Down, Down, Down By the River: Let's Play Baldur's Gate 3

[Timrod]

Summary

: Welcome back to Baldur’s Gate 3! Today, we’ll beat Ketheric…

: By jumping into the nasty tentacle hole.

: Nowhere left to go but the hole. Unfortunately, I forgot something, that being that the hole fucking sucks.

: There are two things we need in the hole which require specific people. Gale has his bad ending down there, and Wyll has a quest that drops a weapon for Pollux.. except we can’t switch party members out once we’re down there.

: Personally, I think this is kinda bullshit. It’d be one thing if I could transfer Lyselle’s entire spellbook to Wyll, but I can’t.

: Wyll gets respecced into a wizard. The only really important spell is Wall of Fire. Let’s get moving into the hole.

: Aren’t you forgetting something?

: No, I already looted the bar area in Last Light that I was saving for Salty Vanilla to use as a backdrop in the latest Pollux/Halsin date piece.

: The buff statues.

: Oh, right. At this point, if you’re running low on resources, take a long rest before you do this. Go back to the center of the fuck zone.

: The three statues we saw earlier each have an inscription: one for intelligence, one for charisma, and one for wisdom.

: Making a DC 14 save gives you a +5 bonus to the associated stat. This is borderline fanfiction: nothing in 3.5E would ever give you this kind of stat boost, even temporarily.

: Only one person can make each check, and you don’t want to fail because it instead gives you a -5 to your stat. You can remove this by resting or using remove curse.

: Pollux now has 26 Charisma, which is about where he’d be at a baseline in 3.5E.

: Once you do all three statues, a back room opens up. You can sacrifice blood to get some items, which include one of those free short rest potions. Just don’t take the dagger.

: Why? Because it summons a group of three shar ghosts who are resistant to everything and a general nuisance to kill. They’re worth nothing in terms of EXP.

: We could also go back to the shar temple and get that half necrotic damage buff if we needed it. We don’t.

: Don’t forget to bring your emotional support treasure chests. Use the lighter ones that have medium toughness. You’ll want 8 or so to bypass a really annoying fight.

: That’s not a thing. Is it a thing?

: Sure it is.

Narrator: The hole yawns back at you, impossibly wide - a single tentacle burrowed through stone.

: Ignore Jaheira being here. This is from an earlier recording.

: “This is an illithid colony. This must be where they harvest the tadpoles. We’re close to the source of the infections.”

: This area has a thing similar to the catacombs where you don’t need bodies to use Animate Dead. We’re going to be doing the only challenging fight here as if we were on (dis)honor mode.

: Let me show you what the difference is.

: The mind flayer colony is a big circle. It is entirely optional unless you are playing with Wyll as your main character.

: The reason it’s different on honor mode is that if you head straight to the last room, there’s a mind flayer healing pod. You can use this for infinite free long rests that do not count as long rests.. except on honor mode, where it can only be used once.

: I mentioned in the last update that you should dismiss any summons before coming here and preferably take a long rest. The reason is that the pod doesn’t heal summons, or at least didn’t in the earlier patches.

: It also won’t restore anything that isn’t a class resource. This means that items with a cooldown won’t be restored, nor will things like Shovel. We’re bringing Shovel back this update.

: The other side of the room has a free explosive barrel and a brain in a jar. I should mention that you can bring the brain jars from the nautiloid here.

: We could head right to Ketheric’s boss arena, but instead we’ll do all the optional fights.

: The closest door to where we entered leads to the morgue. You’ll notice there are intellect devourers running around: they’re worth seven owlbears of EXP each. Kill them all.

: I killed them all because they’re gross abominations.

: Killing the brains here will aggro this bugbear, who has dialog but none of it’s important. He’s a mindless drone.

: None of these pose even a vague threat to us at this point. If we were going all out, I could’ve wiped this room in one fireball.

: “Wait.. I recognize that brain. That’s the one from the nautiloid!”

: At some point between when I first played the game and now, they changed Us into an item. It used to be a learned spell like Shovel is. By the end of this update, we will have an army.

: There’s some environmental storytelling about a teacher selling his students to the cult.

: In fact, you can press this button and the teacher’s body gets disgorged out of a vein. You can speak with dead on him, but why bother.

: The other door from the morgue leads to a very annoying fight. It’s time..

: Let’s take a look through that door.

: Holy fuck, that’s a lot of zombies. It sure would be annoying if they had one of those fanfiction skeletons from the monastery trail with them.

: Good thing we brought our emotional support boxes… except one line isn’t enough. These zombies can jump, and the colony is a circle - so they could approach us from behind.

: That’s what the other four boxes are for. Pack everyone in like this, but leave just a bit of space so that you don’t get hit with melee through the boxes.

: And oh look, it’s one of those fanfiction skeletons. The skeleton can revive the zombies with full HP. The bigger zombies have 96 HP each on tactician. We don’t care.

: They’re not getting past the boxes, so we can shoot them with impunity.

: The flying ghouls tend to go into “turn off AI” mode, so you may have to jump someone over the wall for a turn to lure them in.

: Three more explosive barrels? Don’t mind if I do.

: There’s a puzzle over here that we’ll come back for. It annoyed the hell out of me on my first run.

: The barracks is between the restoration pod and the room with Wyll’s quest in it. It doesn’t have much in it apart from some lore dumps from Balthazar’s assistants.

: We’re here for the explosives.

: The rooms inside have chests in them if you didn’t bring enough to wall off the zombies. These ones are much weaker, but will block off the zombies for a bit.

: Eventually, the necromancers find us. We’ll blow some spells on this, since there’s only one more room and the fight there is piss easy.

: You know he’s a serious villain when his name is “Hairy Henry”.

: The party gets fireballed, which at this point is a mere annoyance that we can fix with one of our probably 40 good healing potions.

: The necromancers also have Ketheric’s skeleton bomb gimmick, but go down without any problems. The fireball unfortunately blew up some of the explosive barrels, but we’ve got plenty of those.

: We’ve now done everything except the puzzle and Wyll’s quest, so let’s get on it.

: The tadpoling center has four or so brains roaming around which die promptly.

: The pods on the walls have both mind flayers and a couple of NPCs we’ve seen before in them - this is Gauntlet Yeva, who was in the burning inn back in Act 1.

: Zevlor is also here. We know he’s possibly a traitor.

Narrator: The device is open to your tadpole’s command - to your authority.

1. Release.
2. Purge.
3. Leave the pods be.

: Kill 'em all.

: That wouldn’t be very heroic.

: We’re going to open the pods because it’s free experience. You get three NPCs on your side and the mind flayers are nothing even on tactician, especially if we can go all out.

: The only thing to watch out for is that the mind flayers have a reaction that can charm you on hit - but it doesn’t work like the outright mind control that charm usually is.

: Instead, it stops whoever’s hit by it from attacking the mind flayer that used it on them. They can still attack the other mind flayers, and you retain control over them.

: Karlach in particular is overpowered if she’s allowed to go all out. Branding Smite does 2d6 radiant on top of everything else AND lets you make another attack.

: In one turn, we have Karlach attack six times. The order goes:

• Two normal attacks
• Action Surge
• Another normal attack
• Branding Smite
• Another normal attack
• Great Weapon Master bonus attack for killing something

: 5E fighters are significantly more powerful than 3.5E fighters. 3.5E fighters have two attacks a turn at 9th level (three if making a full-round attack), and only one gets made with their full attack bonus.

: The enemies go down easily.

: “Hells.. I didn’t think I was going to make it. Thank you.”

: “Zevlor.”’

: “Watching gods - the Blade of Frontiers? Wyll? What happened?”

: “I paid the price of angering the wrong devil.”

: “And shouldered the cost to spare someone else a worse fate, I’d wager.”

: “I…owe you an explanation. Much more than that. But first, please… the others. The ambush - tell me they survived.”

1. You abandoned them. Do you really think you have the right to ask?
2. Some. Others ended up in a cell in Moonrise. That’s on you.
3. They found refuge. But what the hells happened out there, Zevlor?
4. I can’t tell you.

: “A bunch of them died, including Arabella’s parents. A few more got captured and got to watch as we systematically exterminated everyone in Moonrise. The rest survived.”

: Was that what all the screams were?

: You bet.

: “Somehow, I suspect it’s worse than you imagine. Likely you heard that I broke, or froze, or some other lie kinder than the truth.”

: “We were ambushed by cultists, yes. And then I heard.. Her. Their false god, whispering promises in my mind. I would be a paladin again - with a god’s purpose, a god’s power. Everything I needed to protect my people.”

: So you got mind controlled. Typical fighter.

: “And all the while, the cult tortured them. They fought, and ran, and died around me, while I imagined myself their savior. By the time I regained my senses, it was too late. I did not just surrender to the Absolute. For a moment, I welcomed it.”

1. If you wanted power, you never needed a god - only to live up to your ideal.
2. ‘For a moment’ - until you realized your reward would be a tadpole.
3. It sounds like you were being enthralled. It’s not your fault.
4. Your people didn’t need a paladin - they saved themselves.

: “It sounds like you were being enthralled. It’s not your fault.”

: “It would be nice to think so. But whatever these monsters twist us into… I believe it begins in us. I won’t make excuses. I can’t make amends. But I know something of what you came to do - I want to help, if you’ll let me.”

: “Ketheric is below. He thinks you’re no longer a menace. Descend and show him how wrong he is. If there are any more survivors to be found, I’ll find them - and lead them out of this place.”

: There’s only this one room left, and we haven’t found that demon for Wyll yet. I wonder where it could be?

: This side of the room has some special barrels that spew acidic goo everywhere. It doesn’t do a lot of damage, but it’s still useful.

: “Mizora? You’re Zariel’s asset?”

: “My dumb little stinker. Took you long enough. Now, by Graz’zt’s cock, get me out of this thing.”

: …This makes no sense.

: It really doesn’t. She can teleport.

: Why is she even here, anyway?

: “Not yet, Mizora - it’s a seller’s market now. Time we struck up a new deal.”

: “Is it? Please, enlighten me.”

: “No more pact, no more debt. Then I set you free - and you flit back to Zariel and leave me for good.”

: “Now why should I go letting my favorite pet off his leash?”

1. [INTIMIDATION] We could always let the cult infect you, I guess. I bet you’d make a loyal thrall.
2. [HISTORY] Remember all you can about devils and their contracts.
3. [PERFORMANCE] Say you know a pact-breaking charm and chant a series of pseudo-Infernal phrases
4. I wouldn’t let him go, Mizora. Wyll needs someone to keep him in line.

: “I vote we leave her here and let her get infected. Not that she will, because everyone in Moonrise has been exterminated. Can demons starve to death?”

: “Incredible - you actually think you hold the winning hand. Fine, I’ll play your game. But I amend the pact once I’m freed - not before. Clause F, Section Nine: ‘Soul-binder shall bestow reward or favor only upon soul-bearer’s fulfillment of related obligation.’ Now open the pod.”

: “Fine. Let here out.”

: You can still re-negotiate Wyll’s contract even if you don’t bring him here, it just happens in camp instead.

: The pod has two buttons on it and we don’t know which is which. Option 2 kills Mizora, Option 3 frees her.

: “You did all right, Wyll. I’d give your belly a good rub, but never could stand the smell.”

: “You’re free, Mizora. I held up my end. Now you hold up yours. Sever the pact.”

: "Mm. Hrm. Mmm… Ahem. Clause Z, Section 13: ‘It wouldn’t make any sense for you to break the contract so for plot reasons it’ll be six months.’ "

1. Sever the pact now, devil - or I’ll sever your head.
2. Fine, six months it is. What happens next?
3. Gods damn you, Wyll. You’re more trouble than you’re worth.
4. [PERSUASION] GIVE ME THE FUCKING SWORD

: This sword is the best weapons in the game that Pollux can use. It allows us early access to a 6th-level spell and makes Pollux more than competent at melee.

: Now let’s go back to that puzzle we skipped. This thing is a pain in the ass. It’s not difficult, it just controls like shit.

: The idea is this. You have four glowing nodes on the front of the weird pegboard thing. You have to link them to their counterparts on the back side.

: This kind of puzzle just doesn’t work with this camera. You activate the nodes by clicking an active one and then clicking an inactive one to link it to, and half the time the game will interpret that as a “move your character” action.

: Solving the puzzle gets you a brain in a jar. This one gives a special buff you’re going to want to use on someone who isn’t a wizard.

: It also gets you a longsword which is effectively vendor trash at this point in the game. Psychic damage is nice, but Patch 8 makes it way easier to get.

: You can also click this thing, which.. when did the illithid have time to carve this? It talks about how they want a world of perfect order with themselves at the top.

: We can use all the brain jars we found over here. This includes the ones from the nautiloid. Most of them give incidental dialog.

: Oh, and there’s a glowing pink orb that sucks. It’s useful if you really need to make a strength check, I guess.

: Anyway, there’s a severed elf head here who..

: They’re just standing there. You can see the neck isn’t severed. It’s just being hidden by the goo.

: You can load the brains into the thing next to the head to talk to them.

: One of them is a kid and you can tell the kid he’s dead and in hell, so Pollux does that. Let’s skip all of these and just load in the special one.

: The writers for this game really hate kids.

: “HmmMM… fine bones.. sharp jaw.. some variety of elf? Pretty enough for a flesh-prison, if not the noble githzerai features I was born with.”

: The githzerai are a very similar but technically distinct race from the githyanki. They hate the githyanki as much as they hate everyone else, and don’t worship Vlaakith.

: Do they die any differently?

: They’re biologically identical, so no.

: It was more like a note to myself to test it later.

: “I’d guess you’re no willing guest of the ghaik either. Perhaps we might aid one another.”

1. How did you end up in that vault? Githzerai are supposed to be ultimate warriors.
2. You’re remarkably sane for a pickled brain.
3. I’m listening. What aid are you offering?
4. I’m not interested.

: “You’re remarkably sane for a pickled brain.”

: “A githzerai’s mind is not so easily cracked. Our discipline was the very reason we were attacked. My order taught a psionic technique much feared by the ghaik. They destroyed us for it, and kept me as a trophy.”

: “I never broke, but… I’ve spent all these centuries awake. Aware. So here is my offer: use your tadpole. Erase me - and I will pass my technique on to you.”

: “That sounds like bullshit.”

: “…All right, I led them there because they promised me power. They’ve been saving my brain for a snack. Can you just kill me now?”

: The person who erases the gith gets a buff that is permanent unless your character dies. The buff gives you proficiency on intelligence checks.

: Fuck calling them saves, there is no such thing as an intelligence save.

: Now that we’re done with that, it’s time to call up the boys. Pollux summons a cambion, Shovel, and Us.

: The cambion is the middle choice of the three 6th-level spell summon options. It has a rebranded Scorching Ray that hits pretty hard.

: Wyll summons an air elemental, two ice mephits, and a flying ghoul. This is why I couldn’t use Halsin: this fight demands the ability to fly.

: I hope you’re ready for a long, boring cutscene. The game is going to dump the entire plot on us in one go.

: “You said it was under control.”

: “It isn’t you I answer to, Gortash.”

: It’s the corrupted eighth Chaos Emerald I gained hold of after beating a fusion of Broly and Shadow the Hedgehog while on a mission with Seal Team Six in Cuba in the 70s.

: Well, I had a steamy threesome with Alex Mercer from Prototype and Naruto and I’m pregnant with Naruto’s secret other child. So there.

: “Motherfucker! Gortash!”

: “Oh, the General voice. Is this where we salute?”

: “Salute, yes, with cleavers through his blood-starved flesh. How it crawls with failure like flies on lick-wet carrion.”

: Boys, I have you both beat. I shoved the entire Infinity Gauntlet up my (redacted).

: (That’s a shapeshifter! …The two Mintharas! That’s how there were two.. one was a fake. I knew it!)

: “Shovel, go warn Halsin. I’m willing to bet the Minthara in camp is gone. She’s going to try something.”

: “You forget yourself, Orin. I have played my part.”

: “You’ve built an army for our masters, true enough. But what of the Astral Prism? A rogue True Soul, flaunting it under your nose all this time. And you ran from him.”

: I didn’t serve three terms in 'nam with my wife, who is actually alive and half-yakuza and we met in a bar where we had a knife fight and it was really cool, to listen to your shit.

: “Sure that they would follow, and deliver into my hands here. If you would cease these distractions -”

: Gortash perpetually looks like someone just kicked him in the balls. I remember him being a big shipping target for fanfic writers.

: “The distractions have been yours, Ketheric. Perhaps we never should have dug your daughter up.”

: I’m gonna post so many wojaks on Reddit with your face on them…

: “So you haven’t lost your edge. But you’re still not as sharp as Orin is, I wager.”

: That dagger is the best weapon in the game for Astarion. It’s too bad we have to go through a dogshit boss fight to get it.

: “The slayer against the undying one. That would be fun to see.”

: “KILL U IN DA STREETZ”

: “If the weapon is truly in your grasp, Ketheric, might I suggest closing your fist? Orin and I can wait for you no longer. The plan proceeds - we’re going to the city, and we expect you to follow, army and weapon in tow.”

: Orin and Gortash then combine their chaos emeralds to summon a giant brain.

: “An elder brain.. one of the cruellest and most powerful creatures in existence, enslaved by mere mortals.”

: Are you saying I’m not the cruelest and most powerful creature in existence?

: Elder brains were a CR 25 monster in 3.5E, meaning you’d only ever see one in an epic-level campaign. In 5E, they’re a CR 14. That would make them a difficult but reasonable fight for a 12th-level party.

: Incidentally, no, there are no elder brain monster people, and if there were we’d have banished them to the same abyss my ancestors threw all the vore monsters into.

: “There we are. It wouldn’t do to fight in front of our guest.”

: “Behold, Duke Ravengard: the Absolute!”

Ravengard: “Helm preserve us…”

: Ravengard then gets tadpoled while Orin does her stupid edgy bullshit.

: “Shit, no! My tad has been dadpoled! I mean, my dad has been tadpoled!”

: “Now! It’s really time we were going. We will empty this place and begin the march. You may catch up with the army once you’ve retrieved the weapon.”

: “And Ketheric, do try not to sulk. You’re supposed to be the fearsome General, come to conquer the city. And I am the hero who will save it.”

: Thank fuck that’s over. Let’s take a look at the battlefield before we enter the inevitable tactics -

: Wait a minute.. I hear him. That TV fucker! He’s downstairs!

: You’re on your own again. I’ll be back. Shape, you see the moth or that bitch with the annoying voice, kill them. The rest of you, try not to die.

: Mara! Get back here! You can’t kill him, he’s got plot armor out the ass!

: Well, fuck. That’s not gonna end well. It doesn’t really matter because this fight sucks. It’s a lot like the Ethel fight - the devs want you to do it one way and one way only.

: STORM’S COMING, MOTHERFUCKER!

: Anyway. We’ve got Ketheric on the center platform., and four skeletons on the side platform. The only land route to the skeletons is on the far side from the entrance.

: On the right, we have Aylin, who has been captured yet again and is making Ketheric unkillable. She’s guarded by a mind flayer.

: There are also a bunch of intellect devourers on the ground. They’re not much of a threat.

: The game gives you some room to plan, so the first order of business is making Astarion invisible and having him hide on Aylin’s platform.

: The reason for this is that opening the fight by freeing Aylin gets you a surprise round, which we’re going to use to wipe the adds.

: At this point, I enter turn-based mode and start jumping people up here. Our goal is to kill all the skeletons off in the surprise round.

: Again, the game fully expects you’re doing this ahead of time. The safe spot is up here, behind the skeletons.

: The real problem is the mind flayer. There’s no way onto that platform without Ketheric seeing you.

: Is anyone else hearing all those gunshots? And the screaming?

: The other annoying part is that you can’t see the stealth sight lines unless you’re in stealth. We’re going to leave the air elemental here since it can teleport.

: We don’t get the surprise round for some reason, probably because this game’s stealth is spaghetti.

: In this first phase, Ketheric is basically harmless. He can summon those skeleton bombs, but that’s all he does.

: Pollux takes out the skeletons, and Aylin promptly gets dominated by the mind flayer. Despite having wings, she can’t fly, so she’s useless.

: Several turns later, Ketheric “dies”.

: "OBAMA CHUCKLED. “YOU MEAN THE CHAOS EMERALDS?”

: “FANFICTION MODE: ACTIVATED!”

: At this point, Ketheric starts outright cheating. He’s resistant to all physical damage, becomes resistant to the last element to hit him, and has multiple AOEs that are effectively instakills.

: He also passively summons multiple skeletons per round, which attempt to reach him. If they do, he gets another instakill.

: If no one is engaging him in melee, he uses a room-wide AOE pull that not only does damage but also teleports everyone to his platform where he can use his other AOEs.

: Oh, and he has a fanfiction aura that blocks healing. How difficult this fight is depends on how long Aylin stays alive.

: First order of business in exterminating this dumbfuck is putting a wall of fire under him. This hits him every turn for fire damage.

: The weaker summons should stay on the ground, which is where most of the skeletons will spawn.

: There is exactly one strategy that works, and that strategy is lightning cheese. Let me explain how this works. If you throw a bottle of water at Ketheric, he becomes wet for 3 turns.

: Being wet makes him take double lightning damage, but also does something very important: when he’s wet, he can’t become resistant to lightning damage using his “Haha fuck you” fanfiction ability.

: Wyll and Pollux use lightning bolt every turn, which he can’t dodge. This hits him for a shitload of damage, and ensures the wall of fire does full damage every round.

: It also helps a lot if you have Karlach use the Giantbreaker crossbow (which I think we got in Act 1 somewhere) on him repeatedly. When it hits, it builds up a debuff that lowers his attack rolls and stops him nuking Aylin.

: Wyll and Pollux use their roll reducers to fuck with Ketheric’s physical AOE, which stops him killing Aylin and using his pull spell. If Aylin is about to die, send your martials in one at a time.

: By the way, this fight is almost a direct ripoff of the Lady Vashj fight from World of Warcraft, specifically the one from Serpentshrine Cavern in TBC. I don’t know if they’ve revived her yet like they did to Kael’thas three times.

: Tempest Keep was merely a setback the first two times. I’m sure he’ll get it right eventually.

: Fucking teleporting piece of shit! At least I winged him a few times.

: I missed it, didn’t I? Oh well, I’ll leave him for the radio asshole.

: Oh, shit! That’s what happens when someone calls in your soul contract. Or what happens when you drink a liquid megido.

: What’s a liquid megido?

: Everclear and demon fire. Makes you breathe lasers through your mouth. And your eyes. And really any orifice lasers could come from.

: That’s disgusting.

: Aylin comes in and stomps on Ketheric’s corpse for a full ten seconds or so, and that’s the end of that.

: Normally Pollux would be doing this, but I was controlling Astarion at the time.

Narrator: In death, the body is cooling, but energy radiates from the stone.

: “Remarkable. Truly. And now the picture comes together. The Absolute is neither god nor man. It is the elder brain you saw, held here by those three against its will.”

1. How is it you’re able to leave the Astral Prism?
2. What are these stones?
3. I came here looking for a cure - I still haven’t found one.
4. Do you know who our enemies are?
5. Ketheric transformed during the fight - what was that?

: I’ll just explain what’s going on here: the villains in this game are call-backs to Baldur’s Gate 2. Everything here is specific to the PC games.

: “Ketheric transformed during the fight - what was that?”

: “I believe you fought and defeated an avatar of Myrkul, the god of necromancy. A remarkable feat. Ketheric was Myrkul’s chosen.”

: BG2’s plot involves three guys who become gods by shaking down the existing god of death. It is heavily implied that Withers is that god of death.

: “And who are the others?”

: “I know Lord Enver Gortash - an arms dealer and a slaver. He is a worshipper of Bane, the god of Tyranny.”

: Fitting because we’re going to shoot Gortash before throwing him off a plane. No, really - that’s the ideal way to do it. You can kidnap glitch him.

: “The other is a mystery to me. But the way she spoke, it is most likely she follows Bhaal - god of murder.”

: Bhaal’s chosen was.. I think he was the final boss of Baldur’s Gate 1. He shows up again in the expansion pack for Baldur’s Gate 2, titled “Throne of Bhaal”.

: “Which means the Absolute is a front for the gods of death and our enemies are the Chosen of the Dead Three.”

: That was the best they could come up with? They might as well have just named one Satan but with an E shoved in somewhere.

: Like that “Maneitobia” guy? The one you accidentally declared war on Manitoba trying to kill, back in the 70s.

: To be fair, it was an easy mistake to make.

: First time I’ve ever been hired to round up a bunch of oni, and where’d I find them all? A bar in Winnipeg, getting drunk with the locals.

: Should’ve just left 'em there. They fit right in.

: I debated killing Mara off at this point because I had a falling out with the artist who did his ref sheet, but I can’t do it. I enjoy writing him too much.

: Basically, I paid that artist for something I never got, and they appear to have gone offline altogether.

: “Chosen of the Dead Three?”

: Metal Gear?!

: “Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul. The tyrant, the assassin, and the necromancer. They are known to pick from their most devout followers a Chosen, granting them incredible powers.”

: "Each one alone would be a formidable enemy. But working together, and controlling an elder brain… I dare not imagine what they might achieve.

: “What are these stones?”

: “The crown’s markings suggest it was forged in Netheril, an ancient empire whose mastery over magic rivaled that of the gods.”

: “It is a crown of domination. The stones were taken from its crest. They are Netherstones, imbued with the ability to control the wearer of the crown.”

: “The crown’s Netherese magic must be the true source of the parasites’ abilities. This must be what elevates their potential. And it must be the reason nobody could heal you.”

: It’s strange that they never explain why you couldn’t use the stones to kill the parasites off.

: On the way out, we have some dialog with Karlach that gets partially cut off by a loading screen. I have this game on an SSD.

: “You saw Gortash, didn’t you? What the fuck was he doing down there? Is this all because of him? I looked after that fucker with my life. I trusted him.”

: “He gave me away to Zariel without a second thought, and now he’s looking to ruin the entire Sword Coast. He has to die. And I’m gonna be the one who kills him.”

: Withers and Fake Minthara are here. Fake Minthara tells us about her world conquering plans and how she had sex with Orin.

: “Sure thing, whatever. We’ll conquer the world. And I’m happy you had sex with Orin, or sorry that happened.”

: As it turns out, Minthara has dialog if you didn’t “kill her” in the goblin camp. The game kind of doesn’t expect you to have caught on to her being a fake.

: I should mention that the plotline with the fake Minthara only happens if it’s feasible for her to have survived. If she dies, Orin doesn’t try this.

: “There is yet one thing that troubles me, though. Something I need you to explain. You chose to incapacitate me rather than killing me when you eradicated my minions. Why?”

: “I thought that if I could free you from the Absolute’s grip, I could.. um.. let you facetank a bunch of stuff.”

: “So might any other True Soul, and yet Gut and Ragzlin do not stand with us, under your protection.”

: (Because Gut and Ragzlin weren’t shapeshifters.)

: “Sparing an enemy’s life is a great risk. Even though I owe my life to the part of you that showed me mercy, it concerns me. If Ketheric had ordered me to slay you to prove my worth, I would have. Or died trying.”

: At this point, we can give all of Wyll’s items back to Lyselle and ditch Wyll forever.

: We also level up to 10, which is a big deal for Pollux. Contagion can be used to cheese Orin in a very similar way to how we cheesed Raphael.

: What I actually take is Conjure Elemental and Hunger of Hadar. Hunger of Hadar is BULLSHIT broken - one thing I didn’t show is that you can use it to fuck with Ketheric’s targeting in his fanfiction form.

: Wyll (and therefore Lyselle) gets the ability to see invisible at all times. We need this to get the best staff in the game.

: Karlach gets her superiority dice upgraded to a D10. These are pretty good.

: We also get Ketheric’s armor, which is garbage. It exists for people who have three heavy armor users for some reason.

: Ketheric’s shield is a different story. I think we can have Pollux dip a single level into Fighter to get shield proficiency, and if so he’s using it.

: Assuming we can do that, Pollux could potentially have the highest possible spell DC in the game if he gives up his eldritch blasts.

: All that’s left now are a shitload of cutscenes and me silently installing a mod to let us date Halsin. I had to do this because of a stupid change the developers made.

: Yeah fuck you too, Withers.

: The reason I had to do this is because the romance system in this game is also spaghetti. I’ll explain briefly.

: At launch, the game tracked approval with every party member regardless of whether you actually used them. This meant that eventually you’d reach the Fuck Singularity, in which every character in your camp would proposition you for sex at once - including those you never talked to or used.

: The developers must have taken this out, and this makes it impossible to date Halsin because all of his approval comes from one event: the Oliver quest. If he’s in the party at that point, you are on a one-way trip to boyfriend town.

: I didn’t realize the devs did this, and so we need to artificially boost Halsin’s approval to max.

: Aylin and Isobel have a lesbian scene on the way out. Am I going to transcribe this? No, because it’s three lines stretched out into like 30.

: “Your dad’s dead.”

: “Yay!”

: “We’re going to your camp to fuck.”

: This is how long the actual scene is. I felt like it was kind of unnecessary given that neither of them remain plot-relevant past this point.

: We can also talk to this guy, who basically goes “You’d make a great Flaming Fist” and then announces he has fantasy cancer.

: This scene plays on the way out, and is actually important.

: “We leave the heart of the Absolute, alive, thanks to you. You did well to defeat Ketheric. But Ketheric was only the first to fall. There are many more battles ahead, and they will not be so easily won. You will need allies.”

1. I already have allies.
2. I know. That’s why I recruited Jaheira.
3. I know. That’s why I recruited Halsin.
4. Enough lives have been lost. I don’t want to send others to their deaths.
5. I don’t need allies. I have you.

: “I know. That’s why I recruited Halsin.”

: What the fuck? No it isn’t, you recruited Halsin to date him.

: “Halsin’s strength and loyalty will bolster you in times of need. But if we are to succeed, we will need others. Baldur’s Gate may not know it yet, but its fate is bound to ours.”

: “Seek on its streets those whose purpose aligns with our own, and invite them to our cause. Together, we will put an end to the Absolute, the Chosen, all.”

: This starts the final quest of the game: Gather Your Allies. Based on your choices, certain characters will join you for the final battle.

: We already have Halsin and Volo, but we’ve secretly recruited (and failed to recruit) a few others.

: Let’s start with the ones we’ve ruled out.

: Mizora is out because we broke Wyll’s contract. The sword is more valuable than she is.

: We could have recruited the ox-blob, but we exterminated it instead.

: We can’t get Bhaal because we’re not The Dark Urge. The Dark Urge has a whole plotline involving becoming Bhaal’s chosen that we won’t see.

: Shadowheart can be recruited if you get her bad ending, because she stops being playable at that point. We’re already locked out of that.

: We could also have recruited the fish cult from Act 1, but it doesn’t strike me as something Pollux would do. Now let’s look at the ones we DO have that the game hasn’t told us about:

: Zevlor is recruited as soon as we freed him from that pod. This is one reason not to kill him.

: Similarly, Yurgir was recruited the moment we broke his contract. The part I blacked out is a mandatory, unmissable story quest which we cannot fail.

: I’m going to need to spam long rests to get him, since we are at the cutoff point, but our final ally is the owlbear.

: The game would tell us this if I had bothered to long rest. The owlbear is also kinda bullshit to recruit.

: On one night, he’ll come to camp asking for food. If you have Speak with Animals active (and it needs to have been activated during the day), you automatically pass this.

: If you don’t, it’s a Handle Animal check. Failing the check removes the owlbear from the game.

: He then gets scared off by Karlach.

: THIS is the bullshit part. The next night, the owlbear cub comes back with an injury you need to heal.

1. [NATURE] Inspect his wound.
2. [MEDICINE] Attempt to heal the injury.
3. [SURVIVAL] Try cleaning the wound.
4. Attack.
5. Leave him be.

: You get one shot at this. It’s only a DC 10, but failing it PERMAFUCKS YOU OUT OF THE OWLBEAR.

: The owlbear is also a really easy way to get approval with the entire party.

: Before we move on to Act 3, we have a couple more camp cutscenes.

: Funny enough, the owlbear is worth one owlbear of experience.

: We are NOT killing the owlbear cub.

: “I- F- or is it an E? Is it even a letter? What damned language is this?”

1. Want me to take a look?
2. Doing some stretches before bed?
3. Nice scars. Who’s the artist?

: “Want me to take a look?”

: “Ah! What are you doing?”

: “Just looking. What’s that on your back?”

: "A gift from Cazador, written in flesh. I think it says ‘mind your own damn business.’ "

1. [PERSUASION] You can let me look or spend all night twisting yourself into knots. Your call.
2. [INSIGHT] Look past the bluster and try to discern his true feelings.
3. Leave.

: “You can let me look or spend all night twisting yourself into knots. Your call..”

: “Fine.”

Narrator: “The pattern swirls before you, runes hacked crudely into his flesh. You can’t read it, but you recognize the letters: Infernal, the language of the hells.”

: I didn’t get this when I played, and even without knowing why it’s there it’s obvious who’s behind it.

: Hell doesn’t even have its own language. What are these people on?

: “And? What does it say?”

: “It’s written in Infernal. I can’t read it.”

: “Infernal? Are you sure? Can you show me?”

: “What did he do to me?”

: “Should we ask the others? They might know something.”

: “No! No, let’s keep this between ourselves. At least until we know what it means. Two centuries carrying this, and I can finally see it.”

1. You really have no idea what this is?
2. Did you ever see Cazador write in Infernal before?
3. Someone out there will be able to read it, I’m sure.
4. Disappointed?

: “Did you ever see Cazador write in Infernal before?”

: One thing I should mention here is that infernal is not by any means a rare language to speak in D&D. Any caster in 3.5E is going to speak it.

: “No. I could have missed it, of course, but I doubt it. Cazador was only figuratively hellish - there were never any devils hanging about the crypt. Whatever he’s left carved into my flesh, it’s a mystery to me.”

: “Thank you, by the way. This is… well, it’s something.”

: Our final action of this update is talking to Shadowheart and Aylin. What happens after this is a bit odd - we get two forced long rests in a row.

: Make sure before you rest the first night that all your gear is in order.

: “What do you know about me? You spoke of my past, being chased by wolves - I told no one about that. Almost no one. But I certainly didn’t share that with you.”

: “There is nothing I can tell you that you do not already know yourself. They trained you well, trained you hard. Chiselled away any part of you that did not fit their plan. They made you forget.”

: “I chose to do that. For the mission. To protect Shar’s-”

: “Secrets. Yes, yes. That is an old song, girl. Your goddess cares more for her precious secrets than she does her devotees.”

: “Get to the point.”

: “When you freed me, you severed a bond between me and that dog, Thorm. A bond of pain - his, inflicted on me.”

: “When I laid eyes on you, I sensed a similar bond. You, tethered to two others, someplace distant. Let me help you remember.”

: We then get a flashback to the end of the wolf dream, which is great if you’ve never actually seen the wolf dream because it depends on her failing a save.

: We’ll be killing that lady in the mask as soon as possible, because she’s the gatekeeper to permanent stat increases. Expect that to be a full long rest, because I remember that fight being a pain.

: That’s her dad? Why isn’t she some kind of furry?

: Ni no Kuni 2 rules, presumably.

: I’m sure someone in the furry community has done furry art of Shadowheart.

Narrator: You remember that it is a common rite amongst Selune’s followers to send their children off into the woods to find their way home. Perhaps this time, it had gone awry. It seems that one child never came back. She was taken.

: “What.. who was that man?”

: “You already know. Did you not see yourself in him? Do you not recognize your own blood?”

: “My father? That was him?”

: “That is him. He lives still, and your mother too.”

: “No, it can’t be. I’m an orphan.”

: She reminds me of this girl I went to high school with who’s even sparklier than I am. She went through a goth phase even though she had rainbow hair.

: There are people.. sparklier.. than you? I need a drink.

: I’m maybe a six out of ten on the sparkle scale.

: “And who told you that? Your adoptive family? You are not to blame. You were young, impressionable. They took you because they wanted to break and remake you. But you are a child no longer. You are a woman. One who knows what must be done.”

: “My parents. I need to save them.”

1. I’ll help.
2. Perhaps this isn’t a good idea.
3. We’ve got other concerns.
4. Does this mean you’re a Selunite?

: “Does this mean you’re a Selunite?”

: “I.. I don’t know.”

: “Your parents both followed the Moonmaiden. I could sense their faith, even in a brief glimpse of the past. They are with your abductors. You will need to return to their lair. But be warned.”

: “You may have once thought of them as comrades, mentors, friends, even lovers. They will all be enemies now. You have been forewarned for what is to come, but not yet forearmed.”

: “The Spear of Night? I thought we sent that to the groin kick void or whatever that was.”

: “I was able to retrieve it, before it sank too far into Shar’s umbral domain. Shar is quick to discard whatever she has no use for. I think you know that well enough.”

: “But I felt it call to me as I took flight. Whatever Shar calls her own, Selune has equal claim to. They are one and the same. Their power is matched.. and mirrored. Take it. You will find it useful. What you do with it.. will be up to you. Same as before.”

: I forgot to screencap the spear’s stats, but they’re identical to the one we got on Shadowheart’s bad end route. What’s different are the abilities.

: Moonmote is effectively that buff we got for solving the Blood of Lathander puzzle back in Act 1, but in a limited area.

: Unfortunately, Shadowheart doesn’t get any extra spells like the overpowered free hunger of hadar she gets for being evil.

: On my second run after installing the mod I needed, I got this scene on the first long rest after Act 2. I never got this on my first playthrough.

: “Here Halsin, have this random key I found in that void where all the guns were in Ethel’s basement.”

: “Wow! Let’s be boyfriends.”

: Next time, we’ll enter Act 3. I also contracted a different, better artist to make the show-accurate Mara sheet. Their discord is patdash and they’re great.

: It’s slightly bigger than the radio asshole’s and the TV fucker’s. As it should be.