Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Playing as Karlach gets you less content? [Spoilers]

Playing as Astarion felt the same way, like something was missing. You also get less interactions with your romantic partner than a Tav has romancing Astarion, which was deeply unsatisfying. That cool stuff you saw in the first hour is about all you get before it turns into regular Tav dialogue options. You don't even get your origin's camp tent. It's just missing, which made me sad.

You get an extra cutscene about Cazador and you get to pick who you nom nom on in camp the 1st time, but that's about it Act 1. I succeeded my roll (DC 10! Guess Tav really did get lucky waking up!) and never woke up my companion, so no one knew I was a vampire. I was always given an option to come clean to my companions, when talking to them, but no one had anything new to say. I saved and outed myself to all of them and everyone gave a different "Well, it was kinda obvious what you were, wish you felt comfortable enough to tell me sooner" speech. Yet not one single mention of my "strangely vampiric demeanor" before that. You do start with the option to bite during combat, and doing so "outs" you to the party, but even doing it that way just gets you a single "Gasp! You're a vampire!" line mid battle from random companion, then the "I knew what you were speech" from whichever one spoke during combat. Went back to my 'no one knows" save and I was able to hide what I was until the Gur hunter in the swamp. After he "outed" me, random companion gave the "I knew what you were" speech, same as if I came out to them.

If you elect to feed on an animal that 1st night instead of a companion (it's an option), then you find the bloodless pig corpse the next day, but no one comments on it or investigates it further in any way. So you miss even the foreshadowing of that moment. Would have been nice to have been at least a little worried about someone picking up on what you were.

And that's it, you don't even get an option to feed on your romantic partner nightly like Tav has with him if they are romancing him, which was disappointing (don't look at me like that, I want to know what the hell the Gyth tastes like!) I romanced Lae and got her intimate scene but didn't get to bite her. You get none of Astarion's scenes trying to entice Tav to trust them or feed on them. I didn't even get to get drunk on eating a bear. I also couldn't command the gnoll leader to eat themselves. That dialogue tree didn't pop for me at all when interacting with them. Maybe origin characters are locked out of certain things? Gonna try again on another origin to see.

The night of the tiefling party, I didn't get a single invite for anyone's "camp romance" scene. TBF, not sure if because another origin can't get it or because I was flirting with everyone. (I didn't imagine Astarion would limit his available snacks by shunning anyone's interest in him. Of course, this was before I knew you can't snack on your romance partner.) Although, I'd already slept with Lae at this point and she was indifferent to me during the party, but flirty before and after it. Felt weird.

Act 2, meeting the Oblodra was disappointing because you don't get any of the back and forth about biting her or no, not even with your romantic partner. Even the scar reveal was disappointing since no one said anything about the scars until Raphael casually mentions them while offering info in exchange for a dead demon. Got the same dialogue about being a pawn in Cazador's game from everyone in camp as if I was Tav asking them about it.

I played his storyline to the end and ascended. Got a few extra lines from Caz, the same lines from companions as if they were there with Tav about not murdering everyone, and no one tried to stop the Ascension after it started. Back at camp, didn't even get the option to make my romance character a spawn, like Astarion has with Tav. (A vampire gish Wyll was gonna be awesome! I could fight with Mizora about who get's his soul!) Wyll gave his "I'm disappointed in you" speech if you ascend but you don't lose any approval with him. He doesn't even break up with you! Guess I could always play AS Wyll and romance Astarion to see that, but was sad I couldn't do it as Astarion. Actually, not even sure it'll be an option. Gonna do a SH origin and romance him to see if origins are just locked out from that possibility. I'll update this once I know.)

And, since the character you're playing doesn't actually speak much, you missing hearing the snarky ways he says his lines.

I think it would be slightly more interesting if you could pick which origin romantic scenes played if you are an origin romancing an origin and at least got to hear them say the lines they normally would when you pick those as your option. So, overall, playing as origin wasn't nearly as much fun as playing Tav or Durge. If you really wanna see their extra dialogue, I'd recommend just beelining to whatever part of the story is crucial to the origin you're playing, and skipping the hours of side quests since there doesn't seem to be anything unique for an origin vs Tav on those.

The coolest thing about playing Astarion though? Letting Volo do eye surgery on me so I ran around with 1 blue eye and 1 red eye. It looked really neat and if I only saw him from the side, I could imagine what he looked like before he was turned. I didn't bother going further after the Ascension since I was already let down leading up to it.