Owlbear:Wrathbone wrote: ↑Wed Aug 23, 2023 7:15 amI'll post some thoughts on act 1, since a few people seem to be coming to the end of it. I'll not reference the Grymforge or the mountain pass yet.
SpoilerI can't think of a better (or larger) opening act to an RPG, to the extent that it could easily have been sold as a full-priced game in its own right.
I played as a good-natured, legally-flexible bard, and most of my choices involved smooth-talking my way into (or out of) things wherever possible. I talked Khaga down from child murder, I tricked my way into the goblin camp and I convinced the camp bosses that I was working for them, right up until the point where I killed them all. The only trouble was seeing all the options for an evil / jerk playthrough, because that looks like a lot of fun. My only truly dastardly deed in act 1 was killing the owlbear in the cave and then putting the cub out of its misery because I somehow missed the opportunity to adopt it (as I've since discovered is possible). I also apparently missed that the drow boss Minthara can join the party, though I expect that requires attacking the grove. I instead rescued Halsin, restored balance to the grove and helped the tiefling refugees wherever I could.
The highlight for me was undoubtedly Auntie Ethel. The atmosphere of pure malice and peril beyond what my party could probably handle was intense, but Ethel's spirited performance sells the whole thing perfectly. I ended up killing her in a very difficult fight and saving Mayrina, but I failed to convince her to leave her dead husband alone. Instead, I raised his corpse as a zombie to try and prove to her that he was nothing but a husk, which resulted in her trotting off to Baldur's Gate with her shambling husband in tow. Whoops.
Out of my party members, I mostly stuck with Shadowheart (my romance), Karlach and Gale. Karlach was by far the MVP, able to turn around even the most desperate of fights with some determined rage-smashing. The character arcs are all superb, though as mentioned previously, I wish the conversation options had a more overt 'this is meant to be flirting' warnings. Everyone - EVERYONE - had a moment where I'd been asked what I thought was a reasonable and platonic question which then led to them being snippy with me for having apparently led them on. I swear one of them was Gale asking if I wanted to go somewhere quiet to talk in the middle of a rowdy party with the tieflings, which in no way suggested to me that I'd be dragged immediately into a romantic starlit picnic where he wanted to feel me up.
Ironically, despite Lae'zel being generally a piece of work to talk to, she was the most accepting of the bunch when rebuffed, with the conversation amounting to "Wanna rut?" "Nah." "Fair enough."
Spoiler
It's not actually that cub that you adopt (at least in my playthrough, where I spared the mother), for me it was the one the goblins are keeping captive at their camp. I spoke to it with the speak with animals spell (true to Larian a near-essential skill lol) and offered it a place in my camp. It said it was too scared to leave with the goblins there, but after wiping them out it didn't appear in my camp for a few more long rests. After an aborted attempt (scripted I think), it settled in there full-time.