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

I fully support giving Wyll and Minthara more moments to shine. Wyll needs to have his moments that are not tied to anyone else, just something that he actively pursues rather than reacts to. It's too late to rewrite his storyline but it's not too late to give him a one-off quest or two about him and for him in a future DLC pack (which I'm 90% sure is coming in some shape or form). More lines are welcome, too.

Minthara needs to be fixed. That's undeniable. The IGN interview made me feel like Larian wasn't too invested in fleshing her out more but they should absolutely involve her more and do so in a working fashion. There's no good reason not to.

As origin characters, Karlach and Wyll have the least amount of lines. They're actively missing for most of the main story. Whatever attention you think Karlach is getting, it's a pittance compared to what the rest are getting. Lae'zel and Shadowheart have robust storylines that are deeply woven into the main story. Astarion has a compelling storyline of his own, although the Spawn ending should be more respectful. Gale has a satisfying conclusion to his storyline. Wyll suffers from his last-ditch rewrites and Karlach suffers from being a late addition. What fans of Karlach want isn't even to catch up. It's only to have a satisfying conclusion to her story. Being told we've done all we could after giving Dammon infernal iron twice is not it.


That's not my last point. My last point was that Karlach's dilemma is about her choosing between dying free on the surface or facing her fears in the hells for a chance to gain her life back. Her understanding of the value of the life that was stolen from her is very different from Gale's understanding of his worth as a person. Karlach doesn't question her worth as a person. Those are two very different internal conflicts.


I think you're letting your resentment of Karlach get the better of you. She does need to be convinced because every other line of hers regarding her situation is about how her time is running out, how she'd rather die than go back, and how her final wish is to go out protecting the city and the people she cares about. Even the odd mention of a possible life after your adventures together is presented as a silly fantasy.

Loneliness was the most crushing part of Avernus for her, that's true. However, that's not the only reason she didn't want to go back. Her freedom was more important to her than her life before meeting you, which is why she refused the idea of going back even when you offered to go with her before the scene at the pier. Yes, you can offer that and she does reject your offer.

However, after Gortash, her perspective on that starts to change. By the end of the story, she gains the courage to go back because now she values her life enough to risk her freedom again, and she has people by her side who won't abandon her and who firmly believe that she should live on. Otherwise, there's no reason for her to go back.


I don't think you want that. He'll patch up the servers the first time, but he'll tell you it's no bueno the second time around.

PS: I don't think this in-fighting and resentment between fandoms is healthy. If the next 10 patches were all about Wyll and Minthara, I'd be all for it. They need the attention. Spawn Astarion does, too. Hell, make the DLC all about the githyanki rebellion. But Karlach should get a proper ending to her story, just like everyone else does. There's no reason to tear one character down to prop up another. They're all worthy of attention where attention is needed.

I'm hoping the avernus ending will lead back to the fix at the forge and karlach getting to finally come home to baldurs gate and settle down for a while. She deserves it more than most

No, I just disagree with you. It's maybe because I only have been able to save her at all since the epilogue was added, (The characters I had selected wouldn't allow for saving her before and her ending is very dramatic if no PC is around.) but to me there isn't really much change in her attitude. For me she goes back because someone comes along and she is maybe more afraid of death than of Avernus when someone is by her side. If you sacrifice yourself as Gale and get her parting comment, it's something like "See you on the other side." Going down the dark street with a friend feels saver and more doable then going there alone.

That's such a beautiful way to encapsulate karlachs story thank you for that. And yea arguing in the community won't get us anywhere in the end. We all want the same thing that being more content for the game we all love. I'm still on the side of
Yea we will get a fix for karlach in avernus in a dlc or a DE expansion.
Call my too hopeful or whatever but there's too many signs that point that way for me to see it any other way. Unless larian is just trying to bait the fans again with hope before they pull the rug out from under us. I hope they dont do that twice the first time really fucking hurts.

As for the PS. I am also not for infighting. My point at the beginning was, that Karlach is a character with an external conflict, she doesn't change much and that is ok. From my point of view Karlach is also currently at a good place story-wise which is not much different from Lae'zel's. They are both mid-quest. It's fine. It just bugs me, that there are still characters who cannot allow her to go to Avernus with Wyll, which means the player has to sit through a rather painful sequence of her blowing up for absolutely no good reason. To change that was actually my wish on that Christmas wish-list down in the other section of the forum because it's just very unfair and it's the one thing I currently really needs to get fixed.

You say that, yet every time your MC proposes that you go to Avernus together, she flatly refuses you. She doesn't even consider it. Until the scene at the pier.

She doesn't really fear death, because she's ready to blow up without much qualms if you let her. She gives her goodbye to the world, and then she bursts into flame. (Heck, she even refuses Withers' proposal to resurrect her)

Like both of us said before, if it was only about companionship, she would've taken you up on your offer long before the final scenes.

The only way you can explain why she constantly refuses you yet agrees at the pier is because she's internally conflicted about what to do.

I don't know how much you remember about her rant after killing Gortash, but that rant was the first time her facade broke. It's the first time she admits to you that she feels envious that you get to live on and she doesn't. She even sarcastically asks if you have a Wish scroll on you. She laments the fact that the heart her mother gave her was stolen. All of it is about how she wants to live. It's a very selfish, vulnerable, and human outburst that you wouldn't get if her conflict was purely external.

Before that, she was very adamant about not going back despite your protestations, yet she agreed in the end. That can only happen through introspection.


I absolutely agree. I don't know how difficult it is to sequester characters' scenes but it should absolutely be at the top of the list of things to work on. Characters shouldn't be sidelineing each other's scenes unless they're mutually exclusive, which isn't the case here.

What's more, I think Wyll shouldn't even be tied to Karlach at the end there. If you or Wyll don't go with her, there should be a way for you to convince her to go with someone else whom you haven't romanced and whose storyline doesn't necessarily conflict with hers. Minthara has by far the strongest lines on that topic I have seen from any character. Even Ascended Astarion sees the challenge as a tantalizing prospect. Surely it can't just be Tav and Wyll.

Much appreciated, mate!

Karlachs whole breakdown after killing gortash is absolutely heart breaking it had me messed up after watching it. I think the reason she turns you down until the end is because she's so scared of hell and falling into zariels hands again and being alone again. But by the end of the game she sees she has a life worth living again with friends and partners who love her. That drive to live and keep living her new life is what drives her to be able to go back to avernus. At the start of the game she's very much driven by revenge and getting back at those who wronged her and when she kills gortash she feels hollow and needs to look inside herself for answers. That's my interpretation at least as of now.

Yep, you got it. When the hollowness of her revenge sinks in, it's her lowest point in the story.

It's really sad to see her happy go lucky sunshine attitude breakdown after killing gortash. I just wanted to give her a hug it killed me

Like I said, we disagree. At the dock the words that change her mind are "Zariel won't touch you" and similar comments from the PC. In that last moments her fear of death is greater than her fear of facing Zariel / Avernus with someone by her side. Before death is an abstract, in that moment it gets real. For me there isn't any development in her perception of life. And the epilogue dialogue supports that for me too.

And yes, I especially killed Gortash once more to take a look at all her bigger late game moments, and yes it is a heart breaking scene and yes she too has the empty moment after her quest is done, like Aylin, Astarion and arguably like Lae'zel after standing up to Vlaakith, Shart after defeating Viconia and Wyll after breaking his packt. For me there just isn't any new will to live or to fight for her life. In the version of the dock scene without a PC she feels very resigned and at peace with her fate.

I also realise that we mean very different things by internal conflict, I mean questions of conscience, what the character wants to do versus what they feel they should do, or two obligations that conflict with each other. Different forces that pull on a character and leave them at a loss about what to do. Karlach isn't really conflicted about anything, she has a problem to overcome but nothing that really challenges her perspective.

But I will leave it at that. Looking at all those Karlach moments in quick succession has made it so extremely obvious how differently the two suicide / terminal condition plots of this game are handled - that you are supposed to feel for the one character, while you are supposed to sacrifice the other without too many qualms - and I really don't feel like dealing with this any longer because it is really depressing.

Karlach starts out with nothing to lose and everything to gain by getting back at the ones who wronged her. That attitude makes it easy to talk about her death and terminal condition because she has nothing. At the end when you kill gortash she's got friends and she's been reminded about the world she loved in baldurs gate. Her perception changed there when she had more to live for than she had to gain. On the dock at the end she's got people willing to risk everything to save her and that is what gives her the strength to go back to avernus.

That's my 2 cents but yea it's really depressing thinking about that dock scene as her proper ending. What I do want to talk about is the likely hood of a dlc going to avernus and the forge.

I think you folks will enjoy Larian’s holiday video if you haven’t seen it already:

https://twitter.com/larianstudios/status/1737880609609969690

It's actually really nice I'm glad they did that.

So who else is thinking the new karlach epilogue scene is a heavy teaser for an actual fix for her in an possible upcoming dlc/freelc?

Yea this is my thoughts exactly. Between the hint of the forge itself, withers statements, aswell as some of larians statements.i am 100% sure we will see a dlc,expansion or DE content that takes place in avernus and let's us do a side quest to the forge.

I really do hope for confirmed complete engine fix and more content in DE. But I have a feeling like patch 5 epilog may be the final "offscreen" solution we spoke of on this thread many times. Basically they tell us, that you and Karlach have a plan how to fix her in Avernus and then return back to Faerun. So after the epilog we are not depressed as before patch 5 and we can imagine, that Karlach and Tav return save back home. All of this only with few lines of new text and "almost" without work from Larian, so both sides can be happy.

I could see that being the case but there is just so much pointing toward more content for the game. Between withers, larian clearly leaving the door open which isn't something they normally do and some deleted tweets from their marketing director a few weeks ago. I think the question is more when not if we will get a fix at this point. Although I'm elated larian has listened to the community so much. Even If their only ending for karlach was the grimdark dock ending.

If the goal was *now were not depressed* they failed on that one for me and many others. I enjoyed the epilogues but the main reason is because it hints heavily at future content that involves karlach and the potential of fixing her engine.

If its just an off screen solution it feels like just a very odd path of development over the past few months. When most ppl are asking for a fix for her engine. To put so much work into these patches that dripped steady changes and add ons to karlachs story. All for her engine to still not be bloody fixed.
When literally a few lines of dialogue involving the gondians/ dammon. Would been able to *fix* her engine. It all feels very weird and disappointing to me. IF this epilogue is meant to be an off screen solution that is.

IF this leads into future content then im all for it. But as it stands currently. I have still lost any real desire to do another playthrough even though theres alot i havnt seen yet.
Time will tell i guess.

Honestly, after experiencing some of the other companions’ endings, I feel like the creators of the game intentionally make it so that there isn’t a happy ending for anyone. There is always some kind of painful trade-off, deeply imperfect resolutions. Sacrifices that have to be made. And since they said that the Karlach death ending was planned from the start, they’re probably still taking that approach to her as well. It seems like they want her to have the painful trade-off between being alive and being in Avernus, etc. Sad to say. This may all be as intended. That still leaves her underdeveloped quest-line. Not sure whether that was a part of the creative vision.