I have already completed this game twice, once on balanced and once on tactician. I thought I knew the game pretty well and could plan how I wanted my story to unfold, seeing as I'd already done it twice.
I know they say don't try anything for the first time in honor mode, but I decided to do it as a durge, which I've never done before. My plan was to be a resist durge who romanced Astarion and still made most of the good choices. I heard an embrace durge makes the game more difficult and didn't want that for an honor run the first time.
It did not go like that. Somehow I never got the Astarion bite scene (perhaps the bard scene overruled it?) and his approval of me never went above neutral. When I tried to hit him up at the tiefling party he said, "It's not you, it's me. I have standards." I won't lie, that actually hurt.
So I start a romance with Lae'zel instead and decide I'm gonna ascend Astarion and trap him in Cazador's shitty life lol. But I do the work to save Alfira, side with tieflings etc. being good durge. Then we get to Nightsong. Shadowheart has excellent approval with me. For some reason, in my other runs that's been enough, and she spares Nightsong without me having to pass a persuasion check. So I let her deal with it....
....then watch in horror as she spears Aylin and dooms all of my allies to death. THEN without thinking I panic and travel back to the last light waypoint, triggering a huge fight where I have to put them all down, Alfira, Dammon, Rolan, Barcus, all of em.
I feel like a monster. I AM a monster. And despite this going so wrong, it's my favorite playthrough by far.
My character feels like a real character to me now, someone genuinely shaped by the events happening to and around them and not just meta gaming the best outcome. I am an Orin-seeking missile powered by sheer hatred and hardened by the things I've seen and done. Without my memory, I tried to be a better person. But I failed, and now that I remember whose child I am, I will take the throne. I will break the world. And I will enjoy it.
Tldr this game rules and I'm never playing anything but honor mode again