Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Companions

This may have been said before, I'm new here, I'll keep this sort for that reason.

The companions are too much, if that makes sense. They're all tied together by the tadpole, yes, but as characters they're all so.... specific? They're all a person with a (BIG) personal problem rather. Like Gale is about to explode, Astarion is being hunted, Wyll is tied to a cambion. Lae'zel feels the most normal here. I don't have an issue with their personalities, but hopefully the future companions are a bit more basic and tied to the story? Think Alistair from DA:O. He still has his character arc and development but his introduction, goal, and end are very VERY tied to the main plot. Here, it's a group of people who all want a tadpole out, yes, but it'd be nice to see someone who doesn't have a massive side problem to solve.

This is the suggestions box still, so I guess my suggestion here would be to increase plot relevance in the future companions or something?? Might be too hard at this point in the writing process, who knows.

While writing this I did come up with a counter point for myself actually, which is that all of the current companions are neutral or evil (and since they put themselves first they need a personal goal to keep them interesting), and the type of character I'm describing would either have to be Good or evil but directly serving the big bad (whoever that may be, likely the Absolute).

But yeah, thoughts? I'm no writing expert so I expect (and welcome) criticism here; maybe having characters with big side stories is a well-liked thing in this community.

To be honest, for me, the stories of the characters are often much more interesting than the main plot. And I'm pretty sure the DOS2 character stories were very similar. I mean, they were all important.

But this is not all companions, so it is quite possible that we will have more simple characters.

I'm personally very fine with the companions not having a personal journey/story/quest that is tied to the main plot. Same for the PC. Because if some characters are tied to the plot in an essential way and others are not, I feel it stops being an adventure called "Baldur's Gate : Rise Of The Absolute", and it becomes "Baldur's Gate : Lae'zel Epic Adventure", say, and then you feel kind of forced to play as Lae'zel, or recruit Lae'zel as companion at the very least.

The key part above is "in an essential way". Some characters can happen to have a connection to the plot. To use BG1 as example, some companions were BG-area natives (Coran, Shar-Teel), some had come in the region to investigate the iron crisis (Jaheira and Khalid, Xzar and Montaron), some have a personal score to settle with some bad guys (Kivan, Branwen), while some are totally random (Safana, Alora).

Like you, I don't have a problem with their personalities either. Haven't seen the Patch 3, toned down versions, but I really liked everyone in Patch 2.

But I agree, some are have personal problems and backstory that are a bit too much. Well, I think I'm fine with Astarion and Wyll, and certainly with Shadowheart and Lae'zel. But Gale is completely over the top. I'm sure most GM would tell you to write a backstory for your character that doesn't involve a personal relationship with a deity or artefacts of immense power.

So, I hope the future character have a backstory and personal quest less like Gale and more like Lae'zel or Shadowheart.

I agree, that the companion stories are often over the top. So far, the most normal for me is Lae'zel. Not to say, that I don't like some of them, but I hope, we get some more companions with a bit more normal backstories. I mean, it doesn't have to be deadly deals with very powerful Supernatural beings, like it is the case with all current male characters. I remember how you helped Keldorn to save his marriage or Cernd with his kid. How you helped Leliana to deal with a former (mortal) lover or Oghren to get a girlfriend. All more normal problems, that still are interesting.

Problem is that those companions are meant to be the main protagonists and this is another way to add replayability as you playing them you have to deal with 'your big issue' as well as the tadpole... an approach that I don't like at all, as the stories get spoilered once you had them as companions in one playthrough and their additional as protagonists consumes a lot or resources, not to mention that they all feel hopelessly over the top.

I probably will never play as one of them. I like to make my own character.

Same here. I also like to experience my companions stories (if they are well written) and not spoiler them by playing as one. I never considered playing origin characters fro DOS2. I thought their are nothing more than just pre-generated examples like you find in RPG rule books... but as it seems Larian prefers them a lot more than our custom ones.

There is at least one ordinary Baldurian, its you.

Honestly i kinda like it, also i dont think that they have so huge story ...
In the end, all Wyll did was selling his soul ... nothing so unusual in this world. :-/
Astarion is simply hunted for what he is ... it would work the same way if he was chased by the people he owed money.
Laezel is perfectly normal Gith ... odd only bcs her race is unusual around here.
Shadowhearth ... well, she try to play mystique, but i cant help the feeling that her story isnt that interesting ... at least for me she was never worth trying to overcome all those "disagree" traps in her conversations ... and only thing im completely sorry about her is missing option to tell her "yeah whatever, dont care anyway" for every single sentence she let out. -_-

The only one with huge story so far is Gale ... and even that is kinda simple, just have big consequences.

My impression when I realized the types of stories that I was hearing and the details of the tadpole's specialness was that everyone was handpicked based on what they had done, sort of as if the Illithids had decided who SHOULD be running things and we were it. I imagine that we even find that our custom made character has a backstory that we discover when we get to that part of the game - our own baggage.

This exactly! I didn't put it in the OP but yeah, more mortal problems would be a bit better. Sure, like someone else said, demonic possession is possible in this universe, but it isn't exactly common and it very much feels like every single character in the party is a protagonist. It's like having the entire cast of a story be a chosen one (Divinity OS2 did this, but the plot revolved around that rather than something entirely different (tadpole)).

It true DnD fashion - every PC is a protagonist. When you play on the tabletop with three other players, you don't just have one protagonist - everyone is one. Though you don't control their dialogue responses to your created character, you otherwise are controlling the entire party.

Yeah but they aren't players.

Also if I was in a group and made a Tav and the rest of the group made the Origin Characters I'd probably start looking for another group. Huge red flags.

I'm playing DnD for more than 20 years now, but none of us players have such an over-the-top backstory. Maybe one character had that but he was a demon, so that was OK.

I agree with OP.
This is another overdose of originality.

The problem is that they are the main protegonists as they are all ment to be played that way. It's like starting a game with the Baalspawn, Ciri, the Greywarden and pick-your-superhero. The idea sounds nice at first - basically full fleshed origin stories - it worked for DOS, right? Except it doesn't work so well with D&D rules (because of classes). And it just gets a completely strange feeling when you put them all into the same party. And it gets far worse when you are a custom character that doesn't care about the tadpole, which turns you to the strange kid at the party that nobody cares about (and they will tell you that).



But it could be just me. I also never liked the comics where superheroes where thrown together... they might be cool on their own, but combined its kinda South Park playing ninja's, just there are 5 Cartmans playing with a new kid (pure hyperbole here from my side).

I personally hate the origins for many of the same reasons everyone else does. The origin characters are usually badly written because they have to play two roles (companions and protagonists), they take away resources from the custom origin which leaves the custom feeling half baked and the origins end up feeling bizarre when they are together. It would be nice to have the option to enlist characters in the world without them being forced to double as protagonists because not only would it grant writers more freedom to create a decent character but you the player won't know so much about them from the start.

What I don't get is the deal with Gale having to consume magic items. How many does he have to consume and what happens if he does or if he doesn't consume x amount of magic items? And what about the sweet Vampire Astarion is he looking to cure himself of vampirism or is he ok with it?

I think the origin characters having such large things is perfectly fine as it makes them quite interesting to me, but I wouldn't mind if further added companions have different levels of stakes or problems tied greater into the main story. I mean, if there is a good variety of companions there could be a good variety on exactly why they stick with this irregular group that has the likes of a Githyanki and a Vampire in its ranks.

The companions are the (besides that you start an epic quest with planar travel and mindflayers at level one? ridducules.) biggest issue i have with the game. Twilight teenage woke feast. Nope not doing that, Gith and SH are on the bench the other 3? not even in the practice squad.