Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Favourite characters and storylines

I think the Gith in the monastery actually have a lot of business, and it's an interesting peek into their culture, like with the hatchery warden and the reluctant trainee.

Lakrissa, the Tiefling you can banter with and make a bet with before the battle, is fun to follow through the acts. She and Alfira end up together in the third act, and I kinda want to run through a few variations there to see how much Larian put into it.

I love all the goblins terribly. Crusher is the main character we're stealing the spotlight from. I wish we got more from them and their perspective. There's an evil route I can get behind! It's nice to be dumb.

All the origin characters range from good to ok, I'm crawling through a Wyl playthrough just to get a better feel for him after his rewrite, but I got sidetracked playing around with the modding tools.

I've had the most fun as a with Astarion and Shadowheart character stories, but I enjoy the banter with Gale most of all.

Well we have Shadiwheart now , asking Scratch what he's been doing in their abscence....

I might do a Wyll playthrough at one point. He does feel like a main character. Shadowheart is interesting in light of act 2 and Gale has a lot of insight into the whole background of the Crown of Karsus and Lae'zel and the githyanki culture is interesting too. And yes, those conversations at the creche were nice.
I don't really vibe with Karlachs and Astarions story - Karlach is my favourite character and I love to have her in the party, and her outbreak after we kill Gortash is one of my favourite scenes in the game, but her quests are pretty barebone - get infernal iron and upgrade her two times and kill Gortash - oh and those false paladins. It's not much.
Astarion is just - I think, I'm a bit tired of the sexy vampire trope and if I want a vampire story, I go and play Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines (malkavian supremacy ). He is the origin, I click the least with, so maybe I should take a leaf from your book, and play his origin.
Karlach is probably more fun to play as a main character too, though I love to have her in the party for her interactions alone.

Lakrissa and Alfira made me so happy - I love, how those two end up together in act 3 (if you don't do Durge stuff in act 1).

Talking of Astarion Origin and special interactions. If you play his origin and chat with Araj as one of his companions while Astarion himself is out of range, they get a special interaction too.

Some of the other threads from yesterday made me think of how much about the interpretation of Astarion and his story changes depending on whether you see him as the sexy vampire trope and like it, or see him as a deconstruction of it who himself is fed up with the trope and has very little interest in sex and romance.

I think as a deconstruction he is very interesting. I'm really glad they went with that. I'm not necessarily against the sexy vampire trope- as I consume a lot of vampire stuff and it is quite common as seduction is a big theme for them- but Astarion's seduction in specific was so unbelievably cringe and obviously, painfully, ineffectively fake that when we had it confirmed that was the case and that it was intentionally part of his arc to deconstruct that it was a huge relief.
It was a very nice surprise, honestly, because in EA all I could think was "wait... it seems they're playing his hypersexuality straight, but wouldn't he have trauma from doing all that for centuries" so me seeing they addressed it in full release proved me wrong in thinking they would just never take that part of his story seriously.

The part of him that I mostly liked in EA that made me bear the terrible act 1 romance (a Bad Romance, you could say...) was his almost... joker-like? (doesn't feel a fully apt descriptor but eh) nature and random bouts of violence and his hatred for pity, and they mostly kept that straight... I guess? It's also deconstructed in places, and they mostly removed the scenes where they address his hatred for pity and didn't really lean into his violence except for the Petras scene, so that and the lack of addressing his magistrate past was a bit of a disappointment.
I quite liked the display of vulnerability introduced in the scar reading scene, and they did very much lean into that later, so in that department they delivered. I think that's where the deconstruction starts.

Feel free to intervene, fylimar, if you consider this derailing a bit too off-topic for your thread, I feel like we invade conversations with Astarion discussions sometimes ^^U

I'm fully aware and didn't want another Astarion discussion here, I even regret even mentioning him. So yeah, this is an intervention, please take it to the other dozens of Astarion threads. Thank you

Back on topic - is it true, that you can now meet Doni, the boy, that can't speak, in act 3?

Edit: Sorry! Your post hadn't been there when I hit the reply button. I put it in spoilers as I currently don't know where to transplant it to.

Where are we supposed to meet Doni?

Put it in one of the Astarion threads, there are enough of them.

As for Doni: I have read, you can find him in act 3, but I'm not sure, if the person confused him with one of the other children. I'm not yet in act 3 in my patch 7 playthrough, so I thought, I'd ask. I always find it sad, that you can find his letter to his dad and can't even bring it up. And that Doni basically vanishes from the game after act 1.

Interesting, I'll have a look around when I get there. I always thought it odd how Sylfi disappears in act 2 and then pops up again in act 3 without any connection to the other kids.

I'm pretty sure, Silfy is with Matthis and the other kids at LLI in act 2, but Doni is somehow missing. I think, he is the only one of the kids, if Rolan saved them. According to Alfira she and all kids survived thanks to Rolans and his siblings interventions. SO I always wondered, why Doni wasn't with the other kids. And is never seen again.

I saw a video where they could make Doni say a few lines in Act 1. Though I 've not been able to test it myself.

That is true and as a bard, he will ask you to play a certain song, when you perform.