Heads up: if you saw the thread I posted under “Story and acharacter discussion” about the Custom characters being flat, know that I am not saying anything new in this thread, so just ignore it! I just realised that I probably should post the same under “suggestions and feedback” as well.
My first playthrough with this game was a custom githyanki, as after EA I was really looking forward to play this game as one. Larian did say they understand that the gith are the least popular race as they are not much of a looker, but the issue is that they are actually not as much fun to play as they should be either!
My main complaint is, I had Lae’zel in my team, as it made sense story-wise, but that mean in every single scene that was in any way related to the githyanki, the game automatically started to treat my main character as a non-githyanki sidekick of Lae’zel.
For example:
1, upon meeting the githyanki patrol in Act 1, if you don’t hijack the conversation in the beginning and allow Lae’zel to talk, but interrupt later, Voss will ask Lae’zel if she is not controlling her slaves.
2, Upon meeting Vlaakith for the first time in the creche, she will talk about how she knows all about Lae’zel but she doesn’t even acknowledge gith Tav. In this same conversation she tells Tav to kneel, and if you do, she will commend Lae’zel for “training” her companion well. If Tav is a gith this makes exactly 0 sense.
3, If Lae’zel is in your team Voss will approach to offer an alliance because the party has the Prism. I killed Lae’zel off in the creche (she joined the inquisitor) and Voss didn’t show up - which again makes 0 sense if Tav is also a githyanki, seeing how Voss really is after the prism. I admittedly didn’t play much farther with Lae’zel dead, but I did get into the shadow lands. If Lae’zel is in the team you have a forced resting scene before the shadow lamds when this scene triggers, so I must assume Voss won’t show up later.
4, when we get to Baldur’s Gate Vlaakith shows up in camp a second time to offer the highest possible ranks to Lae’zel if she gives her the Prism. When Lae’zel refuses, Vlaakith throws a hissy fit, but is not even thinking to say to the githyanki right next to Lae’zel “hey, you, same offer, just kill Lae’zel”! As far as Vlaakith is concerned we are invisible/not githyanki in this scene. Again, makes 0 sense…
5, when you meet Voss in the Sharess’ Caress you can strike a deal with Raphael. If you sign it, it is obviously Tav who decides to or against signing it and the scene makes it feel like Tav is basically selling their soul along with the crown to Raphael if they agree. As a thank you, Voss will give his silver sword to Lae’zel, again flat out ignoring that Tav is also a gith and it was Tav doing the sacrifice here (someone give this guy a pair of glasses please!). If Lae’zel is NOT in the team at this point, but part of it, Voss will give the sword to Tav but Lae’zel will comment on it how happy she is to have a silver sword for herself. You know, it is her destiny and all that…
I am sure there is a lot more than that later on, but I stopped this play through at this point as I was dreading getting to
under these circumstances. The whole situation made me end up feeling ignored and walked over in a game where I am supposed to be a hero. It thoroughly ruined the whole game experience for me and made me hate Lae’zel (who used to be one of my favourite companions) to the point that I struggle with tolerating her in even a non-gith playthough.
I would like to emphasise after I deleted this character and I made a drow Dark Urge one, and I didn’t have this issue eith him, as the Dark Urge does have a story of their own. That playthrough, as far as I got so far, was enjoyable.
Because of this I think the issue is that even though the game allows us to play a githyanki, it also ignores that the player is one if Lae’zel is in the team (and not only in the party but in the camp as well). This could have been corrected with so little. Just an additional line written in here and there, like at the main points I mentioned above, to show that the environment that should recognise Tav’s race does in fact do that and act in line with how they would!
One of the promises Swen made at the last Panel of Hell was exactly that your race will matter and the environment will react to it. The githyanki has a very inportant plot line in this story and playing a custom githyanki should reflect this! Otherwise, there is no point in playing one.
