When Volo offers to remove the tadpole in Baldur’s Gate 3, you’ll likely think he’s joking. After all, the bard has proved himself to be an incompetent liar each time you’ve met him. However, at this point, you’re probably grasping at straws and wondering if you should let Volo perform the surgery.
What happens if I let Volo try to remove the tadpole in Baldur’s Gate 3?
If you let Volo perform the surgery to remove the tadpole in Baldur’s Gate 3, one of two things can happen:
- You can back out in the middle of it and receive no penalty.
- Allow him to continue to the end, lose your eyeball, and gain permanent Detect Invisibility.
Once you save Volo from the Goblin Camp, you can tell him to wait back at your camp. If you do so, he’ll be there the next time you visit. You can then speak with him and reveal that you have a Mind Flayer larva in your head. At this point, you can take him up on his offer to research your condition and leave.
The next time you visit camp, he’ll say that he’s researched the topic and believes he can remove the tadpole. You can immediately refuse, in which case he’ll tell you he hopes he isn’t around when you change.
However, if you submit to the surgery, something a lot more interesting happens. Volo ends up accidentally popping your eye out. Luckily, he gives you Volo’s Ersatz Eye to replace it before making a quick escape.
When the game was in early access, the botched surgery gave you a debuff called Volo’s Experimental Treatment which you had to use the eye to fix, which then permanently gave you -1 Intelligence and +1 Charisma. Luckily, that’s no longer the case. You now automatically put in the eye afterward and gain Detect Invisibility in a radius of 30 meters permanently.
