Baldur's Gate 3: Should You Use The Astral-Touched Tadpole?

While the most straightforward path to gaining power is leveling up or improving equipment, Baldur's Gate 3 has another method of allowing playable characters to become more powerful by gaining access to unique illithid powers. The game presents players with the conflict of mind flayers and the illithid tadpoles residing in (almost) every playable character's head.

As a result, Baldur's Gate 3 offers the opportunity to lean further into the power granted by the tadpoles. However, this power comes at a potential cost, as taking on the additional powers goes against one of the game's main goals—to get rid of the tadpoles and stop any future mind flayer transformations.

[Warning: This article contains spoilers for the story of Baldur's Gate 3.]Partway through the game's first act, illithid powers become available to characters, and most of Baldur's Gate 3's companions can be convinced to use them, as well. Most of these powers are unique and grant incredibly powerful effects, such as Luck of the Far Realms, which grants the ability to use a reaction to turn any successful attack roll into an automatic critical hit.

However, despite the encouragement that the Dream Guardian gives to make use of these powers, much of the game's story suggests that using additional mind flayer tadpoles to unlock them will come at a cost—especially in the case of the Astral-Touched Tadpole gained in the third act.

How BG3's Astral-Touched Tadpole Works

A Power Gifted By The Mysterious Dream Guardian

Near the beginning of Act 3, it's revealed that Baldur's Gate 3's mysterious Dream Guardian is, in truth, an independent mind flayer named The Emperor. This being opposes the Absolute and has been protecting the party from its influence.

After the initial reveal, The Emperor will offer a seemingly important choice in the form of the Astral-Touched Tadpole. The Emperor will encourage the party to make use of the special Tadpole to further their illithid potential. This makes them essentially half-illithid, increasing their illithid powers and granting them the use of several special skills.

Whether you use the tadpole or reject it is presented in Baldur's Gate 3 as an important decision with far-reaching consequences. In reality, the choice is fairly simple.

Using The Tadpole Grants Unique Illithid Powers

Gain Powerful Skills With BG3's Astral-Touched Tadpole

Once The Emperor hands the Astral-Touched Tadpole over, there are a few different ways to use or reject it. The first option is to refuse the tadpole, which keeps it in the inventory and allows it to be used later. More drastically, the tadpole can be destroyed, which permanently prevents its use and greatly angers The Emperor.

Communing with the tadpole unlocks a new tier of illithid powers. This allows companions to also use it, although they will have to be convinced through various skill checks. Finally, eating the tadpole also unlocks the new powers for the character, but prevents other characters from communing with it.

A number of illithid powers can be unlocked from early on in the game through the use of normal mind flayer tadpoles. However, the most powerful abilities in the menu will remain locked off for a character until they use the Astral-Touched Tadpole.

The following powers are only available after accepting the Astral-Touched Tadpole:

• Absorb Intellect
• Black Hole
• Displacer Beast Shape
• Fly
• Fracture Psyche
• Freecast
• Illithid Expertise
• Mind Blast
• Mind Sanctuary
• Psionic Dominance

These abilities are particularly powerful, especially Fly, which is automatically unlocked after using the Astral Tadpole. Other abilities, like Mind Blast or Black Hole, are otherwise only available to NPCs and enemy characters, and using the tadpole is the only way to gain access to them. Psionic Dominance can be a lifesaver in tough encounters, shutting down 4th-level spells with the use of a reaction.

Mind Sactuary might be the very best skill that's only accessible after consuming the Astral-Touched Tadpole. This AoE spell sets up an area that lets characters within "take actions and bonus actions interchangeably" for three turns. While this can also be to the benefit of enemies, setting it up at a distance and moving a couple of powerful casters into the radius can turn the tides of combat.

When considering the best option, communing with the tadpole is a significantly better option than eating it, as it keeps the tadpole in the inventory and allows other characters to use it. Especially given how powerful some of the illithid powers can be, giving the entire party access to them can be a quick way to trivialize even many of the game's hardest encounters.

However, spreading illithid powers across the entire party also requires more mind-flayer tadpoles to unlock their powers, which may run the risk of spreading the resources thin between different characters.

How The Astral-Touched Tadpole Affects BG3's Story

The Choice Is Not As Important As It Seems

The consequences of using the tadpole to become half-illithid are relatively minor. First, and most notably, any character who uses the tadpole will have their appearance changed.

While they will still look largely the same, they will gain notable black veins spread across their face, which may be an undesired effect. Companions will comment on this change and will undergo a similar change in appearance if they are convinced to use the tadpole as well. However, it won't make a notable difference in any quests or interactions with other NPCs.

Additionally, although using the tadpole is presented as a major decision, any of the major endings in BG3 can be achieved with or without it. Other major story decisions mostly won't take it into account. Notably, this is also true of using normal tadpoles to unlock any amount of illithid powers.

The Astral-Touched Tadpoles are essentially just skill points and can be spent freely with only a minor effect on the story. These mostly come in the form of comments from companions, though, and not major story beats. Therefore, tadpoles can be freely used to gain powerful abilities with almost no story repercussions.

The Astral-Touched Tadpole Decision Won't Change BG3's Ending

The Effects Are Mostly Cosmetic

Although Baldur's Gate 3 presents using the Astral-Touched Tadpole as an important choice, the largest consequences of using it are mostly cosmetic. However, some players may reject the tadpole because they don't like the appearance change or for roleplaying reasons.

While the lack of consequence is technically a positive—especially for those who want to maximize their party's power—it creates somewhat of a mismatch within the narrative. Consuming tadpoles to gain power is presented by the game as a choice that might have negative repercussions like furthering the player character's transformation into a mind flayer.

These consequences never wholly manifest, though. Turning fully into a mind flayer is instead a binary late-game choice made just before the final battle. As a result, deciding not to use the tadpoles is essentially just giving up extra abilities and power.

You Should Commune With The Astral-Touched Tadpole In BG3

The Benefits Far Outweigh The Negatives

The decision to use the Astral-Touched Tadpole is far more useful than the decision not to use it. By using the tadpole, you might be changing your BG3 characters' appearance, but you're also making them as powerful as possible. If you don't use the tadpole, your characters retain their looks, but they don't get the incredibly useful illithid powers.

More specifically, choosing to commune with the tadpole is the most beneficial option. This is because you'll be able to use the tadpole on multiple characters and unlock the hidden illithid skills for everyone. From a roleplaying standpoint, this can feel even more concerning than unlocking your own abilities, as most companions are notably uncomfortable with the concept. Even so, they can all be successfully persuaded to follow the player character's lead.

Minthara is the one character inherently interested in making use of the Astral-Touched Tadpole.

You might be fooled into thinking this one is a game-changing choice. However, there's no real downside to using the tadpole to awaken your characters' potential. At the end of the day, the only reason to avoid committing to the decision is if it doesn't make sense for the way you're roleplaying your character, or if you strongly prefer the appearance of characters who haven't been affected by the Astral-Touched Tadpole.

For all these reasons, using the Astral-Touched Tadpole in Baldur's Gate 3 is simply a good decision. The game features plenty of complex choices with extensive upsides and downsides, but this isn't one of them.