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

Powerin up her engine could influence her character which would make an exellent point in what would uoy give up in pursuit of power?

Don't you think it's strange that we've been doing the Larian writers' work for quite some time now?

We've been generally doing that 'work' in different directions, at this point I believe that's called writing fanfiction.

And everybody here did much better job then "bring 2x infernal ore and go back to hell"

It isn't strange considering that Larians left Karlach's 'questline' such a gaping hole it basically asks to be filled with headcanon

it's indeed nice to see so many people passionate about this.
When a story lacks proper closure you don't experience catharsis, that's the main reason most of us are here: something is missing... and i don't believe the voices will quiet down any time soon!

@ Cromwelp on Twitter/X posted a quote re: the upcoming "customization of character midgame" patch 3 feature today saying:
Perhaps the most community-requested feature is coming with Patch 3, and thankfully you don’t even need The Surgeon to help you out with this

Believe me when I say, the devs are very, VERY aware that a better end for Karlach is the most requested addition to the game. This patch is, according to Larian's and Sven's tweets, very big. I know stuff like this is sneaky af, just like the "our infernal hearts burning" tweet. But I can't shake it off.
So we just need to keep this flame going guys. We need to be civil about it and let them work but DON'T LET THE FLAME AND HOPE DIE. We'll see our girl live and happily in Faerûn yet!

I mean her character WAS re-written in the new avernus ending to some degree, where she suddenly goes full action hero, doomslayer mode and wants to take the fight against zariel despite adamantly stating throughout the game that she never wants to return to avernus. Not only did she not seem too bothered about being back after everything she said, but shes ready to march against zariels forces cigar in mouth. Its very. Strange.

I wouldnt personally be fully against this characterization, but its very jarring now as it is because we dont have any dialogue that explore this side of her. The idea aron presented of letting us choose between stabilizing or powering up her engine, and the latter leading to her becoming more angry and vengeful and wanting to take the fight against zariel(without necessarily wanting to take over zariel), is one way to make this characterization work.

Just ended my first game, it was awesome.
below my endinds and the one i picked for Karlach

Im honestly shocked to hear- changing your appearance mid game- is a top community request.

But i hope your right that they are aware and working on a solution for Karlachs ending. Theres just so much potential for her story to be fleshed out.

I mean appearance change IS a top request.

Not for me as i like my tav to be consistent, but it's cool that they listened to feedback nonetheless, i'm sure lots and lots of people will be happy with it! let's hope they are aware of everything else.

Hey guys! Sorry, I've been MIA for a couple of days though I'm glad the discussion is still really active.

Something that I created (though still very much in dev), is a dialog change tool that I primarily created to see if new Karlach dialog lines were added in a patch (add this to the pile that is myself wishing so hard for a Karlach fix addition). It works for all characters though, including lines that Larian's changed in case of misspellings, deletion of sentences, etc. There are bugs right now, but below is a sneak peek.

I'm not sure how much Larian "leaks future developments" in their game files, so unsure how helpful it will be for predicting currently-in-development additions (maybe I should delete this before anyone at Larian sees hahaha). Also, obviously don't run the tool if you don't want to spoil new dialogue for yourself, lol.

This forum thread is the first to find out since this was born out of my wanting to see if a patch had new additions for Karlach. Due to potential bugs right now the below numbers and changes are likely under-reported. Either that, or my launch-day dialog source is bad idk.

Source code repo: https://github.com/Invuska/bg3-dialogdiff, though most of the code is in this file (sorry if spaghet-code, it was programmed very quickly in my tiny free-time).
Again, compiled version not released yet. I'll also keep you guys posted if there's anything new for Karlach dialog-wise in Patch 3.

Invuska you are CRAZY in the best possible way, props!

Neato, yeah keep us posted thats pretty cool

Someone get Invulska to Larian immediately

Spoilers throughout this post.

So at the time of writing I've played through this game 4 times, focusing on different companions each time, and just finished a playthrough in which I romanced Karlach, so I think I'm ready to have an opinion here now.

To start I'll say I love BG3. I'm really glad Larian gave us this game. Karlach is my favorite character and I do really appreciate that they tried to add some better closure with the epilogue patch.

That being said, it's not enough. I think there are deeper issues with the way she's written into the story beyond just the ending. After four playthoughs, Karlach definitely feels the least finished out of all the companions. It's a shame, because what is there is amazing.

- The first and most important point I want to make, and the one I (like to) think Larian cares the most about, is that becoming emotionally invested in the outcome of Karlach's story just feels bad. Obviously I wasn't in the writing room so I can only speculate, but I think the reason you can't actually save her in the end is because they wanted her story to be a poignant exploration of coming to terms with mortality and bravery, and probably felt that having her survive without making some kind of sacrifice would undercut her arc, but: her arc and survival don't have to be mutually exclusive. If she lives at the end she still lives with her revelations on the nature of strength and bravery as she states in Act 3. She doesn't have to die at the end to experience personal growth. For me, choosing to romance her gave a rather depressing overtone to the entirety of the game because I knew there would be no way to save her, despite the constant hints to the contrary. I can only imagine how it'd feel if I'd focused on her on my first playthrough and didn't know that there was no way to even attempt to save her. Probably confused and thinking I did something wrong, then very disappointed when I realized there's just no way to do it.

On a more personal note, the whole thing feels unnecessarily tragic. She's betrayed and enslaved as a kid, escapes just long enough to be reminded how much she loves life and the world, only to have it all ripped away again, and there's nothing you can do?? Come on, now, Larian. I mean, what's the point of all that? To show that even the best of us can live short, brutal lives and die too soon? We all know that, thank you.

-The second point is that Karlach's story is filled with certain tonal inconsistencies that are somewhat difficult to pin down. She seems to react with hope and optimism to certain game events, but when you actually speak to her she has a rather fatalist outlook, particularly in Act 3. At the beginning of Act 3 she tells you "I'm not going anywhere, I have plans for the future", to bleak fatalism, to "We can handle whatever comes at us together" when she takes you on the date, to "I'm going to die and pretending I'm going to live is a fantasy" after the date, to "hey the steel watch is based on me? maybe there's something that can help me there", to raging at her fate after Gortash is dead, to making dinner plans with old friends in the city and saying "first we save the city, then we save me", etc etc. She's excited about life, then she's ready to die, then she's not.

I don't know if the writers intended this rollercoaster or not, but I'd almost say it gave me a sort of... emotional whiplash. The script doesn't seem to know how it wants either the player or the character to feel. It seems to want to give you hope while she herself tries to take it away from you. She constantly swings from doom and gloom to optimism. She repeatedly insists she will never go back to Avernus; it's simply not an option. At the same time, the game almost seems to encourage you to hope and look for other solutions by letting you reassure her not to give up, you'll keep looking for a way. But there are no other solutions, and she suddenly does a 180 at the end and goes back to Avernus anyway? That felt somewhat jarring. The game reinforces to the player that there may be a solution by letting you tell her so, when in fact there is not. It doesn't feel great.

A secondary point here that confused me is the weird difference between the party's reactions when learning about Gale's impending death versus Karlach's. When Gale learns he has to blow himself up (and he seems resolved to do it), the party's reaction is generally "no way, we can't let him do that, we'll find some other way", but when Karlach discovers that she's on a clock, their reactions universally are "damn, that sucks, it's too bad there's nothing we can do about this". What? We didn't let Gale blow himself up, but we're supposed to be okay with Karlach exploding? We have exhausted literally zero options trying to save her.

-The third point is that it doesn't really make sense that in a place like Forgotten Realms, filled with magic, gods, and other death-defying phenomena, there's nothing that can be done. Hell, the game itself is full of people and things which sometimes feel like they're dangled in front of you to give you hope and lead you to believe you should be able to save her. Off the top of my head:

- You can't ask Raphael (or Mizora for that matter), despite the fact that he probably could easily do it, as evidenced by him removing the tadpoles with a snap of the fingers, which no one else in the game was able to do, even the Emperor. Yes, I know Karlach would hate the idea, but that's what makes it interesting.
- The Gondians built the steel watch based off of Karlach's prototype. She remarks on this with optimism when you learn it, hoping that you might be able to find something at the factory, but she never mentions it again and you can't ask the Gondians. The game even gives you "Enriched Infernal Iron" along the way, leading the player to think that there might be some way to use it for her when it is in fact useless. Why? That seems like a strange connection to write into the game when it's ultimately meaningless.
- You also can't ask the deep gnomes after you help Wulbren
- You can't ask Withers
- You can't use the crown to save her
- Can't use the dominated brain to save her
- Dammon repeatedly says that he's working on a solution up until she just dies and nothing ever comes of it
- As it's been pointed out, this should be an easy fix for the scroll of true resurrection, which even exists in the game. Yes, I'm aware an item like this is a writer's nightmare and a deus ex machina cop-out. It's there, though.
- You can't ask Dame Aylin/Isobel for help from Selune after saving Aylin from the Shadowfell. Seems like an easy fix for Selune and she kind of owes you a big fat favor after all that, not to mention I would think that Aylin/Isobel would be pretty sympathetic to your plight if you're romancing Karlach.
- The rest of the gods. You just prevented the illithid grand design and saved the universe. They all owe you pretty big and I would think saving one mortal's life is a pretty small ask.
- I even saved my one use of Divine Intervention the whole game hoping that I'd be able to use it on her at the end, but no such luck
- But turning into a mind flayer saves her from the engine?? Come on.

All of these things result in the feeling that a specific ending is forced and you can't actually save her and you never actually had a choice. Ultimately, Karlach's 'arc' left me disappointed and somewhat bitter, I suppose because in the end it all felt kind of misleading and hopeless and pointless.

This post is already dangerously close to a rant so I'll end it here and say that there are already a lot of great ideas for solutions to the Karlach story in this thread. Rewrites, more content for her side quest involving an Avernus visit and a permanent fix, they're all good. Thanks for reading.

Larian has always listened to feedback. This isn't surprising, it's expected.

I know Larian listens to feedback but I just have a feeling in my gut that whoever wrote Karlach has severe author-brain and will force feed us this stupid fucking forced tragedy by any means nessicary.

I obviously strongly agree with everything you said, and your second point is the strongest imho. i myself imagined that this rollercoaster was due to rewrites and leftovers from a time when you could actually do something about the whole situation. Emotional whiplash indeed.