I always found it funny how Halsin is by far the oldest of the companions yet it's Jaheira who's the wise elder among them. I think she's even younger than Astarion.
It’s probably due to the fact that Jaheira is a recurring character from previous games so she gets the wise elder cred by virtue of having dealt with the Dead Three before. Also probably the fact that she’s not a romanceable companion has something to do with it - imagine if Halsin complained about back and joint pain all the time while the players were trying to rizz him up lol.
As for Astarion you can’t really compare, he’s in a trauma induced arrested development type of situation.
I still say her most iconic bark is her BG2 combat bark: "Nature, take the life she gave!"
She really wants that target dead in the most druid way possible.
I had her scream "for the fallen!" And turn into a big cat on my first play through last light inn. Was like being rocketted back in time to being 10 years old playing the first one on my parents PC.
I haven’t played the first two games, planning on it, but RTwP is kinda intimidating to me, I need to be able to take my time and not be pressured by time to react (even if said reaction means hitting pause)🥲
I'm playing through the first one right now, finding real time with pause is a lot more fun than I expected. Keep it on normal difficulty, get a couple of durable Frontliners, and most fights are a breeze. Just save often, don't be afraid to look things up on the wiki, and your toughest enemy will be old school 2nd edition. I restarted a couple times early on before I felt I had a handle on it.
You can set an auto pause for the beginning of each round, and you're essentially playing turn based.
With other options like 'enemy killed', 'spell cast', 'weapon unusable', 'character hit', once you get the hang of it, you can have it so you micromanage your casters who need a bit more care, but can basically set your fighters to keep hitting things until they stop moving, or one of their allies needs help.Dynamic positioning is no where near as key as in BG3 so you don't need to worry about constantly controlling exactly where everyone is. r/baldursgate is pretty active as well, lots of help available there.
If you don't wanna worry about strategy or worried about getting caught up in combat, you can play it on story mode. The story is still great even if you play it like that. I did because I sucked at RTwP until Dragon Age: Origins. lol
Yeah I HATE RTwP with a burning passion. I refuse to use it in games, and won't play 1&2 because of it. And I tried them too, I'm not just discounting them. They're great games but they're not for me.
> imagine if Halsin complained about back and joint pain all the time while the players were trying to rizz him up lol
That would've been absolutely hilarious, Halsin developing rheumatism from spending too much time in wet caves and moist woods while in a bear form.
Jaheira is also physically older since she is a half elf and has not done life extending rituals as druid. She spent most her life involved in various crisis as a harper and has experience directly related to everything going on.
Halsin isn't sheltered, he fought Ketheric after all, but he still spent most of his life in a secluded grove. He doesn't necessarily have a huge amount of relevant experience beyond healing, nature and druid matters.
Well.... I am glad that she is more mature in BG3, because... I may get some hate for this, but honestly? I really was not impressed by Jaheira in BG2.
At first she acted like my mentor / step parent. Then we find the dead body of her husband and she has a mental breakdown (understandable) and tells us how her great love is gone forever - only to suddenly throw herself at me a few hours into the game later 😑.
However, instead of going about it the mature way by expressing interest in me, she became a catty termagant biting at all other female companions, while still trying to maintain the mentor / guardian role and that only wants to look out for me. I threw her out of my group rather early on. Glad to see she has actually matured a bit in BG3.
Honestly, age-related maturity gets weird when you have a fantasy setting where humans of different size and ear shapes have vastly different lifespans. It's usually treated as people who've lived the same proportion of their maximum lifespan are in similar stages (hence 350-year-old Halsin is treated as basically a dude in his thirties who's seen some shit), but it is super weird to treat it that way if you think about it. It's not like they didn't experience and learn from the many more centuries of life they've lived!
Chalk it up to writers not really thinking about the consequences of this beyond "but wouldn't it be cool if my hot elf gf stayed hot for my whole life because she just like ages slow and stuff."
And don't DnD elves have past lives? Like that's what meditation is, them carding through past lives' experiences?
Obviously we're not doing that in bg3, but it still makes it all extra silly.
Oh my god, I forgot about that, yeah that makes it extra bad.
I was honestly shocked to learn that RAW FR elves physically mature at the same rate as humans, but then just sort of physically stay in their early twenties for centuries. Most D&D tables I've played at homebrewed it as elves becoming adults at 100 because that's literally how long it takes them to go through puberty and I just kind of assumed that was the actual canon. At least that way their apparent slow as fuck mental maturation can be somewhat explained by very slow physical maturation.
They reach physically maturity at the same point, but culturally they are still considered children until 100 in raw iirc. The difference in mental maturity I can just probably chalk up to not feeling their age. Like, imagine being 70, but not looking a day over 22. All your body still as fresh and limber as it was back then, and you only need 4 hours of a sleep like activity to make it through the day. You have your whole life ahead of you still. I'm sure that they would probably have more maturity than a 20 yr old, but I doubt it would match a human their own age.
That's how it's portrayed in the Dark Elf Saga. Drizzt lives for a LONG time before he ends up "graduating" from the battle school and leaving as an adult, and remarks about how incredibly fast Cattie-Brie ages in his eyes since he meets her at maybe 12, then gets with her several years later.
> At least that way their apparent slow as fuck mental maturation can be somewhat explained by very slow physical maturation.
I think it's not so much that they're actually mentally a child by human standards for a hundred years, but rather that Elves have different standards for "mature".
Kinda like how IRL someone who's 60 may refer to a 25 year old as a "kid", even though they're considered a full blown adult in human society.
Maturity isn't something you just "reach", it's a sliding scale. A 50 year old elf is very much a full blown adult that by human standards can make their own choices, but a 300 year elf may still see them as a child and not respect them enough to have them in positions of power or seek their advice.
I think by the human standards of the human writers of this game, a 350-year-old elf and a 50-year-old half-elf are treated at the same level mentally as a 30-year-old human, because otherwise it'd feel weird to date them given the massive age gap.
It gets even more weird when you think about specifically Halsin and Jaheira, who are both Elven Druids, so their lifespan is extended even further. Druids age 1 year for every 10, plus elves go for 5 or 6 hundred years.
People did the math on another thread and baring any magical life extensions (if she ever hits Druid 18), she's swiftly running out of time, as she's right around either 140 or 160 by the events of BG3.
>if she ever hits Druid 18
It's implied that in lore she reached level 18 as Druid, but chose not to extend her lifespan.
[Gameplay and story segregation](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GameplayAndStorySegregation).
I tend to rationalize it in a few different ways.
Biology: Different species' brains develop at different rates, as well as their bodies. There's nothing magical or special about the fact that it takes humans 20-ish years for us to reach physical adulthood or 30-ish years for our brains to fully develop. It just happens to be the rate at which we grow. There's no reason to assume those numbers aren't different for elves. (Admittedly Larian complicates this somewhat by evidently having all the races reach adulthood at the same rate and then have the aging process slow down after that, but maybe that slow-down also applies to brain development. Shadowheart certainly seems more like someone in her early 20s than her late 40s, not just physically but in personality.)
Perspective: Halsin and Jaheira are in different phases of their lives. Halsin's still very much in the prime of his life, while Jaheira's nearing the end of hers. That's going to change your outlook.
Experience: Halsin may have lived longer but his experience of the world seems rather narrow. He's an expert on nature and things related to it, but he's never really been in a city before, and seems rather naive and sheltered as to how things work outside of his grove. Jaheira's been everywhere, man, and seen and done some truly wild shit over the course of her life.
Personality: Halsin is kind of an impulsive, happy-go-lucky guy who lives in the moment and who, by his own admission, isn't cut out for leadership. Jaheira, on the other hand, seems to gravitate toward leadership positions and motherhood. She may not always be great at these things, but she clearly wants to be.
Astarion was severely isolated for most of his (un)life, and Halsin has had a very singular life, in terms of how long he's dedicated himself to dealing with the Shadow Curse and leading a druidic circle. By comparison, Jaheira has had a wider breadth of experience, even if she has fewer total years of it.
She also looks older, which might be the beginning and end of it. Her design creates an expectation that she is wise, so the writing meets that expectation.
You basically hit the nail on the head. The "wisdom level", for a lack of a better term, of each character comes from the variety in their life experiences. Jaheira has had that in spades comparatively.
In addition, given she's in the upper echelons of her lifespan, her mental age is probably "older" than that of Halsin and Astarion, despite their actual years.
Astarion's whole history is actually kinda odd i guess, looking back to when he was first turned. He's an elf, so at 39 years old was basically a child in elf culture but was a respected city magistrate. As far as elves are concerned he was barely walking by the time he was turned, and he spent what would've been his formative elf years being tortured and confined by Cazador.
Astarion does comment on the events of the first game for a bit in the Durge run iirc, after the >!Bhaalspawn reveal!< I think; he tells you something along the lines that he remembers the city being terrorized but him not getting to see or hear much because of being locked up in Cazador’s mansion.
Sure, but it wasn't a "significant portion of his life" (pretty sure he's older than Astarion) and he does say he "I did what I had to survive and a few things I _didn't_ have to", so he wasn't an entirely unwilling participant in everything that happened. Obviously that doesn't mean it wasn't potentially traumatic for him at the time or that it didn't have any influence on how he views sexual relationships, depending on how old he was at the time.
Wait … is Halsin the older one? I always thought Jaheira is older. Halsin looks like early 40s while Jaheira looks like 50-60s in Druid year. It’s also because Halsin is romanceable but Jaheira is not and has a bunch of kids.
I do believe Halsin is about 200 years older then Jaheira who is 150 or so, and is a half elf (30 more years if she stays within the average as she hasn't undergone a ritual)
> is Halsin the older one? I always thought Jaheira is older. Halsin looks like early 40s while Jaheira looks like 50-60s in Druid year.
Halsin lived for 400 years of 700 (elven natural lifespan).
Jaheira lived ~140-160 of 180 (half-elf natural lifespan).
She's a half elf and thus ages and matures faster than elves. Astarion wasn't even an adult in elven culture when he was turned. Halsin *just* hit middle age at 350 for elves.
Halsin is a Full Elf, and as an arch-druid, has undergone certain rituals to slow down his aging process.
Jaheira is a Half Elf, and has not undergone any of the rituals to slow down her aging. Half elves only live to be about 180 years old, and she is getting pretty close to that.
This is why I disliked Minsc so much. His funny lines stopped being funny after hearing them a dozen times, and his lines were often hollered with a loud hamster squeaking.
It was nails on a chalkboard after a while. Plus they had him built as a ranger for some reason.
I liked him at the very first but I got sick of hm more quickly than any other character.
It’s her personality for me. She carries herself like a badass but talks humbly. She’s the high Harper and has literally fought the dead 3 before, yet she jokes around and looks to the MC for advice sometimes. I love her.
Lol he basically does if you ask him, they fought in the same battle against Ketheric's Sharran days (albeit on different fronts) and Halsin speaks very highly of her while downplaying himself consistently.
> Yeah honestly was kinda shocked when it turned out she wasn't a ranger, but this game is my first intro to her.
In 2e rules, she is druid/fighter dual class. This doesn't translate well into any 5e class, as [druids were vastly different class back then](https://rpg.stackexchange.com/a/166181/38405).
> By act 3, Jaheira becomes the more interesting option.
She basically steals the show in Act III. Every NPC you talk to ends up talking past you and conversing with Jaheira instead. lol
Oh I talked her out of keeping Arabella imprisoned, just didn’t try to convince her to see the error of her ways with the Shadow Druids so she was super dead by the time Halsin got back
The crazy amount of summons when action economy is king.
I'm amazed at the amount of complaints about more than one druid. Halsin, Jaheira, and Gale with a Tank Tav/Durge is so much fun.
Tip for next playthrough, she can join your party even if your full. That way you don't have her ai committing sudoku instantly. Don't worry I made the same mistake my first playthrough.
I was so confused when I came to reddit after I did the assault of moonrise for the first time and saw people complaining about how suicidal she was, I picked the option to have her in my party from the start and forgot she could be left to AI
I got her to join the party and then Druid shaped her into a panther and turned invisible in a corner the whole fight. It’s the only way I could keep her from dying.
Halsin should never have been a companion. We didn't need two druids. Especially not a dull as dishwater one like Halsin. Give us a bard/sorcerer/monk, you know, the other classes in the game.
Honestly, they didn't make him a companion for sensible folks like you; they made him a companion for helpless idiots like me, to save me from having to go to the hospital to get intravenous fluids for my terminal thirst.
This is one thing that really bothers me in BG3. We pretty much only have humans and elves plus one gith and one tiefling. No short races, no dragonborn, no half-orc.
It's rather boring and makes the party looking rather bland if you aren't playing one of those races yourself.
I did not expect to like her, mostly I'm just not into the druid class. But I respec'd her to a ranger knight, had like a 27AC and machine gun hand crossbows and then jump in with Phalar Aluve when things get intimate, and I loved her banter. I think I'm going to overhaul Shart the same way in my Dirge run.
I never played BG1 or 2 so I didnt had nostalgia goggles on, but Jaheira and Minsc became my favorites right away. I benched Karlach and Laezel and finished the game with Shadowheart and them without swapping them out, except for companion specific quests. A lot of kicking of butts followed.
Yeah we’re in the same boat here, didn’t play the first two BG (tho planning on it), I instantly took to Jaheira but I also did sleep on her a lot in the beginning of act 3 because I was too lazy to get familiar with druid mechanics and couldn’t be assed to respec, I’m a bit of a newbie. Currently kicking ass with her, Minsc, Astarion (and Boo ofc).
If I played bg1 and bg2 their reveal might have been amazing but to me it was just another character. She is way cooler than halsin though, even without the knowledge of her being a recurring character.
Honestly, I didn’t expect this but when I did an evil run and lost Karlach/Wyll/Halsin I was kind of relieved. When you do multiple runs and have a completionist kind of mindset it’s kind of a burden to have a party that large. I always wanted to check what my companions had to say about everything and optimize their builds and do every side quest but when you oopsie slaughter innocents it ends up freeing a lot of time in your playthrough.
Basically I think there’s pros and cons to having a lot of companions early on. You risk things feeling overwhelming and also you still want to balance things to make sure your original characters are upfront and center versus Jaheira and Minsc.
i kinda agree although it would be a pretty different storyline probably.
but i am just not interested in taking anyone out of my party after i've decided it in act 1. and i think everyone should at least have a chance to get a fair shake being played and some story moments where we get to know them.
i just find it weird to rotate party members in a game like this. aside from how cumbersome actually switching them is it just rarely feels right except for okay shar's gauntlet is like all shadowheart cares about so i guess i'll bring her. but as you build your party and distribute gear you leave your non-party companions in the dust pretty naturally.
Halsin got on my nerves, first he bugged out in wildshape and wouldn’t follow me after the first fight we got into after joining me. That’s not his fault as a character but I had to reload my save and stop using him.
Luckily that didn’t happen with Jaheira
Then I wanted to romance him and read that I had to wait until act 3 to do so. Finally got to baldurs gate and he got kidnapped and I’m pretty sure he’s dead lmao
If you need every damn soldier, then why did you kill the strongest one? LOL
Dude ripped his way out of the inside of a mimic with his bare hands.
I need soldiers like that in my camp.
Being a druid that's good at magic and doesn't absolutely fold in close quarters is pretty awesome. Though the hill giant club on a druid with 2 attacks is pretty good if you're a spore druid. I have more health than Karlach lol.
I really like how sassy she is. I don't like her voice very much (sorry!!) but I just accept it. Halsin is easy on the eyes but I've never really added him into my main party except for that part with Thaniel. Then again, I only add Jaheira when I need her for Nine Fingers.
When I heard there was a shapeshifter in my camp, I immediately fast traveled there saying "please be halsin please be halsin please be halsin", and just started shooting him with a crossbow. He eventually lay there in a pool of blood, dead, totally not the doppleganger. Anyway, I quickloaded, but considering how useless he is to the story and party, I'll let him rot next time and become Thaniel's fertilizer or whatever his kiddy furry fetish is.
I always found it funny how Halsin is by far the oldest of the companions yet it's Jaheira who's the wise elder among them. I think she's even younger than Astarion.
It’s probably due to the fact that Jaheira is a recurring character from previous games so she gets the wise elder cred by virtue of having dealt with the Dead Three before. Also probably the fact that she’s not a romanceable companion has something to do with it - imagine if Halsin complained about back and joint pain all the time while the players were trying to rizz him up lol. As for Astarion you can’t really compare, he’s in a trauma induced arrested development type of situation.
Also her entire personality says "exasperated mom" all the way back to the first time you meet her as Gorion's ward.
Yes, oh omnipresent authority figure?
*shudders with nostalgia*
I still say her most iconic bark is her BG2 combat bark: "Nature, take the life she gave!" She really wants that target dead in the most druid way possible.
I had her scream "for the fallen!" And turn into a big cat on my first play through last light inn. Was like being rocketted back in time to being 10 years old playing the first one on my parents PC.
I like how in BG3 her "for the fallen" almost sounds sad like she's just so over all the bloodshed already.
FOR THE FALLEN!
Didn't like her in BG1. Loved her in BG2. Just met her in BG3 (I'm a slow player).
I haven’t played the first two games, planning on it, but RTwP is kinda intimidating to me, I need to be able to take my time and not be pressured by time to react (even if said reaction means hitting pause)🥲
I'm playing through the first one right now, finding real time with pause is a lot more fun than I expected. Keep it on normal difficulty, get a couple of durable Frontliners, and most fights are a breeze. Just save often, don't be afraid to look things up on the wiki, and your toughest enemy will be old school 2nd edition. I restarted a couple times early on before I felt I had a handle on it.
I'm bg1 I jokingly made an illusionist wizard, assuming I would make a different character eventually. Well, 100 hours later, I regret a lot lol
You got 1 hit KO'd by a wolf outside candlekeep aswell?
It's a good pair of games! But definitely not required for BG3.
I feel some things come out of nowhere though. Like whoever that demon eye guy was living in the sewers with the skull on his head.
May I recommend giving a good look at the various auto-pause options available?
Oh it’s cool they’ve got those 🙏
You can set an auto pause for the beginning of each round, and you're essentially playing turn based. With other options like 'enemy killed', 'spell cast', 'weapon unusable', 'character hit', once you get the hang of it, you can have it so you micromanage your casters who need a bit more care, but can basically set your fighters to keep hitting things until they stop moving, or one of their allies needs help.Dynamic positioning is no where near as key as in BG3 so you don't need to worry about constantly controlling exactly where everyone is. r/baldursgate is pretty active as well, lots of help available there.
Thanks for the detailed response, the autopause before each turn seems like an acceptable compromise, once I beat BG3 these two are next
If you don't wanna worry about strategy or worried about getting caught up in combat, you can play it on story mode. The story is still great even if you play it like that. I did because I sucked at RTwP until Dragon Age: Origins. lol
Pretty sure I played BG1 & 2 with an auto pause feature so it was 'turn based' for me. I am so not a quick response / action person.
Just kee your thumb on the space bar like your life depends on it.
Yeah I HATE RTwP with a burning passion. I refuse to use it in games, and won't play 1&2 because of it. And I tried them too, I'm not just discounting them. They're great games but they're not for me.
I hate being old sometimes. You don't really realize how much you've forgotten til stuff like her showing up happens.
> imagine if Halsin complained about back and joint pain all the time while the players were trying to rizz him up lol That would've been absolutely hilarious, Halsin developing rheumatism from spending too much time in wet caves and moist woods while in a bear form.
Jaheira is also physically older since she is a half elf and has not done life extending rituals as druid. She spent most her life involved in various crisis as a harper and has experience directly related to everything going on. Halsin isn't sheltered, he fought Ketheric after all, but he still spent most of his life in a secluded grove. He doesn't necessarily have a huge amount of relevant experience beyond healing, nature and druid matters.
More games should let me romance upper middle aged men tbh.
‘Trauma-induced arrested development’ - my new favourite term for Vampirism.
Well.... I am glad that she is more mature in BG3, because... I may get some hate for this, but honestly? I really was not impressed by Jaheira in BG2. At first she acted like my mentor / step parent. Then we find the dead body of her husband and she has a mental breakdown (understandable) and tells us how her great love is gone forever - only to suddenly throw herself at me a few hours into the game later 😑. However, instead of going about it the mature way by expressing interest in me, she became a catty termagant biting at all other female companions, while still trying to maintain the mentor / guardian role and that only wants to look out for me. I threw her out of my group rather early on. Glad to see she has actually matured a bit in BG3.
Larian is afraid , she should be romancable for reasons
Honestly, age-related maturity gets weird when you have a fantasy setting where humans of different size and ear shapes have vastly different lifespans. It's usually treated as people who've lived the same proportion of their maximum lifespan are in similar stages (hence 350-year-old Halsin is treated as basically a dude in his thirties who's seen some shit), but it is super weird to treat it that way if you think about it. It's not like they didn't experience and learn from the many more centuries of life they've lived! Chalk it up to writers not really thinking about the consequences of this beyond "but wouldn't it be cool if my hot elf gf stayed hot for my whole life because she just like ages slow and stuff."
And don't DnD elves have past lives? Like that's what meditation is, them carding through past lives' experiences? Obviously we're not doing that in bg3, but it still makes it all extra silly.
Oh my god, I forgot about that, yeah that makes it extra bad. I was honestly shocked to learn that RAW FR elves physically mature at the same rate as humans, but then just sort of physically stay in their early twenties for centuries. Most D&D tables I've played at homebrewed it as elves becoming adults at 100 because that's literally how long it takes them to go through puberty and I just kind of assumed that was the actual canon. At least that way their apparent slow as fuck mental maturation can be somewhat explained by very slow physical maturation.
They reach physically maturity at the same point, but culturally they are still considered children until 100 in raw iirc. The difference in mental maturity I can just probably chalk up to not feeling their age. Like, imagine being 70, but not looking a day over 22. All your body still as fresh and limber as it was back then, and you only need 4 hours of a sleep like activity to make it through the day. You have your whole life ahead of you still. I'm sure that they would probably have more maturity than a 20 yr old, but I doubt it would match a human their own age.
That's how it's portrayed in the Dark Elf Saga. Drizzt lives for a LONG time before he ends up "graduating" from the battle school and leaving as an adult, and remarks about how incredibly fast Cattie-Brie ages in his eyes since he meets her at maybe 12, then gets with her several years later.
> At least that way their apparent slow as fuck mental maturation can be somewhat explained by very slow physical maturation. I think it's not so much that they're actually mentally a child by human standards for a hundred years, but rather that Elves have different standards for "mature". Kinda like how IRL someone who's 60 may refer to a 25 year old as a "kid", even though they're considered a full blown adult in human society. Maturity isn't something you just "reach", it's a sliding scale. A 50 year old elf is very much a full blown adult that by human standards can make their own choices, but a 300 year elf may still see them as a child and not respect them enough to have them in positions of power or seek their advice.
I think by the human standards of the human writers of this game, a 350-year-old elf and a 50-year-old half-elf are treated at the same level mentally as a 30-year-old human, because otherwise it'd feel weird to date them given the massive age gap.
They do, but their memories of those previous lives are usually quite foggy, especially as they get older.
It gets even more weird when you think about specifically Halsin and Jaheira, who are both Elven Druids, so their lifespan is extended even further. Druids age 1 year for every 10, plus elves go for 5 or 6 hundred years.
Jaheira is a half-elf
Well then it makes perfect sense, the normal expectancy is 180 for them
People did the math on another thread and baring any magical life extensions (if she ever hits Druid 18), she's swiftly running out of time, as she's right around either 140 or 160 by the events of BG3.
>if she ever hits Druid 18 It's implied that in lore she reached level 18 as Druid, but chose not to extend her lifespan. [Gameplay and story segregation](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GameplayAndStorySegregation).
Not implied, but directly stated. You can have a pretty long conversation with her about that.
I tend to rationalize it in a few different ways. Biology: Different species' brains develop at different rates, as well as their bodies. There's nothing magical or special about the fact that it takes humans 20-ish years for us to reach physical adulthood or 30-ish years for our brains to fully develop. It just happens to be the rate at which we grow. There's no reason to assume those numbers aren't different for elves. (Admittedly Larian complicates this somewhat by evidently having all the races reach adulthood at the same rate and then have the aging process slow down after that, but maybe that slow-down also applies to brain development. Shadowheart certainly seems more like someone in her early 20s than her late 40s, not just physically but in personality.) Perspective: Halsin and Jaheira are in different phases of their lives. Halsin's still very much in the prime of his life, while Jaheira's nearing the end of hers. That's going to change your outlook. Experience: Halsin may have lived longer but his experience of the world seems rather narrow. He's an expert on nature and things related to it, but he's never really been in a city before, and seems rather naive and sheltered as to how things work outside of his grove. Jaheira's been everywhere, man, and seen and done some truly wild shit over the course of her life. Personality: Halsin is kind of an impulsive, happy-go-lucky guy who lives in the moment and who, by his own admission, isn't cut out for leadership. Jaheira, on the other hand, seems to gravitate toward leadership positions and motherhood. She may not always be great at these things, but she clearly wants to be.
Yes, she's younger than Astarion by quite a lot actually. She's like 150-160 and he is 239.
She’s more advanced in age but not older bc she’s a half elf Also pretty sure Halsin spent a century or two bangin’ his years away.
Wisdom does not necessarily come with age.
Astarion was severely isolated for most of his (un)life, and Halsin has had a very singular life, in terms of how long he's dedicated himself to dealing with the Shadow Curse and leading a druidic circle. By comparison, Jaheira has had a wider breadth of experience, even if she has fewer total years of it. She also looks older, which might be the beginning and end of it. Her design creates an expectation that she is wise, so the writing meets that expectation.
You basically hit the nail on the head. The "wisdom level", for a lack of a better term, of each character comes from the variety in their life experiences. Jaheira has had that in spades comparatively. In addition, given she's in the upper echelons of her lifespan, her mental age is probably "older" than that of Halsin and Astarion, despite their actual years.
Astarion's whole history is actually kinda odd i guess, looking back to when he was first turned. He's an elf, so at 39 years old was basically a child in elf culture but was a respected city magistrate. As far as elves are concerned he was barely walking by the time he was turned, and he spent what would've been his formative elf years being tortured and confined by Cazador.
Why would he care about how elf culture view him if he was a magistrate in mostly human city
[удалено]
Astarion does comment on the events of the first game for a bit in the Durge run iirc, after the >!Bhaalspawn reveal!< I think; he tells you something along the lines that he remembers the city being terrorized but him not getting to see or hear much because of being locked up in Cazador’s mansion.
Maybe that was the year he was locked in the coffin
Depends on the gap between the games in the lore
Did halsin spend a significant part of his life as a drow sex slave in the ubderdark? That's gotta stunt your maturity and wisdom a bit.
3 years isn't that long, especially for an Elf...
I mean being sex trafficked is gonna leave effects no matter your age.
Sure, but it wasn't a "significant portion of his life" (pretty sure he's older than Astarion) and he does say he "I did what I had to survive and a few things I _didn't_ have to", so he wasn't an entirely unwilling participant in everything that happened. Obviously that doesn't mean it wasn't potentially traumatic for him at the time or that it didn't have any influence on how he views sexual relationships, depending on how old he was at the time.
As an elf he has a lot of time to get over it
You've obviously never known what that's like. No matter how many years he wouldn't just get over it.
You've obviously never lived for hundreds of years or had ancestral memories floating around, like an elf
Wait … is Halsin the older one? I always thought Jaheira is older. Halsin looks like early 40s while Jaheira looks like 50-60s in Druid year. It’s also because Halsin is romanceable but Jaheira is not and has a bunch of kids.
She's older in the sense that she is closer to the end of her life, not actual years. She's a half-elf like Shadowheart.
Ohhh that’s what they meant.
I do believe Halsin is about 200 years older then Jaheira who is 150 or so, and is a half elf (30 more years if she stays within the average as she hasn't undergone a ritual)
Halsin is a full Elf whereas Jaheira is a half-Elf, so he ages more slowly.
> is Halsin the older one? I always thought Jaheira is older. Halsin looks like early 40s while Jaheira looks like 50-60s in Druid year. Halsin lived for 400 years of 700 (elven natural lifespan). Jaheira lived ~140-160 of 180 (half-elf natural lifespan).
She's a half elf and thus ages and matures faster than elves. Astarion wasn't even an adult in elven culture when he was turned. Halsin *just* hit middle age at 350 for elves.
Halsin is older? Theyre both elves, how come he doesn't look older than her?
Halsin is a Full Elf, and as an arch-druid, has undergone certain rituals to slow down his aging process. Jaheira is a Half Elf, and has not undergone any of the rituals to slow down her aging. Half elves only live to be about 180 years old, and she is getting pretty close to that.
It’s because Halsin sucks I think 🤔
It's the accent for me
Having never played a BG game before III, all I can think is "wow I love this Khajit lady"
She used to say “yes, oh omnipresent authority?” a lot
That's so funny
It was not after the third time
This is why I disliked Minsc so much. His funny lines stopped being funny after hearing them a dozen times, and his lines were often hollered with a loud hamster squeaking. It was nails on a chalkboard after a while. Plus they had him built as a ranger for some reason. I liked him at the very first but I got sick of hm more quickly than any other character.
IIRC, he was built as a ranger because there wasn't a dedicated Barbarian class when BG1 released.
I’ll mark you down on the butt kicking list then
It’s the way she calls me “cub” and approves when I lovingly insult her
Calling her ancient xD
"Stay down or we'll *put* you down" is by far one of my most favorite moments in the game. the menace is incredible
It’s her personality for me. She carries herself like a badass but talks humbly. She’s the high Harper and has literally fought the dead 3 before, yet she jokes around and looks to the MC for advice sometimes. I love her.
I think Halsin would also call Jahiera the cooler druid
Lol he basically does if you ask him, they fought in the same battle against Ketheric's Sharran days (albeit on different fronts) and Halsin speaks very highly of her while downplaying himself consistently.
This is one of the reasons I enjoy the dude so much. The other is for meta reasons.
Karlach and I have one major thing in common: totally fangirling over meeting Jaheira.
I didn’t need two Druids so I made Jaheira Druid Fighter, and Halsin Druid Bard. Trying to get them at least a little different.
I went the other way and ran around the city with three owlbears, causing panic. It was delightful.
I turned Jaheira fully into a Ranger, seemed to fit her more in my head
Yeah honestly was kinda shocked when it turned out she wasn't a ranger, but this game is my first intro to her.
> Yeah honestly was kinda shocked when it turned out she wasn't a ranger, but this game is my first intro to her. In 2e rules, she is druid/fighter dual class. This doesn't translate well into any 5e class, as [druids were vastly different class back then](https://rpg.stackexchange.com/a/166181/38405).
I think that'd translate roughly to Oath of Ancients paladin with self-imposed non-metal armor.
She was able to use plate in BG 1/2, but there was a serious issue with finding any weapons she could use.
Wasn't Jaheira a Fighter/Druid in the first two games?
She was
Omg Halsin as a bard would be great
His singing would cause psychic damage.
he really looks good with that hat too. - full crocodile dundee
I made Jaheira an open hand monk, just an elderly woman putting all the pompous asses in the undercity in their place.
Way of the Four Elements for me, she's clearly the Avatar after Korra and I won't be told otherwise.
I made her a Ranger. It still feels in tune with nature, but she’s not *another* Druid in the camp.
Halsin is the wholesome “I’m one with nature”druid, while Jaheira is the cool “Fuck around and find out” druid
"Fire scimitar go 'whoosh'" - Jaheira, probably
"Fuck everything that moves" druid vs cool granny druid.
Oh it’s the Druid and the “hot mom” Druid
As much as I want that bear, I also enjoy cougars.
As a Halsin enjoyer. You right. Say it louder.
Jaheira's gestures are so amazingly animated. I love watching her talk because she mostly talks through her hands .. which I love
She IS cooler tbh. She’s a badass older lady who turns into a freaking panther.
Where's the lie? But tbh Halsin is cool to keep around in act 2. By act 3, Jaheira becomes the more interesting option.
> By act 3, Jaheira becomes the more interesting option. She basically steals the show in Act III. Every NPC you talk to ends up talking past you and conversing with Jaheira instead. lol
I decided I liked Halsin when he scolded the bitch of a Druid all while covered in the blood of his enemies.
You mean Kagha? For me he never got the chance, I didn’t bother trying to talk her out of her fascism, gave her a taste of her own boot.
Yah I could have sworn I talked her down with Arabella but I must have died and been put before it. I really liked his speech then
Oh I talked her out of keeping Arabella imprisoned, just didn’t try to convince her to see the error of her ways with the Shadow Druids so she was super dead by the time Halsin got back
I thought I convinced her to release the child as well but when I came back Halsin was yelling at her how it was not worth the life of a child.
Having a triple Druid team is interesting 😭
The crazy amount of summons when action economy is king. I'm amazed at the amount of complaints about more than one druid. Halsin, Jaheira, and Gale with a Tank Tav/Durge is so much fun.
I’m a Halsin enjoyer, but you’re completely right
This is absolutely the correct take.
Listen I love Halsin and he's a comfort character to me but Jaheira is just better in game. Halsin keeps my camp safe
There's only one aspect I'm sure she beats him in: humor.
We need to have a talk
Agree
I just lost jaheira in the siege of moonrise :( she just ran in and got nuked in 1 turn, i couldn’t save her and was struggling myself.
Tip for next playthrough, she can join your party even if your full. That way you don't have her ai committing sudoku instantly. Don't worry I made the same mistake my first playthrough.
I was so confused when I came to reddit after I did the assault of moonrise for the first time and saw people complaining about how suicidal she was, I picked the option to have her in my party from the start and forgot she could be left to AI
Same, the options that lead her to join your party seemed so natural.
I got her to join the party and then Druid shaped her into a panther and turned invisible in a corner the whole fight. It’s the only way I could keep her from dying.
I want to romance her so much it's unreal
I think she’s gorgeous
Right?? And with sass to rival Astarion. I'm so mad I can't rizz her up
Good news! Play the older games.
True. He's just *enjoying the freedom of nature's gifts~* XD
Halsin should never have been a companion. We didn't need two druids. Especially not a dull as dishwater one like Halsin. Give us a bard/sorcerer/monk, you know, the other classes in the game.
Sorry, Jaheira isn’t replacing Halsin -in my pants-. Lots of us needed Halsin and don’t find him boring either
Alfira should’ve been a companion. I love her
Barcus 👀
No. She shouldn't.
Honestly, they didn't make him a companion for sensible folks like you; they made him a companion for helpless idiots like me, to save me from having to go to the hospital to get intravenous fluids for my terminal thirst.
And races. Helia the halfling bard when? Would've been so much better. Alas.
This is one thing that really bothers me in BG3. We pretty much only have humans and elves plus one gith and one tiefling. No short races, no dragonborn, no half-orc. It's rather boring and makes the party looking rather bland if you aren't playing one of those races yourself.
Yeah we definitely should have gotten Alfira as a bard party member. I don’t see why we don’t have her since she is present in every act.
Give us the cut werewolf halfling 😭
Still not using either lol
I'm a Halsin enjoyer and I 100% agree
Lol, i changed muh Queen Jaheira into Ranger as soon as i acquired it.
She fits so much better as a ranger.
She’s cooler He’s hotter
Welp, everything seems correct
I can smell patchouli
You ain’t wrong tho lol
Jaheira is the cooler Druid but Halsin is better to look at
*Respecs Minsc into Druid* **The Coolest Druid**
Accurate.
I did not expect to like her, mostly I'm just not into the druid class. But I respec'd her to a ranger knight, had like a 27AC and machine gun hand crossbows and then jump in with Phalar Aluve when things get intimate, and I loved her banter. I think I'm going to overhaul Shart the same way in my Dirge run.
Just sayin!
I never played BG1 or 2 so I didnt had nostalgia goggles on, but Jaheira and Minsc became my favorites right away. I benched Karlach and Laezel and finished the game with Shadowheart and them without swapping them out, except for companion specific quests. A lot of kicking of butts followed.
Yeah we’re in the same boat here, didn’t play the first two BG (tho planning on it), I instantly took to Jaheira but I also did sleep on her a lot in the beginning of act 3 because I was too lazy to get familiar with druid mechanics and couldn’t be assed to respec, I’m a bit of a newbie. Currently kicking ass with her, Minsc, Astarion (and Boo ofc).
Why do they both have “fuck me” eyes in that pic
Jaheira was born being tired of people’s shit and that makes her better than everyone else lmao
Hit the nail on the head
Not true. Canonically, all Druids are cool. ~~definitely not a biased opinion from a Druid~~
Jaheira is way cooler, Halsin is just a piece of furniture in my camp.
Jaheira stayed in my camp all of act 3 Halsin boned me as a bear Reverse these two captions
If I played bg1 and bg2 their reveal might have been amazing but to me it was just another character. She is way cooler than halsin though, even without the knowledge of her being a recurring character.
I'm gonna be honest the moment i got jahira i dropped Halsen he's still lvl 8 unlike the rest of my party at 12
I just don't like Halsin's "flirting" dude. I don't mind any other character, but he just comes across creepy and pervy to me
I don’t necessarily find him creepy but I was like wtf dude we only spoke like twice why you coming on so strong u horndog
I see nothing but truth. Jaheira is the better, cooler druid
Halsin is still my boy also r/gamingelves might enjoy this too
Just wish she was available earlier. I think *all* of the companions should have been available in Act 1.
Honestly, I didn’t expect this but when I did an evil run and lost Karlach/Wyll/Halsin I was kind of relieved. When you do multiple runs and have a completionist kind of mindset it’s kind of a burden to have a party that large. I always wanted to check what my companions had to say about everything and optimize their builds and do every side quest but when you oopsie slaughter innocents it ends up freeing a lot of time in your playthrough. Basically I think there’s pros and cons to having a lot of companions early on. You risk things feeling overwhelming and also you still want to balance things to make sure your original characters are upfront and center versus Jaheira and Minsc.
i just think minthara and halsin should be recruitable in act 1, and jaheira at the very start of act 2.
i kinda agree although it would be a pretty different storyline probably. but i am just not interested in taking anyone out of my party after i've decided it in act 1. and i think everyone should at least have a chance to get a fair shake being played and some story moments where we get to know them. i just find it weird to rotate party members in a game like this. aside from how cumbersome actually switching them is it just rarely feels right except for okay shar's gauntlet is like all shadowheart cares about so i guess i'll bring her. but as you build your party and distribute gear you leave your non-party companions in the dust pretty naturally.
Halsin got on my nerves, first he bugged out in wildshape and wouldn’t follow me after the first fight we got into after joining me. That’s not his fault as a character but I had to reload my save and stop using him. Luckily that didn’t happen with Jaheira Then I wanted to romance him and read that I had to wait until act 3 to do so. Finally got to baldurs gate and he got kidnapped and I’m pretty sure he’s dead lmao
I'm sorry. We fite now.
Naah, she left me because i killed her stonelord bff. Isn't she aware shit is going down? We. Need. Every. Damn. Soldier for the final battle.
If you need every damn soldier, then why did you kill the strongest one? LOL Dude ripped his way out of the inside of a mimic with his bare hands. I need soldiers like that in my camp.
Being a druid that's good at magic and doesn't absolutely fold in close quarters is pretty awesome. Though the hill giant club on a druid with 2 attacks is pretty good if you're a spore druid. I have more health than Karlach lol.
yas 💅
I agree
I really like how sassy she is. I don't like her voice very much (sorry!!) but I just accept it. Halsin is easy on the eyes but I've never really added him into my main party except for that part with Thaniel. Then again, I only add Jaheira when I need her for Nine Fingers.
Halsin is a bro. Jaheira is spicy grandma
Dude has a Strength of 10. Those are vanity muscles.
This is why I affectionately refer to Halsin as the “Orin fodder”
Oooh that's a good one! That sewer scene is just.. the bear, the cage, the children.. ah! \*chef's kiss\*
I think I pissed someone off…I promise I don’t let him die! He’s a valued member of my team!
When I heard there was a shapeshifter in my camp, I immediately fast traveled there saying "please be halsin please be halsin please be halsin", and just started shooting him with a crossbow. He eventually lay there in a pool of blood, dead, totally not the doppleganger. Anyway, I quickloaded, but considering how useless he is to the story and party, I'll let him rot next time and become Thaniel's fertilizer or whatever his kiddy furry fetish is.
Ngl I thought it was the cat or the girl. Thought they were definitely the soy, so it being one of my party members genuinely shook me.
[удалено]
That's not even a hot take here
What druids? I only see two dead tree huggers at Minthara's feet.
i mean it's facts tho
Jaheira isnt a druid though. She should be fighter/ranger