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

Yeah I agree. I was more complaining about how if the devs really wanted to communicate that Karlach only had those two choices, they shouldn’t have left all those other apparent loose ends in the game. It’s stupid to have Karlach explode on a random dock after the game apparently communicates to you that there should be other ways to fix her engine. But I definitely agree that she needs a happier ending.

Because bad things happens to good people, not everyone can be saved, it's dramatic and memorable, it's realistic, it's the hope that kills you etc.

That's pretty much it. And because the lead writer is a horror writer or something.

Maybe the lead writer should stick to horror games >:/

Also, I feel like the message of “it’s the hope that kills you” is a bit out of place in a game that’s so thematically focused on the concept of how freedom is worth fighting for and how it’s worth having hope. Again, what are they trying to communicate? Are they trying to say that we shouldn’t have hope?

Karlachs story ending so depressingly wouldn't be out of place in some grimdark game but then you have stuff like.
Gale who has an atom bomb in his chest and just gets to live and can even become a full fucking god.
Shadowheart who can break years of mental trauma and religious indoctrination and go on to get her happy ending.
Wyll gets a near perfect ending with his horns giv8ng him little more than a speed bump in the grand scheme of things. In spite of the fact he literally and knowingly made a deal with a devil.
I'm not sure about laezels story but she is able to uncover the grand conspiracy around her entire race and start fighting back against the literal God queen of the gith.
Nearly all the other companions get unambiguously good or great endings and for karlach to be the one single standout just because well bad things happen to good people is either trauma baiting the player or just shit writing. I'm hoping larian teasing dlc for karlach isn't more trauma baiting.

You literally go into the house of hell and bring hope back to the 9 hells and avernus in particular. The whole its hope that kills you makes 0 sense it's just shit writing and I'm so frustrated that theyve left karlach as is for so long with 0 communication. She desperately needs a better ending it doesn't fit the rest of the game at all.

Well this is the first game the Lead Writer has wrote afaik, before he was the Deputy Editor for Rock, Paper, Shotgun, so ¯\_(?)_/¯



Dunno if serious, but when the game says throughout:
"Good things happen to good people" and "Bad things happen to bad people", does cause abit of tonal whiplash when suddenly they hit you with "Bad things can indeed happen to good people"
(Although, said theme is mostly just based on a unfinished/lacklustre "evil" path)

Speaking of, its not like Larian to say that something is intentional design before and then added it in months later because it definetly wasn't finished by release. No, definitely not.

Although, if they ever do, I might need to find someone else to be the sacrificial squiddy; which tbh, feels somewhat intentional design, by having someone be a willing participant means your character gets a happy ending and your conscience is clean.

Yeah… “trauma baiting” is definitely a good phrase for it, I feel. Idk if I said this before, but it hits me especially hard because Karlach is like an almost flawless representation of the type of women I’m attracted to, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure that butch/masc-presenting queer-coded women rarely ever get this type of “main character” representation in mainstream media, so… idk. Maybe I’m a little obsessed with her. And lonely. Maybe I need to go to a ren faire or something.

I still think she deserves better though.

I just force Orpheus to do it. I'll take some sleepless nights in avernus before I let karlach take the bullet so to speak. Also that same dev said that karlachs quest was as intended, she was never suppose to get off that dock. Only community outrage has gotten us what we have now which isn't nothing by any means. But lairan clearly aren't the ones who care about this character and it shows.

So, I finally got around to actually finishing the game again with the new epilogue added in Patch 5, and honestly, I feel like it does go a long way to making Karlach's story work better, or at least it does for me.
It doesn't really fix the fact that her quest in Act 3 feels very barebones compared to the rest of the origin characters'- Karlach's act 3 quest was basically to kill someone you were almost certainly going to kill anyway, and I don't think I'll ever understand why you would introduce the idea that Karlach's engine is a prototype of the ones the Steel Watch use and then do nothing with it- but the epilogue after the "Tav goes with Karlach to Avernus" ending felt like it at least addressed my 2 major problems with her ending:
1) that all her endings were horribly depressing, and 2) that is was absolutely baffling and frustrating that you never even tried to do anything to fix her engine.
Well, now we have an epilogue that shows that Karlach and Tav are managing to survive in Avernus in spite of everything, and they even have a lead on a possible fix for the engine that Karlach sounds genuinely hopeful about. At least a few of the other characters even mention they haven't forgotten you, and are planning to try to help karlach escape Avernus if they can- Jahiera says something like "If we don't free you, it'll only be because you did it first" I think.
I honestly thought it even felt quite hopeful.

It makes me hopeful for a dlc that'll finish her quest cause this while better than nothing is still a cliffhanger. The other origins all got their stories pretty well concluded one way or another. Karlach however starts the game looking for a fix for her engine and ends the game looking for a fix for her engine. It's just depressing but im glad they did the bare minimum in making atleast one of her endings not completely depressing beyond belief.

Eh, personally, from all the things I've read in both ingame and out, I think it was just cut probably because they couldn't finish it in time (I mean, they didn't even get the original epilogue done in time (of which you can still find on youtube))

I mean the alternative is that they added all this stuff that makes you think she can be saved but go "Sike nope, she's gonna die. This special infernal iron was always meant to be merchant fodder. This conversation with her merchant friend also means nothing"

In saying all this, I don't particularly care for her as a character in the game tbh, she's fine as a person but her story and personality don't make much sense.

Maybe they'll do something with a potential Definitive Edition but going off of how they implemented this new epilogue, it doesn't seem that they'll implement it in whatever way they may have originally intended.

I wrote it thousand times here and gladly I'll write it again

Her quest feels extremely unfinished in act 3 and all clues in the game shows you, that you should be able to fix her engine. But in actual state you can kill Damon and Gondians in act 3 and nobody cares, because most important characters for Karlach are useless to you, which is really sad, because I'm pretty sure combination of enriched infernal ore, Dammon, Gondians and upper city was the key to fix.

Patch 5 basically gives us hope, that somewhere off screen Tav and Karlach maybe do some steps to fix her, but who knows.

Having FINALLY finished the game and gotten the Patch 5 epilogue, I am extremely confident they're going to do some kind of DLC to rectify the Karlach situation. I shall list my thinking below:

-A common point I see raised about them not doing a Karlach DLC is the simple problem that for a lot of people's playthroughs, she's dead. Consider though, there are a lot of hints in the epilogue that there's a DLC coming whether Karlach's in your game or not. So if there is a post epilogue story, Karlach can just well, not be in it.

-We of course have the discussion with Karlach about the Forge and her getting a new engine, and since others have already discussed it I won't rehash it here.

-Almost every conversation in the epilogue ends with some sort of implication that the story isn't over, from Astarion's "See you later, darling" to Wither's "Thou mayst yet be needed." It'd be a strange choice to include such blatant hints and then have the story, in fact, end there. In fact if your character dies at the end, Withers shows up personally and literally says "Your story does not end here."

-Jergal's mission isn't done yet. If his new assignment as others have theorized is to clean up all his god-related messes, then one glaring mistake still remains: Cyric. If the hypothetical DLC involves taking down Cyric, then that would solve the problem of having a Karlach related DLC when everyone doesn't have Karlach.

-The idea that Cyric is the next adversary for the party to face is further reinforced by a note discussing "a black sun on a white sky" (Cyric's symbol) and the appearance of the musical entertainment. The bard playing music at the party is the now defunct god of music, who was screwed over by Cyric and naturally wants revenge. And, wouldn't you know, he's level 12, same as the rest of the party. This would check off another major player complaint: the lack of a bard companion.

-We also have the appearance of the Strange Ox in the main game, who mentions Cyric by name AND is some sort of fiend, creating a (rather loose) tie between Cyric and Avernus.

-We also have the confirmed cut content in the files of there at one point being a roughly Underdark sized Avernus map, complete with enemies and terrain assets that we then only saw for the opening and the vistas at the House of Hope.

-Outside of game, we have several developments pointing to Larian working on SOMETHING big involving BG3. We have the twitch interview with one of the main leads who implied that even though he can't talk about it, there might be something DLC related in the works. We also have the now deleted tweet from the company's PR manager saying that they're working on something big for BG3 and they can't talk about it yet. We also have the very public tweet from multiple sources saying that Larian is considering doing a DLC and saying that they're not done with the game yet. For a company as tight-lipped about what they're working on as Larian is, these are some pretty big hints.

-I think it's pretty clear that Swen and company wasn't expecting Karlach's ending to gain such universal vitriol, considering not even a month after release they release a new epilogue cutscene with her and friends storming Avernus, AND the Patch 5 epilogue giving us some rather unambiguous hope about her and Tav's situation.

-Swen may like tragic stories, but he's not an idiot. He knows that digging his heels in about a fan-favorite character getting such a shitty ending is a bad look, and why do that in the name of "artistic vision" when you can make a DLC and make fat stacks of cash. After all, everyone loves fat stacks of cash.

In conclusion, I think the evidence points to, if not a Karlach DLC, some sort of DLC. This is a perfect opportunity to wrap up Karlach's story without making the DLC exclusively about her and justifying the cost of its existence. Thank you for coming to my theorycrafting TED talk.

I mean, I'd love to see an expansion to BG3 that adds level 12-15 or so and the content to match, don't get me wrong- but it would be quite a thing to try to make it work with the sheer variety of different states things can be in at the end of the game. It's not impossible, but trying to account for all of the possibilites of the game's ending would be enough to drive me a little crazy, anyway. I mean, you'd have to have a story that would draw in Shadowheart no matter what happened with Shar, account for Astarion maybe not being able to go out in the sun anymore, account for Karlach maybe being dead or a mind flayer, the very real possibility that gale is a god now, etc etc.

I think if we do get an expansion or significant DLC, it's more likely to be stuff that happens before the endgame- basically add new content and push the existing level of end-game stuff up a few levels to account for it, that sort of thing- just because it would be much less of a mess to account for all of the characters and how their stories ended in the base game. We'll have to wait and see, though. I'll be happy to get more content however it happens, assuming it maintains the base game's level of quality.

If someone is indisposed at the end of the game, they can just not show up.

Karlach's dead? Well then she doesn't show up.

Shadowheart works for Shar? Well then she doesn't show up.

Gale's a god? Well then he sends an emissary, or makes a quick cameo.

Astarion can't go in the sun? Avernus doesn't have a sun, problem solved.

Lae'zel is off on her crusade against Vlaakith? She can take a break to go kill Cyric and save Karlach.

Wyll doesn't have powers anymore from breaking his pact? Well he's a ranger or a fighter now. Wyll still has his powers and still works for Mizora? Wyll becomes a minor antagonist, or Mizora also needs to kill Cyric for some reason.

Durge betrayed Bhaal and is now an insane shell of himself? That means that Bhaal has no claim on him anymore, free Jergal real estate. Durge serves Bhaal? Well Bhaal hates Cyric too, problem solved.

I literally just accounted for all major character endings with about 10 minutes of thought. If I can do it, surely Larian's team of writers can too.

You should probably contact Larian's writers and let them know how easy their job is, heh.
I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm just suggesting you might be reading what you want to be there into the ending. Certainly, if Larian was working on releasing an actual DLC any time in the near future, I'd have expected them to at least mention that something like that was in the works. Lots of stories end with some version of "and their adventures continued" after all, and it's a perfectly fine way to end a D&D game.
But hey, I'm not trying to pick a fight here or anything, if it turns out I'm wrong, I'll happily eat crow and go off to enjoy future adventures in Avernus.

Larian does have a history of staying silent on this kind of stuff until fairly close to the release. Atleast that's Been my understanding since dealing with all this karlach shit. It just feels like there's too much setup for them leaveit there on the floor. Especially with this being their most popular release ever. From a business standpoint it makes sense to release more content for bg3 and take advantage of the viral crazy the game is currently generating.

I dont disagree with you andi hope we see an avernus dlc this year or atleast confirmation of karlaching being fixed. But these are the same writers who saw karlach burning alive on a dock or giving up her soul and free will to become a mind flayer and said yup that's gonna go great with the fantasy game. They aren't the best is all I'm saying

I mentioned this earlier already but i wish larian added an avernus quest to act 3, where we find the forge that karlach/wyll mention, instead of making a dlc that takes place post-game. That way they wouldnt have to manage all the possible endgame states, and also fix the ridiculous plot holes with karlachs questline in act 3.

An avernus related dlc would be sick but act 3 still feels like such a depressing, frustrating slog for me right now because of how youre bombarded with sad, melancholic dialogue with karlach about her fate (especially when romancing her) and the game doesnt allow you to pursue any potential solutions to curing her. Its been months since bg3's release and it still drives me insane that the steel watch robots confirm they use a similar but improved infernal engine like karlach does, telling her to report back to the factory, and this leads to... nothing. No quest updates or anything. Like even if we got told it wont work as a solution for her, why arent we at least allowed to go there and find out more? Or why cant we ask raphael about this, or anyone else besides taking the word from a tiefling 'weaponsmith' telling us shes doomed?

The game integrates other origin characters into the world so much better, especially astarion who has a couple unique NPCs just existing to further his character development/questline, that it comes across as the game just wanting you to forget about karlach and accept her fate. The epilogue telling us ''dont worry the gang in avernus are doing fine and karlach is gonna get fixed off-screen, all is well'' doesnt rectify this in my opinion, although it does allievate some of the resenment i had towards the game after act 3 so im glad larian implemented that to the epilogue.

Still, it just feels needlessly cruel and creates a tonal whiplash to situations where other characters are cheerful for overcoming their own challenges, which is why I'd prefer they polished her quest by adding for example the avernus forge-quest into the basegame. OR alternatively, polish the questline so we can get at least some explanation on why karlach can only fix her engine in avernus, and also give her some agency in deciding whether to return to avernus or not. I just really wanna enjoy the game again and not drag myself through misery porn when i enter act 3 lol.