Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General POLL: Replacing companions' starter class

Oof, that was a quite the block of text. But an interesting one, you make some good points. Guess it's easy to see what you voted 😄

I understand. To be clear, I was never arguing against this feature only because I personally don't 'like' it, but because I think that while it outwardly appears as an additional option, it also takes something important away.

Also... if you're okay with Larian changing something because not enough people like it, then why would it not be okay to say I don't like it and want it gone? This is how we let them know.

You know, it never, ever would have occurred to me to change a companion's class, because that's just not ever been an option before in any game I've played.

But now that I have the option, I want to do it eventually, just to see how it goes. Astarion bard, Wyll vengeance paladin, Shadowheart rogue... (those are just off the top of the head, not thought out at all)

Just to see how it goes. Because why not? It just makes everything feel more like in-person tt. And if the dialog breaks... then as Barchus Root would put it, the dialog will have broke. It's a game, the point is to play with it, and we're getting very interesting, novel ways to play with it.

If the depth of immersion is key for you, then ignore the option. If not, it's an extra set of knobs on the board.

There are no good points being made by those opposed to this feature’s inclusion. It always boils down to “it breaks the story or immersion.” So? Why does anybody care if somebody else is breaking their own story and disregarding immersion? Nobody needs to do it, but for people who like absurdity, chaos, irreverence or just don’t care, the option is on the table.

Larian should absolutely have made companions with complex histories whose classes are important to their storylines, as they did.

Larian also should have given players the option to disregard all of that and just have the way they want, as they did.

These aren’t contradictions. I think it’s actually a refreshing style of game design. “We care about this so we are putting our efforts here, but we understand you might not care, so we are making sure you can have fun and do what you want anyway.” Bravo.

I personally thinks that it takes nothing away. Not more than a modesty filter or a resolution setting can take away. It's an option.

You let them know by telling them you don't like it. Not by telling to every other player that they should see an option taken away because you don't like it. It's like going in the illithid powers thread and saying "they should remove this because I don't want to use it in a story where the point is to remove the tadpole and it's ruining the coherence of my character, and all of you are only casual minmaxers who don't even know what's a roleplaying game".

I'm trying really hard to understand the perspective of those who clearly see the ability to change companions' classes as deeply problematic and want it gone, even as a totally optional feature. (As opposed to thinking, as I do, that changing classes is problematic and therefore I'm unlikely to use it but it's no skin off my nose if it's there and other people want to use it to mess up their own games )

I'm getting the sense that at least part of it might be because they are concerned that Larian have compromised on the world's reactivity to classes in order to enable this feature. And that would indeed be worrying given I agree class is fundamental to the identity of a D&D protagonist. In fact, I think someone from Larian said just that at PFH, so it's not like it's something that they're not aware of.

Would that be a fair characterisation, or am I still missing the point?

Because the thing you want gone doesn’t affect your gameplay experience at all so you have no standing to request it’s removal. It’s that simple.

You are correct, don't like it, don't use it. But my point was that it is a bit ironic that almost all of the promotional materials, interviews, roundtables, and advertising for this game was about storytelling, choices, reactions (both on character and world), and companion stories. And then they introduce a mechanic that completely makes all of what was said, not necessarily pointless, but certainly diminished. They didn't market this game on mechanical flexibility, that came much later (as in a couple days ago), they marketed it on what I said, so I just find it a little peculiar that they would go this route. And again, I am speaking to this on a purely design level, not on the flexibility of player choice. That said, I think from a storytelling perspective, it would be likely fine to multiclass, but they should have probably kept at least one level in the base class for narrative consistency. Pretty sure most games go that route, you can respec, but the 'base', the 'core' stays one way, and you can add onto that. Otherwise, as I said, they probably should have developed a few characters that had 'classless' storylines and allowed you to change them, that seems to me to be the best case, especially in keeping with their vision.

As an aside, everyone here is perfectly at liberty to say what they personally want or don't want to see in the game.

Fortunately for all of us, only Larian actually need to worry about exactly how to reconcile those preferences when they're mutually exclusive. We can put forward proposals if we like, of course, but we are also free to just say what we ourselves would like and let Larian make what they will of the information!

Well, first of all, they absolutely have marketed the game on its mechanical flexibility from the beginning, including Swen saying that this very feature would be in the final game three years ago. There just weren’t as many people paying attention way back then.

Second, designing characters whose professions are nebulous makes for less interesting characters. Larian absolutely did the right thing by making characters with strong backstories where their professions matter.

They also did the right thing by acknowledging that some players just don’t care, and giving them the freedom to play the game they want. It doesn’t diminish anything because the only players who will be doing it are the ones who aren’t bothered.

Larian’s solution was ideal and I’m so happy they didn’t go with your approach as design characters with thinner backstories.

Well said.

The only people who would potentially negatively impacted are the people who don’t realize that it could have a negative impact on the narrative experience. Providing a pop up warning that allows those people to make an informed choice pretty much eliminates any legitimate reason to complain about the option existing.

But it does. If it didn't affect my experience at all, I wouldn't be here arguing for its removal. I don't know what else I can say that wasn't said already in this thread to help you empathize with me here. The long and well-written post by @zanos expresses it excellently.

Okay, explain it to me. How does an option you will never use or be encouraged to use or have a reason to use affect your experience?

Zanos didn’t provide an answer to that so that is still a mystery.

I like it for if I want to play a role that a companion I want to travel with already fills.

Overall not something I will take advantage of often but nice to have the option

I did provide an answer, I said I was speaking from a design standpoint, a theoretical discussion if you will on what a developer chooses to put in their game. And while we are on that point, I keep seeing this 'don't like it, don't use it' line of reasoning to justify anything and everything, so let me ask you. Why doesn't Larian put in 6 characters? If you don't like it, don't use it. Why don't they allow Wizards to cast all spells? Druids? Clerics, spells are spells after all. Just pieces of the weave, oh, you don't like it? Don't use it, don't scribe them.

Why don't we allow Paladins to self-justify what constitutes breaking their oath in game? I'm sure I could reason out through a dialogue option or two why I murderhoboed someone in the name of righteousness and why that doesn't deserve my oath being broken. Why are there specific item slots? I mean I can wear two shirts, two pairs of pants, especially when it's cold out, I should be able to equip two shirt slots with overlapping bonuses. Oh, you don't like it? Don't use it.

Where do you draw the line here? This is the precise reason why games have rules, providing a sense of structure while maintaining a degree of consistency. I just don't understand why this argument keeps being used when you can literally use that argument to justify any single thing that you want put in the game even if it doesn't belong there.

I dare to disagree:

Source - FAQ topic: https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=677277#Post677277

Changing someone's class isn't 'mechanical flexibility', but yes, I will eat my words that 'this didn't come out of left field'. Mechanical flexibility, for example, would be multiclassing with no restrictions, basically changing the actual ruleset. Even a semi-generous DM will likely let you re-roll a character in the middle of a campaign and work your story in. Of course, the rub here is that the rest of a campaign isn't often directly designed around interactions, choices, and decisions of your original character but how that character chooses to affect the world.

Every attempted analogy your brought up involves disrupting gameplay balance. Guardrails are important to balance the game. As much as you can balance a game like this. I actually think Larian has slightly removed too many guardrails, but that’s a completely different discussion. That’s a decent place to draw the line.

Reclassing origin characters in a way that is incongruous with their backstory does not disrupt balance. In this case, the option provided costs nothing and provides no mechanical advantage, so there is no passive encouragement to use it, so you don’t feel like you are missing out on anything if you ignore it.

It’s very different from what you are trying to compare it to.

Also, a theoretical discussion about game design philosophy does not at all answer the practical question of how having an option you will never use or be encouraged to use affects your gameplay experience.

A friendly reminder that's it's okay to agree to disagree. And in fact, sometimes the best outcome we can hope for, and the right thing to do if we find ourselves going round in circles.

I'm not trying to stop ongoing debates as long as all parties are enjoying themselves, but remember to stop if it's not fun any more!

I basically agree with everything @zanos said above.

Additionally, allowing changes to companions' starting classes is yet another symptom of Larian's design philosophy, which I have serious problems with. If there weren't any other changes to 5e rules, then I (and I imagine other people) might be more accepting of this change. However, the combination of everything we know about BG3's EA design, plus the unknowns that we'll only find out on release date...it's worrying.

It's the design philosophy and game themes of: "choices about character options don't really matter because anything can be changed at any time; just have a wacky time casting multiple spells per turn, throwing bombs/halflings, and making use of other exploits we've added into the game." All together it indicates a non-committal gameplay style for BG3 that I don't particularly like.

For example, I can easily see this design philosophy extended to the end game: "even though you've made heavy use of the tadpole's powers throughout the game, succumbing to temptation, during the final battle/dialogue you can reject all that with no consequence or struggle" while tadpole non-users will have the same exact option, just without all the extra benefits of tadpole powers throughout the game.