Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback No small-sized Romanceable Companions :(

I recently started a playthrough as a Deep Gnome rogue... I'm partway through Act 1 and it just sunk in that all of the romanceable companions are giants compared to my little Tav. Why no love for the little ones?

Heck, maybe I'll just forget about romance and companion stories and do a bare-bones playthrough with my Gnome Tavi and three little hirelings. (Hmm, sounds like a good name for a fairytale!)

Yeah... the companion racial variety is pretty lacking in BG3;

• 3 Humans
• 5 Elves
• 1 Tiefling
• 1 Githyanki

Which is a shame considering just how many races there are to choose from. Zero halflings, zero dwarves, zero dragonborns, zero orcs.

Compare that to DOS2 which had just 5 races, yet all of them were wonderfully represented and incredibly unique;

• 2 Humans
• 1 Dwarf
• 1 Elf
• 1 Lizard
• 1 Undead

In my opinion the smelly treehugger Halsin never should have been a companion because Jaheira fulfills the Druid role. Could have filled that spot with someone that actually fits into the party composition.

Yeah, there should be a small race companion. I sound like a broken record at that point, but there was one planned: Helia, the halfling werewolf bard. She had voicelines recorded, but was scratched along the way.

And yes, we don't need the smelly tree hugger Halsin, who doubles down on class, race and is extremely inappropriate.
They could have made Barcus a companion, he has ties to all three acts and the main plot.

I think folks know where I stand on this one, but yes, I want to add my voice and support to the idea that we need more companion variety and especially some small race representation amongst our romance options.

As a born tree hugger I'm not at all disappointed that we got a pair of Druids here heheh, but I do wish there was a shorty option as well, so I'll chime in too.

Trying to nail every romance preference when you've only got a dozen potential companions is really challenging, and some of those companions are gated by plot choices/player character morality, so that's not really the full spread at a dozen, it's probably more like half a dozen for any given player character.

I don't have any telemetry or heuristics to back it up, but I imagine that when selecting a romance option players tend to go one of several ways depending on what they find attractive or interesting IRL, things like where they (the players) fall on the kinsey scale, whether they are choosing their avatar as a kind of mirror for their own inner anima/animus playing out those sorts of desires, or something more outside their normal wheelhouse, like as an entirely RP/character driven choice and detached from those sorts of preferences (maybe harder to settle into for many since that requires adopting a new POV or frame of ref. I think it would appeal a lot to peeps who enjoy creative writing, or the playwrights at heart though.)

In TT RPG I also think there is probably a lot of pressure to conform to certain social norms around a given table, and to avoid stepping on any toes accidentally or being overtly appropriative when exploring certain character types/tropes. Character Romances in TT RPG don't seem to be a thing that players are terribly pre-occupied with. I think this is because in TT RPG (even with dress up in full costume/makeup) it's much harder to shed your own skin or your own voice. It also might come across as odd or creepy or again too appropriative, whereas in a cRPG some of those restraints are magically removed, since we can create an avatar.

This opens a whole different sort of floodgate on the subject, because we can slip on a persona with ease in this situation (persona means "mask" in Latin) and we don't have to pick it up or drop it when breaking character like you would around an actual table.

I think this contributes to some players just not understanding at all why anyone cares so much about which player characters in their party can be romanced, or which bases are being covered by the standard options there, since this almost never comes up in TT RPG (unless you're playing with couples maybe?) Whereas for others this might be a very important part of the game's lasting appeal, as a mostly SP driven cRPG experience. Probably the important thing to achieve is some degree of parity.

Meaning don't give us just one shorty - give us 2!

Or maybe 3?!!! I mean Right? I think that's the real trick to it.

We do have 3 fantasy races to choose from after all. But yeah, I mean at least 1 to cover the shorty phenotype more broadly. That would be a nice start hehe

The companions were designed for maximum simping potential. Thus a lot if elf waifus and no shorties.

One of the downsides of Larians sex based marketing.

Which is, unfortunately, a continuation of the media trend of deligitimising and denying smaller people their right to be acknowledged and treated as mature adults... **continues to grumble inarticulately**

I can't claim to be heavily invested in this issue, but I think one of the better short characters to have a potential romance with would be Thulla.

As for Barcus, I can see the appeal of having him as a companion, but I don't know. Part of his thing is that he's not a qualified adventurer, which is why he needs to be rescued by the players. Also, I wouldn't want him as a companion unless there happened to be some class mechanic that allowed for the creation of smoke powder bombs and inventions in general.

I had to Google Helia.. it's too bad she got scrapped, sounds like she would have been an interesting companion. Larian should have kept her and left Halsin in the Grove. Ah well, something to hope for from a future expansion or a "definitive edition" release, I guess.

I was thinking just now a bit more about the differences between TT RPG and cRPG in the approach towards Romance. Around the table top, I think there are certain expectations about what a D&D session would entail, and I just can't really imagine that anyone shows up expecting the campaign to be all about diving in bed with another Player Character in the party lol.

Like I mean I guess that could happen organically, or perhaps if it was some sort of torch romance themed campaign, but otherwise I think what people are more interested in that sort of context would be something more like a Wingman or a Wingwoman, than a romantic partner PC. You know, like so if the campaign is even trying to go there, that it would be more about the DM indulging that via NPCs, and the party compatriots are more like pals out on the town. That's just a way better fit in TT RPG. But in a BG3 cRPG type scenario we get something different, because is not really another person play acting next to us, but the computer, and the computer has zero hang ups hehe. Still I think that idea might have promise, especially for the Dwarves.

All that said, I'd still vote Sazza for a ridiculous torch romance, just cause I think it could get pretty entertaining and we're a bit short on villains. Like if team Goodness gets Barcus, I'd want Wulbren just for parity, even if he's a total asshole lol. Philomeen also might be interesting, picking up the pieces after everything goes thermal detonator, as a counterpoint to Thulla. Nettie and Thrinn might pair off as kinda the same, but different, in a similar sort of way for the Dwarves. They do have some standout bit characters that might step up.

I'd say Helia, but right now the visualization on Halflings wouldn't cut it for me. Just the running animations alone, I can't take anything there seriously, so it could only ever be a comedic thing right now. The Halflings in BG3 look like Xvarts to me heheh. Like legit just paint the BG3 halflings blue with that waxy haircut, and we might as well have had playable Xvarts here lol.


They really need to give Halflings another pass before they're acceptably serious. I'd be very happy if they gave us Helia and made that their excuse to revisit the visualization.

Also, and this point again isn't necessarily shorty related, but I wish we had more gestural animations that would key off the sort of relationship we're in. You know maybe one character gets the fist bump, another gets the Lando with two hands to one thing, some other character just gets a nod, or a scowl. Mixed up more like that.

It would be really cool if they did rigging and animation for the portraits too, like where you could make a character smile or blush or giggle, or get all irate and have that reflected in the portrait. Like where it stays up for a little bit. If the characters are in a Romance, maybe they have different barks and idles, or if they get downed or die it prompts a specific sort of reaction from their partner.

Right now my PC wails out in agony when Karlach goes down, even though we really haven't spent much time together on this run, but when the actual romantic partner takes a dirt napping and there's like zero commentary from my Tav it's kinda odd lol.

ps. I think Goblins and Gnomes have the best visualization of all the short races right now, then Dwarves/Duergar, but Halflings are dead last and not even in the running. We need more heads, and smaller heads, and less wonk with the arm length. Seems like a thing they could pull off by adding an alt phenotype, basically the same way the standard humanoids have large, I think Halfling should have something smaller and just make that the one. It could be appearance 3 and 4 for that, fine with me, just something else to tool around with for the Halflings.

I completely agree.
Sadly people are very basic with their beauty standards. I made a dwarven cleric of Selune a few days ago and instantly fell in love with her , because she is so pretty in my eyes. Same with my little halfling bard (whom I might play again) and my gnome rogue. I posted my dwarven lady a few days ago, on a server, that is currently very dedicated to BG3, because someone wanted to see our dwarven characters, and I kid you not, the first answer was: 'That face is too pretty, it should be available for elves'. When I argued , that there are enough mods out there to make any kind of pretty elf (and signifikant less mods for the smaller races), that person went all Karen on me about how no one cares about the smaller races and therefore everything should be available for the races, people want to play, e.g., elves and humans and to a lesser degree tieflings. That made me really sad and angry at the same time.

I still hope, we might see a small race companion. And a dragonborn and an half orc.



Yeah, it is very sad. I don't think, Helia was scratched for Halsin, I think, they scratched her way sooner, but if not for all this Halsin thirst, there would have been teh chance to get a decent companion from one of the underrepresented races, with an actual storyline and involvment.

Originally Posted by JandK

That would be the artificer, which should honestly be in the game, given, that basically the whole act 3 plot resolves around artificers and their creations - from Gortash to the Gondians and teh Iron Hand and even Dammon would work well as an artificer.
Thulla or one of the other Iron Hands even tell you, they are artificers from Baldurs Gate.

I also really want shorter race romance options. And potential party members, but they don’t even need to go together. I’d have appreciated it if we had the opportunity to build romances with some other NPCs too. They wouldn’t even need to be full-fledged romances like those with companions, just enough to act as hooks for our imagination and give our characters for whom the existing romance options aren’t doing it some choices. And given how a character like Barcus reappears throughout the story, I don’t think he in particular needs to join the party in order to act as a LI for my deep gnome rogue who totally has a crush on him (Which isn’t to say I wouldn’t want Barcus in the party as an artificer companion, too!)

As a vaguely relevant aside, my thinking on this topic is partly influenced by Dragon Age: Origins, where there was, for example, the option for a female dwarf noble to have a romance subplot with her second in command, Gorim. And while it didn’t have much content, and wasn’t a very happy story, it worked for my character far better than any of the full romances.

Could there be legal reasons for this?
Given that halflings don't look that much different than human children, I could see the risk of the game getting fully banned in some countries.

Nah... there's animal sex, there's children killing and even children mutilation, etc.

Not to mention that the player can play as a halfling and get 69ed by Minthara. Also Hellia (a halfling) was in the game at some point and had tons of voice lines, but got scrapped.

They most likely felt restricted by a lot of things because of deadlines, DnD rules and existing lore. Plus it's pretty clear the game suffers from rushed development and is kinda still in Early Access stages due to thousands and thousands of bugs being fixed every single patch and lots of in-game story missing or not working or feeling disconnected, which is slowly being fleshed out.

YES!! I totally loved those two, they were perfect together!

Just because a person is small, doesn't mean, they look like a child. Go, look at the halfling, dwarf and gnome presets and tell me, that is, what children look like. Those races are a staple in fantasy for a long time and never has anyone had a problem with that. Besides, my small characters can romance too - and no one has a problem with that. People post pics of SHadowheart kissing a halfling or dwarf - and no one has a problem with that.

Correction there's actually 3 Humans, 3 Elves, 2 Half-Elves, 1 Tiefling and 1 Githyanki, there's an important distinction between Elves and Half-Elves, it's like saying Bretons from TES are Humans or Elves, when in reality they're a hybrid species called Manmer,

As for OP's question our Halfling companion got scrapped, maybe they can bring her back as DLC or as a patch.

Frankly, I find the concept of this character(Hellia) really cringe-worthy. It's the cut content that interests me the least. I'm absolutely not a fan of high fantasy multi combo characters because they're so cool( it's not, it's artificial).

"Look I'm a half fielon minotaur with blue dragon blood by his aunt Bety the half celeste vampire, it's so cool". It's more of a gimmick than anything else.

I think a good character doesn't have to be a freak rarity to be interesting. A classic character with a real personality, an interesting backstory and good design will always be my preference.

Coming back to the subject, I think an absolutely zany and hillarious Gnome Alchemist would be more appropriate. Why not a descendant of the Jansens for the easter egg.

But I must admit that if I had the choice, it would definitely be a BAD Dwarf, which has been Baldurs' trademark since Kagain. This would have the added advantage of enlarging the pool of bad characters that could be recruited (with Nere as well).

I suppose the finer details are lost on a creature like me

Please take some time to read up on the relevant material for this topic, if you can spare it. Halflings are not child-like, and if they existed in a real world space there would be functionally no chance of them being mistaken for human children. If you find yourself instinctively disagreeing with that statement, that is what these threads are for - please have a read if you can spare the time. Height alone is not the only maturity signifier, and shouldn't be treated as such. Education is the first step.

Focused Feedback: Halflings
Focused Examination: Intimate Choreography with Small-Sized Characters



I've characterised it as 4 Humans, 4 Elves and two token "Exotics" in the Gith and Tiefling.
This is tongue in cheek, I promise ^.~



Er... she's not multi-combo anything? She's just a halfling. But you're saying...... halfling, but with the Lycanthropy curse as her 'unusual cross to bear' is more 'cringe-worthy' to you than:

- Once-powerful archmage, and also a Chosen, and also literal intimate lover of the goddess of magic, but now with a piece of the literal shadow-weave embedding in his chest, and conveniently reduced to first level for your adventures.
- Multiple centuries old vampire spawn, but also marked by a demonic pact as part of some powerful ascension ritual.
- Mysterious half-elven amnesia with secret powers who is also the favoured of multiple deities, and also bearer of special story-critical maguffin that is bound to her specifically and is the focus of extra-planar's hunting it.
- Favoured chamption of Zariel herself, tiefling who fought on the blood wars, and also has her heart replaced by a fiendish power source that threatens to burn her to death outside of avernus. Also reduced conveniently to level 1.

Compared to those things "I've been afflicted with the lycanthropy curse and am struggling with it" is pretty down to earth as far as ridiculous gimmicks go.

Or do you just find all the companions equally or more cringe-worthy than her concept? (In which case, you wouldn't be alone... but as it stands she'd fit right in as the most 'normal' person in that bunch)