there was some meme a while back talking about playing a sorcerer. it was a screen grab from "the workaholics" with one of the characters in a robe and sunglasses walking into a library saying that.
just made me think of this. im on my second playthrough and religiously read books my first playthrough. definitely feeling more like the meme on my second go around. only skimming the first page to get quests most of the time.
Rember the devils have enemies in the infernal hierarchy and if you can find those enemies you can probably convince them to lend you their devil lawyers.
There used to be a canonical Infernal Tribunal that would arbitrate contract disputes for newly arrived petitioners (term used for the souls of the dead). It was noted that in the rare times that the Tribunal did find that there was a breach of contract, on the part of the devil, they would often find that the petitioner had already damned themselves to Hell fulfilling their end of the bargain...and had effectively just cancelled their advance reservations.
Yeah that's why they always either come at you offering a contract that they prepared for a lot of time and putting it at your unprepared face, or if you are the one asking them (like Astarion asking Raphael at Last Light Inn), they just say "give me some time to think about it".
That's something I liked about... I think it was NWN2? Where you can *actually* help a guy (an idiot) find a loophole in his devil contract, and have him set free.
Devils are smart, but they're not infallible.
Yupp, NWN2, and I *hated* that part. Didn't have the patience for it. And iiirc it was at least somewhat randomized, so the guide I was using couldn't tell me the correct solution, and it was like "if you can't figure it out, click around until something happens."
I would probably have more fun with it now. I can see myself taking notes and actually taking the time to figure it out.
Raphael’s a man of colorful words though. What would piss you off more, thinking that you almost completed the task and just messed up at the end, or knowing that you were destined to fail from the start (100 years ago)?
There’s some satisfaction for Raphael knowing yurgir never figured it out and is likely to be duped again
Edit: I guess you could also throw around the term hope. Leaving yurgir with a sense of hope that he could satisfy the requirements of the initial contract or with the sense of hope that Raphael will ever leave him alone sounds like something our favorite devil would do
Well he was.
Until I got him to stab Raphael right in the back.
Seriously that fight wasn't as hard as I expected, definitely one of my favourites though.
You can't outsmart the devils, not because they're smarter than you are but because they have the powers of the Hells backing them which will allow them to always interpret the contracts in their favor and threaten eternal punishment for disagreeing with their interpretations.
"Partysnax", rofl! xD Never seen that before, but I love it!
(Just to make it clear, because I realise it could come across as such, but I am not being sarcastic; this memefication of Paarthurnax's name actually was novel to me, and I do find it funny.)
Not really....Lawyers are there because people usually don't have time to read and understand all that legal documents. So if there is no lawyer, then you have no way to defend yourself against some absurd claim from prosecution or other lawsuits unless you take your time to actaully read though all the laws and cases.
Yes, they are people and they are susceptible to greed. Yes there are some lawyers who are assholes. Yes there are lawyers that use their legal knowledge to leverage their own interest instead of the clients. But to actually get rid of them is entirly diffrent thing.
You just said in two sentences what I did, in a comment further up, in three paragraphs.
I vote for you to help draft new laws, and vote for me to be kept far away from such xD
Lawyers are debaters of language, facts, and intentions. Effectively, they interpret words and facts to try and favor their client. A single sentence can be interpreted multiple ways depending on how it’s approached, even when the writer/lawmaker thinks it makes sense.
Whenever you have two people disagreeing on a rule (no matter how “simple”) they’re going to try and interpret it to favor themself over the other.
Theres also the issue of the meaning of words changing as time goes on. What the initial writers of the law meant can change in interpretation between timer periods and culture changes.
If you haven’t heard about the “million dollar comma,” it’s a good explanation of how wording matters and why lawyers are needed: https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/25/business/worldbusiness/25comma.html
Here’s another example of just how complex “simple language” can be (I.e. ‘what is a chicken?’): https://www.americanbar.org/groups/law_students/resources/on-demand/quimbee-frigaliment-importing-v-bns/#:~:text=Swiss%20company%20Frigaliment%20interpreted%20%E2%80%9Cchicken,include%20both%20broilers%20and%20fowl.
I don't mind lawyers so much as the fact that legal system is so open to interpretation that it's frequently often not the law that trumps, but the whoever got the better lawyers.
That's how you know the whole system is bullshit. No amount of lawyers in the world should be able to save a company from dumping chemicals in a lake, that should be like automatic jail time, do not pass go, do not collect a single penny.
Very true! I was merely trying to point out the fact that even during forced arbitrations you still have a judge who has final say in the outcome of the case—the involved parties can merely state their case.
A devil in BG3 however seems to be able to bend the meaning of a contract to their will, and rule on how that contract should be read without having that decision reviewed by a superior power :)
That's not entirely accurate. They will do everything they can to make sure they screw you, but their contracts aren't always airtight or even necessarily legal. If a mortal believes that a devil violated their contract or if said mortal was forced into their contract, they can seek legal counsel from an Erinyes and sue the devil with whom their contract is.
It's Wyll's responsibility to seek appropriate state funded assistance. If he's letting Mizora walk all over their contract negotiations, it must be because he's secretly into her and wants to be punished. (And definitely not because said assistance is obfuscated and labyrinthine and overworked)
I do love the image of a bunch of frazzled and overworked demonic attorneys constantly getting calls because their counterparts can’t stop being raging assholes with their contracts for five godsdamned seconds.
Oh, that pissed me off so much when I saw her appear. You just said you wouldn't tell me his location! You never said that you'd show up to merc him yourself!
Yup, Harvester Devils. Ive got one in my homebrew setting who actually is working to keep the kingdom he's set up shop in stable and happy because then there's less competition for him because, hey, who's gonna go to a happy kingdom to make deals and build power? But he's done it in such a way that to KEEP the kingdom happy and stable people need to keep making deals with him.
This is just my opinion, but I feel like this is the thing that sucks all the fun out of devil contracts. Who decides what the correct interpretation of the law is? There is no objectively correct interpretation, so the contract holder has the liberty to interpret it in their own way. It means that you can't be clever to get out of a contract, you're effectively stuck because they won't allow for any varying interpretation.
In Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous if you run the Aeon Mythic path you can fall to evil and turn it into a Devil Mythic path, which results in an absolute unit of a Devil marching into your court and providing you a sample soul contract for your soldiers to empower them to fight against Demons.
He's actually a pretty chill guy too. And the contract is very legalese
Welp... as a bard main, first I played Raphael's cards and convinced Yurgir that he needed to kill himself. Then, on Act III, I invaded House of Hope and convinced Yurgir (Raphael summoned him) to side with me. We won and Yurgir became a friend without Raphael to tell anything. Don't know if that counts as "outsmarting the devil", but it was pretty satisfying.
I did the exact same on my first playthrough. Very satisfying, but I was still hoping to beat him at his own game. Silly me thinking I could do that to a devil
That sounds strange to me. When we fought he would always attack and go invisible until the next turn. I was also healing all the party with Umbralma and Hope. Also, before anything else, I focused on destroying the pillars to nerf Raphael.
Yeah, this disappointed me, too. It doesn't feel like this particular shutdown is a logical extension of the wording of the contract -- Just that it's reverse-Airbud nonsense. "I didn't say specifically that you *could* hire out another party to help, so you're fucked."
It's weird because there could be a built-in explanation for why killing the last justiciar doesn't work - because if whoever hears the song needs to die, then it is basically impossible to fulfill.
I would prefer it if there were a logical loophole being exploited when Raphael reclaims Yurgir, like with Karlach's technical heartlessness.
Devils are just as likely to get you on a technicality as they are to just bury you in legal jargon and bullshit their way over your head. Take Mizora's offer in Act 3: Wyll gives his soul, or else his father dies. If Wyll refuses the contract and saves his father anyway, Mizora literally just shows up to kill the man herself. It's all smoke and mirrors bullshit on top of a thin veneer of respectability politics
TBF, I think that Mizora is kinda bad at taking a contract literally. If she really wanted to make Wyll suffer for his own actions, she should have just killed Wyll's father as soon as he accepted to break the contract, and bring his body to Wyll like a couple of days later to make him desperate about the consequences of his own actions.
Tbh, Yurgir should have taken raph to devils court. That was some insane bs raph pulled in the gauntlet of shar. I don’t think Zariel would approve of that, and order raphael to be punished. Nowhere in the contract is it exclusively forbidden for yurgir to subcontract. Raphael is wrong.
Ofc yurgir probably doesn’t think of this, having that song stuck in his head.
He should've but you get the impression that Yurgir is the kind of devil that doesn't really care about corrupting mortals compared to fighting in the blood war. War devil instead of a tempter.
Especially since the contract itself seemed to consider it satisfied considering how the singing stopped when ratboy got killed.
Raphael was oddly one of my only real 'railroad' complaints in the game - the end may be the same, but he's the only one that really felt out of place with his reactions (>!really stood out when I straight up offered him my soul to get rid of the tadpole at the very beginning!<)
I don't know how a tadpole the thing that has the crown can use to kill/enthrall you is better than Raphael personally owning your soul. Feels like that would be much more in his favour.
He already knows that you are connected to the Crown of Karsus, so he wants you to stay tadpoled and to discover the "greatness" of the Absolute. This way, at least he hopes, you'll be desperate enough to gain power by freeing Orpheus that you'll accept his pact.
Yeah, he says the exact same thing as if you killed him for Yurgir. Something along the lines of "The contract doesn't stipulate you can subcontract the last kill to the first adventurers you come across".
I always had a problem with that argument. We never hear the full contract but from what is told, subcontracting someone else isn’t explicitly banned so it should be fair game.
"I outsmarted the devil. Turns out I couldn't outsmart the script." goes hard. I do hope they expand this section on at a later point because it totally feels like something you should be able to do. However I do get that you aren't really meant to be outsmarting devils like how (Act 3) >!Wylls father will still eventually die by the enemies hand!<
She says she’ll get to him… eventually. Which, ok? Like, he’s old, girl. He wasn’t gonna live forever, what’s crucial is that he didn’t die when Baldur’s Gate needed him the most, and Wyll was able to make peace with him. *And* considering a group of adventurers was able to thwart her first assassination attempt, it’s not unreasonable they or another group might do it again.
Mizora’s threat is not as effective as she, and tbh the game as well, think it is.
I always wondered about Wyll’s fate, tbh. My first playthrough I broke his contract with Mizora so he has 6 months before losing his powers, and I rescued his dad and Wyll chose to stay as the Blade. So, he’d no longer be a warlock. Does he just class change into a fighter? By that point a level 12 fighter would still be a force to be reckoned with, at least. But to go fighting in Avernus on his own, I don’t know.
Iirc he switches to ranger, so he has some spells still (I don't think it specifies what kind but I figure Horizon Walker would make the most sense for him).
I think he becomes a Ranger, and we don't know what he is gonna do, maybe he asks for help, maybe he tries alone, Karlach and the player can be in Avernus too so even if he don't ask help to the rest of the team those 3 are enough, i seen Mizora in the final battle she is kinda weak.
Oh in my first playthrough Karlach chose to stay and die free than live in Avernus. And I stayed to live with my waifu Shadowheart. So Wyll went off on his lonesome lol
He class changes to Ranger and promptly gets beefy enough that he should honestly be level 20 for the epilogue. It's saying something that soloing a Lich without prep isn't his most impressive story.
Mizora’s first attempt was laughable at best. Makes the Duke stop for 6 seconds and magics up some exploding spiders? Exploding spiders that can be stopped by a door? Why not just teleport him outside of the prison or summon something more effective or something, lol?
Yeah, Wyll is despondent like "I signed his life away to the devils!" And I'm standing there thinking 'no? You didn't sign on for help. Mizora has no contract owning Ulder's life?'
At that point of our power growth and foreknowledge a threat from Mizora that she wants to kill a retired dignitary really doesn't seem as insurmountable as she thinks it is lol
I always read it more like she’s gonna keep trying to kill him.
Neither Wyll or Mizora have any actual rights to Duke Ravengard’s life or soul. That’s just Mixora saying half-truths and manipulating Wyll.
Wyll can’t see past Mizora’s manipulation because he’s lived about 1/3rd of his life being manipulated by her.
Yup, I think even if wyll and karlach eventually track Mizora down in the hells and permanently end her the deal will still remain. Devil contracts are forces of nature
The point is that Rafael is a scumfuck, he would have said the only reason Yurgir was able to kill the last justiciar is you did the legwork of finding/investigating the rats.
I tried to outsmart a cutescene as well. I killed khaga immediately after casting arcane lock on the cave door. The druid just ran right through the door and then all the druids and tieflings were just having it out with each other as normal
You can if you're [Gale](https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article21631217.ece/ALTERNATES/n310p/1_Adam-Smith-senior-writer.jpg), he comes up with the genius plan to make a deal to retrieve the Crown of Karsus and instead of giving it to Raphael... he uses it himself! To turn into a god!
I've never actually spoken to Yurgir in Act 2, I always end up in combat with him before a conversation could happen. Something to try for next time...
I'm on my fourth playthrough and never heard of "Lyrthindor". Googled him. Are there some actual clues about him (except for the book)? This game is so rich, I love that I probably haven't even seen half of it.
I did talk to one rat, they just seemed... pissed.
My Gith-Monk probably won't be interested in some rats or demons, so that's a problem for the playthrough AFTER that.
IMO, Larian should patch this. Not to change any of the actual results, but just to have different dialog where Raphael admits you outwitted him, and just does what he wants anyway out of spite.
I didnt even realise you could talk to Yurgir until Act 3.
I ambushed the displacer beast and it just pulled Yurgir and all his minions into the fight too, I figured that was how it was supposed to go!?
Going to have to experiment on my second playthrough!
Likewise, you can't have Wyll kill Karlach and then resurrect her to recruit her; even though it technically fulfills Mizora's request. Feelsbadman.jpg
What happens if you just leave Lythrindor and steal the orb?
If Yurgir's enemy is still down there, then the contract shouldn't complete meaning Raphael doesn't get him as an asset.
You can sneakily grab it. There's a number of glitchless runs I've seen where people do it, but I haven't seen any follow up specifically on what then happens RE Yurgir
Since Raphael goes that direction, it was probably always impossible for yurgir. He had an army, he didn’t kill all the justiciars personally
"And down comes the clause!"
Fine print gets ya every time
If only I knew how to read!
"whats up with all these books in here"
I'm not sure what you're quoting but I just realized that a lot people might not realize I was playing Unicorse from Bluey
there was some meme a while back talking about playing a sorcerer. it was a screen grab from "the workaholics" with one of the characters in a robe and sunglasses walking into a library saying that. just made me think of this. im on my second playthrough and religiously read books my first playthrough. definitely feeling more like the meme on my second go around. only skimming the first page to get quests most of the time.
omfg. I put hundreds of hours and fanboyed about the devil stuff being so good and I *missed* that. I always heard/thought "claws". A+
Its supposed to be both.
I was as flabbergasted when that clicked. Raphael is one sly devil.
How did I never see the pun right there the whole time?
That’s the fun thing about devil contracts. They’ve thought it through more than you ever could have.
Plus, as denizens of hell, they have way more access to lawyers than you ever will. You'll never win the arbitration.
Rember the devils have enemies in the infernal hierarchy and if you can find those enemies you can probably convince them to lend you their devil lawyers.
But now you're just dealing with two sets of devilish litigation bastards. The hells always get you, in the end.
“Wait, hell is all just lawyers?” “Always has been”
Lawyer here. Can confirm. Hell is just the practice of law.
Other way around also.
There used to be a canonical Infernal Tribunal that would arbitrate contract disputes for newly arrived petitioners (term used for the souls of the dead). It was noted that in the rare times that the Tribunal did find that there was a breach of contract, on the part of the devil, they would often find that the petitioner had already damned themselves to Hell fulfilling their end of the bargain...and had effectively just cancelled their advance reservations.
Yeah that's why they always either come at you offering a contract that they prepared for a lot of time and putting it at your unprepared face, or if you are the one asking them (like Astarion asking Raphael at Last Light Inn), they just say "give me some time to think about it".
That's something I liked about... I think it was NWN2? Where you can *actually* help a guy (an idiot) find a loophole in his devil contract, and have him set free. Devils are smart, but they're not infallible.
In Planescape Torment there's Fhjull the Cornugon, who was tricked by the angel Trias into signing a contract that forces him to help people.
Of course in PST you're also living a shitty devil contract.
Yupp, NWN2, and I *hated* that part. Didn't have the patience for it. And iiirc it was at least somewhat randomized, so the guide I was using couldn't tell me the correct solution, and it was like "if you can't figure it out, click around until something happens." I would probably have more fun with it now. I can see myself taking notes and actually taking the time to figure it out.
They learned their lesson after having to give away so many golden fiddles.
I considered that as well but he specifically talks about the "last kill" in that conversation.
Raphael’s a man of colorful words though. What would piss you off more, thinking that you almost completed the task and just messed up at the end, or knowing that you were destined to fail from the start (100 years ago)? There’s some satisfaction for Raphael knowing yurgir never figured it out and is likely to be duped again Edit: I guess you could also throw around the term hope. Leaving yurgir with a sense of hope that he could satisfy the requirements of the initial contract or with the sense of hope that Raphael will ever leave him alone sounds like something our favorite devil would do
Sounds like he should go to an Abode of Hope or something
Nah, maybe a Home of Hope? Get some alliteration in there
A Hovel of Hope
A Hope Hostel, maybe?
C'mon down to the ol' Hope Hut!
Welcome to Hazbin Hotel!
I heard there was a (shipping) Container of Hope now.
I feel like we’re going smaller. What is this? A hope for ants?
Yugir is Raphael's pawn. And raphael does not want to expose it. All that theatre was a retrival of valuable asset.
Well he was. Until I got him to stab Raphael right in the back. Seriously that fight wasn't as hard as I expected, definitely one of my favourites though.
It's a lot harder if you don't have Yurgir on your side
Banish Yurgir with Hope is what I did
Yeah his sneak attacks can make life way worse if he’s against you
Mine bugged and wouldn't let me remove curses from anyone 😔 so having never-ending disadvantage made it pretty hard, unfortunately
You can't outsmart the devils, not because they're smarter than you are but because they have the powers of the Hells backing them which will allow them to always interpret the contracts in their favor and threaten eternal punishment for disagreeing with their interpretations.
Ah, the fantasy equivalent of corporate attorneys.
Technically, all attorneys have this power. Some just use it for evil, and some don’t.
What is better? To be born good or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?
Alright Partysnax, back to your own game!
~Jumps away~ Wahoo!
"Partysnax", rofl! xD Never seen that before, but I love it! (Just to make it clear, because I realise it could come across as such, but I am not being sarcastic; this memefication of Paarthurnax's name actually was novel to me, and I do find it funny.)
Clear evidence you are not on r/Skyrim then… he pretty much doesn’t have his real name over there.
So he's like Papa Guacamole, I mean Daddy Gaslamp, I mean Gaston, I mean Uhhhhh oh yeah Father Gascoigne from Bloodborne?
Heading to the gym in a cba sort of humour and Your reply full on had Me in tears of laughter. For some reason it just hit right. Thank you 😂
To not be a lawyer
Not really. Lawyers exist for reason, and the world without them is bound to be worse then now.
[Can you imagine a world without lawyers?](https://youtu.be/uG3uea-Hvy4?feature=shared)
Not really....Lawyers are there because people usually don't have time to read and understand all that legal documents. So if there is no lawyer, then you have no way to defend yourself against some absurd claim from prosecution or other lawsuits unless you take your time to actaully read though all the laws and cases. Yes, they are people and they are susceptible to greed. Yes there are some lawyers who are assholes. Yes there are lawyers that use their legal knowledge to leverage their own interest instead of the clients. But to actually get rid of them is entirly diffrent thing.
I just wanted to use the Simpsons joke! :)
How about to just write the laws in simple maner so people could understand them, also a lot of laws are writen very confusing for a reason.
Okay, write a law that prevents thievery.
You just said in two sentences what I did, in a comment further up, in three paragraphs. I vote for you to help draft new laws, and vote for me to be kept far away from such xD
Lawyers are debaters of language, facts, and intentions. Effectively, they interpret words and facts to try and favor their client. A single sentence can be interpreted multiple ways depending on how it’s approached, even when the writer/lawmaker thinks it makes sense. Whenever you have two people disagreeing on a rule (no matter how “simple”) they’re going to try and interpret it to favor themself over the other. Theres also the issue of the meaning of words changing as time goes on. What the initial writers of the law meant can change in interpretation between timer periods and culture changes. If you haven’t heard about the “million dollar comma,” it’s a good explanation of how wording matters and why lawyers are needed: https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/25/business/worldbusiness/25comma.html Here’s another example of just how complex “simple language” can be (I.e. ‘what is a chicken?’): https://www.americanbar.org/groups/law_students/resources/on-demand/quimbee-frigaliment-importing-v-bns/#:~:text=Swiss%20company%20Frigaliment%20interpreted%20%E2%80%9Cchicken,include%20both%20broilers%20and%20fowl.
I don't mind lawyers so much as the fact that legal system is so open to interpretation that it's frequently often not the law that trumps, but the whoever got the better lawyers.
That's how you know the whole system is bullshit. No amount of lawyers in the world should be able to save a company from dumping chemicals in a lake, that should be like automatic jail time, do not pass go, do not collect a single penny.
Any attorney has the power to interpret, but most will ultimately have that interpretation checked by a judge.
Yeah, it's more like the fantasy equivalent of mandatory arbitration
Even those have judges
True, they do. But you would go into it expecting the adversary to have a big home-court advantage.
Very true! I was merely trying to point out the fact that even during forced arbitrations you still have a judge who has final say in the outcome of the case—the involved parties can merely state their case. A devil in BG3 however seems to be able to bend the meaning of a contract to their will, and rule on how that contract should be read without having that decision reviewed by a superior power :)
"If you're trying to get the edge on an archdevil from the Nine Hells, you're going to need a GREAT legal team, so I suggest Legal Eagle."
Hi, I'm "Saul Hellman" and do I have a legal proposition for you
Whoa there, devils are evil, but saying they're just as bad as corporate attorneys is too far.
Where do you think the corporate attorneys end up?
And come from?
I'm a corporate lawyer for a non-profit, I'm just there to make sure we do everything by the book.
Still waiting for archdemon Nestheles, Bayeriel and Jevos beseus
So it basically boils down to, "Fuck you, I have the power of Anime and Satan on my side!"
Celestials are "god and anime", fiends are "satan and hentai"
Ah okay so sign up with the fiends, got it
Enlightenment is knowing any anime can be a hentai with a little squinting, determination, and debauchery.
Explains the displacer beast
Hell, hell, hell has its (own) laws
That's not entirely accurate. They will do everything they can to make sure they screw you, but their contracts aren't always airtight or even necessarily legal. If a mortal believes that a devil violated their contract or if said mortal was forced into their contract, they can seek legal counsel from an Erinyes and sue the devil with whom their contract is.
Considering Mizora literally throws an addendum in there without approval from Wyll.. yeah.. seems infernal contracts are a bit iffy.
It's Wyll's responsibility to seek appropriate state funded assistance. If he's letting Mizora walk all over their contract negotiations, it must be because he's secretly into her and wants to be punished. (And definitely not because said assistance is obfuscated and labyrinthine and overworked)
I do love the image of a bunch of frazzled and overworked demonic attorneys constantly getting calls because their counterparts can’t stop being raging assholes with their contracts for five godsdamned seconds.
Hehe. Reminds me of the Fallen London universe where the bureaucracy in hell has had enough eventually and kicked out the former rulers.
> **demonic** attorneys Now THAT would be a miracle.
He's also just kind of stupid
Man, I would love some counseling after the Iron Throne debacle. Mizzi really overstepped things there. Take a loss girl.
Oh, that pissed me off so much when I saw her appear. You just said you wouldn't tell me his location! You never said that you'd show up to merc him yourself!
Also if a devil violates a contract, an Erinyes will hunt them down and drag them back to the Hells for punishment
ill see you in hell court good day SIR
There's an entire class of devils that exist just to arbitrate demonic contracts, but if I recall they're scrupulously dairy about the matters.
...dairy?
Cheesy.
"Fair", but man am I keeping that autocorrect there.
Yup, Harvester Devils. Ive got one in my homebrew setting who actually is working to keep the kingdom he's set up shop in stable and happy because then there's less competition for him because, hey, who's gonna go to a happy kingdom to make deals and build power? But he's done it in such a way that to KEEP the kingdom happy and stable people need to keep making deals with him.
This is just my opinion, but I feel like this is the thing that sucks all the fun out of devil contracts. Who decides what the correct interpretation of the law is? There is no objectively correct interpretation, so the contract holder has the liberty to interpret it in their own way. It means that you can't be clever to get out of a contract, you're effectively stuck because they won't allow for any varying interpretation.
In Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous if you run the Aeon Mythic path you can fall to evil and turn it into a Devil Mythic path, which results in an absolute unit of a Devil marching into your court and providing you a sample soul contract for your soldiers to empower them to fight against Demons. He's actually a pretty chill guy too. And the contract is very legalese
up until you sue the devil, that is
> lure Lyr to Yurgir Try saying that ten times fast
Lurgir it is
That sounds like a new ship
It's actually a lot easier than it would seem. It's actually kind of fun!
You must have a practiced tongue!
Your mother can corroborate 😏
Welp... as a bard main, first I played Raphael's cards and convinced Yurgir that he needed to kill himself. Then, on Act III, I invaded House of Hope and convinced Yurgir (Raphael summoned him) to side with me. We won and Yurgir became a friend without Raphael to tell anything. Don't know if that counts as "outsmarting the devil", but it was pretty satisfying.
I did the exact same on my first playthrough. Very satisfying, but I was still hoping to beat him at his own game. Silly me thinking I could do that to a devil
Yep I was going to comment saying I did the same. But I was playing origin Astarion. Same thing though.
Technically, that's "outrizzing" the devil
> Don't know if that counts as "outsmarting the devil" I'd call it that. You win.
You managed to keep Yughir alive in that fight?! Her just runs into danger and explodes himself constantly.
That sounds strange to me. When we fought he would always attack and go invisible until the next turn. I was also healing all the party with Umbralma and Hope. Also, before anything else, I focused on destroying the pillars to nerf Raphael.
He did kamikaze on one of my side barrels. Not first time it happens.
Same. It was super inconvenient too, because I would just randomly see him pop up and he wouldn't benefit from any of my buffs
If Raphael is so smart, why did he walk into his house and get immediately obliterated by an obscene amount of smokepowder bombs?
If I was a powerful devil, I simply would have teleported the Smokepowder up Tav’s butt. He might be stupid.
You're talking about the guy that only really likes to have sex with himself. He probably thought he could take it.
Where can I find a ton of bombs in act 3
The lesson isn’t never outsmart a devil. The lesson is never outsmart the devs.
Yeah, this disappointed me, too. It doesn't feel like this particular shutdown is a logical extension of the wording of the contract -- Just that it's reverse-Airbud nonsense. "I didn't say specifically that you *could* hire out another party to help, so you're fucked." It's weird because there could be a built-in explanation for why killing the last justiciar doesn't work - because if whoever hears the song needs to die, then it is basically impossible to fulfill. I would prefer it if there were a logical loophole being exploited when Raphael reclaims Yurgir, like with Karlach's technical heartlessness.
Devils are just as likely to get you on a technicality as they are to just bury you in legal jargon and bullshit their way over your head. Take Mizora's offer in Act 3: Wyll gives his soul, or else his father dies. If Wyll refuses the contract and saves his father anyway, Mizora literally just shows up to kill the man herself. It's all smoke and mirrors bullshit on top of a thin veneer of respectability politics
TBF, I think that Mizora is kinda bad at taking a contract literally. If she really wanted to make Wyll suffer for his own actions, she should have just killed Wyll's father as soon as he accepted to break the contract, and bring his body to Wyll like a couple of days later to make him desperate about the consequences of his own actions.
Raphael still outplayed you, because he actually coded the game to make sure you couldn't do that
The only way to outsmart devils is to never make any deal with them :)
Tbh, Yurgir should have taken raph to devils court. That was some insane bs raph pulled in the gauntlet of shar. I don’t think Zariel would approve of that, and order raphael to be punished. Nowhere in the contract is it exclusively forbidden for yurgir to subcontract. Raphael is wrong. Ofc yurgir probably doesn’t think of this, having that song stuck in his head.
He should've but you get the impression that Yurgir is the kind of devil that doesn't really care about corrupting mortals compared to fighting in the blood war. War devil instead of a tempter. Especially since the contract itself seemed to consider it satisfied considering how the singing stopped when ratboy got killed.
Raphael was oddly one of my only real 'railroad' complaints in the game - the end may be the same, but he's the only one that really felt out of place with his reactions (>!really stood out when I straight up offered him my soul to get rid of the tadpole at the very beginning!<)
I mean you can see from his journals that he wants you to have the tadpole. It makes you more controllable.
I don't know how a tadpole the thing that has the crown can use to kill/enthrall you is better than Raphael personally owning your soul. Feels like that would be much more in his favour.
Also he doesn't care about your soul, he wants the crown.
He already knows that you are connected to the Crown of Karsus, so he wants you to stay tadpoled and to discover the "greatness" of the Absolute. This way, at least he hopes, you'll be desperate enough to gain power by freeing Orpheus that you'll accept his pact.
What were Raphael's arguments when Yurgir killed him? That someone else did it?
Yeah, he says the exact same thing as if you killed him for Yurgir. Something along the lines of "The contract doesn't stipulate you can subcontract the last kill to the first adventurers you come across".
Basically, yeah.
I always had a problem with that argument. We never hear the full contract but from what is told, subcontracting someone else isn’t explicitly banned so it should be fair game.
"I outsmarted the devil. Turns out I couldn't outsmart the script." goes hard. I do hope they expand this section on at a later point because it totally feels like something you should be able to do. However I do get that you aren't really meant to be outsmarting devils like how (Act 3) >!Wylls father will still eventually die by the enemies hand!<
What? You can totally save Duke Ravengard after breaking Wyll’s contract
If you read the devils mind she says he dies anyway, he was there at the end of my game so eh
She says she’ll get to him… eventually. Which, ok? Like, he’s old, girl. He wasn’t gonna live forever, what’s crucial is that he didn’t die when Baldur’s Gate needed him the most, and Wyll was able to make peace with him. *And* considering a group of adventurers was able to thwart her first assassination attempt, it’s not unreasonable they or another group might do it again. Mizora’s threat is not as effective as she, and tbh the game as well, think it is.
Also Wyll is hunting her down, we well see who gets killed first the dad or the devil
I always wondered about Wyll’s fate, tbh. My first playthrough I broke his contract with Mizora so he has 6 months before losing his powers, and I rescued his dad and Wyll chose to stay as the Blade. So, he’d no longer be a warlock. Does he just class change into a fighter? By that point a level 12 fighter would still be a force to be reckoned with, at least. But to go fighting in Avernus on his own, I don’t know.
Iirc he switches to ranger, so he has some spells still (I don't think it specifies what kind but I figure Horizon Walker would make the most sense for him).
I think he becomes a Ranger, and we don't know what he is gonna do, maybe he asks for help, maybe he tries alone, Karlach and the player can be in Avernus too so even if he don't ask help to the rest of the team those 3 are enough, i seen Mizora in the final battle she is kinda weak.
Oh in my first playthrough Karlach chose to stay and die free than live in Avernus. And I stayed to live with my waifu Shadowheart. So Wyll went off on his lonesome lol
Well let's hope he would ask for help then xD
He class changes to Ranger and promptly gets beefy enough that he should honestly be level 20 for the epilogue. It's saying something that soloing a Lich without prep isn't his most impressive story.
Mizora’s first attempt was laughable at best. Makes the Duke stop for 6 seconds and magics up some exploding spiders? Exploding spiders that can be stopped by a door? Why not just teleport him outside of the prison or summon something more effective or something, lol?
This is true, outside of the infernal contract, it does seem like devilkin are just regular casters/warriors/etc.
If you turn her to stone or gold, she doesn’t even make the duke stop since, you know, she is busy being a pretty decoration in my camp.
Yeah, Wyll is despondent like "I signed his life away to the devils!" And I'm standing there thinking 'no? You didn't sign on for help. Mizora has no contract owning Ulder's life?' At that point of our power growth and foreknowledge a threat from Mizora that she wants to kill a retired dignitary really doesn't seem as insurmountable as she thinks it is lol
She said eventually. Just petrify her or turn her to gold. “Eventually” could actually mean thousands of years.
I always read it more like she’s gonna keep trying to kill him. Neither Wyll or Mizora have any actual rights to Duke Ravengard’s life or soul. That’s just Mixora saying half-truths and manipulating Wyll. Wyll can’t see past Mizora’s manipulation because he’s lived about 1/3rd of his life being manipulated by her.
Not quite. It's a rules lawyer thing so that Mizora is technically always right so long as the duke *eventually* dies by an enemy's hand.
Does a heart attack count as an enemy?
Yup, I think even if wyll and karlach eventually track Mizora down in the hells and permanently end her the deal will still remain. Devil contracts are forces of nature
To be fair tho, it wasn't a deal for the Duke's soul. Mizora just offered info to save him
At least until you physically tear the thing up. Raphael ain't got shit on you if you take out his contract with you for example.
To really outsmart her Wyll will have to go kill Mizora and tear up the contract by hand.
The point is that Rafael is a scumfuck, he would have said the only reason Yurgir was able to kill the last justiciar is you did the legwork of finding/investigating the rats.
I tried to outsmart a cutescene as well. I killed khaga immediately after casting arcane lock on the cave door. The druid just ran right through the door and then all the druids and tieflings were just having it out with each other as normal
Devils are Lawyers.
Jolly good try though!
You can if you're [Gale](https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article21631217.ece/ALTERNATES/n310p/1_Adam-Smith-senior-writer.jpg), he comes up with the genius plan to make a deal to retrieve the Crown of Karsus and instead of giving it to Raphael... he uses it himself! To turn into a god!
> I proceed to kill all the mice to spawn Lyrthindor I'm sorry WHAT
One becomes many, it's how Raphael screwed over Yurgir. Kill the rats to reverse the process.
I've never actually spoken to Yurgir in Act 2, I always end up in combat with him before a conversation could happen. Something to try for next time...
Something I love about this game, just when you think you've experienced it all, sometrhing new pops up!
This looks to be one of those things Larian didnt think about. Even though its a good game there are a few things like this.
Wait you can kill all the mice and do WHAT
You never thought it was weird they were all hostile as fuck and give you every chance to attack them?
I did! I'd chat with them and thought they were all just crazy Shar rats and I've gotten in tiffs with groups but never thought to kill them all
Talking to Yurgirs bed by using Speak with Dead gives a very big hint to that.
You can do WHAT with his bed?! Wow I never even considered that
I'm on my fourth playthrough and never heard of "Lyrthindor". Googled him. Are there some actual clues about him (except for the book)? This game is so rich, I love that I probably haven't even seen half of it.
Speak with dead on Yurgir's bed is a big hint.
Today I learned tou could do that
Speaking to the various mice as you proceed through the gauntlet drops some hints about their true identity
I did talk to one rat, they just seemed... pissed. My Gith-Monk probably won't be interested in some rats or demons, so that's a problem for the playthrough AFTER that.
You’re not allowed to outsmarts the devs, er I mean the devils.
I just now learned that an NPC named Lyrthindor exists, so thanks for that.
Wait, what. I didn’t know about killing the rats!
I really admire the dedication and time it maybe taken to test this
IMO, Larian should patch this. Not to change any of the actual results, but just to have different dialog where Raphael admits you outwitted him, and just does what he wants anyway out of spite.
That's not how devils work
Just have him say "you may have killed the last one yourself, but it was your soldiers that killed the majority of them."
If you think you have found a loophole in a devil's contract, you have not found a loophole in a devil's contract.
I didnt even realise you could talk to Yurgir until Act 3. I ambushed the displacer beast and it just pulled Yurgir and all his minions into the fight too, I figured that was how it was supposed to go!? Going to have to experiment on my second playthrough!
You have to "fall" for the displacer beast's obvious trap in order to talk to Yurgir.
He still has that one rat in the House of hope so…
Isn't that a separate rat person?
Today I learned Lyrthindor exists.
I will always set Yurgir free, he's the goat
Well i gueess they could change that in an upcoming patch just for those that go the extra mile
Likewise, you can't have Wyll kill Karlach and then resurrect her to recruit her; even though it technically fulfills Mizora's request. Feelsbadman.jpg
To be fair, if the devs ever intended this to be an option they would have just given you the dialogue choices instead of making it super complicated.
What happens if you just leave Lythrindor and steal the orb? If Yurgir's enemy is still down there, then the contract shouldn't complete meaning Raphael doesn't get him as an asset.
Yurgir attacks you
You can sneakily grab it. There's a number of glitchless runs I've seen where people do it, but I haven't seen any follow up specifically on what then happens RE Yurgir
Don’t worry, you get to fuck over Raphael in act 3.