Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Fixing Astarion's "Good" Ending

The entire thing on the docks annoys me ridiculously much. It's evening for crying out loud. Can't they just let the tadpole effect run for 3 more minutes and forget the burning thing altogether? He can find out in the morning when we all have time to deal with it. Sigh
It can even be mentioned in the non existent proper ending slides or something.......grrrr

This is actually the best suggestion yet. It all feels so rushed. You hardly step out of the water after defeating the big bad and suddenly everything happens at once - . The whole ending needs an overhaul.

Agreed. I don't want them to just add a piece of dialogue here or an extra 5 seconds of us running after Astarion. It needs to be completely redone. I want the whole docks scene to be 10 seconds:

Then, Larian gives us a proper send off. We get a whole party sequence with every party member. We get an extra 30 minutes to say goodbye to characters and and extra romance moment with whoever. Then, as the whole party comes to a close, Similar sendoffs should happen with every companion. CLOSURE.

This isn't a small undertaking but I'm so SO worried that they're just going to tack on some stupid 2 second dialogue and that's going to be our "expanded epilogue."

Ooooh, I really like this. And now I really want it. Shorten down the docks scene so everyone can catch their breath and then a big tavern scene you can end anytime you want so it can be as short or long as people like it.

Your idea really reminds me of DAO ending, y'know, the throne room scene (if your warden didn't do the ultimate sacrifice that is). And yeah, that would be a proper send off. Then again I think they might do something like that, since a while back they had all the VAs together recording stuff, so I am betting aside from some extra random scenes (romantic dates and whatever) they also recorded or rerecorded the newer endings. But yeah as much as I am mad at Larian for not implementing them faster, I do kind of understand that all these programmers also have lives and are doing their best to fix things - game breaking bugs take precedence in their priority list. So yeah, curb your expectations folk, we are not gonna be seeing updated endings for at least next 3-6 months.

They tweaked some of the other characters endings, according to the patch notes. They could have at least removed or changed the rude comments from Astarion's ending.

Is that why his endings post docks look like this:


Image taken right after the update.

And this:


After game repair (verify files).

This is so bad it's hilarious.

When I tested it I only got something similar to the first screenshot and no way to advance dialogue.

Yeh, you gotta be patient until you hear any dialogue from Astarion (or whoever you romanced), then spacebar and right mouse button are your friends to get through it. Unless you play on console or with a controller, I dunno what's the default skip cutscene button there.

You know what's even more funny? Lae is supposed to be gone on a dragon ride, right? Well, I can still swap the character to her (or Jaheira) and everyone has 1 hp. I know Larian made everyone immune to damage during end game cutscenes, but there was a guy on discord who died during one of those cutscenes (took damage from the Markoheshkir staff passive) and the game just cut to ending credits. Hahaha Larian really messed up the ending sequence badly!

Guy accidentally found a way how to get a less dignified ending than Astarion's.

I endorse what's been written in this thread completely. Spawn Astarion's ending is atrocious and he deserves so much more than this! It's even more disheartening how the newest patches seem to make things worse for his romance. Though that ghost Astarion possessing Tav is absolutely hysterical.

I think it broke not only his epilogues. Some other characters too.

I'm more disappointed the fact that he still has only one camp animation.

Which is especially funny when you run around with him in the Arcane Tower in the Underdark and he finds one of those books for the Bernard encounter and comments "I'm not normally one for literature, but there's something there."

Not to mention he has the most chaste kissing animation even AFTER patch 4, sure, it's better than it was, but still a damn short chaste peck on the mouth. Compare that to:



And while I can't hate Karlach, I hate Halsin here.

Edit: I mean, who da hell kisses without touching their significant other? Sure, my husband gives me pecks like that when he's going to work and is running late, so when he's in a rush. Like come on Larian, you can do better with Astarion. Much better. Like seriously, how come a vampire who's supposedly slept with 1k people does a no touching kiss? It's not like he should be worried about germs or catching STDs.

Our former magistrate isn't one for PDA huh.


The man has standards and doesn't consider every book he reads to be literature.

Yup,his camp animation is odd. Who stands to read a book when there is a perfectly good stool right next to him? Given how he is I would expect him to be lounging on those cushions with the book and a glass of 'something'.
Patch 4 playthrough from new start and so far I haven't had any animation issues with him that wern't already present but not got to the end battle. But I did get the 'you're incredible' convo by so make of that what you will as doubtless other factors enter in as well.

Still not ovely impressed with the kissing, at the very least he should occasionally offer more than a chaste peck, its better than it was if you think kissing m forehead is better of course but really Larian, you could do so much better.

Still no intention of finishing the final battle ever again until they fix his dock scene or do something with the damn ending that is better than what we have.

It's like they took Gale's book reading animation, gave it to Astarion and called it a day. He definitely should be lounging on the cushions with those books. Sipping "wine". Playing with a dagger. Fixing his hair.

I think Astarion, like all companions, lacks a storytalling beyond the endings. Throughout the game, I only hear about Cazador, tadpoles and a little romance. If it were diluted with a question about finding a way to stay in the sun, or talk about the past of a corrupt judge, line with Gur.... I'm starting to think that this ending turned out this way because Larian simply doesn't know what to show.

Adding my two cents in this discussion. I'm truly glad there's more of us who dislike the ending scene at the docks. It made me feel so awful the first time that I cannot finish any more playthroughs...well, unless I choose to ascend him which...yeah, I just cannot stand the ascendant, but seems like Larian is pushing me towards that route solely for the fact that I won't have to watch him run away while my Tav stands there with zero reaction + the companion comments make it even worse. This is supposed to be the good ending? That makes people feel miserable? Because I sure did feel like that.

I get it, the tadpole no longer protects him but that doesn't mean it had to be portrayed this way. He's the only one who loses when the worm is gone, why isn't it treated with more respect? Especially since all the companions were so proud of him before.

It would be great to expand upon his quest after defeating Cazador - finding some item that'd protect him from the sun (maybe for definitive edition).
For now it'd be enough to re-work the ending scene. Apparently there was supposed to be a whole bit at the tavern but it was removed/not implemented. That could've been a proper sendoff, saying goodbye to everyone properly before they go their own way and then we could talk to our romanced partner. Instead we get this abrupt cut which is especially jarring when it comes to Astarion. How did he get into that room, was he waiting for sundown or where exactly is he? Tav cannot even ask him "are you alright?"

Moreover, it doesn't feel like it's two people in a relationship talking and the conversation is way too short. There should be some hug + kiss included in it, instead of standing so far away acting like acquaintances (apply to all companions of course, not just Astarion).


Lastly, spawn ending has less 'screentime' and dialogue (at least how I see it). With ascendant there's the whole turning into a spawn scene, the conversation afterwards, and a lot of questions you can ask him later, etc. For spawn, once he's done mentioning Cazador and thanking Tav, it's over. The only option we can pick is the lame "you don't need the powers of ascendant, I'll protect you" ...which I found kinda tone-deaf. He's not some damsel in distress in need of Tav's babysitting. Especially since before he talked about him and Tav being equals. So I'd like this option replaced with something like "we will protect one another just like we've been doing it till now" and I'd love some other things we could do - let's say burn down Cazador's mansion and make a bonfire out of all the tasteless art and watch the carnage holding Astarion's hand. It would be a lot of work to implement but would help for his story to feel less dead in the spawn ending IMO.

Agreed. I really disliked this dialogue. I thought one of the big points with the spawn storyline was to empower him as a person and make him see that he is enough without the ritual. And then this is the only line we can say to him afterwards which is feeding into his fear that he is not strong enough to defend himself on his own? Sometimes I have a hard time wrapping my head around the writing.