water (sort of) BG3, changes

 It's been what seems like a year or more since I Played Baldur's Gate 3, and I avoid quests like they were contagious, so I do not know all the changes made.

One noticeable change for me is how player and shadowheart kiss.
It's less "peck", more slobbery. Great.
First re-playthrough, excellent beach romance scene, no underwear in sight.

Next Playthrough, they're suddenly celibate.

It takes an enormous amount of game work and pointless plot to reach that scene to see if it's enabled; I am the wrong species, the wrong type of wizard, an "Acolyte(?)," but how would I know they are wrong until it's way too late?
I should have used Lavoris.

Actors following a script in a play, robotic AI wannabes,

 I realize all that, 

but I refuse to kill a character to get her to love me, it sounds...so perverted, something.

I'll play yet again (I sort of realize now whatever reasons there were for dumping this game) 

Human-Warlock-fiend was perfect. (ten seconds ago) so, we end our little tome here and start another journey. (this playthrough Shadowheart goes on about Zevlor)

I wonder.....

Zevlor is killed and sent to player with a nasty message, in Player's camp.
1. Shadowheart bemoans being "unclean", romance.

or,

2.Shadowheart goes on about Zevlor, No romance.

I do not know any more particulars about that. I know I stopped the game this morning just before the camp. Was that a mistake?
The two times romance was dead, Player was a "cleric."

But This time (right this exact second) She is a "Cleric, Light Domain" and it worked perfectly. 

(mini-rant: Cleric-light-yada-whatever is a very weak choice, and people online praise it more than it deserves because they're following a book of rules I've never read.

"1d10+2" for example is meaningless math to me. I stopped my boring cleric-game after the romance and after the factory is destroyed and after Orin is killed (This game has so many satisfying endings but when you put them all together it's like some overlong movie) because my spells would suck against dragons and Gortash's bomb dispensers.

Biggie secret, "witch bolt" or whatever of lightning kills the bomb dispensers easily.

NOW I wanna go try another cleric, but more badass.

Will Romance ensue? 
Stay tuned.

uh,?

Honestly though I would not know how to play without an almighty-spell like flame strike.
I play carefully, following an exact worn pathway, gingerly avoiding 50 or so pointless quests.)

I just don't know, maybe this is some arcane little patch rearing its ugly head.
Carrying the play-analogy way too far by way of explanation, the lines uttered by the cast members are slightly different sometimes, but there is nothing I can point to.
OK one thing. Player goes into a pool of water filled with a dread that pulls on her leg, almost drowning her.

Or,

 Player lands up on the other side of the (really huge) pool, coughing as if she just escaped being drowned.
 In other words, no foreign dread pulled her down,
she just was a bad swimmer, or something.

This playthrough, Raphael the devil shows up Way early.
I saved the bear from the Goblins this time but then I continued the story as usual.
People aren't supposed to move when it's my turn but one Duergar did move, climbing some stairs.  OK you've got me totally mystified now.

This particular playthrough, even with all the teeny changes, Romance is in the air (I stopped the game just before), and Player is...a war domain Cleric. I'm getting tired of war consigliere.

I've got all these useless cast members following my camp.
The Powerful Lady and her girlfriend, the Bear-man, and the nosy Bard. The middle-aged ex-Leader lady.
And (soon) the kid.
I wonder what they're good for, hmm...Can they be recruited, can they fight?
Even if they can I leave them be.
The ending party is usually really empty, and if I bothered to play to the end this time (I won't,) I suppose they'd be there.

I'd *like* to be able to wield a sword and heavy armor.

Speaking of tedious, there must be an old teacher in some university teaching young game-designers how to prolong a game.

Impossibly hard puzzles, repetitive actions (monsters that just won't die) or walking fifty miles...These are all the pointless ways they prolong the tedium.

https://www.escapistmagazine.com/how-to-complete-the-puzzle-to-enter-the-gauntlet-of-shar-in-baldurs-gate-3-bg3/ Praying the 15-mystery rosary, at least gets you points in heaven, but this kills fifteen minutes.

Labyrinths are enormously popular...I hate labyrinths, puzzles. (Did I mention that already?) It's like learning virtual knitting.

This gets all disjointed because I keep adding paragraphs...

Fuck you, blind Lady, Evil witch jealous of her sister.. 

But she never gets any payback for all the tedium and death.
The horror hospital next to her lair is real nice though.
Pointless, time-consuming, but nice. (once)

The foreknowledge of certain objects, certain spoken lines, helps a little, but makes it more (and more) tedious.

Like, OK, today I wandered into that garden of people with bears.
I go where I want so I ordered the game to attack the bears.

Whoa. 

The game took over, and some guy beat another guy to death with a stick, after someone yelled, "It's time!!"

Maaaybe I wasn't supposed to "attack"?
Three chapters from now some guy'll recriminate me for my grievous error, hmm

I'm only just discovering "Chain lightning" thanks to a random scroll.

It's not like you can go to Al's House of Magical Cards and buy the spell-scrolls you want, which is frustrating (unless they aren't as random as I believe.)

Anyway, Chain Lightning: Sorcerer or Wizard (but no flame strike)

OK B'Bye, flame-strike, I'm off to be a wizard, a wonderful wizard of...

waitasec...

Yeah but...O, OK

OK do-over...

This is one of the best games out there, except for all the ...