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#734375 14/11/20 08:32 PM
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I feel like I am going to be making a number of notes on the story as I play through this and analyze the story, i'm going to start with Gale... for starters, his story is way to over the top. He is a wizard who fell in love with god, had sex with god, and then merged himself with a magical nuke to try and impress god... All while being a level 1 wizard, that is completely ridiculous and honestly a sort of weird story for a wizard?

Look, I have to say a number of companions in this game border on sue territory, and have a bit to much going on in addition to the tadpole in their head. You all have to introduce some companions that don't have the tadpole thing going on... if you want also all this other stuff with them going on, because the tadpole pushes it into "to much"

But with Gale it is already to much, and on top of all that he eats all your best magical items. Which is just going to piss the players off and push them into not liking Gale... which sucks because he is easily the best companion so far.

There is also the elephant in the room, we have a solution to his problem. We get access to an underdark city that is abandoned.... like we have access to a super remote super deep underdark location, all we would have to do story-wise to resolve this is take him down as deep as possible, let him pop, and then resurrect him with the SCROLL OF TRUE RESURRECTION THAT YOU GAVE US!

True Resurrection requires only a name... you literally have a solution to this problem by the second act of the story.

My suggestion, remove the part where he actually ever met Mystra, remove him having sex with her... make him a idiot who thought he could impress her by finding ancient magic. Dont make it artifact level magic that he needs to consume in order to survive, because its completely implausible that he would have... as a level 1 wizard, been able to find any artifact level magic in order to survive to this point.

Instead ramp it up so that each time he needs more and more powerful magic items to survive, give us plenty of breathing room... Maybe make it a scroll the first time, two scrolls the next, four, then a magic item, then to, then three, then an artifact... it getting worse each time, making the ticking clock ramp up. And also making it clear that there is enough time to weigh options, and that this thing that happened to him was really recent... Maybe make it so that the tadpole is somehow aggravating it and making it hungrier?

(Generally try to integrate the tadpole situation into the companions situations, making their lives worse and enhancing their personal problems)

Bump that SCROLL OF TRUE RESURRECTION (WTF) down to a Raise Dead, because the following spells can solve the problem, True Resurrection, Resurrection, and Reincarnate... any of those say and you can take a piece of his body, or even just his name and fix the fucking problem by letting him pop and bringing him back.

Last, and I wouldnt say least... this is not story-relates, but its sooooooo annoying, His beard clips through is chin when he talks, its barely noticeable, but when you start noticing it... you cant un-notice it, and its driving me absolutely crazy. Please fix it.

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He was not always a wizard at level 1, he recalls that once was much more powerful, but lost most of his power after certain events
If he was able to silence the beholder (as mentioned), he must have been quite a powerful mage.

Last edited by Rhobar121; 14/11/20 09:18 PM.
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Originally Posted by Rhobar121
He was not always a wizard at level 1, he recalls that once was much more powerful, but lost most of his power after certain events
If he was able to silence the beholder (as mentioned), he must have been quite a powerful mage.


That makes more sense for something like a Sorcerer, Warlock, or Cleric... Since wizards are based more on their knowledge, its not like he had the knowledge slurped out of his brain.

Which admittedly given the tadpole thing seems feasible.

Thats another story patch they could do, that he has been able to surpress this thing because of his great power but the Tadpole somehow cut him off from his knowledge, or damaged his memories, or just general mind flayer experimentation extracted to much knowledge from him, and that is why his magic nuke is more uncontrolled now.

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It's hard to truly judge these companions until we get the full story, as any "red-flags" we see right now can potentially be subtle clues for the full story.

Given that, I do feel somewhat on the same page as you in regards to Gale, especially because how much he stands out relative to the other companions (Fane syndrome from DOS 2).


Originally Posted by urktheturtle
I feel like I am going to be making a number of notes on the story as I play through this and analyze the story, i'm going to start with Gale... for starters, his story is way to over the top. He is a wizard who fell in love with god, had sex with god, and then merged himself with a magical nuke to try and impress god... All while being a level 1 wizard, that is completely ridiculous and honestly a sort of weird story for a wizard?

Look, I have to say a number of companions in this game border on sue territory, and have a bit to much going on in addition to the tadpole in their head. You all have to introduce some companions that don't have the tadpole thing going on... if you want also all this other stuff with them going on, because the tadpole pushes it into "to much"


+1

While I don't mind extensive back stories, Gale's does tread a bit too close to "that guy" or a main character of a Shounen anime territory. Which is a shame, because I think he's actually very interesting without the exaggerations.

What could be interesting (which can't be judged until we see the rest of the game) is if Gale has been mislead this whole time. Who he met was something powerful, but not Mystra, etc. I will applaud Larian if they go down this path.


Originally Posted by urktheturtle

But with Gale it is already to much, and on top of all that he eats all your best magical items. Which is just going to piss the players off and push them into not liking Gale... which sucks because he is easily the best companion so far.


I'm actually okay with him eating magical items - it's not game breaking with all the ones we can find, and it's nice to have some strong narrative-to-gameplay consequences.

However, I really hope Larian makes it "worth it" - not just loot/gameplay rewards, but something with narrative consequences. i.e. I don't want his quest resolving the basically same way if I've fed him tons of items vs. none.


Originally Posted by urktheturtle

There is also the elephant in the room, we have a solution to his problem. We get access to an underdark city that is abandoned.... like we have access to a super remote super deep underdark location, all we would have to do story-wise to resolve this is take him down as deep as possible, let him pop, and then resurrect him with the SCROLL OF TRUE RESURRECTION THAT YOU GAVE US!


I'll wait to judge on this one. To your point, right now it does seem like a loop hole (since he can just sail into the ocean and blow up, and come back). I'll give Larian a thumbs-up if this is deliberate - i.e. this is a clue that Gail is far more selfish than we think, etc.

The other issue that bugs me is if he was powerful enough to do the things he did (he mentions he was capable of feats even Archmages were envious of) - it makes ZERO SENSE that he would follow the main character around as a clueless sidekick when we all thought we had days till death. A high level character isn't just spells - it's also tons of treasure, knowledge, and means and social connections to get things done.

He has a really compelling reason (you know, the whole bomb thing) that powerful people in Faerun will want to help him, instead of some clueless level 1 adventurers.


Originally Posted by urktheturtle

Bump that SCROLL OF TRUE RESURRECTION (WTF) down to a Raise Dead, because the following spells can solve the problem, True Resurrection, Resurrection, and Reincarnate... any of those say and you can take a piece of his body, or even just his name and fix the fucking problem by letting him pop and bringing him back.


How else will we know how special Gale is if he doesn't have a Legendary item at level 1? Sarcasm aside, 100% agree, it's a little bit over the top, for limited practical purposes.

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Originally Posted by urktheturtle
Originally Posted by Rhobar121
He was not always a wizard at level 1, he recalls that once was much more powerful, but lost most of his power after certain events
If he was able to silence the beholder (as mentioned), he must have been quite a powerful mage.


That makes more sense for something like a Sorcerer, Warlock, or Cleric... Since wizards are based more on their knowledge, its not like he had the knowledge slurped out of his brain.

Which admittedly given the tadpole thing seems feasible.

Thats another story patch they could do, that he has been able to surpress this thing because of his great power but the Tadpole somehow cut him off from his knowledge, or damaged his memories, or just general mind flayer experimentation extracted to much knowledge from him, and that is why his magic nuke is more uncontrolled now.


I suspect that a great ancient magic ball may cause some magic problems. I'm not sure if that was said anywhere in the game but I think he was one of the Chosen of Mystra.

Last edited by Rhobar121; 14/11/20 09:55 PM.
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Originally Posted by Rhobar121
Originally Posted by urktheturtle
Originally Posted by Rhobar121
He was not always a wizard at level 1, he recalls that once was much more powerful, but lost most of his power after certain events
If he was able to silence the beholder (as mentioned), he must have been quite a powerful mage.


That makes more sense for something like a Sorcerer, Warlock, or Cleric... Since wizards are based more on their knowledge, its not like he had the knowledge slurped out of his brain.

Which admittedly given the tadpole thing seems feasible.

Thats another story patch they could do, that he has been able to surpress this thing because of his great power but the Tadpole somehow cut him off from his knowledge, or damaged his memories, or just general mind flayer experimentation extracted to much knowledge from him, and that is why his magic nuke is more uncontrolled now.


I suspect that a great ancient magic ball may cause some magic problems. I'm not sure if that was said anywhere in the game but I think he was one of the Chosen of Mystra.


I will try to spell this out a little more clearly then... it makes no sense, that he would be able to gain levels as a wizard, if this magic nuke in his chest is what caused him to go from a level 20 wizard to a level 1 wizard. Because if its inhibiting his power then he shouldnt be able to regain it.

There are three solutions, make him being bumped down to level 1 something the mind flayers did, make him previously have been a high level cleric of Mystra (knowledge or Arcana) and is relearning magic as a wizard, or simply ditch the entire story idea that he was once more powerful.

And I think the best option is to ditch teh story idea that he was more powerful, but the other two options work great as well (additionally, I think that NPC multiclassing options should be limited by story somewhat, him having a mystra cleric path open would be interesting)

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The companion writing annoys the hell out of me. Who thinks to themselves that most of the backstories are either well written or a nice addition?

Gale is supposedly a prodigy, some amazingly powerful wizard that bones a god. Where does that fit in at all?

Wyll is a terrible offender as well. The coming companions are just as bad.

I think La'zel is the only one that actually fits the game so far. Maybe with Shadowheart and Astarion following behind, but by far and away hers fits the premise the most. I like Gale, but God is he terribly written.

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I thought he was the most likeable character until he revealed his Elminster Mary Sue origin story.

I have to say, even though Larian's writing has never been good enough to compete with the genre classics, I was surprised and irritated that they thought these elements made for a good concept.

And as has been pointed out already, the requirement to feed him powerful magic items makes him a very unattractive choice for your party mechanically.

Last edited by Leuenherz; 15/11/20 01:43 AM.
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Originally Posted by Leuenherz


And as has been pointed out already, the requirement to feed him powerful magic items makes him a very unattractive choice for your party mechanically.

I'd forgotten about that, this makes him even worse. How do they plan on dealing with the
nuke plothole? So we don't feed him our stuff or if he dies then he goes full nuke, well how about when our parties are set after act 1. He can't become an enemy or just conveniently die or else you've got a big boom


He's just badly written and bad for gameplay design.

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Originally Posted by urktheturtle
I feel like I am going to be making a number of notes on the story as I play through this and analyze the story, i'm going to start with Gale... for starters, his story is way to over the top. He is a wizard who fell in love with god, had sex with god, and then merged himself with a magical nuke to try and impress god... All while being a level 1 wizard, that is completely ridiculous and honestly a sort of weird story for a wizard?

Look, I have to say a number of companions in this game border on sue territory, and have a bit to much going on in addition to the tadpole in their head. You all have to introduce some companions that don't have the tadpole thing going on... if you want also all this other stuff with them going on, because the tadpole pushes it into "to much"

But with Gale it is already to much, and on top of all that he eats all your best magical items. Which is just going to piss the players off and push them into not liking Gale... which sucks because he is easily the best companion so far.

There is also the elephant in the room, we have a solution to his problem. We get access to an underdark city that is abandoned.... like we have access to a super remote super deep underdark location, all we would have to do story-wise to resolve this is take him down as deep as possible, let him pop, and then resurrect him with the SCROLL OF TRUE RESURRECTION THAT YOU GAVE US!

True Resurrection requires only a name... you literally have a solution to this problem by the second act of the story.

My suggestion, remove the part where he actually ever met Mystra, remove him having sex with her... make him a idiot who thought he could impress her by finding ancient magic. Dont make it artifact level magic that he needs to consume in order to survive, because its completely implausible that he would have... as a level 1 wizard, been able to find any artifact level magic in order to survive to this point.

Instead ramp it up so that each time he needs more and more powerful magic items to survive, give us plenty of breathing room... Maybe make it a scroll the first time, two scrolls the next, four, then a magic item, then to, then three, then an artifact... it getting worse each time, making the ticking clock ramp up. And also making it clear that there is enough time to weigh options, and that this thing that happened to him was really recent... Maybe make it so that the tadpole is somehow aggravating it and making it hungrier?

(Generally try to integrate the tadpole situation into the companions situations, making their lives worse and enhancing their personal problems)

Bump that SCROLL OF TRUE RESURRECTION (WTF) down to a Raise Dead, because the following spells can solve the problem, True Resurrection, Resurrection, and Reincarnate... any of those say and you can take a piece of his body, or even just his name and fix the fucking problem by letting him pop and bringing him back.

Last, and I wouldnt say least... this is not story-relates, but its sooooooo annoying, His beard clips through is chin when he talks, its barely noticeable, but when you start noticing it... you cant un-notice it, and its driving me absolutely crazy. Please fix it.


He got cut off from his god, honestly he comes off more as a cleric of mystra who lost her favor and has to restart

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okay guys, I appreciate the interaction. But I am seeing a bit of hostility and aggression here... I feel it is entirely unwarranted, unneeded, and unproductive.

When I made this thread the intention was to discuss this topic, not to insult anyone or make fun of the writing. While I respect your opinions I feel it is far better to say that Larian has been a bit... over enthusiastic with the backstories of some companions.

Enthusiasm is a good thing, but it can lead you astray when writing and things can be overdone.


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