Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Warlock patron involvement in BG3.

It's amazing how some D&D players believe every table plays using their house rules! This is total nonsense. The patron can be as big an NPC are the DM wants them to be. And some of the potential warlock patrons named in the official D&D rules actually appear in person in official D&D adventures.

Also if you want to be a super stickler to the rules warlocks do exist as an official D&D 5e monster you can encounter, as published in Volo's Guide to Monsters, an official WotC publication.
https://dmdave.com/warlock/
But as always, DMs are free to power up monsters to be viable as enemies for higher level parties, or create entirely new monsters and NPCs as they see fit. There are no rules or limits dictating that DMs are not allowed to create powerful warlock NPCs...they can literally create a warlock character the same as you create yours and can use said warlock as an NPC enemy for the players to fight.

I know all that, but this isn't a table with an actual DM that can work on the fly and talk to their players to weave everything together as it goes. This is a video game that was completed and handed over to players, and so trying to make a major NPC that only possibly exists in any playthrough, and make that NPC personally important to the character as well is something I don't believe Larian would do.

The game would not have a warlock NPC that exists only for one playthrough but it can have warlock NPCs or enemies you encounter as you play through the game...not necessarily tied to you being a warlock or anything like that...just characters you can find at certain locations or encounter during certain missions.

They don't need to "only exist in that playthrough". Mizra exists irrespective of if she is the PCs patron, so does Auntie Ethel, so does Raphael, so does Zariel.

I'm not talking about Warlocks, I'm talking about their patrons specifically. And even more specifically, the patron of the custom player character.


Mizora exists because she's Wyll's patron, and he exists regardless of if the custom character does. And you're arguing that one of those characters would be the custom character's patrons? I don't think that'll be the case for a second, but it's at least a better argument.

I mean...there are only three possible player character patrons...they might as well exist as part of the story or a side quest somewhere that everyone can run into but if they're your patron then you'd have different interactions. Definitely not impossible.

Just because the character is custom, there is no reason to suppose the patron is. The PHB suggests a number of named individuals as potential patrons. Several of these have stat blocks, personalities, backstories. They are NOT custom characters. At least one of whom is definitely in BG3 (Vlaakith - undead/undying warlock).

There are the types of patron, but within each of those types are myriad individual possible beings which could be the patron, and each one carries the potential for a different relationship with their warlock.

This is wrong. In fact, great old one warlocks don't make any pacts at all. They just accidentally or deliberately gain access to their power. There is a discussion about this that the main mental stat for warlocks should be intelligence and not charisma. So it was in DnD 5, but conservative players demanded that everything be returned as it was. However, in the next edition of DnD, it is generally planned to allow warlocks to choose any mental stat.

Yes and no...yes you are in theory correct but specifically because our patrons are actual NPCs we know for a fact we have some interaction with as it's been confirmed warlock players can interact with their patrons they are also very specific NPCs in BG3...so there are only three of them possible for the player to choose from and they may well appear in the wider game as part of quests or side quests even for non-warlock players.

so i assume a Catholic Warlock breaking his pact = pay $20 and we are golden?

One has to assume that Larain, as competent game designers, would have planned for this from the start (even if only as an extension goal). Why is Auntie Ethel in the story anyway? What's a fey got to do with a story about dead gods and mindflayers? And Raphael? What's the point of him? Chekhov's Cambion?

Should? What does "should" mean? It literally isn't, that's an objective fact. As is the fact that Warloks are NOT learners...they are given their power, there is no learning involved...they can be dumb as bricks and still be able to receive magic powers because it is GIVEN, not learned. Don't try to impose your headcanon or homebrew on official D&D lore. Warlock magic is given without any learning being involved.

That is true, but as I said above, each individual, even if you just stick to the ones suggested by the PHB, can potentially have wildly different relationships with the character depending on which one they are, even within a patron type. And notably, none of those named characters has been hinted at being in BG3. If they make the custom character patron a pre-set character that has an agenda and such in the game regardless of the warlock then they have to reckon with the nature of the pact and how much the warlock has already done for their patron, and what that is. And having that level of backstory introduced to the player in the middle of the game when they may already have had their backstory in their head... actually yeah, that sounds like what Larian would do, in my opinion.


Unless you've heard somethingI haven't, I think your'e overestimating what "interaction" means here. I don't think they'll physically show up and talk, at least not outside of cutscenes. I think there will be warlock dialogue options where we can ask for help and our patron will magically whisper in our ear, no need for any physical appearance at all.

Another case of someone projecting their own ideas onto other people's games.

For example, Dendar the Night Serpent is named as a GOO patron in the PHB. She quite deliberately dishes out warlock powers to her yuan-ti servants. Whilst Great Cthulhu might be oblivious to a warlock tapping into their powers, Dendar is not.

Well they are NPCs confirmed to have some interaction with the player warlocks...how extensive we don't really know. But they absolutely CAN be defined NPCs that exist in the game and could be encountered in all playthroughs by all characters. Will that happen, hard to say, but it certainly is a thing that is possible.

Mechanically/narratively, a Tav/Durge PC doesn't need to have been a warlock until the point at which they awakened on the nautaloid. They do not need to have had any prior history with their patron.

Tav has whatever backstory flags come with their chosen background, and Durge has no prior memory anyway.

Again, where did you hear that they'll be NPCs? I'm working off of the last panel from hell and nothing I heard there leadsme to believe they'll be anything more than what I described. Technically they'd still be NPCs since they're, in the broadest sense, still characters, just not ones that show up on screen. Your idea is certainly possible, but it's also possible that we'll be able to romance Kethric Thorm and redeem him. Is there anything physically preventing that? No. Is there any evidence beyond his existence that suggests it'll happen? Also no.

You do know what the term NPC stands for right? Whether something as undefined as the narrator or super defined as Kethric they are all NPCs...you can't play as the narrator or as Kethric. But my point remains...they are confirmed to be NPCs with interaction so it is entirely possible for them to be defined enough and present in places in the world where everyone could run into them.