Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Hopes for further party members

Still hoping Viconia is a companion and turns out to be Shadowhearts mother. Offcourse you can romance them both.

Yeah, I'd have to agree, when the fantastical becomes the norm, fantasy becomes commonplace and uninteresting. It's the same with the overuse of magic in a fantasy setting, it becomes less magical and loses its gravitas.

Thus spake Gygax: "ADVANCED DBD is unquestionably "humanocentric", with demi-humans, semi-humans, and humanoids in various orbits around the sun of humanity ... It is the most logical basis in an illogical game ... To adventure amongst the weird is fantasy enough without becoming that too!"

Of course at that time, little was gnown about gnumans.

you make the great point, i hope this can be imperemented in the game.

yes, you make the point.

moreover, i do hope the suitable choices can lead us to the true ending(grey path or good path), but the horrible choices can lead our player character receives the bad(ruin) ending(evil natual or evil chaos path) not only the ruin of toril but also the ruin of our player character himself/herself.

i suppose there are "bonus points" and "penalty points".
our essential choices will gain the points, if we gain enough bonus points then the path of true ending will be opened, on the contrary if we gain enough penalty points then the path of the ruin ending will be opened.

While I agree that humans should probably 'be the norm' to provide a baseline for the setting and give context for the other various races to be unique against...there should also be a priority in making sure at least the most basic races should be covered. That is to say, in a game with 12-15 party members, sure. Make 6-8 of them human. But BG seems to have a pretty small number of party members compared to the prior entries. 'mostly humans' doesn't really cut it as well (and shadowheart & asterion's elvenness isn't really a big part of their culture or personality anyways, so what's the point)

We need more party members period is what we need. No more humans though, please. Gimmie both flavors of drow, a dwarf, a gnome, a halfling. maybe a half orc or another elf, then we can look at humans again for options. And if we do, for the love of Ao, not another Baldurian. The Realms is huge, gimmie someone from Amn or Cormyr or Mulhorand or *anywhere* other than Baldur's Gate.

I did not expect anything else in the wilderness and Underdark. Probably we will meet Humans incl. the Half-Humans as dominant species still in heaps.



I had the thought once in context as a child of Abdel Adrian and Viconia, but had dismissed the idea because Shadowheart is a High Half-Elf and no Drow Half-Elf. Unless Viconia had something with another High Half-Elf?

Well if the non-human party members don't feel non-human that's just further proof of my earlier point. The unusual became so usual that it no longer has a chracter of it's own. Even Lae'zel just feels like an exotic tourist with a small nose, even though githyanki are phisiologically supposed to be quite different from humans, they even reproduve via laying eggs. So why isn't she more lizardlike or even birdlike? Her personality is basically just violence, but she isn't particularly feral (I mean I like her, but she could just be a human and I would still like her, her race has nothing to do with it, it's just a rather minor cosmetic detail.)

I think that race should matter a lot more then it currently does, right now it just seems purely cosmetic from a roleplay perspective (from a powergaming perspective the differences are still meaningful).

That being said I do agree with you that we need a dwarf and a halfling companion, a half-orc would be nice as well. But for every nonhuman companion, we should get 2 human companions.

That sounds awfull to me ...

Our Evil characters should have option to sucess. :-/

In my opinion it shouldnt matter if we opose main antagonist in every step ... or if we play along just to stab them in the back by the end.

I mean ...
IF there would "also" be possibity of spectacular failure, that would be quite fine ... especialy if both Good and Evil would have that option ... but dooming Evil characters ultimately isnt in any way interesting.

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My guess?
Bcs then she wpuld be either Aarakocra, or Lizardfolk.

How so?
NPCs react to what she is ... there are special conversations if she is in your party ... and she reacts differently if you are Gith aswell ...
What more would you want?

i think that you was talking about lawful evil, and yes, lawful evil can lead our player character to the true ending.
lawful evil in my view is a kind of "grey".

i was talking "the evil" is that "the dark evil" that is evil natural and evil chaos fundamental, the dark evil will only lead our player character to the bad ending.

Well in that case we could also demand that Astarion and SH also get reactions to their race, but they barely get any.
Laezel is basically only getting reacttions because the githyanki are not as normalized as other aces are. Yet.

yes, if your "good" is in no reason killing most of "evil characters", then you will get enough "penalty points" leading you to the ruin ending(include your player character), since your 5 origin characters(your companions) are some degree evil(in my view they are grey, but some of them have the pontential to be dark evil ones).

i do think "lawful evil" is one of the ways leading your player character to the true ending, if you get the proper choices.

but, i have the pessimistic view if you join the absolute alignment. because the absolute alignment is "evil natural".
"lawful evil" doesn't need massacre, especial unnecessary massacre, but absolute alignment just enjoy the things.

Nope.
Any evil ...

Yes, i gathered as much ... and i still think that our chaotic evil characters should have option to suceed.

I mean, the main goal (as it seems right now) will be to "defeat the Absolute" ...
And that is something everyone should be able to do ...

I would have no problem with our character who did certain choices to have that kind of "now you can rule over dead, scorched land, idiot" ending ... or if they would try to take her place, but failed in that ... but still, they should have chance to suceed in main goal, wich is defeating the Absolute.

I admit that writing satisfying Chaotic Evil ending is hard ...
But while dooming it to failure is easy, its also pretty lame. -_-

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Yes we can ...
And yes, we did ...

The problem here is that Shadowheart is Half-Elf ... and as far as i know, Half-Elves are usualy described as "welcomed everywhere, dont really belong anywhere" ... thats not much to build uppon, but if we meet some Half-Elves comunity, i would definietly expect them to react on her herritage.
As for Astarion, that is kinda hard, bcs even tho Elvish society is described as "holding together tight" ... he is not exactly Elf anymore, is he? I mean, i know that most people in this setting would never ever expect to meet a Vampire during daylight, but still ... it should be clear on first sight that there is "something off about him".

Anyway, i know for sure that there was some mentions in the past that if our Tav is Elf, dialogue with Kagha at least should recognize that, since as said abowe Elves tend to "stick together" ... so im quite sure simmilar (even tho possibly loosened a bit) rule should include Astarion, if we play as him.

Yes, but that is the point ... isnt it?
Lae'zel is something exotic, rare, even unknown to most commoneers ... and therefore she is reffered as such.
Half-Elves, or Elves are ... well, maybe not exactly common, but certainly much better known than Githyanki ... hells, even Lizardfolk, Dragonborn, Tabaxi, Leonin, or Tortle should be more commonly known than Githyanki.

It's also worth pointing out that Shadowheart has amnesia. She doesn't remember her past, so really her being a half elf is of course going to be secondary to her being a cleric of Shar.


Also it's worth pointing out that elves are one of the oldest fantasy races, period. We as the audience all pretty much get elves. We know their deal and what to expect with them. We have no context for Githyanki, so of course they're gonna be weirder and people are gonna be treating them as weirder. It's not about quantity of weird, it's about the fact we the audience are so familiar with them and unless you make an effort to spice them up, which d&d doesn't seem inclined to do since they are purposefully going for a more archetypal approach with them, it's hard to capture that old fashioned wonder.

i think this should be the problem of "God and Devil" in Christianity for the example.

in DnD, we should see the problem as "God of the gods" vs "Omen".

if you choose the way of the "natural evil combines chaotic evil", you are one of the chosen ones of the Omen, you acturally bring the ruin of the toril if you can implement your steps to the final.

this is as warcraft 3 -- arthas menethil.

but your player character never be the true protagonist, this will bring the true savior's birth, just your playercharacter isn't the true protagonist.
and the savior is the fruit that God desires.

I would still like to know what happens if you don't take any of the origin companions with you into Act 2? Are you then forced into playing with a party that includes mercs?

That, or you're going solo. I'm almost positive that's what will happen.

My bet is that wouldnt be possible.

Im quite sure that at the end of Act I. we will be in situation where our characters will believe that their tadpole problem was resolved (wich would be most likely false) ...
And we will have to pick one companion we will acompany on their way to Baldur's Gate ...
I also dare to presume that if we will play as a Origin character, rather than Tav, this decision will be made for us, bcs Origin characters allready have their own reasons to go there.

So either that ...
Or we dont pick any and will just travel to Baldur's Gate "bcs plot".

There are also at least 2 nonorigin companions and hopefully more!

Yes I'm taking this into account.

So, we will HAVE to take Minsc and Jaheira if we want a party. No choice. And, even at that, we will still have to take a merc as well to make it a party of four (because I'm not convinced we'll be getting any more companions).