Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Add more answer options for Astarion

200% this! I loved his character even more after the ritual and I wanted my MC to say it beyond “gimme your body.”

My RP is all for that, but love still plays a part too and it sucks that they didn’t include it as an option

I think it's because writer wants to show that vampire emotions are changing and now feelings are expressed in lust (just a guess). But, as I said, it can be shown through Astarion. Use our characters for this... sloppy.

During the confrontation Tav is mortal, so I think it's still just the game making assumptions that Tav is selfish and shallow from that moment on. It's sloppy for many reasons.
And if that's what they wanted to portray they've done it poorly because, despite AA becoming more arrogant and possessive, he also shows more love and thoughtfulness when Tav agrees to spend eternity with him and stays loyal to him. AA actually hints that they are basically married, unlike spawn who never defines the relationship.

O wow, you’re totally right. Unlike Durge, Tav has no way of confessing they love him. At best they can tell him they care about him. That’s really sloppy.

Durge can confess they’re in love during the resist the urge to kill your companion scene, and they again have the option to reaffirm their love after rejecting Bhaal.

Yeah, but this is the problem, because this is not some adventure game with fixed characters, this is a roleplaying game where I should be able to determine the intentions of my own character. Which I could in relation to Astarion up to this point. But somehow in this conversation the only options I got are for my character to be the person Astarion's low self-esteem (and it seems the writer) expects me to be:

- The one only seeing him as a sex doll (I want you. I want your body)
- The one only using him for gaining power (I want to be a vampire, like you)
- The morality preacher who doesn't accept him for who he is (You can tell me that you've learned something from all this)
- The easily provoked one who will break up with him, because of course they will sooner or later (I am not your pet.)

Which forces my Tav or Durge to act out of character if their intention for helping him to ascend was something else entirely. Maybe they wanted him to get the ultimate revenge through poetic justice, maybe they wanted him to get as much power as possible to be able to defend himself from every threat, maybe they wanted him to be able to walk in the sun even after they finally get rid of the tadpoles, maybe a durge wanted him to be powerful enough to defend himself from them after the durge scene in act 2. There are countless non-selfish reasons to help him ascend and maybe even a selfish one that does not fit the presented mold (the evil tav/durge who wants to rule the world with his vampire lord).

Those dialogue options also totally negate the "I did it because I wanted what was best for you" line and make it seem like a lie.

As a lot of posters have already said - there is no option that fits a supportive Tav/Durge. But this is a roleplaying game, it is not the writer's job to drop their moral cake on me and railroad me and my character into a one way street. The writer's job is to give me enough agency that I can ignore the illusion of choice. (It's the same problem with the graveyard scene where the three options are 50 colours of yes)

Astarion expects Tav/Durge to have selfish reasons because everyone does in his worldview. Why can't we surprise him by saying "I did not do this because I want something out of this. I just wanted to help you because I genuinely care about you." Because up to this point you could tell him you care about him. But somehow by helping him ascend our characters suddenly become selfish beings who actually never loved him, just his body/power/a made-up version of him.

You can still maintain this eerie atmosphere that foreshadows a possible continuation of the cycle of abuse in Tav's/Durge's future, but at least let me play my character. There's already too few dialogues in Act 3 as is. I don't want to be railroaded in them.

And speaking of the dialogue itself - you can really see the agenda the writer was pushing here. Who in the world says "I want you. I want your body." when telling your partner you're horny?

Well, that was a lot of text just to ask for one measly dialogue option, haha. But there have been very few instances in this game where I felt railroaded in the dialogue when it came to roleplaying my character. So this stuck out a lot.

Finally a sane answer here.

10 logical counterarguments have already been given to this answer.

u know what i've changed my mind you should have the option to kick astarion in the balls when he tells you he had to claw his way out of his grave

he's trauma dumping and it's problematic

wow I'm sorry that I want to play a role-playing game, and not read a Kinetic Novels. =((((((

I thought it’s relatively obvious that the ascended ending sets up Astarion as the next Cazador and, in case of a vampire bite, a “master - slave” dynamic (same one Cazador and Astarion had) between Astarion and the player, hence the dialogue options.


The narrative also makes it clear that his story is about abuse (it’s really explicitly stated) and it would be a bit weird to be happy about him never getting out of the abusive circle.

I don’t know what OP’s RP reason was for ascending Astarion, but there are a few answers here, which made me think some people understand the ascended relationship as a consensual sub-dom dynamic, and it’s just not the story.

The problem is not what Astarion's story is about, or how Astarion behaves. Astarion is fine. His storyline is fine. No one is asking for an option to be happy that he's trapped in a cycle (an argument could be made that the player character doesn't even realize Astarion's still stuck in that cycle but since people insist on metagaming everything these days I guess that's not an option lol). Telling Astarion you don't need anything from him rather than starting an argument or asking to be made into a vampire/for sex is not about being happy he's not "free" or whatever. It's about the player's ability to say 'I don't need anything from you', which is a neutral statement that doesn't express any happiness as far as I can tell. If you can tell me why it does, please do in case I'm missing something. Also regardless of what the future dynamic of Astarion and the player is, it should not affect the player's dialogue options yet. Unless the ascension somehow changed them as well and the game failed to mention that, and that's why we don't have a neutral dialogue option here.

The problem people have is that they are being railroaded in how they are allowed to roleplay their character in this situation, namely either being forced to create conflict with him, or either wanting power or asking for sex (which is just... let's say annoying to be civil, after everything with Astarion's storyline). Imagine if you were forced to be mean to spawn Astarion and were forced to ask him for sex or complain about how you'd have preferred he ascends after all; you wouldn't be happy about that, would you? (though the way you're railroaded into being nice to him in that scenario and how you can't break up with him until after the cemetery scene is it's own discussion) It's the same thing here; you do not have an option to say you don't need anything from Astarion, which is what most people talking about this want. It's perfectly fine for Astarion to force you into either breaking up with him to becoming his spawn. It's perfectly fine for him to be toxic if he wants to be (it's also perfectly fine for people to hc the relationship as consensual sub/dom dynamic, and who's to say it's not if you're okay with being bossed around since the game ends the moment the tadpole which keeps the player safe from the whole mind control thing is gone, and we don't see what happens afterwards). What's not perfectly fine is the writers forcing you into playing a specific character after all the freedom you've had so far. All they'd need to do is add a single dialogue option into this one dialogue tree that would still lead to the same conversations it does now (Astarion pressing you into becoming his spawn), and the problem would be solved.

tl;dr: people wanting the option to say 'I don't need anything from you' is not affecting Astarion's storyline or the narrative in anyway, it's a neutral statement that doesn't express happiness, and insisting it does either is kinda weird.

I gave a few examples in my post higher up that have nothing to do with a wish to be in a sub/dom relationship (I'd even go so far as to assume that it's the least likely reason for most people who choose that path - not saying there's anything wrong with wanting that kind of relationship, either).

The player character does not know what will happen to Astarion when he does the ritual. For all they know he'd be the same person they fell in love with/befriended, just more powerful (there's even a dialogue option that states exactly that). What we as players know and what our characters know are two wholly different things.

Your explanation is an example of meta-gaming (when you act on information your character doesn't have). We are asking for a solution to let us roleplay our character without the writer dictating what our characters' intentions were. No one is asking for them to rewrite Astarion's narrative.

I understad that not everyone is into heavy roleplaying when playing a game like this and a lot of people self-insert (I usually don't), but for us roleplayers a railroading dialogue like this can feel quite frustrating. Especially since it was working out fine up until that pivotal moment.

RP is always restricted to >10 options. On several occasions, the player is forced to make serious decisions without a real neutral choice (this is true not just for romance or Astarion dialogues, but for all origin characters)

This post-ascension conversation doesn’t exist in a vacuum either, there are several previous conversations, that ask the player to seriously consider what the ascension ritual is, why Astarion wants to do it, and how vampires behave. By this time the player should be aware that ascension is his “bad” ending and have a reason for going through with it.

There isn’t a “I don’t want anything from you” option, because that option is convincing him not to ascend.


Even during my first playthrough, there were a lot of signs of what the ascension ritual does and what can be expected after. There is roleplaying and there is ignoring information on purpose.

You are convinced of your opinion, About Cazador 2.0, and so on and so forth. What are you trying to prove to people who just want more options for roleplay?

Moderators, please note that a person does not just express his opinion, he comes to a certain topic and imposes his point of view.

You're wrong. An option that convinces him not to ascend "Think about all these people" and then "I want another life for you." It has nothing to do with "I don't need anything from you." The bottom line is that you can perform a ritual without romance, so you add some unnecessary subtext. We have a good answer in the first dialog "I just wanted you to be happy". Why couldn't a similar branch be added to the second dialog? Personally, I did the ritual knowing it was an evil act. If you haven't forgotten, we can play as an evil character in the game. And even in this case, the last thing I expect after ritual that my character will "want Astarion's body". There is no hint of sex or barter in the ritual, which is logical, because you can perform the ritual without romance.

There are no hints that you should be angry because of the ritual, especially if you are an evil character and you are satisfied with evil deeds. However, this does not mean that you want sex or turn into a vampire. These are very specific answers. So we have two very specific answers, and two obviously offended ones. So yes, this is a problem.

Yet his actual author calls it an evil and not a bad ending.

This cycle of abuse card is getting old. In case you haven't noticed the game also shows that each generation the cycle starts waning and is bound to break eventually. Cazador's master was much worse than he was, Astarion is a much a better guy than Cazador was. Plus, AA also isn't a true vampire like the others before him but a whole new being entirely that's not suffering the same vampiric drawbacks that were driving Cazador insane. He had a time away from his master where he could learn more pleasant aspects to life - love, friendship, kindness, camraderie. Equating him to Cazador 2.0 is just doing the character a disservice.
Let's not forget how he completely trashes Cazador's and Vellioth's rule that says "power comes from solitude, to share with others is to be weak, and to be weak is to fail... and die." He shares his blood with Tav and everything he possesses. Yeah, total clone of Cazador, lol.
Besides, there is more to Astarion than just him being traumatised. If you want, the game allows you to roleplay as thinking that he is trapped but doesn't allow you to express genuine feelings for him and to be supportive of his own decisions.

Let's flip this around, shall we? If the people here are enjoying the narrative taking away players' choices so much they must also be super happy

I would just like to say (again) that the option to tell him you didn't want anything from him is fine, but to me it is disingenuous to say that's all that's been asked for here. The first page of this thread talks about how there should more romantic and cute scenes and dialogue options, about how the writers are imposing their morality on the player, about wanting to be able to stay in the relationship if you don't want to become a slave/spawn, etc. The initial request was for more dialogue options but there was also speculation about why we were given/not given the options we were.

So to suddenly be like, omg we just asked for a single line of dialogue and now people are imposing their views on us is like. Idk ya'll are moving the goalpost and trying to make people seem unreasonable for expressing their opinions about why the things you discussed aren't in the game.

For example, there was expression of discontent that you can't skip the last scene of his quest if he doesn't ascend. There was speculation it was because the writers were trying to force their view of the endings on the player. My response was that it's more likely the option isn't there because almost no one would choose it, so they'd need to write, act, record and code both Astarion's initial response and the inevitable fallout from that the next day for something people wouldn't choose for roleplay reasons. They'd only choose it to see what happens. It's a waste of time and resources. Whereas ascended Astarion is asking for something a significant amount of players would choose not to do. So yes, I think asking for all of that is unreasonable and it's not really about wanting more roleplay options. It's about wanting to balance the score between the two endings because you guys feel personally slighted by the way the narrative frames them.

Talking about the narrative they've constructed is on topic because it has to do with why the things you guys talked about aren't in the game. And when you talk about the writers trying to "impose morals" on the player people are explaining why they disagree with that.

I'll duplicate to you again what I asked. One positive response and one negative. Ascended Astarion has a positive answer in the first dialogue, "I just wanted you to be happy." There is nothing terrible if there is a similar option in the second dialog.



So I do not know what "more moments" you are talking about. You didn't read my first post. Look, only 3% of players play in an evil way. And yet evil options exist for them. It doesn't matter how small the percentage of players who choose the negative option in the cemetery is. This option should still be for a role-playing game. If everything is done for the majority, then you will get a wheel of three option like BioWare have. Do you want such a future for role-playing games? I'm not.

It won't be worse for anyone if they add more variations for the role-playing game. I would still like a positive option, but I will also be happy with a neutral one. At a minimum, we need a transitional option to remain mortal. We already know game has an ending with a mortal, but there is no dialogue that would lead to it. Not sleeping immediately after the ritual is a strange condition. it's complicated by itself.