Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General What Companion don't you Trust?

for me its Lae'zel reasons being

1.she tried to kill me
2.ungratful after i saved her (she ends up dying 90% of the time due to her "join me or die"
3.maybe i dont like any gith
4.ive lost my train of thought
5.there is just no pleasing her shes like Carth in KOTOR (EAITHER YOU WANT ME TO TAKE THE CREDITS OR NOT CARTH YOU CANT HAVE IT BOTH WAYS!)
6.she tries to off you and everyone and herself

upon release ill have her in my party and then make her mad along with Wyll and Astarion.... but what about you who dont you trust?

idk why i did it in a list

Can I say I don't trust anyone?

The one I don't Trust® though is Wyll. I don't buy his 'heroic' and kind-hearted persona, not while he is so ready to Yikes.

EDIT:
Spiolered what Wyll does, maybe not everyone saw it

Funny ...

To me, Lae'zel is the only one i thrust.

Shadowheart is not thrustworthy ... she refuses to answer any of my question, yet demand from me to tell her everything (i dont really appreciate this "what is your is mine, what is mine is none of your business" attitude), she keeps secrets from me, and trying to manipulate me ... big nope.

Astarion is cocky, narcistic, sociopath ... that alone talk for itself ...

Gale is trying hard to seem thrustworthy ... oddly enough, he is trying so hard, so i dont really believe him ... i sense there is something behind that facade, something very, very bad ... but maybe its just my paranoya.

Wyll is a fraud, and i really hope so hard the game will proove in time that he actualy didnt do any of his heroic deeds ... but even if it wouldnt be that way, even if he would indeed be the hero they say ... he is rotten to the core, and i have not even single doubt that he would kill us on spot, if our presence would somehow "made his name dirty".

But Lae'zel?
Well ... she is perfectly honest with us, rather than say things we want to hear as Gale does ... she allways speak her mind, rather than hide things from us as Shadowheart does ... its true that she would kill us on spot, if her supperiours would give the order, but there would be no emotions, just doing her job, it wouldnt be personal, and at least she wouldnt do that "just for the fun of it" as i can imagine Astarion would.

Lae'zel is loayal (not to us tho ), brutally honest, direct and dont do compromises ...
Those are values i can thrust.

Here's hoping it's not like DOS2 where there's a bunch of flags on the characters which indicate that you might have trouble working with them... none of which ultimately matter (unless you are evil, a handful of things matter).

All of them atm would cut your throat in a sec if it ment they could get ahead… 🥁

My don't-trust ranking:
1. Gale, not a sincere type, it's not him been evil, it's him not trusting others, who knows what else condition he has?
2. Shadowheart, one sorry soul who doesn't even know her own past;
3. Astarion, he is only trustworthy if you and him sharing the same goal;
4. Wyll, hypocritical yet daring, even was blind by vengeance, still kind of predictable;
5. Lae'zel, probably an exile of her kind, has strong discipline which makes her reliable.

None of them are to be trusted. And none of them are likeable either. I don't want any of them in my party, and yet am forced to take them along to have a party.

At the beginning they're all quite set on their own agendas, making them companions of convenience only. Not much trust there. Later on as cracks begin showing in their missions and more shared experiences, trust builds.

Lae'zel suffers from minion delusion, her society built on a lie that the artefact could expose, and her cure is probably just decapitation, hidden from trainees so they dutifully report themselves. As this all reveals itself, she'll probably have to concede and switch to relying on Tav's efforts. She brushed off Kith'rak's words as disloyal, so she'll probably need to see she's 100% a tool before she becomes reliable.

Shadowheart is Faerun's worst secret agent. Maybe she was elite before tadpolling, but I don't think so. Her value is probably whatever suppressed memory than any secret agent skill. With a bit of dogged persuasion she spills basically everything she knows, which is little more than minion need-to-know stuff. Even this recover memories is suspect, I'm not sure which spell below level 9 Miracle or Wish could undo it - and why would such a powerful cleric restore some minion?

I "trust" the most Shadowheart and Laez - and by trust I mean I don't think they deceive PC. Shadowheart seems more lost than anything, and Laez sends to be pretty straight forward.

Gale and Wyll are fake, hiding selfish motivation belieth a venieer of friendlyness.

Astarion is just a ticking bomb.

None of them make for reliable companions though.

I'm wary of all the current companions, although part of that is not feeling that I really know them yet. I would, however, like to have at least a couple better-aligned characters that I could trust to have my back (so long as the PC doesn't do anything to earn their distrust).

I do not entirely trust Gale. I don't think that he is "evil", I believe him when he approves of "good" actions.
But I think there is also a different side to him, very ambitious, overconfident and secretive.

I think that he is hiding a bit more than just his "magical bomb problem" behind his very friendly and (seemingly) trustworthy facade. Like RagnarokCzD, I think that Gale is trying very hard -or too hard- to seem trustworthy, beginning with his introduction.

The fact that he was a child prodigy, and even had a relationship with the goddess of magic herself maybe went to his head a bit: He is very confident (or overconfident) in his skills and intelligence, and this might lead to him making bad decisions (and has already led to bad decisions in his past). Maybe he does not do it in bad faith, but because he thinks he knows best. He might not betray us intentionally, but accidentally.

One situation where his overconfidence was quite obvious for me is the scene with Raphael, when Gale is the only one who would not immediately decline his offer, because he thinks he can outsmart him (trying to beat a (half-)devil at his own game is...daring).

I also think that Gale maybe does not tell us all about his goals.

And last, but not least: although he is not really sure about his relationship status with Mystra, this does not keep him from flirting with Shadowheart when we first meet him or later with our Tav.
Sorry Gale, you are charming, but my Tavs don't want to get dumped for a goddess. Please make up your mind first 😄


For me, the most trustworthy companion is Lae'zel, because she is so blatantly, brutally honest 😂
My Tavs and she will disagree most times, but at least they always know where they stand with her.
I think that if she ever were to kill our Tav, she would not sneak up on them, she would loudly and proudly announce it.

(I think I will be writing about the rest of our group later or tomorrow. But as I have said many times before, I like all of them, as well written, complex characters)

If the "Gale is secretly based on my uncle" conspiracy continues, we'll soon find out that he ideologically stands for nothing and is hence willing to fall for everything.

Astarion is such a pet. It's like a weasel given sapience. Fortunately, our enemies try to hook people with things such as "purpose" and "right and wrong". Astarion runs on snacks and play time.

We're fighting Lae'Zel's arch enemy. Unless she believes being murdered for the good of her species is Big Smart....betrayal is... pretty unlikely? Might fall to overconfidence and leave us to get "cured" faster.

Wyll is /trying/ to be good, but damn unwise. I don't trust him to not hurt even himself. However, he seems to have a new appreciation of freedom. And sufficient trauma from serving as a minion. He's not easy to turn, but not a good ally. Not as buyable as Gale, yet a definite "act first and regret later" guy.

Shadowheart is confused. I don't believe she's a trustworthier ally than Wyll. It's like if you combined Wyll's foolishness with Lae'Zel's willingness to blindly serve... ugh. More redeemable than Lae'Zel and smarter than Wyll, though. At least she doesn't lie to herself.

Pretty sure her cure is death. Depending on how badly the Sharrans fumble their welcome, it might be possible to score a loyal ally.

All of them are clearly flawed in some particular ways, which in general is something good for story telling and RP wise but makes them untrustworthy of course.

Now in Chapter One we can be pretty sure that:

-If Vlaakith tells Lae'Zel to kill us, she will try.
-If Shar suggest Shadowheart that we are his enemies, she would try to end us.
-If Mystra tells Gale she would fuck him if he explode us, he probably enthusiastically will.
-I haven't played much with Wyll, but i think he would torture us for some sloppy seconds with his devil.
-If Astarion get's a bit thirsty, he will take a sip, courtesy of the house.

But even in this little piece of the game you can start seeing what is underneath our companions.

I liked Lae'Zel a lot more after her dissapointment when we find, and kill, de Gith patrol, she starts feeling more at home with us than among her people.
Shadowheart has a lot of momments where she open's up, she is heavily confused, in a way she seems almost to be faking. I tried an evil run, and when you do the party after the slaughter she is particularly conflicted.

And so on. The game crearly is setting a path for them to gradually change. I didn't like most of them at first, which for the game is on purpose, but as I knew them more, and more, they grown on me.

NOW TRUST? let's speak again in chapter 2.

I'm trying to figure out why having 'flawed' companions in the sense that they all have a dark haunted past makes it better for story telling or RPing. How does that work exactly? Why is having untrustworthy companions better than trustworthy companions?

Well i said in general because it's a simple way to identify with them or to set something to strive to change movign forward, but it's not mandatory and some become dull and repetitive too.

But, what makes them flawed is not their "dark haunted" past though, is the reasons why they end up having those issues or why they remain tangled in them:

-Gale was a prodigy in magic, he had an amazing future ahead of him, yet his desires transformed him in a ticking bomb; a proudful wizard became someone that almost has to beg to you to give him magic items, and it's a bit trapped because even killing himself will probably make him explode and kill many more. His flaw is falling prey to his desires, his curiosity and ambition.

-Shadowheart is on an important mission, she doesn't know why, yet she knows that is important; she knows that is for Shar and she is devoted to her, yet there are points in which she doesn't understands the purpose behind the needs of her godess. Her flaw is her blind faith, one of his traits is that she lacks individuality and she often seems to fake her opinions based on what a Sharran would do/think, when you ask about her she gives you really surface level responses or extremely deep a subjective ones because she doesn't have anything in between.
She "accepted" to have her memory erased, she is no more than a tool, and it's interesting to me because her story wil probably be her accepting this or rebelling. It wouldn't be crazy to me if she changes faith and subclass at some point in the story based on our actions.

-Lae'Zel is someone forced to work with cultures she often belittled. She acts proudful and secure, but there are a situations where she shows her insecurities, in her bluntness she tries to hide the lack of depth she has navigating this new cultures. The game shows it clearly, she would die if not for the simpathy of the main character, most of our companions and the tiefling will kill her because she threatens them even when in peril.
Her flaw is her lack of empathy, her lack of awareness, trying too hard fulfill a destiny and a role between her society that bears no importance in this new world she in inhabiting and even among her peers.


I don't want to make this longer that it needs to, I'm with you that some of their stories are a bit TOO big to my taste, but those are not their flaws per se.

😂 This makes me think of two scenes in particular, and in the second he can even get a combination of both... no wonder he approves.



I think we have only met the "more flawed" companions until now.

Personally, I think they can not be reduced to their "dark haunted past", I think they are all quite complex personalities. I like that there is something to discover about them, be it positive or negative. I could easily imagine different paths their story could take, because of their more multifaceted characters.

All of them have their flaws, but also more positive or redeeming qualities as well, and something that makes me sympathise with them. For me, it is the first game where I find something likeable in every character we have met so far.

Personally, I like that it is a bit of "work", and more of a process to gain the trust of some companions, it feels a bit more rewarding and earned.

For me it's the first game of this nature where I've found the vast majority of companion characters to be difficult to like or appreciate at all, and find them unpleasant to be around or to interact with. As much as they're written with different characters in mind, they're all clearly cut from the same cloth at an authorship level, and it's an unpleasant material.

I like Gale, that's about it.

I always curious to hear what people identify as him 'trying too hard' or 'trying to appear trustworthy' - what actual behaviour are people pointing to when saying that?

Everyone is written with a personal agenda, you only see what might become split loyalties towards you when you actively hinder that agenda. For some of them that doesn't occur very often, so far, but I think it's supposed to become more and more difficult as we go on.

He's extremely similar to Astarion in his way of using us... but unlike Astarion, I don't feel like he put all the cards on the table.

This is the first red flag. The second is that he's a bit too easy to farm approval with. It appears insincere. You may find yourself asking: What boxes of yours am I ticking, Gale?

I don't feel this is necessarily meant to be perceived that way. But, you may find yourself weirded out a bit.

I certainly have new feelings for Gale after the game glitched... and he knew everything for a while despite not being in the party lol

"I'Ve BeEn wAtCinG yOu" was the wrong thing to say to me in camp. Top 5 Bg3 early access moments

Thought we went over this bro…

Tolkien’s elves may not be heteronormative, but Larian’s elves are – sozz pal, it’s a fact.

Even Astarion is straight.

It’s not an anti-woke thing, it’s because in Faerun there are 3 moons that, once aligned, create heteronormativity among Faerun’s elves.

Because those moons are always aligned, every creature is heteronormative.

Apparently the only ‘creatures’ immune to the effects of the 3 moons are the most beautiful female elves.

Pretty much everyone hopes they’re not heteronormative haha

Disclaimer: the above is satire/sarcasm from just a straight person lol’ing about the whole, you know, and etc etc.

Jokes, basically, just that old thing.

What’s not a joke though, and I wonder is it jail-worthy, is that I still wake up heteronormative and so do all my friends. We have absolutely no interest in burning alive those who are not heteronormative, for some reason. That might sound crazy but it’s actually a thing among us heteronormative folk where we simply just ignore those who aren’t. Amazing, isn’t it…