Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Current companions/romance options

There's not a great deal I can add that I haven't already said; I think it dilutes the character and makes them more vague, especially if you can just flip a switch to make them something else. As Frumpkis pointed out, there's already an established back-story both with her current love life and her childhood, the significance of which is very significantly diminished by a personality change of that magnitude.

I suppose there's also the RL parallels where some people think that approach also works with real people, which isn't relevant to a game but makes me feel a bit icky.

Edit: but worse than all that, I just saw someone suggest Nibbles be replaced by a different "less ugly" cat. D:

Quick summery of my opinions regarding the current companions (I have seen all romances on YouTube since well... I went romance-less ):

* Lae'zel - I like her character as a player, but her dominating nature made no sense for my PC which actually just ended up killing her. My character at release will probably not kill her (instantly, anyways) - but she most certainly won't be romanced. As a player, though, I am happy she exists because a character like hers is certainly needed, although I think that Mintara and Lae'zel has a bit too many similarities, sometimes...

* Wyll - Probably the most logical choice for my PC - but still a miss. I could make a list out of all the reasons he didn't make it - but I'll settle with saying: "too much ego". As a player, I am not a huge fan of him either, but neither do I dislike him, though. My current character and my final character will definitely try to help him - but I doubt the later will romance him.

* Gale - Could work, but his obsession with his goddess puts my character on high alert (and I am also quite certain he is a lot darker than he appears to be, I'll bring him on full release just to confirm :D). While goddess-obsessed characters can make for good companions (looking at you, Tristian, you're as sweet as sugar), I'll admit my current experience with good/neutral oriented religious-obsessed characters is decent at best.

* Astarion - Hard pass for my character, but oh dear do I enjoy him as a player. His snarky comments are amazing, but I cannot give myself a good RP reason to bed him nor romance him. :']

* Shadowheart - Potential, and might be of interest later on. But as it is right now, she is like Gale - she puts my character on high alert. My PC wants to help her, but there is no way she'd risk going into a relationship with her as things are rightt now. Absolutely no way.


Personally, I cannot see my PC making sense with any current companion, however I am looking forward to taking part in their story though other players. :] And I am looking forward to seeing what companions the future holds for us. Personally, if we're going to discuss romances in other games - there's only one character that I'd romance in a heartbeat without consider anybody else: Aloth from PoE. <3 I would settle for a Ifan from DOS2 too, though. Both makes much more sense for my PC. But it is not like romancing is a must for me - if I don't feel it coming naturally for my PC during the playthrough, then I'll just do without and read up on the missed stories online. :] Looking forward to see our upcoming companions, in case there is any potential there!




Regarding player-oriented NPCs - I personally do not care. A well-written character is not going to be less well written just cause they'd go for the PC regardless of gender. I'll find it hard to believe that there's many characters whose sexuality matter so much for their personality that they'd get completely ruined for going both ways - obviously, there are cases where it matters... But, in my opinion, that would be the minority of companions (if any). In general I am always for more player options so unless there is a specific reason for the characters to not be player-oriented, then I don't think they shouldn't be.

It's funny how many people here have played Pathfinder Kingmaker.

About the 'playersexuality' discussion: It is the convenient, lazy solution. Of course I was angry I had to play a girl to romance Suvi in Mass Effect - the arguably cutest one with an accent to die for. But at the same time, it was adding to her character. If characters always do what the player wants, they are less interesting, less believable. Characters need to disagree or even attack the player.

I'll take lazy over discriminatory policy any day. The issue is that there hasn't been a single game developed that give equal attention to gay characters, it's also heavily one sided toward the straight players, which I already said to be expected as it's the majority of the players. In regard to your example, you have a bunch of choices already, so you just happen to stumble upon a gay character, you could just say that maybe you could go for them, but for the gay characters with limited options, you don't get to have that luxury. There were a big commotion with Mass Effect Andromeda because the options are as you said very LAZY for the gay options, both of the gay options are non companions, computer generated faces, with little contents. The supposed bi option was made for female, during the romantic scene, his eyes didn't look at the male character because he looks down to the height of the females, essentially a lazy mod where they just replace the female with male. There hasn't been a single single game out there that do set sexuality right. I would take lazy over intentionally unequal contents any day.

That's why there should be roughly ~equal number of options for any player preferences. We are expecting 8 companions, they can easily be:
1 straight male, 1 straight female, 1 gay male, 1 gay female
4 bi-/player-sexual companions of differing genders

This allows for everyone to have 3-6 romance options in any given playthrough, depending on their willingness to date companions of a gender they might not be attracted to IRL.
For comparison, 8 entirely playersexual companions results in 4-8 options depending on the same. Larian could make fully half of the companions attracted to a single gender and it would at worst reduce romance options down from 4 to 3.

Of course, companions shouldn't be defined entirely by their orientation. But all good companions should have defined preferences/desires/opinions, including about their sexuality. And their sexuality should preferably be consistent with their backstory/relationship history and any dialogue (flirting) between them and other companions.

Allow certain opportunities to flirt during dialogues. Maybe not start to finish, but it least early on allow players the ability to have minor flirting that if the player flirts later dialogues provide more flirting options.

My big issue isn't personalities as much as no leading up to sex. It is SO lacking romance. My first playthrough, I was stunned that anyone wanted to have sex with me. There was nothing leading up to it.

Also, don't have characters solicit sex. The player should initiate, and if the right flirting options are chosen it builds up to something more.

When I talked to Wyll and he hit on my main, I was floored. I didn't get a homosexual vibe from him at all during the game. We were more like buds. Im not homosexual, and at was not fun. I can only assume the same if you are the opposite. Let the player lead. That way they can choose who they want. Having EVERYONE want to have sex with you is also not fun or realistic.
Astarion, I can understand hitting on everyone and coming right out with it. Lae'zel too. The others. No.

I think it is true that every is assuming a lot about these characters. I think Lae'zel also has something HUGE she is hiding. She's softer than she pretends and me thinks she is a bit TOO zealous. I think she's definitely done something against her people. That's why she's so scared. Shes done something to jeopardize her future with her people. Why was she on the nautiloid as a prisoner? Why does she desperately need your help so much? Remember the first mind touch? A Githyanki silver sword was mentioned, but she's not Kith. Did she steal one, kill a Kith...

Gale is hiding way more. Just look at the art. That scene with him and lightning and undead. He looked insane. I like Gale but his secret told a different side to him...a power hungry obsessive side.

Wyll is also a raging ball of anger under that calm exterior. His secret definitely has hardly had the surface scratched. Same with Astarion and Shadowheart.

Larian has 3 acts to tell their stories. They have to reveal some secrets this early or it'll feel too rushed later. I want more character interaction not less. We need more leading up to romance.

Honestly, though, romance shouldn't even be possible for most until later acts. Astarion, I could see. He's free and looking to experience life again. Everyone else. No. Needs more relationship development first.

As for secrets, I disagree. They aren't really secrets. These are just facts about their lives that over time they are willing to share once trust is built. Gale, for example, keeps warning you right from the beginning not to let him die. Wyll's mind link tells you a bit about his and if he's with you fighting gobbos he says he'll open up later without much effort.

Astarion is definitely a secret and revealed early, but it is because he's having a hard time hiding it. Totally believable to me. Shadowheart requires some high difficulty rolls to get her to open up, so hers is definitely a secret and not really that easy to get her to spill. I think it was 2 difficulty rolls of 15 or higher?

So not really all secrets. They just don't share right away for typical reasons. They're getting to know one another.

But Shadowheart does make it obvious she has a secret and then shuts you down. Maybe her lack of ability to hide it is why her intelligence is so low. Maybe that's why she can't remember anything. Maybe she's actually not trusted with the secrets she knows.

Probably an Arasaka shill jealous of those who have cats.

That would be more or less like Mass Effect. You get a little heart next to the dialogue option, so you know you are flirting.


I suspect early access is rushing things a bit to get feedback from players. Which is ok in my opinion, since it's early access & it's fine to try things out.

As for sex, it depends on the character. If it's a barbarian warrior guy/girl, it might make sense if they are blunt. If it's a shy & meek character, it would not.


There are literally hundreds of games which specifically target homosexuals. And some of them are actually quite good. If you need pointers, I can provide them.

The statement that every game would somehow have to give exactly equal attention to heterosexual or homosexual characters doesn't make sense.


I specifically praised that Zuvi's rejection of a male player character makes her character more believable.

I know games out there that made for homosexuality, but that doesn't relate to how I want the games I play, especially mainstream, to be discriminatory. That's like saying if you don't like Baldur's Gate, just play King's Maker. I play specifically a game because I like certain elements in this game that is not in other games and romance is just a part of it.

See? we are at an impasse, you think it's okay to have slanted numbers simply being a majority while the other group should just bear with it, and I disagree since I just don't satisfy with that because the underlying reasons. That's why I prefer the playersexual simply because I don't have to deal with those discriminatory where my worth is judged based on something I can't change.

Many scenes are skipped, cuz they are not finalized. Many scenes with Astarion, for example, are pulled out. And in these scenes, MC takes a romantic interest in Astarion. And right now Astarion himself has at least 2 scenes where he shows his interest. In short, I think we should have more cutscenes, Larian just still working on them. It's possible that other companions have more scenes too.

If speaking not about romance, for example, the book scene was only added in patch 4. So I think they will be able to fill in these "gaps".

The other constant thorn on the side is that rather conveniently, all resources go toward making the straight female love interest rather attractive in body and attitude, while often a fraction of the effort is spent in male models. If I could make a buck for every single well sculpted porn star female ass with super countoured armor while you get males with chicken legs and flat ass with baggy clothes, I'd be richer than Elon Musk.

Cora in Mass Effect Andromeda, and then Panam/Judy in CP2077.

At least in Baldur's Gate they actually gave the naked males some semblance of well distributed curvature, if we're going by the Astarion romance scenes.

Not just that, aren't the straight option is often the most important and plot relevant (on top of more contents usually) characters as well? Alistair and Morrigan from Dragon Age, Panam from Cyberpunk, the lords from Fire Emblem. The gay option in Mass Effect Andromeda is one of the most offensive things I have seen. See? I don't know if it's intentional or not, but the options for gay tend to be very out there.

Srsly people, you are quoting posts that are five times longer than your reaction ...
Cant you at least give it spoiler tags or something? :-/

That's true. On the one-hand, I wouldn't necessarily point to Andromeda or Cyberpunk as good examples, given all the drama, rushed release, and general hate directed toward those games. Especially CP2077, which has a completely pathetic set of romance options. Even I'd advocate for player-sexual companions if there were only 4 options. On the other hand, yeah DA:O and DA:I had straight main companions (Cassandra and Solas for DAI).
In an ideal world, the main companions across all games would be an ~even mix of orientations and all sets of orientations would be given equal development efforts, but I agree that we definitely do not live in an ideal world.

However, neither of your arguments are actually against set companion sexualities, just that in most games it is done poorly and/or it's always side characters who are non-het. In BG3, where the title of "Main Companion" can only realistically be given to Lae'zel (and even that's a bit of a stretch), at least the latter of these two problems is less relevant.

But you just said "there hasn't been a single game developed that give equal attention to gay characters". In truth, there are even games that give *more* attention to gay characters.

And that's just fine.


So you basically want to forbid games, movies and books which focus on homosexuals or heterosexuals and only allow games which give exactly equal attention? Maybe gays and heterosexuals should unite to defend their beloved games, books and movies against this cultural nihilism

Let's steer clear of bringing real-world sexuality and LGBTQ+ politics into a forum about a computer game. Character (PC or NPC) sexuality within the game is a legitimate topic with much constructive potential, but if the conversation strays into the real world it will be closed.

Did I say I forbid anyone? I don't have any power over it but simply stated what I want and that's playersexual as some may put it because it has never done well. It's not a demand, and I simply stated a preference in a feedback board, funny how you make it sound like I try to force anything. It's up to the developers to do whatever they want at the end of the day. I don't care about representation like at all, just simply let me court whoever. You want these arbitrary restriction and unequal distribution, and I'm glad Larian didn't do that route and I hope it stays that way.

I've only been in EA for about three months now, so I haven't had much chance to explore many character options with regard to romance. My initial character was something different for me: a tiefling warlock who was more neutralish than my normally good characters. Since I needed a rogue in the party, I thought it would be a good chance to test out Astarion.

I almost didn't continue with that, since he seemed like a bit of a whinger to begin with, however, he quickly became more charming once he warmed up to my character. While I agree that the depraved, hedonistic vampire is a very widespread sterotype, there were several suggestions that there was more to his character than that.


In addition to that, the fact that he seems to: place so much importance on whether the PC (and other party members) trust him or not, like when you refer to having each other's backs, and approve when you help out others in a similar situation to his (Karlach) suggest a glimmer of hope for him. I would like to think that, with the appropriate emotional support, he might be able to recover from his trauma somewhat. Becoming good seems too unlikely, but maybe reaching a more neutral outlook might be possible.

Or maybe I'm just a hopeless romantic and wish everyone could be saved, even when they can't.

Other than that, I thought my new druid character would end up hitting it off with Gale, but despite having extrordinary approval from him, she never got some of the interactions/scenes others have mentioned here. I'm not sure what she missed doing (other than him ).

Gale is really bugged. In order to be able to romance him, you have to have a scene, where he explorers the Weave with you. This scene is nearly impossible to trigger. Especially, if you are getting approval too quickly. You basically have to rest after every approval raise, but the problem is, other companion scenes are triggered too - and I always thought, that they might overwrite the Weave scene, plus there are events like Raphael that burst into the mix.
I did at least 10 playthroughs and I only was able to trigger the Weave scene once or twice.

As for Astarion, I hope he stays evil, he is the most evil of the companions and he seems to like it that way. My prediction is, that you have to put a stake through his heart at one point as a non-evil character.

I agree with fylimar, Astarion comes off as chaotic evil, to use the D&D alignment terms. With an evil PC is is actually quite noticeable; I guess he isn't hiding his nature then. Also, he is the only companions that has a personal interest in keeping the tadpole, so I suspect if the absolute offers him a good deal he will take it (and stab the PC in the back on the way). Same as Gale and
That said, I think every origin character will be written with a potential evil & good path in their origin story. Otherwise playing them would make little sense; if the player consistently makes good choices, the story needs to reflect that, regardless who they are playing as.