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.
I've always been bothered by the logic of that scene. It's like the grove makes everyone dumb just for the scne, you know? Lae'zel is dumb for interrogating and threatening a dude out in the open while surrounded by two groups that are on edge and primed for violence after the goblin attack. The druids would be pissy because of some random space frog lady stirring up trouble in their grove. The Elturel survivors have been through enough together and experienced enough prejudice that a threat to one of them should be a threat to all of them. But no, Lae'zel stirs up trouble in hostile territory, the druids are 'nunna my business' and the other Elturel survivors lose solidarity. Maybe Zorru just peed in Octa's gruel or something. (Or it's just how the game is written, but I like my version better.)
I almost always class change her to be something other than trickery domain as I find her underwhelming in a fight otherwise.
Something tells me you're not alone in changing Shadowheart's class.
When I did a Shadowheart avatar campaign, I tolerated trickery cleric until reaching the major turning point in her story, and decided to make her an open hand monk instead to have her character growth be represented in gameplay. No more goddesses messing with her life, she gets to put her fate into her own hands.
Of course I COULD just learn to use trickery cleric, but where's the fun in that XD
Some additional Astarion spoilers are below, based on Trantion's takes.
We killed several of the other spawn before freeing Astarion to stop Cazador ascending (kind of a shame you can't free them too), so he just joined my party to finish the fight without trying to ascend himself. It is disappointing that the dialogue after you leave the palace assumes that you had to talk him down from ascending, even though he never tried to do it.
I'm not sure that I've ever stopped the ritual by kilking them before. There's a few ways to handle it gameplay-wise including an extremely specific use of the terrain, but I don't think I have ever killed them before. I'll have to that in my next modded campaign.
I think the post-Szarr palace dialogue is written that way because you have to succeed a check to convince Astarion not to ascend. Every time I've tried the non-check dialogue or refused to help him carve the runs into Cazador, he's permanently left the party.
(((paraphrased and simplified)))companions being edgier in EA in general
Yeah, that sounds more my speed. I do think that would cause more people to miss out based on the reception Lae'zel and Minthara have, but that would definitely be more my speed.
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.
Oooo, I like that. Tons better than "oh my dad went pyscho cause I died for some reason, now don't ever think about that again."
Wyll is annoying in his one dimensional eagle scout routine.
New headcanon: ranger Wyll founds the Sword Coast Eagle Scouts after escaping his pact. (Durge helps Karlach in Avernus, in my headcanon.)
