Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Short race appreciation thread

I don't see enough love for the short races, so I thought, I open this thread.
Post your favourite npcs, show off your characters and tell us, who you would have loved as a short race companion.

My favourite npcs are Barcus Wroot (no surprise, I guess, he is one of my favourite characters in the game), the Hearthflame sisters (and I wish the game had focussed more on their story) stonemason Kith and that cheeky halfling lady in the Ilmater temple, who tells the oliphant inspector off.

I would really have been ok, if any of the companions would have been made a small race. Only Lae'zel and Karlach are defined by their races to be honest, the rest would work as any race. But I'm still sad, they scratched Helia, the halfling werewolf bard. I also would have loved, if they made Barcus a companion. He is pretty involved in all three acts and has a very nice storyarc with a really good payoff in act 3. I'm honestly more invested in his arc than some of the companions.
From a story involvment persepctive, a duergar would have worked well too - some gnarly duergar warrior, maybe seeing the error of their ways or double down on it, depending on how the party leans (I would have been fine with any gender). But mainly I would have loved out best friend Barcus as a companion (which would probably have required the artificer class actually be in the game, but since one of the main villains is basically an artificer, that should be doable).

As for characters - my first playthrough was a halfling lady romancing Shadowheart and it was very sweet. She was the classical happy go lucky character, but accidently got Rolan killed in the Shadowlands. Apart from that and the fact, that I didn't know, there was another way to keep Karlach alive, so she agreed with Karlachs proposal to make her a mindflayer, she had an all around good ending.


I'm doing a redemption Durge run currently with another Halfling bard, I called Helia - as an hommage to the scratched origin(I tried that before, but had to reinstall the game, because the save got corrupted). She will be yearning for innocence, so I might let her romance Wyll or Karlach, since those two are probably the most classical good characters in the game, but we will see. She will try to save everyone after the Durge moment in act 1 (and no, I will not cheese that one and will play it out as intended) and pretty much defies her former allies whenever she can.


And I made one of my pen & paper characters, a gnome artificer ( with the artificer mod, which is really great). She is highly intelligent, but not very streetwise, so she might be a bit gullible at first, but will toughen up along the way. In our pen & paper group, she is the one always trying to find a peaful soloution for everything, because 'I don't think, those gnolls are really evil, they just need a hug'.



I have a dwarven cleric named Iduna somewhere, but I plan on remaking her, since I wasn't that happy with her setup.

I agree, I grew very fond of my Duergar Bard/ranger/wizard Tav in my 3rd PT.

For my 4th PT, I wanted to explore more races and classes that I had not yet tried before and I've installed the "Party limits begone" mod and the "CustomCompanion" mod.
The latter allows you to create hirelings using the player character creation sheet.

So I 'm now running a small army against the absolujte, with a half-drow wizard Tav, Karlach, Lae'zel, Shadowheart, Jaheira and Minthara, together with a Halfling bard, a Gold dwarf ranger , a human rogue/assassin, Forest gnome monk and a Deep gnome warlock as hirelings. More time to spend on the party than on exploring and fighting. I wouldn't recommend this for a 1st or even 2nd PT, but it's great to explore missing race/class dialogue options and feats once you've done all the quests in the normal way.

I still don't understand, why none of the companions was from the short races. As i said, apart from Lae'zel and Karlach, none of them were defined by their races.
Gnome is very good imo, they have advantages on the mental stat sves. Halflings are among the best because they never see a natural 1 in a game. Halfing bard is so great.

How are the romances while playing a short race? Are the animations adjusted properly?

Yes, it is pretty well done. I romanced Shadowheart with my halfling lady and Astarion with my gnome lady. The kisses are pretty sweet. And I say that as someone, who is romantic as a stone

My Duergar romanced Karlach and that looked fine.

Frygg and Karlach

Frygg and Karlach

Frygg and Karlach

My son played a Halfling sorceress and seduced Karlach - he said the steamy scenes were funny with some pedo vibes due to tall girl-short girl.

That is so cute

I don't know, the short races don't look like children at all. I never had that feeling when romancing Shadow or Astarion. Helia, my redemption Durge, will probably go for Karlach.

I prefer villains, so I like Korrilla, especially since she's in all 3 acts. I thought she might have made for an alright Yoshimo type character, maybe not that hardcore for a turnaround, but something similar. I like Roah as well, even if she presents more as a returning merchant rather than a character that might have joined the ranks. I like that they both have an associated faction with a longer reach, which lends some extra flavor there. I also like how they reappear at Inns or the hub areas periodically, which recalls to mind how BG1 the companions would usually be hanging out by an inn or some important merchant location, sorta winking like 'pick me!'

I still wish that BG3 was less preoccupied with the main Origin Companions and instead focused on providing more variety in party composition, like in BG1 where you'd just dismiss a companion and they'd bounce to make room for someone new at various points. Korrilla has a nice set up. She's easy to miss in Act I, but if you get that one for an introduction the main character pretty much owes her a life debt. This would be an interesting inversion of the usual trope. Typically it's the Protagonist who saves the companion, who then has that hanging over them as a reason for loyalty. In this case that would be flipped, which could be cool. Maybe when she disapproves, she spouts off some line about how she should have left us to die back at the Goblin camp lol. Clearly she's not all that sympathetic as you approach the endgame, but I like how she's lurking around at various points and keeping tabs on us. I think it would have been nice to see a total of say 24 recruitable companions 2 for each Class archetype, basically a hero and a villain for each.

Not that they have to stay that way necessarily, but where they start out I mean. I just don't need anywhere near the amount of characterization that we get from the Origins half the time, like a couple barks and banters would do just fine, I can supply the rest in my head. I think done that way the companions would feel more like a resource, some kinda wheres waldo on that, where part of the charm is tricking out the companions and itemizing them based on whatever starting stat blocks are available there. If they blocked the respec stuff to lvl 2 instead of all the way back to lvl 1, then they'd have a way to gate certain companions by starting class which would feel pretty BG. Gives the player something to work with, but still keeping the core archetypes.

For that, Korilla could contrast with Wyll, giving us a somewhat more typical Warlock (since Wyll really comes across like someone who's only accidentally a Warlock by happenstance.) I mean his heart's not really in it, if you let him make his own shot calls. He'd rather be some kind of Swords Bard or something probably. Then at least I'd have one Dwarf companion, with less judgement about the lack of beard or being frustrated by insufficiently gravely voice sets, since I think her voice is pretty great.

https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Korrilla

I really like Korrilla - and her sister Hope. If Korrilla were a companion, freeing Hope could have been her quest resolve in act 3 and Hope could have become a secret companion like Minsc. Basically I love both Hearthflame sisters and I'm still sad, they got sidelined so much. This game did the small races a bit dirty.

I said that before and i will say it again ...
Gale should have been Gnome!

I don't know why,but I always pictured Astarion as a gnome and Shadowheart as a halfling.

I played as Halfling bard Myrna Brandybuck, who was great.


Clearly the game was intended to be played with a small character, given the number of holes they can crawl down. Although halflings are about as wide as any other race (gnomes are much skinnier), so I'm not exactly sure how that works! It also made me laugh when you get the occasional hole that only tiny creatures can fit through and she says "I'm way too big!" When I'd have expected something more like "Even I can't fit through there!" Try casting enlarge on a halfling... they end up huge!

As for the small NPCs, there aren't that many halflings and none of them captured my attention. The only ones I can really think of are the one you can rescue from Auntie Ethel, who's quite good, and Roah Moonglow who's also decent enough but a villain. Definitely the gnomes are better NPCs, and that's all of Barcus Wroot, the Ironhands, and the Gondians. I remember my opinion of Barcus going from "I must save this fellow small person" to "Oh god, you again?!" to "You're a good man really trying to save people, even if you're not very good at it."

I'm a big fan of how much the short races look like adults. I've seen a lot of art of halflings especially where they look like children, but no, in BG3 they are clearly adults but... not quite human. I never did any romance because my character was too shy to actually kiss Wyll, but she did get a hug from Shadowheart in the epilogue, which was really sweet. They could have just cut to the scene with them embracing without showing legs, but there's actually an animation of Shadowheart kneeling down. I love that, because it shows someone cared to get that little detail right.

Traction: I love your halfling,she is so cute.

I romanced Shadowheart with my first halfling and Astarion with my gnome bard. The animations were ok. And the kiss and hug animations are really well done.

Thanks, she really grew on me through the game as I developed her personality. And it's neat that I can say "I like the Blazer of Benevolence, but bright green doesn't suit my introverted, stealth-proficient character. It's now brown."

Another thing about the game that I'd like to call out with small characters is an update that was made to conversations when I was playing act 1. When I started, the camera would often be placed straight in front of the NPC's face, but their eyes would be looking down at my character and it would look really awkward. But around January I think they made an update - I don't know as I didn't read the full patch notes, but at some point it was just fixed - so that now the camera usually gets placed along the line between the two speaking characters, which looks much more natural. Or looking one of their shoulders, so you see the back of the head as they look at the person they're talking to.

Yes, the camera ankles are much better now and I'm mostly happy with my small folks. I still think, the halfling and gnome anatomy could have been done better, but I don't think, they change that.

And yes, the Blazer of Benevolence is one of a few armor pieces, that look actually betetr on the small races. Same with the drow armor. People always slap it on Astarion and gush over him wearing it, but it looks so much better on my halfling lady.

I think, the Phalar Aluve scene looks so much better with a small character for some reason:

I also love Barcus Wroot and would absolutely love to have him as a companion!

I am playing as a Halfling Cleric right now,, Absolutely love the short races, and wish we could have a short race romance

https://imgur.com/fOhE1Nt

She is so cute.

And yes, Barcus should absolutely be a companion.