Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback I don't get Wyll

I've never gotten a grasp of Wyll as a character. Now I tried to force myself to give him another chance.

Ok so... He was apparently a bit of a failure at everything, and then entered a deal with Mizora to become powerful. Already, not a very likable foundation for a character. If he entered a pact with a devil to save his family or a similar force majeure, it would have been a sacrifice that would have instantly made him more tragic and likable as a character. Now it's just "ok you sucked, and then gave your soul to a devil suck a little bit less", which kind of just makes him suck. Am I missing something here? His motives are weak.

When we first meet him at the battle at the gate, he is casting Arms of Hadar and Eldritch Blasts at goblins. Dark necrotic forces blasting away, withering goblins. Then we enter the Tiefling camp, and he's now a master fencer, The Blade of Frontiers, teaching swordplay to children. Which is it? Dark spellcaster or sword swinging hero? No one seems to care about that particularly blatant mismatch and you can't ask him about the magic. You can ask him about "The Blade of Frontiers" part and he claims to be a hero and a living legend. Are they intentionally trying to make him as unlikable as possible? Actual heroes or living legends don't go around announcing themselves. If this is intentional - why? Why would I take someone unlikable as a companion?

Then there's some party banter / moaning how he used to tussle with Hill Giants and master fire and whatever and how he has now been unfairly weakened. My Tav, who is an actual honest level 1 aspiring adventurer trying to make their way in the Forgotten Realms, doesn't really care to hear such empty self-proclamations or baseless claims of worth. Even if that were true, such claims mean nothing to the player who has not known Wyll when he was "more powerful". Gale has the same problem, even though he might have been tweaked now? If we were a level 12 party before who got de-leveled by events, and I had actually experienced Wyll kicking Hill Giant ass, it would actually mean something and it could make me feel something for him. But all this moaning about lost power does, true or not, is make these characters unlikable. If I'm playing a level 1 PC, I want to go from there and I don't want "de-leveled" archwizards or "unfairly weakened" legendary heroes as my companions. It's like having a classmate in college who already knows everything about everything because they had one gig somewhere and then wonder why no one seems to like them.

Mechanically, I can't play along with the "Blade of Frontiers" charade because Wyll's AC is 12, and he sucks with the Rapier. So he's this ordinary kind of lad with dark powers that we just have to ignore, who is supposed to be a legendary sword fighting hero who gets immediately decimated in melee, who is not very likable because of all the moaning about lost power which we have never witnessed, which, if true, was gained by selling his soul in the first place.

Why... am I supposed to like this character and bring him along?

He made that pact after failing to save a village from the goblins, I'm wondering if cowardice was involved, it was traumatic enough and he lost his eye there. He's supposed to be rash and narcissistic, that might not be 'likeable' but I think that's overrated in a character. It's also why he might not be a good alignment character.

If you have a level in a class in the PHB and are proficient in some kind of weapon, I'll believe you can teach things to the uninitiated. At the very least we was a member of the Fist, so he probably was on the other end of it. Vain, pompous heroes announce themselves and their deeds often enough. I think maybe you're dealing with an Garrick not a Ajantis. You're asking questions about what kind of person Wyl is, is he all braggadocio, does he actually care? or is it just to feed his own ego. That's why they've written him that way. It'll be interesting to see what his inner monologue will be like, I have a feeling he's deluding himself about a few things.

I won't comment on making everyone level 1, it's been bat about on the forum enough already. The tadpole did it? Maybe. Your Tav didn't have levels to lose. Who knows.

To be fair to Larian, I’m not sure you’re supposed to like him necessarily. I can imagine his story is supposed to be sort of tragic but all I feel is that he’s tragically written.

I never really found the ‘lost powers’ story arc particularly interesting or believable. Does it imply that removing the tadpoles instantly reverts said companions to their previous levels of expertise? Or are the tadpole effects permanent so the companions have something like amnesia with regard to their prior knowledge? It’s just a narrative muddle. Perhaps Larian will resolve it but personally I just don’t really care for it.

As you said, with Wyll there is an obvious conflict with his supposed notoriety and his palpable weakness in combat. He comes across as a compulsive liar and there’s no way I’d hang around with someone like that, in reality or fantasy.

The only one who potentially has head of 'The Blade of Frontiers' is a Baldurian Tav, I'm not sure what we can glean from that. I'm not even sure if Tav is being coy when he says he's heard of Wyl's exploits. His old commander seems to have nothing good to say about Wyl.

What you have to understand about Wyll is that he's very purposefully Just A Guy. A Dude. He wants his father's approval, live up to his family legacy and get the girl.

Except, he's also been beaten down and left for dead by raiding goblins as a child. This left him with some not so subtle anger issues. To further this flaw, he also spend the rest of his live being just a little too untalented to amount to his own expectations.

Wyll is a bit like a child which suddenly gained the powerful body of a 30 year old. Suddenly, anything is possible. Yet, he's bound to follow a child's Idea of a hero. It's not hard to get under the shell of grandeur and see the unprotected underbelly.

Wyll is an immature character. This contrasts with his supposed chain of past exploits in a way that's a bit too on the nose. I would solve this by making it clear he's been the blade of frontiers for maybe... 2-3 years? Early on, anyway.

However, I also think this emotional vulnerability is why a devil choose him. He's easy to control. Particularly, he doesn't ask the right questions. Wyll doesn't quite know what the right questions are, but thinks he's got it all figured out. He's a knight in shining armour subtly being lead towards his own doom.

I'd prefer it if Wyll isn't recruitable for sure until we've defeated the goblins. My reason for this is simple: the AC. Wyll /must/ come with the medium armour feat and 14 dex. Some of that int could also go towards hp instead. I understand some people would rather have a stronger warlock at expense of roleplay, though. That's propably why it's up to us to fix him.

Nonetheless, him being a forced 5th companion would also mean he gets his scenes with the goblins for sure. It's hard to relate to Wyll If he's never in your party, unlike Gale or Astarion.

We're going to have the same problem again once Karlach becomes recruitable. A supposed /legendary/ fighter from hell, too good to /ever/ let go of. Unlike Wyll, who is a mere minion to some Devil... Karlach is one's personal champion.

Gale and Astarion have good excuses. Inexperienced Lae'Zel and Shadowheart (actual amnesia), I can't care about either. Minsk was a rock. Well, fine. But, Karlach? Wyll's a joke compared to her. I'd prefer it If by way of explanation some companions got special tadpole related powers. Or tadpole related problems! Surely, they don't take to every host equally well?

Whatever it is... Wyll and Karlach could do with a better excuse. Tadpole doesn't like the Devil magic, etc.

If they wanted a tragic character - some humility would have been a better choice to make him likable. There's nothing in Wyll for me to grab on to, so far anyway. Just a contradiction of the "Blade" actually being a squishy spellcaster, and some empty talk about being all this and that. Pretending to be a legendary hero but having been molested by goblins. It's just all over the place.

The player needs to root for their companions, good or evil. Lae'zel is a good example. She's brazen and arrogant but it's motivated and she still has a realistic take on her abilities. She's a young warrior aspiring to impress her lich queen and get a dragon mount one day, instead of some annoying babble about having ridden ancient dragons in the Astral Plane and slaying armies of Mind Flayers before the tadpole weakened her. Which is basically what Wyll and Gale are saying. I get Lae'zel and I root for her. Likewise I get Shadowheart and she's intriguing. I want to like Gale but I can't stand the ridiculous Mystra story.

Warlocks are also a very demanding class to write and understand. The patrons are so much more hands-on than actual gods for Clerics. Especially when Wyll is a "good guy" with a devil pulling his strings. I'm sure it will get clearer as the game goes on a bit and it will be a part of the story. However, I can't help thinking that it would have been better to just write Wyll as a clean evil Edwin type of character. I'm not sure where they can go with the good guy-devil contradiction and I'm afraid it will be something silly again, because the beginning is so shaky.

edit: I just realized another thing that seems off about Wyll. He's so much "one of the lads" type casual guy. Didn't making deals with devils and serving one for a long time change him in any way? More brooding, stoic, dark, delirious, something? He's literally Wyll from next door. The whole thing seems more like a soap opera. <sigh> It's Mizora calling again.. what does she want now.

I made up a warlock character recently and yes, thematically they can be all over the place:

- River spirit patron and proficient with river craft,
- Dagger throwing and cloud of daggers magic,
- Beast speech with animals and pseudodragon familiar,
- Member of a smuggling gang (with secret lord-knight contact), and
- a coward.

It's kind of the nature of 5E characters, you pick race + background + class + subclass, then pick personality + ideal + bonds + flaw + trait.

If you don't stay tight to themes and archetypes you can quickly create Frankenstein's monster. And Wyll's got so much story going on he's near the cusp.

I think they should tighten his character by making him Str11, Dex15, Con14, Int13, Wis9 (yes, he's that foolish) and Cha16; and make him pact of the blade.

Wyll seems to be a spoiled son of someone rich with delusions of grandeur and serious daddy issues. He wants desperately to be a big hero everyone talks about and tells tales of but underneath, he isn't nearly as good at it as he pretends. I don't think he's really lost anything power-wise, he just likes to talk himself up and present himself as more than he is. He likes to brag and tell tales in the hope it will burnish his reputation, even if it is all BS. He signed on to the pact in a time of fear and genuine weakness and has been manipulated ever since by a devil. A couple of his supposed exploits might even be close to true if Mizora was feeling generous with her grants of power to really hook/'addict' him early on to the pact. 'The first one is free' sort of thing. I don't really get the feeling he has been doing the hero thing very long as Spike still has his eye (ew) and both he and the other goblin in the village (I forget his name) seem to remember him quite well. Which is kind of all to say that I don't find his low level when you meet him all that odd.


I'm assuming that by the time we meet Karlach again for recruitment, we, and thus she, will be of high enough level that she will be quite capable in combat. So the comparison to Wyll when we recruit him will be quite different. Also, she is now without Zariel's 'mojo' that was helping make her such a formidable warrior. This is why the Tyr gang was able to rout and wound her. She's now 'mortal' so to speak and not what she used to be. She'll tell you as much if you ask.

That's exactly the thing. He's a normal dude. Except, he's now just a dude who can kick moderate as. If he wasn't the spawn of some epic bloodline, Wyll could have had a normal life somewhere. Instead, he thinks he needs to be this hotshot to receive basic respect.

The Wyll of before was purposefully a loser in the eyes of actual fighters. Cowardly, even. He's much like Astarion in that, once given a leg up, he gets drunk on power. I think that's okay.

However, some improvements need to be made. Wyll's writing depends on how interesting the rest of his arc is, honestly. I think he may yet bend to the darkside... or achieve actual maturity through real confidence.

Once we have to make a choice that's not so clear cut, he'll have trouble. Because Wyll doesn't have so much a moral compass as a role he cast himself in.

I'm aware of that, but I think the extend of her weakening is completely unbelieveable.

She was a runt who proved herself. She was always exceptionally strong even without extra help. Now she's... Level 5? Sorry, but... No.

I like him as a character, but I agree with 1varangian that his writing is a bit all over the place. I agree that his boasting doesn't really achieve the desired effect when it's in a vacuum like this. We don't have enough context in the world to really judge if we can take his claims seriously or not. I think his motives work though. He failed in a major way and that traumatized him. So when he was offered power, he took it. I think he does genuinely want to do good with that power, but he's immature and easily manipulated. Those motives, whether you like them or not, make sense and are reaosnable. As for his combat performance, I think part of the blame there can be laid on the combat AI. It's concerned with winning, not staying in character. Plus I'm pretty certain he's actually meant to be a pact of the blade warlock, so once that's been implemented, the dissonance shouldn't be as intense.

I think he is fine character wise, you can see some cracks and hints in the facade he is building up, I'd love to deepdive into his story and rescue him from the devil and whatever deal he has going on.
What is really holding him back though? You have only 3 slots left for other party members, and you have Gale, amazing wizard, solid choice, you have Shadowheart and all the new cleric spells, smashing, you got Lae'zel who can solo an entire boss just with her thousands of hard hitting attacks, even Asterion with his bonus sneak attacks is an absolute killer.

Wyll as a warlock doesn't quite measure up to these guys, at least that's how I feel, and if you never pick him, it's hard to get invested in his story. If his class was more enticing and explosive, say something more melee focused that'd be fitting, like a swashbuckler for example, you'd be more open to him, for sure!

Fiendish patrons are also described as archdevil level.


It's hard to imagine an archdevil being captured at Moonrise at such low level play. And Mizora seems more like some mid-tier Succubus at best which makes the whole thing even more weird. If she gets captured so easily she might also get killed just as easily. How does someone like that grant powers to mortals?

I think I would get the character better if he actually had a vengeful side against people (and not just goblins who took his eye), or was more antisocial or something to reflect the supposed abuse he's gotten and motivate a desperate pact for power. He's just acting too normal to have gone through anything of significance. Being a Warlock and making pacts with archdevils is a bit of a big deal, and I get the feeling Larian are completely downplaying the whole deal. While also not making the character at all mysterious (like Shadowheart) or likable (like Gale at his best) to let any kind of companionship to start forming. And when the player finds out about him basically being a lying loser who sold his soul to a devil, we are just expected to.. like him anyway?

Shouldn't a Warlock have strong convictions about something at least? Or is he just a desperate power hungry puppet for Mizora? Which would make him a bit of a poor companion choice if written properly rather than just conveniently sidelining the patron.

Wyll is a very flawed being, as are Gale, Lae'Zel and Astarion. Trauma doesn't always look the same. But, I can't confidently say how his looks like. It's very possible we haven't seen Wyll struggle yet.

What we do know about his trauma is the anger. Anger can lead him down a dangerous path or to redemption. Intense and uncontrollable anger is as much a shade of trauma as fear or panic attacks. Anger is more common a response after acts of violation of one's body. It does not feel like normal anger. It's so intense, it's beyond description. It's easy enough to hold back when it's uncalled for, but when you are right to be angry and get /this/ angry, it's considerably dangerous to other people.

I don't know If that's what Wyll's mind looks like. but, I'm quite interested in what they're going to do with him. I feel like he has much more room to be bend one direction or other than Gale or Lae'Zel.

You can feel his dispair when he fails his strength check (can’t knock down door) and is insulting by the fist commander. She basically calls him useless “as usual”. His face looks so disappointed after she said that…. Almost felt sorry for him.

I get it that he had to meet expectations put on him by his status and dad. Never being good enough, everything he put hands to he failed and could never be good enough. He saw an entire town put to the sword and he had no way of fighting back. Once again showing him what kind of failure he is. Until he made the pack… She showed him affection, respect, honor, and granted him the ability to actually be someone for once.

I honestly feel for him and see him as more tragic than arrogant. It’s an emotional response, I have seen in a few kids who couldn’t live up to their parents/societies expectations. I have lost a few friends by suicide because of this…

As I said in another recent discussion of companions, Wyll is the party member who so far is resonating with me least, too.

But while I agree with some of the criticisms made by the OP and others, I’m not 100% of the same mind.

The problems I have with Wyll are:

• As folk have said, his stats don’t work for his character concept. I agree with this proposal for updating him.
• I also agree his entrance, clearly using warlock powers, is ridiculous given he’s presented as trying to hide the fact he’s made a pact with a devil. I really want this to be changed so as to not blow his cover immediately.
• I also agree his character background is a mess. I think Larian are trying to pack way too much into it, and as a result it’s confusing, unfocused and implausible.
• E.g. why are we told he spent time as a thief? It doesn’t fit with any of his current skills, and is in my view is an unnecessary complexity. It just makes me think Larian were originally considering a Charlatan background for him, which I think would have been a feasible way to go with him and does fit some other elements of his character, but once he’s been established as a Folk Hero that could have been dumped.
• Also, why a noble? We already have Astarion with the Noble background, and while we don’t know about Gale I get the impression his childhood was relatively privileged as well. Having Wyll noble just means there’s less variety in the back stories of the party and again just gives me the impression that Larian’s writers were at one point dithering about what D&D background to give him.
• I just wish they’d lean into one or two main elements of his character. For example, he’s presented as a (functioning) alcoholic, constantly drinking in camp. His bluster, boastfulness, rambling, overconfidence and anger management issues are all consistent with drunkenness. And his despair at his predicament with Mizora and the mistakes he has made would feasibly drive him to drink. Why could he not just be the feckless son of … say merchants, not poor but not rich, who fell in with a wild crowd, took to drink and extravagance, was given one last chance by his dad to join the Flaming Fist and sort himself out or be disowned, but failed to mend his ways and screwed up a mission because he’d been drinking, then drunkenly charged a bunch of goblins single-handed and lost his eye. A character like that could easily have the self-loathing and hopelessness needed to be vulnerable to an alternative vision of themself as a hero presented by a beautiful, mysterious woman, as well not being clear-sighted enough to see the obvious trap. And perhaps the pact did initially help him to become sober and less of a loser, and he liked being seen as a hero rather than a waste of space. But it would also set him up to fall off the wagon hard, once he realised exactly what he’d committed to. I think a lot of that is there in Wyll already, but there’s also so much extraneous stuff.
• I also think that both Wyll’s animation and voice performance are too often oddly wooden and stilted, particularly when compared to Astarion and even Gale. I wish both aspects were smoother and more expressive.

I don’t, however, care whether Wyll is likeable, as long as he is engaging and has the potential for various different story arcs, including both tragedy and redemption. And I don’t care that there are perhaps too many party members who used to be more powerful but have been nerfed for one reason or another, and will happily sacrifice a bit of plausibility for the sake of characters having interesting stories as companions and (with origin characters) as protagonists.

I do think his character has potential without significant overhaul, and mainly requires some streamlining and tidying, better animation and ideally a different approach to his voice performance. Oh, and some tweaks to his build to sort out his stats … and I would also be all for Wyll being level 3 and Pact of the Blade when we meet him. I agree that would help make more sense of him as a character.

EDIT: I did see a short clip of some data-mined content of Wyll as an origin character and it did get me intrigued by the potential of playing a warlock with a fully realised relationship with a patron, which is something we’ll no doubt have to head-canon as a custom warlock. And I don’t mind that Mizora isn’t presented as massively powerful. I don’t think she needs to be, in order to have helped Wyll fight the sorts of monsters he’s been battling, and the D&D basic intro to the class does say that some patron/warlock relationships can be more like master/apprentice than like cleric/deity, and the former seems to suit Wyll better.

Hmm... I don't think I'd like it If they made his alcohol dependency a main trait. He's neither charming, old nor pathetic enough to quite pull that off. He's already not likeable, so that weakness can't take further hits.

Wyll isn't quite the same kind of noble as Astarion. I'm starting to think they wanted him related to that one guy who protected Bg for... Reasons. Plot Reasons?

Still, he doesn't seem nearly as faceted to me as Gale or Shadowheart. He's almost got nothing going on for him, which wouldn't be a problem... If he were charismatic. If they go from slightly too 2D to 1D, might as well use a trashcan and start over new.

Well, I can certainly understand it wouldn’t be to everyone’s taste, though personally I’d be all for making him old and charming … and even pathetic … enough to carry it off. A sort of Ser Aaron from the Knight Errant Dragon Age comics, but with a warlock pact to explain his puzzling successes! And I don’t think that removing some of what I see as extraneous guff from his background would mean that he couldn’t be a faceted, interesting character, though absolutely appreciate my specific suggestion as to how that might be done is a matter of preference.

(On the subject of his age, I’m not sure it’s actually true he’s not old enough, by the way. The changes made to his character model for patch … 8? … already seem to have made him older and greyer, as well as Gale. I don’t recall if there’s anything in game that helps us pin down his age, but I could easily read Wyll as being in his 40s or at least late 30s. And as someone rapidly heading towards 50 myself, I’m all for party members who are also more mature. Though I feel for how creaky they’d be in the mornings after sleeping on those bedrolls!)


Not sure who you are thinking of here. Duke Ravenscar, who as of BG3 has been kidnapped by the Absolute’s sect?

I think it was this one. I don't know. Extremely relevant and specific bloodline, though, to his character as you can see

Edit: SPOILER WARNING (Datamining!). It already says so on the video preview, but Tav really isn't supposed to know this yet.