r/BG3 3d ago

Bg3 Hot Take Edition

I'm feeling spicy and I want to hear some of your hot takes about the game. Perhaps, I'll see the game from a fresh perspective and/or learn something new.

There's no limit to the hot takes you can share.

I'll go first.

Despite Araj's negative reputation, I think she's one of the best merchants in the game. In act 2, she carries the risky ring and the ring of free action, which is already amazing. But she also offers unique elixirs in act 2. In act 3, she sells sanguine explosives, which is basically a level 4 fireball that you can buy for less than 20 gold. Getting the unstable blood condition from her in act 3, can also be powerful if you build around it. The +2 to strength is super powerful if you're willing to torture Astarion, but even without that, she's still an amazing npc. She's a little pushy with Astarion, but she ultimately accepts his no. So, I don't stay mad at her.

I don't think completing a "good run" automatically makes your character good aligned. Basing your decisions around not making your favorite npcs sad is not a sound moral compass. I think there are more morally neutral people out there than people are willing to admit. It isn't a bad thing to be morally neutral. Jaheira is canonically true neutral in the older games, and people love her.

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u/shesstilllost 3d ago edited 3d ago

Ketheric Thorm is overrated as villain. He's incredibly common- man faces perfectly normal hardship- and decides he hates his God for not kowtowing to his wishes. He still had his wealth, the people he led, and the love and adoration of those around him. If we had gotten a full story of his decent into madness, okay. If we had clearly gotten the story of the gods all refusing to raise his daughter, okay. But all we see is that he was a old wealthy elf who lost his wife and daughter, and decided to burn the world for it. It's a story we see so often that I can't be moved by it anymore. It doesn't even make sense in the Forgotten Realms because resurrection magic is so common. The atmosphere of Act 2 is great, I love Isobel and Aylin, I would have loved to know more about Melodia, but all that makes Ketheric Thorm compelling his his voice actor.

The companions are compelling characters but I would not want to actually play a real game of DnD with them save for Wyll, Gale and Halsin. The others would really need a good session zero for me to feel safe playing with them as a table. Astarion's player would suck all the air out of the room trying to be the Main Character, as well as Shadowheart.

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u/Smart-Water-5175 3d ago

To me that’s the point, that no matter how much you build it up and change yourself and chase power to become a god, you ultimately are still just a dude

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u/shesstilllost 3d ago

For me is that it's attempting to skirt around a number of tropes but people seem to think he's sympathetic. He's not. He's just another guy who gets pricked and shows that he's an abuser. The one thing we get right is that we see Isobel and Aylin survive him.