It all started when Lae’zel stopped moving, mere moments after I first met her. We were deep in the Nautiloid Ship, and the Gith’yanki Warrior stopped in her tracks. I could justify it somewhat in my head-canon that it was because she didn’t want to roll with her nemesis Shadowheart (my main character), but I knew deep down that something was wrong.
And this was just the start of what may well and truly be the biggest disaster of a playthrough I’ve ever had in an RPG. A disaster that led me to never making it past the first act of the story.
Baldur’s Gate 3 Is Missing One Great RPG Feature From Divinity: Original Sin
It’s weird that Baldur’s Gate 3 is lacking in player-on-player interaction, because Larian nailed it years ago.
I coulddirectlycontrol Lae’zel, but if Shadowheart was in control, Lae’zel would refuse to move, which would cause Shadowheart to not move anymore. I stayed with controlling myself, then wishing Lae’zel would figure things out as combat started, only to notice her profile image was already grayed out. I tabbed back to her, and yep, she had somehow gotten herself killed. It was hard to feel bad about not saving her when I had no means of doing it. I’m straight-up blameless (and so I kept telling myself as I eagerly looted her corpse).
After the Nautiloid crash, I soon linked up with the wizard Gale, making this a party of two, before heading in the direction of the dungeon where I’d find the friendly ghoul Withers. I thought this was the right way, but it really wasn’t. Gale and I were butchered by bandits over and over again, confirming to me that I just wasn’t ready for serious combat.
Tons of reloading later, we were able to reach the end of the dungeon and meet Withers (remember this part later, it’s important). Since the cave was now a dead end, we exited to finally head the right way into the Druid’s Grove.
I managed to somehow save the Tieflings from the Goblin invasion. That didn’t matter to one particular Tiefling however, who I tried to persuade not to kill an imprisoned goblin, but failed the check so badly that she immediately tried to kill me. Another Tiefling witnessed this, then another, and before I knew it, this madethe entire refugee camp that I had just savedjoin the attempt to kill me.
I read a lot about people loving how things “can go wrong” in BG3, such as our article coveringa messy Paladin playthrough. Hearing those stories, however, I kind of end up thinking “So whenyoumess up you get an alternate path, but whenImess up I get hanged in the center of fucking town!”
I reloaded, shooed away the Tiefling, and took up the Goblin on her offer to get me on good terms with the goblin camp if I helped free her. Hey, good enough of a lead for me. We got out of town, and she said when we met up later she’d honor her word. I was hoping for an escort, but by this point, I was happy to be alive.
When I arrived at the Golbin camp, their leader (whose name I forget) said something to the effect of"Hello I am evil, would you like to help us kill the Tieflings? It would be very evil.“I had no desire for evil, but knew I’d lose a fight against the Goblins, so I planned a double-cross. The Goblins would head to the Druids’ Grove and wait in the bushes for me to let them in, but in reality, I would run up to the Tieflings and tell them the Goblins were waiting in the bushes! Gale disapproved of this devious plan, but I disapproved of dying, so sorry Gale, overruled.
After that, I spoke to Withers at camp, where he offered his services to resurrectany fallen party member. Finally, I thought, I’d be getting my Lae’Zel back.
But then Withers told meI didn’t have any fallen party members.So yeah, if you thought youdidn’t like Lae’zel, Withers likes her so little as to not acknowledge her ‘party member’ status.
In the absence of Lae’Zel, Withers offered me the next best thing: a personality-free grunt of an Orc named Kerz. The buff, placid swordsman paired well between me and Gale being ranged, I thought, but our party of three went to fight the goblins, and continuously got our shit kicked in.
You want a lowball for the times I game overed?10.
None of my arrows ever landed, I kept messing up the timing for the explosive under the sand, and the Goblins would systematically kill the Tiefling supporters, then Zevlor, and then finally my party.
I thought calling in some new Ogre friends via a Horn I found would help, but the first thing they did was fling a fireball at an explosive barrel next to a Goblin,but also Gale and Zevlor.All three of them were standing atop the gate wall, and all fell several dozen feet down, which killed all three of them.
On the bright side, one Goblin went down too, soyay go team, I guess…
A lot of bad words later, and my party and Zevlor finally killed the Goblins! Zevlor and I were tied by fate, as he died all the times I lost, but survived when I finally won. The Tieflings and I celebrated our victory.
And then Halsin just walked back into town like nothing happened! Really would have appreciated the backup there, buddy.
I sort of want to go back to Baldur’s Gate 3 eventually. It’s an impressive game with a lot of deep and well-thought-out features. And my time with it leads me to agree with the view that it’s a living and breathing world. Because only something living and breathing coulddespiseme as much as Baldur’s Gate 3 seemingly does.
