Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General What about Gale multiclass Wizard/Cleric of Mystra?

Morrigan is, at best, a young prodigy trained by an old and powerful mage. I don't see how that makes her herself uber powerful, especially considering how caged and sheltered she was for her whole life, and therefore how most of her knowledge isn't practical in any way.

But anyway, following Morrigan and Alistair, a 6 months Grey Warden recruit, we get a retired bard and assassin (Leliana) who's spent years willfully atrophying her skills in a cloister, and beast of a dude (Sten) who's been starved for weeks by the time we meet him. This is the people we start with and only then, like i said, the experienced companions start to come in.

And thinking about it the game gives you a whole lot of reasons for their not being as powerful as they should be, what with Oghren not having touched a weapon in 2 years, or Shale's birdwatching, or Wynne having literally died. I suppose Zevran's the odd one out, but then again he makes his appearance around the time the party is at around lvl 10/15, so he's not really Gale either.

DA2 follows the same rules, if admittedly a bit more loosely. First companions are a random soldier and your two young siblings, and only after 1 or 2 years (timeskip) you get to meet people like Anders and Isabela (who should still be more powerful that they're portrayed as).

Agreed on Inquisition. That was my original point, really.

Come on man, the Varric comment was obviously not a serious argument. As for a more serious response Varric is clearly written as an author in DAI (and spy master in 2), Morrigan is just a random witch in the forest, Leliana was a spy who is massively out of practice, and neither Zevran or Wynne are recruited anywhere near level 1. Your actual level 1 companions are generally just people in your origin story, apprentice mages, random household guards, that sort of thing. Zevran and Wynne are recruited a fair way in. After the origin, your companions are some prospective recruits who don't live long, including a cutpurse and a random knight.

Inquisition is weird because it never sets a baseline for what level 1 means really, you're pretty strong from the very start. Origins does too generally, all the origins have some training or are already noted as being particularly good in their field, hence them getting recruited.

Assuming we're thinking of the same character, hasn't the egg got some pretty obvious reasons why he doesn't want to be seen as what he really is?

I don't generally mind some scaling down anyway, it's just a matter of degrees there. A level 5~ person being toned down to 2 is not a big deal. A full on archmage or person skilled enough to be recognised on sight due to their exploits in the blood war getting dumpstered that hard feels silly to me, and causes plot issues as an origin.

Lol i was wondering that too. Only argument that i can make mystra toyed with elminster like crazy, even turning him into a woman for awhile..so i guess anything is possible

Well, you guys are arguing about an appropriate backstory to match lvl 1 characters, but I can think of one example of a character, from the original games no less, that also started at a very low lvl despite claiming to be much more powerful than he is. Edwin. Yes, he had an overblown ego and was a humongous narcissist. But he was also a more or less aged red wizard (clearly out of academies back in Thay) who wanted to become a lich (and obviously it backfired everytime he tried), but I can't think of any lvl 2-4 (lvl you actually meet him at) wizard whose life mission is to become a lich. I mean: overachieving much?

But yeah, overall I agree with the general notion that especially Gale and his backstory feel totally out of place. I've complained about it quite a lot as well. Same goes for Karlach too. But Gale is this shining example of a very poorly written lvl 1 character. He seems more like Ammon Jerro to me (NWN2 btw) which you got to meet until much later in the game (end of act 2 no less). I remember Larian mentioned somewhere that they wanted the PC to meet Gale much later in the game... and they decided to include him so early cause 'his story and character are too awesome' well, they should've stuck with their original plan for him. With Karlach at least you meet her early, but she runs off to BG. Really hoping she's gonna stay that way. So when we finally get to recruit her and she scales to our level, judging by all the free exp scattered in act one she's most likely going to be lvl 6-8, what would be a lot more appropriate start for such a character. And as for Minsc.... oooof, wasn't he petrified for a really long time? I don't know how much petrification affects your skill, I guess it doesn't judging by the petrified drow in the Underdark (and Branwen in BG1)...

Please god no. I'm really hoping Karlach's talk right now is just a placeholder. Everything's already screwed up anyway, i don't wanna wait 'til Baldur's Gate to get a companion that doesn't (seem to) need a support group 'cause suddenly stuff needs to make sense.

As for Gale he's too squishy for in all honesty. I leave him at camp. It seems he dies in one or two hits; shadowheart doesn't die that quickly. I replaced Gale with Wyll