The guy puts a knife to my character's throat the first time he encounters the party. There is no reason that I should actually have to hear him out rather than kill him where he stands. Right now my standard method is once he has a knife to my throat I switch to Shadow Heart and have her bash Astarion's head in with a mace. Other party members really should be responding to an attack like that.

Just kill him.
I did it

Anyway I think it should be an option, as it is with another character.

My brother pickpocketed him in camp in our multiplayer...he turned hostile....we killed him. As a note, however, his distrust and such seems understandable given the situation and his character gets better later...though he's still annoying. Makes me wish I could create a party of two just to start with a different rogue.

Yes a evil playthrough would never just let it slide, and party watching its the worse part.

In my lawful evil playthrough I was fine with it, would do the same if the roles were reversed. He's not a pushover and that's why he gets my respect. Actually from all the companions Astarion is my favorite one. I don't get the hate. Unless of course you're playing a goody two-shoes.

I think you can kill him right away, no? Have you tried stealth and starting combat where he stands?

You can start combat at literally any time and kill him. Just attack hi out of dialogue or click the attack button in lower left hand corner during dialogue

Sure, but I think OP is (correctly) saying it should be built into the PC's dialogue options and thereby be recognized within the game-world as something the PC legitimately did in reaction to a situation they were confronted with.

What kanisatha said. That encounter was really bad fan fic.

Agree 110%. I wish there were another option for a rogue other than being one yourself. I find that I don't really like any of the companions. But Astarion is the worst by far.

Yeah, I'm specifically talking about the dialogue acknowledging the reality of the situation. If you've have more than one companion Astarion should either be restrained by your companions with you in control of the situation rather than him, or even better he is just not stupid enough to try in that case.

I agree with one of the previous replies of not understanding the hate for Astarion. I think he's underrated. If you choose to keep him, he's actually pretty useful when it comes to fighting. Keep in mind that Larian has said that your choices will have consequences in the game. Once you find out that Astarion is a vampire when he tries to feed on you and you let him, he will gain a pretty powerful ability known as Vampire Bite. That ability will take away about half of an enemy's life. He's also good at the backstab sneak attacks and the powerful range bow, he also gets some type of magical abilities. I haven't unlocked all of them. I have done a lot of critical hits with Astarion, although because he's a rogue he is weak against magic and heavy warrior hits.

Be smart-evil. Think, how could I use this person?

Completely agreed. He's super useful and I actually like his character quite a bit--and I do usually play as a good character. He's my husband's favorite too after they had a heart-to-heart about beheading if they began to turn squiddy. But I agree that there should be some revisions to his meeting encounter. Players should be given the option to attack him from dialogue and it would be nice if Shadowheart had a line about not getting involved since she doesn't seem to care about the pc at that point. If Gale was recruited first either a line from him or him actually helping in the scene would be good.

When I started the game, I didn't like him one bit.

I dropped him from my first run because he wasn't really needed in my party. But, esp. after he tried feeding off me and we became friends, I did regret that a bit. His personality grew on me - I like me some more excentric people sometimes. I mean, he's supposedly of noble heritage, I'd be full of myself if I was noble lol.

So, now I'm REALLY looking forward to exploring the game a 2nd time, with him in my party this time

Serious question why does it take so long for you to figure out he's a vampire if he has fangs that are huge?

Is this just vampire magic blinding everyone to those sharp teeth?

On my second playthough, I started by stealing all his stuff before talking to him lol, with my rogue. If you steal his dagger for instance, there should be an extra line in dialogue where you see him looking for something and you, showing the dagger: 'You are looking for this, I suppose?' XD

Yea cutscene rarely account for potentials.