Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Writing and Shadowheart's Big Act 2 Moment

So I actually really like the dialogue options in this case and I think it’s really well done. I think that the scene becomes significantly more believable when you keep Shadowheart as a companion consistently, see her reactions and approvals and disapprovals, and get to know her a little bit deeper. There’s more to her than being a disciple of Shar, and the fanaticism is largely a front that she puts up, in my opinion.

You can see that she’s not truly evil, since she approves, for example, when you save a kid or are kind to animals. (And she’s punished by Shar for caring about saving Arabella, for example, via pain from her wound.) There are also clear indications that she has a past connection to the goddess Selune, as for example, in the childhood scene with the wolves where the player character can remark that she was wearing a necklace with the symbol of Selune as a kid. She also has a reaction to the Selune statue in the Blighted Village and her wound pains her.

It also helps a lot if you are romancing her. You do see more development from her then, I think. She’ll tell you that she’s been thinking about becoming a Dark Justiciar, but maybe she should be content with her lot because she’s already blessed to have you by her side. So you can see more easily how her affection for you might make her doubt whether she should kill Nightsong.

It also helps a lot if you have her eat the Noblestalk mushroom from the Underdark. This restores one of her childhood memories. In Act 2 you get some unique dialogue with her, that you don’t get without the Noblestalk, where she seems uneasy and is having doubts.

I think there’s ample material in there to indicate that she could spare Nightsong, if you keep the character around and get invested in her. The last two times I’ve played the scene, I have trusted her completely and she has spared Nightsong both times. That was on good playthroughs. She spared Nightsong without my interference once when I was romancing her and once when I wasn’t.