Baldur's Gate 3 SPOILER SECTION (with Jim Rodeman & Chris Rettig)

02:11:52.93 Dave We're back and it is full spoiler time for Balder's gate 3 and what we're not going to do here is we're not going to go through every single quest because there are podcasts that are dedicating years of podcasting time to doing that sort of thing. So what we're going to do is talk about notable things in the 3 acts and talk about notable choices that you can make throughout that affect your character. Jim's going to talk about the evil playthrough and a little bit of dark urge I hope I want to know a little bit about that and then um. 02:12:29.27 Dave We'll talk about how our character stories played out as well. So first things first, just a quick question. Did you guys eat the tadpoles or use the tadpole items that you get because I did not not at all. Nope. 02:12:42.97 Chris Oh yeah, ah not at all interesting. Okay yeah I have 2 characters on my main character and on Lae'zel I used yeah well for her it was like. 02:12:47.88 Dave Okay 02:12:56.85 Chris Because she just wouldn't shut off about being so pure and weird. So I was like shut fucking eat this shit. Yeah, you're going to get psionic powers whether you like it or not. 02:13:00.73 Dave Um, yeah, okay so do they like do they give you do they make you like noticeably more powerful or do they just give you different powers. 02:13:04.28 Jim And then. 02:13:16.88 Jim Ah, they definitely add I mean my character was all about just giving me all the power. Um, and so I was picking and choosing ah all for myself. But then like if I had extras like oh I. 02:13:21.88 Dave Okay. 02:13:33.00 Jim This ability would be really cool on this other person. Some of them are excellent. Some of them don't seem to help too much but by the time you unlock the final ring of them. They just get stupid. Um. 02:13:47.58 Dave Okay. 02:13:48.53 Chris That is if you unlock the final ring right? You have to make a choice on that 1 02:13:53.11 Jim That's true. Yeah, if you do that. There's one that is just one free critical hit per long rest and that at the right time on a boss or like if you have a paladin who's smiting like just say hello to 150 damage right? there. 02:14:00.10 Dave Oh yeah. 02:14:06.21 Dave Okay, so I heard that taking the tadpoles also affects your appearance. Okay. 02:14:08.84 Chris Yeah, um. 02:14:17.40 Jim Only later in the game. So there's this final ring that you unlock that makes your face all veiny. Oh yeah I think you're right if you take your clothes off. Yeah. 02:14:18.97 Chris Yeah. 02:14:27.50 Chris It's like your whole body right? Yeah yeah I would notice. Yeah like when you go to sleep My character is all veiny and weird once once you finish the game. Well I maybe this depends on how you finish the game but the way that I finished it. Um. 02:14:33.65 Jim Yeah, yeah. 02:14:43.64 Chris My characters reverted back to their original look and I had forgotten how good the characters looked I guess just like I'd forgotten what my characters look like I guess just because I played for so long just with this weird like veiny black like yeah, um, some of the. 02:14:45.62 Jim Okay, okay. 02:14:48.64 Dave Oh yeah, that's it. 02:14:59.25 Dave Right. 02:15:03.59 Chris I know I think probably the most powerful thing that I got from that on Lae'zel was just being able to fly on a fighter. It isn't incredible because not only does it use less movement speed per meter that you're actually moving so you have a much longer range of using it. 02:15:22.96 Chris So having that was probably easily the most powerful thing on Lae'zel all the spells and everything I found honestly were just not as as powerful than just using a basic attack because using a basic attack would give me 2 more attacks whereas like casting a spell with Lae'zel. 02:15:41.34 Chris Who doesn't have a lot of wisdom or intelligence at all. Do. 02:15:47.33 Jim So ah, if you don't take any of the tadpoles you use none of them throughout the playthrough when the emperor offers you the astral touch tad pull at the end you can just say no and and that's the end of it if you have tadpoles and he offers them to you. 02:15:58.99 Dave Yeah. Oh okay. 02:16:04.44 Jim You have to pass a save to actually like not use it. Um I the final ring unlocks this one called black hole and to use any and all of your illithid abilities. It takes your full action to use it. But if you are in the crash. Succeed on the saving throws. It becomes a bonus action for all of them and you can only put that on one character a black hole literally moves only enemies within a huge area and pulls them in. And put them all in 1 area that you want and then um put it slowly on them. But you can use it in the middle of your party and it won't affect your party members. It's only enemies so all of a sudden you're using that as a bonus action. 02:16:49.99 Chris I didn't know it only affected enemies. 02:16:58.90 Jim You put them all together and then you just fireball that area. It starts to get incredible. 02:17:01.45 Dave Um I see all right? So ah, act one. Let's talk about that. So act 1 is all about the search for a cure for the tadpole. Basically you get like a bunch of quests. 02:17:05.24 Chris Um, yeah. 02:17:18.53 Dave Ah, that all leads to people who you think might be able to help you with the tadpole. Although ah to the best of my knowledge nobody can actually do it in act 1 right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, me too. 02:17:28.46 Jim Correct. 02:17:29.00 Chris I don't think so . I honestly like to 100% do as well as you could act one like I interacted with everything. I think I finished every quest in some way and no, there wasn't any way to do it even having the lobotomy done. 02:17:39.30 Dave Yeah, so yeah I was going to say I was going to ask you guys did you let volo try to get it out because I did yeah real real video game logic there where was like well what's the worst that can happen. This isn't real. So. 02:17:46.10 Jim Ah, the best part of the game I did. 02:17:49.56 Chris I did yeah. 02:17:57.80 Dave What is cool is um ah it is a very brutal cut scene where he's digging around in your eye with an ice pick and he pops your eye out. But as a reward for letting him try, you get a cool glass eye. 02:17:58.30 Chris Um, yeah. 02:18:14.20 Dave That lets you see invisible enemies that was incredibly useful for the rest of the game. So. 02:18:18.40 Chris Yeah I think I took that for granted. I didn't even realize how often I was using that just because you'd walk up to something and see it like yeah. 02:18:25.13 Dave Yeah, yeah, or like ah you know in combat if an enemy tries to go invisible. They have to like pass a check to not get revealed right away by your eye. So really useful all right? so. 02:18:34.11 Chris Right. 02:18:36.63 Jim Yeah, yeah. 02:18:40.47 Dave Ah, the act one is set up with the big thing is this conflict between this druid. Encampment. Ah and this goblin camp and um, this is one of those things that I remember seeing on Twitter someone put together a big compilation of all of the different ways. You can solve this goblin camp and so earlier Jim when you said that they should teach this in schools this game I was thinking like in a game design course if they want to teach multiple ways to solve a problem in a game this goblin camp. Seems like it would be a nice textbook example because it feels like there's hundreds of ways to solve this issue so how did we? How did we do this goblin camp or druid camp problem? Okay. 02:19:33.95 Jim I'll let you guys go first because yeah. 02:19:34.61 Chris Well, the way I did it probably shouldn't be taught in schools because I just manipulated everybody into thinking that I was on their side and then in the last moment chose who I was going to side with based on what they had to offer for me so I had I had the Goblin chick I don't remember her name right now. What's her name? 02:19:42.24 Dave Um, oh yeah. 02:19:44.61 Jim Oh nice. Okay. 02:19:50.83 Dave Minthara 02:19:54.49 Chris Yeah, meant thorough I had her believing that I would like turn on the Emerald Grove people when she showed up I had the tea flings thinking that I would help them escape and I had the druid people on my side and I ended up helping I ended up killing minthara in the and all the goblins and everything I actually ended up going back. And doing it again with a friend in a way that was really fun. We wanted to see if we could one shot the encounter by setting up explosives along everything. So like we took like an hour just to get to those words. Ah we took an hour and a half just to like set everything up and then just to have like astarian or somebody. 02:20:20.14 Dave Yeah. 02:20:33.70 Chris Do their cantrip fireball and just like blow everything. We couldn't one shot it but it was still very very fun to do? Um, but yeah I ended up killing Minthara and I think that was before I knew she could be a companion and so I kind of regretted that because I thought she was kind of cool. 02:20:37.51 Dave Yeah. 02:20:48.51 Dave Yeah, yeah I Um I ended up just taking the fight to the goblins inside of their camp. So I did the quest to free halsen and. 02:21:06.50 Dave Ah, in the quest of free halsen Once you bust him out of the Jail he busts out and he's really pissed off and this big fight happens and then the fight just kept spilling into different areas and so the fight inside of like the Goblin fortress or whatever turned out to be like this. 02:21:25.78 Dave Hour and a half 2 hour long like extended fight where ah the only time I got a break from it was when there was a literal door separating like the inside of this place from the outside so I had to kill everybody inside slowly. 02:21:28.31 Jim For. 02:21:28.40 Chris Right. 02:21:45.68 Dave Like it. It was almost like it was almost like comical how like I would get in one fight and so like say there's like 5 people in this room and then I would kill 4 of them but it would spill out into the next room trying to get the fifth one and then the next room would agro and then. 02:21:45.79 Jim Um, and painfully so. 02:22:05.32 Dave Like someone would sound an alarm and so like people are coming from the next room after that and it was just like this seemingly endless thing and then finally everybody inside was dead and then I opened the door to go outside thinking like oh maybe they didn't hear what was going on. No, they're all aggroed as well. So I. 02:22:24.56 Dave Killed every single person every single thing in the Goblin Camp including I got that owlbear Cub killed which I felt bad about yeah, but yeah, that was ah that was mine I tried to finesse it a little bit. 02:22:34.86 Jim Um, two. Okay. 02:22:41.79 Dave But it turned into this just comical, never ending fight that was very hard early in the game but that's what I did. 02:22:52.89 Jim Going the stealth way can be fun. You can see that all the goblins outside the camp are drinking and you can just poison their drink and like they'll all die. Um, but like so the way that I did it was I joined the goblins. 02:22:56.58 Dave Yeah, yeah. 02:23:07.20 Dave Right. 02:23:09.89 Jim And massacred the druid grove and when do you do that? Ah, so Minthara wound up being one of the members of my party. Basically the whole game and she's a paladin. Um, and so we went into the druid grove and then. 02:23:18.10 Dave Right. 02:23:29.15 Jim There's a moment where she splits off and she heads to where all the tieflings are and all the goblins are heading to the druids. Well I was like I want her on my team so I was chasing her. She opens the door to where all the tieflings are and you literally have to. 02:23:46.40 Dave Jesus. 02:23:46.54 Jim Kill the women and the children I mean like they are yeah, it's horrifying like they are running. All of it is like running for their lives and you're like cutting them down. Um, it definitely made me feel like a bastard. So yeah. 02:23:50.25 Chris Ah, oh no. 02:23:59.33 Dave Ah, for yeah yeah. 02:24:00.60 Chris So I can't wait to do that on my next run. Yeah. 02:24:05.50 Jim But I mean you think about how often you encounter the tieflings in this game. They were gone so like you know they weren't at last light no dam on like they weren't in the refugee camps when you came to Riverton like me. 02:24:09.12 Dave Yeah, yeah. 02:24:24.68 Jim First game was you know I made these fundamental changes and it was like a totally different game playing through it as a good guy like all of a sudden I'm like wait a sec this guy's here. What's going on but they were dead in the first game cause I had to kill them. Yeah. 02:24:31.43 Dave Um, yeah. 02:24:36.81 Dave Yeah, and if you do that I assume that like Karlach will leave and yeah and Wyll. 02:24:45.20 Jim Ben and Gale are supposed to leave too. But I think the game glitch a little bit I never and on my evil playthrough I never gave him an item like to to suck in I was just like nope yeah can't deal with you right now. 02:24:57.67 Dave Okay. 02:25:04.89 Jim But I was passing all of my persuasion checks. So he kept sticking around. So um, he never left but I never used it and so here I am just murdering people which I find out later that Gale's like the nicest guy. Ah, but he hung with me. So. 02:25:19.19 Dave Um, gotcha all right? So Goblin camp was done that way. The other main thing in act one that I wrote down to talk about is the gith Yankee crash. Um I don't know if you can side with me. 02:25:36.18 Dave Ah, the Queen can you do you know. 02:25:37.33 Jim No, ah I tried to be a bastard to her and just not tell her anything and if you do that? Um, she uses a wish spell on you and kills you and it ends your run. Ah, so like you can party wipe there. 02:25:55.82 Jim It literally tells you like black if used wish like your game is over start over and it's like I guess so. 02:25:56.61 Chris That's crazy. 02:26:02.85 Dave Whoops. Ah so yeah I guess I guess you have to, so like if you go in there you will have to fight your way out because that was another one where I had to kill everyone to get out of that place. Okay. 02:26:16.56 Jim Yeah, they betray you no matter what? but. 02:26:20.40 Dave Gotcha um, yeah, anything else in act one ah that we want to mention I guess I'll mention ah the the 1 thing from my dark urge playthrough that I did see is ah if you're playing the dark urge and you are giving into the dark urge is ah ah. Wishes when you run across Gale and his arm is sticking out of the rock. Ah, your dark urge will tell you to just cut the hand off and you can and Gale will die and you'll just have a bloody arm in your hand. Um. 02:26:54.29 Jim Yep, amazing. 02:26:55.83 Chris Um, yeah I think a couple like a couple items I know like on the Nautiloid the very beginning of the game. Ah, you can pick up a couple items. The brains see I'm talking about and they will last you all away and like you can't use those things. 02:27:05.43 Dave Yeah, yeah, oh yeah. 02:27:06.41 Jim Yeah, yeah. 02:27:12.87 Chris For anything until like the end of act 2 essentially and then same with the necromancy of things. Do you guys do that quest, that is a quest that I save scummed and I because I just wanted to see what's going to happen with that thing like I was just so curious about it. It was one of those ones that. 02:27:17.17 Jim Um, oh my God Yes, that's the best film. 02:27:18.20 Dave I didn't I forgot. 02:27:30.80 Chris Really drew me in like a dungeon delving mystery What the fuck's going on Plus the item itself is like yellow when it gets into your bag. So it's like okay this is obviously worth something right? Um, and that you don't. 02:27:34.93 Dave Yeah. 02:27:37.60 Jim The. 02:27:40.80 Dave Right? I I found the crystal that you like put in the cover of the book and then as like a role playing decision I was like this is a bad idea. We're not doing this as opposed to the good idea that was letting volo dig around in my eye. 02:27:55.70 Chris Um, yeah, yeah, yeah. 02:27:57.96 Chris Exactly Yeah, but it's one of those cool things that's like so sorry, such a cool thing that you keep that thing in your bag not knowing what it's going to do forever until hours and hours and hours later when you finally need it. The cool thing about the brains is that if you don't have them in your bag. 02:27:58.75 Dave You know so. 02:28:17.49 Chris You'll never get to hear what they say and I didn't I didn't have those first 2 but they were my bank because there were 5 pounds each or five Kilograms whatever it is with units of measurement there and so I just I put them in my bank because they were just weighing me down and so once I got to that spot and I couldn't go back I was. 02:28:18.27 Jim Yeah, yeah. 02:28:25.21 Dave Right. 02:28:25.93 Jim So. 02:28:34.80 Chris Kind of disappointed I used some of the other ones but that you find in the Moonrise towers. But anyway, um, just there were those things in necromancy of Thay a really cool one I thought that was really good. Um, really fun design I guess. 02:28:49.39 Dave 1 other thing is ah on the nautiloid. What are they called? intellect ah devourers there's one that can apparently become like ah an npc later on. Ah. 02:28:58.44 Jim The devour. Yeah um. 02:28:59.82 Chris Um, devourers. 02:29:06.10 Dave That I killed right away when I saw it I was like you're bad news I'm killing them. But apparently that's not necessarily the case. So ah so Jim did you save that thing. Do you know? What's up with it? 02:29:18.85 Jim Ah, right away I killed it but in my other playthroughs I've used it. Um, it's actually a really strong tank at the beginning of the game and then later on essentially it's a gratified familiar. 02:29:26.25 Dave Okay, okay gotcha. 02:29:33.13 Chris Right? And then did you guys ever do a run where you killed the ah what the boss on the nautiloid. Yeah I didn't know how to do it and I did it with a friend in co-op mode. Um. 02:29:37.51 Jim Oh I've tried so many times. 02:29:47.12 Chris You kind of have to cheese a little bit. You gotta put some barrels in front of the door so that the bad guys don't come in and his reinforcements will come in but they won't if there's barrels in front of the way they just stand there and do nothing. Yeah, that's kind of the way to cheese that one and then you do have to be very lucky like with hits and misses and things like that because you'll miss. 02:29:51.50 Jim Okay, interesting. Okay. 02:30:03.34 Dave Yeah. 02:30:03.58 Jim Yeah, yeah, all incredible. Yeah, just 1d4 extra fire damage. Awesome. 02:30:06.39 Chris A lot. But if you do get lucky then you can bring him down and then the sword that he drops is like super op for any fighter or whatever that you have so that was kind of fun. Yeah. 02:30:15.15 Dave Nice. Oh oh, an extra side quest that starts in act one is anti ey which is ah was one of my favorites. Just from act one when I thought it was a one-off side Quest and then she comes back in act 3 and I was like holy shit. Ah so um, in act one I was able to save the woman that she had captured and that was really awesome. 02:30:36.00 Jim Ah, you. 02:30:46.29 Dave Like because you have to fight like the the little fucking mushroom gnomes or whatever outside her her little like evil gnome servants or whatever and then you have to go into her lair and it took me a long time to figure out like how to deal with the masks. 02:30:55.77 Jim Yeah, yeah, um. 02:31:05.60 Dave To get in because you have to wear one of those masks to get through the door. But if everyone's wearing the masks and you go too far then they get mind controlled by her and then at the end. Ah the woman you're trying to save is in this cage and it's burning and it was like ah like a light bulb went off and it was like. 02:31:12.62 Chris Um, yeah. 02:31:14.64 Jim Yep. 02:31:24.34 Dave I know how to put out fire like this game is reactive. You can use water or ice spells to put out a fire. So like sorry lady but I got to shoot this with an ice ah spell you'll survive. It's going to hurt but like the cage will survive so I was able to save her that way. But. Was like a really really long and involved quest line and like tons of strategy to get to the end of it. But I loved that it was really good. 02:31:52.85 Jim That was some really good d and DSD and d in that whole hag thing. Um I love when ah you get you free her and then she's like mad at you like she's like I had a plan you ask. 02:32:07.71 Chris Yeah, yeah. 02:32:09.20 Jim And then I was trying to do the evil thing. So I raised her husband up like and and oh it's so funny because you raise him and she's like getting all upset and your character literally has like this. 02:32:11.76 Dave Ah, I did that too. Yeah then I felt bad and reloaded. 02:32:25.30 Jim This thing that you can say where he folds his arms and cocks his head to the side and it's like look. It's your husband. Do you want him or not and she'll take it and like take him to town and he's just a zombie hilarious I loved that. 02:32:30.13 Chris Yeah, yeah. 02:32:31.48 Dave Um, so yeah. 02:32:39.58 Chris Honestly thought that quest with the hag fight getting through the poison clouds and everything that was probably the most difficult thing in act one and like for like scaling with power level like where you are probably 1 of the more difficult ah encounters that I had within the whole game. 02:32:43.88 Dave Yeah. 02:32:53.98 Dave Yeah, yeah, it was that and ah the fight against the get yankee warriors with the dragon like next to that bridge those are the 2 hardest fights in act one for me for sure. 02:33:04.74 Chris Ah, yeah. 02:33:08.73 Jim Ah, did you guys? Um, how'd you fare against the giant Automaton Grym like I thought he was hard. 02:33:16.77 Chris Oh yeah, no I had to I had to kill him I had to do that fight a couple times before I got it I was tough was that act one that is act 1 02:33:21.80 Jim Yeah I got spanked by him. 02:33:25.60 Dave Ah, is that that in the for act ah act 2 okay okay so it's okay, yeah, that was tough I had to I had to try that several times and like you know. 02:33:29.50 Jim It's like 1.5 because I thought act 2 is basically all just the shadow lands. 02:33:34.99 Chris Yeah. 02:33:42.71 Dave Try and line up like the lava and then like the smasher to come down and hit him. Yeah. 02:33:48.14 Chris Yeah I think there were some weird pathing things that sometimes made it a little bit janky. But um, yeah, there was a it was in though that was another fight that was just very yeah, had to reload it a couple times really think about what to do here I think just because my party makeup also didn't. 02:33:50.30 Dave Yeah. 02:34:05.71 Chris Wasn't conducive to like um like his resistances and things like that and I didn't quite put it together until like a couple attempts that you could just smash him like I thought I just had to like whittle him down. So. 02:34:09.14 Jim Yeah, yeah. 02:34:15.96 Dave Right? right. 02:34:18.83 Jim I was Tex and Dave before this on this dual playthrough that we're doing. We've had to intentionally cheese. A lot of things and it actually is very funny like the git yankee crash because they are all militaristic warriors. They don't care if you just start a fight there. In their like house so you can just kill all of them and unlike the goblin camp where the fight will spill out. They just accept that. So like you'll you'll just go through room by room killing them and the rest of them will still be friendly to you? Um, but grim forage. Yeah. 02:34:49.78 Dave Yeah. 02:34:51.64 Chris Oh weird. Yeah because I don't remember killing a lot of them at all I remember kind of walking out of there but I killed I killed the God lady or whatever. 02:34:58.80 Dave Um, ah yeah, like once once the Queen had decided that we were the enemies then everybody turned hostile on me. But. 02:34:59.39 Jim Um, Wow. Ah. 02:35:13.17 Chris Ah, yeah I think so? Yeah I don't know, that's weird. 02:35:16.20 Jim Ah, when I was texting Dave before this we had to choose that big automaton grym and I stood. You don't have to go down into the fight arena so my buddy did and I stood up above him. Lobbing hammers at him and I was doing like 80 damage a hit because he's vulnerable to bludgeoning. It's so dumb. 02:35:34.30 Dave Nice, nice. 02:35:39.21 Chris I Do remember that? Yeah, the bludgeoning Thing. So I remember picking like going back into the grymforge like the cave areas and looking for things that had bludgeoning damage and just giving them to everyone in my party so I could just do a little bit more damage. 02:35:57.32 Dave Yeah, ah, okay, so act one I think we've covered most of the stuff in act one um act and we're saving character quests for later when we'll talk about our favorite character quests kind of all in 1 and I know most of them start in act one? Um, so act 2 in the shadow curse lands doing the moonrise tower quest and meeting Ketheric Thorm. Um, so the first thing in act 2 I think like 1 of the first decisions that you'll make is ah you get a. Guide or at least I did um I got a guide I passed like a performance check to play the guitar and ah minthara's guitar or her lute or whatever which helps this call this big spider guide who has one of the lanterns that can guide you through the shadowlands. Ah, two moonrise tower and ah along the way I had to make a choice of whether to stick with the evil looking spider guy or to join up with the harpers when the harpers attacked that caravan so I killed the spider guy, took the lantern and joined up with the harpers. Ah, that seemed like the right thing to do um but I kind of convinced them that I was part of the absolute cult until that point and then you know they got mad when I betrayed them or whatever but I needed that lantern that was the main thing it was like it was less about like I want to join the harpers and more like. 02:37:30.94 Dave This is my chance to kill this guy and steal that lantern so that I can walk around in this place. 02:37:39.11 Jim Ah, yeah, you got to figure out how to get through first. I stayed on their side, killed the harpers and just went all the way to Moonrise and you basically just kind of. 02:37:42.82 Dave Okay, there you go. 02:37:52.70 Jim Cause you have a tadpole so you are what they keep calling you a true, a true soul. Um, and so you just kind of get free reign there and and they just are like oh well, you're just like 1 of us so we became their buddies. Um I'll get into the next part in a bit cause it's again, just. 02:37:54.58 Dave Um, yeah. 02:37:55.58 Chris Yeah I am. 02:38:11.17 Dave Gets gnarly. Yeah, so Chris did you side with the harpers. 02:38:12.45 Jim Going Super gruesome. Yeah. 02:38:14.59 Chris I Kind of have some regret? No I didn't. I don't know why but I feel like there was nothing that said like who's a good guy or bad guy and maybe that's just how the game is right? but I just thought well this guy's helping me out the spider dudes guiding me. 02:38:32.91 Chris Kind of won his moon lantern. It didn't occur to me I think like I said before like playing through the game. The first run you just learn how to play the game. It didn't occur to me to just kill a guy and steal his lantern or whatever like or this guy looks evil he should die and I'll take his lantern. So just like this guy's helping me. He was just like an mpc that just was getting me from 1 place to another. That's kind of how I viewed him so my regret is that I went pretty much straight to moonrise towers. I did the stuff in the bar which was kind of fun. Um, but I missed pretty much everything that has to do with last light in. 02:38:52.65 Dave Right. 02:39:07.86 Jim Wow. 02:39:10.30 Chris Because I pick I progressed the story um through moonrise towers um pretty quick and I did some other stuff like I did the Sharon ah, the buff you can get from there which was really helpful for quite a long time if you know I'm talking about where you go underground and get that temporary buff though that was really good. 02:39:29.82 Chris A few other things but I didn't even see last light in until I had finished all the moonrise towers and it was telling me to go to act 3 essentially and I was like well there's still part of the map that I haven't even explored so I went over there and I found this in and I was like last night in that's what everybody talks about online about like where good vendors are and stuff and I was like I thought that was. 02:39:37.24 Jim Wow. 02:39:49.10 Chris In Baldur's gate I thought that was in act 3 and so once I got there only wolburn was there and he was like oh can you help me out help my friend if he can find you dude and so I went back to the moonrise prison like everyone's no one's there like at all so I was. 02:39:49.65 Dave Right. 02:40:07.12 Chris Kind of miffed on that. So definitely on the next play through I'll make sure I actually do some of that last light stuff. Um, after I like Halsin leaves my party because I didn't do any of his quests to like I guess help rejuvenate the land or whatever like I missed out on actually for warlock. 02:40:10.30 Dave Yeah. 02:40:25.42 Chris The best robes that you can get for your cantrips for your eldritch Blast is ah sold by the tiefling who the tiefling bard who you meet up with a few times. Yeah, if you help her out and I missed out on that so I felt real bad like. 02:40:34.60 Dave Oh yeah, okay. 02:40:34.60 Jim Yes, she gives them to you and. So. 02:40:45.16 Chris Ah, but anyway I missed a whole last light in stuff completely. So yeah. 02:40:47.50 Dave Interesting. Yeah, there's a lot of good stuff ah tied in with the last light in like the quest to cleanse the shadow curse lands that was really good. Really tough fight at the end of that one. Um. 02:41:02.60 Chris Um, oh man. 02:41:02.68 Dave The last light inn has jaheira in there who is a character from baldur's gate 1 and two who I was happy to see because that's it's the first character from baldur's gate 1 and 2 that you meet is jaheira at least to my knowledge unless there's a. 02:41:06.53 Jim Yep. 02:41:14.89 Chris She pops up though at the Ketheric Thorm fight Once you're doing that she pops up even if you haven't met her yet. So. 02:41:22.71 Dave Right? Yeah, yeah, right? Um, so I was happy to see her and then that gave me hope that because she was here that maybe some other characters from Balder's gate 1 and two would be here and they were later on. So. 02:41:37.34 Jim Oh. 02:41:40.50 Dave Ah, that was cool. Let's see in the shadow cursed lands um the ah quest with the under dark not the under. No that's in act one the Underdark gnomes and like the mushroom ah people was a weird quest. 02:41:55.96 Chris Was weird but it was good. 02:41:56.18 Jim Yeah. 02:41:59.12 Dave I got like some mushroom blessing from that that I never used for the entire game. I have no idea what it did um and ah in the shadow cursed lands. That's where you do the night song quest um. 02:42:15.28 Dave And that ties in with characters at Moonrise Tower as well because there's one of the dudes that's hunting the night song works for Ketheric Thorm I think so I told I was kind of like yeah yeah, sure I'll go do that for you? Whatever and then like I did that and then went back and killed him later like. 02:42:15.71 Chris That's really good. 02:42:34.76 Dave Ah, so that was cool because shadow heart was in my party so the night song quest ah was part of her story. Also she wants to go kill the night song in the name of shar and I convinced her not to. 02:42:48.91 Jim You have to have it if you don't have her in your party when you go in there. She will permanently leave like she's like I'm done with you. 02:42:48.98 Chris Oh, the same was really good. 02:42:58.18 Dave Okay, yes, yeah I mean kind of like yeah you're not helping me with the thing that I like the 1 thing that I want to do so yeah I'm out I'm going to go do that thing. 02:43:12.16 Jim Act 2 is you can really kind of Fast track it because almost all the act 2 has like a lot of like mini bosses like there's these you know 3 different ones in town. There's the tollkeeper and then the barkeeper and um. 02:43:25.00 Dave Yeah, yeah. 02:43:28.35 Jim Surgeon and you can talk your way through all of them you can outdrink the bar keep and it will kill him which is very funny. 02:43:33.37 Dave Oh that's good I remember doing the ah the Surgeon Quest where you can convince him to let his students operate on him and just be like you kind of if I remember right? you kind of question his dedication to the whole thing. 02:43:34.41 Chris Yeah, that was my ending for him. Unfortunately, he exploded. 02:43:49.67 Chris Yeah. 02:43:51.85 Dave And that convinces him to let the students in and that really hurts him a lot and it makes that boss fight a lot easier. 02:43:58.79 Jim Yeah, ah the as an evil playthrough so you go talk to ketherrick initially and then they're like oh you need to go get this chick name Isabel from last light. So. 02:44:10.17 Dave Right. 02:44:13.52 Jim Um I helped abduct her and when you do that the moon shield falls over last night and everybody dies to the shadow curse. Um, so every single person except for Jaheira so then you know where I am. 02:44:24.46 Chris Ah, oh no, yeah. 02:44:32.70 Jim I've I've ended all of this and all of them when they die they become shades. So then all of a sudden you've got to fight your way out of last light and and I remember we fought our way out and I like Jahiro was like you know who did this and I just so was like oh won me and she believed me and so she joined me. 02:44:33.88 Dave Yeah. 02:44:51.18 Jim There was this really interesting thing and I'm gonna come back to it in a little bit at the end when I kind of talk about Evil versus good playthrough in this game. They you can tell and I get it. You only have so much time to do this. They only made one cut scene for a lot of these things So you're supposed to have. 02:45:10.21 Jim The teiflings there when this moon shield falls but in act one I killed all of them so all of a sudden this this scene starts to play out where the camera is like hyper focused on this dead teifling and then it pans over to Jaheira being really upset and I was like what what. 02:45:13.34 Dave Right. 02:45:28.96 Jim Did I miss that character like why is that a big deal but I just didn't realize that you know the tieflings were supposed to be there and instead I was just killing everyone along the way. Yes. 02:45:37.81 Dave Right? Yeah, that makes sense. 02:45:39.42 Chris Yeah, yeah, there's definitely some like I found that in act 3 There's definitely some people who have animosity towards you like I've never met you. What are you talking about like I've never talked to you before? yeah. 02:45:51.21 Dave Um, um so I think it's at the end of act 2 that ah Gale's quest will give him the option to detonate. As a way to kill. Um is it the elder brain that he's trying to kill by doing that Jim have you ever let him do that. 02:46:12.35 Chris Yeah. 02:46:13.76 Jim Um, yeah, and it ends your game. Um it it that is so it he. 02:46:19.85 Dave Imagine that happening on honor mode and you're just like okay well. 02:46:28.60 Jim Um, it is. I think that one doesn't actually count because like you and I'm using air quotes here you win when that happens ah like Gale goes in and there's this brief cut scene where it's like this is an end of sorts. Um, but. 02:46:33.96 Dave Okay I see. 02:46:45.17 Jim It then talks about how a bunch of people are undergoing Sarah Morphus as turning into mine flares and like now the sword coast just has to deal with that. 02:46:53.26 Chris Oh man. 02:46:54.90 Dave Ah, okay gotcha. Yeah I didn't let him do it. Um, I had considered it. But then I just forgot because he wasn't in my party. So yeah. 02:47:05.50 Chris Yes, I'm here and then they were just saying like oh I wasn't in range I wasn't around I couldn't do it and everyone was like disappointed I was like was I was he supposed to be like I feel like it would have not been right or like what kind of ending could have that been like. 02:47:20.51 Dave Right? Yeah, I kind of trusted that they would have done something interesting with it if it wasn't kind of a nonstandard like game over or ending or something like that. But yeah, he just like. 02:47:20.89 Chris Does it not kill the brain. So then who cares if you were there or not like yeah. 02:47:39.39 Dave Was just there and nothing really came of it either like with his story like there was no punishment for him not doing it really? So um I stormed Moonrise Tower and basically fought my way up with the harpers. Um. 02:47:58.18 Dave And this was the part of the game where I figured out that you can cancel spells that you're concentrating on because I would use like like the cloud of flies spell or like the the Cloud of Daggers I think it's called I would use a bunch of those in combat all the time and then after combat and the. 02:48:17.46 Dave At the like the bottom of Moonrise Tower My like flies or ah blades spells would still be going and the harpers would just walk through them and die and then they would Agro and start fighting me and be like dude you like fuck it like this not my fault. So. 02:48:34.90 Dave Then I figured out, "Oh, hidden down in the corner of the screen is a tiny little X if you click that you'll stop concentrating on those spells”. But yeah, we fought our way up. Um, there was like a brief time because I think the way it works is even if you fight your way up from the bottom. 02:48:53.86 Dave You can still talk to Kathrick and he'll still try to deal with you and then you can choose whether you want to work with him or go actually fight the rest of those fights. 02:49:07.43 Jim It's sort of interesting because like I killed the night song so ah I I wound up walking in and I actually did bring shadow heart with me for that one part because you get a. 02:49:10.15 Dave Okay. 02:49:22.58 Jim Get a really awesome spear that I used for a lot less time than I should actually but um so I killed the night song and then once you do that Kethrick is mortal and so it means that you basically declared war on him anyways, so. 02:49:22.90 Dave Right. 02:49:41.80 Jim I had to assault moonrise tower by myself. Ah, which I did but by this time I had my full party. I didn't mention my other 2 people earlier but it was me Astarian Minthara and then Jaheira was my fourth one running through it. 02:49:57.45 Dave Gotcha. 02:49:58.96 Jim So we just assaulted it ourselves and yeah, and. 02:50:03.82 Chris Yeah I feel like ah she night song wasn't super helpful in the last fight anyway, at least in my playthrough she got knocked down um and stunned like consecutively so she did she got like 1 attack off on Ketheric. But. 02:50:21.80 Chris I think I had under control. It wasn't a big deal. Um. 02:50:24.34 Dave Yeah, that wasn't a super hard fight against Kathrick um I think the night song did some work in that fight with me. So yeah, that was not super tough the fight after that when you're fighting like that. That like god ah, the avatar that was harder than yeah. 02:50:44.40 Jim The avatar. I Thought that was the best fight. I Thought that was the best kind of big bad guy in the whole game. 02:50:46.20 Chris Um, yeah, that was a cool fight. Yeah, the cut scene leading up to is great. 02:50:58.37 Chris I Think that's like a that's like a cover art or like a box art scene. You could definitely put the game in my opinion that just the stages like the battlefield in the rain is really really cool. The graphics of them is really really cool. 02:50:59.65 Dave Um, interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 02:51:13.18 Dave Yeah, for sure. Um, and that's the point where you kind of realize what's actually going on with the story. It's like where the story pushes forward where you find out like these kind of champions of these old gods are. Ah, being used by the absolute and like this elder brain is ah you might figure out that. Yeah I think you do know it's an elder brain. That's like behind this whole thing. Um, at that point so getting some kind of resolution on what. The big bad actually is because for a long time like by the end of act 2 it's like 60 hours of game. You're like I don't know what the absolute is like who leads the absolute the cult and stuff like that. So you finally get that answer um and then like the new quest is to get the three netherstones. 02:52:06.49 Dave Ah, that will help you fight against the power of the elder brain. You get the first one from Catherrick Thorne there and then in act 3 you're trying to get the other two. So that's ah ah that the only other thing in act 2 that I had written down is that um. 02:52:24.85 Dave They did humanize Ketheric a little bit ah with his backstory and how he was always thinking about his daughter who is Isabelle the 1 they were trying to kidnap from the last light and Isabelle's also in a relationship with the night song so 02:52:44.35 Dave Yeah, yeah, pretty ah, pretty cool there. 02:52:44.60 Chris Is there a way to spare him or does he always die in the end. Okay, yeah, there's just a lot of dialogue options. That's like we can help you is not over like but who but I thought maybe if there was something that I missed. But yeah. 02:52:51.47 Jim Ah, you have to kill him no matter what. 02:52:55.46 Dave Yeah, he I think I tried to talk my way through that and he was very much like not it's too late for all that now. 02:53:05.45 Chris Yeah, yeah, same. 02:53:05.82 Jim Yeah if you pass all the persuasion checks. He will dive into the pool by himself and then you have to fight the avatar early but it's not like yeah I actually think okay. 02:53:16.10 Dave I see. 02:53:20.39 Chris That's what happened with me earlier fighting him then oh I don't even know what the other option would have been then all you fight catherrick First in that no I got to do the rooftop. Yeah. 02:53:26.29 Jim Usually you have to take him down first. Um, but. 02:53:26.39 Dave Yeah, yeah, there's a fight like on a rooftop you fight him? okay. 02:53:37.50 Jim Um, if you keep the spider alive the spider appears on that rooftop. Yeah and he's hard. 02:53:40.67 Chris Yeah, yeah I had to kill him in that fight too, that was annoying. 02:53:47.38 Dave Yeah I don't know when you fight the spider out in the shadow lands like when the harper's attack. He went down pretty quick but there's a lot of chaos in that rooftop fight. So. 02:53:47.87 Chris Yeah. 02:53:58.63 Chris Also Night song is ah like terrifyingly badass she stops Stomps people's skulls and shit that's like just that's one of the more disturbing scenes I think when she goes on her rampage. 02:54:02.54 Dave Um, yeah. 02:54:15.00 Jim I Love her spells. Um, what are you doing when she would go like super sand and all of a sudden she would be casting moonlight on herself. 02:54:15.46 Chris You can even see your characters like kind of like stand back and look at it like what the fuck do you. 02:54:28.57 Jim Plus she'd be dumping smites. I thought I want to play with the night song as a character. 02:54:30.91 Chris Um, yeah. 02:54:34.26 Dave Um, yeah. 02:54:36.49 Chris That's kind of a bummer because like anytime that she was there. She just got like I said and on the rooftop she got knocked down and then like paralyzed or stunned or something right after that she didn't really do much. She did 1 attack on Katherrick and that was it and then in the basement fight with the avatar. She. 02:54:53.57 Chris Like I saved her as soon as I could and got her out of her binds or whatever but I don't think she ever even made it up to the platform to make any attacks on maybe just like as I was very efficient and like killed things really quickly. Maybe that was the reason why I don't know. 02:55:09.66 Chris We should have given people a little more time to stretch their legs. 02:55:13.38 Dave Um, okay so ah, that is act 2 unless there's something else that we miss about act 2 02:55:22.68 Chris Um, I would say when you get that sharren buff from that like you did the little puzzle I rode that shit out for as long as possible. it's strong, it's like plus 5 to your main ability point. Um. 02:55:37.96 Chris If you get it on everybody. Do you know what? I'm talking about it. So there's like it's kind of near the doctor's hospital place or whatever it's called. Um, there's this little puzzle. It's like ah looks like a fountain and if you solve the puzzle it opens up a door you go downstairs and you like. 02:55:40.24 Dave Huh No I don't honestly. 02:55:56.91 Chris Pass some wisdom and ah different checks and stuff like that and you can do it for like a plus 5 charisma buff which I was playing warlocks perfect I think there was a plus 5 wisdom that I had on one character on my on my shadow heart and a plus five strength on Lae'zel and I just. 02:56:16.38 Chris I rode that as far as I could and people said I wrote online like people said like I'll do that right before the catholic fight because there's no time limit to it. You could just go do that first and then have it to long rest. But I just like would I refuse to go long rest for so long just to keep that buff. But yeah. 02:56:16.75 Dave Nice. 02:56:28.88 Dave Oh okay. 02:56:35.86 Dave That makes sense. 1 other thing I guess ah is it in act 2 it all kind of runs together is it in act 2 when you find out who your spectral guardian really is act 3 okay. 02:56:36.30 Chris Anyway. 02:56:46.43 Jim No wait. Yeah, that's act 3 That's like right at the beginning of act 3 02:56:52.76 Dave Okay, so at the beginning of act 3 then let's ah, let's move in. So ah, you find out your spectral guardian is like trapped in the like spectral plane but is actually a mind flayer in hiding and it's it. It. 02:57:11.70 Dave Up until this point you I personally I guess I don't want to assume that you all had the same thing because who the fuck knows with this game but I had started to kind of question whether the spectral Guardian was really on my side or whether they were just trying to use me to some purpose. And I thought the writing and stuff with that was really good and then you find out that it's actually this big mind flayer. Ah which puts another complication in things because the whole game until now has been teaching you not to trust them that they're bad except for the one that's hanging out with the mushroom people in the underdark that one's chill. 02:57:45.66 Chris Right. 02:57:48.45 Dave Ah, this was a really interesting, really unexpected ah thing that comes up and so you have this new character that reveals their true self to you ah called the emperor that you talk to throughout. Act 3 and act 3 is fucking long like thirty forty hours for me of my hundred hours was act 3 so that was cool. Um I guess the big question here is did you have sex with the emperor. 02:58:23.47 Chris Oh yeah, yeah du I am I'm ah the 11.4% of players on steam who have that achievement so Yolo. 02:58:26.77 Jim Ah. 02:58:32.19 Dave Okay, hell yeah I did not yeah I did not I was very faithful to ah to to shadow heart faithful in the sense that like I was not going to have sex with the emperor but I was going to try and like see what Karlach was up to. 02:58:32.41 Jim Incredible, incredible. 02:58:49.58 Dave I was not able to romance Karlach, but it was me and shadowheart. 02:58:56.22 Jim I was going for minthara the whole time and so I did not sleep with the emperor. But I did sleep with those drow twins in the brothel. 02:58:58.92 Dave Yeah, first. Oh yeah, yeah I did that too. 02:59:10.48 Jim With Astarion. 02:59:10.82 Chris Ah, dude I don't even know there was a brothel fuck Dude I was a little slut in my playthrough I has a room. Um Yeah I Think the first I slept with Lae'zel and then she was just like. I'll use you as when I want like that was her whole thing like we're not in a relationship I Just yeah, you're my plaything pretty much it. Um and then yeah slip with the emperor because I know he wanted it So fuck it I just wanted to see what was going on there. 02:59:27.50 Dave Yeah, you slept with Lae’zel 10 minutes into the game when she asks for it. Yeah. 02:59:45.92 Chris Um, the dialogue said that it was the most incredible experience that you think you will ever have or some shit like that. Um, yeah, and then I was like will was like romancing a lot but he would never put out. Um. 02:59:49.43 Dave Yeah I heard the dialogue is really good. Yeah. 02:59:53.79 Jim Ah. 03:00:02.94 Dave Huh. 03:00:04.41 Chris He was like oh let's just dance. Oh let's just talk over here. Let's have ah some wine but and then I slept with Mizora and ah that pissed him off real bad. So yeah, yeah, well you don't really sleep there. You kind of float with her. It's weird. But um, anyway. 03:00:05.42 Jim Ah. 03:00:12.20 Dave Oh I didn't even I didn't even know you could do that. That's interesting. Got you. 03:00:18.14 Jim Ah, do. 03:00:23.12 Dave I was very anti-Mizora in my playthrough because she was fucking with multiple characters in my party so I was like can you just like leave um and then the other ah s sexual escapade was the um, the 1 in Raphael's palace 03:00:41.43 Jim Yeah, like the incubus or whatever. 03:00:42.91 Dave Ah yeah, his sex you know plaything or whatever. Um, yeah, it was very. It was very funny. Ah. 03:00:48.87 Jim Which is just him I it's his voice actor and everything it looks just like him. 03:00:49.21 Chris Right Is it really. 03:00:58.99 Chris Ah, okay, interesting. 03:01:00.12 Dave Um, my character almost died during that. Um you have to pass a check to not like literally get fucked to death in that like it it it. 03:01:10.40 Jim What oh my God ah. 03:01:11.44 Chris Awesome! Ah, that's incredible. 03:01:14.53 Dave It's like ah I don't know I don't know if it's concentration or willpower or something like that. But ah like the text is saying like you are losing control of yourself like you have to snap back into reality here or you'll never come back. So yeah. 03:01:30.12 Jim Incredible. Oh my God if you sleep with Halsin I mean this is like the famous one but he turns into a bear in the middle of it. 03:01:33.94 Dave Is really good. Right? Yeah so I I tried to do this when it was like time to hook up with shadowheart I tried to turn my character into an animal and you can't so I was like. 03:01:42.41 Chris Um, yeah. 03:01:55.17 Dave I Think it's going to happen the next time I talk with her at night in the camp. So I'm going to turn into a badger and then do the long rest and it just doesn't work. You turn back into human form when you go back into camp. Yeah, but you don't want to like what you don't want to like? ah. 03:02:08.34 Jim And cowards. 03:02:14.44 Dave Draw and animate a badger having sex with a human, like what's wrong with you people. Yeah that that seems yeah, that's problematic. Yeah, ah so okay, um, act 3 so act 3 starts outside of the city. 03:02:18.11 Jim Ah, yeah, exactly. 03:02:21.38 Chris They'll do it for a bear but not a badger that's just racist. 03:02:27.82 Chris Um, yeah. 03:02:33.41 Dave And then um, act 3 is all within the city of baldur's gate. It is wildly dense with stuff to do. It's probably has the most side quests of any of the 3 acts. Um, there is so much going on here. Ah, the main thing is that there are 2 people that have the netherstones named gortash and orin gortash is like has like weaseled his way into power within the city and Orin is just this fucking bloodthirsty shape shifter ah lady. And I don't really know what she wants other than to kill people. Actually I do know what she wants. She's a ball span. So um, she wants to help ah ball come back or something like that. Um, so ah, speaking of Orin you meet Sarevok in ah. 03:03:29.50 Dave Act 3 another returning character from Baldur's gate. One. He was the bad guy in Balder's gate 1 and then um, came back in the throne of bahl dlc for baldur's gate 2 I think if I remember right? Ah Sarevok is really hard anytime you get into a fight and it's like you're capped at level. 12 and it's like oh Sarahvox Level 16 good luck like that was a really tough fight but it was crazy to see Sarevok as another returning character and like very small benefits from playing baldur's gate 1 and 2 but that was one of them when I walked in the room. 03:04:08.59 Dave And it was like sarevok with this deep badass voice talking to me and I was like oh no, he's back. 03:05:25.77 Jim I really liked in Rivington where Orin could, because she's a doppelganger could appear all over the city as different people that really offered a really like it was kind of freaky. 03:05:34.43 Dave Yeah, yeah. 03:05:44.37 Jim Um, the first few times I saw it happen and really made her a pretty , I think imposing like a scary presence. 03:05:51.97 Dave Yeah, yeah, you like talk to a blacksmith and then it turns out it was her and she's just like Ha you know I can you know I do this shit whenever I want um, did ah so does she always kidnap somebody. Okay. 03:06:06.90 Jim Yeah, yeah. 03:06:08.94 Dave So ah in my game she kidnapped Halsson um, which was lucky for me because I had never used halsen. Um, yeah, because like I was a druid so I didn't need another druid in the party. So yeah. 03:06:15.70 Chris Yeah, throwaway character just kidding. 03:06:23.96 Chris Yeah, she kidnapped Gale for me and I don't. I don't use Gale but I know that he's kind of a big part of the story so it was like very pressing for me to save him. 03:06:25.64 Dave Ah, who did she kidnap for you guys ? 03:06:33.83 Dave Right. 03:06:40.98 Jim Ah, yeah, I was a wizard so I wasn't using Gale but um, Wyll and Karlach had left my party I had to kill Lae'zel. So like there was no one else for him to hurt, probably kidnapped but Gale um, and. 03:06:51.59 Dave Um, right. 03:06:55.99 Jim And then unfortunately Gale died like I wasn't able to save him. When I got to the temple he was alive but then she killed him and he was gone. 03:07:01.80 Dave Yeah, yeah, she killed the fuck out of halsin like brutally killed him in my game like I got there but I couldn't remember I don't remember what it is. You have to save the person that she kidnaps. But. 03:07:07.59 Chris Really. 03:07:21.76 Dave I was not able to do that and Halsin got stabbed up like a hundred times. It was pretty rough. 03:07:29.63 Chris Yeah, her characters. Her case is very interesting. I don't know. I like that kind of psycho weirdo aspect of a character and I'm glad that her shit wasn't pushed too much into the game because it feels like 1 of those characters that you know. If they're on screen too much then it can get a little overwhelming but when she does come on screen. She is very sort of impactful. I remember she posed like a reporter ah for me like I think right in front of the Wyrm’s crossing I think is what it's called. Um. 03:08:08.38 Chris But like I think my character kind of figured it out that it wasn't a real reporter in a mid conversation because you would ask weird questions in then my character one of the dialogue options was like ah yeah, these questions are kind of strange who exactly are you reporting for and then she like she like shifted back into Orin and then. 03:08:19.29 Jim Yeah. 03:08:23.56 Dave Nice I thought her character was cool too because I'm not always down for a Psycho Killer with no other type of personality like those who kind of rub me the wrong way but having the context from Baldur's gate. 03:08:38.25 Chris Yeah. 03:08:43.40 Dave 2 or baldur's gate one. Both of those where she is ah a follower of ah or a descendant of bahl because she's Sarevok’s granddaughter and Sarevok is a Bhaalspawn, and Bhaal is the god of murder. So if you're following. 03:09:01.86 Dave Bhaal, the teachings of bhaal or whatever then that's what you are, You are a Bloodthirsty Murderer Basically so I thought that like you know that just snapped right into place with things that I already knew so that worked really well for me, it was like yeah of course she's a. 03:09:16.61 Chris Um, yeah. 03:09:19.63 Dave Bloodthirsty Maniac She is a worshiper or and a descendant of the God of Murder which I always think is just ah, a wonderful God to have in your lore right? like the God of murder. 03:09:30.13 Jim Yeah, what a pantheon. 03:09:37.94 Chris Did you? ah you guys read a lot of books and letters and stuff like that that you picked up along the way. 03:09:41.62 Dave Nah Not really. 03:09:42.22 Jim Yeah I kept ah I kept like a library like in my stash was a bag where I kept all of them and. 03:09:46.90 Dave Nice. 03:09:47.36 Chris Yeah, same here. Yeah, there's like 400 things in there that yeah I mean yeah, there's like if you go into orans like well I'm using air quotes here bedroom because it's not really a bedroom. There's ah, there's some really good stuff actually all throughout that like a little temple. 03:09:55.68 Dave Right. 03:10:05.28 Chris Um, there's really good ah like books and parchments and things like that papers that kind of give you more insight into how weird she is which was interesting. Yeah. 03:10:09.34 Jim You can speak to dead and talk to that corpse in there. It's her mother and it and. 03:10:17.13 Chris I Need to do that more on my next playthrough because I always forget that that's like a thing you talk to her mom that's crazy. 03:10:17.29 Dave Um, oh yeah, yeah, me too. Yeah. 03:10:26.89 Jim It's actually that's a lot of fun because her mom is like oh you know she killed me but I was trying to kill her because they're all followers of all like exactly like um if you are not the dark urge and you go into what is her bedroom. There is a. 03:10:34.28 Chris Well yeah, 2 03:10:34.57 Dave Um, yeah, they're all just trying to kill each other. Yeah. 03:10:45.83 Jim Corpse of a white dragonborn laying on the ground that is the dark urge so they exist in the game. Even if you don't play as them. They are just dead by the time you meet them. Yeah. 03:10:48.21 Dave Oh okay. 03:10:51.17 Chris Oh interesting. 03:10:56.29 Dave Interesting. That's cool. So is there something special that happens if you go there when you have the dark urge. 03:11:07.92 Jim No, I guess I'll just dump that part here when you are the dark urge. It turns out you are a bhaalspawn. Um, yeah, and then you actually are Bhaal’s chosen. So um. 03:11:09.29 Dave Yeah, yet. Okay, that makes sense. 03:11:17.19 Chris Oh okay. 03:11:26.70 Jim He favored you and you have like this little servant like he it's like ah it's like a goblin that looks like if you ever saw the Bond movie. Um, ah, live and let die. And that as a goblin and he's like your butler um and he just shows up in like talks to you sometimes Well if you are the dark urge you wind up finding out that you are actually the one that concocted the whole Scheme. You're the one that. 03:11:45.80 Dave Ah, okay. 03:12:03.10 Jim Found the colony of um of mind flayers you were like if we tadpole everyone and then use this nether crown, steal it, put it on a nether brain and then we could control everyone and so you convinced gortash to go with you. And then along the way. Um, Orin basically kind of betrays. You flips the script on you, captures you and tadpoles you and that's why you have no memories of you. 03:12:33.21 Dave Okay, that's cool like I like because that's the plot of Baldur's gate 1 and 2 is you're a bhaalspawn and ah, you're working your way through and eventually at the end of Balder's gate to um. 03:12:34.22 Chris Interesting. 03:12:50.29 Dave You can get like that or during baldur's gate 2 You can get that slayer ah form that Orin turns into in the fight where you fight her ah you can do that too and um, there is a lot of stuff especially in the throne of bhaal dlc in Balder's gate 2 about. 03:13:00.18 Jim Yep. 03:13:09.78 Dave Like fighting against your nature or accepting your nature as a ball spn and stuff like that. So I guess maybe I should have figured out that that was what that dark urge was, that bhaalspawn nature that like chaotic evil type of ah nature there. 03:13:27.73 Dave So and I don't mean chaotic evil as in I know D and D alignments just like literally chaotic evil just fuck it kill everybody? Um, yeah. 03:13:32.42 Jim Yeah, and you're like eating everyone too as the archerage like you're always eating body parts. 03:13:41.45 Dave Yeah, so ah that that's cool and a nice way to tie in with what those first 2 games were about. 03:13:51.28 Jim And as the dark urge I can tell you, you really do feel like you're the main character like it's almost like there's more game included with it. Um, because of how much more you can do and so if you. 03:14:00.41 Dave Ah huh. 03:14:08.20 Jim Whether or not you embrace it and if you do embrace it. You get the slayer form in this game. Um, if you go against it Bhaal will actually kill you and then um, it turns out that withers is Jergal who is the old god of death who's stepped aside. 03:14:09.69 Dave Right. 03:14:28.19 Jim And he steps in and he's like Nope this ain't happening and revives you and you are no longer bound to your dark urges. 03:14:35.86 Dave Gotcha Interesting yeah withers Ah really late in the game like you go through the game and you got to think like there's something going on with withers. But when you find out later what withers us what he really is um, you're like oh okay. 03:14:36.86 Chris Crazy. 03:14:51.87 Jim Yeah, yeah, meanwhile he's like. 03:14:53.60 Dave That makes sense. He's been here for this whole time. 03:14:57.19 Chris When you say find out what he is. The only thing I thought like was after the credits but it doesn't really I don't know maybe just because I don't know the law well enough, but it doesn't seem like it really tells you who he is it just kind of shows that like he kind of knows what's going on. 03:15:09.85 Dave Yeah, no I don't think so. 03:15:12.70 Jim Yeah, no Chris you're totally right? It's super obtuse and it doesn't tell you. The only reason I knew it is because I do know d and d lore so like Jergal usually when because new gods can kind of be created and sort of. 03:15:15.14 Chris Maybe I just read it wrong. But yeah. 03:15:25.53 Chris Gotcha. 03:15:30.46 Jim To be a God All you need is followers. But like if you're going to try and inhabit the same domain as another God like be the God of murder then you got ah you got a knockoff ball. You know so your goal usually like to be a new God There's a bit of a blood bath that has to happen. 03:15:37.85 Chris Sure. 03:15:38.10 Dave Right. 03:15:47.97 Jim Your goal was the old God of death and then when a new one stepped up instead of fighting him. He literally just stepped aside and was like whatever dude like you take over I'll just hang out. 03:15:57.66 Dave Nice. 03:16:02.53 Chris Interesting and he kind of I mean he's not the narrator but he kind of shapes the way things happen a little bit I guess. 03:16:07.17 Dave Yeah, yeah, ah, okay so other stuff in act three so we talked about Oren um, gortash I ah. He kept trying to make deals with me and I just refused all his deals and um Karlach fucking hates gortash. So Karlach was in my party and she is ah the best girl so we just waltzed up into gortash's place after doing the quest to disable all the steel watchers. 03:16:38.86 Dave Um, which was another really hard boss fight by the way and all of the all of the halflings that were in there. They died and nobody made it out of there. Um, not because of me just because you know they got killed by the giant robots. Um, so I did that. 03:16:41.30 Jim Oh. 03:16:57.28 Dave Disabled all the steel watchers and then went up and just whipped the fuck out of gortash. She stood no chance. Ah in the fight against me and um, that gave a nice character moment with Karlach because she was super focused on killing him and getting revenge on him. And she has kind of like a scene where she realizes that getting that revenge didn't fix any of the problems that she had and she still has this engine in her heart. That's going to burn out and um, it was just a really good emotional scene when she's like talking her way through that. Ah. The voice actor for Karlach is just so Good. So That was how that went with gortash in my game. It was a little anticlimactic How quickly I killed him but I guess getting up to where he was was a bit of a thing too. 03:17:56.42 Chris Yeah I fucked that shit up on accident. Why don't really fuck it up I Just like sometimes the quests the way that they read out because you have multiple things that that want you to kill and or save something. Ah they it got a little confusing for me so I had killed orin. 03:18:02.90 Dave Yeah. 03:18:14.37 Chris And I guess I made a deal with gortash that I would team with him but I wouldn't give him my netherstones and I don't remember how that went to be because it's not something that I thought that I chose to do. But anyway um I thought okay well I can still kill him right? like I can still walk up there. 03:18:33.37 Chris And just kill him but the quest is like oh disable to steel watch and do that So I went and did that which I guess did you say the steel steel watcher Boss fight was difficult that ah that was the one that I he literally didn't even attack. 03:18:40.43 Dave Yeah, the big one. Yeah, nice. 03:18:48.47 Jim And we got cheese. 03:18:52.21 Chris I think I just like between having like fly and what's the I had a 1 warlock spell. That's like blinds and slows everything in it. Yeah is nuts so I had what I had liked. 03:19:00.90 Jim Oh my gosh, hunger of hadar that is crazy. 03:19:10.56 Chris 1 watch I killed 1 watcher like before combat for 2 my characters started which was kind of funny astarian did most of the damage and then I think I did like a cleric spell or something. But anyway, um so I got that hunger of hadar and then they were just sitting in there and flew behind him with Lael. Got like 6 or nine attacks off with Lae'zel and then he was like blinded and slowed so he couldn't do anything and so like my next turn came up and I just was no problem like I left this fight unscathed. Um, so it was kind of funny but I did that and then found out. 03:19:29.85 Jim Oh my god. 03:19:49.12 Chris Oh I need to talk to this dude to free the prisoners, the little gnome upstairs. So like then I went back up to there and found out where the prison was, went to the prison which the iron threw and was in my opinion. That's one of the coolest ah sequences. 03:19:52.14 Jim Ah, yeah. 03:20:03.40 Dave Yeah, the one where you have to make a timed escape out of there. Yeah, that was good, that was really good. 03:20:12.22 Chris Yeah, and save as many people as Possible. So I again like I don't I tried not to save Scum too much I did it and I like I saved ah the duke but I was like I kind of want to save more people I want to save Alama Let's just see if I can get everybody. So I went and tried to do that. Um, but that made it take like an hour or longer. Um I ended up losing one person I activated everyone like I opened all the cells I read the one chick I got the mind flayer. Dude. 03:20:30.73 Dave Yeah. 03:20:47.29 Chris And the duke I even saved the duke by throwing potions on him when he was about to die because he didn't have a healer near him astarian had potions. So I threw them on him. Um, that was kind of fun. Ah, but 1 chick got opportunity attacked by some um, some fishy boys. 03:20:50.49 Jim Yep, yeah. 03:21:03.50 Dave Yeah. 03:21:06.76 Chris Unfortunately and she died. But anyway I tried to save as many people as possible. That was really cool 1 but then by the time I got back to quata the question was like oh meet me at the moon pool or whatever. It's called the basically at the elder brain so was like well I'll just kill him there like I hope in my head I was like there'll be dialogue options. 03:21:15.51 Dave Oh okay. 03:21:17.50 Jim Wow. 03:21:24.80 Chris I can kill him there. Um and take his nether stone but that didn't happen. It went to the whole sequence but then another brain killed Kather and snapped his neck in a second that was really kind of fun to watch too. So the Nether brain killed gortash. Yeah. 03:21:25.61 Dave Huh. Interesting. 03:21:34.54 Jim Um, whoa. 03:21:35.99 Dave Um, oh you mean gortash? Well okay, interesting. Ah. 03:21:43.10 Jim That's crazy. 03:21:44.15 Chris We like working together sort of like casting spells on another brain. But once he took the netherstones she was just like yeah not going to happen and just like his neck just snapped and he fell to the ground and that was the end of him. That's yeah yeah, wasn't my intention but. 03:21:56.00 Dave Nice, nice I forgot to write down I forgot to write down the iron throne. Um, quest. But ah, my people did not make it out. 03:21:58.70 Jim That's really cool. 03:22:02.96 Chris Yeah. 03:22:11.41 Dave Ah, so like a lot of the prisoners made it back to the submarine and then shadow heart made it back to the submarine but my other 3 party members didn't so they washed up on the beach and they were all dead and. 03:22:24.50 Jim They washed up on the beach. 03:22:30.94 Dave Luckily it was shadow heart the one that survived because she has ah magic they can bring people back and she had some scrolls to bring everybody back. But yeah, it was. It was like 3 of my party members are dead on the beach. Shadowheart has like 5 hp. 03:22:41.16 Chris Nice. 03:22:48.39 Dave Like you're alone in the city and so it was ah it was like ah it was funny that that's how that played out instead of just being like you know they're Permadeath or ah, you just like get a game over because like my main character died in that and you have to start over. But. 03:23:07.36 Dave Yeah, that was funny like a shadowheart scrambling to revive everybody on the beach. Everyone's just like chugging potions and stuff. Um, so right? Yeah I did that too. 03:23:14.88 Chris That's hilarious. To have the my party all split up like I put astarion in to go clear 1 wing, Lae’zel, Wyll go clear the other wing and like brought my other two down to yeah know. 03:23:20.79 Jim And you know I tried to just because again my guy was like. 03:23:25.16 Dave And people just did not make it back in time. Ah so Jim did you side with gortash or Oren. 03:23:38.40 Jim No, one's going to stand in my way so when I would meet them I'd try to just instantly fight them. Ah and Oren flees you a bunch. I tried to fight gortash at his coronation and I tried so many different ways and it just did not work. 03:23:40.31 Dave Right. 03:23:47.34 Dave Right. 03:23:56.50 Jim Because you've got like 10 steel watchers in there. It's like good luck. Ah so I eventually did side with him but was planning on betraying him. Um, so I didn't like. 03:23:57.32 Dave Yeah. 03:24:10.90 Jim I never saw that where you take him to the nether brain and then it snaps. That's really cool. No, I just went and killed Orin and then went and killed him. I was kind of doing it like whatever I'm evil so I was like lock picking my way around the city. And so I accidentally found the iron throne before I even found the steel watch foundry and so like all of a sudden It's just like there's a prison break and I'm like wait what and but I mean my guy because he's a bastard he went in and I didn't free anyone I basically just like got what I needed and got out. 03:24:44.10 Dave Nice, um, the duke. Oh okay, so here's 1 thing that happened: the duke died in the prison. Um, in the prison break. He didn't make it back to the sub. Ah, but then he's alive later. Um, because. 03:25:02.15 Dave Think it's Mizora has him and like part of Wyll's quest line for me was to sacrifice the duke. Ah, or I think it's like sacrifice Wyll's life to go serve her again or something like that. Um. 03:25:19.93 Dave So he died like he quite died in that prison but he was still available for a story choice later on. Yeah um, ok. 03:25:26.74 Jim Interesting. 03:25:28.97 Chris It is interesting. Maybe I did hear that the game had quite a lot of bugs when it first came out and so that's kind of maybe the like, especially act 3 had a lot of weird stuff going on I'm kind of happy that I ended up playing it a little bit later because I think a lot of stuff got fixed. So I had a pretty. 03:25:35.00 Dave It might be yeah, yeah, yeah, but it is I mean act 3 especially is such a tangled web of quests that like if. 03:25:47.97 Chris Pretty good thorough experience. 03:25:54.33 Chris True. 03:25:54.54 Dave You know something was supposed to flag that he's dead and it didn't then you know I'll forgive them for that. Um, let's talk about Raphael so ah. 03:26:08.20 Dave Throughout. We haven't talked about him yet. But if you're just following along because you don't care about spoilers and you made it to three and a half hours in the podcast. Love you very much. Um, Rafael is a literal devil who kind of shows up throughout the game saying that he can. 03:26:25.57 Dave Fix you. He can fix the tadpole problem. Ah, but he is a devil and he is a trickster and ah notably you have at least 1 party member who made a deal with a devil and it fucked up his whole life. So you are at least discouraged from. Dealing with Raphael so Jim and in and Chris or I assume that you didn't deal with Rafael ah based on the way you've talked about how that boss fight goes later on. 03:26:55.40 Chris Me no no, no, that was the 1 boss fight that really like I was struggling. 03:27:02.10 Dave Right? But like so you didn't take him up on any of his offers. 03:27:10.23 Chris Ah I told him I would but then I went and destroyed my contract. Yeah. 03:27:12.32 Dave Right? Ah, Jim so Jim did you ever like take him up on the offers. 03:27:13.49 Jim Ah, nice. 03:27:17.30 Jim Um, no I was never I was my character would never side with him, he was on his own team. 03:27:24.18 Dave Gotcha Yeah, that makes sense so all of us did the house of hope then um, which is a ah wild dungeon. So it starts out. There's a character trapped there named hope who you um. 03:27:29.51 Chris Um, yeah. 03:27:40.89 Dave You kind of get these like really cryptic and erratic instructions from of how to get out of there and my character was also there because I told Orpheus the the gith yankee prince or or right no I told the other person that I would get the hammer from the house of hope to free Orpheus. So that's why I was there in the first place. Um, and I didn't figure out a way to get the hammer without just walking up and taking it off the pedestal. So. That's what I did and everybody aggroed in there. Um, and it's it's tough in there. 03:28:19.47 Dave Because there are there's a mini boss fight against I think it's 2 beholders and that was it's and you can't rest in the house of hope because everyone was ah was fucking aggroed so I had to use all of my like. 03:28:26.80 Jim Yep, no gosh nope. 03:28:37.33 Dave Potions that simulate a long rest or a short rest or all of those. Um just to like after fighting my way up to that and then doing the beholder fight just to get myself like halfway prepped to because you know you're going to have to fight Raphael at the end of it. And ah that I think the final boss has like extra stuff that it's doing to make it difficult I think that like the Raphael fight is the hardest straight up boss fight in the entire game. 03:29:16.10 Chris I'd agree I mean in my experience. Yeah I have no problem with any of the bosses except for that. 03:29:29.28 Chris I did it in one go right? but it was the one I was like oh shit This might not actually work like I might I might die here like if I didn't have hope if I hadn't saved her like definitely would not have been able to pull that off probably. 03:29:41.62 Dave Yeah, did you have to use the divine intervention? 03:29:46.60 Chris I just used it to get the legendary weapon to see what it was. I also saw if you do radiant damage to Raphael then it does double to the person who casts a spell so I didn't want hope to die and so I did not want to cast that spell the big one. 03:30:03.71 Dave Um, oh okay, divine intervention can do a lot of different things like you can pick what it does right? Yeah so I had to use it. 03:30:06.56 Chris Damaging one. 03:30:14.48 Jim It's like 4 different things. 03:30:18.36 Dave I had to use it in the Raphael fight to just simulate a long rest. That's what I chose to do and that turned the tide of the fight. I was like I was out of spell slots I was out of items I was out of throwable stuff I was out of scrolls I was out of I used everything in that fight. 03:30:38.10 Dave And I got to maybe like the two-thirds point and I remembered that shadow heart had a divine intervention in my game. Um, so I used it to do the long rest and that turned the tide and it was fine after that because I had all my spells back I forgot that hope had it. 03:30:56.45 Dave And like after that I was like fuck I should have used hopes and saved shadow hearts because I don't know if there's gonna be something harder. Luckily there wasn't something that required it later but that's the only time in the game where I felt that desperation where it was like okay I'm breaking. 03:31:01.69 Chris Yeah. 03:31:13.48 Dave The glass in case of emergency and using this was so fucking hard and all the while that song is playing on it. He's fucking singing this is yeah yeah, his Disney villain ass ah theme song. It's so good. 03:31:23.29 Chris Oh my god. 03:31:24.68 Jim Hell's hell hell has its laws but it was incredible. Yeah I love that they gave him because that woman starts singing. 03:31:34.58 Chris That's so funny. 03:31:40.77 Jim And you're okay like he's got a different boss fight and then he starts singing on his own track. It's so hilarious, but they really knocked it out of the park. I think he is intended to be the hardest boss fight because. 03:31:42.30 Dave Yeah, he's doing the background. He's doing the soundtrack to his own boss fight. If. 03:31:47.78 Chris Um, so good. It's a lot of confidence. 03:31:59.53 Jim He's kind of optional like you don't have to do that. 03:32:03.29 Chris There are a lot of really interesting things. There's a lot of really really good items in house of hope like some really opp stuff in there but you don't get it after you kill the boss you get it before So it's like it's not a reward you know I guess. 03:32:07.97 Jim Yeah, yeah. 03:32:15.98 Jim Yeah, except for his armor which was also kind of busted. 03:32:28.83 Dave Yeah, you get? um there is an amulet that gives you a bunch of Health I think in there. Yeah, that one's crazy. Ah, that's I think that's the place where I got the item that could make Karlach into a giant. 03:32:33.10 Jim 23 constitution. 03:32:37.13 Chris Um, yeah, that's what I meant necklace of constitution. 03:32:45.65 Dave Which really helped. Um, so yeah, there's some really badass stuff in there. Oh no, ah there is a I think it's like gauntlets of like super strength or something in there so giving that to Karlach and then turning her into a giant. Also. 03:32:56.17 Jim You got 23 03:33:03.85 Dave Was ah she was just wrecking not wrecking Raphael but all of his like minions in there. Um man Raphael was a real bastard like 03:33:11.23 Jim Oh. 03:33:20.30 Dave I Had to literally had to use every consumable item I had all my potions. Everything was so hard. Yeah. 03:33:27.86 Jim That's awesome and. 03:33:29.11 Chris He stretches you thin and does so much damage. It's crazy. Um, yeah I was kind of lucky like the pillars. 1 thing is I feel like a lot of the bosses you can kind of just focus fire down the boss. Um, and that's probably a better option. 03:33:44.60 Chris Then letting it attack you like the more the more turns the boss gets probably the worse. You'll be off whereas like any other game that I usually play. It's like kill the adds first, like killing the small guys first and then taking care of the boss. 03:33:47.36 Dave Yeah, yeah. 03:34:00.85 Chris Because like you can get rid of most of the damage on the board. But I feel like with brothers gate 3 It's like a lot of them like the damage that the boss will output or their special abilities or whatever will absolutely annihilate you. Um, if you let them get too many of them off. So. 03:34:16.18 Chris This was one of the fights where you couldn't really do that because he had so much resistance with the pillars up, you had to take those pillars down and even did that like he did a lot more damage with the pillars up. So yeah I like luckily being warlocked with eldritch blasts those are force damage. They took the pillars out pretty quick I had. 03:34:31.10 Jim Yep. 03:34:35.54 Chris Ah, shadowheart Misty stepping around because she has a mace and like doing damage to those she had like her mace, her summon spirit weapon or whatever up as a mace like also just like killing these pillars who's very very funny, but. 03:34:47.33 Jim Yeah In the third time I went to go fight him because I knew it was going to happen I prepped the boss room. So I just walked in there dropped the bomb that you get that you're gonna use at the steel watch foundry and then just loaded that place with. 03:35:05.73 Chris nice. Ah. 03:35:06.83 Jim It is a fireworks place in the city and in the basement there's like a bajillion smoke powder barrels. So I literally loaded the whole room with it and then when the boss fight started I I mean. 03:35:08.31 Dave Yeah, yeah. 03:35:23.24 Jim Who knows if I hadn't been able to do this but I was lucky enough to go first. Um cast a spell of globe of invulnerability on my guys drank a potion of haste and then chucked a fire thing into the room and just everything exploded. And it still didn't kill Raphael but it took out the pillars and it took out a bunch of his guys. So. It was great but I convinced bard to join me. He doesn't help that much. 03:35:42.13 Dave Ah, oh there, you go nice. 03:35:43.85 Chris Nice. Did you have the big demon dude on your side too. 03:35:58.84 Chris Yeah, no, he was pretty useless in that fight not useless. But yeah, maybe did like a total of thirty damage the whole way like. 03:35:59.67 Jim Um, yeah. 03:36:07.20 Jim Yeah, he doesn't do much. Um. 03:36:07.39 Dave Ah, yeah I had to, I had to kill that guy unfortunately, so ah yeah, that is the house of hope I got the orphic hammer so I was going to use that ah to free Orpheus. Um, so I did that. Ah, but before we talk about that because that kind of ties in with the rest of the game. Did you guys find Minsc and get him on your team. You did not okay. 03:36:32.20 Chris I didn't know there's a lot of things in bothers like an act 3 that I wanted to do but I kind of was not rushing but kind of left side quests a little bit on the wayside just to finish up and make sure it is ready for the podcast. 03:36:48.82 Dave Yeah, that makes sense. Um Minsk is ah you probably know about minsc jim from ah other d and d stuff. But yeah, he was a prominent party character in baldur's gate 1 and 2 Ah and he is a larger than life personality. 03:36:55.40 Jim Yeah, yeah. 03:37:05.81 Dave So I was happy to see him in in Balder's gate 3 happy to see boo and all of the the jokes and conversations that come with talking with minsc I didn't end up using him at all I just didn't have a place for He's a ranger by default I think in ah in baldur's gate 3 and I didn't have a place for that. My party was completely set in stone like I had. I had a well-oiled machine between the druid and shadowheart and then the Lae'zel and Karlach up in melee range. So. 03:37:40.60 Jim Um, it is kind of a shame that they bring him in so late because yeah, your tactics like you said everything is your you know how you're going to approach a fight. You know. 03:37:41.61 Dave Ah, didn't use them. 03:37:55.95 Jim Someone's going to do this first and then this next person's going to do that and this is how I fight this is how I'm geared out this is what I'm meant to do and all of a sudden you get a character that is famous kind of late in the game. It's like oh man but I'd I'd sort of liked it. 03:38:11.85 Dave Um, right? Yeah um, okay, and let's see the other stuff in act 3 03:38:12.55 Jim Use him but they're you're right? There's no spot. 03:38:27.20 Chris Ah, did either of you guys have Astarion in your party? Yeah his story. Ah, really really enjoyed that the Cazador fight itself was tough um yet ah and. 03:38:28.42 Dave I didn't no. 03:38:28.64 Jim Um, yes. 03:38:33.45 Dave Yeah. 03:38:36.80 Jim Very hard. 03:38:43.79 Chris Yeah, the ensuing Rp that came after was heart wrenching. Um because I like Astarion as a character quite a lot. Um, so yeah, just he also has a sort of a psychotic break moment where he stabs Cazador a thousand times. Um, really good. Um. 03:38:55.57 Dave Um, yeah. 03:39:03.10 Chris But I also did you choose I'm sure in your evil run you chose to turn Astarion. Yeah. 03:39:05.79 Jim Oh he ascended. He's a vampire lord and ah. 03:39:11.93 Chris Oh nice I want to do that. I think on my next one I don't want to use Astarion again for my party but I want to see what that I mean I read the abilities you get online. They look really really cool. Yeah. 03:39:18.65 Jim Ah, the upgrade is so good. 03:39:22.22 Dave Oh man I didn't have Astarion in my party but I did pull him out just to finish the quest just to see what would happen. So yeah, we did the fight that was another really hard fight just because like anytime you have less than your full 4 people in the ah. 03:39:28.79 Chris Oh nice. 03:39:39.50 Dave The party is tough. Um, but we did that and then I think I passed a I either passed a check or I just straight up told him not to ascend. 03:39:55.12 Dave And he got mad and he left my party forever and never came back. Um I think it's because I like to take the choice away from him and so he just kind of said you know what? um I'm through with you I'm out of here which I was like you know what I helped you kill cazador. 03:39:57.18 Jim No Wow no. 03:40:01.52 Chris Um, yeah. 03:40:06.34 Jim Mm. 03:40:14.90 Dave Like you I don't know you're not satisfied with that at all. But yeah, he left. I Never saw him again. 03:40:25.50 Chris Um, you can judge me if you want but he had the same outcome and the first time so I saved scrum because he's just part of my party as one of my favorite characters. So I definitely wanted to get him back so I had to do the fight again. Um it was a little easier the second time once I knew what was going on. 03:40:28.89 Dave Oh yeah, yeah, you need him back? yeah. 03:40:39.44 Dave Right? Um I guess this is a good time to talk about the character Quest because a lot of them wrap up in the city itself. So did you guys do shadowhearts quest. 03:40:42.40 Chris Yeah. 03:40:48.42 Jim Um, ah yeah, and ah I who's Viconia like is she from bg 1 or 2 or. 03:40:56.90 Dave I don't remember that name but there are 1000000 people in those games. So. 03:41:03.11 Jim Okay, she's the drow like high mother of the sharrans. Um, but I have done her quest line. I thought it was very good. Um, as Evil I made her kill her parents. 03:41:07.20 Dave Right? okay. 03:41:20.79 Jim And um, just like horrible and then at that point she's literally just like Chars chosen as good I Actually really liked how she gets to reunite with her parents and like she sort of um. 03:41:31.98 Dave Yeah. 03:41:37.77 Jim I Don't know gets her childhood back in a way because she was taken like everything was stolen from her. Basically. 03:41:42.84 Dave Yeah, yeah, she got taken away from her parents. Um and that confrontation basically ended with her parents convincing her to let them go. She can continue on I Also had the shadow heart where she had changed to blonde halfway through the game. Um, so she had turned off of the path of Shar in my game. Basically so um, she ah she freed herself of shah's curse. 03:42:08.79 Chris Yeah. 03:42:12.58 Jim Oh. 03:42:16.60 Chris Um, ah same here. 03:42:20.13 Dave Ah, and um I I let her decide what she wanted to do and she decided I think this is after a starion maybe or maybe I Just like you know, cared more about shadow Heart I let her decide like straight up just said I'm not deciding for you and she decided to ah. Let her parents die basically because they were being tortured um and ah she decided that she did not want to remember everything in her past ah because she has a memory wipe situation going on. 03:42:41.18 Jim Interesting. Yeah. 03:42:57.26 Dave And I know that we haven't done a great job. Not that we've tried but we haven't fully explained like the character backstories but she didn't remember much of anything leading up to the events of the game. Um, other than that she's in the following of Shar. And she decided that she doesn't want to remember all of that because I think she had a feeling that there would be pain and suffering that would be uncovered that Way. So She's just going to move on. 03:43:27.66 Chris I Think in the speech that Shar gives and that she mentions things like oh your parents have suffered a lot of pain but bla blah by your own hand like talking to shadow heart basically telling you also tortured and did bad shit to your own parents like yeah. 03:43:41.85 Dave Right? So that is what happened with shadowheart. Um. 03:43:46.70 Chris I wouldn't want to remember that either. 03:43:52.29 Chris And then you can't do mirror of loss with her which was annoying the mirror of loss if you if you turn on Shar You can't you can't ah benefit from mirror of loss with shadow heart it like just turns you away. 03:43:52.84 Jim Yeah, yeah. 03:43:55.27 Dave What's that. 03:44:04.49 Dave Oh okay, um, let's see ah will I think I already said what happened with will in mine. Um, he had to let his father die in order to like. 03:44:06.89 Jim Yeah. 03:44:09.27 Chris Tells you to fuck off. 03:44:21.69 Dave Not be taken down into the Hells or something like that and it was another one where like I think his father will I think his father was on board with it. But I don't remember it's been a while. Also, Wyll was not in my party for most of the game. I just pulled him back in the party to do the quests. Um, I did have 03:44:40.91 Dave A cool quest with wyll where you fight a zombie dragon so that was cool. Yeah I yeah I did yeah just just. 03:44:43.96 Jim Yes, the whole wyrm's way was awesome. 03:44:46.85 Chris Yeah, answer did you take him into that cave to do that Quest all? I'm curious what the unique ah dialogue was like with him actually in the I did that quest but he wasn't in the party. So. 03:45:00.46 Jim He gets completely overwritten by um, the emperor an answer because like yeah, so like even when with when will is there. Um, the moment you meet answers like. 03:45:07.54 Chris Yeah, right. 03:45:15.93 Jim No fuck you like I'm talking to that guy and. 03:45:17.72 Dave Yeah, yeah, because the emperor and answers have a long history. Um, and you find out that the emperor is the founder of Baldur's gate who decided that he wanted to become a mind flayer at some point. 03:45:18.22 Chris Yeah, yeah, yeah, gotcha. First. 03:45:29.52 Jim And this is 4 03:45:35.61 Dave Um, so the big like conclusion with that was that wyll decided that he wanted to follow in his father's footsteps and so that was what happened with him in my game. He became the new Duke Raven guard after the whole story of the game was over. 03:45:50.81 Jim Nice. 03:45:53.82 Chris Yeah, yeah, that happened to mine as well and then when I saved the duke and brought him back I was expecting Will to be upset but there was good dialogue between the two. Um and ah it is good. The his father. 03:46:00.93 Dave Oh that's good. 03:46:01.62 Jim This is it. Oh. 03:46:10.49 Chris Still says like yeah, all right? Yeah, you're the duke you're gonna be the duke all hail this guy Duke Ravengard will or whatever. So that's really nice. Yeah, it was a touching moment I guess. 03:46:15.77 Jim Oh nice. Okay, ah on my good playthrough will I let Duke graven guard live and will like was not going to be the duke and so. 03:46:19.58 Dave Nice, Um, let's see. 03:46:32.20 Jim At the very end I'm really kind of skipping here Karlach. You kind of have to choose whether or not she dies on the plane or if she can choose to go back to the Hells and maybe continue to live and so. 03:46:41.53 Dave Yeah. 03:46:48.35 Jim On one of those playthroughs Wyll actually steps up and is like nah dude I'll go with you and and then I decided to go to so and like the 3 of us went down and there's a cut scene of like the 3 of you just like adventuring through it for avernus together. So it was yeah it was. 03:47:03.72 Dave Hell yeah, nice. 03:47:06.54 Chris Um, what 's crazy. 03:47:07.75 Jim Like kind of fun. It was like the journey continued. 03:47:10.40 Dave Yeah, um, in my game I think shadowhearts side Quest was the most interesting from like a you know sequence of events that happens and like conversations that you have with her I think hers is the most interesting that way. 03:47:28.00 Dave Ah, Karlachs is the one that I cared about the most because I liked Karlach so much. She's great. Um, and I tried everything the game suggested to find a solution to the engine burning up but nothing worked and I don't think anything can work. 03:47:47.78 Jim Um, except going back to avernus. That's the only thing. 03:47:48.63 Dave Right? right? And Karlach said so in my game, Wyll had decided he was going to be the new duke in the city Karlach talked like the whole game about how she didn't want to go back to Avernus at all. So I. 03:48:06.54 Dave You know there's a conversation where you can talk about this stuff with her and I never really pushed that with her so she burned up and exploded at the end of my game and um, it's a really touching cut scene because. 03:48:22.26 Dave Again, The voice acting for Karlach is really good. She talks about how? Ah basically how proud she is of how she spent the time that she had ah before it all ah burned up and it's just interesting to me that like the.. What I think is probably the fan favorite character other than maybe a Starian ah doesn't really have a happy ending because going to avernus is not a happy ending for her. She just gets to live longer. Um, and then the one where she doesn't have to go Back. She dies and. 03:48:58.98 Dave That's it and I thought this was an interesting thing to do with this character but I like it. I like when you have a tragic character and you don't have a happy ending for everybody and there really is no happy ending for her. 03:49:13.59 Jim I really like I mean like a lot of the characters get a bittersweet ending hers being yes the most impactful because if you choose the ending that she. Objectively wants to not go back to Avernus she she will die. Um, but even for all your other characters like if astarion does not ascend and you wind up going the good path. He's still a vampire. He can't live in daylight. Um, you know if you choose to ascend. He has sort of. 03:49:42.77 Dave Right. 03:49:49.27 Jim Gone Evil and changed ah shadowheart has to kill her parents will you know potentially has lost his father like all of them have a bittersweet ending which I thought was very good. 03:50:20.90 Dave Um, yeah, and everybody started out. 03:50:25.94 Chris I don't know I kind of thought gale's ending was kind of alright? he I mean in mine he became a god he was pretty happy about that. Yeah I think he's yeah I don't think he lost anything honestly I didn't play him throughout the game at all almost um. 03:50:27.42 Dave A did he? Okay Gale's chilling then yeah. 03:50:35.90 Jim Ah. 03:50:38.68 Dave Interesting. Okay, so yeah, all the side characters start the game with like a really fucked up tragic backstory in some way and yeah, most of them didn't have super happy endings like shadow heart watched her parents die. 03:50:43.30 Chris Yeah. 03:50:58.72 Dave Ah, wyll watched his father die in my game gale like that one seemed unresolved in my game I'm not sure what happened with him he said he was going to look for the crown basically because the crown sunk down into the water or something like that. 03:51:16.13 Jim Oh. 03:51:17.45 Dave So he said he was going to look for it and that's how it ended but yeah Karlach died Astarion left the party and he's like you said always going to be a vampire. Um, so yeah I like what they did here and I saw people complaining that like. 03:51:19.64 Chris Um, yeah. 03:51:33.80 Dave The fan favorite character doesn't have a happy ending or that you can't fix the engine and save Karlach and just seem kind of childish to me to like not accept that this character can't have a happy ending. Um I mean it was really powerful because Karlach's great. 03:51:52.44 Dave She's super likable and the conversations that you have with her throughout act 3 and then right before the moment where she dies. Ah, she gets emotional when she you know talks to you about the time you've spent together. She talks about how lucky she is to have. Spent time in the party with you. Even if you're not romantically involved which we weren't um and then yeah, just ah, time runs out it was ah was really good. 03:52:25.27 Chris Did you not have the like little party at the end. 03:52:28.51 Dave Um I did ah but the party at the end like Karlach doesn't come back. 03:52:35.50 Chris Sure sure sure but Gale does he said he went to go look for the crown and he didn't come back as a god for you I mean there's no light cutscene that shows him becoming a god from from my thing he just said um and and go look for the thing and I told him a man good luck. 03:52:45.23 Dave Right? right? Okay, and then me okay, he might have. I don't remember I didn't write down notes from that. Ah from that epilogue. Um, other than. 03:52:52.74 Chris And then he came back to the party as a god. 03:52:58.30 Chris Ah, yeah. 03:53:01.74 Dave There was a conversation with withers about the possibility of seeing Karlach again somewhere in some other plane or something like that. But that's all I really wrote down. 03:53:14.70 Chris Yeah. 03:53:20.44 Dave Oh ok so I'll save that until the end. There's 1 more thing about that ending party but we've got some ground to cover before there. So um, you I think you have to get the orphic hammer. 03:53:38.70 Jim No could I didn't do it. The first time. 03:53:40.12 Dave No, okay so I okay so I freed Orpheus and um, we decided we're going to take the fight to the elder brain so you go to the elder brain. Have a bunch of um checks basically to resist being dominated or actually you're trying to dominate the elder brain. Ah the the last one has a dc of ninety nine which was funny to see just be like yeah you're not passing this. Um. 03:54:36.55 Dave I guess if you got like a 20 you could pass that. 03:54:41.11 Jim Yep, the start of the boss where you fight the brain itself is missing like 20% of its health. Yeah. 03:54:43.88 Chris I'm curious. Do you know what happens if you do rule a 20 there. 03:54:52.40 Dave Okay, so yeah, not a whole lot. So I went to try and free Orpheus and the emperor is totally opposed to this. Um, and so the emperor decided that ah he was going to go help the Elder brain. 03:54:54.33 Chris Ah, okay, so it's like a massive thing. Okay. 03:55:09.76 Dave Out. So ah, the emperor left. Um, and ah you get a choice because ah for some reason I don't remember why I didn't write it down but somebody has to turn into ah a mind flayer at the end. Do you guys remember why? 03:55:11.48 Chris Um, yeah. 03:55:27.55 Jim They make some claim about how the reason you're losing to the Elder brain is because as an illithid it is. It has literally more brain power than you and it's just outthinking you so you have to become illithid. 03:55:37.69 Dave Okay, okay, yeah, yeah, okay, either you or Orpheus. 03:55:44.10 Chris And they mentioned it like yeah they mentioned something like oh when it was an elder brain We we could have done this but it has grown to another brain. So now it's too powerful. We need our psionic powers essentially. 03:55:46.70 Jim Yes. 03:55:52.25 Dave Right? right? right? Ok yeah. 03:55:53.16 Jim Yes, yeah. 03:55:59.87 Chris And it seemed like those are the only options was you or Orpheus. 03:56:03.26 Jim Ah, if you side with the emperor and you don't free Orpheus you can just let the emperor be your Ill at it. 03:56:09.15 Dave Ok, that makes sense. 03:56:12.86 Chris When you did your e or run did you let the emperor eat Orpheus's brains 03:56:18.21 Jim Ah, no I became an elephant and I ate his brains. It was all for me. So yeah. 03:56:22.48 Dave Um, okay, ah Chris what did you do here? 03:56:23.18 Chris Ah, oh okay, okay, okay, yeah, that makes a lot more sense. Yeah I sided with Orpheus. I broke him out and ended up fighting the emperor in the last battle. 03:56:32.13 Dave Did you become the illithid it or did you have orpheus do it? Okay yeah. 03:56:38.26 Chris Oh I Let Orpheus do it. Yeah I like my character too much I kind of plan I kind of plan on my sort of next run my evil runner my like dominant power run to to become the Ill with it. But. 03:56:49.76 Dave Okay, ah I became the illithid in my game as kind of like a a noble sacrifice and then I regretted it the second I did it because I was like Orpheus is a dick he should have done it fuck that guy. He's the one who looks. 03:57:01.30 Chris Yeah I knew I would regret it if I did it So the temptation was there. 03:57:06.16 Dave He looks too goofy with a beard by the way. But um, yeah, so my character became the the mind flayer and your ah your illithid powers are like really fucking good. So um I there's a. 03:57:23.17 Dave Bunch of fighting you have to do between here and like the final boss fight and I just like smashed those fights with ah with my character's illithid powers. It kind of sucked that I couldn't do druid stuff anymore. But um, the illithid powers were so good. 03:57:37.97 Jim But you couldn't. I was like I don't know I mean I was still a wizard. 03:57:41.45 Dave Maybe I could n't remember. 03:57:41.69 Chris Oh that's interesting like if you transform or if he has he still keeps his Monk abilities. Well some of them maybe just the key that it. Yeah yeah. 03:57:48.59 Dave Um, okay. 03:57:51.20 Dave Okay, maybe maybe I'm misremembering that then and I just didn't because I was you know using the illithid blasts all over the place. 03:58:02.40 Chris Right? The black hole in that sequence is really overpowered because there's just a lot of love especially in the first the first bit of that fight. There's so many enemies that come up at once, the little brains and everything there's like 20 enemies on the map and you can just delete you know 15 of them. 03:58:04.85 Dave Yeah. 03:58:05.54 Jim Oh yeah. 03:58:20.76 Chris In one move with or with what's his name. Orpheus. 03:58:25.10 Dave There was um, there's an interesting scene here because my character was Transformed. There's a scene where your character gives a speech. I Assume if you're doing the good playthrough I don't know about the evil playthrough but you do like a speech to rally the troops. Ah, but if you're in illithid form. Everyone just kind of looks at you weird they're like what is this guy? Ah so that was kind of interesting and probably different if you were not transformed. There. So. 03:58:54.50 Jim The different people you can have in that room are really kind of funny. So like if you spend your time in act 3 you can build up all these crew that are there you know, but if you run if you go the evil playthrough but like you're like evil but like. 03:59:03.50 Dave Yeah, yeah. 03:59:13.30 Jim Trying to go for allies as well. Um, you can be given that speech to Auntie Ethel and your gear and like viconia and all the sharrans and ah like you can just have all these evil people like this weird hodgepodge of people you put together. 03:59:31.92 Dave Antie Ethel could be in there. What. 03:59:32.73 Jim Give them the speech and then run into the fight. Yeah, it gets pretty crazy. Yeah. 03:59:36.90 Chris Is it the same? Yeah when I did that one I They just gave a little speech of when they cheered it was fine. My thing is I got a bunch of the followers together and then are a bunch of the allies. But I totally forgot to use them. 03:59:52.51 Jim Um, yes, yeah I That's I mean good for you I dumped them on the dragon because I was like I'm not gonna fight you I'm just going right to the portal. But I mean. 03:59:56.73 Chris Hundred percent I didn't use a single one of them in the entire fight. 04:00:05.88 Chris Yeah. 04:00:09.39 Jim Kudos to you for doing all that by yourself. That's a huge battle. 04:00:15.65 Chris Yeah I mean I don't yeah I guess it was I think honestly I think I think like I heard the term action economy. Um and I didn't really know what it meant to first time I heard it and then I heard later like well the bigger it is the more powerful you are and so I kind of just spent my like my act 3 04:00:33.52 Chris Ah, kind of forming my strategy around having as many basically weapon swings or actions as possible and I think just like having haste and having you know the dual hand crossbows um Lae'zel having like 6 to nine attacks every turn it just. 04:00:37.65 Jim Oh. 04:00:50.79 Chris Like a lot of this stuff it really trivialized it. So I don't know if that's I kind of do that with games I remember like the lot like 1 of my most memorable things with like um, final fantasy 10 the last bite with sin last fight with sin every single attack I was doing was just doing max damage Nine Nine Nine Nine nine across the board like. 04:01:05.72 Dave Um. 04:01:08.50 Chris Like I Just do that when I play rpgs I just make myself as powerful as possible for anything and I just smash everything. But anyway. 04:01:09.50 Dave Um, yeah I used ah I used the abilities from the allies but I didn't use all of them like I use some and especially in that fight against the dragon Um, or in that dragon area. 04:01:29.20 Dave I Had to retry that fight with the dragon a lot of times to try to get everybody through the portal alive Basically ah, it's tough. Um and then. 04:01:37.78 Jim Yep. 04:01:42.76 Dave I think inside I used a couple more abilities and it took me a couple more tries to figure out which platforms are going to disappear and stuff like that when you're fighting the actual brain. But when I actually did it. Um I had Karlach and Lae'zel shoot. 04:02:02.20 Dave Teleport arrows to get themselves down to the bottom like right away and they just went to town on the brain and killed it pretty quickly but it took me a while to figure out how everything works in that. 04:02:04.92 Jim Nice. 04:02:18.90 Dave And then I had to get lucky with some roles to even get everyone into that portal in the first place. 04:02:27.61 Jim That is a tough fight and it is really hard on honor mode. Um, that boss's special ability is each round and you only get 5 rounds to take this thing out and it's got like 450 health so you need to do. 04:02:29.19 Dave Yeah I bet. 04:02:44.20 Jim That much damage in 5 rounds and if you've only got 1 person in there. You know it's still counting down even for your people on the outside so each round in honor mode. It becomes completely immune to all types of damage that it took the round before. 04:02:49.60 Dave Oh right. 04:03:02.56 Jim So I had Karlach. She had that um the trident. If you guys found that and so she was wearing the caustic ring So when she would throw her spear she would do fire damage. 04:03:22.31 Jim Um, she would do Thunder damage from the spear. She'd do piercing Damage. She'd do acid damage. I think there was another type of damage that she'd be doing as Well. She might have been doing Psychic. Um. And so all of a sudden the next round it became Immune to all of that and it's like well what do I do now like it's immune to all this damage so that was a very difficult fight on honor mode and that almost ended my run. 04:03:39.70 Dave Um, yeah. 04:03:55.17 Dave So in my game after that happens after you beat the brain I could command it to kill all the tadpoles and then destroy itself like you dominate it or something like that. That's what happened in my game. And then it crashes down in the city and you get like a cut scene of all the people in the streets killing all the mind flayers with clubs and pitchforks and shit. So um, my ending is different because I was the iIlithid and my ending revolved around the choice because I had become that. 04:04:13.36 Chris Um, yeah. 04:04:31.91 Dave So before I talk about my ending. Um you guys? Well Jim you've done it multiple ways. But you guys were still human. So what was your ending about like was there a choice to be made or anything like that. 04:04:50.49 Jim Chris why don't why don't you take this because I got a little bit of something here. 04:04:57.60 Chris Yeah, you got 4 endings to choose from. So yeah, um, yeah, mine was very much like yours as I call the kind of the Marvel endings because like the city is kind of destroyed but at least the big bad is gone right? like um. 04:04:59.19 Dave Ah. 04:05:06.48 Dave Right. 04:05:12.43 Chris The good guys won essentially I suppose yeah in a way I had the same thing I chose for the now their brain to kill the parasites and and die um there was a sort of a temptation I mean obviously like we can play through the game as many times we want right? or I could even just load the last save and like make it make me the. Thing if I really want to see what's going on right? Um, but yeah, that's kind of how my game ended. I thought it was all right and then you're like on the docks talking to each person and like 1 by 1 they're leaving you so I'm just like. 04:05:31.63 Jim Mm. 04:05:47.70 Chris Fuck is everybody just leaving me like what's going on like I didn't even know if there was game after this or not like if there was anything like you go do some other quests or something or walk around the city like some games do that once you've kill the final boss you can wander around a town or whatever so I was curious if this was actually going to happen but then like yeah I think. 04:05:51.71 Dave Yeah. 04:06:06.45 Chris Lae’zel was the first person to leave I let her choose she was like given the task like do you want to become the the next orpheus essentially and I just I didn't nudge her either the way I just said you choose and she chose to to take off on a dragon which was kind of cool. Um. And she like astral projects herself into the like little last last party camp area which is kind of fun. Um, yeah, and then everyone just like leaving ah it was kind of weird the way that it the the way it played out because there's like first la out left and then I think. 04:06:41.82 Chris Gale was like well I'm going to go look for the for the crown and like everyone just kind of seemed chill and then like all of a sudden Karlach was like my chest like she just appeared out of nowhere on the dock and like you know she did her whole thing where she explodes and dies and it was just like wait. What did you come from like. 04:06:48.22 Dave Yeah. 04:07:00.90 Dave Yeah, um. 04:07:01.88 Chris Ah, yeah, and then all the other script characters started showing up and yeah, that was kind of a strange way that they all kind of wrapped up. But yeah I had the Marvel ending. So. 04:07:10.24 Dave Gotcha. So yeah in my game to Lae'zel left. Ah but she went with Orpheus and they're going to go. They wanted to go kill black if so that's the quest they went on. Um, so I thought. 04:07:22.51 Chris Oh yeah, Orpheus was a mind flayer in mind so he wanted me to kill him. He actually knows when he first decides to change to him. He said like promise me, you're going to kill me when we're done with this kill in another brain and so like we're sitting on the docks and he's. 04:07:27.00 Dave Oh okay, so did you. 04:07:42.10 Chris Saying like oh he gives me a dagger and he's like kill me can we kill me and it gives you a couple chances to kill him but I chose not to both times and then I guess there's a persuasion check that you have to roll for um and I convinced him not to do that and then he just disappeared. 04:07:45.95 Dave Okay. 04:07:59.23 Chris I Mean he walked off I guess to go live it like a hermit life or whatever. Yeah. 04:08:00.71 Dave I see okay, um, yeah, and in my game so ah, Gale went to go find the crown um Karlach was dead Astarion left um shadow heart was still around. But so I had turned into the illithid. So the thing at the end all revolved around what my character was going to do because mind flayers um number one nobody likes them because of you know everything that happened. Ah, but then also apparently they will lose control of their like human faculties and like give into their nature as illithids and become these part of this you know, hive mind type thing right? so. They they gave me the choice of what to do so you can embrace your nature as an illithid and just say all right fuck it. We're this is this is our new life. Um, you do that? Ah you can put yourself in prison. You can choose to kill yourself or you can. 04:09:07.88 Dave Move on and like hope that things will be okay, but also like promise to yourself that you will kill yourself if you feel yourself losing control. So there's four choices and the last one is the one that I picked for my character which is just basically like well we'll see what happens. 04:09:25.30 Dave And you know if you start to lose it then you know we know what to do So That's what we did and ah yeah, what's up. 04:09:33.15 Jim At the end of the game did you when you went to the party were you still an Licid interested. Okay. 04:09:39.20 Dave Yeah, yeah, and I guess now is as good a time as any so the party at the end of the game is a nice reunion. You had to talk with everyone, people are drinking and partying ah but during the party I was talking with Jaheira and. 04:09:57.80 Dave My character got this urge to eat Jaheira's brain and I had to pass a check to not do that during the party. So yeah, ah so I didn't see what would happen if you failed it but like so like that. 04:10:07.10 Chris Um, ah, really. 04:10:13.42 Chris Um, ah, that'll be interesting. 04:10:14.55 Dave Change I think is happening to the characters. So you don't get to see what happens after that. But like that, that promise that like this will happen. They did put that in there to remind you like yeah this this will happen to you so that was cool. 04:10:16.86 Jim Oh wow. 04:10:29.90 Jim Oh my gosh. That's hilarious. 04:10:32.22 Dave It was just very. It was really sudden during the party too. It was like suddenly you get an urge to eat her brain in like the dice are rolling and it's like holy shit what? But yeah, that was um, that was my ending there and including in the party. 04:10:46.20 Jim Um, oh my gosh. 04:10:50.96 Dave The only other thing from the party again was um, you know a conversation about the possibility of maybe seeing Karlach again. But I think that was withers just ah, being nice. 04:11:03.21 Jim And in the good playthrough by taking wyll and Karlach and all of us going down to averus all of them come back to the party and they make this big deal about oh we found this. 04:11:04.45 Chris Yeah. 04:11:09.45 Dave Right. 04:11:20.22 Jim Forge and we think we're going to be able to fix Karlach down there. Um, and so like I was like for sure we're getting dlc and it's going to be this and then they just made that announcement. There's none. So. 04:11:21.54 Dave Oh okay. Right. 04:11:31.70 Chris Yeah I'm a little sad I heard the announcement about there not being any DLC before finishing the game. So yeah I knew like every time that there was some sort of hint that there would be in the game like in those last like. 04:11:50.29 Dave Um, yeah I think you know what they said actually it makes sense that they did leave the door open in certain places. They said that they started to work on the dlc and. 04:11:50.66 Chris Couple hours man I was just like don't tease me like this don't tease me like this I already know the answer to this question. 04:12:06.00 Dave Everyone was just like not feeling it so they decided to stop. Yeah. 04:12:09.87 Chris I see. 04:12:10.61 Jim Okay, okay, ah jump in tracks here so that the evil ending is actually kind of funny. So ah, if you do decide to take control like Minthara is like. 04:12:14.85 Dave Yeah. 04:12:25.42 Jim Down. She's like yeah, let's do this. Let's evolve but like it was the moment as things were happening. It was Esterian who again is like this fully ascended vampire Lord he looks at me and he's like wait. What are you doing and like your response to him you can choose it. It's like oh don't worry, you were always part of the plan. 04:12:44.92 Jim And then like everyone's like no no, no and then if you take control of it all of a sudden their eyes start glowing and they get these big smiles on their face like you've just totally mind controlled them and they're drones at that point like so they're standing around you and you you turn around and you sit down and then. 04:13:01.26 Chris Ah. 04:13:03.60 Jim Chair on the nether brain's head and if you are the tab which is like the player character. Normally then you say um in my name and you like pound your fist down as the camera zooms Out. It's horrible and like all these. Illithids are like slowly rising towards the brain if you are the dark urge and you have chosen to side with ball and be his chosen then you say in ball's name and it does the same thing. So this leads me into just another point which. 04:13:35.41 Chris Oh. 04:13:40.29 Jim If I do encourage anyone who's gone 4 hours and 13 minutes into this podcast and has not played I do encourage everyone to do an evil playthrough at some point and actually if you are. If you haven't played the game yet I know this sounds crazy but be evil first because when you when you go the good playthrough after doing this play this game so many times I swear to god the good playthrough has about 10 % 04:14:17.61 Jim More game like there are more things that you can do, more characters to interact with, more quest lines to do and then on top of that the dark urge I feel like actually has about 5% more game on top of that. So if you're a good dark urge I think that's the way that the game. 04:14:37.55 Jim Not that there's any right way to play it. But if you want the most bang for your buck I think that that's probably the way to do it. But these evil options change the game so much that playing it a second time is a good character. 04:14:53.00 Dave Um, yeah. 04:14:53.10 Jim Was like playing a brand new game. It was incredible. So that's my yeah. 04:14:58.78 Dave Yeah. 04:14:58.85 Chris Yeah, I'm excited to try it honestly I definitely that's been my plan for the last couple months is like okay finish this what up definitely want to make that like tavern brawler monk dark urge evil power hungry. Yeah. 04:15:11.86 Jim Do it and have fun. 04:15:12.82 Dave Hell? Yeah yeah, that's that's what I would do too is I would do ah the evil dark urge character the the evil dark urge giving into the dark urge character just like total fucking evil chaos my character that I made. That I know obviously haven't had time to play as um, much is a barred evil dark urge bard I called it the Liam Gallagher character yeah so ah. 04:15:47.70 Jim Ah, hilarious. 04:15:49.62 Dave Actually I think I named that character ratboy. But yeah, um, yeah, shout out and you know he's listening at at 4 hours and 15 minutes so um yeah do we have anything else about baldur's gate three. We've made it through talked about our playthroughs. Um. 04:15:52.80 Jim Shout out. Oh. 04:16:09.14 Dave As expected obviously Jim has a lot of different perspectives but like Chris and I feel like we followed a fairly similar path but things still worked out pretty differently for our characters. Um and some like major decisions along the way. And that's what I hoped for with this spoiler section. Um, and I know if Aaron was here as planned First of all, we would have gone for 6 hours but ah, he had different experiences to us because he and I talked quite a bit as he was playing the game too. 04:16:38.70 Chris Yeah. 04:16:46.57 Dave So It's just a testament to the different ways that your playthroughs can turn out and this is one of my favorite types of spoiler sections to do on the podcast is games like this where it's not so much breaking down story themes. But it's just good old fashioned like.. What did you do here? What did I do here? How did it turn out for us which is just like a wonderful thing about this game. 04:17:09.76 Jim A staggering amount of content I've played through this game. I've again sunk 500 hours into it four playthroughs and I had no idea that gortash could go to the nether brain until you brought it up Chris I mean just. 04:17:25.62 Chris Yeah. 04:17:26.93 Jim It is continuing to impress me with things I didn't know about it this far in. 04:17:30.46 Dave Yeah, and ah, you start to build up that understanding of why Larian wants to do something different and smaller after this. So ah. 04:17:44.11 Dave Guys. Thank you so much I have made the decision that this will have to be broken into two separate episodes. So thank you for being a part of the first time I've ever had to make that decision. Ah you guys absolute troopers over 4 hours of recording. 04:17:49.90 Jim Okay. 04:18:00.77 Dave I Appreciate you guys very much for coming on and doing this whole thing with me. 04:18:03.66 Jim Well done gentlemen. 04:18:07.10 Chris It's been a good time. Thanks for ah, getting me back into this game too. I'm super stoked to have finished it and like to be hooked again. 04:18:09.65 Dave Oh yeah, absolutely okay, well that is the end of the baldur's gate 3 2 parter the first in the ah tales from the backlog history. So thank you to everybody who listened whether you listened to both parts. 04:18:27.18 Dave All the way through or if you just tuned in for this special spoiler section standalone special appreciate you listening very much and yeah, check out everything else. We've got going on the podcast, join the discord server down in the show notes, check out the Patreon if you want to support monetarily. And tune in next week for the next game to come out of the backlog. I think next week is another long one. I think it's Xenogears next week so yeah check that out going to be a good time. Thank you everybody. We'll see you next time. 04:19:01.32 Jim Oh well done boys. 04:19:05.70 Chris Yep, thanks a bunch.