He wasn't a nihilist though. A nihilist finds no reason to be. Everything he did in the end was in the vain hope of having her daughter back. He had a reason to be.
That isn't a nihilist. A nihilist is someone who believes life has no inherent meaning.
Choosing to then kill everyone can still be a nihilistic response, as you don't believe the consequences really matter.
>Be very powerful paladin for good(ish) god Selune >Be corrupted by god of traitors Shaar, archnemesis of selune >Turn to upstart god of grief and undeath Myrkuul to save your daughter
It's pretty coherent all things considered, every god had a reason to work with him, and him with them.
Nihilists think there's no point. He explicitly had an objective, which was to save his daughter at any cost. As to if it was reasonable?
Not really. Understandable and human? Very. It's a classic tragedy.
They are chosen invoking their respective gods, obviously it's stereotypical fantasy, it's a dungeon and dragon game. Did you want them to use naruto handsigns ? Do you not know DnD ?
Sensible take, but the ruthlessness of his methods was driven by his obsession over his dead kid. I agree he's a deeply flawed and ultimately evil character, but his motivation is clear and logical. Very well-written villain imo
I feel like bg3 is an caricature of what people complained about ds3 having too much fanservice; there's just too much shit going on; any one or two of those things would have been a sufficient 'focal point' or main theme for the story but they tried to do it all at once and it just got really fricking silly
case in point; the "party members", I get the whole you can play as each party member, but every single goddamn person has some serious main-character-syndrome going on; especially when you consider the fact that this is a starting at lv1 module or whatever. Like if anyone came to a physical table and gave their DM their charactersheet for their lv1 whatever and was like oh yeah, legendary folk hero and son of the mayor, fought in the blood war for ten thousand years and has some kind of mechanical heart, vampire whatever, mystra's lover has some sort of nuclear bomb inside of them, gith warrior etc.... they'd be told to frick right off
this would all be acceptable if it was some motb style epic campaign where everyone's seen some shit and has a cuhrazy backstory, but in bg3 it just was incredibly awkward
They do address it by saying the tadpole respec'd them to level 1. Wyll and Gale outright say they used to be really high level casters that were put back to 0.
Wish/True Resurrection aren't handled with much respect to canon here.
I see no reason why we can't just get somebody to cast true resurrection on Karlach after she burned up. She'd come back normal. >MUH SHE REFUSES TO COME
She would come if that was the plan.
Even with BG3's setting in mind, the world's drowning in Revivify scrolls. Merkal's butt boy there could have stumbled over a merchant carrying one, threw gold at him, and got his daughter back.
This dude is the worst rpg clusterfrick writing in a long while. >serves one god >switches to another god for uhhh reasons >daughter dykes out and dies >turns everyone into nihilists >gets an army >loses the army >switches god again >turns everyone into zombies >then turns everyone into squids >gets army again >loses it again >jobs to party once >jobs twice >jobs in his final form
There's like 4 different jrpg villains here mashed together.
>serves one god >switches to another god for uhhh reasons >daughter dykes out and dies
You've got that turned around, his wife and daughter died, so he converted to Shar, becasue she's an edgy c**t. The Shadow Curse comes from this time, after he and his Sharran army are defeated. He then promises his soul to Murkyl, rezzes his daughter and does the absolute stuff.
honestly I didn't get to act 3, I dropped around act 2 when my party was around lv8 or so, felt like I had 'seen what there was to see' mechanically speaking (8 to 12 doesn't add that much), any difficulty had long since disappeared (i'll admit that fricking around in underdark lv3-5 was tactically interesting), yet combat and exploration all just still felt incredibly tedious (I *get* what they were going for with giving you infinite resting and making each encounter require plenty of casting and positioning and all, but at some point when you stop really getting new 'tiers' of spells and tactics, everything gets stale but also remains incredibly time consuming) and I did not give a shit about where the plot was going
>porn games
lmao on that topic, BG3 really reminds me of those pateron milking furry games where everything's incredibly disjointed because the main focus is clearly stringing the backers along as long as possible and the best way to do that is a content focus on their self insert OCs
Dark Souls 3 is fanservice, Baldur's Gate 3 is fanfiction
Nta, but curious. Which rpg that came out in the last, say, 5 years had better writing? Not defending bg3's writing as being superb, but I am genuinely curious as to what's been made recently that's better.
>Space Colony
I'm inclined to believe you because AoD has good writing but it I don't want to play SC because AoD annoyed the frick out of me because of how hard of a linear CYOA it ended up being due to lacking simple things like the ability to escape from combat.
>with in the last 8 years
Tyranny, Kingdom Come Deliverance, Banner Saga, Darkest Dungeon, Wasteland 2, and Age of Decadence to list some. Despite being overrated game, Witcher 3 and even fricking Cyberpunk 2077 (especially Cyberpunk because it was a shit game) had better stories.
Even fricking Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring have a better stories and they barely even count as RPG's and barely even have a narrative to begin with. BG3's story is terrible. I've seen Pokémon games with better written narratives, and I don't even like all the games that I listed. Some of the are pretty bad.
The point was that all three of them have strengths and weaknesses and working together they were a threat, but once the alliance was broken they were doomed to fall, just as the Brain calculated.
Kethric was the strongest link of the three imo. The others had useful talents and resources that helped but it felt like cutting off the head of the best with Kehtric's death. I feel like they wanted that to be Gortash but there just isn't enough interaction with him in the city. Like he gets crowned and then.......waits in the fortress for you to attack.
Ketheric was the muscle, even Orin comments that their chances of completely taking over the surrounding area are thin with the loss of him and the Absolute cultist army at Moonrise, without him all they had was Orin and her sewer murder simps and Gortash had control of the Flaming Fist and the robots, without Ketheric keeping them in check they were fricked
Orin is a second-best moron with no connection to The Plan other than being a decently-powerful warm body aligned with Bhaal to handle one of the stones. If Durge didn't get his brain blended, the party would have had absolutely no chance to succeed.
>Be Durge >Make plan to rule the world and murder it >Get the other dead three on board >Rob the hells to get the Crown >The eve of your victory approaches >Your moronic incest-baby half-sister stabs you in the brain >Get to watch all the other chosen frick up your plan as you regain your memories
Durge's story is amazing because if Orin hadn't been up her own ass, she would see that Durge was about to win the whole chessboard for DemonDaddy Bhaal
Ketheric gets name-dropped properly earlier. Orin gets no mention whatsoever until the very end of the second act. Gortash only as some prick who screwed over Karlach and some arms dealer. Ketheric gets dropped as the evil c**t who ruined the lands ahead in act 1. As the guy who betrayed not one, but two deities. And then when you get to Act 2, before meeting him you'll encounter his oppressing influence: the shadow lands are awful, brutal and bleak. Reithwin is haunted. When you do finally meet him, the guy is unkillable and brutal.
Gortash and Orin don't have the same build up, and honestly, don't sell themselves that well either. Gortash at least has a great VA like Ketheric
The fight against Ketheric was the best imo. When I finally beat him and cleared out his tower it really felt like I saved the world. Compared to the Elder Brain that is.
There are options besides 3th level Revivify and 9th level True Resurrection.
Raise Dead is 5th level, costs a diamond worth 500 gold and requires a corpse you want to resurrect with all body parts attached AND you have to do it in 10 days after death. Any level 9 cleric could reasonably do that, damn, Baldur's Gate is pretty close by, I'm sure that there are some medium level clerics around.
Resurrection is 7th level, costs a diamond worth 1000 gold, requires any remains of a creature that not died from an old age and it can be dead for a 100 years maximum. It also regrows missing body parts for free.
I just can't believe he couldn't scrounge a 500 gold diamond in 10 days.
Can we agree that JK Simmons kinda phoned it in with him?
He was by far the most bored character I encountered during my playthrough, everyone else ranged from okay to sounding way too enthusiastic, but ketheric just sounded like he was about done to wrap up his time in the story and just wanted you to worry the frick up
Which sucks, because JK Simmons could totally pull the character off
nah we can't agree homosexual
he fit the roll well, and his "tired of this" delivery was spot on for the character
I completely disagree. His introduction scene was perfect. The way he says "try again", his entire delivery in general. He sounds like the character has to sound like. Ketheric is old and weary and immortal, full of sorrow and emptiness. He wasn't supposed to sound enthusiastic or evil. Just an old man who sold his soul. He was the most toned down of the three because it's the character's nature.
Okay, well, frick me I guess, I thought I had uncovered this hot take that everyone felt and nobody spoke about but turns out I just didn't vibe with it
Dunno, I just never felt threatened by him, Orin was unironically more threatening despite being a jokey character for most of the time
based, but a weak tired delivery from such a prolific actor... or was that the point? idk he sounded bored
I can understand the intent of the direction, but still felt disappointed by the performance. Seems like they could have hired anyone with a decent voice to do one tone of delivery, wasteful to use Simmons like that.
I completely disagree. His introduction scene was perfect. The way he says "try again", his entire delivery in general. He sounds like the character has to sound like. Ketheric is old and weary and immortal, full of sorrow and emptiness. He wasn't supposed to sound enthusiastic or evil. Just an old man who sold his soul. He was the most toned down of the three because it's the character's nature.
based, but a weak tired delivery from such a prolific actor... or was that the point? idk he sounded bored
>actor plays soulless, immortal tired character >sounds empty and mournful >idiots on the internet say actor "phoned it in"
No wonder most Oscars go to overacting perfomances. People only notice good acting when it's in your face. Playing an apathetic character is a thankless job for an actor because of that.
My only problem with Ketheric is how little he was in the game. It felt like Simmons was available only for a day. The entire second act couldn't shut up about him then when I met him it was already over (I went to moonrise towers last).
My issue is that, for an immortal prone to violence, he never felt threatening at any point
I don't buy the idea that in order to convey that he was bored of existing he also had to come off as non threatening as possible, even during the final battle when things were clearly not going in his favor
>My only problem with Ketheric is how little he was in the game. It felt like Simmons was available only for a day. The entire second act couldn't shut up about him then when I met him it was already over (I went to moonrise towers last).
Maybe that, but it's also the point where all the story pacing gets a little out of hand. Act 3 suffers more from it, but all the Moonrise stuff feels rushed
I agree but at least in Act 3 Gortash and Orin felt more present. Orin especially. Ketheric was just sitting there and you had to find him, meanwhile everyone in the game suddenly wouldn't shut up about this guy.
I think the big problem is that they made a bunch of goblins the villains of Act 1, instead of properly setting up the main villains. They only appear as silhouettes in the end and by the time I got to act 2 I had no idea who the frick Ketheric was. When I beat the game I tried to remember who was the villain of Act 1 and couldn't. Then I realized "oh, it was the goblin camp".
Yeah I feel like it would've been better handled if Minthara/Kethric took on a more center role in act 1. Instead you got a few goblin bosses.
Act 2 was probably the weakest in terms of content, with act 3 having much more shit to do.
>it would've been better handled if Minthara/Kethric took on a more center role in act 1
True. By the time I was finishing the game I kept seeing people on the internet talking about Minthara and having her as a companion and I had no idea who the hell she was. I completely forgot her. I just talked to her once, killed her and the goblin camp then went away. She felt like some random NPC.
Fair point, there's a ton of dialogue referring to Ketheric relative to his actual screentime. I wonder if the early access model hurt the overall story by keeping Act 1 relatively low-stakes and noncommittal.
Honestly? Yeah. Act 1 is probably the weakest in terms of story connectivity. There's very little binding it to the other parts of the game. I *did* enjoy the game, but it feels like a bit of a waste that you spend all that time in the goblin camp. When you have JK Simmons RIGHT THERE. Hell, have Minthara lead a warparty or two to come after your ass. Set her up as a Rival you can defeat or recruit.
>it would've been better handled if Minthara/Kethric took on a more center role in act 1
True. By the time I was finishing the game I kept seeing people on the internet talking about Minthara and having her as a companion and I had no idea who the hell she was. I completely forgot her. I just talked to her once, killed her and the goblin camp then went away. She felt like some random NPC.
This too. You can easily miss her despite the choice between her and Halsin not even being a contest. Halsin's a fine character, but he's up against one of the more interesting companions.
It has nothing to do with the character, it has everything to do with the quality of the audio and the use of his voice. There is video of the guy doing the voice lines. He's reading straight off a page with zero fluctuation in his expression or posture. No energy. In game his voice fails to capture that distinctive gravel in his voice when he's actual annuncuating something, because they just had him whispering into the mic and then turned up what was clearly him originally speaking in his quiet voice
If you watch simmons play a more cool headed character like in "Burn After Reading" or a more well received VA performance like Omni man, even when he's speaking calmly. You can still see him moving his head, making expressions as he speaks, adjusting his posture, communicating with his hands. There is energy and direction there that just wasn't there for Ketheric.
You misunderstand. There is a propper way to do a character like Ketheric in a game like this and it isn't what they did. BG3 thrived off very energetic, almost theatrical performances. Many of the best VA moments in this game like Durge's intro or Astarions rections, have an almost Shakespearian quality to them. When acting there is a huge distinction between film acting and theatre acting.
Ketheric feels muted and bland because they had Simmons performing a tired and cynical man as seen on film. When they should have done the character as seen on stage. Think of something like an actor performing one of Hamlet's or King Leer's soliloquys.
Eh, I think I disagree with you. Just because some character performances are successful in one vein doesn’t mean every character on screen, even major performances, need to follow suit. That can come with its own baggage, with players getting tired of the same energy being replicated universally. On the most extreme end, this can result in Marvel movie-itus, where characters are colorful, but decidedly one note. I’m not accusing you of advocating for that style of writing or anything, I just think at times striated tone can be a good thing.
5 months ago
Anonymous
I'm saying how the game presented Ketheric in game and how Simmons performed are fundamentally at odds with each other. Ketheric is often across rooms from the player when speaking to them, giving orders to minions, however most of JK's acting is done in a very quiet tone as if speaking to someone very close. Additionally the direction between the in game model and the actor isn't there in the same way it is for Party members. When Ketheric does have little blurbs of emotion in his voice, his model doesn't show it. Then there are times his model looks like he's finally angered or saddened by something, but his voice doesn't follow cue.
I doubt he had much to work with. Ketheric is barely in the game, and most of his characterization is dumped by other characters.
For what he was given Simmons did fine. Not his fault he was given a brief underwritten character.
Thorn battle was a total disappointment
After finally managing to free that bullshit immortal ability you have to go through TWO fricking scripted battle scenes.
Worse than marvel boss fights
It was the only good one out of the three, lol. Shit, out of the 4. Elder brain sucked too.
I was expecting Gortash and Orin to summon Bane and Bhaal too because of Ketheric but instead they just had a stupid second phase. I was shocked by how ridiculously easy Gortash was.
If you don't drop him right after bringing him to a certain HP threshold, he gets a power-up from Bane that makes him bigger, refills most of his HP, makes him immune to fire/force/thunder, and lets him punch people around the room. He didn't do any of that in my playthrough since his AI glitched and we ended up fighting him alone after all his goons.
lol. I threw a smoke bomb at Gortash and ran up to the roof. they all chase you up a ladder cartoon style, and my team just slaughtered them as they came up
Picrel is the definition of pleb filter
Those who read a lot of fantasy and got used to the certain rules of spectacle and coolness, epic fantasy vibe, would love it.
Those who only read capeshit in their life will call it Power Rangers and cringy shit.
Those are typical uneducated mongoloids.
This scene elevated the game for me to 10/10.
It should have ended after Myrkul fight though.
The drop of stakes and suspense after the rollercoaster of Act 2 epicness felt like the kick in the balls.
He wasn't a nihilist though. A nihilist finds no reason to be. Everything he did in the end was in the vain hope of having her daughter back. He had a reason to be.
That isn't a nihilist. A nihilist is someone who believes life has no inherent meaning.
Choosing to then kill everyone can still be a nihilistic response, as you don't believe the consequences really matter.
Why did so many god want to work with him? Do gods just suck powerful Paladin wiener in this world
>Be very powerful paladin for good(ish) god Selune
>Be corrupted by god of traitors Shaar, archnemesis of selune
>Turn to upstart god of grief and undeath Myrkuul to save your daughter
It's pretty coherent all things considered, every god had a reason to work with him, and him with them.
Everything about him was terribly written.
Nihilists think there's no point. He explicitly had an objective, which was to save his daughter at any cost. As to if it was reasonable?
Not really. Understandable and human? Very. It's a classic tragedy.
>anon that has never opened a D&D adventure book in his life
How does it feel to be this moronic ?
They are chosen invoking their respective gods, obviously it's stereotypical fantasy, it's a dungeon and dragon game. Did you want them to use naruto handsigns ? Do you not know DnD ?
they actually posed, ketheric flexes his chest
>Tfw you give everything to bring your beloved daughter back from the head and she hates you for it
This is what happens when daughters don't get enough rape correction
>wow you're mad I brought you back? all it cost was me enslaving and killing millions!
Sensible take, but the ruthlessness of his methods was driven by his obsession over his dead kid. I agree he's a deeply flawed and ultimately evil character, but his motivation is clear and logical. Very well-written villain imo
Oh yeah I thoroughly enjoyed Kethric, the other two were real steps down.
Typical woman. My mother and sister are like this with my father.
Anons that have never played DnD or older cRPG will never get old.
I feel like bg3 is an caricature of what people complained about ds3 having too much fanservice; there's just too much shit going on; any one or two of those things would have been a sufficient 'focal point' or main theme for the story but they tried to do it all at once and it just got really fricking silly
case in point; the "party members", I get the whole you can play as each party member, but every single goddamn person has some serious main-character-syndrome going on; especially when you consider the fact that this is a starting at lv1 module or whatever. Like if anyone came to a physical table and gave their DM their charactersheet for their lv1 whatever and was like oh yeah, legendary folk hero and son of the mayor, fought in the blood war for ten thousand years and has some kind of mechanical heart, vampire whatever, mystra's lover has some sort of nuclear bomb inside of them, gith warrior etc.... they'd be told to frick right off
this would all be acceptable if it was some motb style epic campaign where everyone's seen some shit and has a cuhrazy backstory, but in bg3 it just was incredibly awkward
They do address it by saying the tadpole respec'd them to level 1. Wyll and Gale outright say they used to be really high level casters that were put back to 0.
He became "evil" because his daughter become a lesbian.
>is a Paladin
>daughter dies
>doesn't just buy a resurrection/wish spell
>instead, prostitutes himself out to any god that'll help
It's pretty cringe.
Wish/True Resurrection aren't handled with much respect to canon here.
I see no reason why we can't just get somebody to cast true resurrection on Karlach after she burned up. She'd come back normal.
>MUH SHE REFUSES TO COME
She would come if that was the plan.
Even with BG3's setting in mind, the world's drowning in Revivify scrolls. Merkal's butt boy there could have stumbled over a merchant carrying one, threw gold at him, and got his daughter back.
Nope. Revivify only works within like 1 minute of death. It's a necromantic chest paddle.
True Resurrection takes super high level priests, huge diamonds and catalysts and involved convincing the soul to return to the material plane.
This dude is the worst rpg clusterfrick writing in a long while.
>serves one god
>switches to another god for uhhh reasons
>daughter dykes out and dies
>turns everyone into nihilists
>gets an army
>loses the army
>switches god again
>turns everyone into zombies
>then turns everyone into squids
>gets army again
>loses it again
>jobs to party once
>jobs twice
>jobs in his final form
There's like 4 different jrpg villains here mashed together.
Sorry the D&D fantasy game made your big brain hurt
>serves one god
>switches to another god for uhhh reasons
>daughter dykes out and dies
You've got that turned around, his wife and daughter died, so he converted to Shar, becasue she's an edgy c**t. The Shadow Curse comes from this time, after he and his Sharran army are defeated. He then promises his soul to Murkyl, rezzes his daughter and does the absolute stuff.
honestly I didn't get to act 3, I dropped around act 2 when my party was around lv8 or so, felt like I had 'seen what there was to see' mechanically speaking (8 to 12 doesn't add that much), any difficulty had long since disappeared (i'll admit that fricking around in underdark lv3-5 was tactically interesting), yet combat and exploration all just still felt incredibly tedious (I *get* what they were going for with giving you infinite resting and making each encounter require plenty of casting and positioning and all, but at some point when you stop really getting new 'tiers' of spells and tactics, everything gets stale but also remains incredibly time consuming) and I did not give a shit about where the plot was going
>porn games
lmao on that topic, BG3 really reminds me of those pateron milking furry games where everything's incredibly disjointed because the main focus is clearly stringing the backers along as long as possible and the best way to do that is a content focus on their self insert OCs
Dark Souls 3 is fanservice, Baldur's Gate 3 is fanfiction
>IT'S BAD BECAUSE.... IT JUST IS OKAY
>I'M A CONTRARIAN, I'M VERY SMART
There's nothing wrong about saying this game was terribly written. The ending made this extremely obvious.
Nta, but curious. Which rpg that came out in the last, say, 5 years had better writing? Not defending bg3's writing as being superb, but I am genuinely curious as to what's been made recently that's better.
anything by owlcat, space colony, jagged alliance 3, triangle strategy, starfield
Anon, please. That's just embarrassing.
not the main quest, but some of starfield faction quests are good, they could be the plot of entire games on their own
such as?
The ones from the vanguard and the crimson fleet one you even need NG+ to see all the outcomes of the second one
That's like saying Cyberpunk has good writing because the Peralez quest was good.
>anything by owlcat
Owlgay, opinion discared
>owlcat
>jrpg
>poofield
>Space Colony
I'm inclined to believe you because AoD has good writing but it I don't want to play SC because AoD annoyed the frick out of me because of how hard of a linear CYOA it ended up being due to lacking simple things like the ability to escape from combat.
>X is shit
>OK what's good to you
>Posts shit
The actual state of V
>Not defending bg3's writing as being superb
It's not even half way decent, it's legitimately moronic.
Same question as other anon, what rpg has better writing in the last 5 years? Heck, push that to 8 years if you want.
That's what I thought.
>with in the last 8 years
Tyranny, Kingdom Come Deliverance, Banner Saga, Darkest Dungeon, Wasteland 2, and Age of Decadence to list some. Despite being overrated game, Witcher 3 and even fricking Cyberpunk 2077 (especially Cyberpunk because it was a shit game) had better stories.
Even fricking Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring have a better stories and they barely even count as RPG's and barely even have a narrative to begin with. BG3's story is terrible. I've seen Pokémon games with better written narratives, and I don't even like all the games that I listed. Some of the are pretty bad.
Why is it that Orin or whats his name never feel as threatening as Ketheric?
The point was that all three of them have strengths and weaknesses and working together they were a threat, but once the alliance was broken they were doomed to fall, just as the Brain calculated.
Kethric was the strongest link of the three imo. The others had useful talents and resources that helped but it felt like cutting off the head of the best with Kehtric's death. I feel like they wanted that to be Gortash but there just isn't enough interaction with him in the city. Like he gets crowned and then.......waits in the fortress for you to attack.
It felt like Ketheric should’ve been the main villian, celeb VO, badass design, best backstory, imposing, clsssic “dark lord” vibe
The gay politician and the actual autism bawd from RE don’t hold up
Ketheric was the muscle, even Orin comments that their chances of completely taking over the surrounding area are thin with the loss of him and the Absolute cultist army at Moonrise, without him all they had was Orin and her sewer murder simps and Gortash had control of the Flaming Fist and the robots, without Ketheric keeping them in check they were fricked
Orin is a moron and comes off as one.
Orin is insane. Don't seek reason with her way of thinking.
Orin is a second-best moron with no connection to The Plan other than being a decently-powerful warm body aligned with Bhaal to handle one of the stones. If Durge didn't get his brain blended, the party would have had absolutely no chance to succeed.
>Be Durge
>Make plan to rule the world and murder it
>Get the other dead three on board
>Rob the hells to get the Crown
>The eve of your victory approaches
>Your moronic incest-baby half-sister stabs you in the brain
>Get to watch all the other chosen frick up your plan as you regain your memories
Durge's story is amazing because if Orin hadn't been up her own ass, she would see that Durge was about to win the whole chessboard for DemonDaddy Bhaal
Ketheric gets name-dropped properly earlier. Orin gets no mention whatsoever until the very end of the second act. Gortash only as some prick who screwed over Karlach and some arms dealer. Ketheric gets dropped as the evil c**t who ruined the lands ahead in act 1. As the guy who betrayed not one, but two deities. And then when you get to Act 2, before meeting him you'll encounter his oppressing influence: the shadow lands are awful, brutal and bleak. Reithwin is haunted. When you do finally meet him, the guy is unkillable and brutal.
Gortash and Orin don't have the same build up, and honestly, don't sell themselves that well either. Gortash at least has a great VA like Ketheric
The fight against Ketheric was the best imo. When I finally beat him and cleared out his tower it really felt like I saved the world. Compared to the Elder Brain that is.
It's cringe because death that isn't from old age is a minor inconvenience for a powerful spellcaster. In DnD you have 200 days to resurrect somebody.
>Powerful Spellcaster
Anon, you think it's EASY to find one that can cast True Ressurection and not piss off a god or two doing that?
Yeah it's easy if you can cast the spell. The spell description doesn't mention a god being able to intervene in it. It's your god given right!
There are options besides 3th level Revivify and 9th level True Resurrection.
Raise Dead is 5th level, costs a diamond worth 500 gold and requires a corpse you want to resurrect with all body parts attached AND you have to do it in 10 days after death. Any level 9 cleric could reasonably do that, damn, Baldur's Gate is pretty close by, I'm sure that there are some medium level clerics around.
Resurrection is 7th level, costs a diamond worth 1000 gold, requires any remains of a creature that not died from an old age and it can be dead for a 100 years maximum. It also regrows missing body parts for free.
I just can't believe he couldn't scrounge a 500 gold diamond in 10 days.
He is evil but he is not a nihilist.
He should have been the main antagonist of BG3, like Irenicus and Sarevohk before.
Can we agree that JK Simmons kinda phoned it in with him?
He was by far the most bored character I encountered during my playthrough, everyone else ranged from okay to sounding way too enthusiastic, but ketheric just sounded like he was about done to wrap up his time in the story and just wanted you to worry the frick up
Which sucks, because JK Simmons could totally pull the character off
Some lines sounded great but others sound like he recorded them on a home mic and sent them in
>others sound like he recorded them on a home mic
Lae'zel's lines in the epilogue. It soundes like she was on Skype. Was it just me? An audio bug or did anyone else get that?
She was an astral projection. It was intentional
Okay, well, frick me I guess, I thought I had uncovered this hot take that everyone felt and nobody spoke about but turns out I just didn't vibe with it
Dunno, I just never felt threatened by him, Orin was unironically more threatening despite being a jokey character for most of the time
Based opinion
I can understand the intent of the direction, but still felt disappointed by the performance. Seems like they could have hired anyone with a decent voice to do one tone of delivery, wasteful to use Simmons like that.
nah we can't agree homosexual
he fit the roll well, and his "tired of this" delivery was spot on for the character
I completely disagree. His introduction scene was perfect. The way he says "try again", his entire delivery in general. He sounds like the character has to sound like. Ketheric is old and weary and immortal, full of sorrow and emptiness. He wasn't supposed to sound enthusiastic or evil. Just an old man who sold his soul. He was the most toned down of the three because it's the character's nature.
>actor plays soulless, immortal tired character
>sounds empty and mournful
>idiots on the internet say actor "phoned it in"
No wonder most Oscars go to overacting perfomances. People only notice good acting when it's in your face. Playing an apathetic character is a thankless job for an actor because of that.
My only problem with Ketheric is how little he was in the game. It felt like Simmons was available only for a day. The entire second act couldn't shut up about him then when I met him it was already over (I went to moonrise towers last).
My issue is that, for an immortal prone to violence, he never felt threatening at any point
I don't buy the idea that in order to convey that he was bored of existing he also had to come off as non threatening as possible, even during the final battle when things were clearly not going in his favor
>My only problem with Ketheric is how little he was in the game. It felt like Simmons was available only for a day. The entire second act couldn't shut up about him then when I met him it was already over (I went to moonrise towers last).
Maybe that, but it's also the point where all the story pacing gets a little out of hand. Act 3 suffers more from it, but all the Moonrise stuff feels rushed
>Act 3 suffers more from it
I agree but at least in Act 3 Gortash and Orin felt more present. Orin especially. Ketheric was just sitting there and you had to find him, meanwhile everyone in the game suddenly wouldn't shut up about this guy.
I think the big problem is that they made a bunch of goblins the villains of Act 1, instead of properly setting up the main villains. They only appear as silhouettes in the end and by the time I got to act 2 I had no idea who the frick Ketheric was. When I beat the game I tried to remember who was the villain of Act 1 and couldn't. Then I realized "oh, it was the goblin camp".
Yeah I feel like it would've been better handled if Minthara/Kethric took on a more center role in act 1. Instead you got a few goblin bosses.
Act 2 was probably the weakest in terms of content, with act 3 having much more shit to do.
>it would've been better handled if Minthara/Kethric took on a more center role in act 1
True. By the time I was finishing the game I kept seeing people on the internet talking about Minthara and having her as a companion and I had no idea who the hell she was. I completely forgot her. I just talked to her once, killed her and the goblin camp then went away. She felt like some random NPC.
Fair point, there's a ton of dialogue referring to Ketheric relative to his actual screentime. I wonder if the early access model hurt the overall story by keeping Act 1 relatively low-stakes and noncommittal.
Honestly? Yeah. Act 1 is probably the weakest in terms of story connectivity. There's very little binding it to the other parts of the game. I *did* enjoy the game, but it feels like a bit of a waste that you spend all that time in the goblin camp. When you have JK Simmons RIGHT THERE. Hell, have Minthara lead a warparty or two to come after your ass. Set her up as a Rival you can defeat or recruit.
This too. You can easily miss her despite the choice between her and Halsin not even being a contest. Halsin's a fine character, but he's up against one of the more interesting companions.
It has nothing to do with the character, it has everything to do with the quality of the audio and the use of his voice. There is video of the guy doing the voice lines. He's reading straight off a page with zero fluctuation in his expression or posture. No energy. In game his voice fails to capture that distinctive gravel in his voice when he's actual annuncuating something, because they just had him whispering into the mic and then turned up what was clearly him originally speaking in his quiet voice
If you watch simmons play a more cool headed character like in "Burn After Reading" or a more well received VA performance like Omni man, even when he's speaking calmly. You can still see him moving his head, making expressions as he speaks, adjusting his posture, communicating with his hands. There is energy and direction there that just wasn't there for Ketheric.
You don't know what acting is if you don't think the character matters.
Are you expecting him to do his Jonah Jameson voice?
You misunderstand. There is a propper way to do a character like Ketheric in a game like this and it isn't what they did. BG3 thrived off very energetic, almost theatrical performances. Many of the best VA moments in this game like Durge's intro or Astarions rections, have an almost Shakespearian quality to them. When acting there is a huge distinction between film acting and theatre acting.
Ketheric feels muted and bland because they had Simmons performing a tired and cynical man as seen on film. When they should have done the character as seen on stage. Think of something like an actor performing one of Hamlet's or King Leer's soliloquys.
Eh, I think I disagree with you. Just because some character performances are successful in one vein doesn’t mean every character on screen, even major performances, need to follow suit. That can come with its own baggage, with players getting tired of the same energy being replicated universally. On the most extreme end, this can result in Marvel movie-itus, where characters are colorful, but decidedly one note. I’m not accusing you of advocating for that style of writing or anything, I just think at times striated tone can be a good thing.
I'm saying how the game presented Ketheric in game and how Simmons performed are fundamentally at odds with each other. Ketheric is often across rooms from the player when speaking to them, giving orders to minions, however most of JK's acting is done in a very quiet tone as if speaking to someone very close. Additionally the direction between the in game model and the actor isn't there in the same way it is for Party members. When Ketheric does have little blurbs of emotion in his voice, his model doesn't show it. Then there are times his model looks like he's finally angered or saddened by something, but his voice doesn't follow cue.
I doubt he had much to work with. Ketheric is barely in the game, and most of his characterization is dumped by other characters.
For what he was given Simmons did fine. Not his fault he was given a brief underwritten character.
>wife and daughter
the double wammie of cucking
I want to "romance" Jaheira.
Me too. I guess they didn't let us because of lore reasons since she's a character from previous games but man, I wanted that experienced meat.
I don't think you know what a nihilist is.
Thorn battle was a total disappointment
After finally managing to free that bullshit immortal ability you have to go through TWO fricking scripted battle scenes.
Worse than marvel boss fights
>Thorn battle was a total disappointment
It was the only good one out of the three, lol. Shit, out of the 4. Elder brain sucked too.
I was expecting Gortash and Orin to summon Bane and Bhaal too because of Ketheric but instead they just had a stupid second phase. I was shocked by how ridiculously easy Gortash was.
Gortash has a second phase? I broke all his toys and stomped a puddle into his head.
He enlarges, which is hilarious 'cause he looks like a giant midget.
If you don't drop him right after bringing him to a certain HP threshold, he gets a power-up from Bane that makes him bigger, refills most of his HP, makes him immune to fire/force/thunder, and lets him punch people around the room. He didn't do any of that in my playthrough since his AI glitched and we ended up fighting him alone after all his goons.
lol. I threw a smoke bomb at Gortash and ran up to the roof. they all chase you up a ladder cartoon style, and my team just slaughtered them as they came up
J.K. phoned it in.
>god is a shit so you ditch them
base-
>by crawling directly to another god
cring-
>and then ditch them in turn to crawl to another god
uh
Picrel is the definition of pleb filter
Those who read a lot of fantasy and got used to the certain rules of spectacle and coolness, epic fantasy vibe, would love it.
Those who only read capeshit in their life will call it Power Rangers and cringy shit.
Those are typical uneducated mongoloids.
This scene elevated the game for me to 10/10.
It should have ended after Myrkul fight though.
The drop of stakes and suspense after the rollercoaster of Act 2 epicness felt like the kick in the balls.
I called it Power Rangers and I loved it.
>meet gortash for the first time in person
>he's already lower level than me
why the hell did they make him level 9?
he's a politician
I think they expect most people to fight him right away. But yeah I was also level 10 coming into Act 3.
It is both. It is cringe, but it is based to be cringe and to accept it.
Goolash was the best vilian.
I like how he actually keeps his word, is a total bro and won't betray you.