August 10, 2023

sleepymarmot:

I really dislike that in the scene where you free Halsin, there are two goblin children that you have to fight… Not a single option to scare them off or something like that. Evil route: you’re fine with children throwing rocks at a wild animal. Good route: you’re fine with murdering children in cold blood. What the hell is the logic here? That goblins are an “evil race” and don’t count as people? Fuck off.

I also teleported my ranged Tav to the cage door and wasted several turns on keeping it closed when the goblin kept opening it, we ended up with all the goblins dead or incapacitated and the worgs safely away behind the closed door… And then I had to open the door and kill them anyway because the combat refused to end.

@renee-niles replied to your post “I really dislike that in the scene where you free…”:

I mean, you DON’T have to kill them. They run away. The worst thing that happens if they escape is they summon three more low HP goblins as backup. You truly can just ignore them and still rescue Halsin.

No way?! The same encounter, as I complained, establishes that the combat doesn’t end until all hostiles are dead! Are the kids removed from the list of enemies when they escape?

Either way, this does not resolve my issue because the roleplaying decision is left to the player’s imagination instead of being present in the game itself. This conflict has a beginning, but no middle or end. There’s a cutscene introducing the situation in which some of the player’s enemies are children, but there is no dialogue choice that would allow the player to clearly decide what to do, and there is no way to react to the outcome.

Did you intentionally let children escape and call for aid, because you value their lives more than your safety? Did you try to stop them but fail, and if so, do you regret it? Did you intentionally knock them out instead of doing lethal damage? Did you kill them in cold blood? Did you strike them down without meaning to in the heat of the battle? Did you watch them get torn to shreds by a wild bear, only for him to transform into the famous benevolent leader who’s your best hope for salvation, and make pleasant conversation as if nothing happened? All of these are very different situations. Larian for some reason sets up this disturbing premise for a scene, completely different from most RPGs I’ve played (that either make children unkillable, or don’t have children at all), and then doesn’t even bother to capitalize on the dramatic potential.

I really dislike that in the scene where you free Halsin, there are two goblin children that you have to fight… Not a single option to scare them off or something like that. Evil route: you’re fine with children throwing rocks at a wild animal. Good route: you’re fine with murdering children in cold blood. What the hell is the logic here? That goblins are an “evil race” and don’t count as people? Fuck off.

I also teleported my ranged Tav to the cage door and wasted several turns on keeping it closed when the goblin kept opening it, we ended up with all the goblins dead or incapacitated and the worgs safely away behind the closed door… And then I had to open the door and kill them anyway because the combat refused to end.

BG3 journal: the three goblin bosses

Priestess Gut was a piece of cake. Literally: Astarion dealt the final blow with a bite.

With the addition of the scrying eye, the Mintara fight had become even tougher. I failed several times. Looked up how to kill her without combat (you let her read the grove location in your mind, then destroy the wooden bridge as she walks out of the room). Did it with Astarion. Did it with my Tav for immersion. Then reloaded again and tried the combat again anyway because I didn’t like the risk of giving Minthara the info even if I attack her right afterwards, and because I didn’t want to miss out on the loot. Miraculously, this was the attempt where the scrying eye didn’t summon anyone before I dealt with it, and the fight was finally a success — even though Wyll got thrown into a chasm at the very end.

Then I did the fight to free Halsin, and by the third, biggest goblin boss fight I was fully out of spell slots. But since my last attempt to just teleport to the camp, even without a long rest, broke the entire dungeon, I couldn’t risk it. So I went into combat with Shadowheart and Socerer Tav in cantrip only mode, hoping that Astarion and Wyll would carry us. After one half-hearted attempt where I didn’t even remember to take out the drum, I decided to throw Dror into a chasm with Repelling Blast, giving up on the loot. It worked well, and I was positioning Wyll to kill someone else with fall damage… And he got thrown in the chasm himself. Astarion also got kicked down from the rafters several times. After the third time or so, I finally realized that the Revivify scrolls work in combat too, and brought Wyll back. I also accidentally hurt Astarion myself: threw a cold cantrip at the enemy he was fighting to slow him down… Then Astarion walked over that spot, slipped on ice, and got the shit beaten out of him by another enemy who was nearby. Well, that fight ended successfully, we looted the treasury and teleported to camp to meet our guardians in our sleep. Hopefully Halsin can find the way out by himself, because now the entire camp is hostile and I am not going back there.

August 9, 2023

coltonclay:

It’s part of how I accidentally screwed up act 1 to an insane degree, but I’ve never had Gale in my party to where I’ve had to use him in combat. This unintentionally made him the funniest bitch in the game. He’s some bum that just hangs out in my camp lamenting about his ex, talking about how much he loves his cat, and asking for very expensive items with no material benefit to the team. World’s most unemployed man.