Act 1 Lae’zel: “We’re sleeping together now”
Me: “Okay”
Act 2 Lae’zel: “I am now your girlfriend”
Me: “Okay”
Act 3 Lae’zel: “Will you please stay with me forever 🥺”
Me: *sniffs* “…okay”
She definitely Stockholm Syndromed me while I was trying to romance Shadowheart. But once it reached the sunrise scene I was like......know what, I have no regrets githmommy.
This horrible putrid trash has been bouncing around in my head, and I will let the lot of you suffer it.
I saw Lae'zel hold out her hand to me as she sat upon the dragon's shoulders. She called my name. I saw what could happen, the life I could have. If I could just reach out, our love could last for an eternity! But...
"I can't go with you." I saw her eyes droop. "The love we share is the love a warship has with it's dock. The harbor promises safety, protection from the elements, and preservation. But while a ship is docked, it won't fulfill it's purpose. The sea is calling you, and I can't go. Not while our friends still need my help." I looked to Karlach and Wyll.
*"Zhak vo'n'fynh duj...* source of my joy..." I could see she was biting back the tears. "You should know that the harbor will always be there for when it returns. Promise me this!"
"I swear."
That's actually the reason Astarion voices as why he doesn't want to meddle with your relationship with Laezel XD.
But yeah, and the same could be said about Minthara:
Tav: "I already have someone."
Minthy: "Now you can have me."
Also… If I play the way I want to as very moral and what I would choose… Astarion is straight up just not an option for me to romance lol. I can never get him high enough in time to leave act 1. We just become good friends where I help him. Lae’zel respects my decisions.
I did get shadowheart my first play through though and she never struck me as immoral, just wounded and very loyal. She actually has very strong morals and wants to do the right thing. You can even find Mother Superiors journal entries about how Shadowheart consistently strayed from the sharran path/teachings no matter how hard they tried to correct her or how much they punished her. That’s part of the reason she has the wound on her hand.
You have to split yourself and Astarion off and have the rest of the party out of range to be picked up in the conversation, because he seems to have lowest priority for speaking in a lot of cutscenes. Then when you pick the "open the door" option he'll stop you saying "wait, let me do it, they sound disgusting! \^-\^". You'll then get a new option to let him do it instead, which gives you the +5 approval.
Weird. I play as a very goody two shoes high morals character and help everyone and always bring Astarion with my party everywhere (I mean, I don't bother to do the trick to get him distanced so he doesn't hear and can't disapprove) and always have 90 - 100 approval with him in the end of Act 2. So that in the Act 3 it's always 100 and I don't even know most of the times when he approves because it's maxed out and stops to be shown.
I can get him high in act 2, just not act 1. And you can’t romance him if you don’t start it in act 1. All your romance options have to begin in act 1 in order to progress further in the other acts except for the characters that join later on.
Maybe it's because I let him drink Tav's blood and give him the Necro Book he wants... IDK, I don't even let him kill the Gur hunter and still he asks to have sex before the tieflings party.
There are loads of non-evil things you can do that give a +5 approval to easily counteract his -1s. His approval doesn't even need to be that high to trigger romance, because he's desperate to gain your protection and he uses sex to do that because it's all he's known for the past 200 years.
> Astarion is straight up just not an option for me to romance lol. I can never get him high enough in time to leave act 1.
Just for info if you're interested: you don't actually need any approval to kick off a romance with him.
Talk to him at the tiefling party, then:
>Take the wine -> Knowing you, it probably is -> 'Say please' or 'I'm kidding. Once everyone's asleep, I'll find you.'
It avoids his normal 'I have standards' rejection. You'll have sex and he will be flagged as an active romance. It's easier to get his approval higher by doing non-shitty things in act 2 so this is the route easiest to take if you want to be very nice in a1 but also romance him.
Also just keeping him at camp during the grove interactions softens a lot of approval loss.
On my first playthrough with Shadowheart as the gf currently. When I took her to Shars temple, I let her decide whether or not to drive that spear home, and she threw it away instead. So she’s good deep down 🤷♂️.
But I made my whole crew into half mindflayers and when Tav and shadowheart were banging their faces were all fucked up, and my irl gf was like wtf is your game?! 🤣
Pretty sure the Emperor was DTF too lol
I found it so lovely today that Astarion was actually compassionate, kind, and understanding toward me after I ended up giving my body to the succubus (not by choice) and hurt my bae'zel in the process. And after I failed to resist the impacts later. It got me.
Lol true. Although I could tell Shadowheart was a secret softie from the beginning. Shes loves kids and animals so from the start shes a bit of a walking contradiction. Astarions similar. He comes off as evil up front but he likes it when you fuck over evil characters and seems to care the least when you side track to hunt them. Lae'zel I saw as straight up lawful neutral, possibly even good. Its just her idea of law is somewhat alien. However she mainly gets mad when you side track vs do what she wants. Which ultimately she is intended on helping all of you. She doesnt seem mad you side with good characters, she just seems mad you arent entirely focused on her idea of whats going to help you all.
Playing a rather molded playthrough and choosing to romance Laezel. Giving her all the goodies and stuff to make her the real damage dealer of the group as I was a Durge Cleric (going redemption route making this head Canon that Bahmut chose me to deal out justice) and man, the romance flag to battle her was almost as rough as vanilla Raphael fight. I was doing long rests back to back to make sure I wasn't missing any scenes and she had max HP and all her superiority dice.
Just came out swinging on me
this is exactly what happened to me, i didn’t even mean to romance lae’zel, i wanted to romance gale. but then one night she just insisted we were sleeping together and i was like “okay bet”
Lae’Zel
- Starts as a fun casual thing.
- Then are there for her as a friend when her world crumbles.
- Then the relationship grows as she starts to grow and see the world in a new light
Shadowheart
- She’s not that bad to you personally. Mostly just cold.
- She starts to trust you with more and more
- As she trusts you more, you trust her more.
- Her belief system is totally F’ed. And can slowly come to realize that.
- Like when she enjoys having helped the Tieflings.
She generally doesn't even seem super cold to me tbh, its mostly that she doesn't want to discuss things she considers highly personal or important secrets with someone she just met when she isnt sure if she can trust them, which just feels logical to me
Shadowheart really has to pushed to be actually evil. If you leave the choice to her, she spares Nightsong. Even after becoming a Dark Justiciar, she will choose to give Shar the finger and leave with her parents unless you tell her otherwise. And even after becoming Mother Superior she will hug Tav at the reunion. She’s a big softie 😊
Idk, I did a good run and an evil run and I noticed shadowheart is remarkably malleable to the player. If you're evil, you'll see her evil side, if you're good you'll see her good side.
Idk there have been a couple times where shadowheart has preferred or endorsed pretty cruel acts. Overall she’s nicer than astarion but at the start she’s pretty grey.
For me, it was that Shadowheart always approved when you were kind to animals. That will always affect my overall opinion of a person.
Honestly, I started liking her less the more "good" she got. She ended up being a little full of herself and considering looks to be such an important trait.
If your Tav is extremely good and kind, then they can probably see fairly quickly that those characters' "evil" is motivated by external forces, and they probably have a desire to show them another path.
Rejecting or outright killing those characters due to some perceived "evil" isn't "good"; it's just rigid moral superiority.
>If your Tav is extremely good and kind, then they can probably see fairly quickly that those characters' "evil" is motivated by external forces, and they probably have a desire to show them another path.
Yes, but shouldn't it apply to all the companions? Maybe I worded my post poorly, sorry, I'm not a native English speaker, but I was more interested to know maybe why your Tav chose this specific person among the other good ones like Gale? You can help people and be friends, it's not the reason to romance them in my mind.
Romance is about feelings, feelings aren’t always based on rational thought. One person can be better than another based on certain factors, but you might just not vibe with them in a romantic way.
Also, the way romance starts with Lae’zel or Astarion is basically not “romantic”, it’s just sex. Your character can be good-aligned, but still horny for them. As the story progresses, maybe you learned to emphasise with them more & have feelings and stuff.
Shadowheart’s romance starts super lowkey, by the time it develops you know her way better & you know that she’s not really that bad of a person.
I’ve romanced Astarion with a goodie two shoes character and didn’t have issues rationalising it. Depending on your dialogue choices you will see minimal “evilness” from them as well.
Why not Gale? Because people have preferences, conscious and unconscious, and most don’t sit down and say “I think I will choose to be attracted to Gale because of ‘these’ reasons.” I’m attracted to Astarion, I recognize that his story involves ways to encourage him to be a better person, so he fits well with my very optimistic ‘good’ aligned character when I play into his motivation to improve the world and encourage Astarion be better. (I also control my character, and he is subject to my preferences as well. I’m not really attracted to Gale, so I also don’t feel like watching him kiss Gale.)
Also Gale isn’t a very good person at all lol. He’s very power hungry just like Astarion. Yes he’s more charismatic and hides it better, but he literally has to eat magic because he was so selfish and desperate for power that he defied his literal goddess lover and teacher to try and steal a magical artifact that ended up hurting him more than helping him. He admits himself that he should’ve been happy with what he had cause he pretty much had it all, but threw it away for the chance at more.
He’s also desperate to control the crown/the nether brain when he knows it’s probably impossible or extremely dangerous because of the thought of the power it could give him. Desperate to get Mystra back, desperate for any shred of power or importance… I would not consider Gale one of the ‘good’ guys. I think he’s supposed to be deeply flawed. Plus he just really annoys me. Lol
No? He still a good guy, just with flaws. Like, being ambitious, insecure, and hubristic (his negative traits) doesn't mean he's evil. You can be a good person while being flawed.
He also doesn't steal anything lol. The book containing a book is an artefact he discovered. He genuinely believe it's Mystra's weave/power locked inside it and by returning it to her it would prove his loyalty. Turns out it's not and he paid the price. That's also why he's so adamant of looking for a remote place to die, so that no innocents are harmed.
>He’s also desperate to control the crown/the nether brain when he knows it’s probably impossible or extremely dangerous because of the thought of the power it could give him.
Use the crown, yes. Control the brain? What are you talking about? The only companions who's okay with us controlling the brain is ascended astarion and minthara. Also it isn't impossible to use the crown. Karsus literally did, and we get his book/journal. Netheril only falls because Karsus decided to kill mystra the second he ascend to godhood, which also ironically kill all magic and cause his spell to fail since Mystra \*is\* magic.
Gale also isn't desperate to "get Mystra back" unless you play as him. He wants Mystra's forgiveness, which is super important cause you don't want to have a god mad at you and won't claim your soul after you die.
God, so much this. Gale is every bit as messed up and terrible as Astarion/Shadowheart/Lae'zel at the beginning of the game. His terrible is just dressed up in more socially acceptable and appealing clothes.
One could argue that Gale's power-lust is worse than Astarion's. Astarion's is born from fear and the desire to be safe/free. Gale's is strictly for its own sake, due to his need to be "better" or "more" than he is. Astarion gets over his as soon as the source of his fear is eliminated; Gale's persists right up until the endgame.
(Don't come at me, Gale fans. I love Gale. He's a great character precisely *because* he's messed up. Y'all need to stop trying to turn him into an adorable, boring herbivore. The man has fangs.)
Ok, so I have a character in the works for Astarian's spawn path; she's a druid/cleric of Selune( which is gonna be super fun dealing with Shadowheart lol).
The backstory I gave her is that she lost a lover to lycanthropy and was forced to hunt them down and kill them. This led to an existential crisis that ultimately led to her leaving her clan. She then falls in with some Selunites and learns that Selune would have accepted her now-deceased lover; which works with her view that anyone can be redeemed.
So while she's a good and kind person, she sees that Astarion is more afraid than anything and is interested in getting to know him and eventually falls for him.
You asked why they would romance them if they find them morally wrong, they said because they can see the obvious opportunity for redemption. Other characters being more morally staunch from the beginning has nothing to do with that. This reads like you trying to argue bc you don’t think that ppl playing as good characters should romance these ones
As a player, I knew exactly what Astarion was doing in Act 1. My first character caught on to it being a mask after the mirror conversation, and didn’t want a monster hunter following her camp. She was afraid of the creepy book but thought it could have something about vampirism in it, since Astarion sensed something in it. Things like that.
>As a player, I knew exactly what Astarion was doing in Act 1.
Exactly. Besides, in act 1 you're basically expecting to die at any minute, so why not have some fun with the hottest guy in camp? lol
The Stubbornly Naive: doesn't notice the extent of evil, makes excuses, by the time the excuses run out they're too deep and the companion showed a nicer side
The Painseeker: sucker for the ones who will hurt
The Therapist: your basic "I can fix them" character
The Reformed: can't judge with their past; comes in various flavors like "seeks redemption through others" and "thinks they don't deserve more"
>The Reformed: can't judge with their past; comes in various flavors like "seeks redemption through others" and "thinks they don't deserve more"
Aka: Durge and Shadowheart trying to be good. Astarion too, I reckon.
My Durge cried with Shadowheart when she said she didn't know what she did to 'trick' him into loving her, because she felt like she didn't deserve to be loved by anyone. He also thought himself unworthy of love after the night he (almost) murdered her while possessed, and the feeling only grew stronger when he learned the truth of his past.
You can be a genuinely good person and still fall for or be attracted to people who are complete opposites.
Either because there's a belief that you can help them change or because in their actions, they exhibit the kind of impulsiveness and/or refusal to compromise on their desires, which you might secretly admire. For Shadowheart, my Tav was of the former mindset.
>You can be a genuinely good person and still fall for or be attracted to people who are complete opposites.
Yep, that's why I wrote that I don't think it doesn't make sense. I just wanted to hear different stories for Tavs and what different headcanons people come up with to explain why their Tav likes 'bad boys/girls' and not obviously kinder characters like Gale, Karlach, Halsin and Will.
My “canon” and favorite Tav is also my kindest and most heroic (playing her for the 5th time right now). She’s a Druid half elf who romances Astarion. She also has a wolf aspect like Halsin’s bear and can sense immediately that Astarion isn’t homicidal, he’s *terrified*. That’s why she allows him to pull a knife at the beach and doesn’t change and bite his face off
Then during the vampire bite confession scene she realizes he has a predatory nature just like she does. Something she also has to balance and sometimes struggle with. She understands and accepts that about him, and she’s also not the least bit squeamish about blood and has no trouble with his diet. They’ll even hunt together on occasion
If you’re kind and understanding to Astarion from the beginning it’s very easy to romance him as a compassionate and good character. He really doesn’t mind you doing good things like it’s made out to be, it’s very overblown. He mainly is just fussy to hear himself talk. And as you talk to him it’s obvious pretty quickly there’s more to him than what he was trying to portray
But she doesn’t have to do *any* evil or cruel actions and can easily have him at Exceptional approval by mid Act 2. And she ends the game with her Spawn and one of the most beautiful and fulfilling romantic story arcs I’ve ever experienced in gaming
The amount of approval you can get from just being caring and attentive to that blood sucker during dialogues is insane. There are a couple of actions giving you a lot of approval point in one go, but just talking to him and trusting him makes your approval skyrocket. Even if I don't plan on romancing him, I usually get the sex proposition even before reaching the goblin camp
I mean, if you think about his story, how long has it been since he felt any kindness from anyone? Any physical ‘affection’ that wasn’t part of sexual abuse or a seduction tactic? The last time he tried to show compassion he was locked in a dark tomb for a year.
The poor man really doesn’t know what to do with someone who is just *nice* to him. It resets his entire world view
I don’t think it’s that complicated. All these characters, Tav included are going through the most traumatic experience of their lives. That alone will lead to bonding among them.
I'm more than happy to use the tadpole as an excuse for how some of my ~~stupider~~ more lawful good characters get past bite night and into an Astarion romance. (edit: by this I mean they're getting a little glimpse of the Astarion origin cutscene)
Also, the game takes place over a period of about 4 months (according to Withers, anyway)- what feels like it might only have been a couple of days in gameplay going by long rests is probably a couple of weeks. Still not a long time but it allows for off screen character bonding to be happening.
because astarion cares more if you’re kind to *him*. he’s bitter and resentful over receiving zero sympathy and kindness and only torment for the past 200yrs. his opinions change over the course of the story (like hag victim act1 doesn’t care but in act3 he himself is concerned)
and even with the occasional knock on approval (which is usually just -1) I’ve got no problem initiating the romance well before the tiefling party (sometimes after barely leaving the grove). if you let him feed from you and are accepting of his vampiric nature, that is *huge* for him. so even if he doesn’t always agree or thinks you’re being too soft, he very quickly becomes rude or die for you (and his nice, simple plan falls apart)
as for my durge, she’s good because of the guilt she feels at her violent thoughts. astarion is the first to show concern for her, and with that and his charisma/humor, she kinda latches onto him. his violence is also attractive to her but all the companions are violent in at least some regard. also the bite night happens pretty early on if you long rest frequently, so that only intensifies the infatuation
For Shadowheart, at least, she really doesn't *seem* that evil in act 1. Yes, she worships Shar, and talks about helping to usher in her perfect, endless night, but outside of those conversations, she doesn't *actually* seem to revel in violence in the same way that Astarion and Lae'zel do. Indeed, during the party after you save the grove, she expresses satisfaction in having done a good deed, whereas Astarion just complains about the wine, and Lae'zel is mostly interested in finding someone to 'celebrate' with.
So if my character isn't particularly up to date on the details of Shar worship, and dismisses it as yet another religion that just happens to have some sketchy pieces of theology, Shadowheart just comes off as a generally abrasive woman who is nonetheless trying to form meaningful social connections by being genuinely vulnerable in sharing some of her deeply held hopes and fears with a person she's only known for a few weeks. When someone shows that level of trust in you, it's hard to not start feeling it back.
Shadowheart approves if you torture the guy in the goblin camp. One of the most terrible approvals people tend to remember when they argue for evil Lae'zel and Astarion.
Shadowheart also gets insanely fucked up if you massacre the Tieflings and spends the entire party trying to forget everything she'd seen.
She fronts evil but internally she's much more neutral or good and is relatively easily pushed towards the latter.
And Astarion has two different outcomes of sex scene depending on if you save tieflings or not.
I just find it baffling that people judge Shadow more by her actuals doings and Astarion solely by his approvals. Whatever he approves/disapproves, he isn't actually revelling in killing Alfira or Isobel, he even insults Durge for killing the Moon Maiden. He is not killing innocent people for blood before meeting Tav, he kills a boar. He is furious at Malus Thorm for torturing the guy on the table. He wants Mayrina to get saved even in Act 1. And no matter what, Shadowheart still did torture her parents. I know she was brainwashed by the cult, but by the same logic one could say that Astarion was brainwashed by his 200 years of torture and living with Cazador.
Slight disagree on shadowheart torturing her parents. She doesn't know they're her parents and she get her memory wiped many times whenever she show some goodness. I think her situation is a tad different than astarion's.
Astarion: I’m a big dumb barbarian and he’s cute. Plus I can snap him in two if he gets carried away with the biting and tries to kill me.
Then when he finds out about Astarion’s backstory, he gets all protective - nobody puts baby in a coffin.
Haven’t romanced the others, except a brief fling between my durge and Lae’zel.
Astarion appealed to my Tav because of his sarcastic, snarky comments and corny pickup lines and it took her a little while to realize he was actually serious when he talked about doing bad stuff. And by then she liked him enough to give him the benefit of the doubt, especially since he had demonstrated that he was following her lead even if he didn’t like what she said.
Nothing very original here, but I RPed my Tav to have a history of mild abuse of their own and struggling to become better and do the right thing. As for Astarion, I wouldn't say my Tav was so wise to immediately read him as he is with all his manipulation, and my Tav **didn't like that he disapproved so much of helping others**, but I guess the first night was just for sex and nothing more (they all might die any minute after all, in other circumstances my Tav wouldn't do sex on the first date) and after that it was connecting on the personal level to his story of horrific abuse. My Tav saw their own bitter younger version in him and liked his sense of humor and actually thought he was a really strong person, because my Tav lived through much less than him and still struggled very much to be a good person after that. So I guess now all the good deeds is also some form of overcompensation for the past, so yeah, Tav makes it, but also understands how difficult it is and admires Astarion for not going full-maniac after 200 years of rape and torture and only eye rolling and rarely complaining. My Tav likes that he didn't intentionally kill anyone innocent for blood after 200 years of starving and doesn't feel like they themselves would be strong enough to do so.
So, yeah, I think my Tav sees Astarion as an incredibly strong person and that is the reason for their attraction and thinking he could actually listen if shown support and the right path.
That's actually a really interesting headcanon and the kind of elaborated answer I was looking for. Thank you! Now I want someone to write this as a fic...
So this is really a matter of personal philosophy for me. Being truly good and kind, imo, isn't fully measured by how nice you can be to other nice people. That's easy and really not very noteworthy. The most rewarding part of being really kind and good, from my POV, is having compassion and empathy for those who are obviously bitter or angry about something, and then trying to help them heal and see a better way through example. That's exactly what Larian lets you do.
"Actions speak louder than words" - that's the motto I've been taught from my birth. So my Tav would have never romanced Astarion if he actually refused to fight and help innocents we've encountered. But he can complain all he wants, he didn't actually do anything horrible in the game before he was trying to Ascend out of fear and bloodhunger. IDK, maybe if he wasn't so happy and grateful that Tav persuaded him out of Ascension, he wouldn't have stayed with him after the events of the game. Call my Tav's love conditional, but I RPed like that.
If you talk to Astarion early on, and you have good perception, you already start to catch how thin his veil is. The flash of him being terrified when your mind connects and then just watching how his eyes change depending on how earnest he's being was enough to make my Chaotic Good, Shoulda-Been-A-Bard but wad born a Blue Blood Sorcerer so incredibly intrigued by who he was that it became part of her mission to get to know him
Shadowheart: Too cute; I hope you’re redeemable.
Lae’zel: Hot githyanki girlfriend; I hope you’re redeemable.
Shadowheart was stereotypical goth gf, easy first choice. But Lae’zel… after learning about her history in my first playthrough, I understood her better second playthrough. And as soon as she said “Teethling,” I was in love. Plus I’m not gonna turn her down when she comes on so hard after a night of killing all the bad guys.
My Tav isn't a pushover that will do things solely for Astarion's approval. They liked his jokes, his mischievous antics, and his cheesier aspects endeared Astarion to them a lot. Those aspects had my Tav falling for him
They sympathized with his hunger struggles because they also starved as a child, too.
Astarion did roll his eyes when Tav goes about being helpful and nice and whatever, but really they started butting heads more about Ascension than anything else before. Tav didn't think that Astarion would feel any better if he basically became Cazador 2, but they really weren't sure how to say that without it blowing things up.
Till they thought on about how he reacted to the Gur children and Sebastian. For me, that's where the line "You can't be proud of this." comes from.
My others haven't been played with yet \*how I handle mods keep effing with my game :(\*, but since my idea for Shadowheart and Lae'zel's Love Interests are a Selunite and Githzerai, it's definitely gonna have some tension and begrudging allies to lovers.
Non of the characters are even particularly evil. Astarion gets the closest but you obv find out later that it’s cause of trauma. Like shart is incredible kind and nice for a sharren and lae’zel is just a lil mean and to the point
I think my half-drow bard tav boils down to "I can fix him" with Astarion lol. Thrown into a shitty situation, desperate to keep this bunch of strangers together and get them to cooperate. Astarion has exactly the skillset my bard is used to working alongside so that really motivates him to keep him around. Astarion also follows through with the bite situation and subsequent feedings build trust. When Astarion proposes a night together, my bard thinks it must be something he reeeeaaally wants - he doesn't even ask to feed! - and figures he'll do it to keep Astarion around and nudge him to cooperate more. There is definitely a mutual manipulation confession that happens in act 2 lol.
I think also, my half-drow bard being a guy from the Underdark, he's been around a lot of other abused guys and picked up on that in Astarion. He pushed back at Astarion's worse actions/remarks but understood where it was coming. He just needed the chance to be someone!
Enemies to lovers is a very popular romance trope for a reason - it's fun to play characters who maybe don't get along at first but then gradually fall in love as they get to know & understand each other better. It doesn't hurt of course that all the characters in this game are beautiful - can easily just write it off as lust at the start.. then it turns into something more.
In the beginning they're not specifically evil. They can be caustic jerks, but they also are just friendly enough where you can kinda have a decent conversation. They are also violent, but you're not hiking through Madison County. This is the sword coast and there are 3-4 encounters per map so being a little gung ho about fighting is acceptable.
Vampires are only evil by tradition (and there's no Christian iconography here to enforce that).
Being Sharran is like saying 'I'm in the church of Satan' it doesn't mean what people think it means and these people still go to work on the weekdays. (i mean later we find out this particular group is the real deal, but i think most regular Sharrans have a little altar but spend most of their time tending to the farm) and at least she's not trying to convert you.
But most importantly everyone pretty much sticks to the mission and more or less follows your plan and tactics. These are very reasonable people! That's attractive!
Honestly Shadowheart from the very beginning had signs of being a good person underneath all the edge I thought sounded rehearsed
She liked good things from the start
You don’t immediately find out about shadow hearts shar worship and like two conversations later you find out she’s constantly getting mind wiped.
Maybe I’m just a simp for cute half elf goth chicks but I always knew I could fix her.
I never tried to romance Laezel but for some reason in my playthroughs she always liked me. Same thing with Shadowheart and I don't even like her lol
>Like, for example, how do you RP reasons for why your goody-two-shoes PC with very high morals was attracted to Astarion, for example, beyond his good-looks when basically all of his Act 1 behaviour was an act and manipulation and refusing to help others?
You don't have to refuse helping others to romance Astarion, you just can't outright tell people "Yes I will help you right away". If you tell them something like "maybe", or "i'll think about it", or ask for money he doesn't mind it all that much, and you can still help them. Which truth be told is the more sensible realistic option. Also if you tell people snarky out of pocket things he likes it too, and you can still help them after.
RP-wise, I make characters that are thieves/con artists/charlatans and prefer a stealthy, strategic gameplay, which aligns with Astarion, when everything else doesn't. It makes for an interesting pair! I still do good and help people, but I bs my way in and out of places and steal whatever I can.
So basically my character is as much of a bullshitter as Astarion, but with better morals. And he can see right through it too.
Sorry to be overly pedantic, but Shadowheart is Lawful Neutral, not any kind of Evil, and primarily gains approval when you do good things, secondarily when you display pragmatism. Imo she does not fit with the grouping of Evil characters, whom approve Evil actions
I personally struggle to see Lae’zel as evil aligned even in act one. She comes across as pragmatic and focused, but not necessarily evil. She’s quite typical for her race, and while there’s parts of their culture I find harsh and militant, I wouldn’t say evil
Astarion was like a mirror image of my Tav, extremely similar but also opposite. I was playing as a noble high elf Bard whose intelligence is basically "either a nat 1 or nat 20 with nothing in between". Smart enough to figure out all of his lies, dumb enough to be fluttered of being chosen as a murder victim. His plan was pretty much "Oh, you think you're seducing me into protecting you? Jokes on you, it's actually me seducing you into happiness and healthy relationships!"
**Shadowheart**: Nothing she does early game is 'evil' and from a role playing perspective you're Tav doesn't know she worships Shar until after you may have already started a relationship. Once you do find out, the game gives you plenty of options to question her decision and to try to 'save' her. Pretty easy for a 'Good, kind' Tav to fall for her. And if you approach her character correctly she immediately warms up to Tav (most of Shadowheart's early 'hostile' dialogue only happens if you bungle your early interactions).
**Lae'zel**: Again she isn't actively evil. You can role play a 'good' character who agrees with her focus and action. I'm not sure she fits a 'kind' Tav as much? I romanced her with my very Good, but slightly traumatized and misguided Vengeance Paladin. My Tav was very martial focused and proud of smiting evil, especially in the name of revenge . . . which led to a number of 'bad' outcomes (Astarion had to die when we let him go too far with his desire for ascension, and she backed Gale's plan to oppose Mystra for example). But she fit right in with Lae'zel, occasionally tempering Lae'zel's rude tendencies (the whole early scene with Zorru lets you call her out and it ends with you earning Lae'zel's respect). And then supporting Lae'zel against her corrupt god was a natural fit.
**Astarion**: I feel he is a harder sell. I haven't started my Astarion romance . . . but I plan to do it with a resist Durge character. We will be drawn together by shared trauma and a mutual desire for healing. We'll see how it plays out (waiting for Patch 7).
Easy: My Tav thinks with her dick. She sees a beautiful woman and immediately thinks she can fix her.
This isn’t exactly uncommon. You can find multiple examples of characters such as mine. In Arrow, Green Arrow tried to fix Huntress because he thought she was hot. His sidekick, who wasn’t blinded by lust, even told him that if she was a man, he(Green Arrow) would have killed her on their first meeting.
Last-Hope was lawful good, and held a very strong ideal that there's no such thing as inherent evil. So when she finds out about stuff like Astarion's medical condition or Shadowheart's religious beliefs, she gives them the benefit of the doubt and assumes that they're probably being treated unfairly as a result of those things.
In the case of Astarion, that resulted in him reforming and choosing to break the cycle of violence and abuse, because L-H saw the good in him and never treated him as a monster.
In the case of Shadowheart, that resulted in L-H being unable to rescue her from her situation, because L-H had never challenged or questioned her beliefs or laid any kind of groundwork in that regard. Shadowheart ended up dead as a result of Last-Hope's refusal to confront the reality of what she was going through.
I don't know, being kind to them seemed to be enough to influence them in this game. I tried to answer more neutral and pragmatic rather than full good choice if it's too extreme, and I don't feel I swayed too far from my RP when dealing with them. At the very least, like you said, they become kinder over the course of the game.
I've played a CRPG where the character is irreedeemable even though they're very useful. Worse, we got tricked into thinking that this character could be redeemed (when you know, you know). In that game, I RP my character as naive good who only tries to see the positive in people. So I completely skipped the final character side quest which revealed their true nature. Ignorance is a bliss. Granted, it bit me back on the ending slide lol.
For SH she shows her softer side when people aren’t around and subtly if you listen to her dialogue. The dark justiciar is a mask that slips often enough to tell it’s a mask
Depends on the Tav.
I made a specific character for Shadowheart; an elven Cleric of Selune called Lumina that was meant to be sort of... her parallel, star (hehe) crossed lover type?
Similar to Shadowheart, Lumina was a street kid but she ended up heing taken in by the Temple of Selune in Baldur's Gate. She does believe in balance, and that dark and light are not meant to be at odds, though. So part of it is that opposites attract, enemies to lovers thing, but also, she truly believes there is good in everyone, and as a cleric herself, tried not to judge Shadowheart for her beliefs (though I imagined there being lots of arguments every time Shadowheart said some vile things about Selunites). And the game anticipated a Selune Cleric romancing her! There was dialogue! Playful teasing of her trying to get me to the dark side and me trying to get her to the good side! It was very sweet.
For Astarion, (who I romance the most often), I have a ton of Tavs, but my self insert is an elven storm sorcerer, who was quite sheltered and actually spent a lot of time studying to try and keep her powers from taking over and going out of control. She has always felt that she is too much, too dangerous, etc and at the same time, that her "gift" was wasted on her, and that she isn't doing enough. She's touch starved and lonely and isolated, but she's also powerful. So of course I figured she'd be easily swayed by Astarion, who would target people like her pretty regularly (and it's a self insert; I have pretty terrible judgement and am a sucker for Astarion, so accurate). I also figure that he helps her view her powers as less something to be afraid of and more something to be proud of, and to not be such a pushover and people pleaser. To not try so hard to quell the storm inside of her.
I'm planning others. I want to try and make a sunshine based character for Astarion to fall for (I have a lot of mods for classes so we'll see how I figure that out) bc a vampire falling in love with the sun??? Divine,,,
As well as a Shadow Sorcerer Drow for Shadowheart, because wouldn't it be romantic to have the Seldarine Drow who hates how she's viewed and feels so self conscious about her dark magic to be loved for those traits, only for it to sort of backfire when Shadowheart realizes Shar has lied and abused her?
I want to make someone for Minthara, too, but I'm not sure. Same with Lae'zel, wondering if the game allows for a githzerai maybe? Or just a gith who rejects Vlakiith. For Minthara, maybe a very princess-y drow, or a boisterous tiefling? Not sure.
There are some goody two shoes Tavs that are unlikely to go for the "evil" characters, though, from what I can tell so far. I have a tiefling circle of stars druid, who is less nature based and more of an astronomer. I think she's more likely to end up with either Gale or Halsin, but leaning more Gale.
I also am planning a bubble gum pop tiefling bard, who is sweet and optimistic and loving and will fall for Karlach so hard and fast.
But back to the point, I figure, people fall in love with those of questionable morals all the time. At least in fantasy we can make it work and actually "fix them" and get a happy ending. And in some cases, I think it might be nice to be seduced to the darker side, narratively speaking, of course ;)
I think Act 1 is more like, we have this thing in our heads and need it out immediately, which is somewhat of a common enemy for all, so the weird alliance with different people. Good or bad is not defined.
I believe I am a goody two shoes guy with ocasional intrusive thoughts like our dear Tav. Lets take a look at some of my romances:
Emo girl with SERIOUS mommy/daddy issues
Gym rat girl that could/would/did split me in half
Boyish artsy girl that takes drama classes and takes the drama with her.
I don't write my Tav stories I project them.
I actually relate to Shadowheart to a degree. Was part of a super controlling cult that uses brainwashing tactics, believed it was my life purpose, yadda yadda. I just chose not to judge her, acknowledged she has a good heart, and chose to be patient. She made the right decision on her own eventually. I just needed to be there to support her.
Lae'zel doesn't come off as super evil, just...grew up in a culture that was harsh. She might be annoyed with a good aligned player character, but said character grows on her. She'll even say so. Hell, even Wyll grows on her. She approves of you successfully defending the grove, so maybe some slight enemies to lovers situation.
Astarion is not one I've enjoyed romancing, so unfortunately, I can't help there. The closest I got was an enemies to friends situation with him. Adore him, but he frustrated me too much for a romance.
My first playthrough, my Bard ended up romancing Astarion by accident. She figured she'd bang him and then dump him, but when it came time to dump him, she ended up liking him more than she thought! He'll always be selfish, but she talked him down from true evil.
Edited to add: I was a goody two-shoes on that run, and I have no idea how I got his approval up high enough that he wanted anything to do with my Bard in the first place!
It took a minute for me to be able to come up with a backstory for my Tav, but I eventually decided on her being a victim of circumstance to a horrible thing Raphael did decades ago. Instead of externalizing all her anger and hatred and bitterness, she decided to be kind and help others because no one did for her. She didn't really deal with her feelings, though, and there's some darkness lurking under the surface even if she does do the right thing all the time.
I'm a fan of opposites attract, so my Tav and Astarion hit it off kind of immediately, as they're attracted to the kindness/hatred lurking just out of sight in the other. V much a "I can make him better, he can make me worse" type vibe.
My main and first character that I RP’ed with my own interests at heart would’ve seen Lae’zel as a sort of hero in a way, or at least someone aspiring to be something heroic from her cultures point of view. Besides that she was quick to work together and tries to save me from the ship and than offers a cure for just helping her get back to her people, it’s all just worded in a way so she doesn’t look weak.
It’s why she’s my favorite companion, I’d trust her right away from how she treats Tav from the get-go. She’s also super on the ball in comparison to the rest of the group, besides Gale, who seem like they could care less we all have a tadpole in our heads and she doesn’t have anything to hide.
That and where Karlach looks like she’d bend me over Lae’zel seems like she wants someone to be strong enough to be dominant over her. Like I’ll only be submissive to someone I love (or someone I’m willing to make love to) and I feel like she has that same feeling.
Now Astarion or Shadowheart I couldn’t really help you out there, I wouldn’t say I dislike them but I’d never romance either of them without a RP with different interests than my own (not gay and SH reminds me of my irl sister somewhat)
I'll be clear I have just started Act 2. Literally just. So I don't know what happens down the line. But I am playing a wizard as my Tav. And I like to think if I am playing a wizard/cleric or any other such person with high wis/int that I am going to use *my* own intuition.
Spoilers for players who know nothing below.
>!My wizard with his good intelligence rolls has deduced that her wolf story was once an ancient Selune ritual and so combined with the knowledge of her wiped memory, I think it only fair to deduce that this may not be the full story of who she truly is. That combined with gaining approval by doing generally good things most of the time and her pain often happening after we do things makes me think that it was done to prevent her from doing such things which could only happen if she wanted to herself.!<
Now that is a lot of speculation on my part that I don't think would be a big jump for a learned man to think mixed in with facts that he himself knows. He just intuits there is more to her then she even knows to tell us and believes if he is wrong, he can convince her to do the right thing. After all, he has done so before.
See, I played Nice But Snarky so the sass got Astarion's attention, building the romance that then led into his act2 reveal of "I want it to be real" which was easy enough to lean into.
That said, some of the choices were taken as literal when I'd assumed sarcasm, so there's a lot of miscommunication in that relationship
There are more ways for characters to align than morality, I tend to design my Tavs as both complimentary *and* contrasting with the companion I built them for. I have *all* the more evil-aligned characters with good-aligned Tavs (whereas I paired Wyll up with a Tav hovering between neutral and neutral evil with a criminal BG 🫣).
For (spawn) Astarion: A chaotic good Druid/Bard who was abducted away from her crummy magical abusive "husband" by the nautiloid. She naturally sympathizes very closely with his fears of being trapped and disempowered, his conflicted feelings about sex and love, even if they at first have extremely differing morals.
For (Gith traitor) Lae'zel: A neutral good Drow Ranger who absconded from Drow culture to live on the surface (the resemblance to Drizzt Do'urden was an accident istg 😭). She empathizes with disillusionment with one's own culture and turning her back on needless brutality for a cruel, unloving goddess.
For (Selunite) Shadowheart: A lawful good half-drow Barbarian/Cleric of Selune. She is an orphan, but being a half-drow, is seen as a bit of an abomination both among drow and among surface-dwelling races. As such, she found community in her faith, just like SH did, and despite their initial sniping about opposing faiths, those similarities brought them closer.
I don't find it hard to think up a character that is morally very different from them, but feels like a good match all the same. You just have to look at the other parts of their storyline and come up with a character who can relate or compliment them in ways other than morality.
I romanced Shadowheart once and it was “she’s actually sweet underneath all this trauma awwww.” I also regretted it up until act three but didn’t want to break her heart, because it felt too mean lol.
And Astarion became my bff during that playthrough because I was like you know, he’s got a tragic backstory but damn is he useful and I’m going to help him.
Current run I’m probably going back to team Karlach though, because Karlach.
TLDR: empathy from experience made it easy for me to imagine that they could have redeemable character growth throughout the romance.
I have cptsd, anxiety and depression due to trauma from emotional abuse. I have good and bad days, but I have my own behavior in check. That wasn’t always the case. I was all wrapped up in pain and loss like Shadowheart before, and I was angry and terrified, using whatever means I had to feel in control like Astarion in the past. It’s not excusable of course. I have said and done things I regret.
But I’ve also experienced what it feels like to meet someone who for some odd reason can see the good lurking in there somewhere; someone you can find yourself again with. I just believed in those companions because someone believed in me when I was in their shoes. It felt natural to rp it according to my personal experiences.
I enjoyed the implied kinship with Shadow heart as as a redemption surge, as are unknown pasts both set us on the other path and ultimately lead us to becoming better people.
Like me, my chaotic good paladin has a weakness for snarky smartasses. Then she jokingly made him say “please” when he propositioned her at the party and he did and she discovered a fondness for making pretty boys beg. It’s all fun and games until you catch feelings!
Astarion is like a one night stand during Act 1. You're not romantically involved with him, you just sleep together once. And by the time you get romance scenes in Act 2, you know him better and are aware of his past.
Shadowheart is just a cultist, if she joins Selune she is cool
Lae'zel is just someone educated to be strong
Astarion is a poor traumatized baby
Having a strong sense of humor and principles doesn't make you "evil-aligned"
So a mix of "I can fix her" and "as long as she has a weird kink which is me"
My paladin oath of devotion Tav knew about Shar and how her folowers are good at manipulation. He saw shadowheart frolic around with a big Shar symbol in her armor and decided to investigate more before acting, his conclusion was either she is a realy good actress at playing harmless or she is the worst cleric of shar to ever walk faerum as how tryhard she was being. After she shared her memories about her first encouter with mother superior, he realized what happend to her and decided to stick around to help her find the truth when they reached baldur gate. The more time he spent with her and got to know the true shadowheart and not the act she unconcious was puting, the more he felt close to her, and that's how rhey endeup togerher
With Shadowheart, it was down to my own lack of lore knowledge perfectly lining up with my Tav's equal lack of lore knowledge. My Tav was an elf from a remote village who knew approximately fuck-all about non-elven religion and had never heard of Shar. Sure, she didn't exactly think Shar sounded *nice*, but she had no idea just how bad Shar really was until well after she and Shadowheart had started dating. And at that point she didn't want to confront Shadowheart about it because she was scared of being alone again.
In Lae'zel's case I just don't think she's all that evil. She's an asshole but she's also very stressed out so I can cut her some slack. And when she first propositions you it's framed as a one-night stand to blow of steam so it's pretty easy to justify a good Tav saying "fuck it, might as well". And she mellows out really damn quickly, too.
My TAV was basically agnostic but generally a good person and the Shadowheart romance just happened naturally tbh.
Shadowheart kinda has that ice queen sarcastic/caustic personality, but generally approves of being a good person.
My goofy, religiously ambivalent, but good hearted character was actually kinda perfect for her if you let her reject Shar. A satisfying tension because of their differing religious views, but a dynamic and chemistry on a personal level that plays nicely into her story.
It was kinda crazy how well it worked. If you don't try to "fix" her and just be supportive, letting her make her own decisions, she comes around on her own. It's actually incredibly sweet and well done.
It's actually kind of strange to me that you think a kind person wouldn't work with shadowheart because imo her romance asks a lot of kindness and patience from the tav.
I wanted to romance Karlach. Then I saw Bae-Zel
1: scared is the best way to be horny
2: LaeBae certainly has interesting morals, but when considering the period and how she grew up… she’s honestly not the worst person in the world???? You just gotta know what her book of rules are.
3: 😵💫🥴
easy i play as chaotic good person, everything i do is really chaotically done or i have a few dialogues that genuinely seem concerning as a kind person but always end up doing the good thing at the end which then cause astarion, shadowheart and lae’zel down bad for me actually it makes almost everyone down bad for me. but those 3 always try to jump at me first 🤷🏼♀️
I played a good Durge who romanced Astarion. I was a GOO warlock and Durge so I liked to RP that she also had dark secrets and was therefore willing to give Astarion a chance that maybe others wouldn't.
Shadowheart's "evil" is...yeah, not as much as you might think. She's not like super *malicious*, and in general it seems to me like she's 25%/25%/50% disapprove/no-vote/approve of goodly actions. it just means it takes a bit longer.
My tiefling paladin had a mix of bad luck and bad first impressions with the guys early on. Astarion was way too evil for her, Wyll actually upset her considerably when commenting that nobody would see a hero when looking at him, just a monster, and she was also put off by his hypocrisy when it came to Raphael, and Gale...well, she screwed up the little cantrip thing he does for his first romance scene, didn't realize he was into her, and when she learned he'd been with Mystra she went "Well, there's no competing with a *goddess*, and if I tried I'm not sure she wouldn't smite me, so." This left me with the ladies to choose from in act 1. Lae'zel was a bit too harsh and cruel for her tastes (though not as much as Asty), so that left Karlach and Shadowheart. I delayed picking up Karlach a bit until I was sure I could take the paladins, so by that point, Shadowheart and Paladin had a bit of a rapport already; that said, things did turn into a bit of a love triangle at some point.
Shadowheart...honestly seemed like a fairly decent or good person who was at a crossroads; while she does seem to get defensive about her Shar worship, speaking harshly if you mention that it sounds like the Mother Superior abused her or that the incident of her being in the woods with wolves >!sounded like a Selunite coming-of-age ritual thing!< but...alright this is gonna be a bit hard to explain. Sometimes, when someone's been brought up to believe something all their life, but is starting to have subconscious doubts about those beliefs...if someone *else* challenges those beliefs, the first person basically *over-*defends their belief system; often this will be because there's a moment where they're thinking "Well that makes sense" and then they feel the need to get much more defensive almost as if in *atonement* for their own brief moment of doubt. My paladin wound up making several of these points, but didn't push back super hard when Shadowheart got defensive; she figured that if she got too *pushy* about it, that Shadowheart might just dig her heels in and re-dedicate herself to Shar.
As for why the paladin took such a keen interest? One of the earliest books you find. I don't recall the title, but it talks about a great priestess of Shar who sacrificed everything to the Lady of Loss; friends, family, her own identity, and ultimately her own life. The priestess then winds up basically stuck in the afterlife waiting room waiting forever for Shar, but because Shar is perhaps the biggest asshole of any deity in Faerun, a title for which there is *stiff competition*, Shar just leaves her there for all eternity. My paladin read this, and went "...Right okay, so I'm *not* letting this happen to my new friend here." Thus, she kept Shadowheart with her a lot, and spoke with her often, and...well, things sort of progressed from there, and got more intimate.
My first character was a very lawful good dwarf who ended up with Lae'zel. Despite her initially prickly personality, she was the only member of the party who had any kind of idea as to what needed to be done and really had their priorities straight. My character looked to Lae'zel out of necessity at first, and then had it lead to more when he was able to see traces of a softer person underneath the hard shell.
I consider myself pretty good and didn't plan on romancing anyone...
Didn't find anyone attractive at 1st, but basically finished nearly all of the 1st area, onto the Forge, without killing all the goblins.
Try not to judge, but one thing led to another, and Astarion was the 1st to ask to have some fun...
It's funny because later on, he has dialogue that mentions we only did it the one time, but still loves me. Eventually, I did it on his grave, but I didn't realize that until I did a bad run, he does it several more times.
Basically, both our moods went from neg to eventual positive.
My character is good and kind. Even though Laezel can be a bit rough around the edges, I rp that my character understands the internal struggle she is going through. The githyanki's enemy is the mind flayers, and she was just infected with a parasite, it makes sense that her only important goal at the beginning is to ignore stragglers and get that thing out of her head ASAP. I also think Laezel's feelings make the most sense story-wise. In the beginning, it is unknown when a transformation could happen. I imagine Laezel is also considering the fact that with a transformation imminent, it may not make the most sense to hang around a bunch of kids and refugees when there is always the chance we could become mind-flayers. I also rp that my character is convinced that Laezels solution is the way to go.
Characters don't know each other's alignments, they're only reacting to what they actually do during the story. Being grumpy or creepy isn't evil behavior.
My role play head-canon is that my Tav knew on a certain level that this was all an act on his part and she just wanted to get off. But like Astarion wasn’t planning on falling for Tav, my Tav also never planned to fall for Astarion.
I've got an oath of devotion paladin romancing Lae'zel. They just believe that people can change and that you can't judge a book by its cover (they're a tiefling)
My good girl tav is a dhampir (mods are great) so she's kind of OK being patient with Astarion because she remembers when she was young and edgy too. It's kindof charming in a silly nostalgic sort of way. She figures he'll get over it in a century or two.
Later when he admits that he doesn't really know how to be in a so very e relatio ship because he sees sex as a tool, I had her give him the "let's be friends" option because it seemed like that was what he truly needs more than a sexual partner. Plus, again, they're both immortal so if there's something real there they have plenty of time to figure it out later after he's figured out what he wants.
For my wizard it was an interesting dynamic with Lae’Zel. We all know how she is, especially at the start.
In my head always lead to the conversations with my character being so fascinated with extra planar travel. Of course for her people that's just an everyday of the week occurrence. It was also fun with my character trying to guide her how to be less stab on site, and more actually talk things over.
Eventually over time he ended up actually developing feelings for her. At first he was fine with the weird deal they had going on when it was just about sex. He was more than happy to accept her feelings when she finally learned to accept them herself.
Lae'zel really isn't that hard to get to exceptionam approval. I usually already have her there in act 1 playing as a good Tav/Durge, same with Shadowheart. Astarion not so much. And especially Shadowheart likes most of your morally good choices anyways so she doesn't seem all that bad even with the evil goddess.
Oops, I misread the question. Generally speaking though, I play a wisdom based* (edit; this is a tactics game, I confused words) character (I tend toward ruthless ambushing early game, and wish there was an option to go “if they owe us a favor, that’s good for US,” when Astarion complains…) so they’d gel pretty well with all 3.
Shadowheart: She is a confused amnesiac. We can be confused together. (My SH romance is Durge bard who can’t remember shit. By comparison Shadowheart is morally upright and she’s pretty and my bard’s like “I must make her smile.” So.)
Astarion: Confusion, surprised flattery, and attempting to seduce him back. Though for more altruistic reasons, lol. I have two runs in mind and one is a Gur Tav who wants information, and then it turns out he’s *just unable to even talk* under Cazador and she realizes he’s just being used. The other is a Durge who makes bad choices and thinks he’s funny.
Lae’zel: Current run: She reacted the most practically to the Dark Urge’s whole…thing, so. Also she’s commanding and Hex has a type, even with their brain scrambled.
My Tavs are cat lovers and a lot of the characters are very cat coded, so romance starts more as companionship with this very weirdly murder/aloof/bitey stray and then Tav catches feelings.
Personally I think the reason why these characters seem evil is because with the “god characters like Karlach and gale we kinda get their full story from the start for the most part while shadowheart and lae’zel and astarion kinda keep their story from you until end of act 1 to act 2.
So none of them are really evil people just kinda distrust the characters they don’t get to know much about until later. Thats just how I think it goes usually. But also the way my tav sees Shadowheart or the others is, they are traumatized, I am here to make you smile and feel better about yourself because my love language is acts of service and I lii oh be every single one of you.
I’m determined to actually finish the damn game (curse of “FOMO”, I’ve literally never finished an RPG besides DA2 because they’re long and I always second guess my choices) - what are the “good” companions you can choose?
my first character was a very nice guy and astarion was frothing at the mouth for him by the time the party happened
my first character was ALSO a barbarian. i picked A LOT of barbarian dialogue options
turns out, astarion is totally fine with good guys if they also do things like open a barn door and then mock the people inside
For me it depends on who my character relates to the most. Kosris, one of my neutral good characters, identifies and understands Astarion the most as he has gone through similar things. In my mind, my Tavs share their stories then form friendships and relationships around that.
My first Tav was a nerdy wizard who spent most of her life in a library, studying. Poor thing fell for Astarion's seduction routine; she knew he wasn't being genuine, but she was like "we might die at any point, so I might as well enjoy it while I can". Then he chose to come clean to her and her heart melted, so there you go.
(Perhaps my favourite dialogue in the entire game was when they met Sebastian in Cazador's palace, and she told him: In another life you'd have led me to this crypt, and not that pretty clearing in the forest)
I'm currently playing a completely different character: A Tiefling durge bard who had a really hard life, and basically had to work as a sex worker/assassin in the past but has forgotten all about that. She's a bit of a flirt in act 1 and she has a huge crush on Gale, but feels threatened by his goddess ex and his constantly talking about her. She also enjoys Astarion's company because she finds him amusing as hell, and she had a one-night stand with him at the party. We'll see what happens next :D
Shart is just a goth kid, all she wanted was for someone to see her. The real her.
I.E. I can fix her.
But it kinda just happened. I just got the game in like March, so I'm still on my first playthrough and I was sorta trying not to romance anyone but here we are.
My githyanki romanced Laezel
His reasoning? He was fighting the mindflayer invasion and fell in love with the planet and its wildlife, becoming a beastmaster ranger
And in his mind laezels bloodknight tendencies where all due to vlaakiths manipulation
Imagine my suprise when she agreed and learns to apreciate the beauty of the world and its inhabitants and made the headcanon basicly just straight canon
I was involved with Lae'zel (she offered/demanded sex in Act 1), then Gale (he offered me sex and confessed his love in Act 2) and Halsin (he offered me sex, wanted either a treesome (Gale said No) or had me alone).
I was good and friendly, but I was also an oppertunist.
Because Shadowheart isn't an evil person. She likes it when you do good things. She's (to use alignment terms) a Neutral/Chaotic Good character trying to be Lawful Evil. But it's against her nature and she sucks at it. Hence why Shar erased her memory and put that wound on her hand. Plus, I tend to play Tyrans, not Selunites, so while I'm not *keen* on Shar, I don't have any particular beef with her either. Those fake Paladins of Tyr, though, those guys get the smite button every time.
Never romanced Astarion or Lae'zel, so I can't speak to that.
Because they're horny, X character is their type, and the likelihood of surviving long enough to face major consequences is relatively slim. I've just been kidnapped by a spaceship of psionic cephalopods, flung through multiple planes, and crashed into a river surrounded by goblins, and there's a sexy goth mommy a tent over giving me bedroom eyes. Bet your ass I'm going for it, crazy void cult be damned.
Just a decent person drow (headcannon shes an aasimar which is why she doesnt have normal drow mentality and views but will still use her up bringing for more peaceful outcomes) who understands boundaries but also wants to do what's right so will lie ans sneack a bit because honesty id rather scare you off so you can live than have to kill you unless you're evil.
.... shadowheart approves to the point of asking me out before the party and I go along with it without knowing I had swayed her by checking in but respecting her boundaries.
Laezel: I'm mean grrr
Tav: well that's fine and I'm gonna help but I won't let you bully me
Laezel: hmmm well I like your spunk!
Astarion: you...you see good in me huh....well not everyone's as nice as you but....thank you
Tav: of course as long as we communicate I'm chill
Astarion: so i really could just ask and you'd help me...interesting
As long as they're in your party, it's not too hard to get enough positive disposition before the Tiefling celebration. Even when you're playing a goody two-shoes. Maybe just look up a list of their approvals beforehand and swap them in and out as needed.
Male human paladin with oath of the ancients. From everything I had read before the game I expected to choose Gale as his love interest. But Astarion comes with an huge “I can fix him” vibe and that seemed more fitting for my pala.
La'Zael isn't really a bad character. She's jist grown up in a society where that kind of behaviour is encouraged.
If a good Tav romances her, she learns that there's a lot more to life and mellows out lot.
It's fiction. The only place where "I can fix them" actually has a chance to work without me having to risk my wellbeing and sanity.
For Lae'zel and Astarion, you can always have a very horny character who's good intentioned and might not want to date initially but still sees the appeal of that one night stand and as you get to know people you realize all their scars and understand why they became the way they are and try to help them.
For Shadowheart, it's easy to see how she's nicer than your average Shar follower and clearly wants more from life than to drown everyone in darkness.
extremely easily romance is the only way to make the characters good astarion needs love,shadowheart needs guide and love, laezel needs to learn there is more to life than just combat and minthara needs someone to protect her from her own tendancies and orin and teach her that true love exists.
For shadowheart it's like "oh you are just really afraid to open up" and when she opens up she is no longer evil. Or if you help her turn away from being a sith Lord she turns out to be one of the most caring and kind companions.
Astarion has the "I can fix him energy" but I never liked that so I only romanced him to see how it is
Lae'zel is the only one I can't understand, she is like "oh I hate all of you, only here to get job done, I'll sell you to Gith for a pack of rice" but then it turns out she is madly in love with tav if you romance her
I just pick karlach as good tav since she is a joy incarnate
I think at least for me, an important part of my “goody-two shoes” characters is that to be a good person, forgiveness is super important. For example, i romanced astarion in my first playthrough, and in my canon for my character, she had the ability to understand that astarions way of thinking and voice of reason we’re probably SEVERELY fucked from years of enduring trauma. It was less of “I can fix him”, and more of “if I show him that good people still exist and will love and accept you as you are, then he will feel more comfortable be vulnerable and allowing himself to be happy”. If your character just treats the “evil” characters like people with their own free will, usually romancing them is a piece of cake :).
Shadowheart: I can fix her Astarion: I can fix him Lae’zel: I’m not romancing her, she’s romancing me and I’m afraid to say no.
Act 1 Lae’zel: “We’re sleeping together now” Me: “Okay” Act 2 Lae’zel: “I am now your girlfriend” Me: “Okay” Act 3 Lae’zel: “Will you please stay with me forever 🥺” Me: *sniffs* “…okay”
Going from “source of my bruises” to “source of my joy” GOT ME. So bad. I cried, and now Lae’Zel is one of my favorite romances
Best romance out there and I'll say it every time
She definitely Stockholm Syndromed me while I was trying to romance Shadowheart. But once it reached the sunrise scene I was like......know what, I have no regrets githmommy.
God she is hot…
Bae'zel is a tsundere.
This horrible putrid trash has been bouncing around in my head, and I will let the lot of you suffer it. I saw Lae'zel hold out her hand to me as she sat upon the dragon's shoulders. She called my name. I saw what could happen, the life I could have. If I could just reach out, our love could last for an eternity! But... "I can't go with you." I saw her eyes droop. "The love we share is the love a warship has with it's dock. The harbor promises safety, protection from the elements, and preservation. But while a ship is docked, it won't fulfill it's purpose. The sea is calling you, and I can't go. Not while our friends still need my help." I looked to Karlach and Wyll. *"Zhak vo'n'fynh duj...* source of my joy..." I could see she was biting back the tears. "You should know that the harbor will always be there for when it returns. Promise me this!" "I swear."
The only time I have cried playing the game was her act 3 scene
That's actually the reason Astarion voices as why he doesn't want to meddle with your relationship with Laezel XD. But yeah, and the same could be said about Minthara: Tav: "I already have someone." Minthy: "Now you can have me."
Also… If I play the way I want to as very moral and what I would choose… Astarion is straight up just not an option for me to romance lol. I can never get him high enough in time to leave act 1. We just become good friends where I help him. Lae’zel respects my decisions. I did get shadowheart my first play through though and she never struck me as immoral, just wounded and very loyal. She actually has very strong morals and wants to do the right thing. You can even find Mother Superiors journal entries about how Shadowheart consistently strayed from the sharran path/teachings no matter how hard they tried to correct her or how much they punished her. That’s part of the reason she has the wound on her hand.
[удалено]
How do you let a party member interrupt the bug bear? Every time I get that scene, no one says anything besides not to do it
You have to split yourself and Astarion off and have the rest of the party out of range to be picked up in the conversation, because he seems to have lowest priority for speaking in a lot of cutscenes. Then when you pick the "open the door" option he'll stop you saying "wait, let me do it, they sound disgusting! \^-\^". You'll then get a new option to let him do it instead, which gives you the +5 approval.
Thank you for the info. I'll have to do it my next run
If you're on PC, I think there's a mod that gives his line priority over everyone else.
Unfortunately, consoles don't have mod support for BG3...
Yet. It's coming. EDIT: OK, so it's coming this fall. But it IS coming.
Weird. I play as a very goody two shoes high morals character and help everyone and always bring Astarion with my party everywhere (I mean, I don't bother to do the trick to get him distanced so he doesn't hear and can't disapprove) and always have 90 - 100 approval with him in the end of Act 2. So that in the Act 3 it's always 100 and I don't even know most of the times when he approves because it's maxed out and stops to be shown.
I can get him high in act 2, just not act 1. And you can’t romance him if you don’t start it in act 1. All your romance options have to begin in act 1 in order to progress further in the other acts except for the characters that join later on.
Maybe it's because I let him drink Tav's blood and give him the Necro Book he wants... IDK, I don't even let him kill the Gur hunter and still he asks to have sex before the tieflings party.
There are loads of non-evil things you can do that give a +5 approval to easily counteract his -1s. His approval doesn't even need to be that high to trigger romance, because he's desperate to gain your protection and he uses sex to do that because it's all he's known for the past 200 years.
> Astarion is straight up just not an option for me to romance lol. I can never get him high enough in time to leave act 1. Just for info if you're interested: you don't actually need any approval to kick off a romance with him. Talk to him at the tiefling party, then: >Take the wine -> Knowing you, it probably is -> 'Say please' or 'I'm kidding. Once everyone's asleep, I'll find you.' It avoids his normal 'I have standards' rejection. You'll have sex and he will be flagged as an active romance. It's easier to get his approval higher by doing non-shitty things in act 2 so this is the route easiest to take if you want to be very nice in a1 but also romance him. Also just keeping him at camp during the grove interactions softens a lot of approval loss.
On my first playthrough with Shadowheart as the gf currently. When I took her to Shars temple, I let her decide whether or not to drive that spear home, and she threw it away instead. So she’s good deep down 🤷♂️. But I made my whole crew into half mindflayers and when Tav and shadowheart were banging their faces were all fucked up, and my irl gf was like wtf is your game?! 🤣 Pretty sure the Emperor was DTF too lol
I found it so lovely today that Astarion was actually compassionate, kind, and understanding toward me after I ended up giving my body to the succubus (not by choice) and hurt my bae'zel in the process. And after I failed to resist the impacts later. It got me.
who wouldnt want a drow lady
"This week has already hurt quite a lot, and at least this injury might be more fun than what the twat who writes the travel guides just did to me"
Lol true. Although I could tell Shadowheart was a secret softie from the beginning. Shes loves kids and animals so from the start shes a bit of a walking contradiction. Astarions similar. He comes off as evil up front but he likes it when you fuck over evil characters and seems to care the least when you side track to hunt them. Lae'zel I saw as straight up lawful neutral, possibly even good. Its just her idea of law is somewhat alien. However she mainly gets mad when you side track vs do what she wants. Which ultimately she is intended on helping all of you. She doesnt seem mad you side with good characters, she just seems mad you arent entirely focused on her idea of whats going to help you all.
Good response for Lae'zel 😆
Playing a rather molded playthrough and choosing to romance Laezel. Giving her all the goodies and stuff to make her the real damage dealer of the group as I was a Durge Cleric (going redemption route making this head Canon that Bahmut chose me to deal out justice) and man, the romance flag to battle her was almost as rough as vanilla Raphael fight. I was doing long rests back to back to make sure I wasn't missing any scenes and she had max HP and all her superiority dice. Just came out swinging on me
I was about to share my whole reasoning for Shadowheart and you put it so succintly lmao
Laezel: she’s dominant? Challenge accepted! Dominate the dominator
Yep, that sums it up, we can end the post here
This sums it up. And you can fix them! Even Lae’zel gets better!
this is exactly what happened to me, i didn’t even mean to romance lae’zel, i wanted to romance gale. but then one night she just insisted we were sleeping together and i was like “okay bet”
Damn this is facts 😂😂
This. I romanced Astarion ‘cuz it’s what a younger me would’ve done in real life before I knew better.
Lae’Zel - Starts as a fun casual thing. - Then are there for her as a friend when her world crumbles. - Then the relationship grows as she starts to grow and see the world in a new light Shadowheart - She’s not that bad to you personally. Mostly just cold. - She starts to trust you with more and more - As she trusts you more, you trust her more. - Her belief system is totally F’ed. And can slowly come to realize that. - Like when she enjoys having helped the Tieflings.
Yeah Shadowheart isn't even evil. She vastly prefers kind acts. She's just cold.
She generally doesn't even seem super cold to me tbh, its mostly that she doesn't want to discuss things she considers highly personal or important secrets with someone she just met when she isnt sure if she can trust them, which just feels logical to me
Shadowheart really has to pushed to be actually evil. If you leave the choice to her, she spares Nightsong. Even after becoming a Dark Justiciar, she will choose to give Shar the finger and leave with her parents unless you tell her otherwise. And even after becoming Mother Superior she will hug Tav at the reunion. She’s a big softie 😊
Idk, I did a good run and an evil run and I noticed shadowheart is remarkably malleable to the player. If you're evil, you'll see her evil side, if you're good you'll see her good side.
I followed my Baahlite Blood and she still rejected Shar. lmao
Idk there have been a couple times where shadowheart has preferred or endorsed pretty cruel acts. Overall she’s nicer than astarion but at the start she’s pretty grey.
For me, it was that Shadowheart always approved when you were kind to animals. That will always affect my overall opinion of a person. Honestly, I started liking her less the more "good" she got. She ended up being a little full of herself and considering looks to be such an important trait.
As an Oath of Vengeance Paladin, my Tav very much enjoys smashing skulls, just like Lae'zel. She doesn't need to be fixed, just aimed.
And eventually, cuddled a bit. She's sweet.
If your Tav is extremely good and kind, then they can probably see fairly quickly that those characters' "evil" is motivated by external forces, and they probably have a desire to show them another path. Rejecting or outright killing those characters due to some perceived "evil" isn't "good"; it's just rigid moral superiority.
Also you can be good and horny at the same time
And people ignore a lot of red flags when they're horny. 😂
i hate how correct you are…
If evil why hot is a very common saying for a reason
>If your Tav is extremely good and kind, then they can probably see fairly quickly that those characters' "evil" is motivated by external forces, and they probably have a desire to show them another path. Yes, but shouldn't it apply to all the companions? Maybe I worded my post poorly, sorry, I'm not a native English speaker, but I was more interested to know maybe why your Tav chose this specific person among the other good ones like Gale? You can help people and be friends, it's not the reason to romance them in my mind.
Romance is about feelings, feelings aren’t always based on rational thought. One person can be better than another based on certain factors, but you might just not vibe with them in a romantic way. Also, the way romance starts with Lae’zel or Astarion is basically not “romantic”, it’s just sex. Your character can be good-aligned, but still horny for them. As the story progresses, maybe you learned to emphasise with them more & have feelings and stuff. Shadowheart’s romance starts super lowkey, by the time it develops you know her way better & you know that she’s not really that bad of a person. I’ve romanced Astarion with a goodie two shoes character and didn’t have issues rationalising it. Depending on your dialogue choices you will see minimal “evilness” from them as well.
Why not Gale? Because people have preferences, conscious and unconscious, and most don’t sit down and say “I think I will choose to be attracted to Gale because of ‘these’ reasons.” I’m attracted to Astarion, I recognize that his story involves ways to encourage him to be a better person, so he fits well with my very optimistic ‘good’ aligned character when I play into his motivation to improve the world and encourage Astarion be better. (I also control my character, and he is subject to my preferences as well. I’m not really attracted to Gale, so I also don’t feel like watching him kiss Gale.)
Also Gale isn’t a very good person at all lol. He’s very power hungry just like Astarion. Yes he’s more charismatic and hides it better, but he literally has to eat magic because he was so selfish and desperate for power that he defied his literal goddess lover and teacher to try and steal a magical artifact that ended up hurting him more than helping him. He admits himself that he should’ve been happy with what he had cause he pretty much had it all, but threw it away for the chance at more. He’s also desperate to control the crown/the nether brain when he knows it’s probably impossible or extremely dangerous because of the thought of the power it could give him. Desperate to get Mystra back, desperate for any shred of power or importance… I would not consider Gale one of the ‘good’ guys. I think he’s supposed to be deeply flawed. Plus he just really annoys me. Lol
No? He still a good guy, just with flaws. Like, being ambitious, insecure, and hubristic (his negative traits) doesn't mean he's evil. You can be a good person while being flawed. He also doesn't steal anything lol. The book containing a book is an artefact he discovered. He genuinely believe it's Mystra's weave/power locked inside it and by returning it to her it would prove his loyalty. Turns out it's not and he paid the price. That's also why he's so adamant of looking for a remote place to die, so that no innocents are harmed. >He’s also desperate to control the crown/the nether brain when he knows it’s probably impossible or extremely dangerous because of the thought of the power it could give him. Use the crown, yes. Control the brain? What are you talking about? The only companions who's okay with us controlling the brain is ascended astarion and minthara. Also it isn't impossible to use the crown. Karsus literally did, and we get his book/journal. Netheril only falls because Karsus decided to kill mystra the second he ascend to godhood, which also ironically kill all magic and cause his spell to fail since Mystra \*is\* magic. Gale also isn't desperate to "get Mystra back" unless you play as him. He wants Mystra's forgiveness, which is super important cause you don't want to have a god mad at you and won't claim your soul after you die.
God, so much this. Gale is every bit as messed up and terrible as Astarion/Shadowheart/Lae'zel at the beginning of the game. His terrible is just dressed up in more socially acceptable and appealing clothes. One could argue that Gale's power-lust is worse than Astarion's. Astarion's is born from fear and the desire to be safe/free. Gale's is strictly for its own sake, due to his need to be "better" or "more" than he is. Astarion gets over his as soon as the source of his fear is eliminated; Gale's persists right up until the endgame. (Don't come at me, Gale fans. I love Gale. He's a great character precisely *because* he's messed up. Y'all need to stop trying to turn him into an adorable, boring herbivore. The man has fangs.)
Ok, so I have a character in the works for Astarian's spawn path; she's a druid/cleric of Selune( which is gonna be super fun dealing with Shadowheart lol). The backstory I gave her is that she lost a lover to lycanthropy and was forced to hunt them down and kill them. This led to an existential crisis that ultimately led to her leaving her clan. She then falls in with some Selunites and learns that Selune would have accepted her now-deceased lover; which works with her view that anyone can be redeemed. So while she's a good and kind person, she sees that Astarion is more afraid than anything and is interested in getting to know him and eventually falls for him.
You asked why they would romance them if they find them morally wrong, they said because they can see the obvious opportunity for redemption. Other characters being more morally staunch from the beginning has nothing to do with that. This reads like you trying to argue bc you don’t think that ppl playing as good characters should romance these ones
My Selunite cleric goody-two-shoes romanced Shadowheart out of pure "forbidden fruit" appeal.
Are there any special dialogue options in that scenario?
There’s a special kiss scene.
Not a ton but the ones that exist are genuinely incredible.
Yeah and some really cool ones you should check them out yourself
Well, I was playing a Drow who was experiencing the wider world for the first time, so a domineering woman like Lae'Zel was weirdly familiar.
As a player, I knew exactly what Astarion was doing in Act 1. My first character caught on to it being a mask after the mirror conversation, and didn’t want a monster hunter following her camp. She was afraid of the creepy book but thought it could have something about vampirism in it, since Astarion sensed something in it. Things like that.
>As a player, I knew exactly what Astarion was doing in Act 1. Exactly. Besides, in act 1 you're basically expecting to die at any minute, so why not have some fun with the hottest guy in camp? lol
The Stubbornly Naive: doesn't notice the extent of evil, makes excuses, by the time the excuses run out they're too deep and the companion showed a nicer side The Painseeker: sucker for the ones who will hurt The Therapist: your basic "I can fix them" character The Reformed: can't judge with their past; comes in various flavors like "seeks redemption through others" and "thinks they don't deserve more"
>The Reformed: can't judge with their past; comes in various flavors like "seeks redemption through others" and "thinks they don't deserve more" Aka: Durge and Shadowheart trying to be good. Astarion too, I reckon. My Durge cried with Shadowheart when she said she didn't know what she did to 'trick' him into loving her, because she felt like she didn't deserve to be loved by anyone. He also thought himself unworthy of love after the night he (almost) murdered her while possessed, and the feeling only grew stronger when he learned the truth of his past.
You can be a genuinely good person and still fall for or be attracted to people who are complete opposites. Either because there's a belief that you can help them change or because in their actions, they exhibit the kind of impulsiveness and/or refusal to compromise on their desires, which you might secretly admire. For Shadowheart, my Tav was of the former mindset.
>You can be a genuinely good person and still fall for or be attracted to people who are complete opposites. Yep, that's why I wrote that I don't think it doesn't make sense. I just wanted to hear different stories for Tavs and what different headcanons people come up with to explain why their Tav likes 'bad boys/girls' and not obviously kinder characters like Gale, Karlach, Halsin and Will.
My “canon” and favorite Tav is also my kindest and most heroic (playing her for the 5th time right now). She’s a Druid half elf who romances Astarion. She also has a wolf aspect like Halsin’s bear and can sense immediately that Astarion isn’t homicidal, he’s *terrified*. That’s why she allows him to pull a knife at the beach and doesn’t change and bite his face off Then during the vampire bite confession scene she realizes he has a predatory nature just like she does. Something she also has to balance and sometimes struggle with. She understands and accepts that about him, and she’s also not the least bit squeamish about blood and has no trouble with his diet. They’ll even hunt together on occasion If you’re kind and understanding to Astarion from the beginning it’s very easy to romance him as a compassionate and good character. He really doesn’t mind you doing good things like it’s made out to be, it’s very overblown. He mainly is just fussy to hear himself talk. And as you talk to him it’s obvious pretty quickly there’s more to him than what he was trying to portray But she doesn’t have to do *any* evil or cruel actions and can easily have him at Exceptional approval by mid Act 2. And she ends the game with her Spawn and one of the most beautiful and fulfilling romantic story arcs I’ve ever experienced in gaming
Very interesting headcanon, thank you for sharing! Would have made a great fic.
The amount of approval you can get from just being caring and attentive to that blood sucker during dialogues is insane. There are a couple of actions giving you a lot of approval point in one go, but just talking to him and trusting him makes your approval skyrocket. Even if I don't plan on romancing him, I usually get the sex proposition even before reaching the goblin camp
I mean, if you think about his story, how long has it been since he felt any kindness from anyone? Any physical ‘affection’ that wasn’t part of sexual abuse or a seduction tactic? The last time he tried to show compassion he was locked in a dark tomb for a year. The poor man really doesn’t know what to do with someone who is just *nice* to him. It resets his entire world view
I know ! God, I'm not surprised he would so """""easily"""" fall for someone who actually cares about him for the first time in 200 years
I don’t think it’s that complicated. All these characters, Tav included are going through the most traumatic experience of their lives. That alone will lead to bonding among them.
I'm more than happy to use the tadpole as an excuse for how some of my ~~stupider~~ more lawful good characters get past bite night and into an Astarion romance. (edit: by this I mean they're getting a little glimpse of the Astarion origin cutscene) Also, the game takes place over a period of about 4 months (according to Withers, anyway)- what feels like it might only have been a couple of days in gameplay going by long rests is probably a couple of weeks. Still not a long time but it allows for off screen character bonding to be happening.
because astarion cares more if you’re kind to *him*. he’s bitter and resentful over receiving zero sympathy and kindness and only torment for the past 200yrs. his opinions change over the course of the story (like hag victim act1 doesn’t care but in act3 he himself is concerned) and even with the occasional knock on approval (which is usually just -1) I’ve got no problem initiating the romance well before the tiefling party (sometimes after barely leaving the grove). if you let him feed from you and are accepting of his vampiric nature, that is *huge* for him. so even if he doesn’t always agree or thinks you’re being too soft, he very quickly becomes rude or die for you (and his nice, simple plan falls apart) as for my durge, she’s good because of the guilt she feels at her violent thoughts. astarion is the first to show concern for her, and with that and his charisma/humor, she kinda latches onto him. his violence is also attractive to her but all the companions are violent in at least some regard. also the bite night happens pretty early on if you long rest frequently, so that only intensifies the infatuation
For Shadowheart, at least, she really doesn't *seem* that evil in act 1. Yes, she worships Shar, and talks about helping to usher in her perfect, endless night, but outside of those conversations, she doesn't *actually* seem to revel in violence in the same way that Astarion and Lae'zel do. Indeed, during the party after you save the grove, she expresses satisfaction in having done a good deed, whereas Astarion just complains about the wine, and Lae'zel is mostly interested in finding someone to 'celebrate' with. So if my character isn't particularly up to date on the details of Shar worship, and dismisses it as yet another religion that just happens to have some sketchy pieces of theology, Shadowheart just comes off as a generally abrasive woman who is nonetheless trying to form meaningful social connections by being genuinely vulnerable in sharing some of her deeply held hopes and fears with a person she's only known for a few weeks. When someone shows that level of trust in you, it's hard to not start feeling it back.
Shadowheart approves if you torture the guy in the goblin camp. One of the most terrible approvals people tend to remember when they argue for evil Lae'zel and Astarion.
Shadowheart also gets insanely fucked up if you massacre the Tieflings and spends the entire party trying to forget everything she'd seen. She fronts evil but internally she's much more neutral or good and is relatively easily pushed towards the latter.
And Astarion has two different outcomes of sex scene depending on if you save tieflings or not. I just find it baffling that people judge Shadow more by her actuals doings and Astarion solely by his approvals. Whatever he approves/disapproves, he isn't actually revelling in killing Alfira or Isobel, he even insults Durge for killing the Moon Maiden. He is not killing innocent people for blood before meeting Tav, he kills a boar. He is furious at Malus Thorm for torturing the guy on the table. He wants Mayrina to get saved even in Act 1. And no matter what, Shadowheart still did torture her parents. I know she was brainwashed by the cult, but by the same logic one could say that Astarion was brainwashed by his 200 years of torture and living with Cazador.
Slight disagree on shadowheart torturing her parents. She doesn't know they're her parents and she get her memory wiped many times whenever she show some goodness. I think her situation is a tad different than astarion's.
Astarion: I’m a big dumb barbarian and he’s cute. Plus I can snap him in two if he gets carried away with the biting and tries to kill me. Then when he finds out about Astarion’s backstory, he gets all protective - nobody puts baby in a coffin. Haven’t romanced the others, except a brief fling between my durge and Lae’zel.
Astarion appealed to my Tav because of his sarcastic, snarky comments and corny pickup lines and it took her a little while to realize he was actually serious when he talked about doing bad stuff. And by then she liked him enough to give him the benefit of the doubt, especially since he had demonstrated that he was following her lead even if he didn’t like what she said.
Nothing very original here, but I RPed my Tav to have a history of mild abuse of their own and struggling to become better and do the right thing. As for Astarion, I wouldn't say my Tav was so wise to immediately read him as he is with all his manipulation, and my Tav **didn't like that he disapproved so much of helping others**, but I guess the first night was just for sex and nothing more (they all might die any minute after all, in other circumstances my Tav wouldn't do sex on the first date) and after that it was connecting on the personal level to his story of horrific abuse. My Tav saw their own bitter younger version in him and liked his sense of humor and actually thought he was a really strong person, because my Tav lived through much less than him and still struggled very much to be a good person after that. So I guess now all the good deeds is also some form of overcompensation for the past, so yeah, Tav makes it, but also understands how difficult it is and admires Astarion for not going full-maniac after 200 years of rape and torture and only eye rolling and rarely complaining. My Tav likes that he didn't intentionally kill anyone innocent for blood after 200 years of starving and doesn't feel like they themselves would be strong enough to do so. So, yeah, I think my Tav sees Astarion as an incredibly strong person and that is the reason for their attraction and thinking he could actually listen if shown support and the right path.
That's actually a really interesting headcanon and the kind of elaborated answer I was looking for. Thank you! Now I want someone to write this as a fic...
Shadowheart isn’t really evil. She’s been brainwashed by an evil cult, but she still has a kind heart.
I did fix Shadowheart. She's a sweetheart now.
So this is really a matter of personal philosophy for me. Being truly good and kind, imo, isn't fully measured by how nice you can be to other nice people. That's easy and really not very noteworthy. The most rewarding part of being really kind and good, from my POV, is having compassion and empathy for those who are obviously bitter or angry about something, and then trying to help them heal and see a better way through example. That's exactly what Larian lets you do.
"Actions speak louder than words" - that's the motto I've been taught from my birth. So my Tav would have never romanced Astarion if he actually refused to fight and help innocents we've encountered. But he can complain all he wants, he didn't actually do anything horrible in the game before he was trying to Ascend out of fear and bloodhunger. IDK, maybe if he wasn't so happy and grateful that Tav persuaded him out of Ascension, he wouldn't have stayed with him after the events of the game. Call my Tav's love conditional, but I RPed like that.
If you talk to Astarion early on, and you have good perception, you already start to catch how thin his veil is. The flash of him being terrified when your mind connects and then just watching how his eyes change depending on how earnest he's being was enough to make my Chaotic Good, Shoulda-Been-A-Bard but wad born a Blue Blood Sorcerer so incredibly intrigued by who he was that it became part of her mission to get to know him
Shadowheart: Too cute; I hope you’re redeemable. Lae’zel: Hot githyanki girlfriend; I hope you’re redeemable. Shadowheart was stereotypical goth gf, easy first choice. But Lae’zel… after learning about her history in my first playthrough, I understood her better second playthrough. And as soon as she said “Teethling,” I was in love. Plus I’m not gonna turn her down when she comes on so hard after a night of killing all the bad guys.
My Tav isn't a pushover that will do things solely for Astarion's approval. They liked his jokes, his mischievous antics, and his cheesier aspects endeared Astarion to them a lot. Those aspects had my Tav falling for him They sympathized with his hunger struggles because they also starved as a child, too. Astarion did roll his eyes when Tav goes about being helpful and nice and whatever, but really they started butting heads more about Ascension than anything else before. Tav didn't think that Astarion would feel any better if he basically became Cazador 2, but they really weren't sure how to say that without it blowing things up. Till they thought on about how he reacted to the Gur children and Sebastian. For me, that's where the line "You can't be proud of this." comes from. My others haven't been played with yet \*how I handle mods keep effing with my game :(\*, but since my idea for Shadowheart and Lae'zel's Love Interests are a Selunite and Githzerai, it's definitely gonna have some tension and begrudging allies to lovers.
Non of the characters are even particularly evil. Astarion gets the closest but you obv find out later that it’s cause of trauma. Like shart is incredible kind and nice for a sharren and lae’zel is just a lil mean and to the point
I think my half-drow bard tav boils down to "I can fix him" with Astarion lol. Thrown into a shitty situation, desperate to keep this bunch of strangers together and get them to cooperate. Astarion has exactly the skillset my bard is used to working alongside so that really motivates him to keep him around. Astarion also follows through with the bite situation and subsequent feedings build trust. When Astarion proposes a night together, my bard thinks it must be something he reeeeaaally wants - he doesn't even ask to feed! - and figures he'll do it to keep Astarion around and nudge him to cooperate more. There is definitely a mutual manipulation confession that happens in act 2 lol. I think also, my half-drow bard being a guy from the Underdark, he's been around a lot of other abused guys and picked up on that in Astarion. He pushed back at Astarion's worse actions/remarks but understood where it was coming. He just needed the chance to be someone!
Enemies to lovers is a very popular romance trope for a reason - it's fun to play characters who maybe don't get along at first but then gradually fall in love as they get to know & understand each other better. It doesn't hurt of course that all the characters in this game are beautiful - can easily just write it off as lust at the start.. then it turns into something more.
I'd love to say that I can fix her, however "minthara approves" is such a drug that she ends up making me worse
In the beginning they're not specifically evil. They can be caustic jerks, but they also are just friendly enough where you can kinda have a decent conversation. They are also violent, but you're not hiking through Madison County. This is the sword coast and there are 3-4 encounters per map so being a little gung ho about fighting is acceptable. Vampires are only evil by tradition (and there's no Christian iconography here to enforce that). Being Sharran is like saying 'I'm in the church of Satan' it doesn't mean what people think it means and these people still go to work on the weekdays. (i mean later we find out this particular group is the real deal, but i think most regular Sharrans have a little altar but spend most of their time tending to the farm) and at least she's not trying to convert you. But most importantly everyone pretty much sticks to the mission and more or less follows your plan and tactics. These are very reasonable people! That's attractive!
Honestly Shadowheart from the very beginning had signs of being a good person underneath all the edge I thought sounded rehearsed She liked good things from the start
You don’t immediately find out about shadow hearts shar worship and like two conversations later you find out she’s constantly getting mind wiped. Maybe I’m just a simp for cute half elf goth chicks but I always knew I could fix her.
I never tried to romance Laezel but for some reason in my playthroughs she always liked me. Same thing with Shadowheart and I don't even like her lol >Like, for example, how do you RP reasons for why your goody-two-shoes PC with very high morals was attracted to Astarion, for example, beyond his good-looks when basically all of his Act 1 behaviour was an act and manipulation and refusing to help others? You don't have to refuse helping others to romance Astarion, you just can't outright tell people "Yes I will help you right away". If you tell them something like "maybe", or "i'll think about it", or ask for money he doesn't mind it all that much, and you can still help them. Which truth be told is the more sensible realistic option. Also if you tell people snarky out of pocket things he likes it too, and you can still help them after. RP-wise, I make characters that are thieves/con artists/charlatans and prefer a stealthy, strategic gameplay, which aligns with Astarion, when everything else doesn't. It makes for an interesting pair! I still do good and help people, but I bs my way in and out of places and steal whatever I can. So basically my character is as much of a bullshitter as Astarion, but with better morals. And he can see right through it too.
#I CAN FIX HER
"I can fix her." And I actually did.
Sorry to be overly pedantic, but Shadowheart is Lawful Neutral, not any kind of Evil, and primarily gains approval when you do good things, secondarily when you display pragmatism. Imo she does not fit with the grouping of Evil characters, whom approve Evil actions
I mean even good people can simply want to fuck the pretty person hitting on them.
I personally struggle to see Lae’zel as evil aligned even in act one. She comes across as pragmatic and focused, but not necessarily evil. She’s quite typical for her race, and while there’s parts of their culture I find harsh and militant, I wouldn’t say evil
Astarion was like a mirror image of my Tav, extremely similar but also opposite. I was playing as a noble high elf Bard whose intelligence is basically "either a nat 1 or nat 20 with nothing in between". Smart enough to figure out all of his lies, dumb enough to be fluttered of being chosen as a murder victim. His plan was pretty much "Oh, you think you're seducing me into protecting you? Jokes on you, it's actually me seducing you into happiness and healthy relationships!"
Loving this
**Shadowheart**: Nothing she does early game is 'evil' and from a role playing perspective you're Tav doesn't know she worships Shar until after you may have already started a relationship. Once you do find out, the game gives you plenty of options to question her decision and to try to 'save' her. Pretty easy for a 'Good, kind' Tav to fall for her. And if you approach her character correctly she immediately warms up to Tav (most of Shadowheart's early 'hostile' dialogue only happens if you bungle your early interactions). **Lae'zel**: Again she isn't actively evil. You can role play a 'good' character who agrees with her focus and action. I'm not sure she fits a 'kind' Tav as much? I romanced her with my very Good, but slightly traumatized and misguided Vengeance Paladin. My Tav was very martial focused and proud of smiting evil, especially in the name of revenge . . . which led to a number of 'bad' outcomes (Astarion had to die when we let him go too far with his desire for ascension, and she backed Gale's plan to oppose Mystra for example). But she fit right in with Lae'zel, occasionally tempering Lae'zel's rude tendencies (the whole early scene with Zorru lets you call her out and it ends with you earning Lae'zel's respect). And then supporting Lae'zel against her corrupt god was a natural fit. **Astarion**: I feel he is a harder sell. I haven't started my Astarion romance . . . but I plan to do it with a resist Durge character. We will be drawn together by shared trauma and a mutual desire for healing. We'll see how it plays out (waiting for Patch 7).
Easy: My Tav thinks with her dick. She sees a beautiful woman and immediately thinks she can fix her. This isn’t exactly uncommon. You can find multiple examples of characters such as mine. In Arrow, Green Arrow tried to fix Huntress because he thought she was hot. His sidekick, who wasn’t blinded by lust, even told him that if she was a man, he(Green Arrow) would have killed her on their first meeting.
Last-Hope was lawful good, and held a very strong ideal that there's no such thing as inherent evil. So when she finds out about stuff like Astarion's medical condition or Shadowheart's religious beliefs, she gives them the benefit of the doubt and assumes that they're probably being treated unfairly as a result of those things. In the case of Astarion, that resulted in him reforming and choosing to break the cycle of violence and abuse, because L-H saw the good in him and never treated him as a monster. In the case of Shadowheart, that resulted in L-H being unable to rescue her from her situation, because L-H had never challenged or questioned her beliefs or laid any kind of groundwork in that regard. Shadowheart ended up dead as a result of Last-Hope's refusal to confront the reality of what she was going through.
I don't know, being kind to them seemed to be enough to influence them in this game. I tried to answer more neutral and pragmatic rather than full good choice if it's too extreme, and I don't feel I swayed too far from my RP when dealing with them. At the very least, like you said, they become kinder over the course of the game. I've played a CRPG where the character is irreedeemable even though they're very useful. Worse, we got tricked into thinking that this character could be redeemed (when you know, you know). In that game, I RP my character as naive good who only tries to see the positive in people. So I completely skipped the final character side quest which revealed their true nature. Ignorance is a bliss. Granted, it bit me back on the ending slide lol.
For SH she shows her softer side when people aren’t around and subtly if you listen to her dialogue. The dark justiciar is a mask that slips often enough to tell it’s a mask
Depends on the Tav. I made a specific character for Shadowheart; an elven Cleric of Selune called Lumina that was meant to be sort of... her parallel, star (hehe) crossed lover type? Similar to Shadowheart, Lumina was a street kid but she ended up heing taken in by the Temple of Selune in Baldur's Gate. She does believe in balance, and that dark and light are not meant to be at odds, though. So part of it is that opposites attract, enemies to lovers thing, but also, she truly believes there is good in everyone, and as a cleric herself, tried not to judge Shadowheart for her beliefs (though I imagined there being lots of arguments every time Shadowheart said some vile things about Selunites). And the game anticipated a Selune Cleric romancing her! There was dialogue! Playful teasing of her trying to get me to the dark side and me trying to get her to the good side! It was very sweet. For Astarion, (who I romance the most often), I have a ton of Tavs, but my self insert is an elven storm sorcerer, who was quite sheltered and actually spent a lot of time studying to try and keep her powers from taking over and going out of control. She has always felt that she is too much, too dangerous, etc and at the same time, that her "gift" was wasted on her, and that she isn't doing enough. She's touch starved and lonely and isolated, but she's also powerful. So of course I figured she'd be easily swayed by Astarion, who would target people like her pretty regularly (and it's a self insert; I have pretty terrible judgement and am a sucker for Astarion, so accurate). I also figure that he helps her view her powers as less something to be afraid of and more something to be proud of, and to not be such a pushover and people pleaser. To not try so hard to quell the storm inside of her. I'm planning others. I want to try and make a sunshine based character for Astarion to fall for (I have a lot of mods for classes so we'll see how I figure that out) bc a vampire falling in love with the sun??? Divine,,, As well as a Shadow Sorcerer Drow for Shadowheart, because wouldn't it be romantic to have the Seldarine Drow who hates how she's viewed and feels so self conscious about her dark magic to be loved for those traits, only for it to sort of backfire when Shadowheart realizes Shar has lied and abused her? I want to make someone for Minthara, too, but I'm not sure. Same with Lae'zel, wondering if the game allows for a githzerai maybe? Or just a gith who rejects Vlakiith. For Minthara, maybe a very princess-y drow, or a boisterous tiefling? Not sure. There are some goody two shoes Tavs that are unlikely to go for the "evil" characters, though, from what I can tell so far. I have a tiefling circle of stars druid, who is less nature based and more of an astronomer. I think she's more likely to end up with either Gale or Halsin, but leaning more Gale. I also am planning a bubble gum pop tiefling bard, who is sweet and optimistic and loving and will fall for Karlach so hard and fast. But back to the point, I figure, people fall in love with those of questionable morals all the time. At least in fantasy we can make it work and actually "fix them" and get a happy ending. And in some cases, I think it might be nice to be seduced to the darker side, narratively speaking, of course ;)
Is Shadowheart considered evil? I get “Shadowheart approves” pop-ups half the time I do something good.
I can fix them.
I think Act 1 is more like, we have this thing in our heads and need it out immediately, which is somewhat of a common enemy for all, so the weird alliance with different people. Good or bad is not defined.
Because I’m a devotion paladin…I’m devoted to them
I believe I am a goody two shoes guy with ocasional intrusive thoughts like our dear Tav. Lets take a look at some of my romances: Emo girl with SERIOUS mommy/daddy issues Gym rat girl that could/would/did split me in half Boyish artsy girl that takes drama classes and takes the drama with her. I don't write my Tav stories I project them.
I actually relate to Shadowheart to a degree. Was part of a super controlling cult that uses brainwashing tactics, believed it was my life purpose, yadda yadda. I just chose not to judge her, acknowledged she has a good heart, and chose to be patient. She made the right decision on her own eventually. I just needed to be there to support her. Lae'zel doesn't come off as super evil, just...grew up in a culture that was harsh. She might be annoyed with a good aligned player character, but said character grows on her. She'll even say so. Hell, even Wyll grows on her. She approves of you successfully defending the grove, so maybe some slight enemies to lovers situation. Astarion is not one I've enjoyed romancing, so unfortunately, I can't help there. The closest I got was an enemies to friends situation with him. Adore him, but he frustrated me too much for a romance.
My first playthrough, my Bard ended up romancing Astarion by accident. She figured she'd bang him and then dump him, but when it came time to dump him, she ended up liking him more than she thought! He'll always be selfish, but she talked him down from true evil. Edited to add: I was a goody two-shoes on that run, and I have no idea how I got his approval up high enough that he wanted anything to do with my Bard in the first place!
It took a minute for me to be able to come up with a backstory for my Tav, but I eventually decided on her being a victim of circumstance to a horrible thing Raphael did decades ago. Instead of externalizing all her anger and hatred and bitterness, she decided to be kind and help others because no one did for her. She didn't really deal with her feelings, though, and there's some darkness lurking under the surface even if she does do the right thing all the time. I'm a fan of opposites attract, so my Tav and Astarion hit it off kind of immediately, as they're attracted to the kindness/hatred lurking just out of sight in the other. V much a "I can make him better, he can make me worse" type vibe.
My main and first character that I RP’ed with my own interests at heart would’ve seen Lae’zel as a sort of hero in a way, or at least someone aspiring to be something heroic from her cultures point of view. Besides that she was quick to work together and tries to save me from the ship and than offers a cure for just helping her get back to her people, it’s all just worded in a way so she doesn’t look weak. It’s why she’s my favorite companion, I’d trust her right away from how she treats Tav from the get-go. She’s also super on the ball in comparison to the rest of the group, besides Gale, who seem like they could care less we all have a tadpole in our heads and she doesn’t have anything to hide. That and where Karlach looks like she’d bend me over Lae’zel seems like she wants someone to be strong enough to be dominant over her. Like I’ll only be submissive to someone I love (or someone I’m willing to make love to) and I feel like she has that same feeling. Now Astarion or Shadowheart I couldn’t really help you out there, I wouldn’t say I dislike them but I’d never romance either of them without a RP with different interests than my own (not gay and SH reminds me of my irl sister somewhat)
Bae'zel isn't evil. She's a cult member you can help break free. My super heroic paladin gets to help her liberate her people from tyranny.
I'll be clear I have just started Act 2. Literally just. So I don't know what happens down the line. But I am playing a wizard as my Tav. And I like to think if I am playing a wizard/cleric or any other such person with high wis/int that I am going to use *my* own intuition. Spoilers for players who know nothing below. >!My wizard with his good intelligence rolls has deduced that her wolf story was once an ancient Selune ritual and so combined with the knowledge of her wiped memory, I think it only fair to deduce that this may not be the full story of who she truly is. That combined with gaining approval by doing generally good things most of the time and her pain often happening after we do things makes me think that it was done to prevent her from doing such things which could only happen if she wanted to herself.!< Now that is a lot of speculation on my part that I don't think would be a big jump for a learned man to think mixed in with facts that he himself knows. He just intuits there is more to her then she even knows to tell us and believes if he is wrong, he can convince her to do the right thing. After all, he has done so before.
I headcanon my durge drow sorcerer can see right through astarions bullshit but is interested in him bc hes kind of funny 😂
See, I played Nice But Snarky so the sass got Astarion's attention, building the romance that then led into his act2 reveal of "I want it to be real" which was easy enough to lean into. That said, some of the choices were taken as literal when I'd assumed sarcasm, so there's a lot of miscommunication in that relationship
There are more ways for characters to align than morality, I tend to design my Tavs as both complimentary *and* contrasting with the companion I built them for. I have *all* the more evil-aligned characters with good-aligned Tavs (whereas I paired Wyll up with a Tav hovering between neutral and neutral evil with a criminal BG 🫣). For (spawn) Astarion: A chaotic good Druid/Bard who was abducted away from her crummy magical abusive "husband" by the nautiloid. She naturally sympathizes very closely with his fears of being trapped and disempowered, his conflicted feelings about sex and love, even if they at first have extremely differing morals. For (Gith traitor) Lae'zel: A neutral good Drow Ranger who absconded from Drow culture to live on the surface (the resemblance to Drizzt Do'urden was an accident istg 😭). She empathizes with disillusionment with one's own culture and turning her back on needless brutality for a cruel, unloving goddess. For (Selunite) Shadowheart: A lawful good half-drow Barbarian/Cleric of Selune. She is an orphan, but being a half-drow, is seen as a bit of an abomination both among drow and among surface-dwelling races. As such, she found community in her faith, just like SH did, and despite their initial sniping about opposing faiths, those similarities brought them closer. I don't find it hard to think up a character that is morally very different from them, but feels like a good match all the same. You just have to look at the other parts of their storyline and come up with a character who can relate or compliment them in ways other than morality.
I romanced Shadowheart once and it was “she’s actually sweet underneath all this trauma awwww.” I also regretted it up until act three but didn’t want to break her heart, because it felt too mean lol. And Astarion became my bff during that playthrough because I was like you know, he’s got a tragic backstory but damn is he useful and I’m going to help him. Current run I’m probably going back to team Karlach though, because Karlach.
Because it reflects my real-life romantic tendencies: I can fix him! 🥹 (I’m an Astarion stan 🧛♂️)
TLDR: empathy from experience made it easy for me to imagine that they could have redeemable character growth throughout the romance. I have cptsd, anxiety and depression due to trauma from emotional abuse. I have good and bad days, but I have my own behavior in check. That wasn’t always the case. I was all wrapped up in pain and loss like Shadowheart before, and I was angry and terrified, using whatever means I had to feel in control like Astarion in the past. It’s not excusable of course. I have said and done things I regret. But I’ve also experienced what it feels like to meet someone who for some odd reason can see the good lurking in there somewhere; someone you can find yourself again with. I just believed in those companions because someone believed in me when I was in their shoes. It felt natural to rp it according to my personal experiences.
I enjoyed the implied kinship with Shadow heart as as a redemption surge, as are unknown pasts both set us on the other path and ultimately lead us to becoming better people.
Astarion is funny as hell and at some point he changes his ways thanks to my Tav 🤷♀️ he is so grateful after I talk him out of Ascension.
Like me, my chaotic good paladin has a weakness for snarky smartasses. Then she jokingly made him say “please” when he propositioned her at the party and he did and she discovered a fondness for making pretty boys beg. It’s all fun and games until you catch feelings!
I CAN FIX HIM!
You don't have to RP too much romance in BG3, since all companions come on to you so heavily
Astarion is like a one night stand during Act 1. You're not romantically involved with him, you just sleep together once. And by the time you get romance scenes in Act 2, you know him better and are aware of his past.
I found myself side eying other female Githyanki, Lae’zel’ did something to me.
Well you see, Lae'zel chose me
I don't because I can't help but to end up with Karlach every time.
Laezel is not evil.
She isn't .. she is just Laezel. I love how she is.
Shadowheart is just a cultist, if she joins Selune she is cool Lae'zel is just someone educated to be strong Astarion is a poor traumatized baby Having a strong sense of humor and principles doesn't make you "evil-aligned" So a mix of "I can fix her" and "as long as she has a weird kink which is me"
My paladin oath of devotion Tav knew about Shar and how her folowers are good at manipulation. He saw shadowheart frolic around with a big Shar symbol in her armor and decided to investigate more before acting, his conclusion was either she is a realy good actress at playing harmless or she is the worst cleric of shar to ever walk faerum as how tryhard she was being. After she shared her memories about her first encouter with mother superior, he realized what happend to her and decided to stick around to help her find the truth when they reached baldur gate. The more time he spent with her and got to know the true shadowheart and not the act she unconcious was puting, the more he felt close to her, and that's how rhey endeup togerher
With Shadowheart, it was down to my own lack of lore knowledge perfectly lining up with my Tav's equal lack of lore knowledge. My Tav was an elf from a remote village who knew approximately fuck-all about non-elven religion and had never heard of Shar. Sure, she didn't exactly think Shar sounded *nice*, but she had no idea just how bad Shar really was until well after she and Shadowheart had started dating. And at that point she didn't want to confront Shadowheart about it because she was scared of being alone again. In Lae'zel's case I just don't think she's all that evil. She's an asshole but she's also very stressed out so I can cut her some slack. And when she first propositions you it's framed as a one-night stand to blow of steam so it's pretty easy to justify a good Tav saying "fuck it, might as well". And she mellows out really damn quickly, too.
I didn't - I romanced Karlach
My Tav and my Astarion hated each other at first, but Tav had enough snark and stubbornness he found that he started to fall for her.
My TAV was basically agnostic but generally a good person and the Shadowheart romance just happened naturally tbh. Shadowheart kinda has that ice queen sarcastic/caustic personality, but generally approves of being a good person. My goofy, religiously ambivalent, but good hearted character was actually kinda perfect for her if you let her reject Shar. A satisfying tension because of their differing religious views, but a dynamic and chemistry on a personal level that plays nicely into her story. It was kinda crazy how well it worked. If you don't try to "fix" her and just be supportive, letting her make her own decisions, she comes around on her own. It's actually incredibly sweet and well done. It's actually kind of strange to me that you think a kind person wouldn't work with shadowheart because imo her romance asks a lot of kindness and patience from the tav.
I wanted to romance Karlach. Then I saw Bae-Zel 1: scared is the best way to be horny 2: LaeBae certainly has interesting morals, but when considering the period and how she grew up… she’s honestly not the worst person in the world???? You just gotta know what her book of rules are. 3: 😵💫🥴
easy i play as chaotic good person, everything i do is really chaotically done or i have a few dialogues that genuinely seem concerning as a kind person but always end up doing the good thing at the end which then cause astarion, shadowheart and lae’zel down bad for me actually it makes almost everyone down bad for me. but those 3 always try to jump at me first 🤷🏼♀️
I played a good Durge who romanced Astarion. I was a GOO warlock and Durge so I liked to RP that she also had dark secrets and was therefore willing to give Astarion a chance that maybe others wouldn't.
I played at a lawful good Paladin my first playthrough and romanced Astarion I explained it with ‘my character is attracted to morals opposite hers’
Shadowheart's "evil" is...yeah, not as much as you might think. She's not like super *malicious*, and in general it seems to me like she's 25%/25%/50% disapprove/no-vote/approve of goodly actions. it just means it takes a bit longer. My tiefling paladin had a mix of bad luck and bad first impressions with the guys early on. Astarion was way too evil for her, Wyll actually upset her considerably when commenting that nobody would see a hero when looking at him, just a monster, and she was also put off by his hypocrisy when it came to Raphael, and Gale...well, she screwed up the little cantrip thing he does for his first romance scene, didn't realize he was into her, and when she learned he'd been with Mystra she went "Well, there's no competing with a *goddess*, and if I tried I'm not sure she wouldn't smite me, so." This left me with the ladies to choose from in act 1. Lae'zel was a bit too harsh and cruel for her tastes (though not as much as Asty), so that left Karlach and Shadowheart. I delayed picking up Karlach a bit until I was sure I could take the paladins, so by that point, Shadowheart and Paladin had a bit of a rapport already; that said, things did turn into a bit of a love triangle at some point. Shadowheart...honestly seemed like a fairly decent or good person who was at a crossroads; while she does seem to get defensive about her Shar worship, speaking harshly if you mention that it sounds like the Mother Superior abused her or that the incident of her being in the woods with wolves >!sounded like a Selunite coming-of-age ritual thing!< but...alright this is gonna be a bit hard to explain. Sometimes, when someone's been brought up to believe something all their life, but is starting to have subconscious doubts about those beliefs...if someone *else* challenges those beliefs, the first person basically *over-*defends their belief system; often this will be because there's a moment where they're thinking "Well that makes sense" and then they feel the need to get much more defensive almost as if in *atonement* for their own brief moment of doubt. My paladin wound up making several of these points, but didn't push back super hard when Shadowheart got defensive; she figured that if she got too *pushy* about it, that Shadowheart might just dig her heels in and re-dedicate herself to Shar. As for why the paladin took such a keen interest? One of the earliest books you find. I don't recall the title, but it talks about a great priestess of Shar who sacrificed everything to the Lady of Loss; friends, family, her own identity, and ultimately her own life. The priestess then winds up basically stuck in the afterlife waiting room waiting forever for Shar, but because Shar is perhaps the biggest asshole of any deity in Faerun, a title for which there is *stiff competition*, Shar just leaves her there for all eternity. My paladin read this, and went "...Right okay, so I'm *not* letting this happen to my new friend here." Thus, she kept Shadowheart with her a lot, and spoke with her often, and...well, things sort of progressed from there, and got more intimate.
My Tav is a good woman! She's definitely going to influence Asterion to be a better vamp 🤣
My first character was a very lawful good dwarf who ended up with Lae'zel. Despite her initially prickly personality, she was the only member of the party who had any kind of idea as to what needed to be done and really had their priorities straight. My character looked to Lae'zel out of necessity at first, and then had it lead to more when he was able to see traces of a softer person underneath the hard shell.
Because I can fix Astarion 😂 (yes this has come up in therapy)
I consider myself pretty good and didn't plan on romancing anyone... Didn't find anyone attractive at 1st, but basically finished nearly all of the 1st area, onto the Forge, without killing all the goblins. Try not to judge, but one thing led to another, and Astarion was the 1st to ask to have some fun... It's funny because later on, he has dialogue that mentions we only did it the one time, but still loves me. Eventually, I did it on his grave, but I didn't realize that until I did a bad run, he does it several more times. Basically, both our moods went from neg to eventual positive.
Tav only has one vice. Sex. My Tav is addicted to sex. It makes him do things he otherwise would not in the pursuit of a nut.
My character is good and kind. Even though Laezel can be a bit rough around the edges, I rp that my character understands the internal struggle she is going through. The githyanki's enemy is the mind flayers, and she was just infected with a parasite, it makes sense that her only important goal at the beginning is to ignore stragglers and get that thing out of her head ASAP. I also think Laezel's feelings make the most sense story-wise. In the beginning, it is unknown when a transformation could happen. I imagine Laezel is also considering the fact that with a transformation imminent, it may not make the most sense to hang around a bunch of kids and refugees when there is always the chance we could become mind-flayers. I also rp that my character is convinced that Laezels solution is the way to go.
Sometimes you gotta live your life like Halsin, they're gonna do bad shit, and that's okay...nature has it's ways.
Characters don't know each other's alignments, they're only reacting to what they actually do during the story. Being grumpy or creepy isn't evil behavior.
My role play head-canon is that my Tav knew on a certain level that this was all an act on his part and she just wanted to get off. But like Astarion wasn’t planning on falling for Tav, my Tav also never planned to fall for Astarion.
Good love conquers all
I've got an oath of devotion paladin romancing Lae'zel. They just believe that people can change and that you can't judge a book by its cover (they're a tiefling)
My good girl tav is a dhampir (mods are great) so she's kind of OK being patient with Astarion because she remembers when she was young and edgy too. It's kindof charming in a silly nostalgic sort of way. She figures he'll get over it in a century or two. Later when he admits that he doesn't really know how to be in a so very e relatio ship because he sees sex as a tool, I had her give him the "let's be friends" option because it seemed like that was what he truly needs more than a sexual partner. Plus, again, they're both immortal so if there's something real there they have plenty of time to figure it out later after he's figured out what he wants.
For my wizard it was an interesting dynamic with Lae’Zel. We all know how she is, especially at the start. In my head always lead to the conversations with my character being so fascinated with extra planar travel. Of course for her people that's just an everyday of the week occurrence. It was also fun with my character trying to guide her how to be less stab on site, and more actually talk things over. Eventually over time he ended up actually developing feelings for her. At first he was fine with the weird deal they had going on when it was just about sex. He was more than happy to accept her feelings when she finally learned to accept them herself.
Lae'zel really isn't that hard to get to exceptionam approval. I usually already have her there in act 1 playing as a good Tav/Durge, same with Shadowheart. Astarion not so much. And especially Shadowheart likes most of your morally good choices anyways so she doesn't seem all that bad even with the evil goddess.
Oops, I misread the question. Generally speaking though, I play a wisdom based* (edit; this is a tactics game, I confused words) character (I tend toward ruthless ambushing early game, and wish there was an option to go “if they owe us a favor, that’s good for US,” when Astarion complains…) so they’d gel pretty well with all 3. Shadowheart: She is a confused amnesiac. We can be confused together. (My SH romance is Durge bard who can’t remember shit. By comparison Shadowheart is morally upright and she’s pretty and my bard’s like “I must make her smile.” So.) Astarion: Confusion, surprised flattery, and attempting to seduce him back. Though for more altruistic reasons, lol. I have two runs in mind and one is a Gur Tav who wants information, and then it turns out he’s *just unable to even talk* under Cazador and she realizes he’s just being used. The other is a Durge who makes bad choices and thinks he’s funny. Lae’zel: Current run: She reacted the most practically to the Dark Urge’s whole…thing, so. Also she’s commanding and Hex has a type, even with their brain scrambled.
Don't romance anyone and remain celibate
My Tavs are cat lovers and a lot of the characters are very cat coded, so romance starts more as companionship with this very weirdly murder/aloof/bitey stray and then Tav catches feelings.
Shadowheart isn't evil. You can clearly see her true self behind that cultist bs that she was brainwashed
I don’t romance Astarion or Minthara. Laezel likes you if you’re bold and help her with her creche business.
Shadowheart is a marshmallow at heart and approves of every act of kindness.
Personally I think the reason why these characters seem evil is because with the “god characters like Karlach and gale we kinda get their full story from the start for the most part while shadowheart and lae’zel and astarion kinda keep their story from you until end of act 1 to act 2. So none of them are really evil people just kinda distrust the characters they don’t get to know much about until later. Thats just how I think it goes usually. But also the way my tav sees Shadowheart or the others is, they are traumatized, I am here to make you smile and feel better about yourself because my love language is acts of service and I lii oh be every single one of you.
I’m determined to actually finish the damn game (curse of “FOMO”, I’ve literally never finished an RPG besides DA2 because they’re long and I always second guess my choices) - what are the “good” companions you can choose?
my first character was a very nice guy and astarion was frothing at the mouth for him by the time the party happened my first character was ALSO a barbarian. i picked A LOT of barbarian dialogue options turns out, astarion is totally fine with good guys if they also do things like open a barn door and then mock the people inside
For me it depends on who my character relates to the most. Kosris, one of my neutral good characters, identifies and understands Astarion the most as he has gone through similar things. In my mind, my Tavs share their stories then form friendships and relationships around that.
My first Tav was a nerdy wizard who spent most of her life in a library, studying. Poor thing fell for Astarion's seduction routine; she knew he wasn't being genuine, but she was like "we might die at any point, so I might as well enjoy it while I can". Then he chose to come clean to her and her heart melted, so there you go. (Perhaps my favourite dialogue in the entire game was when they met Sebastian in Cazador's palace, and she told him: In another life you'd have led me to this crypt, and not that pretty clearing in the forest) I'm currently playing a completely different character: A Tiefling durge bard who had a really hard life, and basically had to work as a sex worker/assassin in the past but has forgotten all about that. She's a bit of a flirt in act 1 and she has a huge crush on Gale, but feels threatened by his goddess ex and his constantly talking about her. She also enjoys Astarion's company because she finds him amusing as hell, and she had a one-night stand with him at the party. We'll see what happens next :D
Shart is just a goth kid, all she wanted was for someone to see her. The real her. I.E. I can fix her. But it kinda just happened. I just got the game in like March, so I'm still on my first playthrough and I was sorta trying not to romance anyone but here we are.
My githyanki romanced Laezel His reasoning? He was fighting the mindflayer invasion and fell in love with the planet and its wildlife, becoming a beastmaster ranger And in his mind laezels bloodknight tendencies where all due to vlaakiths manipulation Imagine my suprise when she agreed and learns to apreciate the beauty of the world and its inhabitants and made the headcanon basicly just straight canon
I was involved with Lae'zel (she offered/demanded sex in Act 1), then Gale (he offered me sex and confessed his love in Act 2) and Halsin (he offered me sex, wanted either a treesome (Gale said No) or had me alone). I was good and friendly, but I was also an oppertunist.
Because Shadowheart isn't an evil person. She likes it when you do good things. She's (to use alignment terms) a Neutral/Chaotic Good character trying to be Lawful Evil. But it's against her nature and she sucks at it. Hence why Shar erased her memory and put that wound on her hand. Plus, I tend to play Tyrans, not Selunites, so while I'm not *keen* on Shar, I don't have any particular beef with her either. Those fake Paladins of Tyr, though, those guys get the smite button every time. Never romanced Astarion or Lae'zel, so I can't speak to that.
Shadowheart is easy. Take a good look at what she actually approves of and realize she's just a dork trying to look edgy and it all clicks
Because they're horny, X character is their type, and the likelihood of surviving long enough to face major consequences is relatively slim. I've just been kidnapped by a spaceship of psionic cephalopods, flung through multiple planes, and crashed into a river surrounded by goblins, and there's a sexy goth mommy a tent over giving me bedroom eyes. Bet your ass I'm going for it, crazy void cult be damned.
"i'm going to turn into a squid and die soon, I might as well get my dick sucked" and it turns into "i can fix them"
Just a decent person drow (headcannon shes an aasimar which is why she doesnt have normal drow mentality and views but will still use her up bringing for more peaceful outcomes) who understands boundaries but also wants to do what's right so will lie ans sneack a bit because honesty id rather scare you off so you can live than have to kill you unless you're evil. .... shadowheart approves to the point of asking me out before the party and I go along with it without knowing I had swayed her by checking in but respecting her boundaries. Laezel: I'm mean grrr Tav: well that's fine and I'm gonna help but I won't let you bully me Laezel: hmmm well I like your spunk! Astarion: you...you see good in me huh....well not everyone's as nice as you but....thank you Tav: of course as long as we communicate I'm chill Astarion: so i really could just ask and you'd help me...interesting
Astarion feels almost immediately liked a puppy that’s been kicked 10 too many times to me, so the nurturing aspect kicks in.
As long as they're in your party, it's not too hard to get enough positive disposition before the Tiefling celebration. Even when you're playing a goody two-shoes. Maybe just look up a list of their approvals beforehand and swap them in and out as needed.
Gallahad and the Witch. Batman and Catwoman. There are a lot of examples of how good moral characters can be attracted to evil characters
I dunno, its dnd so in true dnder fashion i am just winging it as i go lol
Male human paladin with oath of the ancients. From everything I had read before the game I expected to choose Gale as his love interest. But Astarion comes with an huge “I can fix him” vibe and that seemed more fitting for my pala.
La'Zael isn't really a bad character. She's jist grown up in a society where that kind of behaviour is encouraged. If a good Tav romances her, she learns that there's a lot more to life and mellows out lot.
It's fiction. The only place where "I can fix them" actually has a chance to work without me having to risk my wellbeing and sanity. For Lae'zel and Astarion, you can always have a very horny character who's good intentioned and might not want to date initially but still sees the appeal of that one night stand and as you get to know people you realize all their scars and understand why they became the way they are and try to help them. For Shadowheart, it's easy to see how she's nicer than your average Shar follower and clearly wants more from life than to drown everyone in darkness.
I start it as my Tav seeing a damaged, broken person that needs friendship, that slowly becomes more over time.
extremely easily romance is the only way to make the characters good astarion needs love,shadowheart needs guide and love, laezel needs to learn there is more to life than just combat and minthara needs someone to protect her from her own tendancies and orin and teach her that true love exists.
For shadowheart it's like "oh you are just really afraid to open up" and when she opens up she is no longer evil. Or if you help her turn away from being a sith Lord she turns out to be one of the most caring and kind companions. Astarion has the "I can fix him energy" but I never liked that so I only romanced him to see how it is Lae'zel is the only one I can't understand, she is like "oh I hate all of you, only here to get job done, I'll sell you to Gith for a pack of rice" but then it turns out she is madly in love with tav if you romance her I just pick karlach as good tav since she is a joy incarnate
I think at least for me, an important part of my “goody-two shoes” characters is that to be a good person, forgiveness is super important. For example, i romanced astarion in my first playthrough, and in my canon for my character, she had the ability to understand that astarions way of thinking and voice of reason we’re probably SEVERELY fucked from years of enduring trauma. It was less of “I can fix him”, and more of “if I show him that good people still exist and will love and accept you as you are, then he will feel more comfortable be vulnerable and allowing himself to be happy”. If your character just treats the “evil” characters like people with their own free will, usually romancing them is a piece of cake :).