Baldur's Gate 3

Aria

@Aria I had a lot of fun with that particular bit that you spoilered. I hadn’t realized I had missed the part as you mentioned, so I just thought that what happened to me was the normal course of things. When @Roz told me she was at that part, I eagerly crowded over to watch her play so I could see her reaction.

Imagine the look on my face when she just put the crest in to the lock and the whole fucking monastery didn’t blow up with a three turn race against the clock to get out before it blew.

I had actually solved the puzzle to get the thing to prevent the consequence, but was unable to pass the stupid checks to get into the room with the quest-reward. Like, every single one of my companions failed even after I hauled my ass to the other end of the monastery so I’d be able to go to camp and swap people out.

Obviously I needed to know what I missed and was incredibly disappointed that I got neither the quest reward nor the hilarious Astarion meltdown dialogue options.

astarion

(Sulking, actually, but this gif will do.)

Cobalt

@tez that’s actually what happened!

@Aria yeah, I had to drag in Karlach, who I had already boosted to the relevant attribute to 20.

Solstice

Astarion’s epilogue scene

If you didn’t let him become an evil mega-vampire had me in stitches. Everyone else getting the character moments and Astarion just shrieking in the sunlight and skittering off to find shade. “IT WAS NICE WHILE IT LASTED!”

Perfect. Utterly.

Pavel

@Solstice

Sorry not sorry.

Prettty close to Karlach’s epilogue, that.

Solstice

Solstice

Unrelated:

Astarion Goose needs to be a mod.

https://youtu.be/6CNAL3kFRDo

Pavel

Roz

@Aria said in Baldur’s Gate 3:

I had actually solved the puzzle to get the thing to prevent the consequence, but was unable to pass the stupid checks to get into the room with the quest-reward. Like, every single one of my companions failed even after I hauled my ass to the other end of the monastery so I’d be able to go to camp and swap people out.

Fun fact about that check:

You can use grease to loosen up the statue that gets stuck.

@Solstice said in Baldur's Gate 3:

Astarion’s epilogue scene

If you didn’t let him become an evil mega-vampire had me in stitches. Everyone else getting the character moments and Astarion just shrieking in the sunlight and skittering off to find shade. “IT WAS NICE WHILE IT LASTED!”

Perfect. Utterly.

Ugh, I actually HATED that.

Astarion can have so much growth and development, and having him end on a punchline like that – and with the possibility of one of your companions saying something brutally thoughtless about the whole thing (I had Gale just be like “lol well guess we’ll never see him again” – felt awful to me. It turned the whole thing into a punchline.

Cobalt

I haven’t finished my main play through but I’m thinking of streaming a full on murder hobo play through, where anyone who isn’t a companion gets the knife.

Tez

@Cobalt NOT MY LIL THIEFLING BABIES!!!

Pavel

@Tez It’s okay, children run away when at 0hp.

ETA: Ask not how I know this.

Solstice

@Roz

On Astarion:

I think they either really bungled his chances to grow throughout much of the game, not limited to the epilogue - or they made his lack of growth a calculated choice. I’m leaning to the latter.

As he’s currently characterized: Rip the fangs out of that boy’s head and he’s stripped down to an indignant complainy nobleman who gets angry if you help the peasants and has to be dragged kicking and screaming to not commit murder on a mass scale, including the children he lured to their deaths. And sulks about that extensively before grudgingly admitting it was a good thing.

Honestly, him zipping offstage to the sunlight equivalent of yakkety sax as his ‘good ending’ is about the best the person he was could hope for. He can go spend a century or two finding redemption in the Underdark! Popular spot for it.

We could not fix him - and I do suspect that’s the point.

So given all that, I was all about it.

Cobalt

@Tez said in Baldur’s Gate 3:

@Cobalt NOT MY LIL THIEFLING BABIES!!!

that will be hard, it is true.

But murderhobo gotta murderhobo

Roz

@Solstice said in Baldur’s Gate 3:

@Roz

On Astarion:

I think they either really bungled his chances to grow throughout much of the game, not limited to the epilogue - or they made his lack of growth a calculated choice. I’m leaning to the latter.

As he’s currently characterized: Rip the fangs out of that boy’s head and he’s stripped down to an indignant complainy nobleman who gets angry if you help the peasants and has to be dragged kicking and screaming to not commit murder on a mass scale, including the children he lured to their deaths. And sulks about that extensively before grudgingly admitting it was a good thing.

Honestly, him zipping offstage to the sunlight equivalent of yakkety sax as his ‘good ending’ is about the best the person he was could hope for. He can go spend a century or two finding redemption in the Underdark! Popular spot for it.

We could not fix him - and I do suspect that’s the point.

So given all that, I was all about it.

Yeah, idk if I just made different choices? But he definitely grew a whole lot in the playthrough I did.

I don’t think it was either “they bungled his growth or made a conscious choice not to have him grow,” I think it’s “he can grow a lot or a little, he can make good or bad choices, it just depends on what choices YOU make, and what you encourage from him.”

It wasn’t the point that I couldn’t fix him, because I absolutely helped to make him a better, more empathetic person. That’s why his comedic sendoff felt so awful.

Solstice

@Roz

~~Maybe I missed the approval cutoff for the more sympathetic reactions.~~

Edit: Really seems like you need to be romancing him for much of this to surface, which feels a missed opportunity.

bear_necessities

@Cobalt said in Baldur’s Gate 3:

@Tez said in Baldur’s Gate 3:

@Cobalt NOT MY LIL THIEFLING BABIES!!!

that will be hard, it is true.

But murderhobo gotta murderhobo

I tried to murderhobo and the grove is where I realized I am not capable of being a murderhobo lol

Roz

@Solstice said in Baldur’s Gate 3:

@Roz

Definitely not ruling it out. On a heavily intricate game like this, I suppose it’s hard to say that we had the same experience.

At least for me, by the time we reached Cazador, it took me dragging him by the heels to not murder the 7000 folks assembled there, betray the party, or leave. If your experience was a different one, still more kudos to Larian, but I assumed from the articles I’d read online that this was a common thing and a reason to avoid bringing him to his own quest resolution.

So yeah. ~~Maybe I missed the approval cutoff for the more sympathetic reactions.~~

Edit: Really seems like you need to be romancing him for much of this to surface, which feels a missed opportunity.

(Also, uh, spoilers being weird for anyone on this post? Clicking my own spoiler is expanding Roz’s.)

Lol yeah I can’t see your spoilers But FWIW, I didn’t romance him my first playthrough, but I still felt like I saw a lot of growth from him from our friendship.

Solstice

@Roz

Just wiped out the spoiler in the previous tag. Weird spoiler tag being weird. I resume it noooow and hopefully it doesn’t continue to weird at me.

Anyhow, I agree that he starts to say progressively nicer things in confidence with the PC, but that never seems to reflect his actual impactful decisions. Him being largely unwilling to put his money where his fangs are is what made me want to write him off in my Durge playthrough - I felt like he was a total waste of effort because after all the time I spent trying to make him see that he doesn’t have to be a dick, his capstone quest has him be a monumental dick unless you choose the one out of 5 options that strokes his ego enough to have him not consume the lives of people he already destroyed the happiness of. And even after save-scumming to pick that correct option, dude was still huffy about my choice to release the captive children he kidnapped and allowed to die (What the fuck Astarion.)

Like, I dunno, the parallel would be dating Ashley or something in Mass Effect. She grows to care for you, and says nice things to you, but at the end of the day she’s still a big 'ol Space Racist.

So I think the capstone quest definitely earns him that little ray of sunshine in the ending.

Great character. Entertaining as hell. Pretty irredeemable as a person.

All that said:

I have fallen hard for his voice actor.

Aria

@Solstice said in Baldur’s Gate 3:

Unrelated:

Astarion Goose needs to be a mod.

https://youtu.be/6CNAL3kFRDo

There are TWO animated versions of Goosetarion on TikTok and I watch one of them every day, then giggle like a complete fucking idiot at that laugh of his.

I have fallen hard for his voice actor.

It’s been a miserably stressful few weeks at work, the amount of stupid TikTok videos (including Goosetarion) about this game and this character has seriously become a stress-release valve, and the amount of gleeful nonsense and kind engagement this man has with the game’s fanbase is just . I have very strong opinions on the character, his background, and his ending – including just being floored that Larian would explore those topics in a game, on a male character – but regardless of whether or not people agree…

Neil Newbon is hilarious and awesome. This is objective fact.

crawfish

@Solstice He waited four years to play the game and literally just started. He has it up on his YouTube channel and seems to post at least once a week.

Here is part one.

He’s adorable.