To belabour the random point about the Wizard's appearance just a little further... I went through like 500 classic wizards in my D&D portraits folder and there's not a single one of either gender sporting the mage's dorag. Like only Merlin in Excalibur can pull off that look lol. Same idea as the pointed hat being pretty much an Elminster Tasha exclusive, like I'd wager nobody else in Faerun is really trying to rep the Gandalf conehead look for a PC Wizard.
I think BG1/2 had a pretty good thing going despite the limitations of the sprites. The default 'unarmored' look wasn't too ostentatious, basically just a couple locked colors for the lapel and the belt, but with the PCs color choices showing through. The standard adventure/knaves robes were pretty cool, basically the same as the Archmagi robes but just adding in the cape alone instead of the cape and hood combo. It gets minus points though for color locking the trim on those.
I think adding a hood to an outfit in BG3 should be like a universal option for any character, it should just be a quick toggle by the headslot that says something like "Hooded Appearance." That way it could work with any armor set in addition to just the robes or regular clothing. A hood can be attached to a cloak, but doesn't need to be. The hood by itself looks pretty cool with any armor set. I'd also like to see a bandana that can be worn over the mouth/nose for a more ninja like or mysterious look. Again could work with any character, and just be a toggle "Masked Appearance." In a fantasy settings those two are always popular.
Pathfinder WotR kind of shows the drawbacks of having a class specific look or class armor sets, as opposed to something that the player can just create or build for themselves. I see the same thing happening in BG3, like especially for the Druid armor. For NPCs its cool to have a set look for each class type, so the player can quickly recognize what sort of enemy they're dealing with (it's a meta conceit, works well for enemies) but for PCs though I think its just better when there are more base options to choose from and a less predefined Class-look.
I miss having the color associations with the magical schools though. You know the classic black and green robed Necromancer, or Invoker with some nice red trim?
In more recent editions of D&D some character concepts that used to fall under the wizard's archetype, have maybe broken off to become distinct Classes of their own. So a Warlock/Witch type that perhaps used to fall under the black robed "Necromancer" umbrella, becomes like its own thing just with some added infernal trappings hehe. That's all well and good, but I still think its important to have like some color options for the wizarding ways. Like if I can't play as a black robed wizard for my evil playthrough, that's just kind of a bummer.
Larian still has plenty of time to up their game, but the potato sack look they got right now for Wizards is pretty lackluster. I mean we can see what Gale is actually supposed to look like from the splashscreens and the banner above, so hopefully we get some better robes coming hehe.
I like simple circlets and diadems even a mask or two for flare, but it's also pretty easy to miss the mark with those, so hiding the headslot is always a good feature. For all characters really, but especially for wizards. I'd like to be able to hide Helmets/Circlets etc separately from hiding the hood, if given a universal hooded/unhooded appearance for all characters. That would be optimal.
