Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback More customizable Companions

Let me preface this that I don't want complete customization for characters. Yet there should be more than there is now. There's only 5 companions right not and while I know there will be more coming I doubt it's gonna be that much more.

BG1 and BG2 at least gave you so many options that customization was not really necessary. Yet right now there's a bit of an issue where you have to take certain characters along for your party to be viable unless you fill that role yourself. In particular those are Shadowheart to be the healer and Lae'zel as your warrior/tank. But what if you don't like any of them.

My idea is that there should be an optional way for the player to change this around somewhat, either at the start of the game alongside "Who do you dream of at night" or when/just before you meet the companion(like with D:OS 2).

The extra options per companion should reflect realistic alternatives for them like

Shadowheart: Rogue or Wizard
Lae'zel: Wizard or Monk
Astarion: Fighter or Bard
Wyll: Fighter, Ranger or Rogue
Gale's backstory is pretty much all about the fact that he's a Wizard so I guess he could only feasibly be a Sorcerer or Warlock

I believe there are plans to allow you to make bland, personality-less mercenaries. Don't want shadowheart to heal? You can spin up a generic cleric.

god I hope that we get extra companions other then generic mercs

Half of those classes don't even exist yet. EA is not meant to allow you to perfectly customize these companions. The point is to try out Act 1, mostly with eveil companions, and see how the mechanics and playthorugh feel. Just try playing witth what you have for now, or wait for stuff to be added (as more classes and races will be sooner or later).

Well ye but of course the problem is that they'd be, you know, bland, personality-less and adding nothing to the story.

Though I think the current set of companions still need alot of work to make them more likable I'd still far prefer them over a bunch of mute henchmen. I don't think giving the current and future cast of companions more options for classes/combat roles can be that difficult to implement especially when stacked against how it would make the game just that much better.

Well I mean this is Early Access. I also only suggested base-classes because I'm pretty positive that they will be added later on. I also do not expect them to be added right now. The point is that we all know there's not gonna be ~~25 companions like in the original Baldur's Gate. At the most there's gonna be 8 or 10 of them.

Giving the player a bit more freedom in choosing their companion's class however will still allow us to create the party we want to have both in terms of personalities as well as combat configuration.

Is this why the game has been a struggle for me? I don't care for Shadowheart or Lae'zel so I leave them at camp and party with the boys. (I loved Morrigan in DA:O so it isn't that I dislike characters that disagree with the main character but the ladies in this game are a bit insufferable.)

That said, I agree that it would be awesome to be able to choose their starting class to something that will synergise better with different party compositions.