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

DoS2's DE was better, but the last two acts still remain the weakest part of the game. Beast's content is still lackluster, there is just more than lackluster barebones it had been, etc. Given that the ending added was described as 'the ending she deserves' instead of acknowledging the issues with the quest itself then, I am skeptical. Add in that doing fixes and additions now, with the additional expense of higher tier graphics, it's likely in their best interest to do as little as they feel they can get away with.

They might prove me wrong, but eh.

@ Rahaya

Thank you.

And you probably wont until the day before something drops.
Larian has a habit of not sharing to much to soon. Do i think they care? 100% their company has a repuation for it and i swear to god BEFORE some one mentions bioware THEY were bought out loonngg ago. Larian is still privately owned. And they seem to have a team from top to bottom dedicated to fun story driven rpg style games. And they constantly review feedback and implement things down the line. Funding is also a thing, this game has made them massive bank but i almost garentee they were running out of funds prior to launch. (They have a habit of that aswell) and the fixes they do after are probably paid for by the sales. So with this game hitting to hard I can see them adding content as an appcriation to their fan base.
And a DE in a year is garenteed to generate more profit for them


Have they heard us? Most definately? Do they care? im pretty sure we got some support in the dev team, I know the end product shipped to us didnt have everythong they wanted in it.
Should we stop bringing up karlachs ending yet? Nope! Keep the conversation up be respectful to the devs and the writers be patient but keep on it, here on their twitter accounts etc etc. Let them know its a big sticking point. And im pretty positive they will not let us down. Shit just takes time. But hey. This could be the game they do a 180 on their whole track record i dont know

I planned on romancing Karlach on my next play-through. But it seems my character had a mind of his own. This posh high-elf historian wizard fell head over heels for this incredible, amazing woman. They make quite an odd couple, but he'll crawl to Avernus and back for her. And now I'm already heartbroken for the ending.

Karlach is wonderful even when you don't romance her. But when you do, it adds a whole extra layer. So, this is going to be a really hard pill to swallow and I don't even know what I'm going to do at the end when the big decision comes. But I already know that which ever it's going to be, it will be a bad one because Karlach doesn't get a good (or even mediocre) option.

The problem is that literally every other companion can have happy ending. Not completely sunshine and rainbows, but at least one that's hopeful and isn't decided by one dialogue in the end (mostly due to bugged interaction) even if you didn't bother with companion's story at all. Even if some characters like Astarion can't have the super sweet fairytale ending (which is kinda stupid that we can't cure his vampirism but whatever), their fate can be altered with at least some hope. Not the case for Karlach, when does that leave us? With some strange hate boner Larian has towards her or what?



No, the game sold well and Larian almost shut down before BG3 was released. There is no way they'll waste more resources to please 10 people on the forum. Our best shot would be some kind of Avernus DLC, but that by itself is a problem and very disgusting tactic

Wanting her to live outside of hell is not the same as wanting smiles and giggles.

Also, Mindflayer Karlach is not our Karlach, it's a completely different being that simply copied her memories. We want to save the real Karlach, we don't want an eldritch cheap copy.

As for Avernus, she never wanted to revenge. That was never a plot point. It was thrust upon her at the last minute.

The things that suck the most are that 1) for an origin character, her quest is insultingly short 2) almost nothing we do actually matters for how she ends up 3) there's no sound and reasonable conclusion to her character arc.

A lot of us have said that if this was to be a tragic story or whatever, then the entire plotline should've been altered to reflect that. If she wanted revenge, that should've been alluded to multiple times throughout the story and her reluctance to go back should've never been there.

If she simply wanted to enjoy her last moments, then there should've been less hope-mongering and more Fault-in-Our-Stars'ing by spending more quality time together and tying up loose ends. For example, we could've gone out on that dinner with her friend that she promised, rather than leave it hanging.

As it stands, it's a confused storyline that needs to clarify what it wants to be. We'd prefer to save her, but at the very least make it clear that we shouldn't have these expectations.

When I played Cyberpunk, that was made abundantly clear to me. Even the open-ended hopeful ending a la Avernus was more than I thought I could bargain for since both the setting and the story were clear from the start that we were dead wo/men walking. Yet that game allowed us to try to save ourselves.

What I got from Baldur's Gate was that there are multiple pathways for Karlach to be saved, yet all of them are arbitrarily closed to us -- the Gondians, the rich infernal iron, all the spells we can cast, the pacts we can make, the gods we can plea to -- you can't look at all of that and think it's acceptible.

Yes, they do care. The Avernus ending cutscene is evidence of that. But whether they (can) address our fundamental concerns is a different matter.

Thank you Tarraxahum and rdslatez, I had no idea they came with the Zariel Tiefling bloodline. I always assumed Zariel kind of tuned Karlach up further by literally adding her blood to her during the whole engine thing.

One thing, there is a line from Karlach's friend she meets in the city mentioning that Gortash seemed to spiral out of control (for real real) after he sold her off - something implying Karlach was the last thing holding him back from fully going evil. It made me wonder if there was a bit more of story there, that we could've found out. Like with Viconia, we find out she wasn't just plain evil (though we know her from previous games), but she had her own struggles and suffered in her decisions that led her to this "pure villain" position. It's a shame we don't get that with Gortash because it might have given us more insight to Karlach's life.

I don't know why the whole "one day she just got sold off to an archdevil" seems too simplistic or random, as if it happened on a whim. Even if it was for an exchange for the technology to make the Steel Watch engines. It's just... I have a hard time being convinced it was just a coincidence. But maybe that's exactly the point the game makes: Karlach had really bad luck, and Gortash is and always was an empty, emotionless bastard. (still makes me squint and say "hmmm..." when I think about it like that, though. lol)

Dos2 DE gives me hope, that they could do something with Karlach and improve the whole game in overall, especially act3. If they'll add removed content back, update companions content and so on, they can release DE and make again a fortune.

On the other hand, game is released, playable from start to the end and extremely successful, so they can only maintain it by patches and move on to the next project.

Time will tell who was right.

To be fair, they've already come out and said they aren't done with the game yet. They said they'd implement feedback, and this is probably the second most frequently requested piece of feedback after adding epilogues, so it'd be strange for them just to dig their heels in and say "eh, good enough".

That's good point, because epilogues were confirmed and all because of feedback. They could literally ignore it, because the game is "done".

And this is not a small feature like the mirror in camp. This needs a much bigger piece of work to be done.

Just a minor subject change, but I'd like to get your guys thoughts on an epilogue. It's looking increasingly likely that they're gonna do a kind of "6 months later" tavern reunion (of course they still might not but it is something I've seen requested a lot and there's some stuff suggesting it in the files). If this happens, how would you guys feel about it including Karlach (and Tav/Wyll) returning from Avernus having found an offscreen cure for Karlach's engine? I know it still doesn't resolve her questline problem, but it does seem like the easiest thing for them to do without adding any new quests. If they do go the reunion route I can't really think of a reason how they could get there if Karlach's engine wasn't fixed since it's so unstable, unless they decide to just be like "well great to catch up guys now I gotta go back to hell byyyyeeeee". Which I think we all can agree would be kinda lame.

As long as it DOESN'T include a "welp, now back to Hells I go" catch in the end and it's an actual cure, eh, I'd be begrudgingly content with that. It wouldn't fix all the problems with her actual quest/lack of content and the frustrating lack of the player's agency, and she still has to go back to the trauma central for a bit, but it would be a clear enough signal that no, they're not going to add in more quest content, but yes, they heard the people and here's a compromise.

Not the stars we're shooting for, but if that's the best we get, I'd say it'd be good. At the very least then you can reach and say that romancing her or becoming good friends/completing Wyll's arc in a 'correct' way/not missing her upgrades amounts to a tangible positive difference (as not doing any of that does not lead you to the Avernus ending), so, uh, sliiightly more weight to player's actions in the game?

Not ideal, but an olive branch obvious enough to make peace with it, I think.

For me... Apart from a good ending, she also lacks meaningful quests. I generally dislike offscreen stuff because they're usually the easy way out instead of actually showing it, I want to be able to see it for myself. How did she come up with the cure etc. I want to be the one to help her seek out the cure. Much like how I actively helped the other companions.

If her questline remains this empty but we get such a offscreen moment of 'hey guys I found a way to cure my heart'... eh, doesn't sit well with me.

We already got a 'bandaid' and if another 'bandaid' comes to light it just won't help with the fact her questline is barebones.

@Nessius

right now, i wouldnt be happy with that decision in terms of your suggested karlach epilogue. like you said yourself, it would be the easiest and (imo) thee cheapest way to ""fix"" the ending problem. i want to earn the good ending and not get it simply narrated to me.
but to be fair, i would change my opinion about that depending how exactly the epilogue would look like.


following is an example of an epilogue i would be fine with (if larian would uses your suggestion):

===> i assume that 1) karlach and tav are in a romance, 2.) wyll were joining them and 3.) the brain was defeated
- after 6 months every companion meets in a tavern, then karlach, wyll and tav arrives
- then the typical "long time no see"-scene happens (aka everyone greets eachother; asking how karlach can be here; buying drinks; you get the point)
- then A) each companion narrates their own epilogue or B) only tells the beginning and then wither continues
=> example: laezel would talk about how succesful their revolution are [***]//shadowheart talks about how her life is, now that her parents are back//....
- after every other companion ha dtheir epilogue, its finally time for karlach, tav and wyll to tell their story/epilogue
=> instead of them simply talking about it (or wither narrating it), we would fade to black and then had a last "epilogue-battle", where we e.g. would fight in an arena and get karlachs heart as a reward for winning (i dont know, something like that)
IMPORTANT: this "epilogue-battle" wouldnt be something only for karlach, but for any companion, which tav romanced; if tav romanced laezel, they would had a battle against gith, who are still loyal towards vlaakith

- after everyone had their epilogue, its relativly open what larian could do. maybe a potential teaser for a DLC or just a happy "everyone raises their mugs"-scene


in conclusion: if larian saves karlach in the epilogue, i want to A) earn it and most importantly B) i want to see/play the scene. i hope you know what i mean.
thanks for reading my coment.






[***] === i never played laezels questline, so i dont know if she can get a "good" ending if orpheus becomes a mindflayer (and therefore noone of your companion)

i agree with you. get my thumps up.

Genuine question, how exactly? Correct me if I'm wrong, DE for Divinity was free update, right? Assuming BG3 would get the same treatment, free update doesn't bring much profit. Of course, some new players could buy the game, but most money is already earned.

Yes, this was discussed some time ago, that this is the easiest way, how to solve the fix engine issue without much effort. Also if the epilogue will take place in the tavern 6 months after the game, it will be very strange, if Tav, Karlach and Wyll will be missing, because they are still in Avernus.

Yeah, it was free update and it did bring new customers. Extended or definitive or gold or remasters etc, blah blah, tend to bring new people. For all games.

1-2 years or more pass and new people will come in to buy the game and definitive edition usually sounds more appealing than base edition. It won't be free for those who didn't get the base game obviously. And yet it works, this is why companies release editions after years down the road.

Edit: the way it works, Larian could say 'new maps, new content, new outfits etc' whatever, and people usually love stuff like that. Boom, new customers.

Ok, let me set the stage for you guys.

After confronting Gortash with Karlach in Wyrm's Crossing he returns to his mansion in the Upper/Noble district forcing the group to hunt him down.

Being the inventor he is the whole mansion should be a steampunk deathtrap filled with traps and watchers. As the party manages to fight their way through the maze they find Gortash in his main room surrounded by improved/monstrous watchers that you need to kill first to take down the magical shield protecting Gortash.

As the battle comes to a close and Gortash lies in the pool of blood Karlach gets ready to deliver the killing blow, Mizora shows up and takes him away to Avernus forcing the party to follow them through the infernal portal that she leaves behind. There we are confronted by Zariel and after a short battle that we loose we are given options. If all persuasion checks fail you are forced to abandon Karlach but if not you end up making a deal.

As the deal is struck Karlach is freed but at what cost? Tav is forced to take her place in Avernus after the illithid threat is gone, serving Zariel for two years. Once those two years have passed Tav comes back to find Karlach married to someone else.

And now I'm going to slowly leave this thread before Orchid hunts me down and tries to kill me LOL



I'm so sorry I couldn't help myself. I had to pop back in and do it, I had to lmao.

It would be interesting to have an option to make a deal with Zariel for Karlachs freedom. Maybe depending on the players choice it could lead to Karlach being 'cured' of her engine but is forced to sell her soul which would mean that she can stay with Tav but when she dies she'd be going back to Zariel. (this also opens a possibility for Karlach and Tav to find a way out of that deal in the future)

Or have a quest (something like the House of Hope) where Zariel task you to do something for her in exchange for Karlachs cure/freedom.