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 i mentioned this earlier in this thread already, but im also not safisfied with this being a final conclusion to karlachs story. Act 3 still feels stupid for not allowing us to do anything for karlach, and i still cant see myself replaying the game due to how depressing her situation gets in act 3. Imho even if the epilogue told us they found a cure for karlach i would still feel slightly bitter because i dont want that story to play out off screen lmao, she deserves a proper questline goddammit.

Aside from an avernus quest i also hope larian can add some dialogue in act 3 where we can convince karlach about going to avernus, just so the avernus ending doesnt feel as abrubt as it does now. Any dialogue that explains WHY we cant cure her and have to go avernus would also be nice. Top priority for me is of course to get some form of avernus quest update/dlc, anything else with karlach is extra.

Seems like they've decided to commit to the mess they left of what are clearly quest threads for her in Act 3 that can't be explored at all. Deeply unfortunate.

Theoretically if there really were an Avernus DLC for her, while it would be WAY more work to account for the state of her engine if it were fixable when going into such a DLC, it would make for a lot of fun narrative variation if you could go in with a fixed engine or without one. That is EXTREMELY theoretical though, they've not sounded super interested in making additional content around our current party members.

Not to get into spoilers but that's just my opinion tho and I'm 100% on your side in act 3 shafting karlach with 0 options or dialogue on her cure just a lot of depressing lines about how short her time is and how much she wants to stay in baldurs gate with tav. It's imo just depressing for the sake of being depressing there's alot of outs that the game just forces us to ignore. I'm hoping a future dlc, expansion, or DE content will just let me fix the fucking engine one way or another dammon or not idc

There was an ign interview someone posted on here recently where larian devs said specifically they want to make more content for bg3 after the holidays and there are serious talks about whay that means. They even said back in September that dlc isn't off the table for bg3 which is wild for larian as a company. That combined with I'm very confident we will see a definite fix for her. Whether that's dlc, or de is anyone's guess tho

As much as I'd like that, I'm not sure how Larian would go about implementing that in a satisfactory way. Let's say, at some point during act 3, Wyll, the PC or potentially both try to convince Karlach to go back to Avernus with them: if Karlach automatically accepts, then all her previous statements on the topic (about how she's never going back and would rather die than going back) lose A LOT of their emotional impact. It makes sense for her to accept during the ending (since she's on the brink of death, in unimaginable pain and all of that), but on an "average" day she's always said no before. On the flipside, if she automatically says no and/or her acceptance is locked behind a persuasion roll, wouldn't the whole exchange feel kind of coercive/guilt trippy on the player's side? "In the end, you've convinced a loved one to do the thing they hate more than death itself, thing that you know will work out only because of your metagaming knowledge, hooray!" (or at least, it lowkey already feels like that to me in the current scene, so)

Edit: for the record, Karlach aside I still love every other aspect of the extended epilogue. It really delivered that feeling of "closure" that the og one was missing, which is why hers, by comparison, still feels kind of "meh", since now her only potentially happy ending is hinted at 5 minutes before the end of the game and never actually "shown"

Still, I'm constantly surprised and grateful at Larian for listening to their customers in a way I'm seeing NO OTHER videogame company do nowadays

I mostly meant that some dialogue with karlach in act 3 where we convince her that we can look for a solution in avernus would avoid us having to coerce her into going back right as shes dying, which like you said yourself feels a little manipulative considering karlachs stated dozen times already that she wants to die rather than go back. Telling her to go to avernus right as shes in unimaginable pain even when we promised to stay with her when she dies feels very dirty, especially now that the epilogue
But also if there really will be an avernus update/dlc, this is something that the characters can adress in that story as well ofc.

This I knew already, but I also remember reading a statement that their current thought process was that if they made DLC/expansions it would not focus on Tav or the current party members. That's what I meant by additional content, obviously they're willing to make additions for the game currently just... deeply unfortunate that an Act 3 quest for Karlach hasn't made the cut and there are now clear signs it won't.

I hadn't seen that post or interview I must've missed it somewhere. Either way I'm still hopeful we'll get an avernus type dlc in the future that'll lead to a real happy ending for karlach not a theoretical one like we have now.

#JusticeForKarlach

In any case, fingers crossed that they'll keep on further improving her story, whether via dlc or basegame content

I'm just curious how Zariel's forge and smiths compare to the Gondians. My reason for asking is because Zariel's goons were the ones to try and "patent" the first version of the infernal engine, which was tried on Karlach and possibly the strong, badass likes of her later. But the prototype that she essentially carries later became a blueprint for Gortash who used the enslaved Gondians to masterfully craft for purposes on the material plane.

Thus, the Gondians created the v.2. Engine which as we see in act 3 is fully stable and functional in Faerûn. Now, would this work within a body and not a machine with a connected brain? That'd likely have to be answered by the quest we didn't get. But I'm curious as to how "perfected" blueprints for a cure compare to what the Gondians could likely have come up with had we gotten the time with them on the plane above.

Once again, I'm really happy with the conclusion to THAT ending and epilogue. That's chefs kiss in every way. But it's the total grandiose cheese-like plothole platter that is Act 3 that still makes me Meh. Because those blueprints serve a purpose in Avernus. But we genuinely know people, amazing smiths who work with this kind of stuff, who were a fucking PAIN to save, who could've conjured something of the kind before we blew up the forge in BG.

Speaking of which, does anybody know if they patched the Gondians' AI during

You're right without a doubt and I can't say enough how annoying the gondians are in act 3 when you can't have an option to ask about a cure. My head canon at this point is they just don't like the look of tav and karlach and won't help. Its as good as any other one I've been given. But the cure could be based on gondian designs refined by dammon and build in the fires of avernus or something like that.

#JusticeForKarlach

can confirm

can someone whose seen the epilogues just tell me yes or no does karlach show up?

That was from a Swen interview in September. However, it seems they have changed their mind about that since then, given what Withers said. Perhaps they've realized it's a lot cheaper to expand upon existing assets than to create new ones. It's also a lot easier to draw people in with characters that are already popular than to try and sell people on new ones.

Yes, Karlach shows up.

Larian please let us fix Karlach's heart!

heres hoping

thats a really good point and its what im going with until proven otherwise given what withers says and some of the info given on karlach ive heard about it seems likely we will see some DLC, expansion, or DE content in her direction in the future. Given the info they also gave us id be safe to assume imo that we will get a permeant fix to karlachs heart in that content which is huge and im here for it