Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Fixing Astarion's "Good" Ending

As it stands, Astarion's "good" ending - and specifically, his non-romance ending, as I didn't romance him - is bizarrely bad. All that happens is he runs off crying, being burned by the sun, while your companion's are like, "Lol, what an idiot". You spend all this time trying to gain his trust, and push him towards not being an egotistical person who uses people for his own self interest, and this is the end? Quite literally all you have to do is:

1) Not have the companions crack jokes about it. What's up with that anyway? It pushes it from being kind of out of place and bad, to just being actively mean spirited towards his character, and the growth he's seen over the course of the story.

2) Instead of him running off crying, just have him directly reference the fact that the sun is rising, and because of his choices, he'll now have to go back to living like a regular vampire spawn - just now free from his Master. Have him talk up about how he's going to live his life more positively, and not hurt people or whatever. Have your character be able to respond back to him, and affirm his choice, tell him that he deserves this as penance for what he did, or whatever else. Then have him leave with grace, accepting of his new responsibilities and life direction.

turn into a squid

Cause, as the love of your life is burning up in the sun, your character gets no chance to react. You basically "lol" with everyone else and it's completely distasteful.

Additionally, this is a character who has earned a great deal of respect. He went against his nature by denying himself ultimate power and they almost frame it like he "deserves" ridicule.

It feels like they wrote his ending at the same time as writing his introduction. The ending screams of "this would be funny if you never got to know him."

Aside from burning up in the sun and companions cracking up underhanded jokes about it, in the epilogue you have with him, the one on one conversation, our responses (and his) are so beyond shit.

So, during the romance we promised multiple times that we won't leave his side, that we'll be with him no matter what and yet that seems to be forgotten about in the "epilogue" conversation with him somehow. What I mean is, we HAVE to reassure him AGAIN that we do in fact want to be with him. If Larian is so hell bent on us breaking up with him or "going our own way" why not also add options like "we spoke about it already, I love you and I meant what I said before, I will stand by you no matter what"... it's just odd. And an amazing VA like Neil can't really save those lines either, even though you can tell he really pours his heart and his soul into his work. When actors are given crap script like that to work with there is only so much they do to save it. And he almost saves it.

If you turn into a mind flayer, the conversation is a bit more meaningful, in both the not-ascended and ascended version. Then the conversation centers on if they can continue now that Tav has changed.

I prefer the ascension Astarion ending because it seems like a good ending for him; at least he is not seemingly abandoned and disrespected like the non-ascension Astarion ending. (Plus, the ascended astarion has so much more dialogue; it would have been nice if the non-ascended astarion gave cute scenes like him showing you different places similarly to his grave.)

But there is nothing like watching him burn and run off between crates while rocking back and forth with no option for Tav to run after him to comfort him while some of the party members make rude comments (I watched the Astarion Origin ending because I wasn’t sure where he ran off to on the docs or how he decided to live in the good-ending, the Origin ending gives a bit more of an extension to where he went and decided to do with his life)

But it looks like he ends up alone in the end, even if you romance him. (Unless it is a bug and the game assumes you did not romance him.) It did not seem like a happy ending for Astarion. It feels like all the work put into making him feel that he is enough, or whatever, was for no reason, as in the end he ended up with nothing. (If I remember there is even dialogue along of the lines of him being grateful that he did not ascend and that you made him realize that he does not need power and is enough as a spawn. If he was enough, then why is he all alone at the end? Though I’m still unsure if it’s a bug and the game provided a non-romanced Astarion cutscene. I guess he could be happy as is)

At least ascended; even if he becomes a pompous asshat and his emotions become twisted, he is not burning in the sun and living outside all alone, like a homeless person trying to eat what scraps they can find. It seems like choosing to ascend is a good ending for him (not for you or Baldurs Gate).

Remember when we met up with his spawn siblings in the Flophouse? Remember his spawn siblings' reaction to their brother burning in the sun?
"God's, No brother!! Stop!!" "What's happened to you, Astarion?!"
They were panicked and begging Astarion to let him go because a vampire burning in the sun is SUPPOSED TO BE A BIG DEAL.
His freaking sister had a harsher reaction to their nothing brother burning up but your companions and you and his love don't seem concerned at all about it when it happens to Astarion.

[/spoiler] the Master vampire instead of talking we went stealth attack. Skipping all dialog we killed him and his buddies. After the battle Astarion lost his mind and basically said screw you captives...screw you adventurers. Broke the staff and fled with the vamp buddies the master vampire had tied up. I sat with a what the heck feeling. This was after he just apologized to the captives. [spoiler]

Speaking of Cazador, to anyone who may be struggling with the battle. If you want to avoid the fight as much as possible with Cazador by accessing the dialogue, you can grab Victoria's dead body from the locked room and toss it between the stairs and walkway where the ritual is taking place, and Cazador and other enemies will run into it and stand there until they die. Just make sure the person carrying the dead body has the Necrotic Resistance potion and some healing potions. Tossing the body away from you and picking it back up helps preserve life points(so long as you remain on your turn until everything is dead) Keeping Astarion out of the battle by hiding him far away will prevent him from being sacrificed since he wont register as being present in the room.

I'm a little confused because Cazador should have gone to his coffin after you kill him. Maybe that didn't trigger because you didn't go through the dialogue with Cazador? From reading other posts, attacking before the dialogue seems to lock him into the "you promised to help me ascend and then denied me at the last second" which ends in him killing the 7000 and leaving the group.

Not sure what choices you made during the playthrough either, but I KNOW that if you encourage him to take power/replace Cazador/try to ascend during the whole game and then change your mind at the ritual and try to stop it, there is no way to convince him to not ascend without angering him and stop him from leaving the party. I would try to reload the save before attacking and go through the dialogue before battle to see if that changes anything.