Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Re: [Spoilers]Karlach ending when avatar leaves dock early

When the player plays the origin Astarion, if he chooses not to ascend, Astarion cannot persuade Karlach to survive and return to hell because of his fear of the sun. The player can only watch Karlach turn into ashes. Even if Wyll has chosen to become the Blade of Avernus, Karlach will still be burned to death. If you want to save her, you can only choose to kill 7,000 souls to standing in the sun persuade her to survive. Is it too unfriendly to the Astarion player who chooses the kind route? He can save the tieflings, Isobel and Aylin, and everyone in the Iron Throne, but because he saved 7,000 souls (including many abducted and missing children), he can only get his friend killed by the game mechanism. Is it too unfair?

PS. I posted this in the hope that Larian can see and solve this problem, not to let others persuade me to choose to ascend, nor to let others tell me that if origin Astarion chooses not to ascend, his friend deserves to be burned to death. For Larian, it only takes a change of the order of the ending animation to let spawn Astarion persuade Karlach to survive, Then let him get burned by the sun, or go back to hell with Karlach immediately. instead of constantly breaking the hearts of players who like both spawn Astarion and Karlach.

+1 This is what I've always wanted Larian to fix

+1 totally agree. I think changing the order of events in the scene is a bit difficult, it’s not like the sun can wait to burn Astarion until he persuaded Karlach to live. But I think there has to be some solution. Like having the conversation sometime before end game, similar to how we can push gale towards or away from the crown, we could push Karlach towards or away from returning to Avernus. Especially if Wyll became the blade of Avernus, they should go together, there is no reason why Wyll would not try to persuade Karlach on his own, especially because he already suggests it by himself if you play Tav.

Eh, I think it makes sense. When I played spawn it felt very much like Astarion had learned to make peace with fate. I see why it extends to Karlach as well.

This is not just an Astarion issue. The same happens for Lae'zel leaving to fight in the revolution, characters leaving with Lae'zel and characters killing themselves, from what I have read. (There used to be a bug in which characters leaving with Lae'zel could still intervene in Karlach's scene, I am unsure if this has been patched) This makes it an issue that cannot be solved by "simply" changing the order in which the companion scenes play (I doubt this is that simple to manage) but could for example be solved by handing over controls to Wyll once the main character has left the dock.

According to the reply above, it seems that as long as the player character has to leave the dock due to the plot, Karlach will be burned to death. Even if Wyll has become the Blade of Avernus. I think Larian has to fix this. Karlach needs to be treated more fairly.

yes, totally agree. i understand that playing Astarion origin and not ascending, as well as playing laezel origin and leaving faerun is just the consequence you have to keep in mind, but wyll becoming the blade of avernus also has the consequence of him offering to go with karlach, unprompted, i might add. there is also no persuasion roll or anything, it is just his suggestion and the player can usually just encourage it. so if the player character leaves the dock early, and wyll is BOA, he should still offer and karlach should accept. obviously, if wyll is not BOA and the player character leaves, well, this is how it is.

I was disappointed to see that choosing to ride off with Lae’Zel at the end locks you out of any further interactions with your companions. This is especially heartbreaking since it condemns Karlach to die, even if Wyll has become the Blade of Avernus.

If you romanced Lae’Zel and sided with Orpheus, flying into the sunset with her to lead the githyanki rebellion is a perfect ending to her story, but I just can’t bear to do it if it means Karlach dies completely unnecessarily and we leave all of our friends behind without so much as a goodbye.

I understand that you can’t always have a perfect happy ending to a story, but this feels less like the consequence of your decisions, and more like an edge case interaction that wasn’t considered. There is no plot reason Karlach can’t be saved in this situation, nor is there a reason Lae’Zel needs to leave immediately.

Some simple suggestions to remedy this issue would be:

• Play Lae’Zel’s scene last.
• Play Karlach’s scene first.
• Give the player an option to agree to go with Lae’Zel, but ask her to wait a moment so they can say goodbye to everybody else first.
• Have (Blade of Avernus) Wyll interject on his own and ask Karlach to go to Avernus with him, even without the player present.

Also, even if Wyll isn’t going to Avernus with Karlach, it’s still upsetting that going with Lae’Zel and honoring your promise to not let Karlach die alone arbitrarily become mutually exclusive choices.

+1 Origin spwan Astarion escaping in the sun will also lead to Karlach's death. Glad I'm not the only one complaining about this.

+1 totally agree. there is another thread about spawn astarion specifically, but i think having this in one thread makes more sense. i dont know how easy it is so just switch scenes around at this point, but i do agree that there must be a way to save karlach. at the very least, even if all scenes remain the same, wyll should still offer to go with her if he became BOA. he already suggests it by himself and there is no persuasion check for it, karlach just has to agree when he offers to go. if he didnt become BOA, then obviously she wouldnt go alone and this is the consequence of playing this particular path.

Support!

I agree. For my playthrough where she and Wyll did go to Avernus, I barely had to encourage her at all at the end. I think I selected the most neutral option available, but since Wyll had already told her (unprompted by me) that he would go with her, she agreed. It doesn't make sense that they behave so differently if the player is gone, especially if it's spawn Astarion who doesn't have the choice to stay.

I’ve not seen this particular ending, but I agree that it would be great if companion endings could be resolved before doing anything irreversible such as flying off into the sunset with Lae’zel or (something I have come across) deciding not to live as a mindflayer. I agree it seems unreasonable in either case that there’s so much of a hurry that we can’t help Karlach resolve her ending, though I can see some sort of handling to avoid players making conflicting choices would be needed.

But yes, if that’s all too complicated then the option for Wyll to persuade Karlach to go with him if he’s BoA even if the player character isn’t there would be great, and it does seem the required dialogue is already pretty much there.

It would even be interesting to not see what happens once PC leaves. Of course meta-gaming wise you’d know that if Wyll is BOA, Karlach and him should come back to the epilogue party together. But on a first playthrough, imagine how happy that would make players if they went with Laezel, thinking they couldn’t save Karlach and then she just shows up at the party.

While we are on the topic of the dock scene, I would really like for Avatar-Gale to get a complete dock scene too. Originally his ended after he considers the Crown in the Chiontar, since patch 5 it also stops at this point without any companion reactions but is then directly followed up by Karlach's scene, skipping the portion in the gang plans on what to do next and Astarion has to run for cover.

Support. PC should leave with Lae'zel last, I mean....why wouldn't you take the time to say goodbye to all your other companions?

Well, Githyanki aren't very sentimental and mind-wise always at the next enemy's throat already, but I agree that this ending wasn't very satisfactory. Also, while I always thought my Tav (a gith herself) would support Lae'zel's comet campaign with all her might, it's being assumed that we join as a simple soldier. Instead, I guess we would have started our own Crèche with lanceboards and owlbears, and the ra'stil we made on the way.

As far as I know, it seems that as long as the player character has to leave the dock due to the plot, Karlach will be burned to death. Even if Wyll has become the Blade of Avernus.

The following situations will cause Karlach to be burned to death:

1.When the player plays the origin Astarion, if he chooses not to ascend, Astarion cannot persuade Karlach to survive and return to hell because of his fear of the sun.

2.The player plays the role of Origin Lae'Zel , and chooses to ride the dragon and leave at the end.

3.If you romanced Lae’Zel and sided with Orpheus, flying into the sunset with her.

4.The player chooses to commit suicide at the end.

I don't understand why we worked so hard to complete all the tasks for Wyll and Karlach, but Karlach died needlessly because we had to leave the dock at the end, and Wyll didn't even have any suggestions about it ?

I think Larian has to fix this.

Agreed.

I'd also add the related request for a complete dock scene for Avatar-Gale. Originally, he also couldn't save Karlach because his dock scene ended when contemplating the Crown in the river. Since patch 5 Mystra has become slightly more patient and he can now save Karlach, but he is missing everything that happens in-between. This means he (again) gets no companion comments to his portion of the quest, cant decide to stay in BG/go for drinks with everyone, and does not get to see Astarion's scene. While seeing Astarion burn isn't fun, it's an important event that is both referenced in the romance and the friendly wrap-up scenes of the game.

This is a popular request. It's discussed in the "Lae’Zel Ending Departure (Spoilers)" thread and the "I hope origin spawn Astarion can persuade Karlach to survive in the ending…" thread.

I find it strange, because when Wyll went with her in my game, he volunteered himself, without any prompting from me. My character chose the most neutral option available when talking to her in that scene, so it felt like her decision there too. It doesn't make sense to me that the player has to be present for Wyll to volunteer.