BG3 Bhaal-Barian

So, I haven't written in a pretty long while, I have been dicking around on Baldur's Gate III for a bit with different classes/races. Trying some stuff out while having fun. My latest jabs have been with Clerics as my "Tav". I tried out a Cleric of Mystra with the intent of a Gale romance and a Cleric of Selune with a Shadowheart romance. I was trying to play a ranger for a bit without an intended romance (possibly Halsin, I tried one before and it had some funny moments, particularly with the Drow siblings in Sharess's Caress - highly recommended, Halsin is actually a cool and easy rom-com). The problem is that Rangers and Druids kind of suck. I might try it as a Oath of Ancients Pally though.

Today I wanted to talk about the game I finally finished. I beat the game with the Dark Urge as Bhaal's Chosen and a Minthara romance. Yay!

I played a single-class drow Barbarian Wildheart with Lae'zel (Dragon Sorcerer, the reasons for this are medium armor prof and short swords profs, plus mobility, she also makes a great bard), Shart (Bard - College of Lore), and Minthara (Paladin of Vengeance, I left her as a PAL because smites), I'd swap out Lae'zel with Astarion (Cleric of Light - lolz! I wanted high WIS so he could read the Necromancy of Thay with minimal save trouble) occasionally. I had Jaheira in the party for a short time along with Minsc, but I eventually betrayed and killed them both when I started going super dark-side.

Anyways, the early parts of my story go pretty much as you'd expect: Chopped off Gale's hand (It was the Urge, I swear), helped Wyll kill off Karlach, betrayed the tieflings, sided with Minthara (but betrayed Priestess Gut), stole the caravan treasure and infiltrated the Zhentarim, killed Auntie Ethel by accident, helped the gnomes as much as I could (only 3 survived), beat the Duergar, Nere, and the Grym, utterly destroyed the Githyanki at the monastery. End Act I.

Act II: Used the mountain pass route to the shadowlands, betrayed the Absolutists and killed Karniss, went to the Last Light (avoided meeting Isobel right away), infiltrated Moonrise, helped the Gnomes escape, beat up the Githyanki strike team, returned to the Last Light and killed Isobel (after Sceleritas told me to) and Marcus (because, well, "f" that dude). After that, I hopped through Shart's tour of Shar's Gauntlet (PS Shart as a bard allows for invisibility spells and stealth, the main reason for her class conversion), finishing off Ayla to complete the Shar's Justiciar gig. Then I got the Gnolls to help me kill off the jerks at Moonrise. Tore through that pretty quick and just about killed everybody. I had to be careful when Jaheira joined my party to deceive her (kinda hard as a Barbarian), then I had to be careful what language I use when talking with her and Minthara after the battle with Myrkul's Avatar. I learned that if you use dark boi language with Minthara, it triggers Jaheira leaving the party, so I picked more ambiguous options, leaving Minthara, ahem, satisfied, while not pissing off Jaheira.

Moving on to Act III

The big things done during my relatively short time in Baldur's Gate were: free Minsc, Save Nine-Fingers, aided Mystic Carrion, became an Exalted Assassin of Bhaal (and his Chosen), Ascended Astarion (he read the Thayan Necromancy book as well), so he got some pretty sick powers. I tackled the big Cazador with three raging Bhaalbarian alpha strikes and a little artillery assist from Sorceress Lae'zel double-tapping spells into his pasty butt (Quicken Spell). He managed to mist once, but I staked him right away and freed Astarion, getting my 4th back mid-combat. I also completed Shar's quest by knocking off Viconia and getting most of the House of Grief on my side (super easy battle btw). Epic loot, allies, and XP in exchange for...not much work! After I rescued Minsc, the Emperor was being a bitch about him joining up, so I had to kill Minsc. After I did that, Jaheira elft the party so I turn-moded and killed her too. I even killed poor Boo (I'm such a monster!). PS when you kill Minsc, Boo shows up to defend his corpse and, in my case, he had a yellow circle so he could be targeted. I didn't want the little vengeance-beast to show up in my camp and slay me at night (this is pure conjecture and probably anti-hamster propaganda - MGSHADL [Miniature Giant Space Hamster Anti-Defamation League]), so I pre-offed him.

I got all the Bhaal powers on the Barb, so I could turn into the Slayer, and I had a Power Word Kill I could use once, which I promptly forgot about and never used. I managed to remember to use most of my Arrows of Slaying, at least on the two dragons (Ansur and the hijacked Red Dragon). I sided with the Comet, so The Emperor switched to the Absolute side. When I fought the Elder Brain, I had to fight him too. The Emperor was no match for an enraged Bhaal-barian though. (I always got a little extra shot with my hand Xbow because drow rule. Sure, it's only 4-11 DMG, but it's a reusable bonus action, and it helps chip down those tough opponents). Gortash was dealt with through negotiation, so I didn't fight him, but he dies pretty quick to the Brain. I got everyone else into the final battle with the Brain somehow, despite the best efforts of those bastard Mind Flayer wizards (Magic Missile is a bitch!). Souls were crushed, brains were splattered and when the choice to rule alone, with Minthara, or with Bhaal came up, I chose Bhaal...and Minthara. ("Gimme some sugar, Baby.")

All-in-all, it was a fun 67-hour playthrough. I recommend reading up on your options to see what choices have been played so you don't make mistakes during your playthrough that can't be corrected or worked around. This is especially true of the hard playthroughs, like Tactician (where you can at least save-scum), and Honour (where you cannot make ANY mistakes!).

For informational purposes, some examples of my failed playthroughs are:

Tried to romance Minthara, sided with tieflings, KO'd Minthara, rescued her from Moonrise, then found out that without the cutscene after the tiefling village massacre, it is not possible = sad face. I also did a few other goofs like turning down Lae'zel, then missing beats with other NPCs and whiffing on the post-victory campout, where you usually get a cutscene. This has happened more than a few times and is not fun, I quit afterwards so I can try again. I keep my saves to a minimum, so instead of saving at key moments and trying to remember what the save was for, I delete autosaves and have a pair of named saves per character. Ouch. I have one Tactician game saved at 116 hours near the Temple of Bhaal as a Dark Urge (Urge-Denying) Drow Rogue-Thief...that gets absolutely destroyed fighting Orin solo. I am switching the class to Barbarian to scam through it, but I still don't like my chances. I don't want to waste another 100+ hour save. The first one was a Bard playthrough on Explorer that fails every time because of an accumulation of very bad choices leading to an extremely weak build. I could probably salvage it now that I have learned some tricks, but I deleted the game because I just felt that my time was better spent simply starting a new game to explore these Cleric builds. It was Explorer anyway, who cares.

So, to sum up, plan carefully how you generally want to end up, make those key choices before you start your intended playthrough to test whatever idea you want. Pick your romance, whether you want to deal with an Origin character, the Dark Urge, tiefling massacre or not, etc. Remember that certain events only occur if you get the quest for it, while others, like chasing Ansur or saving the hostages in the Iron Throne, don't really need the prompt. If you fight the Cazador encounter without Astarion, but you get to fight with four characters (I usually use scrolls to summon fire elementals to bulk out the party), but he can't make the cool choices. If he is in your party, you'll be down one dude until you kill Cazador.

I hope this helps a little to narrow down some of the near-infinite options available in BG3 for you, dear reader. There are 17 million endings to try out, and the one I have experienced was fun so all the 1000's of hours I spent (eventually) getting to it paid off. It also netted me three PS5 trophies, GO ME!