Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion A problem about realistic choice in recruiting companions

I think there's a big problem in recruiting companions, in a lot of the cases, your character would have to be downright stupid, or have some other very specific reason not to recruit many of the companions, this is because of how the story starts.
Right from the get-go, you're immediately thrown in a personal crisis situation, you're infected with a mindflayer parasite, and so are all of the potential companions you meet at the start, the both of you have very clearly the exact same goal, and an extremely urgent one at that, to deny their aid just because you have some sort of personal disdain for them or their morals is downright stupid.

Are you really going to deny help of Lae"zel because she's extremely aggressive? She appears the best lead by far to a cure to your situation, her people being very experienced with mindflayers.
Karlach is clearly not evil, and even if you're evil, this still means you can use her without fear of her stabbing you in the back unprovoked, same goes for Wyll.
Shadowheart reveals to be a Shar cultist, but again, that's sort of the least of your worries right now, compared to your predicament.
Only Gale and Astarion pose some sort of actual threat to you unprovoked, and even so, by the point you know of Gale's ailment, you know this situation is about more than just you.

I think Larian made a pretty big mistake by starting the game off with such a huge threat to your character, it would have been better to meet these companions before you knew just how deep the shit is that you're in, this way you have a realistic choice of either denying or accepting these companions, Lae'zel for example could have a hunch that the Mindflayers are behind this, but with how little you've seen about the situation, she might just come off as being paranoid, you'll also have your morals to think about and not have to think "... but it would also be really stupid not to have someone with the same issue tag along."

I think that's gonna depend on player's preferences and if they are role-playing or not.

The only character I would say it's stupid not to get on your party is Lae'zel because she's the only one that MUST join you on the Nautiloid (SH is optional), so both of you have history already by the time you find her again, and curiously enough, when you reject her to join you, the game creates a journey about her (is like telling you, are you sure you don't want her) and to my knowledge, that doesn't happen to the any of the other characters.

If you save SH, it would be stupid not to join with her.

Astarion is the character that I find your Tav has to be stupid to let him join you but the rest are up to the player, I think.

That idea kinda falls flat if you think past what your character would do and instead think about what they would do.

Wyll will join you, but only if you promise to help him with Karlach. He's already more interested in hunting Karlach than getting rid of the tadpole anyway.

Karlach will gladly join you but if Wyll's there, they'll fight because there's no tadpole magic telling you she's not who Mizora says she is. You have no reason to spare her other than her word, and if you do, Wyll won't. If you meant that you're tadpoled but just don't know the threat, then tadpole magic could probably still happen and things transpire the same way they do now.

Astarion has no reason to join you. What use does he have for you if not to find a way to cure (or in his case, a way to control) the tadpole, if he doesn't know it's a threat? He's just happy he can walk in the sun again.

Gale might tag along assuming you're willing to help him with his personal problem.

Shadowheart may join you, since she's being hunted for the artifact and could use your protection.

Lae'zel will kill you on sight. Githyanki aren't exactly friendly. She's only reluctantly letting you be her 'servant' because she knows the depth of the tadpole issue.

And good luck ever getting Shadowheart and Lae'zel in the same party, considering what transpired before the tadpoling. They already don't want to be, and without your persuasion, will kill each other (as is in game, Shadowheart kills Lae'zel) regardless of the tadpole. Imagine how that'd go if their only concern was the artifact.

Maybe there's no tadpole magic telling Karlach isn't what Mizora says she is, but other companions (At least Shadowheart and Lae'zel) do point out that Wyll is full of shit accusing her of being a devil.

Astarion is still looking for help regarding the tadpole, though I'll admit he's the easiest to pass up on when he tries to bite you, at which point he assesses himself as a willful threat to you.

Lae'zel is still helping you, that she's doing so reluctantly is irrelevant.

You don't know the gravity of Gale's issue until you're already on better terms with him than at the start, until then you just had to feed him some magical items every now and then, and there's plenty of garbage that counts for that criteria.

Yes, Lae"zel and Shadowheart will want each other dead, but them attempting to kill one another tends to happen pretty close to Act 2, until then, it's still two people with a similar issue.

Also if you're pointing out Wyll wanting to hunt down Karlach before anything, I think there's the other issue of putting your personal problem before anything else is also bad as it throws you headfirst into the patrol and the creche at level 2 or 3, for another topic, but still, game heavily suggests you help other people - also you can tell Wyll you'll still prioritize the tadpole and he'll still tag along.

You misunderstood me. I was using what happens now as argument to explain why they wouldn't join you in the first place in the scenario that nobody knew the tadpole was a problem.

Wyll might see reason, hard to say. He and Karlach are the most likely to still join you. Though if Wyll didn't know the tadpole was a threat, he has no reason to stay after killing or sparing Karlach.

If he does not know the tadpole is a threat, he will not look for help regarding it. He has no reason to. In fact, he will actively oppose it. The tadpole helps him.

If Lae'zel did not know the tadpole was a threat, she would not seek a cure, and therefore not need you at all. She will fight you or ignore you.

Gale has no reason to join you if he does not know the tadpole is a threat. He will either admit his issue already, or go on his own way because you're not an elder wizard.

If neither of them knew the tadpole was a threat, the only thing they would care about is the artifact. Lae'zel may not know Shadowheart has it, but Shadowheart killed Githyanki to get it and will never team up with one to protect the thing she stole from them.

The thing is that if nobody knows the tadpole is a threat, then it's not a personal problem. That's why they wouldn't join you.

For the game to work out, everyone except for you needs to know it's a problem. Why else would any of the companions seek a cure? They all have massive personal issues to deal with that are a lot more important.

I mean from a RP prospective a good aligned PC would kill Lae'zel on sight (Githyanki are known to be evil), would murder Shadowheart the Sharran (once she reveals herself as one, Shar is an evil goddess), stake Astartion the vampire (during the bite scene, Vampires are evil monsters), Recruit Wyll (But will call him out on his Hypocrisy), recruit and help Gale, also recruit Karlach, Halsin, Jaheira and Minsc.

I mean it'll place you, somewhere between LG or LN.

Actually Lae'zel does know it's a threat, the Gith have been slaying Mindflayers for how many centuries, pretty sure they would have the most knowledge on tadpoles and ceremorphosis, also if the Gighyanki didn't have the knowledge, then their more heroic monastic idelogucal cousins the Githzerai would know about it.

BTW if you think Mindflayer is bad, wait until a Dragon goes though Ceremorphosis,

Well maybe act 1 in its entirety, at least how you meet the companions, is flawed, we WOULD need another reason for them to join us, maybe some companions would need their stories changed for it to work without the impending doom tadpole BS.
That doesn't make the current thing any less flawed, however, Larian had all the control they needed, it's not like they HAD to work with these characters, they could've just made different characters, different stories.

Githyanki are evil, Mindflayers are eviler, if the lesser evil can help you deal with the greater evil...
I don't know if you can actually kill Shadowheart the moment she reveals to be Sharran, though I kill her every time she tries to kill Lae'zel.
And I stake Astarion every time, too.
Still, that's all after you recruited them, with Shadowheart, quite a good bit into Act 1, at least Astarion can do the big stupid of trying to drink from you very quickly.

You don't say.

OP was talking about a scenario where nobody knew the tadpole was a threat. I explained what would happen in that scenario.

Whatever they were to add, it'd need to be some kind of 'impending doom' threat to everyone in the party for some of the current companions to be willing to work together. Or they would indeed have to rewrite them completely, and then they couldn't be written to be at odds quite as much which would just lead to a boring cast of characters.

Plenty of other ways to make that stuff work, that said, it's much too late now to overhaul part of the game to such a degree - hell, even the first Early Access build was probably too late.

It seems like you (to Zote) have a pretty strong impression of the writing and how things should or shouldn't be in relation to the first meeting of companions and forming of the travel party, but it's best to remember that it's a subjective opinion informed by your own sense of reason - which is individual to you and which we all are working with individually as well, unique to ourselves.

You seem to feel (forgive me if I'm misreading) that, as written, a person would have to be downright stupid not to take everyone with you, given the situation - I disagree. To me, I feel that even *With* the overbearing impending doom situation of the tadpole in the first day or two, there are characters that any sensible person of a moderately positive moral alignment or even basic practicality would be downright stupid for agreeing to travel with.

For example:

You ask, am I really going to deny the company of a person whose first reaction upon meeting me is to deceive me, in order to forcefully lay hands on me and threaten my life? Yes. Yes I am. I'm focused on finding a cure for my situation, and taking a person like that with me is adding an additional risk and danger that I don't need or want, and which seems more likely to be a distraction and consideration pressing on my already strained time and resources. I would not feel like I could trust this person staying close to me, no matter what help they might bring (which they are swift to admit is none at all, in terms of knowledge or solutions); I don't wish that person ill, but I also don't want them near me, and would rather focus on seeing a cure to my malady without having to worry about whether or not said companion deemed it more profitable to them to try to murder me in the night.

The whole point of our group is the imminent thread from the tadpoles. I think that is a good way to get people so different to work together.
And even so, I actually killed Astarion a few times in EA, because he attacked me unprovoked. I still need a very nice chatacter to let him go away with it. Lae'zel is not friendly, but she is practical and honest with you from the beginning. Still, without the tadpole threat and knowing about githyanki, I would probably leave her alone.
I think Shadow revealing who she is, is a big deal too. She serves one of the most evil goddesses, who demands vile things of her followers, that is hard to swallow. By the time, she reveals it, my character is usually already on good terms with her, but it still is a lot.
I think without the tadpole reason, my characters would not necessarily team up with Lae'zel and Karlach and might have trouble, trusting Shadow after her reveal. That would leave Wyll, Karlach, Jaheira and Minsc. Halsin would be kicked out, for being an annoying sex maniac.

I cant figure out what the point of the OP is.

So Larian made a story and added some companions.

And, thanks to the story, you dont really want to pass up any help you can get.

So far, so good.

And yet ... somehow thats wrong ????????? What ???????

Reading the rest of the thread didnt reveal what the actual problem is, either. Outside maybe very subjective categories like personal taste and preference. But why would that be an actual error on Larians part ?

We can agree that Astarion is not quite as guilty as other characters of this flaw, getting rid of him the moments he bares his fangs to you is perfectly reasonable, I just wish it was this siple of a logic with everyone, and that sadly just isn't the case.

And so you would have a choice of who you want to take with you, my choice would be different, I'd probably keep Lae'zel to tag along, same with both Wyll and Karlach after clearing up the entire situation, which if you just hear Karlach out and do some quick research is pretty easy. I'd be way more inclined to tell Gale to piss off if it weren't for our mutual crisis, too, but I know others wouldn't, given he is a very kind person.
I don't know if you intended it, but you proved my point exactly, even without the imminent threat, I think it's possible to form a group of unlikely allies.

I suppose we disagree here, I don't think that's necessarily a good thing, I think you SHOULD have less reason to have these people tag along with you, it should come down to personal choice, which differs from person to person as seen in comments above, instead, I feel like even if you don't like certain characters, you're still suggested to have them tag along, I don't mind a group with characters that aren't the same alignment, but there's some characters I don't really like on a personal level, but because of the narrative, I don't feel like getting rid of them is too sensible.

You can argue that its not the right approach, but it'd very much what Larian intended, and they're going for a pretty tried and true trope. I think they specifically want you to be in a situation where you have to join up with characters you ordinarily wouldn't if you had a free choice. You're free to dislike that approach but I don't think it's a flaw, it's just a game design choice that some people will like more than others do.

Of course, this is all my opinion, some may disagree, but I'm still free to speak my mind, and I personally think that this design takes away from my "freedom of choice" I suppose, without feeling like I'm just being stupid in some cases.

Why? If the world and the story provides a valid reason to team up with someone, rather than it being a completely arbitrary choice made for a player's intuitive reaction to them, then I think that is good. From an out-of-world, storytelling point of view, you should want them all on your team because they all have interesting stories to play through. An in-world reason to take them on is most welcome.

It is, in fact, the other way round IMO: it's bad if there is no story reason. For instance, there is a gameplay reason to take Astarion along, but *no* convincing story reason. I most often take him along because I want a rogue in my party, and I need to make up in-world reasons for having him after our initial less-than-friendly encounter. I would really like a better story reason to take him along, but the game does not oblige. If I played strictly in-character, most of my characters would not take Astarion along. And that would be bad.