BALDUR'S GATE 3

Tips for “Good-Aligned” Astarion Romance/Approval

I see a lot of people saying they find it difficult to romance Astarion on more good-aligned play throughs (though bg3 doesn’t have an alignment system but you all get my drift).

I was able to do so fairly easily, on my first play through as a goody two shoes (or as much so as a Dark Urge can get) and I noticed some things that may have made it easier to do without sacrificing any in character goody-two-shoes decisions.

And this is the biggest one. Be nice to him, and be incredibly patient with him. Even though he occasionally expresses disgust with you acting “sweet”, overall being a saccharine ball of love to him wins you way more points than you’ll lose by being kind. He values positive personal interaction way more than he values agreeing with your decisions,

He does actually approve of some good decisions: petting owl bears and feeding an urchin in Baldur’s Gate being some examples. And more than that, he REALLY approves of tricking your way into peaceful resolutions, to the point where I have gotten many inspiration dice from him simply for avoiding conflicts. Also, any time you have a chance to support someone’s free will, do it. He varies from not having an opinion to approving in most of these cases. So really lean into those good actions he tends to approve of, though I admit they usually are later in the game.

Sometimes he’ll disapprove of the steps you take to make it to a good choice, but approve of the outcome. This applies to things like the hag quest, where you can lose approval but win it back at the conclusion, or through the non-violent path with the Orthon where he disapproves if the peaceful conversation but approves way more of the outcome than he ever disapproved of the conversation.

Be willing to disagree with him, and challenge him, even when it does get you disapproval, because, frankly, the push and very interesting unique dialogue he has with goody-two-shoes PC’s he’s in love with can be fascinating and informative, even if it means running into some bumps here and there.

Remember that this is just some tips for people who find the prospect of keeping Astarion approval high on a good play through daunting or challenging. I know I see a lot of memes and such that make it appear that only evil and/or grey characters can really get into this romance when I’ve seen firsthand that it is just as cool and possible with even the goodest of beans, so I wanted to share. But it is not, IN ANY WAY, meant to be a guide on how one should romance him. There are multiple paths to romance that can be played differently to create very custom PC/Companion ship dynamics in this game, and I encourage you to explore whichever narratives will be the most fun or fulfilling to you personally.

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toshiiiart

1 year ago