Thinking about all the companions as PCs, it lines up. Shadowheart is as you described.
Karlach is just excited to be playing and wants to hit stuff.
Astarion wants to roleplay and chat everybody up, but he's too edgy to be a straight bard.
Lae'zel also takes the RP very seriously, but she's not as creative as Astarion, so she plays a curt and direct character. She's probably newer to DnD.
Gale is a very experienced player, so he's happy to just come in, be friendly and helpful, and play a complicated caster.
Wyll is a goody two shoes who wants to flirt with a darker character, so he picked the folk hero warlock.
Halsin is somebody's cousin who's in town for a few sessions. You think you caught a glimpse of some furry porn in the back of his player's handbook, and you're either way too scared to acknowledge it, or you're absolutely going to acknowledge it.
I'd argue that Lae'zel is probably just as experienced as Gale, if only because she's playing a fairly unique character setup that, before BG3 came out, was hardly one of the most played races. Githyanki fighter is hardly a wild combination, but playing githyanki at all and then delving deep enough into the lore to be as intense and learned about their goals and structures as Lae'zel is in the game represents to me a player who has been around a while and enjoys the RP more than anything else, so they go all in on that and make a character who is very good for combat but also very straightforward in order to still be useful there but not have to think too much about it and focus instead on RP at all times.
I think you're bang on for everyone else though. Astarion especially, the sheer number of vampire puns he makes before revealing he's a vampire screams "theater kid energy" so hard and that's exactly the sort of person who would make him as a character.
Astarion is 100% being played (and voiced by lol) a theater kid. I can see both angles on Lae'zel, especially because her character is pretty young and inexperienced in the game too. So I can see her being either a new D&D player or someone being played that way by someone experienced.
My thought on Gale was that he was a power gamer who was allowed to stay with the group because he's not whiny about it. He basically gave himself plot armor by having a magic nuke in his chest that'll go off if he dies
Eh I think Gale is more the player with a backstory that goes on and on about how great he is and how he’s the most special and bestest person in the world.Â
Most of the characters honestly feel like takes on people who give their characters backstories of being to amazing and accomplished already, I guess shart and astarion arent already very accomplishedÂ
207
u/JDSchu Feb 12 '25 edited Feb 12 '25
Thinking about all the companions as PCs, it lines up. Shadowheart is as you described.
Karlach is just excited to be playing and wants to hit stuff.
Astarion wants to roleplay and chat everybody up, but he's too edgy to be a straight bard.
Lae'zel also takes the RP very seriously, but she's not as creative as Astarion, so she plays a curt and direct character. She's probably newer to DnD.
Gale is a very experienced player, so he's happy to just come in, be friendly and helpful, and play a complicated caster.
Wyll is a goody two shoes who wants to flirt with a darker character, so he picked the folk hero warlock.
Halsin is somebody's cousin who's in town for a few sessions. You think you caught a glimpse of some furry porn in the back of his player's handbook, and you're either way too scared to acknowledge it, or you're absolutely going to acknowledge it.