In case you were wondering why I did not post in almost six months: Baldur’s Gate 3 happened. A lot. Meaning I had so much fun with this game it occupied all of my free time. Almost. So far, I have – fittingly – finished Baldur’s Gate 3 three times. Once on Explorer-difficulty, the easiest, once on Balanced- difficulty (Medium) and once on – Explorer. Yep, my Tactician (Hard) playthrough is still ongoing. As are a couple more adventures where I am trying out even more classes, class-combos and decisions. Expect MAJOR Spoilers!

The Way It Started

Since I play Dragon Age: Inquisition pretty much every year at least once, I thought myself safe starting Baldur’s Gate 3 on the medium difficulty (Balanced). But, as with most games, I went through a steep learning curve which ended with me dialing the difficulty down to Explorer, the easiest.

The first adventurer I created was Tav, a Githyanki wizard, who quickly turned into a paladin. She is therefore predestined to be both the tank of the party as well as its moral compass. I briefly changed her class to sorcerer, mid-Paladin-Act 1, so that is a bonus, being able to change classes and make use of their perks. I gathered the party and brought Act 1 to a satisfying end, back to being a Paladin, mind you, then travelled into he Shadow-Cursed Lands. Also succeeding in what I wanted to achieve there. The hardest fights fought were not breaking my oath and stealing the last orb needed to proceed into Nightsong’s prison.

Mid-game I decided I wanted to play a darker adventure, so I started a new game with the Dark Urge, in this case a Mephistophele Tiefling. The Dark Urge is a character with amnesia, plagued by fantasies of blood and killing. You can either follow the calling or reject it. In this case I decided to reject the Urge after all. I also gathered the party and played actually a pretty well-rounded campaign up until reaching Baldur’s Gate. Nightsong was freed, the Shadow curse lifted, Astarion ascended, and I found out that Kethric Thorm was easily defeated on the easiest difficulty using both Bone Chill, thanks to Wyll, and Turn Undead, thanks to Shadowheart. You can ignore the Necromites, since they will disappear once Kethric is down for good, and I always take out the Mindflayer first thing once the battle commences, freeing Dame Aylin being the second order of the day. Since back then Act III was broken on the PS5, I deleted that campaign.

Make It Darker

My third character was, again, the Dark Urge, this time a High Elf Rogue / Arcane Trickster modelled after one of the most memorable video game villains I know, the Bright Lord Celebrimbor from Middle-earth: Shadow Of Mordor and Middle-earth: Shadow Of War.

As this character, I collected Gale’s severed hand instead of recruitng him and killed Karlach alongside Wyll, since she would not even give us a chance for a peaceful solution, after we caused a fight between the Tieflings and the druids in the grove, which left the druids all dead. which is, actually, no big deal for archdruid Halsin, which surprised me.

Also, it was when I found out how unpredictable the game can. be. See, I had Shadowheart turn from Shar and free Nightsong, then returned to camp only to wake up with me having killed my lover, Wyll. When I failed to convice the party this was an accident, they turned on me, which was a new one. Then, when I replayed that night, Wyll was still dead, but I managed to deflect and survived. After realising that Halsin is not the best addition to a party restricted to two rogues, a fighter and a cleric, I decided to go back a Save and replay the Nightsong-prison break. Though I did not change anything else, this time Shadowheart killed Nightsong. Also, Wyll lived and our villain was gifted the rather gruesome Slayer-form (which my Tiefling Dark Urge did not achieve). Bam.

I went with that outcome after all and Shadowheart would turn into a Dark Justiciar, while I barely convinced Astarion to not go through with the black mass and ascend. So. Yeah. In some ways this playthrough turned out not so dark after all. If you disregard the fact that the party got Duke Ravengard killed,since we did not consult with Mizora before attempting to rescue him from his prison in the Iron Throne. Also, killing Minsc was no joy, and, poor Boo. A plus: without Aylin in camp, you can avoid the annoying battle against the wizard and his elementals altogether.

Though playing as the Dark Urge, in the end I had him sacrifice himself to become a mind flayer and finished with that. Since this was before the Reunion Camp patch, I did not have any more encounters with the companions afterwards.

Storm Sorcery Rules

My second playthough opened my eyes to the awesome Sorcerer class with Storm Sorcery-sub class. Since I played on Balanced, I was now able to multi-class, meaning I could choose other classes to boost my primary one. With this drow adventurer I chose Warlock / The Fiend as my second class. He was also a rather evil character, siding with the goblins in the Grove and overall choosing the more evil dialogue options, which left him with only ascended Astarion, Lae’zel and Minthara as companions in the end. Also, Astarion was his romance option. A fitting punishment for his evil deeds, since ascended Astarion is the most toxic partner ever.

It was during that playthough I found out that it makes things easier in the Shadow-Cursed lands if you take out Balthazar et all before entering the Shadowfell to free the Nightsong. And it is better to kill everyone in the prison of Moonrise, and kill Z’rell and her goons too, before the last battle. The more I played, I of course internalised the different weaknesses of the different bosses, which made the playthroughs easier over time. This did serve me well on my Tactician-playthrough until I realised that some enemies now get different attacks to mix it up a little. Nice!

Truth be told, I am not a fan of Act III, not only because on my PS5 that was broken for quite a while, making playing impossible. I really do not like the battle through the High Hall, it is tedious and frustrating. Which is why, in this playthough, I just let Gale go ahead and sacrifice himself, instead of facing the Netherbrain with the entire party.

Evil Rules!

The last finished playthrough (drow Storm Sorcerer on Explorer) was probably the most evil, because I decided to do everything I had so far avoided. Which led to mayhem in the Shadow-Cursed Lands and murder in Baldur’s Gate. Yep, I chose to impress the Murder Tribunal with a little killing spree. Fun fact: I did not realise until then that you can free Orin’s victim to have them join the fight.

As mentioned, that drow character was rather evil and in the end he chose to betray the Emperor and become Absolute himself. So no reunion camp and no idea how the romance with Gale played out.

How It’s Going

I do not really like Act III. Which is why I have actually started a number of other adventures but only played them through Act II before deleting them again. I am currently on my Tactician-playthrough, in Act III. It was a fun ride so far, especially defeating every single member of the Thorm family in the Shadow-Cursed Lands. My Wood Elf adventurer is a Bard / School of Valour and Rogue / Assassin-mix.

As a bard, he had no problem outwitting the barkeep, and Gale is always my go-to party member to make the surgeon off himself. The lady in the toll-house is also easily defeated when you have Karlach and warlock / sorcerer Wyll along. Though, admittedly, by the end of that fight Karlach was the only one standing and barely had any HP left when she finally took out the boss. Phew!

Defeating Ketheric Thorm was the ultimate test, since on Tactician the legendary traits of the bosses come into play. But I somehow managed to reverse-uno Ketheric and had him and his cronies immobilized, skipping their every turn, while warlock / sorcerer Wyll blasted him into oblivion using Eldritch Blast and fireballs.

While I have since turned to another game – the classic Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – I will certainly finish that last playthrough.

Until then, keep on playing!
Cheers
Vanessa