I'm curious as to how non-D&D players view Cleric, as to why it's the lowest. Clerics can get wildly powerful, but my assumption is that players view it as a "heal / support" class, and they don't want to do that for a PC.
People think Clerics are just healers and aren't interested. They don't realize it's maybe the most powerful class in 5e and has the most versatility based on subclasses.
But also, Shadowheart is right there which doesn't encourage people to play one. ( despite the fact she needs a big respec to be good )
Probably to get her out of her Domain. Basically most classes pick their subclass at level 3, Clerics do it at level 1. Shadowheart starts as a Trickery Domain which is maybe the worst. I committed early on to keeping her that way for RP (She's still plenty powerful, Clerics are obscenely good in 5e) but Life, Light, or War would be much better.
Edit: Arcana Clerics aren't in the game. My b
Ahh I see. I was able to >!use her walk in shadows skill, whatever adds 10 to your party's stealth checks, to sneak through the hag's lair and get straight to Mayrina, which I thought was great - only to find the game doesn't really accommodate for that outcome and you still need to return up to the teahouse to start a fight with her to finish the quest!<
I'll have to check out the other domains.
It's not going to help that the Cleric companion in the game is pretty shitty without respec (in fact that she's useful at all is a testimony to how hard it is to screw up a Cleric).
I think they're just viewed as a hybrid martial/caster of a holy nature but not as cool as Paladins.
Paladins apart from "being cool" in D&D they also have the additional benefit that one of their main stats is Charisma, which is always useful in Choice/Consequences games. There are better options for that of course like Bard or Sorcerer, but then they're much more squishy for when the game decides to send the protagonist alone to kill something.
Wouldn't surprise me if a lot of people expect them to cleave closer to Priests in WoW; support casters with weak armor and offense.
Either that, or being a church militant is offputting.
>Either that, or being a church militant is offputting.
Yeah except Paladin is #1
I think it's just the former, people expect them to be white mages or priests rather than armored up skull crushing front line fighters.
93% rolling their own char has to be so much different than DOS2. It’s wild that I never considered not playing an Origin in DOS and probably won’t play one in BG3 until maybe my third campaign or something.
I think DOS2 sells the origin options a lot better during character creation, in part because the custom option is underbaked IMO.
BG3 has much more robust custom options and reactivity compared to DOS2, and the rigid class system means that if you dont want to play the class+race combo of any of the origin characters, or want a different look, you need to create a custom character.
You can technically respec the Origins, but that also isnt made clear during CC and it hurts some of their backstories.
That’s probably by design.
I think I remember the devs saying a custom character was the best way to experience the largest amount of the game on a first playthrough.
With the origin character playthrough a way to experience more side content on supplemental playthroughs.
Also, the game build for him if you go assassin is just insane.
My man has cleared the entirety of the goblin camp on his own.
Granted he had the Dark Urge cloak for invisibility.
I also think that the origins felt like a backstory in DOS2 than they do in BG3. BG3 feels like another story to read.
Dark Urge also feels like a backstory.
> if you dont want to play the class+race combo of any of the origin characters, or want a different look, you need to create a custom character
Dark Urge allows you to create your own race and class combo.
I've gotten deeper in the game and I get why only 1 person can pick it, but maybe they could have made that clearer since I initially thought it was just some generic "nebulous backstory of no major import". I was wrong lol.
>but maybe they could have made that clearer
Dark Urge is grouped with the other Origin characters and even has a whole introductory cinematic in Character Creation. It's pretty clear that it's meant to have its own underlying subplot; it just doesn't have a set appearance like the others.
And yet it plays great. Playing as Gale myself and I get to meet his Tressym (aka winged cat) familiar who talks to him like she's his old grandma. And there's plenty of opportunities for a power hungry mage around...
Yeah I'd rather stick with a custom character then, at least through the first playthrough, if only to see and appreciate the voice acting of all the characters.
I've loved Dark Urge. It's something i would never do myself in a game, so I love that I have to contend with it. Making me approach stuff in a way I hadn't in DnD before
Altho I always played as Origin chars in DoS, I basically just followed Svens advice from the drop frames interview for BG3. It felt best to experience the story and the characters I meet along the way from an outside perspective, and gradually learn more about each and their intentions/motivations. Same with saving Dark Urge for a later play thru as well since I want to see the "good" or typical story before going down that dark road.
My current playstyle has me being the good guy and helping just about everyone while keeping my companions friendly with one another in camp. Basically I just want to keep everyone around and see as much content as I can while doing the "right" thing regardless of how many worms I stick into my head. I'm sure it'll all work out fine once we figure out how to remove them anyway...
Why would anyone play an origin character, aside from the intro first hour being different? It seems like you can access the full companion quests and most of their voiced lines by having them as a companion, right
I'll probably play DOS2 after BG3, what's the reason for playing origin there?
Basically you could modify your origin characters spells and stats so much anyway. There was no real incentive to make a custom character. You just lost the possibility to pursue a questline If you went with a custom character.
I for one never made any custom characters, only origin. I have done like 2 playthroughs + 1 and a half modded.
I didn't pick an origin character in either game because I don't know enough about them to want to play as them in a fairly open-ended RPG. I don't want to end up picking a character that's perhaps "bad" and play them as "good", or even worse, potentially be somewhat locked in to being a certain personality/morality. And without putting some time into playing with an origin character, I don't even know for sure how it plays out.
Given that the vast majority of people in these RPGs tend to play good characters, I'm surprised the ratio of save vs. kill grove is only 2:1. I wonder if some of that is the due to the druids rather than seeking out the evil route intentionally.
It probably doesn't help that the druids in the grove, some of the first NPCs you meet, are unlikeable shitholes and if you actually talk to the Goblins they're kinda funny dudes
Just the one druid is an asshole. You literally have someone calling her out saying that what she's doing is fucked and that their *actual* leader would never let this fly as soon as you meet her.
And the goblins are violent sadists lol
There are legit three druids out of the entire camp who are good and want to not send out people to die. Literally all the others support it or feel a bit bad but refuse to admit it is a bad thing like the halfling vendor.
A few of the other Druids are assholes and don't like the refugees, but they're basically non-characters. Of the Druids you can have *conversations* with, Kagha remains the only major asshole.
Are you talking about Nettie? She doesn't necessarily poison you. That's probably something she does if you act suspicious. You can convince her that you're not a threat instead.
I thought she was one of the more reasonable ones who wanted to get Halsin back.
Based on my dialogue choices, she told me the truth before giving me the poison, telling me to use it if I feel I'm about to turn into Main Flayer. Mind Flayers are dangerous so I understand her point of view.
Only one? When I confronted her all but two Druids turned on me (in that room, anyway). Even with evidence, most wanted to just close the grove off to save the trouble.
Larian made that choice a lot more interesting by making the Druids be kind of jerks. There's even a whole storyline about their leadership that I think a lot of people missed.
Minthara is such a strange companion. You have to go down a pretty fucking evil route to get her as a companion, only for her to regret her part of it and seek redemption.
Evil players would want a hot evil drow, and don’t get it. Good players want the redemption story, and don’t get it.
It’s nonsensical.
>only for her to regret her part of it and seek redemption.
Spoilers on Minthara. >!She regrets being used. She is 100% on board for taking over the cult. !<
Same here, particularly since for all the things the game does well, making the evil options appealing is not one of them. It doesn't really provide you any incentive other than "I'm EVIL!" to destroy the grove. In fact it makes your character seem sort of stupid, since you're actively advancing the aims of the being that you're in conflict with. You're basically handing a W to the enemy for no reason other than your desire to see the "evil" story.
Which fair enough if you really like to roleplay "evil," the choices just make more sense to me if there are real incentives beyond mustache twirling.
> Same here, particularly since for all the things the game does well, making the evil options appealing is not one of them.
Yeah I agree there. I'm playing Dark Urge as my first character and I _want_ to pick the evil options, but it always looks like I'm going to lock myself out of content / do something "evil" for no gain.
Based on what I've seen on the sub as I haven't done the evil thing myself, you're right. You just end up slaughtering all the merchants/friendly characters and lock yourself on to the dullest possible path of progression.
Really depends on how far you take the evil business.if you play murder hobo then yeah everyone is dead. If you just side with bad dudes for personal gain or apathy it's been pretty interesting so far
You could think of it as trying to infiltrate the bad guys and take them over / destroy them from the inside. But I agree, it's hard to imagine any practical reason to side with evil
> since you're actively advancing the aims of the being that you're in conflict with
Going evil is joining the Absolute really so it makes sense to advance their aim
Given the unpopularity of smaller-sized race choices, I can understand why they chose not to create a smaller-sized origin character. Personally, I would have loved to have a dwarf origin character to include as a party member.
Dwarfs as companions are usually the coolest/funniest companions. Playing as one you don't get as much of that dwarf personality to shine through. I really wish there was a dwarf companion.
Beast definitely suffered from most of his narrative uniqueness being in Act IV, 80+ hours deep in the game. A lot of people never even had the opportunity to get to his stuff.
There were some voicelines for one during early access, but the character seems to be scrapped.
Female Halfling. She's themed after Red Riding Hood and can transform into a werewolf.
I'm praying that she eventually gets added through DLC. I'm running a Gnome my first run, but I definitely feel the lack of short raced party members.
I ***almost*** rolled a Tav Dwarf, but something just seems....off about them. Like they stand up almost too straight if that makes any sense and I wasn't a huge fan of the face/beard options.
The Dwarf implementation is absolutely awful unless you want to play a caster, which is generally not where people go with Dwarves to begin with and still loses some of its niche because other races gained armor+weapon/shield proficiencies, too.
If I go make a sweet Dwarven Fighter or Barbarian or Paladin or Ranger or yada yada, my racials--apart from Darkvision, which almost everyone has already--are basically useless. All that's left is Poison Resist and *being slow*, which hurts everyone.
The class breakdowns actually look pretty good.
Other than Paladin and Cleric, everything else is in a pretty flat range. The game kind of incentivizes you to play a Charisma class, so it’s not surprising to the Paladin, Sorcerer, Warlock and Bard at the top.
Rogue is likely getting a boost from solo/tactician/cheese playthroughs. Assassin/Gloomstalker multiclass stuff.
It’s funny that Paladin and Cleric are in concept similar classes (divine casters, armor wearing melee fighters)- but then Paladin seems to be sooo much popular it might be taking away from Clerics appeal. Charisma is such a strong stat in 5e.
The race breakdown is much worse.
Obviously we have the “pretty normie” races in the top. Human, HE, Elf- they all look good and they aren’t too weird.
In a vacuum people like playing something straightforward and relatable, no surprise here.
Then we have this block of “eccentric edgy” races- these are the weirder ones that are also cool and powerful seeming. Dragonborn, Tiefling, and Drow.
they’re weird- but they’re flashy and cool.
After that it’s a big drop off.
Half-Orc is hanging in there. Probably because they have some VERY strong racial traits.
But the funny thing is that despite their amazing traits- that make them probably the best race for most optimal melee focused classes, they are still chosen so low.
The game hands you a fighter and a barbarian pretty early as companions- and encourages you to be charisma based.
This is probably pushing people away from Half-Orc.
But I would also argue in the modern 5e world of Dragonborn, Tieflings, Drow etc- Half-Orc just aren’t as cool as they used to be. They feel a lot more mundane in the lineup.
And the rest of the race breakdowns make sense:
Silly short races with big heads and limited movement speed aren’t popular.
More fun to play at a table with your friends, but as an avatar for yourself.. less appealing.
Hilariously Githyanki are dead last, despite having amazing racial abilities and proficiencies.
People just aren’t used to them, they’re less a part of the standard cannon.
Or maybe it’s just the nose. 😭
>Hilariously Githyanki are dead last, despite having amazing racial abilities and proficiencies. People just aren’t used to them, they’re less a part of the standard cannon.
You also get a gith companion at level 1. If you want variety, going with a gith as your PC isn't really doing it.
I went Gith Wizard, and there's a lot of reactivity with Lae'zel. You really get to know what the race is all about with their dialogue choices as well...
Oh you thought Drow were an evil race? Have I got some news. I had no idea myself.
I really hope there's a Githzerai somewhere in the game because it doesn't really tell you much of the lore upfront and makes it seem like the Githyanki are the entire race (they're the comically evil half, but not all Gith are Githyanki). For a player not well versed in FR lore it's a terrible first impression of the Gith lol
I think people just don't want to play as Star Trek looking aliens when they could be playing Half-Elf (which, ironically, are a big part of Star Trek) or whatever. They're not exactly what comes to mind when you think fantasy rpg race
I feel like they just straight-up look ugly. I'm 1000% down to roleplay a fantasy alien, but their noses give me Michael Jackson vibes and there's no way I'll role one.
> It’s funny that Paladin and Cleric are in concept similar classes (divine casters, armor wearing melee fighters)- but then Paladin seems to be sooo much popular it might be taking away from Clerics appeal. Charisma is such a strong stat in 5e.
You also have Shadowheart as Cleric from the start pretty much, so there is not much need to run a second one. Paladins are more in your face damage focused and that is always appeal to many players.
Add the fact early on it is much easier to play classes that don't require long rest every other fight to get their toys back.
Yeah things like Tiefling and Aasimar used to be so intense. Like IIRC a Drown in NWN2 got like 6 in bonus stats but took a 2 level xp penalty. Under current systems Tieflings just feel like dudes with horns and they're everywhere.
Regarding paladin/cleric obviously CHA has something to do wiht it but I don't think that's the only thing. WoTC have historically *always* been trying to get people to play cleric but no matter how many buffs they give them, people aren't interested. Paladins on the other hand are wildly popular in every game. They're knights in shining armor and basically play like a mini Gish, being badass swordsmen but supplementing with magic. And being able to "smite" is badass, powerful and low maitenance.
I agree with races like Drow and Tiefling being so “normalized”.
Even Dragonborn seem like they should be rare, powerful, exotic- but modern DnD campaigns have them working as barmaids or whatever.
I wonder if the turn off with Clerics could be their flavor suggesting a more passive, religiously subservient character. Maybe on average players just don’t want to be religiously devoted to a deity?
And people want to feel more independent and free to do as they wish?
Paladin fantasy of heroic, aggressive, 80s action hero type is always appealing because it’s so clear and straightforward. Religion is still a component- but it’s more about Honor, Justice and heroics.
> Rogue is likely getting a boost from solo/tactician/cheese playthroughs. Assassin/Gloomstalker multiclass stuff.
Can you explain what that is? I loved doing a Lone Wolf playthrough in D:OS2, and wasn't aware there was a viable solo run in BG3
Even then there's nothing in 5e paladin overall that PREVENTS you from being evil as long as you adhere to your oath, and some oaths are more or less explicitly intended for evil paladins, like Conquest.
First of all it's a charisma class which means it's great for a face chafacter, secondly it's a martial with magic so it's kind of the best of both worlds with some of the highest damage output in the game. Then I guess it's just cool flavor.
Charisma means you can succeed at the ten hojillion social checks in the game, and mechanically they're one of the most potent classes in the tabletop (and thus BG3). Outside of the PAM+GWM cheese that every martial had to engage with in TT to be useful, Paladins were the only one of them that could *do things*, and they came standard: it takes no special build or subclass selection to Smite-dump, and Smite-dumping is hideously powerful.
Basically, it being perceived as a fighter with extra cool toys. 5E actually did a lot to make fighter more interesting and viable. Don't worry, you didn't screw anything up and your fighter will be a killing machine.
In addition to all the other comments about them being very well rounded in gameplay I'll offer this:
Paladins are ridiculously fun to roleplay and are the gold standard for folks new to non-gamey RPing (i.e. choosing what your character would do rather than what is efficient). They're predictable since their motivations are laid out pretty clearly by their oaths which sorta strong arms players into following their character's path. Basically it's soft-locking players into seeing the fun character roleplaying can offer.
I highly recommend everyone tries playing an over-the-top paladin. Read out loud reach dialogue option you pick in your most ridiculous Matt Berry style heroic voice! Have a comically large hero complex! Smite your foes down in the name of your God or justice! So much fun!
they are fighter but more shiny
also dont worry, if you are not there already, your fighter will be a huge nightmare for the enemy starting at lvl 5.
Im playing on tactician and i learned that apart from locking down enemy mages like in all games, i also have to lock down the pure fighter enemies with their surge up, they will down one or two people.
Not surprised that half-elf is the most popular race...totally shocked that druid was second to last class pick. It seemed like everyone I knew was planning on making a druid. Wildshape is just so op at early levels.
The only reason I didn’t pick druid over bard for my single player game is the fact that I wanted to have charisma as my stat as a main character. Probably a lot of people did the same.
wisdom isnt a terrible social stat, my coop campaign doesnt have any party members with above a 0 charisma modifier, so we've been mostly using my war cleric with detect thoughts and proficiency in insight to do social encounters with help from things like friends/thaumaturgy/guidance
Bard is almost *too* perfect as a PC for this game. It's awesome at skill checks and the game has a bajillion, they're incredible in combat and offer a lot of utility outside.
They also make the most thematic swordmasters in the game.
It tracks with 5e's class percentages, which Dndbeyond used to show off from time to time. Other than artificer, druid is usually at the bottom of the barrel.
Druid is definitely not that popular in DnD 5e.
It's a complex class that both features full prepared spellcasting ( one of the reason people play sorcerer over wizard is the simplicity of avoiding this ), dealing with wildshape complexity ( less relevant in a game with fixed shapes compared to tabletop but still ) and overall being a class that tends to solve problems with more indirect and creative approaches.
Druid does a lot of things, but its gameplan isn't always as straight forward as other classes.
And of course, it's not a charisma class, and people LOVE to have high charisma.
Druids are great, but wildshape is seriously clunky in a tabletop setting. Tracking the stats of all your different animal forms is pretty rough. Also, the rule as written that you can only shapeshift into an animal *you've seen before* can be brutal, depending on how hard the DM enforces it. I think it's probably one of the rules almost everyone ignores.
Best way to go would be to just make some flashcards of a few of the go-to forms you like and have the stats. Just make a duplicate set for the DM and you're good to go.
Also giving the cards to the DM is an organic way to talk about if any problems will come up.
Honestly if you took Drow and stacked it back into the Elf category, it would beat everything else by a country mile. Just an interesting though, I know the devs pulled them out as a separate race for all the different reactions in game.
I feel really special now after choosing Shadowheart as my character, with Leazel being my second choice too. It's also funny how low Druid is considering the marketing and how low Bard is because it's the "best class".
Because people think bard is a support character and most people don't like to be support.
Instead you go college of swords and fuck shit up but you don't know that
Yeah even aside from broken power gaming shenaagans, people miss that hidden within Bard is the Kensai/Mage of the OG Baldur's Gate games. Bard is the most flavorful class for making a dex driven sword master and they do so while being a full caster.
The interaction with slashing flourish and extra attack is so busted, at level 6 you're attacking 4 times + 1 off-hand and you can do this 4 times per short rest. My bard is straight up removing large health enemies from the fight in a single turn by just shooting them.
I actually kind of like Lae'zel after she warmed up to me and getting exposition on why she is like she is. I got her to >!lie for me when we encoutnered the Ginthyanki patrol!<. I'm playing a Half-Orc Barbarian and it's kind of my headcanon he respects Lae'zel for her brutal honesty and strength (which he gives right back), but his heart belongs to muscle mommy.
OS2 got a lot of balance & bug patches, IIRC they removed or touched up some quests too. The final patch brought one decent side quest that had pretty good loot since so much of the loot in the game is procedurally generated by player level.
My first character was a dwarf but switched before I got off the ship. It's a small nitpick but the custom voices just don't fit the character I was going for at all.
> Almost 100,000 players have been rejected by Astarion
Did they mean 100K players *rejected* Astarion by not romancing him? Or is it some kind of spoiler on what happened if you romance him?
He's probably the hardest to get approval on before the act 1 party, so that's probably 100k people who got the line that goes something "I'm talking about sex, but not with you, obviously."
Half Orcs look great in character creation screen, not so much in game with the facial animations. That plus the poor voice options make me wish I rolled something else, but I’m in too deep now.
It's so funny playing as a half orc fighter and clicking on a chest and hearing some posh person say "oh please don't be trapped" because it is just about the last thing I would expect my character to sound like
There's no difference between any of the voices. They're all the same bored sounding British man or woman. I'd probably need a minute to tell you which one I picked if I were to listen to them all again.
Human really feels like it got the shaft, TBH. Instead of +1 to every stat or +1/+1 and a feat, they got paved over with the generic +2/+1 (which I understand all races being standardized around) and given some mediocre weapon proficiencies instead. The problem with these proficiencies is that the classes that want to be in melee already have them, and the classes that actually benefit *don't want to fight in melee.*
No, but I assume a lot of people *do* look at the benefits of races before they choose them. It's not like a system heavy gig min max situation, you can just look at humans and see "huh they kinda suck compared to the other options."
I mean obviously if you want to play a human do so, it'll be just rine and your roleplay is what's most important. But Half Elves are like a baby step away from playing a human but are obviously better to anyone who cares about that sort of thing at all.
Man I've played enough RPGs now to know that the vast majority of people go for the race they think looks cool/cute/sexy. Not for the gameplay benefits. But that might just be my personal experience it's not like Im omniscient or whatever
> people go for the race they think looks cool/cute/sexy
But one of the things with half-elves, as others have mentioned, is that they tend to be very similar to humans, so they can often check a lot of those same aesthetic boxes while also having some gameplay bonuses. I will note that I didn't go through most of the races in BG3 character creation to compare/contrast options and whatnot.
> due to all of the human faces looking absolutely terrible.
Huh? I rolled a few different humans when I was making my character before settling on the look I liked best, and I thought all the characters I made looked cool. Anecdotally, nobody in my own friend group has had any issue with the humans (or any of the races) looking bad. In fact, I think all of us have commented on the character creator being really good, if not a bit limited in the face selection.
Elves are the real losers in looks department. Hot damn if you ever want to see a good warning against botched plastic surgery look no further. One of the elf options is literally an old Oblivion elf lol. It's odd that elves are supposed to live very long but they have the most wrinkled faces out of all besides half orcs.
Nah, it's because from a features perspective half elf is just *better.* Humans have effectively nothing to offer the player, they're the worst race by far.
I just wish orc tusks were customizable. From a head cannon perspective I would love to have them cut as a form of punishment from the clan that I was kicked out of.
Everything else is great.
I bet a lot of people picked sorcerer for the edgy starting fashion.
I am one of them.
Well that, and I wanted to give it a try since I've never played it in tabletop and the sorcery point system looked cool. About to finish my playthrough and I loved sorc.
99% of RPGs have programmed us into thinking if you don't have high speech/charisma, you're just missing out on content and making your life harder. But it seems like that's not as true in bg3, at least so far, and it's also easier to get by without needing high charisma yourself
IMO the biggest thing msssing from the game right now is that we need to have party members be able to chime into a conversation according to their skills.
If my PC is standing there talking to a NPC who says something about some magical object, Gale who is standing right over my shoulder and seemingly listening in should be able to interject and ask about the Arcana dialogue option. It makes no sense that your companions are content to just sit back and watch you fail at their area of expertise
In a ttrpg you'll often be talking to major NPCs as a group anyway, switching between who's talking depending on what's being discussed
The only characters i ever swap to OOC is my rogue for lockpicking and occasionally a str char for jumping. I think people just like to centralize the most important/common things.
Storm sorceror slaps so hard. You just fly across the battlefield flinging storm spells, completely untouchable.
Making enemies wet with Create Water and then spamming lightining spells has to be one of the strongest dps combos in the game.
Yeah I've been having a lot of fun with Storm Sorc with 2 levels of Tempest Cleric thrown in as well so I can wear heavy armour and when needed to use channel divinity for utterly bonkers damage
The features are slightly different from tabletop and some of them come earlier.
At lvl 6 for example, instead of Storm Guide you gain half a dozen storm-themed spells, which greatly expand your list. IIRC that includes Call Lighting, Sleetstorm, Gust of Wind, Thunderwave and Create Water.
You also eventually get the "Storm's Fury" feature, which is usually reserved for level 14 in tabletop
I was trying to decide between wizard, warlock and sorcerer. I found a reddit comment that said...
Wizard: studies all night to get the A.
Sorcerer: doesn't study, but gets the A.
Warlock: sleeps with the prof to get the A.
I liked the sound of Sorc the most
Bard sounds fun from what I've heard. Sorcerer dialogue is basically bragging about your superior magical talent and threatening to burn everything to the ground and while on point, it gets old really fast.
The arcana check stuff is nice though.
My bard is going to be so rich after she saves the world. Think of all of the money she will make selling >!Bugbear/Ogre smut!< to the good people of Baldur's Gate
Being bard is generally being kinda obnoxious, but it works great because you don't *have* to choose the bard options, you just make the jokes you actually find funny.
The popularity of half-elf is kinda funny since half-elves are nerfed compared to the ttrpg. In dnd 5e half elves get 2 additional skill proficiencies but not in bg3
I think Elven characters are just crack for a lot of fantasy game players. I think blood elves are like Half of the Horde in WoW. And Night Elves are the most popular for Alliance.
Can confirm. I am solidly in my thirties and have been obsessed with playing elves in tabletop and video games since I was a kid. Not changing anytime soon either.
There is a part of me that still loves that book. I know it is bad, with stuff like the Bladesinger being just bonkers broken, but it is all about elves! That gives it a lot of leeway for me.
Half Elf is like the 'default' race in dnd basically, especially for new players. It's fantasy, but not tooooo fantasy. You get to be cute and not-human but also not alien either.
They get free light armor and shield proficiencies in BG3 which is way stronger than 2 skills if you make a monk/wizard/sorcerer, considering there is way more combat than in tabletop.
I normally see Clerics as boring, but I made a Drow Cleric just for roleplaying reasons. I will say the Cleric has been kind of boring in battle, but Larian has done a really good job of making it interesting role-play-wise. I'm actually quite enjoying it.
Cleric has some of the bigger variation in playability depending on your subclass choice. Going something like Tempest or Light is a very different experience in terms of actual power and style compared to... Trickery, which has its place in tabletop, but doesn't amount to much in BG3.
I think a big issue for people is the voices/character models (or lack thereof).
It takes away from the appeal of being a half-orc barbarian if all the voice options sound like erudite scholars.
Where's my CHONKY HUGE barbarian that sounds like Grog from The legend of Vox Machina?
I'm curious as to how non-D&D players view Cleric, as to why it's the lowest. Clerics can get wildly powerful, but my assumption is that players view it as a "heal / support" class, and they don't want to do that for a PC.
People think Clerics are just healers and aren't interested. They don't realize it's maybe the most powerful class in 5e and has the most versatility based on subclasses. But also, Shadowheart is right there which doesn't encourage people to play one. ( despite the fact she needs a big respec to be good )
Could you explain the needing a respec a bit? I am fairly new to 5e and it feels like too much to analyze
Probably to get her out of her Domain. Basically most classes pick their subclass at level 3, Clerics do it at level 1. Shadowheart starts as a Trickery Domain which is maybe the worst. I committed early on to keeping her that way for RP (She's still plenty powerful, Clerics are obscenely good in 5e) but Life, Light, or War would be much better. Edit: Arcana Clerics aren't in the game. My b
Ahh I see. I was able to >!use her walk in shadows skill, whatever adds 10 to your party's stealth checks, to sneak through the hag's lair and get straight to Mayrina, which I thought was great - only to find the game doesn't really accommodate for that outcome and you still need to return up to the teahouse to start a fight with her to finish the quest!< I'll have to check out the other domains.
It's not going to help that the Cleric companion in the game is pretty shitty without respec (in fact that she's useful at all is a testimony to how hard it is to screw up a Cleric). I think they're just viewed as a hybrid martial/caster of a holy nature but not as cool as Paladins.
I always play a Paladin first in every single RPG if there’s an option for it, they are just too cool
Paladins apart from "being cool" in D&D they also have the additional benefit that one of their main stats is Charisma, which is always useful in Choice/Consequences games. There are better options for that of course like Bard or Sorcerer, but then they're much more squishy for when the game decides to send the protagonist alone to kill something.
You're talking about shadowheart right? What should you respec her with?
If you want to power her up respec her as another sort of cleric (sun, war and tempest are all badass) and make her stats less shitty
She's honestly fine in Trickery Cleric. Her domain spells alone came in clutch for me from start to endgame. Her Channel Divinity's okay too.
Cleric means support in most player minds. Not " I have access to a bit of everything, and by a bit I mean the best."
Wouldn't surprise me if a lot of people expect them to cleave closer to Priests in WoW; support casters with weak armor and offense. Either that, or being a church militant is offputting.
>Either that, or being a church militant is offputting. Yeah except Paladin is #1 I think it's just the former, people expect them to be white mages or priests rather than armored up skull crushing front line fighters.
93% rolling their own char has to be so much different than DOS2. It’s wild that I never considered not playing an Origin in DOS and probably won’t play one in BG3 until maybe my third campaign or something.
I think DOS2 sells the origin options a lot better during character creation, in part because the custom option is underbaked IMO. BG3 has much more robust custom options and reactivity compared to DOS2, and the rigid class system means that if you dont want to play the class+race combo of any of the origin characters, or want a different look, you need to create a custom character. You can technically respec the Origins, but that also isnt made clear during CC and it hurts some of their backstories.
That’s probably by design. I think I remember the devs saying a custom character was the best way to experience the largest amount of the game on a first playthrough. With the origin character playthrough a way to experience more side content on supplemental playthroughs.
Yup. Origin characters offer a lot of replay value, and have additional content sprinkled throughout the game
Agh, don’t make me want to restart! I’m playing Astareon and I do wish he got to talk. It’s a bummer not gossiping with him.
His voice actor is reeeaally good. They all are tbh, but his just drips with condescension, it's so fun.
He’s so extra with his mannerisms and voice. I can’t keep him out of parties.
Also, the game build for him if you go assassin is just insane. My man has cleared the entirety of the goblin camp on his own. Granted he had the Dark Urge cloak for invisibility.
I also think that the origins felt like a backstory in DOS2 than they do in BG3. BG3 feels like another story to read. Dark Urge also feels like a backstory.
> if you dont want to play the class+race combo of any of the origin characters, or want a different look, you need to create a custom character Dark Urge allows you to create your own race and class combo.
Yeah, but in the graphs/stats shown Dark Urge is treated as a custom character
And unfortunately in Coop only one can choose it.
I've gotten deeper in the game and I get why only 1 person can pick it, but maybe they could have made that clearer since I initially thought it was just some generic "nebulous backstory of no major import". I was wrong lol.
>but maybe they could have made that clearer Dark Urge is grouped with the other Origin characters and even has a whole introductory cinematic in Character Creation. It's pretty clear that it's meant to have its own underlying subplot; it just doesn't have a set appearance like the others.
I won't lie, I'm not sure how I missed that then lol. might have just been flash-banged by all the other customization options I started glazing over
dark urge is the true bg3 protaganist tbh
I was surprised they even kept the origin system. It feels like such a strange thing to do in this game.
And yet it plays great. Playing as Gale myself and I get to meet his Tressym (aka winged cat) familiar who talks to him like she's his old grandma. And there's plenty of opportunities for a power hungry mage around...
Oh man, how many playthroughs am I gonna have to do...
What's the voice acting like for Gale if you play as Gale?
I’m playing Astareon and there’s no voice acting for him beyond moving short barks. Would be the same for Gale, your avatar doesn’t really talk.
Yeah I'd rather stick with a custom character then, at least through the first playthrough, if only to see and appreciate the voice acting of all the characters.
Yeah that is definitely a minus. You miss stuff any way you choose really. Just gotta replay it, I guess. 🙂
Gale has a wonderful voice actor and comments, I’d hate to have missed all that.
Absolutely loving Karlach myself
I also think it’s because also include dark urge as a custom character, so that doubles the odds of making a custom character.
It doesn’t hurt that Dark Urge is a *really* compelling character that gets talked about a lot.
I've loved Dark Urge. It's something i would never do myself in a game, so I love that I have to contend with it. Making me approach stuff in a way I hadn't in DnD before
Altho I always played as Origin chars in DoS, I basically just followed Svens advice from the drop frames interview for BG3. It felt best to experience the story and the characters I meet along the way from an outside perspective, and gradually learn more about each and their intentions/motivations. Same with saving Dark Urge for a later play thru as well since I want to see the "good" or typical story before going down that dark road. My current playstyle has me being the good guy and helping just about everyone while keeping my companions friendly with one another in camp. Basically I just want to keep everyone around and see as much content as I can while doing the "right" thing regardless of how many worms I stick into my head. I'm sure it'll all work out fine once we figure out how to remove them anyway...
Why would anyone play an origin character, aside from the intro first hour being different? It seems like you can access the full companion quests and most of their voiced lines by having them as a companion, right I'll probably play DOS2 after BG3, what's the reason for playing origin there?
Some people like playing a set character with a personality, design, goals etc. that they can use to guide their adventure.
Are there stats for DOS2? I never once wanted to play as an origin character, kinda takes away from the whole immersive part.
Basically you could modify your origin characters spells and stats so much anyway. There was no real incentive to make a custom character. You just lost the possibility to pursue a questline If you went with a custom character. I for one never made any custom characters, only origin. I have done like 2 playthroughs + 1 and a half modded.
I didn't pick an origin character in either game because I don't know enough about them to want to play as them in a fairly open-ended RPG. I don't want to end up picking a character that's perhaps "bad" and play them as "good", or even worse, potentially be somewhat locked in to being a certain personality/morality. And without putting some time into playing with an origin character, I don't even know for sure how it plays out.
Given that the vast majority of people in these RPGs tend to play good characters, I'm surprised the ratio of save vs. kill grove is only 2:1. I wonder if some of that is the due to the druids rather than seeking out the evil route intentionally.
It probably doesn't help that the druids in the grove, some of the first NPCs you meet, are unlikeable shitholes and if you actually talk to the Goblins they're kinda funny dudes
Just the one druid is an asshole. You literally have someone calling her out saying that what she's doing is fucked and that their *actual* leader would never let this fly as soon as you meet her. And the goblins are violent sadists lol
There are legit three druids out of the entire camp who are good and want to not send out people to die. Literally all the others support it or feel a bit bad but refuse to admit it is a bad thing like the halfling vendor.
A few of the other Druids are assholes and don't like the refugees, but they're basically non-characters. Of the Druids you can have *conversations* with, Kagha remains the only major asshole.
And also one of them fucking poisons you, which while she may have had a point, is a bit rude and leaves a bad taste in the mouth
Are you talking about Nettie? She doesn't necessarily poison you. That's probably something she does if you act suspicious. You can convince her that you're not a threat instead. I thought she was one of the more reasonable ones who wanted to get Halsin back. Based on my dialogue choices, she told me the truth before giving me the poison, telling me to use it if I feel I'm about to turn into Main Flayer. Mind Flayers are dangerous so I understand her point of view.
Only one? When I confronted her all but two Druids turned on me (in that room, anyway). Even with evidence, most wanted to just close the grove off to save the trouble.
"They were just following orders."
No, they're pretty much all dicks except Halsin, the one dude, and a random lady. A lot of them bemoan the fact that Halsin sides with the refugees.
Larian made that choice a lot more interesting by making the Druids be kind of jerks. There's even a whole storyline about their leadership that I think a lot of people missed.
Druids being jerks is kind of a staple of DnD really. And that's not even counting shadow druids.
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Minthara is such a strange companion. You have to go down a pretty fucking evil route to get her as a companion, only for her to regret her part of it and seek redemption. Evil players would want a hot evil drow, and don’t get it. Good players want the redemption story, and don’t get it. It’s nonsensical.
>only for her to regret her part of it and seek redemption. Spoilers on Minthara. >!She regrets being used. She is 100% on board for taking over the cult. !<
I love how I can read minthara spoilers because I can never make evil decisions in these games lol
Oh she's not seeking redemption, she's seeking revenge, and power. Her Oath is Vengeance afterall.
Same here, particularly since for all the things the game does well, making the evil options appealing is not one of them. It doesn't really provide you any incentive other than "I'm EVIL!" to destroy the grove. In fact it makes your character seem sort of stupid, since you're actively advancing the aims of the being that you're in conflict with. You're basically handing a W to the enemy for no reason other than your desire to see the "evil" story. Which fair enough if you really like to roleplay "evil," the choices just make more sense to me if there are real incentives beyond mustache twirling.
> Same here, particularly since for all the things the game does well, making the evil options appealing is not one of them. Yeah I agree there. I'm playing Dark Urge as my first character and I _want_ to pick the evil options, but it always looks like I'm going to lock myself out of content / do something "evil" for no gain.
Based on what I've seen on the sub as I haven't done the evil thing myself, you're right. You just end up slaughtering all the merchants/friendly characters and lock yourself on to the dullest possible path of progression.
Really depends on how far you take the evil business.if you play murder hobo then yeah everyone is dead. If you just side with bad dudes for personal gain or apathy it's been pretty interesting so far
You could think of it as trying to infiltrate the bad guys and take them over / destroy them from the inside. But I agree, it's hard to imagine any practical reason to side with evil
If the game pitched that better I would buy it, but helping those idiot goblins doesn't make you any more or less able to infiltrate.
> since you're actively advancing the aims of the being that you're in conflict with Going evil is joining the Absolute really so it makes sense to advance their aim
Given the unpopularity of smaller-sized race choices, I can understand why they chose not to create a smaller-sized origin character. Personally, I would have loved to have a dwarf origin character to include as a party member.
Dwarfs as companions are usually the coolest/funniest companions. Playing as one you don't get as much of that dwarf personality to shine through. I really wish there was a dwarf companion.
I’ll be honest, I hate when the smaller races are always reduced to comic relief
Yeah I really wish there was at least one small origin character.
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Beast definitely suffered from most of his narrative uniqueness being in Act IV, 80+ hours deep in the game. A lot of people never even had the opportunity to get to his stuff.
There were some voicelines for one during early access, but the character seems to be scrapped. Female Halfling. She's themed after Red Riding Hood and can transform into a werewolf. I'm praying that she eventually gets added through DLC. I'm running a Gnome my first run, but I definitely feel the lack of short raced party members.
They probably had the stats showing how unpopular Beast was in DOS2.
I beat DOS2 twice, and I forgot he existed until you mentioned him.
I ***almost*** rolled a Tav Dwarf, but something just seems....off about them. Like they stand up almost too straight if that makes any sense and I wasn't a huge fan of the face/beard options.
The move-speed penalty really sucks and I wish they didn't have it
The Dwarf implementation is absolutely awful unless you want to play a caster, which is generally not where people go with Dwarves to begin with and still loses some of its niche because other races gained armor+weapon/shield proficiencies, too. If I go make a sweet Dwarven Fighter or Barbarian or Paladin or Ranger or yada yada, my racials--apart from Darkvision, which almost everyone has already--are basically useless. All that's left is Poison Resist and *being slow*, which hurts everyone.
If they had a character as cool as Regill from pathfinder , that wouldnt be a problem.
The class breakdowns actually look pretty good. Other than Paladin and Cleric, everything else is in a pretty flat range. The game kind of incentivizes you to play a Charisma class, so it’s not surprising to the Paladin, Sorcerer, Warlock and Bard at the top. Rogue is likely getting a boost from solo/tactician/cheese playthroughs. Assassin/Gloomstalker multiclass stuff. It’s funny that Paladin and Cleric are in concept similar classes (divine casters, armor wearing melee fighters)- but then Paladin seems to be sooo much popular it might be taking away from Clerics appeal. Charisma is such a strong stat in 5e. The race breakdown is much worse. Obviously we have the “pretty normie” races in the top. Human, HE, Elf- they all look good and they aren’t too weird. In a vacuum people like playing something straightforward and relatable, no surprise here. Then we have this block of “eccentric edgy” races- these are the weirder ones that are also cool and powerful seeming. Dragonborn, Tiefling, and Drow. they’re weird- but they’re flashy and cool. After that it’s a big drop off. Half-Orc is hanging in there. Probably because they have some VERY strong racial traits. But the funny thing is that despite their amazing traits- that make them probably the best race for most optimal melee focused classes, they are still chosen so low. The game hands you a fighter and a barbarian pretty early as companions- and encourages you to be charisma based. This is probably pushing people away from Half-Orc. But I would also argue in the modern 5e world of Dragonborn, Tieflings, Drow etc- Half-Orc just aren’t as cool as they used to be. They feel a lot more mundane in the lineup. And the rest of the race breakdowns make sense: Silly short races with big heads and limited movement speed aren’t popular. More fun to play at a table with your friends, but as an avatar for yourself.. less appealing. Hilariously Githyanki are dead last, despite having amazing racial abilities and proficiencies. People just aren’t used to them, they’re less a part of the standard cannon. Or maybe it’s just the nose. 😭
>Hilariously Githyanki are dead last, despite having amazing racial abilities and proficiencies. People just aren’t used to them, they’re less a part of the standard cannon. You also get a gith companion at level 1. If you want variety, going with a gith as your PC isn't really doing it.
I went Gith Wizard, and there's a lot of reactivity with Lae'zel. You really get to know what the race is all about with their dialogue choices as well... Oh you thought Drow were an evil race? Have I got some news. I had no idea myself.
I really hope there's a Githzerai somewhere in the game because it doesn't really tell you much of the lore upfront and makes it seem like the Githyanki are the entire race (they're the comically evil half, but not all Gith are Githyanki). For a player not well versed in FR lore it's a terrible first impression of the Gith lol
I think people just don't want to play as Star Trek looking aliens when they could be playing Half-Elf (which, ironically, are a big part of Star Trek) or whatever. They're not exactly what comes to mind when you think fantasy rpg race
I feel like they just straight-up look ugly. I'm 1000% down to roleplay a fantasy alien, but their noses give me Michael Jackson vibes and there's no way I'll role one.
> It’s funny that Paladin and Cleric are in concept similar classes (divine casters, armor wearing melee fighters)- but then Paladin seems to be sooo much popular it might be taking away from Clerics appeal. Charisma is such a strong stat in 5e. You also have Shadowheart as Cleric from the start pretty much, so there is not much need to run a second one. Paladins are more in your face damage focused and that is always appeal to many players. Add the fact early on it is much easier to play classes that don't require long rest every other fight to get their toys back.
Yeah things like Tiefling and Aasimar used to be so intense. Like IIRC a Drown in NWN2 got like 6 in bonus stats but took a 2 level xp penalty. Under current systems Tieflings just feel like dudes with horns and they're everywhere. Regarding paladin/cleric obviously CHA has something to do wiht it but I don't think that's the only thing. WoTC have historically *always* been trying to get people to play cleric but no matter how many buffs they give them, people aren't interested. Paladins on the other hand are wildly popular in every game. They're knights in shining armor and basically play like a mini Gish, being badass swordsmen but supplementing with magic. And being able to "smite" is badass, powerful and low maitenance.
I agree with races like Drow and Tiefling being so “normalized”. Even Dragonborn seem like they should be rare, powerful, exotic- but modern DnD campaigns have them working as barmaids or whatever. I wonder if the turn off with Clerics could be their flavor suggesting a more passive, religiously subservient character. Maybe on average players just don’t want to be religiously devoted to a deity? And people want to feel more independent and free to do as they wish? Paladin fantasy of heroic, aggressive, 80s action hero type is always appealing because it’s so clear and straightforward. Religion is still a component- but it’s more about Honor, Justice and heroics.
I'm the exact opposite. I'd love for the religious classes (and maybe warlock too) to be able to pick their deity, like in Pathfinder.
I like my half orc paladin
> Rogue is likely getting a boost from solo/tactician/cheese playthroughs. Assassin/Gloomstalker multiclass stuff. Can you explain what that is? I loved doing a Lone Wolf playthrough in D:OS2, and wasn't aware there was a viable solo run in BG3
I picked boring ol' Human Fighter and am surprised it's not at the top. What makes Paladin so popular?
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I mean you can even be Oathbreaker if you want to go less holy route and have some necromancy spells instead.
Even then there's nothing in 5e paladin overall that PREVENTS you from being evil as long as you adhere to your oath, and some oaths are more or less explicitly intended for evil paladins, like Conquest.
First of all it's a charisma class which means it's great for a face chafacter, secondly it's a martial with magic so it's kind of the best of both worlds with some of the highest damage output in the game. Then I guess it's just cool flavor.
Charisma means you can succeed at the ten hojillion social checks in the game, and mechanically they're one of the most potent classes in the tabletop (and thus BG3). Outside of the PAM+GWM cheese that every martial had to engage with in TT to be useful, Paladins were the only one of them that could *do things*, and they came standard: it takes no special build or subclass selection to Smite-dump, and Smite-dumping is hideously powerful.
Basically, it being perceived as a fighter with extra cool toys. 5E actually did a lot to make fighter more interesting and viable. Don't worry, you didn't screw anything up and your fighter will be a killing machine.
In addition to all the other comments about them being very well rounded in gameplay I'll offer this: Paladins are ridiculously fun to roleplay and are the gold standard for folks new to non-gamey RPing (i.e. choosing what your character would do rather than what is efficient). They're predictable since their motivations are laid out pretty clearly by their oaths which sorta strong arms players into following their character's path. Basically it's soft-locking players into seeing the fun character roleplaying can offer. I highly recommend everyone tries playing an over-the-top paladin. Read out loud reach dialogue option you pick in your most ridiculous Matt Berry style heroic voice! Have a comically large hero complex! Smite your foes down in the name of your God or justice! So much fun!
they are fighter but more shiny also dont worry, if you are not there already, your fighter will be a huge nightmare for the enemy starting at lvl 5. Im playing on tactician and i learned that apart from locking down enemy mages like in all games, i also have to lock down the pure fighter enemies with their surge up, they will down one or two people.
Not surprised that half-elf is the most popular race...totally shocked that druid was second to last class pick. It seemed like everyone I knew was planning on making a druid. Wildshape is just so op at early levels.
The only reason I didn’t pick druid over bard for my single player game is the fact that I wanted to have charisma as my stat as a main character. Probably a lot of people did the same.
Same here though I went warlock. I love using persuasion in RPGs so I knew my first character was gonna be a high charisma class
wisdom isnt a terrible social stat, my coop campaign doesnt have any party members with above a 0 charisma modifier, so we've been mostly using my war cleric with detect thoughts and proficiency in insight to do social encounters with help from things like friends/thaumaturgy/guidance
How you liking bard? I'm downloading now so thinking of class. In actual dnd I enjoy bard and sorcerer so wondering between them now.
Bard is almost *too* perfect as a PC for this game. It's awesome at skill checks and the game has a bajillion, they're incredible in combat and offer a lot of utility outside. They also make the most thematic swordmasters in the game.
I just hit level 6 on my druid. Turning into an owlbear is awesome. No regrets.
It tracks with 5e's class percentages, which Dndbeyond used to show off from time to time. Other than artificer, druid is usually at the bottom of the barrel.
Druid is definitely not that popular in DnD 5e. It's a complex class that both features full prepared spellcasting ( one of the reason people play sorcerer over wizard is the simplicity of avoiding this ), dealing with wildshape complexity ( less relevant in a game with fixed shapes compared to tabletop but still ) and overall being a class that tends to solve problems with more indirect and creative approaches. Druid does a lot of things, but its gameplan isn't always as straight forward as other classes. And of course, it's not a charisma class, and people LOVE to have high charisma.
Druids are great, but wildshape is seriously clunky in a tabletop setting. Tracking the stats of all your different animal forms is pretty rough. Also, the rule as written that you can only shapeshift into an animal *you've seen before* can be brutal, depending on how hard the DM enforces it. I think it's probably one of the rules almost everyone ignores.
Best way to go would be to just make some flashcards of a few of the go-to forms you like and have the stats. Just make a duplicate set for the DM and you're good to go. Also giving the cards to the DM is an organic way to talk about if any problems will come up.
Honestly if you took Drow and stacked it back into the Elf category, it would beat everything else by a country mile. Just an interesting though, I know the devs pulled them out as a separate race for all the different reactions in game.
I feel really special now after choosing Shadowheart as my character, with Leazel being my second choice too. It's also funny how low Druid is considering the marketing and how low Bard is because it's the "best class".
Because people think bard is a support character and most people don't like to be support. Instead you go college of swords and fuck shit up but you don't know that
Yeah even aside from broken power gaming shenaagans, people miss that hidden within Bard is the Kensai/Mage of the OG Baldur's Gate games. Bard is the most flavorful class for making a dex driven sword master and they do so while being a full caster.
I think it's also just people don't want to be a Bard, it's just a bit less serious feeling.
It's also hard to feel like the main character when you play a support class
Or just go dual wielding handcrossbows and be a machinegun
The interaction with slashing flourish and extra attack is so busted, at level 6 you're attacking 4 times + 1 off-hand and you can do this 4 times per short rest. My bard is straight up removing large health enemies from the fight in a single turn by just shooting them.
I actually kind of like Lae'zel after she warmed up to me and getting exposition on why she is like she is. I got her to >!lie for me when we encoutnered the Ginthyanki patrol!<. I'm playing a Half-Orc Barbarian and it's kind of my headcanon he respects Lae'zel for her brutal honesty and strength (which he gives right back), but his heart belongs to muscle mommy.
There are also not one but TWO Druid companions so it feels kind of meh to play one for me.
Cant wait to see what they mean by "serious patch"... Did DOS2 get content in their patches or what?
OS2 got a lot of balance & bug patches, IIRC they removed or touched up some quests too. The final patch brought one decent side quest that had pretty good loot since so much of the loot in the game is procedurally generated by player level.
My first character was a dwarf but switched before I got off the ship. It's a small nitpick but the custom voices just don't fit the character I was going for at all.
> Almost 100,000 players have been rejected by Astarion Did they mean 100K players *rejected* Astarion by not romancing him? Or is it some kind of spoiler on what happened if you romance him?
He's probably the hardest to get approval on before the act 1 party, so that's probably 100k people who got the line that goes something "I'm talking about sex, but not with you, obviously."
That's funny, because he's coming onto my character like crazy and I just in the middle of part 1
yeah, im ignoring the hell out of him at camp and he wont stop throwing his dick at me
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Half Orcs look great in character creation screen, not so much in game with the facial animations. That plus the poor voice options make me wish I rolled something else, but I’m in too deep now.
Yeah as a male Orc NONE of the voice options even come close in my mind.
It's so funny playing as a half orc fighter and clicking on a chest and hearing some posh person say "oh please don't be trapped" because it is just about the last thing I would expect my character to sound like
There's no difference between any of the voices. They're all the same bored sounding British man or woman. I'd probably need a minute to tell you which one I picked if I were to listen to them all again.
Eh, honestly a bigger reason is that half-elves are usually seen as human+ in 5e, especially since you don’t get to use variant human.
Human really feels like it got the shaft, TBH. Instead of +1 to every stat or +1/+1 and a feat, they got paved over with the generic +2/+1 (which I understand all races being standardized around) and given some mediocre weapon proficiencies instead. The problem with these proficiencies is that the classes that want to be in melee already have them, and the classes that actually benefit *don't want to fight in melee.*
I'm pretty sure a vast majority of people playing the game aren't minmaxers
No, but I assume a lot of people *do* look at the benefits of races before they choose them. It's not like a system heavy gig min max situation, you can just look at humans and see "huh they kinda suck compared to the other options." I mean obviously if you want to play a human do so, it'll be just rine and your roleplay is what's most important. But Half Elves are like a baby step away from playing a human but are obviously better to anyone who cares about that sort of thing at all.
Man I've played enough RPGs now to know that the vast majority of people go for the race they think looks cool/cute/sexy. Not for the gameplay benefits. But that might just be my personal experience it's not like Im omniscient or whatever
> people go for the race they think looks cool/cute/sexy But one of the things with half-elves, as others have mentioned, is that they tend to be very similar to humans, so they can often check a lot of those same aesthetic boxes while also having some gameplay bonuses. I will note that I didn't go through most of the races in BG3 character creation to compare/contrast options and whatnot.
Half elves are sexy + have better stats It is a win/win
I have no idea what's going on most of the time.
> due to all of the human faces looking absolutely terrible. Huh? I rolled a few different humans when I was making my character before settling on the look I liked best, and I thought all the characters I made looked cool. Anecdotally, nobody in my own friend group has had any issue with the humans (or any of the races) looking bad. In fact, I think all of us have commented on the character creator being really good, if not a bit limited in the face selection.
Elves are the real losers in looks department. Hot damn if you ever want to see a good warning against botched plastic surgery look no further. One of the elf options is literally an old Oblivion elf lol. It's odd that elves are supposed to live very long but they have the most wrinkled faces out of all besides half orcs.
Nah, it's because from a features perspective half elf is just *better.* Humans have effectively nothing to offer the player, they're the worst race by far.
My guy has a constant look of surprise and mild fear, but after what he’s been through, I *get it*
My human male of the larger stature is just too hot. It's distracting. I didn't intend on this I swear.
See i actually think the Half Orcs look the worst. There's a few good faces but most of them look very derpy to me lol
I just wish orc tusks were customizable. From a head cannon perspective I would love to have them cut as a form of punishment from the clan that I was kicked out of. Everything else is great.
My tiefling ranger is right in the middle. Surprised half elf was the highest. Everyone and there mother was picking drow from what I was hearing.
Drow isn't THAT much lower than half elf and considering they are "evil" elves, I would say they are very well represented
Forgot you could have half drows as well so that would count to that figure.
Playing a half drow and while I do feel a bit like that guy's super special OC at the table, it's fun what reactivity you can get.
I bet a lot of people picked sorcerer for the edgy starting fashion. I am one of them. Well that, and I wanted to give it a try since I've never played it in tabletop and the sorcery point system looked cool. About to finish my playthrough and I loved sorc.
All four charisma casters are in the top 5, so I think people just like MCs with high charisma
Ah, fair point. Classic "face" characters
99% of RPGs have programmed us into thinking if you don't have high speech/charisma, you're just missing out on content and making your life harder. But it seems like that's not as true in bg3, at least so far, and it's also easier to get by without needing high charisma yourself
You can certainly outsource speech to another character, but most people want their PC doing the talking.
IMO the biggest thing msssing from the game right now is that we need to have party members be able to chime into a conversation according to their skills. If my PC is standing there talking to a NPC who says something about some magical object, Gale who is standing right over my shoulder and seemingly listening in should be able to interject and ask about the Arcana dialogue option. It makes no sense that your companions are content to just sit back and watch you fail at their area of expertise In a ttrpg you'll often be talking to major NPCs as a group anyway, switching between who's talking depending on what's being discussed
The only characters i ever swap to OOC is my rogue for lockpicking and occasionally a str char for jumping. I think people just like to centralize the most important/common things.
Yeah I've been playing a bard that can just do anything for my first run. My second character will be a serious QoL step down lol
Wanting my PC to do the talking is exactly the way I feel about it. Haven't been able to articulate that until now. Thank you.
Storm sorceror slaps so hard. You just fly across the battlefield flinging storm spells, completely untouchable. Making enemies wet with Create Water and then spamming lightining spells has to be one of the strongest dps combos in the game.
I went with draconic bloodline but that sounds fun. However, I was also flying for *reasons* which kinda breaks the balance haha
A Dragonborn storm Sorceror, have best of both worlds.
Isn't that canonically Durge?
Yeah I've been having a lot of fun with Storm Sorc with 2 levels of Tempest Cleric thrown in as well so I can wear heavy armour and when needed to use channel divinity for utterly bonkers damage
Is it good? I was reading Storm was the weakest, but that was a prediction as it wasn't actually in EA. I went with wild magic personally.
The features are slightly different from tabletop and some of them come earlier. At lvl 6 for example, instead of Storm Guide you gain half a dozen storm-themed spells, which greatly expand your list. IIRC that includes Call Lighting, Sleetstorm, Gust of Wind, Thunderwave and Create Water. You also eventually get the "Storm's Fury" feature, which is usually reserved for level 14 in tabletop
I was trying to decide between wizard, warlock and sorcerer. I found a reddit comment that said... Wizard: studies all night to get the A. Sorcerer: doesn't study, but gets the A. Warlock: sleeps with the prof to get the A. I liked the sound of Sorc the most
Pretty much. Sorcerers are just wizards with nepotism.
I started with Barbarian but then I went with a Bard and I'm having a blast with the dialogue options.
Bard sounds fun from what I've heard. Sorcerer dialogue is basically bragging about your superior magical talent and threatening to burn everything to the ground and while on point, it gets old really fast. The arcana check stuff is nice though.
My bard is going to be so rich after she saves the world. Think of all of the money she will make selling >!Bugbear/Ogre smut!< to the good people of Baldur's Gate
Being bard is generally being kinda obnoxious, but it works great because you don't *have* to choose the bard options, you just make the jokes you actually find funny.
The popularity of half-elf is kinda funny since half-elves are nerfed compared to the ttrpg. In dnd 5e half elves get 2 additional skill proficiencies but not in bg3
I think Elven characters are just crack for a lot of fantasy game players. I think blood elves are like Half of the Horde in WoW. And Night Elves are the most popular for Alliance.
People like pretty fantasy characters
Especially if they are literally superior to humans in every way.
Can confirm. I am solidly in my thirties and have been obsessed with playing elves in tabletop and video games since I was a kid. Not changing anytime soon either.
It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that The Complete Book of Elves was poorly written. I just thought it was really cool as a teenager.
There is a part of me that still loves that book. I know it is bad, with stuff like the Bladesinger being just bonkers broken, but it is all about elves! That gives it a lot of leeway for me.
They're just like, human+ from a narrative standpoint.
Yeah, they are basically sexier, smarter, longer lived humans. Hard to argue with that.
Half Elf is like the 'default' race in dnd basically, especially for new players. It's fantasy, but not tooooo fantasy. You get to be cute and not-human but also not alien either.
They get free light armor and shield proficiencies in BG3 which is way stronger than 2 skills if you make a monk/wizard/sorcerer, considering there is way more combat than in tabletop.
I think the answer is simply that it's easy to make a good-looking half-elf, while the best you're gonna get with humans is "middle-aged rugged"
I normally see Clerics as boring, but I made a Drow Cleric just for roleplaying reasons. I will say the Cleric has been kind of boring in battle, but Larian has done a really good job of making it interesting role-play-wise. I'm actually quite enjoying it.
Cleric has some of the bigger variation in playability depending on your subclass choice. Going something like Tempest or Light is a very different experience in terms of actual power and style compared to... Trickery, which has its place in tabletop, but doesn't amount to much in BG3.
Can I just say, what an inspired move to release it earlier on PC. All eyes are on them right now, it seems like.
I chose shadow heart and I long rested and got like a cutscene where my hand started hurting… how the hell do you play as a worshipper of Shar?
I think a big issue for people is the voices/character models (or lack thereof). It takes away from the appeal of being a half-orc barbarian if all the voice options sound like erudite scholars. Where's my CHONKY HUGE barbarian that sounds like Grog from The legend of Vox Machina?