How in the HECK are you guys sleeping with anybody?! My companion approval always sucks no matter who I have with me and what choices I make. Sometimes I feel like it doesn't even move at all, and I've done 5 playthroughs like that now. I've had one playthrough where Astarion propositions me and his approval rating wasn't even that high but everyone else routinely turned me down, every time I made it to the camp party.

Its a celebration after resolving the quests in the grove.

really? if you are a good guy and have gale early on he shouldn't be any problem. just pay attention and talk to him whenever you have the ! mark on his head. Shadowheart is more complicated, but basically every time she approaches you, you have to be very "means business" guy and say how much you want to find a healer. also, there are two locations you can go with her (at least two that I know of) which will trigger some scenes with her.
I never got wyll happy enough to make him wanna bone me. and about Laezel, she is also quite difficult.
Astarion just needs attention. every time something happens in camp (meeting a devil having a dream) talk to him first. also Astarion is the only one who approves using your tadpole powers so if you want him you should use them all the time and do everything the dream girl\boy asks you to do.

I think Astarion will proposition anyone that doesn't do it to him first, as for the others, I found that a lot of the Shadowheart disapproval comes from putting up with Lae'zel and prying unsuccessfully into her backstory, so there's that. She's kind of like Han Solo, trying to be bad but appreciating good deeds.

Play like your character has no personality and is just putty that fits the mold of what the other characters want and treat them like children who need constant attention. Voila!

I'm actually really interested in how that happens. I've got 3 play throughs and have had multiple people hit on me each time, sometimes still when having only 'neutral' approval. Wyll is the only one who hasn't been interested. I really have no idea how you can piss them all off that much! Perhaps its just not talking to them enough? I might have to try an 'offend everyone' run!

But I'm not trying to piss anyone off! I talk to them all the time. Narrative choices get me a bunch of So and So Approves/Disapproves all over the place but I can't seem to see their approval actually shifting at all? I talk to them so much they literally run out of things to say to me that aren't the run of the mill repeatable dialogue choices. I just.. grrr. I wanna smooch Shadowheart or Lae'zel ;-;

That's good for the one-night fling that currently is the 'romance' option in the EA but I'd be surprised if they didn't change it up a little later on. Hero-sexual companions and it's inverse, "say what they want to hear" story progression, are pet peeves of mine because its not very compelling characterization.

I don’t know, I’ve never had a companion’s approval going below neutral. The only exception is Wyll, he does not approve of an alliance with goblins.
However, if this is a problem for you, I can advise you to use the approval bug (F R E S H T H E W O R M) or cheat engine tables.

Gale told me in the celebration night that tomorrow tonight he will give me the bedtime story, but after that it never happens my bedtime story where!?!?

I play with 4 created characters...so I doubt this is even an option for me. I've pretty much killed all the Larian generated party members. Or so I think. Frankly I find them verbally abusive and annoying and it was my pleasure to put them to bed...unlike the way most other players have.

I should happen, it's when he tells you about his 'predicament', safely removed as a story about another wizard.

What about Lae'Zel? It's funny how she is seemingly the hardest to romance when she has no concept of romance in the first place.

Let's not call it "sleeping" proper, even if with Lae'zel it's more like it. It's rather kissing and flirting.

But honestly, I couldn't care less about romance stats. I think there are far more important issues to fix at the moment.

thank you for your totally useful and helpful feedback!

You're welcome. It's an honor to participate in such a dramatic and essential matter in the game.

No you're right many "romances" have a way to glitch out on you. I think Astarion is actually the only one who consistently doesn't.

I have no idea about Lae'Zal as my approval with her is always low. Wyll's prerequisite is the drinking scene you get after windmill and resolving Spike quest (also siding with tieflings obviously). Shadowheart is based solely on approval in my experience and the stats really surprised me too as Gale is the most tricky of all with his weave cutscene randomly showing (or more often not showing) while being a necessary prerequisite to start the romance.

As for approval - if you're somehow having problems with it: Wyll, Gale and Shadowheart never get bored of you petting the dog (and Astarion really likes it if you show fascination with Shar in Shadowheart's repeating dialogue)

Honestly it's spot on...Dog pets per player, How many peeps are sleeping around?
Totally useless info. But hey if it floats ya....row with it.

My rolling of the eyes, was when I saw the effort put into those stats.

I think anyone who comes into a thread just to state how unimportant they find the topic in the grand scheme of things need to have the stick stuck up a particular orifice surgically removed.

Anyway, I do get Gale's weave scene consistently, despite taking what I would have considered to be neutral, non-romancey options with him. He seems to be the easiest outside of Astarion being like "a party ain't a real party without some SEX babey!" I think he's a little too into not being controlled by his you-know-who, lol. As for Shadowheart I did get one whole mildly flirty exchange once and then that was it. She blew me off any time after that. And all I know about Lae'zel (aside from datamined information) is there is one banter between her and Wyll where she does say she believes in carnal pleasure but like... I have yet to see an interest from her on any character.

I'll try to keep it relatively spoiler free:
There are two spots I found that triggers more cutscenes with Shadowheart-
One is in the owlbear cave and another next to the windmill (there is a small altar there)
After you trigger the first scene you get the option to convince her to tell you what she is hiding. I would recommend not doing the very hard persuasion check, but to instead exhaust all the non skill based choices and then leave the matter be. You can repeat the process once or twice and each time the DC on the persuasion check gets lower. If you succeed the check, she'll reveal her secret. You probably know what the big secret is, but for the off chance you don't I'll not reveal it. I do think it's impossible to romance her unless she tells you the secret.

As others have said -- pet the good boy often.

Also, sleep more often than makes sense in terms of narrative. I wasn't able to get any luvin on my ultra efficient playthrough and had to go back and 'force sleep' more often.

Oh hum. I didn't realize you could just repeat the process like that and lower the DC on the skill check. I'll have to give that a shot, honestly.

It's actually very rare on this game but it's really well written. I'll let you try it and than if like tell why I think it's very well written

I think the DC gets lower as approval gets higher and the dog is easiest way to improve approval. Larian has given us a dog park rom-com

Yep the way companion interaction works in this game and the very special moral and social elements the companions have make it incredibly hard to form any kind of bond with the characters, unless you exploit the dog or go out of your way to get the approval ratings you want. Especially when you are a typical RPG player who gets sidetracked easily and acts like having a moral compass you will be facing a lot of difficulty in the bedroom department.
In BG2 you could change, befriend and romance most companions through dialogue, as long as you wandered within a wide moral corridor and did not go to extremes. It will get particularly stupid, if Larian will indeed lock your party after Act I. So you have found a working party full of narcissists, and have to leave the ones you sympathize with at home. Well played, awesome feature. So you will be forced to build your party according to sympathy, or for efficiency, or for whatever else they have in store.

It's too early to tell but I don't think it's true. It's just a little different. I'll elaborate more on a different topic later if I'll have time for writing about this