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

Not to want to spoil the fun about romance achievements, but um..

For an RPG to become canon for a game world would be a bit of a stretch. There are many possible outcomes for BG3 so which one is the canon outcome? Also for canon what class if the players character known as for the canon story? Could the "events" become canon, sure, that is easy. The City of Baldurs Gate was attacked by the plot involving the Dead Three attempting to control an Illithad Elder Brain. A band of Adventurers where able to defeat this plot, but not before "hundreds" of people where killed. The City however survived and has begun the process of rebuilding.

In this way the game could be canon and give an open legend that a DM could add to his game world. As for the various "companions" their contributions could be vaguely noted or their participation hinted at without specifics.

I.... forgot about that. LMAO. Thanks for this painful reminder. Lol.

I think it's possible to retain the origin characters as "legends" who had a pivotal role in the story, and then the DM can decide what part that was. That way you can have the best of both worlds.

Speaking of interesting things, as it stands today (23rd October) there's been over 35 instances where players have submitted individual feedback threads on Larian's discord feedback channel since 1st September, where most have gotten +50 upvotes and a total of 13 gotten 80 and higher. For those that don't hang out there, the top requested features that get or got over 80 upvotes were the such of character customization mid-game (which we later got, magic mirror), shaving His Majesty (which was reverted right away), hugs for all companions (remains to be seen, hugs are hard to animate), epilogues (we know are being worked on) and Karlach's story/ending. One that's nearing that kind of votage would be Minthara romance fix, which we know they're also aware of and tried to fix the liens not playing right, at least.

So that gives me some hope. Same thing with Karlach's story and "good/engine fixed ending" coming up every time Karlach is mentioned in a tweet/retweet, regularly mentioned on Reddit via memes or someone who just finishes the game venting out, and the like. I don't know about you, but even knowing that this would be the biggest addition/rework of all the things that are requested along with longer epilogues for all companions/the game in general, this being the highest regularly requested change gives me hope that they'd do something about it. After all, player feedback has been their priority number one throughout EA and post-launch.

I feel like if nothing else, it would be nice to have Karalch's quest line either fleshed out a bit more so you be like "oh we tried multiple avenues but couldn't find a cure" instead of "well one blacksmith said no so oh well", or have an option to fix the engine but its very difficult from a game play/RP perspective (for that extra drama). I think others have said it better than me but you can have a tragic character have a good ending without it feeling cheap. Also as someone who has over 100 hours in and has not yet actually completed a campaign, I would love even more content with these characters lol.

It's also in every single weekly reddit feedback post, usually more than once.

Sounds really promising. Fingers crossed.

Karlach is amazing, i literally keep her in my camp only to turn her into a mindflayer end game. Cannon fodder.

The problem being that in some stories some characters were never in the party or got killed in the beginning.

I think the way BG3 implemented Jaheira and Minsc is a good way to acknowledge a past adventure without making anything "canon" about it (although I will admit I didn't play BG or BG2, was it possible to end those campaigns with them dead?). "Legends" indeed. You can ask, but they won't tell you any details apart from the general who fought who. (Definitely won't gossip with you about romances in their old party!)

If I'm correct you could finish BG2 with Jaheira or Minsk dead without any issues.

Sounds like it can be done. You just pick one plotline as your canon, as Larian did, and go with it. Some might send Karlach to Avernus, others might have her as an illithid on the surface, and others still could have her burn up and die but still serve a key role.

Question that's slightly unrelated to this. How does it work, when certain souls return to the Hells after they're killed? Imps, cambions, you name it. Would Karlach burning up and dying be at risk of just ending up serving Zariel in the "afterworld" or whatever one would like to even call it? Given she's basically tapped herself out from Avernus and up onto the Material Plane, with Zariel's prototype toy.

Well, she wasn't born in Hell, and I don't think her soul was sold to Zariel (otherwise that would've definitely come up), only she herself physically. Devil blood also doesn't seem to curse tieflings to be reborn in Hell (again, would've likely been mentioned)?

I think the automatic rebirth in Hells only refers to pure devils and fiends and likely those who sold their soul to one.

And for all of Karlach's habits to run from her problems, I believe she'd consider this possibility in her adamant desire to get away from Zariel and Avernus... :"D

And that's another reason why Karlach's engine isn't really a big problem in this setting. If it was her soul that was sold or tied to Zariel, it'd be a different matter, but as things stand, Karlach still has her soul as it has to be sold willingly.

Look, I've written a couple of shipped games, and there is no way that would not have been discussed during writer/narrative meetings. The only logical explanation is that something major was cut late in the development and stuff was already locked in, forcing the writers to compromise. I am quite sure they're frustrated how this all turned out, but it is, for the most part, out of their hands. I just don't know why they did not remove the dangling threads and plot points that would indicate there's a way to fix it. They added more infernal iron, which makes absolutely no sense, unless it's just set dressing.

But if this was truly what they intended from the beginning, I have no words.

A bit off topic qiestion but does anyone here kmow when patch 4 is dropping? Have we heard anything recently since it was first announced its *coming*?

Hopefully soon, I don't really want to set foot in act 3 again until it drops. I wouldn't expect any epilogue changes though, that's going to take a lot more than a month to make. Or rather, something we'd be happy with will take a lot more than a month to make.

Yeah i hear yah. Im just curious what it have story wise if anything. Or if its just fixes (which of course i appricate )
But im probably gonna hold off on any new play through til atleast epilogues are added and i wont be going hard again until KARLACH GETS JUSTICE

Oh yeah, definitely not expecting anything big. But I have very recently discovered that one of Karlach's romance scenes (the non-sexual ending for the date) is very much de-synched in animation for the third (big buff feminine) body type. Which my Tav happens to have. At least in my game it is so, anyway. So as far as current patches go in relation to Karlach, I'll settle for my girl's forehead being where the forehead smooch goes!

Granted, I think by the time I reported it patch 4 was already incoming, but what are we doing here if not hoping for the future.

(An early Halloween scare for you: the patch drops and all infernal iron vanishes from act 3) (sorry I'll knock on wood)

I did the romance act 3 date scene with my buff tief Tav last night and if you chose to come right back tl Karlach before setting off (I wanted to throw some water on the poor fucker cause girl was DIRTY) the scene cut off and buggedly finished as Karlach raised her hand to order food.

Doesn't happen if you say yes to hwading straight out tho so all was well. Tho Dammon isn't anywhere to be found in Act 3 for me, not even the forge. Could look the entire place and nothing happened. He didn't die by the Ox bug in Act 2 but he did vanish suddenly. So can't even talk to him.

But decided to play some of early Act 3 again to screenshot all the dialogue lines and man. It's all so laid out to hint you to go to the forge, to talk down the Gondians, to broker peace with the Ironhands, to talk to Dammon and to finally find some coolant to keep this overheated PC of a girl running. Like yes, the Steel Watcher says it's better if she is dismantled since her engine is so old that updating would be messy and hard. But the whole story is about Karlach being sold off to act as a prototype bearer and test subject for Zariel and Gortash profiting off of it to employ the Gondians to build the new version, the Steel Watcher type. And with everything else it just makes NO SENSE AT ALL to why we would be fully helpless in this situation. Like fuuuck, Larian...