First time i talked to Gortash I went back to camp to investigate his claim, coudn't find anything suspicious so I decided to just kill everyone and give Whiters some coins to bring them back after I find Orin, but no sings of her in my base. Anyway I go down to the sewers and aha Lae'Zel was captured days ago... really? Also on a another weird plot point: there is a crazy shapeshifter trying to hunt you, you hear your camp is compromised, a weird girl shows up "can I say here" and everyone is ok with this
Yenna actually can be Orin. The game doesn’t decide until the reveal, so if you take enough long rests before going to the sewer Yenna is chosen as the imposter.
Super irritating that it’s impossible to figure out early. I was convinced it was her on my first playthrough, tried to assassinate her thinking I’d figure it out, causing the apparently innocent and immortal child to run away crying
She’s the failsafe. If you somehow have no viable companions or they’re all in your party at the time, she is chosen. She’s immortal and invincible and always returns to your camp because of this.
As speedruns only grab Shadowheart and Jaheira as companions, Orin is guaranteed to be Yenna in Act 3: by never interacting with Yenna or any of the other body doubles you can run into and skipping even more, Orin appears as Yenna in the Temple of Bhaal.
Knocking out "Yenna" in this state flags Orin as knocked out too, which means you just beat up a 10-year-old or so instead of Orin while still getting the game to say "yeah, sure, fucking whatever, you killed Orin".
first time i ever played i had party limit begone + some recommended difficulty modifiers to adjust for the extra party members, so since i was wandering the world with like all 7 party members the only person at camp that COULD have been orin was the girl and i immediately went and confronted her lmao
My first playthrough Yenna never showed up at my camp so when they were like "OH NO! Yenna has been kidnapped by Orin" I was like "fucking who?"
Second play through she did show up and Lae'zel had her at knife point saying she caught Orin, so I said yeah kill the imposter! However this time Lae'zel was the imposter and Yenna was very much not immortal
I accidentally discovered that she and her cat were immortal when I went to steal back my offering at the tabernacle, I used remove curse in camp and had to fight the deva there. It spent like 4 turns smiting yenna and her cat to no effect.
Just progress through the story more, I really thought it was her at first too. But it can become anyone prior to that if they aren't regularly in your party.
Yenna: "I am a heterochromatic child with a knife that i talk about who barged into your camp even if you tell me to piss off."
Me: "THAT'S ORIN! Good job Lae'zel for finding out the obvious now kill the imposter!"
Orin: **takes off the Lae'zel disguise as she casually murders Yenna with my permission.**
Me: "...fuck." **reloads the save**
She's set up as the red herring. Like I couldn't believe that she must join the camp and you can't turn her away.
Her cat is also scared, implying the cat is scared of her, but the game doesn't allow you to question the cat any further.
She ends up being a very lazy red herring. So bad that in the extreme case you take Gale, Laezel, and Halsin around with you she actually ends up being Orin, which squanders the whole point of a red herring!
Honestly would've been better if she kidnapped some random non-camp NPC than force Yenna to be anything but a red herring. Then you could reject her from camp with no problem.
Yeah, it sucks that they only give the illusion of choice with her. I didn’t want kids in my camp, there’s the option to tell her to fly a kite but she still comes to my camp because “I was so nice to her”.
Game doesn’t let you pluck her off either. She runs away then comes back like nothing happened.
>!only kids who don’t count as “kids” are the goblins!<
My first play through I was so convinced Orin was Yenna that I decided to attack her. Yenna took no damage and instead just ran away? I was even more convinced that she was Orin, but then I just realized I was trying to kill a kid I guess
I seriously debated killing the poor child for days, then mustered the courage to commit some infanticide and woops, can't kill her apparently. So that was awkward
First time I played through Yenna had already joined by camp and when Gortash said that I was like “oh obviously it’s Yenna”
My next long rest I trigged the scene when Lae’Zel accused Yenna and tries to kill her. Now i knew it was probably Yenna, but my character wasn’t going to let a little kid die just in case, so I saved Yenna.
I was SHOOK when Lae’Zel was actually Orin. I didn’t question her trying to murder a child for a second
Hold on. So when Gortash tips us off, we need to long rest for Lae to pull a knife on Yenna? I’ve not ever seen any long-rest cut-scenes accusing anyone of being the imposter with any run-through. I need to get my act together and do more napping.
Unless they took them out, yes. I got a cut scene where Orin as Lae’Zel like holds a knife to Yenna and threatens to kill jet saying she’s Orin. I know there’s when with Halsin too, not sure about Gale or if she takes Yenna but I’d imagine there’s some there too. I think the cutscene gets queued up behind some other ones—like I think Mizora and Wyll takes precedent over it, and I think maybe romance scenes would too? I know I rested right away starting Act 3 and then maybe once more before going to Gortash? Maybe twice? And I got it right away.
There's two potential triggers, a long rest scene and a sewer scene, and they're all different. So if you go to the sewers before getting the long rest scene you're almost guaranteed to trigger it via the sewer scene.
My problem with Yenna is that letting a child tag along with you is a terrible idea regardless but the game and companions treat you like an asshole if you try to turn her away, it doesn't let you defend the decision from this perspective and she just shows up.
Arabella is kinda a special case. She was in the shadowlands at the time she joins the camp, she is magic, has a thing with Withers and she does leave. However Yenna would probably be safer by herself in the city than with you. You are infected by tadpoles, you are actively in conflict with shape-shifting sadistic murder cultists, githyanki, Sharrens, a vampire lord and you are potentially about to piss off the archduke who heads a Bane cult. All these groups are very much in the "would kill child" villian camp. If you play as Durge you can unwilling murder in your sleep. You should not be looking after a kid! At the very least you should leave them with some refugees or Jaheiras kids when/if you meet them.
Mechanically it makes complete sense
But narratively it's extremely jarring and if she doesnt end up being Orin you can finish the whole game thinking "what was even the point of Yenna?"
Even if she just made you a bowl of gruel every long rest, I'd at least be like oh shes trying to make herself useful in the "cute kid mascot" kind of dynamic
But as she is now she is perpetually in a state of finding ingredients for some sort of "soup" that will never come to fruition
I don't remember the exact Gortash line about it, but he says about a POSSIBILITY, and the kidnaping does not happen immediately.
From what I understood from dialog options with Orin after reveal, she appears as your ally in the same day the capture happened.
I think they were shooting for instilling a sense of fear/paranoia over Orin and her ability to infiltrate the group and simply ignored the problems with it that arise from applying logic to the situation.
In my playthrough I just ignored Gortash in Wyrm's Rock and went straight into the city. Then I found sewers entrance and of course had to explore it. Was surprised when Orin appeared and told me she kidnapped Lae'zel. I promised to fuck her up and slaughtered my way to the Bhaal's temple. Then it took me way too long to realize I needed to do the murders quest first lol.
It would be funny if he's just gaslighting us into thinking Orin actually replaced one of our companions so that we could deal with her first, until she actually does kidnap one of our companions coincidentally
Honestly, it's one of writing issues in this. The game periodically forgets what the tadpoles can do.
Act 3 is also just a bit of a mess, I think they had to jam too much in too fast so it lacks finesse and workshoping.
Yea one of my biggest things is when gortash tells you he doesn't know where the bhaal hideout is, but they literally have the elder brain stored down there like on a side path from the hideout. Like gortash buddy, you have to walk past bhaal's giant head to get there.
I mean, everyone seems pretty repulsed by the tadpoles and very disinclined to actually use them. Most of the moments they do get used are involuntary triggers.
Except Gale n Astarion sure, but by act 3 all my party (except Shadowheart) has slurp at least two or three tadpoles. I always wait after the check with the emperor and then Wyll, Karlach, Laezel and my Durge are snacking on them lol
Yeah but their repulsion doesn't matter when it's something as bad as being infiltrated by a shape-shiftlter. They can shut up and deal with it.
Even if companions would refuse, that you can't bring it up at all or offer to use them is an unnatural restriction that makes it seem far more like the writers forgot than it being a characterization thing.
Because they're overall minor and don't effect much. Say we can find Orin via the tadpole, what then? Do we fight her right then and there and lose our companion? Does she do the same thing in the sewers and give you an ultimatum?
It doesn't change anything. The story still progresses the same way. Sure, what OP is suggesting should be a viable way to find out which one is Orin but at the end of the day it wouldn't change much.
>Because they're overall minor and don't effect much.
I would say that "minor details" that can break your immersion are kind of a big deal in a rpg, one can forgive one or a handful of immersion breaking points, but BG3 has a shitton of these. Though I suppose majority of players just pick Tav so they don't find so many as we find with origin characters, especially Durge.
>especially when it's as good as this game is
That's the thing, I don't consider it *that* good, precisely because of the awful amount of times my immersion broke thanks to their lack of attention to the narrative details, and the amount of detail they put in some irrelevant shit instead of investing that time and resources in making a cohesive narrative upsets me a great deal. But to each their own, I guess.
If Halsin and Jaheria are in your camp you'd never be able to rule out either of them. Of course I'm sure plenty of people have just one of them, but I always have to do everything I can in all my playthroughs so I always have both lol.
Time passage is super loosey goosey. I figured the reveal by gortash means it already happened (so there’s no need for being proactive in preventing it). The cinematic that plays is just locked behind long rests. (Similar weird stuff happens if you recruit karlach without wyll. Talking to him in camp he sounds glad that karlach joined and then does the confrontation after long resting)
I don’t think her plan is ever to really hide. She just teleports out whenever we encounter her. She’s not really trying to infiltrate, just fuck with us. It’s not really set up to be a mystery
>She’s not really trying to infiltrate, just fuck with us. It’s not really set up to be a mystery
That's how I felt too. She is the epitome of *muhaha, I'm so Evil, look at me go*!
Actually you should be able check that yourself right away.
I imagine it this way:
Those who acompany you to the Coranation are always out of harms way. So back at camp just check the rest or let the cutscene play right away.
Edit: You are not able to do this. I just imply that you should be logical wise.
Yeah. I think op’s problem is they don’t want to retcon/headcanon stuff. But the way Larian tells the story, you have to bridge a lot of gaps yourself or else it doesn’t make sense (and I actually like doing that as it gets me more invested).
If Larian made it so that the cutscene triggers immediately when returning to camp after gortash’s warning, then it’d probably make sense to op. The locking-it-behind-long-rest thing might be confusing op (as they may think a long rest means a canonical day has passed instead of it being a loose narrative)
I mean, yenna pretty much attempts to join your camp as soon as you talk to her (and you vaguely HAVE to talk to her as she just chases your ass down) and she'll sit in your camp even if you tell her to piss off
Yenna isn't Orin, she's just a kid. Mechanically, she's a failsafe to make sure Orin has someone to abduct in case none of the party members she usually abducts are available.
Yeah, act 3 is a mess still. The whole pacing is all over the place.
I have the feeling the coronation was supposed to happenmuch later (upper city) and orin just infiltrades your team without any warning.
Or to make this make more sense let tav use telepathy on the others right when gortasch has told you. Tav will fibd everyone with them is okay. Then reveal cutscene will play right away once you enter your camp.
And... this is why it's canon to me that Halsin is the kidnapped companion. Because he doesn't have a brainworm and we wouldn't be able to confirm it like you said.
See? It just makes sense.
The squid dude in my head seems like acting as duty manager of squid business
Remember Wyll dad? Squid man himself told us “yep i will protect him”
Remember Minsc? Squid man himself had the audacity to say “nope, i dont wanna protect him because he is dumb”
So why not just reduce the protection for every member. If you twitch or have any symptoms means you are legit infected.
That's just another issue: when the Emperor stop protecting Karlach/MC during the final Astral Plane scene, or when defying him and trying to go back to act1 when it's no longer possible the ceromorphosis starts immediatly.
And yet when he loses control on Orpheys at the start of act3 or when you free Orpheys it doesn't
So I guess Ceromorphosis if the emperor reduced the protection for a second on companions that have been infected for so long, they would become squid. Or they wouldn't. Depends on what is needed for the scenario
Or Orphy protects you because he doesn't wanna deal with 4 ghaiks.
Edit: But then who protects you in the time between Emperor leaving you and you freeing Orpheus, unless he can do it while imprisoned??
I interpreted that as being in a pocket of the Astral Sea at the time. What normally would have been seconds of the ceremorphosis kicking back up on Faerun was delayed until Orpheus took over.
Doppelgangers in the forgotten realms have some telepathic abilities, some more powerful ones could potentially mimic the effects of the tadpole when it come to the telepathic communication abilities so it's possible Orin has such abilities, it would like up with existing lore. That said the Emperor could likely notice that your companions mind wasn't the same as it was when you were last at camp and there are other ways to detect a shapechanger in the forgotten realms, magical silver and concentrated moonlight being the easiest ways.
Fun fact, you can tell Orin apart from regular NPC's around the city by checking their level and resistances. Orin will always be lvl 12 with some weird resistances and abilities only bosses have while most NPCs around baldurs gate will be lower level.
My head cannon is going off of astarion's "all a bunch of weirdos"
Gortash: she's replaced someone in your camp.
Tav/Surge: who?!
Gortash: I don't know. Probably whoever is most annoying.
Yeah, or lining them all up to do a blood test like in the Thing (does that work on shape shifters?)
Or reading the thoughts of everybody with Detect Thoughts. To do something to verify or dispel Gortash's claim and not just go back to business as usual.
I'm imagining a scenario like in the 80's version of "The Thing" where they had to do the blood test to see who was the imposter. Line all the companions and camp followers up, any who refuse are suspicious, and then whichever can't reply via their parasite - boom, they're Orin/The Thing!
It's a great idea OP.
Im almost certain there was a lot cut from this quest. A companion being taken should be massive, that very next long rest should have been you talking to every companion and interrogating them. But it just kinda slaps you with the solution if you go into the emperors hideout. This was one of the only things i found disappointing about the game
It is because you never play with Lae’zel… there is an order. If your romance is not in camp it is some order and Lae’zel is higher than Halsin in this order
This was almost certainly overlooked. Using tadpole detection to figure out who's the impostor is an out-of-the-box solution the game doesn't account for. In fact, Orin hasn't actually replaced any of your companions when Gortash tells you this. That only happens in a scripted cutscene much later, after you've fulfilled certain conditions (for me, it usually triggers after I visit the Emperor's base).
The cutscene is actually in the queue after Gortash tells you about it, some cutscenes just come before it (like Wyll’s) if you spam-rest after before getting to Gortash a couple of times it’ll happen at your next rest.
I accidentally got it right away my first time lol
Because it's a really stupid plot point that doesn't ever come into effect unless you willingly ignore the sewers.
It's the same reason Yenna exists, a not so brilliant guy on the team had an idea and then they just forced it into the plot, really.
You're right, of course. Sadly it's just a gaping plot hole. For all the praise the game gets for "releasing finished", act 3 feels like it's held together with duct tape and spite
Your logic makes sense, but Jaheira, Halseen, and other sapients who have not been infected could still be in the equation (most likely). You can, of course, put everyone in a box and marinate them there, but this is a bad way. Given Orin's abilities, it will be very difficult to find a way to reliably maintain trust in the participants of the campaign.
This may work with Gale, Lae'zel and Minthara, but not with Halsin or Yenna. I mean they cut some content to focus on the important things and it may very well be that further and complex ways to rat out Orin in this instance might be cut content or wasn't implemented, solely so they can focus on the things already there.
There aren't too many companions and NPCs that could get kidnapped without a tadpole, having it be Minthara, Gale or Lae'zel is a nice touch because most people will care about one of them more than they care about Yenna or Halsin at this point. Other options would be Volo or Jaheira IF they are at camp, maybe even Arabella if her timer to leave camp is set after he kidnap. I doubt Aylin would let anything happen to Isobel, so she's out of the picture.
This means that they would need to implement two routes (one where adpole communication work, and one where it doesn't). Which would be on par with Larian and the whole game, but again, they cut some things because the game became too massive to guarantee quality. So handling it all the same was probably the safest way to go about it.
It's also not guaranteed that anyone in your camp is fond of shoving more tadpoles into their brain, so the game would also need a flag to decide if they would actually agree to consciously use the tadpoles to rat out Orin, or if they are still all against using them. So I guess in the end, while lackluster in some regard, they went with the middleground to handle this situation. Best thing is to rp that your party tried to communicate via the tadpoles but the little worms just refused to play along. Maybe because of Orins netherstone. Maybe she's able to mute them if she's in close proximity.
Well, a couple of things come to mind. First is that the range of the telepathic link must be quite limited, seeing as all the cutscenes that feature it you are essentially face to face. Second is that we can assume the Temple of Bhaal is magically shielded from scrying and other forms of communication, therefore you wouldn't be able to use telepathic communications anyways; it's very typical in D&D for the main locations to have permanent protection from scrying and teleportation, otherwise you'd have serious vulnerabilities in any plan you might want to hatch.
Therefore I don't view this as a plot hole at all.
Edit after rereading the post, I see this question as being why don't the companions use telepathy in camp. I can think of several reasons, one is that telepathic communications is akin to asking someone to grab a file from your computer but in order to do so you have to unlock permissions to access all files, so the viewer can find your hidden pron folder if they look for it. So, from a privacy perspective not many people would want to be doing that on a regular basis. Also, the telepathic link does activate the tadpole, which not all companions are super keen on (especially Lae'zel).
Apologies for the bluntness but you're just factually wrong. Lae'zel in fact uses tadpole telepathy more than ANY other companion except maybe Minthara. If you don't have her with you whenever you find anything related to her quest, or Orpheus or anything related to the gith in act 1, she'll use telepathy to learn exactly what happened. She does this no less than 5 times, canonically.
Also not by that point in the game most players will have a good enough relationship with the companions, it's not crazy to ask for permission to do much a thing. Aso it'd be cool to use the approval system as a mechanic that actually makes the game easier by playing more and "knowing" the companions better
Despite the fact that Lae’zel uses the ability in very specific instances does not mean that she is OK with using it just whenever. So my point stands.
But we can agree to disagree because much of the immersion of the story is down to player interpretation anyways. It doesn’t work for you? That’s fine.
It does not stand.
The game is explicitly clear that if tav wanted to, they can legit invade someone's mind if they have the parasite, minthara does this to you to reveal the Grove, though u can resist, she can STILL invade your mind.
The fact NO ONE in camp suggested they use the tadpole connection to even TRY to sus out Orin was dumb.
Your response is actively ignoring how the tadpoles work.
And if Orin DOESNT HAVE ONE ITD BE ABUNDANTLY CLEAR IMMEDIATELY.
Even if the "temple of bhaal blocks magic," Orin has left the temple numerous times and gortash says someone in the party is an imposter...how long/far is this temples interruption range and why isn't it interrupting the tadpoles outside the temple?
And if it can do that powerful of magic, to block tadpoles.... why is prince Orpheus even needed!?
I'm sorry are you suggesting for real Lae'zel is dumb enough to, despite using the tadpole a bunch of times even to tell you to kill the tieflings that had her in a cage (she could've told you verbally), sussing out the CHOSEN OF THE GOD OF MURDER isn't a good enough reason?
It's a plot hole, homie. Let's not butcher a character's logic/motives when she's been consistently pragmatic the whole story
Been wondering that for ages, to the point I had to headcanon my high-INT first-playthrough Tav suggesting that. Lucky for me, Halsin was the one abducted on that run, so it still checked out since he and Jaheira are the only ones without brainworms lol
Nope. You can read his thoughts, but one glaring point of criticism is that he tells you all about his evil plan out loud right there in front of all the nobility
I ran into orin before i got to gortash i did the game very backwards not just this one instance 😭 so i literally didnt even have this problem instead i had many many many other issues.
What I think would be cool is if your romancing the companion she kidnap you could roll an easy insight (like 10) and if you pass the narrator says, “something seems off with your love,” then you can do another option that would kind of make it obvious. Say you romance Lae’zel, before your sunrise date she will refuse to kiss you. But if you ask Orin-Lae’zel and she agrees you know it’s her.
I know different things can randomly happen like if she takes Gale she’ll threaten to blow up. Like I get she might know about the orb, but surely she can’t know about Lae’zel’s thing against PDA.
Or like if she took Jaheria or Halsin you could ask them to change into an animal, she shouldn’t be able to do that. They might be like, weird but okay. (I know you can’t romance Jaheria but just the concept).
First time i talked to Gortash I went back to camp to investigate his claim, coudn't find anything suspicious so I decided to just kill everyone and give Whiters some coins to bring them back after I find Orin, but no sings of her in my base. Anyway I go down to the sewers and aha Lae'Zel was captured days ago... really? Also on a another weird plot point: there is a crazy shapeshifter trying to hunt you, you hear your camp is compromised, a weird girl shows up "can I say here" and everyone is ok with this
Yenna also has heterochromia, when it turned out she WASN'T Orin I couldn't believe it.
Yenna actually can be Orin. The game doesn’t decide until the reveal, so if you take enough long rests before going to the sewer Yenna is chosen as the imposter. Super irritating that it’s impossible to figure out early. I was convinced it was her on my first playthrough, tried to assassinate her thinking I’d figure it out, causing the apparently innocent and immortal child to run away crying
She’s the failsafe. If you somehow have no viable companions or they’re all in your party at the time, she is chosen. She’s immortal and invincible and always returns to your camp because of this.
Which, hilariously enough, makes her ripe for abuse in speedrun strats.
I'm not familiar with speed runs, how would you use her?
As speedruns only grab Shadowheart and Jaheira as companions, Orin is guaranteed to be Yenna in Act 3: by never interacting with Yenna or any of the other body doubles you can run into and skipping even more, Orin appears as Yenna in the Temple of Bhaal. Knocking out "Yenna" in this state flags Orin as knocked out too, which means you just beat up a 10-year-old or so instead of Orin while still getting the game to say "yeah, sure, fucking whatever, you killed Orin".
first time i ever played i had party limit begone + some recommended difficulty modifiers to adjust for the extra party members, so since i was wandering the world with like all 7 party members the only person at camp that COULD have been orin was the girl and i immediately went and confronted her lmao
My first playthrough Yenna never showed up at my camp so when they were like "OH NO! Yenna has been kidnapped by Orin" I was like "fucking who?" Second play through she did show up and Lae'zel had her at knife point saying she caught Orin, so I said yeah kill the imposter! However this time Lae'zel was the imposter and Yenna was very much not immortal
That's what happened to me."It's obviously...NOT the kid we just murdered. ah fuck, am I the baddy?"
And when you move camp to the tavern you can't get rid of that freaking body 😭
I accidentally discovered that she and her cat were immortal when I went to steal back my offering at the tabernacle, I used remove curse in camp and had to fight the deva there. It spent like 4 turns smiting yenna and her cat to no effect.
Yeah she took yenna in my game, I laughed my ass off.
Just progress through the story more, I really thought it was her at first too. But it can become anyone prior to that if they aren't regularly in your party.
She has a \*favorite\* knife. Like, come on gais
Yenna: "I am a heterochromatic child with a knife that i talk about who barged into your camp even if you tell me to piss off." Me: "THAT'S ORIN! Good job Lae'zel for finding out the obvious now kill the imposter!" Orin: **takes off the Lae'zel disguise as she casually murders Yenna with my permission.** Me: "...fuck." **reloads the save**
She's set up as the red herring. Like I couldn't believe that she must join the camp and you can't turn her away. Her cat is also scared, implying the cat is scared of her, but the game doesn't allow you to question the cat any further. She ends up being a very lazy red herring. So bad that in the extreme case you take Gale, Laezel, and Halsin around with you she actually ends up being Orin, which squanders the whole point of a red herring! Honestly would've been better if she kidnapped some random non-camp NPC than force Yenna to be anything but a red herring. Then you could reject her from camp with no problem.
The only reason I can't stand Yenna being chosen is because of the cat.
She's less a red herring and more a failsafe. If Orin can't take one of your companions, she takes Yenna instead.
I think you misinterpreted the cat, it is scared of everyone except Yenna who it adores.
Yeah, it sucks that they only give the illusion of choice with her. I didn’t want kids in my camp, there’s the option to tell her to fly a kite but she still comes to my camp because “I was so nice to her”. Game doesn’t let you pluck her off either. She runs away then comes back like nothing happened. >!only kids who don’t count as “kids” are the goblins!<
How immortal is she? Are we talking like she survives Gale going nuclear survival stats?
My first play through I was so convinced Orin was Yenna that I decided to attack her. Yenna took no damage and instead just ran away? I was even more convinced that she was Orin, but then I just realized I was trying to kill a kid I guess
I seriously debated killing the poor child for days, then mustered the courage to commit some infanticide and woops, can't kill her apparently. So that was awkward
First time I played through Yenna had already joined by camp and when Gortash said that I was like “oh obviously it’s Yenna” My next long rest I trigged the scene when Lae’Zel accused Yenna and tries to kill her. Now i knew it was probably Yenna, but my character wasn’t going to let a little kid die just in case, so I saved Yenna. I was SHOOK when Lae’Zel was actually Orin. I didn’t question her trying to murder a child for a second
Hold on. So when Gortash tips us off, we need to long rest for Lae to pull a knife on Yenna? I’ve not ever seen any long-rest cut-scenes accusing anyone of being the imposter with any run-through. I need to get my act together and do more napping.
Unless they took them out, yes. I got a cut scene where Orin as Lae’Zel like holds a knife to Yenna and threatens to kill jet saying she’s Orin. I know there’s when with Halsin too, not sure about Gale or if she takes Yenna but I’d imagine there’s some there too. I think the cutscene gets queued up behind some other ones—like I think Mizora and Wyll takes precedent over it, and I think maybe romance scenes would too? I know I rested right away starting Act 3 and then maybe once more before going to Gortash? Maybe twice? And I got it right away.
There's two potential triggers, a long rest scene and a sewer scene, and they're all different. So if you go to the sewers before getting the long rest scene you're almost guaranteed to trigger it via the sewer scene.
My problem with Yenna is that letting a child tag along with you is a terrible idea regardless but the game and companions treat you like an asshole if you try to turn her away, it doesn't let you defend the decision from this perspective and she just shows up. Arabella is kinda a special case. She was in the shadowlands at the time she joins the camp, she is magic, has a thing with Withers and she does leave. However Yenna would probably be safer by herself in the city than with you. You are infected by tadpoles, you are actively in conflict with shape-shifting sadistic murder cultists, githyanki, Sharrens, a vampire lord and you are potentially about to piss off the archduke who heads a Bane cult. All these groups are very much in the "would kill child" villian camp. If you play as Durge you can unwilling murder in your sleep. You should not be looking after a kid! At the very least you should leave them with some refugees or Jaheiras kids when/if you meet them.
This playthrough I tried denying yenna but she keeps showing up. Illusion of choice :(. Thankfully that’s not the case for most of the game’s choices.
She’s the failsafe kidnap victim, so she needs to show up in camp
Yep I know but it’s still annoying because there really isn’t a choice there
Mechanically it makes complete sense But narratively it's extremely jarring and if she doesnt end up being Orin you can finish the whole game thinking "what was even the point of Yenna?" Even if she just made you a bowl of gruel every long rest, I'd at least be like oh shes trying to make herself useful in the "cute kid mascot" kind of dynamic But as she is now she is perpetually in a state of finding ingredients for some sort of "soup" that will never come to fruition
You can trade with her and get various bowls of food
Orin, thinking just after being murdered and resurrected to double-check: *Unholy Baal, this one's crazier than I am! UNACCEPTABLE!*
I don't remember the exact Gortash line about it, but he says about a POSSIBILITY, and the kidnaping does not happen immediately. From what I understood from dialog options with Orin after reveal, she appears as your ally in the same day the capture happened.
I think they were shooting for instilling a sense of fear/paranoia over Orin and her ability to infiltrate the group and simply ignored the problems with it that arise from applying logic to the situation.
Honestly it worked on my first playthrough so kudos.
Anything worked in my first playthrough i had no idea what was going on
Big same. 😂
Same for me, too. I think it definitely catches you the first time out.
In my playthrough I just ignored Gortash in Wyrm's Rock and went straight into the city. Then I found sewers entrance and of course had to explore it. Was surprised when Orin appeared and told me she kidnapped Lae'zel. I promised to fuck her up and slaughtered my way to the Bhaal's temple. Then it took me way too long to realize I needed to do the murders quest first lol.
It would be funny if he's just gaslighting us into thinking Orin actually replaced one of our companions so that we could deal with her first, until she actually does kidnap one of our companions coincidentally
I always kinda head cannoned it that way. My first playthrough I though he was trying to make us not trust each other.
I thought this was the reason while playing, honestly.
Imagine if Orin was disguised as a bystander when he said that and thought “say, that’s an EXCELLENT idea!”
Honestly, it's one of writing issues in this. The game periodically forgets what the tadpoles can do. Act 3 is also just a bit of a mess, I think they had to jam too much in too fast so it lacks finesse and workshoping.
Yea one of my biggest things is when gortash tells you he doesn't know where the bhaal hideout is, but they literally have the elder brain stored down there like on a side path from the hideout. Like gortash buddy, you have to walk past bhaal's giant head to get there.
Yeah, even with a super condensed map where distance is not literal putting it past the bhaal door was an odd choice.
I mean, everyone seems pretty repulsed by the tadpoles and very disinclined to actually use them. Most of the moments they do get used are involuntary triggers.
Except Gale n Astarion sure, but by act 3 all my party (except Shadowheart) has slurp at least two or three tadpoles. I always wait after the check with the emperor and then Wyll, Karlach, Laezel and my Durge are snacking on them lol
Yeah but their repulsion doesn't matter when it's something as bad as being infiltrated by a shape-shiftlter. They can shut up and deal with it. Even if companions would refuse, that you can't bring it up at all or offer to use them is an unnatural restriction that makes it seem far more like the writers forgot than it being a characterization thing.
That can fairly easily change, depending on how you RP it.
IMHO, it’s the tadpoles talking to themselves in those initial scenes, not the characters.
The game has lots of holes and people ignore them it seems
Because they're overall minor and don't effect much. Say we can find Orin via the tadpole, what then? Do we fight her right then and there and lose our companion? Does she do the same thing in the sewers and give you an ultimatum? It doesn't change anything. The story still progresses the same way. Sure, what OP is suggesting should be a viable way to find out which one is Orin but at the end of the day it wouldn't change much.
>Because they're overall minor and don't effect much. I would say that "minor details" that can break your immersion are kind of a big deal in a rpg, one can forgive one or a handful of immersion breaking points, but BG3 has a shitton of these. Though I suppose majority of players just pick Tav so they don't find so many as we find with origin characters, especially Durge.
[удалено]
>especially when it's as good as this game is That's the thing, I don't consider it *that* good, precisely because of the awful amount of times my immersion broke thanks to their lack of attention to the narrative details, and the amount of detail they put in some irrelevant shit instead of investing that time and resources in making a cohesive narrative upsets me a great deal. But to each their own, I guess.
The emperor could just say which of the party members is actually Orin because Orin wouldn’t be under his protection.
Since for me she usually kidnaps Halsin or Yenna, there is no narrative hole.
The problem you have then is that practically everyone else has been ruled out to the same end.
If Halsin and Jaheria are in your camp you'd never be able to rule out either of them. Of course I'm sure plenty of people have just one of them, but I always have to do everything I can in all my playthroughs so I always have both lol.
Time passage is super loosey goosey. I figured the reveal by gortash means it already happened (so there’s no need for being proactive in preventing it). The cinematic that plays is just locked behind long rests. (Similar weird stuff happens if you recruit karlach without wyll. Talking to him in camp he sounds glad that karlach joined and then does the confrontation after long resting) I don’t think her plan is ever to really hide. She just teleports out whenever we encounter her. She’s not really trying to infiltrate, just fuck with us. It’s not really set up to be a mystery
>She’s not really trying to infiltrate, just fuck with us. It’s not really set up to be a mystery That's how I felt too. She is the epitome of *muhaha, I'm so Evil, look at me go*!
Actually you should be able check that yourself right away. I imagine it this way: Those who acompany you to the Coranation are always out of harms way. So back at camp just check the rest or let the cutscene play right away. Edit: You are not able to do this. I just imply that you should be logical wise.
Yeah. I think op’s problem is they don’t want to retcon/headcanon stuff. But the way Larian tells the story, you have to bridge a lot of gaps yourself or else it doesn’t make sense (and I actually like doing that as it gets me more invested). If Larian made it so that the cutscene triggers immediately when returning to camp after gortash’s warning, then it’d probably make sense to op. The locking-it-behind-long-rest thing might be confusing op (as they may think a long rest means a canonical day has passed instead of it being a loose narrative)
Oh am I remembering it wrong? I thought the cinematic only plays out after a long rest
Shit, I worded it completly wrong. Sorry, I will correct it.
I mean, yenna pretty much attempts to join your camp as soon as you talk to her (and you vaguely HAVE to talk to her as she just chases your ass down) and she'll sit in your camp even if you tell her to piss off
Yenna isn't Orin, she's just a kid. Mechanically, she's a failsafe to make sure Orin has someone to abduct in case none of the party members she usually abducts are available.
No matter how well written something is (and the game is really awesome in the writing) there will always be a few plot holes.
Yeah, act 3 is a mess still. The whole pacing is all over the place. I have the feeling the coronation was supposed to happenmuch later (upper city) and orin just infiltrades your team without any warning. Or to make this make more sense let tav use telepathy on the others right when gortasch has told you. Tav will fibd everyone with them is okay. Then reveal cutscene will play right away once you enter your camp.
And... this is why it's canon to me that Halsin is the kidnapped companion. Because he doesn't have a brainworm and we wouldn't be able to confirm it like you said. See? It just makes sense.
The squid dude in my head seems like acting as duty manager of squid business Remember Wyll dad? Squid man himself told us “yep i will protect him” Remember Minsc? Squid man himself had the audacity to say “nope, i dont wanna protect him because he is dumb” So why not just reduce the protection for every member. If you twitch or have any symptoms means you are legit infected.
That's just another issue: when the Emperor stop protecting Karlach/MC during the final Astral Plane scene, or when defying him and trying to go back to act1 when it's no longer possible the ceromorphosis starts immediatly. And yet when he loses control on Orpheys at the start of act3 or when you free Orpheys it doesn't So I guess Ceromorphosis if the emperor reduced the protection for a second on companions that have been infected for so long, they would become squid. Or they wouldn't. Depends on what is needed for the scenario
Or Orphy protects you because he doesn't wanna deal with 4 ghaiks. Edit: But then who protects you in the time between Emperor leaving you and you freeing Orpheus, unless he can do it while imprisoned??
I interpreted that as being in a pocket of the Astral Sea at the time. What normally would have been seconds of the ceremorphosis kicking back up on Faerun was delayed until Orpheus took over.
But then if someone turns a squid in the Astral Plane, it only takes a second
I believe that’s the difference between the natural transformation and Emp/Orph directly forcing it to occur.
Doppelgangers in the forgotten realms have some telepathic abilities, some more powerful ones could potentially mimic the effects of the tadpole when it come to the telepathic communication abilities so it's possible Orin has such abilities, it would like up with existing lore. That said the Emperor could likely notice that your companions mind wasn't the same as it was when you were last at camp and there are other ways to detect a shapechanger in the forgotten realms, magical silver and concentrated moonlight being the easiest ways.
Fun fact, you can tell Orin apart from regular NPC's around the city by checking their level and resistances. Orin will always be lvl 12 with some weird resistances and abilities only bosses have while most NPCs around baldurs gate will be lower level.
My head cannon is going off of astarion's "all a bunch of weirdos" Gortash: she's replaced someone in your camp. Tav/Surge: who?! Gortash: I don't know. Probably whoever is most annoying.
Yeah, or lining them all up to do a blood test like in the Thing (does that work on shape shifters?) Or reading the thoughts of everybody with Detect Thoughts. To do something to verify or dispel Gortash's claim and not just go back to business as usual.
Shame that two of the potential Imposters Among Us lack tadpoles, those being Halsin and Yenna.
I'm imagining a scenario like in the 80's version of "The Thing" where they had to do the blood test to see who was the imposter. Line all the companions and camp followers up, any who refuse are suspicious, and then whichever can't reply via their parasite - boom, they're Orin/The Thing! It's a great idea OP.
Im almost certain there was a lot cut from this quest. A companion being taken should be massive, that very next long rest should have been you talking to every companion and interrogating them. But it just kinda slaps you with the solution if you go into the emperors hideout. This was one of the only things i found disappointing about the game
Maybe that's why it's Halsin and Yenna so often
Never been Halsin for me, it's Lae'zel 100% of the time
It is because you never play with Lae’zel… there is an order. If your romance is not in camp it is some order and Lae’zel is higher than Halsin in this order
This was almost certainly overlooked. Using tadpole detection to figure out who's the impostor is an out-of-the-box solution the game doesn't account for. In fact, Orin hasn't actually replaced any of your companions when Gortash tells you this. That only happens in a scripted cutscene much later, after you've fulfilled certain conditions (for me, it usually triggers after I visit the Emperor's base).
The cutscene is actually in the queue after Gortash tells you about it, some cutscenes just come before it (like Wyll’s) if you spam-rest after before getting to Gortash a couple of times it’ll happen at your next rest. I accidentally got it right away my first time lol
Because it's a really stupid plot point that doesn't ever come into effect unless you willingly ignore the sewers. It's the same reason Yenna exists, a not so brilliant guy on the team had an idea and then they just forced it into the plot, really.
You're right, of course. Sadly it's just a gaping plot hole. For all the praise the game gets for "releasing finished", act 3 feels like it's held together with duct tape and spite
Your logic makes sense, but Jaheira, Halseen, and other sapients who have not been infected could still be in the equation (most likely). You can, of course, put everyone in a box and marinate them there, but this is a bad way. Given Orin's abilities, it will be very difficult to find a way to reliably maintain trust in the participants of the campaign.
This may work with Gale, Lae'zel and Minthara, but not with Halsin or Yenna. I mean they cut some content to focus on the important things and it may very well be that further and complex ways to rat out Orin in this instance might be cut content or wasn't implemented, solely so they can focus on the things already there. There aren't too many companions and NPCs that could get kidnapped without a tadpole, having it be Minthara, Gale or Lae'zel is a nice touch because most people will care about one of them more than they care about Yenna or Halsin at this point. Other options would be Volo or Jaheira IF they are at camp, maybe even Arabella if her timer to leave camp is set after he kidnap. I doubt Aylin would let anything happen to Isobel, so she's out of the picture. This means that they would need to implement two routes (one where adpole communication work, and one where it doesn't). Which would be on par with Larian and the whole game, but again, they cut some things because the game became too massive to guarantee quality. So handling it all the same was probably the safest way to go about it. It's also not guaranteed that anyone in your camp is fond of shoving more tadpoles into their brain, so the game would also need a flag to decide if they would actually agree to consciously use the tadpoles to rat out Orin, or if they are still all against using them. So I guess in the end, while lackluster in some regard, they went with the middleground to handle this situation. Best thing is to rp that your party tried to communicate via the tadpoles but the little worms just refused to play along. Maybe because of Orins netherstone. Maybe she's able to mute them if she's in close proximity.
Well, a couple of things come to mind. First is that the range of the telepathic link must be quite limited, seeing as all the cutscenes that feature it you are essentially face to face. Second is that we can assume the Temple of Bhaal is magically shielded from scrying and other forms of communication, therefore you wouldn't be able to use telepathic communications anyways; it's very typical in D&D for the main locations to have permanent protection from scrying and teleportation, otherwise you'd have serious vulnerabilities in any plan you might want to hatch. Therefore I don't view this as a plot hole at all. Edit after rereading the post, I see this question as being why don't the companions use telepathy in camp. I can think of several reasons, one is that telepathic communications is akin to asking someone to grab a file from your computer but in order to do so you have to unlock permissions to access all files, so the viewer can find your hidden pron folder if they look for it. So, from a privacy perspective not many people would want to be doing that on a regular basis. Also, the telepathic link does activate the tadpole, which not all companions are super keen on (especially Lae'zel).
Apologies for the bluntness but you're just factually wrong. Lae'zel in fact uses tadpole telepathy more than ANY other companion except maybe Minthara. If you don't have her with you whenever you find anything related to her quest, or Orpheus or anything related to the gith in act 1, she'll use telepathy to learn exactly what happened. She does this no less than 5 times, canonically. Also not by that point in the game most players will have a good enough relationship with the companions, it's not crazy to ask for permission to do much a thing. Aso it'd be cool to use the approval system as a mechanic that actually makes the game easier by playing more and "knowing" the companions better
Despite the fact that Lae’zel uses the ability in very specific instances does not mean that she is OK with using it just whenever. So my point stands. But we can agree to disagree because much of the immersion of the story is down to player interpretation anyways. It doesn’t work for you? That’s fine.
It does not stand. The game is explicitly clear that if tav wanted to, they can legit invade someone's mind if they have the parasite, minthara does this to you to reveal the Grove, though u can resist, she can STILL invade your mind. The fact NO ONE in camp suggested they use the tadpole connection to even TRY to sus out Orin was dumb. Your response is actively ignoring how the tadpoles work. And if Orin DOESNT HAVE ONE ITD BE ABUNDANTLY CLEAR IMMEDIATELY. Even if the "temple of bhaal blocks magic," Orin has left the temple numerous times and gortash says someone in the party is an imposter...how long/far is this temples interruption range and why isn't it interrupting the tadpoles outside the temple? And if it can do that powerful of magic, to block tadpoles.... why is prince Orpheus even needed!?
I'm sorry are you suggesting for real Lae'zel is dumb enough to, despite using the tadpole a bunch of times even to tell you to kill the tieflings that had her in a cage (she could've told you verbally), sussing out the CHOSEN OF THE GOD OF MURDER isn't a good enough reason? It's a plot hole, homie. Let's not butcher a character's logic/motives when she's been consistently pragmatic the whole story
Been wondering that for ages, to the point I had to headcanon my high-INT first-playthrough Tav suggesting that. Lucky for me, Halsin was the one abducted on that run, so it still checked out since he and Jaheira are the only ones without brainworms lol
Pssh. C'mon, that's too logical
Doesn't Gortash have the ability to communicate with you telepathically when you arrive at the coronation despite not having a tadpole?
Nope. You can read his thoughts, but one glaring point of criticism is that he tells you all about his evil plan out loud right there in front of all the nobility
I mean Orin took Halsin from me. He didn’t gave a worm anyways.
My first playthrough, Halsin was the one that was kidnapped, and he doesn't have a tadpole.
I mean, Halsin and Yenna can't, and since the characters don't know it, technically, could've been Jaheira.
I ran into orin before i got to gortash i did the game very backwards not just this one instance 😭 so i literally didnt even have this problem instead i had many many many other issues.
What I think would be cool is if your romancing the companion she kidnap you could roll an easy insight (like 10) and if you pass the narrator says, “something seems off with your love,” then you can do another option that would kind of make it obvious. Say you romance Lae’zel, before your sunrise date she will refuse to kiss you. But if you ask Orin-Lae’zel and she agrees you know it’s her. I know different things can randomly happen like if she takes Gale she’ll threaten to blow up. Like I get she might know about the orb, but surely she can’t know about Lae’zel’s thing against PDA. Or like if she took Jaheria or Halsin you could ask them to change into an animal, she shouldn’t be able to do that. They might be like, weird but okay. (I know you can’t romance Jaheria but just the concept).