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Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 Pre-Release Thread [EARLY ACCESS RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

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it dosen't matter in the end: because is 100% sure that all the bhallspawn are dead.

1. Imoen is alive in every epilogue. Sarevok is alive in most of his endings.
2. I've said it before and I'll say it again: in one of the early interviews, a PR representative of Larian refused to answer whether we'll be playing a Bhaalspawn. Think about it. Literally 99,9% people would, naturally, expect an answer of "No, their story is already done." That she refused means this isn't the end of that plotline. In the words of Jake Skywalker: "No one's ever really gone."

Imoen discards her heritage of Bhaal to Solar in all endings. Sarevok is also no longer a Bhaalspawn, as his portion of divinity returned to the throne when he was killed by the PC. Explicitly, only Viekang (if the PC saves him) and the child of the PC and Aerie would have any Bhaal-blood, but those are dependent on PC choices. I read that in a WotC module, they have Viekang and Abdel fight, where one is killed, the other becomes the ravager, and Bhaal spontaneously resurrects. That's the canon, which is really fucking lame.

I'm not optimistic for the plot of BG3, at all. Couple that with Max Mad does Avernus and Larian's renown writing, and we've got a narrative abomination egging to be hatched. *sigh*
 

Jedi Exile

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Project: Eternity Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Actually, I am looking forward to a Baldur's Gate game with Larian writing. I am sure their take on BG lore will be glorious :troll:

On a serious note, Larian writing is very underrated by some people, who mistake lightness of tone for a 'bad' writing.
 

Reinhardt

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I just hope they will use drawn portraits for companions so i won't be scared for life by Viconia.
 
Vatnik Wumao
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Actually, I am looking forward to a Baldur's Gate game with Larian writing. I am sure their take on BG lore will be glorious :troll:

On a serious note, Larian writing is very underrated by some people, who mistake lightness of tone for a 'bad' writing.
D:OS2's writing is the opposite of Deadfire's purple prose, having instead of dialogue proper the equivalent of a writer's conversation skeleton around which dialogue should've been developed.
 

TheImplodingVoice

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it dosen't matter in the end: because is 100% sure that all the bhallspawn are dead.

1. Imoen is alive in every epilogue. Sarevok is alive in most of his endings.
2. I've said it before and I'll say it again: in one of the early interviews, a PR representative of Larian refused to answer whether we'll be playing a Bhaalspawn. Think about it. Literally 99,9% people would, naturally, expect an answer of "No, their story is already done." That she refused means this isn't the end of that plotline. In the words of Jake Skywalker: "No one's ever really gone."

3. Bhaal is back. What's to stop him from fathering more?
Child support
 

Deleted Member 22431

Guest
Generalist commentary always gets picked apart by experts; always, and without exception. Even the greatest literary generalists get picked apart by the experts in their field. (Goethe, who was probably the most erudite of human beings on the generalist scale, got picked apart on optics and logic.)

Generalists write bluffer's guides for the masses...

Videogame generalist commentators are locusts that buzz from game to game. They reference expert commentary in order gain their bearings. Then, they distort and dumb it down for their casual audiences who prefer to read about and watch games being played, rather than actually play them. This is why they don't get called out for their errors and distortions on their channels/blogs: their audience hasn't played the game; they are just a cheersquad. On the other hand, the expert gets called out immediately... by other experts.

Generalists pretend to know a little bit about everything but possess no explicit knowledge. That's why, on the fly, they can't speak with authority on anything. In form, most of their "statements" are partial, non-declarative, and end in the rising intonation of Valleyspeak; in content, it's up to the audience to find meaning in what they say.
:shredder:
 

LESS T_T

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Codex 2014
In case you're interested, the latest issue of Dragon+ provides some maps of Baldur's Gate: https://dnd.dragonmag.com/2019/10/22/maps-of-the-month-baldurs-gate/content.html

Maps of the Month: Baldur’s Gate

Before heading to hellish Avernus, let’s tour through the more pleasant (albeit still decidedly dangerous) city of Baldur’s Gate, with our latest round of maps to augment your campaign!

MapsOfTheMonth_0.png


WARNING:THESE MAPS MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus

BEFORE THE DESCENT
Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus released this September, taking adventure down to the first layer of the Nine Hells! Before the actual descent, however, things get started in one of the Faerûn’s most iconic cities—Baldur’s Gate.

Sword Coast
Are your characters traveling to “The Gate”? The Gazetteer chapter in Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus provides an in-depth journey through the history, demographics, and dangers of the city. Let’s start with a broader view of the city’s positioning along the Sword Coast, as well as such essential adventure locations as Candlekeep and Elturel.

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Baldur’s Gate
Arriving via Gray Harbor or through one of the city’s nine gates, visitors will find Baldur’s Gate split into three districts: the wealthy Upper City on the hills above the docks, the bustling Lower City around the harbor, and the lawless Outer City (which includes neighborhoods outside the city walls).

Important locations (of interest to many an adventuring party) are indicated on the map below:

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The Elfsong Tavern
Weary from a long day on the road? One of your first stops may well be the nearest tavern. And despite its rough-and-tumble clientele, the Elfsong Tavern remains one of the most popular in Baldur’s Gate.

As for its name? According to patrons, a disembodied elven voice cuts through the tavern’s crowd at periodic (and random) intervals, its song haunting enough to dim the room’s lanterns and make even the bar’s most hardened customers weep. (As a point of trivia, one of Wizards of the Coast’s conference rooms once shared the tavern’s name. No disembodied voices could be claimed there, except via conference calls.)

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Vanthampur Villa
From the taverns of the Lower City, let’s conclude our tour at the Upper City. Populated by the wealthiest residents of Baldur’s Gate and heavily patrolled by the city watch, adventurers may find themselves seeking out a particular example of the district’s fine homes: Vanthampur Villa.

A 12-foot-high stone wall encloses the villa, itself a stately stone edifice with a detached stable house. The wall features three wooden gates, including the main entrance and a coach gate to the south, as well as a postern gate to the north. All three gates are guarded, so if you do stop by for a round of trick-or-treating, approach with caution!

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Cartographers
And as always, our appreciation goes out to our amazing cartographers; this issue, these include Dyson Logos and Mike Schley.

Also an interview about the design of the war machines from Descent Into Avernus: https://dnd.dragonmag.com/2019/10/28/plotting-the-descent-infernal-war-machines/content.html
 

Elex

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3. Bhaal is back. What's to stop him from fathering more?
he don't need.
Bhallspawn was simply a method for coming back, he is back.

5e resurrected (almost) all the dead gods
and in 5e gods are a lot harder to kill.
you can kill lesser god but only temporary sending back to their plane.
Alo the dead three now are back togheter (their cultist kill ppeople togheter as a single lovely cult, fuck the dead 3 cultist they are really strong in the tabletop adventure)
 

Serious_Business

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I CANNOT fucking WAIT for the next GAME in bioware's AWARD WINNING series of computer roleplaying rpgs that bring to my NOSTALGIC BRAIN a sense of the greatest game of all times that VIDEO GAMES were being played in the sense of roleplaying a CHARACTER which is essentially a persona that the PLAYER incarnates in the world and acts as the CENTER POINT of the experience

That's right, no one's living this room in a sane state of mind
 

fantadomat

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Oh, Larian's writing is bad, it doesn't have anything to do with the light tone.
Which is pretty strange since their earlier games do have good and original writing. Also they could write a good political story like in dragon commander. Shame that the strategy was shit.
 

King Crispy

Too bad I have no queen.
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Strap Yourselves In
I was reading on some random Planeswalker wiki hub yesterday about an illithid legend of a human wizard who managed to survive the ceramorphosis procedure and actually wrestled his consciousness back from the mindflayer parasite after it had completely transformed his body. He thus became the perfect illithid society infiltrator but is rejected by most of the species as being "impossible" to exist.

It made me instantly wonder if the player character from this game might actually be that creature/wizard.

If this has been postulated here already, I apologize.
 

fantadomat

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I was reading on some random Planeswalker wiki hub yesterday about an illithid legend of a human wizard who managed to survive the ceramorphosis procedure and actually wrestled his consciousness back from the mindflayer parasite after it had completely transformed his body. He thus became the perfect illithid society infiltrator but is rejected by most of the species as being "impossible" to exist.

It made me instantly wonder if the player character from this game might actually be that creature/wizard.

If this has been postulated here already, I apologize.
Too original and interesting to be part of this game. You live in the wrong century mate.
 

DraQ

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Lighter tone in an RPG may be cringeworthy for some, but it doesn't mean that the writing itself is bad. There wasn't that much of it anyway.
"Lighter tone" and "whimsical" do not mean "coma inducing inanity".

DOS1 was stereotypical, boring, its humor was fairly consistently boring and unfunny (with few genuinely funny exceptions, like that statue showing you the future) and the sense of wonder was not there.
That's pretty bad for studio consistently making tongue-in-cheek humour and affectionate pastiche their selling point.
In any case, anything fantastical, be it fantasy, SF or fantasy-in-space, NEEDS to evoke sense of wonder.
With possible brief exception of the moment you first end up on the shelter plane (which also didn't quite go where it could, IIRC), DOS1 didn't.

Note that I mean DOS1 and DOS1 only here, not entirety of Larian's work.
 

Lady_Error

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I was weary of the humour at first, but then went along with it - and while it is a different RPG experience to some degree, DOS1 has tons going for it. Including sense of wonder, eg. the giant spider areas with the sand storm, the toxic forest, etc.
 

Lacrymas

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Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,948
Pathfinder: Wrath
I was reading on some random Planeswalker wiki hub yesterday about an illithid legend of a human wizard who managed to survive the ceramorphosis procedure and actually wrestled his consciousness back from the mindflayer parasite after it had completely transformed his body. He thus became the perfect illithid society infiltrator but is rejected by most of the species as being "impossible" to exist.

It made me instantly wonder if the player character from this game might actually be that creature/wizard.

If this has been postulated here already, I apologize.
This seems like the Adversary, someone posted about that 2-3 pages ago. While it's a fun idea, I don't know where it can go story-wise, especially for an RPG with combat. What I think will happen is that maaaybe an illithid will try to infest a Bhaalspawn if there are any left and we'll try to stop this from happening. At first I thought it will have something to do with Bhaal again since it's BG3, but it seems too convenient and the fact he's back is just ...a fact now. Rehashing the plot of BG1-2 is a bit tasteless. The other option is like some people have said before, the illithid invasion is just a smokescreen for another thing that's happening at the same time, like a massive pouring of demons and devils from Avernus. Maybe the Blood War will seep into Fearun.

I kinda don't like either one of these options tbh. The first is subtler but kinda obvious, the second is a bit too epic for my taste. Gigantic armies and invasions work for hack and slashers, not so much for (party-based) action games like Twitcher and inevitably BG3 or even RPGs.
 
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