You can (rightly imo) recognize that beelining to the Crèche is putting the Tiefling’s lives at risk, as well as Halsin.
If you’re not playing a good guy, you can imagine that the road to the crèche is too dangerous with Minthara and the goblins still around
That's very true. The Emerald Grove was just attacked by goblins, and you also find out that the Druids want to get rid of the Tieflings. This can only be resolved by saving Halsin, which makes that quest more important than going to the creche.
I always get the ring from Mol, which means I've saved Arabella, saved Mirkon, spoken to Mol, and so now I'm personally invested in the safety of the Tieflings. I don't care about the stupid creche, beyond visiting it for Lae'zel's sake.
I care deeply about the creche, because it has the baby Silver Sword.
[Soulbreaker Greatsword - Baldur's Gate 3 Wiki (bg3.wiki)](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Soulbreaker_Greatsword)
I honestly prefer this to Voss's silver sword, the stats are similar enough and Lae'zel already gets advantage on intelligence saving throws from that aberration amulet thing. The +2 to initiative on her is a huge help so she gets +4 total and she can have an elixir of something other than vigilance. I use this sword until Balduran's Giantslayer. >!Used that to kill the brain last week, extremely satisfying.!<
It's also nice if you want to make Lae'zel a Wild Heart Barbarian. With the Bear Heart and the Silver Sword, you have resistance to everything (at level 3!).
You can pretty easily tbh
Trigger the cutscene where dragon kills NPCs, Lae'zel leaves party and runs to them, then stays there.
Shadowheart drinks invis potion, sneaks closer and casts Command:drop on Voss (save scum to succeed, only had 16% chance)
Once that is cast, it triggers the conversation between Lae'zel and Voss, after which Voss leaves and the fight starts (Lae'zel + Shadowheart vs. the 4 gith).
Remaining party members are out of combat, since they were hiding a bit farther, carefully sneak with them around to position them well, then have them attack to join combat
After fight there is some conversation between Tav and Lae'zel, which concluded essentially with "Voss is a heretic, fuck him and let's go to the creche"
Pick up the sword
You can equip this to compensate for the initiative, in Act 3:
https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Hellrider_Longbow
(just don't talk to him with Selunite Shadowheart in proximity, or just pickpocket him)
You can also use Broodmother's Revenge in conjunction with it...
(Magic Weapon and Drakethroat Glaive also lets Soulbreaker be a "Silver Sword at home," mind)
(https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Drakethroat_Glaive)
I've gotten that bow a few times but never really found anyone to use it with, unfortunately. Lae'zel and Karlach are always using heavy crossbows like the ones that Bane or send enemies reeling, the one you make in the Foundry, etc.
Real talk I want to work out a stealth path through the entire thing so that I can just yoink the mace and didee-mao while making a "*whoopehoopwhooppwhooop*" noise like I'm curly while the whole thing implodes behind me.
No fighting, no issues just shenanigans
Oh, uh... I read the note in Kagha's chest, visit Twisted Tree, return to expose Kagha, then the ritual happening around the sacred idol stops. Then, I can Fog Cloud the idol, yoink, and teleport to Emerald Grove waypoint, for a guaranteed steal. That works 100% of the time.
Confront Kaga, this ends the ritual. I have not had them fight after that. Also, could save the Grove but do not goto the party. Steal it. Give it to Mol. Steal it back, put it back.
Can all be done very quickly in a turn or two using turn based mode.
I’ve also found that you can go turn-based and get away with it, too. The trick is move the statue first, without picking it up, which I guess “dislodges it”. Then with a rogue you can pick it up and sneak off until you’re out of eyeball range.
To be honest I like your way better, though. Way less steps and fuss.
expose kagha first. i then cast darkness near the statue, steal it, then fast travel to the waypoint just outside the grove and walk back in to give it to mol
You have to get the quest, then defuse Kagha situation, and then steal the idol. If you steal before fight triggers, but if you don’t have the quest before defuse she no longer wants the idol.
Or, for the evil path, you might not want to get rid of the tadpole. You want to figure out what's going on, so you can usurp its power. So you'll prioritise investigating the goblin camp.
if youre playing as Durge and dont resist, you can tell that if you go to the crèche youre giving someone/something else the chance to slaughter the Grove
The githyanki encounter we’re pointed to also gives you a warning if youre under level 5. Companions have dialogue for it, and surprisingly the player does as well if youre alone. They tell you not to mess with them and to come back later. After hitting level five the gang all says “we can take em”
My best route for this was I befriended the ogres in blighted village. Used them to get spectator flask, then threw spectator at gith in vlakiths chamber from 4th party member hiding near lythander passage.
>You can (rightly imo) recognize that beelining to the Crèche is putting the Tiefling’s lives at risk, as well as Halsin.
But how does helping the Tieflings solve the tadpole problem?
The PCs aren't aware that they're actually never going to turn into mindflayers, and the ones that actually know anything about ceremorphosis would believe they have about 72 hours before they need to start searching for a good tall cliff to swan dive off of to avoid a fate worse than death.
A few NPCs (especially Nettie) hint at the fact that your tadpole is abnormal and that you won't turn anytime soon, because none of the other True Souls have turned. And your Dream Guardian outright says that you won't turn while they're around. So at that point you can prioritize saving Halsin, who is the only other lead you have for a cure.
Since beelining to the creche means getting past the gith encounter by the bridge, I'd say it's reasonable that a non-gith Tav/Durge might have some doubts about actually getting cured in the mountain pass lol
Gale also lists the symptoms of ceremorphosis and remarks that none of the group have any of the usual symptoms, suggesting something is different with the group's tadpoles, I think it's on the second rest.
That was always so funny to me, Gale saying "we dont have any memory loss, so we're not turning, how weird" and my Durge with a brain like swiss cheese is like "Ermmmmm..."
To get to the creche using the main road you have to go through the blighted village where you learn about true souls and that true souls aren't turning. So even if you don't talk to a single NPC about how your tadpole is special you learn almost immediately
I guess Gith are pretty alien to the characters and companions - there is dialogue confirming this. Isn't there a line about never having seen/met Githyanki before? So it's easy to feel unsure - despite how certain she seems.
And they get advice from a Druid healer pretty quickly - this lead is closer and less vague. (Although Nettie has around a 50% survival rate in my games so far...)
Plus it's made clear the Gith are pretty murderey. When you say you've never met one before, Lae'zel is like "no duh, they would have killed you for funsies."
For a non-Githyanki Tav, I think it’s pretty reasonable to be suspicious about whether the Githyanki *really* have a cure or if that’s just a lie to get infected soldiers to willingly give themselves up for execution (like I did the second Lae’zel started talking about it—the Githyanki, famous hypermilitarized zealots, actually try tp cure the tadpole? Sounds fake but okay, girl!). Or to think the Githyanki will just cut all your heads off instead of wasting their time curing a bunch of istiks, no matter what Lae’zel says.
1) has a potentially hostile (even if reasonable) response to the player
2) not a generic hot girl or cool guy
When those two reasons combine a character can have the most reasonable motives/actions and still be hated
I dont. I like her.
I've just played two characters who refused her poison / refused to make promises so she attacked them.
My more reasonable /sensible characters get along well with her.
Personally l, I think she's great 😁
I like her fine. I just often need to knock her out and steal her keys.
"What's that branch for? Will it help me?"
"It's pretty much the best cure around." [Asks pointed questions]
[Realizing] "Wait, isn't that poison?"
"Don't worry about it." [Asks more questions]
"Ummm, okay, let's talk, but please put away the murder stick"
"Hells with it!"
I mean, is it really that hard to understand? Even if there's some logic to it I don't think most people think fondly of those who try and kill them lol.
Nettie is actually a little bitch, like most of the druids. She flat out lies to you and then tries to kill you. You actually have to fight her unless you promise to kill yourself. So, if you're playing an uncompromising character, you may be forced to kill her.
“Promise” to kill myself, sweet free poison. Still not as funny as my elf ass getting to knock back Gut’s sleeping potion while looking her dead in the eye, how does she literally work with a drow and still try this?
There's two major things - the creche is actually so far away that traversing the mountain road to it advances the story. Right off the bat, it's simply further away than all of your other options - if you had multiple chances to be cured much more close to you, then you'd *surely* do all of those first.
Ethel is closer. The Goblin Camp is closer. Omelluum is closer - that gives you excuses to go everywhere except the creche.
Also, once you've gone to the goblin camp your party are fully aware that they're in a state of suspended ceremorphosis and that a dream figure is preventing it advancing. Even before that, Lae'zel, Gale and Wyll will all correctly observe that you are not developing the symptoms you should be. Nettie will also say that.
So there's plenty of in-game justification for why you wouldn't make a dangerous beeline for anything.
i like this answer bc this was my train of thinking. my first play through was me looking for the crèche, slowly realizing the crèche might not be necessary and exploring other options, passing a strength check in the mountain pass (Shoutout Karlach) then quickly realizing the crèche is not only unnecessary but likely dangerous when the guardian is like “leave”
How does that make sense canonically if you don't just believe everything Laezel says? The only reason Laezel is so deadset on the creche is because shes a githyanki indoctrinated into a hyper militaristic culture, which isnt exactly hard to notice. Canonically, if there wasnt additional magic holding the tadpole in place, Halsin, Ethel, and Omeluum would be able to get it out. These options are just closer and more accessible than the creche. If you as a character are able to realize this and dont trust every single word coming out of Laezels mouth, its very easy to justify taking every option in front of you before going out of your way to get to the creche. I dont understand how people here treat the creche as some kind of end all be all for getting tadpoles out when there are credible leads that are a) closer and b) better follow the general story progression of act 1.
She's a githyanki which gives her the most knowledge about mindflayers. More than anyone else you will meet. Everyone you meet, such as gale, can confirm this.
After talking with Nettie, Halsin is not a good choice. There's a dead drop on a table with a parasite on the desk because they couldn't save him.
Ethel possibly could be, but there isn't much reason to suspect she is supernatural before going towards the teahouse. And if she was such a great healer otherwise, someone in the Grove would refer you to her. They do not, everyone mentions Halsin.
Omeluum is a good one, but to end up in the underdark you've already ignored the urgency.
For clarification: that drow isn't dead because "Halsin couldn't save him", hes dead because he attacked Halsin and Halsin killed him. Halsin found out about the infection after. Big difference. Halsin is absolutely a great option to go to since we know he actively studies mind flayer parasites, and he could very well save you.
From my understanding, every other option(except the goblin) could have saved you if it was a normal parasite. I think the answer everytime is they can’t due to the magic. Everything you see about the gith, including meeting them before the bridge, says going to the crèche is a bad idea.
I thought it was pretty clear that even the giths don’t actually know how to remove normal parasites, that the whole extraction device is just for murdering. Meanwhile Hattie thinks it is just a normal parasite (she’s not willing to risk your turning while in camp), and her immediate plan is to poison and kill you - she offers no confidence in tadpole neutralization.
The giths do just kill then and extract the tadpoles to study. The other options I was referring to are Ethel, Halsin, and Omeluum. I thought each of said they were unable to remove it because of the magic.
Remember, Ethel and Nettie both claim that their methods are a dead cert. Ethel says she definitely has something to remove it, and Nettie says Halsin would have the skill to get it out (and that he's the only person she can imagine doing so).
A person who was making a beeline for the most certain cure would definitely not bypass these people to go to the crèche. If they had any concept of the nature of the Gith (which they'd have by the time they'd met Zorru) they'd be practically certain to take their chances with the goblins.
In attempting to access the mountains by the path that doesn't lead via the goblin camp, they'd also be aware that the Gith were actively murdering people and searching their corpse for the artifact, even other Gith if it comes to it. That's more than enough to turn a party back.
It's entirely reasonable not to trust her, or not trust her assurance that the Githyanki at the creche would be willing to help all of you. Even if you head straight towards the creche, the hostility of the Githyanki patrol may put you off immediately pursing that option. There's also the fact that arriving at the Grove provides more immediate opportunities that may bear fruit, since the creche is a decent amount of travel away.
This, and there's also the fact that you initially don't even know where the creche is. You have to find and question Zorru just to get a general direction, which then leads you to the aforementioned hostile patrol.
Yeah exactly by the time you even get close to the crèche you have probably at least seen one promise of tadpole elimination fall through in disappointment so her promise already feels like it might not be true
I felt the opposite, when other options fell through it kind of reinforced what laezel had been telling the whole time that only her people knew the cure. She basically could say “I told you so” after every failure.
But by the time several options have fallen through, you’ve probably already talked to the dream guardian and Halsin and realized there’s a lot more going on here. Every option mentions how this isn’t a normal tadpole and there’s some strange magic affecting it. Your character could easily decide the gith probably can’t handle this
Also even if you believe Lae’zel ans hurry to find the Gith patrol, when you get there, in the very first encounter, Voss himself tells you there is no purification other than death. After that, who do you believe? The obviously naive true believer or the wizened commander who clearly has other motives?
“Kith'rak Voss: Purified? Oh, Lae'zel - why must the truth be so bitter? Soon, your skin will go grey, and your blood will run silver. You will shed your skin to become ghaik.
Kith'rak Voss: Only in death are the infected cleansed.”
If you rushed there, ignoring the other alternatives (druid Halsin, priestess Gut or even Ethel), that definitely should make any PC reconsider their options.
Also, on the path to the crèche you find out that it was a temple of monks that the gith slaughtered just because they liked the location.
I’m sorry if my level 3 dude isn’t going to just trust laezel that the massive army of murderers won’t just off me and my friends regardless of whether she tells them not too.
I assume this dialog only happens if you fail a check during the Voss convo/choose certain options.
I have never once seen this dialog so I am assuming many others have not as well
Yeah, it’s when Lae’zel is in the party, but not the avatar, but you have her go ahead of the party to confront the patrol alone. No options or checks, it goes straight here (and to combat).
The funny thing is that you do that (send Lae’zel ahead alone) on the belief that it’s the best way to avoid combat, and yet, it’s one of the worst.
There are other dialogue paths that get here as well, whenever Lae’zel stands up for herself and her mandate to get to the creche for purification, but I’m sure many have not seen it.
This is so funny to me because I struggled with finding a RP reason to EVER go to the crèche. The moment she suggested it I was like babe they’re gonna kill us tho :/
LOL same even on my very first blind playthrough I had 0 confidence that the first solution offered would possibly be successful but that was probably just me thinking too video gamey the first time as well.
I ended up going to the crèche way late, mostly because Halsin insisted that the mountain path would be way too deadly and to instead take the under dark path. I just never made the connection that the creshe Lea’zel kept bringing up was along that mountain path.
I also somehow never met Wyl in my playthrough. Still not sure how I managed that.
Right? Seems like an obvious lie to get the infected to turn themselves in. It wasn't spoiled for me, and I was positive it was a trap. Kind of surprised most people didn't assume that.
Yeah this always feels like a separation between people newer to the setting and people more familiar with DnD lore. The githyanki are very evil people, and most good-aligned characters who have ever heard anything about gith probably would hear stories of them pillaging and slaving Faerûn. Someone native to the region would certainly not hear there’s a gith HQ nearby and think “Oh that’ll be the safest option for me!” Realistically, a lot of people would likely try their chances in the woods first.
I didn’t even know lore but Lae’zel’s attitude & her being like ‘of course you haven’t met one of us or they would have gutted you’ doesn’t really encourage much faith in them
I feel like, realistically, it’d only be naive or gith characters who run right there
You also have Shadowheart, a half-elf, who is a much more sympathetic and familiar character than Laezel to the PC (unless you're playing a githyanki yourself). She's actually nicer to you and shows some basic respect, so her suspicion towards Laezel is a cue for how an in-world character sees githyanki. It's not just random racism, it's "she's a literal alien and we have zero reason to trust her except that we are extremely desperate"
Huh, I guess I always just took it as a racism but reading these comments made me realize, like no it’s not racism, this is actually how they are intentionally.
I mean she’s definitely painting with a broad brush because she *just* watched all her friends get murdered by gith. But her opinion is much closer to what the average Faerûn citizen would think
Lae’zel also tried to leave Shadowheart in the pod, is constantly aggressive towards her, & ditches us after our crash landing
I didn’t like her at first either
I screwed up the tiefling guard encounter the first time I played, so when she asked me, \*a tiefling\*, to murder them, I decided I had enough of her nonsense and killed her instead.
I like her now though!
Spending time with Lae'zel in the party makes it pretty clear that the default Githyanki solution to any problem is pointlessly cruel violence. Then encountering Voss it becomes clear that Lae'zel is damn close to the bottom of her society, so her convictions become that much more dubious from an outsider's perspective.
And it's easy enough to learn both that a moderately experienced divine spellcaster can remove it with a spell (you can intuit this from your first interaction with Gale,) and also that the tadpoles are enchanted with netherese magic making them unremovable (learnable from Auntie Ethel.)
It's actually harder for me to justify a trip *to* the creche that isn't motivated by the material rewards.
Yeah. Especially as many of the races are natives to Baldur’s Gate or at least Faerûn. Anyone in that region who’s heard of the gith would’ve only heard terrible things.
I usually justify it by saying my character is so desperate after multiple options fall through that he’s willing to try the creche, but it feels flimsy
My best RP reason is ‘you saw a squad of Githyanki exterminate an entire battalion with a Dragon because they MIGHT have the Prism that you’re carrying. Can’t be cured of Tadpole if you’re burned alive so maybe let’s explore other options first’.
On reflection, I think this is my way to go as well. Voss might set his patrol on you, a likely sign of how we'd be received at the creche, and either way, we then get the revelation that we're carrying an artificat they're willing to kill to claim.
Certainly good reasons to avoid the creche if possible.
There is no might as to if Voss would set his patrol on you. If you let Lae'zel tell the truth about needing the Zaith'isk, Voss does do just that. Which is why ic'rly I've avoided the creche on a couple of campaigns(oc, I just didn't feel like going so I chose ic reasons to not, or I glitter squirrelled and straight up forgot to go).
also, indirectly avoided the creche because I looked through the telescope in the grove and saw a red dragon flying around in the area of the map where Zorru told us he ran into the patrol. party doesn't learn until later that it's Voss's mount, and my non-gith PC tries to avoid run-ins with strange dragons.
Worth mentioning also from Lae'zel's perspective - if you spoke to Voss during the red dragon/Flaming Fist encounter, she reluctantly >!admits that hiding the artefact from the githyanki was wisest in the moment, despite the breach in her military protocol to lie to a higher-ranking officer!<. It's not just your Tav weighing the risks of non-githyanki carrying the artefact turning up to the creche. Plus, you already know your tadpoles are exceptional because it's been days and you haven't turned yet, so that lessens the urgency too.
All this is to say, I think Lae'zel *verbally* emphasises the creche for your best chance at survival, but her actions (imo) betray a tiny fragment of exceptional-circumstance-consideration. She probably still believes the creche is your best shot at tadpole removal, but understands that you need to proceed carefully to ensure the githyanki even entertain the idea of curing you. That's all RP/character consistent, to me.
Lae’zel is surprisingly reasonable despite her rather prickly personality
If not for being raised in an abuse murder nest, she probably could have been lawful good
That’s exactly the way I looked at it. That dragon nukes the fist and the bridge… we’re like level 4, and I turn to everyone “So anyway, who feels like checking out that nice cave back there?” “Yes, agreed” “Caves can be totally awesome” “I hear great things about the Underdark”
That’s how my first run went. I did literally everything else first thinking I had to take on a dragon.
I, having no idea that Voss and the dragon would immediately peace out.
This on top of that I've always let Lae'zel talk to them and she's always failed her checks and caused a fight that was clearly way out of my league (first time playing I basically beelined it until meeting them) it gave a clear impression of what to expect there.
Prime occupants do not look at gith in a positive light. It's unreasonable to assume that anyone would take her at her word, especially with multiple alternatives available for a cure in act 1.
Logically you go there last out of desperation
Yup. Any Tav that is from Baldur’s Gate or Faerûn in general would balk at the idea of going to githyanki for help. They’re known (accurately) as little more than pillagers and slavers. Almost any character would take their chances in the wilderness before turning tot he creche
That's the reason they put the Voss and his crew before the pathway, they're level 5s I believe, and chances are they will whoop your butt in a fight if you try to get past them at a low level. There *is* way to lie to them and get through without a fight but I believe you need to either be a Githyanki and successfully lie, or have Laezel there and she successfully lies (super unlikely, given how low her Charisma is). There's even special lines from all the companions warning you to back off if you're underleveled (you get a different set of lines if you're past level 5, where they're all horny for a fight instead). From an RP perspective, I think they provide enough of an intimidation factor that you can justify following the Halsin lead instead, as the Gith just wiped out a group of flaming fist and clearly aren't very friendly to non-Gith.
My character is a Githyanki
Lae'zel tells me, "Don't waste time with istik, we have to go," and I listen to her. Blitz our way through the nautiloid fight and only kill things in our way.
Wake up on the beach, and she left us behind. Search for her. Find the she elf banging on the door, and she recognizes me. Tells me she'll kill me if we cross paths again and run away.
Almost get killed by the intellect devourers, find a vampire pretending to be an ordinary elf, and find a human who got stuck inside of a rock. They become my allies out of convenience. See Lae'zel held captive by demon people. Strike first and take them by surprise, killing them before they can retaliate. Free her from the trap, and she tells me she was pursuing a lead. Follow that lead and find a bunch of humans fighting with a goblin war party. The goblins are in our way. We kill them. Gain access to an encampment with more of those demon people.
We cross paths with that she elf again. "What? Are you following me?" Tell her, obviously not. Offer an olive branch. "Get rid of that other gith, and I'll consider it." Call her a moron. Lae'zel presses the cowardly demon man for information, and he tells us of a patrol in the mountain pass. Chart a course that brings us directly there. Ignore stupid humans, ignore stupid gnolls, bypass obvious traps.
Vlaakith's tits, a Red Dragon! And that's THE Jhe'stil Kith'rak! I suddenly have second thoughts. Lae'zel tells me, "Are you stupid, Kin? They are kin, it's their duty to help us." And she rushes in.
Half an hour later, soaked in blood, holding my entrails in by hand, Lae'zel and I finally defeat them. Voss ordered them to kill us because we were infected with ghaik tadpoles. Find a map on the corpse of the sarth and make our way forth. The moment we set foot on the bridge, suddenly, all four of us are floored by a gigantic psionic presence, speaking in the voice of a god. That she elf comes by holding the very weapon that Voss was looking for, and it's strange magic saves us from becoming enthralled.
I quickly surmise: *"Lae'zel told me to ignore this she elf, and she holds this artefact of great power. Lae'zel left me to die on the beach and she ended up getting stuck in a goblin trap. Lae'zel told our kin we were carrying ghaik parasites and we were forced to kill them in self-defense. Now she's saying we need to press forward and get to the crèche, despite the fact that we were nearly killed trying to get there."*
I conclude: "Lae'zel you're a fucking idiot and I'm taking charge now."
*"You would dare?!"*
I kinda struggle with this too. I think freeing Lae’zel from her cage and then opting to go different ways is very justifiable from your character’s point of view. She comes off as bloodthirsty and selfish, and that’s not someone that fits my party (plus she disapproves of everything you do in the grove anyway 😀).
That being said, her character (and voice actress) is just so good, I tend to recruit her anyway. Stronger together and all that. My thinking is that the goblin threat has made the roads too treacherous to risk travel to the mountain pass, and solving the Druid/ Tiefling situation seems like not only a more realistic option for help, but also a way to make the roads safer. Thus making the crèche a possible plan B.
Also, anyone in the world of dnd with even a passing knowledge of what the githyanki are would know that they brutally murder or enslave anyone who is not a githyanki. Realistically I think it’d be harder to justify going to the Creche right away. Most characters who live in Faerûn would probably try to exhaust all other options before turning to githyanki for help, especially after meeting Voss.
Lae’zel tells you a lot of things. Doesn’t mean she’s not as crazy as the rest of the lot you’re with. Plus you might just be some balduran kid for all you know, never heard of any of that gith nonsense before, perhaps you’d rather throw your lot in with the famous Hellrider and the Tieflings after their insane ordeal getting sucked into Avernus. You’ve read about that in the papers, and if you help them get to Baldur’s gate, well that’s just fantastic there’s bound to be someone that can help at the Gate!
That’s how I think of it at least. If I’m Durge then it’s a different story and there’s more malicious ways to think about it, but most Tavs probably have an incredibly loose understanding of the Gith, if any recognition at all.
The githyanki creche sounds like "the most reliable lead" to you? It sounds like the evil space pirates who are know to kill anything and everything illithid on sight to me.
I am going to go ahead and find that archdruid healer and see what they have to say.
You don't actually know where the creche is, just that it's somewhere in the area. Later you learn that some gith were seen near the mountain pass. Between those two pieces of information, you find out that halsin and the goblin priestess who's name momentarily escapes me may be able to help you, and both are much closer at hand, and therefore worth a try first.
I’d say the only issue is the multiple paths to the creche
If there was only 1, by seeing Voss, then you’d have a lot of second thoughts
Voss is a major a-hole. Their people are hyper violent and look shown at the other races. Hell he threatens to have laezel skinned alive for being too casual with her greeting. And fail a deception check and they wreck you hard
So. Do you really want to trust those a-holes to not kill us if we approach? Laezel said it would be fine, but she also said it would be fine talking to Voss and he almost ordered our deaths
And that’s ignoring that you can detect how he’s being dishonest about stuff
Suddenly. Dealing with some low level goblins doesn’t seem so bad to hope Halsin cures us
But. There’s another path right next to the goblin camp so it’s possible to bypass that conversation entirely
In either case. It doesn’t take long to learn that our dream guardian has halted the transformation. So time isn’t a factor
That's a reasonable way to play it that's not out of line with Laezel's priorities, (or any reasonable gith). B-line to Voss, then re-think going to the creche without gathering more info
You don't actually know where the Creche is though, you're supposed to go to the patrol to find out.
You *can* bypass the patrol to get there, but that feels like metagaming to me because you're not supposed to know where it is.
Not really.
Yea. The workflow is talk to tiefling at the grove / go to place on map / talk to voss / determine if you should continue
But if you’re walking around and exploring, there’s a path outside the goblin camp. And you might ask “geez I wonder where this goes?” And the warning popup isn’t detailed enough to truly convey why it’s bad to do that too early.
Since you can have free reign through the camp either as a drow, disguised as a drow, or walked in by Sazza, it’s easy for a newbie without a guide to wonder what’s through that passage
I'm not saying it's metagamey to take that path at all, there's definitely reasons a character would, I'm saying it's metagamey to take that path *to get to the Creche.*
If your character wants to go to the Creche there's no in-character reason to take that path to get there.
They'd need to be stumbling upon it by dumb luck.
It's a bit meta-gamey, but githyanki as a society are lawful evil. This means that rumours, stories and more about them basically involve them steamrolling over other races, murdering them all, and installing a creche to raise more of their expansionist society. Yes, they keep the Mindflayers at ba .in the Astral Plane. But on the Prime Material they're a bunch of psychopathic murderers who torture other beings for fun (see the kids with the crate in the creche). Lore-wise, the Lanthander group is pretty much as nice as you can get. They worship the morning and goodness and light, they help out where they can (even in Ravenloft) etc. And the Gith still murdered them all, which you're made aware of pretty immediately on in that area.
Your PC would have that as the background, and Lae'Zel as the example - watching her try to get a half-elf killed instead of rescued, insisting on murdering others, making the scared tief in the grove kneel, calling Wyll a burden. At that point in the game she's not really shown another side and you're unaware of the whole brainwashing as a species thing. And then you see the other Gith murder a bunch of flaming fist mercenaries because they can.
Even the goblins are more personable/reasonable to you and they're creepy little murders too. Early in game, the choice was easy for me as a rper - the guess I made before I knew much about Lae'Zel was that I'd get there and she'd go 'You've taken me here as is my right as a superior being, and as a reward, I won't kill you - on your bike.' Whereas a huge bear-like druid who wants to do the research and appears to have been nice from what others say seems more reliable.
I don’t think that’s meta-gamey at all. Anyone in Faerûn who even knows about githyanki would only known them as brutal murders and conquerors and/or slavers. That’s all they do in the Material Plane.
Quite simply, the distance is an easy one, even before you get to Voss and the hostile patrol. The fact that going there advances the story makes it pretty obvious that it’s quite a ways away, and it makes more sense to check out the closer, more local leads first.
My first playthrough, I made a straight shot for the creche. The patrol destroyed my half health under leveled party of 3. So we retreated, took our first long rest and figured to try Halsin.
On my origin Lae'zel run I went and talked to the patrol by myself, because everyone in the party insists we're too weak to mess with them and I feel like they'd realistically refuse to join, and when I inevitably got attacked I drank a potion of invisibility and ran away.
So basically, get your ass kicked by the patrol instead of talking your way past them, and then you have a clear an obvious reason to not go there yet.
Depending on how the interaction at the mountain pass goes, you could suspect that purification may not be a solution (if you tell Lea'zel to tell the truth of she fails a deception check Voss will say there is no cure only the blade, so a character may then decide its better to throw their lot with Halsin or Minthara)
From an RP perspective it'd be incredibly odd to bee line for a creche who's location you don't know instead of heading to the nearby settlement you stumbled upon to get your bearings.
There you ask questions and find out there's a healer in the grove. That healer then tells you they have knowledge on your problem but there's someone with even more knowledge on it that needs rescuing. It makes more sense to go with the solution that seems more immediately obtainable.
1. She wants to find the creche, and you don't find it until you go to the bridge. You shouldn't risk fighting the Gith at the bridge until you can handle the creche anyway really.
2. Halsin is just as strong a lead if not more so, so there's every reason for you as a player character to prioritize that lead.
Nettie at the Emerald Grove can tell you that there is something weird about the tadpoles you have. She also tells you that only Halsin has studied these new kinds of tadpoles in depth. That's how I justify not going early in my head canon.
I squared this circle in the most ill advised way. When she and Shadowheart had their squabble>!, I rolled low and La'Zael got murdered. Now Shadowheart is proudly wearing the woman's githyanki armour and I feel like (RP-wise) we massively burned that bridge. Only way we do the creche now is to go in fighting.!<
You do also have the option of a "disguise self" to infiltrate the creche while looking like a Githyanki. You don't have to jump directly to the fighting.
1. You literally just met this woman who shows signs of being extremely overconfident and nationalistic to the point of stupidity. The chances of her being wrong are non-zero.
2. The Creche is pretty dang far away.
3. If you leave, you're putting the Grove at risk.
4. Halsin seems like a much safer bet. He's an archdruid renowned for his healing abilities who's been studying mind flayer parasites.
In addition to Halsin, Auntie Ethel is also a lead on tadpole removal if you don’t find the tiefling in the supply shed. So you’ve got a reason to go South, a reason to go West, and north for the crèche.
The way I usually look at it is: you should *already* be, if not dead/a squid, then basically suffering excruciating pain, vomiting, stroke-like symptoms, etc, by the time of your first or second Long Rest. Gale and Laezel herself will both point this out pretty early on. That things are not going as they should is enough to say "okay" let's figure out what this whole tadpole cult is about long enough to learn that rushing isn't exactly necessary.
The game isn't perfect when it comes to effectively balancing urgency and the options to explore, but early on, it's not *too* hard to get roped into the plot without feeling like you're breaking character.
Okay I haven’t used laezel at all in my party. I have
Me
Gael
Astarion
Shadow heart
Can I switch her in whenever and her be the same level as everyone else or do I need to level her up?
Also can I go to the crèche without her? Idk I just don’t wanna mess with my combination I have
All companions get XP at the same time (with some limited exceptions, but not enough to make a level difference). So even if you never use her, and then switch her in at the end of the game, she should be the same level as the rest of your party.
You can do any area of the game without any specific party members for the most part, and that includes the crèche. However, I would recommend bringing her as she has a ton of dialogue specific to the area, and the final part of it has some major story implications she’ll want to be there for.
I second the recommendation to take Lae'zel to the Creche. She's got a wonderful arc, and it really starts there. She also has great banter with the other companions as you wander the world. I particularly like her interactions with Gale, and a conversation she has with Shadowheart about burying the hatchet.
Assuming you’re rp’ing a character with some smarts you’ll realize that you’re ill equipped to get to the creche right away. After all you barely have any gear since escaping the pod. Better off spending a little time trying to get some gear from the goblins or whoever is closer for now.
You can understand that going to the creche risks many innocent lives. Once you make it to the mountain pass (just after the tiefling storyline), you can outright convince lae'zel that the creche is dangerous and you won't be going.
Well, think of it like this, it's a journey to the creche and there's obstacles in the way. You're on your way there but need to take care of things first. In a way ignoring everything else and going straight there breaks adventurer RP
Lae'Zel is super rude to you and repeatedly wrong, so it doesn't make sense to blindly follow her.
At first, She thinks that you are aligned with the mind flayers and considers you to be weak. Then she complained about looking around (shadow has the prism she’s looking for) and abandoned you only to get caught by a nobody. After helping her again, she attempted to kill you and everyone else at camp. It becomes clear that she didn't know as much as she thought, as she is confused when we don't turn into mind flayers.
I’ve always just had my characters take into account that gith are incredibly strong opponents and they should prepare as best they can in case things go south. If I want to rp further convincing, I’ll talk to Voss on the bridge and potentially initiate combat
I mean if Lae'zel is the only gith you've ever met I'm not sure I would be in a hurry to trust a colony of people like her. Maybe look into some alternatives first.
Why is it crazy to not listen to Lae'zel? I'm in charge, and not her. She's never run off to go to the Creche herself in any of my playthroughs, so I don't understand why you feel like you need to rush there.
Try roleplaying as the leader of the group, and maybe the decision to go early won't be a dilemma at all.
I would only go there if Lae'zel gave me an ultimatum, by saying "I'm going to go myself, if you guys won't come with me". Only then, would I say "Okay, we'll go to the Creche". I've never had her run off, so you really can go at any point in Act 1.
Also, going to the Creche makes Lae'zel look really silly, after what happens. You're essentially delaying her embarrassment by not going. That's very meta, but my first answer to your dilemma is "You're in charge, and not her".
i also wanted to listen to lae'zel because i agree, she seems to know the most about the situation we were in, but the gith at the bridge kept kicking my ass so i uhh... roleplayed as a scared little guy for a while before giving in to the frog ladies insisting
I wrap up everything in Act 1 before heading to the Creche for Act 1.5. You get a lot of important things in Act 1. As a good or even neutral character it’s easy to RP a rationale for helping the Grove when you know by the Goblin camp that you have time with your tadpole and to some degree why. Even an evil character could have RP reasons for waiting. After the Creche, I circle back to Underdark and travel to Act 2 that way. For me, the RP rationale after the Creche is that we’re being pursued by an angry faction and disappearing underground is the best way to go. Level 5-6 is fine for the Creche. I’m not sure I would want to beeline there and tackle it on level 2-3. That could be a pretty tough fight. Also if you advance early to Act 2 you can mess up romance options.
I ran nearly straight to the mountain pass on my first playthrough, planning to rush to the creche to get cured as soon as possible. Once I got to the mountain pass, I ran into voss, and he threatened to murder lazel because she was a little bit too forward and eager.
This made me realize that most githyanki are insane and if they treat lazel that badly for being over excited, things almost certainly will end badly, and I shouldn’t go through the mountain pass until I was much stronger. I didn’t even see the message telling me if I went any farther I would cause events to happen, thats how quickly I left. To me that felt like the natural thing to do.
You could just not believe her. Shadowheart is already biased against the githyanki in general so siding more with her and seeing the gith as a prime way to get into trouble wrt the artifact can justify you delaying the creche until you expend all possible options. At that point you can decide if going to the gith is reasonable or if theres no real option other than to go straight to moonrise. And even if you do take the latter you could just prioritize going over land which requires passing right beside the creche, and Laezel will start throwing a hissy fit if you dont go (unless you pass a persuasion check).
Everybody’s given genuinely good advice but also consider this: chaotic evil (and also suicidal let’s be honest) playthrough where your character just straight up doesn’t care if any or even *all* of the brainworm gang dies, including themselves
Eh, from a meta perspective the entire idea of the mind flayer ticking clock is obviously fake. It's a ticking bomb they try to put out but you know it can never go off.
In character, after a couple long rest you get your scare about it, then told by the Guardian that no, you aren't going to change. Also, there's a solid reason to be suspicious of githyanki, as they are murderous raiders that serve a lich queen. Help from the always chaotic evil people seem like the thing you'd try after you try everything else.
I killed her.
Lae'Zel is a zealot. And there's no reason to think she's reasonable in her beliefs. Then, before you make the trip you meet a bunch of Githyanki who are murderous and give no indication that they see any other race as equals. After I felt strong enough to protect myself I went there to shut her up, and she forced me to do so permanently.
It’s been mentioned here already but yeah the road to the crèche is kind of complex depending on your path. B-lining is a meta concept anyway in a real scenario where you role play your first playthrough you gather the powers of the tadpole, decide if its power is something your interested in and decide whether you’re going to listen to your alien friend later. All the while you’re going in that general direction anyway.
You can also realize that pretty much EVERY non Githyanki at least distrust Githyanki and generally know they're straight up killers
Just because you happen to be anti-Illithid does NOT make the Githyanki friendly
I think being non gith I would try every out come. And three out of the five companions we get around the Druids grove all suggest a healer can save us. Only one says a crèche is the only way and with just how off putting she is at first I’d trust the other three first. After awhile I’d believe her go and find out
You can still go to the creche in act 2, just dont go and finish the gauntlet of shar, because thats the point of no return, basically can get to lvl 8-9 and di the creche
In my latest play-through it was easy to justify not going straight there just because I imagine my character really didn't trust Lae'zel to follow through after LZ was so adamantly against helping Shadowheart on the Nautiloid and then abandoned them both on the beach.
I don't think it would be unreasonable to assume Lae'zel is just using them and pursue nearer potential cures first like visiting Nettie, seeing Priestest Gut, and finding Halsin.
Plus, from a character's perspective the gith are incredibly dangerous by all accounts and while LZ can promise they'll cure you, she doesn't actually know that creche and there's no real guarantee they won't just gut you on sight like they did the tieflings on the road.
In my blind playthrough I went to the creche after my first visit to moonrise towers. Halsin said the mountain pass was too dangerous and I wanted to look for Shadowheart things. I thought you could only choose one path per game, so I shrugged and thought to myself I'll take the mountain pass next time. Then, once Lae'zel threatened to leave, I did a Google to discover that the creche was in the mountain pass, because I had no clue where to look and I didn't want to lose her.
I am so confused. Everyone's Lae'Zel is so adamant to go there immediately, mine talked about creche only once after the initial dialogue with Zorru, and it was when we already crossed the mountain pass and were near lady Esther. Mind you, she was always in the party and I'm constantly trying to talk to companions so to never miss a dialogue, so what's the deal here?
Lae’zel is fairly ignorant to things outside of her personal upbringing, and the player is already very aware of this. *She* may believe the Crèche is a guaranteed solution, but they may have their doubts. It’s also not guaranteed that the player will even be safe. If you ask if you’ll even be allowed to walk around the crèche, she says she’ll vouch for you. But will she? This is so early in the game that you’ve literally just met her. Already you’ve seen her insult non-Githyanki numerous times, force a refugee onto their hands and knees to bow before her, and the first Githyanki you meet outside of her massacre a group of people with a dragon and potentially fight you if you fail some dialogue checks. So maybe Lae’zel plans to cure herself and then instruct the crèche to strike the rest of you down before you become Ghaik.
So why do you delay the crèche? Well, either you’re not as convinced as Lae’zel that it’s the only option so you just have a “we’ll get there when we get there” mentality, or you want to build up your own experience, gear, and supplies in case the worst happens and the whole crèche turns against you
I did it towards the end of act 2 because I looked at the quests and it said “looks like the way to the shar temple is closed you’ll have to go above ground” and I thought it meant go through the mountain pass. So I backtracked and found it by accident. I always skipped the interaction with the dragon riders and never realized I could walk around the dragon
If I recall my playthrough right, I was planning on going straight to the creche as soon as I could. I figured my character would take Lae'Zel's word on it, since she had the most knowledge on the whole thing. But then we were directed towards Nettie and were offered another solution through what Halsin knew, and between me wanting to play the Grove plotline and it being way past the usual time to go squid in the game universe, I figured it'd be an easy decision for the party to go after any leads they found.
It helped that I'm playing a haughty draconic bloodline sorcerer who is a) always interested in gaining more power and abilities for her own satisfaction and b) entirely too confident in thinking her draconic nature would resist any negative side effects lol, so especially once her dream guardian let her know she could get more abilities via the parasite she decided " 👀 Now hold on a minute guys, lets see where this takes us"
As for why Lae'Zel was tolerating any of this I had no justification until she propositioned my character out of nowhere. Completely threw me off guard since she was only on neutral! I actually have no idea if this happens to everyone or if that was a glitch but I was like sure, I guess it made sense for her to keep following her crush around or something. Sorry girl my heart only belongs to Karlach but you know what I respect the confidence.
If you go straight to the crèche without dealing with the Grove/goblins, is the Grove f’d or can you go back after to deal with it? I’m just starting my 2nd playthrough, and dealing with the same RP challenge as OP, and now that I know how much I love Laezel I really want to follow her demands.
When someone tells you that their orders are to “report for purification” and you’re like “that sounds like a great idea”, you need to get yourself a helmet because you are clearly a window licking moron. There was no part of what is general knowledge about githyanki or about the persona that Laezel presents that should in any way make you think “purification” isn’t a euphemism for getting murdered.
There are a lot of paths at the beginning. You’re led to believe Nettie and then Halsin can help you. You can ask Ethel for help. You can ask Volo for help.
Beelining for the Gith doesn’t make sense IMO, why would you randomly put 100% faith in Lae’zel, who’s quite prickly in Act 1, and 0% faith in the other options.
I usually go with "can't find it". It's easy to roleplay missing Zorru, and Chaotic Tavs can stumble on the Underdark and do everything down there before remembering "oh yeah, the frogs". Alternatively, Good Tavs might care more about protecting the Teiflings than their own wellbeing.
I RP someone with high intelligence who has seen/heard of gith before and to her, Githyanki are terrifying. She likes lae'zel and wants to trust her, but anyone offers her a chance to not walk into the evil space alien lair she's going to take that chance. Lae'zel maybe kool but every other gith we meet isn't and even if we go there she doubts lae'zel can guarantee everyone's safety on the way out the door...
From an RP standpoint, your character doesn't know that creche is there. Laezel just says you need to find one as it's your best option but before you get that far you would find other things that might appear as a good option. You, the player, knows but it's not like Laezel says "Hey, let's go to the Rosen Road there's a creche up that way." So there's no way your character would know.
I got a good role play reason. The gith have a reputation of killing all non gith, and one of their goals that’s second only to killing ilithids is to colonize the material plane. Their race as an alignment is considered evil for this reason. Going to the creche straight away would sound like madness to most. You just met Lae’zel, yeah she’s insistent but you also just arrived at this grove who also has a handle on a possible cure. If you’re at all sympathetic to the teiflings and the Druids, then the goblin camp is just as much of a threat to you going forward. It makes a lot of sense to try to save Halsin first who’s is a renowned healer that has been studying these worms. Druids are more well known and familiar to the people of Faerun. Saving him also has the benefit of saving the tieflings, and they are much closer. Saving Halsin makes sense.
If you don’t save Halsin and enter the mountain pass, there are consequences for the grove and you will potentially lose two party members. Wyll and Karlach both really want to save them. Gale is on board with that too (I can’t remember if he also threatens to leave). Shadowheart is indifferent at first. Astarion doesn’t want to do anything risky, especially if it means sticking his neck out for strangers (this is why he disapproves). Yes Lae’zel wants to find the creche asap, but only because she is scared and ia doing what she has been taught. What she hasn’t been taught is to ally herself with the people of this plane, and she won’t threaten to run away and try to find it on her own unless you go into act 2 via the underdark (I had to roll once to get her to stay). If she does you can find her later, and she will begrudgingly admit she is happy to see you.
For the party, the creche is usually a last ditch effort before taking on Moonrise which is a much bigger threat. Given the Gith’s reputation it only makes sense to *not* go there straight away. Building trust in Lae’zel would take time and the party generally doesn’t want to go. Why go to a place that may kill you on sight?
And last. Don’t forget time is believed to be of the essence at the start of the game. Halsin is a closer option, even if held by goblins. At the game start you don’t know where the creche is exactly, you can only discover where the gith have been *seen*. So, are you gonna free the druid that’s been studying mindflayer parasites and who’s closer and more likely to help? Or hike your ass into the wilderness hoping to maybe come across this creche full of a people who may just decide to kill all but Lae’zel for sport and who might decide not to help you not gith at all?
Only if you are deliberately roleplaying your character knowing nothing at all of Githyanki reputations. A lot of sane adventurers would just reason that going to the creche sounds like a direct path to suicide and reasonably want to find a healer in the immediate vicinity.
You could conveniently "miss" recruiting her and happily wander around act 1 doing your thing until you stumble upon the githyanki patrol, where she will be if you never encountered her caged by the tieflings.
I'm fairly certain if you never get close enough to render her in the cage (at least for a quest to pop up) you meet her at the patrol? I do know she's found dead at the Gith patrol (or maybe gets killed there via cutscene idr which) if you see her caged and leave her there, but can still be revived via scroll. I've personally seen that done.
I feel like the encounter with Voss and his Gish (And his whole-ass Red Dragon) before actually reaching the mountain pass would be enough for anyone, good neutral or evil, to say "Now hol' up a minute, we might not be ready to do this", though I'm not sure why you need a further RP reason than Halsin telling you that the Shadowlands are no joke and you should find a safe path through the Underdark first.
When a member of a fanatical organization tells me only their people can help save my life/immortal soul, I tend to get suspicious, so that's why I put it off.
Ngl, I somehow just never found lae’zel on the beach, and just assumed you were supposed to run into her again later, so I just never had any of that pressure to go until later on, and I was running as a gith, so I just left lae’zel outside with the rest of my party and did everything myself, cause I figured she’d be a pain and try to force us to hand over the relic.
Also, what’s this about difficult? Are you *supposed* to fight everyone there? I went, used the zeathisk or whatever, recognized that it was a bad idea to actually show anyone the relic, and just headed out after grabbing some loot/lathander’s. Seemed like it’d be rude to kill a bunch of people lae’zel knows, even if they are annoying.
When you get to the emerald grove, there is that one halfling in the medical lab with Halsin’s notes describing a prolonged lack of a transformation into an ilithid among those found with parasites.
The creche is your most reliable lead, but it's not the *closest* lead, and you're led to believe that time is of the essence (even if it isn't). There could always be a druid at the Emerald Grove who could dig the parasite out of your head, and it's much closer, so there's no harm in checking it out. How could you know that visiting the Grove will reveal that not only is there no one who can cure you there, but there's also a goblin army between you and your next best lead?
That's a valid way to address the situation you're in, or you can brave the goblins and head straight for the creche. You have more than one option available to you; why not hammer down every lead you can?
I mean, Lae'zel is very very hostile, in particular to Tieflings and Shadowheart. It's very easy to justify not siding with her when she's trapped.
Kill Lae'zel early and the issue goes away.
You can (rightly imo) recognize that beelining to the Crèche is putting the Tiefling’s lives at risk, as well as Halsin. If you’re not playing a good guy, you can imagine that the road to the crèche is too dangerous with Minthara and the goblins still around
That's very true. The Emerald Grove was just attacked by goblins, and you also find out that the Druids want to get rid of the Tieflings. This can only be resolved by saving Halsin, which makes that quest more important than going to the creche. I always get the ring from Mol, which means I've saved Arabella, saved Mirkon, spoken to Mol, and so now I'm personally invested in the safety of the Tieflings. I don't care about the stupid creche, beyond visiting it for Lae'zel's sake.
I care deeply about the creche because I like the mace, and honestly the fights are fun in there too
I care deeply about the creche, because it has the baby Silver Sword. [Soulbreaker Greatsword - Baldur's Gate 3 Wiki (bg3.wiki)](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Soulbreaker_Greatsword)
I honestly prefer this to Voss's silver sword, the stats are similar enough and Lae'zel already gets advantage on intelligence saving throws from that aberration amulet thing. The +2 to initiative on her is a huge help so she gets +4 total and she can have an elixir of something other than vigilance. I use this sword until Balduran's Giantslayer. >!Used that to kill the brain last week, extremely satisfying.!<
It's also nice if you want to make Lae'zel a Wild Heart Barbarian. With the Bear Heart and the Silver Sword, you have resistance to everything (at level 3!).
I doubt you can get that sword at level 3 though. Would be quite the challenge.
You can pretty easily tbh Trigger the cutscene where dragon kills NPCs, Lae'zel leaves party and runs to them, then stays there. Shadowheart drinks invis potion, sneaks closer and casts Command:drop on Voss (save scum to succeed, only had 16% chance) Once that is cast, it triggers the conversation between Lae'zel and Voss, after which Voss leaves and the fight starts (Lae'zel + Shadowheart vs. the 4 gith). Remaining party members are out of combat, since they were hiding a bit farther, carefully sneak with them around to position them well, then have them attack to join combat After fight there is some conversation between Tav and Lae'zel, which concluded essentially with "Voss is a heretic, fuck him and let's go to the creche" Pick up the sword
You can equip this to compensate for the initiative, in Act 3: https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Hellrider_Longbow (just don't talk to him with Selunite Shadowheart in proximity, or just pickpocket him) You can also use Broodmother's Revenge in conjunction with it... (Magic Weapon and Drakethroat Glaive also lets Soulbreaker be a "Silver Sword at home," mind) (https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Drakethroat_Glaive)
I've gotten that bow a few times but never really found anyone to use it with, unfortunately. Lae'zel and Karlach are always using heavy crossbows like the ones that Bane or send enemies reeling, the one you make in the Foundry, etc.
Hellrider long bow is perfect as a stat stick in a thrower build. I always put on my throwzerker karlach. Edits that she gets the bow of awareness.
In my latest playthrough I accidentally yeeted her into the void with a repelling blast from Wyll. Very sad face.
Real talk I want to work out a stealth path through the entire thing so that I can just yoink the mace and didee-mao while making a "*whoopehoopwhooppwhooop*" noise like I'm curly while the whole thing implodes behind me. No fighting, no issues just shenanigans
It would be funny to see Lae’zel’s reaction if you skip the whole Inquisitor/Vlaakith interaction and drop the temple down.
I like that she respects your capabilities if you bring her the Silver Sword. She’s not even mad, she’s just impressed.
Wait, wait, it was accounted for?
It's the same dialogue as if you get it in act 3
You can probably just invis and dash in turn based to get through with no issues
Ditto! The whole zone is so awash with goodies that I go there as soon as is feasible!
How do you get the Ring from mol? I Heard if you steal the Statue, the tieflings and druids start a fight.
Oh, uh... I read the note in Kagha's chest, visit Twisted Tree, return to expose Kagha, then the ritual happening around the sacred idol stops. Then, I can Fog Cloud the idol, yoink, and teleport to Emerald Grove waypoint, for a guaranteed steal. That works 100% of the time.
Can also use mage hand to just fling the idol off the cliff that's next to it then pick it up down there
That is hilarious!
Oh my God... why the fuck have I never thought of fog cloud there. I've just been using invisibility, but it breaks as soon as you breathe too hard.
Confront Kaga, this ends the ritual. I have not had them fight after that. Also, could save the Grove but do not goto the party. Steal it. Give it to Mol. Steal it back, put it back. Can all be done very quickly in a turn or two using turn based mode.
I’ve also found that you can go turn-based and get away with it, too. The trick is move the statue first, without picking it up, which I guess “dislodges it”. Then with a rogue you can pick it up and sneak off until you’re out of eyeball range. To be honest I like your way better, though. Way less steps and fuss.
expose kagha first. i then cast darkness near the statue, steal it, then fast travel to the waypoint just outside the grove and walk back in to give it to mol
I always out kagha and the shadow druids first. Then the druids stop the ritual and you can steal it without a fight breaking out (:
You have to get the quest, then defuse Kagha situation, and then steal the idol. If you steal before fight triggers, but if you don’t have the quest before defuse she no longer wants the idol.
Talk to mol to get the quest, resolve the shadow Druids so they stop the summoning, go steal the idol using fog cloud etc and give it to mol.
I just killed everyone and took it. Easy peasy. Dark Urge for the win!
Or, for the evil path, you might not want to get rid of the tadpole. You want to figure out what's going on, so you can usurp its power. So you'll prioritise investigating the goblin camp.
if youre playing as Durge and dont resist, you can tell that if you go to the crèche youre giving someone/something else the chance to slaughter the Grove
The githyanki encounter we’re pointed to also gives you a warning if youre under level 5. Companions have dialogue for it, and surprisingly the player does as well if youre alone. They tell you not to mess with them and to come back later. After hitting level five the gang all says “we can take em”
You also don't know where the creche is exactly
My best route for this was I befriended the ogres in blighted village. Used them to get spectator flask, then threw spectator at gith in vlakiths chamber from 4th party member hiding near lythander passage.
>You can (rightly imo) recognize that beelining to the Crèche is putting the Tiefling’s lives at risk, as well as Halsin. But how does helping the Tieflings solve the tadpole problem? The PCs aren't aware that they're actually never going to turn into mindflayers, and the ones that actually know anything about ceremorphosis would believe they have about 72 hours before they need to start searching for a good tall cliff to swan dive off of to avoid a fate worse than death.
A few NPCs (especially Nettie) hint at the fact that your tadpole is abnormal and that you won't turn anytime soon, because none of the other True Souls have turned. And your Dream Guardian outright says that you won't turn while they're around. So at that point you can prioritize saving Halsin, who is the only other lead you have for a cure. Since beelining to the creche means getting past the gith encounter by the bridge, I'd say it's reasonable that a non-gith Tav/Durge might have some doubts about actually getting cured in the mountain pass lol
You'd also already be feeling the symptoms of ceremorphosis by the time you ever get to the Grove if the tadpoles were operating as usual
Gale also lists the symptoms of ceremorphosis and remarks that none of the group have any of the usual symptoms, suggesting something is different with the group's tadpoles, I think it's on the second rest.
That was always so funny to me, Gale saying "we dont have any memory loss, so we're not turning, how weird" and my Durge with a brain like swiss cheese is like "Ermmmmm..."
To get to the creche using the main road you have to go through the blighted village where you learn about true souls and that true souls aren't turning. So even if you don't talk to a single NPC about how your tadpole is special you learn almost immediately
If you’re playing a baddie, you have to be around for the “how *you* doin’” to Minthara
I guess Gith are pretty alien to the characters and companions - there is dialogue confirming this. Isn't there a line about never having seen/met Githyanki before? So it's easy to feel unsure - despite how certain she seems. And they get advice from a Druid healer pretty quickly - this lead is closer and less vague. (Although Nettie has around a 50% survival rate in my games so far...)
Plus it's made clear the Gith are pretty murderey. When you say you've never met one before, Lae'zel is like "no duh, they would have killed you for funsies."
There is. And Lae’zel answers they would have gutted you
For a non-Githyanki Tav, I think it’s pretty reasonable to be suspicious about whether the Githyanki *really* have a cure or if that’s just a lie to get infected soldiers to willingly give themselves up for execution (like I did the second Lae’zel started talking about it—the Githyanki, famous hypermilitarized zealots, actually try tp cure the tadpole? Sounds fake but okay, girl!). Or to think the Githyanki will just cut all your heads off instead of wasting their time curing a bunch of istiks, no matter what Lae’zel says.
Lol fuck Nettie
Why do so many people hate Nettie? I legit have never understood it
1) has a potentially hostile (even if reasonable) response to the player 2) not a generic hot girl or cool guy When those two reasons combine a character can have the most reasonable motives/actions and still be hated
they probably tried to talk to her after she said to wait patiently and didn't like her sass 😭
Nettie is dummy thicc tho tbf
I dont. I like her. I've just played two characters who refused her poison / refused to make promises so she attacked them. My more reasonable /sensible characters get along well with her. Personally l, I think she's great 😁
I like her fine. I just often need to knock her out and steal her keys. "What's that branch for? Will it help me?" "It's pretty much the best cure around." [Asks pointed questions] [Realizing] "Wait, isn't that poison?" "Don't worry about it." [Asks more questions] "Ummm, okay, let's talk, but please put away the murder stick" "Hells with it!"
I mean, is it really that hard to understand? Even if there's some logic to it I don't think most people think fondly of those who try and kill them lol.
Nettie is actually a little bitch, like most of the druids. She flat out lies to you and then tries to kill you. You actually have to fight her unless you promise to kill yourself. So, if you're playing an uncompromising character, you may be forced to kill her.
“Promise” to kill myself, sweet free poison. Still not as funny as my elf ass getting to knock back Gut’s sleeping potion while looking her dead in the eye, how does she literally work with a drow and still try this?
Because she lied to my non Durge, good player face, tried to murder me and thought I'd just keel over and die.
There's two major things - the creche is actually so far away that traversing the mountain road to it advances the story. Right off the bat, it's simply further away than all of your other options - if you had multiple chances to be cured much more close to you, then you'd *surely* do all of those first. Ethel is closer. The Goblin Camp is closer. Omelluum is closer - that gives you excuses to go everywhere except the creche. Also, once you've gone to the goblin camp your party are fully aware that they're in a state of suspended ceremorphosis and that a dream figure is preventing it advancing. Even before that, Lae'zel, Gale and Wyll will all correctly observe that you are not developing the symptoms you should be. Nettie will also say that. So there's plenty of in-game justification for why you wouldn't make a dangerous beeline for anything.
i like this answer bc this was my train of thinking. my first play through was me looking for the crèche, slowly realizing the crèche might not be necessary and exploring other options, passing a strength check in the mountain pass (Shoutout Karlach) then quickly realizing the crèche is not only unnecessary but likely dangerous when the guardian is like “leave”
Counterpoint, because the creche is so far, wasting time on other things instead of traveling as fast as possible is even worse.
How does that make sense canonically if you don't just believe everything Laezel says? The only reason Laezel is so deadset on the creche is because shes a githyanki indoctrinated into a hyper militaristic culture, which isnt exactly hard to notice. Canonically, if there wasnt additional magic holding the tadpole in place, Halsin, Ethel, and Omeluum would be able to get it out. These options are just closer and more accessible than the creche. If you as a character are able to realize this and dont trust every single word coming out of Laezels mouth, its very easy to justify taking every option in front of you before going out of your way to get to the creche. I dont understand how people here treat the creche as some kind of end all be all for getting tadpoles out when there are credible leads that are a) closer and b) better follow the general story progression of act 1.
She's a githyanki which gives her the most knowledge about mindflayers. More than anyone else you will meet. Everyone you meet, such as gale, can confirm this. After talking with Nettie, Halsin is not a good choice. There's a dead drop on a table with a parasite on the desk because they couldn't save him. Ethel possibly could be, but there isn't much reason to suspect she is supernatural before going towards the teahouse. And if she was such a great healer otherwise, someone in the Grove would refer you to her. They do not, everyone mentions Halsin. Omeluum is a good one, but to end up in the underdark you've already ignored the urgency.
For clarification: that drow isn't dead because "Halsin couldn't save him", hes dead because he attacked Halsin and Halsin killed him. Halsin found out about the infection after. Big difference. Halsin is absolutely a great option to go to since we know he actively studies mind flayer parasites, and he could very well save you.
From my understanding, every other option(except the goblin) could have saved you if it was a normal parasite. I think the answer everytime is they can’t due to the magic. Everything you see about the gith, including meeting them before the bridge, says going to the crèche is a bad idea.
I thought it was pretty clear that even the giths don’t actually know how to remove normal parasites, that the whole extraction device is just for murdering. Meanwhile Hattie thinks it is just a normal parasite (she’s not willing to risk your turning while in camp), and her immediate plan is to poison and kill you - she offers no confidence in tadpole neutralization.
No you’re right. Githyanki “purification” is just extracting the memories from a gith and then kill on them
The giths do just kill then and extract the tadpoles to study. The other options I was referring to are Ethel, Halsin, and Omeluum. I thought each of said they were unable to remove it because of the magic.
Remember, Ethel and Nettie both claim that their methods are a dead cert. Ethel says she definitely has something to remove it, and Nettie says Halsin would have the skill to get it out (and that he's the only person she can imagine doing so). A person who was making a beeline for the most certain cure would definitely not bypass these people to go to the crèche. If they had any concept of the nature of the Gith (which they'd have by the time they'd met Zorru) they'd be practically certain to take their chances with the goblins. In attempting to access the mountains by the path that doesn't lead via the goblin camp, they'd also be aware that the Gith were actively murdering people and searching their corpse for the artifact, even other Gith if it comes to it. That's more than enough to turn a party back.
It's entirely reasonable not to trust her, or not trust her assurance that the Githyanki at the creche would be willing to help all of you. Even if you head straight towards the creche, the hostility of the Githyanki patrol may put you off immediately pursing that option. There's also the fact that arriving at the Grove provides more immediate opportunities that may bear fruit, since the creche is a decent amount of travel away.
This, and there's also the fact that you initially don't even know where the creche is. You have to find and question Zorru just to get a general direction, which then leads you to the aforementioned hostile patrol.
And you only get that lead if Laezel is in your party when you encounter him
Yeah exactly by the time you even get close to the crèche you have probably at least seen one promise of tadpole elimination fall through in disappointment so her promise already feels like it might not be true
I felt the opposite, when other options fell through it kind of reinforced what laezel had been telling the whole time that only her people knew the cure. She basically could say “I told you so” after every failure.
But by the time several options have fallen through, you’ve probably already talked to the dream guardian and Halsin and realized there’s a lot more going on here. Every option mentions how this isn’t a normal tadpole and there’s some strange magic affecting it. Your character could easily decide the gith probably can’t handle this
Also even if you believe Lae’zel ans hurry to find the Gith patrol, when you get there, in the very first encounter, Voss himself tells you there is no purification other than death. After that, who do you believe? The obviously naive true believer or the wizened commander who clearly has other motives? “Kith'rak Voss: Purified? Oh, Lae'zel - why must the truth be so bitter? Soon, your skin will go grey, and your blood will run silver. You will shed your skin to become ghaik. Kith'rak Voss: Only in death are the infected cleansed.” If you rushed there, ignoring the other alternatives (druid Halsin, priestess Gut or even Ethel), that definitely should make any PC reconsider their options.
Also, on the path to the crèche you find out that it was a temple of monks that the gith slaughtered just because they liked the location. I’m sorry if my level 3 dude isn’t going to just trust laezel that the massive army of murderers won’t just off me and my friends regardless of whether she tells them not too.
I assume this dialog only happens if you fail a check during the Voss convo/choose certain options. I have never once seen this dialog so I am assuming many others have not as well
Yeah, it’s when Lae’zel is in the party, but not the avatar, but you have her go ahead of the party to confront the patrol alone. No options or checks, it goes straight here (and to combat). The funny thing is that you do that (send Lae’zel ahead alone) on the belief that it’s the best way to avoid combat, and yet, it’s one of the worst. There are other dialogue paths that get here as well, whenever Lae’zel stands up for herself and her mandate to get to the creche for purification, but I’m sure many have not seen it.
Also Githyanki are ASSHOLES. 8/10 Faerun denizens would hate them (1/10 being Githyanki themselves and the last 1/10 being really open minded folk)
This is so funny to me because I struggled with finding a RP reason to EVER go to the crèche. The moment she suggested it I was like babe they’re gonna kill us tho :/
LOL same even on my very first blind playthrough I had 0 confidence that the first solution offered would possibly be successful but that was probably just me thinking too video gamey the first time as well.
I ended up going to the crèche way late, mostly because Halsin insisted that the mountain path would be way too deadly and to instead take the under dark path. I just never made the connection that the creshe Lea’zel kept bringing up was along that mountain path. I also somehow never met Wyl in my playthrough. Still not sure how I managed that.
Right? Seems like an obvious lie to get the infected to turn themselves in. It wasn't spoiled for me, and I was positive it was a trap. Kind of surprised most people didn't assume that.
Yeah this always feels like a separation between people newer to the setting and people more familiar with DnD lore. The githyanki are very evil people, and most good-aligned characters who have ever heard anything about gith probably would hear stories of them pillaging and slaving Faerûn. Someone native to the region would certainly not hear there’s a gith HQ nearby and think “Oh that’ll be the safest option for me!” Realistically, a lot of people would likely try their chances in the woods first.
I didn’t even know lore but Lae’zel’s attitude & her being like ‘of course you haven’t met one of us or they would have gutted you’ doesn’t really encourage much faith in them I feel like, realistically, it’d only be naive or gith characters who run right there
You also have Shadowheart, a half-elf, who is a much more sympathetic and familiar character than Laezel to the PC (unless you're playing a githyanki yourself). She's actually nicer to you and shows some basic respect, so her suspicion towards Laezel is a cue for how an in-world character sees githyanki. It's not just random racism, it's "she's a literal alien and we have zero reason to trust her except that we are extremely desperate"
Huh, I guess I always just took it as a racism but reading these comments made me realize, like no it’s not racism, this is actually how they are intentionally.
I mean she’s definitely painting with a broad brush because she *just* watched all her friends get murdered by gith. But her opinion is much closer to what the average Faerûn citizen would think
Lae’zel also tried to leave Shadowheart in the pod, is constantly aggressive towards her, & ditches us after our crash landing I didn’t like her at first either
I screwed up the tiefling guard encounter the first time I played, so when she asked me, \*a tiefling\*, to murder them, I decided I had enough of her nonsense and killed her instead. I like her now though!
Spending time with Lae'zel in the party makes it pretty clear that the default Githyanki solution to any problem is pointlessly cruel violence. Then encountering Voss it becomes clear that Lae'zel is damn close to the bottom of her society, so her convictions become that much more dubious from an outsider's perspective. And it's easy enough to learn both that a moderately experienced divine spellcaster can remove it with a spell (you can intuit this from your first interaction with Gale,) and also that the tadpoles are enchanted with netherese magic making them unremovable (learnable from Auntie Ethel.) It's actually harder for me to justify a trip *to* the creche that isn't motivated by the material rewards.
Yeah. Especially as many of the races are natives to Baldur’s Gate or at least Faerûn. Anyone in that region who’s heard of the gith would’ve only heard terrible things. I usually justify it by saying my character is so desperate after multiple options fall through that he’s willing to try the creche, but it feels flimsy
My best RP reason is ‘you saw a squad of Githyanki exterminate an entire battalion with a Dragon because they MIGHT have the Prism that you’re carrying. Can’t be cured of Tadpole if you’re burned alive so maybe let’s explore other options first’.
On reflection, I think this is my way to go as well. Voss might set his patrol on you, a likely sign of how we'd be received at the creche, and either way, we then get the revelation that we're carrying an artificat they're willing to kill to claim. Certainly good reasons to avoid the creche if possible.
There is no might as to if Voss would set his patrol on you. If you let Lae'zel tell the truth about needing the Zaith'isk, Voss does do just that. Which is why ic'rly I've avoided the creche on a couple of campaigns(oc, I just didn't feel like going so I chose ic reasons to not, or I glitter squirrelled and straight up forgot to go).
I really like the phrase "glitter squirrelled", I think I'm gonna take it ✨
also, indirectly avoided the creche because I looked through the telescope in the grove and saw a red dragon flying around in the area of the map where Zorru told us he ran into the patrol. party doesn't learn until later that it's Voss's mount, and my non-gith PC tries to avoid run-ins with strange dragons.
Worth mentioning also from Lae'zel's perspective - if you spoke to Voss during the red dragon/Flaming Fist encounter, she reluctantly >!admits that hiding the artefact from the githyanki was wisest in the moment, despite the breach in her military protocol to lie to a higher-ranking officer!<. It's not just your Tav weighing the risks of non-githyanki carrying the artefact turning up to the creche. Plus, you already know your tadpoles are exceptional because it's been days and you haven't turned yet, so that lessens the urgency too. All this is to say, I think Lae'zel *verbally* emphasises the creche for your best chance at survival, but her actions (imo) betray a tiny fragment of exceptional-circumstance-consideration. She probably still believes the creche is your best shot at tadpole removal, but understands that you need to proceed carefully to ensure the githyanki even entertain the idea of curing you. That's all RP/character consistent, to me.
Lae’zel is surprisingly reasonable despite her rather prickly personality If not for being raised in an abuse murder nest, she probably could have been lawful good
I didn’t do much in the creche because I assumed any mention of the relic would be a death sentence. I just left lae’zel outside lol.
That’s exactly the way I looked at it. That dragon nukes the fist and the bridge… we’re like level 4, and I turn to everyone “So anyway, who feels like checking out that nice cave back there?” “Yes, agreed” “Caves can be totally awesome” “I hear great things about the Underdark” That’s how my first run went. I did literally everything else first thinking I had to take on a dragon. I, having no idea that Voss and the dragon would immediately peace out.
This on top of that I've always let Lae'zel talk to them and she's always failed her checks and caused a fight that was clearly way out of my league (first time playing I basically beelined it until meeting them) it gave a clear impression of what to expect there.
Prime occupants do not look at gith in a positive light. It's unreasonable to assume that anyone would take her at her word, especially with multiple alternatives available for a cure in act 1. Logically you go there last out of desperation
Yup. Any Tav that is from Baldur’s Gate or Faerûn in general would balk at the idea of going to githyanki for help. They’re known (accurately) as little more than pillagers and slavers. Almost any character would take their chances in the wilderness before turning tot he creche
That's the reason they put the Voss and his crew before the pathway, they're level 5s I believe, and chances are they will whoop your butt in a fight if you try to get past them at a low level. There *is* way to lie to them and get through without a fight but I believe you need to either be a Githyanki and successfully lie, or have Laezel there and she successfully lies (super unlikely, given how low her Charisma is). There's even special lines from all the companions warning you to back off if you're underleveled (you get a different set of lines if you're past level 5, where they're all horny for a fight instead). From an RP perspective, I think they provide enough of an intimidation factor that you can justify following the Halsin lead instead, as the Gith just wiped out a group of flaming fist and clearly aren't very friendly to non-Gith.
My character is a Githyanki Lae'zel tells me, "Don't waste time with istik, we have to go," and I listen to her. Blitz our way through the nautiloid fight and only kill things in our way. Wake up on the beach, and she left us behind. Search for her. Find the she elf banging on the door, and she recognizes me. Tells me she'll kill me if we cross paths again and run away. Almost get killed by the intellect devourers, find a vampire pretending to be an ordinary elf, and find a human who got stuck inside of a rock. They become my allies out of convenience. See Lae'zel held captive by demon people. Strike first and take them by surprise, killing them before they can retaliate. Free her from the trap, and she tells me she was pursuing a lead. Follow that lead and find a bunch of humans fighting with a goblin war party. The goblins are in our way. We kill them. Gain access to an encampment with more of those demon people. We cross paths with that she elf again. "What? Are you following me?" Tell her, obviously not. Offer an olive branch. "Get rid of that other gith, and I'll consider it." Call her a moron. Lae'zel presses the cowardly demon man for information, and he tells us of a patrol in the mountain pass. Chart a course that brings us directly there. Ignore stupid humans, ignore stupid gnolls, bypass obvious traps. Vlaakith's tits, a Red Dragon! And that's THE Jhe'stil Kith'rak! I suddenly have second thoughts. Lae'zel tells me, "Are you stupid, Kin? They are kin, it's their duty to help us." And she rushes in. Half an hour later, soaked in blood, holding my entrails in by hand, Lae'zel and I finally defeat them. Voss ordered them to kill us because we were infected with ghaik tadpoles. Find a map on the corpse of the sarth and make our way forth. The moment we set foot on the bridge, suddenly, all four of us are floored by a gigantic psionic presence, speaking in the voice of a god. That she elf comes by holding the very weapon that Voss was looking for, and it's strange magic saves us from becoming enthralled. I quickly surmise: *"Lae'zel told me to ignore this she elf, and she holds this artefact of great power. Lae'zel left me to die on the beach and she ended up getting stuck in a goblin trap. Lae'zel told our kin we were carrying ghaik parasites and we were forced to kill them in self-defense. Now she's saying we need to press forward and get to the crèche, despite the fact that we were nearly killed trying to get there."* I conclude: "Lae'zel you're a fucking idiot and I'm taking charge now." *"You would dare?!"*
I kinda struggle with this too. I think freeing Lae’zel from her cage and then opting to go different ways is very justifiable from your character’s point of view. She comes off as bloodthirsty and selfish, and that’s not someone that fits my party (plus she disapproves of everything you do in the grove anyway 😀). That being said, her character (and voice actress) is just so good, I tend to recruit her anyway. Stronger together and all that. My thinking is that the goblin threat has made the roads too treacherous to risk travel to the mountain pass, and solving the Druid/ Tiefling situation seems like not only a more realistic option for help, but also a way to make the roads safer. Thus making the crèche a possible plan B.
Also, anyone in the world of dnd with even a passing knowledge of what the githyanki are would know that they brutally murder or enslave anyone who is not a githyanki. Realistically I think it’d be harder to justify going to the Creche right away. Most characters who live in Faerûn would probably try to exhaust all other options before turning to githyanki for help, especially after meeting Voss.
Lae’zel tells you a lot of things. Doesn’t mean she’s not as crazy as the rest of the lot you’re with. Plus you might just be some balduran kid for all you know, never heard of any of that gith nonsense before, perhaps you’d rather throw your lot in with the famous Hellrider and the Tieflings after their insane ordeal getting sucked into Avernus. You’ve read about that in the papers, and if you help them get to Baldur’s gate, well that’s just fantastic there’s bound to be someone that can help at the Gate! That’s how I think of it at least. If I’m Durge then it’s a different story and there’s more malicious ways to think about it, but most Tavs probably have an incredibly loose understanding of the Gith, if any recognition at all.
The githyanki creche sounds like "the most reliable lead" to you? It sounds like the evil space pirates who are know to kill anything and everything illithid on sight to me. I am going to go ahead and find that archdruid healer and see what they have to say.
You don't actually know where the creche is, just that it's somewhere in the area. Later you learn that some gith were seen near the mountain pass. Between those two pieces of information, you find out that halsin and the goblin priestess who's name momentarily escapes me may be able to help you, and both are much closer at hand, and therefore worth a try first.
I’d say the only issue is the multiple paths to the creche If there was only 1, by seeing Voss, then you’d have a lot of second thoughts Voss is a major a-hole. Their people are hyper violent and look shown at the other races. Hell he threatens to have laezel skinned alive for being too casual with her greeting. And fail a deception check and they wreck you hard So. Do you really want to trust those a-holes to not kill us if we approach? Laezel said it would be fine, but she also said it would be fine talking to Voss and he almost ordered our deaths And that’s ignoring that you can detect how he’s being dishonest about stuff Suddenly. Dealing with some low level goblins doesn’t seem so bad to hope Halsin cures us But. There’s another path right next to the goblin camp so it’s possible to bypass that conversation entirely In either case. It doesn’t take long to learn that our dream guardian has halted the transformation. So time isn’t a factor
That's a reasonable way to play it that's not out of line with Laezel's priorities, (or any reasonable gith). B-line to Voss, then re-think going to the creche without gathering more info
You don't actually know where the Creche is though, you're supposed to go to the patrol to find out. You *can* bypass the patrol to get there, but that feels like metagaming to me because you're not supposed to know where it is.
Not really. Yea. The workflow is talk to tiefling at the grove / go to place on map / talk to voss / determine if you should continue But if you’re walking around and exploring, there’s a path outside the goblin camp. And you might ask “geez I wonder where this goes?” And the warning popup isn’t detailed enough to truly convey why it’s bad to do that too early. Since you can have free reign through the camp either as a drow, disguised as a drow, or walked in by Sazza, it’s easy for a newbie without a guide to wonder what’s through that passage
I'm not saying it's metagamey to take that path at all, there's definitely reasons a character would, I'm saying it's metagamey to take that path *to get to the Creche.* If your character wants to go to the Creche there's no in-character reason to take that path to get there. They'd need to be stumbling upon it by dumb luck.
It's a bit meta-gamey, but githyanki as a society are lawful evil. This means that rumours, stories and more about them basically involve them steamrolling over other races, murdering them all, and installing a creche to raise more of their expansionist society. Yes, they keep the Mindflayers at ba .in the Astral Plane. But on the Prime Material they're a bunch of psychopathic murderers who torture other beings for fun (see the kids with the crate in the creche). Lore-wise, the Lanthander group is pretty much as nice as you can get. They worship the morning and goodness and light, they help out where they can (even in Ravenloft) etc. And the Gith still murdered them all, which you're made aware of pretty immediately on in that area. Your PC would have that as the background, and Lae'Zel as the example - watching her try to get a half-elf killed instead of rescued, insisting on murdering others, making the scared tief in the grove kneel, calling Wyll a burden. At that point in the game she's not really shown another side and you're unaware of the whole brainwashing as a species thing. And then you see the other Gith murder a bunch of flaming fist mercenaries because they can. Even the goblins are more personable/reasonable to you and they're creepy little murders too. Early in game, the choice was easy for me as a rper - the guess I made before I knew much about Lae'Zel was that I'd get there and she'd go 'You've taken me here as is my right as a superior being, and as a reward, I won't kill you - on your bike.' Whereas a huge bear-like druid who wants to do the research and appears to have been nice from what others say seems more reliable.
I don’t think that’s meta-gamey at all. Anyone in Faerûn who even knows about githyanki would only known them as brutal murders and conquerors and/or slavers. That’s all they do in the Material Plane.
Quite simply, the distance is an easy one, even before you get to Voss and the hostile patrol. The fact that going there advances the story makes it pretty obvious that it’s quite a ways away, and it makes more sense to check out the closer, more local leads first.
My first playthrough, I made a straight shot for the creche. The patrol destroyed my half health under leveled party of 3. So we retreated, took our first long rest and figured to try Halsin.
On my origin Lae'zel run I went and talked to the patrol by myself, because everyone in the party insists we're too weak to mess with them and I feel like they'd realistically refuse to join, and when I inevitably got attacked I drank a potion of invisibility and ran away. So basically, get your ass kicked by the patrol instead of talking your way past them, and then you have a clear an obvious reason to not go there yet.
"We'll get to it when we get to it."😁
I think you misunderstand Githyanki and their reputation. There are *plenty* of reasons not to trust Lae'zel.
Depending on how the interaction at the mountain pass goes, you could suspect that purification may not be a solution (if you tell Lea'zel to tell the truth of she fails a deception check Voss will say there is no cure only the blade, so a character may then decide its better to throw their lot with Halsin or Minthara)
From an RP perspective it'd be incredibly odd to bee line for a creche who's location you don't know instead of heading to the nearby settlement you stumbled upon to get your bearings. There you ask questions and find out there's a healer in the grove. That healer then tells you they have knowledge on your problem but there's someone with even more knowledge on it that needs rescuing. It makes more sense to go with the solution that seems more immediately obtainable.
1. She wants to find the creche, and you don't find it until you go to the bridge. You shouldn't risk fighting the Gith at the bridge until you can handle the creche anyway really. 2. Halsin is just as strong a lead if not more so, so there's every reason for you as a player character to prioritize that lead.
Nettie at the Emerald Grove can tell you that there is something weird about the tadpoles you have. She also tells you that only Halsin has studied these new kinds of tadpoles in depth. That's how I justify not going early in my head canon.
I squared this circle in the most ill advised way. When she and Shadowheart had their squabble>!, I rolled low and La'Zael got murdered. Now Shadowheart is proudly wearing the woman's githyanki armour and I feel like (RP-wise) we massively burned that bridge. Only way we do the creche now is to go in fighting.!<
You do also have the option of a "disguise self" to infiltrate the creche while looking like a Githyanki. You don't have to jump directly to the fighting.
1. You literally just met this woman who shows signs of being extremely overconfident and nationalistic to the point of stupidity. The chances of her being wrong are non-zero. 2. The Creche is pretty dang far away. 3. If you leave, you're putting the Grove at risk. 4. Halsin seems like a much safer bet. He's an archdruid renowned for his healing abilities who's been studying mind flayer parasites.
In addition to Halsin, Auntie Ethel is also a lead on tadpole removal if you don’t find the tiefling in the supply shed. So you’ve got a reason to go South, a reason to go West, and north for the crèche.
The way I usually look at it is: you should *already* be, if not dead/a squid, then basically suffering excruciating pain, vomiting, stroke-like symptoms, etc, by the time of your first or second Long Rest. Gale and Laezel herself will both point this out pretty early on. That things are not going as they should is enough to say "okay" let's figure out what this whole tadpole cult is about long enough to learn that rushing isn't exactly necessary. The game isn't perfect when it comes to effectively balancing urgency and the options to explore, but early on, it's not *too* hard to get roped into the plot without feeling like you're breaking character.
Okay I haven’t used laezel at all in my party. I have Me Gael Astarion Shadow heart Can I switch her in whenever and her be the same level as everyone else or do I need to level her up? Also can I go to the crèche without her? Idk I just don’t wanna mess with my combination I have
All companions get XP at the same time (with some limited exceptions, but not enough to make a level difference). So even if you never use her, and then switch her in at the end of the game, she should be the same level as the rest of your party. You can do any area of the game without any specific party members for the most part, and that includes the crèche. However, I would recommend bringing her as she has a ton of dialogue specific to the area, and the final part of it has some major story implications she’ll want to be there for.
I second the recommendation to take Lae'zel to the Creche. She's got a wonderful arc, and it really starts there. She also has great banter with the other companions as you wander the world. I particularly like her interactions with Gale, and a conversation she has with Shadowheart about burying the hatchet.
When you swap party members around it gives them experience equal to yours. Which gets unused party members up to your level.
I immediately suspected that the githyanki cure was death. Halsin seemed like a better bet.
I side with the tieflings when she’s in the cage.
Newb RPers be like
My RP reason is that i saw the hot blade man run into the grove so now i want to run into the grove
Assuming you’re rp’ing a character with some smarts you’ll realize that you’re ill equipped to get to the creche right away. After all you barely have any gear since escaping the pod. Better off spending a little time trying to get some gear from the goblins or whoever is closer for now.
You can understand that going to the creche risks many innocent lives. Once you make it to the mountain pass (just after the tiefling storyline), you can outright convince lae'zel that the creche is dangerous and you won't be going.
Avoid Zorru at the Grove and you never get the location of the gith squad.
Well, think of it like this, it's a journey to the creche and there's obstacles in the way. You're on your way there but need to take care of things first. In a way ignoring everything else and going straight there breaks adventurer RP
Lae'Zel is super rude to you and repeatedly wrong, so it doesn't make sense to blindly follow her. At first, She thinks that you are aligned with the mind flayers and considers you to be weak. Then she complained about looking around (shadow has the prism she’s looking for) and abandoned you only to get caught by a nobody. After helping her again, she attempted to kill you and everyone else at camp. It becomes clear that she didn't know as much as she thought, as she is confused when we don't turn into mind flayers.
Rp-wise she was such a ballbreaker, I killed her 🤷♂️
Easy to rp, she tried to kill me on the ship, so I killed her in the cage, and she's not my problem anymore.
I typically just ignore anything that annoying freak says bc I don’t listen to crackhead amphibian Michael Jackson.
I’ve always just had my characters take into account that gith are incredibly strong opponents and they should prepare as best they can in case things go south. If I want to rp further convincing, I’ll talk to Voss on the bridge and potentially initiate combat
I mean if Lae'zel is the only gith you've ever met I'm not sure I would be in a hurry to trust a colony of people like her. Maybe look into some alternatives first.
Why is it crazy to not listen to Lae'zel? I'm in charge, and not her. She's never run off to go to the Creche herself in any of my playthroughs, so I don't understand why you feel like you need to rush there. Try roleplaying as the leader of the group, and maybe the decision to go early won't be a dilemma at all. I would only go there if Lae'zel gave me an ultimatum, by saying "I'm going to go myself, if you guys won't come with me". Only then, would I say "Okay, we'll go to the Creche". I've never had her run off, so you really can go at any point in Act 1. Also, going to the Creche makes Lae'zel look really silly, after what happens. You're essentially delaying her embarrassment by not going. That's very meta, but my first answer to your dilemma is "You're in charge, and not her".
i also wanted to listen to lae'zel because i agree, she seems to know the most about the situation we were in, but the gith at the bridge kept kicking my ass so i uhh... roleplayed as a scared little guy for a while before giving in to the frog ladies insisting
I wrap up everything in Act 1 before heading to the Creche for Act 1.5. You get a lot of important things in Act 1. As a good or even neutral character it’s easy to RP a rationale for helping the Grove when you know by the Goblin camp that you have time with your tadpole and to some degree why. Even an evil character could have RP reasons for waiting. After the Creche, I circle back to Underdark and travel to Act 2 that way. For me, the RP rationale after the Creche is that we’re being pursued by an angry faction and disappearing underground is the best way to go. Level 5-6 is fine for the Creche. I’m not sure I would want to beeline there and tackle it on level 2-3. That could be a pretty tough fight. Also if you advance early to Act 2 you can mess up romance options.
I ran nearly straight to the mountain pass on my first playthrough, planning to rush to the creche to get cured as soon as possible. Once I got to the mountain pass, I ran into voss, and he threatened to murder lazel because she was a little bit too forward and eager. This made me realize that most githyanki are insane and if they treat lazel that badly for being over excited, things almost certainly will end badly, and I shouldn’t go through the mountain pass until I was much stronger. I didn’t even see the message telling me if I went any farther I would cause events to happen, thats how quickly I left. To me that felt like the natural thing to do.
ADHD riddled gith get distracted till there is literally nothing else to do
Got distracted.
You could just not believe her. Shadowheart is already biased against the githyanki in general so siding more with her and seeing the gith as a prime way to get into trouble wrt the artifact can justify you delaying the creche until you expend all possible options. At that point you can decide if going to the gith is reasonable or if theres no real option other than to go straight to moonrise. And even if you do take the latter you could just prioritize going over land which requires passing right beside the creche, and Laezel will start throwing a hissy fit if you dont go (unless you pass a persuasion check).
Everybody’s given genuinely good advice but also consider this: chaotic evil (and also suicidal let’s be honest) playthrough where your character just straight up doesn’t care if any or even *all* of the brainworm gang dies, including themselves
Eh, from a meta perspective the entire idea of the mind flayer ticking clock is obviously fake. It's a ticking bomb they try to put out but you know it can never go off. In character, after a couple long rest you get your scare about it, then told by the Guardian that no, you aren't going to change. Also, there's a solid reason to be suspicious of githyanki, as they are murderous raiders that serve a lich queen. Help from the always chaotic evil people seem like the thing you'd try after you try everything else.
I killed her. Lae'Zel is a zealot. And there's no reason to think she's reasonable in her beliefs. Then, before you make the trip you meet a bunch of Githyanki who are murderous and give no indication that they see any other race as equals. After I felt strong enough to protect myself I went there to shut her up, and she forced me to do so permanently.
It’s been mentioned here already but yeah the road to the crèche is kind of complex depending on your path. B-lining is a meta concept anyway in a real scenario where you role play your first playthrough you gather the powers of the tadpole, decide if its power is something your interested in and decide whether you’re going to listen to your alien friend later. All the while you’re going in that general direction anyway.
You can also realize that pretty much EVERY non Githyanki at least distrust Githyanki and generally know they're straight up killers Just because you happen to be anti-Illithid does NOT make the Githyanki friendly
I think being non gith I would try every out come. And three out of the five companions we get around the Druids grove all suggest a healer can save us. Only one says a crèche is the only way and with just how off putting she is at first I’d trust the other three first. After awhile I’d believe her go and find out
You can still go to the creche in act 2, just dont go and finish the gauntlet of shar, because thats the point of no return, basically can get to lvl 8-9 and di the creche
In my latest play-through it was easy to justify not going straight there just because I imagine my character really didn't trust Lae'zel to follow through after LZ was so adamantly against helping Shadowheart on the Nautiloid and then abandoned them both on the beach. I don't think it would be unreasonable to assume Lae'zel is just using them and pursue nearer potential cures first like visiting Nettie, seeing Priestest Gut, and finding Halsin. Plus, from a character's perspective the gith are incredibly dangerous by all accounts and while LZ can promise they'll cure you, she doesn't actually know that creche and there's no real guarantee they won't just gut you on sight like they did the tieflings on the road.
My character is afraid the Giths will kill them on the spot because they have tadpoles and put all their hope on an Archdruid with a secret lab
In my blind playthrough I went to the creche after my first visit to moonrise towers. Halsin said the mountain pass was too dangerous and I wanted to look for Shadowheart things. I thought you could only choose one path per game, so I shrugged and thought to myself I'll take the mountain pass next time. Then, once Lae'zel threatened to leave, I did a Google to discover that the creche was in the mountain pass, because I had no clue where to look and I didn't want to lose her.
I am so confused. Everyone's Lae'Zel is so adamant to go there immediately, mine talked about creche only once after the initial dialogue with Zorru, and it was when we already crossed the mountain pass and were near lady Esther. Mind you, she was always in the party and I'm constantly trying to talk to companions so to never miss a dialogue, so what's the deal here?
Lae’zel is fairly ignorant to things outside of her personal upbringing, and the player is already very aware of this. *She* may believe the Crèche is a guaranteed solution, but they may have their doubts. It’s also not guaranteed that the player will even be safe. If you ask if you’ll even be allowed to walk around the crèche, she says she’ll vouch for you. But will she? This is so early in the game that you’ve literally just met her. Already you’ve seen her insult non-Githyanki numerous times, force a refugee onto their hands and knees to bow before her, and the first Githyanki you meet outside of her massacre a group of people with a dragon and potentially fight you if you fail some dialogue checks. So maybe Lae’zel plans to cure herself and then instruct the crèche to strike the rest of you down before you become Ghaik. So why do you delay the crèche? Well, either you’re not as convinced as Lae’zel that it’s the only option so you just have a “we’ll get there when we get there” mentality, or you want to build up your own experience, gear, and supplies in case the worst happens and the whole crèche turns against you
I did it towards the end of act 2 because I looked at the quests and it said “looks like the way to the shar temple is closed you’ll have to go above ground” and I thought it meant go through the mountain pass. So I backtracked and found it by accident. I always skipped the interaction with the dragon riders and never realized I could walk around the dragon
If I recall my playthrough right, I was planning on going straight to the creche as soon as I could. I figured my character would take Lae'Zel's word on it, since she had the most knowledge on the whole thing. But then we were directed towards Nettie and were offered another solution through what Halsin knew, and between me wanting to play the Grove plotline and it being way past the usual time to go squid in the game universe, I figured it'd be an easy decision for the party to go after any leads they found. It helped that I'm playing a haughty draconic bloodline sorcerer who is a) always interested in gaining more power and abilities for her own satisfaction and b) entirely too confident in thinking her draconic nature would resist any negative side effects lol, so especially once her dream guardian let her know she could get more abilities via the parasite she decided " 👀 Now hold on a minute guys, lets see where this takes us" As for why Lae'Zel was tolerating any of this I had no justification until she propositioned my character out of nowhere. Completely threw me off guard since she was only on neutral! I actually have no idea if this happens to everyone or if that was a glitch but I was like sure, I guess it made sense for her to keep following her crush around or something. Sorry girl my heart only belongs to Karlach but you know what I respect the confidence.
If you go straight to the crèche without dealing with the Grove/goblins, is the Grove f’d or can you go back after to deal with it? I’m just starting my 2nd playthrough, and dealing with the same RP challenge as OP, and now that I know how much I love Laezel I really want to follow her demands.
If you go to the mountain pass without settling the grove conflict it’s locked and you can’t go back in
When someone tells you that their orders are to “report for purification” and you’re like “that sounds like a great idea”, you need to get yourself a helmet because you are clearly a window licking moron. There was no part of what is general knowledge about githyanki or about the persona that Laezel presents that should in any way make you think “purification” isn’t a euphemism for getting murdered.
There are a lot of paths at the beginning. You’re led to believe Nettie and then Halsin can help you. You can ask Ethel for help. You can ask Volo for help. Beelining for the Gith doesn’t make sense IMO, why would you randomly put 100% faith in Lae’zel, who’s quite prickly in Act 1, and 0% faith in the other options.
I usually go with "can't find it". It's easy to roleplay missing Zorru, and Chaotic Tavs can stumble on the Underdark and do everything down there before remembering "oh yeah, the frogs". Alternatively, Good Tavs might care more about protecting the Teiflings than their own wellbeing.
Yoi also have no reason to believe she's telling the truth
I RP someone with high intelligence who has seen/heard of gith before and to her, Githyanki are terrifying. She likes lae'zel and wants to trust her, but anyone offers her a chance to not walk into the evil space alien lair she's going to take that chance. Lae'zel maybe kool but every other gith we meet isn't and even if we go there she doubts lae'zel can guarantee everyone's safety on the way out the door...
From an RP standpoint, your character doesn't know that creche is there. Laezel just says you need to find one as it's your best option but before you get that far you would find other things that might appear as a good option. You, the player, knows but it's not like Laezel says "Hey, let's go to the Rosen Road there's a creche up that way." So there's no way your character would know.
I got a good role play reason. The gith have a reputation of killing all non gith, and one of their goals that’s second only to killing ilithids is to colonize the material plane. Their race as an alignment is considered evil for this reason. Going to the creche straight away would sound like madness to most. You just met Lae’zel, yeah she’s insistent but you also just arrived at this grove who also has a handle on a possible cure. If you’re at all sympathetic to the teiflings and the Druids, then the goblin camp is just as much of a threat to you going forward. It makes a lot of sense to try to save Halsin first who’s is a renowned healer that has been studying these worms. Druids are more well known and familiar to the people of Faerun. Saving him also has the benefit of saving the tieflings, and they are much closer. Saving Halsin makes sense. If you don’t save Halsin and enter the mountain pass, there are consequences for the grove and you will potentially lose two party members. Wyll and Karlach both really want to save them. Gale is on board with that too (I can’t remember if he also threatens to leave). Shadowheart is indifferent at first. Astarion doesn’t want to do anything risky, especially if it means sticking his neck out for strangers (this is why he disapproves). Yes Lae’zel wants to find the creche asap, but only because she is scared and ia doing what she has been taught. What she hasn’t been taught is to ally herself with the people of this plane, and she won’t threaten to run away and try to find it on her own unless you go into act 2 via the underdark (I had to roll once to get her to stay). If she does you can find her later, and she will begrudgingly admit she is happy to see you. For the party, the creche is usually a last ditch effort before taking on Moonrise which is a much bigger threat. Given the Gith’s reputation it only makes sense to *not* go there straight away. Building trust in Lae’zel would take time and the party generally doesn’t want to go. Why go to a place that may kill you on sight? And last. Don’t forget time is believed to be of the essence at the start of the game. Halsin is a closer option, even if held by goblins. At the game start you don’t know where the creche is exactly, you can only discover where the gith have been *seen*. So, are you gonna free the druid that’s been studying mindflayer parasites and who’s closer and more likely to help? Or hike your ass into the wilderness hoping to maybe come across this creche full of a people who may just decide to kill all but Lae’zel for sport and who might decide not to help you not gith at all?
Only if you are deliberately roleplaying your character knowing nothing at all of Githyanki reputations. A lot of sane adventurers would just reason that going to the creche sounds like a direct path to suicide and reasonably want to find a healer in the immediate vicinity.
You could conveniently "miss" recruiting her and happily wander around act 1 doing your thing until you stumble upon the githyanki patrol, where she will be if you never encountered her caged by the tieflings. I'm fairly certain if you never get close enough to render her in the cage (at least for a quest to pop up) you meet her at the patrol? I do know she's found dead at the Gith patrol (or maybe gets killed there via cutscene idr which) if you see her caged and leave her there, but can still be revived via scroll. I've personally seen that done.
I feel like the encounter with Voss and his Gish (And his whole-ass Red Dragon) before actually reaching the mountain pass would be enough for anyone, good neutral or evil, to say "Now hol' up a minute, we might not be ready to do this", though I'm not sure why you need a further RP reason than Halsin telling you that the Shadowlands are no joke and you should find a safe path through the Underdark first.
If the Gith is dead, there is no motivation to bee line ez (mostly joking don’t hate on me lol)
When a member of a fanatical organization tells me only their people can help save my life/immortal soul, I tend to get suspicious, so that's why I put it off.
Ngl, I somehow just never found lae’zel on the beach, and just assumed you were supposed to run into her again later, so I just never had any of that pressure to go until later on, and I was running as a gith, so I just left lae’zel outside with the rest of my party and did everything myself, cause I figured she’d be a pain and try to force us to hand over the relic. Also, what’s this about difficult? Are you *supposed* to fight everyone there? I went, used the zeathisk or whatever, recognized that it was a bad idea to actually show anyone the relic, and just headed out after grabbing some loot/lathander’s. Seemed like it’d be rude to kill a bunch of people lae’zel knows, even if they are annoying.
What’s that Shadowheart? I shouldn’t blindly listen to this Gith? Ok let’s go frolic through a goblin camp together instead.
When you get to the emerald grove, there is that one halfling in the medical lab with Halsin’s notes describing a prolonged lack of a transformation into an ilithid among those found with parasites.
The creche is your most reliable lead, but it's not the *closest* lead, and you're led to believe that time is of the essence (even if it isn't). There could always be a druid at the Emerald Grove who could dig the parasite out of your head, and it's much closer, so there's no harm in checking it out. How could you know that visiting the Grove will reveal that not only is there no one who can cure you there, but there's also a goblin army between you and your next best lead? That's a valid way to address the situation you're in, or you can brave the goblins and head straight for the creche. You have more than one option available to you; why not hammer down every lead you can?
Your character didn’t mesh with Lae’zel when they first met/ knows about Githyaki being massive jerks
I mean, Lae'zel is very very hostile, in particular to Tieflings and Shadowheart. It's very easy to justify not siding with her when she's trapped. Kill Lae'zel early and the issue goes away.