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

"You and Karlach got what you deserved" Okay bro, so you didn't really care about Karlach at all and just used her to be a toxic prick? Gotcha

Karlach has now an extended Avernus ending which can be called as good with off screen engine fix based on player imagination (which was the most obvious solution for Larian and most people expected this here) and another smaller updates in her story during the campaign, so I think the whole effort was at least partially successful. Of course it is not a completely new quest with Avernus location and 30 hours of new gameplay, but it is far far far better that BG3 with patch 0 when I finished the game for the first time.

So Larian did listen to all these voices.

"Larian replaced the original F tier ending that ignores players' choices with a D tier ending that also ignores players' choices, plus we can fix anyting using our imagination, therefore they listened."

They didn't, or they did and just didn't care. After almost 1 year, Karlach's quest is still marked as "failed" in the game file, her mission is still a glorified fetch quest except the items you fetched go no where, all the foreshadowing in early chapters still leads to an abrupt dead end, she still only got second least content which is only slightly more than Wyll (whose content is only half of Larian's favourite Astarion). Swen Vincke straight up said on his twitter that their game "doesn't need anything more" and they're happily handing Karlach's fate over to WotC.

Not agreeing with the "Karlach deserves it" dude because she definitely deserves better, like, a lot, but the cope here is just a bit funny. The game didn't change itself, you just changed your mind, it's called compromission.

Yeah, to me the new ending feels more like a bandaid, it helps a little but it doesn't fix it.

The biggest problem i find with Karlach is that her problem is easy to solve in the forgotten realms, even more than other companion's problems, so her questline "ending" makes no sense in the setting.

Well it can be D or C. Regardless the changes are: Avernus cinematic, edited epilogue that originally didnt even include possible fix, it was just living in Avernus waiting for friends help, u can probably see remnants of it when u go to Avernus as Karlach Origin, there's no mention of the Forge it's just ie Jaheira: "Hell is not your home Karlach, and if your friends do not drag you out of it it will be because you freed yourself first," ,similarly i recall there's no mention in Wyll's Origin epilogue. You can now save Karlach without Wyll, when romancing her you will get unique responses at the docks, even as friend u don't need Wyll BoA, his spoken dialogue trigger is available for the player in the dialogue tree. Obviously its a band-aid but there are few small changes and removed nonsense limitations at least.

They weren't going to alter the engine questline, or Origin stories at any point after the release probably (continuation was meant for the DLC or BG4 on which they have started working) just add some missing bits, edit things that were simply bad, or as Adam Smith said the ones "that didnt land how they intended". Around 48th minute of the video.


Now the latest interview is interesting since looks like they have learned from their mistakes, acknowledging the missing plot choices in general, but since they have moved on to another projects we will never know what they have planned for Karlach. Part of AS response about it: "There are a couple of points in BG3, where I don't think we did our best work in terms of giving the right choice space. And I think you could spot them. Well, they do to me, anyway." I can imagine its about Karlach's and Wyll's story choices, including some others.

Full interview is pretty decent read as well: https://www.gamepressure.com/editor...uld-go-back-to-zero-interview-with/zf6fc

I cared more than any of you, the end justified means for me. But this pathetic spectacle just convinced me it was not worth it anymore. Remember you all telling me was to "trust larian"? What did it bring you? What have you achieved?

This is where my problem comes from, I think they don't give enough answers to justify why we can't fix Karlach's engine, they only give a few excuses that leave aside the possible solutions that exist in Faer�n

I dont remember exchanging a single word with you.

I�m just grateful that she�s alive and they hinted she has found a possible cure.

Did you do anything except screaming into the void on a forum nobody cares about? Has your "plan" involved anything except you and maybe two or three wretches repeating themselves for over 150 pages? Of course we haven't exchanged a word

Okay, Conrad Curze has been permanently banned after immediately starting up previous arguments they�d already been suspended for creating multiple sock puppet accounts to carry on. But that bad behaviour is no excuse for anyone else. Please don�t rise to bait, and instead use the post report functionality. Personal attacks and heated language aren�t acceptable, no matter what the provocation.

After being around since the beginning of what you might call a crusade for justice, Karlach's overall ending portrayal has been more than satisfactory.

I believe it actually does her character more justice than any gleeful or happy ever after ending, such as tending bar or doing mercenary work occasionally while living the simple life back in Baldur's Gate, visiting her parent's resting place now and again.

It sticks close to what the writers intended for her, her story arc still evokes that emotional response everyone was so fond over, bittersweet or not. Yet it has closure mixed with an open ended, never ending adventure, which is what Karlach's character is all about. Seems contradictory to have both closure and never ending story conclusion defining her ending, but I can't seem to explain it any better. It just works.

TLDR: Karlach got the ending she deserved. It is not the one she "wanted" but it is the one she "needed". It is also what the fans needed as well, they just didn't/don't know it, I think.

It has enough meat to push another game even, with the spine and bulk of the story being about Avernus. Pretty epic ending for a character to be able to promote such a foundation and be an integral component to making the story relate to the events directly preceding BG3.

Everybody else gets a happy ending, even Gale whose problem is x1000 worse than her gets one, yet Karlach has to stick to a "bittersweet" ending cause it fits her characters?

I dont buy it, her quest has always been incomplete, thats the reason she has the ending she has.

It didnt even need to be happy ending imo, you can imagine that engine fix could be hardly achieveable, putting some other NPCs or companions in danger ie during Dammon and Gondians fixing it due to some mechanical unexpected failure hellfire burst would burn one of them to ash. Or the fix meaning you're cut off or conflicting with good ending of other companion due to time constraints on the quests or whatever. Or new engine being not fully compatible causing physical limitations etc. You can imagine plenty of ways where its an additional ending with some offseting sacrifice within the theme of character conflict and MC conflict. It could add value to the tragedy since it would be fully in player hands with all the consequences following the choice.

While every companion has a questline that logically progresses thru the acts and serves their personal story closure (with MC having potential input to their stories in multiple places), Karlach's questline starts this way, but immediately in act2 is cut short and then feels like it serves the arbitraly decided end game state endings rather than herself (ignoring the logical possibilities and creating plotholes along the way).

Yeah, you are right on that part, even if it didn't have a happy ending, a complete quest would also suffice me.

Just a reason for why we can't fix her, more than simply Larian not having time to finish her quest.

yeah, exactly. For me was really surprising we can't fix her and the end (and trust me completing the game with patch 0 was really painful), but the worst thing was why we can't fix her. The reason is "nobody knows", Dammon is silent, Gondians are silent which is really sad. The most obvious ways to fix her are not closed. You should give Dammon enriched infernal ore and there should be cutscene with failed fix attempt, something similar with Gondians and theirs engines. Then you can accept the most idiotic sentence in whole game "We did everything we can to save Karlach". And then I'm totally fine with sad ending, sometimes everything is not a happy ending.

There is a book you can read after defeating the main boss fight during rescue of Gondians in that same final room, which explains quite detailed how their giant two legged machinery really works and...

this would not have provided answers for Karlach and might be why concept around them wasn't realized into a gameplay content to reflect Karlach's storyline, perhaps we would have had that with content planned for Act 2 that just for unknown reasons didn't make it into final game, I'm not even sure if they even really went as far as to start creating a map level for it beyond the concept of idea, had something to do with Vlaakith's temple area in the hells, is not even sure where it would have been fitted in between the last two acts but the interview suggested Act 2.

But all in all I would also have been sated if there had been more weight into Karlach's story to potential showcase and explain with help of a cinematic scene as to why any potential fix could have failed and suggested finding the solution from the the actual forge where Karlach's engine was made in, it would have been a nicer link to the epiloque part as well.

I'm incredibly appreciative of the though time and effort put into this game and especially when listening to the fans but id be completely lying if i said i wouldn't give a kidney or two to get some content (or a new game entirely(i know they said they wouldn't but maybe if we bully/throw enough money at em)) of us ACTUALLY going into Avernus and helping karlach kick ass and get a new heart. It doesn't even have to be a happy ending I am ok with it having some tragic twist (if its necessary) to not make it a completely happy ending but i got to be able to throw hands with someone responsible for putting that infernal machine in her.

Just discovered this thread and already put much of it elsewhere, but this would have been my ideal course for a 100% Happy End:

So, um, there's this Patch 7 brewing, did Karlach's outlook improve at all?