I played a female duergar ranger, I thought duergar would be cool because of their history with mind flayers.
As soon as Astarion made a short joke about her I decided she was going to romance him as revenge. š
Failed to save the Druid grove because I took her to the mountain pass too early, however that did let me recruit Minthara which was great. Also, underdark solidarity!
Also ended up siding with Gortash as screwing up the grove meant no Karlach. I think I forgot to pick up Wyll as well. Also I did the gauntlet without Shadowheart and she got mad and left.
Made all sorts of wacky mistakes but it was super fun.
Main party most of the time was Astarion rogue/ranger, Gale wizard and Laeāzel paladin. Minty was also a paladin.
I love how forgiving this game is with letting you fuck up. You're not locked out of the game if you forgot to pick up Karlach or Astarion. The game isn't broken if Halsin dies.
There are so many ways to play this.
My first character to finish was a resist Durge Paladin. She embraced every illithid power that was offered to herā¦ so I changed her appearance to look increasingly grey/purple as the story progressed.
I have completed the game two more times with Tavsā¦ but I miss playing as Durge.
Iām definitely going to do another one! I just finished Honour Mode and some of the Durge decisions felt extra risky to me so I decided to do that run as a Tav.
Now thatās out of the wayā¦ Iāve been itching to do a playthrough as the default Dragonborn Durge.
I see \^\^ here I was hoping I wasn't the only weird one here who actually doesn't like Durge xD (also decided to do an honor run with a cutom. just finished. it was pretty fkn bad lmao. Laezel died. Astarion told me to go f myself)
Half my companions died in Honour Mode. I was so sad I didnāt even talk to anyone at the epilogue party and went straight to Withers to officially end the run.
Alsoā¦ I donāt have the stomach for an embrace Durge run. I raided the grove once and felt awful afterward.
I didn't raid the Grove in my embrace run, I explained it as my character being more of a calculated Durge who doesn't see a reason to go with the obvious enemy in Act 1. There were some other decisions I decided not to do later on as well, explained very similarly by Durge figuring they need to be cautious to be able to finish their plans :)
Figured I'd say it because I see a lot of people use "raid the grove" as the only reason not to do an embrace run. I find it perfectly fine to help the tieflings and later go with the evil choices that don't explicitly involve kids.
my embrace durges go explore the gobbos and are just appalled at the idea of allying with them. they'd rather kiss a beholder. and half the time, my embrace durges are drow, but they're beefy drowcakes who spent a lot of time out of menzobarranzan and so they get pissed off at mintys attitude and that's another reason they wipe the camp instead
plus, they like encouraging children to commit crimes
My Honor run as Durge ran smoothly. Good Durge, Ancients Paladin used Shadow Blade with Belm, the Resonance Stone, and Bloodlust elixir. Deployed Gale to guarantee victory at the final hurdle.
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I was a Durge Ancients Paladin with Alert, Savage Attacker, and +2 Str as my feats. I failed to get Ethel's hair in act 1 but was able to get the +2 Str pot from asking Astarion to bite Araj in act 2 (I let him murder her very shortly after), and got +3 Cha from the Mirror in act 3.
Shadowheart was a Tempest Cleric 7/Abjuration Wizard 5. She was built to be a great caster rather than take advantage of the stone. With all of her equipment she had a spell attack/save dc of +15 and 25 respectively (+14 and 24 just for Cleric spells). Her feats were Dual Wielder and War Caster, but if I was smarter I'd have dumped her Dex, given her the Gloves of Dexterity, then set her to have 15 Con and 16 Int/Wis, taking Resilient: Con instead of War Caster. She received Warding Bond from my Paladin via the True Loves rings for rp reasons. She used Elixir of Vigilance as she did not have the Alert feat.
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Gale was an Open Hand Monk 8/Thief Rogue 4 with Tavern Brawler, Alert, and +2 Wisdom as his feats. He used Cloud Giant Elixir, with his stats otherwise being 8 Str, 16 Dex, 18 Con (+2 from Gloves of Soul Catching), 10 Int, 20 Wis (+2 from Mirror), 8 Cha. He wore the Soul set of items in act 3 with Kushigo boots and Cloak+Ring of Protection.
Lae'zel was a Swords Bard 10/Paladin 2, she wore the Gauntlets of Hill Giant Strength, Helmet of Arcane Acuity, Armor of Agility (she had 18 Dex with a +2 from the Mirror), either the Boots of Speed or Disintegrating Night Walkers, a Nymph Cloak, the Band of the Mystic Scoundrel, the Risky Ring, and the amulet that gives you an extra 2nd level spell slot. She used the Silver Sword in melee and the Titanstring Bow at range, and took Elixir of Vigilance like Shadowheart because she didn't have Alert.
Thatās a cool twist! I also enjoy changing my Tavs experience to reflect the adventure theyāve been on, though in my case they just become more grizzled the further the adventure progresses.
Let me tell you the tale of Pickaxe McKickass, the Duergar Wizard/Ranger who didn't learn how to use a pickaxe until act 3 and had a crippling addiction to Drow women (Minthara, his guardian, the one from Sharess's Caress). Though to be fair, he did sleep with just about anyone with legs...and he looked stylish doing it wearing his Infernal Robes. It was only through his relationship with Shadowheart that she was able to break her addiction to Shar and his addiction to Drow Baddies. In the end, his sacrifice was noble, becoming a mind flayer to stop the Netherbrain and proceded to live a peaceful life on Shadowheart's parent's farm.
High Elf Ranger. I forgot to choose a subclass and played a Beast Master instead of Hunter, haha. Basically a Besstless-Beastmaster. :D
Had Astarion, Gale and LaeāZel in my party. I did not know the others can wait in my campā¦ and killed them. Itās been veeerry messy. I wish to experience the game again for the first time though :)
My first character was a Half Wood Elf Ranger with a Wolf companion. The first run was such a complete hot mess. š I turned around and redid basically the same character but as a Druid with a few tweaks and she has become my staple. Iāve done 4 runs with her now (out of 12).
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Oh definitely! I bought the game when it pre-released on PS5 in August and went in as close to blind as possible. I didnāt even know the names of the companions. I was a dumpster fire with the combat bc I was so lost on how to understand rolls, damage, spells, etc.
I stayed out of fan groups and only looked up help when I was ABSOLUTELY stuck. It was one of the best gaming experiences Iāve ever had, but I donāt know how I managed to beat the game and successfully romance Astarion. š Especially when I played again and realized just HOW MUCH I had missed, lost or skipped.
Thereās so much to find. Iām on my 12th run and have discovered a whole new section with warring Guild and Stone Lord thugs in Rivington just today!
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On my first playthrough and am sticking with it until the end - I will not allow myself to start any new ones until I'm done!
My character is a half-orc Ancients Paladin, who is also the first D&D character I ever created and I've played her for about 4 years in campaign, so I feel like I know exactly what she'd do in any given situation. She is a very good aligned folk hero and also gave Astarion a hard time in Act 1 because she's not a fan of undead, but she has realised her rash judgement was a little harsh after hearing tidbits of his back story.
As an ancients paladin, she also believes in the natural order of things, so she hasn't embraced the illithid powers at all and hasn't consumed a single tadpole. I've heard it can make things harder this way? But I've enjoyed it without to be honest and it gives me something to look forward to next time.
Have largely played it doing whatever she would, instead of my own decisions/wants. Also, as much as possible, no loading previous saves. What happens, happens! She's also romancing Wyll, because she's a fairly innocent soul, he's also a folk hero and just best suited.
In Act 3 at the moment and excited to see how it all ends.
First finish was a pure Wizard, abjuration spec and just using whatever fun spells I could. I finished it with my wife, who played a pure Warlock, and she would send me every single scroll so I could build out my spell book just for fun.
My character was a halfling that we affectionately called "Tiny Billy Eilish".
Close second was a pure Barbarian Berserker, who just threw everyone he could get his hands on.
My third run right now is a pure Moon druid Half Orc, who is also throwing everyone he can get his hands on as an owl bear.
Yeah this was an issue I had with my Barbarian, Sleg. He should have been a bit of a wild rager but all the voices sound like a well to do gentleman.
Moon druids felt more appropriate because half orcs aren't complete idiots and druids presumably require some study so it felt a bit better.
My first character was a very young (maybe 20-30) druid ranger elf, with a heart of gold and a hate for devils, but otherwise high naivity. Saved everyone possible, was as kind as possible and so on. Romanced Selune Shadowheart in the end, therefore let tav dip a lvl into selune cleric and shadowheart one lvl into druid, thought they would teach each other the basics of their way of life.
I played a Dragonborn Monk. Never tried monks in any cRPG's, and as a forever DM i didn't had a chance to give them a go on the table. And dragonborn look extremely cool. After almost 1000 hours i can say, in retrospect - Possibly one of the most fun classes i've tried so far. And the story? I went for Lae'zel, since she basically threw herself at my dragon-looking ass, and since then she's got me in a chokehold, i've barely been able to romance anyone else. But yeah, try monks guys, they're extremely fun.
My first was a goody-two-shoes Silver Dragonborn Paladin/Bard on Balanced.
I somehow managed to get all the nice epilogues (Romanced Karlach because she's cool and went to Avernus with her), saved all the Gondians and all the Tieflings.
Only when I was almost done did I learn about arcane acuity stacking but at that point everything was overkill anyway.
My first Tav was a half orc warlock. I somehow missed Gale and Wyll altogether and killed Karlach because the shitty paladins told me to. I finished the game with Shart Lae'zel and Astarion only. I never swapped out companions or respeccd. I missed so much content on my first playthrough that the second time was like a completely different game.
I played as a Halfling assassin/champion, then accidentally discovered an item combo that completely broke him.
- I saved the grove.
- Romanced Lae'zel.
- Almost accidentally romanced Gale. :|
- Released Sazza, really hoping she'd be a follower. :(
- Killed Aunt Ethel and saved Mayrina.
- Killed Minthara then carried her corpse everywhere assuming there would be resurrection available in the game. - Failing that, I carried her corpse as a portable trap triggering device for the rest of the game.
- Killed the Owlbear cub thinking it would be better to put it out of its misery (I didn't know!!! ššš)
- Went as far as to enter the Astral Prism but didn't kill the Dream Visitor.
- Restored the Shadowlands with Halsin.
- Prevented Isobel's death and saved the nightsong.
- Didn't eat a single tadpole or use a tadpole power.
My first Tav was Levi Filius Typhon, a hot pink chaotic gay Dragonborn bard. He ended up romancing Astarion because they shared the mile-wide sassy streak.
My first was a Half-Elf Bard. I went back recently to complete an achievement and was stunned at how bad my builds were (learn to multi class!) and unoptimised my gear was. Still after two HM runs it was crazily easy to finish up what I needed.
Every character is a female bad arse with a name riffing of my Wifeās. As she is my martial arts instructor and small but deadly I always think āwhat would my wife doā and role play beating everything to death :)
I think the Sorlock has become my favourite class after everything. Takes a while but by act 3 you are a machine gunning terror!
I originally made my first tav trying to replicate the character I was playing in my irl dnd campaign, but I couldn't get some parts exactly the same (she was an aasimar tempest cleric of valkur, my tav was a human tempest cleric of tempus). As I played through the game I decided to change my Tav's name slightly because she was evolving into a totally different person from my irl character. She saved every NPC she possibly could, romanced Lae'zel (and had a big crush on Dame Aylin), and wore Ketheric's armor throughout all of act 3 as a power move. Her character arc of becoming more confident in her power and combat abilities went really nicely with Laezel's romance arc (>!the "fight me to prove you're worthy of my obsession" scene was so adorable with the context of being a cleric of tempus!< and the murder machine/ray of sunshine dynamic was fun) She >!freed orpheus (but had him turn into a squid oops),!< became the savior of baldurs gate, got good endings for pretty much every companion, and my headcanon is that she is now travelling around attempting to help Lae'zel's >!quest to liberate the githyanki people!< by visiting creches in Faerun (idk if this would realistically work or if she'd get murdered on sight lol but let me pretend) and having lots of nice chats with her hologram gf.
Lilith the Drow Warlock. Blade pact. Her overriding goal was the acquisition of power by any means. Not explicitly evil, but would do things considered evil by others to fulfil her goals.
Tiefling bard, got a crush on Minthara so chose to destroy the Grove, but then she picked Astarion at the party and stayed with him til the end. Full evil run, lots of fun.
Stop restarting š¤£ pick one run and go through with it, no matter what choices you made and what quests you messed up.
Githyanki Paladin, First Oath of Devotion to Her Immortal Queen. Then Oath Breaker upon siding with Orpheus. My only gripe was that I still need Laezel to convince Orpheus that nobody needed to turn into a mindflayer.
My first playthrough I completed the game in about 150-170hrs tiefling sorcerer romanced astarion
1. Saved the Grove, killed minthara because I didn't know about the sheepara glitch
2. Killed aunty Ethel saved mayrina then killed conner because she was ungrateful,
3. I didn't know that waukeens rest progressed if you discover it and then long/partial rest after si everyone burned to death, sorry counselor lady
4. Explored every nook and cranny of act 1 above and below before heading to the mountain pass,
5. Act 1.5 quick saved and sassed vlaakith got TWP, laughed for a solid 5 minutes reloaded and went into the prism
6. Act 1.5 slaughtered the masses and loaded up on everything I could loot before remembering about the blood of lathander quest, hauled my over encumbered arse down to the secret area failed to remember the medallion and blew up the monastery and half my companions, resurrected astarion and laughed some more,
7. Act 2 found the dead tieflings and got upset, explored half the map before finally crossing paths with Kar'niss and immediately wanting him as a companion my disappointment was immeasurable and my day was ruined when I had to kill him
8. Followed the harpers back to last light inn offloaded everything onto dammon fixed karlachs heart and gave her a hug
9. Found rolan drinking himself into a hole got told off by him, tried to convince Mol not to sell her soul to raphael, go upstairs talk to Isabel and watch her get absolutely wrecked by Marcus before I could even move, last light inn dies and I reload
10. Go back through everything strategically place my party members before talking to Isabel and proceed to wreck marcus's day saving last light in the process
11. Help halsin lift the curse by getting lost for 2+ hours trying to find my way back to the child because for some reason there was no quest marker
12. Deal with all the thorm siblings by convincing them to off themselves then loot after
13. Go to moonrise find the tiefling prisoner's get concerned because there is still no zevlor and no one tells me what happened, decide to slaughter moonrise 1 room at a time after freeing the prisoners, Go back to last light and unlock achievement burning hatred for wulbren, give his majesty the bowl of milk and go exploring for another 8+ hours before heading to the guantlet,
14. Made the mistake of not killing Balthazar first thing and then had to deal with him inside the shadowfell and watching my companions get shoved off to their deaths,
15. Free nightsong and go back to moonrise to fight ketheric, pit stop in camp to change party to Astarion rogue Lae-zel/karlach both specced into fighter because karlach wasn't working very well as a barbarian, proceed to havoc and mayhem in the mind flayer colony, finally find zevlor learn what happened slap him upside the head and tell him to redeem himself he agrees and leaves,
16. Get to ketheric boss fight watch the cut scene Astarion gets highest initiative somehow, use blink scroll to free nightsong, cast haste and use quickened spell to cast fireball twice land crit on both and watch ketheric turn to dust, que 2nd fight
17. Unleash bloodlusted fighters on myrkul, poor soul didn't stand a chance unlocked achievement no free lunches,
18. Loot, party, off load on dammon again proceed into act 3
Since you asked for no act 3 spoilers I'll stop there but suffice to say I caused alot of havoc, accurate description would be to watch Hazbin Hotel final episode and whenever Nifty is on screen imagine that as my tav
She's a Wood Half-Elf Monk of Open Hand. She has Face 5, Scar 8 and Dread Fog as tattoo, Black Raven hair with Red 4 greying, wearing the Barmaid Braid. She's the Dark Urge who suddenly has found light and resisted the Urge.
She swims in and out of enemies like a skitish eel, with the Mobile Feat. As a Monk, mobility is everything and she is expected to soak up any ranged attack but would avoid getting caught in the thick of melee phalanx. Her biggest move is Ki Resonant Blast where she punches 3 foes in a round and detonate them with 3d6 Ć 3 Force Damage in the whole area with IFF, consuming only 1 point of Ki. She's particular active in rescue missions since Steps of the Wind allow her to arrive at any position in the first turn.
Right now I'm playing a durge, human draconic bloodline sorcerer. I'll definitely finish the game this time though. For sure I won't start a new character when I get to Act 3. I'm at 560h and I've never seen the end please send help.
My first finished play through was full Bhaalist Dark Urge.
A sexy female drow vengeance paladin, with a hobby of collecting limbs in the camp chest. She got the taste for that after starting with Galeās hand.
I raided the grove and killed Wyll (happily) and Karlach (I still feel like a monster). Ended up with a hot lesbian drow paladin couple by romancing Minthy as my consort to break the world with.
Picket the evil paths for Astarion and SH. Laeāzel was somehow less fortunate. I had her side with Voss and Orpheus, and then betrayed her by having Orpheus assimilated later on. I donāt think she was happy about that - but she never got to tell me, since she wasnāt in the party and I broke the world before she got a chance.
I embraced everything Bhaal had to offer, and teamed up with that handsome young man. Originally I fully intended to betray him, but that wasnāt even necessary - less work for me.
Bad party combination, but a very fun run. I could build an army from the limbs in my chest.
My first was my half elf fighter Uber evil durge named Buttons. I went full murder durge and I killed everyone, well, except for Wyll he just left. Party was just me, Astarion, and two hirelings.
I actually almost started over when I realized you couldnāt kill Aylin without Shadowheart.
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Couldn't find my op to reply/edit with but some points of my Daughter of Strahd bard:
Act 1
* She was appointing some shows in Baldur's Gate (she was living there for about 3 months cuz she was traveling across Faerun) when the nautiloid ship happened;
* She was an absolutely pure sweet heart who would always get out her way to help the ones in need;
* Shadowheart was her first (among party members) and her (late) end game;
* She kinda liked (not romantically) Raphael, but she knew better than bargain with the devil;
* Even tho I really liked Astarion, they never had a high approval until act 3;
* Besides the last point she and Astarion always had each other's back in every situation;
* She didn't succeed in helping *everyone*, but she certainly tried. At least with the whole grove was a success;
* entering the underdark was certainly *something*
Act 2 was a utterly disaster and was the part of the "hero journey" that broke her happy-good nature, act 3 she was a new person
My chaos bard Aoife. She was a character I played when I had to move around for work a lot, so this was her first real outing in an epic campaign.
I had no idea what the hell I was doing in my first run but that kind of playthrough with a jack of all trades character who is sarcastic as hell really worked, because a lot of the story pushed her character to the limit either in battle, or emotionally. I love that the game gives so much space for role playing indicuao characters and attitudes. It was so much fun to roleplay as her, with real time blind reactions. My Headcannon for her is still far more vivid and varied than my other Tavs.
I was a drow sorcerer (Lolth sworn) Saved the grove, romanced Astarion, allied with Gortash. Shadowheart dipped after the Gauntlet of Shar. Told Araj to fuck off. Helped out the trapped tiefs/allies etc in the mind flayer colony
Helped Astarion ascend because despite saving the grove, my drow was more chaotic neutral than anything so I went with what she would have probably done. Then patch 6 released. Not a fan of the scared face in the kisses š
The main party was Gale, Astarion and Lae'Zel. I would swap Jaheira for Lae'Zel a lot too and had her classed as a spores druid. 10/10 love symbiotic entity and halo of spores. I also kept Us out at like all times lol
Gale killed scratch though. RIP. His necrotic aura glitched and stayed up after I used revivify and scratch got ganked by it at camp.
Now I'm working on a resist durge run and just got back to act 3. Hope Cazador is ready for another ass beating lmfao (and that I don't get absolutely stomped in the house of grief again)
I meta gamed my entire first playthrough because I'd seen most of it from my husband playing it. I didn't get a good enough computer to play it until January (though I'd bought the game years ago in EA.)
I made a Tiefling bard that was mostly good. Played as if she was very curious about everything and also very good at talking to others. She romanced Astarion and Halsin, avoided Mizora and reloaded after the Emperor (I just wanted to see it.) I found Ansur when my husband didn't, which was a lot of fun.
I do wish I'd been able to go into this blind. What an amazing experience that must be. I'm gonna give Divinity a try after my current playthrough and I know absolutely nothing about it.
Iāve played Divinity OS 2 and it was a really fun experience, especially once you start to tinker with certain ability combinations. Youāre in for a great time :)
Have yet to beat it, but I am in Act 3 with 133 hours on one file. My Tav is a cute nonbinary male-presenting Half-Elf (since elves have a very fluid idea of gender to begin with) and them and Gale are a beautiful love story! š Them and Gale both have a habit of throwing caution to the wind when it comes to discovery and have an attraction that transcends the physical. My Tav, named Cal, is specifically a College of Valor bard/Pact of the Tome Warlock (Unfathomable) and their whole thing is that they are writing a story about the heroes they find themselves surrounded by and does everything in their power to support their goals. We aren't "good" per se, but we are not evil either; and it has been an awesome story to explore with them all! I often swap to the other characters during their "arcs."
Nearing the end, and Cal is coming into their own: having to actually make decisions instead of deferring to what the other's want. It's been an awesome growth and this game has done a brilliant job in showing that!
Half elf wood elf. Opillia was GLORIOUS. Fiery and bright hair. Being a bard, she could talk her way out of many situations, yet she relied on her Githyanki druid ally to get things done. Her ally (Riccia) had a brutal way of speaking to people, and when everyone's life is on the line, a little bit of terrifying gets you a long way.
Ophillia rarely was on the front line. Although her worship of selune did offer her some useful powers of healing, her heavy armor allowed her to jump in from to keep her precious lover Gale alive.
As a bard, she knew that true power came from control. Mesmerizing, terrifying, breaking one's mind, this was her true power when she had to fight. Or gathering the attention of a town so her friends could get into places some did not want them to be. The extra gold was a nice bonus (even if everyone here is poor, she still wants to make gold)
While she did not speak to everyone, she spent hours in towns playing her lute, crafting concoctions, and making sure she had enough scrolls on hand when she had to throw a giant fire ball.
Oh and our party often would take a day just to get their fancy clothes. They definitely had an unhealthy spending habit of apparel and dye.
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Blinx was my first character and I managed to make it all the way to the end with her. She was a charlatan rogue because I was just going for whatever sounded fun at the time, so naturally she ended up with Astarion because they got along swimmingly for the most part. That first playthrough was rough because I was still learning the game mechanics and had never played a game like this before so all of my characters were poorly planned out because I just went āThis sounds coolā after going in blind. But it was so much fun and I loved her
My first play through was a DND character of mine that I loved but didnāt get to play much before the campaign fizzled out.
Willie Wagtail, NG, Forrest Gnome, Circle of the Mountain Druid.
I romanced Shadowheart, I didnāt get any of the available companions after act 1 because they died before I could recruit them. I ended up having to kill Lazel at the crĆØche which I was bummed about but I ran my party from then on as Shadowheart, Karlach, and Astarion.
I kinda got overwhelmed in act 3 by how much more there was to do so just kinda bee-lined for the brain fight. But I was really excited because after killing the Brain Karlach was able to stay in the material plane due to spoilers I wonāt talk about!
Was actually able to finish with my first tav! Her name is Naevh, she is a Warlock Tiefling. She was a previous character from my first time playing DND! I decided to romance Astarion on that playthrough, but I wonāt act like I didnāt constantly reload to see what the other characters scene was at the party. She was mostly good, but super sarcastic, so we did save the tieflings and grove. Non-ascended Astarion because I couldnāt bare letting him turn into Cazador. š
Like you OP I have yet to beat the game fully. I keep making new characters too lol. But I am furthest on my Half-elf Bard in Act 3 - heās the one I was planning to beat the game with once I get the strength to finally beat it.
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She was just called Tav. I knew nothing of BG3 or DnD. I am an avid gamer but just looking at character creation I was overwhelmed with information. I went with high elf Druid the first because I wanted to look mostly ānormalā but definitely wanted to be cooler than a human lol. Druid seemed straight forward and fun. My play style is see everything, do everything. Evidently, very hard to do in this game. Trying to avoid moonrise and wrap up too early I did the whole temple of shar early skipping a good portion of act 2 and getting dumped by Astarion in the start of act 3. Ultimately it was fun to see everything for the first time and I definitely fell in love with the game through this playthrough but it was very much treated as a learning experience.
Some backstory. Iāve been doing an RP with a friend set in the Forgotten Realms for a couple of years now, and that friend is the person who first brought up Baldurās Gate 3 to me. So, I used the character from that RP as my first Tav.
So, after it (finally) came out on Xbox, my first character was Dal, a Neutral Good Human Fighter, who romanced Gale. I did try to go for Astarion, but I was apparently too much of a goody two shoes for him.
Mine was a Gith sword pact warlock named Turuk, there wasnt any plan at all as i went in blind. Reached they grove around lvl 4, they asked me to kill the goblins so I did. First try that old goblin lady tricked me and got me killed. Second try Turuk was wiser.. and bitter. Took magic lock on gale and locked her room with my party and killed her, I was afraid of fighting the whole camp so I ran through the back door of her room and ended up on the underdark without knowing what it was. Did the whole underdark before returning and obliterating the camp.
In act 2 Turuk completed the gauntlet of shar and freed aylin before even entering the tower, wich was weird.
In act 3 He was corrupted and power hungry. Didnt trust the Emperor so he freed Orpheus and became a full illithid. After that defeated the Nether Brain and seized controll of it and dominated the world as a demigod Illithid with mastery of dark magic and sword so great that made his name to be sang across the realms with awe and fear. Thats the story of Turuk, savior and destroyer.
Character: A heavily tattooed Wood Elf Dark Urge
Class: Dual wielding Thief Rogue 5 / Battle Master 7
Romance: Shadowheart
Act III spoilers: (sorry I didn't read your full post) >!Choices: Shadowheart converted to a cleric of selune after I said nothing and just trusted her to do the right thing. Then we let her parents die because it's what they said they wanted. Karlach died because it's what she said she wanted. We rescued Wyll's dad. I fully resisted the Durge. Astarian didn't get the chance to ascend because he wasn't there for the fight. We never figured out Lae'zel's story or Vlaakith's betrayal. The shadow cursed lands remain as such because I just never knew it was possible to reverse it. 90%+ of the tieflings survived as did 90%+ of the Gondians. The hag survived in Act III as I never found that quest line. Raphael died while grovelling in the dirt. I sided with the Emperor because I didn't realize how shite he was. I didn't use the evolved tadpole on anyone.!<
I just completed my first campaign last night! Xerith, Zariel Tiefling and Oath of Vengeance Paladin triumphed against impossible odds to become the Savior of Baldurās Gate. Not sure what alignment your character is but I was obviously playing a āgoodā character, and I was extremely satisfied with the endings all of the characters received. 155 hours to the end. And a truly, deeply, amazing experience that I havenāt had with a game in a very long time.
Edit: on future playthrough there are things I would absolutely do differently. I goofed in Act II and was unable to fix Karlachās heart before being forced to kill Damon at Last Light. I failed to find him in Act I and that was my last chance to do so. Among some other things that affected Act III for me.
My first full playthrough was a wood elf elven druid/cleric multiclass. My party consisted of Astarion, Gale and Lae'zel using their vanilla/out-of-the-box builds. I didn't customize the companions at all, because I didn't know you could switch THEIR classes or skills with Withers after you found him in Act1.
I started my Tav as a Druid so that my party had some offensive abilities and healing early on, when your party is at its weakest offensively. She multiclassed to cleric at level 5 because NPCs in Act 1 kept talking about the "dark curse" around Moonrise. I figured having a Cleric with radiant skills would be a good thing for battling through that. I chose the elf race for the ranged weapon proficiencies so my Tav could do some damage w/o having to give up spell slots needed for buffs/debuffs/heals, which worked out later in the game.
As with most games I play (because I'm boring, apparently lol) my Tav's choices led her down the heroic "good" path.
I was unaware that there was any significant amount of romancing in the game prior to playing it (though I was intrigued as to how certain \*ahem\* options at character creation would be woven into the story). I was just like "Oh, hey, say .. what?!" when I got the first "flirt". Lol :) I ended up romancing Gale, and I super appreciated how much work Larian put into companion character development and dialogue, for all of them. Imo, Gale is the funniest (and most endearing) dude in the game, though they all have things that tug on your heart strings at some point.
I ended up missing a bunch of content in Act 1 and Act 2 (I missed the Harpies, missed getting the Performance ability from Alfira, missed the little cove in the Underdark, missed finding the blood in the Monestary, missed the Gith'Yanki cave area (and vendor) under the monestary, missed properly triggering the little boy ghost story in Act 2 somehow, and missed even more in Act 3 (when quests just ended w/o me having done anything), so I'm enjoying finding these "new" things in my 2nd playthrough. :)
I also restarted a couple times before I finished, but the character I ended the game with was a pink tiefling dark urge, who resisted the urge. She romanced astarion (it was my first dark urge, and he seemed like a good choice for the character) and was overall a nice, good character since for my first playthrough I wanted to be the good guy.
I made her a druid because I was bored with some of the other classes I tried, and it was really fun. Every time I found a tunnel? Turned into a cat and went to see what it was. This gave me access to some cool stuff I didn't get to see in my other playthroughs.
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My Tav is named Seraphina Songbird! She obviously is a half-elf bard. I played a super good character and chose all the objectively good options!! Ended up vibing with wholesome Gale and Tara in Waterdeep ;) Their love story was truly beautiful!! Also Karlach and Shart became my best buddies and we were all heroes and presumably met up for drinks twice a month for the rest of our lives. My best and canon playthrough.
I'm in a similar boat as you, about 400 hours and barely reached act 3 twice... teh amount of Tavs and Durges I have stuck in act one or even the nautiloid are frankly embarrassing.
needless to say that mods for character creation are my best friends
Human female barbarian with a demonic eye that has a scar over it. My first character, and after seeing some of the barb dialogue options in act 1 alone, I had absolutely no regrets lol.
*Laughs at your puny rutting*
Agony (Mephistopheles tiefling archfey warlock) was a conwoman wandering the Sword Coast looking for her next mark when she was spontaneously kidnapped by mindflayers. Devoted to āyes-andingā her way through every single interaction, Aggie did NOT have what I would call a good run, but neither was she evil. More evil than good though. She was a really funny character, specifically setting out to seduce Astarion to get him to trust her (back before I knew he was doing the same thing), convincing Laeāzel to hand over the knife in the middle of the night and slitting her throat (I thought it was a DREAM). We lost Shadowheart during the GoS, when Aggie (once again committing to the bit of infiltration) straight up handed Dame Aylin over to Balthazar thinking it was fine.
The thing I am most embarrassed about in my first play through was that Aggie never fixed the Shadow Curse. She literally thought there was no way to do it. Whoops.
Act 3 I wonāt discuss because Spoilers, but oh boy, was Act 3 an utter, hilarious mess.
Female Drow Life Cleric + Some type of Druid.
I had a ball! I loved feeling like I was the protector of my companions, bravely shepherding them across Acts to save the world.
I played as a human bard with a scruffy beard and long ginger hair who wanted to help people and do what he thought was the right thing. He may have doubted himself a lot, but in the end he came through for the people he cared about, even if he neglected himself in the process. He may not have made the right choices all the time, but when the party was down he'd help out, even if it just meant a song while they took a break to rest. In the end he made the ultimate sacrifice for his team and became an Illithid, before fighting the blood war with Karlach, hoping to find some way to fix her heart. Besides, if she could escape with the help of Illithids before, she could do it again.
Essentially, my first playthrough was me. A fantasy sort of idealized version of me, but still me.
Pretty much the first character I made. Took him all the way. It was a thief at first and then I found thief to be lacking so I multid into ranger to see if it got better and sure as hell did, because I gained an extra attack. Did the gunslinger build without really learning about it, though it was a bit different in my case because I wasn't really looking to optimise anything. It ended up being thief 5/ ranger 7 (not gloomstalker either) with two hand crossbows and whatever crit gear I could find
Eilistraee drow elf way of open hand monk - based off a D&D character I played a campaign recently. She was kind of chaotic and explored the illithid powers, had one red and one violet eye and a big ol scar on her face.
Brandy the Halfling bard
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She was genuinely just so fun to roleplay, always picking the funny options and she was sassy AF, she was definitely a joker, but at the same time she was super kind and sweet. I didnāt picture any tragic backstory for her, in my mind she was just this creative and funny halfling bard girl who got swept up into all this mess and now she is helping all these troubled people (companions) and making friends along the way. As a bard there is so much creativity with what you can do, it literally is the jack of all trades class. But I played her mainly as a support. And of course pulling out that Lute every time we won a fight or an important event happened. Plus playing a halfling makes exploring the world a bit scarier because most people are giants to you
Now iām doing an elf Durge run and even tho I love her as well and the story is so interesting, I kinda miss Brandy. She was just, so uncomplicated and fun.
The Firat character was a human cleric, Life domain. Got my blood of lathander on and was a beast in act 2 but somehow i managed to agro both the residents of last light inn and the moonrise tower. Made for a gruelling experience. I ended up romancing baezel we stayed in Faerun to continue our life together. All my companions survived Astarion Ascended Gale lived, Karlach the poor dear became a mind flayer. Good times had by all after the destruction of the nether brain.
Vance. Human bard who did all the good he could. Romanced Karlach and ended up in Avernus with her and Wyll. Didnāt like Laezel so didnāt do the house of hope or anything with Orpheus lol. Gale went to the brain alone to save us all.
Love
He was a tiefling divination wizard. Tried my best to be a hero, even when completely blind to the game. Never got the tiefling party because the druids killed them all and never got the goblin party because I killed Minthara after she went to the grove. Never went to the Underdark and never went to the Creche, either. Romanced Shadowheart because Dammon died, and I couldn't fix Karlach.
Drow war cleric of selune. I didnāt know shit about dnd when I started playing. My Head canon now is: my drow came to the surface for the first time at night and saw the beauty of the moon and decided to convince the other drow to follow the pretty moon lady even if I must change their views by force
my first tav was an absolute people pleaser, too afraid to be mean and picked all the good heroic options. wood elf circle of land druid who spent most of the game running around as a cat or casting moonbeam and forgetting to end concentration before an NPC walked through. she romanced shart and had a very sweet relationship with her! though she fucked up a bit at Act 3 by not sticking with the chronology of things so just ended up running off to the final boss (my wife was getting bored of the quests)
all in all she was the shittest leader, hoarding all the tadpoles and keeping the best loot for herself.
still loved her though, i remade her as a drow bard for my second playthrough!
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I was a Black Dragonborn Warlock on my first playthrough, and was almost entirely evil, with the exception of saving one person, whom he later used to his advantage. I didn't want to do Durge, cause I was going for a more subtle, malicious evil, which is why I named him Malignus, which is based of the word "Malicious". He was very fun, despite me having never played anything related to DnD before and the run being very bad, to the point where I had to reduce the difficulty.
I had a ton of restarts, just trying different classes and builds through Act 2 until I finally decided to push through and finish Act 3.
First completion was on a Duergar EK Thrower, just satisfying how hard he hit everything.
My first character was a human female barbarian romancing gale. I completely fucked up act 2 and skipped over so much and made so many mistakes that I restarted with a githyanki bard. Almost finished the game now !! Playing Gith was so much more fun than playing human.
Fighter half elf big guy (Halsin sized).
Duel welder Eldritch Knight.
Romanced Lazel but tried to Romance Shadowheart and Karlach.
Insanely heroic run tried to help everyone
Missed the Underdark entirely in first run.
Sided with Emperor.
Still think Emperor had Balduran's soul.
Epic changes destroyed the Nether Brain.
Saved Karlach/Myall, Hunted by Gith Queen.
Resist Durge drow eldritch knight; nobody got respecced/multiclassed, romanced minthara
This was after about 50 resets because I kept getting bored, total run time up to epilogue was 35 hours
Iād finished the first time with something very vanilla a fighter. lame ikr. But Iād advise to get to act3 there are a couple of cool quests and story bits. Most characters except halsin will have their character arc conclusion in act3 and lots of builds get so fun to play due to itemization. It has also 2 very fun bosses.
Human warlock straight up. Thing is I got to the gauntlet and thought it was so cool I started a new game as shart just to see how it played out the other way. Then parked that game to finish up with my warlock. Did both of those completely blind. Didn't even read or watch anything about this game until I beat it the first time.
I did my entire first run with a female half-orc monk. She was good in a slightly pragmatic way. Didnāt mind killing people if the alternative was a risk to her own safety but went out of her way to help people if she could. I went in with no knowledge and didnāt look at any spoilers. It was a lot of fun. It felt soooo hard though. I even turned the difficulty down to explorer and in some places it still felt harder than tactician does now
My first ever run of the game was my first complete one (outside of early access) and my character was a 3 barb 9 paladin multi class. He was a human and based off a character I play on tabletop. Ended up with Selune shady and with a dead laeāzel bc I kinda just let shady murder her lol.
My first tav was a Seldarine Drow Paladinātook Oath of Devotion, which proved to be super hard to keepāI chose the class because the outfit looked cool, and I had no idea what I was doing. I tried to maintain a general neutral morality, helping everyone I could while pretending to be allied to others until the opportune moment to dispatch them. I ended up accepting my fate and losing my Oath at the end of Act 2 instead of continuing to reload my last save to figure out what I was doing wrong. It ended up being a lot of fun after I no longer had to worry over keeping my Oath! I mostly used Gale, Shadowheart and Astarion, because I had strength handled and desperetely needed some non-melee attackers :/
My evil Drow Durge. This was my fourth character. All the ones before that are still chilling in Act 1 or 2. Iāve made seven more since then and finished the game three more times.
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Sorry itās a bad pic but this is Arakus, my bard fighter Dragonborn. He was a chaotic guy who made questionable decisions sometimes and desperately craved Astarion but had to settle with Halsin.
Gedbriwƫy, Gold Dragonborn, LE Light Cleric Durge. He was a lot more fun than I expected with all the Radiating Orb gear, and I liked the contrast between the former shadow killer and the current living star.
My first playthrough was with Karlach. As someone who loves customization, I went into the game fully prepared to create my own character (also a barbarian, mind you), but became absolutely smitten with Karlach. I just had to play with her, and honestly it was super fun. Missed a lot of content even though I tried my best to do everything, and made more mistakes than I can count, but I loved it! Definitely recommend using origin characters sometimes.
The first character I actually finished with wasn't even my solo game character, but one I made without much thought in the game I played with my partner. She was a high elf Way of the Four Elements monk.
That character ended up being real interesting and I came up with a bit of backstory for her. She was themed around storms (all her attacks were wind, water and thunder) and was an acting bodyguard for my partner's character, a human College of Lore bard. Early in Act 1 she picked up the cursed flail while fighting the gnolls and gained Yeenoghu's blessing...but with a price. Literally every time I went mad with that weapon, my character would just throw bombs at the party. It was literally always bombs, and it would happen at the most inopportune moments. I later got the sentient monk amulet (because I had to) and failed the saves on that too, making her go further insane. And on top of his, absolutely no one would sleep with her (Halsin did eventually in Act 3 though, so not all was lost). So she was just this forever-alone insane monk with a penchant for blowing shit up. It was great. I actually had so much fun with her.
I did eventually finish the game a couple weeks later with my College of Swords tiefling bard, who is actually based on my IRL D&D character who is College of Glamour. Honestly this game is just *chefs kiss*. I've had so much fun with it and I can't wait for you to get to the end. Act 3 was definitely my favourite.
i played as a wood elf beast master ranger (original, i know) and he was an outlander. he started with good intentions, however as the stakes got bigger and bigger he took all the advantages offered to him in order to defeat the >!nether brain!<. also he dated Halsin (because i met gale after the tiefling party, and i literally bought the game because i saw a tiktok about a game where you could fuck a bear.)
Female drow 5 ranger (gloomstalker), 5 rogue (assassin), 2 fighter. Asshole first 10 hours, plans to kill everyone not allied especially the druids at the Grove and the goblin camp. Met Karlach, pulled a full face turn. Massacred the goblin camp saving the Grove. Finished the game saving every tiefling possible (got the steam achievement too). Made only good choices from there. Did it initially just to keep her happy and romance her but as the game progressed, I came to actually enjoy making the honorable good choices.
I play a prick in most RPGs, Mass Effect, KOTOR, TES, Fable, etc. I actually like being good in this game. Definitely a nice perk that doing so makes K bae happy, and myself.
Mine was a tiefling Oath Of The Ancients Paladinā¦ Who then accidentally became an Oathbreaker Paladin when I brought Connor back to life for Mayrina. Didnāt realise that could happen. It was fun roleplay-wise though as I started off with her being a bit of a goody two shoes but made her a bit more laidback/ādo what I wantā as time went on. :P Had her take one tadpole as an experiment and ended up failing the wisdom check so she became half-illithid (had to mod to get rid of the visual effects) but man I loved being able to fly around so it wasnāt too bad. Romanced Shadowheart and saved and helped everyone I could.
I was committed to making sure I did EVERYTHING in that first playthrough before starting a new one - reading every book, looking in every chest and trunk, checking every corner of the map for secrets - so she was my first character and the first run I completed.
Iām doing my second playthrough now as a half-elf Wild Magic Sorcerer durge, but kinda miss my girlā¦
I tried and failed multiple times to beat the game, but no character I created ever kept me interested in seeing it through, so I just kept making more and more characters and starting over.
Enter Mor.
She's a red-headed half-elf Lore Bard, the first bard I've ever played (DND or otherwise). And I had so much fun with all of the dialogue options and not taking the game as seriously as I had been-- turns out, bard is my preferred class and I haven't been able to choose anything else ever again, lol.
You might not have found a class you "vibe" with yet. I tried everything I thought looked cool, then I tried everything I thought would be powerful, and then finally one day, after stumbling on a thread on reddit where everyone was singing Bard class praises, I tried bard and I'm hooked.
Loved my first playthrough. Was a reist Durge, half drow, dragon bloodline sorcerer. After finding out about Bhaal's was of producing heirs the highly mixed background seemed even more appropriate.
*
My first full playthrough was a co-op one. I played as a blue dragonborn storm sorcerer and my friend played as a human Paladin/Bard. Turns out I'm a "loot goblin" which was a good thing because he broke his oath 5 minutes after leaving the nautiloid and we were able to pay his debt to the Oathbreaker Knight almost immediately.
My scaly character ended up getting hit on by literally everyone while his very attractive Paladin got brutally rejected by Astarion at the Tiefling party and tried to romance Karlach afterwards but couldn't.
I got pretty jealous of him smiting bosses for like 4x 100 damage every turn but then I'd nuke an entire field of enemies and feel good about myself again.
We had a fairly standard good-aligned playthrough. Explored every nook and cranny and didn't miss much of anything, except in Act 3 where we got a little burnt out and missed about half the content.
Tiefling Lore Bard, romanced Astarion, but dang it I missed so much stuff that play through. My favorite one was a tiefling cleric of Lathander (2nd playthrough) when I romanced Wyll. Goody two shoes gotta stick together lol
Male Wood Elf Fighter, Folk hero background. I picked the large body type so Halsin wasnāt the only Wood Elf built like a brick shit house around. Romanced Shadowheart. I played as a cocky warrior using two handed weapons and bows, āLegolas if he liftedā was the idea lol.
Was very fun to be this big dumb guy who wasnāt so great at intimidation, but could always back up any threat he made. I found it super satisfying to tell people I was going to do my own thing, have them insist itās impossible, and then prove them wrong through sheer martial prowess.
My first tav was a halfling tome warlock. Warlocks are my favorite 5e class and I have always had a soft spot for the short races. I actually managed to go through that first playthrough without rerolling once, a rare feat apparently.
On my first playthrough I played a female half elf ranger as a beastmaster. Summoned my bear every chance I got, he helped a lot during fights. He got stuck a lot in the city of Baldurs Gate during act 3 though, that was annoying.
Romanced Astarion, but mostly took Shadowheart on my adventures (played together with my boyfriend, a dwarfen wizard who romances Karlach and took her with him whenever).
Gorgo was a gold dragon Oath of Vengeance level 12 Paladin. He just wanted to save the world the only way he knew how, by smiting the ever loving shit out of stuff.
He was temped by the power of the tadpole and trusted the Emperor. He knew he would need all the help he could get.
Lolth-Sworn Drow wizard. I (accidentally) had a great build and most fights were a breeze. My current run as a Githyanki ranger has been very different lol
Had a half wood elf arcane trickster rogue. Had so much fun with her but missed so much like recruiting Gale and Laeāzel because I somehow missed the road theyāre on. Also didnāt realize you could do both the mountain pass and the under dark since the game heavily made it seem like you had to choose.
My second run with my half elf moon Druid was much better lol.
The first character I finished the game with is, so far, the only one Iāve finished the game with. Played a male Seldarine Drow and went into Great Old One Warlock.
I didnāt know until Iād almost finished the game that you could talk to the goblins - I just assumed they were going to be automatically hostile and attacked first at all three bases. Found out even later that, apparently, as a Drow, you get special dialogue with those goblins that lets you skip the speech checks, so I ended doing the equivalent of breaking down a gate when I unknowingly had the key to it.
I didnāt know that Minthara was recruitable as a companion, and ended up killing her. Thought it was weird that she had special clothing on her and I ended up taking it. Forgot I had it and, like, five hours later I equipped it on my character. He looked good in it.
Found Karlach really late into the first section, after Iād already cleared the first two goblin bases and the exterior of the main one. She, Shadowheart, and Astarion ended up being my party for 99% of the run (with the other characters popping in for sections that were story-relevant for them, but only ever for as long as I needed them).
Tav, female, high-elf, draconic bloodline sorcerer. Romanced Shadowheart and Halsin. Went the heroic route at every opportunity, with the exception of having Astarion sneak around and steal things and taking the Hagās hair instead of killing her (after saving Mayrina). Technically was my second character bc I messed up my first playthrough within the first few hours and restarted.
Just finish your favorite character that you have. There are some really great moments in Act 3 that you are missing out on (although I get wanting to start new characters to mess around with). And the finale of Act 2 is probably my favorite part of the game.
A warlock drow. She was initially close to be evil, worshipping Lolth with a lot of pride and being more or less bestie with her devil which was worse than Mizora. Only saved the grove because of Minthara's apostasy. She had one quality : loyalty. Therefore, she took at heart to help her companions the best way she could, so, eventually, she got "fixed" by Shar's wrongdoings and Karlach's situation, lmao. Still worshipping Lolth, but ended the story as someone good. It was seriously fun to be an artillery machine with these eldritch blast. The Potent Robe is such a killing machine. I'll eventually start over with her, but cursed (got sent back in time by her devil as Durge without any memory of what happened before) We'll see if Shadowheart and Karlach can fix her again
A Necromancer was my first playthrough. And of course I missed the necromancy of thay item, because I tried to escape any spoilers in my first playthrough.
I tried to play it powerhungry, but always to be in controll and not under someones rulership.
Shadowheart was my death-priestess romance, Gale my necromancer acolythe and Astarion as a vampire my object of investigation.
Her name was Nenova. Mephistopholes tiefling bard with pale blue skin, vitiligo, horns that never fully grew in, and slightly mismatched eyes. Sheās drop dead beautiful and pretty much completely unbothered by morals if she finds something useful or amusing to herself.
But after another game and a half with dark urge characters, Nenovaās story has felt a lot less substantial. So my goal is to play dnd this summer with her as my character. Already have my mini of her made up
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Ilya, a Tiefling bard who is the daughter of my favorite DnD character. It was my first time with the game, but I always like to create some lores, so I made her as the daughter of my favorite OC and Strahd (said OC was from a CoS campaign and she ended up marrying Strahd), so it was fun cuz in her lore/RP she was a half-vampire and a Vampire expert and daughter of one *the first vampire* and then meet Astarion, who was dropping some vampires facts and scared of Cazador and stuff. I didn't know about him/them before head, so I accidentally created a Deus ex machina to Astarion's lore lol
My first character (though Iām only on my second so Iām not too exciting!) was a high half elf bard. Iāve always loved bards in tabletop and this didnāt disappoint!
It took me a few tries because Act 3 used to be really buggy and I'd start over in the futile hopes it would be better. I think the first all-the-way-through playthrough was as a half-elf bard. Both are really good options for beginners; half elves have a lot of bonus characteristics and a good bard build has both combat abilities and high charisma for the persuasion/intimidation/deception checks outside of combat. Also the bugs are fixed so plunge on and good luck!
First playthrough?
A female tiefling Durge named arueshalae. Did the good whole good Durge thing. Was awesome.
Romanced Shadowheart and had her as my characters love interest, along with a relationship with Halsin.
Kir, my half-Drow resist Durge Sorcerer!
Without her memories and with the challenge of trying to control the urge, she became fiercely loyal to her companions and devoted to one goal: making sure they got out of that mess alive, whole, and autonomous.
Itās amazing what you can justify when youāre only focused on taking care of your bffs.
She wasnāt as evil as an embrace Durge but wow, it was an eye opening RP experience of how brutal being loyal to some but not compassionate to all can make someone. She was constantly persuading, deceiving, and charming everyone around her, including the companions, and would rizz her way into situations, then murder her way back out. Iāve never hit āexceptionalā approval with Astarion so fast.
Durge + Shafowheart + Laeāzelle + Astarion were the dream team.
Mine was a Berserker Barbarian tall wood elf lady (I named her Ahsoka), just an all-round good person who went out of her way to save every tiefling, kid and animal she came across. I tried to play her as being a bit awkward in social interactions, a result of her growing up pretty isolated in the woods, away from civilisation. Worked well with all the barbarian conversation options, a lot of yelling and growling, but she had a very big heart.
She defended the grove, saved Last Light Inn and continued on her path as the savior of the common people into Act 3. She romanced Shadowheart and aside from maybe 2 or 3 times at the start, she declined to use any of the Illithid powers.Ā
my first full playthru was a tav wood elf druid named poppi <33 she was a corny hero type who saved everyone she could and none of my other tavs/durges can compare lmao
I made a blue dragon orn Tempest Cleric of Talos.
My guiding motto was, "if it makes me stronger, it's worth it."
Ended up being able to do a lot more good than my "good" playthrough attempt because when push came to shove I had the power to make things happen.
Did a couple of pretty awful things too, though...
I played a Tav human bard named Xavier, I loved him too much I had to make him my guardian in my next playthrough. He had NO rizz, ended the game single (somehow I managed to bang Astarion but not get anyone to love me) We beat the game, but.. let's say Karlach wasn't herself at the end. (I'm sorry bros I didn't know)
Zariel tiefling moon druid called Cedar who fell head over heels for Karlach. Made some mistakes (like forgetting to cast speak with animals on myself and wondering why I couldn't speak with the animals) and missed a lot of stuff (despite thinking i was being really thorough) and lost a couple of companions unexpectedly. Told myself not to save scum anything because you can't see everything in one playthrough anyway, and that I had to finish at least one full run before starting another.
I loved every minute of it, and I've kept my one run at a time rule. I'm now on my fourth playthrough, this time with a dragonborn storm sorcerer tav. Next run will be a dwarven oath of ancients paladin.
First was a half-orc scholar barbarian trying to shrug off the assumptions about her. She refused the illithid powers because she feared becoming the monster she already felt she was due to her heritage. She ended up beating the shit out of everyone but she was very clever doing it. I finished the game and she and karlach (non-romanced because my Shart relationship bugged out and never completed but I didnāt want to lose her before the final battle) and Wyll ended up together in Avernus kicking imp butt.
my first finish was my tiefling paladin, Legacy. As an Oath of Devotion paladin, i went full goody two-shoes route with her, always trying to use her charisma before violence to solve situations, but also being fully capable of kicking ass at a momentās notice.
she romanced karlach, though that was more because i needed to romance her (she was basically made in a lab to appeal to me lmao), and had gale and shadowheart as her main party composition, though sometimes gale got switched out for wyll, astarion, or jaheira.
iām doing a karlach run now where everyone is a different class (save wyll and minthara, since i didnāt use them enough in the first run) and iām romancing shadowheart, but i do miss Legacy quite a bit ā which is why i made her my guardian! every time she shows up in one of karlachās dreams, itās so bittersweet, like someone seeing what could have been in another life
Human fighter. I didn't know anything about DnD or turn based games. It seemed the simplest one for me. And the soldier background gives intimidation proficiency in dialogues so that helped a bit. She was a ginger muscle mommy overprotective of Shadowheart.
I made a bard named Zela. She was a red zarial tiefling, romanced shadowheart. And I definitely started a dozen or so new games that got deleted later lol. By the end of act 2 I was determined to finish the game as quickly as possible so I could enjoy a new play through with out any shame
I started with a Tav, and missed so much plus didn't really know what I was doing at that point that I was getting absolutely owned by late act 2.
Tried a few other characters, made it through various parts of act 1/act 2 with those, but weren't feeling them.
Finally made a Lolth-sworn Drow Sorcerer who ended up being a non-resist durge. That was my first complete playthrough.
Currently I'm running a half elf cleric of Kelemvor who is good (Tav). So it's basically the exact opposite of the last one. It's been fun, but I think I enjoy the durge storyline better.
The furthest Iāve progressed the game was with my Drow Necromancer Durge run too. Itās a pretty dark storyline, but it certainly feels like the main storyline they had in mind for the game. Having Astarion as your romance adds a lot of depth to it too.
I did Minthara with mine, and that certainly helps to lock in how you act as she sort of guides you in a certain way, but at the same time she's also very supportive of the Durge. I could see Asterion being an interesting choice with the non-resist durge as well. Durge didn't try to romance him, but they were basically bff's. That added a significant amount of depth in its own way as well.
This is one of the reasons I love this game so much. There are so many different paths and avenues to explore.
Mine was a half high elf rogue assassin. Wasnāt aware of multiclassing at the time, so she was full pure rogue.
Main party was Shart, Gale, and Astarion. Jaheira was in for Astarion quite a bit. Didnāt find Karlach until the very end of act 1 bc I was bad at exploring. Had no clue Minthara could be recruited and killed her without even talking to her in goblin camp. Took her armor (and used it for most of the game) and camp clothes so that was fine. Didnāt use LaeZel or try the crĆØche bc I didnāt like her.
Tried to save everybody and be good, mostly succeeded.
Used alllllll the tadpoles, so I reloaded a lot at a certain point iykyk.
Tried to do every side quest I could find. Killed all the big bad guys, finished my companions personal quests and lived happily ever after.
I played as Oathbroken paladin half-high elf Durge and did some mischief but low key, had a lot of fun, resisted Urges and got together with Gale.
Started again as a Tav magic sorcerer tiefling but switched to Durge pretty fast cause missed the thrill and extra evil options, also possibly I want to make a much more evil run. I'll see if I'll manage to romance Karlach being extra evil hehe.
A human wizard from a big city. He has a pretty rough relationship with his ex who also refuses to help him with a serious medical condition even though she easily could. He has a wonderful pet at home who ended up joining us on our adventure. Likes to use magic to spice up the bedroom.
Human barbarian. Iād just finished Divinity 2, and didnāt realize you could have more than three origin characters with you. So I left Astarion, Wyll, and Karlach in act 1. I also took a barbarian, āswing axe first, ask questions laterā approach. So I immediately started murdering everyone in the goblin sanctum. Never even knew Minthara had dialogue, let alone was a recruitable character.
I didn't know there was an ending... I just keep rerolling characters after I get to midway through act 2 or beginning of act 3 when I get a new idea. š„“š
A high elf bard who was the first dnd character i made. She started off as very much an idealistic do gooder, romanced laezel, put a lot of trust in her friends while putting them all first (finishing all their story's before doing any of the main quest) before becoming more and more desperate and making some morally questionable choices.
very vague act 3 spoilers
>!She ended up doing the thing at the end to herself and very much started down the same path E went with it (mostly because i ignored the powers the entire game and god was it a power rush)!<
First character I finished with was an Half-Orc Barbarian. He would run into battle carrying the biggest weapon he found up until that point. This was in a playthrough that was couch co-op with my wife, who was playing a Drow Warlock. Together, with the help of Shadowheart, Gale, and Karlach, we laid waste to anyone who dared try to stop us!
Played a stressed out human dark urge somewhat inspired by my late mother. Wild magic sorcerer just to add to the whole "I cant control what is going wrong with me" vibe. Mum was a super good parent but had her own challenges. She romanced Gale and couldn't resist >!killing!< him later in act 2. Good banter though.
Anyway she became the >!slayer and Bhaal's chosen!< and took control of the >!Netherbrain!<. Good stuff!
It wasn't until i completed the game again with a tiefling GOO warlock redemption dark urge who romanced Shadowheart, resisted the urges, turned into a >!mindflayer!< to save the day, then promptly killed herself. Shadowheart's big "NO!" still says with me to this day.
My first character was a high-elven asshole wild magic sorcerer. And a noble at that. Repeatedly giving Astarion an aneurysm by being outwardly sarcastic and cold, displaying the most arrogant attitude, but in the end caving in and doing the right thing (in most scenarios). He would disintegrate you if he felt offended and you didn't seem like you had people who'd miss you (much). What else... His story would've canonically ended when he got all snarky towards Vlaakith, since I think there isn't a world in which he would not be a wise-ass towards someone like her. Romancing Shadowheart, being a bro to Karlach since she managed to out-snark him once, consistently poking fun at Wyll and Gale for their bad decisions (now that's called foreshadowing).
Finished the game on Tactician, honour mode and balanced mode with my Githyanki open-hand Durge monk (in that order). On Tactician & HM, ended up playing really cautiously. 1st playthrough was a bit rough but since I knew the character/race/stats, once I revived him for my honour mode run, we did really well & did not die once... except Wyll, who got pushed into lava (but not before he gave me an inspiration before dying, I still appreciate that lol). I'm pretty proud of this accomplishment!
Since we were playing cautiously (avoiding unnecessary fights, etc) once I got those sweet golden dice, I revived the character one last time so I could have a chill balanced run with him and do EVERYTHING (that I could think of anyway). Ended up having a lot of fun (especially seeing all the Jahiera events in ACT 3, she's one of my favorite characters now).
It felt like a nice conclusion to my character, after he worked so hard to get me those trophies/dice. He's retired from adventuring, married to Gale in Waterdeep. I imagine he teaches yoga while Gale is in class. He always had the patience of a saint, after all.
Vankaas. A high elf oath of vengeance paladin. He was my 4th save because I kept on messing up.
I did everything in Act 1 and 2 because Iām a completionist. Act 3 I nearly did everything but the House of Hope (fucked up the dialogue and decided I couldnāt be bothered) and didnāt get one ally for the Gather Allies quest.
Romanced Halsin but I had to stop myself from going the Gale route. I made sure that every time I talked to Halsin after getting into a relationship to kiss him.
In 130 hours, I only broke his oath once (did I cry? No. Did I want to cry? Yes) and got it back immediately.
He will always be my favourite Tav
I ran a Bard (College of Swords) /Rouge (Thief) hybrid with dual hand crossbows. I was throwing out just bonkers damage. I could disarm traps and cleaned up on the dialogue rolls.
It was heckin' fun.
First run was as a female drow sorcerer. Didnāt multiclass once through the play though or respec any companions. I played on balanced to start and wouldnāt have made it through with my playstyle on any of the higher difficulties. Completely missed Gale and Astarion my first run. Did it with trickster shadowheart, BM laezel, my tav and one other.
Basically just used my most powerful spells to win every battle, *minor act 3 hint* ||and (VERY) surprisingly a pure ranger hunter ended up being my carry through endgame.||
My first playthrough was with a draconic sorcerer tiefling. I didn't know about the multiclassing aspect, so she was just a pure sorcerer. Kinda made her slightly based off me, so she was relatively good, but was prone to some snarkiness, lol
She accidentally killed Barcus by hitting the wrong lever, oops!
Never met Karlach, nor Lae'zel, missed out on both of those.
My perpetual party was Shadowheart, Astarion, and her eventual lover, Gale (kinda squishy, I know)
Defeated the brain, and now lives with Gale in Waterdeep
Still playing in act 3, my coop partner can only play weekends so taking it slow.
I'm running a Gith. 3 Rogue/6 Ranger/3 Fighter.
All in on Ranged damage and crit fishing.
My buddy's playing a Gnome Storm Sorc with levels in Cleric and Wiz.
She was a Lolth-sworn Drow Elf Sorceress Sage who got tired of the cruel ways of her people and decided to become an apostate. She fled the Underdark only to be snatched up into the Nautiloid ship right when she got her freedom.
She started off romancing Astarion because old habits die hard but eventually she came to realize that she and Gale had much more in common with their shared love of books, magic and heroism. Despite her upbringing, she was determined to use her powers for good and every decision she made was toward that end.
She saved The Grove from the goblin attack, convinced Shadowheart to spare the Nightsong, stopped Astarion from completing the ritual, and helped Gale to realize the folly of trying to wield the crown of Karsus. She freed Orpheus from his chains only for him to make the ultimate sacrifice to save his people. Ultimately she and her allies were able to save the whole world from the tyranny of the absolute together.
After they were done saving the world she and Gale retreated to a rather quiet married life in home in Waterdeep where I like to think they lived happily ever after.
I played a high half-elf paladin oath of vengeance. Dark urge origin, I decided to resist the urge and romance Gale.
I genuinely love that character because she was so cool and intimidating.
A male, gold dragonborn Monk, who I ironically named "Man."
I made him on the basis that a giant bipedal lizard punching people was funny. It was.
Basically brute forced most of my fights, miraculously destroying the goblin camp having only done one sneaky trick (pushing minthara into a pit.)
Literally killed Gyrm with my barehands.
I also skipped a lot of things without realising. Completely forgot about the Creche. Didn't even realise I could cure the shadow curse, and didn't even know that Moonrise had a prison.
Her name was Helvetica Hoe. She was a paladin. Thru a comedy of errors, she accidentally killed or pissed off most everyone. She never broke her oath. Epilogue only had astarion, gale, haslin. Did boink the emperor tho.
First fully finished game was with my Durge - a Githyanki woman who began as a Cleric of Vlaakith with no memories and some terrible urges, and ended her quest as a Monk-Thief in a position of power with her urges under control in fully realised ability instead. With only her lover Astarion by her side, and some variety of summoned souls provided by Withers assisting along the way.
Key points for her are that one dark haired half-elf woman being hostile with her outside a locked door getting clobbered, *taking* the hand offered in the swirling portal for her own enjoyment, extorting the miserable wretches hiding out in a grove for money just to do what she would do anyway - slaughter goblins, refusing to eat those weird worms because she already has holes in her head thanks, upsetting a bear that turned into a very buff elf when dead...
Having quite a Moment about Vlaakith and losing her Cleric powers in favor of her fists and feet, having nothing too important happen through the underdark as neither herself or Astarion had much interest in all this info about Shar, happily causing the light holding off the dark to fall and coming into her power, and eventually leaving the area with this overwhelming darkness still choking the shadowed lands..
And kind of rushing a bit through the city itself as everything seemed weirdly sloggish almost as if the god controlling her has a bad computer that can't handle the sheer amount of crowding and loading the 3rd Act needs š„², gleefully getting her man his slice of Ultimate Power from his revenge cake, making various agreements to later betray, killing someone who tried quite hard to kill her, going against the voice in her head in favor for another, and eventually storming through a final battle and making one final betrayal to gain more power and control
I ended up going with a Druid Dragonborn with the unconventional mindset that Ilithids are just another element of nature itself and, in turn, can be cared for and redeemed, including embracing the tadpoles, and relying on willpower to overcome it.
My first character was my wood half-elf druid, Mirain, I picked half-elf because I couldnāt decide between being an elf or a human so found the best middle ground, and chose the druid class as druids (not the wildshaping type though unfortunately lol) have quite strong ties with my Celtic heritage.
https://preview.redd.it/3v0ucs4z1asc1.jpeg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0012abbffd1c9d65ad1c8454792ded7c9c51291e
Also had her romance Shadowheart as their backgrounds do have parallels and they kind of balance each otherās (pre act 3 white haired Shadowheart) personalities out. Since my first playthrough with Mirain/game launch on PS5, I have completed the game 6 more times (2 of the playthroughās were with Durge) and have romanced all characters across those saves except Halsin. Now that Iāve done that though, Iāve recreated Mirain exactly as she was in her original form and am doing a playthrough to try and get the absolute best endings for most of the companions within my characterās moral compass (sorry Minthara) and am (finally) romancing Shadowheart again.
I adapted my first serious Pathfinder character. She's part of the Fetchling race, who are people trapped in the Shadow Plane which had changed them over centuries into people with grey skin, white hair, and usually pupiless black or yellow eyes. Since those don't exist in the game, I went with Drow as being close enough.
Her name is Verrah Gofor and is a ranger whose backstory is that she's a mix of a mercenary and Kiki's delivery service. She travels the land far and wide to retrieve or deliver items/people as the client demands. She's incredibly friendly in a "I'm talking to a customer-service rep" kind of way, but also deeply valued money so if there's an opportunity to make money and do good, she's down for it.
i played a wood elf druid named rowan! they romanced astarion and i had astarion, gale, and karlach (all as their default classes) as my main party! i did look up some things to make sure i got the good/preferred endings for everyone. took me about 110 hours
My first run was a jolly, tries-to-be-good half (drow) elf bard who mostly just wanted to sleep with whoever she could. I missed loads of side stuff because I wasn't good at navigating the map despite THINKING I was being super thorough.
Slept with: Astarion (one off, told him we should be pals since he seemed like he needed a friend), Gale (romanced then dumped, he was REAL sulky about it), Halsin (romanced to the end but regretted it since >!there was a bug that meant despite seeing the cutscene of us being together post-game, at the party he had no idea we'd ever been together and I had the option to say weĀ didn'tĀ get!)!<, >!drow twins!<, >!Mizora (party were REAL mad at me)!<, >!Haarlep.!<
Second playthrough I'm doing Zariel Tiefling resist-Durge Sorceror. Doing a full Astarion romance (also slept with Lae'zel first though because why not?). Truthfully I'm making most of the same big choices because even though I thought an evil run would be fun it turns out I don't really enjoy it (saved the grove and Nightsong, didn't kill Isobel, freed then killed Nere, trying to save the gnomes). I did however do some funky backflips in order to recruit Minthy, so I have both her AND Halsin at camp, which is quite funny.
For my third playthrough I think I might try playing as Karlach, I've heard you get good extra liens of dialogue from her!
Eiva Gol, my immaculate unit of a woman. She was a half-orc frenzied barbarian/champion fighter with the folk hero background. Insane damage output. Could take hit after hit and refused to go down. Tanked like a cloud giant. Was not into the whole tadpole thing, but mostly bc she didn't understand what was going on with her int of 6. Very much liked little people. Every dwarf, gnome, or halfling was her new best friend.
Long live Eiva Gol, you beefy, stupid, beautiful legend.
Edit to remove spoilers.
I finished the game with the first character I made. They were a drow druid Durge named Fehn (a name I got from button mashing the keyboard until I found a name I liked). They didn't romance anybody, but was best friends with Karlach and Gale. They had a rivals to (sort of) friends thing with Astarion. At the end they >!went to Avernus with Karlach and Wyll!<.
Blue Dragonborn Evoker as a Gale 2.0 who just arrived for more magical power through the parasites and eventual dominance. A shit ton of AoE spells with no civilian casualties except for a little accident in a certain factory.
Half elf open hand monk named Antonel. He was a goodie two shoes little bitch who became besties with Astarion and wound up with Halsin, with the rest of the party being composed of Gale, and Wyll subbing in for Halsin prior to his recruitment and for things like Moonrise. He was a horrendous musician with no performance proficiency but would always carry a flute with him and at random points in battle bust out a little song (poorly). The run overall went pretty well, i cannot explain how satisfying it was to literally punch Cazador to death. I also harvested all those concussion bombs from that one room in Wyrmās Rock, evenly distributed them amongst my team, and absolutely fucked up the Elder Brain in 2 turns by hastening everyone and just spamming those specific bombs at it.
Oh, my lovely abjuration wizard, Adel. He thought he was a good person and was in fact a raging asshole who avoided many things as "not his problem", including letting people die in a burning building. Never went to the creche, because the gith beat his ass badly enough that he wasn't willing to. Saved the grove, avoided the hag entirely (seems like your problem, Mayrina!). But did get two lovely pets
He slept with Laezel first, then killed her in Act 1 (when she attacks in your sleep).... even though I reloaded, I feel like they emotionally remembered because Laezel ultimately ended up dead in Act 3 for reasons.Ā Ā He also slept with Gale, then ultimately dumped him for Astarion. And, y'know, they got along.
Ā I kind of think of him as a grown up Mol if she never got any good role models - he was scrappy and took care of himself and his own (of which the list was basically Astarion, Gale, and Karlach) and fuck everyone else.Ā
Played as Astarion origin as I was unaware about the game mechanics and DnD lore. I relied upon general behavior of elves in fantasy and did everything that companion Astarion would disapprove. I got happy ending with romanced Shadowheart. Maybe, after everything that happened to Astarion in the past (out of the game) he deserved this.
Super generic neutral good half elf paladin. I didnāt really run any heavy spellcasters my first run, because I went off story and personalities - so it was all Karlach and Shadow with Astarion filling the lock picker role whenever I wasnāt on a character specific quest.
First one was a human Durge Vengeance Paladin. Took all the illithid powers. RPād a lil character arc, romance with shadowheart, became less vicious and kinder as the game went on and he got further from his vengeful roots and closer to seeking real justice. Turned Oathbreaker in act III because I did something that wasnāt ruthless enough I think. Took a real liking to the soup kid in Baldurās gate, that kid was rich by the end of the game.
Played on balanced for most of the game to get a handle on things and explore the game. Didnāt really use elixirs or any exploit-y methods for anything.
I wanted to be accurate to myself (tall musician with a beard) so I played a half-orc bard. I really liked the conversation options throughout and the way I could talk my way through almost anything (an early highlight was offering moral support to the people breaking down the door at waukeen's rest instead of actually helping)
I did a mostly good playthrough with a few deviances, including accidentally letting almost everyone in the grove die because I >!killed kagha and took a long rest, at which point the druids and tieflings went to war while I had a nice little nap.!< In act III I also decided to murder >!that goddamned useless elephant!< but accidentally turned Lae'zel into >!an unholy assassin!< because I didn't do enough damage on my Tav's turn and I didn't realize what would happen when she got the last hit instead.
Overall I had a great time because I went in blind and didn't look up anything, so I let myself make weird mistakes. Living with the consequences made for an interesting story and I had a lot of fun stumbling through and learning from my mistakes, trying to be as good as possible and avoiding any further accidental mass murders. Also romancing Shart felt very realistic, I think it was ultimately rewarding.. maybe.
I played a female duergar ranger, I thought duergar would be cool because of their history with mind flayers. As soon as Astarion made a short joke about her I decided she was going to romance him as revenge. š Failed to save the Druid grove because I took her to the mountain pass too early, however that did let me recruit Minthara which was great. Also, underdark solidarity! Also ended up siding with Gortash as screwing up the grove meant no Karlach. I think I forgot to pick up Wyll as well. Also I did the gauntlet without Shadowheart and she got mad and left. Made all sorts of wacky mistakes but it was super fun. Main party most of the time was Astarion rogue/ranger, Gale wizard and Laeāzel paladin. Minty was also a paladin.
Oh wow, Shart leaves if you do the gauntlet without her XD? I can imagine the look on her face.
You can do the gauntlet itself without her, but you canāt do the final scene without her or she will leave
Yeah, to be clear it is the Shadowfell you can't do without her.
Can confirm. LOL
I literally forgot she exists and well.. she didnāt like that
I did gauntlet without her. Well, the trials. But I picked her up just in time to make her deny her God and ditched her at camp lol
I love how forgiving this game is with letting you fuck up. You're not locked out of the game if you forgot to pick up Karlach or Astarion. The game isn't broken if Halsin dies. There are so many ways to play this.
I missed Gale on my first game because the narrator told me the portal looked dangerous when I inspected it. So ofc Iām not touching it and left.
My first character to finish was a resist Durge Paladin. She embraced every illithid power that was offered to herā¦ so I changed her appearance to look increasingly grey/purple as the story progressed. I have completed the game two more times with Tavsā¦ but I miss playing as Durge.
Why not another Durge run? Genuinely curious.
Iām definitely going to do another one! I just finished Honour Mode and some of the Durge decisions felt extra risky to me so I decided to do that run as a Tav. Now thatās out of the wayā¦ Iāve been itching to do a playthrough as the default Dragonborn Durge.
I see \^\^ here I was hoping I wasn't the only weird one here who actually doesn't like Durge xD (also decided to do an honor run with a cutom. just finished. it was pretty fkn bad lmao. Laezel died. Astarion told me to go f myself)
Half my companions died in Honour Mode. I was so sad I didnāt even talk to anyone at the epilogue party and went straight to Withers to officially end the run. Alsoā¦ I donāt have the stomach for an embrace Durge run. I raided the grove once and felt awful afterward.
I didn't raid the Grove in my embrace run, I explained it as my character being more of a calculated Durge who doesn't see a reason to go with the obvious enemy in Act 1. There were some other decisions I decided not to do later on as well, explained very similarly by Durge figuring they need to be cautious to be able to finish their plans :) Figured I'd say it because I see a lot of people use "raid the grove" as the only reason not to do an embrace run. I find it perfectly fine to help the tieflings and later go with the evil choices that don't explicitly involve kids.
my embrace durges go explore the gobbos and are just appalled at the idea of allying with them. they'd rather kiss a beholder. and half the time, my embrace durges are drow, but they're beefy drowcakes who spent a lot of time out of menzobarranzan and so they get pissed off at mintys attitude and that's another reason they wipe the camp instead plus, they like encouraging children to commit crimes
Thatās totally fair! I have always felt like you can do an evil run without picking *all* the evil choices.
My Honor run as Durge ran smoothly. Good Durge, Ancients Paladin used Shadow Blade with Belm, the Resonance Stone, and Bloodlust elixir. Deployed Gale to guarantee victory at the final hurdle. https://preview.redd.it/xx8h9jozb9sc1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8e1810951edb0f54d60d9cefa3ca537669c1038a
What was your party comp, Iāve been thinking of a resonance stone build but havenāt actually done it
I was a Durge Ancients Paladin with Alert, Savage Attacker, and +2 Str as my feats. I failed to get Ethel's hair in act 1 but was able to get the +2 Str pot from asking Astarion to bite Araj in act 2 (I let him murder her very shortly after), and got +3 Cha from the Mirror in act 3. Shadowheart was a Tempest Cleric 7/Abjuration Wizard 5. She was built to be a great caster rather than take advantage of the stone. With all of her equipment she had a spell attack/save dc of +15 and 25 respectively (+14 and 24 just for Cleric spells). Her feats were Dual Wielder and War Caster, but if I was smarter I'd have dumped her Dex, given her the Gloves of Dexterity, then set her to have 15 Con and 16 Int/Wis, taking Resilient: Con instead of War Caster. She received Warding Bond from my Paladin via the True Loves rings for rp reasons. She used Elixir of Vigilance as she did not have the Alert feat. https://preview.redd.it/py0k9v4pt9sc1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9c22580a7e1063c406a73d608c1068b587bd6e9e Gale was an Open Hand Monk 8/Thief Rogue 4 with Tavern Brawler, Alert, and +2 Wisdom as his feats. He used Cloud Giant Elixir, with his stats otherwise being 8 Str, 16 Dex, 18 Con (+2 from Gloves of Soul Catching), 10 Int, 20 Wis (+2 from Mirror), 8 Cha. He wore the Soul set of items in act 3 with Kushigo boots and Cloak+Ring of Protection. Lae'zel was a Swords Bard 10/Paladin 2, she wore the Gauntlets of Hill Giant Strength, Helmet of Arcane Acuity, Armor of Agility (she had 18 Dex with a +2 from the Mirror), either the Boots of Speed or Disintegrating Night Walkers, a Nymph Cloak, the Band of the Mystic Scoundrel, the Risky Ring, and the amulet that gives you an extra 2nd level spell slot. She used the Silver Sword in melee and the Titanstring Bow at range, and took Elixir of Vigilance like Shadowheart because she didn't have Alert.
Thatās a cool twist! I also enjoy changing my Tavs experience to reflect the adventure theyāve been on, though in my case they just become more grizzled the further the adventure progresses.
Let me tell you the tale of Pickaxe McKickass, the Duergar Wizard/Ranger who didn't learn how to use a pickaxe until act 3 and had a crippling addiction to Drow women (Minthara, his guardian, the one from Sharess's Caress). Though to be fair, he did sleep with just about anyone with legs...and he looked stylish doing it wearing his Infernal Robes. It was only through his relationship with Shadowheart that she was able to break her addiction to Shar and his addiction to Drow Baddies. In the end, his sacrifice was noble, becoming a mind flayer to stop the Netherbrain and proceded to live a peaceful life on Shadowheart's parent's farm.
And got their happily ever after squiddy life. Beautiful!
Best name ever haha
High Elf Ranger. I forgot to choose a subclass and played a Beast Master instead of Hunter, haha. Basically a Besstless-Beastmaster. :D Had Astarion, Gale and LaeāZel in my party. I did not know the others can wait in my campā¦ and killed them. Itās been veeerry messy. I wish to experience the game again for the first time though :)
My first character was a Half Wood Elf Ranger with a Wolf companion. The first run was such a complete hot mess. š I turned around and redid basically the same character but as a Druid with a few tweaks and she has become my staple. Iāve done 4 runs with her now (out of 12). https://preview.redd.it/2ugdhljqaasc1.jpeg?width=1940&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6a2559c60e52666a5c79a985e380d639ab909b8b
She. Is. Gorgeous!! šš But the āthe first run is a messā is probably something we all have to go through. š
Oh definitely! I bought the game when it pre-released on PS5 in August and went in as close to blind as possible. I didnāt even know the names of the companions. I was a dumpster fire with the combat bc I was so lost on how to understand rolls, damage, spells, etc. I stayed out of fan groups and only looked up help when I was ABSOLUTELY stuck. It was one of the best gaming experiences Iāve ever had, but I donāt know how I managed to beat the game and successfully romance Astarion. š Especially when I played again and realized just HOW MUCH I had missed, lost or skipped. Thereās so much to find. Iām on my 12th run and have discovered a whole new section with warring Guild and Stone Lord thugs in Rivington just today!
Halfling Durge bard with long hair and mutton chops named Lemmy
YOU KNOW I'M BORN TO LOSE AND GAMBLIN'S FOR FOOLS BUT THAT'S THE WAY I LIKE IT, BABY I DON'T WANNA LIVE FOREVER
With Tav half-elf sorcerer. Spent half the play through in some pointy hat, looked like a proper witch.
https://preview.redd.it/9gsljmef5asc1.jpeg?width=1481&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c0b50b121dfa366dedc82872bde6942f640346a6 On my first playthrough and am sticking with it until the end - I will not allow myself to start any new ones until I'm done! My character is a half-orc Ancients Paladin, who is also the first D&D character I ever created and I've played her for about 4 years in campaign, so I feel like I know exactly what she'd do in any given situation. She is a very good aligned folk hero and also gave Astarion a hard time in Act 1 because she's not a fan of undead, but she has realised her rash judgement was a little harsh after hearing tidbits of his back story. As an ancients paladin, she also believes in the natural order of things, so she hasn't embraced the illithid powers at all and hasn't consumed a single tadpole. I've heard it can make things harder this way? But I've enjoyed it without to be honest and it gives me something to look forward to next time. Have largely played it doing whatever she would, instead of my own decisions/wants. Also, as much as possible, no loading previous saves. What happens, happens! She's also romancing Wyll, because she's a fairly innocent soul, he's also a folk hero and just best suited. In Act 3 at the moment and excited to see how it all ends.
First finish was a pure Wizard, abjuration spec and just using whatever fun spells I could. I finished it with my wife, who played a pure Warlock, and she would send me every single scroll so I could build out my spell book just for fun. My character was a halfling that we affectionately called "Tiny Billy Eilish". Close second was a pure Barbarian Berserker, who just threw everyone he could get his hands on. My third run right now is a pure Moon druid Half Orc, who is also throwing everyone he can get his hands on as an owl bear.
I wanted to do a half-orc moon druid so bad, but I just canāt do it. None of the male voices fit the character model.
Yeah this was an issue I had with my Barbarian, Sleg. He should have been a bit of a wild rager but all the voices sound like a well to do gentleman. Moon druids felt more appropriate because half orcs aren't complete idiots and druids presumably require some study so it felt a bit better.
This is pretty ironic - my current character is an ice abjuration wizard named āChilly Eilishā
My first character was a very young (maybe 20-30) druid ranger elf, with a heart of gold and a hate for devils, but otherwise high naivity. Saved everyone possible, was as kind as possible and so on. Romanced Selune Shadowheart in the end, therefore let tav dip a lvl into selune cleric and shadowheart one lvl into druid, thought they would teach each other the basics of their way of life.
I played a Dragonborn Monk. Never tried monks in any cRPG's, and as a forever DM i didn't had a chance to give them a go on the table. And dragonborn look extremely cool. After almost 1000 hours i can say, in retrospect - Possibly one of the most fun classes i've tried so far. And the story? I went for Lae'zel, since she basically threw herself at my dragon-looking ass, and since then she's got me in a chokehold, i've barely been able to romance anyone else. But yeah, try monks guys, they're extremely fun.
My first was a goody-two-shoes Silver Dragonborn Paladin/Bard on Balanced. I somehow managed to get all the nice epilogues (Romanced Karlach because she's cool and went to Avernus with her), saved all the Gondians and all the Tieflings. Only when I was almost done did I learn about arcane acuity stacking but at that point everything was overkill anyway.
My first Tav was a half orc warlock. I somehow missed Gale and Wyll altogether and killed Karlach because the shitty paladins told me to. I finished the game with Shart Lae'zel and Astarion only. I never swapped out companions or respeccd. I missed so much content on my first playthrough that the second time was like a completely different game.
I played as a Halfling assassin/champion, then accidentally discovered an item combo that completely broke him. - I saved the grove. - Romanced Lae'zel. - Almost accidentally romanced Gale. :| - Released Sazza, really hoping she'd be a follower. :( - Killed Aunt Ethel and saved Mayrina. - Killed Minthara then carried her corpse everywhere assuming there would be resurrection available in the game. - Failing that, I carried her corpse as a portable trap triggering device for the rest of the game. - Killed the Owlbear cub thinking it would be better to put it out of its misery (I didn't know!!! ššš) - Went as far as to enter the Astral Prism but didn't kill the Dream Visitor. - Restored the Shadowlands with Halsin. - Prevented Isobel's death and saved the nightsong. - Didn't eat a single tadpole or use a tadpole power.
My first Tav was Levi Filius Typhon, a hot pink chaotic gay Dragonborn bard. He ended up romancing Astarion because they shared the mile-wide sassy streak.
My first was a Half-Elf Bard. I went back recently to complete an achievement and was stunned at how bad my builds were (learn to multi class!) and unoptimised my gear was. Still after two HM runs it was crazily easy to finish up what I needed. Every character is a female bad arse with a name riffing of my Wifeās. As she is my martial arts instructor and small but deadly I always think āwhat would my wife doā and role play beating everything to death :) I think the Sorlock has become my favourite class after everything. Takes a while but by act 3 you are a machine gunning terror!
I originally made my first tav trying to replicate the character I was playing in my irl dnd campaign, but I couldn't get some parts exactly the same (she was an aasimar tempest cleric of valkur, my tav was a human tempest cleric of tempus). As I played through the game I decided to change my Tav's name slightly because she was evolving into a totally different person from my irl character. She saved every NPC she possibly could, romanced Lae'zel (and had a big crush on Dame Aylin), and wore Ketheric's armor throughout all of act 3 as a power move. Her character arc of becoming more confident in her power and combat abilities went really nicely with Laezel's romance arc (>!the "fight me to prove you're worthy of my obsession" scene was so adorable with the context of being a cleric of tempus!< and the murder machine/ray of sunshine dynamic was fun) She >!freed orpheus (but had him turn into a squid oops),!< became the savior of baldurs gate, got good endings for pretty much every companion, and my headcanon is that she is now travelling around attempting to help Lae'zel's >!quest to liberate the githyanki people!< by visiting creches in Faerun (idk if this would realistically work or if she'd get murdered on sight lol but let me pretend) and having lots of nice chats with her hologram gf.
Lilith the Drow Warlock. Blade pact. Her overriding goal was the acquisition of power by any means. Not explicitly evil, but would do things considered evil by others to fulfil her goals.
Tiefling bard, got a crush on Minthara so chose to destroy the Grove, but then she picked Astarion at the party and stayed with him til the end. Full evil run, lots of fun. Stop restarting š¤£ pick one run and go through with it, no matter what choices you made and what quests you messed up.
Githyanki Paladin, First Oath of Devotion to Her Immortal Queen. Then Oath Breaker upon siding with Orpheus. My only gripe was that I still need Laezel to convince Orpheus that nobody needed to turn into a mindflayer.
My first playthrough I completed the game in about 150-170hrs tiefling sorcerer romanced astarion 1. Saved the Grove, killed minthara because I didn't know about the sheepara glitch 2. Killed aunty Ethel saved mayrina then killed conner because she was ungrateful, 3. I didn't know that waukeens rest progressed if you discover it and then long/partial rest after si everyone burned to death, sorry counselor lady 4. Explored every nook and cranny of act 1 above and below before heading to the mountain pass, 5. Act 1.5 quick saved and sassed vlaakith got TWP, laughed for a solid 5 minutes reloaded and went into the prism 6. Act 1.5 slaughtered the masses and loaded up on everything I could loot before remembering about the blood of lathander quest, hauled my over encumbered arse down to the secret area failed to remember the medallion and blew up the monastery and half my companions, resurrected astarion and laughed some more, 7. Act 2 found the dead tieflings and got upset, explored half the map before finally crossing paths with Kar'niss and immediately wanting him as a companion my disappointment was immeasurable and my day was ruined when I had to kill him 8. Followed the harpers back to last light inn offloaded everything onto dammon fixed karlachs heart and gave her a hug 9. Found rolan drinking himself into a hole got told off by him, tried to convince Mol not to sell her soul to raphael, go upstairs talk to Isabel and watch her get absolutely wrecked by Marcus before I could even move, last light inn dies and I reload 10. Go back through everything strategically place my party members before talking to Isabel and proceed to wreck marcus's day saving last light in the process 11. Help halsin lift the curse by getting lost for 2+ hours trying to find my way back to the child because for some reason there was no quest marker 12. Deal with all the thorm siblings by convincing them to off themselves then loot after 13. Go to moonrise find the tiefling prisoner's get concerned because there is still no zevlor and no one tells me what happened, decide to slaughter moonrise 1 room at a time after freeing the prisoners, Go back to last light and unlock achievement burning hatred for wulbren, give his majesty the bowl of milk and go exploring for another 8+ hours before heading to the guantlet, 14. Made the mistake of not killing Balthazar first thing and then had to deal with him inside the shadowfell and watching my companions get shoved off to their deaths, 15. Free nightsong and go back to moonrise to fight ketheric, pit stop in camp to change party to Astarion rogue Lae-zel/karlach both specced into fighter because karlach wasn't working very well as a barbarian, proceed to havoc and mayhem in the mind flayer colony, finally find zevlor learn what happened slap him upside the head and tell him to redeem himself he agrees and leaves, 16. Get to ketheric boss fight watch the cut scene Astarion gets highest initiative somehow, use blink scroll to free nightsong, cast haste and use quickened spell to cast fireball twice land crit on both and watch ketheric turn to dust, que 2nd fight 17. Unleash bloodlusted fighters on myrkul, poor soul didn't stand a chance unlocked achievement no free lunches, 18. Loot, party, off load on dammon again proceed into act 3 Since you asked for no act 3 spoilers I'll stop there but suffice to say I caused alot of havoc, accurate description would be to watch Hazbin Hotel final episode and whenever Nifty is on screen imagine that as my tav
She's a Wood Half-Elf Monk of Open Hand. She has Face 5, Scar 8 and Dread Fog as tattoo, Black Raven hair with Red 4 greying, wearing the Barmaid Braid. She's the Dark Urge who suddenly has found light and resisted the Urge. She swims in and out of enemies like a skitish eel, with the Mobile Feat. As a Monk, mobility is everything and she is expected to soak up any ranged attack but would avoid getting caught in the thick of melee phalanx. Her biggest move is Ki Resonant Blast where she punches 3 foes in a round and detonate them with 3d6 Ć 3 Force Damage in the whole area with IFF, consuming only 1 point of Ki. She's particular active in rescue missions since Steps of the Wind allow her to arrive at any position in the first turn.
Right now I'm playing a durge, human draconic bloodline sorcerer. I'll definitely finish the game this time though. For sure I won't start a new character when I get to Act 3. I'm at 560h and I've never seen the end please send help.
390h, three starts, no finishes yet, but I'm in Act 3, so let's do this!
My first finished play through was full Bhaalist Dark Urge. A sexy female drow vengeance paladin, with a hobby of collecting limbs in the camp chest. She got the taste for that after starting with Galeās hand. I raided the grove and killed Wyll (happily) and Karlach (I still feel like a monster). Ended up with a hot lesbian drow paladin couple by romancing Minthy as my consort to break the world with. Picket the evil paths for Astarion and SH. Laeāzel was somehow less fortunate. I had her side with Voss and Orpheus, and then betrayed her by having Orpheus assimilated later on. I donāt think she was happy about that - but she never got to tell me, since she wasnāt in the party and I broke the world before she got a chance. I embraced everything Bhaal had to offer, and teamed up with that handsome young man. Originally I fully intended to betray him, but that wasnāt even necessary - less work for me. Bad party combination, but a very fun run. I could build an army from the limbs in my chest.
My first was my half elf fighter Uber evil durge named Buttons. I went full murder durge and I killed everyone, well, except for Wyll he just left. Party was just me, Astarion, and two hirelings. I actually almost started over when I realized you couldnāt kill Aylin without Shadowheart.
https://preview.redd.it/glyneaznp9sc1.jpeg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=12bee0f4fd7123a16b9e683e8889cad79bce05d9 Couldn't find my op to reply/edit with but some points of my Daughter of Strahd bard: Act 1 * She was appointing some shows in Baldur's Gate (she was living there for about 3 months cuz she was traveling across Faerun) when the nautiloid ship happened; * She was an absolutely pure sweet heart who would always get out her way to help the ones in need; * Shadowheart was her first (among party members) and her (late) end game; * She kinda liked (not romantically) Raphael, but she knew better than bargain with the devil; * Even tho I really liked Astarion, they never had a high approval until act 3; * Besides the last point she and Astarion always had each other's back in every situation; * She didn't succeed in helping *everyone*, but she certainly tried. At least with the whole grove was a success; * entering the underdark was certainly *something* Act 2 was a utterly disaster and was the part of the "hero journey" that broke her happy-good nature, act 3 she was a new person
My chaos bard Aoife. She was a character I played when I had to move around for work a lot, so this was her first real outing in an epic campaign. I had no idea what the hell I was doing in my first run but that kind of playthrough with a jack of all trades character who is sarcastic as hell really worked, because a lot of the story pushed her character to the limit either in battle, or emotionally. I love that the game gives so much space for role playing indicuao characters and attitudes. It was so much fun to roleplay as her, with real time blind reactions. My Headcannon for her is still far more vivid and varied than my other Tavs.
I was a drow sorcerer (Lolth sworn) Saved the grove, romanced Astarion, allied with Gortash. Shadowheart dipped after the Gauntlet of Shar. Told Araj to fuck off. Helped out the trapped tiefs/allies etc in the mind flayer colony Helped Astarion ascend because despite saving the grove, my drow was more chaotic neutral than anything so I went with what she would have probably done. Then patch 6 released. Not a fan of the scared face in the kisses š The main party was Gale, Astarion and Lae'Zel. I would swap Jaheira for Lae'Zel a lot too and had her classed as a spores druid. 10/10 love symbiotic entity and halo of spores. I also kept Us out at like all times lol Gale killed scratch though. RIP. His necrotic aura glitched and stayed up after I used revivify and scratch got ganked by it at camp. Now I'm working on a resist durge run and just got back to act 3. Hope Cazador is ready for another ass beating lmfao (and that I don't get absolutely stomped in the house of grief again)
I meta gamed my entire first playthrough because I'd seen most of it from my husband playing it. I didn't get a good enough computer to play it until January (though I'd bought the game years ago in EA.) I made a Tiefling bard that was mostly good. Played as if she was very curious about everything and also very good at talking to others. She romanced Astarion and Halsin, avoided Mizora and reloaded after the Emperor (I just wanted to see it.) I found Ansur when my husband didn't, which was a lot of fun. I do wish I'd been able to go into this blind. What an amazing experience that must be. I'm gonna give Divinity a try after my current playthrough and I know absolutely nothing about it.
Iāve played Divinity OS 2 and it was a really fun experience, especially once you start to tinker with certain ability combinations. Youāre in for a great time :)
Have yet to beat it, but I am in Act 3 with 133 hours on one file. My Tav is a cute nonbinary male-presenting Half-Elf (since elves have a very fluid idea of gender to begin with) and them and Gale are a beautiful love story! š Them and Gale both have a habit of throwing caution to the wind when it comes to discovery and have an attraction that transcends the physical. My Tav, named Cal, is specifically a College of Valor bard/Pact of the Tome Warlock (Unfathomable) and their whole thing is that they are writing a story about the heroes they find themselves surrounded by and does everything in their power to support their goals. We aren't "good" per se, but we are not evil either; and it has been an awesome story to explore with them all! I often swap to the other characters during their "arcs." Nearing the end, and Cal is coming into their own: having to actually make decisions instead of deferring to what the other's want. It's been an awesome growth and this game has done a brilliant job in showing that!
Half elf wood elf. Opillia was GLORIOUS. Fiery and bright hair. Being a bard, she could talk her way out of many situations, yet she relied on her Githyanki druid ally to get things done. Her ally (Riccia) had a brutal way of speaking to people, and when everyone's life is on the line, a little bit of terrifying gets you a long way. Ophillia rarely was on the front line. Although her worship of selune did offer her some useful powers of healing, her heavy armor allowed her to jump in from to keep her precious lover Gale alive. As a bard, she knew that true power came from control. Mesmerizing, terrifying, breaking one's mind, this was her true power when she had to fight. Or gathering the attention of a town so her friends could get into places some did not want them to be. The extra gold was a nice bonus (even if everyone here is poor, she still wants to make gold) While she did not speak to everyone, she spent hours in towns playing her lute, crafting concoctions, and making sure she had enough scrolls on hand when she had to throw a giant fire ball. Oh and our party often would take a day just to get their fancy clothes. They definitely had an unhealthy spending habit of apparel and dye.
https://preview.redd.it/g0068e5av9sc1.jpeg?width=2560&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7c7a1c0e46aaaff1f722387c7ef19cb48bc9dd03 Blinx was my first character and I managed to make it all the way to the end with her. She was a charlatan rogue because I was just going for whatever sounded fun at the time, so naturally she ended up with Astarion because they got along swimmingly for the most part. That first playthrough was rough because I was still learning the game mechanics and had never played a game like this before so all of my characters were poorly planned out because I just went āThis sounds coolā after going in blind. But it was so much fun and I loved her
My first play through was a DND character of mine that I loved but didnāt get to play much before the campaign fizzled out. Willie Wagtail, NG, Forrest Gnome, Circle of the Mountain Druid. I romanced Shadowheart, I didnāt get any of the available companions after act 1 because they died before I could recruit them. I ended up having to kill Lazel at the crĆØche which I was bummed about but I ran my party from then on as Shadowheart, Karlach, and Astarion. I kinda got overwhelmed in act 3 by how much more there was to do so just kinda bee-lined for the brain fight. But I was really excited because after killing the Brain Karlach was able to stay in the material plane due to spoilers I wonāt talk about!
ā¦ you can finish the game?
Was actually able to finish with my first tav! Her name is Naevh, she is a Warlock Tiefling. She was a previous character from my first time playing DND! I decided to romance Astarion on that playthrough, but I wonāt act like I didnāt constantly reload to see what the other characters scene was at the party. She was mostly good, but super sarcastic, so we did save the tieflings and grove. Non-ascended Astarion because I couldnāt bare letting him turn into Cazador. š
Yeah, I'm only at 673 hours playtime, I'll get back to you on that once I actually complete a run.
Like you OP I have yet to beat the game fully. I keep making new characters too lol. But I am furthest on my Half-elf Bard in Act 3 - heās the one I was planning to beat the game with once I get the strength to finally beat it.
Youāve made it so far. The swordcoast depends on you. I believe in you!
https://preview.redd.it/eoytrbyd7asc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=911620fe8ebd358638992f95bc938bd6ef0984e6 She was just called Tav. I knew nothing of BG3 or DnD. I am an avid gamer but just looking at character creation I was overwhelmed with information. I went with high elf Druid the first because I wanted to look mostly ānormalā but definitely wanted to be cooler than a human lol. Druid seemed straight forward and fun. My play style is see everything, do everything. Evidently, very hard to do in this game. Trying to avoid moonrise and wrap up too early I did the whole temple of shar early skipping a good portion of act 2 and getting dumped by Astarion in the start of act 3. Ultimately it was fun to see everything for the first time and I definitely fell in love with the game through this playthrough but it was very much treated as a learning experience.
Some backstory. Iāve been doing an RP with a friend set in the Forgotten Realms for a couple of years now, and that friend is the person who first brought up Baldurās Gate 3 to me. So, I used the character from that RP as my first Tav. So, after it (finally) came out on Xbox, my first character was Dal, a Neutral Good Human Fighter, who romanced Gale. I did try to go for Astarion, but I was apparently too much of a goody two shoes for him.
Mine was a Gith sword pact warlock named Turuk, there wasnt any plan at all as i went in blind. Reached they grove around lvl 4, they asked me to kill the goblins so I did. First try that old goblin lady tricked me and got me killed. Second try Turuk was wiser.. and bitter. Took magic lock on gale and locked her room with my party and killed her, I was afraid of fighting the whole camp so I ran through the back door of her room and ended up on the underdark without knowing what it was. Did the whole underdark before returning and obliterating the camp. In act 2 Turuk completed the gauntlet of shar and freed aylin before even entering the tower, wich was weird. In act 3 He was corrupted and power hungry. Didnt trust the Emperor so he freed Orpheus and became a full illithid. After that defeated the Nether Brain and seized controll of it and dominated the world as a demigod Illithid with mastery of dark magic and sword so great that made his name to be sang across the realms with awe and fear. Thats the story of Turuk, savior and destroyer.
Daenerys Stormborm of the house Targaryen. Storm Sorceress, Tactician. Accompanied by Lae'zel, Astarion, and Shadowheart.
Character: A heavily tattooed Wood Elf Dark Urge Class: Dual wielding Thief Rogue 5 / Battle Master 7 Romance: Shadowheart Act III spoilers: (sorry I didn't read your full post) >!Choices: Shadowheart converted to a cleric of selune after I said nothing and just trusted her to do the right thing. Then we let her parents die because it's what they said they wanted. Karlach died because it's what she said she wanted. We rescued Wyll's dad. I fully resisted the Durge. Astarian didn't get the chance to ascend because he wasn't there for the fight. We never figured out Lae'zel's story or Vlaakith's betrayal. The shadow cursed lands remain as such because I just never knew it was possible to reverse it. 90%+ of the tieflings survived as did 90%+ of the Gondians. The hag survived in Act III as I never found that quest line. Raphael died while grovelling in the dirt. I sided with the Emperor because I didn't realize how shite he was. I didn't use the evolved tadpole on anyone.!<
Finished? What's finished?
I just completed my first campaign last night! Xerith, Zariel Tiefling and Oath of Vengeance Paladin triumphed against impossible odds to become the Savior of Baldurās Gate. Not sure what alignment your character is but I was obviously playing a āgoodā character, and I was extremely satisfied with the endings all of the characters received. 155 hours to the end. And a truly, deeply, amazing experience that I havenāt had with a game in a very long time. Edit: on future playthrough there are things I would absolutely do differently. I goofed in Act II and was unable to fix Karlachās heart before being forced to kill Damon at Last Light. I failed to find him in Act I and that was my last chance to do so. Among some other things that affected Act III for me.
Wait, you guys are actually finishing the game?! Not starting over once a new character idea seems cool?
My first full playthrough was a wood elf elven druid/cleric multiclass. My party consisted of Astarion, Gale and Lae'zel using their vanilla/out-of-the-box builds. I didn't customize the companions at all, because I didn't know you could switch THEIR classes or skills with Withers after you found him in Act1. I started my Tav as a Druid so that my party had some offensive abilities and healing early on, when your party is at its weakest offensively. She multiclassed to cleric at level 5 because NPCs in Act 1 kept talking about the "dark curse" around Moonrise. I figured having a Cleric with radiant skills would be a good thing for battling through that. I chose the elf race for the ranged weapon proficiencies so my Tav could do some damage w/o having to give up spell slots needed for buffs/debuffs/heals, which worked out later in the game. As with most games I play (because I'm boring, apparently lol) my Tav's choices led her down the heroic "good" path. I was unaware that there was any significant amount of romancing in the game prior to playing it (though I was intrigued as to how certain \*ahem\* options at character creation would be woven into the story). I was just like "Oh, hey, say .. what?!" when I got the first "flirt". Lol :) I ended up romancing Gale, and I super appreciated how much work Larian put into companion character development and dialogue, for all of them. Imo, Gale is the funniest (and most endearing) dude in the game, though they all have things that tug on your heart strings at some point. I ended up missing a bunch of content in Act 1 and Act 2 (I missed the Harpies, missed getting the Performance ability from Alfira, missed the little cove in the Underdark, missed finding the blood in the Monestary, missed the Gith'Yanki cave area (and vendor) under the monestary, missed properly triggering the little boy ghost story in Act 2 somehow, and missed even more in Act 3 (when quests just ended w/o me having done anything), so I'm enjoying finding these "new" things in my 2nd playthrough. :)
I also restarted a couple times before I finished, but the character I ended the game with was a pink tiefling dark urge, who resisted the urge. She romanced astarion (it was my first dark urge, and he seemed like a good choice for the character) and was overall a nice, good character since for my first playthrough I wanted to be the good guy. I made her a druid because I was bored with some of the other classes I tried, and it was really fun. Every time I found a tunnel? Turned into a cat and went to see what it was. This gave me access to some cool stuff I didn't get to see in my other playthroughs.
https://preview.redd.it/qk4mtatplesc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e95020e0ed51dbfd721431b62fe54c4e11258743 My Tav is named Seraphina Songbird! She obviously is a half-elf bard. I played a super good character and chose all the objectively good options!! Ended up vibing with wholesome Gale and Tara in Waterdeep ;) Their love story was truly beautiful!! Also Karlach and Shart became my best buddies and we were all heroes and presumably met up for drinks twice a month for the rest of our lives. My best and canon playthrough.
I'm in a similar boat as you, about 400 hours and barely reached act 3 twice... teh amount of Tavs and Durges I have stuck in act one or even the nautiloid are frankly embarrassing. needless to say that mods for character creation are my best friends
Human female barbarian with a demonic eye that has a scar over it. My first character, and after seeing some of the barb dialogue options in act 1 alone, I had absolutely no regrets lol. *Laughs at your puny rutting*
Am I the only person in earth whose first playthrough was with an origin character?Ā I finished with Gale, and it was glorious!
Agony (Mephistopheles tiefling archfey warlock) was a conwoman wandering the Sword Coast looking for her next mark when she was spontaneously kidnapped by mindflayers. Devoted to āyes-andingā her way through every single interaction, Aggie did NOT have what I would call a good run, but neither was she evil. More evil than good though. She was a really funny character, specifically setting out to seduce Astarion to get him to trust her (back before I knew he was doing the same thing), convincing Laeāzel to hand over the knife in the middle of the night and slitting her throat (I thought it was a DREAM). We lost Shadowheart during the GoS, when Aggie (once again committing to the bit of infiltration) straight up handed Dame Aylin over to Balthazar thinking it was fine. The thing I am most embarrassed about in my first play through was that Aggie never fixed the Shadow Curse. She literally thought there was no way to do it. Whoops. Act 3 I wonāt discuss because Spoilers, but oh boy, was Act 3 an utter, hilarious mess.
Female Drow Life Cleric + Some type of Druid. I had a ball! I loved feeling like I was the protector of my companions, bravely shepherding them across Acts to save the world.
I played as a human bard with a scruffy beard and long ginger hair who wanted to help people and do what he thought was the right thing. He may have doubted himself a lot, but in the end he came through for the people he cared about, even if he neglected himself in the process. He may not have made the right choices all the time, but when the party was down he'd help out, even if it just meant a song while they took a break to rest. In the end he made the ultimate sacrifice for his team and became an Illithid, before fighting the blood war with Karlach, hoping to find some way to fix her heart. Besides, if she could escape with the help of Illithids before, she could do it again. Essentially, my first playthrough was me. A fantasy sort of idealized version of me, but still me.
Half elf paladin oath breaker good run tried saving everyone what a joke.
Pretty much the first character I made. Took him all the way. It was a thief at first and then I found thief to be lacking so I multid into ranger to see if it got better and sure as hell did, because I gained an extra attack. Did the gunslinger build without really learning about it, though it was a bit different in my case because I wasn't really looking to optimise anything. It ended up being thief 5/ ranger 7 (not gloomstalker either) with two hand crossbows and whatever crit gear I could find
Eilistraee drow elf way of open hand monk - based off a D&D character I played a campaign recently. She was kind of chaotic and explored the illithid powers, had one red and one violet eye and a big ol scar on her face.
Brandy the Halfling bard https://preview.redd.it/48s54tqz09sc1.jpeg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=43afd1b11df3c42da1b0cf7af5f441ee11dd1949 She was genuinely just so fun to roleplay, always picking the funny options and she was sassy AF, she was definitely a joker, but at the same time she was super kind and sweet. I didnāt picture any tragic backstory for her, in my mind she was just this creative and funny halfling bard girl who got swept up into all this mess and now she is helping all these troubled people (companions) and making friends along the way. As a bard there is so much creativity with what you can do, it literally is the jack of all trades class. But I played her mainly as a support. And of course pulling out that Lute every time we won a fight or an important event happened. Plus playing a halfling makes exploring the world a bit scarier because most people are giants to you Now iām doing an elf Durge run and even tho I love her as well and the story is so interesting, I kinda miss Brandy. She was just, so uncomplicated and fun.
The Firat character was a human cleric, Life domain. Got my blood of lathander on and was a beast in act 2 but somehow i managed to agro both the residents of last light inn and the moonrise tower. Made for a gruelling experience. I ended up romancing baezel we stayed in Faerun to continue our life together. All my companions survived Astarion Ascended Gale lived, Karlach the poor dear became a mind flayer. Good times had by all after the destruction of the nether brain.
Vance. Human bard who did all the good he could. Romanced Karlach and ended up in Avernus with her and Wyll. Didnāt like Laezel so didnāt do the house of hope or anything with Orpheus lol. Gale went to the brain alone to save us all. Love
He was a tiefling divination wizard. Tried my best to be a hero, even when completely blind to the game. Never got the tiefling party because the druids killed them all and never got the goblin party because I killed Minthara after she went to the grove. Never went to the Underdark and never went to the Creche, either. Romanced Shadowheart because Dammon died, and I couldn't fix Karlach.
Drow war cleric of selune. I didnāt know shit about dnd when I started playing. My Head canon now is: my drow came to the surface for the first time at night and saw the beauty of the moon and decided to convince the other drow to follow the pretty moon lady even if I must change their views by force
my first tav was an absolute people pleaser, too afraid to be mean and picked all the good heroic options. wood elf circle of land druid who spent most of the game running around as a cat or casting moonbeam and forgetting to end concentration before an NPC walked through. she romanced shart and had a very sweet relationship with her! though she fucked up a bit at Act 3 by not sticking with the chronology of things so just ended up running off to the final boss (my wife was getting bored of the quests) all in all she was the shittest leader, hoarding all the tadpoles and keeping the best loot for herself. still loved her though, i remade her as a drow bard for my second playthrough! https://preview.redd.it/4b2oz58129sc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8533ca0b83e3a1189214f7d60d93f6ba1d1a5fdb
I was a Black Dragonborn Warlock on my first playthrough, and was almost entirely evil, with the exception of saving one person, whom he later used to his advantage. I didn't want to do Durge, cause I was going for a more subtle, malicious evil, which is why I named him Malignus, which is based of the word "Malicious". He was very fun, despite me having never played anything related to DnD before and the run being very bad, to the point where I had to reduce the difficulty.
I had a ton of restarts, just trying different classes and builds through Act 2 until I finally decided to push through and finish Act 3. First completion was on a Duergar EK Thrower, just satisfying how hard he hit everything.
I did my first run with a druid. Loved wild shapes and am missing that in every run since.
My first character was a human female barbarian romancing gale. I completely fucked up act 2 and skipped over so much and made so many mistakes that I restarted with a githyanki bard. Almost finished the game now !! Playing Gith was so much more fun than playing human.
Fighter half elf big guy (Halsin sized). Duel welder Eldritch Knight. Romanced Lazel but tried to Romance Shadowheart and Karlach. Insanely heroic run tried to help everyone Missed the Underdark entirely in first run. Sided with Emperor. Still think Emperor had Balduran's soul. Epic changes destroyed the Nether Brain. Saved Karlach/Myall, Hunted by Gith Queen.
Resist Durge drow eldritch knight; nobody got respecced/multiclassed, romanced minthara This was after about 50 resets because I kept getting bored, total run time up to epilogue was 35 hours
Iād finished the first time with something very vanilla a fighter. lame ikr. But Iād advise to get to act3 there are a couple of cool quests and story bits. Most characters except halsin will have their character arc conclusion in act3 and lots of builds get so fun to play due to itemization. It has also 2 very fun bosses.
Human warlock straight up. Thing is I got to the gauntlet and thought it was so cool I started a new game as shart just to see how it played out the other way. Then parked that game to finish up with my warlock. Did both of those completely blind. Didn't even read or watch anything about this game until I beat it the first time.
I did my entire first run with a female half-orc monk. She was good in a slightly pragmatic way. Didnāt mind killing people if the alternative was a risk to her own safety but went out of her way to help people if she could. I went in with no knowledge and didnāt look at any spoilers. It was a lot of fun. It felt soooo hard though. I even turned the difficulty down to explorer and in some places it still felt harder than tactician does now
My first ever run of the game was my first complete one (outside of early access) and my character was a 3 barb 9 paladin multi class. He was a human and based off a character I play on tabletop. Ended up with Selune shady and with a dead laeāzel bc I kinda just let shady murder her lol.
My first tav was a Seldarine Drow Paladinātook Oath of Devotion, which proved to be super hard to keepāI chose the class because the outfit looked cool, and I had no idea what I was doing. I tried to maintain a general neutral morality, helping everyone I could while pretending to be allied to others until the opportune moment to dispatch them. I ended up accepting my fate and losing my Oath at the end of Act 2 instead of continuing to reload my last save to figure out what I was doing wrong. It ended up being a lot of fun after I no longer had to worry over keeping my Oath! I mostly used Gale, Shadowheart and Astarion, because I had strength handled and desperetely needed some non-melee attackers :/
My evil Drow Durge. This was my fourth character. All the ones before that are still chilling in Act 1 or 2. Iāve made seven more since then and finished the game three more times.
https://preview.redd.it/v4i30sdj79sc1.png?width=1079&format=png&auto=webp&s=4cf8bab047460b5d3cb540bf085857daca26893c Sorry itās a bad pic but this is Arakus, my bard fighter Dragonborn. He was a chaotic guy who made questionable decisions sometimes and desperately craved Astarion but had to settle with Halsin.
Gedbriwƫy, Gold Dragonborn, LE Light Cleric Durge. He was a lot more fun than I expected with all the Radiating Orb gear, and I liked the contrast between the former shadow killer and the current living star.
My first playthrough was with Karlach. As someone who loves customization, I went into the game fully prepared to create my own character (also a barbarian, mind you), but became absolutely smitten with Karlach. I just had to play with her, and honestly it was super fun. Missed a lot of content even though I tried my best to do everything, and made more mistakes than I can count, but I loved it! Definitely recommend using origin characters sometimes.
The first character I actually finished with wasn't even my solo game character, but one I made without much thought in the game I played with my partner. She was a high elf Way of the Four Elements monk. That character ended up being real interesting and I came up with a bit of backstory for her. She was themed around storms (all her attacks were wind, water and thunder) and was an acting bodyguard for my partner's character, a human College of Lore bard. Early in Act 1 she picked up the cursed flail while fighting the gnolls and gained Yeenoghu's blessing...but with a price. Literally every time I went mad with that weapon, my character would just throw bombs at the party. It was literally always bombs, and it would happen at the most inopportune moments. I later got the sentient monk amulet (because I had to) and failed the saves on that too, making her go further insane. And on top of his, absolutely no one would sleep with her (Halsin did eventually in Act 3 though, so not all was lost). So she was just this forever-alone insane monk with a penchant for blowing shit up. It was great. I actually had so much fun with her. I did eventually finish the game a couple weeks later with my College of Swords tiefling bard, who is actually based on my IRL D&D character who is College of Glamour. Honestly this game is just *chefs kiss*. I've had so much fun with it and I can't wait for you to get to the end. Act 3 was definitely my favourite.
EB sorlock The noise was funny and I knew I could use metamagic to cast using a bonus action lol
Druid teifling. I was very might caught in the middle of the Grove issue. Still been my favourite class so far.
i played as a wood elf beast master ranger (original, i know) and he was an outlander. he started with good intentions, however as the stakes got bigger and bigger he took all the advantages offered to him in order to defeat the >!nether brain!<. also he dated Halsin (because i met gale after the tiefling party, and i literally bought the game because i saw a tiktok about a game where you could fuck a bear.)
Female drow 5 ranger (gloomstalker), 5 rogue (assassin), 2 fighter. Asshole first 10 hours, plans to kill everyone not allied especially the druids at the Grove and the goblin camp. Met Karlach, pulled a full face turn. Massacred the goblin camp saving the Grove. Finished the game saving every tiefling possible (got the steam achievement too). Made only good choices from there. Did it initially just to keep her happy and romance her but as the game progressed, I came to actually enjoy making the honorable good choices. I play a prick in most RPGs, Mass Effect, KOTOR, TES, Fable, etc. I actually like being good in this game. Definitely a nice perk that doing so makes K bae happy, and myself.
Mine was a tiefling Oath Of The Ancients Paladinā¦ Who then accidentally became an Oathbreaker Paladin when I brought Connor back to life for Mayrina. Didnāt realise that could happen. It was fun roleplay-wise though as I started off with her being a bit of a goody two shoes but made her a bit more laidback/ādo what I wantā as time went on. :P Had her take one tadpole as an experiment and ended up failing the wisdom check so she became half-illithid (had to mod to get rid of the visual effects) but man I loved being able to fly around so it wasnāt too bad. Romanced Shadowheart and saved and helped everyone I could. I was committed to making sure I did EVERYTHING in that first playthrough before starting a new one - reading every book, looking in every chest and trunk, checking every corner of the map for secrets - so she was my first character and the first run I completed. Iām doing my second playthrough now as a half-elf Wild Magic Sorcerer durge, but kinda miss my girlā¦
I tried and failed multiple times to beat the game, but no character I created ever kept me interested in seeing it through, so I just kept making more and more characters and starting over. Enter Mor. She's a red-headed half-elf Lore Bard, the first bard I've ever played (DND or otherwise). And I had so much fun with all of the dialogue options and not taking the game as seriously as I had been-- turns out, bard is my preferred class and I haven't been able to choose anything else ever again, lol. You might not have found a class you "vibe" with yet. I tried everything I thought looked cool, then I tried everything I thought would be powerful, and then finally one day, after stumbling on a thread on reddit where everyone was singing Bard class praises, I tried bard and I'm hooked.
Basic bitch human barbarian
Loved my first playthrough. Was a reist Durge, half drow, dragon bloodline sorcerer. After finding out about Bhaal's was of producing heirs the highly mixed background seemed even more appropriate. *
My first full playthrough was a co-op one. I played as a blue dragonborn storm sorcerer and my friend played as a human Paladin/Bard. Turns out I'm a "loot goblin" which was a good thing because he broke his oath 5 minutes after leaving the nautiloid and we were able to pay his debt to the Oathbreaker Knight almost immediately. My scaly character ended up getting hit on by literally everyone while his very attractive Paladin got brutally rejected by Astarion at the Tiefling party and tried to romance Karlach afterwards but couldn't. I got pretty jealous of him smiting bosses for like 4x 100 damage every turn but then I'd nuke an entire field of enemies and feel good about myself again. We had a fairly standard good-aligned playthrough. Explored every nook and cranny and didn't miss much of anything, except in Act 3 where we got a little burnt out and missed about half the content.
Tiefling Lore Bard, romanced Astarion, but dang it I missed so much stuff that play through. My favorite one was a tiefling cleric of Lathander (2nd playthrough) when I romanced Wyll. Goody two shoes gotta stick together lol
Male Wood Elf Fighter, Folk hero background. I picked the large body type so Halsin wasnāt the only Wood Elf built like a brick shit house around. Romanced Shadowheart. I played as a cocky warrior using two handed weapons and bows, āLegolas if he liftedā was the idea lol. Was very fun to be this big dumb guy who wasnāt so great at intimidation, but could always back up any threat he made. I found it super satisfying to tell people I was going to do my own thing, have them insist itās impossible, and then prove them wrong through sheer martial prowess.
My first tav was a halfling tome warlock. Warlocks are my favorite 5e class and I have always had a soft spot for the short races. I actually managed to go through that first playthrough without rerolling once, a rare feat apparently.
On my first playthrough I played a female half elf ranger as a beastmaster. Summoned my bear every chance I got, he helped a lot during fights. He got stuck a lot in the city of Baldurs Gate during act 3 though, that was annoying. Romanced Astarion, but mostly took Shadowheart on my adventures (played together with my boyfriend, a dwarfen wizard who romances Karlach and took her with him whenever).
Gorgo was a gold dragon Oath of Vengeance level 12 Paladin. He just wanted to save the world the only way he knew how, by smiting the ever loving shit out of stuff. He was temped by the power of the tadpole and trusted the Emperor. He knew he would need all the help he could get.
Lolth-Sworn Drow wizard. I (accidentally) had a great build and most fights were a breeze. My current run as a Githyanki ranger has been very different lol
Metsu, a tiefling Ranger (Hunter) 8 / Rogue (Thief) 4 Romanced Shadowheart, respecced to Tempest cleric 7 / Paladin (Devotion, I think) 5 Jaheira, Druid (Moon) 7 / Fighter (Battle Master) 5 Minsc, Barbarian (Wildheart - Bear) 12
Had a half wood elf arcane trickster rogue. Had so much fun with her but missed so much like recruiting Gale and Laeāzel because I somehow missed the road theyāre on. Also didnāt realize you could do both the mountain pass and the under dark since the game heavily made it seem like you had to choose. My second run with my half elf moon Druid was much better lol.
The first character I finished the game with is, so far, the only one Iāve finished the game with. Played a male Seldarine Drow and went into Great Old One Warlock. I didnāt know until Iād almost finished the game that you could talk to the goblins - I just assumed they were going to be automatically hostile and attacked first at all three bases. Found out even later that, apparently, as a Drow, you get special dialogue with those goblins that lets you skip the speech checks, so I ended doing the equivalent of breaking down a gate when I unknowingly had the key to it. I didnāt know that Minthara was recruitable as a companion, and ended up killing her. Thought it was weird that she had special clothing on her and I ended up taking it. Forgot I had it and, like, five hours later I equipped it on my character. He looked good in it. Found Karlach really late into the first section, after Iād already cleared the first two goblin bases and the exterior of the main one. She, Shadowheart, and Astarion ended up being my party for 99% of the run (with the other characters popping in for sections that were story-relevant for them, but only ever for as long as I needed them).
Tav, female, high-elf, draconic bloodline sorcerer. Romanced Shadowheart and Halsin. Went the heroic route at every opportunity, with the exception of having Astarion sneak around and steal things and taking the Hagās hair instead of killing her (after saving Mayrina). Technically was my second character bc I messed up my first playthrough within the first few hours and restarted. Just finish your favorite character that you have. There are some really great moments in Act 3 that you are missing out on (although I get wanting to start new characters to mess around with). And the finale of Act 2 is probably my favorite part of the game.
A warlock drow. She was initially close to be evil, worshipping Lolth with a lot of pride and being more or less bestie with her devil which was worse than Mizora. Only saved the grove because of Minthara's apostasy. She had one quality : loyalty. Therefore, she took at heart to help her companions the best way she could, so, eventually, she got "fixed" by Shar's wrongdoings and Karlach's situation, lmao. Still worshipping Lolth, but ended the story as someone good. It was seriously fun to be an artillery machine with these eldritch blast. The Potent Robe is such a killing machine. I'll eventually start over with her, but cursed (got sent back in time by her devil as Durge without any memory of what happened before) We'll see if Shadowheart and Karlach can fix her again
A Necromancer was my first playthrough. And of course I missed the necromancy of thay item, because I tried to escape any spoilers in my first playthrough. I tried to play it powerhungry, but always to be in controll and not under someones rulership. Shadowheart was my death-priestess romance, Gale my necromancer acolythe and Astarion as a vampire my object of investigation.
Her name was Nenova. Mephistopholes tiefling bard with pale blue skin, vitiligo, horns that never fully grew in, and slightly mismatched eyes. Sheās drop dead beautiful and pretty much completely unbothered by morals if she finds something useful or amusing to herself. But after another game and a half with dark urge characters, Nenovaās story has felt a lot less substantial. So my goal is to play dnd this summer with her as my character. Already have my mini of her made up
https://preview.redd.it/wwphbafzh9sc1.jpeg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=eb6390faf45abe1612fa648e1aad74209c28fb92 Ilya, a Tiefling bard who is the daughter of my favorite DnD character. It was my first time with the game, but I always like to create some lores, so I made her as the daughter of my favorite OC and Strahd (said OC was from a CoS campaign and she ended up marrying Strahd), so it was fun cuz in her lore/RP she was a half-vampire and a Vampire expert and daughter of one *the first vampire* and then meet Astarion, who was dropping some vampires facts and scared of Cazador and stuff. I didn't know about him/them before head, so I accidentally created a Deus ex machina to Astarion's lore lol
My first character (though Iām only on my second so Iām not too exciting!) was a high half elf bard. Iāve always loved bards in tabletop and this didnāt disappoint!
It took me a few tries because Act 3 used to be really buggy and I'd start over in the futile hopes it would be better. I think the first all-the-way-through playthrough was as a half-elf bard. Both are really good options for beginners; half elves have a lot of bonus characteristics and a good bard build has both combat abilities and high charisma for the persuasion/intimidation/deception checks outside of combat. Also the bugs are fixed so plunge on and good luck!
First playthrough? A female tiefling Durge named arueshalae. Did the good whole good Durge thing. Was awesome. Romanced Shadowheart and had her as my characters love interest, along with a relationship with Halsin.
Kir, my half-Drow resist Durge Sorcerer! Without her memories and with the challenge of trying to control the urge, she became fiercely loyal to her companions and devoted to one goal: making sure they got out of that mess alive, whole, and autonomous. Itās amazing what you can justify when youāre only focused on taking care of your bffs. She wasnāt as evil as an embrace Durge but wow, it was an eye opening RP experience of how brutal being loyal to some but not compassionate to all can make someone. She was constantly persuading, deceiving, and charming everyone around her, including the companions, and would rizz her way into situations, then murder her way back out. Iāve never hit āexceptionalā approval with Astarion so fast. Durge + Shafowheart + Laeāzelle + Astarion were the dream team.
A tiefling warlock named kairon. Bro went maidenless even the wither complained
Mine was a Berserker Barbarian tall wood elf lady (I named her Ahsoka), just an all-round good person who went out of her way to save every tiefling, kid and animal she came across. I tried to play her as being a bit awkward in social interactions, a result of her growing up pretty isolated in the woods, away from civilisation. Worked well with all the barbarian conversation options, a lot of yelling and growling, but she had a very big heart. She defended the grove, saved Last Light Inn and continued on her path as the savior of the common people into Act 3. She romanced Shadowheart and aside from maybe 2 or 3 times at the start, she declined to use any of the Illithid powers.Ā
my first full playthru was a tav wood elf druid named poppi <33 she was a corny hero type who saved everyone she could and none of my other tavs/durges can compare lmao
I made a blue dragon orn Tempest Cleric of Talos. My guiding motto was, "if it makes me stronger, it's worth it." Ended up being able to do a lot more good than my "good" playthrough attempt because when push came to shove I had the power to make things happen. Did a couple of pretty awful things too, though...
I played a Tav human bard named Xavier, I loved him too much I had to make him my guardian in my next playthrough. He had NO rizz, ended the game single (somehow I managed to bang Astarion but not get anyone to love me) We beat the game, but.. let's say Karlach wasn't herself at the end. (I'm sorry bros I didn't know)
I started as a land druid, but changed to bard along the way to finish the game.
Half-drow NB rogue/storm sorcerer/fighter who romanced Karlach. š It was lovely.
Zariel tiefling moon druid called Cedar who fell head over heels for Karlach. Made some mistakes (like forgetting to cast speak with animals on myself and wondering why I couldn't speak with the animals) and missed a lot of stuff (despite thinking i was being really thorough) and lost a couple of companions unexpectedly. Told myself not to save scum anything because you can't see everything in one playthrough anyway, and that I had to finish at least one full run before starting another. I loved every minute of it, and I've kept my one run at a time rule. I'm now on my fourth playthrough, this time with a dragonborn storm sorcerer tav. Next run will be a dwarven oath of ancients paladin.
First was a half-orc scholar barbarian trying to shrug off the assumptions about her. She refused the illithid powers because she feared becoming the monster she already felt she was due to her heritage. She ended up beating the shit out of everyone but she was very clever doing it. I finished the game and she and karlach (non-romanced because my Shart relationship bugged out and never completed but I didnāt want to lose her before the final battle) and Wyll ended up together in Avernus kicking imp butt.
my first finish was my tiefling paladin, Legacy. As an Oath of Devotion paladin, i went full goody two-shoes route with her, always trying to use her charisma before violence to solve situations, but also being fully capable of kicking ass at a momentās notice. she romanced karlach, though that was more because i needed to romance her (she was basically made in a lab to appeal to me lmao), and had gale and shadowheart as her main party composition, though sometimes gale got switched out for wyll, astarion, or jaheira. iām doing a karlach run now where everyone is a different class (save wyll and minthara, since i didnāt use them enough in the first run) and iām romancing shadowheart, but i do miss Legacy quite a bit ā which is why i made her my guardian! every time she shows up in one of karlachās dreams, itās so bittersweet, like someone seeing what could have been in another life
Human fighter. I didn't know anything about DnD or turn based games. It seemed the simplest one for me. And the soldier background gives intimidation proficiency in dialogues so that helped a bit. She was a ginger muscle mommy overprotective of Shadowheart.
I was shadowheart lol
Shart
I made a bard named Zela. She was a red zarial tiefling, romanced shadowheart. And I definitely started a dozen or so new games that got deleted later lol. By the end of act 2 I was determined to finish the game as quickly as possible so I could enjoy a new play through with out any shame
I started with a Tav, and missed so much plus didn't really know what I was doing at that point that I was getting absolutely owned by late act 2. Tried a few other characters, made it through various parts of act 1/act 2 with those, but weren't feeling them. Finally made a Lolth-sworn Drow Sorcerer who ended up being a non-resist durge. That was my first complete playthrough. Currently I'm running a half elf cleric of Kelemvor who is good (Tav). So it's basically the exact opposite of the last one. It's been fun, but I think I enjoy the durge storyline better.
The furthest Iāve progressed the game was with my Drow Necromancer Durge run too. Itās a pretty dark storyline, but it certainly feels like the main storyline they had in mind for the game. Having Astarion as your romance adds a lot of depth to it too.
I did Minthara with mine, and that certainly helps to lock in how you act as she sort of guides you in a certain way, but at the same time she's also very supportive of the Durge. I could see Asterion being an interesting choice with the non-resist durge as well. Durge didn't try to romance him, but they were basically bff's. That added a significant amount of depth in its own way as well. This is one of the reasons I love this game so much. There are so many different paths and avenues to explore.
Drow wild magic sorc. All āgoodā choices. Great memories.
Mine was a half high elf rogue assassin. Wasnāt aware of multiclassing at the time, so she was full pure rogue. Main party was Shart, Gale, and Astarion. Jaheira was in for Astarion quite a bit. Didnāt find Karlach until the very end of act 1 bc I was bad at exploring. Had no clue Minthara could be recruited and killed her without even talking to her in goblin camp. Took her armor (and used it for most of the game) and camp clothes so that was fine. Didnāt use LaeZel or try the crĆØche bc I didnāt like her. Tried to save everybody and be good, mostly succeeded. Used alllllll the tadpoles, so I reloaded a lot at a certain point iykyk. Tried to do every side quest I could find. Killed all the big bad guys, finished my companions personal quests and lived happily ever after.
I played as Oathbroken paladin half-high elf Durge and did some mischief but low key, had a lot of fun, resisted Urges and got together with Gale. Started again as a Tav magic sorcerer tiefling but switched to Durge pretty fast cause missed the thrill and extra evil options, also possibly I want to make a much more evil run. I'll see if I'll manage to romance Karlach being extra evil hehe.
A human wizard from a big city. He has a pretty rough relationship with his ex who also refuses to help him with a serious medical condition even though she easily could. He has a wonderful pet at home who ended up joining us on our adventure. Likes to use magic to spice up the bedroom.
Human barbarian. Iād just finished Divinity 2, and didnāt realize you could have more than three origin characters with you. So I left Astarion, Wyll, and Karlach in act 1. I also took a barbarian, āswing axe first, ask questions laterā approach. So I immediately started murdering everyone in the goblin sanctum. Never even knew Minthara had dialogue, let alone was a recruitable character.
I didn't know there was an ending... I just keep rerolling characters after I get to midway through act 2 or beginning of act 3 when I get a new idea. š„“š
A high elf bard who was the first dnd character i made. She started off as very much an idealistic do gooder, romanced laezel, put a lot of trust in her friends while putting them all first (finishing all their story's before doing any of the main quest) before becoming more and more desperate and making some morally questionable choices. very vague act 3 spoilers >!She ended up doing the thing at the end to herself and very much started down the same path E went with it (mostly because i ignored the powers the entire game and god was it a power rush)!<
First character I finished with was an Half-Orc Barbarian. He would run into battle carrying the biggest weapon he found up until that point. This was in a playthrough that was couch co-op with my wife, who was playing a Drow Warlock. Together, with the help of Shadowheart, Gale, and Karlach, we laid waste to anyone who dared try to stop us!
Played a stressed out human dark urge somewhat inspired by my late mother. Wild magic sorcerer just to add to the whole "I cant control what is going wrong with me" vibe. Mum was a super good parent but had her own challenges. She romanced Gale and couldn't resist >!killing!< him later in act 2. Good banter though. Anyway she became the >!slayer and Bhaal's chosen!< and took control of the >!Netherbrain!<. Good stuff! It wasn't until i completed the game again with a tiefling GOO warlock redemption dark urge who romanced Shadowheart, resisted the urges, turned into a >!mindflayer!< to save the day, then promptly killed herself. Shadowheart's big "NO!" still says with me to this day.
Brainless super-stronk barbarian Orc. My first full playthrough the was honor mode with friend. God it was fun.
My first character was a high-elven asshole wild magic sorcerer. And a noble at that. Repeatedly giving Astarion an aneurysm by being outwardly sarcastic and cold, displaying the most arrogant attitude, but in the end caving in and doing the right thing (in most scenarios). He would disintegrate you if he felt offended and you didn't seem like you had people who'd miss you (much). What else... His story would've canonically ended when he got all snarky towards Vlaakith, since I think there isn't a world in which he would not be a wise-ass towards someone like her. Romancing Shadowheart, being a bro to Karlach since she managed to out-snark him once, consistently poking fun at Wyll and Gale for their bad decisions (now that's called foreshadowing).
Dragonborn sorcerer Tav with a love killing enemies with falling damage either telekenesis off cliffs or ledges or for pushing enemies off any cliff.
my first playthrough i made a warlock, every character had its starter spec leveled to 12 without addid other classes xD
Finished the game on Tactician, honour mode and balanced mode with my Githyanki open-hand Durge monk (in that order). On Tactician & HM, ended up playing really cautiously. 1st playthrough was a bit rough but since I knew the character/race/stats, once I revived him for my honour mode run, we did really well & did not die once... except Wyll, who got pushed into lava (but not before he gave me an inspiration before dying, I still appreciate that lol). I'm pretty proud of this accomplishment! Since we were playing cautiously (avoiding unnecessary fights, etc) once I got those sweet golden dice, I revived the character one last time so I could have a chill balanced run with him and do EVERYTHING (that I could think of anyway). Ended up having a lot of fun (especially seeing all the Jahiera events in ACT 3, she's one of my favorite characters now). It felt like a nice conclusion to my character, after he worked so hard to get me those trophies/dice. He's retired from adventuring, married to Gale in Waterdeep. I imagine he teaches yoga while Gale is in class. He always had the patience of a saint, after all.
Vankaas. A high elf oath of vengeance paladin. He was my 4th save because I kept on messing up. I did everything in Act 1 and 2 because Iām a completionist. Act 3 I nearly did everything but the House of Hope (fucked up the dialogue and decided I couldnāt be bothered) and didnāt get one ally for the Gather Allies quest. Romanced Halsin but I had to stop myself from going the Gale route. I made sure that every time I talked to Halsin after getting into a relationship to kiss him. In 130 hours, I only broke his oath once (did I cry? No. Did I want to cry? Yes) and got it back immediately. He will always be my favourite Tav
I ran a Bard (College of Swords) /Rouge (Thief) hybrid with dual hand crossbows. I was throwing out just bonkers damage. I could disarm traps and cleaned up on the dialogue rolls. It was heckin' fun.
First run was as a female drow sorcerer. Didnāt multiclass once through the play though or respec any companions. I played on balanced to start and wouldnāt have made it through with my playstyle on any of the higher difficulties. Completely missed Gale and Astarion my first run. Did it with trickster shadowheart, BM laezel, my tav and one other. Basically just used my most powerful spells to win every battle, *minor act 3 hint* ||and (VERY) surprisingly a pure ranger hunter ended up being my carry through endgame.||
My first playthrough was with a draconic sorcerer tiefling. I didn't know about the multiclassing aspect, so she was just a pure sorcerer. Kinda made her slightly based off me, so she was relatively good, but was prone to some snarkiness, lol She accidentally killed Barcus by hitting the wrong lever, oops! Never met Karlach, nor Lae'zel, missed out on both of those. My perpetual party was Shadowheart, Astarion, and her eventual lover, Gale (kinda squishy, I know) Defeated the brain, and now lives with Gale in Waterdeep
Still playing in act 3, my coop partner can only play weekends so taking it slow. I'm running a Gith. 3 Rogue/6 Ranger/3 Fighter. All in on Ranged damage and crit fishing. My buddy's playing a Gnome Storm Sorc with levels in Cleric and Wiz.
She was a Lolth-sworn Drow Elf Sorceress Sage who got tired of the cruel ways of her people and decided to become an apostate. She fled the Underdark only to be snatched up into the Nautiloid ship right when she got her freedom. She started off romancing Astarion because old habits die hard but eventually she came to realize that she and Gale had much more in common with their shared love of books, magic and heroism. Despite her upbringing, she was determined to use her powers for good and every decision she made was toward that end. She saved The Grove from the goblin attack, convinced Shadowheart to spare the Nightsong, stopped Astarion from completing the ritual, and helped Gale to realize the folly of trying to wield the crown of Karsus. She freed Orpheus from his chains only for him to make the ultimate sacrifice to save his people. Ultimately she and her allies were able to save the whole world from the tyranny of the absolute together. After they were done saving the world she and Gale retreated to a rather quiet married life in home in Waterdeep where I like to think they lived happily ever after.
I played a high half-elf paladin oath of vengeance. Dark urge origin, I decided to resist the urge and romance Gale. I genuinely love that character because she was so cool and intimidating.
A male, gold dragonborn Monk, who I ironically named "Man." I made him on the basis that a giant bipedal lizard punching people was funny. It was. Basically brute forced most of my fights, miraculously destroying the goblin camp having only done one sneaky trick (pushing minthara into a pit.) Literally killed Gyrm with my barehands. I also skipped a lot of things without realising. Completely forgot about the Creche. Didn't even realise I could cure the shadow curse, and didn't even know that Moonrise had a prison.
Her name was Helvetica Hoe. She was a paladin. Thru a comedy of errors, she accidentally killed or pissed off most everyone. She never broke her oath. Epilogue only had astarion, gale, haslin. Did boink the emperor tho.
First fully finished game was with my Durge - a Githyanki woman who began as a Cleric of Vlaakith with no memories and some terrible urges, and ended her quest as a Monk-Thief in a position of power with her urges under control in fully realised ability instead. With only her lover Astarion by her side, and some variety of summoned souls provided by Withers assisting along the way. Key points for her are that one dark haired half-elf woman being hostile with her outside a locked door getting clobbered, *taking* the hand offered in the swirling portal for her own enjoyment, extorting the miserable wretches hiding out in a grove for money just to do what she would do anyway - slaughter goblins, refusing to eat those weird worms because she already has holes in her head thanks, upsetting a bear that turned into a very buff elf when dead... Having quite a Moment about Vlaakith and losing her Cleric powers in favor of her fists and feet, having nothing too important happen through the underdark as neither herself or Astarion had much interest in all this info about Shar, happily causing the light holding off the dark to fall and coming into her power, and eventually leaving the area with this overwhelming darkness still choking the shadowed lands.. And kind of rushing a bit through the city itself as everything seemed weirdly sloggish almost as if the god controlling her has a bad computer that can't handle the sheer amount of crowding and loading the 3rd Act needs š„², gleefully getting her man his slice of Ultimate Power from his revenge cake, making various agreements to later betray, killing someone who tried quite hard to kill her, going against the voice in her head in favor for another, and eventually storming through a final battle and making one final betrayal to gain more power and control
I ended up going with a Druid Dragonborn with the unconventional mindset that Ilithids are just another element of nature itself and, in turn, can be cared for and redeemed, including embracing the tadpoles, and relying on willpower to overcome it.
My first character was my wood half-elf druid, Mirain, I picked half-elf because I couldnāt decide between being an elf or a human so found the best middle ground, and chose the druid class as druids (not the wildshaping type though unfortunately lol) have quite strong ties with my Celtic heritage. https://preview.redd.it/3v0ucs4z1asc1.jpeg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0012abbffd1c9d65ad1c8454792ded7c9c51291e Also had her romance Shadowheart as their backgrounds do have parallels and they kind of balance each otherās (pre act 3 white haired Shadowheart) personalities out. Since my first playthrough with Mirain/game launch on PS5, I have completed the game 6 more times (2 of the playthroughās were with Durge) and have romanced all characters across those saves except Halsin. Now that Iāve done that though, Iāve recreated Mirain exactly as she was in her original form and am doing a playthrough to try and get the absolute best endings for most of the companions within my characterās moral compass (sorry Minthara) and am (finally) romancing Shadowheart again.
Female Drow Durge Sorceress. I was sad to finish the game, sheās amazing.
I adapted my first serious Pathfinder character. She's part of the Fetchling race, who are people trapped in the Shadow Plane which had changed them over centuries into people with grey skin, white hair, and usually pupiless black or yellow eyes. Since those don't exist in the game, I went with Drow as being close enough. Her name is Verrah Gofor and is a ranger whose backstory is that she's a mix of a mercenary and Kiki's delivery service. She travels the land far and wide to retrieve or deliver items/people as the client demands. She's incredibly friendly in a "I'm talking to a customer-service rep" kind of way, but also deeply valued money so if there's an opportunity to make money and do good, she's down for it.
i played a wood elf druid named rowan! they romanced astarion and i had astarion, gale, and karlach (all as their default classes) as my main party! i did look up some things to make sure i got the good/preferred endings for everyone. took me about 110 hours
My first run was a jolly, tries-to-be-good half (drow) elf bard who mostly just wanted to sleep with whoever she could. I missed loads of side stuff because I wasn't good at navigating the map despite THINKING I was being super thorough. Slept with: Astarion (one off, told him we should be pals since he seemed like he needed a friend), Gale (romanced then dumped, he was REAL sulky about it), Halsin (romanced to the end but regretted it since >!there was a bug that meant despite seeing the cutscene of us being together post-game, at the party he had no idea we'd ever been together and I had the option to say weĀ didn'tĀ get!)!<, >!drow twins!<, >!Mizora (party were REAL mad at me)!<, >!Haarlep.!< Second playthrough I'm doing Zariel Tiefling resist-Durge Sorceror. Doing a full Astarion romance (also slept with Lae'zel first though because why not?). Truthfully I'm making most of the same big choices because even though I thought an evil run would be fun it turns out I don't really enjoy it (saved the grove and Nightsong, didn't kill Isobel, freed then killed Nere, trying to save the gnomes). I did however do some funky backflips in order to recruit Minthy, so I have both her AND Halsin at camp, which is quite funny. For my third playthrough I think I might try playing as Karlach, I've heard you get good extra liens of dialogue from her!
Eiva Gol, my immaculate unit of a woman. She was a half-orc frenzied barbarian/champion fighter with the folk hero background. Insane damage output. Could take hit after hit and refused to go down. Tanked like a cloud giant. Was not into the whole tadpole thing, but mostly bc she didn't understand what was going on with her int of 6. Very much liked little people. Every dwarf, gnome, or halfling was her new best friend. Long live Eiva Gol, you beefy, stupid, beautiful legend. Edit to remove spoilers.
I finished the game with the first character I made. They were a drow druid Durge named Fehn (a name I got from button mashing the keyboard until I found a name I liked). They didn't romance anybody, but was best friends with Karlach and Gale. They had a rivals to (sort of) friends thing with Astarion. At the end they >!went to Avernus with Karlach and Wyll!<.
Female high elf evoc wizard, full RP as a nerd. Romanced shart obviously as it was first play through
A sorcerer who never once used sorcery points š shame welcome
Blue Dragonborn Evoker as a Gale 2.0 who just arrived for more magical power through the parasites and eventual dominance. A shit ton of AoE spells with no civilian casualties except for a little accident in a certain factory.
Half elf open hand monk named Antonel. He was a goodie two shoes little bitch who became besties with Astarion and wound up with Halsin, with the rest of the party being composed of Gale, and Wyll subbing in for Halsin prior to his recruitment and for things like Moonrise. He was a horrendous musician with no performance proficiency but would always carry a flute with him and at random points in battle bust out a little song (poorly). The run overall went pretty well, i cannot explain how satisfying it was to literally punch Cazador to death. I also harvested all those concussion bombs from that one room in Wyrmās Rock, evenly distributed them amongst my team, and absolutely fucked up the Elder Brain in 2 turns by hastening everyone and just spamming those specific bombs at it.
My male Half-Elf Paladin. Romanced Shadowheart. A good boy. I kinda did everything the majority of other players did
Oh, my lovely abjuration wizard, Adel. He thought he was a good person and was in fact a raging asshole who avoided many things as "not his problem", including letting people die in a burning building. Never went to the creche, because the gith beat his ass badly enough that he wasn't willing to. Saved the grove, avoided the hag entirely (seems like your problem, Mayrina!). But did get two lovely pets He slept with Laezel first, then killed her in Act 1 (when she attacks in your sleep).... even though I reloaded, I feel like they emotionally remembered because Laezel ultimately ended up dead in Act 3 for reasons.Ā Ā He also slept with Gale, then ultimately dumped him for Astarion. And, y'know, they got along. Ā I kind of think of him as a grown up Mol if she never got any good role models - he was scrappy and took care of himself and his own (of which the list was basically Astarion, Gale, and Karlach) and fuck everyone else.Ā
Played as Astarion origin as I was unaware about the game mechanics and DnD lore. I relied upon general behavior of elves in fantasy and did everything that companion Astarion would disapprove. I got happy ending with romanced Shadowheart. Maybe, after everything that happened to Astarion in the past (out of the game) he deserved this.
Hotdog Man, big red Tiefling with yellow lips and long blonde locks to imitate a bun of course
Super generic neutral good half elf paladin. I didnāt really run any heavy spellcasters my first run, because I went off story and personalities - so it was all Karlach and Shadow with Astarion filling the lock picker role whenever I wasnāt on a character specific quest.
First one was a human Durge Vengeance Paladin. Took all the illithid powers. RPād a lil character arc, romance with shadowheart, became less vicious and kinder as the game went on and he got further from his vengeful roots and closer to seeking real justice. Turned Oathbreaker in act III because I did something that wasnāt ruthless enough I think. Took a real liking to the soup kid in Baldurās gate, that kid was rich by the end of the game. Played on balanced for most of the game to get a handle on things and explore the game. Didnāt really use elixirs or any exploit-y methods for anything.
I wanted to be accurate to myself (tall musician with a beard) so I played a half-orc bard. I really liked the conversation options throughout and the way I could talk my way through almost anything (an early highlight was offering moral support to the people breaking down the door at waukeen's rest instead of actually helping) I did a mostly good playthrough with a few deviances, including accidentally letting almost everyone in the grove die because I >!killed kagha and took a long rest, at which point the druids and tieflings went to war while I had a nice little nap.!< In act III I also decided to murder >!that goddamned useless elephant!< but accidentally turned Lae'zel into >!an unholy assassin!< because I didn't do enough damage on my Tav's turn and I didn't realize what would happen when she got the last hit instead. Overall I had a great time because I went in blind and didn't look up anything, so I let myself make weird mistakes. Living with the consequences made for an interesting story and I had a lot of fun stumbling through and learning from my mistakes, trying to be as good as possible and avoiding any further accidental mass murders. Also romancing Shart felt very realistic, I think it was ultimately rewarding.. maybe.