Originally Posted by Kr0w93
Originally Posted by kanisatha
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.

I don't really get this. A good-aligned character can still treat the situation as a daunting, but necessary alliance, even if only temporary. Even while they're in your party, the game gives you plenty of room to not be on friendly terms with them.

The only archetype where that would be an issue is the case of a Paladin-type character or something to that extent. Even then, Keldorn would tolerate the likes of Viconia for an extended period of time before the two inevitably came to blows.

I do understand the desire for variance among the playable party members.

This has been addressed several times already, but I'll repeat myself again here. Yes I do agree that the player can be expected, temporarily, to tolerate companions they consider to be unsavory for the sake of one's own survival. But that rationale cannot be used by the game to force a player to play with companions they dislike for the whole game or even for a good chunk of the game. The whole point of a party-based game is to put together a party of companions that you LIKE and whom you ENJOY adventuring with. But because Larian is so very one-dimensional with all of their companion characters (i.e. they are all morally-questionable, unlikable, edgy, flamboyant, and comfortable doing evil things), then if you are a player who wants to very seriously ROLE-PLAY being good-aligned, you don't have a viable party (and NO, generic mercs do not count).