Good summary.

Originally Posted by GM4Him
And if Astarion dies, SOMEthing different should happen instead of a pool of blood forming around him. He's a vampire spawn. Yes, he's weird because of the tadpole, but it should be something different. I mean, during dialogues, he makes comments like, "I'd like to see you try," when you mention something about killing him. Um... If he can bleed out and die like everyone else, he shouldn't be acting all like he's a vampire spawn still. I don't know. He just doesn't make sense. It's like no one's really sure if he's a vampire spawn or a person. Is he alive or dead? He can bleed out, but he has no reflection, but he has fangs and needs to drink blood, but he can only do so once in a day now, and he can't spider climb, but he can enter places unwelcomed, but he burns when walking through running water, but he doesn't burn up in the sun... It just doesn't add up at all. When his HP is reduced to 0, maybe he should NOT bleed out and instead he starts sizzling and turning into a vapor, as if he's burning up in the sun. SOMEthing to say, "Astarion isn't like everyone else." I mean, Gale has some death cloud around him, so why shouldn't Astarion be different from everyone else?
This is the problem when someone says "hey, wouldn't it be cool to have a vampire character?!" and then they just jump to add one because vampires are so cool. Even if there's no night time in the game and they don't want to deal with the significant gameplay implications. And the story of the game isn't about vampires at all. They don't explain why a Mindflayer tadpole, a living biological creature, would ever enter a dead body with no sustenance or be able to transform dead tissue. They then use the same tadpole as a weak excuse to ignore the vampire traits that are inconvenient for gameplay. Just stapled on vampire that doesn't belong. And what happens? Vampires are no longer cool.

You can't have everything without sacrificing the quality and integrity of writing. A vampire PC belongs in game where there is a) night time and gameplay mechanical consequences for being one and b) a story that revolves much more heavily around vampires instead of something completely unrelated.

The voice actor is great, but the character is really weak. It's a shame his talent is wasted on such a haphazardly put together character that doesn't really add up.