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

Bioware needed 3 months to patch the god forsaken ending of mass effect 3 after basically community wide outrage. But hey you and the 10 people here are doing great. 2 months and the whole justice for karlach is in the dark

I always wonder if that is why Karlach comes with 2 smite spells, one of fire damage and one of radiant damage? I have a personal theory/headcanon for that, but I never played EA so I don't know if maybe she just had it from the start because she was a paladin of sorts.


Preach. SH gets 2 full "dungeons", one of them massive, and Karlach gets maybe a chance to sidekick a fight against Gortash in his room. If you don't actively bring her, it doesn't even matter. I truly wish her involvement with Gortash and his whole deal was more thoroughly explored.

Funny enough, despite that moment being the equivalent to Karlach's big confrontation time in the game, what we get is actually Mizora standing on the bridge warning us to bring Wyll with us so we don't miss part of his story. But if a player isn't paying attention, they can totally miss Karlach's "big" moment.

Also. We even get Shar the goddess herself show up for Shadowheart and Vlaakith for Lae'zel, so maybe a quick glance at Zariel also wouldn't hurt.

Please, Larian, add/restore more content to Karlach! This is my favourite companion by far, I am sooo uneasy with how little I have to do with her arc...

Karlach definitely deserves her own dungeon for her questline, and some area in avernus would work great as a place to look for potential cure solutions and also explore her past. That way we could also get a quick glance at zariel, it would be really awesome. Whether larian will do this or not remains to be seen, i think this was discussed already several pages back that this would require alot of work, but hey one can hope!

It's racials you get as you level up as a Zariel bloodline tiefling. Likely she's had so much contact with Zariel that that tiefling variation made the most sense for her on creation.

Always found it a little bit ironic that a Zariel tiefling got sold, well, to Zariel. Like, I don't think her bloodline changed because of the whole deal, so she by birth is a Zariel tiefling, like Tav can be. And then THAT happens.

Then again, when you think about it, likely that's precisely why she got sold. Considering the whole "My blood gives her strength" crap Zariel carved into her horns, it seems like she was looking for a strong tiefling of her own bloodline in particular. Most promising combo to withstand the engine thing, I suspect.

And a certain someone was all too happy to provide a candidate. Wrong place, wrong time, girl

This could've been sooooo good. I was actually hoping to see Zariel at some point since we've seen Mystra, Shar and Vlaakith. Heck, even Orpheus who's kind of a big deal.

Weird how the companion with the least personal quest content got an anticlimactic villain tied to her? I mean looking at Ketheric and Orin is like day and night with Gortash. He was the most out of place villain with how the fight went.

I've now gone through BG3 for the second time, and this time I had Karlach in my party and saw her ending. And man, it's such a great ending for such a great character, very dissonant with the character himself. But people on the forums are whining and asking for it to be redone because you see it's too sad and violent. People seriously what's wrong with you this dramatic ending (in my case with her death in the finale) perfectly suits this character, yes sad, but so and so should be, that's what the developers wanted to achieve, that was their idea. Such a cheerful and positive character with such a tragic ending, it's great, a very strong emotional moment with her death, which works just as well in many ways thanks to the fact that fate is an evil bitch and unjust to such good people (just like in real world, right?), it can not always end well and everyone will live happily ever after, it's just not interesting and boring. Considering BG3 was originally supposed to be much darker, this storyline fits it perfectly. But no you want to ruin all the hard work of the writers by demanding a happy ending for her, seriously? I understand if it was buggy or unfinished, but no there's nothing wrong with it, so why change anything?

Really starting to feel like a broken record, but could you please consider such points as:

"This great character and her great story got less content and attention that other characters she's supposed to be equal to";

or "This great character and her great story are supplied by a very underwhelming fetch quest unlike others who got whole locations, which feels unfair to this great character and her great story";

or "This great character and her great story for some reason locks the player out of interacting with said story in any meaningful way while the whole game lets us actively do stuff for everyone else's problems which undermines the feeling of this being an RPG game with choices and consequences";

or "This great character and her great story get summed up in a callous 'We did all we could' entry in a journal when in fact the gameplay didn't allow us to pursue any further options of helping her DESPITE being presented with multiple such options, which leaves many players with a feeling of failing the quest, because no, we didn't do all we could, and that, again, feels frustrating in an PRG game";

or, yes, "The character is so great and lovely that you can't help but wish for a better ending for her, and that tragedy is hard to fully accept when it feels railroaded instead of inevitable (see above: options presented, we did nothing with them), especially when you can create at least a bittersweet "good" ending for everyone else, but her options literally never change regardless of meeting you (and all you as a player is supposed to do is change stuff)",

which brings us to:

"Whatever BG3 what originally supposed to be is irrelevant, because as it is now it's a game where we can help all our friends and ourselves to break cycles of abuse and escape except for one of them, and her lacking quest makes it feel unjustified gameplay-wise, which in turn makes it jarring in the overall themes of the game, regardless of what it was originally supposed to be".

However, even disregarding that last point: a great character with a great story and great voice acting etc etc deserves the same amount of content, cutscenes, locations and plot forks as all the other characters, and it's because we love that character that abscense of all that makes us rally for additions, not changes per se.

Consequently, having the same amount of player input (etc) as with others would logically imply the same existence of a better (not even fully happy, just better) ending option you have to work hard for and complete quests to get.

Which you can, I suppose, just take and reduce to "Whining for a better ending". Yay.

Perfectly put, tarraxahum.

I agree, you have a point, Larians need to add more content for it, expand the questline, but not change the ending. You just can't save everyone, you always have to sacrifice someone and i like it, like the Tieflings if you choose Minthara or Balduran if you follow the Lae'zel storyline and free Orpheus.

LMAO, I'm having déjà vu! I'm back at the Cyberpunk forums again. Honestly, I blame Game of Thrones for making the more 'mature', dark and depressing endings/stories popular. Now every writer feels the need to make their story more edgy for no apparent reason. (Don't get me wrong I like my darker stories but there is a time and a place.)

This is DnD and might I add an RPG, a genre known for player choice and multiple outcomes. So its not that big of a reach to ask for more endings even if one of them is a happy/happier one. (especially since the cure for Karlach can come in many forms in this universe which the devs/writers decided to ignore)

As for the 'hard work' and 'intended by writers', that doesn't really stop it from being poorly done/written as is clear by many comments/users pointing out the lack of content that this character has in game.

This might come as a surprise to some, but I'm not overly invested in romances in RPGs/games. (tho if they are added I expect them to be done well enough)
I think they add a lot (from deeper exploration of characters to more options when it comes to roleplaying) and I've enjoyed them when roleplaying my characters but I don't think they are always necessary. But I do understand how some might get attached and be distressed when the character they like is poorly handled. So, yeah I don't see anything wrong with asking for fixes and more content for Karlach.

And if you like the more sad or bittersweet outcomes, nothing will change by adding other ones. As long as they don't conflict or erase each other.

Either way I'm dipping out, I think I had more than enough when it comes to romance topics. Hope Karlach gets the expanded content she deserves.

Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting an option for a happier ending for a companion character. If you can't save everyone, that's fine--but usually we get the option of who we DO get to save, as in the Tieflings vs. Minthara example. Not giving us a similar choice for Karlach feels to me like a cop-out. Tragedy for the sake of shock value, instead of as a result of choices.

People like to argue, sometimes, that wanting to play games/read books/etc. with happy endings is either boring or is suggestive of the fortitude of the consumer's character or will, and I find that highly reductive. People have all sorts of reasons for engaging with media, and that's their prerogative. Personally, I'm a big fan of horror and tragedy done well. I simply don't agree that Karlach's was done well, for reasons listed above.

Likewise, I don't think that having a happier ending would cheapen the work done in the sadder endings at all. It's about options and picking the choice that feels right to you, which is the entire spirit and appeal of D&D in the first place. As a DM irl, I admit to sometimes being a little disappointed when my players don't choose a route I really enjoyed writing--but if I insist upon something they don't want, then we aren't playing a game anymore. Then I'm just telling a story.

I think you misunderstood what I meant by "BG3 was originally supposed to be much darker", I meant that originally instead of Balduran there was Daisy, who according to some people was removed because players were afraid of her, and according to others because Larian didn't like dnd 5e and wanted players to use MindFlayer's abilities, even though there are only a couple of useful abilities there. And also the fact that most likely the original canon character for the game was Dark Urge. And some of the cut content for Minthara also hints that the game was supposed to be darker. That's what I mean, and not the Karlach story at all.

And I just feel like after all these requests and comments, they're just going to replace the ending with her death or being sent to hell with a happy ending, rather than giving a choice between the two. And that would be sad for me personally. I really liked the ending with her death, and see it as a sad irony.

And that's great that you like it! I think at the very least most of us here agree that what's already in the game should stay in the game, but it does (ideally) need to be built upon. However, for me and many others it's often like... "You can't save everyone" - well, why can't I? If you (as in, the plot) are going to tell me that, give me a reason better than "because I said so".

As you yourself said and as aoife pointed out, tieflings/Halsin vs. Minthara and Balduran vs. Orpheus are choices. There's a clear answer there - "You can't save everyone, because these things here are mutually exclusive, it's either or". I have no qualms with that.

There's no "either/or" in Karlach's case. There's also no "Here, try all these options and see for yourself that none of them help" thing going on there.

So like. Until there's a clear "You may try, but in the end it's pointless" debunking of the already-in-game options we may try, I and many others will remain feeling like it was possible, we were just not allowed to try. And for as long as we feel like we could've tried harder and weren't allowed to, we will believe that IF we could try, we could help her (nothing says otherwise, after all). To that end, a happier ending remains tangible. There are two solutions to that - either we're right and it is achievable, and then adding new content will let us help her, or the writers are adamant on the tragedy they've written, but then they'll need to convince us that we really, really, REALLY couldn't help. It will suck, but at least it will feel final.

Well, that, or they don't change a thing, of course, but that's another matter entirely.

OR, as per example with Minthara and Orpheus, helping Karlach might be a possibility BUT it involves some harsh choice with strong enough consequences that players may consider not to. Or it is tied to some quest or event or a trial that's easy to fail. So that when the tragic ending comes, it actually does feel like, well. You can't save everybody.

(although in that case I already have one fictional city destroyed for one girl's life under my belt, don't try me)

I mean, I'll admit, the baseline is, of course, "Karlach doesn't deserve this why can't I give her a happier ending!", which is a testament to how likeable her character is, BUT this whole rage on her behalf wouldn't be quite so loud if her end didn't feel like a forced failure on the player's part (with options galore all around you) and missing quest parts instead of a planned thing set in stone.

I get it. Just understand in my particular case for me this choice was: help Karlach with her engine and let her go to hell or the ending with her death, and I was quite satisfied with what I got. In your case (and most other people here, as I understand it) the choice is only one: Karlach's death or Karlach's death.

And as for how she could be given another clearer "or" choice, I think it could be tied in with Wyll and her devil, especially given their relationship with Karlach stretching through the game, something along the lines of Wyll sacrificing himself for Karlach or making a new pact with his deviless for her, I'm not sure, a thought that just came to mind thanks to your breakdowns.

Nobody is suggesting to replace her existing endings.

We are asking for her to have a meaningful quest (much like literally all of the other companions got) that can also lead to her heart being fixed - because, if you ask me, her 'quest' as it is now is just two fetch quests and a wish.

Compare her sad journal to the rest of companions and you'll see why this thread exists in first place.

I totally get the appeal of an ending where she dies! There's definitely something cathartic about it. I just don't like feeling that it was my only option.

I think, really, that we're all on the same page: we want to be able to create the story that resonates with us. For you, it's Karlach's death, for me it isn't, and I'd love it if we could both get to choose the ending that's right for us. ^-^