Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Choose Deity Option

It seems pretty cleat that at some point the Choose Deity option during character creation was available to more characters than Clerics (it should be available to everyone...) why do I say this? Well, my Multi-classed Paladin/Cleric of lathander gets dialogue options for (Paladin of Lathander)... so there's an entire choice of dialogue options written that don't get seen unless you multi-class (which wasn't going to be supported at one point, no?)

Can we fix this? Let people choose deities regardless of class please.

I was surprised to see that you couldn't pick a deity. It is a huge missed opportunity.

This is certainly something that was discussed multiple times during Early Access.

Personally, I don't really care about the option for most classes and would probably prefer it's not added at all than if it were added without appropriate in-game reactivity. And I wouldn't expect lay worshippers to have the same sort of content as clerics, for instance, and I can appreciate it might be a lot of work adding in dialogue options suitable for everyone.

I would, though, have liked the opportunity to optionally pick deities for paladins, monks and druids (in that order), even if it were from a more restricted list to make it manageable. Though I'm going to work around this for characters I envisage as more religious (eg my paladin of Elistraee) by dipping a level into cleric.

An option for a God only majes sense is a world where the gods are known to exist. Yeah, the earlier bg games dudnt give that option either, but it's 20+ years later. Not a game ender, obviously, but it would be nice. In game reactions would be an added bonus. This could be a dlc/expansion/Supreme edition addition though.

Given having a deity tag opens dialogue options, it's sort of essential in RP to have the choice for you character?
Otherwise unless you're a cleric, the game doesn't let you have a relationship with a deity or even a preference?

as for earlier BG games, sure but ToEE did, other D&D games of the same era did.

Seconded.

100% needs to be there for Paladins. It's a core feature of the setting.

I think it would be a good thing to have, though for the character I'm currently playing, there isn't really a god that suits her. In my head Canon she alternately worships Helm, Ilmaeter, Tyr and similar gods of justice, protecting the weak, etc. But the only time I ever really felt the lack of religion option is in Baldur's Gate itself, where there's a big temple with shrines to lots of gods.

Actually make sense for Forgotten Realms settings. Almost everyone in Toril quite faithful at least to one god. Usually several.
It's how Ao created this cosmology specifically. Even unlike to Greyhawk (which is generally very similar to Forgotten Realms... or, rather vice-versa), mortals supposed to be faithful, and gods supposed to indirectly been involved in mortal's life. To the point where there is very harsh punishment in afterlife for faithless mortals, and sever punishment for gods who doesn't do their duty well enough. More explained in Time of Troubles on that topic (which is actually directly related to original Baldur's Gate trilogy, as well as partially to BG3).
Not everyone of course spends lots of time on praying, going on pilgrimage and other services to god(s). But usually everyone now and then spends a minute or two on silent pray to one of the gods, depending on the situation.

As examples:
You are about to spend your evening gambling - you generally would either give short pray to Tymora for better luck. Or at least to Beshaba to avoid really bad luck (but generally not to both, as both goddesses tend to punish you for that).
You about to go on sea voyage - you might want to consider giving prayer to Umberlee. Even if you are a good-aligned character yourself.
Even goddess like Shar. What BG3 tells about her is true. She is quite dark and evil goddess. And open religion to her is banned in most places. Common folks however generally doesn't know her fully. And if someone at loss or just overall experiencing dark period in their life - it is not uncommon to give quiet prayer to Shar, asking her to alleviate at least some of it.

Paladins really lack deity choice, I wanted to play as Lathander paladin in my second run

Well, I can at least offer the good news that if you take a level of Cleric as your Paladin you will get "Paladin of Lathander" dialogue options.

This isn't entirely true. From my experience the paladin choice options only show up if you default the char as a cleric, and then make them a paladin with multi-class after the fact. A good example of this is the druid healer. The paladin version of her dialogue only shows up if you went cleric and then paladin, and I would know since I tested it. If you went paladin and then cleric, you only get the option to reply as a cleric of your deity. At least in the case of Selune, since that was the type of paladin I wanted to run personally.

But yeah, paladin should absolutely have an optional choice of whether or not they were following a deity or not, especially when the dialogue is already in the game. It quite frankly feels sorta punishing to the player when they have to lose the 12th paladin level, especially when as I said the content is already there. It feels even more punishing when you consider that while the paladins in TFR are powered by their oath and not their faith, it wouldn't be out of character for them to still in most cases be devoted to a deity of their choosing. Hence why most deities canonically have official paladins in their ranks.

Edit: Something tells me the paladin of (insert deity) dialogue options are incomplete, and even when multi-classing they go away at least by the time of act 2. Since I arrived in the shadow-cursed land, I've not had a single [Paladin of Selune] option when speaking to anyone, just the cleric option. This was the most obvious when talking to our favorite cleric of Selune herself, since she of all people would've been expected to have options when the player was a paladin of Selune. It genuinely makes me wonder why they scrapped the system for paladins having a deity, and still allowing the player to see some of the dialogue options when the player MC as cleric and paladin. Why not completely remove them from the game entirely at that point?

My experience here is definitely to the contrary. I started as a Paladin and Multiclassed into Cleric of Lathander, and got Paladin of Lathander dialogue options. 100%, can confirm.

Goes to show what I said was true then, haha. The players absolutely weren't meant to see any of those options, and the fact that it's still in the game is proof that Larian had at one point or another planned for paladins to be able to pick a deity. The MC setup is simply a way for the player to be able to see stuff that wasn't meant to be used anymore, that they probably couldn't be bothered to remove after the idea was scrapped. It also explains why it's so buggy to unlock, as in how our experience was the opposite in order to unlock the dialogue.

So, lore perspective here:
In the Forgotten Realms (the setting where the eponymous Baldur's Gate is situated and basically one of the 4 continental settings that the world Abeir Toril offers) there are some individuals who even as laypeople devote their lives to a specific deity. Everyone - regardless of if they devoted their lives to a single deity or not - is being claimed at the end of their lives by a specific deity their lives most reflected the virtues of, unless the mortal in question was an atheist, or constantly changed the deity to whom they devoted their lives to.
The vast majority of people in the setting are polytheistic, meaning that they don't devote their lives to a single deity, but rather send prayers to the gods who are in charge of the thing the praying people are trying to invoke or ward off. Most of the people will still have a favourite god based on their profession.
Farmer Marcos for example will likely pray daily - potentially multiple times - to Chauntea, goddess of agriculture and animal husbandry. Whenever one of his farm animals gives birth he'll pray to Lathander, god of mornings, birth and youthfulness, for a save delivery. When his animals fall ill he'll pray to Talona to release his animal from her grip and to Ilmater for a speedy recovery. If he sees a storm comming, he'll pray to Talos to spare his crops and don't push over his home. Farmer Marcos will likely still see himself as being mostly devoted to Chauntea, after all he prayed daily to her and she was the most important deity during the majority of his life.
An optional choice for a favourite god would be welcome for sure, but I'm a bit apprehensive that it would just become the meta to choose a certain deity.

I'll be honest. I hoped that with Path 2 containing 'suggestions' from the fanbase, that this would've been amongst those features. Guess we'll have to keep hoping they'll add it.

Yes please.

Also it would be awesome if you meet any Cleric ingame you could convert to their belief.



Sure, make it merely an option, thats fine too.

But I would like to explicity pick Elistraee on my now definitely planned pureclass Seldarine Drow Storm Sorcerer, too, though.

Considering all my character sheets have a place to write in your character's chosen diety...

Yesplz.

It would also be great if a player could actually choose as their deity

I just want to be able to chose Silvanus as my god :')