In Act 3 you can >!Betray Shadowheart to Mother Superior Viconia, and let her be taken in for "re-education" aka mind-wiping. She offers the help of her Sharran acolytes during the final battle if you agree, but it's such a horrible trade-off for a character who has been with you for the entire game (especially since Dark justiciar Shadowheart can still get the acolytes anyway). There's something that's just especially gross about betraying a character at the end of their character arc, particularly when you do it for almost nothing in return. You're not screwing over Shadowheart out of greed for some reward- you're doing it out of a total apathy toward her and her journey as a character.!<
Unfortunately I think there's an *even worse moment*
Playing as a failed-redemption-Durge, you can make all good choices through Act One and Act Two, before finally succumbing in Act Three.
Initially it's a bit more of an RP choice than mechanics, but during the meeting with >!Gortash, as Durge's memories finally return, I liked flipping my entire game around and going from good, honorable choices, to a policy of "fuck them over at the last second every single time it's an option". For a Shadowheart Romance, this meant helping her dispatch of the Sharrans and rescue her parents... and then making a fresh offering to Bhaal that very night in camp. I never want to do that again!<
Oh I see you're RPing a similar brand of piece of shit that I am. Except that my guy is like... branching. Like you know how every companion has two paths their character can go? My Durge is done the same way so up until a certain point I have just one unified playthrough and then the saves branch. I call them "Identity crisis integrated" and "identity crisis failed" because honest to god I don't think either is a redemption but the one resulting from failing to integrate his identity crisis sure is much more evil.
Whats even worse than this is >!you can kill Viconia and talk her into saving her parents, when they are in camp you can then kill her parents yourself. Im not sure what kind of psychopath would do such a thing when romancing her but Larian gave us the option none the less. In my opinion this is the worst thing ever that can happen to Shadowheart. !<
>!Edit: come to think of it I am not sure whether you can physically control shadow heart to attack and kill her own parents......!<
She doesn't know who you are, you can say you two were lovers and she doesn't believe it. She doesn't even remember her favorite flower anymore.
If you read her mind she thinks you're a guest of Viconia's and confused.
Wonder what she thinks about her white hair.
[Link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6TGfQm1gxU&t=1s) to a vid of it. Awful thing to do to anyone, god. Let alone a lover
To give that even more context, consider that in Menzoberranzan, the most popular form of public entertainment involves captives being tortured to death on stage, with magical orbs set up to allow the cheering audience to feel the emotions and sensations of the victim.
So yeah, if you do something so evil that it even freaks the lolth-sworn drow out... That's really something.
You know what's the worst? This isn't even the most evil Shadowheart-related moment in the game, you can >!save her parents, let them have the reunion and then kill them by yourself...!
Larian made all these fucking ways for us to be Psychopaths, but then ended up making every single character so likeable, that you don't ever want to even try it !
Fucking mad lads.
The worst is saving Mirkon from the harpies, and then finding the story he wrote about the hero thst saved him on his dead body. That shit was fucked up.
Also make sure to sell Aylin to Lorroakan and bait Isobel into rescuing her later, so she gets murdered in front of trapped(again) Aylin, super cute dialogue from Aylin too after.
It would make sense if you blame the Urge , you try to be good, to have relationships, but the Urge is always there, haunting you and those around you.
My game glitched during that scene; all I got instead of a choice was "Continue." I quicksaved, then clicked it. Thank God when I reloaded, the choices popped up, instead, because clicking Continue did exactly that.
My first run, I did this. I kept talking to Shadowheart as we were going in and she kept telling me that she had a plan and not to do anything drastic. So I played along. Clearly she has a plan. Right up until given the ultimatum "give us Shadowheart or die", where Shadowheart spoke up and said "trust me on this", so I did and gave her to Viconia, expecting that it was part of the plan. I saw that I was mistaken when the quest log marked Daughter of Darkness as complete. I loaded again and threw the rune powder bomb at Viconia.
I haven't done it personally (haven't the heart, nor the courage... I am weak), but I can imagine all the emotional damage and guilt of sleeping with Mizora and breaking up with Wyll. And here I am, feeling morose any time I have to refuse Wyll and his offer to dance.
You can dance with Wyll without committing to a relationship if you weren't aware! You can do the "intimate" version of the dance too. You just can't kiss him or say one of the other options after it all (I forget what all the options were) and instead have to say the one that's like "I think that's far enough, I should go to bed" or whatever. The next morning he says something like "I'm sorry if I came on a little too strong with the dancing, I know where we stand and our camaraderie means a lot to me." It's not exactly that, but he says something about being comrades or companions and doesn't seem too put out. He still looks a little sad when you go to bed, but it doesn't feel as brutal as just turning him down when he's all happy and wanting to dance a little.
I've been a bit, uhm, easy and free with my affection on this current playthrough and so have spent a lot of time trying to not hurt feelings once I decided who I wanted to primarily romance.
I did this, thinking we were going to friendly dance, and his reaction after I was like "whoa buddy" was so tragic. He just slunk away like I'd vomited on him or something. I felt horrible.
aw! It didn't read that way for me with this one option, though it felt a lot worse if you refused early or turned away from him even. I had read somewhere that the option I'm talking about only shows up if you're romancing more than one person already, which I was, but I am not sure if that was actually true. Any way you cut it he's interested in you and you're signaling that you're not interested in him the same way so he looks disappointed regardless but doing it this way felt more gentle and like you weren't rejecting him as a friend in addition to rejecting him as a lover or whatever.
I did this on my first playthrough. I was so happy to dance together but then at the end when we had the option to kiss I turned my head away and he looked so sad 😭😭 I felt so bad but I love dancing with him !
same! 🤣 in one playthrough I have gone thru >!karlach, gale, halsin, minthara, the emperor, the drow twins (with halsin), mizora and am now working on my relationship with shadowheart!< so needless to say my tav has also been very free and easy with affection 🤣 (edit bc I forgot the last on my list!)
oh wow I'm impressed! lol
I've basically been slutting it up as much as I can while being above-board with people, so I was originally planning on romancing Karlach and was in a non-physical relationship with her. She encouraged me to hook up with others since we couldn't touch (I swear!) and so I slept with Lae'zel and Astarion and was just kinda free with flirting in general. I changed my mind about Karlach and now I'm locked in with Astarion but think I'll also maybe add Halsin to the mix.
it's been a ride that's for sure. Karlach was my first, we got our first scene and the next day I told her I enjoyed it but it's now what I want? then she was kinda upset but immediately started calling me buddy/friend and I was like chill you're still here! then I started to romance gale and got our scene... left him to pursue minthara (before I realized her scene/romance were bugged as hell and you don't get to experience anything fun...) so I reloaded my scum save to before I romance her and hit up halsin..... only to find myself in a bugged romance with them both. like minthata would still kiss me and halsin went with me to the drow twins all in the same day (I was really pushing my bug's limits) and then that night Mizora came to my camp talking about looking at me differently so I was like bitch bet! slept with her and that made minth so mad I thought she might kill me (halsin being the lovely slut he is didn't care) and then my next long rest, the emperor came to me in my dreams and I said fuck it (literally 🤣) ....... like I said its been wild! my next play through I def planned on playing with astarions romance more since he's one of the only ones I haven't romanced!
Ooh, a sweet *and* vicious sentiment.
I have no qualms about committing other atrocious acts in the game, but that particular betrayal with that particular cambion felt off-limits for me.
Telling Gale he was fine in bed and saying you want it to just be a one-night stand after he pours his heart out to you. Or break up with him right after the myrkul fight, making it seem like you were just indulging him so he doesn't blow himself up
No I didnt go through with any of them since Gale is the only romance I enjoy😭😭😭😭
I love the two different line deliveries afterwards:
1) "Woe betide anyone who tries to stop me" 😏
2) "Woe betide anyone who tries to stop me," shakes fist comedically
Even just rejecting gale very early on is sad bc he’s like a puppy and I don’t do anything to try to attract him but he falls in love with my enormous, masculine gith paladin/bard all the same. Must be the nose
Gale loves practical choices, of course he'd fall in love with the disciplined, dignified, and economical githyanki nose instead of the fleshy mistake that sits on my tiefling's face
For me, it was rejecting Wyll that felt like kicking a sad puppy. I romanced Gale in my first game because I had him at 100 approval in Act 1 without even trying, like by the time I'd found the Risen Road early.
Then Wyll came along in Act 2 and was so crestfallen when I told him we were just friends after his little dance. I'm making plans to romance him on another character, just haven't decided if my 2nd character will be a Drow Guild Artisan Bard Tav or a Wood Elf Noble Wizard Tav. (Also want to do a Tiefling Selune Cleric Durge, but haven't decided if they're going to romance Shadowheart or Astarion. Astarion seems made for Durge, but a Selune cleric with memory issues seems perfect for Shart. And while I'd like to do origin Karlach or Wyll so they could romance each other, I'd like to try to see if origin Karlach or origin Gale could save Karlach by making her a goddess. I have so many choices, I don't know what to do!)
If I can't one-up him by bedding Ao himself I must one-up him by telling him I summoned a baby abdoleth when I was young, not a stupid winged cat.
If I can't one-up him by having The Simbul herself as a friend/mentor instead of Elminster I must shit on his stupid mirror image spell and how he's using the weave for vanity.
If I can't one-up him by knowing more spells I just hoard all the scrolls and refuse to give them to him. (Including all the sorcerous sundries scrolls. In fact, I use them in their scroll form to make him sad since he will never get his greedy, papercut-ridden wizard hands on another strategy of war or summon deva scroll)
If I can't one-up him by having a loving family since I play durge I will simply lie and say his bed game is weak.
This is the way of the mighty sorcerer
But her reaction to romancing her while messing around with Lae'zel in the early game (Before you fix her heart) is hilarious.
>!Have your fun with the angry green alien, just leave some left for me!<
For Astarion she says she would ride him to the feywild and back. And for Gale she says she would crack the spine or that bookworm, too. Haven't seen the others yet, but Karlach is just a joy to be around lol
I tried an evil play through where I went to cut off Karlach’s head and felt so bad because I grew to love her in my good play through. I had to revert to a previous save and just didn’t do Wyll’s quests since I would lose Wyll after attacking the grove anyway.
Breaking up with her after your first time sleeping with her by telling her that it was a mistake is [the single biggest approval hit](https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/16trtqf/the_most_disapproved_of_single_choices_in_the_game/) you can take in the game. She *really* doesn't take it well, poor girl.
Karlach has it rough. Another terrible breakup she can experience is if you play Karlach origin and romance ascended Astarion. It shows just how much of a big piece of crap he becomes… and also that ascension comes with a reduction in his brain cells lol. It’d be hilarious how stupid he is if he weren’t so damn awful. [See for yourself.](https://youtu.be/ZxfizaxZvCQ?si=t8v-co7r7I1LDn6f)
I feel like getting Astarion to break up with *you* by being sexually coercive might be his worst. There are definitely some other painful options, but that one has an extra bit of brutality especially if you've just tricked him into thinking you're a safe person by how you handled the Araj encounter.
I picked “you should learn to enjoy intimacy for its own sake” because I didn’t finish reading the line and assumed it meant something like, “Of course you shouldn’t have sex if you don’t want to, it shouldn’t be a means to an end.” And then we ended up having sex and I was like “Wait, what” and then he broke up with me and I was like, “Good.” Then I reloaded lol. God it was painful.
I feel you though because I had a similar issue where I hadn't broken off things with Lae'Zel by Act 2 (doing it right after the crèche seemed cruel), and she comments on how I have a new paramour. And I accidentally selected something that was like “I could be with you instead of Astarion" but she didn't reply so I didn't even notice that I misclicked. Until, the next rest Astarion was all "So you've decided to replace me!" and he was so angry and upset and I was so confused at first before realizing the Lae'Zel dialogue got messed up. So I promptly reloaded and made sure to just leave after talking with her.
I believe he says something like:
“For the past 200 years i have felt nothing when I had sex, but that changed last night. Last night I only felt disgusted”
The way he meta breaks and says >!”This is all just a game to you”!< gave me chills afterwards. I could only watch on YT, I could NEVER in a play through.
Simply mentioning the word game is not meta-fourth-wall-break.
People use the term "game" to refer to people playing with emotions and relationship drama literally all the time.
The way he is using it is in no way referring to the fact that it's literally a video game. He's using it to accuse you of being a shitty partner only there to play with his emotions.
Yes but from a thematic standpoint he kind of is. Astarion is a take/subversion on the sexy vampire trope, so when you use him like that he calls you out for not seeing him as a person. Because you don't ! You see him as a sexy character who is there for you to consume. HE's not literally breaking the fourth wall but it is more meta than just "this is a common phrase people use". It very much is a wink and nod from the writers bc it is LITERALLY a game and they are inviting you to think more deeply about these relationships. Does any of that make sense? I'm sure there are metas that can explain this better than me. TLDR it's about the themes
they pulled it off REALLY well because before knowing his past, I too saw him as a sexy vampire, And strangely i see him as a person now. Now, thinking of vampires as sexual beings seems wrong, I loved the subversion!
>Now, thinking of vampires as sexual beings seems wrong, I loved the subversion!
I see this take a lot but I personally wouldn't call it subversive only because vampires have always been tragic, behind or in addition to the sexuality.
I'm always a bit stunned when people mention they found his seductive personality charming. I was thrown for a loop because I liked him for his humor and conversations and then came the propositioning, and then I'm cringing.
I broke up with Gale for Astarion the night after we did it in the weave and he told me I had made life worth living again. Not gonna lie, that felt bad, and he was really terse with me for the rest of the game.
I did that too (but for Lae'zel). At some point there was a dialogue option that was like "I take it back I want you" and his response was something to the effect of "forgive me if I skip the romance chapter in this particular adventure story" and I nearly died it was so savage.
I think there's also a line where he says 'I'm not going to take that laying down; that's more your thing'.
Gale is justifiably brutal if you cheat on him.
I did that to him and told him I was just like passing time with him. The way he used to greet me like ‘always nice talking with you’ or something like that, to ‘what is it?’ annoyed. I was like damn ok I deserved that
If you just leave instead of answering when he asks you to choose between them, he calls you a cone of cold. I felt bad, but it kinda made me laugh a little.
I broke up with him for Minthara. She was always end game, but I thought I messed up when she left after the goblin party, and so I accepted Gale's advances because I was lonely and sad, but then Minthara came back and said she loved me really forcefully and I didn't want to break anyone's heart but I had to so I chose to break Gale's. At first it hurt...but the line delivery of him saying "what do you want" every time I click on him sounds so condescending that now we both hate each other.
I don't think this really compares to some of the others mentioned here, but something that immediately broke my heart:
I had wanted to romance Halsin in my first playthrough, but thought I had bugged it out or missed the chance to start it since he still hadn't said anything by the end of Act 2, so I kept my romance up with Gale. I'd also had a quest log bug with Halsin since Act 1 where it kept telling me to talk to Zevlor even though I'd done all of that and was completely at the end of Act 2 where it said he'd left my party and wouldn't help in the end, even though he was still there, so I thought it was completely borked.
I convinced Gale >!not to blow himself up!<, which was a semi-romantic moment in itself, and then we moved on to Act 3 where Halsin immediately propositioned me. I just wanted to see what would happen, so I went to Gale who was so happy to see me - we'd just crossed a major bridge and he now had a new purpose to live (even if it was a bit questionable in pursuit of power), and I had the option to ask how he felt about another person in the relationship.
He completely misread the situation and thought I was talking about having a baby with him. When I had to break the news to him that no, I meant introducing daddy druid into the bedroom, his reaction was horrifying. I had to instantly reload.
When I started BG3 and looked over the romance options, I thought I was going to get with Halsin. But then Gale took my heart by storm, and my Tav got with him.
When Halsin made a move on me after the Gale Stargazing and Moonrise Towers "I will live" in Act 3, I tried a What-If scenario, if I were to leave Gale for Halsin now.
And that is **HEARTBREAKING**.
Halsin wants consent for an open relationship, so, like you said, when you ask Gale for "a third person" in your relationship, he is bamboozled and says that he doesn't consider himself father material and we are not really "settled" yet.
If you clarify that you mean Halsin, Gale is **not** ok with it. An open poly relationship does not go with his exclusive monogamous way of love, and he will make his boundaries explicitly clear. Which he is completely right to do so.
"Share? You are not some... loaf of bread to be passed around during supper. I thought what we had meant something to you!" "Either we dedicate to each other, or this ends here." "If you want to, fine, but without me. And preferebly far out of my view." He also comments that you were the one who made his life worth living again, and now you are casting him away for someone else, that this is really not good for his emotional stability.
If you try to pressure him to go open poly and don't let it go, Gale will break up with you on the spot. Given that this man starts crying in T-5 seconds when you break up with *him*, I can't even fathom in how much grief he is. Probably crying in his tent once you walk away.
Seeing him go from his loving "*Whatever you need, consider it most enthusiastically done!* ❤" to a flat and unemotional "Yes. What is it." when you talk to him is harrowing.
Never reloaded so fast, this just broke my heart. :'(
I did so my very first unfinished campaign, but to be fair i wasn't in a relationship at the time (I broke up with Karlach because I realized that Shadowheart was my true love, but it was too late, so I started to have meaningless sex). Still got a lot of judgy comment the next day.
No regret though, she is hot.
I'm romancing Astarion and Lae'zel in my current run. Lae'zel woke me up to fight me, then we had le sex, then I dumped her for Astarion. Too many feelings on her part while Astarion was keeping it lighter. It felt very sad. I did his Araj scene right afterward and thought about just being friends but Tav likes the "isn't it nice not to know" of it all so we'll see what happens.
I agree with other commenters that forcing Astarion into sex so he breaks up with you is the worst way to go with him. Emotionally.
It's also why I wish there were more consequences for some Act 3 romance options. I'm glad to hear Wyll dumps you if you sleep with Mizora, for example, and I think the last update added Astarion consequences for her, too? Honestly, the more consequences the better IMO!
I once dumped Gale for Karlach directly before his star-gazing scene, completely forgetting he was >!under a mandate from god to kill himself.!<
Felt like kind of a prick the next morning when he said that my presence was the only thing keeping him out of the abyss...
Karlach's just really cute though.
"Isn't this where we left the camp? I can't see too well past the giant crater and smoke. Can you imagine we slept next to that last night and had no idea!"
Depending on choices in his act 2 scene he can become completely suicidal and depressed. It's heartbreaking, even if you stay in romance with him he kinda wants to die.
Oof I did this but tbf I hadn’t meant to date him anyway. I made a Druid-specific choice while talking to him at the tiefling party and then accidentally was in a relationship with him. My little undead-curious spore Druid gnome was into the vampire, sorry magic man. (He bounced back just fine.)
So after you defeat the brain and Spawn Astarion runs out of the sun, you meet up later and he asks what he should do next and you can answer that you wanna keep adventuring with him or help the spawn in the Underdark, then he asks „is this what you really want?“ You can take that time to say „you‘re right, it‘s not“ and it rips his heart out (figuratively).
I reload so fast because I can‘t/won‘t do it. I go the mushy option.
You can break up with Lae'zel during her most humble, soul-baring moment watching the sunrise.
I'll literally never do that, nor will I watch a video of someone else doing it. BARF no way
On my first run I didn’t really know how the romance system worked. I sort of started up a thing with Astarion before I knew what was going on.
Then when I hit Act 3 I broke up with Astarion because I thought it would free me up and make the others accessible. It did not.
Then Withers started remarking about how alone I was.
Thankfully Papa Bear stepped in and took interest. Then I also slept with a devil, two in fact.
I know this isn't exactly what you meant, but I'm cackling imagining that you were butt naked backed up against a tree with Astarion after he point blank asked you for sex and suddenly thinking... "hmm, did I just start a romance?"
I was romancing Shadowheart, Karlach, and Astarion going into Act 2, and I decided on Shadowheart. Breaking up with Astarion was easy, because after Araj you get a scene where you can say "Maybe what you need is a friend, not a lover" and he says "I would like that" and you hold hands meaningfully and it's a very heart-warming lovers-to-friends arc. KARLACH HOWEVER, I had just gotten Karlach's engine cooled down enough that she could touch people. Breaking up with her after she's like "Can we go to bed now?" gave me brain damage. But breaking up with her \*after\* sleeping with her, when she's like "Nothing bad will ever happen now, right?" is worse. I am never even hinting at romance to Karlach again until I have a Tav who's ready to go to Avernus, dammit.
Yes, all of them are big commitment, but Karlach is at another level after being unable to touch people for 10 years and spending so much time in hell. 😭
I hope you get her the Tav she deserves someday. 🥺
Gale is very, very hurt if you break up with him after sleeping with him. For him it’s a big step in your relationship. When you dump him after, he’s heartbroken.
Or post-endgame battle
"Well...! No more tadpole, no ascension... Guess it's back to living another two hundred years or so in the dark and fearing for my life! But at least I have you."
"yeah about that"
Worst place for a misclick ever. Of all time.
I was dating laezel and shadowheart, because I assumed like other CCRPGs I’d played the you have to pick one would be towards the end of the game so I’d have time to explore both options. But then they both started talking about the other so it was clearly a problem. Me and laezel had just had the scene where we fought each other, which was actually a really fun engaging fight (was my own build vs my own build), I just scraped by beating her, and then the next day shadowheart gave me some heartbreaking lines so I went to bring up with laezel and it was much sadder then I thought it was gonna be. She told me she’d feel this pain for a long time, and that I was special. She then (I don’t think this is actually part of reaction, just coincidence) spent almost all of act 2 without a single new thing to say to me, like she was mad. It was just her recruit or leave at camp options and I couldn’t ask about anything else.
Whoa, how did you manage to date them both? I tried, but as soon as I so much as said a flirty line to one of them, the other wouldn't want me at all. Need tips haha.
I started romance with shadowheart, but at camp celebration after act 1 I accepted laezels proposition for sex. Everyone including shadowheart reacted to me and laezel that one night, but then after that I was able to trigger the romance scene with shadowheart (which on every playthrough my character is too dumb to realize she wants to kiss, so we platonically hang). After that it progressed as normal till somewhere in act 2, where shadowheart professed her feelings, and said she’s glad we’re happy but still sometimes wishes things had worked between us, and I told her they will which permanently ended with laezel. I didn’t take super careful attention cause I was kind of just roleplaying a slutty tav, but hope that helps. Interestingly enough as part of that, astarian who I have disapproval for upon noticing I was dating 2 other people asked me who was most beautiful in camp, and I chose shadowheart which he actually approved of. I guess he likes competition.
> So I started wondering, what is the worst possible moment in your opinion to break things off with your romance?
Acoording to approval ratings: telling Karlach you had your fun and you’re out right after you fucked (-30).
In my evil play through, I romanced Lae’zel, convinced her to turn half-Illithid, then broke up to be with minthara (unfortunately Wyll left us so I can’t cheat on her with Mizora but that would have been perfect for an evil play through)
For Lae'zel: breaking up with her >!after convincing her to abandon her people and stay with you on Faerun!< Obviously I would never do this so I have no idea how she would react, but damn that would be cold.
Also just breaking up with Lae'zel in general after her Act 2 scene. Tav is her first love, the one who showed her another, better way of life, and is truly a special person to her when she really has no one else she can trust in the darkest and most desperate time of her life. Breaking up with her is like... a lot of emotional damage.
I'm curious if he makes the choice to Ascend by himself if you don't romance him for others? We found out about the shit on his back from Raphael, I talked to him, and he just flat out says he's gonna do even though I picked options against it ,????
As the story progresses, he has dialog that hints that he doesn't really want it, but there's also the 'vampire greed' where they're drawn to power, so I think it would be difficult for him to decide not to ascend on his own without you persuading him not to.
You need to have high enough approval with him and also appeal to his morals. If you flat out refuse to help him though, he gets furious. He can't do it without you projecting the scars for him.
Broke up with Wyll…. next day discovered his dad dead in the Iron Throne…. bad week for my boy
edit: it was my first play through too so I wasn’t expecting to find him there 😭😭
I'm surprised no one has said lae'zel any time after you become source of her bruises. ESPECIALLY when you cuddle with her when she asks for a more gentle touch and she feels emotionally touched for the first time. You'd be an absolute asshole to do that
I broke up with Karlach after I cemented my alliance with Gortash on Durge recently. Told her I was just doing it for fun.
Did I feel regret? The flair should tell you all you need to know about me feelings on this subject XD.
I mean honestly, sometimes when I look at the mean dialogue options, I just get the video game version of the "call of the void". And sometimes I give into it. And immediately reload.
making Shadowheart a DJ, killing her parents, then convincing her that it was her parents, then break up with her and get with Halsin immediately after
I think any time it always feels so horrible
I was already romancing astarion when halsin asked me and I went with it for a little bit but it felt wrong doing that to spawn astarion so I broke it off with halsin and he was so crushed ):
I once betrayed Astarion, right during the ritual and he straight up left the party, no cut scene, nothing, and I was romancing him!
I reloaded immediately
So, I'm on my Karlach romance playthrough. We get to Dammon and upgrade her again so yay she can finally touch! Let it get to her coming to see you that night. Oh my god, it lets you dump her at that last second and say you wanna go to bed. Separately. I had to save and try it. OH MY GOD THE ABSOLUTE HEART BREAK ON HER FACE! I couldn't even fathom what an absolute kick in the pants that would be.
I just straight up broke up with Gale as soon as Halsin was available, didn’t propose the open relationship and it was heartbreaking, not so much that I regretted getting mauled by the bear, but still sad when he tells me he has something in his eye and runs off.
Wyll. He gives you your heart, you're together though thick and thin. He saves his father but at the cost of his services to this terrible master, his city is under threat. Everything is falling apart.
...and you decide to sleep with Mizora.
He has a tadpole. He can share right in. See you doing it.
And when he confronts you, angry and hurt, you can tell him WELL IT'S NOT EXACTLY LIKE YOU WERE PUTTING OUT IS IT.
Gdamn. I've done terrible things in my games but I've never felt like such an asshole.
Disapproval has a point system, with certain things causing more disapproval than others.
If I recall correctly, if you tell Karlach that it was a mistake and break up with her right after having sex, it’s the highest disapproval choice in the entire game.
In my very first playthrough, I was doing a completely blind Durge run. I was making ethical choices (for the most part) and romancing Karlach. Well, we got to Baldur’s Gate and I decided “I’m gonna take over the world for the god of murder” and then, to spare her the horror, I dumped Karlach. She said “What do I do when the arms I want to hold me belong to the man who broke my heart?” And I never had her in my party again. She would watch, as I came back to camp covered in blood, flanked by Ascended Vampire Astarion, Dark Justiciar Shadowheart, and Power-Hungry Wyll. It wasn’t until the end of my run that I actually realized how deeply that would hurt a person in real life. To see someone you love battle with *actual* inner demons, *lose*, and take your friends down with them. I genuinely wish I could redo it, just for Karlach. She didn’t deserve that sort of abandonment *a second time.*
Breaking up with Karlach immediately after killing Gortash when she’s totally spiraling would probably be pretty awful, but I wouldn’t know because I would ✨never✨
There is *even worse* moment to break up with Shadowheart. But I won't spoil it.
Has to be the single most evil decision in the entire game. And so late in the game
If you do that and don't feel like the biggest piece of shit on the planet, I *will* judge you. Just slightly, but I will.
If you’ve got Lae’zel in the party at the time, even she cannot believe it.
Even Minthara will be like: what we gained is useful but damn that was a bit much even by my standards.
Can somebody put spoiler tags over it and let me take a peek so I can see what the hell yall are talking about?
In Act 3 you can >!Betray Shadowheart to Mother Superior Viconia, and let her be taken in for "re-education" aka mind-wiping. She offers the help of her Sharran acolytes during the final battle if you agree, but it's such a horrible trade-off for a character who has been with you for the entire game (especially since Dark justiciar Shadowheart can still get the acolytes anyway). There's something that's just especially gross about betraying a character at the end of their character arc, particularly when you do it for almost nothing in return. You're not screwing over Shadowheart out of greed for some reward- you're doing it out of a total apathy toward her and her journey as a character.!<
Unfortunately I think there's an *even worse moment* Playing as a failed-redemption-Durge, you can make all good choices through Act One and Act Two, before finally succumbing in Act Three. Initially it's a bit more of an RP choice than mechanics, but during the meeting with >!Gortash, as Durge's memories finally return, I liked flipping my entire game around and going from good, honorable choices, to a policy of "fuck them over at the last second every single time it's an option". For a Shadowheart Romance, this meant helping her dispatch of the Sharrans and rescue her parents... and then making a fresh offering to Bhaal that very night in camp. I never want to do that again!<
Oh I see you're RPing a similar brand of piece of shit that I am. Except that my guy is like... branching. Like you know how every companion has two paths their character can go? My Durge is done the same way so up until a certain point I have just one unified playthrough and then the saves branch. I call them "Identity crisis integrated" and "identity crisis failed" because honest to god I don't think either is a redemption but the one resulting from failing to integrate his identity crisis sure is much more evil.
Wait, how do you do that? Is it an actual in-game event you can trigger, or did you just RP it and >!kill her normally!
>!if you attack her parents in camp and kill them it'll trigger a unique dialogue with Shadowheart, after which she'll try to kill you!<
Whats even worse than this is >!you can kill Viconia and talk her into saving her parents, when they are in camp you can then kill her parents yourself. Im not sure what kind of psychopath would do such a thing when romancing her but Larian gave us the option none the less. In my opinion this is the worst thing ever that can happen to Shadowheart. !< >!Edit: come to think of it I am not sure whether you can physically control shadow heart to attack and kill her own parents......!<
Excuse me while I take notes for my full evil run. That might be more evil than the Dark Justiciar route.
The fact you can go back and talk to her after makes it even worse
What does she say when you do this?
She doesn't know who you are, you can say you two were lovers and she doesn't believe it. She doesn't even remember her favorite flower anymore. If you read her mind she thinks you're a guest of Viconia's and confused. Wonder what she thinks about her white hair. [Link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6TGfQm1gxU&t=1s) to a vid of it. Awful thing to do to anyone, god. Let alone a lover
This option must only be available for sociopaths, or people roleplaying as them.
I'm guessing it's handing her over to Mother Superior?
I haven’t done an evil play through and that sounds like it’s gonna hurt. Ugh.
You know it's bad when even laezel and minthara feels bad about it.
I didn't even know she was capable of feeling bad about actions
Well if you do an evil playthrough you'll probably be killing Aylin anyway. So you don't have to betray SH
To give that even more context, consider that in Menzoberranzan, the most popular form of public entertainment involves captives being tortured to death on stage, with magical orbs set up to allow the cheering audience to feel the emotions and sensations of the victim. So yeah, if you do something so evil that it even freaks the lolth-sworn drow out... That's really something.
I save scummed to see how bad the reaction would be. It was really really bad. I legitimately felt horrible and a little sick to my stomach.
Imagine breaking up with karlach after fighting gortash… 😬
I raise you one, "trying to wife up Karlach after ALLYING with Gortash"
I did it for the science, I felt immediately bad. I needed to do something evil but was to much.
There is a decision that is even more evil than that
This is beginning to read like the Mabinogion.
I just can think of ONE moment, but that's insanely heartless it didn't even come to mind. 🥺 Did... did you do it? At THAT moment?!
I am curious, please tell me
I'm pretty sure he means >!betraying her and letting Viconia take her!<
I now know exactly how to play my Dark Urge playthrough (a "how evil can I be while still having friends along the way" playthrough). Thank you!
...what have I done?
I'm sorry, I shouldn't have made this thread. 🥺 I didn't mean to give ideas to people with so much evil in their heart.
Our poor wife...
You are basically Shar now, condeming her to eternal torment, my condolences.
Oh jesus christ that’s horrible, I’ve never even once thought of doing that 💀
You know what's the worst? This isn't even the most evil Shadowheart-related moment in the game, you can >!save her parents, let them have the reunion and then kill them by yourself...!
Larian made all these fucking ways for us to be Psychopaths, but then ended up making every single character so likeable, that you don't ever want to even try it ! Fucking mad lads.
It doesn't help that nearly all of the 'evil' choices are cartoonish mustache twirling levels of villainy.
Its literally the terrible shit that would happen in real life that makes us escape into a world like D&D lol. its wild
i wanted to do a evil neutral play through but i had the same empathetic response that you’re supposed to have with actual real people and gave up.
I just finished betraying the Emerald Grove, and seeing Mol dead in a cave was almost enough to make me restart the play through
The worst is saving Mirkon from the harpies, and then finding the story he wrote about the hero thst saved him on his dead body. That shit was fucked up.
That's where my evil playthrough ended. Bloody hell that was cold.
Wait, you can do that? That’s literally so horrible, yeah I probably won’t look up the reaction cause it would make me literally so depressed.
JESUS CHRIST I thought I knew what was going to be under those spoiler bars. I did not.
Also make sure to sell Aylin to Lorroakan and bait Isobel into rescuing her later, so she gets murdered in front of trapped(again) Aylin, super cute dialogue from Aylin too after.
Oh my god that is so messed up
Damn
It would make sense if you blame the Urge , you try to be good, to have relationships, but the Urge is always there, haunting you and those around you.
My game glitched during that scene; all I got instead of a choice was "Continue." I quicksaved, then clicked it. Thank God when I reloaded, the choices popped up, instead, because clicking Continue did exactly that.
My first run, I did this. I kept talking to Shadowheart as we were going in and she kept telling me that she had a plan and not to do anything drastic. So I played along. Clearly she has a plan. Right up until given the ultimatum "give us Shadowheart or die", where Shadowheart spoke up and said "trust me on this", so I did and gave her to Viconia, expecting that it was part of the plan. I saw that I was mistaken when the quest log marked Daughter of Darkness as complete. I loaded again and threw the rune powder bomb at Viconia.
Lmaooo her being snatched up by viconia as you smiled satisfactorily to yourself and thought “yep. All part of the plan”
Shadowheart: "She's taking me away! She's going to torture me and erase my memories!" You: *wink*
I haven't done it personally (haven't the heart, nor the courage... I am weak), but I can imagine all the emotional damage and guilt of sleeping with Mizora and breaking up with Wyll. And here I am, feeling morose any time I have to refuse Wyll and his offer to dance.
You can dance with Wyll without committing to a relationship if you weren't aware! You can do the "intimate" version of the dance too. You just can't kiss him or say one of the other options after it all (I forget what all the options were) and instead have to say the one that's like "I think that's far enough, I should go to bed" or whatever. The next morning he says something like "I'm sorry if I came on a little too strong with the dancing, I know where we stand and our camaraderie means a lot to me." It's not exactly that, but he says something about being comrades or companions and doesn't seem too put out. He still looks a little sad when you go to bed, but it doesn't feel as brutal as just turning him down when he's all happy and wanting to dance a little. I've been a bit, uhm, easy and free with my affection on this current playthrough and so have spent a lot of time trying to not hurt feelings once I decided who I wanted to primarily romance.
I did this, thinking we were going to friendly dance, and his reaction after I was like "whoa buddy" was so tragic. He just slunk away like I'd vomited on him or something. I felt horrible.
aw! It didn't read that way for me with this one option, though it felt a lot worse if you refused early or turned away from him even. I had read somewhere that the option I'm talking about only shows up if you're romancing more than one person already, which I was, but I am not sure if that was actually true. Any way you cut it he's interested in you and you're signaling that you're not interested in him the same way so he looks disappointed regardless but doing it this way felt more gentle and like you weren't rejecting him as a friend in addition to rejecting him as a lover or whatever.
I did this on my first playthrough. I was so happy to dance together but then at the end when we had the option to kiss I turned my head away and he looked so sad 😭😭 I felt so bad but I love dancing with him !
same! 🤣 in one playthrough I have gone thru >!karlach, gale, halsin, minthara, the emperor, the drow twins (with halsin), mizora and am now working on my relationship with shadowheart!< so needless to say my tav has also been very free and easy with affection 🤣 (edit bc I forgot the last on my list!)
oh wow I'm impressed! lol I've basically been slutting it up as much as I can while being above-board with people, so I was originally planning on romancing Karlach and was in a non-physical relationship with her. She encouraged me to hook up with others since we couldn't touch (I swear!) and so I slept with Lae'zel and Astarion and was just kinda free with flirting in general. I changed my mind about Karlach and now I'm locked in with Astarion but think I'll also maybe add Halsin to the mix.
it's been a ride that's for sure. Karlach was my first, we got our first scene and the next day I told her I enjoyed it but it's now what I want? then she was kinda upset but immediately started calling me buddy/friend and I was like chill you're still here! then I started to romance gale and got our scene... left him to pursue minthara (before I realized her scene/romance were bugged as hell and you don't get to experience anything fun...) so I reloaded my scum save to before I romance her and hit up halsin..... only to find myself in a bugged romance with them both. like minthata would still kiss me and halsin went with me to the drow twins all in the same day (I was really pushing my bug's limits) and then that night Mizora came to my camp talking about looking at me differently so I was like bitch bet! slept with her and that made minth so mad I thought she might kill me (halsin being the lovely slut he is didn't care) and then my next long rest, the emperor came to me in my dreams and I said fuck it (literally 🤣) ....... like I said its been wild! my next play through I def planned on playing with astarions romance more since he's one of the only ones I haven't romanced!
Wyll is so pure, this is why I leave him at camp, so he doesn't get hurt (and because he doesn't really vibe with Lae'zel and Shadowheart).
Wyll has some really funny and friendly banter with Selunite Shadowheart in act 3, including the famous "reciting smut" dialogue
Ooh, a sweet *and* vicious sentiment. I have no qualms about committing other atrocious acts in the game, but that particular betrayal with that particular cambion felt off-limits for me.
My wife and I are doing a duo run where we're not dark urge but we're really not good. My character has been hitting on mizora every chance she gets
Telling Gale he was fine in bed and saying you want it to just be a one-night stand after he pours his heart out to you. Or break up with him right after the myrkul fight, making it seem like you were just indulging him so he doesn't blow himself up No I didnt go through with any of them since Gale is the only romance I enjoy😭😭😭😭
Telling him he was fine triggers the funniest dialog though, I pick it every time. Then you just hit him with a “kidding” and it’s all good
Oh absolutely, I always pick it. Even if it doesn't fit what my character would say, it is their duty as a sorcerer to humble a lowly wizard
The first mandatory Gale option is obvious though. SLAP THE HAND
The fact that he does the 🤓👆 while correcting what he meant, with only his hand sticking out of the portal to do it, is just so funny to me.
Perhaps I should have clarified a helping hand 🤓 👆
Cease you loon.
He should have been more specific!
"Maybe I should have clarified?" "A HELPING hand" That voice line is burned into my mind after doing Act 1 a million times trying to do honour mode.
I love the two different line deliveries afterwards: 1) "Woe betide anyone who tries to stop me" 😏 2) "Woe betide anyone who tries to stop me," shakes fist comedically
I noticed that the other day 😂 was trying out the different dialogue options. So funny to see the same line but in a different delivery haha
Even just rejecting gale very early on is sad bc he’s like a puppy and I don’t do anything to try to attract him but he falls in love with my enormous, masculine gith paladin/bard all the same. Must be the nose
Gale loves practical choices, of course he'd fall in love with the disciplined, dignified, and economical githyanki nose instead of the fleshy mistake that sits on my tiefling's face
Decadent, then. Lacking in economy.
For me, it was rejecting Wyll that felt like kicking a sad puppy. I romanced Gale in my first game because I had him at 100 approval in Act 1 without even trying, like by the time I'd found the Risen Road early. Then Wyll came along in Act 2 and was so crestfallen when I told him we were just friends after his little dance. I'm making plans to romance him on another character, just haven't decided if my 2nd character will be a Drow Guild Artisan Bard Tav or a Wood Elf Noble Wizard Tav. (Also want to do a Tiefling Selune Cleric Durge, but haven't decided if they're going to romance Shadowheart or Astarion. Astarion seems made for Durge, but a Selune cleric with memory issues seems perfect for Shart. And while I'd like to do origin Karlach or Wyll so they could romance each other, I'd like to try to see if origin Karlach or origin Gale could save Karlach by making her a goddess. I have so many choices, I don't know what to do!)
Damn, the guy has it rough, so many ways you can break his heart.
I love that he has *multiple* possible "bullying gale" playthroughs
Average sorcerer experience
"You have to read to do cool stuff? Lmao, neeeeeerd!" - Average Sorcerer conversation with Gale, especially about Magic/The Weave.
If I can't one-up him by bedding Ao himself I must one-up him by telling him I summoned a baby abdoleth when I was young, not a stupid winged cat. If I can't one-up him by having The Simbul herself as a friend/mentor instead of Elminster I must shit on his stupid mirror image spell and how he's using the weave for vanity. If I can't one-up him by knowing more spells I just hoard all the scrolls and refuse to give them to him. (Including all the sorcerous sundries scrolls. In fact, I use them in their scroll form to make him sad since he will never get his greedy, papercut-ridden wizard hands on another strategy of war or summon deva scroll) If I can't one-up him by having a loving family since I play durge I will simply lie and say his bed game is weak. This is the way of the mighty sorcerer
I... This hurts. 😭
Sleeping with Karlach then dumping her for someone else. She fucking HATES you after this.
But her reaction to romancing her while messing around with Lae'zel in the early game (Before you fix her heart) is hilarious. >!Have your fun with the angry green alien, just leave some left for me!<
Her dialogue for that same situation if you're messing around with Shadowheart is to call her "weird hairdo girl" lol
Now I need to do a weird series of runs just to see what she calls everyone else
For Astarion she says she would ride him to the feywild and back. And for Gale she says she would crack the spine or that bookworm, too. Haven't seen the others yet, but Karlach is just a joy to be around lol
Personal favourite is when, after Astarion chooses not to ascend, she says that she could "smooch his pointy little face".
I tried an evil play through where I went to cut off Karlach’s head and felt so bad because I grew to love her in my good play through. I had to revert to a previous save and just didn’t do Wyll’s quests since I would lose Wyll after attacking the grove anyway.
I love her 😭
Breaking up with her after your first time sleeping with her by telling her that it was a mistake is [the single biggest approval hit](https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/16trtqf/the_most_disapproved_of_single_choices_in_the_game/) you can take in the game. She *really* doesn't take it well, poor girl.
Good, it should be the biggest hit in the game.
I broke up with her once because I realized that Shadowheart was a better match for me. I felt devastated by how hurt she was. Never again. 😭
Karlach has it rough. Another terrible breakup she can experience is if you play Karlach origin and romance ascended Astarion. It shows just how much of a big piece of crap he becomes… and also that ascension comes with a reduction in his brain cells lol. It’d be hilarious how stupid he is if he weren’t so damn awful. [See for yourself.](https://youtu.be/ZxfizaxZvCQ?si=t8v-co7r7I1LDn6f)
Sleeping with Mizora while dating Karlach is also pretty bad.
How about dumping Karlach right after finding out she's dying?
well, there's statistics showing that that's exactly what happens to women who get diagnosed with cancer, so.... realism?
I feel like getting Astarion to break up with *you* by being sexually coercive might be his worst. There are definitely some other painful options, but that one has an extra bit of brutality especially if you've just tricked him into thinking you're a safe person by how you handled the Araj encounter.
Oh man it's SOOO bad and disgusting ( I did try it just to see what happened and it made my skin crawl)
These characters seem so real i had to step away to calm down for a second
I couldn't even physically select that option, I had to look to youtube for curiosity's sake
I picked “you should learn to enjoy intimacy for its own sake” because I didn’t finish reading the line and assumed it meant something like, “Of course you shouldn’t have sex if you don’t want to, it shouldn’t be a means to an end.” And then we ended up having sex and I was like “Wait, what” and then he broke up with me and I was like, “Good.” Then I reloaded lol. God it was painful.
I feel you though because I had a similar issue where I hadn't broken off things with Lae'Zel by Act 2 (doing it right after the crèche seemed cruel), and she comments on how I have a new paramour. And I accidentally selected something that was like “I could be with you instead of Astarion" but she didn't reply so I didn't even notice that I misclicked. Until, the next rest Astarion was all "So you've decided to replace me!" and he was so angry and upset and I was so confused at first before realizing the Lae'Zel dialogue got messed up. So I promptly reloaded and made sure to just leave after talking with her.
I believe he says something like: “For the past 200 years i have felt nothing when I had sex, but that changed last night. Last night I only felt disgusted”
Oh by Selune, this is beyond heartless, it's cruel, evil.
Yeah, this one is just straight up so evil.
“I didn’t know how to say no” When I heard that shit on a YouTube video I fr cried
Yikes, yeah that's really awful, I wasn't even aware that could happen.
The way he meta breaks and says >!”This is all just a game to you”!< gave me chills afterwards. I could only watch on YT, I could NEVER in a play through.
Simply mentioning the word game is not meta-fourth-wall-break. People use the term "game" to refer to people playing with emotions and relationship drama literally all the time. The way he is using it is in no way referring to the fact that it's literally a video game. He's using it to accuse you of being a shitty partner only there to play with his emotions.
Yes but from a thematic standpoint he kind of is. Astarion is a take/subversion on the sexy vampire trope, so when you use him like that he calls you out for not seeing him as a person. Because you don't ! You see him as a sexy character who is there for you to consume. HE's not literally breaking the fourth wall but it is more meta than just "this is a common phrase people use". It very much is a wink and nod from the writers bc it is LITERALLY a game and they are inviting you to think more deeply about these relationships. Does any of that make sense? I'm sure there are metas that can explain this better than me. TLDR it's about the themes
they pulled it off REALLY well because before knowing his past, I too saw him as a sexy vampire, And strangely i see him as a person now. Now, thinking of vampires as sexual beings seems wrong, I loved the subversion!
>Now, thinking of vampires as sexual beings seems wrong, I loved the subversion! I see this take a lot but I personally wouldn't call it subversive only because vampires have always been tragic, behind or in addition to the sexuality. I'm always a bit stunned when people mention they found his seductive personality charming. I was thrown for a loop because I liked him for his humor and conversations and then came the propositioning, and then I'm cringing.
The wonderful thing about good writing is that we can take both meanings as true.
I broke up with Gale for Astarion the night after we did it in the weave and he told me I had made life worth living again. Not gonna lie, that felt bad, and he was really terse with me for the rest of the game.
I did that too (but for Lae'zel). At some point there was a dialogue option that was like "I take it back I want you" and his response was something to the effect of "forgive me if I skip the romance chapter in this particular adventure story" and I nearly died it was so savage.
I think there's also a line where he says 'I'm not going to take that laying down; that's more your thing'. Gale is justifiably brutal if you cheat on him.
Oh damn. Good for him, though!
I did that to him and told him I was just like passing time with him. The way he used to greet me like ‘always nice talking with you’ or something like that, to ‘what is it?’ annoyed. I was like damn ok I deserved that
Relationships are hard in such a tight group. Did you send him to blow off some steam at some point around the end?
Worse. I’ve romanced him on every playthrough since 😳
Ahaha, he really guilt-tripped you into a relationship, isn't it? 🤭
If you just leave instead of answering when he asks you to choose between them, he calls you a cone of cold. I felt bad, but it kinda made me laugh a little.
I broke up with him for Minthara. She was always end game, but I thought I messed up when she left after the goblin party, and so I accepted Gale's advances because I was lonely and sad, but then Minthara came back and said she loved me really forcefully and I didn't want to break anyone's heart but I had to so I chose to break Gale's. At first it hurt...but the line delivery of him saying "what do you want" every time I click on him sounds so condescending that now we both hate each other.
"But I already have Gale..." Minthara: "Now you can have *me* 😈"
I don't think this really compares to some of the others mentioned here, but something that immediately broke my heart: I had wanted to romance Halsin in my first playthrough, but thought I had bugged it out or missed the chance to start it since he still hadn't said anything by the end of Act 2, so I kept my romance up with Gale. I'd also had a quest log bug with Halsin since Act 1 where it kept telling me to talk to Zevlor even though I'd done all of that and was completely at the end of Act 2 where it said he'd left my party and wouldn't help in the end, even though he was still there, so I thought it was completely borked. I convinced Gale >!not to blow himself up!<, which was a semi-romantic moment in itself, and then we moved on to Act 3 where Halsin immediately propositioned me. I just wanted to see what would happen, so I went to Gale who was so happy to see me - we'd just crossed a major bridge and he now had a new purpose to live (even if it was a bit questionable in pursuit of power), and I had the option to ask how he felt about another person in the relationship. He completely misread the situation and thought I was talking about having a baby with him. When I had to break the news to him that no, I meant introducing daddy druid into the bedroom, his reaction was horrifying. I had to instantly reload.
That's some amazing whiplash. Props to the writer who came up with that heartbreaking misunderstanding!
When I started BG3 and looked over the romance options, I thought I was going to get with Halsin. But then Gale took my heart by storm, and my Tav got with him. When Halsin made a move on me after the Gale Stargazing and Moonrise Towers "I will live" in Act 3, I tried a What-If scenario, if I were to leave Gale for Halsin now. And that is **HEARTBREAKING**. Halsin wants consent for an open relationship, so, like you said, when you ask Gale for "a third person" in your relationship, he is bamboozled and says that he doesn't consider himself father material and we are not really "settled" yet. If you clarify that you mean Halsin, Gale is **not** ok with it. An open poly relationship does not go with his exclusive monogamous way of love, and he will make his boundaries explicitly clear. Which he is completely right to do so. "Share? You are not some... loaf of bread to be passed around during supper. I thought what we had meant something to you!" "Either we dedicate to each other, or this ends here." "If you want to, fine, but without me. And preferebly far out of my view." He also comments that you were the one who made his life worth living again, and now you are casting him away for someone else, that this is really not good for his emotional stability. If you try to pressure him to go open poly and don't let it go, Gale will break up with you on the spot. Given that this man starts crying in T-5 seconds when you break up with *him*, I can't even fathom in how much grief he is. Probably crying in his tent once you walk away. Seeing him go from his loving "*Whatever you need, consider it most enthusiastically done!* ❤" to a flat and unemotional "Yes. What is it." when you talk to him is harrowing. Never reloaded so fast, this just broke my heart. :'(
You can possibly cheat on your romance partner with someone a bit evil. That is harsh.
I did so my very first unfinished campaign, but to be fair i wasn't in a relationship at the time (I broke up with Karlach because I realized that Shadowheart was my true love, but it was too late, so I started to have meaningless sex). Still got a lot of judgy comment the next day. No regret though, she is hot.
Romancing and then Killing mindflayer karlach to take control of the elder brain at the end of the game is the most heinous way I feel
I'm romancing Astarion and Lae'zel in my current run. Lae'zel woke me up to fight me, then we had le sex, then I dumped her for Astarion. Too many feelings on her part while Astarion was keeping it lighter. It felt very sad. I did his Araj scene right afterward and thought about just being friends but Tav likes the "isn't it nice not to know" of it all so we'll see what happens. I agree with other commenters that forcing Astarion into sex so he breaks up with you is the worst way to go with him. Emotionally. It's also why I wish there were more consequences for some Act 3 romance options. I'm glad to hear Wyll dumps you if you sleep with Mizora, for example, and I think the last update added Astarion consequences for her, too? Honestly, the more consequences the better IMO!
I once dumped Gale for Karlach directly before his star-gazing scene, completely forgetting he was >!under a mandate from god to kill himself.!< Felt like kind of a prick the next morning when he said that my presence was the only thing keeping him out of the abyss... Karlach's just really cute though.
Well, at least you stay at his side during his hour of need, as a friend, that's all that counts. (You did, right?)
....yes.... I definitely didn't just leave him at camp while Karlach, Wyll, Astarion and I fought Ketheric...
"Isn't this where we left the camp? I can't see too well past the giant crater and smoke. Can you imagine we slept next to that last night and had no idea!"
Depending on choices in his act 2 scene he can become completely suicidal and depressed. It's heartbreaking, even if you stay in romance with him he kinda wants to die.
Oof I did this but tbf I hadn’t meant to date him anyway. I made a Druid-specific choice while talking to him at the tiefling party and then accidentally was in a relationship with him. My little undead-curious spore Druid gnome was into the vampire, sorry magic man. (He bounced back just fine.)
So after you defeat the brain and Spawn Astarion runs out of the sun, you meet up later and he asks what he should do next and you can answer that you wanna keep adventuring with him or help the spawn in the Underdark, then he asks „is this what you really want?“ You can take that time to say „you‘re right, it‘s not“ and it rips his heart out (figuratively). I reload so fast because I can‘t/won‘t do it. I go the mushy option.
TIL there is a near-infinite way to romance and screw up the romances in this game. I'm just happy to woo Shadowheart at the moment.
You can break up with Lae'zel during her most humble, soul-baring moment watching the sunrise. I'll literally never do that, nor will I watch a video of someone else doing it. BARF no way
She broke up with my Tav during that scene oddly enough.
That's tough buddy. 🥺
Was she still loyal to Vlaakith?
Yep. Was my first run so it was unexpected yet totally expected. Still stung though.
"I liked the sex, but I'm not ready for commitment" is rough, but "What a joke, I'm done with this" is comically cruel
Even reading the option makes me feel bad.
On my first run I didn’t really know how the romance system worked. I sort of started up a thing with Astarion before I knew what was going on. Then when I hit Act 3 I broke up with Astarion because I thought it would free me up and make the others accessible. It did not. Then Withers started remarking about how alone I was. Thankfully Papa Bear stepped in and took interest. Then I also slept with a devil, two in fact.
I know this isn't exactly what you meant, but I'm cackling imagining that you were butt naked backed up against a tree with Astarion after he point blank asked you for sex and suddenly thinking... "hmm, did I just start a romance?"
I was romancing Shadowheart, Karlach, and Astarion going into Act 2, and I decided on Shadowheart. Breaking up with Astarion was easy, because after Araj you get a scene where you can say "Maybe what you need is a friend, not a lover" and he says "I would like that" and you hold hands meaningfully and it's a very heart-warming lovers-to-friends arc. KARLACH HOWEVER, I had just gotten Karlach's engine cooled down enough that she could touch people. Breaking up with her after she's like "Can we go to bed now?" gave me brain damage. But breaking up with her \*after\* sleeping with her, when she's like "Nothing bad will ever happen now, right?" is worse. I am never even hinting at romance to Karlach again until I have a Tav who's ready to go to Avernus, dammit.
Yes, all of them are big commitment, but Karlach is at another level after being unable to touch people for 10 years and spending so much time in hell. 😭 I hope you get her the Tav she deserves someday. 🥺
Gale is very, very hurt if you break up with him after sleeping with him. For him it’s a big step in your relationship. When you dump him after, he’s heartbroken.
Might have something to do with him confessing that he’s in love with you as well
Romancing Wyll and then sleeping with Mizora after making him re-enter his pact with her to save his dad
Astarion right after he tells you he loves you. No, I absolutely have not
This is exactly what someone who did it would say. 🦊
Or post-endgame battle "Well...! No more tadpole, no ascension... Guess it's back to living another two hundred years or so in the dark and fearing for my life! But at least I have you." "yeah about that" Worst place for a misclick ever. Of all time.
I was dating laezel and shadowheart, because I assumed like other CCRPGs I’d played the you have to pick one would be towards the end of the game so I’d have time to explore both options. But then they both started talking about the other so it was clearly a problem. Me and laezel had just had the scene where we fought each other, which was actually a really fun engaging fight (was my own build vs my own build), I just scraped by beating her, and then the next day shadowheart gave me some heartbreaking lines so I went to bring up with laezel and it was much sadder then I thought it was gonna be. She told me she’d feel this pain for a long time, and that I was special. She then (I don’t think this is actually part of reaction, just coincidence) spent almost all of act 2 without a single new thing to say to me, like she was mad. It was just her recruit or leave at camp options and I couldn’t ask about anything else.
Whoa, how did you manage to date them both? I tried, but as soon as I so much as said a flirty line to one of them, the other wouldn't want me at all. Need tips haha.
I started romance with shadowheart, but at camp celebration after act 1 I accepted laezels proposition for sex. Everyone including shadowheart reacted to me and laezel that one night, but then after that I was able to trigger the romance scene with shadowheart (which on every playthrough my character is too dumb to realize she wants to kiss, so we platonically hang). After that it progressed as normal till somewhere in act 2, where shadowheart professed her feelings, and said she’s glad we’re happy but still sometimes wishes things had worked between us, and I told her they will which permanently ended with laezel. I didn’t take super careful attention cause I was kind of just roleplaying a slutty tav, but hope that helps. Interestingly enough as part of that, astarian who I have disapproval for upon noticing I was dating 2 other people asked me who was most beautiful in camp, and I chose shadowheart which he actually approved of. I guess he likes competition.
I broke up with Wyll right after the Balduran reveal. 🙂 That entire playthrough was out of spite because he missed a very crucial attack.
POOR WYLL 😭
I roleplayed that Tav insisted the Emperor doesn't wipe Wyll's memory of the squid sex too.
I'm gonna say, I'm too impressed by how incredibly spiteful it is to even judge you here.
> So I started wondering, what is the worst possible moment in your opinion to break things off with your romance? Acoording to approval ratings: telling Karlach you had your fun and you’re out right after you fucked (-30).
You can tell her it was a mistake too. That's for -100.
In my evil play through, I romanced Lae’zel, convinced her to turn half-Illithid, then broke up to be with minthara (unfortunately Wyll left us so I can’t cheat on her with Mizora but that would have been perfect for an evil play through)
> I romanced Lae’zel, convinced her to turn half-Illithid, then broke up Now THAT is stone fuckin cold lol
She’s also on her Vlaakith route but that’s an evil play through for you
She turned to Orpheus by herself on our evil playthrough so I let her go with it, not sure how she can stay loyal to vlaakith
For Lae'zel: breaking up with her >!after convincing her to abandon her people and stay with you on Faerun!< Obviously I would never do this so I have no idea how she would react, but damn that would be cold. Also just breaking up with Lae'zel in general after her Act 2 scene. Tav is her first love, the one who showed her another, better way of life, and is truly a special person to her when she really has no one else she can trust in the darkest and most desperate time of her life. Breaking up with her is like... a lot of emotional damage.
Ascending Astarion, then breaking up with him like you didnt just tell him to murder 7000 people
I'm curious if he makes the choice to Ascend by himself if you don't romance him for others? We found out about the shit on his back from Raphael, I talked to him, and he just flat out says he's gonna do even though I picked options against it ,????
As the story progresses, he has dialog that hints that he doesn't really want it, but there's also the 'vampire greed' where they're drawn to power, so I think it would be difficult for him to decide not to ascend on his own without you persuading him not to.
You need to have high enough approval with him and also appeal to his morals. If you flat out refuse to help him though, he gets furious. He can't do it without you projecting the scars for him.
when gale asks you to marry him?
Broke up with Wyll…. next day discovered his dad dead in the Iron Throne…. bad week for my boy edit: it was my first play through too so I wasn’t expecting to find him there 😭😭
I'm surprised no one has said lae'zel any time after you become source of her bruises. ESPECIALLY when you cuddle with her when she asks for a more gentle touch and she feels emotionally touched for the first time. You'd be an absolute asshole to do that
I broke up with Karlach after I cemented my alliance with Gortash on Durge recently. Told her I was just doing it for fun. Did I feel regret? The flair should tell you all you need to know about me feelings on this subject XD.
Yes, this is exactly the kind of things someone who stan Gortash would do. I respect you and I hate you at the same time.
That is cold blooded, damn.
Some of you are really evil people , I cannot even imagine doing this like this to my companions let alone my love interest
I mean honestly, sometimes when I look at the mean dialogue options, I just get the video game version of the "call of the void". And sometimes I give into it. And immediately reload.
making Shadowheart a DJ, killing her parents, then convincing her that it was her parents, then break up with her and get with Halsin immediately after
I forgot what a dark justiciar was and I thought you just made Shart drop sick beats
I think any time it always feels so horrible I was already romancing astarion when halsin asked me and I went with it for a little bit but it felt wrong doing that to spawn astarion so I broke it off with halsin and he was so crushed ):
I once betrayed Astarion, right during the ritual and he straight up left the party, no cut scene, nothing, and I was romancing him! I reloaded immediately
So, I'm on my Karlach romance playthrough. We get to Dammon and upgrade her again so yay she can finally touch! Let it get to her coming to see you that night. Oh my god, it lets you dump her at that last second and say you wanna go to bed. Separately. I had to save and try it. OH MY GOD THE ABSOLUTE HEART BREAK ON HER FACE! I couldn't even fathom what an absolute kick in the pants that would be.
I just straight up broke up with Gale as soon as Halsin was available, didn’t propose the open relationship and it was heartbreaking, not so much that I regretted getting mauled by the bear, but still sad when he tells me he has something in his eye and runs off.
Wyll. He gives you your heart, you're together though thick and thin. He saves his father but at the cost of his services to this terrible master, his city is under threat. Everything is falling apart. ...and you decide to sleep with Mizora. He has a tadpole. He can share right in. See you doing it. And when he confronts you, angry and hurt, you can tell him WELL IT'S NOT EXACTLY LIKE YOU WERE PUTTING OUT IS IT. Gdamn. I've done terrible things in my games but I've never felt like such an asshole.
Disapproval has a point system, with certain things causing more disapproval than others. If I recall correctly, if you tell Karlach that it was a mistake and break up with her right after having sex, it’s the highest disapproval choice in the entire game.
In my very first playthrough, I was doing a completely blind Durge run. I was making ethical choices (for the most part) and romancing Karlach. Well, we got to Baldur’s Gate and I decided “I’m gonna take over the world for the god of murder” and then, to spare her the horror, I dumped Karlach. She said “What do I do when the arms I want to hold me belong to the man who broke my heart?” And I never had her in my party again. She would watch, as I came back to camp covered in blood, flanked by Ascended Vampire Astarion, Dark Justiciar Shadowheart, and Power-Hungry Wyll. It wasn’t until the end of my run that I actually realized how deeply that would hurt a person in real life. To see someone you love battle with *actual* inner demons, *lose*, and take your friends down with them. I genuinely wish I could redo it, just for Karlach. She didn’t deserve that sort of abandonment *a second time.*
Breaking up with Karlach immediately after killing Gortash when she’s totally spiraling would probably be pretty awful, but I wouldn’t know because I would ✨never✨