I’ve been thinking a lot about the Rite of Profane Ascension in Cazador's Palace, and there is a massive logical and narrative oversight in the dialogue options that completely ruins the theological weight of what is happening. It genuinely bothers me how the game handles this, and I think it’s the exact reason why a huge portion of the player base doesn’t fully grasp the horrifying reality of the Ascendant path.

When Tav/Durge confronts Astarion right before the ritual, the only pushback option you get regarding the sacrifices is:

“If I help you complete the ritual, it will kill all these people.”

And Astarion’s immediate counter-argument is:

“These people died years ago, trust me on that. All that's left are feral spawn, desperate for blood.”

Here is the problem: The game completely sanitizes the situation by reducing the ritual to just "killing" them.

Because the dialogue only uses the word "kill", Astarion is allowed to use a purely pragmatic excuse that they are already undead monsters, so putting them down isn't a real loss. BUT WE ALREADY KNOW THAT IS NOT WHAT THE RITUAL DOES.

Thanks to Raphael in Act 2, and the literal Black Mass Scroll found right there in the palace, we know this is a pact with Mephistopheles. Ascending Astarion doesn't just mean 7,007 spawn die in peace and their souls go to the Fugue Plane or their respective gods. It means their souls are actively ripped away, corrupted, and condemned to eternal, agonizing torment in the Nine Hells as literal currency for an Archdevil.

Allowing 7,000 people to die a merciful death is one thing. Condemning 7,000 souls to be tortured for all eternity is an exponential level of cosmic evil.

Yet, Tav is forced to stand there like an idiot and can never bring this up. We can’t shout: “Astarion, they aren’t just dying, you are literally selling 7,000 souls to Mephistopheles forever!” And because we can't say it, Astarion never has to acknowledge the absolute horror of what he is actually doing. He just gets to shrug it off with "well, they are just feral spawn anyway."

I feel like Larian Studios dropped the ball hard on this specific script line. By failing to include a dialogue option that addresses the eternal damnation of the victims, a lot of players who don't read every single book or remember Raphael's exact wording end up thinking the Ascension is just a morally gray "sacrificing the few for the greater good" scenario. It’s not. It's one of the most unforgivable, purely evil acts possible in the game.

Did this lack of a dialogue option bother you too during your playthroughs?

I'd like to preface this buy saying i ADORE this game. I played it back in 23' when it came out and did finish it, was amazing. Although i found out later i missed a LOT of content especially in act 1.

Anyways the general purpose of this post was to see if anyone else has this issue. Several times i have tried to play again since my 1st and only full playthough. But i get to the grove after picking up the companions and usually going through the Withers dungeon. But once im there i instantly feel overwhelmed, and about 5 times now i have just dropped the game because i have just felt too overwhelmed after getting to the grove and speaking to people.

I'm not sure if its just a me issue. I go in with all these intentions, making a new character, a new class, maybe wanting to do a Durge run, then after i get to the grove i just hit this wall.

Just wondered if anyone had this problem or a similar one, and how they overcame said issue

In my neverending quest to optimize XP, I've now found that one can get enough to hit level 12 before fighting Ketheric on the tower rather than merely after picking up the hefty ~6000 XP which is available in the mindflayer colony. (This is without using any of the 3 and a half or so exploits I've learned of that can generate infinite XP, and without using the multiple tavs + Minthara trick). Out of curiosity, I used a level 12 Oathbreaker to control undead Ketheric in the towertop battle.

As expected, the game got stuck and he and Aylin just kept passing turns with no way to end the fight until I attacked my controlled Ketheric and brought him down to low HP to trigger the cutscene where he escapes to prepare for the final fight in the colony.

What I didn't expect is that in the colony, immediately after the cutscene with the other chosen, Ketheric came running up to me like a lost puppy, still under control, and watched me dispose of his assorted minions.

Now, previous tests using control undead on Ketheric/Apostle of Myrkulin this room, where it's a lot easier to be level 12 and thus have that ability, had resulted in softlocks where the game wouldn't progress and one couldn't get the netherstone. So I figured I would either run into the same softlock after I started bonking the still-controlled Ketheric,or that his final form would be un-controlled and I'd have to fight it the normal way. Nope! Instead, it just skipped the entire boss fight! Myrkul did his usual cutscene of appearing in his apostle form, but I didn't actually have to fight him. After the cutscene he was just dead immediately and it jumped into origin Karlach's dialogue about Gortash. ThenKetheric's corpse was there to be looted of its netherstone, allowing the coda of the act to proceed without any issues.

So yeah, that whole final boss fight at the end of act 2 is technically skippable... if one puts a ton of work into optimizing and squeezing the maximum amount of XP out of the entirety of the game up till that point and then uses Control Undead in the previous encounter on the roof. My margin of surplus XP going onto the tower-top to do the control undead in the first place was just under 2000. Enough wiggle room to skip a few of the more time-consuming XP maneuvers in the future apparently! And if I did combine this with an optimized Minthara+Tav+Tav+etc. setup instead of playing as origin characters, I could grow that margin by another 7000 or so.

I'll get to work on a video about all the tricks that went into this!

Hi!! Just sharing this illustration of a Bg3 player's OC! He's an arcane archer :p Yeah, he doesn't have his facial scar yet, this is the scene where he gets it! An former prince, alone in the woods, who's never once used his powers.

I forbade myself to play any other story game until I beat BG3.

On my first playthrough I got the impression that this is the perfect game to do an evil playthrough. I was quite wrong. Act 1 evil is great and you get a good payoff for it.

However in Act 2 everything just falls apart. You can't actually side with the bad guys. You have to kill every one of them. You can't just usurp the leader and let the rest follow you. I was not doing an evil run where I just kill everything but rather a cold calculated kind of evil. So if I have to kill all the baddies maybe I can team up with the good guys even if temporarily until they realize I am the real baddie?

But no you have to kill most of the good guys too because of Shadowheart's evil path. Okay well that's weird?

Well yes it is indeed. On a good playthrough, the victory at moonrise results in a grand celebration. Whereas the aftermath of moonrise on an evil run is to be greeted by silence and death.

I have read people say that's what you get for being evil. But that's absolutely not true. Did you not see how moonrise was a busy bustling place when we first arrived here even though it was firmly in the hands of evil at that time? Did you not see the camp celebration of an evil run in Act 1?

There is no logic in the idea that being evil means that you will have fewer allies and followers. The game's story is clearly not fully designed for an evil run.

Shadowheart drawing done in graphite

Honour Mode DONE. Who'd have thought Lae'zel could love a Ghaik?!

First of all, he is soooooo good. He has a good guy complex and all he wants to do is heal the land. Also he reacts so severely on killing of a child and is furious at Kagha.

Then, this guy is incredibly horny. Like you cannot imagine how good of a combination this is. An incredibly horny guy along with such a massive built and good heart not to mention he is so warm and fuzzy like an actual bear. You can easily cuddle that bear and engage. It's like a big buff dude with massive facilities and a lover of a lifetime.

I have tried many times unsuccessfully to romance others but I just....couldn't.

But that's not it. He has a tortured past, hides wounds and goodness....he is just...so buff. I have this dude questioning my sexuality. I even did a twisted playthrough where he comes to my camp all blood crazy and in some twisted way, my dark urge ends him and then revives him as a potential ally.

On both sides up there in the Helm you can find some decent early game loot, I had killed everybody in the Helm and still had multiple turns left so I decided to do some exploring and that's when I discovered this. The loot (Void Bulbs, certain shells etc.) will be on the tables up there, I have included screenshots of both sides.

Sorry if not proper flair this is my first Reddit post after lurking for a little over a year. I finally did it. After 4 attempts and dying in act 3 for three of the attempts it’s over. The golden dice are so shiny I love it. That’s all. That’s the post. Thanks for reading.

You may read the former half in my home page. Let me know what you think!

Just wondering bc I started watching him and he’s probably one of the most creative guys I’ve ever witnessed in gaming, and the game gives him enough to do so which I also love

Is there any way to avoid it? I am trying to play a rotten embrace Durge and there's no way my guy would stop for these random people getting invaded, so it's a bit immersion-breaking that the game forces me into the fight. I was trying to get to the goblin camp. Sure I can choose to just skip actions but that's not really the same.

What happens of I don’t save her? I’m on HM and I honestly just don’t feel like dealing with the Hag

Edit: Thank you everyone! Told Ethel to kick rocks after my +1 hair offer! Now back to the game <3

I’ll start. I didn’t realise you could go back to act 1 locations once you’ve entered the shadowlands. Idk if it’s a new optimisation update or what but my mind was blown when i figured that out.

I also didn’t realise there’s a hook horror nest in the middle of the underdark with a chest in it! it also gives i think Karlach inspiration.

Okay, so on my resist Durge run I went through the belighted village as usual, got to the barn and let Astarion open it. All pretty standard. Killed the two inside then used speak with dead unlimited (I'm nosey, okay) and Buthir says she loved Grukkoh and he call says the same when you ask why they were in the barn. I feel so bad now, oh my god.

In the Prologue.

So this is the furthest I've made it into a run after getting wiped by Ethel and then having Laezel get deleted by the Emperor when I was playing Shadowheart's origin and I was going for an enemies to lovers romance. Finally made it to the adamantine forge and started the Grym fight and I made a big oopsie of not having a bludgeoning weapon for my thrower barb. It took FOREVER and I used every last healing potion I had which was like 30 and a handful of greater ones too. Grym kept falling from my reverb on the platforms and not losing his resistance so I was doing like no damage but I eventually made it through and the fight came down to my party having a combined THREE HP between Karlach and Tav and a 55% chance to hit off-hand crossbow shot that was the deciding dice roll of my entire run and I hit the 55%. I was so stressed when I had that last roll but I made it! Maybe this is the run that makes it all the way

Finally beat Honor Mode. Astarion. Level 9 OH monk, level 3 rogue for the extra bonus action. Shart full 12 levels of light cleric. Gale, wizard all the way, who I sadly had to send to his heroic doom, and Nightmommy Minthara, Sorcadin.

So many tries, so many mistakes. So much fun!

What RP justification could explain turning back when you are already deep in the Underdark to return to the Blighted village and craft the weapon after collecting the Sussur bark, even though the locations are separated by at least a day's walk?