Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Shadowheart give up her big mission? O_o

So ...
I just went trough whole Gauntlet of Shar, without Shadowheart ... as expected, she was not pleased ... as expected, she was quite angry with me ... what i dont expected tho, is that she just left.

No option to persuate her to stay ...
Not even mentioning her superimportant artefact ...
Didnt even try to attack me ...

Nothing!
Just "I hate you now!" and left.

Seems weird, doesnt it? O_o

I mean ... its not that long (ingame hardly few days passed) when she was talking about protecting the artefact with her bare life if necessary ... and now, not even mention?
Feels like somebody forgot a permutation.

I really hope this was not the end, that she will return one night saying something like:
"Well, this is embarasing ... i kinda forgot the box you have ... well, im back for it, so either give it to me, or i will slice your throat in your sleep, ok?" xD

They must have rewritten SH so many times lol. In EA and the first Act, the box is all that matters, and then as soon as you have it, she's just like "eh whatever, take it, I didn't really want it anyways"

As much as I like this game and want it to thrive (which it is, the reddit brains have made it the next coming of RPG Jesus lol) because I really want to see more RPGs being developed, the poor writing in certain parts just amazes me.

From nonsensical to inconsistent and contradictory the game has it all (again before someone takes it as me hating on the game I'm not, I do like it and I want Larian to do better and be better thus making the players/fans happy and earning even more money/goodwill). If you dare go off-road and follow a different path that is not the one Larian laid out for you the story suddenly starts to fall apart (or at least some of it does)

Yeah sure Shadowhearts whole mission was about getting that artifact to Baldur's Gate but you know what? 'Screw you guys I'm going home' because you didn't take me to that one dungeon. And another thing, its such a weird decision to have companions leave when them leaving without the artifact means certain death or at least squidification.


Do post if something changes and she comes back.

This happened in my current playthrough, I did the Gauntlet without her, she showed up and complained I robbed her of making a decision, then left for good. It gets weirder in Act III, you show up in a certain area and are told to bring her with you, but you can't because she has disappeared. I was hoping this would be expanded on more, but nah, she just left, didn't even return to her cloister. Maybe they could've had her be one of the captives at Moonrise or in jail in Baldurs Gate, but I haven't seen that as of yet.

On the artifact, I had a weird issue with that also. It apparently , but this never is shown in any cutscene or explained. It's mentioned, and she tells you but nothing beyond that.

The artifact

Oh, ok. In my playthrough, everyone and their aunt told me, how I'm the special one. I guess it changes depending on what happens.

You need to take her with you and be equipped to pass a 21 persuasion check if you want to keep her on a good playthrough. And she can attack you as well in that situation. Not taking your favorite cleric of Shar to a shar themed (and named) dungeon is on you anyway... Oh, and if you pay attention to what she says to you, the artifact has a mind of his own and decides who it will stay with. It jumps to your inventory in some situations when it is needed (i.e. if you send Astarion scouting and hit an Absolute cutscene spot where it is needed.

I'm in Riethwin(?) and my main task is to gain access to MT but I bump into Raphael who wants me to get rid of an enemy of his. So off I go only to find myself in the gauntlet (with Shadders) not having a clue as to what exactly I'm supposed to do other than get through it. Then I bump into yet another nutter who wants me to get a relic. There was also a fight with some things and umbral portal things with some other things on our side. One of the sides seemed to have something to do with Shar but I couldn't work out which side and Shadders didn't seem overly bothered one way or the other.
That was Tuesday night. I didn't go near the game on Wednesday.
Just remembered that I'm supposed to meet Halsin by the lake. No idea which lake but there you go. With any luck something will eat him before I get there.

A big frustration at the core of a lot of narrative complaints is that things simply don’t make sense, or lack sufficient grounding to be reasonably understood. This leaves two possibilities:

-Bad writing (too easy to claim and too unfair to a team of professional writers)

-More likely: the story underwent dramatic revisions while the game was being actively developed, and rather than remake or reproduce entire sections, given the immense complexity of the reactions, the team was forced to Frankenstein all the versions together. As a result, characters, situations, and plot beats may not make sense at times.

Really? They do take your approval into account? But not if you fail a persuasion check? I hope I still have a save to try as I had her at 100%. If it is so, I wish they fix it and default to the same approval check.
EDIT:
Damn it, just tried it from an old save. My propensity to save scam took the better of me, LOL.

It does seem a bit odd that SH

Maybe ... but thats not the point here, is it?


Wich makes perfect sense, as long as you are traveling together ... bcs the only thing that is changing, is who is holding it as you travel, wich makes no difference.

BUT!!!

When she decide to leave you, she imediately abandon her most holy and "will defend it with my life" quest ... bcs you simply pissed her off.
I get that she is angry ...
I get that she dont want to travel with us anymore ...
What i dont get is that she just leave with no even mention.

I mean, it was brought up abowe ... what Shadowheart basicaly do is:
"You dont care about my feelings enough, and so i will leave you now ... i allso will horribly, painfully, and instantly turn into Mind Flayer, while i completely abandon the only reason i was here in the first place, and let you keep the only thing that is protecting you, wich was mine!
That will teach you!"

In what universe that would make any sense? O_o

Maybe she wants to experience deeper loss so that the missed side quest doesn't hurt so much?

[edit]

She should be added to the Absolute cultist ranks in the battle for Moonrise. The Absolute would probably love the addition.

I wonder if Larian exchanged the writing team at some point which then started to rewrite everything to make the story "theirs" or if Larian just doesn't care as "the masses" wont notice.

Because once you look past the memes and bear sex many things in BG3 does not make sense.

Changing writing teams (or at least some of them) and having rewrites? No doubt. Trying to make it 'theirs'? Conceivable. As for the masses not noticing or caring, I think we have our answer.




The best way I would describe BG3 would be a diamond on the ground that turns into a ordinary piece of glass as you approach it.

It hooks you in with the promises of greatness only to disappoint.

It's Friday and I still haven't been back to the game. I was going to play today but Patch 2 dropped so I'm waiting for the dust to settle on that before I download it and update my mods.

From what I understand, there is a way to save Nightsong and keep Shadders - I'm guessing yet more dice rolls.

Without spoilers, there are several choices that can lead to the saving of the Nightsong while Shadowheart is in the group at the time.

And as for those complaining that Shadowheart left them because they left her behind when exploring a Shar Temple, complete Shar related tasks, and do the single most important decision to Shadowheart's entire story-line with her... What other outcome would you expect?

Choices have consequences. THis isn't the typ of game where you can make any choice you want, and it has no effect; I applaud Larian for making choices ACTUALLY MATTER.

In most cases you do get one final chance to change a companion's mind, but if you fail that - yes, they will leave (or sometimes even attack you).