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

Yes, and Korgan is a Duergar so we could meet him in act 1.

My beef with BG1/2 characters is that those still alive should be Epic level.
This seems to be reflected in the quoted Larian Studio statement that Jaheira will not be available as ordinary party member.

I fully agree with sentiments that there should be Good Companions - 2 or three, and maybe another Neutral person.
As amusing as ATM I find playing Team Evil (I'm in the camp perceiving the current crop of Companions as 3xEvil and 2xNeutral), I understand that this may get old fast and may be offputting to some players.

As to Classes or better - class types?
in EA we have one each of:
- bruiser
- thief
- divine caster
- and two arcane casters - as IMO Warlock belongs here

So:
- another melee char - a classic LG Paladin? Barbarian? Ranger? IMO all valid and all can be Good or Neutral.
- another divine caster - so a Druid? These HAVE to be Neutral, right?
- a Bard for borderline Rogue? A CN or CG.

As to races - personally I never play the shorties. But to offset Layzael and the two and a half humans and one and a half elf, I'd expect at least one - if not two - "stunties" thrown in for "diversity". Dwarf is a classic (Gimli!) - plus some other?
Then, for a not "vertically challenged" Companion - I'd like something not human nor elvish - as horcs and tieflings (not too small?) tend towards evul!, that leaves us with ... dragonborn?

Sorry for rambling ...

Yes that would be well thought out.

I expect a few more different wizards (schools of magic) and especially another at least one more healer companion. I'm curious if the tradition will be continued (if one can speak of it at all) and if there will be a (multiclass) Gnome Illusionist. BG 1 had Quayle, BG 2 had Jan Jakobar Jansen and BG 3 ???

So it was suggested that this thread be resurrected because of discussions of Helia the potential companion and Astarion. So I've decides to take the suggestion to discuss why I'm against Helia as a potential companion.

So to start out, I love werewolves, I like them more than vampires. But I think she'd just be too much. It would cross the line to being ridiculous on top of everything else going on. Just a gnome bard would be a great idea in my opinion. Making her a werewolf feels like overcomplicating her. Have her be a deep gnome and tie into the whole revolution. Simple, interesting. But the thing I realized about making her a werewolf is, what would she offer that Astarion doesn't? We have him as the monster who sees the tadpole as a way out. Helia having the same situation would be dull. And if she's not conflicted about the curse and is fine with it? Well then what? The tadpole is disrupting an equilibrium she's developed? Sure, but that's the kind of thing that doesn't carry as much weight if we didn't know her before.

So basically, I think not only is her being a werewolf just over the top in my opinion, but her just being a regular gnome offers more of a potential hook in my opinion.

I like to believe Larian has made every companion "special" for a yet to be unveiled reason, most likely the same reason why our companions have a corrupted tadpole and not other NPCs in the game. Making her just a deep gnome would be against this theme. Now you could say that Lae'zel is also just a gith warrior, but I am pretty sure there is something way bigger than that hiding in later acts.

Another reason would be to distinguish them from Tav for origin stories. Since Larian is investing heavily in this feature, they need a hook for you to pick them instead of a custom char looking like them.

The character doesn’t appeal to me either, but it does feel like Larian has cut this idea. We haven’t heard anything about Helia aside from old data links, and it really feels like with the Minsc and Jaheira reveals that is it; they were saving them for last.

Im no huge fan of Werewolves ... certainly not more than Vampires ...
Wich is kinda ironic, since my favourite clan is Gangrel but i digress.

Can you please elaborate little futher?

I mean, yeah being a Werewolf seems like a big deal ...
Kinda strange (but also hilarious, exactly in Larian way) to have small gnome turning into HUUUUUUUUUGE killing machine tho.

But to be completely honest ... if i should pick between:
- just a regular member of not quite so regular race ...
- just a regular woman, that worship not so regular, but still quite common deity ...
- just a regular guy who made deal with devil ...
- just a regular woman, that spend some time in litteral hell ...
- a not so regular guy who have primordial piece of GODESS OF MAGIC sealed in himself ...
- and a freaking VAMPIRE that deny every rule that ever existed about his kind ...
- and finaly some woman that can turn into a werewolf ... at will probably ... and most kikely keep her will intact ...

I know that Helia would be ... at worst at 3rd place in weirdness.

@Snowram I guess you have more faith in Larian than I do, because I think they've made all our companions like this just because that's what they think is interesting and not because of any greater theme.

@RagnarokCzD What I mean is that in aggregate it's over the top. Like, if it were Astarion OR Helia, vampire OR werewolf, one or the other would probably be fine. It just feels like all of the companions together are sort of on the edge of being "too much" and a werewolf is just so... it takes up a lot of attention, I feel. Moreso even than a vampire if you ask me. So it's less her specificallly, more that I feel she'd tip the overall party over the edge. And I consider myself as having a pretty high acceptance for weirdness.

I see ...

I haven't really paid attention to the data-mined stuff so hadn't realised that Helia was originally meant to be a gnome werewolf. I wonder if someone at Larian saw the latest campaign of Critical Role and thought that would now look old hat!

Though I definitely hope there will be more companions, whether or not Helia is one of them. I'm not fussed about more origins.

I wonder if Larian regret at all the decision to go with origin characters for this game? Data mining indicates that early on Minsc was going to be an option for an origin character, but Jaheira and Minsc are now confirmed to just companions. And even this close to launch, Karlach still isn’t appearing in promo-art next to other origin characters, so who knows if she will be an option or just a companion? Maybe they decided it’s more trouble than it’s worth and they realized most people playing these sorts of RPGs are at least fine with, if not outright preferring, making a custom character. The whole thing seems like wasted resources to me. Maybe if they cut that feature from the beginning we could have had at least one more companion instead.

I can't remember if Fane was in the art at the start of Dos2 EA. Maybe they are waiting closer to release to confirm karlach (and maybe more origins).

I am ...
We were promised Good alignment companions, in time where being companion meaned being Origin character ... at very least from this perspective, i believe we really should get at least 2 or 3 of those ...
I really, really, REALLY, hope Larian will not start claiming something like "yeah but we meaned Minsc and Jaheira". -_-
Would be kinda dull to actually dont even have option to start as a good guy/girl anyway. :-/

Also i still keep, and i doubt i ever will stop, claiming that we should get at very least one Origin char per class.

I've said it since day one, the whole 'the evil companions are first, trust us!' line was nonsense. We have all the origin companions we're going to get. Minsc and Jaheira are fanservice, but we're not getting proper 'good' origin companions. Everyone is grey. I think you're going to be disappointed if you don't accept that Rag.

I'd LOVE to be proven wrong, but I don't see it.

Evil characters first but you can *turn* them good! Ain’t we clever! That needs to go into one of my biggest fears in that same thread.

@Boblawblah > This scenario is quite exactly one of things that i fear in full release.

Sad but true. It's always been my belief as well.

And this^

The bruised women in Family Courts can testify to the ease of such "I can change him" endeavours.

Hmm, setting aside the slightly questionable taste of that joke(?), I don't think that's what should be happening in well-written RPGs where companions can develop in different ways. The characters I tend to enjoy tend to have a mix of traits and motivations that pull them in different directions and could potentially lead them on balance to become more good, evil, chaotic or lawful depending on the events of the story and choices of the player, though they still have contradictions and complexities. Admittedly this can be done clunkily (Viconia's potential conversion to neutral if romanced in BG2, for example, does feel an unconvincing "love can change her" narrative to me), but done right it could add hugely to the replayability of a game as we get to see how our companions can become slightly different in different possible worlds, and also give more bang for development buck as companions can fit into multiple different parties. There's nothing wrong, and perhaps it makes it more realistic, if there are also companions who are unapologetically and unchangeably themselves, but my preference is that most have potential to have different stories. As people do.

I don't want a redemption arc for every companion. Give us good and bad companions and leave them that way.

I do hope, that Helia is not scratched, I was looking forward to a gnome bard and I don't care , if she is a werewolf. The vampire spawn is seldom part of my group anyway.

If we don't get Helia, at least give us another companion from the small races.