fun fact, you do not need to convince her to spare you know who if you become friendly with her. Usuualy it's a dc 30 persuation that still appears, but you can fail it and if you give shadowheart to chose, she will naturally chose to spare.
Minor spoiler: when romancing Lae'zel, you have to roll an intimidation check, which is such a fantastic touch. I agree she's pragmatic, stoic, but not evil at all. She takes a 180 in her story arc because she recognizes BS while sticking to her principles. I think she's completely underrated.
i remember on my second playthrough, i accidentally romanced lae'zel with my fighter tiefling "natari". turns out though i love them together haha, i love her little "CHK"s. they're fighter girlfriends and they love each other very much
Yes I've played a Good decision Monk and Lae Zel is the only "exceptional" approval in my party. All you need to do for Lae-Zel is be fair, firm and let her take the lead in her Creche plotting. If you do that you will be her bruisemaster for life.
@@Galdring I’d argue Lawful Neutral. She’s a Darwinian survival of the fittest exemplar. Her actions can also be justified with utilitarian philosophy since her culture is working for the greater good by preventing the illithid empires grand design and preserves freedom in the planes of existence. So yeah… not evil.
Your evil party composition is mine on my good playthrough. It has been so fun seeing those characters develop. Lae zel has turned into one of my favs!
same, Lae'zel was one of my least favorite, yellow as a toad, twice as ugly, and she's too edge but her character eventually grow on me and become one of my favorite
Lae Zel also made me love the fighter class and the gith race! Put athletic on her and watch as she jumps everywhere and knocks people to their feet. It’s hilarious! Also made Astarion a mage slayer assassin and omg he destroys any mage trying to cast a spell that he didn’t backstab out right. My main was a bard and she just supported them both 💚💜💕
Gale disapproved of me reading the necromancy book. But then he got two inspirations from me reading the necromancy book. I was like dude l guess just want to read it yourself 😅
Shadowhearth is more like neutral, she swings both ways. Asterion is mostly evil, but have one thing in common with Karlach, he hates slavery and forcing people into stuff.
Not sure about that. In my embrace evil Dark Urge playthough, she was against 90% of everything I did and I ended with her approval bar red at the end of Act I - something I could never recover, since if she goes down the dark path, she just becomes fully neutral about everything. While on my Ancients Paladin, she was at green at the same spot. Also, Minthara isn't evil, since she doesn't get approval from doing evil things, just by being nice to her and avoiding doing dumb or naive actions. Only true evil is Astarion, who get the most approval by being cruel and sadist. He had a great time along my murder hobo Dark Urge.
Yeah this isn't the first time I've thought the same thing, but I think this video pushed me into a sub. I really enjoy the alignment breakdown stating out right that the classes don't necessarily matter. I had been wondering about their personality even going into act 2, but this analysis cements my understanding of the characters, even the ones I don't use as much.
One thing to note with Astarion if you want to play with him in your party (and rogues can do a huge amount of damage so he is definitely worth having around) or if you even want to romance him but you are like me and you are a goody goody that hates making evil choices it is still possible. The important thing with him is he is sort of self absorbed and power hungry so if you gift him the Illithid tadpole powers it works wonders to make his approval rating going up despite making every "good aligned" choice early game.
I always felt Astarion was supposed to be given the tadpoles the moment he showed interests in the powers. I further leaned into it when I realize, mans aint really got any skills lmao. Whay if I don't want him in close, what if I want him doing something he couldn't do. Tadpoles.
Lae'zel has some very good ones towards Act 3 that completely change her character depending on your decisions. I loved the change in character...Astarion is always fun...he's great for someone embracing the dark urge because often he seems to enjoy your decisions.
I appreciate the TL;DW up front on every video, but i always watch until the end anyway. These videos have all been very helpful. I had a 6 hour round trip work trip the other day and just put your BG3 playlist on and was there before I knew it.
Until Halsin entered the party, i basically kept 2 rotations. Wyll , Karlach, and Gale are the “Goodie Two-Shoes Brigade”. Lae zel, Shadowheart, and Astarion are the “Its Problamatic Collation”. And I guess I split it like that cause i got Lae zel, Shadowheart, and Astarion first so i got attached to them first. No room for Halsin :(
I also got attached to the Problematic Collation lol. Shadowheart and Astarion are the funniest companions imo so I had them in the party and added Laezel because Shadowheart and her got issues and I just wanted to see how they’d interact with each other. All 3 of them together are hilarious, and it’s sweet when Laezel and Shadowheart show some care for each other
Astarion is interesting cause if you treat him super well, romance him, and don't let him do anything TOO crazy late game, he really turns around and starts looking more chaotic good or at least neutral
you still have to deal with 2 acts of him wanting to stab you or any soft target in the back. Bg 2 was the same with vicona, she was a drow cleric for lolth ( REALLY evil diety as thrown into the hell planes evil) that either walk back to lolth, shift to shar and still evil ( as in bg 3 ) another one evil alingned one and a 4th one when she gets romanced by male player char and turned neutral. Even gets a family .....however lolth don't like defectors to live and asassinates her. Astarion is the same really....he is evil in the true sence of the word but 2 acts of "I can fix him" and he is more chaotic neutral if you romanced him....and even the devs and the voice actor himself will look at you with odd eyes if you choose to as he is outright evil and a vampire.
@Solus749 I'm not sure. I mean, I understand everything you're saying, and I don't even necessarily think you're wrong. However, my playthrough was a different experience than "2 acts of him wanting to backstab." Maybe it was bugged or something (entirely possible), but he turned really sweet and started approving of "good" decisions very early, like beginning-of-act-2 early. I know the D&D pantheon, and yea Lolth is super evil. My first run in bg3 was with a Lolth-sworn actually because I wanted a richer rp than Seldarine. In 5e, yes, vamp spawns are, by default, aligned neutral evil, but the system allows for vampire player-characters and only specifies that the pc MUST be lawful evil if the player character goes forward with transformation from spawn to vampire. The game is ultimately dictated by the DM, and as a DM it's ezpz to allow a player character to stop at spawn and change alignment, whether over time or through codified means like wish or death/resurrection. Larian is our DM in this adventure and it seems apparent to me that they coded Astarion to be appreciably affected by the player. Left to his own devices, you're absolutely 100% correct in that: vamps are categorically evil.
@@sparkpoi Maybe thinking of it in terms of good and evil is the "bug". For me it seems that he mostly disapproved of outright heroic actions, such as sticking your neck out for strangers or helping the helpless. Strangely, some outright backstabby actions also gained his disapproval - and not only if they were directed against him. He did generally seem to approve of helping victims who tried to help themselves in my run, especially when they were after revenge. Apart from that he seemed to like kind or playful treatment of other monsters and moments of poetic justice. If anything, I'd say he has a bit of a righteous side to him that can get stronger and less sinister over time.
Honestly I think Gale leans a lot more towards neutral as well. He's against violence but he is DEFINETLY power-hungry. And honestly I think being non-violent is a much more accurate description of his character. I'm playing Dark Urge and I've never really resisted it at all and he threatened to leave a single time(I think everyone knows when) and after then we never had any issues whatsoever
most of them are neutral, thinking of them in terms of good and evil is kind of pointless, since none of them are infanticide evil, nor couldn't hurt a fly good. they are complex characters.
I did an evil playthrough with The Dark Urge where my char was a drow paladin with Minthara which is also a drow paladin. I hired two hirelings to finish the party and it was a lot of fun! Exploring Minthara's personality and a "succumbing" Dark Urge was probably the most interesting and diferent playthrough I had especially because I basically aligned against everything that was good. It's quite literally a whole new game considering how much it affects all acts.
@@TrairFrair it's a lot of fun. Yesterday I started a new playthrough (my 6th!) again with The Dark Urge but this time not "succumbing" to the urge. There's also a devil theme going on, the party is me as a tiefling, Wyll and Karlach.
I am very impressed with all the comments explaining how the companions develop their character depending on their experiences in the player’s party. What a lot of coding that must take! I definitely want to see Shadowheart turn to the light so Im keeping her. Laezel has just propositioned me which was creepy and alarming so she is staying behind from now on! 🥺 A really well put together, informative and concise video. Your channel is going to be my compass for this first playthrough, heaven knows I need one! 😃
Astarion may disapprove of "helping" people, but it's usually a plus or minus 1. The "big" ones for him are if you agree with the villain in his story or force him to do something he doesn't want to do after he has said he doesn't want to do it. Or if you try to kill him or diss him in certain conversations. He's more neutral than evil.
Love your videos. 🎉 I Have come to this channel for CK3 videos a few years ago and you were incredibly helpful 😊 and so your videos are for Baldurs gate 3 ☺️
Just to fact check you on one point, rest of the video was really good. Even Durge playthroughs where character death happens/you haven't met them yet, Withers will offer Hirelings once the PMC hits level 3. That's the only requirement.
@italianspartacus of course. The only reason I know this is I was having trouble balancing LZ and Astarion influence in a traditional good guy role, and did a run where I wanted to only appease them. So until I could get Minthara in A2, I used a custom scrub. From start, if you clear the Nautiloid and the Withers ruin, you'll wind up a couple hundred XP shy of 3. Clearing the Grove gate, doing the Komira sub plot, and killing the 3-4 goblins in the rune tunnel should get you to 3, and you can substitute your influence tampon for anyone who may object to your more...questionable decisions.
Gale can actually fit an evil run. He’s got a power-hungry undercurrent to him and is morally grey when it comes to means for achieving the party’s goal to defeat the absolute.
Honestly, despite the unfinished mess she is, Minthara is a surprisingly interesting character when it comes to both party composition and story. On the one hand, we have a supposedly evil companion you can gain by either ignoring the tieflings or sacrificing them and two of the good companions (potentially three if you fail to convince Gale) for a character with one of the best classes in the game as their main loadout. On the other, we have a character with a pretty cool redemption-esc arc that has cool and funny dialogue despite her attitude. She’s like a much calmer, more menacing Lae’zel. She can easily become a face character if you pump up the charisma and can serve as both damage dealer and tank in equal measure, taking up both Karlach and, to an extent, Wylls roles at the same time (at least in terms of stats and mechanics). If you ever run another play through, I recommend ignoring the Tiefling/Gobbo storyline in order to gain Minthara without losing Wyll and Karlach and have her run as your main tank. Very fun character to play as, hope someday they even have a unique origin character dlc they use with her.
NGL, when you said "master of the fences," I imagined Wyll walking on top of a really tall fence brandishing his blade, proudly looking off into the distance. So... Master of the Fences works just as well, haha!
pointing out that you can respec companions/hirelings is a great idea. A few times i save scummed to load before an interaction that a companion should be in, like laezel going to the creche, gale with magic stuff or just to see other dialog/story outcomes
For my playthrough, I played with almost all the main companions and finish their storylines. I generally like all of them, got to play and mess around with thousands of builds for each of these, got to try out literally all the best loot and their synergies. Basically, the most amount of content you can go through in one single playthrough is my moto. My constant has only been Shadowhart, apart from that I switched all of the companions at one point or another, simply to play out their story. But for most of the game, it has been Tav, ShadowH, Astarion and Karlach.
Something to remember is that the companion’s approval rating will matter whether they will leave you or not! If you have very good to exceptional they will usually stay even if they disapprove at a given situation. But once it is low gradually you are in that risk zone of losing their accompaniment.
Liking commenting and subscribing solely for the approach of information up front. Fantastic approach! I wish more people did this instead of burying the info at the end
Your favorite team comp is my favorite team comp. I like Laezel and Gale as well. But not as much as Karlach, Shadowheart, and Wyll. If I’m not doing an evil playthrough, Karlach NEVER leaves my team. She’s easily my favorite character in the game.
I see so many of these types of videos. Which companion line up is best, and like, I am so intrigued by the people that don't randomly choose your party every few hours. I get having favs, I do too. And yeah some characters are needed for so specific quests. But beyond that, if I am wandering around the world just exploring I go back to camp and switch the party members all the time. So interesting that people play so differently.
My first playthrough I am a druid and I run Karlach, shadowheart and Gale. My second playthrough I am a Paladin (will go into warlock later) and am running astarion, shadowheart and wyll (i'm still in act 1 so not sure how this group will hold in longrun). I bring the relevant characters on the quests that are part of their stories, because if you don't you really are missing out on a lot of exposition. Like its stupid not to bring Astarion on his quest (there is an exception tactically to this near the end of his quest where it can pay to have him hang back from the group) or Shadowheart on hers. They provide soo much more information about what is going on and it does indeed have very drastic impacts for some story choices as they relate to the characters.
@@sgtcockburn5824 I do bring characters for their specific quests but if its neutral or main quests i almost always run the same group its easier to funnel gear/parasites in the early game.
I think Astarion, early game especially, is self serving and chaotic rather than evil. His whole alignment pretty much revolves around the fact that no one ever came to save HIM, and the thing that finally did was a mind flayer, so why would he help anyone else etc
I actually rolled Astarion after I met him. Pain recognize game lol. Havnt gotten a chance to get his playthrough out of act 1, but it'll be cool seeing how he does with a good class and good morals.
I'm sticking with Gale and Shadowheart throughout and then rotating all the others in with a lot of Karlach. Will definitely have to get Minsc and Jaheira in together at some point though in honor of BG1 & BG2.
for minthara, you dont have to choose. just leave her alive, and "abandon" the grove (aka dont kill ALL the leaders, aka minthara.) you lose halsin tho
ya but the tieflings still all die and you lose access to so many quests. I love Mint shes the best romance in the game but it hurts you have to sacrifice so much for her. You lose Mol, Dammon for Karlachs quest and his loot, and without Halsin lifting the Shadows isnt possible.
Now (post Patch 5,) you don't have to! Just make sure she's tagged "temporarily hostile" (don't aggro her in dialogue,) then knock her out with non-lethal, & she'll show up in Moonrise. Everything afterwards proceeds as though you'd left the Grove/Goblin issue unresolved.
Your best party is the exact one I naturally gravitated too also. I did like Gale fine also, but got tired of him asking about magic items so I left him at camp 😅
I wish I saw you video before I stated my playthrough. I kept my first 3 members in the party (shadowheart, astarion, gale) and got progessively irritated with Astarion (and he with me) to a point where I honestly got scared he got annoyed enough with me wanting to help everybody that he'd just go on a killing spree... I just kept him because I was afraid I'd not see more of his story if he was not in my active party. I now have my girl karlach instead of him and the only thing that annoys me about her is that I can't hug her NEARLY enough times
I would say that Astarion is a narcissistic hedonist, not outright evil. He has strong feelings against anyone being forced against their will. He strives to be the most powerful person in the room and can be vicious and vindictive, but he also has an interesting twist that definitely shows the kicked puppy in him.
I'm still on my first playthrough with my semi-good Wood Elf Ranger, but Karlach has been with me from the first I found her and is the one party member I never go anywhere without. For most of Act 1 and 2 I just used Karlach, Shadowheart, and Gale. Now in Act 3, I'm also really enjoying having Jaheira for her "I'm too old for this shit" outlook on life, and Shadowheart has been pretty much benched. I'm looking forward to my next playthrough to spend time with Astarion and Lae'zel.
I, as a sorlock and Neutral Good, am using the good party combination, except I use Astarion instead of Wyll. I think Astarion is not as evil as he tries to make us see, except when he picks a lock or steals something interesting from us (always for a good cause xD)
It's been updated to where you can recruit minthara so long as you did not kill her when defeating the goblin camp. You have to knock her out once you do kill the rest of the goblin leaders and then your next long rest her body will be gone, then in act 2 she will be standing trial for her failure and you can step in to save her by freeing her from the dungeons. You're gonna have to pretend to be an absolute in order to get to that part though😊
I did a play through up to act 3 where she was with me and we chose the good path. Was definitely a pretty interesting storyline. But a lot went wrong for that character in act 2 so I decided to reroll and start over. This time my character was a cleric/paladin so I didn't really need her anymore so when I didn't take her and she bailed on me I was like "OK bye." didn't even try to see if it was an option to get her to stay. lol
I am eagerly awaiting the Xbox release so this video may help me upon release! Just at the intro section but I’ll keep watching. Thanks for the info and taking the time to put this together, looking forward to watching the rest!
What a great overview, glad I stumbled upon this video. I really like Astarion but I'm maining a benevolent monk as my first play-through and noticed him disagreeing with most of my decisions. I want a Ranger character, so I guess I'll just respec Will- a character I like but never enjoyed his base class so he always sat in camp during EA.
I was not interested in this game initially. My daughter wanted for Christmas. She wanted me to try it because she has seen me play dragon age. Turns out I love it. I'm buying it as soon as I can. Kinda ran thru my Christmas fund buy my wife and daughter their PS5's and games and whatnot. I can't wait to play it
The only way Astarion will make his way into my party is when I play his origin story. I find him insufferable and even for my evil playthrough I killed him off. My go to comp has been Shadowheart, Lae'zel and Karlach.
I just wanted to let you know I've become a decent supporter of your channel. Your bg3 depth is great. If your willing to read this I have an early game multiclass: Start tempest cleric take to level 2, sorc 1...to 11 later. Gear: a certain set of boots near a windmill adding 3 charges A staff from am area adding more charges. With all the lifting bonus you become God of the zappy zap With
Lae zel has been a staple heavy hitter in my Gale play through. Shadowheart is my best Gal and main healer. Karlach is another heavy hitter as a Tempest Paladin. I bring Astarion in only to Ninja loot. Minsc is easily my Solo nuker as a Ranger Assassin in Act 3. The man soloed the Gortash fight with ease.
I was actively trying NOT to play Will so that in my second playthrough I would focus on his story. But during longrest the game forced me his story and I just felt robbed of the experience. I didn't know that could happen from the start, if I did I wouldn't even recruit him with that character.
@@italianspartacus I mean, I get that people want to see the origin characters story unfold even without using them in battle, but I avoided all conversations with Wyll to not get ""spoilers"", but I got shoved with Mizora's pact and Wyll's horns out of nowhere. I think that it should have a story progression based on the conversations you have with the characters, and not just automatic after a set number of longrests.
I like to play with the origins, so Gale, Shadowheart, Astarion and Lae'zel have turned out to be my preferred main group, with Karlach coming along now and then and Wyll being on eternal camp duty. Gale's origin is extremely well done in my opinion (which softens the blow of having to miss out on a lot of his voice acting) and having Astarion by your side to tempt you towards power while coming to terms with Gale's personal situation and keeping his general disposition in mind works amazingly well.
Yeah, actually Shadowheart was moving too slow for me, so I went for Lae'zel. LOL! It's funny because my character is a Wizard. And yes, even my wife commented how pretty the actress is!@@italianspartacus
Gale is definitely possible to make more morally grey lol. He'll stick around on a totally evil playthrough (including raiding the grove) if you push him a little bit in the right direction, just make a point to mention to him the benefits of power that will come with making certain evil choices. He might never approve of 'mean' dialogue choices specifically but for overall gameplay purposes isn't a through-and-through good guy
My take on the characters... Karlach - Neutral Good Gale - Chaotic Good Shadowheart - True Neutral Wyll - Chaotic Neutral (See note below) Lae'zel - Lawful Evil Astarion - Neutral Evil A note on Wyll. He's generally a good person, but more for appearances than for simply good's sake. He's very focused on his public image. If he can get away with something dastardly without affecting that image he will do it. Also Astarion will complain about doing good deeds, but more for the fact that it's inconvenient and typically requires extra effort on his part than any real objection to it. I've yet to actually drive him from my party by being good. His response (complaints) to my good deeds on the other hand are always worthy of a good laugh. He's not evil for evil's sake, he's just selfish and more than a little snobbish.
Tav as a Swords Bard/Warlock for passing every charisma and dex ability with ease, solid mele capability + Eldrich blast goes brrrrr, Shadowheart respeced into Life for support, Gale for crowd control and the big red golden retriever that jumps into the fray, throws one enemy onto another enemy and then rain down one of the boomerang weapons. Seriously Tavern brawler Karlach with the throw boosting items is so much fun. Wyll are on permanent making sure Owlbear and puppy are fed in camp duty (don't really need another warlock), the rest of the party get some sporadic time in the party whenever I want to switch things up.
Your videos are ALWAYS so good!! This was really helpful for me as my style is traditionally quite good. It was super interesting to hear how Laezel and Shadowheart both have a lot of development. I’ve been respecting Shadowheart into a Light cleric just because I like their spells better. Starting to think it’s perhaps really against her initial character and perhaps her later development.
Good laezel is honestly the canon laezel in my opinion even tho canon isn’t rlly a thing here. Her personality just starts to shine thru so well the writers of the dialogue in this game are amazing. She very quickly after the crexhe starts going from cold and rude to everyone to more light heart and open to the idea of having actual friends instead of just throwing herself into her religion and using tht as her identity. She has sum moments where u just see someone who wants approval and feels inadequate in every way compared to her others. But that need for approval from someone slowly starts to fade
I think it’s nice that Shadowheart can go with everyone, bc cleric/healer is a very important role and I guess the devs predicted that cleric wouldn’t be a popular player choice lol (as usual, no one wants to be a healer)
20:39 My plan for the evil playthrough is to actually play as Shadowheart, so I can have all those three AND Minthara. I would also be interesting to see Shadowheart's 'choice' through first person perspective.
The only companions I can even think to use in BG3 are Wyll and Karlach. Every other one, from a player dealing with them not their abilities, makes me want to go murder hobo on them. I literally send everyone else to camp and ignore them as much as possible. If they tried to make a more annoying group I’m not sure they could succeed.
Gale is a lot more morally gray than is represented in this video. Wyll and Karlach are the ones that freak out if you make evil choices. Gale will complain sometimes but he won't leave. And Lae'zel is fine with you siding against the Githyanki, but she has to like you a lot and you better be ready with that Persuade check.
5:40 Minthara actually approves of giving food to the refugees in baldurs gate and gets an inspiration point. (however she does say they should all be made into slaves to benefit the city so uhhh) I wouldn't say she's outright evil, just close to it.
@@italianspartacus Like really appreciate the no fluff approach, and the care you had by creating timestamps and all. I'll check the rest of your guides for sure!
