Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Friendship and camaraderie in BG3 (spoilers in tags please)

The subject of friendship with companions in BG3 has come up a number of times, often in threads discussing romance and sex.

As I don't think they should be mutually exclusive, or even necessarily related, and in my view friendship and camaraderie between the party members is at least as important as romance, and probably even more so, I thought I'd create a thread where we could discuss that specifically.

I have seen a number of people saying they don't feel they can make friends with their companions in BG3 outside of romantic or sexual relationships. That's not been my personal experience of the game, and I've found a number of moments with my friends amongst the party genuinely moving, such as All these things of course can also take place within the context of a romantic relationship, but given for me they weren't they had a distinctive feel as moments of real friendship.

BUT ... I lap this stuff up, and would never say "no" to more and better, so what else would folk want to see to help bring friendships to life? If you didn't feel that you were friends with your companions but wanted to be, what made you feel that? (Having seen a few comments about the endings despite trying to avoid spoilers, I'm wondering if part of it is that some of the stories don't have satisfying conclusions.)

A slightly different, but for me related, topic is that of party camaraderie, which I do think is lacking in BG3. I don't get enough of a feel of the party members bonding with each other as well as with my main character. I like that they all have commentary on each other's personal quests, but I want to see them interacting with each other, and to interact with them as a group, more. I think this would require more and better banter, more of party members giving their views on events as we adventure, eg suggesting where to go or what to do and getting involved in NPC dialogues, and I'd also love it if we got mini-scenes of companions interacting with each other at camp or conversations we could eavesdrop on like those between Mass Effect 3 companions on the Normandy between missions.

What do you folks think?

For the most part I feel that that there is enough content outside of romantic and sexual relationships to make me experience friendship.
I especially like how over the progress of the story I came to appreciate these characters more and more as I discovered additional layers to their personality and there was a slow built-up to more mutual trust. Lae’zel I think is the companion where I felt this development the strongest. I think the game handled this very well.

However, there are situations where I would like to interact more. Especially with Shadowheart. She is practically like a sister to my MC. Their relationship meter did go up very quickly to max level and has stayed there ever since. She is also the companion I have most often in my party. Yet, I feel I can’t express that fully. There were situations (those related to her personal quest line) in which I really wanted to give her a sisterly/best-friends hug, but the game doesn’t allow me to do that.

So this is what I would wish for: more best-friend/bromance content which allows my MC to be more "intimate” without it being sexual.

More companion-companion interaction and possible relationship between companions would be great as well. I feel there is too much focus on my MC and it does break immersion somewhat. I could totally see some companions flirting, messing around and even falling for each other, in fact in the beginning I kind of expected it. Considering how horny some of them are, it’s a surprise there is not more going on.

Sometimes the dialogue even allures to it, but then nothing happens. Best example - Karlach:

What bothers me occasionally too: how everybody is standing quietly and rigidly in their spot in camp the whole day. I understand the gamplay purpose of it, but narratively it doesn’t make any sense.

I would like to see a bit more interactions with the companions too - like maybe having Astarion explain a cardgame to Lae'zel or Shadowheart and Gale argueing because of their godesses not liking each other, Karlach and Wyll bonding - stuff like that.

I agree that the bonds between party members feel a bit lacking. I thought I saw some increasing understanding and reconciliation between Lae'zel and Shadowheart, but there were no dialogues between them which addressed it. I did get one late-game banter between Gale and Astarion which was great and showed that they'd come to a sort of cordial understanding over the course of the game, but there were no in-between banters to flesh out that progression - just sort of hostile early game ones and then that one.

Definitely a lack of banter though there was some sniping between Lae'zel and Shadowheart early on. There was also a bit of fan-girl stuff in admiration of Karlach when she first joined the party. Certainly nothing on the level of DA:I and Vivienne and Cassandra; Vivienne and Varric; or Cassandra and Varric. I doubt Larian could write anything that good.

I was wondering yesterday whether there would be some sort friendly relationship between Lae'zel and Shadowheart. We have gone from outright dislike to grudging acceptance so far (beginning of Act 2) so a gradual admiration/respect or similar wouldn't be totally unrealistic.

EDIT.
I was just in Reithwin Tollhouse and Lae'zel and Shadowheart had a bit of convo that verged on the friendly but stayed just this side of it.

Good banter comes in Act 3. What I've got I've loved a lot, but you need to cycle through party members to get more content. I've been beating the drum of intra-party dynamics for years now, and I'm glad to see people agreeing that our party needs to interact with each other more. At least in part, camp seems the perfect place to start. I also think it would give camp companions like Withers, Barcus, Arabella, Aylin, Isobel, and Volo more flavor.

I love that Withers plays the role of the straight man amidst our rather "goofy" (term of endearment) cast. I wish we had more interactions between groups of party members in camp.

What's Astarion's line?


Something like that.

I felt that mostly in terms of the cut scenes. There are far less non-romantic ones than romantic ones. Or as a group, there isn't much going on there too. Like during the party after the first act. There will be a romantic/sex scene if you want too, but there is no scene where your whole group who has fought together sits around the fire, shares some drinks and jokes, even if there still is some tension between some of the members. Or if that's too early, then later in the game when most of the internal group tension topics are solved. By nature it's all very PC centric, but would be fun to have a few such scenes.

In terms of having a buddy acknowledged by the game - the only scene I have had - was i nact 3 with Karlach. If you do not romance her, but are friendly with her, there will be a dialogue option with an NPC which specifically says your are best buddies and that you'll all come together after this is over and do something. More of that would be great (in connection to do something about Karlach's ending and also Astarions : )).

I'd like to see more options going the other direction. Meaning I want to see rewards and story payoffs for dissaproval and party dysfunction.

Not party breaks, or kill me now options, which are lame, but an actual character progression based on rancor and animosity and disaproval.

Obviously eveyone is primed to think approval is the goal, but disapproval is potentially much more interesting in my view. Frenemies who hold a grudge but stick around, or genuine lackeys where you can hold stuff over their heads.


Party break is the worst possible option. Nothing interesting happens once someone leaves the group. They shouldn't leave, but stay and start talking behind our back, scheming with the other companions, and coming up with inventive nicknames to disparage us with their banter interjections.

I feel like more consideration of the Evil path would have been cool, and the EA kinda pulled the rug out there by suggesting we try that first, but then not doing a whole lot with it. I chose charlatan as a background and hoped I'd get more out if it, like the way Urchin works, but not really. Mechanically deception is useful, but it didn't make me feel like a Charlatan the way Urchin made me feel like an Urchin or Folk Hero a Folk hero.basically I want a more dysfunctional party, and Bromances like Monty and Xzar's, "till death do us part" but always with a quip.

But yeah sure, I guess comraderie on the other end of the spectrum too, why not. But just had to put a vote in for more villainous villainy here. I was dissappointed that the first truly wicked thing we get to do, instantly cuts off access to not one, but 3 potential companions, where they just bounce? Like ok then, at least give me Sazza or something so Minthara can push her around lol

I love freindship/comradery relationship arc in games, they are the main thing I play RPGs for. PoE2 and the old BG2 are really stand out examples.
BG3 does it pretty well, but there's some trouble where too often things you click thinking it's this the game makes romantic

I'd love if the companions had more scope, could develop rivalries or friendships between each other as well as you, like PoE and BG2 did.

Its the one time I appreciate bioware's stupid dialogue wheel that came with a heart icon warning

I think these moments are good, if disappointingly rare but are coloured by the fact the I was constantly worrying if any of these interactions were secretly "please continue to push my comfort zone and/or sexually harass me" options. With patch 1 I found Gale more tolerable because on the third time he pushed my boundaries I was able to say "No dude, just stop" Laezel, Halsin and at the least need similar options.

This is not true, she pounced on my character immediately after he helped her intimidate Zorru.

I struggle to see the camaraderie moments as just that for several reasons, but they all come back to the same basic reason. It just feels that your companions conversations only really fit into one of two boxes "Personal question progression" and "Romance".

There are plenty of scenes that could be pure camaraderie moments, but the way they've been scripted and framed within the game as a whole it's really hard to ignore the big neon "Insert Romance Here" sign hanging over them.

It doesn't help that when talking to your companions (other than a single line when you start a conversation with them after progressing another characters personal quest) they act like the only two characters in the game are you and them, for example:


Personally I think it would be nice that when you selected the "Long Rest" option from the resting menu and were teleported to your camp that it would trigger a "camp fire" scene, with everyone gathered around the fire talking, offering opinions on what we should do next or about what just happened. Then if there's any special private dialog they want to have with you they can indicate this then and there. It would be much better than having to do "the rounds" every visit to camp only to find no-one has anything new to say.

They could also use companion positing in such a scene to give an indication of romantic interest in your character (e.g. given the somewhat possessive wording used during Lae'zels romance interactions, if she's interested in you then she'd take up a position right next to you (and potentially glare at anyone else who gets close), and if not she'd sit across the fire from you) which could then be used to dial down the romantic edge to some of the more camaraderie worthy moments.

I just went to camp to do a bit of respeccing and Withers brought up the subject of Lae'zel and I being an item then when Shadowheart stepped up to get respecced he asked her about not having a love interest.

Withers challenged Minsc on not having a love interest in my game, when I took him to get respecced to more Minsc-appropriate stats. But perhaps that fits better in the romance trigger thread at https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=888410?

Not being able to hug shadowheart during a particular scene in act3 made me feel awful , other than that kinda wish there'd be slightly more friendly banter amongst the companions during the later stages of the game to signify their growing fellowship, or a small epilogue where they all gather up in a tavern for a reunion would be sweet. Alas I will have to use my imagination for that