I'm certain that many have voiced their gripes about the Origins characters already, this is more than a +1 to those sentiments. I would prefer to have no Origins characters at all and build a complete party of custom characters if I am limited to only 4 in my party. That way I can play to the strengths of the race/class combo I choose for them. It would be preferable if this could be done at early access but if not it should be a priority at the official full release of the game. Shadowheart is so unbalanced as Trickster Rogue and Astarion is to a degree as well. Their ability choices are incorrect for their classes and although I understand that not everyone chooses their race and class combos to compliment their stats, I am a longtime D&D player who looks at these Origins characters and wonders if anyone who designed them has ever even played a single game of D&D. At least Gale, Lae'zel and Wyll are salvageable at level 4. I despise Shadowheart (not just for her general demeanor) and I refuse to even take Astarion into my camp (A rogue with Intelligence as a dump stat, 10 charisma and a 12 in Strength!?).

Please, please, please... 4 custom characters for my game ASAP. I would like a balanced party for the dangers of Faerun.

You will have that option most likely. It is in DOS 2, after the first act, you could hire new characters and respect stats. I don't know if you can start with all 4 custom characters from the start.

I will say my initial reaction on reading this post was to roll my eyes and think "here is another min-maxer".

But the truth is, if you want to play that way, and that would be fun for you, I can see that it would be cool. Personally I'm hoping for the "Lone Wolf" type bennies they had in DOS (fingers crossed).

Don't like DoS's system in which every companions can fit every class.
Hopefully that won't happen in BG3 because their stories suits their class...

But it could be awesome to custom every characters you take in your party from level 1.
=> We could be able to custom everything (caracteristics, spells, proficiencies,... maybe subclasses) except their class/race/appearance.

A cleric with dext -1 is just stupid. No one would do that...

+1

I want to make a Drow raiding party with 3 fighters and a cleric of Lolth.

HI!

You can already do this:

Launch the game, host a multiplayer game.
Close the launcher, reopen the launcher within the local folder.
Launch the game (you should have two clients open at this point)
Close the launcher, and reopen the launcher and launch a third instance.
Repeat for a fourth.
Connect all four clients with your LAN lobby.
Create all 4 characters.

Thank you! I had not thought this would be an option. Going to definitely try this!

yes! this! (from what I gather, this is possible using a multiplayer 'hack', but if that's the case it should not be that complicated)

Creating a full custom party is coming, but until that's ready, the LAN game thing is the closest we can do.