Baldur's Gate 3 pal Gail may be the "Sword Coast's best wife-beater," but she's also a bit difficult, and apparently will leave the party permanently if you don't produce magic items when requested. Not cool! With the latest Baldur's Gate 3 hotfix, you can prevent him from doing so.

Hotfix 17 addresses several issues, such as the camera sometimes zooming in inappropriately while jumping or casting spells, and not being able to access bandit gear in camp while unlocking. Gail's behavior has changed, which is significant. Spoilers follow, so if you don't want to ruin the surprise, consider yourself warned and go read something else

Ready?

Gale's bad habit goes something like this:

Gale finds himself in a state where he must consume magical items to prevent his body from being consumed by dark forces. As the game progresses, he begins to demand magic items from the player to absorb to "relieve the disquiet," and when the player refuses, he drinks the powder.

This became problematic because several changes were made in the last hotfix that prevented the player from handing over items under certain circumstances, thereby unintentionally causing him to leave. The new update includes a "temporary bug fix" that should put a stop to this behavior until Larian can properly resolve this issue.

"Hotfix #16 initiated an update to allow players to access certain quest-related items, even if they are in a camp chest or in the inventory of a companion waiting in camp. However, the UI for donating items to Gale had not yet been updated, which could result in a dialog when an item was available elsewhere but did not appear in the UI for donation. This risked creating a situation where the player could not donate the item even though Gail was expecting the item.

"With this initial fix, Gale will not immediately abandon your party until the UI is closed or the 'I won't give you anything' UI logic is updated."

Of course, if you want to see Gail go off the road, you can pounce on her with the line, "Not now, not ever." And that's sad.

Speaking of sad, Larian warns that some mods will be "temporarily incompatible" with the new hotfixes. If you encounter any problems after installing a hotfix, please check to see if the problem can be resolved without installing the mod, and contact the support team if it does.

The full Baldur's Gate 3 Hotfix 17 patch notes are as follows.

This is a temporary bugfix, intended to avoid Gale leaving the party too soon when players are unable to pass on items; in Hotfix #16, certain quest-related items were not being passed on to the camp chest or to a fellow waiting in the camp inventory, we initiated an update to allow players to access those items. However, the UI for donating items to Gale had not yet been updated, so if an item was available elsewhere but did not appear in the UI for donation, a dialog could occur. Thus, there was a risk of a situation where Gail was expecting an item from a player, but the player was unable to donate the item. With this initial fix, Gail will not immediately abandon the party until the UI is closed or the "give nothing" UI logic is updated. If you wanted to give Gail a pair of shoes and there were no shoes in your inventory, selecting "I'm not giving you anything." would cause Gail to permanently leave your party.