Baldur’s Gate 3 – Playthrough 13 – Wicked – Coven

I am Wiccan. I know the “Evil Witches Coven” meme is a result of marketing and sensationalism, not reality. For my thirteenth playthrough, I chose to lean into superstition and stereotype. Please bear that in mind as the narrative capers and prances in its description of Sandalwood’s actions.

You know indeed, MoR. But it’s possible that some of my readers may not.

Another note: While I avoid overt spoilers, these posts assume a general familiarity with the characters in the game. If you’d like reminders about the characters, you can find them here and here.

That’s good. Sandalwood expects you to get every detail right, Volo. Every detail.

The goals

As I previously mentioned, I set up my Baldur’s Gate 3 playthough 13 to be a “Wicked” run.

Don’t make jokes about the book/play/movie called “Wicked”. It makes Sandalwood sad. Yes, Sandalwood’s skin is green, like Elphaba’s. But Elphaba had a good heart, and Sandalwood… Well, we shall see.

I’d operate the party as a “storybook” Witches Coven.

Some people simply don’t understand Sandalwood’s approach to solving their personal problems.

They’d all be Witches, with this special class provided by a Witch class mod.

Someone needs to go, Gauntlet Dain. And it won’t be Sandalwood.

All the members of the “coven” would be women. (I had to retreat from this at some points during the game.)

My goal was not to be “Evil” in the sense of the Dark Urge, which is all about blood and murder. I wanted to be “Wicked” in the sense of making game choices that would cause misery to other characters.

Mods

The key mods I used for this playthrough were:

UnlockLevelCurve, which allows characters to go to Level 20 (the normal BG3 limit is 12). I knew that the Witch mod only provided benefits up to level 12, so all the other “coven members” would have up to eight levels in some other class.

DoubleXP, which doubles all Experience Points received. Without that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to reach level 20.

As it happens, I only managed to reach level 18 before I rushed the game to its conclusion. I’ll explain that decision in a subsequent post.

Fade’s Equipment Distribution and related mods. This scatters additional powerful magic items throughout the game.

As I mentioned before, the Witch mod.

Ghustil Stornugoss appreciates my skill in selecting my mods.

Coven

In its current form, the Witch class has four sub-classes, which I distributed among the four coven members: Frost; Herbalist; Hex; Witchblade.

Not so fast, Minthara! Let’s understand our roles first.

Let’s look at these roles within the coven, and learn who fulfilled them.

Kar’niss (whoever that is) approves of the coven’s composition.

Herbalist Witch

Sandalwood was an Herbalist Witch, and the protagonist of playthrough 13.

Just look at that face. Who could not trust her?

You see? Even Lady Esther appreciates Sandalwood’s honest appearance.

Sandalwood’s expertise was in poisons and alchemy.

Sandalwood appreciates Gut’s efforts. But one poisoner always knows another, especially if you have Detect Thoughts.

Once she’d gained 12 levels of Witch, inspired by Alfira, she gained her remaining levels in Bard.

We’ll get into how Alfira inspired Sandalwood in another post.

Witchblade

Lae’zel was a Witchblade. (This is a sub-class from the Witch mod, not to be confused with any sub-class introduced BG3‘s Patch 8.)

As the class name suggests, her specialty was enchanting her weapons with extra magical powers.

Lae’zel understood Sandalwood from the beginning, at least from a warrior’s perspective.

Aside from her 12 levels of Witchblade, Lae’zel gained the rest of her levels in Fighter.

Frost Witch

A Frost Witch specializes in Cold-based spells.

Gale

At first this was Gale, mainly because he was recruited early as a companion.

But he failed to appreciate Sandalwood’s methods.

Come now, Gale. Take responsibility for your choices.

Perhaps you should, but you never did. Eventually Sandalwood found a way to reward you for your disloyalty.

Astarion

The role of the Frost Witch then shifted to Astarion,

Minthara

Finally, Minthara took up the Frost Witch mantle when it became possible to do so.

What levels does a Frost Witch take in addition to her 12 in Witch?

I started her with 2 levels of Sorcerer, for Armor of Agathys and some extra dual-casting. After the Witch levels, all the additional levels were in Wizard.

Hex Witch

A Hex Witch’s expertise is to debilitate enemies, then finish them off.

Shadowheart

At first Shadowheart had this role.

There was no doubt that Shadowheart had the right attitude to work with Sandalwood.

Why didn’t I keep Shadowheart in the coven? I knew that she would eventually object to one of Sandalwood’s choices and leave the party. So Sandalwood prepared for her desertion.

A shame. But so be it. There was a time when Shadowheart liked Sandalwood.

Such angst! However, in memory of all the good times they shared, Sandalwood permitted Shadowheart to live. Sort of.

Astarion again

Astarion was briefly the Hex Witch, when Shadowheart left.

Sandalwood was so sorry to let him go. As a reward for his devotion to the ideals of the coven, Sandalwood permitted him to live throughout the rest of the playthrough.

Jaheira

Finally Jaheira took up the job.

Aside from 12 levels of Hex Witch, Jaheira filled out remaining levels as a Tempest Domain Cleric. This let her be versatile, able to apply buffs and do some weapon damage in addition to casting Curses.

Invoker

There is one other Witch sub-class within the mod: Invoker. However, the mod’s author acknowledges that it’s far from finished. Based on looking at the Invoker’s abilities, I agreed; there was never an Invoker in the coven.

The saga of BG3 playthrough 13

My original post on playthrough 13 became long, so I split it into sections. Here are links to all of them.

Part 1: Coven
Part 2: Betrayals
Part 3: Spells
Part 4: Vengeance
Part 5: Evil