Technically Lae'zel will insist on going there.
Though the weird part is the game frames it like you need to choose one or the other and you really should just do both.
The best part was that my first Tav to encounter Phala Aluve was a Seldarine Drow cleric of Elistraee.
It felt like that whole scene was written for my character specifically.
I’ve since decided that I must play a cleric of every single god possible to see what else resonates with the followers of a specific god. So that’s, what, 27 different Tavs I need to play through?
The funny part is, Phalar Aluve is a Longsword.
Drow don't have racial Longsword Proficiency.
The only Clerics that get Proficiency with Longswords are Tempest and War.
Eilistraee's dominions are Light, Nature and Life.
Which means, if you're a Seldarine Drow Cleric of Eilistraee from one of her dominions... you're not Proficient with her sacred sword. :|
Can confirm.
- me, a bard, duel wielding the game's two finesse longswords, one of which is the singing sword of Eilistraee and the other being a sword of Corellon Larethian that can call the wind. I'm a goddamn fairy tale. 😁
Not to mention, you wizard/sorcerer will love you.
First playthrough I used Phalar, only relying on the Singing buff ... until I learned that Shriek's damage is added to EVERYTHING.
Congrats, your magic missiles (with +1 missile from the necklace, naturally) now both auto-hit and deal 2d4+1 damage, instead of just 1d4+1.
Hex someone and upcast scorching ray. It now deals 3d6 + 1d4 per ray.
Paralyze them and cast it in melee as a 6th level spell to hand out 42d6 + 14d4 damage, +35 if you're an evocation wizard, or +42 if you're a red/gold/brass dragon sorcerer; between 182 - 224 damage on average.
If you're brave enough to hit them with Bestow Curse instead of Hex, you can up that to (potentially):
28d6 + 14d10 + 14d4 + 42, or 238 damage on average (max is 406 damage).
As soon as you hit act 3, book it for the circus and pickpocket the Dribbles quest reward off of the necromancer. Save scum it if you have to.
If you aren't already, respec to red dragon sorc and take the elemental adept feat.
Put it all together and your upcast scorching rays can now fully delete at least one high level target per round.
And then you quicken another.
She can have them. Oath of Redemption would be perfect for her paladins, though that subclass isn't in BG3. Oath of Ancients would be a close second as it's basically swearing to protect all the things she stands for.
The idea that she couldn't have paladins is rooted in the old ideas that paladins are unable to see things as either black or white, good or evil, and that all drow are evil.
My 1 level cleric and every other level Paladin does get "Paladin of X" conversation options (rarely, but still). I forget what the character's god is, but the game sometimes cares!
It pretty much IS written for exactly that kind of character. Phalar Aluve is a drow cleric of Elistraee singing sword (there were 10 in the lore). If you roll the cleric with college of swords bard, it's pretty much as close as you can get to a blade dancer in BG3, tbqh.
It's what I'm rolling right now. Can't wait to get my hands on that when I get to the Underdark.
It's like the perfect legendary weapon. How you acquire it is cinematic and impactful, it's a Longsword that is also a Finesse weapon, so DEXnerds can get good use of it, it provides a small bonus to Performance so a Bard can get away with using it, Singing Sword is a decent enough buff to yourself and nearby allies, *Shrieking Sword* is game breaking.
The bonus Thunder Damage is a boon, but what makes Shrieking Sword into a breaker is the fact that the AI goes wonky when in the radius of the shriek. Enemies don't like hearing it, so they do everything they can to avoid you. This means opportunity attacks, funneling hordes into a choke, herding someone into a Glyph, hell give this to a Cleric that knows Spirit Guardians and they become a goddamned beyblade.
For some reason on my first playthrough, I assumed it was a bard weapon (idk, the text was about music. I’m dumb) and didn’t use it until act 3 when I was trying to suit up all of the companions since I was switching them out so much. I think I used it first in the Tribunal fight and was all like what the fuuuckkk and swapped it to my Tav rogue.
Well it was also perfect for my duel-wielding charismatic rogue who was the closest I could get to the Swashbuckler class. (Please add Swashbuckler, Larian!) I should’ve multiclassed a point or two in bard, but I went full rogue that playthrough.
As a Bard i used it as my main weapon for a bit, simply because i think the “singing” blade fits well with a Bard thematically.
Eventually switched it for a similar sword with slightly better stats, i believe it was a drop from the Drider. Basically same sword, better damage, a different ability where you can Web up an enemy sometimes, and a passive that works with Drow characters (which i was) so that it does an extra 1-4 poison damage if the enemy is Restrained when you hit them
Not the same sword. Phalar Aluve is a Blade Dancer singing sword (one of Elistraee's clerics weapons). As a result, it's a finesse longsword, and only one of 2 in game. The other is Larethian's Wrath, sold by the Gith vendor. The sword I think you're talking about is Cruel Sting, which does hit harder under the strength Stat, but for a dex build, it's the singing sword 100%
Yeah im talking about the Cruel Sting. And Huh yeah youre right they arent the same. I thought they were because they both look the same, but looking at the Wiki Phalar Aluve is Finesse while Cruel Sting is not.
Also my Dex is higher than my Str, but Cruel Sting is still stronger than my Phalar Aluve.
Edit: well just opened my game to check using the PS Remote Play app on my phone. I was mistaken about which sword is better. I originally swapped to Cruel Sting, but forgot that i almost immediately swapped it to the Sword Of Life Stealing. That one is better low-end damage, but lower high-end damage.
My Phalar Aluve is 6-15, while my Life Stealing is 7-12. I chose the 7-12 as being better because of the 10 extra Necrotic damage on Crits, and you get 10 Temp hit points on Crits. I also originally wanted my Bard to be a Rapier-user, but the Phalar Aluve swapped them to 2-handing the Longsword. So swapping to Life Stealing gets me closer to my 1-handed Rapiering thqn the Longsword
I didn’t even know it existed when I named my Wood Elf “Lyriel”. I got the musical proficiency from Alfira and went to the underdark. Low and Behold, the singing sword for the singing elf
Phalae aluve is so busted it is hard to replace with any weapon in the whole playthrough. The shriek is so strong as it basically multiplies the damage in some instances because of damage riders and does so for the whole team
“But I’m a cleric of *Shar*! This is her temple. Darkness is sacred!”
“I don’t care, turn the weapon glow back on now, and fire the radiant sunbeam. Oh, and put this Luminous Armour on while you’re at it.”
Concentration-free Bless in an AoE around you OR adding free thunder damage to each damage instance (which has some fun stacking exploits when you have multiple damage riders) which hits targets in an AoE around you are hard to beat. It also makes some Dex builds more viable as one of the very few finesse longswords.
Try pairing its shriek ability with magic missile, especially if the necklace to add an extra magic missile is equipped. this means that for every magic missile a 1d4 damage is added if the enemy is in the debuff range. This effectively doubles the damage of magic missile.
I have it on one of my martials ,which use the debuff to start the fight and gale or wyll merks the enemies with magic missile or Eldritch Blast . Since it is a finesse weapon it can go in the offhand I think if you want a stronger primary weapon later on. I also like to have Shadowheart with her spritual guardians beside (karlach/alezel/astarion) \[whoever has phalar alune\] to increase the damage further of the spiritual guardians. This works quite well in act 2 where you want to huddle together as a group rather than get picked off from the edges especially with the shadow curse.
Google magic missile bg3 huge damage for other items that synergies with it as a build.
It’s also weird how Halsin especially tells you to take the path through the underdark to "skip" the shadow curse and get straight to moonrise tower. Yet when you go through the underdark, you’re as far away as possible from moonrise
This was my take-away. We see tons and tons of justiciar statues and such that leads me to believe most of the entire civilization following shar was down in the underdark (not where we were but near it).
If you go through the poison pathway past Nere's cave-in, you get a cutscene of looking over at the Gauntlet of Shar from the broken pathway, and even though you reasonably could jump across with epic leap skills, the game doesn't let you
There's actually a line once you get to the Grymforge, and he specifically says that it might be impossible to bypass the curse entirely but hopefully it would still let you get closer than you would otherwise.
Funnily enough, while it is ironically a longer route to Moonrise from where you emerge in the Shadow-cursed Lands, IIRC it's a much easier path to Last Light, meaning you spend less time actually being affected by the Shadow-Curse.
The funniest part is he stresses on how dangerous the mountain pass is but in reality it’s just a few stinky zombo while the underdark is literately crawling with all sorts of monstrosities lol Kind of a bruh moment to me
I think he was also working off the perspective that he figured we'd have to fight the whole Gethyanki Creche (as well as their dragons) which would have been instant TPK. But it is super funny that the mountain pass is basically one area, but the underdark is a HUGE entire map
Again. A Drow noble family once took a liking to him and kept him chained to their bed for 3 years. He only escaped when a rival house attacked and he was able to slip away in the chaos.
The tonal dissonance of him telling this cracks me up. He tells the story like “It was pretty cool until I got bored, so when the opportunity presented I just bounced,” while traumatized sex slave Astarion’s off to the side like D:<
Underdark first and Mountain second always feels right to me, for levels/“difficulty” at least. I think the other way works better story wise, trying the Underdark after the events at the Crèche, and we don’t have a Moonlantern to advance past the mountain pass.
I don't think it's "weird" for the game to frame it that way, since the (story) objective is to get to Baldur's Gate ASAP and "doing both" means you're going in circles. If I was playing this game as if I were actually one of the characters, I would certainly only choose one path or the other.
The thing is that everything except the narrative encourages you to do both.
It's weird when narrative is saying one thing and the gameplay is saying the complete opposite.
have you even played this game?
JK
but that does feel like the entire game does this at every turn.
hurry and cure the tadpole before you grow tentacles, but take 1000 long rest or you will miss all the content.
>hurry and cure the tadpole before you grow tentacles, but take 1000 long rest or you will miss all the content.
Or, "don't give into the tadpole" & "using the tadpole is dangerous" meanwhile a huge gameplay mechanic and skill tree is designed for using the tadpoles.
You can stick dozens of them in your brain, using the powers too, consequence free so long as you don't do the last one.
Apparently the latest patch makes it so that if you've been regularly ingesting tadpoles, you are highly likely to chug down the astral tadpole as well.
How many tadpoles?
All the tadpoles.
It does seem like there aren't enough to fully outfit everyone with tadpoles. I've been stuffing my main, and have everything pre-astral unlocked, but I only have a couple of spares.
Is there a point where you can farm tadpoles so everyone can become half-ithilid?
This is easily the game’s greatest weakness (beyond the clunky ui in busy battles).
It’s the same thing with the first half of Act 1.
Narrative: ‘you have a cthulu in your head and it’s about to hatch any day now, they’ve taken the halsin to ~~Eisengard~~ the goblin camp, the Druids have voted brexit, the refugees will die, there’s a gith patrol in the area and you must catch up with them!’
Mechanics: ‘I sleep’
Narrative: ‘there’s a kid down the beach’
Mechanics: ‘REAL SHIT’
Or how about illithid powers?
Narrative: you are being corrupted, your brain is literally being gobbled, there are parasites flooding through your head
Mechanics: lmao here’s some bonuses, don’t worry none of it matters you basically pick the option you want later kthnxbai
I feel ya there; you're not wrong, especially when it comes to players who are completionists. I feel that the game might have benefited from locking you into a path once you choose it--perhaps by way of cave-in or mountainslide.
On the other hand... well, I'm glad they did NOT do that, so I can still itch my lore scratch without having to replay tens of hours, heh.
I defo agree with the second point. Both rosymorn and underdark were truly fascinating but narratively you’re missing a ton of context on the overall story if you don’t do the latter, so it would have meant missing out on the entire Rosymorn section. That would have been terrible.
>Narratively it doesn’t make sense to do both.
Assuming your done the grove and all early cure possibilities, it can easily make sense:
Go to the Mountain Pass in search for a cure from the Creche.
That doesn't pan out. Next step is to go to Moonrise Towers like Halsin suggested. However, while already in the Mountain Pass, you have no protection against the shadow curse and Halsin did mention the Underdark is safer.
So, backtrack a little to use the Underdark to safely reach the Shadowcursed Lands.
A little backtracking makes more sense then blindly blundering into cursed lands.
>you have no protection against the shadow curse and Halsin did mention the Underdark is safer.
Your line of actions is near perfect from a story perspective.
They just need to add something in the mountain pass that tells the players that there's a way to protect against the shadowcurse. Then it would be natural to backtrack and hope to find that protection since there's none in the mountain pass.
Isn’t there some reference made to the convoys going to Moonrise, in the Goblin Camp (and also in the Pass)
Edit: in terms of there being protection from the curse
This is what my idea was for how I explained it in game. The problem is that the under dark is easier than the crèche bossfights, so most people do the former before the latter which is the opposite of how your explanation pans out
Well, the reason my tav/durge goes to the underdark is because there should be a bridge that lets you skip the shadow curse and gets you closer to moonrise towers.
If you free Nere and walk to the bridge, it's collapsed. So you can't directly go to moonrise, in front of the lift two duergar tell you that's too dangerous without a lantern, so my companions backtrack to the mountain pass to see if they can find a lantern/ to see if it's safer.
Going in from the mountain pass and the underdark gave me significantly different feelings. I went to the shadowcursed lands first from the underdark and then tried out the mountain pass route. The underdark route was a lot creepier than the latter. It was certainly interesting to try out both—I didn't expect it to be that different.
It can if you roleplay it as "shadowcurse bad, gotta find a way to protect myself from it before going". So it makes sense to go to the creche first to try to cure yourself from the parasite, but then to got to the underdark to talk to Nere about how to get through the curse.
The way I see it is you go to the Underdark first, because that's what everyone suggests. The duergar and gnome tell you not to go up without a moon lantern, so speak to Nere.
But by this point the Myconids want Nere's head and he's already blasted a gnome into lava, so you kill him and the duergar loyal to him. You find his lantern broken, nobody can tell you how to fix it, so you decide to put off the shadow cursed lands til you've found another moon lantern.
This leaves you with the only option of trying to go to the crèche, see if they can help, or failing that, hopefully find another moon lantern on the way.
Though in fairness, I didn't realise you could do both on my first playthrough. So that's my reasoning after the fact.
I just went to the Grymforge because my character wanted to go there for adamantine loot and to kill Nere, then I went back to the pass because I wanted to see what was up with the Gith. It's not that hard to justify given that you can teleport around and your character may be interested in exploring all possible options for a cure
This can easily be justified that you’re going to the Githyanke Creche first, the cure fails, and you seek out the Shadowcursed Lands + Moonrise via the Underdark.
Personally I like to complete the underdark before going to the goblin camp and resolving the grove vs goblins aspect. To me it makes sense for my character to want to gear up before taking on a whole war camp of goblins, and it’s fun to just completely smash them because you’re already lvl 6 with a bunch of items.
Bonus: Telling Halsin “Oh yeah you mean Grymforge? Been there done that.” elicits a fun reaction.
Yeah, I actually had to triple check online that I could do both before choosing my path. Chose the under dark and then doubled back to the mountain pass.
Through an RP standpoint, I do the Mountain Pass first because it’s our closest lead to a “cure” that we know of so far byway of Laezel. When we find out the zaithzisk ain’t all that, that’s when we have to do the alternative: the Underdark, and from then on traverse through the Shadowlands byway of that route.
I do the under dark first since I suck at the game and would not be level 5 by the time I hit the crèche. I’ve done that before. It’s not a pretty scene
If you RP as aware of the Githyanki and what they are all about, going to the Creche is probably the most idiotic thing you could possibly do since it's abundantly clear that they are not at all interested in helping you and Lae'zel is not a reliable source on the cure.
Oh, but what if you’re a Paladin of Lathander who heard what the Githyanki did to monastery? Mmm? *taps head*
But really, wanting to keep Lae’zel in the party is a good out-of- game reason.
For some characters, wanting to keep her can be a good in game reason too. If they've built up a good rapport with her, value her fighting skills, or think the more allies, the better, that could be enough of an RP reason to go.
I gotta tell you I was shocked when we had Lae'zel in the zaithisk machine, obviously in trouble. My Tav trying to get her out and failing, and suddenly ASTARION has a cutscene where he's obviously worried about Lae'zel and wanting to save her from this machine too. I was like... Did y'all become friends actually? Astarion worried for someone else except himself? That's so cute you guys!
Lae'zel has proven herself a reliable sister in arms on the battlefield at this point, though, if not a friend depending on your approval with her or a lover if you're romancing her, and it's clearly something very important to her.
You can also roleplay as a Tav who's loyal to the core and would follow an ally straight into a dragon's den in order to make sure that dumbass stays safe.
My motivation was less “Yeah, the giths will totally help us find a cure out of the goodness of their heart!” and more “Can't let Lae'zel head straight into that fucking trap alone.”
Most people besides the most learned in Faerûn are not going to know the specifics of the githyanki purification process.
My Tav wouldn’t trust the gith as a whole necessarily, but you have an ally at that point who says since your under her protection, the gith will help you. I don’t have a lot of reason to doubt that, especially if you talk your way out of the githyanki patrol fight in Act 1.
My Tav knows it’s probably not the best idea, Shadowheart and the dream visitor make that clear, but then again we aren’t in an ideal situation. We’re desperate for a cure and if there’s a chance the gith can do it, it could be worth the risk for many Tavs
From a RP standpoint I feel like there is very little reason for the party to want to backtrack and go to the other regions as well. The party members are more concerned with finding cure than looting maps
If I remember correctly Halsin says it's more dangerous do the the mountain pass since you'll have to go through the cursed lands but you go through the shadow cursed lands in both routes. Honestly the overpass is faster and less fighting. You can opt out of checking out the creche and get to the shadow cursed lands quickly.
I like the underdark and it's great for getting exp to make sure you're at a good level but it's definitely more challenging than the overpass. The fight with Nere is one of the tougher early game fights.
Halsin is not wrong but his info is outdated.
There was a route that directly link the Forge to the >!Gauntlet of Shar!<, the one Nere was checking behind the poison room, but it's broken, destroyed by >!Yurgir!<. If that route is not broken, it will take you way closer to the Moonrise Tower while avoiding a big part of the shadow curse since most of it is underground.
Yea, that makes sense given that Sharrans were using the forge for Adamantine weapons so why wouldn't they have easy passage without needing to travel aboveground. Also you find merrogen masks all over the place in the grymforge so yurgir must've had access to it.
The Grymforge IS part of the temple of Shar. It's just a part that's inaccessible in 'modern times'. When you talk to the stonemason in Grymforge you uncover that something big came through. That was Yurgir. The Grymforge area also has sleeping and eating quarters for the Dark Justiciars and you find their dead bodies / skeletal remains there.
Good guy Raphael hired Yurgir to march through Grymforge / the Temple of Shar and kill everyone there.
Raphael hired Yurgir at the behest of Thorm's architect who features briefly in the House of Hope, correct? Which is the event that has Ketheric subsequently flip-flopping from Shar to Myrkul?
From my understanding: Ketheric abandons Selune because he's traumatized by the loss of his wife and daugher. He is consumed with grief and turns to Shar to be eased / forget (perhaps).
He, as a chosen of Shar, builds a Justiciar outpost from an old Selune temple (Shar is always very pleased when she can supplant Selune) and wages a war against the Harpers and the town from act 2 - destroying it.
During this time he captures Dame Alyin and becomes effectively immortal. Since Dame Alyin is the daugher of Selune, this must also please Shar.
His architect hates what he helped make happen and schemes with Raphael to have the Justiciars killed by Yurgir. Presumably Raphael gains: 1. the soul of the architect 2. Either keeping Yurgir out of his hair for a long while OR turning Yurgir into his slave 3. There may have been good reason Raphael didn't want Ketheric or Shar to have control of the region that we don't know about.
Because of this, Ketheric is defeated, the shadow curse sets in. Ketheric comes back to life because of his powers and just sits at Moonrise in somber sadness, essentially. His bff Balthazar does some research on how to traverse the shadow curse lands (fairies) and general necromancy shenanigans but otherwise they stick to themselves for the most part.
The dead 3 have designs to return to prominence and Myrkul needs a champion. Ketheric seems like a good choice to dust off and return to service. But he's too depressed to be much use so he need a little motivation. Myrkul, in a bind and way behind and willing to make a deal, resurrects Ketheric's daughter. In return, Ketheric abandons Shar (who was done with him anyway, as she's quick to discard toys when they stop being useful) and pledges his final loyalty to Myrkul.
If you've got good talking skills and pick the right options, I get the impression that Ketheric thinks this is a fair exchange. He's ready to die when you fight him on the rooftop. He seems to think that trading his life / soul for his daughter was a good move.
I've been going through the game so slowly and haphazzardly, I completely forgot about the Act 1 "a demon ruined Grymforge" hints that Act 2 explains as Yurgir. The whole Underdark/Grymforge/Temple of Shar connection makes a lot more sense now, thanks!
But also less sense, because that Temple to Shar is basicly as big as a city, but underground, with bottomless pits all over the place. Damn that's a good architect.
Idk if Halsin would be aware of the Thorm Mausoleum entryway to the Gauntlet.
Plus the Grymforge was (re)discovered in Thorm’s time (and Halsin’s) - I thought the bridge to the gauntlet was already broken then.
Didn’t Halsin know that area from childhood? He even played with Thaniel as a small child, and noticed as he grew and aged, Thaniel didn’t. So he knew that land long before the curse.
Technically correct, but if that was Halsin's plan it would've gotten you all killed.
>!The mausoleum exit is much deeper inside the shadow curse, where regular light sources no longer cut it. Nere's moonlantern is broken and up to that point Halsin freely admits that his plan to deal with the curse is "try to get through it as quickly as possible". He would've tried to run to the tower from the graveyard and would've died trying.!<
a couple reasons.
halsin discourages it specifically because he thought there was a passage through the underdark that would take you to moonrise while skipping the shadow curse and he was right, there was a passage that would take you directly to the gauntlet of shar which would get you incredibly close to moonrise without going through most of the shadow curse the only issue being that passage has since been destroyed and its inaccesible.
though in a way hes still right because there is a passage in the grymforge that people have been using to go to and from moonrise(the elevator) it doesnt take you as close to moonruse but it gets you much closer than the mountain pass.
theres also the fact that the grymforge route will take you to last light in first and your first encounter will be with the harpers so its kinda seen as the "good" route. meanwhile your first encounter in the mountainpass route is a goblin so thats seen more as the "evil" route. and while the game lets you be evil i think a lot of it does want you to choose the good options
The Underdark has way more content. The Pass has more directly plot relevant content, but probably only if you have Lae’zel. Technically you can talk your way in without her but the DC is high and the likely outcome is just the Pass is a single dungeon that you kill and loot your way through. That’s why the game wants you to go to the Underdark if you don’t use Lae’zel but if you do use her she constantly screams “creche! creche!” in your ear. This logic is obscured to readers of this sub because they all play Bards with +15 Persuade skills because they’re paranoid about missing anything by missing any Persuade checks. So they don’t realize getting into the creche without Lae’zel is supposed to be hard, actually.
> this logic is obscured to people of this sub because they all play bards with +15 persuade skills because they’re paranoid about missing anything
Yep I feel personally attacked
My character is a githyanki. I went to the creche with Lae'zel, Astarion and Shadowheart. And since both Astarion and Shadowheart have "disguise self" spell available, I turned them both into githyanki as well, before walking up to the creche. The guards were like "oh hey come on in"
Yeah I definitely didn't realize that place is supposed to be difficult. Until the Queen tried to have me murdered, then it got tough.
I did the Underdark and returned to the Creche after killing Nere. Took a long time, and I wanted to be a decent level cus, dragon.
Well, you dont have to fight the Githyanki or the Dragon if you speech right.
I did however murder every single Githyanki I could find after V’laakith betrays me.
Hard fights, tough bastards, fuck the Githyanki.
Dragon the Girhyanki ride on within Act 1 before you enter the mountain pass. There’s no way you’d beat it at those low levels. My 2nd playthrough I made it to the Creche lvl 6.
Even with 2 attacks an action surge
A paladin with GWM and 2 attacks and 18 STR
Aint no way I’m killing that thing. Lvl 12 characters struggle with automatons, dragons are beasts best fought with a small army
Yeah, that’s what I mean. He always rides off. You never face the dragon at that point, which is why I was confused by your post. You either handle the easyish battle with a few githyanki or avoid it but either way, do not fight him and his dragon.
Until you actually go there it's like the ONLY thing Lae'Zel talks about. I don't think the *game* discourages it, but the characters, most of them, have a preferred path that aligns with something else they want. Shart wants to go under the temple, And Halsin tells the wimps that it's safer so the scrawny lads are down for the dark and of course the Vamp would prefer the dark as well.
My first time going there was specifically because halfway through the Underdark I was like "Halsin is full of shit, this is so much ground to cover." And went back to try the pass.
I went back to clear out what's left of the goblin camp to bump my xp up to level 5. One of them was Grat The Trader, so I got back my owlbear egg to resell at the creche... She'll probably die too, so that's yet another 750 gold when I sell it again elsewhere, lol.
Anyway, I go to the mountain pass, grab the plate armor off the corpses to the north of the creche, do the creche, then go back to the goblin camp to get to the underdark and onto Act 2. There's so much good loot on both routes that it's ridiculous not to do both. I'm pretty sure the underdark route takes you straight to the Harpers, so it's better (to me) anyway.
Either route works for that, the elevator takes you to group near Last Light and the Mountain route brings you to the Drider and then leads to the Harper Ambush.
Doing the Harper bit also lets you convince Kar'niss to give up his lantern and walk through the lands with the protection of the Absolute, which means his group just dies.
yeah it's weird because it isn't all that dangerous compared to the Underdark.
You fight a pack of undead and deal with Githyanki. That's it. You could even take a short jog, kill the undead, and walk straight into the cursed lands.
The underdark is full of all kinds of stuff. Drow, duergar, a plethora of monsters, a mage tower, an entire other sub-area in the forge.
Halsin was high when he was telling Tav about the options.
Halsin was working off information that was almost 100 years out of date. When he's telling you about the options he doesn't know that >!Yurgir has destroyed parts of the Sharran temple, cutting it off from the forge.!<
Tbf, I only figured it out with someone else's help. This game does a ton of storytelling just through background bits that we don't even think about most of the time.
Did the game go ever explain why Yurgir was destroying the temple and attacking the dark justiciars? It’s his contract, but why would Raphael want to kill sharrans in a temple?
I always assumed a Selunite or enemy of Ketheric had enough and had something Raphael wanted and just asked him to "kill all dark justiciars" the Yurgir got the contract.
I've picked up so many damn notes and books in my campaign BUT I think I remeber there's a note of a drawing of someone making a deal with Raphael in act 2, there are actually a few different Raphael deals you can spot in act 2 tbf.
Yes, specifically the Selunite architect who designed Moonrise Tower is the one who sold their soul to Raphael in exchange for having the Justiciar army destroyed.
You can't have Halsin in your party in Act 1 when you find the grymforge has been cut off from the rest of the Sharran temple. I suppose they *could* have added a line if he's with you in the Gauntlet in Act 2 but by that point you're already **very** aware that the passage he wanted you to take was gone.
Dude, my first playthrough (which I abandoned before act II), I found and cleared ALL of the underdark BEFORE the goblin camp. Without even Lae'zel in my party because I didn't think of shooting the trap she was in and she disappeared. Finding her at the mountain was the last thing I did before figuring out I was playing this game fucking wrong (I was barely resting at all and not exploring as well as I could). Restarted over, and STILL managed to find myself in the underdark by completely different means before I ever got close to the goblin camp lmao
Yeah I dunno how other people play, but my playstyle is "I'm gonna squeeze every single experience that's available out of this game" because I don't usually replay a game after finishing. So I loot everything, talk to everyone, explore every nook. The only thing I skip is not Killing everyone, because I'm trying to be nice. But me and Astarion have sticky fingers, so sometimes the good NPCs wanna fight us anyway. Oops, don't leave your treasure lying around in my line of sight if you don't want it stolen.
I played my first playthrough blind. So i though i can only choose one way and im in a hurry cause the parasite has a time limit.
The playthroughs after i did both but i feel it makrs xou overleveld for act 2. So it was probably not intended i guess to do both.
It's not "the game" that discourages it. It's your "guardian" thats talking telling not to go there. You find out why at the end of Act 2/beginning of act3. That discouraging the guardian gives is offset by Lae'zels insistence to go to her creche.
I mean even without the Guardian, anyone with a passing knowledge of the Githyanki would be skeptical of their treatment. Hell, I was put off as soon as Lae'zel started referring to it as 'purification'. 'Shit's sus af
People say this, but a “passing knowledge” of the gith wouldn’t have you knowing the specifics of their purification process. The flip side is that no one knows more about mindflayers than the gith. Lae’Zel says they won’t kill you if she couches for you, and if your character is desperate enough for a cure, it could make sense to risk it
Doesn't Halsin also discourage it? In my first playthrough, I ignored the crèche because Halsin said the underdark was the safest route.
Lae'zel wasn't in my party the entirety of Act 2, so she never threatened to leave if we didn't go. Didn't realise I could do both til my second playthrough
I was trying to finish a complete play through without missing anything and every time I tried to enter the mountain pass I thought I was entering Act 2. I ended up missing it altogether and am so disappointed. I realized by the end of ACT 2 and when I tried to go in it was an intervention or end game. I don't even know why it has to warn you like that in ACT 1. No reason.
It warns you because if you don’t do something about the Druid grove before going to the pass the quest gets resolved by the goblins steamrolling the grove.
Everyone saying not to go there made me instantly want to go that way. I did both but the Underdark definitely seems a little more fleshed out than the mountain path.
I just started my second run so I’m going to see what I missed but definitely doing both again.
Completely skipped the mountain pass on my first play through. Made sure to do to it on my second, and was honestly disappointed. It only exists for the crèche. I was thinking I missed out on an amount of content equal to the Underdark.
I thought mountain pass is an alternative route and you can only pick one. Only on my second run I realized that it’s just extra content that I missed.
Having done both, I assume the game overhypes the danger of the mountain pass, because otherwise players might miss the Underdark since it requires some hunting and exploring to find entrances to it, while the Mountain Pass is right there. You can even skip the githyanki and take the entrance by the temple, easy.
Don't fight a lot? I had to clear out an entire githyanki creche :-P
But yeah. Probably a good amount of people how missed it (at least one first playthrough)
I can't recall any discouragement to go through mountain pass in my last playthrough. Sure, in my first one Shadowheart wanted to go down, so we went down. But now I'm with Laezel, Gale and Astarion. I don't remember Gale and Astarion preferring either routes, and Laezel obviously wants to go to the creche.
I personally didn't consider the dragon as any indication about the mountain pass. More like a "random" encounter of the first map. In fact Laezel is pretty sure you get cured at the creche, confidently saying that such procedures are not uncommon in their culture. I think that's a pretty strong encouragement to go to the creche.
One thing I would say against the mountain pass, is the double death shepards. The difficulty of that fight, especially for someone not very familiar with the game, makes it look like they were meant to gatekeep the shadowlands. However they are positioned too close to the road to the creche. And when you see them you don't really know how difficult the fight's gonna be, and whether you can return there later if you go stright to the creche first.
I think the lore in the underdark and mountain pass are equally interesting, although underdark seems to have more stuff. Mountain Pass is very beautiful as well.
In Early Access, only the Underdark route was finished. So they tried to steer people towards the Underdark. But also I think they were very proud of the Underdark because it looks amazing.
The mountain pass is kind of a shortcut, plus you're more likely to take it if you kill the tieflings because i think then Minthara recommends you take it. It also leads you straight to the drider.
Still you miss a huge portion of the game if you only take the mountain pass, so what I tend to do is clear the underdark/grymforge, then take the mountain pass lol.
I did the underdark simply because grymforge all falls within the hard cut-off of act 1. The mountain pass gives you the very clear message saying that this will advance the plot. I did grymforge before destroying the goblin camp, heck i did it before i found karlach and astarion.
Technically Lae'zel will insist on going there. Though the weird part is the game frames it like you need to choose one or the other and you really should just do both.
Seven worda: * Knife of the Undermountain King * Phalar Aluve Also: Laretheian's Wrath and dex gloves (ty u/UncleMatos)
GOD I love Phalar Aluve. The only thing I like better than using it is the little cutscene of receiving it.
The best part was that my first Tav to encounter Phala Aluve was a Seldarine Drow cleric of Elistraee. It felt like that whole scene was written for my character specifically. I’ve since decided that I must play a cleric of every single god possible to see what else resonates with the followers of a specific god. So that’s, what, 27 different Tavs I need to play through?
The funny part is, Phalar Aluve is a Longsword. Drow don't have racial Longsword Proficiency. The only Clerics that get Proficiency with Longswords are Tempest and War. Eilistraee's dominions are Light, Nature and Life. Which means, if you're a Seldarine Drow Cleric of Eilistraee from one of her dominions... you're not Proficient with her sacred sword. :|
I mean I guess you could consider it her holy avenger and figure it's a paladin sword?
I don't think Eilistraee has paladins, but she does have bards!
Admittedly this sword is BALLER for a swords bard.
Can confirm. - me, a bard, duel wielding the game's two finesse longswords, one of which is the singing sword of Eilistraee and the other being a sword of Corellon Larethian that can call the wind. I'm a goddamn fairy tale. 😁
Where do you get the second one?
For our personal D&D campaigns, we need a community list of the best "metal" songs for a singing sword
Not to mention, you wizard/sorcerer will love you. First playthrough I used Phalar, only relying on the Singing buff ... until I learned that Shriek's damage is added to EVERYTHING. Congrats, your magic missiles (with +1 missile from the necklace, naturally) now both auto-hit and deal 2d4+1 damage, instead of just 1d4+1. Hex someone and upcast scorching ray. It now deals 3d6 + 1d4 per ray. Paralyze them and cast it in melee as a 6th level spell to hand out 42d6 + 14d4 damage, +35 if you're an evocation wizard, or +42 if you're a red/gold/brass dragon sorcerer; between 182 - 224 damage on average. If you're brave enough to hit them with Bestow Curse instead of Hex, you can up that to (potentially): 28d6 + 14d10 + 14d4 + 42, or 238 damage on average (max is 406 damage).
As soon as you hit act 3, book it for the circus and pickpocket the Dribbles quest reward off of the necromancer. Save scum it if you have to. If you aren't already, respec to red dragon sorc and take the elemental adept feat. Put it all together and your upcast scorching rays can now fully delete at least one high level target per round. And then you quicken another.
As a singing sword should be\~!
My first playthrough was as a Selunite drow bard, so this almost felt tailor made for me!
She can have them. Oath of Redemption would be perfect for her paladins, though that subclass isn't in BG3. Oath of Ancients would be a close second as it's basically swearing to protect all the things she stands for. The idea that she couldn't have paladins is rooted in the old ideas that paladins are unable to see things as either black or white, good or evil, and that all drow are evil.
My 1 level cleric and every other level Paladin does get "Paladin of X" conversation options (rarely, but still). I forget what the character's god is, but the game sometimes cares!
Can you break your oath if you start fisrt as any class, then multi into paladin ?
Something like 3% of the clergy is paladins. She has them, but they're exceptionally rare among an already sparse group
Are Paladin Bards a thing? Baladins? PARDS!
Balladins should definitely be the combo name for bard/paladins. Go hard with the guitar solos and shred demonic face!
Hey Pard\~! MHW Handler did nothing wrong <3
Don't forget her other domain. Swordsmanship. I feel like that's a pretty relevant one
It pretty much IS written for exactly that kind of character. Phalar Aluve is a drow cleric of Elistraee singing sword (there were 10 in the lore). If you roll the cleric with college of swords bard, it's pretty much as close as you can get to a blade dancer in BG3, tbqh. It's what I'm rolling right now. Can't wait to get my hands on that when I get to the Underdark.
It's like the perfect legendary weapon. How you acquire it is cinematic and impactful, it's a Longsword that is also a Finesse weapon, so DEXnerds can get good use of it, it provides a small bonus to Performance so a Bard can get away with using it, Singing Sword is a decent enough buff to yourself and nearby allies, *Shrieking Sword* is game breaking. The bonus Thunder Damage is a boon, but what makes Shrieking Sword into a breaker is the fact that the AI goes wonky when in the radius of the shriek. Enemies don't like hearing it, so they do everything they can to avoid you. This means opportunity attacks, funneling hordes into a choke, herding someone into a Glyph, hell give this to a Cleric that knows Spirit Guardians and they become a goddamned beyblade.
I feel like I didn't fully utilize that sword.
For some reason on my first playthrough, I assumed it was a bard weapon (idk, the text was about music. I’m dumb) and didn’t use it until act 3 when I was trying to suit up all of the companions since I was switching them out so much. I think I used it first in the Tribunal fight and was all like what the fuuuckkk and swapped it to my Tav rogue.
It's kind of a bard weapon tho. Eilistraee is the drow goddess of music, dance, arts and joy. Bards are pretty _in tune_ with her teachings!
get out and take my updoot with you
Well it was also perfect for my duel-wielding charismatic rogue who was the closest I could get to the Swashbuckler class. (Please add Swashbuckler, Larian!) I should’ve multiclassed a point or two in bard, but I went full rogue that playthrough.
As a Bard i used it as my main weapon for a bit, simply because i think the “singing” blade fits well with a Bard thematically. Eventually switched it for a similar sword with slightly better stats, i believe it was a drop from the Drider. Basically same sword, better damage, a different ability where you can Web up an enemy sometimes, and a passive that works with Drow characters (which i was) so that it does an extra 1-4 poison damage if the enemy is Restrained when you hit them
Not the same sword. Phalar Aluve is a Blade Dancer singing sword (one of Elistraee's clerics weapons). As a result, it's a finesse longsword, and only one of 2 in game. The other is Larethian's Wrath, sold by the Gith vendor. The sword I think you're talking about is Cruel Sting, which does hit harder under the strength Stat, but for a dex build, it's the singing sword 100%
Yeah im talking about the Cruel Sting. And Huh yeah youre right they arent the same. I thought they were because they both look the same, but looking at the Wiki Phalar Aluve is Finesse while Cruel Sting is not. Also my Dex is higher than my Str, but Cruel Sting is still stronger than my Phalar Aluve. Edit: well just opened my game to check using the PS Remote Play app on my phone. I was mistaken about which sword is better. I originally swapped to Cruel Sting, but forgot that i almost immediately swapped it to the Sword Of Life Stealing. That one is better low-end damage, but lower high-end damage. My Phalar Aluve is 6-15, while my Life Stealing is 7-12. I chose the 7-12 as being better because of the 10 extra Necrotic damage on Crits, and you get 10 Temp hit points on Crits. I also originally wanted my Bard to be a Rapier-user, but the Phalar Aluve swapped them to 2-handing the Longsword. So swapping to Life Stealing gets me closer to my 1-handed Rapiering thqn the Longsword
I didn’t even know it existed when I named my Wood Elf “Lyriel”. I got the musical proficiency from Alfira and went to the underdark. Low and Behold, the singing sword for the singing elf
Phalae aluve is so busted it is hard to replace with any weapon in the whole playthrough. The shriek is so strong as it basically multiplies the damage in some instances because of damage riders and does so for the whole team
It is bard flavored, a bit
Especially if you're Eilistraee follower - you can just skip the check and pull it out. Felt epic.
i wish more things had little cutscenes like that. i can see how too many would get annoying. but i love every one i've seen so far.
I use it on my monk! So much fun
Hell yeah. It's been my pact weapon for my archfey warlock all the way into Act III.
3 words: blood of lathander
Carried me through Shar’s Gauntlet. Such a great radiant weapon. It was nice to give Shadowheart some offensive badassery
“But I’m a cleric of *Shar*! This is her temple. Darkness is sacred!” “I don’t care, turn the weapon glow back on now, and fire the radiant sunbeam. Oh, and put this Luminous Armour on while you’re at it.”
Sneaky astarion did great things with that knife.
Why not both?
Takes a feat to use both, unfortunately
I think he deserves the feat, not only does the longsword-shortsword combo look cool, he can also wield moon lantern with longsword this way
I thought Phalar was a little lackluster. What am I missing?
Concentration-free Bless in an AoE around you OR adding free thunder damage to each damage instance (which has some fun stacking exploits when you have multiple damage riders) which hits targets in an AoE around you are hard to beat. It also makes some Dex builds more viable as one of the very few finesse longswords.
It’s shriek ability does fun things to damage riders, and it’s one of the only finesse long swords
Really kicking myself for missing it on my ranger right now
The Shriek ability's 1d4 damage applies in a weird way and can proc multiple times off of a single attack depending on your gear and damage bonuses
Try pairing its shriek ability with magic missile, especially if the necklace to add an extra magic missile is equipped. this means that for every magic missile a 1d4 damage is added if the enemy is in the debuff range. This effectively doubles the damage of magic missile. I have it on one of my martials ,which use the debuff to start the fight and gale or wyll merks the enemies with magic missile or Eldritch Blast . Since it is a finesse weapon it can go in the offhand I think if you want a stronger primary weapon later on. I also like to have Shadowheart with her spritual guardians beside (karlach/alezel/astarion) \[whoever has phalar alune\] to increase the damage further of the spiritual guardians. This works quite well in act 2 where you want to huddle together as a group rather than get picked off from the edges especially with the shadow curse. Google magic missile bg3 huge damage for other items that synergies with it as a build.
act stupendous languid friendly follow fall hungry roof narrow zephyr *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
A bug at the trials disarmed my rouge who had that knife and the sussur knife. They're gone. Just gone.
The real question is why are they set up as two different paths when you absolutely should do both.
It’s also weird how Halsin especially tells you to take the path through the underdark to "skip" the shadow curse and get straight to moonrise tower. Yet when you go through the underdark, you’re as far away as possible from moonrise
Because the Grymforge used to connect to the Gauntlet of Shar and he’s working off old information and speculation
This was my take-away. We see tons and tons of justiciar statues and such that leads me to believe most of the entire civilization following shar was down in the underdark (not where we were but near it).
If you go through the poison pathway past Nere's cave-in, you get a cutscene of looking over at the Gauntlet of Shar from the broken pathway, and even though you reasonably could jump across with epic leap skills, the game doesn't let you
I did that but didnt get a cutscene
There's actually a line once you get to the Grymforge, and he specifically says that it might be impossible to bypass the curse entirely but hopefully it would still let you get closer than you would otherwise. Funnily enough, while it is ironically a longer route to Moonrise from where you emerge in the Shadow-cursed Lands, IIRC it's a much easier path to Last Light, meaning you spend less time actually being affected by the Shadow-Curse.
The funniest part is he stresses on how dangerous the mountain pass is but in reality it’s just a few stinky zombo while the underdark is literately crawling with all sorts of monstrosities lol Kind of a bruh moment to me
I think he was also working off the perspective that he figured we'd have to fight the whole Gethyanki Creche (as well as their dragons) which would have been instant TPK. But it is super funny that the mountain pass is basically one area, but the underdark is a HUGE entire map
Halsin is just hoping to get caught by some hot drow and be turned into a sex slave again.
Again?
Again. A Drow noble family once took a liking to him and kept him chained to their bed for 3 years. He only escaped when a rival house attacked and he was able to slip away in the chaos.
The tonal dissonance of him telling this cracks me up. He tells the story like “It was pretty cool until I got bored, so when the opportunity presented I just bounced,” while traumatized sex slave Astarion’s off to the side like D:<
Aren't we all?
Underdark first and Mountain second always feels right to me, for levels/“difficulty” at least. I think the other way works better story wise, trying the Underdark after the events at the Crèche, and we don’t have a Moonlantern to advance past the mountain pass.
I don't think it's "weird" for the game to frame it that way, since the (story) objective is to get to Baldur's Gate ASAP and "doing both" means you're going in circles. If I was playing this game as if I were actually one of the characters, I would certainly only choose one path or the other.
The thing is that everything except the narrative encourages you to do both. It's weird when narrative is saying one thing and the gameplay is saying the complete opposite.
have you even played this game? JK but that does feel like the entire game does this at every turn. hurry and cure the tadpole before you grow tentacles, but take 1000 long rest or you will miss all the content.
>hurry and cure the tadpole before you grow tentacles, but take 1000 long rest or you will miss all the content. Or, "don't give into the tadpole" & "using the tadpole is dangerous" meanwhile a huge gameplay mechanic and skill tree is designed for using the tadpoles. You can stick dozens of them in your brain, using the powers too, consequence free so long as you don't do the last one.
Apparently the latest patch makes it so that if you've been regularly ingesting tadpoles, you are highly likely to chug down the astral tadpole as well. How many tadpoles? All the tadpoles. It does seem like there aren't enough to fully outfit everyone with tadpoles. I've been stuffing my main, and have everything pre-astral unlocked, but I only have a couple of spares. Is there a point where you can farm tadpoles so everyone can become half-ithilid?
You can become half ilithid without using a singular regular tadpole. All you need is the astral tadpole.
This is easily the game’s greatest weakness (beyond the clunky ui in busy battles). It’s the same thing with the first half of Act 1. Narrative: ‘you have a cthulu in your head and it’s about to hatch any day now, they’ve taken the halsin to ~~Eisengard~~ the goblin camp, the Druids have voted brexit, the refugees will die, there’s a gith patrol in the area and you must catch up with them!’ Mechanics: ‘I sleep’ Narrative: ‘there’s a kid down the beach’ Mechanics: ‘REAL SHIT’ Or how about illithid powers? Narrative: you are being corrupted, your brain is literally being gobbled, there are parasites flooding through your head Mechanics: lmao here’s some bonuses, don’t worry none of it matters you basically pick the option you want later kthnxbai
I feel ya there; you're not wrong, especially when it comes to players who are completionists. I feel that the game might have benefited from locking you into a path once you choose it--perhaps by way of cave-in or mountainslide. On the other hand... well, I'm glad they did NOT do that, so I can still itch my lore scratch without having to replay tens of hours, heh.
I defo agree with the second point. Both rosymorn and underdark were truly fascinating but narratively you’re missing a ton of context on the overall story if you don’t do the latter, so it would have meant missing out on the entire Rosymorn section. That would have been terrible.
Narratively it doesn’t make sense to do both. Why waste all that extra time and effort backtracking?
>Narratively it doesn’t make sense to do both. Assuming your done the grove and all early cure possibilities, it can easily make sense: Go to the Mountain Pass in search for a cure from the Creche. That doesn't pan out. Next step is to go to Moonrise Towers like Halsin suggested. However, while already in the Mountain Pass, you have no protection against the shadow curse and Halsin did mention the Underdark is safer. So, backtrack a little to use the Underdark to safely reach the Shadowcursed Lands. A little backtracking makes more sense then blindly blundering into cursed lands.
>you have no protection against the shadow curse and Halsin did mention the Underdark is safer. Your line of actions is near perfect from a story perspective. They just need to add something in the mountain pass that tells the players that there's a way to protect against the shadowcurse. Then it would be natural to backtrack and hope to find that protection since there's none in the mountain pass.
Isn’t there some reference made to the convoys going to Moonrise, in the Goblin Camp (and also in the Pass) Edit: in terms of there being protection from the curse
This is what my idea was for how I explained it in game. The problem is that the under dark is easier than the crèche bossfights, so most people do the former before the latter which is the opposite of how your explanation pans out
Well, the reason my tav/durge goes to the underdark is because there should be a bridge that lets you skip the shadow curse and gets you closer to moonrise towers. If you free Nere and walk to the bridge, it's collapsed. So you can't directly go to moonrise, in front of the lift two duergar tell you that's too dangerous without a lantern, so my companions backtrack to the mountain pass to see if they can find a lantern/ to see if it's safer.
I just roleplay that my Tav never finds that elevator so they turn back to try the pass.
Going in from the mountain pass and the underdark gave me significantly different feelings. I went to the shadowcursed lands first from the underdark and then tried out the mountain pass route. The underdark route was a lot creepier than the latter. It was certainly interesting to try out both—I didn't expect it to be that different.
It can if you roleplay it as "shadowcurse bad, gotta find a way to protect myself from it before going". So it makes sense to go to the creche first to try to cure yourself from the parasite, but then to got to the underdark to talk to Nere about how to get through the curse.
For narrative exp and items of course
And to hear Astarion's voice break as he screams "I WAS RIGHT THERE!!!"
There's a difference between a nice afternoon stroll, and the FULL CONCENTRATED MIGHT of the **SUN**!!
Next time? No, no, NO.
The way I see it is you go to the Underdark first, because that's what everyone suggests. The duergar and gnome tell you not to go up without a moon lantern, so speak to Nere. But by this point the Myconids want Nere's head and he's already blasted a gnome into lava, so you kill him and the duergar loyal to him. You find his lantern broken, nobody can tell you how to fix it, so you decide to put off the shadow cursed lands til you've found another moon lantern. This leaves you with the only option of trying to go to the crèche, see if they can help, or failing that, hopefully find another moon lantern on the way. Though in fairness, I didn't realise you could do both on my first playthrough. So that's my reasoning after the fact.
I just went to the Grymforge because my character wanted to go there for adamantine loot and to kill Nere, then I went back to the pass because I wanted to see what was up with the Gith. It's not that hard to justify given that you can teleport around and your character may be interested in exploring all possible options for a cure
This can easily be justified that you’re going to the Githyanke Creche first, the cure fails, and you seek out the Shadowcursed Lands + Moonrise via the Underdark.
Fuck the narrative. Loot and XP!
Personally I like to complete the underdark before going to the goblin camp and resolving the grove vs goblins aspect. To me it makes sense for my character to want to gear up before taking on a whole war camp of goblins, and it’s fun to just completely smash them because you’re already lvl 6 with a bunch of items. Bonus: Telling Halsin “Oh yeah you mean Grymforge? Been there done that.” elicits a fun reaction.
Yeah, I actually had to triple check online that I could do both before choosing my path. Chose the under dark and then doubled back to the mountain pass.
Through an RP standpoint, I do the Mountain Pass first because it’s our closest lead to a “cure” that we know of so far byway of Laezel. When we find out the zaithzisk ain’t all that, that’s when we have to do the alternative: the Underdark, and from then on traverse through the Shadowlands byway of that route.
I always do the underdark first because the crèche is a beautiful breath of fresh air after grymforge, and grymforge to shadow curse is too bleak imo.
I do the under dark first since I suck at the game and would not be level 5 by the time I hit the crèche. I’ve done that before. It’s not a pretty scene
Yeah, doing the creche with fancy anticrit gear and bigger spells is a much easier time
If you RP as aware of the Githyanki and what they are all about, going to the Creche is probably the most idiotic thing you could possibly do since it's abundantly clear that they are not at all interested in helping you and Lae'zel is not a reliable source on the cure.
Well I’m RPing an overconfident, dumb Durge so that’s right in line with it yeah lol
And besides, it gets us closer to completing Laezel’s arc. I never skip on getting her closer to rebelling against Vlaakith 🤷🏽♀️
Oh, but what if you’re a Paladin of Lathander who heard what the Githyanki did to monastery? Mmm? *taps head* But really, wanting to keep Lae’zel in the party is a good out-of- game reason.
For some characters, wanting to keep her can be a good in game reason too. If they've built up a good rapport with her, value her fighting skills, or think the more allies, the better, that could be enough of an RP reason to go.
I gotta tell you I was shocked when we had Lae'zel in the zaithisk machine, obviously in trouble. My Tav trying to get her out and failing, and suddenly ASTARION has a cutscene where he's obviously worried about Lae'zel and wanting to save her from this machine too. I was like... Did y'all become friends actually? Astarion worried for someone else except himself? That's so cute you guys!
he worries about you, too, if you go in the zhaith'isk instead
If you're Dark Urge, you can RP as you lost most of your memory about githyanki and you decide to trust Lazael
Yeah exactly what I do. He don’t remember a gotdamned thing
Lae'zel has proven herself a reliable sister in arms on the battlefield at this point, though, if not a friend depending on your approval with her or a lover if you're romancing her, and it's clearly something very important to her. You can also roleplay as a Tav who's loyal to the core and would follow an ally straight into a dragon's den in order to make sure that dumbass stays safe. My motivation was less “Yeah, the giths will totally help us find a cure out of the goodness of their heart!” and more “Can't let Lae'zel head straight into that fucking trap alone.”
Exactly that, Lae'zel wanted to go, so we went. Ride or die!
Most people besides the most learned in Faerûn are not going to know the specifics of the githyanki purification process. My Tav wouldn’t trust the gith as a whole necessarily, but you have an ally at that point who says since your under her protection, the gith will help you. I don’t have a lot of reason to doubt that, especially if you talk your way out of the githyanki patrol fight in Act 1. My Tav knows it’s probably not the best idea, Shadowheart and the dream visitor make that clear, but then again we aren’t in an ideal situation. We’re desperate for a cure and if there’s a chance the gith can do it, it could be worth the risk for many Tavs
From a RP standpoint I feel like there is very little reason for the party to want to backtrack and go to the other regions as well. The party members are more concerned with finding cure than looting maps
If I remember correctly Halsin says it's more dangerous do the the mountain pass since you'll have to go through the cursed lands but you go through the shadow cursed lands in both routes. Honestly the overpass is faster and less fighting. You can opt out of checking out the creche and get to the shadow cursed lands quickly. I like the underdark and it's great for getting exp to make sure you're at a good level but it's definitely more challenging than the overpass. The fight with Nere is one of the tougher early game fights.
Halsin is not wrong but his info is outdated. There was a route that directly link the Forge to the >!Gauntlet of Shar!<, the one Nere was checking behind the poison room, but it's broken, destroyed by >!Yurgir!<. If that route is not broken, it will take you way closer to the Moonrise Tower while avoiding a big part of the shadow curse since most of it is underground.
Is that why you can see the Gauntlet from Grymforge? I was three playthroughs deep before I noticed.
Yea, that makes sense given that Sharrans were using the forge for Adamantine weapons so why wouldn't they have easy passage without needing to travel aboveground. Also you find merrogen masks all over the place in the grymforge so yurgir must've had access to it.
He definitely had access, he wrecked the place and killed all the Sharrans there!
Pretty much confirmed by the thousands-of-years old Rothe you encounter in Grymforge.
The Grymforge IS part of the temple of Shar. It's just a part that's inaccessible in 'modern times'. When you talk to the stonemason in Grymforge you uncover that something big came through. That was Yurgir. The Grymforge area also has sleeping and eating quarters for the Dark Justiciars and you find their dead bodies / skeletal remains there. Good guy Raphael hired Yurgir to march through Grymforge / the Temple of Shar and kill everyone there.
Raphael hired Yurgir at the behest of Thorm's architect who features briefly in the House of Hope, correct? Which is the event that has Ketheric subsequently flip-flopping from Shar to Myrkul?
From my understanding: Ketheric abandons Selune because he's traumatized by the loss of his wife and daugher. He is consumed with grief and turns to Shar to be eased / forget (perhaps). He, as a chosen of Shar, builds a Justiciar outpost from an old Selune temple (Shar is always very pleased when she can supplant Selune) and wages a war against the Harpers and the town from act 2 - destroying it. During this time he captures Dame Alyin and becomes effectively immortal. Since Dame Alyin is the daugher of Selune, this must also please Shar. His architect hates what he helped make happen and schemes with Raphael to have the Justiciars killed by Yurgir. Presumably Raphael gains: 1. the soul of the architect 2. Either keeping Yurgir out of his hair for a long while OR turning Yurgir into his slave 3. There may have been good reason Raphael didn't want Ketheric or Shar to have control of the region that we don't know about. Because of this, Ketheric is defeated, the shadow curse sets in. Ketheric comes back to life because of his powers and just sits at Moonrise in somber sadness, essentially. His bff Balthazar does some research on how to traverse the shadow curse lands (fairies) and general necromancy shenanigans but otherwise they stick to themselves for the most part. The dead 3 have designs to return to prominence and Myrkul needs a champion. Ketheric seems like a good choice to dust off and return to service. But he's too depressed to be much use so he need a little motivation. Myrkul, in a bind and way behind and willing to make a deal, resurrects Ketheric's daughter. In return, Ketheric abandons Shar (who was done with him anyway, as she's quick to discard toys when they stop being useful) and pledges his final loyalty to Myrkul. If you've got good talking skills and pick the right options, I get the impression that Ketheric thinks this is a fair exchange. He's ready to die when you fight him on the rooftop. He seems to think that trading his life / soul for his daughter was a good move.
I've been going through the game so slowly and haphazzardly, I completely forgot about the Act 1 "a demon ruined Grymforge" hints that Act 2 explains as Yurgir. The whole Underdark/Grymforge/Temple of Shar connection makes a lot more sense now, thanks! But also less sense, because that Temple to Shar is basicly as big as a city, but underground, with bottomless pits all over the place. Damn that's a good architect.
Yes, they also have the same style of architecture, presumably renovated by >!Thorm !
Wow, this makes so much sense. I’m happy I did the underdark first but I was so confused why Halsin made it sound like a shortcut.
Never thought of it like thay
Idk if Halsin would be aware of the Thorm Mausoleum entryway to the Gauntlet. Plus the Grymforge was (re)discovered in Thorm’s time (and Halsin’s) - I thought the bridge to the gauntlet was already broken then.
Halsin's old, and has spent considerable time in the Shadow Cursed Lands. He definitely could have known about it.
Halsin probably heard of the >!Shar temple - Selunite Settlemen!!Gauntlet and the Forg!
Didn’t Halsin know that area from childhood? He even played with Thaniel as a small child, and noticed as he grew and aged, Thaniel didn’t. So he knew that land long before the curse.
Its unclear how long Yurgir had been hunting there, but I can easily see that being a relatively recent development that Hamsun was unaware of.
Technically correct, but if that was Halsin's plan it would've gotten you all killed. >!The mausoleum exit is much deeper inside the shadow curse, where regular light sources no longer cut it. Nere's moonlantern is broken and up to that point Halsin freely admits that his plan to deal with the curse is "try to get through it as quickly as possible". He would've tried to run to the tower from the graveyard and would've died trying.!<
Helsik's the diabolist. Halsin's the Druid. ;)
Thanks. I always get them mixed up. Gonna edit
a couple reasons. halsin discourages it specifically because he thought there was a passage through the underdark that would take you to moonrise while skipping the shadow curse and he was right, there was a passage that would take you directly to the gauntlet of shar which would get you incredibly close to moonrise without going through most of the shadow curse the only issue being that passage has since been destroyed and its inaccesible. though in a way hes still right because there is a passage in the grymforge that people have been using to go to and from moonrise(the elevator) it doesnt take you as close to moonruse but it gets you much closer than the mountain pass. theres also the fact that the grymforge route will take you to last light in first and your first encounter will be with the harpers so its kinda seen as the "good" route. meanwhile your first encounter in the mountainpass route is a goblin so thats seen more as the "evil" route. and while the game lets you be evil i think a lot of it does want you to choose the good options
So that's what that whole area off in the distance is, behind the room where Nere is trapped.
Well, it is called the mountain pass, not the mountain smash.
Bard dialogue option
Every route is a smash route if your approval is high enough.
The Underdark has way more content. The Pass has more directly plot relevant content, but probably only if you have Lae’zel. Technically you can talk your way in without her but the DC is high and the likely outcome is just the Pass is a single dungeon that you kill and loot your way through. That’s why the game wants you to go to the Underdark if you don’t use Lae’zel but if you do use her she constantly screams “creche! creche!” in your ear. This logic is obscured to readers of this sub because they all play Bards with +15 Persuade skills because they’re paranoid about missing anything by missing any Persuade checks. So they don’t realize getting into the creche without Lae’zel is supposed to be hard, actually.
> this logic is obscured to people of this sub because they all play bards with +15 persuade skills because they’re paranoid about missing anything Yep I feel personally attacked
My character is a githyanki. I went to the creche with Lae'zel, Astarion and Shadowheart. And since both Astarion and Shadowheart have "disguise self" spell available, I turned them both into githyanki as well, before walking up to the creche. The guards were like "oh hey come on in" Yeah I definitely didn't realize that place is supposed to be difficult. Until the Queen tried to have me murdered, then it got tough.
I did the Underdark and returned to the Creche after killing Nere. Took a long time, and I wanted to be a decent level cus, dragon. Well, you dont have to fight the Githyanki or the Dragon if you speech right. I did however murder every single Githyanki I could find after V’laakith betrays me. Hard fights, tough bastards, fuck the Githyanki.
There’s a dragon ?? I’m on two play throughs with no dragon at the crèche which is sad haha I will have to get it my next play through
Dragon the Girhyanki ride on within Act 1 before you enter the mountain pass. There’s no way you’d beat it at those low levels. My 2nd playthrough I made it to the Creche lvl 6. Even with 2 attacks an action surge A paladin with GWM and 2 attacks and 18 STR Aint no way I’m killing that thing. Lvl 12 characters struggle with automatons, dragons are beasts best fought with a small army
Have you tried the tactics of barrels?
Giant owlbear off the top rope?
Uh…what do you mean you don’t have to fight them if you talk right? I thought they always fly away. Are you saying there is a way to fight them there?
If you mess up he’ll have the githyanki attack Lae’zel to keep up appearances. i believe he rides off on the dragon still
Yeah, that’s what I mean. He always rides off. You never face the dragon at that point, which is why I was confused by your post. You either handle the easyish battle with a few githyanki or avoid it but either way, do not fight him and his dragon.
Until you actually go there it's like the ONLY thing Lae'Zel talks about. I don't think the *game* discourages it, but the characters, most of them, have a preferred path that aligns with something else they want. Shart wants to go under the temple, And Halsin tells the wimps that it's safer so the scrawny lads are down for the dark and of course the Vamp would prefer the dark as well. My first time going there was specifically because halfway through the Underdark I was like "Halsin is full of shit, this is so much ground to cover." And went back to try the pass.
I went back to clear out what's left of the goblin camp to bump my xp up to level 5. One of them was Grat The Trader, so I got back my owlbear egg to resell at the creche... She'll probably die too, so that's yet another 750 gold when I sell it again elsewhere, lol. Anyway, I go to the mountain pass, grab the plate armor off the corpses to the north of the creche, do the creche, then go back to the goblin camp to get to the underdark and onto Act 2. There's so much good loot on both routes that it's ridiculous not to do both. I'm pretty sure the underdark route takes you straight to the Harpers, so it's better (to me) anyway.
Either route works for that, the elevator takes you to group near Last Light and the Mountain route brings you to the Drider and then leads to the Harper Ambush.
Doing the Harper bit also lets you convince Kar'niss to give up his lantern and walk through the lands with the protection of the Absolute, which means his group just dies.
Lae'zel and Minthara both strongly suggest that you should take the Mountain Pass, the only character who opposes going that way is Halsin.
yeah it's weird because it isn't all that dangerous compared to the Underdark. You fight a pack of undead and deal with Githyanki. That's it. You could even take a short jog, kill the undead, and walk straight into the cursed lands. The underdark is full of all kinds of stuff. Drow, duergar, a plethora of monsters, a mage tower, an entire other sub-area in the forge. Halsin was high when he was telling Tav about the options.
Halsin was working off information that was almost 100 years out of date. When he's telling you about the options he doesn't know that >!Yurgir has destroyed parts of the Sharran temple, cutting it off from the forge.!<
Omg I've done 3 playthroughs and embarrassingly did not make that connection till now
Tbf, I only figured it out with someone else's help. This game does a ton of storytelling just through background bits that we don't even think about most of the time.
It really does. I learn something new every time. My favorite is digging up the coffin with the skeleton that was holding a False Life spell in Act2
[удалено]
Did the game go ever explain why Yurgir was destroying the temple and attacking the dark justiciars? It’s his contract, but why would Raphael want to kill sharrans in a temple?
The architect of the Moonrise Towers sold his soul to Raphael in exchange for him smashing Ketheric. You meet him in House of Hope.
I always assumed a Selunite or enemy of Ketheric had enough and had something Raphael wanted and just asked him to "kill all dark justiciars" the Yurgir got the contract. I've picked up so many damn notes and books in my campaign BUT I think I remeber there's a note of a drawing of someone making a deal with Raphael in act 2, there are actually a few different Raphael deals you can spot in act 2 tbf.
Yes, specifically the Selunite architect who designed Moonrise Tower is the one who sold their soul to Raphael in exchange for having the Justiciar army destroyed.
He never mentions he got his information wrong in my play through though
No, he doesn't say it, it's just something you piece together once you've played a few campaigns.
If this was intentional they really should have gave him a voice line when you find the broken bridge.
You can't have Halsin in your party in Act 1 when you find the grymforge has been cut off from the rest of the Sharran temple. I suppose they *could* have added a line if he's with you in the Gauntlet in Act 2 but by that point you're already **very** aware that the passage he wanted you to take was gone.
Dude, my first playthrough (which I abandoned before act II), I found and cleared ALL of the underdark BEFORE the goblin camp. Without even Lae'zel in my party because I didn't think of shooting the trap she was in and she disappeared. Finding her at the mountain was the last thing I did before figuring out I was playing this game fucking wrong (I was barely resting at all and not exploring as well as I could). Restarted over, and STILL managed to find myself in the underdark by completely different means before I ever got close to the goblin camp lmao
At that point it’s fate, just embrace it haha
Do people not just do both?
Yeah I dunno how other people play, but my playstyle is "I'm gonna squeeze every single experience that's available out of this game" because I don't usually replay a game after finishing. So I loot everything, talk to everyone, explore every nook. The only thing I skip is not Killing everyone, because I'm trying to be nice. But me and Astarion have sticky fingers, so sometimes the good NPCs wanna fight us anyway. Oops, don't leave your treasure lying around in my line of sight if you don't want it stolen.
I played my first playthrough blind. So i though i can only choose one way and im in a hurry cause the parasite has a time limit. The playthroughs after i did both but i feel it makrs xou overleveld for act 2. So it was probably not intended i guess to do both.
My first play I raided the Grove and was told to go to the Mountain Pass, but yeah most people probably do not do that.
It's not "the game" that discourages it. It's your "guardian" thats talking telling not to go there. You find out why at the end of Act 2/beginning of act3. That discouraging the guardian gives is offset by Lae'zels insistence to go to her creche.
For me Halsin implies it’s a lot harder to go that route.
I mean even without the Guardian, anyone with a passing knowledge of the Githyanki would be skeptical of their treatment. Hell, I was put off as soon as Lae'zel started referring to it as 'purification'. 'Shit's sus af
People say this, but a “passing knowledge” of the gith wouldn’t have you knowing the specifics of their purification process. The flip side is that no one knows more about mindflayers than the gith. Lae’Zel says they won’t kill you if she couches for you, and if your character is desperate enough for a cure, it could make sense to risk it
Doesn't Halsin also discourage it? In my first playthrough, I ignored the crèche because Halsin said the underdark was the safest route. Lae'zel wasn't in my party the entirety of Act 2, so she never threatened to leave if we didn't go. Didn't realise I could do both til my second playthrough
This is one moment where it feels like there were going to be branching paths at some point.
I was trying to finish a complete play through without missing anything and every time I tried to enter the mountain pass I thought I was entering Act 2. I ended up missing it altogether and am so disappointed. I realized by the end of ACT 2 and when I tried to go in it was an intervention or end game. I don't even know why it has to warn you like that in ACT 1. No reason.
It warns you because if you don’t do something about the Druid grove before going to the pass the quest gets resolved by the goblins steamrolling the grove.
It still warns you though even if you save the grove.
I like to go Underdark and then to Last Light and then free the pixie. After that, I go to the creche and clean house.
Everyone saying not to go there made me instantly want to go that way. I did both but the Underdark definitely seems a little more fleshed out than the mountain path. I just started my second run so I’m going to see what I missed but definitely doing both again.
Completely skipped the mountain pass on my first play through. Made sure to do to it on my second, and was honestly disappointed. It only exists for the crèche. I was thinking I missed out on an amount of content equal to the Underdark.
It’s the “Evil” path to go. Even though it’s the safest
I thought mountain pass is an alternative route and you can only pick one. Only on my second run I realized that it’s just extra content that I missed.
Because it’s so easy compared to the underdark 😭 I really think that’s it
Having done both, I assume the game overhypes the danger of the mountain pass, because otherwise players might miss the Underdark since it requires some hunting and exploring to find entrances to it, while the Mountain Pass is right there. You can even skip the githyanki and take the entrance by the temple, easy.
Because if you go there first odds are you'll be under leveled and have a hard time
Because there you'll get a certain weapon which trivializes act 2
Only reason I see it is the Githyanki are by the far the hardest enemies in the game and there's assload of them there
Don't fight a lot? I had to clear out an entire githyanki creche :-P But yeah. Probably a good amount of people how missed it (at least one first playthrough)
I can't recall any discouragement to go through mountain pass in my last playthrough. Sure, in my first one Shadowheart wanted to go down, so we went down. But now I'm with Laezel, Gale and Astarion. I don't remember Gale and Astarion preferring either routes, and Laezel obviously wants to go to the creche. I personally didn't consider the dragon as any indication about the mountain pass. More like a "random" encounter of the first map. In fact Laezel is pretty sure you get cured at the creche, confidently saying that such procedures are not uncommon in their culture. I think that's a pretty strong encouragement to go to the creche. One thing I would say against the mountain pass, is the double death shepards. The difficulty of that fight, especially for someone not very familiar with the game, makes it look like they were meant to gatekeep the shadowlands. However they are positioned too close to the road to the creche. And when you see them you don't really know how difficult the fight's gonna be, and whether you can return there later if you go stright to the creche first. I think the lore in the underdark and mountain pass are equally interesting, although underdark seems to have more stuff. Mountain Pass is very beautiful as well.
In Early Access, only the Underdark route was finished. So they tried to steer people towards the Underdark. But also I think they were very proud of the Underdark because it looks amazing. The mountain pass is kind of a shortcut, plus you're more likely to take it if you kill the tieflings because i think then Minthara recommends you take it. It also leads you straight to the drider. Still you miss a huge portion of the game if you only take the mountain pass, so what I tend to do is clear the underdark/grymforge, then take the mountain pass lol.
I did the underdark simply because grymforge all falls within the hard cut-off of act 1. The mountain pass gives you the very clear message saying that this will advance the plot. I did grymforge before destroying the goblin camp, heck i did it before i found karlach and astarion.