Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Need More Masculine Characters

Where is the skull crushing Dwarf, and where is the racist Orc hating Paladin?

the dwarf sounds hypermasculine, but the racist paladin is just a shitty person regardless of gender. You can have a super feminine paladin who hates dwarves.

I agree OP, our current ragtag of companions are...random. of all of them, Lae zel is the most macho. But of our 3 gentlemen. Gale is a edgy wizard teen about suicide, astarion is a pretty boy Casanova, and wyll is a theater drama nerd.

If Halsin could be a companion, now that is a chad to bring about to the fight and adventure with.

These are the types of companions you get when you try to make special companions with special problems. It’s a cover for bad writing. It’s harder to develop a plain character that’s interesting than a character with a special plot hook.

Halsin is a pretty plain druid. He loves nature and is concerned about a dark presence. He’s not edgy. He’s not insecure. He’s not weak. And he’s also interesting without the drama and someone I’d like to have in my party.

That's more an issue that plain characters are not very interesting. This is basically a call to remove roleplaying from the game.

Where did you jump to the conclusion that I want role playing removed from the game? You assume too much.

Nah, hating orcs is not racism, it's a favor to Faerun.
Genociding goblinoids is a favor to the multiverse.

I don't think special plot hooks and a masculine characteristic are mutually exclusive. Just as an example, a "Han Solo" character can still be masculine and have an equally intriguing plot hook (i.e. owe the Zhents a bunch of dough, on the run).

I'm not sure if we need more masculine characters vs. just older, more mature and chill companions. I've noticed that the current companions all exhibits emotional struggles we commonly associate with younger adults (not to say older people don't do this). They just remind me of characters from Young Adult fantasy books:

• Gale - handles rejection like an unhinged teenager
• Wyll - trying way too hard to prove himself, still cares way too much about what others think (hence the boosting and self-aggrandizing)
• Shadowheart - has no idea who she is
• Lae'zel - covers up crippling insecurity by acting domineering
• Astarion - supposedly 200+? But highly impulsive and self-absorbed like the stereotypical teenage rebel. Trying too hard to hide from his trauma with the snobbish persona

They're fine on their own, but as a whole, we can use a more mature companion to balance them out. Like a Keldorn in BG2.

Well, we have an elf xenophobe who really doesn't like gnomes. and maybe some other races that he hasn't mentioned yet....

I agree with you. Han is a good character. He’s not uniquely special. He’s a smuggler so of course he may have issues with gangsters. It’s a realistic plot hook and conflict that works with a plain character.

And yes they need more mature characters to balance out the ones we have now.

I think Laezel fits the profile as a tough female character. I just don't think there is a balance of male characters who have that skull crushing toughness about them. Baldurs Gate 1&2 had a good balance of characters that were tough and others that I didn't want in my party.

I think Lae'zel's more rough than she is tough, tbh. She certainly pretends to be the latter, but it felt like time and time again we were shown she's just a mix of inexperience and sub-par gith evilness. Everyone but Astarion lowkey handled the ceremorphosis scare better than she did.

But yeah, i need me some Korgan and Kagain. Oghren would be too much to ask.

I will take a male skull crusher. No need though to go too much into old washed out tropes... neither to repeat the special snowflakes that the current companions are... there is so much uncovered middle ground...

This sounds like a cross between a Personal Ad, and a song: "And he likes Pina Coladas, taking walks in the rain..."

Aside from that, I do agree that the cast of characters could use some more variety in personality (and of course race and class) - perhaps some maturity, some level of positivity, some more in the good to neutral, mix. While they no longer use the actual good/neutral/evil/lawful/chaotic labels, the current cast does seem to tend more to the lawful evil, chaotic neutral spectrum - I couldn't imagine having a close friendship with any of them thus far. Complex motivations are not a bad thing in general, but they should not consistently overpower other aspects of a personality.

Minsc got a bit nutso and dark in wanting to rescue Dynaheir, but it didn't stop him from being upbeat, outgoing, friendly and a bit bonkers - I used to partner him with the sword Lilacor, just to hear the two of the babble back and forth, with a rodent sidekick. Edwin's personality took on new dimensions once he was Edwina. If BG1 and 2 could manage such different personalities and character growth even on the basic level they pulled off, I hope Larian can manage similar range - though much of it might not appear until we get closer to full release. DoS2 certainly manages a cast that wasn't, on the whole, unlikable.

Just for the record, iirc they've only released the evil companions so far because in DOS II they couldnt get much data on them in ea because everyone picked the nicer ones. I would expect more personalities along the lines you suggest with future companions.

...and he's boring, because I saw billion druids like him before, just with smaller muscles x) Plus there is absolutely no place for character arc for him, no reason to change. Yay, interesting.

Or just a general "high Drow female" who thinks of male Drow as toys and male non-Drow as a fetish. >snort



Interesting. Never saw it from that perspective but there is some truth to it.

Wyll just appears like the tryhard heroic type. His backstory makes sense too for his current personality.
He is impatient and knows how quick and easy everything can go to sh*t.

He is like "Goblin Slayer" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goblin_Slayer - very good Manga with an air of D&D around it and also has an Anime Adaption )
, when nobody acts, nobody feels responsible, nobody cares, then it is over!
So Wyll rather acts and fails as to not act and let happen.

^
Which is simply life in total.
You act, or you are passive.
You are either a maker, or a made one.

LOL. Now that you mention it, I see it now. I'll just add to what others have said. We need more mature, confident companions. Halsin fits the bill. And it seems he's a pretty popular character and I'm not the only one requesting someone like him will be available for your group.



Support characters don't need to have dramatic changes. They can be councilors and advisors to your character. And of course there's a character arc for him. That Druid Grove is begging for a rescue in future acts depending upon what happened in your run. If a story requires special snowflakes all the time, all it tells me is your world building and character development is boring because you need to come up with random outrageous special problems (see Gale) to maintain an audience's attention.

Haslin so far was by far the most instresting character to me. I'm absolutely in the camp 'thanks, but no thanks to teenage drama'.


His stature also makes me hope that we might be lucky and able to pick more muscular characters - barbarians just look more fun when they can tower the others

Right? First time my character met him it was like, “this guy knows how to get stuff done.” Everyone else I feel like I’m babysitting them.