Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback The Failure of Astarion's Bite Scene

Alright, this has been a thing that's bothered me ever since I first saw it, and I need to bringit up for a proper discussion, because I think it's one of the most glaring examples of poor writing I've seen in a game, and perhaps the only time I've ever felt like a game is coming close to insulting me. This is, as the title suggests, referring to a specific outcome of Astarion's bite scene. I haven't played the scene for a couple patches now, so if they altered it since then, I'd love to know, especially if they've improved it.

After a couple long rests and advances in story, you can have a scene where Astarion will try to feed on you in the night, revealing that he's a vampire. You can let him feed on you willingly at that point. If you stop him at the first opportunity, it's all fine. If you don't and try to stop him at the second opportunity, he'll drain you dry and kill you. However after that, the game keeps going and you can have another party member revive your character. If you do, then you can get a conversation with Astarion actually addressing that. And he is just a complete asshole, deflecting any sort of responsibility and basically just being like "well you're alive now, what's your problem?" And I don't thnk it works on any level. My jaw actually dropped as the scene played out, I was stunned.

Firstly, I don't think we should have the option of reviving our main character after it, it should be a non-standard game over where we have to reload. Secondly, if the point of the scene is to show Astarion in a more sympathetic light, then having him be an asshole after he KILLS us makes that fail. But cruically, if the point is actually to show him as a manipulator who is playingon our emotions to get what he wants, then having him be an asshole to us ALSO makes the scene fail at doing that, because it makes him seem like a stupid, petulant child. A manipulator would try and cover himself, try and say that he's sorry and that he truly could not control himself and it was out of his hands. And they would probably bolt as soon as they realize they can't talk themselves out of the situation. Astarion just sticks around and thinks we're gonna be fine with it, and the game kinda makes us be okay with it. If the purpose of the scene is to make us hate Astarion, then we're denied the chance to do anyththing about it, which I think makes it fail on that level as well. And thirdly, the other party members should want to kill him for knowing that he's willing to kill members of the group. Lae'zel should be out to kill him right away, no questions asked.

What did Larian want us to take away from this scene? What does Larian want us to think of Astarion, one of our companions? Why did they think this scene was good? Why did they have this companion basically insult us for being dumb enough to let him kill us after trying to extend some kindness to him? Just...why? I would love to her other people's thoughts on all this.

True and true, and also the simplicity of ressurecting your companions in the game is just on another level. Abundant scrolls of revivify (which btw shouldn't even work on characters who died more than 1 minute ago) or simply a little gold.

I'm not 100% sure but I think it's simply what girls like. When a handsome vampire drinks their blood. It's called fanservice, I believe.

I do have a real issue with how resurection works in this game. Not so much on a mechanical but on a story level. It's been pointed out that the tadpole should leave the body on death, and we've seen that happen before. So given the abundance of resurection options, someone really should at least broach the topic as a solution, even if you don't take it. It really muddles the in-canon versus out-of-canon nature of death in this game in a way that I don't think I've seen in other games.

The overall bite scene I don't mind. It's specifically the fact that he can kill us and everything that comes after it. Before that, I don't really have any complaints. It's clearly about revealing Asterion's secret and then establishing the tenor of your relationship with him and what you'rewilling to tolerate. I'm certain that girls don't like being murdered by said handsome vampire dude and then insulted over it.

I wish ...
But sadly, nope ... its exactly first Long Rest after you find and examine dead pig ... if you ignore that animal, you can get through whole EA without ever know that one of your followers is a Vampire ...

I would like this (and Gale hunger for artefact) to be tiggered by certain amount of Long Rests tho, since (and feel free to corect me) it seems to me like hunger (both litteral in Astarion case, and imaginary in Gale case) is something that comes naturaly "in time" ... not just after you find evidence of someone feeding, or if certain character likes you enough to reveal you horrible truth about himself. :-/

There is harder persuation check, but he kill you only if you fail to persuate him to stop ... not sure if there is second roll if you fail with first, since i never managed to fail that.

Also there is new option at every single point of that dialogue, allowing you to stake him through his heart at any time, wich permanently kills him (you cant ressurect him after this) but saves your life.
Many people on youtube complained about this, that they feel like the game is passively persuating them to kill astartion with constantly offering that option.
But i like it! The more you are in danger, the more important it is for you to be able to defend yourself.
(BTW, shout to Wormerine here ... this is one of companion perma-death examples.)

Yup ...
But that he exactly is, narcistic, selfish, responcibility refusing asshole.

I mean yeah, his attitude sucks and it helped me hate him even more ... but still, you must admit its ben exactly in character and therefore perfect!

That would suck ...
I get the idea, but i dont really like it ... if you want to reload, its there for you. :-/

Wich only tells us that he is not actualy manipulator?
Or at least not good one ...

I mean, feel free to disagree with me here.
But Astarion is in my eyes perfect example of popular schoolgirl (have you seen Mean Girls? He is Regina George) ... she is pretty, she is popular, and thats all she need ... everyone wants to be friends with her, so she can do whatever the hells she want ... she can be mean, cruel, demanding, basicaly pure bitch, and people will still love her, bcs she is pretty and popular ...
And if one day something gets horribly wrong, its not *her* fault ... at least not in her eyes, you should apology that you didnt stop her, bcs this accident can damage her reputation!

I believe there was option for us to force him out of our camp ...
He would bring all his equipped artefacts tho.

This is good point ...

Even tho Lae'zel especialy may be the only one who would be fine with it, i would say ...
For one, she killed her own comrades as part of her training (her words, not mine).
For two, Githyanki dont see murder as a crime, since it only plug out weaklings in their eyes (again, her words, not mine).
And finaly, it was kinda your own fault ... you allowed him to drink from you ... he just lost control, its not entirely fair to put all blame on him. :-/

But Shadowheart, Gale and Wyll should IMHO be quite pissed about this.

Cant speak for Larian ...
But *i* think its good, bcs its perfectly in character ... you were just used by cold hearted asshole, who didnt feel any remorse, and was so full of himself, so he didnt even bother to hide it.

I gues i like it bcs such characters are rare ...
Shadowheart was mean from the start, but people were complainging about it ... so Larian made her sweeter ... it sucks.
I like when people stand behing their characters, even tho people dont like them, maybe even more in that case ... world is not full of rainbows and sun ... so this one should not be aswell. :-/

Astarion is an Elf ... being that live ten times as long as most common races in the world, meaning he cant logicaly see himself as equal, for sake of his own sanity (have you seen Invincible? Omni-man is explaining there that he needs to see people as pets, bcs they are hardly anything more compared to him, thats the case) ...
Also he is a Vampire ... being that dont age, and therefore should live even much longer than Elves ...
If Elves see regular people as insignificant short-lived creatures ... what would they bee for Vampire, that is looking the same to Elves? ... Hardly more than insects.

And thats what i like about Astarion and this scene ... to me, he is properly written imortal, wich is something you dont see often.

And why did they have the same companion basically insult us for not accepting his "obviously teatrical and not meaned apology", after he tryed to kill us in our first meeting?

I mean, dont get angry ... but we ARE that dumb ...
He tryed to kill us twice ... once with a knife ... once with his teeth ... and then we willingly allow him to try again, just bcs he told us sad story and said "pretty please" ?
Yeah, we deserved to die.

Ahhh, hahaa.... YeahNo. As a female player, I find far too many things about this scene just infuriatingly badly done. This scene and everything about it is an abomination and a train wreck from start to finish.


Grey, if you've not seen the revised Bite-Night scene, have a look; they've changed it and made it 100% worse than its original rendition.

Edit, just to shout this one out:


Careful how you phrase that. We consented to a particular action, and set a boundary about it.

If I agree to give a guy a thighjob, and explicitly tell him he can't do more than that, and then he takes over, puts it in, and won't let me up until he's done even if I try to shout and struggle.... well, we have a word for what that is.
How valid do you think it is, if the guy then claims that "it's not entirely fair to put all the blame on him", because "he just lost control", because it was so nice? I'll answer that for you: It's not.

Yes, it IS entirely fair to put 100% of the blame on him for this.
So think carefully on how you defend this action, lest it reflect poorly on you, Rag.

I have never experienced death by Astarion but what OP describes sounds about right. I think this is part of a larger problem that’s been plaguing BG3 and D:OS2.

I remember watching one of the talks about cRPG making (I think it was Tim Cain) and he was talking to each RPG has to decide on range of roleplaying choices it wants to support - those can be wide, those can be narrow but they all need to be designed, written and implemented by dev team, and more importantly ideally all of them should be satisfying for the player who chooses them.

Larian has been great I providing a wide range of choices and player freedom - but in my opinion that is for naught, if those choices are well supported, well written or well implemented. It is possible that there was an initial choice of “will you allow Astarion to feed or will you tell them to piss of”. And then someone said, “Oh, wouldn’t it be hilarious if Astarion (or player controlling Astarion) gave into its hunger and killed the PC?” But then can you properly support this choice?

Quality over quantity is what I personally value, and since D:OS2 I felt that Larian is in dire need of editing - someone looking through what they make with a critical eye, and cut things that don’t evolve beyond a cool concept. If you provide a range of out-there choices, the unfortunate reality is that those out-were choices will demand an out-there follow up. Even if you include small reactivity, bringing it back to status quo will be hard to pull off.

Wont be first time ... and probably not even last.

Just to put it in the better context ...
In this example you agreed to give a thighjob to complete stranger, who allready tryed to rape you ... twice!? O_o

No im sory, justice system would probably not have problem to find guilt in this one ...
But i am litteraly unable to sympatize with person who was playing with fire and got burned. :-/

So Rag, your response does make me think more about what they are trying to convey about Astarion's character. I think your'e right that his characterization is actually quite consistent overall. My big problems are I think two-fold. The first is that while Astarion's characterization is solid and kinda interesting, the more it goes, the more it feels like they're not making a companion, they're making an antagonist. At this point it feels like the natural way Astarion's plot would develop is that if you get the bitten to death scene, then Astarion flees or you drive him away (glad to hear there's an option to drive him away) and he eventually comes back later as an outright antagonist out for revenge because he feels you wronged him. And that would be a super interesting. But Astarion as a companion character? A character we're supposed to bring along and be interested in keeping around as players? They're giving us too many reasons to want to kill him and not enough reasons to want to keep him around. I'm not even talking about making him nicer, just making him feel worth keeping in-story. I don't think the game gives us much in-character reason to keep him around beyond "strength in numbers." As bad as Shadowheart might have been at first, I don't believe she ever actually tried to kill us. That they felt it worth changing her demeanor and not Astarion's really says something. I don't know what, but something.

My other problem is that this scene feels like not just Astarion but the game itself disrespecting the player. Maybe I'm just sensitive, that could certainly be true, but it feels like the game is outright insulting my character through Astarion. A feeling that's only amplified by how little the game seems to regard player-made characters in general.

Wormerine, I think your point is a really good one and it's why I think this should just have been a game over. I think him killing us works as a kind of easter egg joke ending, a ha-ha, this is what you get for trusting the evil vampire type thing. But not only does letting the game continue on muddle the worldbuilding by making resurection a direct part of the in-canon story as opposed to something that's mainly just a game mechanic, but it puts the player in a situation where the only options are eject Astarion or be as much of a rube as he clearly thinks we are and let him get off without consequence.

Man I haven't played over 10 hours of this game not to get too spoiled...yet hearing all this talk about how the companions are behaving and turning out....I really wish there was more choice. Like more simple traditional fantasy companions added to this dis-likable group. Something awful I noticed, romances starts WAY too early?!?

Me neither ...
And yet, we do.

I mean (prepare for wild speculation), what if that is the point?
Maybe Astarion was created as a companion we really shouldnt keep around, bcs it will bite us in the ass sooner or later ... and then Larian added all those red flags ...
But we, it our blessed ignorance, keep Astarion around and wonder every single evening what kind of sane person wouldnt kill him thousand times allready.

If this is the case, then i bow down to the ground to Larian writers hiden genius.

Uhm ...


I have this feeling quite often.

When Astarion mocks me after i dont accept his apology ...
When Mol mocks me after i refuse to pay her tribute ...
Basicaly every time i talk to Shadowheart ...
When i have Wyll around and decide not to overlook that Tiefling kids are just small crimminals ...

Im sure theres more tho.

I believe this is just Larian style of Writing ...
Check my topic about no middle ground.

There is countless examples in this game where certain characters either get inapproprietly harsh punishment (and i dont say that sending Astarion away after he litteraly kills us is inaproppriate), or none at all. O_o
Especialy inside the Grove, with Tiefling kids.

I think it’s interesting to speculate how Larian might have ended up here. I wonder if it’s the origin problem - from a single player perspective having a companion like Astarion feels crappy but it might be not where such ideas originated.

In the very first BG3 Gameplay reveal Astarion was used as a playable character. I could swear feeding on Shadowheart and killing her was part of the show, but I can’t locate the moment so maybe I am getting things mixed out.

Either way loosing control as Astarion or feeding/being fed on by a coop player are different experiences - especially the latter would be more likely to be laughed off as a funny moment between the players, rather then worrying about in game characters and how would they react. And if that’s the reason behind him being as he is, I am somewhat fine with it as long as a decent number of other companions work decently as companions. I have been not recruiting or killing him during feeding scene for the last couple patches, and I think Astarion would need to change very substantially for me to not do that.

I don't know if I'd go that far. If they wanted that to be the case, then I'd be more impressed if they were a bit subtler in their approach. But still, that's a valid choice if it's the one they're making, and I'd forgive them a little more.


Wow, that scene literally took my breath away. It was an absolutely stellar performance. And honestly I think it only makes Astarion look worse if anything. Shadowheart is clearly half-crazed and sleep-deprived tormented by psychic thing in her mind, and she doesn't even seem to know what she's doing as she's going for the knife. I would hestiate to hold her responsible for her actions even if she actually did stab me. Meanwhile Astarion always seems to know what he's doing.

But thanks for showing me that scene, given I try and get all the companions as quick as I can, I doubt I would have seen that in any playthrough of the game.

As for everything else you said, we're just in agreement there so I don't think there's more to say really.

I thought it was pretty cringey and just showed me why I am not a fan of fully animated and voiced dialogue in games. For example, the dagger in her belt seemed magnetically stuck to her behind.

I guess the dialogue from Shadowheart herself is completely ok - but the main characters pose and facial animations is really strange and instantly takes me out of the scene.

Most of my problems with this scene stem from the reaction to it afterwards. For some reason everyone knows Astarion is a vampire after this scene, regardless of how if plays out, and if Astarion kills you, the rest of the party's reactions are a little muted. Because they can't make any decisions that contravene how your character decides to proceed, they really come off poorly. At least that's how I remember it, the vampire reveal bugged me, but the scene itself I liked.

I agree that there should be more permanent consequences, or at the very least stronger (more realistic imo) reactions to certain things in BG3 including Astarion sucking the entire life out of a party member. As @Wormerine says above, any player choice need to be properly supported.

I recognize that adding additional reactivity/companion dialogues/etc involves a huge amount of work, but...tough? It should still be done. And if Larian doesn't have the manpower or time to properly support certain player choices, then they probably shouldn't allow that choice to continue (or even allow it in the first place). E.g., if Astarion murders your PC then you get a game over screen. Or you can still resurrect your PC, but Astarion fled in the night: possibly to become a re-occurring villain, possibly to be never seen again.

There are reasons, why I kill Astarion outright nowadays. I don't want a knife on my throat and I don't want rapey vampire feeding scenes, so he dies.
And I do think, that most scenes involving Astarion are handled poorly. I mean who in their right mind want that psycho in their group? Even in an evil playthrough the guy is at best a liability. I mean literally the first thing he does is threaten you - not even standoffish Lae'zel is that stupid. I tried every route with Astarion, even did the romance once ( although I did puke a little in my mouth while doing that) and I really can' t see one redeeming quality or good reason for keeping him around.

I miss Korgan. Just a simple, down to earth evil bloodthirsty brute and unbecoming of a typical dwarf...However, there are certain conversations that can reveal a slightly more thoughtful, sophisticated, and even soft side to him. But naaah, kill kill kill! lol.

Wish BG3 had these simpler kind of companions also included...what we get is a tiny roster of OVERBUILD personalities. Don't like one or two, well you have 3 left...thats it.
18 for BG2, over 20 for BG1...Yea they are not all super incredibly detailed to todays overbearing standards, but they all have a story to tell and some interesting dialogues/romances. Some are more detailed, others less. More options the better in my book. Plus you get to play with all sorts of class combinations.

Personally I find him hilarious and full of personality. He’s one of the standout characters for sure. And his story hints at a tragic figure beneath all the bravado.

I think in general we aren’t supposed to necessarily “like” any of the companions at this stage. The story seems to be about a group of people who normally would not want anything to do with each other being thrust together by circumstance (or something else) and being forced to work together. Hopefully the companion relationships continue to evolve throughout the game. I know some people would prefer the companions got along better or were nicer but I kind of enjoy that premise.

My point is not, If I like him or not, but that it doesn't make sense to even allow him into the group, the way, he threatens you with a knife. And If you let him into the group, he is quite frankly downright creepy in his delight of the misery and torture of others.

They did some revisions to the knife scene to make it less egregious.