Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Companions.

The past BG series have had a very diverse number of companion personalities and alignments. They range from Lawful Good to Chaotic Evil, and they all interact with one another in specific ways. In my 29 hours+ of playtime, every single one of my companions seems to be out for only themselves, and chaotic neutral at best. They are all aggressive towards the main character. It would be much better if my companions were at each other's throats for ideological reasons, and not something so shallow that one is a "flat face" and another sucks blood. Story writing and remember able characters are the keystone of a good RPG. To be short, none of the characters have much attachment in the current iteration. Why should we "the player" care about some randos that are confrontational towards us at every turn? I miss the annoying goody-goody trying to make constant annoying light out of the shit-show that is the bloodthirsty world of the Forgotten Realms.





TLDR: More diverse companions. Some sad. Some so cheerful and so "good" that you want to strangle them. You nailed it with " Angsty/shady character with deep dark secret," but every companion character seems to be written with that in mind, and more variety would be refreshing. My favorite character of the entire series, among some other individuals, was Minsc. Sometimes, simple characters with blatantly open character flaws are a favorite. Don't be too afraid to hit on clichés.

Larian has already said these 5 were chosen specifically because there were "evil or neutral" at best. Other companions will be added later on in EA. Just as other classes, races and features will be added later in EA. This is only the first week of EA be patient and test what you have first before asking for more.

I feel that only one companion that I wan to join me is Wyll and mabe Gale.

Gale is a really good guy. He's the only character I actually like. I don't count Wyll as I'm still before him. I hope Larian will add more companions - people claim they will, but I can't find any official news regarding more companions.

But you meet Wyll in first camp around 30 min of gamepaly.

I very much await the the next set of characters, and hope they do deliver an ideologically diverse set of companions. As a "paid beta tester" (early access), I am playing through the current set of content (several times likely) and will deliver my ongoing critique of the current characters.

Swen said so in an interview.

I seriously had to laugh when Shadowheart, a Sharran cultist, told me not to trust the Githyanki! Oh, the irony! Why would I want to be close to these people, they are a serious health hazard!
Them being confrontational is only the least of my worries. Would you sleep out in the woods with a Vampire spawn and a murder cultist? Is my character supposed to be ignorant of these things? If so, shouldn't that depend on my knowledge skills? Shouldn't there be checks? Gale seems alright, but one of the first things he did was flirt with the priestess of Shar! What the hell is going on!? Do you only survive the crash if you're an Evil git(h) or something?

I don't want to care about these people, I don't want their approval, I just want to survive them long enough to be rid of them!

Firstly, I like these companions a lot so far. But I do want to say as someone who knows basically nothing about D&D lore, is it actually obvious that Shadowheart is a cultist of Shar when you meet her? I only know because of out of game info and in the context of the story that feels like something we wouldn't have reason to suspect initially. Same with Asterion; we're definitely not supposed to realize he's a vampire spawn and the fact he can walk around in the daylight takes away a big reason why you'd ever be suspicious of him on that front. The fact he tries to kill you when you first meet him on the other hand? That's more problematic I grant you.

She tells you she worships Shar if you talk to her(enough?). I wont say any more because spoilers. But I like how she is written(so far)



I love Gale as a character! He's a bit cocky/full of himself and patronising but he clearly means well.

I ditched the vampire spawn as soon as he tried to 'seduce' me. (my main charc is a rogue anyways)

My plan is to play through with the Wizard(party balance), Shadowheart(tried to rescue her on the ship), and Lae’Zel(seems central to story)

I don't and I don't think that only "goody two shoes" are suited to be interesting companions, but still... Their very existence is conflicting with the OP's claims that "all companions seem to be evil and/or aggressive toward the main character.

The panel from hell watch the video. There is your proof.

The only one I really don't like so far is Shadowheart. I think she's as poorly written as her stupid name. Her "big reveal" is as big-time obvious as Astarion's always-visible fangs. I don't know a ton of D&D lore and from my character's perspective, not being able to see character sheets, it's still a big, "YA DON'T SAYYYYY!?"

I think the aggressiveness towards the player might be a little buggy. They can be on-and-off friendly, hostile and back again with seemingly no reason. Or maybe it's a drawback of full voice acting.

Yes, it is really obvious. Those obsidian disks she's got on her forehead and armor basically marked her as a cleric of Shar from the first glimpses of her during one of the gameplay demonstrations. It's supposed to be black with a purple border, but I interpreted this as artistic freedom. The church of Shar outlawed in a lot of places (and therefore underground), so I was a bit surprised to see the blatant "advertisement" of affiliation.
From the perspective of a character it could be different. A character not trained in the religion skill might not immediately know. However, the church of Selune (the enemy of Shar) is generally well regarded so anything they would know about Shar would probably not be favorable.

I like both the concept and the execution of Asterion. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I dislike Evil characters, but, uhm, where are the good guys? I liked characters like Edwin or Viconia in BG2, but they weren't my full party. They where Imoen, Minsc, Keldorn, Jahira etc. Now I feel I only have bad guys to choose from.

Ah, I see. Like I said I'm unfamiliar with the lore.

As for the lack of good guys, they purposefully left the good guys for later to encourage players to try evil playthroughs, since most players play good and they wanted to try and get more data on how the evil playthroughs went. I took that advice and am trying it out. For what it's worth, playing a self-interested character makes it hard to engage with a lot of quests since there's the issue of "this doesn't concern me."

I am baffled by the reactions some have. Gale is a good guy with maybe ! a bit neutral. Wyll too. Thats 2 out of 5 and some say "there are only bad guys to choose from", really ?
Even shadowheart while not being a goody two shoes is not cruel according to what she approves, look at the wiki. She is just objective oriented and a bit selfish, but honestly who can say for themselves that they would play the hero while a tadpol is eating your brain !
Not instantly wanting to help some refugees doesn't make her evil. All in all she is more or less neutral.
Astarion is evil-ish and lae zel is a bully and asshole, but thats 2 out of 5. gosh, from what some people say one could think you were forced to travel with a bunch of child slavers. 2 evil-ish , 2 good and 1 neutral... yeah, very onesided.
That this is the "evil" team is saying a lot about the rest of the planned companions.

What upset me the most is that there are currently no really evil companions. I tried to play as evil drow, but all the companions did not approve of this behavior.