Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Removing characters from playthrough

I heard that Larian made some characters immortal and removed the attack option in some dialogue.

The character that I want to point out is Astarion.

Before I go any further, no I'm not interested in any opinions on social themes. I will ignore them all.

My problem is that he is a Vampire. Spawn or not. He is immune to sunlight, can go anywhere without invitation, and has no problem eating anyone or anything. Due to this I always like the option to kill him off. I admittedly love roleplaying and I can't, in good conscious, let him live. How would my character even sleep with him nearby? Please don't expect me to just trust the vampire, the seemingly chaotic evil vampire, to not attack on a hungry night. This actually gives me anxiety. I don't care what anyone says. I won't rest easy at all. Pushing him away from the party is not enough since he will prowl nearby and now have motivation to attack my party due to rejection. Making things worse. Even if I was evil, why would I let him walk around? An unpredictable tool of destruction would not be wise to let loose.

All I ask is to keep the ability to remove characters from my playthrough's.

I know someone will comment on how I roleplay. This game is all about roleplaying and that's how I play. Intensely. If this is not possible then that's fine. I'll just pass on this game. I try hard to avoid stress and anxiety has given me trouble in the past from the most unlikely places.

Normally vampire themes don't bother me because either everyone is one, you are not something a vampire can eat (like a werewolf usually), or they are monster enemies to be killed. No way I'm doing "humans are friends, not food" nonsense. Especially considering his party banter.

Some say that's what makes him interesting, I'd say letting him be in the party let alone living is immersion breaking. I'm not telling anyone how to play their game. I just want to be able to play my way that I enjoy. That would be not "looking over my shoulder waiting for an attack when I'm vulnerable". Sleeping would be out of the question and after every combat encounter too. Bloody and wounded. To many opportunites to strike for a sun immune vampire that can go anywhere and eat anything.

Sorry for the rant.

Hmm. I thought you could reject everyone from the party. I admit I haven't tried, but I thought you could. Even if you accepy him in the party at first, I thought you could tell him to go after you find out he's a vampire.

Then, there's a monster hunter in the bog. You can tell him Astarion is at your camp. So I thought they had several ways to get rid of him.

Or maybe your point is that you cant just tell someone to leave at any point in time. I will say, I agree with that. I'd like it if you could tell anyone to go at any time.

You can just kill him if he bothers you, I have done it once just to test, but personally I like vampires, so always keep him around, and in this scenario the companions have a common goal, which is removing the parasite, so better to team up, also he just feeds on animals, but could be better if they added that option in a dialogue yes.

So far from what I gathered they removed his death voice lines, cleric of kelemvor can't kill him (they hate undead), you can only punch him if he literally kills you and you get revived, you can only shoo him away if he tries to bite you instead of killing him. Why wouldn't he attack if he was rejected? Why wouldn't I defend myself? Hard to gauge how realistic Larian makes things. Regardless he one character I don't even want to deal with in any of my playthrough's. They jumped through alot of holes to make him a character and my lore knowledge isn't helping either. I'd rather avoid all that and just kill him.

Now recently I'm hearing Larian is low key removing attack options during some dialogue and making some characters mechanically immortal.

He definitely does not "just feed on animals", but that's spoiler territory so I won't comment on that.

I'm just putting my voice out there. You never know what devs are up to till release and then its too late.

I was able to kill him in the past but if this is true, then it’s kind of strange and should be removed. Players should be able to remove any origin character permanently at any point (including Gale) if they don’t want the character around.

If Larian is forcing their pet projects like certain origin characters to players, I think that’s a poor idea.

I will also state I generally play “good” characters and they would never tolerate a known undead in their group. Undead are kill on sight since even if expelled they may hurt or kill others due to their unpredictability and nature.

Interesting. I haven't heard of them making Astarion immortal, but I think they shouldn't. I mean, he is a vampire spawn. What if the players want to RP a vampire hunter?

I haven't played in a few weeks but I could certainly kill him if I wanted to? It's kind of a meme at this point that certain people find him undesirable and kill him every playthrough. You can have him not join your party on first meeting, you can attack him the night he comes to you, you can ask him to leave, and you can turn him in to the monster hunter at the very least. You can also just attack any of the companions unprompted... I'm pretty sure you can tell every companion to gtfo when they reveal their less desirable traits. I haven't personally removed anyone, but I got the option to tell everyone to leave at some point.

Well, I've tried it on the evil run and my character could attack & kill all of the companions. You can't announce it through the dialogue to all of them, just Gale, but I think it's because he is the only one to teleport directly into a cutscene, so it is not possible to attack him beforehand.

Astarion is perfectly killable (tryed two weeks ago) ...
But they removed "Attack" button from his conversation ... so you have to attack him on sight. :-/ Or switch to other party member and attack him while he is talking to your "face person".

So I have to meta game a bit since no scene will let you. That's fine. Thanks. Hopefully it remains as such. I would prefer story reasons to quite honest, but no matter. The game considers turning Astarion in to the monster hunter evil. This is weird. Laezel loves it and calls you cruel. As funny and weird as her reaction is I'll stick to meta gaming. Even Gale considers it evil or "a betrayal". Wyll was disappointed and I think only shadowheart was neutral.

A red flag for the writing for me.

I don't think companion approval or disapproval has anything to do with good vs. evil, but rather it is a metric of how they perceive your actions. I doubt they could act like a moral compass anyway, since they fall between evil and neutral themselves. Shadowheart will try to murder your character herself, depending on the choices made (and so does Lae'zel). It's a bit ironic, because you can order Astarion down and he will obey, no rolls involved, but fail to persuade Shadowheart and for the knife she goes.

False. The characters have alignments and they are between neutral and evil. You can connect the dots. I said game not the characters btw. Not to mention they each give questionable reasons if you talk to them. Laezel tells you she enjoys cruelty and Astarion was always a bad idea. Shadowheart does not like vampires and thinks that he was a liability I think. Gale approves of anything that furthers his goal even if they are dark. My guess is that he saw him as a dangerous tool. Wyll wanted to make him a hero despite Astarion clearly stating Wyll is the tasty one. Just a few examples.

Astarion does not obey anything not to mention ncps can lie. Shadowheart has her reasons and so does Laezel. Based on in game scenes and datamine. Not really going to talk about those due to spoilers. You are in for a surprise if you think you can change Astarion without playing as him is all I will say on that. Shadowheart is soft. Laezel though....she is not that bad and can be swayed if you play like a leader but the degree to which she can be swayed is in the air.

My point is on removing companions though. Not where they end up or how some perceive him.

Which is what I wrote? That they fall between neutral and evil. This doesn't make them some universal counter on what "the game considers evil", because the opinions of an npc are their own. Ultimately it is up to the writer how the character they have created would view the events in the game. Interpretations by players will always vary. For example, you consider Shadowheart soft. I have played the game several times by now, and Shadowheart tried to murder two characters of mine. So I base my opinion of her on that, and to me she is dangerous, even moreso because there is no guarantee it won't happen again. By comparison, with Astarion so far there has been no indications in the EA content that he disobeys the order not to drink human blood. Btw, I am not sure where you got the "if you think you can change him" from, since I didn't write anything like that. I actually consider both him and Shadowheart a potential danger, and both of them capable of lying and betraying the main characrer.

I think all of the characters will have multiple ways they can end up depending on the path you take in their individual quest lines. I also disagree that the game considers it "evil" for you to turn Astarion into the monster hunter. The companions have their thoughts about it, but consider that the tadpole is affecting them as well. They're all sharing a psychic connection and the presence of the tadpole may be bonding them in some way, motivating them to stick together and protect each other in ways they don't understand. That would explain the party disapproval from handing over one of their own. Many people are having very different experiences with the characters and your experiences with them seem much different than mine. The game is still in EA and from what I can tell, many scenes are being worked on and updated each patch. Final release may have the RP you're looking for. Just have fun and play the game in a way that makes you happy.

Lol no. What I mean is that you assume I based good and evil off approval in general. That is not the case. Then you mention perception which is also not the case. Sorry I was not clear. The game keeps track of certain things. My guess is for future tag requirements. I think the game actually may consider turning Astarion in as something else. You can explain to companions to a certain degree the situation. My bad on that. My points on the characters were not really opinions. I try to avoid saying certain things a certain way to avoid spoilers. By nature and by spoilers Astarion is a certain way. That does not include obedience.

I did a lot of digging and view the story as a whole. Not from a perspective of a playthrough. Interpretations are fine, but I think you may have misunderstoood some things. Its what other playthrough's are for. Have fun.

Some one told me I was a downer for spoilers so don't expect me to talk about it any further on that. I see where you are coming from. I understand what you are saying. Lets leave it at that.

Did it ever occur to you not to invite him in the first place? Just to ignore him completely, since he gives you so much stress and anxiety? Something you might consider as an option.

Ignoring any of the above walls.

It is 100% possible to just pull out a bow and shoot him.

Is that bad form? I've yet to see any negatives to kill any Origin character at any point. Including Gale.

Yes, that is the one that I find problematic. Killing him seems to have no consequences, contrary to what Gale claims. So either he is wrong about his own condition, or Larian didn't implement the aftermath.

If you mean datamined spoilers, I have read them here on the forums & watched the videos on yt. It hasn't changed my opinions of the companion characters. Neither do I consider datamined content to be the ultimate reveal, simply because some things might get rewritten in the final version of the game. Or might not even get implemented, including such things as dialogues or cutscenes. Happened with other games too, including BG2, where you can find leftover dialogue in the game with modding tools.

I see everyone has had different experiences here, and It’s actually a good thing people are having different experiences with the companions, it means your choices do matter a lot, in my experience I haven’t had any problem with any of the companions, Shadowheart was just a sweetheart, and really adore my character, she can have her moods tho. Astarion learned to like my character as well, and usually has my back, and so do the others. The most hostile one for me was Lae’zel, she was always the most discontent one, and always talking about murdering others.