Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Romance options?

There's nothing wrong with having a healthy appreciation of a particularly fat mushroom, after all...

Asterion: I prefer Spore Whor…

Shadowhart: Enough!

Wyl: I guess we gave to rename the Smush Room the Mush Room?

Gale: I tip my *cap* to you for that one.

Shadowhart: Uggg….

This is perfect companion peanut gallery banter, and I want more of it in my game.

I was *this* close to post all the terrible things I'd do to the first person who'd bring up a goblin when I first saw this thread :P

Jokes aside, I like the saucy bet girl.

Humm are there Half-goblins in 5e? My hafling is looking mighty hard at Sazza!

BoEF is the only source you'll find talking about that, really <.< >.>

Halflings are generally considered fairly 'stable' (they don't breed out of species easily) - it may be feasible with dwarves, but generally not elsewise, unless the other side of the equation is particularly fecund. ...which, it must be said, the orcish (including goblins) types are generally considered to be. So, you'd probably be flipping a coin.


Though in the realms, generally speaking, divine assistance to make couples that wouldn't normally produce anything actually do so, is not terribly unusual. Not common, but not unheard of either.

Daddy Halsin!!!

Casual Sex, Romances are boring. Romances doesnt sound like Larian at all. In Witcher, you wanted to score. Bioware is more romantic imho. Larian should build their reputation around "quickies". Bethesda with Skyrim doesnt like sex, real weirdos.

Good for you! If you want casual sex without romance then Astarion is going to be a great companion for you. And Lae'zel. :]

I firmly believe that not including both "friends/strangers with benefits" and "love and romance" would be a error in a CRPG that is determined to include any sort of sexual interaction. Some people want sexual interaction for fun - no emotions needed, and some want romance - no sex necessarily needed. Both are fine, and including enough companions to cover both types instead of having all companions belonging to the same category should be easy enough. Sticking to just one personality is going to alienate the population that is looking for the other option, which means a more narrow audience = less money for the game developer.


I take it you did not play DoS2.



Witcher is not Larian's creation, so not sure why you brought that up as an example. Besides, 95% of the book fans and a decent share of the games-only community would disagree. I find few things as entertaining as reading the "Yen vs. Triss - who is the best wifu?"-threads. There is at the very least as many people looking for romance as there are people being like "idc, I just want to see tits."

Theres tons of Fantasy games out there, you want to be different. Thats why I brought up Witcher. It may not matter to you, but branding is important. Larian could be Champion of Quickie.

Right now romance is great ...
We would just need more different approaches ... the scales seems to be a little too overweighted on one side.

The only thing that could improve them would be allowing us to continue in it after predetermined moment (and outside other predetermined moments in the future). :-/

- I would like to have option to ask for repetition the next night, just as we can with Morigan in Dragon Age: Origin every time we enter our camp, while we allready are couple ... no cinematic needed, just the dialogue option that will say something like "Lets jump in your tent for a while." and then darkscreen.
- I would like to have option to kiss my partner anytime we talk ... i would also want some companion dislike this option, refuse to kiss us and give us disaproovement.
- And i would like to see our companion move his bedroll next to our, if we are couple. :P
- I would also like the other party members to see, and acnowledge we are couple and coment that, while we are roaming the world.
And last but certainly not least!
- I would like to have option to broke with my partner, or him (or her) canceling our relationship if his or hers appreciation will drop below certain point ... but this should be ireversible.

Triss is best, no contest (as long as we're talking the vidyas)

Also the Witcher 2 & 3 were definitely about romance rather than casual sex. Witcher 1 might be another deal with it's immature card collection thing.

Glad you listed Nettie, Apikusis, and Kagha.

I only play most CRPGs as an Elf or Half Elf (except Elder Scrolls games), but even in their barely developed present forms, all 3 characters could be among the most interesting companions, friends, or romances in the game.

Unfortunately many players missed the polite and respectful dialog choices with Nettie, and ended with the heavy handed and manipulative storyline where she attempts to poison the PC. If ceremorphosis was really as agonizing as well dangerous to other humanoids as it is repeatedly and unsubtly presented in the game, a quick death by poisoning would be the most merciful and socially responsible choice, particularly since Nettie (with the correct dialog choices) tempers her actions by asking the player to take an oath to commit suicide if and ONLY if conventional symptoms develop. She trusts an honest and responsible PC to keep their word and remember how ceremophosis endangers others. She also knows from her own research with Halsin that the player may not turn at all, or may turn differently from what happens in conventional cerrmorphosis.This is in complete contrast to Astarion's furiously emotion driven, reactive, hedonistic self centeredness and a much improved but still reflexively mistrustful and secretive Shadowheart's indifference to most others. In real life, I'm a long time wildlife rehabber working mainly with birds, so I felt an immediate bond with Nettie.

Apikusis ("the girl with the bird") was apparently put in to indicate that some of the Emerald Grove's druids opposed Kagha and were aware and fearful of her questionable affiliations, but too many players gulped down the relentlessly positive presentation of the Tieflngs (their mostly thieving, lying, amoral children, and parasitic/predatory behavior towards the Druids who sheltered and fed them was overlooked by the hordes of players who raged against the 'racist' druids who included Dwarves, Gnomes, Half Elves, Elves, Halflings, and Humans, while the Tielings varied only between Asmodeus and Mephistopheles Tielfings). Although I would like to see her as a romance prospect and potential spouse for my High Elf Druid, given how badly the Shadowheart, Astarion, and Minthara (kill those obnoxious apparently celibate tree huggers so you can have one session of sex with a hot Drow!) 'romances' are written, an ambitious modder could do a far better job. Oh, she also looks far better with any of several Half Elf head replacer mods!

Kagha is basically an almost one dimensional plot device to enrage players against the Druids as compared to the oh so virtuous and "Human" Tieflings. She has fierce, harsh, angular facial features, but I still found her far more attractive than bland featured Shadowheart, and Minthara. She quite accurately presents the generally harsh and merciless realities of "nature", which bear little resemblance to the cutsey anthropomorphism of most of the Grove's birds and mammals, or even the more malevolent and physically inaccurate anthropomorphism of Teela the viper. Her Shadow Druid "Rite of Thorns" goals make no sense from an agricultural or ecological perspective; a Grove encased by briars would be too densely shaded, dry and poorly ventilated to produce crops to sustain both humanoid and other animal inhabitants, and this would be true even in the absence of such a barrier. It is NOT possible with medieval technology to feed the Grove's inhabitants on such a small plot of land even in the absence of overarching briars. But ALL versions of D&D, and this often very good game, seem to have been written by ecological illiterates! Are we to assume that the Grove's Druids sustain themselves and a group of non productive parasitic, thieving Tiefling "guests" by conjuring food, or by divine largess from Silvanus himself?

The Jaheira romance in BG2, though completely non intuitive from a procedural perspective, was the best romance in the game, and one of the few good romances (as opposed to usual "say what your hottie wants to hear and do what they want you to do to raise their approval meter so they have sex with you" excuses for romances in CRPGs). Kagha and even the less complex Apikusis and Nettie could but probably won't be the subjects of a similarly good romance subplot.