I was under the impression that the tadpoles wrecked their abilities. Or they had RP reasons to be sucking. Lae'el is just a straight up simpleton and charlatan afraid to be a lone and without guidance. She's a classic little sibling rude, spoilt, relies too much on her older siblings or "kin" and is also a nationalist grunt. Shadowheart failed her goddess and was punished for it all AD&D Style. Gale has an orb inside him that eats magic. No wonder he can't use his full powers he's lucky he can even cast. Wyll patron got kidnapped which weakened his pact. astarion is just a malnourished vampire spawn who had to take three levels in rogue to hide his powers that he doesn't understand anymore because the tadpole changed them. There's no saying you weren't accomplished before the tadpole.
