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

Yea you're 100% right and there's examples of those characters being saved in bg3 already. Hell gale is sitting in the same boat karlach is but as someone above pointed out yesterday he gets off as well as wyl. Both of those would have a more reasonable reason as to why they can't be saved( im glad they can be saved) in comparison to karlach whose only real failing was trusting gortash. Which given she was like what 17? 18 maybe at the time is pretty reasonable imo.

#JusticeForKarlach

Sorry I refuse to suffer alone - I never knew this but apparently the datamined 6-month-later Withers epilogue contained(contains?) a separate version for Origin Karlach who chose to die by the end. 'Cause, you know, obviously she can't attend. What can I say except "Ouch".

I wonder what the Avernus version gets, in that case.

(No idea if this was always there and the threads about the cut epilogues just never mentioned it - that I've seen - or if it's a new development. Either way, good to be aware, I think.)

I'm pretty sure there are instantances of that happening, but those are either very old or super rare. At this point I'm more surprised if character with terminal condition actually finds the cure instead of being screwed over at the end, because I just can't think of any character that actually managed to do that in anything I played/watched/read recently. As for V in Phantom Liberty, I wouldn't call that abomination of an ending a fix, as it's basically replacing one death sentence for another because there no chance you'll survive in Night City for a week like that. Isn't the whole Gale's situation result of Mystra trying to bully him into suicide? So it's not "condition" that's killing him, just whiny goddess threatning to remotely detonate him if he doesn't do her bidding so a bit different thing here (I may be wrong so correct me if that's the case, it's been a while since I played and never cared much for him)

Regarding gale, no the orb is clearly said to eventually over take him and blow him up. -like karlach. Except apparantky its more like an atom bomb then an IED like in karlachs case.
And unlike karlaches case gale just has to pout and a literal goddess comes down abd just...stops the clock for him, AND its confirmed at the end of the game that mystra has the power and willingness to remove the orb from him.

Also i dont know if anyone else noticed but man this thread gets alot of views. Over 400k last i seen? Love it!

I hadn't seen that but I mean karlach was also the last origin and likely had alot of changes during development. I wouldn't hold that too high other than early stages of her development. But i still think that her stories end is so linear in its ending that it stands in stark contrast to the rest of the companions. Giving her a way to fix the engine, making the avernus ending hopeful, or some other work around really needs to be implemented to give agency to the player. As it stands whether the player helps her or not her story has the same outcome either way. That seems like the story of a side character or an npc that you only kind of interact with not a full companion and romance option.

So gale cries around and just gets his atom bomb switched off? That's just neat if only there was some way ( gondians) karlach could be saved( enriched infernal iron) but alas( Rachael's house) she has been condemned. Seriously though learning about wyl and gale has only made me more pissed at her situation. That's awsome this thread has so many views and hopefully larian will pay attention.

No-no-no, it's still a fix, regardless of the drawbacks or assumptions. Maybe V can survive like that, maybe not, maybe they will move somewhere safer and start over, we don't know, but the thing that was killing them the whole plot is fixed. If you look around the thread you may notice that like at least half of us have talked about 'trade-off' options for Karlach where the theoretical fix comes with side-effects, sacrifices or new problems. I'll personally take the option of my Tav having to make some Bad Decisions for themselves (shady deals and all), too.

Prices and consequences are technicalities. The presence of a choice and an ability to explore all the options available - that's the crux of it.

Exactly! And at the end of the game V has enough Eddie's to just dip out of night city and retire somewhere where walking to the local grocery store doesn't require militech grade cyberware to survive. Same with karlach if fixing her engine results in her being weakened or held back that's fine since you can still say well theyve got enough money to retire they don't need to fight constantly so she doesn't have to worry. It's the complete lack or impact the player has on her story that really hurts it and really frustrates me.

#JusticeForKarlach

Well, the "fix" from Phantom Liberty is what avernus ending is to some people around there - a way out but not really since one problem is traded for five more.

That's the point I've been saying for days here. She wasn't even a companion at the begining so obviously she feels like a side character because that's what she was intended to be. That changed shortly before the begining due to character being popular, but it's the same situation as Halsin. We don't know if Larian will change anything but if they do, they'll have to rewrite her

You've been saying stuff like this for days but it makes 0 sense all they need is like 5 dialogue options and that'd be it. Switch what Damon says in the last light to something like just hold on till we get to baldurs gate and I've got a real forge and I can get a fix for you. Then he needs this new enriched infernal iron to get the engine to properly regulate the high Temps. Once you get the enriched iron you go back to him and he does the last upgrade like he did the other 2. Give karlach like 1 or 2 dialogue options after that talk about a life after act 3 and that's it. I'm failing to see how this is a rewrite at the absolute max it tweaks her story. But really it's just another ending same as avernus or mindflayer or dock death. I haven't seen the new ending for v but if it's like what some of the others have been saying it just sounds like v gave up some of his skills and lethality to not die. Which means they live, they wouldn't be the same legendary edgerunner but they live and retire with the rest of their life. Again I may have misunderstood the new ending for v so forgive me if that's wrong.

Not only that, have you seen Dammon's new forge? The inside of it, even? He could do so much with it. And what's even funnier, it's literally next to Helsik's place. You know, the diabolist.

V's situation is basically a trade off. V wanted to live so they got their life back at the cost of their cybernetics removed and if added any new cybernetic, it would result in killing V - not to mention, it's actually difficult to survive in an era where everyone has some cyber in them but that's the point of trade offs. And also, at the cost of their LI's moving on. V got what they wanted in the end anyway.

Basically, what the Cyberpunk fans been wanting since the endings. I hated the fact that you lose your LI (ugh Judy) but at least, V got to survive w/o any relic or the 6month life mess.

Although I do hope, if Larian plans on doing something with Karlach, they don't take any tips from Cyberpunk because this game itself is already depressing and it doesn't fit with the theme of bg3... and I really don't want them to mess up Karlach's relationship with Tav.

I don't want to spoil the ending for you unless you don't mind, there is much more problems with it that the so called "price". As for Karlach, what you said makes sense, but for origin character or at least fully fledged companion and originaly she was neither. If the fix was ever meant to be possible, then it couldn't be just few more dialogues because why wouldn't they put it?

Conrad this is a genuine question. Its not meant to be an attack so please dont take it as such, but may i ask, why do you keep responding and making these comments? Like your not being insultive so we all thank you for that, but its clear in a thread where were all sharing ideas and hoping for karlach happy ending content added, and generally looking for larian to see this thread as evidenve theres s strong desire for karlach to be given more love.
You seem to just keep repeating a stance of, she wasnt *meant* to be this that etc etc, and when ppl here point out pretty strong arguments ingame or otherwise to counter those claims, you either ignore those points or double down on your stance which again seems to be- she wasnt meant to be anything more- it will cost to much etc etc.

Like what actual benefit do you get from this? What do you personally hope to achieve in these posts? I know what tge rest of us hope to achieve ( a happier Karlach ending and more content and a sense of community)
But your posts do not really contribute to any of those from what ive read.

Again not meant as an attack just genuine question

Yeah, it's not like you're going to convince anyone here lol. Most Karlach fans are set on wanting her to get a more hopeful, better ending. Literally the purpose of this thread, to offer feedback to Larian. Reddit and Larian's discord is full of people who wish for something good for our fiery Hellion.

Yea I'm planning on doing the Phantom liberty stuff next month. As for karlach that is what we've all been saying is she wasn't an origin companion and was a late addition so it makes sense her story is more linear than the ones who were planned from the jump. However, that doesn't mean that a fix wasn't planned out it just means the fix wasn't implemented into the full release because as previously stated she was a late addition. It also makes me hopeful we will see more content for her specifically since she was such a late addition. We can speculate reasons as to why they didn't plan or didn't impliment the fix for her at this stage. We really don't know outside of looking at the game and connecting some dots. I've already said my peace about enriched infernal iron so im not gonna retype it all but to me it's clear that a fix was in the works but didn't make it to release for some reason or another.

#JusticeForKarlach

It just occurred to me, Dragon Age isn't exactly averse to having characters otherwise fated to die avoid death either. Origins has the old god baby thing that lets the Hero of Ferelden and Alistair/Loghain get out of dying from killing the archdemon, Fiona got cured of the taint in the books and lives a relatively normal life, or at least as normal as a mage can get in that world, Avernus from Origins' Soldiers Peak DLC lived for over two centuries despite the taint having a 30-year limit because of blood magic and his experiments, the Inquisitor loses an arm to save them from the mark killing them in Trespasser and the HoF (assuming they lived past Origins) is off looking for a cure to the Calling.

It's not as open-ended of a setting as DND and not as bleak as Cyberpunk, so...

I'd love to see some dlc that expands either act 3 or past act 3 for the companions like some of that dragon age origins dlcs. It would be nice to be able to see endings ranging from pure evil dark urge to as happy as you can get. It's something that bg3 is in a unique position to pull off that most games fail at.

Oh yeah, I remember the "Your hand is killing you" thing was VERY convincing in Trespasser the way they build up the tension, I was fully expecting to watch my Inky die by the end there. And yet!

Good point, by the way, the Inquisitor and the Warden being the biggest examples.

(also lest we forget than even Shepard in the infamous three colored ending choice of "die, die or technically die" has a chance to survive under certain conditions.)

I did not know you could save shep at all I thought the whole series just went grim dark at the very end lol