#the act 3 thing

[powdermelonkeg]

How I would run Act III

To streamline it more. And tie up loose ends. And stuff.

Part I: The Dead Two

You're apprehended by the Steel Watch the instant you use your proper faces in town, cutting the Steel Watch at the entry (or at least moving it closer to the Gate; I missed the whole of the Outer City for like 10 hours because of this)

Gortash holds one of your companions prisoner for "motivation." They're framed for the Open Hand murders and locked up. YOU have to solve those murders and track down Orin, both to kill her and to get the murder mystery off of Gortash's back. He needs controlled fear in his city, and he plans to take the credit for apprehending the Cult of Bhaal.

Orin still replaces a member of your group. The intended route is to get Gortash'd before Orin'd, but if you disguise self all the way through to Orin's place, you can get her ultimatum to destroy Gortash first; disable the Steel Watch within three days, or your pretty little companion dies.

Dilemma: Do you risk the companion Orin has, or the one Gortash has? Intended route is to turn on Gortash; he'll send your companion down to the Iron Throne if you do, which still gives you a chance to rescue them. However, if you have Minsc or Jaheira on your side, you can use them to find a secret path into the Bhaal temple and free Orin's captive first.

If you kill Gortash before Orin, Bhaalists attack your camp, because you're no longer useful and will make such pretty sacrifices to Bhaal. One of them has a map to the temple on them. On the other hand, killing Orin first still gets you an alliance with Gortash.

I want Apostle-of-Myrkul-style boss fights. When Orin's slayer form dies, you turn to leave, and Bhaal speaks through the skull in the wall, creating an avatar of the dead bodies around the altar.

If you're the Dark Urge, usual punishment for rejecting Dad's Gifts, and then the avatar appears to tear your companions apart over your dead body. You have to win that fight WITHOUT your player character.

Gortash gets more dramatics, because there was a lack of explanation for his whole fight. When you approach him, either after killing Orin or wanting to kill him, he has his back turned to you and asks you what you plan to do with the current situation. If you turn on him, he tells you what a shame that is—that you've turned on him, yes, but moreso that you've failed to notice the room. The turrets load up, and Gortash steps backwards into a steaming divot in the wall, then reemerges in his armored form. A pity you couldn't disable all of the Steel Watch after all.

Upon defeating Steel Watch Gortash, it looks like he's about to explode—then it stops. Bane reprimands him for being such a failure, taunts him for expecting the release of death, then twists him into an amalgamation of machinery and biology, a Warforged-like abomination akin to his avatar: "a twisted and monstrous form with leathery black skin and powerful claws that could rend flesh and metal alike." (The wiki was not more specific than that)

Congrats! You have all three Nether Stones. How do you feel?

[roz-ani]

THIS TOOK ME SO OFF GUARD

IT'S HIS NORMAL VOICE- THERE WAS NO RADIO- THE FACT THAT IT HAPPENED- IT'S THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT EVERYONE'S ASLEEP AND I CAN'T SCREAM

[itsafreetrialofdeath]

sorry Mystra he’s not your wizard anymore

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

a couple scribbles i cleaned up. also i think i like drawing him in varying states of distress

[thatone-highlighter]

I love you albums. I love you songs connected by similar themes. I love you listening to songs in a specific order picked by the artist. I love you reoccurring motifs throughout the same album. I love you album covers. I love you albums with extended editions. I love you songs that reference each other.

[im-no-jedi]

I HAVE MADE AN IMPORTANT DISCOVERY

Hunter types with only his pointer fingers, he is truly the stereotypical technologically illiterate parent 😭😂

bonus pic of the fingey:

[littlestarbigfangs]

[You love the spotlight, don't you, Astarion? Here's your big chance!]

[vampireposter]

meeting wyll at the grove, as someone who the tieflings trust enough to train their children, says so much about him. it's so sad that he doesn't get explored in acts 2-3 as deeply as the other companions, when his problems are equally intense. the average player probably long rests once before coming across the grove, but even if not, in that time wyll has already proven to the tieflings that they can rely on the Blade of Frontiers.

this is the immediate first thing he chooses to do after being condemned to slow death via ceremorphosis. his priority list in the first conversations with tav is: 1) hunt down a dangerous devil, 2) help zevlor with the goblins, 3) once nothing threatens the tieflings he will gladly search for a tadpole cure. wyll is perpetually his own last priority, and i wonder if it has to do with the lore about souls.

if he believes mind flayers' souls have been destroyed, and fiend warlocks will all have their souls sent to the hells after death, then becoming a mind flayer isn't the worst possible way for him to die. he would never become a mindless monster to save his own soul, but he's not gripped by horror the way that some of the other origin characters are. lae'zel has been made revoltingly impure to her people, astarion is terrified of losing the scrap of bodily autonomy he just regained, gale is guilt-ridden over the orb detonation if he dies, shadowheart has to survive to prove herself to her cult leader, and karlach has also just regained bodily autonomy and is desparate to live.

this is just another quest for the Blade, whose persona guards wyll ravengard against the vice of self-concern when he ought to be concerned for those in need.

[the-wolfbats]

"Maybe we can try again in another 100 years."

[powdermelonkeg]

Aylin's story seems to abruptly end if you don't go the betrayal route. idk if my game bugged out or not but after it's implied she became an Oathbreaker for snapping bro's spine on her knee, she just...disappears. I thought there should've been more to her story there and I think it would've been cool to have her be an actual playable companion if you helped her resolve that issue or help her come to terms with it. also no Upper City was a bit of a letdown

[ionomycin]

My Baldur's Gate 3 tieflings, transmutation wizard Lumi and life cleric Primrose. I have been entirely obsessed with the game...

[sun-marie]

A moment, some point in late Act 2

(based off the Patch 4 notes mentioning we can now wash the dirt off our companions 💜)

[aphel1on]

AURGH auwarghh the autistic parental trauma... the epi was wacky hijinks then dropped this on us out of nowhere... (sobs) laios... laiiiiooooos

[transparentkittenheart]

Sex in a bed:

Boring, predictable, you might need to sleep in the wet spot.

Sex on your undead lovers grave:

Goth, silly, is some sort of symbolism about claiming your own life back, the leg thing.

[a2zillustration]

Would anyone ELSE like to admit they've been personally victimized by the god or goddess they follow?

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[[ All Croissant Adventures (chronological, desktop) ]]

[[ All Croissant Adventures (app) ]]

[mipexch]

comic about v2 and the goal they'll never fully reach alongside a dissatisfying conclusion. intimate rivalry and all (alternative ending comic. V1 dies instead of V2 during 4-4. V2 is narrating. V1 is dead.)