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alicelufenia · 24 days

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I have finally finished my first BG3 playthrough

Gonna go into HUGE detail below the cut over all my thoughts, including spoilers of potentially everything I've encountered in the game (and maybe a few I haven't but already know about)

Playtime

Might as well just start with the obvious question: what was my playtime?

A little over 344 hours.

Granted that's total playtime, I spent a lot of time (though not as long as you'd think) in act 1 with several characters that didn't go anywhere, only actually progressing with Alice after like a month of waffling on what/who to play. Or going back to old saves to take screenshots or record for gifs (which reminds me, I can go back and make all sorts of gifs now if I want) or to test my extremely scientific tumblr posts on how to recruit Minthara by giving her a concussion.

Total ACTUAL playtime for my main tav

A more respectable 189 hours, not counting the epilogue which was like, an hour tops.

While I played a ton in 2023, my opportunity to play has been hampered this year somewhat. Which is why it took me til March to finish when I reached act 3 in DECEMBER. That's three months to get to Act 3, but but 4 months to finish it. And I didn't even do all the sidequests! I gave up on the painter's wife and the necromancy guy, and didn't even start the Umberlee thing (is that even a sidequest? I honestly don't know) Which still amounts to doing a LOT anyway, and not having the tiefling npcs around didn't feel like it impacted much outside of a lack of a vendor.

The Grove and Minthara

Speaking of which, I guess I should talk about my act 1 choices, and why I went with raiding the grove and romancing Minthara for my first playthrough (a thing that seems to be incredibly rare from what I've seen of poll responses here)

When you don't want to admit you committed mass murder for some pussy, and maybe a chance to save the world I guess

In short, my plan was for my Sorcadin (Oath of Glory Paladin/Shadow Sorcerer) to have a lapse in act 1 and break her oath in an attempt to get close to Minthara and sway her from the Absolute, before fighting to defend the grove and restoring her oath in the process, but that act would leave a stain on her soul (the levels of Shadow Sorcerer thanks to a mod).

But then I fell absolutely head over heels for her. Oops.

This was back before a way to recruit her while saving the tieflings was a part of the game, and for whatever reason I didn't want to use the mod that let you do it. So I thought, I'll split my saves at the grove battle where I betray or side with the tieflings. So betraying them is, well an ordeal for sure, but then Minthara's scene.

Oh boy

HAAAAAA

So yeah, after completing all that and then going back and fighting for the grove, I thought about it for like a week or two before deciding, screw playing the game twice with this split point, I'll continue from the betray the grove point, see where this goes. And just like that my character goes from a faltering hero to a fallen one. Instead of immediately restoring her oath, she would remain an oathbreaker for the rest of act 1 and nearly all of act 2.

Act 2

By far the biggest impact your choices in act 1 have are on your path through act 2. Technically you can go either way (meeting the harpers and reaching Last Light Inn first, or following Kar'niss' caravan straight to Moonrise Tower) regardless of your actions, but the game nudges you subtly to one or the other, mainly by pointing to where your potential allies will be. So I wound up at Moonrise first, and I had Minthara recruited very early in Act 2.

Essentially I did the act backwards compared to how many people would do it, going from Moonrise, to the surrounding town, to Last Light, then the Monastery, the Gauntlet of Shar, and finally the assault on Moonrise. My party's turning point to "good guys" during all this was basically right when they fight to defend Isobel at Last Light, making that particularly hard fight feel really meaningful to the story (it weirds me out how many people recommend skipping it, like what just save before, it's hard but not impossible)

This resulted in Act 2 having this seemingly intended escalation to it; we are at our lowest on the way to Moonrise. The dream visitor scene you can get on the way is really good here, they ask you how you felt about what happened to the grove. Very funny how they have an encouraging answer whether you say you don't care or you regret it. Especially after we find out who they really are.

Exploring the NPCs at Moonrise feels like a weird dark mirror of the grove, all these seemingly normal people doing their thing but talking about committing the worst atrocities so casually. Then you run into Minthara—your one real ally here—and she's been made a prisoner? By a seemingly immortal general! Seriously seeing Ketheric before hearing Jaheira's summary of him is a trip. And then I went to free Minthara from her prisoners, getting advantage on the wisdom check to break her free of the Absolute's voice cause of my previous relationship with her, and oh wow this is like the second best scene in the game this was the best decision I ever made in a game! Now let's make these bastard cultists bleed!!

Oh I was all in on Minthara's side at that point.

And yet weirdly ready to try and be a hero again. Alice had a purpose again, and allies willing to see it through. Though Wyll and Karlach had abandoned her at the grove, she was now invested in those who remained, and begins striving to lead them better. She strikes her first blow against the cultists by killing Marcus, and at the Gauntlet of Shar, while at first I tried to push Shadowheart toward sparing the Nightsong (which went horribly bad) instead Alice said she doesn't like it, but doesn't want to lose her, so she'll back her up no matter her choice.

And Shadowheart chose to spare the Nightsong. And I was introduced to my OTHER favorite character in the whole game, Dame Aylin!

And now the act hits its highest point. Having Minthara with me for the assault on Moonrise feels SO right, she has dialogue with Z'rell, a reason to be there in every fight to come, the final battle is

JUST

It's so cool.

And then Minthara has one of if not her best scene in the whole game

Not only this line, but her whole speech on Orin, her continued quest for vengeance, with the ultimate goal of replacing the Chosen Three and becoming the Absolute. And shortly after Minthara confesses to her, and I was so blown away that it happened so early!

This was also when her romance was still a shambling pile of broken flags, and I was so happy it actually worked I immediately restored Alice's oath, as she renews her vow to seek legendary heights of glory (by seizing the elder brain).

Leaving the shadowlands and heading to act 3 also leads to the last (major) change caused by my choices in act 1; the shadow curse remains. I did attempt Art's quest, which ended when we had to confirm that Halsin was dead (or so we thought, but wait until I talk about that much later!), leaving the curse unliftable.

And honestly, probably the biggest let down I've noticed about the 'good' path through act 2 versus the more 'evil' one I took is that, the curse kinda never stops being a problem in the evil path, while the good path trivializes it so early. Once you get a hold of a Moon lantern (which you can do early if you turn on Kar'niss and then on the harpers), you can just release Dolly Dolly Dolly and be safe from basically all of the curse. If you maintain your cover as a cultist, Kar'niss disappears until the end of the arc, at which the moon lantern he drops has a dead Dolly in it, so no permanent buff (not that it would matter at that point). And the moon lantern you can pick up in Balthazar's room doesn't have a pixie to release.

I dunno, you can already lift the curse in the good playthrough, seems like an odd choice to make it more trivial in that one than the other path. Still, having to manage our moon lantern use throughout the whole area, kinda made exploring it feel more significant, and knowing when it was safe or not to put away the lantern made it at least a little more interesting to explore certain areas, whereas players on the good path probably don't even know there are individual buildings with a deeper curse that even the Selunite blessing doesn't protect, necessitating still using the lantern.

So despite not having Halsin's whole quest with Art, Thaniel and Oliver, I still KINDA prefer the way it played out for me. Might change my mind in the future if I actually do that quest line, Thaniel and Oliver are interesting enough characters to make that worthwhile from what I've seen.

Act 3

At this point I've been playing for 3 months and I finally make it to act 3. The mission here being "get Minthara's approval as high as possible without breaking your oath". In short:

Crushed it. And no oath broken.

But before that, we had to deal with the little problem of Orin's kidnapping victim being Minthara. For SOME reason, Minthara is the only companion who can be abducted even if she's currently being romanced (she just has to not be in the party at the time it happens).

Which is devastating, but also REALLY good story telling, cause you just told her not like an hour ago that you'd keep her safe from Orin.

So my first task upon entering the Lower City was "find Orin and rescue Minthara". I stepped right over that agreement to go after Gortash first, and instead tracked down a few of the Bhaalist murders, which led me to the Tribunal, standing before Sarevok to be accepted as an Unholy Assassin, not REALLY knowing what I was doing at this point, and then I'm asked to kill Valeria (who was a jerk during the investigation, but not nearly that bad) and, feeling myself up against the wall, say FUCK IT WE BALL and refused to kill her.

And Somehow. I managed to beat Sarevok, despite being surrounded by cultists buffing him up. My team was Shadowheart, Lae'zel and Gale, and lemme tell you that's POTENT (this was before I got the Markoheshkir for Gale but, turns out a level 11 Wizard is REALLY STRONG so it doesn't matter)

The way the journal updated made me worried that if I took a long rest, Minthara would be killed, so. I went looking for the Temple of Bhaal, getting lost in the sewers until I finally found it, and went to face Orin WITHOUT LONG RESTING AFTER SAREVOK.

I wasn't even at max level, or had much of the good equipment in act 3. Unstoppable is a Bitch of a mechanic, and silly me didn't prepare Magic Missle on Gale (which would have trivialized it). So I had Alice, Lae'zel, and Minthara chip-chip-chipping away at 7 stacks of Unstoppable, only occasionally getting a hit through, all while Gale provided support by burning just SO MANY high level scrolls (he ran out of slots at some point), and I forget what I was doing with Shadowheart. I still don't think I understood the mechanic, but I did get an achievement for killing Orin while the cultists were still performing their ritual, so I guess I brute-forced it like some have done with Grimm.

So, after Orin the rest of Act 3 was a breeze by comparison. Except the House of Hope, that was ALSO a bitch of a fight, and unlike Orin I had to reload after a party wipe. Just once though, I beat Raphael with just Minthara up, taking out his last 10 hp with a Psionic Backlash just as he was about to roast her with Incinerate again.

Other than those, the actual rest of Act 3 was... well, I mean it was fine. I did just about everything, found and recruited Minsc, was confused that the Emperor tries to talk you OUT of recruiting him for being too unpredictable, yet he never once raises an objection to bringing on Minthara. I dunno it made sense with my playthrough cause she basically never spent time as an enemy, but it's still WEIRD and not really a choice worth doing differently. Which will become a bit of a theme with Act 3.

As I said at the start, Act 3 took me longer than any other, but I did take my sweet time there. The sheer number of npcs that you can talk to is still incredible, I fell into some quests like the Mouth Gazette accidentally, and completing those was involved but didn't take too long.

Once I had taken out Gortash, we were basically ready to go straight to the end game. The path to it being through the Temple of Bhaal driving home the point even more that I was meant to tackle Orin last, but no WAY was my wife going to miss out on the entire Act 3.

My last big exciting moment for the playthrough was when Minthara spoke up out of nowhere while heading into the temple

That's right, I got the Alurlssrin line here, since Minthara wasn't around for it the first time I went to fight Orin. But, since the game doesn't check to see if Orin was still alive (or it did but it bugged?) I still got it anyway!

She still says we have to go kill Orin, but who cares! This was literally one of my major goals in the game, my Get Kim to Wear The Jacket of Baldur's Gate 3 (whereas that achievement was basically the best thing I did in Disco Elysium). So happy to get it my first playthrough.

High Hall

As for the end of the game, while I can see how it would be harder on higher difficulties, I still think I'd have a much harder time with earlier fights. I didn't play this optimally at all, not using elixirs nor summoning many of my allies. I kinda was worried about "using them too early" but I think you're meant to use them or they go to waste.

Now I had a lot of allies. Red dragon air support, Harpers, Guild assassins, Elite Fist unit, VOLO, and even Yurgir! I only summoned the Harpers and Yurgir, and they were fine, but I think Volo is actually the strongest ally. His "Volo's Guide to Monsters" condition that gives +2 to attacks, saves and checks, that's insanely good!

Meanwhile I was noticably missing some allies. Where were Isobel and Aylin? Where were the Gondians and the Steel Watch they're supposed to give me? Especially with the abrupt way Isobel and Aylin exited the game after Lorroakan (another choice that wasn't a real choice cause why the FUCK would I betray Aylin at that point), it was a let down. As was siding with the Gondians when Wulbren gave me zero reason to sympathize with me (it felt like a Lorroakan again, you need a reason to hate this character to refuse them, so they try to do something you would absolutely not do given the choices you've already made)

At least I finally know why people hate Wulbren, but MAN does that not feel earned.

My Final Party

Since I was locked into my party from boarding the boat to the credits, I might as well talk about who I took, and what build I used for them.

Alice (6 Paladin / 6 Sorcerer)

Pretty standard Sorcadin for my Tav, I had her wielding the Jorgal's Greatsword, eventually swapping to the Sword of Chaos (never got Balduran Giantslayer. No Wyll so I don't know what an Ansur is lol). I used mods for BOTH subclasses, Oath of Glory and Shadow Sorcerer respectively. I'm gonna be honest, Sorcadin wasn't as impressive as I was hoping it would be. First, Glory Oath has its charms (the mod user tweaked a lot as this oath is meant for grappling builds in tabletop), but the spell list was meh. Guiding Bolt didn't prove to be as useful as I hoped, and Oath of Devotion's tenets for oathbreaking works fine I guess, but doesn't quite match up perfectly.

Like I interpret it as Alice trying to become the kind of legend told in stories about truly heroic figures, hence the oath tenets making me stick with a knight in shining armor type for most choices. Still it means I could make all the best choices for my companions, so they can be the best they can be, and that's perfectly fitting for the Oath of Glory.

What made this REALLY take off was the level 6 abilities for Shadow Sorcerer, at least the version the mod maker made for Baldur's Gate. At level 6 you get Hound of Ill Omen, essentially a familiar that can perform an attack that can knock enemies prone, but you have to designate the target, which you can swap freely once each turn. You ALSO get Shadow Step, which is BONKERS in BG3 for mobility, as there's almost always some minor obscurement. She zipped around everywhere, concentrated on Haste and SMITE SMOTE all into oblivion.

Minthara (9 Paladin / 3 Rogue)

Of course I had to keep Minthara a Vengeance Paladin, it's so much of who she is. I gave her 3 levels of Thief Rogue for the extra bonus action, and the Dual Wielder feat so she could wield the Handmaiden's Mace in the offhand (letting her dump Strength) and the Devotee's Mace in main. The Alert feat basically meant she always went first, and could set up with Soul Brands or an early burst and just delete ANYTHING in one go, all while concentrating on Haste for just infinity attacks.

This build doesn't have TWF but honestly, I didn't miss it. The Handmaiden's main use is the stat boost, and it can poison, so once the target is poisoned I don't necessarily need to make attacks with it and just use all the Soul Branding I want. Or do bonus action dashes to move anywhere. And since in the end I made her partial illithid, she was BY FAR my most mobile party member, even more than Alice. Levitate + Thief Rogue's bonus actions means you can get absolutely ANYWHERE if you want.

And call me a simp but I love it when she growls "I am your death" or "No survivors" and then actually kills every mother fucker she clicks on. With Vow of Enmity up, plus The Dead Shot for lower crit rate, she critted quite a lot, especially when I gave her an elixir of viciousness (appropriate). It takes a lot to out damage a Sorcadin, but she managed.

Lae'zel (12 Fighter)

You know what's almost as good as a Sorcadin or crit-fishing Paladin, damage-wise? A Gith with 12 straight levels of Battlemaster Fighter, and the Silver Sword of the Astral Plane. She managed to out damage Minthara on the Red Dragon in the final battle, Precision Attacking with GWM to get SO MUCH damage in, the dragon was dead in like 3 turns.

Shadowheart (2 Paladin / 10 Cleric)

This was a bit of a weird one, and I would definitely do something different next time. The idea for this was, Paladin for smites and Ancients healing radiance, Light Cleric for spellcaster damage and using Sentinel to act as pseudo-tank. Selûne's Spear and Viconia's Walking Fortress with Reaper's Embrace for the highest AC in the group. Honestly this worked better than it looks on paper, mostly cause with the Amulet of Greater Health she had the most hp, and almost never lost concentration. Enemies still tried to attack her despite being more tanky, and I've had her soak up so much damage.

Next time I'm definitely going to resist the temptation to make Selûne Shadowheart a Light cleric (it's not even one of Selûne's domains) and I have some ideas for that with actual synergy with things like radiating orb, so hopefully next game she'll be more effective.

A New World for Ourselves

So we did it. Orpheus subjugated the crown, the Absolute is at our mercy. All that's left is to make that final decision. Do I destroy the brain, ridding us of the tadpoles and the threat of the Netherbrain forever, or do I betray everyone so that Minthara and I can become the Absolute.

Nothing could be more glorious! Of course I was going to pick this one!

Or do I? I mean, I could, and I did to find out what happens. But is it an ending? Maybe in the future when they make that update to the 'evil endings' that they mentioned recently, there'll be more to it. For now, it basically results in you deleting every other companion (except I believe if Minthara or Astrarion are your partner) and taking control of the Netherbrain to carry out your will with no one to stop you.

It ALSO is one of the extremely rare times that Tav/Durge gets a spoken line in a cutscene, and hearing Lynsey Murrell (voice of Tav 8) say "In my name" will sustain me for weeks. Minthara saying "In your name" so much REALLY went to her head huh.

C'mon everyone who follows me saw it coming, why do you think I made my blog name literally "In My Name"? I am cringe but I am free.

But, as of right now, this ending amounts to little more than an alternative game over, until they add an epilogue for it. There isn't even a stinger scene at the end of the credits. Oh well, I'm sure the actors will have a blast performing mind-controlled companions, when that finally comes out.

The Real Epilogue

So we did it. We ordered the brain to destroy all tadpoles (and taking away Minthara's veins and black eyes, which, they were cool, but I like her without them more) and then kill itself. Despite us being on it when it blows up, but after the gang climbs out of the river and onto the dock, we have our final moments before we go our separate ways.

btw this lady, who goes to town on a Mind Flayer to protect the tiefling kid? She's so badass and I think I love her. God I'm so weak to fearless women kicking the crap out of things, and this game just doesn't stop delivering on that front.

Minthara is taking the brain's destruction incredibly well, probably due to being rid of the tadpole at last.

I honored Orpheus' wishes and put him down so he can be a martyr for his people. Lae'zel departed to return to the Astral Plane for the war against Vlaakith, and poor Astarion had to run off cause the sun started burning him. As for Gale, I thought I had messed up his quest by not bringing him to the last battle, but he did in fact get a choice to retrieve the crown for himself or Mystra, or to leave it. I told him he should leave it. Still spiteful to Mystra, sorry not sorry, but at least he didn't make another mistake.

As we headed into the Epilogue, Minthara and I have been spending the six months weaving schemes and intrigue to take control of the city from the shadows. Probably the least evil option for Minthara's epilogue, but honestly it fits, Alice has achieved her legend status and Minthara has a genuine happy ending, not having to worry about all out warfare with her family (yet).

The Epilogue Party was as adorable as I had hoped it'd be. It was great to catch up with everyone, and it made me happy I used my oc from ffxiv, cause this is very much in line with the sort of "You fixed everything and everyone is praising you" ending the Warrior of Light gets in basically every expansion.

So after finishing the game, I have my thoughts. First off, I had such a great time, and fully intend to start another run (more on that later). I wouldn't say it's perfect; the epilogue does a good job to pad out the ending, but the base game ending after finishing the last battle is definitely pretty abrupt. But it's alleviated so much by seeing these characters I've spent so much time with, seen them struggle and grow, now finally getting closure. That still makes it worth it.

I am ashamed to admit I had to reload on the final battle after an impromptu party wipe. You'd think as a FFXIV savage raider I would be able to recognize "don't stand in the bad" mechanics and execute them perfectly since this is turn based. And not only did Shadowheart get hit by one of those nautiloid attacks, the final boss took us out because I didn't realize it'd blow up the platforms they were on. Still, as a savage raider maybe it makes perfect sense I'd have trouble not standing in bad.

There's one other thing I wanted to mention, something that a lot of people are concerned about when they play this game and I'm so happy I can say, after completing this run, that the Grove does not matter.

The Grove doesn't matter (just do it)

That's not even hyperbole, the grove literally doesn't matter. Notice I how I didn't have to mention it past act 2? That's because it matters basically only for act 2, while act 3 might as well exist on its own. Now I guess that makes sense if no npcs from the grove actually survive, since there's no one there to talk about them.

But like. Volo is right there. I saved him from cultists in act 3, and he shows up for the final battle and the epilogue, and he makes a big talk about telling my story, conveniently forgetting that whole part where I committed genocide for, as he himself noted at the time, no discernible reason.

Like I know I joke that you can raid the grove and still play the game as a 'good' character, and that's still true and I think it should at least be possible, but like. At least a mention?

I will tell you who I heard from that I was absolutely NOT expecting though:

I'm sorry, fucking who??

What?

So what seems to be going on here, is that because I never talked to Halsin after initiating "Raid the grove" in act 1, meaning he never left the goblin camp, the game never registered him as "dead" (even though you can tell Art that), but instead is treating him as "alive, and the shadowlands are still cursed"

Weird. I don't remember if I actually went back to the goblin camp and checked the worg pens to see if his body was there. But since Minthara showed up at Moonrise with his journal in her inventory, I just assumed she killed him before leaving to Moonrise.

It honestly would have been absolutely hilarious if I had gotten a "you may have saved the Sword Coast but I will never forgive you for what you did to the grove. May we never meet again" or something like that. But hey this is a party, we gotta stay upbeat!

Anyway the moral of the story is, if you haven't killed the grove yet, you should definitely kill the grove. Maybe not the one Larian intended, but it works for me.

What's Next?

I'm going to be taking a break from bg3 for a bit. There's a limited time event going on in ffxiv, and I still need to replay and finish Hi-Fi Rush (my other game of the year of 2023). After all of that, I have a few ideas for my next run, in order of preference:

Chosen of Eilistraee - Drow Bard/Rogue/Cleric (Shadowheart Romance)

I really wanna go back in and do another in-depth run as a more traditional 'chaotic good tav' like a lot of people did their first time, but with the luxury of being able to recruit every companion this time. I also really want to play through the game as a Bard, and play a more religion-focused character.

So a Drow Bard with the Cleric of Eilistraee dialogue options, and who will have a whole story involving obtaining Phalar Aluve (Eilistraee's weapon) AND Larethian's Wrath (Corellon's weapon) and dual wield them. Since Alice will no longer be my main tav after this (more below), I'll be giving this character the Guild Artisan (tav's canon background as far as I'm concerned) and she'll be my go-to heroic tav.

DU Minthara - Paladin/Sorcerer (Karlach OR Lae'zel Romance)

There's this brilliant mod that lets you play as any of the companions, Origin and non-Origin, using either Tav's or Dark Urge's dialogue. And listen. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense that Dark Urge is the perfect way to play Minthara AS an origin character.

I could romance either Karlach or Lae'zel (both incredible rarepairs, though Minthara/Karlach is less rare nowadays), but if I go with Karlach I'll HAVE to save the grove, because I don't want to risk her romance breaking if Dammon is dead. Plus fixing her engine means act 2 and 3 Karlach sex scenes with Minthara 😳 oooooh yes! Don't know if I'll be resist or embrace, but would aim for the Avernus ending. And of course with Lae'zel any way is fair game, meaning that grove is getting raided again boys!

And yes it is another Paladin/Sorcerer multiclass, don't judge me I'm going for a different level split this time and not using modded subclasses, and Storm Sorcerer is very Durge-appropriate.

Karlach Origin (Minthara Romance)

Same deal, but reverse. This will be my one concession to romancing Minthara on a 'good' playthrough. Normally I'm personally opposed to that; recruit her sure, but she needs someone willing to kill for her. That all changes with Karlach / Minthara, the tiefling has permission to concuss her and later kiss her, because she absolutely would, plus won't be around long enough to help Minthara with any of her plans anyway, so their future is either going to be brief or in Avernus (aiming for the latter as usual)

Can you tell I REALLY like this ship?

DU Alice - Paladin/Warlock (Minthara Romance)

I intend to replay Alice someday (need to let her story rest for a bit before I come back to it) this time using Dark Urge to fill in those needling holes in her background. Like just adding Durge makes everything about her character better imo. I'd play her as Oathbreaker from the start. Waking up with holes in her brain and a hole in her soul where her oath used to be, replaced by whispers of death. What even was her oath, and if she can restore it, should she? Basically a replay of my first run but with added DU angst, and a connection to Orin and Gortash that accidentally mirror her relation to Zenos and Emet-Selch in ffxiv. Neat.

Shadowheart Origin (Astarion Romance)

This one is wild, considering I don't really like Astarion (he does nothing for me, though his story and Neil Newbon's performance are both excellent). However I saw a certain Shadowstarion fanart and thought, what if they just made each other worse until we have Ascended Astarion reeking havoc for eternity alongside Dark Justiciar Vampire Shadowheart. That's all I got.

So if you read all the way to this end, thank you! I hope you enjoyed my ramblings. If you want, drop your thoughts in comments or ask, I'd love to hear them!

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