I was playing EA and now I think that my first playthrought if game will be related with currently companions will be solo. They totally don't get with my paladin or bard.

Yes, Larian said they included only the evil and neutral companions so far in EA, but there will also be good companions included on release.😊

I'm so happy after reading this. My paladin will feel nad with currently companions.

If you want play good, Shadowheart and Gale are good choices, they approve of good aligned choices

I have Gale. He is strange dude.

It's not so bad with companions except Astarion and Lae'zel, the rest approve of some 80% (or more) of good choices.
As long as you're not playing with what I like to call "stupid" good, you'll be fine.

Come on, we're still buying that?

Concidering datamined companions and conversations with them?
Yup, we do.

A lot of the current party members are pretty chill and are totally suitable for good aligned parties. Wyll may be a bit ego-driven but he has his heart in the right place and will approve of good actions. He'll also leave the party if you take the evil path with the druid grove. Gale is also similar, being a little arrogant but ultimately still being a good person who likes it when you do things such as save the kid in the druid grove. Shadowheart is pretty interesting since despite worshipping an evil goddess, she approves of a lot of "good" actions and also generally likes it when you try to talk things out and resolve situations peacefully.

The only party members who are actually evil and probably hard to justify in good aligned parties are Lae'zael and Astarion (probably Lawful Evil and Chaotic Evil respectively). Even then I can see someone like a devotion paladin recruiting them in order to try and keep and eye on them while also following leads to cure themselves.

Somewhat. I have no reason to believe that anything changed throughout development. I am a bit worried that they will try to "mature good companions up" or "make good companions more intesting", and I just don't believe in Larian having narrative chops to pull it off.

Wyll stinks like demon worshipers, when I first meet him I almsot kileld him on sight. Wyll is strange and crazy mage even if he want do good things often he made mroe harm. Shadowhearth probably will die in late game with selfsacrifice if you let her do good things or some one will sacrefice her if you chose evil way for her.

^This.

No. None of these companions can be justified in a truly good party, especially SH.

There are zero satisfactory companions for a good-aligned party right now, and I am deeply skeptical we will get any.

Paladin is not in game yeat because there is no single companion that will work with typical Paladin. You cannot join githiyanki to LG paladin, you cannot have vamprie that drink blood, demon worshipper is also big NO. Gale is unstable mage, so he can be treath to civilans. Shadowheart is worshiper of evil good, but she is doing good things, mabe paladin will try make her convert to good alightment. In the end there is no way to make good alightment party.
In BG 2 for example best character in my opinion was Viconia and Imoen. I really don't like Jeheira because she crying a lot, and Aerie was one of best romances but she was stupid kiddo.

I think you're kind of typcasting paladins a bit here. Astarion is an unrepentant vampire who seems like he would be fine being a vampire if he just didn't have to obey his master, so he'd be bad for a paladin, yes. Lae'zel is also ruthless and brutal and uncaring in a way that a paladin would certainly object too, I agree. Shadowheart as you say, does have some room to potentially become good, especially since you don't find out the truth until a while in, so there's a chance to make a bond there. Wyll made a deal with a devil, but he does want out and he has tried to do good and seems like he could be a genuinely good person with some support. I think it would be easy to justify a paladin wanting to help him break free of his deal and redeem him. Gale is unstable and a potential threat, but that threat can be mitigated in a very clear way and beyond that he's, from what we've seen, a perfectly unobjectionable person. Is he kind of shifty and probably untrustworthy? Yeah, but not to a degree that a paladin would feel the need to get involved with, I don't think. If anything, a paladin would want to help him be free of his curse to try and protect people, since I don't think paladin's are meant to be a kill first, ask questions later sort of group.

So yeah, it's not truly that hard to justify a good party. Lae'zel, Astarion and maybe Shadowheart are the only ones who would be definite no's.

But that's exactly my issue. Why do all "good" companions have to be characters who have questionable morals and judgment at a minimum, and it is my job as the PC to fix them and help them redeem themselves and thus become "good"? I am utterly tired of that trope. I just want companions who are undeniably good and don't require any redeeming or fixing on my part.

Like MInsc and Boo? Go for the eyes!!!

By that do you mean make every "good" character have a haunted past that they need to overcome, and an extensional crisis where they come to the realization that there is no good and evil, but shades of grey?

I would like it if there are new companions to be recruited later on in the game, in the chapters following chapter 1. Fresh blood can shake up the game and the party, and having a complete cast right at the start of the game seems too artificial for me. Also, I think it would be good to have many different reasons for certain party compositions, besides abilities and their position on the good-evil axis.

I agree that trope is overplayed, but I don't think it's in play here specifically. Larian has said that these aren't the good companions, and that they'll be introduced later. So while they may still do what you suggest, my view of what we have now is that these are companions that aren't explicitly good but have the potential to be good.

I don't really see why a paladin wouldn't be able to ally with some of these characters. Gale and Wyll in particular are characters that most paladins would gladly accept into their parties. Neither are really evil aligned and accepting them into their party wouldn't threaten to break a paladin's oath or conflict with the tenets of most good aligned deities.

Gale is hardly an unstable person. The main reason he's a threat to others is the bomb in his chest which is very clearly something that's out of his control (it's not like he wants to explode). Aside from that he's very clearly shown to be a well meaning person, if not a little arrogant, who demonstrates pretty sound morals that most paladins would agree with. A traditional LG paladin would gladly accept his help. In fact I'd reckon a devotion or redemption paladin (as well as paladin of good aligned gods such as Torm, Tyr, Ilmater, and Lathander in the forgotten realms) would feel obligated to try and help him solve the issue with the netherese destruction orb since doing so would obviously be a good act that would help him as well as countless others around him. In particular, I'd say that the Tenets of honor and compassion in a devotion paladin's oath would apply here and not just allow but motivate devotion paladins to accept him into their party.

Wyll is a warlock with a fiendish patron, but that does not by definition make him a bad person. Warlocks after all can be of any alignment, with a person's morality instead being defined by what they choose to do with their powers (their actions) rather than where they came from. In this case, Wyll used his demon-gifted powers in order to do good, becoming a famous hero who has helped people. While his motivations aren't exactly pure (the man does love his glory), that still doesn't change the fact that he did quite a bit of good. Some paladins (specifically redemption paladins, ancients paladins, and those of gods such as Lathander and Ilmater) might disagree with some of his methods such as torturing goblins in order to extract information, but they'd still be willing to ally with him in order to try and rein him in. Wyll also isn't a demon worshipper. In fact, it's the opposite. He very obviously regrets his decision to form a pact with Mizora and his entire motivation for finding her is to try and sever it.

Shadowheart is a bit of interesting case since she is a cleric of an evil deity, but that by itself doesn't necessarily mean she's a bad person or that a paladin wouldn't ally with her. Redemption paladins and those of a lot of good gods would try to help redeem her, especially after seeing how she acts. While traditional LG paladins would probably be a little wary of her, they'd still probably be able to accept her help with how dire the circumstances are and the fact that her behaviour for the most part tends to be good. Having her in a party wouldn't put them at risk of breaking their oath.

Like the only people a (devotion) paladin would be extremely hesitant to have in their party is Astarion and Lae'zael. For everyone else (and especially Gale and Wyll), you'd need to be a Lawful Stupid "stick in the mud" sort of paladin to not even consider accepting their help in such dire circumstances.

Lawful Good tends to get along well with Neutral Good; at worst, the former will insist that the latter respect conventions more frequently.

Well I truly hope so. But given how Larian has done things thus far, I am in the "very deeply skeptical" box (on pretty much everything related to BG3).

Certainly. I get the point that sometimes, in any party-based game, you just have to suck it up and play with whatever companion options you have been given by the game devs even if those options are all sucky. The issue here at hand, though, is whether those of us who want to play with a good-only party can expect to get enough companions that we LIKE and WANT to have in our party. These five companions we have been shown thus far are all universally unlikeable to me. They are all irritating and annoying at a minimum, and I really don't want to have to play with any of them. But I also will not play with empty-suit mercs. So I am stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place. By contrast, in the original BG games, we got so many companions, and an amazing range of them to boot, that pretty much any player was going to be able to find that certain group of companions to take along with them that made them happy. I sincerely and seriously doubt we will get that in BG3.

I mean, I can understand Larian wanting to release the evil/neutral companions for the EA first in order to get much needed testing and feedback for them. But considering it's been about a year and a half since EA began, and we still don't know anything about any of the good aligned companions outside of datamining or any hints that they'll be playable any time soon... It kind of starts to sound like an excuse for a deeper design problem, and one cannot blame people for doubting Larian's writing ability in that department going off of their prior history.

I have doubted for some time now we will get any decent good companions.
If only they would stop with the whole origin/tadpole BS and give us real companions!
Maybe a bard who is joining us just for his lust for adventure, or a paladin who just want to help us rid the world of the mindflayer scourge that is plaguing the sword coast, or maybe some evil mage that is "helping" us for his own nefarius reasons.
Now it just feels like everybody is tagging along because they have no choice.
And please no more no more over the top edgelord companions (but looking at the datamining it feels like i am shit out of luck regarding that wish)!

This is, as people on these forums have said before, a symptom of the Origin system, same as in DOS2. To justify each party member potentially becoming the main character, all of them had to be designed with some rather over the top qualities to justify them taking the lead. But there is such a thing as over-designing to the point where they seem like they're just shouting over each other for attention, rather than synergizing.

But trying to tell Larian to ditch the system and focus on things that everyone can actually potentially see in their first playthrough, instead of shoving exclusive cutscenes behind each of the companions becoming the main character for an attempt at adding replay value, is probably the most futile fight of all.

Probably the greatest irony is that player characters like the Warden, Inquisitor, the Watcher, the Baron, and the Commander of the 5th Crusade are probably way more memorable than any of these origin characters, and also mean vastly different things to people. And none of them diminished the quality of their fellow companions at the same time. (And let's face it, none of the DOS2 characters lit the world on fire, and I doubt BG3's companions will either.)

Yeah i know it is futile, at least for this game, but if enough people voice their concerns, maybe we wont have to deal with a BG4(or something else) that only caters to horny meme-makers and twitch streamers and actually tries to replicate what made the first games so good.

The characters in DoS2 were quite well written (except for Beast, but it's a hopeless case that even DE couldn't fix it).
Characters have quite a lot of development during the game, even the Red Prince ceases to be annoying afterwards.
You might not like the fact that Fane or Prince are terribly cocky, even though it fits their story.

Well, in the case of BG1, most of the companions were literally a few sentences of history, which is not much different from mercenaries.
BG2 improved it significantly, but from what I can remember it reduced the number of available companions by about 50%. Still, the characters were terribly uneven, and some got much more than others.
I omit that some of the characters were written only as memes.
The full version of the game has to be at least 8 companions, which is a good result for a group of 4 and considering that the game has full voice acting.

I actually liked Fane. He had the most interesting background and has development that's front and center throughout the entire game. Red Prince was probably my second favorite. I think those two helped build the world in some very interesting ways.

The rest were mostly sad stories and/or a bunch of edge taken up to 11. Except for Beast who is just utterly forgettable, I never actually got to the end of the game with any playthrough that had him in it, so I don't know if his character arc actually has any payoff at all.

I found such a little reddit poll

Ultimately, my problem with Origin stories is that it doesn't feel like my character anymore. If by chance there is an Origin character who I like it help. But specifically D:OS 2 make things worse by hiding things from you that your main character knows until certain points in the story, without there being a plot reason like the common amnesia trope. It creates separation between me and my character, which I dislike very much.

To elaborate, if the Shadowheart speculations are true it is fine for me to learn that later in the game, but I wouldn't want to learn about a demon pact my character made or Gale's background late in the game. We'll see how it will work out.

The Dragon Age version didn't have this issue - you developed a good feeling about where your character is from right in the Prologue.

The positive effects like variation between playthroughs can be achieved otherwise, e.g. choosing a Mythic Path in WotR feels huge but it is a choice I take in the game.

If we're going to compare then we should do it fairly. The original BG games were made more than 20 years ago, and on budgets that--even adjusting for inflation--were a tiny fraction of BG3's budget. So it is eminently reasonable for me to have expectations of BG3 that greatly exceed what I got from BG2. Eight companion choices, some of whom may even be locked out after Act 1, is utterly piss-poor by any standard.

Not by any standard. Some modern RPG I played had this" issue" . Mass effet series come to mind here(there were 5 companions I think? maybe 6). Skyrim had 1 follower and it was a meme(not exactly the same type of games granted). Dragon age with a DLC had up to 15 apparently! But no idea how they turned out cause dragon age was rendered unplayable for me by the camera. I gave up fighting with it at some point i just uninstalled.

BG3 might suffer from Mass effect syndrome. Sometimes less is more I guess. But idk, I have to say I would prefer to have at least 15-ish companions with distinct characters +interactions even if it means ( for obvious reasons) more shallow personal quests.

Maybe we will all be proven wrong by Larian at the end though(Also keep in mind the max number is an assumption....we still don't actually know how many companions there will be).

More companions and more good - alligned characters is a sure thing though. How many and when? We will discover all of that and much more....In the next panel of Hell! Or ...the next one. Or the next one. Or on release.

No, you are blatantly comparing apples to oranges here. None of those other games are comparable because this is D&D. In D&D we have many classes, many subclasses and archetypes, many races, and for this discussion here also good-evil and lawful-chaotic alignments. It's in the cotext of all this that one must discuss number of available companions in the game.

Nor did they feel like companions.

My main issue with playing as an origin in D:OS2, was that the game never bothered to put me, the player, on the same page as the character. I discovered story, opinion and relationship to other characters as they happened, creativing a massive divide between me and the character.

All the best games didn't have companions that just filled in the spreadsheet of class and alignment, they were representatives of factors and factions in the world. This has been a strength of Bioware style NPCs; because their worlds are typically, pretty well thought out and realized, that their characters can bring you into their worldview all the better.

Even if you don't want to compare BG3 with Mass Effect then maybe compare Baldur's Gate, Planescape and Baldur's Gate II with each other, and then with BG:3. I have a pretty easy ranking, but it seems there plenty of people here that would prefer Icewind Dale.

That Larian is likely to cover like they did in D:OS2. All existing companions seem to have connections to larger story/factions at play.

This wasn't true at all for the original BG games, or the NwN games, or even the DA games. In the D&D games it was always all about providing players with enough class and alignment diversity in companions such that they could create whatever type of party they wanted. The big difference between the DA games and the D&D games was precisely that DA doesn't really have classes, and as such you can get by with only a small number of companion options.

Yes, comparing BG3 with BG2 is ideal, and in that comparison BG3 fails miserably (for now).

When was it like that? If it were so, it would be possible to get the whole group if you played the evil character in bg2.
With NWN HotU, you haven't had a single evil companion.
There is nothing to mention about the original campaign.

You lost me at "DA doesn't really have classes". This is demonstrably false. Dual Wield and Archery skills would cross over between Warriors and Rogues, but each has skills that the other does not. You could not take Sword and Shield skills on a Rogue, nor could you take Stealth on a Warrior. I use Warrior and Rogue because despite your claim that they do not exist, that's exactly how the class specific skills are listed on their respective skill pages. It's ironic that, if you roll a mage, Hawke's sister always dies. Why? Because she's the mage, but if you roll a Rogue, or a Warrior, Carver dies, given your claim that classes didn't exist. In Inquisition, Rogue has two archetypes to choose from in Character Creation, Ranged or Melee. Odd that you claim they don't exist at all, yes?

I feel the first BG 1 pretty much was pretty extensive in offering class/alignment combinations.

BG 2 much less so, though it barely covers each role (but not class) if you are willing to pick up companions one-step removed alignment wise. E.g. you need either Yoshimo or Jan (both neutral) as a thief for much of the game as a good party. And pre-EE this was also the case for an evil party. There's only a single (neutral) bard.

In BG2 you can easily put together an evil party, including neutral companions who don't care about the good-evil thing.

I would also note that a good person will care about the "goodness" of all their fellow party members, but the opposite is not necessarily true. So a good PC would not accept an evil companion, and possibly may not even be able to accept a neutral companion, whereas an evil PC won't really care about the alignment of companions so long as they go along with the PC's plans. So good PC and evil PC are NOT mirror images of one another with respect to roleplaying. As others have also noted, it is much, much more difficult and constraining to truly roleplay 'good' in a D&D/FR game.

Okay saying DA doesn't have classes at all is too strong, but what I was trying to say was that it's class system is much more limited than D&D's class system, with far fewer classes and much less distinctiveness or separation between classes. Not as bad as the pseudo-class system of the D:OS games, but still not a truly robust class system as D&D, especially with only three "classes."

I liked a lot of the BG I characters, probably because most of them were derived from table-top games that the developers played, and so they were pretty well thought-out ahead of time. I have seen a scan the original character sheet for Minsc on the internet ... from James Ohlen maybe?

One of the great things about BG I NPC's was the dynamics between pairs, like Khalid & Jaheira, Montaron & Xzar, Minsc & Dynaheir, Skie & Eldoth. That type of pair-connection was mostly lost in the BG II NPC's. In terms of good alignment, I think it would be very interesting to see a pair of NPC's who have very different alignments, one good, and one maybe not-so-good.

Early on it was mentioned that there is one companion per writer for BG3, except for one exception because of how closely those characters were tied. I wonder if it could be a pair of companions (like the ones you mentioned in BG1) or will it be like Minsc with Boo.

What about Planescape: Torment? It has some of the best companions (personnality/banter/interaction/quests) of any RPG ever, DnD or otherwise, and there is only 7 of them, some of them available mid to late game and most of them being really memorable. People seem to forget that Bioware Black Isle had taken the approach of ''less but better'' concerning companions with PS:T, wich was the exact opposite of BG1. I hope/think that Larian is going with the same approach with BG3, as I greatly value quality over quantity.

Honestly, there is about 1/4 to 1/3 of the companions in BG1 and BG2 that I never took in my party in over 20 years of gameplay.

Ps:T is also not quite comparable because even though it is D&D it actually is a highly bastardized version of 2e D&D, with only three "classes" being represented in the game and even those classes having been considerably simplied and changed from actual 2e classes to where they really didn't mean much of anything. So it was a D&D game in which neither classes nor alignments were truly present or were extremely watered down.

To repeat what I've said before, which seems to be escaping many of you commenting on my take here: I am tying # of available companions to # of available class and alignment options. So a game having a small # of companions (ex. DA, D:OS, Ps:T) is OKAY when the game system has only a very small # of classes or no classes (and/or no alignments). But when a game has at least 12 classes, and the good-neutral-evil alignments dimension on top of those classes, then I expect a sufficient # of companions to allow me, the player, to play my game with a party of my choice based on alignments as well as adequate coverage of the different party roles represented by all of those different classes.

Planescape: Torment is combat-lite.

Bioware? Planescape was developed by Black Isle Studios. But general point stands - the trend has been to provide less companions, but give each of them more content. As others mentioned combat was really sidelined in Planescape, I think it is quite a different beast - for example how companions play in combat is irrelevant for a big chunk of the game.

That's is a fair demand to make, I think.

So far we have shadowheart as solid good. And wyll and gale as good leaning woth issues.
We already have a solid full good line up

Classes watered down, I can get it since there were only three. But alignement not present? I think the game had a very good system where you forged your own alignement according to your actons and also many many conversations with NPCs were alignement-dependant. It was better represented than in BG1 and 2, and that's coming from a guy that loves BG.

Black Isle, yup, my mistake



I agree

Servant of Shar = Evil.

Umm shadowheart is the only companion thats is a solid Evil because she is evil by choice. Lae and Astro are evil by nature, which makes them less in evil in a sense, since they can't choose to be anything else.

Not sure about Astarion, since even tho he is a Vampire spawn and they are evil "by nature" ... most other Vampire spawn rules dont apply to him either. O_o

But laezel isnt evil by nature at all ... that more like cultural evilness.

---

Anyway personaly i find it much harder to create Evil Party than Good ... for one we only have two evil companions, and for two every sensible person would kill astarion right there when he attack us ... so that leaves us with party of 2. :-/

The number of classes does not matter in the least. The only thing that really matters is that every role in the team can be covered. It doesn't matter if the healer is a cleric, druid or anything else.
Of course, considering that it is 5e, it has even less importance.
In 5e, you don't even need a dedicated healer.

The argument about the need of many companions that because of the aligment also makes no sense considering that even in the older dnd games if you had evil characters available at all, you were not able to get the whole team.
And for the record in bg2, neutral characters also left the group if your reputation was low and from what I can remember, the difference was a whole 1 point compared to the goods.

Trying to get the discussion a bit closer to the original topic: looking at the past work from Larian I think it is interesting that they felt it was more critical to get the evil/neutral companions right, when I would personally expect them to have more issues with good companions. Because in D:OS 2 all characters were somewhat edgy and at least not the brightest shade of gray. I think it would be in their interest to introduce them a bit earlier, especially if one of the good companions is Minsc who is a decent character, but his traits will always have him as the very naive kind of good.

Shes not a servant of shar though. She is just brainwashed into thinking she is.

This is all sorts of wrong.

She isnt evil at all even after the mind wipe she consistently pushes for and approves of good actions

What is the criteria for "adequate"? 36? That's just one each for each class and Good, Neutral and Evil. I mean, if we're going with Lawful, Chaotic and Neutral as well, we could end up with as many as 120. Do we need True Neutral options too? Where are you trying to draw that line for a "sufficient number"? Will they have time to develop the game by the time they're done developing these companions? Are you going to be ok with just Warrior, Rogue and Mage archetypes, or are you going to need the specific classes?

What happens if you don't like the personality associated with one, or more, of the companions for that specific alignment? Are they going to have to make multiples to accommodate that as well? Where does it end?

Look, we can keep going around in circles until the end of time. Maybe none of this makes sense to you, but it makes a whole lot of sense to me and is critically important to me. I am only interested in playing a party-based RPG--ANY such RPG--with an entirely good-aligned party. No mercs. And no even neutral companions who don't entirely accept *my* good way of doing things. In BG3, as things currently stand, I don't have such a party. That's the bottom-line.

We know from the stuff people have datamined as well as other BG3 related material such as the MtG promotional cards that there's at least 3 more companions in the game, all of whom are extremely likely to be good aligned with what we know about them. One in particular is 100% a good aligned character that will be suitable for any good party. Even if you don't consider Gale or Wyll to be suitable for good parties (even though they are very clearly good aligned or at least neutral), you'll very likely to be able still make a full party of good aligned characters with these 3 additional party members.

No need to create a strawman.

There are four basic roles in a traditional D&D-game party: tank, damage-dealer, controller/secondary damage dealer, and buffer/healer. So, one of each of these for each of good, neutral, and evil. That's twelve. Twelve is a VERY reasonable number. But the key here is exactly what twelve characters? If you've already made six of your companions evil (not saying they have; it's an example) and another four neutral, out of a total of twelve, then you're not going to be giving me my minimum four well-distributed good companions. This is my fear. If they only have eight companion options (and even this # I am skeptical about), and already I know that five of the eight are companions I will not accept in my all-good party, then the remaining three have to ALL be solidly and undeniably good. Is this likely? Again, I am highly skeptical.

Assuming you are right (which I am not convinced of), there is still the question of whether those three will each uniquely fill one of those four classic D&D party roles? If that criterion is also amazingly satisfied by those three companions, that still leaves me with only being able to play, as my PC, that one party role left uncovered by those three companions. So, for example, if those three "good" companions are damage dealer, controller, and healer, then the best scenario I get from BG3 is that I must always play a tank PC.

So the most likely classes for these 3 companions are Ranger, Barbarian, and Bard. These classes can fill the 4 roles you've defined.

Barbarians are by far the best tanks in 5e since they have most effective hp out of any class. They can also serve as good primary and secondary damage dealers, especially when 2 handing.
Rangers are also a good class that can play multiple roles. They typically have high dex which when combined with a shield, some good light armor, and the defense fighting style means they can serve as decent frontline tanks. They can also deal good damage and are half casters which also lets them serve a limited role as controllers.
Bards are full casters who have access to a good number of spells which includes healing word AKA the best healing spell in 5e. They can serve as healers, primary/secondary dps, buffers, and controllers. They're also the best skill monkeys in 5e.

It's also worth keeping in mind that dedicated healers aren't really necessary in 5e. Healing is very inefficient and past tier 1 it's extremely rare to be instantly killed which means that healing word as a way to instantly stabilize and revive PCs as a BA is a much better option than spending a full action to heal their wounds.

There are a lot of question marks in my post specifically because I was asking questions about what you want. There is no strawman, I simply listed each class for each alignment. You started with 12 classes, not 4 archetypes. 12 x 3 is 36... The problem is that you're not clear in that post what you're shooting for. Given your propensity to exaggerate, with such things as "there are no classes in DA games", I really wanted some clarification on what you're trying to get to. Instead of throwing out "No need to create a strawman", you could have simply said "Yes, just having the archetypes represented would be fine".

Okay so this is the first post I've seen here that does a good job of laying out the potential for a decent all-good party, again assuming we will get three more companions, and also assuming those three companions will be undeniably good-aligned, and also assuming they will be the three classes you expect. A lot of assumptions, but thanks for a good reply to my concerns.

You can be evil without being a dick, and most deites wont answer their priests prayers, so that doesnt really mean anything. So no you are all sorts of wrong. And honestly just her cringworthy name alone implies she thinks it's cool to be on "dark side".

It's not the "spawn" part that makes him evil, it is the vampire part, or actually the whole, being undead part...

But i also find it hard creating a party as an evil character too. Since as you say, one companion is a instakill bcs of him attacking me, and i am not really sold on the other two as well...

Cute ...
Thats what i said ... still most rules dont aply to him so ... i dont quite understand where are you going with this?

Maybe you just need to read a little slower.

Was that suppose to be helpfull or funny?
It wasnt either. :-/

I a m r e a d i n g s l o w l y a n d n o t h i n g i s a n y d i f f e r e n t ...

Are all undead inherently evil? That is a tough question to answer. I don't know exactly how I feel about this, but I do think of the sage advice that goes something like, "if thyne hand offends thee, better to chop it off."

So I would say that generally yes, a vampire is inherently evil ... unless it has had its teeth removed. In that case, it may not be evil. And you can call it a "gumpire".

Welcome to the often absurd moral relativism of modern D&D.

Next up: "Are devils truly evil?"

Sigh ok i take the long version.
The tadpole changed astarion so some of his disadvantages as a vampire spawn no longer affect him, but he is still a vampire and therefore still undead, which means EVIL.

I would say, yes unless one have a really damn good narrative reason not to do so.

Yup, it's the "no one's truly evil (or good)" generation merging with D&D.

All undead are evil. All Sharrans are evil. Really nothing more to discuss here.

Undead are generally evil because they're resurrected with evil energy and so they're evil because they're made of evil stuff. In the case of vampires in particular, they lose their memories and their pure thoughts are corrupted into darker ones. In a sense, undead follow similar rules to Celestials/Fiends/Outsiders where they're their alignment because they're made of stuff that matches that alignment.

However, it's worth mentioning that alignments also aren't necessarily set in stone. In the Forgotten Realms it's totally possible for an angel to fall and for a fiend to be redeemed. For example, Zariel was an angel that fell and became a fiend and was later redeemed during the Descent into Avernus adventure. There is definitely DnD material suggests that even creatures of always naturally evil alignments can have their alignments changed, although such occurrences are exceedingly rare and are considered outliers.

In the case of Astarian, he's 100% evil. He has a general lack of empathy towards people and is shown to like evil things. Out of all the current companions, him and Lae'zael are the only ones who have no problem with massacring the druid grove (Wyll leaves the party, Gale leaves unless a persuasion check is passed, and Shadowheart drinks herself into a stupor out of guilt). He can be sympathetic at times but he's still undoubtedly an evil person.

Shar worshippers don't necessarily have to be evil despite their deity being evil aligned. IIRC back in the 3.5 days, one of the rules for Clerics was that they had to be within one step of their deity's alignment, which in the case of Shar (who is neutral evil) means that they'd have to either be CE, NE, LE, or true Neutral. In Shadowheart's case I can totally see her as true neutral, leaning towards good. of course, none of this really matters that much since alignment has no mechanical implications in 5e and from a storytelling perspective there's totally situations where neutral characters on any end of the lawful-chaotic spectrum might follow a neutral evil deity. Similarly, deities probably don't care too much about the specific alignment of their followers (which is already a fairly vague way of measuring morality anyways) and instead care more about whether their worshippers follow their tenets.

Drizzt.

The problem with exceptions?

They don't remain exceptional. If you kick over a random rock, you're sure to find a heroic Drow.

Drow are a culturally evil society, but that obviously means that some drow aren't evil.
Shar worshippers are worshipping an evil deity by choice and thus are almost certainly evil.
Angels are (Lawful) Good essentially by definition. If they change alignment then they turn into a fiend (or other creature depending on alignment), unless I'm mistaken (e.g., Asmodeus, Zariel).

Undead...are typically evil, either because they're mindless (and try to kill people), because being evil is a prerequisite for becoming undead (lich), or because undeath corrupts your morals/thoughts until you're evil (vampire). It's interesting that WotC removed the Undead creature types from the Reborn and Dhampir lineages -> one reason they might've done this is to preserve player alignment freedom, which then implies that undead are required to be evil.

I was not talking about devils or morality or anything like that. I was talking about whether all undead are inherently evil necessarily just because they are undead. Indeed, per the 5E Monster Manual, page 147 under the entry for Ghost it says, "Ghost. Medium undead, any alignment." I have never before seen a good ghost in a D&D module, but I guess if it fits the story, then I'd be OK with it. There sure were a lot of them at Hogwarts.

Actually, there are several good and neutral ghosts in various official modules... Most of the time they show up as NPCs that can give information about something, or need the party's help in finding rest.

To be undead is NOT to be inherently evil, as it is for fiends, or for celestials to be inherently good; it is not possible for a fiend to be non-evil and it is not possible for a celestial to be non-good - if they become so, they change their very essence and become other creatures. This is not the case for undead - it's simply that the extreme vast majority of undead entities are so, for the various reasons that mrfuji summed up. The case and reasoning for a non-evil undead must be specific and compelling; there's got to be an explanation, but it's quite possible.

95+% of undead are some variety of evil.

Nobody is saying an undead can't be created and somehow be good and nobody is saying that an undead cant change alignment, especially through magic means.

Humans are inherently born with 2 arms and 2 legs, You don't change that description just because there are those that don't have those features.

I don't know how it technically works in-lore for the Forgotten Realms, but I can believe ghosts being capable of any alignment while vampires, liches, more for lack of a better term, physical undead are inherently evil. After all, ghosts are typically remnants or echoes of a person's soul, so it would make sense that they share an alignment. If I were running a game I would say that most undead are inherently evil aligned unless there's some kind of magical or divine interference. Meanwhile ghosts are stritcly limited to acting within the alignment they had in life and are unable to act outside of it, sort of enforcing the idea that they aren't a whole person, and have lost the depth that life gave them.

Yes ghosts and undead are basically opposites, Ghosts are the souls and undead are the soulless bodies powered by negative energy.

Eh ... what?

Yes what is it you are willfully missunderstanding now?
Yes undead are evil by nature just as humans are born with two legs and two arms. you rellay need to start paying attention.

Isn't it embarrasing to missunderstand people this often, you do come of quite slow you know.

How about spend like 10% less energy invested into insulting others ... we allready have people who do that ...
And instead spend it by explaining.

One sentence say Undead =/= Evil ...
Second sentence say Undead = Evil ...

Im really curious how do you want to make them both true.

You know very well i wasn't insulting you since i know you are just trolling by this point.
But i can try to explain to you in even simpler terms.

If you ask someone how does a "human" look? you answer, well a person has a head, a body, two arms, and two legs etc... With that said, there are people born without some extremities. But you would never assume that about someone without seeing that person or having it explained to you that this person is missing his arms or whatever.
Ie the default configuration for a human is to not miss any limbs, anything else is abormal.

The same goes for undead. You assume them to be evil because that is what they are as a default, unless you get confirmation that they are not.
And in Astarions case it's not even a debate, since we get several confirations that he is indeed evil.

No i dont ... it may come as surprise, but that is the reason why i said it. -_-

Now back to the topic:

Nobody said that Astarion "isnt evil" ...
The premise was Astarion "may bot be evil BECAUSE he is a vampire spawn".

See the difference?
A still equals B ...
But the topic is reason for A = B ... not the equation itself. -_-

Same as Lae'zel who was mentioned in the same post, with exactly same reasoning ...
Githyanki are not "inherently evil" ... their society makes them evil, bcs good person would not thrive there (maybe not even survive honestly) ...
Just as with Drow ...

Yeah, undeads "usualy are evil" ...
But undeads ... especialy Vampires ... also usualy are not able to walk on sunlight, not able to walk into houses without invitation, are able to clib walls without skill checks, naturaly regenerate, have natural armor, can use their claws, and are resistant for: Necrotic / Bludgeoning / Piercing / Slashing from Nonmagical Attacks.
None of it apply on Astarion ...
Based on what exactly are you claiming that rule of aligment for Undead do?

I don't really trust that one bit, especially after your history here, it's not the first time you are acting ignorant just for the heck of it.

Now back to the topic:


I just mentioned the fact that we know astarion is evil as an aside and that was clearly mentioned in my post.

Yes they are inherently evil, it doesn't matter if you inherit it from culture or nature. It is still inherited.


This has already been explained, and verified by Astarion himself that it is the tadpoles doing.
Why would the tadpole change his alignment?
Why only his and why no one elses. And most importantly, we already know that it didn't...


Would you mind refrasing this question, i have no idea what you are asking?

Baelnorns are Good-aligned Elf Liches.

W/E ...
Its not like i can stop you being asshole i gues. -_-

And since moderators dont seem to care lately, we are doomed to deal with people like you sadly. :-/

Sure it matters ...

If any character, like fiend ... is evil "by nature" ... it sure can redeem itself and become good ... the problem is, it would no longer be a fiend ... (example other way around: Zariel)

If any character, like Githyanki, or Drow ... is evil "by culture" ... it sure also can redeem itself and become good ... and then it would simply be good Githyanki or Drow ... (example: Drizzt)

THAT is the difference.

Never said it would ...
Im saying that when Larian dont care about 90% of rules, its quite safe to presume they didnt care about the last 10% aswell.

Funny ...
You know what else was "explained and verified by Astarion himself" ?

His own history under his master.
You know those pitiful and meaningless things like physical and psychical torture, treatment like a slave, often just for the fun of his master ...
Does that sounds familiar?
Oh yes, that is exactly (or at least close to) the society in wich Drow, or Githyanki are raised ... and this (on the contrary to them) has ben going on for CENTURIES.

That will most likely be bcs you snaped out half of the sentence ... try to read it whole, it helps:

None of it apply on Astarion ...
Based on what exactly are you claiming that rule of aligment for Undead do?

Well if you're truly not a troll, i am sorry.

Yes and an undead can become good or be created good even though undead are evil by nature. But they don't stop being undead, so what was your point?


Yes it is quite safe to assume that, but i want to stay optimsitic and i still hope that larian will get their shit together..



Yes so what you are implying is that he is doubly evil both culturally and naturally?


No that had nothing to do with context, all i am saying that sentence doesnt really make any sense. And i honestly don't know what you are asking me. Try using another way to structure the sentence.

I don't really trust that one bit, especially after your history here ...

Exactly that.

Taken that to context with previous part ...
(He dont stop being Vampire, if he become good.)

Just culturally ...
Or at the very least much more that than the other option.

Fact 1:
Here is list of rules that aply on Vampires ...

Fact 2:
None of them aply to Astarion ...

Fact 3:
There is another rule, saying that Vampires are allways evil.

My claim:
Based on that they ignored so many other rules, i presume rule from Fact 3 is ignored aswell.

Your claim:
I presume rule from Fact 3 is followed.

My question:
Based on what?

(Rare) Exceptions to a rule do not unmake or negate the rule. At least speaking for myself, when I speak of things in the sense of a rule, it is implied that there can be exceptions to that rule. It is rather tiresome to have to keep repeating this every time I post about a rule-like thing and that's why I don't do it, expecting people will have the common sense to understand this.

As for BG3 companions, again this is something I have brought up before, but if every one of the companions is some very rare and special *exception* to the rules (i.e. an exceptional githyanki/vampire/priestess of Shar/person who made a pact with a devil/werewolf, etc.), it becomes a silly, ridiculous, lame, pathetic joke.

Oh, Niara is exactly right, there are non-evil undead ghosts and in fact they are right there in BG I ... I forgot about the Firewine Bridge Knights and the Ulcaster Ghost! All of those are Lawful Neutral. Ulcaster even wears a Robe of the Neutral Archmage, as it turns out.

I also agree that over-using a gimmick where nearly every character is "exceptional" can be detrimental to the story. I like it better when they sneak in little differences such as innate abilities.

I think it's pretty reasonable to think that Astarion as a vampire spawn is still inherently evil, since while they ignored a lot of rules, they did not ignore all of them. For instance he still has to drink blood or he gets weak, and he can't cross running water. So given the fact that he stil lacts evil, it's not a stretch to say that this rule didn't change. Maybe it did, but we won't be able to know for sure one way or another until we see if there's an ability to make him good or not.

did someone take over your account...? You're speaking style seems totally different now, and lack of emotes is completely out of character for you lol

That is called angry mod.

As much as the mod staff are over-stretched (or rather, under-staffed) and struggle to maintain a presence here, I would like to ask folks on both 'sides' of this discussion to please remain civil to one another, and to focus your attention on discussing the topic, rather than taking jabs at each other or judging each other based on assumptions of personality.

If we look at the reasons behind many of the stated alignments, they differ by creature, amongst undead. Zombies, and the vast majority of other insentient undead, for example, are marked as evil because they are the defiled remains of people animated by necromantic magic; they are insentient (or mostly so0, and instilled with an urge to hurt. Ghosts, by contrast, have the full spectrum available to them because they are the mostly intact spirits of former entities and retain much of who or what they were, including a majority of their personality.

Vampire spawn get the evil tag because while they can and often do retain memories of their past life, they do not retain their former emotions, feelings or empathy; they can, and often do, put on a facade of these things, either in mimicry of a life once lived, or as a means to an end, which is usually sating their hunger, or coveting the physical symbols of the things they liked or enjoyed in life. They are incapable of caring about or for others, and pursue only personal, selfish, physical motives as an obsessive facsimiles of those past feelings. In addition to this, they are incapable of self-direction outside the control of their master, and are only 'mostly' fully sapient; the hunger and the control are larger factors in their existence than their own sense of self.

Astarion's behaviour matches this more or less perfectly, and would give players reason to believe that when he says he cares about something outside himself, it is untrue. Some rules may be broken, but by his behaviour alone, he still seems to be showing the cold, selfish, physically-focussed passion that one would expect of a spawn.

However: As it's been explored, many of the rules governing him have been broken. He doesn't burn in the sun (Larian have acknowledge this as a deliberate change), he is not beholden to forbiddance (they've also acknowledged this). He also does not remain bound to his resting place or the need to sleep under earth (Larian have not acknowledged this and don't seem aware of it), and he has developed a particular unusual vulnerability to wooden stakes (This is ridiculous and stupid, and larian don't seem to be aware of their ignorance). He isn't bound by his master any more, or so he says (we cannot confirm this, but it seems likely to be true).

What does this mean for Astarion's personality? Well... It means that it is certainly *possible* that he has a capacity for change now that he did not have before. For that to be the case, he'd have to no longer bee a vampire spawn in the traditional sense, and it would lad us to ask the question of where his new capacity for emotion came from - the only place it could have come from would be the tadpole, and his transition towards becoming an illithid - they are a culturally evil race, and capable of change, but in them it is so long-term ingrained and reinforced by higher consciousnesses, as to be almost genetic at this point... but it's possible, at least.

So, it's feasible that Astarion may (May; we can't confirm or deny) now be *capable* of change in a way that he wasn't before... but what he shows us is that, vampire aside, Astarion himself is still a selfish, cruel and destructive person, and seems as though he would be regardless - he earns his evil tag by himself even without the vampire consideration - if he is suddenly capable of feeling things and engaging with emotions that he hasn't actually experienced in 200 years, he appears to have decided to continue to be cruel, selfish and destructive, with no regard for the lives of others. (Plot twist; Astarion is really interested in keeping the tadpole because it's been letting him feel things again, like he hasn't felt for hundreds of years, and he doesn't want to give it up... I... could see Larian attempting to run that line...)

I believe i can see where they get it from:

https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/17044-vampire-spawn

Stake to the Heart.
The vampire is destroyed if a piercing weapon made of wood is driven into its heart while it is incapacitated in its resting place.

So ... basicaly Toreador stuff from World of Darkness.
Would be cool tho.

That sentence which, if they had read it, would have prevented the ridiculous stake comments and associated murder scene paths? Ya, so... the result is, we have to conclude that Larian either fails at basic reading comprehension so hard that they don't understand what a conditional is, or they care so little about the forgotten realms and D&D that they're wilfully ignoring that sentence and are just running with 'generic vampire lore lol!' because they can't be arsed doing it correctly. Neither case is particularly heartening...

I wonder if this is your idea of "remaining civil" as you requested abowe.

Honestly, if i would be GM, i would ignore such condition aswell ...
Its silly that stake in your heart, when lay in your lair cause your complete destruction ... but anywhere else, in any other case, you just laugh to that. :-/

In my opinion, not more ridiculous than that the stake has to be wooden in general lore. Obviously I haven't tried it, but I would make the assumption that a metal stake would pierce a heart just as easily if not more...
I'm not that much traversed in Forgotten Realms vampire lore but I guess that the resting place part somehow adheres to you giving them their final rest? Something similar to liches and their phylacteries etc...

It's all about which lore you prefer. In Twilight vamps sparkle(!) in the sun but don't burn. In True Blood they are weak to silver which seems to do nothing against werewolfs etc. I've come to the conclusion that Niara cares more about Forgotten Realm lore than you do Rag and as has been established in the immersion thread, immersion is not high on your priority list but it is on Niara's, who in turn care less about game mechanics being potentially fun and comical if they in turn also break the picture she has of the game's universe. In other words...this will be yet another area where you will have to agree to disagree.

I agree with Niara. Lore is important. Create a Star Wars story while disrespecting the lore, and you get the Sequels - 7, 8 and 9. Now half the fans or more hate what Disney has done to Star Wars, and they're trying hard to win them back with Mandalorian and such.

That is what BG3 is doing currently by ignoring certain established lore. I've seen so many posts on this forum and Steam and Reddit with FR fans who are super ticked by BG3's lack of adhering to established lore.

And some wonder why others are calling it DOS 3 instead of BG3.

(To Rag's question) It is, yes. We should remain civil and polite to one another - the other actual users on this forum. This does not preclude being critical of decisions made by corporations, or criticising the game itself in various ways. The statement is an unfortunate truth: either they don't know and don't care enough to check their facts before committing resources, or they do know and they don't care at all; neither is an inspiring situation.

If you look at that page on vampire spawn and scroll to the bottom you see that there is more mentioned about vampire lairs. This looks indeed kinda like liches and linked to the master vampire. The master specifically creates it's lair and it's very essence warps the area.
Not sure if official, but I believe the "stake" must be wood because it is/was alive.

Depends ...
Im not sure if there is any reason explained in DnD lore, but i presume they took this from general folklore (or at least as inspiration) ... reason people used wood (at least in Slavic folklore, as far as i know, feel free to corect me if you have better source) was that dried willow bark was often used for healing against pain.
So people kinda logicaly presumed that wood have some "natural" power to soothe, and heal ...
There are also some sources (yes still talking about slavic folklore) that claim certain wood have power to soothe magic, willow is prime example of them, since that one is strongest.

Also, it would be most likely silly to spend valuable Iron (or Steel) for something so trivial as stakes.
Especialy since people in Slavic history were often burried with the stake in their heart, so logicaly, the more common material the better.

But i see what you mean.

Most likely ... question is if the "piercing the organ" is source of the damage.

I mean ...
We dont quite know how this even work ... Vampire heart dont even beat anymore, so why piercing it (no matter what you will use to do that) even have so destructive effect? Will it have same effect if you would make vampire explode? If you would burn the heart? If you would remove it from the body without piercing it?
And if so ... why?

If i would be allowed to present some headcannon ... i dare to presume that stake through heart is primarily symbolic ... you can imagine it as some part of long forgotten ritual, rest of which has not been preserved ... but this part was the most important.
Or you can find your own explanation ofcourse ... that is one of beauty of headcannons.

Dunno ...
I presumed its just bcs that is the place where Vampire will certainly rest during the day ... so, while they rest ... and therefore are incapacitated ... and therefore cant fight back ... you dont find better opourtunity to easily destroy it than right then and right there.

Could be wrong tho.

This is actualy interesting information (and kinda sad, if that impression is the outcome) since immersion is pretty high on my priorities, one could almost say its on the top ...
I just have a little different approach to it than Niara (and many others as it seems).

Anyway ...
I believe lore integrity is the therm you were looking for here ... immersion seem to be a little different topic ...
In my opinion exactly this is what happens, when player who have monsters learned try to metagame using that knowledge ... but GM is homebrewing (or just slightly alterning, to not be so dramatic) things to make that impossible to them.
In other words, i believe situations like this are exactly the reaspon Rule Zero was created for.

Yup, thats quite possible ...
But we could dismiss any discusion with that, couldnt we?

//Edit:
Good point!
I completely forgot about that one. :-/ Silly me ...

Its basicaly the same reason why Druids dont use any metal armor. Isnt it?

The thing is though, why would you change this specific detail the way Larian has? They've buffed him in numerous ways and took away numerous weaknesses already, yet have given him this weakness that makes him more of a generic vampire, and taken away an aspect that's specific to the lore. There's a lot of stuff that's explained by the tadpole, but not this. In this case of the stake, they just actually took away something interesting and unique about the setting.

Vampires in D&D have always been subject to some genre mishaps. Gothic horror plays by different rules than high fantasy, I think a lot of the 'rules' concerning vampires are there to exist in that context, so they might be less sticky in a more generally-themed campaign.

I also think that the newfound autonomy Astarion has from his master are the reason he acts the way he does, he seems to be interested in only maintaining that freedom whatever the cost. It would also leaves open the possibility for his personality to develop into different directions which I think is what they're going for, tragic victim who becomes either the villain or a better person. That's what I've thought they were doing anyway.

I think you are looking at it from wrong side ...

Its not like i would take all Vampire rules and start striking out wich dont suits me.
(Feel free to ignore this sentence if that is not what you were implying ... but it seemed like it a little.)

Imagining myself in Larian boots ...

I see it more like brainstorming:
Person A: "So, we have this situation where Astarion is caught trying to drink from our protagonsit ..."
Person B: "People were complaining a lot about first scene where they meet Astarion, that they dont have any chance to attack him right there on the spot."
Person A: "I see ... maybe we can do something about it here, they are clearly threatened by him again, lets not repeat the same mistake."
Person B: "Well, they are laying next to the bonfire ... how about give them option to grab one branch, snap it to make it sharp, and stake him?"
Person A: "Wouldnt that kill him instantly?"
Person B: "Yup."
Person A: "Hells, why not i like it ... make it happen."

All im saying is that im quite allright with such attitude.

Both were done just to make him "regular" adventurer ...
Just as with Drow who dont have sunlight sensitivity ...

This seems like pure ballance adjustment.

Well ... i gues you could call it covenience.
Astarion would most likely *never* (or at least not until the end of his story) return to his lair, wich would make him basicaly unstakeable.

In my opinion this opourtunity for roleplay solution was simply too good to be bothered with litteral trascription of rules ...
And while Niara and some other may see it as blasphemy, im honestly glad they decided to allow us to do this ...

Maybe its just bcs i dont have DnD rules so deep under my skin as some others around here, since im still newbie, i play actively just around a year and half ... but my DM (GM, PJ, dunno how you call it) is that kind of person who is often willing to close an eye an ignore part of the rule, IF he likes the idea players get, and the idea makes sense in some common therm of settings.
So im used to this, i like it, and im having lots of fun thanks to that.

Yeah, never seen anyone claim it is tho.

I dont think this is true ...
Nobody say that you "cant" stake Vampire while sleeping inside his lair ... and it would certainly be much smarter approach than going with wooden stake to open battle ( ) ...
This was just opourtunity, and they decided to allow it ... i dont think there is anything deeper behind it.

I mean, if folks don't want to read the spoiler tag and talk around it anyway, I guess I'll just post it in the open, since this is where the topic seems to have evolved to...


Yes and no, regarding the origins of the realms lore – They did 'kind of' start out with traditional vampire folk lore... but they did it as americans in an american setting, which is to say, they started out not with the old slavic lore, but with the generic media vampire lore.

However, from that, in terms of the realms lore itself, it has evolved over time and different editions, and becomes something unique and specific to itself. There has always been an 'origin' point for it, and the general lore of how it works in the realms has been consistent, even if different editions modify the exact source of it.

It's a soul curse, and stems from an original transgressor (most commonly, that first vampire is Strahd von Zarovich himself, but the story has varied edition to edition, and sometimes he isn't); the vulnerabilities and special weaknesses of vampires are attributed specifically to the nature of that original soul curse, and all of the descended vampire progeny bear the same weaknesses as a result; functionally, “It works that way because soul magic says it does”.

The vulnerabilities and weaknesses, however, are just boons to those who wish to destroy them; they aren't the be all and end all, or the only way. Vampires are not some special monstrous thing that is immune and immortal to all harm and death except by these means – Realms vampires aren't like that. They can't “only” be killed in these ways, as in generic vampire lore – Realms vampires aren't like that.

So, what happens if you explode one? It dies, of course. What happens if you rip one's heart out entirely or cut off its head? It dies, of course. It dies just as anything dies when you subject it to an effect that would kill it.

A vampire spawn (not a full vampire), is destroyed if it is staked while it is incapacitated, and in its resting place; these are important conditions that tie into the creature's background lore in the forgotten realms specifically (Ravnica vampires don't have this set of vampiric weaknesses because this is not part of that world's lore for the origin of vampires), and serve as a way of instantly destroying an otherwise tough creature for lower level or less capable adventurers (or peasants). Higher powered characters and more capable adventurers wouldn't need to rely on such methods - it's just a shortcut, or particular vulnerability that this kind of undead has, due to the specific nature of their curse and its origins. A true vampire isn't even destroyed by this weakness - only paralysed until the stake is removed.

If a vampire or vampire spawn doesn't have a fixed resting place, then it must rest under a foot of earth instead, in order to recuperate properly. – So Astarion should be sneaking off each night to dig a little trench for himself to nap in, in which he would be incapacitated until he roused, and if staked when discovered in such a circumstance, would be instantly killed.

If you stab one in the chest with a stake while these conditions aren't met, it won't do the special thing... but you did still just stab them in the chest and they're going to take the damage that being stabbed in the chest would reasonably do, just like anyone else would. You could even kill them that way, if you reduced their hit points to zero ^.^

That aside, yeah – generally the whole 'while at rest' clause remains there because that IS when they are the most vulnerable and weakest; invoking the weakness of their curse directly is not generally going to destroy a vampire who is active and fighty, but when they are vulnerable, and their guard is down, they are more susceptible too having that element of their curse invoked and turned against them.

These are all special and unique things that add flavour and style to realms vampires and make them their own unique creatures, apart from 'generic' vampires of universal media settings; Larian has removed one of them for the sake of a gag, or so it seems... and it's not the only time they've done this so far.

For me personally, I'm going to lose respect for a Dm (or anyone really) who would discard established in-universe lore for creatures out of hand or on a whim, while still claiming it to be that creature, in that setting.

So this:

“Person A: "I see ... maybe we can do something about it here, they are clearly threatened by him again, lets not repeat the same mistake."
Person B: "Well, they are laying next to the bonfire ... how about give them option to grab one branch, snap it to make it sharp, and stake him?"
Person A: "Wouldnt that kill him instantly?"
Person B: "Yup."
Person A: "Hells, why not i like it ... make it happen."

Is what I am absolutely NOT alright with in any way, and I will fight that kind of attitude tooth and nail at every step. It's a statement of people looking to have a laugh and turn a buck, who have no regard for the material they're working with, no respect for it, no drive to check their facts even briefly, and who do not care about portraying the material they're working with (which does not belong to them!) properly... It's disgusting.

How about this instead:

“Person A: "So the player is threatened by Astarion after they try to drink from them"
Person B: "Well ... how about give them option to grab one branch, snap it to make it sharp, and stake him?"
Person A: "Wouldn't that kill him instantly?"
Person B: "Yup."
Person A: "We should probably check that and make sure it works that way, just in case."
Person C: “Oh, actually, it turns out it wouldn't... this might be a really cool spot to show the players that Vampires work a little differently in the Forgotten Realms. It would give Astarion a chance for one last snarky line, too, before they kill him off properly?”
Person B: “Huh, I didn't know that.”
Person A: “Sure, that sounds cool, work on something like that.”

Resulting scene:

Plays as normal, up to the point of the player attempting to stake Astarion
PLAYER: [Lunges/thrusts/surprises (depending on point in the dialogue or bite), and stabs Astarion successfully]
ASTARION: [Staggering back and away] “Oof! Why you little...” [He extracts the stake and we see the PC shocked that this didn't work.]
ASTARION: “Looks like you've been reading too many stories, darling...” [Now snarling and ready to fight] “I think you'll find that the real thing is So much nastier than any fairy tale...”
[Combat begins; other party members wake, but are surprised. They make hostile voice barks about the revelation of Astarion's vampire nature, and join in on the player's side.]

This would be an opportunity to reveal the interesting ways in which realms vampires are specific to this setting, still lets the player dispatch Astarion with relative ease, since they've decided to do so, and it also potentially removes that ridiculous instance of Astarion casually taking the weapon out of our hands as though our PC is some kind of shrinking violet. (As an added bonus, for those still craving some silly – Astarion should take a d8 of damage initially, from the stab, and if the player rested with him very low, this could potentially kill him anyway.) Show of hands from those watching, who would prefer this version, over the current played-for-laughs stake-stabbing scenes? I know I would, even though I'm not generally one for killing characters unnecessarily.

Honestly the fact that he dies when you stab him in the chest, that he meditates rather than sleeping under earth, that he can't spider-climb and that he doesn't burn in sunlight just makes me lean more strongly to the idea that he's really just an elf who sharpened his teeth because he thought it was edgy, but has drunk his own cool aid to the point that he really believes he's a vampire now, when in reality, he's just a guy.... I'd believe that more readily than I'd believe that the tadpole suddenly made him *more* vulnerable to being staked than he was before, while it was removing his other weaknesses.

Yeah, i know.

This is exactly what i find funny ...

Explode: It dies, of course.
Heart removal: It dies, of course.
Heart pierced by wooden stake: It just gets some damage and you most likely start combat, bcs it was "not sleeping inside its lair".
Heart pierced by wooden stake just few metters elsewhere, while it is sleeping: It dies, of course ... instantly.

Just for the record, PrivateRaccoon was right, we dont have to agree on this one.

Yup, you said that before ...
I would really like to know why they are so important ... even tho i presume the answer is simply "bcs book say so" ...
(And that is the part where i would again use Rule 0.)

I presume that you just found especialy strong stick that gives Astarion 100% of his remaining HP will not satisfy you huh?
(Kidding!!! ... or am i? :P )

This is actualy interesting ... is that your headcannon, or can i ask for source?

Well, quite honestly i would like this ...

But i presume they keep something simmilar to option when you fail your atempt to stake him.

This is actualy quite funny idea.

There are some interesting American vampire/undead stories. If anyone is interested, I recommend the story of Mercy Brown. It's a quick read, and it reveals much about human nature.

Mercy was probably Lawful Good, when she was alive ...

That is a good one. Ask a mortician covered the story of Mercy Brown in her channel.

I have read story about lich that became Paladin even if using light hurt him. He was helping people in need. That's why I play as a CG kobold paladin in dnd.