Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion In Praise of Origin Companions (Maybe Spoilers)

For all of my issues with the plot and the writing for various members of the supporting cast, I want to create a thread saying that this game absolutely shines when the focus is on Shadowheart, Lae'zel, Gale, Wyll, Astarion, and Karlach. These characters have more personality, reactivity, and genuine care put into them in their left pinky than most characters in this genre get over multiple games. My current main party is Shadowheart, Astarion, and Karlach. I thought I would hate Astarion, but he really comes into his own, due in no small part to the excellent performance from Neil Newbon. Though, as I believe either Mark Darrah or Josh Sawyer noted, this game does not follow the graphical fidelity death cult, the animations in this game, especially concerning body language and facial animations, are so on point that they bring an element of characterization to these characters that you simply do not get elsewhere: Lae'zel rolls her eyes or makes her body tall and rigid in prideful defiance; Astarion throws his arms loosely and keels over in angry or sarcastic fits, clearly clenching his teeth; Shadowheart overtly displays subtle changes between fear and disgust in her face.

The dialogue trees reveal completely new information about your characters' personalities based on how you talk to them. This feature comes to light especially during the romances, where the PC can almost cultivate and steer the kind of relationship they are trying to build.

The personalities themselves are also just a blast. Each character has moments to be unbridled fun, an exemplar of sadness, and deep in thought. I've said it before and I'll say it again: This game's narrative is at its best when it is a character study of our companions.

If I could ask for one thing to make it into the Definitive Edition, or as an expansion, based on what this game did RIGHT, it would be to give us more companion moments and interactions, including banter. On the subreddit, there has been talk of a requests for a "romance DLC," but while this would be nice, I would prefer a broader "Character DLC" that fleshes out ALL relationships in the game, as I think that is where this game shines.

To All: Please let me know what you thought of our companions. Did anyone surprise you? What about the character developments and performances?

idk, I'm just not seeing how any of the companions and their relationships/dialogue/etc are any better than something like Mass Effect's companions. Sure, there is higher graphical fidelity and the motion capture is better, but other than that, and the good voice acting, the writing itself isn't anything to write home about, and the "reactivity" that has become the buzzword of the year doesn't seem to be anything special. They don't react in the slightest to big events, they react only at very specific moments in their own quest line, or when their quest line crosses with the main story.

Maybe I'm missing something, but if I think about Joker, Garrus, Thane, Shepard themselves, I don't see how BG3 has surpassed that in any sense. Unless you're simply saying that they're the strong point of the game, not necessarily superior to all other games, in that case, fair enough.

It's so weird to see videos of Neil Newborn online, because the mocap means he has 80% of Astarion's face and it's uncanny.

Keep in mind that Mass Effect's character development occurs over the span of 3 games and each character really only has one of two ways they can turn out over the course of the trilogy based on the idea that you completed 100% of the content and chose either Paragon or Renegade options. I recommend reloading conversations (especially romances) and seeing how different dialogue options take you down different paths in the relationship, revealing different information about the character and how they feel. By "reactivity" in characterization, I mean their behavior changing based on the inputs you give them in conversation. However, "reactivity" for the whole game would certainly be better: it would be nice if the characters had fundamentally different reactions, behaviors, or things to say based on the choices you make, particularly the major ones. It would also be nice if said characters could discuss your choices with each other and judge you.

I would not say that Joker or Garrus were particularly strong characters in ME1. Garrus attains GOAT status in ME2, as does Joker, which continues through to ME3. However, I think we also need to contextualize the kind of game ME2 is: It is a pure character study. The entirety of the major missions in ME2 are all either recruitment missions or loyalty missions. The entire game is centered around exploring the personalities of the characters. That's why characters like Grunt, Mordin, Jack, and Thane feel so remarkably fleshed out and deep. If 100% of the content in BG3 were character study of our six origin companions, we might be having a different conversation.

Will the writing team at Larian produce characters like Mordin or Thane? I don't know. There's no telling what a creative person can or cannot do. I will agree that the writing in BG3 is not necessarily the strongest writing I've ever seen in an RPG, but it's still damn good in my opinion. But of that damn good writing, I think it genuinely shines during moments of deep characterization of our companions.

With that in mind, how would you suggest a different approach to the creative process of creating and portraying studies of companions in RPGs?

You must be joking? The companion side quests are all quite good but I am not attached to any of the companions the way I was in bioware games.
Companions in bg3 are shallow, we know nothing about them other than their personal quest and they want to sleep with you.
Furthermore to be good companions they must be believable, with believable personality and motivation, bioware had this bg3 does not. Consider that you can have a relationship with any character as a Dragonborn, is it believable that every npc you meet is into lizards? No for this and many other reason the companions in bg3 are not believable. You might say that there were interspecies relations in mass effect, true but the characters in game acknowledged they were doing a taboo and difficult thing, it was addressed bringing it back to the realm of the believable. The companions are the weakest part of the game

I very much like SH, Lae'zel, and Karlach. I have a certain appreciation for Astarion and his sneering upper class drawl. I like Gale a bit less than in the EA. Lae'zel has more nuance now than in the EA, and I just mentally picture her as my party's resident Klingon. Karlach is just fun. She's up for anything. Wyll is possibly less interesting for being made more heroic instead of genocidal (towards Goblins). Of all those, SH is my favorite. Her story progression feels vital and real.

Jahiera is fabulous. I like her world-weary leadership vibe. Minsc is... well, he is a lot. I like him in small doses. He is well-played though, if a little over the top.

I'm just getting to know Minthara on my second playthrough. I haven't got a good read on her yet. She might be a psycho, but maybe not. Can I fix her?

The one I really don't care for at all is Halsin. He's just a big dumb boy scout, and it feels like he just tagged a long to shirk his grove duties and get laid.

They really shine, especially in their moments.

Lae'zel in the creche and the astral and talking to Vlaakith. The emotion behind her scenes completely hooked me. I felt it.

Astarion making his big decision in the scene with Cazador.

Shadowheart as her story unfolds.

Some of the scenes are incredibly powerful. While there are some aspects to the storytelling that bother me, I can't deny that there are wonderful, moving moments.

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I haven't done much with Karlach or Wyll yet. And Gale... I'm sad to say that I didn't get far enough with his story yet to give credible feedback.

I'd love to get a chance to play with Halsin and Jaheira and Minsc, but seriously, there's only so much time.

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Basically, though, I'm loving Lae'zel, Astarion, and Shadowheart. Their stories are so much better than I had imagined they would be. I was hyped, and I am still more than pleasantly surprised.

Halsin and Jaheira are my favorites so far!

I agree that it would be nice for companion moments and their character development to be disentangled from the romance portion of the dialogue trees. I think your Dragonborn complaint has more to do with the romance mechanics of playersexuality and how the writing does not account for it, as opposed to the companions being poorly characterized. I do agree that personality is not the same thing as believability, and the lack of character moments and exposition for our companions certainly weakens their believability. However, in terms of personality, or the type of person each companion is, I do think these characters shine quite brightly. They are often not in the form of dialogue or scenes (though I would certainly prefer more voice lines, scenes, dialogue, and banter), but instead in the form of facial expressions, body language, gestures, idle animations, and modes of speech.

I wonder though, is BG3 NOT a character driven RPG as well? When people talk about why they love the game, the characters are almost always at the forefront of the discussion. The recent rush to defend poor Lae'zel, the constant SH fanart, the Halsin memes, it's pretty much all people talk about. The actual main plot? The villains with an exception for Raphael? All very 'eh', very similar to ME2's main driving plot. The plot is a backdrop for character interaction/development.

Also, each Mass Effect game is 30 hours give or take 5 hours or so. BG3 if you're playing without redoing a bunch of stuff and steadily making progress, weighs in at about 100 hours, give or take 10 hours or so. You'd think BG3 characters could do so much more with their development in 100+ hours than a single ME game does in one (or even 2, because all it took for those characters to become legends were two games). Wyll? He's got a very simple story, with very few meaningful choices. SH? She has exactly ONE big moment, and then she's sort of just there. Karlach I would argue is the most developed. She has a lot of incidental interactions without the player character, main story tie-ins, a constant 'dealing with her issue' progression throughout the game, and a resolution (whether or not you like it) to her issue at the very end of the game. The rest though, I just don't see it.

Sure, I could reload and choose different dialogue options and get different responses, but that doesn't change their entire relationship with Tav or each other.

All this is obviously imo, and off the top of my head, so I might be not remembering things, etc. Grain of salt and all of that. That said, I need to play through the ME trilogy again, see how it holds up now that I've played BG3.

I agree that each character needs more. BG3 is a character-driven RPG, but I remember ME2 as special in that every single "quest" was centered around at least one companion. You spend a lot of time knowing these companions in ME2, and each companions has, at minimum, two long sequences centered entirely around them. Shadowheart gets a small set of sequences centered around her. Wyll gets nothing. Lae'zel gets one major sequence. Proportionally, Harbinger got less screen time and buildup than Orin, Ketheric, or Gortash individually. Many quests in BG3 are incidental to the characters taking part in them. That's not a bad thing, but it does not give them "umph" in terms of consequences.

While I like the personalities of the characters, they are not the center of the game. The obsession over individual characters in this frankly crowded game is a lot like this meme:


What is there is good, in my opinion. But if we wanted something like an ME2-onward level of investment in the characters, the game would have to focus a much greater proportion of its overall script, screentime, and story on the companions and their individual psychologies.

Another limitation of this game’s story is that it needs to work without any companions at all for custom multiplayer parties. That means the story has to makes sense with or without our companions. Mass Effect 2 cannot make any sense with its companions totally removed.

I love the companions, especially Minthara, she is theatrical in her movements and speech in a way that makes me suspect she is mo-capped to? She doesn't move like an artist coded her to fit in the setting, she moves like an actor who is used to the stage. and it's perfect

I love most of the companions. Really love 'em, why can't I drag seven party members around with me instead of three?! Too hard to decide!

I'm starting to imagine a setting where they all travel round with you, and pop up to talk in conversations and cut scenes but only the ones in your 'party are on the map and in fights' being it being supposed the others are just off screen in some other fight?

You make a very good point that I often don't remember, because I'm a solo player through and through for RPGs. The story must go on as it were, and it HAS to work without any of the companions, and all of them. ME had some disposable characters, but overall, you had a core group that you were with for a long period of time, and so the main story could involve them more. BG3, SH, as important as she might be, can't be completely essential.

I've seen reddit posts of a guy that didn't realize the companions were companions, and went on a solo rampage throughout Act I, basically killing/doing everything as Tav, solely because he's so used to having party members forced on him. The game has to work for that type of player as well, and it does.

Alternatively, it would be really cool to find companions not in your party out and about in the world/city doing their own thing. Like finding Lae'zel threatening someone in an alleyway, or Gale at various magical shops searching for tomes and equipment, or finding random companions in Sharess Caress.

I like they characters, voice acting and also the development of their story (as a fellow wizard, I found Gale quite endearing and also a bit surprising. But on the other hand their backgrounds - especially if you take them all together - are just too ridiculous to take them seriously. There are some great moments though, but the premise is pretty funny.

I was also often surprised how good the facial expression of the origin characters are. Especially if you compare them to the PC who looks goofy most of the time (in case of a male high elf, others might be better).

Overall it's very well done I think. But I wouldn't say the writing is better than BG2 for example.

I think it's a bit of a theme with most RPGs that the companions are more interesting than the main plot. I've liked all the companions in BG3 since the beginning of the EA, with my only gripes being we don't get enough of them.

That's my take on BG3 companions as well.
My biggest issue with them, apart from the scarcity of content, is the fact that there's rarely any nuance to the relationships between themselves and TAV aside from romance.
Either the game simply pronounces you as friends, or... It doesn't, and they're just there. Not to mention they barely interact with each other and there's no illusion of them having any relation to each other outside of player interactions, with small exceptions.

Also, I don't know if it's due to poor design choices or bugs, but as everything seems to be tied to the approval bar, unlocking the interactions and stacking them - playing them one per camp rest - the order often either gets messed up, or does not take into account how often the player even visits the camp, resulting in conversatons and situations that do not feel organic and natural at all, but are simply forced by the implemented systems. Hence the Shadowheart telling me how much we've been through together first time we talk in the camp. I appreciate it darling, but I barely know you and a moment ago you were complaining that I'm asking too much questions.
Things like that often pulled me out of the experience and prevented me from having any meaningful emotional resonance with the companions.
Don't get me wrong - I found their storylines interesting and I wanted to pursue them, but I don't feel I developed *a* relationship with them. I simply followed the quest.

This has to be the most memorable and likeable party in an RPG in a long, long time.