Romance Endings
Anprionsa
Member Posts: 106
So I have had a real beef with romance endings for many years now.
Let's start off with my play style. I am almost always a Chaotic Good character (class always changes though), that plays with the standard party (Minsc/Imoen/Jaheira) with 1 or 2 different characters (romance/another), and completes almost all the quests.
My romances are about 75% Aerie. Jaheira bothers me immensely because she is way too quick to jump ship and move to the PC after Khalid's death. I think it would have been more appropriate for her to start closer to ToB than so quickly after the death. But I understand that she can be grieving and the PC can comfort her and those feelings turn... I just don't like it. Viconia is long, brutal, and troublesome. But I like hers when I feel that I want to do that.
Here is my beef. I hate the endings for the romances... all of them. I have the choice to become a God... but I can't take my romance with me? What is this... Hercules (Disney Version). Mystra can have a lover (Elminster) and elevate them to Chosen status (essentially powerful immortals), but I can't take Aerie (or the others) with me? [Why can't I have Sarevok (who eventually turns good, if you choose correctly) become the first Paladin of my order? Or any of the other NPC's do something similar.]
Does anyone else feel this way? I want to get the cake and eat it too. If I become a God, Aerie is coming with me. She is getting her wings back, she is having my child, and she is going to become Immortal (because by that time she is as powerful, if not more so, than Elminster). I've read a lot about that in the Forgotten Realms lore and don't see anything against it.
Now I just need to figure out how to mod my game so this happens both in game (at the end) and in the epilogue, so that I can see it playing out and be satisfied.
/end rant
Let's start off with my play style. I am almost always a Chaotic Good character (class always changes though), that plays with the standard party (Minsc/Imoen/Jaheira) with 1 or 2 different characters (romance/another), and completes almost all the quests.
My romances are about 75% Aerie. Jaheira bothers me immensely because she is way too quick to jump ship and move to the PC after Khalid's death. I think it would have been more appropriate for her to start closer to ToB than so quickly after the death. But I understand that she can be grieving and the PC can comfort her and those feelings turn... I just don't like it. Viconia is long, brutal, and troublesome. But I like hers when I feel that I want to do that.
Here is my beef. I hate the endings for the romances... all of them. I have the choice to become a God... but I can't take my romance with me? What is this... Hercules (Disney Version). Mystra can have a lover (Elminster) and elevate them to Chosen status (essentially powerful immortals), but I can't take Aerie (or the others) with me? [Why can't I have Sarevok (who eventually turns good, if you choose correctly) become the first Paladin of my order? Or any of the other NPC's do something similar.]
Does anyone else feel this way? I want to get the cake and eat it too. If I become a God, Aerie is coming with me. She is getting her wings back, she is having my child, and she is going to become Immortal (because by that time she is as powerful, if not more so, than Elminster). I've read a lot about that in the Forgotten Realms lore and don't see anything against it.
Now I just need to figure out how to mod my game so this happens both in game (at the end) and in the epilogue, so that I can see it playing out and be satisfied.
/end rant
2
Comments
Important characters can not have ultimate fate, because it would mean that their use in BG3 would be very limited.
Be happy for the open end and unclear fate, this means that they can return.
I don't know much about the Forgotten Realms lore regarding such things but I always thought that ascension to godhood would be a huge, life-changing event that fundamentally alters your core perception of the world. It's not like a really big level up, or taking a Dual Class, or anything like that. Your desires and your passions are no longer those of "mere mortals," and your relationships are going to radically changed as well- perhaps even to the point that you are no longer interested in a person that you may have loved as a mortal.
One thing that bothered me though is part of Viconia's romance... doesn't she say that she wants to be your high priestess after you ascend at some point in the romance? Why this didn't make it into an ending I'll never know. Gods apparently require worship/clergy in this setting, so...
No thank you.
No thank you. Some things are enjoyable because they haven't been beaten to death. I think "Boo" and Minsc have had enough references in some of the more current bioware games.
AAAAAND QUAYLE, THE SMRTER GNOME THIS SIDE THE MOUNTAINS!!!
THE WORLD WILL GET HALF FEET SMALLER THAN EVER!!!!!
You can not beat Minsc and Boo, even Chuck Norris can not do it.
I'm not the most impartial judge, but I like the necessary bittersweet ending for PCs involved in romances from a story perspective. Existence is still cruel, not even the gods get to have it all, love is mortal and not eternal, yada yada...
To my mind, having to choose between immortality and love still puts CHARNAME in a rather enviable position.
From a FR perspective, maybe there just wasn't enough divine essence to go around? But you're right that the gods seem to be pretty good at breaking rules.
As for BG3. With Aerie the PC has a son and a daughter, I mean... you going to take them away just create a story? For what purpose? That may work, but you can't get much higher in levels (unless it's taken away). Have it be about something else (especially if there is a small essence in the child!)
And I'm grateful for at least a brief return of amazing characters, as was Tiax.
Also, while I agree the D&D mechanics aren't all that well adapted to endgame play when various bonuses start stacking up so much that the d20 roll starts becoming irrelevant, there's a lot to be said for the mid and late game where more layers of combat options and tactics open up and battles become more about strategy and less about the luck of the roll. Combat during the first couple of levels mostly seems to be about having a well-armoured tank and hoping you're not unlucky and get insta-killed.
Whenever I create a new character I also find myself thinking "how will this build handle in the middle and late game?" rather than "how will it handle in the first 6-7 levels?". While playing through BG1 I look forward to taking the character through SoA and ToB, and see how it develops. For similar reasons I never really play one of the games without playing the other two in sequence - it just isn't as involving.
BG3 should be Planescape so we can get Keldorn back cuz' Charname is like the Transcendent One and he likes wrecking thingies, so we can add all the MAD GNOMES we want, all the instakillinig Beholder Paladins and all that mad stuff we love from BG, 1 & 2.
< / Things even I disagree >
I really hope they make BG3, no matter what, but please, add Boo somewhere, just a Groundhog named Boo in a forest with other things and you'll go without seeing him.
The only logic needed for the argument that BG3 should have nothing to do with the Bhaalspawn is that if you can't honor everyone's choices equally (as, indeed, WotC itself has failed to do), you need to leave it open and do something else instead. That's how they resolved the Darth Revan storyline in KOTOR2, and that's what needs to be done here.
Jan Jansen has a big family indeed, so we can get some of his family in BG3.
And, we can say "someone" had a son with Aerie, and he is a Half-elven jerk who will try to kill us in the middle of the game!
The only thing that really scared Tiax.
for instance it would be pretty cool if you could find in game books chronicling the adventures of minsc and boo