I've read complaints about the non-controversial writing. (SPOILERS)

sersafir

After speaking with Daeros you learn of Hephernaan's plan to use your Bhaalspawn blood to open a gate to hell for nefarious purposes all the while manipulating Caelar.

Caelar calls for a parley and demands you surrender yourself and instead of telling your ally's the truth of their ploy, all you can do as options for dialogue is "duhhhh I have no clue what they could POSSIBLY want with me". Something along the lines of this anyway.

Can someone validate this? Is the writing that sloppy?

Jarrakul

The writing is usually quite good, but at that particular moment... yeah, it is. Again, that's not representative of the game's writing as a whole, but that still happens.

Calemyr

Where Caelar is involved, it really kind of is. The game allows absolutely no mobility where she's involved. You can try to join her, but your friends won't let her and she still blames you for that. You can try to reason with her, but she ignores you. You can't even try to call her out on her right hand man. In the end, your only options are to kill her or let her walk off on her own terms. Her part in the entire story is blatant railroading at it's sloppiest.

Don't get me wrong, there are parts I really liked. The hooded man, the dreams, most of the side quests, a lot of the party dialogue and banter (I adored Neera unthinkingly shutting Volghiln down), all quite enjoyable. When Caelar is in play, however, things just get weak.

PaulGreystoke

Actually, my characters have had an option at the parley to challenge Hephernaan about his connections to bad people & his intentions, but he is able to deflect this & my PCs have no option to press the point - presumably because we have no real evidence, just hearsay. I don't know if this dialogue option is conditional on anything, but I have seen it in every playthrough thus far. So CHARNAME can point out that something is rotten in Caelar's crusade, but can't actually DO anything about it.

smeagolheart

I think that is supposed to be a sarcastic answer.

Juris

Yes, you can point out the cabal of necromancers but not the note linking them to Heph. No, you can't point out what you learn about Heph in his quarters (I think he even keeps a diary). So yes, it is lame but it's still a great game overall.

It could've been handled better - Caelar could've just refused to listen

PaulGreystoke said:

Actually, my characters have had an option at the parley to challenge Hephernaan about his connections to bad people & his intentions, but he is able to deflect this & my PCs have no option to press the point - presumably because we have no real evidence, just hearsay. I don't know if this dialogue option is conditional on anything, but I have seen it in every playthrough thus far. So CHARNAME can point out that something is rotten in Caelar's crusade, but can't actually DO anything about it.

Purudaya

As far as railroading is concerned, keep in mind that this is the only entry in the entire series that gives you any choice whatsoever in the villain's fate.

And yeah, it's disappointing that you can't press Caelar re: Hephernan during the parley, but that is only one of dozens of moments in the BG series where the PC is denied agency or voice. Overall, the game does a pretty good job in giving you options re: roleplaying and approach. It's not perfect, but it does offer some nice storytelling innovations by BG standards.

sersafir

Purudaya said:

As far as railroading is concerned, keep in mind that this is the only entry in the entire series that gives you any choice whatsoever in the villain's fate.

What about demogorgan? (probably misspelled him.)

Purudaya

I suppose that's true, but watcher's keep is more of a side quest - I'm talking about primary antagonists. There are plenty of bit villains you can choose to spare or kill.

mf2112

Purudaya said:

I suppose that's true, but watcher's keep is more of a side quest - I'm talking about primary antagonists. There are plenty of bit villains you can choose to spare or kill.

Demogorgon could have been a WAY better ToB end game villain than Melissan.

Purudaya

mf2112 said:

Purudaya said:

I suppose that's true, but watcher's keep is more of a side quest - I'm talking about primary antagonists. There are plenty of bit villains you can choose to spare or kill.

Demogorgon could have been a WAY better ToB end game villain than Melissan.

Now that I can absolutely agree with. Of all the conceivable villains available to choose from, I can't think of a worse choice than what they went with. My pipe dream is that David Gaider was hired by Beamdog to direct a total re-imagining of ToB, but I don't see how that would be marketable beyond these forums.

JediMindTrix

Caelar's introduction to me was, as someone else put it, awful stereotypical villainy.
The moments where you aren't directly interacting with her are pretty good, and overall the character itself is pretty good (I like her more than TOB's definitely), but I feel like the developers had a great bullet point list of what they wanted this character to be, but when they expanded it into dialog and actually got to writing things she would say and the encounters with her, they dropped the ball, or just didn't have a lot of wiggle room.

Also, the 'Your prejudice' line in regards to The Irregulars rubbed really wrong. Racism is a part of Faerun through and through (though I'm pretty sure Baldur's Gate actually tolerates Half-Orcs in lore more than other places do) and it definitely broke my immersion.

Abi_Dalzim

mf2112 said:

Purudaya said:

I suppose that's true, but watcher's keep is more of a side quest - I'm talking about primary antagonists. There are plenty of bit villains you can choose to spare or kill.

Demogorgon could have been a WAY better ToB end game villain than Melissan.

Now there's a thought. Hell, you could even keep Melissan, and have her siphon Bhaal's essence into Demogorgon so he can escape Watcher's Keep and take over the world. It would be a break from the last two games where the bad guy sought godhood, since this time they're basically a god already, and it's the souls of mortals that they're after to overthrow all the other gods.

DullSkullTheSecond

While it's your own fault if you browse the SoD forum before playing the dlc this post should have a spoiler tag.

elminster

DullSkullTheSecond said:

While it's your own fault if you browse the SoD forum before playing the dlc this post should have a spoiler tag.

Added

BladeDancer

JediMindTrix said:

I'm pretty sure Baldur's Gate actually tolerates Half-Orcs in lore more than other places do) and it definitely broke my immersion.

Actually, there is a city in Amn called Purskul that tolerates Half-Orcs much more than any other places.

rapsam2003

JediMindTrix said:

Racism is a part of Faerun through and through (though I'm pretty sure Baldur's Gate actually tolerates Half-Orcs in lore more than other places do) and it definitely broke my immersion.

There's still a lot of racism. But Baldur's Gate is a very cosmopolitan city, much more so than other cities. In fact, probably Waterdeep is the only city that is more cosmopolitan.

Abi_Dalzim

I thought it was Amn that was more welcoming to half-orcs, which was why they introduced the ability to be one in SOA that hadn't been a possibility in the original Baldur's Gate.

Fardragon

No, it was because half orcs weren't a core race in 2nd edition, but were in 3rd.

Vbibbi

In the Irregulars quest, I thought it was odd that the good option was to tell the sergeant off, but the quest updated the same as if we had agreed to drive them off. Or at least the quest update still told me to drive them off. It would have been nice if we had chosen that option, to then have a dialogue option with the Irregulars saying we were asked to drive them off but wanted to get their side and didn't want to drive them off.


There are a few instances of moral railroading like this. The parley mentioned in the OP is another one. Not only can we not reveal Hephernaan, we can offer ourselves up to her in order to prevent more bloodshed but everyone overrides our decision and then two seconds later spits on us for selfishly being the cause of the conflict. It's like...well we DID just offer and you said no, so you can no longer blame me for Caelar killing more people to get to me.

Fardragon

Actually, I kind of liked the way the NPCs argued about the fate of CHARNAME without really listening to what they had to say. It gave the impression than no, the universe doesn't revolve around you.

mf2112

Fardragon said:

Actually, I kind of liked the way the NPCs argued about the fate of CHARNAME without really listening to what they had to say. It gave the impression than no, the universe doesn't revolve around you.

Yet.

Vbibbi

Well the line that specifically irked me was when I had repeatedly offered to go with Caelar and Corwin and others shot me down. Then in the next sentence de Launcie says he hopes I'm happy with what I've done, or something to that effect. I think the line should have been changed to reflect my willingness to go. I know the guy is an arse, but it seemed needless to say that after I had demonstrated my willingness to avoid further conflict.