Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Anyone else thinking of not playing an Origin Character class?

Sharing this as an example of how I overthink and over complicate things...

One thing that colors my possible choice of class for a MC for my 1st playthrough (besides the benefit of a CHA/Skill based class as a MC) is that I don't necessarily want to play a class that is duplicated by one of the Origin Characters as for example, I wouldn't want my first playthrough to be a Rogue and then choosing to play Astarion in a later playthrough as doing so would just be redundant.

Therefore, for my 1st playthrough, I'm tempted to eliminate playing as Rogues (Astarion), Clerics (Shadowheart), Warlocks (Wyll), Wizards (Gale), Fighters (Lae'zel), and Barbarians (Karlach) as I can always play those classes if/when I play those particular Origin Characters.

And yes, I know that Origin Characters can be respec to a different class but if/when I play as them, I wish to play them as the class they were intended for.

So that leaves my choice of 1st playthrough class for MC to Bard, Druid, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, and Sorcerer.

But then I consider playing the Dark Urge in a subsequent playthrough too and thematically and for RP reasons, that to me screams oath breaker Paladin so I remove the Paladin as a possible choice of class for a 1st playthrough.

Of the remaining classes, although the Bard is appealing due to the benefits of CHA & Skills, I find it too support/utility focused for a MC class, while I find the Monk and the Sorcerer not versatile and "cool" enough, so that leaves the Druid and the Ranger, specifically the Moon and Gloomstalker variety as the most viable MC classes.

I mean you really shouldn't arbitrarily restrict yourself, especially when the origins are a spiced up version of the base that won't play the same,

Outside of being the party face or not, it doesn’t actually matter all that much which class my main character is. I’m going to be designing a party of four either way.

How does playing the main character as a rogue spoil the experience of Astarion’s Origin any more than just having Astarion in my party? (Strictly from a class mechanics perspective, not story)

So I will just make my characters my favorite classes.

I don't play origins, since DnD for me is making your own character,. But even if I would play origins or have them in my party, I would always play the class I like.

Nope ...

If i pick origin class, then i either respec them ... or take someone else instead.

Remember you can multiclass too, so even when you share the same class you may not furfill the same party role (eg warlock / sorcerer and warlock / paladin fill quite different party roles despite sharing the warlock class).

Doesn't it depend on which class is duplicated? It would be subefficient for a party to have two characters that are good at picking locks and detecting traps. A waste of investment. I will admit I am not immune to such considerations. I wouldn't call it minmaxing, it is about having a sensible, versatile party composition. But I would not shy away from having two barbarians in the party, being partial to that class myself. If one barbarian is good at killing stuff, two are twice as good. And it will be interesting to see who, between Karlach and my character, is the most barbaric.

^This. D&D is about playing as my character for me.

Well I'm probably not playing all the origin stories but I am definitely playing some of them. My first playthrough will be Dark Urge for sure. Beyond that I think at some point I will play as Astarion and possibly Gale but that's about it in terms of origins I want to play as.

I love Shadowheart, so she'll almost always be in my parties and across the many plythroughs I'm sure I'll romance her more than once but I don't want to play as her. Lae'zel will be in my parties quite often bud don't think I'll romance her a lot, maybe once. As for Karlach and Wyll, I don't much care for, so I suspect they'll get killed or sacrificed early in my playthroughs.

I will certainly not play any Origin character for my first 2-3 playthroughs. I want to experience my companions story from the outside/as an observer, before playin gthrough it myself. The two will be quite different I imagine. Or more to the point, will feel very different due to differing perspectives. Playing as an origin character I would think also means much of your dialogue is silent just like "Tav". So I personally want to see the differing origin characters personality before I play through them myself.

I don't think your class is *that* impactful for the Story. Yeah, maybe a cleric of Shar or Selune *specifically* has some overlap, but the classes don't have the main plot beats as the Origin characters. You can be a rogue, but that doesn't make you a vampire. For Astarion, Karlach and Laezel, I think their classes don't matter much for their story at all.

I'm also not of the mind that you need to spread classes out over the party. I'll gladly run with a Tav-of-the-Land, Jaheira, Halsin and a Spore-Druid-hireling.

I'll start with a Ranger, though, so in a sense I did exactly what you propose, but not for that reason. I'm definitely playing Origins as MC's. Not too interested in *all* of them, but at least half, yes. With that in mind, the only thing I'll do on my first run specifically, is not pick everyone up. Just so they're new and fresh in a subsequent playthrough.

I don't have that issue much. I can easily play as Shepard or Geralt, and they feel as my own very rapidly. Looking forward to Shadowheart and Karlach.

There has been no clear announcement that there exists content in the game that is only available to custom origins, i.e. Tav. So I think we can assume that this is the case, we will see on release. This means that the fixed origins will provide more reactivity in the game, however, the custom origin will provide more freedom to write your own story.

I think the biggest thing to come to term with in this game is that this game is so massive that you will never experience everything in one play through, so don't try to make the optimal run. Perhaps the biggest enjoyment you can get is focusing on RPing a character, either a fixed or custom origin, and simply follow the dice where they take you.

There is some stuff for backgrounds, as well as inspirations and XP. Durge doesn't get to choose a background and the Origin characters have pre-set choices. So Tav might be the only entertainer for example.

It was never in my plans.

I'll never play one of the Origin characters. Depending on how customizable the hirelings are, I might not even recruit certain companions. Duplicate roles can be a bit redundant/annoying certainly (like having Gale along while playing sorcerer wasn't great) because of the small party size, but I've never felt it's a problem due to how many ways you can solve a situation.

No, the only origin character I have interest in playing as is Gale, and Wizards are so OP and diverse spells you can have a completely different build with each new character.

Wizards are great but no speech skills or many skills makes them a bit painful to play as because all of the dialogue throughout the game is laced with skill checks so to make a wizard the main character is painful. I too want to play as gale at some point for a playthrough but yeah...definitely sketchy to say the least. I definitely wouldn't start the first playthrough as a wizard and I might not get to Gale until my 10th playthrough or something. Just painful class to have as main character.