Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General How much content does Custom Origin miss?

Shepard is an open book. Outside of being a space soldier and the last name, you are Shepard as yiu see fit.

Gerald is a pre-made character. It was not my character. I got bored because if that anf the fact thst Twitcher series was awful.

The good news us bg3 let's you choose which way you wanna go though all signs point to the vast majority of players making theur own character. Not surprising, either. Character creation is one of the best parts if rpgs.

Playing as Lohse and recruiting Red prince, Sebille and Fane - you played through Lohse story and had experience in helping you companion do their quests three times
Playing as custom, you got no quests for your own, and you got to help your companions three times.

Sure, you could play custom, Red Prince, Sebille and Fane, then custom, Beast, Ifan and Lohse, but that would mean replaying whole story just to see other 6 hours you missed and you'll not experience any companion story from your own POV.

Not everyone wants to play everything. Some of us want to play most effiecient way of experiencing the story. I have over 500h and I felt short of experience when I end up picking custom characters. I enjoyed DOS2 and would replay DOS2 for 500 hours, but custom origin definitely felt short.

It felt more satisfying playing your own character interacting with npcs since they have theur own personalities. But, options hurt nobody.

But do we really miss the content, if we bring certain Origins as party members. Let's say you have Shadowheart in your party since day 1, will actually playing as Shadowheart be that much different? You'll experience her story and quests, she will participate in dialogues as well, albeit from another POV.

I'm not really sure how it works, maybe you will correct me.

I think you'll miss out on her back story? And other parts.

Like with Astarion you might miss out on how he became a vampire? I don't know.

You only missed content in dos2 because you were companion capped so a custom character lost a full orgin character compares to non custom.

I think that will make quite a significant impact. As someone else, you don't necessarily find out her secret, or her history. As Shadowheart, you'll figure that out sooner, rather than later so you can make your choices based on that. Where a Tav is busy finding out about the party members, a Shadowheart is busy hiding hers.


By that token, Astarion is an open book. Outside of being a Vampire and his name, you are Astarion as you see fit.

The good news is the companions don't get randomly obliterated this time, so you can still see all their stories despite not playing as them.

But Tav himself... I feel like when Larian said custom origins would have more content, they were talking about the Dark Urge, but later decided to split it off from Tav. Though I hope I'm wrong and Tav gets something that's wholly his own too, even if it's just a little bit.

From what I gather, everyone's personal story progresses mainly through dreams. So Tav has this person one dreams of, Urge has this Mad Hatter Gobbo - Others have memories. But everyone has their own thing.

I don't think it'll be as bad as it was in DOS2. DOS2 had every race covered by the origins, while BG3 doesn't (along with classes).

If you want to experience the most amount of unique content as a Tav that an origin won't have, you should pick a class and race that isn't covered by any of the origins.

As far as races go, that means Half-Orc, Dwarf, Halfling, Gnome and Dragonborn. (This is actually a far bigger list than I expected, and ties into the other thread about the lack of variety among the companions.)

As far as classes go, that's Bard, Sorcerer and Monk. Paladin and Warlock probably count too, depending on which faction you side with in regards to the Druid grove, since I don't think it'll ever be possible to have a party with Wyll and Minthara together.

They've definitely improved on DOS2 where playing a CC was pretty much pointless. Having said that it is likely Tav's will be limited in comparison to the Origin characters.

This volume of content thing has come up in a few threads...here and over in the Ilithid one. If I do/choose X what will give more or less content.

I feel like this game is a bit unique as it is absolutely massive and no matter how you play it choices you make throughout are going to eliminate, create, or change pieces of content. If you want everything you are gonna have to play the game...I don't know, a lot of times and a whole lot of hours.

I am not sure if picking anything because it will give you 109 hours of content instead of 105 makes much sense. Or you get 18 more additional stories stories while giving up access to 14. Making numbers up but you get the idea. I really think people just need to pick what they enjoy the most, vibe with or really want to do and roll with it. No matter what you pick, you are going to have a ton to do, and you are going to miss a ton that your choices dont provide you.

A thousand times +1

The idea of "missing" content baffles me for exactly everything you said.

I don't know where you're getting these figures for hours of missed content from but that's not correct. You can still do almost all of the Origin character quest content in D:OS2 without having those characters in your party, even if they died back in the end of Act 1--you can still interact with Jahan and kill the Doctor without Lohse, you can still choose how to deal with the Deathfog in Arx without Beast, you can still do the Embassy stuff in Arx and give Sadha a Swornbreaker without the Red Prince, you can still systematically exterminate everyone on Sebille's kill list and eliminate or make a deal with the Shadow Prince without Sebille herself present, you still deal with Roost, Alexander and effectively the rest of the Divine Order without Ifan. Off the top of my head the only character you genuinely miss out on significant content for is Fane because most of his content is tied up in unique character interactions he has with unavoidable story characters anyway, whereas for the other Origin characters they have specific areas and narratives always running for them which don't simply stop if they stop being personally around to further/conclude them; that content's still there for you, you're only missing some unique dialogue and interactions you'd get with the characters those stories are tied to.

Oh, also obviously you miss out on the end cards for those characters without them, but I don't think that equates to what people would think of when they hear a sentence like "[x] hours of missing content" like significant chunks of the game are just ripped out and lost entirely if you aren't playing an Origin character.

You miss out on a personal storyline centered around your character. That's some pretty substantial content, I think. Sure, you can see Shadowheart's etc arc from the outside and influence how things turn out, but that's just the same as every other character who isn't Shadowheart. You'll be playing through the game only getting the 'default' story beats That other characters get when they don't have special content in a given scene/dialogue etc. But for *every* interaction. It's not as if you can even say 'yeah, but I'll roll a dwarven bard, we don't have any bard or dwarf companions, I'll have a unique time there!' Because Dark Urge is also an option. And Dark Urge is fully capable of having any class/race combination, while also having their own storyline.

You'll be missing out on a ton of content. Hours even, I imagine. Your Cleric of shar Tav will never immerse you in the story as much as playing Shadowheart. Your Githyanki fighter will always feel like a pale imitation of Lae'zel etc.

God I hope Larian proves me wrong, because I really don't want it to be that way.

I think you're going to "miss" content regardless. Like if you play as a druid you'll get extra content like dialogue in the grove. If you play as a githyanki you'll get extra content due to how you're treated. Same I think with drow and dragonborn.

So personally I don't think about it because I'm going to "miss" content regardless of whether or not I play as a Tav, dark urge, or one of the origin characters.

Well. Every origin has its own goals, allies and enemies. Tav does not. But Tav gets visited by Raphael in a scene that I suspect will be dedicated to Origin stories instead for the others. What I mean to say is, is that Tav might have other allies and enemies you don't encounter as an OC.

Playing a created character in DOS2 was not worthless. I had 100x more fun foing so than if I had played a Larian pre generated character.

@ Rideo: Dint Astarion and the pre generated origins have 'deep' back stories that affect their personality and interactions with others? On a whole different level than Shepard to be sure. Try to go against that would weaken the Laruan npcs not give them more death.

I didnt plsy the EA, but if Astarion comes across as evil, aggressive, seductive and I turn around play as him and turn him into a shy self hating creature of the dead who avoids combat as much as possible; that's a huge disconnect. That doesn't happen to Shepard because you never interact with Shepard as a npc.


Am so glad you can make your own character.

Yes, but the point of contention is that it looks like you will miss *more* if you play Tav vs any other Origin/Dark Urge. In regards to your Gith example, you could roll a Female Githyanki Fighter, and the biggest difference you'd notice between your Gith Tav's playthrough and playing as Lae'zel would be a marked lesser degree of story and content.

If you play gith with lae'zel you get a lot of new dialoge though.

I just made a gith barb who ripped Shadows pod door off and when I talk to her on the beach she joked that she was more loyal than my own kin