Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Shadowheart's Romance

I'll start this off by saying I'm a lesbian and Karlach was my romance on my first playthrough. Karlach's romance is so sweet and I can't recommend it enough. On my second playthrough, I decided to give Shadowheart's romance a try and I have to say, I was honestly floored. It's HORRID. It's alright until you get to Act 3 and then it's like a "mask off" situation with her. Shadowheart threatened to physically hurt me (with a serious tone) if I embarrassed her in front of the love dryad and then started flirting with Halsin right in front of me. I looked up a video of the potential fivesome on Youtube and she also admits there that she's been fantasizing about having sex with him while you're in a relationship with her? Boundaries much, lady? I'm not even sure what to make of this. Does Larian think crossing boundaries, physical abuse, and emotional cheating are fine if a woman is doing it? This might legitimately be the worst romance in the game. One of the worst romances I've ever seen in a videogame, actually. It's a shame because up until Act 3, her romance wasn't bad at all

I'll be honest, if they did a heel turn like this with Karlach, I would have broken down crying. I feel really bad for anyone that romanced her and I'm shocked Larian hasn't changed anything. Before this, I heard a little about this issue but I never looked into it much because I wasn't that into Shadowheart. It was even worse than I thought it would be and I'm a little scared to even buy a Larian game in the future because I'm afraid they'll do it to my favorite character next

Yeah, one of the worst romances, only surpassed by Jacob from Mass Effect, who cheated on you obligatorily. At least with Shadowheart, it's optional. I still can't understand where the fun in this is supposed to be, as if it were a very pleasant feeling. Anyway, I doubt Larian will fix it at this point, but this is the last time I buy their games.

I’ve romanced SH on multiple play throughs and never experienced anything negative. Though I’ve never visited the Dryad with her. This seems to be the issue here?

I'm a lesbian too and did the Shadowheart romance on my first playthrough.
I didn't have anything negative with the dryad tbh, it was pretty sweet.

The Halsin situation is bad, because he seems to be pretty buggy and the characters connected to him react to situations, that are not there. He can be a ( very bad ) option for poly with Shadow and Astarion and they have some banters, where the game assumes, that is the case, even if y.ou clearly told him no.
My advice: leave Halsin in camp to just buff the party and as Orin bait, that is really the only thing, you need him for, since his option lets both the little girl and the cat live and you don't have to panic, if you botch your dialogue check to save him.
He doesn't really bring anything to the table, so ignore him for the rest of the game and take the awesome Jaheira with you as your party druid.

Not gonna lie, i sometimes let him die in act 3, i don't like his character past act 2 and i wish there was another way to tell him to leave.