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

[Timrod]

Summary

: “I’m.. alive? I’m alive! Imagine the irony, escaping Hell only to die. They’d write plays about it.”

Narrator: As you wake, the tadpole squirms in your skull.

1. Check yourself for injuries.
2. Orient yourself - where did you land?

: “Nothing seems broken, but my back has certainly felt better. As have my limbs. And my head.”

Narrator: Other than the infection, you’re more or less intact. A miracle, given everything you’ve been through. But it’ll all be for nothing if you don’t find help soon. The tadpole is a death sentence, and the clock is ticking. You need a cure.

: We’re now at the actual start of the game. We’ve lost Shadowheart and Lae’zel.

: “That is a lot of corpses. Oh, there’s Shadowheart!”

: (I really hope she’s still alive..)

1. Wake her.
2. Reach for the artefact.
3. Leave.

: Hopping heptagons! That’s a nice-looking icosahedron.

: Who.. who are you?

: I am the dodecagon defender! I am.. THE SHAPE!

: I met him in a bar last night. He’s an old-style superhero, the kind nobody wants anymore.

: Unfortunate, but true.

: The Shape was done by chongotheartist on Discord, who recently got accepted to art college and is still working on some of the assets.

: Okay, so what’s your deal? Bitten by a radioactive math teacher?

: Even worse. Radioactive abstract modern art sculpture.

: You remind me of Frank.

: “Shadowheart? Shadowheart! Please.. please wake up!”

: Reminds me of when I first met my wife, except I was the one on the ground.

: Is your wife a cube? I feel like..

: Of course not! She’s a space alien.

: “You’re alive. I’m alive. How is this possible..?”

1. I was hoping you might know that.
2. Doesn’t matter - we made it.
3. [BARD] Perhaps it was some dramatically timed divine intervention.

: “Perhaps it was some dramatically timed divine intervention.”

: “The divine tend to keep their interventions close to the chest. Though I suppose it’s not impossible.”

1. Now what?
2. Do you have any idea where we are?
3. What happened to our gith friend?

: “Do you have any idea where we are?”

: "No… I don’t recognize this place. But anything is an improvement over where we just came from.

: “First things first - we need supplies, shelter, and most of all, a healer. We might have escaped, but we still have these little monsters in our heads.”

: “What happened to our gith friend?”

: “You might want to reconsider calling her a friend - looks like she ran off without us.”

: I mean, can you blame her? She had a giant flaming sword and 50 kilograms of explosive.

: “You want to stay together, I take it?”

: “We need each other, and we both know what’s at stake. I can’t think of better company.”

: “One more thing, just before we go. I wanted to thank you again, for freeing me. It would’ve been all too easy for you to run right past my pod, but you didn’t. I’ll remember that.”

: This is our first instance of changing our relationship with one of our party members. Each party member will approve or disapprove of most actions you take, and pleasing everyone can be difficult.

: The good news is that it’s almost impossible to piss someone off to the point that they leave you unless you are actively trying to do so. By the end of my first run, I had maximum approval with Shadowheart and Lae’zel.

: “Lead the way.”

: If we had tried to take the artifact, Shadowheart wakes up and stops you and you get disapproval instead.

: Getting Shadowheart back gives us enough experience to hit level 2. We should do that.

: Pollux gets six extra HP and an extra spell slot.

: Jack of All Trades is what makes Bards skill monsters. Pollux can now attempt any skill check as if he is trained in it even if he isn’t.

: Song of Rest restores half the party’s maximum HP and restores some abilities. There was a bug all the way up to Patch 6 that let you use it to get infinite short rests. I believe that bug was fixed in Patch 7.

: The government doesn’t want you to know about this one life hack for infinite rests.

: I call that Saturday.

: I take Thunderweave as a new spell, since most of Pollux’s remaining spell choices are kinda bad.

: Shadowheart gets her “Channel Divinity” feature, which recharges on a short rest. Invoke Duplicity is.. okay. It makes an illusion that enemies might waste a turn attacking, and if you and your target are both close enough to it, you get advantage on them.

: “A hat! Just what I needed. I haven’t looked in a mirror since I woke up, but I’m sure my hair is disheveled.”

: No, don’t!

: “…You’re right, I hate it.”

: Most of the game’s hair models have a “hat hair” model, but the modded hair Pollux has doesn’t so he becomes bald the moment he puts a hat on.

: What a horrible curse. Not that I can wear hats with tentacles for hair.

: I learned my lesson about hair and helmets not mixing years ago.

: We also find our first camp supplies, which are needed to “long rest” and get our spells back. Speaking of which, we can now send items to our camp to lighten the load on our inventory.

: This guy has a letter on him we can read.

Sy,

I love you. There. I said it. And if you meet me tomorrow, I’ll say it again. And again. And keep on saying it till we’re old and grey. So let’s do it. Let’s go to Baldur’s Gate. I know it’s risky, but so’s staying here. The last few months have been hard, and they’re always a little easier when you’re there.

Leave your boat and meet me at the hill overlooking the old bridge. Bring whatever you can carry. We’ll make do without the rest. Don’t be late.

Love, Anna

: It never would’ve worked out anyway.

: “Won’t get that open easily. Maybe there’s another entrance.”

: There are some thieves tools in a barrel nearby, and the door has a lockpick DC of 20. Theoretically, Pollux could pick it if he got good RNG (he’d need a 13 or 14 on the die).

: Right next to that door is our first fast travel portal. That opening next to it is our next destination.

: Pollux and Shadowheart pick the area clean first, and he finds a hand drum.

: “Can you play an instrument, Shadowheart?”

: Not well.

: More dead bodies, and what appears to be part of the mind flayer ship.

: “More of the little bastards. I wouldn’t suppose any of them are Us..”

: This is why we wanted the explosive barrels. We’ll do the fight on Balanced first, and then I’ll move it up to Tactician so Mara can do his thing.

: First, we want to split the party up. This is because we want to approach every fight from stealth that we can - on Tactician, this is an absolute necessity.

: I thought you weren’t supposed to split the party.

: Pressing C causes the active character and any characters linked to them to go into stealth mode. The reason we don’t want to do this as a party is because the pathfinding isn’t great.

: Two of them are patrolling around. The third one is next to one of those pods. I think if I aim just right..

: I had Shadowheart aim at the pool of goop in front of the explosive barrel, thinking it would act as a wick and blow the barrel up without her having to get potentially into the sight range of one of the brains.

: Turns out it doesn’t work that way (the game is a bit finicky when it comes to liquids interacting with barrels) but we manage to light the brain on fire and nearly kill it.

: Shadowheart then nails the brain with another fire bolt, bringing it to 1 HP. This causes combat to initiate - but not for Pollux, who is still in stealth. Because we attacked from stealth, the brains are surprised and can’t act.

: “Damn! Thought I had him.”

: Even though we didn’t get the kill, we have two extremely weakened intellect devourers who need to blow their action to get into melee range and therefore can’t attack.

: I had the party jump up here hoping the brains wouldn’t be able to reach them from the ground, but it’s low enough that they can climb up.

: I decide that if I can, I want to keep that barrel for later use - there are better places we could use it. Pollux makes a shot from 60+ feet out and kills the brain near the barrel.

: The last one dies to Shadowheart, who now has a high ground bonus against it. Now that we’re done with the fight, let’s see what it looks like on Tactician.

: On Tactician, this fight goes from a pushover to something much harder.

: The brains get an extra 4 max HP, but that’s not all they get.

: They also get a range attack, meaning we can’t simply take them out from a safe spot anymore. The range attack is still preferable to their melee attack.

: I have Pollux take a page straight out of the demon playbook and place explosives on the flank. This discourages the brains from trying to close in. If they get close enough to melee someone, it’s game over.

: Damn, those ranged attacks HURT! That’s half of our boy’s HP gone in one go. On Honor Mode, it’s better to just throw a couple barrels down there and light the goo on fire.

: As long as you maintain high ground, this is still doable without actually using the barrels as anything but a deterrent, but you want that deterrent there.

: Our reward includes some treasures, another explosive barrel, and some potions. Oil of Accuracy gives a +2 bonus to attack rolls with a melee weapon for 10 turns. I don’t think I ever used this on my Tactician playthrough.

: We also find some more mind flayer grenades (which we’ll put to good use elsewhere) and a potion of speed. This provides the same effect as the Haste spell, but debuffs the user at the end of the effect.

: I want to talk about this locket, because I kept this thing for the entire game thinking there’d be someone to give it to at some point. There isn’t. It’s vendor trash.

: “Oh good, more beach.”

: “You know, I could take a crack at that door…”

: I forgot to show this off earlier, but there are plants we can harvest to make potions with. We don’t have enough to do anything yet.

: “This box should be simple enough to get open. Let’s see if I can pick it..”

: This is gonna be funny.

: You would think he’d have more luck smashing it open.

: Smashing locked boxes is an option, but most containers are “sturdy” and reduce damage from melee attacks.

: Beginner’s luck.

: This helmet is something that doesn’t exist in the tabletop game - in the tabletop game, it’s assumed that your armor comes with head protection but it’s not treated as a separate item.

: There are separate hats and helmets but those are exclusively magic items, things like a headband of intellect for a wizard or a headband of charisma for a sorcerer or bard.

: Just past the hat box is a suspicious looking boulder.

: This requires us to use the jump action, which is based on strength. Lae’zel has a 20-foot standing vertical leap, while Pollux has a much more modest jump.

: “Why did we jump all the way down here again? This just looks like a regular rock.”

: “Deep grooves in the mud around that rock.”

: Is he failing these on purpose?

: (straining noises) “I can’t move it! It won’t budge.”

: Let me handle it.

This stained, ragged map has passed through countless hands. A little harp marks an area called Moonrise Towers, with a small inky crescent sketched in the nearby forest. Below the crescent is a more recent scrawl: ‘CACHE’.

: We also find some gems, two potions of speed, and a bit of gold. The book isn’t anything interesting.

: “Please? Please come and help me?”

: “That boyfriend.. I mean, that man is in trouble! Let’s go, Shadowheart!”

: “Hurry, I’ve got one of those brain things cornered.”

: “There, in the grass. You can kill it, can’t you? Like you killed the others.”

1. Easily. Stand back.
2. Kill it yourself - you look capable enough.
3. Leave.

: “Honestly, I don’t know that we can. We only took those other ones out because we had a ledge to shoot from. How’d you even corner it without it trying to bite you?”

: I picked leave because Pollux really doesn’t want to fight another brain.

: “I was so hoping for a kind soul. Well, not to worry.”

: Really? He was trying the Patches gambit? That fell out of favor in the demon world eons ago when everybody figured out you can tell them to go first.

: Is this that “toxic yaoi” my daughter keeps talking about?

1. [DEXTERITY] Quicky roll away.
2. [STRENGTH] Push yourself to your feet.
3. Do nothing.

: I have seen at least four runs of this game, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone fail the check here.

: (Toxic yaoi.. my one weakness…)

: “Shh, not a word. Let’s try to keep that lovely neck of yours in one piece, hmm?”

: (He called me “lovely”.. my heart..)

: “And you - keep your distance. No need for this to get messy.”

: “I need him alive - stow that blade or I’ll show you just how messy things can get.”

: Excuse me, he said no pickles! Oh man, this is embarrassing.

: “Promises, promises. But I have other business, I’m afraid. Now, I saw you on the ship, didn’t I? Nod.”

: It would have been cool if Larian had actually hidden Astarion somewhere on the ship during a cutscene or something, but you never see him.

1. Nod.
2. Shake your head.
3. [MELEE ATTACK] Headbutt the elf.

: “You’re no boyfriend! You’re just a common thug! Eat this!”

: Pollux somehow makes this despite having a negative strength modifier.

: “Argh! You son of a-”

: This is why I wear a helmet.

: Just like Lae’zel and Shadowheart, Astarion gets hit with a wave of psychic energy.

Narrator: Your mind twists. You’re looking out of unfamiliar eyes, prowling dark, busy streets. You try to hold the memory, but it fades to the worm. The light. The fear.

: “What was that? What’s going on?”

1. It’s the mind flayer’s worm - it connected us.
2. Honestly? I have no idea.
3. Put the knife away and I’ll tell you everything.

: “It’s the mind flayer’s worm. It connected us.”

: “The worm, of course. That explains things. Somewhat. And to think I was ready to decorate the ground with your innards. Apologies.”

1. Apology accepted. I might have done the same were the roles reversed.
2. Glad to see we’re all caught up now.
3. You’d better have more to offer than ‘apologies’.

: “Glad to see we’re all caught up now.”

: “My name’s Astarion. I was in Baldur’s Gate when those beasts snatched me.”

1. [BALDURIAN] Introduce yourself - you’re a Baldurian too.
2. Tell him your name and your story.
3. Nod.

: I didn’t show it because I forgot, but you have to pick a character background at character creation. I picked “noble” for Pollux, and this automatically assumes he is from Baldur’s Gate.

: “My name is Pollux. I’m.. I’m just a bard. I’m also from the city.”

: “Is that so? We clearly move in different circles.”

: “So do you know anything about these worms?”

1. Yes, unfortunately. They’ll turn us into mind flayers.
2. I know we don’t want them in our heads.
3. You know as much as I do.

: “Yes, unfortunately. They’ll turn us into mind flayers.”

: “Turn us into.. ha… Hahaha! Of course it’ll turn me into a monster. What else did I expect? Although it hasn’t happened yet. If we can find an expert - someone who can control these things - there might still be time.”

1. Control it? We need to get rid of it.
2. You should travel with me. Our odds are better together.
3. I need to get moving, but you can shelter at my camp.
4. I’ve wasted enough time here. Farewell.

: “Control it? We need to get rid of it.”

: “Well yes, of course. But first things first.”

: “You should travel with me. Our odds are better together.”

: (Our odds of shoving you facefirst into a trap, that is.)

: “You know, I was ready to go this alone, but maybe sticking with the herd isn’t such a bad idea. And you seem like a useful person to know. All right, I accept. Lead on.”

: And now we can do his intro from the start of the game.

Astarion

After two hundred years serving a cruel master, the vampire spawn Astarion is finally free - free to walk in the sun, free to chase power, and free to take revenge.

: “Hello, darling. Don’t be shy, I promise not to bite until we’ve been formally introduced. My name’s Astarion, and I’ve spent a century stalking the night, hunting for pretty morsels just like you.”

: He turns to the camera right as he says that last part.

: “A man called Cazador made me what I am, kept me like a pet, and forced me to do his bidding. No more.”

: “The tadpole’s influence broke his dominance over me, and now I can finally pursue the one thing I’ve hungered for all these long, dark years. Revenge. I’m going back to Baldur’s Gate to track down Cazador in his lair. I’ll be the last thing the bastard ever sees.”

: Astarion is a rogue. In most cases, it’s best to multiclass him around level 6 to either a ranger (his best builds are all hand crossbows) or a fighter.

: He also has one of the best VAs in the game. I believe his VA won an award for his performance.

: At level 2, he gets the ability to do certain actions that would normally take a full turn (things like hiding or dashing) as a bonus action.

: Oh, one other thing I should point out: if you succeed in the initial dexterity or strength check, you get the opportunity to kill Astarion. In fact, I think you have more opportunities to perma-kill him than any other party member.

: “There’s a mind flayer - and it’s hurt.”

: No point talking to it, let’s set it on fire.

: Talking to it forces you to make a save or IMMEDIATELY DIE. The save is only DC 5, but why risk it?

: “If only all our fights were this easy.”

: “Dead goblins over there. Worth checking for supplies, maybe.”

: “Astarion already has his hands in their pockets.”

: What?

: That’s enough supplies to make camp for the night. Not that we need to.

: Just dried food and a tent kit? Where’s the marshmallows, or the hibachi? Can’t have camp without the hibachi.

: We could go around this fire, but I don’t want to risk one of our party members pathing through it and taking a bunch of damage, so I use one of our multitude of water bottles to put it out.

: “What’s going on with that rune? Looks unstable somehow.”

: If you are playing as The Dark Urge for some reason, you want to keep your main character as far back as possible.

Narrator: You approach the sigil on the stone. Magic glitters and swirls from it erratically, as if malfunctioning. It looks slightly dangerous.

1. Touch the sigil.
2. Leave.

: “Just a void sticking out of the rock. What’s the worst that could happen?”

: “Gah! That stings!”

: A hand? Anyone?

: “What are the odds this is a cosmic horror of some sort?”

: The Dark Urge will automatically cut Gale’s arm off if they’re the one who initiates the event.

1. Who are you?
2. Slap the hand.
3. [STRENGTH] Grab the hand and pull.
4. [BARD] [CHARISMA] Attune yourself to the sigil’s magic, then bid it to quiet down.
5. It’s far too dangerous. Leave him to his fate.

: “Whatever you’re doing, it’s working wonders! Now a quick little pull should do the trick.”

: Does he only have strength when boyfriends are involved? Seriously, how gay is this guy?

: Oof, hello. I’m Gale of Waterdeep. Apologies, I’m usually better at this."

1. No need to apologise. Are you all right?
2. At introductions?
3. At not wasting the time of passing adventurers? I certainly hope so.

: Gale is (I believe) the only canon bisexual in the cast. The game does this kind of annoying thing where every character is “player-coded”, which I don’t particularly like.

: I mean, I feel like sexuality is part of characterization and by making everybody whatever you want them to be, you lose out on some stuff.

: “No need to apologize. Are you all right?”

: “A bit shocked, but friend, it’s a relief and a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

: “Say, but I know you, don’t I? In a manner of speaking. You were on the nautiloid as well.”

1. I was, yes.
2. Never mind the nautiloid. How did you get stuck in that stone?
3. You don’t trust this man. Draw your weapon.

: “Never mind the nautiloid. How did you get stuck in that stone?”

: “I don’t know what transpired exactly, but the ship broke into pieces and I suddenly found myself in freefall. As I was plummeting to certain death, I spied a glimmer quite near where I estimated my body to impact with less-than-savory propulsion.”

: “Recognizing this glimmer to be magical in nature, I reached out to it with a Weaving of words and found myself on the other side as it were. How about you? How did you survive the fall?”

1. To be honest, I haven’t a clue.
2. I took control of the ship, landed it safely and saved the day.
3. I survived. That’s all that matters.

: “To be honest, I haven’t a clue.”

: “Fair enough. But even so, I have the unfortunate suspicion your survival is still very much in jeopardy.”

: “Back on the ship, you two were on the receiving end of a rather unwelcome insertion in the ocular region, were you not?”

1. Go on…
2. Couldn’t have phrased it any more repellently myself.
3. That’s hardly any of your business.

: “Couldn’t have phrased it more repellently myself.”

: “No use sugarcoating it, is there? The insertee we speak of, this parasite - are you aware that after a period of excruciating gestation it will turn us into mind flayers?”

: “It’s a process known as ceremorphosis, and let me assure you: it is to be avoided. You don’t happen to be a cleric, by any chance, do you? A doctor? Surgeon? Uncannily adroit with a knitting needle?”

: “You seem to know enough about our condition to realize it is beyond most clerics’ skills.”

: “Most, no doubt. But I find myself hoping to be in the presence of the few. You don’t happen to be one of them?”

1. I was going to ask you the same question.
2. Can’t say that I am.
3. [BARD] I can tend to basic wounds and ailments, but alien parasites? I’m afraid not.

: What I want to point out is that in 5E, bards can eventually cure death. They couldn’t do that in 3.5E. In fact, almost every caster class (barring wizard and sorcerer) eventually can.

: Bards are actually amazing in the tabletop game compared to how they were in 3.5E (where they had half spell progression).

: “I can tend to basic wounds and ailments, but alien parasites? I’m afraid not.”

: “As we’ve established, few enough can. It’s not exactly a common affliction. We’re most certainly going to need a healer, and soon too. How about we lend each other a helping hand once more and look for a healer together?”

1. Sounds like a plan. You’re welcome to join me.
2. No, thank you. I’m not looking for another travelling companion.

: “Sounds like a plan. You’re welcome to join me.”

: (Provided you’re willing to sit on the bench once we catch up with Lae’zel again).

: “Most excellent. A parasite shared is a parasite halved. Or something to that effect. Oh! But before you think you’re about to embark on a journey with most ill-mannered a man: thank you for pulling me out of that stone.”

: He pulled a boyfriend from the stone and is now gay king of England.

: “It was an act of foresighted kindness I assure you, for I have the feeling ample opportunities will present themselves for me to return the favor.”

: Gale has a whopping 8 max HP at level 1. Fortunately, any new party members we meet will be the same level as the main character. Before we level him, it’s introduction time.

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Gale

Gale’s wizarding prowess once earned him the love of Mystra, the goddess of magic, until his ambition led him to the brink of catastrophe…

: “You find yourself in the presence of the renowned wizarding prodigy, Gale of Waterdeep - please, no need to be intimidated.”

: I’m not usually scared of people who get stuck in a rock, outside of the ‘scared for the future of humanity’ sense of the term.

: “My virtuosic talents once caught the eye of the goddess of magic herself, Mystra, who named me her Chosen, and her lover.”

: Virtuosic talents? In what? Not leveling up?

: “Thanks to a slight miscalculation on my part, that relationship eventually soured, as did the greatest of my powers.”

: “Now I’m merely a humble wizard on the road to redemption. Unless I can find the path to something greater…”

: If he starts singing about redemption, I’m out.

: Classes get a sub-class either at 1st level or at 3rd level. Wizard is the first one we’ve run into that gets it at 1st level (they get it at 3rd level in 2024 5E). This used to be called a “school specialization” in 3.5E.

: Specializing in a school meant you got extra spell slots that had to be dedicated to your school of magic, and had an “opposition school” that needed twice as many slots to cast spells from.

: 5E 2014 changed the magic schools so they’re now only bonuses and no penalties.

: Unfortunately, they’re not all created equal. Choosing a school halves the gold cost of copying scrolls of that school into your spellbook.

: The three we’re interested in are:

: Transmutation gives you the ability to make a DC 15 Medicine roll (Medicine is a wisdom skill that wizards can be proficient in) to make two potions for the cost of one. Very useful to have on the hireling wizard.

: Abjuration is probably the best one for a wizard you intend to play, and gives you a shield every time you use a spell slot.

: Divination is also pretty interesting. What it lets you do is roll two “portent dice” at the start of each day. You can then substitute your portent dice for any other D20 roll as a reaction.

: In practice, this means you can change an enemy’s hit into a miss, or change an ally’s miss into a hit. If you happen to roll a natural 20, you have a guaranteed crit in your pocket.

: The other schools are various levels of trash. Evocation is okay (it boosts damage done by your spells and lets you exclude allies from your big AOEs) and Conjuration has its uses, but the rest suck.

: The worst ones by far are Enchantment (it’s all charm effects and lots of things are immune to charm) and Illusion (which at 10th level lets you auto-avoid a single attack once per short rest and is effectively a shittier portent die).

: We also need to pick spells, and Gale has some that aren’t on Pollux’s spell list. I’ll go over them.

- Triple your target’s base jumping distance. Can be cast as a ritual. Lasts 10 rounds. Cannot be found as a scroll.

- Increases target’s movement speed by 3 meters (10 feet). Lasts until long rest. Can be cast as a ritual. Cannot be found as a scroll.

- Summons a familiar. Lasts until long rest or until the familiar dies. Can be cast as a ritual. Cannot be found as a scroll.

: These three spells (along with some others we saw on Pollux, like Disguise Self and Feather Fall) are rituals. This means you can cast them infinitely outside of combat for free.

: Longstrider is one of the best possible things you can take at low level, because for the price of one prepared spell you can effectively give your party a permanent speed boost.

- Reaction spell. Adds 5 to your armor class, and blocks Magic Missile. Cannot be found as a scroll.

: The single best 1st-level spell in 3.5E. Nerfed to fuck in 5E. Blinds up to 33 HP of creatures in a cone. Lasts 1 turn. Save negates.

: I need to interrupt for a moment to show you what color spray did in Pathfinder, which is identical to how it worked in 3.5E.

: HD stands for “hit dice” and is the equivalent of level for non-humanoid enemies with no character levels. This thing effectively removed targets from combat and worked on any number of creatures, regardless of total HP.

- If Color Spray was the low-level 3.5E wizard’s bread, Grease was their butter. Covers an area in flammable, slippery goop. That area is difficult terrain (costs twice as much movement to move through) and anyone entering the grease has to make a Dexterity save or fall prone. Lasts 10 rounds.

- Throws an icicle for 1d10 physical damage. This is a ranged touch attack. Explodes on contact, doing 2d6 cold damage and leaving an ice surface. Dex save negates the explosion damage. 18 meter (60 foot) range.

- Hits enemy with a lightning whip, which does 1d12 lightning damage on hit. Can be activated each turn to do an additional 1d12 damage. Concentration spell. This is a ranged touch attack.

- Creates an area of fog, which blinds anything inside of it and also conceals them from those outside. Mostly used to screw with ranged attackers. Concentration spell.

: Now that we have Astarion, we can go back and take a crack at that locked door we ran into earlier. There is another way into the same area maybe 50 feet away from where we met Gale, but I want to give it a try.

: You can see if you expand the image that the path we’re on leads to the upper level of where that door goes.

: “We might as well take one attempt at this door, since we only have two sets of thieves tools and they break so easily.”

: On it.

: I made one attempt and made the roll - for the record, Astarion rolled a 9 and had enough modifiers to reach 20.

: All those failed checks can’t possibly be good.

: This room is absolutely loaded with traps. The good news is that it was significantly nerfed from the earlier patches, where due to a bug there was a good chance if you set the traps off that they wouldn’t stop going off.

: Oh good, now I can disarm all the traps we can’t see.

: We also get our first specialized arrow - the Arrow of Ice. This is a non-magical version of the Ice Knife spell.

: We also get a grease bottle. These are a non-magical version of the grease spell which has a lower save difficulty than the spell does.

: These things are great for setting up elaborate explosive traps, or just for tossing into a crowded area and watching people slip on it over and over.

: There are two types of traps in this room. The first are these vents, which leak grease if they’re activated.

: The second are these dragon heads, which spit fire to light the grease up. In the older patches, these would get stuck in the “on” position and constantly spew fireballs.

: The sarcophagi on the sides of the room have some items in them, including a halberd that isn’t bad for Lae’zel if you didn’t get the sword off Zhalk.

: The big draw is this one in the middle, which triggers all the traps in the room if it’s opened without being disarmed first.

: The big treasure here is a spear that gives you True Strike if you miss with it. Shadowheart is the only one who can use it effectively, and it’s slightly better than her starting mace, so she gets it.

: Oh, and the key to the next room. The game never tells you when you’re done with a key, so I wound up holding on to every key I came across in my first run.

: Each character who walks by a trap gets a perception check to spot it. I mean, did you really think Pollux was going to make any of these unless a boyfriend was somehow involved?

: The other side has a Soul Coin, an item that can only be used by a character we haven’t met yet.

: “An iron coin? I’d prefer gold, but I’ll take it.”

: For some reason, this gives Pollux an inspiration point. Inspiration points can be used to re-roll almost any check that isn’t an attack roll. They also give a small amount of EXP.

: “I really shouldn’t like this.”

: We really do not want to go in that door over there, across the hall. Doing so triggers a combat encounter that is meant to be done from the other side.

: There are a couple of chests in here with vendor trash in them.

: These are the doors we actually want. Even if I hadn’t gotten the dice roll to unlock the outer door, I probably would’ve gone through the front entrance and cheesed the fight to get this.

: “Surprising amount of skeletons in here. There could be more traps.”

: I don’t think Astarion cares. He’s already looting them.

: “Scribes with swords? So much for the quill being mightier.”

: Now that we have Gale, we can have him eat these scrolls to learn the spells on them. This is probably the best way to use your gold, since most shopkeepers can be pickpocketed.

: Did I just see that skeleton move? Are they trying to pull the oldest trick in the book?

: They’re really not trying very hard, are they?

: Oh, I know what this is. This is the key to the door I picked to get in here.

: How can you know that just looking at it?

: Trust me darling, once you’ve been around as long as I have, you can just tell.

: The intended route here is to come in from the top entrance, either pick the door to this room or find the key in the trap room, and then use this key to get out.

: “Jergal? This must be ancient - no one worships the Final Scribe anymore.”

: I believe Jergal is an OC god in Baldur’s Gate - he was the god of death before he gave his powers away to three people who later became what are basically the chaos gods from Warhammer. This happens before the first game.

: There’s a tablet here that I believe is a beta artifact - in the beta, Comprehend Languages was a thing and probably would’ve let you read it.

: A button. Let’s press it.

: The cutscene puts the party behind whoever presses the button, even though everyone else was waiting by the entrance for him to finish looting.

: “That’s not good! What in the hells did you do, Astarion?!”

: To absolutely no one’s surprise, the skeletons all come to life.

: This is absolutely not ideal positioning - when I did this on Tactician, I put one person by each skeleton and was ready to nuke them before they could do anything.

: Gale and Shadowheart take out one of the caster skeletons. Ideally, I’d have had Lae’zel for this.

: …!

: …

: The caster skeletons will either pelt you with frost bolts (which will kinda fuck your melee characters) or try and silence people if they think they can get enough casters in one silence field.

: Like this one, who takes out half of Astarion’s HP in one go.

: The silence field is great because it stops the caster skeletons from doing anything if they get caught in it. Thanks to Astarion, they have no weapons and have to resort to punching.

: (Punched by a skeleton. The indignity of it all.)

: The melee skeleton is the most dangerous one.. except Astarion took its scimitar, so it can’t do anything meaningful.

: “Why is it that I land these impossible crossbow shots, but I can’t make the most basic skill checks?”

: On Tactician, the skeletons are less likely to waste time putting up silence fields that don’t really benefit them in any way.

: Astarion also suffers the indignity of being punched by a skeleton for 1 damage.

: He responds by stabbing the skeleton to death. With the melee skeleton dead, it’s not hard to mop up the remaining casters.

: “Well, that was pathetic. Sorry bones, guarding dusty old trinkets.”

: I got punched by a skeleton! Who even does that?

: They really should’ve bitchslapped him instead. You know, since he’s a little bitch.

: “A lot of effort to hide one sarcophagus.”

: Speak with Dead is a ritual spell, so this amulet is only really useful at low levels.

: “Another one? Someone else get up here, I’m not getting punched by another skeleton today.”

: “So he has spoken, and so thou standest before me. Right as always. What a curious way to awaken.”

: “Now I have a question for thee: what is the worth of a single mortal’s life?”

: This is like when my wife asks me where I left the car keys. There’s a lot of answers and none of them are the right one, especially when the answer is “They were in my pocket.”

1. Quite the question. What’s the reason for it?
2. So he has spoken? What ‘he’ are you talking about?
3. Little spooked by the crawling out of the tomb bit. What are you?
4. A peaceful undead. Interesting. Why aren’t you attacking me?
5. Attack.

: Withers’s dialog is almost certainly a reference to Planescape: Torment, which released in 1999 and uses the AD&D ruleset. A lot of people insist it’s a great game, but I’ve never been able to get into it because I hate AD&D.

: In that game, you had an NPC who asks the question “What can change the nature of a man?”, to which there are 16 different answers.

: (He’s clearly some kind of lich, and I’m sure he’s asking to philosophize.)

: " ‘So he has spoken’? What ‘he’ are you talking about?"

: “An arbiter of certain matters. But that is not important now. Wilt thou answer my question?”

1. Yes. Ask away.
2. I don’t owe you answers.
3. Attack.
4. Leave.

: “Yes. Ask away.”

: “So I ask again: what is the worth of a single mortal life?”

1. No life is worth more than any other. We are all equal.
2. That depends on a person’s deeds.
3. Life’s only value is as currency. Doesn’t matter to me otherwise.
4. Each life is of infinite value and merits sacrificing everything for.
5. The only life that matters is mine.
6. Depends on the mortal.
7. [ELF] Some mortals live longer than others. I can’t compare them.
8. [BARD] A life is only worth as much as the legends remember it.

: The answer’s 5. I don’t mean for me, I mean that’s the answer. When you boil the rest down, everyone doesn’t matter unless you do.

: It’s 1.

: I used to think it was 1, but really it’s 6.

: “Each life is of infinite value and merits sacrificing everything for.”

: “And thus balance is achieved. If all are at war, none can win. Very well. I am satisfied. We have met and I know thy face. We will see each other again at the proper time and place. Farewell.”

: “Here lies the Guardian of Tombs. Through knowledge comes atonement.”

: Withers is this game’s respec NPC - he can respec a character’s class (unless they’re a paladin and have broken their oath) and their stats. He’s also how you unlock hirelings.

: In an unmodded game, hirelings are a set of pre-generated characters that you use if you don’t want to use the origin characters for some reason (or if one of them dies).

: I’m going to stop the update here because I’m going to make my character, and do another small update on the process of doing that.

: Unfortunately, I won’t be able to make fun of this one asshole I used to play Pathfinder with because most of the really out-there cosmetic shit requires race mods (which I do not want to use).

: For today’s bonus content, I want to show off one particular mod that I almost installed but then didn’t.

: Yes, there is a mod that gives Withers huge breasts. It only works on Patch 7.

: Another thing I wanted to show off is that because D&D is a Hasbro-owned property and Hasbro also owns Magic: The Gathering (a good reason not to buy into MTG), they did a BG3 expansion for Magic.

: Yep. That’s not even the gayest card Astarion gets.

: Nope, not that one where he’s sucking off Gale either.

: Yep, that one. The other character is one we haven’t met yet. Astarion got by far the most cards out of any of the party members, most of which only have one.

: I’ll show off the rest as we pick up new party members.