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

[Timrod]

Summary

CasualTalk|100x69: We’ve got exactly two things left to do: kill Gortash and do this quest for Wyll. Both of them are conveniently in the same place, but we have to do Gortash first.

: The reason is that the moment you destroy the fanfiction factory, Wyrm’s Rock closes up. You have to access it from the Lower City side, and the warp point inside disappears.

: All of the Flaming Fist NPCs will be hostile. It’s time to exterminate.

: Each group has a wizard who will cast Counterspell the first time someone casts something. Kill them first.

: The AI bugs out here and the enemies stop reacting, so we get three free kills.

: This room is optional, but if you’re low on money you can get quite a bit by raiding the fortress now that the gundams are dead.

: There’s another group of Fist in here we can kill.

: Love the smell of cooked bacon.

: We can also kill a few of them in the room that leads to the prison, because why not?

: There’s a locked gate back here that we would have needed greater invisibility to get into because of the sheer number of guards normally in here.

: Our reward is some vendor trash and explosive barrels. It’s too bad we won’t have any more use for those.

: The room before Gortash’s audience chamber has a ton of food in it if you need it. We don’t. Even with all the long rests I’ve taken, we’re still at over 7,000 supplies.

: As soon as we reach the audience chamber, combat starts again. This is a fight I never did on my first playthrough because I quit right after the Iron Throne due to how glitchy the fanfiction factory was.

: The things on the walls are flamethrowers and will explode if damaged. They’re immune or heavily resistant to everything that isn’t lightning or force damage.

: There are also grenade launchers on the walls that react to movement. In this case, the party already has two of them at their feet.

: They have a 2-meter radius and can be destroyed to stop them exploding.

: Apart from Nylruna glitching and getting stuck, this fight is extremely straightforward. The flamethrowers are mostly out of the way, and the grenades are easy to dodge.

: Up above, there are a bunch of stun mines that are now active - Astarion caught a few of them the last time he was up here.

: I feel like the entire reason these exist is to stop people from getting that “Kill Gortash without setting off his traps” achievement.

: Even if you don’t kidnap him, this moron is laughably easy to break. Orin takes upwards of half an hour of rearranging dozens of chests at precise angles. Gortash takes two chests and a pair of eyes.

: The first thing to do is clear this room of traps. We have two flamethrowers here..

: Two more by the front door..

: Two of these shield generators which will give him projectile reflection..

: And one of these, which gives him a shield that makes him near immune to everything.

: Don’t forget the grenade launchers in the corners.

: We drop the acid barrel from downstairs in the doorway, and then cover it with chests. This is all the setup we need.

: He’s going to start the fight by getting a shield and then putting a projectile shield on one of his buddies.

: Keep in mind that the other idiots can jump the crates, but he won’t - he’s content to sit back and shoot his crossbow until he goes into his second form.

: His buddies tend to bunch up near the crates, letting you AOE them down.

: Once he goes fanfiction mode, he’ll summon a bunch of ghosts that give him a strength bonus if he’s near them.

: Fortunately, he’s dumb enough to spawn them all in this room, where he can’t reach or benefit from any of them. This would be potentially nasty if he could make it in here.

: The ghosts go down in a single hit. Now we just need to wait.

: Eventually, the adds will jump over the crates to attack. With no support from the traps, all we have to do is kill them.

: He’ll sit behind the chests doing nothing unless you try to blind him.

: Dodge the giant hands and kill him.

: “The last stone.. I need to see it for myself. There it is. So innocent, but such potential. You have done very well indeed.”

Narrator: The netherstones pulse with psionic energy - permeating you, pulling you in line with their rhythm. The thrum quickens, rising, cresting on a single feeling, a location.

: “As I expected. The docks under the city must lead to a Morphic Pool - that’s where the Chosen imprisoned the Elder Brain.”

: We’ve already been to the dock that goes there - it’s near Orin’s boss room.

: It’s the point of no return, and we have one more sidequest to do, so we’ll hold off for the moment. We can warp right there since I got it while fighting Orin.

: “So Gortash is nothing more than a pile of flesh, same as the rest of us.”

1. He’s dead now. You’ve won.
2. Perhaps a bit uglier.
3. You can sense she’s working something out; say nothing.

: “…”

: “I feel like there should be a sunset for me to ride off into. Or an orchestral swell.. or something. But there’s nothing, is there? I killed the bastard who ruined my life, and my prize is that I get to crawl into a corner and die. Am I fucking missing something?”

: I liked that guy from Elden Ring who spends the rest of the game stomping on Godrick. That guy got the whole revenge thing.

1. This is all a lot to take in. It’s no wonder you’re overwhelmed.
2. What do you mean?
3. Say nothing.
4. Life isn’t fair. Get used to it.

: “This is all a lot to take in. It’s no wonder you’re overwhelmed. I can help you find his family and we can mail them bits of him.”

: I think he’s an orphan. Everyone on Faerun is an orphan.

: My parents are both alive.

: Are they, though?

: “I’m beyond overwhelmed. I’m.. I’m finished. He’s dead, and he’s no fucking sorrier now than he was before.”

: This feels kind of dumb in a setting where Hell exists, and more importantly when Karlach has been there and knows for a fact it exists.

: “What was the point? I’m still dying. I’m dying! I’m going to die!”

1. But you’re not dead yet. I’m here with you, and I will be until I go off with Halsin and spend all this gold taking over a mansion - I mean, not Cazador’s because that’d be kinda fucked up, but a mansion - and… you know, I’m not sure where I’m going with that line of thought.

2. I don’t want you to die. It makes no sense.

3. Maybe we can still fix your engine; stabilize it.

4. Karlach, it doesn’t need to be this way. You can still return to Avernus.

: “Karlach, it doesn’t need to be this way. You can still return to Avernus.”

: “I don’t want to go back to Hell! I shouldn’t have to! I want to live - I want to live here, in my home, with my own heart.”

: The voice direction in this scene is atrocious. When Karlach’s VA does the “I’m going to die!” line, she’s borderline crying. By the next line, she’s suddenly stopped.

: “My heart. It was mine, and they took it. I’m going to be as dead as Gortash any day now. Any moment. And what then? Off to the City of Judgment to waste into oblivion? Into the dirt to get eaten by maggots? is that for me?! Is that fucking all?!”

: “And you - you’ll just keep going, won’t you. Watching the stars. Warming your hands on the campfire. Dancing, eating, making fucking love all night - all of it.”

: “That’s my reward for everything I suffered. That’s why I survived ten years of torment. The fighting, the clawing, the loneliness, the fucking loneliness.. all of it, so I could rot. Because the person I trusted the most gave me away to the devil. It’s not fair. I don’t want it like this.”

: Karlach leaves the party until we go listen to her at camp. With this, we’ve completed all the companion sidequests except Lae’zel’s.

: I also found out about something I probably should’ve been doing since Act 2. Remember that trader we threw off a cliff in the Fuck Zone?

: She sells this glaive, which has a thing on it that adds +1 to attack rolls and 1d4 elemental damage of choice. You can cast this on Nylruna by dropping it first.

: That’s better. Let’s go kill a dragon, and by kill a dragon I mean “do a bunch of cut content from the Shar temple in Act 2”.

: Back in the prison where we rescued Florrick, there’s a dead-end hallway with a couple of dragon-shaped torches in it.

: If you hit them with lightning (arrows of lightning will do) they turn blue and open a hidden door.

: This leads us to the Wyrmway, which is made up of what is probably cut content from the Shar temple.

Narrator: “The statue before you bears a familiar likeness. It is Balduran, the celebrated adventurer who founded the city of Baldur’s Gate.”

Statue of Balduran: “Peril floods my province, the palisades fall, the earth does tremble, the servants of shadow and blood assemble. Beyond lies the grand wyrm deep in slumber, awaiting a true hero’s advent, should my domain drown in torment. Be you the deluge, turn away. Be you the hero, answer true: are you worthy?”

: What are we, Thor? I lifted that hammer once, and it’s nowhere near as heavy as you’d think it would be.

: Clearly he wasn’t very good at poetry.

: “Poetic nonsense. There is no wyrm, and no savior.”

: “I am worthy (of being Halsin’s boyfriend).”

Statue of Balduran: “Ancient Ansur, hear me: a champion is proclaimed. The test begins; let your judgment follow.”

: Did he give up on the rhyming? “Ancient Ansur, answer me: does a hero stand before me?”

: We need to get through this big door, which requires us to do THE TRIALS FOUR. This feels a lot like that one part of Sonic 2006 that ends with it asking Sonic “Would you rather fuck Amy or this human OC?”

: Wyll will give you the answers to most of these if you have him, but we’ll start with the CHAMBER OF JUSTICE.

: The walls have a series of paintings on them.

: And in the middle is a shadow that is blocking us from touching three more paintings with a darkness spell. There are a number of ways to skip this puzzle, but we’ll do it the “right” way.

Narrator: ‘The Apple’. The painting depicts a red-haired man stealing a shiny apple from a cart in an open-air market.

Narrator: “You know this market: The Wide, where Baldur’s Gate’s citizens and vistors gather to conduct trade and wax political.”

: Wait, why do I know that? I’m an elven noble. I shop at the local independently-owned Fantasy Grocery.

Narrator: ‘The Child’. A red-haired man is portrayed with his cloak’s hood lowered, giving an apple to a smiling urchin.

Narrator: Several other children are huddled behind the one receiving the apple, hands outstretched.

: You just know that if Swen Vincke has his way, they’ll have a “puzzle” like this in Divinity except all these paintings will be AI-generated.

Narrator: ‘The Induction’. A red-haired man is depicted in hushed conversation with a dark-haired woman. She wears a cloak with an unusual symbol on it: tally marks totalling the number ‘nine’.

: I’m sure the marks are some minor Forgotten Realms lore thing. What I do appreciate is that a human artist did these paintings and honestly, they’re pretty good.

Narrator: ‘The Theft’. A red-haired man is depicted in the Hall of Wonders, thieving what looks to be a priceless artifact. It’s an Astrolabe of Entrapment. It could hold a dozen djinn in it - perhaps even more.

: I’d steal that just to open it and see if I could get some deals on some vaguely middle-eastern furniture for the mansion I’m going to buy.

Narrator: ‘The Chase’. A red-haired man is depicted running through the city streets, a Flaming Fist officer chasing just behind. A cloaked woman, hair dark as a raven, looks on from a safe distance.

Narrator: ‘The Judgement’. A stern judge, his pockets full of coin, orders a red-haired man to the gallows. A shiny red apple rests on the ground nearby.

: Are they trying to imply Lucifer did it?

: I knew that apple was evil.

: The shadow is immune to everything. So how do we get rid of it? Well, remember how Gortash wouldn’t jump over the chest until Pollux cast Hunger of Hadar on him?

: The reason is that enemy AI in this game is hard-coded to avoid standing in persistent damage AOEs, and also from things like the darkness spell.

: You can cast Hunger of Hadar on it and it will fuck off, or alternatively, we can use one of the half-dozen scrolls of Banish we have.

Narrator: ‘The Cell’. A stern prison guard slides a warm meal into the thief’s cell. The red-haired man has a tenday to serve, judging by the scratchings on the wall behind him.

Narrator: ‘Freedom’. A red-haired man walks the streets of Baldur’s Gate, clad in a billowing cloak. You catch a glimpse of a sly smile beneath his hood and a golden coin in his hand.

Narrator: ‘The Hanging’. A red-haired man is depicted hanging from a gallows as a crowd looks on. You notice a child in the crowd, a falling tear leaving a trail on his cheek.

: If you have Wyll, he’ll tell you that the answer is The Cell. We take it and place it on the empty plinth nearby.

: What kind of heroism test is that?

: The next one is the CHAMBER OF COURAGE, which is a straight up battle arena against elementals.

: What you do is have someone take it and put them under a globe of invulnerability. Or you can fight them.

: The elementals will focus entirely on whoever has the torch. Karlach and Astarion kill them all without any real issues.

: As long as the person with the torch is standing, you win.

: I remember this one from the academy, except it was evacuating a baby from a building full of supervillains. They weren’t sure whether I passed or failed that one.

: Here he goes…

: Let’s just say that it’s really hard to estimate the number of G-forces a baby can take. That would not have been a happy baby. An alive baby, but not a happy one.

: The third test is the CHAMBER OF STRATEGY, which is a chess puzzle. If you have Gale with you, he’ll outright tell you how to solve it.

: …Chess? When is a superhero ever going to need to play chess in the field? Where’s the football puzzle?

: The chamber has four possible configurations, and we get three attempts to checkmate the black king in two moves or less.

: We move our queen here, which causes the king to move one space to the left to avoid checkmate.

: One space diagonally to the left and it’s checkmate. I should mention that if you fail any of these trials, you fight a bunch of undead instead.

: The final trial is the CHAMBER OF INSIGHT, which is extremely easy to solve if you remember a very minor detail from Ketheric’s office in Act 2.

: There are three ghosts and we need to find out which one is evil.

: Throughout the area are three books that fly around. You need a DC 15 Sleight of Hand check to catch them, which only Pollux and Astarion have a real shot at making.

: Each character gets ONE attempt to grab a book. If you don’t have the right one (it’s the lowest one) you’re either going to need to look up a guide or take the 33% chance.

: The answer is Suelto. You can find a book by her in Ketheric’s office in Act 2 that outright says she’s what inspired him to lead the Dark Justiciars.

: Here’s why I hate this. When I first played Pathfinder Society, I made a Kineticist. They’re constitution-based casters who at the time were in a playtest state.

: The scenario started with the party having to board a ship. This required a DC 15 Climb check that was not bypassable. Failing the check makes you fall into the water, and needs a DC 10 Swim check to get back to your boat and not drown.

: Both Climb and Swim are strength skills, and my character has a -2 strength modifier: this is very common among casters. I can’t make the Climb check (which would require me to roll a 17) and barely made the Swim check to not die.

: At this point I’m not willing to risk my character, so I get to sit there while the rest of the party clears the boat and eventually comes back for me. I probably should’ve quit there.

: Once we open the doors, we get a MASSIVE amount of EXP - that’s over 256 owlbears worth. I hope you’re ready for a pointless plot development and some more fanfiction.

Statue of Balduran: Twenty lines of poetry that don’t even rhyme properly

: Please enjoy the following cutscene brought to you by the developers who played Monster Hunter World: Iceborne.

: Looks like fanfiction to me.

: What the fuck? Why did it do that just to reform itself?

Narrator: The dragon’s spirit floods your mind and memory in a great torrent of power. He is with you, he is within you, he is you. The next words that spill from your mouth are not yours, but the wyrm’s.

: Where in the rulebook does it state that bronze dragons have this power?

: What’s really wrong here is that lightning strike. Bronze dragons are water elemental. Everyone knows that.

: What element is Astra? She’s got dragon in her somewhere, doesn’t she?

: I don’t like talking about it.

: “I am Ansur, Heart of the Gate - butchered in flesh, risen in spirit.”

: There are choices here that don’t matter, so I’m not going to bother.

Narrator: "Ansur wends his way through your mind like an unstoppable river. Your body is unmoving, yet thought flows effortlessly between you. The spirit pauses, and you feel the Astral Prism stir. Ansur senses the Emperor’s presence within.

: “Answer me, faessi: why have you come?”

: I am going to exterminate this thing so hard.

Narrator: A deep sigh resonates within you. The torrent stills, only disturbed by the dragon’s next words.

: “Vrak. My words aren’t meant for you - they’re meant for him.”

: “Balduran.”

: I’d like to point out that this whole thing is entirely optional. You can finish the game without ever finding out that Miku is Balduran.

: This whole thing makes no sense, though. Balduran was ostensibly human or a half-elf, and I believe the city is several hundred years old by the time BG1 happens.

: I’m also pretty sure mind flayers aren’t immortal.

: “Your presence has stirred me, as it ever did. I am awakened.”

: “Ansur. It’s been too long.”

: “He called you Balduran?”

: “A name I once answered to. A name I did not expect to hear again, least of all from the mouth of an old friend.”

: “Friend, yes - and more. Until you killed me. Have you come to dance on my bones, Balduran? Was slaying me not satisfaction enough?”

: He fucked the dragon.

: “Satisfaction? No. You let me no choice.”

: “You had every choice. You were becoming illithid. I offered you merciful death; you chose to fight. And now you bring your thrall before me. How far has the great Balduran fallen?”

: Ansur is a copy-pasted version of the Safi’jiiva fight from Monster Hunter World: Iceborne, a game that released in 2020.

: He comes with two water elementals, which is admittedly one thing Safi didn’t have.

: Two turns after the fight starts, Safi’jiiva flies upward and becomes immune to damage. At this point, the party needs to “find cover”.

: In Monster Hunter, this was fairly easy to do because Monster Hunter is a true 3D game - you could go behind a rock until you couldn’t see the impending explosion and that was how you knew you were in cover properly.

: We either need to run out of the circle or get behind one of those rocks. The easier way is to put down a globe of invulnerability.

: If you don’t, the party instantly dies. Note that the explosion is visually identical to Safi’jiiva’s, which is also blue.

: On my second recording, the party is merely at half health because the game starts Pollux within melee range of the dragon and he ate an AoO trying to get to cover.

: Once Safi’jiiva does his explosion, rain starts falling. This makes everything but Safi’jiiva wet, because Safi is immune to being wet for some reason.

: How does that make any sense?

: Up until he dies, Safi will spawn blue AOE circles that do lightning damage (which is doubled because of the rain) to anyone standing in them on his turn.

: On Honor Mode, Safi’jiiva gets to use his explosion a second time, except this time there’s no cover. The cover is buggy as fuck anyway - you have to walk around until your character loses a debuff that marks them as vulnerable to it.

: Karlach kills it with Nylruna. We now need to wait for the wyverians to positively identify the parts so we can shove them in a slot machine.

: Miku tells his his story again just in case we didn’t understand it the first time.

: The only revelation here is that his dragon boyfriend was what saved him from the elder brain. This whole thing is kinda pointless.

: I mean, we don’t really give a shit about Balduran/The Emperor. I guess if you’re one of those hardcore monsterfuckers and you really want to have sex with the squidman you might, but I’m not.

: We get to see Balduran briefly, confirming he was human.

: Finally, we confirm that he killed Ansur because Ansur tried to mercy kill him. Let me tell you what this feels like: it feels like Larian wanted to do a DLC where you play as Balduran, and then put it as a missable side thing because they realized they were not going to be making DLC or a sequel.

: Speaking of sequels, there IS going to be a sequel to BG3 in the worst possible way. Hasbro hired the guy who directed the TV adaptation of The Last of Us to do a sequel show to BG3. There is no way it’s going to be watchable. I hope it gets axed.

: For our efforts, we get Balduran’s Giantslayer. This is supposedly the best 2-handed weapon in the game, but it isn’t because it doesn’t have the synergy with Orin’s dagger that Nylruna has.

: For reference, Karlach has a +7 strength modifier. This would give her an extra 10 to 13 points of damage over Nylruna.. except that with vulnerability, Nylruna does more damage.

: Way in the back is the Helm of Balduran, which is definitely worth using. You get stun immunity, crit immunity, +1 to AC and saves, and 2 HP per turn.

: Pollux goes to sleep. Next time, we’ll kill the brain and finish the game.