Where Does All The Grease Come From?

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Everyone has bottles of grease. Goblins have them, adventurers/scavengers have them. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Astarion has two bottles of grease. You find them everywhere.

But where does it come from, and what was it's original purpose? What I mean is, why are they there at all? Like what were they being used for?

Are there a million fast food restaurants all over Faerun that just sell bottled grease? Do people just instinctively save all the grease from their cookfires every night because they know they're going to need to throw it at someone and light it on fire the next day?

Like, what prompts anyone to store all this grease in tiny bottles anyway? And why is it so ubiquitous? Like, a goblin is as likely to have bottles of grease as a vampire spawn, or some spelunker exploring an old temple.

Is kitchen grease a valuable commodity? Do merchants trade in it, transporting great quantities of it across the continent? What I mean, is, how does it become so readily available? What is it's source? Where does it come from?

Now, apply this same line of reasoning towards all the 'grenades' in BG3...why are there tons of little water bottles, acid vials, alchemists fire, shrapnel grenades, brine grenades, void bulbs...

With the exception of alchemists fire and acid vials, the rest of these things are Larian's invention, in order to shoehorn in more DANGER GROUND at every character's disposal.

It makes no sense that most of this stuff exists, and certainly not in the quantities you see in the game. Like who would have all that kind of crap just lying around anyway?

Rather than create items that logically belong in the environment they are found in, Larian instead liberally sprinkles the world with stuff the think is COOl, because it creates DANGER GROUND everywhere, diluting the effect and impact such stuff would happen were it more uncommon.

How cool would it be if you found a cauldron or cooking pot somewhere and were actually able to extract some cooking grease, using it to spread some fire, if it were the only place you could do that? What I mean is, if it were more difficult to come buy, instead of just being handed out like candy? How much more of a difference would it make if bombs were strange and wondrous artifacts, instead of candy handed out on Halloween?

This is indicative of Larian's major flaw in balance and encounter design - they want to hand everything to the player right away.

When you wake up on the Nautiloiud, not only are you still fully armored and equipped (sure, we'll let that one slide since you were teleported directly into your pod), but you find chests full of hand grenades literally in the room you wake up in. Doesn't anyone ever stop and ask themselves why the Illithid keep chests with hand grenades in the same room that they keep their thrall pods? Whatever for?

And then you find some dead imps and one of them has a scroll of Firebolt and the other has a healing potion. Holdup. I didn't know imps could read scrolls. Where did that scroll come from? Who gave it to them? And the healing potion. These are typically things adventurers have, maybe other humanoid/sentient races. An imp? I had no idea that healing potions were part of the imp's standard loot table. Again, where did it come from? Who gave it to them?

Larian never bothers to ask these kinds of questions - instead, this stuff is there specifically to tailor the combat and gameplay to the way they want the combat and gameplay to go. That is, with a ton of bombs and consumables, so that every character has every tool at his/her disposal. The idea is that if you give the entire arsenal to the player, then they will always have a dozen or more tools at their disposal to do whatever they want with.

None of it is standard for D&D encounters (I've never read anything about Illithids making "void bulbs" or "caustic bulbs" before), and it comes across as very "gamey" instead of "immersive".

It's just spam. Larian spams the game world with "video game" powerups and items. Like, you have to open another chest or break a vase in every single room you go into, because that's how video games are made. Players expect a constant stream of rewards. It's not enough to get through the dungeon, enjoy the immersion and atmosphere of it, and then get a reward at the end when you make it out alive. You have to follow a never ending trail of gold crumbs. Useless petty jewelry that just takes up space (how hard would it be to put a chest with 1,000 gold in it at the end of the dungeon instead of 15 pieces of lame ass jewelry that all looks the same that adds up to 1,000 gold?)

It's all filler. Just like the grenades, the special arrows, the 30 potions of healing and dozen potions of greater healing and half a dozen invisibility potions and half a dozen potions of giant strength and wyvern poison and 20 bottles of regular poison. Dozens of resistance potions.

My inventory is so full of grenades, scrolls, potions, bombs, and special arrows - and guess what, I rarely ever use any of it.

In fact, the more of it there is, the less inclined I feel to use it.

It genuinely bothers me with how much of this crap is fed into the game. I feel like less is more. I feel like if this stuff were more uncommon or rare, then it would seem like a real treat when you found it. None of it feels valuable at all. It's just filler. I almost never even drink healing potions (I just approach every combat with the idea that I'll do everything I can to not get hit at all, and it works out 9 out of 10 times).

What's it all for? Where does all this stuff come from?

I think Larian should force themselves, when putting these items in the game, to always have plausible explanation or story for them before just adding stuff like this all over the place.

I think it cheapens the game. Make this stuff more meaningful by making it more rare.

[Vixziค็็็็็n]

Yo some of us just like bacon, calm down. Maybe we bottle that grease and use it later for frying some eggs!

[Vixziค็็็็็n]

Originally posted by pandariuskairos:

It's just spam. Larian spams the game world with "video game" powerups and items. Like, you have to open another chest or break a vase in every single room you go into, because that's how video games are made. Players expect a constant stream of rewards. It's not enough to get through the dungeon, enjoy the immersion and atmosphere of it, and then get a reward at the end when you make it out alive. You have to follow a never ending trail of gold crumbs. Useless petty jewelry that just takes up space (how hard would it be to put a chest with 1,000 gold in it at the end of the dungeon instead of 15 pieces of lame ass jewelry that all looks the same that adds up to 1,000 gold?)

It's all filler. Just like the grenades, the special arrows, the 30 potions of healing and dozen potions of greater healing and half a dozen invisibility potions and half a dozen potions of giant strength and wyvern poison and 20 bottles of regular poison. Dozens of resistance potions.

My inventory is so full of grenades, scrolls, potions, bombs, and special arrows - and guess what, I rarely ever use any of it.

In fact, the more of it there is, the less inclined I feel to use it.

It genuinely bothers me with how much of this crap is fed into the game. I feel like less is more. I feel like if this stuff were more uncommon or rare, then it would seem like a real treat when you found it. None of it feels valuable at all. It's just filler. I almost never even drink healing potions (I just approach every combat with the idea that I'll do everything I can to not get hit at all, and it works out 9 out of 10 times).

What's it all for? Where does all this stuff come from?

I think Larian should force themselves, when putting these items in the game, to always have plausible explanation or story for them before just adding stuff like this all over the place.

I think it cheapens the game. Make this stuff more meaningful by making it more rare.

On a serious note though, this is straight facts. I can understand the breakables as it lends to immersion in some ways (dinner tables, etc....random vases gets a little tiresome though) but some of this stuff like the petty jewelry and baubles goes overboard on the immersion side and just becomes silly in a CRPG.

Why are there random magic scrolls laying out everywhere you go? Like is studying the arcane part of the basic curriculum in grade school? Who is constantly creating these things (which are worth money btw) and just randomly leaving them about? Same with potions...apparently alchemy is also part of basic school studies.

There really has to be a better way to ensure characters can replenish items without making it unrealistic. But you have to be careful here because if you're going to get into this type of minutia why aren't we getting into why a halberd along with a small arsenal can fit in a backpack....see no one wants to talk about that.

But on the whole I do agree with you.

[Brady4444]

You bring up a lot of points OP. Since the game is in early access, I do expect things to get tweaked a lot. What I mean is, that we are probably getting a lot of these items in our inventory so they can test and tweak.

My first few times playing the game I saved all of the items, and used them liberally. Right now, they are vendor trash to me. I only keep a grease bottle or two for when I want to get creative.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Originally posted by Brady4444:

You bring up a lot of points OP. Since the game is in early access, I do expect things to get tweaked a lot. What I mean is, that we are probably getting a lot of these items in our inventory so they can test and tweak.

My first few times playing the game I saved all of the items, and used them liberally. Right now, they are vendor trash to me. I only keep a grease bottle or two for when I want to get creative.

That's fair enough. I just feel it necessary to bring up because Larian's never addressed it before.

Like, it feels fairly silly how much of this stuff is just lying around for no particular reason.

I recall opening the chest in the room with Shadowheart on the nautiloid, and you find a couple gems along with the rune, and also there's a necklace and some scrolls sitting nearby.

For one, the Illithid hate magic. WHY are there scrolls lying around their equipment? Secondly, why did they place a rune that opens a high security pod in a chest in the same room as the pod, and then give the key to that same chest to a thrall in the next room over? What the hell is going on, and why do Illithid just seem to store random trash everywhere on their ship? Why are there chests with random grenades and stuff in them (and grease bottles! wth do the mindflayers do with small glass bottles full of kitchen grease? it makes no sense!)

Anyway, I hope you're right, and that at launch the game will look and feel more natural and intuitive.

The overabundance of scrolls, potions, grenades and bombs, special arrows, and all this other trash really kinda ruins the feel of the game for me.

D&D is mostly mundane items, with a few special magic items here and there to make it more exciting. Power creep is bad for believability.

[Cryptic]

the hair of gamers

[Vixziค็็็็็n]

Originally posted by pandariuskairos:

Originally posted by Brady4444:

You bring up a lot of points OP. Since the game is in early access, I do expect things to get tweaked a lot. What I mean is, that we are probably getting a lot of these items in our inventory so they can test and tweak.

My first few times playing the game I saved all of the items, and used them liberally. Right now, they are vendor trash to me. I only keep a grease bottle or two for when I want to get creative.

That's fair enough. I just feel it necessary to bring up because Larian's never addressed it before.

Like, it feels fairly silly how much of this stuff is just lying around for no particular reason.

I recall opening the chest in the room with Shadowheart on the nautiloid, and you find a couple gems along with the rune, and also there's a necklace and some scrolls sitting nearby.

For one, the Illithid hate magic. WHY are there scrolls lying around their equipment? Secondly, why did they place a rune that opens a high security pod in a chest in the same room as the pod, and then give the key to that same chest to a thrall in the next room over? What the hell is going on, and why do Illithid just seem to store random trash everywhere on their ship? Why are there chests with random grenades and stuff in them (and grease bottles! wth do the mindflayers do with small glass bottles full of kitchen grease? it makes no sense!)

Anyway, I hope you're right, and that at launch the game will look and feel more natural and intuitive.

The overabundance of scrolls, potions, grenades and bombs, special arrows, and all this other trash really kinda ruins the feel of the game for me.

D&D is mostly mundane items, with a few special magic items here and there to make it more exciting. Power creep is bad for believability.

Wait...are you actually using (un)common sense? How dare!

[debonz]

indeed creating bombs, and other potions could be an alternative instead of finding here and there, infact everywere in dongeons, beaches,caves and forests...(eg : collecting ingredients like in "The Witcher" could be inspiring)

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

I just wiped out half the goblin camp (the temple, not the village) with mostly bombs. I think I killed six goblins at once with a single bomb.

[Janthis]

It's the same in DOS2 honestly. You find potions, scrolls and grenades everywhere, enough to fill up your inventory, and you end up not using most of them because enemies are either too easy to bother, or so hard that they don't make a difference. Only the special arrows and occasional scroll have legitimate uses.

And let's not forget the 1,324 recipes for crafting useless stuff for which you also need to gather ingredients.

[seandeven]

Have your sweet treats stuck to the bottom of your pan?

Well today and today only we have a 12 pack of Gimbles no-mess Gnome grease for a low low price of 1 gold!!!! All bottles created by actual gnomes not hurt in the manufacture of grease. Better hurry - inventory must go!!! There will Limited supply and all sales are final ...no returns... and we wont be returning!!! Hurry while supplies lay around. *The previous is a "parody" derived from actual events occurring in the Sword Coast of the Forgotten Realms... and Gimble has more grease if your interested*

(Hard Agree on overabundance of alchemy ...without Alchemists...)

[Roxxsmom]

I assumed the grease came from all the pork products we find everywhere for camp supplies. Swine flesh seems to be everyone's favorite food in this world, which means there's a lot of spare bacon grease.

It's pretty useful slowing enemies in fights, and it makes for great "poor adventurer" fireballs if one character lobs the grease and another sets it alight with a cantrip. It is especially useful at lower levels.

[Thoramyr]

The grease is obviously being used as lubricant. Anyone who has played enough of this game knows that apparently everyone is getting it on with everything and everyone all the time. That takes a lot of lube!

[M'igo Kazan]

Grease was used as lube for millennia and considering how horny everyone is in this game, it's understandable that it'd be everywhere

[HFM]

Originally posted by Pan Darius Loveless:

Everyone has bottles of grease. Goblins have them, adventurers/scavengers have them. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Astarion has two bottles of grease. You find them everywhere.

But where does it come from, and what was it's original purpose? What I mean is, why are they there at all? Like what were they being used for?

The grease store. People like grease.

[Tsumaran Chan]

Yeah, this is a really good set of points by someone who has clearly played real DND, and it irks me as well.

I feel like Larian wanted to design a video games first and a DND campaign second. I was really surprised at how easy it is to get bottles of grease and how so many creatures have them.

I'm sure there'll be mods for people looking for a more authentic DND experience in the future.

For example I'd like one where you run into other mind flayers on your way to the natuloid terminal and have to make a choice to obey their commands or run away from them (or fight them).