Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Origin characters as other classes?

Is there any word on whether or not origins classes will be able to play as other classes or even be able to multiclass? Shadowheart is a trickery domain cleric, can she be a paladin or she's only restricted to cleric and their subclasses?

Unlike DOS games classes are far more structured in Dnd games, we can't decide what classes our companions/origin character will be at the start, but certain classes develop their specialisations at a later level, usually 3 or 2. We cannot make Shadowheart not worship Shar or make Wyll a different patron for his pact because they are part of their character backgrounds. Multiclassing is possible provided you meet the criteria and conditions, but it's tricky and we can only level up to level 10 so developing your party is critically important.

Interesting. I had suspected as much with the classes being so intertwined with the background stories/story plot of several, but not all, companions. Do you have a link to an interview or some such where Larian mentions this?

You can see it in the first s-gameplay: in Character creation when Sven is about to pick the Origin characters you cannot choose the class in the interface (You can choose the background tho and you can choose class in the non-origin characters).


It´s possible that they change that later, of course.

I believe that Larian is discussing such a possibility, because they do want to give players the freedom to build the characters they way they choose...but it is difficult. Some characters stories are tied to their class to the point of it not making sense for them to be anything else. Shadowheart is a cleric, and it's difficult to separate her from her god. Wyll would be almost impossible, I think, because he is a Warlock and his story is about dealing with his unpleasant patron.

But this is why it matters whether we get several more companions in the game eventually. Given that we can't have too much leeway to shape the companions as we may want, there ought to be enough companions in the game to allow players to create parties that satisfy the player's preferred alignment orientation while also providing a balanced party in terms of covering the various party roles.

In my case, for example, I will only accept good or neutral aligned companions in my party. Evil aligned companions are automatically out. So there would need to be enough non-evil companions who also cover the full range of party role needs, so that I don't get railroaded into having to create a certain type of PC because key party roles are missing from among the companions available to me. As of right now, from among the companions revealed thus far, I would not be able to create a full 4-person party.

Also think that the companions' state is pretty bad right now. It'll be very hard to make a party using the ones revealed until now. Lae'zel is the only potential tank and she uses two handed, Astarion's stats suck, Gale is not much better.
The only one that would probably be used is Shadowheart due to the necessity of having a Cleric, and her actually cool concept.

Therefore, please add more companions from the other classes in the finished game at least, and improve their stats.

Absolutely, but again, for me, your post points to my dilemma. You badly need a healer in your party. I hate playing spellcasters, so my PC will definitely not be the healer. But I flat-out won't accept Shadowheart in my party because of her god. And I also will never use generic mercs in my party (something I refuse to do in any game). So where does that leave me? Just one companion of each class (or even role type) is not enough. The game also needs to cover the evil v. good dimension with those companions, or to put it more directly: I need a good or neutral healer companion.

It leaves you where you were always going to end up. Not purchasing a game which you hate everything about.

Make... your character a paladin?

Fixed?

You're a troll so nothing you have to say matters.

There are still classes that fit better some role in 5e, but there are many more classes or backgrounds (or even races) that could provide the specific abilities to fit a particular role.

The healer of the party could be a cleric, a druid, a bard, a ranger,... and in a slightly less effective way even paladins, a divine sorcerer or a Celestial warlock.
Rangers or druids have "cure wounds" "lesser restoration" and the incredible "healing spirit" spell (They´re the only ones that could use that spell) so I think your party already have a healer if you picked those spells. Bards have access to "holy word" or "cure wounds" as clerics do.

The role of dealing with traps and locks without using magic could be done by thieves and bards easily, but any artificer or any character, being barbarian, monk, ranger, fighter, etc with the "urchin" or "criminal" background could easily fit that role too.
In the gameplay video we could see that even you cannot change the class, you can change the background of origin characters like Shadowheart or Astarion.

I agree more party members mean more interactions, and I want more companions or NPCs you can talk too for the BG3 game; but if we´re discussing from a combat&exploration viewpoint usually is not mandatory a party of 6 in 5e, it´s usually balanced for a party of 4 characters.

I think it’s worth considering as an option. It could come with a warning that changing a character’s class may significantly conflict with their story.

So for instance Shadowheart acts like a cleric, is treated as a cleric by other characters and has a storyline based on her being a cleric, but mechanically plays like a lock picking backstabby rouge. Is that a trade off some players would accept? Quite possibly, particularly for subsequent play throughs.

A more natural way to do this might be to allow multiclassing for companions, so she is always still technically a cleric, even if most of her skills are elsewhere. Then you’d only have to worry about having the “wrong” party composition for the first few levels. That happens in most RPGs anyway as you generally travel with the first companions you meet before gradually swapping them out.

If they wanted to be really clever about it, maybe her story could change somewhat to reflect that she’s had a bit of a change of career?

We don’t really know how much the characters’ storylines are dependent on them sticking to the default classes. It might be fine, although I suspect that it could have a major impact with Gale at least, as his basic description states that being a powerful wizard is his main motivation. Astarion’s story on the other hand is probably a lot more about being a vampire spawn than a rouge. Maybe some characters could be more flexible with their class than others?

I don’t really know, just throwing around some ideas.

Are you sure about this? Because this would help quite a bit, especially if changing their background also changes their alignment.

Edit: Nope, it seems it was just a rumor: just rewatched the first gameplay and I do not think you can change the background. There´s only one point above the background UI and it changes when Sven change origin characters.

I know this is still EA, but the lack of companion options is a big issue. And again, most of their stats are really subpar.
I don't think Larian can escape from BG's design here, it simply allows you 2~3 options for each role in your party: Kaghain, Ajantis or Khalid for tank; Minsc, Coran or Kivan for dps; Imoen, Skie, Coran, Alora for thief; Edwin, Dynaheir, Eldoth, Xzar, Xan for caster; Viconia, Bramwen, Yeslick for healer etc. They have different classes and stats, sou you can create the best party around the class of your PC.

I really don't see any way to improve or change this. It seems that Larian still has to be reminded that BG3 is not in the DoS universe, classes are a big deal in DnD.