Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Astarion romance improvements

Ah, yes! He indeed says her name in every sentence. He keeps repeating it in the epilogue too. So much cringe!

The contrast between his canon behaviour towards her when you play as Tav and when you play as Karlach is just hilarious.

And the key word is "make" everywhere, throughout the story. Make you feel like you've made a mistake. If you haven't previously MAKED Astarion stand "on the path of redemption". Feel the hand of lawful stupid goodness at your throat (and make the appropriate facial expression). I needed the path of evil in the first place to shield Astarion from this very "good", to give him the opportunity to be himself and do whatever he wants, that's the main enjoyment of "evil" for me - freedom. No redemption, no humility, no hunger, no burning and "be comfortable for them", "stop being an asshole to those around you". And one could enjoy the evil way, if the "paybacks" were realistic - betrayals of some companions, difficult fights with some Lathander paladins, vengeful gur from other clans - things that could really get in the way of a couple of vampires. But they needed to strike through Astarion, at Astarion - in a way that would set off triggers and guaranteed to make the player understand. Kisses, specifically those kisses - it's no longer secondary, it's total annihilation.


This only works with Astarion. Heterosexual men can safely carve up a grove for Mintara and enjoy it, Shadowheart the Dark Justiciar doesn't bully his lover (with Shar forbidding love), etc. You can any evil without any caricature or punishments, under one condition - male player. I would add that Purity Culture = Culture of Violence in this case. And "good" is not just devalued, it becomes a rapist, a dictator. Immediately associations come to mind with how cruelty and violence in human history has always been done "in the name of good". And law. And now the game is trying to impose "law" through violence. I wonder, of course, what the real law "On Intentional Causing of Moral Harm" says in such a case, but hardly anyone cares.


"Kill out of mercy" - hero. Use them for a ritual that will give Astarion everything - freedom, sunshine, strength, independence - you're a scoundrel who "killed 7000 for some comfort of one". Yes, my Tav is a scoundrel, she will kill for Astarion if necessary, and more. And... Astarion will bring her to her knees in random for it. Why? Because, "If you don't like it, don't ascend him." It's just that those who hate Astarion haven't come up with any other option to make "don't like it". Maybe it's a calculation for new players who really won't like it beforehand, and the old ones can just be traumatized and thrown out of the game.


You're lucky! A bit jealous, I really wanted to go through again with DU and Astarion. I also hope there will be those who will do better.

I tried playing Origin Karlach and romancing Astarion but.. there were a lot of inconcistencies with her touch that threw me off in act 1. Then in act 2, his confession still made it seem like he was banging her, which was not possible in act 1. After that I was just not immersed in the romance anymore. Oh dear, now we're going to get a unique confession for Karlach.

I think Astarion/Karlach would be the one romance I'd be fine with being impossible due to their very different natures and how much the tenderness and closeness from sex is pivotal in Astarion realizing he might want a more serious relationship from the player. It was extremely awkward when, during the forest scene, Astarion asked Karlach what to do because he can't touch her. I can't imagine him putting himself in that vulnerable position. He is confident when it comes to sex because that's what he knows really well, and I find it hard to believe he would make himself vulnerable putting himself in a situation where he doesn't know what to do. It was just jarring seeing Astarion's personality shift so much to accommodate Karlach's romance.

I think you and I would get along really fine in "real" life lol. I just agree with everything you've said here and I don't know if you've read my previous posts but I too have experienced some VERY disturbing things with my ex husband which still triggers me to this day. Usually video games never triggers me, I'm not that soft but patch 6 just did with that throat grabbing, something i didn't expect and didn't want to admit at first, it's not an easy thing to admit for me tbh, I'm often worried to be seen as weak.

But on to something else, I really just wanted to comment on your "True Blood" thing, I absolutely LOVE that show!!!! And I could never get why she didn't like Franklin LOL He was such a protective, dark boyfriend aaahhhhhh..... My favorite was the vampire Eric!! ??? That's the thing with me, I too want a dark romance with a dark hot vampire who is possessive, it's just so attractive but I don't want the abusiveness, it has to be consensual!

This thread has been going on for a while now and Larian has a way of being silent sometimes even though that they are aware of the situation but it would still be nice to know if they intend to do something about it. Just correct the facial expressions and I'll be happy.

Btw, I apologise if my posts and quoting always looks a bit weird, it's because I always write from my phone so I can't edit like I want to....

You've just opened the Pandora's box for me. Thank you. Really, no jokes.
It was never Tav/Durge and Astarion. All the time it was Karlach/Astarion. That’s why we got scary face, strange kisses or tooth-rotting fluff instead of normal romance with neutral evil character.
I was angry before, but now I can only laugh.
No comments.

This is what I've been fearing to think about. What if Astarion's writer no longer writes him.. and it's been handed to Karlach's writer? It's also entirely possible the original writers have moved on to other projects and what's left is... staff writers? I just hope one day that Larian will not dislike Astarion fans so much. AA fans do get more crap than spawn Astarion fans. While I prefer spawn Astarion, I can see the lure of AA from a different point of view. But even spawn Astarion has been handled oddly with how little content he gets compared to AA. Prioritizing Karlach's content over content that involves Tav/Durge is also strange.

I ask for more quality content from Larian (which is what we usually get) but without preaching and without being so on-the-nose. Stuff that is too 'on-the-nose' isn't good storytelling and can be insulting to the reader or player's intelligence. The best example of a recent on-the-nose situation is the negative facial expression on Tav/Durge's face during the AA kisses. The negative facial expression during the kisses is way too much exposition. The kisses themselves are degrading which gives all the exposition anyone needs. The negative facial expressions are overkill, too on-the-nose, and ruins any roleplay immersion or dark enjoyment that could have been possible.

While the forums were down again, I worked on another pic to show how "wonderful" this patch is:



These are Tav's faces after being kissed in patch 3 and in patch 6 in case anyone was wondering.

Another thread dedicated to Patch 6-victim-Tav-face while kissing on Valentine's Day.Here

First those awful one-sided answers after the ritual that was on the release. this

Literally: 1. I want power. 2. F me. 3. School 4. F you

Kisses with a disgruntled face, the only ones in the game.
The game doesn't reveal Astarion's dominance in the romance, falls from the sky, clumsier and with that Tav face, it's just insulting.
There's no kiss or hug in the epilogue (but there's no kiss at the spawn either, strange)

I don't understand Larian's approach. I would have assumed that any company that created a character as popular as Astarion would be estatic that he has been so well received. The marketing department certainly seem to underestand they've got a winner in him, because he is very prominent on the promotional material.
However, the shoddy treatment S. Astarion received in Patch 6 along with Tav's reactions to A.Astarions kisses makes me wonder if the writing team realises just how popular he is. Either that, or that they do understand the appeal but would like Astarion fans to go sit in the corner and reconsider their choices (not a nice way to treat your customers).
They've struck gold and surely commercial sense alone should tell them to run with it.

They may not have intended A.Astarion to be a popular choice but they should have realised that a devilishly handsome, charismatic character with evil alignment is absolutely going to fire people's imagination much more than any good aligned character ever can. The amount of Astarion fan art out there is huge, I've had friends send me memes who don't even play BG3. Right now, I'm wary of encouraging them to take the plunge because I know they would romance A.Astarion and probably end up here saying much the same as I am.

The guys got their waifus with Shadowheart and Karlach, the evil aligned Minthara definitely needs her story fleshing out but Larian haven't censored her the way they have Astarion and they aren't trying to get fans to go and choose somebody more wholesome.
I do wonder if the issue is that the present writers aren't comfortable writing for characters that don't appeal to straight men, or maybe they don't see giving the player agency to decide how they want to relate to a character as very important. It feels they've decided to make A.Astarion story one of 'the cycle of abuse' continues whether the player likes it or not, and for reasons I cannot fathom, S.Astarion is just neglected.
Astarion's voice actor is enthusiastic about his character, the fans are enthusiastic. I can't fathom why the writers don't seem to share that feeling at all.

Ah yes, the "good" path where he becomes a defanged, tooth-rotting fluffy human in a vampire skin, dependent on his great protector and completely adjusted to them, palatable to teenagers so they can swoon over him being their babygirl. He loses his temerity, sarcastic sense of humour and sexual kinks and is a broken man in full on copium mode, trying to hide his growing depression. He's someone who burns in the sun while his so-called friends mock him (I know they're finally working on it, but it's only because of so much criticism) and will always have to drink blood and deal with many inconveniences and then watch Tav die. Also, apparently being equals means owning nothing and being happy.

Why does he need redemption anyways?

Astarion: You can't blame a spawn for the sins of his master. Any good monster hunter should know that.
Ulma: True.

Maybe they could focus on making his "good" path actually good, rather than destroying the alternative one where he finally feels safe and confident enough to drop his masks and show his real, dark self and is obsessively in love with someone who helped him achieve his ultimate revenge. He doesn't need fixing. He's perfect the way he is. They can shove their childish morality lessons, manipulative tactics and propaganda where the sun don't shine.


This! Writers' impositions are all over the place.


Somehow they managed fine with Gale, Halsin and Wyll in this patch. It's only Astarion that got messed up.

I won't be amazed if by the time Astarion's VA is done with his BG3 playthrough, his character will be completely ruined. The hatred for him is just too visible. No one else changes their personality and has their sex scenes censored in subsequent patches.

This is perfect! The clown face and "Favourite is an ugly word, I really do prefer consort" ... Thanks for the laugh!


I think they have been quite good at giving us a platform to roleplay our characters in most parts of the game, which is why the post-Ascenscion dialogue and kiss reactions are so baffling. They don't match with anything that comes before or after.

And this is where they dropped the ball imo. They forgot that they wrote for an rpg.

While Astarion was a wonderfully complex character before the Ascension quest (one of his biggest appeals for me), they turned him boringly one-note after that with the latest changes.

I'm kinda wondering why on earth I paid full price for a game writer to preach at me if I'm honest.
And those facial animations and the odd bit of dialogue are plastering it on with a trowel.

What on earth is the agenda here?

I've never accepted moralising lectures (mother tutting at me also counts) from anyone, at all, ever, without kicking against the traces.
Completely fail to see why its suddenly become a thing in an RPG and only with one character.
More than one character has a 'dark' path.
I mean, come on Larian, fairs fair, upset everyone equally.

Why just Ascended Astarion? And why 6 months after release and as a Valentine?

Never had these issues with any other game I have played and I'm older than DnD itself by some considerable margin.
I've played an awful lot of games, never been preached at in any of them - till now.

And if their agenda is, to destroy the entire Romance? To make it unplayable? What then?

So I picked up the game again and when I reached to the point of the kisses, this time with spawn Astarion, I noticed a "slightly" scared face on my Durge... Maybe it's just me seeing her that way after all this talk about these other kisses but still I swear I made her kiss him several times and while she doesn't look AS scared as with AA, she suddenly has a slight scared look upon her which she definitely didn't have before. I'm wondering if it's a general Astarion thing now. Could any of you guys test it out sometime? I'm a bit curious to know if it's just me that sees it that way or not.

Just tested and they are the same as before for my DU (no scared face).

Yesterday I decided to check what would happen after killing the brain if I parted with Astarion. He used to laugh and say no. Now this has been expanded, he is so angry and says that we are not going anywhere from him, the tadpole is no more, we will be with him, and he will rule the Baldur's Gate. look at YouTube. This is such hopelessness. Tav's face is so unhappy at the end. It's not pleasant. What do you think about it?
it literally shows that he can control us

Yes, this scene is a little bit expanded, but not a lot. AA is more angry and dramatic than before, but nothing new. This scene was never cute and he never let you go. He mentioned tadpole before patch 6.

Meanwhile, My Durge started to have extremely sad face after telling that he rejected Bhaal because he wanted to conquer the world with Astarion.
This new reaction annoys me terribly. No roleplay here. Again.
You are not allowed to be happy with AA anymore

Yeah, that's terrible. I read that the original authors are already working on a new game "about space". And in that case, "supporting" (ruining) the game would probably be people who fantasize about a woman with her face contorted in horror being strangled on her knees on Valentine's Day. And those who think women deserve such a "moral lesson".


That's the impression I get too. Look at how they are actively shoving in the "brutal" Halsin on the background of the disdainful and frankly mocking attitude towards Astarion. A mediocre, boring character, in many ways just copied from the druid from Diablo 4 - appearance, form of a bear, which must be separately pumped, though he did not offer sex to anyone there, because Diablo is not about that and there is no special plot there. His only "original feature" is his annoying attempt to have sex with Tav and their romantic partner. And no one condemns those players who drag Astarion into that nasty threesome with Halsin, even though the fact of the matter is that using someone who was already traumatized by it to satisfy their own perverted desires while thinking it's okay is far more characteristic of a person than killing some backstage 7000 spawn we don't even know. But if you tell them about it, they start yelling that it's a game feature, that since it's in the game, it's okay, that you can't insult other players' roleplay... They can insult the player - but only the players who help Astarion become stronger. His masculinity, his aristocratism is only truly revealed after Ascension. And someone hates him so much that they want to either "punish" him properly or throw out of the game those who want to see Astarion like that, who want a nice happy epilogue with him.

And about the marketing department, it's completely unclear. Either they "missed" it, positioning the game primarily as a sex store, and thinking that Lord Astarion is the "D/s department" (well, who's going to figure out that the partner in this case does not make such a face), and players will like it, and for those who do not like it, there is a button to "refuse Ascension" (that's how we play role-playing games, right?). Or did they feel that "moralism" in a game that utilizes sadism for educational purposes is a selling point? I don't have any hope for the writing team to get someone in there, even if not as talented as the previous team, to at least not be harmful. But maybe the guys in jackets, who like to count profits, will still realize that it's better to release a product without mocking the end consumer...


He doesn't need to. Players who played in very early access wrote that Astarion attacked if they refused to help him with a ritual. That the "path of the Spawn" was added later, due to the fact that these same teenagers wrote letters to Larian with snot and demanding to let them "fix" Astarion. Astarion began to be "softened" in order to make him "more palatable to the players". It's not him who needs it, but the audience of teenagers and bitchy female fans to suppress and "fix" him in the first place. And the aforementioned heterosexual men can let them do that, but the rest of us - be kind enough to romance those who resemble those very same heterosexual men's fantasies about themselves. Or - get punched in the face and know your place.


This!

Yeah, by the way, make a "good" version with healing from vampirism at least, weak? Or does someone have to have "drama" and "he's a vampire and must go into the darkness"? What makes you think anyone owes you anything at all? Yes, in our game we could have sent any "debt collector" from NPCs or companions to a place where the sun will never look, if the plot had a realistic "counteraction to evil". But here the "gods" decided to intervene...No, really, go there yourself, make your own mass-market spawn, be happy, but at least get away from the Ascended, let people play in peace in the world they want to be in, not in the one they themselves want to "plunge into darkness".


But you can hug Halsin in the epilogue, and there are a lot of "flirting" lines for him. And this "kind character" will stare at you in such a way that you have to remind yourself that Tav is a powerful enough character and can hit him, otherwise it would be uncomfortable. Spawn's hug, by the way, is somewhat fake, more like a friendly hug. He smiles artificially, as in the first chapter, his eyes are slightly squinted again, and he doesn't snuggle with his whole body, as he did at the end of the hug in the second act.


The best character and the worst treatment of him. Give Larian the " bullying of the year" award. It's true that "year" is a bit small, in the past years this was not observed with the games either.


The first and second chapter were great.

@illeaillas-san
Of course if Tav clicks on let's break up, the implication is that Tav wants it. And if Tav says no, Tav will be upset.
Unlike the kiss, Tav has everything in place here
Though rather the Tav, who agreed to become spawn and killed monsters all the way were more angry than sad. I see...
No one thought to add I don't know the choice of emotion? Because Tav who gave the dancing fish someone and betrayed everyone the whole game isn't going to make that face.
I'd actually like my character to call it tease-test how far Astarion can go in his possessiveness. If the Evil Lord let go of his love (ah yes a pet toy for fun, not true love for AA never) it would just be lame.

He was always catching the luluz about this. But on the release his face was bit calmer and cheerful when he says "remember", incidentally like the epilogue.
The main thing is that in the epilogue if you play along this line of "freedom?"-Tav, Astarion doesn't stand there for a few seconds with an evil face like in a children's cartoon. He's in character, sighing "not again" and almost sulking and wailing.