Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General The companions are good. Change my mind

Astarion gives of Dorian Gray or Vicomte de Valmont vibes. I love it.

I'm liking all the companions so far and I still hoping that alignment is introduced and characters are able to change alignments.

Shadowheart is evil but seems to having a crisis of faith and Wyll is good but is pretty clearly on path to damnation -- every time I let him choose how to resolve an issue he takes the low road.

There are things about the game I want to improve but, so far, the writing is good! (even if it doesn't really feel like BG )

I am too early in the content to judge now but my first impressions are excellent. In fact I can't say what my expectations were exactly only that I hoped I would like them enough to feel involved in their story and that was answered quickly. These are interesting characters with great dialogue. Also, I decided to break from my typical choices for D&D (dwarf cleric, human ranger) and RP as a Lolth Sworn Drow because I can and it seemed interesting. I may regret it later but so far its really cool. This is where the game diverges from past models and it will be interesting how I navigate when most people greet you with pleasantries based around the fact you trying to kill each other. I started very cool on the game but now I am feeling it. I have been avoiding any spoilers and will learn the ropes the hard way coming in a bit blind. It just leaves surprises. I am blown away so far. Count me among the Ya votes on NPCs. Everyone's opinion is valid I suppose but I can't help but wonder what the people complaining wanted or if they were just not paying attention to the conversations. There is a lot of nuance and subtlety which can be lost on people who maybe aren't readers or very literate.

I like them all except Astarion.. but that's only because of my selfishness for just not at all liking companions in games that my character can't be like. If I can't be a vampire then I don't want to run with a vampire... When the game is completed I will never ever have him in my party and will slay him out of spite.

I can't tell yet if they will be "good" on the long run, but I liked some of their starting points and I found most of the complaints about them being bad WAY too hasty, as some of the reasons for it fairly stupid.
Not everyone who doesn't want to suck you off from the first meeting is immediately "human garbage that should die on the spot and doesn't deserve to be called a companion" as some comments suggested.

The companions are all well written, although Shadowheart clearly is the most fleshed out of all of them, she has the most lines and interactions. According to her bio she's on a suicide mission but having a crisis of faith, so I'm guessing depending on our actions we might manage to make her stray from that path. Or she'll try to kill us eventually for it. We'll see.

That said, my main criticism is not that they're all leaning towards evil or neutral but that they're all trying to be edgy. It's like a freak show. It is not a bad thing, but more grounded and down to earth characters are needed to balance and even things out harmoniously.

I'm glad to see there is a nice discussion here, I'm used to the shitstorm of steam. A few more comments-

Astarion is quite awesome. I don't know whether they made him intentionally gay or if they were just trying to create a flamboyant cool dude. Either way he is very cool and I really like him. Still think he is closer to good than evil.

About Shadowheart - I stand by what I said. She might be super choutic evil in disguise, but I highly doubt it. From here on out SPOILERS:

I don't get this repeated nonsense.

Wyll and Gale are the good characters except Wyll sold his soul to the devil.

Lae'zal isnt necessarily evil, she us simply in character for what a githyanki would be like.

Then you have two evil characters, a vampire rogue and evil cleric, except the latter is still mostly nice, just very secretive.

The assumption that every companion should be your bestie right from the start is ridiculous, people sound like they actually want to play as a mindflayer and force everyone to love you and be good.

Lestat, my man, lestat.

Astarion does the Lord Byron underlook.

I like all the companions. I think it was inevitable that there would be a storm of complaints at the beginning. In a month the chatter will have died down. In a few years people will be nostalgic about the companions.

I was so negative to Astarion from promotional material.

A non straight white haired vampire who can walk in sunlight, has a dark backstory AND is an elf!?! What teenage girl fanfic writer thought this guy up?

*Sigh*

Then I met him while playing and he's possibly the sexiest and least pretentious character I've seen in video games outside of the companion cube from portal. My gay heart would die for him. Same thing with "Shadowheart" and Wyll, seemed immature and edgy at first... Turn out to be really deep and believable characters. Big respect and credit to the writers.

Oh! Lae'zel is obviously 10/10.

I think all of these have great potential for a story arc where they turn to a different point of view.

I mean, you are allowed to enjoy characters that come off as an edgy 12 year old's first character if you want :O

I run D&D for middle school kids (or did, pre-covid; sigh) so maybe I'm just used to it

For anyone truly role-playing a good-aligned PC ...

Characters who are a vampire or a Sharan priestess are indisputably evil. There is no possible counterargument. You can try to spin these two characters this way or that, but you cannot escape the fact that they are evil. In the Forgotten Realms setting, there is no such things as a "good" vampire spawn or a "good" priestess of Shar.

Now, it is absolutely possible that their story arc will eventually lead to some form of change or redemption thing. But as the PC, in the present, you don't know that. So, short of meta-gaming, if your PC is good-aligned, there is no way to justify keeping a vampire or a Sharan as your party companions. Your response to this may then be: Okay, so I won't be a good-aligned PC. Fair enough. But for anyone who does want to play "good," and that is exclusively the ONLY way I would ever play, there is no way to spin or justify (if you are going to truly role-play being a good-aligned PC) having those two companions in your party.

Next up, Wyll and the githyanki. These companions may well be neutral or even good (Wyll). But again from a role-playing standpoint, if you are playing a good PC, I don't see how you can have them in your party either. The githyanki character constantly expresses offense at any good actions the PC takes. So at some point there has to be a falling out with her. And Wyll may be "good" all he wants, but he made a pact with a devil and that too for the most superficial of reasons. How can that be justified?

That leaves only Gail as a companion that any good-aligned PC can reasonably and legitimately justify having in their party from among this first group of companions. And that really sucks.

Quite the contrary, WoTC is purposefully moving away from identifying any faction/race/class as indisputably good or evil.
That's why they pressed Larian about not making alignment a thing in the game, to begin with.

Hahaha. Fair :P

But we are not talking about a faction, race or class. We are talking about characters. And 5e does have alignment for characters. And the Forgotten Realms setting does have "good" and "evil" as very real things. Shar is an "evil" deity, for example. There is no question about this.

One fun thing I've noticed about Shadowheart:

Based on what we knew about the companions before the EA I fully expected to hate Astarion and like Wyll. Oh how wrong I was. I ended up absolutely loving Astarion and feeling quite meh about Wyll (I can see how others would like him tho). Shadowheart and Gale were also 10/10 in my books. Lae'zel was doing the gith thing well. My only worry is that some of the more evil companions will end up having a Sebille kind of 180 during their personal storyline instead of remaining their own characters (Shadowheart esspecially), but only time will tell how that's going to go.

As for them feeling like edgy teenagers first characters... I wish my first DnD characters had been this good :'D