Chocolate Lae'zel
I started a new run, roleplaying Lae'zel as my main character. The mantra: What would Lae'zel do?
In the early game, this is obvious: locate and head for the creche.
Sometimes the game helpfully provides specific dialogue options, so that's easy. It also is taking me down a story path that I wouldn't otherwise. No Rolan, for instance.
Lae'zel's single-minded goal of being purified means that she ran past Shadowheart's enclosure on the nautiloid. And then they naturally fought at the mausoleum door, so no Shadowheart this run.
She then explored the crashed nautiloid, looting and killing any stray ghaikh. Having heard shouting, she was straight in (solo!) to the grove fight, rather than diverting by either Astarion, Gale, or the tieflings.
She did enter the grove after the fight, seeking information but without knowledge of Zorru's existence. One of the kids mentioned Zorru on seeing a Githyanki. She saw the dragon after defeating the bugbear. After accidentally recruiting Wyll and interrogating Zorru, she headed west.
Forest family. Across the river, met Scratch, across again and met Karlach. She and Wyll reconciled, so we know what's coming. Defeated the Paladins of Tyr and the Gnolls, taking the chest by force just because.
Now she's approaching Waukeen's rest. Here I think the party will split. Lae'zel will continue her quest. Karlach and Wyll, the do-gooders, will insist on fighting the fire.
I can imagine them circling back to the grove and its infernal mechanic, and resolving that quest line, while Lae'zel encounters the gith patrol, alone.
Update 2026-03-21 :
That doesn't go well. Lae'zel has several paths of confession and hence destruction in her conversation with Voss.
It also turns out that my 'split party' can't long rest while she (as MC?) is in need of resurrection. Bizarrely, the long rest error is "Can't fast travel right now", when actually travel is fine both between waypoints and to camp.
I finally found a 'yes, sir, of course sir' conversation path, but as Lae'zel has the artefact in her possession it seems a weak probability.
Also, the split party (K&W) wasn't able to open the trade dialogue with the infernal blacksmith, at least after the initial conversation. Not sure whether that's globally true.
Aside: mods on console
Switched to the chocolate edition mod, which is well thought through and avoids me trying to load a million other mods that would conflict — an important thing on console. It's not just the number of mods enabled on a run, but the number installed on the console that is limited to 100. Which sounds like a lot, until you have multiple runs going and when a mod author chooses to have a main mod plus some variants. Thankfully things like Fade's equipment now have an all-in-one.