I am ashamed to admit that, while I bought Baldur’s Gate 3 immediately at the launch of its early access period in October 2020, it took me just short of five years to finish my first playthrough of the game. A combination of insufficient hardware and different life priorities got in the way, but my attention and interest in the game never waned. Baldur’s Gate 2 is probably the most important video game I’ve played in my life, so my level of excitement whenever I could dive into the sequel is hard to understate, especially considering the showers of praise the game received over the years.

Sadly, I ended my saga on a low note.

When I finally got to confront the Netherbrain, I was excited to see how the team at Larian Studios would weave together the strands of the game’s story, shaped by my choices and interpretation. But for me, these strands didn’t exactly come together. In the final beats of Act 3, I tried to be as selfless as possible in my decisions, acting as an archetypical hero. As a consequence, I was locked out of all the most interesting endgame content.

I embarked on my Baldur’s Gate 3 quest playing a Bard-Paladin multiclass (“Bardadin”, in the game lingo), a choice that, I admit, was motivated by min-maxing my build. I regret it not only because it made my first playthrough way too easy, but also because it made no sense from a roleplay perspective. In my (admittedly, a bit old-school) vision of D&D and its world, a Bard represents the drive of freedom and independence, while a Paladin is the epitome of the strength that comes from a binding vow. The Oathbreaker path in Baldur’s Gate 3 offers an interesting variation on the Paladin theme, but, in terms of the decision I made and the dialogues I picked, I........

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