Did you take the super saiyan tadpole?

Lae'zel's "Something is different about Shadowheart... but WHAT?" is one of the funniest throwaway jokes in the game to me.

At 30:42, i remember Gale explained the story about the Netherese Empire in Act 1 but i understand that must feel like a lifetime ago at this point lol. So ill try to post what i remember below in a Non-Spoiler story of course: Hundreds of years ago, the Netheril Empire mastered magic that rivaled even the gods. They even had floating sky cities. During this time, the Goddess of Magic did not have any restrictions on the amount of magic that mortals could use. The emporer of the Netheril Empire was a man named "Karsus". He was the first mortal to become lovers with the Goddess of Magic (before Gale). Karsus eventually wanted to become the new "God of Magic" so he decided to conjure a spell so powerful that he ended up killing the actual Goddess of Magic in an attempt to surpass her. However now that the Goddess of Magic was slain by Karsus, his entire empire began to crumble around him.... because with no goddess, there was no magic. The sky cities came crashing to the ground. Karsus died in the crashing city and most Netheril artifacts were destroyed (except for the crown 👑 that the Dead Three recovered). This event came to be known as "Karsus Folly". Eventually with the aid of other gods, the Goddess of Magic would be reincarnated. This time she would set strict restrictions on the magic that mortals can use (this is why you have spell slots to cast a limited number of spells per long rest). The Goddess of Magic would store her essence in several unsuspecting mortals including a famous Bard, to be used to resurrect her should she ever die again. She would never fall in love with a mortal again until she met Gale. Although i doubt she will make the same mistake twice.

I find it really funny that Halsin was scared of Shadowheart for a sec because of the blade she was holding but it finds out that she was just doing her hair like bro chill😭

Omg xD This is the first time I've seen someone get that "something's different about Shadowheart" line from Lae'zel before seeing her new hair for themselves. Absolutely priceless reaction hehe

I was waiting for you to get to the guardian reveal! I figured it wouldn’t be a deterrent for you being kinda into him considering your history with alien-like love interests. Too bad he got rid of the toga. I didn’t use any tadpoles so when he offered me the super-worm, I was able to reject it without a dice roll. The ascension conversations with Astarion had me like, “that’s nice babe, but we’re not doing an evil ritual.” I totally agree that he’s primarily driven by fear, and his ho-hum “I don’t care about anybody but me” attitude is a side effect of that. His storyline is one of the highlights of this act IMO. Excited to see you finally make it to Baldur’s Gate. Act III is looooooong, but there’s so many cool moments still to come!

I love that they sneak that song in there when meet the Emperor which later will have some illuminating lyrics.

I was waiting for your surprise about your guardian! 😂 It was priceless!

This is a quite a pivotal point in the story. Delightful to watch Kim unravelling the twists and turns! (And Kim, you're doing a really good job of doing so.)

So many things still to happen in this third act! Im excited to see it though your eyes, Kim

I gave the tadpole to Gale on my first play through because I was trying to romance him but I did something wrong and he lost interest. So I gave it to him so I could preserve my good looks and play with the powers :)

i can make him WORST , the chance to romance a mind flayer was the reason why i started BG3 (and just a bit of Halsin)

Great episode and a lot to unpack!! At least the Emperor has big…tentacles 😂 Bet Lae’ze had a word or two to say about Orpheus!! My first playthrough I was roleplaying as power-hungry sorcerer, so I embraced those powers…wasn’t fond of the look but the powers are sick! 2nd playthrough I was playing as Way of the Open Hand (inspired to play as Monk after I saw how powerful Orpheus’ guardians were). I was fine with using the first level of illithid powers but thought monk should be more restrained, so declined to indulge in additional powers…turns out the more tadpoles consumed earlier, the higher the roll needed…had to use some save-scumming to avoid my tadpole’s all-too powerful suggestions. 3rd playthrough was a self-righteous Paladin so didn’t indulge at all… and all three playthroughs were lots of fun 😄 As far as hirelings go, I used them happily in my tactician and honor runs-had all 3 re-classed as Life Cleric and used them as camp followers, used them to cast Warding Bond on my melee fighters, upcasted Aid and later on Heroes Feast (level 6 clerics and some classes of Druid can cast). Lots of swapping around but it makes it easy to steamroll the baddies. For the matter, could use Shadowheart like that when she’s not in the party-invite her in to the party, have her cast Warding Bond on Astarion. Can have her cast upcasted Aid on everybody (easier to leave camp for this, especially if there a lot of summoned critters). Then swap her back with the person that actually will be in the party That way everyone but the swapper has 15 or 20 extra cp and Astarion will only take half-damage 👍 That said, if you not playing on Tactician, don’t really need the hirelings

Finally meeting the Emperor. I'm curious on how you'll perceive his character when you learn more about him. I love Emperor (and Orpheus) for being truly confusing characters where you never really know what you're getting.

i don't know if anyone told you yet, but astarion's voice actor (Neil Newbon) streams his own playthrough of BG3. i think you can find it on youtube and on twitch.

Act 3, this is where the fun begins . So much information unloaded in one episode. Shadowheart changing her look, the dream visitor turning out to be a mind flayer. The comet prince. Look forward to next episode and all the fun when you reach the city of Baulder's Gate

First things first, your editing skills are seriously amazing! I've said this before but it's worth repeating because you make me laugh SO MUCH all the time in your videos because of unexpected little tricks and things and it's amazing so thank you for that!! The Orpheus reveal was really so satisfying. So was the Mind Flayer Dream Visitor, of course, but the Githyanki being Orpheus is an even bigger shock and I loved seeing your reaction. It'll definitely be interesting when you talk to Lae'zel next for sure! Also, I know you don't want to pressure your companions into using the fancy new tadpole but it might be interesting to initiate the conversations with them anyway just to see what they say. Some of them have interesting reactions. As someone who doesn't really understand the appeal of Halsin, I find your constant thirst for him pretty hilarious! I do agree that it was a huge tease of him to say how much he wants you and then just hasn't addressed it again yet, haha don't worry you'll be able to start his romance soon I'm sure! (RIP to the Emperor and Astarion XD) Oh speaking of those two, I wonder who the title of the episode is referring to? I'm thinking probably the Emperor but you did have that conversation with Astarion as well so who knows! (EDIT - I just saw the subtitle of "listen we can make this work" so, yeah, you're definitely talking about the Emperor hahha, mystery solved!) I look forward to seeing you reach the city and all the insanity within. It really does feel like you've already finished two complete games! And have had a heck of a start on the third! Cheers and thanks as always for great content!

I have multiple characters. Generally, if my characters take one tadpole they take them all. And if they take none, then that's that.

Emperor reminded me a little like the Geth from Mass Effect in a sense.

I got goosebumps seeing your reaction to first seeing the Gate in that cutscene

I've never used the tadpole haha. The first character I made had high wisdom and a couple party members who could buff me, so I was able to avoid it. After that I've never used a tadpole because I'm very shallow and like my characters to look pretty 😂

You're going to love Act 3, Kim, it's my favorite!

I didn’t use the tadpole in my first run but I did in my Dark Urge run ^^

as I see, you could hard-save before taking the astral-tadpole and check what are the immediate consequences - how does it transform you, what powers it gives and which skills does it unlock. And if you don´t like it, you can just roll back to your save.

I have a hard time focusing on reading too, but audio books are even worse for me. I didn't even like being read to as a kid because my attention wandered. Ah, the scene I was hoping to see last episode 😈 There's an interesting thing in this scene that I didn't notice until my second playthrough, and I wonder whether it was designed as something for repeat players to pick up on. It'll be interesting to see whether you notice it, though.

Netherese was a floating city who's King wanted to control all magic, he almost did it. Mstra sacrificed herself and with that all magic left the planes, the city crashed to the ground. I think his name was Karcus? To this day it is referred by"Karcus's Folly" The magic this human city used the worlds never saw before and has never seen since, well, until now.

I like the super saiyan tadpole Nice Kim

45:00 And here's the part where we all finally found out (for sure) that we'd been catfished by godsdamned Squidward. I've never had to make that Wisdom check before, but I've never made it to this point of the game with a main character that had unlocked any tadpole powers beyond the [Illithid] conversation options. Looks like a consequence of consuming too many gummy worms.

will you play stellar blade?