A Baldur's Gate 3 player inadvertently trapped themselves in Hell for eternity by silencing Raphael for good.
Be warned: spoilers for Baldur's Gate 3 Act 3 follow!
If you've ventured to Sharess' Caress in Baldur's Gate 3 Act 3, you'll know you can have a showdown with Raphael in the House of Hope. However, as the hapless player below discovered by accident, casting Silence on the big bad devil will actually trap you in the House of Hope forever.
DON'T HIT RAPHAEL with SUSSUR weapon in Sharess' Caress from r/BaldursGate3
Apparently, certain NPCs can't start cutscenes and initiate conversation when they have Silence cast on them. It makes perfect sense in theory, but it turns out not all NPCs are barred from speaking - apparently Orin the Red can break free from Silence and kick off a chill conversation whenever she wants, for some reason.
This means that when Raphael's meant to kick off a conversation as part of his overarching questline, he just won't. There isn't even an option to remove the Silence status effect from him, so if Raphael exits the fight with Silence still going, he's stuck like that for good.
"I do not mind making him finally shut up. Tav has enough of his rhymes lol," responds one Reddit comment. "Hilarious. I had a similar situation with Ethel. I was trying to get her offer but the conversation wouldn't start. Eventually discovered it was because she was silenced by the Sussur sword," adds another player.
The instance with Ethel might actually be a bigger problem - because she can only initiate a conversation on her turn, there's a high chance a player might Silence her, then kill her with rapid Critical attacks before she can offer you a way out of the fight. Let it never be said that there aren't consequences to the simplest actions in Baldur's Gate 3.
Baldur's Gate 3 patch 5 is on the way later this week, and it's still got surprises Larian hasn't even revealed yet.
