Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Companions - Things Just Don't Make Sense

That's a tough question. I don't like it. I mean, I don't like him drinking my blood, or even trying to when I'm asleep.

But do I like the scene? Yeah, I think I do. It's fitting. He's free for the first time, and he wants to try blood. It makes sense that he would give in to temptation at night in camp.

And it creates a moment for Tav where a decision has to be made.

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The limitations with the scene after that are mine, I suppose. It's difficult for me to make a non-meta decision.

On one hand, I can let him drink from me knowing that:

1. I'll get approval, and

2. He'll have a powerful new ability in the form of a bite. It gives him a +1 on basically everything. Which makes him a better asset as a companion.

But... why the heck would I trust him or let him drink my blood?

Overall, I feel cornered as a player. Am I going to kill my only rogue? Say what you will about Astarion, he's a valuable member of the party when it comes to combat effectiveness. Sneak attack, two hand crossbows, poison, sleight of hand. He's useful.

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Another tangential issue I have with him is that I can *never* create a rogue as good as he is. Because I can't get that 'happy' state that gives a +1 to everything.

I don't know why that bothers me so much, but it does. It makes me not want to make a rogue. I feel like my rogue would be competing with Astarion and ultimately coming up short.

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ETA: oh, I just realized I didn't address the possibility of Astarion killing your character.

I'm okay with that. In fact, I prefer it as a possibility. It brings a gravitas to decisions that's all too often lacking in games. And stories in general, for that matter.

I don't mind him trying to drink my blood, and I usually play characters compassionate enough to allow him to, so the first part leading up to it all, I'm totally fine with. And in theory I'm fine with the possibility of him killing our character. The problem is, the game keeps going. And we either have to play without our main character, or, more likely, we use the weird undead thing to bring them back. And then he's an utter asshole about it. I think that all undercuts any gravitas the moment could have had. And it only further cements Astarion as an utterly selfish asshole, rather than a complex character. Him killing our character should be a non-standard game over, with an ending slide and then we have to resume. Instead we get this bizarre situation instead that makes keeping Astarion in the party afterwards a decision that pretty much no character would be able to justify. Plus, none of the other companions react to it, when logically they should be pissed off and either drive him away or kill him outright.

That's definitely an understandable course of action on Gale's part. But, like, shouldn't he feel bad about that? His tone when he mentions that to us is jovial, like he saw us passed out in a silly position after a night of drinking haha. Idk, I'd certainly feel sheepish having to tell a person I left them for dead, if I even mentioned it at al. It certainly wouldn't be the first thing I say after meeting them...

My point was that he doesn't even try to explain, and you don't have the ability to ask. I actually assumed the same thing, and I'm putting that very explanation in the Tabletop campaign I'm writing - that he saw you, there was an intellect devourer, and devils in the next chamber. It was suicide to help you. That's what sparked this post, actually. I was writing the campaign and thought about the potential that players might ask him to clarify. I even went back to the Prologue and rewrote the part about waking up in the pod chamber. I made sure to say that they wake up in pools of blood, and each PC is half HP to start. I did this just to fit with Gale's comment.

But, see, it's all assumption based on... What? It's assumption based on the fact that nothing else really makes sense, I guess. But even that doesn't make sense because you don't wake up in a crucibles worth of blood, and there are devil bodies in the next chamber but no devourers. So... It's like assuming Shadowheart killed FOUR devourers herself just because the bodies are near her, or assuming Gale singlehandedly killed the goblin patrol because their bodies are near where you meet him. You have no real reason to assume that's the case. You just assume because you have no other real evidence.

But the point is, you can't even try to find out. You can't ask or make Investigation checks to see what killed them... And with Gale's comment, you can't ask him why he left you or when exactly that he saw you or was he even in the same pod chamber or anything.

Like I said, it's only a small thing, but I just find it weird and it doesn't make full sense. A LOT of the companion stuff doesn't make sense. Again, maybe at full release it will, but right now... Not so much.

Well, actually... I noticed that in patch 8, if you don't let Shadowheart out of the tank, you can meet her at the chapel door instead of lying on the beach. Then, if you tell her that the noise she's making might draw enemies... Shadowheart comments smth like 'who do you think killed them' or 'those didn't die by themselves'.

On the other hand... and I might be a bit cynical... Gale is callous, demeaning, and threatening when you get him angry so if he thought he didn't have anything to gain from rescuing you, he'd likely have left you to die on the ship. Just like you can leave Shadowheart... and just like Astarion complains that while he was trapped, you were just 'strutting about'. Just selfish bastards all around (Tav sometimes included)

I was honestly thinking of my players while writing the campaign. All I could think of was, "They're going to reject or kill them all.

Shadowheart is a Sharran, and they'll likely know it and kill her. Astarion puts a knife to your throat and acts REALLY sus. Gale says he left you to die, and he DOESN'T connect to you like everyone else does.

Yeah. REAL sus.

Lae'zel is a Gith and makes it clear you aren't friends and she's only with you for HER own sake. You MIGHT keep her with you out of desperation IF you think she MAYBE is your only solution, though most people are kinda like, Don't trust her. She'll kill you in a heartbeat, and Wyll is OBVIOUSLY trying to half butt hide that he has a pact with a devil because you see it in his mind... So he lies to you pathetically.

Yeah. My players wouldn't trust a single one and would reject them ALL.

I don't think Gale killed the goblins. There's zero reason to think he did. He was, as he says, swept from one rune to the next. I don't think he was even at that rune when the goblins were killed. He just appeared, after all.

He was probably at the rune that leads to the camp area. That's my guess.

The goblins are there to showcase that goblins are in the area. They probably saw the ship crash and went to investigate. At which point, they more than likely died in the resulting chaos. The place is full of fire and debris and had intellect devourers running all over attacking everything they saw.

The fact that there aren't any intellect devourer bodies there just means they killed the three goblins without taking any casualties.

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So, yeah. Shadowheart talks about the intellect devourers. The dead bodies that talk mention the chaos and the "brains" everywhere, running around, chasing people. There was fire all around from a giant ship that just crashed.

And Gale mentions that he came from another rune.

I'd say things are reasonably explained.

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You can even make reasonable guesses about things like pods. Astarion is right beside a pod, probably the one he was in on the ship.

The pod that smells like sulfur is probably the one Mizora was in... especially considering Wyll's interest in the pod if he's with you when you come across it.

It's mentioned somewhere that Wyll got to the grove a little before the player character did.

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Now, if you happen to sleep for a week and then finally meet Gale and want to know what he's been up to for a week... that's asking a bit much.

What if you decided to long rest for a month? Would you then want a full story from Gale about what he'd been up to for a month?

The number of long rests you take are variable and not something the game's story can reasonably take into account. Gale can't change his story depending on how many long rests you took, so it makes much more sense to keep it somewhat vague, but easy to make assumptions about.

You hit the point exactly when you said "You can even make reasonable guesses"

Exactly. All of it is "reasonable guesses". You can't ever ask to find out ANYTHING.

And that's my point. My players are going to ask the characters questions to learn more about what actually happened and why to determine if they want to accept the character in the party.

Which then gets me thinking about why would the player in the video game accept any of them, other than they need companions?

Another question. Why would intellect devourers kill goblins? Aren't they all serving the Absolute? Wouldn't they work together?

But if the intellect devourers didn't kill them, and Gale didn't, and the mercs at the crypt didn't... Who did?

Did they die from crossbows, slash marks, spells? We're the injuries from fire or debris from the ship?

So many questions.

And you've also hit another point exactly. If I even long rest once, I shouldn't meet any of the PCs on the road unless there is good reason why they're still there... Or maybe you shouldn't be allowed to long rest until after you get through the area.

With regard to devourers killing the goblins, I don't the devourers serve the Absolute. I get the sense that the Absolute might be something somewhat separate from the mindflayers as a whole. And even if that's not the case, then the goblins certainly don't know they're serving mindflayers and would probably attack any intellect devourers, and the devourers would logically defend themselves. So that at least makes sense to me without any difficulty.

All the thralls on the Nautiloid have the amulet of the Absolute.

And true. Could be a misunderstanding. Could be that the two tieflings who captured Lae are the ones to ambush and kill from above. Could be Gale killed them. Could be the fishermen. Could have been Lae as she escaped.

There's no way to know. Ever. And no one talks about it.

There are a LOT of things like this in the game.

The thralls all have amulets, really? It's been ages since I last replayed so they must have added that in a patch somewhere along the lines. Yeah that does make things murky and weird.

I do agree withyou overall. I'm all for environmental storytelling, but that requires a degree of care and finesse that Larian seems to apply only sporadically. It's one thing to not hold players' hands, it's another to leave a bunch of half-baked mysteries without definitive answers. Doing that a couple of times is good for keeping the world feeling big and deep, but Larian has overdone it and it makes it hard to feel grounded in the setting.Though at this point I genuinely believe Larian actively wants us not to feel grounded in this area, what with the way every plot point seems to resolve in a way that leaves us not having any in-game desire to return.

It’s been a while since I paid attention to the thralls on the nautiloid, but as far as I remember at some point they were wearing amulets of the so called dead three, not of the “Absolute”.

Did this change recently?

Are three dead goblins really a mystery though?

I mean, the first question is: who cares really? Maybe it was Karlach who killed them. Maybe it was the falling ship. Maybe it was an intellect devourer. Regardless, something killed them. Does it matter?

And the second question is: are we supposed to know everything? If I come across a pile of bones, is the game supposed to provide me with a way to find out the life story of the person they belonged to?

Some people care, obviously. Enviromental storytelling it's called. Hopefully folks at Larian as well, as they are ones putting stuff into the game.

There's a crash with dead bodies all around. Chaos. Fire. Lots of fighting happened here. The goblins show us that there are goblins in the area.

Environmental storytelling. Check. It worked.

Asking for the specific details of where each character has been, what they're up to for however many long rests you took, and trying to Sherlock Holmes every thing to death isn't environmental storytelling.

It's like: why's there a shovel in the middle of the path to the grove? Who left that shovel there? The game doesn't tell me. Why doesn't the game tell me? I need cut scenes and NPCs talking about this otherwise completely irrelevant topic. <--relax, it's just a shovel there because the digging is a new mechanic.

Just to add, the point is about whether or not it's ***reasonable*** to care about it.

There's always going to be some fringe element hyperfocused on something irrelevant. There's no accounting for that personality type.

I'm trying to offer some perspective on the importance of the goblin bodies versus the, for lack of a better word, nitpicking about their history.

The Amulet of the Absolute IS the same amulet as the "Dead Three".

The same amulet the cultists wear is the same as the thralls on the Nautiloid.

Not sure what you mean? The Absolute has his own emblem.

These thralls used to have the medallions with the [three different] emblems of Cyric, Bhaal and Bane, unless something changed.

This. Agree 100%.

Also, I personally left a bunch of dead/dying/thralled folks in the nautiloid and pods because I was trying to escape (I assume you all did too). So I am not irked with any of my companions that dod the same, Gale included. I also accidentally killed two people hooked up to weird chairs and turned another into a monster by pushing a button. Nobody is perfect.

Also there WERE intellect devourers running/scuttling around. And I DID wake up on the fllor with a head injury and the first thing I saw was a busted pod.

Jesus Christ…picking on this line is ridiculous. It is ALL there.

There is nothing wrong with Gale’s line, unless you want characters with no personality as your companions. Ie, exposition dumpers like in Kingdoms of Amular. Not liking him based on his personality is fine, of course.

The issue with me for Gale is where u meet him imho. Just popping out of a portal (sus) and right next to everyone else (boring).

Asterion’s knife pull is fine with me. He is a bad guy. If you don’t like it, kill him. Do agree with the vapor death tho. That would add flavor.

Shafowheart’s armor is annoying. Will mod it, personally.