Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Gale's New Bio - Heavy spoilers even for EA Players

Exactly. Even if they wanted to keep the Netherese orb, each I'd be entirely fine with, they could still have him be an incredibly devoted and hubristic wizard who wanted to return the orb to Mystra, he just hadn't been her lover before, only an ordinary wizard and devout Mystran. Simply one with too much ambition.

Gale could have been a fun crazy power obssessed gnome and ruled all

Instead hes a simp,

I hope an aged tiax murders him and steals the netherease from him, my tav will become tiaxs follower

Seriously, why are people so inclined to murder the companions they don't like instead of just not recruiting them when they meet? I'm genuinely curious why so many people seem to opt for the violent route.

Because, thats the playstyle larian wants and shld be the most intresting first time around larian want dark urges to happen so im just gonna embrace it

Well I'm at least glad that someone else is able to admit that Larian wants us to be evil. They constantly emphasize that you can be evil at almost every opportunity, far moreso than being heroic. It's annoying. But I feel like this "kill instead of don't recruit" attitude was a thing even before dark urge came around. Maybe I'm only thinking about certain players on this forum.

They want evil to be a viable option. In most CRPGs players insist there must be an "evil path" but hardly anyone ever plays it (there are statistics on this). One reason for this is the game punishes you. Potential allies don't aid you. Flaming Fist appear out of nowhere and attack you. Merchants won't sell to you.

The dark side needs to be appealing and seductive, or no one will choose it and it may as well not exist. It's just wasted development time.

It's just eye-rolling to me at this point. And annoying when you look at the way they constantly push it on top of the number of companions we have who seem primed to be evil unless we push them to be good, the fact we never lack an opportunity to be rude and dismissive but several times lack an option to be interested or just neutrally not mean in dialogue, and the existence of the Dark Urge as a singular custom-only origin. I just find it tiresome and like they're trying too hard.

But going back to what I did toning down Gale, Karlach also could easily be toned down without losing the meat of her situation. Instead of being Zariel's champion she was just a slave fighter in the blood war. Another grunt who just happened to distinguish herself and was skilled enough to keep surviving. She was infused with devilish power during her time there instead of an over the top engine in place of her heart. Everything else can be basically the same from there, and she's no longer unreasonably powerful.

Thats not true and you know it.

They're just digging their hole deeper, aren't they.

The way Gale presents himself in game as a carefree light-hearted fellow is completely at odds with a story about a power hungry usurper who failed and was cast down from Archmage status. He should be either completely humbled or gone insane. But he's more like "well that happened, let's go adventure!". They crank his story up to 11, and then downplay it completely. Fail.

Larian storytelling is like kids at a sandbox enthusiastically stating who's dad is the strongest.

Why didn't Mystra cut him off from the Weave completely? Or just kill him instantly instead of killing him with a time bomb? This is 1970's James Bond villainy.

And of course, it couldn't simply be a mage who tried to steal power from a master Wizard - it had to be an archmage and a god. We need to go over the top already at level 1, because we simply can't pace ourselves.

The more I read, the less I believe in these characters.

And now we have two level 1 characters out of six who have some magical bomb ticking in their chest. This is so bad I just.. can't.

But all of this is exactly as it should be. The Forgotten Realms is very much a 'good' setting overall where good generally prevails. So things being this way is what is realistic and to be expected. Being good involves consequences; being evil should also involve consequences, including especially everyone coming for your head.

My take is that this is representative of people's frustrations with Larian (especially Larian's writers). But there is no way to vent those frustrations at Larian itself so the next best thing is to take out those frustrations at Larian writers' precious babies, their origin companions.

And to be honest, I harbor strong feelings that way myself. There is a tiny little part of me that keeps telling me I need to play this game for no other reason than to call out, mock, ridicule, vilify, and, yes also possibly slaughter Larian's aggravating and infuriating cast of companions.

"Every society is three meals away from chaos"

Except for Orcs ... they ARE chaos.
WAAAGH!!

Tbf I wouldent trust gale astarion and laezel to not murder people horribly unsupervised.

Gale I fully trust to not murder people unsupervised... unless he REALLY thought he could fix it afterwards. The other two? 100% they killing afterwards. Now unsupervised potentially mass-damaging magical experiments? That I wouldn't trust him about.


Yeah, that makes sense to me.

I'm come to terms with this disconnect, because the fact is, yes, all of them have these insane backstories that 'should' make them much more in a hurry/insane/whatever than they are. There is a disconnect between what sounds cool in a story, and the reality of adventuring as a party. I just have to sort of ignore their backstory for the most part, and treat them as just a level 1 nobody. I think that's the best way to go about it.

If they did change the part about him being obsessed with his ex, I think it would be great!

I wasn’t sure where that was going and was a bit worried he would turn into a stalker.

Lol we want opposite things. I want to play an evil Gale as a controlling/possessive stalker and a good Dark Urge as a selfless person trying to dispel all evil inclinations.

How can you... stalk a god? I mean, Mystra does whatever she well pleases, has her boytoys and sets them aside, Gale was not in the wrong before.

Might be now, which, quite honestly, sucks.

So my first playthrough is Good Dark Urge, but here is my plan for Evil Gale:

-Choose every option which is manipulative/controlling when interacting with NPCs. Also going School of Enchantment.
-Put proficiency into deception, persuasion, intimidation, stealth. Maybe arcana for Mystra-related reasons.
-Use the FUCK out of the tadpole when controlling others. Just go nuts.
-If there's an option to be creepy, take it.

In short, redirect Gale's frustration with Mystra to everyone else around him, until someone (maybe the Absolute) grants him the ability to take proper action against her.