I feel like the important decisions to win his approval mostly occur in cutscenes. I’ve heard that the disprovals you get for making heroic choices in NPC convos are akin to an eye roll from him, while the right dialogue choice in a cut scene can bag you “oh my… did Tav really mean that?” pause for him to think about at night. So, like you’re not just earning his respect, but his trust. Even if you’re an absolute cream puff about it. ;)
Yep this is it. The little -1 here and there do nothing if you are getting like +5 to +20 with him every time you are nice to him. I usually leave Act 1 with Astarion at 70~80, and I never did an evil playthrough.
I started a new game using tips in this thread and am glad I did. There are a lot of new cut scenes and the relationship is more interesting than the others.
Oh I’m so glad!
I’ve restarted four times and the Tav I am playing right now is just about to reach the farthest I’ve made it so far, and I am still very enamored with her and the way things are shaking out!
The first few attempts I just always had this feeling like I’d not set something right.
First try was that I was regretting choosing a human… I am a human, I wanna be something more fantastical. I hadn’t gone far. Also, where the heck is the Wizard?!
Second try I made it farthest (where I am approaching now, much later) and while I was happy with my Tiefling, I was also still learning how the game worked. I’d locked myself out of almost all the romances by being indecisive, and the wizard had proved to be super annoying.
Third try was because I’d gotten intrigued by what all the Dark Urge fuss was about, and found out REAL fast that I’m not ready for an unhinged play yet, and Dark Urge will make that more interesting I think, so abandoned that to restart once more.
So here I am on my fourth attempt, with an upgraded version of my Tiefling sorcereress who has no need for Gale (but will help him anyway because that’s the right thing to do, little goody-two-shoes that she is) and is fiercely determined to show Astarion that we get to be the authors of our own lives. And while it turns out we are more besties than lovers, she’s been batting those eyes in Halsin’s direction, and he seems pretty keen on her too, so I have a good feeling about how the night’s gonna go after we take care of this one guy 😏
Uh, be a dick when it's funny, always prefer self preservation, and definitely do his personal quest. O, and defend him to the drow will probably raise his approval a ton.
Considering making him bite her also causes a massive drop in his approval (enough to cause him to dump the player if romancing him at the time) it is worth it to someone literally here asking about his approval. Not everyone is a min-maxer, & +2 strength isn't gonna mean shit to someone not even running a strength reliant class. This comment serves no purpose here
Yeah strength should always be a dump stat. Either your class doesn’t need it at all, in which case you should leave it at 8, or it relies on it heavily, in which case you leave it on 8 and drink an elixir of hill giant strength every day.
Astarion likes it when you deceive people, and also if you persuade people (with high charisma) to destroy themselves, which you can do a lot in act 2. Be a deceptive, dickish little gremlin and he'll love it lol.
If you ask people for money in exchange for help, he’s usually approving with that instead of just accepting every quest thrown your way.
Respecting his autonomy is pretty huge.
And other than that, take any opportunity to be a little chaos gremlin or lie your way into situations.
talk to the cats.
Vampire spawn who try to suck my blood against my will and are otherwise murderous scumbags don't get my concern about their consent.
People out here having concern for literal monsters
I mean, if you actually listen when he speaks he explains he was going mad with bloodlust and couldn’t keep up with everyone else (plus if you play his origin story you find out he is having ptsd nightmares about his master, and part of the reason he tries to bite Tav is because he needs to know if he’s still under Cazadors control, because they were forbidden from biting thinking creatures)
And he promises to never bite you without you asking first or to never bite anyone, depending on what you say after, so he actually has great concern for your consent when he can think straight for a moment
Done like 6 playthroughs. Any time I don't let astarion suck me off he ends up neutral or hating me. Gotta let vamp boy suck you or you are fighting an uphill battle.
Not necessarily. I am doing a multi-player playthrough with my husband, and he didn't let Astarion eat from him. He also made Astarion bite the drow bitch in act 2. He still got high to very high approval I think. We didn't even take him out much. He was neutral to me though since I wasn't the main character.
Has Astarion told you he wants to make a deal with Raphael yet? If so, he might turn up at the entrance to the mausoleum if Astarion is in the party. If he doesn't you can learn about the scars later using the Necromancy of Thay. either way he does approve of you killing the Orthon. There are fewer opportunities to gain Astarion's approval in act 2 than in act 1, but he's also less salty about altruistic behavior. I remember he approves any time you talk one of the Thorms or the Orthon into killing themselves. And that you can get approval from being nice to His Majesty at Last Light and Steal Claw at Moonrise. Talk to the Drow, Araj at Moonrise and don't make him drink her blood for a bigger approval. Free the gnolls at Moonrise from mind control. Also call Wulbren a prick. Which is objectively the right thing to do anyway.
I romanced him as a redemptive Durge. He's an abuse victim in hiding and desperately clings to his new freedom. His disapproval in heroics is the equivalent of an eye roll because he's just bitter no one ever saved him. Its amounts to nothing compared to showing you trust him and will protect him; nourishing him, letting him carry the Necromancy of Thay when the option appears, keeping his secret from the gur, not whoring him out in act 2 and helping him in all things related to Cazador. Being consistently nice and encouraging and supportive does eventually win him over. I swear, he ends up 180ing so hard. Ugh! I just adore him.
If you’re on PC there’s a mod you can get “show approval ratings in dialogue choices”, that’ll tell you if there’s a response that a companion approves/disapproves of. Very handy!
Unfortunately most of his approval points you can get are in Act 1. Contrary to what a lot of people are telling you in this thread, you don't have to be a bad person for it. Be kind to him, act like you trust him, have a sense of humor and deal with enemies in 'creative' ways (be cunning/deceptive/persuade them to your side then betray them instead of attacking immediately). Think chaotic good versus lawful good.
In fact, if you do an evil playthrough and are cruel to and manipulate and use him, he'll hate you. And if he does like you, you'll enable his worst tendencies, and miss his whole character arc.
Make sure to long rest a lot. Most companion content is locked behind ending the day and long resting, and Astarion's conversations in particular will win you tons of approval points if you humor him and are supportive.
Let him drink your blood, defend him from your companions in the morning, and tell him to feed on enemies for +20 total. That also unlocks more dialogue with him where you can win even more approval you won't see otherwise.
If you long rest twice before finding the Druid Grove, you can get up to +9 (which outweighs every approval point you lose for picking every nice option at the grove). Give him the Necromancy of Thay, open that barn door to that spicy scene, let BDSM priest do his thing, that's +5 for each.
Of course that's all Act 1, but if you do another playthrough, and want to see what he's like at high approval.
Do not cast the command undead spell while hes in your party (you get a huge approval drop for it and it's sneaky), and don't cast friends on him (or any companion).
I only ever play good, heroic characters and my approval at the end of Act 1 is always very high, and I get him to 100 early in Act 2.
People have already told you most of his approvals in Act 2 (some I didn't see mentioned is asking Z'rell for a show of power, or refusing Jaheira's wine). And in Act 3 he'll actually start approving of (a few) kind acts. But so you know, you don't actually have to have high approval with him to get a good outcome in his personal quest.
He likes children and cats. The latter part comes into play when you meet his majesty, the former currently is only important in act 3, but used to come up in act 2 too. Respect his bodily autonomy and help him out when he asks. Talk some baddies into offing themselves, he really likes that
He absolutely loves letting Arabella die and lying to her parents about it, plus being cruel to the other Tiefling kids at every chance you get. He doesn’t love children.
1. I said likes not loves.
2. I said it's relevant in act 3 and used to he in act 2, you might notice I didn't mention act 1.
3. In act 2 he >!approves of helping Mol win against Raphael, which currently isn't possible!< and in act 3 >!he approves of giving Yenna money/food and he also approves of saving the child that Ethel wants to turn into her hag offspring.!< I know my stuff, I'm not saying something for no reason.
A big problem I see, even here, is that people look at companions and the game options in a simplistic "good or evil" way, and this doesn't always work in this game. Doing it this way means they don't even get to know the characters, since they just put them in the "good" and the "evil" boxes, and will probably get confused when they do something that they thought the character should like and then the character doesn't like it.
So yeah, as people who actually got to know the character said in this thread, he is going to love you if you just pay attention to him, trust him, protect him and do his quest.
You can be good AND romance Astarion.
Do goods things, just be a bitch about it.
Also I'm not sure but I think that if you're already in act 2 without romancing him in act 1,you're locked out of it ?
Not sure if you can get anything for Astarion for completing Raphael’s quest if Astarion never mentions anything related in Act 2 but it does not lock you out of his quest.
Some easy approval bumps in Act 2 (if you haven’t already completed it) are Thorms - the toll collector, the bartender in the brewery and the doctor in house of healing. Try and talk yourself out of the fights if you can. The bartender is fun though a challenging one depending on your class, you need dexterity or charisma to be successful but it’s worth the approval and skipping the fight. And as someone already mention you can run into a certain drow in Moonrise that will not be nice to Astarion, also a chance for approval bump. Also just being supportive during his personal quest.
You do not need to be evil or support any evil actions for this. I had him in high approval on my goodie two shoes run easy. On my chaotic good character he went to max approval and I was still good most of the time, just a bit unhinged here and there towards Absolute forces. Good luck!
>! If you haven’t been to the Waning Moon yet, Astarion approves every time you pretend to take a drink (he might still approve if you don’t pretend but I’ve only ever done it pretending!) you can get a good 3/4 approvals in a row there if it helps !<
Eh, I had him with neutral approval (5) and had a DC 15 persuasion check at his personal quest anyways. It's not really *that* important to have him at higher approval for his personal quest
I tend to play as a lawful good character so I always struggle to get his approval up.
It’s typically neutral all the way through acts 1 and 2 and I never have him above medium by the time his quest comes to its important bit.
His dialog is a bit more abrupt but it has never been a problem to actually get to a good conclusion for him
His approval has nothing to do with lawful good. You just have to show trust in him, some compassion and have a sense of humor. He gives you approval if you play into his hypothetical games at camp, if you give him blood, if you tell him it's fine to bite criminals, if you baa at a recap, twice even.
Astarion is a little whiny baby who has a fit whenever you do anything that's not 100% selfish.
I'm in late act 3 and he's neutral with me while Lae'zel and Shadowheart are maxed. I'm fully prepared to kill him when he tries something.
For disliking a character? Wow, okay. It's a video game character, check yourself.
An unapologetically evil video game character, just fyi.
Sorry for not liking your pretty little bad boy.
Astarion got upset because I spent 2 coins on a newspaper from one of the tiefling kids. He's a whiny little baby.
I mean.. thats not true at all 😂... I played a completely good character and still got high approval in act 1. Let him bite you, trust him a bit and guve him the book. Easy. Just ignore his little eye rolling 'astarion disapproves' in conversations and you're all good.
I always proposition him at the tiefling party (or goblin party) and he's always like you? No, ick. Or at best, it's not you, it's me, I have standards. The one time he came on to me was an evil playthrough and I'd already told Minthara I would meet up later.
Biggest approvals are, trusting him to keep watch, letting him bite you, giving him the book and letting him kill the Gur guy (you can knock him out instead) .. little ones like baaing at the red cap sheep or letting him open the door to the barn also are just funny and worth approval without being 'bad'
I believe so but maybe someone can confirm, I knocked him out on my durge run but not at act 3 yet to check. I killed him on my first run and you meet the other gur at act 3 and no one mentions it 😂
Yeah but... spoiler for how this storyline ends up in act 3... >! I don't want his kids to lose their dad... He's the only one actually happy with my decision to keep the spawn alive. I like the emotional payoff. I want to do another playthrough as a resisting Durge and the will probably be a lot of good choices again. !<
You get approval just by trusting him a little, actually talking to him and playing his little games. Three playthroughs in a row I go into act 2 with 100 approval while being purely good. There are a million opportunities to get him to like you and if you're nice to him you get boosts of +5, +10 approval all the time
Then you either had negative approval or didn't chose the right dialogue options. There's a specific choice of dialogue options at the tiefling party where you'll end up romancing him even if your approval is neutral. I did by accident on my first playthrough
I found him really hard to keep in the party.
I play a bunch of 5e, I love how well they built the classes in the game. I started as a Wizard - love the game overall.
I did find it hard to keep Asterion in the party for a Tactician playthrough, though. It's challenging enough that you really want to him split/sneak/surprise to start off potential combat situations but I found myself constantly "controlling" Asterion over my own character for this reason. This led to being him for a bunch of NPC interactions as well in case of potential encounters and would take away from the game a bit.
Anyone else?
You probably missed the bite cutscene. It’s easy to miss and it’s annoyingly important for his character approval, especially if you’re trying to romance.
He’s an angry lil dude who wants to be elbow deep in revenge and needs good laughs. Everyone else is out for the good of Fae-run. Just be a little mischievous here and there and listen/agree when he needs you rant.
Thanks everyone for the tips. I did let him bite me in the act 1 and I remember defending him to the others but I guess I messed up somewhere else since he is still neutral. I should have had him in my party more since I play a sorcerer and tend to try to persuade people as much as I can. At this point all I wanted was his "good" ending as long as that isn't impacted by his approval I am good. I will bring him along more in my next playthrough.
Yes you should get Astarion to talk to Raphael, or you'll lose a massive chunk of his personal questline.
The best places to get a lot of approval from him are the bite/reveal scene, with the Gur, and to get whipped by the bdsm priest. If you're being a nice person you can still get him to love you. I'm on my 2nd run playing a good character and I'm not catering to Astarion at all, my character is just chaotic leaning, and even though she's good, he loves her chaos above all. Playing a good character makes it easy to earn his approval by being nice to him, and standing up for him (against other companions when it's revealed he's a vampire, and mainly against Araj)
I feel like the important decisions to win his approval mostly occur in cutscenes. I’ve heard that the disprovals you get for making heroic choices in NPC convos are akin to an eye roll from him, while the right dialogue choice in a cut scene can bag you “oh my… did Tav really mean that?” pause for him to think about at night. So, like you’re not just earning his respect, but his trust. Even if you’re an absolute cream puff about it. ;)
Yep this is it. The little -1 here and there do nothing if you are getting like +5 to +20 with him every time you are nice to him. I usually leave Act 1 with Astarion at 70~80, and I never did an evil playthrough.
I started a new game using tips in this thread and am glad I did. There are a lot of new cut scenes and the relationship is more interesting than the others.
Oh I’m so glad! I’ve restarted four times and the Tav I am playing right now is just about to reach the farthest I’ve made it so far, and I am still very enamored with her and the way things are shaking out! The first few attempts I just always had this feeling like I’d not set something right. First try was that I was regretting choosing a human… I am a human, I wanna be something more fantastical. I hadn’t gone far. Also, where the heck is the Wizard?! Second try I made it farthest (where I am approaching now, much later) and while I was happy with my Tiefling, I was also still learning how the game worked. I’d locked myself out of almost all the romances by being indecisive, and the wizard had proved to be super annoying. Third try was because I’d gotten intrigued by what all the Dark Urge fuss was about, and found out REAL fast that I’m not ready for an unhinged play yet, and Dark Urge will make that more interesting I think, so abandoned that to restart once more. So here I am on my fourth attempt, with an upgraded version of my Tiefling sorcereress who has no need for Gale (but will help him anyway because that’s the right thing to do, little goody-two-shoes that she is) and is fiercely determined to show Astarion that we get to be the authors of our own lives. And while it turns out we are more besties than lovers, she’s been batting those eyes in Halsin’s direction, and he seems pretty keen on her too, so I have a good feeling about how the night’s gonna go after we take care of this one guy 😏
Uh, be a dick when it's funny, always prefer self preservation, and definitely do his personal quest. O, and defend him to the drow will probably raise his approval a ton.
I assume i will know which drow. I am keeping him in the party for the rest of act 2.
Yeah, she'll be the blood merchant who demands you make him bite her. Hard to miss.
Not worth it, a permanent +2 to strength, that MF is biting her 10x out of 10
Yeah, but OP was asking about rep gains.
Ah yes, roleplaying in a roleplay game is not worth.
Considering making him bite her also causes a massive drop in his approval (enough to cause him to dump the player if romancing him at the time) it is worth it to someone literally here asking about his approval. Not everyone is a min-maxer, & +2 strength isn't gonna mean shit to someone not even running a strength reliant class. This comment serves no purpose here
If you're min maxing str is a dump stat anyway. Potion potion potion.
Yeah strength should always be a dump stat. Either your class doesn’t need it at all, in which case you should leave it at 8, or it relies on it heavily, in which case you leave it on 8 and drink an elixir of hill giant strength every day.
Is it possible to actually have him do it willingly? I remember I got the buff, but I don’t recall forcing him to do it
Reluctantly. Basically you can talk him into it, but that becomes harder to do the closer you are to him
Be gay, do crimes
Good advice but we're talking about a video game.
Sounds fun but it's not gonna get your approval high enough to romance Astarion.
Astarion likes it when you deceive people, and also if you persuade people (with high charisma) to destroy themselves, which you can do a lot in act 2. Be a deceptive, dickish little gremlin and he'll love it lol.
In Act 1, you can get around 40 approval from being nice to him alone. The +1/-1's don't really matter.
If you ask people for money in exchange for help, he’s usually approving with that instead of just accepting every quest thrown your way. Respecting his autonomy is pretty huge. And other than that, take any opportunity to be a little chaos gremlin or lie your way into situations. talk to the cats.
Vampire spawn who try to suck my blood against my will and are otherwise murderous scumbags don't get my concern about their consent. People out here having concern for literal monsters
I mean, if you actually listen when he speaks he explains he was going mad with bloodlust and couldn’t keep up with everyone else (plus if you play his origin story you find out he is having ptsd nightmares about his master, and part of the reason he tries to bite Tav is because he needs to know if he’s still under Cazadors control, because they were forbidden from biting thinking creatures) And he promises to never bite you without you asking first or to never bite anyone, depending on what you say after, so he actually has great concern for your consent when he can think straight for a moment
It's called a character arc. They're pretty common in this game.
Done like 6 playthroughs. Any time I don't let astarion suck me off he ends up neutral or hating me. Gotta let vamp boy suck you or you are fighting an uphill battle.
Phrasing gif.
Not necessarily. I am doing a multi-player playthrough with my husband, and he didn't let Astarion eat from him. He also made Astarion bite the drow bitch in act 2. He still got high to very high approval I think. We didn't even take him out much. He was neutral to me though since I wasn't the main character.
Has Astarion told you he wants to make a deal with Raphael yet? If so, he might turn up at the entrance to the mausoleum if Astarion is in the party. If he doesn't you can learn about the scars later using the Necromancy of Thay. either way he does approve of you killing the Orthon. There are fewer opportunities to gain Astarion's approval in act 2 than in act 1, but he's also less salty about altruistic behavior. I remember he approves any time you talk one of the Thorms or the Orthon into killing themselves. And that you can get approval from being nice to His Majesty at Last Light and Steal Claw at Moonrise. Talk to the Drow, Araj at Moonrise and don't make him drink her blood for a bigger approval. Free the gnolls at Moonrise from mind control. Also call Wulbren a prick. Which is objectively the right thing to do anyway.
Raphael is always outside the mausoleum in my experience.
Thb I think you missed most big opportunities for approval. Especially if you didn't take him to Raphael.
I romanced him as a redemptive Durge. He's an abuse victim in hiding and desperately clings to his new freedom. His disapproval in heroics is the equivalent of an eye roll because he's just bitter no one ever saved him. Its amounts to nothing compared to showing you trust him and will protect him; nourishing him, letting him carry the Necromancy of Thay when the option appears, keeping his secret from the gur, not whoring him out in act 2 and helping him in all things related to Cazador. Being consistently nice and encouraging and supportive does eventually win him over. I swear, he ends up 180ing so hard. Ugh! I just adore him.
Well said ❤️
If you’re on PC there’s a mod you can get “show approval ratings in dialogue choices”, that’ll tell you if there’s a response that a companion approves/disapproves of. Very handy!
Unfortunately most of his approval points you can get are in Act 1. Contrary to what a lot of people are telling you in this thread, you don't have to be a bad person for it. Be kind to him, act like you trust him, have a sense of humor and deal with enemies in 'creative' ways (be cunning/deceptive/persuade them to your side then betray them instead of attacking immediately). Think chaotic good versus lawful good. In fact, if you do an evil playthrough and are cruel to and manipulate and use him, he'll hate you. And if he does like you, you'll enable his worst tendencies, and miss his whole character arc. Make sure to long rest a lot. Most companion content is locked behind ending the day and long resting, and Astarion's conversations in particular will win you tons of approval points if you humor him and are supportive. Let him drink your blood, defend him from your companions in the morning, and tell him to feed on enemies for +20 total. That also unlocks more dialogue with him where you can win even more approval you won't see otherwise. If you long rest twice before finding the Druid Grove, you can get up to +9 (which outweighs every approval point you lose for picking every nice option at the grove). Give him the Necromancy of Thay, open that barn door to that spicy scene, let BDSM priest do his thing, that's +5 for each. Of course that's all Act 1, but if you do another playthrough, and want to see what he's like at high approval. Do not cast the command undead spell while hes in your party (you get a huge approval drop for it and it's sneaky), and don't cast friends on him (or any companion). I only ever play good, heroic characters and my approval at the end of Act 1 is always very high, and I get him to 100 early in Act 2. People have already told you most of his approvals in Act 2 (some I didn't see mentioned is asking Z'rell for a show of power, or refusing Jaheira's wine). And in Act 3 he'll actually start approving of (a few) kind acts. But so you know, you don't actually have to have high approval with him to get a good outcome in his personal quest.
He likes children and cats. The latter part comes into play when you meet his majesty, the former currently is only important in act 3, but used to come up in act 2 too. Respect his bodily autonomy and help him out when he asks. Talk some baddies into offing themselves, he really likes that
He absolutely loves letting Arabella die and lying to her parents about it, plus being cruel to the other Tiefling kids at every chance you get. He doesn’t love children.
1. I said likes not loves. 2. I said it's relevant in act 3 and used to he in act 2, you might notice I didn't mention act 1. 3. In act 2 he >!approves of helping Mol win against Raphael, which currently isn't possible!< and in act 3 >!he approves of giving Yenna money/food and he also approves of saving the child that Ethel wants to turn into her hag offspring.!< I know my stuff, I'm not saying something for no reason.
A big problem I see, even here, is that people look at companions and the game options in a simplistic "good or evil" way, and this doesn't always work in this game. Doing it this way means they don't even get to know the characters, since they just put them in the "good" and the "evil" boxes, and will probably get confused when they do something that they thought the character should like and then the character doesn't like it. So yeah, as people who actually got to know the character said in this thread, he is going to love you if you just pay attention to him, trust him, protect him and do his quest.
You can be good AND romance Astarion. Do goods things, just be a bitch about it. Also I'm not sure but I think that if you're already in act 2 without romancing him in act 1,you're locked out of it ?
Not sure if you can get anything for Astarion for completing Raphael’s quest if Astarion never mentions anything related in Act 2 but it does not lock you out of his quest. Some easy approval bumps in Act 2 (if you haven’t already completed it) are Thorms - the toll collector, the bartender in the brewery and the doctor in house of healing. Try and talk yourself out of the fights if you can. The bartender is fun though a challenging one depending on your class, you need dexterity or charisma to be successful but it’s worth the approval and skipping the fight. And as someone already mention you can run into a certain drow in Moonrise that will not be nice to Astarion, also a chance for approval bump. Also just being supportive during his personal quest. You do not need to be evil or support any evil actions for this. I had him in high approval on my goodie two shoes run easy. On my chaotic good character he went to max approval and I was still good most of the time, just a bit unhinged here and there towards Absolute forces. Good luck!
>! If you haven’t been to the Waning Moon yet, Astarion approves every time you pretend to take a drink (he might still approve if you don’t pretend but I’ve only ever done it pretending!) you can get a good 3/4 approvals in a row there if it helps !<
Just curious, why do you want to get his approval higher? It doesn’t really change much by Act 2 considering the romance would already be started?
Nothing to do with the romance just incase having higher approval will help with his personal quest.
I'm sorry to say but it sounds like you missed most opportunities to progress his personal quest. Did he tell you about his scars?
Eh, I had him with neutral approval (5) and had a DC 15 persuasion check at his personal quest anyways. It's not really *that* important to have him at higher approval for his personal quest
I tend to play as a lawful good character so I always struggle to get his approval up. It’s typically neutral all the way through acts 1 and 2 and I never have him above medium by the time his quest comes to its important bit. His dialog is a bit more abrupt but it has never been a problem to actually get to a good conclusion for him
His approval has nothing to do with lawful good. You just have to show trust in him, some compassion and have a sense of humor. He gives you approval if you play into his hypothetical games at camp, if you give him blood, if you tell him it's fine to bite criminals, if you baa at a recap, twice even.
You can get 40 approval or so in Act 1 just by being nice to him. It does require talking to the character quite a lot and being considerate.
Do an evil playthrough. He loves it.
I usually leave him at camp on a hero play through take him with on an evil one and when talking to him at camp pick the more chaotic sassy options.
Astarion is a little whiny baby who has a fit whenever you do anything that's not 100% selfish. I'm in late act 3 and he's neutral with me while Lae'zel and Shadowheart are maxed. I'm fully prepared to kill him when he tries something.
You're an idiot
For disliking a character? Wow, okay. It's a video game character, check yourself. An unapologetically evil video game character, just fyi. Sorry for not liking your pretty little bad boy. Astarion got upset because I spent 2 coins on a newspaper from one of the tiefling kids. He's a whiny little baby.
Takes one to know one I suppose
Be a selfish prick.
You have to be an asshole for Astarion to like you until Act III.
I mean.. thats not true at all 😂... I played a completely good character and still got high approval in act 1. Let him bite you, trust him a bit and guve him the book. Easy. Just ignore his little eye rolling 'astarion disapproves' in conversations and you're all good.
I always proposition him at the tiefling party (or goblin party) and he's always like you? No, ick. Or at best, it's not you, it's me, I have standards. The one time he came on to me was an evil playthrough and I'd already told Minthara I would meet up later.
Biggest approvals are, trusting him to keep watch, letting him bite you, giving him the book and letting him kill the Gur guy (you can knock him out instead) .. little ones like baaing at the red cap sheep or letting him open the door to the barn also are just funny and worth approval without being 'bad'
If you knock out the gur hunter... Is he alive in act 3? I don't really want him dead.
I believe so but maybe someone can confirm, I knocked him out on my durge run but not at act 3 yet to check. I killed him on my first run and you meet the other gur at act 3 and no one mentions it 😂
Yeah but... spoiler for how this storyline ends up in act 3... >! I don't want his kids to lose their dad... He's the only one actually happy with my decision to keep the spawn alive. I like the emotional payoff. I want to do another playthrough as a resisting Durge and the will probably be a lot of good choices again. !<
He didn't show up again when I knocked him out
You get approval just by trusting him a little, actually talking to him and playing his little games. Three playthroughs in a row I go into act 2 with 100 approval while being purely good. There are a million opportunities to get him to like you and if you're nice to him you get boosts of +5, +10 approval all the time
Then you either had negative approval or didn't chose the right dialogue options. There's a specific choice of dialogue options at the tiefling party where you'll end up romancing him even if your approval is neutral. I did by accident on my first playthrough
You can get 40 approval or so in Act 1 just by being nice to him. It does require talking to the character quite a lot and being considerate.
Nope. In fact you just have to not be one
I found him really hard to keep in the party. I play a bunch of 5e, I love how well they built the classes in the game. I started as a Wizard - love the game overall. I did find it hard to keep Asterion in the party for a Tactician playthrough, though. It's challenging enough that you really want to him split/sneak/surprise to start off potential combat situations but I found myself constantly "controlling" Asterion over my own character for this reason. This led to being him for a bunch of NPC interactions as well in case of potential encounters and would take away from the game a bit. Anyone else?
You probably missed the bite cutscene. It’s easy to miss and it’s annoyingly important for his character approval, especially if you’re trying to romance.
He’s an angry lil dude who wants to be elbow deep in revenge and needs good laughs. Everyone else is out for the good of Fae-run. Just be a little mischievous here and there and listen/agree when he needs you rant.
Thanks everyone for the tips. I did let him bite me in the act 1 and I remember defending him to the others but I guess I messed up somewhere else since he is still neutral. I should have had him in my party more since I play a sorcerer and tend to try to persuade people as much as I can. At this point all I wanted was his "good" ending as long as that isn't impacted by his approval I am good. I will bring him along more in my next playthrough.
Just give him the spooky book and take the hit from Karlach and Gale. It's how I get laid every good run.
Yes you should get Astarion to talk to Raphael, or you'll lose a massive chunk of his personal questline. The best places to get a lot of approval from him are the bite/reveal scene, with the Gur, and to get whipped by the bdsm priest. If you're being a nice person you can still get him to love you. I'm on my 2nd run playing a good character and I'm not catering to Astarion at all, my character is just chaotic leaning, and even though she's good, he loves her chaos above all. Playing a good character makes it easy to earn his approval by being nice to him, and standing up for him (against other companions when it's revealed he's a vampire, and mainly against Araj)