Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Does Astarion have to be a creeper tho

Cw: sexual assault

I get what the story is going for with the Astarion camp encounter. I’d just ask you to consider that for some of your players, a companion climbing onto the PC’s body in the middle of the night is violently unpleasant. The dialogue he has afterward is similarly squicky, as he follows up his nonconsensual attempt with minimization and manipulation. Vampires are generally treading in some pretty rapey territory already—but the game is asking me to bring one along for the campaign, and to seriously entertain becoming his bloodbag afterward. I’ve never booted a character from my party in a Bioware-style game before, but I would gladly have killed him on the spot. Knowing that I have to play through this scene again definitely affects my willingness to replay the game.

I’m not even clear on what his plan was—do people usually sleep through someone cutting their neck open?

For people without a similar history, think of it as violence. Anyone trying to remove blood from my body whilst I sleep is going to A) catch these hands and B) be killed or tossed out of the party immediately. It’s difficult for me to imagine many D&D parties where this wouldn’t be true.

This feels like a simple fix, as his vampirism could be introduced through dialogue, through his physical collapse due to blood deprivation, through him draining an animal in the bushes, etc.

I have many problems with this game's approach to romance (and a ridiculously lengthy post in the works), but I would hardly conflate bloodsucking with rape, regardless of the tired "sexy vampire" trope. I think him creeping through the camp at night is a good way to make the "reveal"... but I do wish he didn't have the personality of the most stereotypical meme-y bard.

I take it you weren't showered with indecent proposals from the companions at one moment, as some people were?

NGL i dont care what the post says but its the title for me and the answer is YES!!!!

I posted this to let the creators of the game know how I experienced their story and the effects it had on my willingness to replay, not to debate whether or not a companion drinking my blood is an acceptable trauma trigger

There are other ways to go about this. Trying to eat someone in the party is a bad idea on his part.

He could leave the party for a short time in a populated area and you catch him trying to eat someone else or you could wake up to Astarion passed out from being blood drunk and covered in red in a cutscene on your way out of camp one morning.

Or maybe you wake up in the middle of the night hearing weird noises and find Astarion feeding on an animal near the camp.

So my real main argument here is camp is supposedly the place where you are really going to get that one on one time with your party to learn more about them. Or at least this is how i feel it is currently designed to be.

We learn about wizard guys(forgetting his name) issue in camp, why not learn about this when we come across an artifact he wants to eat.

So the same valid point can be made for Astarion sure we find the boar he eats but we dont exactly know its him. I dont think him leaving the party would work nor the blood drunkness because im honestly not sure what that even means...and how you can tell what even that is.

I think catching him in the act is the best way to find out about his situation. Now i think they could have him munching on a bird when you get back from camp or a boar as he specifically states he feasts on animals, if i recall the dialog correctly. Whatever it is though it needs to happen at the camp in my opinion.

The whole situation is obviously meant to be creepy, and killing him or kicking him out is a perfectly valid response. It does however showcase the need for more companion options, which we are told will be the case.

He's a f.cking vampire. That's what vampires do. He's actually pretty damned restrained for a vampire.

You have the option to throw him out of the party or kill him. Get over it, or don't play the game. This is a game, a narrative art. You are not forced to play it. You don't go around protesting that Romeo and Juliet should be prohibited due to suicide triggers, you just simply should avoid it.
I personally like the NPC because he is a creep, and it is interesting. Interesting to interact with it, to kill him, to throw him out, or even to get to know him. As I presume he will turn at to be a character with more layers. He is a slave to his master, an undead after who knows how many years of suffering and abuse. I can't wait to see his struggle with his nature, his two fold curse. I presume there might be interesting character development on his part during the game. Scratching that because you find it disturbing is not a solution, because with that attitude we could burn all games, movies, books and really any piece of art. If you can't cope with it you should either avoid it or look for professional help, because the purpose of art is to trigger emotions, to make you think... If you can't cope with such a small thing it is not healthy and avoiding it and ignoring it might be a temporary solution for you, but trying to force your avoidance on others definitely not the way.

Get over it, or don't play the game is not at good argument to use on EA game looking for feedback.

The answer to the title is yes. It's part of his charm. I agree that the scene is creepy, but I can't help but love it. The sexy vampire is an old trope, but a successful one nonetheless. While I agree that taking blood without permission is an act that violets the other persons body and trust, Astarion found himself in a pretty desperate situation: he's too weak to hunt animals, but too scared to admit the truth to his companions, which barely know him and might just kill him for what he is.

I'm not trying to justify him - what he did was defiantly wrong on many levels - but if you haven't noticed, Astarion morals are shady at best. He's the bad boy of the group. If you want to kick him out or kill him it's your decision. One of the things that I like about this game is that any decision has сonsequences (especially if you let one of the shady people help you with the tadpole problem).

I think that a possible solution could be catching him feeding on an animal or an enemy. Another option is him collapsing on you because he's too weak from not feeding. Than it would be your decision if you want to let him feed on you, or maybe even hunting an animal for him.

I completely agree.

lol how is providing feedback on a game during early access “forcing your avoidance on others” like how were your rights infringed here bruh

I don't mean to play down the feeling of uncomfort someone else has.

However I want to state that I'm surprised to hear that, because I didn't have that association with him at all. I expected the scene to be what it is: About a vampire draining blood, nothing with a sexual intention. Maybe that's because I was aware he's a vampire beforehand? Would you say that this knowledge would have changed what you instinctly felt at the start of the scene?
If you play through the scene, you also learn that he usually doesn't bite people and does not intend to bite you again (he would instead aim to drain blood of people you fight anyways).

To reply to your concerns and questions specifically:
- By no means does the game require you to recruit Astarion. For a replay, you can just ignore him entirely, never pick him up. I understand your shock due to your personal experience, but I feels it's wrong to accuse Larian of forcing the player to be around him. Ignore him, kill him if that feels true to you: That's all the things BG3 enables you to do.
- The bite isn't necessarily hurtful. You may not have played with him for long enough to know, but you can use his bite inside or outside of battle - and it clearly says it doesn't break stealth. This indicates for me that usually, the drain isn't hurtful - probably barely noticeable. This is in line with the bites of real campires (the bats). Their victims wouldn't wake up from a slumber or similar, because vampires are specilized in not hurting their victims so they have more success.

I agree with you, OP. Not only is it squicky, the encounter is a bit nonsensical. If you accept but don't pass the persuasion checks he ends up killing your character, so if your character didn't wake up to find him creeping in the first place, was his original plan just to feed on one of his allies, at the risk of killing, right in the middle of camp? Though, it's not like anyone jumped to the defense when you spotted him anyway... sleepin on the job :P

Something else I recall when you catch him is that he says something about having to do it this way because he needed your trust? Which doesn't make any sense. I also think it's a good idea if the scene were changed to be the character seeing Astarion sneaking out of camp again (which the camera shows for the boar encounter) and they find him snacking on animals.

Because he's lying and trying to weasel his way out of the situation. That's the character.

Vampires snacking on animals are, in my opinion, not vampires. They're supposed to be extremely creepy. Who fears a vampire that just drinks animal blood? Too much Twilight. Astarion is supposed to inspire discomfort, fear even. Not going to happen snacking on boars.

Oh please, don't be such a sissy. Astarion is an evil character, he doesn't care about you or mutual consent. Just deal with it, its a fantasy game.

And you can actually kill him on the spot. Just attack him in the camp and slaughter him, and be done with it. You have that choice too.

To clear up: He doesn't state he needs the trust of a person to suck their blood. He merely asks you to trust him enough to let him bite you because he is desperate. I think the persuasion roll is not about what he intended to do. I felt like the scene was:
- He truely intends to only get a sip of you
- You (potentially) agree to that
- Against his prior intention, he loses control over himself (Maybe the image of "I'll only eat 5 chips" and ending up eating the whole package helps to get the idea?)
- With the persuation check, you try to make him snap out of his frenzy

The persuation check was a 1 for me, so I wondered why I had to roll at all. But by now I realize your modifiers are countet against the target roll and I had high charisma and proficiency in persuation. Never the less, it's still a low roll that should tighten the idea that he intends to play along, so that's why I considered it "reminding him" rather than "having to convince him" to stop.