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

Well, all the companions could be clones of the original people, thus explaining why they aren't the same level they "remember" being.

Which would be interesting if they later ran into themselves.

It's called fleshing out the story. You give reasons why things happened so it all makes sense.

I'm thinking of Thumb Wars. Princess Bunhead shows up by the falcon and says, "I escaped somehow.". It was making fun of stories that don't get properly fleshed out. It's called good story writing. Things are supposed to make sense.

Besides, I think it would be cool and would really set up the ambiance of the entire Beach area if you are able to investigate the corpses and find signs of what happened. Slash marks on this body indicating this person was killed by a creature. Spear wounds indicating one fisherman with a spear killed another. Why? Body Thief. One devourer took him over and attacked another. But the player doesn't know this unless they succeed in a Investigation check.

Stuff like that causes players' imaginations to run wild. What are they about to face?

Here's another example of what I'm getting at.

Goblins have painted symbol on their Shields. Religion check succeeds. Compendium update. You check the compendium, and it says that the goblin symbol looks like a combination of the symbols of the dead three. It then shows you pictures of each of the symbols.

This now makes it so that players who aren't as familiar with such things can maybe get an understand clues pertaining to the story.

I mean, that's kind of what those skills are for. That's their purpose.

Your second example is what I actually would like to see in the game! It is really a major detail for understanding lore and story, while investigating every corpse I think can get rather tedious.

Gale even mentions it in a dialogue with Wyll, when the latter complains he can't handle lesser monsters as of now. Gale answers that tadpole has effect on both mind and body.

No no. My suggestion isn't to investigate every body. More like as you approach the Dead goblins near Gale, a single Investigation check is made for each character. If one succeeds, your Compendium is updated.

Same for the fisher people on the beach. As you pass by some, a roll is made. By others, another roll for some additional clue. Stuff like that.

I think we might need to chill a little about the feasibility of what some are hoping for. Larian has gone with the story they've gone with, and I don't think it matches well with a lot of the mechanics we're going to start playing with as level one characters, that is necessary for the way this type of RPG starts out.

If you look at their prior work then characters and plots are not even close to being their strong points, and expecting everything to either make sense, or all of a sudden to be redesigned and re-written between now and release is hoping for a bit much. There will be a lot of bits that are clunky and probably decent parts of the whole overall story that never really line up.

I'm not saying don't offer thoughts and criticisms, but what is realistically able to be addresses and amended will not really go very far from what is already in front of us. They're likely working pretty hard on the other acts, and what we have in act 1 is the most settled stuff in the game at this point.

Super powerful companions for a level 1 Tav nobody is my issue exactly. Why do they need to be powerful? How does this make them better characters? What's the benefit in storytelling? Especially if they are potential PC's. Why can't we, as the actual player, play them and shape them to have a fuller experience? They should have some background and the rest should be up to us. I don't want to play a character where I'm being dictated exactly what they are and have been by an extensive history of events.

Gale and Wyll complaining how they used to be so powerful but not anymore is really off-putting as well. Especially since you have never SEEN them be that powerful. They could be easily exaggerating which would make them pathetic. Wyll already has another pathetic side to his story and making someone a complete loser doesn't make them a companion you want to travel with. On the opposite side, being weak but courageous is always awe-inspiring. A Captain America story that starts from somewhere small, goes somewhere epic, and has you rooting for them. Reflecting on that, it explains why I like Lae'zel much more than Gale or Wyll. She can still be seen as a young aspiring warrior of her kind, even naive about Vlaakith. She doesn't have a backstory where she was training dragons and slaying Elder Brains. She is more believable with much more room to grow. She could actually be level 1.

They could have made the companions a lot more believable and likable, even the evil ones, without the inane backstories about being super powerful once and them complaining about it.

That's next level.

But even that's better than having powerful companions de-leveled by a really weak plot device, just for mechanical reasons. Mechanics should always support the narrative, but in BG3 it feels like they are clashing. Writers wanted awesome level 12 companions but gameplay devs wanted 1-12 progression.

Lol. No worries. I have very little expectations, really. Quite honestly, most things I post now are things I'd love to see in the game but don't really expect. I dream of this BG3 game with:

Day/Night Cycle
Party of 6
Shove is 5e, only 5 ft and knock down
Long rest and short rest are more intuitive and meaningful
DIALOGUES NOT CONNECTED JUST TO LONG REST
Campsites ON the map
Item management is smooth and less housework
The story is cohesive and makes sense
The map makes sense and isn't jammed together
The companions dialogues make sense and our characters have dialogue options that allow us to respond in more witty and intelligent ways rather than simply accept someone's dialogue simply because that's what we're supposed to do.
Reactions done well so that we, the players, can actually use a fundamental part of 5e gameplay

And all the other things we've talked to death out here for 2 years.

I frankly don't know what I'm going to do when this game is released and I no longer have it to talk to people about. Half the fun was dreaming about how this game could be so much better and hoping we'd at least see SOME of our suggestions implemented.

But sadly, we didn't get like anything we asked for except maybe hi ground/backstab changed. That was huge, but only like 1% of what we were hoping for.

After everything people have said to me about DOS 2, the wind has been once more totally knocked out of my sails. While playing DOS 2, I started to hope, but I'm being assured left and right that Act 2 and 3 of that game suddenly nose dive.

I have said from the beginning of this game that it replaced KOTOR as my all time favorite video game. But I'm not so sure anymore. Why? KOTOR was fluid, had depth, details, dialogues and characters were intelligent and made sense. The maps made sense. The controls were easy to use, and you had better command of the camera. You didn't find all sorts of strange contradictions like Aradin and Halsin being gone for over a month where? Oh, the Selune ruins 5 minutes away. Right. And why hasn't the goblin army found the grove? The gate is SO obvious to any shmoe walking by. KOTOR was balanced. It had surprises and really fleshed out even minor characters and details. It was strategic. You had lots of choices and options with dialogue, and many were witty and smart butt. You could be good or actually evil. Not just murder hobo.

Yeah... I am thinking this game is going to disappoint, in the end. All this buildup and it'll just fizzle out like flat coke. Yeah. I highly doubt we'll get much more of what we ask for. But I still post because there is still part of me that hopes. It's a much smaller part now, but it's there.

Well, that's part of my point. You have level 1 Shadowheart making a claim at the crypt door that she killed the 4 intellect devourers by herself. That's INSANE. It implies she had a sudden surge of character level 10 take her over and then she was thrown back to level 1. Makes no narrative sense. Even if they had 1 HP a piece, 4 devourers would have cornered her there and killed her since she has no ranged weapon and no place to perch to peg them off. 2 hits and she'd have died.

At least when you first meet Lae'zel, she's afraid of proceeding because 3 imps block her path. That makes sense for a level 1. But come on. Don't try to convince me that a level 1 cleric killed 4 devourers by herself. Man! That's one of the things that really bugs me about them using intellect devourers. It's like they've made them so dumbed down that now players are going to expect that every devourer is a booty easy brain dog you can kill without breaking a sweat at level 1. Why? Use something else that makes more sense and certainly don't try to convince me SH killed 4 all by her lonesome. Tell me she came just in time to try to save a few fishermen, and fought by their side, but she alone survived, or something that makes sense.

But no. Somehow she killed 4 alone. Makes no sense.

Larian's flaw is that they think they can get away with this kind of haphazard world building. They don't understand the significance of logic and structure here.

Players not familiar with D&D don't know what an Intellect Devourer is supposed to be. Even so, it's a huge stretch SH survived 4 of the creatures we fought at the crash site unscathed.

But the haphazard world building goes so much deeper than that with the "archdruids", epic level 1 companions, and all the high level content being pushed into low level play (mind flayers, vampires, dragons, devils, adamantine golems etc. etc.). They have absolutely no patience to pace themselves and go from small to epic to reap big rewards later. Instead, everything is always epic, players become numb and nothing is truly big or epic in the game anymore.

As for this "go big or go home attitude" they seem to have.. I liked Gale at first, but when he told his ridiculous story about Mystra I literally rolled my eyes and stopped liking him or believing him as a character.

I cant help the feeling you are overthinking that level stuff too much ...

Also where did you get that idea that our companions were superpowerfull?

Wyll is a fraud and liar ... i wouldnt be surprised if he would reveal later in game that all his heroic deeds was just fabricated stories ... simmilar to movie Dragon Heart ... Mizora showed as some fierce monster, Wyll "slain her", and then money fame and fortune just come naturaly.
Or it was whole her trick and he didnt know.

Lae'zel is still a child in eyes of her people basicaly meaning she only completed basic training.

Shadowheart have Format:C done on her ... by pure fantasy covenience she still remember to talk.

Astarion is old as fuck ... but what did he do so far? As far as we know all his Vapire work was: show up on party, wait until some noble gets interested in him, and then lead them back to his master.
I bet he would have level 20 in etiquette, and knowledge of vines by that time ... but as an adveturer? You hardly can find anyone greener than spoiled noble, no matter how old.

And finaly Gale, the only character who indeed maybe had some real power in the past. Even if we put aside that he contain artefact that quite litteraly "syphons magic away" ...
All his stories and boasting about his power and talent are in the past ... i mean he certainly made it sound as if he were level 20 just 20 minutes ago ... but when you listen to it very closely, you find out that everything he say can perfectly fit to a young man, maybe even kid, that us just few lections ahead compared to other kids in class.
I would say there is serious possibility that he was never as superpowerfull as he let us believe.

You know... Very true. We are again assuming that these companions have told us at least some truth. Except for Lae'zel, they could all be lying through their teeth.

But Wyll obviously has a rep... Unless he's lying that he's the Blade of Frontiers. I mean. Does anyone know what the Blade actually looks like?

I don't know. Sure SEEMS like the direction Larian is going, though, that everyone was powerful and now made nobodies.

Quote: But Wyll obviously has a rep... Unless he's lying that he's the Blade of Frontiers. I mean. Does anyone know what the Blade actually looks like?

I don't know. Sure SEEMS like the direction Larian is going, though, that everyone was powerful and now made nobodies.



Florrick does, as does Guantlet at Waukeens Rest.


If the Blade is in the party you will get some dialogue and discover a former connection.

Interesting idea to be certain.

But i meaned something slightly different.

Take Geralt for example ... "Butcher of Blaviken" title to be specific.
He had the reputation obviously, everyone knew that ... the word was that he came to the town, and simply massacred innocent people.
While the truth was, he was protecting somebody against relatively evil Wizard, and those people simply were standing in his way.

That kind of lie i had in mind ...

Same as that example i used earlier ... you didnt see Dragonheart movie?

I have seen Braveheart and I do know what you meant. No. Sorry. I took what you said and went on a tangent. You are right, though, it could be like that too, or probably more likely like that than my tangent.

If you've played D:OS you know that this is what Larian is and does.

They do fun but completely over the top turn based combat - and absurd and poorly written stories.

The fact they even have some companions who are interesting and really well voice acted is a solid win and completely unexpected given where they've come from.

Act 2&3 will get little player feedback and will likely be rushed and incomplete, but I'm still holding out hope somehow despite all the evidence they'll stick the landing.

And if they don't the combat is still fun, even with the current flaws.

I couldn't finish either DOS 1 or 2. Probably because of reasons above I could never get into those, and will not buy DOS 3. And the asinine armor mechanic completely undermined our co-op play with Archer + Wizard from a purely mechanical standpoint. I was not impressed.

Larian took on BG3, D&D and Faerûn, and will now have to step it up. They have to be professional about resisting their own larianisms and save those for DOS 3.

Found another thing that doesn't make sense. Though it is not entirely companion related, it keeps bugging me, and it goes along with not having a clear understanding of what's really going on in the Western Heartlands (the environment of BG3).

The Harper map and cache in the beginning. It mentions sacrilegious practices amongst the local Selunite sect. However, because the map is mentioned as still being in use, it implies both are recent additions to the little chest under the boulder in the alcove.

But Moonhaven/Bogrot is the only village in the area, and as far as we know the only Selunite sect. But it's been in ruins for 120 years. We know this because the apothecary hasn't been touched since the Necromancer lived there. Same with the school building, and we know the Selunite temple hasn't been used since those times also.

Now to relate it back to the thread. This whole village thing obviously relates to SH because of her reaction in the school and the statue of Selune there. And yet, the evidence we find is confusing and doesn't fit together cohesively. I'd really like some additional Investigation checks that maybe give you some additional information to help piece the mystery together.

When on the Harper Stash hill, let me make a check to see if I can learn more about the dead (presumably) Harper corpse by the campfire. How did they die? Were they killed by spiders in the little nook where you can get the egg? Were they killed by goblins? Why is the food there fresh? How fresh is that food? Did the Harper die days ago or 120 years ago? Why are they stripped of all their flesh? Are they a skeleton because they died 120 years ago and no one ever found the body and buried it? Did some creature strip the body of all flesh? If so, why is the skeleton complete? Shouldn't it be in a pile? Did some acid-monster thing strip the flesh from the bones without damaging the general bone formation? Does this Harper relate in some way to what happened in Moonhaven? Can we find evidence of a DIFFERENT Selunite sect somewhere in the area, because right now there is absolutely NO evidence of another sect? It really seems the Harper log you find is about Moonhaven from 120 years earlier, so DID someone settle in Moonhaven recently? Did they just not use the apothecary, the forge, or ANY building already there? Did they not live in ANY buildings at all?

And can we have Investigation checks while IN Moonhaven? Evidence clearly points to it being in ruins for 120 years or evidence points to someone has lived there but not disturbed it much? Just something to give a clearer picture of what's going on? I mean, this is pretty clearly directly connected to SH, but I feel totally lost.

Again. Clarifications and clues that help a player actually piece together the story. I don't mind not getting the full story just handed to me, but I should be able to learn the full story by searching for and finding all the clues. I shouldn't be able to spend 600+ game hours on a game and still have absolutely no idea what the flip is going on in most areas of the game.