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

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I wish Gortash was a more cinematic enemy.

Orin was in a necropolis filled with blood and skulls. She made Daddy Khorne very proud.
Ketheric... need I say anything?

Gortash? Upstairs private office. WHAT??

This guy should have been in Throne Room, with soldiers, attendants, supplicants, nobles and servants all around. Maybe some of Karlach's old colleagues should be there for more interaction.
An epic fight with an Astarion like scene for Karlach. She is unloading a decade worth of slavery and pain on this guy.

Because Gortash didn't get what he needed, Karlach's arc seems anticlimactic in my opinion.

It's like something got cut somewhere along the way...

I was fully expecting a full on wrecking his shit scene for her, like Astarion and Aylin get, yeah. But I suppose the lack of epicness for him overall involved an anti-climactic death, too. Shame, with all the build up she deserved to stomp the bastard before the futility of it all dawns on her.

Karlach's monologue afterwards really carries the whole scene. And it does so really, really well, but like, come on.

Oh trust me when I say If I went into it I could say/write a lot. Think I made that clear in the Shadowheart/Halsin/Astarion threads.

But I'll say this in regards to Karlach. Ever since EA I was interested in experiencing her story. (I still remember that theory about her being a paladin/or was it a fallen paladin in the service of an archdevil) Hell my first playthrough/MC went with Karlach only to end up with...well you already know how it ends.

Three things that come to mind at the moment that I would like to see changed or improved: (that aren't the ending/fixing her engine, that one is obvious)

- I might be in the minority here but her use of the word 'motherfucker' kinda takes me out. No one in the whole game uses it and its just sticks out like a sore thumb. Fuck and other expletives she uses are fine.

- Gortash and his whole involvement. I would really like to see this part of her story expanded. I mean Shadowheart gets a whole temple with Viconia and Shar, Astarion gets a mansion/crypt and Karlach gets a hallway that you just walk into. Disappointing to say the least.

- I would like for her personal quest to be fully fleshed out, getting random pieces of iron and talking to Dammon just isn't enough for me. It rather pales in comparison to the other companion quests.

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 d�j� 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.