Of the five, here's my take. As an overview, I don't like the trend of D&D and gaming culture shifting further and further into extremes, edgelords, and characters with whom it is impossible to identify. I like grounded characters, and in Forgotten Realms, I really like grounded characters moreso. Now I'm aware that ever since 3rd edition (and Pathfinder really did a lot of damage here), there has been a steady march into characters that resemble MMO's moreso than Tolkien inspired fantasy. That isn't the end of the world, as long as there is moderation. For every Drizzt, you need a dozen grounded characters of the classical races. So on and so forth. That's just my opinion of course, and I am well aware of how many people disagree with me.
I totally agree with your statement. 100% Even though I never played Pathfinder, it's been on my possible games to play in the future list.
Now it's time to interject some of my opinions on the entire cast we got in EA.
Lae'zel - she's an overzealous githyanki,
what a unique concept (mind the sarcasm please). Really reminds me of all the githyanki that I've fought in NWN2. Still, she's like
golw stated a decent representation of a githyanki, nothing more or less. I still don't really like her, but it has to do with me pretty much always playing lawful good, chaotic good at worst. Let's just say that Lae is absolutely incompatible with do-gooders. She will bitch, she will moan, and she will hate you. I swear, if she wasn't the only fighter available, she would've gotten sent to the camp immediately. At the end of EA, my relationship with her was at 'moderate' and it was neutral the entire time up until her personal quest completion.
Basically, you meet her people, let her talk to them and she'll like that.
Shadowheart - I've got little experience with her, mostly because I played a cleric myself (so she got yeeted off to the camp), but my 2nd playthrough is gonna be dedicated to learning about the companions I haven't taken with me the first time around. But her being a priestess of Shar already puts me off, not gonna lie, cause again, nothing against her as a character, but I'm pretty sure a priestess of Shar is rather incompatible with do-gooders, although, from my first playthrough I noticed that she approves of a lot of actions normally considered to be good, so I dunno. Shall see. She's at least not as blood thirsty as Lae'zel.
Wyll - another character I yeeted off to the camp upon meeting him, but from what I've seen from his conversations, he seems a nice enough chap, deffo a hero-wannabe with a dark secret. I think on my 2nd playthrough I will end up being besties with him, cause he and Gale seem to be the most decent of the lot.
Gale - now there is a character I like, quite a lot really, basically a much nicer Edwin.
I do like it a lot that he actually learns from his mistakes, you can really tell that his entire ordeal with the netherese timebomb that killed Mystryl had changed him a lot, like I imagine his younger self to have been much more cocky, selfish and power-hungry pos like Edwin, but yeah our experiences are what makes us - well, us after all, glad to see at least one character who chose the 'higher-road' so to speak.
And at last, my personal favorite - Astarion. I know, I know, he's a vamp spawn, therefore he should be evil. With the emphasis on
should be. He technically should be absolutely incompatible with good characters, right? Well, kinda. Totally depends how you handle him. I said it before and I will say it again - he really, really reminds me of Gann from NWN2, MotB (I do hope that there are some of you that played that game, that expansion is real good, 10/10 in my books), another seemingly selfish self-obsessed pretty boy and also he reminds me of Haer'Dalis a little bit as well, the entire shtick of 'living in the now', now what do Gann and Haer'Dalis have in common? They're both chaotic neutral. So, personally, I'm not really sure where I would place Astarion, cause he's not really as evil as I thought he was gonna be, I would peg him as chaotic neutral and maybe chaotic evil, totally depending on how you handle him. And I thought he would absolutely disapprove of everything my good cleric did, but surprisingly, if you just let him be himself, without calling him a monster and try to understand where he's coming from, he's quite endearing. There were quite a lot of things any good character would do that he approved of. Took me quite by surprise. Of course, I still don't see how a good aligned cleric would get along with Astarion, well, being a vampire and good clerics having sworn to destroy the undead, but then again, I generally play clerics very rarely, so I guess I haven't roleplayed my cleric correctly when it came to Astarion, not that I care, I was quite curious... for future playthroughs of course. My fav classes are sadly unavailable right now - sorcerer and bard. But also, like
golw I don't quite understand why Larian chose to make him an elf. like he displays 0 elfiness in the entire EA. None. He might just as well have been a human or a half-elf and nothing would change.
Also, where da hell do y'all get the notion that Astarion is gay? Cause of the way he dresses? His overall demeanor of being a shameless flirt?
Is it because Cazador comes to him in his dreams if you choose to abuse the tadpole powers? If y'all had been in his shoes, you would've most likely dreamed about your vampiric masters too and destroying them in various ways, just saying.
Like I said, he's not the first 'pretty boy' character in D&D lore, like hell there are examples of 'selfish pricks' who care about their looks all over the place, who also happen to be into women. Should I remind y'all of Anomen (aka Annoyman) from BG2? Do we really need to revisit that nightmare?
Sorry to break y'alls bubbles, but all the companions of BG3 are kinda gay, kinda straight, they're all bi. Do I wish Larian took a page off of Bioware and made some characters strictly gay, straight or bi? Helm yes. Would there have been a massive outcry of 'why can't I romance x? this game sucks'? Helm... yes, sadly... so I understand why they did it the way they did.
But I agree with the overall notion that we do indeed more companions and good aligned ones with some shades of gray thrown in for good measure (which I bet will come with more classes added). Now imagine the cluster-f*** of a scenario where you get a paladin companion and keep Astarion around... *cue evil laughter* now that would be something to see.
