MeinMMO-Demon Cortyn plays with two friends Baldur’s Gate 3, who only cause chaos. Because accidentally, everything always ends with someone dying.
I love Baldur’s Gate 3. So much that I’m now playing 3 save files concurrently. One “main save” with a friend, another solo (with really nasty decisions), and now a third with two other friends who have never really gotten into the genre.
But this third save file brings wonderful yet devastating chaos, as somehow the group always manages to kill absolutely everything and everyone.
Spoiler Warning: The article discusses some events from the first act of the game. This includes roughly the first 8-10 hours of gameplay. You have been warned.
The thing is, these two players haven’t had much experience with such games.
They aren’t really role-players in the sense of pen & paper, but I was pleasantly surprised that at least the player behind the halfling had given it some thought: His rogue is interested in gold. Everything else is irrelevant to him. Gemstones, securities, books, or even weapons that would have high selling value – he’s all about the gold. It’s a bit simplistic, but also incredibly funny.
At least, I thought it would be funny. Because already at the first real encounter on the Nautiloid, I had to bite my tongue. They took surprisingly long to free Shadowheart from her capsule – because without a magically gifted character and without a strength hero, the answer isn’t that simple.
After we freed the fair cleric from the capsule, the question immediately arose: “Can I steal from her too?”
Honestly, that was a thought that never occurred to me. “Give it a try …,” I mumble to myself and regret it when “Sleight of hand failed” pops up. Shadowheart is apparently not impressed by the attempt and a fight ensues.
Yes, my dear friends. After only 10 minutes of gameplay, Shadowheart was already murdered. Exactly the Shadowheart with whom I sat by the campfire for hours in other save files, explored the Shar Temple, and mocked the Selûnite.
To ensure the story doesn’t completely come to a standstill, the magical relic automatically passes into our possession.
The rest of the Nautiloid went surprisingly smoothly.
But just after arriving at the beach, and just reaching level 2, the chaos continued. Like almost everyone else, we encountered Lae’zel in her cage, who is currently being held captive by two tieflings. I breathe a sigh of relief as the rogue lies to the tieflings to free Lae’zel from the cage afterward.
“How can we get her out of there?”
“Look around, I’m sure you’ll find a way.”
Well, they found it too.
Maybe it was bad luck, maybe fate, or maybe there’s some demon in hell who bears a grudge against me, but:
Almost simultaneously, the two tried to free Lae’zel from the cage by attacking the floor of the cage. However, the brief delay of maybe half a second led to this result:
The druid successfully attacks the floor of the cage with his thorn whip and destroys it. This causes Lae’zel to fall from the cage. At exactly that moment, the rogue also clicks with his crossbow on the floor of the cage – which no longer exists.
The end result is a Lae’zel lying on the ground with a crossbow bolt in her head.
Well. I can cope with Lae’zel’s death. We killed her in my main save file too, although I was mostly forced into good decisions there most of the time.
Onward to the Emerald Grove. This is basically the first “real” fight, as a group of kobolds attempts to overcome the defense of the small camp, but with the help of the hero party, the fight is actually survived quite well. Plus, the potential companion Wyll is also jumping around there, dismantling everything with his warlock spells.
I can still hear “Why is the camera control so crap?” when once again a crossbow bolt whizzes past my tiefling and hits one of the defenders in the back.
Lucky us: They apparently don’t hold this “slip-up” against us and everyone survives the fight more or less unscathed. Everyone, except for that one fighter with the bolt in his back.
Fearing that the two might somehow completely ruin the save file here, I hastily say in Discord: “Be careful what you do in a village. If you provoke someone there, the whole village could hate you and then …”
I can’t get any further. The rogue has already robbed the merchant in the camp of the tiefling refugees, was caught, and lets himself be taken to prison without resistance.
It takes a good 15 minutes until we are reunited again, rescued the rogue from prison, and can listen in on the NPCs’ conversations a bit.
Upon arriving at the Circle of Druids, the usual scene unfolds: Tieflings argue with the druids and the latter make it clear that they currently do not tolerate strangers in the Circle’s area. Even our dwarf tries his luck once more, but the druids do not allow us to pass.
“Can’t I just walk past them while they talk to the dwarf?” our rogue asks and promptly tries it out.
I didn’t know that was possible. I didn’t know what would happen next. But the scenario was as follows:
The druid guards immediately engage our group in a fight because we are intruders. At the same time, a large part of the druids storms into the camp of the tiefling refugees and a cutscene plays. The druids start mercilessly murdering all the refugees.
We barely survive the fight against the druids’ guards, expending almost all resources. We rush back to the refugee camp and once again I can hardly believe my eyes. Important characters like Zevlor lie dead on the ground. Wyll’s adventure has also come to a swift end under the assault of the druids, as his corpse lies here as well.
I want to emphasize again: We were at level 2, so basically just off the Nautiloid. Kargha (the high druid) is level 5 and possesses spells and abilities that can one-hit us with a bit of bad luck – which she did multiple times. Moreover, she has many druids with her who can permanently heal her or deal hefty damage themselves.
We had to restart the fight multiple times and it surely took us two hours to just manage to survive it. And that was only possible because we used the last remaining tiefling refugees as “meat shields” and our druid dwarf in animal form blocked a door.
The result after a few hours is therefore: Shadowheart is dead, Lae’zel is dead, the tiefling refugees are dead, the druids are dead.
I’m already afraid of what they will do in the goblin camp. But actually, I don’t have much time to think about it, as I’m already being asked:
“I want to join the tentacle people. Can I?”
I’m a bit afraid of where the journey will lead. Because originally, the two didn’t intend to intentionally kill anyone. But it just turned out that way.
I still need to teach the two not to always just chase after the quest log – but after nearly 20 years of MMORPGs, they may have ingrained the habit of always following the glowing marker on the map, which leaves me fighting a losing battle.
Have you also had such experiences with your friends in Baldur’s Gate 3?
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