Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion [END SPOILS WARNING] Addressing Karlach (PLEASE PUT SPOILERS IN TAGS)

Made an account just to chime in on this and throw my voice into the mix. There are obvious shortcomings and i feel like writing a whole post to get everything out.

I can see the point your making, but I would just have to humbly disagree, her story really is just two fetch quests which just doesnt feel right for such an amazing character, she may seem straight forward because she is a solidly 'good' character
but id argue she has alot of potential for depth and development similer to astarian. I do agree it doesnt need to be overly complex or long but if were here talking about justice for karlach, and my options for larian going forward is adding another fetch quest and calling it good with a few extra lines of dialogue. OR something more meaningful for a character that really deserves her time in the spot light. like a section of content the size of the crech (which really isnt asking for alot in my opinion) im going to advoacate for the Latter.

mainly because they alrdy gave us a *bandaid* ending scene to give karlach fans something that wasnt horribly depressing at the end. and it obviously didnt satisfy the players. like im grateful; they did it and it gives me alot of hope for the future
but I just dont want larian to think another bandaid fetch quest is enough to complete karlachs Arc, ill be grateful either way Larian is an amazing company and i want to support them further going forward. but I would rather they see in this thread were hoping for more then a *quick fix* for karlach plus anything that gives more time/dialogue/romance scenes with mama K is a win!

That's just an idea. Gondians are most obvious but then that's literally just a matter of one quests and few dialogues which is what we call for since the begining

I still haven't seen an explanation on how she pets the dog in act one.

Scratch is secretly Jergal

And as I said many times, it literally required adding few dialogues, because they would either just fix this, or would require loot from steel watcher, or enriched infernal iron. Sure adding it is not easy as snapping fingers but come on, I refuse to belive it's that much pain. It's the easiest quest to add

Even if the dog was secretly a deity, Karlach has no reason to know the dog is fireproof and should hesitate to touch him

New theory, Karlach hates dogs

Her petting animation looks exactly like everyone else however. And she approves of dog petting.

New theory 2, she doesn't actually approve of dog petting, and just relishes the opportunity to potentially light a dog on fire, hence the approves.

This theory still makes more sense than the fact that we can't fix her engine.

Well... everything was already said pretty much. It really seems, that alot to give her happy ending is already in the game. The hints in the dialogs, enhanced iron, gondian quest, Dammon new forge in Baldurs Gate.
Just to bind it all in some way, that after final battle she could be fix somehow and give all of the people, who invested in that character, some good closure.
After all, giving most cheerfull, "happy to be alive" character most tragic ending of them all.......feells simply SAD.
So i sign in for "Justice for Karlach", can wait for it too...

She also can pull Gale out of a twitchy portal so here's more ground for some fan theories lmao

Gale also shakes her hand, skin to skin.

I’d say her writing is a bit all over the place. There’s many plot holes in regards to her touching.

That’s the thing that gets me. Karlach is the one always saying out loud how good she feels to be alive, how much she wants to live - and she is the one who is actually gonna die out of everyone (even Gale).

I love angsty stories and this contrast feels like her desperate to cling to hope and life even with all odds against her - which make Karlach even more amazing as a character. But to not give her even the hope of redemption, an implied fix, is not just sad or angsty, is simply depressing.

If you care about her, the “epic” game ending of you being the hero of the city isn’t epic at all. It feels like utter BS. I, at least, didn’t give a damn if the people were saved when I realized everyone would be left better off than they were before EXCEPT Karlach. Feels like writers were picking on her, honestly.

I think Larian got the message about endings, Swen addressed this himself it seems according to this article. Like people have been saying, just give them some time.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/baldurs-gate-3-interview-pax-west-2023/

To quote Swen from this ^Article^,

"We are adding in extra epilogue stuff. It’s actually underway. Actors are being recalled, writing is happening on that."

"Yeah, we said that we’re going to. We have a tool that allows us to render permutations of the videos that you look at. These videos of the ending were like 18 minutes long. We said, “that’s getting really long guys, this is gonna be going on like the end of The Lord of the Rings.” So we said, maybe we should trim it. And that was a mistake, clearly, because a lot of players were upset by that. They actually wanted that. So Peter Jackson was right."

"So we learned from that. We brought back Sam (Béart), who’s the actress for Karlach right away. She went into the studio, I think, within the first week. We said okay, let’s give an updated ending. An optional ending, because they are all the other ones for Karlach. So we are adding in extra epilogue stuff. It’s actually underway. Actors are being recalled, writing is happening on that. But it’s not (cut) content that existed; it’s something that we are going to create new."

Recent video of the voice actors together all at once, finally.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/a4KIeqCfWzE

So SO hope for something new and amazing to come from this.

I for one will be rolling around faerun, ignoring the main quest, waiting.

I do prefer to wait a long while to get some good stuff. But I also hope they address the “easy fixable” things like wording on dialogue options that make no sense etc. Like, PLEASE focus on the big issues here and take your time to get it right - yes please, but also… make Gale wince from a burn when shaking Karlach’s hand too. Y’know, just for the sake of continuity.

Oh, how funny. That's exactly the analogy I used. Obviously I wasn't the only one making such comparisons.

This is fun) I have faith in Larian, I'm willing to wait. It certainly sounds like they'll just add some quest for Karlach, though I'd like to see more in-depth work with her story in all acts. But hopefully at least later on they'll do DLC with Avernus or something more extensive in her story than they have now. i'd love to buy it

The issue is we don't have any reason to believe that, especially after patch 2. They promised "ending she deserves" and it was slave returning to the place she was abused in, if you think that's what she deserves then you have serious issues. On top of that, they added new voice lines where she basically gives up on life starting in act 2 of all places! And we can't even try anything in act 3. They promised us something that wasn't close to truth and doubled down on their dumb tragedy writing. The article you posted is old, either before patch 2 or while after it, this doesn't change, promise, show or tell anything

Yes this is true, we have no clues, if whey want to do something with Karlach in the future. But If they don't, her story and engine quest remain incomplete which is obviously wrong from the game perspective.