Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Astarion Must Be Reworked

Due to the background, something a lot of posters tend to ignore in their arguments, and the set Larian created the presence of Astarion as a Vampire breed, he is a minion in the run far from be a full fledged powerful vampire, the party crashed in a place that immediatly let us now they're in a middle of a conspiracy that involves high level players (like Raphael).

The 10yo reference I'd apply more to how players are criticizing the game ignoring all the backgrounds and all the setting and to how a lot of complains are about the fact that the game dares to ask for something more than the usual "build you characater as a powerhouse" and don't even try to even marginaly remember that role playing means to rely in background stories, setting, flexibility.

Maybe is because the tabletop I played was Vampires The Masquerade in wich to create a powerhouse was quite difficult and the backgrounds had to be solid to be able to merge with the setting, to me the flaws in a lot of arguments are crystal clear. And I wanted to play a Vampire because to play one has a lot of narrative and role playing potential, a vampire is a cursed soul forced in a dead body, someone who can not see the dawn or the sunset, who can not see themselves in a mirror, a being whose humanity and morality are continuosly eroded by the feral insticts. But ehy to want to play a vampire means to be a ten years old [again not so much of arguments here]

There is this post about Astarion not elegible to be a rogue, there are those with the idea that level one characters should be newbies just out of wizardry school or fighting academy or temple or whatever place they used to train, the post about the rangers favoured enemy and how bad was for powerhouse building the fact that the acquired abilities didn't rely on the prefered stats of the class, all have a common trait: in the arguments the personal opinion is clear and open just like the lack of analysis about the backgrounds of the characters, that clearly and solidly and coherently justify the fact that the companions are at level one [a trope that is widely used in rpg, if someone has the chance I suggest to see the campaign, in their youtube chanel, of the group Vive la dirt League], or the set that justify socialites like the companions being involved instead of newbies [seriously: the area surrounding the crash sites has darkdruids plotting, Drows, Bugbears, Trolls, Goblins cohoperating, and entire race moving not in their usual clan way but as a, even if fragile, unified ensemble, and lets not forget that the Drows and Goblins abbandoned their faith to follow a new deity.

Still a lot of comments states that for such a party (a cleric, with erased memories, in a suicide mission on a nautiloid vessel, a fallen and broken wizard, a warlock that regrets his pact with his patron and whose patron has been kidnapped, a vampire minion on the run, a lower rank gith) the crash area is plain and not at their level.

And when the background comes aroun in the arguments there are not critics on incoherences, narratibe weakness, but just plain and flat remarks about them being "contrited" or whatever diminishing adjective is used.

Maybe I'm weird, and, despite being an adult from archeological ages, a ten years old alike, but I do think that the vampire part of Astarion makes him interesting: he is both an arrogant aristocrat high elf with all of due entitlement and a weakling in the run from someone who is really powerful and embraced (sorry Vampires the masquerade slang, I don't know ho the act of creating a new vampire is called in DnD) him to dimish and, maybe, punish him for his twisted and corrupted ways, the fact that he is able to walk in daylight adds layers to the complexity of the conspiration that is evolving in Faerun because is another hint, that sums up with the fact that an Archdruid a powerful Hag an heretic Mindflyer are unable to remove it and to the fact that a powerful demon offers his help, that the culprits are very skilled in netherese magic and probably of very high level.

But that doesn't matter, a conclusion I came because, let me said again, no one has ever really analized the backgrounds and the story.

I wonder how the writers, who are profesionals and not fan fiction writers of archiveofourown, feel when the critics to their work are summed up in affirmations like "why don't put nameofapowerfulbeingoffaerun as companion" [Even when the companios as supposedly powerful they were before the start of this campaign were still far from the peak of the real powerful beings of Faerun]? Or "this is like 10yo, not even written in letters, play rpg" or in posts that don't even try to point out where is the perceived weakness or the fallaciousness of the narrative or the backgrounds.


or how the programmers feel when the critics, a lot of them i dare to say the majority of them, are not about real problems and issues but about feelings of betrayal because the videogame doesn't follow to the lettter this or that edition of rules manual, or because role playing is now more about how you build a powerhouse instead of how to roleplay [the only complains about the dialogues were those that brought down the uniqueness of Shadowheart, because a woman must be gentle and cute because if she is blunt and arsh she is a b*tch, and those, that I fully support, about how blunt are the sexual approaches of the companions].

This game has a big margin of improvement from the narrative point of view (there are incoherences like that of the inability to unmask Kagha after the Goblins/Thiefling questline is resolved, or the line that the main toon says when the mindflier in the crash sites dies, a line good for neutral or evil ones but not for good ones, but there is plenty of these incoherences) but to do that the writers and programmers need real criticism and arguments not just complains based on very personal feelings and that lack of a backbone.