Adding this option to the romance cutscene will have to change a lot. It is Astarion's goal to make his lover his (!) spawn (if you don't accept this, he will break up). Not even this scene needs to be changed then, also the s..scene and "on your knees" scene afterwards respectively they have to cut these scenes off for those who choose this new option. Also, IF there is the possibility to convince Astarion to not become his spawn.. the answers at the "on your knees" scene will not make sense anymore. On the one hand, you would be able to convince him to stay mortal and also have the romance with him, but on the other hand, in the "kneel down"-scene you cannot say "no" anymore? Because this will lead to a break-up. Plus they have to cut off all the afterward conversations, which would not make sense anymore for people convincing him that they will not become his spawn:"You are so beautiful and you will be beautiful forever." - "What happened?" "You made me your spawn, what is going to happen to me?" etc. Adding this one option will lead to a whole series of problems. It is not just one answer. And it will go on.
They'd only need to add a persuasion check to convince him. He could then agree to wait and note that he doesn't want to wait long (he could approach Tav the next long rest and say that he can't stand the suspense and wants them to decide already) or outright say they have a day to decide. Then the romance scene could stay as it is without any modifications. There could also be a very difficult persuasion check to ask him to wait till the worm problem is over and he could simply offer a night of passion without the bite (it would be the same scene just cut shorter). You wouldn't have the conversation about being turned but he could still say all the other stuff he normally does in there (talking about his new powers, what's next for him, etc). You could then ask him to turn you in the epilogue like you can already and he'd say the same thing: 'I thought you'd never ask.'
I don't think it would be that hard to implement.
From a game design perspective, this conversation with Astarion is the game asking the player “Hey, so you’ve been playing this game for quite some time, romanced this pixel character, and did something that was flagged as a big action. This is the final beat for his entire arc and for this romance. Why did you do it? What’s the angle here?”
But that's the problem, the game is not asking us why we did it. It's
assuming we did for a) or b). It assumes you only have shallow, selfish reasons.
You (the player) are asking the game to be able the say “no reason”.
We are asking the game to be able to say more things, all of them telling him we did it because we love him and care about him and want to enjoy our time with him, not that we only lust after him and his powers.
You are asking the game to prolong a limbo dynamic for your character and not fully close the romance. Which is fine. But clearly, the ascension is flagged as an evil event (probably the highest body count event btw) and you want to add a “neutral” flag. If there is a neutral flag here, it’s only logical to add neutral flags throughout the game for other big, high-stakes moments, which are flagged as an evil act.
No one's asking for any limbo dynamic? I'm not sure what you're talking about. What we are asking for is for the game to be consistent and to give us back the options we had up until that scene.
