Greetings all. I was reading through the EA FAQ again and I noticed the last question from Jess from Larian.



I'm not sure how everyone else feels about this or even noticed it. Things move at a breakneck speed in these forums. I'm not sure I like this. At all. Now this is all baseless speculation at this point, so I don't want to be overly negative.

In DoS2, whichever 2 Origin members you didn't select to join your party became entirely unusable after a certain point. For the story of that game, it works. You're working with a very small party and each member is trying to attain godhood for their own particular reasons. It's a "shared" goal, but there can only be one. So it makes sense you might have to kill some people along the way (if that's how you play your version of the story out)

In BGIII, everyone is working towards the same goal. Get that tadpole out of your heads. They also have their own goals and motivations. But in BGI/II it was very much the same. Even though there was no camp per se, you could release a party member at any particular point and recruit someone else to see their story. A play through could be as long or as short as you wanted, depending on how many companions stories you got involved with.

Based on the wording from Larian, it leads me to believe that anyone who isn't with you at the end of Act 1 is going to die or otherwise become unavailable. We're then "forced" to complete the rest of the game with one party. Who knows. Maybe at the end of Act 1, you get some kind of delay for the tadpole removal in the Towers. Any members not with you will turn into Illithid. Yes, that's a very big assumption on my end. It's just a guess.

It also leads me to believe that there will not be all that many companions (if any) after Act 1. In BGI/II you met people everywhere. Meeting everyone in the same Act seems a bit too convenient.

If that happens, our ability to diversify our party based on needs will go out the window. Paired with the fact there are only 4 party members. I'm not saying you need 6, but 5 would be a nice happy median. You have that extra utility slot. But this post isn't about that. My concern is that it will get very stale dealing with the same party for another 60-80 hours, versus being able to keep things fresh with adding and removing party members at will.

For all I know though, this will fit in with the story they are weaving. I could also be entirely off base though. I just figured it would be worth bringing up. At the end of the day this is their game they are crafting and not ours and I 100% respect that, but some of that BG feel goes out the window if we have a set party locked. You can't please everyone. I'm happy either way in knowing I'll more than likely be getting a great game.

I agree that it would be nice to be able to meet more allies in the later acts of the game, rather than just at the beginning.
I like the idea of having a member of the group having just NO IDEA we have a tadpole in our head (Volo is kind of that guy, but I don't think he's meant to become a companion per se).
I wonder if the druid Halsin is meant to become a companion later on, or if he's supposed to be one as soon as act one but the gameplay for druids isn't ready yet so they didn't make him fully playable.

Anyway, my point is: companions are exciting, even more so than a new, powerful piece of gear for a slot you have never been able to fill up to that point. And I think getting a full party as soon as act one is a bit premature. It's always a nice surprise, it's exciting to feel like the game as more in store for you.

I've read in various places that the party will be set at the end of Act I. I would prefer at least one more permanent party member if that's the case. But regardless, not being able to take everyone along at will adds replay value, at least for me. I expect I'll run more than one character through and possibly play one or more of the origins. Each time, I'll pick my optimal party based on my own PC's strengths and weaknesses. If you only expect to play this game one time, then I can see why you'd feel limited by suddenly having access to all the options removed. I personally don't have a problem with it.

I really hope we can pick up new companions along the way. It seems only natural that we'll meet someone different in each chapter, rather than magically finding a myriad of various characters who happens to be in this particular corner of the world - and then never again anyone willing to travel with us.

It was also one of the things in BG1+2 that made the world feel somewhat alive. It was not just a collection of fights, it was people everywhere who could join us, fight us, or just wanted a dimwit to go steal a bird for them.

depends on how much they want to brake the DnD rules. There are only certain combinations you can make in a party that you absolutely need. If you are a warrior no toad girl. if you play a cleric no shadow heart. you are a mage? bye gale and wyll.
You dont have a choice or much choice at all in the game to begin with. bad choice, better to have the option to send them to inn or tell them to head to Baldurs Gate on there own once you clear a path. Maybe make it a chance that they make to it to baldurs gate depending if you give them any gear and money for there travel. Good gear and money chances are they make it, no gear no money most likely they die.

Oh it definitely adds replayability for sure. I always enjoy that in a game. But if it's corralled into one area of the game, that's not all that fun to me. Imagine playing through Act 1 repeatedly just to get to Act 2 with your different party members. Granted you could just make a separate save right before the end of Act 1.

At the start of ToB, you can summon all your various allies at a camp of sorts. At the end of ToB, you still find out what happened to all your members. It was a nice little bookend. If I never see my companions again after act 1, it would be disappointing. Again, that's a lot of speculation on my end, who knows where things will go.

Hey yall, my first fourm post. I would just like to say that based on some of the story I do believe we will find more friends as we venture forth!

*****SPOILER AHEAD SPOILER AHEAD SPOILER AHEAD*****

Two instances I can think of
1. You save the Devil Girl she says you can find her later on somewhere...I don't recall exactly where she said you can find her.
2. If you manage to save the couple of archer dudes that are getting wrecked by the wolf apocalypse then they give you a secret message on a place you can go to meet them later.

Based on those two scenarios alone if everyone dies. Then I'm almost positive we will have access to more friends in the future should our current ones die.

I want to find all companions in Act 1, but then have them all around and available for the entire game. I dislike the idea of companions vanishing.

Agree, i hope we get the chance to switch companions at any point and find new ones in later acts.

People that have datamined the game have found companion strings for 8 more characters.

It would be a very poor decision to limit new companions to just the first act.

In fact in real life, nobody has to commit to companions, and you always meet new people later in life. You don't have to commit to anything actually.

That reasoning seems very weak, and makes it seem as though the people that are making this game have never once in their whole lives stepped outside of their mother's basements.

Firesnakearies,

I have one solution for this and one additional statement to follow. So instead of vanashing perhaps Larian could look into adding a bonus fight at your camp the next time you go back to it after finishing act 1, which is where you left them RP wise, and when you go back they all the ones not in your party just so happened to turn into mindflayers. Would this make it feel better than them just vanishing.

My statement would be how often are we actually making party changes. I know for me once i have a group together I really don't bother to make changes unless the story dictates such as needing Gythraki (however its spelled) lady to talk to Zorru(or whatever his name is). Maybe this is just me and if that is the case i completely understand where your coming from as to why it would be such a big game changer for them to just vanish.

Well that would certainly be interesting story-wise, but I would still feel disappointed.

What I think may happen is that you gotta commit to the tadpole companions? Maybe you gotta choose who is gonna get saved and then maybe we'll meet more companions that don't have tadpoles? Like we save Shadowheart and might meet some people under shar or selune. Who knows. I like the companions so far but we are lacking in what Dos2 had with interesting side characters that stick around (The halfdemon-elf, the necromancer, the kid who looks for stuff,) Then again this is only the first act and we don't know who is actually gonna stick around with us. Who knows.

Yeah, I've been wondering at how the whole "commit to party by end of Act I" fits together with the fact that we probably only have at most half of the total companions available now. I mean they could probably fit a couple more into the EA area without crowding it too much, and I suppose the rest would have to be added on the next leg of the main quest since that seems like it's the end of Act I.

As for the real life thing, I assumed they meant in a roleplaying group because otherwise yes, you're quite right, that's not how it works at all

I'm working under the assumption that we have met all five of the Origins characters, but there are still several more companions that we can recruit in later chapters, who lack the Mindflayer Tadpole Background.

I don't think there is any decent reason to kill companion after act1. Why should we commit to a definitive party? isn't that just an arbitrary limitation?

I'm okay with the idea of committing to the party after Act 1, although it's going to be interesting to see how Larian manages to cram all the companions into that one act without it seeming forced. There are several reasons why I think it will work well:

I just finished Wasteland 3 which adds new companion choices all the way through the game, even up to around 75% of the game being finished. By that halfway point, I've already settled into combat strategies for my companions and it's hard to integrate a new one as a replacement. Especially if they're auto-leveled to match the current party, which may be a mix of skills and attributes you wouldn't choose for them.

Again using Wasteland 3 as an example, and other games work like this too -- you sometimes get a side-quest as you move through the game that's designed around one of the companions. You ideally want that one in your party to get the full dialog and best outcome. This can mean re-hiring one you've dismissed just for that quest, then dismissing them again afterwards.

This feels incredibly "gamey." If we have to commit to the party at the end of Act 1, Larian can just block off all the quests for companions you're not using. We'll never see those awkward notices about "be sure to have Companion XXX in your party" when receiving a new quest notice. Any companion quests will be smoothly integrated for just your current party.

So I'm not against the idea, I'm just wondering if Act 1 is large enough to allow trying out all the companions so we can make a decision at the end. Of course it's easier if you go into the game with a fixed idea of the kind of party you want, like a classic D&D holy trinity or whatever. That makes it easier to decide.

Well, Shadowheart and Lae'zel could finally come to blows or have an argument and decide you have to choose between the two of them (Seriously, it's a pain just to get Shadowheart in the party oif Lae'zel's already there), and then Gale could stick with Shadowheart (Considering he started hitting on her in your first conversation) and Wyll could stick with Lae'zel on the basis of their idle dialogue - Wyll's the one person I've seen at least get some positive reaction from her while he was flirting with her. Choosing your companions doesn't have to be all doom and gloom!

I agree with the fact of having to commit to a party would be pretty lame. I also agree with there being no real reason for companions to die at the END of Act 1; however, I do feel like the tadpoles need to feel like more of a big deal in the game as of right now they just kinda feel like they are there and have no real purpose other than to give you special powers. To make them feel more threatening they should turn one of your companions and I feel like the end of Act 1 is the best time for it to do so. If this isn't the case perhaps if we do actually get them removed(idk if this happens yet, idc if you spoil it doesn't matter I am going find out sometime anyway) someone dies during the operation.

People dying triggers an emotional effect on people whether it being anger and forcing pursuit for vengeance for that person or sadness that you lost a friend, either way its good for story progression. I think this should be something the DM(Larian in this case) has control over and not us. We just are not allowed to lose character created people and only being able to lose companions. I do not have a great solution and of course we are all spit-balling opinions so this is mine.

I am totally fine with the fixed party after Act 1. So many RPGs that I have played have my character be the chosen one, a person with some authority and the companions are more or less under my command. But that's not like that here...

Hey OP, this is issue has indeed come up previously. I myself brought it up right after that Update. And I agree with you in how I see things too.

But the question that remains is whether we are going to have any companions available to join us after Act 1? That's where there is confusion at present. If all your companions are from Act 1, and then any of them you don't have in your party get killed, leaving you party-locked for the rest of the game, that would be terrible game design. OTOH, if it is just these current five that are being referred to in that quote, and you save three of them and the other two die, and then once you get into Act 2 you meet a bunch more companions that can join your party, that would be fine with me.

Ok, if they do this, now more than ever I want to see a larger party size, for obvious reasons

+1 on OP post btw. All the companions from the entire story crammed into the first act leaves little to look forward too in terms of character stories. This may just be a side effect of making every companion in the game a potential main character. A few "purist companions" that are only available as party additions would be great (like the Zariel touched Tiefling you meet and eithehr help or kill).

You can ask Shadowheart what she will do once the tadpole is removed and her answer is that she will go her own way and that she has people in Baldur's Gate.

Everyone in Act1 has things to do in Baldur's Gate. Even Auntie Ethel exchanges letters with people in the city. Baldur's Gate is clearly act 2 of the game.

My guess is that the "commit" post Act 1 is in regards to approval. Once the tadpole is dealt with, companions don't necessarily have reasons to stick with you unless they are your friend now (approval at medium+).

Also, I don't think the EA has all of act 1. Larian act concept is narrative based.

DOS1 act 1 is helping Cyseal against Braccus Rex, act 2 is investigating the forest and act 3 was getting to the final boss.
DOS2 act 1 is escape Fort Joy island, act 2 is awakening your powers (Reaper's Cost + Nameless Isle), act 3 is getting to the final boss.
BG3 act 1 is "remove the tadpole"...which can't be completed in the EA.

I recall bringing this up on Reddit and it is definitely odd. They are basically half way there to having the same party system Dragon Age Origins had, complete with camp where you can chat up all recruitable members. I sincerely hope they either expand party size, allow us to keep all recruitable companions, or both (both? both is good), but who knows what Larian has planned (or can accomplish) for this besides Larian.

I feel like the way they handled companions in DOS2 was Larian's most stupid mistake, and based on what I read here I really fear they are on the way to making it again.

in a nutshell - it's like Larian forcefully tried to fix something that isn't broken.

this massage contains major spoilers for Divinity Original Sin 2

ever since throne of bhaal companions have their camp (ebon hawk, Normandy, etc) and you can go back, talk to them and take them to quests. It is a perfectly fine system that allows you flexibility with your party composition. But Larian for some stupid unknown reason decided that they kill all the companions that you didn't choose at the end of act 1 in DOS2. this could have been the end of it, but even narratively it failed miserably, since at the end of act 3 they return to fight you as skeletons. I can't stress how stupid this decision seems to me. why not keep them until the ending of act 3, and have the same conversation you have with the other companions (about whether they are gonna let you ascend)? It would have been perfect, since if you ignored them and left them on the ship for two acts they would fight you and if you cared for them they would side with you. The only reason I heard for this decision was "consequences", and I'm not convinced, since it is a super lame and cheep way to create artificial consequences, that require no effort from Larion.
BTW, if you play with mods and bring the whole party with you the game works exactly as I described.

The same is true for Bg3 - why create more than 5 companions if you plan to kill most of them off? it is just shooting yourself in the foot...

I agree with this sentiment. I am one of those people that rarely commits to a party, I like to mix things up every once in a while.

As for the 'realism' aspect: in my mind, it is fine if companions decide to hang out in camp every once in a while (to "rest" or whatever), while my PC heads out with a smaller group to do stuff. The companions back in camp still know what is going on and are up to date with the happenings ingame, it's not like they are ever out of the loop. They are just as much a part of it as the currently active companions in my group, and react to ingame events accordingly when you speak to them back at camp.

I am all for player choice when it comes to companions, as in: give the player the option to boot / kill / otherwise dismiss companions that are unwelcome, either before or after they have been recruited. That alone makes for good replay value, because according to how you roleplay, you will always end up with a different set of companions anyway. If certain ingame events force the death / betrayal / [insert other reason for leaving] of single companions throughout the game, or even prevent their recruitment (due to your race/alignment etc), then so be it. I am actually all for it, because that should also be allowed to be part of a roleplay story, especially if it is tied in to decisions you make as a player.
But making half the companions inaccessible all at once at a certain point in the game just because it was decreed we shouldn't realistically be allowed access to them, seems a bit weak, and for me, personally, diminishes the experience (also because, if I want to know their stories, I will be forced to take them in a future playthrough). Like in DOS2, it would leave a bit of a sour taste and have me wondering why I even bothered with the now-gone companions in the first place.

Yeah, it's a head-scratcher of a decision.

I hope they go for a solution where you can potentially lose some companions based on your choices but others might stay available for your entire quest due to other choices, so you at least have the opportunity to switch things up a bit, and maybe kill a party member or two if they get too uppity

That's an interesting point. If your party is locked in after Act 1, does that mean that however you treat your companions, they'll never leave the group because there are no longer any replacements?

Seems weird, but maybe DOS 2 worked that way too, I can't remember. There wasn't as much intra-party friction in that game.

If It is the "archer dudes" that I think your talking about, with all the fire and hyenas, there camp is already in ACT I
My Hint is thats its around the burning town

I don't think your companions could actually leave in D:OS2, they'd just fuck you over in the endgame if they didn't like you.
But D:OS2 also had the option to hire mercenary (custom) characters, at least for multiplayer, so I guess that's one way might allow us to fill any holes in the party

Oh! That's even worse! I've never played D:OS2 so this is news to me.

Not sure though, I played it multiplayer mostly.

The DOS2 endgame was about who got to ascend to Godhood, and it was made clear by the mid-game that only one in the party could do it. So there was a sort of background mechanic at work, where companions could secretly be working against you.

Idk I did not hate it in DOS2 (was a bit surprised tho).
The other BG games had so many that you could find all over the world that I went for the ones I wanted and left the rest to their faith. I never changed the party ones I had the companions I wanted.

Only games I ever changed party was dragon age and that was mostly for story reasons.

However, I did not like the 'hiring' of companions in DOS2. Those were really boring.

I would like the option of changing companions tho or finding some new ones after act 1. Hopefully ones you don't have to 'hire' like in DOS2.

I get that but shock value is never a good enough reason to do anything, deffinatly not repeatedly (which also makes it less shocking and thus just plain pointless).

4 char slots and chars who are unavailable after act 1 forces multiple play throughs to experience all char quests, the key word here is forces. Look at PF:K i could do all char quests and storylines in 1 play through even though they couldnt be part of the party at the same time due to size limitations. Also yes this was brought up before in a very long thread.

It could just be like others said, after act 1, we do start running into more characters in later Acts. And those aren't Origin characters. Maybe there's only enough cure to go around for 4 individuals at the end of Act 1 to go around and that's the reason you lock your party (which I still think there's more to go, why would they abruptly end it at Moonrise Tower?) I think that's the true end, then after you get out of there and maybe? cure yourself, the bigger picture of the story will come in to play.

But anyway, what IF after the end of Act 1, we're locked into these companions, and I down the line don't like the route their story is going. Not as a player, but as my character. What if I don't agree with their ideas and want to dismiss them? Am I stuck with a 3 person party and a boring mercenary at that point? If so, yuck.

I realize this is ALL speculation and we could meet other folks after Act 1 and hopefully will. I realize they can't say certain things due to plot spoilers and whatnot. So why even make the mention of locking your party in the first place? All it does is lead to threads like this.

Honestly it's not the only game where something like that happens. NWN2 or DA2 had the same thing if they did not like you. It mostly happens if you do not invest in their personal quest or generally make choices they don't like.

Another problem of committing to a set party in this game that doesn't come up in Divinity because of the way classes work is that you don't get to experience anywhere close to a wide variety of the available classes. Even ignoring the issue that a 4 person party severely limits viable party composition for a lot of players, at most you'll be able to experience 4 different playstyles and class quirks in one playthrough, which is a bummer because of the variety that the various classes offer. Plus from the point of view of someone who doesn't know D&D it's even worse because you won't get to see the full breadth of how classes play as they rise in level. Assuming act 1 ends with the characters at level 6-7, then you're just missing out on the opportunity to see how the majority of classes play at higher levels, making it harder for you to experiment and try riskier builds down the line.

The emphasis in act 1 is removing the tadpole. The emphasis in act 2 will be finding out why/who/what put them there in the first place. Maybe some of your companions are cool with just not having their skulls explode from the inside by a spaghetti of tentacles, while you and your selected group decide to figure out the what and why.

I really hope they don’t use the same twist that you have to fight your companions....post ceremorphesis or not....it was fun but not really that surprising in DoS2...Here it would just be a Larian trope. If they can write out the companions using some other plot device that makes sense, great.

What I really think that post is saying, is that all of your companions are found in Act 1, so when you leave, whomever you didn’t recruit is gone for good since there is no returning to that particular area.

I don't think is good or bad because of chock value. What I meant was that I did not mind it because at that point I was already invested in the party I had. Besides changing your party in DOS2 was not easy. There was no campfire or menu where they wait till you show up. they were all over ford joy. It simply did not matter to me at that point in act2.

Yeah but in those games you have a pretty good idea where things are headed with your companions before you get to the end-game. But it seemed, from what I was reading here, that in D:OS2 you got effectively blindsided. But regardless, it's a tangent and not really to the point of the thread.

Guys, I highly doubt that removing the tadpoles is "that easy".

My bet is... we won't get it removed until the end. Like look at Astarion's quest - he wants to kill Cazador, how could he possibly accomplish that without the tadpole in his head? And it's so damn clear that once we are in the city of Baldur's Gate that we will actually get to resolve that problem for our little vampire friend, Shadowheart also has something to do in the city, also what happens to Gale if we leave him behind? Especially considering his little personal problem.... Not every companion quest is as intrinsically tied to the tadpoles, like I said. You guys just think too simple. Don't take it as an insult either, please. There are all these little breadcrumbs spread all over the place that removing OUR specific tadpoles is gonna be real hard. To me it's at least clear that Larian is trying to step away from their own cliches. I could be wrong of course, but something tells me... that we just got to wait.

This is a neutral one for me. I'm going to tend to only a set party anyway. This is just going to eliminate the guilt I feel over leaving them waiting perpetually at camp.

I really, really don't like this and I've commented on it a couple of times already. Limitations to party should come from story reasons (like disagreements etc.), not handwaved "rocks fall, everyone dies" or the like. There are so many problems to this approach.

Yeah, my prediction is . . . tadpoles definitely not coming out at the end of Act 1.

I was fine with this in Divinity 2, because you can choose the class of every companion when you meet them and everyone stays really customizable until the end so you can balance your party however you wanted, but I'll be honest this is a terrible fucking idea for Baldur's Gate 3 with characters having predetermined classes. I can't get rid of Shadowheart at the end of Act 1 and be without a healer for the rest of the game, but I don't necessarily always need her with me all the time. If I fight a boss that uses antimagic field or is resistant to nonmagical attacks, I want to be able to switch out the characters rendered useless by the boss' abilities. I want to do sidequests with the characters I don't always use. I want to learn more about Wyll despite playing a warlock and not really having a use for him in my active party. This is an awful choice and I really hope Larian changes their mind about this.

If the party splits...
Then what happens with the characters not following the others? If it makes sense for all of them to pursue a similar path because of their condition then why split?
All of the charcters we have met so far suffer from the same 'condition'. If it made sense to team up in the first place then I do not see why the group should split

True, but it does solve one big problem in game design. It can eliminate running across quest triggers for companions you don't have in your party. They just don't exist, so you don't get into that mode where "Oh, I have to trade this one out for a while and pick up that other one to do this side quest."

That also means you're not seeing all the content in the game in one playthrough, but personally I don't mind. It's like the branching storyline in Witcher 2; you have to commit to one branch and will only see the alternate reality with a second play-through. I'd rather have this, than run across side quests I can't do because I don't have the right companions in my party.

If this is true then I wonder if Larian will really add more companions. There are only so many NPCs you can introduce in a single act.

They can set up a new camp and introduce new companions in Act 2. Someone not suffering from the 'condition' of the others would be interesting. They have all the time in the multiverse while the others have more urgent needs.
The most important thing seems to be that there is a reason for reducing party size. The fact that the whole Mindflayer problem creates a strong shared goal makes a split hard to explain.

Not to dwell on it too much, but I think in divinity original sin 2 it was very poorly executed, but the idea behind it was great and made sense with the narrative. here there is zero sense to it. unless we will discover there is a competition between True souls on some prize (which may be interesting and fitting with the Baldur's Gate saga, but still kinda lame after dos 2).

You get a set of glowing eyes and flying triangle then you can subjugate the other realms and they have to call you a god.

yeah forceing us to "Commit" seems lame, differant classes can fill differant roles. I'm already party swapping, my play through is on a fighter, and one time when I knew I'd be satging a "direct assault" I left astaeron at home to take Laz'eal as another fighter, because I knew her durability would be the better choice.

You're likely right, all the avenues for healing that we are provided with in EA turns out to be wild goose chases, after all. Party is going to be Sourcerers-eh I mean...Tadpolers? until the end-game

To me, the entire story of BG3 really stinks of BG2's Bhaals essence, or at least taking heavy inspirations from that... so it's the reason why I deducted that the resolution of the tadpole problem won't come until very late.. what makes me wonder though is: if people not using the powers at all will get some recognition for their restraint in the end? And how losing access to some of our companions will play out? It has to make some logical sense that I'm really not seeing as of now.

For example - in BG1/2, if your reputation was too high or too low, some companions would ditch you, or get so annoyed with you they'd attack you and obviously perish. You could let Viconia get slaughtered by the Flaming Fist enforcer, in BG2 you could let her die to the angry mob, like there were so many logical permutations of losing companions permanently. Hell,even in our BG3 EA you could straight up murder some of our current companions upon meeting them, or you could yeet them out of the group/camp by simply being angry that they kept some nasty secrets from you. For example: Astarion's vampirism, Shadow's Shar beliefs, Gale's timebomb, Wyll will get mad at us helping gobbos + we can be nasty about the source of his warlock powers, haven't really found a way to yeet Lae'zel once you recruit her tho... well, okay, there is a way if you use the tadpole powers.

Hmm, actually, now that I think of the logic behind losing some of our companions... the ones we didn't commit to... well, onboard of the nautiloid there was this pod with Kelly Chambers (Mass Effect 2 reference - but that chick does look a lot like Kelly..) going through an instant ceremorphosis upon the use of the lever... and since all the breadcrumbs lead to the Moonrise Towers being the seat of who/whatever is responsible for our tadpoles being dormant, maaaaaaaaaaybe, and it's a big stretch, but maybe that thing (let's call it the Absolute, since it's how it's referred to in the game) will be so displeased with us not submitting to their will that they lash out at us and do an instant ceremorphosis on those who aren't in our current party? Maybe I am reading too much into this, I dunno. Maybe I am entirely wrong and we get to lose the taddies at the end of act 1. Also, I like the term 'tadpolers'.

I get what you are saying and it's not even a terrible story bit, the problem is with how cheep and arbitrary it is, not to mention a repeat of the terrible choice from dos2. It is just bad writing barely concealing a bad game design choice. Larian just arbitrarily decided they don't want you to have more than X companions ( I really don't get why. It's such a silly decision to invest so much in so many companions only to get rid of them after third of the game) so they pull some bullshit story reasons for it. Same old same old.

hey all! - new here and been reading thru the forum discussions. i had posted the below in another similar thread but wanted to also add those thoughts here for consideration...

'having your available origin companions 'lock' after a certain point in of itself i dont necessarily think is a bad thing, i just dont think the way larian is planning on implementing it is the best approach ie. locking in the party at the end of Act 1

(as an aside - i also dont think im a fan of 'act maps' - i would like being able to travel back to the druid grove or ruins after i have progressed the story a bit if i missed somethings initially, in the og bg among the seven chapters you could explore the world as you wanted [solo, or with any number of party slots filled, including 4/6 or 6/6] with some time sensitive plot points true, but overall you could make and take the story at your own pace, further cementing it as a story about your pc. having act maps seems just another odd system design limiting character choice and agency - unless there is a strong story/plot element, which frankly, im not really getting with the ea play so far as (spoilers) it seems you either decimate the druids or goblins and go from there but i may be mistaken. while i think the tadpole plot is a interesting dynamic to explore, i dont necessarily feel all that special if all my recruitable act 1 companions and multiple other npcs also have the tadpoles and makes me see the pc currently just as just another guy. furthermore, and maybe i may just not have run into this yet in ea, but if we are so concerned about this tadpole eating our brain why are we able to cheese long rests?...just some tangential rambling)

if they still want to lock the companions i actually think larian would be better served implementing a party lock later on during the story as the first act seems too soon in the narrative in that we wont be able to really explore these origin characters larian spent so much time/resources to create to make an informed decision as to what we want our party to be like for the remaining acts, especially when it sounds like the origin stories really wont be explored until we get to BG. Personally, i think for inspiration larian should look more towards how character choice impacted the party and gameplay as it was done in ME/ME2 or some other rpgs (currently locking after Act1 feels very dos2 - hesitant to say that, bc while i enjoyed dos2 i felt that feature was one of the weaker points).

idk if this is taboo to talk about, but specifically for ME/ME2, you were given the chance to learn and work more with your companions (while also recruiting a good number of them over the course of the whole game) to build that rapport that would give more weight/impact to tough decisions you made more towards the ends of the game. also, i think its just another odd game decision to lock your origin companions so early when larian expounds on how much effort/resources are put into creating these characters only for us to essentially lock us out part of the story early on - idk, seems like not the best use of resources, but thats just my interpretation. and while i understand some ppl may say its for replayability, i just dont see that connection as you could still choose to hold off on any origin character content you didnt want to experience until future playthroughs with out mandating that players have to essentially opt out of certain gameplay. and frankly if i want to do another playthrough id say is more bc i want to fire up a new player character and that trying new origin companion content should just be supplemental to a new player character play through at that point, but i also think that the concept of an origin character in of itself doesnt really mesh well with a bg game where the player created character is supposed to shine as the star. to add to that, i dont necessarily feel all that connected to these origin characters when they just sit back and let a mind flayer eat my brain, but thats another topical discussion (and for those of you who say that you didnt have a pc in ME you had shep, while true, it was also your own shep whose backstory, gender, look, and decisions you decided on during the game. added benefit that shep had their own VO also makes me wish this was a feature implemented in bg3 - kinda a let down to almost never hear the pc's actually voice selection during dialogue)

tbh, the more i play the more i scratch my head on how the systems in this bg game seem to limit player agency/choice more than give us options (ie limiting the party after act1/no optional party size, limitations in character creation options - ex. full customization options regardless & y no alignment? [unless your a cleric?? and i cant be an evil elven cleric of the archeart that pulls some Altmer elder scrolls inspiration?], no current choice to roll for stats or selecting standard array/point buy. optional first level feat, the option to just leave or attack for every dialogue encounter, choosing starting equipment - all these would increase player choice, and i get some of these will likely be covered by mods, but i think letting larian know there is a demand/market for such functions will only work to improve the game)

just my thoughts - thx!'

Yes, I agree. I also want to keep them all and don't get these design decisions really. All I was doing was pure speculation, I also hated that you lose companions in DOS2 as well and how it was executed, bad game design. And I agree, it's cheap and arbitrary. Just like you, I see absolutely no reason to kill off nearly half of our group in some weird catastrophe. Like I want Larian to be original in their writing, to not repeat the same tropes that they love to do.. like for example: starting stranded on a beach after the ''ship'' got ''wrecked'', like literally it's the beginning of all their modern games published in the last 10 years, Dos1? Start on a beach, Dos2? Beach again. BG3? Oh wait, yea, totally a beach again. I get it, it's their 'new signature' just like the Elder Scrolls series always start with you being a prisoner, at least since Morrowind (or was already in Daggerfall? Never played the first 2 TES games so I don't know and can't be arsed googling it). And I'm hoping Larian will break their tendencies in story writing, take a risk basically, instead of sitting in their 'comfort zone'.

I have read somewhere that WotC wanted Larian to abandon the alignment system for this game. Strange

Locking the party will mean you will have to do multiple runs to explore all origin stories. Also, if you pick the warlock guy you will have to go without one of the 4 standard roles through the entire game, which is sub-optimal. Gale/Shadowheart/LAE'ZEL/Astarion provide a well balanced party. Replacing one of them with a warlock make it less ideal.

I have a feeling the tadpoles will be with us throughout the game. I just posted this text from BG3's Steam Store page on another thread for a different reason, but look closely at what they're saying here:



Maybe they're talking just about Act 1 there, but it sounds like they're describing the main plot driver; whether you go to the Dark Side or the Light Side of the tadpole powers you've been given. It's not a bad plot mechanic.

It's true, the whole "dreams calling you to a promise of power" is straight out of Baldur's Gate 1 and 2. YMMW but I feel like it's a decent enough callback, though I'm a bit worried that BG 3 is going to suffer a fair bit from recycling of concepts from D:OS2 as well, making it seem too much like they're just mashing old Divinity and BG bits together instead of creating something original.

Considering that you need to rest inbetween every dialogue use of the tadpole I never used it much and as such triggered the later content so late in my playthrough that I never got to use it. I think if Larian wants us to play with the tadpole powers they should remove/relax the resting requirement (or give us more reason to rest).
As for your read on what happens at Moonrise Towers, it sounds like a pretty good guess



I look forward to when the game lore will inform my character of this potential for Ultimate Evil (I assume it comes with Ultimate Power, too)

ya ive heard that too and i agree that it is strange and i dont really understand the rationale or the decision dynamic behind it, as in if it was a firm decision by wotc? tbh i just dont agree with removing alignment, but i also think alignment could be revamped (id prefer selfish v selfless instead of evil v good, but thats just me).

i feel like this and the party locking after Act1 are examples of what i has been mixed messaging from larian regarding their vision for the game as bg3. like, you want to remove the alignment system, but also want to preload EA with all 'evil' characters and encourage us to have an 'evil' playthrough so you can collect 'data' - i feel like those two perspectives dont reconcile? and if we are removing alignment, then why are there still good/neutral/evil cleric tags? i think adding alignment as part of the tagging system (which i also think should be heavily expanded on to include things like alignment, background/profession, hometown, diety for all characters, maybe some pc specific past decision tags that would impact your playthrough - like DAorigins origin stories etc.) would only work to immerse yourself more in the world and your player character and enhance your playthrough experience. as it stands now i feel like the player character is really underwhelming compared to the origin characters (which i am seeing more and more now as dmpcs not npcs) who we will need to decide after one act whether we want to carry the rest of the way (before we even reach the city that is the games namesake where these origin stories are really supposed to pick up) - just my thoughts

i want to be able to gather my party before venturing forth - and having limitations on who and when i can select companions for my party seems overly restrictive. that being said, larian very well could have solutions or additional content post ea that compensates or builds on our act 1 decisions, but as it stands now we will just have to wait and see

I think that your conversations with the Hooded Skeleton, who later turns up in camp to provide resurrection services, offer pretty heavy foreshadowing. He wants to know what value the PC places on a mortal life and if the PC says it depends on the life wonders on what basis you will choose. To me that suggests that the player will be making significant judgments, possibly concerning which companions survive, perhaps in another context (the new Jergal?)

I'm personally OK with not all companions surviving the first act, since I really dislike having unused companions sitting around waiting for me to call on them. Never knowing whether the entire camp will need to rally to an effort like the defense of Denerim, I feel like they need to be equipped, carry healing potions, and have their skills leveled, even if I'm not actively using them. Since reputation matters, I also need to chat them up. On the other hand I don't want to discover too late that I no longer have access to a needed skill set (for instance will my ranger continue to provide more or less adequate lock-picking). To me, having a bit of party turnover (as companions die, decide they don't like you, or just have agendas they want to pursue on their own once the tadpole issue is resolved), seems entirely natural. Meeting possible new companions in Baldur's Gate is something to look forward to. Being forced to group with companions your character might not normally choose after the crash is true to the situation, and I consider the first act companions to be well enough designed that having to rely on them isn't really a hardship.

Having now played a bit of the game, I still think six companions would be too many--a balancing and pathing problem--but five might be nice.

Oh yes, it's one of the reasons I made now 2 characters that entirely reject the tadpole and never use it. Never. I did reload an earlier save just to see how all these dream sequences play out and how heartbreaking it is that because of the PC deciding to bypass an encounter with the tadpole mind control the entire party suffers. I get it, but I don't like it, which is why come full release I won't ever use the tadpole options. Also, I hate how there is absolutely 0 recognition in the game as of now when it comes to our restraint. 0. No dreams, nothing. In BG1/2 all the dreams varied on your reputation/alignment. I do hope Larian will rectify that. Like we don't need to get all these enticing dreams promising us power that we get if we use the tadpole, but give us SOMETHING.



What I don't like, and I have said/written it quite a lot of times (and I hate repeating myself) is that there needs to be more permutations of these dreams. You use the tadpole, you get a dream. You don't use the tadpole, you get no dreams, like what?! Give us dreams too, goddammit! Clearly different ones than you get when you let yourself be corrupted. But there has to be something, I understand why you get special tadpole powers and whatnot when you use the thing, those of us that reject the thing don't need any extra powers, just give us something. Anything.

As to resting triggering some extra content, you have no idea how that irritates me. BG1 had a crapload of flaws, but the fact that you got your dreams after finishing certain main story quests was a good design. I also hate how many companion cutscenes are just completely skippable or you have to go through a lot of extra hoops and effort to get them. Legit, I'm at the end of my 2nd playthough and I still have not had the Weave scene trigger with Gale, like wot m8? I feed you magic man. Imho I guess it's what EA is for, for feedback on these things (and I swear, once I'm done with this playthough I am legit gonna write a book of a feedback of things like that that need improvement asap + bugs). But basically, some of the camp cutscenes should be directly tied as to what you do and how long you hang out with certain party members. I hate the 'timed missions' and 'timed content in games' but in the case of BG3 it might be the only solution.



Speaking of the hooded skeleton guy, well. If you play a cleric, you can actually 'detect' that he's got a crapload of divine power oozing out of him and you can actually question him about it. Obviously, he's dodging the questions pretty well, but basically the conclusion was that he was some sort of chosen of Jergal. Also, I have not had this same line trigger on my wizard.. so it's very class specific. Also, that line of questioning him is locked behind an absurdly high skill check, which took me 10mins of save scumming to actually get him to speak about it.

I personally would prefer to keep all companions, but I won't be complaining too much if there is a good story reason behind it. I dunno, like them deciding to swap sides and backstab us maybe? Eh, as long as it's properly written. But yes, 5 companions would be nice...

Kevin Vanord has mentioned on Twitch that this "decision" is far from being set in stone when I mentioned it in his chat, so let's keep that debate alive!

not really, WOTC's been moving away from alignment for awhile now, 4th edition tried to (nonsensicly) shave off several alignments, and while 5E keeps alignments it really feels like something just there to appease old time fans given absolutely nothing in the game triggers off alignment anymore (detect evil, smite evil etc now are about he subtype not the alignment)

Alignments have been such a huge part of D&D to the point of people applying them to their real life personalities as well. Its a very strange decision to have fully removed them, as opposed to having a shifting good / evil and law / chaos axis that changes based on your decisions.

dont those subtypes have alignments tho? i think you should play/dm whatever works for your group, but i think the inclusion of selecting an alignment (and being unaligned) in 5e isnt in itself a bad game system, its just how/if you use it as part of your gane, and relating back to bg3 i think it would only work to improve the game if alignment was more fleshed out as i think only clerics (and i would assume paladins at the minimum on launch) really have any related alignment gameplay mechanics so far in ea? idk, i may have missed that part of the ea content.

i like alignments as i feel it gives players more character options and story ideas, and the more player agency the better imo, but i also dont know if 30 counts as being an old time fan so i could be in the minority here

There is nothing WotC or Larian can do to keep players from playing THEIR game THEIR way. So if someone wants to play the game with alignments, they can. Even without the labels, one can identify certain actions as good and others as evil. So, for example, I don't need Larian to tell me Shadowheart is evil. If I as the player find her to be evil, then she is evil. All that matters is whether Larian has set up biased roadblocks within the game to try and prevent me from treating Shadowheart as evil.

The decision to abandon alignment or the one to make the party permanent?

Right now I'm still wondering how any of this will work with a Paladin. Even if they add "good" characters later a Paladins rigidity can piss off just about anybody at different times. What if you piss off companions enough for them to want to leave the party after ACT 1? .. Or are they just going to remove that possibility all together taking any of those types of fun consequences away from us?

lol, sry this just reminded me of the anakin quote from episode three

i actually dont think i disagree with your overall sentiment - i just think that alignment should be a working function of a bg3 game based on 5e. if larian includes/improves it where it impacts the gameplay in a meaningful way that, as you said doesnt set up biased roadblocks within the game preventing you from treating SH as evil, i think it will be real successful - i just want to see it first.

Alignment has virtually no rules in 5th edition. It is barely a thing at all. There are no spells or abilities that have anything to do with alignment, and there are a tiny handful of legendary items that can change your alignment. Outside of those, alignment has been functionally removed from D&D.

Now it is more a feature of the lore than anything else.

This is one of the things that concerns me. Also, Heraclea has a historical tendency throughout these games to prefer an all female party. She is willing to forego or tolerate a wide variety of ethical perspectives to achieve this makeup. Right now. since I rolled a cleric PC, Shadowheart is redundant, and worse, there are only male NPCs to fulfil the 'mage' and 'rogue' roles in the party. Would very much like to see female characters be able to take on those roles even if they aren't in the first chapter.

What do you consider biased roadblocks? Characters shouldn't act only of their alignment. If Shadowheart does good things and likes if you are nice in some situations, this to me makes her have more depth. Same thing with a good character, they should have moments where they aren't so nice. None of this should prevent you from forming an opinion about any character and treating them accordingly but it should make you think a bit.

I am kind of glad they are not obsessing over alignment and wish they would take out the cleric tag for it as well. A lot of players jump to instant conclusions about a character once they find out the alignment and this is just stupid. Even players often limit themselves to acting only within a certain alignment if forced to pick at character selection instead of freely doing whatever they feel is right at the time.

At best alingments could be a starting point for a character. but you can't arbitrarily decide what a character is. is a baby goblin has to be evil? and what if he was raised in a Paladin Tample? what about characters like Jaime Lennister or Theon Grayjoy? Does a baby who was raised by Shar but never got out to the world, and only now learns of its complexities cannot be redeemed and must automatically be killed by a band of Paladin irrespective of his actual deeds? how does it make the Paladins good, and not a bunch of fanatic zealots?
totally agree. I'm sure there are characters who are unambiguously evil or good (after some time with BG3 I can safely say Astarion), but some characters have potential to change and grow.

final question - is Darth Vader Evil? and if he is, was he evil as a boy, and more importantly, was he evil when he killed the emparor?

In my book Astarion isn't awfully evil tho, it totally depends on how you treat him, like how can you explain my ''good'' cleric having ''very high'' approval with him despite doing all the ''goody-two-shoe'' things and my wizard is ''exceptional'' with all - Astarion, Shadow and Wyll. And again I went the ''goody-two-shoe'' route with a bit more chaotic/neutral options thrown in. Obviously if you treat Astarion like a monster, he will become one. So I can already foresee a ton of topics like these getting derailed into discussing finer points of moralities of our ''supporting'' cast. I think Larian did a great job at creating these types of polarizing characters. It will keep the game and forums alive for years to come.

As to Darth Vader, no, when he was Anakin Skywalker he was just a child, an innocent child who's lost too much at certain point. A child born into slavery basically, so he knew how bad it would get. Then the Emperor was slowly spinning his web of dark seduction to him, Emperor was the one responsible for the visions Anakin got of his mother in peril, and he acted out on that, what was the first strand towards falling into the clutches of the dark side. Then he got visions about Padme dying, but what he didn't realize was that he'd be the one who was responsible for that. She, quite poetically, died of heartbreak, she refused to live beyond giving birth to her children. When Anakin was the Darth Vader, he was truly evil, but meeting his son and stopping the Emperor from killing his last link to Amidala, was born out of love, which made him swap again from evil to good. Mind you, when he was evil, he thought he had lost everything, since the Emperor lied to him the entire time. So, basically, yes and no. Anakin has been both good and evil throughout his life. Just as any person is capable of both. Also, as you might've guessed - I love redemption stories.

Edit: Broken freaking quotes lol.

Maybe the party is only going to be locked in for Moonrise Towers as it has been for Spellhold and and you'll meet the others again in Baldur's Gates or something? If you had to sacrifice them that would really kinda suck (well except for Lae'zal I could sacrifice her anytime I guess)

That would make sense, yes. Kinda forgot you couldn't swap out party members at Spellhold (I never tried doing that anyway).

A very long way to prove my point - it's more complicated than simply putting characters into categories

The alignment system really only worked for the Pen and Paper, and I would like it if Larian left it out for a system more rooted in the real world. I mean everybody generally falls in the same category, where he is "good" and abides to the rules until the conditions make him break out of it. Some just do it earlier than others. People living totally outside of the social norms are really rare.

As far as the permanent party I do not know. I mean they have this camp mechanic, where most interactions happen, similar to the Normandy in Mass Effect or the campsite in Dragon Age, so it makes little sense to just remove a significant portion of the NPCs and therefore interactions.
It also narrows the possible choices for the casual players, that have not extensive knowledge of the game mechanics, so they will just stick to the basic with no experiments. So rogue, fighter, cleric, caster (most likely the mage). So the hybrids and specialists are most likely to be left out.
Now what I find more likely is that certain origin characters drop out, for whatever reason they come up with. And I would not mind that at all, since all of them are so edgy and have a story to tell that makes me roll my eyes constantly. I bet they all are the Chosen One in some way. I would very much rather have "normal" people as my companions. Mercenaries, wandering minstrels, a ranger trying to slay evil, and so forth. Stories attached to the real world and therefore drawing their personality instead of secret heirs to thrones, possessed by a demon, vampire lord or whatelse they dream up. These are not really deep characters, they are just shallow characters with a main quest attached, like any PC.
So if two of them are gone, I would not mind, as long as I get other people to join me, that I can phase in and out and try new builds on. I am also not a fan of replayability through locking content, I do more playthroughs with often the same character where the general playthrough only changes in nuances. I very much more like the game making me sink 80 hours in one playthrough, than making me spend 40 hours in two playthroughs.

Eh, if you tried really hard you could put Anakin into lawful good and Darth Vader into lawful evil categories tho. Your idea that the alignment system is stupid is a bit overreaching? You can make all the alignments as nuanced or shallow as you want. It's up to you as a player. What I personally hated about the original BG1/2 is that your alignment could only switch to evil, never from neutral or evil to good (without mods anyway). Now that was unrealistic. Like in my opinion, NWN1/2 had it perfect. You pick an alignment, but the actions you took could heavily change it. You could realistically speaking start with a paladin, murder innocents, become one greedy chaotic force of evil and your alignment would reflect that over time. Or you could play a rogue who becomes an assassin (in D&D 3-3.5e assassins could only be taken by evil alignments btw) and then have a change of heart and slowly become good. The possibilities were endless.

It's that type of alignment people want and I agree with them. Anyone and everyone is capable of change, for good or bad. But I also recall you saying in this topic or in another one that you never really played much D&D, so I can understand why the entire idea is so alien to you and you dislike it. But truth be told? It's not as restrictive as you think it is.

I have nothing against alignments if it is the way you describe it. But I've seen in a lot of places how people don't intend to play it in the way you describe, but in the opposite way - a player who is lawful good will never take shadowheart simply because she is a priestess of Shar. It doesn't matter to him what she says and does, from his lawful good perspective she is evil period

Like I said, it's all up for interpretation. Some people don't really roleplay but metagame, so they come into conclusion long before they give a character a chance. Technically speaking, from the get go they don't know that Shadowheart is a cleric of Shar, that's a revelation that comes later. They don't know whether or not she's evil (and I say fuck those character tags 'evil cleric' pfft), now after she comes clean it would a roleplaying moment to either stick to the 'lawful good purge all evil shtick' (commonly referred as 'lawful stupid' btw.) or give her a chance, and make it your life's mission to influence her away from the darkness.

People who don't take characters into their group cause 'oh no, Astarion is a vamp spawn/tried to knife me, therefore he is evil' or 'Shadowheart follows Shar, therefore she must be evil' are either ignorant, or choose to role play their characters in a shallow way and I say let them. It's a video game after all. I'm totally not affected by the way other people are playing it, am I now?

PS: Btw. on final release I honestly would take Shadowheart over Lae'zel, even though I always play lawful/neutral/chaotic good (I'm one of those players willing to give others the benefit of the doubt, you don't 'defeat' evil by murdering all you perceive as evil on sight, you try to reason with it make it see the error of it's ways - at least it's how I love playing it). I just really don't like Lae'zel's personality, like I will recruit her but she's just gonna be a standing statue at my camp, part of the scenery. Of all the characters, she's got the least amount of layers honestly. I understand why she's the way she is, but I don't like her regardless. She's just a well written githyanki through and through.

yeah alright I agree with everything you said

Yes I agree. It is no longer a feature in the rules because it is left up to DMs and players to determine them. But in D&D/FR lore it is very much still a thing, and justifiably so. And a video game like BG3 is not just about the rules and mechanics but also about the lore. And Swen has repeatedly said BG3 will be faithful to FR lore.

Actually I agree with this. But at the same time the game should also honor FR lore, and specifically in this case lore about Shar. Choosing to be a priestess of a god and faithfully following that god's dictates is not some casual thing a person takes on for themselves. It says something fundamental about a person. It's not in the same category as behaviors like choosing to pet a puppy or kick a beggar.

In SH's case, yes. Because being a priestess of an evil god is not something casually done. Becoming a priestess is the result of some deepseated commitment you have made to that god, which includes fully accepting that god's ways, and you have spent years building yourself up in that role. So yes, someone says they are a priestess of Shar, I would absolutely write them off. If someone kicks a beggar, however, I would not write them off as evil and will instead look for ways to get them to behave differently. There are clear qualitative differences.

Way to kill your credibility. Anyone who doesn't do things your way is ignorant and shallow. What a load of bull.

I might've worded it better, english being about my 4th language learned. But still, it's up to the person to roleplay how they see fit, I'm not here to pass judgement on people 'not doing things my way', hell it wasn't even the intention of my post, but it also shows quite a bit of your character that you grasp at anything possibly perceived as negative/offensive to try to insult someone. All I was doing was trying to explain it to Abits that there are different ways of playing with alignments, more nuanced or less so.

To me, murdering people in games, for the sake of 'goodness' is still murder. Whenever I play D&D games I like to think things through (like 'what would my character do in this situation?') and I do my best to try to talk my way out of difficulties rather than attack on sight (that's what zealots do), or in case of characters like Astarion/Shadowheart give them the benefit of doubt.

You, as the player, know that Astarion is a vamp spawn or that Shadow is a priestess of Shar, but your character doesn't. Astarion doesn't introduce himself as 'hi there, I'm Astarion, a vamp spawn and I'd like to suck your blood' or Shadow doesn't say 'I'm Shadowheart, priestess of Shar' it's up to your character to figure that out. Altho, I still think the name 'Shadowheart' is such a stupid name. And on top of that, she doesn't really act like a classic priestess of Shar, you can tell she's quite conflicted inside. My prediction is, if you let her live and don't murder or toss her away for being a Shar priestess, that she might somewhere down the line be swayed to the light.

from the way she intreduces herself I'm pretty sure it's not her real name. The game itself heavily implies it when it let you have the dialog option "what is this name".

about alignments and shit - I stand by what I said before, It might be a very good system if we are starting a game and want to summarise what a character did before. but once the game starts it is kinda hard to predict what will happen to a character. By the way I agree with you about what you said about BG not enabling players the option to start bad and become good, while to opposite is possible.

Oh yes, if I recall correctly, Shar's priests go through some weird rite giving them amnesia, but they usually do it when they get old and senile, they give up their memories to Shar. So it could be the reason why she might've entirely forgotten herself, name included. What puzzles me, is that Shadowheart seems to be a too young to have gone through that particular rite. Maybe she knew too much? I dunno.

She says Shar is her mother but It doesn't seem like she means it figuratively. She says "she took me in". it could be figurative but I'm not 100% sure. perhaps she was adopted into a tample or something like that

I always assumed it was figuratively, her being an urchin makes sense that some Shar clergy saw the potential in her and took her in. Also, in FR lore, there was that sect that thought that Selune and Shar are just two sides of the same goddess, two sides of the same coin. I wonder if that will play some part in the story. Especially with the temple of Selune being abandoned... and there are quite a lot of texts pointing that Selune's clergy has gone weird some time before our main characters capture by the mind flayers.

Personally, I was never so disappointed in a game as when I discovered half of my party was gone in DOS2. Just like that.
Even if I'm going to replay the game no matter what, I find really annoying to cut half of your party just to "force" you to replay. Maybe I have not the time to play an 80+ hours game more than once or maybe I just like to explore the personal quest of all my companions with the same character.
I understand that Larian can't please everyone, so my preferences are inconsequential. At least I hope they are going to make the separation from half of your party sensible and credible, not like in DOS2.

For example, in the first Mass Effect, you need to choose between Kaidan and Ashley. It breaks my heart every single time but at least is a good scene, not just a message "You are changing zone, are you sure you want to keep this party? You may not be able to change it for a while".

Considering the events of the day with an abduction by mindflayers and a little trip to avernus? My character is really not in the mood to give anyone the benefit of the doubt.
My mage has studied the arcane and the various gods and their symbols. Why would it be metagaming for him to recognize the sharran symbolism on Shadowhearts armor?

fair enough. it's called roleplaying for a reason I guess.

You can choose to play the suspicious type of person, all the more power to you. You are free to play however you wish. All I said was my reasoning behind my decisions. But to be honest, there should be some arcane/religion/other skill checks to figure out Shadowheart, Astarion and Wyll (mkay in Wyll's case if you are playing a warlock yourself you can confront him about it) long before they open their mouths about their secrets.

I think this is more a problem of marketing and the origin character concept than a problem with the game itself. In the game itself all these details about our companions played out like some mystery that gets revealed as the game progresses (true for all the companions, but especially true in the case of shadowheart, Wyll and Astarion). But the marketing spoiled them completely and when the game treats these revelations as big surprises it's just jarring

I'm fine with the party being set in stone, somewhat as if it was an actual tabletop campaign (with players you can count on). It will be a difficult choice but I don't mind it at all.

i dont want to make the alignment discussion derail op's original intent for this thread - i actually am not opposed to a more permanent 6person party after the first act, im just concerned with how larian is going to pull it off and want to provide feedback as part of ea (ex. i hope they draw more inspiration from ME1&2 than dos2 for this specific topic) - but there is actually what i find to be a pretty good u tube video by Web DM about alignment in 5e (Nov. 1,2017) that ppl may find interesting via a quick web search (id post the link but being new to the forums i dont want to break any rules...yet ). the vid is ~27min but i think their discussion hits on alot of the points also made here about alignment's place and function in a dnd game and wanted to share for any interested.

Seriously? You insulted people like me as ignorant and shallow, and then you want to try and turn it around on me? I have said nothing to insult you. In fact, I have gone the extra mile to not insult you. In an earlier post you said that redemption stories are your thing. I consider redemption stories to be the silliest of RPG tropes. Furthermore, I believe some things that you do (like pledging yourself to a god like Shar) are so terrible that they make you ineligible for any sort of redemption. Nevertheless, at no point did I attack or insult you for having your preference for redemption stories. Because that's just not my way. You should play your game in whatever way makes you happy, redemption stories and all. As should I. So don't try and turn this on me. You are the one who insulted anyone who decides they want to role-play good-alignment as it has long been defined in D&D history and FR lore.

As for these specific characters, I have never said I would react a certain way based on meta knowledge. I have actually posted in several threads against role-playing based on meta knowledge. So if, upon first meeting any of these characters, I don't have enough information to identify what they are, I will just keep role-playing my very good aligned character. But, and specifically in SH's case, the moment I do find out she's a Sharan, I'm done with her at that point (unless she renounces Shar right then and there). By contrast, I can see myself being willing to keep open a relationship with the likes of Astarion and Lae'zal until such time as my exclusively good actions come into conflict with them, because I would be open to seeing exactly what kind of vampire/githyanki they are (the good kind, perhaps?). But someone who says she stands by Shar? No benefit of the doubt can be extended to such a person.

"You are the one who insulted anyone who decides they want to role-play good-alignment as it has long been defined in D&D history and FR lore."

Just nope. Ever heard of nuance? It's easy to write a paladin of Tyr for example, it's hard to write a fleshed out one, their reasoning as to why they follow Tyr (why not Helm? Torm? Illmater?), their struggles, their past, their family situation. What could possibly corrupt such a person? Take a look at Aribeth de Tylmarande from NWN, in base game she was an alright paladin but seemed to have fallen to darkness too easily, that's an example of bad writing, but the expansion HotU seems to have fleshed out her fall out of grace. Also your line of thinking about alignment is a bit too rigid. There are so many ways to interpret different situations.

''You insulted people like me as ignorant and shallow, and then you want to try and turn it around on me?''

I'm not the one who immediately went ahead and snapped on a complete stranger because of two simple words that were given as an example. But ...if out of my entire post about different ways of roleplaying the only bad thing you seem to have cherry picked is ''shallow and ignorant" and your feelings got hurt because of it, then I'm sorry, like I wrote earlier: I didn't mean to offend anyone by that. But don't pretend that you didn't try to insult me by calling my line of thinking 'an utter bull', I understand, I unknowingly offended you and you lashed out, it's fine. But a little advice for the future: don't be so easily offended by what someone across the globe writes about something you both enjoy. Different cultures, different ways of expressing one's thoughts. Also, if I expected anyone to get offended over something, it'd be the 'lawful stupid' line.

You don't like my 'naive and nice to everyone' way of playing, you don't like 'redemption stories' either, that's totally fine by me. I don't enjoy playing an overzealous character who's ready to dump/murder someone unless they renounce their ways. We're different people, different playstyles. Also, the only way I would justify doing what you'd do to Shadow is if I played a cleric of Selune (obviously Shadow would clash with that character eventually) or a paladin. But something like a chaotic good sorcerer or a neutral good wizard, I really don't think they'd care as much and would be willing to give her the benefit of doubt, they might judge her negatively or distrust her, sure, I think they don't really care as much for the "petty" squabbles between gods. Ooh, also I heard that if you play cleric of Selune and keep Shadow around, you might actually get Shadow to hate Selunians less and slowly change her outlook. So I dunno, you do you boo.

As much as we may disagree, I think it's time we'd agree to disagree... and agree to one thing: we should stop derailing this topic further.

I read the post by Larian differently than the interpretation I see in this and another, similar thread: 'During act 1 you can switch companions out without consequences. After act 1 you will have to commit to the character(s) you want to romance, just like in real life.

After all, in real life, there is only one person you normally commit to, right? Your significant other. Or significant others, if you are polyamorous.

This interpretation of the quote has a strong analogy with BG2, where most of the romances would be broken off if you kicked a character with an active romance out of the party.


It is quite possible that the other interpretations suggested in this and the other thread are correct - such as the risk of your non-party companions being lever-transformed into mind flayers, but I would have expected Larian to word the reply differently, if that were the case. If the party limit were to be enforced by the companions no longer being available, I'd not have worded that as ' you have to commit' but as 'your options may be limited at some point', for instance.

That is however not what was asked, and not what was answered. There was no mention of romance or relationship - just if we can freely switch our party composition, and according to the dev just like in D:OS2 it will be possible only in act1, and after that we will have to choose a permanent party. And considering that everything that we have seen about BG3 is D:OS2 v2.0 that wouldn't be unlikely.

The companions in Baldur's Gate III don't have their skills and spells automatically set for them when they go up in level to match the party's level.


Quests designed around a companion shouldn't be a problem as long as there are alternate resolutions to those quests, and there's no need to give notices telling you that you should bring a certain companion with you (although, it'd be helpful to mention the companion in the quests area of the journal).

I'm not sure why it matters if the extra events and best outcome for a quest aren't available without a specific companion.
As for adding a companion just for one quest, fast traveling to get a companion from camp wouldn't be as difficult as finding them again, which is what you have to do in some games, and if you don't want to go get them, you wouldn't have to.
The quests wouldn't be available at all if they were blocked the way that you're suggesting.

There's really no good reason to not let players choose different companions later.


The difference with video games is that what the party members do and say is also set in stone.

Source, please?

https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=677277

Soo ... to use his own words against him:
"There was no mention of choosing a permanent party."

Or in more general way to put it ...
We have no idea what this "commitment" is.

You're either purposely being ignorant, or just misunderstanding how English works. Someone specifically asked if you can change your party members throughout the ENTIRE game. He responded with "in the first act, yes, THEN (implying something changes), you'll have to COMMIT (as it, stick with one party)".

This thread seems to be starting to be a lot of uppity against eachother and allegations of ignorance, shallowness and other lingo in either directions.

Let's stop that.

The current status quo is a vague statement of:


Though I do remember some mentions of henchmen, so from my impressions there might be ways to change around and add some new blood to a party after, just not the companions with individual story progression attached to them. But I was never a fan of that in DOS2 either, so I'm hoping that party progression as a whole gets a redesign at some point. Not a deal-breaker for me though ^^

The question was about being able to swap party members freely and the topic of the answer is the same. So what else could it be about, but having to "commit" to whom we want to have in our party after act1?

Exactly ...

I mean Shadowheart specificly tells us that once the parasite will be dealth with, we will go our separate ways ...
IF every companion feels that way, wich we dont know since Shadowheart is for some unknown reason the only person in the whole Faerun we could ask what will she do after. O_o

That "commitment" could just as easily mean that after finishing Act 1 we will follow our choosen Origin character (singular intended) in his, or hers story ... and let EVERYONE ELSE go their way.
We will meet other companions and will be able to switch them in and out freely ... still we will be commited to that chosen Origin character. :P

I doubt that you'll only be able to follow one of the Origin characters.
Unless the Origin stories are long and very different from each other, that would be even worse than what they did in Original Sin II.


Not only that, but I think that the context of what was said in the FAQ makes the meaning of the words abundantly clear.

"Is your party permanent or can you change members out throughout the adventure?
Recruited companions will be at camp when not in the adventuring party, and can be swapped in and out at camp. After the first act however you are going to have to commit, also just like in real life."

The question deals with being able to swap members in and out of the party throughout the adventure.
Right after saying that you can swap companions in and out of the party, it says "however", meaning that what's said after is contrasting with the previous statement.
So, after the first act, there won't be anymore party member swapping (so there won't be any new companions to swap with after the first act either), and you'll have to commit to whatever party you have.

You do some impressive mental gymnastics.

What makes you think that we will deal with the parasite in act1? Parasites are on which every narrative/mechanic contrivance lies. they are not going away - that’s an easy bet.

I would expect something more along the lines of characters not in our party at the end of the act1 to be taken under Absolutes control, or something like that.

Why whould they need to?

I mean, look what quests we have right now:
- One is helping Minthara slaughter the groove ... and other is helping Halsin slaughter the Goblin leaders ...
- One is helping Kagha drive out Tieflings ... and other is helping Zevlor get rid of Kagha (no matter how) ...
- One is helping Karlach against so called Paladins ... and other is helping so called Paladins against Karlach ...
And lots and lots things is happening around.

From this i say we can expect that our companions would have their own quests ...
They would all be happening in same space (Baldur's Gate specificly i bet), and it would be changing based on wich one you pick ... just the same as it does right now.

Just examples out of my head, feel free to see this as Wild Speculation:
You pick Gale ... you go to Baldur's Gate to search for some magical way to cure his Nethereese orb.
You pick Astarion ... you go to Baldur's Gate to search for Cazador.
You pick Shadowheart ... you go to Baldur's Gate to search for Sharites.
You pick Lae'zel ... you go to Baldur's Gate to search for Shadowheart's artefact, bcs Vlaakith wants it back! :)¨
You pick Karlach ... you go to Baldur's Gate to settle her debts, as she said.
You pick Wyll ... no idea ... but maybe you go to Baldur's Gate to somehow resolve his pact with Myzora, or to gain back his Honor ... or maybe, just maybe, we find out in Moonrise Towers that army of the Absolute is allready marching on Baldur's Gate with all that gunpowder they buyed from Zhentarims, and Wyll will go there to protect his city ... or just go there to clean it from True Souls ... w/e



Yes i heard this many times before and it didnt convinced me ... mo matter how much bold or underline you use.
I cant help the feeling that if Larian would like to say us that our party will be permanent after Act 1 ... its nothing easier, and clearer than simply telling us. "your party will be permanent after Act 1".

But they didnt do that ...
So i would like to believe that there is some message we are missing here.

The only difference here i see is that you seem to believe you will not be able to switch your party since this option will be simply removed and nothing else will change.
I believe that this option will be present, but you will no longer be able to switch between those companions ... since you loose every Origin companion, except that one you commit to.

After all, remember that Larian promissed us mercenaries ...
It would not have much reason to have Mercenaries, if you dont have a option to take them with you since "your party is locked".

Multiple things i listed abowe and elsewhere ...

- Everyone is pointing at Moonrise Towers ... Minthara, Halsin, Volo, that Zhentarim vendor in Goblin camp, every single Goblin that is talking about it, Duergars, Florrick ... and i bet i forget someone.
- All other solutions was like "sure i can help you, for a prize" ... but this one is more like "this is where all is happening, if you can find your solution ... it will be there".
- Plus ... and that is also important, they all were thinking they are dealing with regular tadpole ... at Moonrise Towers, we would probably be right by source of this problem.
- We also know, i mean Swen told us some time ago, that all companions were created in pairs ... meaning every companion have other companion that will be somehow important for him ... so far the only pair that is obvious is Shadowheart and Lae'zel ... that also makes me believe that our Origin characters will have important role in Act 2 story.

Also i never sid we will "get rid of the parasite" ... i just presume our problems with it will be resolved.
Meaning we will probably no longer have to fear that we could turn any moment.
I mean some Nethereese magic is keeping our parasite from turning us right now ... i believe all we need to do is to change this from "curetnly in stasis" to "permanently in stasis".

But! Even if we get indeed rid of our parasite ...
I believe that in Act 2 or maybe 3 ... we find out that all that time we spend with it in our head changed us, and we still will have to fight the Absolute.

Its possible ...
But since so many people allready expressed their concerns about this scenario, i dont believe that Larian would make the same misstake twice.

Careful RagnarokCzD, you might want to use spoiler tags when talking about quests

Yes, that's very much how D:OS2 worked. So 3-4 origin sidequest we "commit to" (amount depending if you go custom or origin ourselves) for playthrough. There is nothing to indicate that our companons won't want our help if we won't sleep with them, as you suggested. I am sure Gale will happily keep eating my artefacts, even if we won't end up in bed.


Yes, it was the same in D:OS2. but instead we gain the ability to hire-merceneries. You know, in case of the companions dies or we just want to branch out.



Yes, that I think we agree on. The final of act1 will be confirmation of what we more or less know, plus maybe reveal of the Absolute and what the game is REALLY about. It would make sense based on what we have and again, would follow D:OS2 formula, where . I expect more or less something like that for finalle of BG3. Still, parasite will remain an issue and rejecting/using its powers will remain the central point of the story. We ain't getting done with it yet. It's "seduction" is yet to be developed.


Q&A was a while back, so it is not impossible that Larian will walk back on the statement they made. The removal of spare companions in D:OS2 was especially puzzing to me, as they didn't seem to really find time to make advantage of the killed companions. Perhaps, they have some unfulfill vision/ideas that they want to explore fully in BG3. It might not be terrible if they end up doing something unique and cool with abandoned companions.

Considering how many parrarels can be drawn between D:OS2 and BG3, I find it silly to argue they won't do what they pretty explicitly "hinted" at. Nothing but to wait and find out, I guess.

Of course, they'll likely have their own quests, but in Original Sin II...
If they take that down to one companion's quest in Baldur's Gate III, yet the companion quests aren't very long, and they revolve around the same main quests without greatly affecting them, then it would be even worse.




In Original Sin II...

Eh ... no, or at least that is not what i expect.
I litteraly said single main-story-quest depending on who you will "commit to" ...

Did i?
Can you please quote me that part where i did that? Since im not aware of that ... i gues you simply missunderstand me somewhere.


I didnt play any D:OS ... and just for the record im not even planning it, those game dont feel appealing to me in any way.

Not sure what you mean by this ...
So, if you wanted to get Fighter to your group bcs it needed Fighter, you had to get rid of someone permanently?
Why is that a problem? I mean, if your group desperately need a Fighter, but have no use for Rogue, why would you need to keep the Rogue around? O_o

That would probably not surprise me either.


That is certainly one scenario im working with ...
Another one would be that we will remove our parasites and think we are all finaly safe ... but then, our tadpole dream will come back ... and we find out that even tho we are not tadpoled anymore (and therefore cannot turn to Mind Flayers), the amount of time we carried it changed us so much, so the Absolute still posses a threat against us.

And therefore we will continue in all this you mentioned ... rejecting/using its powers, "seduction", etc.

I really hope they will not die ...
My biggest hope quite honestly is that we will indeed in Act 1 go our own way everyone, but as we "commit" to someone, someone else (the second Origin character that was made in pair with him) will come later in the story to bite us in the ass.

The perfect example here is Shadowheart:
If you pick her ... somewhere in the future, you will be ambushed by Githyanki raiders that will go for her artefact ... and one of them will be Lae'zel ... unless you killed her before ... in that case Beretha, unless you killed her before too ... and in that case probably that Kith'rak (since i doubt we will fight with so high rank anytime sooner).
On the contrary ... if you pick Lae'zel, you will be Ambushing Sharites that are suppose to posses the artefact ... and one of them will be Shadowheart.

This kind of twists i really like and really hope to see. :P

Well, that is without a doubt.
But we can theoretize meanwhile. :P

I gues that depends on how will that be done. O_o
I mean,
And that was single character ... it revoled around same main quest ... but it affected game outcome a lot.
And i cant say i was ever dissapointed by option to pick this side.

Well, we can allways agree to disagree here.
At least one of us (maybe even both) is probably wrong, that should be certain ... one day we find out wich one.
But until then seems acceptable to me to simply state that we expect different outcome.

Yup ... heard that before.
And i hope (read as presume) that Larian learned their lesson.

You know the main reason why i believe in this much involvement of our companions in story, is the fact that they are all "Origin characters" and we will be able to experience whole story through their eyes. Therefore i believe they will have major role in future story.

I understand it can be seen that way ...
I hope you understand that it can also be seen other way. :P

I skip the rest, bcs i dont like reasoning for someone else, so ... cant quite react on that one.

I suspect as much. So trust me, Larian is reusing/expanding many of ideas/structures they established in D:OS2 - pretty much like post Bioware games build on what they established in BGs. That's why so many people complained that BG3 feels more like D:OS3, then BG3.

So D:OS2:

It's not vague at all, so there isn't really room for interpretation.
The question asked if you would be able to change party members, and the answer was that you can, but then you can't after the first act.

Maybe we're missing something because I can't see how it could be taken any other way as well, but who knows, apparently up can be down if you really don't want it to be up. this topic appears to be a black hole though, so I'm going to bow out here and keep my sanity

Yeah, I don't want it to work like that either, but that is what the FAQ says.
There's really no point in trying to interpret it differently, when that won't make the game change.

That makes no sense. Its an easy cope out. The same thing they did in D:OS2

I’m not bothered either way - the replayability factor in this game is massive

I'm not a fan of the permanent party, since I can't really see a reason in favor of it. Is it to improve replayability? Is it because it would make reactivity too hard to script? I don't really get it; it didn't make sense in DOS2 either.

I personally do not count having to replay 60-80% of the exact same content, over and again, just to see the extra little bits that might be different, but won't ultimately change anything outside of their self-contained elements, to be legitimate replay value.

Pretty much this. People have limited time, and most people will only have the time to play through a game once before something else catches their eye. Knowing this, one would think that effort would be much better spent on making that sole playthrough experience as magical as possible, right? People who really want to replay a game will find reasons to do so through, say, multiplayer or a different class, and not really because of that one character's side story that you missed.

A focus on 'replay value' enforced by locking parts of the narrative and gameplay options away without much of anything to make up for that loss is honestly one of my most hated trends in gaming as of late. There are rare exceptions like WotR, in which that game specifically revolves around the concept of different paths and more importantly entirely through choices made by the player character. Compared to something as haphazard as DOS2 doing something as major as taking away half your party for... Reasons ultimately way out of your control, only really enforced through an arbitrary party limit, and now BG3 may be threatening to embark on that same path again. The best examples of replay value that exist in the gaming industry is enforced by giving players increased options with compelling reasons to pick and choose, not just taking them away.

I have to say, that decision in DOS2 in the early phases of the game ultimately did lead to the final act being as poorly received as it was. Having the entire party there to resolve all of their plot threads one by one would have made the pacing of that act seem a lot better. But with half of that personal investment in the various arcs being wrapped up in that act not existing due to half the playable cast being dead by that point, people were right to describe that act as a confusing disjointed slog instead. I actually recently did a playthrough of DOS2 with a mod that allowed me to have all party members survive the end of act 1, and it's amazing what a difference it makes in improving the overall story.

I don't think it will eventually work out.
This worked in a classless environment, but it won't work well for fairly restrictive classes.
It is very unlikely that Larian will allow you to change the companion class selected on the first level, which means that even respecialisation will be very limited.

Another thing is that Larian certainly realizes that something like this would be quite unpopular (like in DoS2), so if they decided to completely change most of the dialogue in the game based on player feedback, it is unlikely that they would not do so either. Especially since it is much less problematic to change.

If they were to throw all the current dialogue out of the window, expect to count another few years up to development xD. I don't think people want that, either. We will see what they do with the game in the end. It is a fine balance they have to walk, in either catering too much to players wishes and compromising their own artistic vision for the story.

Overall I think giving agency to playerbase feedback certainly is a good thing, but doing it too much either adjusting to feedback or not listening to feedback, makes the gameplay portion meh (which I saw in a fair number of survival games lol) or just alienating the playerbase too much. in short, I'm fine with things getting locked down after act one, even if it goes against the OG series formula. I am just giving them a a chance to make the game they want, while still listening too feedback and adjusting it where they reasonably can. I don't think totally rewriting the companions, at this stage of development, would be beneficial to us as players. Unless you guys want to wait until 2025 to finally play this game xD. If I gauge the steam forum is kinda on the verge of: where is MAH GAME REEEE!!!!! YOU SCAMMARZ and: I KNEW LARIAN WOULD FAIL AT BG3 xP.

I just really hope they manage to give us a bit more build versatility than OG baldursgate did in some ways. Having all classes and races would go a long ways to at least give us more options. I personally dont see replayvalue on the companionside, more on the level of branching of the story. I mean... BG one enhanced has a lot of companions, but some I rarely ever use. I mean Xsar and montaron I always ditch in Nashkel lol. So giving BG3 let's say 20 companions to choose from might look good on paper. But I personally doubt that will make me come back to the game beyond a certain point. Because in pretty much any RPG, the companions effect on the whole story arc (outside of the protaganist) is abysmally small.

Not a fan of the perma-party idea if it means the non chosen NPC's become inaccessible. I think the best solution would be to go the BG1 and 2 route, namely that some companions needs to be recruited when you meet them or you need to complete their specific requirements or quests otherwise you risk permanently losing them, others can simply be ordered to leave the current party and then simply 'go live their lives' meaning you can find them at an appropriate location (e.g. Astarion in his house in BG, SHadowheart in a Shar/Selune temple or crypt, Lazael somewhere outside of the BG city walls near a gith encampment in the woods, etc etc).

I think they could pull it of in theory, but I think they wont succeed in writing a convincing narrative that makes it feel and flow naturally instead of some narrative deus-ex machina trick which feels gamey in the sense of 'at the end of the tutorial you need to chose your definite party but instead of a menu they made a cinematic out of it'. However, I fear that we're too far into writing and development to change course as it seems one of those stupid things Larian somehow keeps holding on to without good reasons. An in between would be to at least not completely remove the non-chosen NPC's from the game/story-line, like at least give them a cameo at a later point in the game (as antagonists or even as friendly 'non party' NPC's like wyll when you first meet him at the grove fight) and don't let them die permanently...

They did it a long time ago. Originally, all of the main character's dialogues were in the past tense. If they wanted to do something like that, not blocking the party after act 1 is not a problem.

Eventually, some declaration from Larian would be useful. Rather, it has been established a long time ago.

fair enough I guess, lol didn't expect you to reply so fast . was still adjusting my comment. But yeah.. I would like to see a rpg where companions have a bigger role to play in the story at large. And I doubt that will be the case in BG3 either. Beyond shadowhearts'artifect jobbo I suppose.

Well i cant make you to see it obviously ...
But i see it. :P

Eh, it depends what they do with it. In D:OS2 post-mortem Sven said that companions in D:OS2 were sort of added at the very last minute. They might have reasons for killing off companions which they never got to explore in D:OS2.

I tend to stick to one party in RPGs anyway - sure I will switch them to do companion quests, but I feel I don’t really get to know them unless they will spend majority in time in the party. In that regard I preferred BG1&2 approach where there wasn’t any “party camp”. People where in your party or they weren’t.

On the other hand,I always found Obsidian’s party conflict like at the end of NWN1 or PoE2 interested concept that never got really explored. If companions just get killed that would be lame - but if they end up staying in the story “maybe some will take Rafael on his offer, or become Absolute minions” things - this could be interesting.

So my question would be not what locking party removes from the player, but what it adds. If, like in D:OS2, all it does is remove companion quests - then it’s rather pointless.

I get that having a full roster of high powered adventurers sitting around camp-keeping due to artificial party sizes is a common issue in RPGs, and I don't think forcing the players to commit to a party is necessarily bad. However, it really depends on how it's implemented.

If "commitment" leads to the people not in the party conveniently being erased from the story by a plot meteor swarm just so it enforces "replayability", then I would really prefer Larian just leaving them as mindless slaves in my camp that I bring into the party occasionally to do their related quest (i.e. like in most other RPGs).

If "commitment" serves a deeper purpose to create immersion - i.e. implemented in a smart, reactive way to really liven up the world, then I'm all down for it. For example - say you don't commit to Shadowheart. Instead of just being erased from the story, Shadowheart now continues on her own quest/goals, and later on, becomes a proper NPC either in a Shar related quest or if you ever visit the stronghold. Depending on your previous approval level, she might be straight-out hostile, a reluctant frenemy - or even an ally or can re-join your party temporarily (maybe after some convincing and apologizing). I.e. give them the Witcher 3 treatment and make them NPCs that are deeply integrated with the plot where appropriate. This - I'm all down for.

But here's to hoping.

Not sure we've seen the end of the tadpole discussion either. So far in EA, only Astarion wants to control the tadpole. Gale definitely sees power in it as well.

But the choice might actually be "keep it or lose it" and different characters will follow different paths. Astarion definitely likes his newfound abilities, and there might be more of that with other origin characters.

I personally think it will either come down to a as EvilVik says.. a) person wishes the power of the tadpole (and if reputation with tav = neutral to low) = turning hostile and/or joins absolute or b) people with low approval getting taken over by the will of the absolute, sort of like the absolute tries to do until shadowheart uses the artifact to block her/it out.

We will have to see. I doubt the characters will just die out by default, but I assume some sort of loyalty check could be programmed in. Some characters are very hard to please of you are good aligned anyway. Such as Astarion and Lae'zel lol. I never seem to end up with her higher than medium approval . doesn't mean I turn her back on her all the time though as her turning you down dialogue suggests xD.

I just dont have a Gith worldview

Personally I think it will just come down to everyone not in the party at some point being outside of the sphere of effect of that artifact, and then being Absoluted up because of it.

...I should probably try a run without Shadowheart in the party just to see what happens in that scene when she isn't in it.

I was kinda dissapointed really ...

I kinda a feel like Larian, or some at Larian, loves Shaowheart SO, SO, SOOO much that they just can't fathom people running the game without her, and are writing their story upon the assumption that she will be there, and going out of their way to force her into your party far more than any other companion.

IF that is the case, and they Want Shadowheart to be an integral central character to the story, then just go ahead and make her an 'essential' npc, make her a necessary part of the party, and be done with it - other games do this with characters that are of necessary importance the story, and it's fine, more or less, as long as you commit to it and write them well enough.

I have this feeling for last year ...
Since i find out that Shadowheart is the only one you can keep discusing your "so far adventures" with ... every other companion can be speaked with only once per topic ... but her? Repeat over, and over, and over, ...

Also kinda anoying to be honest ...
When i check up to other companion i only see "stay in camp" or "nevermind" ... so i clearly see there is no new conversation i wasnt through yet ...
But with her i often need to check up whole dialogue trees.

That's actually sounds likely. It could be interesting... I wonder if one could potentially "win them back" as well.

My theory has been that there's one or more ways for any companion to leave the party, the most-gimme being Lae'zel taking off because I'm not focusing on her creche exclusively.

Getting Absoluted would be a great way of doing it, too. I like envisioning the howls of outrage from Astarion-lovers when he runs off because he's frustrated we won't let him use his powers, gets Absoluted (I love this term), and then you have to fight him!

I would enjoy that a lot!

If this turns out to be true it would represent railroading in the ultimate. As of now, I have no interest in having SH in my party (and she may not even be alive in my game).

there's definitely some creator pet vibes going on with SH, but I'm not convinced it's not just the development process. They've spent more time on her, but will be giving others more attention later on. I certainly hope so, because right now she feels like the main character. Try to ignore her and she actually tracks you down at your camp? that's ..odd to say the least for a possible companion character.

She's got top billing in all the artwork, and her artifact plays a super central role in the story so far. The underdark and justiciers is related. I think it's almost certain she and her mission are a major plot element

Huh, I've never felt that Shadowheart was the creator's pet - if anything, I thought that was Gale's as he has the most extra mechanics and unique story details so far:

- Gale has a unique death cutscene + necro effects + unique ending if you leave him dead - he is the only companion that literally has plot armor

- The artifact eating system is a tracking system unique to Gale, and seems to potentially scale with the rest of the game (i.e. more areas more items). In the EA you can already get a potential story branch/outcome if you ignore him, which hints at a larger quest

- I feel like many of his dialogue scenes involve way more cinematography and special effects (i.e. mirror image, his Mystra story). Very memorable.

Other of that, I think Astarion is the only other companion with tangible unique mechanic (vampire water weakness + bite). In general, I don't think the gaps in the companions have been massive, but some definitely have more going on. I feel the recent patches have brought Shadowheart closer to the top in terms of content, but she was one of the more unfinished companions when we first saw her in the EA (i.e. other than the random hand glowy thing, she really does nothing much later on).

EDIT: I agree while the artifact is super plot important, I don't think that necessarily makes Shadowheart important. I don't know if Patch 6 changed, this, but previously you can easily kill her and take the artefact and just progress the story as planned.

I don't recall where I read it, but I have a recollection of reading something that said Gail wasn't supposed to be in EA at all, but the acting was so good, they made schedule adjustments to get him in

Yeah, that was the Kevin Van Ord stream (which has been taken down) - IIRC he writes for Lae'zel and Wyll.

I don't remember if the context of that statement is whether Gale wasn't supposed to be ready for the EA release, or not supposed to be in Act 1 at all (i.e. he's a companion you meet later). It does somewhat explain his somewhat abrupt introduction. I also remember him talking about how Wyll was initially going to look very different, but they completely overhauled his look to better match the voice actor because they loved him so much.

I'd be surprised if it was "not in act 1 at all," because he's got so much dialog, eg after the saza and the kid on the beach encounters

You know there is (or at least was) the way to kill him for good?

By waiting for x days, you just mean resting x times, right? I'm not trying to be cute with you, I just want to know if it's feasible for me to test it myself or not (since there's also a clock that's not bound to resting ticking in the backroom of the game). I tried to confirm whether the Gale-Storm ending was a thing in patch 4 but eventually stopped because I didn't want to run around with an inexchangeable dead npc taking up a party slot.

I usually settle on a regular party, anyway, so in itself having the game force a fixed party by the end of the first act doesn't trouble me. Like others I hope that the mechanism for this is interesting and not too reminiscent of DOS2. Especially if who is left behind doesn't depend on who is in the active party at a particular time, I also hope that there is some mechanism for filling in lacking roles--preferably with non-origin companions. Or it may be that at release there will be enough less edgy companions that it will be less challenging to build parties that will find a variety of Tavs congenial.

Yup

This topic just came up in reddit today and I thought I'd share: https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/qrwksq/source_permanent_party_after_act_one/

#1 upvoted response:
"Thank you for the information, i hate it tho"

Hard agree. And the BG3 reddit is generally very positive on Larian.

Come on Larian - this is a genuine mistake. I think you've done a pretty good job making BG3 its own game and feel different, despite what some people will say. But THIS - this is a legitimately a "DOS3" design choice.

Locking in a party of 4 after Act 1 goes 100% contrary to almost everything I'm fighting for with this game. I'm calling for a party size increase and want the ability to switch in and out MORE party members, not be stuck with the same four for the rest of the game.

So, hopefully they won't do that. That would quickly turn this game from one of my favorites to the worst ever. I am ALL about characters, which is why I want a bigger party, not a limited one and locked out of switching them in and out.

It's a bold decision, if Larian goes that way, no doubt. Still. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of locking the party in regards to origin characters. Commitment. Feels nice.

That's not to say that I think it's bad to have more party members.

Here's what I'd like to see:

A few of the origin characters stick around. The others run off to do things that need taking care of, and probably come back later in helpful or harmful roles, depending.

Which leaves the main character plus three other origin characters.

On top of that, I'd like the game to allow for more companions, albeit ones without tadpoles. Just regular folk that can be recruited. Followers, cultists, mercenaries, whatever.

I posted about this earlier, and I do agree that if they are going down the commitment path - it should feel like a powerful narrative decision and not a "let's get rid of the inconvenient companions handwave" we had in DOS2.

Everyone that isn't in your party immediately dies to plot device #23 so that you can safely forget about them the entire playthrough? Feels like a bad design choice used to "improve replayability".

However, if characters you don't take are re-integrated into the story as proper NPCs - i.e. you leave Astarion behind and he's now a NPC in the Cazador quest line. Or Lae'zel joins up with the Githyanki hunting squads. Okay, I'm a little more open to that. Extra points if how they act as an NPC is influenced by your relationship while they were in your party.

Last year we are arguing about this vague sentence ...
Nobody still "knows" what does it mean for sure. :P

"i like Chocolate"

man, i'm not sure if he likes chocolate, that was such a vague statement

Does he like milk chocolate?
White chocolate?
Dark chocolate?
Chocolate with hazzelnuts?
Chocolate with almonts?
Chocolate with filling?
Chocolate in form of figures, or just bar?

Answer me exactly and corectly for those question based on your "so incredibly precise statement" :P

Good efort tho.

This is one of those design decisions where it's extremely obvious that DOS2 became a breakout hit DESPITE its existence rather than because of it, and that distinction is important.

If Larian fails to realize that, the wider gaming community will absolutely not be as forgiving this time around.

But this is the exact same developer quote from last year. Not a new update as is implied. So there's still the possibility things could be different.

Almost the same. It would be great to realize that one of your former companions is now an enemy in one form or another.

However... there must be a reserve option in case some of the members of your chosen group falter. Replacing them with a self-made character without a backstory is probably the worst alternative (one I would use if absolutely that's the only way to save a campaign). This can be avoided if there are reserves: companions with a personality you've met on the road, even a reserve origin companion.

P.S. Alternatively, they might thin the group by people leaving/dropping out at certain chapters/ story moments.

Since I won't play with mercs, they better have more real companions beyond the current five, companions with backstory and more importantly interractions with both the rest of the party and the world. I want fully fleshed out companions, just not origin companions.

It is already confirmed that there will be more companions than our current ones. More specifically, apparently none of our current ones are good alignment as they wanted data specifically on the neutral/evil alignment companions first.

Although I am fairly certain that many (or most) of the companions will be somewhat alignment fluid.

Isn't that already happening?

You don't take Shadowheart = you confront her about the artifact and kill her and take it.

Lae'zel will die to the Githyanki patrol.

They just need to write deaths for the others.

Actually, I've had Wyll not leave during the goblin raid - as long as he's not present when you make your plans with Minthara, and doesn't see you (for example) shove Zevlor off a cliff to kick things off, he just goes along with you and participates in the slaughter just fine.

This may be a loophole in Larian's sketchy coding though, since I think his party camp dialogue was the same - the generic "here's to heroes" dialogue.