Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Are you dissapointed with companions variety?

Well they ARE companions - player character is the only one with any urgency. They all neatly fall in line and follow your character like in any traditional RPG, they just lack narrative reason to do so.

If Larian’s intend is to create companions that feel like players equal that’s fine. But at least in EA they haven’t done that very well.

It would be a challenge to do so - games fall into repetitive character tropes for a reason. If NPCs role is to join player party and follow their orders (or leave their party is they disagree) that they benefit of being portrait in a way that makes sense - in the same way a mandatory quest giver should have some kind of authority over PC.

RPG companions should feel as equal - because they are not equal in gameplay. I think one reason while I dislike BG3 companions so much as they all behave like commanding characters, while at the same time having no urgency to act or do anything.

One can still write a subservient companion that feels like a strong willed independent being - look at Kim from Disco Elysian. But again there is narrative reason for Kim behaving the way he does.

Of course, we need to see 1.0 to truly judge the game - clearly some changes have been made and perhaps they managed to make companions feel more organic.

Why are seemingly no Dwarf companions or origins? At least DOS2 had one.

Also completely agree with this.

I am wondering if they made Dark Urge as a way to test this. Will be interesting to see if this is the direction they go with DOS3, BG4 or whatever else is next.

Going by their history they clearly love and take great care in writing (and designing) memorable characters. Yes 'DU' is def them testing the waters, but unless the userbase calls for it it's extremely unlikely they would steer in that direction.

They can still design and write memorable characters, just not make them playable. I can't imagine the process would be much less satisfying for them. And we wouldn't have to deal with their OCs overshadowing our custom character quite so much. Maybe.

Yes, totally agree. If they'd done this even I would've praised them for it.

This would have been ideal for me. Essentially the 'Dragon Age: Origins' way of handling the main character's backstory, which worked really well.

CUSTOM COMPANION FTW

This.

Larian doesn't understand they need to provide a frame of reference for their edgy characters to matter. The BG3 party is a menagerie of four extra special protagonists / origin characters competing for the spotlight with outrageous stories.

It's definitely a Larian thing where they try to reinvent the RPG wheel too hard. E.g. Dragon Age or Mass Effect games don't suffer from such "everyone has to be super special" nonsense.

Agreed with ME. But ME2 did jus that.

Mordin - THE genius scientist that worked on THE genophage.
Miranda - the genetically perfect ass.
Zaeed - the founder of the Black Suns gang.
Samara - one of the most powerful Asari out there, a Matriarch and a Justicar.
Jack - again, a super special biotic, one of her kind, an experiment.
Thane - best assasin from a ultra-rare race, with some ultra-rare photographic memory.
Grunt - the genetically perfect killing machine.

And then we have the 'normal' ones: Tali (though of course she isn't "just some quarian", she is the daughter of an admiral), Garrus (who suddenly grew a pair, but that doesn't make him special - surviving a rocket to the face does though), Jacob, Legion and Kasumi.

Honoraty mention: Liara, who got ruined by turning her personality 180 degrees to make her 'cool'.

And before anyone tells me "but they had to be the bets of the best because it was a super-duper special mission to save the galaxy!" - Yes, but it's the same here. The super-evil cult needs a bunch of badasses to work for them to...destroy the world or whatever evil cults in D&D do

If you want generic characters then surely that is the role that mercenaries fill - the paladin in shiny platemail and other tropes? They won't have an extravagent background or major condition and you can have your party as you want. It is unclear when we will have access to them but I would be surprised if you cannot recruit some in the druid encampment in the full release. Personally I quite like that you don't have any dependable allies that you can completely trust but that you benefit from their help so keep them along (or keep them close by incase they transform and you need to kill them).

Just look at Kingmaker, which imo has better companions than Wrath.

Aspiring bard, depressed cleric, angry barbarian, two liberated slaves, bookish gnome, duty bound fighter and a ranger out for revenge. All pretty mundane but some if them are among the mist well known characters in the franchise.

Only 4 (maybe 5) characters are special, and one of those is from the DLC.

So two things. As you see in your list, there are still those normal companions that can balance out the party, and in mass Effect 3 we still have a normal companions again, with James. The rest of the companions are returning ones, who are now high level and have grown throughout the series. Even in ME2, that was the second game. Even if those specific companions are really special, it's more earned because the greater story of the series has escalated, as has shepherd and so the new companions escalate to match.

Second, the entire premise of the game, up front is gathering a team of elite badasses led by shepherd, the ultimate badass. When you buy the game you buy it signing on for that experience. The premise of BG3 doesn't advertise or require these great, high falooting companions. Even Lae'zel, the most basic member of the party acts like she's superior to us in ways that don't make sense for her to stay on the team. Hell, lae'zel even is a refutation of your claim. She's by all appearances a normal Githyanki.

Being condescending to other species is githyanki's cultural thing. And in some fields of expertise its very much justified. Unless of course we are talking about the type of player who wants to be the smartest person in the room starting from the very beginning of the game and all the way to the end. In that case, sure, she is a problem..

When I say it doesn't make sense for her to sat on the team, I meant that she should ditch the team as soon as we stop going right to the creche at all. She pointedly says she doesn't value us or need us, so it's pretty contradictory that she sticks around us when we don't do as she says. She should just kill us in our sleep and go off on her own as soon as we question zorru. and if we don't interrogate him the way she wants, the even more reason for her to leave.

Yeah, almost as if being ''contradictory'' is not one of the most commonly associated things with us as a race...(which it is)....

I'm happy for characters to not make strict logical sense, but what I need is logical character sense. It doesn't make sense for her as a character to be sticking aroundthe way she is, based on what's been shown of her. It comes off to me not as standard emotional contradiction of feeling and action, but as her being out of character in order to satisfy the gameplay convention of the party sticking together. Do tell me what you've seen that makes you feel her staying is in-character? I like lae'zel a lot, she was my favorite character before Karlach was confirmed, so if I can eliminate this issue in my head I'll be happier for it.

A possible explanation is that for all her arrogance and bravado, she actually realizes she's incapable of reaching her people on her own. She's already been captured twice, by beings certainly much below her (in her mind) the second time, and thus sees the part as a necessary evil for the time being. Not that she'd ever admit this. It would make sense for her to abandon the party but it very quickly becomes apparent that's not viable.

Since we've not been able to reach her objective during early access, it's hard to say what justification there is after that. But if suspension of disbelief isn't possible even knowing the clear gameplay reason she sticks around then you'll just have to replace her with a custom fighter ASAP. Harsh I guess, but that's the card that's been dealt.

I love Lae'zel, and I think she's the most grounded and 'normal' of the BG III party members, even though she's the only one not from Toril! By all we know of her, she's perfectly normal for a Githyanki, and that latter half would be an interesting enough gimmick to set her apart in a lot of crpgs. I mean hell, put her in BG I or II, or the NWNW games-she'd instantly be one of the more unique characters, and I imagine she'd be pretty popular for her novelty....but she wouldn't 'steal the show' from the MC.

When the 'normie' party member option from BG III is comparable to the 'exceptional/weird' options of most other crpgs, yeah....I think that's a valid angle to criticize the game from. I'd be overjoyed to have a 'normal' paladin (order of the Radiant Heart, anyone?) with relatable personal problems/quests. Or a gnomish bard whose distinguishing feature is their personality.

We never 'needed' Gale to have a backstory heavily cribbed from Karsus (aka the most important mortal in the entire setting) with a magical nuke in the middle of his chest. Nor did we need Karlach to be Zariel's champion who can take on Baphomet and who also has a bomb in their chest. Karlach could have just been an average footsoldier in the Bloodwar trying to desert and that would have been a fantastical and unique backstory already. Gale could have just been a wizard who injured himself in a magical experiment and needs to drain magic to survive, and it would have been an interesting enough gimmick keeping this poor guy alive long enough to find a cure without the chosen stuff or the nuke.

I agree that there isn't much variety with the races. From all the companions that we have, 5 of them are elves although two are half, 3 are human and the other two is a Gythanki and a Tiefling. Larian seems to favor the elves....lol.