Fun fact: Volo is a recurring character for Forgotten Realms. He's basically their Forest Gump. Very err-- "special" guy, means well but useless as a krogan condom, shows up at every major event somehow.
@@Veladus If you look at his DnD lore, he's quite opposite from useless, but even Volo himself doesn't know this. (He's a magic anchor for the weave, Elminster is tasked with protecting him by Mystra, which he does only begrudgingly so...)
He's literally Jergal, not his servant, read your in-game books, one of them mentions Jergal asking the same question as Withers ask when your first meet him
@@TenInfi I know that. I've found him on my other playthroughs. But in my first one, I didn't see the door leading to that part of the tomb so I missed his initial encounter. Instead he just showed up in my camp one night and was like "'sup! I'm here to resurrect your friends." I don't even think he asked the question about what a mortal life is worth
@@fireking0531 He's mad because he was the one who originally gave those three their powers (which used to be his, he sort of... retired), but then these jerks went on to be manipulated by the mindflayers into helping them turn everyone into mindflayers, and as Withers points out at some point, mindflayers don't have souls, which is a BIG issue for Gods, because that's where their powers come from; basically his chosen successors almost managed to destroy every deity including themselves.
If you remove all of your armour for Abdirak, Loviatar grants you a special status that makes it ridiculously easy to pass all your checks here. Don’t ask me how I know this
haha not gonna lie.. yes i did it too with just my undies. and it took easy win win and get loviatar blessing and.. shadowheart and astarion loves it...
In the Emerald Grove, there is a rock next to a bear on the beach. Under that rock is a necklace that allows one casting of Lesser Restoration a day. Every morning I switch necklaces, cast, and switch back. No bloodless debuff, no spell slot wasted from a caster, and a happy Astarion! Super easy to get at low levels too. Also great to cast on the paralyzed tiefling in the warehouse inside Emerald Grove as well.
I agree, i find that o have loads of magic items im not using, so it didn't bother me. personally find him alot of fun to have in the party, and really funny.
Yeah, when I was playing multiplayer I found out about him and was warned to stay away from him as he consumed magic items. But I was curious and found him anyway. It was very little hassle to provide him items to feed him. And he is a very powerful companion
I wanted to keep him but he asked for an item and they were all things I wanted to keep. I though np ill kill him and rez him when i need him but he went super nova in my camp and it was GG. So after a quick reload I let him leave 😢
Well having Withers join your camp isn’t actually a decision. He is immune to damage, refuses to leave, and if you never go find him in the crypt, he just randomly appears after a few days.
Withers is such an OP addition to your group that it's funny to think he's just doing it to kill time in his retirement. His prices are so cheap that they're basically a formality
you can also just steal all the money back, he never reacts when you fail your pickpocket checks on him, so you can always try again until you stole it back 😅
My favorite part about Volo's "surgery" is your characters options to respond at one point. I personally chose "Pblblblblblb..." as my favorite with` "Hnnnngggg..." being my next favorite. Very deep dialog options
My favorite dialogue option's gotta be the one where at some point in the story you end up in a library where a curator has told you in a very low voice that the magic books they have there are *very very sensitive* to audio disturbances. Cue dialogue options: 1. whisper 2. another whisper 3. "IS IT TRUE BOOKS, ARE YOU REALLY SENSITIVE??" 4. Leave quietly. If you picked the funny option that part of the library will explode and leave your party at almost half health. If you come back to talk to the curator you still have the option to tell on books very loud: "HOW ARE YOU BOOKS ARE YOU STILL SENSITIVE??"
You can actually first see Volo in the druid grove, where he'll tell you he's planning on going to check out the goblin camp, and Gale is a strong dps (give that boy the shield spell at the first opportunity) He'll only eat three items, and there are plenty of greens and other items you won't end up using to give to him in act 1.
Fun Gale combo. The sparkstaff and the magic missile amulet. You get an extra bolt on every cast, an extra cast per long rest, and EACH bolt triggers the staff. So with 4 bolts, that's +2 charges, 3 times, followed by it triggering the burst damage. MM goes from dealing like 10-12 damage, to a guaranteed 20-25. There are a ton of other charge related gear you can give him to take this even further. My favorite being the boots that electrify surfaces you stand in + the ring that makes you immune to electrified. And if you choose to make gale conjuration, you get free shortrest create water. If you wet an enemy, the MM is doing even more damage.
This tracks with his character, considering who he actually is in the lore He's not able to directly intervene with events, so he helps you out in a roundabout way
Not entirely related, but I just saw a video of someone throwing Withers at another character, and he actually said something like "oh, nice throw" 💀 bone man has no fucks left to give
Volo also shows up the druids grove trying to interview a bear even though he doesn't have the ability to talk to animals. The bear is totally into it.
If you pickpocket him he actually has a speak with animals potion. Either he forgot to drink it, or he had multiple and the bear is just messing with him. Either way, it's hilarious.
On a note, if you're going for the Loviatar's Love buff, DO NOT use the Constitution rolls in the dialog choices. If you do he will say you held your pain in and not give you the buff!
About the loviatar's love thing. If you read the books in the room first you can choose the implement he uses. Choosing the dagger makes the damage you take MUCH lower (I took all of 4 damage total) and still allows you to get the gift
@@evilmonqey It's a really nice offhand option for the early game if you don't have two-weapon fighting yet, especially on thief rogues who have bonus actions to burn.
@@Yattatt are you kidding me? If you're playing a rogue well you should be hard pressed to find a spare bonus action. Easily the class with the most and most appealing and useful bonus actions. I'd go bard second.
Spoiler for Act 1.5 (not quite act 2, the Mountain Pass is sorta in between 1 and 2): Turns out calling a god out and then repeatedly taunting her to smite you ends up in you getting, uh, smitten! Or more accurately, wished. Wished into nothingness. TPK.
hey when projared was playing co-op and that happened to his friend, he said he wasn't given any options. that was just the dark urge randomly forcing him to punt a squirrel into a tree
You missed the Necromancy of They. Opening and reading through a magical death book seems like a bad plan, but it gets you Speak to Undead for free, gives bonuses to wisdom saving throws, and can later get you a squad of ghouls at your command.
Yeah that's not such a good option later on. 1. Those ghouls rarely hit. 2. They have only 20 hp. 3. They explode on death and can start a chain reaction and deal quite alot of damage. 4. They are AI controlled and NPC meme here applies perfectly (like taking a dash option to engage and then not having action to attack then dash wasn't needed to get there) 5. In later game stages you have to keep yourself away from them because of that explosion. One good redeeming quality is that claw attack can freeze enemy if they fail a save and every hit on that enemy will be a crit. It would be really good if they couls actually hit. On avarange 1 or two land hits out of 4...
@@TheEstafista I’d say they have other redeeming qualities. First off assuming you’re fighting more than one enemy they’re pretty unlikely to go after the same guy as you and thus will be elsewhere so exploding isn’t that bad. Second off, every attack (that isn’t aoe) directed at them is an attack not directed at you.
@@Archdevil_FirkraagI found them *extremely* useful for rescuing the mind flayer in act 3. Not because they're individually good in combat, but because they occupy the mobs of lizardmen while you make the escape run
Abdirak is also the director of the game. This npc literally has his same face. It is a easter egg by the devs of the game for the love they have for them boss.
I just did that today. Astarion is my boyfriend and was extatic to have me try it out. When I did, shadowheart asked him if he wouldve suggested that if he knew what was coming. His answer was a mix between amusement, regret and trying to wiggle out of it 😂
Two things some may find useful. 1. Withers does not mind if you pickpocket the gold you gave him back, he is just a secret bank for savings. 2. You can dispel bloodless with lesser Restoration which Shadowheart will have access to by that point in the game.
Astarion gets the bit bonus action when he reveals himself, and the happiness buff whenever he bites a humanoid. You don't need to let him bite you unless you want the relevant dialogue options.
I only let him bite me once (initial when he reveals himself) and he was "happy" for rest of the game. He never made an issue out of it, outside one or two lines that he's hungry and he's going to hunt in forest.
Yup. I always have him bite someone in camp who isn't heading out that day (though not Gale or Karlach, FYI, though it's hilarious to try them if you want a laugh). Means Astarion gets the buff and I don't have to bother healing myself.
My big revelation was when I decided to play as a drow, just because everybody hates them, and it turned out to be SO MUCH FUN. Especially with the goblins, because of their reactions.
Of cast disguise self as my wizard did :D Ahh the amount of war crimes that spells offers is just insane! You can infiltrate the enemy in disguise undermine them, make them kill each, other assassinate key figures AND poison their food supply! This game is just so fun. I mean you can chose to play as agent 47 if you want!
I missed a lot of content in the grove somehow so honestly being a drow was almost entirely a positive experience for me. The baddies all immediately trust me and let me in and the good guys just maybe say one or two lines but otherwise I get to befriend them as normal. It's great.
My favourite part about Volo's surgery was, due to the way the camp was laid out, i could see Wyll over his shoulder the whole way through, drinking constantly. It also fixed my character portrait which had been bugged, so win win!
He's a jerk if you're a jerk, i suppose. Although i think my Druid rubbed him the rong way and he occasionally get pretty snappy at her. (His approval was quite high though) He doesn't like to be told 'no', as it seems. Especially about the crown. On the other hand, Astarion randomly started proposing to save people and if i haven't killed a certain Character already, i'd have smacked him a few times to check if i still have the right guy with me.
One of the first interractions with him if you're not also a wizard is him assuming you don't know annything about magic and if you're a spellcaster ypu can telm him you can use magic and his respince is super condescending so considering this is one of the first interractions you can have with him in the game I don't really blame people for assuming his a jerk
Yeah that's what I don't get about Gale haters lol. Like yeah he's kind of arrogant and snarky but so is Astarion? And everybody LOVES Astarion! I think it comes down to whether or not you find his brand of humor funny, and also how attached you are to magic items/which items you give him. Honestly I liked Gale's humor (and Astarions's and Shadowheart's who share similar snarky senses of humor). At first I thought he was a bit of a jerk, telling my druid that her magic wasn't the same as a wizard's magic of whatever, but he was so charming I kinda couldn't help but forgive him lol. And later on he proves a very useful, loyal companion (and lover if you so choose) with lots of funny dialogue. Anyone who hates Gale, I urge you to give him another try because he does get better!
@@RainbowEssence-c3w I agree! Since my first comment, the only other thing I've noticed that put me off Gale really is if you start romancing him then stop midway he gets very upset and dramatic let's say.
Making a deal with Auntie Ethel for Mayrina. While it seems like a shit idea to deal with a hag, she gives you a +1 to any stat without any downside... and you can even intimidate or persuade her to save Mayrina also.
I wish I had done that one. If you save her and are a paladin with the wrong oath, just about any choice you make with the released Mayrina breaks your oath.
I honestly thought it was kind of weird. When she tore off a piece of her hair I fully expected it to be some kind of horrible poison. But no she was telling the truth. Maybe she was worried that trying to trick you in that moment would endanger her life
@@plazmica0323 he’s basically the Da Vinci of the Forgotten Realms (the world Baldur’s Gate is set in). Pretty sure Da Vinci is the inspiration for the character too.
Damn, I kind of want to go back and do the Goblin camp choices differently now. I'm playing a Monk, so had options to auto-pass with the pain priest and not make a sound, and I naturally thought "Hell, no, I'm not getting the brand that keeps popping up on other people and letting me mind control them"
also didn't do much in the goblin camp outside of killing everyone. but my next play will be a more evil character and find out how I can assist the goblins without touching the refugees myself
The item options for the absolute are not that great, you will find better or have better by the time you get there. They also aren't worth much when you sell them as far as magic items go.
@@Nempo13um, the item (I think it is gloves) that autocasts bane on whoever you attack looks pretty sweet, not sure about the rest but that alone I think would be worth getting the brand (I only noticed it too late but next play through I plan on taking the brand for just it alone)
Yeah, I just walked around a bit and talked to a few goblins then killed everyone. No torture. No branding. They never even saw me coming..... that was so long ago. I'll have to check it out on a replay.
Don't kill the owlbear cub! If you go back to the goblin camp after you defeat the goblins, you will see the cub, and you can get him to join your camp.
Ah, but the even better reason to resurrect Gale is that if you follow his ridiculously complicated instructions, you can get a [slight spoiler] scroll of True Resurrection [/slight spoiler] out of the deal, then use a much cheaper scroll of Revivify on him instead and keep the better one for when you really need it later or sell it for the gold!
You don't need Astarion to feed on your character to allow him to feed, just have that scene where he admits that he is a vampire. You can reject him and he still gets the ability.
Was enjoying until the last one- He's not terrible, he's so sweet! And he only takes like- 3 magic items early on in the game AND you can pick ones you already don't plan on using! He never left my party and his powerful magic saved me on many occasions! Enough Gale slander! He's wonderful and Idk if I can ever romance any of the other characters now because he set the bar too high
mmm maybe not in that way for me (The game shows at least Gale being very uncomfortable w/ more than one person, and I'd feel bad changing him just to force that on him), but there's always an origin route playthrough if you want both at the same time in a way ^^||| - I DO plan to romance Astarion later though, Gale's route just suited me better for my first run lmao @@Mangaka718
I loved gale the moment I met him. I find him charming and funny and I find plenty of magical items I have no use for so it's not an issue feeding him.
Volo cruel cutscene with negative buff is a big no no. Atleast we have good permanent buff effect instead of losing our vision for the rest of the game.
An even worse seeming decision than letting Gut brand you is drinking the sleeping potion she gives you. You go with her to her private room and have a conversation. After you inevitably pass out (unless you resist sleep, then she just attacks you), you have a short conversation with Gut. Then, you'll be able to try and break your bonds. Don't do it. Just sit tight. A new character will arrive and kill Gut, saving you a boss fight.
I just hide 2 party members around the alter in Gut's room and one hiding right behind her in the cell. The one in the cell sneak attacks her and helps the main character out of the shackles. The other two goes ham on Gut at the alter. Since she is a mage, she's rather squishy.
Was playing a Drow when I drank the potion not knowing what it was....She got mad at me and said we could have done this the easy way and attacked me. I was just sitting going o.o I did what you want why do you hate me.... Figured out it was a sleeping potion only after I went through the items on her body 😂
I was a half elf so the potion wouldn't work but I just followed her, closed the door and had everyone attack her without even bothering lol. Astarion sneak attack to start off the fight always a fun start to fisticuffs
That dialogue after he kills you is what turned me from finding him annoying into loving him. Plus you get to punch him in the face, something that’s very satisfying and he agrees is justified.
My drow loves rubbing it in his face that he actually killed her. I also freaked out a bit because the sleeping packs were preventing him from getting a clear line to rez her and Withers wouldn't do it. Eventually it worked, but my heart was pounding bad.
Withers is weird. Suddenly he just appeared in my camp. I got to the dank crypt much later and was confused about very disjointed dialog when I found the empty casket. Turns out if you camp inside the goblin lair, the game thinks you've already recruited Withers.
it is intentional so that people who skipped the crypt would not miss Withers, there are even some special dialogue with him if you didn't check the crypt
Also! If you let Astarion kill you and then resurrect by Withers there's a unique dialogue! Which I LOVED, especially after he says "Oh no, something terrible had happened after KILLING YOU" Same if you steal a certain magical artifact from a temple without going through proper security protocol (which I accidentally did) and resurrect Astarion through Withers. I've seen this dialogue posted a million times, and every time I listen because Neil Newbon's performance is PEAK
Oh, is that the "well apparently there's a limit - somewhere between 'a nice summers day,' and the full concentrated power OF THE SUN!" That one? Because that's amazing.
@@Blackwind_Legacy Jergal has no champion, as he is no longer a god. He's talking about Kelemvor, the current god of death, to whom Jergal now serves as a seneschal.
@@Blackwind_Legacy The epilogue very strongly indicates he is Jergal, especially when he says 'Did you think I would not notice?'. I must admit that I am so dim that it hadn't even occurred to me
@@jrtomlin1805That epilogue was one of my favorite parts of the ending. Grandpa withers just flaming the dead three in a dark room for two minutes was amazing.
You can first meet Volo at Emerald Grove interviewing a bear, he then interviews you about goblins and dragons. With Asterion, he will gain the happy buff every time he uses his vampiric pite in combat, until a long rest. Withers will auto-join you after a few days regardless of your progression through the ruin. With Loviatar, I found taking my gear off and "feeling more pain" unlocked a stronger debuff, just don't use constitution.
Another one I haven't heard anyone talk about is drinking the disgusting water at the well beside the hag's house. It gives you +10 HP until long rest. Sure you get nauseated the next day, which isn't that big of a debuff, but if you long rest again you can just go drink the water again. For early game this is really worth while imo. Especially if you are planning to go into a big fight. And it is right near the way point so... +10 HP for everyone in your party when you're at like 20-40 HP is pretty good buff.
@@slamindorf5478 interesting. I am holding off on engaging the hag until I decide how I want to spend that permanent asi point... so many possible builds, and you can't go back and change which stat you increase. but the buff is good to use on any other large fight throughout act 1
Withers do show up in your camp randomly even if you didn't go to the dank crypt, one playthrough I decided to wait, then suddenly he showed up anyways.
My Withers mission was bugged, nothing happened when I interacted with his crypt. So, I thought - shit, I'm not getting Withers. But he showed up anyway after a long rest or two
Looks like perfect fit in this list - if you use Githyanki machine to remove tadpole... It will not remove it, but it will awaken it instead, allowing to use Illithid powers as bonus action. But there are some hard checks to pass.
I heard that, but it didn't work for me. I let Lae'zel enjoy the machine (had the suspicion it won't be pretty, plus she insisted on going first), I let her sit through to the end, and no extra skills. Maybe because I also didn't learn any tadpole skill tbh. What I got for that was permanent debufs for Lae'zel - -1 to Wis, Int and Con, which I discovered much later in her skill list (it says in the description that's those are effects of the machine)
@@ragvald8835 maybe you haven't passed check. We played coop with friends and I was only one who was ready to do it. Also, I haven't used any tadpoles before it. Or, maybe, Liazel is the problem.
I jumped into the hole in the spider pit without featherfall,did a little cutscene and then killed me (in my defense it usually says if a jump will hurt or kill you)
you can remove the bloodless debuff from astarion with a minor restoration or pretty much anything that heals multiple status effects so it's actually quite worth it
Make a deal with the Hag if you fight her down in her own lair. It gives you Hag's hair which permanently increases a stat of your choice by 1. Another one is making use of the non-lethal passive to knock out traders if you're having a hard time stealing their stuff. They leave alot more loot compared to when you outright kill them. Granted they won't be happy with you when they eventually wake up, but if you know they're going to die later anyway it doesnt really matter. :') Last one of my preferences, let Astarion bite the Alchemist at moonrise towers. It gives you a potion which increases your strength permanently by 1.
small correction: the potion increases your strength by 2. And it'll let you increase strength over 20. Astarion gets really upset with you too, so no romance with him or anything
Also to add on Astarions bite. Afterwards when he has the bite ability, you can have him use it on an enemy (that has blood ofc), which will also give him the happy effect, while you dont get any debuff, meaning he gains an attack which will let him get a +1 to attack rolls and more, until the next long rest, for essentially free. Later on (SPOLIERS) in act 3, if you let him complete the ritual after killing Cazador Szarr, he will become vampite acendant, the most powerful form a vampire can be, which no only removes the everlasting hunger for blood, but would let a vampire go into the sun without any problems (tho the tadpole is protecting Astarion already), but doing so will also give Astarion the Acendant Bit ability if he has the bite ability, now instead of a measily 1d4 of damage, the acendtion bite will deal 12 to 72 whole damage, as well as inflict powerful negative effect on the target, giving asatrion the happy condition, and not to worry about damage resitances either, for the ascention bite deals piercing and necrotic damage.
The first one, but has an ovies downside too. If you don´t engange with Volo into tthe whole tadpole thing, he stays in your camp and act as an trader which travels with you, which is actually not that bad. To Withers, it doesn´t matter if you "recruit" him or not (my Quest for him is bugged e.g.) he will join you automaticlly after a few long rest, even if you don´t recruit him.
You do not need to let Astarion feed on you for him to get the bite action - he gets that even if you turn him down. He can then use it in combat, and gets that Happy buff that you referred to from biting any humanoid.
Astarion gets the bite action whether you let him drink your blood or not, just happens when you officially find out he's a vamp. As if it wasn't obvious from minute one.
8:11 the cool thing about Withers is he literally does not give a fuck if you pickpocket him. He won’t get angry and you can try as many times as you want. Just take a rogue like Astarion, walk behind Withers, hide and then pickpocket your money back so you never actually have to pay for the upgrades.
omg I've definitely been roleplaying too sensibly!! I finally let Volo do his thing out of sheer curiosity but I should've been way more open-minded in the goblin camp ^.^ thanks for the great video!! PS I can empathize with the Gale exasperation, he is... verbose >.< my pet peeve is Halsin!! I smooth-talk him out of captivity and all he wants to do is murder goblin children and be self-righteous about his terrible druids!
Astarian gets the bite action regardless of if you let him bite you. He only gets "happy" for a day after feeding (regardless of if it's on you or not), but you can use the action for that.
Somehow Withers showed up at my camp before I even went to the ruins. Then later I went to the ruins, didn't get the cutscene obviously, but it was like oh I wonder if this is where Withers came from.
@@valiroime Withers isn't a Zombie. he aids the party because of major story reasons. SPOILER: Withers is actually Jergal, Scribe of the Dead, and was sent by Kelemvor to aid the party against Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul.
my worst decision was trying to save the kid in the druid grove, the one who stole from them. Was a barbarian and I wanted to see what would happen if I just drew weapons to save her. Consequences of a rash decision got the kid, the kids parents and EVERYONE IN THE ENTRIRE GROVE, dead. I... did profit greatly from the loot tho xD
In Act 2 when we find out the core of the plot I started to suspect who Withers is and then in Act 3 found a book that basically confirms that :D This game is such a riot!
If you let astarion bite you to death and then revive yourself with one of the other companions, he'll get a very poerful ability from it and you will get some hilarious dialogue, so for 200 gold or a revive scroll it's definitely worth doing.
I’m so sad this was my first game ever like this so when I found out he wanted to bite me I kicked him from my camp, I didn’t realize most bad decisions in this game end up being not really bad
Everyone always makes a big deal about Gale eating magicsl items but he only ever did it in my play through twice. Small price to pay to hang out with the friendliest and strongest wizard companion a guy could ask for.
You let Astarion bite you to make him stronger in combat, I let Astarion bite me because I want to swan dive into his underwear and rustle around. We are not the same.
i let him bite me the first time, played a circle of moon druid so i reasoned that the missing blood would not mean too much as i spend my time in wildshape, also vampire druid sounded fun.
I feel so proud that i've already done all these things lol, except i didn't let Gale die yet so it's not been a problem for me so far. And with save reloading none of these things are even a problem to test out and reload if it doesn't go well in the end :3
Attacking random commoners while wandering around Baldur's Gate. Sounds like the most villainous thing you can do? Well, if you check their stats first and choose your victims carefully, you can catch Oren using her shapechanger's abilities to hide in plain sight and give her what for.
Pro tip: let Astarion kill you when he bites you. You can just resurrect yourself and heal up with potions or something and then won't gain the bloodless debuff.
Ye this is a good tip since so far shadowheart’s initial shar reveal actually happened the same day we get bloodless every time and that skill check is hard to reach normally even harder with bloodless if you wanna make that check.
Well, I missed 2 of those listed in my first playthrough. Mostly because I had decided ahead of time to commit goblin mass murder and Gut and the Pain Priest had a hard time entertaining dialogue as corpses
You don't need to kill the Priest. I've wiped out the Goblin Camp on two playthroughs now and he just left both times. You can talk to him and pick up the buff before wiping out the Goblins.
@@TheDJdragonflame Really you can, i literally killed the 2 goblins next to him and he was just like: "be careful with that" or something, iwas expecting him to fight back but he didn't care, he's not their ally (just like the merchant in the camp, neither fight for the goblins and will just abandon them if things go haywire)
@@guifire9747 Yeah, I get that. I just literally went in with a "no survivors" idea. Actually attacked him first. Would have probably killed Halsin, too. If he didn't transform back in time 😅
@@TheDJdragonflame Fair fair, i did the same in my first go ngl, i let the merchant go (since i was already buddy with their clan so i correctly assumed they wouldn't intervene) but i killed the rest including the pain priest, you know "just in case" despite him not reacting to me making fireworks out of the golbin next to him, i went overboard lmao That camp was a blast ngl, with Astarion up there like an assassin, and the rest cleaning each zone, via silent murder, pushing goblins to close to pits or explosive at the right place, also use the spider to fight the priestress with me, so much fun I left all prisonners go tho, the flaming fist, volo and the goblin (i kinda hoped he could join our group of misfit but that was impossible unfortunately)
@@KaitouKaiju You cannot prove that I may have cut his hand off nope there is no evidence of that at all there is definitely not a hand in my characters backpack labeled Gales Hand
I like to think Withers sponsors the endgame party with the money you used. :D (And probably the few dozen random items you've stuffed in your camp chest and forgotten about)
The way Volo runs away like he’s fleeing from malpractice is fucking hysterical
You find his role in dnd is to somehow get you into mess and then run away.
He bugged out for me and kept running around my camp at blazing speeds, making it even funnier
Fun fact: Volo is a recurring character for Forgotten Realms. He's basically their Forest Gump. Very err-- "special" guy, means well but useless as a krogan condom, shows up at every major event somehow.
@@Veladus If you look at his DnD lore, he's quite opposite from useless, but even Volo himself doesn't know this. (He's a magic anchor for the weave, Elminster is tasked with protecting him by Mystra, which he does only begrudgingly so...)
@@Veladus "useless as a krogan condom" LMAO
The best part about Withers is that if you don't find his sarcophagus, he just shows up in your camp anyway. With no context
He's literally Jergal, not his servant, read your in-game books, one of them mentions Jergal asking the same question as Withers ask when your first meet him
@@TenInfi I know that. I've found him on my other playthroughs. But in my first one, I didn't see the door leading to that part of the tomb so I missed his initial encounter. Instead he just showed up in my camp one night and was like "'sup! I'm here to resurrect your friends." I don't even think he asked the question about what a mortal life is worth
Going to get him though means you also get a necklace that let's you cast "Speak with Dead" once per day. Which is a nice spell to have
@madzohanytb I think its more he's resentful.
More spoilerful stuff below
There's an after credits scene where he calls the 3 gods of death fools.
@@fireking0531 He's mad because he was the one who originally gave those three their powers (which used to be his, he sort of... retired), but then these jerks went on to be manipulated by the mindflayers into helping them turn everyone into mindflayers, and as Withers points out at some point, mindflayers don't have souls, which is a BIG issue for Gods, because that's where their powers come from; basically his chosen successors almost managed to destroy every deity including themselves.
If you remove all of your armour for Abdirak, Loviatar grants you a special status that makes it ridiculously easy to pass all your checks here. Don’t ask me how I know this
I'm taking note of this for no particular reason. And I definitely don't have a thing for Abdirak... it's for umm... science.
@@lisah-p8474 FOR SCIENCE!!!
haha not gonna lie.. yes i did it too with just my undies. and it took easy win win and get loviatar blessing and.. shadowheart and astarion loves it...
For which checks?
@@archerelms It’s a condition that gives +4 to your performance and intimidation checks during your penance interactions with Abdirak
In the Emerald Grove, there is a rock next to a bear on the beach. Under that rock is a necklace that allows one casting of Lesser Restoration a day. Every morning I switch necklaces, cast, and switch back. No bloodless debuff, no spell slot wasted from a caster, and a happy Astarion! Super easy to get at low levels too. Also great to cast on the paralyzed tiefling in the warehouse inside Emerald Grove as well.
nice
Shoot. It’s too late…Keeping this in mind for the next run.
Wait, lesser restoration removes bloodless?! TIL....
Gale is a sweetheart. He only eats about 3 or so magic items, which considering how many are crap, doesn't seem like much of a hassle.
I agree, i find that o have loads of magic items im not using, so it didn't bother me. personally find him alot of fun to have in the party, and really funny.
Yeah, when I was playing multiplayer I found out about him and was warned to stay away from him as he consumed magic items. But I was curious and found him anyway. It was very little hassle to provide him items to feed him. And he is a very powerful companion
I wanted to keep him but he asked for an item and they were all things I wanted to keep. I though np ill kill him and rez him when i need him but he went super nova in my camp and it was GG. So after a quick reload I let him leave 😢
I love Gale!! I don't understand Andy's Gale hatred
I love finding terrible magic items. I'm like "Gale's going to live this".
Well having Withers join your camp isn’t actually a decision. He is immune to damage, refuses to leave, and if you never go find him in the crypt, he just randomly appears after a few days.
it is a decision because you have to look for him.. If you do it by accident, then so be it.. but as long as you don't look for him, he won't join
@@ISpecZxPainZz I never found him and he just appeared in the camp anyway
@@paecmaker oh, really? Well.. does he explain anything? If not, then I'm sorry I was wrong with him
@@ISpecZxPainZz nope. He turns up. Refuses to explain and stays cryptic.
@@ISpecZxPainZzHe said in the original comment that the wither appears regardless
i’m always surprised nobody seems to find the joke of volo being the uncanny adroit with a knitting needle that gale talks about when u first meet him
wait that’s so true😂😂
Oh man you deserve 10 million thumbs up for that
OMG I NEVER MADE THE CONNECTION
Withers is such an OP addition to your group that it's funny to think he's just doing it to kill time in his retirement. His prices are so cheap that they're basically a formality
He also makes reviving Gale a trivial matter
If you made it to act 3 you find out withers has a very serious reason to help you on your mission.
you can also just steal all the money back, he never reacts when you fail your pickpocket checks on him, so you can always try again until you stole it back 😅
@@calebsfamilybbq9720but I'm sure he's very disappointed in your life's decisions. 🙁
😂
The first time I saw Withers, I was like, "ew, get him out of my camp." Now I love him.
My favorite part about Volo's "surgery" is your characters options to respond at one point. I personally chose "Pblblblblblb..." as my favorite
with` "Hnnnngggg..." being my next favorite. Very deep dialog options
I laughed out loud audibly and loudly when that popped up on the screen.
I loved that part.
Legit laughed at the whole ridiculous scene so hard.
Pblbplbpblbpl was my favorite choice and I could hear it play out in my head.
So far... hands down easily my favorite " wth let's see what this does " moment of this game.
My favorite dialogue option's gotta be the one where at some point in the story you end up in a library where a curator has told you in a very low voice that the magic books they have there are *very very sensitive* to audio disturbances. Cue dialogue options:
1. whisper
2. another whisper
3. "IS IT TRUE BOOKS, ARE YOU REALLY SENSITIVE??"
4. Leave quietly.
If you picked the funny option that part of the library will explode and leave your party at almost half health.
If you come back to talk to the curator you still have the option to tell on books very loud: "HOW ARE YOU BOOKS ARE YOU STILL SENSITIVE??"
I personally went with "Ackackack?" As I feel my character would be trying to sass Volo off and make sense even in such a moment.
If you let Asterion bite you then you can remove the debuff with a simple lesser restoration from Shadowheart.
66 hours into this game and only now I realise this
You can also have him bite any human npc. I like to get enemies when they get too close.
Also can make him bite a hireling
@@sobrekamicase that's a good idea.
@@lauramaidment7582 I played 150+ hours and had no idea XD
You can actually first see Volo in the druid grove, where he'll tell you he's planning on going to check out the goblin camp, and Gale is a strong dps (give that boy the shield spell at the first opportunity) He'll only eat three items, and there are plenty of greens and other items you won't end up using to give to him in act 1.
Fun Gale combo. The sparkstaff and the magic missile amulet. You get an extra bolt on every cast, an extra cast per long rest, and EACH bolt triggers the staff. So with 4 bolts, that's +2 charges, 3 times, followed by it triggering the burst damage. MM goes from dealing like 10-12 damage, to a guaranteed 20-25.
There are a ton of other charge related gear you can give him to take this even further. My favorite being the boots that electrify surfaces you stand in + the ring that makes you immune to electrified. And if you choose to make gale conjuration, you get free shortrest create water. If you wet an enemy, the MM is doing even more damage.
@@TuberTuggerendgame dual-wielding legendary staff Gale kinda rocks. Like, a lot
Now I kinda want to see a list of choices that seem good at first but turn out to be terrible.
Inviting Alfira to join you at your camp…
Going on stage with Dibble the clown
Taking out the owlbear.
I guess they didn't have Merilwen to talk it down.
Giving a gith egg to some researchers...
Tip: you can just pickpocket Withers and get all your money back, and he will never give even a fraction of a shit.
This is amazing advice lol. Hopefully they don’t patch it
@@Frankly_Amazing2000 Oh I'm sure they will.
This tracks with his character, considering who he actually is in the lore
He's not able to directly intervene with events, so he helps you out in a roundabout way
Not entirely related, but I just saw a video of someone throwing Withers at another character, and he actually said something like "oh, nice throw" 💀 bone man has no fucks left to give
Well if you know who Withers is, it makes perfect sense@@lucypher7812
Volo also shows up the druids grove trying to interview a bear even though he doesn't have the ability to talk to animals. The bear is totally into it.
If you pickpocket him he actually has a speak with animals potion. Either he forgot to drink it, or he had multiple and the bear is just messing with him. Either way, it's hilarious.
On a note, if you're going for the Loviatar's Love buff, DO NOT use the Constitution rolls in the dialog choices. If you do he will say you held your pain in and not give you the buff!
as a squishy Bard, I wasn't planning on it, but noted nonetheless XD
Also if you are a monk don't choose the monk options because he doesn't like that you didn't react.
The Bard has the best Performance rolls.
@@Mangaka718
If you're barbarian, always ROAR
If you take off your armor you also get a bonus to the performance checks, making it easier to pass them.
About the loviatar's love thing. If you read the books in the room first you can choose the implement he uses. Choosing the dagger makes the damage you take MUCH lower (I took all of 4 damage total) and still allows you to get the gift
the Ritual dagger is pretty nice I always steal it before talking to him for my rogues
@@evilmonqey It's a really nice offhand option for the early game if you don't have two-weapon fighting yet, especially on thief rogues who have bonus actions to burn.
@@Yattatt are you kidding me? If you're playing a rogue well you should be hard pressed to find a spare bonus action. Easily the class with the most and most appealing and useful bonus actions. I'd go bard second.
Now do a “awfully terrible choices that ended up terribly”, like ppl choosing to kick a squirrel and being surprised when it exploded and died
do squirrels normally explode when kicked where you're from?
Spoiler for Act 1.5 (not quite act 2, the Mountain Pass is sorta in between 1 and 2):
Turns out calling a god out and then repeatedly taunting her to smite you ends up in you getting, uh, smitten! Or more accurately, wished. Wished into nothingness. TPK.
hey when projared was playing co-op and that happened to his friend, he said he wasn't given any options. that was just the dark urge randomly forcing him to punt a squirrel into a tree
I think the terrible choice there is choosing the Dark Urge in the first place
@@VirtuaMasterterrible take
You missed the Necromancy of They. Opening and reading through a magical death book seems like a bad plan, but it gets you Speak to Undead for free, gives bonuses to wisdom saving throws, and can later get you a squad of ghouls at your command.
Yeah that's not such a good option later on.
1. Those ghouls rarely hit.
2. They have only 20 hp.
3. They explode on death and can start a chain reaction and deal quite alot of damage.
4. They are AI controlled and NPC meme here applies perfectly (like taking a dash option to engage and then not having action to attack then dash wasn't needed to get there)
5. In later game stages you have to keep yourself away from them because of that explosion.
One good redeeming quality is that claw attack can freeze enemy if they fail a save and every hit on that enemy will be a crit. It would be really good if they couls actually hit. On avarange 1 or two land hits out of 4...
@@TheEstafista I’d say they have other redeeming qualities. First off assuming you’re fighting more than one enemy they’re pretty unlikely to go after the same guy as you and thus will be elsewhere so exploding isn’t that bad. Second off, every attack (that isn’t aoe) directed at them is an attack not directed at you.
@@Archdevil_FirkraagI found them *extremely* useful for rescuing the mind flayer in act 3. Not because they're individually good in combat, but because they occupy the mobs of lizardmen while you make the escape run
Abdirak is also the director of the game. This npc literally has his same face. It is a easter egg by the devs of the game for the love they have for them boss.
Highly recommend having Astarion and Shadowheart in your party whilst the pain priest works
why
@@jacksanchez3495 because they funny as hell and are weirdly into it
i always have them both in my party honestly i can’t imagine playing without them
i think im past the pain priest in my first play through though🥲 kinda went berserk on the goblins and missed some good stuff
I just did that today.
Astarion is my boyfriend and was extatic to have me try it out. When I did, shadowheart asked him if he wouldve suggested that if he knew what was coming.
His answer was a mix between amusement, regret and trying to wiggle out of it 😂
I like how when you rescue Volo he says that later on he'd like to "pick your brain". It's a joke that you don't notice on your first playthrough.
"And we haven't turned into mindflayers yet... thank Balduran." 😆
Two things some may find useful. 1. Withers does not mind if you pickpocket the gold you gave him back, he is just a secret bank for savings. 2. You can dispel bloodless with lesser Restoration which Shadowheart will have access to by that point in the game.
Astarion gets the bit bonus action when he reveals himself, and the happiness buff whenever he bites a humanoid. You don't need to let him bite you unless you want the relevant dialogue options.
I only let him bite me once (initial when he reveals himself) and he was "happy" for rest of the game. He never made an issue out of it, outside one or two lines that he's hungry and he's going to hunt in forest.
Yup. I always have him bite someone in camp who isn't heading out that day (though not Gale or Karlach, FYI, though it's hilarious to try them if you want a laugh). Means Astarion gets the buff and I don't have to bother healing myself.
@@elizabethannemillar3013 Damn that's genious! How couldn't I think of it? You made my playthrough more fun, thank you.
Yeah, none of what they described needs him to bite you, he gets the bite ability and can bite others to be happy for the rest of the game regardless.
My big revelation was when I decided to play as a drow, just because everybody hates them, and it turned out to be SO MUCH FUN. Especially with the goblins, because of their reactions.
Yea, drow play thru makes the first act interactions with baddies easy.
Of cast disguise self as my wizard did :D
Ahh the amount of war crimes that spells offers is just insane!
You can infiltrate the enemy in disguise undermine them, make them kill each, other assassinate key figures AND poison their food supply!
This game is just so fun.
I mean you can chose to play as agent 47 if you want!
@@aziouss2863 You can dress up as a clown? :O
I missed a lot of content in the grove somehow so honestly being a drow was almost entirely a positive experience for me. The baddies all immediately trust me and let me in and the good guys just maybe say one or two lines but otherwise I get to befriend them as normal. It's great.
@@decoy1359 I'm not sure "trust" is the right word. More that they fear you. But all the same, they don't pull out their swords.
My favourite part about Volo's surgery was, due to the way the camp was laid out, i could see Wyll over his shoulder the whole way through, drinking constantly. It also fixed my character portrait which had been bugged, so win win!
Gale? Smug? Maybe. But being annoying or a jerk? Certainly not. He's the most bro companion. There's plenty of worthless magic items you can give him
He's a jerk if you're a jerk, i suppose. Although i think my Druid rubbed him the rong way and he occasionally get pretty snappy at her. (His approval was quite high though) He doesn't like to be told 'no', as it seems. Especially about the crown.
On the other hand, Astarion randomly started proposing to save people and if i haven't killed a certain Character already, i'd have smacked him a few times to check if i still have the right guy with me.
One of the first interractions with him if you're not also a wizard is him assuming you don't know annything about magic and if you're a spellcaster ypu can telm him you can use magic and his respince is super condescending so considering this is one of the first interractions you can have with him in the game I don't really blame people for assuming his a jerk
@@stonferen584 I mean, he kind of has a right to be smug about magic, he was Elminster pupil, and fucked the goddess of magic herself.
Yeah that's what I don't get about Gale haters lol. Like yeah he's kind of arrogant and snarky but so is Astarion? And everybody LOVES Astarion! I think it comes down to whether or not you find his brand of humor funny, and also how attached you are to magic items/which items you give him. Honestly I liked Gale's humor (and Astarions's and Shadowheart's who share similar snarky senses of humor). At first I thought he was a bit of a jerk, telling my druid that her magic wasn't the same as a wizard's magic of whatever, but he was so charming I kinda couldn't help but forgive him lol. And later on he proves a very useful, loyal companion (and lover if you so choose) with lots of funny dialogue. Anyone who hates Gale, I urge you to give him another try because he does get better!
@@RainbowEssence-c3w I agree! Since my first comment, the only other thing I've noticed that put me off Gale really is if you start romancing him then stop midway he gets very upset and dramatic let's say.
Making a deal with Auntie Ethel for Mayrina. While it seems like a shit idea to deal with a hag, she gives you a +1 to any stat without any downside... and you can even intimidate or persuade her to save Mayrina also.
Depending on your choices, I think you can get multiple +1s, one for each stat. Just don't take her INITIAL deal
I wish I had done that one. If you save her and are a paladin with the wrong oath, just about any choice you make with the released Mayrina breaks your oath.
@@SetaDragon Prettty sure letting her live also breaks your Paladin Oath
I honestly thought it was kind of weird. When she tore off a piece of her hair I fully expected it to be some kind of horrible poison. But no she was telling the truth. Maybe she was worried that trying to trick you in that moment would endanger her life
As someone who has a book named after someone involved in one of these choices and he has a guide to monsters... suddenly the choice makes more sense.
Glad I’m not the only one who knows who Volo actually is and why it’s basically a no brainer to trust him.
I've read Volo's guide to monsters and am just now making that connection.... @@asherandai2633
YES.
And i love to hate Volo
@@asherandai2633 whos volo ? :o
@@plazmica0323 he’s basically the Da Vinci of the Forgotten Realms (the world Baldur’s Gate is set in). Pretty sure Da Vinci is the inspiration for the character too.
“Espirit de corpse” is hilarious as a subtitle for withers’ section. Props to whoever came up with that
"he begins to prod uncertainly with the needle" 🙈🙊🙉😂
Damn, I kind of want to go back and do the Goblin camp choices differently now. I'm playing a Monk, so had options to auto-pass with the pain priest and not make a sound, and I naturally thought "Hell, no, I'm not getting the brand that keeps popping up on other people and letting me mind control them"
also didn't do much in the goblin camp outside of killing everyone. but my next play will be a more evil character and find out how I can assist the goblins without touching the refugees myself
The item options for the absolute are not that great, you will find better or have better by the time you get there. They also aren't worth much when you sell them as far as magic items go.
@@Nempo13um, the item (I think it is gloves) that autocasts bane on whoever you attack looks pretty sweet, not sure about the rest but that alone I think would be worth getting the brand (I only noticed it too late but next play through I plan on taking the brand for just it alone)
Yeah, I just walked around a bit and talked to a few goblins then killed everyone. No torture. No branding. They never even saw me coming..... that was so long ago. I'll have to check it out on a replay.
If you’re a bard you can do a ‘performance’ roll. Where you fake screams and go all out, the guy eats it up and has a really creepy reaction.
Don't kill the owlbear cub! If you go back to the goblin camp after you defeat the goblins, you will see the cub, and you can get him to join your camp.
The owlbear and Scratch are SUCH immense sources of joy in my life every time i go to camp haha 💖 BABIES!
It helped Asterion's case in my game that he was beat up and bruised during the cutscene and he looked absolutely pitiful
*oh no* like a sad, bitey puppy
Ah, but the even better reason to resurrect Gale is that if you follow his ridiculously complicated instructions, you can get a [slight spoiler] scroll of True Resurrection [/slight spoiler] out of the deal, then use a much cheaper scroll of Revivify on him instead and keep the better one for when you really need it later or sell it for the gold!
You don't need Astarion to feed on your character to allow him to feed, just have that scene where he admits that he is a vampire. You can reject him and he still gets the ability.
Was enjoying until the last one- He's not terrible, he's so sweet!
And he only takes like- 3 magic items early on in the game AND you can pick ones you already don't plan on using! He never left my party and his powerful magic saved me on many occasions! Enough Gale slander! He's wonderful and Idk if I can ever romance any of the other characters now because he set the bar too high
He is so full of himself he would be a misery to be around
Totally agree, Gale is tied with Astarion as my Top Boys XD I strongly hope the game allows a 3-way, because I'll NEVER be able to pick just one
mmm maybe not in that way for me (The game shows at least Gale being very uncomfortable w/ more than one person, and I'd feel bad changing him just to force that on him), but there's always an origin route playthrough if you want both at the same time in a way ^^||| - I DO plan to romance Astarion later though, Gale's route just suited me better for my first run lmao
@@Mangaka718
Gale is awesome. I'm 100% Team Gale.
I loved gale the moment I met him. I find him charming and funny and I find plenty of magical items I have no use for so it's not an issue feeding him.
I’m so proud to say that I made every single one of these bad decisions without knowing their outcomes beforehand!
I've played through the game 5 times and still haven't mustered the courage to let Volo near me
@@WrenIsPhoenix Not gonna lie it was horrifying!
Same!
Volo cruel cutscene with negative buff is a big no no. Atleast we have good permanent buff effect instead of losing our vision for the rest of the game.
same except for the brand lmao
An even worse seeming decision than letting Gut brand you is drinking the sleeping potion she gives you. You go with her to her private room and have a conversation. After you inevitably pass out (unless you resist sleep, then she just attacks you), you have a short conversation with Gut. Then, you'll be able to try and break your bonds. Don't do it. Just sit tight. A new character will arrive and kill Gut, saving you a boss fight.
I just hide 2 party members around the alter in Gut's room and one hiding right behind her in the cell. The one in the cell sneak attacks her and helps the main character out of the shackles. The other two goes ham on Gut at the alter. Since she is a mage, she's rather squishy.
@kalythai yeah but my way means you don't have to fight at all.
@@ntolman Not to mention not getting any ill will from other Goblins and simple free Loot!
Was playing a Drow when I drank the potion not knowing what it was....She got mad at me and said we could have done this the easy way and attacked me. I was just sitting going o.o I did what you want why do you hate me.... Figured out it was a sleeping potion only after I went through the items on her body 😂
I was a half elf so the potion wouldn't work but I just followed her, closed the door and had everyone attack her without even bothering lol. Astarion sneak attack to start off the fight always a fun start to fisticuffs
Letting Astarion kill you is really good dialogue, I recommend letting him keep going. Just resurrect with a scroll
Or F5 before and F8 to see both!
This is what I did my first playthrough and it was wonderful, the reaction I chose talking to him afterwards 🤣
@@mmoemulators I figure if we ever get into a disagreement later it could be useful leverage.
YOU. KILLED. ME.
That dialogue after he kills you is what turned me from finding him annoying into loving him. Plus you get to punch him in the face, something that’s very satisfying and he agrees is justified.
My drow loves rubbing it in his face that he actually killed her. I also freaked out a bit because the sleeping packs were preventing him from getting a clear line to rez her and Withers wouldn't do it. Eventually it worked, but my heart was pounding bad.
Withers is weird. Suddenly he just appeared in my camp. I got to the dank crypt much later and was confused about very disjointed dialog when I found the empty casket. Turns out if you camp inside the goblin lair, the game thinks you've already recruited Withers.
it is intentional so that people who skipped the crypt would not miss Withers, there are even some special dialogue with him if you didn't check the crypt
I think the worst possible outcome of being turned into a mindflayer would be sounding like Zoidberg for the rest of time
😂😂😂😂 oh my god, now i kinda want that to happen just for the experience. that would be annoyingly fun
Woobwoobwoobwooob
(Sandcrabbed away noises)
😂😂😂😂
Why not Mindburg?
I love that Andy just committed to playing BG3 as Corazon. Rogues are the best. ✌️
I hope they add more subclasses tho. iquisitive rogue is best rogue
@@Jodsalz16Mastermind Rogue best rogue actually
Also! If you let Astarion kill you and then resurrect by Withers there's a unique dialogue! Which I LOVED, especially after he says "Oh no, something terrible had happened after KILLING YOU"
Same if you steal a certain magical artifact from a temple without going through proper security protocol (which I accidentally did) and resurrect Astarion through Withers. I've seen this dialogue posted a million times, and every time I listen because Neil Newbon's performance is PEAK
Oh, is that the "well apparently there's a limit - somewhere between 'a nice summers day,' and the full concentrated power OF THE SUN!" That one? Because that's amazing.
@@martyncurrill2766 That's exactly it.
as hinted at by the statue in the crypt, Withers is actually Jergal; the original God of the Dead.
I think withers is jergal's champion. He says "he was right as always" or something along that line when you first wake him up.
@@Blackwind_Legacy Jergal has no champion, as he is no longer a god. He's talking about Kelemvor, the current god of death, to whom Jergal now serves as a seneschal.
There's a mausoleum in the lower city that has Jergal as "patron saint". You can conclude from some documents that Withers is most likely said god.
@@Blackwind_Legacy The epilogue very strongly indicates he is Jergal, especially when he says 'Did you think I would not notice?'. I must admit that I am so dim that it hadn't even occurred to me
@@jrtomlin1805That epilogue was one of my favorite parts of the ending. Grandpa withers just flaming the dead three in a dark room for two minutes was amazing.
You can first meet Volo at Emerald Grove interviewing a bear, he then interviews you about goblins and dragons.
With Asterion, he will gain the happy buff every time he uses his vampiric pite in combat, until a long rest.
Withers will auto-join you after a few days regardless of your progression through the ruin.
With Loviatar, I found taking my gear off and "feeling more pain" unlocked a stronger debuff, just don't use constitution.
Another one I haven't heard anyone talk about is drinking the disgusting water at the well beside the hag's house. It gives you +10 HP until long rest. Sure you get nauseated the next day, which isn't that big of a debuff, but if you long rest again you can just go drink the water again. For early game this is really worth while imo. Especially if you are planning to go into a big fight. And it is right near the way point so... +10 HP for everyone in your party when you're at like 20-40 HP is pretty good buff.
I believe if you engage the hag with that buff it makes you automatically nauseated during the fight, thats what seemed to happen for me at least
@@slamindorf5478 interesting. I am holding off on engaging the hag until I decide how I want to spend that permanent asi point... so many possible builds, and you can't go back and change which stat you increase.
but the buff is good to use on any other large fight throughout act 1
@@dunnetahl You can't change that point even with Withers?
@@guifire9747presumably because it’s an item granting that bonus, not a point from ASI or racial stats
I'm sure we'll be seeing this game a lot on the channel. There's so much in it that it could go on a ton of different lists.
Withers do show up in your camp randomly even if you didn't go to the dank crypt, one playthrough I decided to wait, then suddenly he showed up anyways.
I missed the crypt entirely on my first character and was so surprised when this weird mummy man showed up in my camp.
My Withers mission was bugged, nothing happened when I interacted with his crypt. So, I thought - shit, I'm not getting Withers. But he showed up anyway after a long rest or two
Looks like perfect fit in this list - if you use Githyanki machine to remove tadpole... It will not remove it, but it will awaken it instead, allowing to use Illithid powers as bonus action. But there are some hard checks to pass.
I heard that, but it didn't work for me. I let Lae'zel enjoy the machine (had the suspicion it won't be pretty, plus she insisted on going first), I let her sit through to the end, and no extra skills. Maybe because I also didn't learn any tadpole skill tbh.
What I got for that was permanent debufs for Lae'zel - -1 to Wis, Int and Con, which I discovered much later in her skill list (it says in the description that's those are effects of the machine)
@@ragvald8835 maybe you haven't passed check. We played coop with friends and I was only one who was ready to do it. Also, I haven't used any tadpoles before it.
Or, maybe, Liazel is the problem.
@@dezelvol You don't even attempt to pass checks when you allow companions to do stuff... But usually they do pass. Dunno.
@@ragvald8835It only gives the buffs to the PC, and Lea'zel only gets the debuffs.
@@RE_Towerslaezel can pass but her checks are like dc30 iirc.
Or the opposite. The choices that cause immediate total party kill
I jumped into the hole in the spider pit without featherfall,did a little cutscene and then killed me
(in my defense it usually says if a jump will hurt or kill you)
I questioned the power of the gith queen She killed the party
Letting Gale blowup Moonrise, full credits roll 😂
Um but even if you don't let Astarion feed on you, he still gets the vampire bite ability and can still get the happy buff from it.
you can remove the bloodless debuff from astarion with a minor restoration or pretty much anything that heals multiple status effects so it's actually quite worth it
One reason to always have a cleric hireling in camp.
You only need to do it once anyway. Just let him bite someone in the first encounter of the day and he gets the buff.
The way Volo runs away like he didn’t just stab your eyeball out. Or more so, he runs away like he did just stab your eyeball out 🤣
Make a deal with the Hag if you fight her down in her own lair.
It gives you Hag's hair which permanently increases a stat of your choice by 1.
Another one is making use of the non-lethal passive to knock out traders if you're having a hard time stealing their stuff.
They leave alot more loot compared to when you outright kill them.
Granted they won't be happy with you when they eventually wake up, but if you know they're going to die later anyway it doesnt really matter. :')
Last one of my preferences, let Astarion bite the Alchemist at moonrise towers. It gives you a potion which increases your strength permanently by 1.
When you make the deal with the Hag, there's an also an option to demand the hair and the girl. She basically calls you a punk and dips. :D
So... STONKS?!
small correction: the potion increases your strength by 2. And it'll let you increase strength over 20. Astarion gets really upset with you too, so no romance with him or anything
Also to add on Astarions bite. Afterwards when he has the bite ability, you can have him use it on an enemy (that has blood ofc), which will also give him the happy effect, while you dont get any debuff, meaning he gains an attack which will let him get a +1 to attack rolls and more, until the next long rest, for essentially free. Later on (SPOLIERS) in act 3, if you let him complete the ritual after killing Cazador Szarr, he will become vampite acendant, the most powerful form a vampire can be, which no only removes the everlasting hunger for blood, but would let a vampire go into the sun without any problems (tho the tadpole is protecting Astarion already), but doing so will also give Astarion the Acendant Bit ability if he has the bite ability, now instead of a measily 1d4 of damage, the acendtion bite will deal 12 to 72 whole damage, as well as inflict powerful negative effect on the target, giving asatrion the happy condition, and not to worry about damage resitances either, for the ascention bite deals piercing and necrotic damage.
The first one, but has an ovies downside too.
If you don´t engange with Volo into tthe whole tadpole thing, he stays in your camp and act as an trader which travels with you, which is actually not that bad.
To Withers, it doesn´t matter if you "recruit" him or not (my Quest for him is bugged e.g.) he will join you automaticlly after a few long rest, even if you don´t recruit him.
You do not need to let Astarion feed on you for him to get the bite action - he gets that even if you turn him down. He can then use it in combat, and gets that Happy buff that you referred to from biting any humanoid.
not just humanoids.
Aww let the little vamp have a nibble..
I had the vampire and puzzle girl in my party when I met the pain priest. I feel like they peer pressured me into getting that perk😂
'Vampire' and 'puzzle girl' are the only way I'm referring to them from now on.
@@EFJ56 lol I didn’t bother remembering their names at that point😂
"Puzzle Girl" being....Shadowheart?
Astarion gets the bite action whether you let him drink your blood or not, just happens when you officially find out he's a vamp. As if it wasn't obvious from minute one.
8:11 the cool thing about Withers is he literally does not give a fuck if you pickpocket him. He won’t get angry and you can try as many times as you want. Just take a rogue like Astarion, walk behind Withers, hide and then pickpocket your money back so you never actually have to pay for the upgrades.
Clearly we now need the inverse: Choices That Seemed Good at the Time.
omg I've definitely been roleplaying too sensibly!! I finally let Volo do his thing out of sheer curiosity but I should've been way more open-minded in the goblin camp ^.^ thanks for the great video!!
PS I can empathize with the Gale exasperation, he is... verbose >.< my pet peeve is Halsin!! I smooth-talk him out of captivity and all he wants to do is murder goblin children and be self-righteous about his terrible druids!
I was *mostly* sensible too but I could never turn down the Loviathar priest or Astarion's bite lol
If you have him stick around and hang out with him in Act 3 he gets a LOT better
Astarian gets the bite action regardless of if you let him bite you. He only gets "happy" for a day after feeding (regardless of if it's on you or not), but you can use the action for that.
Somehow Withers showed up at my camp before I even went to the ruins. Then later I went to the ruins, didn't get the cutscene obviously, but it was like oh I wonder if this is where Withers came from.
Same here. I had no idea why a zombie showed up in my camp (still don’t really). Seriously immersion breaking.
@@valiroime Withers isn't a Zombie. he aids the party because of major story reasons.
SPOILER:
Withers is actually Jergal, Scribe of the Dead, and was sent by Kelemvor to aid the party against Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul.
my worst decision was trying to save the kid in the druid grove, the one who stole from them. Was a barbarian and I wanted to see what would happen if I just drew weapons to save her. Consequences of a rash decision got the kid, the kids parents and EVERYONE IN THE ENTRIRE GROVE, dead. I... did profit greatly from the loot tho xD
But where did you sell all that afterwards? the twi traders in that region are both in the grove
Volo is actually in the druid grove talking to a bear! You can encounter him
There before the gobo’s
And if you have speak with animals you can talk to the bear and find out that it's desperately trying to give Volo his life story to write down!
Withers automatically appeared in my camp, no conversation required lol 😂
You can actually get all companions branded with the the goblin in front of priestess gut through dialogue
In Act 2 when we find out the core of the plot I started to suspect who Withers is and then in Act 3 found a book that basically confirms that :D This game is such a riot!
The graphic quality of this video does a disservice to such a beautiful game. Please give Andy a proper PC.
Also worth noting that when Astarion uses the bite attack, that also gives him the happy buff again.
4:40 there is more to it than just taking the beating. You have to follow a particular dialog tree path.
Intimidation works for sure. You just can't try to hide the pain basically.
I appreciate this because I didn't do any of these except Withers and wondered what would happen, lol
Excuse you, letting Astarion bite you is not obviously terrible! It's obviously sexy!
If you let astarion bite you to death and then revive yourself with one of the other companions, he'll get a very poerful ability from it and you will get some hilarious dialogue, so for 200 gold or a revive scroll it's definitely worth doing.
What ability? Just his regular bite or something else?
I’m so sad this was my first game ever like this so when I found out he wanted to bite me I kicked him from my camp, I didn’t realize most bad decisions in this game end up being not really bad
Everyone always makes a big deal about Gale eating magicsl items but he only ever did it in my play through twice. Small price to pay to hang out with the friendliest and strongest wizard companion a guy could ask for.
Abdirak seems like a legitimately sweet guy in his own way.
im on my first bg3 play through still, i’m a high elf wizard so i have never once used gale in any fight. i had no idea he does that when he dies LMAO
Add staying in the Zaithisk in the creche to the list
Turns all tadpole abilities into bonus actions
You let Astarion bite you to make him stronger in combat, I let Astarion bite me because I want to swan dive into his underwear and rustle around. We are not the same.
Volo literally wrote the book on monsters. I trust him to know how to remove a worm
I trusted Volo because it was Volo and Volo has a guide to monsters
I trusted him until he pulled out the icepick. :')
Was so happy to see him too lol
@@marky046hahaha fair
i let him bite me the first time, played a circle of moon druid so i reasoned that the missing blood would not mean too much as i spend my time in wildshape, also vampire druid sounded fun.
Note the vampire bite of Astarion also gives him the happy buff.
He says that.
I feel so proud that i've already done all these things lol, except i didn't let Gale die yet so it's not been a problem for me so far.
And with save reloading none of these things are even a problem to test out and reload if it doesn't go well in the end :3
Attacking random commoners while wandering around Baldur's Gate.
Sounds like the most villainous thing you can do? Well, if you check their stats first and choose your victims carefully, you can catch Oren using her shapechanger's abilities to hide in plain sight and give her what for.
Six is hiding in the thumbnail because 789.
Terrible choices? Yup!
Amazing results? Let's not get bogged down in the details...
Pro tip: let Astarion kill you when he bites you. You can just resurrect yourself and heal up with potions or something and then won't gain the bloodless debuff.
You can also have Shadowheart remove your debuff though with whats-its-spellname that cures various status effects
best pro tip ever: you can't feel drowsy, if you are dead
@@SketchbloppLesser Restoration. The higher level one probably also works but you don't need it.
Not sure if this an ironic "just kill yourself" comment or not.
Ye this is a good tip since so far shadowheart’s initial shar reveal actually happened the same day we get bloodless every time and that skill check is hard to reach normally even harder with bloodless if you wanna make that check.
its funny how if you let astarion kill you, you can just rez yourself
Bulder's Gate 3? at 4AM? YES PLEASE!!
Bruh, Withers joins your camp whether you like it or not...
Well, I missed 2 of those listed in my first playthrough. Mostly because I had decided ahead of time to commit goblin mass murder and Gut and the Pain Priest had a hard time entertaining dialogue as corpses
You don't need to kill the Priest. I've wiped out the Goblin Camp on two playthroughs now and he just left both times. You can talk to him and pick up the buff before wiping out the Goblins.
@@WraithReaper09 Yeah, you can. Not if you decide to go in guns blazing
@@TheDJdragonflame Really you can, i literally killed the 2 goblins next to him and he was just like: "be careful with that" or something, iwas expecting him to fight back but he didn't care, he's not their ally (just like the merchant in the camp, neither fight for the goblins and will just abandon them if things go haywire)
@@guifire9747 Yeah, I get that. I just literally went in with a "no survivors" idea. Actually attacked him first. Would have probably killed Halsin, too. If he didn't transform back in time 😅
@@TheDJdragonflame Fair fair, i did the same in my first go ngl, i let the merchant go (since i was already buddy with their clan so i correctly assumed they wouldn't intervene) but i killed the rest including the pain priest, you know "just in case" despite him not reacting to me making fireworks out of the golbin next to him, i went overboard lmao
That camp was a blast ngl, with Astarion up there like an assassin, and the rest cleaning each zone, via silent murder, pushing goblins to close to pits or explosive at the right place, also use the spider to fight the priestress with me, so much fun
I left all prisonners go tho, the flaming fist, volo and the goblin (i kinda hoped he could join our group of misfit but that was impossible unfortunately)
Letting the bdsm daddy wail on you is never struck me as a bad idea 🤣
How could you hate GALE?
Withers was in my camp with 0 context or reason, i had a long rest and BOOM there he was. Never seen or met him at all prior to this
Who let's Gale die in the first place dude is top tier character
Pulled a little too hard
His whole arm came off
literally me on my playthrough 😂😂😂
@@KaitouKaiju Oh, he's got an arm off...
@@KaitouKaiju You cannot prove that I may have cut his hand off nope there is no evidence of that at all there is definitely not a hand in my characters backpack labeled Gales Hand
On my first playthrough he got steamrolled by a raging Karlach. 😬
my first play through when withers came up I was like "oh jeez, boss fight" and that was the first time this game subverted my expectations
Props to whoever burned the midnight oil to get this out
I like to think Withers sponsors the endgame party with the money you used. :D
(And probably the few dozen random items you've stuffed in your camp chest and forgotten about)