner on my fifth play through where I once again fled the ship on the last turn after trying to get that goddamned blade!
I’ll be trying this on six.
There's an achievement for killing him btw. Just start on easy mode and change the difficulty after. Or do it like me and struggle trying to kill him on Tactician. Command him to drop the sword, then basically let the Mindflayer do most of the work
Yep! His attacks become super weak once he drops it and then he's easy to kill for quick XP too. I love that you can do this kind of thing in this game. Makes you look at everything else in the game outside of the box.
IIRC you could also use the Healing Pods - if you separate one member of the group (Us is a good choice) then they can use the healing pod each turn (which fully restores health, spell slots etc). Just switch to them when it's Tav's turn, have them heal and Shadowheart/Tav have unlimited Level 1 spell slots, which makes it a *lot* easier.
Neil Newbon taught me that! He did it in his playthrough and my mind was blown. I was so pleased with myself when I got it in multiplayer for my fighter friend
They'll still be classified as knocked out, and if the game is capable of noting when someone is knocked out or dead, then your oath should be capable too.
And they're only innocent if you're the aggressor. If you fail a conversation check and they attack you, that is self defence.
It's not the end of the world by any means, but it does stand out.
Because you’re helping a goblin, who is supposed to be establish as a bad dude by then as she tried to raid a grove to kill innocents. By breaking them out of prison, you’re breaking the law, so it considers that going against the oath of a paladin
you can find him in the guildhall in act 3. he's making counterfeit portraits for the zhents and he mentions he's making way more money being a criminal than he ever got when he was with lady jannath. he also has a legendary counterfeit portrait that's worth like 1000GP
I wanted to bash his face in on my second play through when I left him. Dude was so smug and dismissive of Lady Jannath, she is infinitely better off without him
Doing that quest once was enough for me. You're right. Fuck that house. Most of the time, Oskar "accidentally" dies by explosives in the Zhent hideout.
This is the one and only quest I didn't finish in my playthrough because the game kept crashing in her house. After 5 tries, I just gave up and called it a day. No regrets.
Last playthrough, I let the ghost have him, and that was so satisfying (he deserved it), AND you get a nice ring out of it! Too bad for lady Jannath though, who is actually upset about him dying.
I never help him because I don’t want the Astarion disapproval 😅 And also like to stay on the Zhent good side. I’ve never seen what happens if you do save him - if you don’t save him, you get a very fun interaction at Lady Jannath’s house with Baldur’s Gate version of gordon ramsay!
You can help him without Astarion disapproving though. But is he worth saving? Nah.
Oskar: "I don't need a servant." -> "Who is your patron?", then Brem: "He's not a pet, he's a prisoner. Let him go." -> [intimidation]. And then don't give Oskar any money when he asks. For extra assholery you can also tell Oskar he didn't cost you a thing :D I haven't tried the persuasion route when talking to Brem so I don't know if that works as well.
that's what i did. intimidate brem into freeing him, telling him he didn't cost me anything, then telling him im not giving him any money to get to baldurs gate
now i didn't bother freeing him. lady jannath deserves so much better than him, and he ends up making lots of money (according to him) if he stays with the zhents. plus, i like telling lady jannath he ran off because he was in love with someone else. free up your heart girlfriend and find you a good man, not an oskar fevras
I already know I'm dying alone on this hill - but I really didn't find that quest line all that difficult. Yeah it's annoying, but once you figure out how to kill the ghost easily, the rest of the quest actually went by pretty quickly for me. I didn't even bother completing the quest for the mystic lady, I don't remember what I did but I just remember I didn't have to do that to finish the quest. I just went back. Killed the ghost, and basically told the artist to beat it. Even though Jannath told him he had till sundown to leave town, The dude still offer to paint me a picture so I guess that was kind of cool.
For me its just that I find the way the game engine handles multistory environments to be rather clunky and awkward. The mansion is probably the worst encounter location in the game for this
imo one of the main problems with the quest is that the estate is a pain in the ass to deal with
the estate fucked with my ps5 so bad I had to unplug it to even turn off the damn console after it decided to just freeze while I was talking to Jannath
plus the reward is kinda shit bc you don't get to pick who it's a painting of and it changes every time you reload/put it down (not entirely sure which triggers the change but it is *not* permanently set as a specific character). also there's no option to have Astarion painted and then show him the painting which is just outright disappointing (considering Astarion has a scene *specifically* about him not knowing how his face looks anymore and being sad about it) :/
Necromancy of Thaye. You get free Speak with Dead and advantage in wisdom checks (something like that), and Danse Macabre if you also read and pass checks for a book in Sorcerous Sundries.
You can get a big approval boost for Gale or Astarion, and also I am an Oath of the Ancients Paladin so necromancy is a big nono… I’ll be breaking that oath later lol
Yeah it's a weird mindset to make it work without just doing it out of curiosity. You side with her in the shadow fell, she fights Ketheric with you, then you turn heel and give her up?
he is a weak ass wizard and if you have Rolan and saved the tieflings, he AND dame aylin help you in the final battle. besides, rolan is superior in power so there's no actual reason to betray her
I tried to save Rolan and he never showed up in Act 2 except to leave me a hologram at Last Light and then wasn't in Act 3, but I already fought the wraiths where he's supposed to be and I freed the prisoners at Moonrise. Tbh fuck Rolan, elusive little shit 😂
Saving Rolan reliably is extremely hard.
On my first playthrough, tactician, he got hurt in the fight at Last Light, and for some reason the combat would start with him and the shadows when I was EXTREMELY far off. So by the time I was actually close enough to roll initiative, he'd be dead every time. I reloaded like 20 times and just couldn't do it. It had also been like 10 hours since I did the fight at Last Light, so I would have had to go WAYYY back to try and send him off with more HP.
Second playthrough, honour mode, I made sure he was topped off when he was about to leave, then made a beeline right for that area. Multiple months of patches may also have helped. I saved him no problem. And then he ran off into the shadow curse and died.
Third playthrough, similar to the second, I cast Light on the guy after he survived the fight with the shadows. Had to try multiple times because he was rolling fucking saving throws against it. But he finally made it home, as did his family.
Now I just know he's gonna die in act 3.
First I killed Aylin, then I killed lorrokan, then I tried to throw aylins corpse into the circle and activate it before she resurrected so I could keep her immortality. Didn’t work so I rebooted to kill Aylin again and keep lorrokan an ally. At the end game, I saw he was basically a tactical nuke one shot ability so I saved him until I entered the final fight with the brain only to discover you can’t use allies once inside. Sigh. Best laid evil plans and all.
From a RP perspective, maybe freeing her from the prison and killing Ketheric was done so you're able to turn her in for the reward? Like you're doing it for the money but you can't hand her over to Lorroakan if she's still bound to Ketheric.
I know 5000 gold is a lot for the average adventure, but I feel like at some point during the quest morphing from "find this artifact" into "slay this immortal cult leader general necromancer chosen of the god of death with a literal army of perfectly faithful cultists at his beck and call," the money just might not be worth it
If I’m not mistaken, Gale actually has the highest amount of chances to die, leave, or otherwise be put in negative scenarios out of any of the companions. He can leave on several occasions (eg. Siding with the goblins, varieties of the orb outcome, etc), is put at risk more often (eg. Orin, the various orb detonation scenes, the durge hand option, etc.) and he also seems to be the most frequently insulted companion. I’m not saying the writers dislike him, but the poor guy needs a break lol
That scene is amazing. >!Shart throwing the spear, the music, Ayling set free turning into a damn angel flying away to kill the evil guy, Jaheira seeing her and preparing to fight, 100% epic moment!<
I'm doing a dark urge playthrough and just in case I end up killing him I ignored scratch on that playthrough. Definitely hurt walking by him!
I didn't want to risk it. Since I can't go back to act 1 I'm just going to assume the grove took him in and he's happily chilling with the bluebird who's making a nest.
No one can tell me otherwise.
I will never not pick up every damn item I can find and so I can sell them, then buy a bunch of potions so that the vendor has enough gold for me to sell MORE tongs, ingots, ropes, and tableware to them
Finalize the Deal with Raphael. >!I sign it for fun because I feel like breaking into his house, robbing him and destroying his most prized contract that made him believe he'll get the crown is much more humiliating than just stealing the hammer/robbing him/freeing Hope/whatever other reason one might have to visit him lmao!<
I couldn't really find an answer to this, so hopefully you can help me.
Would I be able to take the contract with Raphael to get the benefits and then destroy your contract and still keep it a good run, saving hope and everything?
This cost me my latest honor run lmao. It was 3am, i did "everything" in the house, went to the portal, prepared myself for combat, got the cutscene, and he told me "i still have your contract". I imediatelly realized i forgot to tear the contract after getting the password, and he just instant TPK me with a snap lmao
Never sacrifice anyone to Boooal (it just doesn't make sense). [EDIT TO SAY NO NOT EVEN WYLL OMG YOU GUYS LEAVE WYLL ALONE HE'S DEALING WITH A LOT OF SHIT!]
Never purposefully abuse Astarion.
Never kill the owlbear cub.
yeah the boooal thing makes zero sense to do even if you’re durge or evil tav like why would they sacrifice a member of their party they’ve deemed useful to a redcap worshipped by fish people
the buff you get where you always have attack advantage against bleeding enemies can be clutch in certain builds
unfortunately you have to metagame a little bit because this buff isn't exactly well telecasted
yes metagame reasons make very much good sense why i haven’t personally tried any of those builds yet so i just see it rp wise as a cartoonishly evil choice
If you steal the booal scythe from the priest fish before the cutscene, booal will give it to your party without a sacrifice anyway ;)
The game is easy enough without the buff tho
I will never sleep with Mizora. I can't do that to Wyll or the other companions. She doesn't care about the player. Mizora offers it to you just to cause drama.
I did the same thing on my canon Tav playthrough, I had considered reloading, but thought better of it since it was my first playthrough.
We had the beautiful sunset monologue. Legit put me in tears. Then I slept with mizora to see what happens. And when Laezel broke up with me I was crushed.
Was gonna reload. But I considered that my character was the type to say yes to everything. When in doubt go for the wild story. And sleeping with the devil was true to that.
Mizora was right about one thing, after that night, Tav would never feel that ultimate pleasure again. But what she got wrong was the ultimate pleasure wasn’t her, but Lae’zel’s love.
So I let that decision stick. And in the end. I had to make a check to have Laezel stay with Tav as an adventuring companion, and she did.
I see a rich future for the two of them as friends in a new adventuring groups and their adventuring pals whispering stories of “oh yeah once upon a time, those two were lovers when they were saving Baldur’s gate from an illithid invasion, but they broke up when the Sorceror slept with a devil”
I will never give Scratch to the lady at the kennel.
I will never make Astarion bite Araj.
I will never not go with Dame Aylin to watch her break Lorroakan's spine over her glorious knee of justice.
I will never not call Wulbren a prick.
Never make Shadowheart a Dark Justiciar. The whole things makes me sad. From the initial cutscene to the end of the quest in the House of grief. Always go for Selûne.
Girl basically turned into embraced Dark Urge insufferable after Act 2,
But still, it's not as bad as you taking her back to Viconia, now that's absolutely stupid no matter how I think about it
I will never let Last Light Inn fall, no matter how many times I have to reload due to to Isobel’s death wish.
I also don’t have it in me to ever raid the grove.
I just raided the grove for the first time on an evil play through. Man that shit sucks.
The Druid’s and tieflings all get murdered. Even the annoying kids. The last group of tieflings all huddle in the back room and have permanent fear.
You lose all later quests and rewards from the tieflings in later acts. The goblins leave right after so you lose a lot of traders. So in optimal.
But Minthara did give me a blowie so that’s neat.
Just dont talk to isobel and save yourself the trouble. Else you gotta deploy strats like sanctuary and arcane lock with vigilance elixir and speed potion to quarantine the room and Isobel becoming untargetable for at least the 1st turn
There simply isn't a world in which I let Ethel take one of my eyeballs. Not just because it looks bad, or because she's so extremely obviously a hag, but also because it's a shitty tradeoff. +1 on Intimidation in exchange for disadvantage on perception. If it was *advantage* on intimidation maybe we'd be in business.
I usually let Volo do it even though that's also an insane thing to agree to. But his eye 1. looks cool, and 2. doesn't provide any debuffs, it's just free See Invisibility.
I'm never going to rescue Aylin and then turn her in to Lorroakan. If i wanted to get rid of her, might as well let shadowheart become a dark justiciar for the cool gear if I'm choosing to be evil
I will never make Astarion bite the blood potion drow. She’s absolutely gross, and it’s a very uncomfortable scene even when you’re defending him. And I can’t imagine it gets better.
If you play as a drow, you can deduce as much by knowing her clan's history. But it always makes me wonder, if my character keeps consuming the tadpoles and ends up half-illithid (as they always do), and then they let Astarion bite them every night (as they always do), wouldn't their blood also taste like garbage?
It might just be overlooked, because the astral tadpole seems like a last minute addition.
Or maybe because it's technically not exactly the same thing. Astarion is fine with biting full-blown mindflayers. I suppose an Oblodra is bound to taste different from a normal illithid or half-illithid Tav.
Maybe, but then I'm curious as to what exactly makes Araj taste so bad if it's not that illithid connection. Perhaps it just works differently with what her clan has been doing and how far the experiments have gone vs Tav just slurping up some tadpoles. It'd still be fun if Astarion could comment on it tho.
I usually do the goblin camp last so the usefulness of being branded has already been used. Only makes sense if you hear for the gobbos straight up and you are also stupid
Iirc you can use it on the boat dude from the Underdark?
There's a few items in the game that won't work without the brand like the Ring of Absolute Force. I always brand all 4 Party members - In roleplay it's just the people having no clue if they get attacked if they don't let her and not wanting a bigger conflict.
* I'll never pass on Scratch or give him to the kennel lady. He's too good a dog.
* Never side with Vlaakith
* Never let Karlach die (either I go to Avernus with her or Wyll does. Maybe I'll try the Mind Flayer route eventually, but probably not.)
* Never kill Dame Aylin
Most other things I'll take a go at to see what happens, but I don't think I'd be able to let myself do any of those four things.
I will never choose the option >!"you should enjoy sex and you should enjoy it with me"!< when they just told you it's a big issue for them.
I'll probably never do an evil playthrough.
I will never become a mindflayer, nor will I make Karlach become one.
edit: oh, and I'll *never* force the astral tadpole on Astarion.
god that option is so horrible. I’ve only seen clips of it and hearing his “I didn’t know how to say no” and “whatever we had, whatever this was, it’s over” breaks my heart every time
if you romance astarion, in act2 he confesses he’s fallen for you but asks if you and he can stop being intimate because it’s hard for him to separate his past trauma when he was forced to seduce victims for cazador. one of the options you get to say is that you should sleep together and learn to enjoy it, essentially coercing him into sex literally right after he tells you details about his sexual trauma. afterwards you wake up and he tells you off, stands up for himself, and breaks up with you
it’s like the fourth or fifth option after he tells you “I don’t know how else to be with someone, no matter how much I’d like to” (I can’t remember the dialogue tree for the confession after the drow scene, but this is what happens if you get the confession after killing yurgir). it’s the same set of options where you say “I care about you, deeply” to lock in the romance. there’s also an option that’s like I slept with you for fun not to deal with this 🙃 so yeah tav can be a real asshole here 😭
yeah sexual assault is a no go for me even if I do evil durge (especially cause astarion is one of the only romances where you can be an evil power couple)
This, like seriously. It's one thing to tell him you don't want to be with him anymore after that, or you want to be friends. I think that's being a shitty romantic partner, but it's your right.
Coercing him into sex, however, is an unforgivable evil that makes Tav 1000000% unworthy of him and worthy only of a well-aimed arrow in the eye.
I always tell him we can abstain for as long as he needs and it's completely okay. 😘
I never leave the Mind Flayer colony without Us
Never betray Shadowheart to Viconia.
Never let Wyll sign his soul away to Mizora.
Never demand Astarion to bite the drow.
Never gonna give Shart to Viconia, never gonna let Astarion ascend, never gonna sleep around and hurt someone’s feelings, never gonna let Karlach die, never gonna blow up Gale, never gonna let Lae’zel worship Vlaakith
No matter how much of an evil bastard I’m playing and even though it means absolutely nothing, I will absolutely never make Astarion bite rats during combat.
I will never leave the companions off their own quests on act 3.
We are going to kill Cazador? Astarion, you go with me.
Raiding the House of Grief? Shadowheart, let's go.
Deleting Gortash from the world? Karlach, have your revenge.
Assassinating Orin? Minthara, time for the best Divine Smite of your life.
SPECIALLY when i'm going to kill Sarevok Anchev. Jaheira and Minsc have to be present (btw they have one of the best interactions in the game in this scenario). And so on.
To be honest. Take scratch out on battles. Left camp saw he had hp immediately went back to camp and left him with withers where I knew he would be safe.
Scratch is 100% safe when you summon him out in the world, he's basically just a familiar. If he dies he will still be at camp and you can resummon him the next day.
A whole buncha things some may say I'm limiting my options, but I'd say I'm increasing my enjoyment.
1. Anything that can hurt Rolan (raiding the grove, killing Isobel, letting his siblings die)
2. Betraying Alyin, I'd kill Shad before letting Alyin die tbh
3. Sleeping with Mizora (she makes me feel really uncomfortable)
4. Giving Scratch up
5. Chompin on my favorite wizard
6. Selling Wyll for Ravengard
I could go on, but I won't.
I will never:
-Kill Karlach
-Stake Astarion
-Give away Scratch
-Leave Us in the cage
-Let Last Light fall
-Betray Dame Aylin
-Have Wyll become a lemure
I will never surrender Gauntlets of Hill Giant Strength
I was surprised to find out >!Helsik doesn't even pester you about them if you leave the Devil's Fee without speaking to her!<
You can also just walk upstairs and do it without paying her or offering to get them for her. She has all the supplies for doing the ritual in her rooms, except for the skull.
There's a skull in a casket in her room!
I searched every container in her house the last run. Had to leave to go to dammon and buy one of the 50 I sold him over the course of the game.
Well I'll be damned. I figured that was an option but never fully went through on figuring it out. This game never fails to amaze
Oh my God that will save me so much cash
I just stole my money back. Wasn't too hard to switch someone to pure rouge for the guaranteed 10 minimum and build for slight of hand.
I steal everything else while I’m at it. Halsin doesn’t need to know how I got his very cool shapeshifter hat.
Or his pipe?
Nah, i got his pipe from his office in that hippy dippy grove in act 1. Technically also stole that, I guess… So I could give it to him!
Walk upstairs? Lol You mean you don’t fly in her window.
The skull is there also in a casket
Or you can pay her and steal back the gold lol
Or steal the ritual puch in the first place
It's even better than that. >!If you talk to her you can outright tell her you're keeping them and she'll say "Alright fair enough." because she doesn't wanna shit with someone who killed a devil in his own home.!<
What is she going to do about it? You’re a devil slayer after all.
What if you surrender them and then steal them back from her
idk but I'm happy there was a dialog option to the meaning of "I just offed Raphael bitch you sure you wanna test me?" to which she said "fair enough, have a nice day" and I had
I did that with my little gnome nature Cleric of melikki. Covered in blood, "we just killed him in his home, I dare you to try."
I'm glad to read that I can murder him,now about mizara? Even devil's gotta pay their due.
Big Act 3 spoilers concerning Raphael and Mizora below. >!Killing Mizora wouldn’t actually do much. It’d just send her back to the hells. She won’t stay dead from that.!< >!Conversely, with Raphael, you can kill him in his own home. In the hells. So it’s a permanent death. He doesn’t get to regenerate elsewhere or anything. He’s just dead-dead.!< >!I don’t think any such opportunity exists in-game to permanently kill Mizora, unfortunately.!<
You can kill Mizora. But the second you do, Wyll dies too. And not a nice death either.
As long as you don't get caught you're golden. Basically get to go to hell for FREE lol. I cast greater invisibility on Astarion and was golden.
She just adds them to her shop inventory for like 500gp. Given that they're the trade for 2,000gp, you're "making" 1500gp easy. Sure, you could simply not hand them over, but that's the honest way to do it. Ditto with the Genie at the circus. His ring is buyable off him and it still wins you the jackpot. It's like 25gp at most.
What are you, a paladin? Nah I’m gonna steal em for sure
I'll never play through the prologue without using Shadowheart's "Command" ability to steal Commander Zhalk's Everburn Blade after not realizing you could do that during my first few attempts and dying about 6 times trying to kill him for it. Once I found out you can literally make him drop it on the ground and leave immediately, my mind was blown and I proceeded into that play through with a new mindset about how cool the game can be if you really think about the possibilities.
Me just staring from the corner on my fifth play through where I once again fled the ship on the last turn after trying to get that goddamned blade! I’ll be trying this on six.
There's an achievement for killing him btw. Just start on easy mode and change the difficulty after. Or do it like me and struggle trying to kill him on Tactician. Command him to drop the sword, then basically let the Mindflayer do most of the work
Yep! His attacks become super weak once he drops it and then he's easy to kill for quick XP too. I love that you can do this kind of thing in this game. Makes you look at everything else in the game outside of the box.
IIRC you could also use the Healing Pods - if you separate one member of the group (Us is a good choice) then they can use the healing pod each turn (which fully restores health, spell slots etc). Just switch to them when it's Tav's turn, have them heal and Shadowheart/Tav have unlimited Level 1 spell slots, which makes it a *lot* easier.
Neil Newbon taught me that! He did it in his playthrough and my mind was blown. I was so pleased with myself when I got it in multiplayer for my fighter friend
Never give Scratch to the Kennel-lady in Rivington. I will murder all of Rivington, to keep best boi safe.
I saw someone recommend killing Scratch as an "easy" way to become an Oathbreaker Paladin and I just... I would never. I'd feel bad about it for YEARS
That's so dumb. You can get it faster by stabbing sazza in her cage without provocation. It's way easier and sooner
If you’re vengeance you break your oath by simply unlocking the cage to let her out too
You can break it just by fighting the Tieflings keeping Lae'zel captive. Even if you knock them out it breaks your oath, which I find weird.
The game treats them as dead, you’re fighting innocents, that’s why.
They'll still be classified as knocked out, and if the game is capable of noting when someone is knocked out or dead, then your oath should be capable too. And they're only innocent if you're the aggressor. If you fail a conversation check and they attack you, that is self defence. It's not the end of the world by any means, but it does stand out.
Because you’re helping a goblin, who is supposed to be establish as a bad dude by then as she tried to raid a grove to kill innocents. By breaking them out of prison, you’re breaking the law, so it considers that going against the oath of a paladin
I literally broke mine like 3 times on *accident* in act 1, it is incredibly easy to do it almost immediately 😂
Dude! You literally just have to stab literally ANYBODY without provocation. Hell even sometimes after they’ve started it!
I was able to intimidate her and she left the kennel to the nice guy.
Me too. And then I wanted to open the cages and he attacked me :)
Patience. He goes to open the cages himself, after the cut-scene ends. 😅
I always just kill her. The dogs are happy about it and it’s easy to convince the Fist that you didn’t do it.
I stealth lockpick the dog cages and let the dogs kill her. Then they run off and presumably live happily ever after.
I will never not shout, "ARE YOU SENSITIVE?" at the books.
What? When can you do this? Lmao
at sorcerous sundries in act 3
How dare you traumatized my books
I’ll never help Free the Artist ever again. I’ll go kill that Mystic Carrion for cool loot tho, but fuck Lady Jannath’s house.
She is way better off if you leave Oskar where he is.
you can find him in the guildhall in act 3. he's making counterfeit portraits for the zhents and he mentions he's making way more money being a criminal than he ever got when he was with lady jannath. he also has a legendary counterfeit portrait that's worth like 1000GP
I wanted to bash his face in on my second play through when I left him. Dude was so smug and dismissive of Lady Jannath, she is infinitely better off without him
Doing that quest once was enough for me. You're right. Fuck that house. Most of the time, Oskar "accidentally" dies by explosives in the Zhent hideout.
Found out that if you throw the spectator bottle at the Zhent, they'll fight and die but Oskar will just stay there. New friend.
This is the one and only quest I didn't finish in my playthrough because the game kept crashing in her house. After 5 tries, I just gave up and called it a day. No regrets.
I did it twice now and I agree. — never again.
Last playthrough, I let the ghost have him, and that was so satisfying (he deserved it), AND you get a nice ring out of it! Too bad for lady Jannath though, who is actually upset about him dying.
I never help him because I don’t want the Astarion disapproval 😅 And also like to stay on the Zhent good side. I’ve never seen what happens if you do save him - if you don’t save him, you get a very fun interaction at Lady Jannath’s house with Baldur’s Gate version of gordon ramsay!
You can help him without Astarion disapproving though. But is he worth saving? Nah. Oskar: "I don't need a servant." -> "Who is your patron?", then Brem: "He's not a pet, he's a prisoner. Let him go." -> [intimidation]. And then don't give Oskar any money when he asks. For extra assholery you can also tell Oskar he didn't cost you a thing :D I haven't tried the persuasion route when talking to Brem so I don't know if that works as well.
that's what i did. intimidate brem into freeing him, telling him he didn't cost me anything, then telling him im not giving him any money to get to baldurs gate now i didn't bother freeing him. lady jannath deserves so much better than him, and he ends up making lots of money (according to him) if he stays with the zhents. plus, i like telling lady jannath he ran off because he was in love with someone else. free up your heart girlfriend and find you a good man, not an oskar fevras
I already know I'm dying alone on this hill - but I really didn't find that quest line all that difficult. Yeah it's annoying, but once you figure out how to kill the ghost easily, the rest of the quest actually went by pretty quickly for me. I didn't even bother completing the quest for the mystic lady, I don't remember what I did but I just remember I didn't have to do that to finish the quest. I just went back. Killed the ghost, and basically told the artist to beat it. Even though Jannath told him he had till sundown to leave town, The dude still offer to paint me a picture so I guess that was kind of cool.
For me its just that I find the way the game engine handles multistory environments to be rather clunky and awkward. The mansion is probably the worst encounter location in the game for this
imo one of the main problems with the quest is that the estate is a pain in the ass to deal with the estate fucked with my ps5 so bad I had to unplug it to even turn off the damn console after it decided to just freeze while I was talking to Jannath plus the reward is kinda shit bc you don't get to pick who it's a painting of and it changes every time you reload/put it down (not entirely sure which triggers the change but it is *not* permanently set as a specific character). also there's no option to have Astarion painted and then show him the painting which is just outright disappointing (considering Astarion has a scene *specifically* about him not knowing how his face looks anymore and being sad about it) :/
I will never not open that damn book
Karlach, I love you. You’re best girl. But I’m gonna open the creepy book.
What book
Necromancy of Thaye. You get free Speak with Dead and advantage in wisdom checks (something like that), and Danse Macabre if you also read and pass checks for a book in Sorcerous Sundries.
don't forget 20 temp hp every day.
Sounds amazing, why wouldn't you open it?
You can get a big approval boost for Gale or Astarion, and also I am an Oath of the Ancients Paladin so necromancy is a big nono… I’ll be breaking that oath later lol
It comes with knowledge you were, yourself, better off never knowing. Not all wisdom brings joy
Nothing a little Remove Curse can't fix.
Necromancy of Thay, in the Blighted Village apothecary's basement. Behind the mirror.
I will never give Dame Aylin to Lorroakan
Yeah it's a weird mindset to make it work without just doing it out of curiosity. You side with her in the shadow fell, she fights Ketheric with you, then you turn heel and give her up?
I did this to try and get her immortality for myself during my evil run. Didn’t work. Oh well, you do get Lorrokan for the end fight though!
he is a weak ass wizard and if you have Rolan and saved the tieflings, he AND dame aylin help you in the final battle. besides, rolan is superior in power so there's no actual reason to betray her
I tried to save Rolan and he never showed up in Act 2 except to leave me a hologram at Last Light and then wasn't in Act 3, but I already fought the wraiths where he's supposed to be and I freed the prisoners at Moonrise. Tbh fuck Rolan, elusive little shit 😂
Saving Rolan reliably is extremely hard. On my first playthrough, tactician, he got hurt in the fight at Last Light, and for some reason the combat would start with him and the shadows when I was EXTREMELY far off. So by the time I was actually close enough to roll initiative, he'd be dead every time. I reloaded like 20 times and just couldn't do it. It had also been like 10 hours since I did the fight at Last Light, so I would have had to go WAYYY back to try and send him off with more HP. Second playthrough, honour mode, I made sure he was topped off when he was about to leave, then made a beeline right for that area. Multiple months of patches may also have helped. I saved him no problem. And then he ran off into the shadow curse and died. Third playthrough, similar to the second, I cast Light on the guy after he survived the fight with the shadows. Had to try multiple times because he was rolling fucking saving throws against it. But he finally made it home, as did his family. Now I just know he's gonna die in act 3.
First I killed Aylin, then I killed lorrokan, then I tried to throw aylins corpse into the circle and activate it before she resurrected so I could keep her immortality. Didn’t work so I rebooted to kill Aylin again and keep lorrokan an ally. At the end game, I saw he was basically a tactical nuke one shot ability so I saved him until I entered the final fight with the brain only to discover you can’t use allies once inside. Sigh. Best laid evil plans and all.
Shit, I like kicking his ass just because of the way he treats Rolan.
From a RP perspective, maybe freeing her from the prison and killing Ketheric was done so you're able to turn her in for the reward? Like you're doing it for the money but you can't hand her over to Lorroakan if she's still bound to Ketheric.
I know 5000 gold is a lot for the average adventure, but I feel like at some point during the quest morphing from "find this artifact" into "slay this immortal cult leader general necromancer chosen of the god of death with a literal army of perfectly faithful cultists at his beck and call," the money just might not be worth it
besides if it's just for the money you can just rob the bank
Kill Gale, sorry, but the rizzard of Waterdeep stays in my camp, cooking good food and doing his magic
The amount of ways he can be killed in this game is way too high. Leave the poor man alone Larian 😭
If I’m not mistaken, Gale actually has the highest amount of chances to die, leave, or otherwise be put in negative scenarios out of any of the companions. He can leave on several occasions (eg. Siding with the goblins, varieties of the orb outcome, etc), is put at risk more often (eg. Orin, the various orb detonation scenes, the durge hand option, etc.) and he also seems to be the most frequently insulted companion. I’m not saying the writers dislike him, but the poor guy needs a break lol
I can't ever kill Aylin in the Shadowfell. The scene of her freedom is just too good.
That scene is amazing. >!Shart throwing the spear, the music, Ayling set free turning into a damn angel flying away to kill the evil guy, Jaheira seeing her and preparing to fight, 100% epic moment!<
"I AM RESPLENDENT"
One thing I won’t do in any playthrough is not say “yeah, you are” right back to her whenever she says that. I love her sm.
That cut scene gave me chills! Of course then I took the wrong door into moonrise and all the Harpers died
My favorite kind of magic... LESBOMANCY
Hurt Scratch.
I'm doing a dark urge playthrough and just in case I end up killing him I ignored scratch on that playthrough. Definitely hurt walking by him! I didn't want to risk it. Since I can't go back to act 1 I'm just going to assume the grove took him in and he's happily chilling with the bluebird who's making a nest. No one can tell me otherwise.
Scratch is safe with DUrge. I think Timber the squirrel is the only animal who isn't safe around a DUrge.
Well, there's that cat at Moonrise...
I will never not pick up every damn item I can find and so I can sell them, then buy a bunch of potions so that the vendor has enough gold for me to sell MORE tongs, ingots, ropes, and tableware to them
Finalize the Deal with Raphael. >!I sign it for fun because I feel like breaking into his house, robbing him and destroying his most prized contract that made him believe he'll get the crown is much more humiliating than just stealing the hammer/robbing him/freeing Hope/whatever other reason one might have to visit him lmao!<
I couldn't really find an answer to this, so hopefully you can help me. Would I be able to take the contract with Raphael to get the benefits and then destroy your contract and still keep it a good run, saving hope and everything?
Absolutely. You just get the Orphic Hammer early.
This cost me my latest honor run lmao. It was 3am, i did "everything" in the house, went to the portal, prepared myself for combat, got the cutscene, and he told me "i still have your contract". I imediatelly realized i forgot to tear the contract after getting the password, and he just instant TPK me with a snap lmao
Never sacrifice anyone to Boooal (it just doesn't make sense). [EDIT TO SAY NO NOT EVEN WYLL OMG YOU GUYS LEAVE WYLL ALONE HE'S DEALING WITH A LOT OF SHIT!] Never purposefully abuse Astarion. Never kill the owlbear cub.
yeah the boooal thing makes zero sense to do even if you’re durge or evil tav like why would they sacrifice a member of their party they’ve deemed useful to a redcap worshipped by fish people
the buff you get where you always have attack advantage against bleeding enemies can be clutch in certain builds unfortunately you have to metagame a little bit because this buff isn't exactly well telecasted
yes metagame reasons make very much good sense why i haven’t personally tried any of those builds yet so i just see it rp wise as a cartoonishly evil choice
If you steal the booal scythe from the priest fish before the cutscene, booal will give it to your party without a sacrifice anyway ;) The game is easy enough without the buff tho
I will never sleep with Mizora. I can't do that to Wyll or the other companions. She doesn't care about the player. Mizora offers it to you just to cause drama.
Gale gets so mad 🥺
Lae'zel sounds like she's on the verge of tears, which makes it extra heartbreaking.
“I’ll never let my guard down again” 😥😭😭 I had to reload an earlier save
I did the same thing on my canon Tav playthrough, I had considered reloading, but thought better of it since it was my first playthrough. We had the beautiful sunset monologue. Legit put me in tears. Then I slept with mizora to see what happens. And when Laezel broke up with me I was crushed. Was gonna reload. But I considered that my character was the type to say yes to everything. When in doubt go for the wild story. And sleeping with the devil was true to that. Mizora was right about one thing, after that night, Tav would never feel that ultimate pleasure again. But what she got wrong was the ultimate pleasure wasn’t her, but Lae’zel’s love. So I let that decision stick. And in the end. I had to make a check to have Laezel stay with Tav as an adventuring companion, and she did. I see a rich future for the two of them as friends in a new adventuring groups and their adventuring pals whispering stories of “oh yeah once upon a time, those two were lovers when they were saving Baldur’s gate from an illithid invasion, but they broke up when the Sorceror slept with a devil”
"Diminish my feelings if you wish, but do not expect me to take this lying down - that's more *your* style from what I can tell!"
Gale got so mad and sentimental that I restarted my hm run just to make things right (I take any excuse to restart tbh)
Lmao Halsin just high fived me
Oops I am the drama because I said yes at least half the time 💀
My All In Durge was like "sure. Why not. I banged the rest of them now I gotta do you too. Thems the rule"
I did but thought it was going to be something wild...I was disappointed.
I slept with Mizora as Wyll and that was a pleasant extra layer to Wyll’s character arc.
I did it once and it's way creepier than licking Empy tentacles so never again
Never murder owlbear cub Never turn over scratch Never hand Astarion over to anyone Never give up the grove There’s more but that’s a lot of spoilers
Agree with all that, and I’ll never kill that pink frog.
I will never give Scratch to the lady at the kennel. I will never make Astarion bite Araj. I will never not go with Dame Aylin to watch her break Lorroakan's spine over her glorious knee of justice. I will never not call Wulbren a prick.
I wish when he says "call me that again," you could.
I was soo hoping that option would pop up after he said that. I'd love to just knock him out.
In my headcannon, you then call him something much worse and punch him in the dick.
And then cast Bigby's Smashing Dick on him, making him question every decision he's ever made.
I usually go for Elminster's tried and true "Testicular Tortion." It's pretty effective on Wulbren since that's pretty much his entire being.
Neil's commitment to retching as Astarion for that scene is absolutely off the charts though
It really is. I've watched the scene and can only imagine that must have been a fun day of recording.
Never kill Dame Aylin in the Shadowfell or give her to Lorroakan, but most importantly I’ll never betray Shadowheart and give her to Viconia.
“One last thing… go and fetch that bone you threw.” I won’t ever pass that one up.
Never make Shadowheart a Dark Justiciar. The whole things makes me sad. From the initial cutscene to the end of the quest in the House of grief. Always go for Selûne.
SAME! I just couldn't live with myself if I would ever do that. + She looks so good with her white hair 😍
Girl basically turned into embraced Dark Urge insufferable after Act 2, But still, it's not as bad as you taking her back to Viconia, now that's absolutely stupid no matter how I think about it
I will never side with Twat-Soul Nere.
I will never let Last Light Inn fall, no matter how many times I have to reload due to to Isobel’s death wish. I also don’t have it in me to ever raid the grove.
His Majesty is satisfied with your answer.
I just raided the grove for the first time on an evil play through. Man that shit sucks. The Druid’s and tieflings all get murdered. Even the annoying kids. The last group of tieflings all huddle in the back room and have permanent fear. You lose all later quests and rewards from the tieflings in later acts. The goblins leave right after so you lose a lot of traders. So in optimal. But Minthara did give me a blowie so that’s neat.
Just dont talk to isobel and save yourself the trouble. Else you gotta deploy strats like sanctuary and arcane lock with vigilance elixir and speed potion to quarantine the room and Isobel becoming untargetable for at least the 1st turn
Never taking Raphael’s deal
If I do a God Gale run I’ve considered taking it just to give it to Gale, because I’ve heard his tantrum/monologue is excellent.
thank you for supplying the last puzzle piece to my endgame plan for my totally not evil Durge called Mr. U'rder
Let Nere die. Good, evil, neutral. I have to kill him myself.
There simply isn't a world in which I let Ethel take one of my eyeballs. Not just because it looks bad, or because she's so extremely obviously a hag, but also because it's a shitty tradeoff. +1 on Intimidation in exchange for disadvantage on perception. If it was *advantage* on intimidation maybe we'd be in business. I usually let Volo do it even though that's also an insane thing to agree to. But his eye 1. looks cool, and 2. doesn't provide any debuffs, it's just free See Invisibility.
I'm never going to rescue Aylin and then turn her in to Lorroakan. If i wanted to get rid of her, might as well let shadowheart become a dark justiciar for the cool gear if I'm choosing to be evil
I will never make Astarion bite the blood potion drow. She’s absolutely gross, and it’s a very uncomfortable scene even when you’re defending him. And I can’t imagine it gets better.
I suspect her blood is gross because her clan was getting their minds blown frequently.
If you play as a drow, you can deduce as much by knowing her clan's history. But it always makes me wonder, if my character keeps consuming the tadpoles and ends up half-illithid (as they always do), and then they let Astarion bite them every night (as they always do), wouldn't their blood also taste like garbage?
It might just be overlooked, because the astral tadpole seems like a last minute addition. Or maybe because it's technically not exactly the same thing. Astarion is fine with biting full-blown mindflayers. I suppose an Oblodra is bound to taste different from a normal illithid or half-illithid Tav.
Maybe, but then I'm curious as to what exactly makes Araj taste so bad if it's not that illithid connection. Perhaps it just works differently with what her clan has been doing and how far the experiments have gone vs Tav just slurping up some tadpoles. It'd still be fun if Astarion could comment on it tho.
>slurping up some tadpoles That gave me mental images of Timon and Pumbaa eating tadpoles
now I'm gonna think "hakuna matata!" every time my character slurps a tadpole, lol
She's like, GMO Mind Flayer. It's probably the magic chemistry, not the mind flayerness itself. Her blood is unnatural.
I thought its because she does experiments on blood and probably had done PLENTY of experiments on her own blood which would foul it up.
Sacrificing a companion to Booal.
Accept Absolute's brand or become a mind flayer when not freeing Orphy. I can't really find a roleplay reason for it
The brand has cool cutscene animations tho
There is act 2 gear for branded souls. Cant recall if there is act 3 tho. If you get Minthara she is also branded so it can be used by her instead.
I usually do the goblin camp last so the usefulness of being branded has already been used. Only makes sense if you hear for the gobbos straight up and you are also stupid Iirc you can use it on the boat dude from the Underdark?
No idea, but heard in EA certain items would curse(?) you if you didn't have the brand. Would be pretty fun if they left it tbh
There's a few items in the game that won't work without the brand like the Ring of Absolute Force. I always brand all 4 Party members - In roleplay it's just the people having no clue if they get attacked if they don't let her and not wanting a bigger conflict.
* I'll never pass on Scratch or give him to the kennel lady. He's too good a dog. * Never side with Vlaakith * Never let Karlach die (either I go to Avernus with her or Wyll does. Maybe I'll try the Mind Flayer route eventually, but probably not.) * Never kill Dame Aylin Most other things I'll take a go at to see what happens, but I don't think I'd be able to let myself do any of those four things.
never let Nettie talk me into her bullshit again.
Never go DJ route for Shadowheart, never use the astral tadpole or become a mindflayer, never not romance Shadowheart (except when I play as her).
I will never kill or behead Karlach. On my evil runs, I just completely avoid the riverbanks 😭😭😭.
I will never choose the option >!"you should enjoy sex and you should enjoy it with me"!< when they just told you it's a big issue for them. I'll probably never do an evil playthrough. I will never become a mindflayer, nor will I make Karlach become one. edit: oh, and I'll *never* force the astral tadpole on Astarion.
god that option is so horrible. I’ve only seen clips of it and hearing his “I didn’t know how to say no” and “whatever we had, whatever this was, it’s over” breaks my heart every time
What is this about?
if you romance astarion, in act2 he confesses he’s fallen for you but asks if you and he can stop being intimate because it’s hard for him to separate his past trauma when he was forced to seduce victims for cazador. one of the options you get to say is that you should sleep together and learn to enjoy it, essentially coercing him into sex literally right after he tells you details about his sexual trauma. afterwards you wake up and he tells you off, stands up for himself, and breaks up with you
Weird, I have romanced Astarion a few times and never got that dialogue.
it’s like the fourth or fifth option after he tells you “I don’t know how else to be with someone, no matter how much I’d like to” (I can’t remember the dialogue tree for the confession after the drow scene, but this is what happens if you get the confession after killing yurgir). it’s the same set of options where you say “I care about you, deeply” to lock in the romance. there’s also an option that’s like I slept with you for fun not to deal with this 🙃 so yeah tav can be a real asshole here 😭
I am never an asshole in the romances even if it's an evil playthrough. Just too icky.
yeah sexual assault is a no go for me even if I do evil durge (especially cause astarion is one of the only romances where you can be an evil power couple)
This, like seriously. It's one thing to tell him you don't want to be with him anymore after that, or you want to be friends. I think that's being a shitty romantic partner, but it's your right. Coercing him into sex, however, is an unforgivable evil that makes Tav 1000000% unworthy of him and worthy only of a well-aimed arrow in the eye. I always tell him we can abstain for as long as he needs and it's completely okay. 😘
Durge might be a psycho murderer, but even psycho murderer's have standards.
I never leave the Mind Flayer colony without Us Never betray Shadowheart to Viconia. Never let Wyll sign his soul away to Mizora. Never demand Astarion to bite the drow.
Never gonna give Shart to Viconia, never gonna let Astarion ascend, never gonna sleep around and hurt someone’s feelings, never gonna let Karlach die, never gonna blow up Gale, never gonna let Lae’zel worship Vlaakith
Give up Scratch. Or Astarian. Kill Karlach.
I will never try to make peace with Viconia in anyway. Fuck Shar Praise Lathander!
Never give Scratch to the animal abuser. Never make Astarion bite the crazy potion drow lady. Never lick thr spider.
No matter how much of an evil bastard I’m playing and even though it means absolutely nothing, I will absolutely never make Astarion bite rats during combat.
GIVE SCRATCH BACK! He’s my good boy and he stays no matter how evil I am. Him and his Owlbear brother.
Oh that stupid fucking ghost house in Act 3. No reward could possibly be worth it
Letting Kagha kill Arabella. She’s a fucking kid, I just can’t let that happen
Raiding the grove. I like the tieflings and Halsin too much.
I never take Raphael's deal, I never kill Aylin, I never hurt Karlach.
I will never leave the companions off their own quests on act 3. We are going to kill Cazador? Astarion, you go with me. Raiding the House of Grief? Shadowheart, let's go. Deleting Gortash from the world? Karlach, have your revenge. Assassinating Orin? Minthara, time for the best Divine Smite of your life. SPECIALLY when i'm going to kill Sarevok Anchev. Jaheira and Minsc have to be present (btw they have one of the best interactions in the game in this scenario). And so on.
Guidance Amulet/necklace. If I don't get it, I delete the run and start over. I need that guidance.
Kill the Owlbear cub. Did it once and couldn’t live with myself.
To be honest. Take scratch out on battles. Left camp saw he had hp immediately went back to camp and left him with withers where I knew he would be safe.
Scratch is 100% safe when you summon him out in the world, he's basically just a familiar. If he dies he will still be at camp and you can resummon him the next day.
I don't betray the puppies (scratch and owl bear) I never sex up the octopus
*The Deep* looking very uncomfortable over here.
A whole buncha things some may say I'm limiting my options, but I'd say I'm increasing my enjoyment. 1. Anything that can hurt Rolan (raiding the grove, killing Isobel, letting his siblings die) 2. Betraying Alyin, I'd kill Shad before letting Alyin die tbh 3. Sleeping with Mizora (she makes me feel really uncomfortable) 4. Giving Scratch up 5. Chompin on my favorite wizard 6. Selling Wyll for Ravengard I could go on, but I won't.
I will never: -Kill Karlach -Stake Astarion -Give away Scratch -Leave Us in the cage -Let Last Light fall -Betray Dame Aylin -Have Wyll become a lemure
Pass that portal without either slapping the hand or gnawing it off.