Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion The romance with Astarion pulls you over to the "dark side".

I am not sure if you forgot about him or just didn't know, but romanced Gale most definitely wants to take the Crown for himself and the PC, and if you don't envision a future of godhood for the two of you, you have to talk him out of it. If you first edge him on an then change your mind and try to talk him out of it at the dock (which unintentionally happens to quite a few players btw) he will dump you. It's basically everything the video and yesterday's quote talk about, just handled really well. - Which is probably why people get into less fights about their preferred endings for him than in Astarion's case.


Also Gandrel is nothing but polite to the player group, even when Astarion is an absolute rude ass to him.

I didn't romance Gale but when I told him to do what he wanted at the dock he picked the crown. Astarion thought that was very funny. Said something like, "I swear, now that I've ascended, everyone's trying to do it!"

Also, I, and my Tav, liked Gandrel just fine. Ulma's the one we had a problem with in the confrontation after ascension. But Gandrel was there! If he'd been allowed to speak and make a more compelling case, maybe things would have turned out differently.

To win is to be alive....to decide who is good or evil is between the individual and who decides the fate of said individual at the end of their life. Only the Gods/Devils choose where you end up. No one is good or bad in the game. They are alive and continue on down their chosen path. This is just one small one-shot campaign in a long story that we only see a small part of. So, the best course of action is to live the way you want and play how you want.

Don't judge others because headcanons get in the way. I also do not want to be judged by others, including Larian headcanons. I want the kisses fixed for AA and to have a small line changed for after the ascension line to have a positive choice. Otherwise, it is not for others to judge how I play my own game in the privacy of my own home on my own computer. It is meant to be fun and have a good time. Trying to understand other headcanons will not get anyone anywhere, and there will never be a change in the other person's headcanon. So there is no point to argue over it or bully someone else over it.

Let everyone play the way they want and continue on. Play the game, have fun, and ask for things to be fixed that bother you. If it doesn't bother you, then don't push others on what they are respectfully requesting from Larian themselves. It isn't that hard. Just scroll on by.

@Starry (I was not quick enough XD )

I am not sure how friendship Gale works, but the romance version is - as far as I know - a point system. Your arguments either add to or take away from his ambition counter, so you can end up on the war path with Mystra, on the forgiveness route (which in an extreme case adds a desire for self sacrifice) or somewhere in the middle. He remembers your intentions and when you switch them suddenly, he will be rightfully confused. I think a similar system would have done Astarion's quest good. Currently you can have a very different act 2 experience with him and it does not influence his choices during the ritual in the slightest.

Starryophonic: They tell you,what they do. They take them in again, because they are their children. And they do take them in in fact. Two of the children are Gandrels btw., so he has a very personal reason to find Astarion.

Dark angel: I never judged you, I know, playing evil can be very carthatic. I played a serial killer in one of our last Call of Cthulhu campaigns. I don't know you and I don't care, how you play the game. Please notice, that I didn't say anything about AA or how I think, you shouldn't go down that route. I was merely trying to point out the Gur background. And this is a discussion board, so I think, we should be ok in engaging here, even if we have different opinions. I'm totally ok with your view of things, if that didn't came out, I'm sorry. I'm not here to change your views, but if anyone else, not familiar with DnD lore, reads this, I just want to throw in some facts. Of course you can play your character getting offended by the Gur being rude to your boyfriend, I never said, it isn't ok. Objectively that doesn't make them evil though.

Okay, that's what I thought. But my point was more that, in the ascendent route, Tav and AA have no way to know they'd do that. And I think if the Gur did say, "We'd have taken them in if you just allowed us to," they would have either assumed they were lying, or assumed they were hypocrites.

I think Ulma's dialog in the after ascendent scene could have used some fleshing out in any case. She makes some vague allusions to "the better road," but it would have been better IMO if she had stated more concretely what she's mad about. "You let our children die. You ascended." I can make inferences, of course, but I'm just saying it feels underdeveloped.

I never did the ascention, but if you meet the Gur before doing Cazadors palace in Rivington, there is a dialogue option where they say, they want their children back. It's even more heartbreaking,when Gandrel is alive. I think,you have to talk a bit more to them though, to find that out. And I don't remember the exact words, but it is basically said, they want them back on every condition ( they want to give them a proper burial, if they are dead), so I never thought, they would kill them, if they were spawn,but that of course was my assumption and the first time, I played, I didn't know, how cruel the game can be. I thought,we would get there in time, so that they are not turned.

Ulma was downright rude everywhere in the game. Mind you, I have played D&D tabletop for a LOOOOONNNNNNGGGGG time, have the originals in book form, and know quite a bit of lore. I have played multiple ways in the game. I don't much care for other companions to romance, the only one I actually liked was Astarion's romance. That is just my personal choice. There have been many people with labels, that is the annoying part. It starts to get too much into the headcanon of it all when people state one way or another someone is innocent (uhhh, not even Tav is innocent, not even the cats in the game are innocent...LOL) and also put labels of you played evil. Actually no, the campaign I was thinking of was to let them all have what they wanted, and play with just Astarion and I in the game, the rest stayed at camp because I was really tired of their judgy mocking tones as well. Especially after 15 campaigns to try out the different ways Larian made the classes. I brought them out for their quests, let them do their thing, and put their happy little butts back into camp. So.

Faerun is a difficult place. You can't push judgments for labels. Innocent or guilty. Who is to say they were good or bad either? The point is to have fun and enjoy it. I do find if you are talking lore, you have to choose your words carefully though. Even a chaotic neutral can use it against you....let's see what happens if I do this: hehehehe.

And not all of the book lore is on the web, those are people who also put a little word twisting in the text. I enjoy the whole aspect of D&D and you can make it however you want for your own campaign. Even a homebrew character. Larian did change some of the dialogue for different paths if you did complete a character's personal quest first prior to doing other things. Still doesn't change the fact that no matter which path you choose, or who you romance, none of it is "bad" unless the character left you for your choices or they end up dead due to your choices.

When you use words that cast judgements though, that makes it more judgy, so please....choose your words more carefully. Discuss, laugh, have fun. I will be right here, watching. Always watching.

And for those that get it, hopefully, you will laugh at the joke. Just play nice, everyone (at least while discussing this topic in this forum).

Just so you have the context if you're interested...

starryophonic: I was actually talking about meeting them in Rivington. There, they talk about the kids, when they ask you to help them getting them back.

DarkAngel: Ehm, are you alright, mate? You seem to be really upset and taking this personally. I'll guess, it is better to leave the topic here, if that discussion gets you this riled up.

I know, but you said you hadn't played the ascended route, so I was giving you the context for the post-ascension dialog. I think the conversation in Rivington is just fine. It's the dungeon conversation I think needed some beefing up. I let their kids die. They should make me feel worse about it, lol.

Ah, ok, sorry. Would be interesting, if they say more, if you choose the other answer options. I generally think, that act 3 needs more reactivity. I had Halsin get murdered by Orin once and no one in the group reacted. Do the companions react, if Astarion ascends? I would think, that Wyll and Karlach would have opinions about that at least. And Jaheira with her not so positive background with full fledged vampires ( from BG 2).

They make some comments during and after ascension. Karlach is the only one who can respond to you becoming a spawn as well, and that's only if you talk to her after ascension but not before Astarion turns you. But the comments all boil down to, "Well it was an evil thing and I certainly wouldn't have done it, but hey, what can ya do?"

Earlier in this thread someone posted this link: https://shiakihades.tumblr.com/post/737825265777033216, which contains walk-around banter between companions about Astarion ascending and turning Tav. I believe I heard that most of it was cut except maybe Lae'zel's bit; I never triggered any of them myself, including Lae'zel's even though I had her with me most of the time. Her dialog is interesting to me because if you talk to her after ascension her reaction is basically, "a githyanki would never take power for themselves; they would always think of the community," so she's surprised that Astarion didn't just discard Tav after stealing power. The one I would have wanted to hear the most was Wyll's. I can hear his disgusted voice perfectly in my head.

Also, I saved Halsin from Orin, and he barely reacted! He was like, "Woah that was nuts. Anyway, I'll see you at camp." And off he went. How did he even know where camp was? He was kidnapped before we moved to the Elfsong.

Strange, they all react more to Shadow dying her hair tbh.
But that is,what I mean. Act 3 could do with a bit more reactivity.
Lae'zel has more to say after getting kidnapped by Orin: She is pretty ashamed of it. And the companions were a bit more concerned,when she did go missing, than Halsin.

They have comments if he does ascend, if he doesn't and during the moment, when he carves the runes.

I thought Ulma is pretty ok after ascension. They are monster hunters after all and you just created an uber-vampire after agreeing to work with them before. So from a narrative point of view, it's understandable that they are treated more as opponents than as potential allies if you go the ritual route.

In Rivington they are all pretty decent, as soon as they realised that Astarion had free will, they treated him like a person. Having had Wyll and Astarion on my team recently, I'd say they are more accepting & less judgemental than the monster hunter who is part of your group. Perception might vary but I thought the Gur are pretty well written overall and I do enjoy them as NPC, Gandrel most of all. He never dies except for science.

And no, I am not taking it personally. Quite the opposite in fact. Stating a way to better communicate is as to not trigger those that have been pushed a little too much by others. Not saying one person did it, just that some things trigger. It was a general statement, not directed at anyone in particular.

I totally agree, the Gur are very well written, especially Uma and Gandrel. He never dies in my games either.
And yes, their reaction after Astarions ascension is pretty understandable: First he kidnapped their children and then he uses their life force and sells their souls to ascend. I would take that pretty harsh too.
And as much as I like Wyll, but I have to agree, that the Gur handle the idea of treating a vampire spawn like a person better - though Wyll potentially witnesses a lot of Astarions earlier, more brattier behaviour, so he might just retaliate a bit. I want to strangle Astarion through most of act 1 ( and actually did a few times in early access, since there weren't really consequences for later story). But generally yeah, the Gur handle it pretty well overall.

To be honest, I'm curious about Gale. Do I understand correctly that romantic Gale wants to take the crown anyway, and friendly Gale wants/needs to depending on some factors? In my case, friendly Gale himself said he would give up the crown, and there was no option to convince him or suggest he take the crown for himself. He decided his quest on his own without any influence from my side. I wonder, of course, what that depends on.

Astarion, by the way, always wants to Ascend. At the same time, friendly Ascended Astarion communicates with the player quite normally, without any attempts of " abuse". It feels like it's not "you can't Ascend him", but "you can't love him". The punishment given to the player is for exactly that.


That's for sure... I really like this Ametris picture, don't know if you've seen it, it's been on the forum for quite some time...



And I love the killing of the Gur. I really like the scene where Astarion kills Gandrel with a dagger in the eye. But really, I don't want it in my walkthrough because Astarion is too tense and nervous in that scene, since Tav doesn't know he's a vampire yet. I like to say, “What do you say, Astarion?” better when he feels some support from me. You can do whatever you want in your game, but I will respectfully remind you that the topic of this thread is: “Romance with Astarion”, meaning it is for discussions by players who love this character.

That is such an interesting point. Although since the abuse with a romanced A. Astarion only happens if the player requests a kiss, I think it simply serves to show how disjointed Astarion's character became with Patch 6. He communicates with the player quite normally outside of those kisses.
Since looking at the interview with Mx Welch I think maybe there is an element of seeing the player as a thirsty person using the romance to satisfy their kinks, therefore the more kinks Larian put in the game, the better.

Regardless of whether my speculation is right, what Larian have done with Patch 6 is make A.Astarion completely inconsistent as a character. And at the same time, they are railroading the Player Character into being aligned to 'good' and suffering because of their love. Loss of player autonomy should not happen in an RPG and ruining a well-written character just to get another kink on the game's 'bingo card' is completely the wrong direction to go in, in my opinion.

I can answer for the friendly Gale, as my romantic interest has always been that damn vampire.
So here goes. I can't remember at what point, but I think it's in Act 3. Gale tells the player character that he wants the crown. And you can agree with him, or you can start talking him out of it and get his disapproval.
He is then summoned to his place by Mistra. There too, either tell her the plans, or just listen to her, or refuse her.
And lastly, the last.
If all along the way you supported Gale and his crown idea, then at the wharf, when you pick the line that you take it and become a god (there's also, like, you can challenge Mystra, but that's a bad ending). Gale agrees and in the epilogue we get Gale's God.
If, on the whole route you talked him out of it, then on the dock, even if you say "to hell with it, take the crown", he will say, and then what? No, I'll give it to Mistra. And he'll give up the crown himself.
So with a friendly Gale, you can see the influence of the player. You either indulge him or you don't, and he ends up making his own decision.

I had it like this: I want the crown - yes, listen to Mistra, but don't talk about plans, take the crown - God's bottom line is Gale
I want the crown - no, listen to Mistra, but don't talk about plans, take the crown or give the crown to Mistra - Gail gives up the crown.
I may have missed some more dialog, but either way, agreeing is god, but, if you talk him out of it, it's just Gail.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, this is not the case with Astarion. You can indulge him all the way through about the ritual and then just talk him out of it. Or vice versa, talk him out of it all the way and then help him. There is no player influence on Astarion.