#ive honestly ran through answers to the tav asks for every main dnd character I have it's so much fun imagining them as companions

[soggytaxidermy]

General 4 and 5 for the tav ask 👀👀

oh boy it’s been a while since you sent this - oh well, I still appreciate it! I have two main tavs - Damakas, tiefling wild magic bard-barian, adaption of one of my normal dnd characters, and Lharast, seldarine drow devotion paladin/fiend warlock, my durge. 

4. What sort of general actions raise or lower their approval?

Damakas: One would have to try very, very hard to get on this brick wall of a tiefling’s bad side. Damakas likes to believe that everyone’s intentions are as good as his and is an even stronger believer in second chances. After all, he was a cultist. Doing generally positive things like saving people and lending your hand without payment quickly gains you his approval, as does passing persuasion and performance checks. However, he’s also way too curious for his own good, so the player earns approval when they make some not-so-thought-through decisions in exchange for, well, finding out what happens next - for instance, reading the Necromancy of Thay or allowing Auntie Ethel to try to remove the tadpole. Like most companions, he dislikes threats and unnecessary violence. Should the violence be called for though, he will enthusiastically crush a head or otherwise dismember someone for you (this would be an option during certain cutscenes or if you take someone as a prisoner back to your camp). One should avoid asking him to do this too often, however.

Lharast: The player meets him as a masked knight in Underdark during the second act, and at first, his likes and dislikes are very vague. Sometimes he approves of extorting civilians, sometimes he doesn't. Your douche behavior rarely goes far enough to warrant his disapproval as your heroics do his approval. Only after completing the first part of his quest and getting him to unmask do things get clearer. Lharast is generally good aligned but approves of most deception checks, even against allies, and of using detect thoughts and other mind-meddling. As a paladin of Ilmater, Lharast greatly approves when you offer to heal sick or injured nps or take punishments destined for someone else. While he does a lot of things strangely against the values of his oath, the strangest is his complete approval of using the tadpoles to downright dominate others if necessary, and “necessary” appears to have a pretty loose definition according to his book. He disapproves of refusal to help people (asking for money first is ok though), dealing with the Flaming Fist, and summoning hirelings from Withers, for whatever reason. 

5. Are there any instances where your tav can permanently leave the party, depending on player actions?

Damakas: For starters, if the player chooses to attack the grove/kill the tiefling refugees, he immediately turns hostile. If he’s not killed in the battle, he can still be encountered later in the game, but he can never again be added to the party. Another instance is if you have him do his special kill on a truly innocent person and he finds out, he will be appalled and leave out of sheer guilt and grief. But, the circumstances matter - if the player discovers the person’s innocence alongside Damakas, he’ll still be stricken, but can be persuaded not to leave. However, if the player lied to him to get him to do it, there’s no going back.

Lharast: There’s a lot of ways. I’ve yet to fact-check this to see if it works, but in my npc lore for him so far, he was Minthara’s husband a couple hundred years ago, and that divorce - well, it was never really official. Since he’s met in act 2, if the player helps him with Minthara in their party, he will never end up removing his mask, and instead the covert version of his quest begins. He eventually takes you aside and tells you who he is and asks you to help him stab Minthara in the back, when the time is right. From that point, the player could tell Minthara, causing him to leave permanently. Alternatively, if Minthara is already out of the picture, bringing him back to Moonrise undisguised lands him in hot water, and if fumbled, leads to him getting taken back and mindraped beyond repair as punishment for desertion, as he was once high ranking among the Absolutists. Lharast doesn’t die, the player will probably just wish he had. The player could also fail at handling his patron, Malkizid, whereupon Malkizid essentially takes over Lharast’s form and replaces him in the party for a short time- albeit withholding the full strength of his archdevil powers. The other ways to get him gone are probably triggered by events later in the game, but since I haven’t actually gotten to play through those act 3 events yet, I can’t say for certain.

thanks again so much for the ask! and once again sorry it took so long to answer, I guess I just had to leave you in suspense for 10 days lmfao