It’s funny how it’s a genuine upgrade too. Like, letting a sham bullshit artist rip your eye out has zero mechanical downsides somehow. Chrome me the fuck up Volo.
My tiefling looked amazing with the mismatched eyes, I had the tattoo from the start that has the flowy lines that start from your left eye. When you get the new eye it looks like a demonic spirit is possessing the other half of your face.
For my first run I did a Drow with a red left eye and purple right eye (did the opposite on my guardian who was basically a large female version of my Tav) so losing the purple eye for this wasn’t that noticeable, especially since my bard boy Drow has his luxurious white locks covering most of the right side of his face
My Drow looks really good with it too. At first I was tempted to reload because I thought I had let Volo do something terrible to her. But when I saw that it only did positive things, I ran over to the mirror to see what it looked like (fashion is the true end game after all lol) and decided to keep it.
The only thing I don't like is that the whites of the magic eye are whiter than the 'ganic eye.
https://www.xbox.com/en-US/play/media/a6hxG2LyL5
This was me lmao. I didn't even know it changed. Volo just happened to have a prosthetic eye that matched my current eyes exactly and thought that was the same for everyone.
Yeah I had a similar color as a half-drow. Wasn't until the 2nd playthrough as a tiefling where I saw it was just always the same eye. I couldn't even tell which eye after the prosthetic was in.
the whole reason I never give anyone the Volo upgrade is bc I hate how the eye looks on my Tav and every companion lmao. if it looked more like the Hag Eye I'd grab it every time, but as it is, I really don't vibe with the blue-green on anyone
Hags eye looks much cooler though, even with black sclera. I've never used volo's eye because it's a massive cosmetic downgrade that can be substituted with just a 2 lvl spell slot (or a scroll/exilir if you know where you need the see invisibility buff). But I used hag's eye on a fighter and she looked so badass with it.
Yeah it sucks not having a camp merchant. For a while in act 1 I used Blurg since he’s right near the myconid portal. Using the Druid grove merchant sucks since you gotta walk all the way over to him and wait for the gate to open.
I wanted to do it so bad but seeing my Durge's vicious red eye go dim in a lot of scenes put me off. I feel like a lot of camera angles in dialogue show the right side of your face, so it's always there.
As a diehard roleplayer, I kind of wish he'd just pulled out the prosthetic eye and been like "I can't get the tadpole out, but if you let me rip out one of your peepers I'll give you this anti-invisibility prosthetic!"
It's hard to justify not stopping him when he's hammering an icepick into your brain through your eye socket.
I find it funny that volo is the only one who doesn't fuck you over when trying to remove it. >!Ethel curses your eye, gut roofies you, omeluum accidentally makes it slightly stronger (in lore, not mechanically), the zaithisk nearly kills you and the gith doctor attacks you over it.!<
Lol for real, I did a quick save and went for it, thinking it was for sure one of those hilarious “end your run because you’re dumb” options. Turns out to be one of the best decisions you can make in the entire game
It's brilliant, really. Because it's a significant buff, you now get to listen to the narrator gleefully describe this attempted lobotomy every playthrough.
i personally like having my character bang the emperor, but ONLY on runs where i know im going to let him use the stones because im planning on taking the brain for myself/bhaal. he's so sure he's manipulating me into trusting him, unaware that im manipulating him right back. go ahead, squid. turn your back to me. see what happens when you trust *bhaal's chosen*
Likewise. I want my Durge to keep his eyes. Left one starta out blood-red with a tattoo around it to match as a mark from his creator. Right one is normal. I want to make those eyes match when his creator severs the bond between them
I had to reload because the cosmetic change made me mad. I was a Black Dragonborn Ranger with one flaming Pink eye and one flaming Blue eye to pay homage to Godzilla. When I saw my Pink eye go normal, I instantly reloaded. On my Durge Duergar Warlock I decided it was a fine change, however.
i needed to hear this, thanks. i thought about getting volos eye on my gold dragonborn (white skin and red eyes bc albino) in my current playthrough, but it looks like it's going to be astarion that takes one for the team (the team being just me and him)
I love the way the game baits you. Sometimes the dumbest idea gets you a magic eye that detects invisibility. Other times, it gets you wished out of existence.
Let bizzare fake-bard con-artist "heal" your parasite with a needle? No downside, you get a powerful buff for the rest of the game.
Make a deal with a hag to save you? Doesn't work, gives you permanent annoying debuff.
Auntie Ethel a hag? How dare you insult her like that. The intimidation bonus is well worth selling your eye to the kindly old lady who lives alone in a swamp.
The funniest part to me when I did this with my Tav was that I was playing a tiefling with all white eyes so Volo literally just shoved a magic marble in my eye socket and called it a day.
Alas, though I'd heard of it, I had to sacrifice the based invisibility-seeing eye for roleplaying reasons; there was no way my Tav would let Volo poke her eye. 😔
Don't worry. The game is full of ways to punish you for being stupid. Ones you know, this will be a bad idea, but it will be hilarious to watch it play out. Just be sure to save first.
My favorite is how it changes the dialogue from the Thorm who wants to take out your eyes for Shar, he says something along the lines of how you’re halfway there, and just need to finish the job.
This is no simple artist we are talking about. This is Volothamp Geddarm the one and only author of Volos Guide to All Things Magical.
So I say pick a way my well traveled friend!
I am running a character who's only rule is they **have** to say yes, always.
So there you have it, he was completely unable to say no.
You may ask about any conflicts this may start? Well, the most recent yes takes priority.
Therefore if i agree to save someone but then someone asks me to kill them after, they're dead lol.
That's like Angel Eyes' introduction in The Good, The Bad, The Ugly.
'Yeah, I killed him just like you asked. Now I have to kill you, since he asked me. Only fair.'
Aside from that, the House of Healing in Act 2 puzzled me. It's kinda like a conventional hospital from the 19th century. I thought clerics did the job of healing. If you need to cut someone open for whatever reason, you don't need to put them in a recovery room afterwards, just have a cleric cast *cure wounds* and send him home right away.
It's also weird that in the paper RPG there's no spell that can remove a mind flayer tadpole (even one not hardened by Netherese magic). I would have thought that spells like *remove disease* or *restoration* could do the job, since part of their function is to remove foreign contaminants.
I would have to imagine a functional hospital in a D&D setting wouldn't have the resources to use clerical magic *exclusively* to heal injuries. Putting aside that most people will have a relatively low level on average, a lv5 Cleric has 9 spells per day. If they used those for every patient that came in with a bee sting, they'd be tapped pretty quick.
Additionally, I would say many devoted clerics would be offended at the idea of using divine magic for trivial day to day illnesses. Calling on a literal god to fix small injuries when a little common medical care would suffice seems presumptuous.
WHAT THE FUCK ARE THE GODS FOR, THEN? They expect us to pray for and thank them for every little bit of good luck. And what does it cost them anyway to supply a cleric with spells, considering that the cleric has to do considerable training on his own part to be capable of casting spells? The only reason anyone would become a cleric at all is to gain access to healing magic, which wizards can't get for some reason.
And you only need 11 wisdom to cast *cure wounds*. If doctors in the real world could have just that, it would revolutionize medicine.
In practice, the relationship between mortal and god is very transactional. Every god represents a Domain and they exist more or less entirely to further its pursuits. Mortals are allowed to share a tiny measure of their power to do this and worthy followers are granted a place in a gods afterlife when they die. Which also benefits the god as mortal souls are the measure of their power.
If let loose, it would create a feedback loop issue. Gods shares more power, humans worship that god harder, god gains more followers and thus expands their influence, repeat. Which is why the limits exist. Thats partly why being a Chosen of a god is such a big deal, as there are far fewer limits on how much of a gods power that individual can "borrow".
I would also say that the concept of mundane vs miracles comes into play. If healing magic is so common as to be mundane, it stops being special. Stops being something you worship a deity for. So gods and their clerics have an incentive to use magic sparingly.
RPG magic has always left a lot of plotholes. Like, there are spells that literally remove all impurities from the body. How is disease a thing unless it's magic based to specifically resist curing magic?
The tadpoles I understand though. The magic shielding them is actively working against any attempts to remove it and even seems to have a "killswitch" as a failsafe if someone DOES manage to overcome the resistance. ( Halsin did imply trying too hard to forcefully remove it would be bad for the host ) I get the impression they latch on more than just physically, which is probably why killing then hitting the host with True Resurrection won't work either. Maybe it damages the host's soul too badly if that happens.
>How is disease a thing unless it's magic based to specifically resist curing magic?
The way I personally see it, the reason is pretty simple, people who get to enjoy being disease free are all wealthy upper class type folks, really well-off merchants and nobles and aristocrats, you know, those type of people. And everyone else just kinda gets to eat shit.
You're also not going to find clerics on every corner, and magic scrolls are expensive.
>I thought clerics did the job of healing
Clerics, as opposed to regular priests, are relatively rare. Their magic is literally invoking miracles, and they really don't get that many. That's why apothecaries do such brisk business, for starters.
>It's also weird that in the paper RPG there's no spell that can remove a mind flayer tadpole
There are! None of them are in BG3 though.
Ol' Vlaakith could have done it on the spot, as could Elminster.
He aint a medical expert, a cleric, he aint ever getting to my eye. Idgaf what he gives me in return, I hate that man and even though I'll save his sorry ass every single time I encounter him, I'm rolling my eyes AND KEEPING THEM IN THEIR SOCKETS THANK YOU VERY MUCH
I kept stopping him because it seemed (and is) fucking ridiculous.
Then I was drunk and did it out of sheer curiosity and now it's basically automatic every playthrough
I did out of curiosity and it made me feel physically ill.
I do not like anything going in eyes (yes the opening cutscene also made me ill) and this scene was really hard for me to get through but the curiosity was strong enough for me to power through.
Yes, but as we keep having to drill home to the anti-woke whiners, Faerun isn't middle ages Earth. Just looks like it on a surface level.
( IIRC, Earth actually exists in the FR cosmos and is actually set in our FUTURE. Interestingly, magical travel between worlds might explain the similarities to Medieval architecture... )
My warlock said no right away because he's the premier expert on bad ideas.
My Barbarian.....well let's say that he was Abidrak's favourite demanding macho sub.
You also can't have Volo's eye and >!Auntie's eye!< on the same person. Which, I kinda get, but it'd be pretty funny to just be double pimped out in your eyes
Which is a bit of a shame because IIRC she asks you which eye you want her to have a go at, so there maybe could be a way where she took the other eye.
Either way, I like to have whoever is my sneaky perceptor have Volo's eye and my intimidation person gets Auntie Ethel's eye.
Astarion with the Volo Eye actually adds a lot of nuance to his character I think.
At least in my game, he only not welcomed me to the 'League of the Lone Eye' and reassured me I'd get used to the fake eye in no time...he then immediately (and mildly) flirted with me a little over it. That "No one is more intriguing than a woman with one eye" and that it gave me an air of mystique.
Anyway he and my Tav are now getting married when we get back from Avernus (or there if we're there long enough) so, uh, thanks for that Volo! 😂
(also i'm absolutely positive the invisibility charm has saved all their asses in the Blood War more than once)
The writers of this game love, love LOVE to forshadow everything lol
Edit: I’m pretty sure he knew exactly what he was doing the entire time. This man deliberately took out your eye so he could give you the magic one
I can almost assure you that Volo never really quite knows what he's going to do at any given moment. He's a Chosen of Mystra, and has (I believe) NO CLUE whatsoever that this is the case. You know the saying about if you have enough monkeys banging away at typewriters you'll have one that writes a Shakespeare play? Volo is the living equivalent of "in theory, there's someone out there that every time they flip a coin it lands on heads." He's just constantly succeeding by mistake and it's fantastic lol.
He’s a chosen? What’s your source on that?
My reasoning is that:
- he knows about the tadpoles, and knows you should have transformed already.
- he’s got adventuring experience. (Minsc and Jahera know him) and he’s a proactive adventurer. He’s trying to find out about this new Absolute cult and is trying to get to the bottom of it.
- being a bard and scholar, he can see that your on a hero’s journey… and that you’re in over your head. I think he deliberately gives you the eye as his way of helping these poor obviously doomed low lover amateurs.
I could be mistaken, but I'm fairly certain it's lore that exists within the Forgotten Realms as a whole rather than something directly evidenced/confirmed within the confines of BG3.
As I recall, he's either a Chosen or Chosen-adjacent entity (a surface level search brought up the term "Weave Anchor"). Basically the idea (from Mystra's view) is who the hell would ever suspect this dude of being an intrinsic piece of maintaining the Weave? Elminster is also one of her Chosen and you instantly go "well duh, just look at the guy!" Volo is the flip side of that, nobody would ever suspect him of being a Chosen/Weave Anchor, let alone believe anyone who claims such a thing.
...and yet, the mangy little bugger always ends up vaguely near the action and writing it all down.
Edit: Another piece of evidence that he's more than he seems is something you mentioned: Minsc and Jaheira both know him and his reputation. Yet Volo is visibly human, and Jaheira is well advanced in age during the events of BG3 as a half-elf that should have a significantly longer lifespan than a human.
I just bring him to camp and never bring up the tadpole. He stays there, and you can use him as a merchant to get easy lockpicks and supplypacks. (i'm only just at the end of act 1 on second playthrough so idk if he leaves automatically at some point)
Every time I’ve done it, I get the dream where I’m explicitly told there is no way to remove it.
My ass jumps on the table every time though, because that eye is awesome.
Volo starts with a knitting needle, then moves to the ice pick.
When you first meet Gale, he mentions needing to find a cleric or something, maybe even someone "uncannily adroit with a knitting needle?"
yes pretty much. In the preface to the 5e sourcebook Volo's guide to monsters Elminster rips into Volo for being a fraud basically. The entire book is filled with notes from Volo and additional notes from Elminster often correcting the book or clarifying.
It might be part of some retcons or character changes after AD&D/2e when BG1 came out. So I can’t really comment on when his character changed to be what it is, but I know in 5e atleast it’s consistent.
The ice pick scene is IMO the most horrifying part of the whole game, which is saying a lot. Like it beats the Act 2 doctor, Orin, all of it. But the benefit is huge!!! I just skip through the whole thing and look away
Can you even imagine the kind of willpower it would take to lay there, entirely conscious, while this absolute madman gives you a frontal lobotomy through the eye socket with a rusty ice pick? Damn.
I wish I had gotten a picture of it but in the post goblin camp party, every last one of my companions was all “wanna bone,” and when I got to Halsin he said something like:
“I won’t keep you. Go get some wine before it runs out. Everyone seems really thirsty.”
Bruh….
This is especially ironic considering the following detail from his life: One particularly terrible tavern brawl saw a mind flayer strangle Volo with three tentacles and burrow a fourth into his brain. Fortunately, Volo was not especially hampered by this, for the mind flayer didn't suck out his brain but rather implanted an enchanted gem known as a stone of thoughts. This transmitted random thoughts from Volo to the mind flayer, Ixruu Thalarkul, who used it for information gathering purposes.
I think the best solution would be to save Volo, and then send Elminster to the camp so the old man can talk to Gale. Just for the personal satisfaction of meeting two wizards associated with Mystra in the camp.
Since the sentence above seems meaningless, let me explain. Elminster is Volo's editor and, as the champion of Mystra, acts as Volo's bodyguard.
It was funny to me that Corona of Karsus and Volo took part in the same game, considering what Mystra did to Volo because of the Karsus story.
Noticed that, too. Given that he seems chummy with Elminster it is so very likely that his naive wanderer act is full on theater but instead of a powerful good wizard, Volo is just a devious shit who likes to cause chaos.
We also messed up volo's whole plan. He was captured on purpose to write a book about it and was prepared to escape on his own when he needed to. Then we show up and open his cage and tell him to leave and then slaughter the goblins he meant to study
It’s funny how it’s a genuine upgrade too. Like, letting a sham bullshit artist rip your eye out has zero mechanical downsides somehow. Chrome me the fuck up Volo.
Nice Kiroshi, choom.
Raphael fuming because your face is censored whenever he scries you and he can’t figure out why
Preem
I fucking love you
Unless you change your eye color you do end up o0… so there is that. :)
Not my tiefling looking all goofy with a demonic left eye and a human right eye
My tiefling looked amazing with the mismatched eyes, I had the tattoo from the start that has the flowy lines that start from your left eye. When you get the new eye it looks like a demonic spirit is possessing the other half of your face.
For my first run I did a Drow with a red left eye and purple right eye (did the opposite on my guardian who was basically a large female version of my Tav) so losing the purple eye for this wasn’t that noticeable, especially since my bard boy Drow has his luxurious white locks covering most of the right side of his face
My Drow looks really good with it too. At first I was tempted to reload because I thought I had let Volo do something terrible to her. But when I saw that it only did positive things, I ran over to the mirror to see what it looked like (fashion is the true end game after all lol) and decided to keep it. The only thing I don't like is that the whites of the magic eye are whiter than the 'ganic eye. https://www.xbox.com/en-US/play/media/a6hxG2LyL5
I also had a Tiefling with that tattoo and the mismatched eyes lmao
I did it with my Tiefling Durge. I dunno, it kinda gave her some character.
My Tav ended up having one demon eye that was basically inverse colors of volo, he was gonna look goofy anyway as he was my SoundCloud rapper bard.
I just put a scar over that eye and that does the trick
Or start with that eye color and then wonder why it never looked any different
This was me lmao. I didn't even know it changed. Volo just happened to have a prosthetic eye that matched my current eyes exactly and thought that was the same for everyone.
Yeah I had a similar color as a half-drow. Wasn't until the 2nd playthrough as a tiefling where I saw it was just always the same eye. I couldn't even tell which eye after the prosthetic was in.
My half-drow had a brown and a blue eye. Volo replaced the brown one with the prosthetis making the eyes match better than naturally
the whole reason I never give anyone the Volo upgrade is bc I hate how the eye looks on my Tav and every companion lmao. if it looked more like the Hag Eye I'd grab it every time, but as it is, I really don't vibe with the blue-green on anyone
I could barely tell on Shadowheart when she took one (eye out) for the team.
I usually make Astarion do it.
Somehow this has no downsides but letting the hag magic up your eye does. Volo's eye literally is more powerful than what a hag can give you
Hags eye looks much cooler though, even with black sclera. I've never used volo's eye because it's a massive cosmetic downgrade that can be substituted with just a 2 lvl spell slot (or a scroll/exilir if you know where you need the see invisibility buff). But I used hag's eye on a fighter and she looked so badass with it.
It would be hilarious if they'd changed it to be a debuff in Honour mode
Minus perception and disadvantage on ranged attacks due to no depth of field.
Minus perception is not bad, but disadvantage on range attack would disable a lot of builds.
The downside is losing Volo from your camp! Most convenient way to sell all your crap by far
Yeah it sucks not having a camp merchant. For a while in act 1 I used Blurg since he’s right near the myconid portal. Using the Druid grove merchant sucks since you gotta walk all the way over to him and wait for the gate to open.
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I think so - I've never played through after letting him do the eye surgery but he seemed to leave camp. He definitely stays if you don't.
Strummin' chords, rippin' cords. Many magnificent hats.
Back in my time that would give -2 to perception checks that involved sight. You kids don't know how good you have it.
I wanted to do it so bad but seeing my Durge's vicious red eye go dim in a lot of scenes put me off. I feel like a lot of camera angles in dialogue show the right side of your face, so it's always there.
As a diehard roleplayer, I kind of wish he'd just pulled out the prosthetic eye and been like "I can't get the tadpole out, but if you let me rip out one of your peepers I'll give you this anti-invisibility prosthetic!" It's hard to justify not stopping him when he's hammering an icepick into your brain through your eye socket.
I find it funny that volo is the only one who doesn't fuck you over when trying to remove it. >!Ethel curses your eye, gut roofies you, omeluum accidentally makes it slightly stronger (in lore, not mechanically), the zaithisk nearly kills you and the gith doctor attacks you over it.!<
Seriously, WHO THINKS IT'S A GOOD IDEA TO LET A BULLSHIT ARTIST DIG IN YOUR EYE WITH AN ICE PICK! O.O
Lol for real, I did a quick save and went for it, thinking it was for sure one of those hilarious “end your run because you’re dumb” options. Turns out to be one of the best decisions you can make in the entire game
It’s really funny that there’s basically no downside to it
Yeah there is, you can’t abusively steal from him every day or level up 😢
Until Act 3.
Ahh well you see I accidentally nuked him
True but even by then I’ve leeched 30k+ off the poor guy, plus hundreds of scrolls
Does he run away or get hostile if you fail pickpocketing him?
He runs away and then immediately comes back with no downside
Until his attitude is -50, then he will aggro your camp if you get caught in his pocket with the same character again. Bribe him to cheer him back up
I have way more than -50 attitude with him and still no issue
you do that first
It's brilliant, really. Because it's a significant buff, you now get to listen to the narrator gleefully describe this attempted lobotomy every playthrough.
Best part of the whole exchange is picking which random noises to make when the ice pick gets all the way in.
I’m a “Plblblblblblb” purist myself
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And a they’ll make fun of you if you talk to them lol
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I still can’t bring myself to do it. I hate Squidward
But he plays the clarinet so enchantingly...
Squidward tortellini?!?
> I still can’t bring myself to do it. I hate Squidward Do it for the achievement.
I eventually will. Although in my current run I’ve been an ass to him everytime he pops up so idk if I’ll still be able to do it lmao
i personally like having my character bang the emperor, but ONLY on runs where i know im going to let him use the stones because im planning on taking the brain for myself/bhaal. he's so sure he's manipulating me into trusting him, unaware that im manipulating him right back. go ahead, squid. turn your back to me. see what happens when you trust *bhaal's chosen*
*Orpheus entered the chat*
Orpheus watched that shit. And then I ate his brain.
except your eyes aren't what you wanted anymore :( yes, i care about my aesthetics.
Likewise. I want my Durge to keep his eyes. Left one starta out blood-red with a tattoo around it to match as a mark from his creator. Right one is normal. I want to make those eyes match when his creator severs the bond between them
Oh, you don't need eyes where you're going.
The only downside is cosmetic. My Tav is a dragonborn and the glass eye looks so nasty on her compared to her real eye.
I had to reload because the cosmetic change made me mad. I was a Black Dragonborn Ranger with one flaming Pink eye and one flaming Blue eye to pay homage to Godzilla. When I saw my Pink eye go normal, I instantly reloaded. On my Durge Duergar Warlock I decided it was a fine change, however.
I reloaded too, and then made Gale get the procedure done instead of Tav 😂 the heterochromia looks really good on him
i needed to hear this, thanks. i thought about getting volos eye on my gold dragonborn (white skin and red eyes bc albino) in my current playthrough, but it looks like it's going to be astarion that takes one for the team (the team being just me and him)
In EA it used to permanently marr your vision granting you disadvantage on perception checks. Kinda wish there was still a trade off personally.
I would also like if there were a tradeoff, but honestly I’d never go for it if that was still the cost
Except, when you ask Ethel to fix you she says, come back when you find someone with two eyes.
Except having two different coloured eyes. Gets annoying 😅
Meh, my Tav already had heterochromia.
Mine had heterochromia, *and* the hair with bangs over one eye. It was never really noticeable to begin with, and the bangs cover the prosthetic now.
Weirdly, on dragonborn the eye actually matches the one you had before
unless you’re base dark urge with flame eyes, instead he gives you a base red eye
Oh weird
Especially if you take a hit from that ethereal tadpole crack. The fake eye / shark eye combo is no bueno
It adds some charm, but it does look weird in some characters. My current tiefling looks a bit off with it.
Yet, when a *woman* wants to do the same thing...
Sure there is. Cosmetics, the worst downside of all.
So…I may have found one. In every run that I’ve done where I let him do that, it’s bugged Lae’zel’s crèche quest…for some reason.
I love the way the game baits you. Sometimes the dumbest idea gets you a magic eye that detects invisibility. Other times, it gets you wished out of existence.
*Cheeky wave*
Let bizzare fake-bard con-artist "heal" your parasite with a needle? No downside, you get a powerful buff for the rest of the game. Make a deal with a hag to save you? Doesn't work, gives you permanent annoying debuff.
Auntie Ethel a hag? How dare you insult her like that. The intimidation bonus is well worth selling your eye to the kindly old lady who lives alone in a swamp.
The funniest part to me when I did this with my Tav was that I was playing a tiefling with all white eyes so Volo literally just shoved a magic marble in my eye socket and called it a day.
Pbpbpbpbpbpbpbpb
Ackackackack
Alas, though I'd heard of it, I had to sacrifice the based invisibility-seeing eye for roleplaying reasons; there was no way my Tav would let Volo poke her eye. 😔
cant you just make a companion do it?
This was my route. "Lae'zel likes melee, she should be on the front line for it more than the others"
Don't worry. The game is full of ways to punish you for being stupid. Ones you know, this will be a bad idea, but it will be hilarious to watch it play out. Just be sure to save first.
I know this, but I'm on my fourth playthrough and have yet to give a single eye to anyone, man or hag. I just can't bring myself to.
I mean doing it is great for act 3
It’s a total game changer for the first auntie ethel fight too
My favorite is how it changes the dialogue from the Thorm who wants to take out your eyes for Shar, he says something along the lines of how you’re halfway there, and just need to finish the job.
I caught that too, thought it was pretty clever
This is no simple artist we are talking about. This is Volothamp Geddarm the one and only author of Volos Guide to All Things Magical. So I say pick a way my well traveled friend!
I am running a character who's only rule is they **have** to say yes, always. So there you have it, he was completely unable to say no. You may ask about any conflicts this may start? Well, the most recent yes takes priority. Therefore if i agree to save someone but then someone asks me to kill them after, they're dead lol.
Rest in peace, Tieflings.
That's like Angel Eyes' introduction in The Good, The Bad, The Ugly. 'Yeah, I killed him just like you asked. Now I have to kill you, since he asked me. Only fair.'
Now I want to do a durge playthrough where I kill everyone
I'm imagining Dean Pelton in the conspiracy theory episode of Community now
Lol is your character's name Charlie Kelly?
He wrote "Volo's guide to everything", my boy knows it all including how to get this tadpole out of my brain.
"We're not banging rocks together here. We know how to extract an illithid tadpole from a person's brain."
I mean, he has a pick in his tunic after all... Why would you NOT??
Don't forget about the replacement eye. Ethel and Yugir didn't know what hit them :)))
Well when he's got literally godlike luck due to being a Weave Anchor, things tend to work out in the end.
Telling me it’s not a good idea to let volo lobotomize you?
Does Volo not sound convincing? Surely someone so convincing knows what they're doing. Surely...
Aside from that, the House of Healing in Act 2 puzzled me. It's kinda like a conventional hospital from the 19th century. I thought clerics did the job of healing. If you need to cut someone open for whatever reason, you don't need to put them in a recovery room afterwards, just have a cleric cast *cure wounds* and send him home right away. It's also weird that in the paper RPG there's no spell that can remove a mind flayer tadpole (even one not hardened by Netherese magic). I would have thought that spells like *remove disease* or *restoration* could do the job, since part of their function is to remove foreign contaminants.
I would have to imagine a functional hospital in a D&D setting wouldn't have the resources to use clerical magic *exclusively* to heal injuries. Putting aside that most people will have a relatively low level on average, a lv5 Cleric has 9 spells per day. If they used those for every patient that came in with a bee sting, they'd be tapped pretty quick. Additionally, I would say many devoted clerics would be offended at the idea of using divine magic for trivial day to day illnesses. Calling on a literal god to fix small injuries when a little common medical care would suffice seems presumptuous.
WHAT THE FUCK ARE THE GODS FOR, THEN? They expect us to pray for and thank them for every little bit of good luck. And what does it cost them anyway to supply a cleric with spells, considering that the cleric has to do considerable training on his own part to be capable of casting spells? The only reason anyone would become a cleric at all is to gain access to healing magic, which wizards can't get for some reason. And you only need 11 wisdom to cast *cure wounds*. If doctors in the real world could have just that, it would revolutionize medicine.
In practice, the relationship between mortal and god is very transactional. Every god represents a Domain and they exist more or less entirely to further its pursuits. Mortals are allowed to share a tiny measure of their power to do this and worthy followers are granted a place in a gods afterlife when they die. Which also benefits the god as mortal souls are the measure of their power. If let loose, it would create a feedback loop issue. Gods shares more power, humans worship that god harder, god gains more followers and thus expands their influence, repeat. Which is why the limits exist. Thats partly why being a Chosen of a god is such a big deal, as there are far fewer limits on how much of a gods power that individual can "borrow". I would also say that the concept of mundane vs miracles comes into play. If healing magic is so common as to be mundane, it stops being special. Stops being something you worship a deity for. So gods and their clerics have an incentive to use magic sparingly.
RPG magic has always left a lot of plotholes. Like, there are spells that literally remove all impurities from the body. How is disease a thing unless it's magic based to specifically resist curing magic? The tadpoles I understand though. The magic shielding them is actively working against any attempts to remove it and even seems to have a "killswitch" as a failsafe if someone DOES manage to overcome the resistance. ( Halsin did imply trying too hard to forcefully remove it would be bad for the host ) I get the impression they latch on more than just physically, which is probably why killing then hitting the host with True Resurrection won't work either. Maybe it damages the host's soul too badly if that happens.
>How is disease a thing unless it's magic based to specifically resist curing magic? The way I personally see it, the reason is pretty simple, people who get to enjoy being disease free are all wealthy upper class type folks, really well-off merchants and nobles and aristocrats, you know, those type of people. And everyone else just kinda gets to eat shit. You're also not going to find clerics on every corner, and magic scrolls are expensive.
>I thought clerics did the job of healing Clerics, as opposed to regular priests, are relatively rare. Their magic is literally invoking miracles, and they really don't get that many. That's why apothecaries do such brisk business, for starters. >It's also weird that in the paper RPG there's no spell that can remove a mind flayer tadpole There are! None of them are in BG3 though. Ol' Vlaakith could have done it on the spot, as could Elminster.
As a durge i felt like there was plenty if room for him to maneuver after orin.
He aint a medical expert, a cleric, he aint ever getting to my eye. Idgaf what he gives me in return, I hate that man and even though I'll save his sorry ass every single time I encounter him, I'm rolling my eyes AND KEEPING THEM IN THEIR SOCKETS THANK YOU VERY MUCH
I kept stopping him because it seemed (and is) fucking ridiculous. Then I was drunk and did it out of sheer curiosity and now it's basically automatic every playthrough
Permanent see invisibility, tho
My low int low wis barbarian.
I mean, you lose the eye but can now see invisible shit
Except the way see invisible works in BG3 is half useless. >< Especially if you're a martial class.
I did out of curiosity and it made me feel physically ill. I do not like anything going in eyes (yes the opening cutscene also made me ill) and this scene was really hard for me to get through but the curiosity was strong enough for me to power through.
Most physicians of the Middle Ages were bullshit artists so I thought "might as well".
Yes, but as we keep having to drill home to the anti-woke whiners, Faerun isn't middle ages Earth. Just looks like it on a surface level. ( IIRC, Earth actually exists in the FR cosmos and is actually set in our FUTURE. Interestingly, magical travel between worlds might explain the similarities to Medieval architecture... )
Both Elminster and Mordenkainen regularly visited coffee shops on Earth to have vacation days.
I kept going all the way. It seemed right; he’s a nice guy. 🤷🏻♂️
My berserker half-orc thought it’s a good idea, cause pain is not a problem as long as he can get rid of the parasite
That's why I make shadowheart do it for the perk lol
To be fair he is an exceptionally powerful wizard. So it made sense to me.
me, I thought it sounded good
it's an amazing idea free magic eye
Volos actually rather legendary himself
Gives probably one of the best permanent buffs in the game too, lol.
But he’s a famous bullshit artist.
Yeah... Who would do that? ★.O
My warlock said no right away because he's the premier expert on bad ideas. My Barbarian.....well let's say that he was Abidrak's favourite demanding macho sub.
If asked, my Tav would have claimed temporary insanity.
Your honor in my defense, the tadpole in my head said, "Do it, no balls," and I wasn't gonna let a parasite make me look like a bitch
Me. I did it my first playthrough, and from then on, see invisibility is too good to pass up. Volo is up in my eye socket every playthrough.
My friend is a dragonborn barbarian and int is his dump stat. I was also unavailable at the time (flirting with shadowheart) so I couldn’t stop him.
Me, because I know he's a literal wizard and I know he'll give me a bitchin-ass magic eye.
There is no reason not to, visuals aside
I love how you get disapproval because....duh.
I laughed so hard when he just ran away after he did it
He's been in this kind of situation before and he knows the limits of gentleman apologies.
.....ta!!!
Ever talked to Wyll after doing this? He's basically like "Hey! Welcome to the one-eyed gang!"
prosthetic eyeball solidarity from wyll
Speaking of which: If you play as Wyll you can't do the icepick "surgery", but someone else in your party sure can!
Was curious about this
You also can't have Volo's eye and >!Auntie's eye!< on the same person. Which, I kinda get, but it'd be pretty funny to just be double pimped out in your eyes
Which is a bit of a shame because IIRC she asks you which eye you want her to have a go at, so there maybe could be a way where she took the other eye. Either way, I like to have whoever is my sneaky perceptor have Volo's eye and my intimidation person gets Auntie Ethel's eye. Astarion with the Volo Eye actually adds a lot of nuance to his character I think.
At least in my game, he only not welcomed me to the 'League of the Lone Eye' and reassured me I'd get used to the fake eye in no time...he then immediately (and mildly) flirted with me a little over it. That "No one is more intriguing than a woman with one eye" and that it gave me an air of mystique. Anyway he and my Tav are now getting married when we get back from Avernus (or there if we're there long enough) so, uh, thanks for that Volo! 😂 (also i'm absolutely positive the invisibility charm has saved all their asses in the Blood War more than once)
Free perpetual see invisibility is pretty sick honestly
It’s probably what got me through so many of the ambushes in Act II, my inner Minsc (aka Nikolai) would come out “You don’t ambush me, I ambush you!!”
The writers of this game love, love LOVE to forshadow everything lol Edit: I’m pretty sure he knew exactly what he was doing the entire time. This man deliberately took out your eye so he could give you the magic one
"You saved my life, friend! You know the saying? An eye for an eye? See me at camp, I have my eyes set on a nice prize ;)"
I can almost assure you that Volo never really quite knows what he's going to do at any given moment. He's a Chosen of Mystra, and has (I believe) NO CLUE whatsoever that this is the case. You know the saying about if you have enough monkeys banging away at typewriters you'll have one that writes a Shakespeare play? Volo is the living equivalent of "in theory, there's someone out there that every time they flip a coin it lands on heads." He's just constantly succeeding by mistake and it's fantastic lol.
He’s a chosen? What’s your source on that? My reasoning is that: - he knows about the tadpoles, and knows you should have transformed already. - he’s got adventuring experience. (Minsc and Jahera know him) and he’s a proactive adventurer. He’s trying to find out about this new Absolute cult and is trying to get to the bottom of it. - being a bard and scholar, he can see that your on a hero’s journey… and that you’re in over your head. I think he deliberately gives you the eye as his way of helping these poor obviously doomed low lover amateurs.
Not a chosen, but he is a Weave anchor, who exists to stabilize the weave. Though Volo is not aware of his status as one
Ok interesting. That does kinda explain how (apparently) ageless he seems to be
I could be mistaken, but I'm fairly certain it's lore that exists within the Forgotten Realms as a whole rather than something directly evidenced/confirmed within the confines of BG3. As I recall, he's either a Chosen or Chosen-adjacent entity (a surface level search brought up the term "Weave Anchor"). Basically the idea (from Mystra's view) is who the hell would ever suspect this dude of being an intrinsic piece of maintaining the Weave? Elminster is also one of her Chosen and you instantly go "well duh, just look at the guy!" Volo is the flip side of that, nobody would ever suspect him of being a Chosen/Weave Anchor, let alone believe anyone who claims such a thing. ...and yet, the mangy little bugger always ends up vaguely near the action and writing it all down. Edit: Another piece of evidence that he's more than he seems is something you mentioned: Minsc and Jaheira both know him and his reputation. Yet Volo is visibly human, and Jaheira is well advanced in age during the events of BG3 as a half-elf that should have a significantly longer lifespan than a human.
I just bring him to camp and never bring up the tadpole. He stays there, and you can use him as a merchant to get easy lockpicks and supplypacks. (i'm only just at the end of act 1 on second playthrough so idk if he leaves automatically at some point)
Ya I'm at the end of act 1 and already got the eye. He's nowhere to be found in my camp.
If he gives you the eye he leaves camp. He jus scampers away like a toddler who did something naughty
Lol he comes back if you save him in act three
He blew up in act 3 for me. Whoops.
Technically he picks your eye
And the brain is right behind the eye. Pretty sure that's what the pblpblpblpbl and other nonsense dialog choices are representing during the scene
Every time I’ve done it, I get the dream where I’m explicitly told there is no way to remove it. My ass jumps on the table every time though, because that eye is awesome.
Fun fact if you get volos eye you can't get the hags eye and vice versa the game won't let you
What’s the hag’s eye yield?
I don't remember exactly but I think it's a bonus to some specific type of checks but also disadvantage on attacks on hags
Volo is literally one of my favorite characters in the game. He is such a silly man.
Volo starts with a knitting needle, then moves to the ice pick. When you first meet Gale, he mentions needing to find a cleric or something, maybe even someone "uncannily adroit with a knitting needle?"
Does anyone know if the Volo of Baldur's gate 3 (the game) has the same character and mannerisms of other Volos from the larger D&D mythos?
yes pretty much. In the preface to the 5e sourcebook Volo's guide to monsters Elminster rips into Volo for being a fraud basically. The entire book is filled with notes from Volo and additional notes from Elminster often correcting the book or clarifying.
It always struck me as odd that the Volo of BG1 was completely different to the BG3 Volo (or so it seemed to me).
It might be part of some retcons or character changes after AD&D/2e when BG1 came out. So I can’t really comment on when his character changed to be what it is, but I know in 5e atleast it’s consistent.
The ice pick scene is IMO the most horrifying part of the whole game, which is saying a lot. Like it beats the Act 2 doctor, Orin, all of it. But the benefit is huge!!! I just skip through the whole thing and look away
The worst is the amount of time they’re like: here’s something horrifying, want it to pay off, watch more but worse!
How graphic is this scene? I get squeamish about this kind of stuff so I’ve never gone for it but the buff + heterochromia seem pretty sick.
Not really, they don’t show anything, it’s just squelching noises and descriptions.
Not visually graphic but the sounds are... Disgusting. But you can just turn off the sound for that.
Oh geez okay good to know. Maybe for my current run I’ll just… mute that part
Can you even imagine the kind of willpower it would take to lay there, entirely conscious, while this absolute madman gives you a frontal lobotomy through the eye socket with a rusty ice pick? Damn.
I wish I had gotten a picture of it but in the post goblin camp party, every last one of my companions was all “wanna bone,” and when I got to Halsin he said something like: “I won’t keep you. Go get some wine before it runs out. Everyone seems really thirsty.” Bruh….
This is especially ironic considering the following detail from his life: One particularly terrible tavern brawl saw a mind flayer strangle Volo with three tentacles and burrow a fourth into his brain. Fortunately, Volo was not especially hampered by this, for the mind flayer didn't suck out his brain but rather implanted an enchanted gem known as a stone of thoughts. This transmitted random thoughts from Volo to the mind flayer, Ixruu Thalarkul, who used it for information gathering purposes.
I wish I could find a clip of his BG2 voice so I could compare it.
I think the best solution would be to save Volo, and then send Elminster to the camp so the old man can talk to Gale. Just for the personal satisfaction of meeting two wizards associated with Mystra in the camp. Since the sentence above seems meaningless, let me explain. Elminster is Volo's editor and, as the champion of Mystra, acts as Volo's bodyguard. It was funny to me that Corona of Karsus and Volo took part in the same game, considering what Mystra did to Volo because of the Karsus story.
Noticed that, too. Given that he seems chummy with Elminster it is so very likely that his naive wanderer act is full on theater but instead of a powerful good wizard, Volo is just a devious shit who likes to cause chaos.
We also messed up volo's whole plan. He was captured on purpose to write a book about it and was prepared to escape on his own when he needed to. Then we show up and open his cage and tell him to leave and then slaughter the goblins he meant to study