True, but I believe he's been heavily nerfed for the sole reason: if he retained all his vamp spawn powers, maybe even progressed further into full blown vampire, he'd be easily the most overpowered of companions. Something along the lines of Sarevok in BG2. Those random one shots (well, not really one shots, but his deathbringer assault had 10% chance to deal 200 dmg, so, pretty much a one shot). Basically, Astarion would fill in all the roles - tank (high AC + health regen), damage (necrotic bite + rogue sneak attacks) and a spell caster (if you pick arcane trickster subclass), sure, he's not as good of a caster as full blown wizard or warlock, but who cares when he's one man invincible army?
Sarevok's Deathbringer assault actually had 3% change to kick in for 200 dmg, and 10% chance to stun the target, but for some reason for me at least it always felt more frequent. Probably because of his crazy stats or maybe because I always gave him boots of speed and a vorpal sword at the start so if it wasn't one effect it was another.
True, they had to keep him in line with his fellow victims of the nerf bat - the ex-Chosen of Mystra, the not-so-legendary monster hunter, etc. - but in the process they've almost turned being a vampire into something cosmetic, which is... odd. If we do get a chance to make our PCs vampires eventually, will it be mostly a roleplay thing? If Astarion gets upgraded to "true vampire," will he just get another [tag] added to his list and nothing else?
To be honest I'm hoping Gale is not Chosen of Mystra or ex-Chosen... that kind of goes against established lore and he should be way more powerful than he is. As for Astarion I don't know if I want him to be a full-blown vampire who will be damaged by healing spells. I like Divinity Original Sin 2 a lot, and similarities are good, but that would be way too much like Fane.
