Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Are you dissapointed with companions variety?

Ok, don't want to derail this thread more than it already is (though I could talk about Gale for hours, he just happens to be my favorite ), so I'll just leave this with what I said previously: Your takes on Gale are as good as mine or anyone's. My trail of thinking is: He survived without us thus far, so is more than capable of getting the artifacts himself somehow (unless we hold onto the theory the tadpoles nerfed everyone). Now, he could go murder-hobo on us but didn't (yet?). He's nice, asked nicely so me being nice - I help him.

There, no manipulation, just two people being nice to eachother

Generally being nice will get you nice things in life and he also happens to so that is an extra incentive to give they guy a hand

I think his race may play some part in it as a result of uncoscious bias, but I think your formerpoint is a bigger thing. We never really get the chance to see him BE the hero he's supposed to be built up to be. He only ever talks about it and we constantly see him being insecere. At least Gale, while still pompous in his own right, doesn't constantly talk about his own skill and power. And he does demonstrate his intelligence in conversation at least. Plus we see his sincere passion for magic. So Wyll does end up comign off as a buffoon more often than seems to be the intent. Maybe that was their intentand they planned an arc of him growinginto his heroic claims but at the very least I don't think that comes off well when people are constantly only playing the first part of that arc for years when he comes off as his weakest.

+1 to everything in this post.

Let me put it this way: I was disappointed. When I stopped playing EA about two years ago, I wasn't thrilled about the companion lineup and doubted whether I could put together a full party I'd really enjoy. Gale was the best of the lot, but I had a serious issue with one part of his romance. Now, though - I think things look much better. Karlach sounds awesome. The new Wyll sounds awesome. Halsin is awesome. And there's even some prospect of semi-sort-of-redemption for Astarion. This might actually be... fun!

By and large I think it's fine. They have distinct personalities, for one, which is nice.

I do think it's a bit sad that the races aren't a little more varied. Even though I don't really enjoy playing as the smaller races myself, I've usually enjoyed dwarves and the smaller counterparts as companions in other games (for instance, I liked Sagani in PoE and loved Serafen in PoE2). I wasn't excited for Helia's rumored lycanthropy, but thought her inclusion would have been nice all the same.

I'm a little bummed that we're getting two folks from the older BG series. I also think having Jaheira and Halsin as Druids is a little disappointing. But, I can get over it. (It does make me wish we got Aradin though as a Fighter alternative to Lae'zel. But I'm biased and wanted him as a romance option anyways.)

I do think it's good that they revisited Wyll since he was consistently one of the least popular companions from what I could see.

All that said, for me, Lae'zel is never leaving the cage and Minthara's always gonna get wiped out. I just can't say I like them.

I think one of big issues with Wyll is that he's obviously a warlock, but plays it off as if he isn't one, It rubs warlock players the wrong way when they try to bond with him over being the same class.

Haha same. I love that Astarion is a bit of an ass and snarky and that Laezel has no qualms telling me she doesn’t like me. I much prefer companions that aren’t all immediately adoring fans. Plus we have only seen a tiny percentage of their personalities, no idea where they will go from here or what might be changed come final version.

There are zero human female companion, which is disappointing.

Nobody has the 'right' to be a dick. Just because person a was treated poorly by person b doesn't give person a the right to treat person c horribly.

I mean, half of Shadowheart is human for what it's worth. We have 0.5 human female companion ;-).

> There are zero human female companion, which is disappointing.

Yep. Humans are the most popular choice because that's what people relate to (no surprise there).

One might think so, but really, elves are just humans with pointy ears and a few extras, dwarves are stocky humans with a few extras, and so on. None of the races are non-human in any way that counts, unlike DOS2's lizards and elves. And even those with some claim to it, like half-orcs and dragonborn, appear about as non-human as the rubber forehead aliens in cheap TV shows. Which is why I will avoid them.

So apart from min-maxing considerations, race is just a choice of human-variant (do not mix up with the technical term) appearance and typical background culture. Humans are more popiular than elves because elves have a typical background culture that you either like or not, while humans do not have that. And for purposes of romance, Shadowheart is as human as Gale. As a guideline, if you do not ask yourself "How the heck would sex with them work, and would anyone even want that?", it's human and any variation is superficial - case in question: as a rule, humans do not want sex with bears . Unless they *think* in a non-human way, and that's even harder to write.

Now, if you happen to be a human and you're thinking of breaking this rule, just to prove a point.. My advice is to try out a Tibetan Mastiff first to see how that goes, and work your way up.

Back to the topic. I would have seriously liked some trope-fillers. I love a good Axe murdering Half Orc and a Hammering Dwarf; but typically find them boring to roleplay myself; "I choose violence" and "Today is a Good day to Die" gets old, quick.

Other than that, I'm actually fine with what is there. I'm looking forward to running with Minsc and Jaheira as my default party, so that only leaves one slot open, anyway. On subsequent playthroughs I'll pick other teams.

I wish our Halfling Bard campanion Helia wasn't replaced by Halsin, but here we are.

Tbh I think she was replaced by Durge, I remember that she was supposed to be an origin.
But I suspect, that they gave Halsin a bit of her storyline, If he indeed is a werebear.

Now you just made me sad, because seeing a halfling trying and failing to compose herself around the object of her desire would be awesome.

You'd love Tolkien's work then.

Dwarves, elves, halflings, et al are not just different humans. They are completely different races. If you play a dwarf like they're just a short human with a beard that is not fair to the dwarven race and us insulting. Halflings are not just short humans who hate shoes abd love to eat and pick pockets. Thata big issue with people. See these fantasy races beyond your real world human mind.

Yes...I pretty much detest all of the companions. Were the game in some semi-real world situation, I would rather go off and die with a worm in my head than endure more than five minutes with any of them (save perhaps Gale).

Most of the companions and hirelings also all seem somewhat oddly...humanphobic. Like, Larian worked *really* *really* hard not to have humans (the most common race in Faerun?) represented. I would *love* a male human fighter/paladin...like, anywhere...in any form. That would be lovely.

Taste is subjective, but for me this really great game falls short by the lack of one or two remotely enjoyable companion characters if you want to be a positive, mostly good-aligned character.

I had hoped the hirelings would allow me to make a party more suited to my taste, but alas...again, no real options.

No, I've found a party that I'm enjoying very much. Haven't even met the non-origin companions yet. So I'm betting 2/3 would fit into my party as well.
1. Me
2. Karlach
3. Wyll
4. Gale