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

I had to look into how exactly larian improved on a character(beast) in divinity original sin 2's definitive edition, since alot of people keep saying larian is known to ''improve'' their squandered characters in a definitive edition release. Some reddit threads i found people commented that most of his changes can be boiled down to larian having added more dialogue to beast, making him more reactive and more relevant to some storyline in act 3/4, but thats about it. Couple comments even said his changes werent that big, and there wasnt any major overhauls to his questline. This particular comment was a bit disappointing especially (spoilers for dos2, sort of?)

''I think that the four original characters received attention simply by being in EA, while Fane�s story was so complex and important that attention happened by default. Beast was just also there and it shows. Other than cracking a few lame jokes and being somewhat useful when your party interacts with the dwarven faction he does basically nothing. No meaningful change happened to that in the DE. His quest got a bit more stream lined because in act 4 Classic you could stumble upon one major plot development by accident when interacting with certain dwarves. When this got a bit more polished and focused Beast�s story was enlarged a bit more, too. It is still not enough to make it interesting.'' Link to reddit thread with this comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/DivinityOr...d_is_beasts_story_in_definitive_edition/

This makes me a bit more concerned about what exactly to expect larian to do with karlach in future patches/a definitive edition. They could very well just streamline her journey of ''acceptance'' by adding dialogue for the gondians who say they cant help her, and then we get the same ending for her but now with extra angst on top and letting us know we truly tried everything this time. Some players have said theyd accept her fate if we were allowed to ask for help from others even if it lead to nothing, so i guess this change would make some happy lol. I just personally hope we can get something a bit more substanstial than just ''now you can ask the gondians for help and get told no'', but based on larians so-called improvements on beast i dont know if thats realistic to hope for.

But i dunno, maybe im missing something, did anyone here play dos2 before and after the DE release that can give any insights on this, am i misinformed on how beast got changed?

I agree with how Beast's story was revamped, however there are some differences between Beast and Karlach.

First, Beast isn't nearly as popular as Karlach is, and if I recall correctly there wasn't really much outrage surrounding his questline, rather just some pointing out of how it felt lackluster. Karlach meanwhile has a massive following and is routinely cited as the biggest problem that people have with Act 3 and the game in general. You could better compare it with Fane than Beast, whose endings were legitimately bad and were also updated with the Definitive Edition.

Second, Beast's storyline wasn't really bad, it was just kinda... boring. It really only needed to be expanded, it's problems weren't really that glaring. Karlach by contrast not only contradicts in game lore and the solutions that the game provides us, but also potentially ruins other endings, like retiring with Wyll or wanting to self-sacrifice without sentencing Karlach to a miserable death.

Third, Larian is a different place than it was in 2017. BG3 is hugely successful, and Larian has far more in the way of resources and the ability to be agile about incorporating player feedback. We aren't even 2 months since release and we've gotten:
-The ability to change appearance midgame
-Better multiplayer system
-A new Karlach epilogue scene
-A (somewhat dubious) inventory upgrade
-Countless bugfixes and minor story adjustments

They are quite clearly invested in incorporating the player feedback they've received, and just deciding they want to railroad Karlach into having a bad ending despite what most people are telling them that's not what they want would be an honestly baffling decision. I'm not saying it isn't a possibility that Larian will just add some dialogue about accepting Karlach's fate and moving on, but honestly I feel like if they were going to do that they would have done it by now. There's also no reason to think that even if they did decide to go that route, that the community wouldn't loudly complain about it until it's fixed.

Here's a bit more context about why Beast got the changes that he did.

His problem was fundamentally different from Karlach's. He needed his questline to be more robust because it simply lacked content. It seems that's exactly what they did for him for the DE.

Karlach also lacks content but her problem is that she has no satisfying conclusion to her story, and a lot of loose ends lead to nowhere. There are three scenarios here:

1) They do nothing. They've already polished up the "ending she deserves". If they're happy with it, and most people are happy with it, then there's no need to spend money on a new questline or a rework of her existing one. So they decide to wholesale move on to bigger and better things.

2) They pad out her existing questline. After slapping us with the "ending she deserves", all they feel is needed now is to tie it up in a neat bow with some foreshadowing. And that's exactly what they decide to do.

They have the Gondians just flat-out tell us it's a lost cause and we'll have to take their word for it -- they're the experts after all. They can give us some plausible explanation as to why it's not possible. For example, they can tell us that any operation outside of Avernus on an unstable, experimental model like hers would be guaranteed to be fatal.

Giving us that context would add some much-needed meaning to saving them, rather than it being some optional thing you can do. It would give her speech that much more gravity and it would lend credence to all of her existing endings, making it truly "all we could do" for her.

3) They rework her questline. Despite polishing up her current "best" ending, Larian knows that's not what the fans want. They know they can safely ignore the minority, pocket their money, and just sweep it all under the rug. But that's not how they roll. Swen said so himself. So they decide to do right by the fans of the character.

They don't even have to do much to pull that off. All they would need to do is to give Karlach a few more scenes with the Gondians. Perhaps they ask you to fetch a really hard-to-get item that's needed to stabilize the engine long enough to perform whatever operation they deem fit. Doesn't even have to be in a new zone. Just a new or existing interaction modified just enough to allow for it to exist.

To keep things balanced, in exchange for her regaining her life on Faerun, the tradeoff could be that her lifespan has been dramatically decreased -- perhaps she has 10 years tops. Or perhaps she now has the wrath of Zariel hanging over her like a sword of Damocles, putting everyone she's close to in peril.

Whatever route Larian decide to go, they're a much different studio today than in the days of Divinity.

There really isny any plausible reason we *cant* fix her. Is the issue imo.
As so many ppl have said our characters are able to do some wild shit and put our companion characters on drastically different paths and for the most all of those paths feel satisfying. Depending on how you wanna do your playthrough.
Karlach gets none of that.
She really doesnt need a more justified reason for why she is boned.
She needs an option that the player can save her. Make it hard sure. If there needs* to be a trade off sure i guess. (Im kind of against that route cause ksrlachs personality seems like depending on that trade off she would be upset with it and not go for it) - but at the end of the day. She just needs a happy ending option. A satisfying conclusion. I will be pretty choked if they just add in dialogue or another quest log only for it to still end with -we did everything we could for karlach-

Yea these are really solid points, thank you for bringing them up! Im trying not to get too pessimistic, just sucks that no matter what happens we probably have to wait a year or two until karlachs questline gets changed, if it even does. Would be really helpful if larian could at least tell us soon, as in the following months, if theyre planning on revamping her story lol.

This post is really friggen good. I love how you've explained it all out. Really, really hoping they do the third route and yes, we know that Swen and Larian genuinely care about the fans and our interests.

That brings the point of Zariel hanging on Karlach's tail; it wouldn't be that weird given that they'd have meddled with her toys and champion/greatest asset, but also because genuinely everyone has a god after them or bound to them by endgame.
Lae'zel has Vlaakith, Shadowheart has Shar, Gale has Mystra, Wyll may cut his ties with Mizora who no, isn't a goddess but still a connection to the hells, and Astarion has his own complexes.

Not all of these are negative but in my main playthrough for instance, all main Origin ladies would have a really powerful goddess after them. So that evens out LOL

I was just thinking.

If I'm playing a cleric of Ilmater, there's NO SHOT I shouldn't be able to call a Devine favor and swap hearts with Karlach.

That is the most fucking Ilmater thing imaginable.

Yes, that's exactly what I mean. It's next year and isn't meant to advertise anything, so what will they say? Few words about development and maybe pat themselves in the back for patch 2 because they are so good.

Because either the cuts were completely last minute and there was no time to fix anything, or edgy 12 year olds on wattpadd are better writers than so called "professional" studio. Karlach situation never made any sense, but time to act passed long ago, now we won't change anything

I don't understand what you even mean by "but time to act passed long ago", dude the game released just a few days over 3 weeks ago. They've dropped THREE patches and 8 hotfixes in three weeks. There's no way in Hells they can implement a change as big as we're asking for Karlach in this time, it's not the most crucial for the many's playability.

Bro, massive studios 5 times Larian's size can't wheel out one patch that's only half as big even in the span of 3 months. What Larian has released so far is nothing short of a miracle. Our grievances shouldn't make us blind to their technical achievements. It's why we have faith in them in the first place.

to add to what everyone else is saying: i wouldn't have made a forum account in the first place if we were talking about any other company because i would've just thought "ah, allright, that's it i guess." at least here i have the hope that we will actually be acknowledged eventually, and i am under no delusion that this will happen quickly (as we already said a thousand times: these things take time. an ENORMOUS amount of time.)

CDPR was releasing hotfixes at machine gun speed when CP2077 was hot mess and the game is much bigger than BG3, your point?

"If we were talking about any other company", you sound exactly the same as people before ME3 was released with that horrible ending, you sound exactly like people that were hyped for Cyberpunk back in 2020. Small part of me really wish that Karlach will never get fixed because you guys need to learn the hard way that companies these days do nothing for the players, unless they are absolutely forced to as a reality check

OK, let's say you're right. Why are you here? Why are you in this thread telling everyone they'll never get what they hope for? What do you get out of this? Even if you're right, what do you get out of doing this?

But the life she laments isn't a life in Avernus! Not respecting someone's wishes and pushing them to do what makes you feel good is bad!

But that's a decision she gets to make. You don't get to push her into it. If Larian wants to make their new ending work, they need to create a pathway toward it in which Karlach realizes, organically, that she has found a wonderful family to support and believe in her. But even if they do that, it still feels wrong to me. Karlach says, in no uncertain terms, that she will be caught and enslaved again if she turns up in Avernus. All the love and support in the world won't do her any good when that happens.

I don't get your argument, Larian is an indipendent studio and it's not CD project red and not even bioware. That plays a huge part, and they don't exactly hold a bad track record. Whatever happens next is anyone's guess, since they never had a game with this much success on their hands, but last time I checked they weren't in the hands of their shareholders or the company above them (which doesn't exists)

There's a massive difference between hotfixes and patches, my dude.


Stop and think about where your bitterness is leading you.

Sure, but going back to Avernus was never going to be permanent. We're going there to find another way out.

And it's not just about what makes me feel good. It's more about what I believe is right for them. I can respect their agency and still hold my ground on what I believe is right at the same time.


Yes, she makes the final decision. She agrees to go with us back to Avernus. I don't think anybody was holding a gun to her head when she made that decision. She has her agency, and I have mine. If I believe something is right, I will stand by that position. She can take it or leave it, and she can make up her own mind.

I don't believe in robbing people of their agency and I also don't believe in infantilizing them.

But I agree with you that as it stands, the change in mind is somewhat abrupt. It needs to be expanded upon.


If that happens. She says that about returning to Avernus in general, not about us going with her. That changes things. Her decision to go back with us indicates to me that she has faith in us to prevent that from happening.

My bitterness leads me to the exact same place as your misguided trust in soulless corporation - nowhere. The difference is that at least I'm aware of it