Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Latest News Community Update #8 - Character Creation

Customization is all around us!
Read all about character customization here!

Whose going to try to pet the owlbear? I know I am.

Yeah; sounds cuddly.

It's going to take me hours to decide on my character...

(And just to be clear, that's a good thing )

This answers so many of the questions that I've been seeing lately, so this (final?) update before EA opens up is very welcome. You guys are amazing!

Looks amazing!

Well done!

The Dwarves look perfect in that little preview, exactly how id imagine them!

Everything sounds amazing. I can’t wait to get started!

There are many more subraces than I expected for the EA. And Damn! they look good.

The characters look fantastic, I imagine that they will look even better in the finished version of the game.

The characters models look absolutely fantastic. Great update.

So great to finally get to see more screenshots from the character creation menu. The interface is looking slick as hell.

I'm super happy about seeing new class options for Rangers too! Definitely my first pick. A "beast taming mage-breaking charlatan halfling ranger with a toxic frog as a familiar" sounds like a deal (who am I kidding, I'll spend 4 hours in the character creator before I make up my mind)

Loved that too. Very WoTC like. Reminds me of 3rd ed.

I will say, the only thing I didn't see that I wish we could have is an export button, so I can pre-make some characters and have them ready to go. I suspect I'm going to be in this character creator for some time on the first day it's out. Perhaps that's a function that's already considered or even in but I just can't see it in these screenshots, but if not it would be kind of a nice to have.

Same here. Very happy to see the ranger class finally getting some decent treatment. And "mage-breaking" anything is the sweetest of all, because I am all over playing any warrior class that is tailored to destroying stupid-ass mages.

Great update. I would love to see your original 40 models Cosplay it up for us! It could be a good avenue for them to get more work!

Now I know how I'll be trying out the evil play though, thanks to this update.
Hopefully we will be able to export character pictures easily for posting here.

I would like confirmation on Eladrin and Baldesingers though...

Although the images show some characters of different races, their faces are pretty much still "human faces". Therefore, I don't get the feeling that they are creatures of different races.

Besides, IIRC, aren't male tieflings suppose to have spikes on their chins?

I mean, I'm pretty sure that there'll be more comprehensive customization options. It's not exactly like they tapped an arrow a few times to look at different choices for specific features or did anything other than just show a handful of examples...

they already said theres not gonna be slider based customization.
theres diffeent faces you can pick from.

Which i personally find even stranger considering that larian seemingly did just that. They facescanend real life people and then dicked around with the models to create more faces.
Thats basically the same process as sliders only the developer "curates" the results.

Looks all great. Though I wish High Elves would be called Sun Elves instead, just like Gold Dwarves and Shield Dwarves have now gotten their proper Faerunian names (whom were referred to as Hill Dwarves & Mountain Dwarves respectively in the former builds of BG3).

And also as a lifelong FR fan, I've never heard of "Seldarine Drow". What is that? Are they supposed to represent the redeemed Dark Elves? Why not just call them that instead?

I don't like the name "Lolth-Sworn Drow" either, since it kind of assumes all evil drow worship Lolth, when the second and third most worshipped Dark Seldarine gods are Vhaeraun and Ghaundaur. Ilythiiri Drow would be a better title to encompass the archetypical evil drow whom still bear Wendonai's taint.

Calling them Sun Elves would be kinda wrong, though. In Faerun 5e (according to the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide at least), High Elf race both represent Moon and Sun Elves.

Under the term Seldarine Drow, I think Larian means drows who follow the Dark Maiden, Eilistraee and wish to be accepted by the Seldarine again (as the drows were spiritually cut off from the Seldarine, in a similar but not the same way as Irenicus was, back during the Crown Wars).

I for one am really glad for the distinction between Lolth-worshipping and renegade Drows because it gives deeper 'backstory' for the custom made Drow characters. Now the game will know instantly what kind of drow you want to play as.

If for no other reason than roleplaying, I wish they would have kept the distinction between sun and moon elves rather than lumping them together as "high" elves.

Indeed, Moon Elf and Sun Elf should be separate subraces. And if they can put in made up subraces like "Seldarine Drow", then making those two subraces separate shouldn't be a problem

Yeah but what is the point of making a separate Sun and Moon elf subrace other than cosmetics?

The Player Handbook does not separate them (no special subrace feature for either Sun or Moon elf).

In terms of roleplaying, it is a very minor distinction (not like the difference between a drow who follows Lolth and a drow who tries to redeem his/her race).

They have been distinct subraces since 1st edition D&D Forgotten Realms Campaign Set. And there are differences between the two subraces are significant within the Forgotten Realms setting.

In 3rd edition there were mechanical differences between the two (moon elves got +2 DEX, -2 CON, and sun elves got +2 INT, -2 CON)

The main differences between the two subraces are that the moon elves are the most common of the elves, the subrace most often found in human cities, as they posses a natural wanderlust and perhaps the most open-minded tendencies of the elven subraces. Whereas the sun elves are generally staunch traditionalists who cling strongly to the memory of their prestigious past (many of the great elven empires and nations of ages past were lead by sun elves). They often think of themselves as the custodians of elven culture and of the elven people in general, and consequently may sometimes come across as elitist or domineering towards the other elven subraces. Sun elves are also one of the elven subraces that are most rarely encountered in Faerun compared to moon elves and wood elves, as they generally dwell in elven lands like Evermeet or Evereska, or in cities with a particularly large elven population like Silverymoon.

I think, paying attention to details like this is important since this is Larian Studios' first dip into the Forgotten Realms universe, and ideally I would like them to depict it as faithfully as BioWare and Obsidian did

I would also like to see moon elves.

My guess is that WotC in not making a distinction was trying to get away from some of the things they introduced in 3.5 -- sun elf supremacist organizations and the like which got a bit too close to real world politics for my taste. (and did so in a problematic way)

But the solution isn't to eliminate the distinction but avoid making links to real world politics imo.

Yeah but this is not on Larian. Wizards of the Coast was the one who kinda walked back on the distinction btw sun and moon elves in 5th edition. Larian just follows the lead.

This, High Elves should be split into Sun, Moon, and Stars Elves.

Only mechanically, even the PHB mentions Sun and Moon elves under high elves, and the SCAG mentions Star Elves. This isn't a problem in PNP where the dm can use the proper term, but it a problem in BG3.

Perhaps the TCoE will have a solution for this, after all I suspect it's where the idea for Lolth-Sworn Drow vs Seldarine Drow Arised.

My hypothesis is that Lolth-Sworn are simply the Drow tainted by Lolth and her minions, and Seldarine Drow are the Drow that got cleansed by Elven High magic, neither forced you into a particular religion.

I agree with you that Ilythiiri Drow sound better and will cause less confusion then Lolth-Sworn Drow and I would push to share that on other forums, reddit, amd feed back to Larian.

I'm going to play a Zariel Tiefling Acolyte Ranger/Beast Tamer or Urban Tracker/Santified Stalker/Beastmaster with the feat Ritual Caster: Wizard or Cleric. I want see both how they did fixing the Ranger, and if being a Tiefling of Zariel makes a difference to the plot compared to other Tieflings given what Zariel did to the Swordcoast.

And there are more races coming (some of which have subraces).

I am really disappointed that it looks like BG3 is classifying Drow as its own race when it should be a subrace of Elf.

Yes this is exactly how i see it as well. It doesn't really matter if mechanically they are all the same. This is a role-playing game, and game mechanics is secondary to and meant to facilitate role-playing. So within the "high elf" subrace they should include the sun, moon, and star elf distinctions at least for role-playing purposes.

As for the drow, again I agree there are some meaningful differences from an RP standpoint even if not mechanically among the drow.

Im not sure why that is the sort of thing that would really disappoint you. That’s kind of odd.

The reason might be that NPCs react to the player based on their race, not their sub-race. Drow and Half-Drow will obviously be treated very differently from surface Elves, requiring that they be made a unique race.

This is a videogame, in character creation elves and drows does not look like the same so it´s logical that they will separate them so you can customize their appearance In your own way.
The differences in their features, background and looks makes them good candidates to be in a different category.

Yeah, the elves are looking pretty human unfortunately, none of the preset faces shown seem to have the characteristic elven features shown in official artwork and manual descriptions -angular features, high cheekbones, catlike slanted eyes, heart-shape face, etc-. They even seem to share the same body with human characters as opposed to being more slender and graceful. I remember making a topic back then because I feared just this when I saw Astarion's design.

Even worse than that is the absense of the Seldarine from the deity list, but I guess I understand FR has just too many deities to include all of them, it might be too ambitious. It couldn't have hurt to include just a few of each race though.

We don't have a full deity list for EA, do we? I imagine they will add to it.

Update: I was too mouthy! There are a few non human deities, which I am happy for! I'm also very happy with the hairstyles, I don't know or care much about male hairstyles to be honest, but females do get quite a few cool hairstyles. Very disappointed with the faces though.




I know beauty is subjective but damn.

Guy on the right looks like he could bite the roof off of a truck.

Not 100% on this as I think this is referencing some stuff that took place during the dark ages of 4E.

If I remember the Drow's current appearance (black skin, pale eyes and white hair) is a result of some kind of magical effect from having dwelt in the underdark for so long. During 4E, Eilistraee's chosen Qilue Valthorn (spelling?) cast a spell that was intended to sever the connection between the drow in the underdark who didn't worship Lolth and whatever anthropomorphic force had caused this (not really clear on what that is), somehow the spell went wrong/was too powerful and it effected every drow not sworn to Lolth (including those who lived on the surface such as Eilistraee's worshippers) and transformed them back into the original subrace off elves who had followed Lolth when the Seldarine pantheon split (think they were just called ''Dark Elves").

Something happened later (not sure what but there doesn't seem to be any details in the various wiki's on this) that turned these Dark Elves back into Drow just in time for 5E to come around. As such (and I am guessing here) I would assume that Seldarine drow is the name used here for the former Dark Elves, turned Drow, turned Dark Elves, turned Drow...

To be honest I'm not sure why we need two subraces here, as far as I can tell they are essentially identical and the only difference is fluff (worshipping the Seldarine or the Dark Seldarine). I can see how it might be useful to differentiate this (as there might be different reactions on the part of NPCs to worshippers of Lolth or Vhaeraun to those worshipping Eilistraee), but I would have thought this easier to implement via a "Choose your God" selection page during character creation rather than two separate races as similarly a Human worshipper of Torm would gett different reactions to one who worships Cyric.

I laughed out loud at this. Thank you for making my day.

Congratulations, you’ve basically made the default Vault Dweller. What the hell guys. We gave you demon eyes, horns, and even tails. We are sorely disappointed.

So you bash your customer base for making characters they like and don't give them time to try out different types of character creations. What is your problem is your self crippling idea of identity politics so overwhelming that it offends you to the point you have to insult the people who keep you working in the high level of luxury Mr. million dollars a year salary.

Maybe instead of being a dick to the people who pay your bills you let them play whatever that makes them happy!

Some people take themselves way too seriously and look for any opportunity to whine, I thought the remark was funny.

Well, you only have 1 post and you managed to make a complete fool of yourself with just that. I think that's a new record here. Congrats! Please, do move forward to your next imaginary grievance.

Definition of humor

(Entry 1 of 2)
1a : that quality which appeals to a sense of the ludicrous or absurdly incongruous : a funny or amusing quality Try to appreciate the humor of the situation.
b : the mental faculty of discovering, expressing, or appreciating the ludicrous or absurdly incongruous : the ability to be funny or to be amused by things that are funny a woman with a great sense of humor
c : something that is or is designed to be comical or amusing The book is a collection of American humor. not a fan of the comedian's brand of humor

You make a choice to be offended. It isn't a right.

I sincerely hope that NO ONE at Larian is even entertaining the idea of apologising over the Vault Dweller comment. Seeing all the cretinous idiots in meltdown over it is way too fun.

agreed. they shouldn't apologize because the "perpetually pissed off" brigade has decided "THIS IS AN INNNNNNSULT!"

The "fake outrage" brigade of alt-right trash, indeed.

Hello, first of all I would like to congratulate you for finally returning with a game that I love so much, and that even though I played all the other games of the same style for a long time I didn't feel on a live "board".
But not everything is perfect, you are covering the whole and forgetting details that make the game even cooler, such as weapons with scabbards and hanging from the character's belt, as seen in pillars.
You have the unique chance to create something magnificent taking advantage of what has been done well over the years, everything that has been perfected in other titles, whether in narrative or graphic details, all of which helps to make the game richer, and I'm sure that you will change many things and will change for the better, I bought the game and finished it, of course I know that it should not be even 10% of the content that you are planning for the game.
But it was possible to get an idea of ​​all the potential you have.
Another thing that could come back that was also used in other titles were the scrolls telling the story where we saw a drawing of a group of heroes, that gave a sense of enormous depth to the game.

Is there a possibility of a body editor? create stronger or thinner bodies?

Sorry for the boldness in proposing some things, but I really love this franchise for many personal reasons and I would like to see it once again at the top and I hear a lot of complaints from people who are not going to come here to write any line, and I decided for the first time to write for a company, one that I admire so much.

I sincerely hope that every success can come to you for this new game.

Greetings:
I agree with atrelegis. Body adjustment should be included in the character creation. I have a battle cleric and I definitely want it to look a lot buffer, for example: Druid Halsin. It makes me sad that the NPC always looks cooler than my character. Why can't we adjust our character's body mass like that buff druid. It's kinda unfair. I really hope Larian accepts our idea, or at least give us some sort of feedback that they at least read the post.

Please allow you to make a full party of custom characters without needing other people to borrow clients.

I think it's pretty obvious human with normal features came up as the result of taking the mode of all choices. A lot of players will have at least one human, but it's very unlikely that a player is going to make every single sex/race/etc combination. Just on skin tone, BECAUSE there are so many different choices, the likelihood that a player will pick any one "unusual" skin tone is fairly low.

And yeah, obviously was a joke and it didn't bother me at all. I started off trying to remake one of my D&D characters. I think appearances-wise, it worked out. Mechanics-wise, I'll have to wait for feats and more Cleric domains and play again. And I do plan on playing it again with another character, or several. Thanks for all the options.

BTW for people out there, body adjustments (especially height or limb length) often cause clipping and animation issues, and the stretching that clothes does over these bodies with uncertain proportions makes it look like metal is made out of rubber and lowers the overall quality.

Actually it's "woke gamer journos" that picked it up and ran with it, focusing in on how the "vault dweller" is white and there wasn't enough "diversity" and "representation". Personally I found the comment funny. I forget where I saw it but it made sense "We're playing in an alien world, so we make a figure of ourselves for something to relate to in an alien world". I thought that was pretty on point, not everyone will choose tieflings, drow, dwarves, elves or even half elves. But to make such a big deal over it is pretty ridiculous.

Nah, it's your friendly Proud Boys who were outraged. The "vault dweller" was a comment by larian. And it was tge right wingers who were all pissy, at least on Steam.

[img]https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yuFvzot-IwNVgU8rEpYLeLc8clXHzXMu/view?usp=sharing[/img]
[img]https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IwAcmO1Y309XEeuBXIl_NGbeaPtftmQ6/view?usp=sharing[/img]
[img]https://drive.google.com/file/d/1njnoBdwi5_b5SZZRYObe5DFygXeGxS1P/view?usp=sharing[/img]


My evil character love duo... loving the customization options! Also loving the game and story, keep up the good work!
However, I would love the addition of a photo mode like from assassins creed, I am a virtual photographer and would be able to get a lot of great shots!

Wrong it was a Kotaku staff writter that was pissy about it an made a big deal out of nothing . The vault dweller thing was funny.

Wrong, there were plenty of alt right trashcans, some even here, who complained about the vault dweller thing. Largely on Steam.

You are an extremely toxic person FYI

What is this vault Dweller thing? Can you summarize it please?

Also on topic.
Hey Larian, I know I sound like a broken record but if you guys could give us some body options that would be really cool of you.

Nothing too extreme! Just some morphs to give a character a more muscular or plump look in addition to what we have now.

It feels odd trying to create a big female warrior when she has the same body as my mage character.
Or a big male warrior and a scrawny old wizard character.

And of course body tattoos, scars, piercing for the face, jewlery and anything custom and race specific like Lloth earings for Drows.
That would be mighty cool of you to implement.

Let's not drag politics into this, please.

Considering how freaking jacked Halsyn the wood elf druid is, I think it's fairly safe to assume that there will be at least some body type options added later. The priest of Loviatar is covered in enough scars to hope for being able to add marks and damage too.
Of all the things to hope for I'd say the biggest one is more in-depth face customization - maybe not sliders, but at least choosing individual parts (eyes, noses, overall shape) and skin texture.

Wow thats a really good point... Although it could be a one off.
You gave me some hope!

But I have to say I think the slider dream is dead. But there will hopefully more options. Many more options... like apply 3 different makeups at the same time.

The Vault Dweller thing is a remark made by Larian that, witth a character creator allowing tails horns and a plethora of skin colors, the most popular options are those of an unremarkable human: https://gamerant.com/baldurs-gate-3-character-most-picked-customizations/

I would love to have more options with tattoos, maybe with some that cover more than part of the face or neck, there are so many options. I get that we won't see the half nude equipments of the days gone but still it would be nice, specially since some NPC have armless armors, it would be nice to see tattoos that have a continuos design grom the fingers to the temples ^^

[By the way, why so much of a surprise that the most popular options were those of a human? I mean it's almost natural and pure instict that when dreaming and fantasising we do that in our shoes or a "optimized", the comas because each and every one of us has their opinion of what that means, version of us].

I repeat the game needs a boob slider.

This game needs more pretty faces, on all of the ones listed on each race only one stands out, the rest are just meh - also the tattoos are kinda lackluster, and some are quite very small to even notice them.

I certainly think that more Tattoos are definitely in order. At least ones on the face, or around the eyes, and ears. Maybe add a jewelry slider too? As for tails, and the like, Tieflings don't actually have a tail slider, that I've noticed. Granted, you get 3 different Tieflings. But that's besides the point. Lol.

What I'd like to see is more races opened up. Gnomes, Dragonborn, Half-Orcs.

I'd also like to the mohawk style that Githyanki get added for all the other races! It's Hair Number 3 or 4. It's the shaved sides/warhawk style that doesn't have the dangly pony-tail.

+1 My dwarf wizard need some epic pecs.

Will there be more race options?
For example:
DnD 5e Sub races : Feral Tiefling, and Moon Elves
or
DnD 5e races: Asimaar, Dragonborn, and Genasi to name a few.

I think the character creation is off to such a good start. However, I really hate having to pick from a handful of predetermined faces. What is the likelihood that the released version might have facial feature siders and further customization for those who want it? I really think that being able to mold your character to suit your liking would make for a much more immersive and satisfying experience.

I like the faces that are available for the most part, but I would have much preferred that each race had its own unique head models with zero generalized faces across the board; even between similar species like Elf and Drow.

Other than that the creative work done on what is present is quite nice!

I'm looking forward to the expressions on the face of my character looking halfway intelligent...;) As it's a 3rd-party game, I get to see my character's face, up close, often. While the other NPCs in the game, my party members, usually bear facial expressions that seem congruent with the immediate circumstances, my character more often than not appears to be an idiot. His face is always slack, and his eyes are often slits that look like he's either stoned on something or he's half-asleep. His nose sometimes becomes buried in his own hair--don't really know how that happens. In short, my character appears to be an imbecile--all that's lacking is the drooling...;)

I'm confident there's much more to come for character creation in the game...;) But thought I should mention it.

Additionally, since the character creation asks me to pick a voice for my character, I think it would be nice to hear him say his lines--at least as an option on/off like the narrator's voice...!

Probably a minor thing but has there been any mention of more voiceover options...

Any info appreciated, thanks!

Llev

no habla problema de los humanos Larian si no usaron el default personaje ni le cambiaron el pelo ni los ojos ni el color como solo dieron ok a todo y entraron. a eso se refiere , me alegro te referiste cada uno ve diferente manera su versión , yo no estoy orgulloso como somos los humanos por eso ni loco me gusta serlo en un videojuego

The characters and race looks feminine.
The whole game comes to me a lot according to new political gender trends.

It's clear that Larian have done a great job here,

but I would love to see the following customizations appear on my characters:
small facial defects,
big scars,
wart
etc..

Overall I find ugly or dirty characters missing.

Additionally, but it's a personnal point of view, I find that male elves look like half elves and male half elves look like humans.


Thank you Larian

I'm sure that Larian will have a larger selection of modifications (as well as races) at launch. So long as they make the creation of characters as moddable as possible; the community will come up with all sorts of cool stuff that Larian did not have the time/resources to be able to create.

Are there any other STADIA players having issues with character creation options being locked into a default-style mode or unable to make some selections since Patch #3 dropped?

Sliders for deeper customization would be a dream come true. You got time Larian, be our BG3 Disney. Make our dreams come true.