evil playthrough?

[newjeans PR manager]

hey y'all! I've taken a long break from BG3 and my current save is somewhere mid act 2. My character there is pretty good, and though I enjoy it I've been thinking about starting a new save and doing a dark urge evil playthrough. Some googling shows me that you're likely to miss out on a good chunk of content doing this.

My question is - do you feel that chunk of content is significant enough to make an evil playthrough feel gimmicky? Also, do you think it'd reduce the replayability of a good run? My current plan if the evil playthroughs are fun is to run that and start a new "good/neutral" character and experience more of the content the way it seemingly was intended - but if all the plot points are given to me in poor fashion by doing evil, I might skip that and go straight for good instead.

Would love to hear y'all's thoughts. Thanks!

[Gaius]

Hm, depends. If you go full psycko you'll lose a lot of content indeed. TBH with you, most of the simply evil playthrough makes no sense at all, SOME evil decisions do, but they don't force you into an evil ending (not listing them here becuase big spoilers).

Being good pays a lot more in BG3, and that makes pragmatic power hungry players to not become evil out of greed or being power hungry, as ironic as that sounds.

[RollerPig]

dark urge snd playing an "evil play through" really are not the same thing.

there are ways to "get around" some of the dark urge consequences.

betraying the grove, is the biggest consequence in the game as multiple companions are tied to it so...as long as you dont do that there's not much different in terms of losing content. its mostly story line depending on how you "embrace" it or not

My advice is play the game. play it as you want. sometimes there are surprising (good) consequences to failing at things or things not going as planned. I learned this playing honor mode and honestly it makes the game so much more fun especially if youve already played the story

[Gaius]

Originally posted by RollerPig:

...
betraying the grove, is the biggest consequence in the game as multiple companions are tied to it so...as long as you dont do that there's not much different in terms of losing content. its mostly story line depending on how you "embrace" it or not

Ok, big spoilers: I'd say the biggest consequence is killing Isobel to unlock slayer form early. It destroys the whole city, including all NPCs, and turn Jaheira hostile unless you convince her it wasn't your doing. It also can make Helsin leave your party, kill Dammon, so you lose him as an awesome vendor in act 3 AND might fail Karlach quest line unless you completed it and changes the whole dinamic or the act .

[RollerPig]

Originally posted by Gaius:

Originally posted by RollerPig:

...
betraying the grove, is the biggest consequence in the game as multiple companions are tied to it so...as long as you dont do that there's not much different in terms of losing content. its mostly story line depending on how you "embrace" it or not

Ok, big spoilers: I'd say the biggest consequence is killing Isobel to unlock slayer form early. It destroys the whole city, including all NPCs, and turn Jaheira hostile unless you convince her it wasn't your doing. It also can make Helsin leave your party, kill Dammon, so you lose him as an awesome vendor in act 3 AND might fail Karlach quest line unless you completed it and changes the whole dinamic or the act .

yes. theres an order to which you would do those to ensure no item (vendor), quest or companion loss. I could list them here but you can just you tube it and its pretty easy

Also if you betray the grove, there is no Damon,Jaheira, Halsin or Karlach so last light means almost nothing. 2 quests there 1 which would be pointless (Halsins)

[IRMcG]

Did a Indulge Durge run last time through, and you end up missing out on several traders and a big chunk of Act Two. Like the guy above said, even doing an Indulge run it's not really the same as an evil playthrough. Bit more murderery than usual perhaps :)
You don't need to betray the Grove and lose companions (not there anyway) and you still hit Level 12 before the last part of the story. You've connections to some of the villains in Act Three that can change how that plays out.

My camp got pretty empty real quick though. Lost Gale right away (well most of him :P), Shadowheart assassinated Lae'zel, Jaheira died at Last Light, Wyl and Karlach left when I slaughtered the Grove :)

It's worth trying out, but you do lose out on companion and story quests and I found it significantly harder towards the end of the game than a "normal" run.

[Brian_the_Brute]

Evil has it's own story although it is less than the good path. Patch 7 will add a bit more to the evil endings. Going evil also makes several encounters easier and lets you shortcut some of the game, mostly in ACT 2. I would suggest going as a drow as you get custom responses for being one.

[Jarsonne]

I did a full play, than switched to something during months and came back for a replay. Thought ok despite I don't like play evil, I'll try for a replay.

In fact I have more new stuff from stuff not quoted/found/triggered in first play, than from evil choices. Moreover i also picked Dark Urge for this replay which also adds stuff, and for mention it seems not request play very evil.

But there's evil and evil, I don't bother roleplay an evil psycho so can't say for that, instead attacked the groove to ensure have Minthara join later, and avoid constantly be a goody goody doing good stuff.

And yes do some key evil choices bring changes, Dark Urge brings changes, but also try new stuff, find new stuff, make stuff differently can bring changes. And also at first play I ignored mostly fully stealing and pickpocket, when in this replay I do many stealing and for now tried some pickpocket, that sort of change in play also bring changes. Party building could be another tool to change a replay, but lack of companions particularly with an evil path doesn't help and I don't want use the Henchmen.

I would discourage evil focus for a first play because it can make lost too many companions. I would discourage Dark Urge for first play because in my opinion it could bring confusion with the main story.

But for a replay both make sense.