Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion NPCs you would take with you as companions

I think in this case the quantity services the quality, albeit indirectly. Mainly it just gives more opportunities to explore a character concept without overburdening them with too much to carry. The existing recruitable companions are a bit overwrought in my view already, or at least a bit overwrought compared to what I'm looking for in a Baldur's Gate game. When the character sketches are a bit looser and more impressionistic, that allows the player to project onto these characters in a way that's more open ended and flexible, but which still ties into the story. Too much detail, and things can drift quickly into disappointed expectations or incongruities that become hard to reconcile. Disconnects between the first impression and the final rendering.

I also think the rough sketch approach lends itself somewhat better to comedy and light-heartedness, since it's mainly surface there, whereas if you really plumb the depths then the characters become sorta too real, and the comedy can turn tragic. Comedy is probably harder in it's way, because it's ephemeral and subject to taste and can be difficult to translate, but when it works it's timeless. Like Monty Python is still going to be funny, even if some of the jokes don't quite land anymore in the same way. It's got that special something and you know what it was trying to be. To me Baldur's Gate, the original, was primarily levity (albeit with some light dabbling into gravity) but it was a loving sendup of the D&D genre and laden with inside jokes and goofy riffs. The plot is basically Highlander meets 'everything you ever read about the Forgotten Realms', meets Duck Soup. So maybe that feeds into my feelings on the characterization in these games with the bar somewhat lowered on what's required to make me smile.

In BG1 the character Jaheira had a grand total of what, maybe 50 spoken lines? Like over the whole 100-some-odd hours of gameplay. These were each 1 line phrases, which were essentially all barks and interjections and banters. At least half of those were cross companion banters. So basically a couple barks aimed at each potential companions and the rest were battlecrys or running commentary. You know like "This city is a blight on the landscape. Better to have let the land grow wild." That was pretty much it. Yet she managed to make an impression there through her VA and her hook was solid. Things stirring the south and such. Taking some swipes at Khalid and Charname and Imoen, pretty much everybody. It was enough to get the ball rolling, not quite enough by today's standards. BG2 had much more on this score, though a fair bit less than BG3 Origins, and is about at the level I'd hope to see for the BG3 non-origin companions.

I think we could divide things up pretty readily with a couple simple rules of thumb for who might make the shortlist...

If the NPC character is a major vehicle for main plot story delivery, then they should probably be tabled until the point in the game where that part of story has largely been resolved. This might preclude some NPCs from hopping into the mix until the mid-game or the end-game. Or if the character is already attached to an Origin storyline, in that way that Mizora rides Wylls coat tails, or Voss has a lot to say to Lae'zel, those characters would be endgame most likely. To even make it feel worth it at that point, they would probably need associated extra content, a few fights that basically follow after them since the game is almost over at that point.

If the character is a merchant, then you'd need a way for them to basically bring on a shopkeep or someone who takes over their operation in order to maintain a functional game. All that loot just gets transferred to the stand-in merchant, so the character can hit the road with the party. They might bring along a thematic piece of equipment from their shop inventory, but leave all the gold and the rest, so as not to unbalance the game by having the party suddenly get rich that way. Still if they have fetch quests, like Dammon and the iron for Karlach, those interactions might follow the character rather than the shop.

If the character has a natural pairing with another character, then the gameplay and recruitment should probably swing off that. Since this mirrors the kinds of pairs and breaks we had in BG1, a similar set up could work. But there should be options to break a pairing that don't require us to kill one character in order to keep the other. Or at least not unless that's already somehow thematic for the characters. Instead the breaks there could be via some dialog mazes, or resolving a quest that provides a natural outro, so the hangers-on can exit stage left without too much disruption.

If a bit character is going to die as part of some other bit character's story, then that death scene should be really spectacular. Since a timeless and enduring death scene is every bit players secret vanity goal hehe.

Otherwise I think pretty much everyone is fair game, provided they have a couple lines and a couple fans. That said, if the character is going to be a romantic trope, this should be telegraphed well in advance so we can pick the right trope. Mostly this holds with the current companions, though there are a couple notable switcheroos. Minthara starts out all Natural Born Killers like some sort of Bonnie and Clyde thing, but ends up pretty sentimental. Halsin presents as one sort of thing, but then takes over what might have been Minthara's backstory in the 3rd Act somehow. Both seem to be a bit of a bait and switch, though it seems to have worked out a lot better for the Minthara fans I guess, from what I'm reading in the other thread. I think this is a bit of the 'trailer not matching the movie' situation. Like I don't really know what happened there, I think Halsin started out Rom Com in tone, but then went off the rails into The Sleepers? I don't know, he's not a top pick for me really cause I get bored in the second act, but if there were 3 other Male NPCs, who all had a similarly jacked physique and a pleasing demeaner, maybe they could have split some of that material across a couple different characters so it could have been done more deftly? Subjects for the other thread I guess on that one, but main point being, if there's going to be romance it should kinda deliver as advertised.

Also they should just maybe try to avoid the big switcheroo thing to the extent possible, and offer mostly happy endings there and the happily ever-afters, cause this is a game. People can learn the school of hard knocks in life elsewhere I think, since this isn't a thing that lends itself particularly well to gameplay mechanics. For the NPC recruits I would divide that stuff into lots a generic romance barks, and a couple setpieces. Taking a bath, sitting by the fire, the star-lit walk, all that sort of stuff, keeping it pretty light. Also for any path that might lead to romance with a character, there should also be a platonic friendship path, and a more adversarial frenemies path, that is equally developed. Goal here should be parity, and probably trying to avoid torch romance in favor of stuff that's a bit more even keel.

If a character really falls flat, then the upside here of not getting too attached, is that Durge can maybe just eat them to prove a point! Hehe and hopefully there'd still be someone else around after that who might pick up the pieces.

Here this is the last big headshot collection I managed to throw together during EA. I pulled them all from the fextra, but the newer BG3 wiki is better. I'll try to redo it at some point with the favs mentioned above and trying to hit the square format so maybe they could double for boards avatars or whatever. I think this thread can carry the concept forward for the Full release, so it'd be nice to get a similar image with the updated looks. I think I had the 50 shot spoiler'd in the other thread, but I'll just drop it here for memory lane stuff.



Some of these visualizations have changed, mostly in the outfits, but sometimes the hair or the cosmetic elements. Some companions actually made the grade, so probably don't need to be up anymore, but this is the old one. The EA npcs with the old look might be fun somehow as Doppelgangers along a doppelganger themed path. Or I don't know, but some of the old looks still got some charm!