Regarding Karlach, I don't really understand her, unfortunately. It seems some folks like her, but don't feel totally satisfied at the end with her. That's fair criticism, I suppose.
I wonder if that missing satisfaction might be coming from the way she's written?
For instance, she has this deeply tragic background. She has this burning anger within her. But *none* of that shows in her personality. So, while all of that is *supposed* to be part of her story, none of it comes across for the player. Instead, she's all happy to be alive and good natured as can be.
Things don't really work that way. Karlach should be scarred inside and out. Broken in many ways. Her arc should be learning how to live again, how to be normal again. The tragedy of what happened to her should be felt.
But instead, it's not. People see this happy character, full of sunshine and rainbows, and subsequently, they expect a happy sunshine ending.
She feels more like a writer's personal fantasy self-insertion than she does a real character, I'm sorry to say. (I love the writing of almost all the other characters. Karlach's feels *very* different to me.)
The problem with Karlach is that her quest stopps after Act 2 and is unfinished. Every origin character has their quest continued and finished in Act 3, except for Karlach. And because of that, her story ends in tragedy and it feels like it's the players' fault for not trying hard enough.
I'm not against a tragic ending for her, but I do want a finished questline in Act 3 and I want the world to be internally consistent. In the forgotten realms there is such a thing as a wish spell or true resurrection. The game needs to address why these things don't work.
