Real Lich Hours wants your Act 2 Thoughts
Added 2024-08-26 17:25:16 +0000 UTCWe're close to giving Myrkul a slap in the mouth, so please share your Act 2 thoughts on Baldur's Gate 2 for an extended Forum segment. Keep it concise and specific, as always!
Please reply in the comments of this post.
Alora
Gary
Comments
The Shadow Cursed Lands are such a fun idea, ya'll have mentioned how much of a survival horror feel it has but I love this twisted destroyed zone and uncovering the past of the Thorm family alongside the cause of the curse. I've been making Honor Mode attempts and trying to pursue some of the evil durge options, I lost my last Act 2 attempt in possibly the most boneheaded way possible. I intentionally let Isobel get captured because I wanted to see the Last Light fight play out, this was *before* getting the camp event where Sceleritas Fel gives you the quest to kill her. At the next long rest, I was approached by him with an offer, Kill La'zel in her sleep in order to get the slayer form. Since I'm roleplaying as a shitheel on this file, and I had already recruited Minthara who was La'zel's party replacement, I was like, sure. This was a mistake. The next morning, every one of my other party members approached me, demanding an explanation. I had a DC 30 deception check to convince them La'zel was turning from the tadpole and had to be put down. Failed that check 5 times with all my buffs and using all my inspiration, which turned the entire camp hostile. Had to permanently kill every single companion, and the run was effectively over for me, though I didn't wipe. My current Honor Mode attempt is deep into the Shar Gauntlet and I have been refusing the urge a lot more, to hopefully avoid further party mutiny. Love the show, take care ya'll. -Alex
Alex D
2024-09-17 14:02:26 +0000 UTCMy limited gaming time meant that I had been seeing reactions online about how it's the weakest part of the game for months before I finally got to the Shadow Lands myself, so I was very pleasantly surprised by just how much I enjoyed Act 2, especially in contrast to the other Acts. You're at a great power level character-wise, having access to a wide range of great spells and abilities, while still having lots of room to grow and be outclassed by enemies. I also really liked picking my way through one zone at a time, each play session being able to focus on one quest, or one location, each with a really interesting conversation or boss fight at the end. Because I can usually only play for an hour at a time, a couple days a week, that style of play is much more satisfying than getting overwhelmed by a flood of new sidequests.Finally, Ketheric Thorm is so much more interesting to me than the villains of Act 1, or what I've seen so far of Orin and Gortash. I'm a sucker for the tragic villain whose relatable goals lead him to lose everything, and J.K. Simmons' scene-chewing delivery sells the hell out of it. When it all ended with a marathon of fun fights and unloading all of my paladin's Divine Smites into a giant angry skeleton god? *Chef's kiss* Beautiful.
Patrick Galasso
2024-09-06 13:32:47 +0000 UTCThe game still found opportunities for levity, but I remember at first blush being shocked at how hard the tone shifted into gruesome violence and horror. That whiplash is something I really enjoyed, it is still one of the strongest memories I have of the game. Fun bit - on my first unspoiled playthrough, playing as Durge, I somehow was able to recruit both Halsin and Minthara. I did not take advantage of glitches, I did not even know they were supposed to be mutually exclusive. I just remember thinking it was weird that they stood clipping through each other in camp, sharing a tent and never acknowledging each other. I still don’t know how this happened.
Clever Clogs
2024-09-03 23:10:41 +0000 UTCWhen I started exploring the Gauntlet of Shar, I saw a displacer beast down the hall marked as an enemy and decided to get an alpha strike on it, only to have some random hell guys I hadn't seen down a second hallway suddenly join the fight. It felt like a bug at the time, but I killed them all and went on with the dungeon. It wasn't until I went to camp hours later that I realized the big hell guy in that group was the creature Raphael has tasked me with killing for Astarion's quest. I was shocked. Raphael had really made it sound like it was gonna be much tougher. So it was really interesting hearing from you guys all the cool things could have happened if I hadn't just seen an enemy and attacked it. When I completed all of the trials and took the big central elevator down, somehow three of my four party members bugged out on the elevator. Gale forgot to move with it and fell into the abyss to his death. Astarion nearly did the same, but he landed on a tiny piece of geometry just inches above the kill plane and survived with 1 HP, so I couldn't just go to Withers and revive him. Shadowheart somehow repeatedly hovered in place for about a second as the elevator moved down, then fell to catch up with it, taking fall damage each time, and losing consciousness by the end of the ride. It was kind of amazing actually. Bugs like that are funny the first time, but just annoying the second through fifth time, which unfortunately did happen, because I had to make a couple trips back and forth.
Spencer Rawls
2024-09-03 22:36:55 +0000 UTCAct 2's setting feels oppressive, so although it's a good contrast from Act 1's Fantasy Wilds and Act 3's eponymous urban sprawl, it's not my favorite to spend time in. "Darkness with hope of redemption" is not only literal with the magical curse and Thaniel; it's clearly an overarching theme of the Act. We discover the precarious origins of The Absolute and take on the first of the Dead Three's Chosen. Shadowheart decides whether to become a Dark Justiciar or try to remember herself. The Dark Urge decides whether to heed Sceleritas or resist his murderous impulses. Gale decides whether to blow himself up or value himself more highly than Mystra’s high-handed command. At the end of Act 2, almost everyone has a better sense of who they are and what they're about.
Joseph
2024-08-31 13:14:18 +0000 UTCAct 2 is where I most felt a message you guys have been adamant about and even touched on in the latest WOFF dispatch. Failure. Is. Interesting. I had set out to only allow myself to try for a different outcome if I had experienced a total party wipe. This managed to save Last Light Inn and talk Thisobald Thorm to death, for example. What this does not account for is completely missing things. As a result, I never knew Mol made a deal with Raphael, the Tieflings and Rock Gnomes were never found, the assault on moonrise was my first time walking in, Jaheira died valiantly in the fight, Art Cullagh never woke up and obviously the shadow curse was never lifted. As such, I lost the companion I cared the least about, Halsin. It felt like a defeat. I’d practically have to play all of act 2 again to fix it, but I wouldn’t even know where to start as I didn’t know what went wrong. But why fix it? My party failed, and failure means growth. Thank you guys for helping me learn to embrace failure, it certainly makes for interesting stories!
Corva Cobb
2024-08-29 17:28:05 +0000 UTCThe act 1 to act 2 transition from good time hippie adventure to horrors beyond my comprehension is awesome. It amazes me how BG3 is able to pull off so many different themes and genres. I remember dropping into meat orifice and hearing chop chop through the walls and getting goosebumps. I shouldn’t be seeing this, I shouldn’t be here. The absolute is absolutely spooky!
Soulful Bison
2024-08-29 16:35:48 +0000 UTCAct 2 was the act where I truly molted into the A-Hole rogue I wanted to be. Being greeted by Jaheira at the Last Light, she was suspicious of me. Rightly so but this disrespect couldn't stand. Marcus let me in, and in turn made himself known to be one with the Absolute crew. Why not help this bro out so he can then let me into Moonrise so I can rob them all from the inside. One Isobel betrayal later and we star swipe to Jaheira saying to me "All my Harpers are gone." To which I reply "Listen, we're all trying to find the one responsible for this." Smash cut to me walking into Moonrise as "one of them" to rob the merchants, guards, and even rob the tower of its prisoner -Minthara. Smuggling her out by pure guile was my favorite part of act 2 with a close second: just sneaking around the entire fight where you are supposed to storm Moonrise. Fight you all head on? No thanks, let's just cut through the kitchen. Thank you for the wonderful show, I am loving the format you have chosen.
Matthew Woodyard
2024-08-28 05:01:59 +0000 UTCThe assault on Moonrise in Act 2 cemented one of my favourite things with my Baldur's Gate 3 experience, accepting suboptimal victories. I hit Moonrise for the first time after the Gauntlet of Shar. I hadn't gone there before because I wanted to wait until I had backup to rescue the prisoners. The tower was full of guards and in the brutal fight in the opening room every single Harper other than Jaheria was killed. Then in the dungeons I found I was too late to rescue the prisoners, with them having already been taken to the Illithid colony. At that point I could have reloaded, accepted I'd lost a few hours and gone back to rescue to the prisoners. But I didn't. And I think it's a testament to the game that I want to accept the imperfect successes it gives me like I would at the table, because that flawed victory felt like *my* victory. And even if most of the hostages died, I reassured myself knowing all of them would have if I hadn't done anything. A lot of games have you play the perfect hero who saves everyone, but I loved my time as an imperfect one trying to doing the best they can given the circumstances.
Kerr
2024-08-27 23:00:09 +0000 UTCI don’t know if this is a glitch but my very first playthrough I was in the gauntlet and Shar in the room with the pit where you’re supposed to jump across. And I got confused and just clicked the final platform and Karlach just decided to walk across the void to get there and I was laughing and very confused. I still don’t know if that was intentional by the devs or just a glitch.
nokuuu
2024-08-27 14:53:49 +0000 UTCAs a lesbian who grew up getting bullied/bashed for it, seeing Isabel and Aylin be so open really meant a lot to me. BG3 isn't perfect, but to have a character be so brazen about her sexuality, like Aylin, really was great. I wish that act 2 had kept its original draft where Halsin had killed Isobel though. Halsin really just... felt like dead weight through my entire playthrough. Playing as the durge and having to resist Baal's hissy fit when I refused to follow his rules (I was playing a drow lady lol) was also interesting, as you don't necessarily get penalized, but you do lose out on strong bonuses. I think that act 2 is where the cracks start to really show and those cracks seem to spiral out from Halsin and his... jarring presence. Begging him to calm down with the innuendo too lol please my guy just go bone Laezel in your tent.
JACKAL ALLTRADES
2024-08-27 13:41:44 +0000 UTCIt's definitely my least favorite by wide margin. It's like a linear D&D module which is OK. But everything feels like a chore probably due to the attention tax and atmosphere you mention. The gauntlet of Shar is the worst part of the game for me on replay even though I shortcut all the trials its just annoying box checking to me. There is also the feeling of "when are they getting to the (literal) fireworks factory in Baldur's Gate? I don't want to do all this other shit!"
Karsomir
2024-08-27 12:19:42 +0000 UTCI kinda hated Shadowheart, felt too much like the game wanted a pandering girl next door type and so I never took her out with me. That of course included the gauntlet of shar, as at that point I forgot she was even shar aligned. The dungeon mostly goes the same way, from what I remember, except Shadowheart leaves your party back at camp because you disrespected her. She was not missed.
Naveen Sivakumar
2024-08-27 12:17:02 +0000 UTCAfter meeting Ketheric, Gerringothe, and Thisobald for the first time, I was completely convinced they were all directly related to Raphael (who you run into at Last Light), and that the middle portion of the game was taking a weird theological bent where you were going to fight all seven cardinal sins (assuming Wrath, Greed, and Gluttony were now accounted for). Obviously it didn't pan out, but I spent a not brief amount of time doubling back over the map looking for a "Snooze-us Thorm, Avatar of 40 winks" or whatever.
Pat
2024-08-27 11:34:42 +0000 UTCI love Act 2, I love the vibes of the Shadow-cursed land,I love how oppressive it is and how the devs made it just as oppressive in gameplay. You can’t take a step without a torch less you be swallowed by the shadows. And it’s neat that the game allows for several ways to counter it. Like using the Blood of Lathander, cast Light on yourself, have someone carry a torch. It embodies all of the design quirks of this developer that I really.
Christopher Grunert Pedersen
2024-08-27 10:36:27 +0000 UTCLike Gary, my first time through the Gauntlet of Shar I guessed that Yurgir's displacer beast was leading me into a trap so I jumped the chasm and went around. Unfortunately, as I approached the ambush I wasn't paying enough attention and despite passing the perception check to see Yurgir and his minions I did not have time to stop and enter turn based mode before entering combat. Yurgir went first in initiative, threw a handful of mines in the middle of my party, and then shot them with his cross bow, killing Wyll and Shadowheart, knocking down my Tav, and leaving Karlach with half health. It was one of my few party wipes and made my eventual victory over him that much sweeter. I didn't even realize you could talk to him until my co-op run through a couple of months later! The recording for anyone interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwW-2ypHKZc
Scott Alspach
2024-08-27 05:03:36 +0000 UTC-Act 2 was fun, enjoyed noticing Yurgir and his posse and sneaking up to ambush their ambush. -Felt great tricking Yurgir and posse into killing themselves on my first try. -Side note, have you fellas chatted at all about the recent Dragon Age V trailers and youre opinions?
Joe Binson
2024-08-27 03:12:37 +0000 UTCSo I somehow completely missed the memo that you're supposed to infiltrate Moonrise BEFORE doing the Gauntlet of Shar on my first playthrough, playing on balanced difficulty. I found the Gauntlet before ever going there and figured that I ought to do it before hitting Moonrise 'cause I knew I needed to take the Nightsong away from Team Evil. I ended up blundering right past the game's big, flashing "you are passing a point of no return" warning sign. Cue "Garfield 'I wonder who that's for' dot jpeg" I continued my playthrough none the wiser, occasionally wondering "gee when am I gonna get to rescue the hostages?" The huge encounter at the front gate was easily the most difficult for me of the entire playthrough up to that point, not helped by the fact that I had failed to do any of the pre-battle softening of defenses that you're encouraged to do. I don't think I've ever had to reload a save so many times for one fight. Fast forward to the end of Act 2 and the hostages were still nowhere to be found. A quick google informed me that I had gotten them all killed about ten hours prior. After some agonizing I decided to reload to before the point of no return. I just couldn't bear to let Mol get killed.
Sam
2024-08-27 02:31:36 +0000 UTCI had my light bulb moment about the permissiveness of this game when I was doing my first playthrough of The Gauntlet of Shar. It was late, I was tired and I had missed a couple umbral gems but I decided to go down the lift to the big door just to see if there was another way in. Asterion, my sentient lockpick, knew knock and so I figured I would give it a try to get around having to backtrack. I was absolutely blown away when the "100%" success chance dialouge poped up when I moused over the door. Love this game.
baldwise
2024-08-26 23:37:25 +0000 UTCMy assault on Moonrise ended up being one of the more challenging encounters in my first playthrough because I didn't take Jaheira up on her offer to become a temporary companion. My logic was that I wanted to take on Ketheric with my battle-hardened crew, but little did I know that this would turn the first stage of the Moonrise assault into the "Keep Jaheira Alive Slapstick Hour", where I had to prevent her suicidal NPC AI from running into ever AoE and cluster of melee fighters on the map. I got it on my third try, at least in part by intentionally getting Jaheira to repeatedly slip on ice in the entrance while the rest of my party charged ahead to create some distance. Looking forward to a future "Up On A Soapbox" section about protecting NPCs; a certain Act 3 encounter also had me tearing my hair out with how little preservation instinct friendly characters have.
Eric Van Fleet
2024-08-26 23:09:45 +0000 UTCMy prevailing memory of Act 2 is being upstairs in the office, working on school stuff, and hearing the sounds of my wife reloading saves like Jesse Ventura with his finger glued to Ol' Painless: "I collect the TOLL, I collect the GOLD!" *furious dialogue skipping* "MORE GOLD!" *dice roll* ....Nope. "Come the fuck ON!" We fell into the depths of lunacy and hysterical laughter shortly thereafter. It's become one of our weird couple things.
Jody Vyrostek
2024-08-26 22:45:44 +0000 UTCAct two is a very funny one to me. I cannot believe that I missed Halsin on my first playthrough because I did not open all the doors inside the Last Light Inn. It feels a bit messier than act one, giving less direction to explore than the first half of act one. I felt like I stumbled into things frequently, arriving at the temple of Shar by wandering around before being told to go there by anyone. Still, it's an excellent ramp up of the stakes, and I love the twist at the end.
KayofJohanna
2024-08-26 21:40:16 +0000 UTCI missed the vast majority of Act 2 on my first play through. Somehow I bumbled my way to the end, missing almost all the super cool optional bosses, not curing the shadow curse, and having an extremely unclear idea of who Thorm is, or what I was doing. It’s cool when a game is so open that you can miss most of the content, and I went back and did a proper run on my second character, but man was I confused.
mwh
2024-08-26 21:34:46 +0000 UTCOne of the fondest moments of the game so far was the start of Act 2. I was trying to infiltrate Moonrise by pretending to be one of the bad guys. In my mind, this section of the game felt somewhat linear and I thought there wasn't much else I could do at this point due to the shadow curse preventing me from exploring much. So when I came across the prison and triggered a cool escape sequence, and they asked me if I wanted to follow along on their boat, I assumed this would be a small divergence. Something would happen on the boat that forced me to return to Moonrise. But to my surprise I arrived at the Last Light, a place full of characters and freaking Jaheira, and I was given the power to roam somewhat freely across the entire map all of a sudden, all from what seemed like a minor side-quest I had just stumbled upon... I know it's late in the game, but that's really where I finally understood what the hype for this game was all about.
Patrik
2024-08-26 19:32:51 +0000 UTCAct 2 was all about one spell for me: Spirit Guardians. With so many enemies weak to radiant damage I was constantly having Shadowheart up-cast this spell and then spend every turn using disengage and just running around to every enemy one at a time. My head cannon was that my whole team is full of very disciplined fighters….and Shadowheart…who spends every fight running around screaming hysterically until the bad guys are all gone.
Nathan Adair
2024-08-26 18:49:42 +0000 UTCAct 2 is nuts. The culmination of so much of what you’ve seen and guessed at through the entire game. The amount of choices that you can make here all ending up at Ketheric is really impressively done. The host of villains here is the real treat from the Thorm family, to Balthazar, to the weirdo with the bird, it’s a ramped up colorful rogue’s gallery just for us. Being able to get Minthara and/or Jaheira here keeps your party momentum and you end Halsin’s century long quest. Shit’s fun. It’s the one part of the game that feels contained and instanced and I think it’s totally to its benefit. This feels monumental both to the player and the world. Seeing Aylin banish the darkness while flying through the skies after we freed her was the definition of epic.
Mateus Silva
2024-08-26 17:41:59 +0000 UTCFeel free to ignore as this isn’t specific to Act2: Wondering if you all would consider a general Larian podcast Ala Bonfireside Chat. The DOS2 Woffs were great but I’d love to hear it get the full treatment!
Richard Cochnar
2024-08-26 17:39:39 +0000 UTCMy first playthrough of Act 2 I met the Harper party fighting off shadows. After the fight they told me to follow them to safety. I then made the mistake of talking to Gale because he had an exclamation point over him. By the time the conversation was over the Harpers were out of sight and I didn’t notice what direction they went. I picked a path that didn’t pass near the inn so I never noticed it. I only had the moonrise tower quest marker to go by so I brute forced my way there hopping over chasms. I was able to get to moonrise tower using misty step and other movement boosts to get to safety before the curse killed me. I didn’t meet Jaheira until the end battles and I didn’t meet Isobel until Kethric was dead. It was probably not the intended experience.
Karsomir
2024-08-26 17:38:17 +0000 UTC^I actually had a really similar experience where I did the whole gauntlet of shar before getting to moonrise for the first time. I thought it was optional content Overall, this act had a cooler story than 1, but I enjoyed 1 much more because it felt less linear and the optional content was more engaging. The sense of progression also really slows down. In act 1 you level constantly and each new piece of gear is often replacing nothing. Getting a 5th option for a helmet isn’t as fun as getting your first amulet for a character
Timeandwatch
2024-08-26 17:37:07 +0000 UTCThere are a lot of cool moments in act two, but to me it is the weakest of the three acts by a decent margin. I get that it's going for a dark and creepy atmosphere, but the lack of color and variety in the environment makes it feel duller and more samey than act one, and the attention tax for handing the shadow curse when exploring got annoying enough that act two is where i dropped my second playthrough. JK Simmons is one of only a couple of bright spots in an otherwise pretty dreary act.
Ethan Ryan
2024-08-26 17:34:38 +0000 UTCThe gauntlet of Shar was one of the first places I went in act 2. So after freeing the Nightsong and seeing Last Light get all jazzed up about storming Moonrise I decided the best thing to do was.... The rest of the zone. Hours and many long rests later I finally start my assault of the tower. Only to find all my allies including Jahira super duper dead and no prisoners to free in the dungeon. Whoops!
Matt DiTomaso
2024-08-26 17:29:27 +0000 UTC
