Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Do you guys like Astarion as an NPC?

Okay. So again what's the point here? Are we just sprouting opinions? I like his character. You don't. Changes nothing.

Maybe I am just misunderstanding the post, but why are we even discussing this? Is it just to see how many love or hate him and why?

This is a discussion forum. People like to discuss things, whether or not they are "productive" is irrelevant. I would have thought you of all people would understand that.

If you want to argue that Astarion is Trump-like then I'm not going to contradict you. Quite a lot of similarities, to be honest.

Does he fit FR lore? That's a good question. You've quoted parts of a fan wiki page, but I don't feel you really put that description into perspective before deciding that he's a good fit. I consulted the same page and I can't say that I see any fit at all. Vampire spawn are aggressive, not whiny little "please let me be your poodle" type things. They are arrogant and certain of their own superiority, not puffy snobs.

Sure, if you kick Astarion enough, he'll start blabbering about how he is strong and whatnot, but he'll hardly come off as a strong being, will he? It feels a lot more like some goblin trying to convince himself that he's a bugbear than an actually strong creature explaining to a weakling why the weakling should want to hang out with the strong creature. And isn't that what Astarion should see all others as? Weakling lunchboxes? He even has this line about how the protagonist needs him to be strong. The protagonist needs him? A vampire spawn is arguing that someone else needs him as their minion? How does that work?

The point of this thread? I'm guessing Teclis wanted to rant about Astarion being a bit flamboyant in his behavior, but currently I guess we're all just letting off some steam regarding how he rubs people the wrong way because of what a pathetic character he ultimately is.

What do we hope to accomplish? Aside from just ranting a bit over bad writing, I guess maybe that Larian makes him more coherent and less Twilighty? Make him a bit less over-emotional and more dark? Make him feel a bit more predatorious? Chance of that happening just because we rant a bit is probably roughly 0.001% or so, at a guess. That's infinitely more than the chance of Larian making him less of a worthless douchenozzle if we don't complain about him, isn't it?

Lastly, let's consult our trusty 5E monster manual. When reading that, do you really feel like it totally matches the Astarion we're seeing?

Can you imagine how much cooler it would be if the first time we saw him, he was spider climbing down a wall head first? Or into a room on the ceiling? Or misting in at night down a tree or something. Instead he's just kinda bouncing in place in the middle of the road.

Personally if they're going to do a vampire, we should meet him after he's just drained Aradin and still hovering over the body. Maybe we trap him by the river where it's rushing water and then he makes a plea where the PC can either bind him using some kind of artifact we get from our skeleton pal, or destroy him with weapon we get from our skeleton pal. And if we choose the later, he shouldn't just die but explode into a puddle of ooze or something. Do it proper vampire that way, and I'm in. If the party comes upon him, and they don't have any stakes or silver weapons or holy water, or some equipment to manage vampires, then Astarion should TPK the party and fade to black with him eating the MC. That would be entertaining at least. His personality is a bit ridiculous, but I think they could do more in the set up that might make it better.

I can't tell if this is you being ironic

Though I can agree that they could have really played up the reveal of his vampirism you have to think that at a certain point people will question why the game isn't just about Sasuke

Hehe only half ironic, like I do think anything they do would probably work better if it was happening at night. Cliches being what they are, I almost expected him to sound like the Count on Sesame Street when he first opened his mouth lol

Perfect post.

The point of the thread is to point out how bad the writing is at the moment, which is unfortunate given they did the voice over for 1/3 of the game. Maybe they can correct in the remaining 2/3?

Asking to be removed it's a bit much. And there are some who like him.

For the rest, they can do what I do every time: just sneak behind him (before meeting him, when he is making that "help me" noises), quite easy; since he is just looking towards the river (or whatever water is that) and kill him. That removes him from your game, at least for ep 1.

Then i believe i have good message for you bcs ...

Ah heck. I thought this one was posted in Suggestions and I was trying to figure out what they were suggesting. Sounded like a suggestion to remove or totally change him, which I don't want.

I also think you haven't seen the true Astarion. You all judge so quickly on all these characters. The way I see him, and the little hints I've caught, he's messing with you all. He's making you think he's just some subservient, flamboyant victim.

I could be wrong, but it's only 20% of the game right now. I'm fairly certain Astarion, and all of them, have yet to show their true colors.

In terms of characterization…he is not a vampire (is he??). He is a vampire spawn that has been kept in a basement eating rats for 500 years and only allowed out at his master’s command to lure in victims that he watched being tortured. So if he does not live up to powerful dark beings of the vampires of yore, then I am ok with it. Because he is not a true vampire.

My issue with him is the overblown cheesiness of his character. He is very hammed up and overacted. But still, I find him OK. Less whiny than Shadowheart and not as annoying as Wyll.

He literally threatens the MC in half of his interactions. I'm pretty sure that for most people here, he's pathetic because whenever he acts strong, he does so in a very weak way. And that's mostly on the writing. Just watch how he reacts to being mocked about Cazador.

And on that note, that would have been the perfect occation to give him layers. Make him go very quiet, or make him laugh it off in an extremely stilted way. From such a character, sudden self-control and/or silence are scary/intimidating. The umpteenth cringey speech about how powerful he is, followed by a dramatic strutting off, is just the umpeenth ugh. Like, come on.

I don't know who are you referring to when saying "you all", and I am also not sure how your interpretation of Astarion is so different than anyone else's.

As for my interpretation, I would say he is a victim to some degree. But does it say anything meaningful about him or his actions? Dunno, but I doubt it. I see him as an evil guy that the only logical way one should deal with him is to kill on sight.

You all means, "Everyone that what I said applies to." And that applies to everyone who thinks he is nothing more than a flamboyant idiot.

Again, I could be wrong, but I don't think he's an idiot at all. I think he's pretending to be an idiot to lull you into a false sense of security; writing him off as someone who is not a threat.

Yes, he threatens you on multiple occasions, but he does so mostly in jest... or rather masked in jests. That's my point. He's pretending to be weak and subservient and so forth, but I will certainly bet that he will become quite dark and sinister later in the game.

So, we'll see. I'm just not writing him off yet as only comic relief.

Makes no sense, to be honest. What kind of absolute idiot would be trying to lull anyone into a sense of security by going at them with threats, dagger, and a suck.

I also don't get how he is pretending to be subservient. He is not. He thinks he's hot shit, which he isn't, but somehow the writing expects us to believe it anyhow. That's where the pathetic comes from.

Honestly, what you're describing is Zevran, who's basically Astarion but smoother and more intelligent, not as dumbly flamboyant, and thus much more likeable.

Maybe we're playing a different game. When you first meet Astarion, he comes at you with a knife, but you easily get out of it. He just wanted answers. If he had truly wanted to kill you, he could have. I thought that was kind of the whole point of having the MC get jumped by him. The MC assumes he's just a noble idiot and winds up with a dagger at the throat.

Later, his threats are all in "good fun". He jokes about killing you with a knife, poison, strangulation, etc., but it's all to spark some companion comradery. You can either take offense to it, or joke around with him to share in his sense of humor. It's not serious threats he's sprouting off at you. How often does Astarion try to kill YOU or make threats to YOU? Other than the initial attack, he's always been subservient and friendly to my MCs; ALL of them.

When it comes to sucking your blood, of course he wants you to let him suck your blood. He's never had any people blood, or so he says, and he's starving for it. If you don't let him, it doesn't make him suddenly more of a jerk and he remains in your group. He submissively accepts your decision, just like he does with all of your other choices. He just submits over and over again, going along with whatever you decide unless you decide to attack him or betray him, and he continues to act all friendly no matter how much he disapproves of your decisions.

I don't know. I think he's one of the most powerful origin characters in the party. Use Stealth and cap enemies with Sneak Attack over and over again. He can Stealth just about anywhere at any time. Many times, I couldn't beat the dang Spider Queen without him hiding in shadows and sniping her. So, to me, he isn't weak, he pretends to be subservient, he pretends to be your friend, but over and over again I see "Astarion Disapproves" whenever I do anything nice or good. Unless you are greedy and murderous, he disapproves. So he's obviously ACTING like a flamboyant, weakling who is a slave and needs rescuing from the bad nasty evil Cazador, when really I think he's just using all that pretense to get closer to the MC to mess him/her over in the end... as long as it benefits him.

Heck! i wouldn't be at all surprised if he WAS still working for Cazador. Maybe the whole reason he was captured by mind flayers to begin with and infected was because he was a plant. We have NO idea what villains have their hands in this pot. Raphael, the Absolute, the Dead Three maybe, Shar, Zariel, Lolth, Jergal... all these have been involved already in the EA. Who else might be?

So if we just invent a whole different story than the one presented, then him being a blabbering fool that sounds straight out of a comic book version of Twilight is actually on purpose to lull you into a false sense of security and totally not descriptive of him, and him having a very powerful class is actually him being really powerful as a character even though he's lacking most of the vampire spawn abilities that the monster manual is telling us he ought to have. Right.

I mean, technically we can do this whole "the game presents this, but it could just be a ruse!!" thing with all of the origin characters. We can do this with the entire plot, even. Up can be sideways, and down can be off somewhere to the right. I don't mind your story, and I definitely prefer it to what we have, but it isn't actually in the game yet and it might never be.

But if Larian decides to actually make him more vampire spawny and less of a lame squid on dry land then I reckon it would fix his issues for most of us. If they do. If they don't, if they just keep going down the track we're seeing, then that would make him a vampiric teenage-version of Volo that we're somehow meant to take seriously.

Also, isn't Shadowheart just as stealthy as Astarion? She doesn't get backstab and cunning actions but that hurt and hide tactic is her bread and butter too, if necessary.

To be fair, you are also building an entire scaffolding of judgement and character assessment here all on your own with virtually nothing to support it and a lot to detract from it... so saying others judge quickly is a bit rich, when it seems like you've already made up your mind about who each of the characters are, and decided, quite firmly, that several of them are not what they seem while others are - all based largely on a personal preference and a fiction you've built around them that isn't reflected in the game in any tangible way.


He's not a threat. Any one of my halflings can go toe to toe with him and kill him stone dead, and he doesn't reveal any special mystical super vamp-strength to save his own existence, he just dies. He is simply weak, just like the rest of us are at this stage.


No, he couldn't, because on several occasions he was goaded into trying, and he failed, spectacularly, to his own swift and forgettable demise.



Some do, some don't. Some catch him in the act of trying to surprise you, because, at the end of the day, for all his effort to do so, he's not really very good at it, at all... you just have a chance (a less than 50% chance, usually) of being worse at noticing things, than he is at hiding them, and usually you're odds-on for being better than him here.



His attitude towards you changes quite substantially depending on how you treat him and how you act, much like the others. In most of my games, for example, he doesn't really act friendly towards me at all, and instead talks like he feels very put upon just interacting with me.


He's a rogue, and no more or less powerful than any other level 1 rogue. He has nothing at all over any other level 1 rogue, who can also stealth just about anywhere, and pop sneak attack most turns just like he can. None of this is about Astarion, it's just about the rogue class. Nothing to see here.



Chaotic and bloodthirsty, I'd say... and he never pretends to be otherwise. This isn't an indication that he's secretly powerful, just that he's chaotic and bloodthirsty. This also has nothing to do with his fashion sense, his flamboyance or anything else.

OK. I'm seriously wondering if we're all playing the same game. What part of what I said is me making anything up and telling my own story? How do I have no foundation or basis?

Let's state the facts found in the game?



And there are more. The point is, many of you are judging these characters too soon. The game's only about 20% done. Wait to see what their true stories are. THAT was all I was trying to say. I"m not "building an entire scaffolding of judgement and character assessment here all on your own with virtually nothing to support it and a lot to detract from it." This is also not "all based largely on a personal preference and a fiction you've built around them that isn't reflected in the game in any tangible way." It's fan theory. I'm not saying I think I'm totally right. I even said I could be wrong. I'm not thinking that I've guessed every aspect of every character in the game.

I'm just saying that many so quick to assume Astarion is some lame, flamboyant character with no good story and he's just some Twilight wannabe good only for memes. It's only 20% of the game! Your take is that he's just weak and lame. My take is something totally different. All you can see is that he's dumb. I'm trying to get people to maybe, just maybe, consider the possibility - possibility mind you - that Astarion and ALL the origin characters are maybe just a bit more than what you think they are.


So I ask you, if all that is true, why would Astarion just be some level 1 rogue weakling with no real vampire spawn traits to speak of?
I mean, why would a vampire or vampire spawn ever want to make people think that they are baby weaklings who aren't a threat? Why would they ever pretend to be friendly and witty and just go with the flow? Even IF Astarion really is just a vampire spawn and he's just trying to escape Cazador, why wouldn't he still want to convince people that he's not a threat to them at all? If he hardly uses his teeth and other vampire spawn abilities, wouldn't they naturally begin to think less of him; like he's not a threat? And if he concocts some story about being torture by Cazador and forced to eat rats, wouldn't that only add to the illusion he's potentially creating to lull his companions into a false sense of security?

I mean, think about it. He's got you all fooled into thinking he's just some idiot flamboyant moron. If he was real, I wonder what he'd do with you all if you walked alone with him at night... or even during the day. I'm fairly certain you'd all write him off as nobody dangerous, and you'd find out real quick he is holding back.

But again, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe my fan theories are totally off base. Maybe Larian did just create an idiot comic relief character with no real depth or personality. Maybe he IS just a meme and he won't amount to anything. If that's true, then yes. I'd be VERY disappointed. However, I think you're all kidding yourselves if you think that's going to happen. Look at the pics. The man has blood trailing from his lips with a wicked smile on his face. He might retain his flamboyance. Who knows? But I wouldn't be at all surprised if he was someone WAY more special than he appears to be in EA... just like all the origin characters... just like how YOU, the MC, are obviously far more than you appear to be in the EA.

Well there's nothing wrong with judging the character based on what has been shown and discussing what has been shown. Because if we just assume everyone is not who they seem and everything they do or say is just a facade, then we players wouldn't have much to talk about, would we? And I'd understand if people find it hard to expect from Larian the kind of character nuance and complexity you're talking about @GM4Him.