#but I recently started a second one and I’m romancing Karlach this time

[ninjaaa-go]

You’re telling me I can’t romance miss “have fun with the others, I don’t mind sharing you” Karlach at the same time as any of the other companions confirmed to be cool with a poly relationship??? This is an attack on all the lesbians out there (read: me)

[rottenbrainstuff]

Bg3 redo thoughts: after I finished my very first big amazing bard drow durge playthrough, I’m going back and doing it again with a tielfing paladin, to see what different things I run into and whatnot.

I’m really enjoying all the small little details and updates that have been changed since I last began a playthrough: stuff like Astarion’s boar now sometimes being found in a different spot. When I went into the spider cave, this time I noticed flies buzzing around the corpses… I swear I don’t remember seeing that detail there before?

Since my tav this time is a tielfing, she’s not getting her ass kissed by the goblins anymore, which is interesting. She failed an intimidation check with the goblins at the windmill so we got into a fight. Well. My guys are tired and health is low and there’s a lot of goblins here but whatever, we’ll see how it goes.

Then I hit Fezzerk one single time and he surrendered. Lmao! I had no idea that was even a thing that happened, it’s been so neat to see that even though my first playthrough was extremely thorough, there’s still been neat stuff to find.

I didn’t automatically decide who I would romance this game, I thought I’d just sort of let things happen as they happen. The end result is: I’ve got Gale and Astarion’s romances locked in now. I really just don’t get the folks who say they have such a hard time romancing Astarion, or even just getting him to like them. He’s consistently always the second in line for me, behind only Gale. Possibly Lae’zel would be quicker if my tav made less decisions that pissed her off, but it seems that they’ve also made some changes with recent patches and she needs a couple conditions to be met now before she starts talking about how much she likes your stink. I mean I haven’t even got to the necromancy of Thay yet, or Gandrel, or the goblin camp. I triggered his first romance after I recruited Karlach.

Astarion gets cranky at a few choices in the grove, but I mean, so does Wyll, so does Lae’zel. I dunno. Like, here’s some quick tips if you guys aren’t just making jokes and do legit have a hard time making him like you:

You can send him back to camp, along with Lae’zel, as soon as you enter the grove, because they’re both going to be cranky. Once you’ve talked to Zevlor and saved Arabella you can bring them back. Astarion likes Auntie Ethel so be sure to bring him back before you chat with her.

He has a lot of little cut scenes and special dialogue, and a lot of little approvals come from these and they add up. I wonder if people are missing these. Be sure to camp often. Like seriously. Camp all the time. There’s the first night camp scene, the musing about how would be best to die, the stargazing scene (although I dunno, I don’t think that gives any approval?) musing about what each companion would taste like, the drunk from bear blood scene, and the mirror scene.

If he’s on your party when you visit Raphael he has a couple approvals to give there if you refuse to be Raphael’s toy.

When he bites you, you’ll get five approval the next morning if you tell the other companions they can leave if they’re not happy about a vampire in the group, and you’ll get five more approval if you don’t force him to keep biting you, but instead just agree to his plan of biting enemies. You can get almost 30 approval just from the bite scene alone!!!!

Like I said, I triggered his first romance after I recruited Karlach: I had barely even left the grove at that point. I wasn’t being evil. I only sent him back to camp for two events (talking to zevlor and saving Arabella). I think I still could have romanced him just as early even without doing that. It shouldn’t really be this hard. I know it’s funny to joke about how he hates everything you do, but if you guys are seriously having troubles with it, I dunno send me a DM and I can help maybe, I’ve been very thorough in my analysis of his approvals.