Something I've been contemplating is that people keep bringing up loss of companions and their associated content as a trade off for the tadpole path. But we know that there are other ways to make companions abandon us, presumably even if we don't interact with the tadpoles. And we know at least Astarion will likely stay since so far he's the only one advocating for keeping keeping tadpole. So how balanced is it to be "gaining" content that we can still lose in another way anyway? Plus we will presumably still be gaining different story content based on embracing the tadpoles, not including the powers themselves. So saying we lose out on content may not be entirely accurate, unless you say we also lose out on content going the good, anti tadpole route.
The more I think about it, the more I think that embracing the tadpole to a significant extent is the intended way to play, since Larian has said we can use the power for good. But I think rejecting it completely isn't how the story is meant to play out.
I think there will be ways to convince companions to turn them to your way of thinking but it might be tough...you might need a 20 roll to convince Lae'zel and if you don't make the roll she'll probably try to kill you. Additionally the post mentioned this in the context of convincing companions to use tadpoles...but what if I don't try to convince them at all and only use them myself? So yeah I think that might be one way to go.
Now obviously that would be less than ideal because some of those abilities are powerful and the party could benefit from the whole party using them...like have Shadowheart cast the healing spell that applies weakness to all damage on a boss before my rogue from stealth drops an auto-crit on a handful of dice +10 damage? So it will be interesting to see how that all plays out.
