It seems like oh so long ago now, but there was a time when everyone on Earth was playing 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Baldur's Gate 3, and I wasn't. Its popularity snuck up on me a bit. I had been following the game through early access, and was a fan of the series from BioWare's first two entries. I also keep up to date with 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dungeons & Dragons news, writing my own adventures, and so I was plugged into Baldur's Gate months before it launched. I expected it to come out, be well received by fellow nerds, and then be the sort of title I could, with some snootiness, tell people to play if they wanted to play the real Game of the Year. Instead, everyone and their granny's dog loved it.
Obviously, it's great that everyone loves it. That increases the chance of more games like this being made in the future, and it's a fitting reward for all of Larian's hard work. But also, I kinda feel like it was my thing, and then it became the world's thing. Worse, thanks to the strange shift in release date, it came forward on PC to avoid 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Starfield - the consensus now is that it had little to worry about - while I waited another month for it to arrive on the sho𒐪res of Consolia.
My Quest To Get Drunk In Baldur's Gate 3
There are two Trophies in Baldur's ⭕Gate 3 that require drunkenness, but it's surprisingly difficult to find the required wine for them.
This meant the whole internet was talking about Baldur's Gate 3, including the staff at TheGamer, and that made it impossible to avoid. As a regular citizen who spends too much time online, I would have struggled, but at a gaming site editing features and covering guides and news topics on the game? Forget about it. I avoided things as best I could, but it was just inevitable that as soon as I met Gale I knew he ate magic stuff, that Astarion was actually a vampire, and I sought out Karlach as soon as I was able rather than waiting for her to appear organically. I had managed to put my fingers in my ears when it came to spoilers and big plot developments, but I thought I knew the basics of each companion. And yet I had not heard of Jaheira.
Jaheira is an optional companion you pick up at the end of Act 2, joining the party as your druid. This is often seen as a key role in a Dungeons & Dragons party, with many narrative beats of the D&D movie revolving around the group's druid and her Wild Shape capabilities. However, in Baldur's Gate you need to make do without, unless your Tav is a druid. This is despite protecting the Druid Grove and rescuing Halsin. One of those unavoidable parts of Baldur's Gate 3 I learned before the game was even out, and it was 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the bear sex scene with Halsin. This, plus the fact he's there from almost the start of the game and occupies a key party role, made me think Halsin would be a notable companion, rather than a lazy layabout.
I think I killed Halsin. Not on purpose, although if I had the choice I can't say for certain that I wouldn't have anyway. I have mentioned before that I don't think Baldur's Gate 3 communicates its points of no return clearly enough, and somewhere in there I may have sent Halsin out into a quest that I now cannot complete, trapping him in purgatory. Hopefully he'll be more useful there than he was in camp.
I was fine to continue with no druid, because I'd gotten this far with the Girlie Gang of Karlach and Lae'zel hitting things while I did AoE damage from afar and Shadowheart healed and hurt in equal measure. Gale was a good substitution for Shadowheart when more aggression was needed, and Astarion for Lae'zel led to better roleplay scenarios. Wyll, a warlock like myself, was also there. Enough about him. The lack of a druid created a gap in my party, but I didn't notice it all that much.
At least, not until Jaheria joined. I'm still working on the best balance, and trying to bring other characters into play so my battles have more variety, but Jaheria's arena control is just what I have needed, and Wild Shape is always welcome. Jaheria fought alongside me as I stormed the Moonrise Tower, so I knew a little bit of what she could do, but in building her my own way I could now cover half the arena in ice or vines while my warlock surrounded the rest with Black Tentacles. Obviously, Karlach and Lae'zel don't thrive in that environment, but with me, Jaheira, Shadowheart, and Gale (or, fine, Wyll), we could offer serious punishment from afar while keeping the major threats contained.
It's not just from a combat POV though. Jaheira's no nonsense personality, combined with far less edge than Lae'zel's meanness makes her a fresh voice in camp, one of stern reason. You might call Karlach or Shadowheart 'mommy', but Jaheira offers a true matriarch that the camp needs. Far more useful, helpful, and interesting than Halsin, it's strange that the fanbase does not appear to have embraced her as they have the rest, and odd that the game makes you wait around forever for a druid then sends two along at once.
Jaheira deserves to be thought of as a core part of the Baldur's Gate 3 experience, and I hope in time the fanbase embraces her as much as they have the companions you meet in the first act. If Halsin is a headline name, then Jaheira deserves to be too. At least she bothers to show up.