Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Companions: how have your views on them changed from first impressions?

In my evil/dark urge playthrough, I reached Moonrise Towers last night. Loved the opening to act 2 in general, but Minthara... Well, there's a change in my impressions! First game I don't think I even spoke to her, just put a smokepowder barrel beside her desk because I just saw her as any other enemy. But now... I can already see why she has so many fans. I love that there's so much extra depth there for a second playthrough, rather than having every path open in my first game. This was easily the best scene so far in my evil game, partly because I hadn't seen it before

Minthara - Is like the rainbow coated in color black, you'll assume she's all dark and black but once you start scraping it off, my first impression changed to see her in more complex layers that of a rainbow, wanted to explain this in the most poetic way possible.

So, would you say that she's...a rainbow in the daaaaark?



I had to, sorry XD

For me, the core 4 haven't changed; Astarion, Lae'zel, Gale and Shadowheart are likable and compelling companions in their own ways. I omit one or two on a run only for keeping their inclusion fresh.

I realized in original play-through Karlach and Wyll were tier 2 companions, in terms of story and likability, and this hasn't changed. I had high hopes for Karlach on release, but she didn't match expectations of what I thought a Blood war veteran would be like. I might recruit 1 of these just for interactions.

(I consider Wither's followers kind of more interesting in that they include uncommon races.)

Jaheira and Minthara are wonderful non-origin companions. They're really well grounded in the setting and enhance a play through. Originally I was inundated with companion choices, so didn't appreciate them as much. Prefer to recruit either/or so that one can get plenty of party time.

Minsc and Halsin were and remain tier 2 non-origin companions. Minsc comes far too late and I'm not really into comedic companions, though I could see myself including him in a sillier run. I found Halsin not compelling as a companion compared to his npc roles in the story in Acts 1&2.

Overall, Jaheira, Minthara and Astarion have improved the most favourably since original play through. And to be clear, six well liked companions is plenty enough for me.

Yeah, I rarely took Minsc out and didn't feel like I was missing much. I'd talk to him in the Elfsong most evenings and hear any updates to his thoughts, and I got all of his background, and that was fun; but rarely actually had him in the party. Except that I specced him as a gloomstalker ranger, and used him when I wanted a max stealth party.

Minsc has some really funny banter when you have him in your party. Well, if he align with you humour prefrences that is, I know many don't find him funny.

Well, my Tav felt dumber after every conversation with Minsc, but I must admit that he brought some much needed comedic relief into the last sessions. Some of his lines are such WTF-material that even Astarion is nonplussed by them sometimes. During Act 3, I sometimes felt like a showrunner making sure every character gets enough screen time.

One of my most memorable moments was overhearing Minsc telling Astarion how he thought fishies was the perfect dish for him.

Thanks, Minsc! The keyboard really looked thirsty for some coffee.

Gale: Thought he was a decently nice guy at first (I give a lot of credit for this to his voice actor), with some inconsistencies thrown in. But my views on him completely changed for the worse during Act 3 when playing as Dark Urge. I started to warm to him some more again though after seeing banter between him and Minthara.

Shadowheart: Immediately jealous of her voice. Wish Larian would have given an option for a similar high-pitched voice for Tav, but for some reason that was forbidden and only reserved for Shart.
Not much changed regarding my initial views on her. At first I thought she was made to be just a pretty face type character who is a little aloof, but have noticed a tiny bit more nuance to her character since then.

I didn't know a thing about D&D or Baldur's Gate, so I had no idea what to expect with all of the different subclasses or fictional races.

I rarely team up with Wyll, Karlach and Gale. I feel like Wyll's story has potential but it's almost as if the writers gave up on him. Or that his story seems overshadowed by characters like Karlach and Mizora. At least Mizora seems interesting and she makes sense since Wyll's a warlock, but I forget about her most of the time and get her name mixed up with Minthara's. Karlach annoys me. She's like some marvel or dreamworks character, like she's gonna break the fourth wall and wink at the audience. Always skipping and hopping around in camp. Gale is a mess. Just a mess. It's funny because the warlock and wizard classes caught my attention at the start, so I was actually interested to learn more about Wyll and Gale.

Astarion's introduction was terrible. Poorly written. He's really funny and I like his snarky comments (find myself agreeing with him on most things, like his comments about the druids hospitality). I understand why a lot of people find his character overrated. I wish the game allowed more options for your character to interact with the companions and befriend them without instantly focusing on romance. I often wonder how a platonic relationship would've worked out between Astarion and Tav. I feel like BG3 lacks a lot of options for the player while still being overly detailed, but I'll avoid turning this into a rant about the entire game. Anyway, Astarion's character design reminds me of Marshal from Animal Crossing or Bede from Pokemon.

Shadowheart annoys me. She's just back and forth. What's funny is that I somehow got Shadowheart to open up to me about her purple prose backstory around the same time I had thoughts on sacrificing her to BOOOAL. Jenevelle Hallowleaf... father was a werewolf... I mean they added everything into her story. Tries too hard to be mysterious. Shar worshipper but no one ever gets the chance to point that out, which I find weird. Your character might get the chance to notice other deities, and Gale claims to know everything so he should probably notice that Shadowheart is dressed as Shar's mascot. I care so little about the artifact.

I often joke that Lae'zel is a personal trainer, life coach and executioner all in one. She's crazy but she stands on business I guess. So I respect that. Her ears remind me of a cactus. I care so little about the creche.

Halsin is the worst. Could've turned into a rat or a bumblebee to escape the prison the goblins had him locked in. I hate Halsin. Minthara could've just taken a short walk around the corner and would've found the grove. She's boring.

Jaheira is cool. We have Jaheira, why do we need Halsin? Sometimes Halsin 'accidentally' dies during the fight at the goblin camp. Strange how that keeps happening in my game...

That may just be what happened due to the game having to be wrapped up. I thought his story was solid and relatable until the end, and then he got a Game of Thrones-finale with so many question marks. For instance, the Avernus layer of the Nine Hells/Baator that I know from older D&D books would kill an unprotected low-level character within rounds. That's why IG, my Tav considered him off his rocker after losing his powers. To me it was a bit of a bummer so close to the end, as the whole campaign arc otherwise fit even older editions of the Forgotten Realms settings neatly.

Astarion. My favourite and always in my party. Never had any reason to change my opinion on him.

Lae'zel. One of my favourite characters. Originally I suppose I found her a bit too aggressive especially towards the tieflings in Act 1 but these days I find her interrogation scene funny as hell. . My opinion of her improved half way through my first playthrough and I haven't had any reason to change my mind since.

Shadowheart. I like her well enough and she's often the 3rd companion in my group. Originally I liked her more than I do now although that's not to say I dislike her as I don't.
Jaheira. I like her very much and always have,
Gale. My opinion of him is improving slowly with later playthroughs.

Halsin. My opinion hasn't changed.

Wyll. I think my opinion of him went down since first playthrough.

Karlach. First playthrough I enjoyed her more than I do now.

Minsc. Well he's in my camp. Never too sure what to do with him as by the time he appears in the game I already have my party preferences all sorted out and don't really want to mess about unnecessarily. I quite enjoy his 'off the wall' takes on things though. Not changed my mind on him at all. Except I think its a shame he's so late to the party.

Minthara. I haven't really changed my mind on her.

I see this topic is active just as I'm coming to the end of my second (evil/durge) playthrough, and I've just completed two rather different character stories.

Shadowheart


Astarion

I play since the beginning of early access and what I find sad is, that some characters are mellowed down so much.
Shadowheart now basically pours her heart out after a few nights and you are her instant bestie. And her cottage core tradwife ( exaggerating here, but you know, what I mean) ending when romanced is just too much for me. I would have preferred her more complex personality from early access.
Astarion: same as with Shadowheart. I don't look for rising his approval, I play the way, I picture my characters and I usually have the bite scene in the third night and I hate it. In EA he was more careful and paranoid for a longer time. Granted, he doesn't do a 180 like Shadow, but I still think, his reveal comes too soon. Yes, we all can see, he is a vampire, I still loved to find the clues and him trying to come up with excuses ( for the bloodless boar for example). Same with Shadowhearts reveal, that she is Sharran: both are big things. Most people in the Forgotten Realms would not trust a vampire or a Sharran, so I would love to see both reveals a bit more of a big deal. Though at least, Astarion stays somewhat paranoid up to the drow encounter in Moonrise, which is a nice touch.
Gale: in EA it was possible, that he makes a pact behind our backs with Raphael, if we don't give him magical items. That was kind of cool and it gives a sense of dread and more motivation to maybe break into the House of Hope to destroy the contract, Gale might have made on our behalf. He is ambitious and takes care, to not kill others, plus he is not opposed to dealing with Raphael, so for me, it is sad, this story element is gone.
Karlach was more aggressive towards the group before, though like Wyll, her character had a total rewrite, so that wouldn't make sense with full game Karlach.
Wyll was more hateful towards goblins and had a more complicated relationship with Mizora, though I think apart from the fact, that he has not enough reactivity compared to other companions, I prefer the rewrite in this case. He was always one of the more good aligned characters.
Lae'zel luckily is her bitchy self, she has the slow development, that I wished from Shadowheart. It just makes sense that she takes a while to warm up towards us and Faerun.
Halsin in EA was supposed to be the one, who killed Isobel and therefore felt responsible for the Shadowcurse. I really wish, they had kept that storyline, it would have made his character so much more interesting.

That fits with Astarion in my first playthrough. If he was able to feed off animals, it was stupid to try to feed off the party leader who had just kicked him out of the party. I can't remember about my second game, but maybe I wasn't resting as much and so missed a few night time cutscenes due to conflicts. I certainly didn't try to raise his approval, but my second character is seeking power and doesn't care about hurting people unless he can get something out of them, which chimes with Astarion's attitude.

As a player I was wrong about Shar's goals in my first game - I knew she was evil, but not "end the world" evil. Maybe I wouldn't have kept Shadowheart in the party if I knew.


Ooh, I like that idea. Presumably that's instead of him leaving or exploding? I've still not played with Gale, because I kicked him out of the party in the first game because my character couldn't know that he wouldn't explode at any moment; he left in the second game because we were too evil.

Lae'Zel is my favorite. She is always true to herself and says what she thinks. Her arc when she accepts that Vlaakith is lying is epic.

Shadowheart never acts like a cleric of Shar. There is no evil thoughts, no manipulation, nothing but waifu girlfriend. Back in BG1 & 2 Viconia was evil, she did evil things and said evil things. If you spent the considerable time it took to show her a better way and romanced her you got rewarded with a nuetral good transformation that was hugely satisfying, especially with a Paladin who rejects Bhaal. There is nothing like that with Shadowheart.

Karlach is another poor character development, just a bubbly girl. You never get the sense of a hellspawn reaver.

Astarian is great, he's not a hero and gets upset when we act like one. His arc is tragic with how badly Cazador treated him.

Halsin is a waste, just a pervy old guy who only serves the purpose to stop the shadowcurse and to be kidnapped by Orin.

Minthara is great with the voice acting, went from being evil since she was controlled by the Absolute to being evil because she is a Drow who followed Llolith. I've not played her entire arc yet as she is difficult to recruit. They should have had a cutscene where when she gets defeated in Act 1 she gets summoned/teleported away by Ketheric for judgement. Then everyone would have the scene in the throne room to settle her fate instead of needing to either throw a massive amount of quests and venders in a pile and burn them by siding with the Goblins or doing some weird meta knowledge no-lethal KO just to have her survive to Act 2.

Wyll is annoying in his one dimensional eagle scout routine. You never get the sense of a power craving Warlock. He just doesn't work for me as a character.

Gale works well as an ambitious wizard where curiousity did kill the cat, or almost. He makes sense and his actions fit his personality.

I know it's fine for other people to have differing opinions and I'm not trying to change anyone's opinions on characters, but I do want to help provide some context behind some characters:


The major difference is that Shadowheart is not inherently evil.



That's the thing though. She ISN'T a hellspawn reaver. She literally is just a happy-go-lucky city girl who was sold into slavery to a literal Archdevil. She is not evil, she is not bloodthirsty (Other than being really angry towards her betrayer and her slaver), she is just a normal girl put through the wringer.


Wyll is not "Power Craving" at all. His motivations for making the pact was simply a short term "I want to be able to protect these people" and the rest of his pact life was dealing with the consequences. He never craved power, he just naively took the opportunity to be able to save people (Not thinking through what it actually entails to make a pact with a literal devil)

He actively does not want to be a Warlock. Which is why he's eager to get out of his pact (As he mentions in the conversation post-Mizora visit in Act 1 if he gets punished for not killing Karlach).

To me, the three guys (and Minthara) basically have the same conflict, they think they need power to compensate for something. Gale thinks he needs power to be worthy, Astarion to be safe, and Wyll to be able to protect others. That he on the one hand rejects Mizora and the things he has to do for her but on the other hand thinks he needs the infernal help to get things done, is a compelling conflict - same as Gale's is - just that it isn't very developed in his case and gets watered down even more if you don't kill Karlach.

And yes, how hard Shadowheart's story drives home the nature over nurture argument is a bit annoying too.

To be fair, a large part of Gale's thing was that he wanted power for power's sake.

His entire driving force is he wants to experience more of the weave. This eventually lead into him wanting to be more worthy, but the core is he just wants power.


This isn't the case actually.

Wyll DOESN'T think he needs the infernal help to get things done. He needed it at the specific time he made the pact, but after that it wasn't necessary. Was it beneficial? Yes, the power allowed him to do more things, but was it necessary? No, he was a capable fighter before the pact (Since as a Noble he was tutored in martial combat).

Which is why this conflict isn't developed. Right in Act 1 he outright states he wants out of the pact, which wouldn't be the case if he thought he needed it.