One of Baldur's Gate 3's cut NPCs is an Oscar-winning liar who probably would've rinsed my bleeding heart out of 50 gold, if I'm being honest
Baldur's Gate 3 has a wealth of cut conversation and content that, a year later, is still getting dredged up by its data mining fans. This latest one comes from YouTuber SlimX, who managed to find an all-time swindler meant to mess with you in Act 1—you can watch her legendary Charisma (Deception) check below.
Found in the tiefling grove, Nerela comes to your character with the perfect sob story. You're an adventurer, and none of them are getting to Baldur's Gate with any money. You find her toying around with a small music box, which her husband made for her daughter—both dead to gnolls, of course. This music box floats ominously next to her head the entire conversation but hey, it's all unfinished animation.
Heartbreakingly, she asks the player how much they think it's worth (wink wink, nudge nudge). "You must think I'm a monster, but they say you need coin to enter the city," she weeps with the kind of genuinely affecting sorrow that reminds you yes, actors do, in fact, know how to act.
It's genuinely a super smart grift, if I'm being honest. Nerela isn't asking for money directly, she's simply presenting a sad story (which Shadowheart typically isn't buying) and letting you draw your own conclusions about how you could help—either buying the probably-cheap music box off her, or giving her the coin and telling her to keep her precious heirloom.
If you land an Insight check, though, you can catch her red handed—and give her some coin anyway, given she is a tiefling, and she isn't wrong. If you do so she outright calls you a fool, but hands you a cynical little tip—that the children in the grove are swindlers who could outdo the thieves' guild. Grim.
You can also circumvent the check entirely by just telling her it's worthless, which produces an even funnier result wherein an actor—flexing their muscles—starts off warbling about how cruel you are before immediately flipping a switch and giving up, treating it like they've just lost a fighting game match and are being a good sport about it.
As for why this thing's missing from the full game? Well, there's any number of reasons why, to be honest. While the kids at the grove doing their funny little scams is charming, having a grown adult trying to sway you with a sob story is probably one nudge too far into outright cynicism. Besides, there's already a fun connection to the city's criminal elements with that one missing shipment quest that keeps giving me a heart attack on my Honour Mode runs.
There's also just every chance that, as studio founder Swen Vincke said back in August of last year when talking about other cut content: It just didn't work for some reason. Having the stones to axe entire scenes like this might've made Baldur's Gate 3 a little leaner, but it's hard to argue with the end result.