Baldur's Dale, The Infinity Engine Games Thread Options

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

Holy crap. I just let Volo try to remove the parasite from Saryn’s head with an frickin’ ice pick. What the hell was I thinking? I’m traumatized.

Saryn

[macole]

Holy crap. I just let Volo try to remove the parasite from Saryn’s head with an frickin’ ice pick. What the hell was I thinking? I’m traumatized.

Saryn

Did it work? I'm assuming that it didn't.

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

Holy crap. I just let Volo try to remove the parasite from Saryn’s head with an frickin’ ice pick. What the hell was I thinking? I’m traumatized.

Saryn

Did it work? I'm assuming that it didn't.

[SubRosa]

Wow, Saryn looks really cool. Is she a Half Elf? Or a Dark Elf?

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

Wow, Saryn looks really cool. Is she a Half Elf? Or a Dark Elf?

Thanks, she is Half-Elf in BG3 since her original subrace of Elf was not included in the vanilla game. Saryn is my favorite character that I have invented for tabletop, and there have been a few different versions of her for different campaigns and one shots. In all versions she is/was a Shadar-kai Elf, which are a group of Elves that dwell in the plane of the Shadowfell and serve their goddess, The Raven Queen, whose domain in D&D 5E lore is the shepherding (and, occasionally, the collecting) of souls to the afterlife.

Her original version was that she was captured by an evil biomancer (a mage who specializes in creating new creatures from combining features of two or more creatures) named Jarvas Arborghast, and turned into a part Shadar-kai, part fish, part crustacean hybrid (the race used for this was called a Simic Hybrid, a really neat race that lets you give your character certain animalistic adaptations) as part of Arborghast’s twisted experiments. During her captivity, she prayed to the Raven Queen to end her torment, through either salvation, or death. The RQ answered by gifting her the powers of a Hexblade Warlock, with the condition that she send her the souls of Arborghast and his associates. She used her new powers to break free from her captivity, kill Arborghast, burn his mansion to the ground, and then escape, thereafter traveling the world hunting down Arborghast’s associates. We didn’t actually get very far into the game that version was created for, but I’m currently playing an Oath of Vengeance Paladin version of that exact same character in a campaign, and it’s been a blast.

In BG3, this Saryn is a multiclass of OoV Paladin and Archfey Warlock.

Sorry for the wall of text, but I just love her so much, lol

Saryn’s new eye (and some ugly chain mail +1)

[SubRosa]

That is a very cool backstory! And I like the mail armor. I don't think it's ugly. The leather armor is what I find blah in this game.

I thought the Shadowfell was Shar's domain? Are there more than one deity that lives there and calls it home? I have not kept up on D&D for some time. Ok, I did some Googling, and I see it is the Shadow Plane. This was in one of the expansions for Neverwinter Nights 2, that had a lot of going back and forth between it and the Prime Material Plane.

So Shar added some negative energy during one of their big events, and made those parts with it a life-devouring place. That matches what we see in the Shadowlands in BG3. Now that makes a lot more sense. But it sounds like the entire plane is not that way. Just the parts she tainted.

There is a Shadar-Kai in Act II of BG3. Now I understand what is up with him. He's some sort of necromancer/inquisitor. He's part of a side quest. So far I have always ended up having to kill him, because I won't torture the person he wants me to.

Saryn's story is similar to my backstory for Persephone, who started out at as a Skyrim character. She was a human slave who was alive during Alessia's revolution during the First Age, and fought in the rebellion. A necromancer discovered a way to create a sort of artificial Lich, that did not involve the usual methods of having to become a powerful magician first in order to do it to yourself. Instead he created a magical artificial heart, that absorbed magicka from the world around you and in turn used that as fuel to run a person's undead body. The best part was it was simply a matter of surgery to implant this into someone. So everyone could have this. The necromancer's idea was to use this to create an undead army to fight the Ayleids. People who would never tire, never need to eat, or drink, or sleep. People who could literally just fight forever if need be, and would still be around thousands of years later. Super soldiers basically.

Persephone was his prototype. She was killed in the battle that took the Imperial City. The Necromancer took her body and did his thing, raising her as a new type of undead. He then took her to Alessia to show off. Needless to say Alessia was thrilled, and ordered them both to be destroyed. They fled to Skyrim. Eventually the Necromancer was killed (by Persephone, she strangled him). And she went on to travel Tamriel.

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

Yeah I don’t like the leather armor either. The padded armor looks pretty cool and has about the same AC. The Druid leather armor definitely looks cooler than the standard variety.

[SubRosa]

I recently discovered that the Grymforge and the Gauntlet of Shar are actually both different sections of a single Sharran enclave. It was created long in the past and abandoned, only to be reoccupied by Ketheric Thorm a century ago, when he turned from Selune to Shar.

There was a resistance movement against him, led by one of the mason's guild in Moonrise. The mason made a deal with the devil Raphael to overthrow Ketheric. Raphael sent a devil - Yurgir - to destroy the place. That is why there is all that damage done to the Grymforge. Yurgir did it with his bombs. All the damage also separated the two halves from each other, so you can't go directly between the two.

Yurgir is still in the Gauntlet. His contract said he had to kill all the Justiciars of Shar. But the last one made another deal - with Raphael I think - that transformed him into the horde of rats that lives in the place. So Yurgir could never complete his contract, and thusly could never leave the Gauntlet. It was all a trap laid by Raphael.

You find Yurgir in the Gauntlet. So far I have always killed him. But this time out I also killed the rats too. Just start by killing the ones you see. Then travel down to the very base of the giant Shar statue in the center of the place. There are a couple ways to get down there. You will be deluged by massive hordes of rats. But the Spirit Guardians spell takes care of them all quite handily. Just keep all your companions within its range. When they are dead, the final Justiciar reforms, and you can kill him too. That releases Yurgir from his contract, if instead of killing him you made a deal with him. If you did kill him, the Justiciar still drops some magic items you can loot. Plus there is the XP of course.

[SubRosa]

The Baldur's Gate 3 Script Extender has the option to add a console to the game. You can find it here on GitHub Just click on the green Code button, and then in the drop down box click on Download zip. I started using it a while ago because there are a handful of mods that require it.

Enable the console by going to the Baldurs Gate 3\bin\ folder, and opening the ScriptExtenderSettings.json file

Change the contents to this:

{
"LogFailedCompile": false,
"EnableAchievements": false,
"SendCrashReports": false,
"CreateConsole": true
}

There is a list of console commands here, along with a list of Item UUIDs that you can use to spawn items in the game. The latter is one way you can give mod-added items to your characters. Or you could use it at the start of the game, to give your character the base starting items you want (like a greatsword, or longbow, or hand crossbows, whatever you feel is right for the character).


There is also a way to spawn items using the Cheat Engine Table that is out there. But this seems a lot simpler.

[Acadian]

^ That's good to know. If I ever play BG3, I'll certainly want to tweak things and the ability to spawn in gear.

[SubRosa]

Between the script extender console and the Choose Your Stats mod, you can now customize your Tav (the default name of the PC) in pretty much any way possible. The newer versions of the latter allow you do a lot of cross-class stuff, like adding paladin abilities to anyone, changing the number of spell slots you have, adding fighting styles, etc...

But looking at the comments in the Script Extender Console page, there are more commands than they have listed. You can add feats or spells with the console as well.

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

Wow cool! Thanks for this info SR! When I get into modding this game, I’ll be sure to activate that!

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

Hey SR, does the console include a free camera?

[SubRosa]

Sadly, not that I can tell. I really wish someone would come up with a mod for that.

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

Sadly, not that I can tell. I really wish someone would come up with a mod for that.

Supposedly “Photo Mode” is on the list of things the devs want to add but who knows if they will or not.

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

Just finished Grymforge, killed the boss baddie there (felt good, guy was a jerk), and saved the gnomes I could. Now I can either use the elevator in the Grymforge to head to Moonrise Towers or check out the mountain pass. I think I’ll do the later to find the Gith. I guess I’ll take Lazy along.

[SubRosa]

Definitely take Lazy along. It is a critical part of her story.

Just be sure you have finished everything in Act 1 first. Because pretty soon it will become impossible to go back there.

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

Just be sure you have finished everything in Act 1 first. Because pretty soon it will become impossible to go back there.

I feel like we’ve done a lot, lol

[SubRosa]

Well, I beat the game like a red-haired Tiefling stephchild once more. This time with Silverlight I went a slightly different route. I chose to free Orpheus instead of side with the Emperor. This is one of the things that really annoys me about the game. This choice to betray one of the other feels so contrived. If you side with the Emperor, it means killing Orpheus. If you free Orpheus, the Emperor switches sides, even though it means becoming a slave to the Absolute again, and literally losing his own mind.

I went with the Emperor my first time out. I went with Orpheus to see what was different. The game plays out mostly the same. La'zel gets a happier ending for one. She even smiled. Shocking, I know. The basic flow the endgame remains the same. Fight through the city streets. Fight up the stairs of the tower. Finally fight on top of the Elder Brain. Fight inside the Crown of Karsus.



This time out there was an extra little cinematic of Silverlight, Wyll, and Karlach going to Avernus, which was nice. It ends on a positive note. My guess is this was added by one of the many patches, because of people like me grousing over how they really screwed Karlach over.



Silverlight is now the Spider Queen

Open the book

Things have definitely changed

Minsc resembles that remark

Jaheria agrees

Speaking of which, Jaheria can turn into an Owlbear

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

Hey SR, have you bothered with any of the romance options?