A short account, as at this point I was jotting down observations rather than recording a playthrough.
"Detect Thoughts" is an easy, mostly non-dice way out of conversations if I have potions/scrolls of Mind Reading, but I'm not warned that my character just popped a potion (only one needed per long rest), I just find I've run out of them.
Ormn hits fish out of the water when depressed. The fish can be picked up. So hold off saving Halsin until you've collected a stash of fish.
The underground campsite when in the Blighted Village cellar has some nice expensive wines.
If I started "Kill Kagha" through dialogue with Zevlor, I can still start "Defeat the Goblin Leaders" by finding the Goblin's Drawing (or after Kagha's quest resolves). If Aradin fled the camp (which means Meli can't steal Barth's locket) and is found with Barth and Remira on the bridge before Blighted Village, this drawing is on one of the goblins among the dead bodies that surround them.
To steal the Idol of Silvanus (not until the Rite of Thorns is stopped!) requires a scroll of Darkness, as Fog doesn't cast a big enough halo. (Stupidly, I didn't buy it back and put it where it was before the tiefling party, so it ended up in Last Light Inn.)
(At this point, the game is updated to Patch 7.)
Sazza can't quicktravel with us to camp. She protests that she doesn't know our magic, and the player can tell her to stay.
I still can't start conversation with Grukkoh/Buthir (he calls her Butters) using companion Karlach to get the Barbarian dialogue, whether by opening the door as her or switching to her after opening the door (she can run around the couple and pick stuff up, but not talk to them; and if it's she who opens the door during dialogue: instant fight) so we settled for knocking them out.
It is possible to take on quests in a counter-intuitive order, so, having found the nearby Shadowheart, Astarion and Gale, I was neck deep in the goblin/grove conflict and couldn't afford to long-rest again (because another longrest meant she would die) before finding Lae'Zel, already free of her cage (and having killed two tieflings), now getting aggressive with a homicidal Githyanki patrol, so a lot of longrest cutscenes, including the vampire one, were skipped. Because Erynios is a chill dude who just wants to help everyone (sorry, Astarion), I handled the Gith patrol rather excellently, I think, inserting myself between Lae'Zel and angry dude Voss, being perfectly reasonable and pretend-innocent while lying through my teeth.
These first four companions make up an archetypical D&D party: Thief, Mage, Fighter, Cleric. Karlach can replace Lae as fighter; Wyll, as warlock, straddles the line between Fighter and Mage.
"Goblins throw the wildest parties!" says Karlach, who is not racist against goblins, on entering the goblin camp.
To get from the goblin party into the Shattered Sanctum (if not breaking the fragile wall near the sleeping guards), either find Sazza in camp, or interrupt Volo, then follow him as he's led back to his cage, and when the guards stop the party at the gate, Sazza appears.
On waking the sleeping guards, an option is to offer them something to drink. Do so, offer them water, and combat commences. Clearly, they have no sense of humour.
Ungroup the party before branding to avoid disapprovals, and let only the last branded party member ask Gut for help. Although Warlock Greez will take over branding duties if spoken to (or not, he just kept asking my party members if they were still loitering).
Volo runs off whether I let him take out my eye or not, in the first case from guilt, in the second because he worries I'll turn into an illithid. (I should have clicked the Trade button to trade with him first.)
Having a mage hand pick up and throw the noblestalk will destroy it.
Uninterested in Boooal's blessing (through not understanding buffs) Erynios is now Great Makhloompa, owner of many pilfered shells.
In this run, I caused the deaths of many NPCs I didn't mean to. First the tiefs guarding Lae's cage, then the goblin camp, then Minthara and her troops at the Emerald Grove. (It was an awesome battle, which I reloaded every time someone on our side died, until we came out victorious and completely surviving, Erynios left unconscious and making death saving throws; but it meant I got one artefact less.) I stored the corpses of Minthara and Arka, the latter found near the goblin camp, in the camp chest, in case there was a hack to bring them back to life.
On the other hand, I allowed the giths at the Creche to survive, because I didn't notice the tortured-to-death corpse of Ellyka. I killed one when I freed the gremishka from a chest tossed by the children, and everyone went into combat mode, because I thought it was us they were fighting. Once the gremischka was dead and the githyanki quietened down, no one remarked on my kill.
The character animation is amazing. When I click away a crate that a chara is standing on, the chara falls on its butt. When Raphael, having teleported the party to the House of Hope, transforms into his taller cambion form, he moves his head to one side as if being human-sized gave him a crick in the neck; as Ethel says, "This human skin is fierce restrictive."
Scratch brings his magic ball after every chara pats him twice? (Unproven.) He will also chase other balls, but those don't summon him. (Also, he's not much good at perception.)
Scratch joins the audience when charas perform music! Aww. Owlbear cub doesn't. (Boo the hamster does!)
If Astarion (feeling neutral towards Tav) would reject Tav at the party, start out by agreeing half-assedly on a date with Shadowheart, then talk to Ast after all the others, he will suddenly want to claim Tav.
I do notice that Shart is really pushed down the player's throat, because in every dialogue you can ask what she thinks of you, while with the other characters you have to guess (Astarion's greetings get colder, also the companions have a red-to-green bar). Trying to finagle info out of her, even if just to advance her quest and the main quest, makes me feel like a dirty old man trying to bully an underage girl into giving her telephone number.