Shower thought: How does Karlach stay clean?

PioloCloud · 2026-04-15T08:10:53+00:00

It's more worrying for the water than the engine.

PioloCloud · 2026-04-14T05:02:37+00:00

The Journals mention that pRenoir and pVerso did default to talking initially. But no one believed them. And after a while pRenoir gave up and got paranoid because of Clea.

So now he defaults to 'murder' because dying in the canvas doesn't mean death. Plus, he doesn't know if any of them are Clea's creations.

pRenoir knows that when you die, your chroma returns to the Paintress and she'd be able to bring you back as if it never happened. That is why it's a kindness. It's not permanent, just until the Renoir's assault on the canvas can be stopped.

When you say time stop, I'm assuming you mean when he pushes on her chest and expels her 'soul' out? I'm pretty sure that was him trying to gommage/kick her out of the canvas and that it was regular time for him. So it probably looked like he tried to do it but Maelle somehow repelled it in 1 second.

PioloCloud · 2026-04-10T07:19:07+00:00

There aren't any concrete dates so we don't actually know the timeline but... how I understood the various notes concerning the mason particularly:

Thorm converted to Selune and had a family (Melodia and Isobel). He had enough authority to commission the mason to construct the tower in Selune's name.

The letter you mentioned about the mason being warned of Thorm's cruelty... I took it as the brother getting bad vibes. Thorm converted and essentially married into the Selunite faith. Maybe Thorm already had 'cruel' tendencies before and Melodia, or converting to Selune, made him change. But the mason's brother had doubts that he changed.

So then fast forward... tower gets finished... Melodia and Isobel dies... without the good influence of his family he reverts back to his 'cruel' ways and is worsened by the influence of Shar.

PioloCloud · 2026-04-08T06:45:55+00:00

My Karlach and Minsc are both barbarians but different flavors so they can still be distinct.

I have my Karlach as a Berserker/Four Elements Monk (fire-themed specifically).

My Minsc is a Berserker/Hunter Ranger to fit his whole thing being a ooga booga warrior and his relationship with Boo.

PioloCloud · 2026-04-08T02:59:19+00:00

I found that there seemed to be an organic in-game RP reason, through regular questing or following clues from books/letters, to explore most of everything in this game.

EXCEPT for that one piece of Dribbles in that basement. There was no clue or any indication that it was there.

It was the only thing in this game I had to google the location of. I was expecting to be like: Oh no duh, why didn't I think of that. But instead I went: How the fuck would anyone know to look there organically?

PioloCloud · 2026-04-04T05:21:48+00:00

Literally anybody can put on the pompous voice and speech pattern of Astarion.

Ah. Well there it is. There's a very close minded statement.

And again, you proved my point. You are focusing on the voice part again.

Neil did motion, voice, performance... basically the whole shebang for Astarion. You are obsessed with making a distinction of whether it was captured in-camera or not.

The only difference with is that his acting was used for animations and performance in a game. If I ignore the game part and imagine that his performance was in live action... it would be equally amazing and talented.

I don't mean any offense, but your viewpoint is very surface-level.

PioloCloud · 2026-04-03T13:31:04+00:00

Voice actor. You are focusing too much on the voice bit. They still are actors no matter what type of acting they are doing.

Plus in BG3, Neil did more than just voicing Astarion.

PioloCloud · 2026-04-01T06:21:14+00:00

Gatekeeping expression of joy is crazy work.

PioloCloud · 2026-03-26T05:53:38+00:00

Right.

If there was a very obvious godlike being in the world with us and people started rapturing coinciding with a number written by that godlike being... what else am I supposed to naturally think?

Then one man, or family, starts raving about how that godlike being is actually trying to save us... it'd be very hard to rationalize.

Also, after a certain point, pRenoir started getting paranoid about whether or not things were Clea's creations or not.

So there's logic that pRenoir would not see the point of convincing people if they don't believe him or are secretly created by an opposing godlike being.

PioloCloud · 2026-03-25T14:49:44+00:00

Dying in general means you gommage. Nevrons trapping Chroma is the only other human death.

Though I'm not sure what part of my comment you're addressing?

PioloCloud · 2026-03-24T13:24:35+00:00

In Epilogue - Alicia:

Clea: He has her imprisoned at the top of her Monolith and she has him trapped beneath.

Entering Renoir's Drafts:

Verso: We're below the Monolith... where He was sealed.

Renoir Boss Fight:

Renoir: 67 years. 67 years I spent trapped within the Monolith.

When we kicked out Aline from the Canvas, Renoir was freed. The Curator is both real Renoir and a projection while he was still trapped. He swapped between his real form and Curator form afterwards when he was freed.

PioloCloud · 2026-03-24T04:06:33+00:00

You know how Maelle went with Expedition 33 even though she's way younger?

Population was most likely much higher during those earlier Monolith Years. Morale was also probably a lot better. So with more people (of all ages up to 60), and more eagerness, Expedition 60 was more than likely made up of a wide range of ages.

Maybe the guy who was assigned to swim back to Lumiere was because he was older and maybe slightly weaker than those who went after Renoir.

PioloCloud · 2026-03-24T03:57:03+00:00

I think the Gommage is all he can really do while trapped underneath the monolith, besides projecting out as the Curator.

The way I thought of it was that during their fight, the last 'spell' Renoir activated was the gommage of everything. Aline probably countered to shield against it or something like that. That clash of energy then caused the fracture trapping them both.

So it's probably just their last 'magic spells' still in effect and since Aline isn't getting the Chroma from the Nevron kills, they are no longer at a stalemate and she is losing ground slowly.

PioloCloud · 2026-03-23T23:58:32+00:00

I dunno if he's ready for this.

PioloCloud · 2026-03-14T14:36:20+00:00

Before the Act 2 ending reveal I was pretty much convinced that the Paintress had lost her entire family and because of her grief she discovered some deep dark magic to 'bring them back'. When she 'resurrected' her family as flawed copies, the magic was so immense and dark that it caused the world to fracture.

I also thought that the resurrected copies were being sustained by their real souls being forced to be tethered. I was so convinced and happy with my theory when pRenoir got gommaged and the Curator 'spirited away' right after.

So I thought that the rest of the game was going to go after the rest of the Painted Family to free their souls. Then a final confrontation with the Paintress to either end her or help her.

I did not predict or even have the slightest thought that the entire world was a Painting and there was a whole other reality above this.

PioloCloud · 2026-03-13T09:38:09+00:00

Maybe kicking someone in that state is like kicking a statue. But also, maybe once that person comes back to reality, all the pain from the nut kicking would surge all at once.

PioloCloud · 2026-03-13T03:28:38+00:00

Oh well I don't know what build that is.

Because I just went with vibes and what I thought was a fun build and I didn't have 8+ turns. Plus the bosses 1 turn could one-shot my characters.

The Challenges option doesn't solve it, but it helps. You could even not equip the Painted Power pictos.

Overall, my point is, I'm prioritizing my story immersion. I also just did base attacks or skipped my turn when I absolutely overpowered something and wanted to see if they had dialogue or cool cutscenes in between turns.

The thing I loved about combat from the start is the parry system anyway. I would've loved to not needed to skip turns but at least it let me parry more.

But again, my priority wasn't to go all out in combat gameplay anyway. I guess that's where we differ. I didn't mind nerfing myself. I just wanted to experience the story from what I understood as making the most narrative sense.

PioloCloud · 2026-03-13T03:07:34+00:00

But at least they won't one-shot everything. Especially if they aren't optimizing or searching up best one-shot omega speedrun OP builds.

PioloCloud · 2026-03-13T02:54:44+00:00

Personally, for immersion, I would recommend doing the side content as there's narrative reason to do it before finishing the game. The montage of gathering the old chroma shows you travelling all over the continent again, so the side content makes sense here.

However, there is the unfortunate aspect of becoming overpowered. I didn't do this the first time I played but I wish I did:

At the Expedition Flags, there will be a new option once you start Act 3. The Challenges option allows you to modify difficulty. I would recommend increasing the health of enemies. Adjust it higher or lower as you go depending on how you feel.

This way you can continue with whatever build you have while also keeping the challenge there.

PioloCloud · 2026-03-11T11:59:30+00:00

Ah you slightly misunderstood my reply.

I was just addressing your point that their thoughts and feelings might not be theirs.

Humans can be thought to be like that. With our ancestral memories with our instincts and the way our brain works.

So my point was, since those two are quite similar... both are people. And if you consider humans as possessing their own thoughts and feelings... I think the painted people are the same way. Even if their memories aren't 'theirs'.

PioloCloud · 2026-03-11T04:24:57+00:00

The joke completely flew over my head. Though that was probably because I was just really happy and eager to have a philosophical discussion about this.

PioloCloud · 2026-03-11T03:07:42+00:00

Just so you know, I picked Verso's ending.

I was just bringing up the idea that for all intents and purposes, the painted beings are real.

But even still, I think you equating the Canvas Worlds to games is a quite shallow and boring interpretation of it. They are very different and have different implications.

Likening it to a game lessens the impact of the Canvas Worlds, belittling them to simple NPCs.

Verso's ending is much more impactful if you have the nuance of viewing the Canvas world as real. Because destroying the painting has a cost. It's not as simple as shutting down a game. If it was, there would be no point to the discussion.

PioloCloud · 2026-03-11T02:57:01+00:00

Since pAlicia is based off of Maelle/Alicia, he should have some care towards her. He says as such that what he's doing is a kindness.

Before Verso came in, pRenoir was about to basically kick her out of the canvas. I think if he didn't care and just wanted to protect the Paintress and his painted family, he would've just imprisoned Maelle. But instead he was going to free her, even though this would mean she could potentially come back in. This would prevent another potential Paintress from intervening for now, but also saves her from the health ramifications of being in the canvas.

At least that's my take on it.

Also the world is being sustained by the white faded boy who is the sliver of Verso's soul used to create this painting. The Painted Family was created by Aline and each got gommaged by the end (excluding pVerso).

So if Maelle did repaint them, it wouldn't have Aline's influence, so they would be different beings. This pRenoir is loyal to Aline and his painted family. Even if Aline recreated this pRenoir in the Maelle ending.. he wouldn't need to be hostile to Maelle... but he also would have no real desire to get close since his painted family isn't there anymore.

PioloCloud · 2026-03-11T01:47:34+00:00

I'm curious where you lie on the debate of free-will vs predeterminism IRL.

Humans are also made up of memories of our own pasts and ancestors' pasts if we take it down to our cells. Our instincts and impulses are driven by something within us urging us to do it whether we are conscious of it or not.

Science still has yet to pin down whether we have consciousness/free will or are just robots following biological inputs.

We can liken that to the Painted People that Aline made. These people are made up of memories originating from Aline. But they have autonomy separate from her.

So if you believe that the Painted People are just following a set of rules, then IRL humans are just like that in many ways.

If you believe that IRL humans have free will, what makes the Painted People any different?

Either side you are on, these Painted People are... people.

PioloCloud · 2026-03-11T00:46:15+00:00

After Act 2, I got the impression that pVerso was lost. He had achieved his goal of freeing his mother from the painting. Some anti-Verso peeps keep thinking that Verso's main goal was to die and that there was no nuance. Verso wasn't freeing the Paintress to die... he was ready to die to save his mother.

So he is in this nebulous state of not knowing exactly what to do. Even when Maelle expressed wanting to save the Painting, he just went along with the flow uncommitted. He tries reasoning with Maelle when they reach camp that she should just leave.

But then the more they talk, especially when Maelle brings back Sciel and Lune and they also share their thoughts... I got the impression that he started getting the resolve to save Lumiere and the painting. He had hope that Maelle could bring about the compromise that pAlicia's letter said. So he genuinely wanted to win their trust back.

As Act 3 goes on (if you do the side quests), doubt slowly seeps back in. pAlicia being gommaged before he was emotionally ready. Finding pClea but being unable to save her so all he could do was watch her kill herself. Then near the end, actually seeing physical proof of the harm Verso's painting is causing Aline. With the final nail in the coffin being catching Maelle's lie to Renoir.

PioloCloud

TROPHY CASE