I think I get into the bff-zone with Gale too quickly. He always shares the whole story really early. Usually when he starts asking for artefacts I am sitting on some useless magic items that don't even bring a good price at the merchants, so I usually just go whatever and throw some boots at him and his approval goes up so much. Like I am not going to start a big fight and pull knives to defend a pair of gloves worth 12 gold. If the items he needed were more rare and valuable it would put a little more gravity to the decision, but since magic items are a dime a dozen already in act 1, it just doesn't feel like a tough decision.
For me he is usually a little cagey about his request and doesn't want to tell me why he needs our magical items, which makes the whole situation a little suspicious. So if you have a player character who doesn't trust easily and is a bit morally flexible, you might want to abuse your newly gained powers to learn more. What I specifically love about the scene is that it does not have to be a pure exploit of powers (as it is with Astarion) but that you can be apologetic about it, which I really loved as a layer of complexity for my own character. As a player I don't mind feeding him our magic loot either, I feel the Grove is deliberately stacked with a variety of possible Gale dinners. It's a whole different level of pain when you are Avatar-Gale and are basically forced to eat a super nice ring on day one.
I don't like custom characters much in games that have a narratively tight story because I feel it takes too much shoehorning and preplanning to get a satisfyingly impactful story out of it. I know Durge tries to bridge that gap a bit, but I didn't vibe with Duge's writing and it annoyed me pretty quickly. Otoh I am having a great time with Astarion, Gale and Shadowheart as my avatars, and I also like how they shift the main plot to be their personal quest + dealing with the tadpole, instead of putting focus on the whole conspiracy.
