Video Game / Baldur's Gate III

Resist, and turn darkness against itself. Or embrace corruption, and become ultimate evil.^note Clockwise, from bottom-center: Astarion, Shadowheart, Wyll (and Mizora), Gale and Lae'zel. Not pictured: Karlach and the Dark Urge.

"Consider your predicament. One skull, two tenants, and no solution in sight. I could fix it all like that [...] Try to cure yourself. Shop around — beg, borrow and steal. Exhaust every possibility until none are left. And when hope has been whittled down to the very marrow of despair — that's when you'll come knocking on my door."

— Raphael

Baldur's Gate III is a Western RPG which serves as the third main installment in the Baldur's Gate series, set in the High Fantasy Dungeons & Dragons setting Forgotten Realms. It is developed by Larian Studios, best known for the acclaimed Divinity: Original Sin duology. For the first time in the series, the game adapts the current 5th Edition ruleset of the tabletop game, as well as Turn-Based Combat. The game entered Early Access on October 6, 2020 for the PC and Google Stadia,^note Stadia's service ended prior to the full release and was fully released on August 3, 2023 for the PC, with the PlayStation 5 port coming out on September 6, the Mac port coming out on September 22, and the Xbox Series X|S port^note The Series S dropped the split-screen co-op feature, due to the technical issues with the hardware. stealth releasing on December 7.

Set in 1492 DR, over a century after the events of the original duology, the game follows the events of an illithid invasion into Toril. The Player Character is one of the unlucky souls captured by the mind flayers, and is implanted with an illithid tadpole that will slowly turn them into a mind flayer unless it is removed. After escaping from captivity and crashing the nautiloid ship they were being transported on, they team up with several other survivors of the crash to find a way to remove the parasite before the ceremorphosis is complete. But in their search for a cure, they soon learn that their shared affliction is tied to a far greater evil that threatens to plunge the Realms into chaos like never before.

In preparation for the game's formal announcement, a 5th Edition adventure module was announced titled Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus, which takes place around a century after Baldur's Gate II, and acts as a prologue of sorts for this game. It was released on September 17, 2019, and helps bridge some of the gaps between the two games. In July 2021, Jim Zub (writer of the comic book spin-off series Legends of Baldur's Gate) announced that he is working on a comic mini-series titled Dungeons & Dragons: Mindbreaker, with the first issue released in October 2021. Serving as an interquel between the events of Descent into Avernus and this game, the comic series focuses on a group of adventurers, which include Series Mascots Minsc and Boo, as they fight to save each other, and their sanity, from a mind flayer-led cult secretly destroying Baldur’s Gate from within.

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As the tropes glow, power courses through you. Authority.

A-B

• 24-Hour Armor: Zigzagged. Every party member has a secondary casual outfit that they switch into once you make camp for the night, and there's a wide selection of alternative outfits to find or buy if you don't like the default ones. You can also take them from your party if you prefer theirs. Also, you can toggle this outfit on at any time and still receive the benefits of your armor. Or you can unequip the outfit and toggle it on if you really want to run around naked. That said, the one time your camp is attacked in the middle of the night at the start of Act 3, all your party members will jump out of their bedrolls fully armored and armed.
• Absurdly Low Level Cap: The game maxes out characters at level 12, which is easily reachable early in Act 3 if you've been diligent about completing as much as you can in the previous acts. Word of God is that they chose to limit it to level 12 because it was already getting hard to balance fights and they didn't want to have to deal with the power of 7th Level spells, since that included things like finger of death, teleport, or regenerate (which would have led to the question of why you couldn't, for example, then remove Karlach's infernal engine and cast regenerate to regrow her heart in its place).
• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The sewer system beneath Baldur's Gate is positively massive. It's large and winding enough to hide an entire Temple of Bhaal.
• Acquired Poison Immunity: Minthara takes small doses of various toxins with her meals to build up an immunity, which can result in an accidental Drugged Lipstick if the player is romancing her.
• Acquired Situational Narcissism: Astarion will become significantly more arrogant, possessive and power-hungry should the player help him become Vampire Ascendent.
• Actually a Doombot: When you come across Elminster, the most famous wizard in all of Faerun, his level is stated to be merely 1 (and creature type construct rather than humanoid). Of course, he is much more powerful than that in reality. If you actually attempt to fight him then it will dissolve into water upon defeat, revealing that it's actually a simulacrum that Elminster sent in his place.
• Actually Pretty Funny: During her quest to save Minsc, Jaheira will lament foolish mistakes she's made and blame it on how old she's gotten. If you respond by saying she's not old (she's ancient) then she will have a hearty laugh at the quip, gain approval and then affectionately call you a bastard.
• Adaptational Backstory Change: Anders, a minor character you meet at the start of Karlach's questline, was an Oathbreaker paladin during Early Access. In the full version, he's just posing as a Paladin of Tyr — and rather poorly at that. He doesn't even know the Creed of the Left Hand, something all Tyrran paladins (Tyr is also known as the One-Handed, as he is missing his right hand) should know.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Cambions as presented in the 5th Edition Monster Manual are generally low-level soldiers and attendants for greater fiendish powers; dangerous for a level 1-4 party, certainly, but still very much grunts. The cambions in this game, Raphael and Mizora, are beings whose powers far outstrip those of the player characters, with the former casually teleporting the party to his domain to offer a solution to their tadpole problem, and the latter possessing enough power to act as a warlock patron for Wyll. However, cambions are listed as a source for an infernal patron in the Player's Handbook, with Lorcan, the patron for Farideh from the novel Brimstone Angels, listed as an example due to his collection of warlocks.
    • Raphael is justified that he's both the son of Mephistopheles and is old enough that he watched the literal fall of the Netherese Empire. Mizora is harder to justify, but given her status and position, she may simply be acting as a "broker" of sorts for Zariel, who is easily strong enough to serve as a warlock's patron.
  • A minor case with mage hand cantrip. In the tabletop game itself, mage hand is a useful non-combat spell for manipulating objects from a safe distance, such as disarming traps or retrieving objects, but that's really the extent of its main uses, and one of the first limits specified in the ruleset as written is that it cannot attack. Also to use it during a combat encounter, it requires using your action to do so. In this game, the mage hand acts as its own entity (even taking its own initiative so as to not rob you of your action), and can attack and shove enemies, even taking opportunity attacks. The hand does have only 3 hit points, but its function is more akin to a summoned familiar than the mage hand proper. The only downside of its adaptation to the game is that you can now only use the cantrip once per short rest, rather than at will like every other cantrip. The exception is an Arcane Trickster rogue, whose mage hand practically becomes a Familiar: lasting more or less forever unless dismissed or destroyed, able to pick locks and disarm traps, enable your Sneak Attacks, and summonable whenever you want instead of once per short rest.
  • Almost every class has had some added ability or functionality from the tabletop. Paladins for example get a new "Channel Oath" ability from their oath atop their usual oath feature and oath spells^note Oath of the Ancients paladins can use it as a AOE heal over time, Devotion paladins get automatic radiant damage to enemies who hit them, and Vengeance paladins can make theirs or an ally's weapon deal radiant damage and inflict the dazed condition. Casters who prepare spells can swap their prepared spells out of combat without resting. This leads to every class being more powerful than their tabletop counterparts.
  • In the tabletop version, elder brains are completely immobile, living inside liquid tanks that sustains them and the colony's tadpoles. They are sometimes depicted as hovering just above said pool. Their size varies from the size of a large car to that of a pool. Their only physical ability is to use tendrils to grapple and choke threats, depending on their awesome psionics and spells for protection. In the game the Absolute, having evolved into a Netherbrain, is gigantic, big enough for the entire party to have a fight with a dragon on top of it. It also does not require its tank, being fully mobile. This is apparently the result of possessing the Crown of Karsus, which is the source of its tadpoles' enhanced abilities.
  • In tabletop play, speak with animals only affects creatures with the beast type. Meaning it has no effect on owlbears or displacer beasts (who fall under the monstrosity creature type) or familiars (who, while they look like animals, are celestial, fey, or fiend spirits taking on animal form). The game employs a much broader definition of beasts, greatly expanding the spell's use and allowing its users to make contact and potentially ally with a lot of creatures.
  • In the first two games Boo is an inventory item for Minsc and any ass-kicking done by him is offscreen and may be the work of Minsc's imagination. Here Boo is a summonable pet with a whopping 20 HP and hits comparable to a long sword. He has better stats than a starting PC fighter. To the point where there's several videos online of Boo delivering the killing blow to various act 3 villains.
  • Lightning bolt does potent damage, but has to share spell slots with the vaunted fireball. In 5e it's not common to take it outside of RP reasons because the narrow blast corridor makes it hard to use in comparison, but here the corridor is about twice as wide as it should be, making it much easier to compete with fireball.
  • In tabletop, mind flayers are restricted in their choices for hosts for ceremorphosis to humans, elves, drow, githyanki, githzerai, grimlocks, gnolls, human-sized goblinoids, and orcs — creatures outside the average height range for those races cause the tadpole's evolution to proceed either too fast or too slowly, with both resulting in both the host and the tadpole's death. As a result, races such as the duergar, dwarves, and halflings are considered nonviable for ceremorphosis. Gnomes are also uniquely unsuitable, as while they are more likely to survive the process, the resulting ceremorph is smaller, weaker, more likely to be free-willed, and may also suffer from an imperfect transformation which limits their intelligence and reduces their power even further. In the game, succumbing to ceremorphosis will result in a healthy, full-sized mind flayer regardless of the character's race, even if playing as one of the usually unacceptable hosts. Presumably the tadpoles created by the Absolute allow them to bypass at least some of their usual limitations.
  • Acid splash in the tabletop game is often regarded as one of the weaker offensive cantrips in 5e, using d6s for damage instead of eight- or ten-siders like most other damage-dealing cantrips, in return for with the ability to potentially hit two enemies if they're next to each other. While it keeps the weak damage dice in BG3, it's been changed so that it now hits all targets in a 10' radius, making it actually a fairly good crowd-control effect against weak enemies when you don't want to waste a spell slot to cast shatter or fireball.
  • In tabletop, the disguise self spell is an illusion, essentially a hologram you place over yourself that can't stand up to physical scrutiny, nor can it account for changes in height or number of limbs. In this game, it's treated as a polymorph, i.e. a physical transformation, meaning it allows you to do things like turn into a gnome in order to fit through a small hole, or use equipment that is locked to a specific race, and is much harder to detect. The only downside is that it now can't be used to imitate a specific person, instead being limited to a certain number of preset appearances.
• Adaptational Wimp:
  • In the actual tabletop game, archdruids are some of the most powerful spellcaster NPCs around with a high health pool, a wide arsenal of druid spells, and can wild shape into beasts of CR 6 or less. By comparison, the two archdruids present in the early game, Halsin and Kagha, are actually much more weaker stats-wise than their title would suggest. Then again, Larian probably did this to prevent them from being Early-Bird Bosses. Although this gets downplayed with Halsin if he becomes a party member later in the game.
  • Vampire spawn in the tabletop game are much stronger than Astarion ends up being. They have innate damage resistance to non-magical physical damage, necrotic damage, possess 60ft of darkvision, a lesser form of Vampiric Regeneration at the start of their turns, can climb walls, as well as multiattack, claws for extra unarmed melee damage and a bite that not only can be used more than once per rest, but deals necrotic damage, reduces an enemies hit point maximum and heals the Spawn for more health. Astarion only has the bite, limited to once per short rest, deals only the piercing damage and can be killed with a wooden stake still. It's likely the illithid tadple is messing with his powers much as it's also protecting him from sunlight.
  • The Shatter spell in the tabletop game is highly effective at destroying stone barriers. In BG 3, however, stone barriers are immune to Thunder damage for unknown reasons and instead Force damage is their vulnerability.
  • Polymorph can only be used to turn someone into a harmless sheep for 5 turns, whereas in 5e it could be used to turn a character into any beast below a certain level, including beasts too powerful for a druid to wildshape into.
  • The thaumaturgy cantrip in 5e is a utility spell with many applications, and can be a psuedo-gamebreaker with a creative player and a lenient DM. In this game, its only function is to grant advantage to intimidation and performance, the latter of which is only useful to bards in specific circumstances. Meanwhile, its related utility cantrips, prestidigitation and druidcraft, have been removed entirely due to there not being a real way to adapt it properly.
• Adaptation Name Change: One of the 5e barbarian subclasses, Path of the Totem Warrior, appears in this game as "Wildheart". While some of the features retain their original functionality, all of the base Bestial Hearts (previously Totem Spirits) at level 3 now receive their own special actions, while many of the Animal Aspects at level 6 have been redesigned, with five additions which did not appear in the original tabletop rules. Some of these changes have made their way into the playtest rules for D&D One.
• Admiring the Abomination: While the other companions are all varying degrees of alarmed by the Dark Urge's slayer transformation, Minthara finds them "exquisite".
• Aesop Amnesia: One potential outcome for Gale at the end of the game involves him developing an obsession with the Crown of Karsus and planning to use it to ascend to godhood, having learned nothing about his past hubris being a Fatal Flaw, to say nothing of Karsus' own failure as an example.
• The Alcatraz: The Iron Throne is Gortash's special prison for political enemies and other people he needs locked up to serve his interests, including Duke Ravengard and hostages to keep the Gondians working on his Steel Watchers. Its location deep under the sea not only makes escape nearly impossible, but in the event of a jailbreak, it can be scuttled to prevent anyone from escaping.
• Alien Abduction: Or the closest fantasy equivalent, anyway. The mind flayers that captures you in the intro has Combat Tentacles on its nautiloid that teleport people they strike into tanks on the ship for later infestation with an illithid tadpole.
• Always a Bigger Fish:
  • The mind flayer nautiloid and the illithids on board have the human city they're attacking at their mercy but the former is utterly outclassed by three red dragons and their githyanki riders and the latter get quickly overwhelmed by the armies of the Hells once the nautiloid is accidentally transported to Avernus.
  • True Souls Minthara and Nere seem like strong, mighty villains in their respective acts. However, If Minthara survives Act 1, she is put on trial by Disciple Z'rell and Ketheric Thorm. And if Nere is aided in the Underdark, he is killed and reanimated as a zombie by Balthazar.
• Always Accurate Attack: Magic Missile will never miss its target as long as they are in range. Since it is a Level 1 spell that can hit multiple targets reliably in a game where health operates on Critical Existence Failure, the spell continues to live up to its reputation of being Boring, but Practical.
• Always Night: The Shadow-Cursed Lands in Act 2.
• Amazon Brigade: Of the Origins, the two strongest companions are Lae'zel and Karlach, with Shadowheart not far behind. In contrast, the Origin men are the spindly wizard Gale, the lithe fencer Wyll, and the waifish Astarion.
• Ambiguous Situation: In the endings where the player and/or Karlach undergo ceremorphosis and become mind flayers to stop the Absolute, their exact status is vague. Per official Forgotten Realms lore, ceremorphosis completely overrides and replaces the host right down to the soul, leaving only the new mind flayer behind, and any semblance of their old self is stated to merely be the mind flayer deluding itself into thinking it's still the same it was as a mortal, and that it gradually sheds those delusions as it ages. However, the fact that the Emperor has retained his original personality for centuries, is recognized by Withers as being the same person as his pre-ceremorphosis self as well as the fact that your companions will still treat you and/or Karlach mostly the same as before your transformation, suggests that in these particular cases, your retention of your old self may actually be both real and permanent. It's possible that this may be due to how the Absolute and its tadpoles are unique compared to most other elder brains. Lore also mentions the Adversary, a mind flayer whose original self completely overwhelms the mind flayer and takes back control, which they're absolutely terrified of the mere prospect of.
• Ambition Is Evil:
  • Invoked by Raphael, who refers to ambition as a sin in one of the game's Multiple Endings where Gale becomes a Deity of Human Origin: the God of Ambition. Raphael anticipates that Gale will cause complete chaos in his new godly role, and plans to use the opportunity to seize more power for himself.
  • Should Minthara join the party, she aspires to usurp the Dead Three's Chosen as leaders of the Cult of the Absolute and seize control of the Netherbrain for herself, and encourages the player character to do the same. Even if that doesn't happen, a romanced Minthara can be talked into conquering Menzoberranzan or Baldur's Gate with her at their side.
• Amnesiac Hero: Players who play as Shadowheart or the Dark Urge will start off as this. But given their nature and depending on the choices made, they'll likely wind up an Amnesiac Anti-Hero at best.
• And I Must Scream:
  • In Act 2, if you solve the puzzle in the Necrotic Laboratory, you can find the Waking Mind, a Githzerai brain suspended in fluid by the Mind Flayers. If you speak to it using the machine nearby, they beg to have their mind erased, as they were fully conscious all this time but unable to do anything.
  • If Mizora is betrayed while Wyll still has his contract with her, Wyll gets Dragged Off to Hell and transformed into a fleshy blob to be tormented for all eternity.
• And There Was Much Rejoicing: Following the death of the goblin leadership in Act 1.
• Angels, Devils and Squid: In Dungeons & Dragons tradition, the story incorporates angelic aasimar, the devilish legions of the Hells, all alongside the mind flayers.
• Animal Reaction Shot: In Halsin's infamous sex scene, should the player ask the druid to transform into a bear before getting it on, the camera will then cut to an utterly horrified squirrel dropping its acorn.
• And the Adventure Continues: Depending on your choices, some of the characters' endings fall under this.
  • Should you free Orpheus and ensure Lae'zel survives the final battle, she will become a dragon rider and lead a revolt against Vlaakith. Before leaving she thanks the player character for all that they've done and asserts that they will forever be remembered as a liberator by her people.
  • If you completed Karlach and Wyll's storylines either you or Wyll can convince Karlach to go with one of you into Avernus so she'll live and go on fighting the forces of hell, potentially even killing Zariel and very likely killing Mizora should Wyll be the one to join her. It should be noted that the scene of her arriving with the player character or Wyll in Avernus was patched in due to criticisms of her ending being an Anti-Climax.
  • If you convinced Astarion not to ascend and not to kill the many vampire spawn Cazador sired, he can go join his siblings in the Underdark and help them lead the other vampire spawn Cazador was keeping prisoner. If you romanced him, you can suggest you two go on another adventure together, potentially to find a way to let him enjoy the sunlight again.
  • For Shadowheart, both her Selunite and Justiciar endings can be open-ended. If she's a Selunite and ended the curse, she can suggest travelling with the PC to seek out a fresh start in lieu of homesteading. If she's a Justiciar but freed her parents, she can reject the idea of rebuilding the Sharran Coven in Baldur's Gate and be a travelling preacher instead.
  • If Gale lives, he'll note that the Crown of Karsus is somewhere in the waters near Baldur's Gate. He's wise enough to know that the party should not just hope against hope it remains lost there. If you convinced him to seek out Mystra's forgiveness, he will resolve to find it and give it to her and he seems confident that she'll heal him and make him her Chosen once more. If you didn't do that and encouraged his more reckless behavior he'll decide to use the Crown to command Karsus's weave, ascend to godhood; he essentially resolves to succeed where Karsus failed. He'll even suggest that he'd love to make the player character his Chosen should they become amenable to the idea.
  • If Minthara lives and is romanced, you move to the Underdark with her to raise an army and wage war against her former noble house
• Anti-Climax: Should you have Gale in your party when you confront Ketheric Thorm and the Absolute, he will use this opportunity to blow himself up if the player doesn't talk him out of it, taking the party, the Absolute, and the Chosen with him. The game ends right there and then without any fanfare.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • The game does make some compromises with the 5e ruleset for the sake of enjoyability and convenience:
    • PC drow and duergar don't have the Sunlight Sensitivity trait from the tabletop game, which forces drow/duergar players to make attack rolls and Perception checks at a disadvantage when they or their target are under direct sunlight. Given how the game is predominantly set in daylight with no option to change the time of day, keeping that trait in would've given drow players a potentially crippling disadvantage in the game. The lack of sunlight sensitivity is called out in-game a few times as a consequence of the tadpoles. Some NPCs retain this weakness, which can be exploited by things like the daylight spell, while NPCs with tadpoles also lack this trait.
    • Similarly, Astarion's vampire weaknesses are handwaved away with the tadpole, because a character who cannot stand in sunlight, cross running water, or enter houses uninvited would be nigh-unplayable.
    • The game overhauled the ranger class, which was widely considered in the tabletop game to be the weakest class in 5th Edition (at least until the optional class features from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything came along). Most notably, the Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer class features have been reworked to make them more usable in general rather than being limited to certain creature types (for the former) or environments (for the latter).
    • The optional Karmic Dice system zigzags this. On the one hand, it streamlines dice rolls so that combat and skill checks are less stringent, allowing you to cut through enemies and resolve tricky negotiations more easily. On the flipside, this applies to the enemies as well, which can result in things going pear-shaped for you even if you utilize your knowledge of the 5th Edition to better prepare.
    • You have a regenerating resource called Inspiration that is gained from seeing or completing events that fit into a character's background. Inspiration can be spent to reroll botched skill check roles, so you have a bit more leeway on harder rolls or unlucky rolls. Unlike the tabletop, you can save up inspiration multiple times.
    • Scrolls can be used by anyone, regardless of their class, spellcasting ability, level or spell list. Even non-casters can use scrolls, they just don't get to add any attribute bonus to the attack roll or save DC.
    • Per 5th Edition tabletop rules, virtually any magic item you can equip will require "attunement", and (unless you have a generous DM) you can only attune to three magic items at a time, with very few options to increase the limit. This isn't a problem in this game; like previous editions, the only limit is the number of slots for equipment.
    • Ritual spells in 5e take a significant chunk of time (often 10 minutes or more), as the fiction of these spells is that you have to complete an elaborate procedure to cast them. In this game, ritual spells are spells you can cast as often as you like without spending any spell slots, provided you're outside of combat.
    • Classes that prepare spells may change them freely outside of combat, meaning a player doesn't have to spend their limited supplies to long rest just to tweak their list.
    • Offhand attacks simply cost a bonus action and don't require attacking with the main hand at all. This is especially useful for rogues with the Thief subclass, whose Fast Hands feature gives them an extra bonus action each turn.
    • The Pact of the Blade subclass for warlocks gives the user features that required several invocations specific to it on the tabletop in order make better use of it, primarily giving the Blade warlock their pact weapon features at level 3, and the ability to use Charisma in place of their original attacking stat. This gives warlocks more freedom to experiment instead of being forced to use several of their limited invocation choices in order to actually compete with other weapon-based classes, which was the one downside of the Blade Pact warlock without later things like the Hexblade.
    • In the tabletop, many spells require material components to perform, some of which has a monetary value attached; for instance, any spells relating to reviving the dead require a diamond of a highly specific value. The game ignores this and treats every spell as only requiring verbal components, which while making silence-based status effects more potent still greatly reduces potential problems preventing spellcasting. (Spells that don't require verbal components are instead just noted to be unaffected by silence in the spell description)
    • Abilities like the rogue's Sneak Attack and the barbarian's Reckless Attack can be set as reaction that can be activated instead of being something needing to be worried about like on the tabletop. For example, if a barbarian attacks and misses, you can use their reaction to make it a Reckless Attack instead of clicking Reckless Attack at the start of their turn. Sneak Attack especially benefits from this, since it means a player doesn't need to stress too much over if they actually get to use it or not.
    • If a party member has a spell or ability that could modify a dice roll (e.g.: the Status Buff "Guidance") or Dialogue Tree option (e.g.: the spell "Detect Thoughts"), the game generally offers the option to use it as part of the roll or conversation, even if the ability would ordinarily need to have been activated in advance.
    • Multi-Class characters with levels in more than one spellcasting class always use the highest spellcasting attribute of any of their classes for all their spells, no matter what attribute the class providing the spell uses. So a Cleric / Sorcerer with maxed out charisma will use charisma for both Cleric and Sorcerer spells despite the former normally using wisdom.
  • Like Divinity: Original Sin II, you have an Arbitrary Head Count Limit of four party members. Unlike DOS 2, however, you do not lose access to the remaining recruitable companions after a certain point, as you can always keep them in reserve at your camp right from the outset. Instead, the likelihood of whether or not a companion joins or sticks with you is decided by your Relationship Values with them, as well as the morality of your actions throughout the game.
  • The blessing of Selûne/Pixie's Blessing in Act 2 automatically applies itself to your party members if you swap them out at camp, cutting out the need to get the buff re-applied.
  • A great many areas can only be accessed through the manually used jump ability. You only need to trigger the jump with one character for the rest of the party to follow suit automatically (provided they can jump far enough and won't take Fall Damage in the process), sparing the player a ton of micromanagement. How successfully this was implemented is debatable though... one party member refusing to jump a small gap with the rest of the party unless manually selected, only for the rest of the party to jump back across as soon as the player selects the straggler, is one of the most infamous cases of the game's Artificial Stupidity.
  • Very early in the game, you face off against some intellect devourers. Typically this happens shortly after you've properly recruited Shadowheart into the party, but if you're playing her as your Origin Player Character, you will have to face them alone. Consequently, the intellect devourers are both fewer in number and lower on health in this case.
  • The max level is capped out at 12 despite 5e letting you go all the way to 20. This was because levels 13 and onward include a massive bump in destructive power and damage output, and balancing encounters and the like with that in mind would have dramatically increased the developers' workload.
  • Your characters start with scrolls of revivify available, which greatly increases your survivability before Withers shows up or when you're low on money. Unlike the tabletop version of the spell, which can only revive a creature which has died within the past minute, you can cast the spell after any length of time, but only on party members, and you must have access to their body... unless the body has fallen into a chasm and is completely irretrievable, in which case a mote of light appears at the edge and you can cast the spell on that.
  • Withers is available in the Overgrown Ruins early on, reviving party members at a low price if you run out of scrolls or the body is unavailable (if you ran away from a tough battle to avoid a TPK, for instance).
  • If you messed up on building your character or want to try a different class you can pay Withers to re-spec.
  • If characters happen to roll close to each other in Initiative and are grouped together, the game allows the player to have their party act at once over waiting for the next turn, allowing characters to coordinate better and making larger fights faster and generally easier.
  • At the start of Act 3 the party is attacked in their camp when they go to bed. The long rests before and after this encounter do not consume camp supplies, but both fully restore the party's health and spell slots anyways.
  • In the middle of Act 3 Orin will kidnap one of three party members from the player's camp: Lae'zel, Gale, or Mutually Exclusive Party Members Halsin or Minthara^note If none are available, she will kidnap Yenna instead. However, Orin will not kidnap a party member the player is romancing, will not kidnap party members the player has in their active party, and will prioritize kidnapping the party member with the lowest approval of the player (how thoughtful of her), which is done to prevent Orin from snatching up any party members that are integral to the party composition or that the player has grown attached to interacting with.
  • The Ansur questline is heavily tied with that of both Wyll and Duke Ulder Ravengard, as you're supposed to rescue Duke Ravengard from Gortash before he informs you of Ansur's location. However, Mizora will try to leverage the duke's safety to get Wyll to form an eternal pact with her, making the rescue that much harder if you want to free Wyll. Therefore, if Wyll breaks the pact, some of the duke's loyalists will accost you instead, and you can get the location of Ansur from them if you succeed in talking them down, allowing you to complete the questline without having to rescue the duke or antagonize Gortash.
  • If a party member picks up a key, any other party member can use it without having to trade. For example, if Karlach picks up a door key and then Gale tries to open the corresponding door, a message will pop up saying that they used "magic pockets", saving the player from trawling through individual inventories.
  • Likewise, if any party member has a shovel, another can use it to dig a chest out of a mound of earth.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: The Player Character can only have as many as three companions traveling with them at a time.
• Arc Words: "Authority" comes up quite often.
• Archnemesis Dad:
  • Bhaal, if the Dark Urge works against him, since it's revealed that the Dark Urge is one of Bhaal's children.
  • Isobel is the previously-deceased daughter of Ketheric Thorm, whom Myrkul resurrected to secure his loyalty. As a loyal cleric of Selune, however, Isobel fiercely opposes Ketheric (potential kidnapping and brainwashing notwithstanding).
• Are You Sure You Want to Do That?: There are a few points in the game where picking a specific dialogue option will have other characters question whether you want to continue with your chosen course of action and give you a chance to reconsider, including Lae'zel warning you about badmouthing Vlaakith (which can lead to her casting Wish to kill your entire party immediately, attacking Ketheric Thorm and Z'rell the moment you meet them (which makes all of Moonrise hostile for a usually still low level player) or the Emperor warning you against opposing Gortash's coronation as Archduke (which leads to a difficult battle that may end in Duke Ravengard's death).
• Armor of Invincibility:
  • Ketheric Thorm's armor, Reaper's Embrace, is a suit of +1 plate armor that gives the wearer 19 AC, reduces all forms of incoming damage by 2, has a toggleable ability that makes the wearer immune to forced movement like the Shove bonus action and the thunderwave spell at the cost of having disadvantage on Dexterity saves, and once per long rest can be used to cast "Howl of the Dead," an ability that forces all enemies in the radius to make a saving throw against fear or have their speed be reduced by half and grant the caster advantage on attacks against them for three rounds.
  • Surpassing Reaper's Embrace is the Armour of Persistence, which found in a shop in Act 3. This is a suit of +2 plate armor with an Armor Class of 2 and also reduces all incoming damage by two, but on top of that it grants the wearer permanent Blade Ward (giving them resistance to piercing, slashing, and bludgeoning damage) and Resistance (giving them +1d4 to all saving throws).
  • While Reaper's Embrace and the Armour of Persistance are both extremely powerful, they pale in comparison to the Helldusk Armor, a suit of plate armor that grants an AC of 21, the highest of any armor in the game. While wearing it, you have resistance to fire damage, cannot be set on fire, incoming damage from all sources is reduced by three points, once per long rest it can cast the spell Fly, and any time you succeed on a saving throw the caster is set on fire for three rounds. And the best part is that everyone is considered proficient in it regardless of what armor proficiencies they actually have. That means it can be worn by your Squishy Wizard just as easily as by a fighter or paladin.
• Artificial Brilliance: "Tactician" difficulty mode makes the game more difficult by making hostiles much more ruthless, rather than giving them stat bonuses. They'll target squishy characters first, use consumables and equipment, exploit environmental effects (like oil barrels), and give players their very own Disney Villain Death by using verticality against them. The standard difficulty also has a "crowd control" check, where no more than one party member will be stunned by a targeted crowd control ability, which is removed on Tactician.
• Artificial Stupidity:
  • While the game was in Early Access, the enemies sometimes displayed questionable tactics, such as casting multiple spells requiring concentration in a row, cancelling the previous one every time.
  • The full release has a bit of trouble with character pathfinding. Party members taking nonsensical paths that end well short of their target is a frequent occurrence in combat, as is them getting stuck in the terrain during exploration. The jump ability in particular poses a challenge to any character not under direct player control.
  • If you cast a damaging area denial spell in a battle that involves allied characters, there's a good chance they'll walk into the spell, take damage and turn hostile.
  • If you manage to close and lock a door while enemies are hostile (Which can be done with a grease spell sometimes) they'll try to break it down. However, if the door is "Sturdy", the door is basically impossible to destroy - even if you light it on fire. So enemies will just repeatedly attack the door.
  • An intentional In-Universe example is Grym, the Adamantine Golem that protects the Grymforge. It's conditioned to always focus its attention on the last character that attacked it, making it easy to kite around the area to where you want it. Like under the giant hydraulic hammer in the center of its boss arena.
  • One encounter in particular in Act 3, the Steel Watch factory if you rescued the captives in the Iron Throne, is somewhat notorious for the poor decision making of the allied Gondians. They repeatedly charge into danger despite not being robust melee fighters, they've been observe walking away from enemies and triggering opportunity attacks only to misty step back into melee at the end of their turns, they disturb enemies under hypnotic patterns and other disabling effects (something other allied characters usually don't do), and they regularly fail to avoid the Watcher's self-destruct ability, making it altogether very frustrating for players trying to protect all or even any of them.
• Ascended Meme: It become a meme to associate a popular Tumblr post that reads "Yes, I'm a gatekeeper and a hater. I'm also God's favourite princess and the most interesting girl in the world" with Shadowheart, given the character's demeanor and backstory, with Jennifer English even delivering the line in-character on Cameo. Come the release of Patch 5 and the Playable Epilogue, Shadowheart herself now recites the phrase in-universe, with the justification being that she was dared to recite the final mad ravings of a githyanki heretic publicly executed by Vlaakith LXXIV.
• The Assimilator:
  • Mind flayers reproduce by implanting their tadpole-like larvae into a humanoid body, which transforms, agonizingly, into another mind flayer over the course of about a tenday. The ship shown in the opening is full of pods which show that the mind flayers have not only managed to speed up the process, but are intent on weaponizing it.
  • On a lesser note, gnolls are shown here to be born of natural hyenas cursed by the demon lord Yeenoghu, who is worshipped by gnolls as their god in keeping with 5th Edition's new canon.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • Most feats tend to have this issue when compared to the Ability Score Improvement option. While they often give abilities that can be beneficial or unique, the level cap of 12 means there isn't as much flexibility to take one, and still focus on important stats, since the majority of classes only have three chances to chose an ASI or Feat. Some of them run into the issue of also not really being helpful despite sounding neat, because of the gameplay side of things. Dungeon Delver for instance can make traps less of a problem, but a player can simply boost a characters Wisdom and Dexterity to ensure the player spots traps and disarms them easier, or even just reload a save to retry. Actor is another example, as there are few chances where things like Performance checks are an option. While some with ASI boost at least can make for good early level pick, or something like Alert or Resilient which can assist class features, it's more practical to take the ASI feature and get your classes primary stats maxed, and then maybe take one of the other feats when getting to level 12.
  • The Dark Urge's Slayer transformation, unlockable by killing Isobel in act 2. It transforms the Dark Urge into a giant monster — with its own set of stats so that, say, a Wizard won't be screwed over by its all physical attacks. But for all that, its attacks aren't really all that powerful, and tend to be inaccurate, and lots of buffs and class abilities won't carry over when you transform. If your team is well-balanced, you might just be better off without it. Also, Isobel's death locks the player out of several merchants and even a potential party member or two.
  • The Level 6 spell Disintegrate does an astounding 50-100 Force damage (which element few enemies in the game resist) but it's also a "save or suck" spell, meaning that if the target saves against it they take no damage whatsoever. And it's a Dex save, which is the most commonly high ability. This on top of lots of powerful endgame enemies having bonuses to spell saves. There are ways to increase your chances of landing it; Bane, Prone, Sorcerer's Heightened Spell, but you might be better off saving your one level 6 spell slot for some other level 6 spell, or even an upcast lower level spell.
• Baby as Payment: The Hag's asking price for Mayrina's Deal with the Devil.
• Back from the Dead:
  • Party members can be brought back to life via the Revivify spell or by paying Withers a small fee at camp should they fall in battle. However, there are certain plot events that can lead to them being Killed Off for Real.
  • Auntie Ethel the hag will return in Act 3 even if the party killed her in Act 1, having made arrangements to bring herself back from the dead and even taunting the player in Act 1 about how she'll be back if they decide to try Interrogating the Dead on her.
  • Bhaal will kill the Dark Urge if they refuse to serve him, but Withers will reward the Dark Urge's heroism by ressurecting them.
• Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: If the Dark Urge asks Evil Mentor Sceleritas Fel the worst thing they've ever done before their Laser-Guided Amnesia, Sceleritas will say with horror that the Dark Urge once gave a beggar some coin and didn't even physically or verbally abuse the beggar.
• Bad Powers, Good People: There is nothing stopping you from being a warlock, or a cleric of an evil god, but still acting in a heroic manner. The same goes for the scary psychic powers you can unlock by absorbing mind flayer tadpoles. The undead knight that appears to aid an Oathbreaker paladin invokes this almost literally, stating that they can use the dark powers he grants for good. Deconstructed to Hells and back in regards to Wyll, because he's a good-hearted and heroic man who travels the Sword Coast defending the common people using powers he gained from a pact with a wicked and manipulative cambion, and he has to sacrifice much to ensure he keeps these powers, leaving the question open as to whether it's all worth it.
• Bag of Holding: Averted (your inventory is limited by your carry weight, which depends on the character's strength stat), but amusingly referenced by your Player Character, who might sometimes mention they wish they had one of these when you tell them to pick up an item.
• Bag of Spilling: For obvious balance reason, Minsc and Jaheira do not carry over any of their skills or experience from the two first games, being the same level as the main character when recruited, as opposed to the Epic level heroes they should be following Throne of Bhaal. That said Jaheira does retain gear from the first two games, in a hidden area underneath her home. These are Belm (the Scimitar of Speed +2) and the Staff of the Ram from the second game, and Khalid's Gift from Siege at Dragonspear.
• Bank Robbery: The party can interrupt a Brainwashed and Crazy Minsc as he attempts to rob The Counting House in Act 3.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: Act 3 features an inversion of this, in that you go into a mind in order to beat up its occupant. In the final part of the final battle, you use the Netherstones to create a portal into the mind of the Netherbrain, represented as a smaller but still pretty big brain floating in a void surrounded by floating platforms, which you then have to destroy. This represents the Netherbrain's will to resist the Netherese crown's control. It's never established whether this brain has another, smaller brain inside it, and so on.
• Bavarian Fire Drill: Being caught in an off-limits area usually gives you the option to try and talk your way out. Do well enough and you can convince the patrolling guards that you're allowed to be there for one reason or another, giving you free reign of the area until you're caught doing something illegal.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished:
  • Averted. Not only will your party get covered with mud, grime, and blood that remains until you take a long rest, but their faces will show bruises and cuts at lower health levels regardless of gender.
  • As their illithid transformation advances, characters develop twisted black veins on their face and neck, particularly around the eyes.
• Bedlam House: The House of Healing in Act 2. More tragically it used to be a legitimate medical facility, complete with a children's ward and anesthetic, before the Shar cultists took over. By the time the party gets there, the staff is only a handful of lobotomized undead nurses and a undead/construct mad doctor that treats vivisection as a religious sacrament for the victim.
• Begin with a Finisher: If you persist in taunting the eternal god-queen Vlaakith, she uses a Wish — the setting's second most powerful Reality Warping spell — to deliver an instant Total Party Kill.
• Being Evil Sucks: The game likes to look at how miserable a lot of evil-aligned races and beings are, whether it be the perpetual misery of a goblin flunky or the hollow cutthroat existence of devils. Some of your party members also have to deal with this (most prominently Shadowheart and Astarion) and it is up to you to help them get out of their pits. Even the player can experience this trope. Evil actions rarely end well for anyone and most lead to the game's worst endings.
• Betty and Veronica:
  • Between the romanceable female companions, the Endearingly Dorky Bruiser with a Soft Center Karlach is the Betty of the group. Meanwhile, both Lae'zel and Minthara fall under Veronica territory, with the former being a Defrosting Ice Queen Proud Warrior Race Girl and the latter being a ruthless yet pragmatic Blood Knight Token Evil Teammate. Shadowheart, who despite being a Nice Girl is still an Aloof Dark-Haired Girl who is part of a Religion of Evil, making her also fall under Veronica territory. However, depending on how her personal questline ends, she can become a Betty as well.
  • On the male side of things, roguish vampire Casanova Astarion is the only man in the group who could fit the role of Veronica, while the role of Betty goes to either princely Nice Guy Wyll or Endearingly Dorky Insufferable Genius Gale. This dynamic is directly lampshaded if you get into a love triangle with Astarion and either one of them, as Astarion directly mocks Wyll or Gale for being boring and/or childishly romantic, while Gale and Wyll will worry about the player being won over by Astarion's rakish charms.
• Beyond the Impossible: The game features certain ability checks that require a roll (also known as Difficulty Class) of 30 or above to succeed, which the tabletop game describes as "nearly impossible”, but still doable. Having a maxed out ability score, proficiency or expertise in the skill being used for the check, and a crap ton of bonuses to your roll can help you increase the odds of succeeding the ability check. Or you can just roll a natural 20. The most notable instance of this happening is during the party's initial confrontation with the Netherbrain in Act 3, where the last ability check to attempt to dominate the elder brain has a Difficulty Class of 99, meaning that rolling a natural 20 is the only way to succeed.
• Big Boo's Haunt: The Shadow-Cursed Lands is a region stricken by a curse. Undead are very common there, and the area leans even further into Dark Fantasy than the rest of the game does.
• Big Red Devil: Raphael, Yugir and Haarlep.
• Bilingual Bonus: The name of Tingmiaq, a blue jay found in the druid grove, means "bird" in Inuktitut.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The pixie Dolly Dolly Dolly, trapped in a Moonlantern by the Cult, plays the role of a sweet little fairy, even putting on a twee voice and using rhyming couplets. If the player frees her she proves to actually be a rather acid tongued, sour person. Downplayed in that, although she is far less pleasant than she pretended to be, she is still grateful to be freed and provides the player with the magical protection they needed from the Shadow Curse.
• Bittersweet Ending: Choosing to destroy the Netherbrain and end the Absolute threat ends with the Sword Coast being saved and the party becoming heroes, but there's a high likelihood that the majority of companions will leave you at the journey's end, meaning The Fellowship Has Ended. As for the specifics:
  • Astarion has two endings: Either he becomes a vampire ascendant from hijacking Cazador's ritual and sacrifices whatever scraps of morality he has left, or he remains a vampire spawn and is thus forced into a nocturnal existence once again despite helping save all of Faerûn. The latter ending has him almost tearfully say that being in the sun was nice while it lasted as he scrambles for shade.
  • Shadowheart can free herself from Shar's curse at the cost of her parents' life, or reunite with them at the cost of them all still suffering from Shar's spiteful act. She also remains traumatized by the knowledge of what has been done to her and her family.
  • Lae'zel can either successfully save Orpheus, the true prince of the githyanki people, or let him be killed in order to solidify an alliance with the Emperor. In the latter case, she makes it clear that Vlaakith will never stop hunting her down and she leaves to an Uncertain Doom. Alternately, if you free Orpheus but skip the quests that lead to Lae'zel turning against Vlaakith, she'll try to kill him and you are forced to either let Orpheus be killed or kill Lae'zel yourself. However, if you did help her realize that Vlaakith is evil, her ending is more sweet than bitter. Orpheus grants her lifelong wish of becoming a dragon rider and she goes to fight in Orpheus's rebellion.
  • If Gale survives, then the ending shows that he either hasn't learned his lesson and plans to use the Crown of Karsus in order to become a god, or plans to bring the Crown to Mystra to cure himself of his affliction.
  • Wyll can either break his pact with Mizora and thus lose his warlock powers, or become eternally bound to Mizora and Zariel, forced to be their pawn for the rest of his days (though you can help lean it towards the sweeter side with Karlach's help).
  • Karlach's infernal engine finally overheats and she chooses to Face Death with Dignity, satisfied that she managed to save so many people with her actions. The player character can convince her that she's worth hell and can go with her back to Avernus to save her life. If certain choices are made, then Wyll can choose to return to the Hells with her and keep her safe from Zariel. The player can also Take a Third Option and have her turn into a mind flayer, which she seems pretty happy with since it saves her life.
  • Minthara is happy to be free of her tadpole's influence and feels amazed that she's being considered a savior instead of a conqueror for once. You can tell her that Good Feels Good and encourage her to turn over a new leaf, you can say that you still have plans for conquest, just without the Absolute's help, or you can openly regret having killed the Netherbrain. You can then express a desire to go with her to Menzoberranzan, or pick up where Gortash left off and take Baldur's Gate for yourself, and she'll be eagerly supportive either way, even though she notes that with the Absolute you could've conquered the world. She also intends to found a new House in your name, considering you worthy of leaving a legacy in drow society.
  • A custom origin or Dark Urge character can end the game pretty happily, but they could also have chosen to turn themselves into a mind flayer in order to stop the Absolute, meaning they'll be an outcast with Horror Hunger for the rest of their days. A heroic Dark Urge can also successfully tell Bhaal to screw off at the cost of their life, but Withers will gladly resurrect them for their refusal to back down and becomes their advocate in the next life.
• Body Horror: The ceremorphosis process is shown in its full, gory glory in the reveal trailer, with a Flaming Fist soldier's body contorting in horrific agony before transforming into an illithid.
• Bookcase Passage: A necromancer's lair is hidden behind one in a cellar in the Blighted Village.
• Boomerang Bigot: In the beginning of Act 3, you can find a man who's busy railing against letting foreigners and refugees into Baldur's Gate. One of your dialog options when talking to him is to call him for having an obvious Rivington accent — just outside the city proper. If he wants to arbitrarily exclude people based on where they come from, you can do the same.
• Booze-Based Buff: The Punch-Drunk Bastard greatclub gives the wielder advantage on attack rolls and applies additional thunder damage if the user is drunk.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • When characters hit Level 4, they get access to their first feat. There are dozens of feats to choose from, but the standard advice is to pick "Ability Improvement" for everyone, regardless of what class you're playing, which gives two extra ability points to dump into their primary stat(s). While far from flashy, and not providing any new abilities or tactics, it does provide the bland but incredibly useful bonus of making your character marginally better at everything they do. Strictly from a purely statistical standpoint, this is simply too good to pass up.
    • In a similar vein, flat bonuses to weapons and armor are often more effective over time than flashy abilities that work once per short or long rest. Plate armor +2 is an endgame armor with no abilities, just an AC bonus and a minor reduction in physical damage... but that AC bonus is 20, meaning even a level 12 enemy with 20 Strength will have a less than 50% chance to hit.
  • In early access, the warlock class is amongst the most effective classes, as while they don't have the sheer number of spell slots of a wizard or a cleric, they do have the spammable and very potent eldritch blast cantrip. In full release, this continues as by level 12, it's three beams of concussive force you can aim at multiple targets, each doing 1d10. A warlock with the right invocations, feats, and attire, can do a potential 60 points of damage in one action, using a cantrip.
  • One of the simplest abilities a character can do is push enemies. It doesn't do damage, but with the right planning and environment, pushing an enemy can buy you time to regroup and reposition, push enemies off of great heights to deal extra damage, or even push enemies into bottomless pits, meaning you can kill certain bosses with a single bonus action.
  • Counterspell requires a caster to give up a level 3 spell slot (which contain some of the most useful spells in the game) and their reaction, all to ensure something else doesn't happen. But in the mid- and late-game, when enemies have their own bombshells to drop, it can be the difference between a trivial encounter and a deadly one.
  • Magic missile isn't flashy as a Level 1 spell staple, but it always hits and can spread its damage, which is extremely valuable for finishing off damaged enemies in a Critical Existence Failure ruleset. It's also invaluable for getting rid of illusory doppelgangers, which are One-Hitpoint Wonders, breaking concentration on casters by forcing them to make multiple saves at once, and for clearing out swarms of Glass Cannons like corrupted ravens. Against a single target under the affect of bonus damage-on-hit effects like Hunter's Mark and or the Phalar Aluve's Scream affect, an upcasted Magic Missile can take off a major chunk of even the most powerful enemies' health because each individual hit will trigger those bonus effects.
  • You can pick up an alarming amount of objects in this game provided you have the physical strength to carry it. You can then place those objects wherever you want which the NPCs will need to maneuver around, assuming they even can. If combat starts, the AI will try to break whatever you put in front of them if possible, but if not they'll just attack it ineffectually each turn. A well tested strategy for dealing with cambion commander on the nautiloid in order to get his Disc-One Nuke of a sword is to block the doorway to the helm with a large iron chest from a previous room. The two cambions that show up halfway through the fight will be unable to get inside, which will give you extra time to get the sword.
  • The War Caster and Resilient feats for pure casters. The former grants advantage on all Constitution saving throws to maintain concentration on a spell, while choosing Constitution for the latter^note Sorcerers are the exception because they innately have Constitution as a saving skill proficiency adds the character's proficiency bonus to all Constitution saving throws. Aside from being a common saving throw in general, either or both make it much more difficult for a caster's concentration spells to be disrupted. Given how battle-altering some concentration spells can be, preventing them from being lost becomes more and more important as the game goes on, which makes it even better that the proficiency bonus also gets better as levels increase. Using the Mirror of Loss makes it possible to have both feats will still having twenty points in the main spellcasting stat.
  • Command is a level 1 spell available to clerics and a number of non-cleric subclasses. Its main use is to make an enemy perform one of a short list of actions immediately/on their turn, which can include Hush (silencing them for the next turn), Grovel (kneeling to the ground and not attacking/taking any action), and Drop (immediately dropping their weapon). All it takes is them making a Wisdom save, and it so happens not too many enemies have amazing Wisdom scores. The aforementioned Disc-One Nuke sword Everburn held by the cambion commander in Act 1 can be simply stolen by telling him to drop it, then using your turn to grab it (picking objects up being a free action).
  • Guidance is a cantrip that clerics and warlocks can learn, which allows them to give the target an extra d4 on any skill check they make. Getting a 1 to 4 on a roll isn't much, and the bonus never increases, but guidance can be cast during conversations at no penalty or cost, and lasts for 1 minute, meaning you can cast it on someone before a roll, and they get a small boost to the rolls they make with no drawbacks, making having it a simple but helpful tool to have. As an added convenience, unlike the tabletop version, the game does not require it to be re-cast — it applies to all skill checks made for the full duration.
  • The seemingly useless create water is a mere 1st level spell with a ton of utility. It can reveal invisible enemies without a chance to save, impart vulnerability to cold and lightning damage with no save, make you immune to burning and resistant to fire damage, clean off blood and acid, create a slippery ice patch by applying an ice spell (even a cantrip like ray of frost), or be electrified by lightning (lightning arrows are also in ready supply). It also doesn't require concentration and can be upscaled for a massive area of effect.
• Boss-Altering Consequence:
  • The first time you face the Final Boss after passing the Point of No Return, there is an "impossible roll" (which requires a 99 or higher on 20-sided die.) Technically a critical hit passes any roll challenge, however if you do this it looks like nothing happens and you still have to run away. After plot happens and you return to face the Final Boss properly; an effect occurs, "Against all odds", which lowers the Final Boss's hp by 10%. You did hurt it after all.
  • Most of the side quests in the game tie into allies that can be called on in the final ascent to the Netherbrain.
• Boss-Arena Idiocy: Grym, the Adamantine Golem, is virtually immune against all conventional attacks. The only things that can really hurt it (a giant hydraulic hammer), or at least make it vulnerable (molten lava), are both found in the area it's fought in. Outside of this area it would be all but unstoppable.
• Boss Subtitles: Many enemies have them, as well as some non-hostile NPCs. These range from generic enemies like goblins ("Novice of the Absolute") to higher-level minibosses ("Flind: Gnoll Warlord") to to actual boss fights ("Auntie Ethel: Sister of the Seeing Pearl").
• Boss-Only Level: The Upper City of Baldur's Gate can't be accessed until you're launching an assault on the Absolute.
• Both Order and Chaos are Dangerous: Gortash (Order, because he rules Baldur's Gate with an iron fist and wants to Take Over the World) and Orin (Chaos, because she's an Omnicidal Maniac) are the primary antagonists of Act 3.
• Bow and Sword in Accord: Characters can equip a melee weapon and a ranged weapon and swap between them instantly, and probably should do so unless they're in a class that has projectile cantrips and no multiattack (in which case the cantrips will outperform their ranged weaponry). Fitting the name of this trope, one of the best loadouts for most characters is a longbow and a longsword thanks to their power, their versatility, and the fact that nearly everyone has proficiency with them, and Lae'zel, your fighter, will probably use a greatsword if you haven't chosen to give her a Knightly Sword and Shield instead.
• Bowdlerize: To maintain accordance with the CERO ratings, the Japanese version of the game contains heavy modifications. This includes the removal of more explicit content (such as genitals and nudity), the censoring of deaths involving internal organs and removing the player's ability to torture the NPCs in the Goblin Camp.
• Bragging Rights Reward: Finishing the game in Honour Mode will earn you a golden dice skin for all your succeeding playthroughs.
• Broken Pedestal: Lae'zel dedicated her life to serving Vlaakith, revering her, but the events at Crèche Y'llek can lead to Lae'zel turning against Vlaakith and siding with Voss in a plan to free Orpheus and overthrow the lich queen.
• Bullying a Dragon:
  • Early in act 3 you can get in an argument with mercenaries who feel you muscled in on their turf. One of the intimidation options is to point out you have just killed an Avatar of Myrkul so you feel like you can handle them. On a success they immediately realize you are way outside their weight class.
  • By Act 3, you regularly encounter enemies who will still confidently talk down to you or attempt to threaten you, despite your accomplishments so far and the fact you're likely approaching the level cap if not maxed level already. In some cases, it makes sense that the powerful cambion Raphael would be confident in their ability to kill you, but less so his lieutenant Korilla who is merely a level 5 Warlock and is very easily dispatched, never mind the Zhentarim leader who is similarly liable to be killed almost immediately into combat with them.
  • One potential Act 3 encounter is with the leader of the mercenaries that was looking for the Nightsong back in Act 1. If you talk to him outside of the magic shop, don't convince him one way or another to give up the hunt, and the Nightsong is alive, long resting before progressing the Nightsong questline will result in him ambushing you at your camp; he's still level 3, at a point where your team is at least thrice that. At least his goons are higher level.
• But I Read a Book About It: Volo has never performed a tadpole extraction surgery, but he claims to have read (and dreamed) about the procedure extensively. Unsurprisingly, it ends in an Eye Scream and the player receiving a Glass Eye.
• But Thou Must!: You can't actually accept Raphael's first deal to remove the tadpole. Despite offering to remove it in exchange for your soul he never does so even if you agree and gives the same lines as when the player rejects him. The only difference is that he acts somewhat disappointed at how easy it was to get you to agree and that he wanted more of a fight. By Act 3, however, he does offer a means of freeing Orpheus immediately in exchange for recovering the Netherese crown controlling the elder brain, with your soul put up as collateral if you don't follow up.
  • One way or another, the party must be in possession of the mysterious artefact. To wit: Killing Shadowheart makes the artefact fly into your hands, and refuse to leave. Abandoning Shadowheart on the beach results in her later stumbling into camp, and forcing a confrontation in which she's either talked down and joins, or dies, and thus turns over the artefact. Even swapping her out of the party makes the artefact jump into your inventory. Not only that, but even if you make an earnest, good-faith attempt to return the artefact to its original owners at the githyanki crèche, circumstances will conspire to keep it in your possession. This is at least somewhat justified, as it protects the party from the Absolute's influence, so any alternate universe where they don't have the artefact simply ends in them being turned into thralls.
• Buried Alive: Gothric Rillyn can be found buried alive in the cemetery in Act 3, as punishment for ripping off the gang boss Stone Lord.

C-E

• Can't Have Sex, Ever: Karlach's infernal engine has left her perpetually too hot to touch for anyone she's interested in having a physical relationship with. She jokes that she never got desperate enough to sleep with fire-resistant creatures like imps.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Possibly the player's relationship with The Emperor, if their interactions turn hostile.
• Call-Back: The Mortal View: Eyewitness Accounts of the Bhaalspawn Crisis runs through several major plot beats of the eponymous saga: The hijinks of Imoen and Gorion's Ward in Candlekeep; the Iron Crisis in Nashkel, and Sarevok's Evil Plan; Bodhi's destruction, along with her vampire guild's ill-fated alliance with Irenicus; and the bloody havoc caused by the Five. It even nods to the Distant Finale of the first Baldur's Gate duology and the canon death of Gorion's Ward, the 5th Edition tabletop module Murder in Baldur's Gate.
  • If you have Minsc in your party right after recruiting him (as opposed to sending him to camp), he'll elaborate on various mementos you find in a hidden room, name-dropping his partner Dynaheir from the first game, and Aerie, Jan, Keldorn, and Mazzy from the second.
• Came Back Wrong: Mayrina made a Deal with the Devil with a Hag to bring her husband Back from the Dead with her Baby as Payment. The Hag tends to grant wishes in a Jackass Genie fashion, so Mayrina's husband comes back as a rotten zombie should the party help Mayrina see the deal through.
• Cast from Money: The Twist of Fortune mace has an ability called "Blood Money" that does additional damage for every 300 gold the target possesses. With sufficient gold, the party can reverse pickpocket enough gold to One-Hit Kill several of the toughest bosses in the game.
• Cats Are Superior: Most of the cats in the game, if you use Speak with Animals, prove to be arrogant and aloof, as you might expect, though amusingly so; one calls you "servant-ape" and tells you to hunt rats on her behalf.
• Cave Behind The Waterfall: Downplayed.
  • The Emerald Grove has a somewhat hidden back entrance that's partially covered by a waterfall.
  • The river that runs under the Goblin camp comes from a waterfall that has a shrine to Maglubiyet behind it; since the goblins now worship the Absolute, it's abandoned and thus an easy source of loot.
• Character Class System:
  • There's a huge variety of classes to choose from, including each of the 12 base classes from 5th Edition (although there are currently no plans to include the 13th class, Artificer, as it is a Canon Foreigner borrowed from Eberron).
  • Each class also contains several subclasses to choose from upon reaching a certain level (except for clerics, sorcerers, paladins, and warlocks, who can choose their subclass at Level 1).
• Character Customization: Much like Larian's previous game, players have the option of creating a Featureless Protagonist from scratch, or choosing from several pre-made origin characters. Unlike the Divinity: Original Sin games, Origin characters' appearances are completely fixed, with the player unable to change so much as a hairdo (The Dark Urge excluded).
• Chew-Out Fake-Out: Early in Act 3, when Astarion learns the Dark Urge created The Absolute, he seems ready to chew them out... then admits he's a little impressed, and thanks them for unintentionally rescuing him from Cazador.
• Children's Covert Coterie: Mol, among the tiefling refugee children in the Emerald Grove, runs a gang of grifters to get by. They can go as far as supplanting the Thieves' Guild in Baldur's Gate if supported by the player.
• Circles of Hell: The Nine Hells of Baator are made up of nine descending layers, ruled by nine archdevils in ascending order of rank. The prologue sees your Player Character awakening aboard the nautiloid shortly after the ship transports to Avernus, the topmost layer, a barren Fire and Brimstone Hell that serves as an eternal battleground in the Blood War.
• The Chosen One: Not in the traditional sense, but in the Forgotten Realms setting, an individual who is bestowed with extraordinary powers by a deity is considered to be that deity's Chosen. A number of these Chosen (including some former ones) are present within the game:
  • Gale was once a Chosen of Mystra, but he lost his goddess' favor after his ambitions led him to be inflicted with the Netherese Orb. If you play as Gale and were successful in returning the Crown of Karsus to her by the end of the game, you have the option of telling Mystra that you'd wish to be her Chosen once again.
  • Elminster (or rather, a simulacrum of Elminster), another Chosen of Mystra, pays Gale a visit to deliver a message to him from the goddess of magic.
  • The Cult of the Absolute is led by eponymous goddess' Chosen: General Ketheric Thorm, Lord Enver Gortash, and Orin the Red. In reality, these three are the Chosen of the Dead Three gods: Myrkul, Bane, and Bhaal respectively.
  • Playing as the Dark Urge reveals that they used to be Bhaal's Chosen who orchestrated the entire conspiracy surrounding the Cult of the Absolute before Orin usurped them out of jealousy of them being the favored child of the god of murder. Upon meeting with Bhaal after killing Orin, they have the choice of either reclaiming their place as Bhaal’s Chosen in order to fulfill his plans for the Absolute, or reject him at the cost of their own life.
  • If Shadowheart kills the Nightsong as part of Shar's test for her to become a Dark Justiciar, the goddess of darkness and loss herself would soon declare Shadowheart as her Chosen.
  • The Nightsong mentioned several times in Acts 1 and 2 turns out to be Dame Aylin, Chosen (and daughter) of Selûne.
• Chunky Salsa Rule: Zigzagged. Party members can always be revived regardless of how badly mutilated their corpse is, and even if they're launched down a chasm, they leave behind a spirit on the nearest surface that can be targeted. Certain attacks with multiple stages, or spells that apply multiple hits, can cause a character to skip the "Dying" state and go straight to actual death. Some environmental effects such as the Netherese bomb and the Grymforge will always kill. If a party member is killed in such a way that you have no access to their body or spirit like if they didn't evacuate the Iron Throne in time, leaving them crushed by rubble at the bottom of the bay, Withers can still resurrect them for you in camp. However, you can't Speak With Dead on a corpse that's too badly damaged, meaning a post-battle interrogation can be rendered impossible if your intended target died in a gruesome fashion.
• Circus of Fear: The Circus of the Last Days is a rather complicated example. As a plane-hopping circus that operates with considerable help from fey forces, it comes off as Creepy Good overall, but has its fair share of unsettling twists:
  • Ringmaster Lucretious is a necromancer who's perfectly affable despite her skeletal helpers.
  • There's a mummy running a perfectly legitimate facepaint stand, and a kobold selling stuff he nicked off corpses (which he tells you to your face almost immediately).
  • A djinni is running a somewhat pricey chocolate wheel game with bizarre, questionably-useful magical consolation prizes, and a mysterious 'jackpot', which is rigged so it can never be won unless you beat the djinni at his own game, which he's not happy about.
  • A dryad who offers to test how well the player character knows someone in their party, particularly their romance partner in a question of how well you truly know them. She's one of the potential people Orin can have shapeshifted into in order to taunt and rile you up.
  • The long-standing star attraction is Dribbles the Clown, a widely-beloved Non-Ironic Clown whom player characters with Baldurian backgrounds will have positive memories of. Even Dribbles has the uneasy secret of having been recently murdered and impersonated by doppelgangers.
• *Click* Hello: Jaheira pulls this on the PC upon entering the Last Light Inn, albeit with crossbows from her soldiers and a spell from herself. You can immediately complain, whilst still restrained, that no one ever just says “hello” to you. She’ll say hello.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: The player can torture a captive in the goblin camp for information.
• Collapsing Lair: Gortash will activate the Self-Destruct Mechanism of his Underwater Base, The Iron Throne, if the party shows up to rescue the prisoners, leaving the party with a precious six turns to get out with as many people as they can.^note Five turns in Tactician/Honor mode.
• Collection Sidequest: A quest in Act 3 involves reassembling the dismembered corpse of the real Dribbles the Clown, which has been scattered far and wide across Baldur's Gate.
• Combat, Diplomacy, Stealth: Par for Larian, nearly every encounter or problem has many solutions which can be roughly sorted into these three buckets, although they're heavily personalized depending on the skills you're drawing from. However, all three buckets can be useful depending on your class, and you're not limited to a particular bucket even if your class would favour one. Barbarians can be unhinged in diplomatic solutions, wizards can use spells in trickery and misdirection, and even paladins can use their background as oathsworn warriors in displays of force.
• Coming in Hot: The opening sequence takes place aboard a mind flayer nautiloid, heavily damaged and hurtling through Avernus as githyanki dragon-riders and hellish denizens strafe the ship. The player's objective during this is to regain control — not to avoid a crash, but to make sure it doesn't crash in Avernus specifically, since that would mean certain doom for all involved. Naturally, once the nautiloid has been redirected to a less hostile plane, it almost immediately gives up the ghost and crashes to the ground.
• Compact Infiltrator: Some openings, like the Secret Underground Passage to the lair of a gang of thief children, are too narrow for a Medium-sized player character like a human. You need to send a naturally Small character like a halfling, shrink someone with magic, or deploy a Tiny-sized animal Familiar.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard:
  • Certain weapons or abilities can only be used by the player inbetween short and long rests after their charges are expended. This does not apply to the enemies you face, as they will use them as much as they want. A great early example is the fight against Dror Ragzlin who will use a powerful melee ability every single turn if allowed. When you get the weapon from him that allows you to also use it, you'll be disappointed to see that it has a single use before needing to be recharged.
  • While not unusual in the tabletop setting, see Absurdly Low Level Cap about what 5e pulls on high level, it's still a little glaring the kinds of things some enemies pull later on. A prime example is Baal Cultist enemies. Their rogues, while lacking sneak attack, have two attacks and no cost invisibility as a bonus action. Similarly another unit can bonus action no cost attempt to stun a character that can only be saved against, completely eradicating a turn and setting a victim of a failed save up for free advantage against them. While the player can stun and turn invisible it also costs resources that can run out and not as a bonus action, as well as being locked behind certain classes and spells.
    • The pinnacle of this would be the aftermemtioned rogues. In addition to free invisibility they often start out with Sanctuary on them while invisible, in this game you straight up can't attack a sancturied target with a targeted attack rather than a will save to do so. If you happen to catch one before they attack you either need an area of effect to throw next to them or simply wait until they choose to attack you. Both invisibility and Sanctuary are concentration when the player uses them, the rogues just flat out cheat to use two concentration effects to avoid getting attacked before they decide to be active.
• Con Man: At Silvanus' Grove, a young tiefling boy will try a con on the PC, also doing a sleight of hand trick. If the PC is a rogue or has the Charlatan background, you can identify all of the boy's tricks by name, and then proceed to show the boy that there's Always a Bigger Fish. If the PC doesn't rip the kid off and just tells him "yeah, good luck with that kid", he'll laugh and tell the rogue he'll focus on the real pigeons.
• Concealing Canvas: Raphael's personal safe is hidden behind a painting in the boudoir. A very large portrait of himself, specifically. Gortash also has a safe hidden behind a painting in his chambers atop Wyrm's Rock, but - oddly, given that he's had the whole city plastered with posters of his face - it's not a giant portrait of himself.
• Conspicuously Light Patch: Often an area of walls or floor that hides a secret stands out from the areas around it, such as weak floorboards looking warped compared to the ones near them. You still can't interact with them unless at least one character passes a Perception check, though.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Among the possessions of archdruid Kagha is a book of Shadow Druid philosophy written by Faldorn, which goes some way to explaining Kagha's hostility toward outsiders and eagerness to seal away the natural splendor of Silvanus' Grove from encroaching civilization, including abandoning the tiefling refugees to the goblin horde.
  • If Astarion completes the Vampire Ascendant ritual, he will triumphantly declare himself the greatest vampire to ever walk the land, and gloat that even the Pale Knight — soubriquet of the vampire lord Mordoc SeLanmere — would have knelt before him. The stuffed beholder above the Elfsong Tavern's fireplace is another nod to Dark Alliance, whose Elfsong Tavern contained the same grisly trophy.
  • Bhaal's Court of Murder is composed entirely of antagonists from the first two games: Sarevok, the Big Bad of the first game, and the echoes Amelyssan, Bhaal's high priestess, as well as that of Sendai and Illasera, both members of the Bhaalspawn group known as the Five. All three from Throne of Bhaal. Additionally, Abazigal will be available as a vendor should you complete Sarevok's trials, and there is a reference to Yaga Shura in a murder scene, completing the references to the five.
  • Baldur's Gate II famously shifted the action from Baldur's Gate to the nation of Amn. If Tav chooses to depart Baldur's Gate at the end of III, they mention Amn as a prospective destination.
• Contractual Boss Immunity: Zigzagged again. Some major antagonists are just ordinary humanoids, so there's nothing stopping you from pushing them off a cliff, other more fantastical ones will have a long list of resistances and immunities, or be too large to be forced-move, so it's not too easy to "game" the encounter.
• Contrived Coincidence: Out of the six or seven characters who survive the nautiloid crash in the beginning of the game, five have some personal connections to the conflict with the Cult of the Absolute and its key players. (Six, if you're playing as the Dark Urge.) Only a custom player character and Astarion have no personal stakes in the conflict. Yet the victims on the nautiloid were picked seemingly at random, so all these key people just happened to be there.
• Convection, Schmonvection: Fully invoked. As long as characters are not in direct contact with lava or fire, the most they'll suffer is becoming visibly sweaty.
• Cool Airship: Not very cool being held captive aboard one, but the mind flayer nautiloid is a huge, flying Living Ship that jumps between dimensions, with Combat Tentacles that can teleport those they touch into one of the countless assimilation pods stowed in its hold. Given the number of open references to Spelljammer, it's very likely a Cool Spaceship as well.
• Cool vs. Awesome: The opening cutscene depicts githyanki knights mounted on red dragons pursuing a mind flayer nautiloid across multiple dimensions.
• Cool Sword: Plenty of examples. Just one being the Phalar Aluve, a magical singing/shrieking longsword with the Finesse property that seems like the weapon of a Bladesinger pledged to Eilistraee, the Chaotic Good drow goddess of beauty, song, dance, freedom, moonlight, swordplay and hunting.
• The Corruption: The illithid tadpole in the brain of your party members gives them Psychic Powers, but using it stirs more of its sentience to the surface and it will eventually absorb their brains and transform their bodies into mind flayers.
• Create Your Own Hero: Several party members might never have become involved if not for their abduction and tadpoling: Karlach would still be fighting in the Blood War, Astarion would still be enslaved by Cazador, and Gale would still be focused on managing his condition.
• Creepily Long Arms: Malus Thorm has replaced his arms with eerily long mechanical surgical implements.
• Creepy Good: The myconids in the Underdark section of Act 1 are rather disturbing looking Mushroom Men that reproduce via implanting spores in corpses but are in fact perfectly pleasant people, friendly to the party unless attacked and willing to welcome any peaceful visitor to stay with them. They even shelter an injured deep gnome despite this causing a conflict with a violent group of duergar and don't for a moment hold the casualties of that conflict against the gnome.
• Cruelty Is the Only Option: Typically averted given the Dungeons & Dragons structure, but one case in Act 3 stands out regarding the Astral Prism. You discover that it is a prison for Prince Orpheus, whose power has been protecting you from the Absolute thanks to the Emperor leveraging it, but keeping Orpheus contained in exchange. You might expect helping Orpheus' githyanki honor guard free him is the better idea — except if you kill the Emperor before Orpheus is freed, you lose your protection from the Absolute and become mind flayers on the spot. You are thus forced to fight against the githyanki, regardless of if you side with Orpheus or the Emperor afterward. Orpheus is understandably pissed at you, and only stays his blade because he recognizes the delicate situation you were in (but doesn't mince words when stating letting yourselves transform and die would've been more honorable).
• Cthulhumanoid: The octopus-like mind flayers, known as 'illithids' in their own language or 'ghaik' by the githyanki, play a major role in the story, starting by infesting you and your potential companions with an illithid tadpole that will eventually turn you all into mind flayers, as seen in the gameplay demo's intro.
• Curse That Cures: The downsides of Astarion's vampirism, like being Weakened by the Light, are prevented by his illithid tadpole infection.
• Cursed with Awesome: As noted by many characters, while the tadpoles mean the party is Living on Borrowed Time, they also allow the party to tap into some powerful illithid abilities if they choose to embrace them.
• Cutting Off the Branches: The extended introduction cinematic, as well as conversations with certain NPCs confirm that, at least canonically to the game, the outcome of Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus was with Elturel returning to Toril. Also during the nautiloid section of the game, one of the devils attacking the ship refers to the archdevil Zariel, which more or less confirms that Zariel was neither redeemed nor killed by the adventurers that saved Elturel during the events of the adventure. This outcome is drawn from the events that unfolded in Legends of Baldur's Gate, particularly the Infernal Tides story arc which was based on the aforementioned adventure module. It is further confirmed that Sarevok was redeemed by the main character of the original games, but ultimately it didn't stick, Bhaal's influence was too strong and he fell back into his old habits.
• Cutting the Knot: In Act 3, as part of the quest to find and hopefully enlist Ansur to help against the Absolute, one of the challenges involves playing a game of lanceboard (essentially D&D's version of chess) and eliminating the king piece in two moves. Fairly trivial for players who know chess well enough, but if you find it too difficult, you can just destroy the king piece with a lightning spell and the challenge will be completed. This is possible because of the Exact Words in the challenge as presented: you're tasked with eliminating the king, not winning the game. If you want to cut the knot more fairly, you can bring Gale along and he'll outright tell you the solution.
• Daddy's Little Villain: Orin, who is a daughter of Bhaal. Also, The Dark Urge, also a child of Bhaal and his favourite.
• Damsel in Distress: Quite a few. Lae'zel, needs rescuing from a cage on the beach. Other examples include but are not limited to: Shadowheart, Mayrina, Sazza, several of the tieflings and gnomes who find themselves in trouble, Mizora, Florrick, Isobel, Aylin, Hope, if the companion Orin kidnaps is a woman. Note that most of these women who get kidnapped, imprisoned in a dungeon, trapped in a cage, or sealed in a pod are usually good fighters, and there are a few times when males can be in a similar situation.
• Darker and Edgier:
  • This is one of the rare times a Dungeons & Dragons game (usually acceptable by teenagers) got a Mature rating thanks to Body Horror and being both Bloodier and Gorier and Hotter and Sexier.
  • The Bhaalspawn's circle of companions had its share of possible evil companions such as Viconia or Edwin, but it was balanced by neutral and good companions like Jaheira and Keldorn. By contrast, the available companions in this game all are some manner of morally ambiguous, including a vampire spawn, a githyanki warrior, a cleric to an evil god, and a Blood Knight barbarian. Gale, without any malicious intent, harbors an ancient, uncontrollable magic which, if not fed, will detonate and wipe out a significant portion of the Sword Coast. Even the heroic Wyll is a Fiend warlock, albeit a repentant one.
  • Likewise it is ill-advised you play as the Dark Urge if you have a sensitive stomach and an aversion to blood and gore.
• Dark Fantasy: Noticeably more so than its previous installments, see Darker and Edgier above.
• Daywalking Vampire: Astarion is granted immunity to his weakness to sunlight thanks to the illithid tadpole.
• Dead Man Writing: Gale's apparition will deliver a final letter to the player thanking them for their companionship during the Playable Epilogue if he dies at the climax of Act 3.
• Deal with the Devil: The inhabitants of the Nine Hells play a major role in the plot and several characters have made various bargains with a number of devils.
  • Fiend warlocks such as Wyll have forged one in exchange for their arcane powers. Wyll in particular regrets the bargain he had made with his patron and is looking for a way to break it.
  • The cambion Raphael appears to the party in visions and offers to remove your parasite in exchange for your soul. Several party members point out that he seems a little too eager to make this deal, suggesting that he might be desperate enough for the tadpole itself that he might accept a lesser payment.
  • The tieflings are descendants of those who struck a bargain with Asmodeus, Zariel, Mephistopheles, or some other archdevil in exchange for infernal power. Though these people have made no such promises themselves, their horns, barbed tails, reddish skin, and Hellish Pupils branded them as 'devilkin' in the eyes of others, and they are subject of substantial Fantastic Racism. The party encounters a large group of tiefling refugees early in the game, who were cast out of Elturel and on the verge of being driven out of a druids' grove as well.
  • And of course there are the warlock characters in general, particularly those with a Fiend patron.
  • Mayrina made a deal with a green hag named Ethel to bring her dead husband Connor back to life. In return, she would have to give up her then-unborn child to her, with the hag promising that she will raise the child and teach them magic. Unbeknownst to Mayrina, Ethel is using this deal to devour the newborn child later on so that she can give birth to her own hag. Despite this, the hag still upheld her end of the bargain by creating a wand that can be used to bring Connor back to life, albeit not in the way Mayrina would expect it.
    • The player can also make a deal with Ethel for a cure to their tadpole infestation in exchange for one of their party members' eyes. Sadly, Ethel discovers that your tadpoles are beyond her ability to cure, leaving you with a permanent debuff that penalizes Perception checks and precludes that character from landing critical hits.
  • Raphael makes another appearance in Act 3, offering the means of freeing Prince Orpheus from the Astral Prism, in exchange for the Nether Crown. Tav has to put up their soul for collateral, however, and all you get from Raphael in terms of whether he'll wreak havoc on the material plane after he gets the Crown is a pinky swear that his intentions are turned to the Hells, which he'll promptly renege on in his post-credits scene.
• Death of a Child: This is not one of those games where children are invincible. Leaving aside players deciding to get stab happy there are number of times in the plot that children can die:
  • The tiefling refugee children can die if the grove is overrun by the goblins in Act 1 or if the Last Light Inn's protections fail in Act 2.
  • Arabella can be killed by Kahga if the PC doesn't talk her down. She can also die in battle with shadows in Act 2 though this is unlikely, as the party is there and it's not a particularly tough fight.
  • There are a number of goblin children at the goblin camp in Act 1. They will flee immediately if any violence starts but unfortunate timing in a fight can still get them killed.
  • In Act 3 the little girl Vanra has has been kidnapped by the hag Ethel and been Eaten Alive so Ethel can turn her into a hag daughter inside her. If you don't get and use the Hagbane grenade to make Ethel vomit her up Vanra dies when Ethel does.
    • Thankfully you can also knock Auntie Ethel unconscious and cut Vanra out of her belly if you forgot the Hagbane grenade.
  • Yenna from Act 3 can end up being murdered by Orin in a number or ways or even the PC if Orin tricks them into it.
• Decapitated Army: Invoked word-for-word in Act 1: The goblins are too organized, and both the Tiefling refugees and Kagha think that taking out whoever's marshalling them will render them much less of a threat.
• Decapitation Presentation: There are quests that send the party after Karlach and Nere because someone is Demanding Their Head, and the player character will do this should they follow through after killing them.
• Deconstructor Fleet: The game revels in taking just about every RPG character cliche it can get its hands on and twisting them into much more realistic interpretations, just like the first two games.
  • Astarion deconstructs The Casanova and the Vampires Are Sex Gods archetypes—he's a suave, handsome vampire who flirts shamelessly with everyone and knows very well how attractive he is. However, unlike most versions of these tropes, Astarion is this way because he is the slave of a truly terrible master vampire named Cazador, who both orders him to seduce victims to bring home for dinner and uses him (and the other spawn) to "entertain guests" for the big fancy parties he frequently throws at his palace ^note  it's never stated explicitly that the entertaining is sexual in nature, however, the fact that Astarion says he did so in a guest bedroom at Cazador's palace leaves little room for interpretation otherwise . He plays up a false identity as a debotchery-loving player, but in reality he frequently disassociates during sex and longs desperately to be seen and loved as a person, instead of just a body to be used. While he initially approaches his relationship with the PC in the usual shallow, transactional way he's used to, his blossoming genuine affections for them eventually cause him to withdraw from sexual intimacy and ask them to be "something real" with him as he works through his complicated feelings about love and sex. His storyline is used to explore themes of bodily autonomy, intimacy, consent and the effects of trauma.
  • Lae'zel is a deconstruction of Proud Warrior Race Guy. The githyanki are a proud, dogmatic race, and Lae'zel is deeply invested into their culture. It comes to the point where Lae'zel actually begins to get cognitive dissonance when faced with the ever-increasing evidence that her fellow gith will shoot her dead because of the tadpole in her brain, rather than help her. Sure enough, they eventually fully turn on her. Lae'zel's obsession with her culture and inability to deal with how paradoxical it is end up making her look pretty pathetic, but there is an element of tragedy to it too. Lae'zel shows how cultures like these are far less stable and cohesive than they might appear, and that they breed individuals who struggle to think for themselves in spite of their incredible martial prowess.
  • Wyll deconstructs Bad Powers, Good People. His infernal-borne Warlock powers have allowed Wyll to do quite a lot of measurable good. He's a national hero and the most heroic party member by far, having accomplished more than any of the other companions barring the returning characters from the first two games. The problem is that Mizora loves to undermine Wyll, and the game sees their pact slowly turn more and more sinister over time. Mizora begins to manipulate Wyll, including a demand to gut Karlach (who is innocent and should be outside the bounds of their contract), and then using Loophole Abuse to punish him through mutating him. Wyll ultimately sacrifices a lot over the course of the game, and can potentially end it in willing servitude to a devil as per the means of his contract. While good people can do a lot of good with their bad powers, said bad powers can force said good person into uncountably large personal sacrifices, making it questionable if having said bad powers was worth it.
  • Gale deconstructs Ditzy Genius. Normally, "high int but low wis" characters are a source of comedy. Their genius makes them cool and enviable, but their lack of social sense keeps them grounded and belivable. Gale, meanwhile, is currently walking around with a nuke lodged in his chest, making his situation pretty dire. He got this way out of hubris, and now Gale's personality failings threaten to destroy a huge portion of the game world unless he specifically takes care of it. There is also a nasty case of Aesop Amnesia he can get at the end of the game (where he tries to recreate the artifact that lodged said nuke in his chest) even if he's made aware of the consequences. Gale's high intelligence and the ego it gives him can override his kinder aspects, making his lack of wisdom less of a comedic point and more of a potentially destructive personality flaw.
  • The Emperor is a deconstruction of Token Heroic Orc. To keep things simple, mind flayers are inherently corruptive and predatory beings. While they can work together and treat each other with respect, they are simply incapable of seeing any non-flayer lifeform as being on their social or mental level. Their need to consume sentience also makes them ultimately dangerous to civil society, as no human, orc, elf, goblin, dwarf, etc. is safe from their predation even if they are "docile". The Emperor protests to be a "good" mind flayer, but careful examination of his words and deeds proves otherwise. His views on ceremorphosis also demonstrate that he wants people to become mind flayers because he personally finds it enthralling, and views it as a gift. He is extremely manipulative, often deceiving or using Lying by Omission to skirt information around the player. Sure enough, if you propose the idea of dominating the Absolute to him during the finale, he admits to having thought of the idea himself. If you follow through he then averts We Can Rule Together and turns you into a thrall, dooming you to a life of servitude under him. To sum it up, while the Emperor may have good desires for Baldur's Gate in stopping the Absolute, he is still an illithid and cannot be trusted as an equal.
    • By that measure Omeluum can be taken as a Reconstruction of Token Heroic Orc. Unlike the Emperor he doesn’t bother hiding the fact he’s an illithid, genuinely tries to help the party get rid of their tadpoles, joined the Society of Brilliance to make the world a better place, and has survived long enough to become concerned about eating others’ brains that he’s researching alternative means of nutrition.
  • Karlach is a deconstruction of The Pollyanna. Much like the Trope Namer, Karlach's cheerfulness is very endearing, but it comes not from a place of genuine happiness, but rather from not having any other way to deal with her trauma and the uniquely awful situation she's in than forcing herself to believe and act like everything is fine. Her equally endearing childlike attitudes to life come from an equally dark place, namely the fact that Karlach is in her early twenties, but has spent ten years fighting in one of the most destructive conflicts in any piece of fiction. Do the math. Just like in real life, some people who seem happy and well-adjusted are just very good at seeming.
  • Shadowheart is a deconstruction of the The Fundamentalist. She is a cleric of the goddess Shar, willingly sacrificed her memories for her faith, and vehemently opposes others gods, especially Shar's twin Selûne. Shadowheart claims her faith gives her comfort and that Shar cares for her, but it eventually unravels to reveal she is actually terrified of Shar and mostly going along with her religion out of fear of the goddess' wrath and the promise of getting her memories back. Shadowheart proclaiming Shar's "love" and ideals is partially her trying to convince herself the pain she endures is worth it, and she has only stayed with her faith because she feels she owes the Sharrans for saving her as a child. That sense of loyalty to Shar completely evaporates when Shadowheart learns that she was once destined to be a cleric of Selûne, but was kidnapped alongside her parents and brainwashed to become The Paragon of Shar. Neither Shar nor her servants ever cared for Shadowheart in the slightest despite her devotion, only using her as a means to stick it to the Moon Maiden by corrupting one of her own.
• Deity of Human Origin: One of Gale's Multiple Endings has him become the God of Ambition after acquiring the Crown of Karsus.
• Degraded Boss: The first time you fight a spectator (assuming you didn't take the Schmuck Bait in another quest) is in the Underdark and the beast is treated as a very special fight with a cutscene intro and a special arena allowing to make this more of a Puzzle Boss to make the encounter more unique and yet doable for a low level party. Later in the game you'll fight spectators in more mundane encounters, such as fighting two at once in Raphael's House of Hope and then one amongst other mooks in the lead up to the final battle.
• Demanding Their Head:
  • The Paladins of Tyr who are actually agents of Zariel demand the head of Karlach.
  • Sovereign Spaw, leader of the myconid colony the party encounters in the Underdark, demands the head of Grymforge slaver Nere.
• Developer's Foresight: Has become somewhat infamous for being chock-full of this:
  • There are a lot of race-specific dialogue changes, especially for drow and githyanki, as the former are only just losing some of their hated reputation and the latter are outsiders with a history of combat against the mind flayers central to the plot, which is shown as early as your first encounter with the tieflings holding Lae'zel where they'll react with hostility and force you to either fight them or intimidate them to make them back off. There's also a huge amount of custom dialogue for a tiefling in the druids' grove due to the refugees. There's also a lot for a druid. And if you're both of these things, there's specific lines for that.
  • If Gale dies through methods unconnected to the story, a magical projection of himself will give you instructions on how to resurrect him the first time this happens. However, if you yourself kill Gale and then revive him, Gale will tell you how he would normally thank you, but you killing him to begin with leads to him having mixed feelings about you.
  • There are multiple ways of dealing with the Druid Grove and the goblins in Act I. While it's possible to simply stick with one side or the other, it's also possible to be a Double Agent by telling the goblins you'll help them, running back to the grove, telling the druids the goblins are coming, and catching the goblins in an ambush.
  • If you use the tadpole, then after your second dream involving it, Shadowheart will suggest that you stop using its powers as it seems to be gaining stronger influence on you. If you agree, then use an illithid power anyway, your companions will call you out on it after the next dream. But if someone besides the protagonist used their illithid power instead, they'll be the one called out. Shadowheart in particular will get put on blast for being a hypocrite if she's the one who does it.
  • After Astarion is revealed as a vampire spawn, you can tell him not to feed on "anything we can have a conversation with" — if you have the speak with animals spell, Astarion will point out how this brings his options down to rocks and trees. If you're a druid and therefore can also talk to plants, he'll unhappily note that this means he's down to just rocks.
  • Speaking of Astarion's reveal: if you approach the story in a way that skips the camp cutscene in which he tries to bite you, he'll just tell you the truth about his true nature in a regular camp conversation a bit later.
  • If you take either Volo or Auntie Ethel up on their offers of assistance in trying to remove the tadpole, the other one will refuse, as by that point you'll only have one working eye left. You also can't accept either offer if your player character is Wyll, since one of his eyes has already been replaced by a sending stone.
  • During the tutorial level on the nautiloid, it's possible to shove Lae'zel off the edge of the ship and to her death. If you do, her body spawns on the beach at the start of Act 1, allowing you to bring her back to life with the aid of Withers. This does run into some serious Gameplay and Story Segregation though, seeing how you shove her off in Avernus but find her body in Toril, a completely different plane of existence (maybe her body got caught on the side of the ship and shaken loose as you crash?).
  • In several dialogues with Astarion, you can choose to Leave wordlessly, which will actually prompt parting comments from him.
  • If you somehow meet Gandrel with only Astarion in your party, but not as the main character, it triggers a scenario where Astarion automatically attacks him.
  • A similar scene occurs in Act 3 if you have Karlach speak to Gortash alone (after agreeing to an alliance during the coronation) without having her as the main character. She and Gortash will exchange a few barbs before automatically trying to kill each other.
  • There are some camp events and cutscene aftermaths where all of your companions have something to say. The game will actually track who you talk to, so speaking with someone first yields a slightly longer conversation than if you'd spoken to the second, while your latter picks may comment about apparently being lower on the priority list.
  • Astarion has been a vampire for 200 years, which seems like it was chosen specifically to give a reason why you can't use the game's only Scroll of True Resurrection on him to cure his vampirism — it only restores life to undead creatures who died under 200 years ago. (Your ability to bring him back other ways is simply a gameplay mechanic.)
  • If Astarion for some reason tries to bite Karlach (eg, mind-controlled by an enemy into attacking party members), there's specific dialogue for him burning his mouth on her. If Karlach is your player character, then there's also a unique version of the scene in which Astarion tries to feed on you in your sleep. Both of these also apply to Gale; thanks to the orb, his blood poisons Astarion.
  • The Vicious Mockery spell has an impressive number of variations, and every party member has fully voiced lines for them to account for cross-classing.
  • The game has caps on party size (4) and spell level (6), but is ready to accommodate more than that if forced to via a Game Mod.
  • If you don't meet Raphael in Act 1 by avoiding all of his spawn locations, then he'll eventually show up at your camp.
  • When you meet Philomeen, you immediately enter a conversation where she threatens to detonate a barrel of explosives if you move. If you swap to another party member mid conversation and sneak around her to move or remove the barrel without her noticing, then return to your conversing character and refuse to talk down Philomeen, she'll fire a firebolt where the barrel was, then upon no explosion occurring, realize you moved it and the conversation will continue accordingly with her feeling like you cornered her.
    • Alternatively, having access to Smokepowder Bombs yourself means you don't have to go find Philomeen in the first place and can clear up the rubble on your own. Finding and talking to her after freeing the gnomes will result in a situation that's much easier to defuse.
  • If you pick the lock on the crypt at the beginning, and go through it backwards, there are special reactions for dealing with the bandits out front, including pretending you're some sort of undead come to attack.
  • A rather dark one for Dark Urge players: thought you could be clever by knocking Alfira out before she shows up at your camp and suffers her unavoidable Cruel and Unusual Death at your hands? Meet Quill Grootslang, an incredibly innocent and excitable Dragonborn Bard showing up in her place looking for a safe shelter. Cue the exact same outcome. Not even leaving your character dead overnight will save Alfira or Quill; Sceleritas Fel will commit the murder on your behalf.
    • Related to the above, however: if you do spare Alfira's life in this way, Alfira will write you a letter in the epilogue recognizing the effort you made, sincerely thanking you and assuring you that she is safe and happy.
    • There's an additional scene included if you have a companion kill Alfira instead; Sceleritas Fel will refer to the whole matter as an "embarrassment" that he's willing to look past.
  • Similar to the above, killing Zevlor before killing the Goblin leaders causes Asharak to take over as leader of the tieflings for the victory party. If you killed Asharak and Zevlor however, a new tiefling, Cerys, takes over the role so the story can proceed. The game even has a reason for the player never having had the chance to meet (or kill) Cerys prior to this moment - she was out scouting. Similarly, almost all the tieflings have a replacement NPC to take their place at the party if they died prior to the events. Some of these backup NPCs even have unique dialogue. Zae for example will ask the player character for a dance.
  • If you kill the goblin leaders while having one of your party member remain at the grove, an NPC called Gherson the Bent will engage them in conversation, telling that companion that the goblin leaders have been killed and everyone is preparing to celebrate, prompting a loading screen to hide how the grove NPCs are relocated once the goblin leaders are killed.
  • Before meeting Ketheric Thorm, numerous characters will flat-out tell you that he's functionally immortal and can't be defeated by conventional means, making it a terrible idea to take him head-on. If you decide to do so anyway, Ketheric will be completely unfazed, call you a fool, and order his guards to kill you. He even has unique dialogue if the Dark Urge attacks him, as he'll be considerably more shocked and outraged at the turn of events and tell them they never should have come.
  • Pressure plates are generally armed when they are compressed, but most are built to only unleash the rest of their mechanism once the compression is later removed. This means the player can accidentally compress a pressure plate but then disarm the trap by weighing it back down with another object.
  • If you try to shove a flying or hovering creature into a chasm, they poof back onto the ledge. The animation is a bit strange, but it's conveying that creatures with these capabilities would use them instead of falling to their death.
  • You need all three Netherstones to defeat the Absolute, and to make sure you don't go throwing one off a cliff, they can only be dropped, rather than thrown. However, as player BOB_BestOfBugs discovered, there's nothing to stop you putting one inside a container and throwing that off a cliff... but doing so triggers a Non-Standard Game Over where the Emperor points out what a stupid thing you just did, followed by a cutscene of the elder brain transforming your party into mind flayers.
  • Your Camp will change depending on the general location you are in when you go to it, such as it being outdoor and forest like if done in an area that is more woods like, or it will be in a cave section if you were in an underground location.
  • Doing the brief Selûne chest puzzle in the Owlbear Cave with Shadowheart in your party naturally has her make unique comments due to being a cleric of Shar, including a conversation where she urges you to destroy the chest. However, if you attempt to get her to be the one who opens the chest by reading the note in front of it, the game accounts for this by not opening the chest, as it would be out of character for Shadowheart to follow the instructions. Instead she'll make a comment about the note, but not actually do as it suggests, requiring someone else to try.
  • On the nautiloid, if all the enemies around the mind flayer are dead, it immediately switches from ally to enemy.
  • In the Shattered Sanctum, you can meet Abdirak, a priest of Loviatar, the Maiden of Pain, who offers you Her blessing by ritualistic flagellation. If you embrace the pain and take off all your armour before being flagellated, you gain the "Ardent Apostle" buff when you enter the shrine, which gives you +4 to Performance and Intimidation rolls, improving your chances of receiving Her blessing.
  • In the endgame, if you don't have the Orphic Hammer or any other way of dealing with the Netherbrain, and you also reject the Emperor, then Raphael shows up to spell out exactly how badly you've messed up... and to offer you one last deal so that you can still complete the final battle.
  • The Sharess' Caress brothel in Rivington has a unique sex scene wherein the player character is propositioned by a two drow sex workers. While they offer a threesome, they also offer to pull in one of your companions to make it a foursome. Both of these sex workers are siblings, which provides a layer of Squick for your companions and causes many of them to retreat from the encounter. Astarion is one of the very few who will go through with it... unless the player character is in a relationship with him, wherein he rejects it due to his Character Development and being more open with his demons.
  • If Lae'zel is your Player Character, the two tieflings who would normally have captured her will instead be found already dead when you arrive at the area you would have normally encountered them. Presumably they were killed by the goblin war party chasing the Beno Boys.
  • Despite Act 1 being inaccessible by the time you recruit them, Halsin and Minthara have their own dialog when the eagles on the roof of the Creche are calling for help.
  • If you manage to make it to Act 3 without killing anyone in either the Goblin Camp, Grymforge, or Moonrise Towers, the Steel Watcher that scans you at Wyrm's Crossing will let you through without a fight, since your record is completely clean as far as they're concerned. If you're not keen on a Pacifist Run, you can get the same outcome by popping the Scrying Eyes in each location before combat breaks out.
  • If you figure who Orin is impersonating and try to kill her before when you're supposed to fight her, i.e. the Bhaal Temple, you'll find that you can't kill her. Her HP will not drop below a certain point, and if you do somehow manage to deplete her HP, she'll be knocked out instead of dead. In the latter scenario, she also has no items on her person, not even her Netherstone.
  • There's a holy sword of Eilistraee that can be found in the Underdark in a rock that normally requires a difficult strength check to pull out or an equally difficult religion check to know the ritual to release it. If, however, you're playing a cleric of Eilistraee you just automatically know the correct ritual and can take the sword for free. Alternatively, if you grabbed Abdirak's Ritual Dagger, you can use it's unique "Blood Sacrifice" ability in the overworld to drip blood onto the sword to release it, also skipping those checks.
  • There's a unique dialog tree between Astarion and Cazador, that's only accessible if you kill one of Astarion's fellow spawn before the fight ends, preventing him from even attempting the ritual.
  • There is a camp dialogue with Astarion where he gets drunk on bear blood. If this triggers in the Underdark, the PC can incredulously ask how he found a bear down there, to which he admits that it was a big four-legged hairy creature that he just calls a bear out of convenience.
  • If Gale helps save Mirkon from harpies, he can recount how he once summoned a magma mephit as a child. Gale's automatic revival procedure involves summoning a magma mephit named K'ha'ssji'trach'ash; if the revival was triggered before the harpy conversation, he will comment that K'ha'ssji'trach'ash was the mephit he summoned as a child.
  • The sex scene with the Drow twins takes place in total darkness, the in-universe explanation by the twins being "so there is nothing to distract from your ecstasy". If you're playing a race with Darkvision, the narration will note that while you do have the ability to see in the dark, you end up keeping your eyes closed as you get swept up in the experience. If you're a Warlock with the Devil's Sight Invocation, the narration will instead say that you feel your Devil's Sight dull as your Patron does not want to see this.
  • Despite Karlach being the only Barbarian in the group and a majority of them not having the stats to be a good fit for multiclassing as a barbarian, every single companion has their own personalized Barbarian rage yell. Not only did they specifically record these yells with their voice actors, but they're well-thought-out and made specifically to match the personality of each of them—for example, Astarion's sounds like a vampiric hiss, while Gale's and Wyll's sound almost awkward, given how out of character such a thing is for them. All this for something 90% of players will never see.
  • If you, for whatever reason, randomly decide to kill the owner of the Singing Lute Tavern Henk—who is a character only really interacted with during a cutscene for Karlach's romance to serve you food, and not involved in any combat quests—his brother, Honk will fill in his role in the cutscene instead. Honk is even voiced by a different actor than Henk, so it's extra effort on the part of Larian beyond just switching out their character models for such an unlikely event.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?:
  • Though merely an avatar and thus far less mighty than the real deal, you still do manage to punch out an apparition of Myrkul, God of the Dead, at the end of Act 2.
  • It's noted to be exceedingly difficult to kill a devil, but you have the option of killing Raphael, the son of the archdevil Mephistopheles. In one of their endings, it's also heavily implied that Wyll and Karlach will hunt down Mizora, the devil who forced Wyll into a contract in exchange for saving Baldur's Gate, and possibly even Zariel.
• Did You Just Romance Cthulhu?:
  • Partway through the game, you would soon discover that the guardian that you encounter in your dreams is actually a psychic manifestation of a mind flayer known as "the Emperor". And if you romanced the dream guardian prior to this revelation, you may also choose to extend this relationship to the mind flayer himself.
  • You can even choose to romance Mizora, Wyll's cambion patron. Although Wyll himself will not take it lightly given who she is. Karlach will also call you out, for similar reasons.
• Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?:
  • While extraordinarily difficult, you can mislead the Emperor when hatching a plot to free Orpheus with Voss. You have to outmanoeuvre him psionically to dodge his mind-reading, and then lie convincingly, both of which are very high DC skill checks.
  • You can also beat Mizora and Raphael at their own respective games. The latter in particular is even more difficult than the above example, although it mostly plays out through combat rather than dialogue skill checks.
• Didn't See That Coming:
  • The player can straight up tell Raphael they're willing to give him anything, even their own soul, in exchange for removing the tadpole. He's surprised and sort of disappointed at how easy it is...but doesn't actually offer a deal and continues as if the player rejected him anyway.
  • If you enter the Astral Prism on Queen Vlaakith's command to kill the Dream Protector, they kneel before you and offer you their sword. Actually picking it up and running them through with their own weapon takes them completely by surprise, as they genuinely didn't expect you to do it.
• Digital Tabletop Game Adaptation: Like previous titles in the Baldur's Gate series, this game uses Dungeons & Dragons for its mechanics, rules, and setting, specifically using 5th Edition ruleset for combat and movement and the Forgotten Realms for the setting.
• Dimensional Traveler: Several characters come from other planes. Devils and gith in particular are noted for traveling back and forth between multiple worlds and their home dimensions, the Nine Hells and the Astral Plane, respectively.
• Disc-One Final Dungeon: The assault on Moonrise Towers that concludes Act 2 feels appropriately climactic, with some major story decisions to make, the fates of many characters hanging in the balance as there are likely many people you have encountered along your adventure supposedly being held captive in the towers, and it concludes with a multi-part Disc-One Final Boss fight against the current Big Bad Ketheric Thorm, an Avatar of Myrkul, the God of Death whom Ketheric is serving, and several of Ketheric's lieutenants if you didn't kill them prior to the assault. Of course, you still haven't even made it to the titular Baldur's Gate yet, so the game isn't even close to finished. Although one of the game's Multiple Endings can be achieved here, if Gale detonates the Netherese Orb to destroy the Elder Brain as Mystra commanded.
• Disc-One Nuke: See here for details.
• Disney Villain Death: Several bosses can be given one for a quick and easy win. Of course, you can't loot a corpse that's at the bottom of a cliff, so this method does have an inherent downside by depriving you of unique and often quite powerful equipment.
  • One of the earlier boss battles can see you grant Wicked Witch Auntie Ethel a quick demise by shoving them into a Bottomless Pit almost as soon as the fight begins. Unfortunately, this only works the first time you encounter her...
  • A similar fate can befall Minthara, the drow paladin that's part of the goblin leadership in Act I. If you make the right dialogue choices, they'll lead you over a rickety wooden bridge whose supports you can destroy with minimal effort, sending the boss tumbling down into a bottomless chasm.
  • Balthazar, General Ketheric's court necromancer in Act II, can be shoved into the void the moment the battle begins. However, unlike how things like this normally work in gaming, this won't make their undead minions drop dead as well, so you'll have to fight a small platoon of Dem Bones regardless. Not having the boss around still makes it a lot easier of course.
• Distant Sequel: Enforced by the massive Time Skip that took place in the Forgotten Realms setting between 3.5 Edition and 4th Edition. Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal took place in 1369 DR; BG3 picks up over a century later in 1492 DR and, at least of what's been shown so far, has little to do with the Interplay series' storyline other than location and some returning characters. (Larian, however, has insisted it's called Baldur's Gate for a reason, and that the full game will have more links to the original duology that make it clear why it's part of the series.)
  • As we learn in the full game about these links, the plot is orchestrated by the Dead Three, one of its members, Bhaal, is the Greater-Scope Villain of the previous games. Also, if you play as the Dark Urge origin, you are a Bhaalspawn just like the previous protagonist before them.
• Distressed Dude: Orin can kidnap one of your party members, including the male ones, and should you get to the temple of Bhaal in time, you'll find them on a stone slab magically being kept unconscious.
• Divine Intervention: To a greater extent than the preceding games — save for the deceased Bhaal and Cyric (who usurped his portfolio), godly meddling in the Bhaalspawn Crisis was minimal, not to mention forbidden by Ao the Overgod. In 3, a wealth of gods and goddesses take an active interest in manipulating affairs through various pawns and champions, and several of them step from behind the curtain to influence their desired outcome. Their presence isn't confined to the main plot, either: steal from the Bit- er, Water Queen's treasure trove and Umberlee herself will crack your stealth and sic her sahuagin on you.
  • If you steal from the treasures underneath the main temple in Baldur's Gate, the offending character picks up a crippling divine curse that also makes a powerful angelic enemy rise from their corpse upon their death (or upon removing the curse).
  • If, on the other hand, a cleric donates sufficient funds to their god at the temple itself they are granted a divine blessing until their next long rest and can receive the same blessing again for free by praying at the temple again.
  • Clerics gain an ability of this exact name at level 10. It allows them to perform one of several extremely powerful feats^note "Arm thy Servant" gives you a +3 legendary magical mace, "Opulent Revival" restores all fallen characters back to life at half health and restores all their abilities as if they just did a full Long Rest, "Sunder the Heretical" inflicts a truly colossal amount of radiant damage on all enemies within a 15m radius effectively winning any tough boss fight immediately, and "Golden Generosity" spawns a trove chest of camp supplies and potions of uncommon rarity., but It Only Works Once in this entire playthrough.
• Do Not Taunt Cthulhu:
  • In the course of your investigation into the Githyanki, you encounter a manifestation of Lich-Queen Vlaakith CLVII herself. Should you choose to indulge in this trope, you will find out very quickly why this is a very bad idea.
  Vlaakith: You wish to see godhood?! I wish you to end.
  • Should an Origin player Gale become a Deity of Human Origin in the Playable Epilogue, the player can choose to make Tara hairless in retaliation for her giving him a What the Hell, Hero? speech.
• Does Not Know How to Say "Thanks": The player can invoke this with Astarion after helping him progress his companion quest in Act 2.
  Tav: Repeat after me: Thank you for helping me, it was very kind.
  Astarion: Hmmm. Hmmmm. (Sarcasm Mode) Thank you for helping me. It was very kind.
• Dogs Love Being Praised: Using Speak With Animals on Biscotti will reveal he's just anxiously waiting for anyone and everyone to tell him he's a good dog. He's truly ecstatic if you oblige.
• Dragged Off to Hell: At the end of Act 2, the player is given the opportunity to kill the cambion Mizora (who has been tormenting Wyll over his Warlock pact) by annihilating her when she is trapped inside a mind flayer pod. While it may seem like a perfect chance to deliver some Laser-Guided Karma at first, this will only succeed in sending her back to the hells, and doesn't permanently kill her... and in retaliation, she'll drag Wyll to hell with her.
• Dragon Rider: The githyanki, ancient foes of the mind flayers who once enslaved them, ride on the backs of young red dragons, gifted to them as part of an age-old pact between the githyanki's immortal queen Vlaakith and the goddess Tiamat, patron deity of evil chromatic dragons. Massive and terrifying as the nautiloid is to the ordinary folk of the Material Plane, it proves almost defenseless against the dragons' assault and spends the entire prologue fleeing across multiple planes before crashing into a beach back on Toril.
• Dramatic Drop: Played for Laughs. A squirrel drops an acorn in shock upon witnessing the player character having intimate relations with a man who has shapeshifted into a bear.
• Dramatic Spine Injury: The Boss Battle between the Smug Snake wizard Lorroakan and the Lightning Bruiser aasimar Dame Aylin ends with Aylin thrashing Lorroakan and then killing him by breaking his back over her knee.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Sa'varsh Kethk, the Githyanki Crèche Warfare Instructor.
• Drinking Game: The player can engage in one with Thisobald Thorm, taking a drink each time they share a tale of heroism in the hopes Thisobald will drink himself to death before things turn ugly and a fight breaks out.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Shadowheart will attempt to dull her guilt over participating in the Druid Grove massacre by drinking heavily the night after, should the party participate.
• Dual Wielding: Aside from dual-wielding light weapons, the "Dual Wielding" feat allows players to dual wield nearly every melee weapon in the game. Amusingly, players can also dual wield hand crossbows and it surprisingly is a Disc-One Nuke especially if it's combined with the "Sharpshooter" Feat and a high dexterity stat.
• Duel to the Death: Orin will challenge the player to one, with her Netherstone and the life of a captive party member on the line.
• Dump Stat: Every class has a recommended one, and based on the recommended stats distribution, for most it's Strength. Interestingly, in Patch 3 of Early Access, the rogue class actually switched the recommended dump stat from Intelligence to Strength due to how the Arcane Trickster archetype relies on Intelligence as well as the class having a proficiency in Intelligence saving throws.
  • The Gloves of Dexterity bought from githyanki merchant A'jak'nir Jeera in Creche Y'llek and Warped Headband of Intellect looted from the body of ogre mercenary Lump the Enlightened, both found in Act 1, set the Dexterity or Intelligence of the wearer to 18 and 17 respectively, which is (almost) as high as can be naturally obtained in character creation. Combined with Withers's ability to reset a character and allow them to pick their stats again a character can consider both of these stats to be dump stats.
  • Taken to a whole new level late in Act 3 where, should the player enter the House of Hope, they can retrieve the Amulet of Greater Health and the Gauntlets of Hill Giant Strength that sets Constitution and Strength to 23 a value that only a dedicated take-every-advantage-possible build can rival. There's even no loss of maximum health, as health points are calculated by applying a character's current constitution bonus retrospectively, although this does lead to the bizarre sight of fighters and barbarians dump-statting what should be their primary stats.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: There were multiple rewrites between the Early Access release and the final one. Such rewrites include, but are not necessarily limited to:
  • Wyll had a rather different arc in Act 1. In Early Access, he is searching for his kidnapped patron at the start of the game and has a severe hatred of goblins. In the final release, he starts the game on a mission from his patron (who is very much still around and willing to show her displeasure should he choose not to kill Karlach) and his hatred of goblins is no more, causing him to oppose them simply because they are attempting to kill innocents in the Grove.
  • The Dream Protector appears to have been completely rewritten. In Early Access, they are implied to be a manifestation of the tadpole inside your head attempting to seduce you into giving into its power. And "seduce" is the operative word; the character is described as "who you see in your dreams" and has a very seductive manner around you. Also, each companion gets a different vision. Wyll sees Mizora for example, while Astarion sees Cazador. In the final release, the character is described as your "guardian" at their creation screen, and rather than seduce you, they state they are trying to protect you so together you can save the realm. And they are most definitely not the tadpole in your head but rather a being within the artifact that Shadowheart carries at the start of the game. And in the final version, every companion gets the same dreams (though it's implied each of them see the Protector differently).
• Early Game Hell: Early on when the player barely has any items and levels in their name, they might struggle through most of Act 1 especially if they have barely just started learning how to play through the game especially on Tactician. But once the player gets to at least level 5, players get additional stuff in their name that allows them to finally destroy enemies easily and the game can just barely keep up until level 12 where only a few bosses are even worth any challenge.
• Easy-Mode Mockery: A heavily downplayed example. The only drawback to playing the Explorer mode difficulty is that the option to multi-class characters is disabled, which takes away some of the flexibility in developing your build, but also protects you from dealing with the pitfalls of this mechanic as it isn't exactly beginner-friendly. Players can also change the difficulty settings without penalty, so they won't remain locked out of multi-classing if they decide to play a harder mode midway through their game. This is also averted entirely if you use the Custom difficulty setting, as you can modify the parameters to make the game even easier than Explorer mode while having multiclassing enabled.
• Eat Brain for Memories: Illithids consume brains not just for nourishment, but to gain memories and skills from their victims.
• Effortless Achievement: You can unlock achievements by performing mighty deeds like long-resting four times, reading a bunch of in-game documents, shoving an enemy to their death, recruiting a hireling, or digging up five buried chests.
• Eldritch Starship: The nautiloid ship that kidnaps the player character in the opening cutscene of the game has Combat Tentacles and organic components, and flies between dimensions.
• Elemental Absorption: After being hit with any type of elemental damage, Thisobald Thorm is able to regurgitate that element on the party.
• Emergency Transformation: One of Karlach's Multiple Endings has her willingly turn into a mind flayer, since she's Living on Borrowed Time and about to die from her infernal engine failing.
• Enfant Terrible: In the Goblin Camp there are several goblin children who are as cruel and sadistic as their parents. Although thankfully players looking to be heroes are spared the moral quandary if/when a fight breaks out, since the goblin children simply flee.
• Escaped from Hell: Karlach hitches a ride on the Nautiloid at the start of the game to escape from the Hells after being trapped there for a decade.
• Escort Mission: While the game is built brilliantly to accommodate organic or accidental NPC deaths and no missions are really "mandatory" other than eventually confronting the Chosen's Netherstones and confronting Absolute/elder brain, there are several quests where an NPC's survival is the premise:
  • One of the tiefling children on the beach near the Druid's Grove is being lured by harpies, and his side quest only advances if you save him.
  • Isobel has to survive the attack on the Last Light Inn, or else the barrier falls and the player loses the Harpers and Jaheira.
  • Jaheira has to survive the assault on Moonrise Towers, which is much easier to do if she accompanies you than the Harpers, if you want to see her story in Act 3 and if you want to recruit Minsc.
  • Hope has to survive your encounter with Raphael to get her ending after the heist in hell.
  • The Iron Throne quest is by far the biggest example of this in the game, seeing how you're tasked with freeing and escorting close to a dozen gnomes from multiple prison cells spread across the map, on a crushing time limit, while pursued by endlessly respawning enemies. And that's just one of the quests that leads you there. Depending on previous plot decisions, you might also have to save Wyll's father, Duke Ravengard, from his own cell. This one's even nastier because Mizora's meddling stacks the cards against you to a degree that could be charitably described as "unfair". Failing either quest is all too easy, especially on a first playthrough, and both have significant impact on the act's main quest.
• Everyone Has Standards: Amoral as most party members might be, there are a few things that prove to be too much for everyone.
  • Despite the Teeth-Clenched Teamwork — bordering sometimes on outright hatred — of certain other party members, none of them will be happy to see you take the bad ending path to their personal character arcs, or stand by and let them get killed. Be it out of genuine standards or simple pragmatism depends on the party member. Conversely, bringing a party member's quest to a positive conclusion will usually be met with universal approval, even by those who normally can't stand them.
  • The party universally gawks at Mystra's order for Gale to turn himself into a Fantastic Nuke to deal with the Absolute, once more either for moral reasons, or pragmatic reasons as he's a talented and powerful magi and his death would be a huge waste.
• Everyone Join the Party: People you helped throughout the game help you in the Final Battle.
• Evil vs. Evil: A multi-evil Gambit Pileup.
  • In the opening, the plane-hopping^note And typically lawful evil on a good day githyanki raiders attack a mind flayer ship full of abductees implanted with their parasitic spawn at the very beginning of the opening cutscene. Said ship ends up teleporting into Avernus, where it is almost immediately beset by imps, and later a greater devil (what looks like to be a horned devil) while your party is scrambling to get to the controls before the fatally-damaged ship splatters itself across Avernus with you aboard. Meanwhile, demonic and devilish armies battle in the background. With the exception of the demons, all of these things tie back into the main plot.
  • The main plot consists of the allied cults of three evil gods, the Dead Three, using two stolen artefacts to control an army of mind flayers to infiltrate and conquer the Sword Coast and beyond. The first artefact, a strange stone box, was stolen from the githyanki, who would rather see all of Toril destroyed than allow the mind flayer plot to come to pass — but their undead queen is more concerned with seeing a political rival dead, after having imprisoned him inside the artefact for thousands of years, even if that means killing her only means of halting the mind flayer transformation. The other artefact is the Crown of Karsus, created by a human wizard-king in a bid for godhood which resulted in his whole empire falling from the heavens, which allows the Chosen of the Dead Three to control an elder brain, the controlling Hive Mind of a mind flayer collective. Each of the Chosen plans to eventually betray the others and seize control of the army for themselves — but unbeknownst to them, the elder brain itself is aware of this, and biding its time until it can take back the control stones from them and wield the Crown's power for itself, spreading its improved mind flayers across the multiverse.
  • Your own party can also fall into this, potentially consisting of mostly morally ambiguous characters, and game allows you to carry out reprehensible actions like helping goblins slaughter a bunch of innocent people if you so desire, yet you are ultimately still opposed to the mind flayers for obvious reasons. And even then, you can choose to become a mind flayer, side with the Netherbrain, or hijack the whole plot for yourself, or Bhaal if you're the Dark Urge.
  • In Act II, when Balthazaar, chief advisor to Ketheric Thorm is held up in the temple of Shar, he routinely has to fight off reanimated Sharran warriors whom call him, "Myrkul's lapdog". You yourself can end the temple questline by siding with Balthazaar (which causes Shadowheart to leave your party) Shar (by letting Shadowheart kill the Nightsong) or neither (by freeing the Nightsong).
  • In Act III, Gortash and Orin are directly at odds with each other, with each using different methods to try and influence you to kill the other.
  • If The Dark Urge embraces Bhaal and Astarion ascends, the Durge can mention he might spare Astarion when he rules over the world, only for Astarion to say, "Not if I get there first!". A similar exchange can occur with Shadowheart if she embraces Shar, where she ominously threatens the Durge by reminding them that being an evil tyrant comes with competition and that "Lady Shar is patient"
• Evil Is Easy: This is mostly averted, even with everything being Darker and Edgier with some Grey-and-Grey Morality, the game likes to show Being Evil Sucks and evil actions rarely grant you anything helpful.
  • In Act I, helping the goblin camp slaughter the Druid Grove is clearly presented as the evil option. Not only is doing this more-or-less as difficult as helping the druids, but some of your companions will be so disgusted with you that they'll leave your party if you choose to help the goblins.
  • An excellent example of this is in Act II's Shadowlands. If you take the evil route by letting Shadowheart kill the Nightsong in Shar's name, you lose a ton of support both for the upcoming boss battle and in later chapters, as well as multiple potential companions, without getting a whole lot in return.
  • Although its evilness pales in comparison to the really nasty stuff you can do, being a capable pickpocket makes the game's economic side somewhat easier because you'll always be flush with cash, potions, equipment and camp supplies. That said, money is rarely an issue past the early game, and loot is abundant, so you're still not missing out on much if you keep your sticky fingers to yourself.
  • Finally Played Straight in Act III if the party teams up with Gortash. This allows the party to bypass his fairly challenging boss encounter and the associated optional Escort Mission to disable the Steel Watch, and at the end of the day they don't even really need to follow through with his We Can Rule Together plans as he will be killed by the Netherbrain during a cutscene before the final confrontation.
• Evil Is Petty:
  • In addition to some truly horrible stuff, you can engage in some extremely petty villainy, such as telling a grieving woman her singing sucks, snatching the lute out of her hands, and smashing it.
  • In Act 3, if Wyll breaks his pact with Mizora in exchange for refusing information that could help him save his father, Mizora will act amused at the outcome... only to rile up some Baldurians the next day by claiming Wyll made a deal with her to have his father killed so he could take his place in an effort to get Wyll murdered, proving Mizora's a bit of a Sore Loser about no longer being able to toy with him.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Myrkul and Bhaal. Also Sarevok, voiced by the Redd Pepper.
• Exact Words: As per Devilish standard, Wyll's contract with Mizora allowed her to send him after "the demonic, infernal, heartless and soulless". Wyll interpreted that to mean "evil", but Karlach, who literally has no heart, but an infernal engine instead, was fair game. If you choose to kill Karlach, Wyll has a sad introspective moment when he wonders just how many of his marks were innocents who got through his contract through similar loopholes.
• Exploding Barrels: It's a Larian Studios game, so this is to be expected. There are various flammable and explosive barrels littered throughout various areas like the goblin camp or the Zhentarim hideout, placed either to make combat easier or traps more deadly, such as explosive barrels placed next to a treasure chest designed to explode when opened.
• Exploring the Evil Lair: The party can present themselves as "True Soul" cultists to gain entry to the Goblin Camp in Act 1 and Moonrise Towers in Act 2, allowing them some freedom to snoop around the Cult of the Absolute's bases of operation without bloodshed. Or they can outright aid the Cult of the Absolute in their schemes and become a Villain Protagonist, of course.
• Expy: The Steel Watch constructs are basically Robocop 2 from the movie of the same name: giant metal robot(s) controlled by the brain of a dead person. Both are law enforcers, too.
• Extreme Omnisexual: Your character. More specifically, you have the option of romancing and sleeping with nigh everyone and anyone, and everyone and anyone are receptive to your advances. In short, every companion is playersexual (potentially attracted to you regardless of your character's sex, gender, or anything else). You can even romance and sleep around with multiple people at the same time. The player also has the option of engaging in some quasi-bestiality (a male druid shapeshifted into a bear) and incest (by having a foursome with a pair of drow twins), as well as potentially sleeping with devils and even a mind flayer.
• Eye Scream:
  • As seen in the opening cinematic, the mind flayer infects its victims by inserting parasitic tadpoles through their eyes. In the game proper both Volo and Auntie Ethel will offer to try and remove the parasite from your head. Doing the latter gets you nothing but a permanent stat debuff and the loss of being able to make critical hits. The former, however, ends up granting your character the permanent ability to see invisible enemies, so it's weirdly worth the ordeal.
  • Malus Thorm the Deadly Doctor gouges out the eyes of his "patient" when the party first encounters him.

F-M

• Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong: As per Dungeons & Dragons canon, this is how illithids reproduce; they insert their tadpole form into the brains of sentient hosts, whereupon the larva absorbs the brain and metamorphosizes the host's body into a new adult mind flayer.
• The Fair Folk: While not a main focus of the game's story several of D&D's fey make notable appearances, including a Green Hag and her Redcap minions as a major side villain, rescuing the fey spirit of what is now the Shadow Cursed Lands being the key to recruiting Halsin, captive pixies being used to power the Absolute Cult's Moonlanterns and a fey circus on the way to Baldur's Gate.
• False Flag Operation: In Act One, Kagha learns of an impending army likely to ravage the Emerald Grove, and attempts the Rite of Thorns to isolate it from the world and keep it safe. She learns this from the Shadow Druids. In Act Two, a note in Moonrise Towers (the headquarters of said army) reveal that the Shadow Druids were working with General Thorm from the start, implying that the Rite of Thorns was part of his plan to eliminate one of the factions that stopped him the last time.
• Fanservice: All the romancable companions are very attractive men and women who can be seen in various amount of undress.
• Fantastic Nuke: In spite of its High Fantasy setting, the game presents a few magical items that have the destructive potential of a nuke:
  • The most notable would be the Netherese Destruction Orb that is currently sitting within Gale’s body. He has spent a whole year feeding the orb with magic items to keep it from destabilizing, which would otherwise result in a massive explosion that, by his estimates, would reduce a good chunk of the Sword Coast to a smoldering crater. The destructive power of the orb is so great that Mystra, the goddess of magic herself, even considers weaponizing it against the Absolute even though this would obviously result in Gale’s death.
  • There is also runepowder, an alchemical substance that is far more volatile and rarer than smokepowder (which itself is already rare due to its production being heavily regulated by the god of craft Gond). The reason for its rarity is due to it being a closely guarded secret of the gnomish Ironhand Clan, whose namesake god was responsible for creating the formula for it and whose current leader is planning on using it against the Gondians in Baldur’s Gate. It is even said by one of the Ironhand gnomes that enough of the substance can wipe the Sword Coast off the map.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • Tieflings are on the receiving end of this in the druids' grove, where they're on the verge of being kicked out into the wilderness by the archdruid Kagha, who accuses them of being thieves and parasites and plans to erect a wall of thorns to segregate the grove from the outsiders. Subverted, when it turns out she actually has a different motive.
  • Drow, traditionally Always Chaotic Evil in the setting^note or rather, Usually Chaotic Evil. There's always been at least a minority of non-evil drow., are still hated and feared throughout most of the surface world, though this reaction is softening and many characters are aware of the civil war that has seen some drow break from the traditional worship of the evil spider goddess Lolth. Inverted in the goblin camp, where other races are mocked and threatened, but most goblins assume that the player drow is part of the Cult of the Absolute's leadership and bow and scrape before you (while still mocking you behind your back).
  • Gur are a nomadic culture in the Forgotten Realms who get saddled with the Roguish Romani stereotype, something that Gandrel acknowledges in sarcastically claiming he'll curse your livestock and steal children. Astarion hates them, but he has a more specific reason: 200 years ago, a number of them killed him out of disagreement with a ruling he made when he was magistrate. After a run-in with one of them, Gandrel, who mentions wanting to take him back to Baldur's Gate, he's convinced that the Gur are now trying to drag him back to his former vampire master. It's later revealed, though, that this was just Astarion's paranoia and the Gur have nothing to do with Cazador; they just want their children back from his master's hold, as well as revenge.
• Fartillery: If you play as a Bard, during the encounter with Akabi, the cheating djinni gamemaster, you have the option to wait for an opportune moment to distract him from the wheel to prevent him from rigging it with his magic. One of the options you can use to do so? Letting out a huge, noxious fart.
  Akabi: AH. WHAT IS THAT VILE SMELL? ARE YOU DYING?
• Final Boss Preview: You first see the elder brain in Act 2, along with two of the other antagonists you'll need to deal with in Act 3 in order to finish the game.
• Final Death Mode: Honour Mode, which was added with Patch 5.
• Fission Mailed: One of the stat checks you need to pass during your first direct meeting with the Netherbrain has a DC of 99, but no matter what you roll during this conversation, your attempts to dominate the brain will always fail, even with nat 20s. Fortunately, the Emperor quickly comes up with a Plan B and the story continues. Succeeding on the final roll does however reduce the Netherbrain's HP by 20% in the final confrontation.
• Five-Aces Cheater: Akabi, the djinni gamemaster, is a textbook example of this, blatantly using his magic to rig his wheel spin game so that no participants ever win the grand prize, and given he's a djinni, it's hard to think of an average person who would call him out on his underhanded tactics, given the risk of being transformed into something vile by an angry, all-powerful djinni. The player character, however...
• Five-Finger Fillet: Astarion will play this idly during the Playable Epilogue, should he survive to see it.
• Flash Step: Comes in so many flavors. The most accessible to the player is Misty Step, a level 2 spell that lets the caster teleport to any unoccupied spot they can see. Githyanki have a psionic version with a different name but pretty much the same effect. Certain warrior skills turn the user into a Personal Space Invader by teleporting them right in an enemy's face for a follow-up melee attack. Dark creatures like shadows and meenlocks can teleport to any spot that isn't brightly lit. Many bosses have their own unique abilities for instant relocation.
• Fooled by the Sound: Using Speak with Dead on Demir and asking "Did you find your sister?" has him respond that he heard her screaming, but that the thing making the sound wasn't actually Mayrina. It's not specified what was imitating the sound, but it's implied it was the nearby redcaps and that Mayrina's screams were used to lure and kill Demir and his brother.
• Forced Sleep: The effect of the Level 1 spell "Sleep", naturally.
• Forced Transformation: The Level 4 spell "Polymorph" turns the target into a sheep, and one possible effect of "Wild Magic" turns every creature in a 30 foot radius into either a cat or a dog.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The Absolute's holy symbol is an amalgamation of each of the Dead Three's symbols.
  • If you end up thrown in a Moonrise Tower prison cell, the most obvious escape route is through a gaping hole in the floor, which leads not into a tunnel or sewer but an illithid oubliette, foreshadowing the later reveal of an entire mind flayer colony hiding underneath the tower.
  • Snooping through the githyanki inquisitor's documents in their créche reveals that Voss is being suspected of treason. It takes a couple more hours of playtime for this topic to come up again. Big time.
  • During Act 1 the party can find a dead boar drained of blood with two punctures in its neck. Guess who did that? Astarion.
  • Also during Act 1 in the druids' grove you can come across a tiefling woman in a locked shack. She says that she is crippled thanks to "that old lady that sells lotions and potions". She's talking about Auntie Ethel, the Hag.
  • The flavor text for Belladonna mentions an old folk rhyme imploring victims of lycanthropy to use it. It sounds like a cure, but belladonna is poisonous, implying that the rhyme is tricking them into killing themselves before they become a danger to others. Nettie the healer's 'cure' for ceremorphosis is to poison the victim before they transform, possibly under guise of a remedy. Similarly, the Githyanki Zaith'isk is touted as the only cure, but is essentially euthanasia.
  • In Act 2, when talking to Radija in Moonrise Towers, you can attempt to reach out to her with your parasite, only to discover she doesn't have one. You can do the same thing with Ketheric Thorm during Minthara's trial. This is the first sign the Cult of the Absolute is more then just mind flayer parasites.
  • If you ask Karlach for advice about fighting devils based on her experiences in the Blood War, she'll mention that orthons like to toss explosives around, and are vulnerable to having them flung right back. Sure enough, this is a viable strategy to use against Yurgir in Act 2.
  • A document at Waukeen's Rest in Act 1 will reference the statue of the Beloved Ranger having been stolen from Baldur's Gate's central marketplace. This "statue" is actually Minsc of Rashemen who had been turned to stone, and who has since been liberated from statue form and whom you can even recruit to your party.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With:
  • The Dream Guardian is actually a mind flayer known as The Emperor, taking a form the player will trust rather than revealing his true nature right off the bat.
  • If Us is summoned after being rescued from the illithid colony in Act 2, and you point out that walking around with an intellect devourer is going to turn more than a few heads, Us will respond by saying that they'll project an illusion of a cat to disguise them to anyone outside of the player character and their party.
• Freudian Slip: If the player talks to Gale while undressed, he'll ask what's on their hind... I mean, mind.
• From Bad to Worse: At the end of the extended introduction cinematic, the player character gets free from their prison and goes to the hole in the hull to see where they have ended up. Only to find out they are in Avernus, the first layer of the Nine Hells. And to make things even worse, the nautiloid is about to come under attack by an army of devils.
• Frustrating Lie: Gale easily comes to terms with Astarion being a vampire, but if Astarion persistently denies it to him after the whole party already knows, his approval takes a massive hit because "You're a dishonest vampire, and that's far worse."
• Full Moon Silhouette: One of the games Multiple Endings sees the Dark Urge lost to Bhaal's madness in the epilogue, silhouetted by the moon and planning to kill the party when they go to sleep after their reunion party.
• Fully-Embraced Fiend: The "evil" outcomes to the personal quests of Astarion (by becoming a Vampire Ascendant) and the Dark Urge (by embracing their destiny as a Bhaalspawn).
• Gambit Pileup: The main plot and the reason why your characters are mixed up in it.
  • The Chosen are using the Crown of Karsus and the Netherbrain enslaved by it to expand their respective gods' influence in the Sword Coast region. Each of them also has their own plans against the other two.
  • Raphael wants the Crown to overthrow the Archdevils and is trying to manipulate the party into doing his dirty work for him.
  • Vlaakith wants either the Prism back, or its prisoner destroyed.
  • Voss wants Orpheus freed so he can overthrow Vlaakith.
  • The Sharrans want to sabotage the Cult of the Absolute by keeping something they clearly want out of their hands.
  • The Emperor would rather like to keep its freedom, with an added interest in keeping the Sword Coast safe because that's where it lives.
  • The Netherbrain is secretly playing all those other factions against each other in a bid for freedom.
• Game-Breaking Bug:
  • Unusually few for a game of such complexity, but there are a few major bugs that can cut off entire quest lines. Most of these happen in Act III, like one that prevents the party from interacting with the Hell Gate to Raphael's House of Hope, which is a mandatory part of multiple quests and thus has a huge impact on the game's ending.
  • In the battle with Viconia DeVir, attacking a certain mook will crash the game more often than not. Who the cursed mook is can vary, but it seems to be linked to them concentrating on the Darkness spell, which is a problem given that every spellcaster opponent in that fight loves using that spell.
• Game Master: Of the Author kind, with elements of the Director. The narrator acts in the manner a Dungeon Master would, describing events in terms of how they appear or occur in order to present what the character sees, feels, or is thinking. For example, early on the player finds an illithid tadpole and wants to kill it, but the narrator describes how the tadpole in your head makes you feel about it, resulting in your character having to resist it to kill it if they wish.
• Game Mod: There's a mod that grants the player a cornucopia of new race options, including kobolds. There's even ones from an entirely different game!
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • The party's low beginning levels despite most of them being highly accomplished and experienced is explained to be a result of the illithid tadpoles having weakened them greatly and them needing to build their strength up again. Several characters will remark on how powerful they were before all this happened.
  • Clerics and their deities:
    • As the name might suggest, Lolth-Sworn drow clerics are only capable of choosing Lolth as their representative deity. Drow — and especially Menzoberranzan — society is functionally monotheistic; Lolth forbids the worship of gods other than herself on pain of most excruciating death.
    • The githyanki revere their queen Vlaakith as a god, and she is shown to have similar amounts of power in-game. A githyanki player character can indeed choose to worship Vlaakith. As Vlaakith isn't actually a god however, she also has several warlock's under her service, all of whom use the computer restricted Undead patron, befitting Vlaakith being a lich.
  • If the player lets Astarion drink from them after the first night, he'll feed on them while they're asleep without waking them up or doing damage. Accordingly, his Vampire Bite doesn't break stealth and won't wake or damage a sleeping target.
  • In Act 2 you can find a group of meazels who have a special move, "Garrote", that will silence you and tether you to them. Looting the bodies afterwards turns up rope in each of their inventories.
  • Your party members stat spreads if unaltered tend to reflect their personalities. For example: Gale is incredibly smart and has a bit of natural charisma, but has a habit of making rash and impulsive choices that he realizes later weren't right. His starting stats have high Intelligence, slightly above average Charisma, but low Wisdom. Meanwhile; Shadowheart is fairly wise and perceptive, but she's bad at lying and admits to having issues with her memories because of how Shar's faithful operate, leading to her starting off with high Wisdom, but very low Charisma, and average Intelligence.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • The opening cutscene showcases Lae'zel and the Player Character being tadpoled, regardless of whether or not it makes sense depending on which character you pick. For instance, it would be impossible for Wyll, Karlach or the Dark Urge to be tadpoled the way they are in the cutscene, not to mention you can even play as Lae'zel herself.
  • Items can be equipped by any party member, even if it doesn't logically make sense. For instance, one of the best characters to wield a mace that's a sacred relic literally made from the blood of the good god of light is Shadowheart. She'll do so without complaint, despite being dedicated to the extremely petty and jealous goddess of darkness.
  • This is practically guaranteed to happen if you choose to re-spec your party members. Some like Astarion, Lae'zel and Karlach downplay it because their class plays no significant role in their characterization, but Halsin for instance is explicitly stated to be an archdruid, so making him any class other than druid breaks his entire backstory. The same goes for Gale, Wyll, and Shadowheart (although in her case it can be used to invoke the opposite if you change her cleric subclass to better suit a follower of Selûne after her potential Heel–Face Turn in Act II).
  • Using the illithid powers granted by the tadpole in your brain and/or empowering it is described by almost everyone as a bad idea, since no one knows how far the protection you have from turning into a mind flayer go and making your tadpole stronger could eventually allow it to still transform you. Only your Dream Protector encourages you to use them, and that's because they're actually a sentient illithid, and don't see anything particularly wrong with you becoming one. Gameplay-wise, however, there are no side effects from relying on your illithid powers save for increasing the Difficulty Class of a check to refuse the astral-touched tadpole later, but even that is more advantageous than not and you're always safe.
  • Your party members' selection quotes and battle cries don't evolve to reflect changes in their personal stories, leading to breaks in immersion such as Lae'zel's vocal reverence for Vlaakith and Ascension enduring through her potential denunciation of Vlaakith and rejection of Ascension.
  • The process of ceremorphosis only works on some species and tieflings, dragonborn and halflings are not on the list so Karlach and a tiefling, dragonborn or halfling PC shouldn't be valid subjects (halflings are too small, dragonborn too different in biology and teflings fiendish ancestry make them Native Outsiders rather than Humanoids). Now the illithid tadpoles have been altered by powerful magic so it's not unreasonable that they would be able to overcome barriers like this but nobody in the story ever raises the issue, even those familiar with ceremorphosis.
  • Baldur's Gate's undercity is meant to be a massive maze-like sprawl, but what parts of it the player visits are basically one giant hallway.
  • Even if you kill Orin and reclaim your place as Bhaal's Chosen as the Dark Urge, the Bhaalist assassins (such as those in Bloomridge Park and the circus) will continue to be hostile to you, and the only way to prevent this is by conceding to Orin's demand and killing Gortash first. This has the unintended implication of them being more loyal to Orin than even to Bhaal himself.
  • After a certain point in Act II, the player party can't return to the Act I map anymore, with no proper explanation why this is the case. The game tries to handwave this by The Emperor warning the you that he can't protect them from the Absolute's influence in that area anymore, and if you still try to go there, you are indeed turned into a mind flayer. But later in the game, the Astral Prism is still able to protect you from the Absolute even when you're just a couple of kilometers away from them, so it remains unclear why the Act I area is still off-limits.
  • Even though Jaheira and Minsc are both legendary heroes with decades of experience, when they join your party their character level is the same as with every other party member. And Jaheira doesn't even have the excuse of having been weakened by a tadpole, since she was never infected with one.
• Gargle Blaster: The mysterious brew Thisobald is serving on tap at the Waning Moon bar. The player has to make a Constitution roll each time they consume it, and should Thisobald drink too much it will actually kill him.
• Gateless Ghetto:
  • While the maps in the third act are respectably large, they're not quite the size of Baldur's Gate in the lore. Only one suburb (Rivington) is explorable, most of the Lower City is closed off by drawbridge, and only a few locations in the Upper City are accessible. Of those locations, Ramazith's Tower can only be reached by portal and is too high up to jump down, the Szarr Palace's only unlocked entrance is secondary scaffolding in the Lower City, and High Hall is only explorable in the final battle, when most of it is being bombed into rubble.
  • Cazador's Dungeon is said to be enormous, and it holds exactly seven thousand prisoners, of which less than a dozen are seen. Several inaccessible doors are seen in the distance.
• Geo Effects:
  • In a departure from the tabletop rules, and similar to the Divinity: Original Sin games, thrown weapons like alchemist's fire and certain spells can leave an area of elemental damage behind them. Elements can interact: dousing flames with water will cause steam which can be used for stealth, oil slicks and grease can be ignited, liquid can conduct electricity and shock creatures standing in the same puddle or pool, and so on.
  • Attacking from higher ground gives a +2 bonus to attack rolls, while attacking targets on higher ground gives you an equivalent penalty.
  • Early in Early Access, in a departure from the tabletop rules, most spells caused areas of elemental effects on the ground under their targets, including even basic cantrips. Ray of frost, for example, caused a sheet of ice to appear under its target, and was almost guaranteed to knock people prone. Fire bolt was basically a different spell entirely, with reduced initial damage, but now igniting the target for damage over time and igniting the ground; it could potentially splash and ignite two enemies if close enough. This was toned down in a later patch, but still goes beyond the rules as written. The 1st level spell chromatic orb still creates a surface of the element chosen for its damage, for instance.
• Giant Spider: A cavern below the Blighted Village is infested with giant phase spiders.
• Glass Eye: Volo's Ersatz Eye, which the player can acquire by allowing Volo to attempt his experimental Eye Scream surgery on them to remove the tadpole, with predictable results.
• God of Evil: At least four of them, five if you count Vlaakith.
  • Shar plays a central role in Act 2, particularly for Shadowheart (a cleric of Shar). The Lady of Loss embodies darkness, pain, forgetfulness, and betrayal.
  • The villains of Acts 2 and 3 are a Big Bad Ensemble of the Dead Three, Myrkul, Bane, and Bhaal. They are, respectively, the gods of the Dead, Tyranny, and Murder.
  • Vlaakith, the undead queen of the githyanki isn't a god in fact, but she is a powerful spellcaster who is revered as one.
• God of Good: While less directly active than her sister Shar the benevolent moon goddess Selûne plays a major role in the plot via her servants. Also if playing a cleric there are a number of good deities (including Selûne) that your character can follow and the game does recognise this with various options in game not available to those not worshipping good gods.
  • If you talk to Duke Ravengard after he's forced via Tadpole mind control to crown Gortash as Grand Duke he'll despairingly comment that Tyr, the God of Justice in Dungeons and Dragons, has abandoned Baldur's Gate. If you're playing as a Cleric of Tyr, then the narrator will note that your character literally feels Tyr's rage at the comment, indicating that he is doing everything Ao will allow him to in order to save the city.
• God's Hands Are Tied: When Gale is asked on why Mystra, or any god for that matter, isn't directly dealing with the Absolute despite the clear danger it possesses to the entire world, he would say that the Top God Ao won't take too kindly on any god that would directly meddle in mortal affairs while also claiming that Divine Intervention tends to make things worse as much as it does better.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: Vlaakith is not to be trifled with, and no matter what the party does when encountering her, they will always end up a target of her empire.
• God Test: You can demand to know why Queen Vlaakith doesn't just do the thing she's demanding of you when she's giving an order. In addition to being a slightly weird assumption you keep making, since the character is not in fact a deity (just revered like one), it's a very bad idea. She prepared Wish.
• Godhood Seeker: Gale. One of the Multiple Endings sees him actually succeed, claiming the Crown of Karsus for himself and becoming the God of Ambition.
• God Was My Copilot: It is strongly implied and all but confirmed in The Dark Urge's story with certain choices that Withers the Mysterious Protector is actually Jergal, seeking to punish the Dead Three for misusing their powers by helping the party on their quest. Who else could possibly possess the power to resurrect a dead Bhaalspawn but a god?
• Godzilla Threshold: Almost literally. The threat of the Absolute is deemed so great that one of the allies you can try to call on is an ancient bronze dragon, the very same one that Balduran rode before he founded Baldur's Gate, and that can be awakened only once to defend the city in a time of greatest peril. One problem though: the dragon was killed a long time ago by the Emperor, who was Balduran, and the reunion soon turns into a battle between your party and a powerful Dracolich.
• Gondor Calls for Aid: For the final battle, you can call upon the friends and allies that you've made across all three acts, who will give you support either through special actions, passive buffs, or special units to aid the party in defending Baldur's Gate and destroying the Netherbrain.
• Greater-Scope Villain:
  • The Dead Three are the ones who instigate the plot in their latest quest for domination. Despite being cast down during the Time of Troubles, each of the three mortals-turned-gods, Bane, Myrkul, and Bhaal, has since returned. The cult of the Absolute was created as a joint effort between their respective Chosen: Gortash, Ketheric and Orin. Bhaal is particularly significant because he is the father to the Dark Urge, who in turn assisted Gortash in stealing the Crown of Karsus from Mephistopheles' vaults.
  • To a lesser extent, the ancient Netherese wizard-king Karsus himself. Although he is long deceased by the time of the story and only mentioned, his quest for godhood led him to create the Crown of Karsus. This crown bestows the power to control an elder brain and, by extension, an army of mind flayers, which forms the backbone of the Chosens of the Dead Three's plan to conquer Faerûn. On a more personal level, he also created the orb that Gale eventually inhabits, which forms a significant portion of his personal quest. That said Karsus didn't intend either outcome and wasn't an evil person per se, just greedy, arrogant and short sighted.
• Great Escape:
  • Multiple sidequests require you to break one or more characters out of prison. These can be some of the trickiest tasks in the entire game, at least if your goal is to succeed without getting into open combat. Freeing the tieflings and goblins from Moonrise Towers is arguably the most difficult example, requiring tons of preparation, knowledge of the area, some very specific combinations of party characters and skills, near-perfect timing, and a good amount of dumb luck to make it through without aggro-ing the whole dungeon.
  • If you're caught engaging in particularly illegal activities, you yourself might find yourself locked up and forced to find a way out of your predicament. There's a large number of unique prisons in the game, all of which require specific approaches to escape (and no, you can't just pick your cell door's lock; you have to get creative).
• Grey-and-Grey Morality: Downplayed. There are definite villains and heroes in the story, but there's no alignment system and the game heavily encourages you to play your character in a morally nuanced manner. And even though many characters you encounter can be comfortably characterized as heroic or villainous, most of them have Hidden Depths to them.
  • Your own party is made up mostly of morally grey people, with Wyll and Karlach being the only ones you could actually call good. Potentially subverted depending on what directions you take regarding the characters personal plots, play your cards right and pretty much everyone becomes firmly good.
  • This is shown off as early as the character creation screen. Paladins must choose an oath. Of the three choices, two fit squarely into the mould of a stereotypical Lawful Good holy warrior. The third is the Oath of Vengeance, dedicated to enacting revenge, a much more Lawful Evil ideal. And the hidden Oathbreaker subclass that lets you be anything but a stereotypical Lawful Good holy warrior.
• Groin Attack: The player is given the option to kick Astarion in the balls after the two have sex, to pay him back for his Acquired Situational Narcissism after becoming Vampire Ascendant. He will say Screw This, I'm Outta Here and permanently leave the party in response.
• Guest-Star Party Member: An intellect devourer who goes by the name of "Us" is able to join you in the nautiloid at the beginning of the game, if you don't kill it. However, Us is unavailable after the nautiloid crashes, but can potentially be reacquired as a summon much later in the game.
• Guide Dang It!: Let's just say that in a game as deep and complex as Baldur's Gate 3, you're bound to run into situations you just can't figure out how to resolve to your satisfaction without some outside help. Side quests almost always have an impact on the current main quest one way or another, as do companions and their own quests, and the myriad ways they intersect with one another can make it seem impossible to predict how any given decision might turn out a couple hours of play time down the road.
  • A particularly notable and infamous example happens towards the end of Act 2. During that Act, there are several sidequests where you're supposed to find NPCs kidnapped by the cult of the Absolute. If you go to Shadowfell and finish the Nightsong sidequest, the game warns you beforehand that this is a Point of No Return in the story, after which some unfinished sidequests might fail, but it doesn't tell you which ones. If you ignore the warning and proceed with the Nightsong plot before freeing the NPCs locked in the Moonrise Towers prison, you'll later find out those characters have been killed. So you'd think the solution would be to find all the kidnapped NPCs and free them before finishing the Nightsong quest? Think again, as some of those NPCs can only be found after the aforementioned Point of No Return. So you can either spend a lot of time hopelessly scouring the Act 2 area, trying to find all the missing characters before proceeding with the plot, or you can consult a guide to see what you're supposed to do.
  • Companions have unique interactions and events that they can do while in your party, but some trigger only if they are in your party. For example: Astarion's questline requires him talk to Raphael, but this has to be while you have him in the party, or else you can't progress his quest. Similarly, in Act 2 Wyll can get a semi-unique rapier if you do certain things involving Mizora, but only if he is in the party. This can make it difficult to really build properly to ensure story progression, since some are less obvious than others, like taking Shadowheart with you to the Gauntlet of Shar versus taking Karlach with you to Last Light Inn.
  • An infamous example of this trope is in Act 2. If you go to Last Light Inn, characters generally advise you go talk to Isobel first, which on paper seems the logical first step after getting inside and needing to understand what is happening in the area. However, this triggers an extremely difficult combat encounter where, if Isobel is reduced to 0 HP, everyone under the barrier is killed. Nothing hints that this is a possibility, so it can lead to massive issues for those unaware and haven't saved recently.
  • At the tail end of Shadowheart's personal quest, she's made to choose between saving her parents or living with her cursed wound for the rest of her life. Left to choose on her own, 99% of the time she'll honor her parents' wishes and send their spirits to Selûne, and you'll have to pass a Persuasion check to convince her otherwise. However, there is exactly one scenario in which she'll choose to save them of her own volition, requiring you to find three different memories throughout the Lower City. The problem is that the random gravestone in the graveyard is the easiest one to stumble upon; the second is a piece of graffiti hidden behind a billboard near the Baldur's Gate waypoint, and the third is a completely random one that is supposed to trigger after finding the first two, but is so rare it's thought to be bugged.
  • Unlike all other companions in the game, the outcome of Gale's personal quest in whether he gives the Crown of Karsus to Mystra, uses it to become a god, or leaves it in the Chionthar cannot be decided last minute with a persuasion check or special dialogue option (not that players are discouraged from trying.) Instead, what he decides to do depends on a point system wherein dialogue options during his Act III personal quest will sway him to one decision or the other. Not only does Gale start out with a point in favor of taking the crown for himself, but whichever outcome has the highest points is what he goes with in the end, even on occasions where the player has seemingly persuaded him differently—something which has led many players to mistakenly believe the quest is bugged.^note A romanced Gale who chooses at the last minute to ascend to godhood or not has unique dialogue with the player, confirming these outcomes are intentional. While most of the dialogue options are clear in which outcome they encourage, others are vague and not very intuitive, with players looking for a neutral end having it the hardest.
• Happy Dance: One of Karlach's idle animations.
• Happy Ending Override:
  • As mentioned above, the events of Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus ended with Elturel and its people returning to Toril from Avernus, including Grand Duke Ulder Ravengard, and are on the road to recovery. Soon after that, it's revealed that Elturians have blamed the tiefling population for the crisis (despite the fact that their own ruler, Thavius Kreeg, doomed them all in the first place through a pact with Zariel) and drove them all out of the city. Not only that, but it's also revealed that in the midst of Ulder's return trip to Baldur's Gate, he ends up getting captured by members of the Cult of the Absolute and was reportedly taken to Moonrise Towers.
  • Forgotten Realms lore by 5th Edition states that Bhaal successfully resurrected himself when all his Bhaalspawn died, which means that the player character of the first 2 Baldur's Gate games is not only dead, but their efforts to stop Bhaal's resurrection was ultimately All for Nothing. In the adventure module Murder in Baldur's Gate, Abdel Adrian (the canon version of Gorion's Ward) was attacked by a fellow Bhaalspawn while he was speaking to a crowd in the Wide. And although the victor of the fight remains unknown, both of them ended up dead while a giant soul-sucking monster eventually emerged from the confrontation, which was slayed by other adventurers, freeing Bhaal's essence and allowing him to return, albeit in a weakened, not fully divine form. Worse still is that even after his resurrection, there are still a handful of Bhaalspawn that continue to menace Faerûn in the present day, such as Orin, Sarevok, and (quite possibly) the Dark Urge.
  • Viconia's two endings in Throne of Bhaal have her either dying after her romance with Gorion's Ward or she undergoes an implied Heel–Face Turn in her solo ending. In this game, she's an unrepentant follower of Shar once again and Shadowheart's Evil Mentor, with Shadowheart's quest arc possibly ending with the player killing her once and for all.
  • Sarevok could be turned Chaotic Good with the implication that he'd try to be The Atoner. This game shows him back under Bhaal's yoke, which Jaheira sneers at as him wasting the chance he was given.
  • Though there is a case of it being inverted with Jaheira. Her non-romanced epilogue was bittersweet with her never returning to the Sword Coast due to all the events of the games, and her relationship with the Harpers being chilly due to trying to kill Gorion's Ward. Now she's considered one of the greatest protectors of Baldur's Gate and can lead the Harpers openly, when normally they stick to the shadows.
• Harder Than Hard: In addition to being a Final Death Mode, Honor Mode also buffs many enemy encounters by giving them Legendary Actions that are unique to this difficulty and provide an additional level of challenge to players.
• Healer Signs On Early: Downplayed with Shadowheart. She's likely the first potential companion you can encounter and recruit after the nautiloid crashes and the only one who starts out with healing spells. That said, while all 5e clerics do have access to healing spells, the only cleric subclass to heavily lean towards being a healer is the Life Domain. Shadowheart starts out with the Trickery Domain, which is more geared towards being a Stealth Expert and a Master of Illusion.
• Healing Hands: The "Lay On Hands" spell.
• Hell Has New Management: One possible ending involves Raphael gaining control of the Crown of Karsus after the player makes a Deal with the Devil to trade it for the Orphic Hammer. With the power of the Crown, Raphael is able to unite the hells under his rule... and starts making plans to conquer Faerûn next, despite his promises.
• Hell Is War: The ancient and unending Blood War raging in Avernus.
• Hellgate: A few quests in Act 3 involve opening one to infiltrate Raphael's home in the hells, the House of Hope.
• Heroic Team Revolt:
  • If you sided with Minthara and the goblins during the raid on the Emerald Grove, Wyll will either turn hostile towards you if you have him in your party or, if he remained at your camp during the raid, will call you out later at night after the raid before leaving your camp for good. Karlach will also leave your party permanently for doing so. Gale will also call you out for your dubious choices and threatens to leave your party as well. Unlike with Wyll and Karlach's case, you could either let Gale go or convince him to stay with a successful skill check.
  • While playing as the Dark Urge, if you ended up taking up the mantle as Bhaal’s Chosen once more after killing Orin, both Jaheira and Minsc will permanently leave the party and attempt to stop you from realizing Bhaal’s plans for the Cult of the Absolute. If Wyll was with you during the eventual confrontation with the former two, he would end up siding with them and attempt to kill you as well.
• Hitbox Dissonance: The upshot of Larian drawing so heavily from their Immersive Sim roots is that you can target just about everything on screen, including the environment, corpses, random objects, scenery, what have you. Which also means you can misclick on just about anything on screen, which you'll be brutally reminded of if, say, you missclick with a flaming weapon in hand on something flammable.
• Hijacked by Ganon:
  • A very rare case in which the Protagonist can inflict by siding with Bhaal in the Dark Urge-exclusive Sins of the Father alternate ending, betraying the Emperor and hijacking the Cult of the Absolute's plans at the last possible minute to seize control of the Netherbrain instead of destroying it and allow Bhaal to begin with his murderous tendencies once more on a truly gargantuan scale thanks to the army of pawns now at his disposal. An alternate version of this ending called Absolute Power Corrupts can also be achieved if the Dark Urge rejects Bhaal and has their essence ripped from their body. The main difference is that the Dark Urge makes no mention of Bhaal and sets off on personal conquest with their new army.
  • What at first starts off as heroes facing off an enigmatic cult that employs and worships modified mind flayer larvae is eventually revealed to be the machinations of Chosen champions of the Dead Three gods, Myrkul, Bane, and Bhaal. With the Chosen of Bhaal in particular revealed to be a Bhaalspawn like the villains of the Baldur's Gate and Throne Of Bhaal, as well as plotting behind the other two Chosen's backs.
• History Repeats:
  • On a Dark Urge playthrough, Baldur's Gate is once again the location of a fight between two Bhaalspawn half-siblings, an evil one who seeks to uphold Bhaal's legacy and leads a secret society, and a potentially redeemed one (or not) who opposes them and leads a party of adventurers. The confrontation between the Dark Urge and Orin draws many parallels between that of Gorion's Ward and Sarevok at the climax of the first game.
  • Each of the three main antagonists takes a different cue from Sarevok, the original game's Big Bad. Ketheric Thorm is the indomitable armoured figure with a Freudian Excuse, Enver Gortash is the incumbent grand duke of Baldur's Gate exploiting a crisis of his own design to propel himself to greater power, and Orin the Red is a Bhaalspawn, and Sarevok's granddaughter to boot.
  • If you visit the cemetery in Act 3, you can find a young girl praying to Myrkul to resurrect her brother following his untimely death, just as what Ketheric did for his daughter, Isobel. You can either convince her to leave him be and move on...or you can egg her along and advise her on the right way to perform her necromantic ritual.
• Hope Spot:
  • Going with Karlach to Dammon to get her infernal engine fixed will finally allow her to touch others without hurting them. This is especially heartwarming if you're romancing her, since now the two of you can finally be physically intimate. Unfortunately, this news is then followed by that there is no way to permanently fix Karlach's infernal engine heart and if she doesn't return to Avernus then she will die. Currently there is no way to save her from this, unless you count turning her into a mind flayer, though the Patch #5 epilogue if she goes to Avernus does give a ray of hope thanks to her discovering Zariel's forge.
  • If you save Wyll's father (or convince his Eltan loyalists to stand down if you left him to die by breaking Mizora's pact) you'll be given the task of finding the "Heart of Baldur's gate", which is supposed to be a brass dragon named Ansur that sleeps beneath the city and will protect it in times of great need. Unfortunately when you pass all of Ansur's trials and go to his lair you'll find that he has been Dead All Along and can no longer help you. Worse, he'll awaken as a dracolich and recognize the Emperor as his old friend Balduran, the one who killed him in the first place, forcing you to put him down. No dragon cavalry for you.
• Horned Humanoid: Tieflings, Cambions, Incubi and Orthons. Mizora can also punish Wyll by growing a pair of horns on his head.
• Hot Skitty-on-Wailord Action: At the Blighted Village, the player can interrupt an ogress and a bugbear while they're having sex in a barn. Most of the party is extremely shocked at the bizarre pair (although Astarion is eager to have a look). Depending on the dialogue picked, the player character will describe the experience as a "puny rutting", much to the humiliation of the bugbear.
• Hotter and Sexier: While romanceable companions are par for the course for the Baldur's Gate series, 3 adds a cinematic presentation, sex scenes, sex worker NPCs (who also have scenes), explicit nudity, raunchy jokes, one-night stands, and polyamory, all of which are built by steamy writing fit for a bodice-ripper.
• Hungry Jungle: In act 3, if you expose an efreet part of the circus cheating, he'll teleport you to Chult, a jungle full of dinosaurs and undead to the south of the continent. And true to the form the player is almost immediately set upon by raptors.
• Humanoid Abomination: The Thorm siblings have all had their bodies twisted in some way. Thisobald is a bloated, vomiting monster with four legs and a tail, Malus has replaced his arms with Creepily Long Arms that are mechanical surgical instruments, and Gerringothe is covered head to toe in gold, meaning we can't see what ways her body has been warped, but given the state of the other two, it's safe to say Nothing Is Scarier.
• Hurricane of Puns: During the exploration of Heapside Prison in Act 3, the player character can come across a solitary rat occupying one of the cells who, if Speak with Animals is active, will introduce himself as Skittle, an aspiring merchant with an incredible fondness for rodent-related puns, which the player character can gleefully choose to indulge in with him.
  PC: A mercantile rodent? How rat-ical!
  Skittle: Indeed, my mirthful mate. Care to take a squeak at my fan-rats-tical wares?
  PC: Is this business rat-ified by the local merchant's league?
  Skittle: My business is of a more... covert sort. I do my dealings... in squeak-ret.
• Hypocritical Humor: In Act 3, you can find someone outside of Baldur's Gate complaining about how letting foreigners and refugees into the city "destroys our way of life." One of your dialog options is to point out that his accent (from Rivington, where you now are, which is outside the city walls) marks him as 'barely Baldurian' himself. Various party members approve.
• I Am One of Those, Too: Karlach is being pursued by a group of servants of Zariel masquerading as paladins of Tyr. If you're a cleric of Tyr, you can expose them pretty much instantly:
  Player: You say you serve Tyr. Recite the Creed of the Left Hand.
  Anders: Wh -- I -- please, I am wounded. Overcome. I can hardly remember my own name.
• I Love the Dead: Sceleritas Fel claims that the Dark Urge used to practice necrophilia.
• I Surrender, Suckers: Ketheric, before his boss fight at the top of Moonrise Towers.
• I've Come Too Far: Possibly how Ketheric feels about his actions, depending on his interactions with the player.
  Ketheric: I gave up everything. My family, my life... I cannot stop here.
• Immersive Sim: While somewhat downplayed because of the constraints of 5e, Larian's biggest releases draw more heavily from immersive sim conventions than traditional RPG, with BG3 being no exception.
• Implacable Man: Illithids are beyond stoic. In the opening cutscene, the reaction by the lead illithid to finding the corpse of a crewmate is to widen its eyes and register it for future reference. It goes hand-in-hand with the species' Blue-and-Orange Morality.
• Important Haircut: Shadowheart will change her hair near the end of Act 2. How she dealt with the Nightsong will determine whether she just trims her bangs if she killed the Nightsong; or if she also dyes her hair white, if she spared the Nightsong and learned the truth about how the Sharrans got a hold of her.
• Improbable Weapon User: You, potentially. Aside from all the crap you can throw at enemies, you can also beat them to death with a salami.
• In a Single Bound: Everyone, thanks to the game engine, although downplayed for characters without high Strength. Being strong means you can jump further and be less likely to take damage from it, but even a Squishy Wizard has a 10-foot vertical leap for reaching ledges overhead.
• Inevitable Mutual Betrayal: Discussed in Act 3 when you meet Gortash as the Dark Urge. He points out that you'd been one of the original masterminds behind the Cult of the Absolute, and had worked with him to hatch a plot that would ensure the Dead Three's dominance over Toril without being undone by infighting and backstabbing, as it so often has. This is also why he's so eager to reestablish this partnership; he's pragmatic enough to realize it makes perfect sense. However, both Ketheric and Orin continue to play this straight, as they'd both planned to betray their allies take sole control of the Cult from the very beginning, and Bhaal also makes it clear that he would've compelled the Dark Urge to betray Gortash eventually.
• Interdimensional Travel Device: The nautiloid comes equipped with one on its main bridge, referred to as a transponder, activated by connecting a pair of tentacles and pulling on the resulting bond.
• Interface Spoiler:
  • It's a well-known fact that when playing D&D: make your players roll Perception, and even if they all fail, they'll know there's something there they're missing. If you see the little Perception dice roll over your character's head and it comes up a failure, it does much the same thing. Amusingly, given how closely Larian Studios stuck to the 5e rules when making the game, this makes it even more like traditional D&D.
  • Want to find that invisible enemy near you during combat? Pull up the move option and watch for where your projected path bends around what seems to be nothing.
  • Early on in the game, you're likely to encounter Auntie Ethel, and if you right-click and inspect her, you can see that her ability scores far exceed what an old woman should have, such as having 18 strength, darkvision, and her race being listed as 'fey.' This is due to her actually being a hag in disguise.
    • If you fight this character, She will spawn a bunch of illusionary clones that seem to share her stats. You can tell which is real by examining them and seeing which one has the "Fey Life" trait, a condition Ethel gets from the necklace she wears and that she can't actually benefit from, meaning it has no purpose other than loot and serving as a giveaway in this sense.
    • During a rematch, Ethel has the condition "Hag's Pregnancy" which her clones lack. Her in-game model also physically reflects this condition, though it's hard to see.
  • The D&D universe has a massive pantheon, but the loading screens only ever talk about six gods: Shar, Selûne, Jergal and the Dead Three (Bane, Bhaal, Myrkul). The first two are heavily involved in one of your first companion's backstory from the very start of the game, but the others seem like an odd choice to feature so prominently. Unsurprisingly, they'll become very important later on.
  • If you're perceptive enough to spot an impending ambush but not the ambushers themselves, just prepare any AoE attack and move the cursor around the area ahead. Any potential targets will be marked with a red outline as usual.
  • Larian built the game to be fully transparent, mechanically, through the Examine function — meaning some of the more complicated boss gimmicks can be figured out by Examining the creature and then reading carefully what their abilities and status effects say.
  • Keen-eared players can tell whether they've succeeded or failed a skill check before the dice-rolling animation is finished based on the sound effect that plays in the background. It even applies if you only succeed or fail based on bonuses, so if you roll low and still succeed thanks to your stat bonus, it will still play the success sound before the bonus has been added to your result.
  • As you enter Act III, a certain villainous shapeshifter can be encountered several times in various guises, all of whom initially seem normal until the shapeshifter's Ax-Crazy starts leaking into the conversation. Unfortunately the surprise is rather spoiled by the "Legendary Resistance" buff that's prominently displayed when you mouseover that random civilian with 15 hp and a level of 12...
• Interrogating the Dead: Speak With Dead works on most corpses, with varying usefulness. Sometimes it's another way to learn info you might've accidentally lost, other times it's fluff, and on occasion a corpse has unique information that will only be learned by asking them.
• Interrupted Intimacy:
  • You can discover a bugbear and an ogre having sex in a closed barn outside Moonhaven. They won’t appreciate your intrusion and will attack you if you open the door. A barbarian or bard can pass a skill check to prevent the encounter from turning violent.
  • Later in Act III you can walk in on a wood elf prostitute and a Flaming Fist mercenary. The Fist immediately turns into a mind flayer upon spotting your party, forcing a fight. Amusingly, the wood elf has a bit of a thing for mind flayers and is thus turned on by this revelation, much to the party's consternation.
• Intoxication Mechanic: Booze can just be used for camp supplies to fuel your long rests, but it can also be directly consumed, giving you a debuff and an achievement if you kill 10 enemies while drunk.
• It Only Works Once: A Cleric's Divine Intervention skill is extremely powerful in its effects. You can ask for 8d10 Radiant damage to every enemy around you, resurrect and restore allies as if they'd taken a long rest, get a Legendary-class mace, or get a chest full of high-level healing supplies in your camp. However, you can only use it one time in the entire adventure.
• It's All About Me: The artist Oskar Fevras is firmly of the opinion that he is the central figure in the lives of those around him. This causes him to assume that when a former lover kills herself it must because he left had left her. This causes him to resort to paying a Necromancer to raise her spirit just so he can make peace with her which goes wrong, turning her into a spectre that torments him and his current wife. All of which was pointless, as the woman committed suicide due to unrelated clinical depression and never considered Oskar anything more than a fling. Once cleansed her spirit is quick to castigate Oskar for assuming the only reason she'd want to die is losing him.
• It's the Only Way to Be Sure: The assistant druid healer Nettie, upon hearing you have an illithid tadpole in you, will try to Mercy Kill you, forcibly if necessary, because the lead healer Halsin isn't around and they believe you can turn at any moment. She'd already killed and dissected a drow for the same reason.
• Jackass Genie: Akabi, the djinni gamemaster in Act 3, is a true epitimization of this from the moment you meet him, referring to the PC as 'ugly one', using his magic to rig his game to ensure no one wins his jackpot, and going on a venom-laden condescending tirade against the PC should they call him out, threatening them with a vile transformation. Needless to say, it makes it insanely satisfying to give him a taste of his own medicine.
• Jack of All Trades: Since the level Cap is 12 and there are twelve classes in the game, it is possible (though extremely challenging) to multiclass one level into each and every class in the game — otherwise known infamously as the Abserd build. There is even an achievement of the trope name for successfully creating this kind of character^note The caveat is that it must be done organically in one run — using Withers to respec doesn't provide the achievement.
• Kill and Replace: Dribbles the Clown has been killed and replaced by a shapeshifting assassin sent to kill the party.
• Killed Off for Real: Party members who die in battle can be brought Back from the Dead through the Revivify spell or by paying Withers a small fee, even if the manner of death annihilated their body or they got a Disney Villain Death that made their body unrecoverable. However, some plot-specific deaths will render otherwise-revivable party members permanently dead.
  • A Dark Urge playthrough also has an enforced example with Alfira; Withers will refuse to bring her back, deciding that it would just risk you killing her again. If you go out of your way to spare Alfira, this will instead apply to Quill Grootslang.
  • Gale is discovered stuck in a waypoint marker, with only one hand sticking out. The main character can then pull him out to recruit him. But The Dark Urge has a unique option to instead chop the hand off, meaning that they never even meet.
• Killer Game Master: As is typical of Larian releases, playing at higher difficulties is like playing the game with a DM who really wants the party to die at nearly every fight. Even the Early Access experience had been reported to be rather treacherous, and this build's difficulty was eventually rebalanced into the full game's Balanced mode.
• Killer Rabbit: There's a small frog living in the swamp that covers the southern reaches of Act I. Its health is pitiful, but antagonize it at your own peril because that critter packs a terrifying punch delivered through various poison attacks, and its tiny size makes it extremely hard to hit. It's not uncommon to lose multiple party members to something you should be able to just squish under your heel.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": There are a lot of options to do this throughout the game, depending on your character's class and background. A Baldurian native can express admiration for meeting Wyll or Jaheira, while a wizard has the option of gushing over actually coming face-to-face with Elminster.
• Leaked Experience: All companions share in experience gains, even ones not in the active party. You can leave a companion sitting in camp the entire game and they'll still be leveled up to match the rest of the party. Likewise, newly recruited companions will immediately be set to the level of the rest of the party the minute they join up.
• Legendary in the Sequel: Trailers show this being the case for Minsc. He is mentioned by Jaheira in the launch date trailer as being "not just a friend, a legend".
• Living Ship: The mind flayer nautiloid, true to its name, resembles some deep-sea Mix And Match Creature, with jagged shells, tentacles, and mucus membranes.
• Logo Joke: On the website, the initial announcement for the game was simply the Roman numeral III... with tentacles suddenly bursting out and wrapping themselves around the digits. In all promotional videos for BG3, the Larian Studios logo turns into an illithid◊.
• Losing Your Head: Well, in the case of an intellect devourer, losing your brain, as it's just a brain with legs.
• Lousy Lovers Are Losers: Raphael's incubus Haarlep confesses that Raphael is a terrible lover, and players can use that knowledge as part of a mocking Pre-Asskicking One-Liner when Raphael's boss battle is about to kick off.
• MacGuffin: The mysterious artifact that Shadowheart possesses counts as this. While its function is a mystery even to her, it's actively being sought after by both the Cult of the Absolute and the githyanki and she is secretly tasked with delivering it to her coven in Baldur's Gate. The artifact is revealed thus far to be a powerful weapon of githyanki origin, and it's possible that her mission was to steal it from them, which might explain her lingering distrust towards githyanki, including Lae'zel. In addition, the artifact is able to protect the party from the Absolute's influence as well as being unable to part with its wielder. A close examination on the artifact also reveals that there is something alive that is contained within it.
• Mad Doctor: Dr. Malus Thorm is a Shar worshipper who's been warped by the shadow curse, turning him into an insane, undead monster. He performs grotesque surgeries on unlucky "patients", allowing his nurses to murder them under the belief that the absence of life is the only way to "cure" them. His ideology is so twisted that you can convince him to let the nurses perform this surgery on him, causing them to murder him without a fight.
• Made of Iron: Doors marked "Sturdy" are basically impossible to break down... even if you light them on fire.
• Massive Race Selection: The game includes each of the base races from the 5th Edition Player's Handbook, with the addition of githyanki, Mephistopheles and Zariel tieflings, deep gnomes, and duergar. You can also go even further by playing as a high elf vampire spawn in the form of the Origin character Astarion.
• Meaningful Look: When you run into Gandrel and get him to tell you that he's hunting Astarion, if Astarion himself is in your party he will shoot you a "back me up here!" look.
• Mecha-Mooks: The Flaming Fist mercenaries that traditionally protect Baldur's Gate have been reinforced with a legion of Steel Watchers, 12-foot humanoid Animated Armor-style golems made of gold and infernal iron that speak with a disturbingly pleasant female voice but won't hesitate to turn you into paste for the slightest infraction. They're controlled through a Wetware CPU under the direct control of one of the primary villains and so dangerous that getting rid of them all in one fell swoop makes up an entire expansive and very complex quest chain. They even have a unique Super Prototype that serves as that quest chain's final boss.
• Melting-Pot Nomenclature: It's par for the course in Faerûn, which encompasses a lot of different races and cities and regions, all with their own cultures, languages, religions, and naming conventions. The core companions alone include Lae'zel (a gith'yanki who's not even from Faerun), Shadowheart (half-elven child kidnapped & renamed by her Sharran captors), Karlach (tiefling), Wyll (human born and raised in Baldur's Gate), and Gale (human from Waterdeep). Baldur's Gate (the city) is just as mixed, since it's a seaport town with a huge mix of cultures from all over Faerun. And nobody bats an eye if you introduce yourself as "The Dark Urge".
• Mercy Kill Arrangement:
  • Lae'zel wants this from the player, and at one point demands the player slit her throat. They can oblige, and have her Killed Off for Real.
  • At the conclusion of the game, if the player frees Orpheus, and Orpheus turns into a mind flayer so he can properly harness the power of the Netherstones, he will demand that the player kill him as soon as the Netherbrain is defeated. He can be persuaded to continue living as a mind flayer after saving the day, however.
• Mind-Control Conspiracy: The Cult of the Absolute.
• Mineral MacGuffin: The Netherstones.
• Mirror Match: The Self-Same Trial in the Gauntlet of Shar pits the party against an undead Evil Doppelgänger party with the exact same abilities and equipment.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: You can meet owlbears, which have the body shape of a bear and the head and feathery features of a giant owl.
• Mob War: In Act 3, the party would discover that the Guild is in the midst of one against a powerful gang led by the Stone Lord (actually a tadpoled Minsc), who are closely asociated with the Cult of the Absolute. Then it's later revealed that the Zhentarim are being payed by the cult to stage a coup against the now-weakened Guild, although the Zhentarim leader would point out that they're only doing this for the opportunity to take over the city's criminal operations and they are still willing to help the party in destroying the cult if they let them take over the Guild.
• Money Is Not Power: Played awesomely when the Corrupt Corporate Executive Glitterbeard traps Minsc in a mimic and then starts a cynical speech about how storied heroes like Elminster and Drizzt pale in comparison to the real power of those with money and influence, only for Minsc to timely interrupt him by punching and ripping his way out of the mimic like a chestburster and then tossing the dead creature aside. As if the universe chimed in to remind the crooked dwarf that legends are quite real and in fact he is standing in the presence of one.
• Monochromatic Eyes: Orin.
• Monster Clown: Dribbles the Clown, though only because he has been Killed and Replaced.
• Mugging the Monster: It wouldn't be a Baldur's Gate game if the player character wasn't on the receiving end at least once. Early in Act 3 you can have a small group of criminals attempt to shake you down for cash outside Baldur's Gate, somehow not noticing just how heavily armed and experienced the party probably looks by then. You can intimidate them by telling them (truthfully) that you recently fought and killed an avatar of the God of the Dead so you really doubt some two-bit thugs are going to present anything resembling a challenge.
• Multiple Endings: Of the Last-Second Ending Choice variety. There are two endings, albeit with different variations that depend on your actions throughout the campaign, including how you handled your companions' personal quests.
  • Endgame:
    • Good Ending: Prince Orpheus or the Emperor succeeds in bringing the Netherbrain to heel, either subjugating it or destroying it. Baldur's Gate is spared from destruction and the Cult of the Absolute's armies swiftly crumble.
    • Evil Ending: Before Prince Orpheus or the Emperor can subjugate the Netherbrain, Tav betrays them and takes control of the Netherbrain, essentially taking over the Cult's plans for themselves in a bid for world domination.
    • Sins of the Father: The ending exclusive to the Dark Urge origin. It plays out similarly to the Evil Ending, but whereas Tav takes control of the Netherbrain for their own purposes, the Dark Urge corrupts the Netherbrain and everyone connected to it, including your companions, with the same murderous impulses that plagued the Dark Urge throughout the game, creating an Ax-Crazy army with the sole purpose of waging bloody conquest across all of Faerun in the name of Bhaal.
  • Companion Sidequests:
    • Astarion: Astarion's sidequest will end with either him killing Cazador in a fit of rage when the latter attempts to sacrifice his vampire spawn in an attempt to gain more power or hijack Cazador's ritual for himself and become a Vampire Ascendant and quickly becomes mad with power. In the game's good ending, Astarion will either lose his ability to walk in daylight due to the loss of his tadpole or be unaffected because of his newfound rise to power. His romance with the Player Character will also change for the worse if he becomes a Vampire Ascendant as he treats Tav/The Dark Urge as more of a plaything, or he'll break things off if they become a mind-flayer.
    • Karlach: Karlach's questline will end in one of three ways when her infernal engine finally sputters out. She'll either choose to go out peacefully in Faerun, happy she died out of Zariel's reach or go back to Avernus to keep the infernal engine going. In the latter, the Player Character can choose to go with her, or Wyll will go with her so as to protect her from Zariel's henchmen, or they can both accompany her together. Alternatively, it's possible for Karlach to become a mind-flayer herself and render her infernal engine useless, though she will now have to deal with the Horror Hunger that comes with her new condition.
    • Shadowheart: Depending on your actions in Act II, Shadowheart will either be abandoned by Shar for refusing to kill the Nightsong and become a cleric of Selûne or become a Dark Justiciar and a faithful Sharran. Her parents can die in both routes, albeit under different circumstances. Whether Shadowheart continues following Shar will also determine if you can continue your romance with her.
    • Lae'zel: Lae'zel's standing with the githyanki changes depending on whether you side with Prince Orpheus or the Emperor toward the end of the game. If you side with Prince Orpheus, Lae'zel's experiences with being on the receiving end of the githyanki's xenophobic behavior for associating with the party and seeing first-hand how corrupt the githyanki are (or at least the majority) makes her realize her kind is not perfect or as proud as she thought they were. If you side with the Emperor, Prince Orpheus' supporters decry her for regicide and are out for her blood, with the implication being she'll be hunted by them for the rest of her life.
• Mundane Utility: Several examples:
  • A zombie (un)living in Baldur's Gate uses the fact he can no longer feel pain to make some gold by letting people pay to punch him.
  • Gale uses a literal mirror image spell to check his appearance while camping in the wilderness.
• My Rules Are Not Your Rules:
  • The spell animate dead is, in D&D 5th Edition, a 3rd level spell whose base effect is to raise a single corpse to act on the caster's behalf; you can raise more, but it takes higher-level spell slots to do so. The level 5 duergar Gekh Coal, should you pick a fight with him, will cast it and raise FOUR corpses to fight for him, something that should require a 5th level spell slot, which other characters can't access until 9th level at the earliest.
  • For that matter, having a Psychic Link is treated as something unique and special because of the illithid tadpoles in your head. Yet you can play a Great Old One warlock, who in the tabletop rules gets unlimited telepathy with anything that can think at level 1.
  • While some enemies are classified as classes like the player characters, some can use abilities from subclasses not represented here and come from the tabletop. For example: You can fight Oath of Conquest paladins, which aren't something the player can play as, and fight githyanki who use abilities from the Undead Patron warlock, such as the Form of Dread feature.
• Mutually Exclusive Party Members: It is impossible to recruit both Minthara and Halsin without exploits or mods. Recruiting Minthara will also, at best, permanently close off Karlach's companion quest, and at worst, also get rid of Karlach and Wyll (and potentially Gale, depending on the results of a dialogue check). Even with Patch 5, which allows you to recruit Minthara without actually siding with her and the Goblins (and thus allowing you to keep Wyll and Karlach), you still have to choose between her and Halsin, as Halsin will understanably refuse to travel with her after all she's done to his Grove.
• My Significance Sense Is Tingling: Perception checks in a nutshell. Sufficiently perceptive characters can detect all sorts of (often quest-relevant) anomalies in their immediate surroundings, as well as hidden treasures or enemies lying in ambush. Even if all four of your party members fail the check, the mere fact that there was a check to begin with can be helpful because minor things like hidden goodies can usually be interacted with anyway if you mouse over them, with a successful check merely highlighting them with a blue glow.
• My Blood Runs Hot: If you gave your blood to Araj Oblodra in Act 2, the next time you meet her in Baldur's Gate has her managing to concoct a potion that can turn its user's blood into a flammable substance. After drinking said potion, whenever you bleed out from taking damage, your unstable blood can then be set alight by any fire-based attack to cause a fiery explosion.
• My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Not only can you play traditionally antagonistic races like Githyanki, Duergar and Lolth-Sworn Drow as heroic, but the refugee camp outside of Baldur's Gate has orcs and hobgoblins being nice and are just trying to flee to safety from the Absolute's armies.
• Mythology Gag: The game contains some references to some of the 5E adventure modules that were released before the game came out, even more than its overt tie-in with Descent into Avernus. For reference:
  • Wave Echo Cave and Phandalin from Lost Mine of Phandelver are referenced on some documents that pertain to the history and status of the area.
  • Wyll explains that he became a Fiend Warlock in order to stop the Cult of the Dragon when they attacked Baldur's Gate years ago, a reference to the second half of the Tyranny of Dragons module "Rise of Tiamat", where the player characters can receive aid from devils who want to stop Tiamat from escaping Avernus.
  • "The Demonic Crisis" and "The Velkynvelve Pursuit" make references to the events that unfolded in Out of the Abyss.
  • "The True and Impossible Adventures of Tenebrux Morrow" references an encounter with the infamous vampire lord Strahd von Zarovich from Curse of Strahd.
  • If you keep clicking on Astarion's character portrait, he'll eventually complain that "Strahd wouldn't put up with this shit".
  • During the party's meeting with Vlaakith, she will make mention to Lae'zel of the latter's superiors, Urlon and his predecessor Al'chaia, who were prominent NPCs in the Stardock (Crèche K'liir) section of Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage.
  • Also related to the adventure module, one of Gale's rare voicelines upon repeatedly clicking on his character portrait has him mention Halaster Blackcloak, the titular Mad Mage of Undermountain, hoping that he is taking care of Tara while he's away.
  • More generally, the Astral Prism is obviously the shape of a d20 die.

N-Y

• Nature Versus Nurture: The Society of Brilliance wants to seize a githyanki egg so they can raise it with (what they see as) prosocial values, specifically to test whether violence is taught or an inevitable part of githyanki nature. It's also a central theme for Shadowheart, whose memory wipe raises interesting questions about her gentle nature chafing against her brutal Sharran nurture (although it can be argued that, given her age when she was taken in by the Sharrans, her gentleness is actually the result of her Selûnite nurture provided by her parents).
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The prologue offers several chances to accidentally kill various thralls and transform one of them into a mind flayer. Granted, they were likely doomed anyway, but there's still a marked difference between a Mercy Kill and getting them killed simply because you were curious.
• No Indoor Voice: Akabi, the cheating djinni gamemaster, seems to very much love the sound of his voice.
  Akabi: APPROACH, UGLY ONE.
  PC: YOU ARE VERY LOUD.
  Akabi: YES.
• Nominal Importance: Played with. No matter how inconsequential they are or the number of lines they speak, all sapient creatures have a name in the game. Even some characters who are, in fact, not sapient have a name, namely wild animals (such as Timber the squirrel).
  • Which says a lot about the Flaming Fist guards found in the city proper. Kill enough of them and the ones that will spawn in have generic names like, "Fist Sorcerer."
• Nondescript, Nasty, Nutritious: Okta's gruel restores a good amount of HP and is exceptionally quick to eat in combat, but is described in such glowing terms as "watery sludge" and "grey goo".
• Non-Mammal Mammaries:
  • Averted and possibly invoked in the case of dragonborn. Unlike some other D&D artwork depictions, female dragonborn do not have mammalian breasts. They do by default have casualwear that resembles a bra, however, and it's possible this is an attempt to conform to other races' expectations regarding gender and this trope.
  • Played straight, however, with githyanki, which are oviparous. Dialogue with Lae'zel has her comment that all githyanki eggs are laid by a caste of breeders hand-selected by Vlaakith, so there's no real reason for non-maternal gith to have humanoid breasts, but they do anyway.^note One In-Universe theory is that the gith races were human before millennia of magical and genetic experimentation at the hands of the mind flayers, followed by many more thousands of years of evolution to acclimate to the Astral Plane.
• Non-Standard Game Over: There's more than a few ways to die that will result in the game over screen, outside of a Total Party Kill in combat, though generally speaking, they're easy enough to avoid.
  • An early, perhaps the earliest one, is the part where you find a dying mind flayer. If you approach it with the primary PC, it will try to turn you into a slave. If you successfully roll for intelligence and subsequently either submit to it or try to escape it but fail a roll for wisdom, you will turn into a mind flayer slave, leading to an instant game over.
  • The first notable one will be after enough long rests, when Lae'zel corners you with intent to wipe out the party, believing you're undergoing ceremorphosis into a mind flayer and she's right, but your dream companion saves you. The roll to convince her to stand down and give the party a chance to make sure it's just a normal fever is trivial no matter which stat you use to roll the dice with (and if you're really worried about failing, you can attack her in self-defense with no roll, but this will result in her permanent death), but it's totally possible to give in and let her execute you, followed shortly by the rest of the party and herself.
  • The Dark Urge PC gets a unique one. Late in the game if you've taken a Love Interest, the Urge will make you roll to resist killing them in their sleep. If you fail the roll and the worst comes to pass, you can play as having crossed head over heels into the Despair Event Horizon. Depending on how hard you play into this, it can result in them begging the rest of the party to kill them, and convincing them to follow through, because after killing their lover they're beyond the point where they ever want to hurt someone again.
  • Taunting Vlaakith causes her to cast Wish to kill you.
  • Playing with Raphael and his incubus lover, and failing the saving throws, turns you into their sex slave, causing a game over.
  • Gale can detonate the Netherese orb, whether during Ketheric Thorm's encounter with the elder brain or any other time, leading to the narrator describing half the coast as a smouldering crater and giving you a Nice Job Breaking It, Hero speech. A simpler version of this happens if he dies early in the game and you fail or neglect to resurrect him within two days' time. In this case you merely get a brief cinematic of Gale going nuclear, followed by the game over screen.
  • Entering the Underdark by jumping into a specific chasm in the phase spider lair underneath Moonhaven without casting Feather Fall first gets you a unique cutscene of the controlled character smashing into the floor at terminal velocity.
  • At the end of Act II, you can choose to disbelieve that the Emperor is your dream guardian and then kill him in combat. With his protection gone, the Absolute swiftly transforms you into a mind flayer thrall.
  • In Act III, if you (somehow) lose one of the Netherstones, you will ruin any chance your party has of defeating the Elder Brain, and the Absolute swiftly transforms you into a mind flayer thrall...after the Emperor tells you what a dumbass thing you did.
• Non-Heteronormative Society: The full spectrum of real life gender and sexual diversity is depicted through the fantasy lens, and is fully integrated in the story as ordinary. Some examples:
  • Shadowheart makes a lot of flirtatious gestures to Karlach, from remarking on the size of her arms when recruiting her to saying bugs are biting Karlach because they "mistook her for a tasty treat."
  • Astarion has suggestive and flirty lines for every Origin companion.
  • Astarion's victims found in Cazador's chamber are of all genders, though predominantly men, and he keeps a soft spot for one of the men.
  • Multiple Gondians mention same-sex spouses, as do their Banite captors. While the latter taunt about torturing and killing said spouses, it's for evil leverage purposes rather than homophobia.
  • Nocturne's journal mentions Shadowheart going to her defense on respecting her new name when they were growing up in the cloister. Nocturne also describes her friendship with Shadowheart in intimate terms, making it a possible Implied Love Interest or precocious romance among youth.
  • The player can romance all the Origin companions, regardless of gender.
  • Since character customization has different independent sliders for body types, voice types, and genitalia, the player avatar doesn't have to be cisnormative, and no one will consider it unusual if the PC does so.
    • This includes a slider for the character's gender identity that determines what NPCs will refer to them by (choosing between he, she, and they), and is independent of the character's physical appearance.
    • The models used for a character's frame are only ever referred to as 1, 2, 3, and 4, rather than Male, Female, Strong Male, Strong Female.
  • Some companions will agree to polyamory if you discuss it with them; Lae'zel and Halsin don't practice monogamy to begin with.
• No Ontological Inertia:
  • The easiest way to deal with the beastmaster type of enemies is to kill the master to make the pet disappear. Justified in the case of spellcasters as summoning a creature to fight for you requires maintaining control over either it or its ability to remain summoned, without that the summoned creature cannot remain on the material plane. Just keep in mind that since undead aren't summoned from another plane, killing a necromancer does not make their minions fall apart.
  • Typically averted with most boss fights, where underlings and allies will continue to exist and fight even after the boss is killed. However, defeating the Avatar of Myrkul at the end of Act 2 will instantly end the fight, even if there are other enemies such as mind flayers, who were not summoned by Myrkul, still fighting.
  • If you kill Auntie Ethel, the various curses she placed on her victims disappear. This doesn't help those that were already dead, whereas for others it could be considered a Mercy Kill, but there are three individuals who can be saved in this way.
• "No Peeking!" Request: In Shadowheart's Act 3 romance scene, she'll ask you to turn around before undressing. When she's partially undressed, she'll be surprised you haven't tried to peek, to which you can either be chivalrous and stay turned around or peek at her.
• No Points for Neutrality: A downplayed example. In the conflict between the Tieflings and Druids vs the Goblin raiders, you are generally expected to ultimately take a side, with each side offering a unique companion for doing so. However, it's actually 100% optional; you can simply leave the area and move on to Act 2 without ever resolving the conflict. Doing this, however, causes the Goblins to overtake the Grove and kill the Druids and Tieflings, so if you wish to be heroic, that's an issue. You also lose out on whatever experience and loot you might have gained from taking a side. And since after Patch 5 you can simply knock out Minthara to have her appear in Act 2 even if you side with the Grove, there's even less appeal to not doing anything.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: While the rest of the characters all have various European accents, J. K. Simmons uses his usual American accent to lend Ketheric his distinctive voice. Streamer CohhCarnage voices Naaber, also retaining his American accent.
• Notice This: Corpses that can provide useful information if subjected to the speak with dead spell will have a green glimmer. However, not all corpses with something to say have this effect, just those singled out as plot-relevant.
• Not Quite the Right Thing: There are two major story opportunities to detonate the orb in Gale's chest in order to end the threat of the Absolute, and both of them end up having some unintended consequences not too long afterwards. Setting it off in Act 2 destroys the Elder Brain and the party along with it, but doesn't destroy the many tadpoles it once controlled, leaving all of those tadpoles free to conquer the Sword Coast once they complete their transformations into illithids. Doing so in the final battle completely destroys the Absolute and avoids this issue...but unfortunately the Crown of Karsus is left completely untouched, leaving it available for Raphael to claim if he survived.
• Not So Above It All:
  • Your companions can use Boo as a thrown weapon. They even have voice lines.
  • If the party teams up with Gortash to confront the Elder Brain, then attacks him before the confrontation, he will chastise the player and say they need to work together. If the player says the attack was an accident and their hand slipped, Gortash will kick them in the shin and say "what a coincidence, so did my foot".
• Number of the Beast: The cambion Raphael boasts a fitting health of 666.
• The Oath-Breaker: The Paladin class can break their original oaths, becoming the Oathbreaker subclass in the process. There are different actions that will break each oath subclass, but participating in the torture or murder of innocents is generally going to break all oaths across the board.
• Obfuscating Insanity: If you managed to destroy the Zaith'isk and want to avoid fighting its creator and everyone else in the vicinity, you can pretend that it destroyed your mind in the process of explosion, apparently rendering you useless as a test subject.
• Odd Job Gods: You find out from one of Sharess' preachers that in addition to her very important primary duty, is also a goddess of sex. The preacher is a cat, and Sharess in addition to being knows as a sex goddess among humanoids, is also a goddess of cats (in fact, one of her aspects is Bastet from the Egyptian/Mulhorandi pantheon).
• Oh, Crap!: One member of the party will always have this reaction to the Apostle of Myrkul appearing at the end of Act 2.
• Once More, with Clarity: Determinant. Get Shadowheart's approval high enough and there's a chance she'll use the tadpole to show you a flashback from her childhood, where she was lost in the woods and attacked by a wolf, only to be rescued by Sharrans who took her in, hence her loyalty to them as she feels she owes them her life. Should she turn away from Shar and subsequently talk to Dame Aylin to learn more of her backstory, you'll be shown the same flashback, only for the wolf to turn into an elf that turns out to be Shadowheart's father. Turns out Shadowheart was partaking in a Selûnite rite of passage, with her werewolf father protecting her, only for the Sharrans to kidnap her; staging it as a rescue so she'd trust them after her true memories were wiped.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations: There is an encounter with a Gur named Gandrel who is hunting Astarion. Should Astarion be in the party, the conversation becomes a double between the Gur and the PC and Astarion and the PC. The Gur is talking about hunting Astarion, how he's extremely dangerous and should be dealt with. Astarion agrees — the Gur is extremely dangerous and should be dealt with.
  PC: Only a spawn? Pity. Not like it's a real vampire.
  Astarion: I don't know. I'm sure a vampire spawn could still rip your throat out if he felt like it.
  Gandrel: He is right, unfortunately... During the day, we have the advantage. But at night, when they hunt? You will not find a more deadly quarry.
  PC: Yes, I'm sure they can creep right up on you.
  Astarion: We've all survived so far. Let's focus on that.
  Gandrel: It would still be wise to post guards at night. The threat is real.
  Astarion: Indeed it is. We should do something about this threat.
• One Size Fits All: All armours will fit any character, regardless of if they are a Medium race or a Small race. This is true to D&D lore regarding magical armours that will resize themselves to fit wearers (within reason, a giant's armour will not fit a halfling) but that doesn't explain the non-magical armour.
• Opening Monologue: All of the Origin characters have one in the character creator, where they briefly explain their backstory and motivation.
• Optional Boss: Quite a few bosses, usually the ones encountered in side quests, play no role in the main story but can be fought for high-level loot and/or bragging rights. Arguably the most high-profile one is Commander Zhalk, the cambion locked in combat with the mind flayer in the tutorial level. You're supposed to just run past him, but defeating him earns you an achievement and one of the most powerful two-handed weapons in the early game.
• Optional Sexual Encounter: Should you have a sufficient approval rating from one or more of your companions, they may offer you the chance of sleeping alongside them while resting for the night. And depending on the choices you make, you can develop a deeper relationship with the companion of your choice and even have sex with them. Outside of your Origin companions, you can also choose to have a romance with the drow paladin Minthara (who's also recruitable later in the game), but only if you sided with her and the goblins during the raid on Silvanus' Grove and gave in to her desire of spending the night with you soon afterward. Siding with the tieflings and the Grove instead allows the player to recruit and romance the wood elf druid Halsin.
  • Outside of companions the player can also, under the right circumstances, sleep with several others including Mizora, Wyll's fiendish patron, the incubus Haarlep, a pair of Drow siblings working as prostitutes and, of all beings, the Emperor.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Thanks to his illithid tadpole, vampire spawn Astarion can walk in the daylight again and enter homes without invitation, but is still bound to the curse's hunger for blood. During early access he also could not cross running water, but this was added to the pile of benefits his tadpole provides on release.
• Out-of-Genre Experience: While most of the game is Dark Fantasy, it sells the Shadow Curse in Act 2 by leaning hard into other horror subtropes not otherwise in use in Acts 1 and 3 (even with Dark Urge PCs), such as Slasher Movie antagonists, Nothing Is Scarier, hauntings, etc.
• Overly Long Gag: If you accidentally set off the explosive bibberbang mushrooms around the dwarf Baelan in the Underdark, he dies within the first few seconds. However, the chain reaction will take the better part of a minute and a half to complete, for no reason other than to make the player stew in their hilarious shame.
• Overrated and Underleveled: Despite most of the characters having some rather impressive reputations (Gale's status as a prodigy who attracted the notice of a goddess of magic, Wyll being an experienced demon hunter, Karlach being a veteran warrior of the Hells, etc.), they all start off at rather low levels. A multitude of in-universe justifications are given for this, but some (like Halsin, Jaheira or Minsc) are left unexplained.
• Paranoia Fuel:
  • Orin's shapeshifters, as well as Orin herself, are this both In-Universe and out during Act III. Once you've been blindsided by them for the first time, neither you nor the characters in-game will ever feel certain again that whoever they're currently talking to really is who they claim to be.
  • Also, as usual, the ever-popular Mimic. You'll eye every large wooden chest with suspicion after your first encounter with one, at least until you remember to always have a highly perceptive character in your party.
• Permanently Missable Content:
  • It's disturbingly easy to miss out on something as crucial as party members. Some like Astarion and Gale are easy to walk past accidentally if you take a wrong turn while exploring after the tutorial level, and there's little reason to return to where they are found later. Others like Lae'zel, Wyll and Karlach can end up Killed Off for Real without the player even knowing they were supposed to be permanent companions. And even if you do manage to recruit them, acting against their interests too often can still result in them leaving your party permanently.
  • The Underdark can only be accessed in Acts I and II, so make sure to explore it before you make for Baldur's Gate, to avoid missing out on a huge chunk of content.
  • Jaheira has two different moments in Act 2 which can lock her out of your campaign, and if she's lost before you find Minsc, then you won't be able to recruit him, either.
  • Karlach's entire romance subplot is contingent on a specific, optional scene with her at the party after saving the druid grove. Failing to trigger that for any reason, such as not having recruited her yet, apparently means missing the one night of her life she would have been receptive to a new relationship.
• Physical, Mystical, Technological: The Chosen of the Absolute's three leaders. Orin the Red is the Physical, a knife-wielding murderess whose shapeshifting ability stems from her Changeling physiology. Ketheric Thorm is the Mystical, an immortal necromancer capable of summoning undead armies. Enver Gortash is the Technological, a talented inventor who created the Steel Watcher constructs.
• Pixel Hunt: Many items, even very plot-relevant ones, are incredibly tiny, like keys, notes, and jewels, and sometimes it can be nearly impossible to even mouse over them. Thankfully, there's a button to highlight all visible items nearby and you can use the item's name bar to pick it up instead.
• Playable Epilogue: One was added in the game's fifth patch, which plays out as a conversation-based "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue several months after the conclusion of Act 3.
• Playing Sick: One option to get into the House of Healing without a fight is a Performance roll to feign illness and be admitted as a patient.
• Point of No Return: The game is fairly open-ended for most of Acts 1 and 2, but there are certain story developments that there is no coming back from:
  • If you don't resolve the Emerald Grove siege before entering the Shadow-Cursed lands, the goblin forces win by default, most of the tieflings die, as does Halsin if you didn't rescue him beforehand.
  • Entering the Shadowfell will lock you out of all Act 1 areas and most Act 2 questlines, as following the confrontation with the Nightsong, you'll have to directly face off against Ketheric immediately afterwards. Siding with Balthazar in the Shadowfell causes Shadowheart to permanently leave your party, killing the Nightsong will result in the deaths of everyone in the Last Light Inn as well (including Jaheira and the Harpers), freeing the Nightsong without freeing the Moonrise Towers prisoners beforehand will result in their deaths, and if you're the Dark Urge and haven't killed Isobel yet, Sceleritas Fel will punish you for your failure during the first Long Rest you take upon leaving the Shadowfell. Once the conflict with Ketheric is resolved, there is little else left to do but head for Baldur's Gate. And once you enter Baldur's Gate and initiate Act 3, you can never leave the city.
  • For the Dark Urge, the climactic moment of their personal questline occurs in the battle with Orin. Following its resolution, you can either defy Bhaal, locking you out of your Slayer form and the Sins of the Father ending, submit to Bhaal, locking you out of most of the heroic endings and causing Wyll, Jaheira and Minsc to turn on you (if they were in the party), or disappoint Bhaal, which also locks you out of the heroic endings, but you lose your Slayer form as well.
  • Upon infiltrating the House of Hope, you can explore the area freely as long as you've equipped your Debtor's Disguises. But once you steal from Raphael's archives, all bets are off and he will confront you as you try to escape.
  • And finally, taking the skiff to the Morphic Pool after securing all three Netherstones locks you into the endgame confrontation with the Final Boss.
• Poison Mushroom: The Suspicious Poison is a flask that looks like a standard Potion of Healing, but poisons any character who drinks it. It can be automatically added to the hotbar when collected (just like regular healing potions), risking mix-ups for inattentive players.
• Poor Communication Kills: A freed Dame Aylin won't exactly stop to talk, which means she doesn't get a chance to learn that her lover is also alive. So when she shows up to fight Ketheric and he reveals this fact in passing, the shock is so great that it throws her off her game, allowing him to sic the Netherbrain on her and recapture her.
• Potty Failure: The Dark Urge if they fail to overcome their Bhaalspawn blood and are driven mad can piss themselves during the Playable Epilogue.
• Power Perversion Potential:
  • The player can request Halsin Wild Shape into a bear before having sex, traumatizing a nearby squirrel.
  • If the player is romancing Gale, he's not terribly comfortable with the Twin Threesome Fantasy opportunity in Act 3, and instead proposes using his magical abilities to conjure some non-sentient partners if the player is in the mood for Three-Way Sex. If he's talked into joining the foursome, Gale will hastily leave the room and send in an apparition of himself in his stead.
• Power-Upgrading Deformation: Upgrading the power of the mind flayer tadpole to give yourself more abilities will cause you to develop a more mind flayer-like appearance.
• Potion-Brewing Mechanic: Included with the release version of the game is a deep alchemy system that allows you to create a huge selection of magical concoctions, including all sorts of potions, from the countless herbs and other ingredients you can pick up while exploring.
• Power Floats: Standard for illithids, which usually move around by levitating a few inches off the ground. Sure, they can walk — but why walk when you can float?
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: The Moonlanterns protecting the Cult of the Absolute from the Shadow Curse are powered by pixies trapped inside.
• Power-Up Letdown: Come the final battle, all of the people you've helped throughout the game, be it Zevlor and Halsin from the Emerald Grove, to Yurgir after you convinced him to turn against Raphael, will turn up to offer their services in fighting the Absolute's forces in the form of summons, in which they'll take to the battlefield as special forces... unfortunately, they're so weak, and the enemies so numerous and strong, these summons often amount to little more than punching bags to distract the enemy from your main party. Even on Explorer mode, it's a miracle if any of them last more than a single turn. Special mention goes to Voss's red dragon; his aid comes as an area of effect blast of fire damage...which the single most threatening foe in the final battle is immune to.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: While mostly a faithful recreation of the Fifth Edition system, some things had to be changed for the sake of game balance.
  • Clerics get Divine Intervention at level 10 to call upon their god for a powerful favor, just as they do in Fifth Edition. However, It Only Works Once, and you only get a selection of limited (but powerful) choices, because you could otherwise just take a lot of long rests and use it multiple times if it ever worked.
  • Drow characters don't have disadvantage on attack rolls if they're in sunlight, as this would be insufferable in a game where the first act takes place mostly outdoors during a sunny day.
  • The maximum level for your characters is 12 instead of 20, because trying to balance a game for level 20 characters (especially with as many as you can potentially have) would be very difficult to do without either becoming way too easy or way too hard.
  • Modifiers such as Reckless Attack can be applied as a reaction after you miss but before your attack ends, which normally can't be done in the tabletop game.
• Prefers Going Barefoot: Many of the usual creatures in a D&D-based game, such as kobolds, ogres, bugbears, many goblins, sahuagin, meazels, kuo-toa, and a few others.
• Press X to Die:
  • In the end of Act 1, you have the opportunity to speak with Vlaakith, Lae'zel's queen. She is very proud and also a very powerful lich. And if you mouth off to her, she will simply Wish you out of existence, leading to an instant game over.
  • At around the same time you get access to the devastating magical artifact in Gale's chest, which shows up as an innocuous icon on his ability bar. Click it and you blow up half the Sword Coast, with predictably final result for your adventure.
• Produce Pelting: You can occasionally find rotting produce in containers that, if you picked it up for some reason, can be thrown at enemies. It has no effect whatsoever, but the option is there.
  • A barbarian who opts for the "Aspect of the Beast: Chimpanzee" ability, can blind attackers by throwing camp supplies at them.
• Product Delivery Ordeal: Shadowheart, who has gotten her memories (including her real name) suppressed, only remembers that she was instructed by Lady Shar to deliver a sacred artifact to Baldur's Gate, no matter the cost or the means necessary to do so. The reason why her memories are suppressed is to ensure the secrecy of this mission, since it's extremely confidential.
• Promoted to Playable: It was originally planned that the druid Halsin would only be an NPC, which is how he appears in the Early Access builds of the game. His voice actor, Dave Jones, confirmed that positive fan reaction to the character led to him being promoted to a potential party member and romance option in the full release.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: If Minthara survives Act 1, when the player walks in on her trial in Act 2 she will flash them with the ol' puppy-dog eyes when Ketheric asks the player to chime in. The camera even zooms right in on her face.
• Pungeon Master: Dribbles the Clown, whose act consists entirely of dreadful puns, right up until he reveals that he's a Doppelganger and a member of the Cult of the Absolute. There's also Skittles, a rat who will be present in the player's jail cell if they get arrested in Baldur's Gate and can be spoken to with the speak with animals spell; not only does he have a fondness for puns, which the player can volley back and forth with him, but he's also a Friend in the Black Market who will sell useful things to help them escape from prison.
• Puppeteer Parasite: The illithid tadpole in your brain is already sentient, and will try to influence you into doing things beneficial to the mind flayers.
• Pstandard Psychic Pstance: Characters tend to make this gesture when using their tadpole powers in dialogue.
• Psychic Link: Those who have an illithid tadpole implanted in them develop a telepathic connection to those who also have one, as well as with illithids themselves and their minions. This is demonstrated by the player characters' emotions being shared with the first companion they meet, and the reverse happens too. It seems to be an outgrowth of the mind flayers' Hive Mind, but co-opted to some unknown end by the same force halting your transformation into a mind flayer.
• Puzzle Boss: A few bosses are built this way.
  • The spectator in the Underdark is likely too much for a party who just got there. But it'll un-petrify and charm drow scattered around the arena. If you damage the drow, it'll break the charm and they'll turn on the Spectator, eventually overwhelming it.
  • Grym, the adamantine golem guardian of the Grymforge has resistance or immunity to almost all damage types. It must be exposed to lava to make it slightly vulnerable, at which point it can be repeatedly kited under the forge's giant pneumatic hammer and then smashed (the easier way), or whittled down with regular attacks (the hard way, required for an achievement).
  • The second fight against Auntie Ethel requires not only dealing with her illusory double spam, but also with a trio of special fungi in the area that constantly heal and revive her and themselves unless you kill them with fire. The latter can be preempted by doing your homework before the battle.
• The Queen's Latin: It seems to be combined with Animal Stereotypes, as a wide variety of British accents are given to animals and certain monsters if you use Speak with Animals according to their type — a Noble Bird of Prey has a posh, pompous accent and manner, while a loyal dog has a lower-class accent. Doesn't explain why a giant spider speaks with a sultry Scottish accent, though.
• Questionable Consent:
  • This crops up several times in Astarion's storyline, starting with his original "choice" to become a vampire spawn (made under extreme duress). One notable Deconstruction also occurs for a romanced player, who in Act 2 can talk Astarion into a sexual encounter even as Astarion attempts to object. Astarion will go along with it, but the next day he will be furious with the player for pressuring him into sex he didn't want, and consequently dumps them on the spot.
  • Highly monogamous Gale hates the idea of group sex at Sharess' Caress, and makes his feelings on the matter very clear to a romanced player. The player can override him by passing a persuasion check of 25 (for reference, that is a higher check than talking Astarion down from ascending or Yurgir into killing himself). The subsequent scene is Played for Laughs, as Gale flees when it comes time to actually participate, and instead sends a magical projection to observe the "rutting".
  • Discussed with Halsin, who recounts a seemingly lighthearted story from his past which is that he was held as a Sex Slave by a drow matron during his youth. Although he claims to have enjoyed it, the player can gently challenge him on whether he was actually able to give meaningful consent.
  • The sexual encounter with the incubus Harleep is rather coercive, as the player either has to sleep with them or fight them to the death in order to get what they need from Raphael's house. Should you choose the former route, you'll find out that they will use the PC's form for having sex with others and you will feel it every time, without consent. This is particularly highlighted with a later conversation about it with Astarion, who will empathize with you on the basis of connecting it back to his own long-term sexual abuse.
• Railroading:
  • While the game, even in Early Access, gives you considerable freedom in deciding what to do and who to ally with, the one thing you cannot do under any circumstance is sell out Shadowheart for the sake of appeasing the Cult of the Absolute, even after finding out she has the artifact they're looking for, nor can you just hand over the artifact yourself in case you're playing as her Origin, or have killed her beforehand. Even if you ally with Minthara, who is one of the cult's primary enforcers, and slaughter the people of Silvanus's Grove with her, she will turn on you during the victory celebration. And if you talk her out of it and part ways on amicable terms, you've still doomed her to being eventually forsaken by the Cult, given that she never found the artifact they wanted.
  • No matter what you do, you cannot complete the mission in the githyanki's Creche Y'llek without having made an enemy of them and Vlaakith. Either you refuse her order and she orders your death, you leave (which causes the same), you insult her (she kills you with a Wish) or if you accept her orders, she orders your execution when you return from the astral plane no matter what you did there (as she knows the task she ordered is impossible). What your decisions affect is Lae'zel's loyalty and your relationship with the Dream Visitor.
  • One way or another, all three Chosen of the Absolute will die by the time of the endgame, leaving it to you and your allies to face off against the Netherbrain. In case of Ketheric and Orin, while you do have some flexibility in how you approach their encounters, and can even comply with their demands to a degree, you will have to fight them both to the death eventually. As for Enver Gortash, he will offer an alliance during Act 3, and keep his word if you agree to his deal, but even if you don't kill him he still suffers a Plotline Death when you go with him to confront the Netherbrain.
• Random Number God: For a game that attempts to emulate the tabletop D&D experience, Baldur's Gate III prays at the altar of the Random Number God. For example, if you want to sneak Sazza out of Silvanus' grove, you'll have to do a difficult skill check for every single guard you encounter. Fortunately, the game also offers an optional Karmic Dice setting, which increases the chances of getting higher rolls when enabled.
  • The game also differs from the tabletop by having nat 1s and nat 20s be automatic failures and successes no matter the roll and regardless of any modifiers. While a common home rule, 5th Edition only applies it to attack rolls; on skill checks and saving throws even if you rolled a nat 1 or 20, you still have to apply the modifiers to determine a success. So the lowest usable roll in the game is a two because the modifiers can still push it over the top.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: Consistently. The leaders of every organization throughout the game always pack more punch, have more health, and cast more dangerous spells than their underlings. Typically justified, especially when it comes to the leaders of the Cult of the Absolute, who are the Chosen of the Dead Three.
• Rat Stomp: You receive this quest in Act III, somewhat late in the game , at a point where your characters are already toppling demi-gods. The slight twist is that it can be given to you by a bunch of lazy snooty cats who don't want to leave the kitchen for fear of missing food and instead pawn it off on a lesser being (the player) or by a chef who is too busy dealing with this to care about the serial killer planning to assassinate him that you came to warn him about.
• Recurring Riff: The melody of "Down by the River" is reused in several parts of the game, from the title screen, to the protagonists' camp, to a creepy circus.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Vampires like Astarion and Cazador have these. Lolth-sworn Drow like Minthara have these by default as well.
• Red Right Hand:
  • All members of the Cult of the Absolute are identifiable either by a brand on their skin bearing the mark of the Absolute, or by wearing an amulet bearing such a symbol. Meanwhile, those who are infected with illithid tadpoles are seen by the cult as 'True Souls' and are often held in high regard. Upon meeting Priestess Gut at the abandoned temple, you can choose to let her brand you with the mark of the Absolute. While this option would obviously garner disapproval from most of your companions as well as marking you as a member of the cult, the brand itself can actually be useful when conversing with other members of the cult (e.g. the duergar in the Underdark) as well as those employed by the cult (e.g. the ogres in Moonhaven).
  • Most of the side villains of Act 2 are monstrous undead that have deformed their bodies and are disturbing to lay eyes on, like Malus, Thisobald and Balthazar.
• Relationship Labeling Problems: If the Player Character pursues Astarion, in Act 2 they can ask what he thinks their relationship is, to which he doesn't know, but he likes that, because all his previous "relationships" were victims or a result of Cazador ordering him around.
  PC: What are we, to you?
  Astarion: I don't know. But isn't it nice? Not to know. You're not a victim. Not a target. Not just one night it's better to forget. But then... whatever in the world could you be?
• Relationship Values: The game utilizes this in the form of an approval rating, similar to that used in the Dragon Age games. Depending on the decisions and dialogue choices made by the Player Character, certain companions would approve or disapprove of your actions and could lead to varying opinions regarding you as the story progresses, from having a Neutral stance towards you to having an Exceptional outlook on you. As such, getting a high approval from a companion would give you the opportunity to engage in a romantic relationship with them. On the other hand, getting a very low approval from a companion would cause them to leave your party. What can make this system a bit confusing is the fact that the "[Companion] (dis)approved" notice covers a wide range of point values, from a tiny 1 to a massive 20, without giving the player the specifics. Since this can easily result in unexpected changes in your relationships, it's advisable to check in your companions' stat menu how much a given decision actually influenced their opinion of you, lest you run into an irreversible conflict of interests.
• Released to Elsewhere: Githyanki are told they'll "ascend" after reaching a high enough level and killing a mind flayer, flown off to live with their immortal queen Vlaakith in a physical Warrior Heaven on the Astral Plane. In fact, she eats their souls when they get there. Previous editions of the tabletop game suggested she just wanted to prolong her lichdom and prevent anyone from overthrowing her, but now it seems she has designs on becoming a deity.
• Rescued from the Underworld: A quest in Act 3 involves rescuing a Cleric Raphael keeps imprisoned in his House of Hope in the Hells.
• The Reveal: The true nature of Shadowheart's mysterious artefact is drip-fed over several reveals, forming an impressive Gambit Pileup: it's githyanki in make, it's a prison, the prison contains your dream visitor, the 'Dream Protector' is what's preventing your ceremorphosis, the Dream Protector is actually an adventurer from Baldur's Gate who styles himself as the Emperor after having become a mind flayer himself, and the Emperor is in fact Balduran, the legendary founder of Baldur's Gate, who became an unusually free-willed mind flayer and came to prefer his new form. The actual source of your protection is an imprisoned githyanki prince named Orpheus, who challenged the rule of Vlaakith after she betrayed his mother Gith. The power to suspend ceremorphosis was only known to mother and child — until the Chosen of the disgraced godlings known as the Dead Three stole the artefact and combined its power with the mind-controlling Crown of Karsus (created by the ancient mage king who almost destroyed Toril once before, and stolen from the vault of the cambion Raphael, son of the archdevil Mephistopheles) to create an army of secret mind flayers on time-release. The elder brain whom the Chosen thought they were controlling, meanwhile, actually allowed itself to be controlled so that the Crown and artefact would both eventually fall into its grasp.
• Sacrificial Lamb: Alfira, who is destined to become an innocent victim of even a morally good Dark Urge playthrough unless the player takes some very specific Guide Dang It! steps to save them... and even then it becomes a Static Role, Exchangeable Character and someone else dies in their stead.
• Sadistic Choice:
  • The ending will always require some kind of sacrifice because the Netherstones require an illithid to harness their full potential, thus requiring a sacrifice to be made. You can side with either the Emperor or Orpheus, because the Emperor refuses to work with Orpheus to the point that he'd rather submit to the Netherbrain than risk suffering his wrath. The Emperor is already an Illithid so you won’t have to transform, but even disregarding his inflexibility regarding Orpheus, he's morally dubious and manipulative in many ways and will eat Orpheus’ brain to harness his power and resist the Netherbrain, thus dooming the githyanki people to continued enslavement by Vlaakith and ensuring Lae’Zel will forever be exiled by her own people. If you side with Orpheus, you free yourself from the Emperor’s clutches, let Lae’Zel go back to her own people, and save the Githyanki people from Vlaakith, but either you, Orpheus or Karlach has to permanently become a mind flayer. Gale can also offer to use the orb to destroy the Netherbrain, ensuring no one has to become an Illithid but result in Gale’s death, and without an exactly specific set of Guide Dang It! steps, someone will still have to become a mind flayer.
  • As the Dark Urge - either satisfy your Urge by killing Isobel, and thus everyone in Last Light, an obviously atrocious act that leaves a lot of people dead… or try to resist your Urge, at the expense of putting other people (read: your lover) at a serious risk.
  • The final choice on whether to control or destroy the Netherbrain also becomes one if you're playing as a Dark Urge who embraced Bhaal's powers or failed to meet the conditions for rejecting him. Right as the Emperor or your illithid party member is about to kill the Netherbrain, Bhaal orders you to seize control of it in his name. You can comply, which results in you enthralling most, if not all your companions and committing to carrying out a campaign of slaughter in your God's name (though depending on how you played them your Dark Urge could be completely fine with that), or you can defy him, in which case you'll realize that Bhaal's threats were far from empty and he can and will break your mind as punishment unless you immediately commit suicide.
  • Wyll’s choice when it comes to severing his pact: either have Mizora save his father and reveal his location, but pact Wyll’s soul eternally to her and Zariel, or let his father die to sever the pact. Downplayed in that you can investigate around Baldur’s Gate to find the Iron Throne even if you break Wyll’s pact, and free his father anyway to make an utter fool of Mizora.
  • Shadowheart probably gets the worst one given to her by Shar at the end of her questline. Shar refuses to admit defeat against Shadowheart until Shadowheart makes a sacrifice: either let her parents die to free herself from Shar’s curse that causes her agonising pain, or free her parents but keep the curse.
• Sand In My Eyes: If the player romances Gale but later breaks up with him, he will claim that he has dust in his eyes before hastily ending the conversation to cry.
• Scenery Porn: From the mountaintops above to the Underdark below and Baldur's Gate itself in between, the dungeons and maps of this game are gorgeous. And to make absolutely sure you get every chance to enjoy the view, almost all of them have at least one scenic overlook somewhere that dials it up to eleven, usually with your party members also commenting on it.
• Schmuck Bait: The game loves serving up choices that are very obviously inadvisable, but nonetheless still there for you to take:
  • Just immediately after the tutorial, at the Nautiloid Crash Site, the player will encounter a weakened mind flayer. If you have other characters at that point, they will warn the player to be careful. Inspecting the mind flayer will trigger a scene and choices, wherein the Narrator would even chime in and say how it is odd to find mercy on it. Trying to pry further will force dice rolls that, if failed, will result in the mind flayer breaking the character's mind and getting a Game Over.
  • After being rescued from the Goblin Camp, Volo will offer to extract the tadpole from the player's head with a procedure that he admits to having no experience in (though he boasts that he "dreamed" of it thousands of times!). Despite being given several opportunities to stop the attempt and Volo gradually escalating in implements from a sewing needle he has in his pack to an ice pick, the player can allow him to go through with the extraction, with predictable results. Though it winds up being downplayed in that Volo will offer a prosthetic eye as an apology for the botched operation, which restores the player's sight and comes with a useful passive effect.
  • You can sleep with Raphael's incubus, and need to pass saving throws to avoid a Non-Standard Game Over as the incubus uses the chance to try and make you a sex slave.
  • You're tutorialized on the game's potential Schmuck Bait in the first room — passing an investigation check on the brine pool lets you know the pod is about to burst, and if you touch it, it explodes.
  • Taking up the Hag's offer to remove your tadpole also costs you an eye, and she promptly gives up on the operation after discovering the tadpole's unique nature. Like Volo, the Hag will give a replacement eye, which gives a bonus to Intimidation checks, but also gives a disadvantage on Perception checks and attack rolls against Hags like her.
  • A sign posted in the off-limits section of Sorcerous Sundries warns you that "trespassers will be disintegrated." If you try to rob the Sundries' vault, you'll have to navigate dozens of traps.
  • The first thing you find upon entering the secret part of the Masons' Guild in Act II is a note on a wall that basically says "take one more step and you're dead". The next thing you find is a treasure chest standing right out in the open in the middle of a long corridor. No points for guessing that it's trapped. It's also empty.
  • The first time Astarion tries to feed on you, you have the option to let him continue. The game gives you multiple chances to push him off, but you can also choose let to him indulge... all the way up until you're dead.
  • In fine D&D tradition, not every chest is actually a chest. In particular, there's a set of three chests around the place you're pointed to by a letter talking about a Harper stash. They're all Mimics; the actual chest is revealed by casting Light on a toy chest hidden in the corner. The player character or a companion can even lampshade the fact that the Harpers are too smart to just leave their treasure out in the open.
• Schrödinger's Player Character: The Dark Urge is nowhere to be seen if you play any other character, and the same goes with "Tav", by default, the custom character if playing as The Dark Urge or another character. In a strangely literal example, this is presumably because the Urge murdered Tav at the end of Blood in Baldur's Gate, assuming the Featureless Protagonist is meant to be the same character. If Tav is alive, the Urge appears, dead, late in the game.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: The Missing Shipment sidequest revolves around a mysterious iron flask a lot of people have already died over by the time you become involved. If you open it, out pops a Spectator, one of the stronger monsters out there, and one that can easily ruin an unprepared party's day.
• Sealed Good in a Can: Prince Orpheus, the prisoner within the Astral Prism. His power is what protects the party from The Absolute's influence, and his freedom would threaten the legitimacy of Vlaakith's rule.
• Secret Test of Character: If the player forms an alliance with Gortash, he will ask them to kill Orin and deliver her Netherstone to him. He'll betray the player if they actually hand it over to him, seeing them as weak-willed, but will maintain the alliance if the player insists that they hold on to the Netherstones.
• Separated by a Common Language: A common point of confusion in fantasy works, in D&D "Enchantment" is the name of a specific school of magic which revolves around monkeying with people's minds, while "enchantments" are the various traits and effects that may be infused into a magical item. The process of creating a magical item, not governed by any specific school, is simply referred to as Crafting.
• Servant Race: Deconstructed by a biography written by a tiefling called The Devil You Know, because they're still referred to as "devilkin", despite not following Asmodeus anymore.
  By what method can we redeem ourselves? I would drive a blade into every warlock that aided Asmodeus' damned ritual, but personal vengeance cannot undo the will of a god, much less one as slippery as the Lord of Lies.
• Sham Ceremony: Gortash's coronation, overseen by his menacing steel watchers to stamp out any dissent and officiated by Duke Ravengard, who is being controlled by a Puppeteer Parasite.
• Ship Tease: Placing almost any combination of the six origin character companions in your party results in some flirtatious dialogue, and some will even hook up with one another if you're not romancing either of them:
  • Wyll and Karlach have a bit of this, most notably Karlach losing her shit over Wyll potentially being Dragged Off to Hell in Act 2 and especially Wyll's potential decision to to return to Avernus with her at the game's conclusion.
  • Karlach will be won over by Astarion's descriptions of Baldur's Gate and excitedly say she'd like to see various sights in the upper-class districts, which he sincerely offers to escort her to when they reach the city. Karlach will also take Astarion's complaints about the physical demands of travel much more cheerfully than most of the other companions, teasingly offering to carry him part of the way... as long as he returns the favour on the way back, at which point he demurs.
  • Zigzagged with Astarion and Gale. Gale's in-game dialogue implies a barely-concealed dislike of Astarion when they're partied together, but artwork such as that seen on the "Astarion's Thirst" card from the Magic: The Gathering crossover shows them in quite an intimate situation.
  • Astarion and Shadowheart are the only two origin companions who are fully open to Polyamory with one another and the player, implicitly because they're both quite content with the prospect of sharing a partner with another elf. (They'll also both be open to a polyamorous situation with Halsin for the same reason.)
  • Lae'zel has a tendency to become Friends with Benefits with one of the male characters the player isn't romancing, and be quite open in her assessments of their... performance.
• Shipwreck Start: The game opens with the player character breaking out of imprisonment on a mind flayer Eldritch Starship, not a sea ship. On your way out, you meet two of your potential party members, Lae'zel and Shadowheart, then you scuttle the "ship" because you don't want to reach your destination.
• Shirtless Scene: The Emperor will appear to the player in a dream shirtless in Act 3 and make a pass at them.
• Shop Fodder: "Valuables" are an assortment of items that can be obtained as loot — various gemstones, bronze, silver, gold, and mithral ingots, a variety of silver table settings, paintings, incense, and assorted trinkets and curios — that serve no practical purpose whatsoever, but which traders will purchase for high prices.
• Shout-Out: See the series page.
• Shown Their Work:
  • The announcement video went deep into ceremorphosis, the process by which the mind flayer parasite transforms its host's body into another mind flayer.
  • The dragons in the trailer are also a close match for the Monster Manual illustration◊.
  • Raphael plays (lanceboard) chess using a specific set implied to be cursed for mocking the gods (which is perfectly in-character) from an obscure magic item supplement.
  • In D&D lore elves don't sleep (and are in fact incapable of doing so, hence their immunity to sleep spells), instead entering a kind of deep meditation called "Reverie" for four hours each night. In game elven PCs and party members adopt a meditative pose in resting cutscenes as opposed to the sleeping pose non-elves use.
• Sinister Scythe: The Avatar of Myrkul wields an appropriately massive one.
• Smart People Play Chess: Endearingly Dorky wizard Gale is an avid lanceboard player, and if he's in the party when the player stumbles on a lanceboard puzzle he all but tells them the solution.
• Smug Snake: Raphael and Gortash are both incredibly pleased with their villainous machinations, and any attempt by the player to sass them will usually be met with an even more snide rebuttal.
• Someone Has to Die: Played With. At the climax of the game, to defeat the Elder Brain, either Orpheus has to die, Gale has to blow himself up, or either Orpheus, Karlach or the player has to choose to become a mind flayer, a process which supposedly replaces the original host down to the very soul but which is played as a bit of an Ambiguous Situation since the characters all seem to retain aspects of their personalities after the transformation.
• Sore Loser: The cheating djiini Akabi is extremely pissed when the PC beats him at his own cheating game, so much so that he teleports them to Chult as their 'jackpot'.
  Akabi: IMPOSSIBLE. YOU SNEAK, YOU CHEATED!
  PC: HOW DOES IT FEEL, SUCKER?
• Soup of Poverty: The tiefling refugees in the Druid Grove have a pot of gruel on the boil. Despite the unpleasant description, it's quite healthful.
• Stargazing Scene: The player can share one with Gale in Act 2.
• Starter Villain: The first chapter has the leaders of a goblin horde operating from an abandoned temple of Selûne: Priestess Gut, Dror Ragzlin, and Minthara. The goblins and the novices that serve them introduce the adventurers to the Cult of the Absolute, who are heavily associated with the mind flayers that abducted them at the start of the game, as well as True Souls, members of the cult that are infected with illithid tadpoles to carry out the Absolute's will. They were also responsible for the raid on Waukeen's Rest that resulted in the abduction of Grand Duke Ulder Ravengard, and are currently on the hunt for Silvanus' Grove as well as survivors of the crashed nautiloid who might be in possession of a powerful weapon. Once the leaders have been dealt with (either by killing them or by siding with Minthara during the raid), your party would later earn a new lead in finding the cure to ceremorphosis by heading out to Moonrise Towers.
• Static Role, Exchangeable Character:
  • If you pick Lae'zel as your playable character, her role in the intro will be replaced by Losiir, a male gith. Other than acting a bit more cordial towards Lae'zel, his lines are mostly identical to the latter's in a standard playthrough. Once the nautiloid crashes, his body is found on the beach.
  • During a Dark Urge playthrough killing or knocking out Alfira before she shows up at your camp causes a female Dragonborn bard named Quill Grootslang to show up instead, with the exact same results.
• Stating the Simple Solution: Gale attempts to do this during the game's climax when it is suggested that someone must become an illithid in order to face the Netherbrain. He points out that actually isn't necessary because he can simply detonate the orb in his chest. This is shot down as neither the Emperor nor Orpheus considers it a reliable plan — but if the player follows through at that point in the game, Gale's suicide attack does work.
• Story Branch Favoritism: Of the Origin Characters, the Dark Urge, Lae'zel and Shadowheart seem to be favored the most and their personal quests tie into the main story at some point. If there were characters Larian were to pick as the Player Character, it'd be these three.
  • The former is similar to Gorion's Ward as they are a Bhaalspawn, if not far worse because of their bloody past from Blood in Baldur's Gate and is the only Origin character who can be customized. They also have dialogue that is explicitly unique to them as well as being previously involved with the Cult of the Absolute by being one of its former leaders alongside Gorlash. Also, their personal quest interacts with the main story when they confront Orin, and in the aftermath decide whether they will reject Bhaal or take up their old mantle as his champion. And playing as the Dark Urge is the only way to have all the Origin characters in your game, since they're the only one who won't show up if you play as one of the others (Tav technically isn't an Origin character like the Dark Urge as they don't exist in the story in any sense if not chosen, the Dark Urge shows up as a corpse in Orin's room if not chosen).
  • As for Shadowheart, she's in possession of a very important Chekhov's Gun and is the only Origin character with ties to a character from the original Baldur's Gate games. Also, Shadowheart's personal quest involves killing or sparing the Nightsong, which is a major story decision in Act II.
  • Lae'zel is the only companion seen during the intro cinematic (and the only companion seen in a pre-rendered cinematic at all), seen even before you pick an Origin. The final decision of her personal quest line is also the final choice the player makes prior to beginning the final battle To free or kill Orpheus, which ties her into the main plot.
  • At the end of the day of course, the player can opt not to pick any of the three and be their own character ("Tav") who can pretty much avoid recruiting any of them (and The Dark Urge can't be recruited at all). The game will progress normally in spite of them not being in the party.
  • While all races have some race-specific dialogue and interactivity, drow and githyanki have much more than any other race.
• Story-Driven Invulnerability: Orin will appear to you a few times through Act 3 to taunt you. During and right after these interactions, they are actually present as an NPC you can physically interact with. But any attempt you make of killing them there and then will fail. Hold Person spells will not work, paralyzing them (with the corresponding skill or poison) won't work either, and they will immediately teleport away after taking even a single point of damage. It's only when you reach the climactic confrontation spot that you can actually kill them. If you somehow did manage to deal enough damage in one blow to kill them before they disappear, the game will glitch and they will appear at that confrontation spot dead.
• Strong Girl, Smart Guy: Invoked with the backgrounds and stats of the Origin Characters. Male characters Gale, Wyll and Astarion all have Strength in the single digits, which is topped by even the weakest female character (Combat Medic Shadowheart). Subverted if Halsin is recruited; he is the only male companion with a Strength higher than Shadowheart. On the other side of the coin, Lovable Rogue Astarion has the lowest Intelligence of all the male characters, which is still higher than all the female companions in the game.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: Anyone with the Speak With Animals spell, obviously. As with corpses, animals can range from redundant sources of info that you may have missed to additional fluff to useful and unique. Unlike the corpses, some of the animals are also extremely funny.
• Super Drowning Skills: All deep water is classified by the game as a "chasm", meaning anyone or anything that gets pushed into it dies instantly. This includes you, even if you're carrying little weight and have high Athletics.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Most CRP Gs or action-adventures have your light source be exactly that, just a source of lighting. Here, any light sources that come from fire are also ignition sources. Walk through a storage room filled to the brim with smokepowder or flammable alcohol and they can easily detonate without you trying.
  • If you spare the vampire spawn at Cazador's palace during Astarion's personal quest in Act III, you can run into a couple of vampire spawn children in the sewers with Gandrel. It is entirely possible for Gandrel to turn hostile towards you if you have the Blood of Lathander or any other daylight-generating effect on you, as this will harm the children.
• Surveillance Drone: The Cult of the Absolute employs these in the form of scrying eyes, which allows its leadership to keep tabs on the ongoing cult activities in key locations. One can be found in both the goblin camp and Grymforge in Act 1, and a lot of them are present within Moonrise Towers, their main base of operations, in Act 2. Should the party make enemies of the cult with the scrying eyes bearing witness, such as killing the goblins leaders during Act 1 or assaulting Moonrise Towers during Act 2, then Gortash's Steel Watch in Act 3 would later on identify them as enemies upon arriving at Wyrm's Crossing and order their arrest.
• Suspicious Videogame Generosity: The Boudoir in the House of Hope has infinite-use Restoration Faucets, which can used to provide all the benefits of a Long Rest (including the restoration of health, spell slots, and abilities that regenerate on Long and Short Rest) to all party members with zero resource use and can be used at any time before exiting the House. You will need all party members to be in tip-top shape before then, as leaving the House triggers the fight with Raphael, which is bar none the hardest fight in the game.
• Take That!:
  • One NPC you can bump into on your adventure is a long-haired, Deadpan Snarker monster hunter from a socially stigmatized culture who goes by the name of Gandrel. Gandrel is a stand-in for Geralt of Rivia, but with none of the same charm or competence, and usually winds up dead at the hands of the party.
  • The game also takes a few potshots at Drizzt Do'Urden.
    • During a part where you're asked various things about your love interest, if you're asked about the person Minthara admires most one of the options is Drizzt, which the properly evil Minthara rejects.
      Minthara: Please. I'd rather spend my nights with a drider than that do-gooder and his pussycat.
    • If you decide to employ the efforts of the twin sibling drow prostitutes, you can ask the male to roleplay as Drizzt. Evidently this is a very common request.
    • Repeatedly clicking on Astarion's character portrait will net you a joke about Drizzt "Don't" 'Urden, which the vampire immediately admits is not funny.
• Take Your Time: Zigzagged overall and a bit inconsistently handled.
  • It's mostly subverted — the passage of time will result in some events concluding without the player's intervention. However, some of the story "timers" don't begin until the player encounters them.
  • Critical, life-or-death situations (such as the missing shipment in Act 1 under attack from gnolls) are often being simulated and only give you minutes to act, while others (such as Nere being trapped in a noxious corridor) are tied to a finite number of Long Rests before they advance without you. However, in this latter case, "time passing" specifically means Long Rests, meaning you can potentially play for hours without the story marching on in your absence as long as you don't sleep in camp.
  • Act 3 narratively implies that the Emperor/Orpheus can't shield you from the elder brain forever, but it's not clear if there's an upper limit to how many Long Rests you can take or if there's another Non-Standard Game Over for exceeding it.
  • There's much hubbub that it is Gortash's coronation day when the party arrives in Baldur's Gate, but Gortash will just stand around in Wyrm's Rock's Audience Hall forever through unlimited long rests, only proceeding with the coronation when the party finally shows up.
• Taking You with Me:
  • Steel Watchers contain a self-destruct mechanism that they active either when near death or directly upon their destruction, dealing massive damage to everything in a considerable radius around them. They're also mostly melee-focused, meaning you're almost guaranteed to have at least one character in the blast zone when it triggers.
  • A handful of other monsters, most prominently the various flavors of mephits, also explode upon death.
• Talking the Monster to Death: Charismatic characters can resolve a lot of otherwise violent encounters without lifting a finger, up to and including major boss fights. Some particular examples:
  • You can meet a cursed toll collector, Gerrigothe Thorm, who keeps hunting for gold, to pay the toll to cross a river. If you point out to it that there's no one to collect the toll for (or claim the toll's been abolished), Thorm realizes they have no more purpose and explodes.
  • The same area also hosts her brother, a former barkeep who has turned into a morbidly obese undead with a belly that's close to bursting. He keeps asking you for stories while he keeps pouring, and if you keep talking long enough, he'll eventually drink himself to death.
  • The final Thorm sibling can be convinced to let his own nurses cut him to pieces instead of his intended victim by reminding him that Shar's doctrine requires a willing participant. Alternatively, you can make him make his nurses kill each other, and then convince him to kill himself, Moe Greene Special style. This is also the only way to (nominally) save his victim.
  • One of the four gems you need to progress through the Gauntlet of Shar is held by a powerful demon that's bound to Raphael, the cambion that keeps pestering you. You can battle it out with the fiend and his bodyguard, but a sufficiently charming character can actually talk him into killing his guards, then his pet displacer beast, and finally himself. Pulling this one off gets you a lot of funny comments from your party, as well as a close-up of your avatar looking incredibly pleased with themselves.
  • While the fights with Ketheric Thorm can't be avoided entirely, if you pass a Persuasion check to convince him to stand down both times, then Myrkul will beckon him to summon his second form, the Avatar of Myrkul, immediately.
• Take Over the World: Astarion expresses a desire to do this, if the player decides to help him become Vampire Ascendant.
• Take Up My Sword: In the launch day trailer, Jaheira refers to this trope, expressing that heroes like her hope that someone else will pick up where they left off when their time comes.
• Taken for Granite: Several Drow have been petrified by a spectator in the Underdark.
• Tap on the Head: The icon for the non-lethal attacks option is of a hammer striking a figure in the head, with stars circling above them.
• Taunting the Transformed: If the warlock Wyll Ravengard backs out of his literal Deal with the Devil to avoid killing an innocent, his patron permanently forces him into a devilish form as punishment. The Player Character can tell him he had it coming for making such a pact in the first place, or that he's lucky it wasn't worse.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: While most party members are happy to join up and search for a tadpole cure together, Lae'zel is standoffish with any non-Githyanki races and insistent on finding a crèche above any other objectives, setting up her Defrosting Ice Queen arc.
• Test of Pain: Inside the abandoned temple of Selûne, you can stumble upon a worshiper of Loviatar, the goddess of pain. Upon meeting him, he would soon encourage you to alleviate your suffering by undergoing the Rite of Loviatar, which involves enduring a lot of beating. Should you perform this rite correctly by reveling in the pain that is being inflicted upon you, the man will be impressed by your fortitude and grant you Loviatar's blessing in the form of a permanent status buff.
• Talk to Everyone: Nearly every selectable NPC has at least a line to share. Not only that but a cheap spell and/or potion can let you talk to most animals and another will let to you talk to the dead. Making the most of your Interact button will earn you extra items, alternate quest options and a boatload of entertaining dialogue.
• Three-Act Structure: The game is explicitly divided into three acts, each of which cover you and your companions' journey through specific areas and the plot points therein:
  • Act I takes place primarily in the forests surrounding a druids' grove as the quest to save yourselves from the mind flayer tadpoles begins. This is when you first meet the other Origin Characters and come together behind a common cause (if you can keep from killing one another first).
  • Act II takes place in the Shadow-Cursed Lands and introduces the chief antagonists of the story, laying out what is at stake beyond your protagonists' illithid infections.
  • Act III takes place in Baldur's Gate, proper, and sees the heroes confronting the threat to Faerun, deciding the fate of the realm.
• The Three Faces of Eve: Of the three female origin characters, Lae'zel is the seductress as she's the quickest to sleep with you in bed as your relationship with her is purely sexual at the start, Karlach is the child as she Can't Have Sex, Ever and is Endearingly Dorky making her come off as innocent, and Shadowheart is the wife as she's easily the most sensible of the three due to her Pragmatic Villainy and is less innocent than Karlach but is less forward than Lae'zel.
• Timed Mission:
  • Right in the final stretch of the tutorial mission, the game gives you a hard limit of 12 turns to reach the nautiloid's helm before the ship crashes. After three turns, two powerful cambions spawn behind you, giving you even more of an incentive to leg it as quickly as possible.
  • Once you reach Grymforge, you have to rescue True Soul Nere and his captive slaves within 2 long rests. Take too long and Nere will die, as will the slaves. The duergar will leave with the rest of the svirfneblin slaves, preventing their rescue. Annoyingly the game does not make it clear that there's an actual time limit on this one (as opposed to the rest of the game where stuff is narratively described as urgent but you have all the time in the world) until you're about to take your 2nd long rest.
  • Played with regarding the prisoners who are being held at Moonrise Towers in that theoretically the party can take as many long rests as they like without fear of the prisoners being infected or executed, but advancing a key sub-plot within the region before entering the towers will result in all of the prisoners being killed off.
  • When assaulting the Iron Throne, you have six turns to get everyone back in the submarine. There's infinitely respawning enemies, and you have multiple targets to rescue including several captive gnomes, Wyll's father, and Omeluum. It takes the prisoners 2 to 3 turns at full dash to reach the sub once freed (except Omeluum who can teleport himself and a passenger there). Meaning you realistically have 4-5 turns to reach each hostage, and then make your escape with them, all the while stopping the guards from killing them. If Wyll accepted to renew his pact with Mizora, she will provide help. But if he turned her down she will try to ambush his father as he leaves his cell, adding further time pressure. Spells, scrolls and potions of haste, invisibility, misty steps and dimension door are a huge help.
  • The rescue mission at Waukeen's Rest doesn't have an on-screen timer, but the fire will steadily spread throughout the building, killing the characters you're supposed to save if you take too long figuring out how to reach them.
  • Once you arrive at the Baldur's Gate Lower City in Act 3, you'll be informed that Counsellor Florick will be executed in five dawns (long rests), provided that you rescued her from the fire at Waukeen's Rest in Act 1. On the fourth dawn, another notification will pop up to remind you of the deadline should you wish to rescue her. The timer starts when you read one of the execution notices however so if you do not do so and trigger the quest, you basically have as long as you'd want.
  • Once you receive the "Stop the Presses" mission in Act 3, you must complete it before taking a long rest or the Baldur's Mouth will publish a hit piece on you that causes you to lose considerable reputation in the city.
• Toxic Dinosaur: At 10th level, druids gain the ability to Wild Shape into a Dilophosaurus that can spit acid.
• Tragic Intangibility: If Gale dies at the climax of the game, his apparition will appear to deliver a letter during the Playable Epilogue. The player can attempt to hug or kiss him one last time, only to phase through him.
• Tragic Monster: Numerous, especially in Act 2.
  • All the shadow enemies seen in the Shadow-Cursed Lands were once normal people, whose memories you can see by interacting with their remains.
  • Malus Thorm's nurses used to run a normal and compassionate hospital/asylum before being turned undead; some, like Sister Lidwin, are still trying and failing to help patients.
• Trailers Always Spoil: The pre-release reveal of the Dark Urge origin depicted them standing inside of a symbol of Bhaal. Sure enough, the Dark Urge is an amnesiac Bhaalspawn.
  • That Minsc and Jaheira are recurring characters was explicitly revealed in the official launch trailer.
• They Died Because of You: Gortash invokes this before activating the Self-Destruct Mechanism of his Underwater Base when the party arrives to rescue the prisoners, which makes it all the more satisfying if the party manages to get everyone out alive.
• To Hell and Back: The party can travel to the Hells and back in Act 3 on a combination heist and rescue mission.
• Token Evil Teammate: Zig-Zagged. The potential party members are all various shades of Grey-and-Gray Morality, with even the most Obviously Evil recruit Minthara having the excuse of being Brainwashed and Crazy when you first meet. Played Straight when it comes to one of the allies the party can get to assist them in the final battle in Act 3 though: you can enlist Card-Carrying Villain Auntie Ethel the hag. Enver Gortash, one of the Absolute's Chosen, can also team up with you during the first confrontation with the Absolute, though he's killed soon afterwards.
• Turn-Based Combat: The game adopts such a system, a first for the series, though not unfamiliar for Larian Studios, who used turn-based combat for Divinity: Original Sin and its sequel. It's also closer to the tabletop D&D experience than the Real-Time with Pause gameplay seen in previous Baldur's Gate games.
• Twin Threesome Fantasy: The Drow twins Nym and Sorn Orlith working in a brothel in Act 3 can make this fantasy a reality for the player, and turn it into a foursome or fivesome depending on who the player is romancing.
• Underwater Base: Gortash has a prison named the Iron Throne located at the bottom of the ocean, where the Gondian captives and Duke Ravengard are being held.
• Unequal Rites: A sorcerer player character can have several confrontational conversation options with Gale, a wizard.
• The Unfought: The party is able to travel to the hells and kill the Cambion Raphael, but the other Cambion who antagonizes the party throughout the game, Mizora, can never be Killed Off for Real in-game. The best the player can hope for is one of the Multiple Endings which ends on an And the Adventure Continues note with Wyll, Karlach and the player traveling to Avernus to get revenge on Mizora and the rest of Zariel's forces.
• Ungrateful Bastard:
  • A lighthearted and humorous example. If you destroy the goblin leadership all of the tieflings are extremely grateful... except for one kid who says he hates you because now it means he doesn't have to train in swordfighting anymore.
  • Played more seriously with Mayrina after killing Auntie Ethel, where she reveals that she made a deal with the hag to bring her dead husband back to life in exchange for giving Ethel her unborn child. Only when you persuaded her of the hag's true intentions (which you can learn by casting speak with dead on Ethel) would she come to regret her decision and thank you kindly for rescuing her.
  • Rescuing the drow petrified by the spectator in the Underdark results in them backstabbing the party which might be unsurprising given the habits of Lolth-sworn. That is, unless you converse with them as a female drow and convince them to stand down and hand over their memory shard to you. Or if their leader (The wizard among the group) dies during the battle with the spectator (which as a Wizard he's likely to do, as the Spectator can one shot him). At which point the rest of the Drow are just happy to be both freed and be rid of their hated leader.
  • Twice if you help attack the duergar who destroyed one myconid circle. Their Sovereign who escaped will demand you attack another circle that sheltered it because they didn't help it destroy the duergar. Refuse and it attacks you.
• Unintentionally Unwinnable:
  • Some quests require you to read a note to progress. If you destroyed that note with a stray fireball or a similar AoE attack, continuing the quest may be possible by stumbling upon the next step accidentally, but it may also lock you out completely.
  • Some characters are tied to specific events or other characters/monsters for no discernible reason and missing those events or a random monster might lock you out of certain events. A rather unusual example is the Strange Ox in Act 1. Killing it in Act 1 will lock you out of any events or dialogue with it later which is an expected outcome of that decision. But what you won't expect is that it will also make Dammon not appear at Last Light in Act 2. Dammon has no connection to the Strange Ox and won't even have anything to do with it in Act 3 if they both survive until then, but if you kill the Ox in Act 1 then you can kiss your romance with Karlach goodbye since you can now no longer advance her sidequest before Act 3 and she will dump you thinking you "lost interest".
• Unique Enemy: Although not strictly unique, there are quite a few enemy types that are only encountered in a single small area in limited numbers. Examples include a flock of harpies in Act I, meenlocks in Act II, a few minotaurs and hook horrors in the Underdark, or a group of dinosaurs in Act III.
• Unstoppable Rage: The main feature of the Barbarian class.
• Unusual Pets for Unusual People: When his parents refused to get him a kitten as a child, Gale conjured a tressym named Tara instead - though he refers to Tara as a friend, not a pet.
• Unusual User Interface: Much of the more complex workings of the mind flayer ship are seemingly psionic, but the ship's Interdimensional Travel Device is a nest of writhing tentacles; connecting any two of them seems to set a course, and 'strumming' them activates the shift between planes. This is accurate to Realms canon, as each plane has its own resonant frequency, which is why the plane shift spell requires a specially-made metal tuning fork attuned to your destination.
• Upper-Class Twit: The Noble background (available for custom origin characters and Minthara) says that the character is "accustomed to power and privilege," and gains several inspiration points for being a selfish or bossy asshole. One example is the "Noblesse Oblige" inspirational event, which you get by ignoring a companion's pleas or cutting them off in a conversation.
• Vampire Procreation Limit: Astarion explains that being non-fatally bitten by a vampire turns you into a "vampire spawn"; they have some of the abilities and traits of a full vampire, but are nowhere near as powerful and are under the thrall of their creator. If they were to drink the blood of their creator they would become a full vampire themselves, but as Astarion points out, most vampires are competitive and power-hungry, so there's not much motive for them to willingly elevate a thrall into a potential rival.
• Vengeance Feels Empty: Karlach will discuss this after the party kill Gortash, noting that actually killing that individual hasn't solved the actual heart of her issues, and that while it made her feel better for a few moments, she's still doomed.
• Video Game Caring Potential:
  • You can recruit a dog named Scratch to your camp, and not only can you pet it, you can even play fetch with it! A bit later you can also save an owlbear cub from a band of vicious goblins, leading the adorable fluffball to join your camp soon after and eventually befriend Scratch if they're both present.
  • If you're the boy scout type of RPG player, the game gives you countless opportunities to go out of your way to help people in need, save innocents from baddies or other dangers, and generally roleplay as a stereotypical All-Loving Hero. Easily the most impactful act of good in the early game is to save a druid grove full of tiefling refugees from a murderous goblin army (and themselves). For more examples, take a look at the (by no means exhaustive) list of evil stuff you can do below and be assured there's at least one heroic alternative for each and every entry.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: Boy howdy, can you be a monster of a Villain Protagonist in this game.
  • If you save Auntie Ethel from the two men accosting her during your first encounter with her, you can later tell the little girl she's 'babysitting' to her face that nobody is coming to save her, because you killed the only people who knew where she was.
  • If you end up killing Ethel, you can tease a mourning woman with the possibility of resurrecting her husband with a wand, only to break it right in front of her.
  • It's entirely possible to kill Halsin in the Goblin Camp, for no other reason than because you thought it would be funny to show goblin children the right kinds of stones to throw at the poor, caged bear.
  • Wanna help goblins slaughter a camp full of refugees, including children? You can do that.
  • Instead of helping a bard write a song for her late teacher, you can smash her lute instead.
  • Wanna engage in some good, old-fashioned Cold-Blooded Torture of a prisoner at that same Goblin Camp? You can do that.
  • Wanna egg on a mad-with-power de facto druid leader into horribly murdering a tiefling child whose biggest sin was thievery after a misguided attempt to help her mother? You can do that.
  • Wanna stand by and do nothing, or even help, as a bunch of gnomes who were all Made a Slave are slaughtered by an Ungrateful Bastard for digging him out of a cave-in too slowly? You can do that, too.
  • Every companion has one or more points where you can leave them to be Killed Off for Real, some of them involving particularly soul crushing betrayals of their trust in you. Their Relationship Values being high or even being your romanced partner doesn't remove these options either, if you really want to kick the dog.
  • One of the most heinous options in the game in a lot of players' eyes is to adopt Scratch and later return him to his abusive owner, who promptly locks him in a cage.
• Video Game Perversity Potential: There is absolutely nothing stopping you from turning nudity on in the settings, stripping yourself and all of your party members down, and cavorting about the Sword Coast as a band of nudist murderhobos. It's even mechanically encouraged to a certain degree if your gameplay tastes lean this direction; since every party member has two sets of clothes, one for adventuring and one for casual wear at camp, that you can toggle between being visible as their active set, you can go streaking throughout the entire game without tanking your Armor Class into the dirt or losing out on any of the abilities and bonuses from your enchanted gear.
• Villain Song: "Raphael's Final Act".
• Villain with Good Publicity: Gortash, who is appointed Grand Duke of Baldur's Gate shortly after the party arrives in the city. It helps that his Steel Watch is seen as a force of good despite being oppressive of the populace and manufactured by slave labor, and it helps that Bhaal's murder cult under the Dark Urge had been killing his opponents to fuel his rise to power before Orin usurped them.
• Villainous Breakdown: Orin can have one if the player reveals she was born as the product of Villainous Incest.
• Villainous Incest: Sarevok conceived Orin with his own daughter.
• Visual Title Drop: When the nautiloid shifts into the middle of a Blood War battle in the introductory cutscene, it's greeted by three floating towers/ships, the same sharp, sweeping shape as the III in Baldur's Gate III. They're apparently a kind of troop carrier for the devils, as swarms of imps pour out and attack the new arrival.
• Vocal Dissonance:
  • In Early Access, you can equip a traditionally male voice on a female character or vice versa when customizing the protagonist. The full release takes this even further, as the gender, voice, and genitals options are all entirely disconnected from each other.
  • Disturbingly, a hidden conversation you can potentially have with a Giant Spider (you need the Speak with Animals spell) gives the hideous and chittering creature the sultry voice of a Scottish woman.
• Wake-Up Call Boss:
  • The encounter with the "Paladins of Tyr" as part of Karlach's recruitment tends to be the first major combat hurdle players tend to hit. The lead "paladin", Anders, in particular tends to be a huge pain in the ass. He has decent AC due to his armor and can cast Shield of Faith to add to that. He also hits like a freight train at this level and he's level 5, which means he gets two attacks and most players at this point of the game will still be level 3 or 4. And as he is a paladin, he WILL spend his first few turns of the fight repeatedly smiting your party for heavy damage. It's easy for him to quickly mow down a party member at least once per turn. Also he has back up and they aren't slouches either. Time to learn how to best use your spells and the environment to your advantage or else you'll get smote again and again.
  • Dror Ragzlin is one of the three goblin bosses that you have to kill as part of the "Save the Grove" questline and he's easily the hardest. He's surrounded by goblins and Absolute cultists which means the action economy is in his favor. Also, similar to Anders above, he's level 5 which means he has an extra attack as part of his action, as well as tadpole powers such as Repulsor which can knock you and your allies down into the spider pit directly in front of him or the Bottomless Pit in the back corner of his room which will lead to an instant death. Finally there aren't many dialogue options that will make the encounter much easier, you're likely just going to have to kill him. Once again, learning how to best use your spells, abilities and terrain are your best hope of winning as trying to brute force your way through is very difficult.
• We Buy Anything: All non-hostile NPCs will buy literally anything not flagged as story progression (an orange border), including rotten produce, personal letters with no utility beyond the material they're printed on, and brains in a jar, though merchants are usually the only ones with enough gold to pay for it.
• We Need a Distraction: Many emergent gameplay examples per Larian's Immersive Sim tendencies:
  • The entire premise of minor illusion is that people will investigate it, drawing them from their usual routines.
  • Cat familiars, and cat-shifted Druids, can draw attention with a "Meow!" ability.
  • NPCs will gather around a performing character, provided the character is proficient in the instrument (otherwise they just swear at and threaten you).
  • You can swap control to another character while in a dialogue, meaning one character can keep an NPC busy through conversation while another gets up to hijinks.
• Weakened by the Light: All vampires character except Astarion have a skill called Sunlight Hypersensitivity which causes them to take 20 radiant damage at the start of their turn and have disadvantage of Attack Rolls and Ability Checks while in sunlight. Although you never fight vampires in a place that has sunlight you can bring it into the fight with the Blood of Lathander legendary mace or the Daylight spell.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: A cross-media example. The Legends of Baldur's Gate comics, which Minsc more-or-less states are canon to the game, have Minsc joining a group of True Companions with whom he has numerous adventures with. Come this game, however, they're nowhere to be found and Minsc makes no mention of any old friends outside of Jaheira.
• What the Hell, Hero?: If you sided with Minthara and her goblin army during the raid on Silvanus' Grove, even some of your more evil companions won't be overjoyed, to say nothing of the more righteous ones. Wyll will cut ties with you no matter what (if he didn't already turn on you by being in your party when you made the decision), and so will Karlach, and Gale will also deliver a "The Reason You Suck" Speech to you for taking part in the massacre of refugees and druids and you have to clear a skill check to convince him to stay. Shadowheart is also noticeably torn up about it, causing her to drown her sorrows, and if you free Minthara from the Absolute's influence and properly recruit her in Act 2, even she will call you out by noting that her actions at the time were influenced by the Absolute, while yours were not.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Most of the Duergar and Drow seen in the game have white hair and a sinister temperament, most notably Token Evil Teammate Minthara.
• Whole-Plot Reference: The story of the game centers around an apocalypse cult formed by high priests of Bane, Myrkul, and Bhaal seeking to tether an extraplanar Eldritch Abomination in order to secure their dominance of the world. This is almost exactly identical to the plot of the infamous 3.5e adventure Age of Worms, whose story centers around an apocalypse cult formed by high priests of Hextor, Vecna, and Erythnul - the respective Greyhawk counterparts of the above gods - seeking to tether an extraplanar Eldritch Abomination in order to secure their dominance of the world. The operating difference is that the cult here is using an Elder Brain, whereas the cult in Worms is using the demigod Kyuss, but even then both monstrosities use mind-corrupting worms to control and transform their victims.
• William Telling: Lorrokan can be introduced about to attempt this by proxy with one of his Elementals as Tell and a poor assistant with an apple on his head.
• Wizards from Outer Space: The war between the githyanki and the illithids is essentially two warring alien factions (from other planes rather than space) in a high-fantasy setting, with the appropriate technology. While the mind flayers have Organic Technology starships and stasis pods and abduct people, the githyanki have datapad-like communicators and holographic projectors ("planecasters"). Both use psychic powers.
• Womb Level: Any illithid lair looks like one due to their copious use of Organic Technology.
• Wooden Stake: Following the reveal that Astarion is a vampire, you immediately pick up a stick and break it in two to form a stake. Astarion will initially knock it out of your hands, but you have several opportunities during the conversation to use the stake, killing him if you do.
• The Worf Barrage: Much is made of Ketheric's invincibility. When the player finally meets him, his introductory cutscene has him taking a spear to the chest and an axe to the neck, and nonchalantly shrugging them off.
• Would Hurt a Child: Children are not safe in this game.
  • The archdruid Kagha can become responsible for the death of the tiefling child Arabella, as Kagha's pet snake bites Arabella's leg when she tries to flee. The child dies (almost) instantly.
  • While the druid Halsin is held in a goblin prison in his bear form, two goblin children torture him by throwing rocks at him through the bars. When you try to rescue him, in addition to the goblin guards, the children are also marked as hostile. Yes, you can kill them. And if you don't, Halsin probably will. (If you don't kill them and Halsin doesn't get them, they run for reinforcements.)
  • Auntie Ethel straight up eats a child in Act 3 and you need to take specific steps to save her. If you don't and kill Ethel anyway, the child will die.
  • In Act 3 an orphan named Yenna can join your camp. Since the murderous shapeshifter, Orin, is on the loose then Lae'zel will claim she saw Orin change into Yenna and then hold her at knife point. If you don't talk Lae'zel down or even give the order yourself, Lae'zel will cut her throat and then realize that Yenna wasn't Orin.
  • Another Act 3 sidequest involves a toymaker getting blackmailed into filling teddy bears with explosives and donating them to refugee children.
• You Are Worth Hell: One of the Multiple Endings for a player romancing Karlach has the two travel to Avernus to be together.
• You Can't Thwart Stage One:
  • You can't get rid of the parasite during Act 1, despite meeting several people who should be able to fix you. Instead, you discover that your parasite has been altered by powerful magic, which is why you haven't turned, but also why nobody can get it out.
  • While you do succeed in taking out Ketheric and potentially reversing the Shadow curse in Act 2, you cannot stop the Absolute armies from launching their invasion, or from Duke Ravengard getting brainwashed into working for Gortash. By the time you make it to Baldur's Gate, Gortash is already putting the finishing touches on his coronation, and if you try to put a stop to it the way Gorion's Ward did for Sarevok in the first game, it will likely end very poorly for you.
  • You can't keep the Netherbrain from escaping the bonds of the Netherstones and attacking Baldur's Gate. If you try to side with Gortash the brain will quickly kill him during your confrontation and even if you managed to get a critical success to pass the normally impossible DC 99 check, you will still fail to bind it and will have to chase it down later for the final battle.
• Your Days Are Numbered:
  • The player character and their companions have been infected with illithid tadpoles, meaning that they are on the road to becoming mind flayers themselves unless something is done to stop the process. However, after the illithid ship and its mind flayer masters were destroyed, the tadpoles seem to have gone dormant. It's implied that some outside force is slowing the process, possibly in the form of a new god calling itself the Absolute.
  • Karlach's heart was replaced with an infernal engine which is too hot to function in the Material Plane; it's slowly melting and the only way it can properly function is to return to Avernus. Karlach is perfectly fine with leaving it to melt as it means she dies free.
• You Have Failed Me: Both Minthara and Ketheric are introduced punishing a goblin with death for failing some task they have sent them on. If Minthara survives the events of Act 1, Ketheric is introduced sentencing her to death instead.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: If you use Detect Thoughts on The Emperor at the start of Act 3:
  Emperor: You must be joking. I am TELLING you my thoughts. Directly. Into. Your. Head.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
  • If you help the mind flayer defeat the cambion commander in the tutorial level, it'll declare that you're no longer needed and turn hostile. Depending on how much health it has left after its fight against the cambion, this might well end poorly for your party.
  • The goblins and Minthara were this way in Early Access, as they always planned to kill you even if you sided with them. This is averted in the final release, as while Minthara still gets suspicious and tries to kill you, talking her down will cause her and most of the goblins to leave you in peace.
  • A combination of this and They Know Too Much results in Queen Vlaakith ordering your party's death the moment they return from the Astral Prism at the tail-end of Act I.
• You Have Researched Breathing: In 5e, one of the main actions available to all characters is "Dodge," which confers disadvantage on enemy attack rolls until your next turn. In the game, the only characters who can dodge are the ones who take a feat to do so, or who have a specific class ability that enables it.
• You Won't Like How I Taste: Upon learning that Astarion is a vampire, Gale warns him that he tastes "absolutely awful". Should Astarion try to drink his blood anyways, he'll learn Gale isn't bluffing - Gale's blood actually poisons Astarion.
• Your Mind Makes It Real: When one of the githyanki's dragon rips off the nautiloid's tentacle, the mind flayer at the helm grasps his arm, suggesting that it felt the attack. The psionic illithids presumably control the ship mostly through their Psychic Powers.

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It's party time.