Its not because he is a barrel-chested beefcake - although that doesn't hurt. Its because Halsin is literally the first person you meet who is actually concerned for your well-being AND what we call a well-adjusted person.

This leads to an over-arching complaint about the other companions and that is they all basically just suck as people. Someone started a thread saying that they couldn't see why we were chosen as the party leading given various personalities. And it finally occurred to me that without your leadership every single one of these people would end up dead very quickly.

Gale would find some dangerous magical thing and poke it and end up dead.

Shadowheart would walk off a cliff giving the stink-eye to a porcupine that she thought was staring at her.

Lae-zel would have been eaten by Goblins or hung by the tieflings for being over-aggressive and arrogant.

Wyll - convinced of his own legend would take on the Goblins solo and end up eaten.

Astarion would end up dead trying to drink blood from some rando person or captured by his master or in service to another powerful entity who can protect him.

These aren't adventuring companions, they are people that need a life-assistant or they end up strangling themselves trying to put pants on!

That is when they are not in "disapproval mode" of every single decision you make.

Then you meet Halsin, the first person in the ENTIRE game who is focused on the bigger picture, gives you good advice, shows actual concern for your well-being...and yes he is a giant hunk of man. But its so NICE just to have an honest, respectful conversation with a normal person...who can turn into a bear sometimes. I found myself thinking, I would gladly trade every single one of these idiots to just go off adventuring with Halsin. Like, if someone offered me half of an opened mustard packet for the lot of them I would take the deal.

Like I have already decided, despite anything else Karlach is going with me, because she is already 1000 x better - personality-wise - than any of the other companions. Me, Karlach, Halsin and whoever else....we will have a nice chill adventure and be respectful of each other just crackin'-wise and kickin' butts..

Oh my ...
I cant even imagine how hard this game become, when we finaly will be allowed to play Origin characters (if Larian somehow force us to stay "in character") ...
Feel free to read it as: "When there will no longer be our custom-made saviour."

Trying a bit too hard here.

Hey, I am not even that much against our current companions - personally I think their characters make sense (most of the time) and I find them fun although my character loathes (or pities) the whole bunch of them. The one I am struggling the most with from a RP perspective is SH - I really cannot see any reason my ranger wouldn't just leave her behind (which I'll admit, my PC usually does). Not quite romance-material for me though.

BUT, you make a valid point and I agree with the GENERAL idea of the overview (although I do not necessarily see it as a bad thing). Halsin does come off as the only individual around that could properly take care of himself and shows some genuine concern for PC.

Heh, I strongly suspect Halsin has his own secrets or skeletons in the closet... am I reading too much into his conversation about where you go next, or is he somehow responsible for the Shadow Curse? Maybe?

I just don't trust ANYONE who seems nice or normal in this game.

No, it's because he's tall. Although I honestly prefer Astarion, his dastardly plan is much closer to me. Burning cities together will be fun!

It is also great that he is a druid and an elf. A buff guy protecting nature can't be beat!



Raphael greatly approves!

I don’t love him.

Furthermore I think his decision to travel with the charname has no reasonable motivation and feels a bit off.

He just before decided to travel with bunch of adventurers ...
How i our bunch anyhow worse? O_o

He also has already been studying the parasites and wanted to go to Moonrise / the shadow cursed land for his own purposes. Seems he's got his own motivations and even says something about your quests aligning.

Not adventurers, mercenaries. Not travel, but visiting a location few kms away.

And he leaves his fellow druids in peril with no obvious leaders except the derailed one who’s obviously not to be trusted after what she has done. But to hell with it, adventure time!

No one said he was without fault. After Kagha he calls in someone else to take over, which could end up bad for the grove but we'll have to wait and see how that turns out. Also, I vaguely remember the shadow curse thing having something to do with a family member? Like there was a hint in one of the books scattered around the grove but was later removed, so that storyline is probably being changed. Anyway, his motives could be deeply personal to him and perhaps make him act rashly and without proper consideration. People make stupid decisions because emotions all the time.

I like him as a character - he, Alfira and Karlach would make my perfect party from the characters we already know.

Yes travel ...
He specificly tells you that he intented to follow them to Selune temple, where they all wanted to search for entrance to underdark. O_o

Are there locations a few km away in the game? As far as I can tell, the entire game takes place within one square km.

I think we're supposed to pretend that the Act 1 map is in reality much larger. Otherwise, it's ludicrous that the goblins couldn't find the Druid Grove which is literally a 1-minute walk away from the Blighted Village.

Instead of having separately zoned areas (such as in BG1&2, Pathfinder Kingmaker) where you fast-travel between them, Larian games combine multiple separate areas into a single map for convenience I guess? Less loading times?

Sorry, that 5 min walk doesn’t look anything like a travel.

Anyway, he had no intention to leave the grove for long enough, as far as everybody there are kind of expecting him to return soon enough. Nope, does not look like an adventure he departs for with the charname.

For one ...
As mentioned previously ... we are obviously suppose to pretend that map is much bigger, that can be seen in world map, when you try to leave curent location:
(Focus on right side )


And for two ...
The fact that others "hope that he will return soon" dont say anything about his intentions ... actualy we were told by Nettie, that he leaved in quite rush, and didnt even tell many others much about it.

Well yes, few kms is what I have to imagine when I talk about Larian’s approach to designing the locations. Sadly.

I prefer separate environments to theme park world. Travel in Kingmaker is great.

I do not trust Halsin as far as I can throw him. Which is not that far…he is a big boi.

I also weirdly get dad vibes from him, so romance is out.

Great hair and scars tho.

(1) He is the classical hero/monomyth. Normal guy, desires to defend his home/grove. This is the familar starting point of stories which makes it easy to relate to him.
(2) He is a manly man. No amount of education will ever change the sexual preferences of women (& men) And that's a good thing.

The classical storyline/monomyth is a normal person starting at his home. He does not want to go on an adventure, it's his home or family that is being threatened. And throughout the story, this normal person has to rise to the challenge & become a hero.

Halsin doesn't work here as he is anything but normal. He is a high level Druid who has seen his fair share of conflict and is not shy about taking things on directly.

Did you read the book Rath wrote with the extra Balsin character?

I believe people love Halsin so much simply bcs Chubblot did so good job with his promotional materials. :P

That book was hilarious. Halsin loved it!

Chubblot's videos are great.

Yes, he is only "normal" in comparison to the other companions. He is no vampire, Githyanki and has no demonic pacts. He is just a "normal" elven(?) archdruid

Did I say that I would like to see a peasant girl or common hunter for a change?

Sorry I was conflating Normal with ordinary - which of course he isn't ordinary.

No problem, your point is entirely valid. He isn't really normal or ordinary, even the most 'normal' guy we come across is still quite extraordinary

Just imagine you come across a peasant girl in one of the destroyed villages. She is scared to the core & pleads you not to leave her alone. So, you take her along to deliver her to some relatives in Baldur's Gate. In the beginning, she is maybe just a decent cleric or rogue, far too naive to be in an adventuring party and constantly botching things she has to do. But she grows stronger and more competent, getting some nice healing powers or becoming a crafty cutpurse, similar to Imoen. & when you finally arrive at Baldur's Gate, you have to decide whether you leave her with her relatives or continue traveling together.

There, that's a story. It might not be earth shaking, but it doesn't have to be. Stories can be normal. They don't need to be extraordinary.

So that's something I have always wondered. Would a regular peasant girl/guy have a class? Do adventurers have to go to adventurer school? is it a apprenticeship thing or do they show proficiency in it and just start studying and picking up what they can as they grow up?

Some like Sorcerers need to be born with it, but can any intelligent person be a wizard? You grow up as a Druid I know that much, and Warlocks just need to stumble upon some powerful entity to make a pact with.

It makes me think of Dungeon Crawl Classic, an old skool rpg where you start with 3 level 0 characters that are basically just peasants with a dumb peasant job and at the end of the first adventure you level the survivor.

http://www.goodman-games.com/downloads/DCCRPGBeta060811.pdf

This picture always makes me laugh.


I mean I get the smith, baker and cook being able to do something, but that candlemaker is just kind of screwed.

And the Skelton is like "Dude, what are you even doing?"

How about that deep gnome?
Or whole group of adventurers leaded by Aradin? (Including that poor guy who was tortured)
Or Marina's brothers?
Or those fishers.

I mean, there are many ordinary people, they just dont seem to desire foolowing us to almost certain death.

Well it's their loss then!

Nah Halsin is buff but his story is just as dumb. He ran away from the grove he's in charge of while said grove is under attack and hosting a bunch of refugees so he could go after some artefact and ended up getting captured by goblins. Not to mention he thought Aradin and his friends would actually be any help to him and instead they left him to die.

You had that little mixed up ...

Halsin didnt run, he went to investigate ...
His Groove was not under attack, until Aradin and his group lead Goblin scouts to its gates ...
Refugees was no problem in his point of view, when we leaved ...
He didnt go after some artefact, Aradin did ... Halsin went with him, bcs he needed to find entrance to Underdark, where he would look for entrance to Moonrise Towers ... for one bcs of tadpoles, and for two bcs of shadow curse.

Zevlor says when you first meet him that monsters have been appearing around the grove and the druids blame the tieflings for it. So the grove was in danger. Halsin even knew that because he'd already had to kill one tadpoled drow. Halsin didn't consider the refugees a problem, but he took them in and then left the grove, meaning they had no advocates outside of Rath and Nettie, who couldn't sway the rest of the druids who seemed to hate the tieflings. When Aradin said "we're looking for the Nightsong" Halsin said "cool lemme abandon my grove and come with you" and lo and behold the random adventurers Halsin decided to team up with left him for dead at the first sign of trouble.

Nothing of this makes this statement:
- right.
His story isn't dumb. He is incompetent leader, who even admits that himself. It's not a dumb story, it's normal realistic story about how people do make mistakes.

In my own pen & paper games, my friends always started as level 0 children. They had just abilities & when they got to level 1 they chose a class.

Yep, they are not companions. And their stories are also maybe not interesting enough to qualify. Maybe Marina herself could have been a possibility, but she's too crazy.

That was my point tho.
Why would "regular ordinary person" go to adventure with us?

Yes ... Halsin certainly did a misstake ...
But i would not call him incompetent. :-/

- We dont know how ambicious Kagha was while he was around ... after all, his presence alone was more than enough to cool her down.
- The same we have no idea what creatures, or how often attacked the groove ... i mean, we know about litteraly two attacks of Goblin scout parties ... one is that Aradin lead there, and second one is that where was Sazza ... yes, we know that Drow with Goblins attacked Halsin and Nettie, but either i simply forgot, or there is never told where they attacked them ...
Was it another attack to Groove itself? Or they simply attacked them in wilderness, when they were i dunno ... gathering herbs prehaps?
Personaly i thrust the second option more, since:
1) The corpse is in the room, that is acessible from secret passage and locked.
2) No one else seems to know about the tadpole, nor the Drow.
3) Nettie is the only one who is able to unlock the secret passage.
4) Nettie gets that crown, wich unlocks it, from Halsin.
- And finaly, we have litteraly no idea how long Halsin was gone!

I mean ...
Halsin could easily leave in the time, where everything seems manageable ... and Kagha could as easily simply took and opourtunity of power vacuum, to iniciate a coup.
You say that druids hated tieflings ... until they had strong and respected leader who held a protective hand over tieflings, druids could be unhappy, but that is all (you can imagine it as angry people who swear when nobody listen) ... but once that protective hand dissapeared, and new leader even start to encourage the quarrels ... situation simply escalated.
And about his leaving ... i believe he had good reason. :-/ Goblins were attacking anyone and anything who, or what they meet in the woods ... there is Strength in numbers. And when Halsin find out that Aradin is goint the same way? Why would he not use such opourtunity?

I agree with everything you are saying, but I recall Volo saying he saw the tadpole in Halsins lab but he thought it was a replica. This is a convo after you rescue volo.

But we know Volo is kind of an idiot.

Maybe Volo get exclusive peak ...
Or Halsin (also) thrusted him, when he claimed that he is practicaly and expert for Mind Flayers.

Why does Frodo leave the Shire to certain death? Because Tolkien felt it would be a great story.

From Frodo's perspective?
I think it is fair to at least mention the fact that, unlike other hobbits, it is explicitly mentioned that he was extremely curious and liked to discover new things.
Moreover, given the nature of their village, he had no idea of the horrors and dangers of the outside world.

But just if we find such a commoner in Baldur's Gate 3, I see no reason not to take him with us.

There is a reason Fire Emblem has the villager archetype amongst its classes. It gives you characters who do start off as relatively normal people who grow into heroes. I wouldn't mind finding a fighter or rogue that starts off as a basic villager but when push comes to shove rises to the occasion.

Ok, have fun. You can make it a game to see how long they last. :P

Challenge, beat the final boss with the base commoner.
More seriously, even if they had that stat line I think people would want them recruited just for the character. They would be fairly normal which would help our other companions actually stand out and feel more distinct while also making the group feel more grounded.

ME?
Arne wanted them. Khajiit is innocent of this crime!