A thorough feedback on playing the evil path of the main story (CE playthrough, main story only)

[Renekin]

Hello Everyone!
So, I was writing up my main story summary for feedback on the good aligned character I played on my first playthrough.
However, I am going to push that one back, because I was done with my first evil playthrough and boy, was it a ride. Not an exciting or fulfilling ride, but a ride nonetheless.

Since I will cover the main story beads on my good aligned character post in detail I will go on and about how and why the evil route was pretty… bad.
So from the get go: My character was a male lolth sworn drow and since I have done every class in a run already, I played a rogue for the second time, so I could get through combat as fast as possible.
My outset for alignment was CE and my mindset for choice was: I would take every power gain I can without risking a setback while looking down on everyone and killing everyone I could (from the dialogue tree, not randomly) that I could that would threaten my potential rule at the top. Also, a little caviat, I tried to deal as much chaos and property damage as possible. The more things escalated, the better.

My final squad consisted of Astarion, Shadowheart and Lae’zel who I planned to kill in the dialogue where she sneaks up on me In the camp, but that one never showed. For all it mattered, Raphael spawned in a long rest in the underdark for me this time, but did on my good playthrough where I hadmaybe 3 long rests in total. Anyways:

The Tutorial:
On the nautiloid, you have the most streamlined experience in the game. Close to none of your choices matter.
Freeing or at least trying to free Shadowheart has no consequences. She is stuck and you cannot do anything.
No matter how you treat Lae’zel, if you do not push her off the ship, she is helping you.
Us can despawn in their jump over the gap when you are too fast and even if not, they deal damage like a truck but will never be seen again.
The benefit of being a coldhearted character is that you get tons of weaponry and I had me and Lae’zel dual wielding right after the set of imps.
You deal with the ship normally and everything is fine.

The beach and the way to Silvanus’ Grove:
Besides that you can be a giant ♥♥♥♥ to everyone around you and the people still love you, there is not much to say here. When going to the ruins I let the cement block fall raized hell, killed everybody and was done with it.
At this moment I question the people around me. I am ruthelessly killing everyone, even the fishers and those thugs and I am making myself very clear that party members are worth nothing to me. Why the hell does Gale of all people trust me? The rest I can understand, but Gale has no reason for this. He just smiles, is nice and everything. I had him before Lae’zel but after saving the Gith, I sent Gale to Long Rest Island, never to be seen again.
Me and my happy party went to the grove and killed the goblins. Again, besides being a ♥♥♥♥, you do not get an evil vibe up to this point, since everything you do is quite on the neutral scale.

Silvanus’ Grove:
Coming up in Silvanus’ Grove after beating a bunch of goblins, you come across Zevlor and Aradin fighting. I let the fight continue and Aradin knocks Zevlor out. I got a nice set of gloves out of this, so I can’t complain.
A bit of dillydallying with the common folk in terms of me stealing, and trading everything off while emptying the vendors and telling Ethel to leave me alone and I save Sazza, by murdering the tieflings in cold blood, who claims I am sent by the absolute and that she would show me to her tribe, the tribe who is destined to steamroll the grove.
I help Sazza escape on the quickest path and go back to the grove to go and “find Nettie”. By finding I mean seeing how much havoc I can cause.
I went to the grove, insulted the tiefling parents for being bad at their job because, let’s be honest, they are horrible at their job and the druids are also as bad.
So I went to Kagha and ignored Volo, and let her watch Arabella die. Since the entire situation is tense, Rath is pretty much on the Tiefling’s side and the Tieflings themselves outnumbering the druid, I smack talked Kagha and after she insulted me, I killed her. She is a threat to my reign and killing her assures that the Tieflings give me a free pass, even though I am horrible.
I never did this before but Larian, can you please explain why attacking her and her alerting the other druids, three of which leave their rat forms because they are evil shadow druids, results in a team deathmatch, but challenging Kagha AFTER exposing the three rats and her as shadow druids, it does not?
Anyways. I kill everyone, outside of Kaghas room there is a giant death match going on and except a few causalties, the tieflings win easily. A few tertiary NPCs die but Alfira, Rath, Mol, Zevlor, the chick that bets money on survival, my favorite two cows and even Arabella’s parents live.
Everyone even thanks me and only Rath who is alone now is distraught that I just caused all these people to die.
The trust of the Tieflings is secured.
Zevlor then asks me to kill the Goblins to clear the road ahead. Why? He has no reason to leave anymore. Correct me if I am wrong but he literally asks you to clear the road ahead with the help of Wyll, who I never recruited and died as a lowly level 1 Warlock in the big free for all, so that the tieflings can get to Baldur’s Gate. But the reason they must leave is gone. Kagha is dead, Rath is supportive of the tieflings, they have everything they need, so why leave? Besides this not being a real DnD campaign, I accept and leave because I will help the stronger faction.
I don’t care about the kid with the harpies or for Alfira’s sob story, those things bring my character nothing and I do not see my edgy drow to care for little kids and music.

On my way to the Goblins:
I did the side quests that were on the way, that means chooing and killing the dog, getting the contract for the nightsong, backstabbing the Zhentarim and unleashing the Spectator for Astarion’s ♥♥♥♥♥ and giggles and letting the Flind eat herself. Gnolls are my favorite enemies in DnD and it broke my heart to command her multiple times to suicide but she can be a threat and will not stay loyal forever.
For the Absolute questline, I fought the owlbear and killed the baby because, again, I need my minions and I do not want to have two weaklings who achieve nothing so, show them that coldblooded murder is mercy.
I go to the blighted village and command everyone to leave me alone, I yeet the Gnome and recruit the ogres. If they die for me, then this is very good.
I rush through this part so much because I have nothing to say. This feels evil and I am abusing the tadpole constantly and everyone keeps cheering me on.
What I can comment on however is the following:
I loved the banter that Wyll, Gale and Astarion had as an entire group and I love the banter between Shadowheart and Lae’zel. Astarion was left out for the most part but I found it interesting to see the two ladies of my group probe each other for opinions.
I got so much out of their banter: What Lae’zel understands as justice, what Shadowheart thinks about the Gith etc. etc.
However I feel that depending on the banter, the characters gain a neutral understanding for each other which is not reflected in the direct dialogue with any of these two. We know this is possible however because we can talk with Astarion about entering homes later which is also an off hand remark outside of dialogue. Some of these things are really interesting to talk about like: Why does Lae’zel think murder is less of a crime than stealing when she argues that a kill shows superiority but being able to steal something of someone is the same thing: Your skill is greater than the other person’s.
It made Lae’zel also way more tolerable than Shadowheart to me, who I still despise even though I got to know her really well in a few runs. I would even go so far to saying that I kind of like Lae’zel after this run.
This is something Larian should expand on and I think if characters started to warm up a bit through the first chapter of the game, maybe we wouldn’t have this plethora of posts stating they instantly murder everyone.
Talking about murder...

The goblin camp:
Here starts the meat of my criticism and feedback, so if you are still reading, this is the part that really got my gripes started.
So we first travel into the Goblin camp. Thanks to our friend Sazza we did it uninterrupted.
Everyone is really nice to us since we are with the Absolute and getting to Priestress Gut is our main objective. We go to the priestess, get our mark of the Absolute and she promises us to rid us of the tadpole. She gives me a sleeping serum which I thought was very suspicious and attacks me afterwards.
She should have known that a) I am an elf and cannot fall asleep. B) that talking about her splitting my skull would not fly if I was no elf. She even shot herself in the foot by branding me and allowing me to use all those absolute items, mainly the gloves that bane everyone.
I kill the priestess and go to Minthara and actually do not backstab Sazza. I hoped that not just outright killing her would give me a benefit but we come to that tidbit later.
Minthara orders me to attack Silvanus’ Grove and I oblige. A few tieflings will not help me and Halsin is our captive whom I thought I could deal with later to help me as well.
What if find funny about the Minthara encounter is how my character is unable to say “Yo, girl, the druids are already dead, the grove is yours for the taking, I did the dirty work already.” They are so eager to kill some druids just to stand in a ruined grove, with a single druid and a few tieflings.
I decide to look for Ragzlin who talks to me about him asking the mindflayer questions. When I could hijack the questions, I really hope I could backstab Dror Ragzlin. Alas, I could just dance around the question of who killed the mindflayer.
Guys, if I can dance around that question, give me an option to say something to frame Dror Ragzlin for dodging the one question “Who”. He is drunk, he is weakwilled, let me take his place.
This is really a more “Save your own hide” choice rather than one that lets you be really evil and an obvious choice for an evil character to do. If I can stir up the entire druid grove by attacking Kagha 10 minutes after arriving, then the faction of evil characters who see in me that messiah could be swayed by my accusations.
I also went to the Loviatar session, which gave me the ability of Loviatar’s blessing but it did nothing. I hope it will do something very nicely when it is patched in but also: Make those hits hit harder.
The first one did 3 damage and the latter two hits did 1 and 2 damage even though I successfully told the torturer to hit harder. Make my investing in constitution count, make it count that you play a barbarian when it released, make the decision of telling an armed dude to hit you harder a painful one. I would really love to see this changed to higher numbers.
But with basically nothing accomplished I decide I attack the grove.

The (short) attack on Silvanus’ grove:

I tell Zevlor that the goblins are coming and backstab the tieflings. The Absolute has chosen me and Zevlor is distraught. I have no time for sympathies and the tadpole I decided needs controlling as Astarion would very much oblige.
I let the Goblins in and everything starts to bug. Since everyone except a few people are dead, everyone goes on their paths theys are destined to walk on and the turns take ages to be over. This is something that I as a only-DM understood now: Long turns with NPCs doing their thing is boring. Especially if the game thinks Rath is in combat but stands around and you simply cannot leave turn based mode. I took half an hour to get to Rath because of this and the people in the prison bugging so much that the NPCs and characters there started their turns again and again so you they were stuck. So I had to reset and mind that place, go to Rath slowly, kill him, enter the inside of the grove, let the NPCs do their math outside and go back up.
This is something that should not happen from Rath to those NPCs. It is boring, it is slow and it is agonizing to see.
One would say it would be more interesting to see if all NPCs lived, but seeing how most of the AI takes very long for simply moving when more than say 15 people are in combat, I can only imagine this is even worse.
We slaughter the tieflings and everything is done. The grove is won.
This entire premise is stupid, the fight is stupid and everything that lead up from the point of me leaving the Goblin Camp up to the killing of the last people there is stupid.
The Absolute’s children were only interested in taking the grove and killing the druids. The tieflings were none of their concern and we see in Waukeen’s Rest that the followers want to take slaves. Let me. I should have options here from the point when I kill Zevlor:
-Kill the tieflings.
-Convert the tieflings.
-Put the tieflings into cages or make them slaves.
-Let the tieflings go and spread the word of the Absolute.
-Take the tieflings in but under the premise that we will backstab the Goblins on the first occasion.
In universe, and I spent about 150 hours in that universe, the tieflings do not like the druids, they are about survival because they want to get to Baldur’s Gate from Elturel. They do not owe the druids anything since Kagha took over, they are second class citizens. Most of them are not fighters. Zevlor wanted a more peaceful solution but the enemy faction did not want to talk, but I am a bridge between both factions, so let me be exactly that.
The tieflings going to “fight” alone is a bad concept in general and I bet it is not a possibility if the druids live, that the tieflings fight against the druids with the goblins. Make that an option. It will rebound the sidequests just on the evil path in later chapters. As it stands, your evil players, when reaching Baldur’s Gate, lose all their side quest content even when they are not maniacs like my drow.
I hope you get my point, that this little fighting force would never fight against a horde led by competent warriors.
I decide to loot everywhere, see everyone is dead and steal the idol of Silvanus. This thing is awesome. It gives you the Silvanus’ blessing buff permanently which is really practical if there were more checks that utilized animal handling and nature and also this was the first time besides the Absolute’s branding that I flat out got a buff out of being evil.

The celebration party and the “post-game”:
I did the celebration and had a thing with Astarion. I wanted to spite Minthara and I know Astarion and I wanted control. If I end up with him and we turn both to a vampire gay power couple, we can rule the sword coast and kill a few pests easily.
I never mentioned Volo besides me ignoring him in the grove. I freed him with kind words of him waiting in my camp and I convinced Gribbo that Volo can go free.
Why was it necessary to retcon that option into a small text “Volo got captured again lol” and him being absolutely hostile with me. I am an ass, but I am not responsible for his fate.
Also, I got a nice altar to the Absolute during the party.
The rest of the people are “meh” about the affair and Gale says NOTHING.
Again, my favorite question: Why? Should he not be outraged? He throws a real tantrum when Nettie poisons you without consent but me killing countless of innocents minding their own business, me being an ass to him all the time he says anything and not even a word? No sarcasm but he even says he trusts my judgement when it comes to him giving magic items. Every evil character reacts when you choose to help the Tieflings, but as far as I could find evidence on the internet, since very few people ever played evil, none of the good characters bat an eye about this situation, except Volo and somewhat Shadowheart. Really disappointed about this. (rest of the post is in the comments)

[Renekin]

The next morning Minthara tries to backstab us for a change. That is a really interesting plot development and a friend of mine said he fought her and killed her while I convinced her that we as True Souls should stick together.
She left and despawned from the game telling me that the goblins in the camp think I am dead and will be hostile.
This is the point where I stopped the game and left it off for the rest of the day.
It was a big “Gotcha” from the devs and something that made no sense in universe.
Let’s recap:
-I was “holier than thou” to every single Absolute person I saw.
-I secured the victory for the goblins before showing up.
-I brought home Sazza without a scratch to help the Absolute win the fight.
-I did not kill a single goblin except the ones in the cave behind the prison in the grove.
-Everyone in the dialogues loved me and was respectful of my person.
-Minthara declared us both as the official leaders of the tribe to everyone.
What is the reason they want to kill me? There is none. Just moustache twirling, evil nonsense. I played all my cards up to that point to lead the Goblin horde and I literally get reset to Silvanus’ grove before the goblin attack, just with everyone dead.
I thought “Well Sazza was on my side, and it is a infight between leadership” but no, everyone was suddenly against me and Sazza bugged out in a way that she was not talking but also not hostile.
It was a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. I killed all the goblins like I would on a good route and check on Halsin: He was not there anymore, but his cage was intact. I do not know if this is intended or not but yeah. That is certainly something.
After clearing the goblins I took my rest and our missing druid attacks me in my camp. I kill Halsin without even a chance of conversation about Kagha or anything and I basically did a kill everything you see run with my companions intact.
This felt like a giant illusion of choice to me. What’s the harm in just sending me to Moonrise Towers and let the goblins be neutral? What about Minthara? Why not give me the option to take over?
All I get is a reset to pre assault on the grove and that’s it.
The rest of the game is basically the standard evil affair: Giving the woman and her child to Ethel for the +1 stat item (which is not working at the moment), refusing to help the people in Waukeen’s rest, so they all perish in the fire, kill the Zhentarim in their outpost, kill the Tiefling instead of the people who dealt with Zariel, let the harpies have their food and kill them afterwards for their riches, helped Lae’zel find a way to the crèche, kill the myconid colony along with their Sovereigns, and wait go for the boat ride just to have the cinematic play and tell me how awful I am. (I am not going into too much detail on the Underdark, the chapter one part seems really unpolished content wise.)
Guys, you have a really good skeleton of a story but by the gods, this was sitting on a train and going around in one big circle.
I usually can tolerate much but this was awful the way it played out. This playthrough took me about 10 hours because my combat went really fast and most of the dialogue was gone because it feels like 75% of writing and implementation went into the good path.
You have more possibilities on how to deal with Kagha and how you kill the Goblin leaders than you have options on your path down evil.
Again, why?
Kagha can be dealt with in 4 ways: Getting Halsin back, exposing her and killing her, exposing her and joining her (this is what I will test next), attack her directly. All of those have different outcomes and different reactions, hell she has even subplots if she kills Arabella or not and Zevlor’s opinion on her death will change depending on whether or not she kills the girl or not, even offering you a quest to take her out.
On the other hand we have a flat line when it comes to the evil path. I would have loved to have that side of the story expanded and a multitude of ways to get Minthara out of the way without going on the good side ending up as an overlord.

Final thoughts:
The evil path is the one probably played least and at the moment I do not recommend it if you expect a huge story shift. If you just feel evil and want to kill everything, then evil is the way to go but also, write feedback.
At Larian: If you expand the evil side of things more and give us options on what to do past the Silvanus’ grove, this could become a very interesting parallel story line. As it stands, it is really disappointing and in all honesty the inferior play experience.

[Soft Lockpick]

The evil path, by their definition of evil, is pretty terrible. You have to be stupid evil, not rational evil, to make most of the decisions required.

The better "evil" path would be siding with shadow druids or playing the tieflings and druids against each other.