Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Non-Tadpoled Companions

yes only origin characters need to be tadpole'd otherwise the whole conceit behind grouping up in the first place would need to change as well.

How is he confirmed as origin (being origin would mean starting the game as Minsc)? I find that unlikely but from what you said it does sounds like he will be able to join our team. A tadpole-less companion, or temporary companion (or indeed, a full origin - that would be weird though, starting with Minsc in this very alien Baldur’s Gate setting). I could swear Larian mentioned something like that when discussing 4party limit (characters temporary joining your team of four), however, I seem to be the only one remembering that, so I might have misinterpreted something. Especially so, as there is nothing of that sort in EA as far as I am aware. However, that still would make the most sense to me - any character who joins our party will have their own lines and will be under player control (afterall, BG3 allows for any party member to engage with the conversation, regardless if it’s player character or companion).

I don't think it's true at all because there are many things that were asked of Larian regarding this game, but they only commented on a select few suggestions. It seems very likely they only address things they are seriously considering implementing at the very least

+1 for non origin companions.

It looks like a huge majority of players just don't care about origins (reddit polls) so please... Don't spend all your "companions time" on them.

This is the last one I saw : https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGat..._medium=android_app&utm_source=share

Great idea. Also not all NPCs need to be there in act 1... so the possibilities are literally endless... in BG2 the most fun NPCs also joined somewhere mid-game... (especially Edwina...)

? Outside Imoen every companion is recruitable from the very beginning. Some are of the beaten path (not in ankathla) but they still can be quickly reached.

I don’t think spreading companions around is bad, but I do think it undermines companions you meet later. In my personal experience, companion who join after substantial playtime are unlikely to make it into my A squad. Of course, unless, all starting companions are unlike grumps.

I'd actually prefer all of them be available in Act I, perhaps beginning of Act 2 (because BG). In BG1 you had a bunch of companions only available once you reached BG, so in Chapter 5 (out of 7 chapters). By this point your party was pretty much established. So either you skipped the late-game companion or you spent most of your adventuring time with a character that was just there to be dumped once you reach BG. There's even a mod to make those characters available earlier, before BG is available. BioWare seems to have recognized the problem, as in BG2 it's only Imoen that is available late into the game; you can recruit all the other characters pretty much before doing anything else in Chapter 2 or even 1 (And Chapter 1 in BG2 is done in the first hour of the game or so.) Some quests required, of course, but not story progression.

Companions aren’t the same as party members and I’m pretty sure that you can’t enter dialogue with them.

Anyway, Minsc

Yes... but there were so many quests, you might have played 2 hours or 20 hours before you actually came to these quests (e.g. Anomen, Valygar, Keldorn). I think it felt much more satisfying also from a story perspective if they all were not just standing around and immediately available...

I agree that "standing around waiting to be recruited" is bad, but the point in BG2 is that you CAN recruit them as soon as you sprint out of Irenicus' dungeon and do their recruitment quest. You CAN recruit them after you do most of Chapter 2/3 stuff (so most/half of the game), but it's entirely up to you. If they're locked to later story arcs, there's the BG1 problem I've described. In BG2 you can form your desired party at the beginning and go through the whole game with your trusty companions.

I'm probably in the minority here, but I liked the druid Apikusis that I spoke to in the Druids Grove. Hard to pin down exactly what it was about her, but the second that I spoke to her, I thought that she could potentially be an interesting companion?