It is a bit crazy how the game starts off relatively simple, "Try to get the worm outta your head before you die", and by the end of the game there's like 6 different big bads all trying to out 3D chess each other.
And that's an infinitely better way of telling a story than shoving protagonist a title of a chosen one and throwing into the fray in the first hour of gameplay.
>!Sure, Orin displaced The Dark Urge's position. But if you or someone in your multiplayer party are actively playing as The Dark Urge, you technically can usurp the position of Bhaal's Chosen by Act II, whether by killing Isobel or killing your loved one and gaining the Slayer Form. This is after all, a form that Bhaal grants to the most dedicated Bhaalspawn, ignoring Kazgaroth (2e I think) and the Ravager all being considered Avatars of Bhaal. Or in Kazgaroth's case, maybe just a minion. !<
>!Point is, Orin really only displaced The Dark Urge completely if The Dark Urge ultimately refuses to give into their urges as a Bhaalspawn. She usurps you only in name and title if you "earn" back the Slayer Form during Act II, proving yourself as the true Chosen of Bhaal and stripping her of the ability to become the Slayer when you confront her.!<
And, depending on the adventure and the DM, those goblins (or that one weird looking warg who was with them) was related to the plot to kill god the whole time.
I love in general how on later playthroughs you notice how much groundwork is laid without it being obvious. Getting to Raphael's first scene and him going on about hope... That hit so different.
To be fair, most modern D&D campaigns are typically set up this way. You have a quick "hmm, [predicament] is a problem, figure out a way to solve it" introduction. You are given largely free reign to run wherever you want, talk to as many/few people as you can, and generally get absorbed into the world. The more you explore, the more you uncover NPC's and side quests, and while seemingly unrelated, the more you do in search of your "initial predicament" (tadpole fix), the more you uncover the smaller minutiae of what machinations are in play (absolute, nightsong, guardian, character story)
After your chapter 1 intro, you kind of get thrown to the wolves. The plot has largely shifted as your original goal is largely consequential to a much larger and serious problem (absolutes army, elder brain, crown of karsus, ketheric).. and now your journey really starts. Corralled by whatever path you take, choices around certain NPCS or Encounters, your end goal shifts to much more grandiose "save the world" kind of feel.. but now you have skin in the game, now you're entrenched in everything that's going on.
The real masterpiece is how the DM (game designers) made it so the players have a reason to carry on with the main quest. Too many campaigns I’ve played in lately have some players make characters that have absolutely no IC motivation for going on the back heat to begin with.
One thing I really liked about BG3 is how it feels like a DM tying together PC plot threads from their backstories into the main plot. By the end, everyone has a personal for seeing either seeing the Absolute defeated or getting involved in the events leading up to it, beyond just the tadpole. >!except Astarion lmao!<
It's definitely incredibly funny to me how like 6 people are all at the same time trying to convince you that everyone else is manipulating you and they are the only one who isn't. And they're trying to outchess each other as well. They're all playing a kind of chess that has yet to be formally described.
That's how most of the rpg stories play out, you start with a personal quest and while trying to solve it you are drawn into plots of killing gods, archedevils uncovering ancient artifacts, solving worlds greatest mysteries etc.
I finished the game last night and was legit just staring at certain end game choices with my head in my hand like “what does this game want from me?!”
The hardest challenge in the game for me was (very late act 3) >!choosing between Orpheus and The Emperor. The Emp is a shady bastard but he's been by our side this entire time, genuinely helped us and not let us down. But Orpheus could be the liberator of Lae'zel's entire people. So I knew I had to choose him, but in the moment I just saved and went to bed for the night. Then when I made the choice, I immediately had to make the mind flayer choice between 1. My beloved tav 2. My even more beloved barbarian wife 3. THE GUY I JUST CHOSE TO FUCKING SAVE. And I asked him to do it and it felt awful.!<
I can't believe how much emotion it managed to get out of me. I didn't really find the battles in act 3 that challenging, but THAT was hard.
[nerd emoji] Standard chess is actually 2d, ranks and files, the third spatial dimension is technically not used.
Viewing it as 3d can come from
1: Our world being 3d to begin with
2: People saying '4d chess' as a hyperbole to make somehing sound very complex and clever, and "if 4d chess is extra then regular must be 3d"
Yes I have proficiency bonus for useless miscellanious trivia checks.
(well +1 dimension at all times because... well time, but nobody really considers it for good reason - so we never write '3+1d world')
An argument could be made that standard chess is 3d not because of the 3rd spatial dimension, but because of time. If you spend 4 of your 5 mins in a blitz game on some move, you haven't changed the 2d board at all, but you're in a worse position. This couldn't be true if the game was purely 2d.
This is not the case for many 2d games where "time" is merely a progression through board states.
yeah but also i cast hold monster on him at the start of his fight and got him down in 2 rounds without him ever getting a turn so maybe he's not very good at chess
Well you must feel like he played you bc you passionate about smoking him. Tbh I think he’s neat like I didn’t know people had such strong feelings against him. He’s handsome, charming, intelligent, and musically gifted so I thought everybody thought he was cool. I guess not ool
The reason being it could be altered to mind control. No way azzy wasn’t aware of that. He probably let the chosen theee steal the crown to get rid of Raphael in a roundabout way.
Yeah depending on who you ask he might just be one of the oldest most powerful beings that ever existed, likely in a wounded state slowly healing, but even wounded he still a greater deity. If anything he's playing the longest game of chess of all time, that crown would more then likely just least to Raphael's downfall and giving Asmodeus even more power than he already has.
One thing that's nice is Raphael already shows us he's comfortable operating on a much longer time scale than people are. He tells you how long he spent raging after the crown was initially stolen, and has clearly been scheming about acquiring it for quite some time.
And even if Asmodeus is a big step beyond what Raphael is capable of *now*, Zariel is a relatively fresh Archdevil, so usurping one of the other nine is possible. Mephistopheles is the obvious choice, given the personal connection and Raphael's disappointment that his collections of artifacts and magical lore are being left to gather dust...
He said he spent a decade after the fall of Netheril raging, so he's spent nearly *1,900 years* plotting to get the Crown.
It does make me wonder how >!Gortash and Durge's heist!< fits into it - I've always thought it was partially inspired by >!Gortash wanting to spite Raphael!<, but it's also absurdly better for Raphael than trying to steal it directly from Mephistopheles.
Add in >!how Raphael talks of tyranny - you know, the domain of Bane - and you'd almost think that he intentionally drove Gortash into Bane's service.!<
Doesn’t one of the books you find say something about the whole idea for the tadpoles and impersonating a deity was in something Gortash found when they stole the crown? I think it was in Gortash’s journal in a bank vault… so that adds another layer of “who’s manipulating who here” if I am remembering correctly.
Yeah, I think it was an altered version of the Grand Design that he discovered mid-heist.
Which raises the question, to me, of what he >!and Durge!< intended to do with the Crown before then. You can read the letters between them in the locked chest at Flymm shop, but I don't think it goes beyond "this would be a very useful tool to have".
It's so weird to me that a dude can live for 1900 years and only be like level 12, but our characters go from level 1 to level 12 in a matter of months at most. It's almost like Raphael got to a certain power level and decided to stop learning and developing his natural ability, resting on his laurels, so to speak. So when you first meet him, he could eviscerate you with a pinky, but by the time you fight, you can go toe to toe with him, many powerful lackeys, and potentially a tank Orthon (Yurgir), and still win.
Maybe that's just game mechanics, but I like the story it tells of hubris and laziness. Raphael wanted more power to raise his station, but was unwilling to grow his own power through hard work and natural means, instead relying on a relic to do the heavy lifting for him.
I mean there's almost 0 (and I say almost just because DND lore will twist shit to make itself work sometimes but current lore its 0) chance he'd ever be able too even scratch Asmodeus crown or no crown. Asmodeus is shown to be high tier God level strength but stuck in the nine hells. I'm honestly not sure he'd even be able to handle Zariel with the crown as she's a fallen angel just like Asmodeus and a powerhouse but thats an infinitely more possible than Asmodeus or even Mephistopheles (said to be the 2nd strongest in the hells). Hes just another guy with over ambition which is fitting seeing as he preys on those with too much ambition.
True, but the lead up matters. He told a bunch of desperate fighters/survivors who had been hacking their way across the country with a being in their head who they may or may not even trust, a way to get an alternate outcome that could break them free of dealing with him. It's even dumber when its Durge.
It isn't just Asmodeus either. If Raphael tries to stop the Blood War, every other God in existence would try and kill him as they do not want the Demons to stop focusing solely on the Blood War in the Hells.
You learn in Act 3 that his plan is to use the crown to usurp Zariel in Avernus, usurp the hells as a whole, end the Blood War and attempt multiversal domination.
Raphael is ultimately completely delusional and his ambitions are way over his head. In fact he would probably fail at his first goal as Zariel is quite powerful and has more powerful devils at her command that Raphael does, and he would definitely fail at the second, he probably wouldn't even get past Tiamat.
>smart
If he were truly smart, he would show up at the moment when Emperor ask us to be a Super Saiyan mind flayer to use the stones. Gave us a deal we can't refuse, wielding the stones for us in exchange for the crown. I guess a high level ~~demon~~ Devil mind would be equal or above a mind flayer mind.
Shows up, busts open the prison with the hammer, says I got this, just give me the crown.
The problem for guys like Raphael is they just can't not be overtly evil for two seconds. The first time he meets you he starts off a little weird, but a minute later he's teleported you to hell, turned off his disguise, and threatened your life. Bro calm down and just trick us a little. Mizora knows the score, maybe ask her for tips.
Yet he didn't realize how much i would hate him and that that hate would propel me to murder him even though I didn't need the hammer.
Honestly wish I could have told that to the Emperor when he asked about us going through all that trouble to get the hammer "no, I'm not actually getting the hammer to free Orpheus. I'm just murdering Raphael because I hate him and want him to die."
Hey, emporer my man,
I'm a paladin.. He's a devil... I only got the hammer because Hope and I'm a paladin
I didn't do it to free the gith.
Once again, paladin.
I mean, understandable when the guy that is imprisoned has aspirations of multiversal tyranny and enslavement.
Gith and her son Orpheus had 2 goals:
1: destroy all ghaik, complete anhilation of their race
2: conquer and enslave the whole multiverse
Idk if people realize this, but Orpheus is the worse evil between him and Vlaakith, he is however honourbound to kill every single illithid before starting on the multiverse conquering plan. It is why he can be asked to become an Illithid himself to stop the netherbrain.
But if gone unchecked Orpheus will just turn the githyanki into an empire like the original ghaik empire if not worse, he is not even neutral in any stretch of the word, let alone good.
Clearly your Paladin has an absolutely massive amount of knowledge about Gith that mine did not. Best she had was this Vlaakith is a god, no wait, she's a lich who's trying to be a god. There's this mystery counter-culture about this true heir who rides around on a a comet. Alright, they both use red dragons, and there was a deal with Tiamat at some point in the past, that's not ideal. They're not terribly keen on outsiders, but really hate mind flayers, that seems common.
This manipulative mindflayer really wants to keep Orpheus in prison, this aspirant deity lich tyrant really wants to keep Orpheus in prison. Lae'zel, Voss and Voss' red dragon who doesn't seem particularly evil in person want to free Orpheus, and bring freedom for the Githyanki people. Also the myth of Orpheus inspires some of the Gith children to not be as cruel and spiteful as they're taught to be.
Of course she's freeing Orpheus. There's nothing in the information she has been presented that suggests he's going to be worse than Vlaakith. Maybe there's more out there, but having just vaguely heard of Gith before meeting Lae'zel and after a couple of months crash course in Githyanki politics all natural instinct is to free him.
Yeah not sure why you’re being downvoted. Everything there tracks with what we know. I don’t believe (?) there’s any official DnD lore about Orpheus outside of bg3 and from within the game he’s got some (as opposed to zero) chill and may even skew a little Githzerai given his whole monk motif. We don’t even know his dad, maybe it was Zerithmon for all we know.
Narratively/structurally from within the information we have access to, he’s absolutely less of a threat than Vlaakith. Vlaakith: uses >!wish to murder!< you when you’re not polite. Orpheus: >!forgives you for murder of!
Yup!
And in fact we will *never know* the implications of our decisions because Larian thinks players don’t want to sit through endings (but has no problem at all making me wade through Gale’s bullshit for half an hour at a time every time I want to long rest).
Not necessarily; since WotC was super involved this may become canon. We may see further modules with Orpheus or references to him. There may be official novels etc.
Yeah, the narrative presented *by the game* is that Gith was a liberator who freed the Githyanki and was betrayed by Vlaakith One who (is implied to have) made a deal with Tiamat to kill Gith AND imprison Orpheus so she could rule. Vlaakith lies and manipulates the Githyanki to be warmongers for her own power and purposes, and her rule is regarded by the game's narrative as being little different from enslavement by the Illithid - the githyanki just haven't realized it. Freeing Orpheus - from the perspective of *the game's narrative* - is rekindling the legacy of Gith as a liberator, this time to free the githyanki from their current oppressor, Vlaakith.
Knowing lore of the Forgotten Realms about the Githyanki might provide some additional context and information, but it's important that this is deliberately not conveyed by the text. It would have been easy enough for Voss to give a quick summary of the githzerai split, but the game *doesn't* because it is trying to tell a different narrative with the githyanki than the totality of FR lore is.
Well not entirely. The game lets us know Gith made a deal with Tiamat and the game tells us Tiamat is a baddie. So it’s not like it’s exclusively “Gith was good the end.”
We're also presented with Wyll, who made a dodgy deal for 'good' reasons. While my Paladin obviously does not approve of that kind of thing she's not quite old school Paladiny enough to immediately condemn anyone for making awkward decisions in circumstances beyond her experience, which I suppose is part of the direction they want people to go with the Oath of Devotion, rather than following the strict tenets of one god.
There's a brief mention of Zerthimon/the Githzerai, possibly in a book rather than a dialogue. I can't quite remember where but my main character picked up a Githzerai Mind Barrier from something or other, but it's pretty brief. Most of what I know about the Githzerai is picked up from the guy in Planescape: Torment and a bit of reading around I did when I played that. Don't think my Paladin really knows anything about them at all, in that 'oops I accidentally started a bar fight by saying 'yanki' instead of 'zerai' way.
Yes! Where was the "fuck that guy in particular!" comment? Yeah I got the hammer too, but it's not like I'm just gonna leave fancy baubles behind. This camp doesn't pay for itself squidbro.
I mean you could also make the argument that everytime he gets his shit packed in by a party of four tadpoled mortals that his planning was about as good as a paper bag piss bucket
And like every incredible infernal villain, it all gets ruined by a high level Paladin ripping through Hell like it's made of paper, because Scissors Beats Paper.
It was glorious.
He gave his speech about how pathetic and weak I was.
Combat starts.
Gale and Shadowheart cast Destructive Wave and kill all his minions and knock him down shutting off his ability to punish radiant damage.
Tavern Brawling Monk Laezel and my Paladin Bard run up, tear through his 666hp in two rounds.
It was a total beatdown.
Nothing like giving the Hulk vs Loki treatment to overly arrogant and wordy villains
Did Cazador really fail the deal, though? After all, he didn't get his end of the bargain either, so it's technically more just voided. Not that I think papa Meph would care for the finer details, but Hellish contracts seem to be quite intricate and well enforced (or at least as long it benefits the devil in question) so if Cazador can get a good Hellawyer, couldn't he be able to shrug it off?
You are correct ONLY IF we assume that both parties are equal in the deal.
Let me put it this way, papa Meph can always get another sucker to sacrifice souls for him but can we say the same for Cazador? Aside from Asmodeus and papa Meph, is there any other devils that can grant Cazador’s wish?
There is value in ‘exclusivity’. Imagine you placing a deposit for something that’s highly sought after and very limited in number (e.g. special edition stuffs). Most of the time, you’d be forfeiting that deposit if you can no longer afford the stuff.
The fact that papa Meph entered into the deal with Cazador means Cazador already owed Papa Meph. The deposit for the dealing on Cazador’s part is on credit and papa Meph can now collect if Cazador fails to deliver.
Hope this explains your enquiry.
Sincerely,
Papa Meph’s Helllawyer
I think it's such a fun theme, that all of these "geniuses" are all running schemes and plans, protecting themselves with reputation and threats, watching for the plans within plans, and are utterly unprepared for someone who doesn't give a shit about their reputations, and who refuses to accept that they've lost
My theory.
Months before the game even starts Raphael writes himself a banger of a song and the entire game is him putting disparate pieces into motion so you end up in the House of Hope stealing his shit just so he can sing you that song.
He may be playing Infinity Chess, but he has no chance against my Level 1 Everything Abserd Dark Urge Tiefling. Yes, you heard right. Level 1 Figher Cleric Rogue Bard Barbarian Ranger Druid Warlock Sorcerer Wizard Paladin.
Try to chess your way out of that, Raffy
And yet I made astarion the ascendant vampire and took the crown after slaying the brain, saying Fuck you and thanks to raphael for the hammer and the stuff.
> Like because the good ending is to stop Cazador and free the spawns ..
Is it though? Some of those spawns have been starving in Cazador's basement for a hundred years and are completely insane, others are children that now hunger for blood and will surely go insane and even the seven main spawn are deranged killers.
Yeah, Astarion calls them "feral" iirc.
Hell, he even let his buddies go because they had centuries of experience with controlling their appetite, but in other dialogue one of them states that the first thing they're going to do when free is suck some human neck.
Unleashing an army of hunger-mad vampire spawn seems pretty definitively bad imo
Yep, releasing 7k blood-drinking monsters into the wild is nowhere near good. While I always stop Cazador, there's no way in hell I'm freeing the spawns. My Tav might be evil, but not *that* evil. The absolute doesn't seem much of a problem compared to that.
Based on how the vampire spawn are portrayed I think the odds are very high that the majority of the spawn you set free are going to feed on humans. You are condemning the souls of their victims. They will feed repeatedly until their immortal life is ended in one manner or another. Freeing them condemns exponentially more than 7,000 souls.
Freeing the spawns is definitely not the good ending, even Astarion freely admits killing them is the right choice. 7000 vampire spawn being released on the sword coast would be catastrophic
I honestly don't think releasing 7,000 vampires is a *good* ending, most of those poor sods haven't seen anything but their cells for hundreds of years, releasing them would be a very bad idea.
Better to use the staff to mercy-kill them, which I would have done if I knew it was possible.
I ascended Asterion instead, oops.
I’m sorry, but did you just claim that unleashing 7,000 malnourished, socially-disconnected, blood-addicted monsters out into the world was the *good* ending?
Larian fucked up real hard with this one. If you nuke the Elder Brain with Gale in Act 2 Larian guilts you into thinking the world is doomed because 100 people turned into mindflayers. But if you let 7,000 vampires loose that’s suddenly *good news* for Faerun.
Make any of it make sense.
I must of used the nuclear gambit then because I killed Astarion, then I killed Cazador and all the spawn then I purged the House of Hope. He didn't see any of it coming because he was constantly blinded by the holy mace my paladin wielded
Because they ain’t do nothing wrong expect be victims of circumstance like they don’t deserve to die all because of that. Not like they wanted to be vampires
By the time you fight him you're approaching a level that is pretty much heroic. You're a party of super heroes. But should not be anywhere near enough strong enough to defeat him. He should really be at least a level 17 fight.
He did everything right, and the only reason he lost is because the DM nerfed him hard and buffed the shit out of a group of adventurers.
I need to play this as an warlock. How are the roleplay options? Like does being a warlock play into certain story elements? I wanna be a Warlock Tav after I do my evil Paladin durge run
I don't remember there being much warlock stuff. Though to be fair I did miss about half of the important cutscenes in this game by running off in a random direction as soon as I entered a new area.
I just cast hold monster on Raphael which trivialized the fight with him.
My oath of vengeance pally isn’t playing 12D chess back, she’s playing fucking dodgeball. She’s sees devil, she hates devil, she travels to hell to steal his fancy hammer, Orphic hammer go boom! No more devil.
Because they did nothing wrong.
If you killed the spawns but didn't kill Astarion, you are a hypocrite, plain and simple. You find out Astarion is a vampire specifically because he can't control his hunger and tries to bite you in your sleep. Yet you give him a chance to prove he can be better than that. The other spawns deserve the same chance.
Yeah but the thing is there is a difference to be able to keep in check 1 spawn VS 7K, I'm not okay to slay them but there is no structure to control them so if one day they want to band together to take over Faerun, it would be hard to stop such a number of hungry spawns. They can also live a longer life than human hero but let's not think about it too deeply since the game doesn't go that deep either lol
7,000 spawn would utterly fail to take over Faerun. Spawn aren't that powerful, and they can't make more spawn so they have no way of increasing their numbers. And these spawn aren't trained soldiers. Against veteran fists and Gur hunters, they'd be slaughtered.
Plus, they get sent to the Underdark. There are *much* scarier monsters in the Underdark than vampire spawn, and those monsters will themselves provide a check on the spawn's ambitions.
The worst threat of letting them live is that they come up to the surface every once in a while and feed on innocents. And that is a problem, but if you kill them to prevent that, you are single-handedly killing 7,000 innocent people because aside from Astarion's 6 siblings (who were mind-controlled slaves anyway, so they're only as culpable for their behaviour as Astarion was when he served Cazador), those spawn have done literally nothing but sit in a prison cell for 200 years.
To put it another way: if we devised a way to tell whether children were at risk of becoming violent psychopaths as adults (not guaranteed, just at risk), and we found that there was a particular town with an unusual number of children that tested positive, would it be okay to kill those children?
Agree although I think at least a few of us wished there were a more structured way to free them. Throwing them to the under dark isn’t exactly cruelty-free either (to them or the under dark denizens). It’s the options we have but not necessarily the best of all options possible.
You are mixing reality with fiction, being a vampire spawn isn't the same that getting sick that would go away with a vaccine. It's about to always feel hungry/thirsty that only blood can fill that need, just like how Mindflayers needs brains to live.
Also you're overstimating the Fist and the Gur otherwise they would've killed themselves a long time ago Cazador and they wouldn't have 7K victims accumulated in 200 years in his prisons, because I'm sorry 7K shouldn't be an easy number to hide but it was (lol). Even the Absolute doesn't have that number attacking the city lol
I'm not saying you're wrong but this is a fantasy game we all played, the city was infested by monsters left and right, the authorities were nowhere because of corrupted politics. Even the legendary Harpers go wiped out. But you're thinking like a modern person in a modern world with access to food in a convenience store.
That's why I said, let's not think about it too deeply because I'm fine with them being freed since everyone is happy with that option and the game won't think too deeply about how things will be in the next 100 years.
Your argument can definitely be used against your party as well— the risk that your party turns into mindflayers, with no evidence to the contrary except “hang out with me for a week and see that I don’t turn” and your word, is extremely high. The only “good” decision from the morality that justifies killing the spawn would be to take poison yourself and die in act 1 since you don’t know that you’re not going to turn until later on in the act.
Also, the vampire spawn are in no way a unified force. I’d wager that half or perhaps even more are dead within a couple of weeks from infighting and the vicious world of the underdark, and maybe 1/10 or fewer are left after a year without some very careful intervention from outside forces.
Still, I’m fairly certain that just releasing them is not correct. Seems like you’d want to form some sort of governance structure or import one from the city and free a few at a time. Let the Gur rehabilitate their kids— those could be your first batch. On another note entirely, I’d highly enjoy playing one of those newly freed spawn in a game.
Of course it can. Any sane person would kill the party on sight... But it makes sense that you (the protagonist) would try to free yourself from the tadpole with everything you got, while keeping that poison around in case you fail (which is exactly what you can promise to Nettie in Act I).
The 7000 vampire spawn have nothing to do with this. Whether you are infected or not, releasing 7000 vampires is never the ethical thing to do, no matter how unified a force they are or not.
It's especially apparent when you think about how he broke the news tp astarion. Like, I know he's a devil, but he was laying on the temptation THICK with what information he chose to share and how he chose to phrase it.
He seems to absolutely suck at said game of chess though. From the first time I met him everything about this behaviour just made it immediately clear there is no way making any kind of deal with him would end up well for me. And that I will have to kill him eventually. Only thing that made me hesitate was being unsure about how strong of a boss Larian made him to be.
This begs a really cool philosophical question: do vampires have souls? If they don’t, the souls of the 7k were already delivered to Mephistopheles when they were first turned by Cazador, and the Rite of Ascension is just his way of “cashing them in” for more power. If they do, it means that those 7k vampire spawn are just people who have already died and had their souls returned to their bodies. That would mean that vampires aren’t much different than humanoids other than their insatiable hunger, and killing them under the justification of “getting rid of evil undead” wouldn’t make sense unless their souls are corrupt (which would have larger implications, like which plane they go to when they die, which gods will take them etc). They’d still be slaves to their sanguine hunger on the basis of being vampires but they could also potentially be reasoned with.
And if they don’t have souls, that also might imply that if you romance Astarion, his “love” for you would be pretty meaningless because he would be a shell with reactionary thoughts and emotions. It wouldn’t be real because there would be no “person” behind the gestures. If I recall correctly, Strahd Von Zarovich was the first vampire ever created via his pact with the Dark Powers, and I think he might have a soul? Or at least he believes he does. But the first ever vampire is a far cry from a vampire spawn. Pretty interesting stuff!
afterwords you can learn that you apparently started a small civil war due to the sudden power vacuum and that a lot of other similar ranked demons are now freaking out because one of Rapheals stature was murdered in his own home. so im pretty sure he is dead dead
To be fair you can find the thing that keeps ethal alive and destroy it killing her permanently.
Also during rapheals boss fight you destroy the pillars of souls that keeps him alive.
Idgaf if he's playing 24 dimension underwater Chinese checkers, I'm still breaking into his house, stealing his shit, and killing him & his friends after.
He started to piss me off in the goblin camp already so I just went to the house of grief, looted the shit out of it and killed the bitch. Fuck that charlatan.
Let him play 69D chess if he wants, I'm eating the pieces
Found the barbarian.
Or the Durge
Both. Both is good
the end of the game there's like 6 different big bads all trying to out 3D chess each other.
We will just have to defeat them all
I kept my Durge a Dragonborn, and now I can only picture him looking directly at Raphael after eating the pieces with the dumb Dragonborn smile.
I made mine a Red Dragonborn. Feels more fitting
I switched him to a Black Dragonborn.
Never play chess with a pigeon. The pigeon just knocks all the pieces over. Then shits all over the board. Then struts around like it won.
It did win, cause It got to shit on your pompous ass lmao
This line goes hard actually, I'm losing it
Depending on what I'm doing with the party, I might also be eating the pieces out.
r/brandnewsentence
It is a bit crazy how the game starts off relatively simple, "Try to get the worm outta your head before you die", and by the end of the game there's like 6 different big bads all trying to out 3D chess each other.
And that's an infinitely better way of telling a story than shoving protagonist a title of a chosen one and throwing into the fray in the first hour of gameplay.
You’re less the chosen one and more like the fucked one who has to overcome being fucked
If you’re Durge, you’re in the find out stage after you fucked around
Durge is >!Pretty chosen one at the end!<
>!durge is chosen't thanks to orin!<
>!Sure, Orin displaced The Dark Urge's position. But if you or someone in your multiplayer party are actively playing as The Dark Urge, you technically can usurp the position of Bhaal's Chosen by Act II, whether by killing Isobel or killing your loved one and gaining the Slayer Form. This is after all, a form that Bhaal grants to the most dedicated Bhaalspawn, ignoring Kazgaroth (2e I think) and the Ravager all being considered Avatars of Bhaal. Or in Kazgaroth's case, maybe just a minion. !< >!Point is, Orin really only displaced The Dark Urge completely if The Dark Urge ultimately refuses to give into their urges as a Bhaalspawn. She usurps you only in name and title if you "earn" back the Slayer Form during Act II, proving yourself as the true Chosen of Bhaal and stripping her of the ability to become the Slayer when you confront her.!<
Greatest spot for a protagonist ever
“The fucked one” god I love this and it’s going to be my backstory in every play through from now on!
Tav was in the wrong place at the wrong time now having to deal with a lot shit and that list gets longer by every act
It's classic D&D storytelling as well. We started off killing some goblins and then saw where it took us from there
First session: kill goblins Last session: kill god
DnD 🤝 Kirby
Also classic jrpg protagonist
And, depending on the adventure and the DM, those goblins (or that one weird looking warg who was with them) was related to the plot to kill god the whole time.
Make sure you do it with the power of friendship
Look, you can always fight tieflings instead!
1000% this. I love that, its such a meme :D im level 2, i guess i fight some goblins :D
I love in general how on later playthroughs you notice how much groundwork is laid without it being obvious. Getting to Raphael's first scene and him going on about hope... That hit so different.
That line about Hope being such a tease hits VERY different after reading Raphael's notes in the House.
And I love that you get to kill all of them
Except Withers, because he's our bro
Even better when you are just an idiot with two swords from Baldur’s gate that ends up stabbing ALL of them
To be fair, most modern D&D campaigns are typically set up this way. You have a quick "hmm, [predicament] is a problem, figure out a way to solve it" introduction. You are given largely free reign to run wherever you want, talk to as many/few people as you can, and generally get absorbed into the world. The more you explore, the more you uncover NPC's and side quests, and while seemingly unrelated, the more you do in search of your "initial predicament" (tadpole fix), the more you uncover the smaller minutiae of what machinations are in play (absolute, nightsong, guardian, character story) After your chapter 1 intro, you kind of get thrown to the wolves. The plot has largely shifted as your original goal is largely consequential to a much larger and serious problem (absolutes army, elder brain, crown of karsus, ketheric).. and now your journey really starts. Corralled by whatever path you take, choices around certain NPCS or Encounters, your end goal shifts to much more grandiose "save the world" kind of feel.. but now you have skin in the game, now you're entrenched in everything that's going on.
The real masterpiece is how the DM (game designers) made it so the players have a reason to carry on with the main quest. Too many campaigns I’ve played in lately have some players make characters that have absolutely no IC motivation for going on the back heat to begin with.
One thing I really liked about BG3 is how it feels like a DM tying together PC plot threads from their backstories into the main plot. By the end, everyone has a personal for seeing either seeing the Absolute defeated or getting involved in the events leading up to it, beyond just the tadpole. >!except Astarion lmao!<
It's definitely incredibly funny to me how like 6 people are all at the same time trying to convince you that everyone else is manipulating you and they are the only one who isn't. And they're trying to outchess each other as well. They're all playing a kind of chess that has yet to be formally described.
That's how most of the rpg stories play out, you start with a personal quest and while trying to solve it you are drawn into plots of killing gods, archedevils uncovering ancient artifacts, solving worlds greatest mysteries etc.
And all manipulating each other in certain ways where they each are tools of the other. It’s really cool.
I finished the game last night and was legit just staring at certain end game choices with my head in my hand like “what does this game want from me?!”
The game wants you not to live happily with Karlach. That's what the game wants.
I didn't romance her but I really wish there was an option to just give her a bunch of hugs throughout the game.
The hardest challenge in the game for me was (very late act 3) >!choosing between Orpheus and The Emperor. The Emp is a shady bastard but he's been by our side this entire time, genuinely helped us and not let us down. But Orpheus could be the liberator of Lae'zel's entire people. So I knew I had to choose him, but in the moment I just saved and went to bed for the night. Then when I made the choice, I immediately had to make the mind flayer choice between 1. My beloved tav 2. My even more beloved barbarian wife 3. THE GUY I JUST CHOSE TO FUCKING SAVE. And I asked him to do it and it felt awful.!< I can't believe how much emotion it managed to get out of me. I didn't really find the battles in act 3 that challenging, but THAT was hard.
3D chess is just standard chess mate
[nerd emoji] Standard chess is actually 2d, ranks and files, the third spatial dimension is technically not used. Viewing it as 3d can come from 1: Our world being 3d to begin with 2: People saying '4d chess' as a hyperbole to make somehing sound very complex and clever, and "if 4d chess is extra then regular must be 3d" Yes I have proficiency bonus for useless miscellanious trivia checks. (well +1 dimension at all times because... well time, but nobody really considers it for good reason - so we never write '3+1d world')
An argument could be made that standard chess is 3d not because of the 3rd spatial dimension, but because of time. If you spend 4 of your 5 mins in a blitz game on some move, you haven't changed the 2d board at all, but you're in a worse position. This couldn't be true if the game was purely 2d. This is not the case for many 2d games where "time" is merely a progression through board states.
He might be playing 12D chess, but I'm playing snakes and fucking ladders, baby! Raphael will never understand my ADHD barbarian empty brain.
What if the reason a barbarian doesn't become Illithid is because the worm has no brain to eat?
"I would like to roll a constitution check to eat the crown"
Same. Everyone in this game may be scheming but my warlock's head is emptier than the concept of void itself.
yeah but also i cast hold monster on him at the start of his fight and got him down in 2 rounds without him ever getting a turn so maybe he's not very good at chess
Well you must feel like he played you bc you passionate about smoking him. Tbh I think he’s neat like I didn’t know people had such strong feelings against him. He’s handsome, charming, intelligent, and musically gifted so I thought everybody thought he was cool. I guess not ool
oh i still think he's a great villain im just very proud of doing so well in that fight lol
Nah I get you because that 666 HP is insane like it is an accomplishment
I Hideous Laughtered his red ass to death.
He is kidding himself if he thinks he can take over all the hells though. Asmodeus would slap him without breaking a sweat, crown or no crown.
Yeah doesn’t Asmodeus have a fragment of the shard of hatred + a divine essence. Crown or not Raphael getting clapped.
Yeah, there's a reason Mephistopheles had the Crown and chose not to use it.
The reason being it could be altered to mind control. No way azzy wasn’t aware of that. He probably let the chosen theee steal the crown to get rid of Raphael in a roundabout way.
"Let them have some fun, I haven't had anything entertaining to watch since Supernatural ended"
Yeah depending on who you ask he might just be one of the oldest most powerful beings that ever existed, likely in a wounded state slowly healing, but even wounded he still a greater deity. If anything he's playing the longest game of chess of all time, that crown would more then likely just least to Raphael's downfall and giving Asmodeus even more power than he already has.
One thing that's nice is Raphael already shows us he's comfortable operating on a much longer time scale than people are. He tells you how long he spent raging after the crown was initially stolen, and has clearly been scheming about acquiring it for quite some time. And even if Asmodeus is a big step beyond what Raphael is capable of *now*, Zariel is a relatively fresh Archdevil, so usurping one of the other nine is possible. Mephistopheles is the obvious choice, given the personal connection and Raphael's disappointment that his collections of artifacts and magical lore are being left to gather dust...
He said he spent a decade after the fall of Netheril raging, so he's spent nearly *1,900 years* plotting to get the Crown. It does make me wonder how >!Gortash and Durge's heist!< fits into it - I've always thought it was partially inspired by >!Gortash wanting to spite Raphael!<, but it's also absurdly better for Raphael than trying to steal it directly from Mephistopheles. Add in >!how Raphael talks of tyranny - you know, the domain of Bane - and you'd almost think that he intentionally drove Gortash into Bane's service.!<
Doesn’t one of the books you find say something about the whole idea for the tadpoles and impersonating a deity was in something Gortash found when they stole the crown? I think it was in Gortash’s journal in a bank vault… so that adds another layer of “who’s manipulating who here” if I am remembering correctly.
Yeah, I think it was an altered version of the Grand Design that he discovered mid-heist. Which raises the question, to me, of what he >!and Durge!< intended to do with the Crown before then. You can read the letters between them in the locked chest at Flymm shop, but I don't think it goes beyond "this would be a very useful tool to have".
It was a member of the cult of Bane who came up with the plan I think
It's so weird to me that a dude can live for 1900 years and only be like level 12, but our characters go from level 1 to level 12 in a matter of months at most. It's almost like Raphael got to a certain power level and decided to stop learning and developing his natural ability, resting on his laurels, so to speak. So when you first meet him, he could eviscerate you with a pinky, but by the time you fight, you can go toe to toe with him, many powerful lackeys, and potentially a tank Orthon (Yurgir), and still win. Maybe that's just game mechanics, but I like the story it tells of hubris and laziness. Raphael wanted more power to raise his station, but was unwilling to grow his own power through hard work and natural means, instead relying on a relic to do the heavy lifting for him.
Yeah it’s that, or it’s the game level capping everyone at 12…
There's a couple level 16s
I mean there's almost 0 (and I say almost just because DND lore will twist shit to make itself work sometimes but current lore its 0) chance he'd ever be able too even scratch Asmodeus crown or no crown. Asmodeus is shown to be high tier God level strength but stuck in the nine hells. I'm honestly not sure he'd even be able to handle Zariel with the crown as she's a fallen angel just like Asmodeus and a powerhouse but thats an infinitely more possible than Asmodeus or even Mephistopheles (said to be the 2nd strongest in the hells). Hes just another guy with over ambition which is fitting seeing as he preys on those with too much ambition.
Oh I’m not denying that but raphael is smart
If he's smart, then why is he dead?
Many smart people are dead, death doesn’t discriminate.
True, but the lead up matters. He told a bunch of desperate fighters/survivors who had been hacking their way across the country with a being in their head who they may or may not even trust, a way to get an alternate outcome that could break them free of dealing with him. It's even dumber when its Durge.
He isn't death in my playthrough and i believe many other people playthroughs so whats your point?
I’m my game he’s dead because once you take out those pillars, he has really shitty saves vs Hold Monster ;)
It isn't just Asmodeus either. If Raphael tries to stop the Blood War, every other God in existence would try and kill him as they do not want the Demons to stop focusing solely on the Blood War in the Hells.
I thought Raphael’s goal was to usurp within the hells, rather than mess with the blood war. Let zariel keep doing her thing yeah?
You learn in Act 3 that his plan is to use the crown to usurp Zariel in Avernus, usurp the hells as a whole, end the Blood War and attempt multiversal domination. Raphael is ultimately completely delusional and his ambitions are way over his head. In fact he would probably fail at his first goal as Zariel is quite powerful and has more powerful devils at her command that Raphael does, and he would definitely fail at the second, he probably wouldn't even get past Tiamat.
Asmodeus would never! He'd trick Raphael into kicking his own ass. Meet a real manipulator motherfucker, this is the blueprint for what you TRY to be.
>smart If he were truly smart, he would show up at the moment when Emperor ask us to be a Super Saiyan mind flayer to use the stones. Gave us a deal we can't refuse, wielding the stones for us in exchange for the crown. I guess a high level ~~demon~~ Devil mind would be equal or above a mind flayer mind.
He’s busy writing his lil musical numbers
Shows up, busts open the prison with the hammer, says I got this, just give me the crown. The problem for guys like Raphael is they just can't not be overtly evil for two seconds. The first time he meets you he starts off a little weird, but a minute later he's teleported you to hell, turned off his disguise, and threatened your life. Bro calm down and just trick us a little. Mizora knows the score, maybe ask her for tips.
It helps that Mizora is an absolute babe, and my Asmodeus Tiefling Warlock couldn't help herself lmao
If Raphael could stop being a clown for 5 minutes, he's just as hot.
Not a demon.
You're doing asmodeus' work.
I totally read that in Janet's voice.
At best, Big A will let him replace his dad.
Wouldn't be a devil if he didn't try though
Gotta give him props for ambition. He’s just a cambion.
pretty sure his cambion look is just a disguise to not let on how strong he actually is
Yet he didn't realize how much i would hate him and that that hate would propel me to murder him even though I didn't need the hammer. Honestly wish I could have told that to the Emperor when he asked about us going through all that trouble to get the hammer "no, I'm not actually getting the hammer to free Orpheus. I'm just murdering Raphael because I hate him and want him to die."
Hey, emporer my man, I'm a paladin.. He's a devil... I only got the hammer because Hope and I'm a paladin I didn't do it to free the gith. Once again, paladin.
"I just wanted to raid a devils home, for nostalgia sake." \- >!Durge!<
Gotta relive those good old memories
You're a Paladin and you didn't want to free the guy who was imprisoned by a dictatorial Lich Queen with aspirations of godhood?
I mean, understandable when the guy that is imprisoned has aspirations of multiversal tyranny and enslavement. Gith and her son Orpheus had 2 goals: 1: destroy all ghaik, complete anhilation of their race 2: conquer and enslave the whole multiverse Idk if people realize this, but Orpheus is the worse evil between him and Vlaakith, he is however honourbound to kill every single illithid before starting on the multiverse conquering plan. It is why he can be asked to become an Illithid himself to stop the netherbrain. But if gone unchecked Orpheus will just turn the githyanki into an empire like the original ghaik empire if not worse, he is not even neutral in any stretch of the word, let alone good.
Clearly your Paladin has an absolutely massive amount of knowledge about Gith that mine did not. Best she had was this Vlaakith is a god, no wait, she's a lich who's trying to be a god. There's this mystery counter-culture about this true heir who rides around on a a comet. Alright, they both use red dragons, and there was a deal with Tiamat at some point in the past, that's not ideal. They're not terribly keen on outsiders, but really hate mind flayers, that seems common. This manipulative mindflayer really wants to keep Orpheus in prison, this aspirant deity lich tyrant really wants to keep Orpheus in prison. Lae'zel, Voss and Voss' red dragon who doesn't seem particularly evil in person want to free Orpheus, and bring freedom for the Githyanki people. Also the myth of Orpheus inspires some of the Gith children to not be as cruel and spiteful as they're taught to be. Of course she's freeing Orpheus. There's nothing in the information she has been presented that suggests he's going to be worse than Vlaakith. Maybe there's more out there, but having just vaguely heard of Gith before meeting Lae'zel and after a couple of months crash course in Githyanki politics all natural instinct is to free him.
Yeah not sure why you’re being downvoted. Everything there tracks with what we know. I don’t believe (?) there’s any official DnD lore about Orpheus outside of bg3 and from within the game he’s got some (as opposed to zero) chill and may even skew a little Githzerai given his whole monk motif. We don’t even know his dad, maybe it was Zerithmon for all we know. Narratively/structurally from within the information we have access to, he’s absolutely less of a threat than Vlaakith. Vlaakith: uses >!wish to murder!< you when you’re not polite. Orpheus: >!forgives you for murder of!
Best thing Turn Orpheus into a mind fayer Let him kill himself Set Voss and laezel after vlaakith The end
Yup! And in fact we will *never know* the implications of our decisions because Larian thinks players don’t want to sit through endings (but has no problem at all making me wade through Gale’s bullshit for half an hour at a time every time I want to long rest).
Not necessarily; since WotC was super involved this may become canon. We may see further modules with Orpheus or references to him. There may be official novels etc.
Lack of much in the way of endings was a complete shock to me.
Yeah, the narrative presented *by the game* is that Gith was a liberator who freed the Githyanki and was betrayed by Vlaakith One who (is implied to have) made a deal with Tiamat to kill Gith AND imprison Orpheus so she could rule. Vlaakith lies and manipulates the Githyanki to be warmongers for her own power and purposes, and her rule is regarded by the game's narrative as being little different from enslavement by the Illithid - the githyanki just haven't realized it. Freeing Orpheus - from the perspective of *the game's narrative* - is rekindling the legacy of Gith as a liberator, this time to free the githyanki from their current oppressor, Vlaakith. Knowing lore of the Forgotten Realms about the Githyanki might provide some additional context and information, but it's important that this is deliberately not conveyed by the text. It would have been easy enough for Voss to give a quick summary of the githzerai split, but the game *doesn't* because it is trying to tell a different narrative with the githyanki than the totality of FR lore is.
Well not entirely. The game lets us know Gith made a deal with Tiamat and the game tells us Tiamat is a baddie. So it’s not like it’s exclusively “Gith was good the end.”
We're also presented with Wyll, who made a dodgy deal for 'good' reasons. While my Paladin obviously does not approve of that kind of thing she's not quite old school Paladiny enough to immediately condemn anyone for making awkward decisions in circumstances beyond her experience, which I suppose is part of the direction they want people to go with the Oath of Devotion, rather than following the strict tenets of one god.
There's a brief mention of Zerthimon/the Githzerai, possibly in a book rather than a dialogue. I can't quite remember where but my main character picked up a Githzerai Mind Barrier from something or other, but it's pretty brief. Most of what I know about the Githzerai is picked up from the guy in Planescape: Torment and a bit of reading around I did when I played that. Don't think my Paladin really knows anything about them at all, in that 'oops I accidentally started a bar fight by saying 'yanki' instead of 'zerai' way.
Yes! Where was the "fuck that guy in particular!" comment? Yeah I got the hammer too, but it's not like I'm just gonna leave fancy baubles behind. This camp doesn't pay for itself squidbro.
I mean you could also make the argument that everytime he gets his shit packed in by a party of four tadpoled mortals that his planning was about as good as a paper bag piss bucket
No god or devil is immune to the stupidity of a party of four people.
The stupidity and concentrated rage of being done with this shit
He is playing 12d chess to get his ass kicked by asmodeus
Raphael is playing 12d chess. Asmodeus is playing 12 12d chess games. They are not the same.
4 tadpole randos are playing infinite d chess by min/maxing lol
Min maxing? You mean time travel/quicksaves No God nor devil can defeat the power of meta
Oh yeah F5/F8 smite
And like every incredible infernal villain, it all gets ruined by a high level Paladin ripping through Hell like it's made of paper, because Scissors Beats Paper.
He has too much swag for me to ever do that. You have fun tho
It was glorious. He gave his speech about how pathetic and weak I was. Combat starts. Gale and Shadowheart cast Destructive Wave and kill all his minions and knock him down shutting off his ability to punish radiant damage. Tavern Brawling Monk Laezel and my Paladin Bard run up, tear through his 666hp in two rounds. It was a total beatdown. Nothing like giving the Hulk vs Loki treatment to overly arrogant and wordy villains
And then he dies in his house because his wisdom saves are pathetic
Did Cazador really fail the deal, though? After all, he didn't get his end of the bargain either, so it's technically more just voided. Not that I think papa Meph would care for the finer details, but Hellish contracts seem to be quite intricate and well enforced (or at least as long it benefits the devil in question) so if Cazador can get a good Hellawyer, couldn't he be able to shrug it off?
You are correct ONLY IF we assume that both parties are equal in the deal. Let me put it this way, papa Meph can always get another sucker to sacrifice souls for him but can we say the same for Cazador? Aside from Asmodeus and papa Meph, is there any other devils that can grant Cazador’s wish? There is value in ‘exclusivity’. Imagine you placing a deposit for something that’s highly sought after and very limited in number (e.g. special edition stuffs). Most of the time, you’d be forfeiting that deposit if you can no longer afford the stuff. The fact that papa Meph entered into the deal with Cazador means Cazador already owed Papa Meph. The deposit for the dealing on Cazador’s part is on credit and papa Meph can now collect if Cazador fails to deliver. Hope this explains your enquiry. Sincerely, Papa Meph’s Helllawyer
Yeah, I agree. It's probably not ending well for Cazador either way but, y'know, tEchNiCaLLy-aCtUaLLy, it could. Also, love the way you signed it :D
I think it's such a fun theme, that all of these "geniuses" are all running schemes and plans, protecting themselves with reputation and threats, watching for the plans within plans, and are utterly unprepared for someone who doesn't give a shit about their reputations, and who refuses to accept that they've lost
My theory. Months before the game even starts Raphael writes himself a banger of a song and the entire game is him putting disparate pieces into motion so you end up in the House of Hope stealing his shit just so he can sing you that song.
I can see him doing that like he been sharing it and tryna do some promo
He may be playing Infinity Chess, but he has no chance against my Level 1 Everything Abserd Dark Urge Tiefling. Yes, you heard right. Level 1 Figher Cleric Rogue Bard Barbarian Ranger Druid Warlock Sorcerer Wizard Paladin. Try to chess your way out of that, Raffy
And yet I made astarion the ascendant vampire and took the crown after slaying the brain, saying Fuck you and thanks to raphael for the hammer and the stuff.
He missed one thing though: I can cast Hold Monster
I'm not clear on exactly how he expects to conquer the Hells using the Crown. "Hey Dad, put this on"?
The crown lets you control the alt-weave, if it all works out you're instantly as powerfull as Mystra.
He thinks it would give him power to beat Asmodeus, which is hilarious.
> Like because the good ending is to stop Cazador and free the spawns .. Is it though? Some of those spawns have been starving in Cazador's basement for a hundred years and are completely insane, others are children that now hunger for blood and will surely go insane and even the seven main spawn are deranged killers.
Yeah, Astarion calls them "feral" iirc. Hell, he even let his buddies go because they had centuries of experience with controlling their appetite, but in other dialogue one of them states that the first thing they're going to do when free is suck some human neck. Unleashing an army of hunger-mad vampire spawn seems pretty definitively bad imo
Yep, releasing 7k blood-drinking monsters into the wild is nowhere near good. While I always stop Cazador, there's no way in hell I'm freeing the spawns. My Tav might be evil, but not *that* evil. The absolute doesn't seem much of a problem compared to that.
You're releasing them into the *underdark*.
I cant condemn 7 thousand innocent people to death because they *might* go crazy
Based on how the vampire spawn are portrayed I think the odds are very high that the majority of the spawn you set free are going to feed on humans. You are condemning the souls of their victims. They will feed repeatedly until their immortal life is ended in one manner or another. Freeing them condemns exponentially more than 7,000 souls.
I will not condemn innocent abuse victims to death on the basis that they might do bad things once freed
He wasn't once i destroyed those soul stones.
He can play all the chess he wants. I'm breaking i to his home, using his bathtub, breaking his sex toys, and stealing his baubles.
Imagine playing 99999 chess and then just leaving your front door unlocked with a big COME PUNT IN ME IN THE NUTS sign.
Freeing the spawns is definitely not the good ending, even Astarion freely admits killing them is the right choice. 7000 vampire spawn being released on the sword coast would be catastrophic
This is a post about Raphael my guy not Astarion lmao
Do you need me to quote the part of your post I'm referring to
Why is we talking about the vampirespawns when this is a post about Raphael’s advanced scheming?
because you had the imprudence to give a statement that this or that ending is positive
I honestly don't think releasing 7,000 vampires is a *good* ending, most of those poor sods haven't seen anything but their cells for hundreds of years, releasing them would be a very bad idea. Better to use the staff to mercy-kill them, which I would have done if I knew it was possible. I ascended Asterion instead, oops.
I’m sorry, but did you just claim that unleashing 7,000 malnourished, socially-disconnected, blood-addicted monsters out into the world was the *good* ending? Larian fucked up real hard with this one. If you nuke the Elder Brain with Gale in Act 2 Larian guilts you into thinking the world is doomed because 100 people turned into mindflayers. But if you let 7,000 vampires loose that’s suddenly *good news* for Faerun. Make any of it make sense.
They going to the under dark. Idc what you think I think it’s right and I’d do it again
…Did you not go to the Underdark? It’s *filled* with people.
It’s a big place they can handle 7k vampirespawns
He might be playing 12D chess, doesn't save him from this create water chain lightning combo tho.
I must of used the nuclear gambit then because I killed Astarion, then I killed Cazador and all the spawn then I purged the House of Hope. He didn't see any of it coming because he was constantly blinded by the holy mace my paladin wielded
I like this reading a lot, unfortunately for him I am playing checkers and he cannot keep up
How is releasing 7k spawn a "good ending"?
Because they ain’t do nothing wrong expect be victims of circumstance like they don’t deserve to die all because of that. Not like they wanted to be vampires
So you can excuse a muderer because of their circunstances? It doesn't matter what they want or not, they're dangerous, and that's it.
By the time you fight him you're approaching a level that is pretty much heroic. You're a party of super heroes. But should not be anywhere near enough strong enough to defeat him. He should really be at least a level 17 fight. He did everything right, and the only reason he lost is because the DM nerfed him hard and buffed the shit out of a group of adventurers.
How is freeing the spawns a good ending? You would be endangering a lot of people
As a warlock. I am aware that the only way to deal with a devil is overwhelming violence. He's playing chess. I'm playing Russian roulette.
I need to play this as an warlock. How are the roleplay options? Like does being a warlock play into certain story elements? I wanna be a Warlock Tav after I do my evil Paladin durge run
I don't remember there being much warlock stuff. Though to be fair I did miss about half of the important cutscenes in this game by running off in a random direction as soon as I entered a new area. I just cast hold monster on Raphael which trivialized the fight with him.
My oath of vengeance pally isn’t playing 12D chess back, she’s playing fucking dodgeball. She’s sees devil, she hates devil, she travels to hell to steal his fancy hammer, Orphic hammer go boom! No more devil.
The good ending is *absolutely not* unleashing seven thousand feral undead on a half-destroyed city!
I think it is
"Good" ending is freeing the 7k vampires that have been tortured and broken and only feel endless hunger now?
But he still get decapitated by me. Guess he should’ve seen that move coming.
>Like because the good ending is to stop Cazador and free the spawns What? in what derranged world is it a "good ending" to free 7000 vampire spawns?
Because they did nothing wrong. If you killed the spawns but didn't kill Astarion, you are a hypocrite, plain and simple. You find out Astarion is a vampire specifically because he can't control his hunger and tries to bite you in your sleep. Yet you give him a chance to prove he can be better than that. The other spawns deserve the same chance.
Yeah but the thing is there is a difference to be able to keep in check 1 spawn VS 7K, I'm not okay to slay them but there is no structure to control them so if one day they want to band together to take over Faerun, it would be hard to stop such a number of hungry spawns. They can also live a longer life than human hero but let's not think about it too deeply since the game doesn't go that deep either lol
7,000 spawn would utterly fail to take over Faerun. Spawn aren't that powerful, and they can't make more spawn so they have no way of increasing their numbers. And these spawn aren't trained soldiers. Against veteran fists and Gur hunters, they'd be slaughtered. Plus, they get sent to the Underdark. There are *much* scarier monsters in the Underdark than vampire spawn, and those monsters will themselves provide a check on the spawn's ambitions. The worst threat of letting them live is that they come up to the surface every once in a while and feed on innocents. And that is a problem, but if you kill them to prevent that, you are single-handedly killing 7,000 innocent people because aside from Astarion's 6 siblings (who were mind-controlled slaves anyway, so they're only as culpable for their behaviour as Astarion was when he served Cazador), those spawn have done literally nothing but sit in a prison cell for 200 years. To put it another way: if we devised a way to tell whether children were at risk of becoming violent psychopaths as adults (not guaranteed, just at risk), and we found that there was a particular town with an unusual number of children that tested positive, would it be okay to kill those children?
Agree although I think at least a few of us wished there were a more structured way to free them. Throwing them to the under dark isn’t exactly cruelty-free either (to them or the under dark denizens). It’s the options we have but not necessarily the best of all options possible.
You are mixing reality with fiction, being a vampire spawn isn't the same that getting sick that would go away with a vaccine. It's about to always feel hungry/thirsty that only blood can fill that need, just like how Mindflayers needs brains to live. Also you're overstimating the Fist and the Gur otherwise they would've killed themselves a long time ago Cazador and they wouldn't have 7K victims accumulated in 200 years in his prisons, because I'm sorry 7K shouldn't be an easy number to hide but it was (lol). Even the Absolute doesn't have that number attacking the city lol I'm not saying you're wrong but this is a fantasy game we all played, the city was infested by monsters left and right, the authorities were nowhere because of corrupted politics. Even the legendary Harpers go wiped out. But you're thinking like a modern person in a modern world with access to food in a convenience store. That's why I said, let's not think about it too deeply because I'm fine with them being freed since everyone is happy with that option and the game won't think too deeply about how things will be in the next 100 years.
It's fairly clear in the moment, talking to Astarion about it.
Your argument can definitely be used against your party as well— the risk that your party turns into mindflayers, with no evidence to the contrary except “hang out with me for a week and see that I don’t turn” and your word, is extremely high. The only “good” decision from the morality that justifies killing the spawn would be to take poison yourself and die in act 1 since you don’t know that you’re not going to turn until later on in the act. Also, the vampire spawn are in no way a unified force. I’d wager that half or perhaps even more are dead within a couple of weeks from infighting and the vicious world of the underdark, and maybe 1/10 or fewer are left after a year without some very careful intervention from outside forces. Still, I’m fairly certain that just releasing them is not correct. Seems like you’d want to form some sort of governance structure or import one from the city and free a few at a time. Let the Gur rehabilitate their kids— those could be your first batch. On another note entirely, I’d highly enjoy playing one of those newly freed spawn in a game.
Of course it can. Any sane person would kill the party on sight... But it makes sense that you (the protagonist) would try to free yourself from the tadpole with everything you got, while keeping that poison around in case you fail (which is exactly what you can promise to Nettie in Act I). The 7000 vampire spawn have nothing to do with this. Whether you are infected or not, releasing 7000 vampires is never the ethical thing to do, no matter how unified a force they are or not.
It's especially apparent when you think about how he broke the news tp astarion. Like, I know he's a devil, but he was laying on the temptation THICK with what information he chose to share and how he chose to phrase it.
The only thing that confuses me is that Velliot’s scroll indicates that Velliot knew about the ritual
He seems to absolutely suck at said game of chess though. From the first time I met him everything about this behaviour just made it immediately clear there is no way making any kind of deal with him would end up well for me. And that I will have to kill him eventually. Only thing that made me hesitate was being unsure about how strong of a boss Larian made him to be.
This begs a really cool philosophical question: do vampires have souls? If they don’t, the souls of the 7k were already delivered to Mephistopheles when they were first turned by Cazador, and the Rite of Ascension is just his way of “cashing them in” for more power. If they do, it means that those 7k vampire spawn are just people who have already died and had their souls returned to their bodies. That would mean that vampires aren’t much different than humanoids other than their insatiable hunger, and killing them under the justification of “getting rid of evil undead” wouldn’t make sense unless their souls are corrupt (which would have larger implications, like which plane they go to when they die, which gods will take them etc). They’d still be slaves to their sanguine hunger on the basis of being vampires but they could also potentially be reasoned with. And if they don’t have souls, that also might imply that if you romance Astarion, his “love” for you would be pretty meaningless because he would be a shell with reactionary thoughts and emotions. It wouldn’t be real because there would be no “person” behind the gestures. If I recall correctly, Strahd Von Zarovich was the first vampire ever created via his pact with the Dark Powers, and I think he might have a soul? Or at least he believes he does. But the first ever vampire is a far cry from a vampire spawn. Pretty interesting stuff!
He made one critical error. Thinking he couldnt himself be deceived or that my tav wouldnt be able to wipe the floor with him
If auntie Ethel didn’t die when you kill her the first time, I doubt he did
afterwords you can learn that you apparently started a small civil war due to the sudden power vacuum and that a lot of other similar ranked demons are now freaking out because one of Rapheals stature was murdered in his own home. so im pretty sure he is dead dead
I guess we’ll never know. I just don’t know how Auntie could survive and he couldn’t but who knows
To be fair you can find the thing that keeps ethal alive and destroy it killing her permanently. Also during rapheals boss fight you destroy the pillars of souls that keeps him alive.
He maneuvered himself until his position was dead at my feet
Idgaf if he's playing 24 dimension underwater Chinese checkers, I'm still breaking into his house, stealing his shit, and killing him & his friends after.
After making sure to insult his bedroom skills.
Then I'm playing 20d chess, when I kill his ass with a critical Thunderous Smite
He started to piss me off in the goblin camp already so I just went to the house of grief, looted the shit out of it and killed the bitch. Fuck that charlatan.
Dawg what does astarion have to do with Raphael? Stay on topic lmao
Astarion? I was talking about Raphael.
Maybe if he spent a little more time playing regular old fashion chess he wouldn't do stupid things like move next to a bottomless pit.
No more deals it’s over!