Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General LOVE the update, (except for Karlach)

please, not another haunted past edgelord, we have a lot of those already.

Karlach's story was something I really delved into a lot. I loved it because it was an obscure mystery, and I really wanted to know who was in the right and who is not.

I think she's good and the Tyrites are Zariel Cultists, but I won't go into why.

Bottom line is, I want Karlach as a party member. I'm REALLY hoping we get to have her in the party after the toll house situation if we help her. What I like about her is that she is:

1. A FREAKING DEMON SLAYER. All I can imagine is that she must have been SUPER powerful before the nautiloid tadpoles sucked her powers and put her at level 1. Fighting demons is no joke, and she says she was one of Zariel's champions. Yeah, woman should be tough as nails and then some, and she should be like a She-Hulk muscular lady with tattoos and scars and either bald or a tough looking hairstyle.

2. She SEEMS, at least, to be a no nonsense person. Kiss her butt. She don't care what you think. She'll tell you off and tell you like she sees it.

3. Fearless - well not entirely, but pretty close to fearless. I imagine her getting right up in Lae'zel's face and telling her to go to the Bad Place and Fast and to stop "Nagging like an old person." Or I see her getting up in Minthara's face and being all like, "You don't scare me, $#@$. I've taken down manes scarier than your $#@$."

4. Sincere. Yes, she could be lying and deceiving us, but I don't think she is. I think she's actually one of the most honest people in the game so far. She tells you straight. "I served Zariel. I fought in the Blood War killing demons. I was her champion. I've got crap to take care of in Baldur's Gate, and you don't want to get involved with me. I might put you in danger." Straight forward, blunt and honest.

All I could think of when I was done talking to her was, "Dang! She swears a lot, and is probably one of the most cussing character in the game thus far, but MAN do I like her. I want her as a companion. I feel like I could put her at my back and she'd guard it without me having to worry. I could be wrong and naive, but whatever. Her character, whether truly good or evil, was something I wanted more of in the game - especially since I'm fairly certain we're going to be going up against more fiends in the future. Who would I want to have in my party more than Karlach - THE DEMON SLAYER?

So, I want her in the party, and I want her to look as tough as she seems. Buff, fierce, bad-butt tiefling paladin (assuming paladin) who looks like a bouncer from a bar with tattoos and scars and tough skin and the whole lot. PLEASE don't give us some stereotypical sexy or frilly tough-wannabe tiefling girl who looks like she's trying to act all tough. No. Give me someone who LOOKS like she's faced some seriously evil $#@$ in the Hells.

Really? Why? Honestly this version (with hair) would fit perfectly and she looks incredibly cool.

What's with the sly website link in the above post?

Well spotted, I didn't even noticed. It's been reported. This user has done the same thing three times.

I was gonna say, something's just not right about that post, but I missed it too. Couldn't figure out why it looked different from what I posted, and I didn't look close enough.

Weird.

Thank you; it, and the earlier two posts, have been deleted, along with the account.

Thanks Raze!

I missed all the fun. Let me guess: porn?

Nah, it's a specific kind of bot that scrapes threads and composes facsimile posts that can tangentially look like they're kind of on topic, if you don't look too closely, and which plug an external site - usually either a gambling site, or a stock marked scam site, but occasionally other similar things.

There's been a little bit of a mild infection here, but it's not rampant - just report them when you see them and the mods are usually very quick to clean them up.

Back to OP. All companions are so distinct in their presentation I find it hard to believe that is Karlach 1.0. Both new and old model feel oddly generic and forgettable.

I like the new Karlach. I think it fits very well with her story - although it is clear that Karlach is not a big part of ACT 1 in EA. Maybe she will be in full version? I hope so considering that in the last announcement Larians said that EA will feel new even to players who have played EA for hundred of hours, and I would love it since I have clocked more than 1,100 hrs.

Considering there is a big chance we will visit , I'd say her time will come.

I suppose it depends which things that Larian say we choose to believe.

When Larian talked about wanting the BG3 release to feel fresh, I did wonder exactly how much of what we have played in EA will remain the same at release. DOS2 was criticised for Act 1 of the release being almost identical to EA ( I can't judge as I have not played DOS2 ), so it seems to me they might have heard that criticism and have an intentionally different EA build, at least in some details, if not the overall story elements.

I have wondered particularly about our meeting and intereactions with companions, not all of which seem to make sense to me. Gale popping out of the fast-travel glyph near the Nautiloid crash seems odd, since logically he would need to have accessed some other, more distant glyph to manage that. But likewise, the interaction with Karlach does not seem to allow her as a companion, although we think she will be.

If what Larian said about having to commit to companions by the end of Act 1 is also true, then we should expect ample opportunity to meet, recruit and interact with those companions, but in EA Karlach now runs off to BG on her own, and we don't have more than the 5 companions we have always had.

So will our companion options in Act 1 change markedly at ( or before ) release? Or does our end of Act 1 committment only choose between a subset of companions, with more available to be recruited later?

I can see how with our existing EA companions and the choices available for story progression, we would likely have companions leaving naturally to follow paths we do not choose. To me that would certainly be a better way to "commit" than making some artificial choice at the end of Act 1 as some people seem to be fearing.

Karlach is basically ready, if Larian wanted. By which I mean all it requires is a change to the end of her quest. We can interact with her and deal with the others and Larian just changes the end of it to her joining us instead of saying see you in BG.

That only leaves 1 or 2, depending if cut, expected origin companions left to be added in Act 1. That isn't really much for Larian to squeeze into the map somewhere. That should then be all "real" companion options. They mentioned a mercenary system very early in EA and I believe implied that would be our non-origin companion option.

That's all true, yes. What I was really mulling over is how similar the EA build is to their release build. How much of what we see in EA will actually be changed at release, rather than simply added to?

Generally we have assumed that Larian will just add content, as that is the obvious thing to do. And it doesn;t seem likely that the main story beats will change much, but I think there is scope for the companion interactions to not conform to our expectations.