Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Shadowheart's Armor Revisited Again

So, SH has a Chain Shirt to start that clearly reads it "is decorated with an obsidian disk that seems to swallow all light."

I want to bring back up that she screams Shar. Yet, we have no ability to even do a Religion check to see if our character recognizes the symbolism, nor do we have the ability to question her about it. This still really bugs me. We NEED a Religion check when we meet her to determine whether we know she's a Sharran cleric or not. She's wearing an obsidian Sharran holy symbol on her forehead and her armor swallows all light. It's weird that we don't have this ability to call her out.

I mean, we also technically should be able to determine that Astarion is a vampire. Not just because he's pale with red eyes (could be a albinos or something), but the fangs and bite mark on the neck are quite obvious 😅 (also, it's in the synopsis somewhere, not a spoiler).

However, I understand why they don't do it. They are telling their story.
It's not ideal, but I'm ready to suspend my disbelief over the lack of common sense on this one, because "video game".

If they find a way to allow a religion check (SH) or insight/arcane(?) check (Astarion), that would be nice of course !
I just can imagine that it wouldn't be that simple. I hope I'm wrong, of course

At least we get to learn about their "secret" fairly early on in Act 1, before reaching the Goblin Camp, by simply traveling toward the middle of the map.

If this was pnp, that would be a bit more annoying, to me.

Imagine if Astarion knew disguise self and stayed disguised until you reveal he is a vampire.

I like it!

And while we’re throwing shade on our companions’ not-so-secret secrets, you’d think any character with any skill in Arcana would notice that Wyll is making use of powers that typically come with Warlocks.


Agreed, I too am okay to suspend disbelief for the sake of the story though certainly wouldn’t object to steps that make things a little less obvious, like changing Shadowheart’s armour.

That or Disguise kit but yeah, that would be interesting!

Haha, true! "Oh, look at that man throwing Eldritch blast/Arms of Hadar! What a perfect hero 🥰!"

To be fair, she was on a mission for Shar, make sense to me that she is wearing the apparel.
But, they could indeed tune it down a bit. Every bits of her armour screams "I WORSHIP SHAR!" 😅

edit : Seriously, I've watched Wyll annihilate a bunch of goblins with "Arms of Hadar" when defending Aradin and co. I was aghast, that looked so...wrong to me 😭

So if a Paladin kills the Shar witch, do they become an OathBreaker?

My Cleric of Selune didn't have to worry about such nonsense.


Religion check makes sense BTW.

A mission so secret that she has had to have her memory wiped to avoid giving things away if she’s caught, but it’s fine for everyone with a passing knowledge of holy symbols to realise it’s for Shar It is possible, but also I can see why folk might think the armour is an obvious misdirection and it wasn’t a Sharran mission at all

Fair. fair.

Yup. An obvious example of yet another way in which this game is ridiculous and its writers lame. No justifications or suspensions of belief are possible here. It's just poor quality game-building which nobody in this forum would tolerate in any other high-profile big-budget RPG. But of course Larian gets a pass on it.

A) That's some needlessly judgmental and condescending assumption about fellow forum members. Again, to you (because I've seen you making this type of judgments before), different perspective on things doesn't mean we support 100% everything Larian does or that we would treat any other company differently. I have no allegiance to Larian. What is considered acceptable or not depends from one person to another.
B) That's overlooking the nuances brought by the replies of this threads.
That's all I'll say on that.

Haha, classic kanisatha move here.

Yes. Absolutely, they should provide checks to determine if your character recognizes certain things. With Astarion, an Arcana check to determine whether you recognize the telltale signs of vampirism. For Shadowheart, Religion to tell whether she's Sharran. When you see a symbol of Mystra, a Religion/Arcana check to determine that it is her symbol. For people who don't know the symbols or the lore, especially, this is vital.

I will tell you quite honestly that I didn't really know Mystra's symbol when I was playing this game. Yes. I am a fan of Forgotten Realms, but I never really paid much attention to symbols for deities previously. When playing through the entire Arcane Tower, I had no idea that it was Mystra's symbol all over the dang place. Later, when I realized it, I thought to myself, "Holy crap! That's a whole new level of the mystery of the tower that I never realized. If they had let me know via a check that it was Mystra's symbol, during ANY of my playthroughs, that would have made a huge difference in my experience."

So it makes sense if my character makes a check and fails and then later is totally surprised that Astarion is a vampire, or same with Shadowheart and her being a cleric of Shar. Even if I, the player, know these things, my character might or might not depending on the check. That's the whole point of the checks, and it's why you waste your skill choices on such skills. If you want to know lore, you pick Arcana and Religion as skills so that when you encounter things like Shadowheart and her telltale armor or Astarion and his telltale vampirism, you can spot it and recognize it for what it is.

How cool would it be, too, if you called Shadowheart on her armor, and she made up a story about how she got her armor - a lie to hide her Sharran roots? Or how cool would it be to have to make an insight roll to see if she's lying right then and there. You might not even call her on it, but at least your character would know and not later be totally caught off guard by it.

It just absolutely doesn't make sense that we ignore these things, like our characters are totally idiots who know nothing about the world they live in.

To add to this, they already do some of this in the game. Example: Jergal. You see the statue of Jergal and your characters roll to see if you recognize the statue and know who he is. All I'm saying is that we need MORE of this for obviously, glaringly in your face things like Shadowheart's armor.

And don't give me, "It'd take way too many permutations and deviations in script to do this." Nope. Check made. Success. "You recognize the symbols as that of Shar, Goddess of Darkness and Forgetfulness." Lore item added to your Compendium providing details about Shar.

Single new option provided. "Are you a Sharran?"

Shadowheart responds. "No. I found this armor in an old temple." Insight check. Failure means nothing else happens. Success means, "You can tell she's lying."

Options: 1. Call her on it. 2. Let it go (ends dialogue path).

If you call her on it, she gets indignant. "Fine. Yes. I'm a Sharran. Is that going to end our relationship?" You decide whether it is yes or no. Situation ended. Not thousands of dialogue paths or permutations. And, if you DO know she's a Sharran, none of the "OMG, you're a Sharran," dialogues occur later. You just skip them. If your character doesn't know, they occur.

Yes Astarion and Shadowheart are poorly presented in this regard. Their "secrets" are far too obvious. I don't understand why folks over at Larian don't care, because this is cringe.

Also, it's very unclear what worshipping Shar actually means. What's the rep? Murderers, kidnappers, criminals? How bad is she? The player gets no reference during that "reveal", or otherwise. Gale just goes "Blimey" and no one cares at all.

A vampire's need for blood is also greatly downplayed, and even turned into a joke when Astarion becomes "happy" after using "vampire bite". This really is some children's version of a vampire tale, and it rubs me the wrong way.

About SH's armor mechanically. It gets replaced almost instantly with the first Scale Mail you find. Why have cool custom armor if it's inferior mechanically? The Sharran Mail that looks heavier you find later also has stats that suck compared to what you already have. Why not even equal so it could be a stylistic choice?

The player can ask SH at camp after the reveal about Shar worship and she explains what it means to worship shar in great detail.


Honestly, if you mean downplayed gameplay-wise, then I don't really want another Gale in my party putting some restricting action but with bloodlust instead of weave-lust. They went with the option that blood makes him stronger (the buff is very good) but he can live without humanoid blood by feeding on animals during the night. There are actually two scenes when we get to witness him hunting in the night, letting us know that it is a habit and a need of his. So story-wise it is not downplayed in the slightest.


I've noticed you put some emphasis on childishness/adultness and realism in your post, so lets look at this from the realistic standpoint. In the real world, there was no universal chainmail design present, there were more ceremonial variants and more practical. So think of it as just a cool design. From the gameplay standpoint it would be logical to make a starting armor not very powerful, thus I support the beforementioned idea of replacing her chainmail with a generic one.


There is at least some degree of cringe to it, agreed. There is a possibility that these would be the surprise changes they've prepared for release. I wouldn't mind them at all tbh.

Edit: by the way, isn't it a realistic thing that vampire that is accustomed to eating rats and small animals feels happy about drinking some good ol tasty human blood?

I can only agree with that.


And back to topic:

In general, I am also okay to suspend disbelief for the sake of the story, but I wouldn't mind some small changes to make the secrets a bit more convincing.

Shadowheart

I'd like that, that sounds like a very good idea, if this is her final armour design

Personally, I would have preferred if her armour would be a little less reminiscent of Shar's religious symbols.
To be fair, if this has not changed, Shar's symbol is a black disk with a purple border - very close to Shadowheart's armour design, but not exactly the same. But due to the heavy use of onyx, her armour and circlet make me think immediately of Shar, too. The symbol on her chest looks a bit similar to that of Lathander, so maybe the Sharrans at least tried to make it a little bit less obvious


Astarion
I think he should really try to hide the bite marks a little bit better If the ruffles of his shirt would be just a little bit higher, we would not notice them. Before being abducted, he would have been most likely in Baldur's Gate to ... bring someone home for dinner for Cazador, and I don't think he would have been very successful if his victims would notice bite marks on his neck, no matter how charming he would be.
The fact that he is quite pale and has red eyes would not be suspicious to me, I think albinism could also exist in the Forgotten Realms, and my Tav with the "Moon 1" skintone is paler than he is. The fangs may not be that obvious when he talks, but they can be noticed, so all in all, I would like it if our Tav could make a check.
(By the way, does anybody know if vampires in D&D can eat normal food? If not, this would also be a bit suspicious)

Warlocks

I think so, too.

This whole topic is really a non-issue for non-Forgotten Realms fans. Most of those players, I imagine, will be like, "Who's Shar?" And as they play and learn who she is, they may then start to get that bad feeling about Shadowheart. For them, it's more of a Holy Crap moment as they start to learn just how evil Shar is. For that audience, the game is just perfect as is.

It's us FR fans that suffer. If they don't fix it, though, I'll live. I'll just accept that my MC, no matter who they are, has simply never had much Shar experience. They fail the check every time, rolling a 1.

If by not having a check they create more BG fans, then so be it. Though it's still very weird if you are a cleric of Selune.

Shadowheart: I do actually sort of wish that Shadowheart started with a more generic set of armor. As has been said, she's supposed to be on a secret mission, but is literally wearing a symbol of her faith on her chest. A symbol that you see in the Grymforge temple of Shar in many places. Noticeably slapped on the front of the Dark Justiciar armor. You would think that clerics of gods like Selune, Lathander, and of course Shar would have some familiarity with that symbol. It does seem a bit funny her sect would go to the trouble of erasing her memories, but not giving her a different outfit when he current one literally screams "I worship Shar!"
Also while unique looking, her starting armor is crap anyway. Why give a character a cool unique look when the player replaces it ASAP? I think it would be better if she started in more generic cleric garb and instead you get a quest to unlock her unique armor look if you quest with her in the temple of Shar/Grymforge (after you know her secret). There is a piece of dark justiciar armor you can loot. Ideally Larian could create a small cutscene where you give it to her or she recognizes and takes it.

Astarion: It actually kind of makes sense to me you don't recognize him as a vampire spawn right away even if you had some familiarity with the creatures. The tadpole changes all the rules for Vampirism. Kind of hard to accuse a dude of being a vampire when you first meet him under a very bright sun. He then has no problem crossing water or entering homes uninvited. Even if there are some vampire flags I feel like the oddities would give enough cover to throw suspicion for a little bit.

Wyll: Actually if you play as a warlock when you first meet Wyll and briefly meld minds (seeing Mizora) you can make some special comments about it being his patron. Warlocks can also comment on his eye being a sending stone. Though Wyll dodges these and doesn't really engage.

Also side note, I know clerics of Selune and Shar get special dialogue with Shadowheart, but do Lathander clerics? The morning lord and the night mistress don't exactly like each other. I'm also curious if Clerics of Lathander get any special interactions with the Lethander worshipper trapped in the amulet in Grymforge. He was one of the more recent god additions (patch 8 I think) so it wouldn't surprise me if there weren't any though there should be.

Here's a thought. SH is purposely dressed like a Sharran cleric because the Sharrans who did it WANT people to know she's a Sharran... maybe she's actually a Selunite Chosen One who they captured and messed with.

Regardless, if that's true, even moreso it makes sense to allow people the chance to recognize her as Sharran and decide whether they want to jump the gun and kill her.

You are right, since he is able to do all these things everyone knows a vampire is not able to - first and foremost walking around in broad daylight- our characters would not really have a valid reason to be suspicious. He might look like a vampire, but he cannot be one, since he has no problem with the very bright sun.

Taking this into consideration, I think his secret would be a secret for our character, and we wouldn't really need a check. Unless we see that he has no reflection in a mirror

The only thing that bothers me a bit is the visibility of his bite marks. He must have been abducted at night, and in a world where vampires exist, I think he would have tried to hide these scars.
(I have to two chickenpox scars with the appropriate space between them near my collarbone, but in a world where vampires do not exist, I should be safe )