Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Please make Halsin a companion

Totally agreed, there's a lot of kinks that need to be worked out. I have never been able to trigger the required scenes for Gail or Wyll to progress their romances, despite having very high approval and bringing them along everywhere. And I've played through 3 times!

I would love for their to be more dialogue options/chances to interact. When I played DA:O for the first time my mind was blown by how immersive the conversations were. The sheer amount of flirting you could do with Alistair, for example, was incredible. Few games have lived up to that--even other Bioware games that came after. It would be nice if, with increased approval, additional dialogue options came available where you get to learn more about the characters.

Tbh, I wish they would re-evaluate the party segment. I feel like it works decently as a starting point, but that starting point should look different depending on the character. Currently only Shadowheart's is different. I get Astarion and Lae'zel wanting to get down at that point but for the others it seems like there should be more of something there first. If it's presented as the first chance to trigger a romance, Halsin could feasibly be included--you could choose to have a drink with him and do some light flirting. Nothing more would really be needed than that and it would be a great way to show the possibility of a blossoming romance.

Well, I personally don't particularly care for Halsin romance honestly, I wouldn't mind it, given that Minthara is romancable on the other side of the spectrum, so it would only be fair to have one of the 'good guys' leaders romancable too.

I wouldn't mind for either Minthara or Halsin becoming a party member either, again, if you get one, you should get the other, but then again, I don't see many ways Larian could write that in. I'm sure there are some ways to do it right, so it would make sense though. If Halsin was a possible party member, I know I would ditch Shadowheart in his favor, since druids are decent at healing. And 9 dex Shadowheart just sucks if you ask me. I wonder who was the genius at Larian who thought to themselves - ''yo guys, you know what? let's design a priestess of Shar, make her a trickery domain and give her 9 dex for laughs!'' just the same way some genius at Bioware dualed Anomen into a cleric with 12 wis, meanwhile Gorion's ward needs 17 wis to dual into a cleric if I remember correctly.

I'll bet that Shadowheart will also have some sort of quest/revelation that will increase her base stats like Anomen's knighthood thing. Nevertheless, I don't really care for Halsin romance much if you guys haven't caught that from my original post in this topic, but if there was a poll with options:
Halsin or Minsc, I would so vote for Halsin. I think my stance on Minsc romance is quite clear.

Anyhow, from our current companions I, uh, may have a minor obsession with Astarion. I'm quite surprised at myself really. I still want the new 'unleash the animal' line gone. Well, my obsession with vampires goes quite deep though, ever since Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series, Interview with the Vampire movie, Legacy of Kain video games (I do adore Raziel, Kain is a dick), hell, I don't even mind the Vampire Diaries TV series, True Blood is also good, I hate Twilight though. Let's say, Astarion could be (and is) a total douche and I would still be drooling. Larian got me with that one, I have to admit that. Well, in my opinion, Astarion's writing is so good he could almost pass for a Bioware NPC, and that's saying something. I still hope that there is some way for a good aligned PC to redeem the vamp boy, be it some literal vampirism reversal magic (err, something like resurrection, I believe high lvl priests can learn some rituals that could do the trick) or him killing Cazador and turning the PC into a vamp and living a happy ever after (yeah, right, I know, not gonna happen, but a girl can dream right?).

Also, guys, with the popularity of Game of Thrones I'm 10000000% certain there will be some nasty plot twists in store for us. Which is why I originally said I think Halsin might die, but who knows? Call me paranoid.

That's fair. I will admit that part of my desire for Halsin to be romanceable is some preemptive salt over Astarion. Thing is, I adore Astarion. I'm hoping for a best case scenario where he turns out to be a similar to Morrigan's romance in DA:O. She also disapproved of helping the needy but a good character could become her best friend (and her first friend--it's really touching) and a male player could have a really meaningful relationship with her, changing her pessimistic view of love. But Larian is obsessed with offering "realistic, mature relationships" which seems to translate to non-monogamous and poly relationships. We know this is the case for Lae'zel and I'm ready for heartbreak when Astarion turns out to be the same. I can't seem to bring myself to be interested in Gale or Wyll. Currently, I'm more interested in Shadowheart than either of those two. But, I want a good relationship with one of the male characters too.

Also, yes, vampires are hot but I'm more of a buffy or Castlevania type person. I think I was too old when Twilight came out but I don't dig the concept. I have a hard on for Dracula. So I 100% agree with you.

But, I still want a Halsin romance. Even if he doesn't become a party member. Cullen was a good romance in DA:I and he wasn't a party member.

GOT standards = everybody dies; everybody sucks D:>

Yes, I'm also getting Morrigan vibes from Astarion, I gotta say it's one of the reasons I like him so much, since Morrigan's writing is superb. But like you said, I do hope that Lae'zel is gonna remain the only flower hopping frog of a romance. Just like yourself, I also fear possible betrayal from Astarion, but who knows? Maybe he might stay loyal or betray us if we really piss him off. Like sleeping with Gale after having slept with Astarion. Yes, it's possible. Gale is one sneaky mofo, if you had chosen a flirty dialogue with him during the weave scene but slept with someone else, during Gale's little bedtime story, he, uh, might proposition a sexy time. You can either accept or deny, at which point he'll comment that your chosen LI is a lucky person.

Oh and to those of you who haven't unlocked Gale's special romance-resulting scenes, I finally, with some good research done on reddit, figured it out and successfully triggered the weave scene.
Step one: always watch his approval, he has scenes scripted at every approval lvl.
Step two: once at moderate approval, long rest until you find him with an exclamation mark, try using the waypoint, port around and rest, I noticed that resting in the wilderness seems to trigger his artifact eating convo at moderate approval much faster.
Step three: feel free to kill him, trigger his projection, solve his true resurrection scroll thing, you get extra approval from that + it triggers some extra dialogue at camp
Step four: at high approval move around in the grove/port around and long rest a crapload, high approval = weave scene time
Step five: at this point you can progress the story to Raphael, get approval to very high and start resting, where ever, it tends to trigger more at the druid's grove, you get a 'loss scene' where Gale says that he lost connection to Mystra, but doesn't explain it fully

With Gale, as of now, it's imperative to watch his approval, cause it's so damn easy to please him and go from moderate to exceptional real quick, since these stupid scenes don't stack, they don't queue up, so if you skip them, that's it, they're gone. It's stupid and Larian really needs to change it and add such approval bound conversations to ALL companions, not just Gale. Shadowheart couldn't care less to be at neutral than she does at exceptional, same goes for Wyll. And my baby Astarion would ask: what is approval? Never heard of it.

Nice--thanks for putting that together. How on earth is he the most romanced character when you have to through all that to trigger it?? Some dedicated or lucky people. I'm surprised he would tempt you to cheat, but I suppose that early in the game he assumes you can't be serious about anybody. But, seriously Gail, way to stir up some intercamp drama.

I'm at least hoping we get the option with Astarion. Zevran, for example, seemed to be open to bringing others into the relationship but also seemed to respect the player's boundaries if they weren't into to that. (You could have a four-way with him, Isabella, and Leliana. So, I guess Leliana was open too.) I'd be fine with that--as long as we get the option for an exclusive relationship. Then everyone wins. Polies can have their poly. Monies can have their monogamy. I feel like the game only really needs one character that's fully non-monogamous. And we know the romanceable females will have good options since Shadowheart is already there and the other two unconfirmed ladies are supposed to be the "good" aligned options.

Astarion at least has some promising moments so far. He has a few moments of vulnerability that make me think he'll have a good redemption arc. *crosses fingers*

Good question, I was also asking myself that very same question. I think a lot of people were resting like madmen all the time, chatting up companions and had it happen by accident? I dunno. But yeah, when Gale proposed I cheat on Astarion my jaw dropped and my opinion of him plummeted down. No sir, I don't swing that way.




Oh yes, I remember that foursome scene with Zevran. I romanced him only once, all other times I went for Alistair (btw hardened Alistair could be persuaded to a threesome with Isabella lol), what again makes me surprised that I love Astarion so much, since um, most of the characters I romanced in most games were the paladin types, lawful goodish, and then there is the outlier - our vamp boy Astarion, then again, you can only romance Annoyman (Anomen from BG2, I like calling him Annoyman ) so many times without getting seriously pissed at yourself. If only Haer'Dalis was romancable... speaking of which he has the same voice actor as Raziel from Legacy of Kain.

I remember in DA2 I had serious issues with love interests. One is a brooding moody elf, another is a mass bombing murderer, one is a pirating hoe and the last one is innocent wannabe blood mage, like wot? But in the end I had one run with Fenris and the other one with Anders.. and in DAI, I went with Solas, but by the end I wished he was Cullen lol. I still dislike that game though, and Solas has nothing to do with it. I just hate all these retcons and this MMOish structure of quest design.

And with Astarion I love how disappointed he sounds when you tell him you just want to have some fun, rather than saying yes to losing yourself in him. Like there is definitely nuance in his writing and I love it. I just wish he had approval bound scenes like Gale (honestly that counts for all companions), since so far he has nothing, and as a goodie-two-shoes I managed to get to exceptional approval with him somehow, while resting a crapload. Went with more fun/chaotic good options while trying my best to help everyone on the way that could be helped. He seems to be slightly more agreeable than Morrigan. Plus all those other moments of vulnerability... ahh. Like I said, his writing is really good.

I romanced everyone in DA:O once. (It's probably my most replayed game of all time.) I think I force myself to forget that a hardened Alistair goes along with it too. I was a little disgusted tbh lol. I never cared for pirate hoe even in her first appearance. Was disappointed she was a main character in DA2 but DA2 was my least favorite overall. Partially because I didn't care for the romance options. Anders was retconned into oblivion from Awakening and all the characters were kind of... awful. Hopefully this game doesn't go that route. I personally loved DA:I but I usually find the complaints against it valid. But the characters were such a huge step up from 2. I only ever played BG1 so I didn't get to experience the BG2 romances. (Really wish I had. Not sure why I never played it given how much I loved the first and DA:O) ANYWAY. I romanced Alistair 99% of the time and wound up with a husband with a very similar sense of humor. (no regrets)

The thing about Astarion is that I KNOW he's lying to me and he knows I know he's lying to me. He's good at persuasion and I think he enjoys the dance of seduction. Saying you're just in it for fun takes some of the fun out it for him, I think. Ofc, I definitely hope it means more. But yeah, having approval tied dialogue would be awesome. I just want more opportunities to develop the pc's relationship with him. I feel like there also needs to be more options to flirt with him. Also, why don't we get approval gains from him when we choose the flirt options? He seems like the kind of person who would get an approval boost if you flirt with him. As it is, it seems pretty easy to get his approval up playing a neutral or chaotic good character.

The moments of vulnerability give me the most hope. When he drops the facade of being all charm and shows that he's terrified and wounded. Especially when he gets the Cazador dream. You get an approval boost from him when you try to connect but he throws up those barriers so fast--he's afraid to let anyone close but the approval makes me think that he wants to. I feel like gaining his trust could be very rewarding. Just, pleeeeease Larian... don't make him a one note slut.

Oh, my husband not only has very similar sense of humor to Alistair's but he also looks a lot like him too! One of my best friends whom I kinda got to play DAO was shocked when she saw my husband, err, before we were married of course! So, a fedora hat tip to your impeccable taste in men my friend.

Anyhow, I don't think Astarion actually lied as much as he omitted telling the truth. It's not really a lie if you don't really talk or mention stuff you should have probably come clean about, but then again, Astarion is, in essence a very damaged and scared elf deep down. And oh, on both my full EA runs I went out of my way to not use tadpole powers, so sadly I had no dreams trigger... but a while ago I reloaded older saves out of curiosity and triggered them all in a row, I still don't understand why the 'good' path is not giving you any dreams, Larian, please fix, let tadpolers keep their dreams and give power deniers another ones. BG1 did it, a 20 yr old game, so can you, no excuses.

Now the reason why in fully released game I won't use the tadpole either it's been pretty much implied, if you succumb to corruption, you might doom yourself and those close to you. And I swear, I'm gonna be real pissed if tadpole deniers will get the exact same endings as full blown tadpolers. It's gonna be ME3 3 colored endings all over again. I really hope Larian will deliver on the promise of actions having consequences. On that note, if there will be tangible consequences, I might go on a super evil mind control run too. Out of sheer curiosity of course. Speaking of curiosity runs, I once, uh, let Loghain live and my god watching Alistair's reaction literally broke my heart. Who knew a bunch of pixels could make a grown woman cry.

Back to Astarion - well, he didn't lie about his master tho, I don't know if you've seen the modded origin character access, people basically can use a mod and pick an origin to play as, and my god, I've watched Astarion's Cazador scenes on youtube, as heartbreaking as Alistair's reaction to Loghain becoming a gray warden. Cazador is literally a grade A douchebag, oh, and apparently, there is a scene when Astarion wants to bite you that requires detect thoughts spell (what isn't properly implemented yet in EA) that you can make him spill the whole info on only being allowed to feed on animals until the point he's gotten a tadpole in his head. And apparently, after you cast detect thoughts on him in the entire Cazador talking scene in the camp after having these tadpole wet dreams, he has some extra lines of dialogue, but again, I'm not sure if it's implemented yet or not. But overall, Astarion hasn't lied about Cazador being a monster, I am still curious as to why he dreams about him, of all the things one could dream about. And yes, I know he has a very hostile reaction if you ask him why Cazador.

Edit: As per usual, I'm fixing my own typos. Ah, OCD is so fun.

+1 for making Halsin a companion. I like his class, personality, and character design. He is good at combat, so it seems strange to have him just sitting at camp and not able to be in your party. Maybe they are considering making him a companion since they upgraded his appearance?

I usually play good or neutral characters, so Astarion is too evil for them. He is still an interesting character, though.

I saw that Gale proposition too, and personally I didn't really consider it cheating at the time since Astarion's romance seemed to me, at that point, to be a one-night stand. Same with Lae'zel, and Shadowheart tells you that your kiss was a mistake, so I wouldn't feel bad for going with Gale after that lmao. I could see it being douchey with Wyll, since his romance scene seems more emotional rather than physical (it's buggy af so I haven't been able to trigger it myself, but someone on youtube was able to).

But I definitely understand how players would feel invested already having made their choice at the party (and thus Gale looking kinda shady for suggesting something like that), and now that I think about it, I can also imagine that Astarion could be more than a fling sort of romance. I think the fact that he actually opens up a lot (provided you pass those persuasion checks) and is willing to show himself vulnerable despite his general care-free attitude, might point to this?

Not only that, but he also seems to put a lot of trust in you to watch his back (ex. with the monster hunter). Lae'zel doesn't have anything like this as far as I've seen, and is very open with her "no-love-just-pleasure" attitude. I'd have thought that a similar post-sex scene would have come up with Astarion where this is clarified, had Larian intended to make him more of a fling? Now that I think about it, he's the only one who doesn't have a "about last night" kind of dialogue; with Lae'zel, it happens in the cutscene after you wake up together, with Shadowheart and Gale there's an option to talk about it once the party is over. Astarion gets changed voice lines, but no option to discuss what the night meant going forward, which is curious. Again, don't know about Wyll, since I haven't been able to trigger it.

As for Halsin, I agree that he's already shown promise as a character and I'd love for him to be a party member. He'd probably be a sweet romance option too, and I can't wrap my head around a Minsc romance to begin with. I love Minsc, but with his extreme views on good and evil, I have a hard time seeing how he'd be able to navigate something as complex as love and relationships. I'd also rather just have new party members than any old ones, especially since he in particular already got to be in two games and there's a lot of other interesting characters that could get room in the party if Minsc was left out, imo I hope they'll at least add some more party dialogue for Halsin and that he doesn't just stand there shouting at an empty cage for the reminder of his stay in the camp

Edit: I also wonder why they'd change Halsin's appearance and age if it wasn't for some sort of purpose? Maybe it was just a simple "nah let's make him young and buff for the sake of it" decision, but I wonder if that's all there is to it

Edit 2: There actually is one Astarion-related approval scene, but like Gale's it's sort of difficult to trigger. You need to use your illithid powers only once the first chance you get, get his approval to medium/high very early on, and NOT talk to Zorru with Lae'zel in the party until his approval is around medium. After having spoken to Zorru with Lae'zel, there should be a scene with him looking at the stars. Usually the tadpole dreams replace this scene I think, which is why using it only once is important.

I think we will need a romance megathread and maybe open a club or cult if we continue

I don't think that Minthara romance is a good reason for Halsin, but he could potentially fit the role to romance at a party if he gets drunk/emotional about Kagha. At least I could see that making sense.
This honestly makes me feel bad for the lack of "good" female companions to romance, none of them will make the guys feel like Astarion
RE: Shadowheart, they just used the base cleric stats basically, believe it's the same for all the companions, but with her it's extra inconvenient and quite unfortunate.

I was also thinking more about redemption ark for Astarion, if romanced. Even a cure of vampirism tbh, because I feel it would be more consistent with the lore - unless you are going to live out your days in dark with him, it might not be a happy ending without the tadpole. Hard to know how much we will be able to sway him from being master vampire; maybe he will backstab you no matter what, and you'd really be better of turning him to hunter first time you meet him. His origin story and the opening seems to be quite fun from his narration, so I will likely playthrough as him at some point.

RE: "unleash the animal line" - also not a fan. I am not sure in the intention is to make us not want to choose it, because he doesn't want it at that point, or because that would somehow make his character more evil or controlling.
I think the voice over dialogue would need to change because I sure as hell want some bitey business going if he literally says "You want to be tasted."
There is some double signals going on, but iirc he says something along the lines "This is not about hunger but about passion..." if you tell him you will smite him with your holy power if he "tastes you".

RE: Astarion approval gain; I actually though it would make sense, if we could get approval from feeding on the MC so I did it for science . Of course if didn't work. It could be a dialogue option in camp for all I care, I will sleep it off anyways. He really doesn't need to feed on nasty gnolls, am I right?

RE: Astarion & Cazador and lying. We can only really theoretize about that at this point. Personally I think that Astarion is definitely not lying how much of a monster Cazador is. I think he might be lying either about his involvement with him or how much of a monster he wants to be. How much he wants the control he was not allowed for so long. I think he is hiding something.


@Nicottia;; As long as you have minor obsession for Astarion you are good.
I honestly thought I'd do one playthrough of BG3 when I bought it. I knew that we could have a vampire companion and loading screen promptly reminded me, as I was creating my first MC.
With my past interests with vampires everywhere I knew I'd want to have him on full-release in almost every part and thought I might sour the experience with bug and all that...
I had a lackluster 1st gameplay, learning the ropes, but after about 10 hours I created another character:
Male drow fighter, promptly stole Lae'Zel's armor and went on to siding with Minthara with other choices I considered "evil", I guess. I took Astarion, ShadowHeart and Gale with me. I honestly felt bad for Gale and thought he'd rather turn into mindflayer at some point, than be with my party. Astarion in the meantime happily approves of my choices and enjoys the occassional genocide. Anyways... the day of the exquisite carnage comes, I get backstabbed by Minthara because I question her and try to find any sense in her, as she is seemingly unaware of the freaking tadpole in her head. I get salty, but this damn elf has been stealing my heart and on I go to create another character, to finally romance him.
The character writting is good of course, but what brings it to amazing level is his voice acting is top notch.

He makes my legs spaghetti; and he is the reason BG3 has single-handedly gotten me through these past few weeks as my looming job-loss came.
I propably owe Larian a small thank-you letter for that one and I am sure my husband would have his thanks to say as well ;D

Ha I suppose we might as well start "Ladies of Faerun" guild right now

I'm actually having a hard time picking between Gale and Astarion - it's why I hooked my Wizard HE up with Gale and Seldarine drow Ranger with Astarion (even made her a "dream Astarion" as I was already using Alana's mod).

To ne however Astarion seems to be at least heavily influenced by Zevran. Love the sarcasm though.

Gale is actually pretty amazing once you manage to get all those scenes (I made a project out of it, deciding not to move on until I get it) so from what I've seen so far I think Larian deserves some praise in that regard.

Of course I miss some additional banters and flirts - yes exactly the way it's done in DAO (I had really hard time deciding between Zevran and Allistair too - usually hooked humans with Allistair and non-humans with Zevran). Hope we don't get the "one cutscene per chapter + one before final fight" approach.

Still I really wouldn't mind some Halsin - I'm willing to trade him for Minsc and Wyll (who does nothing for me)

Oh and here's Astarion's dream from "Play as Astarion" mod - heavy spoiler obviously https://youtu.be/D5U7cWMyz3I

Halsin would be my top pick by far. Otherwise, it would be between Gale and Wyll. I haven't done any romances yet (will probably wait for the full release), but in general Gale and Wyll seem a bit similar. They both boast (Wyll more so), and they both have problematic relationships with women.

I can't really see a Minsc romance for my playthrough(s).

Still hoping for a Halsin romance, though.

That scene is not approval bound, I always speak with Zorru the first chance I get, and that scene always triggers, regardless of approval, the only prerequisite for it speaking with Zorru, don't need to use illithid powers (like I mentioned many times, I go out of my way to not use them - unless I'm testing something). But there is also little fun extra line if you trigger that scene AFTER Astarion's grand vampire reveal. What I don't understand is, why we don't get any approval with him during the stargazing, I mean, if can heavily flirt with him for crying out loud, he normally enjoys any flirts, so how come there is no approval? Another thing for Larian to fix. So, like I said, as of now, Astarion has NO APPROVAL bound conversation's whatsoever, which is sad. His stuff is usually triggered by events...



I don't really see why Halsin would be emotional about Kahga, unless they had a bang I wasn't aware of.

And yeah, dudes have it real bad as of now: a choice between a nymphomaniac or an edgy girl who seems to regret the kiss afterwards. I mean, tough luck.



True, they should've tweaked every companion... still, the most hilarious offender is Astarion. 9 INT. And there I thought he was smarter than that.

Speaking of which, I do want to experiment one day and make him an arcane trickster... thing is, he would need to wear that INT circlet 24/7, and on a lady, it's a fashion statement, on a guy though... it looks kinda ridiculous. Even as gorgeous of a guy as Astarion.



Just some genius at Larian decided to replace the 'bare your neck inviting him' to... the monstrosity of 'unleash the animal', interestingly it still functions as the neck line... I am still hoping it'll get reverted. And 'it's not about hunger' line also appears if you play any other class capable of incinerating him, so wizards, warlocks, clerics (indeed) - and in the future I'm certain sorcerers will have that line and druids. Astarion's answer to that line is always the same though, regardless of class.

Couple of days ago I even made a whole forum topic about it, that change is triggering my OCD so badly, for it doesn't belong there.



You mean using the 'vampire's bite' special ability of his on yourself? Yeah, I tried that too. All it does is make your character 'bloodless' (applies some stupid penalties). I mean, it makes sense tho, you get approval with him via your actions and dialogue choices.



Oh, Astarion is definitely hiding something, but I wouldn't call him a liar for it, he's just not really forthcoming with information, just like some of the other companions... *cough* Shadowheart *cough* Wyll *cough*. The only 2 ridiculously honest ones are: Gale, altho it takes him a while to get there, and Lae'zel - she wants to become a dragon rider. That is all she wants. Oh, and creeeeeche.





My first run was with a seldarine drow female cleric of Eilistraee, and of course I did romance Astarion on that run... although... for a 'good aligned cleric' it makes little to no sense to romance an undead creature... so my roleplaying skills were shit that day.

My 2nd full run was with a high elven female wizard, I was curious if Astarion's lines would change at all for her being a high elf and a noble, but nope. 0 recognition aside from them both being baldurians... Larian, please fix, make backgrounds matter!

On my 3rd run I tried a warlock, but I haven't finished that one... I may have gotten a nasty case of rerollitis (it's what I call constantly creating new characters and deleting them later). Honestly? I am waiting for sorcerer to be implemented. I absolutely love that class. Oh speaking of warlocks, I was shocked when I found that Astarion does recognize you being a warlock for once, after Raphael's little visit, he confronts with something along the lines of 'you are a warlock, you know the importance of making a bad deal'. Makes me wonder how come he doesn't recognize a goddamn cleric on spot. Especially considering clerics have turn undead, heals (which technically should damage undead creatures like... errr.. vampires maybe?). I blame his 9INT.

Long story short, I haven't romanced another character but Astarion in BG3. Send help.

And yes, Astarion's voice actor is amazing. And sorry you lost your job. ;(



+1 to starting a massive romance thread, or even better, Ladies of Faerun guild.

And oh, I generally make my 'dream' dudes look as close to Astarion as possible, I wish I could make an exact replica, but eh, gotta wait for full release before installing any mods honestly, cause I cba constantly refreshing mods, redownloading them if a patch/hotfix makes them unplayable. Too much hassle.

I don't know if you played NWN2 Mask of Betrayer, but Astarion is indeed somewhat influenced by Zevran, without a doubt, but also by Gannayev of Dreams (yes his full name is freaking ridiculous) who's a ''handsome'' hagspawn. Add some Haer'dalis to the mix, sprinkle some Spike (from Buffy) and you've got yourself Astarion. At least that's my opinion.

And yes, that's the vid I was talking about.

And oooh, speaking of Wyll's romance. I have not been able to trigger that one at all. So far my reddit scouring has pointed to the fact that his 'approval' dialogues are buggy and don't always trigger. If I find some reliable way to get them working (like with Gale) I will share it. And ye, I've seen that one YT vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHOSGhC8Efo even that person doesn't really know how it happened lol.

PS: I'm sorry for all these quotes and massive post. I just had to compartmentalize all I wanted to say and reply to.

Halsin is a beefcake, interested to see what more of his personality comes out in the rest of the game before putting him in probably gonna try in a playthrough category. If it's just " I must right my mistakes in the shadowlands" might remind me too much of how I beat myself up for things at times.

Judging by what the datamined files say... there was no reason to and make Halsin this good-looking (and younger) if he wasnt planned for something more than just hanging around your camp. I'd say he looks like a potential romance. But I might be grossly wrong.
As someone who grew up on old Baldur's Gate, I hope they don't touch

So yeah +10 to Halsin romance, he is perfect.




YES! Lets do the Ladies of Faerun guild, I am totally up for that.
Heh, Gann is one of my top favorite romances out there - awesome character, the entire expansion was amazing and really gave me the Baldur's Gate feeling. I don't really see many similarities between Gann and Astarion though, aside from being self-absorbed... but maybe I haven't gotten far enough...

I went ahead and made a Romances of Faerun thread in General Discussions if anyone wants to continue the discussion there: https://forums.larian.com//ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=724755&#Post724755 (I figured Astarion doesn't discriminate by gender so neither will I) Alternatively, if you guys are interested we could make a discord.

Anyway, yeah. I feel like Larian would have known people were going to find Halsin attractive. And he just seems like a nice guy! He has his baggage like everyone does but he seems like he would add some nice contrast against the other characters we already have. I'd probably still prefer Astarion, but say, if Halsin does become a romance and you can have something long term and stable with him and that isn't an option for Astarion, I'd probably go Halsin.

Ofc, Vamp boy is sexy as hell and that *voice* gets me.

@ Nicottia
When I said Astarion lies, I wasn't referring to his references to Cazador. That's been confirmed to be true and, even before then, his remarks about him always seemed genuine. What I mean is there seems to be a level of deception regarding how he treats the PC. Most of the time he's charming and uses language that's more familiar than your actual relationship level. Most likely, to me, he wants to endear himself to the PC because he views PC as a useful ally. So, for example, after the camp romance, he uses very forward endearments (My love, lover, etc.). The deception is that I don't believe he feels that strongly for the PC (yet, at least) but he doesn't want to alienate the PC/wants to keep them close for their usefulness/so that PC is less likely to betray him. He may also be used to speaking people that way to lure them to Cazador. In essence, I think he's using his Astarion wiles on the player (and it works).

I think this could go in a really interesting direction though if/when he begins developing real feelings for the player.





I would like Halsin if he wasn't a beefcake. But... I do appreciate a good cake. But yeah, I very much hope we get to know him better.

I don't really romance male characters but I was close with Gale lol.
I like his story telling a lot and he's very charismatic.

I almost want to go through with the Astarion romance subplot too just because of the writing and his voice actor.

I can see myself romancing everyone except Lae'zel at least once.

The romances, at least so far, all seem interesting enough that I'd like to see how they play out. I really hope that we get friendship paths though. Sometimes the friendships in games can be almost as good as the romances. Morrigan and Cassandra are still some of my favorite ladies in games, even though I never romanced Cassandra. I romanced Morrigan once or twice but I really enjoyed her friendship.

Since Larian implements a lot of references to DOS:2 (ship tutorial, overall story, the way we meet our companions, party lock in act II) i personally see Halsin as a resemblance of Garreth.
I would love to have him as a party member and love his design, but i think he will stay as close friend to the party who chills at your camp - even though he develops an interesting story like Garreth did.

I mean..Halsin(Garreth) is the kind and friendly leader of the Druids Cave (Seekers), you save him from Goblins (Magistern) and bring him back to his people, he joins your camp (ship) crew, has a close friend who was
tempted to the dark - shadow curse guy (jonathan in dos 2).

Thats no criticism though, i do love both characters