The Baldur's Gate yelling could only be contained so long

[spindizzy]

LexGarrett bought himself Baldur's Gate 3 for his birthday, and let me play it too! This was exceptionally bad timing because I'm out of my ADHD meds so the only defence between my loved ones and me hyperfocusing on this game is my willpower. ... So lemme talk about my latest hyperfocus, Baldur's Gate 3!

I have no idea what's a spoiler and what isn't, so basically EVERYTHING is going behind the cut. Spoilers through the goblin camp/Emerald Grove/getting lost in the Underdark because that's where I'm up to; maaaaaaaaaybe spoilers through act 2 because that's what Lex is up to.

Lex is playing a half-orc paladin who is romancing(??????) Lae'zel. I am playing a half-drow bard who is going to hug the living daylights out of Karlach as soon as physically possible. Offline Friend Chris, who is getting a lot of my screaming via discord, is currently playing the Dark Urge and trying not to let the intrusive thoughts win but has finished the game a couple of times.

General yelling

• Listen, I didn't even know that this game was coming out until the "You can bang the bear" video dropped, and I didn't watch it as much as hear splend play it. So literally my frame of reference is "I have played D&D and know you can bone people," which is probably enough to be getting on with? Feels very Dragon Age, which is probably because that's the Neverwinter Nights successor that I've actually seen more than half an hour of.


• Man, I'm always kinda ambivalent about playing a bard because it makes combat more complicated, but out of combat? I LOVE THIS. I can talk to E V E R Y B O D Y. I've managed to arrange my class features and feats in such a way that I have proficiency and expertise to damn near every single social skill in the game and it's perfect. Tav casts Speak With Animals over her breakfast and gets to chat to the dog, rats, birds, oxen... I love that. I found an amulet of Speak With Dead that will theoretically let me talk to EVEN MORE people. I get to cast Friends as a cantrip and get a bonus even if I'm trying to intimidate them. Thank you Being A Bard, I never should have doubted you.


• The game foolishly let me design my guardian and if you tell me to design a protector you're going to get a hot scarred middle-aged half-orc butch.¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Yes I accidentally became a parody of myself by having both of the characters I designed and the character I'm romancing basically be different points on the soft/hard butch spectrum, no I would not change that for the world.
  
  • Tell you what though, I am a little disappointed in the character creator. The little bit of yelling I'd seen suggested that the character customisation was ~amazing~ so I was expecting like... Saint's Row 4 levels of customisation? And instead I got a decent face editor and no real way to change my character's body shape beyond "Big" and "Not Big." Not mad about it! Just a bit disappointed! I wanted my bard to be round and squishy, and alas it was not meant to be. I assume it's easier to do scene blocking and spacing and designing clothes/armour if you don't have to account for all possible body sizes?
  
  
  • Divorcing gender from frame and genitalia: handled so much better than in FE3H. Your frame doesn't dictate whether you wear booty shorts or clothes suitable for your job! Whaaaaaaaaaaaat.
  
  
  • Also I realised that the fact you can strip everyone down is going to be really helpful for fan creators who now have canon information about everyone's junk. Yay? Yay.
  
  
  • I love that there are apparently fashions in underwear and you can tell because the designs match across characters. I choose to believe that the devs thought about fashion, not that they just didn't want to make whole new assets, and no one can stop me.


• My biggest gripe is "what is the point of having a voice actor for the protagonist if they don't speak the diaglogue lines?" And I get it, it would be way too expensive to get someone in to do all of the talking in the game, especially when you can play any of your party members. But also: why would I ever play Astarion if that meant I wouldn't get to hear his dulcet tones?


• It's so useful that the game shares exp across all the characters regardless of if you use them, because if I had to level everyone up individually I just would not.


• Lex is still slightly irked by not being able to do top-down view of the battle map. You can do top down, and you can view a battle map with the grids, but not both at once.


• The bomb defusal mini-game that is navigating conversations without somehow flirting or telling characters you hate them is SO STRESSFUL. Like, as a woman and an oblivious ace this is too much of my life already. Ugggggggggggh.


• Why are wizards the only ones who can learn spells from scrolls? Boooooo. Boooooooooooo! (Yes I know the answer is that wizards are the only ones who need spellbooks, but still.)


• What do you mean we're playing with the encumberance rules. No one plays with the encumberance rules! I thought they were a myth!


• WHY CAN I NOT LOOK UP. UP IS WHERE THE DRAGONS ARE. WHY IS THE CAMERA STUBBORNLY REFUSING TO SHOW ME THE DANG HORIZON.

Yelling about characters
My current party is Astarion, Karlach, and Whoever is Plot Relevant Or Can Cast Guidance. It's not a perfect system because it means I'm not getting as much time with all the characters as I'd maybe like, but so far it's working out. Mostly. Ish.

• EVERYONE was like "Karlach is going to be your favourite." EVERYONE. And GODDAMN I AM SO PREDICTABLE BUT ALSO KARLACH IS MY FAVOURITE. She is a beautiful sunshine queen who can crush basically anyone and has a tortured backstory, of course I love her. She's so tall and buff! She swears like a sailor and really wants a hug! She has a teddy bear in her tent and I have one in my inventory! I LOVE HERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.


• Astarion: You want to just team up with some bloodstained killer? Because I'm fine with that.


• Astarion is my second favourite after Karlach and YES, HE LIKES HER TOO, MY DREAM TEAM IS VALID! \o/


• Lex and Offline Friend Chris were surprised that I hadn't bee-lined to Karlach immediately. I tried! There was a cliff in the way! So Offline Friend Chris had to give me directions of where I could climb the cliff and jump off to reach her without going all round the houses mountain. Dunno if I was supposed to aim for the giant bloodstain, but it was a perfect landing spot!


• Is it just me or does Karlach have bolts welded into her like Frankenstein's monster? Because uhhhhhh I think maybe she has bolts welded into her like Frankenstein's monster.


• I realised that rules as written I should not be able to cast Cure Wounds on Karlach, because it's specifically A CREATURE YOU CAN TOUCH. *sobs*


• Does it seem fast that Karlach is putting moves on me when the closest I've done to flirting with her is going "I can't hug you. :(" Because this feels very "I DID NOT FUCKING SAY THAT" to me. Thought we would be going slow due to the not touching and the not getting Karlach wound up things and I was super wrong. But we are absolutely hitting my milestones of "If they touch hands before the halfway point of the story they're moving too fast" for slow-burn and I'm DYING. LET ME HUG THE TOUCH-STARVED TIEFLING. SHE NEEDS A HUG.


• SHE DANCES WHEN SHE GETS BORED and canonically wiggles a lot, omg we're soulmates.


• Legit there is a point where one of the commands you can give her is "Grab the beam. FLING IT ASIDE." Formatted exactly like that. Love that for her. I absolutely need more of her just flexing and throwing things.


• Man, if Dammon turns out to be evil and actually just there to keep Karlach tuned up for her return to the hells, I will flip my shit. Dating your mechanic is a tried-and-true trope and I would absolutely be here for Karlach dating a guy who was willing to risk a scorching just to work on her engine. If I wasn't ready to marry her, I mean.


• The contrast between how sunny and sweet she is and her being a barbarian who can rip through an army: delicious. I get that it's a whole part of her arc and The Trauma that she had to fight and kill so much, but augh my heart.


• I'm genuinely concerned that I've glitched her character somehow. I haven't really got any new conversations with her since Dammon upgraded her engine the first time! But I've had conversations with other characters who either aren't in my party as often or don't have as much approval as her! I don't want to have broken her. D: Please sweetie, please talk to me!


• WAIT I ASKED IF I COULD CAST A SPELL ON HER THEN WENT "OH I DON'T HAVE A USEFUL SPELL" COMPLETELY FOGETTING THE RAY OF FROST SCROLL IN TAV'S BAG. MAYBE THAT'S THE PROBLEM. MAYBE JUST THIS ONCE I SHOULD PUT MY GIRLFRIEND ON ICE.


• I was going to complain about how uggggggggggggggggh Astarion keeps giving me inspiration points for talking my way out of situations but he doesn't actually LIKE me, and then SUDDENLY HE TURNS AROUND AND SAYS HE KNOWS I'M INTO HIM. WHAT. W H A T.
  
  • Okay yes I did let him chomp on my neck
  
  
  • And I did give him the evil necromancy book
  
  
  • And I did let him murder the guy who wanted to take him back to Cozador.
  
  
  • BUT DOES THAT REALLY CANCEL OUT MY BEING A SHINING BEACON OF SUPER NICENESS WHO WANTS TO HELP EVERYONE????? REALLY?????? HE HATES THAT!!!
  
  
  • And because I'm playing on Explorer mode where the battles are less terrible, I don't long rest as much as I would on higher difficulties where I really need those spell slots, so ending the day sets off like four events at once, right? Which means one night I got Astarion yelling at a book and Karlach going "You make me happy and I would bone you if I could :D" and I just had to turn the game off and walk away for a while. KARLACH IS MY BEAUTIFUL SUNSHINE QUEEN AND THE PERSON I WAS PLANNING TO ROMANCE, ASTARION WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS.
  
  
  • Lex and Offline Friend Chris: You know you can turn them down, right?
    Me: CAN I THOUGH.
  
  
  • So I had a great set-up of one file labelled "SMOOCHING KARLACH LIKE GOD INTENDED" where I didn't murder the a guy for Astarion, and a post-murdering that guy save labelled "HOW AM I ROMANCING ASTARION" so that I can deal with Astarion's bullshit at a DIFFERENT TIME when my heart is ready. And this flawless system DOESN'T WORK because every time I play the game after midnight the game has Astarion try to proposition Tav. It's starting to feel deliberate at this point.
  
  
  • BACK TO ASTARION THOUGH: the timing of The Talk feels really suspicious to me, and I can't tell if it's supposed to or not. Like, you can address it, kinda? You can actually tell him that him trying to lure you off alone seems suspicious, and he'll promise "on [his] honour, the only thing in mind is carnal debauchery" or whatever it is. But it still feels like... I dunno. A bribe. A manipulation. A way to go "This person is useful to me and clearly likes me, I will throw them a bone(r)" (I'm so sorry) (I couldn't not) (okay I could've and I didn't) "and that will keep them mollified and on my side regardless of what else I do." Like, buddy, I just gave you a cursed book and a free pass on your evil deeds, what made you think I needed anything to keep me on side???? ... Maybe in my next playthrough it will come up at a different time and will feel less skeevy.
  
  
  • I just love him so much, okay. He's a high-drama disaster and I want to restart the game just so I can do his romance and stop obsessing over it.


• Lae'zel is fascinating. All of her cutscenes are full "magical warrior princess" – the struggling to escape the pod, that graceful leap into battle, the admiration of the dragon riders. She's annoyed by everyone existing around her but she's still the one who suggests (enforces?) teaming up to make it off the nautiloid. She knows so much, but her knowledge is focused so hard. And of course she's like "Ugh, you people are all disgusting primitive worms," but that's about what I expect from people raised by the lich queen.
  
  • Lae'zel. Lae'zel, I am a bard, please don't try to jump me I don't have the hit points for that. (I did feel weirdly reassured that her reasoning was that I'm more capable and less annoying than she expected. Like this was not related to anything I had done! I was competent, so she was horny about it! ... I was still like "Oh god, what, why, no," but if people are going to be attracted AT me it's less jarring when it's nothing to do with me.)
  
  
  • Lex got to the stage of her storyline where she was finally ready to accept affection without ripping someone's hand off and I was screaming internally the entire time. Romances where physical intimacy is easy, but emotional intimacy is terrifying? Yes. I would like to watch this flailing.
  
  
  • "She takes your kindness for weakness," okay first of all Shadowheart, this from YOU. Second of all, that's fine! My aggressive kindness and competence are going to drive her absolutely bats because I could be more competent if I only had the proper ruthlessness, and it ain't happening.
  
  
  • I don't think I quite anticipated how much culture shock there would be between githyanki and literally everyone else. Again, my adventures in the Faerûn setting are not many, and... Most of them actually involved githyanki trying to kill us, now I think about it. Huh. But I'm glad she finds my nose weird.


• It turns out that I don't actually dislike Shadowheart, her bangs were just very pixellated and ugly so it made looking at her aggravating. But I've tweaked the settings, everything is fine, Shadowheart is cool.
  
  • Sooooooooooo who's gonna tell her that she's in an abusive cult that might have kidnapped her as a child. Because I'm pretty sure I would not survive telling her that. She can't even be nice about Selûnite architecture, she would not survive hearing that she might have been raised one of them.
  
  
  • (Her being raised as one thing doesn't invalidate her devotion to Shar now, but I think that it would aggravate her.)
  
  
  • I'm really struggling to figure out how much she actually remembers and how much she just doesn't want to talk about. Because she clearly remembers some of herself, and the things that she's been left with are simultaneously so small and so big. She likes night orchids and can't swim. She has a Complicated relationship with the Mother Superior of her church. She's afraid of wolves. They're not big enough to be worth deliberately suppressing, but they're also too small to just leave her with. I got nothing. I don't have an explanation for it. Gaaaaame gimme that explanation already! At the very least, a lot of who a person is is shaped by who they were, so I want to know how much of Shadowheart is true to the person she is when she has all of her memories.
  
  
  • Hear me out: Lae'zel and Shadowheart should kiss. And be angry about it, obviously, but I feel like if I am allowed to date someone who pulled a knife on me and also attempted to eat me in the night, Lae'zel should be too. Especially because Shadowheart pinning her with a foot on her arm was a brilliant move and I support it. And, y'know, they're both very goal-oriented devotees, just very much in opposite directions, so that's a recipe for drama.
  
  
  • It's interesting to me that Shadowheart is the only one that you can ask about your progress. No one else, just Shadowheart. I don't know why that is – is it the artefact? Is she somehow the default party member that you can't not take?
  
  
  • Just got a note here that says "Magical chronic pain represent????"
  
  
  • She can be so manipulative. Like there's a point after you meet Raphael where she will just try to talk you in circles just to see if you fall for it, and I respect what she's doing but also augh.


• The thing about Gale is that he talks like a powerful spellcaster, and he has the backstory anecdotes of a powerful spellcaster, but he's still a level 1 scrub from Waterdeep. Which I know is because NPCs have different classes and you can be a high level NPC wizard who isn't as good as a PC wizard, but – level one.
  
  • I feel bad for my incorrect read of Gale as big fuckboi energy. He's very sweet! He talks so much! And I let the haircut distract me from him being a sweetheart.
  
  
  • Gale. Gale. Can you – can you back up to the part where you were banging a literal goddess. HOW. Why are you still romanceable when there you have a Very Disappointed Goddess as your ex-girlfriend, that sounds absolutely lethal for Tav. ... Is that why he talks like a level fifteen wizard but doesn't have the stats to back it up? Did fucking up the orb level drain him????
  
  
  • I haven't tried having Gale summon a familiar because what if it's not Tara! But I absolutely want to meet Tara at some point because I feel like she has some Stories to tell. But what if her appearing and disappearing makes them both sad!
  
  
  • I've been informed that in playthroughs where you're not romancing her, Lae'zel will just attempt to fight-sex the rest of the party. Her review of Gale was that he talks to much to get anywhere. Considering he is a squishy wizard, that's... Probably for the best? Lae'zel could probably destroy him!
  
  
  • Not even mad that Gale needs to snack on magic items; the combo of explorer mode and talking to literally everyone and everything means that I have magic weapons that I can't use falling out of everywhere. Go, buddy, eat that hat, I in't gonna use it.


• Wyll shows up and I'm like "Awwwww, he's a folk hero! He's doing his best to help people and inspire them, that's why he's got the name and the catchphrase!" and then at every turn the game is like "No, he's the oblivious fuckboi, not Gale."
  
  • Does he really flirt with every female character? Badly???? Because all of the examples I've seen so far have been him doing very badly at flirting.
  
  
  • WHY DO YOU NOT HAVE A COPY OF YOUR CONTRACT WYLL. THAT'S LIKE RULE THREE OF SIGNING A CONTRACT WITH A DEVIL. RULE TWO IS READ THE SMALL PRINT. RULE ONE IS "DON'T."
  
  
  • I respect that he tried so hard to not have to fight anyone who wasn't evil, and got screwed over by Zariel having weird taste in modding. But also: YOU KNOW WHAT TIEFLINGS ARE. WHEN I MEET YOU YOU'RE LITERALLY HANGING OUT WITH THEM. DID YOU REALLY TRUST YOUR PATRON SO MUCH THAT YOU WERE WILLING TO IGNORE THE EVIDENCE OF YOUR OWN DAMN EYES.
  
  
  • Somehow I'm not surprised that Wyll is the secret noble in the party. There's always one! I honestly want to know more about his dad though, gimme that story arc.
  
  
  • Giving Wyll the appearance of a devil was definitely A Choice. Puzzled by it as an ironic punishment, tbh, especially if it's not something that can be undone, but I respect the commitment to drama.
  
  
  • Me: I'll make Wyll a Pact of the Blade warlock, that makes perfect sense for his character!
    The game: Pact of the Tome warlocks gets Guidance for free.
    Me: I'll make Wyll a Pact of the Tome warlock!


• I can't believe Lex got like half way through the game before Halsin formally joined the party. Okay I CAN, but I did not expect the bear man to be the disc two character. And wait, does this mean he doesn't have a tadpole?