All my friends are strategically jumping off a cliff for a Baldur’s Gate romance and you can too

polygon.com:

My friends have found it so difficult to date Karlach Cliffgate in Baldur’s Gate 3 that we’ve developed a workaround technique in which our characters leap off a sheer cliff face, sustaining nearly lethal damage, in order to meet her faster.

Is this is extremely stupid? Yes. Are we probably being overcautious? Yes. But you don’t know what I’ve been through. The hours I spent replaying the early areas of BG3, trying to get this absolutely charming tiefling Barbarian to like me, without success. You don’t know how I’ve suffered.

You see, unlike some of your other companions in Baldur’s Gate 3, if you don’t get Karlach to like your player character by the middle of Act 1, you will not have another chance to trigger her romance subplot. And, unique among your companions, she is also tucked in an out-of-the way corner of the map that’s gated by some really tough battles. I’m not the only person I know who reached the point of no return much earlier and less successfully than anticipated, and despite devoting weeks to immediately replaying the whole starting arc of the game, came away with nothing to show for it.

I wish better for you, reader. And so I’m sharing the extremely stupid trick my friends developed for a Karlach romance playthrough: the Karlach Cliffstrat.

[Ed. note: This piece contains mild spoilers for the first act of Baldur’s Gate 3.]

Before you leap to the comments (perhaps taking fall damage) to tell me this isn’t necessary: You’re probably right! Larian Studios has made many tweaks to the game since this summer, when me and my friends were pining over Karlach’s pixelated indifference and settling for our second-choice romance. Those tweaks have probably improved things in invisible ways.

But when I start my next Karlach-focused playthrough, I won’t be taking any chances. I will not slash, blast, and charisma-check my way through hours and hours of the beginning of Baldur’s Gate 3 only to face the choice of immediately replaying it. I can’t do that